Lower Earth Rising Collection, Books 1-3: A Dystopian Contemporary Fantasy

by Eden Wolfe

  It's what the settlers had wanted for them.

  Uma caressed the lava amulet around her neck.

  “The time has come for this session of the Willing Woman campaign to end,” Mary’s voice rang out over the screens across the city. “For those of you who have offered your services, bravo! You know how this act is essential to keeping life on Lower Earth. The settlers smile upon you today. We salute all women who offer their wombs for Lower Earth’s future! Now prepare, everyone, the Settlement Day parade will begin shortly! Settlers, how grateful we are for the days you suffered! We shall all raise our eyes to the sky and we hold the lava rock of Lower Earth in our hands.”

  Uma gathered up the application forms and brochures to get back to her real work in Central Tower before the parade began.

  Comfortably back at her desk, Uma scanned the memo with updates across the Male Program.

  The door to her seventeenth-floor office was closed tightly, just in case anyone could hear her thoughts. She didn’t need her aversion to the Male Program known. After all, Roman was insistent that they find a breakthrough, and he was her boss.

  Boys. A relic of a generation ago. I wonder when we’ll finally give up on trying to revive them.

  The current age saw young men and men and old men, but no boys. Mary didn’t have to announce it across the screens. Everyone could see it with their own eyes. Inside Central Tower, the men who committed their lives to procreation research were split between floors. The Policy said that the distribution of “man-power” ensured equal input from their sex to the different research programs. In practice, however, not all men were created equal. Uma stood and walked to the glassed wall of her office that overlooked the deep plunge from the seventeenth floor down to the ground floor lobby. Bodies moved like ants across the floors, elevators crossed each other, delivering new codes, genetic material, results. The day was in full swing. Just another day trying to preserve their world.

  Uma sighed.

  She saw Adam emerge from the elevator across from her office.

  Adam. He played on so many sides in the Tower, and somehow was allowed to. It didn't matter that it had been almost a decade they worked together; Uma couldn't read Adam any more than a stranger. She watched as he stepped with a tense back, almost awkwardly, into Isaac's office, closing the door and disappearing from sight.

  6

  Adam

  Adam stepped out of the elevator, conscious that Uma’s eyes were on him. But he didn’t care, not now. He had the latest survival rate in his hands, and even though they were less than encouraging, Adam saw some good news in it. Everyone knew that the five floors dedicated to the Male Program were active on a 24-hour cycle, and yet no viable boy had been born for a couple of years. All embryos showed signs of degradation in their genetic code. It wasn’t even worth proposing them for Willing Women.

  Fewer and fewer of us. When are we going to break through?

  Adam felt his mortality. He’d witnessed so much in the men around him. Degradation. Heart failure. Sometimes an unknown cause altogether. So far, he had escaped the worst of it, but the thought of what was to come still haunted him. The effects of the Mist were in all of them.

  He pushed open the door at the end of the hall.

  "I've got the most recent survival rate, Isaac."

  "And?"

  Adam shrugged. "Better."

  "But not good?"

  Adam made a huffing sound.

  Isaac sighed, "Okay, not good."

  "I feel like good is a generation away. ‘Better’ is at least a step in the right direction."

  "You're a statistician, Adam. I'm an optimist."

  The door closed behind Sara, though they hadn't heard it open. "Better an optimist than a river swimmer. It was a tough competition."

  "And the winner is?"

  "No contest, Jan Gillard won."

  "That makes three years in a row!"

  “She was built for it.”

  "Good genes, clearly."

  The old joke made them smile. Sara, Isaac, and Adam had all been on the team who improved the Directive. The Gillard line was one of their first successes. They had taken it to heart, even though the adaptations for strength had the expected consequences on lifespan.

  "Do you think she'll get any slower with time?"

  "Ask the statistician."

  Adam pursed his lips. "Not likely."

  They smiled.

  "Well, that is a nice counterbalance to 'Better'. Worthy of grabbing a coffee, I'd say." Isaac lifted himself out of the rolling office chair, awkwardly, nearly falling sideways but he caught the top of his desk.

  "Now, now," Adam rushed over.

  "I'm fine." Isaac looked up at them. "Perhaps I should spend some time river swimming myself, or I'll find myself in an early grave. This desk work takes a toll."

  The other two watched him leave the room, his belly hanging over his slacks, breathing hard.

  "Yeah, desk work." Adam shook his head. It was the same pattern he'd seen with so many men of Isaac's generation, a ticking time bomb. "What is our contingency plan if he goes, Sara?"

  Sara took in a deep breath, "I'm still thinking about it. I don't trust a single one of the new geneticists. Not one, Adam." Her chin lowered but her eyes remained fixed on the darkening sky. Adam watched her lips tighten as her mind rolled over the idea. Her green eyes shone in the light of the sunset and she looked so young, so despondent. Adam walked to her and gently placed his hand on her shoulder.

  "What are you doing?" Sara snapped and stepped away.

  "You look upset."

  "So you touch me? In the Tower?" She whispered hard, "What's the matter with you?"

  Firmly back in reality, Adam walked to the window.

  "This place. I can't imagine the future here. It all comes up black when I think about it. I project myself fifty years into the future and I hit a wall. It makes me wonder if there is one at all."

  "There never was, don't idealize."

  The fortress gleamed in the distance; several lights were on and movement was visible even from the distance of Central Tower. The Settlement Day parade was about to begin.

  "Four hundred and two years since official settlement. Four hundred and two years of what?" he said, mostly to himself.

  "You know as well as I do."

  "We're so close, Sara," his voice lowered instinctively, though he was speaking to the horizon more than he was speaking to her. "Something is just on the edge, I can feel it. But what if we get it wrong?"

  "We've weighed that possibility from the start. We'd end up disappeared, wherever that would take us. But Adam - " she joined him at the window, "I'd die for less."

  "I'm afraid I might. Like Isaac."

  "Isaac needs to drink a little less and move a little more."

  Adam wished it were as simple as that.

  "Yeah." He half-laughed, "Optimist, huh?"

  "More like depressed drunk."

  A holler rose from the fortress gate - a special guest arriving. The hollers gained in volume and intensity, squeals and shouts, words like “Long live!” and “Hoorah!” lifted from the main square.

  There was only one person greeted with that kind of noise at national festivities. The Future Queen must have just arrived.

  Looking down, Sara and Adam caught sight of her inside the metal bars at the fortress ground's entrance. She was adorned in deep blue scales that caught the light of the setting sun. Stunningly beautiful, she glowed. A small radius of people around her left a respectful space, making her entirely visible from the Central Tower block.

  "You want to see our future? There she is, in all her glory," Sara spat out, no attempt to hide her disgust.

  “Barely more than a child. And we’re supposed to put our hopes in her? If she’s anything like Queen Maeva, we are in for even darker times.”

  “She’s been practicing combat skills against animals. Killing them. Ripping them to pieces. Queen Maeva commanded that I collect what re
mained of the carcasses and analyze the Future Queen’s efficiency. What for? What good can come of that?”

  Adam shook his head. “It’s the increase in disappearances that makes me sick.”

  They watched as the Future Queen turned from three hundred feet away, as if she heard. She looked directly at them. Her face was flawless, skin smoother than milk, a sharp nose, and high angled cheekbones. Her dark green eyes caught the fading sunlight as no others could do. She kept her gaze on them and lowered her chin briefly before walking away.

  Sara and Adam froze.

  "Did she just nod her head at us?"

  "She did. I swear it, she did."

  7

  Lucy

  "Tomorrow's rain will further production in the West Fields. This is welcome news for us all," Mary's voice on the screen rattled on. Lucy was hardly paying attention. Final exams were coming, and this hadn't been a good year. Lucy walked past corner after corner, Mary’s eyes and voice following her as she went.

  "New advances have been made available for sustainable home heating. If you continue to use stoves and forced air, report to your nearest City Post for more information before the next cold sets in. Fortunately, fuel consumption is at all-time lows. Thank you for heeding advice, citizens! This has allowed the stores to remain sufficient for the colder seasons."

  As she walked down the main avenue, Lucy’s toe caught on a break between the asphalt squares and she nearly fell. She barely noticed. Algebra had been especially hard, and the thought of the exam for advanced geometry made her head spin. She knew they wouldn't allow aides into the exam room, and she wouldn't dare cheat, but expectations of her were high. The thought of it made her stomach turn. Scratching her shoulder against the sharp bark of an evergreen tree, she wound her way to a bench in the middle of Green Park. She took a bite of her sandwich and made a face at it. Her mother always put too much butter. Her mother was of the mind that butter built muscle, just look at Lucy's strength, did she not run the fastest 5-mile race last year in her age group? But Lucy found butter horrible, the way it squidged in her teeth and made a layer on her tongue.

  Even this couldn't distract her from the sense of impending failure. She had been such a promising student, so they all had told her when she was five and six and seven years old. Then something happened. Lucy couldn't place it on a particular moment, but just as she started to grow taller and stronger, it was like she grew dumber too. She wasn't completely useless; she knew she was far from the half-wits and handicaps of Cork Town.

  But she had dreams when she was in that space between awake and asleep. Dreams where her mother cast her out. Wild, whirling dreams of wind and thunder and she'd be running. Running to get away, but not sure what from. She would run and run and run and know she was outrunning whatever it was - but then she would arrive, alone, cold, and no idea where she was. The Strangelands maybe? It was only a dream, and in a dream one can cross thousands of miles in a moment. Suddenly it would feel like real life, that sense of pressure on the bottom of your feet where they touch the earth, and Lucy would wake up holding her breath, eyes wide.

  Mary’s voice perked up again. "We continue to look for Willing Women! The gestation period is now four months. Can you dedicate a minimum of ten months to your nation? If you have reached your age of womanhood and feel called to raise the next generation, report to the Central Meeting House next Wednesday at noon."

  Lucy looked up to the screen. Mary was the face of the nation, every day at seven, ten, and sixteen hundred hours she invaded the streets with her set jaw and deep green eyes. There was a quality to her voice that pulled you in, but it was her eyes that made you stop and look, and inevitably hear whatever she was saying. Most women now had green eyes, but hers were somehow that shade deeper.

  "Full information will be available, along with Willing Women themselves who can tell you of the experience. The next season is planned for spring this year, with training commencing in two weeks' time."

  In two weeks Lucy would either have just sailed by her exams, or she would be sobbing in the gutter. In two weeks her mother would be serving up duck or locking her in her room. In two weeks, she might have no choice but to sign up as a Willing Woman.

  8

  Maeva

  The Queen lifted her chest higher, watching the eyes below watching her.

  Silently they all waited for her next word. On the edges of the crowd, the Guard stood at attention. They weren’t much more than decorative now; decades had gone by since anyone had tried to cause trouble during a Tuesday Briefing. And even then, it had been a backroom man. No one had taken him seriously.

  Maeva took in their faces from her balcony, some smiling, some waiting, others distracted. She cleared her throat and every chin lifted her way. They were so trusting, so innocent, so needy.

  Mother of the nation, mother of Lower Earth. Maeva felt as much mother to each beating heart before her now as she did to those designed from her own code. That was her duty. She had been born for it, born from the code of every Queen before her. Born from the original settlers’ DNA.

  Looking across the masses, she saw her own reflection in each of them. Central Tower had done well in integrating the sequence.

  We might stand a chance after all.

  She zeroed in on a woman near the northwest corner of the square. A couple of hundred feet away, Maeva saw it in her brow. Straight down from the fortress hill, eight stories below her, she saw it in a woman’s chin, another’s shoulder frame, and yet another’s cheekbones.

  The code was well incorporated without being obvious. The connection between royalty and people would be undeniable. She would have to congratulate Roman again; the man lived for small courtesies and space to continue his precious Male Program. Roman was like a dog; Maeva would give him a pat on the head and he would be loyal to death. He'd picked up well where Lucius had left off, even if he didn't have the title to go with it. She'd promised the title would remain with Lucius in exchange for his silence. So Roman would have to live with Primary Overseer, and he seemed perfectly content with it.

  Though that didn’t mean she didn’t track his Extended Green File. He had his file, just like the others. No room for complacency. Not in times like these.

  She realized that she had stopped paying attention to the crowds below.

  She finished with a deep breath.

  "And you all know how the Central Tower has been progressing, I don't need to tell you how there are whispers of promise emerging from the sea of their work. Water purification has reached new levels, collection from the Leeside storms is paying off in dividends, and the Water Ministry must be applauded for their efforts!"

  A general rush came over the crowd with "Yes!", "Ministry of Water, hurrah!" and clapping until the Queen swiftly hushed them down.

  "You also know the due diligence we must sustain in keeping our eyes beyond our shores. Now is not the time, and today is not the day. But one day Upper Earth might be looking to take new steps. We keep a supply of intelligence. Some risk their lives to obtain it." A few hands clapped, but the Queen raised hers to silence them. "We will not celebrate what we fear, but we prepare against our hopes. It is a thankless job, but not unnoticed. I see you, leaders of the munitions and intelligence group. You need not identify yourselves. The settlers know what you face; they too lived through it. You do homage to the settlers. I thank you with their blood."

  Maeva lifted her lava amulet into the air, and the tens of thousands gathered below did the same. The blood of the settlers ran through her veins, their voices humming in her head as she brought the amulet back to her chest.

  She scanned the crowd, and one by one by she found the members of the munitions and intelligence group among the thousands. She gave each one a nod. All was silent across the square as she took this time to acknowledge each woman and the two men of the group in silent recognition. The air was electric.

  She took a deep breath and moved into her standard closing, unrushed and rev
erent as ever.

  "The screens tell you all, they remain your friends. Mary is your friend. I, too, am your friend, your Mother Queen. As ever, you know that I belong to you, even more than you to me. As the settlers were, so must we be accepting, kind, and strong!"

  The eruption of cheers across the crowd signaled the end of the Tuesday Briefing. The event was archaic as a practice, but the Queen felt it was her duty to provide routine. She remained on the balcony, watching the women move back into their daily lives - the farmers and manufacturers, the teachers and food servers, and the few men who mingled among them.

  Irene forced air out. "When do we start telling them what’s really going on? These Tuesday Briefings are like a school assembly."

  The Queen didn't remove her eyes from the people. A group was laughing in the eastern part of the square, and in them she saw her own teeth.

  “Some were missing from the crowd, Irene.”

  “Some? Who?”

  “At least four technicians from the fifth floor of the Tower. Run an inspection. I imagine they prioritized their work. It’s important that they know these briefings are not optional. Send a strong message.”

  Irene cocked her head. “It never ceases to amaze me that you can look out over a crowd of, what, ten thousand, and notice that four were missing.”

  “They are taking liberties. Liberties are not for taking. They are to be earned. Make sure that is clear to them.”

  Maeva walked out, knowing Irene would follow. “Prepare the court, I’ll hear them as scheduled. But first – "

  “I know. The reports were delivered today. They are on your bureau.”