by Kelli Kimble
I settled in for my first night of lying horizontally.
Chapter 2
When I woke in the morning, I felt like all of my being was compacted together in a firm ball at the small of my back. I worked my legs around as best I could, trying to relieve the strange ache. I rolled onto my side, and that helped some, but the angle of the bed made it awkward. I used my tablet to message Opal, Paisley, and Wren, but I received no response. They must have still been asleep.
Eventually Fiona came. “Good morning, Silver. I’m so glad to see you awake. We’ve got to get you ready for the meeting.”
She hummed to herself as she bustled about. First, she hooked a new bag of nutrients to my port. Then, she checked my cloth, and after finding it dry, she set a basin of water on the bed. “I’m just going to wipe your skin down some with a wet sponge. Your skin is so used to a wet environment; it helps to ease the transition.”
As she worked, I felt the dense sensation in my lower back intensify. Alarmed, I indicated with my hand to stop, then I scrawled on the tablet: Back hurts. Is this normal?
“Where?”
I rolled slightly onto my side and indicated the small of my back.
“What’s it feel like? An ache? Sharp? Dull?”
Dense, I wrote.
“Oh. I think you just need a few minutes alone, then. I’ll go see to the ladies, and then I’ll be back.”
Perplexed, I didn’t try to stop her as she disappeared through the curtain. What did I need to be alone for, exactly? But, my body soon made it clear: A bowel movement. It was not the experience I thought it would be. It was a strangely semisolid substance that was not pleasant at all to sit in.
“I’ll be back in a moment, Silver!” sang Fiona from behind the curtain.
How did she know? Then, urine began to pour out of me, as well. What a mess.
By the time she came over, the cloth was ice-cold. I wanted it off me as soon as possible. She rolled me onto my side, and she wiped my buttocks with something wet. I hoped it wasn’t the sponge she was planning to wipe the rest of my body with.
She neatly pulled away the cloth and set out a new one in the same way she’d done the day before. Then, she removed my smock, wiped down my arms and legs, and put a fresh smock on. Lastly, she removed the now-empty nutrient bag from my port.
“You’re all set now. Oh! Wait. Let me just give your hair a tidying.” She combed my hair until it was to her satisfaction. “Terrific. Everyone will be here shortly. You just wait right here.”
She patted my arm and took the dirty waste-cloth and smock, then threw them into the closed container. Then, she opened the bed curtains for each bed in the room so that I could see the other three, and we could all see the therapy area.
The siblings entered in a single-file line, in order of their births from the tanks. Tennie came first. She wiggled her fingers at me. Then, Maestro. “Hey, Silver,” he said.
After them were siblings I hadn’t met yet. They each smiled and nodded, then all of them sat on a bench in the therapy area, facing me. Opal, Paisley, and Wren remained in their beds, and Leif wasn’t present at all.
“So, you’ve met Tennessee and Maestro, and this is Bridget, Maxwell, Ernst, Augusta, Roy, Otto, and Stella. Of course, you also already know Leif, Paisley, Wren, and Opal. Everyone, this is Silver. I hope you’ll do what you can to help him transition into the air, and into our lives as your sibling.”
Each of them acknowledged me with a bob of their head or a wave as she said their names. They were all brown-haired and brown-eyed, like me. Oddly though, they all seemed to look kind of the same. Tennie had a large, brown mark on her cheek, and Roy was completely bald. But, otherwise, they all could have easily passed for one another.
We all look the same, I scrawled on my tablet.
Fiona squinted at my words, then nodded. “Right, of course. You’re all genetic copies of one another. You aren’t just siblings; you have identical DNA.”
I blinked at her.
“You know. You’re clones. I’ve told you this before, haven’t I?”
The others murmured ascent, but it was news to me. We were all genetically the same? I shook my head. Thought we were created from a diverse database of genetic material, I wrote.
She laughed. “Nope. Where would you get an idea like that?”
“Like what?” asked Tennie.
“He says he thought you were all created from a . . . ” She took the tablet from me to read it verbatim. “‘From a diverse database of genetic material,’ he says.”
“Oh, that,” said Otto. “I remember that in our programming. It’s the way things used to be done. But, our dad—Fiona’s son—he changed the method. He used his own genetic material alone.”
I worked that around my brain for a second. The others began discussing it, and I could only gather snippets of conversation over the noise they created. The room felt stifling, and I suddenly felt lost in the group, as if I would never be an individual.
“You’re lucky to have all these siblings that are like you,” Fiona said, bending over me. “You’ll never be alone. You’ll always have someone. Always.” She took my hand and squeezed it hard. I felt her loneliness like a wave. When her son had died, she’d been with him, and except for those of us growing in the tanks, he was the only other human left alive. She’d told me many times how she’d come inside after he died and resolved to make a family out of the last pieces of him. I hadn’t realized how literal that was.
I looked around her and saw that the siblings were milling around and leaving now. I knew they had chores, and their own therapies to attend to, but I felt their unacknowledged departures were somehow a reflection of how they felt about me. Just another sibling, just like them.
“Now that you’ve met everyone, it’s time for your therapy to start. You’re starting off with a gentle touch. Today, Auggie is going to be training with you. She’s been out a little over six weeks, so she isn’t going to be too tough on you. I’ll see you later.” She kissed my forehead, tousled my hair a bit, and left.
Augusta was waiting at the foot of the bed. “Hi, Silver. You can call me Auggie, if you like.”
I nodded.
“We’re just going to do some stretching, and range-of-motion stuff to warm you up.”
She didn’t say anything more; she just started moving my arms and legs around. It was oddly relaxing, and I soon found that I wasn’t even really paying attention to what she was doing. Instead, I was thinking about my siblings, and how we were all the same.
I distinctly remembered the chapter in our programming that discussed the tanks, and their role in our society. Fiona had told me that she was born outside the mountain, in a village, and she’d been born in the traditional human method. So, it was a curiosity to me that I was born differently from the only other person I knew.
The program had talked about the database collected before the winter, and how it contained healthy DNA from every major ethnicity. It was important to the long-term life of the colony, because they needed to make sure that they could lower or even weed out the likelihood of certain diseases and qualities. Also, when the DNA was originally collected, there was fear that the time spent in the mountain would mutate humans to such an extent that they would never be able to reemerge from the colony and thrive.
So, the idea that all 14 of us—plus those still left in the tanks—would be identical to each other flew in the face of the database’s purpose. Also, there would be a high risk of malformed children if we attempted natural human reproduction. If we wanted to perpetuate mankind beyond ourselves, we would have no choice but to use the tanks.
Why would my father have done that?
“Silver?” Augusta was rotating my right arm around in my shoulder socket. “Are you all right?”
I smiled through the aqualung, and then remembered that she couldn’t see my expression. I nodded. I pulled my arm away, then motioned for my tablet. She handed it to me. Why did he make us all the sam
e? I wrote.
Augusta sighed. “I can’t be sure. But, I have the idea from things that Fiona has said that he might not have been right in the head.”
Crazy? I scribbled.
“Maybe,” she said. She ducked her head and moved around to the other side of the bed, then began rotating my other arm. “I like to think that things happen for the best. Don’t you?” she asked.
I shrugged. It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about.
“Well, I do. I’ve asked Fiona to tell me about him, and she doesn’t seem to know much. I don’t think that she knew him very well, you know? I think maybe she feels bad about it.”
She grew silent again, and I left the subject alone. I’d also gotten the feeling that Fiona felt bad about some part of her relationship with our father. But, I didn’t know what was between them—other than her being upset that he’d died.
“All right, you’re all done with this for today. I’m going to hook up a nutrient bag, and then we’ll get along with some strength-training.”
I couldn’t wait.
◆◆◆
It wasn’t long before Fiona declared that it would soon be time to remove my aqualung. On one hand, I couldn’t wait to get it out of my face. I was tired of the inquisitive looks as people tried to make sense of my expressions solely through my eyes and brows. But, on the other hand, it was my last connection to the tank, and breathing air was unfamiliar territory.
Fiona tried to explain that the aqualung would make the transition almost seamless. But, she couldn’t convince me that it wasn’t going to seem like I was cut off from lifegiving oxygen. Panic is the most common response to removal of the aqualung, and I could definitely see why. But, she gently reassured me, telling me that about half my siblings had felt no trouble at all. I wondered which siblings had no difficulty, because I was pretty sure that their personalities accounted for the reaction.
On my fourth morning out of the tank, she arrived at my bedside, as usual, to get me ready for the day. But, she didn’t hook up the nutrient bag. “Remember: This isn’t going to hurt. It might feel strange for a few minutes. But, you’ll acclimate quickly, so don’t worry. Take a few deep breaths, and then I’m going to irrigate the bulb. Ready? On the count of three: One, two, three.”
She tapped out a sequence on her tablet, and the bulb slowly started to expand. I could feel the probe retracting up my throat, as well. I fought the urge to gag. Fiona leaned over the bed so that her face was nearly touching the bulb. “Look at me, Silver. Look into my eyes. You will be fine. In just a moment, it will be done.”
A wave of panic overtook me as she said it. She was so confident, but the aqualung was shuddering with the effort of drawing the liquid out of my lungs. My chest felt squeezed from within. I wanted to draw in a breath. I tried to, but it only made the aqualung pump harder.
“All right, you’re about halfway done,” said Fiona. She had a hand on either side of my face now, and she gave me a slight shake, as if to get my attention.
The bulb was fully expanded, and it stood out from my face like a balloon. The probe had fully retracted. Fiona loosened the straps around my head, and the mouthpiece halves moved from inside my cheeks to connect back in to one piece. As soon as the mouthpiece was back together, it puffed a spray of air into my mouth, and Fiona yanked the aqualung from my face.
It made a sort of popping sensation inside my head. The mask was vacuum-sealed, and it took some force to get it to release. But, that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst part was the crushing sensation in my chest. I knew I had to draw in a breath of actual air to make the feeling go away. But, knowing it and doing it were two different things. The puff of air was meant to prime the pump, but it didn’t seem to be working.
I writhed on the bed, trying to force air into my lungs. I was drowning. I was going to drown, on dry land, in my bed. I lost control of my bladder in my panic.
“Tennie! Maestro! Is anyone in the hallway?!” yelled Fiona.
Leif came in, awkwardly using a cane since, he couldn’t use his arm with a walker. When he saw me flopping on the bed, he almost ran to my side. “What can I do?” he asked.
“Just hold him down. I’m going to compress his abdomen; it should help him draw in a breath.”
Fiona climbed onto the bed and straddled me. In my terror, I wanted to fling her from the bed, but I didn’t yet have the strength to do that. She wove her hands together, then pushed her palm on my stomach and angled upwards under my ribs. She pushed hard and even bounced a little to gain extra leverage. Then, she released her arms. It seemed like the world skipped a beat or two, and then the natural motion of my diaphragm kicked in.
I gasped in a single, huge breath, then coughed. Fiona slipped off the bed, and Leif heaved me forward into a sitting position. He thumped me on the back. “That’s it; get it out. Just a few more, and you’ll be feeling much better,” he said.
At last, my breath felt as if it was sustaining me. Exhausted, I fell back onto the pillows with my eyes closed.
“Are you all right?” Leif asked.
I gave him the thumbs-up, but Leif pushed it aside. “Not you. Fiona, are you okay? Should I call Tennie?”
I looked to the side of my bed. Fiona was on her hands and knees, her head hanging between her arms. “No, I’m fine,” she said. She leaned back on her heels and wiped a hand across her nose before standing up again. “You sure gave me a scare there, Silver. You’re the first to react so violently.”
You were scared? I wrote on my tablet. I thought I was drowning!
She laughed and kissed my forehead. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to leave your morning routine to Leif. I’m feeling a little beat-up just now.”
I nodded. Without waiting for a response from Leif, she turned and left.
“Wow,” he said, when she was gone. “I’ve never seen her so shook up. She’s normally the calmest among us.”
She didn’t seem so calm when you broke your arm, I wrote.
“True. I think she’s just afraid something will happen to us. I don’t think she ever really got over Adam, you know. Then, when she lost half the tanks, that had to be a huge blow, too.”
She lost tanks? I wrote.
“Oh. You didn’t know? Maybe I should let that be between you and her, then.”
No. You know. Why shouldn’t I?
He pursed his lips. “Fine. But, only if we start your stretching exercises while I tell you the story.”
I nodded, and he went through the morning routine. Finally, he got to the stretching, and he started to talk. “You know she came into the colony, and she didn’t know much about the tanks, right? She knew the tanks existed, and they were supposed to be self-sufficient, and all that. But, she wasn’t from the mountain and didn’t know a lot about our technology. So, after she decided to stay and care for all of us, there was an issue with one of the power sources. They’re nuclear and supposed to last practically forever, right? But, they still have mechanical parts that can break down. A shaft came loose from its housing, or some such thing. She doesn’t really know what happened.”
I interrupted. I thought the power grid had all kinds of redundancies to compensate for one of the units going down? I wrote.
Leif nodded. “Yeah, yeah, of course. But, when Adam left the mountain, I guess he pushed for all these extra tanks to be built, and they were taxing a single unit. That unit went down, and because of all the cobbling together they’d done to get the new tanks online, they weren’t all on the redundant grid. So, when Fiona came into the mountain, there were XXX tanks. But, more than half of them were new—something like 70% of them. Without power, the tanks didn’t oxygenate, and they all died.”
Why didn’t they surface? I wrote.
“They were still just kids, not even old enough for the standard programming. They didn’t know how to surface.”
I didn’t write anything more. If I had known Fiona’s fear, I would have tried harder to keep my emotions in check. I felt s
hame for putting her through that, and it must have shown on my face.
“Hey, man. You couldn’t have known that it would upset her the way it did.”
I nodded, though I didn’t really accept his comfort.
◆◆◆
The days fell into a routine, and while I tried to strive for improvement every day, each day was pretty much just like the last. There were some things to break up the time—like when Opal, and then Paisley, moved out of the therapy room, and a new sibling arrived. Strangely, I didn’t feel any attachment to the new siblings. I didn’t even bother to learn their names; in my head, I called them Alpha and Beta.
I was making progress, so new activities did come up. I had speech therapy added to my routine, and I got strong enough to start using a walker for very short distances.
One day, while Leif was helping me onto the treadmill, he called me out. “So, what is it?” he asked.
I looked at him quizzically. I didn’t have my tablet in hand and still couldn’t quite talk. I could grunt, laugh, and squeal, but I hadn’t yet mastered any real vocalization.
“Your attitude, man. Fiona is worried. I’m worried. She thinks you’re depressed.”
I shrugged and continued my plodding walk. He turned the speed up a bit, forcing me to work harder.
“That isn’t going to cut it, Silver. We’re your family, and we want to help.”
I made a writing motion, and he stopped the treadmill to retrieve my tablet and give it to me. In a rut, I wrote.
“A rut? You’ve barely emerged from the tank.”
Yes, but I’m just another cog.
He laughed. “You’ve just described everyone here.”
I frowned. Exactly, I wrote.
“You want to be different,” he said. “Special.”
I nodded and touched my nose. Then, I wrote on my tablet, Stupid, I know.
“Naw, man. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be above the crowd. Every group needs that special someone—the leader. Right?”
