Born to Fight

by Brown, Tara

  I look up. I know him. I swear I do.

  He passes me a clean change of clothes and a bottle of water, "Get cleaned up. I'll wait over there."

  I take the small bundle and frown, "Why are you helping me?"

  He laughs, it's sad and weak. "I know your father, very well."

  "You knew him? How? From the health food store?"

  His dark eyes glisten. He shakes his head, "Lenny wasn’t your father, Emma. He was your uncle in a way, I suppose." He turns and walks away leaving me with that massive statement.

  My mouth is slack. I don’t know what to say or do. I stink of urine and old rusty blood, and Lenny wasn’t my father. Wait did he say miscarriage?

  I've had bad days, lots of them. Sometimes it's weeks of them. This is the worst day. I look down at Anna and am happy she is at least sleeping. She missed all those words and the possibilities that lie within them.

  I can't stop the tears that well in my eyes. They try to block out the world for me. They try to protect me from seeing the truth. Lenny wasn't my dad? I shake my head, he was my dad. He was.

  I stand on my weakened legs in jerky twitches and pull my clothes off. They stick to me and stink.

  I use the water and rinse myself, as best as I can.

  Worst day ever. At least I have her and soon we'll have Leo.

  I dribble the last of the water into my parched chapped lips and walk through the boarded up entrance of the small shanty. He's sitting on a curb around a corner. He really did give me space to change and clean.

  I stretch my legs and feel my body coming back around.

  "Where are we?" I whisper.

  "Parkade. It's how we parked our cars back in the good old days. These buildings were made up to store cars while people were in the cities. This is the top level. I found this little shanty a while back." He looks at me and grins. His dark eyes look tired, "So which part do you want to hear first?"

  I shake my head, "Miscarriage?" The father thing is irrelevant. My father is dead. What does it matter who he was? I was never lied to about who my mother was.

  He hands me a small pack and points, "We need to get moving. Talk and walk, okay?"

  I nod, "Let me get her then." I slip back inside and speak in a hushed tone, "Anna, come out."

  She moans, "Do I have to?"

  "Yes, hurry." I hear her stir. I leave her and walk back to where he is. The concrete all around us is broken from the bombs and decay. It's like an old building that’s come down on itself. I don’t feel comfortable at all. The light that filters in is muted from the bushes and vines. I glance up at him and try to remember where I know him from, "Who are you?"

  "Vincent Fitzgerald. I am a friend of your father's. Your real father. I knew Lenny too. I warned him to get out. I found out about the breeder farms, so I told him to make sure he had you as far away as possible." He speaks as we saunter through the broken and crumbling parkade, "Your miscarriage was actually an abortion. It was intentional. They've never impregnated something like you before. The breeder farm you were at didn’t even know what they had."

  I frown, "What do you mean?" Anna's eyes light up. She looks back and forth between us, obvious of the fact she's arrived mid conversation.

  He smiles, "You. You're different. Your mother was married to your uncle. Your father drugged your mother and impregnated her with the first of the Gen babies for the Seed Program. You are like the breeder babies. He used his own sperm to make you. She had no idea it was happening."

  I don’t understand. I look around uncertain. The cement is crumbling and the old stains of blood and debris are freaking me out. This isn’t exactly the kind of place to stroll and chat. But we do, we round corners and walk over debris. Every corner seems to look the same, broken concrete and crumbled walls with huge windows without glass.

  I shake my head, "So my dad, Lenny, was my uncle. My uncle, who I never knew, was my dad, but really I'm a baby from a test tube like the babies at the farms?"

  He nods, "That's it."

  I glance at Anna, who grins like Jake and nudges me, "That explains some things, huh?"

  I scowl and ignore her, "Why did they let me believe Lenny was my dad?"

  He shakes his head, "You know how you were never allowed to see your uncle?"

  I nod, "He had an affair with my mom. My dad hated him. So did my grandparents."

  He shakes his head, "I don’t know the whole story, just that they ran with you. Lenny and you and his parents. Lenny raised you. You guys all lived, sort of off the grid; Michael couldn't find you anywhere. Lenny was good at that."

  Closing my eyes in frustration and confusion I wave my hands, "Okay, but the miscarriage? Why did they make me lose the baby, if the breeder farms got me pregnant?" I'm lost. Completely. My nerves are on edge and my body isn’t strong enough for the fighting, we definitely have in store if we're in a city.

  He stops and gives me a sad look, "Experiments. The doctors wanted to see what a breeder baby would be like in a Gen baby. The doctor at the camp you were at with Marshall, did a pregnancy test when you got back there. I guess it's a routine thing for girls who leave the breeder camps, not that many do. Marshall told us that the doctor discovered you were with child. Marshall knew you were special, I don't know how. Anyway, he said he couldn't risk you being pregnant around all those people. He didn't know what kind of a child you would have, or pregnancy. Marshall gave you up to our unit when he found out. We had worked with him before he ran. He had stayed in touch with some of us doctors. I would have saved you before but the other doctors were quite excited to see what you could produce. You are a special girl, Emma."

  I sigh, sickened by it all. "So I hear. You should hear the nonsense about me being some bloody bird." Stupid phoenix bullshit. Stupid parent bullshit. Stupid miscarriage.

  He points to the dark ramp going down another level, "We go this way."

  Anna grabs my hand and holds it tight.

  I ignore her warmth and stop walking too, "I need my wolf, before we leave the city."

  His face crumples, "We can't save him. They're experimenting on the animals to see why some of them are immune."

  My hand flies at his throat and holds tight. I steel my eyes, "I need him."

  His eyes bulge. He nods and licks his lips, "This is why Marshall called us. You have the tendencies of the Gen babies—uncontrollable rage, impulsive behavior, and unrealistic strength. He was scared to let you stay with the camp people, especially pregnant."

  That stings—the name Marshall, and the fact I'm some freak who is a danger to the rebels.

  I glare at him and lower my hand, "Then don’t piss me off. Or your fate will be the same as his."

  "Em, calm. We'll get Leo." Anna grips my other hand.

  He walks across the wide space to the edge of the building and peers through the grass vine hanging over the crumbling concrete. He points to the far side of the city, "It's that way. He was at a separate building than you. Just outside of the city, other side of the infected areas." The view is disturbing. Crumbling buildings, loads of bushy greenery and debris.

  I am lost. I am lost in it all. I need the calm of the forest and the fur of my wolf. I sigh and look at him confusedly, "Why are you helping us?"

  He looks hurt. The question hurts him, I think. "We had no right to mess with DNA to that extent. The Gen babies overrun the new cities. They're horrid. They can't help themselves. We screwed with something that was already perfect. Darwin and God were both right. Natural selection was a necessity and man was already made the way he should have been."

  He looks lost suddenly, "Science and technology was the end of everything. We made it so we all lived unnaturally long but ate chemically-altered foods and got cancer. We lived unnaturally-altered lives and ate up natural resources and polluted everything." He glances at me and sighs, "The year they decided to put the plan into effect to save the planet, they literally had to chose between Man and Earth. A huge group of officials sat in a room for twenty-
eight days and argued. Man or Earth. I can't even imagine, having to make a choice like that. But they did. They made the choice and reset everything. I was on board until recently. Now I'm against it all. Yes, we had to reset the earth, there is no doubt. But the Gen babies, the military, the breeder and work farms are wrong. It's not the vision they shared with us originally. They said the six cities would be based on creating people who cared about the planet. We would build from the rubble and create harmony." He looks impassioned and then destroyed all in the same moment, "There is no harmony. They round up the Blacks and Asians and South Americans and send them home. Home? They're Americans for Christ's sake. God help anyone with dark skin, or even a slight slant to their eyes, or any kind of accent." He sighs, "Maybe it's better there though. Maybe the places they go is better than here." He slumps and I feel sick.

  Not for him. For me. He's a bitter old man with a guilty conscience. I'm screwed.

  I sigh and look at Anna. She looks lost too. I lean against the wall and think about it all, "So I was pregnant for like a minute? My wolf is being held because he's immune? I'm a mutant breeder-farm baby? My dad is my uncle and my uncle is my dad?" I glance at him, "And you're mad because the world is filled with crappy racist people who lie and hurt others?"

  He shakes his head chuckling, "That’s about it."

  Anna leans next to me and crosses her arms, "So her dad made the breeder babies?" She glances at me.

  I feel a new sickness. My own flesh and blood is the reason it's all happening.

  I frown at Vincent, "How do we stop him?"

  He licks his lips, "Impossible. But I'm glad he won't have you. God knows what he'd try."

  I look at him and study his face. He's weak. He won't be of any real use.

  "You know what you should do? Give up on the other people and just eke a life out somewhere quiet," I say and look down at my aching feet. I miss my boots. I wonder how long it's going to take me to find nice new ones.

  Anna laughs, "We know a nice place you could go to. But seriously, you should probably not tell anyone that boring seed-baby story."

  He laughs, but it sounds exhausted.

  "You married?" I ask.

  He shakes his head, "No. She left. She ran to live in the hills." He grins at us bitterly, "To eke out a life."

  Anna grins back at him, "Smart woman. Can't say I blame her. You seem long winded and fairly down about a lot of shit."

  He laughs again and it makes me think of Jake. I give Anna a sideways glance, "You said you got separated from the others? Where did they go? Who was there?"

  She maintains her grin, "Jake and Will. I made Meg stay behind, she was all mad. She said she was almost sixteen so she should be allowed to say. I told her no. Jake and Will went to find food and some infected came, so I ran. I couldn’t get back to them, so I kept looking for you. Then I met him."

  Will and Jake are in the same city as I am. They're nearby. That makes my heart skip a couple beats.

  I freeze when I hear a noise that's not coming from us. Vincent looks at me with panic in his eyes.

  I press my back into a wall and wait. They do the same.

  Voices echo off the broken walls. I don’t know which direction they're coming from.

  I don’t breathe. I listen. Men talking, laughing. Not infected obviously.

  "How many weapons you got?" I whisper.

  He shakes his head, "Not enough."

  I sigh, "Great. Do I have any magical powers like the superheroes?" I mutter and glance past the wall. Three men are leaning on the cement wall in the area we were walking to.

  Vincent shakes his head, "No. Your kind heals faster. You have incredible strength and speed. That, combined with your lack of control over your temper, is obviously dangerous. You learn faster and remember things better. You process things quicker and feel things stronger. Nothing that’s going to get us out of this mess."

  I glare at him, "How are you scientist types this stupid? I thought the scientists were the geniuses, but you aren’t. You're crazy. This is why Lenny hated you all. Why would you make something like that? Just stupid." I glance around the corner at the men. One of them is suddenly missing from the three. My heartbeat picks up slightly. Where did he go?

  "Gun, knife, anything?" I whisper.

  He pulls a long blade from behind him. I still feel like death, but taking the blade makes me feel a tiny bit better.

  I grip it and look back at Anna, "You stay here with him."

  She scowls, "I can help you."

  I roll my eyes, "Not this time, okay?"

  She looks angry, but I flicker my eyes on him. She nods. She knows she has to stay with him and make sure he's legit. Really I just don't want her near anything. She could get infected. I'd rather it be me.

  I look back at the men and see the third man is back and zipping his thick pants back up. The warmth of summer is upon us. I wish I could close my eyes and be back at the swimming hole at the retreat. Instead, I'm in the middle of the broken city, surrounded by bad possibilities. I wish I had those handguns. I watch the men for a second and give up on the mini plan I had. I abandon it and point the opposite way, "Let's go the other way. They have guns."

  "We can get out on the other side of the parkade, but there are more infected that way. I saw them earlier." He gives me a sideways glance.

  I feel the annoyance and fear coming off me. At least it will fuel the fire inside of me.

  He puts his hands up, "Hey, I'm just telling you. It's not going to be easy that way. When I brought you here, I came this way." He points towards the men.

  I shake my head, "We won't stand a chance with them." I wish we could happen upon Jake and Will. I don’t like not knowing where they are. It feels like they're on my to-do list.

  We walk around another corner and down another level, into more darkness. The broken concrete and thick vines make it hard to see. The levels above us collapsed, at some point, and made a huge mess in the dark where we are walking. I climb over a large, broken pillar and try to make my animal eyes work. The dark moves, even when nothing is there. I hate this place. I miss the forest. I miss the birds. Here in the dark, nothing warns you. It waits for you to die so it can eat you too.

  My feet crunch and kick things I can't see. Anna walks beside me, silently. She is still the best hunting partner a girl could ask for. His feet behind us are loud. He reminds me of Jake—maybe not the best at survival.

  I push away my thoughts of them and listen. If the infected, the others, or the military catches me, I'm dead. My best chance is staying quiet.

  We walk along a wall in the dark where cars are parked, looking like rotted out skeletons. Some of them are crushed by debris. I can see from the bits of light filtering in through the vines on the far side of the parkade.

  I give Anna a look. She nods and slowly walks across the broken-up concrete to the edge, where the vines are the thickest. She pulls them aside and peeks through as I watch Vincent. They almost eat her up; they're so dense, like a real forest.

  She looks back at me and points. I walk ahead, looking through the creepy vines and bushes, and see we are almost at ground level. We are only one story up. The alley below us is crawling with the infected. She pulls back and looks at me.

  I look around us. We can't drive out. The cars are rotted, and besides, the roads are almost virtually impassable. I take a second look, noticing the far-left side of the alley is empty. The infected move slowly, in comparison to us. They will smell us, unless we can get some kind of bait.

  My brain flashes back to the men. They are already close to the left side of the parkade.

  I swallow and look at Anna, "I'll be right back. Don't move unless you have to. I'm going to make bait."

  She grimaces and nods, "Okay. I'll stay with him." Thank god, I don’t want to have a fight with her. I don’t want to tell her I value my life less than hers and refuse to chance her getting the fever.

  Vincent looks confused. I turn and run, as silently
as I can, back across the parkade and up the ramp to where I hear them. I slide against a gutted car and wait.

  "A U2 concert. I went with my girlfriend. I was eighteen and she was seventeen. We smoked a ton of pot and went. Everything started about two weeks later. Best memory." A man to the right with a rifle is talking.

  The other man nods, "Nice, man. Yeah, mine is a barbecue. We figured it was the last one of the season. My whole unit came over and we got trashed and talked about sports and shit. My wife, her name was Trish. She made the best burger patties on earth. I ate like four. I thought I was going to die."

  I bite my lip and wait. I can feel my stomach tighten when I think about it. Regular people sharing regular memories and I'm about to kill them both. Unless they kill me first. I should have died yesterday and didn’t. I'm on borrowed time and the bad feeling hasn’t left me yet.

  Their feet make scuff sounds, they aren’t even careful. They must not be on high alert. They must not be looking for me.

  I slide along the car and sit at the back of it, waiting for them to pass. The third guy must be off doing something again. He's the one I'm going for.

  They walk further away, strolling and sharing. I watch them, waiting for the moment. Both are in good shape, but they slump and hold their guns wrong. They aren’t taking it seriously.

  They turn their backs and lean casually. I crawl to the next car. It's the last car before the corner. I look back at them. They're still talking and laughing. I frown. The infected are one level away from them, and they're talking about shit they miss. I break into a silent sprint. It's nowhere as fast as it needs to be, but it's got to do.

  I get around the corner and feel it. The cold mean is settling in. The cold calculations start figuring in my brain. The third man has to die. I need bait.

  I look back around the corner, but the men are still talking.

  I swallow and walk to the edge where the man was. He's still there. He too, looks like he's not taking the job very seriously. He's leaning on his gun and picking his nails. Who trains these people? Maybe my real dad is over confident. He doesn’t feel threatened.