by Nirina Stone
I sit up to pick up the familiar book and turn it in my hands as I read the title: A History of Apex. The Real Story, Paper Edition by Mornie Blair.
“Why is that?” I ask, not remembering anything overly interesting about the first page of the book.
Mornie wrote about the reasons behind the Great Omni, which I had already heard in great detail during my childhood.
I remember watching the ancients’ history on one of our virtual bays at school. They’d show us videos and pictures of societies on Earth several years before the Great Omni. By the year 2050 there were ten billion people on Earth, though they had already colonized the moon and started to populate Mars. Other newly discovered planets simply could not sustain human life, so the slow trek to the moon and Mars did not keep up with demand. The virtual shows would fast forward over this part, showing the years of building on the moon and Mars in a matter of two minutes.
Then they’d start streaming the conflicts, the wars, the various ways people loved to kill each other. People’s ‘Beliefs’ in Divinity or in lack of Divinity were only getting more radical from all ends, and more counter-intuitive. We’d watch people dressed in all sorts of different attire, throwing flaming bottles filled with whatever explosives they used back then at one other.
The various confrontations culminated into the Great Omnicide—a perfect storm of nuclear detonations and space wars and civil wars, and within a matter of weeks, the entire Northern hemisphere, including what was once North America, was gone. The virtual shows would offer us stills of all this, of dead bodies strewn everywhere, their various weapons rendered useless and melted beside them.
Our ancestors in what was then called Asia Pacific, now Apex, watched the north destroy each other until we lost all communication. The people in Apac were busy fighting their own battles, having been delved a severe case of Ebola that was taking out a massive number out of their population.
They had sent a large chunk of their armies to help in the war effort in the north, though no one is sure who they were allied with at the time.
Then our ancestors were fighting to survive too, what with the hundreds of tsunamis and Nuclear storms that hit Apac for months after the north blew up.
Billions of people were killed, and it was effectively the end of the Earth as they knew it. I remember the history so well, Mornie’s words in her book play out everything I’d watched as a kid, like a movie.
“Because,” Eric says now, taking me right out of my reverie, “our current commander is a descendant of Mornie Blair. She is a massive influence on everything the Sorens do today.” I can hear reverence in his voice.
I’m sure the book will be a quick read—it is really short—but I wonder exactly how influential this Mornie Blair is.
“Anyway,” Eric continues. I’m still getting used to the way he speaks—so casually. Nothing at all like what I was accustomed to in Apex. I wonder if this is a Soren characteristic, or if it’s just Eric. “How was your walk with Knox?”
I look up at him as he smiles. “It was incredible, of course,” I reply. “I still can’t believe we’re all on a ship—sorry, a city—a floating city, on the ocean,” I amend quickly.
“It is quite impressive, isn’t it?” he says. “For someone who’s lived on land all her life.”
“It’s no wonder you’re all so elusive.” I remember all the news stories. Sorens would come on land to blow up or destroy or steal something, only to disappear into thin air.
“Oh, the Prospo know exactly where we are,” he says. “They say we’re hiding but we’re not.”
I feel Eric’s eyes on me, and look up. There he goes, studying my face again, like he will learn something about me by watching my eyes. I look away, self-conscious—not for the first time.
“We do keep moving,” he finally asserts. “All of our civilians live on the ocean cities, but our army is based in Prospo City and in Citizen City for the most part.”
Hmm. That certainly explains all the kidnappings. They’re nomadic, never in one spot for long. They hide in plain sight, grab their intended kidnappees and disappear back into the shadows. They take advantage of Prospo and Citizen naivete, our rules, our conformity, knowing how to work their way through our system. It’s clever.
“Can I ask you something, Eric?”
It’s possible he won’t answer me, but we have an easier rapport now. It’s worth the risk. He doesn’t speak. He nods twice and raises a hand, palm up, as if to say, “Go ahead.”
“Why did you—why did the Sorens kidnap me?” I ask. My voice breaks on the last two words. I cough quickly to cover it up.
He gives me his best Interviewer look. “At first, we wanted the Diamonds to pay a ransom for you.”
I’m flummoxed. A ransom? What would make the Diamonds pay a ransom for me? They wouldn’t, that’s what. Thinking of Isaac’s relationship with the Diamonds I say, “You would have had a better chance getting a ransom for Isaac.”
He just gives me an amused smile. “We did not want to grab an elderly man.”
He said, at first. At first, they wanted the Diamonds to pay a ransom.
“What changed?” I ask. “You obviously didn’t get a ransom—” I mutter, realizing there is no way for me to know that. “So what made you keep me?”
“Sorens are still short in number, Romy,” he says almost impatient now. “Yes, we are keen to repopulate the Earth with more Sorens, but we also need mobile, capable, healthy minds and bodies, right now.”
Does he mean as a soldier? My frown deepens, as I wonder exactly what the Sorens’ expectations are with me.
“Let’s not discuss it now,” he says, though it is exactly all that I want to discuss at the moment.
He’s already heading to the door, telling me he’ll be back with supper. I hear the door lock behind him and lean back into the bed to read more from Mornie.
What I’m reading is not new. She writes about how some people from the Northern Hemisphere smuggled themselves out right before the destruction.
Once they entered Apex, they migrated inland and started to build—as far away from the Coastal areas as possible to avoid any further tsunamis.
As I read the next few paragraphs though, I sit up with a shiver. Much of what Mornie writes now differs vastly from our history teachings. She confirms that the Prospo built up skyscrapers, and the Citizens elected to build on the land they had. That is, until there was not much space left, and so they dug deep into the Earth. Their ancestors before the Great Omni already had homes underground due to the excessive heat in the outback. The Citizens simply extended these out and built them into fully networked communities.
I so miss my home under the ground. There was no place more comforting for me. It was perfect, no matter what sort of temperatures we had outside—comfortably cool in the summer, and a lovely tropical warm in the winter months. I shake my head, trying to focus.
The part of Mornie’s story that is different is her assertion that the Prospo then decided they needed more space, so they bombed the entrances to the underground homes, burying thousands of Citizens in their sleep. Mornie writes, The Prospo calmly built more of their towers on top of the Citizens’ still smouldering tombs.
Shaking, I read over the paragraph over and over, unable to move past it. Smouldering tombs. I picture smoke rising from our underground home, my parents choking and unable to breathe inside, and rage tightens my chest.
The Prospo killed thousands of my people? Just so they could build more skyscrapers? More four level monstrosities with multiple kitchens they don’t cook in, to live in only part-time?
I want to scream, but just throw the book across the room and slam my head into a pillow to rave into it.
When I lift my head, after what seems like only a second, Eric is standing in the room watching me, a tray full of food in his hands.
“The burial?” he asks, understanding. I nod, and I’m hyperventilating.
Oh crap, I think. That can’t be g
ood for my heart. But wait, my heart is fine. I’m just having a mild panic attack. It’s also not good for my heart, but no longer in a way that’s scary.
Why did I not know about this? Because it happened over a century before my birth and because the Prospo—the disseminators of information in the State of Apex—kept it hidden. They kept it hidden well, the same way they tried to erase the memories of great authors featured on library shelves all over Soren Cities.
I don’t know what to say, so I just watch Eric.
He picks up the book and places it on the table with the others. I feel guilty, remembering his tone of reverence for Mornie Blair. “I am so sorry,” I say, looking at the table. “I should respect books better than that.”
“I reacted the same way when I first read that part,” he admits. “It is confronting. Let’s not talk about it now, though. Let’s eat.” I look at the tray—it’s filled with nearly triple the food he normally brings for me. He moves to parse the various dishes on to my bed. “I hope you don’t mind if I join you?”
We’re eating in silence, when I focus on this mysterious Eric Strohm in my room. Any time I’ve tried to ask him a question in the last six months or so, he has been elusive. He seems friendlier, today.
Maybe I can try. This eating together thing is a definite breakthrough.
So, after I finish chewing on a piece of chicken, I start with something fairly innocuous. “When did you read Mornie’s work?” I ask.
“Let’s see.” His eyes dart to the ceiling. “When I was six years old. Maybe seven.”
So that confirms he was likely born a Soren, not a kidnapped Citizen, like me. I wonder, though.
“Knox told me there are about three thousand inhabitants on the Iliad,” I say.
He makes an affirmative sound and tucks into his cheese casserole.
It was so delicious, it was the first thing I scarfed down. I watch him eat and say, “How many Sorens are there in total? On the ships and in the cities on land?” I don’t know why I’m curious about that, but his abrupt shift in posture makes me wary.
He raises his eyes without moving anything else. “Why do you want to know?” he finally asks.
I shrug my shoulders. “Just making conversation.”
“Well,” he says, pushing away his tray now. Is he full? His food is barely touched. “I can’t disclose that information to a Citizen.” Then his Interviewer mask is back.
I lean away from him, knowing I just crossed the line. By Odin, I hope I haven’t lost any concessions gained this morning.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say, sheepishly. “I don’t know why I asked that. It’s just such a different world to what I thought I knew,” I say, using his favoured turn of phrase.
I wait, not moving, my posture mirroring his.
He relaxes marginally, then grants me a small smile while he pulls his tray closer. “I guess I should expect you to be curious,” he replies.
Phew. That was slightly unnerving.
After Eric leaves, empty trays in hand, I pick up Mornie’s book and decide to read the rest of it before bed. It may not make for the best bedtime story, but I find I can’t put it down.
I make a mental note to calm down, though. There is no reason for me to go around attacking books because of their content. That would make me no better than a Prospo.
Mornie’s account doesn’t get better, though. My resolve is tested to its limits.
Before I finish the final chapter, I learn it was the Prospo who often had female Citizens taken from their homes, off the street, from anywhere really. The Prospo then had them locked up in various fertility centers where they were forcefully impregnated through Ivy Heff, with eggs up to a hundred years old.
The Prospo were rendered infertile as an aftermath of Nuclear dust in the north, so they needed healthy Citizen ovaries to help them repopulate the Earth.
They would mask these fertility clinics as factories, so no one would ever know where to look for their missing daughters. I remember the ‘clothing factory’ blown up by the Sorens last year, and shake again.
Those of our ancestors that dug away from the bombed entryways kept digging until they could climb out from the rubble. They escaped to the coastal areas, and started building their floating cities onto restructured container ships.
Mornie writes, We took their machines and technologies so that we would survive their genocide. They called us terrorists, and proceeded to teach remaining Citizens their manufactured version of history.
The final part of Mornie’s novella is a veritable call to arms.
As far as she is concerned, Citizens are blind to the truth. The Prospo are Knowledge Destroyers, she says, only doing so to keep promulgating their lifestyle. We must recruit, Mornie continues. We are few. We must increase our numbers, and rid the world of the haughty Prospo and their blind followers.
I read the line again and again until I fully understand Mornie’s words. Any Citizens who refuse to take off their blinds and learn Mornie’s history are forfeit. There aren’t that many of us already. If they’re forfeit, what does it mean? What is the Sorens’ intention?
I turn off the lights and close my eyes. Mornie’s serious face burns into my memory, and I don’t find sleep until several hours later.
Learning
Knox and I walk through the forest daily. It opens up my lungs in a way that makes me feel like I never really breathed before now. We’re walking and laughing when I stop in my tracks and put an hand on Knox’s shoulder to stop her. I place a finger on my lips to indicate silence and nod my head to the front. She nods quietly when she understands what I mean to do, then she slips away.
Sanaa stands with her back to me, facing one of the trees. Her right hand rests in her left, palms facing up, her elbows relaxed to her side. I know I’ll get in trouble for sneaking up to her while she meditates, but it might be my only chance to catch her by surprise. All I hear is the rustle of the leaves above us. My feet are silent as I crouch low and lift my hands to my chest.
I run and smash into her and wrap my left arm tight around her throat as I grab for her other hands with my right. Ha! If she heard me coming, she would have leapt out of the way.
I crack a smile, smug that I caught her unawares when I feel her back pushed up against my chest. What the—Her feet scamper up the tree in front of us and she flies up and over my head. I turn swiftly to my right, arms up, but she’s gone. Before I can turn again, a new pain in my side has me lose my breath and I double over. She pummels me with kicks and punches and I’m on the ground in a fetal position before she finally stops.
After several minutes, I catch my breath and look up. I’ll be bruised for weeks, for sure. I hope she didn’t actually break anything, this time.
She stands with her feet slightly apart and smirks down at me. “Good effort,” she says. That’s the first time she’s complimented me in the several months she’s trained me—or rather, beaten me to a pulp. “There will come a point,” she says, “when someone will be faster than you or stronger than you or smarter than you.” I think that point happened the moment I met her, but I stay silent.
Over the weeks, I’ve gained a healthy confidence in my defense abilities, but I know she’s right so I nod. “But I will win,” I reply. “I’m much faster now, stronger.” At least I can see her when she moves past me to attack—most of the time. She still has me on the ground before I can make a move against her, but I know I’m definitely getting better. “My instincts are getting stronger,” I say.
She gives me a quick rap on the head with her palm. “Yes, but you are lazy—and sometimes stupid. I can’t do anything about the stupid, but don’t be lazy. You might have a chance. They’ll probably still kill you, but at least you won’t make it easy any more.” Sigh. Just when I thought we could be friends.
Over the next few weeks, Eric comes to visit me less and less, though I have found a new visitor, a new friend really, in Knox. I miss his banter when he does not come, but at
least I’m not entirely alone anymore. I’ve decided I’m relieved he doesn’t come every single day. I have confusing warm thoughts about him and would prefer not to deal with that complication, right now.
Knox comes to visit me three or four times a week and we essentially compare notes about her stay versus mine. Unlike her predecessor, she is incredibly forthcoming. I find myself looking forward to her visits more often than Eric’s.
“They kept me in my room for a very long time too until I proved my loyalty to them and wasn’t about to take a high dive right off the ship!”
I look out my open balcony doors, taking a long whiff of the pine smell again.
They have started opening the doors up for me, but only when I have a visitor. I’m content with this turn of events, though. It certainly feels like a step in the right direction.
I search through my brain, and know I’m not inclined to take a jump off the ship, though I don’t know if I was ever inclined to in the first place. I’ve never been a fan of pain, least of all self-inflicted pain.
The Iliad may not be home, but I’m still intrigued by it, and decidedly more curious about the life of the Sorens than I ever thought I could be. I’ve also started thinking in terms of ‘Beliefs.’ It’s incredibly freeing.
“When did you decide you were ready to carry Soren babies?” I ask. I hope my terminology is not insulting.
I know now that none of the Soren mothers are forced into surrogacy. They choose to do it. They ask to do it. They are actively involved in the continuation of the Soren line.
But I still have a difficult time articulating my thoughts around the matter without being told by Eric or Knox that I’m off base.
So I watch Knox’s face expectantly, waiting for her reply.
“It was three or four months after I moved here.” She stretches her legs out on my bed, and leans back into my pillows as her stomach juts to her side, on top of two more pillows.
I sit in the one chair facing the bed, knowing that Knox is rendered sore with the latest movements from her now nine month old fetuses.