A Rumor of Real Irish Tea (Annals of Altair Book 2) Read online

  A Rumor of Real Irish Tea

  Annals of Altair Book 2

  Kate Stradling

  A Rumor of Real Irish Tea

  Copyright © 2019 by Kate Stradling

  katestradling.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written consent of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner.

  Published by

  Eulalia Skye Press

  P.O. Box 2203, Mesa, AZ 85214

  eulaliaskye.com

  For the Olivers and Emilys

  of the world,

  may you find what you seek

  Contents

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  About the Author

  Also by Kate Stradling

  I

  Tail between the Legs

  Monday, July 28, 2053, 5:24am mdt, in transit

  The low, constant thrum of an airplane engine droned in Emily Brent’s ears. She half-heartedly tried to ignore it, but after three weeks in confinement, she was actually grateful for such white noise. It meant that she was moving forward, finally cleared of wrongdoing and going home. After three weeks, she could hardly believe it.

  Her gaze strayed across the aisle to a reclined chair and the sleeping ten-year-old who occupied it. Oliver hadn’t fared much better than her. He had been in the room next to hers, a silent creature left to self-study and retrospection. They hadn’t seen much of one another, and she was surprised by how much relief she felt every time she caught a glimpse of him.

  Oliver had gotten tangled in this mess because of her. There was nothing she could ever do to make it up to him.

  But then, it wasn’t entirely her fault.

  It was hard not to be bitter about the circumstances that had spoiled her first month as an intern with the Prometheus Institute. It wasn’t her fault that she had been assigned to work with Oliver, or that he had been summoned to help with a “problem” at Prom-F the same morning that she got on the train to meet him. It wasn’t her fault that she had been sent across the country without so much as a toothbrush. She may have sought out this job, but all the promotional literature indicated that her assignment would be in one location. How could she be expected to traipse around from place to place without any advance notice?

  It wasn’t her fault.

  If she were to blame anyone, it would be the Wests. Right now those four children were the bane of Emily’s existence. If not for the Wests, she and Oliver would be tucked snugly in their beds at Prometheus-A in New York, never the wiser that the Government-Civilian Alliance had holding cells in each regional office. Emily could have gone a lifetime without discovering that detail.

  After three weeks the Wests were still at large, too. Her only contact with the outside world during her confinement had come in the form of a television attuned to the National Public News Network. The disappearance of Maddie and Alex North—Honey and Happy West, really, and Emily would be glad if she never saw their devilishly angelic faces again—was reported multiple times throughout the day. No mention was ever made of the two older boys, but if Honey and Happy were still out there, Hawk and Hummer were with them.

  It didn’t matter, Emily told herself for the thousandth time in the last three weeks. It didn’t matter what the Wests did. They were gone, and the GCA would continue to chase them until they caught up with them, but Emily and Oliver were done. They had both been disgraced—Emily more so than Oliver—and now, exonerated at long last, they were going home.

  At least, that’s what they had been told. Nervously her gaze flitted to the front of the cabin where a black-suited agent sat on guard, and then to the back, where another wiled away his time reading a magazine. She and Oliver had both been roused in the middle of the night—just after two, the clock on the wall told her—and informed that they had finally been cleared to go home.

  In the scant time they were given to get ready, the agents returned their belongings to them. Emily received with mixed feelings the tailored pants and white shirt she had worn for the first week of her travels. In confinement she had been given a set of GCA coveralls to wear, and it was difficult not to resent being treated like a prisoner. At the same time, though, her clothes had gotten her into this mess: it was while in search of a new set that she’d fallen into the nefarious clutches of Honey West. That encounter had landed her trussed in duct tape and under suspicion for conspiracy to aid fugitive minors. Her returned clothes were clean now, but she wanted nothing more than to dump them into an incinerator.

  She was wearing them for the moment, though. It wouldn’t do to show up back at Prometheus in a prison-style jumpsuit.

  Once dressed, she had shuffled into a waiting car alongside Oliver. He kept a sullen silence throughout the ride to the airport. Emily didn’t begrudge him it. He had every excuse to hate her and no reason whatsoever to engage their driver or escorts in chatty conversation.

  His taciturn demeanor also stemmed from a second source: he was conditioned to a strict routine that did not include middle-of-the-night awakenings, a fact made readily apparent by his drooping eyelids. He fell back asleep right after takeoff, unconcerned with what was happening around him.

  Emily envied him for that. The last month had been like something out of a nightmare, and she couldn’t quell that inner suspicion that it wasn’t over yet. It shouldn’t have taken so long to arrange a flight back to New York. She thought about all the little conspiracy theories she’d encountered over her lifetime, especially the ones about secret government internment camps and people disappearing in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. She had never been one to entertain such paranoia.

  But then, she had never known the GCA could hold citizens in confinement for weeks on end, either.

  “Paranoid,” she muttered, as though to quell her twisted inner monologue. The guard at the front of the cabin looked up. Coincidence, Emily thought as she averted her eyes. There was no way he could have heard her over the thrum of the engines. She needed to stop being so anxious. The guard wasn’t watching her every move, and the GCA wasn’t squirreling her and Oliver away to some unknown pit for the rest of their lives.

  A mere twenty minutes later, though, the intercom chimed and the captain’s voice announced their impending descent. Emily’s heart dropped into her stomach. A flight to New York would have taken longer than two hours. If this was their final destination, she and Oliver weren’t going back to Prom-A.

  Her fists clenched against the armrests as the plane landed. All of the windows were covered and she hadn’t dared to flip any of their shades up, but a thread of pale light shone at the bottom of them. It was close to dawn.

  Her anxiety grew as the plane taxied and came to a full stop. When the seatbelt icon finally switched off, the two GCA escorts proceeded to the front of the cabin to open the door. Emi
ly gingerly arose and shook the still-sleeping Oliver by his shoulder. He didn’t respond.

  “Oliver,” she whispered.

  Briefly he stirred, but nothing more.

  “Oliver, we’re here. It’s time to get up.”

  He batted away the hand on his shoulder.

  “Oliver Henry Dunn, if you don’t wake up right now I’m telling everyone that Hummer West is a thousand times smarter than you are.”

  His dark eyes shot open and his lips parted to protest a hot denial.

  “There you are,” Emily said before he could utter a word. “We’re here. It’s time to get off the plane.”

  There was this one moment in the day, right when Oliver was waking up, that he acted human. Emily watched it pass with some meager satisfaction before his sullen façade slipped into place. He recoiled from her in seeming disgust, flung away the blanket, and said a very disgruntled, “About time,” as though he had been waiting eons for the plane to land.

  Emily didn’t have the heart to tell him that they weren’t in New York and that she had no idea where they were. He would figure it out soon enough. Anemic light spilled from the open door ahead as Oliver snatched up his bag and trundled forward between the empty rows. Emily followed behind, watching, waiting for the truth to dawn on him.

  He stopped just short of the door. A breath of silence passed, and then, “What is this?” He whirled on her, glaring as though she had been the one to orchestrate all of their travels. “What are we doing back here?”

  Back here. The words echoed in Emily’s mind as she edged forward. “I don’t know,” she said sedately. Through the open doorway she caught glimpse of a gray pre-dawn sky and the restricted government terminal of the airport in Great Falls, Montana. “I don’t know,” she said again, more bewildered this time.

  The two agents by the door exchanged a telling glance. “Your ride is waiting,” one of them said in a callous voice.

  Oliver was furious. “You said you were sending us home! What’s the meaning of this? What are we doing here?”

  “Oliver, just go,” Emily said quietly. She couldn’t stop the slight tremor in her voice, but she knew well enough not to protest to their apathetic escorts. It was a waste of breath to say anything to them. Surely Oliver would understand that much.

  To her utmost relief, he did. The outrage on his face contorted into contempt. He favored them all—and Emily most particularly—with a malevolent sneer, but then he wordlessly stomped out the doorway and down the stairs to the black tarmac below. Emily didn’t bother a glance toward either agent as she followed. They didn’t care how she felt. No one cared. She was a puny underling who would do as she was told or be abandoned and replaced.

  As she stepped carefully down the last stair, her eyes traveled to the waiting car and the familiar figure beside it. Maggie Lloyd had met them here on their first trip to Prometheus-F, too. Round-faced and dumpy as ever, she raised one hand in a lackluster greeting. Emily feebly returned the wave.

  This had to be some sort of hiccup. Oliver was a fixture at Prom-A, had lived there practically his whole life. Perhaps some news of the Wests had been received and caused the flight this morning to be rerouted. It wasn’t as though anyone would tell Emily or Oliver such a detail.

  Oliver had already crossed the tarmac to the car, anger in his every step. Maggie popped the trunk in time for him to fling his bag inside. Emily watched his retreat into the back seat, apprehensive of the two-plus-hours’ car ride that lay ahead.

  “Good morning,” said Maggie as Emily drew near. “Toss your things in the trunk and we’ll be on our way.”

  Emily wanted to ask what was going on, why they had been brought again to Prom-F. Instead she quietly followed orders and climbed into the back seat next to Oliver. Maggie closed the trunk and crossed around to the driver’s seat.

  “All buckled in, hmm?” she asked as she adjusted the rearview mirror to peer into the back seat. She had waxed the unsightly hairs from her upper lip. It must be a special day indeed, Emily thought snidely.

  Oliver started complaining before the car was even in gear. “They said this morning that we were going home. What are we doing here? I thought I’d been taken off the West case.”

  Maggie’s brows arched. “Well, I’m sure it’s only temporary,” she said in a diplomatic voice. “You were loaned to Prom-F until the Wests were retrieved, so the system still has you under our custody. You know how this government red tape is.”

  If he didn’t before this ordeal, he surely had to know by now. Emily shifted her gaze out the window to keep from rolling her eyes outright. Three weeks in confinement had been an enlightening experience. According to the GCA agents that had watched over them, most of that time had been spent waiting for someone to approve their transfer notice back to Prometheus. If the transfer from Prom-F back to Prom-A took anywhere near as long, Oliver would probably burst a vein.

  “Have you been keeping up with your homework, Oliver?” Maggie asked in that fake-friendly voice that grown-ups often used with children. “I know they sent your assignments along, but I heard you weren’t allowed any electronic devices.”

  Oliver made an irritated noise. “They gave me a notebook and pencil. It’s all done and ready to be graded.”

  “Is that what they had you doing?” Emily asked. She was jealous—all she’d had was NPNN and her own thoughts to distract her from her surroundings. She’d nearly died of boredom several times over.

  A crusty glare was the only answer she received, and she recalled that Oliver despised her with enough energy to keep the western coast lit up for a decade. She snapped her mouth shut and turned her attention back out the window.

  “Good, good,” Maggie continued, seemingly oblivious that Emily was even in the car, let alone that she had spoken. “We’ll give it to your teachers to check when we arrive. I have an envelope here with your class schedule—”

  “Class schedule?” said Oliver, sitting up straight. “I thought you said this was temporary.”

  They were stopped at a red light. She leaned over to rifle through some papers in the front seat. Her voice floated back. “Of course. Temporary. You didn’t have to go to classes the last time because we had suspended them following the incident. They’re back in session now, so naturally you’ll have to attend while things get sorted out.”

  “I never had to attend classes when I helped with incidents before,” he argued.

  Maggie’s response was methodical, as though she was the very essence of logic itself. “We’ve never had any incidents like this before. Ah, here we are.” She straightened in her seat and extended a white envelope to him.

  “Kill me now,” Oliver said to Emily. Then he realized who he was talking to, because his face contorted. “Never mind. You’d just botch things up. That’s pretty much all you’re good for.”

  Emily nodded sadly. “You can say that again.” She deserved every censure his barbed little tongue chose to fling at her.

  Oliver had expected more of a fight, if the stunned expression that flashed across his face was any indication.

  “Whatever,” he muttered, and he snatched the envelope from Maggie’s waiting hand. The car started forward again.

  Emily tried to ignore him as he pulled out the schedule and perused its contents, but he made that difficult.

  “What is this? You have me signed up for all the same classes I was taking at Prom-A!”

  Maggie’s eyes glanced up to the rearview mirror, but she said nothing.

  Oliver continued his tirade. “Do you honestly think that Prom-F’s classes are anywhere near the caliber of Prom-A’s? I’m probably three grades ahead of these yahoos, and you expect me to sit in the same classes? It’s an absolute insult! I’d be better off doing independent study, like I have been for the last three weeks!”

  “I’m sure you can ask Principal Gates about that when you get the chance,” said Maggie placidly.

  “You bet I will.” Oliver slumped back into hi
s seat with an ill-concealed glower.

  Emily somehow doubted that Principal Gates would care to hear the preferences of a ten-year-old, genius null-projector or otherwise. But then, that was a lesson that Oliver would have to learn for himself, sooner or later.

  II

  Prom-F Again

  July 28, 8:42am mdt, Prometheus-F Campus

  The drive from the airport to the most isolated of the Prometheus campuses passed in excruciating silence. Emily knew perfectly well that her very presence was a nuisance to Oliver, so she remained as inconspicuous as possible. Maggie, once her errand of delivering the class schedule was complete, focused her attention exclusively on the road. Oliver simply brooded.

  A box of shrink-wrapped pastries and lukewarm juice boxes was provided for breakfast. Emily was so sick of pre-packaged food that she barely ate hers. Oliver turned up his nose at the selection, while Maggie contentedly munched away, pastry in one hand and the other on the wheel. The scenery crawled by at a snail’s pace, so that it seemed like they would never arrive. When the broad wrought-iron gates of the Prometheus-F campus finally came into sight, Emily was more relieved than she had expected.

  “They’re working this time,” Maggie announced. The gates had had to be opened manually on their first visit here, courtesy of Hawk and Hummer West’s exploits with an electro-magnetic pulse generator.

  “So they’ve fixed everything?” Emily asked as the gates slid along their tracks. The question was more out of politeness than any desire to carry on a conversation.