Reck
I get back home, and I’m immediately approached by a few of my department heads. I’d almost forgotten today was scheduled full of meetings. One of them really catches my attention.
“An engineer?” I ask Rien, a man I have in charge of helping me find important people to fulfill the most needed roles. I kind of think of him as my ‘casting agent.’ He’s also in charge of those who run the entrance interviews, putting the right people in the right places, and he has the final say.
“Yes,” Rien replies. “Said he’d worked as a higher-up in another plant before the wars.”
I ponder. “How old is he?”
“Fifty? Fifty-five? Sixty? I don’t know.”
“Interesting.” For some reason, not many people above age thirty survived the plague. Although, I say ‘survived’ when I really mean ‘did not contract it’ because if you got it, you were a goner. It had attacked the elderly first, then those with weaker immune systems, then middle-aged people, then… children. The ones who most survived were my generation, older kids to young adults, making a huge gap between other age groups. It was a while before any of us started having kids, and the older folks continued to stick out. It was like Peter Pan but with teenagers, or Lord of the Flies. “What’s his name?”
Rien tells me his name is Carter, and I ask to have him arrange to meet with me. I truly hope the answer to reactivating the power grid has been found. It’s long overdue.
I meet with my agricultural head, and we discuss plans for the upcoming planting season. I ask him how our satellite settlement to the south is doing, and he reports what I want to hear. We’re going to have oranges again.
As I meet with each specialist, my thoughts never stray far from the most recent happenings with Orion. I have my guard, soldiers, police, anyone in that line of work searching for anyone suspicious. A few people matching Orion’s description with a similar accent have been detained, but Niel himself said none of them were he. There have been no reports of anyone with a westerner accent excepting of course those who have been here for a while.
He kissed her. The thought of it makes me feel as if red-hot insects are crawling around in my veins, igniting everything they touch. That LOOK on his face right before he did it. He knows exactly what I’m hoping comes to pass, and he hates it. He thought he’d put on a show, perhaps thinking she’d back away, and it would be like he would be telling me ‘see? this is what you get when you try.’ That isn’t what happened in actuality, even to his surprise. I grit my teeth and try to pay attention to my financial advisor, who tells me how funds are secured to build schools, but I can’t stop thinking about earlier.
She kissed him. I can’t get that image out of my head. If I could, I would flip open the top of my head, dig around until I could find it, and physically remove the hated recent memory. Her kissing him is ten times worse than him kissing her. I could tell from her previous facial expressions that she knew he loved her yet she didn’t feel quite the same. Then why kiss him like that? Was it really just a goodbye, or was she trying to get under my skin? If it was the latter, it worked.
I have a very long day, and with a heavy step, I make my way to my quarters. The guards at my door snap to attention. I give them the slightest nod and wearily open the doors…
…to find Yadira sitting at my desk, her feet propped up on it, and reading a book. She’s still wearing the same dress she had on last night and this morning. She doesn’t look up, but her face still shows a scowl that appeared seconds after I entered.
“Why are you in here?” I slowly walk to the desk.
She gives me a look, gets her feet off the desk, and then unexpectedly flings the book at my face. I barely duck away in time.
“Hey! Be careful! It’s not like we can go out and have more of these made yet.” I bend down to pick up the precious resource of knowledge. I DO want to get book printing done again, but it’s rather low on my to-do list.
“What am I DOING in here, you ask? Hell if I know, but no one has let me leave!”
“What?” I look around, and then I remember: I told Niel to take her to my room and leave my guards guarding her while he headed up the search for Orion possibly returning. I never told anyone to take her back to her room–which should be put to rights by now. After I get the book back on the coffee table, I put my hands on my head and look up before quietly whispering, “Oh, fuck.”
“Just answer me one question, oh most high ruler. Did you forget about me?” She leans on the desk, reminding me of a pose a boss might take if he or she were scolding an employee.
“Hah!” I answer quickly. Sometimes I would LOVE to forget about her for only a moment, but I seem to have the same affliction every other man who’s ever met her (as it feels to me) has. “Never. I did, however, believe that you had been taken back to your quarters.”
“You’ve sent Niel on some fool’s errand, and you’ve not directed anyone to do so. Ergo, you FORGOT!” Her voice raises significantly on the last word.
“Okay, okay. So I forgot to give the order to have you sent back to your room. I’ll remedy that right now.” As I turn to leave, her stomach makes a noise. “Have you eaten?”
Her lower lip trembles, so she bites at it to calm it down. She shakes her head no.
Now I feel like a universe-sized heel. “Oh, Yadira. I’m truly sorry.” I walk towards her, but I stop when she holds up her hand. Here I thought I had a bad day; hers was worse. “I’ll fix that immediately.”
I turn and head to the door. Then I get a better idea. Looking over to her, I say, “Come with me.”
Her voice is whiny and tired. “Why?”
“We’re going to the kitchens.”
She sighs dejectedly and follows me out of the room.
I end up fixing her an omelet, proving that I’m not a spoiled, posh, and out-of-touch person. I know my way around a kitchen–and at one time a campfire. She dips her fork into the eggs in such a funny and suspicious way that I can’t help but smirk and get my own fork.
“Did you think I’d poisoned it, poppet?” I eat a small amount just to prove her possible suspicion wrong.
“No, of course not.” She eats a bite and glares at me.
Ah, so it’s just that it’s me. I have to fix this. I know she has so many reasons to hate me, but I wish she didn’t. Her reasons for hating me are sound, but I can’t change my decisions nor the reasons for my decisions. What am I to do? I get a small idea.
“I thought, perhaps,” I begin, “that I might bring in a few people for you to… meet. Maybe I’ll randomly select some that go on the daily tour. Would you like that?” I keep my voice calm and watch her silently chewing.
She swallows. “Of course I would.” She still looks like she’d rather scratch my face off–but perhaps there is a BIT less glare now. “It’s only what I’ve been asking since the day after I got here.”
I take a breath. “I’m told the lady you healed in the jail has recovered and went to work for a tailor. Hopefully, with time, we can have more success stories like that one.”
She shoots me a peeved expression before going back to eating. “Or… Or you could just let me go live on my own and do things as I see fit.” She watches me for my reaction, and it occurs to me she only said that to see what I’d do.
I lean against the counter. “Yes, I suppose I could, but you haven’t the means to provide for your own security. Once word would get out, you could be in some danger. The people coming on the tour have already been searched, so they’re safer.”
“You could assign guards to me.”
I raise my eyebrows. “And thin my resources unnecessarily? I would have to hire more guards, which means the ones I have wouldn’t be offered payrises. Do you think that’s fair?”
“I could somehow get my own funds. Donations, maybe, and I could hire my own staff.”
“Sure. Perhaps, in time, but for now, why don’t you accept the protection I’m providing. Then go from there, hm?”
She puts her fork down on the plate. “I’m finished.” Then she gets up, walks to the sink, and starts to wash her dish.
“You don’t need to do that.” I walk over to her.
“Yes, and you didn’t need to cook, either. But since you forgot about me, you had to. Now, I don’t want to give more work to the kitchen staff.”
I decide not to argue the matter further, and when she finishes washing her dishes, I offer, “I’ll walk you to your room.”
She doesn’t look at me, and her eyes display no emotion when she mumbles, “How gentlemanly.”
Along the way, I attempt to engage her in conversation, but she either ignores me or rebuffs my every attempt.
Over the next few days, every evening, I bring her two or three people, starting with my department heads. The next ones get randomly selected from the tours, and she performs her miracles. I love staying and watching her better the lives of my people, our people. She’s amazing.
Word begins to spread about her abilities, and we soon have a waiting list of people signing up for the castle tour. Everyone knows they might not be selected, but many try again by signing up for another tour. Yadira begins to look a little happier, but I know she still isn’t satisfied, still wanting the freedom to roam. I have my reasons for preventing it.
After the End 