Page 32 of Barbarian Daddies

The rest of the conversation fades as they turn the northern corner—my corner, without noticing me. I breathe a sigh of relief and carefully grab onto the vine, tugging it a few times to make sure it won’t snap with me on it. It feels safe, so I climb down with slow and steady inhales. Once I get to the fence, I’ll need to figure out a way to go over it. And once I’m in the street…

What the fuck am I gonna do then?

14

Cynthia

My sensible side would have headed straight for one of the city gates. I’ve learned enough about the service doors to know when to sneak through. I would’ve found a cloak somewhere, a piece of fabric in a trashcan, anything, really, and I would’ve found a way out of the city. I’m small enough to hide and move freely, especially at night. Mina has told me enough about the mercenaries’ movements, so I know what neighborhoods to avoid.

But she also confirmed that the research lab is where we knew it to be, and that I could get inside with some caution. So the devilish side of me has taken over.

Who the hell needs common sense, Cynthia? You’re here, anyway. You might as well check out the place and go home with some useful intel. Make this entire ordeal worth something. Those Hadana fighters can’t have died for nothing.

My heart aches as I sneak through the side alleys, sticking to the shadows.

I make sure to stay hidden when I hear footsteps nearby. I keep out of the light. I’m fast and organized, planning my movements like a chess master across the board until I reach the research building. It isn’t far from Selina’s palace, and it’s heavily guarded. I’m safe behind a boxed blackwood tree, watching and waiting for the guards near the side entrance to move.

In the meantime, my mind wanders back to Kai and Maur. I hope they’re okay. Deep in my heart, I can almost feel them. I can almost feel their hearts throbbing and hurting for mine. Their souls are searching for mine, reaching out. I just don’t know how to reach out in response, to make them sense me, to reassure them, to tell them I’m coming.

I shake the thoughts away and make my move as soon as the giant Sky Tribe mercenaries go around the building on one of their hourly rounds. I took the butterknife with me. Maybe it’ll come in handy.

Upon reaching the door, however, the dismay quickly overwhelms me. The butterknife is useless. The door’s lock is too small. I can’t do anything with it. I gasp as it swings open, damn near smacking me in the face. I jump back and hold my breath, watching a third guard come out and glide down the side steps without even looking back.

This is my chance. I take it and sneak in. The door closes behind me.

Holy hell, I did it.

I wander through the ground-floor hallways first, reading the framed announcements and memos on the walls, the guidance signs and the map of the building meant to be used in case of emergency. They seem to follow protocols similar to Earth’s in terms of architecture, equipment, and logistics, which is good because I think I know where to go next.

Every research lab has a sample storage room, an archive room, offices and various technical spaces. I’m interested in the archive room right now. It may provide a history of all the work done prior to this particular era of Sunnaite civilization, so I check the signs on every door until I reach the basement. Figures.

It’s cool and dark down here, but there are some lights mounted on the walls that stop me from bumping into things. The less noise I make, the better. I find the archive room at the end of a long and narrow hallway. It isn’t locked, so I’m starting to think the universe really wanted me to come here. Still as quiet as a mouse, I start going through the boxes of printed and hand-written documents. They used to have printers aplenty, but electricity is scarce even in the city nowadays—let alone out where the Fire Tribe folks live.

I’m perusing research files when I stumble across the first mention of the plague. Up to that point, the medics of Sunna had only dealt with mild disease, the occasional flesh-eating bacteria, and various cancer forms, though none as widespread as what we have on Earth. From what I’ve read in the Tallas archives, Sunna’s atmosphere and intense volcanic activity is not exactly a breeding ground for the countless viruses and bacteria on my home world, so when the plague hit, it really was a terrible surprise.

The problem is, this wasn’t the first time a plague ravaged Sunna.

It’s happened in past centuries, but never at such a high and devastating level. There were different circumstances this time around, and the more I read about it, the more worried I am that the Fire Tribe’s theories might be on to something. The origin of the plague can be traced back to the settlements around the Kaos Volcano. From there, it spread north and all over the continent.

“They’ve got researchers on file, too,” I mumble, coming across sealed documents.

I love sealed documents. They usually contain the type of information that was never released to the public. Illegal research experiments, heinous drug trials, that kind of stuff. About an hour later, I find a familiar name at the top of one such file.

“Senek Sharuk,” I whisper, then go over the personal details of who I gather to have been a renowned and highly respected biophysicist at the forefront of studying the plague. He was, in fact, one of the first on the ground at Kaos Volcano when the strain was first identified. “Selina is his daughter.”

And Selina has been keeping one hell of a secret.

Only her father knew about it, and he took it with him to the grave.

“Un-fucking-believable,” I mumble, turning the pages as I devour every line. Selina was born without a womb. That’s why she never got sick, even though Sharuk knew she had direct contact with infected women, including her mother. So, the plague is specifically targeting Sunnaite women with wombs who are able to bear children.

And according to Sharuk’s notes, he was convinced someone had engineered the viral strain, though he couldn’t point to a particular suspect. There were various fundamentalists who preached doomsday theories and whatnot, but none had the resources or the knowledge to develop something like this. He was skeptical of it being a natural phenomenon, and the scientist in me is inclined to agree, though without any additional evidence, nothing can be said for certain.

But knowing Selina doesn’t have a womb sure helps us in the long run. That’s information she would kill to keep secret. In Sunnaite society, a woman without a womb isn’t a woman. They cherish the reproductive organ more than the woman herself, and she has been at least partially responsible for proliferating this ideology. It’s painfully ironic, given her own physical condition. It does make sense, though—why she opted for a military career, why she’s never taken mates, why she cemented her position as a general and made herself untouchable.

No one dares try and force her into the breeding program. She devised it. She earned her seat at the grownups table, and she will kill anybody who tries to keep her down. But if anybody were to find out about her condition, she would lose the respect of her peers. They would figure her out, they would understand why she did what she did, and their core beliefs would be shaken and broken beyond repair. She may even lose her followers, of whom there are plenty among the Sky Tribe from what Mina has told me.

With trembling fingers, I pull the file out of its cover, then fold it neatly and shove it into my dress pocket, along with a few pages about Kaos research and other details that might come in handy later down the road. I need to show these to the Fire Tribe. They need to know and organize their campaign accordingly. Most importantly, all the people of Sunna need to know.

---