by S Y Humphrey
“I know, rocket scientist. But practicing it and pulling it off are two different things. Pushing back in the glare of the media takes a lot of courage. You were strong. Good on you for not letting her intimidate you. What do I always say about fighting back?”
“If there’s going to be blood, make sure I choose the battlefield.”
“Exactly. They came onto our turf, showed their hand, and now we’ve got their criminal locations and accomplices. You won,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Speaking of that, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“What?”
“How do you feel about leaving earlier?”
“What do you mean? Leaving this party and going home? Sure, nothing would make me happier, but —”
“No, I mean leaving for Mars earlier. I’ve read the reports, talked to your professors and the elder astronauts, the experts who’ve seen your growth. You’ve worked hard. You’re good to go. So why not?”
He had caught her by surprise. “Dad, you’re kidding, right? We haven’t had a lot of time together these last few months that we’ve all been working so hard. I’m looking forward to a couple of weeks where I can just relax and do nothing. Hit the lake, fly my new aero car, play some soccer, watch 3V!”
He rolled his eyes. “I suppose. But you’ve got more important things to do. We’ll talk about it later.”
“What will happen to Michels? I want to see her,” Seren said, sucking in air under her heavy dress of metal.
“No. Out of the question.” Her father shook his head. “I know she’s done a lot for you. That’s why she’ll go do hard labor at a fishery somewhere in Maryland. At least she’ll be around her ex-husband and grandkids. Don’t ask anything more of me, Seren,” her father said, raising a glass of champagne to his lips.
Hard labor was a deplorable way to end an illustrious, decorated space career. “Why would she do something so foolish?”
He twirled the champagne flute between his thumb and forefinger, his eyes surveying the crowd below. “People do foolish things when they feel they have nothing left to lose.” He set it down on a passing tray before heading off. “This moment is rare,” her father said. “Take it in. Tomorrow we’ll be back at each other’s throats.”
She watched him head toward the same men who, only years before, had loathed him. Seeing them again reignited memories of her childhood, when many politicians derided her father’s military contracting company for its forceful tactics overseas. Caveman. Monster, the kids at her elementary school had called him. She’d never known the details of her father’s missions. Yet, she clearly recalled these men looking away, lowering their heads in restaurants, when Seren and her parents entered. But that changed in the early 30s, when their children began vanishing in a series of antigovernment kidnappings. As shootings piled up and government buildings exploded into ash, her father’s enemies had secretly come to him to make it stop.
Her father’s enemies had always spurned his toughness, until they needed it. Now her eyes scanned all the pleased faces.
You try so hard to be Jernigan’s daughter. To show the world you’re just as good as him. Just as smart. Just as strong. But what if you’re more?
How could Professor Michels encourage her growth and at the same time plot against her?
“Do you ever wonder where they buried the dead bodies who tried to stop this day from happening?” a familiar male voice asked from behind her, sliding toned arms around her waist. Seren’s boyfriend Lyndon pulled her close to him.
“I try not to,” she answered truthfully. “I’m not sure I want to know. How did your exams go?”
“Hopefully, at least I passed. I really hate I couldn’t be there with you yesterday.”
She smiled. “I hope you passed too, or we’re screwed if we catch a cold in space.”
Hugging him for the first time in weeks eased some of the past few days’ stress. With him at medical school in Montana, it had been hard attending universities in two different states. But that was part of the new system of placing America’s intellects in different locations of Tier One, dispersing them for their own protection.
“I heard what happened in your presser yesterday. Did you kiss your dad’s feet for catching Michels before she went too far?” he asked, turning her to face him under the dark lights.
“No. Would you be thrilled if you learned Dr. McPhee or one of your favorite mentors who’d taught you everything had betrayed you? And that your father had put them away before you could at least confront them face-to-face?”
His laugh rang out as more of a snicker. “I’d pour a drink for anybody who puts me one step ahead. Especially if it saved my life. But I wouldn’t have a meltdown about it.”
“I am not!” she said keeping her voice low. “I just want to talk to her and find out for myself.”
“I don’t get you. What do you need to know? That she’s old and you’re young? You’re a wealthy astronaut in Tier One with no restrictions on your freedom, and she’s a Tier Two with a delayed kid who didn’t qualify to come here? Now she’s got an ax to grind so she teamed up with your father’s enemies to destroy him and you. Tell me, what part did you need to talk to her about?” he asked looking at her, his eyes twinkling while sipping his drink.
She squinted her eyes. “I’m serious!”
“I know. It’s cute,” he said, catching one of the servers who carried a tray of salmon caviar.
“Don’t you want to know what would drive a person to do something like that? How desperate or hurt they could be?”
Taking another sip of champagne, he pretended to think for a moment. “Mmm, no.” He threw his arm around her as their friends came to join them.
Dax threw his arm around Seren’s other side, and Agnethe joined in, as the four of them linked up, all heading down the stairs to listen to the speeches and toasts. “Pumpkin, you still hurt over that reporter?”
“I can’t believe I’m with people so cold and heartless,” she said, slipping her arm in his.
“Believe it,” Agnethe replied. “If the Twos could trade places with us, and have all this money and access, they’d do it in a heartbeat. We were just smart enough to think of it first!”
“Sweetheart,” Lyndon said, while he smiled for the snapping cameras, “do-gooders, dreamers like you, are only safe because of people who are cold and heartless. George Washington threatening to shoot his starving soldiers who wanted to mutiny in the middle of winter — cold and heartless. Augustus Caesar killing Julius’s only son to eliminate his competition— cold and heartless. Queen Elizabeth I executing her cousin who had a better claim to the throne— cold and heartless. Empires rise and fall on cold and heartless. And one day, if you want your space colony to succeed, mark my words, you’ll have to decide on cold and heartless.”
There is only one other person I’ve known in my lifetime whose extraordinary mind matches yours. And it’s not Stephen Jernigan.
As Dax and Lyndon joked around, Seren hung back and turned to Agnethe.
“Where is the professor being sent, and don’t lie to me,” Seren said, looking straight into her best friend’s eyes.
“How would I know?” Agnethe asked, and Seren could see from her blinking eyes that she was feigning ignorance.
Seren whispered, leaning really close. “Because, Ags, you shop the black market in the Fottom, and you sneak to the Fottom to party.” Seren also knew that her friend sometimes did drugs there, but did not want to anger her while asking for a favor. “So don’t tell me you don’t know.”
“Let it go, Seren. I will not. Any other time, yes, I would help you, but not this time. You’ve come so close to everything you’ve worked hard for. And I’m not letting that woman ruin it for you.”
“So you do know. And you won’t help me.”
Agnethe’s eyes flashed as she realized she’d been caught. “She might be held at the Old Pentagon in D.C. before they send her out to the docks in Baltimore.” Under Seren’s r
elentless glare for having lied, she added, “Okay, so it’s possible I snuck some shots with your dad’s military guys. What are you going to do?”
“Take somebody else’s plane, lose Tiny, and fly out to hear from her myself.”
“I’m going with you,” her friend replied.
“Of course, you are. How else did you think it would work?” Seren said to her friend, her mind already considering possible windows of time that she could slip away unnoticed. It needed to be a location where she could take Tiny, and secretly slip out of another entrance — a day at the spa, a girls’ trip before heading to space, something innocent that required intimacy.
“Congratulations to everybody in this room,” her father began. “Perfect Society was never about me. It was about all of you. It’s been about the American dream. Preserving who we are, while growing to be stronger. To every one of you, I say thanks. I couldn’t be more proud to fight alongside you. Our dream of a better, stronger, more perfect America, became real today. We have only begun to discover all we can do. Congratulations to us, the stars who light the night. Who lead the way. We the people. And now, we the Founding Fathers and Mothers of the new America.”
The crowd of elite politicians and businesspersons hooted and clapped.
Her father then looked across the room to the base of the stairwell, his gaze stopping at Seren and Lyndon.
“Now, as a father, it’s time for me to realize another dream. Well, actually, this is my nightmare. Lyndon, get on up here. You all know who Lyndon Baxter is, don’t you? The young man who’s going to take care of us all when he’s our chief medical doctor in space.”
Lyndon slid his hand inside Seren’s.
Stunned, she could only stare at him as the lights grew dark and a soft spotlight found them. Lyndon’s eyes looked back at her knowingly. She wasn’t sure what was happening, and did not want to believe it might be a proposal. It was still too soon. She wasn’t yet eighteen, and her father would never let her project get sidetracked with marriage. Yet her heartbeat began to gallop as a path widened and the crowd parted for them. They approached her father. Lyndon’s parents joined them, along with her mother.
Stephen Jernigan continued, clearly at home on the stage with a full captive audience. “Lyndon came and talked to me a few weeks ago. I took him hunting, which terrifies him. And his mother.” The room burst into laughter. “He said he had something to ask me. I gave the response I always give somebody who starts off that way. ‘No, you can’t borrow any money’.” At that, more chuckles circulated. “But then I remembered his folks are richer than me. So I figured that couldn’t be it.” Seren had always adored her father’s disarming charm and humor, and this moment was no different. The elder Jernigan continued his story. “But he and I had a nice talk. I told him my daughter’s never been hurt a day in her life. And if that changed on his watch, he’d have a place next to my favorite deer on the wall.” The room erupted again. “Lyndon, go on ahead, Son.” Seren’s father grinned as he stepped back.
Emotion and shock hit Seren. Her love since she was fourteen drop to his knee. Her father handed Dax the microphone, who held it at Lyndon’s mouth. Lyndon pulled out a small black box and opened it. In a surreal daze, Seren contained her emotion as he slid the immaculate ring on her finger. Seren’s knees buckled at the sight of his handsome face gazing up at hers.
His lips began to move. She waited for the words she had longed to hear him say for years. But no sound came out of the speakers.
She watched his mouth move over the chattering and whistles. But she could not hear his voice. Her eyes darted about the large room for a technician to correct the sound.
“Babe, speak up. Something’s wrong,” Seren said, struggling to hear as Lyndon also began to realize it.
“To Stephen Jernigan, and all of the elitist murderers who hijacked our American democracy, you have created a society based on reward by genetics. And yet several of you in that room have been genetically altered yourselves to acquire your Tier One Premium status. You have perpetrated a travesty on the American ideal.”
Seren stared at Lyndon. Panic twisted his face. He tapped the microphone and shook it, while a strange, male voice continued to take the room hostage.
“You have kidnapped, jailed and slaughtered thousands of innocent people. We demand restitution for the Skin Trials. You used them to create the lie of your American Dream.”
Lyndon’s eyes wild, he threw the microphone to the floor. Even though he no longer held it, the audio system continued to blare over their heads. Seren swayed, slowly realizing that they had been hacked.
“To America’s oppressive wealthy establishment of Tier One Premiums, we demand that you hold a new and fair American election. For every day that you do not reinstate the original Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution, we will reveal a new name of another elitist who has concealed their true genetic qualities. If you will not make America an equal society, then we, The Anthistemi, will level the playing field. Starting with Seren Jernigan.”
WHAT’S JERNIGAN DOING??
Her mother’s scream ricocheted through the room.
“Turn it off!” Stephen Jernigan’s voice now dominated the room, his eyes searching wildly for someone, anyone on his staff, to obey his command. One of his men rushed to his side, pressing a gun into his open hand.
In the dark, large bodies rushed from nowhere and she watched arms jerk out and snatch Lyndon’s body, pushing his head down and the heads of the people around them. She reached to help him, scratching at an arm, but she felt her own head pushed down before she was dragged backward. Soon, her eyes adjusted and muscular faces of her father’s ABI agents became recognizable.
The disguised male voice pressed on without mercy. “Seren Jernigan’s genes only qualify her as a true Classified Access Grade of Tier Two average working citizen. Over the last seventeen years of her life, there have been exactly forty-nine genetic overrides to conceal her true—”
“I said turn it off, goddammit!” her father screamed again, yanking the gun from the private police agent next to him, aiming it and shooting.
Seren first searched for reassurance from Mariel Jernigan [define her more]. Her mother’s eyes drew closer to Seren’s. Their heads touched. Seren saw her mother’s fingers cup her numb cheeks. Her mother’s mouth moved. Random noises emerged. Background noise filled the ether. “Don’t believe a word... not true…”
But Seren needed one final affirmation. The one she and her mother always needed.
Stephen Jernigan commanded his deputies, his finger attacking the air. Finally, his shiny, military oxfords turned toward her.
Before he could think to conceal it, the look of revenge in his eyes revealed the truth.
4
Perfect Society
Chaos shook the next few minutes. Partygoers ran. Agents and security yelled. Diplomats dodged.
Once they realized it was not Lyndon speaking into the microphone, people tried to escape an enemy they couldn’t see. In a blur, Seren became a spectator to it all. Seren, Lyndon, Agnethe, their families, the president and his administration, and a few prominent Tier Ones followed ABI agents, heading behind the walls. They entered the secret tunnel system that swerved deeper into the mountain.
Once they reached a bunker inside, the arguing began. Stephen Jernigan pivoted to face the President, his longtime friend.
President Spence roared, “Stephen, this is on you. Anthistemi is a terrorist group.”
“Domestic terrorist group,” her father spat back. “I’m in charge of international now. So you decided to let law enforcement handle it and this is what you got. My robots could have handled this better! You told me to pull back my forces in Chicago and Detroit, and that’s where those signals came from! You should have just let me take them out!” Secretary Jernigan started to shoot back before Seren tuned them both out. Their arguing became background noise.
Seren’s body sank into a couch. Her heart beating i
n her ears drowned out the vociferous yelling. Seren felt rubbing against her back. She resisted the urge to shake it off of her. She didn’t want to be placated. Voices talked into her ear. But she didn’t know whose. Nor did she care.
We will reveal the names of you who stole your Premium Tier One status by genetically altering yourselves. Starting with Seren Jernigan.
In the barely lit bunker, her eyes fell, to where her fingers interlaced with another hand. Her mother’s. Her gaze wondered back up, to peer at Mariel Jernigan. To clear up this lie. But right then, her mother could have been a threatened animal, frozen and cowering, her sky blue eyes darting around the room with shadows of scheming men inside them. Seren had known those men her whole life, vacationed with them and their children, celebrated Christmases in their living rooms, and sought them out for advice. What had they done to her?
“Stephen,” another administration member’s clear, steady voice somehow broke into Seren’s confusion. “We need to make sure whatever the response is, that it’s measured. Not heavy-handed.”
“The time for being measured is over. These guys… Anthistemi. Let’s give them the war they want. Let’s go find them, crush them and use them to set an example for all the other radicals who dare test us again. Why are you being so nice, Grogan? They just attacked my daughter,” Secretary Jernigan replied.
The president held up his hands. “I know, and we all love Seren very much. But right now all they’re doing is hacking. No violent acts.”
“Yet,” the elder Jernigan snapped.
President Spence thought. “We can’t start a physical conflict. Not now. We need buy-in from Tier Two first. And we don’t have it yet. If we start the fighting, the Twos will join them. The last thing we need the world to see is an American implosion. We’ve got to be smarter about it than that.” He paced. Seren had rarely ever seen them plot. Her father had always shielded her from it. Spence hung his head, shoving his hands on his hips. “If you’re going to do it, I don’t want the details. Shut down the networks. Phone and wireless towers. Make sure nobody can record it with their cell phones, or post it to FriendCamp or some other social outfit.”
