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Page 27.
20. Underworld
 Jared woke in a dark cell somewhere deep underground, feeling a headache.
Olympia House. Must be.
All was dark. Where was he? His mouth was gagged with a (rag?) coarse and oily and tight-hard as an iron clamp. It stretched his lips back until it seemed they must split. And if they had split he was too numb to feel it. His hand sand feet were bound behind his back. Glowering violet lights floated before his eyes. He strained to see, but black nothingness revealed nothing.
He began to panic, sweating profusely. He lay as flat as possible, afraid perhaps he as on top of a thin tower in an underground building that rustled with winds from cold, deathly regions. If he moved he would roll off, into the pincers of a giant crab five miles below waiting to devour his mangled, fallen body. Or perhaps he was on a platform on top of a chopstick-obelisk, turning as the Plutonian winds commanded, like a child’s toy: A human propeller atop a stick.
In his imaginings in the darkness he was distorting shapes and figures, and his fear-driven mind he leapt to a new proposition: That he lay at the edge of a trap, ready to fall in, and he listened for the sounds of the beast-devourer.
Still worse, he heard sounds. His cheeks were numb from the gag. He remembered wildly that drowning people often swallow their tongues, and his heart beat, and he fought to breathe. The darkness pressed in around him like a stifling mold, and breath became more and more difficult.
He tried to cry out, but no words would leave his throat. He had already forgotten the gag. A lump in his throat was choking him. Gradually he felt himself sinking into a stupor. His struggles ceased under a nightmarish euphoria of pain and terror and death-fear. Like a small child crying itself to sleep in the dark room, Jared began to sleep.
In the unfathomable gloom a hand crawled down Jared’s back. Immediately he was fully alert. His hair stood on end, and he sweated. Droplets gathered under his eyes and nose. He dared not move.
Icy wet flesh came to rest on the flesh of his own bound hands. He shut his eyes in revulsion and gritted his teeth, praying for delivery.
The hand began to pry at his bonds.
At the same time, a soft light flickered on.
A woman’s voice said: “Are you all right?”
Jared whirled. “Stella.” He felt a wash of relief, looking into her peacefully flickering clouds of neuro facial features. Sine waves, randomized flickering, blots and comets flying from cheek area to cheek area, even the suggestion of a broad smile and warm eyes. Her underlying blondeness shone through. She carried genes from a variety pack of some type. Lyxa was dark-haired. So the people who cloned these djia people carefully programmed in variety to add genetic strength.
“I am here to free you, Jared.”
“How did you find me?”
“Lelli.”
Jared thought for a moment. Of course, Lyxa’s djia. They communicated via some ether cloud of their own, as Stella had done by holding hands and schmoozing with Edzar at poolside.
Jared sat up, free now, and rubbed his wrists. “So glad to see you.” They were still in danger, but he wasn’t alone anymore, and at least he saw more hope now.
“I am pleased to see you also, Jared.” Her voice was warmer than her formal words were.
“How did Lelli know where to find me?”
“Lyxa has a tracker on you that you do not know about. She had it embedded in your neural tree.”
He stretched his aching limbs one way, then the other. “That must make me part djia, eh?”
Damn, she knows every move I make, and she never told me.
She rested her hands on his shoulders, and he felt a wave of fondness emanating from her. Deep, warm fondness that filled him with love for her, which he was not sure she could reciprocate—at least not in the same way. Not on the same wavelength. He put his hands over hers and squeezed gently. “Thanks, Stella.”
“I’m happy to serve you.” She added. “I am happy to be with you.” She nearly came closer to hug him—he could tell—but she hesitated and drew back.
He kissed each of her hands. “I am happy that you came.”
She said: “I had a contact from Lelli, asking about you. Lyxa wanted to know if you were all right. I was at the apartment in the BOQ where you told me to stay.”
“Oh my god. I was worried about you, Stella. Were you scared?”
“We don’t scare easily, Jared. I had enough to keep me going.”
She had explained to him once, in their late night conversations, that she did not eat or drink like humans, but consumed energy. She was phototropic, like a plant, and could absorb sunlight. Or she could wipe static electricity from walls and charge up that way. There were many ways she could draw energy to replenish her charges. She also absorbed nutrients out of air, and she could stick her hands into water and they acted like tree roots, pulling molecules of this and that into her system. She would have had enough to keep her going.
“Did you feel alone?”
She hesitated. “I was alone.”
“I know. You are sometimes so literal minded. Were you scared?”
“There is fighting in the city. I heard bombers and explosions outside the Dome.” She paused, narrowing the focus to her immediate surroundings where he had left her. “I was worried when I heard men yelling but they were simply drunk, I think. I relied on my faith in you. That you would come be with me again.”
“Oh my dear.” He nearly cried at the thought of her child-like loyalty. “You are loyal, aren’t you?”
“We are made to be loyal and to serve. If that is what love is, then I love you with all my being.”
“I love you also, Stella. A man could not have a truer friend.”
“I would give my life for you, Jared.”
He squeezed her hands together and held them to his chin, where he kissed them two or three times. “I would die for you too, Stella.” The difference was that in her, it was programmed, though the logic was complex and fuzzy and of a much higher order than a simple automaton’s. In his case, as a fully human man, he could not imagine all the permutations whereby he might or might not throw himself under a land car for her, or something drastic like that. It wasn’t worth making a lengthy truth table of it. They were in the moment, reunited, a man and his djia, and what more could he ask?
“Lelli tracked you, and reported her findings to Lyxa, who ordered Lelli to tell me to come find you. So here I am. Now we must escape and go see Lyxa.”
“I can just imagine,” Jared said drily. “Right about now, that sounds like a very good option.”
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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