Outside her subcar she could hear laughter of children as a family walked by. Sometimes she wondered if things would’ve been any different if she’d had children. Mark would’ve been a horrible father, though; he was too selfish and controlling.
So many times he’d reminded her of her own father, who was a strict disciplinarian. Perhaps that’s why she stayed with Mark so long — he was familiar. She was never special, just another girl child to help work on the farm. Her hopes and dreams were ignored.
She once wanted to be a teacher. Heather used to dream at night of finishing high school and going off to college for a degree in teaching. Her teachers supported her ideas, but her father told her to forget about it, that it would never happen for her.
With such little caring from her family, it was no wonder that she was willing to escape to anywhere just to get away.
She looked at her watch. She needed to call the other tribe leaders and tell them how things had gone at the meeting. Pulling out one of the communicators that the Drastans had given them, she pressed a button and spoke into it.
“Connect a conference call.”
The communicator had an interactive voice similar to the pre-disaster smart phones. “Who do you want on the conference call?”
She listed the names of the tribe leaders in her city of Boston. “Jerry Lee, Ricky O’Donnell, Phillip Taylor, Reggie Cook, and...Mark Bates.” There were more tribe leaders in other cities with subway systems, but she hadn’t met them.
She wished she could’ve left Mark out of it, but unfortunately he was one of the tribe leaders. He, like Leonard, was pissed that she’d gotten the majority of the vote to represent the tribes with the dome leaders and the Drastans. The call connected.
“Hello, is everyone on?” she asked.
Each one answered.
“This is Phillip…”
“Reggie here.”
“I’m on, it’s Ricky.”
“It’s Jerry.”
She hesitated before asking, “Is Mark on?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Okay. Well, I met with the dome leaders, and they agreed to our ideas about building apartments throughout the tunnels, the markets for trade, and expanding the subway lines to the rest of the world. Jerry, why don’t you tell everyone the progress you’ve made so far with your district.”
Jerry spent the next ten minutes going over everything that had been accomplished. He answered the questions thrown at him about the construction, and she tried her best to answer questions regarding the Drastans’ willingness to help.
Mark snorted. “Sure, they offer food, medicine, better places for us to sleep — but no weapons to defend ourselves.”
Heather was furious at his ingratitude. “They didn’t come here to give us more weapons so we could finish of the job of killing our species.”
Phillip interrupted them before they could get into a full-blown argument. “I understand the greenhouses will provide great fruit and vegetation, but what are we going to do for sources of dairy and protein?”
Jerry answered, “We have a botanist here who says we can grow soy products. Combine that with the MREs that we can trade for with the domes, and we’d have plenty to survive the next five decades until the surface of our planet is livable again.”
“What about clean air? I for one am getting sick of all the dust,” Ricky complained.
“The new apartments have heating and air conditioning, along with some kind of air purifier,” Jerry explained.
“If the Drastans leave, how will we get treatments for lack of nutrients and further radiation exposure? I don’t want to have to go to the domes every time we need medical treatment.”
Heather answered Reggie’s concern. “I’ll talk to Commander Estro to make sure that they leave medical supplies for us. It’s going to be important that we have someone from each tribe get medical training as well so that they know how to treat our people properly.”
“I’m sure you could convince him to give us a few of those laser guns too. Just sleep with him,” Mark suggested.
If he was there in front of her she would’ve punched him. She didn’t didn’t even bother to respond. “The commander will be here in a few days when the work on my district begins. I’ll talk to him about the air purifiers. Let me know if your districts are in need of anything.”
“Thank you, Heather, for taking the lead on this,” Jerry said.
“No problem.” She ended the communication. Laying down on the bench she used for her bed, she closed her eyes and prayed that sleep would claim her. She was simply exhausted. A few hours of undisturbed sleep would do her a world of good. A peace settled over her, but it was short-lived as pounding on the side of her subcar soon had her sitting back up.
“Heather! We have a situation that needs your attention!”
Well, shit! Sleep would have to wait — duty came first. By the time she was done resolving issues, it was close to midnight. She didn’t even bother putting on her night clothes, just slumped down on her bench and closed her eyes. Images of Devlon, naked and doing naughty things to her, invaded her mind. Too tired to fight her wayward thoughts, she fell asleep aroused and in need.
