Page 18 of The Sin

I knew what an undercover spy was.

But did Roman know how closely he’d scraped against the truth?

Was it an intentional slip to trip me up?

Because that’s what I was in this marriage, in our home. I was a Sister of Capra disguised as a slightly off-kilter, stubborn and spoilt but moderately acceptable St. Ives graduate.

I watched Roman like a hawk from the corner of my eye, my heart slowly ramping up its beats. But he barely glanced my way again as he navigated the roads. Unless he had eyes in the side of his head, he wasn’t watching for my reaction.

We passed through the Legislative District, where I’d grown up, and then into the Quantum Zone. Here the homes were boxy and the streets were all symmetrical, as if the entire suburb had been designed on grid paper. We stayed on the main road, the side streets flashing by as we rode deeper into the zone, leaving the residential area behind for large buildings that each took up an entire block on their own.

The Quantum Zone was our main technology hub for research and development. This was where they researched the cure for the fertility plague. This was where they’d refined the IVF treatments until it was now 80% effective.

I stared out the window at the sterile white and glass buildings. I’d never been this deep into the zone. It wasn’t a forbidden area, it just wasn’t particularly interesting. The Bohemian Quarter was my favorite.

Tonight, there still wasn’t anything of interest to see from the outside. Inside, however…one of these sterile facilities housed our precious store of frozen ovarian eggs. Some huge walk-in storage freezer. Or perhaps many smaller freezers in many buildings. The supply had already lasted us 95 years. How many more years did we have before every last egg was gone?

Female reproductive systems no longer worked naturally. Our eggs were rotten. The entire purpose of Capra, of the Eastern Coalition, was to fix nature. To fix us. Until then, all we had was the limited supply that had been saved from the old world.

Which was an irony in itself.

Both the Puritans and the Evolutionists agreed: whether it was a plague brought down on us by God or Mother Nature. The fact that so many women had harvested and banked their frozen eggs because they were always too busy to get on with procreating was our downfall. Now that very act was all that saved the human race.

It was something to think about.

And something to worry about. “You said Sector Five was a trading post. What is traded?”

“Mostly necessities, and some luxuries.” He shot me a look. “The barons formed empires around their plantations, ranches and mines. There’s the Corn Baron, the Cattle Baron, the Tabaco Baron…you get the picture.”

He turned his eyes back to the road as the streetlights dimmed behind us. We were beyond the Quantum Zone, travelling on a dark road that cut through forest.

I shifted in my seat to study him in profile in the ambient light from the truck’s headlights. A trade goes both ways. “What do we give the barons?”

His jaw clenched, as if he were crunching down on his back teeth. “Technology. Medicines.”

That wasn’t all.

I knew it in my bones.

Roman had told me something of what the Outerlanders would do to me if I crossed that bridge.

The baron will have first rights to you. You’ll be handed to him in exchange for coin or favors. If he likes you, he’ll add you to his harem, otherwise you’ll be a reward for one of his trusted men. Once you’re used up, you’ll be passed on to the dwellers for breeding which the baron will be happy to pay for.

I’d seen the children for myself.

You’ll be passed on to the dwellers for breeding.

The baron will be happy to pay.

“That’s not all we trade, is it?” My voice was thin, shaved with accusation. “We trade from our frozen store of eggs.”

He took a long moment before replying. “The Eastern Coalition has farming land, but we produce mainly vegetables and fruit. For everything else, we rely on trades. We wouldn’t survive without the barons.”

“So we do trade our eggs in exchange for commodities.”

He dipped his head my way, not taking his eyes off the road. “We do.”

And this, right here, was why I couldn’t trust Roman’s truths. Why I had to see for myself. He wouldn’t have mentioned the frozen eggs unless I’d challenged him on it. And how was I supposed to challenge his truths when I didn’t know what I didn’t know?

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