Storm of Ash

by Michelle Kenney

  Stay with me, Grandpa, I entreated, and as I reached out to pull the catch off the cage I was sure his faded eyes crinkled with approval.

  Fire blazed up from the pit of my stomach as a small family of squirrel monkeys regarded me in clear astonishment, before seizing their chance to break out and over the top of the sealed tank. My throat tightened as I watched them take to the air, running and jumping between the suspended cages the way they might in the forest.

  Aelia’s eyes flashed as she turned to do the same, releasing a pair of lemurs who whooped with stunned delight as they swung downwards through banks of cages towards the floor. We exchanged a euphoric glance. This was a moment worthy of it all, and adrenaline coursed through my veins as we spun and sprinted from cage to cage. It felt as though there were more animals incarcerated here than left in Arafel, and we were giving them back their most valuable possession in the world. Freedom.

  Before long the stairs were overflowing with dozens of monkeys, small mammals and rodents. It was the most mesmerizing sight in the world – so much forest life had silently waited for Cassius and his scientists to play creation. And even though we were still in the laboratory, the air was filled with the sound of the outside world. It was the sound of real hope.

  Inevitably, just as we reached the larger solid black cages, the air thickened with the sound of a piercing alarm. I yanked open the door anyway, the walkways beneath our feet flashing red intermittently. Clearly, these cages had additional security. I smiled grimly as we sprinted on. Any dispatched guards were going to find the laboratory a little busier than usual.

  Then we were back outside the Recombinant DNA: Transgenic and Molecular Species Unit, the ward where Rajid had shown us the small chimera and the Prolets’ clones. My heart started to beat faster as I inched open the unlocked door into the sour darkness. It was just as I remembered and we entered cautiously, the silent cages inside contrasting sharply with the excited calls and grunts behind me.

  I hesitated. This was the ward of my nightmares, the one in which Max and I had finally glimpsed the world through Cassius’s eyes. And as my eyes slowly adjusted to the warm gloom, the silent, hollow-eyed occupants of the cages became visible. I stalled. They were looking our way, gripping bars, their reddened eyes pleading and excited.

  Did they know already? Were they waiting for us?

  A strange mix of nausea and excitement reached up my throat as I realized that that was exactly what they were doing. They understood. Their feral instincts were still alive – just – and even though they were so much bigger than the animals we’d just freed I couldn’t get to them fast enough.

  ‘No one is left behind bars,’ I forced out through gritted teeth, yanking back bolts with practised ease.

  There was instant pandemonium, but it was the best thing I’d done in a very long time, and I knew the cameras were tracking us now, but I didn’t care any more. In truth, I hoped our actions were being relayed, moment by rebellious moment, throughout every domestic cell in Isca Pantheon.

  The Prolets were already stirring, their revolt in Ludi Circus Pantheonares had just proven as much. They were at tipping point, and if some of the Pantheonites were also sympathizers … We just need the right spark, Tal. Rhetoric or prophecy. It didn’t matter. There was no turning back now.

  ‘I don’t think we’ll come back this way!’

  Aelia ducked as two chimpanzees pulled an instruments casing off the wall and began throwing the contents like tiny individual missiles.

  I sidestepped to avoid a flying hypodermic needle.

  ‘Natural archers, wish I could stay and watch.’ I grinned, spinning on my heel.

  The alarms were chasing us through the wards now, but there were still so many left. And then at last we were inside the chimera ward, the last ward Rajid had shown us before the tanks of embryonic Prolets, the room that had finally revealed Cassius’s real ambitions.

  ‘Should we free these?’ Aelia whispered doubtfully, staring around at the hybrid life that had known nothing except these four dark, whirring walls.

  A menagerie of life stared out at us, indifferent because it had never known anything but this abyss of meaning.

  ‘In a way we will,’ I returned quietly. ‘Just not yet.’

  She nodded her understanding and we stepped across to the room I’d been silently dreading. Aelia shot a look over her shoulder. We could hear the faint sound of drama in the main laboratory now, raised voices and howling molossers, desperate to be free so they could run and chase the chaotic free life in there.

  A mischievous light crept into Aelia’s eyes and I smirked, imagining the guards’ utter disbelief and rage.

  ‘Guess they’ve found it a little lively down there.’

  ‘Can always count on us feral types to liven things up.’ I winked. ‘Five minutes?’

  ‘Tops.’ She nodded.

  I leaned into the heavy door of the incubator laboratory, and stepped inside into its muffled warmth. At first it seemed the same, endless screens and tanks, and a cocooning, womb-like quiet that almost cushioned us from the anarchy below stairs.

  Then I caught my breath.

  And for a moment neither of us uttered a sound as we digested the enormity of the change.

  ‘They’ve grown,’ Aelia whispered in a hushed voice.

  I nodded, wordlessly.

  Because they’d grown in both size and number. While Max and I had witnessed tiny embryos, barely bigger than a human hand, and still attached to umbilical cords, the life that slept unconsciously in this room was now full term. The months had done their work, and we were staring at a room full of sleeping infants. Hundreds of them.

  A shadow stole across my soul.

  ‘They’re babies,’ Aelia gasped. ‘Prolet babies.’

  ‘They’re an army,’ I corrected with difficulty, ‘a genetically modified slave army.’

  ‘No they aren’t,’ she breathed, turning around in fascination. ‘Not yet.’

  And yet, if Cassius had his way, this room of innocent sleeping infants would finish her Prolet people and the last of the Outsiders.

  I clenched my teeth.

  Emotion makes you weak and predictable, Talia.

  ‘No,’ I muttered, feeling the fear rise, ‘not this way.’

  Aelia shot me a dark, conflicted look.

  I was on my own. Aelia was a doctor, committed to saving life, not taking it. Modified or not, this was going to be too hard, too fundamentally opposed to her principles.

  Weak and predictable … we designed it out in the first test series.

  Arafel in flames, my mother trusting as the Eagles took her, Eli’s pale face when I was caught, Therry and every last Outsider who risked their lives to rescue me. They all flickered through my claustrophobic head. I wasn’t weak, I was strong. And this army could finish every last one of us.

  Impulsively, I spun and sprinted swiftly to the biggest screen on the wall, deaf to Aelia’s pursuit, her passionate entreaties and appeals.

  My heart thumped so painfully I felt sure it must leap from my body as I scanned the deck of controls. There were hundreds of different flashing dials and buttons controlling ominous-sounding functions like mineral infusion, hydration, protein, induced sleep …

  Nature and science can have a healthy symbiotic relationship, Talia. A harmonious balance can be struck, if science is a friend to nature.

  Faded words pushing through the fog.

  Life can take many shapes and forms. Our role is to protect the weak and vulnerable.

  But how could I protect them all?

  Your emotion makes you predictable. It’s a weakness!

  I gritted my teeth.

  And then I saw it. An individual switch beneath a glass case. It looked important.

  Life support – universal, Batch XIII

  ‘Tal, wait!’

  Aelia was beside me, pleading.

  ‘We have to do this. This army will replace Isca Prolet, endanger every last Outsider.
Their DNA will have been modified, their independent will and more removed. They will do his bidding without question.’

  I was aware my voice sounded cold and hard. Dark to dark. My thoughts swirled in the oppressive warmth.

  The shouting and howling were getting louder. The guards had to be pushing through the main laboratory.

  ‘Or do we become just like him?’ she whispered gently.

  I lifted my eyes to hers, finger hovering. Her iris-blues saying everything I was trying to deny. Like August, when he left. When I was so scared I’d muted every feeling I possessed just to survive. Iris-blues needing me to open my heart and risk the pain. Because survival was about making mistakes, getting hurt and emerging all the stronger; because life was life no matter how it started; and because compassion was humanity.

  My fingers flexed.

  An Arafel hunter believes in natural order, knows her place in the forest, and takes only what she needs to survive.

  Care for the seed and it will care for you, Talia.

  And with one almighty, guttural yell I yanked my arm away and spun on my feet, scanning the room for an exit. There was no other door but a small skylight at the top. It would do.

  Within seconds, we were scaling the banks of tanks as though they were roots and branches in the forest, reaching the topmost row beneath the skylight just as the door burst open.

  ‘Check the life-support deck and search every corner. They have to be in here somewhere.’

  Livia’s caustic tone was unmistakable, her fury clear through her stiffened posture. Aelia sucked in a tight breath. We were hideously outnumbered.

  My chest hammered as I scanned the skylight. There was no latch because no one expected to go outside. A ghost of a smile twisted my lips. But Outsiders didn’t expect to stay inside.

  Come what may.

  Crouching beside Aelia, I scanned the floor. It was overspilling with guards and molossus hounds now. We had seconds if we were lucky, and I would likely never have this chance again. I could feel Aelia’s eyes on me as I yanked out my tiny dart tube, and loaded up Ida’s sculpted Komodo tooth dart. The tongues around her eyes were dancing, and Rajid’s curious smile was widening. We were a long way from the floor, but the dart was solid and weighted, which meant my aim just needed to be true.

  This time Aelia made no protest, and with a silent Arafel prayer, I let the tiny piece of forest fly. It was as silent and focused as any new-age weaponry, cutting the air easily and without drama until it found its soft target: the side of Livia’s neck. She crumpled to the floor without a murmur.

  It was a clinical kill, perhaps one of which even she would have been proud. And I felt nothing.

  ‘You wanna find Outsiders? Look up,’ I whispered, grabbing the skylight sill and swinging my legs through 180 degrees, to punch the glass with every atom of rage swirling within me.

  Then there was an ugly cracking noise as a battalion of eyes swivelled firstly to Livia’s heaped body, and then to us.

  ‘The roof! Now!’

  A male voice I recognized rose in abject fury, and momentarily I felt the sweet rush of revenge. It was the peacock.

  I swung again as the first volley came, and this time the fortified glass splintered.

  ‘Careful, Insiders, it’s going to rain!’ I yelled, reaching out to punch the mosaic of glass one last time.

  The tiny shards of reinforced glass fell like a shower of light from the heavens, knocking the next volley of arrows awry, and bringing twice the load down on the gaping soldiers.

  Instantly, the vaulted space filled with agonized shouts, and as Aelia and I climbed through into the vast blinking night, I shot a final glance back at the floor below.

  The peacock was standing next to Livia’s heaped body, staring upwards with an expression of sheer disbelief as turmoil unfolded around him.

  ‘Citizen MMDCL – at your service,’ I muttered, turning my back.

  Chapter 19

  They say there’s a roof like the sky at the top.

  It was a myth I’d grown up with, but I never expected to walk over it like the gods.

  The sweet night air reinvigorated our stained souls, and gave our feet wings as we sprinted over the iridescent surface of the laboratory and domestic domes, towards the rise of Isca Pantheon’s main dome.

  Briefly, I recalled Max saying he’d done the same more than a year ago, when he escaped Octavia’s personal guard. It felt like so long ago, and it was so hard to connect my old irrepressible best friend with the charioteer who’d murdered August in the arena. Pantheon had changed so much.

  We’d begun climbing again. It was easy to see now, that the commercial heart of Isca Pantheon was by far the largest dome. Pantheon, the oldest, freestanding Dome in ancient Rome. I’d seen pictures in Arafel’s history books, and its ancient grace bore no resemblance to the barbaric world beneath my feet.

  ‘Tal … slow up!’ Aelia panted a few steps behind.

  I frowned, turning around, and only then realized she was holding her shoulder awkwardly, just beneath the neat collar of her charioteer uniform.

  ‘Glass?’ I whispered, my face creasing with anxiety.

  ‘Arrow,’ she admitted, lifting her hand so I could see.

  I stared, feeling the world recede. There was a perfectly round hole just proud of her collarbone, from which protruded about an inch of hard black wood.

  ‘Diasord arrow,’ she clarified, her breathing noticeably hollow now, ‘short but a broadhead with expanding barbs laced with a dimethylmercury compound. They’re designed to burn slowly, but efficiently so the target is gradually weakened and can potentially be useful before … y’know.’

  I gazed at her in disbelief. She was typically matter of fact, and yet her words were like pieces of ice slowly filling my gut.

  ‘What! Why didn’t you say? We have to get it out … stop it working!’

  She raised her eyebrows in mock horror.

  ‘Pull it out and we kiss goodbye now. There are tiny lines of explosive threaded through the barbs to prevent it being removed. You can cut them out surgically,’ she added, ‘but it takes a lot of skill, and there’s still a risk to both surgeon and victim. Tullius could do it of course, but I’ve no idea if he’s still alive let alone where he is.’

  I grabbed Aelia’s hand, and pulled her up the steep rise of the main dome.

  ‘How long?’ I ground out, my bare feet finding better grip than her boots, and before we knew it we were standing at the summit of Pantheon’s sky, looking down onto the planetary system its creator used to perpetuate his lies.

  ‘A couple of hours maybe,’ she panted. ‘Depends on the strength of the target, to be honest, and the concentration of dimethylmercury.’

  From this vantage I could see the giant two-headed haga circling only a few metres beneath our feet, Pantheon spilled out like a distant web, and the Temple of Mars perched like a venomous spider. Just waiting.

  ‘Eli could get it out,’ I rushed. ‘I’ll get you to the forest and come back.’

  ‘No!’

  Her tone was blunt and uncompromising. My eyes rested on her for a second – taking in the sudden paleness of her face, the tremble of her hands, and the jutting angle of her chin. I tore my gaze away, scared to see any more. She was as stubborn as me when she wanted to be. Aelia always did what Aelia Vulpes needed to do. But this way she could lose. I could lose. I looked to the vast inky sky, and it seemed to whisper.

  ‘We finish what we came to do. There’s no guarantee we’d make it across to the forest anyway,’ she argued impatiently. ‘And anyway, I’m not missing out on this, I made a promise too … don’t need the might of the Oceanid army chasing my delicate Prolet …’

  She winked, but the cost of her decision couldn’t be more stark.

  Swearing profusely, I tore a piece of cloth from the inside of my indigo tunic top, and ignoring Aelia’s objections, pulled open her collar and wound it gently around the entrance wound to cushion the area. My chest tig
htened as a small involuntary whimper escaped her lips. The flesh around the puncture wound was already turning black.

  ‘Just a scratch,’ I reassured her, ‘nothing a renegade Prolet General can’t handle.’

  Then we stole along together, not towards the forest or Dead City, silhouetted in the starry night like a broken picture, but down the opposite slope and towards our target. Octavia’s balcony. Except it wasn’t Octavia’s any more.

  ‘Cassius could be keeping him anywhere – laboratory wards, Flavium dungeons, his new temple …’ Aelia panted, as we approached.

  I nodded grimly. ‘He could,’ I agreed, ‘and yet cowards tend to keep their enemies close. Yellow-bellied death adders even closer …’

  She smiled with effort and I didn’t vent my real thoughts. That there was another reason I needed to access Octavia’s old media suite. That it was the one place I could snap Pantheon’s spine once and for all. If it was still there.

  The Book of Fire.

  The final translation of the Voynich is a glorious moment, and we will be remembered as the Civitas that built a new-world order! Now we can re-create glorious creatures that were victims of man’s weak folly; ancient glorious creatures that once graced a richer earth.

  With an army of beasts at our command, we will rule as our ancestors did, with honour, valour, and a knowledge that a new era has dawned. The era of Imperator Cassius, last of the Constantinian Dynasty, Protector of Isca Pantheon and Conqueror of the outside world!

  Cassius’s image, with a writhing medusa of Voynich coding, danced in front of my eyes. This was where I’d first glimpsed the ancient book that should have never survived the Great War, let alone another two hundred years. And if Aelia was right and August was still alive, Cassius might have hidden him here too.

  We climbed down the final few metres of wall together, praying Cassius hadn’t removed Octavia’s lavish stone extension, and I caught my breath as my fingers gripped the slim white rim that ran around the top. I supported Aelia as best I could, ignoring the shooting pain through my arm, but our descent was steady at least.

  ‘Doesn’t look so steep from the inside,’ she mumbled, scowling.