Eli crouched down next to me and cupped my chin, raising my eyes to his. “The bees are a weapon, Iia. If we don’t shut the Net down, the government will use them on the people. Be it now or a year from now, it will happen. It will take one small protest to unleash them, and once the government uses them, the bees won’t stop. Once they see us as a threat, nothing will be able to rescind the order to kill. Think about it. What are they programmed to do?”
“To produce crops and defend those crops from pests.”
“Nowhere in their programming does it say pests. Try again.”
“To defend the crops.” I looked up. “And the hives from external threats. But they meant pests which might eat the plants, not…”
“You are an external threat, and they have the capability to self-evolve their programming within those set perimeters. The definition is too broad. You know this.”
I scrunched my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose. I mentally flipped through training manuals I’d studied over the years and came to the conclusion Eli spoke the truth. Why hadn’t I ever questioned it? “Are you telling me they have the capabilities to override directives because their programming isn’t specific?”
“Yes.”
A chill moved through me. And for the first time since fleeing my flat, things began to make sense. The shock the bee gave me—the almost flippant way the bees ignored any directives I tried to download to their hives, everything I’d attempted to do to fix the problem. How could I have been so blind? “If anyone programs that humans are a threat, they’ll take it as all humans. Oh, God. It’s the same way we keep the fields free of pests. Once a threat is identified, they catalog by species or genus, not individually.” Which meant if they programmed them to get rid of me, the bees wouldn’t stop once they got me. They didn’t identify Iia Danner as the threat—they would identify any human as such. I looked at Akoni. “Did you say you could see anything from any camera on the island?”
“Yes, all at once, or independently. I only require an uplink.”
I weighed my options. I only had two. Take down the towers and the power source for the bees, or turn myself in. But then, if they’d programmed the entos to seek me out, my death would make it impossible to stop them. Realization spiked into my brain like a dull knife, painful, impossible to ignore. For a moment, I wondered if I could survive this—if anyone would. “The bees can tap into the cameras too.” I climbed to my feet, no longer mourning my losses but fearing what could come if I didn’t disconnect the link between the towers and the satellite in space—the only way to ensure the towers would never again function. Without the link, they were useless scrap. “We have to warn people.”
“So you’re on board now?” Akoni narrowed his eyes, studying me. “I find your sudden change of heart hard to believe.”
“How can I not be?” I couldn’t take the chance Eli was wrong, not now when all the crazy finally began to make sense. What we had here amounted to a pissing match between the leaders of Sententia and the rebels, and the only way the rebels would win would be to disarm the troops and cut the lines of communications. Had my great-great-grandfather foreseen these very events when he plugged our world into a never ending supply of energy? If I had the codes as the rebels claimed, my grandfather had foreseen this day. He expected me to fix it.
All made sense now, except one thing. “Explain how they knew we were in the transport.” This time I turned to Akoni. I didn’t trust him, and usually my instincts were dead on.
“I don’t know.”
“But they knew.”
“Yes. There is no other explanation, unless you are a spy. You seemed to know they were tracking us before I did.”
“I’m not a spy.”
“How do we know you’re not leading the soldiers to our underground?” Akoni glared.
“You don’t. But you can rest assured I don’t want to die any more than you. I will do anything to keep breathing.”
“Don’t get too comfortable with the concept.” With that, Akoni brushed past us and started into the forest.
“Ignore him. I won’t let anything happen to you,” Eli said.
I took no comfort in his words. Something told me stopping the giant from killing me if he decided to do so wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded. I tipped my head back and studied the sky. We had less than an hour before the sun set. Soon, the islands would be crawling with troops looking for people breaking curfew. I frowned.
“Don’t worry,” Eli said. “I got this.”
I wasn’t so sure. The last time someone told me not to worry, he’d been arrested and vanished. And now, I’d either lost my mind or I’d seen his ghost.
“We’ll stick to the forest for as long as possible, and I hope to catch people heading in for curfew on the roads a couple miles up. We should blend with the field workers.”
I eyed the giant standing off to the side, watching Eli and me. “Somehow, I don’t think we’ll slip by unnoticed.”
13
Bzzzzzzzzzzz. Slap. I smacked the side of my neck and flinched from the sting, not sure if I’d assassinated the little shit who’d been hanging around my head, dive-bombing me for the last hour. I’d come to dislike the Sententian wilds. The insects were worse than the first time I tracked through the woods and encountered them. No invisible barrier kept the mosquitoes away from us, and they’d taken full advantage of the all you can eat buffet.
“These bugs are going to bleed me dry.” I reached up and scratched. Around the cities and floating fields, one didn’t see blood-sucking insects. I wasn’t accustomed to the bites. My arm had already begun to swell around several places I’d been attacked.
“We have to stay under the cover of the forest until we’re at the city limits. We can’t risk someone might recognize you.” Eli tossed a stick he’d picked up to the side, ignoring the cloud of insects following us.
“I wish you’d brought that nasty grease instead of leaving it in the cave,” I said.
“We weren’t anticipating traveling on foot.”
“So, you planned on stealing a vehicle before we even left the cave.” I huffed. Eli shrugged.
“Lovely.”
“Not much farther, I promise,” Eli said.
Akoni had said little since we’d left the vehicle, hanging back in the shadows and blending with the foliage. I didn’t like his skulking, nor did I have to turn around to know he watched me like a hungry predator. I kept waiting for him to make his move, yet he didn’t.
My nerves were strung tight. My adrenaline pumped on high, and my veins had almost been drained dry. What wasn’t to love about my situation? And back to the whole fun shindig. “You said the same thing an hour ago.” I slapped another mosquito. “I’m going to run out of blood before we get there.”
Eli shook his head. “You’ll survive.”
I snorted, not happy with my new rustic life.
If only I knew that it would get much worse. At the time, I’d been spoiled, enjoyed luxury on a grand scale. Sure I had little rights, but I’d unconsciously traded them for comfort I’d taken for granted. Months later, I’d be free, and when I looked back at what I traded for it—I’d do it all over again.
Until I met a man named Axel, across the ocean, in the ruins of a world I’d never believed I’d ever visit, I guess I didn’t know how precious those rights would be. Freedom to love whom I chose, to live my life by my clock, on my schedule, learning what I wanted and embracing the ability to truly breathe.
“You like books,” I say to Axel and point at the stack he rifled through earlier. Sometime during the night, I dozed off. Five hours later, I woke and walked into my living room to find Axel reading in my chair.
“I do.”
I walk over to a cabinet, extracting book after book on various subjects, until I find the one I want. I cross the room back to him. “There’s this library. You wouldn’t believe it if you did see it.” I thought about my digital world on the island. Before the library, I’
ve never seen anything bound or printed. “Here.” I hand him the hard cover book on medieval warfare. “I used this one to fortify my defenses. It’s full of useful information, stuff I never thought of using. There are rooms full of books like this.”
“Or this one?” He sets the book I gave him down and lifts up a particularly smutty novel I’ve read through more than once. “I bet this is full of useful information too.”
Heat rushes to my face. “Maybe.” I snatch it from his hand.
“Is the library in the quarantine area?”
“No, which is surprising, since it’s completely intact.”
“Were you looking for it?” He grabbed the romance book back and stuffed it in his cargo pocket before I could object.
I frown, glance down at his pocket and back up at his face, weighing if the book would be worth the battle. It’s not like I can’t replace it. There are thousands of romance novels where it came from. Still, it would give him an intimate glimpse inside me, and I didn’t like it. He’s been out here for the last five hours getting glimpses I didn’t like. “No, I was looking for pipe for my irrigation system. But sometimes you stumble upon amazing things when you least expect them.” I eye his pocket again.
“Like when I stumbled upon you?”
I look up. “I think it was the other way around. Can I have my book back?”
“Later, after I read it to you.” He winks, and my face burns.
I ball my hands into fists at my side. Is he flirting with me? I am so rusty at deciphering people. I open my mouth and clamp it shut. I have no response. Nothing.
“Tell me about this library.”
Now that I can do.
* * *
January 11th, 2239, Los Angeles, the day I found out I wasn’t alone
Even a hundred and fifty years after the war, I couldn’t help but be impressed with the building time forgot. The courtyard on the approach was stone pavers that had buckled up from a past earthquake. Wildflowers and weeds took advantage of the real estate, poking out from bared soil. Delicate flower heads nodded in the wind as I passed.
The steps with steel handrails were as elegant as utilitarian. I imagined the vacant lot would’ve once been filled with people. I could almost visualize the crowd who’d lingered there in the past. Their ghosts whispered in the silence. A sudden chill chased across my bare arms, and I rubbed the unease away. Nobody had been here in a long time, yet I’d felt like an intruder.
I perused the grounds, searching for the easiest entrance into the structure. I walked by dried up fountains and crumbling concrete that in the past, had been the center of a serene plaza. It was hard to believe war hadn’t touched this spot. Time and the elements, along with an earthquake or two, certainly had, but not the war. No burnt-out wreckages or holes blasted from artillery shells, or chips on of the stone facade from bullets. Not even shattered glass windows bore witness something terrible had happened in the city. I pondered in reverence how this area remained intact outside the quarantine area when everything else sat in ruins. It had survived a disaster which nearly leveled the city.
Overgrown gardens of vines and trees dotted the lot as I moved toward the stone structure side of the building, so out of place next to the tall steel and glass towers standing sentinel around it. On the south entrance, a large arched door proved to be the only feasible way in. Chunks of stone blocks littered the stoop, dislodged from the stone façade over time. I lifted them and tossed them to the side. The bigger pieces I shoved away with the side of my boot, rolling them down the steps.
With the way clear, I wrenched on the handle, expecting the door to come free and swing open, or in the least crumble, but all remained solid, providing a bigger challenge than I’d expected. As I tugged and pulled, the sand and grit under the door growled and the hinges groaned. Sweat beaded on my forehead and trickled down my back. I didn’t know why it seemed so important to get inside, but my instincts told me I would find information I could use to survive, all on the other side of the door. For over an hour, I worked to get the barrier open enough to squeeze through. With a final tug, the door screeched like a banshee. I poked my head in, expecting to see the ceiling collapsed. But like a tomb, the building remained as intact inside as outside, even more untouched by time.
Angel, growing taller by the day and more adolescent now than pup, trotted by me and inside, unconcerned there could be danger. “Hey you. Get back here. I don’t know if it’s…,” I half whisper-yelled. But my words fell flat in the silence of the cavernous room before me. “Never mind, do what you were going to do anyway.” Teenagers!
After all the time it took me to gain entrance, and Angel’s blatant disregard for safety, I decided we were probably the building’s first visitors in over a century, and thus the reason the canine seemed calm going inside. I followed, and my mouth dropped open. Everywhere, there were amazing tile work and murals. As I walked, I found myself in a room with floor to ceiling books. All the books I’d ever read were digital, and the place looked like one giant time capsule from an era when people read bound pulp pages at leisure.
I’d never had the luxury. Now, I could do nothing more than stare, not sure where I wanted to start, but knowing I’d live in this place if it were within the quarantine area. The shelves of books in the library would give me something I’d craved since I landed on this shore, if only through the pages of a story. Human companionship. Tears filled my eyes, and I laughed.
Books. Everywhere. Stories and manuals, magazines and reading materials printed on paper—a lost art. I skimmed my fingers across several spines staring with amazement that I saw one book, let alone thousands. It would’ve taken a forest to print what sat before me, and long before I’d been born, paper had been outlawed and trees protected. Buildings weren’t built with wood, but glass, metal and composite materials. I snagged a volume off the shelf about botany and flipped through a few pages, putting it back and grabbing another called The Middle Ages.
I finally settled on a novel called, Invalid Dreams. It was about a young woman growing up during a time called the Great Depression. As I walked by another shelf, a title leapt out at me. Hunting and Gathering for Preppers. “What’s a prepper?”
Angel tipped his head as though to say, I don’t know. You tell me.
I smiled. “What do you say we find out?”
I cracked the book open in the middle and came to a section on trapping small game. I glanced at Angel. “Would you like something other than fish?” I remembered seeing wild chickens and pigs rooting around where the earth reclaimed the city. I’d also seen what could be called a small invasion of rabbits, stripping any vegetation close to the ground away, but I’d never considered hunting them for food. I had tried to catch the chickens, craving fresh eggs, but had failed miserably. I could do more than trap and kill. The book gave me an idea. I’d build pens and lure them in. I would breed and harvest them. Domesticate them.
Angel licked his chops.
“Yeah, me too.” I sighed and snapped the book shut, tucking it in my bag, certain nobody would miss it. I got up and traveled down the aisles until I found a section titled classics. I snagged a novel called Moby Dick, read the back, and smiled, thinking about my recent ocean voyage. Perhaps an adventure on the seas would be just the thing to get lost in before bed. I shoved it in my bag and continued to look around, wanting to read all I saw but knowing I could never get through everything in this building, let alone this room.
That’s when I stumbled onto the romances and quickly forgot Moby Dick, which I yanked out of my bag and dropped to the floor as I grabbed a novel titled The Earl and I. On the cover, a beautiful woman gazed into the eyes of a man who looked remarkably like Eli. I sank to the floor, leaning against the bookcase, opening the bound pages with reverence. My gaze landed on the first sentence, sending my heart racing and pains of regret lancing through me. I’d never read for pleasure and most certainly not about love. Love had been a fantasy then, as much as it was now. For a mom
ent, I wanted to be the woman on the cover, looking into the man’s eyes. To have my breath taken away—to feel adored, as she so clearly was.
My father always told me a proper lady never ventured into a gentleman’s gambling hall. So, I had no reason to be surprised when I ran head on into the Earl of Sutton and he mistook me for a courtesan.
And before I knew it, night had crept up on me. Realizing my mistake when the room got too dark to continue to read, I climbed to my feet, adding several of the romances to my bag until I couldn’t zip it shut. In a matter of a few hours, I’d become addicted. I’d flown through The Earl and I and almost finished Lady in Waiting, which I’d tucked into an outside pocket, leaving the Earl, and then picking it back up and stuffing it in my bra. Even though I’d read it, I couldn’t bear to part with it. I felt like I knew the people in the pages—they were as real as any I’d ever known. Leaving them behind seemed wrong.
Once satisfied I had enough romances to last until my next trip to the library, I headed for the entrance, peering out. I’d be lucky to make it back to the compound before dark, but I couldn’t stay here. I didn’t have food or water or any weapons. I’d been a fool not to take some of the bees with me.
I’d lived on this coast for weeks and had yet to encounter any others. Still, a feeling of unease settled on me, as though I were being watched. I knew it wasn’t reasonable, but couldn’t shake the feeling someone or something waited to pounce. I had never gone this deep into the city and so far from the quarantine zone. Anything could be out there. Wild animals. People. “There’s nothing out there.” I rubbed my arms and stepped out, shoving the door shut behind me, not wanting to give away I had been here. I fully intended to come back and wanted everything to be where I’d left it.
I glanced around to see if anyone heard the screech from my shutting the entrance. No movement, but it was hard to tell if any danger waited for me in the growing shadows. I sucked in a deep breath. Right. The sun hadn’t set yet, and I had already freaked.
Clone Page 18
