The Syn-En Solution

by Linda Andrews

  “Bastards died too quick.” Penig nodded in satisfaction.

  The UEN News started on the LCD over Lieutenant Berlin’s head. “In an apparent retaliation for the explosion of the training facility, Syn-En forces have attacked the tiny village of Helena in the North American Consortium. Ten thousand are confirmed dead, including the valiant Citizen’s brigade that rushed to defend the unarmed town.”

  Bei checked the other screens. No one had rushed to anyone’s aid. The survivors had to die so the citizens’ lies could continue.

  Cheerily, the newscaster motioned to the stock photo behind her. “UEN Council has voted unanimously to rescind Syn-En protection because of the brutal attack. All Syn-Ens are required to report to the nearest Citizen Police Unit for detention and trial. Oh, we’re going to Bangladesh, where Councilwoman Lisa Perez has a statement.”

  The screen image changed and a trim woman flicked lint off her cherry red sari and turned to the cameras. Her preserved features reflected a suitable amount of shock and horror. “After reviewing footage of the attacks, the Council has declared that civilians who aided and abetted the attack will also be executed by military court. An anonymous source high in the UEN Council revealed that plans for a coup were found among Admiral Beijing York’s personal possessions. The papers enabled the heroic Citizen Protection Force to respond as quickly as they did. Sadly no one survived the Syn-En savagery.”

  “Turn off that crap!” Penig rose from his chair.

  Bei nodded to the lieutenant. He’d seen everything they needed to. The Syn-En had been tried and convicted. Bei had been accused of inciting the desertion a full month before he’d actually done so.

  XO Penig looked at Bei. “Everyone needs to see this.”

  Bei nodded. “Open a channel to the fleet.”

  Lieutenant Berlin stood at attention. “Channel open, Admiral.”

  “This is Admiral Beijing York, I ask that you stop your tasks for a moment. We have just received an urgent communiqué from the Syn-En units left behind on Earth. Please know that while the images are disturbing, ninety percent of our people survived and will soon be joining us. After viewing these clips, double your efforts to repair the ships.”

  The lieutenant’s eyes changed to charcoal for a moment, then the first video clips started to roll.

  Turning to his command staff, Bei clasped his hands behind his back and paced in front of them. “Have your best science officers report to Shang’hai on the Starfarer to finish solving the equations to open an event horizon. Triple the repair efforts. I want everyone’s ship moving as soon as possible to the exit point marked on Nell’s flight plan. If the citizens figure out a means to destabilize the wormhole, we’ll need to move and move fast.”

  Instinct, that automatic response once valued in humans,

  can now be successfully controlled in Syn-Ens by their cerebral interface.

  The result: a soldier who is self-sacrificing and fearless.

  Syn-En Vade Mecum

  Introduction, Getting to Know the New You

  Chapter Ten

  Nell opened her eyes and stared at the pin lights glowing softly in the smooth ceiling before turning her attention to the utilitarian, sparsely furnished room. The barrel chair by the desk remained empty and the bathroom door open. She was alone in the room. No, not room, quarters. She was on a spaceship. For once the idea didn’t elicit fear. Instead, excitement coursed through her.

  Sighing back into the mattress, she wiggled against the tightly tucked blanket. The warm, coarse fabric rubbed pleasantly against her skin. Funny. She never thought she’d miss friction, but then she’d never experienced zero gravity until she woke up in that dark room.

  As she recalled her short death and the crazy woman in the cargo bay, Nell’s mood darkened. Floating hadn’t been the only thing she wasn’t prepared for. What had the Save Our World Foundation been thinking to send her here? Sure she had that voice providing information, but really it was a little creepy to have someone or something inside her head. Still, she’d applied for the job with Save Our World to save her family and….

  Oh, God. Her family! Her heart rate kicked into overdrive. She needed to find out what happened to them. Jerking on the tucked-in blankets, Nell tried to rise. Cold air rushed down her chest, pebbling her bare skin. Crap! Where was her shirt? She wiggled her toes against the rough weave. And her boots. How was she to get around without touching the ground? Something rustled on her right and she yanked the blanket up to her chin.

  “Ah, you’re awake.” Doc Cabo stepped across the bathroom threshold, studying a cotton swab topped with electric blue held between his tan fingers. “How are you feeling?”

  “Good.” Exposed. Still nearly naked under the blanket. She’d never make a good nudist. A low hum caused a cascade of goosebumps along her spine and the unmistakable sourness of vomit tinged the air. Was it her imagination or had something changed her? Nell tucked the blanket around her, checking to make sure no wobbly bits peeked out. Not that she should have bothered. Doc Cabo paid more attention to his specimen than her.

  “I’m glad to see you’ve recovered.” Doc maneuvered the blue tip into the gaping compartment in his forearm and the whites of his eyes seemed to turn gray. “Your fever broke an hour ago.”

  “Fever?” Spying her shirt on the pillow next to her, she tugged on the green tunic, before sliding out from under the blankets. Her feet barely skimmed the floor. Great. Now she just needed to find her shoes and socks. Nell grabbed the mattress, bent over and looked underneath the bed. No shoes were wedged against the solid base welded to the floor. Damn.

  “Probably a side effect of your body adjusting to normal functions instead of the maintenance provided by prolonged stasis.” Doc frowned and his brown eyes returned to normal.

  Unease itched the skin between Nell’s shoulder blades. No good news ever came from a frowning doctor.

  “I didn’t die again, did I?” Using her toes, she scratched the metal floor and propelled herself to the foot of the bed. The weight of the clothes stopped the motion from shooting her toward the ceiling, but she’d be glad when she could walk instead of this bizarre swimming motion. In her head, all she saw was the image of a cartoon character’s legs spinning in a blur but the character never getting anywhere.

  Joining her trek to the end of the bed, Doc cupped her elbow and guided her the rest of the way. “I’m happy to say you did not die, but I must tell you that you experienced a few seizures and unusually high brain activity.”

  “You scanned my head?” Panic squeezed Nell’s chest, making it difficult to breathe. She glanced at Doc. Had that been why he frowned? Had he found space parasites or… or anything that shouldn’t be there? Her tongue was thick in her dry mouth. “Did-did you find anything?”

  “You’re very healthy considering you came from the early twenty-first century. From what little we know of it, illness, malnutrition and chemical poisons affected all humans.” Doc smiled, flashing his even white teeth.

  Nell relaxed. No space parasites. No… She tried to chase down the errant thought, but couldn’t quite catch it. Maybe she should perform her own scan. Right, she hadn’t been able to master Facebook, what made her think she could operate twenty-second century medical equipment? To her surprise, a manual of knowledge flowed easily across her consciousness.

  Now she definitely would have her head examined. This had to be more than simple brainwashing. Banishing the thought, she scanned the room but still did not see her boots.

  “Have you seen my shoes?” The quarters didn’t have that many places to hide things, especially since everything seemed welded in place. Perhaps someone had taken them. But why?

  She noticed a white swab sticking out from one of a myriad holes in the meaty part of his forearm. Well, where the meat would be if he had any. “What did you find in the goo?”

  Doc snapped the protruding end off the swab and shut the smooth arch of skin. “I need to analyze it further.”

&n
bsp; “Is there a problem?” Nell peered closer, looking for seams in his skin. The only thing she detected were the normal creases cutting across the joints at his elbow and wrist. If she hadn’t seen his arm open, she would never have known about the compartment. She stopped staring and looked him in the face. What did the Syn-En’s teeth hide?

  “No problems.” Doc’s smile widened as he escorted her to the bathroom. “In fact, the goo as you call it, seems to have done a remarkable job of keeping you healthy, even reversing if not halting the aging process.”

  “Really?” Nell faced her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Faint crow’s feet radiated from her eyes. Laugh lines bracketed her lips. The same blue eyes stared back, the same upturned nose. Her bottom lip was still too big and her top lip too small. She looked good for a hundred-sixty-year old, but not any different than when she’d entered the Save Our World’s office. Worry made quotation marks over the bridge of her nose.

  “I’m not going to age rapidly now that I’m out of stasis, am I? You know like Mel Gibson did in Forever Young?” Nell gripped the sides of the mirror to steady herself. Good lord, wasn’t there a character on TV who measured everything in life by movies and shows? She definitely was getting her head examined. Using her fingers, she tightened the skin covering her cheeks. “I mean, I don’t look any younger than I remember. Maybe it has already started.”

  Doc Cabo opened a drawer from the built-in to the left of the mirror and pulled out her boots and socks. “I doubt it. Indeed, you may stay the same relative age for the next six decades.”

  “I’ll be forty for another sixty years?” Nell’s mind reeled with the implications. She’d look pretty good for a two hundred and twenty years old. Her friends would kill for such a beauty secret. Sighing, Nell felt loneliness press against her. Her friends and family didn’t care what they looked like, they were dead and given Doc’s predictions, she might outlast another generation. Damn. Perhaps this agelessness wasn’t a gift but a curse.

  “Given the self-repairing capabilities of your genes, you’ll be twenty-five for the next sixty years.” Doc held out the boots to her.

  God that sucked, especially since this time she’d get to watch everyone around her die of old age. Nell retrieved her shoes and, folding her knees slowly, sank to the floor. Absently, she registered that the closer she came to sitting, the faster she dropped.

  It’s the magnetic attraction. The nearer you are to the current in the floor, the stronger the pull, her mother explained.

  On impulse, Nell turned the boots over. Sandwiched between layers in the one inch soles, she spied the wafer thin layers of metal. After gingerly setting the shoes on the floor, she lifted the right one up and felt the resistance along her muscles. Once again her mother/conscience was right, but Nell couldn’t quite trust it completely. “You say twenty-five. Beijing said I looked thirty-five. You guys sure are a bunch of flatterers.”

  “I would judge the admiral’s assessment of your outward age to be correct.” Kneeling next to her, Doc tugged a rolled up pair of socks out of the boots. “I speak of the relative age of your telomeres. If my tests are correct, then your genetic material became younger while you slept.”

  Younger, but still old. Who could have accomplished such a thing? And how did they get so advanced during the age of budget cuts and downsizing? Nell tugged the silky socks over her feet before stepping inside the boots and folding over the metal flaps, magnetically sealing her feet inside. “But I thought I’d thrown up all that blue stuff.”

  “Apparently you absorbed enough of that blue stuff to trigger a response in every cell in your body.”

  “How is that possible?” Nell pushed off the floor, stood up, and then lifted her right leg. Her muscles trembled as she continued to hold it up and she hopped a bit to maintain her balance. It felt the same as she remembered on Earth, although just a little bit sticky like walking on fly paper. She let her leg drop. Her foot hit the deck with a satisfying thud. Yes. She could walk again. Nell strode out of the bathroom then stopped. “Wait a minute. You said telomeres, right? Isn’t that some genetic code that shortens every time it’s copied until it breaks down?”

  “Yes.” Doc Cabo smoothed his black eyebrows. “Are you medically trained?”

  “No.” Nell flopped down in the barrel chair. It squeaked as it adjusted to her weight. She lifted her arm, felt the slight attraction and set it down in her lap. Never again would she curse gravity. Well, maybe she would when she had to start rolling up her breasts and stuffing them inside her bra. “I’m Science Channel trained. They had a special on Dolly.”

  Doc sat on the edge of the bed. “Dolly?”

  “The sheep—the first animal—cloned by scientists that survived. Even when she was a year old, her telomeres were as short as the original sheep, meaning she was as old as her mom.” Nell made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. She wasn’t exactly sure who was Dolly’s mom, the one whose udder scraping the scientists inserted into the empty egg, or the ewe who’d given birth. Not that it mattered. “Dolly died of lung cancer at six, half her anticipated lifespan. The scientists said the cancer had taken out most of the flock she’d been living with, but what kind of cancer is contagious? It had to be the telomere age thing.”

  Doc shrugged. “No cancer is contagious that I’m aware. But certain factors can increase the likelihood of passing it along.”

  Nell waved her hand. Facts only clouded the issue. “When Dolly was born, there were oodles of stories about cloning organs so your body wouldn’t reject them. But when she died at such a young age, everyone believed that a cloned kidney, heart or lung would be just as old and decrepit as the one a person already had.”

  Doc laced his fingers together, considering her words. “So cloning replacement organs would be a waste of resources.”

  Nell stared at the back of her hands, focusing on the scar running across her knuckles. Would a clone have scars? Not likely, but what did she know? This conversation had sown an unpleasant idea and her stomach churned at the thought. “Do you think I could be a clone?”

  When Doc shook his head, a black curl tumbled across his forehead. “Cloning is not just illegal; it is also punishable by death.”

  Nell grimaced. Her inner voice remained quiet on the subject. Obviously, she’d need to brush up on recent history. Too bad she hated the subject. “That seems a little harsh.”

  Doc shrugged, but an emotion flashed across his face and left before Nell could identify it. “Those that challenge the authorities often receive harsh penalties.”

  Doc remained silent and concentrated on scanning her with the green diagnostic beam shooting out of his palm.

  Nodding, Nell waited for something to happen. Leaning back in her chair, she counted to ten, then twenty. At one hundred and thirty-five, she smoothed the wisps of hair floating around her head and tucked them into the metal scrunchie confining her hair. Doc watched the movement.

  Nell stared back at him, drumming her fingers on the armrest as boredom built inside her. “Are you certain I don’t have any space parasites feeding information to my brain?”

  His full lips quirked. “If such a thing existed, politicians would be required to be infected.”

  She smiled back. At least, his sense of humor hadn’t been replaced with a computer chip. “Then why are you watching me so closely? I mean you probably have other things to do. Blue goo to analyze more thoroughly.”

  Shrugging, Doc set his hand over the storage compartment in his forearm. “I’ve been ordered to watch over you. It is the least we can do to repay you for coming to save us.”

  They don’t trust you.

  Like she needed her mom to tell her that.

  You must get them to trust you. It is the only way to fulfill your mission.

  What is my mission? No answer. How top secret could a mission be that even those performing it were kept in the dark? And what chance did she have of fulfilling it, if she didn’t know what to do?

 
Instinct.

  The fine, blonde hair on Nell’s arms stood on end. Instinct was something done without thought, because it was so well ingrained in the brain. Could it cause her to do something she didn’t want to?

  Make yourself useful.

  What can I do? I doubt the admiral needs to dictate a letter or have copies made.

  You can tend the ill. Given the damage to this ship, there are bound to be injured.

  Images flooded her consciousness. Setting bones, replacing neural nodes, rebooting Syn-En software programs. Things she’d never done but now seemed to know by rote. How was that possible? This new instinct went far beyond fight or flight reflex.

  Doc touched her hand. His skin was hot compared to hers. “Nell? Do you need to lie down again?”

  She needed to find out what was inside her head. To do so required leaving this room before she lost her mind. Maybe, she could help them and herself at the same time. “I’m fine, but I’m sure there are sick people who need you.”

  A muscle ticked in Doc’s jaw and he avoided eye contact with her.

  Crap. She’d been right. Like hundreds of cockroaches, guilt skittered across her skin. She would help the Syn-En after she did one teensy thing for herself. “You do have sick to tend. Go. I’ll tell the admiral I sent you away.”

  Doc chuckled, but scratched the dark stubble on his chin. “The admiral is in charge.”

  “So you’re not to leave me alone.” Nell managed not to flinch. Even though she knew Beijing didn’t trust her, it still hurt to hear it in so many words. How could she ever have thought he might be attracted to her? She tried to shrug it off, but couldn’t help thinking there was something between them. The familiarity of knowing someone you just met. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

  “I don’t know…” Despite Doc’s words, a spark flared in his brown eyes.

  Nell shrugged off her guilt. Being a twenty-second century Rip Van Winkle, she would like to be useful and busy. “Did Beijing say I couldn’t leave his quarters?”