Page 89 of The Artist
Always the diplomat, Jonah attempted to ease the tension. “Show some grace, Thor. Maybe Victor feels alone in this group. He’s under a lot of pressure.”
“Victor, I hope you know we consider you our friend.” Freya reached out to touch his shoulder, but Victor moved back as if disgusted by her touch. It once again made me wonder if something had happened between them that the rest of us didn’t know about.
At the same time Thor, Aubri, and Mason scoffed out loud, in what I assumed was a protest against Freya’s words that Victor was their friend.
Jonah watched the situation with a frown before his eyes landed on me. Maybe Jonah expected me to show Victor respect or kindness, but I was done pretending to be friends with someone who had always made me feel unworthy.
A dip in altitude made my belly do a flip. The drone was getting closer to our destination and soon my future would be decided. Automatically, my hand went to my stomach with the clear hope that I would get to keep my baby.
CHAPTER 24
Belle’s Room
Mason
I half expected armed soldiers to be standing ready when we arrived, but when we disembarked we were met by a single representative from the government who instructed us to park our large drone in a dedicated area in the sky. We had already coordinated from home that all five of us Northlanders had access to the control panel and could call the drone down when we needed it. With modern drones being fueled by solar and wind energy, it was self-sufficient and could hover in the air for as long as we needed it to.
It was seven o’clock and the winter night was dark without any snow to reflect the moonlight. As we stood on the outskirts of the city the tall buildings loomed over us like gigantic black trees without crowns.
Thor quickly got into an argument with the old, stiff bureaucrat who insisted that the Prime Minister would meet with Victor, Thor, Jonah and no one else.
“We’re all going,” Thor insisted because we had agreed not to let them split us up.
“Thor, how about you and I meet with the Prime Minister first and see if we can make this an enjoyable visit?” Jonah suggested. “In the meanwhile, the others could go with Belle, who offered to show where she lives.”
I had been to Old Europe four times, but at every summit the tight program had left no time to explore the country on our own.
With around one point two million citizens, Old Europe was the same size as our capital Freeman, which in my lifetime had tripled in size.
It was fun to see Belle take the lead for the first time. After Victor had gone with Thor and Jonah to meet the prime minister, she was more relaxed and steered us through the streets. As a tour guide Belle explained about the city and pointed out details that no one had ever explained to us before.
“See all the circles in the pavement? That’s thick glass that allows light to shine through to the street underneath us. The architects have done a great job at making the air and light channels as invisible as possible, but they’re everywhere if you know what to look for. Oh, and do you see that tall building in the distance, the one with the triangle-shaped top with the blue light? That’s where Victor lives. It’s the tallest building we have, and you can see it from all across town. There’s been a lot of complaining from the people who live there because they were forced to take in roommates. I heard a rumor that it was an act of revenge from the Director of Housing. She’s been vocal about the underfunding of her department for years. The Blue Tower, as we locals call the building, is the fanciest address you can have. The people who live there are mostly government officials and celebrities. When the government tried to shut the Director of Housing up, she assigned the blue building to take in emergency residents.”
Aubri grinned and linked her arm with Belle. “Good for her. I’ll bet if Khan was forced to share his bedroom with a stranger, he would fix whatever problem caused it, real fast.”
“There are ten gates to the underground part of the country. I try to stay above ground as long as I can and usually go to the gate closest to my house. But since you wanted to see how we live underground, let’s take this one.” Belle pointed down the street to a curved opening with a sign glowing in an orange color sayingAthens.
“Each district is named after a city in Old Europe. I live in Rome. Come on.” She waved for us to continue just as a group of three women stopped and stared up at me and Indiana.
Indiana smiled. “Hello, ladies.”
“Stop flirting, will you?” Aubri let go of Belle and pushed Indiana along while Freya and I kept close to Belle, who was walking fast. Once we were through the gate, we descended twenty steps and were presented with different options.
“We are now at level one. There are three more levels to go down by using either escalators, elevators, or staircases. The lowest level holds maintenance functions like recycling and water purification stations. There are no apartments down there.”
“What’s the story behind the underground city again?” Indiana asked.
Belle answered with a patient smile. “Before the Toxic War, Europe was a continent with many different countries. The location we’re in right now was part of a country called France. Luckily for us, they had a prime minister who many considered paranoid. A few years before the war he convinced his government to build a large number of interconnected survival bunkers. As far as we know they had the capacity of a few thousand people with laboratories, medical facilities, and food supplies. There was even an agricultural grand hall. For years scientists worked on ways to prepare for a potential disaster while important people were put on a list that would grant them access to the bunkers in case of an emergency. The irony is that few of those people made it down there. In the end the people who survived were primarily the ones hired to keep the place ready, which were biologists, doctors, vets, urban farmers, and others.” Belle waved a hand at the area in front of us. “From here we can go straight ahead to the many stores and restaurants on level one. If it was still day outside you would see light shining through the ceiling above us.”
Streetlights hung and provided a cozy light that wasn’t much different from the street above ground.
“I want to go deeper.” Freya was already moving to the escalator.
“All right. Level two and three are similar, so let’s go to level three where I live.” Belle waved a hand for the rest of us to go ahead.
The thing that hit me the most emphatically as we stood on the escalator descending further underground was the change in air quality. There was a breeze, but it was coming from large ventilators on the walls, and the air down here felt heavy and smelled weird.
Once on the third level we walked through a neighborhood with colorful doors.
