After the Fall- The Complete series Box Set

by Charlie Dalton

  “Where is this Mother program now?” Donny said. “Do you know where it is?”

  Dr. Beck nodded.

  “Yes,” he said.

  He was unable to look any of them in the eye.

  “Where?” Donny said. “Where is it? The fate of the world rests on us finding it.”

  “There’s no need,” Dr. Beck said. “You already found it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Donny said.

  The hair rose on the back of Jamie’s neck. This was it. The moment he’d been dreading. Somehow he already knew what the next words out of Dr. Beck’s mouth were going to be.

  “You brought her with you,” Dr. Beck said. “She’s sitting right here.”

  “Where?” Donny said.

  “There,” Dr. Beck said.

  His finger shook as he pointed at Lucy.

  18.

  IT WAS so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Jamie was the first to shake his head.

  “No,” he said. “You’re wrong. It can’t be her.”

  Lucy stared, eyes wide as saucers at the shaking finger.

  “You know the truth, don’t you, L?” Dr. Beck said with a small smile.

  It wasn’t evil or sinister, but understanding and consoling. The kind of smile a caring uncle might give a favoured niece.

  Lucy’s chest rose and fell with panicking breaths.

  “Excuse. . . Excuse me,” she said, leaving the room.

  “Lucy!” Jamie said, getting to his feet and jogging after her. “Lucy!”

  “Leave her alone,” Donny said. “She needs to come to terms with it.”

  “You don’t honestly believe what he said?” Jamie said. “She’s Lucy. She’s just a girl.”

  “She’s not just a girl,” Dr. Beck said. “She’s the one hope of the human race.”

  Jamie shook his head. No. It couldn’t be right. It didn’t make sense. A mist of denial had descended before his eyes. He couldn’t see the truth.

  “It fits,” Donny said. “You found her in the desert, chased by Rages. They could have been chasing her since she escaped from the City. You kept talking about how strong she was at the commune, dragging heavy ammunition boxes without sweating.”

  “She’s strong for her size, that’s all,” Jamie said.

  “She knew the Reaver leader wasn’t what he appeared to be,” Donny said. “The flashbacks and dreams she’d experienced. She couldn’t remember anything beyond escaping from the City because she hadn’t existed then. She’d been created.”

  Jamie couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t accept it. He turned to Dr. Beck.

  “Why was her memory scrambled after she escaped?” he said.

  “She was an empty vessel,” Dr. Beck said. “All programming would be done in the warship upon arrival after she docked. Everything would be uploaded and programmed, plugging into her core system. I have to say, it’s ironic that you called her Lucy. We referred to her as L. In Roman numerals, she’s number fifty.”

  “Fifty?” Fatty said. “You made forty-nine Lucys before you made her? Man. That’s a lot of sisters.”

  “They didn’t survive,” Dr. Beck said. “I told you. It was a difficult process.”

  “Fifty?” Donny said. “Why did it take so long?”

  “Do you think what we do here is easy?” Dr. Beck said. “Or that anyone else has ever done anything remotely like it before? We’re working on the absolute cutting edge of technology, decades beyond anything we were capable of in the past. Even leading up to the Fall.”

  “So, like, what is she?” Fatty said. “Some kind of spy ninja? I have to say, I’ve been thinking that for a while.”

  “She’s not a spy,” Dr. Beck said. “She’s a girl. And she’s Mother.”

  “If she’s only a girl, why did it take fifty attempts to make her?” Jamie said.

  “Because she’s not only a girl,” Dr. Beck said. “She’s enhanced. After she docked with the other sections, she was going to plug into the mainframe.”

  “You were going to make her a slave to your cause,” Jamie said.

  “No,” Dr. Beck said. “She is human in every way that you are. We just made her with a few small adjustments. She maintains her own sense of free will. No one can force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. We hoped she would serve us, yes. For the greater good. But never as a slave. She would have had more power than any human being in history.”

  “What power?” Donny said.

  “The combined power of every nation on Earth,” Dr. Beck said. “She would have been the general of our intergalactic forces. No human nation could have stood against her. Her only real challenge could come from another alien species.”

  “You would have given a girl that much power?” Donny said.

  “I would have given her more,” Dr. Beck said. “I would have given her the heavens and the stars if it meant she would protect us from the Bugs.”

  “It’s too much power for one person,” Donny said.

  “Which is why we gifted it to a special girl,” Dr. Beck said. “No one can interfere with her control. No one can breach her command. She was meant to be the best of us. To fight and defend us.”

  “But now that chance is gone,” Donny said. “We’re doomed.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Beck said. “I’m afraid we are.”

  19.

  JAMIE FOUND Lucy in their shared dorm room. It was just as well. If she wasn’t there, he never would have found her. The City was too massive. Which meant she likely came here in order to be found. She didn’t want to be alone.

  Jamie approached slowly, sitting on the end of her bed.

  “How are you doing?” he said.

  “Fine,” Lucy said.

  She sat with her knees curled up, hugging her legs.

  “It doesn’t change anything, you know,” Jamie said. “You’re still my friend.”

  “Maybe not for you,” Lucy said. “You were born. You’re a normal person.”

  “Normal. . .” Jamie said. “Thanks.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Lucy said. “I meant. . . Oh, I don’t know what I meant.”

  “We’re all special,” Jamie said. “That’s what the preacher always says.”

  “If everyone is special, that means no one is, right?” Lucy said.

  “No,” Jamie said. “It means everyone is.”

  He grinned. Lucy reflected it back at him and shook her head.

  “And think about the perks of being made in a tube,” Jamie said.

  “Like what?” Lucy said.

  Jamie had to give it some serious thought.

  “You can choose your own birthday,” he said.

  “If you could choose your own birthday, when would you pick?” Lucy said.

  “Definitely not Christmas or New Year,” Jamie said. “Everyone would get lazy and put them together. You’d only get half the presents everyone else does. So, I’ll go for the middle of the year. Gives me something to look forward to.”

  “I’m sure I have a production date or something,” Lucy said.

  “There you go!” Jamie said. “Looking on the bright side already.”

  Lucy giggled. That same cute sound from the day she’d decided to speak and trust him.

  “You’re really not freaked out?” Lucy said.

  “Why would I be?” Jamie said. “I think it’s cool.”

  “Cool that you have a friend made in a tube?” Lucy said.

  “The way I see it, we were all made in a tube,” Jamie said. “The only difference is, our tubes were inside our mums.”

  “And mine was in a lab,” Lucy said, sad again.

  “You seem normal to me,” Jamie said.

  “But I’m not normal,” Lucy said.

  “There’s nothing worse than being completely normal,” Jamie said. “That means you’re automatically more interesting.”

  “Because I was born with a purpose,” Lucy said.

  “We all were,” Jamie said. “To survive. To live. I don’
t think you’re much different from the rest of us.”

  “I’ve got an extra one,” Lucy said. “To save the human race. I think it’s safe to say there is something a bit unusual with that.”

  “Hm,” Jamie said. “You might be right there. If I could choose a purpose, it would be something like that. To save the world. Best to have something big to aim for.”

  “You don’t think it’s a bit nuts?” Lucy said.

  “Sure it’s nuts,” Jamie said. “It’s crazy. But here we are. In this place. Thanks to you.”

  “The rocket that was supposed to take me already fired,” Lucy said. “I can’t get up there now.”

  “Even if you could, would you really want to?” Jamie said.

  Lucy shrugged and pursed her lips as if she were really considering it.

  “No gravity,” she said. “Could be fun.”

  “You’re a sadist,” Jamie said. “No thanks. I like to keep my feet firmly on the ground if you don’t mind.”

  Lucy smiled. She looked over her arms straddling her knees.

  “Thank you, Jamie,” she said.

  “For what?” Jamie said.

  “For being my friend,” Lucy said. “I don’t know what it would be like, dealing with this if I had to do it by myself.”

  Jamie put his hand on hers.

  “You’re not by yourself,” he said. “You never will be so long as I’m around.”

  Lucy lifted her hand and let Jamie’s fingers interweave with hers.

  “Will you always be around?” she said.

  “Always,” Jamie said.

  They shared that special moment together, looking at each other, smiling. It was the best feeling in the world.

  The door banged open and Donny and Fatty entered, raucous and loud. Jamie hastily slipped his hand from Lucy’s. He got up to join the others.

  Lucy sat looking at her hand. Empty and alone again. She hugged her legs tighter.

  20.

  “NO CHANGE,” Donny said, looking down at their father’s emotionless face.

  They’d both been certain he would wake up after a few days. In the commune, any ailment that couldn’t be healed in that time meant nothing could be done. After that window had passed, the best they could hope for was a miracle. Now, they were already beginning to pass that milestone. Could it really take weeks for their father to wake up?

  “He hasn’t gotten any worse,” Jamie said.

  “He hasn’t gotten any better either,” Donny said. “He would hate being a vegetable.”

  “He’s not a vegetable,” Jamie said, voice stern.

  How could Donny talk about their father this way? Had he already lost hope? That their father might never wake up?

  “He’s still fighting,” Jamie said. “He’ll get through this. He will.”

  “There’s no evidence of that,” Donny said. “We have to be realistic. If he was like this in the commune, he would have died already.”

  “We’re not in the commune,” Jamie said.

  “Maybe it would have been better that way,” Donny said. “At least there wouldn’t be all this waiting.”

  “And no hope,” Jamie said.

  Things were cut and dry in the commune, especially when it came to matters of health. You were either dead or alive. There was no in-between.

  “You want to turn the machines off?” Jamie said. “They’re the only things keeping him alive.”

  “So maybe he shouldn’t be alive,” Donny said. “You heard the doctor. He’s infected with something, some kind of poison from the Bugs. We have no idea what it’ll do to him.”

  “That’s why we have to be patient, to wait and find out,” Jamie said.

  He could see what Donny was really thinking. He was afraid their father might not wake up. He was desperate—as Jamie himself was—for him to open his eyes, to speak, to be okay. To be their father again. There was nothing either of them wouldn’t give for that to happen.

  It was a rare chink in Donny’s armour. Even when he wasn’t afraid, he always pretended to be. He was so used to being the strong one, of taking care of his younger brother, but now it was Jamie’s strengths that came to the fore. Jamie was fully developed emotionally—far beyond his years as Theresa was fond of saying—and ascribed this to him losing his mother at a young age. He also took after his mother. She had been the same, by all accounts. Jamie didn’t know. He’d never met her.

  “He’s going to be okay,” Jamie said. “You’ll see. We’ll take care of him. And if, one day, the doctor thinks he won’t wake up, we’ll make that decision when we come to it.”

  Donny nodded. Goals and targets. Those were what he needed. Structure. He could put it off to a later date when they could make a better, more informed decision. Donny ran his hands through his hair and got to his feet. Moved for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Jamie said.

  “I can’t sit here and do nothing,” Donny said. “I’m going to go find some way to kick these Bugs’ asses for what they did to Dad.”

  “You’ll need a mighty long leg to reach space,” Jamie said, but Donny was already gone.

  21.

  DR. BECK sat at his desk in his room looking through some files that Donny couldn’t see well from his angle at the doorway.

  “So, what happens now?” Donny said to Dr. Beck. “We sit here and twiddle our thumbs? Wait for the Bugs to come destroy us?”

  “We don’t have a rocket,” Dr. Beck said. “If you happen to have one tucked in your pocket, please let me know.”

  “Even if we could get into space, to this warship you say the other Cities have co-built, what was the plan going to be?” Donny said.

  “That’s the easy part,” Dr. Beck said. “Destroy the Bugs and their vessel. Destroy their command center, and they will tumble like a house of cards.”

  “There must be something we can still do,” Donny said. “You must have had a backup plan.”

  “All our efforts were focused on developing the ship,” Dr. Beck said.

  He pursed his lips and pinched them between his steepled forefingers. In deep thought.

  “That’s great,” Donny said. “No Plan B? Even in our commune, we had a Plan B. Often a Plan C and D too. And we’re nowhere near as well-developed as you.”

  He turned and marched away in disgust.

  “Although, there might be another way. . .” Dr. Beck said, calling after him.

  Donny appeared back in the doorway.

  “What did you say?” he said.

  Dr. Beck rested his hands on the desk and, with some considerable effort, pushed himself up onto his feet.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  22.

  DR. BECK threw up an image. It was infrared and showed the coldness of space, black, with the distant flecks of distant stars as small pinpricks of light. And right there, huge as the mass of the moon, was a large fuzzy red ball.

  “What is that?” Donny said.

  “That, my friend, is the Bug ship,” Dr. Beck said.

  “That’s only one?” Donny said.

  “So far as we can tell,” Dr. Beck said. “It docked in our orbit five years after the Fall, after the Rage virus had done most of its damage.”

  “They’re waiting for us to die out,” Donny said. “So they can take our planet.”

  “They won’t wait,” Dr. Beck said. “They’ll do whatever is necessary to ensure we all die out. So far as we can tell, they seem to want it to look like a natural disaster. Then they’ll sweep in and harvest our planet’s natural resources.”

  “You said this was the easy part?” Donny said, not seeing anything easy about it in the slightest.

  “Easy goal,” Dr. Beck said. “Not so easy to achieve. We have to destroy it. Destroy that mother ship.”

  “Destroy it?” Donny said. “But it’s massive!”

  “Denver City were certain they could design a weapon that could wipe it out,” Dr. Beck said. “With a single hit, no less. We doubted they
would get another shot off before the Bugs would sweep down on them.”

  “Denver City?” Donny said. “Where’s that?”

  “Not too far from where we are now,” Dr. Beck said. “They were in charge of all weapons systems.”

  Donny turned his head to one side, taking in the sheer size of the Bug ship.

  “A single shot,” he said. “Do you have any idea of what kind of weapon they might have developed?”

  “We don’t only know,” Dr. Beck said. “We built our own version of it. Much smaller, you understand.”

  “Do you still have it?” Donny said.

  “Of course,” Dr. Beck said. “Part of our little back engineered gift. It was a reasonably simple project. All they had to do was build a scaled up version of the one we already had.”

  “How big would it need to be?” Donny said.

  “Oh, about a hundred stories,” Dr. Beck said. “At least.”

  “One hundred stories?” Donny said, incredulous.

  “At least,” Dr. Beck said with a smile.

  “Can I see the one you have?” Donny said.

  “Sure,” Dr. Beck said. “It’s in the weapons’ department.”

  23.

  “THE SYSTEM itself was not particularly complicated,” Dr. Beck said, leading Donny down the corridor. “The most difficult part was replicating the energy source. The Bugs had found a way to harness anti-matter. They used it to power not only their weapons but their engines. Armed with this new tech, we were able to send Mother into orbit with extra protection.”

  “Why does this help us?” Donny said.

  “Because another City was also working on the technology,” Dr. Beck said. “To build a giant version of the weapon and target the Bug ship. They would likely have only managed to get one shot off before the Bugs identified the discharge’s origin. If they survived the attack, they would destroy the weapon immediately. It’s conceivable they already have. There’s simply no way to know.”

  “What happened?” Donny said. “Why haven’t they fired it yet?”