Red-Line: The Shift (Volume One)

by J. T. Bishop

  “What about the Reds?” said Declan. “They knew about the serum, didn’t they? They were given a choice.”

  “Their advanced abilities allowed them to control their sensitivity to a greater degree. Knowledge of the serum did not affect them. And like all Eudorans, they were good at keeping a secret.”

  “Here we are? Here we are?” Ramsey said as he repeated Leroy’s words. “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” interjected Declan, “that we’ve been lied to. All of us.” He looked at Hannah. “So, if I’m hearing you correctly, our supply has run out.”

  “Yes, it has.”

  “And what exactly did you discuss at this ‘Health Conference’ of yours, besides our impending death?” asked Ramsey.

  She drew herself up in her chair. "Specifically, how much longer we could survive without it.”

  “And how long was that?” Leroy asked.

  Hannah debated her answer, but decided to be up front with them. “Optimistically, without more supplies, many of us won’t make it through the year. If you’re young and healthy, twenty-four to thirty-six months, tops.”

  Silence greeted her as all three men heard the words but didn’t know what to say. Finally, Leroy spoke, his disbelief echoing Ramsey’s and Declan’s. “I didn’t realize it was that serious.”

  Hannah said nothing as she watched for responses from Ramsey and Declan.

  Surprisingly, Ramsey laughed. “That’s just great,” he said.

  Declan shared his brother’s attitude. “Terrific,” he said. “Why are we risking our lives if we’re all going to die anyway?”

  As Ramsey thought about it, none of it made sense. “Why are we even still alive if the serum has run out? The Red-Lines didn’t last long without it.”

  “Thankfully, we were able to stretch our reserves,” said Leroy. “Plus rationing, too. Is that right?” He directed his question to Hannah.

  “Yes, for years,” she said. “Normally, we’d receive a dose every year. They stretched that timeline out after we realized our supply line was compromised. We’ve adapted well enough now that we can go a few years without it.” She paused. “I doubt any of you have received a dose within the last five years.”

  “And what does that mean?” asked Declan. “How are we affected?”

  “It’s been taking its toll,” Hannah answered. “Normally, we’re a healthy group. We live long and are rarely ill. However, you may have noticed more physical weakness, maybe you’ve even been ill, caught a cold, for instance. If you’ve been injured, it takes longer to recover. It’s why Morgana needed my assistance when she injured herself a few years ago. The signs are there if you’re paying attention. Many are succumbing already, especially the older ones. They are the most susceptible. The longer you go without the serum, though, the more pronounced the symptoms. The biggest issue is injury. If you’re seriously hurt, it will be much harder for you to recover, if you recover at all.” She could see the questions behind their eyes. “Each of us is young and strong. Our group will be the last to feel the symptoms, but when it happens and you begin to decline, it happens quickly.”

  The four of them sat unmoving, each wondering how much time they had left. The energy felt heavy in the room, as if a wet woolen cloak covered each of them.

  “Dad’s been sick.” Declan spoke into the quiet. “Are you saying…?” He tried to finish the sentence, but couldn’t. Hannah lowered her eyes.

  “Is there anything that can be done for him?” he asked.

  “No,” said Hannah, looking sad. “Not without more serum.” She watched him deflate. “I’m sorry.”

  Declan’s normal air of confidence deserted him. “Damn it.”

  Ramsey sensed Declan’s pain and identified with it. “Hey,” he said, trying to get Declan’s attention. “Hey,” he repeated until Declan heard him. “He’s not dead yet. None of us are. So, until then, there has to be something we can do.” He watched Declan until Declan returned his gaze and slowly nodded his affirmation at Ramsey.

  “Since when are you the optimist?” Declan asked.

  “Since I realized this whole story is pissing me off. And when I get pissed, I take action. So what am I missing here? There’s a reason why we’re all holed up here in this house and why our new Red-Line, Sarah, is here with us, shifting as we speak. What is it?”

  “Because,” Leroy answered, projecting the hope the group sorely needed, “she may be the key to our survival. If the Council’s experimental gamble paid off, she may save us all.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  * * *

  THE GROUP SAID nothing as they adjusted to Leroy’s newest revelation.

  Finally, Ramsey broke the quiet. “You’re just full of fascinating information today, aren’t you? Just how is she supposed to do that?

  Leroy took his time, preparing to explain. “The Council’s been aware of this problem for a long time. They knew eventually, without contact from home, that this scenario would play out. When it became clear that we were on our own, they started thinking of ways to fix the problem.” He slowed and looked at the leery group. “The ship that crashed was carrying serum, but when they got to the ship, there was nothing on board. In all likelihood, Varalika, realizing the ship was going down, took precautions to prevent discovery and acted to protect us. She probably dumped the cargo before she crashed, and maybe in a place where she knew it would be safe from prying eyes.” He leaned back in his seat. “The mirror they found at the crash site was next to her body. It was thought that she may have coded the mirror with the location of the serum before she died, assuming the mirror would be found and the serum eventually located.”

  “But that didn’t happen,” stated Declan.

  “No,” said Leroy. “No one was able to read the mirror. Every Red-Line tried, but they had no luck. She may have encoded it in such a way that only a certain person could read it.”

  “But they never found that person,” said Ramsey.

  “Assuming there is a person to find, no, they didn’t,” replied Leroy.

  “So what was the Council’s grand idea?” asked Hannah.

  Leroy chose his words carefully. “They decided to create someone who could.”

  When no one responded to that, Declan asked the obvious. “What? Wait a minute. Why not just create more serum?”

  “This sounds like a bad idea,” Ramsey broke in, responding to Leroy.

  Leroy sighed. “Yes, Sherlock, that’s one way to put it. With the Red-Lines gone, other than Arnuff and Emerson, and with no indication that another ship would be arriving, as time passed, the sense of urgency ramped up. They did make attempts at developing a new serum, but the original required ingredients grown specifically on Eudora. Any new serums proved ineffective. They made a few unsuccessful and risky attempts to contact home, but when that failed, the Council at the time came up with another idea. To try and find a way to read the mirror.”

  “But every Red-Line was gone,” said Hannah. “They were the only ones who could read it, right?”

  “Yes,” said Leroy. “They needed another Red-Line. Someone who could read mirror energy.”

  “What does that mean? How do you do that?” Declan asked.

  “You create one,” Leroy answered, his expression unreadable.

  “Create a new Red-Line? You mean through genetics?” Hannah grasped the thought behind it and understood the reasoning. “I suppose it’s feasible.”

  “Feasible? How did this seem feasible? Ludicrous sounds better.” Ramsey shook his head. “Let me guess how it turned out.”

  “It was a failure,” said Leroy. “They spent years trying to find the right combination of Gray-Line and Red-Line DNA to somehow create a new Red-Line.”

  Declan didn’t quite grasp the reach of the Council’s efforts. “And how did they go about that?”

  “Basic birds and bees,” responded Leroy. “They had two healthy Red-Line males. In fact, the only two Red-Lines that had survived without the serum, ma
king them even more virile, I suppose. And they found Gray-Line females with Red-Line ancestry. Luckily, there were many. Although it was rare for Reds to mate with Grays, it appears that once they realized their time on Earth was short, many of them trod outside their normal waters. Within a year after their death, there was a baby boom of Red and Gray newborns.”

  “I guess a death sentence will do that to you,” said Ramsey.

  “It did, and it was a good thing. By the time those children grew up, the Council started experimenting. They implanted the Red-Line sperm into fertile willing females who had Red-Line fathers, and started having babies.”

  “You’re kidding me. They really did this?” Hannah couldn’t believe it.

  “I guess when the survival of the species is at risk, you’ll try anything,” said Ramsey.

  “And it failed?” Declan repeated Leroy’s words.

  “Yes,” said Leroy. “You could say that. They successfully created embryos, but those that came to term and survived were all Grays. Some ended in miscarriages. A few baby Red-Lines came to term and were born, but only lived a few months.” He paused. “Without the right Red-Line serum, which had since been diluted to create Gray serum, the babies could not survive.”

  The news evoked various reactions in all of them. No one spoke.

  Ramsey finally asked, “So I’ll try again. How does Sarah play into this?”

  Leroy looked toward Ramsey. “According to Morgana, about thirty years ago, they started new experiments.” He stopped and measured his next words.

  “And what did they come up with this time?” Declan wondered.

  “They used human DNA.”

  “They did what?” asked Ramsey, not sure he heard correctly.

  Leroy said it again. “They used human DNA. They used human eggs instead of our own and injected them with our living Red-Line sperm. The fertile eggs were implanted into Gray-Line females.”

  The group looked bewildered, as if Leroy spoke Greek.

  “How did they get the eggs?” asked Hannah.

  Disbelieving his own words, Leroy said, “They stole them.”

  “What? Whatever happened to the Eudoran way of not interfering with another race, or not risking our own discovery? Never mind how unethical this is.” Ramsey’s alarm spoke for the group.

  “How did they steal human eggs?” Hannah asked.

  “At the time,” said Leroy, “human science had evolved to the point where eggs could be harvested, frozen and stored for future use. As we tend to be scientists and researchers ourselves, many of whom actually work in labs where these eggs are stored, it became apparent that removing a few eggs here and there would be easy to do, with little chance for discovery.”

  “Unbelievable,” said Declan. “How did they get away with this? No one objected?’

  “Like Sherlock said, when your life is on the line, you’ll try anything,” replied Leroy.

  “So how did this crazy experiment work out?” Ramsey asked.

  “Well, although Red-Lines never mated with humans, we do have Gray-Line members who marry outside our Community and raise families with human spouses, so it actually worked fairly well. The Gray surrogates carried to term and had healthy births and healthy babies.”

  “But?” asked Declan.

  “But,” said Leroy, “none of them were Red-Lines. In fact, most of them weren’t Gray-Lines either. Human DNA is pretty resilient. It appears to dominate ours, strangely enough.” He paused as he thought about that.

  “Wait a minute, so hold up here,” said Ramsey. “Let me get this straight. Red-Line sperm combined with a Gray female egg, which carried both Red and Gray DNA, produced either healthy Gray babies or Red babies who died. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So now these brilliant scientists of ours combine Red-Line DNA with a human egg, fertilize it and implant that into a Gray female. Am I following this?”

  “You are,” said Leroy.

  “I’m glad someone is,” said Declan.

  “But those babies were all human—no Red-Lines among them?”

  “No.”

  “I’m afraid to ask. What happened next?”

  “They tried a different tack. They made sure the Gray-Line surrogate mothers were all descendants of Red-Lines.”

  “But that shouldn’t matter,” Hannah interjected. “Only the egg and sperm determine the outcome of the child. The surrogate mother’s DNA shouldn’t be a factor.”

  “You’re right,” Leroy said. “It shouldn’t matter, but for some reason, it did. Two Red-Line children were born. Both males.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” said Leroy, as if taking some pride in the accomplishment. “The experiment paid off, at least they thought so. Although a female Red-Line would have been ideal for reading the mirror.”

  Ramsey cut in. “What went wrong, then?”

  Leroy sighed. “The boys were raised in the Eudoran family of each surrogate mother. They were healthy and strong until…”

  “Until what?”

  “Until they Shifted, Sherlock.” Leroy paused. “They were both teenagers. The Shift occurred very early for both of them. Neither of them survived it.”

  Ramsey said nothing as Hannah asked the next question. “But how does this lead to Sarah?”

  “There’s more to the story.”

  “What else could there be?” Declan’s question echoed everyone’s thoughts.

  Leroy carried on. “At about the same time the boys were conceived, there apparently was a more covert experiment going on. It was highly secretive. Until recently, only Morgana and a few Council members were made aware of its existence.”

  The three of them waited to hear what Leroy would reveal next.

  “According to what Morgana was told, there was a Gray-Line researcher who was on the medical team involved in the experiments. He had an idea.” Leroy took the story slowly. No one interrupted. “At the time, the boys were babies, but no one knew what the outcome would be. Plus if they were successful in creating additional Red-Lines, the chances of reading the mirror could only improve, especially if they could conceive a female.”

  “By all means,” said Ramsey, “let’s create a whole new race of Red-Lines. Great idea.”

  Leroy continued despite Ramsey. “So he proposed a new scenario. He suggested a human mother carry the child.” He watched their eyes widen as they realized where the story was headed. Apparently wanting to hear it all, they let Leroy finish. “He had a human wife. They had been unable to conceive children. He suggested they use Red-Line sperm with her.”

  “He volunteered his own wife?” asked Ramsey.

  “Without her knowledge?” asked Hannah.

  “How the hell did he do it without her knowing?” asked Declan.

  “He was in the medical field. He convinced his wife to try a new procedure. She wanted a child, and she agreed. She was pregnant six weeks later.”

  “But it wasn’t her husband’s child? And she didn’t know?” asked Hannah.

  “The child belongs to either Arnuff or Emerson,” replied Leroy.

  Ramsey finally understood. “And that child is Sarah?”

  “Yes, it is,” said Leroy.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Declan. “That’s incredible.”

  “It’s brilliant,” interjected Hannah.

  “Excuse me?” asked Ramsey.

  “Think about it,” said Hannah, addressing Ramsey. “The first experiments failed because the combination of Red-Line sperm with Gray eggs, even though the eggs contained Red-Line DNA, only produced Gray-Line offspring. Any Red-Line offspring died without the serum.”

  “Yes, I got that part,” said Ramsey.

  “The next round failed because they used Red sperm with human eggs carried by Gray females. All offspring were human. Human DNA prevailed.”

  “Got that, too. Keep going,” said Declan.

  “They tried the human egg thing again, but this time, they made sure the surrogate mothers w
ere Red and Gray-Line descendants. This one actually worked, which is surprising. It’s a fantastic research project.”

  “Absolutely,” said Ramsey. “Let’s do some more testing.”

  “Ultimately, though,” Hannah continued, “that one failed too. The children lived until their Shift, but they weren’t strong enough to survive it. They were still too vulnerable.”

  “And drumroll, please,” said Ramsey as Hannah reached the end of her summation.

  “But a Red-Line conceived and carried by a human mother?” Her face displayed the appreciation of the science involved. “And raised as a human? It’s brilliant. The child is protected by his human DNA and has adapted easily as a human, but carries the genes of a Eudoran Red-Line. It’s a one-in-a-million shot, of course. At most, Sarah should have been no more than a Gray-Line. It will be amazing if she…” Hannah stopped as she considered what she was about to say.

  “If she survives?” Ramsey finished her sentence.

  Hannah sat back, her excitement suppressed by the truth of the statement. Seeing the disappointment on their faces, she attempted to rekindle their hope. “Listen, there is no reason to believe she can’t survive this. She’s got the genes for it. We’re the ones at a disadvantage here, because we know so little about Red-Lines. Besides…”

  “Besides what?” asked Declan.

  Hannah shrugged and shook her head. “Besides, even if she survives, the likelihood of her reading the mirror is slim. If our own Red-Lines couldn’t read it, how could she?”