Micah

by Rebecca Royce

  I was coming back from having been gone, underground. One of my many trips there and back again. I had a group I’d rescued with me. He was so… proud of me. I almost fell over from the sheer magnitude. I’d had no idea. He seemed so annoyed with me all the time.

  Brynna squeezed my hand. “He was, a lot. Annoyed. I mean, I hate to say it, but we can’t go around romanticizing the dead, right? Sometimes he was proud. He always loved you. I think he wasn’t a good father to you, but I’ve never been a parent. How am I to know what it’s like? Memories aren’t the same as living it. I don’t even know if I can be fixed to have children. My body doesn’t exactly work like other people’s. Would the baby be a bloodsucker? Sorry, I’m rambling.”

  I tugged her into my arms. “You gave me a gift. Not one I expected to have. I’ve got a sense he loved me. You’re right, it doesn’t undo everything that happened with us. It doesn’t make it okay. I don’t know why in a family of five he picked one child to dislike some of the time. I’m not going to try to analyze it too much. My turn to ramble. Knowing he loved me, knowing for sure, it’s something. And I don’t want kids. I like other people’s, but I’d really rather not. We didn’t really get to have this conversation before we did this. So, yeah. What do you think?”

  She sighed. “Relieved. I don’t want to keep anyone alive but myself. And you. Can we do life that way?”

  “For sure.” I didn’t even feel a twinge of disappointment. No babies. Not for us.

  I walked through the snow at my father’s side. We both wore leather jackets, which was what cued me into the fact I was dreaming. I’d never owned a leather coat. Not even in Before Time.

  “I did things wrong when it came to Genesis. I didn’t see big picture.”

  I shrugged. “You took us from underground to above again. Kept us all alive. You’re dead. I’m not going to criticize.”

  He smirked at me as we approached the cliff above the Hudson River. No one called it the Hudson River anymore, but that was what it was. I looked down. There was ice floating on the river. It was that cold, but I couldn’t feel it. Not with my spiffy leather coat on.

  “You sure will and a lot. Some of it will be fair. Some of it will be unfair. That’s okay. I’m not here to hear it, so don’t obsess.”

  I stared at his profile. We did look alike. That was for sure. “And you’ve come back from the dead to teach me to grieve?”

  “This is your dream. You tell me why I’m here.”

  I nodded. He was right. “You’re here because you screwed some things up. You didn’t think big picture.” I used the phrases he had earlier. “I have to remember to do that. I have to find and destroy the cloning machine that will destroy all the others. I have to pay attention to what you didn’t. And it has to be me because Chad just took on the role that you had, which made it impossible for you to think like you should have.”

  The snow picked up, and I started to lose sight of him. He faded in the snow, like a picture losing its resolution.

  “I wouldn’t have agreed to what you had to do. Chad will.”

  I sat up in bed, my heart in my throat, my ears ringing. Brynna jumped up. “What’s wrong? Bad dream?”

  “No, more like a clear head. We have to find the machine. I can’t be sleeping. Doubleday sent Vampires to kill my people. She only got one and probably because he was so out of practice fighting he had no business doing it anymore. And yet…” I jumped out of bed. “We need that machine.”

  She touched my biceps. “Yes, we do. Right now?”

  “No time to lose. They’re going to come back.”

  She unzipped the tent and then quickly zipped it closed again. “Not tonight. No one is getting anywhere tonight. We’re snowed in.”

  I sat right back down on the bed. “Of course we are. Fuck. What is the matter with me?”

  “Your father died.”

  I beamed at her as she stood right over me. “Yeah, other than the obvious.”

  “Were you only thinking about the machine, or was there anything else?”

  I leaned back on my elbows. Maybe I could show her. “Do you want to see what I’m thinking?”

  She lifted her eyebrows. This woman was so beautiful. “I can’t read your mind. You’ve never been made a Vampire. I don’t have your memories. I can share them sometimes, but I can’t control when.”

  I grinned. “There are lots of ways to show people things.”

  I leaped out of bed and grabbed a pen. There was little to write on, but the back of an instruction manual for one of the agricultural machines would work fine. Why did I even have this thing? I needed to clean this place out.

  I started to draw. Circle upon circle. “Here’s the thing. Imagine Genesis is the center. We have no support. We’re sitting here like, okay, whoever wants to attack us, come and get us. Even Geronimo had better fortification. They at least had a wall.”

  She kneeled down. “Are you suggesting building a wall?”

  “Among other things. This is still Icahn’s design here. This is still what he left us with. It’s time to be proactive. This isn’t their world. It’s ours. We have to take it back, and the first bit is to say Genesis is fortified. The Warriors, some of them can continue to patrol inside, but the wall will have a fort.” I drew it in. “That’s where we stay. That’s where we create the first barrier to keep them out. We hold the wall. If it falls, there is another wall. If we find Vampire holds, we plug them. We work on electricity. A beacon in the darkness for any humans out there. Come to us. They have to be vetted, but we’ll figure that out.”

  As I drew, the whole scene showed itself to me. This was what we’d been missing and why it had felt so wrong here to me. “They can only keep getting to us if we let them. Our engineering and construction crews can do this. It’ll take some time, but they can.”

  She nodded. “Micah, who mans the fort?”

  “The new Warriors when they’re ready to fight. In their second year of training. And we alternate various veteran Warriors in and out. Someone will have to man it full time.”

  Brynna twisted her lips. “Someone?”

  She had read this correctly. “Okay, me. If you’re okay with the idea. I don’t go anywhere without you.”

  I wasn’t even afraid of us being together anymore.

  She stroked the side of my face. “I’m good with this. I think I could even be helpful. I’m strong and tough. I can hear them coming. I like giving it more of a space between the civilians and here. I like being able to know I’ve helped make a difference. It might feel like redemption.”

  “Oh, babe.” I stroked a finger down the side of her face. “You have nothing to be redeemed for.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion.”

  Yes, but I was right, and she was wrong. That was something she’d have to get used to.

  I’d show it to her over the next twenty years. That was about as long as we got these days. If I made it to forty, I’d be thrilled.

  She touched where I’d drawn—badly—my plan for what we had to do now. She raised her gaze to meet mine. “But first the cloning machine.”

  But first that.

  The second the storm let up, I was out of my tent and heading for the below ground part of Genesis. I should have been surprised Rachel and Chad were there too, but I wasn’t. They’d have felt the same need to do something.

  With Brynna joining us, we took the squeaky elevator down into what had once been both our prison and our home. Unlike the holes in the ground where the Vampires were held, the Genesis shaft had been designed for personal transport. It felt like I was going to plummet to my death half the time, but it hadn’t faltered yet. We’d so far lived to tell the tale of our travels up and down.

  The elevator opened to Deacon leaning against the back wall. “Figured you guys were coming. Lydia and I started brainstorming some stuff last night about where the cloning machine might be. We’re going to have to tear this place up.”

  “I had some ideas mys
elf but not about where. Things I need to talk to the council about. Big ideas.”

  Chad raised his eyebrows. “Tell me.”

  “After we find and destroy this mess.” I looked at Rachel. She had a funny look on her face. “What’s up?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “You know, all this time, I’ve known something and not known it.”

  Brynna took my hand in hers. “I know that feeling very well.”

  “Right after we got married, my father-in-law woke me up. There was a message from Icahn on how to kill all the Vampires, if we wanted to. I couldn’t make that kind of decision. It involved poisoning the food supply. The humans. I wouldn’t do it. He decided against it, too. It always bothered me. A lot of things about that. The way that info was just waiting there for us on that particular day.”

  I remembered the day well. “The destroyed lab. It’s a junk place now.”

  “Is it? Or are we missing something altogether? How did that stuff get in there on exactly that day? Maybe it’s not related. Maybe… it’s nothing. I don’t know. I think it might be worth taking a good look in that room.”

  Chad nodded. “I vote for yes.”

  Glen rounded the corner, out of breath. “Damn it, you beat me here. I thought I’d be early.”

  I laughed. The kind of burst that took me by surprise, and soon I had my hands on my knees as I tried to breathe through my nose to stop. We had all shown up thinking we’d had the idea to go searching before anyone else. I didn’t know why all of us being the same was funny. Sometimes things were for no reason at all.

  “If Micah is done making a scene”—Chad had amusement in his eyes—“let’s go check out the junk lab.”

  Glen made a sound somewhere between an ooh and ahh. “I love the junk lab.”

  Deacon slapped him on the back. “I know you do, buddy. If you hadn’t shown up, we’d have had to come and get you.”

  We were the people in charge now. I really hoped we managed not to burn down the world.

  Chapter 15

  I stood in the lab two floors below our underground lair and sighed. At what point during the last few years had this become a requisite garbage dump? Or at least a place where everyone shoved their old stuff that didn’t work anymore? We didn’t have that much tech, but all of it that was broken seemed to be right here.

  Glen spun in a circle. “What I could do in here. I mean, I could make a lot of this work again or make new things out of them.”

  I turned to him. “So why don’t you?”

  He shrugged. “How can I keep up my Warrior duties, raise what is about to be two kids, spend time with Tia, and work on tech? I don’t have free time to do it.”

  “Glen.” I couldn’t believe I was about to give anyone advice. “Life is short and over in a second. You are an incredible Warrior. I can think of a dozen times you saved my ass. But you’re my family, so I’m going to say this to you. Do what you want. We have a lot of Warriors. We’re training really well. Everyone isn’t dying from being ill prepared anymore. You can step down.” I winced. “I’m not council. Chad? Deacon?”

  Deacon nodded. “I think it’s a great idea. Fix our tech, Glen. That’s your job. Help fight if we need it. Train like twice a week, early in the morning, to stay sharp. That’ll give you more time with the baby, too.”

  “You’re council.” Chad glared at me. “Or you’ll be some kind of advisory thing.”

  I ignored him for now. “Could you make the lights work? I mean, fuck. I need to talk to you guys about this idea I had. I was going to wait. But listen, I think I know how to fix things. Some of them, anyway.”

  All eyes were on me, and Brynna leaned slightly into me, showing me her support. I opened my mouth, and it all flew out. The way we had to redo Genesis. What it would take. It would be a massive undertaking. I wasn’t negating the sheer amount of work, but in two years, if we really devoted ourselves to getting it done, we’d be where we needed to be.

  When I finished, they were silent. The weight of having said something stupid ran through me like I was back in school getting all the wrong answers on everything. I knew how to handle this kind of eventuality. I’d done so many times.

  I made myself a joke.

  “Oh, fuck it, don’t listen to me. I’ll stick to looking in the mirror. I’m good at grooming.”

  Chad raised both his eyebrows. “I think it’s brilliant. I think that’s what we should have been doing since I was nineteen. I mean, yeah. This is great. Perfect. I mean, I’m sure there are things we’ll have to tweak.”

  Rachel grinned. “Like we’re saying we are devoted to not living day by day but to an actual future where things are better. We can keep pushing out the exterior. Once we have the section you make under control, we wait five years and we push out again.”

  “What about Doubleday?” Lydia linked hands with Deacon. “What do we do about her?”

  “We let her die.” Brynna shot out. “We find this damned cloning machine, we let Glen figure out how to turn it off so she can’t make any more, and then we let them all die. At some point, even if it’s not our generation, we outlive them. The Vampires lose food supplies if we manage to get most of the human population here, and we use the Warriors that want to be involved to continue Micah’s work of emptying the underground tunnels.”

  I sighed. “You make that sound easy.”

  “No, not easy, just goals we can reach.” Brynna seemed so sure of this plan. I wondered if she meant it or if she was on my side in general. Did it matter? No. I was glad to have her support. Although everyone in this room seemed to think I was on to something here.

  This was a first.

  “I have one objection.” Chad scratched his head.

  And here it was. The whole thing would fall apart now. “What?”

  “In this plan, someone lives in the fort. Someone is permanently there running things. Taking all the risks.”

  Where was he going with this? “Someone would have to be. Yes, for this to work. The others—the young Warriors and the established ones rotate in and off. We’d come up with a schedule.”

  “And you’re the permanent Warrior, right? I mean you haven’t officially said you are, but that’s what we’re talking about.”

  Deacon shifted his feet. “Shit.”

  “What’s the problem?” I raised my voice. My patience was thin. That had to be true for all of us after what had happened with Dad, and yet here we were, pressing on like he’d wanted us to do every time there was tragedy. Dad had even pushed forward when Chad died. That had been hard but…

  Fuck, my mind was wandering, again.

  “The problem with that,” Chad hollered back to me, officially losing his cool, which was weird for him, “is I don’t want my brother facing down danger every day for the rest of his life. Okay? I mean that doesn’t sound right. We all face danger. But you know the person in that fort is going to live it, day in and day out, all the time. Excuse me if I don’t want it to be you.”

  The fact that Chad was losing it threw me off my angry hill. He’d lost our father, too, and we’d hardly even discussed it. We’d always been close. In Before Time. Now. There had never been a time when Chad and I hadn’t had each other’s backs.

  “I won’t be alone.” I nodded toward Brynna. “My gorgeous woman says she’s down with doing this with me.”

  Deacon scrunched up his face. “Down.”

  “Slang,” Chad and I said together. We’d never had a ton in common, but every once in a while, it was like we suddenly had everything alike.

  “Gotcha.” Deacon walked in between us and put a hand on both our arms. “I’ll miss him, too, Chad. A lot. But he’ll have to come in regularly, and we both know he’s the right one for the job. Particularly if his wife is going with him. I watched her fight during that last battle. She’s tough.”

  She’d been fighting. I turned to look at her, and she shrugged. Obviously, we weren’t going to talk about it right now. Why was this the first ti
me I’d heard about this?

  “Chad, I’m not made for safety. That’s not my journey. I won’t take unnecessary risks. You can be certain I’ll hold the wall.”

  Glen cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but I found it.”

  “What?”

  Deacon let go of my arm. “The cloning machine?”

  “Well, it’s not exactly a cloning machine. I mean how could there be a cloning machine? They’re huge. Giant water tanks. It’s a whole thing. Not like we know it. But there’s no way we wouldn’t have seen that. I mean, I suppose there are other hidden labs but…”

  “Glen.” Rachel squatted next to him. “You’re rambling.”

  He grimaced. “Sorry. Here.” He held up what looked like an old fax machine. What was that even doing here? Who was there to fax? “This isn’t what it looks like.”

  Deacon and Lydia looked at each other and then at Glen. Yep, neither of them would know what it looked like. I’d give him my best explanation for it later. He raised it higher. “They wouldn’t have started with cloning people. They’d have to have started with something else. I…” He winced. “I need to study this. If I was a mad genius that wanted to rule the world, I’d store all of the cloning data somewhere. Like a mother system that controls all the others.”

  A mother system that controlled all the others? What was my sister doing to him? That was a question for another time.

  “Why would they keep it here?” Brynna put a hand on the machine. She did that a lot. Brynna liked tactical contact with things. I didn’t mind. It meant her hand was constantly on me.

  Glen rose, the device in his hand. “Speculation? They wanted to be able to send things here. To clone as they pleased. Remember the killing the Vampires potion? That was here. It showed up with that video right when it did? Maybe they sent it that day. Or, maybe it was some kind of control thing. Icahn held on to it here, away from Doubleday, to try to prevent her from doing what she ultimately did.”

  My brother-in-law, Glen, the man my father always hated.