Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
And this is a bigger issue for me because it implies that he’s set himself up for plausible deniability.
Teenage me would’ve been pretty pissed off about this. But it’s classic Delta. He’s a narcissistic, egomaniacal asshole.
Does he care about the humans who inhabit his city?
Sure, I guess. The way a shepherd cares about his flock of sheep. They are a product. They give him wool and meat.
Delta’s interest in me is tied to what I can do for him.
I might be in the Game of Gods, but there’s no way that thing sees me as an equal. Or as a player.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight.” Clara’s sweet voice spills over the sound of the waves lapping up onto the sand.
“Just thinkin’ about tomorrow.”
She turns around, still between my legs, and smiles at me. “Are you nervous?”
“No,” I tell her. And I’m not. “I’m just wonderin’ what his game is, ya know?”
“Delta?”
“Yeah. He’s up to something.”
She narrows her eyes, but only a little. “You think it’s a setup?”
I shrug. “I don’t know what it is. That’s the problem with gods, right? They don’t like to explain themselves. And I’m just not that man anymore.”
She touches my face with her soft hand. Sliding her palm right up against my cheek. “A soldier who takes orders?”
Clara is very smart. She reads between the lines. I like that about her.
“Yeah,” I nod. “I don’t wanna work for him.”
She considers this as we stare into each other’s eyes. She’s always looking for more of me. I like that about her too. “Well,” she says, her words soft and meant to soothe. She gets to her feet and offers me her hand. “Then I guess we’ll have to come up with a plan.”
I take her hand and allow her to pull me up, even though I’m much too heavy for her to pull up. “What kind of plan?”
“You know… the old escape-the-evil-overlord plan.”
“Oh, that plan.” I smile, keeping hold of her hand as we turn in unison and walk towards the stairs that wind up the side of the cliff to the city above.
She gives my hand a squeeze and then I let go, turnin’ around and bendin’ down a little so she can hop on my back. She does this without comment. We’ve come down to the beach four times now and each time I’ve carried her back up.
Not once has she declined the ride.
Not once did she feel heavy.
“I guess this is your lot in life, Mr. Saarinen.”
“What’s that?”
“To carry me up a million flights of stairs.”
I can live with it.
Every time Clara enters our apartment, she makes a tiny gasp. The first week we were here, they were bigger gasps, but she’s tempered them back since then. And now, it’s mostly just a little sigh.
The view. She can’t get over it.
It’s nice, I will say that. Delta did set us up with a top-notch apartment for our stay here. Penthouse level and fully furnished. And that view is stunnin’. You can see the water, but it’s not really the ocean that makes the view special. It’s everythin’—the city itself. I guess I had forgotten how beautiful Delta City was. I guess I’d just been stuck on the far end of things for so long, I assumed all cities were a collection of steel and glass surrounded by sand.
That’s not what it looks like here. It’s a lot like the way Clara described her city with tall towers made of stone and brick. And where there aren’t towers, there are smaller homes built into the side of the cliffs. The whole city is on a slant with Delta’s tower at the top and everything else spilling down the mountain towards the beach on one side, and the valley on the other.
All the roads are cobbled with black-sand bricks and it’s a nice contrast to the towers and houses, which are every possible shade of gray. The rooftops are mostly shiny copper. Which is not an easy thing to maintain with the salt water in the air. Roof polishing is a mega industry here because Delta doesn’t tolerate patina on his rooftops.
Our building is two streets up from the edge of the cliff and our living room has a window that spans a hundred-and-eighty degrees so we see a little bit of everything. Even the tower at the top. This is the view that makes Clara gasp and sigh.
Beautiful Delta City.
I don’t like him but he does keep the place nice. I would not say Tau City is ugly. I mean, in its own right, it’s pretty fuckin’ spectacular. But compared to this place, it’s a slum.
Clara walks over to the window and presses her face against it. “I’ll never get tired of this view.”
I close the door and walk up behind her. Looking out. In addition to the water, and the night sky, and the moons, and the city lights, and the tower, I also see the spark.