The 6th of Six (The Legend of Kimraig Llu) (13 page)

“My babies, have they arrived?” She said, standing almost straight.

“Yes, waiting for you in the next room. Let me carry you.”

Missy raised one eyebrow, moved slightly away, and then forced her weight back onto her canes. Inside her mind, she was pounding the lid back onto her mental trashcan: raw pain contained for now. Finally, she was standing as straight as she was going to.

“They’re newborn, Missy. They can’t see whether you’re walking or not.” He knew better but he had to ask. “Okay, I’ll get the door.”

“Stay!” Missy ordered Cat and Dog. Loyal stood at attention, holding the door open. “Not you, old fool. Follow.”

He followed, mock saluting all the way.

Dog and Cat in the open doorway, watching.

Ignoring the shabby makeshift receiving room, Missy’s only focus was the three small canisters grouped side by side on the battered gurney. She deliberately avoided looking toward the two male nurses as they turned their heads, trying to hide smiles. There was no doubt in her mind that her husband’s comic salute continued to mock her.

“John, are you to attend me?” she asked. The nurse wore no nametag, blue scrubs brightened against his ebony skin.

Missy made it her business to know everyone around her. In fact, as a couple, she and Loyal did nothing to hide who they were—a strange habit, for politicians.

“Yes, Prime Minister,” John answered, dwarfing her as he moved to the gurney.

“And you, Bruce?” Missy nodded to the second male nurse. She knew him to be John’s domestic partner.

“I will swaddle, Prime Minister.” Bruce moved to the opposite side preparing to disconnect the canisters from the main air supply tucked under the gurney. His worn white scrubs had turned his pasty hands, face, and hair to mottled gray—a grub uncovered in a compost heap.

“Good. Will our air hurt these tiny beings?” Missy asked. Without waiting, she reached to the fastenings that would open the first small canister.

“Ten minutes to scrub and clean them will not hurt. May I help?” John replied.

“Thank you, no. I’ve waited too long.”

Missy’s trembling hands tripped the latches and John took the lid away. She gently picked up the little girl. Her older, pale hands deepened the child’s dark skin to almost mocha brown. Missy held her to the light. Perfect! One little cry, tiny pummeling fists signaling the child’s displeasure.

Twice more she opened a canister. Twice more, a different display as she lifted each little girl. All three infants, each a different shade of russet, mirrored a different heritage—too early to guess about the final hair color.

God, circumstance has forced us to steal babies! No, need is not theft.

Missy blinked away a tear.

“Already fighters,” she whispered. “No male!” she said, biting the –ck from her favorite gutter phrase.

“Colt said his contacts would not discuss Males until after One Nine,” Loyal replied. The two remaining pieces of information passed via mini-disk were only for him.

“These three small girls will not help our gene pool. We are very close to that point where we Crossers will no longer be viable. No more excuses, we must have a male”

She turned to address John. “Quickly now, deliver each to her volunteer mother. They have only a short time to form their bond.” Handing the last child off, she hunched her stiff body back onto her canes. Missy huffed once.

Who moved that door? Not too far, move.

Dog and Cat waited, hyper-alert now, their charge was moving.

John finished cleaning the last child and handed her gently to Bruce, then moved away to the wall phone. The volunteer mothers were waiting one floor below.

Bruce prepared the last diaper. Before dressing the infant, he removed the small, white, remote recording device from his pocket. Quickly covering it with surgical tape and cushioning it with gauze, he applied this new bandage to the child’s healing belly button.

The white swaddling came next. This garment appeared almost identical to the other two, only a small tear in the material near the child’s throat made it different. The right adoptive mother would spot it quickly.

He took time for a deep sigh.
The old man had almost caught him placing the remote sending unit in the stairwell.

He had used up almost all his good luck for today.

Back in the office, Missy pushed the “adapt” control near the square extremity. The center of the stationary platform “adapted” slowly by spinning around to face back towards the entrance door; no need to jockey the platform around to exit. It took a few minutes for her to clamp herself back against the metal square.

She turned once more to Loyal.

“Again no male, all three are fine baby girls. Our last chance is tonight when our nurse meets with that rogue Hunter. Our price for safe passage for his troops through our territory will be one healthy, male child. If not...”

“We can’t fight them,” Loyal replied.

“They do not know that. Our nurse delivers our ultimatum tonight. The price is high, we shall see if he is serious. I am almost late, and Prime Ministers are never late for Call to Order.” Missy smiled, starting to leave.

Somehow, he had to make her feel his concern.

“Prime Minister,” Loyal said, using her full title to make sure he had her attention. “When you enter the Congress Hall and call the Council of Representatives to order, speak from your platform. Please do not climb the podium. If the Council sees how weak you are, they will replace you on the spot.”

“Never,” Missy murmured, feeling unsure. Was she worried about climbing the podium, or speaking from the platform, or this new threat of playing two ends against the middle?

“If you can get past your bluster, you’ll understand. The Council is looking for any excuse to dump you and attack the Builder’s Number 2 Building. They have convinced our people that just seizing this baby factory will guarantee them victory”

“That is just foolish. We can do this peacefully with your plan for One Nine.” Missy was once again Prime Minister.

“Wait just one minute, there is a plan?”

“Of course dear,” Loyal said, side stepping only a little.

“Remember, that Superior who we are dealing with is selling her idea by pleading to our need for male children,” he continued. For emphasis, Loyal stood by her side, looking directly into her eyes.

“I will journey to One Nine, a dangerous trip where death can come at any time. If I am killed, our assembly will replace you.”

He reached to hold her hand. “I have detailed Colt and his ladies as guards until I return”

“No, I have Dog and Cat.”

“The Council banned them from entering with you.”

“We will see if they can stop us,” she huffed, obviously not wanting to broach the subject biting at her neck. She huffed a second time, deciding she would not voice her need:
stay with me tonight
. At the unspoken words, she choked back tears.

“Will you be with your troops tonight?” she asked instead. She decided to accept Colt and his troops rather that put Dog and Cat at risk.

“Yes, always before a battle,” Loyal whispered. A note of regret soothed his reply.

“When you finish with One Nine, I will need you back in our home.”

Loyal gently squeezed her hand, no other reply was necessary.

Prime Minister Painter-Richards, never willing to deal with her fears, excused herself.

Hurrying to her prearranged meeting with someone named Devil, she forced down threatening sobs. She refused to have red eyes when she met this person in the dilapidated structure attached to her building by the old High Line train terminal.

Once her platform navigated the short crumbling bridge from her basement, the next part required her canes. When she had secured herself over the two handles, she managed a pseudo upright stance. Dog and Cat circled her, unsure of her intent. She had insisted her animals accompany her to this conference. Only her refusal to attend without them, had convinced Devil’s courier she was serious. He reluctantly agreed. Missy, no less reluctant, explained what Devil could expect from Dog and Cat when they arrived.

Cat ranged ahead in the darkness and was quickly out of sight. Dog growled softly as her cane rang from bumping against unseen rubble.

“Give me space here; I know I am making too much noise.” She thought he shook his muzzle in disgust.

Not much light,
she thought, continuing slowly until her toes felt danger.

Cat stuck in one spot, her long feline body stretched out in preparation to lunge from her strike position. Tip of her tail curved up, twitching, and ears alert, extended paw barely touching the cluttered floor ahead. Only her tail stopped twitching when a small lantern, hood slowly removed, revealed the outline of a woman in doctors scrubs.

“I am Devil,” the woman’s quivering voice stumbled over her unfamiliar title.

“Dog, search,” Missy had to make sure this was no trap.

Dog searched into corners and rubble from one side of the space to the other. He ignored a wide swath between his feline companion and their visitor: except for his complete circle of the frightened woman. He quickly returned to Missy growling softly to Cat as he passed.

“Well, well, it is Edith the Butcher come to meet me. You have picked an apt code name. Devil is so you.” Missy watched Cat relax and drop to her belly.

“Yes, you would remember that. Let me see, I believe they called you...oh yes, Ball Buster. I see nothing has changed,” Edith said as she slowly reached down to the lantern increasing the light.

“Handy thing this, fueled with the banned substance alcohol—banned, yet plentiful.”

“Edith, is there something you need?”

“I need help with my research, specifically Human Reproductive Systems in Post Nuclear Societies.”

“I cannot help you.”
This trip was a waste of time,
she thought. Shifting her weight on her canes, she turned away.

“I picked those three baby girls you stole this morning. Now I need your help. We Builders are dying off as fast as you Crossers are. Our people number twice the size of yours. Which matters little, since the outcome is the same—death to all. Please, a few hours of reading and your interpretation is all I ask.” Edith hated the frantic bite in her words.

What the hell, we need help, and only Missy can provide what we need. Beg!

“Please, help us. This small thumb drive holds the story.” She held up, as an offering, a box slightly smaller than her closed fist. “I have nothing to hide and it does parallel the work you have been doing,” Missy surprised Edith when she turned again to face her. When her old friend had taken so long to answer, Edith guessed there was no help coming.

“It was you who sent Bruce to spy on us?”

“Yes. No one has that information but me. I did not notify the Wicca.”

“Why did you let us steal your babies?”

“A piece offering, something for an old friend and the love we shared.”

Tears sprang to Missy’s eyes as she remembered them, as they had been when they were both little girls. Edith, quick to cut male or female who thought rough fun with the crippled girl was okay. Missy would get in her licks, as she acted scared; luring them in for a swift kick between the legs. It worked, male or female.

An adult’s mistake and their terrible duo had forever torn apart. War started between the “haves-and-have-nots,” Edith’s Builders against her own Crossers. How could that cause two friends to become lifelong enemies?

Okay, fix that right now.

“Dog will fetch the box. Hold it out.” When Missy watched squeamish Edith hold out the box, she could not resist a dig.

“He will only take a few fingers.”

“I still have my knife,” Edith said, unable to resist a dig of her own.

“Dog, fetch.”

Only a few heartbeats passed as Dog retrieved the box and returned to her side. Cat had followed him, no longer interested in Edith. Putting the box in her pocket, she thought she had better get going. She might be late.
Not like this,
she cautioned herself. She drew her worn rosary from her packet and held it in her right hand against the cane. She let the cross dangle forward so Edith would recognize it quickly.

“We should meet again, someplace a little less threatening. Do you know a place?”

“I know ‘the’ place,” Edith replied, never taking her eyes from the worn beads, as she remembered the chapel they shared as children.

“I thought you might remember. I’ll contact you soon.”

Missy knew if she were late, Colt and his girls would start hurting people and taking names until he either worked his way through the entire Council or found her. She drank water greedily from her metal water bottle as she moved back towards home.

* * *

As Missy and Edith ended their meeting, three quiet figures emerged from the west stairwell onto the second floor where the Crosser politicians had gathered to grill their Prime Minister. Colt and his ladies, two Special Operations soldiers, had arrived to protect Dr. Missy Painter-Richards from her peers.