Chapter 5: Breakfast
"I can't believe it!" Amber fumed that night in the room she and Jay had been given. "They . . . they ship people off to be slaves! They murder people!" Jay sighed heavily. "Calm down, Amber," he said quietly. "Calm down! How can I calm down? We leave Mega's tyranny to find ourselves in a new . . ." "How can you say that Iris is the same as Mega, Amber?" Jay asked her with a sharp edge to his tone. She glared at him. "How can you not?" she countered.
He looked at her with exasperation. "All right, Amber, what would you do with someone who murdered another?" He sat on the bed and stared at her, waiting for her answer. "The only decent thing to do!" Amber snapped. "Give the person a fair trial and then lock them up for a few months or banish them!" Jay looked at her with a strange pain in his eyes. "So you would let them out or send them away to do it again?" he asked quietly. "You're saying you agree with this ridiculous . . ." Amber began, but Jay cut her off. "I do agree with it, Amber," Jay told her. "Because it's the right thing. You think more about the rights of the individual over the rights of the community. And that, Amber, is very, very wrong."
"How can you say that?" Amber fumed. "Because I believe in it!" Jay said, his voice rising. "I'm tired of all this fighting and unfairness! I didn't mind fighting against Mega, he was a bastard, as was Ram. But this island, from what I can tell, is the utopia I've been searching for, the civilized community I had hoped to build with you! But obviously, we have very different ideas as to what should and should not be." He stood up and went to the door. "And know this, Amber. If you get any ideas about 'liberating' this city, remember that I am not going to be by your side. You should also remember that although you are leader of the Mallrats, you aren't leader of this city . . . thank God."
With that parting remark, he left her, his face crumpled in pain. Amber stared after him, not wanting to believe what she had just heard but having no way to disbelieve it. She sat on the bed and looked over at her son, who lay asleep even through the argument. "This is wrong, so wrong . . ." she whispered, falling back on the bed. She didn't know if she meant her relationship or the city they were now in.
The next morning, the attendants assigned to each of the Mallrats rooms came to escort them to breakfast. "It was nice taking a hot shower, wasn't it?" Trudy asked happily, feeling pretty and feminine in the lavender dress that had been given to her the night before. Amber glowered at her but said nothing. Trudy; too interested in her surroundings to notice, kept talking about the hotel and how nice it was, how nice the people were, and wondering how Ruby was doing. It surprised them all as several Troops passed, obviously patrolling the hotel, and Ram made a comment about the tight security.
Amber saw Jay being led to the group by a beautiful female attendant and felt rather jealous for a moment. He greeted her and the others politely, making Trudy turn to look at Amber in concern. In no time at all, they entered a beautiful dining room with a long table set with white linen and pretty china. The Queen was already there and seated, along with her four ladies, talking animatedly. Sarai gave Lex a sexy smile and patted the chair beside her. He swaggered over and sat down, smiling back. Iris motioned for the others to be seated.
"Good morning, everyone," Iris said happily. "I hope you slept well." The Mallrats and the others, excepting Amber, nodded and murmured their thanks. Servers came soon after, bringing in plates of eggs, sausage, fried fish, oatmeal, fresh fruit, and toast. They came back again, bringing small bowls of strawberry and blackberry preserves, butter, cream, sugar, and honey. Other servers moved about, pouring glasses of milk, orange juice, and coffee. The Mallrats were amazed by the spread.
"This looks wonderful!" Jack mumbled between bites. Ellie shoved him on the shoulder. "Have some manners!" she whispered angrily. Iris laughed. "It was a good year in crops," she said. "Eat your fill, we have plenty." "I can't believe you have sausage!" Lex cried, shoving a whole patty into his mouth. "We keep pigs and grow our own spices," Iris told him. "How did you learn to make the sausage and the butter?" Trudy asked. "Would you like it if I told you how we became Genesis?" Iris asked. "That way you will know everything about us."
"I'd like that," Trudy said, smiling. The others all concurred. Jay and Ram looked particularly attentive. Iris smiled and leaned back in her chair. "When the virus came, most of us here were with our parents at this resort," she said. "We all grew up in rich homes, we were all spoiled children who didn't know what to do with ourselves when our parents were taken from us. All we could do at the time was to bury our loved ones." Her face looked sad as she spoke. "It wasn't long until we all began fighting amongst ourselves, arguing over the remainder of the food and even killing each other."
Iris paused and sighed deeply. "It was a dark, dark time, even worse in some ways than the virus itself. Thankfully, some of us realized that we couldn't go on the way we were. Malik, Althea, Joker, Ethan, Crystal, Grey and his sister Jade, and two others, Raven and Estelle, along with me and my brother Danny all joined together as a tribe whose main purpose was to construct order out of the chaos. Eventually, we began to be heard. The main reason why most wished to join with us was the lack of food. Another was the desire to be able to live without fear of someone either killing or raping or selling you."
She smiled as she continued. "It took a long time for us to organize the two hundred and seventy six people on this island into tribes. Althea, Joker, Ethan, Crystal, and Jade became leaders of their own tribes. The rest of us, as well as the new leaders, formed a council to decide upon rules and ask the people to vote the rules in to make them more 'legal'. The first issue we tackled was the food problem. We knew there were farms outside of the city on the outskirts of the island that had provided fresh fruits and vegetables to the resort. Crystal and her tribe decided to be the ones to run them. They went out only to find the ten farms were too large to be run only by thirty people. We told the people of the city the problem and many volunteered to go out and help."
Iris looked around at the amazed faces of those sitting around her. "Thanks to the help of many gardening and farming books we found, Crystal and the Farmers, along with their helpers, produced enough food that year to adequately feed everyone on the island. It took a couple of years to extend the crops so we would have surplus, but Crystal did it. She also learned how to make preserves and pickles out of the fruits and vegetables, and how to store the little meat we had. Meanwhile, here in the city, the rest of us were attempting to form a government. Each of the tribes wanted to have their own personal contribution to the new city, as Crystal and her tribe did. Althea and the twenty members of the Abandoned began studying an assortment of books on health, natural healing, herbs, midwifery, and medicine. They live in and run the hospital. Joker and the Crazed Angels learned how to operate the generators that give us our electricity and running water . . . they also developed our solar-powered ambulances."
"You figured all this stuff out merely by reading books?" Ram asked incredulously. Iris nodded. "Yes. Most of us have gone to private boarding schools, and were given the best educations. It wasn't hard. Anyway, Ethan and the Enlightened run the nurseries and the schools, while the Wolves make the things we need." "What do you mean, the things you need?" Trudy asked. "When all the chaos was going on, so much was broken and destroyed in the city," Iris said. "The Wolves repair homes and furniture, they make cloth, soap, and home items, as well as run the fire brigade. They also make sure the market and holiday ceremonies run smoothly, they catch fish, and most importantly, they take it upon themselves to take yearly trips to the mainland to conduct business."
"What do you mean by that?" Jay asked. Iris smiled. "They go to the mainland and trade with other tribes for things like seeds of crops we don't have, books to learn to do things we want to have available, and they buy slaves with some of the prophet." "What?" many of the Mallrats asked, shocked. "Don't worry, we don't keep them as slaves," Iris said, waving a hand. "We buy them from the slave traders and bring them here to set them free. Slaving is a horrible business, but since we can't stop it, we can at least help some of the slaves get free. Most of them remain here and join tribes, that's how we grew from a couple hundred people to almost five hundred. Others leave to look for lost family or for other reasons."
"That's wonderful!" Ellie cried happily. Amber's eyes narrowed. "What about the ones you send away to be slaves?" she asked angrily. Iris raised her eyebrow. "That has only happed twice," she said evenly. "And both of the men in question were known torturers of children. One of them drove a four year old girl insane." "Good God!" Trudy cried, holding her daughter close. "Why didn't you kill him?" Iris gave her a sad smile. "He didn't kill her. And our laws stipulate that murder must happen for the guilty to be killed. Anyway, that isn't something to talk about over breakfast."
Iris took a sip of her orange juice before she continued her story. "With more people coming to live here, it was obvious that we needed some sort of police, someone to keep the peace. Malik found an armory underneath the hotel, stocked with tons of weaponry and such, and since he had a background in the military and marital arts, he formed his own tribe, the Troops. They are our biggest tribe, and they keep the peace wonderfully." "Forgive me for interrupting," Jay said, "but didn't you introduce Grey as the leader of the Wolves?" Iris nodded with a sad smile. "Yes. After a year of being leader, Jade caught what we think was pneumonia and she died. Our healers weren't skilled enough yet to save her."
Jay was silent, thinking of the love he had lost from a simple cut on the finger. Ebony glanced at him with a hint of pity. Amber noticed the look and wondered what it was about, since Jay had never told her of his first true love. Iris noticed Jay's sadness and Ebony's look as well but said nothing. "So how did you become Queen?" Ram asked, breaking the silence. Iris smiled at him. "The tribe leaders decided that we needed one supreme leader to make sure there would be one final decision maker. After they fought about it for a while, it was finally decided that it couldn't be one of them, because most thought that if it was a tribal leader, that leader would promote the interests of his or her own tribe over the others."
"That makes total sense," Jack said, speaking for the first time as his stomach was full. Iris nodded. "It was also decided that the supreme leader couldn't be one from an established tribe for the same reason. Therefore it was decided upon two people, myself and Raven. Neither of us were one of the established tribe. Both of us, as well as Danny and Estelle worked on the Council, but not as any leader. All of us were well known. Danny and Estelle didn't want to be Supreme Leader, both were content where they were. There was a vote, and I won."
"Yes," Sarai put in, "and the people loved her so much that they forced her to take the honor of Queen, and had her live here in the hotel with servers and ladies and guards, just like the Queens of old." "Why?" Amber asked sullenly. "Why all the grandeur?" Sarai laughed. "It makes us proud," she said. "We're proud of our city, we're proud of our government, and we're proud of Her Highness. She worked hard on our behalf, and she deserves all this. We know she does everything for our own good. Plus, saying we're part of a monarchy is really cool!" Sarai flashed a smile at Lex and continued eating. Amber sniffed and poked at her eggs. "Well, if everyone is done, how about a tour of the city?" Iris asked.