Defiant: Quantic Dreams Book 2

by Elizabeth McLaughlin

  “Jason, when can we send another mouse?”

  “Hm? Oh, I expect after two weeks’ time. After our buddy here is cleared of any pathogens. We want confirmation that the air and soil are safe and not that Odysseus is some kind of super mouse.”

  “Good. Listen, I’m going to limit what I’m telling people for now, all right? I don’t want anyone getting their hopes up too soon. The only thing people are going to hear from me is that the mouse did indeed return to the shelter and is being quarantined until further notice to prevent potential infection.”

  “You got it, boss. You’re the man in charge. No further words than those will pass my lips. I’ll make sure the team gets the memo as well.” Jason shot me a thumbs up and joined the rest of his colleagues.

  I found Fiona where she spent most of her waking hours. “Working on anything new today, sweetheart?” I called from the entrance to hydroponics. She looked up suddenly from her latest laboratory project. Since her return to the shelter, my daughter had taken to her old passion like a duck to water. Her latest endeavor was seeing if she could use the stored seed packets to breed a new crop of peanuts. Leave it to Fiona to use her brilliant mind to engineer the necessities for her childhood favorite—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

  “The peanuts are coming along, Dad. I hope to have the first crop of them within a few weeks. I’m not sure how the grapes will fare, but I expect that operation PB&J will be a rousing success.” She dusted her hands off and wiped them on a rag tied to her belt. Since returning to the shelter, Fiona had not only survived, but thrived. Needing to get food production up to speed was a mission she was fit for. We had emergency rations enough to last awhile but the faster we could get the production lines running again, the sooner we could put starvation out of our minds.

  “I’m glad to see you working on such an important priority for the shelter!” I laughed. She stuck her tongue out at me and grinned a self-satisfied grin.

  “They’ll come to see my work as the life-changing effort it truly is, someday. What’s going on, Dad? I know you didn’t come down here just to crack jokes with me.”

  I sat down in a revolving chair at a desk and spun toward her station. “No, I didn’t. I came to tell you that Odysseus has returned.”

  Fiona clapped her hands together, releasing a cloud of dirt. “That’s fantastic! How’s he doing?”

  “He looks like he’s doing okay. I didn’t even get to high five him-the team has put him in quarantine for the next two weeks. If he makes it through okay, we’ll send out another mouse.”

  “That’s so, so fantastic, Dad.” She came from around her planter and gave me a fierce hug. “Congratulations. I know you’ve been working hard for this moment.”

  “Yeah.” I put a hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. “It’s been quite a ride, kiddo. Not over yet though.”

  “Enjoy the victory, Dad. You’ve earned it.” Fiona returned to her planting.

  “There’s one more thing I need to tell you, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You can’t tell anyone.”

  Fiona looked up from her plants sharply. “What do you mean, I can’t tell anyone? Don’t you want to share the good news?”

  I shook my head. “It’s kind of like a pregnancy announcement, hon. Until we can present Odysseus with a clean bill of health, it would be a poor idea to let them know he’s back. If he were to get sick or die, it will demoralize people.”

  “I understand that. Can I tell Eliza and Marcus?”

  “Of course, I would never ask you keep a secret from your family. Just please pass along the message that they need to keep it to themselves for now.”

  “Sure. Hey, listen, would you like to stick around and help me out here for a while?”

  “I would, but I’m afraid I have to return to my office. I promised a couple folks that they could have one-on-one time with me before dinner.”

  I bid her goodbye and went back to my office. There were a few petty squabbles that had popped up, as is wont to do when a bunch of humans live in close proximity again. I received reports that the food production machines were up and running again via the presentation of freshly printed ‘pancakes and bacon’. Unlike their digital counterparts, they were shaped in different sized squares with print lines in them. After years of bare-bones rations, the taste was a welcome change.

  With the issue of food production solved, my attention was free to turn to other matters. The need for humans to run the machinery responsible for vital functions like the water reclaimer, oxygen recyclers, et cetera was realistic only in the short term. A rudimentary operating system would need to be constructed to oversee the tasks. The thought of putting another computer in charge of anything vital well and truly scared me. I couldn’t help but wonder if Gabriel still existed somehow. For all I knew he still existed somewhere, taking refuge inside a computer chip, waiting for his opportunity to return and take his vengeance.

  The people who volunteered to develop the system for me humored my fears as best they could. Their plan was to outfit the machines with sensors that would report to a central terminal. The terminal would be completely isolated from the rest of the shelter’s computing systems to start. If the terminal failed or it couldn’t handle the information load, they would have to install more complex components, but that would be only if absolutely necessary. The one change I asked of them was to install a master kill switch, the code to which would be given to a few trusted individuals. I wasn’t a fan of risking my life to shut anything down ever again.

  When the terminal had been put together, I laughed at how prehistoric it looked. The entire thing comprised of a keyboard, mouse, and a screen that displayed system status in green text on a black background. At the moment it showed a simple list of each machine that was monitored along with a highlighted green “operating” label next to it.

  “I’ve got Jenkins down at the water reclaimer right now. Keep your eyes on the screen and I’m going to have him throw a wrench in the works-literally,” a young man who had introduced himself to me as Alan said. He lifted a radio to his lips. “All right, Jenkins, fire away!”

  I heard a loud thunk as Jenkins inserted the piece of metal into one of the machine’s gears. Almost as quickly as the sound reached my ears, the terminal in front of me emitted a jarring alarm and the “operating” tag changed to “error” and started flashing. I stuffed my fingers in my ears and looked to Alan for instructions.

  “All you or anyone else needs to do is punch in a brief series of keystrokes.” He demonstrated them for me. “The system will start a twenty-minute timer for the issue to be resolved. If the system is unable to start up again, it will emit another alarm. If the problem is one that requires long-term repair or something else beyond those twenty minutes, you put in a different series of keystrokes. These will of course be privy to yourself any individuals you choose to trust it to. I’m going to show you the pre-set command, but then I’ll show you how to change it so it can be completely unknown to me.”

  The command to shut the alarm down completely was far more complicated than the temporary one. I wasn’t complaining. Complexity meant security. Alan opened up a window in the terminal that allowed me to set a new command, and I pondered for a moment before entering mine in.

  Qu1s Cust0det 1psos Cust0d3s

  ‘Who watches the watchmen’-a terrible joke to be sure. Juvenal was originally dealing with the issues of marital fidelity, but over the centuries the phrase became associated with the potential for abuses of power. It was a saying that had certainly applied to my life as of late. Nobody was around to watch Gabriel other than me and look what happened. As for the numbers, I threw them in out of an abundance of caution. The odds of anyone knowing about my penchant for ancient poetry were astronomical. Still, I wanted to guard against the possibility that someone could figure it out. The random numbers would at least slow them down.

  Of course, not everything about rebuilding the shelte
r wet smoothly. I was regularly beset upon by George and his acolytes, so much so that I made an effort to never travel through the shelter alone. Perhaps it was my instincts, but I saw taking these kinds of precautions as submission. Of course, I played it off as an effort to get to know people better. It was still tough for me to interact with others. I resolved to start by learning their names and at least one fact about them. The rest could come later.

  Every night I stopped by the infirmary to check in on Odysseus. He seemed as spry as ever, zooming about his cage happily and burrowing in the wood chips to stay warm. I could hardly wait until he was cleared. People needed some hope, and this would give it to them.

  Chapter Three

  Two weeks flew by as everyone pitched in to ensure the comfort of the population. I even saw George working hard alongside Shannon, who had happily resumed her duties as a medic. He thumbed his way through containers of supplies, reading out their quantities to her while she scribbled the numbers down on a tablet. George looked up from his task and saw me. I shot him a quick smile and a nod. If he was going to play nice, there wasn’t any reason that I couldn’t do the same, right?

  Everything was going better than I could have expected. Shelter systems were running well, and the simple operating system the guys had set up was working perfectly. On the day Odysseus was cleared, I asked everyone to gather during the evening meal. I was served another assortment of squares by a clean-cut young man and took my seat among Fiona, Eliza, and Marcus. Tonight’s dinner was a recreation of Thanksgiving dinner; there were cubes of turkey, finished with a touch of smoke flavor, cranberry jelly, stuffing, and sweet potato. I had to count to three between each bite. My stomach that was so used to the protein-enriched slop I subsisted on that I had suffered more than one bout of nausea since food production returned to normal.

  Once I finished the last bite of my meal, I stood at my place with cup in hand and hit the side of it with my knife. “Ladies and gentlemen! If I could have your attention, please!” The entire gathering turned toward me and my mouth suddenly ran dry. Regardless of my leadership position, the notion of addressing a large group of people still never sat well with me. “I have an announcement, one that I’ve been eager to make for a long time now.”

  “Is it that you’re an idiot?” One of George’s friends yelled from the back of the room. There was a nervous titter throughout the room.

  “I’m afraid that revelation will have to wait for another day.” I beckoned to the doors to the mess where Nicole brought in Odysseus in his cage. “Today, I am proud to present the triumphant return of the first living organism to venture into the outside world. His name is Odysseus.” I took the cage from her and hoisted it high in the air.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Hundreds of faces stared at the mouse scampering around in his cage. From several tables down, Jason stood and clapped slowly. At another table, a woman who I remembered as Olivia stood and clapped as well. Nicole joined the clap, as did Marcus, Fiona, and Eliza. Soon the entire room was clapping. The floor rumbled with the stamping of their feet and cheers erupted. I said nothing further and hoisted Odysseus’s cage even higher with two arms. Only when the cheering had died down did I try to speak again.

  “This is a fantastic leap forward, my friends, but this is not the last step! We will send another lab mouse outside tomorrow morning. This one will wear a small camera on his body and will bring us back still images of the environment. Given that Odysseus has passed through a rigorous quarantine, it is safe to expect that no lethal pathogens are present, but we will confirm this by another two-week quarantine of the second mouse. I will provide information to the rest of the shelter as I receive it.”

  Another round of applause and I sat back down. For his part in the whole thing, Marcus broke off a part of his stuffing cube and pushed it through the grate of Odysseus’s cage. The mouse squeaked and grabbed it out of Marcus’s fingers. The rest of the shelter filed out of the mess hall. Everyone except George. I sighed and pushed Odysseus’s cage aside to let the gargantuan man take a seat.

  “Jacob.”

  “George.” I addressed him with as much calm civility as I could. Something told me that my parade was about to be rained on.

  “Jacob, you promised me a free and fair election. It has been three weeks. I have been patient and cooperative. I have even been downright friendly and kept those who think like me from interfering with your efforts to resettle the surface. I’ve done you a favor. Now it is time for that favor to be returned.”

  I pressed my lips together and took a deep breath. “Right on all counts, George. For your friendliness and cooperation, I am genuinely thankful. However, do you think right now is the best time to hold an election? Half of these people are barely reoriented to life out of the virtual world. You can hardly expect them to make an informed choice.”

  The corner of his eye twitched. “Listen here, Jacob. I’m only telling you this out of courtesy. There are those here who wish you harm. I’ve convinced them to keep their hands to themselves. I would lie to you and say that I speak out of care for your wellbeing, but the truth is that I’m giving you a warning. If you choose to prevent the shelter from holding an election, I honestly cannot promise you that I can convince them to stay that way.”

  I rolled my eyes. “The big bad wolf is coming to blow my house down? Come on, George. You’ve got to do a little better than that.”

  “I’m serious. I’ve also noticed that you will not so much as go to the bathroom without an escort, so I suspect you know that I am, too. Don’t fuck with them, Jacob. Don’t fuck with me, either.”

  “… an election. How would you suggest that we could conduct an unbiased election while I’m busy gathering supplies for an exploratory expedition, coordinating the production of medical supplies, and settling the multitude of pointless squabbles that come across my day?” He opened his mouth, but I held up my hand. “I’m not saying no, George, but you need to give me a little more time. Can your groupies hang on for another forty-eight hours? In forty-eight hours I will have a plan on how we can do this, all right?”

  “Two days? And you’ll be willing to offer me a platform to make my case for my leadership?”

  “Yes. Not out of respect for you, but out of respect for them. I never asked for this position, and I’m no politician. No matter how things go from here, they deserve the chance to determine their own fate.”

  George sat with his arms crossed. As the seconds ticked by, the only sound in the mess was the scratching of Odysseus’s claws against the bottom of the cage. Then he reached out his hand, and I shook it.

  “May the best man win,” he said.

  “May the best man win.”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. Between my announcement and my conversation with George had taken over an hour. Time for bed. On my way back to my quarters, I bumped into one of the exploration team, an older woman named Allison. She was our unofficial architect; I had set her on the task of designing several potential shelters that could be constructed quickly and securely. I wondered if she had been dealing with hecklers the same way I had been. Her face was pale, and she stared at the floor as she walked.

  “Hey Allison, you okay?”

  Her gaze shot up, and she jumped. I backed away and held my hands up. “Hey, Jacob.”

  “Are you all right? You look exhausted.”

  “Yeah, I’m doing all right. I guess I haven’t been sleeping too well the past few weeks, and it’s wearing me down. Nothing to worry about. I was just on my way to the infirmary to see if Shannon or one of the doctors had something to help me sleep.”

  I peered at her for a couple of seconds. “… okay. Hey, would you mind if I accompanied you? I could use something to help me get some sleep myself.” I reached out to her and took her arm in mine. As we walked, I asked her about her latest ideas and smiled as she launched into the shelter designs she had nailed down. Talking about her passion seemed to bring new light into her eyes. When
we reached the infirmary, there was only one person there, a physician. His back was turned to us as he rearranged something on a shelf, and I coughed to make him aware of our presence. When he turned around, I saw that it was Edward Naylor, one of the few people who had received advanced medical training before plugging into the virtual world.

  “Jacob, Allison! I’m surprised to see you here so late at night. Are you doing all right? Is there something I can help you with?”

  I gestured to Allison. “The lady here is having some trouble getting to sleep and was wondering if you had anything to help her drift off. If you do, I’ll take some of it myself. Things are so busy lately I can’t seem to turn my brain off.”

  “Yes, of course. Allison, if you would take a seat on one of the gurneys here? I’d like to do a quick examination before I see what I’ve got for you. Call it an overabundance of caution, but I just want to rule out anything else going on.”

  “Sure, doc.” Allison hoisted herself onto a gurney and tilted her head upward as Dr. Naylor used his fingers to palpate down from her jaw. He took his stethoscope from his around his neck and pressed the disk against her back, then her chest.

  “Hm, your lymph nodes feel a little enlarged.” He produced a tongue depressor. “You know the drill. Open your mouth and say ‘ah!’” She did, and he pressed the thin piece of wood down on her tongue while using the other hand to shine a flashlight into her mouth. “Your throat looks a little irritated, too. Been coughing lately?”

  “Weah, a widdle,” Allison mouthed around the tongue depressor. Dr. Naylor removed the stick from her mouth. “I figured it was just adjusting back to life in the shelter. It’s dry as hell in here, as I’m sure Jacob will confirm for you.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, keep an eye on those symptoms, all right? You probably just picked up a little cold from somewhere. As for sleep, the only thing I’ve got for you is some antihistamines. The medical team is still working on getting medication synthesis back online. Take 50 mg. of these and I guarantee you’ll be out like a light. Just be sure to drink plenty of water the next day, okay? You’ll probably wake up feeling a little groggy so just be careful first thing in the morning. Jacob, I can give you the same. I’ll give you both a three-day supply. If you’re still having sleeping problems after that, come see me again.” He dispensed several pills from a container and sealed them in plastic bags before handing them to us.