Sons of Earth

by Geralyn Wichers

  SONS OF EARTH

  Geralyn Wichers

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2015 Geralyn Wichers

  PROLOGUE

  He was watching her. Though he never made eye contact, from under his long, dark lashes, he watched. His perfect lips curled, almost too minute to perceive. It made a full body exam decidedly awkward.

  But she was done. Khalia pointed to his clothes, folded neatly on the table, and with the same obedience she expected, he picked them up and began pull them on. Even with her eyes on her clipboard, she could still feel his gaze. She glanced up. The bluish fluorescent light sent glints off his eyes as he dropped them.

  MFP25A12 was her third and last examination of the morning. The other two had been in perfect condition. She’d recorded every parameter, all within limits, almost exactly on target. Not A12. Vitals, in limits. Height, 183 cm—in limits. Weight, 80.73 kg—drastically out of limits. At his age, he should be not less than 90kg. Khalia scanned the parameter sheets of the last two months. His weight gain had leveled off two weeks ago, even after adjustments to his diet.

  Thud. Khalia glanced up. The MFP was, for once, not looking at her. He’d dropped his shoe onto the concrete floor. She shook her head, and flipped through his records.

  He was reject—garbage.

  Khalia sighed and took one last glance across the pages. As she flipped back to the first page, her eyes lit on a section titled “Intelligence Quotient. Limits 100-120,” and below it, the number 183.

  Her head snapped up. A12, now dressed in his black garments, didn't bother to lower his gaze. He stared at her, full on.

  "Hey." She pointed with two fingers toward the floor. His chin tilted downward in obedience but his lip curled again.

  Khalia shivered. What rogue gene had slipped through, gracing this specimen with genius IQ?

  She should test him. Maybe it was a mistake, a transcription error. Who had tested him? The signature was Adam’s. She needed to ask, even if by all physical signs MFP25A12 was destined to be rejected. Barjinder would want to know how this happened.

  Khalia grabbed a blue tag from one of the many hooks beside the light switches. It read “Further Testing Required”, the one right beside the red “Reject” tag, stark crimson against the snow-white wall. She stuck it to the Velcro patch on A12’s sleeve.

  “Come.”

  She opened the door and led him into the wide, fluorescent lit hall, past the rows of exam-room doors, and into the airlock. She shed her shoe covers and lab coat and pushed him ahead of her into the warm yellow light of the corridor. "I'm taking this one for further testing,” she said to the forms clerk. She signed the sheet that was handed to her, and then led her charge two doors over to the genetics lab.

  Barjinder’s desk was empty. She’d get the MFP situated, then go find him.

  Khalia opened the door of the holding room, an eight by eight room with a cot and a toilet, and let her charge pass by her. She turned and set the clipboard in the folder by the door and grabbed the log book to fill it out. Her pen had just formed the letters “M F P” when she heard a slight rustle.

  Her head turned, and she was nose to nose with the MFP. She squeaked, and then his hands were on her throat. She thrashed, he pushed her against the wall, pinning her. Her lungs burned empty, her head swam. She made one last effort to jerk free. He was a brick wall.

  Black spots grew larger and larger.

  The last thing Khalia saw before she lost consciousness was his dark eyes, gazing deep into hers. His lip was still curled.

  CHAPTER 1

  Brrring. Brrring.

  Casey’s arm pinned Justine momentarily as he reached across her and shut the alarm off. “Enough already,” he muttered in her ear.

  “It’s too cold.” Justine burrowed into his side and put her face in his neck. He smelled like soap, and he was deliciously warm and solid beside her. And outside it was dark, and freezing.

  His lips tickled her ear, nibbled the lobe, and pushed against the delicate skin behind. Justine twisted in his arms, met his smiling green eyes just for a moment, and found his mouth with hers. For a moment his lips possessed hers, hungry and gentle all at once. She pressed up against him.

  “No, no,” he muttered against her lips. He dropped his arms and rolled out of bed. “Ah, dear God, it’s cold.” He hopped from one foot to the other as he leapt into his pants. “Ah, dear Jesus, must I?” He jerked on the lamp’s cord as he snatched up his shirt from the chair.

  “No.” Justine drew the covers over her head to get away from the light. She smiled in spite of herself. He was too cute in the morning, dark curls all rumpled, skin covered with goose-pimples as he rushed to get into his clothes, complaining good-naturedly all the while.

  The blanket jerked off her face, and Casey grinned down at her.

  “It’s my happy place too,” he tweaked her nose. “But duty calls.” The bed wobbled as he got up and padded in sock feet out of the bedroom. In a moment, she heard the clank of the kettle against the metal sink and the gush of the faucet. The building’s old pipes groaned.

  Casey hummed tunelessly in the other room. The radiator clanked and rattled, and air started blowing.

  “Ohhh…” Justine rolled out of bed and sat for a moment, her feet poised over the bare floorboards. In the kitchen she heard the distinct creak of the toaster as Casey depressed the springs. Breakfast would be ready in a minute.

  She mustered up her willpower, put her feet down, and then rushed around the room at top speed, throwing on her jeans and her sweatshirt, grabbing Casey’s wool sweater from the chair where he’d forgotten it. By the time she reached the kitchen, she was almost warm.

  Casey was just pouring the water over tea leaves.

  He would pick up their weekly rations tonight, on his way back from the work truck, and they’d get coffee with breakfast again. She sat down at the table by her toast, and Casey pushed his chair back and plunked down. He covered her hand with his own, bowed his head, and said “Lord, thank you for a new day. May we glorify you today. Grant us strength to do your will cheerfully. Grant Justine courage as she begins her new position. Thanks for your provision. Amen.”

  As Justine bit into her wheat toast she realized it was generously buttered. At the same moment, Casey set his down to take a sip of tea, and she saw his bread was dry.

  “Case…” She took his uneaten toast and switched it for her own.

  He switched them back. “I’ll get butter at the farm.”

  “But I’ll get food at the plant.”

  He held her gaze, unflinching.

  “Okay.” She bit into her toast again. She’d catch it next time.

  “So, first day on the production floor?” Casey smiled weakly over his teacup.

  “First day.” Casey knew how she’d hoped to fail the two-week training course, anything to avoid going onto the facility floor. She didn’t want to work with Manufactured Persons. She didn’t want to be any part of manufacturing human beings. She’d seen them walking past the window, patrolling the district, every one of them near twins of each other, the imprint of what someone had decided was perfect.

  And someone like Casey, the beautiful man gazing at her across the table, worked himself to exhaustion just to provide for her because he wasn’t gifted enough to make it into the academies and into a professional position. Though, she would never have met him if he had, because she wasn’t good enough for that either. And now she was chosen to work at Caspian. There was no choice in the matter for her.

  “You will do good there,” Casey said quietly.

  Justine chewed her toast and looked down.

  "And you'll finally be able to tell me if an Empty has a belly button."

  Justine's gaze flew up towa
rd his.

  Casey winked. He grinned at her, then stuffed the last of his toast in his mouth. He drank the last sip of tea and stood up. “My bus will be here soon. I’m going down,” he sighed and shrugged. “Three more weeks. I better enjoy it.”

  She raised her face, and he dropped a kiss on her eyelids and ran a finger down her jaw. Then Casey grabbed his bag from the hook by the door, slung on his coat, and stomped into his boots. Justine’s stared at the last bit of toast in her hand as he clomped down the stairs toward the street. Yes, three more weeks until Casey was laid off for the winter, and her income became all they had.

  She ate the toast. Her bus was only five minutes behind Casey’s.

  The bus rumbled up to the gates of the district and jerked to a stop. The last few passengers crammed their way on. Lisa squished onto the seat beside Justine and squeezed her hand.

  “Good morning,” Justine said softly.

  “Good morning.” Lisa leaned in. “Church is at your place, not Ernest's, right?”

  Justine smiled weakly. “Yeah.”

  Lisa laughed under her breath. “Case is preaching?”

  Justine smiled. “Yeah. He rehearsed on me last night—like he needs it.”

  “You set to start?”

  “I guess.”

  “The supervisor told me that I’ll be training you.”

  Relief washed over her. “Good. Oh, good.”

  Two MP guards swung open the chain-link gates and the bus ground into gear again. It rolled off the rutted gravel road onto a paved street and picked up speed down the thoroughfare. They flew past tall brick apartment buildings; the worst of the professional district and far better than anything Justine had ever lived in. Big-box stores with massive, empty, parking lots, not yet opened, flanked the road.

  Justine looked down at her lap. Yes, she was vaguely curious what was in those stores. She’d only heard stories. But compared to the small, government-run stores in her district, they looked awfully intimidating.

  Lisa’s blond head bobbed against her shoulder, her eyes shut. A forty-five minute bus ride usually provided Justine with a half-hour nap. But not this time. This time her eyes stayed wide open as the bus bumped over the bridge into the industrial district. The white steam clouds melded into the grey sky. Snow wafted down against the bus windows as it stopped at the train tracks. A tanker train inched by, and when it finally passed, Justine saw the square silver sides of Caspian genetics. Beyond it, trees. They’d reached the edge of the city. They’d go no further.

  Justine followed Lisa through the halls of the manufacturing floor with her fingers tangled in the too-long sleeves of her grey scrubs. The shiny new shoes pinched at her toes.

  The bright white hall was a crush of people in grey scrubs and hairnets, each getting to their process rooms, each checking logbooks and paperwork and visiting with the nightshift people. Lisa pushed her way through, greeting every second person by name.

  “Okay, here we go.” Lisa paused by double doors. “This is the fourth-stage corridor. According to the board, we’re in room 912 for the morning, which is a dormitory room. We’ll be taking vitals as the MFP’s receive their breakfast. We’ll also be ensuring that they all receive the correct meal, as some of them are on special diets.”

  “O-Okay.”

  Lisa grabbed her by the shoulders. “Don’t feel threatened or uncomfortable. The MFPs are accustomed to us moving around them and testing them. They probably told you in orientation, but the MFPs won't look us in the eye and we're encouraged to not look them in the face. Just be businesslike and efficient. We have a lot to get through.” She reached past Justine. “Gloves on. See this screen?" She pointed to a large, flat screen by the door. In simple, primary colors, the screen had the layout of the room—eight rows of beds. Each bed had an icon beside it like a little man. As Justine watched, one moved slightly.

  "Each MFP has a tracker implanted in the arm that shows its location at all times." Lisa peered at the screen. "We're also tracked using our pass bracelets. You can use this screen to search for a room, if you're not sure which it is, and also for a supervisor if you need one. I'll show you later. Right now we've got to take over from graveyard shift."

  She swung the door open into a large, rectangular room, lit with a friendlier light than the corridor, and also warmer. The room was filled with rows and rows of beds, all neatly made with grey blankets. MFP’s in black, long-sleeved shirts and pants stood, straight and motionless, at the foot of each bed. The scent of the room was just like a hospital. Clean, sterile. It might be warmer with cozier lighting, but there was nothing homey about it. The walls were the same slick white paint and the floor was painted concrete.

  “How far have you gotten on the vitals?” Lisa said to the two operators who were walking toward them down the aisle.

  Justine glanced at the nearest MP. Her eyes met his deep blue ones. He dropped his gaze swiftly and his face tightened as if he was startled.

  Justine grimaced. Oops.

  Blue eyes. She'd never seen one with blue eyes before. The Empties weren't strictly identical. Some had a slight wave to their hair, while others had hair needle-straight. Some had aquiline noses, others had turned up ones. But every one she'd seen had eyes in a shade of brown.

  “First two rows,” Peter said, “Breakfast will be here in ten.”

  “Thanks.” Lisa took his clipboard and ran her fingers down each column, reading silently. She did the same with Maizy’s. “Looks good. Thanks.”

  Maizy and Peter said, “Have a good shift,” simultaneously and walked out.

  “Okay.” Lisa blew out a breath and pulled her pen from her pocket. “They left the cart at the last one they did. Let’s see if we can do two checks before the food gets here.”

  Lisa approached the first MFP, the blue-eyed one. He held out his arm, and she grabbed a wand off the cart. She waved it over his shoulder until it beeped, and the tablet on the cart lit up. She didn't look at his face. She didn’t speak to him, just took a blood sample and made a few notes on the chart.

  “Got it?” she asked.

  Justine let out at trembling breath. “Walk me through it?”

  “You bet.” Lisa nodded for her to go up to the next one.

  “Good morning,” Justine murmured as she approached the next MFP. She focused on his chin. It was at eye-level anyway. “How are you?”

  Lisa made a sound in the back of her throat.

  “Sorry.” Justine took wand, and the MFP held out his arm. She waved it over the MFP until it emitted a little metallic ping.

  "Okay, so that registers the data," Lisa bent in to look at the tablet computer, "But we can choose to accept or retake if the numbers are no good." She scanned the numbers and pressed the green 'accept' square. "If we don't like the numbers, we can take the test manually and record it on the chart to be entered later. Now just the sample." She passed the syringe.

  “Okay," Justine turned back to the MFP, "Almost done...” She could feel her face going hot.

  Lisa shook her head slightly. She wasn’t supposed to talk. Well, she was a nervous talker, and not talking made this even more awkward even though the MFP was compliant, and stared straight ahead the whole time.

  Just as she finished, the door swung open and operators came in, pushing carts of trays.

  Lisa led her toward the doors. “No talking, okay?”

  Justine looked down. “I know, it’s just awkward.”

  Lisa paused. “Yeah, it is at first. It’s not like it’s against the rules to talk to them. It just… makes it easier if you don’t.”

  “Why?”

  Lisa leaned in close. “Because these Empties are only months away from being sold, Justine.”

  Justine’s stomach lurched. Right. Right, these men around her were born and raised to be sold—sold to countries that could afford to spare their ‘real’ citizens from the destruction of warfare.

  “You kinda get used to it,” Lisa said softly.

  “Yo
u know how I feel,” Justine said. She looked over Lisa’s shoulder and briefly caught the eye of the blue-eyed MFP before his long, dark lashes dropped and he turned his head. He was beautiful. If he were born into a wealthy family, the middle class girls would buy magazines because his face was on the cover. “I don’t see any difference between—“

  “Shh!” Lisa grabbed her wrist. “I’m not heartless, okay? But we all have to cope, and we all have to make it out of here at the end of the day. Got it?”

  “I know.” Justine squeezed her shoulder with her free hand. “But my coping just might be different, okay?”

  Casey’s words rang in her ears. You will do good there.

  Oh God, I hope so, Case.

  __

  The travel mug slipped from Khalia’s hand just as her swipe card passed the swipe-station and the door clicked.

  Khalia kicked it through the door ahead of her and let the warm interior air wash over her before she stooped to pick it up. She was cold, damn cold, and wet, thanks to the damn bus that had been damn late for the third damn time, and then had the gall to splash water all over her as it pulled away.

  And she felt sick. Her stomach was compressed into a hard ball in her center, empty because in her frantic effort to get out of the house, she'd forgotten. Her mind was on the medication stashed in her desk, where she'd forgotten it the day before. She'd barely slept, her chest was so tight with the panic of not having the pills in the house.

  She shoved her way through the turnstiles, barely looking at the security desk, where two guards were laughing and talking, with guns hanging off their shoulders, and past the buzzing HR offices. The three ladies chatting by the front desk looked up with big eyes, and immediately bent their heads together.

  Yeah, gossip about me, you dirt-bags.

  Khalia barged through the lab door without even looking up. Her feet pointed toward her desk.

  “Good of you to join us, Khalia.” Adam’s deadpan voice made her halt.

  “The bus…” Khalia mumbled, then cut herself off as she glanced toward him.

  Everyone stood in a semi-circle around Adam, lab-coats buttoned, hands clasped behind their backs. Barjinder met her gaze and his brown eyes softened. Adam peered at her over his clipboard. His hand was still poised, as if he'd been making some almighty point.