CHOSEN: A Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Dystopian Novel

by A. Bernette

  All these years and still there was nothing. They were no closer to an answer. He was different, forever changed, and she knew why. Knowing this did nothing to control the anger or the outbursts caused by the raging levels of testosterone and serum that coursed through his veins. She’d been convinced to receive one of the earlier doses of the same controversial serum given Stella and Stephen while she was pregnant with him.

  She’d met Zura and Johan years ago as part of a select group of would be parents who’d volunteered to help understand a life changing serum and to allow their children to receive the first benefits. It was a second round of studies that had been abandoned a generation earlier. They’d all been found and recruited by Dr. Claudia Lima.

  Mave came into the picture soon after, talking about how important Rennold was and why it was important that he be protected. The years had gone from a bad dream to a nightmare once he hit puberty and even more hormones flooded his body, but Mave seemed to have some magical power over Ren.

  Whenever she was around him, he changed and seemed to stop fighting everything and everyone as much. She wasn’t sure leaving him in Mave’s care would be the best thing for Ren, but nothing else had helped so far.

  As Kim peered through the glass she saw her son’s eyes get that wild animalistic look again. They were done taking the blood for this month, but no one wanted to let him out of the restraints. She would have to go in and soothe him first.

  She prepared herself mentally for the unpredictable reactions she witnessed each month. Some months it was easy as soothing and going home and in other months they both left screaming and in tears. It could take twenty minutes sometimes, but if she didn’t go in, he might really hurt someone. He’d gotten so strong and his anger could become so extreme, if he really knew his strength he would be out of the restraints already.

  Ren’s eyes softened when he saw Kim walk through the doors to the lab. He slowly stopped struggling against the restraints and she could see his tensed muscles relax. He hated being tied down like an animal, having his blood taken and having them give him shots to see if it would help calm him.

  For more than five years he’d been coming here every month and nothing had come of it. Nothing. He was ready to be done and try something different. He hoped Mave could help. He was nervous about the ceremony and even more nervous about leaving home without his mother for a month.

  Since his change, he hadn’t gone anywhere without Kim. She was his safety net when he got overwhelmed and his natural survival instinct of fighting kicked in. He might not be able to get back to calm without her and could wind up killing someone this time.

  Kim ran her hands over his blond hair, saying nothing. She wished she’d never agreed to the trial, but it was too late. There was no going back. Whatever was in him was there. It had already fully integrated into his system years ago, the doctors had told her. All they could try to do now was manage it.

  She nodded her head to the man behind the two-way mirror to release the restraints. They unlocked and Ren shot out of the seat. He looked at the mirror and threw up his middle finger before grabbing the tech’s chair and hurling it at the glass divider.

  “You bastards! Come in here when I’m not restrained! You think you’re so tough when you have me tied down!?” he yelled through the shatterproof glass. He grabbed his uniform shirt, pulling it over his head as he stormed out of the door.

  “Ren, they are just doing their jobs. They’re trying to help,” Kim said.

  “Don’t defend them mom. If they were trying to help, they would have helped by now. Instead they still just treat me like a freak after five years. Five years of getting my blood drawn every month by rude imbeciles who treat me like an animal,” he yelled the last part, turning his head back towards the mirror so he was sure they’d hear him. “Five years of having them give me drugs like a lab rat and nothing to show for it! Nothing!” he yelled. Kim stopped and stepped back from her son who was raging again.

  He huffed, then looked at the fear in her eyes. She’d done this to him. She thought she was helping but she’d ruined his life. “I wanna go home,” he said more quietly. “I need to get out of here. This place makes me crazy.”

  ***

  Perhaps the Awakening Ceremony would help. Mave had been trying to convince Kim to let Rennold go through it since he’d had his first incident at thirteen - the incident that had forced him to undergo testing. The same testing that hadn’t found any solutions in more than five years. At almost nineteen he was just a couple years from being an adult and possibly being condemned as unfit for society. Ren was afraid of what that meant.

  He’d lost so much from his earlier life and already had to change so much of his life to accommodate the effects of the serum that lived in him. They’d moved across the country to where they could get better access to the treatments, even if they weren’t working. In a fitful rage over what seemed a minor argument now, he’d hit his father. The blow to his chest sent him to the hospital in cardiac arrest. After that, Kim knew he couldn’t continue living like he was.

  He’d left his father and that damaged relationship and all of his friends to live in New South City. Ren had stopped attending regular school at fifteen when medication couldn’t control him and he’d had to finish his studies with private tutors and online courses.

  Now his mother thought he would suddenly be able to function without her, around other teens. Though he hoped she was right, he was still scared he might lose it. Scared she might be wrong.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Heat

  Antarctic Research Center

  By midday the service craft arrived with the special menu items and serving staff for the Gala to be held that evening. The pastry and dessert staff had already prepared a mouthwatering display of delicious treats, leaving the kitchen open for the other courses. They’d spent one night on the ARC and could now return on the same craft that had brought the others to finish with the rest of the party preparations.

  Soon the great hall was buzzing with energy as people flew around the room setting up for the evening’s gala. There was a team in the large kitchen prepping the food, stacking dishes, organizing silverware and napkins. Another team was working in the great hall setting up tables for the party and putting together the dance floor that was stored onsite for the annual event. After the first two years of having it brought in, they’d purchased their own that stayed on the ARC for future parties.

  A group from the decoration team was busily hand-making centerpieces from fresh cut flowers and ribbons in spring colors for all of the tables. Outside the wall of windows that lined the external walls of the great hall there was the reminder that they were still in Antarctica - ice sculptures being finished. Stella looked around the room at all of the activity. She couldn’t wait for the party to be over.

  There weren’t any other kids on the ARC besides her and Stephen so these parties were always filled with boring talk of the weather, literally, and what people were planning to do when they got back home. Of course, everyone was just going home to do more work. It might be slightly different work, but it was still work related to this work and Stella found it nauseatingly boring.

  Stella was searching the room now for Ms. Ida. Ms. Ida had been coordinating the Gala as long as Stella could remember. With all of her colorful eccentricities, she was a breath of fresh air to Stella. She was from Northern Liberty and was full of spunk considering how old she must have been. Stella guessed she was pretty old, at least fifty. She also spoke with a beautiful accent that Stella had gotten pretty good at emulating whenever she spoke to her long enough.

  Ms. Ida never just wore the uniform. She always added handmade, knitted, and even crocheted accessories like scarves, leg wraps, arm bands, neck grabbers, and even ear piercers. Sometimes she’d show up wearing all of them at once. She said when she came here she needed everything, just to stay warm.

  Ms. Ida always made her something special and she was the one person St
ella actually looked forward to seeing and talking to during the Gala. The one year Ms. Ida hadn’t come, was the year Stella turned thirteen, and also the year Ms. Ida’s mother had passed. Since then, Stella always liked to check and see if she was there when everyone was setting up. She had something for her this year too, picked up from the science camp campus gift shop. She knew Ms. Ida would love it since it was as colorful as she was.

  After looking around from the door for a minute she still didn’t see her. Ms. Ida might be in the kitchen, but Stella wouldn’t be able to find out. The staff, Ms. Ida, and her parents had banned both she and Stephen from the great hall and kitchen until party time a few years ago.

  It was after the incident when Stella and Stephen were twelve and tried to sneak cupcakes out of the kitchen. Instead of making a clean escape, one of them, Stella always denied it was her, knocked the perfect cupcake pyramid off the counter along with a tray full of cookies shaped and colored like animals in the Antarctic. Stella still thought everyone had overreacted. Besides, now they were nearly sixteen.

  Even outside of the great hall the ARC was buzzing with activity. Zura was heading down towards the great hall looking for Stella. She’d barely seen her since she got back and she knew Stella would be looking for Ms. Ida. Unlike many days when she might only pass her family, today Zura was passing people from her other teams on the ARC. Some of whom she hadn’t seen in weeks.

  There were two maintenance teams, an engineering team, collection team, a classification and preservation team, a health unit, a special operations team, and a team who worked with each Region to monitor ground and submantle activity. There was also a team that Johan managed that did some other research and collection work related to embryonic research and sustainability as far as she knew, but they rarely participated in anything.

  During the Summer months the ARC had close to a hundred people working on it. Most of them were off that day to rest and prepare for the celebration. Usually a representative from UniCorps came but this year they declined the invitation. They’d elected to instead come to the larger semi-annual year end meeting happening the following week. It would be the last important meeting of Zura’s team before everyone left the ARC for the Winter.

  Zura was relieved with their decision to not participate at the gala. It would have ruined the party if they came, considering the pending news. She tried to push all of that out of her head for the time and reminded herself that she couldn’t do anything about it now.

  As Zura rounded a corner with a split she nearly collided with Stella. “Oh, there you are,” Zura beamed. “How’s my star child?” she asked putting her arm around Stella.

  “Hi, mom. I’m fine. I was just seeing if Ms. Ida was around. Have you seen her? Oh, how are you? Ready for the party?”

  Zura shrugged. They hadn’t had a chance to talk to Stella about what was happening and she needed to tell her before she heard it from Stephen. “I haven’t seen Ida. You heading back to your room now?” Zura asked.

  “Yeah, I’m tired. I was up too late last night. We were having so much fun mom, we didn’t want to go home so we stayed up as long as we could together. I met some of the most nine people ever and we are definitely all going to keep in touch. Well at least some of us, I guess,” Stella said before being interrupted.

  “What’s a nine person?” Zura asked confused.

  “Mom, cool, light, fun, peps. Anyway, there were people from all over the world - the Liberties, the Allegiances, the Eastern Way, and even Australia. That’s where my number one new friend is from. Her name is Alexis and she is absolutely, well, she follows her heart. They even had an old pump on the campus, like the ones we learned about in school.”

  “Take a breath honey,” Zura laughed.

  “Okay,” Stella smiled, “I breathed. So the old pump was right in the middle of the courtyard and it was so cool. I threw a rock in just to see how far down it would go, but I couldn’t really tell. Oh, and I even made a few guy friends too. I mean we’re just friends. They were great to hang out with. Wait, I got you something Mom. I think you’ll like it. It’s totally antique type vintage. You know, old. You won’t believe it. It was in the section with educational materials of the campus shop. They had some really old things in there. They even had a whole special section of just old stuff to look at. We couldn’t buy it since it was just a display. I can’t believe people had to live like that in the 2000s. I think I would have just died.”

  Zura walked along with her daughter, just smiling and listening. She loved to listen to Stella talk, even if it meant she didn’t get more than a few words in. At least today she was talking to her. Stella had shut both Zura and Johan out when she left at the start of the week. She was upset about having to go to camp, but it seemed she had gotten past that.

  Stella opened the door to her room just enough to look in. She shrugged as she opened it the rest of the way. “Sorry, I kinda just dumped everything in once I got back. Stephen wanted to show me something but I told him I didn’t want to do anymore science stuff, not today. Besides, I was going to look for Ms. Ida. I should probably see him and at least see what he wanted. Ugh. Did I mention I am not in love with science, mom? Why doesn’t Stephen have to go to art camp or music camp? So not fair.” Stella flopped on the bed dramatically.

  “Stella, I am so glad you are home. I missed you,” Zura said, closing the door and sitting down next to her. “I do need to talk to you too.”

  “What’s going on?” Stella said, forcing herself to be quiet.

  “We’ve been working almost around the clock here this past week,” she started.

  “And that’s different from normal, how?” Stella asked, smiling at her mom.

  “Okay, maybe that’s true. We discovered something in our data that we are going to have to report. It’s a big issue and next week all the reps from the science divisions of both UniCorps and the World Consensus are going to be here. They would be here anyway, but it is going to be much more intense. What we are about to report to them, is really big and they aren’t going to like it.” Zura stopped to let that much soak in.

  “Well, what is it?” Stella prodded.

  “Let’s see, how do I explain this? The ground is getting weaker. Our pumping of gas and emissions into the earth over the past almost fifteen to sixteen years has caused a sort of fracturing of the earth beneath the ground where the holes are. It’s kind of like veins splitting off and they seem to be drawn towards existing fault lines, where earthquakes are already likely to happen.”

  “So does that mean we are making more earthquakes?

  “Not exactly. Or, at least, not completely. It does mean that the more we pump the more veins are made and the more pressure there is on the ground where the earth is being pushed to the side. There is only so much room to wiggle before something has to give. We’re already starting to see the effects with increased tremors and the migration of sea life away from the most effected zones.”

  “What do you mean?” Stella asked sitting up suddenly more interested.

  “What’s happening below the surface is impacting where sea creatures are giving birth, which impacts where other sea creatures go for later feedings. It’s just a nasty web and we are pretty certain that the earthquake in Southern Allegiance happened as a result of this. In fact, I’m pretty certain the increase of all these smaller earthquakes are because of this.” Zura looked at Stella while rubbing her temples. She knew Stella would see it in the simplest way.

  “We stop the pumping and then we’ll stop the splitting, right?” Stella said, just as Zura had anticipated. It should have been that cut and dry.

  “Yeah, basically, that’s what would need to happen. However, it isn’t a guarantee but it would be the best start,” Zura said looking down. In reality, it wasn’t quite that easy.

  “What’s the problem then? Start with shutting down the pumps,” Stella said as she studied her mom’s tired eyes and the bags hanging over her cheeks.

  �
��I wish it were that simple Stella. That we’d just turn off the pumps tomorrow. Unfortunately, I don’t think our funders are going to simply say, ‘turn it off’ without having a way to solve the problem in their favor.”

  “In THEIR favor? What about everyone else? Everything else? Excuse me, but what the hell? They can use dad’s idea!”

  Zura could see herself in Stella at that moment. She could see the heat rising around Stella’s neck before Stella spoke, her temper beginning to flare.

  “Stella, watch it,” Zura warned.

  “I am watching it mom. I’m watching as someone tries to destroy the world, again, and everyone is too scared to say something. Again! Ugh. What? The water crisis and ten percent of people dying wasn’t enough? Let’s shoot for twenty this time!”

  Zura chose to let her rant. She had every right to be mad.

  “I know you’re upset Stella, but there is one more thing. This is classified information. You can’t share it with anyone outside of the core science research team – that’s me, your dad, Mave, Rupert, and of course Stephen. That means no one else on the ARC, no other family, friends, no one else can know what we’ve found.”

  “It’s a secret?” Stella asked incredulously. “Of course, it’s a secret. Okay. Well what can we do? I see what the problem is, but who’s working on the answer?” The fire had risen to Stella’s face.

  “We are looking at some options, but for today, let’s not worry about it since it’ll be up to UniCorps and the World Consensus to decide which direction to take. I just wanted you to know and to find out from me. There’s nothing we can do right now.” Her mom stood up and took a deep breath.

  “So, what did you bring back for me?” Zura asked plastering a smile on her face, but she couldn’t hide from Stella the worry and concern that were imprinted on her brow and inside her head.