Out the corner of her eye, Naya saw them look at each other, uncertain if they could believe her.
"Have you eaten?" she asked.
Sara nodded vigorously. "Cook made a porridge. Better than I've had in a long time, said there would always be a hot pot in the dining room of building C and to eat our fill."
"Couldn't believe it," Tee said.
Looking at the two quiet blondes who were regarding her cautiously, she asked them, "What about you? Have you eaten?"
Tee pointed at the girl next to her. "This is Ann, and this is Nor. They can't talk. They do hand signals. I only learned a little. They understand everything you say, but don't talk. Not dumb, though." Tee was showing herself to be a bit of an imp. She lowered her voice. "They played dumb with Tenbel ‘cause they are just that smart."
"Tee," Sara warned.
Naya smiled at them. "I'd let you go. You're all free, you know. But I guess no one's free in this sector and it's not safe for you without an owner. Is that right?"
Sara nodded. "The Second Alpha is seeing about collars for us so we can go to the market and not be bothered. I guess he kept only a couple of male drones."
"Yes. Collars. Ugh. This sector is really horrible, then?" She wanted the answer to be different, wanted them to say there were bright spots.
But the drones looked at their feet.
"Were you born here? All of you?"
They nodded. Tee pointed to herself, Ann, and Nor. "Farm."
Naya closed her eyes. She must mean a slave farm where drones were bred like cattle.
Should she apologize? She felt guilty that her life had been easy, guilty that Monster had made the horror of these drones’ lives possible. She didn't know why yet and didn't know if his answer would be an excuse she could accept.
These drones, these people, hadn't deserved the injustice of this inhumane, horrible treatment. What excuse could anyone give?
Now there was nowhere to go but forward. She'd have to figure out how to navigate this situation. There was no turning back from their bond and she didn't want to try. Reconciling the reality of living with the Mad Monster of Sector 2 was going to take some careful stepping, like walking on slippery rocks in a wet stream and trying not to fall in.
"I'm sorry for that. Not that it matters or changes things." She sighed. "All right. If you can, tea, breakfast, laundry, and…" Naya frowned. "I'm not to leave the room. How do I wash? There's no toilet."
"Oh!" Tee said. There were filled baskets on the floor at her feet as well as something metal. She lifted it up for Naya to see. "Bucket!"
Naya's face fell flat. He was such a beast.
*
"If I'm going to be stuck in one room, this room isn't big enough," Naya declared, surveying the work they'd accomplished. There were now two lamp stands and a small table, plus another standing rack for Naya's clothes.
The cold, empty aesthetic of the room warmed with rugs on the floor, one of them an Old World, hand-woven beauty that had survived centuries of feet. Naya quite liked the look of it, so she put it where she wouldn't be walking on it all the time.
The women had been a great help. At the end of the hall, one of the guards—an alpha named Alreck—would take their requests, tell them where or how to get something, or shout down the elevator shaft for someone else to take care of it. All morning her helpers had been running back and forth to Alreck.
Tee, Ann, and Nor had made multiple trips down the stairs to go talk to the kitchens and seemed none the worse for wear. Their youthful cheeks were pink and brows sweaty for the effort. Naya kept asking if the girls wanted a rest or something to drink.
She’d asked for new bedding, but when it arrived it smelled strange, so it would need washing before Naya was willing to exchange it for the old.
With an archaic system for cleaning clothing, washing anything here in Sector 2 took ten times longer than at home. No electricity. Things had to be air-dried. There were wood fire stoves in some of the buildings, from what she was told, and the kitchen had a hot room to dry things, but it would still take hours.
Water for cleaning came from the roof cistern and had to be hauled in and out with buckets. Daily tasks that were simple at home were complicated in Sector 2.
Resources were limited. Fabrics such as cotton and linen, Naya learned, were very hard to come by. Most drones had one set of clothing and guarded it carefully. There was wool, leather, and other animal byproducts. Since trade was limited, there were few manufactured items. Everything came from farms or the wilds of the Un.
There was no formal sector market. No place where simple niceties and common luxuries could be found. The drones mentioned an underground market, but it was dangerous and expensive.
