Outcasts
Authors: Jill Williamson
OOK TWO OF THE
S
AFE
L
ANDS
S
ERIES
JILL WILLIAMSON
To my sister Beth Britton, for wanting
to read book two so desperately.
Thanks for your enthusiasm and support.
“Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master,
nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.”
— John 13:16,
NIV
PROLOGUE
J
ULY
2088
A
lmost there.
Kendall strode around the curve of Belleview Drive and fixed her gaze on the messenger sign at the end of the block. The flying white envelope on a red circle flickered in the night.
She wanted to run — to at least jog — but held back, forcing her legs into long strides. Kendall swung her arms and breathed in the scents of dryer sheets and waffle cones from the Belleview Laundry and Cinnamonster ice cream shop.
Barely four weeks had passed since she’d given birth in the Surgery Center, and only two since she’d moved out of the harem and back to the Midlands. Kendall’s medic had told her to wait at least six weeks before doing serious exercise. So Kendall walked everywhere, determined to firm up her abdomen, look normal again. Determined to forget.
She wasn’t supposed to work for six weeks, either. But staying home with no baby to hold … Add to that her depressing thoughts, worry over the girls from Glenrock, and the task director general’s summons — it had been too much. She’d begged Tayo to let her come back to the messenger office early.
Kendall picked up her pace. What could the task director want now? He’d taken everything from her. She’d served her term in the harem, had given the ultimate sacrifice. This couldn’t be a surrogacy request. Safe Lands customs said she deserved a two-year reprieve for her service to the nation.
This summons had to be personal.
A taxi turned down Belleview and sped toward Kendall, its headlights blinding. She lowered her gaze. The vehicle passed — and the product expo on its side caught her eye.
The face of her son. “Welcome, Baby Promise” scrolled underneath.
Kendall stopped. She watched her son’s face shrink away until the taxi vanished. Fortune was mocking her pain.
What kind of a name was Promise, especially for a boy? More Safe Lands strangeness. Her baby would always be Elyot to her.
Kendall choked back her sorrow and trudged the rest of the way to the messenger office. She used her SimTag to let herself inside and set her messenger bag on the front counter.
A single bulb cast yellow light and hard shadows over the messenger workstations and rows of nearly empty package shelves. Kendall crossed the lobby and slipped behind the counter, her running shoes scuffing over the concrete floor. She walked down the first aisle of shelves, her shadow creeping along beside her.
This place had always been ghoulie at night.
The task clock hung outside Tayo’s office door, located at the back. Kendall tapped her fist on it, officially tasking out for the night, and started back toward the lobby.
A low moan rose from the dark. She jerked her head around, spine tingling. Cocked her ears.
No more sound.
Kendall peered through the shelves on her right. “Hay-o? Who’s here?”
A gargled breath. “Help me.”
The words squeezed her throat. For a moment Kendall couldn’t
move. Pushing down her fear, she forced herself around the end of the shelves. Peeked down the next row.
Empty.
She inched toward the third one.
Nothing.
Kendall glanced at her messenger bag. Her portable Wyndo was inside. She could tap Enforcer 10 for help.
She bit her lip, then eased around the fourth row. Halfway down, a man in a messenger uniform lay on the floor, one hand on his stomach, the other under his back. White-blond hair. Big feet.
“Chord?” Kendall ran to him.
Red everywhere, like a bottle of spilled Shower Paint. It had soaked Chord’s white T-shirt and the top of his green shorts, puddling under him. Still spreading.
She swallowed the bitter burning of nausea. “What happened?”
Chord lifted his hand. Kendall reached for his bloody fingers, but he pointed upward, to a large box high on the shelves.
“You want the box?” she asked.
He nodded and choked out the word, “Hurry.”
Kendall had to climb on the lowest shelf to reach the box. She held the shelf with her left hand and slapped the box with her right until it slid over the edge, careful to use her arms and not put strain on her stomach. She stepped down with the box, keeping her hand underneath to catch it as it fell. It was light and open at the top. She set it on the floor and pulled out a messenger bag. Chord’s? She met his gaze.
“Deliver,” he rasped.
“You want me to deliver your messages?”
“To the … addressees. No one else. Secret.”
She found four messages in his bag. Messages with no codes. In the Safe Lands, it was illegal to deliver mail off the grid. Enforcers monitored everything. She read the addresses. Chord worked the Sopris route, but these addresses were mostly in Old Town, which was her route.
“Chord, why do you …?” She looked up to find him staring past
her knees. Unblinking. Unseeing. His eyes dull, mouth half open, face slack.
A breath rattled past her lips. She spun around, slipping in the blood. Kendall ran to the counter, withdrew her Wyndo from her own messenger bag, and tapped one zero. Her thumb — shaking over the glass screen — produced a one-eight-eight. She deleted the numbers and carefully tapped one zero again.
One ring and a female face showed on the glass. She had silver hair, mimicking Luella Flynn, no doubt. “Enforcer 10. Where are you located?”
“Midlands-east-messenger-office,” Kendall said, breathless. “A man’s been hurt. He’s bleeding. I think he’s … dead. Oh, walls! Don’t let him be dead!”
“Try to stay calm,” the woman said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Kendall gasped in a breath, panic clouding her thoughts, tears and hysteria lacing every word. “I don’t know. I didn’t see. I came in and found him here.”
“You found him dead?”
She stared at the woman on her Wyndo screen and set her messenger bag back on the counter. “No. He was just talking to me, but now he’s only staring.” She looked back down the aisle to where Chord lay. No change.
“Okay, I’m dispatching Enforcer 10,” the woman said. “I see two SimTags at the address you gave me. ID#5 – 71 – 36, Chord Prezden and ID#1-W1, Kendall Collin. Is this Kendall?”
“Yes. And Chord is hurt.”
“Kendall, do you see any weapons?”
A new wave of horror seized her. “I didn’t.” Had Chord been shot or stabbed? “Should I go back and look?”
“No, stay where you are,” the woman said. “I need you to preserve the scene until Enforcer 10 arrives. Do you know the victim?”
“Yes! Chord tasks here.” Tears were flowing down Kendall’s cheeks
now. She paced the length of the counter. How could this be happening? Who would kill Chord?
The front door whooshed open, bringing the smell of dryer sheets and waffle cones inside the lobby. Kendall spun around. A man stood on the other side of the counter. She screamed and dropped her Wyndo, which snapped into three pieces on the concrete floor.
“Hey, sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
The man looked familiar. He was wearing a messenger uniform, but he wasn’t a regular here. Where had she seen him before? He had a 9X on his face. Was this Chord’s murderer?
Trapped, Kendall crouched behind the counter to pick up her Wyndo. She was still holding Chord’s messages in her hand and shoved them into the waistband of her shorts. She pulled the hem of her T-shirt over the messages and collected her Wyndo and the solar pack. Where was the back? She never understood how these things looked like transparent glass until they came apart. Technological magic was the worst kind. It made her feel ignorant for not comprehending how it worked.
Calm down! Look for it.
She scanned the floor for any reflection.
The man stepped around the end of the counter, his messenger sneakers, bare legs, and green shorts a blur outside her focus. There! She spotted a rectangle of clear plastic across the floor, by the man’s foot. She blinked and looked up to his face.
Alone with a strange Xed man who was blocking her way to the exit and might be a murderer. No Wyndo. Not good. If she survived this night, she vowed to reconsider a SimTalk implant.
The man’s dark eyebrows rose, causing his forehead to wrinkle. “You okay?”
He was young, his voice soft and a little hoarse, like he had a cold. Cute. Boyish, though his jaw and upper lip were shaded in the soft scruff of a first attempt at a beard. He was likely harmless. Not every man was like Lawten. But this one looked
so
familiar.
