Project Terra

by S. J Woods

  “A few days,” Dane told her. “What shall we do while I’m here?”

  They all had ideas about what they wanted to do and where they wanted Dane to take them, and Dane felt his heart lighten at their good-natured chatter. He’d been terrified that between his father’s death and his mother’s haziness they would have suffered some emotional damage, but looking at them here, they seemed happy, healthy and close to one another.

  They chatted with Dane for a little while longer before Sadie called them back for their lessons. Dane and Sadie exchanged a look as they groaned and protested, but they obediently got to their feet and wandered into the next room, leaving Dane and Alyssa alone.

  “Do you have anything you need to do?” Dane asked politely once the children had left. “I’m quite happy to go for a walk around town.”

  What Dane really wanted to do was take a shower and crawl into a pod to sleep for twenty-four hours straight, but he knew that if he fell asleep now, he’d do himself more harm than good.

  Alyssa hesitated before answering, “I’ll take a walk with you.”

  Dane tried to disguise the surprise he felt at the offer and he followed his mother back onto the street.

  “How’s everything?” He said when it became clear that she wasn’t bothered about filling the silence between them.

  “Fine.” She shrugged.

  Alyssa had had a successful military career before she settled back into civilian life, but like most people, she didn’t work. Jobs were few and far between now with the advent of Artificial Intelligence. She received an allowance for her time served in the AMS and she’d been given a live-in Attendant when she had taken the Coles children on. Dane’s father, Cam, had stayed in the military for longer than his wife, retiring a few years after Rose arrived before working as a freelance designer. His death had been sudden and unexpected. He had been away from home, as he often was, and the medical examiner had recorded it as heart failure. The coroner’s report had shown that he hadn’t been taking all the supplements he was prescribed. It still felt surreal that he was no longer around.

  “Are you taking any online classes?” Dane asked. “Sometimes it’s nice to keep busy.”

  He gave her a pointed look. Sadie took care of everything at home; the chores, the kids, running the household. Dane sometimes thought the Artificial Attendants were making the Organic humans lazy and weak. If all Alyssa did all day was wander around and stare into space, it was no wonder she wasn’t getting better.

  “What’s the point?” She asked in a flat tone. “The Attendants do all the real work. It’s the same for everyone, I guess.”

  Dane regarded the apathy on her face and asked gently. “Is there anything you want to do?”

  Alyssa shrugged. “Not really.”

  He held back an impatient sigh. It was like she had no drive. He had been home barely an hour and she was frustrating the life out of him. Dane wondered how the kids coped with her, constantly under a dark cloud, unable to react with emotion to anything.

  “I think I’m going to go off on my own for a bit.” Dane said suddenly, stopping abruptly.

  A flicker of confusion crossed Alyssa’s face, but she nodded.

  “Ok,” She said passively. “See you later.”

  He watched her walk on. No motherly instinct to ask why the sudden change of heart? Why the strange behaviour? He felt his pulse quicken and an overwhelming urge to shake her until she gave him the reaction he craved. He stalked away from her, planning on retracing his steps and heading back into the park. He reached a slight incline and came to stop, looking back towards Alyssa.

  She had stopped, a little further from where he had left her, and she was just standing there, her back against the wall of an apartment block. Her arms were wrapped protectively around her, and she looked small and vulnerable. He tried to turn away, not wanting to pity her, but found himself rooted to the spot.

  Why the hell did she need to be like this? He thought angrily. He couldn’t win. When they were together, Dane felt uncomfortable and on edge but when they were apart, Dane felt guilty and sorry for her.

  As if spurred on by some invisible force, he turned and stormed back down the hill towards her. For the second time that day, she turned to look at him with passive indifference and Dane felt his temper boil over.

  “Why are you just stood here?” He snapped.

  “I don’t know.” Alyssa replied flatly. “I’m just thinking.”

  “About what?” Dane barked.

  “Things.” Alyssa lowered her gaze.

  “What things?” Dane couldn’t help demanding. How could she stand there, claiming to be “just thinking” when she acted like she hadn’t had a thought in years.

  Alyssa shrugged. “Is everything ok? You seem upset.”

  “Upset?” Dane replied incredulously. “Of course, I’m upset! You’re like a shell. You don’t say anything or engage with us. I can’t live like this. We shouldn’t have to live with a mother who’s less human than an Artificial!”

  Alyssa flinched at his words. She looked over her shoulder, as if checking nobody had heard his outburst, but the street was empty.

  “Don’t say that.” She said, her lip suddenly trembling.

  Dane should have felt guilty, but this was all he wanted. A reaction. Some emotion. Anything rather than this nothingness.

  “Please!” Dane gripped his mother’s wrists tightly, eyes imploring her to talk to him. “You haven’t talked about Dad or…”

  He wanted to say Arielle, but he cut himself off suddenly scared of what he would unleash.

  “I can’t,” She said, her eyes heavy with tears. “Dane, I know that I’m difficult and I hate myself for it, but you don’t understand what it’s like to wake up every day and wish you hadn’t.”

  She spoke with such raw emotion that Dane stepped back, feeling his chest tighten with fear.

  “What don’t I understand?” He asked her quietly. “She was my sister too.”

  The pain in Alyssa’s eyes was so fresh that Dane wished he could take the words back the moment they were out of his mouth.

  “Dane,” Alyssa formed her words slowly, struggling to contain her emotion. “I just can’t talk about it. I can barely live with it.”

  “Ma,” He said gently this time. “That’s what I’m trying to say; you’re not living.”

  He reached for her hand and, like a child, she let him take it. They walked in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, each thinking about beautiful Arielle. Dane’s perfect baby sister. She’d filled their home with happiness in the two short years she was with them. And when she left, she took the sparkle and the joy that a little boy should have had in his life.

  Around thirty years ago, large communities throughout Apatia had been struck down with mass cases of irreversible infertility. It was a deliberate poisoning by an enemy state. The worst biological attack that the world had seen in years. Every living citizen was impacted and, despite their best scientists working around the clock to fix it, they had found no cure. The damage had been done, rendering not just the impacted generation unable to carry their own offspring, but changing their DNA in the cruellest, most calculated way with the infertility coded so deeply that, ironically, it would be passed on if they ever found a work around. The government had stepped in and created a schedule to save the nation from becoming extinct. Resources were scarce, and a schedule was created to ensure that no couples, regardless of status and income, missed out on the ability to reproduce because of this hideous atrocity. Alyssa and Cam were in the military during the aftermath. They saw the devastation caused and the effort that the government put into resolving this catastrophe. Ten years on, now married, they took their turn at the hospital to have their embryo created and grown outside of the womb and were rewarded with their first child, Dane. Organic pregnancy wasn’t possible due to the poison, and the government’s stretched resources meant that a two-child-only policy was enforced, with a two-year-interval to en
sure an even population distribution. Arielle had been handed over to a delighted Alyssa, Cam and thrilled big brother, Dane, two years later, and Dane’s earliest memories were all of his beautiful baby sister. But there was something wrong with her. The medical team were apologetic. They’d been working flat-out, but defects happened, they told Alyssa and Cam. She was to be recalled. They claimed there was a mix up. A routine medical examination showed Arielle had been created from a hybrid. She was an experiment, not blood-related to them at all. She had an expiry date, and she didn’t have feelings, no matter how much they thought she did. They were sorry, and they would trace the correct embryo that must be in storage.

  Dane was almost five-years-old when it happened. He knew that Arielle was a little different to other children. She didn’t really say much, and she never cried, but he loved her with every fibre in his body. He had been sent away, unsure why at the time, but when he returned home, Arielle was gone, and his mother was a shell. The correct embryo was traced, and Rose was delivered to the household the following year, but the damage was done to the Alexander family. His sister was gone, and his mother wasn’t the same woman anymore.

  They drew to a halt as they reached the gate to the park, leading onto the bridge where they had met earlier that day.

  “I know she’s gone,” Dane said, staring ahead into the distance. “But we’re still here. Me. Rose. Tommy and Norah. It’s not our fault.”

  He sensed Alyssa shifting next to him and he held his breath willing her to speak. To say something.

  “Shall we go back now?”

  His heart sank into his stomach with disappointment, but he nodded his head. With one last glance at the craggy top of the Falls, peeking out from behind the man-made tourist trap, Dane turned and set off wearily in the direction of home.

  SEVEN

  The next few days were a whirlwind as Dane enjoyed the company and the chaos of being home with his three siblings. He noticed Alyssa’s conscious efforts to join in conversations, but after years of living as a passive observer, her attempts were stilted and unnatural, like she was only playing the role of a mother.

  On Dane’s last day before he headed back for his de-brief and, all being well, the start of his training, he managed to persuade the children to spend the day hiking the trails at Ridge Falls Park.

  “Part of my training will be in the real wilderness.” Dane confided in the excitable trio as they started the course. He didn’t disclose anymore but assumed that there would be no harm in them knowing a little about what he would be doing over the next few months.

  “Really?” Norah’s eyes grew wide in fascination. “I would like to go to the real wilderness.”

  “Are you going to camp this year?” Dane asked.

  Alyssa didn’t enjoy Wilderness Camp or any of its franchises, so it was Cam who had always taken the children. Nothing had been discussed, but Dane hoped that Alyssa wouldn’t be that absorbed in her own misery that the children missed out on future vacations.

  “Sadie might take us.” Tommy replied, and Dane watched as he and Rose exchanged looks.

  “What’s that look about?” He asked curiously.

  “Nothing.” Rose said quickly.

  Dane didn’t push it but waited until Tommy and Norah had scampered off to the side a little later, eyes on their wrist-screens, searching for the virtual animals to appear on their screens.

  “Rose,” He started cautiously. “How’s everything been?”

  “How’s everything been?” She repeated, wrinkling her nose as if she didn’t quite follow.

  “Since Dad went.” Dane finished. “How have you and the kids been?”

  Rose smiled sadly. “We’re ok, Dane. We miss him, of course, but we’re ok.”

  “How’s Mama been?” He said, using Rose’s pet-name for their mother.

  Rose slowed to a halt and tilted her head to the side, her hazel eyes studying Dane’s face thoughtfully. Dane watched her critical gesture. It was like looking at their father, he thought fondly.

  “You’re hard on her.” Rose said finally. “She is the way she is, Dane. She can’t help it.”

  Dane didn’t think Rose knew that there was a baby before her, yet she seemed so much more tolerant of their mother than he had ever been. He had certainly never spoke about it with her, and their parents never spoke about Arielle. Rose had always been more level-headed and rational when it came to showing patience with Alyssa’s “ways”. Dane supposed it was because she had never known her any other way. Rose had always had a distant, detached mother and a father who was loving but often absent with work. Dane wondered as he processed Rose’s mature response whether he was making Alyssa’s disconnected parenting out to be a bigger problem than it actually was. He couldn’t deny that Rose, Tommy and Norah all seemed well-adjusted.

  “Maybe I am,” Dane replied to her. “I just worry about you all because I’m so far away.”

  “We’re fine.” Rose said firmly, slipping her arm through her brother’s. “I promise I’d tell you if we weren’t.”

  She changed the subject, tactfully, to how she was doing in her school rankings. The children were home-schooled by the Attendant as most people were, but they were ranked quarterly against their peers in the region, and Rose was flying as usual.

  “You’ll be eligible for AMS when you graduate at this rate.” Dane congratulated her.

  She grinned proudly but shook her head. “I know it’s a massive thing, and I’m really proud of you, but I don’t think I want to go down that route.”

  “Really?” Dane asked, hiding a smile at her precociousness. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to see the world,” She said, without a trace of irony. “It’s only a matter of time before they open up the borders again. I want to travel across the ocean, see how other people live.”

  “You can see how they live in the news.” Dane said grimly. “And I wouldn’t get your hopes up that the borders will re-open. It’s still pretty tense between Apatia and some overseas territories. Just because you don’t see anything happening doesn’t mean they aren’t trying to attack. It just means we’re doing a good job of keeping them out.”

  “What about the rest of the world?” Rose shot back. “It’s so dumb, this stupid feud.”

  “It’s not a stupid feud.” Dane couldn’t believe how ignorant his usually intelligent sister was being. “Our enemies rendered a whole country unable to reproduce. Do you not understand how serious that is?”

  “If they’re such a threat,” Rose challenged back. “And Apatia is so big and tough, then why don’t we just blow them off the face of the planet and get back to living our lives like we used to.”

  Dane rolled his eyes at her lack of understanding at the complex political situation.

  “Because we’re not savages,” He said, ruffling her hair, knowing that it would wind her up. He felt a little annoyed at how she was simply seeing a potentially catastrophic military clash as a minor inconvenience to her plans. “It’s very complex, and there’s a lot of small nations that would get caught in the crossfire. We would never risk hurting them. Besides, there’s everything you could ever want to see in Apatia.”

  “So,” Rose said, ignoring everything he had just said. “You’re saying that there are attempted attacks on our country and we don’t know about it?”

  He remained tight-lipped. He had taken an oath and wasn’t at liberty to disclose many of the attempts that he was briefed about.

  “What I’m saying,” Dane said finally. “Is that you’ll know everything you need to know when you’re old enough to be as awesome as me.”

  She made an attempt to purse her lips in a display of her annoyance, but at the last moment she couldn’t help herself, and she laughed at his attempt at a joke.

  Tommy and Norah, finished collecting the virtual animals, scampered back over to them as they reached the first Ridge Falls Base Camp.

  “Can we do the landslides?” Tommy asked eagerly, an
d Dane shook his head.

  “We can do a steep climb,” He said, glancing at Norah. “But the landslide is quite scary.”

  “Please!” Tommy’s face fell with disappointment. “It’s the only trail we haven’t done. Sadie won’t take us either.”

  “Because it’s scary.” Dane said, trying to silently communicate with Tommy without Norah realising that she was the reason he was reluctant to take them, not wanting her to feel bad.

  “Please, Dane.” Norah tugged on his hand. “I won’t be scared. I’m not scared of anything.”

  Rose and Tommy joined in with the beseeching looks and Dane felt his resolve start to crumble. It was perfectly safe, and who knew when he would be home again to take them.

  “Norah,” He crouched down and looked his little sister in the face. “It can get a little scary. There’s going to be loud noises and rocks falling. It looks really real, but it’s all pretend. You won’t be in any danger. Once we’re on the trail, we can’t turn back until we reach the red points as there’ll be other people behind us.”

  Norah didn’t look remotely fazed and she nodded her head, her eyes shining with excitement.

  “I know, I know,” She nodded her head enthusiastically, her blonde hair bouncing. “I’m not a baby!”

  Dane grinned at her. “I know you’re not.”

  He spoke to the Attendant and they were given a safety briefing, before setting off on the course.

  Dane was pleased to see usually-quiet Tommy steaming ahead, lively and excited. He kept a tight hold of Norah’s hand. Part of the fun of the course was not knowing at which point different simulations would be unleashed, and he’d jumped out of his skin a few times himself in the past. He called out to Tommy and Rose, reminding them to stay on the track.

  The track was soft gravel at first, like all the trails around the park, but as they climbed higher, the path changed to uneven rocky ground, indicating that they were entering simulation territory. Dane warned the children to slow down, and they stopped and turned just as one of the first rock falls started.