Sanctuary

by H C Edwards

  “YOU KNOW NOTHING!” she screamed at the younger woman. “YOU ARE CHILDREN! BOTH OF YOU!”

  Aiko fell silent except for the huffing of her breath, and in the shocked stillness, Misao could only stare at the stranger before her, the tranquil poise her mother had always carried evaporated like morning dew on a hot afternoon.

  The elder councilwoman realized it as well; in the space of a few seconds she stood up, straightened her shirt as if it had come askew, and patted the hair around her head with anxious hands. At the end, she didn’t seem to know what to do and opted to sit back down, back as straight as a rod and hands clasped in her lap.

  “You are young, and so you can be forgiven your foolishness,” she said primly, as if she was admonishing them for a simple misunderstanding. “If you knew the whole picture you wouldn’t be so quick to judge. You would understand that what we are doing is-”

  “For the greater good?” Misao finished for her.

  A single tear broke free from Aiko’s left eye and trailed down unhindered. Somehow that hurt Misao more than the entire confrontation.

  “What is going on, Mother?”

  “You have no right to-”

  “I HAVE EVERY RIGHT!” Misao screamed, shocking herself with the vehemence of her reply.

  Her mother sat stunned, jaw slack, speechless for the first time that Misao could ever remember.

  She took a deep breath, aware that it was she who needed composure now.

  “I am Councilwoman HIdeshi,” she declared calmly but with the weight of conviction. “I represent all the citizens of Akropolis. I have vowed to protect them against the dangers of the world…and that includes the tyranny of those in power. I don’t know what it is you and the council have planned, Councilwoman, but I suggest you tell me now.”

  Aiko snapped her jaw shut, lifting her chin in defiance.

  “Or what?” she dared.

  MIsao sighed inwardly, but she already knew her response. She looked to Claire, who had not spoken a word since her accusations instigated the entire incident.

  “Or we tell all of Akropolis what we know.”

  When she looked back to her mother and the hurt expression of betrayal she saw on her face, she felt the twinge of guilt pierce her heart, but she was far beyond regret.

  “Y-you..” Aiko stuttered, at a loss for words at the moment.

  “We don’t know the whole picture,” Misao continued. “But I’m certain what we do know will be enough to have the citizens in the streets. I wonder what will happen then?”

  She said the last the way she felt...tired.

  “And if you did know everything?” her mother asked, and in her voice was the quiver of fear.

  Was it fear of reprisal or the fear of judgment?

  Misao didn’t know. At this point she thought they were probably both one and the same.

  “Then we’ll tell them all the truth…because that’s what they deserve.”

  “It’s called The Plan…nothing more than that. It was laid out near the very beginning of Akropolis when the council realized that our future was uncertain, when the genome defect first appeared.”

  Misao glanced over at Claire, who replied with a shake of her head.

  “What do you mean, when the genome defect first appeared,” Claire asked.

  Aiko refused to look at the younger woman, still resentful of the reaction she had forced out of her. Instead, she focused on Misao as she spoke, her calm demeanor shattered for good. She looked trapped now.

  “It started with the first generation born in Akropolis. It was a miniscule number, something of an anomaly. Initially, they assumed it was contained to that generation, a by-product of the radiation that the parents had suffered. They were able to keep it quiet, citing various other reasons. The numbers were small so it wasn’t difficult. Unfortunately, the next generation saw a spike in those born sterile. It was then the council realized that there was a real problem at hand.”

  Misao closed her eyes as she sighed. The lie went back to the beginning. This revelation should have been a surprise but after this day she only felt a deep sadness.

  “The council was good at distracting the public, and yet even then they could keep it quiet for only so long. Eventually, the word started to spread. The numbers could not be hidden anymore. It was then they decided to enact The Plan. When Talbot came around, he was chosen for his military background and his willingness to put the city first. He was voted into the council to spearhead the projects.”

  “What was,” Misao began, then corrected herself. “What is this Plan?”

  Aiko hesitated, perhaps wondering how much to say. Whatever inner voice she struggled with, it didn’t last long. She continued in a rush as if she were tired of secrets.

  “To understand that you would also have to know that the genome defect wasn’t the only problem the council discovered.”

  Misao felt a tingling at the edge of her subconscious, as if an idea or thought were trying to worm its way to the surface.

  “What other problem?”

  “It was the city itself,” her mother replied. “There were issues with geographical stability.”

  And then it hit Misao with the force of a slap across the face. She sat back in her seat, shocked at the sudden revelation.

  “The tremors,” she whispered.

  Aiko nodded as Claire looked to her confused.

  “What? What do you mean tremors?”

  Misao stared at her mother.

  “How long…how long have they been going on?” she forced the words out.

  “Long enough to become part of the contingency plan,” her mother explained. “Before Talbot joined the council but not by much. They became increasingly frequent and progressively stronger for awhile. Then came the big one, powerful enough that it was felt throughout parts of the city.”

  “How come I’ve never heard of this?” Misao asked.

  Akio shrugged.

  “The council was very adept at explanations in those days, and the people were willing to accept any excuse that didn’t threaten their livelihood. Don’t forget, some of the synthetics still remembered the end of the Old World. They weren’t too eager to revisit it.”

  “When did the tremors stop?” Misao asked.

  Akio licked her lips, hesitating.

  “Mother.”

  The elder councilwoman shook her head.

  “They never did,” she said.

  “I…I don’t understand.”

  Claire stood up from her seat suddenly. Misao looked to her but she was still puzzled by the latest disclosure and couldn’t focus her thoughts.

  “What’s the Plan?” Claire demanded from the elder councilwoman.

  “The Plan?” Akio repeated as if unsure of the question.

  “The plan, dammit!” the younger woman spat, slamming her fist onto the tabletop to accentuate her point.

  The councilwoman flinched, as did Misao, but Claire’s stare never wavered. Under the relenting glare, Akio broke first, looking sideways towards the foyer.

  “Evacuation,” she said softly. “Of the planet.”

  Claire reeled back away from the table. For a second she looked wildly about as if the walls were falling down around them. She ground her palms into her eye sockets, gritting her teeth.

  “God,” she groaned. “I should have seen it.”

  She dropped her hands and turned to Misao.

  “It’s a ship they’re building…an ark.”

  “What?” Misao replied, confused.

  “In The Mountain,” Claire said.

  And then as if another thought suddenly occurred to her, “We have to get out of here now.”

  The younger woman grabbed Misao by the wrist and forced her out of her seat.

  “Now! We have to go!”

  “W-what? Why?”

  At that instant they heard the sound of booted feet in the foyer, and a moment later, a half dozen ASF guards emerged from around the corner, rifles raised and
trained on them.

  “I’m sorry, Misao,” Akio said from her seat. “But it’s too late to run.”

  “You point that rifle at me for one more second and you’ll be wiped back to infancy,” Misao growled at the guard.

  The look on his face and the way he immediately dropped the barrel proved that she wasn’t the target in the room.

  “Leave her be,” she ordered as the guards advanced on Claire, but they ignored this command, grabbing the younger woman around the biceps and propelling her towards the foyer.

  Misao stepped in between them, facing the guard closest to her.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded angrily, mustering the full weight of her authority into her voice.

  The guard blanched and took a step back, but didn’t fully retreat.

  “I’m sorry, but we have our orders,” he apologized.

  “And who is giving these orders?” Misao snapped.

  “The council, Ma’am.”

  Misao snapped a glare at her mother.

  “You called them.”

  “I did,” Akio replied, her frostiness returning in the presence of the guards.

  “Why?”

  “Because like I said, you have no idea what is going on.”

  The elder councilwoman turned towards the guards.

  “Take her to Talbot.”

  Claire, standing behind Misao, leaned over and quickly whispered in her ear before the guard stepped in and pulled her away.

  Misao watched, helpless, as the young woman was escorted away. She didn’t struggle, nor did she argue. It was apparent that such protestations were useless. But Claire did give her one meaningful look before her departure, and Misao returned it with a nod of her head.

  When the guards were gone, she looked to her mother with judgment.

  “You are a disgrace,” she said, disgusted.

  “You are naive,” her mother retorted. “You lack the will to make the tough decisions. Your guilt makes you conflicted. I told Talbot as much but he wouldn’t listen.”

  The statement was like a slap in the face. Misao couldn’t find the words to retaliate.

  “How could you make life and death decisions for this city? You have no concept of what it takes to lead, to sacrifice. You think morality is our salvation but it is your weakness!”

  She shouted the last, fists balled at her sides, the flush in her cheeks and the veins standing out in her neck exuding rage.

  “That ship is the only salvation our species has. This city will fall into the ground sooner than later and when it does all of this,” she said, sweeping her arms out to encompass the whole. “All of this will be gone!”

  Misao found her voice.

  “But the other sanctuaries. They-”

  “Will crumble just like all the rest!” her mother shouted.

  “Like Charlottesville?” Misao accused.

  She didn’t know why she said it. A part of her had carried suspicion since Talbot had given her the news, a tiny parcel of her consciousness that fought against the explanation.

  “We needed their resources to finish the ship,” Akio hissed, pointing her finger at her daughter. “They are the ones who reneged on the deal.”

  Misao thought of Claire’s description of the launch facility in The Mountain, the objects that were labeled as Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.

  “The council…you…you destroyed Charlottesville,” she said through numb lips.

  “To ensure our survival!” her mother roared in return.

  Misao felt faint. She put her hand out and groped for the wall, leaning against it as she reeled from the declaration. All those people dead, their lives snuffed out, and for what…resources?

  She couldn’t control the bile that came up and erupted from her mouth. It splattered the floor, smelling like acid and sickness.

  How could they? What the council had done was worse than murder; it was genocide…madness.

  Misao stumbled away, heading towards the foyer. She needed to get out, get far from this place.

  “There is nowhere to go!” her mother shouted as Misao placed her hand on the sensor to open the door to the hallway. “You are a part of this now!”

  As she wobbled away on unsteady legs, she heard her mother’s last words echoing off the walls, following her like a hungry predator.

  The Cloud

  “A few years back your mother collaborated with the genome project, their goal to create a more viable vaccine. Being in bio-mechanics, they thought it prudent to see if there was a possible use for the nanotech she employed for the synthetics. I don’t know the details but apparently her input was invariably helpful. The next wave of vaccines came through this collaboration.”

  “I didn’t know about that,” Quentin said from his perch on the edge of his seat.

  Griffin shrugged.

  “There were a lot of projects over the years, some successful, some not so much. But it was out of this project that the genome division began to look at the fertility issue from a different angle.”

  “What do you mean?” Trey intervened.

  “The head of the genome department was a woman named Rachel Talbot,” Griffin said, staring at Quentin the entire time. “She was the mother of your friend, Claire, the one we’ve been trying to find.”

  Quentin thought that the time for shocking revelations had come and gone, but he was mistaken.

  “It’s why I recognized the girl’s face when you pulled it up from the Cloud,” his father explained. “She’s the spitting image of her mother. I knew I had seen her before…I just needed to be certain.”

  “I…I d-don’t,” Quentin stuttered, attempting to spit out the phrase that had become all too common recently. “I don’t understand.”

  Griffin shifted in his seat, either reticent or searching for the right words.

  “Before she…passed away,” he continued. “Talbot’s daughter brought something to Rose.”

  Quentin flinched at the sound of his mother’s name. How many years had it been since his father had actually said it?

  “You see, Rachel believed that the genome problem was external and not internal. It had always been assumed that it was the earlier generations and their exposure to the radiation that created the issue, altering our DNA and shutting down the reproductive genes. But after years of vaccines and genetic manipulation, your mother and her colleague, Rachel, decided to pursue a different course.”

  “You mean they thought there was another reason for the infertility?” Quentin asked.

  His father nodded, becoming more animated as he continued.

  “First of all, reproduction is controlled by a vast hypothalamic neural network of over a thousand hormone secreting neurons. When the mutation-”

  “Dad?” Quentin interrupted, nodding towards the Major.

  Griffin paused and looked back and forth between the two of them. He shrugged.

  “Sorry…um…look, Rachel needed your mother’s nanobots injected into the experimental group to record the changes that took place at a cellular level, but they found something else, a mutation, an anomaly that they were able to record and use to create a model. They found that it was causing an unraveling of these genetic strands. Basically, something was pulling them apart.”

  Trey, leaning forward, held up hand.

  “Wait a second. I know you’re going the layman’s route with me but are you saying the genome issue isn’t genetic, that all these years we’ve been looking at it the wrong way?”

  “Exactly,” Griffin replied emphatically.

  “What proof do you have?”

  “That is what I’m getting to,” he replied, placating. “The vaccines seemed to be working for awhile, and so the model took a back seat, but when it became apparent that the effectiveness of the vaccine was tapering off, they had to revisit the data again. By then, my wife was gone and there was no one else to verify the data with. Rachel brought it to me instead, knowing that I had hel
ped create the bots.”

  “What did it show?” Quentin asked.

  “The same thing it did before,” his father explained. “I couldn’t understand it. Studying the model showed the problem was not genetic, or at least there was no genetic explanation for the mutation. The external explanation seemed to be the only route to take. I didn’t find the answer until I took some blood samples with me to the cryo-lab.”

  “The lab we were just at?” Quentin asked.

  Griffin nodded.

  “I’m often working on several things at once so sometimes I have to bring my work with me to different labs. While I was there waiting for some new coils for the refrigeration unit, I threw the samples through the gamut, even under the spectral analysis, just on a whim mind you.”

  Trey frowned.

  “I don’t know what the hell a spectrum analysis is,” the Major said.

  Quentin cleared his throat, “It’s a way to analyze the effect of electromagnetism on the properties of matter.”

  “Almost textbook,” Griffin said with a small smile. “Once I transferred the data to the model I found that the samples showed a drastic increase in the genetic unraveling.”

  Trey shook his head.

  “I feel like this is all Greek. What are you saying?”

  Griffin looked to Quentin, as he often did when he expected him to know the answer, and Quentin did understand, though he felt hesitant to explain, and not because he thought he might be wrong but because the ramifications of the right answer was almost incomprehensible.

  “He’s saying that electromagnetic fields caused acceleration in the mutation.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?” Trey asked.

  “It means,” Quentin continued softly. “That the fertility problem is caused by electromagnetic fields.”

  Griffin, grimly, finished the thought.

  “And we are sitting on the largest man-made electromagnetic field in the world.”

  “The Quantum Computer…you’re talking about the Quantum Computer,” Trey said, feeling as if he was finally starting to understand their conversation.

  The silence stretched out while the Major absorbed the information.