We saw plenty of evidence during our journey west from Eden, survivor encampments wiped out with only craters and scorched wreckage to show anyone had ever gathered there to start a new life together. We assumed the UW intended to eradicate what they perceived as groups of infected mutants.
"Why now?" I murmur as bodies press past me in the dark to descend from the hilltop and head down, back to the Homeplace as fast as they can.
"You're harboring a fugitive." Bishop means himself, of course. He gets to his feet and shoulders his rifle. He doesn't join the others in their descent. He seems to be awaiting orders from me.
I pray that Victoria and the rest of our people are all right, that they somehow survived the blast. It's difficult to comprehend what's happened. That while seeking to eliminate one threat, another has reared its head against us. That we could return to the Homeplace to find no one alive.
That the nine of us and Milton...may be the very last.
"Margo," I call down to her as I begin to follow the others. Bishop is right behind me. "Tell Milton—"
"He's on his way." She jogs toward me, her silhouette recognizable. "And he's got company."
Daemons, her voice echoes in my mind. Plenty of them.
"Everyone, back into position! Quickly!" I shout, rushing down the grade to stop them. When I grasp the cold metal of Samson's arm, he resists.
"Luther, we have to go home," he rumbles. "They need our help."
"We will," I assure him. "But the daemons will overtake us on foot. We must hold the higher ground and hit them hard."
He nods with reluctance. "Then we'll take their jeeps to the Homeplace."
I'm glad he foresees our victory. I squeeze his arm, unsure whether he can feel the pressure. "We can do this."
"Hell yeah." He stomps toward the hilltop where everyone else is taking their positions, rifles at the ready.
Milton swoops down from the sky and lands beside me, facing east. Toward the Homeplace. "I should—"
"Go, Milton. Help them as only you can." I give him a push, and he nods, returning to the sky and disappearing into the distance.
With his superhuman speed, he will arrive in a matter of seconds. Once there, he will triage the situation, moving in a blur as he tends to those most in need of care first, whipping through the broken rock and rubble to save as many lives as he is able. Anyone who is trapped will have to wait for Samson.
Again, I pray...
"Here they come," Shechara announces as I take my place beside Bishop, my rifle aimed at the cracked hardpan below. "Three jeeps, twelve daemons, approaching full-speed from the northwest."
"Keep your heads down," Bishop advises, "and don't start shooting until you see the yellow of their eyes."
We will wait for them to get close. Once we start firing, they will either back off, split up and circle our hilltop, or launch a grenade or two toward our vicinity.
"Concentrate your fire on any jeep with a rocket launcher." I try to control my breathing as my pulse races.
"What if all three do?" Justus pipes up.
"We hit 'em all hard," Samson growls, glancing at me.
I nod grimly in the early morning light, enough for those of us without Shechara's special eyes to see by. I notice her looking over at Samson, and he returns her gaze. A meaningful look, from one who cares deeply for another. He may even love her; I would not be surprised. Lately the two of them have been spending more private moments together. She smiles faintly at him now, and he nods before they both return their attention to our visitors.
The solar jeeps approach, tires kicking up dirt and gravel. Margo keeps track of how many daemons we have targeted by entering the minds of our people and seeing what they see.
Six headshots lined up, she reports silently as her thoughts join with mine.
We do not fire yet. Not until we can take out more than half of them with our first salvo.
She nods, relaying that message to the others—to all of us. Wait...
"Grenade launcher," Shechara whispers as soon as she spots the weapon, "second jeep."
Bishop glances at me. I nod.
"Fire!" he shouts.
Rifles erupt from the western and northern sides of our vantage point, with Shechara, Samson, Justus, and Margo firing at will in automatic bursts.
Rocket-launcher neutralized, Margo reports, along with four mutants. That jeep is ours.
Leaving two vehicles, and eight daemons.
"Here they come." Bishop releases a short burst as the lead jeep swerves around our side of the hill.
He hits the driver in the side of the head with a splatter of black blood across the windshield, killing the daemon instantly. The other three in the vehicle unleash a fierce barrage on our position, and we duck behind the boulders as their rounds chip the granite, choking the air with bits of rock and dust.
The third jeep is retreating, heading back the way they came. They're moving out of range.
"I've got them," Shechara says, her aim steady, her eyes focused on the retreating daemons. She squeezes the trigger of her assault rifle in a calculated semi-automatic rhythm, one round at a time, shifting her position slightly with each shot.
Four headshots. Margo is impressed. Mutants neutralized. Another jeep is ours.
I give her a nod and gesture for Samson to join Bishop and myself as we cower under fire. He lumbers toward us, shielding his torso and face with his metal arms. The daemons' rounds ricochet off his mechanical limbs and smack into the boulders on either side of him. He doesn't bother to duck for cover.
"Look out below!" he booms.
Then he slams his arm against the boulder on his right, sending it sailing through the air. When it strikes the ground, it bounces and rolls like a massive bowling ball of solid granite, blocking us completely from the daemon's gunfire before smashing into their vehicle and throwing the creatures out of their seats. Bishop and I gun them down where they land.
"All twelve mutants have been neutralized," Margo reports aloud. "Two jeeps in working order. Every one of us uninjured and accounted for."
Samson gives me a direct look. "Now we go home," he rumbles.
11 Sera
22 Years After All-Clear
I don't trust that thing, Erik thinks at me as we walk through the dark maglev tunnel, half a klick away from Dome 2 now. And I don't like it following us.
I'm not a big fan of him sending thoughts into my head, but I figure fair's fair. You gave it new orders.
Clones are conditioned to follow orders, and yeah, I gave it a new set, he replies. But there's no guarantee it won't revert to its original directive. Namely: locking us up for our own protection.
I glance back at the clone, hearing only the heavy, measured footfalls of its armored boots. Weirdly enough, I can see it. And I shouldn't be able to, not with the only light being an occasional glow strip mounted along the track below. Not without my augments, at any rate. But I can make out every centimeter of its white armor as clearly as if a train were speeding down the track, washing the tunnel with its headlight.
Maybe my eyes have just grown accustomed to the dark. Or maybe the capabilities of my visual augments are lingering, enough to see a bit. I can't allow myself to consider the alternative: that in addition to my newfound telepathy, I have a second bizarre ability that has decided to manifest itself.
I don't tell Erik. I don't want to encourage him. Or scare myself. What the hell am I turning into?
No. I can't allow the anxiety to take root. I breathe in and out a few times and focus on the path ahead. Once I report to MedTech at HQ and get my augments fixed, everything will be back to normal. No more mind-reading or night-vision.
But is that what I really want?
I'm surprised we haven't run into any other enforcers. After a terrorist attack, martial law should be in effect, with armed guards at every point of entry.
Erik chuckles at that. Just you wait. The outlying domes will be different. Crackdown in full effect.
Why should it be any different in Domes 2 through 10?
He glances back at me. The sun shines on Dome 1 while clouds cover every other dome.
I've heard that saying before—usually from residents of the outer domes. They seem to think Dome 1 is this majestic, opulent city favored by Chancellor Hawthorne while the other nine domes' second-class citizens live only to serve. To provide for Eurasia's every need: agriculture, manufacturing, technology, oxygen generation, recycling, and waste management, to name a few. But it doesn't matter where you live or what your job assignment is; Eurasia would cease to function if anyone gave up their responsibilities. Every dome is vital. So is every citizen.
You sound like a patriot, I think at him.
He shakes his head. You still believe I'm a terrorist?
Jury's out.
What will it take to convince you I'm not?
I've been trying to keep an open mind, to listen to what he's had to say and somehow make sense of it. No idea where exactly he's leading me right now, but he seems to think we should find the other members of the Twenty. If doing so doesn't involve working with terrorists, then maybe I'll trust him. But I have a hard time believing he got hold of an EMP grenade—and those discs he used to immobilize the clones—without some sort of shady underworld contacts.
Just because I happen to know people on the other side of the law doesn't make me a patriot.
Gritting my teeth, I restrain myself from cursing him out. I've got to figure some way to hide my thoughts—
I could teach you, he offers.
"Stay out of my head, or I'll shoot you in the leg and drag you back to HQ."
"Police brutality!" His voice echoes up and down the tunnel. "Did you hear that?" He looks at the clone. "She just threatened me!"
The security clone doesn't respond or alter its pace, walking a couple meters behind us.
"So. Tucker and Margo. Who were they?" I ask.
He faces forward and keeps moving. "You remember them."
"It's blurry."
"It'll clear up. As long as you don't use those augments, all of your memories of the early days will return in time."
If what he said is true, then we're talking extremely early. Pre-birth. How is that possible?
"Margo made us," he says, like he's discussing the latest Linkstream upgrade. "And Tucker introduced us to our parents. Our real parents."
"In North America."
"That's right."
Land of infected freaks. Does that mean we're infected, too? Is that why we can read minds, see in the dark, or jump off domescrapers?
"How do we remember them if we weren't even born yet?"
He casts a sly smile over his shoulder at me—which I can see in the dark.
"We've always been special, from the moment we were conceived. Margo was too, that's how she could communicate with us." He taps his temple. "Mind to mind."
"What do you mean, she made us?"
"Hawthorne and the Governors perceive anyone who's lived on the surface of the North American Wastes as being infected. If you breathe the air, you're contaminated. Happened to the leader of that military team they sent over there twenty years ago. His protective gear was compromised, and his superiors didn't let him back into Eurasia." He pauses. "Our parents were infected. But their sex cells were extracted in a sealed underground lab, and Margo combined those cells to make twenty viable embryos. That's it in layman's terms, anyway."
Sounds like a VR interactive. So very far from any semblance of reality. "Why?"
"Back then, Eurasians weren't having kids anymore. Because they couldn't. Sterility had become a rampant epidemic, and the Governors were afraid we would die out after the youngest generation grew up and eventually expired. The Terminal Age generation." He pauses. "People your boss's age."
Commander Bishop. She's got to be worried about me by now. Offline, not reporting for duty. If the clone's comms hadn't been damaged by Erik's immobilizer—or whatever that was—I would have contacted her. As it is, I'll have to wait until we reach Dome 2 to connect with local law enforcement.
But with the Chancellor missing, I'm sure Bishop has been busy. Hopefully too busy to notice the absence of a lowly curfew enforcer.
"I've never heard about any sterility problem. There are plenty of babies in the Domes these days." It seems like every successful couple in Dome 1 has one.
"Yes. There are, aren't there." He sounds like he's toying with me, yet again. "Of all the children you've seen, what age would you say is the oldest?"
I haven't thought about it. I shrug as he glances back at me.
"Late teens?" he offers.
"No." I frown. It's never struck me as strange, but considering it now— "Maybe eight or so." I've never seen a child older than that. Doesn't mean they don't exist, though.
"And how old were we when those mandatory doctor's visits started?"
I don't know about him, but for me, it was once I got my period. Mom took me every month after that. "I was twelve."
He nods, half-turning toward me. "Eight years ago."
My pace slows. I'm no investigator, but I can recognize puzzle pieces when they fall into place—whether or not I like the way the resulting picture looks.
"You think the Governors are repeating history. Using our sex cells to...create the next generation." My voice sounds admirably in control of itself, considering this new revelation: that the Twenty have had our sex cells harvested from us without even knowing it, ever since we reached puberty. That children sharing our DNA have been created in laboratories and handed out to citizens in the upper castes across the Domes.
Just when I thought I'd reached the limits of incredulity, Erik throws this at me. Way too much for my brain to process right now.
"Next time you're on the Link, expand your DNA search to include shared DNA," he says. "More than your nine siblings will show up. Because all those kids they've made from our sex cells? They've had the DNA of their adoptive parents interwoven to expand the gene pool. We wouldn't want any inbreeding going on, right?"
"Who's behind this?"
"One guess." He nods toward the clone.
Dr. Solomon Wong, master geneticist. Of course.
"How many...are there?" I sound exhausted.
"Close to a thousand. With more on the way."
Because those doctor's visits didn't end when we left home to live on our own and make a life for ourselves, contributing to society as mandated by our job placements. Every month, I'm still required to visit my doctor for a brief examination. She asks me questions, takes a little blood, checks my vitals. Makes sure the job isn't getting to me, that I'm living a healthy lifestyle. The usual. I've assumed it's because I'm in law enforcement, which can be a stressful career. Or so they tell me.
It's hard to imagine her extracting my eggs without me knowing it. What does she do? Knock me out, make the extraction, then reset the chronometer in my augments so I don't notice the time lapse? Ridiculous.
If any part of this is true, then I should be filled with rage. I'm sure I will be, at some point. For the time being, I do my best to compartmentalize my emotions as I was trained to do at the academy.
I doubt that Erik the rebel has met with his doctor lately. "Let me guess. You started missing your appointments a while back?"
He nods. "As soon as I learned the truth."
The increasing brightness at the end of the tunnel signals that the Dome 2 station is located just around the bend. A semi-circular patch of light in the distance enlarges as we approach, and a handful of armed guards are clear to see in silhouette. They shout at us to halt once we're fifty meters away. Surprising it took them this long to notice us.
What's our story? Erik doesn't look back at me. He puts his hands on his head, as he's told. Like he's ever been that compliant with me.
I do the talking. I follow their orders as well, placing my hands on my head—away from the assault rifle at my side.
"They are Dome 2 law enf
orcement personnel," the clone observes without any alteration to its monotone. Both of its gauntleted hands are set atop its helmet. "Enforcer Chen, you will be safe with them."
Keeping their weapons trained on us, the guards beckon us closer and then surround us once we reach the end of the pathway and enter the maglev station. Just like Dome 1, the gates are closed and the ticket kiosks are offline. But on this side, a sleek, gleaming train sits idly by, unaccustomed to being off-duty.
"Sera Chen, Dome 1 Curfew Enforcer," I introduce myself. "I apprehended this citizen—"
"Curfew's over, Chen." The guard's eyes glaze over as he consults whatever is displayed on his ocular implants. A middle-aged fellow with a sizeable paunch and dark-grey buzz cut, he nods to himself. "You attempted to apprehend this violator last night but failed. I see you had some help remedying the situation this morning." He nods toward the security clone. "Why take the tunnel here?"
"The surface streets are unpredictable in Dome 1 right now. I need a safe space to drop him off." I raise an eyebrow as I lower my hands. The clone echoes my movements. Pretending to be a good boy, Erik keeps his fingers interlocked on his head and doesn't say a word, his gaze fixed on the ground between his boots. "Any chance you can take him off my hands?"
The guards shake their heads. "We've had our own share of trouble. Martial law's in effect, and the streets are clear, but that hasn't stopped local agitators from doing what they do best. Smoke grenades tossed out windows, live ammunition fired at random. Luckily, none of our personnel or any citizens have been injured, and the individuals responsible have been arrested. But the terrorist threat remains."
"Any news on the Chancellor?"
He shakes his head. "The patriots hit the Tower. That's what we heard. But the Link's been glitchy all morning. Wouldn't surprise me if that's what they're targeting next."
I look around at the silent streets and buildings. Smaller than Dome 1, this dome was designed for the main purpose of oxygen generation and recycling. The majority of the space has been utilized for growing leafy trees and other oxygen-producing plant life on the ground as well as suspended from the interior surface of the dome itself. The air is fresher, the tint of the dome's glass greener—either intentionally or a byproduct of so much chlorophyll in a confined space. The only buildings are cube complexes to house the local citizens, stores that provide for their needs, and a station for local law enforcement. Two city blocks away, the small town ends and the forest begins.
Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) Page 94
