by Eden Wolfe
She had to plan this out. Lucius only described the lock, she had to find the key to culling. She would work out every single detail before moving into action. It was for the sake of all of Lower Earth. To avoid an otherwise certain civil war that would arise when future queens felt cheated out of their promised reign. They couldn’t understand what she’d had to do. They would fight to the end. That’s what they were designed for.
Just like her.
I will win this. For Lower Earth. Nothing must go wrong in the culling of the Queen's design.
She ran and ran, voices screaming and visions across her eyes of the coming slaughter as she went.
19
Lucius
He had her. Lucius knew this was her weakness, her only soft spot, her Achilles heel.
She won’t kill them, not with her own hand.
He knew it; he had created her too, after all. For all the fierceness that was encoded in her, she wouldn't be able to do it.
He was counting on it.
The Queen left, running on those deer legs as she did, away before peering eyes might catch glimpse of her in Cork Town. She was a beautiful sight to watch go. He stood from his wheelchair, frozen, watching her do all he couldn't.
He, barely living. She, what he had made.
Oh, but she is beautiful.
He waited for the girl to come in the morning, as she always did. He sat awkwardly in the rolling chair, nerves pinching and flaps of fatty flesh sweating but his mind raced through it, calculating the chances, having to take the risk. There was no choice now, he'd guessed this day would come, though secretly hoped it wouldn’t. He'd spread his bets a little too thinly in the end, and now he'd have to find a way out. They were his creation as much as Maeva.
Rose could do it. At least he was pretty sure she could.
He heard the quietest of steps on the windowsill. She insisted on entering from the alley, just to avoid the main street. Her shame pained him, but he’d grown used to the sound of her fingers lifting the window.
He always wanted to call her by her true name. A Queen’s name. But perhaps it was just as well, her birth name seemed cursed.
Her face was red as sunset, hesitant, sensing his heartbeat and fear. She was more sensitive than any of the others, of this he was certain. She read others from the inside. Perhaps a consequence of her life ending while still inside the womb. She read more than blood and breath, she read feeling and weakness and, most of all, intention. She was the reason Lucius had been able to keep up with the advances in Central Tower.
He looked her up and down, realizing how close she could have been to death had the Queen wished it so. The body of a girl and the face of a child. She would never age any more than this. Two-thirds the height of the rest of them. Her hair the flame on a body that would never develop beyond this adolescent sprig. Yet she had the resolve of the ocean.
The thought occurred to him that she might outlive them all.
Wouldn’t that be ironic?
"Come, come child. We must talk. You are going to have to do something very important."
He felt torn, unsure about his right to ask, unsure she could even do it if she wanted. She was, after all, a compromised version of perfection, perfect though she was to him.
Her eyes grew wide and stayed large as light bulbs as he took her through the plan. She hardly moved but for an occasional quick nod.
"You have a choice here - "
“I have no choice."
"It’s to save them."
"It must be done."
"Yes." Lucius wiped his brow. "What do you think of it?"
She looked in the distance. "I knew it was coming. And that it was my time to do as I was born to do. They are my kin. I will protect them."
“It will demand more from you than you’ve ever experienced.”
She looked at him with resolve. “I can do more than anyone thinks.”
“But can you do this?”
She paused, and he watched her drawing up from within the years and histories and generations that ran through her veins, this would-have-been-Queen who never aged, this mistake of a moment's agony. Her lips moved in silent words as she sought deep within, asking the question of the Queens of long ago, firing through pathways and veins, blood rushing with the answer.
"Yes."
20
Aria
Aria reviewed the DNA sequence before her.
Her eyes cast over pages of sequence, her earliest lessons telling her to seek the message that sat behind it all.
Proteins align but the connection remains weak. The gene specifying resistance to the viral treatment is not on these pages.
She sat back against the chair. The latest virus infecting wheat crops was causing havoc in the West Fields. If they didn’t find a cure for it soon, they could be without for several years.
The sequences are standard, so why is this strain so robust?
Apple fungus, the seed-borne rice disease, the recent rotavirus in the water: she’d conquered them all. Each had its own weakness. But the wheat streak mosaic virus was a new threat. They had evidence of its existence in the old world; the texts spoke of it, though it had never been in the island continent where Lower Earth was established. The wheat streak mosaic virus had belonged to a continent now uninhabitable. Back during the Final War, the Mist had adapted and attacked their soil.
Now the virus was invading Lower Earth. She had to find the weakness in the strain so that they could treat the crops. And fast.
The RNA, where’s the account of the RNA transcribed from the DNA?
She shifted through the papers, but it was missing.
Its key must be in the RNA; where’s the sequence?
The page was missing from the file.
How could they be so careless?
Aria pulled together the papers and gathered them into the file. She emerged from the hut to the surprise of the priestesses who were walking past. They lowered their eyes immediately in deference.
Aria sighed; this wasn’t the time for games of collective thought. If the West Fields were at risk, then two-thirds of Lower Earth’s population could come close to starving.
She marched towards the center of the village; the trek was more than a mile from her hut, but she needed the rest of the sequence or her efforts were useless.
“Aria!”
She turned; Leadon jogged to catch up to her.
“Up to something important.”
“Wheat crop killer.”
“Oh yes, those ones are especially bad right now.”
“But I don’t have all the material!” Aria threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t know why Habana would send me on this genetic goose chase, unless she’s really that irresponsible with the files.”
“Shh!” Leadon looked around. “You can’t talk about the chief like that.”
“I can. And I will. If I’m to be Queen, then I have to be able to resolve these agricultural diseases. Don’t you see, Leadon? Lower Earth will be run over with crop killers if we aren’t careful. Disease. Bacteria. Viruses. All these are the remaining gifts of the Final War. And here I am trying to solve the structure without the RNA sequence!”
Aria looked over to Leadon, but Leadon’s face said it all. She had no idea what Aria was talking about.
It’s just as well. If Leadon knew everything we were up against… she has it hard enough already. Being the Commandante’s copy won’t do her any favors.
“Look, Leadon, I have to speak with Habana. I’ll explain it to you later, alright?”
Leadon shifted her weight. “Alright. I’ll wait for you.”
“No, don’t wait.”
“I don’t have anywhere else to go. You know they don’t let me conduct the warrior exercises with them.”
Aria’s face softened.
She may be the Commandante’s double, and yet who knew two women with the same code could be so different.
“I’ll see you soon,” Aria squeezed
Leadon’s shoulder and then ran towards the village center.
“Habana,” Aria called as she entered the sacred woman’s hut.
“I am here.”
Aria pushed aside the streams of cut leather and entered Habana’s prayer room. Habana sat in front of a small fire, burning leaves on the end of a stick.
Aria began by kneeling on the altar.
"Lassa Habana weh."
"Pona sebana weh" Habana replied.
"Lassa mokha wanna weh."
"Haffaah."
Aria stood. There was no more time for custom. “The file is incomplete. I cannot assess it without the sequence of –"
Aria didn’t finish. Habana had lifted her hand, a page of code between her fingers.
“Are you testing me?”
Habana looked up from her burning stick.
“Part of the training.”
Aria let out a terse exhale and snatched the page from Habana’s hands.
Habana smiled.
“You will be the Queen of Central Tower as well as the Queen of the people.”
Aria scanned the page of code. The sequence rose from the paper, the weakness apparent before her.
“It’s right there,” she pointed at the page. “How could the great minds of Central Tower miss it?”
“Your mind is greater than theirs.”
“But Lucius – "
“Lucius doesn’t concern himself with crop viruses.”
“If the Great Geneticist doesn’t concern himself with the viruses that threaten Lower Earth's most basic needs, then what does he concern himself with?”
Habana pursed her lips at the burning rod.
“Now that you’d have to ask him yourself.”
“Oh, I will.”
“I have no doubt.” Habana looked up at Aria, her eyes glazed. “Ariane, I will soon be gone. My days left in this world are few. Come.”
Aria sat down beside her.
Habana whispered. “The women of Gana were meant to be free. You know that has always been my belief. One day, we will be free again, all peoples. But not in my lifetime. Ariane, if you are to lead this land, lead from freedom, and let us all thrive as we once did. Long before the settlers came, the Ganese were a rich people. We can have peace between us without an iron rule.” Habana stopped. She looked away. “I know I could be disappeared for these words, but my life is over soon anyhow. So, take these as my dying words, and use them as you must. Lower Earth is not one land. Lower Earth is a mosaic of its many peoples. We can govern ourselves and still have peace between us. It was once that way on this continent. Once upon a time. Before the Final War, before the Mist. I know that much has changed, but humanity, at its core, has not.”
Habana inhaled, deep but labored.
“Don’t say a word, blessed Ariane, just find a place for these ideas in your superior mind. I know you are running the probabilities already.”
Aria didn’t deny it. The scenarios ran through even as she tried to focus on Habana’s voice.
Habana’s wrinkled fingers came to Aria’s cheek.
“You will be a good queen, Ariane. I have seen it. Now leave. Tomorrow I could be gone. I won’t ask you to remember me, only the words I have spoken to you. Go now.”
Aria stood and slowly backed away from the little fire. Habana’s eyes stayed fixed on the line of smoke that danced from the embers of her burning rod.
The following day, Aria received a note that Habana had died. They had buried her in the night with silent warrior priestess custom. They hadn’t invited Aria to join.
21
Rhonda
Rhonda was eating her stew with a few of the other Central Tower cleaners, and it was bland as ever though they'd been told it was being fortified to meet nutritional value minimums. She was still riding the high of the blowout the night before. She hardly noticed another one had joined them until the woman spoke.
"Edna is gone."
Rhonda felt her head furrow as others around the table gasped. "Gone where?"
"I think she was... I think she's disappeared."
Rhonda choked on her food. "Edna? Why?"
"I'm sure it was something she said about last night."
Edna had been a little loose in the lips, but Rhonda couldn't believe that it would be sufficient for this. The blowouts were well known, an accepted secret that wasn't so secret. But Edna was always so chatty, chatty, chatty.
The woman put her tray down on the table and tucked close beside Rhonda. While the lunchroom in Central Tower was nowhere near full, she was pressed against Rhonda's left shoulder.
"Why Edna, why now?" one of the other women asked.
Rhonda couldn’t figure it out either. The blowouts violated no Directive, though many had wagered on whether there might one day be a call against them. Nothing obvious happened in them that could be labeled treachery, though any who attended knew boundaries were pushed right to the edge. They didn't know what that edge was, but in the searing underground heat, as they danced and rolled against the dirt walls, they felt it on each other’s breath. An unnamed desire. They would grab at each other in neither love nor violence, pulling into the other bodies and pushing away with the beat of the drums, their only music. That's why the don women had been put in place, after all. The beat of the seven drums rising and swirling around them and steam turning to sweat, and they danced and pulled and rolled and pushed until the sun threatened to rise on their walk home. There was no night watch in Geb city limits, that had long been abolished during the unification of cities, but Rhonda was sure there were eyes on them.
"Maybe there's an explanation," a woman said, jerking Rhonda out of her thoughts. "Maybe Edna’s just gone away."
Rhonda shook her head. "There's no other explanation, you know it as well as I do."
"Then what do we do?"
Nobody was eating anymore.
Rhonda paused wondering whether she was being alarmist or realist, "She's not coming back. There's nothing we can do." Rhonda turned to her food and forced a mouthful of mashed potatoes and parsnip down her throat. It felt like a boulder inside her, scraping and scratching as it went down and she had to rush a gulp of water to keep it all from coming back up.
"What we can do," she continued, "is make sure that during Uma's review we look like absolutely everyone else. Nothing different, not stand out, our work has to be good but not too good. Get it?"
The heads of the cleaners all nodded slowly. One of them asked, "Do you think someone from the Tower told on her?"
"Shut up," Rhonda hissed. "It doesn't matter. Someone obviously thought something of her, and we might never know who or why. It doesn't matter anyway." She stuffed more food in her mouth, and this time she swallowed it easily. "Don't speak of this."
"I won't."
"Me neither."
"Me too."
"Good. Now finish your lunches." Rhonda stood up sharply and unwound herself from the bench. She had to get away from this place, away from her thoughts. Away from Central Tower, if just for a few minutes before the review would begin.
Bursting out of the service doors into the garbage lot, Rhonda didn't care that the smell from the dumpsters was overwhelming. She sat down on the curb and tried to clear her mind.
So this time it was Edna to get disappeared. And how many before her? Rhonda had lost count. When would it be her turn to disappear? And where did they go anyway? Were they living well, wherever they were? Were they living at all? Rhonda figured there was only one way she would ever know the answers, and she hoped that day would never come.
In their world, there were those women who died in hospital, those who degraded at home, those who died of freak accidents, and then there were those who disappeared. Their absence created a vacuum. There wasn't one person in Geb who hadn't known someone who disappeared. A cold rush always ran down Rhonda's back during the Tuesday Briefings when the Queen made reference to the care of those who had been "moved out to other shores" according to the Direc
tive.
Where is that shore, Rhonda wondered as the wafts from the bin overpowered her senses.
She took in a big breath and thought of her former neighbor. It was when she disappeared that Rhonda started noticing just how pervasive the disappearance had become. The neighbor woman had always been so kind, quick to smile. Rhonda thought perhaps she'd seen madness behind the woman's eyes, for they would open so wide that the whites flashed at her, and she rarely spoke a word above a whisper. She'd vanished on a perfect summer day. Something must have been wrong with her. She must have been taken for her own safety. But Rhonda wasn't sure.
Rhonda had always been content with her situation. Being a Central Tower cleaner came with perks: good hours, a sense of contribution, extra time off after the week of productivity. Before she'd started questioning what she saw around her, Rhonda had been perfectly happy to continue her days in a comfortable routine. She used to feel a sense of pride and awe at how far they had come since the settlers first came.
But not anymore. It was like a veneer had worn off and Rhonda was starting to see what was underneath. The settlers couldn't have wanted this for them, they couldn't have wanted to see members of their society cast away just because they danced a little too long in the night, or because they had an exclusive friendship, or because they questioned the direction the Queen was leading them.
Save me, settlers. But the Queen cannot be justified in this. She has no right to pluck Edna away like a common criminal. How can this possibly be right?
The question plagued her and there was no one to ask. Even if there were someone, the risk of asking hardly seemed worth it.
A shiver ran down Rhonda's spine and she grasped at the amulet.
This is not the time, she told herself. I've got to get to my position for the review. And I've got to keep my head down.
