Chapter 29
Diana paced back and forth in the living room, trying to bleed off stress and anxiety. She'd texted Naomi almost an hour ago! What was taking so long, anyway?
It hadn't been much more than an hour since Adam's announcement, but it felt like a New Eden year had passed. It was the not knowing, Diana concluded. Not having the slightest awareness of what was going on in the outside world was what made this whole thing torture. She couldn't help anyone like this. She didn't know how long it would continue. And worst of all, she had only herself to blame!
She could have hidden away on that plane with Simon and Steve. Steve would have kept the secret, she was sure. She could have taken the controls, leveling the plane out and keeping it under control, even after it had been hit! She'd seen the plane after the missile hits, or pictures of it from the drones that approached. It might not have been flyable anymore, but at least Simon would still be alive!
The phone beeped at her, and she let out a breath. "Finally!"
She ran over and scooped it up, but the face that appeared on it was a surprise to her. "Naomi? Are you all right?"
Naomi nodded distractedly, looking around her. From the background noise, it sounded like she was in a plane somewhere. No, not a plane. That was Harmony's atmospheric generator's noise. At least she was on the ground. "I'm ok. I just wanted to check in on you while I could."
Women weren't allowed standard communications gear. This wasn't even Diana's phone; it was Simon's. "How... are you even talking to me right now? Not that I'm not glad you are," she added hastily.
"Bez set it up for me before he had to go," Naomi explained. "We've been seeing each other for a while now. He's back at Greater Harmony now, dealing with other evacuation plans with Adam—with the President I mean. Did you hear his speech? How we all have to go?"
Diana nodded, grimacing. Evacuation made sense, as did training teenagers and older in how to fly, but Adam was cutting off his nose to spite his face here. If he'd drafted women as well, he'd double his fighting force! But then, there was no way John would allow it, even if Adam had felt it was a good idea. "Do you know where you're going?" She asked, trying to distract herself from that.
Naomi shook her head. "Somewhere up in the mountains to the north, I think. Nowhere near Noah, probably. I don't think the enemy knows where his core drive is, or he'd be dead already."
"Yeah, that sounds about right. I'm still in Greater Harmony for now. They haven't told me when I'll be leaving or where I'll go—just to have my things packed and ready." She glanced over at the two over-stuffed bags she'd put together. They included some of Simon's things that Diana couldn't bear to leave behind. He'd given her so much, and meant so much to her still, even now that he was gone.
Some part of her hoped that the Faith was right, despite all its restraints on her. If so, she'd get to see him again someday.
Trying again to distract herself, she plastered on a fake smile. "So, you and Bez, huh? How long has this been going on?"
Her friend gave a slight smile in response. "A few weeks now, but we've kept it quiet. He didn't want to rain on anyone else's parade. You know how shy he is."
You're both like that, Diana thought, but didn't say it. "Is he going with you, wherever you end up?"
Naomi paused, looking fearful for just a second. "I think so. I mean I know he asked Adam for permission, but he hasn't asked me yet."
Diana knew exactly how she felt. Naomi was so likeable, so easygoing, that people just assumed she would go along with whatever they wanted to do. Even Diana had behaved that way, back when they'd been kids. Bez wasn't a bad guy, from what Diana had seen and what Simon had told her. He was just behaving as he'd been taught: to take charge of the situation and do as he thought right. Naomi's opinion here... didn't really matter. "How are you dealing with that?" She asked carefully, trying not to let her genuine anger at the situation get into her voice.
"I'm not!" Naomi blurted out. "I mean, I know he's a good guy. He's always so kind when he comes to visit Harmony, and he plays with the girls I'm looking after. We went for long walks outside after the girls were asleep, talking about all his work. He was so busy before this whole 'Cain' thing, too. He was always tired when he came to visit me, but he came anyway. He does everything right."
There was a long silence through the line. "But?" Diana prompted.
"But I don't know if I want to live with him, is all," she confessed, sounding miserable. "I know it's a terrible thing to say, especially with everyone being evacuated and all our lives being put on hold, but I'm not sure I'm ready."
Vivid flashbacks of her own situation with Simon blasted their way through Diana's head, and she gave a real smile this time, if a little sad. At least Simon had been open with her, and discussed things with her in private ahead of time. Maybe... just maybe Bez could be the same way.
"John paid me a visit just after the speech,” Naomi went on softly. "He must have been there when Bez asked Adam for permission to go with me. John made it clear to me that the Faith's rules are unbendable, regardless of the situation. He said he's willing to marry us, today if necessary, war or no war. If we're not married, he'll send me off to God-knows-where, and I might end up all alone! What do I do??"
Diana seriously doubted she'd be on her own, wherever she ended up. Not only was Naomi one of the best human caretakers on the planet, but the children absolutely adored her. She might be a pushover with her friends, but in almost every sense she was a true mother to her charges. Noah wasn't stupid enough to waste such a valuable resource in the evacuation.
She leaned forward. "I think you need to talk to Bez before anything else. You need to explain your situation, carefully and privately. If you really are willing to live with him, then you need to make it clear where your boundaries are. That you're willing to marry him, if only to satisfy the Faith, but you're not willing to be married to him, if you get my drift."
Naomi's eyes widened with alarm. She got it, all right. They had to speak carefully about this stuff, but Diana was reasonably sure that Naomi could handle it. She spoke before Diana could continue, though. "If he is willing to, uh, pretend I guess, then that's good. But what if this feeling never goes away? What if I'm never ready?"
"Then he needs to know that, as well," Diana said firmly. "If he's as good a guy as you think, he'll understand. If not, it's better that you both know right now."
That seemed to encourage Naomi for a moment, and Diana leaned back again. And if he lies to you in order to get your cooperation, she promised both herself and Naomi, I'll make sure he regrets it.
She didn't think that was likely, but it was always possible. Despite the fragmented nature of the historical database, there were plenty examples in Earth's history of men using their power to get whatever they wanted from women. Just because they were all part of the Faith here didn't erase that tendency, and Diana wasn't willing to just take it on 'faith' that Bez was a good guy. She did trust Naomi's judgement, though.
"Has Bez spoken at all about the upcoming pilot's training?" She asked nonchalantly. Asking any of the guys straight-out would raise a few warning flags, but maybe he'd told his girlfriend a few things.
Naomi nodded. "He's excited, but scared too. He said he's going to be one of maybe a hundred and twenty trainees out there. But they'll be all over the continent, won't they? All over the world, hidden in whatever bunkers Noah's been able to dig out for us. I guess he'll have to keep them connected to each other so they can train."
Perfect. That was exactly what Diana had been hoping to hear. "Has Noah said how long the training will take, or when pilots will be flying their own planes?"
"Sorry, I don't know. I don't think Bez knows either. It's all up to Noah and Adam right now, and I'm sure they have their hands full. Bez kept saying how much he respects what Simon did back in the day, and how he hopes to be as good as Simon, eventually. I think they all feel that way." She paused, a crease forming between her eyes. "I'm sorry. I forgot."
"It's all right," Diana assured her. "He was special." Just not in the way that you think.
They exchanged pleasantries for a few more minutes, before another noise cut in on Naomi's end. "That's Bez. I'm gonna talk to him, like you said. Now or never, right?"
Diana gave her an encouraging smile. "As long as you're clear about where you stand, and honest, then you'll know you did everything you should. You can do this, Naomi. Now get to it."
Her friend nodded quickly, and then signed off. Diana silently wished her luck, staring around the house. Everything had been packed up, either in boxes meant to stay here, or bags meant to go. The simulator chair was all that was left of her previous setup, so she didn't even have that as a distraction anymore.
The phone went off again, and Diana grabbed it in an instant. "Hello?"
There was no image this time, but Noah's synthetic voice came through loud and clear. "You asked to speak with me?"
"Yes, about the pilot training," she explained, wasting no time. "I assume you've already worked up a remote training schedule, and your drones are already hard at work building simulators all over the place for each of the pilots once they arrive? Well, I want you to build one for me too. I'll be making some adjustments to it when I get to wherever it is, but at least I'll be able to help."
There was a brief pause on his end. "I anticipated as much," he said, with a fair approximation of frustration. "I understand you want to participate, but that's impossible. The other trainees would never accept you as an equal. Your very presence in the group would demoralize the entire unit."
"Then don't tell them," she said impatiently. "You can use voice disguisers for all of us. None of the trainees will know that a dreaded female is among them. There's over a hundred of them anyway. I assume you were going to use numbered designations for them instead of names. That way they get to know each other as pilots first, and as people second, if at all. Everyone can play to their strengths that way. Leaders can emerge based on merit, not based on nepotism."
"I take it you plan to be one of those leaders?" He asked wryly. Or scornfully. She couldn't really tell what his emotion-mimicking subsystem was trying to do right now.
"I will be," she assured him. "I've got more hours in a cockpit than everyone else on this planet put together. I can help, Noah! We need as much of an edge as we can get, right? Cain's already got how many armed drones out there, already looking for us? The longer it takes for us to get a flight-ready squadron of pilots, the less chance we have of winning!"
"That's not the point," he went on stubbornly. "If word got out—”
"How could it?" She cut him off. "I won't actually be there with any of them, will I? All of the training, and later the missions if we get that far, will be remotely done, so it's not like anyone could unmask me and yell 'aha!' Face it, Noah, this is no different than the CME situation. I want to help, I can really be of use, and I don't want credit or recognition for it! Use me, for God's sake!"
"And if the President finds out? He's not in charge just because he's the oldest, you know. He has an impressive facility for intuition and understanding his fellow humans. As you might say, he's no slouch."
Diana hesitated. During the CME disaster, both she and Simon had been in Noah's hands, and had been able to appeal to him for leniency for their actions. That safety net was gone now. If Adam found out what she was up to, he would deal with her harshly. He'd have no choice, according to the dictates of the Faith. Noah would probably be punished as well for keeping the secret, though how such a punishment would happen, she had no idea. At least Simon wasn't alive to be lumped in with the punishment, too. "I'm willing to take the risk."
"Good." There was a sudden knock on the front door.
Diana spun to look over her shoulder. "Uh, Noah, I've got a visitor here. Can you call me back?"
"It's one of my drones. If you really are determined to do this, then I want to get you underway as soon as possible."
She just stared at the phone for a moment, and then ran over to check the peephole. There was a caretaker drone on the other side of it, sure enough. "Uh, what? Wait, you knew I was going to say all that? You were just messing with me when you said it was impossible, or demoralizing or all that stuff?"
She opened the inner door to let the drone in, and the phone shut off. Without missing a beat, the drone continued to speak in its place. "Not at all. I anticipated your desire to help, and that you would be such a nuisance that I would have no choice but to eventually let you help. Still, my objections were all valid and true. I just needed to be sure that you'd considered and rejected them already. Are you ready to go?"
"Uh, yeah," she said with confusion, gesturing to the two big bags in the hall. The drone immediately went over to them and picked them up. "So... you're actually ok with me doing this, then?"
"Of course," he said, again not missing a beat. She barely had time to put on a breather before he'd prodded her into the airlock and sealed the inner door again. "As you said, I need every advantage I can get over my brother in this fight. His drones are better armed and armored, and he's already compromised both populated domes on this planet. You are an asset to the fight. A risky one, but valuable enough to justify that risk to both of us. I need you, and I need to keep that fact from Adam and everyone else." The air transfer completed, and the outer door opened. The drone immediately stepped out, but slowed its pace so she could keep up.
She wasn't sure whether to find this hilarious or confusing, so she just settled on nodding. "You get it, then. Do I get to find out where I'm being taken, now? Or if I'll be all alone there?" The sudden loss of Simon jabbed her in the gut again, and she felt a hollow sensation where her friend had just been.
He shook his metallic head. "There is no designation for where I'm taking you, yet. You won't be alone there, but I've taken care of that as well. If we survive this war intact, at least we'll be able to return to some semblance of normalcy. I'll be able to divert my drones back to building habitats, farms and ecosystems, instead of armed, maneuverable engines of destruction. And you'll be able to... well, perhaps normalcy wasn't the best word to use in these circumstances. I am sorry for your loss, Diana. Simon might not have been the pilot everyone thinks he was, but he was an excellent programmer, and a good friend."
Diana looked up at the drone in surprise. It hadn't broken step or anything, but there had been a tone in its voice just there. Maybe Noah wasn't as far from being able to understand humans as he'd thought.
They walked quickly through the now-nearly-abandoned city. The city square, which had just started to really take shape, was completely empty now, but for a few bikes resting on street corners. Signs of early construction that Argent had begun were abandoned, with scaffolds built around empty lots in preparation for larger buildings. The only good news was, that without anyone living here anymore, Cain would have no reason to demolish this place. If they won, they could one day come back here.
She surveyed the gaping hole in the dome with dismay. She hadn't had the chance to really examine it the other day, and the limited windows in her house didn't get a view of it. She was really going to miss that place, too. True, it had just been a stopover, really, but it had been hers and Simon's. It had been the first place she could truly and freely just be herself, without fear of judgement or punishment.
In another few minutes they were at the airport blister on the edge of the city. It was now a self-contained dome with its own life support, which could be pressurized to load up larger planes, or repair them as needed, and then depressurized when it came time for them to take off. Noah wasn't leading her over to the larger shuttle she'd flown before, though. He took her off to the left, to a... new plane.
It was much smaller than anything she'd seen before aside from Noah's flying drones, and had obviously been built before this disaster had happened. It looked vaguely like one of the old Cessna four-seaters she'd seen pictures of, but it had been modified. She couldn't ask questions about it here, though: she was in a public space, and there could be other evacuees who could hear her.
"Most of the evacuees are being moved out by modified flyer drones," Noah explained as if he could hear her thoughts and was answering them. "Five or six can move a small family, complete with their luggage, and I've modified them to have a much larger load capacity. This beauty," he spread his arms to encompass the whole view of the plane, "is the first of its kind. An original Cessna 172, modified with VTOL capability for all the places it could go. It should be enough to get you where you're going, and then I'll fly it back here to pick up more evacuees. I've already flown it several times, loaded up with kids, to various locations. I put a last-minute radar-jamming apparatus on it, as you might be able to see," he pointed to the small device on the very top of the Cessna. "That seems to have kept the Wren out of danger so far from Cain's drones."
"The Wren?" Diana put in, impressed at his ability to improvise such a plane.
He just shrugged. "A working name. She was rushed into service, unfortunately, but she's held up just like her Earth bird namesake. Come on inside." Strangely, the staircase going up into it was already lowered as they approached.
For good reason, it turned out. Inside was Tycho, sitting in the cockpit and taking snapshots of all the controls with his phone. He heard them come up the steps, and turned around with a smile. "Diana. Good to see you again." He leaned forward and gave her a brief hug. "With all that's been going on, we've all been too busy to drop by. How are you doing with, uh, everything that's happened?"
With Simon's death, you mean, she thought sadly. "I'm handling it. Good to see you, too." She glanced over at Noah's drone. "Noah said I wouldn't be alone, wherever I'm being whisked off to. I guess you'll be there with me?"
He nodded, but then paused and looked over at Noah. "He told me everything, just so you know. How you're a real pilot, and how you and Simon have been lying to us all for a long time."
All other thoughts were immediately driven from her head, replaced with cold fear and anger. "Did he, now?" She said blankly, turning to stare at Noah's drone.
"Don't be too hard on him," Tycho said quickly. "He needed my help, just like we need yours, and he explained to me exactly how I can be useful. Don't worry, I'll keep the secret. Not just to protect Simon's memory, but also to protect you."
Surprise and rage were supplanted with fear entirely. The more people who knew, the quicker such a deception would come to light! That was basic math. Some people on Earth had been convinced that the early Moon Landing footage had been faked, but so many people would have had to be in on it, that the whole thing would have come out in just a few years! How long before she was revealed to everyone now? But in her mind, in the logical, ice-cold part of her brain, Diana knew why Noah had done it. What did it matter if her secret got out, if they were all shot to death or blown up by Cain's drones?
"We'll talk about this on the way," she promised both of them darkly, and plopped into one of the passenger seats.
"Whoa there," Tycho said, raising a hand to her before she could strap in. "You're flying this thing."
Between Noah suddenly agreeing to include her in training, to the horrible sight of the city abandoned, to the stunning surprise of Tycho being in the know, Diana was still trying to catch up. "I am?"
"Of course. I'm not qualified, and Noah says you need more experience with VTOL landings. As I understand it, the last time you were in a big bird like that one over there, you didn't really get the chance to actually land it."
"That wasn't my fault," she protested. "We were running on fumes at the end there!"
He smiled at her. "I know. So, are you saying you don't want to fly this thing?"
"Hell no!" She exclaimed, and practically vaulted up into the cockpit.
