They stopped again that night and Cress was given some bread, dried
fruit, and water. She listened to the sounds of camp outside the van and
tried to sleep, but it came only in fits.
They started early again the next morning.
She became less and less sure that Thorne come for her. She
kept seeing him embracing that other woman, and imagined that he
was glad he no longer had to bother himself with the weak, naive Lunar
shell.
Even the fantasies that had consoled and comforted her for so many
years aboard the satellite were growing feeble. She was not a warrior,
brave and strong and ready to defend justice. She was not the most beautiful
girl in the land, able to evoke empathy and respect from even the
most hard hearted villain. She was not even a damsel knowing that a
hero would someday rescue her.
Instead, she spent the agonizing hours wondering whether she was
to become a slave, a servant, a feast for cannibals, a human sacrifice, or
whether she would be returned to Queen Levana and tortured for her
betrayal.
Eventually, late in the second day of her entrapment, the vans stopped
and the doors were thrown open. Cress cringed at the brightness and
tried to scuffle away, but she was grabbed and hauled outside. She
landed on her knees. Pain shot up her spine, but her captor ignored her
whimpering as he tugged her to her feet and bound her wrists.
The pain soon faded, trounced by adrenaline and curiosity. They'd
arrived at a new town, but even she could tell this one had never been as
wealthy or populated as Kufra. Modest buildings the color of the desert
stretched down a sand-spotted road. Walls of red clay, painted indigo
and pink, had long been bleached in the sun, there roofs covered with
broken tiles. A fenced area not far away held half a dozen camels and
there were a few more wheeled, dirty vehicles stationed along the street,
and—
She blinked the sun and sand from her eyes.
A spaceship sat in the center of town. A Rampion.
Her heart skipped with frenzied hope, but it was quickly smothered.
Even from this distance she could see that the Rampion's main hatch
was painted black, not adorned with a lounging lady as had been reported
when Thorne's ship landed in France.
She whimpered, tearing her eyes away as her captors herded her into
the nearest building. They entered a dark hallway. Only a small window
in the front it in any light, and it had been caked with windblown sand
over the years. There was a tiny desk set into a corner with a board of old-
fashioned keys hanging on the wall. Cress was shuffled past it and taken
to the end of the corridor.
The walls reeked with something pungent—not a bad scent, but too
overpowering to be pleasant. Cress's nose tickled.
She was pushed up a staircase, so think that she had to follow behind
Jina, with Niels behind her. An eerie silence haunted the sand-colored
walls. The stench was stronger up here and a shiver raced down her
spine, making goose bumps bloom across her arms. Her fear had bundled
itself up in a cluster of nerves at the base of her spine.
By the time they reached the last door in the hallway and Jina raised
her fist to knock, Cress was shaking so hard she almost couldn't stand.
She was surprised to find herself longing for the security of the van.
Jina had to knock twice before they heard footsteps and the creak of
the door. Niels kept Cress tucked securely behind Jina, and all she could
see were the cuffs of a man's brown trousers and worn white shoes with
fraying laces. "Jina," said a man—sounding like he'd just woken from a nap. "I heard
a rumor out of Kufra that you were on your way."
"I've brought you another subject. Found her wandering in the
desert."
A hesitation. Then the man said, without question, "A shell."
His certainty made Cress squirm. If he had not had to ask, that
meant he could sense her. Or, rather, couldn't sense her. She remembered
Sybil complaining that she could not sense Cress's thoughts—how much
more difficult it was to train and command a person like her, as if it were
all Cress's doing.
This man was Lunar.
She flinched away, wanting to curl up until she was no larger than a
grain of sand, until she blew away into the desert and disappeared.
But she could not disappear. Instead, as Jina stepped aside, she found
herself face-to-face with a man well into his years.
She started. They were face-to-face—he was barely taller than her.
Behind a pair of think wired spectacles, his blue eyes widened, looking
remarkably lively despite the wrinkles that folded and creased around
them. He was balding, with tufts of untamed gray hair that stuck out
above his ears. A bizarre déjà vu struck her, as if she'd seen him before,
but that was impossible.
He whipped off his spectacles and rubbed at his eyes. When he replaced them,
his lips were puckered and he was examining Cress like a bug for dissection.
She pressed back against the wall, until Niels grabbed
her elbow and yanked her forward.
"Definitely a shell," the old man murmured, "and a phantom, it
seems."
Cress's heart pounded a rough, erratic rhythm against her rib cage.
"I'm asking 32,000 univs for her."
The man blinked at Jina like he'd forgotten she was there. He stood a
bit straighter and made a great fuss about removing his spectacles again,
to clean them this time.
YOU ARE READING
Cress
Fiksi RemajaTheir best hope lies with Cress, a girl trapped on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she's being force to work for Queen Levana, and she...
