The Book of Wanda, Volume Two of the Seventeen Trilogy

by Mark D. Diehl

  They relayed the message and moved as quickly as they could, but by the time Rus got past them the woman and kid were nowhere to be seen. He scuttled through the tubes to look through another drain, but they weren’t there, either. He backed up, took an alternate tube and looked out again. This time he managed to catch a glimpse of the two turning a corner.

  The grab was underway. His whole body shook in anticipation but the Juice would have to wait. He had to focus on the target and ensure the doctors were captured in fully functional form. Juice would make it too likely that he would kill them.

  One of the tubes he had to navigate was only wide enough for a belly crawl, but he made it through at what was probably his personal best speed. He reached the next crouchable space, which had once been an interior equipment room of some kind. Now it was nothing except a small hollow in a pile of rubble. When he looked out through an opening in one crumbling wall, they were right outside, cowering together. Apparently the fighting and screaming were freaking out the kid.

  The Saved were big screamers.

  The doctor craned her neck to look down the street toward the fighting and then back to look down an alley. She raised her shaking hands to her face and slumped down next to the boy.

  The boy stood, twitchy and weird, moving a step or two away from her and then a little bit back, waving his arm around, and hyperventilating. She gestured in one direction and another, shaking her head. Rus thought he could make out the words, “Nowhere to go.” As Rus looked on, astonished, the kid walked toward the tunnel opening where Rus was concealed, and the doctor followed him. Rus ducked out of sight as they looked his way. Then the boy squirmed his way into the tunnel, with the woman close behind.

  The two turned back and watched the street as more Saved rushed past, heading toward their doom.

  There was no need to hide the fact he was here.

  “Thanks, kid,” Rus said quietly. The doctor moaned in despair. “You just made my job super easy, little fella.”

  The kid went into full meltdown mode, rocking back and forth and making breathy grunting sounds. Rus had seen a wide range of reactions to his presence since he’d become an Element, but never anything quite like this.

  “Just kill us quickly,” the doctor said. “Please. You can kill so many more if you do it fast.”

  “Not killin’ you,” Rus said. “We need you ‘cause you’re a doctor. You’re goin’ back to the hospital where you were before. The kid, though, I can kill him quick for you.”

  Saved began running past again, this time in the opposite direction, back toward the clinic.

  “Don’t think of callin’ to ‘em,” Rus said. “Or runnin’ outta here. Like I said, we need you. Also, they need you. If we can’t have you, neither can they. Get it?”

  “Can you at least let Ernesto go?” she said, gesturing at the kid. “I promise I won’t fight. I’ll serve willingly, as doctor for you and the rest of your army. Just let this boy go.”

  Rus laughed. “Shut up.”

  “Can’t you see he’s not like other people?”

  “So what? None of you Saved are like normal people. That’s why we have to kill you instead of taking you to the Divinators and converting you. Top Dog says you’re too brainwashed to be trainable.”

  “He’s not brainwashed!” she said. “He hardly even talks.”

  “Neither do you. Remember I said shut up?”

  She stayed quiet.

  A few Saved ran past, heading away from the clinic this time. A minute later, more of them ran back this way. A knot of maybe twenty of them congregated on the street outside where they were hidden. The doctor gasped as she recognized one of them.

  “There!” she said. “That’s Leesa. She takes care of him. I think he’ll go to her if I tell him. Please, please let me try.”

  “Shut. Up.”

  She cried. For real, cried. Finally she took a long breath and half-talked, half-cried: “Please! He’ll probably be the last decent, innocent being either of us ever see again in our lives. I’m begging you -- don’t kill him, don’t take the last good thing away from the world!” She shook and sobbed.

  Rus remembered the pink-haired whore. Outside, the little knot of Saved had moved about half a block in a new direction, down a side street. They’d probably escape if they continued that way.

  Rus heaved the kid back out onto the street. The woman bent down so that she could see the boy through the opening. He stood only a few steps away with his shoulders hunched and his mouth hanging open, looking back and forth from the Saved to the woman.

  Rus put his blade to her throat. “If that fuckin’ kid draws them over here, first he’s gonna watch me take your head off, an’ then I’m gonna mow ‘em all down with the rifle. Get him the fuck gone.”

  “Go to Helper Leesa, Ernesto,” she said. “I’m sorry, sweetie. The Saved will keep you alive, and right now that’s the most important thing. You have to do whatever they say. Believe in the One. You need to become Saved. Do you understand?”

  The boy inched toward her, staring through the opening at her face and the knife blade. The woman pointed in the direction of the Saved, but he did not move.

  “Enough of this,” Rus said. “Get the fuck outta here, kid. Don’t make me sorry I didn’t slice you up. You!” He yanked the woman away from the opening and forced her to her knees, shoving her head toward the narrow tube behind them. “Get in there! Crawl forward until you reach the bigger pipe; I got a light I’ll turn on when the kid’s out of the picture.”

  “Run, Ernesto!” she shouted, her voice echoing down the tube. “Run and run until you reach Helper Leesa! I’m so sorry, Ernesto. I love you. Go!”

  Rus dropped a shoulder to unsling the rifle, but the kid finally turned and ran away, chasing the group of Saved.

  Rus sheathed the knife and followed the woman into the sewer.

  13

  Scaffolded and wrapped construction site for the new Amelix building

  Gregor Kessler forced his eyes up and away from the moving walkway, scanning across the Corporate Green open area at the center of the new structure. The exact specifications were classified and his job description didn’t warrant his knowing them, but even with the tarps hanging everywhere he could see that this open area was apparently several stories high, and as wide as it was tall. There was no reason to fear being sealed up in here for eight months. In fact, without being told, he probably wouldn’t ever even have thought about whether the building was sealed or not. There was no reason to fear, at all. He could do this.

  It’s Zytem’s paranoia! He’s always been weird about security and now that there’s been an attack he’s gone off the deep end and he’s going to lock me in here for eight months!

  He was breathing hard. His eyes streamed tears that ran down his cheeks and pooled around his collar. Something was terribly wrong. The blasphemous thoughts he’d just been thinking had been about Walt Zytem, the conduit between himself and the Lord! Kessler leaned against the railing that moved alongside the walkway, determined to rechannel his thoughts in an appropriately reverential direction. Other employees strode past him, but he let the new structure’s biomachinery convey him along at its sluggish pace.

  He filled his lungs with air and held it all in. This breath trick was one of the only things Kessler had found that could help him stem his crippling trepidation about this building. He would not let himself inhale again until he had turned his mind the right direction

  It’s a beautiful building. Very pleasant. Truly a privilege to be here.

  Pathway amplification boosted the feelings into a nice glow. He exhaled slowly, straightened his shoulders and stepped off the walkway.

  Kessler’s duties hadn’t brought him to many parts of the structure yet, but he had consulted the floorplans through his EI to get a general sense of where things were. The light coming in through the open area in the center indicated that the top was either translucent or transparent, and shadows cast on the tarps drap
ed around and above him suggested that there were opaque shades suspended above it.

  He was headed to the fourth floor of the hard-core science wing where people like Chelsea worked. Usually this was her wheelhouse, meeting with scientists to see how things could be done, but in this case the wave-manip guy, a lower-ranked specialist named Dr. Talib Curtis, DCS, was asking Kessler to help interpret some regulations that were pertinent to the project.

  The guy’s fretting seemed kind of stupid, from Kessler’s perspective. Regulations were just guidelines as to how workers interacted with each other. The wave-manips for sleep replacement and for inducing hypnotic states to aid preconditioning were company priorities. Company priorities would trump any regulation, if the action were ever challenged.

  The science labs were as strange and uncomfortable to visit here as they had been at the old building, all cordoned off from each other with electrobioplexi that was almost always set on its darkest phase to ensure the secrecy of the experiments being conducted inside. Though a majority of Amelix employees worked within the various scientific departments, the halls here were typically empty. Workers tended to stay sequestered inside their segregated labs.

  Kessler found the office easily. The EI was such a blessing, keeping him from getting lost down here, where a wrong step into a forbidden office could mean Departing.

  Kessler’s EI announced him as he arrived. Curtis answered almost instantly, easily recognizable with his short black hair and gray eyes, though the hair was mussed and the eyes were wild and glassy.

  “Thank you for coming, sir,” Curtis said. He extended a shaking hand. As Kessler grasped it, he noticed that the man’s entire body was quivering. His Golden skin had bleached itself ivory white. This man was terrified.

  It’s this building! Being trapped in here will be like being buried alive, sealed willingly inside a movable tomb!

  Kessler held his breath again. Curtis seemed too wrapped up in his own anxiety to notice.

  Beautiful. Pleasant. Spacious, even. This place is so big, it’s just like being outside. Just like being outside in the CBD. Outside. Calm, peaceful, open…

  The terror subsided. Kessler avoided looking at Curtis, so as not to risk being triggered again by the man’s obvious distress.

  “Sure,” Kessler said. “Still don’t know why you couldn’t have come up to my office like anyone else of subordinate rank would have done.”

  Curtis closed the door. “I’m sorry, sir, but I needed the security of the lab. I had to get Dr. Chelsea’s approval to speak with you about this, and she insisted we speak here.”

  In his peripheral vision, Kessler could see Curtis steadying himself with both palms against a countertop. Kessler was tempted to grab hold of something, himself.

  Lovely building. First class. State of the art. Pure, clean oxygen being pumped around this place, I’ll bet. He let himself breathe again.

  “I’ll get right to it, sir.

  “I don’t have your level of security clearance generally, sir, but with regard to information and projects within my field, wave manipulation, it is necessary for me to have top clearance in order to perform my duties. Dr. Chelsea has authorized me to share a secret with you that we’ve had for many years now. This information is classified as Ultra, sir, but on Dr. Chelsea’s authority I’m to pass it to you.”

  He paused. When he finally spoke again, it was in a lower, more serious tone.

  “As you know, sir, I’m tasked with using wave manipulation technology to alter sleep patterns when the new buildings are running sealed protocols.”

  Sealed!

  Beautiful. Tech. Oxygen. These places are so big they’re like being outside. He breathed again.

  “The truth is, sir, that’s easy. That tech has been used in the reconditioning process for years. Any regulatory issues were worked out long ago. Dr. Chelsea would never need your help with that.”

  Kessler let himself become annoyed. Irritation was a feeling he could manage more easily than fear, and Curtis was giving him ample opportunity to experience it. “Then why am I here, Dr. Curtis?”

  “Well, sir,” Curtis said. He paused once more and cleared his throat. “Sir, the science of wave manipulation goes far, far beyond merely replicating sleep patterns and running workers through them at quadruple speed. In fact, wave science is advanced enough to completely eliminate the need for Efficiency Implants, and it has been for quite some time.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true, sir. There’s no need for implants into brains; we could do it all from outside. I’m talking full feed: communication, video, absolutely everything, without internal hardware.”

  “That’s amazing,” Kessler said. His voice probably sounded flat. It was shocking news. Chelsea was involved?

  Curtis, now having broken the ice and disclosed the most guarded secret with which he had ever been entrusted, apparently found his voice. The words tumbled out, faster and clearer than before. “The current production EIs have tech that knows how to present signals into the right parts of the brain to give the impression of sound, sight, what have you. The next logical step was figuring out how to use wave manipulation to generate the same impressions, stimulating those same parts of the brain, only without direct physical contact. Amelix labs solved that puzzle more than ten years ago, and has perfected the technology since then.”

  “If it’s perfected, why aren’t we using it? Certainly a noninvasive process is better than having every worker undergo brain surgery—”

  Kessler stopped talking. Every quarter, synthesizers all around the world were performing thousands of surgical procedures on workers’ brains. All those credits flowed into the Medical Doctor’s coffers.

  “We’ve tried for years to get it implemented, sir, to use our proprietary wave manips to replace EIs.”

  Kessler sighed. “But you’re always shut down by a Medical Doctor veto, right?”

  “Yes, sir. But Dr. Chelsea says that regulations aboard these new structures are radically different—”

  “You’re insane. You want to try and snatch multiple thousands of brain surgeries out of her revenue stream and justify it because Dr. Zytem passed new regs about life aboard these structures? You won’t survive this, Dr. Curtis. I’ll tell you that right now.”

  “It’s not my idea, sir.” There was an edge to his voice now, and the implication was clear: Go ahead, call Chelsea insane. See how long you survive, yourself.

  “There’s no way,” Kessler said. “Even with the new regs granting so much more autonomy to the structures, the Medical Doctor has full rights over all living human tissue, companywide. You know this.”

  “Yes, sir. But Dr. Chelsea claims that wave manips are simply information, the same way that an audio announcement or a video program is simply information. As such, she has ordered that this tech be installed throughout this and every other new Amelix structure. As you know, sir, while the Medical Doctor has complete authority over human bodies, she does not control tech applications in the structures themselves.”

  “You’re just doing it? Won’t that interfere with existing EIs aboard?”

  “No, sir. Existing EIs have a shielding effect on brains into which they’ve been installed. Waves are all around us, constantly, sir. Sound waves, microwaves, light, radio, all kinds. EIs were engineered to cancel out interference like that, so anyone with an EI wouldn’t even notice the manips. The two technologies can coexist.”

  “What do you need me for, if you’re just going ahead with it anyway?”

  “Dr. Chelsea asks that you prepare a detailed reference document for us, sir. In case the installation, or more importantly, the use, of this tech is ever challenged.”

  “Uh huh. She wants to have me ready, in case she needs to sacrifice me.”

  “Speaking with all respect, sir, at least she’s giving you a fighting chance. Some of us may be sacrificed without a means of defending ourselves at all.”

  New Union Headquarters, the Zon
e

  “Tunnel Master Rus reporting, Top Dog, sir. You wanted to know my observations, sir.” He had to raise his voice over the thunder that rattled the Throne Room’s rare glass windowpanes.

  The kid had been down there a long time. He would snap himself into a rigid military posture, but then he’d habitually hunch his shoulders and bend his back again, as if conforming to a smaller space. His eyes twitched and his hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly.

  “You seem nervous, Tunnel Master. Something wrong?” Top Dog asked. His clipped voice conveyed contempt for the display of weakness. “You seem nervous.”

  “Sorry, Top Dog, sir,” he said. “It’s the storm. In the tunnels, when there’s a thunderstorm you have to run for dry space or you die, sir.”

  “Now you’re in my presence, Tunnel Master. Remember protocol.”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”

  The light was dim enough in here today that the tattoo the Subjects had given him was starting to glow. It was an arrow beginning at the tip of his nose and running all the way to his hairline.

  “So,” Top Dog said. “You were the first one there, right? The first Tunnel Master. You’ve spent longer in the tubes than anyone.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I need to know everything you’ve learned down there,” Top Dog said. “I don’t like what I’ve been hearing about those mole people, the Subjects.”

  “Um, I’m surprised, sir.” Rus said. “All I see, Top Dog, sir, is the Subjects doin’ exactly what we say, all the time.”

  “Yes. That’s what’s so disturbing. Nobody’s that submissive. We need to find out what they’re plotting. They have traps we don’t understand; maybe they’re going to slaughter a bunch of us sometime as we pass through on a raid.” He stroked his close beard. “Why would they do it, though? What do they want?”

  He paused, raising his eyebrows at the Tunnel Master, who cleared his throat nervously.

  “From what I’ve seen, sir, the Subjects don’t want anything. They’re just…there, sir.”