"I'll notify our captain that you're on your way, in case you'd like to lock up this violator at the station for a while," the guard offers as he unlocks the gate.
"Thanks." I nod, swinging the muzzle of my rifle toward Erik and keeping it there. The guards relax their posture and step back, clearing a path for us.
"You have been most helpful," the clone tells them.
I ignore it and gesture for Erik to start moving. He keeps his hands on his head as we exit the train station and turn left.
"Wrong way, Chen," the guard calls out behind us. "Something wrong with your augments?"
I look back to find him pointing the other way.
"A lot of help you are," I mutter to the clone.
"My navigation systems are offline," it replies.
I give the guard a friendly wave as we adjust course, heading the right direction toward the law enforcement station. But of course that's not where we're going.
How many of the Twenty are in this dome? I ask Erik.
Two, he thinks back at me.
My siblings or yours?
You believe me now? He glances over his shoulder as we walk along the sidewalk.
That the Twenty originated from four North American survivors—two male, two female. That there are two sets of ten siblings. And you want each member of the Twenty to know the truth.
"Yeah," he says out loud. "That's about it."
"Where are they?"
"Not sure." He points at my pocket. "I'll need my phone to track them down."
"What do they do here?"
"Tree monkeys." He almost laughs at what I'm sure is a confused look on my face. "They work alternating shifts, caring for the trees and plant life suspended from the dome's apex. Keep them fed and watered, happily producing oxygen. One of them lives in that cube complex." He nods toward the building on our left as we pass it. "She's one of your sisters."
"Enforcer Chen," the clone says, "I am concerned about the direction of this conversation. It does not appear that you intend to bring this violator to the station."
"This violator is one of the Twenty. Didn't you say earlier that you were directed to round us up and take us someplace safe?"
"I...do not know…" It sounds perplexed, thanks to Erik's reprogramming.
What's her name—this tree monkey?
Erik smiles at me. Arienna.
If security clones were sent to round her up, she may not be here at all.
"Possible," he allows, raising an eyebrow. "But if she is here…"
I hand him his antique phone, and he gets to work, flicking his thumbs across the screen. "That guy wasn't kidding. The Link is moving s-l-o-w." He looks up, but not at me. He's staring at the dome's leafy ceiling. "If she's working her shift, we'll find her up there."
Great. And us without an aerocar.
"Recognize her?" He turns the screen toward me, and I see one of the faces that came up earlier in my DNA search. Otherwise, I don't remember her from our days together at that boarding school, Camp Hope.
We live only now, never looking back. For the common good.
He pats his jacket pocket before tucking away the old phone. I shake my head and hold out my palm. Disgruntled, he hands back the device. "I'll have to knock out her augments. It's the only way she'll be receptive to the truth. But with both of us telling her the same thing, I'm sure it will go a whole lot smoother."
"Was I your trial run?"
He glances at me with an audacious expression. "I like to think of you as my first."
The security clone is scanning the buildings on either side of the street, turning its black face shield from one to the other, its head cocked back. For the first time since its arrival, it seems to be ignoring us.
"You hear something?" I take a step toward it and glance back toward the maglev station, a block away now. I can only see the gate from here, and the guards aren't in my line of sight. Everything is quiet. Maybe too quiet.
"We are being watched," the clone says.
A couple citizens in the cube complex stand at their respective windows, six floors up, staring down at us. Understandable that we would inspire curiosity. Nobody's supposed to be out on the streets, yet here we are: a security clone, a law enforcer, and a citizen who, until a minute ago, was walking with his hands on his head. At gunpoint.
"Friends of yours?" I glance at Erik.
He smiles and waves up at the gawkers, who quickly avert their eyes and back away from their windows.
"Never seen them before." He shrugs, turning his attention to the leafy greenery seeming to sprout from the dome's plexicon walls. "Pretty sure I could jump up there, but I'm assuming you'll want to join me."
"We're joined at the hip." I pat the rifle slung at my side.
"Right." He narrows his gaze at the clone. Might want to order it to stay put.
"Hold this position," I tell the security clone. "The violator and I will return within the hour."
"You would be safer if you brought me along, Enforcer Chen."
"Noted." I give Erik a nudge, and we head toward the forest looming at the end of the street. "Assist local law enforcement. Notify the maglev guards of any terrorist activity. If we don't return by 1100 hours, you have permission to look for me."
"Understood." The clone widens its stance in a standard hold-the-perimeter position and scans the surrounding area, its head slowly panning from left to right.
That should keep it busy. I jog after Erik, who's decided to pick up the pace. "Even with martial law in effect, Arienna will be working?"
"One thing citizens and terrorists have in common, Enforcer Chen: we all breathe oxygen. As much as the patriots want to buck the system, they won't attack anything we all need to survive. It would be counterproductive to their cause. They want to gain sympathizers, not lose them."
"So that's what you are." If he isn't a patriot himself. "A sympathizer."
"Never said that." He glances back at me. "But I understand where they're coming from."
Because that's where he came from. Farming Dome 9's fields before his big break as a VR actor or model or whatever he is. I blame my lack of attention to detail on faulty biologic; enforcers are used to sharing the mental workload with our neural implants.
So Erik would have worked alongside potential terrorists in the making. Citizens who felt enslaved by the system, shedding their blood, sweat, and tears so the residents of Dome 1 could enjoy the good life.
For some reason, the Eurasian credo that all of us must do our part in order to ensure a bright future for our people fell on a few deaf ears. Most citizens are perfectly content living day to day and contributing to society, no matter what the job assignment. But others have questioned the status quo. Up to now, that's all it has been: complaints, non-violent protests, insubstantial riots. But today, with the attack on Hawthorne Tower and the disappearance of the Chancellor, words have suddenly evolved into dangerous actions.
Why today? And why didn't we see this coming? Because most citizens were busy living mundane lives, clocking in and out, going home to enjoy virtual adventures on the Link. No one paid attention to the unrest boiling up at the periphery of our highly advanced society. We didn't give it any credence. We assumed these malcontents would never be able to touch us.
What about the analysts plugged into the Linkstream for eight-hour shifts, monitoring the words and actions of every citizen in the 10 Domes? Wouldn't they have noticed something in the works?
Shade from the trees covers us now, and our boots have traded concrete sidewalk for a spongy synthetic dirt and mulch composite that gives each of our steps an extra little bounce. I follow Erik since he seems to know where he's going, but I hold my rifle ready and keep my eyes on the surroundings. This would be a perfect location for an ambush. I half-expect patriots to lunge out from behind thick tree trunks or rappel on ropes to surround us with weapons drawn.
But the farther we encroach into the forest, the more unlikely that scenario seems. We
are the only people here in this quasi-natural silence. It feels like no one else has ever trod upon this ground, at least not for a very long time. I'm glad the turf silences our footsteps. It seems disrespectful for anything to make a sound here.
I gaze at the trees soaring above and wonder what it was like before the Domes, when not only trees but birds and animals thrived on the surface of the earth. When the sun shone down without an artificial barrier in place to protect us. Tough to imagine. These biospheres are all I've ever known.
With my augments operational, I wouldn't be thinking such thoughts. I'd accept life the way it is and go about my daily routine. Never looking back…
The patriots must have deactivated their neural implants. How else would they be able to rebel against life as we know it? Erik is searching for each of the Twenty and disabling our neural implants so we can learn the truth about who we are. There must have been a lone patriot who did the same, stirring up discontent among the laborers in the outlying domes and telling them their lives could be better.
It makes no sense. The original patriots in North America brought about D-Day by releasing dangerous bioweapons into the atmosphere; their actions led to the end of the world. Why would anyone in Eurasia want to be associated with those degenerates? Calling themselves patriots is a slap in the face for our Governors and Chancellor who have done everything in their power to build a future for our people after a nuclear holocaust. Terrorists started the war forty-two years ago, but our leaders finished it in a big way.
And, in so doing, they made the world uninhabitable. Discharging nuclear weapons by the untold megatons will do that. So who were the true villains? The agitators, or the government that overreacted?
I can't believe I'm having such treasonous thoughts. I've never questioned our leaders before, never had any reason to. This oxygen-rich air is making me feel lightheaded. I'm not thinking straight at all.
I almost run into Erik. He's stopped, his head tilted back as he stares upward.
"That's the apex," he says quietly.
"How the hell do we get up there?" I gaze through the leafy canopy at the glinting dome high above.
"I'll carry you." He crouches down like he expects me to ride him piggyback. "Here, climb on."
"Not happening."
"Why not? You scared?"
"I'm armed."
He stands up. "Fine. Then we bring her down to us." He cups his hands around his mouth and starts shouting her name at the treetops. "Arienna! Arienna!"
So obnoxious. I can't help cringing. But it does the trick.
A shadow the size of a large leaf swings out from the dome's interior on a bike-shaped hovercraft, built to carry a single rider. It descends slowly, passing through the leaves and branches and enlarging as it approaches. Pausing to hover a few meters above our heads, the rider looks each of us over with a curious frown.
"You're not from around here," she observes.
Her features and coloring are similar to my own. Dark hair, piercing blue eyes, olive-toned skin. Slender but wiry.
"Are you Arienna?" Erik grins at her. Not nearly as suave as he tried to be with me.
"Am I under arrest?" She looks at me, glancing briefly at my weapon.
"No." I shake my head. "Should you be?" Stupid question. I feel awkward, and I hate it.
Erik chuckles. "Meet your sister, Sera!"
Arienna's frown takes root. "Who are you?"
"I'm one of the Twenty. I work as an enforcer in Dome 1. My name is Sera Chen." I feel like I said those three out of order.
"Something we have in common," Erik clarifies. "We're all members of the Twenty. I'd shake your hand, but you're just a bit out of reach."
Why don't you jump? I ask him, mind to mind.
He ignores me.
"Of course. Sorry." Arienna glides toward the ground and deactivates the hoverbike as it settles onto the turf. She dismounts from the saddle and reaches out her hand, shaking first with Erik, then me. "Dome 1? I hear things are a little crazy over there right now."
"They've been better," I allow.
"So what are you doing here? Looking for me?" She laughs it off.
"Actually—"
"With the banquet coming up, we thought it might be nice to have a little pre-reunion reunion," Erik says. "You know, to make things less awkward than they're bound to be at that fancy shindig."
He's smooth, I'll give him that.
"The banquet is still on? I thought—with the terrorist threat…" she trails off as Erik and I glance at each other.
We really haven't thought this through. I assumed he knew what he was doing, but maybe he's just winging it. Nothing about his early interactions with me seemed very well-planned, either.
"Not to be rude, but I don't remember either of you. Or anything from that time when we were kids." She shakes her head, the frown still in place. "Those memories have always been really fuzzy…"
She's staring at the palm of Erik's outstretched hand and what's sitting in it: a small device the size and shape of a grenade, pulsing with an electric-blue light.
He smiles at her. "Would you like to remember who you are?"
12 Daiyna
5 Years After All-Clear
The Wastelanders have made me their queen.
So much for never having a woman lead them, or for women being good for only two things: sustenance and sex. I made it clear that they won't be eating anybody from here on out. They'll have to go on a meatless diet until one of them wants to challenge me for leadership of the tribe. They glanced at each other in those weird skull-masks, but nobody took me up on it. And that would have been the best time to take a swing at me, since I was still recovering from being nearly crushed to death by Cain.
They didn't understand my aversion to cannibalism, or why Shechara and Samson backed me up. They couldn't believe the three of us have survived this long without any meat. Samson decided it was appropriate to wax religious, and he ended up sounding like Luther. Telling them we were made in the image of God, and that it's wrong to consume the flesh of a fellow image-bearer. That elicited a few more glances among the marauders as they tried to make sense out of what he was saying.
I kept it simple: "You eat anybody ever again, I shoot you in the head." I waved my 9mm at them as a visual.
They nodded. That they understood.
So now we're headed to Eden, since I promised them a taste of the good life. Here's hoping I can leave them there, fat and happy with air conditioning and running water. Maybe I'll appoint one of them as my successor. Let them duke it out with the Edenites to see who gets to stay, and who gets banished. Or they can figure out some way to coexist. Hell, maybe even join forces to fight off the UW raiders, keep them from taking everything of value.
Not that there's much left. I have a feeling the raiders will soon be moving on to greener pastures, scavenging from other city ruins farther east. The Edenites will starve to death, and the Wastelanders will eat them, most likely. And that's fine by me. Shechara, Samson, and I will be long gone, free to do our own scavenging far away from the whole lot of them.
"I don't believe you," Shechara says, leaning against me in the back of the jeep as Samson drives us across the rough terrain. The Wastelanders on their dirt bikes flank us and follow us, jumping into the air, doing their stunts and tricks along the way. Cain sits up front next to Samson. We've got the extra-crispy ex-warlord bound and gagged, but he keeps grunting as if we care about anything he has to say. "I think you want to kill him."
"Him?" I point at the back of Cain's hideous head. No hair, no skin. Just nasty burned flesh.
"Not him. Perch—in Eden. You still want him dead."
Of course I do. But I tried taking him out before, and I ended up getting too many good people killed in the process. Not a chance I would ever risk that again, especially not with Shechara here. I pull her close and give her a squeeze.
"My killing days are over. Don't believe me? Ask this guy." I kick the back of Cai
n's seat, and he lets out an angry grunt.
"You showed a lot of restraint, all things considered," Samson allows. His black goggles glance at me in the rearview mirror. "But I'm still unclear about our return to Eden. You promised these Wastelanders milk and honey, but that requires getting inside to procure said milk and honey. I've got a feeling Perch has that place sealed up tighter than a bunker on D-Day."
"And isn't there a bounty on your head?" Shechara whispers, looking at Cain as if she doesn't want him to overhear. "What's to keep these Wastelanders from turning you in and collecting it?"
I nudge her. "Do they really seem that bright to you?" They had a walking lump of barbecue leading them until very recently. I raise my voice for Samson's benefit, "I'll get them inside. Don't you worry. Cain's going to help us."
More grunts from the badly roasted neanderthal.
No sight of any UW raiders so far. Maybe they got scared off by Cain's missile strikes and decided to lay low for a day or two. Let things calm down a bit before they go back to their larcenous ways.
Hard to believe Stack is demolished. If we head back that way after dropping the Wasterlanders off in Eden, we could see about helping Tullson and his people rebuild. Assuming anyone survived.
"Well, aren't you the do-gooder," Willard sneers, somehow managing to sit next to me with one leg hanging over the side of the jeep. Easy enough to manage when you're noncorporeal. I really need to refill my flask. "Since when do you give a crap about helping anybody out?"
"I seem to remember a certain Edenite you could have helped but chose not to," Mother Lairen adds, sitting on the other side of Shechara in an equally impossible position. Her flaming red hair flaps in the breeze. "Perhaps you no longer have a stomach for killing, but deciding who lives or dies—whom you help and whom you ignore? It's the same thing, Daiyna."
Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) Page 95