Doomseeds

by Tam Linsey

  The tech cocked one eyebrow and released his hold with exaggerated slowness. The girl’s hand trembled, her grip around Eily’s fingers painful. Eily pulled the girl close and rested her chin on her head. Rodi’s group now mingled with her own. Children clung to each other in panic, resisting techs. One young boy kicked a female medic’s shin. The guard warned, “Hey!”

  Eily caught Rodi’s eye. The small woman sucked in a huge breath. “Keep the Peace.”

  Like magic, all noise cut off and the children froze. Eily took a few lungfuls of air, willing her racing heart to slow. Then she gently pushed the girl she held away. She looked into the child’s flushed face. “No more hunger.”

  The girl drew a shuddering breath, her eyes wide. She straightened her shoulders and turned to the tech. The tech nodded once and swept an arm in front of him to direct the girl toward Sanitation. The rest of the children watched in mute terror.

  Eily tapped a tech who’d paused to consult his gamma pad. “Can we process them in pairs?”

  “That’s against protocol.” He turned back to his notes.

  Eily resisted the urge to slap the gamma pad out of his hands. “This entire situation is outside protocol.”

  The tech shrugged. Before Eily could speak again, Aunt Tula emerged from the opposite doors. Eily’s limbs weakened with relief. Tula would help. Elbowing past the tech, Eily wove her way between grasping little ones. “Aunt Tula!”

  Tula found her in the crowd. “Eily, I’m glad you’re here. You need to go to the nursery. Now.”

  Eily’s skin turned cold, and she froze in midstride. “What’s happened?”

  “Don’t allow them to move forward with conversion until I get there.”

  Without another thought, Eily turned to flee back up the stairs.

  She burst through the doors and dashed over the tarmac, past startled Burn Operatives to the Med Ops building. Visiting hours were over, but surely she’d be allowed to see her own babies. Ana’s babies. The distinction blurred beneath the intensity of her worry.

  Someone near the duster shouted. Without stopping, she glanced over her shoulder. The cause of alarm wasn’t easily apparent, but it wasn’t directed toward her, so she flung herself with renewed vigor toward the double doors. Her cheek slammed against a solid, warm chest, and she reeled, blinking. A common blue shirt and suspenders filled her vision. A set of scarred hands reached out to steady her. She recoiled in disbelief. She’d know those hands anywhere. Tilting her chin up, she looked into Gid’s scarred face and her knees gave out.

  He tightened his grip on her shoulders before she collapsed. “I’ve been praying for you.”

  The harsh cadence of the Order’s language falling from his lips—his living, breathing lips—brought tears of joy to her eyes. She threw herself into his arms. “Gid! You’re alive!”

  He patted her hair, then took a step back and pulled her clothing tighter around her front. “I told you God had a mission for me.”

  For a brief moment, she simply immersed herself in the fact he was alive. His scarred face was more weathered, but he looked the same as he always had. Steady.

  “Where’s Ana? Did you find her?” he asked.

  Too choked up to answer, she only managed a fierce shake of her head. She had so many questions, but right now she had to get to the nursery. Taking Gid’s hand, she pulled him down the hall to the maternity unit. At the door, a med tech at the desk stopped her. “Can I help you?”

  “I have babies in there,” she choked out.

  “I’m sorry, the maternity ward is a quarantine area. Newborns have no immune systems during conversion.”

  Her eyes widened. “You have to stop the conversion.”

  The tech frowned, taking in her torn clothing and then looking at Gid. “You’re that girl from the Holdout.”

  “Yes. And those babies are my sister’s.” She was breathing so hard, it was difficult to get the words out. “They’re protected under the Holdout agreement.”

  He checked the gamma pad on his desk. “Ah. Gestated under UV exposure. I see. They’re not well enough to accept conversion yet, anyway.” He pointed to a large window looking in on a nursery. “You can see them through the glass.”

  Eily moved to the window, clutching the ledge to support herself as she searched for the twins. Green babies lay in rows of neat basinets. A naked man sat in a rocking chair holding a protein bottle for the child in his arms. He smiled up at her. Behind her, Gid grunted in disapproval. At the back wall, two enclosed neonatal units housed the only nonconverted babies in the room. The curve of the nuvoplast sides distorted the small, pink bodies inside, but the steady blinking lights on the attached monitors indicated that the infants both lived.

  She pressed her forehead to the glass and closed her eyes. Tears of relief, terror, and exhaustion competed behind her eyelids. “All these years... I should have looked for her. I should have saved her sooner.”

  “No one believed she was alive. It’s a miracle you brought back her children.”

  “But she’s dead!” Eily choked, the words hateful on her tongue. She’d been telling herself Ana was dead for years, but only now could she fully believe it. She turned to Gid and buried her face against his chest.

  He took hold of her wrists and slid them up his chest, inserting a distance between their bodies. Hands still wrapped around her wrists, he looked down into her tear-streaked face. “We will pray for them.”

  Prayer. The best Gid ever had to offer. Shudders rocked her as sobs erupted from her core. The sound echoed against the hallway walls. Eily sagged, freeing years of pent-up emotion. She longed for Jubal’s strong arms around her. Where was he? She had to find him, but Tula’s warning about the babies trapped her here.

  From his station at the doors, the med tech cleared his throat. “Perhaps you’d like to take her to the visitors’ lounge?”

  Gid dropped one of her hands and, with the other, pulled her toward the exit. “She belongs at home.”

  Eily jerked away. “I’m not leaving.”

  “There’s nothing you can do for them right now, Eily.”

  “Aunt Tula said to make sure they aren’t converted.”

  “Miss,” said the tech. “They won’t be. I’ve put Holdout status on their notes.”

  She bit her lips and looked over her shoulder through the window. She wanted to hold them, but only nursery techs—screened and cleared of dangerous biotics—were allowed near the newborns.

  “Come home, Eily,” Gid said, his blue eyes solemn.

  Eily swallowed. If she couldn’t do anything for her nephews, it was time to find Jubal. “I have to check on Jubal.”

  Gid’s face froze in a perplexed frown.

  Her heart threatened to leap out of her chest. She rubbed a wrist where the coolness of Gid’s platonic touch still lingered. “He got hurt defending me.”

  “He sold you to the cannibals.” Gid’s words were level and cold.

  “It wasn’t like that. He was just trying to save his father. In the end, he chose to save me.” She dropped her gaze, catching sight of the torn edges of her bodice. The green skin between her breasts gleamed under the hallway lights. Jubal had seen her. Had touched her. Had loved her. How could she tell Gid? Should she tell him? For all she knew, Jubal was dead. Her chest constricted with that thought. No, he had to be alive. She looked into Gid’s eyes again. The real question was—did she want Gid? If Ana’s babies survived, Gid would be a good father to them. She could have a family.

  But she didn’t want to raise Ana’s babies within the restrictive confines of the Order. And if she was truthful, she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with Gid. She wanted Jubal.

  She licked dry lips and whispered, “I think I love him.”

  The muscles on Gid’s throat tightened a moment, his nostrils flaring. Then he turned toward the exit. Eily’s heart cracked, sending shock waves down her arms and legs. Gid deserved better from her, but she also owed him the truth. No more lies. N
o more pretending to be other than she was.

  He didn’t move forward, just stared down the hall at the double doors. His shoulders heaved in a sigh. “You’re going back to the cannibals.”

  Eily glanced to the nursery window. “I’ve never fit into the role the Order prescribes for me.”

  He nodded. “And the Protectorate? What will they do?”

  I’ll be a reversion. She groped to support herself against the corridor wall. The Order had shielded her from the Protectorate for six years. If she left, she would be considered unremediable. The kind of reversion the Protectorate euthanized.

  The air grew thick as she fought back dizzying terror. They don’t always euthanize. The Protectorate had let Lisius and the others go. But there’d been an ulterior motive for that. And now the Taguan... So far the Protectorate had only agreed not to kill the children. She couldn’t trust their intentions. Her mind spun with implications she couldn’t fit together. Half blinded by her thoughts, she stared at Gid’s back, his suspenders crossed over the blue fabric of his shirt. He looked the same as always. Ready to take his assigned place within the Order. She blinked. “How did you escape the hunters?”

  Gid straightened his shoulders. “God directed me to bring His Word to the people on the Tox.”

  She blinked again. He’d used the cannibal word for the Amarantox Plains. “What does that mean?”

  He turned around to face her. “I spoke of God’s love, God’s bounty, and the hunters asked to be baptized. They came to the Holdout with me.”

  Her thoughts flashed back to her own introduction to the Holdout, when she and Ana had been fleeing hunters with Tula and Levi. The Order had allowed Ana to be carried away before opening the Gate. “The Elders allowed them inside?”

  “The Elders cannot deny a man’s relationship with God.” The lines on his face deepened. “But the Protectorate is requiring conversion. That’s why I was here, visiting while they recover.”

  Eily shook her head. Her entire world was shifting around her. “So they’re getting green skin, and then they’re being baptized into the Order. But they surely won’t fit in to life at the Holdout. Where will they live?”

  “I’ll take them with me as disciples.”

  “Take them with you?”

  “Back to the Tox.”

  Her mouth fell open. “You’re going back out?”

  He nodded. “As I am called to do.”

  The thudding in her ears sounded like the footsteps of a giant. One who could either crush her or lift her onto his shoulder. “The Order will let you? And the Protectorate?”

  He shrugged. “The Order won’t stop me. I have my mini duster. And my disciples will also be advocates for the Protectorate.”

  She held out a green hand to stare at the back of it. She’d been the first blending of two worlds, a disciple of both. But in her furthest past there had always been a third option. The Tox. The place where Jubal lived. Where she wanted to live. Could her worlds be brought into harmony with each other? Gid was already paving the way.

  She lifted her chin to meet Gid’s eyes. “I have an entire tribe who might be willing to listen.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Jubal trudged down the hall with the gold-collared woman close behind. His wound throbbed, and her promises of relief if he converted still echoed in his head. Although the Flame Runnas hadn’t forced him to make his decision yet, they’d also refused to set him free. No one had mentioned what might happen to him if he chose not to convert. He desperately wanted to talk to someone he could trust. He needed Eily.

  As they passed Pulo’s room, he strained to peer through the window, but all he could see were blank walls and cabinets. A muffled scream came into sharp focus as another door opened at his left. He jarred to a halt and turned to look inside as a green man exited the room. Inside, a naked cannibal lay strapped to a table with tubes and wires sprouting from his arms and legs. The skin at the crook of one elbow had blossomed with a strange yellow color that crept in splotches across the man’s skin as Jubal watched.

  The cannibal let out another scream, his back arching against his straps. The green man scowled at Jubal and clicked the door closed behind him. The gold-collared woman nudged Jubal from behind. “Keep moving.”

  Heart thundering, Jubal shuffled his way back through the door to his cell. Was that what conversion was like? Eily had said it hurt, but the argument he’d just heard between the Flame Runnas made him think not everyone survived the process.

  Rann and the other three unconverted cell occupants rose and stood at their cage bars. “How much longer?”

  “You’ll have to wait.” The gold-collared woman dropped her gaze to the rectangle in her hand. “I want to make sure I get the order right.”

  Anxiety tightened Jubal’s chest. Rann had been counted as one of Sefe’s men. “Wait,” Jubal reached through the bars. “That’s my brother. He’s not one of them.”

  The woman shied away. She glared at him and kept walking to the door without reply.

  “You can’t convert him! Tell Dr. Macoby!” Jubal shouted after her.

  “What are you doing?” Rann asked. His face was bright red, and even from several cages away, Jubal could see a vein pulsing in his brother’s forehead.

  Jubal pressed himself against the bars. “The conversion—the green skin—it’s dangerous. They—”

  “You won’t take this away from me. You can’t.” Rann spat out, his eyes narrow.

  “Rann, listen to me. I don’t understand it all, but Wint died because of his skin. And Pulo—”

  “Pulo’s fine. I saw him in the hall.”

  “But he could have died.”

  Rann sneered. “Look around you—lots more Flame Runnas live than die. It’s worth the risk. I’ll always have something to trade. And you can’t complain I’m using up the goods.”

  “Don’t trust this trade,” Jubal pleaded. “The Flame Runnas are up to something.”

  Turning his back to Jubal, Rann leaned against the bars and sat on the floor. “Now that Pops is gone, he can’t make my decisions any more. And neither can you.”

  Icy dread seeped into Jubal’s veins. As angry as he’d been with Rann, they were still brothers. “At least ask them about Doomseeds.”

  Rann didn’t answer.

  Jubal pressed his forehead against the cold bars, staring at his brother’s back. “You want to die like Wint?”

  “I want the spirit healing.”

  Jubal had no reply. Rann had been on a path to destruction since Momma took the Knife. Nothing Jubal could say would change his course. He lay down on his bench and closed his eyes, but didn’t sleep.

  Some time later, the gold-collared woman returned. She quietly passed Jubal’s cage and opened Rann’s door. The other cell occupants complained. Jubal didn’t rise. He watched his brother pass by in silence. Rann turned his head only long enough to sneer in Jubal’s direction. And then he was gone.

  “Jubal.” Eily’s voice was soft and her hand was warm against his cheek.

  Without opening his eyes, he grasped her hand to keep it close. He’d been dreaming of her, a disconcerting flow of images folding over each other like cloth blowing in the wind, sometimes dark, sometimes joyful and light. After a moment, he opened one eye to verify she was real. She knelt beside his bench, her dark eyes full of worry. “You’re here,” he whispered.

  She smiled, her lips pink against her green skin. “I’ve come to take you home.”

  Together they rose and exited his cell. She took his hand to lead him toward the double doors. He resisted the pull. “Wait...”

  Over his shoulder he sought his brother’s cage. Within a circle of light, Rann slumped against the bars, his eyes half-lidded. His skin was a deep, muddy green, like algae on a sullen pond.

  Jubal’s throat tightened. “Rann’s here.”

  Her eyes widened as she spotted him, then her face went hard. “He tricked me.”

  Squeezing Eily’s hand tight
er, he looked back at her. Memories of his childhood, before his mother died, wisped ghostlike through his mind. “He’s still my brother.”

  Her face was stoic, but softened when she looked at Jubal. Nodding, she released his hand.

  He took the few steps to reach his brother’s cage. “Rann?”

  Rann’s eyes fluttered, but he didn’t speak. Jubal crouched next to the bars and thrust an arm between them. Grasping Rann’s forearm, he squeezed the cool flesh. Rann still didn’t respond. A silvery line of drool etched a trail from the right corner of his mouth.

  Jubal turned to Eily. “Is he going to be all right?”

  She shrugged. “Most converts are. Do you want me to get a doctor?”

  He considered, then shook his head. Rann had chosen his path. With a sigh, he released his hold and stood. “Goodbye, my brother. May you find what you’re looking for.”

  When he exited the room, he didn’t look back.

  Rael stared steadily into the red eyes on his com screen. “This is my final offer, Torin.”

  The Fosselite curled his upper lip so his teeth showed in a snarl. “Your asking price is preposterous. And you’re requiring us to do all the work.”

  The asking price was preposterous; Rael was demanding enough telomerase to keep the Protectorate running for ten years. But if he made trade too easy after the long embargo, the Fosselites would be suspicious. He had eleven viable Doomseeds converts, each with a GPS chip. They were to be taken out to the Reaches and released, far from the Taguan and its new converts. He had to be sure they fell into Fosselite hands.

  He leaned forward to rest his forearms on the desk. “Giving you reversion tracking codes could mean the end of my career.”

  “Then why are you making this offer?”

  “Anti-euthanization activists are allowing our population to be overrun with reversions.” He truly couldn’t care less about reversions or what happened to them, but he’d met enough purists to play the bigot. Let the Fosselites think what they would about him.