Ellyssa wet her lips. “I am not sure. He could have been born at The Center. If he was, though, I would not have been informed of such matters.”
Jordan nodded, as if he’d expected as much.
“Why was he so far from home?” she asked.
The older man glanced at the doctor, who flipped his head in approval. “We have members in Chicago. They help us with supplies—food, medicine, other things. There are others in Kansas City, to help with delivery.”
She assumed “other things” were weapons, but she didn’t press the subject. No reason to. At this point, it really didn’t matter.
He looked over his shoulder at Rein. “I think it’s time.”
Rein pushed off the wall and came to help Jordan up from the chair.
Jumping to his feet, Mathew rubbed his hands together. “Excellent.”
Ellyssa’s eyebrows knotted together. “What?”
Jordan held his wrinkled hand out to her. “We thought it was time for you to see something beside the inside of this room. How would you like to meet the other residents?”
She stared at his outstretched fingers for a moment. The touching these people participated in was unnerving, but not unpleasant. It was something she’d have to get used to if she planned on staying.
The thought startled her.
Was that her plan? To live in a cave with Renegades? She’d considered the idea before, but not with such definitiveness. Unexpectedly, the idea felt somewhat…comforting and thrilling. Returning to The Center was not an option. She was a failed experiment and expendable. One thing her lessons had taught her, above everything else, was self-preservation.
Ellyssa took Jordan’s hand and curled her fingers around the meaty part of his palm.
Ellyssa walked beside Jordan, her fingers entwined within his, as they worked their way down the winding passages. She busied herself with memorizing the layout. Never hurts to be prepared. Long cables, like the ones running from the makeshift hospital, dangled from the ceiling and connected fluorescent tubes, spaced every four to six meters. Up ahead, the tunnel appeared to end.
“Is this it?”
Jordan chuckled. “No, there aren’t any lights in the section ahead.”
They rounded a corner into inky blackness. Blinded, she faltered.
Jordan tugged on her arm. “It’s okay.”
“What is this place?”
“This part is a coal mine, abandoned way before The War. We keep the hospital here, and some of our supplies, due to the drier air.” Jordan stopped and placed Ellyssa’s hand on the rocky surface. “We stay in a cavern. Follow the wall.”
With slow, careful steps, she did as instructed, until the wall fell away and her hand slipped through a fissure. Surprised, she gasped and stumbled forward, almost falling inside. Her shoulder scraped the rocky exposure.
The old man laughed and rested his hand on the small of her back. “Sorry. I should’ve warned you. You’ll get used to it. Like second nature,” Jordan said. “The fissure is large enough for you to fit through, but not two, side-by-side.” He slid his hand from her back to her wrist. “Rein, take her other hand to help guide her.”
Not liking the disorientation, she popped into each of the men’s heads to locate them. None of them had any ill intentions. She felt a large hand bump into her shoulder and slide down the side of her arm, making her skin tingle with a current like electricity. Shocked, she pulled away.
“It’s just me.” Rein’s voice floated at her from the darkness.
“Did you not feel that?” Ellyssa asked, clenching and unclenching her hand.
“Feel what?”
How could he not feel the tingle when he touched her? Confused, she frowned. “I-I do not know. Nothing.”
He found her again, his fingers grazing over the curve of her elbow to find her hand. The tingles followed. He interlaced his fingers with hers, and gave a squeeze. Warmth traveled up her arm and into her chest. Her heart responded. Unsettled, she clamped her mouth shut. The physiological responses his touch elicited frightened her.
“Rein’ll go first.”
As soon as Jordan spoke, Ellyssa was pulled inside, the same shoulder knocking into the edge again. She immediately felt the change. The previous openness disappeared, and the darkness pressed against her.
Was she insane? Trapped between a rocky enclosure and Renegades, and disoriented. They were at an advantage if she failed to pick any trap from their brains. Yet, here she was, trusting a group of outsiders she’d been conditioned to kill. Not in a million years would she have thought this possible.
The thin corridor snaked around bends and curves, growing cooler as they proceeded. The dryness of the air gave way to moisture. Like a computer, Ellyssa’s brain absorbed every detail. The steps. The temperature changes. The ambiance of the enclosure. She filed the information away.
After the last curve, the fissure opened wider and into a lighted room where fluorescents hung from the ceiling. The air in the open room was wetter, cooler, and carried a pleasant, mineral scent. Strange buzzing echoed through an opening ahead.
“The first settlers found it while exploring,” Jordan yelled over the din, between winded huffs. A greyish tint lingered under the older man’s pallor. “It ended up being a great hiding place during the initial raids.”
Impressed with the hard work completed over the years with limited resources, Ellyssa followed the three men into a smaller room, adjacent to the area with the fissure. The loud humming emitted from a large generator. Several secured cables snaked in from adjoining corridors and joined together at a center point, then spliced into the machine. She had often pondered how the electricity was supplied, but she had never expected such an elaborate setup.
The shock of seeing such technology stunned her. Although forced into caves, the people who rebelled were anything but barbaric. They were far from ignorant, and their ingenuity proved it. Once again, her father had been proven wrong.
Ellyssa circled the generator, studying it. “How do you keep such a machine running?”
“Battery packs charged by solar energy,” Jordan answered, his words drawn out as if he were tired.
He took a step toward Ellyssa and stumbled. She caught him, but barely. He felt so light in her arms, so fragile, like a frayed string.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Fine, maybe a little tired.” He chortled, as if embarrassed. “Doc, do you mind escorting me to my holey?”
Mathew moved his eyes between Ellyssa and Rein, then a grin she had trouble identifying appeared on his face. He winked at her. “No problem.” He took the back of their leader’s elbow and led him from the generator room.
Ellyssa waited for the echoes of their shoes against the rocky ground to disappear before she turned her attention to Rein. “Is he going to be all right?”
“He’s getting up there in years.”
She nodded, understanding that the settlers of this area didn’t have the medical advancements, nor the superior genes, that helped prolong life.
“Solar energy batteries?” Ellyssa asked, indicating the machine.
Rein pointed at a power pack, roughly the size of a processor. “We have three of those. While one is working, the other two are being charged.”
“But…maintenance?”
“We keep up-to-date.”
“How?” she asked.
“The Resistance,” Rein said quickly, as if he didn’t want to elaborate.
Ellyssa could have easily picked it from his brain, but she didn’t. If she were to stay in this type of society, she’d have to learn to trust them, along with earning trust from them.
Rein walked over to the machine and knelt next to the battery. “See this red line?” He pointed at an indicator stretching across the expanse of the machine. It was lit to a halfway mark. The red haze highlighted his cheekbones and tinted his dark hair.