Dark Choices - I. T. Lucas Page 0,47

of phase two. It was a little farther away, and at least twenty feet below the existing development. It hugged the mountainside and had a nice view of the canyon below. Regrettably, the ocean wasn’t visible from anywhere in phase two or three.

It wasn’t as if Kalugal was planning to move in there, but it would have been nice for those of his men who chose to join the clan. He was still uncomfortable with the idea of losing any of them and was struggling to come up with a different solution that would be acceptable to Kian.

So far, though, his brain hadn’t come up with a single thing.

“Here is the crew’s encampment.” Kian pointed to a bunch of tents arranged in a circle. “There is a communal shower facility.” He pointed to an enclosure built from studs and tarps and no roof. “Basically, those are hoses with spouts, and they only have cold water. I offered to bring them a water heater, but they scoffed at the idea.”

On one side of the temporary shower facility, several clotheslines had been stretched between posts, and laundered items were flapping in the wind. On the other side was a line of portable toilets.

“How do you get the equipment up here?” Kalugal asked. “I thought that the only access to the village was through the pavilion, and none of the elevators looked big enough for a truck to fit in.”

“We have another elevator in the back that is big enough for a compact tractor, and we have a wider path that goes around phase one straight into phase two. It’s unpaved, but tractors don’t have a problem with that.”

Kian seemed to be well-versed in the construction process, while Kalugal’s superficial knowledge put him at a disadvantage. Perhaps he should discuss things that he knew more about than his cousin.

“Aren’t you worried about the workers divulging your secret location? Building an entire community takes months, and I know that you are wary of thralling away more than two weeks of memories.”

“That’s why I chose to import a crew from China instead of using local contractors. There is practically no interaction between them and my people, which is the crew’s preference. They don’t leave a project until they are done, and they don’t want to mingle with the locals. So, once they are ready to leave, all I need to thrall away is the memory of the location and specific details about the project. Unlike interactions with people, those aren’t complex memories, and if carefully done, they are safe to eliminate.”

Kalugal shook his head. “I don’t trust the Chinese. They are sneaky bastards. If I were you, I would search their belongings before letting them go. They might keep records. In fact, I’m sure that they do. And what about their phones? Did you take them away?”

Kian clapped him on the back. “I’m moved by your concern, but I got it covered. They have no phones, and no computers, they use old-fashioned paper blueprints that are produced by a clan architect, and we search them thoroughly before their departure.”

“I hope that you put them through scanners. They can hide notes in very discreet places on their bodies.”

Kian shook his head. “And I thought that Turner was paranoid.”

As Kian mentioned the guy, it dawned on Kalugal that Turner wasn’t there. The only ones accompanying them were Kian’s regular bodyguards, Anandur and Brundar, as well as Theo and Jay.

It seemed that his plan was working, and his cousin was becoming less mistrustful of him.

32

Edna

Edna looked at the grading tractors making their rounds, compacting the ground and leveling it. The lots looked deceptively small from her elevated vantage point, but she knew it was an optical illusion. There was nothing to use in the large open space as reference for scale, but once the houses went up, there would be a visual anchor, and the lots wouldn’t seem so tiny. She’d observed the same thing when phase two had been built.

When the project was completed, it would be a nice enclave, with good views of the surrounding mountains and the canyon below, but who was going to live there?

“Does Sari plan on relocating her people here?”

Kian cast her an amused glance. “That would be nice, but as far as I know, she has no such plans.”

“Who is Sari?” Kalugal asked.

Edna was surprised that Kian hadn’t told his cousin about his third sister. That would have been the prudent thing to do, but it seemed that he was slackening