The Superiors Read online

  “No,” Cali said. “It’s not true. Actually, I’ve wanted to come back here every day since I left.”

  “Really? You came from this Confinement?”

  “Yeah. Three years ago. My mama is Louisa, and my sisters are Poppy, Gwen, Zinnia, and Maypull. And my brothers are Leaf and Boyd. Do you know any of them?”

  The woman laughed. “Girl, there’s about ten people here with each of those names. Except maybe Maypull. Come on, eat with us, we’ll put the word out and find your family if they still here.”

  After Cali ate, she went to the rows of little tin houses. They didn’t look quite as nice as she remembered. Maybe her restaurant time hadn’t been so bad. But she’d missed her mama, and she could hardly breathe from excitement while she followed the three women who had eaten with her. They bellowed out her mama’s name and after a while they found the row, two over from the one Cali thought she remembered.

  Her mama came out and said, “Yeah? What you calling my name for?” Then she saw Cali and kind of stared and blinked.

  “This your daughter?” the other woman asked.

  “Mama? Is that you?” Cali asked, although she knew it was. Her mama looked a lot more than three years older, but she was still the same woman.

  Her mama threw her arms around Cali and hugged her hard. “I can’t believe you came back,” she said. She started crying and Cali did too, a little. “I thought I’d never see you again.” She pulled back to look at Cali. “Girls, come look at your sister,” she called.

  Three girls came out of the tin house, all of them looking about ten years older to Cali. The littlest one, still bony but for her chest, which looked humongous compared to the rest of her, had a baby on her hip.

  “Aspen?” she said. “Holy sap-crap, it is.” She hugged Cali so hard she crushed the baby, who started crying. “Look, I had a baby. Sandy’s her name. She cries all the time.”

  Cali hugged the other girls and told them all her new name, and then they brought her in the house. They wanted to hear all about the outside world, the city and the restaurants and what the Superiors looked like and more important, what the people looked like. Did they dress different? Did they get to go out alone? Did they have more things, better houses, did any of them really learn to read or get to freedom? Cali spent half the night in their house talking, telling them everything and showing them the thing she’d stolen, which they found interesting, although no one could guess its use. She wanted to stay all night, but the house was already too crowded.

  “Where’s everyone else?” she asked.

  Mama patted Cali’s leg. She had Cali on her lap even though Cali was nearly as big as her mama by now. “Well, Leaf got married, and he got some stuff together and made a house. He has two babies now,” Mama said.

  “Boyd got taken off somewhere else,” Poppy said. “Not to a Superior though. He got taken with a bunch of guys. To work in another area on one of the food-farms, but we don’t know where. Somebody who was up front said they went south.” She waited to see if Cali would react. Cali knew the legends as well as anyone. People said in South America some saps lived free. But she didn’t really buy into all those hopeful stories. She’d heard those same stories about how the restaurants were heaven, and they hadn’t been all that great to her.

  “And Maypull?”

  “She’s inside. Now that all my babies are grown, we couldn’t all fit out here,” Mama said. “She’s got a boyfriend in there, so she wanted to go in.”

  Cali looked around at her family, at Zinnia’s big stomach and Poppy’s baby. And her littlest sister had a boyfriend. Everyone would have their own families. Except her, and Gwen, who shared some of Cali’s fears about having babies. “No one else has a baby?” she asked.

  Zinnia put her hand on her belly. “I lost two,” she said. “They were in there together, so the midwife said it was good, because…you know. Having two at once is bad, and I’d be cursed.”

  “And then the boy thought she was cursed anyway, even though her body threw the cursed babies out, and she had to come back here,” said Poppy. “Which we like anyway, since now she’ll have a baby to play with mine. And her new boyfriend is nicer anyway.”

  “Gwen?”

  Gwen shrugged. “I had one. By accident. But he died after almost a year.”

  “Wow. You guys all have so many friends and boys and everything. And kids.”

  Poppy laughed. “That’s what you’re supposed to do. And don’t worry, we’ll show you around and you’ll have a boyfriend in no time. So, were there any cute boys in the restaurants? Did you have any babies?”

  “No, they wouldn’t let boys and girls sleep in the same rooms. They didn’t want us to have babies.”

  “Why not? Babies are the best.”

  “Because they wanted us to be in the restaurant all night so Superiors could always feed from us.”

  “That’s okay, we’ll find you a boy and you’ll have a baby in no time. That’s how you get out of here, if they like you enough and you have enough babies. Then someone will buy you.”

  Cali looked at her mama, who’d had a lot of babies and was still there. And now she’d gotten older and probably wouldn’t have any more babies. And no Superior had ever bought her, and probably none ever would. Even if a Superior did buy one of them, they wouldn’t be free. But she didn’t have the heart to tell Poppy, who looked at her with those kid eyes. She was only thirteen. She’d have lots of time to figure out that no one was free.

  Chapter Twenty

  Draven had never dined with a Second Order Superior before. In fact, Seconds rarely conversed with him and never outside of business. He wasn’t sure what to expect, how to appear. He didn’t know anyone he could ask, either, since he didn’t know anyone who had encountered a similar situation. The Orders didn’t mix. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen a member of the First Order.

  He dressed in neat, formal attire. In the car, he punched in the address Byron had given him and waited for the map to squiggle onto the screen on the Mert’s dash. Following the directions, he arrived punctually. He had only been inside a few houses in his life, and never one as nice as the Enforcer’s. He drove up the driveway and stopped near the end of the circle so he could continue down the hill when he left. The circular drive had a wall about the height of Draven’s shoulders, made of red brick like the drive. The bricks under his feet, arranged in a circular pattern around the small island of greenery in the center of the drive, continued up the steps and along the pathway to the front door.

  Draven started up the walkway, worrying he’d not dressed according to the correct manner of Seconds. He arrived atop the sloping hill and went on the porch of the Enforcer’s house. He hesitated, took a deep breath, straightened his shirt, and knocked.

  The tall woman who opened the door was younger than Draven had expected, only a few years older than him, attractive but thinner than the current curvaceous ideal for Superior women. Women like her looked fresh no matter their age, necessary to staying married for hundreds of years, he supposed. She shook his hand, taking his hand in both of hers and smiling as she spoke.

  “Hi, you must be Draven,” she said. “I’m Marisol. It’s so nice to meet you. My husband talks about you all the time. Won’t you come inside and join us?”

  “You have a lovely home,” he said as he followed her inside. Her hair, pinned up and veiled in intricate gold netting on the front, gave him a little shock when she turned. A section of thick, dark waves tumbled down the center of her back. He tried not to think about the blatant lack of modesty it conveyed, but it drew his attention nonetheless, like a pathway that led the eye down the sway of her lower back to the swell of her buttocks and the secret entrance hidden there. He looked away from her hair, uncomfortable with such a sexual display on his friend’s wife and his inability to control his thoughts when he saw it.

  “Did you have any trouble finding it?” she asked.

  “Finding what?” he asked, s
till thinking about where her hair led his thoughts. “Oh—no. No trouble. None at all. I look forward to meeting the rest of your family, sir. What I’ve met thus far has been quite pleasant.” He tried to keep his mind clear, but it had been seduced against his will by someone he could never have. Even if she hadn’t been a Second, women like her scared him a bit.

  She laughed and gave her hair a subtle toss, as if to punctuate his compliment. She brought him into a living area roughly the size of his entire apartment. Byron sat on a heavy chair that matched the rest of the furniture. He set his cigarette on the edge of an ashtray and stood when Draven entered.

  “Please, sir, keep your seat,” Draven said, bowing his head in greeting. “I am very much obliged to you for the invitation. Your home is impressive. I am honored to be present.”

  Byron gave a wry smile and sat. “At ease, soldier. We’ve been friends half a year. You can relax. I’m not your superior while you’re visiting. Just your host. Have a seat, here, have a cigarette.”

  Draven accepted, uncertain of the protocol in the situation. He had dressed too formally and had spoken that way, too. Byron leaned forward and lit the cigarette between Draven’s lips, and they sat smoking for a few minutes. Draven hadn’t smoked in quite some time. Byron studied him, and Draven found the scrutiny unnerving. He hoped he wasn’t doing something to offend his host. Perhaps he should not have accepted the first offer of something so expensive.

  “You have met my wife?”

  “Yes,” Draven said, nodding. “She is lovely. And your children, sir, are they around?”

  “They’re out collecting our dinner.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Our livestock are quartered out back. Some people have them inside, I know, but I really detest the smell. I don’t even let ours inside to work or clean like most people. I’d rather have a messy house where I can breathe than a clean one with the stench of cattle.”

  “Your house is far from messy, sir. Quite the contrary.”

  “Yes, the little ones can’t work, so they take care of the house while my wife and I are working. And they don’t mind the sapiens’ smell as much, either. They’re like pets to the children, I’m afraid.” Byron shook his head and smiled in an indulgent manner, as if to say children had a mind of their own. Draven didn’t know any children and rarely saw one.

  They served no purpose as far as he could tell. They couldn’t work, they didn’t produce anything, not even sap—they were less useful than sapiens. And yet, Byron’s children would outrank Draven by default. If they ordered him to do something, by law he must obey. Draven liked being part of the Hundred Year Peace, but sometimes he wished it would end simply so a Fourth Order could be created and he could rise from the bottom. But he would always be subject to the law, and the law stated he must obey all Second Order commands, even if the member of the Second Order happened to have been five years old when she evolved.

  “So your children take care of your saps?” he asked his host.

  “Not take care of them, usually. Sapiens can take care of themselves pretty well, except when they get sick. They don’t need much—eating, sleeping, water, and toileting. These things they’re capable of on their own. The children are bringing in the sap for our dinner.”

  “You don’t tap them directly?”

  “Not if I can help it. I’ve grown to where I can hardly stand to touch them. The children don’t mind, though, and the ones I have are well-trained and give what’s needed without argument. Have you worked with the other kinds of livestock before, Draven?”

  “Yes, sir. Once I inspected incoming goats, and I’ve tended the llamas once, and many of the vicunas and sheep and alpacas over the years.”

  “It sounds like you’ve had an interesting array of jobs.”

  Draven shrugged. He’d never have a good job, no matter how many different ones he had. He’d always have Third jobs. “I like animals, sir. And I like what they give us. I’ve worked in all stages of the process, from the animals to the clothes in the store.”

  “I guess that’s an admirable thing, a person who can be so adaptable. I myself could never stomach working with smelly animals, no matter what they give us.”

  “After a while you stop noticing the smell. They just smell…natural. It goes with them, like the smell of sap goes with saps. And I like that we can use their coats without harming them.”

  Byron laughed. “Ah, so you’ve never worked with the pigs.”

  “No, never. As far as I know, saps take care of their own pigs.”

  “I guess that’s so. A sap is just one step up from a pig or cow, you know. They’re like cows who milk themselves. It does make things convenient for our family or we wouldn’t have them at all,” Byron said. “The children are just bringing in the food now. Come, let’s eat.”

  “I’d like to see the living arrangements you have made for the saps. Perhaps after we’ve eaten?”

  Byron gave him a sharp look and his eyebrows drew together. Draven cursed himself silently. He hadn’t known the proper etiquette for asking to view a man’s livestock—perhaps the question itself showed a lack of manners.

  “Are you thinking of procuring livestock for yourself?” Byron asked.

  “I have toyed with the idea lately. If I could save enough money, perhaps.”

  “We’ll talk more after dinner. I have something to share that might be of interest to you regarding such a purchase,” Byron said quietly, his frown still in place.

  Draven, uncomfortable after his obvious offense, hoped he would not be punished monetarily for his unintentional misstep. But that would likely happen. He could never quite manage to get ahead. Sometimes he started saving, but something like this always came up, and there went his savings once more.

  The five Superiors sat at a large table and talked while they sipped their drinks. The children sat quiet, and while his hosts talked, Draven found his mind wandering to the children from time to time, wondering what it must be like for them to be forever stuck in that stage of their lives, a stage he had found particularly unsatisfying. After hundreds of years, Byron’s children seemed to have learned obedience, but Draven wondered if they were happy children or only docile.

  He also wondered how their parents felt about them. Having children forever underfoot, the same children of the same age, struck him as hugest inconvenience. And unlike a wife, a man couldn’t very well leave the children and find something he liked better. Draven wondered if the parents regretted bringing their children through the evolution process. The girl, who looked older, kept staring at him, which he found unnerving. Their very presence made him uneasy—the way they sat so quiet and stared with their creepy big eyes and drank their sap like little robots.

  “Would you like some wine?” Marisol asked, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Oh. If you’re having some, perhaps just a sip for me, thank you, sir,” he said, trying to remember the last time he’d drunk anything besides sap. He accepted the glass of clear yellowish liquid and held it up when Byron toasted.

  “To our new friend, and many more mornings like these.”

  They drank and Draven had to fight not to spit the bitter liquid back into his glass. After years without drinking anything but sap and an occasional glass of water, the wine tasted terrible. He managed to get it down without letting his face show his displeasure. After the pleasantries at dinner, the children took the glasses to the sink and began washing, and Byron motioned for Draven to follow him. Draven started to relax a bit when he couldn’t see the silent children anymore.

  “I have something I want to discuss with you in private,” Byron said.

  “Yes, sir. Of course.” Draven followed Byron into a smaller room lined with digital picture frames interspersed with antique electronic devices. Byron sat behind a large desk and made his fingers into a tent in front of him on the desk. Draven sat opposite him, feeling as if he’d come to an interview completely unprepared. Byron watched him for a few minutes. />
  “So, how have you been the past few days?” Byron asked.

  “I’ve been well, thank you, sir. And yourself? Any progress on the case involving Ander?”

  “Not progress exactly. We did close another restaurant the other night, and when we were filling out the paperwork, we discovered that Ander rents the place. Another man owns it, so we hadn’t noticed it before in our investigation. We’re looking further to see if his name is connected to any other establishments in the area. This is the file on the restaurant we closed the other day,” Byron said, opening a drawer and pulling out a flat black screen about the size of his hand. He put it on the table in front of him and turned it on. He studied Draven a moment before pushing the file across the desk towards him.

  “Do you want to know the name of the place we closed?”

  “I guess so,” Draven said, his stomach tight with dread.

  “Sap Heaven. It’s one of those seedy places in the South End. Really a dump. Nearly dead humans, all overdrawn and prostituted. Some of them had been rented out for days.”

  “Yes, sir.” Draven kept his eyes on the desk in front of him. He knew how his friend felt about these things—even more strongly than he did. And his friend also knew the illegality of consorting with humans, and his friend also had the power to arrest him.

  Byron remained silent and after a while Draven ventured a glance at him. He had his elbows on the desk and his hands in that tented position again, under his chin this time. He seemed to be contemplating his next move with as much thought as he did on the chess board.

  At last Draven spoke. “I do not have the girl—the human, I mean. I did go into the place.” He stopped, knowing Byron could ask for the information from anyone, that he could find a lie easily, even if his training failed him. “I went in, but none of the humans were fit to draw from. They all appeared weak and over-drawn, and some of them were diseased. I had already quit the inspector job or I would have called it in that night.”