There was no secrecy, no espionage or database hacking. The new camera in his office and a set of subroutines on his desktop console told him that would be a very bad idea.
Hap had not spoken to him since the first day of his return. The others assumed what they were told, that he had been on holiday. He told them he had a wonderful time visiting the stars and finding peace in centring himself.
But he felt far from peaceful. They had his sister. And they would spare no grace torturing her.
“Would you like to see the facility, Master Poet?” the factician asked.
“Huh? Oh, yes. That would be excellent,” he said blandly.
She nodded and beckoned for him to follow. He had not been told much, but Ingrid Stol, Speaker of Faith, had asked him to report on the laboratory’s latest research.
He had done the same thing many times before. He would ask the scientist questions, the scientist would give a wordy explanation, and he would summarize for the folk, lead them in a prayer to the Gods, and be done.
He only half paid attention to the tour.
“… And here we have the incubation chambers for multiplying the vaccine.”
He had accumulated a large amount of knowledge from reporting over the years. Vaccine production was standard: grow the vaccine, harvest the vaccine, isolate, purify, and dose the vaccine. Rigorous hours of testing to ensure its safety would have been done, but if they were having him report on it, it was already well past the approval stage.
“Are you ready, Poet?”
He nodded, and the producer showed him to a staged set of chairs, the location carefully selected for its lighting and clean laboratory backdrop.
The scientist sat opposite him. The cinematographer set up his machine and gave them a ready signal. The factician crouched in front with prepared large-font cards.
Like riding a hoverpad, Halud’s face slipped into a long-practiced, trustworthy smile. “Hello, United Earth Citizens. What a fine day for innovation. The Speakers have asked me to share with you the latest great gift from our Gods. Faith, the Healer, has been very generous, providing us with a lifesaving vaccine. Dr. Trae Amanpreet from the research labs at Central Hospital is here to tell us more.”
He nodded at the scientist who launched into his pre-prepared speech. “Hello. The Gods have bestowed upon us a vaccine for the virus, Xenoralia nervosa.”
The smile fell from Halud’s face. “Sorry?”
Amanpreet paused, surprised, and stared back at him.
Halud recovered. “A Red Fever vaccine?”
The scientist nodded and smiled. “Yes, that’s correct. Twenty years ago, the Red Fever, also known as Xenoralia nervosa, devastated many of the populations of Earth.”
Halud glanced up, and the guard gave him a stern shake of his head. A warning.
“An airborne virus, it spread quickly, and was nearly one-hundred-percent fatal. A completely devastating disease. But we are not to understand the Will of the Gods.”
Halud nodded his head, touching his five fingers to his chest at the long-familiar prompt, “Yes, the Will of the Gods.” He read the cue card: “But we are fortunate, the Gods say we have passed their test, and have given us this reward.”
“The new vaccine will protect us against the devastating effects of Xenoralia nervosa.”
“But isn’t there always a reversion rate with this type of vaccine, Doctor?”
The scientist’s eyes opened wide, and he paused, jaw opening and closing. “The vaccine is ready to be distributed to all of the Gods’ population.”
The factician pointed furiously at the prompt on the cue card.
The guard reached around for his holstered pistol.
“Of course,” Halud said quickly. “Tell us about the distribution.”
The doctor began to speak, but Halud’s mind wandered. The scientist had told him it was a modified live vaccine — they had taken the virus, changed some of its RNA programming, and made it benign. Except RNA was a fickle thing, each new generation of the virus would have subtle changes, incorrect copies of the generation before. Some of the vaccines could revert back to the Red Fever.
The disease that had killed so many adults. And changed children forever.
The producer tapped on the card, alerting him that he had missed his cue. “Marvellous! A vaccine against Xenoralia nervosa. Simply marvellous. Let us pray to the Gods in thanks.” He forced his fingers to his chest and bowed his head.
They hadn’t seen the virus in years. After it had ripped through the pockets of affected population in three devastating months, it had never been seen again. They had no idea where it came from, having appeared in hundreds of disconnected pockets around the globe, touching one suburb but leaving the surrounding ones unharmed. It never spread beyond those suburbs, never spread to other planets. And there had never been a hint of anything like it before or since.
Why create a vaccine now? How had the Central Army researchers even found the virus and isolated it?
He turned his gaze to the lab behind him, eyes locking onto the glass cages of the research animals. They stared back at him, eyes a terribly intelligent, haunting blue.
The guard shifted, holster creaking.
He said quickly, “In the Gods we Trust.”
He read off the prompt card, barely registering the words that came out of his mouth. “The Gods are good. They have chosen to protect us against this terrible threat. So that the Red Fever will never again curse the citizens of United Earth. Thank you, Dr. Amanpreet. We are so thankful and anticipate this life-saving medication.”
The doctor nodded and gave a final smile at the camera.
Without thinking, Halud’s face did the same.
The cinematographer switched off the camera and grinned at them with a second thumbs up.
The guard shook his head.
EIGHT
GRANT APPROACHED THE INFIRMARY, HELPING the last of the Augments who had been rescued from the shuttle. The steady ping of monitors and the shuffling of so many people crammed into the tiny room met them even before they turned in.
Rami sat on the exam table while Hoepe ran his hands over and around him. “Hurry up, Doc, it’s just a broken bone.”
“Dislocated, actually.” Hoepe’s scowl deepened. “And I’m checking your reflexes.”
“They’re fine.”
“They’re too slow.” Scanning the others lined up along the walls, Hoepe admitted, “Everyone’s are too slow.”
Grant hadn’t felt slow, but Hoepe was one of the best doctors under the stars, and if he thought their reflexes were slow then they must be. Funny how he didn’t feel it. What else could he not feel?
“It’s not Isuma’s fault the shuttle crashed,” said Rami. Of the eight Augments who had been trapped in the shuttle, it was Rami who had suffered the worst injury, and was appearing to be the worst patient.
“I’m not saying it is,” said Hoepe. He glanced in the direction of the pilot, Isuma, who huddled stricken in the corner at the far side of the room. “Your responses are still twice the speed of a common human, but they are slower than they should be.”
Leove frowned from his spot beside Isuma where he held her hand, and interrupted his quiet reassurances to ask the same question that shouted in Grant’s mind: “Why?”
Grant caught the subtle but annoyed glare Hoepe sent his brother, but the doctor turned back to his patient, replacing his professional mask of calm. “Sarrin suffered serious zinc deficiency when she arrived. I am seeing similar but mild skin and hair changes in everyone.”
“Easily corrected,” said Leove.
“Yes, but why in the first place?” responded Hoepe.
Rami squirmed under Hoepe’s touch. “Shuttles don’t just crash. Someone tampered with the shuttle and the landing controls. We have to see what happened, investigate the accident.”
“You are injured,” replied Hoepe, the muscles along his jaw straining.
“Then fix it already!”
Rami glanced at him, eyes still tight with pent-up frustration, but he stopped moving at least. “It wasn’t even the girl that did it.” Rami pointed to his dislocated shoulder. “It was that cracked engineer falling on me.”
“That engineer,” muttered Hoepe, “probably saved your life.”
“He’s done something to her.”
Grant leaned back against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. “I told you not to touch her.”
“What does that have to do with it? She shouldn’t turn spread mad just because I touched her.”
“You think you know her—,” Grant started.
At the same time, Hoepe answered, his voice clipped: “Sarrin has been unwell from zinc deficiency; she was not in control of herself.”
“Not in control?” shouted Rami. “Of course not. That engineer is controlling her, changing her.” He leapt off the table, out of Hoepe’s reach, waving his one good arm for emphasis — the same as he had done when tried to get the Augment’s riled up in their prison on Junk.
“Rami, calm down!” Grant yelled, glaring at Hoepe. Rami was spread enough about Sarrin and all the commons on the ship, he didn’t need Hoepe giving him any more reason.
The Augments around them stirred, some of their eyes lighting up with understanding. Alarmed, Grant realized Rami’s wild ramblings went beyond just him, and he was getting through to them.
Grant grabbed Rami by the sore shoulder, Rami grimacing with pain. “Doc needs you on the table unless you want to hold up the whole line.” He waited for Rami to climb back onto the medical bed, Hoepe’s eyes meeting his with worry, before he turned to the others. He eyed each of the others in turn, conveying his seriousness. “He’s not controlling her,” he said as simply as he could. “You know I’m no lover of commons, so believe me when I say I wasn’t very nice to Kieran when I came aboard either. But Sarrin — Twenty-seven — trusts him, and so do I.”
But Rami would not be appeased. “Of course she does,” he snapped. Before he could say more, Hoepe clenched viciously on Rami’s arm, jarring the shoulder back in place. Rami doubled over, gasping. A smug smile crossed Hoepe’s face.
“I don’t know what’s up with Kieran,” Grant said to the others, “but he’s helping. He helps her. They have this weird understanding. He’s the only one who can stop her when she—.”
“Stops her?” Rami growled between heavy breaths. He clutched his shoulder, face unnaturally pale, but it seemed he still had strength to argue.
Grant gulped — he’d been as careless as Hoepe. “Not like that, but… you saw what happened today. Kieran had to intervene, or she wouldn’t have stopped otherwise.”
Rami sat up, but Hoepe twisted a tight sling around the man, strapping the arm to his chest possibly more forcefully than needed.
But Rami turned away from the doctor, huffing unsteadily as Hoepe periodically tugged across his chest. “I don’t trust him at all. He had a sedative ready for her, like he knew it was going to happen. ”
“Kieran carries a sedative,” retorted Hoepe, “because I asked him too.”
“Why?” Leove asked from the corner.
Hoepe glanced at his brother, completely missing the sharp shake of Grant’s head. “Because we’ve had to sedate her before.”
“This has happened before?” snapped Rami. He turned to Grant. “Why haven’t you done anything?”
Hoepe paled, but he still managed to answer faster than Grant could think of a help, non-inflammatory response: “It is not a physical ailment.”
“Of course it isn’t!” shouted Rami, face violent red.
“Calm down,” said Grant, stepping in close to his friend, blocking him from the keenly listening Augments in the room.
“Why should I? You’re not taking this seriously enough. You’re got Twenty-seven acting like a lunatic, with a UEC engineer the only one who can control her. Do you know how spread that sounds?”
“No, you’ve got it wrong….”
“If Twenty-seven was of her right mind, she’d have destroyed all the commons aboard the ship,” Rami called out, leaning around Grant so his voice carried to the others, “the same way she killed all the researchers in that observation tower in Evangecore, and destroyed the facility on Junk. That’s the Twenty-seven that I know, that I follow, that I’ve modelled my own life after.” He leapt off the table, pacing back and forth in the small room, his torso and arm wrapped in white bandages. “They used to make me hide in the bushes during the war games — they thought I was too young, too little to do anything — but I was there, and when I saw Twenty-seven, a girl even younger and smaller than me, leap into that tower, I vowed to never let myself be put in a place of inaction again. And I certainly won’t now. We need to help her, if she’s not of her right mind, if she’s being controlled, we need to act.”
Grant crossed his arms. “We don’t need to do anything.”
The Augments lining the wall looked bad and forth between each other, their brows creased. There had been a time on Junk when they all looked to Grant as their leader, but Grant had spent nearly a year in solitary confinement — who would they listen to now?
Rami placed a gentle hand on his back, his voice low but still strong enough to carry: “Am I talking to Grant right now or the chip in your brain? He’s done something to all of us. Controlling Twenty-seven. Controlling you. All of us having slow reflexes — we were find in Junk, so what’s changed?”
The Augments shifted uncomfortably, a bead of sweat rolling down Grant’s back. Kieran was one of the good guys, he was helping. Couldn’t they see that? But with the chip in his brain, there was no way he could convince them — Rami would explain away any argument he made.
“I’m going to investigate the hangar, figure out why the shuttle crashed,” announced Rami.
“You need rest,” said Hoepe.
“I can’t rest, not when we’re in a situation like this. You’re all convinced Kieran is helping, but he was the first one there — don’t you find that suspicious?”
“Rami,” Grant tried, even though he knew he was already losing, “if Doc says you need a rest, you need rest.”
“We don’t have the time to wait. I’ll get to the bottom of this, and then you’ll see. Don’t worry, Grant, I’ll help you.”
Grant reached out, but Rami was already gone. A pit of dread settled deep in his bowels. Hoepe’s expression was as worried as his own. There was no explaining Kieran, no understanding his strange accent, strange habits, strange expressions, unless you took into consideration Hoepe’s theory that Kieran was not from here, that he was from somewhere else: a God sent to aid them in their times of greatest struggle.
If Rami convinced the others, he would get rid of Kieran. And if they got rid of a God, there was no telling what would happen to them.
* * *
Aaron stood in a dark bunker, the walls made of dirt with rough shelves filled with spools of wire and old, broken machines. The air was damp and stagnant. Familiar. Gal blinked at the scene.
Grey demons watched from all corners as his mind slipped and slid.
Aaron called him, his face haunting int he faint glow of the single overhead light. “It’s not over. We have to press on.” It was then Gal saw he was packing a backpack.
“No,” sniffed Gal, deep in the memory. “We just lost someone. Coyne was our friend. He was following me.”
“He followed you because he thought you were right. He believed in what we were doing. What we are doing.” Aaron’s face was ashen, as shocked and tired as his own. “We have to go now. If we wait, it will be too late.”
They had just one chance, one moment when they would be able to access the database that housed the Speakers’ private, most classified communic
ations. One chance to figure out what was really going on.
Numb, Gal stood, going to the desk — the grey, plastic desk in his quarters of the warship Valkas — waiting for the demons that gathered there to make space for him to sit. His eyes scanned the thousands of lines of code that scrolled down the console screen.
“Do you think it will be enough?” asked Aaron.
“Of course it will.”
A tentative rapping sounded on the door, followed by a chime and a familiar voice. “Gal, it’s me.”
He smiled and glanced knowingly at Aaron, who stood in the bunker while Gal sat in the warship and answered the door on the Ishash’tor. “Come in.”
The doors slid open revealing the corridor just outside his quarters and the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Rayne wrung her hands as the door closed behind her. “I came to check on you.”
Confused, he asked, “Why? Not that I’m not grateful.” He stood and approached, eager for an embrace, but a fleck of grey caught his eye. A demon perched on her shoulder: the demon-Rayne with pretty brown curls and a UEC jumpsuit and a matching smile. It mocked him, making a kissy face, and then fell over backwards, dead.
Rayne furrowed her brow, watching him. “I thought all the commotion and the klaxons might have been … difficult for you.”
Gal turned, impossibly, from his starship quarters to the bunker on Earth.
He was hallucinating, that much was clear. Was he on a ruined freightship with his beloved Rayne? Was he on a warship protecting Cornelius? Was he on Earth with Aaron preparing for a raid?
Aaron shrugged, and Gal turned back to Rayne.
He called her name uncertainly.
“Yes, Gal?”
“What are you doing here?” He glanced behind him where Aaron organized supplies. He couldn’t tell her what he had been doing in the bunker. Not now, not ever. She would never understand.
As if to highlight it, she tugged at the open collar of her UEC jumpsuit. “So, you’re doing okay? The shuttle crash didn’t bother you?”
Shuttle crash? His eyebrows hooded darkly. Only his closest friends, the ones who had grown up with him on Indaer and travelled the same transport to the Academy, knew about his shuttle crashing over the forest preserve on Indaer, knew that it was what caused him to start questioning everything. How had Rayne found out? “I’m fine,” he said cautiously, curious to know what else she had learned. Could she, hope against hope, have come to join them?
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