Their Memoriam: A Reverse Harem Romance (Utopia Inc Book 1) Read online

  “Since you chose to keep your mother’s name, and you are well aware of the reaction, you either want that distance or you have something to prove.”

  Andreas Kenton was no idiot. For some reason, his understanding pleased me. “Can’t it be both?”

  “Absolutely.” With a smile, he shook his head. “You want to force people to confront some ugly truth about you? About themselves?”

  “Yes.” It wasn’t a game. “I’m not playing with people or their lives, I’m directing the course of mine. Science is the pursuit of knowledge, a pursuit which must be undertaken vigorously without bias. You can’t do that if you judge everything by a taint of relations.”

  “What if they don’t agree with your methods?”

  “Methodology can be challenged.” I shrugged and leaned forward, stretching my back. “If you can’t replicate conditions in order to prove your hypothesis, then you haven’t proven it.”

  “You want to be challenged only on the scientific basis, not on a prejudice.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Don’t you want the same things, Andreas?” As he’d used my name earlier to define an intimacy between us, I invited him to see my side of it with the same technique. “Psychology might be a soft science, and your ability to replicate an individual’s reactions to stimuli limited, but you want to be judged for the work you do, not for the genetic lottery you won upon conception. Your education, your experiences, and your work should speak for themselves. True or false?”

  “You make a compelling argument, however, human beings, by their nature, are as influenced by emotional reaction as they are by intellect and experience. Sometimes even more so, because we can’t always quantify emotion—what you feel, you feel. It’s a valid reaction. What I feel is also true, because it is what I feel, and it is valid for me. Replicating those reactions in others requires having an exactness of both body chemistry and experience.”

  “I seem to recall there were case studies using twins, identical biology, separated at birth, unaware of each other, who made nearly identical choices in their lives.” I could see the paper in my head, but I’d only skimmed it when I’d been doing some genetic research. It had been more about lifestyle choices and the nature versus nurture argument than hard science.

  “Absolutely, we are all products of our environment. The coding in our genetics is like the toolbox we’re gifted with upon conception. What we choose to do with those tools is something else altogether.”

  “I can accept that as a rational argument.” Straightening, I glanced at him to find he studied me with an expression bordering on wonder. “What?”

  “Don’t take this as insult. I promise you, I don’t mean it that way,” he said, intriguing me. “I could make an entire case study out of you.”

  I turned the concept over in my head. Case studies weren’t judgmental. They sought a deeper understanding and attempted to convey human experience with scientific thoroughness. It was far from an insult. “Thank you,” I said, pleased. “That’s a very sweet compliment.”

  His eyes widened a fraction, then he released rich chuckle of masculine laughter. “You’re nothing like I could have predicted.”

  “Good. Your predictions would have been based on presuppositions.” My need to be by the water satisfied, I stood.

  “Very true.” As I rose, he followed me to his feet. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Walk back, take a shower, and try to discover what work we should all be doing.”

  In step, we left the sea behind and began the ascent toward the crops. “I thought survival was our task.”

  “Survival is always a task, but I’m sure there’s something we’ve overlooked.” I hesitated, because my initial instinct was almost alien. Yet, even as I pondered the reaction, I recognized the soundness in the thought.

  “Such as?” Andreas prompted when I didn’t continue.

  “I don’t know exactly, but logic dictates we should have other work. There are five of us. I’m a team lead. I can’t lead what I don’t understand. I think we all need to brainstorm, put together our pieces of the puzzle and see what it creates.” There, my normal modus operandi said avoid them, but my instinct told me I needed them. Avoiding wouldn’t get us anywhere, as I’d already seen the results.

  “I’ll get everyone together while you shower.”

  “Thank you.” A comfortable silence fell as we walked, and it wasn’t until we were almost back to the lift that I remembered why he’d come out in the first place. “Was our chat enough to satisfy your initial assessment?”

  Andreas blinked. Interesting. I wasn’t the only one who forgot.

  “Yes, ma’am. It definitely was. Same time tomorrow?”

  “Perhaps,” I smiled, more surprised that I wasn’t unnerved by the suggestion. “I would request that you wait until I complete my yoga.”

  “Deal.”

  And that, apparently, was that.

  “Jack of Clubs, and ten of hearts for Dirk,” Hatch supplied helpfully as he dealt out two cards to him. “Possible straight. For beautiful Valda, Queen of Spades, possible flush. For Andreas, deuce of hearts, and three of clubs, possible two of a kind. Oz holds, and one card to me, Queen of Diamonds, possible straight.”

  Funnily enough, Oz initially declined their invitation to join in the brainstorming. The physician insisted his work took priority. The x-rays he’d been studying weren’t for any of us, though he’d shut off the screen immediately when Andreas and I entered the lab. The bone scans Oz studied on the screen looked too small to belong to any of us. The images disappeared too soon for me to do more than get a cursory glimpse.

  Hatch didn’t accept his refusal. Instead he’d gone to fetch the doc himself. Whatever he’d said to him brought him to the common room.

  “Call.” Dirk tossed in two chips. Of all the items Hatch apparently brought with him, playing cards and a case of gambling chips made the cut. The felt tablecloth seemed lifted right out of a classic movie.

  It was back to Andreas to raise, call, or fold. The game had rudimentary rules, but I’d never played before much less for stakes.

  “Call.” Andreas said.

  Oz echoed him, and then they looked at me.

  I had a Queen of Spades and a Two of Spades showing, there were two spades face up in the flop—two more cards to be dealt.

  “By the way,” Hatch said as he flipped over the next card to add to the flop. It was a three of clubs. Not much help to me. “We identified a storage area with additional supplies including beakers, wax cloth, and more. There were also additional cold storage supplies with canned and dry goods. We’re going to collapse under the weight of the vegetables, but I helped myself to the honey.”

  After everyone checked, without raising the bet, Hatch held the next flop card hostage.

  “You science types aren’t going to even ask me what I did with the honey?” The grin flirting around the corners of his mouth demanded a response, but none of the men seemed ready to rise to the bait. What little I’d put together about each of them told me Hatch wanted to start some trouble.

  He was bored.

  Andreas on the other hand, stared at his cards, then at what was visible of the flop. Whatever cards he held didn’t please him. Oz exuded a kind of relaxed confidence. Either he didn’t care about what was in play or he already had a good hand. Dirk was far more difficult to read. He leaned back in his chair, balancing it on its back legs. The leisure in his manner left me envious.

  Nothing seemed to bother him. A false assumption to be certain, as he had been hardly unaffected by his emergence. The attack, the near strangulation, and his subsequent calm were all elements of the man sitting across from me. He wasn’t unruffled or even out of touch. Far from it, he was waiting.

  Running a hand against my throat, I tapped my cards against the table. Hatch had surprised me with his absolute certainty that we would identify the who or what behind our time here and he would deal with them in a violent manner. Andreas
had lashed out verbally, and then with poor choices, but he seemed to be adapting to our situation, even going as far as offering counseling and assessments.

  “Fine, what are you doing with the honey?” Oz asked when none of the rest ponied up the inquiry. Honestly, of all of us, Oz adapted the easiest. He’d been calm from emergence, tackled research and medical care with equanimity and, though he hadn’t been interested in the game, he’d settled in to play sans complaint.

  “Making mead.” Pleasure twisted around Hatch’s words and he set down a Four of Hearts to the flop. That left me with absolutely nothing. I folded before it was my turn.

  “Why are you making mead? Doesn’t that require several weeks to ferment properly?” The men continued around the circle, tossing in their chips, and I rose to get another cup of tea. Oz had brewed it earlier, and it included raspberries, apples, and rose hips. The rose hips surprised me, until I remembered his herbal garden. “Would you like another cup?” I asked him, and Oz passed me his mug.

  “Thank you.”

  Hatch shrugged as he slid two more chips into the pile. “Yeah, it takes a while to get it perfect. We’ve got nothing but time, so we’ll enjoy the real fruit of my labor with a drink. Arguably, we’ll be ready to enjoy on our last night here and what better way to celebrate?”

  Chuckling, I shook my head. “You presume everyone will want to mark the occasion with a drink.” I filled each mug three quarters full. The teapot was still quite warm, and the tea had continued to steep as we’d played through the first couple of hands.

  “And you’re supposing we’ll be sick of each other.” Challenge etched in every word.

  “We’re all pushing the edge of our comfort zones by even being here.” Returning to the table, I set Oz’s mug next to his hand before circling to my spot and taking my seat. Cradling the teacup in my hands, I waited as Oz folded, then Andreas shook his head and tossed his cards in, leaving Hatch and Dirk staring at each other. They didn’t say a word, just kept raising the stakes.

  “And now,” Hatch said, cupping his hand against his mouth as though speaking into a microphone in a hushed, if staged whisper. “The dashing and charismatic pilot, Hatch Benedict, faces off against the mercurial soldier of fortune, Dirk Rossi. It’s the age-old conflict of land versus air. Can the grunt take the heat?”

  Dirk snorted. “The only thing age-old is the flyboy wanting to pump up his piece with a lot of hot air and bullshit. Call.”

  Smirking, Hatch flipped over his cards. “Straight. Queen high. Read ‘em and weep.”

  Smoothing a hand over his cards, Dirk spread them face up. “Straight. Ace high. Do you need a tissue for your tears?”

  Laughter rippled around the table. Instead of being annoyed, Hatch joined them in their amusement as he pulled the cards together and shuffled them a couple of times before sliding them to Oz to deal.

  Dirk stacked his winnings and added them to his chips. “We’re going to start on the harvest. Makes sense to go ahead and clear some of the heavier crops. We can freeze, store, or otherwise put the items to work in some fashion. That will let us see if the hydroponics keep growing the next round of crops.”

  “We’ll need some seed, won’t we?” Oz dealt two cards to each of us.

  “None of us are farmers.” A key flaw in the plan to have us living in the biosphere and dependent on the ecosystem for food. I had a pair of sevens. I ante’d two chips.

  “Then we learn.” Dirk didn’t even look at his cards before he tossed his two chips in. “You said it yourself; survival is our goal.”

  “Except we have no way to know if growing a crop is part of that survival. We have what, six months of food storage?”

  “Of essential food storage,” Dirk corrected, dancing a poker chip across his knuckles. “We have the barest of necessities, the trickiest of which is the meat storage. When we run out, which even if we haven’t consumed it all within six months, the shelf life of the meat remaining would be questionable. There are containers of protein supplements in dry storage. We won’t die. We may not like our meals much, but we could let the crops rot where they are.”

  “Yes and no,” Oz argued as he dealt the first three cards of the flop. Two jacks and a four. “Eating a balanced diet needs to be specific to the individual. Also, we don’t know what rotting food would do to the ecosystem down there, nor to the oxygen scrubbers. We’ve already experienced one poisoning. Allergies are another concern.”

  “All fair points,” I said, tapping two fingers against the table to check. I didn’t want to gamble more chips when my best play were the two jacks everyone else had, too. “As I was telling Andreas earlier, we don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing. I’ve reviewed every log I can access with my admin password, and I can’t find anything that tells me what we’re supposed to be doing.” Then, because I couldn’t justify keeping what might be crucial evidence under my hat, I added, “We all made videos assuring ourselves we chose to be here, that this was something we agreed to do. None of us remember making these video messages, right?”

  I met each man’s gaze one at a time. One by one they agreed, except for Dirk. The silence stretched until Hatch tapped his two cards to the table. “Well, Goldilocks, do you remember or not?”

  “I never agreed or disagreed with what I remembered.” That was really not an answer.

  Andreas leaned forward. “Stop deflecting. Do you remember agreeing to this assignment?”

  After setting my cards face down on the table, I covered them with my palm. “Dirk, do you have a valid reason for not wanting to tell us your answer?” I had my secrets. We all did.

  A muscle twitched in Dirk’s jaw as his gaze collided with mine.

  “Man, you need to share.” Oz pushed his chair back, standing. “We’re all in this together, or we’re all in for a world of hurt.”

  Not the most encouraging sentiment. The doctor wasn’t threatening the soldier—thankfully—but he was drawing a line in the sand.

  “Wait,” I said, raising my hand. “Dirk doesn’t have to answer if he isn’t entirely comfortable.” Yes, his withholding would affect the trust the others showed him, and I couldn’t change their reaction. Mutiny tightened Hatch’s expression, but when I kept my palm facing them, he didn’t immediately launch into whatever diatribe had his lips whitening from being pressed together.

  Taking a deep breath, I plunged in and said, “I not only do not remember filming that video, I seem to have lost five years.”

  Dirk rose to his feet, and Hatch a half a heartbeat behind him. Andreas didn’t stand, but his cards hit the table as he stared at me.

  “I waited to say anything because I wanted to see if the effect was transitory…”

  “It’s been nearly two weeks,” Oz said, bracing his hands against the back of his chair. “In what world did you expect amnesia which has lasted that long to just fade and your memories to rush back in?”

  “Considering the world I find myself in shouldn’t even exist, and five years of my life are a virtual blank, I decided to err on the side of caution.”

  “You need a CT scan and an MRI, and you needed them two weeks ago.” Disappointment made the scolding tone partially acceptable.

  “Thank you for your opinion, Oz. I am aware that I should undergo a battery of tests…”

  “Don’t get mad,” Andreas said, interjecting when I paused to take a breath. Keeping my emotions in check didn’t usually require so much effort. However, dispassionate objectivity was far more difficult to achieve when I was dealing with a very real sense of fear.

  Hatch opened his mouth, but Andreas cut him off with a slice of his hand.

  “No one say another word.” The authoritative tone got our attention. Andreas had hardly been the most commanding type. “Right, wrong, or indifferent, Valda is sharing a real problem with us and trusting us with information that makes her vulnerable. We’re going to treat it with the respect she deserves.”

  “Sit the fuck down,” Dirk said,
pinning Andreas with a glare. The tone had me wanting to sit, except I hadn’t left the chair. “We don’t need a counseling session. She has amnesia. Fine.” His gaze softened as he looked at me. “I have my reasons for not answering your questions.”

  “They’re good reasons?” I trusted him to tell me the truth. If he wasn’t answering direct inquiries, then at the very least it meant he wasn’t lying.

  “The best reason.” He held up a finger. Was he trying to tell me something?

  My stomach cramped, unease sliding along my spine. “You were ordered to not reveal the information.” It wasn’t a question.

  The others remained silent as Dirk nodded. His agreement didn’t make me feel any better.

  “Are there conditions under which you can tell us those answers?” Studying his expression, I didn’t miss the moment the lines at the corners of his strained a moment. “Or when you can tell me the answer?”

  “Yes,” he said, agreeing and confirming a whole new set of problems.

  “What the hell is up with you?” Hatch demanded while I tried to size up these pieces of information. “Are you working for the people who stuck us here?”

  Dirk said nothing.

  One moment the men were still, the next Hatch slammed into Dirk and they went down in a flurry of fists, and the worst sound I’d ever heard—flesh slamming into flesh. Fleeing the table, I barely managed to avoid the two as they crashed into the table. The doctors jumped in and tried to separate them. It was like a scene out of a nightmare—neither Oz nor Andreas had the bulk of Dirk and Hatch. The two men were silent in their pursuit of beating each other, but Andreas’ nose was bloody and Oz hit the wall with a too solid thump.

  “Stop!” My cry cut across the din, and Dirk went still, his arm locked around Hatch’s throat. “Let him go.”

  Shock fisted in my gut as Dirk released him and Hatch took a couple of steps, but thankfully didn’t launch at Dirk again.

  Dirk did what I’d asked.

  He answered my questions.