Sons of Earth

by Geralyn Wichers

  Her eyes came up from the screen in a hurry. “Dom!”

  “I will. It isn’t irrelevant. I maintain that the MFPs can form sufficient relationships to work as a team, and it will be to their benefit - to the customers’ benefit - to gain MFPs who can think and act as a disciplined unit.”

  “So you’re going to take it to Sebert?”

  “I’ll keep you out of it, if you want.”

  “You can't keep me out of it. I'm your boss," she sighed. "Adam will be so pissed."

  “I don’t give a damn about Adam’s feelings.” Dominic smiled grimly. "I do care about yours."

  She laughed softly. “Okay, so let’s say Sebert says yes. What do you suggest? The MFP1’s are kept apart as much as possible. We’d have to start the MFP2’s off in a group setting so they’re accustomed to each other before they begin training. They’ll be in a dorm together, so that is no issue. We’ll just tell their operators to allow them to socialize?”

  “Not just to socialize, but to be socialized. These MPs need to function at a much higher level, socially, than MFP1 and for that we will need to start working with them as soon as they emerge from the biocribs. Perhaps even before they emerge from the crib."

  "Because humans gain most of their social skills from interaction with their parents."

  "Exactly. We should choose the operators from each shift specifically,” Dom said. He could think of one in particular. “And train them to interact with the MPs to the ends we specify. They will be, in effect, their parents.”

  “Uh huh...” Khalia tapped this out on the keyboard. “And then...? Give me a good rant, Dominic.”

  "The problem solving and logic-building exercises we have are good, but they need to be translated into team projects." Dominic leaned his chin on his hand. Team sports and projects were not his area of expertise. Group assignments, of which there were many in the Academy in the first couple years before the fiercest competition set in, had comprised of Dominic doing eighty percent of the work. He’d get good marks for them all. Perhaps the first ninety and hundred percent marks the slugs had ever gotten.

  “I’d suggest a team sport,” she said before he answered, “But there is an uneven number.” She grinned. “I could teach them soccer. Imagine that in the exhibition for the reps.”

  “You, soccer?” Dominic laughed and picked up his mug.

  “I played in college. I’m small, but I’m fast,” she said.

  It took them until ten-thirty to come up with a list of five team exercises. Khalia had made them a second pot of coffee, but they were both emitting jaw-cracking yawns.

  “Damn these early mornings and late nights,” Khalia said. She shut the laptop and pushed back from the table. “Are you going home or are you staying?”

  Dominic looked down at his grey jeans and long-sleeved black shirt. “This will pass at work tomorrow.”

  She got up and smiled at him over her shoulder as she walked toward her bedroom.

  __

  Khalia’s alarm rang at 5:45 but she didn’t stir. Dominic groaned and reached over her to press the snooze. Nine minutes later, it played the same annoying little tune. She lifted her head off his shoulder and fished around on the table for the phone. She pressed the snooze again, pressed into his side, and slung one leg over his.

  “Good morning,” she slurred.

  “Hmm.”

  Nine minutes later she jerked upright and shut off the phone. Dominic came out of his half-sleep and pushed himself up on one elbow. “Why so early? We only have to be at work at eight.” Dominic rubbed his knuckles into his eyes.

  “It takes a long time for me to do my hair,” she sighed. She fished around on the floor and pulled her sweater out from under the bed. As she dropped it over her head, Dominic sat up and wrapped an arm around her waist over the soft wool. He kissed her behind the ear and got a mouthful of hair.

  She laughed and slipped from his grasp. “Reality calls. Are you showering after me?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He flopped back down.

  He showered while she blow-dried her hair. When he emerged and wrapped the towel around himself, she was heating up some electronic device that looked like something between a kitchen appliance and an implement of torture. Her coffee-colored hair sprang in frizzy curls around her face.

  “You have curly hair,” he said. She looked up, startled. He reached out and sank his fingers into the silky mass. “Why don’t you ever wear it like this?”

  “It’s ugly,” she said petulantly.

  “Who told you that crap?”

  She said nothing. He took a guess: Jeremy.

  He leaned in and brushed it out of her eyes. “Wear it like that.”

  She tilted her head to the side and lifted a handful. “You think so? I could... I could put it up, I guess.” She yanked the cord of the straightener out of the wall. “Don’t watch me. Go put the water on to boil. I need coffee.”

  He dressed and ambled into the kitchen to boil the water. When she came out, she was in a wine-colored sweater and slim black pants. Her curls were piled on top of her head, the odd ringlet escaping to frame her face. It softened all her lines and made her dark eyes large and soft. Dominic broke into a grin, and she smiled shyly.

  They kissed at the door, and Khalia said, “I’ll leave first. Leave about five minutes after me, okay?”

  “I’ll be your assistant and nothing else, I promise.”

  She bit her lip, smiled, and slipped out the door.

  About eleven o’clock, Khalia heard Adam clear his throat behind them. Dominic turned around, got up, and walked out.

  “What the hell are you doing, Vermeer?” Adam’s muffled voice was a hiss, even at a distance. “Have you no shame?”

  “Not really,” Dominic said. His voice was cold, but she could hear a ring of humor.

  “Well, you get your way this time. Sebert will make sure of it. But don’t think I’ll forget that you went over my head.” He lowered his voice to a menacing whisper, and Khalia caught only the first few words. “Did Khalia put you up to this...?”

  “It was my idea. She didn’t sanction anything...”

  Dominic came back into the room and sat back down at his desk. He glanced her way and winked.

  Khalia shivered in spite of the confidence in his face. Did he even know what he was dealing with?

  __

  The next night Dominic was at Khalia's place again, this time with a bag of clothes in one hand and take-out Chinese in the other.

  "Did you get tired of eggs?" she said in his ear just before she kissed him.

  He just laughed against her mouth. "I don't want to wear out my welcome or your supply of eggs."

  Three and a half hours later, the remnants of the stir-fried veggies and chicken swimming in red sweet and sour sauce was crusty, and the second pot of coffee stood half-empty between them. Khalia had her head pillowed on her arm, but Dominic's rant wasn't losing steam.

  "...meanwhile, Adam is determined to fight me at every step. Why is he in this job if he doesn't want to see MFP2 be the absolute best product on the market?"

  Khalia lifted her head, "It's not the product, Dom. It's you. You threaten him."

  He turned from the fridge, where his rant had been directed, and stared at her with the full force of his burning black eyes. "I don't see how that has to affect this at all. We're both professionals."

  Khalia fought the urge to laugh at his naïveté. "That isn't how people work, Dominic. You know that."

  For a moment his face went completely blank. Finally he said, "of course" and fell silent. He came and sat down. "Humans put far too much trust in their feelings," he said, "Don't they know that their feelings will lead them right down into an early grave?"

  "Oh hell, Dominic." It sounded vaguely like he was talking to himself, but this thought passed right through Khalia's head and kept going. He was talking to the queen of being guided by feelings, and she sure didn't want to talk about it. "You said already, you don't g
ive a damn about Adam and his feelings. So keep going over Adam's head to Sebert until you've banged out the training program you want. I won't stop you."

  "No?" he swung his head toward her and regarded her with a vaguely amused expression in his eyes. "I was beginning to think I was pushing the socializing of the MFPs too far for you."

  "Okay, so I will temper some of your ideas. This is your first project, and I know from experience that we have four more rounds of prototyping to iron it all out. Sometimes it’s better not to push your agenda too hard on the first round. Have patience, Dom. Rome wasn't built in a day."

  "I am pushing too hard, aren't I?" He sighed and picked up her hand. He traced her thumb and forefinger and the hard lines of his face relaxed. "I don't know why."

  "You want to do a good job, and I appreciate that." She leaned in and brushed her lips across his cheek. "But it's almost midnight, and I'm about to fall asleep on top of my keyboard, capisce?"

  "Capisco," he sighed, "Sembri molto stanco."

  "Showoff." Khalia stood up and stretched. Dominic came around the table and wrapped his arms around her waist.

  CHAPTER 10

  The MFPs emerged from the biocribs on the first of February. Justine had found out two days before that she and Lisa were being assigned to the prototypes. She'd cried. It was bad enough to tend a hundred MFPs about to be sold. Five who would live for two months and then be rejected down to the man?

  Dominic and a tiny female scientist, whom he called Khalia, watched over Justine and the other four operators as they initiated the shutdown sequence on each biocrib. As the HMIs counted down, the atmospheres inside them equalized with the temperature inside the room. Justine stood watching the readout on MFP202s HMI, with a robe in her arms for when he emerged. She gazed at his face through the plexiglass, his eyes open and round, taking in the first sights he'd ever seen. His rapid breaths fogged up the glass over his face.

  Justine glanced at Dominic, looking for a sign of emotion, but he just gazed keenly into the crib. His long fingers, so much like Sebastian's, stroked his jaw.

  The numbers on the screen counted down to zero and beeped. Dominic stepped back and pressed the opening button. The glass cover popped open with a hiss, then lifted. Justine leapt forward with the robe as Dominic eased the MFP into a sitting position. Goosebumps popped up on the MFP's bare, pale skin. He stared into Justine's eyes as she slipped the terrycloth garment over him. For once, she would not have to train him to look away.

  "It's okay," she murmured to him, "It's all right."

  "In a few moments he should be strong enough to stand," Dominic said.

  Justine looked up. Around them, the biocribs were opening. Khalia laughed and clapped her hands as MFP201 emerged in front of her.

  Dominic adjusted the robe around MFP202. "Let's see if you can stand. Hold onto Justine here, and we'll put your feet on the ground."

  Justine wrapped 202's hand around her forearm, and Dominic eased him into a standing position. As soon as the MFP's bare feet touched the floor, he gasped and his hand clamped around her arm. A whimper escaped from his lips.

  "It's okay, it's okay." Justine wrapped her arm around his slim waist. They stood for a moment, and she saw his legs grow rigid and felt him take his weight onto his own feet. She released him, with a gentle touch on his back. "There you are. Wonderful. We're going to get you some clothes and you'll be nice and warm again."

  She turned and Dominic handed her crisp black garments, sharp edged from the package. Then he walked over to the next MFP and left her to dress the man-child in front of her.

  She drew the robe away from MFP202's body, and goose pimples broke out on his translucent skin. "Lift your arms, sweetheart," she said, easing his arm until his lifted it on his own. She dropped the black shirt over his head. As his face emerged from the fabric, their eyes locked and though she saw fear and sensory overload, she saw the light of intelligence. The biocribs, with their brain-stimulating functions, had done their job. Here stood a young man untouched by societal convention and human guile, but fully aware, fully alive.

  Justine's insides imploded with rage, and she fought to keep her face from crumping. She shot a glance, filled with all the impotent fury in her heart, at Dominic. She saw him lift his head as he'd felt it, but his focus remained on MFP204 in front of him.

  "All right," Khalia's soft voice carried across the quiet lab room. "They're ready to take to the dormitory room. Lisa," she turned to the blond woman, the most senior operator present, "Will you lead out?"

  Lisa grasped MFP201 by the shoulder and gently prodded him to walk.

  As Justine settled 202 onto his bed, she realized that Lisa and the others carried their MFP's files with them, but she had forgotten the records in the lab. "Lisa, I forgot 202's file," she said as she was halfway out the door.

  "Okay," Lisa called after her. "I'm going to call the kitchen for the first food round. Hurry back, okay?"

  As Justine paused outside the lab door, she heard a muffled tinkle within. She pushed the door open and found Dominic standing in the middle of the room with his back to her. The glass of five or six broken beakers was strewn across the floor. His hands clenched at his sides. Slowly he turned around. For an instant his eyes were dark, open chasms of hate. Then doors seem to slam shut behind them.

  "Get me a broom," he said.

  __

  Dominic flicked the red switch and the fluorescent lights came on inside the room. He opened the door and stood for a moment in the entry.

  It didn’t require much technology to kill an MFP—simple restraints and a syringe would do. The rejection facility looked just like an exam room—the table along the wall, the cabinets, the chairs, as if someone would sit waiting for an appointment. There was but one definite difference: the metal door on one empty wall that was the chute to the incinerator, the gateway to the god Molech, the hell of MFPs.

  Dominic sprayed isopropyl alcohol onto his gloved hands by habit, and entered rubbing his hands together. He breathed in the metallic tang of the alcohol as he turned around, taking in the room. Morbid curiosity drew him toward the counter and wall of cabinets. He opened one of the drawers.

  Inside was a small rotary saw. Its saw-toothed edge winked in the light, like an evil eye.

  His insides jolted upward, and bile burned at the back of his throat. Dominic shut the door and turned. He stood, breathing with deliberate slowness until he regained his composure. He sucked in one, long breath.

  Dominic made himself turn around very slowly, and take in the room as if his eyes were cameras that could record every detail. The table, covered in paper, new, uncrinkled. The chairs. The bare, white wall. A door.

  He crossed the room and tried the handle. Locked. He took out his keys and tried the one that had worked on the engineering corridor. The lock clicked, and the handle turned. It was, in fact, a short engineering corridor. Dominic glanced toward the front door of the room. He slipped off his key bracelet and tucked it behind a box on the counter. Then he slipped into the corridor, taking care to leave the door open just a crack.

  Light was filtering in from somewhere. Dominic looked up. Instead of a ceiling, there was the steel mesh of a catwalk above him. He looked down. The same.

  Hmm. He knelt and peered through the grating. Below him he could just make out the shiny metal sides of the building’s boiler system. Dominic got up and walked a little farther. All along there were pipes that led to the faucets, wiring in protective tubing, cables that he suspected were part of the building’s communication system. He walked for ten meters before he found another door. He opened it just a crack. It led to a corridor, which he recognized as the services corridor. On one side was the MFP laundry, on the other, the kitchen, with faint clanging of dishes emanating from within.

  That was of no use.

  He continued. Another door led into an empty room full of second-stage biochambers. Then he reached a set of stairs.

  Dominic hesitated. Then he stripped
off his boot covers and lab coat, and descended into the room below. He was in the bowels of the building, the organs of the beast. Pipes the size of his waist passed overhead. The boilers, to his left, hummed in soft bass tones. His footfalls echoed quietly off the concrete walls.

  He explored the length and breadth of the room, opening each door to see what lay beyond. More of the same, until he turned opened a door to another dimly-lit engineering corridor, and when he stepped into this one, he caught a faint whiff of fresh air. He hadn’t gone three meters before he found a door labeled, “Emergency exit. Alarm will sound.”

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and used it to shed more light on the door. He explored its edges, felt along the weather stripping and examined the latch mechanism until he found the sensor that triggered the alarm. Two wires, no thicker than hairs, connected it to the power source. It would be easy enough to cut them. He need only return with side-cutters—heck, even scissors would do.

  Dominic smiled.

  He turned and retraced his steps—out the door, through the boilers, up the stairs, and to the door of the rejection room. He paused and put his ear to the door.

  Other than a faint electrical hum, he heard nothing. He emerged into the empty room, and took one last look around. There was but one last thing.

  He returned to the cupboards and opened each until he found needles and empty vials for taking blood and DNA samples from each reject MFP.

  “Second cupboard from the end,” he muttered. Good. He slipped out of the room and switched off the light.

  __

  As Justine entered the cafeteria, someone brushed passed by her. She glanced up and saw Dominic.

  “Where are you working today?” he said under his breath.

  “Room 917,” she said.

  “I’ll stop by.”

  She ate, but the vegetable soup and rye bread tasted like sawdust, and the cheerful chatter in the lunchroom set her teeth on edge.

  “You okay?” Lisa asked as she slid her tray beside Justine’s and sat down.