Through years of tediously gruesome tests, most of which Auntie said were too terrible to describe, Anna discovered a specific set of genes that could be manipulated to cause a person to have a greater chance at surviving radiation poisoning. It was an incredible discovery and Anna’s diary bemoaned the fact that she hadn’t unlocked the genetic code before her grandmother, Marie, succumbed to the disease. Anna’s confidant, a mathematician she’d considered her closest friend, stole her findings and claimed them as his own.
A lifetime of being looked down on by her family for her mother’s pre-marital missteps, and of being snubbed by her male peers and the world at large for being female drove her mad. She approached the person spearheading Adaline’s construction, someone who she referred to as “Oppie,” and informed him in no uncertain terms that she would leave the program if she was not provided a policy of segregation between male and female researchers. She demanded equal resources, identical facilities, and an assurance of no crossover between genders at the sites. If her request was denied, she wrote, she’d begin a tour of the towns just beyond Hanford’s fence, telling everyone she met about the device being built just out of sight, and the designer humans being produced who would outlive them all.
In the end, her quick wit and pouty lip won her the approval for the second site, which she named Curie in honor of her grandmother. Anna dedicated the remainder of her life to the Woman who’d helped to make radiation the indispensable marvel it had become.
“And so,” Auntie spoke softly to the nodding audience before her, “every policy written from that time on was to keep us separate. All because one Woman, our mother, was deceived by a single dishonorable Man.”
“What does it matter?” Blue yawned. “We’re different enough. If everyone wants to stay divided, why bother mashing us all together?”
Auntie got up from her chair. She found a pile of blankets nearby and began draping them over her guests, who had moved from their makeshift seats to the floor where they had room to lie down in the small open area at their feet. “Because when Mattie’s mother returned with a baby Boy, it was easy to see we were wrong.” She dropped her chin and gave Blue a sidelong glance. “You were the noisiest creature I’d ever laid ears on. But other than your constant wailing, you were no different than the little children born to us from the Oosa.”
“I still don’t get how that works,” 62 complained. “The volunteers go to the Oosa, and then they come back with a baby inside of them? That’s not how people are made in Adaline.”
“They poop them out,” 00 stammered. He blushed when Auntie gave him a scolding look. “That’s what it sounded like when Mattie told me.”
Auntie sneered, “We do not ‘poop’ babies out. Women are created with an entirely different set of internal organs than Men, as it turns out. Designed for carrying and birthing infants. It might be cleaner and more orderly in the lab of Adaline, just as it was in the days when Curie still bred us. But things work quite a bit different above ground.
“Always the rule-breaker, Mattie’s mother explained the whole process to me when she returned from the Oosa. They’d sworn her to secrecy, you know, but she could never seem to keep her mouth shut once she got it in her mind to change the world. Outside of a lab, you can’t make babies without mixing Men and Women together.” She poked at 00’s shoulder to make sure he was listening. “Not even the Oosa know how to make humans the way Adaline still does. The Oosa birth infants the same way that jackrabbits do in the grass. Or coyotes up on the hill.”
Auntie turned and winked at Blue and pointed blatantly at Mattie. “You know the feelings you have for that Girl? Those ones deep down in your belly? They’re the drive that make new bodies out here in the above ground.”
Blue’s face turned scarlet and he shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he shouted in a too-loud voice. He glanced quickly at Mattie and his cheeks turned another shade darker. He seemed to consider whatever feelings were making his throat wheeze. He looked back up at Auntie. “I don’t understand.”
“You will one day.” Auntie winked again. She shuffled back to her chair and settled into it before pulling a blanket over herself. She blew out the candles beside her and then her voice crept into the darkness once more. “One day, you will.”
CHAPTER 37
A COLD, TREMBLING HAND gripped 62’s shoulder. It was the hand of a doctor. A bad doctor. His sinister grin shone down on 62 through the black night of his dream. 62 tried to get away, but the bony fingers dug into him. The thin shirt against his skin did nothing to temper the icy chill seeping in from the clammy skin. He turned and the fingernails tore into him. The shirt fell away, his skin ripped. Bone ground on bone. But he couldn’t stop moving. If he did, he knew the doctor would hook him up to the Machine. The Machine that would scramble his brains and take away the dreams.
The hand shook him and he screamed.
“62,” Auntie said loudly into his ear. “Wake up, child.”
The cold hand was still on his shoulder, but the grasp was weak. The cool fingers trembled against his skin, the sleeve of his shirt pushed as high as it would go from his flailing in his sleep. The eyes that looked down on him were full of concern. He sat up and she pulled her hand away. Her worried eyes studied him.
“You were crying,” Auntie said quietly. She looked at the others, still sleeping despite whatever ruckus 62’s dream had caused. “Come with me.”
62 kicked the little bit of blanket that still covered his feet and got up. His muscles ached from the hard floor and he stretched as much as he could between the rows of Auntie’s collection. He followed her through the maze of belongings until they came to a bare spot in the wall. Auntie pushed it aside. The room was so cluttered and dark that he hadn’t noticed a door there before. Auntie struck a match. As overwhelmingly full as the main part of the home was, this room was entirely bare aside from a small fireplace, in which Auntie lit a fire, and a long piece of furniture that looked like a chair stretched wide.
“Come, sit on the sofa,” Auntie beckoned. She arranged the kindling in the fireplace and waited for the flames to take off. She added a few short pieces of wood and, once satisfied they’d take to flame, turned and settled down on the couch beside 62. She pulled Anna’s journal out of a hidden pocket in her robe and flipped through the pages.
“I’m sorry I woke you up,” 62 apologized. “I didn’t know I made noise in my sleep. I used to be really good at staying still, but I guess that’s worn off now that I don’t have sensors everywhere.” 62 was blabbering. The words tumbled out of him and he couldn’t seem to make them stop. Auntie didn’t even look like she was listening as she slowly thumbed through the book in her lap, and her silence just made it worse. “It took a long time to learn to stay still in my sleep. I’d roll over and then a Nurse would be there. All of a sudden. I’d have to pretend to be sleeping or else they’d fog me. Then I really slept. I’d try to stay awake with the fog, but it got me every time. Zonked. Just like that.”
Auntie ran her finger along a line of words, shook her head slightly and turned the page. The fire crackled and 62 clamped his mouth shut. He ached to see what she was reading, but didn’t want to be rude so he stared into the dancing flames instead. A spark burst and a small ember floated up to the top of the fireplace. Up into the chimney stack and out of sight. 62 wondered if it would burn out before it escaped outside or if it would keep burning until the wind caught it.
“What’s it like to dream?” Auntie’s voice was thin and small, almost like a child’s.
62 shrugged his shoulders and leaned back into the sofa. “I dunno.”
Auntie spun toward him, leaning into him until he could feel her breath on his skin. “You don’t know? You were just crying on my floor. Begging for someone to stop. Stop what, I’ve no idea. But it was something. And you just shrug and say you don’t know?”
“It’s like — like being awake,” 62 sputtered. “Only different. Because — becaus
e you can do anything in a dream. You can make everything look upside-down or teach a rabbit to talk. Or fly. Or, well, just anything.”
Auntie glared at 62. Suddenly her features didn’t look kind and gentle, the way they had after Blue’s trial or through their evening of stories about Anna. Instead she looked haggard. Wild hair and angry eyes dancing in the firelight. She looked ready to pounce on him. He worried she’d gone mad. Her mouth twisted, loose lips puckered tight in a grimace. “Rabbits don’t talk.”
“Not in real life. Of course not. That would be crazy.” 62 let out a nervous laugh. Then he shook his head and tried to look serious. “But in dreams they can. Animals, and people, and bots... they do all sorts of things in my dreams.”
“Tell me the dream you were having when I woke you,” Auntie demanded. 62 did as she’d requested. He described the doctor who wanted to reprogram his mind. The wires and dials of the Machine that would send an electric shock through his brain to short it out in hopes that it would remove his creativity. He told her about the hand that clamped him down to the bed and the feeling of fright when he realized he couldn’t get away.
Auntie’s face went slack. She blinked a couple of times and her expression turned from fury to confusion. “Where was the talking rabbit?”
62 couldn’t help but laugh. “There wasn’t a talking rabbit in that dream. They don’t show up in all of them.”
“I see,” Auntie said as she tapped her nose with her forefinger. “So, they’re different? Not always the same story twice?”
62 thought for a moment. “Sometimes I have the same dream a lot. Like the one I just had? It shows up every few nights. But most of my dreams are different. I can control them, when I’m not scared. Lots of times I’ll fly over the desert in my dreams, or sit in a field and watch ants crawl over my fingers.” The two sat in silence for a long while, 62 trying to decide how to better describe dreams and Auntie trying to better understand them. Finally, 62 said, “A dream is like reading a book. Some of them are good, and some are bad. When you’re in control, you can skip the pages with the bad parts and just get to the good stuff.”
This answer seemed to satisfy Auntie. She sat quietly for a few moments before letting out a sigh so great that the flames nearest them flickered in the breeze. She whispered, “I’ve never had a dream.”
“I know,” 62 said. He patted her hand. “Most people don’t. It’s something wrong in my brain that makes me have them.”
Auntie looked down at the book in her lap. Her finger pointed to the words as she read them. “’The biggest concern regarding their compliance is the habit of creative thought. I’ve spoken to Margaret’...” Auntie glanced at 62 and said, “That’s Anna’s assistant. ‘I’ve spoken to Margaret and she agrees that we must find a way to suppress the urges of the individual. We must take away their opinions, ideas, and dreams. Then we will have the agreeable compliance we seek.’ There was a time when we could all dream, 62. Each and every one of us. Anna is the one who stole our dreams from us.”
“But they’re an anomaly,” 62 protested. “We aren’t meant to —”
Auntie placed her hand over 62’s, stopping him from speaking. Her hand was still cool to the touch, but not in a terrifying way like it had been when he first woke up. “We are meant to. The anomaly is simply that your mind was strong enough to repair itself from generations of a system intent on destroying it. You’ve been given a gift, lad. A great gift.” She turned a fistful of pages and then read from nearly the end of the book.
“‘We’ve done it! Created a being that is nearly everything we’d hoped it could be. A pair of them, truthfully, if we include the one in Adaline. Oppie states that he is nearly as perfect as she, and together they will provide enough matter to duplicate an army of perfection. There is some failure rate, of course. But what is one flaw in a thousand?
‘I stand here at the end and can rejoice in my work for the war has been won and we are prepared for the next dozen wars. No matter the brutality of our enemies, these humans — elite humans, let’s not pretend — shall survive us and bring our nation into a new age. An age without fanciful dreams of balanced politics. No room for that here. These shall be a practical, direct people.’
“She stole our dreams from us, see? Anna said we’d live in an age without fanciful dreams. And here we are. A town full of people and not a single dream among us.” A tear fell down Auntie’s cheek and fell onto the open pages.
“Mattie can dream, too.” Encouragement filled 62’s voice. “She taught herself by reading some books. I’ve tried to dream with her, the way I used to dream with my friends in Adaline. But I can’t make it work. I guess since we didn’t learn the same way, we can’t connect.”
Auntie looked over at 62. “You must never tell anyone that Mattie dreams. And you should keep your dreams to yourself. There are Women here that would drag the two of you into the desert and feed you to the vultures if they found out.”
“I know,” 62 sighed. “One of them got me. I thought she was going to kill me. But I got away and she disappeared.”
A dark cloud passed over Auntie’s face. “I’ve not been told this. Why wasn’t the Woman brought to the council?”
62 gave an apologetic shake of his head. “It was dark. I couldn’t see her. But one of the doctors that took care of me told me to keep my dreams to myself. So, I have.”
“Did she say anything to you?” Auntie asked, “This Woman who attacked you?”
“Yeah, she said I was going to start a war.” 62 turned up his palms in his lap. “I don’t know who she thinks I’m going to fight. I’m just a kid.”
Auntie looked into the flames. They were starting to die down, the glowing coals now casting a brighter red glow than the fire itself. She closed the book and tucked it into her robe without taking her eyes off the burning embers. “Can’t you see, my Boy?”
62 looked from Auntie into the fireplace and then back again. “See what?”
She whispered, “The war started before we were ever born.”
CHAPTER 38
“BACK TO THE ROBOT.”
Everyone was awake, lounging lazily among the piles of Auntie’s treasures. They eyed one another, none of them wanting to be the first to speak. Auntie sat in her chair, arms crossed, with a thoughtful frown that said she could wait forever.
“This last trip to Adaline, we got parts of the bot that that quack was using to get around Adaline,” Blue finally said. Auntie nodded and waved her hand, indicating she wanted more information.
“We found some ancient computers that we could hook the parts up to,” 00 added. “We don’t need to build the whole Nurse. Just plug the brain in to talk to it.”
“I want to find out what happened to my friends,” 62 said in the end.
Auntie folded her hands in her lap. She looked over her companions thoughtfully. “You won’t be building the whole Machine?”
“No!” a chorus of voices assured her.
“What will you do if you talk to the thing, and it doesn’t know anything?”
62 looked at his friends. None of them had really thought of that. It was possible that 42 had dismantled the Nurse himself, or that the data had been erased or ruined in the time between when it had been turned on and now. 00’s lips pressed against themselves in a straight line. Blue crossed his arms and scowled as he tried to sort out an answer. Mattie shrugged her shoulders.
“If it can’t help us, we’ll probably just shut it off.” Mattie’s statement hit 62 in the gut, but he had to agree. If the Nurse didn’t know anything, there was no use keeping it around. It’d probably be more trouble than it was worth.
“You won’t do anything rash, like taking it across the desert back to Adaline to log into their systems and reprogram all the doors open, or something equally illegal?” Auntie’s voice lilted as she spoke, the hint of a dare in it.
“No Ma’am,” Blue said, making the sign of an “x” over his heart. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
&
nbsp; “Pity,” Auntie grunted. “Well, it sounds reasonable enough to me. Where are you going to keep it?”
“I’ve got the —” Mattie started, but Auntie held up her hand.
“No. Don’t tell me.” She shook her head. “I want to know everything, but I’m obligated to uphold the law and this activity is absolutely illegal.”
“D’you know where the parts are?” Blue asked, leaning so far forward that he almost fell off the box he was propped up on.
Auntie rolled her eyes. She got out of her chair and hummed as she walked to a set of shelves not too far away. She climbed up on a stack of what looked to be discarded clothes until she reached the top shelf, bringing down a box. It gave a metallic clunk when its weight shifted in her hands. “Of course, I know where they are. I put them there, after all.”
“Yes!” Blue shouted. Everyone stood up and surrounded the old Woman.
“So, we have permission?” 00 asked. He opened the lid on impulse and began rummaging around its contents.
“Absolutely not!” Auntie said sternly. “Machines are dangerous. Illegal. Building such a beast could cause a chain reaction that would bring down all of Hanford.”
00 dropped the memory chip he’d been holding back into the box and retracted his hand. All the others took a step back, a mix of frustration and dejection scrawled across their faces. 62’s stomach flipped, his throat constricted, and he felt like he might cry.
Auntie leaned forward and said in a low voice, “So, best not to get caught. And for cracker’s sake, don’t let the darn thing hook up to any kind of messaging beacon. Keep it locked down. Don’t let it communicate with anything except yourselves.”
A cheer erupted. Smiles and pats on the back were spread all around. Auntie shoved a stack of soiled sandwich wrappers on top of the loose parts and handed Blue the box. She gave him a wink, he kissed her cheek, and he led the merry band of misfits out the front door.
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