CENTER 82 (RATION)

by Christina J Thompson

  Paul moved into a narrow hall and stopped beside a staircase, climbing up a few steps and addressing the group.

  “If you’ll come over here for a second, I’ll introduce myself,” he began. “I’m Paul Pearce, some of you may have met me when you first arrived at this facility. When I’m not guiding tours, my job is intake processing for newcomers and running errands. I’m a nice guy as long as you’re nice to me—behave and follow the rules, otherwise I might have to recommend you for a job assignment in sewage reclamation!”

  The group laughed, and Paul shot them all a playfully stern look.

  “You think I’m joking, but I’m completely serious. Believe me, that is not a job you want. Stay together, people!”

  He grinned, motioning for Amber to walk beside him, then his face froze as he cocked his head in confusion.

  “Brian? What are you doing here?”

  Amber glanced over her shoulder; Brian had been standing behind her, and now he stepped forward.

  “I’m her escort,” he answered, shrugging nonchalantly. “You know how it works, all the new arrivals get one. I drew the short straw for this rotation.”

  Paul raised a brow, giving a purposeful look around.

  “Funny, you’re the only escort I see here.”

  “I guess I’m better at my job than the others,” Brian quickly grinned, but Paul didn’t seem amused.

  “You know the rules. You’ve escorted her through from arrival to orientation, your job is done. You should be at work right now.”

  Brian shrugged again.

  “I just do what I’m told.”

  “Someone actually told you to stay with her through orientation?”

  “I was told to keep a close eye on her.”

  “And you’ve done that,” Paul said impatiently. “Good job and congratulations. Go report for work, Brian.”

  Amber heard Brian gulp, and when she glanced over at him, she could see that his hands were trembling again. Pity tugged at her heart; he had said that there was a lot on his mind, and maybe he had been looking forward to the tiny break that accompanying her through the tour would provide.

  “Brian’s my friend,” she spoke up. “He’s the only person I really know here.”

  “What?” Paul gasped in mock hurt, dramatically clutching at his chest. “You really know how to get a guy where it stings, don’t you?”

  It was obvious that he was attempting to flirt with her, and even though he appeared close to her father’s age, she resisted the urge to cringe in disgust. She forced a laugh, plastering a sweet smile on her face.

  “You know what I mean. You guys are my only friends, and it would be nice to spend time with both of you.”

  His eyes lit up and he hesitated for a moment, shooting Brian another look before finally nodding. This time her smile was genuine; the tactic had worked, and Paul gave a gracious bow of his head.

  “Your wish is my command, my dear,” he said, but she saw him give Brian a cold glare. “Just promise you’ll stay close to me, I don’t want to share you any more than I have to.”

  He raised his voice, waving to his group as he began walking.

  “Come on, people, let’s get going! First up, the incubation dome!”

  Amber moved to Paul’s side as requested, casting a backward glance at Brian. He had fallen back to the rear of the group, and she frowned to herself. He didn’t seem any happier. Maybe she had been wrong and something else was bothering him.

  “So what do you think about the place?” Paul asked, and she felt his hand move to touch her waist. “I remember my first few days here, it was like walking into a different world compared to the settlements.”

  “It’s definitely new,” Amber answered, instantly forgetting about Brian as she tried to keep from visibly shuddering. “I don’t know how you keep track of where you are, though, it all seems like a big maze.”

  “That’s why you need someone like me,” Paul sang knowingly. He lowered his voice as he leaned in closer. “I’ve lived here for half my life and I know everything there is to know about the place. Be sure to tell me if you ever want to see anything outside the regular tour―I’m not like the escorts, I can go anywhere I want.”

  “I will,” she promised. She breathed a sigh of relief as he let go of her and called for the group to stop.

  “This is the incubation dome,” he announced, gesturing at a set of doors behind him. “Every ration created by this facility starts here. Now, there’s something I’m forgetting…let’s see, how does it go?”

  Paul fell silent for a moment, squinting as if deep in thought, then his face lit up.

  “Ah, I remember!” he said. He clicked his heels together as he snapped to attention, feigning formality. “Please do not speak above a whisper while in the incubation dome, and if you have any questions, raise your hand first. That’s what I’m required to say, anyway,” he added, relaxing as he smiled. “No one ever listens so go ahead and ignore it like I know you’re going to. But if anyone asks, you can’t say I didn’t tell you.”

  He threw the doors open, and Amber walked through, inhaling sharply as she looked around.

  The massive room was flooded with red light, and there were dozens of tall, wide piers lined up in neat rows across the floor. They reminded her of the pictures she had seen of bookcases in libraries, but these were much bigger and reached all the way up to the top of the room’s towering ceiling. They were about twice the width of her armspan from what she could tell, and on the front and back of each face were countless small, square doors that appeared to be made of darkened plastic.

  “Behold, the ration newlings!” Paul called quietly, deepening his voice dramatically as he swept his arms out with an exaggerated flourish. He chuckled to himself, his tone changing back to normal. “Well, you can’t really behold them because they’re light-sensitive at this stage, so behold, the incubation dome!”

  He moved towards the first pier, only to pause when a uniformed man suddenly stepped out from between one of the rows to block him. Amber glanced around as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, and now she realized that there were more guards positioned throughout the room.

  “Excuse me,” Paul said to the man, giving a slight bow. “Trying to do my job, if you don’t mind.”

  The guard moved a few inches to the right, letting him pass, but as Paul drew closer to the pier, the guard followed at his heels. Paul made a face as he turned to address the group.

  “I guess he’s part of the tour now,” he joked, jerking his head towards the guard. Everyone giggled quietly, and Paul smiled as he pointed at one of the pier’s darkened doors.

  “These are the incubation chambers,” he began. “Behind each one of these doors is a newling ration. Once the researchers successfully fertilize the eggs they harvest with the genetic code of a ration, those eggs are transferred to specially-designed incubation pods that are then placed in each of these slots. The subjects are sensitive to light and temperature fluctuations at this stage so I can’t open the door, but if my new friend here scoots over just a smidge, you can come take a look for yourselves.”

  Paul gave the guard a look, and the man sighed with annoyance, taking a step back.

  Everyone surged forward at once; there had always been speculation within the settlements about how rations were grown, and the group’s collective excitement at finally seeing it for themselves was palpable. Amber was no exception, and her curiosity got the better of her as she struggled to see past the person in front of her.

  A small placard affixed beside the door caught her attention, and she squinted as she tried to read it.

  Strain 28006—Incubation Date 01/22, Time 08:33:19.

  She bent down, peering through the tinted plastic, and her mouth dropped open. Suspended inside was a baby boy, his tiny, frail form cradled in a plastic sack filled with brown fluid.

  “It looks like a real baby!” someone called out in surprise, an
d Paul nodded.

  “Remember, the rations are sourced from human genetic material. Like humans, every subject grown in this facility starts off as an embryo―”

  “It says six days ago,” Amber said, pointing at the placard. “How is it already that big?”

  “Because of a lot of weird science-y words,” Paul chuckled, making a face, but he grew serious when he saw the expectant look she was giving him. He cleared his throat, straightening as his eyes focused above him as if reading from a memorized script.

  “Ration specimen development is accelerated due to selective breeding practices, genetic engineering, and the administration of super-special growth hormones at certain key stages in their life cycle. Each one will take approximately one year to reach issuance size once it’s created.”

  “It stays in that little chamber for a whole year?” someone else asked, and Paul scoffed, dropping the professional façade.

  “I really hope whoever said that is part of the ration breeding program,” he quipped as he made a face. “Come on, now, rations are huge―a full-grown ration would never fit inside one of these! They spend six months in incubation before being moved to growing chambers in the ration dome, and six months after that, they’re assigned to families or moved to storage.”

  “What about the researchers, though?” Amber asked. “Are all of these rations?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “Researchers are grown in a separate environment, but I can’t take you there. It’s off-limits to all non-personnel, no exceptions.”

  Amber clenched her teeth as she looked at the small form inside the incubation chamber again. The baby’s feet kicked as he rolled over in the plastic sack, stretching his little arms out, and she thought of Alex. She remembered when her mother had brought him home from the resource center, how tiny and helpless he had been, and everything in her wanted to snatch this child up and run away with him.

  “Are there any more questions?” Paul asked. He waited for a moment, then gave a curt nod when no one spoke up. “All right, then it’s off to the ration dome.”

  †‡†

  CHAPTER TEN

  Andreas tapped her foot impatiently as she stood on the walkway outside of Lab Four. It was almost half past ten, and Dr. Trent still hadn’t arrived. She looked up at the sunlight that streamed in through the ceiling above her; one of the beams seemed trained right on the exact spot she was standing in, and despite the air conditioning that filled the area, she could feel herself breaking into a sweat. She cursed under her breath and tried to duck down into a shadow, when she heard someone’s throat clear.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Andreas cringed and glanced over to her left—Dr. Trent was standing at the top of the stairwell. He was a short man with a shaved head, and his full face was covered by a thick, red beard. His blue-gray eyes were usually kind, hiding a perpetual smile behind them, but as he stared at her, she could see surprise and contempt burning in his glare.

  She gulped nervously.

  “I need to talk to you, Jason. Something has come up―”

  “I told you to stay away from me!” Trent snapped, marching forward and pushing past her. He entered his code on the keypad and opened the door just wide enough for him to slide through. “You and I have nothing to talk about, I thought I made that clear to you already!”

  He moved to slam the door shut in her face, but Andreas jammed her foot in the threshold to block him.

  “Please, Jason,” she begged, her voice cracking with desperation. “It’s important.”

  “Go away,” he scowled as he kicked at her foot. “I can’t help you―”

  “Yes, you can! It’s important, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t!”

  “It’s always important with you! But in the end, it turns out to be just more of your bullshit about David―”

  “It’s not that, I swear!”

  “Really?”

  Andreas nodded, and Trent’s eyes narrowed as he crossed his arms over his chest.

  “So you’re telling me this has nothing to do with supplement resistance theories?”

  She glanced away for a split second, and he threw up his arms in annoyance.

  “That’s what I thought, Andreas. Go away.”

  He slammed his weight against the door, trying to force her to remove her foot, but she ignored the pain as she set her jaw.

  “I’m not leaving until you talk to me. At least hear me out!”

  “Dammit, Monica, I don’t need this!” he shouted, throwing the door open and storming into the lab. “I have more important things to deal with than you!”

  Andreas ignored his muttered curses as she followed behind him, relief filling her heart―at least she had gotten inside. She looked around, eyeing the six research growing chambers that were set up along the wall on one side of the room. Unlike the ones in the main ration dome, these were made of clear plastic, and she could see the prone forms of the rations he was developing inside.

  “How’s the current project going?” she asked lightly, moving closer to the first chamber and bending down to get a better look. The ration looked like it was sleeping, but when Trent flipped the switch for the lab’s main lights, its eyelids instantly snapped open. She gasped; both of its eyes were blood red, and she whirled around in shock.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “I don’t know,” Trent growled, moving towards his desk. “In case you forgot everything from strain development 101, I have to wait until it finishes the growth cycle before I can do a dissection.”

  “Are all of them like this?”

  “The placards are all marked with the same strain number, or did you forget how to read, too?”

  He sat down, resting his elbows on the desk and rubbing his face as Andreas turned her attention back to the rations. She raised a brow, focusing on the purplish discoloration that seemed to cover their entire bodies as she realized something else.

  “Their skin—it’s almost completely transparent!”

  “That’s nothing,” Trent answered, waving dismissively. “Just a mutation that developed in their melanin genes. I’ll address it eventually, but it’s not a priority right now.”

  “It should be!” Andreas said, glancing at him. “There’s no way they could handle sun exposure, you can’t assign a ration strain like this to people in the settlements!”

  Trent lifted his gaze long enough to give her a withering glare.

  “You think I don’t know that?” he retorted. “But somehow I think the fact that they’re blind is a much bigger issue than melanin production.”

  “More difficult to address, perhaps, but just as important,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “I don’t even think specimens like this could handle indirect sunlight―”

  “I’m not stupid, Monica, I know!”

  She pursed her lips.

  “Then why haven’t you scrapped the strain? Mutations like these indicate a core genetic defect that can’t be permitted―”

  “How old do you think those rations are?” Trent interrupted, gesturing at the chambers as he stood to his feet. He moved towards her, a sudden flash of excitement appearing in his eyes. She shrugged.

  “I’d say close to a year―maybe eleven months, almost to the assignment stage.”

  “Try half of that!” he crowed triumphantly, and her face froze.

  “What?”

  He nodded proudly, his guarded demeanor relaxing almost instantly.

  “Five months! This strain develops in less than half the time as the other strains!”

  “That’s impossible…how?”

  “The delta strains from Base One,” Trent answered, grinning mysteriously. “I got one about eight months ago, I finally managed to convince the board there to accept my requisition request!”

  “They’re not letting anyone have those!” Andreas gasped. “How does no one else know about this?”

 
; “I’ve been storing it in the main ration dome to keep everyone in the dark,” he said, lifting his chin smugly, then his eyes narrowed. “I swear, Monica, if you tell anyone―the last thing I need is the others pounding down my door for samples!”

  She barely heard him, too lost in awe, and she pressed her face to the side of the growing chamber.

  “Jason, this is…this is unbelievable!” she managed to say, her words running together into a jumble. “The impact this could have for the program, the resources that could be saved―this is astounding! Utterly unbelievable…just…”

  Her voice trailed off as her mind reeled, and Trent laughed at the stunned look on her face.

  “I still have a lot of work to do to figure out what’s causing the blindness, but now you understand why I can’t just give up. I’ll be able to conduct a physical evaluation on the strain in another week when the subjects reach the end of the growth cycle, identifying any physical defects should help me narrow down where to start searching for the mutation.”

  “I’d love to know what you find!”

  “Just wait till you see this!” Trent beamed as he beckoned to her. “I’ll show you the genetic donor composition I built! It’s absolutely brilliant, if I do say so myself, but the delta strain was the most important factor. Now that strain is a genius design even with the minor defect!”

  Andreas smiled as she followed him to his workstation; for a moment, it was almost as if they were just two regular colleagues again. As if the events of the last six months hadn’t ever occurred. Her smile faded.

  “I’d love to discuss this with you, Jason, I really would. It’s an unbelievable breakthrough and you should be proud of yourself, but I need to talk to you about something else.”

  She saw his posture stiffen, and just like that, she was the enemy again. He sighed, turning to face her.

  “What do you want, Andreas?”

  “Smith is hounding me about eradicating the salt mine settlement―”

  “I know, you told me already.”