by Eliza Green
The early dawn light brightened his apartment, adding warm orange slashes to the grey hue. He ignored the rising sun and continued his analysis of the old World Government files on work done on Exilon 5—anything that could be of use to either Jameson or Harvey. He considered calling Laura again to ask for an update on Margaux, but he discounted the idea. Even if the former elder was doing okay, it would not deal with the problem at hand.
A ticking clock loomed over the heads of the Elite and Conditioned and their time in stasis. While the Conditioned would outlast the Elite physically, their minds would not, unless Jameson swapped the Elite back into their original bodies. But to do the transfer required waking up both the Elite and Conditioned. As soon as they did, Bill was certain the Elite’s genetic code would worsen. Stasis was the only thing keeping them alive.
Shit. He got up and wore a new pattern in the rug. Was he risking the lives of the Conditioned just to keep the Elite alive? What use were they anyway?
He returned to the dining table and talked himself down from his Actigen frenzy.
Keep your shit together, Bill.
He sucked in a deep breath, reminding himself to listen to his gut. There was still time before the mind transfer had to happen. Until then, he would keep them alive, if for no other reason than to punish them for their arrogance.
His heart beat faster than usual—a side effect of the Actigen and one he hated. He got up again and wore the same pattern into the rug.
Last night had been a blur; his mind had refused to settle. That morning, his body twitched with the same nervous energy of his mind. Restless walking syndrome he called it. As soon as he sat down, he’d be up a few minutes later.
Bill returned to the table for the hundredth time, forcing his mind and body to settle. Remembering his moment with Julie at this table made his heart beat faster. What had he been about to do? He shook his head and the memory loose, focusing instead on Jameson’s files. One good thing about being on Actigen? His mind rarely dwelled on things for too long.
The DPad listed the files in chronological date order. Not only were there files about the captured young Indigene but also documented experiments that had been carried out on hundreds of humans who’d travelled to Exilon 5.
Illnesses, viruses and bacterial infections had been deliberately administered. Patients had been brought close to death, then snatched back from the edge with either a life-saving serum or a placebo. Shocks had been administered to the heart to measure its strength. Electrical impulses carrying messages to the rest of the body had been interrupted to measure brain activity.
But according to the files, not everyone who arrived on Exilon 5 had survived the experiments. The tests had been carried out by none other than Dr Jameson. Now that same doctor was helping him to keep the Elite alive.
Then there was the geneticist with psychotic tendencies, now with his own clinic. While Bill still didn’t trust Harvey, he needed his help. Harvey Buchanan was one of the original geneticists to work on the code of the first-generation Indigenes. That made him useful.
Bill checked the time projection on the wall. It read: 4am. At this time of the year in this part of the world, the sun rose early over New London. He activated his private comms channel on a hidden sub band within the communal interstellar wave. He punched in the code for Laura’s private DPad, but cancelled it when the feel of Julie’s lips on his worsened his guilt. Instead, Bill called the underground lab, wondering if it was too early.
A groggy Jameson answered his call. ‘Yeah?’
His eyes were two slits.
‘Did I wake you, doctor?’
Jameson cleared his throat. ‘It’s four am. Of course you woke me. What are you doing up at this hour?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’ That wasn’t a lie.
‘Can’t this wait until a decent hour?’
‘Can the Elite? I assume they’re still dying.’
His words jerked Jameson into action. The doctor rubbed his eyes. ‘Yeah, I’ve managed to slow down the cell degradation by replicating what the stasis pods do normally. My treatment just targets things at a more granular level.’
At least that was something.
‘I think we should talk... you, me and Harvey. I’ll be there at eight.’
A look of relief flashed across Jameson’s face. He smiled. ‘Eight.’
The doctor clicked off, leaving Bill to stare at his screen.
Laura’s number flashed up with a message: Incomplete number. Failed to connect. Try again?
The story of his life. He wished he knew what Laura wanted. Julie’s face popped into his head, someone with fewer complications than his half-Indigene wife. Maybe he should move on.
His heart pounded in his chest at the thought. Making decisions while on Actigen was not the best tactic.
Bill tried to control his shaking finger as he hit Yes.
A meeting with Jameson and Harvey was essential, but what would they discuss? Before he met with them, he had to know how Margaux was. It had been four days since he and Laura had spoken.
An alert Laura answered her DPad. Her eyes widened when she saw him.
‘Bill...’ she whispered. Her skin looked ghostly in the pale blue light of her quarters. ‘Is something wrong?’
Why was she whispering? His pulse pounded at the thought she might not be alone.
‘Who’s with you?’
She frowned at him. ‘Nobody.’
Cool it, Bill.
His moment’s silence seemed to irritate her. ‘Are you calling to check up on me?’
He collected his erratic thoughts and forced them into a coherent sentence. ‘Of course not, love.’
Laura winced at his use of the word love. Her reaction ripped a new hole in his already damaged heart.
‘Then why, Bill?’
Had she forgotten their last conversation?
‘You called me four days ago to tell me Margaux was sick. Why haven’t you called me back?’
She paused for a second, then looked contrite. She’d forgotten. ‘I’m sorry. Things have been busy here. She’s doing okay. I didn’t see the need to tell you.’
‘So she’s better?’
Laura shook her head. ‘The same.’
‘How is that improved?’
‘It isn’t. But it’s not worse, so...’
Anger blazed in his chest. ‘I have doctors working to find a solution to your problem, and you’re telling me everything’s okay?’
Laura frowned. ‘What doctors?’
‘Jameson and Harvey.’
She sat back, on her mattress he presumed. ‘No, Bill. Harvey can’t be trusted.’
His chest heated. ‘Well, I don’t have anyone else to help me.’
A look of hurt flashed across her face, then disappeared. Her expression hardened suddenly. ‘Other things have been going on here. I didn’t see calling you back as one of my priorities.’
His mind raced at the possibilities. ‘What things?’
‘The elders from District One and Eight arrived shortly after Margaux fell ill. They’re trying to take over from Stephen.’
Why hadn’t his Indigene friend called him? He didn’t know which was worse: hearing it second-hand from Laura, or being left out of important Indigene matters.
‘How is that stubborn son of a bitch?’
Laura sighed; the edge to her mood softened. ‘Stephen’s not good, but I’m helping him in whatever way I can.’
‘Do you need me to come there, to speak to him?’
He could help Stephen and see his wife again.
The look of surprise on her face dulled his expectations about a reunion.
‘No, he needs to sort this for himself. Like I said, I’m helping him.’ She paused. ‘Look, I’m sorry for panicking you about Margaux. She’s doing fine. Everyone is.’
Bill leaned back in his chair. ‘Okay.’
Laura drew closer to the screen. Traces of his best friend emerged, despite her chilly manner. ‘P
lease be careful, with Harvey especially. I don’t trust that he’s not using you to incite his rebellion.’
The thought had crossed his mind too. Actigen had a way of opening up his mind as well as killing sleep.
She studied him. ‘What’s wrong with your eyes?’
And making his eyes bloodshot.
He blinked and pushed the screen farther back. ‘Nothing. I’ll let you know if I find anything useful from the Elite.’
‘Let them go, Bill.’
Was that advice meant for him too?
‘I can’t. Not yet. I’ll be in touch.’
He disconnected the call. His chest heaved from the confusing emotions at seeing his best friend again. Actigen was supposed to dull his feelings, keep him sharp. It had been necessary to take it eight years ago, and he’d become accustomed to feeling nothing. But now? He’d lost his tolerance for it. His system now reacted differently to the drug.
Bill stuffed his DPad with old World Government files on it into his bag. He needed out of this apartment. He needed to keep his mind occupied with something, even if that something wasn’t the right thing. Margaux’s forewarning about worse things to come rattled inside his head.
He needed to speak to Harvey.
☼
His car pulled up to the empty warehouse that was twenty minutes’ drive from his apartment, ten from the ITF offices. Many warehouses in the city lay idle. Some progress had been made to make the city feel like a home, but the idle buildings also gave the place an empty feel. Bill needed to do more as ITF Director to bring better cohesion to the city.
He got out of the car and marched up to the steel door and beige-bricked entrance. There was no view inside. The sun was high in the sky, despite it being only 4.30am. Bill knocked on the door, certain Harvey would answer. From the moment Bill had handed ownership over to Harvey, he’d had his underground operatives watching the place. According to his operatives, Harvey hadn’t returned to the safe house or contacted Ollie Patterson. Activity on the interstellar wave had also turned up no contact.
Military vehicles had transferred medical equipment to the warehouse from a list Harvey had provided. One thing Bill hadn’t given the former geneticist was staff.
Was Buchanan turning a corner?
Bill waited but nobody answered. He pressed his right thumb to the plate positioned next to the steel door. The panel scanned his security chip from his days with the World Government. It flashed red, indicating Harvey had changed the code.
‘Son of a bitch.’ Using his fist, he banged on the door. ‘Harvey, open up!’
He waited a few minutes more for Harvey to show, then banged on the door again.
Invisible security bolts drew back inside the door.
It creaked open and a dishevelled looking Harvey popped his head out. ‘What the hell’s the racket? Who died?’
‘You, if you don’t tell me why you changed the code to this place.’
Bill forced his way inside.
Harvey perked up, chuckling a little. ‘Come in, won’t you?’
He dragged a hand down his tired face.
Bill turned to face him. ‘Why did you override my access? How did you know to do that?’
Harvey frowned. ‘I assumed this place was mine to do with as I please.’
Bill walked farther inside the warehouse. Ahead of him was a bare floor, just one of four in this building. According to his men and women, Harvey had set up the medical equipment on the first floor.
‘Let me give you the grand tour,’ Harvey said, gesturing to the room. ‘This is where the genetic manipulation clinic will be set up. I’m going to have a reception area right here.’ He stopped a third of the way inside the space. Pointing, he said, ‘Individual treatment booths along this wall, and the other. Private consultation rooms here, here and here.’
How many employees was Harvey expecting to get? Bill had never used the genetic manipulation clinics on Earth and he wasn't sure what the uptake would be like here. People on Exilon 5 had gotten used to life without the habits of Earth.
Bill looked around the empty space. He’d hoped Harvey would become a virologist and these clinics a health centre.
Harvey’s enthusiasm continued for a project Bill had no energy for.
He strode to the stairs, pausing. ‘Any security detail I should know about?’
Harvey’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Oh, you mean the laser cutters crisscrossing the stairs?’
Bill jumped back from the stairs in alarm. The damn Actigen stirred his paranoia beyond normal limits.
Harvey laughed. Loud. ‘Just fucking with you.’ He pointed up. ‘You first.’
Bill tested the first step, then the second. Only when Harvey marched on ahead did he follow with confidence. The partitioned second floor had a different feel to the open-plan look of the first. Bill peered inside glass-walled areas, seeing the equipment his moving team had brought from one of the surplus hospitals. A sudden fear washed over him as he remembered coming to Harvey eight years ago to get new identity chips. He’d heard the worst screams coming from Harvey’s Russian-based hospital, which technically had not been open for business. What plans did Harvey have for this partitioned space? Similar testing? Bill would need to keep Harvey’s business on the straight and narrow.
‘In the third room,’ said Harvey. ‘That’s where I’m working on the first-gen code.’
‘What have you learned?’
‘Not much.’
The glass door slid open. Bill stepped inside the sterile-looking room with one painted, white wall and glass partitions between the rooms. He could see into the next room of equal size, then into the remaining four compartments in this row. Opposite to them were another six designed in the same way. Bill shivered as he pictured restrained subjects being tested upon, while others in a similar state looked on in fear.
He shook his paranoid thoughts from his mind, focusing on the monitor and work station Harvey had set up. There was a bed at the back of the room.
‘You sleeping in here?’
‘Only when I need to be next to the idea. My best thoughts happen through dreams. I need to be close enough to write the ideas down.’
Bill walked over to the workstation with just one chair. Harvey sat down and activated the monitor.
Bill lingered behind him and folded his arms. ‘You say you have nothing, but that can’t be true.’
Harvey drew out information in hologram form from the screen. ‘We don’t know what we’re looking for, but I’ve gone over all my data on the first-generation Indigenes to refresh my memory.’
‘And?’
Harvey looked up at him. He pointed at the information rotating in the air. It was DNA results from three different samples.
‘Same person. First from a human, second a failed attempt to create an Indigene, the third a successful Indigene.’
Bill examined the data. The DNA looked the same until Harvey superimposed the images on top of one another. That’s when he saw the variations.
‘How will this help?’
‘We have a baseline for the first-gen Indigenes’ DNA, and it’s a start. What I need now is to get a sample from Margaux, see how her DNA has changed since we created them.’
Bill could arrange that. ‘I’ll see the sample is sent to you.’
Harvey shook his head. ‘I’ll need to take it myself.’
That would involve giving him access to District Three. He didn’t imagine Stephen welcoming that idea.
‘Sorry, no can do. Restricted personnel only.’
Harvey swivelled round in his chair. ‘I don’t think you understand what’s going on here.’
Bill’s mouth turned down. ‘False alarm, according to my source. Margaux is better.’
Harvey shook his head, surprising him. ‘Perhaps not.’
There was also Jameson’s data.
‘Jameson isn’t worried. Neither am I.’
‘Jameson has only dealt with the latest genetic testing.
I am referring to the effect on the first generation.’
‘What do you mean?’
Harvey huffed out a breath, as though irritated. ‘Listen, the first gen are susceptible to more illnesses than the GS humans. I was in my twenties when I helped the geneticists to collate the data, over fifty-eight years ago. Much of my training after was studying the first gen’s code. We don’t know much about how their immune system has developed—the testing on their code finished when we put them on this planet—but if anyone is likely to catch a cold it will be the first gen. You worried me when you said Margaux was sick. She’s over a hundred years old. She was one of the original test subjects.’
‘So you’re saying the worst is yet to come?’
Harvey nodded. ‘Never trust the calm.’
21
His conversation with Harvey had raised more questions than it had answered, but Bill needed to wrap up their chat if he was to make the 8am meeting with Jameson. He hoped having the pair in the room might coordinate their efforts better. But leaving the solution to them unsettled him. He needed a third opinion.
Bill arrived at the ITF office an hour later. At 6am, he expected the building to be empty—the night shift clocked off about now. But as he climbed the stairs he heard someone working on the first floor. He opened the door and entered the dark space. There, he found Ben sat hunched over one of the monitors, his face illuminated by the only light in the room.
‘Work doesn’t start until 8am, you know.’
Officially anyway. His underground operatives worked around the clock.
Ben startled like a deer caught in headlights. His eyes sported two black rings from his obvious lack of sleep.
‘I just wanted to keep an eye on things.’ He looked from Bill back to the screen. ‘The halfway house is boring.’
Ben’s attitude to work was stellar, but Bill had noticed the boy had become quieter of late.
‘You still worried about Marcus?’ He walked over to the desk. ‘Because he’s well and truly locked up.’
Maybe he shouldn’t have told him.
