Chloë (12 page)

Chloë
woke with a splitting headache and a queasy stomach.
  What had
happened?
  Her mind fought her as she looked around.  She was in
a small room that was simply but cleanly furnished.  There were several
utilitarian chairs, a futon against the wall and a simple kitchenette.  As
she stood she had some difficulty maintaining her footing under her.  The
room seemed to have vapor trails; well, at least it wasn’t spinning.  Spinning! 
The restaurant with Heather!  It all came back to Chloë in a flash and so
did the panic!  Windows, doors!  Must escape!  She lurched
across the room and tried the main door: locked.  She slid over and
inspected the windows behind the curtains: covered over with some sort of steel
barrier.  Not good!  She quickly searched the room and found it to be
a small apartment as it were: a bathroom in the back and a single bedroom in
the front.  It was with mixed feeling that she viewed the bedroom; in the middle
of the bed lay Heather in a deep sleep.  She was glad for the company but
horrified that poor Heather had gotten mixed up in it all.

Chloë
sat in a small but comfortable chair in the diminutive bedroom and just
cried.  She was angry and scared all at once, and had no idea what to do
or what was even happening around her.  Tears were all she knew; they were
not going to solve any problems.  She was never much of a problem solver
she was… well… a puppet.  That thought raged through her mind and she howled
out loud.  No, she wasn’t going back to that life.  She knew precious
little, little about where she was going or what life had in store for her, but
her mind was clear: puppet wasn’t going to be an option.

“Turn
off the sound on the movie… it’s too late to still be up…,” murmured Heather.

Chloë
bolted upright in her chair and stared at Heather.  “Heather!  Are
you all right?”  She sprang from the chair and gently shook Heather’s
slowly churning form.

“Oh! 
My head!  Don’t slosh me like that, my head will fall off and roll across
the floor…”

“Heather! 
Wake up please!  We are in trouble!” bayed Chloë.

“Of
course we are in trouble; we left the restaurant without dessert…”

Chloë
laughed in spite of herself.  That was Heather: more concerned about food
than anything else.  “You get us out of here and I’ll go fetch you dessert
myself!”

That
seemed to finally claw its way into Heather’s clouded mind, and she slowly sat
upright and tried to stabilize her head.  “Let me guess, we went out for
drinks with Raymond after lunch and this is his cheesy apartment… That is why
we aren’t supposed to drink at our age now isn’t it…”    

Chloë
shook her head as she stared into Heather’s bloodshot eyes. “No such
luck.  Lunch, there at the fancy restaurant, someone drugged us.”

“That
explains why the staff wasn’t as sharply dressed.  Looking at the prices
on the menu, those guys should have been polished and shining….”  Heather
started to look around as she fought to focus clearly, “Okay, a clean but
simple bedroom… Where are we?”

Chloë
shook her head.  “I don’t know.  It is a small apartment, just this
one bedroom and then there is a small sitting room and kitchenette with a small
bathroom in the back.  The door is locked and there are steel covers over
the windows.”

Heather
slowly moved her head in large circles with her eyes closed as she tried to
stretch her neck.   She sat there with her eyes closed for several
moments before talking, “Narrow building I take it.  Long and thin with a
very regular design.”

Chloë
nodded and the pair sat in silence.

“Chloë?”
Heather asked with her eyes still closed.

Chloë
suddenly burst out laughing as she realized the problem.  “I’m sorry, I
nodded.  I didn’t even think about the fact that you still had your eyes
closed.  That was very foolish of me.”

“Nah,”
replied Heather as she slowly opened her eyes and offered a feeble grin. 
“You’ve just spent a lot of time around my Second Mother.  I swear she
could have
heard
you nodding.  Me, not so much.  Especially
with my head hurting this much.  Is there any water, by chance?”

Chloë
nodded and spoke, “Yes! You try to get your feet under you, I’ll grab you some
water right quick!”  She ran back into the other room, eager both for the
distraction of activity and relieved that Heather was finally doing
better.  A quick rummage in the cabinets produced a large glass.  A
tap on the front of the small refrigerator soon filled the glass with crisp
cool water.  Grinning like a school girl, Chloë quickly returned to
Heather and handed her the glass.

Heather
suspiciously tasted the water and then, with reservation squashed by the
futility of the situation, downed the entire glass.  “Oh, that felt
good.  Come on, let’s take a look at the rest of this place.  So this
is a narrow high efficiency apartment, but the door is on the side not the
end…”

“Yes,”
replied Chloë.  “What does the door location matter?”

“I’d
expect the door on the front for a normal apartment; the side for a portable
unit.  Let’s take a look at those windows…”

Chloë
smiled and pointed out the curtained windows to the side of the room.

Heather
stood, unsteadily at first, and inspected the window.  “Hmm… they are fit
tight to the outside, but the windows are recessed to accept them.  My
guess is they are designed for them.  And this is probably a portable
dwelling and it is all closed up for shipment.”

“Which
then begs the question, are we being shipped?”

“And
how, and where-to?” added Heather.

 “I
thought the
where
was obvious: back to my father,” groused Chloë.

Heather
shrugged, “Not so sure.  Well, not so sure about
directly
to your
father.  This apartment is a bit below your station, I’d imagine. 
And if we were going to go straight to your father, they’d want to conduct you
there in some style rather than risk insulting your father.”

Chloë
laughed, “I could almost see my father, ‘Here is your reward: five million for
the return of my daughter.  Here is a fine for six million, for her
unbecoming accommodations.’”   Chloë beamed at Heather, “And yes,
that is about his style.  He always made sure I had the best of everything
and anything I wanted… except my mother.”  The latter comment wasn’t
bitter so much as it was in earnest longing.    

Heather
smiled.  Well, she was almost always smiling, now wasn’t she?  “The
how
is the important part right now.  If we are still on Afon, then cutting
our way out of here is no big deal.  If we are on some form of spaceship,
however, then things might be tricky.”

“So
which is it then?”

“How
would I know?  You do the thinking, my head still hurts too much. 
The water was in the kitchen?”  Heather asked as she headed out of the
bedroom.

Chloë
followed, close on Heather’s heels, and looked about her and tried to cast a
critical eye.  “The walls seem simple and square in construction.  The
escape pods I was shown on the starships all were rounded off, to make a
pressure vessel.  No one makes a pressure vessel with hard corners. 
Thus I would guess, if we
are
on a starship, the hull where we are is
pressurized.”

Heather
smiled broadly as she looked up from her new glass of water. “Excellent! 
See, that formal education and experience is paying off for you.  I
wouldn’t have even thought about that.”

“You’ve
never been off world?”  asked Chloë with a bit of a frown.

“Off
world, yes.  On a starship, no.”

The
perplexed look on Chloë’s face spoke volumes.

“I
went off world by means of the Gatehouses,” replied Heather with a broad grin.

“Oh!”
replied Chloë as it all started to make sense.  “That seems a whole lot
nicer, well, at least faster.  I didn’t know those went off of Afon. 
I thought they only covered the Highlands.”

“Well,
mostly.  There are a few cool exceptions… I’ll explain later.” 
Heather nodded about her, “So back to here: what else do we know?”

“If
we are still on Afon, I don’t think we are moving.  Not even a gravsled is
this smooth in its travel and my balance hasn’t twitched once.”

“My
balance, on the other hand, hasn’t
stopped
twitching,” murmured
Heather.  “How long have you been awake?  Are there any other
indications of the time of day if we are still on Afon?”

Chloë’s
mind raced, “I’ve been up about a half an hour or hour longer than you. 
No clocks in here.  No overt signs of the time of day.  But if it is
a sunny day, I’d expect the HVAC system would eventually fight that.”

Heather
grinned broadly, “I do think you keep selling yourself short.  You are a
very bright young lady.”

“I’d
trade half my smarts for a good dosing of courage,” replied Chloë with a frown.

“Not
a chance, keep your smarts and your wits.  We’ll work on courage
together,” beamed Heather.

Chloë
laughed, “Why couldn’t I have met you years ago?  Oh, my life would have
been so much better…”

Heather
shrugged as she downed her third glass of water, “I probably would have given
your tutors ulcers, wouldn’t I have?”  She shook her head and grinned,
“But I am flattered by your comment.”

“You’re
welcome,” beamed Chloë.  “I’m surprised you haven’t raided the pantry
yet,” she offered as she tried to change the subject.  “You never did
finish lunch!”

“I
am so predictable, aren’t I,” grinned Heather.

A
new lunch, one free of heavy sedatives, was soon packed away and the pair
quickly tidied up around them.  They then surveyed their apartment with
the greatest possible scrutiny.  Unfortunately little more could be easily
learned, so Heather sat about unlocking the door.  Her first attempts at
picking the lock failed miserably, so she settled on shimming it instead. 
She had hoped to avoid such an approach as it would be obvious what had
happened.  But ultimately shimming the lock was still far less obvious
than if she had bashed the door down or cut it off its hinges.  The door
lock was fairly easy defeated, but that joy was short lived as it soon became
obvious that a second lock, a padlock of some type, was still on the
outside.  Heather growled an obscenity under her breath, and Chloë’s ears
flushed with embarrassment, such un-ladylike behavior!  Chloë laughed at
the whole situation, picking locks wasn’t exactly ladylike either, but there
they were!  With a few more words that expanded Chloë’s vocabulary,
Heather invoked a small Live Steel blade in a shower of blue sparks and cut off
the offending lock by hand.

“Okay,
we are stepping out.  Keep your eyes peeled for people as well as
cameras.  Ready?” asked Heather.

Chloë
nodded, “Ready!”

Heather
eased the door open and slid out with Chloë fast on her heels.  It wasn’t
what either of them had expected, much less wanted.  They were standing
inside a second container.  This one windowless with heavy walls and arced
corners.  The building they had left was set up on insulating blocks and
bolted to the outer container.  An oxygen scrubber and a series of large
tanks with plumbing fittings connected back to the apartment were the only
other things in the container.

Chloë
looked around and stated the uncomfortable truth, “We are inside a shipping
container.  One designed to haul things in a hard vacuum.”  She ran
up to the hatch on the end and looked at the display and provided more
unwelcome news, “If I’m reading this right, it is showing no appreciable
atmosphere outside.”  She looked around the lock and read other writing on
the wall.  “The container is designed with a safety lock that won’t open
unless there is at least 600 torr on the other side of the door.  I think
we’re stuck!”

Chloë
was ready for almost anything; anything but what happened—Heather collapsed to
the floor and started bawling uncontrollably.

“Heather!”
called Chloë as she ran over to her.  “What’s wrong?”

Heather
fought to talk through the waterfall of tears.  “We’re trapped!  All
my life I’ve always had the answer for whatever was thrown at me.  One
more trick or the help of one more friend… or even Father if things got too
rough.  Now here I am, heaven knows where, and I can’t
do
anything! 
No one to call to for help, and I have no idea of what to do!  We can’t
risk puncturing the outer container or we may all die!  I’ve
always
had a way out…
always!
  Act, not react!  That is what I’m
supposed to do, and now we’re stuck in here for who knows how long and there is
nothing we can do!”

Heather’s
despair was complete, and it made Chloë’s heart ache more than it had since her
mother had been sent away.  Chloë… well she had never
been
in
control of her life, and she knew it.  And now here was Heather, the most
outgoing and free person she had ever met, and they were stuck in a box at
other people’s mercy.  Chloë was upset.  Very.  But she knew her
emotions paled to that of Heather; Chloë had just barely tasted freedom,
Heather had lived it.

“Come
on.  Let’s get you back inside and cleaned up,” suggested Chloë as she
tried to help Heather stand.

There
was a flash in Heather’s eyes that immediately told Chloë that Heather wanted
to protest.  Heather was just too tired… Tired and scared.

Back
inside with the door closed, and with the feeble interior latch thrown locking
them in,  Chloë sat Heather down on the futon and tried to dry Heather’s
eyes and clean her up,  “Hush!  Hush, brave Heather.”

“I’m
not
brave!  Brave is when you are scared and do the right thing
anyway!”  bellowed Heather as she fought, and lost, the fight to control
the tears.  “I’ve never been scared before… not like this… All alone…”

“Hush,”
cooed Chloë.  “You aren’t alone, you have me.  You
are
brave,
Heather.  I should know, I was never brave or even thought about being
brave until I met you.  You are just flustered that you got caught flat
footed at the restaurant.  You are still fighting the drugs; I can tell,
you didn’t eat that much for lunch!”

Heather
tried to laugh at the comment.  “I do eat a lot, don’t I,” she offered
through the tears.  She stared at the ceiling and slowly fought the tears
back.  With the water works under control she closed her eyes and started
working evening out her breathing.  “Okay, Chloë, talk; what do we know?”

Chloë
nodded and then giggled to herself; nodding to a person with their eyes closed
accomplished very little.

“I
take it from the giggle, you just nodded or something…,” smirked Heather with
her eyes still closed.

“See,
before long you’ll be as psychic as Maria!” laughed Chloë.

“Dad
always said she wasn’t psychic, just that she had very good hearing.  Not
buying it, but anyway…,” countered Heather as she opened her eyes and grinned
at Chloë. 

“I
doubt it was my father’s men; disappearing like that from the middle of the
city would most assuredly cause some serious waves.  While my father has
political ambitions, and planned on using me as a tool for those…,” snarled
Chloë as she lost her place.  “Um, right.  Having a herd of cantons
and a mob of prefectures, as well as the Kulpgurie government, all mad at him
would
not
serve his ambitions.”

“But
would he go through an exotic third party?  That way he’d have plausible
deniability, but would still get you back?”

Chloë’s
eyes went wide, “Um, wow!  I never thought my father would be that
devious, but… um… I guess he might.  Ick!  Considering how high
profile everything has been, I’m sure there will be a firestorm of media and
political types descend on my dad as soon as I’m spotted again.   I’m
not sure
how
he could get me home and not have to backpedal a whole
lot.  Especially with you around! “

“If
it would be such a mess,” began Heather carefully, “the question then shifts to
who either wouldn’t care about this being a mess or would exploit this mess
against your father.”

“Oh,
crap.  You think one of my father’s political opponents might have
arranged this!  That makes sense, but…”

“But
what?”

“Honestly,
I don’t know who that might be!  Everything was so perfectly civil and
sterile at the palace, I don’t know who his enemies would be.  I know he
has them.”  Chloë sighed, “That would have been a good question for Anna.”

Heather
nodded, “Well, we work with what we know then.  My first guess, and it is
only a guess, is some third party picked us up.  And they are still hoping
for the ‘rescue’ reward not aware that your father’s situation is now much more
complicated.  But, like I said…”

“It
is just a guess,” finished Chloë.  “Okay, let’s just assume for a moment
that your guess is correct; how do we regain the initiative?  Act not
react you said!”

Heather
smiled, “Act, indeed!”  She sighed and thought a bit, “Well, I have kicked
a few heads in, and while that might have gotten around, none of those people
I’ve personally run up against have seen me use Live Steel.  It is
uncommon off world, and less common yet from a teenage girl.  That gives
us both a skill and a level of surprise.”

“So
there is one more way to add skill and surprise,” beamed Chloë.  “Can you
teach me to fight?”

“Fight? 
Oh yes!”  replied Heather with an evil grin.  “And Live Steel while
I’m at it!  Father always said girls made a quicker study!”