UNWANTED

CHAPTER 6 - G.19.24 - LIZAVETA

After escaping the expanse of the House by dodging cameras, using Marjorie's handprint, and doing backfists to the temples of the guards that tried to rat on me, I was finally outside the mercury dome and in the main streets of the Capital.

This was fairly easy, since I've done it before in a multitude of ways. One, just simply walking out in a maid's outfit with dark hair, a tan and a rainbow of eye colors. Next, getting a hacker to change the footage everywhere I had to go. Or simply this; what I was doing right now.

I had to circle around the dome to see the eastern road. The city, like our flag was shaped like a compass, with eight-lane roads crossing the expanse from east to west and north to south, going around in the main rotunda that surrounded the House.

Aside from the usual modes of transport, like low-runners and flyers, there was a series of trams within the city that ran in concentric circles, five circles to be exact. And then there were four which just ran from the house up to each garden in each cardinal direction.

I needed to board one soon. It would be leaving at 7:45, and the garden show would start at half-past eight. Surely, the garden was full of people by now, all wearing the same color as me as a sign of celebration. Marjorie had made a good choice with that.

But I had to hurry. I exited from the South Gate due to some complication with a red-headed guard who refused to lie unconscious until the fifth punch, and so I had to run the expanse of the curve under three minutes with a minute or two to spare for boarding, which honestly seemed impossible.

The city thrummed with the life and sound so absent from the House. Inside there, the sound was muted, the colors, a little less bright. But here, with the two million people all going about their night, the horns, the muttering, the music, the lights... it made me feel alive. With every heartbeat, my foot kicked off from the concrete, breathing in the jasmine and the cherry blossoms, taking in every piece of stimuli.

The tram was boarding as I rounded the curve from the House's walls, sweating inside my hoodie, but not panting as I'd expected. The light bounced off the glass, and the people, dressed in varying shades of red, waited in line to board.

Compared to the trams before the Four-hour war, ours didn't have separate cars. That's why I pondered for a few seconds if they should still even be called trams. It was just a silver two-hundred-meter rod with comfortable chairs and handrails at the top. There was still a conductor, though, even if we didn't need one.

There was still a conductor, and two maintenance crew who were tasked to keep the thing clean. Most countries got rid of those, saying the tech could keep the whole thing running. They were right, of course, but when tech started replacing the people who needed salaries the most, Eurasia didn't let it. Farming was assisted, not replaced, so was construction, utilities maintenance, medicine, etc. Our electrical resources, our patents, wildlife, and world class citizens made the money... and we didn't need to be thrifty.

I sighed as I took the small escalator into the tram. Upapa was indifferent to me at best, but he sure did love his people, maybe even as much as I did.

I took my seat nearest the door. It was cold, and the maintenance crew usually sat near there with a soggy mop, but I didn't mind. The hood was over my head, covering me from most sides, so I tipped my head forward, casting a shadow over my face.

I sighed, the darkness claiming me again. Shit.

And there it was. I felt it coming like I did all the nights before I spent alone. As the movements of my body stopped, my mind went into high gear... and I started hating myself again.

Then the doubt settled in like an unwelcomed blanket around my shoulders. How do I measure up to the perfect king I knew so well as my abuser? Did I even want to? This thing I longed for, this thing I grew to hate, this thing that I now possess... how is it that dreams only came true the moment they became nightmares?