Started with Errors (Relative Industries Series Book 2)

by Joanna Beaumont

  Her stiff, tense jaw unclamped. “What will you do while I push this?” Asshole.

  “I’ll watch you.”

  The promise of the death of her friend held like a gun at her temple while she pushed her own children towards an unknown life without her. That’s why he was both the founder and CEO of Relative Industries. He was the classic definition of a psychopath, emotionless and calm under pressure.

  The potential lives in these shoddy wooden crates off to start a new human colony without parental consent. She would never willingly let her embryos go. And what right would a parent have to give consent anyhow? Human embryos belonged to Earth. Was that point carefully debated in Parliament?

  “How did you get the government to declare the embryos government assets?”

  “I said this to Lana. I didn’t get the government to do anything. They declared them assets all by themselves and transferred them here for research purposes because of the infertility crisis.”

  She pushed the crates through the glass tunnel. Research purposes—did that include setting up a human colony on another planet? She scowled at him and pushed.

  When they were further along the tunnel Alex said, “Stop.”

  Beth looked around, not understanding why they’d stopped, then Alex pushed open a door, hidden amongst the expanse of glass. A warm breeze rolled in from the ocean. She pushed the cage through the door, exchanging the stale breath in her lungs for fresh salt air.

  On the concrete path the trolley’s resistance increased, and she had to push harder. Her hands were gripped, tight and white, on the steel poles of the cage, and vibrations rung through her arms and shoulders.

  Around her, lush green tropical garden echoed with exotic birdsong. The scent of jasmine flowers filled the air, and red hibiscus flowers grew within touching distance.

  It was beautiful here. A true paradise on Earth.

  If humans couldn’t make it on Earth they couldn’t make it anywhere. Earth wasn’t the problem. To take embryos from Earth and bring them up on a dust bowl of a planet made no sense to her. And it never would, for his mind was akin to a serial killer, only fit for wafer-thin slicing and examination under a microscope while you crossed your heart and hoped to find a cure.

  In the parking lot, Alex strode to a dusty two-seater RI branded pickup truck. He dropped open the back door.

  “Come on.”

  She stopped the cage near the truck, and Alex lifted each crate out and slid them inside the cargo area. Crates loaded. Door slammed shut. He watched her rub her tight, numb fingers.

  “Not done yet. Get in.”

  He started the truck. She didn’t want to go anywhere with that sadistic bastard. He stared at her, and she knew she had no choice. She climbed in the front seat.

  They set off and were soon travelling on the winding narrow concrete road that wrapped around the island. She’d been on the road before, with Howard on a sight-seeing trip to the national park on one of their few days off outside. But this wasn’t a day out in the park.

  They left the relative smooth surface of the road and skidded onto a bumpy red-brown dirt track that stretched up towards a rocky crater. Grit and rocks crunched beneath the wheels and spat at the black paintwork. Clouds of dust smoked up around them. As the truck navigated the steep uneven terrain, her shoulders and stomach jerked from side to side. Beth grabbed the edge of her seat and stiffened.

  At the crater’s peak, a hundred feet away from the edge, they slowed to a stop. Another RI pickup truck had parked close by. Alex got out and told Beth to, then he slammed his door shut.

  They stepped over jagged rocks until they reached the crater’s edge. She peered down the steep sloping sides as sheer as a cliff’s.

  On the crater floor, thirty people, maybe more, worked in and around three spacecrafts on launch pads, no doubt priming them for ejection from Earth.

  In the centre of the crater, a team of five manoeuvred a space rocket onto the central launch pad. The two other launch pads were already set with spacecrafts like fireworks awaiting ignition.

  “This is the launch site. Half of NASA and ESA have worked on this island at some point. The rotation of the Earth is fastest near the equator so that provides an advantage at launch, and of course the equator is the optimal position for the space elevators. The lifts are a little slow to shuttle humans into space, so we use the rockets for that. Have you seen our space elevators?”

  He turned around to the blue ocean behind them and pointed at the bridge to the horizon. From their position the bridge looked like a vertical line cutting through the sea and meeting the horizon. But at the end of that bridge there were space elevators. The very space elevators that must have shuttled spaceship jigsaw pieces, funnel engines and other items printed by Sean and his team to a space station in geostationary orbit.

  Alex looked at Beth then, and as if he just thought of it he said, “You should come with me and your embryos.”

  “My embryos are inside the crates on the truck?”

  “No, your embryos were safely on-board days ago.”

  Words stuck in her throat, choking her. Days ago. How could he do that?

  “Not even if you were the last person on Earth?” he asked.

  “All those people working down there, they know what’s going on and they don’t care?” Beth asked.

  “This should be the least of your worries. I’m sure there will be a few people left after Meda has completed her plan. I thought her idea was a little extreme myself.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your colleague, Jason, the one who jumped over the balcony. If he hadn’t done it, I’m not sure Meda would have thought about it. Serendipity, that’s what she called it. Earth’s plan. She’s uploading the suicide code onto the implants. The thought-text upgrade has been rolled out around the world.”

  “Meda cancelled ImReal. She wouldn’t do that.”

  “Not my idea. How long did it take for Jason to jump?” He looked at his watch.

  Beth was dumbfounded.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Forty minutes.” She kicked the dusty-rocky ground at her feet.

  “Why did you take my embryos, Alex? What use are they to you?” Her voice cracked. Tears welled in her eyes. She should care what Meda had done, but he may as well have her beating heart in his hands, blood dripping through his fingers. “My children will grow up without me. I won’t be able to protect them. Why do you hate us? Why do you hate me?”

  “You can come with me. I don’t hate you, but I hate world leaders who threaten the survival of our species. Humans are too reliant on Earth. I’m creating diversity in our habitat and freeing us from living under the constant threat of a nuclear winter. I can’t let my children live like that, and if there is a nuclear winter, it would be too late to do anything. The people down there, working on the crater floor, they understand that, and they’re coming with me.”

  Beth stared at him, squinting against the high sun. She hadn’t expected him to say that.

  “You thought I was a monster?”

  For a fleeting moment she considered going with him and leaving Howard. But she couldn’t leave Howard. She loved him, and Alex was a monster. Stealing embryos, killing Amy, that wasn’t the right way to do it. But she’d said it herself: human embryos belonged to Earth. Who would sanction the removal of embryos off Earth? Would the pro-lifers? What about quality of life? She was certain the decision would be wrapped up in red tape for years, debated for years. Reports were bound to be written and delayed.

  Everybody working on the crater floor must have turned a blind eye or swallowed it as a bitter pill. It was an unfortunate side effect. They probably believed it was in the human race’s best interests.

  “You realise your dream by crushing everyone else’s. By crushing mine!” Beth said.

  “Others may interpret what I’ve done very differently to you. It’s too late to change things on Earth. Even before the infertility
crisis life had gone badly wrong. People would rather commit suicide than live or obliterate themselves with drugs, and the devastation that causes to the people left behind is unacceptable.

  “And women were choosing not to bring new life into this world. Can you imagine? A conscious choice to not continue the species. What other evidence do we need to know we’ve got it wrong? How many more deaths of despair are necessary? How many more people need to be on anti-depressants or hooked on drugs before you realise people cannot cope with the existing structure?

  “They need an alternative, and I will give them that at any cost. It’s time to start again with a new governance and a new political structure.”

  “Your kind of government.”

  “It will be an experiment of course. Different government structures on different planets. There are enough embryos to find the ideal one.”

  “You’re trying to find utopia by using human test cases. You can’t tame millions of years of evolution. We’re slaves to the code written in our DNA, and there will always be people who don’t pick up their dog’s shit—even in Utopia. Was setting up a human colony included in research purposes?”

  “I can see the term research purposes might be open to interpretation.”

  He waved his hand across the launch site. “All this is merely a difference in opinion between the sexes. I had to leave Earth this way. Because you’re right; we are slaves to our code, both male and female.”

  “You’re stealing embryos because of the differences between men and women?”

  She stared down at the launch site. Women were programmed to be the nurturers. Men were programmed to be the seed spreaders. Something could’ve been agreed between us, couldn’t it? It wouldn’t have been a stalemate. But she knew she’d never donate her eggs and what use would a spaceship full of jizz be?

  “People will be furious when they work out they’ve been stolen from Earth.”

  “Maybe, but I’ve taken evolution with me, single-cell organisms, sponges, fossils, bones. I’ll put them in a museum, put information on the internet with a high truth-index. If we go down that path, they will accept they were born on the planet. There are ways, and I never mentioned finding Utopia. I will offer repatriation programs to my new colonies and take people from Earth if there is anybody left here after Meda has finished.” He checked his watch.

  “Why did you let Meda do it?”

  “I said at any cost. Meda’s silence was the cost, and buying that woman’s silence came at a high price. You’re the only one left who knows anything about the suicide code.”

  Mum, Dad, her sisters, her brother would have received the implant. Everybody in the New Cities would have one. Who knew how many people around the world had upgraded to the next version of thought-text, blissfully unaware of the chilling dark-side of the latest technology they’d introduced into their bodies.

  But her poor unborn children were off to start life without her, on another planet, under an undefined political structure as a test case.

  She was torn between scaling down the crater walls to sabotage the shuttle launch and saving the millions of people in the New Cities from the code she’d developed.

  “Are you coming with me or not?”

  “What, and be one of your harem?”

  “If you insist.”

  She hurried back to the pickup truck.

  “What if I told you leaving Earth was my destiny?” he called after her.

  “You’re a fucking psycho. If humans can’t make it on Earth they can’t make it anywhere!”

  “No problem. I’ve checked. Three of your embryos are female.”

  Hand on the truck door handle, she turned around, slowly processing what he’d said. She stormed back to him and hit him in the face, and then punched him in the chest over and over again. He grabbed hold of her arms and slammed her away. She fell on the dusty ground.

  She scrambled to her feet, wiped her palms down her trousers and headed to the truck. “Fuck you, Alex. I’ll take these embryos back with me. I will come and find you. And my children.”

  “I hope so, at least some version of me, anyway.”

  She slammed the truck door shut, started the engine and turned it around.

  Her thick tears blurred her view out the dusty windshield. She blinked and slammed her foot flat on the accelerator pedal. The manual transmission screamed out for a gear change. She’d no idea how to drive antique cars. But she remembered how her dad had, and she ground the gears in fury.

  She flicked her eyes to the rear-view mirror; his unmoved frame shrunk while her despondency rose.

  “Mother fucker!” she screamed, grinding the gears again. “Hope you reach the edge of the simulation and have to turn back, asshole.”

  Alex and the others who were complicit in stealing the embryos—they didn’t want to take the risk women would say no.

  She hoped the women born on Alex’s planets do not have to start again, fighting for their rights under the oppression of male dominance. Or worse, a tyrannical religion that forcibly demanded a woman’s subservience just so Alex could try find a utopia that can never exist.

  Women always have the most to lose.

  Her daughters.

  Her sons.

  She slammed her hands down on the steering wheel and thought about turning the truck around and running over Alex. But her children were already gone. Alex had taken them. And Meda was about to murder everyone at home.

  She remembered Meda’s last broadcast. RI would have increased visibility from around the world. Meda knew Alex’s intentions. She should have known she was crazy when she wouldn’t stop Howard’s testing. Howard had always been suspicious of her motives.

  Meda had imprisoned Amy in a pod.

  She knew Meda was an extreme planetist, but even by Alex’s standards murdering the human species to save the planet was too much. She’d been stupidly blind to not realise the depths Meda would sink to.

  Chapter Twenty

  Howard had obtained the group-access pass to the Deceleration Zone under the guise he must replenish his seed supply, and he’d waited outside time adjustment for the past hour. He tapped his foot. He should never have relied on Callum. Security could have come back and taken Beth away.

  Only five minutes left until time adjustment, and Damian was approaching. Howard groaned. He’d probably buzzed around every five days, waiting for another confrontation with Beth. Howard had expected to see him before now. It was a shame he missed him with his pants down around his ankles. The thought made him smile.

  It was far too early in the morning for an argument, but in anticipation Howard straightened up. Damian wouldn’t stop him entering time adjustment.

  “Can you tell me where your wife is?” Damian asked.

  Howard glared at him. He towered over Damian. “I don’t want you hassling her anymore. If you have a problem, talk to me!”

  “Has she heard anything from Amy yet?”

  Howard had not expected him to say that. His shoulders dropped a little. His tone softened. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I’m going inside Zone 0 to find out what happened to the best member of staff I had. I’ve heard nothing since the guards took her away, and her drawers are full of her stuff. I need to know where to send it.”

  “Why are you hassling Beth about Lana?” Howard asked.

  “I will deal with Lucy Green when I go inside Zone 0 too.”

  Howard thought Damian speaking to Beth first might not be such a bad idea. At least it would delay him for a few minutes. “I’m meeting Beth. Come with me and ask her about Amy.”

  “Okay, but then I’m informing security about Lucy Green.”

  “Whatever,” Howard said. “Keep Beth out of it.”

  Howard wasted no more breath on him. None of this Lana/Lucy business made any sense to him. Alex didn’t care Lana was Lucy Green, so maybe security didn’t care either. Howard may have bought some time, but for who he wasn’t sure. Lana must be close t
o the end of her game.

  Inside time adjustment, Lana pulled down her harness. Was Alex spying on her now? Embarrassed, her face warmed. Was he thinking that was the stupid dumb bitch he’d trapped inside time adjustment? Was he timing how long it took for her to free herself? Some twisted sweepstake game he played with moronic Meda.

  As soon as Lana had walked in the room with the screen and red chairs, she knew what would happen. What an idiot. By the time she’d twigged she was under time deceleration, risen from her chair, smashed the glass case on the wall and pushed down on that big red button, six seconds had passed on the DZ Zone clock and thirty-six minutes had passed on the Zone 0 clock.

  If she’d not been suspicious and obsessively monitoring the clocks on the wall, and if her brain had not entered fight-or-flight mode and triggered the physiological processes that allowed human beings to react quickly in stressful situations, she would have lost much more time. Stupid, stupid girl.

  With the twenty minutes she’d already waited for Alex, she was inside the demonstration room for fifty-six minutes. In total, she’d been away from Zone 12 for twenty-five days. Twenty-five days was a long time for Callum to be alone in Zone 12. She wondered what he’d been up to. He’d had enough time to grow the embryos for sure.

  She touched the stinging cuts on her arms. After she’d slammed down the big red button and shut off time deceleration, the door to the demonstration room had unlocked. But to gain access to the walkway, she had to launch a red fire extinguisher through the glass panel in the locked door then climb through it. Fortunately, the door to the tunnel leading back inside Zone 0 had been wedged open.

  Alex was nowhere to be found, and Lana was running on empty, demotivated and made a fool of.

  She needed time to think, restore her energy and dress the glass cuts on her arms. And she wanted to reconcile with Callum. She needed him, and she needed a better plan to stop Alex.

  Time adjustment ended and Lana lifted up her harness.

  Rubbing the stretched muscles in her neck, she entered Zone 12 and was surprised to find Howard waiting in the queue to go inside. Creepy Damian was there too. Lana avoided eye contact with Damian.