I, Cassandra

07 | RYAN MADDOX

 Without saying a word Akron moves to the tablet and taps it, closing files in rapid succession. The wall screen dissolves to black. He heads past me towards the mirrored wall at the end of the corridor.

I follow him out—ignoring my ugly, hulking reflection in the wall of mirrors—into an elegant apartment, graced by an arrangement of beautiful, stunning pieces of furniture, placed across the hardwood floor as though without thought. Hovering near a white leather sofa suite and an enormous glass coffee table—its surface almost entirely covered with piles of the rarest of all things: hardcover books from a world long gone—a white leather chair in the shape of an egg. A memory triggers. The only other place I had seen that piece was at the design museum during a culture training trip to Alpha III, where I learned it was worth a fortune—more than ten years my annual earnings including bonuses, and I do alright. One chair. Ten years income. I start to get the feeling I'm not anywhere near the barracks of Omega V.

We pass a fully equipped kitchen in gleaming white, its counter sporting a spotless chrome unit I recall makes special kinds of coffees. I saw this one at the museum, too. A Gaggia, from Italy. For as long as I can remember, coffee everywhere is made from freeze-dried chemicals to taste like coffee. But this machine—the curator spent a lot of time telling us how it used to work—it made coffee from beans it had ground only moments before, so I know it's useless. There are no more coffee beans. I would know; I used the black market enough.

On the immaculate island, pears, ripe and ready to eat perch in a metal basket shaped in a pattern of flower petals. It looks designer, expensive, and rare. An item like that—made just for fruit, in a world like ours. It's obnoxious. I glance at Akron to see if he is watching me. He's not, his eyes are straight ahead, fixed on a pair of closed walnut doors, offset by an antique mahogany baby grand piano on one side and a fully stocked bar on the other. I take a pear from the top of the heap and bite into it. Its grainy texture melts in my mouth and soft, sweet, almost vanilla-like juices run down my throat. I have never tasted such a perfect fruit in my life, I groan in pleasure. Akron glances back. A look of revulsion crosses his face.

'What a waste,' he mutters.

I shrug, defiant, and bite into the pear again, loud, chewing it with my mouth open just to piss him off.

Opposite the open-plan kitchen, a vast slab of a birch table surrounded by a variety of chairs—all of them arty and unique—overlooks a vista of a rugged, rocky terrain sloping down to a stormy, grey sea. Towering pines bend in the rough wind, and a gust of snowy wind hurtles past the windows, buffeting the trees.

I slow. Hanging over the table: a copper-tinted metallic lamp, its pieces arranged in the shape of an artichoke. Very, very expensive, and extremely rare. This piece I know, because I fell in love with it at the museum. It's the famous Artichoke lamp by Poul Henningsen, or PH as he was later called. I bought a postcard from the museum shop of an artful photo of it and hung it in my locker to remind me we weren't always monsters. Once, before we had fucked up the world, we had had art and beauty. We had had time to make lamps that looked like an artichoke, so perfect it could only be called art. The curator mentioned there were only fifty intact Artichoke lamps left in the world, and only ten in pristine condition, the rest lost to the upheavals and wars during the mass climate migrations. Now I am certain. I am definitely not in Omega V. I suck the last of the pear's flesh and juice from its core and toss it into a silver dish on top of the bar. Akron stops at the double doors. The wood is solid. Not veneered. Of course. He turns to me.

'I think I should warn you, we aren't in Omega V.'

'No shit,' I say and glance meaningfully at the lamp. Only nine others exist in that condition, including the one in the museum.

'We brought you here from the Bunker at Omega V while you were in stasis mode.'

'Stasis,' I repeat, bitter, trying and failing to avoid thinking of the metallic things roiling inside me, and my lack of genitalia. I press my revulsion down, promising myself I will deal with my situation later when I have more intel. A lifetime of military discipline redirects my focus and I become aware of pear juice on my fingers. I rub them against my trousers. I would have rather licked the juice off them but I can't bring myself to do it in front of Akron. I ate a pear, my first one in twenty years, and it was beautiful. It's enough. Also, I catch the thinning of Akron's lips as I do it, marking the waste, and a thrill of satisfaction ripples through me. Worth it.

'And 'here' is?' I prompt into the disapproving silence.