Empyreal by Gilbert M. Stack

Author:Gilbert M. Stack [Stack, Gilbert M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

You’re Just as Much a Prisoner as We Are

“What was that all about?” Ana asked before stopping in awe before the gargantuan bed. “Stars above, who could need a mattress this large? I’d be surprised if you and Kole could find each other if you got under the covers on opposite sides of the bed.”

Ana had an easy way of making Jewel smile. “I think some of the shareholders have rather broader tastes than Kole and I do. I mean, lets be honest, you could fit a whole dance troop on this mattress and still have room for the cast of a small holo.”

She went to her closet and began thinking about what dress she wished to wear today. They were all new and so by definition, enticing, but she decided instead that she felt more like visiting the pool where it would be more of a nuisance for Kole to try and call her onto the carpet and complain about her interfering in the Armenite chain of command. She picked up an extremely tiny blue-black bikini which perfectly matched the color of her tattoos and carried it behind a changing screen.

“I just, wow,” Ana continued their conversation. “I have lived in apartments smaller than this bed.”

“But not always,” Jewel told her. “Unless I miss my guess, you had money once.”

She could see Ana over the top of the screen so she caught the grimace that twisted her friend’s face.

“That was a long time ago,” Ana told her. She evidently realized that she couldn’t simply leave it at that because she added a few extra details. “I was born on Gaylene before the uprisings. I had a good education, but we lost everything when the Novembrists came to power. We were lucky to get off world at all.”

Jewel really didn’t know what to say to that. Ana’s wasn’t an uncommon story on the Fringe. The Novembrists had been particularly bloody. They’d taken a relatively peaceful movement for greater democracy, hijacked it, and turned it into a bloody tyranny with a body count in the millions. “What did your parents do on Gaylene?” Jewel asked.

Ana got a faraway look in her eyes. “My mother was a college professor. My father owned an industrial bakery. He made breads—all kinds of breads. Obviously I was studying engineering. We had a small but growing space flight industry and it looked like a good job. I guess it was. We’d have never gotten off planet without my contacts in the orbital companies.”

It occurred to Jewel that perhaps the particular problems that had driven her to run away from home all those years ago were not so severe as she had once believed. She’d certainly resolved her problems more happily than Ana had, even considering her current argument with her husband.

She remembered that she was supposed to be dressing and slipped off her coverall and underwear. “What happened to your parents?”

“Oh, they’re still alive,” Ana assured her. “They work in a restaurant on Cutler. My dad’s a cook and my mother’s a waitress.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.