by Jacob Whaler
“To your special facility in Japan?” Jedd asks. “Where you’re going to save civilization and start your own little empire?”
Ricky winces at Jedd’s words and elbows him.
Mercer leaves the pilot’s chair and walks back to the cargo area. “Qaara told you?”
“She likes to talk.” Jedd pulls at the bonds on his arms. “By the way, she’s not happy with what you’re doing.”
“So I gather. Your job is to convince her otherwise.” Mercer pulls a tray from the wall and takes out a lemon. “Your lives, and hers, depend on it."
Turning to stare through the window next to his head, Jedd eyes the City in the distance, an encrusted jewel of glass adrift in the smudge of dirt that is the Fringe.
After a few minutes of deep breathing, Jedd’s anger settles. As much as he hates Mercer, it makes sense to engage him in conversation. It might keep Mercer from murdering them all.
Worth a try, anyway.
“She tried to kill you back there, didn’t she?” Jedd says.
Mercer bites into a lemon. “She used to be so quiet and focused. Obedient, even. A team player. The best team player. But she’s changed. Tell me, what happened in the Zone?”
“It wasn’t the Zone that changed her. It was her decision to leave Genesis. That’s when she found herself.”
“She had so much potential. Still does. Why would she throw that all away, and—” He looks at Jedd and Ricky, sitting on the floor with their arms and wrists bound together.
“And join up with a couple of low life scum from the Fringe?”
Jedd scans the perfection of Mercer’s scar-free face, the delicate line of his nose, the precise alignment of teeth, the flawless skin. Then he looks down at his own hands, gritty, ragged nails, a lifetime of marks. “I think she was looking for something . . . real."
Mercer’s hand drops. “I don’t understand. Am I not real? Are my plans not real?”
A light clicks on inside Jedd’s mind.
“You’re the product of genetic engineering. Your parents chose your genes from a menu.” Relaxing his hands, he casts another glance at Ricky. "And now you’re doing the same thing with civilization. Deciding what’s in and what’s out, as if any one person had a right to do that. Remaking it in your own image. Don’t you see? You’re doing the same thing your father did, but on a massively larger scale. It’s all . . . artificial."
“And that’s why Qaara hates me and what I’m doing?”
“You’ll have to ask her.” Jedd points to the cockpit. “But I think she finally grew tired of it all. Tired of the artificial world you and others have created where everything is controlled, directed, manipulated.”
“Back to nature?” Mercer spits lemon seeds onto the floor. “I doubt she or you will be saying that when the world begins to melt and all life is destroyed."
“What you’re doing is wrong. For all the reasons that Jedd said. And more.” Qaara pulls against the metallic snake that binds her to the seat in the cockpit.
“Awake at last.” Mercer walks to the pilot’s chair next to her. “I hope that, in time, you’ll come to accept what I’ve done. Preserving civilization in an orderly and reasoned manner instead of triggering a global battle for survival that would squander precious resources.”
“And it’s just a coincidence that your orderly and reasoned manner places you in total control?” Qaara rises out of her seat, pulling against the bonds.
“Why do you want me dead?” Mercer says.
Qaara looks away. “I refuse to dwell in a world you control. It would be a living death.”
“I have the right to do it,” Mercer says.
“What right?”
“The right of birth.” He looks back at Jedd and Ricky. “The right of intelligence.” Reaching into his pocket, carefully, he takes out a black lump of rock. “The right of the finder. I’m the one who unlocked the truth. The one who read the message. The one best able to respond to it. Saving the human race requires a leader. I am the only logical one to fill that position, and I will do so to perfection.”
“Pathetic,” Qaara says. “Your words speak against your fitness for such a lofty role.”
“Nevertheless, it is a role I will fulfill.” He walks out of the cockpit, across the open cargo area. “I am finished with this conversation. I've placed the ship on auto-pilot. I suggest you all get some sleep. See you in Japan.” He disappears through a door to the rear.
60
NEW EARTH COLONY
Ignoring the garbled sound of Alice’s voice coming in through her ears, Luca concentrates on the soft tones of Alice’s thoughts that resonate in Luca’s mind, like strands of music.
And the music becomes Alice’s voice inside Luca’s head.
“You’ll have to hide in my room for now. Everyone, quickly inside.” Alice stands at the side of the open door while the girls, led by Luca, file inside.
As soon as they enter, the room lights up. It’s square with a bed in the middle, a large glass screen on one wall and a small bathroom in the back. No windows. No way to hear or see or feel the outside world. Not even a slit.
“We eat in a cafeteria, but I’ve been stocking up on food and water with the help of my friends since I discovered you outside.” Alice walks into the bathroom. "I hid it all in here.”
Thank you, Luca thinks.
“You’re welcome.” Alice comes out with arms full of boxes. “Help me spread this out.”
Luca translates for the girls who can’t hear Alice’s voice. They all pitch in. Soon, everyone is sitting on the floor digging spoons into open plastic containers of multicolored food packs.
Alice eases into a chair under a lamp. She invites Luca to sit beside her on the edge of the bed.
“I’d like to know what you did to the guard back there.” Alice laughs with her whole body. “For that matter, I’d like to know how you talk to me inside my head.”
Jumping into Alice’s mind, Luca feels warmth in an ocean of calm blue-greens. On the fringes, there are traces of anger. Alice’s thoughts gently filter through Luca’s mind. Alice misses her husband and daughter. There are images of a house in a part of the world covered in thick plants and trees that stretch to the sky. Other houses cluster close by. The community cares for the children playing together outside. Long days fill with family and friends.
Alice studies plants with special instruments, learning how they grow. She loves them.
Just like Luca.
Where did you live before you came here?
At the sound of Luca’s words in her mind, Alice’s eyes widen and she laughs in surprise.
“I don’t know how you do it, putting your words in my mind, but it’s wonderful. Feels like a cat purring just behind my eyes. Soft and warm." Alice picks up a water container and takes a sip. “I’m part of the Mbochi people from the most beautiful place in the world. We call it the Congo. My family’s lived there as far back as anyone can remember.”
You love plants.
“How did you know?”
The pictures in your head. Tall trees. Green leaves and flowers. You spend all day looking at them.
“Oh my.” Alice stops drinking. “Not only can you speak to me in my mind, you can see my thoughts and memories. I hope you don't find anything . . . embarrassing. Yes, I do love plants. It’s my job to study them, learn how they work so I can design them to make food and energy. I work with people all over the world. But enough about me. What is your name, child? You told me before, but I was so surprised when I heard your voice in my mind that I forgot.”
I’m Luca.
“Luca.” Alice rolls the sound across her tongue. “A beautiful name. How old are you? About fourteen, I’d guess.”
I don’t know. They never told me. I was ten when I went to the Institution.
“The Institution?” Alice takes another sip of water as she raises her eyebrows.
Luca can feel her thinking.
“Is the Institution far?”
>
We left it four days ago and walked here.
“No wonder you’re so tired. Were all of you at the Institution together?”
Luca nods.
Yes. We all went there so they could learn about us. Watch us. Help us.
“Help you do what?”
Help us to stop hearing the voices.
“Voices?” Alice sets the water down on a side table and leans forward. “What voices?”
The ones in our heads. They think we’re sick. If we heard a voice and talked to it, they . . . hurt us to make us stop. But it never worked with me. I never stopped hearing the voices. I still do.
“My goodness.” Alice stares into Luca’s eyes and cradles her hands around Luca’s cheeks. “You heard voices so you went to a research facility where violence was a form of treatment. Here in Fukushima. I remember reading something about that. On the Mesh.” Alice walks across the room to a shelf and picks up a thin, flat piece of clear plastic that turns light blue as soon as she touches it. She comes back to the chair and brushes her finger across its surface.
“It should be here, on my slate, somewhere in the memory. We were assured that, where we were going, we could still access the Mesh, or at least a recent image of it.”
Her eyes and fingers work together. Then she finds it and nods.
“Here it is.”
Alice reads aloud, and the sound and rhythm of her voice reminds Luca of the hours her mother spent reading to her.
“After the meltdown of the reactors in Fukushima in March of 2011, the Japanese government spent decades trying to contain the damage, but eventually abandoned the entire area, much like an earlier accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986. Later, it was written off as an unofficial dumping ground for industrial waste from all over of the planet. After the riots that followed mass unemployment and the failure of the Japanese government and its eventual annexation by China, thousands of homeless protestors left Tokyo to start squatter communities all over Fukushima. Many of them were returning to ancestral lands after a century away.”
The reading voice makes Luca sleepy. She drops her head onto Alice’s lap and closes her eyes, still listening to the words.
“Due to the toxic environment, children were born with brain abnormalities, the most common of which was manifest as severe auditory hallucinations—”
Alice reads silently, running her fingers through Luca’s hair.
“Poor child,” she says.
Lifting up her head, Luca points at the other girls.
We have all heard the voices. Some still can. Others no longer try.
“What do the voices say to you?”
Luca picks up a small potted plant from near Alice and gently brushes its leaves.
It’s like music. Plants, animals, anything alive. Even people have music behind the words of their thoughts.
“And what does my music say, behind the words? Will you have a look?”
Going deeper into Alice’s mind, Luca finds images of her husband and daughter. Her thoughts of anger at those who brought her to this place. Fear of changes coming to the world and the loss of so much life. Fear of the Cloud.
Luca’s pulse jumps.
Why is everything going to die? What is the Cloud?
“You saw all that in my mind? Of course you did. I hardly think of anything else, now that I know what’s going to happen.”
What will happen?
Alice focuses her eyes on Luca. “Yes. What was I thinking? You have every right to know. You have to know.” Alice leans back as the chair cradles her. “A few days ago, there was a strange occurrence in the sky. Bright ribbons of fire in the middle of the night. And then, ash started to rain down like snow. Did you see it?”
Yes. The great Voice in the sky. I saw it and heard it. I still hear it.
“Great Voice?” The whites of Alice’s eyes grow big. “You heard it? That is something. I almost don’t dare ask, but is it alive?”
It speaks with a Voice, just like you. Only bigger. Much bigger. I heard it coming days ago when it was still far away. And now, I hear it everywhere.
“That, my child, is the Cloud. And it is everywhere. It completely enveloped the Earth. The ash rained down and is turning into something terrible. Things are about to happen.”
What things?
Alice’s outer voice drops to a whisper. All the girls watch her now. Luca knows that only some of them can hear Alice’s voice in their minds. But all of them stare at her face.
“The ash from the Cloud is turning into hard little seeds.”
I saw them, everywhere, outside.
Alice pulls Luca close. “In a few days, those seeds are going to kill every living thing outside these domes. My husband. My child—” Her voice trembles.
Luca’s face goes hot as she thinks about the words. A curtain of darkness settles on her mind. Tears well up and tumble down her cheeks.
Are you sure? How can that be?
“I don’t know, but it’s going to happen unless this is all just a cruel trick.” Alice takes Luca’s hand. “I got here two days ago but didn’t find out the details until today. Like everyone else here, I received a special invitation to come for an important international meeting. A global gathering of thought leaders sponsored by Genesis Corporation to consider the future of our planet, as it was described to me. A special transport brought me here, all the way from Africa. He built these domes and gathered people with special knowledge so we could survive in the domes. He has plants and animals from all over the world, too. He's a very rich man. When it’s all over, he wants us to start over. To restart life.”
It takes Luca a long time to understand. She replays the words in her mind until they make sense.
Her mind fills with questions.
Why will the Cloud try to kill everything?
“I don’t know, child. Mr. Mercer says it will all become clear. He wants us to be patient.”
How did he find out about the Cloud? Can he hear its Voice?
Alice raises her hands. “I have no idea how he knows. I have no idea how he built these domes and why they will protect us. He seems to have a plan and lots of confidence. There are rules. Lots of rules. We have to follow them. If we don’t—”
He will make us go outside, right?
“Yes, just like the guard said.”
The bluescreen on the wall at the opposite end of the room lights up. The face of a man appears. He begins to talk.
“Hello, fellow members of New Earth Colony. I’m Frank Mercer, and I just landed at the facility. I brought a new arrival I’ll be introducing to you shortly. In the meantime, I extend my warmest welcome to each of you. It’s time to get to work.”
61
INDIAN PRINCESS
The last thing Jedd remembers is the green gas that filled the cockpit and cargo area of the ship just as a rocky shore came into view through the window.
Now he’s in a comfortable prison cell, no windows. A bluescreen hangs on the wall. Elastic gooey stuff the color of honey covers his hands and feet. If he tries to move too quickly, it instantly hardens into glass until the movement stops. With effort, he might be able to walk, slowly. But running is out of the question. Ricky is three meters away leaning against the opposite wall with similar bonds. Jedd scans the room for her.
Nausea rises in Jedd’s belly. “Where’s Qaara?”
“Not a clue.” Ricky looks up. “I only woke up a couple of minutes ago myself.”
“A new meaning for DOA—drugged on arrival.” Jedd allows a weak smile. He spreads his wrists apart and observes the goo stretching into thin membranes but never breaking.
“I suppose we ought to be grateful we’re still alive. He could have dumped us into the Pacific before we landed. This must be Mercer’s facility. His end-of-the-world bunker." Ricky coughs and glances to the closed door. “I’d like to see what’s on the inside."
“That can certainly be arranged.”
The voice comes from speakers
embedded in the ceiling.
“Is that you, Mercer?” Jedd looks up. “Where’s Qaara."
“I’m glad you asked.” The sound rains down on them like the voice of God. “You’ll be given the same information, and the same privileges, as the other inhabitants of this facility if you cease trying to destroy my work and begin cooperating so that we all can save civilization together.”
“What about Qaara?” Jedd says. “When can I see her?”
“Right now.” The bluescreen lights up on the wall. “Just watch the show.”
Mercer sits on a small stage in a comfortable, black leather chair, his legs crossed. A massive, hi-definition globe of the world revolves behind him. Webs of white neon mark population centers, some mere dots, others sprawling along coasts.
His hands come together and rest on a knee.
“The old world has gone dark.”
Little by little, the white neon disappears around the Earth.
“It now falls to us to rekindle our great global civilization. Thank you for your attention, fellow inhabitants of New Earth Colony.” Mercer looks comfortable in black pants and a blue shirt. Dark shades cover his eyes. “It was with great relief that I arrived an hour ago and put the old world behind me.”
Standing, Mercer walks away from the globe. “The final devastation is only hours away. See for yourself. The ash that fell from the sky has begun to harden into small balls or pods. It will soon transform into an unimaginably destructive force.”
The bluescreen switches to a view of cities with familiar landmarks. The pyramids of Giza. The Eiffel Tower. The Forbidden City. Everywhere, rows of hard spheres of glossy black stick like gum to the ground, buildings, trees, vehicles.
Jedd stares, mouth open.
“What you see,” Mercer says, “is the next phase in the evolution of the ash from the Cloud. When fully developed, the sticky balls will unleash an acid that will dissolve civilization and end all life. Except here in the domes.”
“Hey!” Jedd points at the bluescreen. “How did he get those shots from around the world? I thought the Mesh was down.”
Ricky shakes his head. “Looks like it might have come back up in places. With the main body of the Cloud gone, the ion storm is over. Any electronics that survived the onslaught should be functional again. At least until the end comes. I wish Qaara were here. She seems to know what’s going on.”
