Page 4

N aomi

I hadn’t stopped thinking about Ryker Gates.

His strong hands.

His deep voice.

His all-consuming presence.

Honestly, I just wanted to see him again.

In the days since he had walked into my office, I’d catalogued as much of the crate as I possibly could.

I’d stolen several images from the picture album and hid them in secret places in my home, including a few of the woman in the wedding dress as well as all the ones from the last few pages.

I destroyed the manifest, leaving no record of the contents remaining behind.

I knew it was dangerous to keep the crate and what it contained in my possession. I spent as much time as I could skimming the books and picking through the mementos inside it, but I knew I was testing fate by doing so. I took notes, but eventually I knew what I had to do.

With extreme reluctance, I reported the findings to the protector forces. I told them I’d only just opened it after catching up with a backlog of unrelated work and they seemed to believe me. Before I knew it, the crate was gone.

I suspected neither I nor anyone else would likely see it ever again.

With that off my plate, I made a call to the council and informed them of Ryker’s request.

They called me in for an in-person meeting the next day. I put on my best suit and arrived a half hour early to meet with my city state’s elected officials.

While the men and women of the council made it clear that my agreement to the whole arrangement was key, it didn’t really feel that way. It almost felt like it was expected of me, that I wouldn’t be a proud, supportive citizen of my city state should I refuse Ryker’s request.

In the end, I agreed, but not before insisting on one very important thing: I wanted to accompany Ryker on his journey to the abandoned research facility.

It had been an impulsive request, but I couldn’t stop myself. I’d never left my hometown, and this would be a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel the wider world and to experience what had become of it, to actually experience it rather than read about what once was in books.

If there was a chance to recover classified research that had been lost to history, I wanted to be the one to handle it. I had the training and expertise. It should be me.

Plus, it would give me an opportunity to get to know him better. I told myself that wasn’t the most important part, but I knew it was a lie the moment I thought it.

I’d taken the council by surprise. They stuttered a bit and called a brief recess.

After about an hour, the council approved my request, but they insisted on providing me with a security team of their choice.

They reassured me that they would handpick each member themselves, ensuring my absolute safety on the journey with Ryker into the Mexican territory. I thanked them for the opportunity.

Their final words for me were to make New Englandia proud. I vowed that I would and went back to work after it was over.

I didn’t call him right away after that meeting. Instead, I sat at my desk, staring at that business card for a long while before I dialed his number. It beeped several times, and I almost hung up in my cowardice, but then he answered, and his voice rumbled through me once again.

I hadn’t realized that I had missed the sound of it until I felt the flutter of something unnamable in my belly.

“Dr. Vaughn! I was hoping to hear from you,” he purred.

My heart skipped a beat at his words.

“Mr. Gates,” I answered in a professional tone.

His answering silence made my stomach flip. What was wrong?

Oh, right. He wanted me to call him by his first name.

“I apologize; I meant to say Ryker. I hope you’ve been well,” I quickly corrected myself. It was an innocent mistake, but somehow, it felt naughty. My face flamed and I was thankful that he couldn’t see it.

“I have,” he replied. “I’ve been enjoying much of what your city has to offer.”

“I’m glad to hear that. There is much to do and see here,” I said, a bit pridefully.

“Indeed, there is,” he echoed.

“I met with the council, and they approved our collaboration. There are two additional requirements to the arrangement, however,” I explained, purposefully keeping secret the fact that it had been my request.

“What is that?”

“I am to accompany you and the council will outfit us with an experienced security detail on our journey, neither of which is negotiable.”

“I see,” he replied.

“Is that a problem?” I asked curtly. He cleared his throat.

“No. It’s not an issue. It’s just a bit unexpected.”

I was quiet for a moment. The sudden urge to see him again hurtled through me and there was nothing I could do to stop what came out of my mouth next.

“Would you like to come to my place for dinner tonight so that we can discuss this adventure you’ve lured me into?” I blurted out.

“Sure,” he answered smoothly, with a hint of humor in his tone. I couldn’t tell if he liked the idea or hated it, so I kept talking even though everything inside me was telling me to keep quiet.

“I could tell you about the research I’ve uncovered and where I think we should begin our investigations,” I explained quickly, trying to backpedal and recover as fast as I could.

“That would be delightful, Dr. Vaughn,” he replied, his voice cheerful.

“Please, Ryker, call me Naomi.”

“With pleasure, Naomi. I’ll see you tonight at six o’clock.”

As I hung up my comm, I was left with a reeling sensation from hearing my name roll off his tongue, and I closed my eyes to savor it.

Shifting in my seat, I could feel that my panties were suddenly wet.

There was no hope of concentrating on anything for the rest of the day.

I left work early, taking my first afternoon off in probably the last five years. The security guards at the front desk raised their eyebrows in surprise, but they didn’t say anything, and I was grateful for it.

I was still struggling with what hearing Ryker say my name did to me. I shouldn’t be affected by a man simply saying my name. I shouldn’t let the way he confidently strode into my office get to me and I really shouldn’t be thinking about his hands on my naked skin.

These kinds of things didn’t happen here. Even talk of self-pleasure was extremely taboo and only minimally accepted in my world.

I’d tried touching myself once, but I hadn’t seen the point.

Breathing in the outside air, I left the museum, walking the few blocks to my home. The stroll was over before I was ready for it to be. When I unlocked the front entryway and went into the kitchen, I just stood there for several minutes.

I’d invited him to dinner.

What the hell was I going to feed him?

There were several bottles of unopened wine on the counter, all various gifts that had been given to me by numerous colleagues over the past several months.

I didn’t drink very often, but the sudden urge to enjoy a very full glass surged through me.

The thought of being alone with Ryker Gates, in my home, had me rattled. What had I done?

I opened the fridge and started rifling around.

Eventually, I collected enough to start chopping up what would become the fanciest charcuterie board I’d ever seen in my life.

One of my favorite cheeses was a local sharp cheddar.

Supposedly, it was a recipe that dated back before the cyberwar and the Fall.

I didn’t have enough on hand to make a full dinner, so I ordered a few groceries to be delivered to my door within the hour.

Several hours later, I had a bottle of red wine opened and decanted, two nearly overflowing acai bowls and a beautifully presented charcuterie board all set up on the largest cutting board I owned, along with crusty bread, still warm from the bakery, in a basket alongside.

It was an artful, and hopefully delicious, presentation.

I glanced at the clock in my foyer. It was only five-thirty.

With a sigh, I got a glass out of my cupboard and poured a small bit of wine into it. Sitting down at the kitchen table, I tried to figure out what I was doing to myself. Tomorrow, my whole life was going to change.

I’d always thrown myself into my work. In less than five years, I’d risen from unpaid intern to museum curator. I’d excelled at my job and had been rewarded time again, both monetarily and with the comforts of life, my home being one of them.

I’d always dreamed of seeing the world beyond the borders of New Englandia even though I knew much of it was a wasteland now since the Fall.

In the middle of the twenty-first century, the world had grown extremely contentious.

Country threatened country and animosity simmered just below the surface for years until it finally exploded into an all-out world war, the likes of which the world had never seen.

It began as cyber-attacks, so everything that had been stored during the digital age was lost, forever wiped out.

Power grids were shut down for good. Communications crashed.

Some people were lucky, having access to long distance radio, but those were few and soon lost, as humanity spiraled into a state of panic.

A war that had started digitally soon turned into something real and terrifying on the ground.

Later, nuclear bombs were deployed, so many that there were no accurate records as to their number.

The great powers peppered the world with their weapons of mass destruction, and the result was, indeed, the complete destruction of most of the cultures and societies of Earth.

Entire cities and whole countries were obliterated.

The only proof they ever existed was in the form of hardcopy encyclopedias or textbooks that survived the catastrophic damages.

The world collapsed into ruin. Food sources dried up. Most primary sources of water were deemed radioactive and unsafe for consumption. Other sources were purposely poisoned. Finding shelter and safety was nearly impossible. That any humanity remained at all was a miracle.