Sons of Earth

by Geralyn Wichers

  “How will we cover our tracks?” Sebastian asked. Casey heard a rustle, and out of he corner of his eye he saw Sebastian bite into a venison sandwich.

  Casey grinned to himself. Always eating, Sebastian was. Good thing he could also more than pull his weight in the woods. But he was right. “Yes, how will we cover our tracks?”

  “If one of us takes the MFPs, the other could come behind and brush out the tracks.”

  “Tough to do that in those drifts, or in mud for that matter. It may be mud by then. By my guess,” Casey said, “the snow by the building isn’t deep, so it will be gone. It’s once they actually get into the swamp that we’ll have problems. We can bring the MFPs from the building into the swamp—then one of us can take them to safety and the other can cover tracks.” Casey glassed the swamp. “The drop off is such that once they’re in the swamp, they’ll be difficult to see from the building. Let’s skirt around the edge of the swamp and head back to the woods. Finish your sandwich, little brother.” He adjusted his pack and bow on his shoulders.

  As he slipped between the cattails, he could barely hear Sebastian behind him. The lad was light as a cat on his feet. Casey smiled.

  Yeah, I didn’t teach him that. He came with that. His own children would be a lot shorter, and stouter if they were cursed to look like him. If they took after Justine they’d be beautiful.

  He crunched on an ice patch. The milky ice had shattered, showing the frozen mud below.

  “Well, it’s not deep,” Sebastian said. “Good, because I cannot swim. It is not part of the program at Caspian.”

  “We’ll remedy that in the summer. You’ll be swimming like a fish in an hour.”

  “I hope so,” Sebastian said in a completely guileless tone.

  “Do you see the area in your head? You think you could describe it to Dominic?”

  “It’s all in here.” Sebastian tapped his forehead with his leather mitten.

  They slipped back into the woods and doubled back on their path.

  "Deer tracks," Casey pointed to the imprints in the crunchy snow. One was squarely in his tracks from an hour previous.

  Sebastian dropped into a squat. His eyes surveyed the ground eagerly, "It went that way."

  "They. It was two. Large and small. See?" Casey scanned the trees for any sign of the creatures and sighed with disappointment. He'd seen little sign of game all day, and now the sun hovered just above the horizon. There was no time to stalk a deer. "We'd be hard pressed to dress a deer and haul it back on the bus today, Seb. We have to scoot to the professional district." There was a bus stop at Caspian, but Casey wasn't going to bring Sebastian onto a bus full of people who worked with MFPs. They would hike the three miles around Caspian, to the bus stop by the steel mill. There it would be only a fifteen minute ride to the train station just before the ghetto gate.

  Sebastian stood and followed after Casey. "Casey," he said in the low voice Casey had taught him to use while in the woods, a half-whisper that would not carry. "Are you afraid to die?"

  Casey paused midstride. He felt pressure, like an invisible hand, clamp around his throat. "I'm..." Be honest. Be honest. "I'm not afraid of being dead, but I'm afraid of the process of dying." He turned to look Sebastian full in the face, but the lad wasn't looking. Sebastian fingered the scar across his wrist. His forehead bunched up.

  "What are you thinking of, Seb?"

  "About what could happen when we take them."

  "We could die, Seb." There was no use in denying it. People of their class were supposed to get fair trial, the same as the professionals and the higher classes, but so often they never made it before the judge. The guards at Caspian were armed, Justine said, and he doubted they'd ask questions before shooting. "But we've talked about why we needn't fear death."

  "But I wanted to know if you were afraid." Sebastian fixed him with the full weight of his troubled blue eyes. He gnawed at his lip.

  Dying? He'd faced death before. Leaving Justine? That was what he feared. To be snuffed out, and leave her helpless, and to leave no mark upon the earth. Casey blew out his breath. "I guess I am. But are the lives of the MFPs worth more than mine?"

  "Well..." Sebastian kicked at the snow.

  "Despite what you've been taught, Seb, the answer is no." Casey resumed walking. Sebastian fell in behind him.

  "Why is Mr. Vermeer doing this?"

  It was something Casey had wondered since he'd first seen the man, standing behind Sebastian in the door of their apartment. He'd never asked, part because he didn't want to know more than he needed to, part because he wanted no involvement. This was enough. "Why don't you ask him yourself, Seb?"

  "Because I'm afraid of him."

  Oh, to be as honest as Sebastian.

  "It is entirely possible that Mr. Vermeer doesn't—" Casey broke off as a squirrel chattered overhead. He grabbed the bow off his back and turned slowly.

  Sebastian had frozen mid-step. He looked up.

  With his eyes still on the bare branches above, Casey nocked an arrow. The squirrel scolded. He saw a flash of movement, then a bushy tail. The bowstring sang, and a tiny 'clump' signaled the fall of the rodent.

  "Good shot," Sebastian breathed.

  "We won't go empty-handed to Justine."

  The trick for bringing meat back onto the bus was to break it up into small portions, and then to give these portions to the people on the bus that you knew, and Casey knew all of the people on the bus. But today there was only the squirrel, stuffed in a plastic bag in Sebastian’s pack.

  Sebastian sat beside him, his head lolling against the window. The heat in the bus was making his damp flannel shirt steam. There was only to deliver the information to Dominic, and they could go home. Casey’s feet felt like lead lumps his legs could hardly carry, and the food was long gone. They had an hour and a half before the gates to the worker district closed.

  As they neared the edge of the worker district, Casey elbowed Sebastian. They stood up, and were the first off the bus. They slipped around the edge of the crowd—those getting on and off—and around the corner of the wall and back out of the district.

  Casey broke into a jog, and behind him, so did Sebastian.

  Sebastian had never even seen the train. When Casey led him up the stairs to the elevated skytrain platform, he stopped at the bottom. Casey glanced back and saw Sebastian grasping the rails, and staring at the shiny black capsule that was the train.

  “It’s perfectly safe.” Casey grabbed his wrist and dragged him up the stairs. “They only crash about once a year, and it’s already crashed this year.”

  They stood in the back of the half-empty train and slipped off as soon as the train stopped. The streets were lit only by the eerie blue streetlights. Light snowflakes began to fall as they turned the corner onto street 43. The brick building that Dominic had described loomed over them.

  “Wait,” Sebastian said softly behind him. He grasped Casey by the jacket and pulled him into the shadows.

  Two seconds later, a long black car purred by. The word ‘police’ was emblazoned on the back in white letters.

  “It might be better to just walk like we’re supposed to be here, Seb," Casey said under his breath. "It isn’t illegal.”

  “Yeah,” Sebastian breathed. “I just… I just panicked, maybe.”

  “Come.” Casey reached the front of the building and found the buzzer for Dominic’s apartment. A screen on the door flicked on, and a grey-green version of Dominic's face appeared.

  Dominic’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Hello, Casey, come on up to 314.”

  The door clicked, and they walked into the foyer.

  Sebastian sucked in a breath.

  “Yeah, I know, right?” Casey muttered, eyeing the marble floor and the shiny elevator doors across from them. Between the doors stood a shiny, gold thing that was probably supposed to be art. “Hoity-toity.”

  Dominic opened the door, straight-faced, and looking like a gothic version of Sebasti
an in his black suit. “Come in.”

  He didn’t offer drinks, or anything. He sat down at the table and gestured for them to do the same.

  “May I have some water?” Sebastian asked.

  Oh, to be as honest as Sebastian.

  Dominic got up and pulled two shiny glass tumblers from a cupboard. He pushed a button on the front of his stainless steel refrigerator. Water streamed into the first glass, and then the second. He set one in front of Sebastian, then Casey. As Casey took the first cool sip, Dominic produced a legal pad and a pencil from the granite counter behind them. Sebastian drew out a diagram of the swamp while Casey scanned the apartment. He knew Justine would want to know what it looked like inside.

  The fireplace that was crackling against the far wall was obviously gas, but it was a very good imitation. It gilded the leather sofas and the shiny hardwood floor around it. And there was some sort of painting over the mantle—splashes of colors that might have formed a picture, but Casey couldn’t make it out.

  Sebastian had drawn a complete sketch of the swamp and the side of the building.

  “Good,” Dominic said. "That is approximately how I remember it. How far is it from the road?"

  "Half a kilometer," Casey said softly. It dawned on Casey, then, that Dominic could probably draw from memory just like Sebastian

  “We will be beginning the first of two demonstrations in two weeks,” Dominic said, his narrow eyes still on the drawing. “They will finish on the Tuesday, and the rejection is scheduled for Friday, late afternoon. I have arranged to be the lab observer, which should make things easier.”

  “But there will still be the reject technician, if Justine is correct,” Casey said, taking his eyes off the room around him.

  “Yes, but I can hand pick them, or distract them, or arrange for them to be delayed."

  “Then we have a plan,” Casey said.

  “Yes. We have a plan.”

  As he and Sebastian got up, Dominic said, “I spoke to Mr. Oakley. Everything is in order there. He says he can produce ID for them, even.”

  As he knew it would be. “Good.”

  For the first time, expression came over Dominic’s face—a mix of emotions that Casey could not identify. “Thank you for this, Casey.”

  Casey glanced at Sebastian. “I don’t see what else we could do.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Dominic watched from the corner as the five MFP2s stood with their heads together around a tall table. They spoke only in the occasional soft, single word. Their hands flew, passing pieces of the three-dimensional puzzle between them. Khalia stood off to the side, smiling wryly over the stopwatch.

  "Done!" MFP202 threw his arms up.

  "One minute, ten seconds," Khalia said.

  "Hey!" 203 also threw his hands up, and they all slapped high-fives.

  Khalia giggled, and across the room, Justine smiled slightly and hugged herself with her grey-clad arms. Justine had taught them that move.

  "One more time," Khalia said. "One minute ten seconds to strategize. And... go!"

  It was a stupid puzzle game, but the MFPs were nailing it. Dominic felt a twist in his gut as he watched them. They all bent close to each other and their voices rose in higher and higher whispers. 202 slammed his palm on the table, and the metal puzzle pieces tinkled onto the stainless-steel surface.

  The MFPs started, then threw their heads back and laughed. Khalia hid her grin behind her hand.

  "Ready?"

  They posed on the balls of their feet.

  "Go!"

  Dominic sucked in a deep breath. This was all wrong.

  Dominic saw himself, like in a video, sitting in front of a projector screen with the one hundred MFPs in his lot, watching images flash on the screen and hearing the words that correlated. Back in the dormitory, he'd turned to the MFP in the bed beside him and tried to use a new phrase.

  A jarring blow to the side of his head, and Dominic had reeled back. The operator, a full six inches shorter than he, stout, brownish hair escaping from his hair net, just shook his head. "Shut it."

  He'd never spoken again, until the day the priest had pulled him into his silver sedan and thrown a wool blanket over him, and asked him if he should call the authorities. Was he hurt? Had there been an accident?

  "Yes."

  The blow, the isolation, all of it had built up, until one day he had escaped.

  The MFPs celebrated their one-minute puzzle, and Dominic turned away.

  __

  After a month of working exclusively with the five MFP2’s, Justine still blinked every time she entered their dorm and saw them sitting on their beds, talking to each other. As she pulled her cart through the doors, MFP202 and 204 turned to see her.

  “Good morning,” she said, a little breathless from yanking the cart into the room.

  “Good morning,” 205 said, and the other four young men chorused after him. Their eyes went past her, and Justine sensed that Dominic stood in the doorway.

  She glanced behind her and smiled at him. “Good morning, sir.”

  “Good morning.” He smiled tightly and allowed her to push the cart further into the room to begin the morning checks. The MFP2s jumped off their beds and stood at the ends. As soon as Justine finished 201’s check, Dominic picked up the tablet from the cart and read the stats.

  “Hmm,” Justine heard him say. “Good. They’re uniformly gaining faster even than projected. They may even reach the plateau point before the exhibition.”

  “Do they need to grow so fast?” Justine glanced at the young man in front of her, still in the gainliness of youth. She frowned at the scanning wand, which she had clutched in her hand. When she looked up, 202 was mimicking her expression. She grinned, and he did the same. His dark eyes twinkled at her. “Don’t they need time just to mature?” She turned back to see Dominic’s response.

  He grimaced as he handed the tablet back to her. “To be well-adjusted human beings? Yes. To be MFPs? No. Now, we’ll be adding two new components to their training today—“

  “But sir, you have experience—“

  “Shh!” Dominic’s fierce, dark eyes locked on hers. He lowered his voice to a whisper and said, standing very close to her, “Yes, I do, and I know for a fact that I am abnormal in many areas because of it. I’m already doing well enough to have them talking to each other.” He raised his voice to a normal level again but his eyes remained angry. “Khalia and I have decided to add chess to their training."

  “Chess?”

  “It will teach them strategy and increase their reasoning capacity, but the purpose is actually for the exhibition. I have it on good authority that one of the EU representatives is a master chess player.” Dominic’s lips quirked into a half-smile. “Imagine his surprise when a sub-human MFP beats him.”

  Justine looked down.

  “I should also mention,” Dominic said, “I may add an exercise in distrust.”

  “Wh-what?”

  He took her arm and led her out of the room. “Distrust,” he said near her ear. “Think. They trust you implicitly—Khalia and I somewhat less, but essentially they would do anything and believe everything we say.”

  Justine nodded.

  “Distrust is the essence of self-preservation.”

  The idea made Justine’s blood run cold. “Who will they distrust first?”

  “Me.” Dominic shrugged but his eyes darted away from hers and he looked down. His lips pressed together.

  Eight hours later, as Justine was going off shift, 202 and 203 were laughing in hushed voices.

  “It looked like good food,” 202 said. “Why would he give us such awful stuff?”

  The next day they weren’t laughing when they returned from training. Justine tucked in the tails of the sheet on the bed she’d been changing, and stood to watch them enter. They were silent. 202 and 203 were sullen. 201’s brows drew tight together as he sat down on his bed. 204 stood by, impassive, until she indicated he could have his bed back. 205 t
urned to look at her, and revealed a black eye.

  Justine sucked in a breath.

  She ducked out of the room, almost right into Dominic. "Sir—"

  "It isn't open to discussion." He pushed past her.

  Justine trotted behind him. "But sir!"

  “It was a necessity.” Dominic swung around and fixed her with his intent stare. “They must be taught that neither Caspian nor the world is a safe place. Their childhood is over, and all the better.”

  "That's a short childhood!"

  "Hell yes it is!" Dominic’s eyes flickered, cold and black. "Humans get the luxury of eighteen years. MFPs get a couple months if we're lucky."

  Justine stood frozen and watched as he swung around and stalked away.

  __

  “Well, that went well, don’t you think?” Khalia sighed happily as she settled into her desk-chair. The other rooms of the lab were dark. Everyone else but Barjinder, who was fetching take-out from the main entry, had gone home hours ago. Their office area was lit just by the two desk lamps, hers and Barjinder’s, and the screen of Dominic’s laptop.

  Her feet ached from standing, watching the tests, for almost five hours. The 5 MFP2s had been pitted against 5 academy students in three tests of problem solving and physical prowess that they had to complete as a team. In everything, the unit of MFPs had far exceeded the young, athletic students.

  Khalia had been struck by how similar the two groups appeared. The MFPs in their slim, black uniforms had clustered at one end of the room, carrying on a low but animated conversation. She’d sensed they were already strategizing, even though they didn’t know what the tasks would be. At the other side, the students grouped together, gazing at the MFPs with skeptical nervousness and talking among themselves.

  “See, the thing is,” Dominic said to her as they observed the first task, “the MFPs have a singleness of focus that the students don’t have. They only know one thing. There are no exams waiting for them, or families, or girlfriends.”