The Beyond: Dystopian Survival Fiction (The Breeder Files Book 4)

by Eliza Green

  ‘Could the coordinates be hidden in one of these tunnels?’ she asked.

  They could be, but he’d been out of it when they’d used both tunnels. He shrugged at her. ‘You’d remember more than me.’

  Anya let go of his hand and studied the map more closely. Carissa’s recollection of the layout had filled in most of the city’s streets and buildings, but not the interiors. A few places had been included, places where Carissa had been more than once. Those included the Great Hall in the Learning Centre, where the Collective apparently resided.

  Frowning, Anya traced one route with her finger. Dom saw she was on the second floor of the medical facility, where she, June and Sheila had been kept prisoner. And the Breeder called Alex.

  ‘I hope Alex is okay,’ she said softly. ‘And Jerome.’

  June’s shoulders rounded. She kept her eyes fixed on the map. ‘When do we go, Dom?’

  ‘As soon as we can clear the boulders from the front of the camp. Jacob’s out there with Vanessa and Charlie. He’s commanding the pair of wolves to move them.’

  The boulders were too heavy to move manually.

  He sensed everyone was anxious about leaving. Neither Vanessa nor Charlie had offered their thoughts about returning to the city. Go too early and they’d be ambushed. But leave it too late and they could be sitting ducks.

  Without Max to guide him, he had no idea how to attack Praesidium when they returned there. But Jacob’s reprogrammed orb had shown them images of the city and its force field down. Now was the right time to strike.

  The door opened and in walked Vanessa, Jacob and Charlie. Thomas followed closely; the young man in his early twenties was the closest thing to an inventor the rebel camp had. Carissa trailed after Jacob. Her blonde hair was messy and her sweatshirt was dirty, as were her hands. She must have been helping the wolves move the rocks.

  ‘What’s the word?’ he asked Charlie.

  The old man puffed out some air. ‘The rocks are large, but Rover and the wolf from the city are making small progress. We need a break before we start in again.’

  Dom hated this, sitting around doing nothing. ‘We should get moving as soon as the rocks are out of the way.’

  Charlie wiped his hands on his overalls. ‘Vanessa and I have been talking. We have a lot of injured soldiers. We should make sure they’ve fully recovered before we go.’

  ‘We don’t have time. June needs medical attention. And we need to get Alex and Jerome back.’

  ‘By all means take a small group, but the rest of us should stay here until the injured are strong enough.’

  Dom understood Charlie’s concerns. He’d watched his son die on the battlefield outside this very camp. If they went to the city with injured soldiers and the Collective attacked again, it would leave them at a serious disadvantage.

  But something told him it would be worse if they split up.

  ‘Alex and Jerome have been taken and we don’t know what’s happening to them. We need to get them back now. ’

  Charlie nodded. ‘Take a smaller team, like I said.’

  Dom looked at Jacob. ‘Didn’t you tell me the orb showed the city’s defences were down?’ The Inventor nodded. ‘If we wait too long, the force field could have time to recover. By the time this camp is strong enough to fight, the city could be impenetrable again. I don’t want to split us up. We travel together or not at all. We need the trucks ready to go as soon as possible.’

  Charlie looked away, his jaw tight.

  Jacob gripped the old man’s shoulder. ‘I agree with Dom. It’s dangerous to stay here. We have to move out. The city has equipment that can heal the soldiers faster. The longer we stay, the more time the Collective has to regroup. We don’t know what information Julius might have passed to Quintus.’

  But Charlie still wasn’t happy. And neither was Vanessa.

  ‘Can we use the mountain pass to get out of here?’ she asked. ‘Charlie’s concerned we’ll be exposed if we leave through the front. So am I.’

  Their truck had used the mountain pass above the camp to get in and Dom had considered using it to get out. But he couldn’t be sure the Collective didn’t already know about that one way in and one way out route. At least in the open they could see their enemy coming.

  Jacob echoed his thoughts. ‘We can’t be sure the Collective hasn’t sent Copies, wolves or digging machines to block the road at the base. It’s safest to leave through the front.’

  ‘But we’ll be vulnerable!’ said Charlie. He was breathing hard.

  ‘It won’t be like the last time, I promise.’ Dom said.

  He would make certain of that. Nobody else had to die.

  Anya squeezed his hand briefly; the tension in his shoulders lessened a little. She didn’t add anything to the discussion, but he knew she would follow his decision. They all would. Even Charlie.

  He stepped closer to the man who had become his family. The old man’s eyes widened a little at his approach. ‘I miss him, too, Charlie.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Sheila.

  Tears glistened in the corners of Charlie’s eyes. Seeing them brought a lump to Dom’s throat. ‘We have to get our friends back. We also have to find the Beyond. It’s what Max was searching for. It’s what we need to do now.’

  Charlie’s lower lip quivered and he looked away. Sheila flung her arms around him.

  He made a half-hearted effort to push her away. ‘You’re making a fuss over nothing. Stop that.’

  But despite his scolding, he held on tight.

  Dom swallowed back his own tears. Max had been more of a father to him than the asshole who’d beaten him and his mother, and made a pass at a younger Sheila.

  June grunted. He turned to see her wince. Anya grabbed her arm to steady her.

  She waved her away and bent over a little, hands on hips. ‘I’m okay. Junior’s being a little testy, that’s all.’

  Vanessa hooked her arm under hers. ‘We should check you out in the medical bay to be sure that’s all it is.’

  Jacob nodded at Carissa. ‘We need more of your growth repressors.’

  The Copy, who resembled a thirteen-year-old girl, had abandoned her city and the Collective to help the humans escape. The attack had left her shocked. Apparently Quintus had been talking to her during the battle. Now, she stood taller than a day ago. But her rounded eyes told Dom she was unsure about something.

  And that made him nervous.

  Carissa nodded at Jacob, then at June.

  June flashed the Copy a smile. ‘Thanks.’

  According to Jacob, Carissa’s growth repressors meant she could not age any more. They were also the only thing keeping June’s foetus at a manageable size. But it couldn’t last.

  Another reason they had to return to the city.

  Vanessa walked June out. Jacob and Carissa followed them.

  Charlie said to Dom, ‘I’ll support whatever decision you make. I know that girl doesn’t have much time.’ He nodded at Thomas. ‘Back to it, son. It shouldn’t be long before the wolves move the boulders out of the way. Until Jacob returns with them, we can shift the smaller stuff.’

  ‘I’ll help,’ said Kaylie, flicking her eyes to Dom and Anya, then away.

  The room cleared until only he, Anya, Sheila and Imogen remained.

  Imogen said in a broken voice, ‘I’m sorry for not seeing what Julius was.’

  Sheila glared at Anya, as if willing her to do something.

  Anya’s shoulders dropped. She stepped forward and hugged Max’s former first in command. Imogen crumpled in her arms. Sheila smiled and breathed out a sigh of relief.

  Dom shook his head at Imogen. ‘It’s not your fault. He had us all fooled.’

  3

  Carissa

  Quintus’ instructions to Carissa on the battlefield replayed in her head as she and the Inventor followed June and Vanessa out of the town hall. Quintus had told her to return home, threatening to hurt her friends if she didn’t. In the end, she’d chosen to s
tay with her friends. That’s when Max, Jason and Warren, along with several soldiers, had been killed. She worried her that her inaction had been the catalyst.

  They walked past the trucks parked to the front of the medical bay building. Beyond the camp’s open gates she heard the hum of the anti-magnetic field, back in place while they were not working to shift the boulders.

  The Inventor had reassured her that any move to help Quintus wouldn’t have made any difference. He still would have given the order to kill. But she’d never know now. She’d betrayed the Collective by ignoring Quintus’ demands. Then Julius, the newborn with a neuromorphic chip, had taken Alex and Jerome.

  Imogen blamed herself for not seeing what he’d been. But if anyone should have spotted the newborn, it was Carissa.

  Maybe her friendship with the Inventor had made her soft.

  The old man glanced down at her. She smiled, but his deep frown said he wasn’t buying her pretence. She needed more practice to perfect her “game face”. The humans could still see through her.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  She nodded, not wanting to talk about what had happened. Not while Quintus’ voice continued to play like an echo in her head. She worried he’d found a way to listen in. He had said her NMC was only damaged and that it could self-repair.

  Ahead, June and Vanessa burst through the double doors of the medical bay. Keen to forget about Quintus for a while, she ran to catch up. A distraction might be just what she needed to chase him from her mind.

  The old man kept pace with her as she marched up to the first free bed, where Vanessa was getting June settled. The bay was close to full of injured soldiers. Seeing them did little to ease her guilt. She turned her back to the soldiers so she wouldn’t see them.

  A medic came over. June winced and protected her belly. It had grown since the day before—approximately one inch bigger on all sides. The foetus was growing again.

  The Inventor said to the medic, ‘We need to give her another growth repressor injection. Could you get the syringe ready?’

  The medic nodded and walked away.

  Carissa’s gaze grazed the soldiers. Some were sitting up. Three additional medics were checking bandaged wounds. Wounds that Copies like her had inflicted.

  Her escape from the city, her plan to help the rebels—it had all been for nothing. Max was dead. So were Jason and Warren.

  The Inventor shook her arm. ‘Carissa?’

  She blinked and refocused on him. ‘What?’

  ‘I said I need you to roll up your sleeve.’

  She blinked again and the medic was back, carrying a large needle that made her shudder. Carissa did as the Inventor asked, sucking in a new breath. But a little pinch was nothing compared to what June must be going through. She couldn’t imagine something stretching her insides so fast; it could burst through her skin at any moment.

  June winced again. Carissa closed her eyes and held out her arm. A sharp pinch followed and she inhaled sharply. She opened her eyes to see the syringe now contained a clear fluid—her biogel. The Inventor had assured her she could live without some of her growth repressors. Losing some would not affect her own growth.

  She trusted the Inventor more than she did herself. He hadn’t helped to kill anyone recently.

  The medic took more repressors from her. June and Vanessa were watching her. She smiled at them, a pathetic attempt to assure them it was no big deal. The medic removed the needle a second time. Carissa swallowed back tears. It bothered her that she was losing more of herself each time. That she was neither human nor Copy.

  ‘Don’t worry, Carissa,’ said the Inventor. ‘You can make more. It’s like our blood. We donate it all the time.’

  His comparison made her feel a bit better.

  The medic waved a thermo-imaging wand over June’s belly. Then, she carefully injected the growth repressors into the cavity around the foetus. The visible movement of the foetus appeared to ease up. June settled back with a sigh.

  ‘Junior wants out,’ she said, looking from the Inventor to Vanessa. ‘We need to get back to the city.’

  Vanessa patted her knee. ‘We’re almost there. The boulders first, then getting you sorted will be our first priority.’

  Carissa hoped their return to the city would not attract trouble. Who knew what awaited their return? She prided herself on having known the Collective once. She’d been able to hide her thoughts from the Ten. But Quintus, the spokesperson for the Collective ten, was acting differently to the way he used to. She could no longer predict his patterns.

  And that scared her.

  The Inventor pulled her back from the others and spoke in a low voice. ‘What’s the matter, miss? Are you worried about returning?’

  The Inventor understood her—a little too well at times. She wished she had the same skill, but she hadn’t learned how to read emotions.

  Carissa looked up into his watery blue eyes. Her first thought was to lie to him, but the truth didn’t hurt as much.

  She nodded.

  He responded with a pat on her shoulder. ‘You don’t have to worry. We’ll be okay.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because we have a camp full of trained rebels, that’s why. Dom will see us there safely.’

  ‘But Julius is probably there, with Jerome and Alex, spilling the rebel secrets to the Collective.’

  The Inventor frowned. ‘There’s nothing we can do about that. But you know what? The Collective may have Julius, but we have the next best thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You.’

  She didn’t understand. ‘Me? I could have stopped this. I could have ended Quintus’ obsession with winning the war. All I had to do was go home when he ordered me to.’

  He shook her shoulder. ‘You’re thinking for yourself, miss. A sentient being with independent thought. You have evolved past what the Collective designed you to be. You became aware of your surroundings all on your own. You are special, and Quintus knows it. That’s why he wants you to return.’

  It warmed her part-organic heart to hear the Inventor call her special. But when would she feel it?

  The old man bent closer to her, and stared at her. ‘Do you believe me?’

  Carissa wanted to. But predicting Quintus’ next move wouldn’t be easy, no matter how special he thought her.

  ‘I still hear him,’ she blurted out.

  The Inventor straightened up fast. ‘Quintus?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m still hearing his voice from the battlefield.’

  He released a quiet sigh. ‘You’re replaying a memory, that’s all. It’s okay to think about him. He was a big part of your life in the city.’

  Carissa twisted her hands to the front. Her nails were dirty from her attempts to shift the boulders from the valley to one side. She wanted to help speed up the wolves’ work. The longer the anti-magnetic barrier was down while they worked, the longer the camp would be vulnerable to attack.

  She looked up at him. ‘Quintus is obsessed. He has been for a while. He made the tests harder for the last group that went through Arcis. He was excited to learn rebels were in the facility.’

  She wasn’t certain, but Carissa sensed he had been most interested in Anya.

  The Inventor cupped his chin in thought. ‘Quintus has always been an anomaly among the Collective ten. I sensed that when he called me to the Great Hall to ask about you.’

  ‘Is it bad to think about someone so full of spite?’ That was the only word she could think of to describe Quintus.

  ‘No. Quintus was like a father to you.’

  The Inventor was her father. Quintus had been her... teacher. He showed no love towards her. He never praised her when she did something right. His manner was cold, like the machine he lived inside.

  Carissa nodded and smiled at him. When the Inventor turned to check on June, she dropped the act.

  ‘I’m looking forward to getting Junior out,’ June said.

&nb
sp; Vanessa replied, ‘We don’t know what it is, if it’s even human. Don’t get your hopes up.’

  ‘I don’t care. I need to see what he or she is.’

  ‘Very soon, I promise,’ said the Inventor.

  June rubbed her now-still belly. ‘It can’t come soon enough.’

  Carissa watched seventeen-year-old June cradle her belly. She was too young to have a child, yet she was looking forward to meeting what she carried. That confused Carissa.

  Quintus had taught the Copies not to care. To care would mean losing innovation, progress. The children born from the Breeder-human combination were not designed to be loved. They were test subjects for Quintus to experiment upon. What life would the children have if they were raised by humans?

  The loss of her former life squeezed her heart. It might not compare to this one, which offered more freedom, but she’d become used to comfortable parameters and easy predictability there. Out here, among these chaotic humans, control was dependent upon the actions of others.

  But chaos made life exciting. And, it turned out, she quite liked it.

  When the medic finished taking June’s temperature, the Inventor turned to Carissa.

  ‘Are you okay now?’ he asked.

  She smiled and nodded, hoping to appease him.

  Quintus had hinted at trouble in the city. The Copies under his command weren’t to blame for this mess. They were as much victims as the humans were.

  Quintus would pay for his mistakes.

  ‘We should get back to the boulders,’ she said.

  The Inventor lifted both brows. ‘I can see you’re not okay.’

  His ability to read her mind shocked her. ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Know what I am thinking?’

  The old man chuckled. ‘Miss, I’ve been watching you for a long time. I know your tells.’