by Eden Wolfe
She could recollect many of those first moments, if not in words then in shapes, colors, feelings. She did not need language to understand.
She scanned over Geb, only small signs of life from the occasional ground floor apartment of a new Willing Mother or guard on watch.
Otherwise, she was alone. Alone. Always alone.
She remembered.
Even in those first hours of life, the circumstance of her birth was written into her consciousness. The history that ran in her veins had told her something was wrong.
Her situation was wrong. She was born wrong.
She remembered lying on her back, disdain at the state of her body, so new in its life that she could not get it to operate as she knew it must. She lifted her hands in the darkness but they hit glass above her. Glass beside her. Glass surrounding her but for the cushion under her body.
She was a prisoner. Held against her will. Held away from her mother. Where was the world she was promised? The world she’d been imagining for months enclosed in darkness? The darkness had promised her, promised her a world that would serve her and that she in return would serve.
But now she was held captive, enclosed, broken from the world of her dream from a fabricated in-utero phase.
Hate flooded in, filling the glass box.
She hated the world. Minutes from her false birth from a false womb, and already she understood that everything had been empty promises from ancient blood. Voices that weren’t her own running through her veins. Her mother’s voice, but no mother’s body.
She had been grown like a plant. An animal. Bacteria. She had been cultured and evolved on the whim of someone more powerful than she. But who? Who would wield such power over a babe? Who would decide a life’s trajectory before the child was even born?
Unnatural birth, they must have known the consequences.
As such the newborn child was able to make herself understand without words.
They have done this to me, she understood through sensation. They want me to suffer. They designed me to suffer. All sensation, no words.
It continued, feelings melding into ideas until finally she found specific words, words which she spoke in her head:
I will not.
They have no power over me, no control. I will not allow them. I have come from the stock of Queens, but I will be the one to break this history. I am them, but I am not like them.
She beat at the box. Hands too small, too weak for their function. She willed her body to grow faster, but her brain knew she would be limited by her human course of aging.
The box was suddenly cold. Frigid. She shivered and then resented her body’s slavery to physiology.
How dare she be limited in this way. How dare they create her inferior.
She would show them.
She would show all of them.
You can design the Queen but you cannot predict her reign.
Her time would come. She awaited it. And when it came, then she would show them all what she was made of. That which she alone was made of. She felt a hardening around her heart, an imagined steel encasement in her infant self. Perhaps it had been there from the start, perhaps it had been designed in. She ran her awareness around her organs, paying closer attention than she had when she had been within her false utero, remarking its abilities. Noting its limitations.
And still, she was alone.
Do they not assign me a carer? Do they care for me at all? Am I to fend for myself even in these initial days?
If that is how it must be then so be it, but this body is not ready to fulfill its calling. Someone had better come to care for me, and fast. Or else, I swear this on my ancient blood, they will all live to regret it.
As she thought it, two hands lifted the dark covering from the glass box. She saw on the other side her own face in many years’ time.
Her mother.
False mother.
The glass case had birthed her, not this genetic duplicate.
But the face, her face on her mother’s body, was wound in pain and regret. Written so boldly across the brow and the cheeks that there was no question of the expression’s meaning.
Babe she was, she could not yet speak, not aloud. Vocal cords as yet undeveloped for that purpose. She again cursed her newborn body.
Her older face spoke, “So this is the incubation-born Queen Child.” Head cocked to the side, “And what do you have in store for us, Ariane? What unique ability, what benefit of your separate birth, what meaning will you give to it?” The face leaned in, lips nearly touching the glass. “I, too, was born in a box. I imagine you shall suffer the same as I did.”
The face moved away. She watched as the grown woman took a few hesitant steps away from the box before turning back to look at her.
“I suppose this is our fate. Our indentured servitude. Welcome to Lower Earth, child. Just remember, no one here is your friend. There is no love in this land that people like you and I can truly experience. Our love must be for the earth, for our own two feet that walk upon it. Do not fall into the trap of believing that anyone here is on your side.”
Ariane came back into her adult body. A Queen’s body. Back on the cliff, overlooking the city.
She felt the blanket of night, her velvet cape enveloping her. The few city lights shone like beacons. Glowing reminders of all the lives within the city’s borders. All the lives dependent on her. All the lives that belonged to her.
I may be a servant to this world. But they will all serve me until the day they die. That’s how we find balance in the land. That’s how…
The sound of metal grinding on metal stopped her thought cold.
Ariane’s eyes snapped to the place, away from the horizon, away from the city and the country that she would make love her. She zoomed in on the square below. A body emerged from the ground, and another, and another. Ants from an anthill.
And so the Sisters come.
I always knew they would. It was only a matter of time before the Sisters would try to undermine everything I’ve created.
Let them come. They will see how Queen Ariane leads. They shall see Queen Ariane in all her benevolence and all her righteous fury.
Ariane was in no rush. She let the night pass, an ear turned toward the Tower. She went when necessary, inviting Daphna back to a prison cell for the night.
Ariane settled in her chambers.
Their actions are predictable. Daphna’s asking for support, Uma is rejecting it, Daphna is making a case, Uma acts like she’s uninterested. Let them continue in their mutual mind games. When they come to me, they will speak directly and explicitly. I will not endure their sparring for position.
Ariane knew they would stay for days or weeks. The others from the sewer group could stay in the prison. As for the rest, whenever they came to the capital, Ariane would call for them. And not before. And when she called, she would make sure they came. Irene would see to it.
Irene.
Ariane continued about her day from her chambers, her mind far away but her body enclosed behind the heavy wooden door. I was so confident that Irene would transfer her love from my mother to me. She obeys, she fulfills my every request, but as for love? I do not see in her eyes the same she had for Mother. Do I not deserve it? Have I not given her everything she’s asked for? If she weren’t so obsessed with the condition of the Ganese… If she could extend herself a little bit further than her own ancestral blood… But then again, could I do it if she asked the same of me?
She had confidence in Irene, but too many questions without answers. Ariane loathed those questions. Questions with no answer only served to emphasize the limits of her human ability. And the only thing she hated more than questions were limits.
If only Irene loved me as Gale had loved me. If only Gale hadn’t been so stupid in her love as to believe she could change me.
Ariane closed her eyes. She could picture Gale before her, her sideways smile that Ariane knew was a genetic flaw and yet somehow d
rew her closer into Gale’s world. Gale had lived in such a beautiful world. A world of light and innocence. A friendship, kinship, communion. Ariane had envied it. She envied it to that very day, even in Gale’s absence.
There was a black hole inside Ariane that she didn’t know existed, didn’t know could exist. It was a hole that had once been filled by Gale’s love.
If only Irene could have that same love for me.
But Ariane knew it wasn’t possible. Gale’s love came from something deep within her. How she suspended her judgment, how she laughed when Ariane expected her to anger.
Perhaps they were flaws in Gale’s design; perhaps Gale was nothing more than a genetic deviant. But I would have loved her forever if she had stayed.
How could she leave me like that, when I needed her so badly? She knew it, too. She knew I needed her.
Eyes wide open in the present day, Ariane could see the memory of Gale again walking out on her. Her back as she closed the door, not even turning her face to give a goodbye. Gale didn’t know it was for the last time. But Ariane would show her. She did show her.
No one left the Queen.
No one abandoned the Queen.
All who dared would meet the same fate.
Whether mother or sister or best friend.
Ariane had made them all pay, every single one of them.
But now, who was she left with? A Commandante who fulfilled her bidding like a dog. A Great Geneticist who was more tattletale than leader. The Queen’s Guard. Yes, she still had the Queen’s Guard. Their dedication was unmatched, their skill unequaled.
But they were genetically disposed to it. They did not love her.
And what of that disfigured, shameful excuse of a sister-self? She who had shown her misshapen face on Ariane’s coronation day, and never since?
And the Strangelands sister-self? That Ariane ran off with her tail between her legs. As expected. That one had only ever been filled with fear and inferiority. Such had been her upbringing.
Ariane had always known she would run when things got hard. That one couldn’t handle the pressure of leadership.
At least that so-called Ariane had been predictable.
Irene may wear her veneer of loyalty. But there is something else that runs in that Ganese blood. And I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.
22
Gillian
Gillian awoke to the sound of hay shifting near her in the barn.
She was covered in sweat, as she was most nights, as were most of her charges. There were now more than twenty-five under her care in the farmhouse, as anyone from the surrounding area came until they were either well enough to drink water on their own – or until they died.
She wasn’t ill, not like the rest of them anyway. But she was sick. Sick of watching people die. Sick of changing sheets and washing sheets, and changing them again. Sick of feeling lost and alone. Joa and Lore did their best, but they were living in a haze. In moments when Gillian wasn’t thinking of her own horror, she noticed how their eyes wouldn’t focus and how they’d stand in the sun, unmoving for minutes at a time. The trauma was getting to them.
The night was quiet, an unusual night compared to most she’d had ever since the stranger had visited.
Gale.
Gillian tried to forget the woman’s face, to forget the sensation of the knife on her neck, of the wet warmth that escaped her body as the rest of her froze in fear. But Gale’s face was burned in her memory.
Gillian lifted her head and scanned the stable, their single remaining old donkey looking down upon her.
“Don’t you sleep, Pinto?”
The donkey blinked.
“Look, it’s the middle of the night. Let me sleep.”
“Gillian.”
The voice set off a wave of panic.
Gale. Settlers help me, it’s Gale.
Gillian’s brain ran ahead of her as she scrambled into the corner of the stall where she’d been sleeping. She tried to hide behind the donkey.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m doing better now. Please, come out. You’ll be less frightened than if I come to you in the stall. I’ll wait outside for you.”
It’s a trick. She’s going to jump me. She’s going to finish what she started. She’s going to plunge that blade into the center of my throat…
But still, Gillian’s feet lifted her, walking her toward the entry of the barn. Because, ultimately, she had no choice. Gale was right. Gillian would be cornered in the barn stall. At least outside she stood some sort of chance.
She stepped slowly, seeing Gale’s outline in the moonlight. The sky was clear, casting white light down, enough to see that Gale was wearing standard-issue clothes and her hair wasn’t matted like it had been the last time she’d come.
She’s been stealing, that must be it. She’s sick in the head, if not in the body.
Gillian grabbed a metal rod that was hanging at the entry of the barn, just in case she needed a weapon. Just in case she had to fight.
She stood in the doorway of the barn, twenty feet from where Gale stood, her back still to Gillian. She turned around. Her face was clean. Gillian thought her expression was even soft.
Gale saw the rod in her hand. “I left it for you. I thought it might make you feel more secure. I could have taken it, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” but Gillian hadn’t considered that.
“I mean it, I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Then what do you want? What more can you possibly want from me?”
“I was in a really bad way when you saw me,” Gale crossed her arms. “Real bad. I didn’t know what was happening to me, it was like living in a tunnel. All I could think about was getting through the next day. Not even. The next hour,” Gale swallowed. “I wasn’t human, that’s what she did to me. She stripped me of my humanity. But she didn’t realize that I’d been built better than that. Even I didn’t know it at the time. She was right, my design is perfect.”
Gillian felt her head shaking. She had no idea what Gale was talking about and she didn’t want to know. She wanted Gale gone. She wanted to go back to sleep. She needed every minute of rest she could get. The days were long and hard and she couldn’t bear to not be on her guard.
Gale sighed, “The story is a long and convoluted one. But let me sum it up. I was Queen Ariane’s favorite. And then I was her greatest enemy. Why? Because I spoke the truth. And then I found myself shunned, disappeared, and then… poisoned. That’s the only word for it. Poisoned. And now – now, I’ve infected more in Lower Earth than I ever could have imagined. I didn’t know. But why? Why would she do that when it hurts so many others under her reign? I see it on your face, I’m saying too much.”
Gale stepped forward and Gillian lifted the rod. Gale stopped and lifted her hands.
“What I’m trying to tell you, child, is that I’m the reason all these people are sick.”
“You?”
“Me. But it wasn’t my fault, I didn’t know. It’s taken these weeks for my head to clear, for me to understand what’s happened. I’m immune now. And somehow you never got sick despite all your exposure. Gillian, this is what I’ve come here to say.”
Gale went down on her knees and looked at the ground.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry this has happened and I’m sorry for what I did to you. But now I see what must be done.” She looked up, meeting Gillian’s eye. “You must go to the capital. Gillian, you have to tell them what’s going on. Only the Tower can fix this, and they’ll have to do it despite the Queen’s own hand in setting this poison free.”
She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She’s mad.
“The capital is days from here,” were the only words Gillian could speak.
“You have to go. Take the donkey. We’ll prepare your provisions. You must go and you can’t stop until you’re there or people will die. More and more of them. You’re immune, I can’t tell you how far this has spread. I can’t go, I’ll be stoppe
d before I get there and I won’t be believed even if I do manage to arrive. You must go, Gillian. You must. Or you will watch everyone die around you until the Dark Counties are only a graveyard of those who once called it home.”
Everything was a haze. Feeding the animals, packing her bag, showing Gale around the house as she would care for the inhabitants of their makeshift hospital.
Gillian tried to explain to Agra, but she was so far gone that Gillian couldn’t tell how much she had understood. Her mother blinked her eyes a few times, which was more than Gillian had seen from her in days.
Gillian looked over to Gale.
“She’s in bad shape now. Worse than ever. But her immune system was already compromised before you got here.”
“Don’t you worry. I’ll watch her closely.”
Gillian nodded absently. Her mind was already off somewhere in the countryside of Lower Earth.
Keep walking. Keeping moving. One foot and then the other.
Gillian coaxed herself further on though her feet were cracking and she could feel blood on her socks. The old donkey had lasted a day and a half. Gillian tried everything to revive him, but once he’d collapsed, she knew he wouldn’t go any further. She’d stayed with him until he died in the night.
Death was with her wherever she went.
On the fourth day, Gillian’s eyes wouldn’t focus. She’d rationed her water but the autumn sun across the Central Mass both scalded her skin and was drying her out from the inside.
Her feet moved her forward though her mind had no thoughts but one: get there.
She hardly knew where ‘there’ was, but it was in front of her, not behind, so she had to step, step, step.
The ground was hazy; it felt soft under her feet. Sand and dirt slipped sideways and Gillian paused from time to time to look down and see how the terrain had changed. When she looked off in the distance, all she could see was an imaginary destination. She had to look at her feet to know where she stood.
She only let herself pause for a moment, or else she risked not being able to make her feet move again. She was so tired and the bag on her back pulled her body toward the earth. She fought the weight of it, desperate to stay upright.
