LEGACY CHILD

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Maybe you should talk to Lymin before you make your accusation. Maybe you should rethink most of what you know about your precious scouts and the Crescent."

Those had been Meshodi's parting words, and now, Abriel snorted at the memory. The words rankled and made her want to shoot something. Screw him. What makes him think he knows so much? Except why limp to the Vault for answers instead of remaining at Porter's side with Keko if she really thought Meshodi was full of shepherd shit?

            Porter. Just thinking about him made her shiver in a way she wasn't sure she'd ever shivered before. Not about anyone. Not even van Andel. Rylee's just getting to me. Betting pools indeed. But she should be there at Medical Intensive, watching over him. He was sleeping now—she could sense the quiet humming in the back of her brain. Except, that shiver was probably the thing that was keeping her away.

At that, another annoying shiver followed. She shook it off, focusing on things she could do something about.

            Which brought her back to the Vault, Lymin, and a limp toward a well-worn staircase carved into the floor, tucked into the furthest edge of Urbine's Crescent.

            At the bottom waited the Vault.

As she'd heard it, the makeshift facility was awash with moleboys locked into cells. How long was Braen intending to keep them prisoner? They were a strain on resources all around—food, manpower, electricity, even storage space. Did he plan on putting them on trial and scheduling mass executions? Given the mood in the Crescent, it might be something everyone would enjoy. Didn't mean it was right though.

            "How you doing?" Keko sent from where he remained with Porter in Medical Intensive. "Beat the living snot out of Lymin yet?"

            "I'm a breath away from disciplinary action. Lymin gets to keep all his snot," she answered.

As always, she felt a sense of otherness in her conversations with Keko now, like someone was looking over her shoulder and listening in, but no one was there when she turned to check. She'd have to come to terms or she'd make herself crazy.

            "Take it easy on the ankle," Keko continued. "I can't have you laid up in Medical again."

            "Doing my best," she answered.

            Passing the last row of storehouses, she hobbled over the open expanse of ground to the Vault's guard-shed. The shed stood on its own, quiet and unassuming. The area around it—the Dead Zone—was kept clear of all obstacles on the impossible chance that should someone escape, they'd easily be spotted by overhead sentries. The warning sirens would blow and the Crescent would surge into lock-down.

            Inside the shed were two guards who rotated shifts every six hours, a staircase, and at the bottom, the detention cells. Unlike other structures in the Crescent, the Vault went deep into the Crescent floor—a long, lone corridor cut into the stone. Along its length were hollowed-out caves, each fitted with a locked cage-covering. In all, there were four cells, plus a private interrogation room. The lighting was poor, the ventilation system worse, and plumbing and sanitation rudimentary.

            Often Abriel wondered why the forefathers felt such a construction necessary. All Crescent records from the Great Awakening were sketchy at best, so it was difficult to reconstruct events. It was suggested the Vault had once been a mental ward. Another thought supposed it was the original settlers' first attempt at living accommodations. Some believed it served as an overflow shunt should the magma deep underneath the Crescent flare up. After so many generations, no one really knew anymore, or cared. All that mattered was now, it served as their prison.