“Sure, Professor, I’ll be quick. Could you give me access to the archived results from our experiments for the last five years? I have this theory I want to explore.”
“Can’t you just pull the data from the database?
“I want to look at the raw data from each trial, rather than the rolled-up results.”
“Alright, I’ll approve your access request. You should be able to get into it tomorrow sometime. Want to talk about it more before you dive into the numbers? I may be able to save you some time. You should join me on my date; she is an 18-year-old — Edradour.”
“Much as I would like to, Professor, I myself am meeting some people, not a bottle of single malt. Let’s talk tomorrow or Monday.”
“Oooh, people, aren’t I jealous? Anyone I know?”
“Not telling”
“Ah I see. Can I assume that you finally plucked up the courage to ask out Ms. Jones? No, don’t protest, it is as plain as the nose on your face. Get a move on, I’m tired of you mooning around the lab every time you catch a glimpse of her.”
“Mooning!” said Fin indignantly, “I’ll show you mooning.”
“Heavens no, you’ll put me off my whisky!”
Finn laughed. “Anyway, it’s not a date or anything, I am just going on a pub crawl with some of the other postgrads,” Finn said. “She may be there though.” He smiled. “I’ll let you know if my thought becomes a theory.”
Rebecca was an Evolutionary Genetics postgrad who started at her studies at the University at same time as Finn. She was smart, confident and smelled wonderful. She had a bob of straight black hair that fell into her face, even when she tried to put it up. She laughed wholeheartedly from the stomach in great guffaws, had the slightest Welsh accent and could shoot pool like a pro. Her smile brought light to the darkest of his days. Finn loved her more than anyone else in the world.
He just needed an excuse to actually talk to her.
Maybe tonight.
Maybe.
When Finn turned up, he saw that Jonni was wearing his favorite T-shirt, the one that said, “Frankie says Fuck Off.” He was scratching his goatee as a way to draw attention to it. Jonni had a talent for growing hair. Back, chest, neck, face, ears and nostrils; it didn’t matter where, he just seemed to grow great black tufts of hair in a matter of hours. He took advantage of this by growing and then shaving off various forms of facial hair. He was currently in his goatee stage. This annoyed Finn to no end, as he was unable to grow much more than a fuzzy lip and a few long hairs on his chin.
“Alright, pal,” said Jonni. He called everyone “pal” this semester. He had called them all “mate” last semester. Finn wondered what was next, maybe “chap”? The truth was, Jonni did not have many friends and he considered Finn his best friend as well as his flat mate. Finn saw Jonni more as the other postgrad in the Parapsychology Department as well as his flat mate. However, Finn did not have many friends either, so they spent a great deal of time in each other’s company.
Rebecca was there, which was good. But, she was there with Dieter, which was less good.
Dieter was a visiting scholar from the Mac Planck Institute and studied Evolutionary Genetics, like Rebecca, so he spent a lot of time with her. Finn tried not to be jealous, but he could not help it when he looked at the tall, blond German. Dieter was probably what Hitler had been envisioning when he thought of a master race. Finn took secret pleasure in the knowledge that Dieter seemed to have no detectible sense of humor. That could have been due to a language barrier — he could be the German version of Charlie Chaplin back in the fatherland, though Finn doubted that. He preferred to believe that Dieter was boring in every language, to offset his physical perfection. It just wouldn’t be fair otherwise.
Diana, who had over-organized the pub crawl to raise money for some charity that none of the participants really cared about, climbed up on a chair. In her strident, public school voice, she said, “OK, everybody. Everybody? OK, yah? Quiet down. I have some very important instructions for you.” She paused for a couple of seconds. “You will find your collection tins at the front of the room with a list of the pubs, in the order we are visiting them. Should you lose track of the other participants, move through the list of pubs in order and you will, no doubt, find the rest of us. You should have all brought your scarves, as noted on the signup sheet. In order to participate, each pair must tie their legs together with said scarf. Remember, try to stay together, and if I find that anyone has tampered with their collection tins there will be consequences.”
“Give us a fucking break, Duchess, there are only six of us here. Just get down from the chair and talk to us, ya daft bint.” Jonni had called Diana “Duchess” ever since he had heard that her father was a count, earl, peer or something like that. No one could be bothered to check which.
“Humph. I’ll have you know that at least ten signed up,” she muttered as she got down from the chair. “Fine, get your tin, tie your legs together and let’s go.”
Having his leg tied to Finn meant that Jonni Brown could only goosestep with one of his legs, so he tried to make it more noticeable by shouting things like “Heil” and “Schnell” and even “Luftwaffe” and “Strudel.” Dieter quietly simmered while pretending to ignore Jonni’s increasingly obnoxious behavior. Finn tried to perfect invisibility. He was not having much luck. He was too embarrassed to even attempt to restrain the irrepressible Mr. Brown.
By the time they ordered their drinks in the second pub it seemed Dieter’s intransigence was going to win out over Jonni’s increasingly desperate jibes, when Jonni stooped to the last of his schoolboy taunts and said, “Hey, Dieter, are you ignoring me because you found out about your mother giving me a blow job down by the docks in Leipzig?”
Dieter’s head snapped around and he said, “Are you suggesting zat my mother is,” then he took a deep breath, roared, “a whore?”
Jonni’s eyes flashed in triumph as everyone turned to watch. He looked around with a big shit-eating grin and said, “No, not at all, I couldn’t really call her a whore. You see, I didn’t pay for it, I just joined the queue. She was giving them out for free.”
Dieter roared and punched Jonni in the face with his massive fist.
Finn and Rebecca, who had been frantically disengaging themselves from their partners during the exchange, jumped out of the way as the bouncer stepped in and frog-marched them to the door. Finn could hear Jonni cackle, “Look, Dieter, we are being frog-marched, ha ha, frog-marched, you Nazi bastard. I bet you hate the frogs too.”
Finn heard the bouncer threaten to call the police if they did not make themselves scarce.
“Interesting friend you have there,” Rebecca said. Finn looked around and was surprised to see she was looking at him.
“Sorry?”
“I said, interesting friend you have there.”
“Ah, yeah. I'm not sure about friend, but certainly interesting. Sorry you lost your partner.”
“Oh, no problem, Dieter is sweet, just a little dull. His main topic of conversation is Dieter. Your pal there certainly made the night memorable in his own offensive, xenophobic way.”
“Yes, offensive and memorable — hard to forget, really. No matter how hard you try, believe me. I don’t really know why Dieter reacted the way he did, Leipzig is landlocked. It doesn’t even have docks.”
Rebecca looked at him quizzically and laughed a little. She paused for a second or two while she considered her words.
“So, you’re Finn right? I heard you are some sort of Wunderkind?”
“Wunderkind? Sounds like Dieter is rubbing off on you. Don’t get me wrong, I like that term so much more than special child.”
“But, you did get your first degree at sixteen, right?”
“Well, yeah, it was kind of hellish; the other students hated me, or saw me as some sort of freak.”
“Well, you don’t look too freakish to me. Give me a little spin so I can see you better.” He just looked at her and the
n lifted his arms a little. “Oh God, don’t actually do it. That was a joke.” He quickly dropped his arms to his sides. “The last thing we need now is for you to start whirling like Maria von Trapp on top of the Matterhorn. I think our ejected compatriots used up all of the bouncer’s tolerance for students this week.”
“I wasn’t going to spin. I knew you were joking,” Finn lied.
“Uh huh.” She narrowed her eyes. “Anyway, it looks like we both lost our partners … want to continue together? You can tell me about your freakish life as we go. We are raising money for a good cause, after all.”
“Yeah, sure. Umm, this is a little embarrassing, but do you remember what the charity was?” he said.
“Fuck knows, let’s drink.”
So began the best few months of Finn’s troubled life.
The City, Year 7867 in the Reign of Enki II
The cobble hit Clea in the center of her forehead. Blood poured down her face, obscuring her uncanny blue eyes.
One of the boys shouted, “Mongrel,” and threw another rock. It missed her and clattered against the stone wall that closed off her end of the alley. The other end of the alley, the one that opened to the street and freedom, was blocked by the eight young boys currently tormenting her. They started to chant, “Mongrel, mongrel.”
She covered her face and sank to the cobbles. She hugged her knees and tried to retreat within herself until the children got bored of beating her. Calling for help would do no good. A wall of sound throbbed down the alley from the street. It was the time of Renewal, and the chaos of the celebration would prevent anyone from hearing her cries, vocal or mental.
She heard a scuffle, and the shouting stopped. She wiped the blood from her face and looked up. Her little brother Caleb had pushed through the group of other boys. He stood over her, facing the other boys, a furious look on his face.
He was her little brother in age only. Caleb was ten but looked older. He was big — slightly taller than her already — even though she was five years his senior.
The leader of the pack, a boy named Ilba, spoke. “Look lads, the Throwback has come to save his mongrel sister. More fun than we expected.”
She grabbed Caleb’s leg to stop him from lunging forward. The neighborhood boys knew how to goad him; they had being doing it all of their lives. The bitter truth was that Caleb was a “throwback.” His noticeable brow ridge and sloping forehead were in stark contrast to the smooth, vertical foreheads of the rest of his people. He looked as if he had skipped the generations of refinements that the Host had bred into their people. His neck and shoulders were already starting to thicken, and Clea feared as he matured he would look even more like the images of their primitive ancestors from the time of Emergence, more like the wild tribes that the Host had refused to take in.
The boys hated Clea for a different reason, although she too was different from them. Her build and features were current Guest standard; however, her coloring was the same as the some of the Host. Her golden hair, fair skin and pale blue eyes were in stark contrast to the light brown skin, brown eyes and dark brown hair of the rest of the Guest.
“Leave us alone, you cowardly little turds.” Caleb was enraged by their taunts and by her humiliation. “Come on, you cowards, I will fight you one at a time and beat you all.”
The boys looked to Ilba, their leader, to see if he would take up the challenge of single combat. Ilba was a bully but he was not stupid. He shook his head slightly and they kicked at the floor of the alley to loosen more cobbles. Through her grip on his leg, Clea could feel Caleb tremble a little. His attempt to even the odds a little had failed. She tried not to think about the damage that a hail of cobbles would do to them. The Host healers were unlikely to spend much time and effort patching them up if they were seriously injured; they were both too flawed. This was serious.
“Get down,” she said and ducked her head.
A flight of rocks flew at Caleb. One glanced off his temple. He sat down heavily, stunned.
Clea peeked over her knees in time to see Ilba jerk his head forward and swear. He touched the back of his head with his hand. His hand came back into view covered in blood. He spun around and shouted, “Who did that?”
The other boys parted and Clea could see Hael standing near the open end of the alley. Hael was her brother’s best friend — his only friend, really. Her only friend too, she supposed.
Hael’s older brother Lucan had once pretended to be her friend, until she denied him her body. Hael’s little brother Bral was just a little too young for her to consider him a friend, but at least he did not shun her.
Hael and his brothers were ideal specimens of their people, the Guest. The right size, the right shape and the right color. They were all smart and strong too. Unlike her and Caleb, there was little doubt that he and his brothers would be allowed to breed, even if they achieved little in service to the City and Empire. Caleb’s appearance meant he would need to do something monumental to be allowed to breed. Even then, if his children had many of his physical attributes, it was unlikely they would make it out of the birthing room. It was a mystery that he himself had made it out. The same held true for her to a lesser extent.
Hale spoke. “Ilba and his Insignificants. You boys run out of nice games to play?”
Ilba shook the blood from his hand. He looked a little less belligerent — not to say that he looked ready to back down either. He would never back down in front of the other boys.
Ilba needed to walk a fine line. Clea knew that other boys grudgingly admired Hael and would have gladly followed him if Hael had allowed them to.
“What did you throw that rock for?” said Ilba.
“I was just joining in the fun. Did I get the game wrong?” Hael was holding another rock and tossed it lightly in the air, it hung suspended for a few seconds then dropped back into his hand. Ilba’s gang nudged each other. This was an impressive feat for an uninitiated child. Even moderate feats of levitation were notoriously difficult for one of the Guest to master. The Host, of course, had less difficulty with such things. “Who am I supposed to throw at next?”
Clea saw Ilba’s shoulders slump. Ilba would have little doubt about how this would end, but the expectations of his peers drove him onward. “This is none of your business, Hael.”
“Oh, but I think it is; you see, Caleb and Clea there happen to be my friends.”
“Friends? With a mongrel and a throwback? Come, Hael, if you want friends, there are better people to be friends with.”
Hael cocked his head. “I can’t think of anyone I would rather be friends with.” Hael paused then an expression of understanding crossed his face. “Ah, I think I understand. You are suggesting that you and your chums here would be better friends to me than Caleb and Clea.” Ilba straightened a little, some hope entered his posture. Hael continued, “I think not, I have higher standards than that.”
The other boys looked from Hael to Ilba and then to back to Hael. The die was cast.
Ilba rushed Hael, who sidestepped the lunge. He pivoted and drove his elbow into the back of Ilba’s bloody scalp. Ilba hit the ground and lay still.
“Well, boys, who’s next?”
They edged around Hael and into the street behind him, leaving their leader lying face down on the cobbles. Hael did not glance at them as they left. His eyes were on Clea. He winked, then strode forward to check Caleb’s condition.
Clea smiled back and blinked the blood from her eyes.
Hael helped Clea support Caleb as they made their way back to their unusually large and well-appointed home.
Clea and Caleb’s father had met their mother, Sela, after he had been discharged from a rather mediocre military career. He had lost a leg in the Eastern Campaign and was not deemed valuable enough to have a Host healer regenerate it for him. He and Sela had been approved for marriage and breeding a month later. Prior to meeting him, Sela had been a well-known actress and had performed for the Emperor himself. The neighborhood gossips
spread many vicious rumors about how Sela ended up being granted such a large home, considering her obvious lack of success in breeding optimal children. One particularly nasty rumor concerned the timing of Caleb’s birth, which some claimed occurred ten months following the demise of his father.
As they approached the house they noticed a palanquin on the street outside Caleb and Clea’s home. It was fairly plain with a blank shield on the door indicating its owner was traveling incognito. The owner must have already been inside the enclosed box, as the Feral slaves who carried the chair lifted it and proceeded quickly down the street before the children reached the relative sanctuary of home.
The presence of the palanquin was unusual — they were normally only used by an extremely important Guest or one of the Host, neither of which should have had any business with Sela. However, this was the time of Renewal and anything could happen.
Once they were inside, Sela made such a fuss over her injured children and their savior Hael that Hael and Caleb quickly forgot to tell her about the palanquin, as children often do.
Clea was barely old enough to remember, but she knew very well who her mother’s visitor had been and counted herself lucky to have been out during his visit. Even if that meant that she had been busy being pelted with cobbles. Anything was better than being home when he came to visit.
Chapter 2
Edinburgh, Scotland, 2015
Five attractive people sat around the table in the dimmest corner of the pub. They appeared to be in their late teens or early twenties. In spite of the pub being packed, there was a five-foot bubble of empty space around the table — a bubble that the other patrons in the pub did not breach nor even appear aware of. No one approached to ask if the empty chair at the table was being used, which was extraordinary in a crowded drunken pub in a crowded drunken city.
Ancient Evil (The First Genocide Book 1) Page 3
