Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3)

by Milo James Fowler

  One of the Twenty.

  "Is everything in order for the banquet this weekend?"

  Emmanuel blinks, but he's not emerging from virtual space. He's confused by the abrupt shift in our conversation. But he covers it well, smiling the way he does when he wants me to know he has everything under control.

  "Yes, Chancellor. The Twenty have been notified that their presence is requested. All but one have confirmed their attendance."

  One guess as to the only invitee yet to respond. "Sera Chen."

  He nods. "I can send her a reminder—"

  "She doesn't need to be reminded. She'll be there." I return to my chair. "Well then. If that is all…"

  With a nod and slight bow, Emmanuel backs away a few steps before making an about-face and exiting my office. The morning briefing now concluded, he can return to his regular duties: keeping tabs on the analysts and monitoring the data that pours in every hour by the bucket load. If there is anything worthy of my attention, he will let me know.

  Or I will discover it myself.

  Absently, I pat the snuff box in my pocket as my thoughts drift, pondering what I overheard earlier. Emmanuel feeling the need to cover for his sister's actions. What was that all about? Something to do with this enhanced terrorist? Or with Mara Bishop's favorite curfew enforcer?

  I tap my temple while simultaneously wiping my left hand through the air over my desk. My neural implants activate another hologram, this one a rotating, three-dimensional diamond. Each facet displays the face of one member of the Twenty. Young. Attractive. High-functioning members of society. Ten male, ten female.

  I can't believe it has already been two decades since we brought those incubation chambers over from the Wastes. All twenty of them healthy specimens who have grown up in Eurasia and now reside throughout the Ten Domes, living their lives and contributing to their communities. All of them turning twenty years of age this weekend. What a reason to celebrate.

  The banquet will be revelatory for them. They've known they are special, born at a time when no citizens were able to conceive. After a decade of sterility across Eurasia, they were the first births to follow the Terminal Age—the last generation we thought we would ever see. Emmanuel and Mara's generation.

  But now the Twenty will finally learn why they have been so important to us, why there were so many doctor's visits once they reached puberty. I will share with them the joy they brought to so many married couples over the past eight years as Dr. Solomon Wong spliced adoptive parents' DNA with gametes from the Twenty, creating hundreds of newborns from artificial wombs. In so doing, he created our next generation of Eurasians.

  Of course, the Twenty could never be allowed to reproduce with one another. Half of them are siblings, after all. Without Dr. Wong's genetic manipulation, the gene pool would be too shallow, with significant birth defects as a result. This way, the children we produce share some genetic material with the adults who raise them, as well as their original progenitors—two males, two females. According to Arthur Willard, all four consenting adults were uninfected residents of his subterranean refuge, and they willingly volunteered their sex cells to be harvested. Such noble individuals.

  I reach for the hovering diamond with its twenty facets, displaying the faces I have watched from a distance ever since Dr. Wong brought them into our world. I've seen them grow and mature, taking their place in society, each an exemplary citizen serving an important role in every dome. All of them carefully monitored to ensure their safety. None of them ever placed in situations with even the remotest possibility of danger.

  The diamond rotates to display Sera Chen's placid, attractive face. A curfew enforcer. One of the most straightforward jobs in Dome 1. If any late-night revelers give you any trouble, you shock them. Then you wait for a transport to pick them up. By no means do you ever go running after them. If they outrun your shocker, you tag them in IR and send your drones after them.

  But that's assuming there are no EMP grenades involved.

  I curse under my breath, shaking my head at Chen as if I can show her how disappointed I am. She won't be happy about her desk duty assignment, but then again, her happiness is not my concern. Her ability to continue producing viable eggs is what matters. So keeping her safe is one of my greatest responsibilities.

  Why did I allow her to become an enforcer? Why didn't I assign her a role in data analysis or food service? Because the Twenty deserve to live rich lives. And they deserve to have a say in those lives—perhaps to balance out how often they've had no say at all.

  They never asked to be our saviors.

  When Sera Chen applied to become an enforcer, there was no chance she would ever be working the day shift. Too many variables. Too many people out and about. Too many opportunities for an accident to happen. Chen is ambitious. The best of us always are. But she must learn her place, and at the Revelation Banquet, she will discover why she and the others are so important to us. Why they must be protected.

  The hologram collapses like a wave crashing onto shore. But I did not gesture for it to do so. I frown, looking around my office. Everything is silent and still. I tap my temple, but my audiolink is inactive. All of my augments are offline.

  A warning klaxon wails down the hall—generated by someone manually turning a crank.

  I'm on my feet and at my office door just as it swings open.

  "Chancellor—" Emmanuel looks pale. "We need to get you off the premises immediately." He holds the door and backs up a step so I have room to exit.

  Two security clones stand in the hallway outside, both wearing helmets with dark face shields and white plasteel body armor covering every centimeter of their bodies. They look like robots, but they are biological organisms able to think independently within defined parameters, planning for every contingency in a situation like this.

  "Are we under attack?" I take Emmanuel's arm as he leads me to the nearest stairwell. One clone walks purposefully in front of us while the other follows. Both carry assault rifles at rest against their chest plates.

  "Unknown. The power is out, and everyone's augments are down. No way to contact law enforcement or find out what's happening." He nods to himself, keeping calm with obvious effort. "So we follow emergency protocols. Get you up to the roof while the rest of the building evacuates downward."

  "So much for a quiet day," I murmur as we enter the stairwell after the lead clone's cursory sweep. We start our climb up the three flights of stairs to the roof access door.

  "Ma'am?" Emmanuel says, leaning toward me as if he didn't quite hear.

  "The terrorists, you think? Another EMP blast?"

  He blinks. The thought has crossed his mind; he just doesn't want to admit it and give them that much credit. They have never been this brazen before. "In order to take out the entire building…"

  "Can we assume that?"

  "Right. Stick to what we know. This floor is offline, so emergency procedures dictate removing you from the premises on the double."

  He's starting to sound like his father, the military man on a mission. I don't mind it.

  A cool breeze greets us as we step onto the rooftop. The two clones spread out, rifles at the ready, sweeping the entire area. Dr. Wong's creations, designed for a singular purpose: keeping Eurasia's Chancellor safe. My private aerocar sits on the launch pad like a display model. Sleek white with gleaming blue-chrome accents and tinted windows. But the electromagnetic coils aren't warming up as expected, sensing our approach. They're offline like everything else.

  "We planned for this contingency, Chancellor," Emmanuel says. "If an EMP ever took out all 150 floors, we assumed your vehicle would be affected as well."

  "We?" I face him.

  He nods, pointing as a black and white police aerocar makes its approach. It swings sideways in midair and sets down beside my vehicle with a gust of air that blows my hair back from my shoulders. I have to close my eyes for a moment. When I open them, the driver's side door is drifting upward, and Mara
Bishop is stepping out.

  With a gun in her hand.

  The tails of her coat flap as she strides forward, firing twice in quick succession. Each round hits a security clone in the middle of its forehead before it has time to assess the situation. They collapse with a clatter, their rifles pointless accessories now.

  "You're not safe here." Mara takes me by the arm as if to escort me to the waiting aerocar.

  I pull free and retreat toward the stairwell, but Emmanuel is standing there, blocking my path. I bump into him and cringe. This isn't right.

  "Chancellor, you have to trust us," he says in my ear. Too close for comfort.

  Brother and sister Bishop working together—for me or against me?

  "Explain yourself." I jab an index finger at one of the security clones with a bloody hole in its face shield. Mara did not use a shocker to incapacitate it. She used an actual bullet. "Why was this necessary?"

  "I'll explain everything once we're en route to a safe location. Right now, we have to move." The morning sun shines from her pale scalp. She keeps a hand on the grip of her gun, holstered for the moment. With the other, she reaches for me again. "Please, Chancellor."

  I step away from them both and glance back at the stairwell door. A woman my age wouldn't be able to evade these two and make it very far downstairs. It would be undignified. I must maintain my composure and whatever control of the situation I still possess.

  Chin raised, I look down my nose at Mara. "How did you know to come here?"

  Her stoic disposition falters a moment as she glances at her brother. "One of our analysts monitors your building at all times, Chancellor. If anything out of the ordinary happens, I am immediately notified."

  "So when you saw we had lost power, you decided to show up and shoot my security? To make me even more vulnerable?"

  "Right now, I trust only the three people on this rooftop." Mara advances a step. I hold my ground. "The localized EMP used on this building is unlike anything we've ever seen. It took out the tech on every floor, organic and inorganic alike. Yet it didn't affect any building nearby, not even foot traffic passing along the sidewalk outside. This means one thing: inside job. So we're getting in this vehicle, and we're getting you out of here. Is that understood?"

  I refrain from blinking, instead holding her severe gaze. With a short nod, I walk past her and climb into the car's rear passenger compartment. Without a word to Emmanuel, she returns to the cockpit while he takes the seat beside me. The doors drift downward and lock themselves automatically. As we lift off, I'm unable to turn my gaze away from the two clones lying on the rooftop.

  "They were only doing their job," I murmur.

  "I suppose they...could have been hacked," Emmanuel offers. Covering for his sister?

  "They're clones. They can't be hacked." The disdain in my tone is thick. "That's why we use them for security. Unlike bots, clones are impervious to EMP attacks. They do what they're trained to do after rigorous psychological conditioning."

  Mara glances at me. "Once a brain has been programmed, it is susceptible to further indoctrination. Human brain, clone brain, doesn't matter. Either one of those things down there could have been triggered to turn on you without warning."

  I shake my head. "It's never happened before."

  "Terrorists have never hit Hawthorne Tower with EMPs before." She shrugs. "It's a whole new world now, Chancellor."

  "Do you think this has something to do with what happened last night? With Sera Chen?"

  Mara clenches her jaw. Have I struck a nerve? "Enforcer Chen's encounter was not an isolated incident. Over the past twenty-four hours, our analysts have recorded electromagnetic events across the Ten Domes. Hitting your tower was the culmination of their efforts, we believe."

  "To what end?"

  She doesn't reply. Instead, she swipes the display on the vehicle console, tapping in our destination. The gridlines and 3D infrared imaging on that screen are too confusing for me to comprehend. I look away and find Emmanuel staring at me. I give him a questioning frown.

  "I don't know how they did it...whoever they are." He blinks, scratching absently at his temple. Unaccustomed to his augments being offline. "I should have known. I should have been more observant—"

  "Perhaps." In all my dust-induced aural experiences, I never heard an inkling of anything being planned against my building. "We all should have been more observant."

  I watch the streets below. The morning plays out like any other in Dome 1. Orderly. Immaculate. Neither the street traffic nor the air variety shows any awareness of disturbances occurring elsewhere. Everything is proceeding as usual, with no repercussions whatsoever following the recent terrorist attack. No riots in the street, no illegal protesting. Not yet.

  It's uncanny.

  Mara sets us down on the well-manicured roof lawn of a cube complex thirty kilometers away from my building. A man I don't recognize stands outside waiting for us, holding up a hand to block the gusts of wind stirred up by our landing. When my door drifts upward, I see that he is close to my age but without the genetic modifications that would make him look much younger. White hair combed back, piercing blue eyes. Scarred fingers he extends as if to help me down from a Victorian-era carriage.

  "Chancellor Hawthorne," he says with a warm, genuine smile. "I've been waiting to meet you for a very long time. My name is Luther."

  4 Samson

  5 Years After All-Clear

  The tractor-trailer tears across an endless stretch of cracked hardpan heading west, sending up dust that billows in its wake. I grip the door's lock-bar on the back of the shipping container with one mechanical hand and wipe my goggles with the other. Glancing back over my shoulder as I sway and shake with the trailer's rumbling movement, I check Shechara's position. She's got her jeep running at full power, following close enough but not too close, keeping ten meters between her grill and my dangling metal feet.

  The rig's engine roars as the driver shifts gears, and the gap between me and Shechara widens.

  I dip my chin toward the radio clipped to my shoulder. "They've spotted us, Sweetness."

  "So now the fun starts," she replies, her voice tinny on the small speaker. She sounds like she might be enjoying herself this time.

  I'm a bad influence.

  As Shechara's jeep gradually closes the gap, I rip the lock-bar off the adjacent door and pull it open. Immediately, I'm blasted by automatic weapons fire from the guards inside, most of the rounds pinging against my metal arm holding the bar. The rest would have hit the jeep if Shechara hadn't veered to the right in the nick of time. She knew what to expect.

  A quick peek into the dark interior is all my enhanced vision needs to count how many raiders I'm up against. Only two. These people are getting cocky.

  Think I'll knock 'em down a few pegs.

  I toss the bar inside at shin-level, toppling the guards headfirst as I step into the shipping container. Their spastic fingers send a few rounds clattering around the steel interior, but they miss my organic parts. Small favors.

  "Enough." I disarm the first one within reach and grab him by the front of his armored vest. These raiders are always decked out in the most advanced protective gear I've ever seen, straight from Eurasia. The form-fitting body armor and oxygen-helmets are a far cry from Bishop's bulky suit way back when. "Start walking."

  I toss him out the back of the container and don't bother watching him bounce across the ground in an impressive array of lateral somersaults. Seen it before. The lack of any metallic crunch means Shechara steered her jeep clear of the flying body.

  We're a well-oiled machine. Our earliest attempts at highway robbery were downright comical in comparison.

  "What are you?" The second guard has his rifle pointed at me, but my mechatronic hand is clamped over the muzzle, squeezing and bending it out of shape. His eyes widen behind his face shield.

  Have to admit, I always like this part.

  "I am justice," I growl, grabbing him by th
e throat and lifting him up to my eye level. His puny boots kick at my metal legs with a series of clanks and clunks. He's got real spirit. "Tell your superiors this road is off limits. No more pillaging."

  "Road?" he scoffs. "There aren't any roads in the Wastes!"

  "They'll get the idea." I toss him out the back to practice his acrobatics. The landing, in particular.

  Two down, two to go: the driver, and the guard riding shotgun. By now, they will have radioed for backup. So we need to grab whatever we can before we're really outnumbered.

  The container is piled high with crates of materials and supplies, things you can scavenge in just about every city ruin on the continent. Not sure why Eurasia needs this stuff—other than to make our lives more difficult. They've already fired missiles at the Homeplace and the Shipyard and every other campsite where survivors have gathered to start a new life together. Now, after trying to kill us and separate us, Eurasia is sending in soldiers to steal from us and starve us. Not surprising, I guess.

  Hydropacks are worth more than just about anything these days, along with protein packs and vitaminerals. Standard rations. Nothing special to a Eurasian. From what I hear, those domed cities across the ocean have their own farms producing fresh foodstuffs every day. They don't need what we have.

  But they take it anyway. Or try to.

  "Anything good?" Shechara asks on the radio.

  "Plenty." I pick up the lock-bar. No way to know for sure what's inside these crates without breaking them open. "More than we can carry."

  "So we hijack the truck. Drive it off their route and bury what we can't take with us."

  "Hijack it, huh?" That'll be a first. Usually we smash and grab, then run as fast as we can. "Their reinforcements will track this thing wherever we take it."

  "So we locate the tracker inside and deactivate it. Then we leave the truck someplace they'll be outnumbered, where a shipping container like this might go unnoticed."