by Eden Wolfe
A flash of Edna’s long brown wavy hair popped up in Rhonda's memory. Edna had the loveliest hair. It always had this waft of spring flowers when she'd turn her head and it would all fly around her face. Then she'd break out in a wide smile and laugh at you for being completely transfixed in the vision of her. She had been beautiful. Edna had been exceptionally beautiful.
I'm already thinking of her as though she's dead.
Rhonda didn't let this thought last another second. She whipped her head up from her crossed arms so quickly that her eyes saw stars. Not allowing another word to enter her mind, she silently opened the service door and walked to her station with the other cleaners.
22
Isaac
It was the same dream. It came in seasons. The first few times it came, Isaac didn't understand. It was during his training that it all came to light, the instincts that, in his design at least, hadn't been as successfully repressed. Most scientists believed sexual impulse had long been tamed by the Mist and by intentional design in genetic code to suppress. But they were so very wrong.
Isaac was the proof.
His recurring dream never let him forget it. In the dream, he's in a warm place and everything is good. It all feels good. The air, the sun, and there's water, an ocean or sea or maybe a large lake, it doesn't matter which it is. Life is good and he's feeling good and the world has that glow like it only does in dreams.
She appears, this apparition with dark hair and green eyes, voice like honey and she smiles at him.
Like every time, it gets erect, it's inevitable - she's beautiful and they are the only people on the planet and she's smiling just for him. There's no Mist, no Final War, nothing. And there's no one, except them.
She's in his arms and they do something he doesn't even know how to do, his face against hers. He takes her and he feels her and finds everything as he must, and she's beautiful and she loves him, and he loves her. She wraps her arms around him, logistically impossible given the size of his gut.
But this is a dream, and in a dream everything is possible.
They lie entwined and he knows, he just knows that at last he has planted in her the child, the boy child, the one who will turn it all around.
As happens in a dream, it's months later, and she's giving birth and he's there and it's coming, the boy is coming, finally, and he has pride bursting out his ears, his eyes, the top of his head. The baby is coming, he's arriving!
No.
It's a she.
It's a girl. Impossible.
The green eyes laugh at him, pitying him.
"Oh, poor thing, this baby was planted long before you took me. But I still cared for you, don't worry, you did well. It's just that - procreation – poor thing, you'll never be able to do that. And certainly not a boy. You know that." And then she whispers, "Reckless man. As all men ever were. Reckless."
Reckless.
It echoes in his head even as he awakes in sweat.
Maybe I should be satisfied I get to dream of it at all.
But then, in real life, he still hadn’t figured out how to make his body work as it should. All he had to do was figure out how to code it. How to make a male body, any male body, work as it should.
That was his scientific imperative, his raison d’être, but he was still so far from any kind of success.
It's finite. All finite. And we live the effects from generations ago.
He poured himself hot coffee and burned his tongue.
It goes much deeper than that. Come on, Isaac. There’s a sick riddle in this. A targeted biological attack from generations ago. The riddle is that the Mist never killed desire nor sense of biological purpose. Only the ability to make it happen.
He took out the toast, burning his fingers on the scalding half-black bread.
Another day, trying to make this damned thing work.
He took in a big sigh. Isaac's optimism never let him down. The dream reminded him of why, one day, he wanted to see that child. It could come out of anywhere, he didn't care. It didn't have to be his own gene matter, just a boy that was all his doing.
One day, just let it be before I degrade completely.
He pulled out the cold fried chicken from the previous night and ate it in his shorts.
The doorbell interrupted him, startling him out of his thoughts. It had only ever rung twice before, and that had been in emergencies.
Work emergencies.
Hardly anyone cared where he lived, only those who watched and documented his every move as a member of the backrooms, and that didn't count.
He opened the door, his heart pounding.
"We've got to move fast," Adam's voice pierced in a sharp whisper before Isaac could even say hello.
"I'm coming." Isaac threw the day-old chicken into a paper bag, the paper bag into his briefcase, squeezed into a pair of trousers, and was out the door in less than a minute.
The conversation was not going well. Adam had laid out all the code across his desk, but Isaac could not get a sane answer out of him.
"Why this one, why now?"
"It's different."
"They're all different, that's why they are experiments."
"This one has a variance."
"We've seen that before. It's called a disease, damn it."
"No, not like this! Isaac, Isaac. I'm telling you. I think we should get the backroom men involved."
"You're not telling me a damn thing. I don't know where your head is at. Or maybe I do, don't think I haven't noticed what's been happening around here."
Adam paused. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Do you think you're suddenly going to break through?" He stepped closer to Adam, trying to look through his eyes and figure out what was going on behind them. "Do you think you're the one who is finally going to have the right answer when everyone, every single one of us has gotten it wrong so far?"
"No, that has nothing - "
"You think this will make you some kind of hero, Adam?"
"No."
"And what about Sara?"
"What about her? Isaac, this is crazy."
"You're the crazy one, Adam. You want to birth a freak, if that's even possible, if it can possibly survive until full term, and you want to do it in secret? You can’t bring the backroom men in for this, you’ll get us all disappeared."
"Isaac, it's viable." He waited. "It's the first time it's viable. Isn't that what we're here for?" He got closer to Isaac. "Isn't this the whole reason for any of this? And more than that, I’ve already swapped out the sequence. We can get a Willing Woman for it."
"How do you know?”
"Crynal phenotype."
"In the Willing Woman Program? I doubt it."
“We can get one.”
“Only if someone is looking the other way.”
“Someone will. And now that we have the gestation period to fewer than four months, we can make this work.”
“This is reckless, Adam.” The word echoed in Isaac’s brain. Reckless man.
Adam crossed the room to the window. The morning sun was just breaking over the hill behind the fortress and the light streamed in. Isaac stared at the back of Adam's head, trying to figure out what was going on inside it.
Adam turned around, his face red. "By your logic, why do we even bother? Ultimately, we're just running hamsters on wheels waiting for our time to die. Do you want to die, Isaac? I don't, not yet. This is our chance, Isaac." He walked close to him and whispered, "We're not the only ones. Lucius is operational."
“Lucius?” Isaac shook his head.
"He is. He's been in his own makeshift lab in Cork Town, but he hasn’t stopped."
"The Great Geneticist won’t be interested in our little project."
"He will be interested. In fact, he wants intel. From us."
"How do you know?"
“There’s a girl who told me, a Cork Town girl with red hair.”
Isaac didn’t ask; he didn’t want to
know what a Cork Town girl was doing by coming to Adam. The Cork Town oddballs were unpredictable on a good day.
But Lucius – this was an advancement indeed. They hadn’t seen the Great Geneticist in Central Tower in years, but Isaac should have guessed that he had just gone quiet. Lucius had always been eccentric. There was no predicting his next move. Certainly not since he’d degraded so badly.
"Lucius. Fine. And what does Lucius have to say about 4957?"
"That's what I'm going to find out. But I'm not going to have long. There's no time to do any of this. Uma will know, she'll double-check, above all, on 4957. I’ve already switched it out, but we’ve got to find the Willing Woman and have the other sample prepared. I can’t do it. Too suspicious. I already sorted out the former dossier."
"You want me to get in the way of Uma's reputation? Does it look like I have a career death wish? Never mind career, she'll have me disappeared."
"You have to do it quickly, sometime in the next few hours."
"You've gone nuts."
"Do this, Isaac. I'll set it all up. You just have to make the call. Call it a paperwork delay or mix up on an assignment or I don't care what! Figure it out!" Adam threw down the file on his desk, grabbing the single page of code sitting on top. "I'll leave in twenty minutes. I'll be back before lunch. Then we'll have our answer."
"You're not giving me much choice."
"Of course I am, it's just that there's only one choice you can make."
Adam didn't wait for him to reply, he was gone.
23
Adam
Adam couldn't hide his shock when he saw Lucius, spread out on the bed like a carcass, naked but for the wet sheets sticking to his living corpse.
"Who's there? I'm not expecting any visitors and I don't want any."
He stood silent, the lump in his stomach was getting bigger.
"Who the hell is it?"
"Adam, sir. Adam of the first line, from Central Tower."
"Ah, Adam of the first line. Well, this is a surprise."
Adam noticed a shock of red hair that was peeking out from behind the bathroom door. She backed away, having been caught watching.
"It's okay, sweetheart,” Lucius told her, “You remember Adam. Just as well you pay this man no mind. I have important things to discuss with him." Adam glanced at the folder in his hands, and when he looked up, she was gone. Adam looked around the room, sure there was no exit but the door behind him.
"So, Adam of the first line from Central Tower, you are a long way from home."
Adam raced ahead, "You were the only one I could come to, with all we've got moving ahead, and I didn't know if I could trust anyone, so I - "
"Hey now, hey now. You've only just arrived."
Adam felt heat rising up the back of his neck. This had to go to plan, and he was blowing it.
"What makes you think I'm the one you can trust?" Lucius sat up in bed and Adam watched the rolling fat glide down his chest, creating waves that bounced into each other as sweat glistened in the movement. He tried not to stare.
"Don't you mind all this," and Lucius threw off the sheet, his legs touching from hip to knee in wide angles, the head of his penis emerging from somewhere between stomach and thighs, the shaft of it abnormally large, but the rest was still hidden deep underneath it all. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
"I've found an anomaly."
"You don't say."
"I think it could be viable."
"That's not very likely, or if it is, it's likely not very important."
"I think this one could be."
"Why would you think that?"
Adam pulled out the summary sheet of sequence and passed it to Lucius, noticing suddenly that his shallow breath was echoing in his head.
Lucius tossed the sheet to the floor. "What do you want me to do with this?"
"Can't you just look at it? Tell me what you see?"
"I see a bunch of work that isn't mine to do anymore."
"You're the Great Geneticist!"
Lucius laughed. "What age are you living in, son? Look around you! Look at me!"
Adam dropped his head shaking it, slowly. He had to move the conversation on.
But Lucius insisted. "I said, look at me. Don't you see what I see when I look in the mirror? A giant slab of what used to be a man, don’t you think? Look at my tits, look at my chicken wings of arms-"
"Lucius - "
"You come to my home, asking for help, and the only thing I'm asking in return is that you look me in the eye, that you see what I've become – what we all become. What you’ll become, Adam. Look at me and control the panic rising in your throat. I’m asking that you look me in the eye, with all of this, and still say, ‘Lucius, I need you.’"
This was going all wrong, all wrong and the panic of it squeezed at Adam's lungs. He couldn't breathe. They were so close, just on the edge of it. But Lucius was the key.
He raised his head, catching Lucius' eye. What was it that he saw there - yearning? Lucius was begging him. The Great Geneticist, he’d been tall, dark, broad-shouldered, and admired across the land. And brilliant. Lucius had been the one to turn the Tower onto the right path. Everyone in Lower Earth knew it, though no one knew what had become of him. Adam now understood that even the Great Geneticist could not stop what would happen to every man in Lower Earth. Decay, degradation, death.
Here they were, each begging the other. One begging for acceptance, the other for help.
It didn't seem much a price to pay.
"I see you, Lucius."
They held each other with their eyes for a good while, two men sweating in the heat of the day, the hum of the generator, and a single fan between them. They stayed this way while the moments passed, both settling into each other. Adam felt it was so close. He was so close.
Lucius dropped his eyes.
"Let me see this sequence."
Adam let out a long breath and collected it from where it had blown to in the corner of the room. He didn't have to go far; the apartment was stiflingly small.
Lucius glanced it over.
"I can't tell anything from this."
"The sequence is all there."
"Are you listening to me? This sequence is useless."
Adam felt the heat rising again up his neck. "Do I have to point it out to you?" They were going in circles. This man whose reputation had once been as the most capable, the savior of the people of Lower Earth, and all Adam could think about was how infuriating his decaying former hero really was.
24
Lucius
“Are you listening to me? This sequence is useless.” Lucius tried to hide his mockery, layer it over with genuine disdain, give no sign of the amusement underneath. He had to get Adam to the threshold.
"Do I have to point it out to you?" Adam shouted at him.
I can’t let up on him, not now. Can’t let him see that I’m egging him on.
"There is no point, Adam of the first line from Central Tower." And again Lucius tossed the sheet into the fan's breeze.
"Please, Lucius, please! I've never begged for anything, not like this. You've got to consider this, at least." He whispered tightly: "Please."
And there it was, what Lucius had waited for, taunting and tempting. Adam's fear rose from deep within him, and his brown eyes flashed blue. Bluer than the sea, bluer than the skies, a shifting blue that Lucius had never seen in anyone or anything else. Lucius pulled in the corners of his mouth to hide his glee. God, this boy was beautiful. He'd gotten it right when he planted that anomaly. He did not doubt it. He hung suspended in that momentary blue beauty before breaking his own trance.
He let out a false sigh. "I see what you see, but you need to learn something here, Adam. Context. This is meaningless without context. Have you got the full file?"
He watched Adam's eyes grow wider. His brown eyes, now settled.
“I’m working on it right now.”
"Come back here with the full file.
"
He watched Adam close his eyes and exhale. "Okay." He took in a deep breath, nodded gently, and turned to leave.
"Adam - "
Adam stopped, the door open, halfway between worlds, and Lucius wanted it to last just a little longer. He sought a reason.
The idea struck him. Perfect opportunity. Adam could make it happen.
"I want to see the Green Files. Bring them with you when you come."
Adam again nodded, seemingly unsurprised, only an eyebrow raised. Lucius guessed his motivation was transparent. The Green Files had been his idea after all. It was only normal he'd want to know how the Male Program had progressed.
Lucius pretended to be resting when Adam came back. He muttered something to Adam about leaving the files on the table and he’d contact him later. Just as well, he wasn't sure what to say to him next. So-called 4957 was an easy analysis. It was the Green Files he needed to see.
Flipping through the pages, he felt like he was running into brick wall after brick wall. On the surface it looked simple enough, it all looked to be in place. And yet, Lucius couldn't put his finger on it.
"They're missing something here," he muttered to himself. "Where are the reflections reported?"
It seemed almost intentional, this omission. It was just complex enough that a beginner could conceivably skip it by accident. A more senior researcher might gloss it over, dismiss it as erroneous, or just let it slide.
But Lucius knew how pivotal it was, could tell just by looking. It screamed at him from the page.
Letters and numbers blended into a story, he moved from file to file, desperate, the despair rising with each passing minute now, the absence too glaring for him, like a bridge that crosses half a river.
The papers were flying through his little apartment; he didn't bother trying to keep them in order, he flung one after the other into the air, mounting frustration, he scanned each string of code with the eyes of a fox in the night. Homozygous dominant, homozygous recessive - none of that mattered. What mattered was missing.
