Sons of Earth

by Geralyn Wichers

  Jacques Chassagne sighed and smiled. “If you would be so kind…”

  Dominic held up his hand. “If you would be so kind.”

  Chassagne cleared his throat. The assistant reached back and handed him a small cash bag.

  Dominic took the bag, and Chassagne handed him a notebook. For five minutes, the only sounds were the hum of the engine and the scratch of Dominic’s pencil on the page.

  “There.” He handed the book to Chassagne. "Next time I will need to copy the information from the source. This isn't like the old days, when I was selling your son test answers."

  Oh, those were the good old days. It was a good thing he hadn't been interested in a social life in the Academy, because between his own classes and young Andre Chassagne's homework, he'd lived on four-hour’s night’s sleep.

  Choose wisely. Andre Chassagne's narrow face and washed-out blue eyes hovered in his memory. Don't forget who's paying for those classes you're choosing over mine.

  Don't forget whose degree that is, he'd said to Andre at the boy’s graduation. He'd still had two years left on his program, as young Chassagne skipped off with his business degree. If Andre had squealed to his father, Jacques Chassagne had never spoken of it.

  Chassagne took the book and looked away. He paged through it. At first the crease in his fleshly forehead grew deep, and then he smiled. “Good. Good.”

  You have no idea what that all means, do you, Chassagne?

  “Much appreciated, Dominic.” Chassagne slipped the notebook into a bag at his feet. “I am most looking forward to seeing the results of this project, as are my investors.” He settled his bulk against the seat, languidly stroking his clean-shaven chin. The car turned a corner.

  “Put me off at the last street of 512B,” Dominic said.

  “The Chinese facility is completely set up for production. I visited it last week. I still haven’t chosen a name for it. Chassagne Genetics is rather… gauche, don’t you think?”

  Dominic chuckled politely. They’d driven past his turnoff.

  “But, all in time.” Chassange rested his hands, placidly, on his stomach. “I can’t put you off at home tonight. I have another errand. I’ll put you off on Hirsch. It’s a lovely evening.”

  Dominic said nothing.

  The car rolled to a gentle stop in front of the tidy brick shops of Hirsch Boulevard.

  “Much appreciated,” Chassagne repeated.

  The driver opened the door, and Dominic got out. He turned up his collar as the car drove away. “You’re welcome.”

  Chassange had no idea he was buying his own doom, and for a good price. It was Dom's little 'up yours' to send him off. Dominic had to withstand the pig for a year or two more, and both of them had to avoid the wrath of Caspian. He thought their chances of survival about equal.

  Death if caught, Dom thought. Death if I refuse. How fitting—after all, the lifespan of an MFP is no more than fifteen years. I’ve almost used up half.

  Dominic pressed his lips together and turned to begin the fifteen-minute walk home. Lovely evening indeed. The temperature was well into the negatives. Calling a cab was out of the question. He had left his phone at home like he always did when he met Chassagne. Phones were tracked.

  Shivers overtook him, in spite of the wool coat. Dom fumbled in his pocket for his gloves, and slipped his fingers into the calfskin. He clutched at his collar and wished for his scarf, and warmth. He looked to the right and left as he crossed the street, and as he straightened, his eyes lit on a coffee shop on the corner. He’d walked by it, but never gone in. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed the sort of place you’d meet someone and talk, and he always passed by alone.

  But coffee was something warm to hold in his hands as he walked home. Dom paused by the shiny glass window, and peered into the golden interior where couples and trios bent their heads together over steaming paper cups and under hanging brass lanterns. An employee walked around picking up cups, and she laughed at the joke of one of the patrons.

  Dominic pulled the door open.

  He’d almost made it to the counter and was already searching the menu for ‘coffee’ when he heard a soft voice say, “Dominic?”

  Dom turned, and there in the corner by the fireplace, a shiny black laptop open in front of her, sat Khalia.

  “Hi,” she said, shutting the lid. Her hands closed around the coffee cup between the computer and her chest, and the smile wavered on her face despite her firm voice as she said, "Are you following me or do you live here?"

  Dominic turned aside from the counter and put a smile on his face. “I don't live here specifically, but not far. What are you doing here?"

  Her smile reached her eyes. “I do leave Caspian sometimes, you know."

  "I guess you must," Dominic admitted. “May I join you for a moment, or are you in the midst of work?”

  “Kind of,” she said, “But it concerns us both. Grab a chair.”

  Dominic pointed at her cup. “What are you drinking? Can I get you another?”

  “Just coffee,” she said.

  “Then I already know what you take in it.”

  Dominic could not locate plain coffee on the menu anywhere, but he hazarded just asking for it, and soon he was carrying two paper cups back toward Khalia. She had opened her laptop and was bent over it. Strands of her dark hair fell around her face. They had frizzed from the cold, moist air outside, and begun to spring into ringlets. They softened her face and took years from her appearance. For a moment she didn’t see him standing there, and he took that opportunity to study her. She had shed her work clothes, and was in jeans—expensive but well-worn. Her mustard-yellow scarf artfully protected her narrow throat and lent a splash of color to her black sweater. In that moment her dark eyes were keen on the work in front of her, and her whole face glowed from the screen, but also from excitement.

  And then she looked up and saw him, and she was looking at him again in that nervous, hopeful way she had when she'd first greeted him.

  Dominic set down the cup. She breathed in the steam and smiled. “Thank you. This is a good place to work, sometimes. Home gets too quiet, you know?”

  Dom nodded. Oh yes. He knew. “So what do you have here?”

  “I’m not working on the actual genetic makeup of the MFPs at the moment. It seems silly to take that information into a public place.”

  Dominic nodded again.

  “I’m brainstorming for new testing ideas.” She sipped her coffee and scrolled down the page. “Adam was suggesting a series of games.”

  “Games?”

  “Well, strategy and war type games in the testing facility. I wasn’t here for the public testing of MFP1, but apparently they hosted Olympic-like events in which MFPs competed against human athletes.”

  “Huh.”

  “Are you going to sit down?” Khalia inclined her head to the side and grinned up at Dominic.

  He laughed and took the wooden chair opposite her. He took his first mouthful of coffee and let it settle onto his taste buds, dark and richer than the roast he was accustomed to. A second sip and he began to like it. “So, the MFPs competed against human athletes—Academy athletes I presume? Beat them handily?”

  “Not in everything. They were good at running...”

  Naturally, Dominic thought.

  “...and they were good at all strength exercises. Team sports were challenging for them.”

  Exactly. “Well, team spirit and camaraderie is hardly encouraged among them, is it?”

  Her eyebrows rose, as if this had never crossed her mind.

  Dominic pressed on. “What if they were socialized to think and work together? Would that make a difference? The MFP1’s are basically kept apart. They don’t talk to each other all their lives, and then they are told to work together? Why should they succeed?”

  “Yes...” Her brow scrunched up. “Can they form bonds like that?”

  “How do we know unless we try?” He didn’t know from personal experience, but
he was banking on it. "Secondly, if I may be frank..."

  "I suspect you will be," she said.

  "...socializing the MPs is almost guaranteed to lower your rejection rate. My studies showed that the most successful MP program—Symbiosis—experienced a fifty-percent reduction in rejection when they trained the MPs in groups."

  Her chin jutted. "Like I said, Symbiosis produces small batches of high-performance, specialized persons. They could be put in any field. Caspian makes grunts, essentially."

  Dominic felt his face flush and he bit his tongue. "Don't forget that they are made for the purpose of fighting battles. A higher skill level in interpersonal communication would undoubtedly reduce troop mortality and allow for more complex strategy. Manufactured fighting personnel are in their most primitive form. They are, as you say, grunts. If..." he cut himself off. Khalia was typing as if she wasn't paying attention. "I'm ranting, I'm sorry."

  Khalia looked up, "Oh, I was listening. I was taking notes. And I agree Dominic, I really do." She cradled her chin on her palm. “I've made some of these forays and I know just what Adam will say. He’ll ask us if we want a mob on our hands. And as the only Caspian scientist to ever be attacked by an MFP, I have to sympathize with him.”

  “Yeah,” Dominic said quickly, “But we won’t have a mob. We’ll have five MFPs. So we add security measures. This is experimental. We can afford to try, can’t we?”

  “I said that, too." She looked down into her coffee. “And we are going to have to keep on trying if we want the best product possible, but I'm telling you—we're dragging slugs uphill."

  “Cowards,” Dominic breathed.

  Khalia's eyes flashed. "Don't talk about what you don't understand."

  Dominic froze with the coffee cup halfway to his lips. Back off. Back off or you'll lose your chances with her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean you."

  Khalia turned back to her keyboard, kneading her bottom lip with her teeth. “I don't mean to discourage you. I just need to think this through a bit.” She looked him in the eye, and Dom saw that the whites of her eyes were bloodshot. “Meanwhile, if you put your report on my desk like you promised, I should be able to approve the order of the eggs for prototyping.”

  “It's on your desk.”

  "Kiss-ass," she said under her breath. She smiled, though her eyes remained strained, and raised her cup. “Well then, to prototyping.”

  Dominic raised his paper cup and tapped it against hers. “To the new perfect. Because perfect is never good enough.”

  She shook her head and drank her coffee.

  __

  Khalia found the report on her desk as she tossed her coat over the chair and shoved her purse into the drawer. Her travel mug sat beside it. A tendril of steam wafted up toward her.

  She narrowed her eyes at the cup. Dominic?

  "Kiss-ass," she muttered.

  "So Meena and I were wondering...” Jennifer’s shrill voice cut through the lab, somewhere just outside the door. “...Why didn’t you stay at Symbiosis? The money is there, isn't it?”

  Dominic’s voice deep, even voice answered, “Long term, I suppose.”

  “Or what, you couldn’t hack it?”

  There was a long pause.

  “You weren’t doing well there?” Meena pressed.

  “No, no it was fine,” Dominic said. “But if I would have stayed there, it would have been in a relatively low-level position, whereas here I was able to begin in my area of specialty.”

  “Was Caspian your only offer?” Jennifer asked.

  “Homeland offered as well, but I wasn’t interested in reading batch records for domestic empties all day. Child’s play.”

  “Hey! That’s where I got my start.” Adam’s voice broke into the mix.

  “Start being the key word, big boy,” Jennifer cackled. “But starting as assistant on this kind of project? Dumb luck is what it sounds like.”

  Khalia dropped her hand to hear what Dominic would say. Dumb luck?

  She’d argued this point how many times? To Jennifer? To Jeremy? Oh God, how she’d argued this to Jeremy. In the hallways of Caspian, across the table—in bed.

  Her stomach twisted. Don’t think about it. Don’t.

  Dominic’s back appeared in the doorway. “Luck had nothing to do with it,” he said calmly.

  “Being good in bed had everything to do with it?” Jennifer laughed. Meena’s horsey giggle followed quickly. Dominic just snorted and turned around.

  He turned and walked into their shared office. A slight smile played on his lips. “Is it so hard to believe that some people are smart enough to make it without selling themselves?”

  Khalia smiled wearily and tried to force lightness into her voice. “Think of who was asking. How do you think she got here?”

  He snorted again. "Though I won't deny that..." He laughed under his breath. "Never mind."

  She picked up the coffee for the first time and took a sip. Two cream, no sugar. “How did you...? Wait, you did this in the cafe the other day, too. How did you know?”

  “Paying attention.” His brown eyes flickered, deep in the depths. He sat down at his own desk and glanced back at her. “That is how I got here. Paying attention and working hard. People think that connections and...” He stopped and pressed his lips together for a moment. His brow furrowed. “I’m ranting. I do that.”

  Khalia felt a smile tug at her lips, and hid it behind her coffee cup. Yes, you do.

  “Ah...” He blew out a breath and ran his hand through his short hair. “’The lady doth protest too much, methinks,’ I hear you say.”

  “I was thinking nothing of the sort.” She set down her cup. “I don’t disagree, but no one is listening, except me, maybe.” I am listening. I just can’t do anything about it. “I would have loved to get a spot at Symbiosis. Too bad we can’t trade.”

  “They didn’t offer?”

  "Huh," Khalia breathed, “Dom, not everyone gets an offer from every personnel manufacturing facility in the city. I did my practicum here, and here I stayed.”

  “It’s a good job.”

  She shrugged. “But as the saying goes ‘You’ll never leave Caspian alive’.”

  “Oh, God.” He grimaced at her. “What, you get to retirement age and they stick a needle in you?”

  If you cross them. Right, Jeremy? She forced lightness into her voice. “Well, first let’s live through this project. Shall we?”

  His face straightened into its usual composure. “Well, too bad for us, then. Are you finished with my report?”

  “Your...” She looked down at the paper in front of her, and then up at him. Paying attention? What else had he noticed? She bit the inside of her lip and thought of the bottle of medication, stashed in the bottom of her desk.

  “No hurry,” he said before she could squeak a reply. “Though if I remember correctly, this was all you were waiting for to clear the order for the eggs.”

  “Yes. Yes!” She snapped to attention. “Yes, I'll have it done in half an hour.”

  “Excellent.” He smiled, and once again his eyes twinkled. “So it begins.”

  Pleasure coursed through her middle, and Khalia wasn’t sure if it was from his smile, or the knowledge that her years of research were about to become reality.

  __

  Monday morning, the snow was falling hard and fast, like someone was emptying buckets of goose-down over Khalia’s car in the driveway outside.

  This morning, she had gotten out of bed as soon as her alarm rang, set the water on the stove on low heat, and got in the shower with something of a spring in her step.

  Prototyping began today.

  Khalia dabbed concealer over the dark circles under her eyes, massaged it in with a tiny brush, and carefully applied foundation. A few minutes later, after she’d flicked a bit of mascara onto her lashes, she pressed her lips together and stared at herself in the mirror. “Well, I look human anyway.”

  Not like the eggs cared, but in the last few weeks he
r makeup had gone from an occasional thing when she had time to a routine.

  She refused to admit it to herself. Instead, she told herself that she was just excited—rejuvenated by the prospect of starting the MFP2 prototypes. Very soon there would be a lot of media attention, and before that, the bigwigs and muckety-mucks of Caspian would be parading through her lab and peering over her shoulder. One had to look her best for these things.

  As her wine-colored sweater passed over her head, the kettle in the other room began to whistle. Khalia shoved the sleeves up to her elbows and tossed her hair over her shoulder as she walked down the hall and into the kitchen.

  She turned the dial on the grinder and breathed in the buttery aroma of fresh medium roast. “Mmm.”

  Almost on their own, her hands opened the cupboard above the stove and removed a medication bottle. She stuck her head under the faucet to wash down the pill, tossed two slices of bread in the toaster, then turned to pour the water into the French press.

  She arrived at work just after the last sip of coffee, bypassed the empty spot beside Dominic’s Mercedes where his dark head was visible in the driver seat, and parked a little farther from the door.

  As she walked up toward the door she shoved the car keys in one pocket and thrust her hand in the other to retrieve her key bracelet. Nothing. Other pocket, nothing. Pants? No pockets. No bracelet.

  Khalia groaned and shoved her hands, already cold after two minutes outside, in her pockets. Footsteps came up behind her. Dominic’s arm snaked around her, and the door clicked. He held it open.

  “After you.”

  “Thanks, Dominic,” she sighed.

  “No trouble at all,” Dominic said. Their gaze met and he smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, or make them light up as they sometimes did. His eyes were bloodshot, and Khalia guessed he hadn’t slept any more than she had.

  She pushed through the door past him, shaking her head slightly. She stepped up to the security counter to get a temporary key, and caught up with Dominic halfway down the hall to the lab.