by H C Edwards
“Irreversible, and rapidly accelerating,” her grandfather confirmed. “The vaccines, all based on your mother’s research, only slowed the process, so that viable hosts could reproduce before the mutation set in.”
Claire closed her eyes, the shock of the revelation setting in. How could she have not seen it before? It had been right in front of her the entire time. All those people, her people, their people…all doomed.
She slumped, the weight of her shoulders carrying the burden of helplessness. Her grandfather had said the process was rapidly accelerating. If that were true then-
Claire looked up at Talbot, her eyes widening.
“My mother?” she asked almost breathlessly.
He looked away from her wide-eyed stare.
“She was the first,” he replied softly, as Claire’s stomach clenched in a knot.
“No,” she said, but of course it had to be the truth.
Nothing else explained her mysterious illness, the rapid decline, the confounded physicians and the fruitless tests that revealed nothing.
In a trembling voice she asked, “Did she know?”
Her grandfather’s silence was an answer itself.
Claire felt the room start to spin, the light fading. She reached over with one of her hands and dug her nails hard into the soft skin of her bicep, the pain bringing her back from the fringe of unconsciousness.
Dwell on that later. Be here now.
It was her father’s voice again, the same one that had saved her in The Mountain.
She took shuddering breaths until she found her center.
“How many since my mother?” she asked a minute later.
When Talbot didn’t answer, she gave him a piercing stare as she emphasized both words.
“How many?”
He shook his head.
“Too many,” he finally replied. “But not so many that we couldn’t keep it quiet.”
“A hundred years,” she repeated softly.
“That is why we had to act. The Plan, as Councilwoman Egbert had touched upon before you were brought to me, had been conceived once the Wall closed for good all those years ago, but the technology, the resources, was not available until we united the sanctuaries through the underground trade system. And even then, the design process went through hundreds of changes before we could even begin construction, not to mention the dozens of tests we needed to perform in order to ensure the success of the new fuel and propulsion systems. Thankfully, we had a few relics left over from the Old World to assist in this, and what we didn’t have, The Mountain provided.”
The word ‘relics’ penetrated her somber reflection, as well as a few other words that seemed to fit together. She closed her eyes and tried to make sense of them, felt that it was important that she did.
“The objects,” Claire said when it finally came to her. “The ones that come out of the desert.”
“Ah,” Talbot replied, surprise showing in the crags of his face. “So you know about the rockets.”
When she didn’t answer, he shrugged.
“They are tools that we have used. Not everything can lift off with the ship. It is simply too much weight. Most of the fuel and water had to be put into orbit, as well as other resources necessary for the trip. When Genesis is finally ready, she will rendezvous with the supplies, carrying in her berth roughly six thousand citizens with the ability to procreate the species on another world, as well as a few hundred synthetics to oversee ship operations while they are in stasis.”
Claire couldn’t believe the words she was hearing. Abandon the planet? Abandon the sanctuary? It seemed ridiculous, mad even, but she had seen the ship with her own eyes, the so called ‘rockets’ lifting from the desert floor, obviously meant for space. Hadn’t her father said years ago that they signified hope when he first showed them to her? Did he know about The Plan then? Had he been a part of it?
Claire had to force those thoughts aside because there was something that didn’t add up.
“What makes you think the genetic issue won’t follow?”
Her grandfather nodded as he formed a paternal smile.
“Always trying to figure out the big problem,” he replied. “Just like my Rachel. You have grown to be much like the woman she was.”
Claire blanched at the mention. She wanted to shout at him to keep her mother’s name from his mouth, but she gritted her teeth, wanting an answer to her question more than her anger wanted to vent.
Talbot scratched at the stubble on his chin and made a gesture that was between embarrassed and resigned.
“We know the cause of the genome mutation. We’ve known for some time. Unfortunately, the problem is not one we can rectify.”
“Why not?”
It wasn’t a rhetorical question. In Akropolis they had made the impossible possible over and over again.
“Because, it is inseparable from our sanctuary…it’s the field surrounding our quantum computer.”
She flinched, blinking rapidly.
“The field?”
Her grandfather sat there noncommittal, waiting for her thought processes to catch up.
“The field,” she repeated.
And then she understood. In retrospect it was obvious, but it was also an avenue she had never considered, that an outside source other than the radiation that suffused their world, would be the cause. Why would she? The field cradling the quantum computer, creating a protective bubble in which to perform all of its functions without interruption, had been in operation for three hundred years. It was the lifeline of the city, the heart of their sanctuary that controlled every aspect of their lives. The quantum computer made the Cloud possible, and thereby the assurance that the human race would continue to exist in one form or the other. Except, as she just realized, instead of saving them, it had been condemning them this whole time.
“How…”
Claire had to gulp down the lump in her throat and steady her voice. Her mind staggered from the sheer magnitude of what it portended.
“How long…have you known?”
“Your mother figured it out before she became sick,” Talbot explained, his voice breaking just a little at the end, and then he sat up straighter, squaring his shoulders. “Her last vaccine is based on strengthening the cells against the effects of the electromagnetic field, which is why it ultimately worked for awhile, at least in part, enough that when you were ready to take up the mantle you were able to further her work.”
Claire knew the shock she felt must have showed on her face. It was impossible to feel anything else.
“Claire,” her grandfather said, sitting forward, his face earnest. “It works.”
She looked up at him as he nodded.
“It does. Your newest iteration. The Mountain’s quantum computer is much smaller, and so is their field. The vaccine we tested there with those people shows that the genetic mutation slows to less than one percent. When our people go up in Genesis to make the trip, they will be in cryo-stasis, their cellular functions slowed to a near standstill. In that state, and with the vaccine, the genetic mutation won’t affect them, not even in the hundred years we estimate for the journey to the new world. And once there, the next generation will be free of that burden. Our species will have been saved.”
His eyes had taken on the fire of zealousness, the features of his face transformed into something almost childlike.
“Think of it, Claire, a new beginning for the human race. The planet we have found…it has an atmosphere, water, land, minerals. We can thrive again, become what we should have been, had we not been confined to the trap of shortsightedness like those fools in the Old World. It has always been the hope of our greatest forefathers that we would one day populate the stars, and now, finally, we can.”
Claire didn’t recognize her grandfather. ‘Those people’, he had said, in reference to testing the vaccine. It wasn’t callousness but a disconnection from his humanity. How had he transformed into this man, or had he a
lways been this person, cold and calculating, the citizens under his watch just numbers and figures to move around like pieces on a chessboard? And the prize? Nothing short of the human race and its continuance. Noble, he probably thought, or necessary, but it felt and sounded more spineless to her, running from a problem that they had all propagated all these centuries long.
“And everyone else?” she asked, finally finding her anger again, growling her next words. “What about the rest of the world? You would leave them to die for your greater good?”
“What world?!” he exploded, flecks of spit flying from his lips, his voice hoarse and cracking, carrying the outrage of the persecuted, as if her judgment of him was erroneous. “This world is dead, and so are its people! I will save humanity! I will make sure that we will not go extinct!”
His chest heaved with exertion, his eyes near bulging from their sockets. Claire had never imagined this side of her grandfather existed, this monstrous and feverish persona, the antithesis of the man she had always known and held in esteem. No more…the illusion of that man, if that was all it had been, was gone, replaced with a poisonous shell filled with aspirations mimicking virtuous intentions.
It made her sad and angry at the same time, but it must have been the pity he saw on her face, for he reeled in the anger almost immediately, composing himself with a few shuddering breaths, until the façade dropped back over his features.
Talbot stood, creaking and slow, but proud when he gained his feet.
“I am sorry for all of this, Claire. I was hoping you would understand, that you might see things my way.”
“I’ll never see it your way,” she said through clenched teeth.
“You will,” he replied, morosely it seemed. “After we are both revived, you will join me on the ship, and you will remember this conversation differently. It will be as if we were in agreement all along.”
Claire felt the air sucked out of her lungs.
“What?”
“Together we will help humanity on their new path, on a new world, and we will live as long as need be, to guide them, and to make certain that they do not stray too far.”
He turned towards the door and knocked. When it opened, he stepped through and glanced back at Claire, even as she attempted to speak through the shock that held her body and voice frozen.
“Don’t worry, Claire. Soon, this won’t even be a memory.”
No Time
“Janet.”
Dr. Wadzinski was the last person he expected to run into. The expression on her face revealed that she was equally surprised as he, but her recovery was quicker.
“Griffin,” she said, dropping her voice to a hushed tone. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”
“What?” he replied, caught off guard enough that he still hadn’t exited the lift.
She saved him the trouble, reaching over and yanking him past the threshold by the sleeve of his lab coat, turning and prompting him down the hallway in the opposite direction of his destination, towards her office.
“Janet, I-” he fumbled, feeling much like a wayward child being led to his punishment.
She immediately let go of his arm when his feet started to follow her lead.
“Wipe that look off your face,” she reprimanded him. “Act normal.”
Griffin did his best facsimile, though his confusion was equal to a range of emotions he felt at the moment, the foremost being panic.
“Janet, I need to-” he began, only to be cut off again.
“Do you know what kind of shitstorm you’ve brought on me?”
“What?” he muttered, his feet still moving forward in autopilot.
He wanted to glance behind him, perhaps to see if they were being followed, the paranoia battling with the panic.
“Shut up,” she whispered to him as a tech came around the corner of the hall.
He snapped his jaw shut on command, still confused but knowing enough to fall silent.
“I need you to take a look at the latest tests,” Janet said a little too loudly, shoving a screen pad into his numb hands.
Griffin took the proffered object with bewilderment but looked down at the empty screen nonetheless, even as the tech passed them by in the hallway.
“As you can see, the beta results show that the cryo-tubes are fluctuating power,” Janet riffed. “I think that there must be a faulty circuit in the motherboard. I’m guessing it’s in the mainframe and not the tubes.”
Griffin nodded, mumbling something incoherent. They reached Wadzinski’s office. She waved at the door, and when it opened, she walked through and waited for him. As he passed into her office, she turned and whispered something. He heard the secure lock click in place.
Janet turned on him then, looking like a tiger ready to pounce. Her expression was a mixture of fury and fear.
“Why the hell haven’t you returned my calls? Tell me what the hell is going on, Griffin,” she demanded.
He didn’t know how to reply. A dozen excuses popped into his mind, but as his lips parted not a sound came out. He couldn’t get a handle on what was happening, even less to what she was referring.
“The blocks you put in the Major. Tell me what you were thinking,” she seethed at him, and upon the announcement, Griffin could have breathed a sigh of relief.
Some of that emotion must have shown on his face, however, because the little bit of fear that was creeping along the edges of her bony cheeks dissipated, leaving behind only the anger.
“Tell me what is going on now, Griffin, because I’m this close to reporting you.”
He looked down at his forearm computer, her words sinking in. A couple of swipes and he realized that his device was locked out of the call network.
“Dammit,” he hissed.
Griffin shook off the last remnants of confusion, his mind calculating. Arriving at a decision, he grabbed Janet by the hand and moved away from the door.
“You found the blocks,” he whispered despite the closed and locked door between them and the hallway.
He could almost feel his scalp crawling with the eyes and ears he imagined were honing in on him.
“Of course I did,” she replied angrily. “Damn shoddy work too. It’s almost as if you wanted them found.”
Her jaw dropped open at the last word, sudden realization dawning upon her.
“Listen to me and listen carefully,” Griffin cut into her train of thoughts. “I know you have your suspicions about the projects we have been working on these past few years, and you are correct to some degree. They have nothing to do with Akropolis, or rather they have nothing to do with advancing our sanctuary.”
“Griffin,” she said, the anger gone now but something just as troubling replacing it.
There wasn’t a word for it, but if he had to describe it, he would call it the helplessness of a terrified child.
“Please, let me finish,” he interrupted. “I don’t have time to explain everything to you, but believe me when I say that Talbot and the council are not working in our best interests.”
“What are you-”
“Just listen,” he demanded, taking a tone with her that he had never before. “I don’t know if you’ve heard the rumors but Charlottesville is gone.”
He saw the impact of his words on her, and knew that he was correct in thinking the whispers had spread. He hated himself a tiny bit for what was coming next but he also knew that there was no time left. His disconnection from the call network could only mean that they knew, somehow they knew, and they would be coming for him at any moment.
“Talbot and the council are to blame,” he said, this time not pausing to gauge her reaction. “I can’t explain to you how but it’s true nonetheless. They are murderers, and they won’t hesitate to kill me or you or anyone else who knows this.”
Janet took a step back away from him.
“Griffin, maybe we-”
He reached out and grabbed her by the elbows and yank
ed her close.
“Listen to me!” he yelled, then dropped his voice immediately, realizing that it was he that was scaring her and not his words.
“Please, Janet,” he continued in a pleading tone. “You know me. We are friends. I would never lie to you about something like this. I have proof but I don’t have the time to convince you, because any moment they’re going to grab me.”
“I-I,” she stuttered, and he could almost see the cogs turning in her head.
He would just have to trust that what he said next sunk in.
“I need you to do something for me, Janet.”
He left her office in a rush, no longer attempting anonymity. His footsteps rang out in the hallway as he ran for his office, hoping that his mad dash would catch them off guard.
There was only two turns before he reached his door, and blessedly, the guards were just edging around the hallway at the far end.
Griffin slid past his door as it opened, but not fast enough. He clipped his shoulder painfully, numbing his arm down to the fingertips.
“Sia!” he yelled. “Lock the door and let no one in!”
It slid shut and he heard the click, even as he darted behind his desk, flipping up the view screen and yanking off his forearm computer.
Griffin swiped across the screen and accessed his personal database, then tapped the security code on his device until it uplinked with his forearm computer. He could tell instantly that he was shut out of the network, but that didn’t matter, not if Janet did her part.
Another couple of swipes and he pulled up the virtual keyboard. His fingers flew across the keys just as he heard the first thump against the door.
“Come on,” he murmured as he shook the fingers of his right hand to clear it of the numbness.
He entered lines of code, impatient as he waited the split second for each prompt. The thumping at his door was constant now, and just as he hit return on the last line of code, gunfire ripped through the door and into his office, sending him diving down to the floor.
They weren’t gentle as they dragged him out from behind the desk, snatching off his forearm computer before cuffing him, then yanking him up painfully to his feet from his wrists.