The Awoken (New Unity Book 1)

by S. M. Lynch

  I couldn’t wait to tell my father that I was right about Kyle.

  I knew if I could get this clone back to the labs without any fuss or fighting, this might actually work.

  Chapter Two

  KYLE WATCHED AS A NEW metropolis zipped by outside the window. Manchester was not quite as ugly as London, but still pretty ugly. His data was way out of date, he now realized. As they traversed a wide motorway, with houses higgledy-piggledy on either side, he saw something strange looming in the distance.

  “What is it?” Ariadne turned her head, catching his aghast expression.

  “Manchester became important, at some point?”

  “You could say that.”

  There were huge tower blocks in the center, reminding him of Canary Wharf, except these didn’t appear to have been built to house offices of business and finance. There was something oppressive about the structures, something that screamed they’d been hastily erected… and the windows were all nearly blacked out.

  “All the people inside,” she explained, “are working on research.”

  “What kind of research?” He had to ask, though he dreaded her answer.

  “Renewable energy. Clean energy. Fossil fuel alternatives,” she stressed.

  “I’m versed in such matters, of course.”

  “Sure you are. Sure.”

  She focused on the road ahead but he noted her little tell; she was trying to play down the importance of finding alternative fuels.

  “It feels a little bit like I was here…” He watched Ariadne nod her head but she didn’t dare turn to look at him this time. “But it was a long time ago. Maybe a hundred years ago.”

  “You don’t know about 2023, then?”

  “No.” He must have looked blank, because he felt it. “Remind me, what year is it again?”

  “2081.”

  He froze in his seat because the truth was only now beginning to coalesce; his mind was stuck in a time before this one, and when she’d told him it was 2081 before, it hadn’t hit him… but now…

  Delayed reaction.

  He had data from the Eighties and Nineties… a century ago. He somehow remembered things like the falling of the Berlin Wall, Bill Clinton and a new millennium… but nothing after that.

  “In 2023, a virus wiped out more than four billion people in one fell swoop. Everything was in chaos. My mother and father were born in the aftermath, children of survivors. I only know what’s been passed down from my grandmother, who lived through it and survived. What’s important for you to know is that it was an engineered attack on humanity. A virus was developed and set free. A group called Officium swooped in and delivered the survivors from evil, bringing order from chaos. It was only forty years after the outbreak that my mother let the world know that Officium had been behind it all along.”

  He didn’t like the sound of what he was hearing and she turned her head, worry in her eyes—as though she knew she couldn’t afford to upset him.

  She turned back to the road ahead and wide motorways began to narrow to two lanes, then one, the traffic slowing and the car almost coming to a stop, then nudging forward again.

  When she turned on the radio and snacked on gum, he recognized this was a routine—that she was used to inching her way into the city through traffic at this time of the day. For her, Manchester was obviously home—though, like him, she had an American accent.

  He caught glimpses of Ariadne as she drove and realized this was no ordinary human he was riding with. She was exceptional… and she came from a family that had obviously stood on the world stage and influenced the lives of millions. He was terrified, but exhilarated, too.

  “My data tells me the signs were there a hundred years ago.”

  “Climate change, you mean?” she asked, casting a sideways glance at him.

  “Yes, yes. The time to reverse the damage was a hundred years ago. Isn’t the fact these people are working away in tower blocks defeating the object? That while they work, they waste electricity… the building itself is an eyesore…”

  “This is a very complicated world, Kyle. Truth to tell, if these people didn’t have jobs, if there weren’t tower blocks to house them in during the day, what else would they be doing, huh? They’d fill the streets and crime would explode. I suppose they think the risk is worth it… that eventually some super-duper cure will be uncovered… will reverse everything. People cling to hope, it’s such a frail thing, you know?”

  “And four billion people died? And it didn’t reverse anything?”

  The car came to a halt as they waited in a queue for the traffic ahead to clear. She turned to him and smiled sadly. “I think if anything, it accelerated the destruction of this world. It’ll take some explaining, but we’ll get there eventually. For now, let’s just worry about getting you settled somewhere. And getting past my dad.”

  A horn sounded behind them and Ariadne caught up with the traffic in front. He wanted to meet this girl’s father if only to discover the man who had produced such a beauty; yet he also feared a character that had battled, survived and was responsible for such a strong young lady, because it was unlikely this man would suffer fools.

  THEY MADE IT to a tall building much like all the others, except as they shot beneath it and darted into the underground parking, he realized this was unmistakably a medical facility—all the windows shuttered and the façade clinically white. The security guards at the barricade looked terrifying and on the lookout. Clearly, without getting inside this place you would never be any the wiser about the secretive activity going on behind its doors. Ariadne got out of the car when the security guard questioned her intensely, but after a few moments spent conversing in private, they were waved through. Kyle thought she’d used her father’s name to gain entry.

  Ariadne found a spot and parked the car. He waited for her to gesture they should get out, but she clung to the steering wheel as if she were suddenly conflicted. The engine had switched itself off already but as soon as her foot touched the gas, she could reverse right back out if she wanted to.

  “Listen,” she said, turning dramatically in her chair to fully face him, “there are a few things to be aware of. Number one, my father is dangerous and has killed men. Number two, he’s a widower and it changed him, so if you notice anything odd, it’s actually rather normal, well, for him, anyway. Number three, best if you don’t speak or do anything but follow me. Okay?”

  He had expected nothing less. “Fine.”

  They were about to step into an elevator when his legs failed him. She entered the lift ahead of him, wondering why he was still standing there outside the car.

  “Your mother died?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered, looking puzzled.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  He followed her into the lift and couldn’t decide what it was he was feeling. Sorrow? Sadness? What was the difference between the two?

  How did her mother die? When?

  Was this the real reason why Ariadne was so fearless and headstrong?

  He really wanted to find out.

  There was a beep as they reached the fifteenth floor.

  “He always has to have the penthouse,” she chuckled nervously, leading him down a corridor towards a bank of closed doors.

  Chapter Three

  “FATHER!” I CALLED, SEARCHING AMONG the darkness. His laboratory looked empty but I’d been told he was up here; he hadn’t swiped out yet. “DAD!”

  “Uhh, for goodness sake, Ari, I’m bloody here,” came a grouchy voice.

  Kyle followed me as I stalked around, seeking the place where my father’s voice was coming from. We discovered him resting on a sofa in the staff area by the coffee machine.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked, watching him get up and toss away the blanket he’d been snoozing beneath.

  “It’s their day off,” he groaned.

  “Okay.” If you say so…

  He’d sent them all
home, I knew it.

  Firstly, he scanned me to check I wasn’t harmed, then he gave Kyle a critical look up and down. Dad turned his eyes back on mine and gestured at Kyle, who was gazing around the room in shocked silence. Perhaps our technology was more advanced than he’d anticipated.

  “Kyle, this is my father, Dr. Ryken Hardy.”

  “Pleased to meet you… Kyle,” my father boomed, holding out his hand.

  Kyle was shaken from his malaise and gingerly reached his hand out, finding himself on the receiving end of my father’s famously brutal grip. Kyle looked at his hand as he was freed, perhaps experiencing pain for the first time, not entirely convinced by it.

  “Do you have a room in the facility Kyle could stay in?”

  My father folded his arms. “We don’t.”

  “Could he stay with you, then?” I gave my father a pleading look.

  “Why?” they both asked, almost at the same time.

  Kyle looked hurt, as though I was abandoning him. My father on the other hand appeared impatient and ready to destroy Kyle—if only I wasn’t around.

  “He can’t stay with me. It’s a mess,” I groaned, more at my father than Kyle. “I need to rest and clean up. I have a busy day tomorrow. I have to go to York.”

  I didn’t have to go to York, but I had someone I wanted to catch up with… and she also happened to be the best judge of character I knew.

  My father chewed his lip. “I told you before, the facility is full.”

  I blew out a deep breath as loudly as I could. “You’re useless, you know?”

  “Ariadne,” he exclaimed.

  “Sorry.” I toed the floor. But I did call ahead… you knew I was coming. “It’s not been safe recently, you know? This is one of the safest places… the only place I could think of.”

  If only Kyle had an off-switch so I could have this out with my father properly. Still, it’d only end with Dad swearing and sweating profusely as he tossed me out of the door, as usual. His farewell rebuke was always that I was too much like my mother, but actually, I believed I was more like him and that’s why he couldn’t handle me showing up like this.

  I’d been left to fend for myself since Mom died and that wasn’t teenage exaggeration—it was entirely true. That was another story…

  Ryken Hardy pulled himself up to his full height of six foot six. “You’ll have to make do, Ariadne. I can’t help you. Anyway, Kyle wants to go with you, don’t you, Kyle?”

  “I think so,” Kyle murmured.

  My father’s laughing eyes judged Kyle a meek pup. “Ariadne was trained by the deadliest killer on the planet. If she ever had to kill, she would. You’ll be safer with her than with anyone else. Believe me, she is capable.”

  My father thought he was delivering Kyle a warning to behave, but Kyle chuckled and told him, “Well, she’s your daughter, after all.”

  My father’s eyebrows rose, surprised to discover Kyle had a sense of humor. Indeed, as Dad and I shared looks, we were in agreement Kyle wasn’t our normal crater catch. He was so much more.

  “Have a good evening,” Ryken Hardy told us, walking over to where his lab coat was hanging and pulling it on.

  My dad didn’t seem concerned for my safety at all. Did he know something I didn’t? He’d been more concerned on the phone earlier, but maybe with Kyle right in front of him, in the flesh, he seemed to have decided this young guy wasn’t a risk.

  “Will you wait for me outside, Kyle? I want to speak with my father a moment.”

  “Sure, take your time.”

  Kyle left the room and I waited for the door to click shut.

  I strode over to Dad and faced him. “What have you done?”

  Behind his gray beard, I saw nothing but calculation.

  “He’ll be disposed of, when the time is right. Until then, just play your little game, Ariadne. Off you go.” He motioned with his fingers as though I was a fly in his way.

  “If you order his death, your assassins will be dealing with me, too. Do you understand? I will destroy them all.”

  “Anyone would think you have a soft spot for that piece of junk out there.”

  I shook my head as wildly as was comfortable. “How can you say things like that? Mom was one, too.”

  He grimaced and turned his back on me, heading for cold storage to remove some specimens for analysis. His research to create one universal vaccine was ongoing. My mother’s half-sister, Mara had been working with him to develop it for years—she too a virologist—but, while he was World President, the work went on ice because he no longer had time to help with the research and she’d tired of a task she’d been working on most of her adult life. Only after he quit WP had he gone back to the lab, but it wasn’t the same now he was relying on assistants and junior researchers, most of whom didn’t have Mara’s brain. The funding Roche provided him with was rubbish and it sucked that my father couldn’t be seen plowing large amounts of his own money into something considered unobtainable. People would also wonder where he’d got his cash… had he obtained it nefariously while he was WP?

  Mara retired years ago to marry her long-term partner, Camille (the assassin, and also my mother’s best friend). My aunts had lived quietly for a while somewhere remote, but when Mara’s son Lucius (my cousin) was reported dead a year ago, they left obscurity and Mara had been hunting the killer ever since.

  Camille lurked in the shadows, doing her own thing—she was the one I always called late at night, when I was lonely. Since Mom’s death, she’d helped me in ways nobody else had.

  Mara and she weren’t together anymore but weren’t divorced, either; it was understood that Mara was too disconsolate to be with anyone—until she found Lucius’s killer.

  “I never believed your mother was a clone,” my father growled suddenly. “She was too… she was unique. She wasn’t one of them.”

  “Yeah, she was unique. But maybe this guy, maybe he’s unique, too.”

  His face changed and my father looked restless more than anything. Too long had he wrestled with the two sides of himself; the academic, then the warrior. I didn’t think the two had ever coexisted well; he gave into the warrior occasionally, but was mostly academic these days (though you’d not think so, looking at his bulging biceps). He still scared me, he always had. It was something in his eyes… it was the things he’d seen… they’d traumatized him, made him quick to anger… quick to hate.

  It’d been my mother who brought us up believing that the cure was to love… to be kind… to see things… to emote rather than bury.

  My father thought otherwise, but had indulged her nonetheless.

  “With all due respect, Ari I have fought the clones and most of them are a waste of space. I knew your mother in ways you cannot imagine and she had more complexity in her little finger than any of the others possessed in their entirety.”

  “Father, you’re not listening. I can get him on our side, I know I can.”

  He turned to me with a petri dish in one hand and a slide in the other. “Go then, daughter. Do as you please, just as your mother would.”

  I took that as my cue; I’d known he would throw that in my face, yet again.

  I found Kyle out in the corridor, unharmed but apprehensive.

  “Why did we come here, if you knew your father would say no?” His voice was gentle.

  Did he know I was upset as I smashed my fist against the elevator button?

  “My mother used to say, ‘You have to believe in people, Ariadne, that’s all.’ Well, I keep thinking he will change.” We entered the lift to go down. “He keeps disappointing me but maybe one day, he’ll see the light again. Maybe.”

  “He’s never gotten over your mother’s death?”

  “No, and he never will. They were the real deal. They loved more deeply than any other couple I’ve ever known, and I’ve known a lot in my short life, trust me. Even Camille agrees. She doesn’t think he will ever love again… or learn to live without her.”

  “
Camille?”

  “My aunt, Camille. She’s married to my mother’s half-sister, Aunt Mara.”

  “Same-sex marriage is lawful now?”

  “Oh, dear. Yes. Decades ago, in fact. You’ve missed a lot, I am afraid.”

  He chuckled as we climbed back into the car. “Tell me more about Camille.”

  “Oh, I think it’ll be better if you just meet her. We’ll see her tomorrow. We’re meeting up in York.”

  “Umm, why York?” He appeared perplexed.

  “Let’s just get back to mine first, okay?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Chapter Four

  I HADN’T EXPECTED A VISITOR in my own home that day and I felt ashamed as we walked into my apartment, situated just a few blocks away from Dad’s lab. Kyle looked out of the windows, hands in his pockets, glued to the view as I hurried around, snatching up dirty clothes and empty food cartons. Perhaps he hadn’t even noticed the mess as he’d walked in (I tried to convince myself). My place was on the thirtieth floor and the skyline of Manchester seemed to be the only thing drawing his eye.

  “You live alone?” he asked, still looking out of the window.

  “Yeah. Why?” Was he scoping out the potential to murder me in my sleep?

  “Just asking. It seems big… for a young girl.”

  Wherever this guy had come from, he wasn’t totally ignorant—and he was learning, quick. The slow uptake when we first met was being replaced by a smarter wit, I could tell, as his mind sped up and he grew accustomed to the world around him and the changes that had taken place.

  “We used to live between Paris and New York, before my mother died. Paris was more home than anywhere else, though. We had a big house there but when she passed, Dad moved us back here, to England. Buried himself in his work.” I took a deep breath because it felt like I had to explain myself, more for my own benefit than his. “Dad’s hard to live with and never really comes home these days anyway. This is Aunt Mara’s place. She bought it decades ago, after all, the labs were hers before Dad took over. She still stays here whenever she’s in the city to give a lecture or something. I’m just housesitting, you could say. And well, I am almost eighteen. And I have seen and done more than most.”