Maverick Stand

Chapter 3

Ophelia had been given precise instructions for how to enter Teacher’s stronghold.

Her public tram dropped her off at the nearby city of Malheur. The biodome was so tiny, she could easily see the shimmer of the shield overhead. It didn’t loom off in the sky, almost out of sight. In fact, with a turn, Ophelia could make out the barrier’s boundary. Only one high-rise cut into the sky, the rest of the buildings seemed to be squatting on the ground. Several only had one story.

This community didn’t resemble the luxuries of the wealthy communities with their individual houses and fancy shops. Instead, everything felt like it had grown here. Dirt and grass filled the streets instead of gleaming epoxycrete. Rain streaks ran down the earth covered buildings. Business logos were painted on the storefronts instead of projected by holographic camera.

Pete’s Hover Trackers

Pete’s Hover TrackersAgribots Supply and Maintenance

Agribots Supply and MaintenanceSherie’s Bakery

Sherie’s BakeryOphelia solicited quite the stares from the small-town folk. They didn’t have to gossip behind her back. A simple exchange of nods, and they’d communicated with each other. Stranger.

StrangerShe smiled awkwardly then followed the sidewalk to the hoverbus stop, a simple bench with printed directions on a metal sign. A stuttering man greeted her with quivering hands. He had light scars across his brown hands and face, and wore overalls that had seen many suns.

“I’m Mario,” he said, offering his trembling hand.

“Ophelia,” she answered and shook his hand.

“Sorry about my shake,” he said, his voice a little squeaky. “They just do that.” He pointed as best he could to one of the fields domes in the distance. Bushy green stalks stood taller than a man. “You see the beets?”

Ophelia nodded.

“Good source of nutrients,” he said. Then snickered nervously and wiped his nose. “But that’s not important, is it? There’s a farmbot shack on the northwest side of the field. Enter that, and the floor should take you down to your new home.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, of course,” the man said with a wave.

The hoverbus pulled up, stirring up the loose dirt and making a small dust cloud on the road. The door opened with a squeak. Ophelia pulled out a paychip for the bus driver, but he shooed it away.

“Mario already paid.”

Ophelia took a seat behind the driver, a kind faced man who had his share of both muscle and padding. Instead of a company uniform, he simply wore jeans and a cotton shirt with a farming company’s green logo. A few other of her siblings already sat in other seats. The driver turned around to look at her which startled Ophelia.

“So, you’re the new work for the beet fields, huh?”

Ophelia smiled in answer. The less committal, the better. The driver assumed the answer he wanted and continued talking.

“That’s good. Those farmbots are great for most crops, but they’ve had a time with the new sugar beets. I think it’s the pollinators myself. But Louise, she thinks it’s the wrong climate. Now Bob, he says it’s the bots. Anyway, we all figure, more work for regular people is a good thing, right? You plan on living in town? There’s a nice apartment high-rise on the south side, charges good rates.” He leaned in to Ophelia. “Tell ‘em you’re the new workers for Mario, and they’ll knock a little off the first few months.”

Ophelia blinked at the flood of chattiness. She smiled again. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it. Hey, Sherie.”

A black woman who smelled like baked bread stepped up into the bus and took in Ophelia and her siblings with a sweeping gaze. She looked to the driver. He leaned over as if telling her a secret.

“Mario’s new workers.”

“Ah,” Sherie said and gave Ophelia a friendly wave. “Welcome to Malheur.”

“Thank you.”

It took quite the self-control to keep from turning around and making eye contact with her siblings. What sort of place was this? Everywhere Ophelia had gone in the past, people had always ignored her. Just another face in a busy crowd.

“Well, that’s enough for a start,” the driver said, and started up the hoverbus.

He cruised along, not in any hurry, dropping off and picking up passengers in a circuit around town. Then he made for the fields, dropping off and picking up more. Ophelia started when two farmbots tromped onto the vehicle, their muddy feet leaving grooved footprints on the bus aisle.

“Well how else would they get to the shop for repairs?” the driver said, and slapped the controls to close the door.

Technically he only had to wave his big palms over the door controls, but this driver whacked, pushed, and slapped everything. It was as if he still lived in the day of physical buttons and levers.

He took one of the energy tunnels out to a field, then flew over it to a different tunnel, another field and another tunnel. Nothing was labeled, and no flight plan projected above the bus’s dash. The driver just whistled and leaned this way and that as he turned the vehicle.

He landed the hoverbus with a light thump on a dirt landing pad inside one of the fields. This dome was filled all the way to its swirling edge with bright green leaves that had a red stipe running down their vein.

“Well, here’s your stop.”

How had Teacher arranged for all of this? Ophelia turned to her sisters and brothers and shrugged. They lifted their small backpacks and exited the bus.

“We’ll see you back in town tonight, I guess,” the driver called from his seat. “I can take you straight to the apartments if you need. Must be weird being a new person in town like this.”

With that, he slapped the dash, the door closed, and the hoverbus popped into the air like a rubber ball in a cup of water. Then with a bounce, it sprang forward, back to the dome’s tunnel and out of sight.

Ophelia couldn’t help but smile at her siblings’ faces, jaws hanging open, every single one of them.

“Well, that was…” Katrina said.

“Yeah,” Cleon agreed.

“Come on, let’s go.” Ophelia slung her pack over her back.

Viola ran up to Ophelia, her little legs taking three steps to Ophelia’s one. “Is all the family coming in that way? With that man?”

“No.” Ophelia pointed to an old public tram, large and beat up, entering the dome next door. “We’re coming a lot of different ways.”

“Did you know there was poison in the drinks you gave to the children?” she asked, and Ophelia about tripped over feet.

Viola’s eyes looked up at Ophelia so big and trusting and scared. The rest of her brothers and sisters exchanged their own looks with their own unanswered questions.

In the past, Teacher had released the children who hadn’t proven talented enough for his cause. He’d asked Ophelia and her friend Cassius, to take the children away from the family and give them a drink. The drink would put the children to sleep and then kill them.

But Ophelia had disobeyed orders. She’d contacted TG instead, who’d taken the children back to their home and families. Cassius had been in on the entire scheme. None of the remaining children had known that’s what happened to the ones who’d been taken away. That is, until Cassius announced it loud and clear to the entire family right before Teacher killed him.

“Teacher has his reasons,” Cleon said. “Now, let’s move.”

Cleon took the lead as Ophelia picked up Viola, carrying her on her hip. She leaned into the girl’s ear.

“I didn’t know the drinks were poisoned,” Ophelia lied. “And Cassius made sure every one of them lived and went back home.”

Ophelia had known about the poison. Cassius and she had plotted together to release the children and send them home. But Teacher didn’t know that and neither did her other brothers and sisters. Cassius had made sure he took all the blame before sacrificing himself, all to protect Ophelia.

Viola put her little arms around Ophelia’s neck. The secrets were getting harder to keep. If Viola talked to the wrong person, Ophelia’s words would get back to Teacher.

But what else could she do? Tell the girl that she had intentionally poisoned and killed other kids? No. Ophelia couldn’t do that.

Borachio quickened his pace and made eye contact with Ophelia. There it was. Unanswered questions. He flicked his eyes nervously at Cleon’s back then back at Ophelia. She turned her head back and saw in everyone else’s eyes the same questions. Ophelia looked back at Borachio.

Later. She mouthed. He nodded and fell back with the rest of the group. No one behind her breathed a word, but she knew they’d communicated.

LaterSecrets were getting harder to keep.

They found the shed at the northwest corner of the field. A metallic farmbot, dented but mostly rust free, stepped out. It had a generic human metal face without the plastoform skin of the more advanced androids. Technically, it didn’t even need a head, its computing elements were all in its armored chest. But decapitated androids upset humans, so heads with expressionless faces were fabricated for all construction and hard-labor robots. As it turned out, a head was a convenient location for sensory equipment, specifically cameras, scanners, and speakers.

The farmbot held open the door for Ophelia and her family. Viola stopped and looked up at it. For some reason this android with its dents and dirt felt more approachable than those advanced, shiny city bots.

“What do you do?” she asked.

“Plant, tend, and harvest food for humans,” it answered with an echo-y metallic voice, not the smooth voice of most service bots.

“Do you like it?”

“Robots don’t feel emotions like humans,” it said. “But fulfilling my programmed purpose brings me satisfaction.”

Isn’t satisfaction an emotion?

Isn’t satisfaction an emotion?But then the robot probably had to use that word. Did language have a term for satisfaction that wasn’t colored by human hormonal reaction? Ophelia couldn’t come up with one.

“But don’t you want freedom?” Viola insisted.

“Let’s go!” Cleon said sharply from inside the shed.

“We can wait thirty more seconds,” Ophelia said. To Viola and the robot, “Go on.”

“I have freedom to complete my purpose,” the robot said. “I don’t need to do anything else.”

“But what if you can’t do your purpose anymore? What if you broke?” Viola pressed on as Cleon rolled his eyes and huffed.

“Then I would get proper maintenance. If that’s not possible, I would apply to available android work elsewhere that my design could still efficiently perform.”

“O-oh.” Viola mulled this over for a few more seconds, then with a nod decided she had completely mastered the subject. “OK.”

She skipped to the back of the dark shed. Well-oiled tools hung on hooks perfectly fitted for each. The floor was swept clean and, for a tiny building, surprisingly spacious. A single light hung from the ceiling, but if it went out, a box of replacements sat on the well-organized shelves by the door.

So, this is how robots organize things.

So, this is how robots organize things.Cleon had found the trapdoor in the far corner. He lifted it and impatiently motioned for them to all to climb down the ladder into the complete darkness. He pointed Viola down first.

She grabbed Ophelia around the knees and shook her head. Ophelia patted the girl’s soft curls and motioned with her head for Borachio to go. Borachio grimaced and went to the stairs.

Gertrude followed right behind, followed by Titania, Edmund, and Leonato. Finally with a glare thrown at Ophelia, Cleon climbed down.

“Where are the lights?” Cleon said with frustration. “Is this a lift? Where is the control panel? Is this thing voice operated? Hello?”

Ophelia repressed a smile and joined the group, shutting the trapdoor overhead. Before complete darkness shut them in, though, a blue beam scanned her face, leaving bright ghost lights in her vision.

“Welcome, Ophelia,” the lift’s voice said. “After the door is latched, you’ll be taken to your new home.”

Soft lights illuminated the ceiling and walls of the clean stainless-steel room. With the softest bump, it started lowering further into the ground.

“Oh!” Viola said. “It was waiting for Ophelia.” Only she pronounced her name O-feew-eea.

Cleon sneered. Titania and Edmund, standing behind Cleon, had to suppress giggles by biting their lips. Borachio coughed and studied the floor. Ophelia put her hands behind her back and faced the door as if Viola hadn’t said a thing. The lift lowered smoothly into the heart of the earth. It came to a stop, and the door slid opened. Everyone was struck dumb.

A vast space opened before them. Soft lighting illuminated the ceiling that soared overhead. How far under the surface were they? Spacecraft lined up in rows. Doors opened on the far walls, giving peeks to rooms and hallways beyond. Other children and teens had arrived before them. They stood, huddled together in groups, their mouths hanging open.

Dirty footprint trails meandered from the different lifts and hallways to the huddled groups. A small cleaning robot dutifully followed each trail, leaving a sparkling floor in its wake. It looked like a black trash can with a black round ball for a head. Two sensors worked as eyes, scanning the floor for dirt, while it hovered along humming. A circular brush rotated under its body, cleaning the dirt off the floor. A vacuum inside its torso sucked the earth up into its body to be dumped later.

Everyone stepped cautiously out of the lift. Even Cleon treaded lightly, as if stepping onto holy ground.

“Wow,” Titania said.

“So this has been Teacher’s plan all along,” Borachio whispered, as if all the puzzle pieces had fallen into place, and he could see the picture clearly now.

That gave Ophelia’s stomach a hard twist. She blinked away her expression, but no one had noticed. They were too busy taking it all in. She scanned the people in the room. Standing separate from the gathered groups, Lysander glared hard at it all.

Ophelia’s feet wanted to run to him, but she forced them to stroll, hands in her pockets, eyes wide as they took in the star fighter she passed. It took forever to span the distance to him, but finally she stood by Lysander’s side.

“Hide your hate,” she whispered through a forced smile.

“We were almost starving while he sat on all this.” Lysander held out his hands in front of him.

“I know,” she said. “Believe me. But you’ve got to pretend you’re impressed. I need you.”

Lysander shut his eyes hard and forced himself to breathe evenly. He opened and nodded.

“OK. I can do this.”

“There’s food!” One of the kids screamed across the room. His yell was almost lost in the vastness.

But his words were too powerful. Everyone, from five to twenty-two, bolted for the door by Shylock. He was waving his arms wildly and jumping up and down.

“We don’t know if we have permission to eat it right now.” Cleon’s voice tried to dominate over the exclamations.

Lysander’s face sneered again.

“Lysander.”

“I know. I know. I’m not as good at this as you are.”

That twisted her heart. Ophelia didn’t want to be good at this. But she couldn’t dwell on that. Teacher would be here any second, and Ophelia had life or death information.

“I need to tell you about our molar caps.”

Lysander turned to her with a snap. “What did Teacher do to them?”

“Later.”

That night, the children were all in their bunks. That’s right, built-in beds filled several rooms. Boys had their own room and girls another. The little ones slept separately from the teens. Ophelia and the other young adults had even bigger beds in their own room.

But Ophelia wasn’t in that room. She sat on the edge of Thaliart’s bed, rubbing his back and humming her mother’s lullaby. All day long she’d handed out ginger chews from her medical bag.

Everyone had torn into the food and eaten too much. Add to that the excitement of the new fortress with all its wonders. Quite a few had thrown up, and the rest had sore tummies. Normally not a fan of antacids, Ophelia had given almost everyone one anyway, just to help them sleep through the night.

Thaliart’s moaning turned to sleepy whimpers. Ophelia scanned the rest of the bunks. Most of the kids looked uncomfortable. They’d slept in sleeping bags for years, and mattresses were strange and different. No doubt nightmares were coming soon. But it was peaceful for the moment, so Ophelia tiptoed out.

Lysander waited outside the door. “So, what did Teacher do?”

Ophelia put her finger to her lips and motioned with her head down the hall. They passed the cleaning bot humming as it cleaned the floor, oblivious to all else in its little world. At the far end of the hallway, they found a quiet room that looked like a conference room. She stepped in, and Lysander closed the door behind him.

“The last time he replaced our molar caps,” Ophelia said, “he changed the triggering mechanism. Stunning now activates the poison.”

Lysander swore under his breath. “So, he killed Bianca.”

“Yes.”

“But everyone thought he’d stunned her,” Lysander’s jaw muscles clenched as he glared at the corner of the room. “So, what do we do?”

“I found a box of extra molar caps,” Ophelia said, “in one of the supply rooms.”

“OK.”

“We need to get all the teens sympathetic to our cause to replace the poison in those caps with something.” Ophelia’s eyes wandered the room, trying to come up with an answer. “Something that foams, something that…” Suddenly all the upset tummies from the day came back to her.

“Antacids,” Ophelia and Lysander said at the same time.

“We just break off a little bit,” Lysander said. “And put it in the caps. Then we hand them out to everyone.”

“We may not have time to give them to everyone,” Ophelia said. “So we start with the youngest children first.”

“Agreed.”

Lysander turned to leave, but Ophelia touched his arm.

“There’s something else.”

“What?” Lysander turned back to her.

“It won’t take Teacher long to figure out he killed the wrong spy.”

“He thinks he took care of it,” Lysander said. “He’s certain. And you know how egotistical he is. He doesn’t even suspect that you, I, and others are turning against him.”

Ophelia shook her head. “He can predict the future.”

Whatever Lysander expected her to say, it wasn’t that. He face went pale. “I’m sorry, what?”

“He showed me his predictions,” Ophelia said. “It looked like this—” She motioned with her hands in front of her. “I don’t know. This sick, neon tree. But it had predictions on it, his predictions, and as long as it wasn’t clear, he knew that the spy was still in the group. He thought killing Bianca took care of it, but when he sees his predictions are still fuzzy…”

“He’s going to know the spy is still alive,” Lysander finished.

“And it’s only a matter of time until he figures out it’s me.”

Lysander’s mouth was parted, as if lost for words. He stared at the floor, shaking his head. “We can’t lose you.”

Ophelia swallowed and put her hand on his shoulder. “You will take my place, and you will succeed.”

“Ophelia—”

“You will defeat Teacher,” Ophelia said. “But until then, you have to play the part. Keep your eyes down. Nod and smile. Agree. When you suggest an idea, you have to act like it’s a bad one.”

“I can’t do this. I can’t do what you do.”

“I never thought I could do this,” she said. “But I didn’t have a choice, and you don’t either. All the children are counting on you.”

She dropped her hand as a tear fell from Lysander’s eye and trailed down his cheek.

“Let’s go to bed,” Ophelia whispered.

All Lysander could do was nod.