Storm of Ash

by Michelle Kenney

  My eyes narrowed, despite everything. This was the closest I’d come to unpicking his real motivation. Apart from warped, narcissistic 9-ambition.

  ‘Yes!’ he hissed stepping towards me. ‘I know you always believed it was about the science, that there was no moral purpose to my work. And you stand there, with your ignorant, wilful belief that Nature got it all right.

  ‘Have you never considered there could be a better creator? Why leave it to the whimsical nature of natural selection and archaic food chains? What if it was always waiting for mankind to seize the day, and redesign a more efficient new-world order?

  ‘Why wouldn’t we know best? We have the most advanced brains of any animal species, and now we have direct experience of how much chaos and destruction that species can create. Why wouldn’t anyone with brilliant science at their fingertips change it all?’

  He was close now, and entirely absorbed in his own rhetoric.

  ‘You see, Talia,’ he breathed more softly, ‘Thomas was absolutely right about one thing – the outside world is recovering.’

  I started at Cassius’s candid admission of something he had always denied so vehemently.

  ‘It’s just recovering with the wrong sort of life.’

  He paused to laugh, a sound that soured every living cell in my body.

  ‘You don’t need to look quite so tragic, beautiful Talia.’ He tipped his head to one side as though analysing a laboratory specimen. ‘You see my plan makes absolute, scientific sense. Original, Outsider DNA – your DNA – is full of genetic weakness. Cells are loaded with memories that foreshadow life, and taint it. Conditions and fears that were experienced by your ancestors have the ability to scar your genetic memory, and control your present life.

  ‘But with the help of our new Biotechnology Programme, we are creating individuals unfettered by hereditary conditions and weaknesses.’

  His eyes were alight with feverish delirium, while his voice was shrill with passion. From the corner of my eye, I watched Livia stand and begin descending the steps towards us.

  ‘And now I have succeeded where Octavia failed. I will be known as the Imperator who deciphered the Voynich, and the hand that sowed the seed of a new world stronger than anything before. It will be a world of order and structure, of hierarchy and control. A world that will never descend into the Great War chaos the originals wrought upon the earth.

  ‘My new species will be a worthy inheritor of the outside world, and they will look to only one Emperor-God for guidance and protection.’

  Livia was approaching now, stepping quietly across the floor towards Cassius, her expression giving no more away than it ever did. She placed her cool hand upon Cassius’s forearm with practised ease, before looking back at me with duplicitous eyes. And suddenly I glimpsed the real power balance between them.

  Throughout the ages, crowns have been seized and overthrown, but for real power look to the ones behind the thrones, look to the ones who mop their brow.

  Grandpa’s wisdom had never been more apt. She was playing Cassius, biding her time, I was sure of it.

  ‘Guards!’

  Livia’s cool tone echoed around the space. It was a voice that offered no hope of distraction or second chances.

  I ran my eyes around the space for something, anything I could use to stall the moment. The tiny chimera lifted its head in disgruntlement, and released another shrill cry as two more guards stepped out from the shadows.

  Then I stilled. Not because of Cassius or Livia, but because of the unmistakable gait of one of the athletic guards looming closer with every step. And for a second the world drained away, leaving just the two of us in this vast soulless room.

  He was dressed like every other gladiator, and his striking black helmet visor was shuttered down, leaving only a pair of forest-green eyes and strong jaw on view. But it was a stubborn jaw I’d fought too many times not to recognize now.

  ‘Max,’ I whispered hoarsely.

  My lips formed the shape of his name woodenly, out of practice. And the breath that escaped me was barely a breath at all, more a ragged expulsion of every flickering hope I’d clung to since awakening.

  I’d suspected his presence in the Prolet cave, wanted it to be true even, but it was all so dreamlike I hadn’t fully believed it. I’d watched him fall, an arrow in his spine. Yet here he was, standing before me. Free and working. For Cassius.

  He didn’t flinch, even when my eyes caught his. The jade luminescence that had always spoken of Arafel, of the whispering trees that had wrapped their sheltering arms around our home, had gone. In their place, only a dulled moss-green existed, observing me with little interest before looking away again. Who was he?

  Barely blinking, barely alive, barely Max.

  A cry, like that of a speared bird, escaped me. Incarceration, injuries, even torture I could have taken. But not this. Not a Max drained of every living memory that made him the boy I remembered, that made him one of the last real Outsiders.

  ‘No!’

  I reached forward and grabbed his helmet, trying to force his visor up and unmask him.

  ‘Max! It’s me, Tal! You have to remember! Do you hear me? You were in the fight in the cathedral. You ran with Aelia … and you were shot in the back … by this man, your so-called Emperor!’

  My words made a fierce, sibilant sound as I forced them into the vast space, but Max only jerked away, leaving me clutching dead air.

  An eerie, curious laugh filled the air.

  ‘The power of science to salvage a body and control a brain. It’s breath-taking isn’t it?’

  I turned my face towards Livia. She was much younger than Octavia had been, but her ambition was already written into her soft features, hardening them and creating a veil over her view of the world. Like a cloak of smoke. Like the burning grey embers of my forest home.

  Grandpa, Faro, Pan, Eli, Aelia, Mum. Arafel was little more than ash; the last Outsiders were being forced to work with Prolet slaves … She didn’t get to steal my best friend too.

  Before I could help it my foot was punching high, landing in the middle of her chest with impressive accuracy and speed, even for an Arafel hunter. I watched with real satisfaction as she staggered backwards, winded. Instantly Max and the other guard seized my arms, twisting them behind my back and upwards, making me double over in pain.

  ‘You sold your soul and for what?’ I railed as Livia composed herself, her pale forehead veined with shock.

  ‘You and Cassius steal life from the world,’ I gasped, ‘and you warp and malign until what you hold in your hands no longer resembles anything that should be breathing.

  ‘Don’t you get it? What makes the outside so unique is its imperfections, its persistence and resilience despite the odds. Life that bears no resemblance to itself has no more guarantee of sustainability than any of us. Every time you change the DNA – a cut here, a morphing there – you tamper with all the fine checks and balances nature has taken millions of years to know.

  ‘You say you are giving the earth a future, but you are decimating it, cell by cell, and in the end what is left will rise up in an army of shadows and consume you!’

  My fury spilled into the air, and for just a moment there seemed to be a real silence of consideration. Before slow, languorous laughter.

  I jerked my head around, despite the spiral of pain claiming my twisted arms. Cassius had reclimbed the dais steps, and was unchaining the yellow-eyed chimera that arched its back with a delighted screech, before scrambling up his arm to perch on his shoulder. He turned to face me, his eyes emotionless, like dead embers.

  ‘The problem with spirited speeches, Talia, is that they so often overlook basic facts. You see, Livia knows only one creator. Me. She is a product of Pantheon, and one of our most successful projects. Her natural home is this dome, and her DNA was modified at fusion point … like Augustus before he went rogue. Livia’s test group has been much more successful, and she’s unlikely to be voided. And that’s m
y point.’

  I didn’t miss the shadow flitting across Livia’s face as he paused to caress the tiny chimera, which shuddered before fixing its eyes on me.

  ‘Only those who meet a precise and exacting genetic premium will be selected for repopulation outside. The rest will live a useful life here, supporting our primary Biotechnical Programme function – the pursuit of perfect DNA.

  ‘You must understand, the Great War made three things very evident: who remains is as unfit to populate our earth as who preceded it. Rogue life is … irritatingly persistent, and never learns. And what other species is stupid enough to kill the very planet on which they depend?

  ‘The civilization I am building will aspire to so much more. Imagine, a world where your genetic blueprint is your only passport. No more disease, no more war, no more defects or weaknesses. A gene pool that will be strong, valiant and uncompromising. Like Atticus, my son, who has lately sworn blood allegiance to Isca Pantheon, and will lead the repopulation when we have confirmation that the outside has been thoroughly cleansed. ‘Even you, a feral Outsider without hope of ever experiencing such power, has to appreciate its utopian ambition.

  ‘And I will be its author.’

  I clenched my nails into the palms of my hands, despite the burn up my forearms from the guards’ twist.

  It was the first I’d heard mention of Atticus since the fight in the cathedral, since the moment he’d chosen his father – despite everything.

  ‘What of the others?’ I growled, refusing to listen a second longer.

  I’d glimpsed Therry in the Prolet workforce, but nearly sixty young Prolets had escaped Pantheon into the old Roman tunnels. The giant desiccated spider that was Ludi Pantheonares flickered through my head, and I tensed.

  ‘What did you do with the rest, Cassius?’

  My question hung in the air as he picked a grape and held it up to the hybrid reptile perched on his shoulder. I watched it carefully. It was only a juvenile but anyone could see it had the potential to be huge and powerful.

  ‘Always chasing after the underdog, Talia,’ he sighed, replacing the chimera on its stand and making his way slowly back down the dais steps. ‘It makes you so weak and predictable.’

  ‘But if it will appease you, the Prolet children are back where Prolet children belong, after revaccination … and a little distribution.’

  I baulked as nausea climbed my throat. I had no doubt distribution translated as Prolet slavery or live bait for his menagerie.

  ‘Max?’ I ground out next, determined to know the whole. ‘What have you done to Max?’

  And even though he was the one holding me, twisting my arms so tightly I could barely breathe, he didn’t so much as flinch or acknowledge his name. Why hadn’t he resisted the vaccine at all? A cold sweat broke out across my neck and shoulders. I couldn’t let myself think of a world where he never came back.

  ‘Ah yes Maximus – you should be proud, Talia! He is proving exemplary in the Gladiatorial Training Programme. It seems certain Outsiders can be of use, once vaccinated of course. His will be a … particular honour.’

  I twisted to look up at Max’s inflexible profile. His golden cheek was tight and unflinching, and his familiar frame, honed by years of work as a treehouse builder, fitted the proud Roman uniform he wore like a glove. And yet he might as well have been wearing his death shroud.

  A wave of wildfire ripped through me. August was gone, Mum barely knew me and now Max was just an empty shell of the best friend he used to be. All the memories, visceral building blocks that defined me, were crumbling to grey ash – like Arafel.

  It was enough.

  ‘Let’s see exactly what blood to blood means,’ I seethed, channelling all my remaining anger into one swift downward movement. The burn was agony, given the iron clasp around my forearms, but it worked.

  Wit and timing can be victors over strength, Talia.

  Grandpa’s words whispered through the chamber as I dived between Cassius and Livia, and sprinted towards the dais.

  ‘Guards!’ Cassius’s voice rose in irritation.

  He knew all the exits were blocked, but I wasn’t looking to escape. That was what he expected, and he already thought I was predictable.

  I was on top of the dais with a single leap, and sprinting towards the golden stand, conscious I had only a few seconds’ advantage. And although Max’s footsteps fell in behind my own like a shadow, there was no sense of comfort to their rhythm this time. I reached the stand and made a grab for my intended quarry – the infantile chimera, its tiny wings outstretched in furious objection as my hands closed around its scaly neck.

  ‘What precisely do you think you can do with it?’ Cassius’s voice rose in irritation. ‘We have its DNA, replicated and stored hundreds of times over, and now I have the correct coding for Hominum chimera, there are no secrets left, Talia!’ He turned to the guards. ‘Seize her! Use the force you need but don’t kill her … not yet!’

  I glanced at him, his black eyes flashed with rising anger.

  My blood was the only reason I was still here, and yet with Pantheon’s technology it was clear Cassius could synthesize it ten times over. So why keep me alive? Unless there was something about it that couldn’t be replicated. And all at once I knew that was exactly what it was.

  I thrust my wrist up to the tiny complicated creature’s mouth. It latched on instantly with impressive power, its serrated jaws perforating my skin without hesitation.

  ‘Well, let’s find out, shall we?’ I snarled through the pain and adrenaline, watching the way Cassius’s expression changed.

  Opal eyes no longer mocking or satirical, but furious, and something else besides. Was it fear? The chimera was drinking, its wings slowly deflating as it took its fill greedily. And it felt strangely natural.

  ‘Stop her!’ Livia instructed shrilly.

  I didn’t miss the fear in her voice either, or the way she was backing away to the exit, and a strange curiosity filled me. As though I were the one feeding on a new source of strength. What was it my blood could do that made them so nervous?

  The only known control for Hominum chimera.

  Max was hesitating in front of me, mesmerized by the sight of the locked beast, as though it was some kind of sacred act. Then the room started to spin as the chimera’s jaws gripped with more strength. It was gulping now, its tiny iridescent scales bulging each time it swallowed. I imagined my blood sliding down its narrow throat, filling its fire-belly, fuelling its fury. I reached out to stroke its spines, which quivered at my touch.

  Whatever this madness, there was such a feeling of peace, of wholeness, of home, that I wondered at not having discovered it before. I was conscious of slipping my other hand beneath its stomach, of trying to support it as it drank.

  ‘Seize her!’

  I watched, as though from a distance, as one of the guards clamped the beast around its throat, forcing it to release me. Then he lifted the chimera away, which screamed its protest to every corner of the temple.

  ‘Restrain them both!’ Cassius raged from the floor, while Livia seemed to have floated further away than ever.

  Guards were around me in a second, and Max was pinioning my arms in a fresh vice, but it didn’t matter. I was strangely empty of fire now, while the screaming mini beast was purple with rage, its lips stained with blood and face straining from lack of oxygen.

  I knew I shouldn’t care, and yet I did. My heart ached with sorrow that its young life was going to be extinguished in front of me, and the feeling was more than a moment’s amity; it was real.

  Black to black. Dust to dust.

  I reeled. And at exactly the same moment, the tiny chimera spread its wings and expelled a raucous cry that was in no way final. With a surge of strength, it flapped harder and harder, creating waves of wind through the space that unsteadied us all.

  As it began. The chimera was growing before our eyes. Breathtakingly, exponentially. It was the size of a cat, then a dog and now a w
olf. I stared, transfixed by the transformation taking place before my eyes. A transformation I had effected – with my blood. The guard holding the growing chimera was forced to release it. It landed with a disgruntled thump and shook out its wings as it drew hoarse, greedy breaths.

  There was shouting towards the back of the room as Grey and the rest of the guards under arrest tried to take advantage of the distraction. I was vaguely aware of a fight breaking out, of Max’s proximity, of Livia’s disappearance and Cassius’s infuriated retreat towards the exit.

  ‘Restrain them!’ Cassius barked again, and a half-dozen more uniforms closed around me, locking me inside a circle with the growing chimera, but oddly, I knew it didn’t matter. I was safe.

  More than that, I was in control.

  A slow thrill spread throughout my body as the creature turned to bare its reddened canines at its first captor, who was slowly backing off, hands held high in submission. The creature, now the size of a bull, turned to look at me, its yellow eyes flashing with raw gratitude.

  I understood. It was no longer Cassius’s pet. I had set it free and given it sustenance. It was mine to command, and it was the most natural feeling in the world.

  ‘You alone must bear the responsibility, Talia … Thomas hid something in your bloodline … just what is it that makes you so special …’

  Whatever the control was, it wasn’t just my physical blood, which was the only reason Cassius hadn’t thrown me to the strix already. It was in me, in my genetic memory and nature. Somehow Thomas’s chimera control had become part of my Outsider nature, and that was still something Cassius’s Biotechnology Programme hadn’t been able to replicate. The thought was intoxicating.

  There was another hideous cry as the chimera, now bigger than a molossus hound, rounded on its original captor guard. They crashed to the floor, the guard’s chest compressed visibly beneath the weight of its oversized griffin claws. His head lolled to one side, his eyes bulbous and face dark with strain.