by Eliza Green
The separation made her guilt worse. ‘Good idea.’
He jumped down from the top tier to ground level then ran into the tunnel heading west.
Laura exited through the same tunnel, but headed south when the first split came. She sensed her friend there, and hoped she could be of some use to her.
The tunnel walls vibrated to a point where it made her dizzy. It forced her to stop.
Shaking off the beginnings of what she assumed was panic, she felt her way along the tunnel wall.
Laura drew on her Indigene senses and picked up on a frazzled Arianna close to one of the tranquillity caves. She headed there, hoping her friend would talk her down from the ledge of insanity. Bill or Clement? Both men had her heart. Only one would keep it.
She arrived at one of the caves in the south of the district to find a group of Indigenes blocking the entrance, and an anxious Arianna trying to reason with those who wanted to use it.
‘Please, Stephen has ordered all caves off limits.’
Dark shadows bounced off the walls behind the heads of the visiting group. Laura wondered if the ghosts represented not only a lie but anger too. With her new skill on fire, was this how she saw aggression?
She stayed back, but only briefly. One Indigene knocked Arianna to the ground.
‘Get off her!’ She ran to her friend’s aid.
The group rushed the Indigenes blocking the entrance, but the line held firm. Not making progress, the group backed off and left, probably to try another cave.
Laura helped Arianna to her feet. ‘Are you okay?’
Arianna brushed stone dust off her tunic. ‘I’m fine. They’re just angry and confused. Stephen will talk to them, make them see sense.’
Laura told her about her call to Bill, nothing else. This was not the time to discuss her confusion.
Arianna’s expression was grim. ‘Let’s hope it’s all for nothing.’
‘You believe that?’
‘No sickness in fifty-eight years? Something’s going on here, and I think the Nexus is to blame.’
That worried Laura. How could they fight an enemy they couldn’t see?
Despite the group’s departure, Arianna refused to settle.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Laura.
‘I used the Nexus early this morning, before Emile.’
‘And?’
Arianna huffed out a breath. ‘I haven’t been able to sense Anton all morning.’
27
‘It’s quiet on the ground, Bill,’ said Gunnar, one of his underground operatives.
Bill had joined a group of three men and three women on the fifth floor in a room only he and the operatives had access to. Laura’s call had thrown him. He’d forgotten all about the meeting until Gunnar had pinged his device.
The team sat at the round table, but Bill was too anxious to join them. Instead, he leaned against the door, arms folded.
‘What about the construction sites? Any movement there?’
He’d at least expected some meetings to occur in the flatlands between the city and the district. If District Three’s tenants were as restless as Laura had said, it would only be a matter of time.
Gunnar shook his head. ‘Like I said, nothing. It’s not like before when there were regular meetings happening. The GS humans’ visit to District Three appears to have tempered hot moods.’
Bill rubbed his chin. It tempered his anxiety. ‘But it doesn’t mean the problem has suddenly gone away.’
‘What about Harvey?’ asked a different operative.
‘Keeping his head down, but he did pay a visit to Marcus in the prison.’
‘You want me to look into that?’
Bill nodded. ‘Eyes on Harvey only. I’ll check on Marcus myself. Call it a hunch, but plans to overthrow the ITF don’t just go away.’
The operatives stood.
Gunnar said, ‘You can rely on us. But maybe you should get in touch with Stephen again, get a sense of what’s happening on the rogue side. Anton and Arianna were keeping an eye on them, and I prefer not to listen to rumours.’
Mention of the district unsettled Bill. He offered a tight nod to Gunnar and the others, and waited for them to leave by a set of stairs. The stairs would lead them down into a disused section of the Victoria station’s underground tunnel and up to the surface, via a safe house in the city. For his operatives to do their jobs well, he had to protect their anonymity.
Bill exited the room and returned to the fifth floor, filled with AI-controlled servers. He nodded at the head of the IT team; just he and two others were on hand to troubleshoot issues.
Back in the main stairwell, he paused. Laura’s message had rattled him. Not because it came from her—well, that was definitely part of it—but because he’d sensed Tanya’s visit would cause problems. He called his car and started down to the first floor, entering Julie’s domain once more. She looked up from a monitor and smiled at him. Bill gave her a tight nod and passed by the desks to Laura’s office. He opened the door, trying not to breathe in Laura’s scent. But the room smelled more like Julie than it did Laura. That put him on a new edge.
Ben looked up from his monitor.
‘Anything from Greyson?’
Ben shook his head. ‘It’s only been an hour. He said he’d get in touch when he’s gone through Jameson’s and Harvey’s data.’
‘Come on,’ said Bill. ‘We’re heading to the district.’
Ben stood up, a smile lighting up his face.
‘Good. It stinks of lady perfume in here,’ he muttered on the way to the door.
Bill didn’t respond. Nor did he look at the woman who, with her scent, had taken over Laura’s office.
They exited to the front of the building and climbed into the waiting car. Bill commanded it to drive to Harvey’s warehouse first.
Ben peered out the window when the car began to move. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To pick up Harvey, then Jameson. We need them to come with us.’
‘What’s happening in the district?’
Bill stared out the window. ‘The Indigenes are ill.’
‘Ill? How’s that even possible? Aren’t they supposed to be indestructible, or impervious to illness? Like, better than us?’
Yes, they were, but Bill hadn’t the energy to answer Ben’s volley of questions right now.
He called both men on the way. Harvey said he would be waiting outside. Bill told Jameson to bring whatever medical equipment he used when he’d made calls to the Elite.
The car pulled up to the kerb outside Harvey’s warehouse in the middle of the city, opposite a soon-to-open Cantaloupe restaurant. This area, with its plethora of unoccupied office space, could become the next hot part of town—with the right investment.
No geneticist waited outside. From his seat and using his DPad, Bill pinged the restricted communication line inside the warehouse.
No answer. He didn’t have time for this. The Indigenes didn’t have time.
‘Where the hell is he?’
Six minutes passed before the sandy-haired man exited the building. The manual-turned-automatic door opened and closed for him. He was just five minutes in the place and already he’d made modifications. What else had he done?
Bill shook the thoughts from his head. That would be a conversation for another day.
Harvey climbed into the back. ‘What’s the emergency?’
Bill concentrated on the scenery. ‘A problem.’
‘Could you elaborate?’
‘Not yet.’
The car drove off and his party rode in silence to the hospital. Harvey sat directly behind him, quiet as a mouse. That unnerved Bill. Maybe it was all those years working as a profiler, but Harvey still made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Jameson was more accommodating than Harvey had been, waiting outside of the gate, medical bag in hand. With both men in the car, Bill told them about the issues in the district.
‘Only first generation?’
asked Harvey. ‘Not second or third?’
The car left the city limits behind and bumped along a rough secondary arterial road between New London and New Tokyo.
‘That’s all the information I have.’ Bill turned around in his seat. ‘How likely is it that the first gen would get sick like this?’
‘Unheard of,’ said Harvey. ‘We’re going to have to quarantine the district.’
‘That could be an issue. We’re not exactly built for containing a super race.’
Harvey shook his head, looking more serious than Bill had seen him since arriving on Exilon 5. ‘We don’t have a choice. The Indigenes could be infected by an unknown virus. Jameson will need to take blood samples from the healthy and infected. Until we’re done, we need to wear gloves and masks.’
Bill frowned. ‘Is it that serious? Are they a threat to humans?’
Jameson added his thoughts. ‘We won’t know until we get in there. You say the virus was transmitted via the Nexus?’
‘It’s a theory at the moment, but Tanya’s visit there can’t be ignored.’
Ben remained quiet, listening.
Harvey thumbed at him. ‘Why’s the kid here?’
‘Ben is my first in command. He goes where I go.’
Ben’s lips quirked. It pleased Bill to give the teen a purpose.
The car swapped the arterial road for the uneven landscape. It pitched left and right as it navigated the safest, but not smoothest, route to the district.
As the car pulled up outside the entrance to District Three, Bill wondered if he’d made a mistake bringing so few with him. Harvey’s suggestion they quarantine the district would require greater numbers than this.
‘Maybe I should call the troops,’ he said to Harvey.
‘Not yet. Let’s see what we’re dealing with first.’
Bill opened the glove box and tossed a gel mask and a canister to each of his passengers.
Jameson held up his. ‘What’s this for?’
‘The district air is too thin.’
Harvey showed Jameson how to put on his mask. The former doctor to the Elite had never been in the tunnels or experienced the tight squeeze on his chest from the low oxygen levels. He had treated the Elite in their caves, a place filled with regular air. The adaptability of the lungs of the Elite and Conditioned made it possible for them to breathe in both types of air.
Bill got out; the others followed. He took the lead, navigating the stone steps that no longer had a metal hatch covering them. The peace treaty recognised the rights of the Indigenes. There was no need to hide any more. Although, the treaty still had too many restrictions. It had been created under a different leadership with different end goals in mind.
Bill stopped at the base of the stairs and looked up. A blue scan covered him from head to toe. When he heard the door open from the inside, he pressed the gel mask to his face and pulled on a pair of blue surgical gloves.
Waiting on the other side was Serena. The look of fear on her face startled him.
‘Bill, Laura said you were coming.’ Her eyes slid to the men with him, then Ben last. She offered him a smile. ‘Who are your other friends?’
‘Harvey is a geneticist. He worked on the first gen. Jameson was the doctor for the Elite.’ He nodded at Jameson’s bag. ‘He needs to take blood samples from your healthy and sick.’
Serena stood back, allowing them to enter. With everyone safely inside and the door secured, she said, ‘Follow me. Watch your step on the floor.’
Serena moved faster than Bill and his companions, but not nearly as fast as he knew the Indigenes could move. They entered a tunnel. Bill watched his feet on the tilted floor, designed to throw unwanted visitors off balance. His foot leaned to one side, one pitched higher than the other as he tried to keep up.
The district was strangely quiet. Not unusual for this place, but the silence carried a sense of unease. Like the calm before the storm.
Serena brought them to the infirmary. Bill stepped inside. Ben, Harvey and Jameson entered, more cautiously than him.
The scene shocked him. Ten beds occupied the room. Seven of them were occupied. Medics rushed around the room, their bodies just a blur. One came to a sudden stop before him.
His eyes found the woman who hadn’t been in his life for a while. Laura was wearing a cream-coloured tunic. Her blonde hair had been tied up in a ponytail. Her eyes shifted with worry, not only for the sick but because Bill had come. His presence had rattled her; he could see it in her eyes. He’d told her he’d see her soon. Bill had clicked off on purpose before she could reply.
‘Bill,’ she said, her voice harder than he liked.
Her eyes slid to Harvey and Buchanan. She reserved her only smile for Ben.
Serena stopped at her side and whispered something to her.
‘I trust them,’ said Laura to her. ‘We need all the help we can get.’
Serena nodded, her blue gaze fixed on the two strangers in the room.
His wife slipped back into her old ways, ordering the two doctors to follow her. It gave Bill hope that not all of her was lost to this new life.
Stopping at the first bed, she said, ‘This is Emile. He’s one of the elders from District One.’ She pointed to the bed beside him. ‘That’s his wife, Marie.’
Harvey drew closer to the bed while Jameson, over his initial shock and into doctor mode, opened his bag.
He handed vials and syringes to Harvey. ‘We’ll need samples from all the sick then samples from the healthy, for comparison.’
Harvey added, ‘First generation, second, third.’ His eyes flickered to Serena. ‘We’ll need comparisons of blood samples. If this is a virus, higher than normal levels of antibodies should present in the blood.’
‘Whatever you need,’ said Laura with a nod.
Serena stood in the centre of the room, glaring at the men.
Harvey glared back. ‘Could you ask her not to stare?’
Jameson said nothing about the attention. If he was bothered by it, he was too polite to say. Maybe the Elite had accustomed him to the Indigene ways.
Laura spoke to Serena silently. Words were shared, but none Bill could hear. When she finished, Serena left the room.
‘Where’s she going?’ asked Bill.
Laura said, ‘To get volunteers.’
‘And the Nexus still looks to be the most likely source?’
She gave a tight nod. ‘We’re interviewing Indigenes now to see who has used it.’
Bill said, ‘We may need to quarantine the district.’
‘That might be hard to manage,’ she said softly. ‘There’s a lot of tension here.’
‘But if the virus is a risk to humans...’
‘I know, Bill. It’s my worry too.’
28
Stephen had ordered Anton and Clement to interview the Indigenes to find out how many had used the Nexus since Tanya’s visit. He could hazard a guess: all of them. The research at this point would be more about frequency than use.
He hurried through the tunnels towards the Central Core, noticing the dull auras of those he passed. Shaking off his worry, he kept going, keen to get to the bottom of this mystery. Stephen had sensed Bill’s arrival and that of the two doctors. He hoped they could figure out what was going on here.
At the Central Core, he found Anton and Clement speaking to several Indigenes. Both of them were marking their answers down on a DPad, two of several DPads that had been stolen from the surface and repurposed for scientific work. He guessed this crisis qualified as scientific.
Stephen approached Anton when a natural break in the questions arose. What’s the verdict?
His long-time friend turned, looking dour. They’ve all used it. Some more than others. Average for most is once a day.
What he’d expected, but if a virus existed in the Nexus, surely all residents of District Three would be affected by now?
Do you want us to keep questioning everyone? asked Anton.
Stephen nodd
ed. Interview all of them. We’ll need baseline stats.
Anton wandered around the room filled with concerned looking Indigenes.
One Indigene, an older female, surprised Stephen by grabbing his arm. What of Emile?
The female’s palpable concern shook him into action. He needed to tell them all what had happened.
Easing her off, Stephen clapped his hands together, grabbing the attention of the room.
Listen, please. Emile and the other elders are sick. We are working on a solution, but the Nexus will remain off limits until we can figure out what has caused this illness. Please do not panic. We have everything in hand.
The older Indigenes nodded, but when he caught the doubtful looks on the faces of the younger Indigenes, he knew their minds would not be so easily swayed.
‘How bad are they?’
‘Are they going to die?’
‘Are we going to die?’
I don’t have answers for you right now. Please, let the others know of the new Nexus arrangements.
Stephen clutched his head; it pounded from the heavy mood in the room.
More questions hit him.
He muttered, That’s all for now, then rushed from the Core before more questions he could not answer were fired at him.
Down one tunnel and a rarely used second one, he leaned his head against the wall and exhaled. His pulse thumped against his skull in time with the vibrating tunnel wall. The rock appeared to be soaking up the negativity.
Collecting his thoughts, he returned to the infirmary to find his charges lined up outside. Two men wearing gel masks and blue surgical gloves were sticking them with needles. Bill emerged from the infirmary dressed in the same protective gear. Ben stood off to the side, watching the men work.
Seeing the two men taking blood samples shocked him. He had not given them permission.
‘Stop what you’re doing!’
His words startled both men; they paused in their activities.
‘Bill, a word?’ he growled.
‘Hold on a sec,’ Bill said to the doctors and joined Stephen.
He pulled the former investigator to one side. To his pleasure, Bill looked rattled. ‘When I agreed to let your associates into my district, it was not to take blood samples.’
