by JN Chaney
“I saw different vids. Not like this.”
“And now that you’ve seen these, what do you think?”
“I think I like these better,” he said.
Sanders nodded. “Okay, Terrence, let’s move on. I have to take your vitals now, if it’s alright. It should only take a minute or two.” She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she took his blood pressure, checked his heart rate, and scanned his stomach with a small handheld machine which beeped occasionally.
“What’s that do?” Terry asked.
“Checks your lungs and other organs,” said the doctor.
“Checks them for what?”
“Nothing important,” she said. “We have to make sure you’re breathing alright. Your body’s very special, and we have to take good care of it.”
“Special?” Terry asked.
The doctor smiled as she put the machine away. “Everything seems to be in order,” said Dr. Sanders. “Follow the hall to the right and you’ll find the exit. Your instructor will be there waiting.” She stood and went to the door. She paused before leaving, then beamed another smile his way. “Hurry up now, Terry. This isn’t your only stop today.”
*******
A crowd of people had filled the foyer in the time that Terry had been in the blue room. Adults walked back and forth from the hospital entrance, oblivious to Terry, small as he was. Strangers now gathered, sitting where his classmates had sat before. He didn’t recognize anyone.
He stood there for nearly a full minute before the realization hit him that everyone he knew had left. Where could they have gone? Or was he the first one out? His face went warm as his eyes darted around the atrium, jumping from face to face, searching for familiarity. Had they truly forgotten him? Terry had never been alone outside the school before. What was he supposed to do?
“Terry!” called a familiar voice from the crowd. A few people separated and went about their business, and a fat, bald teacher revealed himself. He waved to Terry with the only arm he had, and Terry waved back. “Don’t just stand there like an idiot,” said Mr. Nuber. “Come on. Let’s get going.”
“Where is everybody else?”
“In a classroom, waiting for us. We had to move when the crowds started forming. You’re the last one out.” He grabbed Terry’s shoulder, nudging him to start walking. “Get a move on, kid. We’re trailing behind.”
*******
As they entered a section of the school he’d never been before, a smell like rust and eggs made Terry gag. He clasped his hands over his face in a futile effort to breathe. It was no good. The smell was everywhere.
“Yeah, I know,” said Nuber, not even bothering to look at his student. “Just try to ignore it.”
Easier said than done, Terry thought. “Where are we?”
“This is Facility Twelve, otherwise known as the Rat Maze, where all the crazy science types work, and where you’re going to be spending most of your time during the next phase of your blossoming education. Aren’t you excited?”
Nuber had to be joking. The smell alone was like breathing nails, not to mention the fact that it was in a restricted area, far from the dorms and the other facilities. In order to even get there, they had taken the elevator to the sub-section of the school, which had always been a red zone, meaning No Students Allowed, as the signs would say. Not that any of the kids could reach it, anyway. Nuber had to use some kind of card on the scanner in the elevator to get it to take them there.
They walked along a few corridors until they came to an open door. “After you,” Nuber said.
On the other side, there was a room full of a few dozen chairs in a square pattern facing a large computer screen. Half the seats were filled with other students. Mei and John were also there, calling him to sit with them.
“Hurry up and wait,” said Nuber. “That’s the golden rule.” He turned and opened the door again. “Somebody should be along in a few minutes to fill you in. Go have a seat.” He closed the door and left.
Terry did as he was told and joined the other students. “What’s going on?” he asked.
John shrugged. “Guess it’s supposed to be a new class or something.”
“I don’t think so. Remember when we first got here, and Mr. Nuber said he’d be our only teacher? Why would he say that and then stick us in here?”
“Maybe it’s some kind of advanced program,” said Mei. “We won’t really know until they tell us.”
“You’re all lost,” a voice erupted from behind them. “Like little rats trying to figure out what to do next.”
“What do you know about it, Alex?” asked John.
“More than you three, that’s for sure.”
Mei rolled her eyes. “Ignore him. He’s just acting tough. He doesn’t know anything.”
“The hell I don’t! Goober Nuber told me all about it.”
“Well, why don’t you clue in the rest of us? No point in keeping secrets,” said Mei.
Alex leaned back and crossed his hands behind his head. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he said, staring off to where the wall met the ceiling. “Learn some patience.”
Before any of them could argue, the door opened, and an older-looking man with balding red hair entered. He took the terminal at the head of the class, waiting until the screen powered on before he spoke.
“Here we are now, children. Sorry about the delay. My name’s Doctor Walter Byrne. Now, I know this might be difficult to follow for a few of you, but try to bear with me, and we’ll all get through this relatively unscathed.” He pressed a button, which sounded like a hard click, and a picture appeared. It was Earth. “Do you all know what this is?”
Everyone nodded.
“Good. Now who can tell me how this thing relates to all of us?”
A boy named Roland threw his hand up. “It’s the planet we live on. There are seven continents: North and South America, Asia, Australia, Europe—”
“Your basic facts are correct, young man, but I was looking for more than what the textbook says. I’d like you to tell me what you see when you look at this thing on the screen?”
None of them said anything.
“Anyone?”
This time it was Sarah, a blonde girl in the back. “Well, we can’t go outside, so we don’t know that much about it except what we read in the books. A lot of people died two hundred years ago and now we can’t go up there anymore. At least, that’s what we learned in our last class.” A few of the other students nodded along.
“Alright, good,” said Dr. Byrne. “And who can tell me what happened to make it that way?”
“We can’t breathe the air,” said one student. “It got corrupted in the Jolt.”
The Jolt. The great disaster that destroyed the world. Mr. Nuber had told them all about it, and about the day it happened—how a great storm erupted in the sky, and people started dying. Not all at once, of course, but fast enough that it was hard for most to understand what was happening.
It was the air that was killing them, Mr. Nuber had said. But no one knew it at the time.
Doctor Byrne smiled a little at the answer. “Correct, but what’s in the air, exactly? And how is it killing them? Here, I’ll tell you.” Another click and the picture changed. This time it was a drawing of a bunch of circles, different colors connected to one another with a few numbers and letters in each of them. “This is what happened. Most people call it Variant, a catalyst.”
The room was completely quiet. Finally, they were going to learn the truth. Maybe this class wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
“Catalysts are things which cause a reaction or a transformation. Some like this one aren’t consumed by the reaction, so they keep going, moving on to the next thing they find. In this case, Variant latches onto living matter, tricking the cells into thinking it’s friendly and invades them. Here’s where it gets interesting.”
He changed the slide to show a human cell, with
labels scattered throughout the image to show what was what. “Variant has a particular chemical structure making it very peculiar. You see, when it contacts the cell membrane, the cell acts like a friendly body, letting it in without any resistance. Once Variant is inside, however, it changes. And not only itself—it changes the composition of the cell, too. It negatively interferes with cell division, causing an explosive growth of altered tissue. This has the tendency to kill most of the modified cells, generally resulting in the death of the organism. In extremely rare instances, however, Variant actually succeeds in its attempt to transform the organism. When this happens, the specimen changes, adapting to the gas in the process and essentially becoming an entirely new lifeform.”
Doctor Byrne looked around the room and sighed. “None of you understand this, I take it, but that’s okay. It’s why you’re here today.” He smiled. “But to summarize: if you go outside, you’ll die. And it will hurt.”
Another click, and this time there was a picture of a baby. “But what if we could fix this problem? What if, one day, children like you could walk on the surface without the need for purity suits? Would you want to go?” The doctor smiled. “My, what wonders would befall us, children? A whole new world of stories.”
Most didn’t say anything, but there were a few kids whispering in agreement.
“If you’re lucky, some of you might get your chance to find out. But you have to be strong. You can’t be afraid to do what we ask of you. You can’t be unwilling to take risks. If you can do what I say, and if you think you can handle it, you might just get your chance.”
Again, the slide changed. This time there was a picture of a man in a white coat, sitting on a stool. His hair was gray and thin, dark spots dotting the edges of his face, and he hunched a little. Another doctor, just like Doctor Byrne, thought Terry. But he wasn’t like Doctor Byrne, not really. This man, the one in the picture—there was something about him. His eyes. They were looking right through him.
“Doctor William Archer,” said Byrne, turning toward the screen. “Thirty years ago, he discovered a cure for Variant, or as close to one as we’re ever likely to get.”
The screen went black. “The problem is, you see, the cure to Variant isn’t something you can take. It’s not a pill or an injection we can simply put into somebody and watch it take effect. It has to be bred into you, into your very DNA, all before you’re even born. To do this, we have to get hold of you while you’re still a bunch of chemicals swirling together inside of a petri dish. When you’re still a mere embryo.”
Embryos. Mr. Nuber had taught them about embryos. It was one of their early lessons. It was part of a two week course about the human body’s growth cycle. They studied fetuses, infants, cell replication, and even mutation. It seemed so useless at the time, but now the lessons made sense. It was all building to this.
“Some of you might be wondering what all of this has to do with you. ‘Why is this man telling me about embryos and cells and Variant?’ The answer is simple. You are one of those embryos, boys and girls. You’ve already been cured. In fact, you were born that way. Congratulations.”
Several students shifted in their seats. A tentative voice in the back of the room asked what many were undoubtedly thinking. “What does that mean?” Cole asked. “I don’t get it.”
“Does it mean we can go to the surface?” asked Alex.
The doctor raised his hand. “Yes and no,” he answered. “You can go there soon, but not right now. We have a lot of work to do before you’ll be capable of surviving the transition.”
Mei raised her hand. “If it’s dangerous, why are we doing it?”
“Because we don’t have a choice,” said Doctor Byrne. “In order for the human race to survive, we have to get out of the city.”
“What’s wrong with the city?” asked Sarah.
Doctor Byrne frowned. “Well, like any machine, it’s breaking down,” he said. “Eventually we’ll need to replace it. This means finding a new home—one where our lives don’t depend on whether or not the vents break down or the solar fields start malfunctioning.”
He clicked off the display. “The future is going to be hard, I assure you. But make no mistake. There will be a reward. Such is life. You work hard enough, and you’ll get what you deserve, so stay the course. That’s all you need to know. If you do everything we say, if you stick to the plan we’ve made and follow the rules, maybe you’ll do what no one else has been able to do in almost two hundred years: stand on the surface and take a breath of fresh air.”
Chapter 5
Archer’s Personal Logs
Play Audio File 43
Subtitled: A Possible Solution
Recorded March 22, 2318
ARCHER: How luck seems to be on my side! After months of trying alternatives, I finally managed to stabilize one of the cells for more than a few minutes. Variant took a full three and a half minutes to destroy the cell, beating out the previous record of two minutes and thirteen seconds. The increase is remarkable, and it proves I’m on the right track. Soon enough, I’ll have all the proof I need…and there’ll be nothing Doctor Mayhew can do to silence me.
Speaking of which, the old fool gave me an order last week to attend the status briefings we give the military each week. I suspect he’s simply trying to get rid of me, but the joke’s on him. If I hadn’t been at the briefing, I never would have met Captain Bishop or the other officers. They all sounded rather displeased with the lack of progress we’ve been making, which is exactly the kind of talk I need right now.
After the briefing, Bishop approached me with questions. He seemed very interested in Variant and the progress we were making. It was the first time a member of the military ever asked about my work. Naturally, I answered every question with great interest. I didn’t detail all of my thoughts, of course, because that would be stupid, but when he asked how I felt about the lack of viable solutions thus far, I couldn’t help but dig into it. I said I felt the project was meandering, possibly due to poor leadership and a lack of new ideas.
Innovation, he said to me. That’s what we need around here. A little outside the box thinking!
End Audio File
August 05, 2343
The Maternity District
Mara took another sip from her drink. She wasn’t drunk, but her face was warm, and her fingers tingled, which meant she was well on her way.
Ava Long sat before her. She slouched, crossing her legs, a calmness in her eyes. “You know,” said the old woman. “I don’t recall you being much of a drinker.”
Mara swirled the glass in her hand, reflecting the dim light of the nearby lamp. “I suppose I never was,” she said, taking another sip. She flinched at the taste of it but swallowed anyway. “God,” she gasped. “Disgusting.”
“Why drink it, dear?” asked Ava.
“There’s a payoff at the end.”
“There are better tasting drinks, you know. I see two bottles of synth wine right over there in the corner. Expensive stuff. What you’re drinking here is about as cheap as it comes.” She paused. “Well, unless you count the toilet stuff they make in the slums.”
“It’s sentimental.”
“How so?”
“One of my early sponsors gave me this bottle when I was still a new mother. He didn’t have the money for the quality wine, but I didn’t care. He was sweet, attractive, and he knew how to wear that uniform.” She giggled at the thought.
“How nice of him,” said Ava.
“We couldn’t keep seeing each other once the contract was over, of course, and he knew that. So he bought me this bottle and promised one day, when I retired, we’d drink it and be together. Would you ever believe such a thing?”
Ava smiled. “Sounds like love.”
“Maybe. But here I am, retired, drinking this awful bottle like I said I would, and where is he?” She snorted into the brim of her cup. “So much for happy endings.”
; “I don’t know if I’d agree. You got a bottle of cheap wine out of it, didn’t you? It’s something.”
“Oh, Ava,” she said. “Is that the best you’ve got?”
The woman sighed. “Alright, fine. Pour me a glass, dear,” she reached for a cup and held it out. “Unless you want to keep it for yourself.”
Mara tipped the bottle into the matron’s glass. “There you have it, Madam Mother.”
“You know,” said Ava. “I haven’t drank in ages. You should feel honored.”
“You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to. I’d hate to break your sobriety.”
“Now, now. Don’t assume so much of your friends.” Ava stared into the glass for a moment, blinking. She put the cup to her lips and flung her head back, shooting the alcohol down her throat. She smiled a crooked grin and let out a light burp. “Pardon, dear, and another, please. If you wouldn’t mind, of course.”
“You’ve surprised me. I never knew we shared a vice.”
“It was before your time.”
“Apparently.”
They sat in silence for a while, hardly looking at one another, waiting. Mara hadn’t expected Ava Long today, or any other visitors for that matter, but here they sat drinking synthetic wine and making small talk.
The matron rarely came to visit Mara during her mothering days. But ever since her retirement, the two had grown close. She didn’t know why, precisely. When she asked about it, the old woman said, simply, “I was looking for a new friend and you didn’t seem to have much going on at the time.” She often joked like that, and Mara loved her for it.
Ava came to visit frequently, often once a week. It had taken some getting used to, but now Mara felt comfortable enough to tell her anything. Well, almost anything.
“So,” said Ava suddenly. “How are things?”
“Fine,” said Mara. She forced a smile. “You?”
