Adaptive Consequences

by Lucy L Austin

  So far, they had managed to elude the UA, but that wouldn’t last forever. The bunkers and tunnels had hidden them from detection, but the Ghettoites had paid the price. Immediately after they had escaped, the UA sent a convoy out to the Ghetto, but the bunkers and tunnels cocooned them from detection. There had been more Immobilisers and Voltarms waved, more thrashing and twitching on the floor, but no one was taken, or irrevocably harmed. Not this time, anyway.

  As she walked out of the bunker, the heat hit her like she’d opened an oven door. The influx of light blinded, and she felt herself clutching for someone to steady her, knowing there was no one there. She popped her parasol open and, for the first time in a week, stretched her legs beyond the squat tunnels, breathed unconditioned air, and let the real sun warm her skin.

  Jun walked past the crop field, the midday sun baking the canopy instead of the produce, and she couldn’t help but smile at the Ghettoites’ self-sustainment. The water tank and filtration system were topped up and supplied by the nearby river, the community food crops, and trading network provided their sustenance. There was no need for the UA infrastructure. Until they made their way to the North-East-Euro Ghetto to stay with Mikhail, Chandra and Lucas had kindly offered to share their supplies with her, but she had insisted on sourcing her own provisions, trading her jewellery. The Ghettoites had a fragile ecosystem, and she didn’t want to disrupt it more than she had already. Eventually, when they settled, she would need to find a practical skill or things to trade. She swallowed the voice that said she wasn’t cut out for this new way of life.

  The Circle was quiet, as it always was at this time, thanks to the intensity firing down from the sky. Jun found herself pulled into the Circle, drawn by its magnetic field. It wasn’t just her. Every evening the Ghettoites were pulled to the totemic tree stumps, and its ritualistic promises like the circles of the Flaming Mountain and Shi. Jun ran the palm of her hand over one of the tree stumps; what secrets were worn into its furrows and grooves? She had first met Solo here only a few weeks ago, but it felt like months, years even. Uncovering these tests, and what with Project Epomenzoic, it was like Odgerel’s spirit had been raised again. For Solo, Jun hoped the funeral ceremony a few days ago had laid her mother’s ghost to rest.

  It had taken place back at Solo’s home CMCD, but Jun sadly couldn’t go to the ceremony. It had been too dangerous for her and Kodi. It was high risk for Solo too, but understandably she insisted. Her father and their community had said goodbye their way, which was the most important thing. Jun had given Solo a red endless knot to bury alongside Odgerel. She didn’t have her original one – it was at home somewhere with everything else she’d left, she’d ask Kau to fetch it and some other important things from home – and so had traded for it with one of the weavers. It helped Jun feel that in some way, their promise had been fulfilled, or at least, it felt that way at the time. A breeze lashed passed like fingers whipping her face. That reassurance had been all too premature.

  The ‘valley of the mob-homes’ came into sight. Collectively, they looked like the micro-cars Kau had played with as a child. Jun had taken to calling it that, though it wasn’t a real valley, more that it was at the base of the small decline from the Circle. She would stop and collect Solo and Kodi from here. Her stomach knotted; they had been above ground far too long. Batz, Solo’s husband, had just arrived, and they’d both gone to Solo’s mob-home to greet him. Solo and Batz’s marriage was a puzzle to Jun; she thought it was even a puzzle to them. Jun was never sure if they were together or not, both seeming to eke out their decision till it stretched stringier than taffy in the sun. But this morning, Solo confirmed Batz would be joining her and Chandra on the dummy run, and moving with Jun, Kodi and herself to North-East-Euro Ghetto. Even as she’d said it, Solo still hadn’t seemed unsure. But who was Jun to question it? Betrayal had made it easy for her to leave her husband. Acknowledging her own role in it all, that had been more difficult.

  After Markov handed over the files, and they were finally leaving the archive chamber, Solo Immobilised him. She had done it for the sheer pleasure of watching as he writhed in the air to then slump on the floor with a thud. She had been about to do the same to Fan, when Jun had stopped her. No amount of electro-shocks would be enough to make up for the betrayal. But she wanted him to hurt, and she had shaken him, screaming that ‘he disgusted her’. That he was ‘everything she hoped Kau would never be’.

  Thinking of Fan now, the only thing she felt, was hollow. He wasn’t a detestable man. Not like Anton or Wei, but he was weak and afraid. Missing something, that mistakenly he’d tried to fill with the UA. Looking back, if she’d only probed deeper, she would have seen that the signs were there. It hadn’t been Yeung after all, who had joined Wei and Markov in the lab, as Odgerel had mentioned. He’d used the secret passageway when he needed to, so there wouldn’t be a paper trail. She’d made it easy for him, willingly wiping everything away, but it did no good dwelling, and she wasn’t that woman anymore. Time would tell if he was still that man.

  Before they left for the passageway, Jun had turned to look at Fan, on his knees, deflated and limp. At that moment he was broken, and she was stronger, stronger than she had been in years.

  As they had charged out, with Odgerel in the cryopreserve bag, Kau had hugged her, maybe for the last time, whispering a few immortal words. She didn’t want him to make the same mistakes she did, but he had made his choice. He was walking into everything with his eyes open. That was what made it more terrifying.

  Jun approached Solo’s mob-home. In the past few days, Solo had thawed with her, though there was still a charge…something unspoken. Like a raging fire, which had burned to steady embers, her eyes no longer held the same intensity, but something lingered in them. Jun didn’t challenge or question it. It wasn’t her place. Jun pressed the bell, and Solo’s face appeared at the window.

  ‘Is it here?’ Solo asked, uncertainty in her voice. ‘Kodi wanted to join as well.’

  Jun nodded. ‘It’ll be a squeeze, but we’ll manage.’

  There were some murmurings behind Solo and Jun saw Batz go to massage sunblock on Solo’s face, but she dodged him, taking the tube from his hands instead. And there was the push pull. It felt so premature, planning the dummy run and subsequent move to the North-East-Euro Ghetto when things still seemed unresolved between them both, but then, who was she to know what constituted a successful marriage?

  Embarrassed, Jun flipped her eyes across to the West Bunker. Things that happened behind closed doors, would they happen at all if they were open?

  Solo and Kodi appeared, and they all set off to the bunker, Solo slamming the door behind her, rattling the guang lights as it shut.

  Kodi hugged Jun in recognition. Her shorn head had begun to grow with tiny prickles, fuzzy like the skin of a kiwifruit. Earlier, Jun had insisted she wore a hat to protect her head, but Kodi had walked out without it again. Jun pulled her closer, so she was beneath the parasol.

  Kodi’s resilience throughout everything was heartening. Jun’s mind skipped back to her son, his part in engendering trust between the Chirchirs and the UA. He who had moved millions of people from destruction to safety, had pushed Kodi into the claws of someone like Anton. But if his role was only to reel Kodi in, then to all intents and purposes last week, he had fulfilled his mission. What else was he doing for the UA?

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Solo said, her lips trying for a smile. ‘Even I’m a little nervous…’

  Jun was more than nervous. In some ways, walking to the bunker and Chandra felt like she was walking to her executioner. It was the message they’d been waiting for, but now it was here, she wasn’t so sure if she was ready to hear it, or if she wanted to.

  They came to the rock formation. It looked so different compared to when she had first arrived with Fan. She had seen it through the lens of the UA, and now that was removed, everything looked so different. Jun put her hand on the side of the smaller rock, and they filed down
to the bunker where Chandra would be waiting.

  Chandra was sat on one of the chairs, his salt and peppery hair twisted into a top knot. Although his eyes were pulled taut, were slow to blink. He had a tiredness they all felt. Except for Kodi, who jumped onto the hammock. Despite everything, she still had a spring in her step. Solo pulled the remaining chair for Jun to sit down; she leaned on the arm.

  Jun found it difficult to breathe. Though the bunker stifled already, she was used to that; it was what Chandra had to say she was anxious for.

  Chandra smiled, and looked at them, checking he had their attention.

  ‘We have the Adaptive Strategy’s meeting minutes. It’s explosive stuff; I see now, why Kau was, is, so involved.’ Chandra said, his fingers gliding over the Interface. ‘And how they hoped to use Kodi.’

  The knots that had been steadily gathering in Jun’s stomach coiled to her throat. Then it came so quickly, like sunlight blinding her eyes; Project Epomenzoic. She knew what they were planning. She had been looking at Kau’s role through the wrong lens; now she saw it, it was so simple.

  ‘Actually,’ she said, her voice wringing free from the knots. ‘I think I’ve figured it out.’

  ‘Have you got P-EP too?’ Kodi giggled, but Jun’s chest was too tight to respond.

  She could hardly breathe. Had it really come to this? No wonder Kau had been so insistent it was restricted information. The scale and severity of it shook her, and to think, Kau was at its epicentre. ‘Was it just the meeting minutes that were sent over?’ she asked.

  ‘From our double agent?’ Chandra smiled. ‘No, he also sent a message to his mum.’

  CHAPTER 23

  Monday 15th May 2062

  Kau’s mouth was dry and the only thing to quench it was a whisky.

  The past few weeks had been paradoxical. Before joining the UA, he’d never been one for alcohol; swim training had been too much of a priority. But now he was practically salivating over the idea of a cut-glass tumbler, thick with ice, swimming in a rusty-coloured single malt. Instead, he stirred the blob of Pl-ilk in his coffee into wheels, then spots, and finally into nothing at all. It was his first steering meeting back after everything, and before he’d even taken a sip of his budget-cutback coffee, he had a bad taste in his mouth.

  Fifty legs frogmarched to the third presentation of the afternoon, Celeste’s, in her workshop. Kau was accustomed to the marathon that was Project Epomenzoic steering meetings, but they were a different race altogether now. Only a few weeks ago, he’d been stoked about his role. Inspired and engaged. It was work of substance, the next-level evolution of the human race. An opportunity of a lifetime. But he hadn’t reckoned on so many compromises and consequences destroying his internal compass. He need only ask his mother, Kodi, or even Solo. What would they be doing now? How long had it been since he’d sent his last update? The days and time had amalgamated into one long line.

  ‘Li Junior?’

  A few weeks ago, he’d have worn that nickname like one of his swim medals. Now, it felt worse than losing the Regionals in ‘55.

  ‘Sir,’ Kau lifted his head in acknowledgement to Anton’s ‘joke’. Anton had rarely called him, Li Junior. Certainly not before the name ‘Li’ was synonymous with disappointment and ridicule. Not when it would have been appropriate, when his father was in favour. Anton said it in spite, to remind Kau of many things; one being about who was in charge, and another, was who should be grateful.

  ‘Are you ready for your migration strat later?’ Anton’s fingers wrestled around a cup of Oolong.

  ‘Of course,’ Kau said. He was as ready as he could be. Though from the other presentations given earlier, it was evident his steering committee colleagues had withheld a shitload of information from him. When he’d asked them for updates last week so that he could frame his strategy, they’d been evasive and non-specific. Planners, engineers, the infrastructure team, even Celeste; people weren’t as collaborative and forthcoming as they had been, and he could only assume it was down to recent affairs.

  ‘Good, good,’ Anton smiled. It was the kind of smile Kau had come to recognise from him. One that said everything was a game, you were a player, and he made the rules.

  ‘I want to talk to you after the meeting. Come to my office at 6 pm,’ Anton said. It was a statement, not a question. The vastness of the workshop seemed to shrink away, and Anton’s words sharpened into focus. There were a million things he could want to talk about, but there was only one that was terrifying – that he knew Kau was feeding information to his mother and the Ghettoites.

  Anton didn’t need to say anymore. He just gave Kau a long look, one that said if he could, he’d choke his ham-fist down Kau’s throat and rip his ball sack out through his mouth.

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ Kau said. He’d been parroting those words instinctively in the last week. They covered a multitude of sins, thoughts and lies. He’d been meaning to ask Anton if there was any update on the last domestic migration – his final Province project – but hadn’t dared. Anton had been in a terrible mood with him. He didn’t want to rock the boat any more than he already had.

  The rest of the steering committee had piled into the workshop and gathered around a dome which had been covered – rather theatrically – with fabric.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Celeste announced in a tone that would make a ringmaster blush, ‘I present to you the first CMCD of Mars. One of five different design concepts, it’s set to be replicated 220,000 times over.’

  Two Ai-ssistants peeled back the fabric to sharp intakes of breath and wide eyes at a glimpse of their future. The development was innovative and fresh, but had an unsettling familiarity about it. Kau couldn’t deny he was astonished too.

  ‘In total, we’ll build over 1.1 million developments, more than 440 million houses.’

  The model-homes sat tall, plump and domed, like alabaster watermelons on a serving platter, beneath a geodesic cupola. Each had an external spiral staircase that snaked from the domed-top to the ground, with intermittent access points. The plots were separated by bushes with heart-shaped leaves, and each garden had a greenhouse.

  ‘Mistakes of the past, stay in the past, but there’s a lot of learnings we can take with us to Mars.’ Celeste addressed them as though speaking to everyone individually. Her lapis-blue eyes, bluer than the stones in his father’s collection, looked briefly to his, then moved on to someone else.

  He thought about the past week, how much closer he and Celeste had grown since the graveyard. Despite everything destabilising around him, Celeste had been his North Star. It was insanely infuriating to be treated like everyone else in the room, but he couldn’t deny that a big part of him loved it.

  ‘Though growing your own food is, practically speaking, unnecessary on Mars – as it has been on Earth for many years now – our governance survey and test group findings show that we respond well to self-sufficiency and responsibility. It’s also important that civilians feel reassured about their food supply, given the relocation.’ Celeste pushed her corn-coloured hair behind her ear. She often played with her hair when stressed – she hated public-speaking – it was part nervous twitch, part self-assurance. He didn’t enjoy public-speaking either, and who could blame either of them when everyone in the UA was ready to exploit weaknesses or fuck-ups.

  ‘The UA’s terraforming programs can only take us so far. All homes will have robust thermal integration systems, which provide state-of-the-art thermal and containment management.’

  The geodesic cupola peeled back, and with surgical precision, Celeste tapped her pointer on one of the houses. ‘Each has a dome-shaped roof to allow for the maximum surface area to harness solar energy – which is less than we’re used to on Earth – and each floor has a safety exit,’ she said rattling the pointer against the spiral staircase.

  ‘Inside the houses,’ as Celeste spoke, a simulated interior appeared on the illum wall behind her. ‘While we still maintain our kitchen, bathroom, living and bedr
oom areas, we now have what we call, ‘feel’ rooms. These occupy the top three floors,’ she said; behind her the illum wall highlighted the relevant sections.

  Two sizeable rooms occupied the third floor, two smaller ones on the fourth, and a modest space at the dome tip. Thank goodness for his neural program which captured notes on his behalf – his mother and the Ghettoites would flip at this.

  ‘For too long, we have moulded ourselves to fit our external environment – a necessary response to the meteorological and fiscal challenges from the past thirty years. External conformation will only increase relocating to Mars, so we need to support civilians increasing their internal connection to themselves.’

  Each of the ‘feel’ rooms were highlighted in different colours, green, lilac, yellow, blue and orange:

  Third floor

  • Productivity suite

  o Features: illum wall, Viscomm, neural chip sync, databank, Diurnal Optimiser

  • Relax and rejuvenation suite

  o Features: DHEA pod, Oudh diffuser, MediLase

  Fourth floor

  • Creativity and inspiration room

  o Features: Engagewall, Music centre

  • Invigoration room

  o Features: Genovator, CircaTherapy, OxyTreat

  Fifth floor

  • Contemplation room