LEGACY BETRAYED by Rachel Eastwood Read Free Book Online Page A

newsworthy young woman.”
                  “Oh?” Kaizen said, radiating nonchalance.
                  “Can you guess who it might be?”
                  “I’m afraid I can’t.”
                  Dyna grinned. So much going on under that regalia, isn’t there? “Exa Legacy,” she went on. “And you know, darling, I’m juggling so many cover-ups as of late, one of these stories is bound to hit the floor. And break. ”
                  There was a pause. “What do you want?”
                  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Dyna answered, as if she had the whole of New Earth from which to choose. She already had a beautiful home in Lion’s Head. Already had fame. Already had influence. Had the duke in the palm of her hand, even. Then it hit her. A flowery title. She was, after all, Dyna Logan, anchorwoman, of all things. Augh. “Are there any women of the royal court?”she answered him. “I would like to be brought forth as an advisor to the crown. Public relations and media, shall we say? Yes. I want to attend court. Oh, and some silk. An entire crate of the stuff.”
                  Kaizen sighed. “There’s been some workman issues on Old Earth, Dyna. I don’t know if I can get an entire crate right now.”
                  “Yes, you do,” Dyna went on, crossing her legs. “And you can.”
     
    There were workman issues on the surface of Old Earth, indeed. The miners had been without their cocktail of Kill Curiosity and Calm the Nerves for five days now. They would soon be two doses behind, but the shortage of manpower in Icarus had caused delays in relief for the staff below. Words and feelings, meanwhile, were surging to the surface of every N.E.E.R. resident like inflated things, pinned at the bottom of a body of water and then released.
    In the scramble to equip the units with cameras and locks, it wasn’t difficult for Coal to meet her neighbors. In fact, it was incredibly easy. They were all named Coal.
    “I don’t want to be named Coal anymore,” one man piped.
    “I don’t think I even like coal that much,” someone else agreed.
    “Shh,” Coal 106 begged, clearing her throat. “Even without the locks –we can’t have that much time.”
    She’d only just become aware of the passage of time, but now more than ever, it did seem extremely important.
    “We wonder why we work, and I think that’s clear,” she went on. “We work for coal. Or whatever else we do. Stuff. We’re here to move or make the stuff.”
    “But we don’t use it,” Coal 111 pointed out. “We don’t use anything, really. Just a hose with some water and a gray bag. Our masks. Our shots. We don’t even have lights.”
    The group shifted at the mention of these things, suddenly aware of how uncomfortable they were. Although this group was small – ten or fifteen of the miners in this particular complex – these same meetings were occurring simultaneously and spontaneously throughout the dome.
    “Let’s be thankful there are no lights right now,” Coal 106 disagreed.
    “But there are lights,” Coal 129 said. “There are lights where we get our shots. There are lights where we get hosed down. There are lights sometimes. We see the lights on the cars, too, that come and go sometimes.”
    “Yes! The cars!” Coal 106 got too excited and coughed deeply. Several people glared about to see if there was movement in the hall beyond, but none came. “The cars take the stuff we do, and where do they go? If we’re not using anything, who is? Who’s getting all this stuff?”
    “The land in the sky,” Coal 129 whispered. “I’ve seen them come and go from beneath there.”
    “How does it get up there, then?” Coal 106 asked. “How does it get up there, while we’re stuck here?”
    “We’ll have to find out,” Coal 111 said. “Because they must know, right? They know when it comes and goes. Otherwise,