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

by Eden Wolfe

  Please let her not be on the list. Please, please.

  The guard shuffled through the pages.

  Please, she can't be there, not after everything we've risked. Not with her being so close. What would the virus do to the baby? Please tell me she's -

  "No Anna on the list. Not of any line."

  All the blood drained from Trudith's head and she thought she might faint from relief.

  She smiled, trying to keep it small, trying not to draw attention. These kind, polite guards were putting it on. Best not to catch their attention. She'd seen them at their worst.

  "Thank you, sorry to trouble you."

  She turned, feeling the guard’s eyes on her as she left.

  Don't turn around, Trudith. Don't do it. Don't let her see you.

  She pushed open the door to the pub and Anna rushed at her. "What is it? What's happening? Why are they so quiet? Why are the guards so quiet?"

  Trudith explained as much as she could.

  "Is it true?" Anna's face turned into doubt. "How could it be that there's so many more with the virus than they thought? We give our blood weekly. They could have caught it sooner."

  "Maybe they didn't know what they were looking for. Maybe this is something completely new." Trudith didn't believe a word out of her own mouth, but she wasn't about to let Anna know that.

  "What do we do, Trude?"

  Trudith thought about it. She'd been thinking about it ever since the woman on the caravan gave her a wave that felt like a forever goodbye.

  "We're going to have to leave, Anna."

  "Leave? How can we leave? Leave. You say it like we just walk out the gate like it was any other day."

  "We'll ask Lucius."

  "Yes, we should ask Lucius."

  They walked out of the pub without another word.

  They avoided walking through the main square by taking side roads, but they could see into the activity from each street as they passed. A woman was climbing into the caravan.

  They must have sent another. How many have gone already? It's all been done so quietly.

  But a woman in the square was not so quiet. She was pulling on an older woman's arm as the older woman tried to climb into the caravan.

  "Don't go! Don't get in there, Ba! It's a trick, it's all a trick!"

  "Let go of me, dear. I have to go. It's to protect you and the others."

  "No, I don't believe it! They said children only. Please!"

  Three guards stood by, watching the scene with their arms clasped behind their back. They watched closely, attentively, but they didn't intervene. Still, Trudith could see that they would if they had to.

  The caravan clicked into movement, the horses pulling ahead. The younger woman threw herself at the caravan. Letting herself drag behind it as the old woman halfheartedly swatted at her.

  "Go, girl. You'll be fine. I'll get better. We all will. You let go now."

  "I'm not letting go! I'm not letting go!" Her feet dragged in the dirt as the horse picked up their pace.

  A guard was suddenly there, her large body leaning over like a crane, dislodging the woman from the caravan. The woman screamed and kicked, but the guard had a solid hold on her.

  "Don't go! It's a trick! Ba! Wait!"

  Trudith and Anna watched as the guard finally put the wailing woman down. Her legs crumpled underneath her as she sobbed in the middle of the square.

  Several other older women were already being gathered on the other side, waiting for the next caravan.

  "Come on," Trudith took Anna's arm and they moved faster in the direction of the Twenty-Ninth alleyway.

  Trudith saw the apartment just ahead of them, the strange studio that had been built into a wall. It looked more like a garbage enclosure than the place where someone lived.

  Lucius will not be happy we're here. He'll have some harsh words for us. But things are changing. He must have seen it too. Or maybe he hasn't yet. I'll tell him. He'll know what to do.

  Trudith felt a rock in her stomach as they approached the studio.

  The door was open a crack.

  Trudith pushed it open, revealing the studio apartment in complete shambles. The bed overturned, every drawer and cupboard open. The place wasn't big, but it had been turned inside out.

  And Lucius was nowhere to be seen.

  40

  Roman

  Roman opened his eyes, the sense of dread heavier than the wool blanket under which he now slept. He got shivers in the night, his whole body trembling, shocking him out of deep sleep. Then it was sweats. Then he was somewhere between the two, alternating between a sense of frozen hell and blazing like he was too close to the sun.

  He inhaled the sight of the rising morning, his chest pushing against the blanket, though it felt like there was an anvil in the middle of his gut.

  But he had to get up.

  At least of that much he was sure. He had to get up. Get dressed. Make himself presentable. That's what a Great Geneticist does. And he was the Great Geneticist.

  If only being clean-shaven and persistent were enough to succeed.

  He'd felt the limits of his intellect. It was a dark place. He arrived there and knew it had to go further, but all color and substance turned to black. He needed insight, he needed to see consequences, he needed to apply previous sequences to overwrite the failing ones. And he couldn't do it. He knew the answers were there, sometimes he caught a glimpse of an idea, but it never came fully into view.

  And they were all suffering because of it.

  If only we'd focused our attention on solving all the crop killers. Or even on combatting the Elgin bacteria. If we had sorted out the water shortages, then we wouldn't be in this position, desperate to design a population that can withstand a world we allowed to become uninhabitable.

  He ate his breakfast because he had to. His body needed the nutrition. Already he was starting to see the signs of degradation. He'd been lucky so far. Born in a generation where they still had something like a fifty-fifty chance of survival to age fifty.

  The symmetry wasn't lost on him. And he was fast approaching his expiry date. He turned the lava rock around his fingertips.

  Why don't I just let it all fall apart? Why don't I just let go and watch them figure it out for themselves? Maybe they don't need me at all. I could live out my last years in the Dark Counties, watching the ocean crash against cliffs in peaceful solitude.

  As if she would let me. Maeva never would have allowed it, and Ariane won't either. They are indeed too much the same, even if Ariane is the more pragmatic one. At least with Maeva, I never questioned her motives.

  The flute played on as Roman slipped his feet into his shoes. They were too tight. He took his foot out and looked at it, compared it with the other.

  Swollen. Maybe it's the sweats?

  Or maybe it's degradation coming for me at last.

  He shoved his feet into his shoes and pushed the thought out of his mind. Mary would shortly be announcing everyone into positions. He headed to the Tower.

  Uma met him in the lobby as he walked through the swinging glass door.

  "Finally. Had a leisurely morning? I've been waiting for you for an hour."

  Roman rubbed his forehead. He needed to get to his office and review the files. He'd decided on his way to focus on the Elgin bacteria. If they could counter that, then some of the other after-effects could be mitigated. Until the Queen called him in, hopefully because Lucius had returned, he would stay focused on the things he always should have prioritized.

  "I'll call for you later, Uma. I have other things on my mind right now."

  "You have to come with me."

  "Not now."

  Uma's voice changed. It lost the edge. "No, you're not understanding me, Roman. We have to go. The Queen has called for us."

  Roman felt a jolt through his body. "Called? For us?"

  "We have to go."

  "Yes, yes, of course."

  Uma led him back out the door he'd
just walked through and into the main city square. People were buzzing in every direction.

  Mary's face dominated every street corner, her voice filling the air. "Clear skies and sun in Geb today, temperatures warmer than usual but with a fresh northerly breeze," Roman tried to block it out. "Settler's Day next week should be a glorious one! Hold your lava rock close, we will remember with solemnity and celebration our first peoples who arrived and the gift of life they bestowed on us. Their sacrifice gave us what we needed most then, and resulted in our savior today - the Queen! We will give thanks!"

  They were waved in through the front gate of the fortress and arrived in the main hall, where Irene was waiting for them.

  "I was waiting for him," Uma said lowly. "He didn't know about the summons."

  Irene looked down on Uma, her body seeming to stretch even taller. Roman tilted his head up to see her, arms crossed, brow furrowed.

  She turned and walked away, "Come with me."

  Irene led them down a series of corridors, deep into the fortress.

  We must be within the cliff now, there are no windows.

  Moisture beaded on the stone. Irene opened a door to a stairwell heading down. She had to duck to avoid hitting the entryway, though Uma and Roman passed without difficulty.

  Two or three stories down, Roman couldn't tell how far they'd gone as there was no light to guide them, Irene turned onto a landing. She opened another door which led to yet another corridor. Roman took a deep breath and tried to calm his growing sense of dread.

  Another door opened and light burst out from inside, Roman blinked in temporary blindness. He could make out a figure at the other end of the large room, but he couldn't tell if it was human or animal.

  And then his eyes adjusted.

  He spoke but only air came out, "Lucius?"

  "He has three days," Irene turned back to Roman and Uma.

  "Three days before what?" Uma asked.

  "Three days to solve the incubate - problem."

  "What happens after three days?" It sounded like Uma didn't want to ask it, but did anyway.

  Irene didn't answer. She turned to Lucius. "Would you sit up?"

  It was a command, not a question.

  Lucius was sat on a chair but hunched far forward, his head resting on the mass of his gut. His shoulders looked so small by comparison. Roman remembered when Lucius used to stand tall, his shoulders strong, athletic. Now they were scrawny, stunted against the rest of his body that had expanded wider than his shoulders had ever been. Despite his size, he looked frail. Breakable.

  Lucius lifted his head.

  "Roman. Well, isn't this a delightful reunion of Lower Earth's greatest minds."

  Three days. We’ve got three days. Impossible.

  Roman watched Lucius working.

  They'd been given a different room in the fortress. Roman hadn't had to insist much with Irene. A dungeon hardly seemed the right place for a scientific breakthrough. Instead, they were in a kind of turret room having climbed no less than five stories of stairs. Roman had worried Lucius might have a heart attack right there and fall backward like a boulder onto all of them who followed.

  But he didn't.

  Their room was small. A table, two chairs. Two windows. And a chamber pot. One story below was an even smaller room with a single mattress on the floor. Lucius' quarters. A far cry from his previous quarters in the fortress when he'd been the Great Geneticist.

  When Roman had taken over the title, he hadn't been invited to move into Lucius' old chambers. And he was just as glad for it. He wouldn't have been able to refuse, but he had no desire to be any closer to the Queen than he had to be.

  Uma arrived from Central Tower, her third trip of the morning, her arms again full of reports. She dropped them on the floor in the corner, which was still within arm's reach for Roman from his seat at the table.

  "I think that's it. Everything that's relevant anyway."

  Roman nodded, but she didn't leave. "You're not going to stand there for three days, are you?"

  "Orders are to remain at hand. In case you need anything."

  "Can't they send a messenger?"

  Uma pursed her lips and tilted her head.

  "Right, we shouldn't involve anyone else."

  "What am I going to do anyway?" Uma whispered, "It's not like I can get anything done while the two of you are up here."

  "Would you shut up?" Lucius lifted his head from the page of code, magnifying glass in hand. "I'm trying to concentrate on something rather important here."

  "You should go out, Uma. Just go down a floor or two maybe."

  "Here," Lucius passed him a page of code, "Find the gene anomaly responsible for the lymph system decompression. If you're smart, you'll see what's missing. I can't believe you didn't catch it before. And you, shoo." Lucius waved Uma away, and she went.

  "She's on our side," Roman closed the door.

  "I don't have a side."

  Roman did the initial scan of each page before passing it to Lucius. Hopeful he might catch something they didn't see before. Inevitably, Lucius was waiting for him on each pass.

  "What about that girl?" Lucius asked as Roman reviewed the code’s arterial resistance.

  "What girl?"

  "The one you sent to me."

  "Sara?"

  "That's the one."

  "What about her?"

  "Where is she?"

  Roman looked up. "Gone."

  "Gone?"

  "Leaked secrets."

  "You believe that?"

  "She could have. She had secrets to tell." Roman had his suspicions. Why would Sara go to Cork Town with forged papers? Was it really to participate in meetings of backroom women? Could she have started a riot, and would she have? It wasn't her way.

  But Lucius - she could have gone to see Lucius again. Roman didn't know why, but Lucius could have convinced her to do something for him. Lucius always had a way of getting what he wanted.

  "I suppose we all have secrets," was all Lucius said before turning back to the code. "Move faster, I'm ready for the next one. Three days won't be enough if you keep slowing me down.”

  It was well past midnight when Lucius rose without a word, his half-eaten dinner mixed with the sequences for eyesight and amylase enzyme production. Roman heard him struggle down the stairs.

  "Go home," he heard Lucius say to Uma before closing the door to the little bedroom.

  Roman descended. He and Uma left the fortress together without saying a word.

  Roman arrived back at the fortress before sunrise. Lucius was already up in the room. Pages were everywhere. He found sequences for hair color mixed with structures of metabolizing factors. It was a complete mess, except that he knew Lucius knew what he was doing. If he discarded something, then there was nothing in it.

  "Good morning," Roman said quietly.

  "Is it? Get to it already. Seems your work ethic has slipped since becoming the Great Geneticist. When you were under my watch, you always showed up before me."

  "Not always." Roman heard the sound of his voice like some kind of rebellious adolescent. Lucius looked up from the magnifying glass. Clearly, he'd heard it too.

  Roman took his seat.

  Lucius tossed a page his way. "Review the correlation between the fourteenth gene and the equivalent gene on chromosome four."

  "This page only has the gene sequence."

  Lucius didn't respond.

  "Where's the exon-entron structure?"

  "Over there." Lucius waved his hand toward the wall. Under the window was a stack of papers. Roman let out a sigh before seeing that it was right on top.

  At first glance, there was no evidence of any relationship to the overlapping genes from the incubates. It appeared unrelated. "These two? But I can't - "

  "You can. Just look closer. Or maybe farther. Now shush, I'm working."

  "Morning," Uma whispered through the door.

  "I said I'm working! Can't I get a damn minute of sile
nce in here?" He beat his fist on the table. "Maybe you don't realize that I have a lot riding on the next thirty-six or so hours." He lowered his voice, "So please, please, let me concentrate."

  Roman set into the gene sequence and representative views of the three-dimensional protein structure.

  What did he see, and why don't I see it? How is it that Lucius can seek it out like a hound while I don't even know what I'm hunting?

  The self-doubt felt metallic in his mouth.

  And then he saw it.

  The correlation was weak on first look, but the more Roman looked at it, the more the evident it became. The opening window of the sequence seemed to have the same attributes as the ending phase. Overlapping, but only in those two phases. It didn't seem likely that this finding was related to their current problem, but it was nonetheless valuable. If the incubates were to go through adolescence with this correlation in their genes, there could have been other consequences they hadn't yet adapted for, since it would be exacerbated during puberty. Likely an immune response that would attack the body.

  Without Lucius, the sequence they’d created could have left them with further genetic illness among the incubates in ten years. Now they could treat it.

  "Unbelievable that we missed this." Roman looked up from the page. "Unbelievable that you found it. How did you..."

  "Don't ask. This is my first gift to your incubate debauchery."

  Roman had Uma bring over other sequences of the Willing Woman program to compare and by early afternoon he'd identified at least four other designs with the anomaly.

  Including the Gillard line.

  The Queen will be very pleased about this. We should have done something sooner with the Gillards, assessed why some lines had normal levels of longevity while others prematurely degraded. But it was never a priority. If we had known the link across other designs -

  How much have we missed?

  Roman's mind raced. If the Willing Woman program, with all its controls in place, could still have what could only be attributed to 'human error' in the sequence processing, then it was no wonder they were downright failing with the crop killers.