The Seeds of New Earth

by Mark R. Healy

  “Arsha, you don’t need to–”

  “So he just points down at his feet, and this shit-eating grin spreads across his face. He says, ‘Tie my shoelace, wouldya darling?’ They all laugh. I just want the pavement to swallow me up right there and take me away from these guys. I turn to go, but they’ve pressed in close, blocking the way. Then I feel him. Feel his hand sliding around onto my chest like a greasy fucking python, feel his other hand between my legs. He’s trying to press up against me.”

  “What the fuck, really?”

  “So then I barge out between them and practically run back to the loading dock, and they laugh some more. He calls after me, says he ‘knows how to show a bitch a good time’ and that I should come and see him up on level ninety-three when I’m ready.”

  “That’s nuts. How was that acceptable? Did they know you were a synthetic, and were just trying to exploit you? You and I were never branded with a manufacture tattoo on the temple, so how would they know?”

  “I don’t think they did. I think it was because I was a woman and because they were high-level management. They just thought they could do what they wanted. Anyway, for the next few weeks I was tormented by them. They laughed at me in the elevator, they’d come by my floor to sneer. They kept telling me they were waiting to ‘show me a good time’. I couldn’t even come down to the loading dock to pick up deliveries anymore. I was so petrified. I was just a clank. I couldn’t report them, because no one would listen to me. I began to think there was no way out, that I was going to be a prisoner here forever.”

  “Did you tell Jim?”

  “Our supervisor Jim?” She snorted. “Jim was worse than useless. You know that. He was spineless. And he didn’t care about the rights of a synthetic. In fact, I’m pretty sure he believed we didn’t have rights.”

  “Can’t say I ever liked him, myself.”

  “Anyway. One day it happens. I decide I have to do something myself. I catch a ride up to ninety-three, and I rehearse this speech a hundred times, where I beg him to leave me alone, tell him I’ll do what he wants. Tell him I just need it to stop. I figure that’s the only way to get them off my back.

  “I find him in a boardroom meeting, and I just march right in. I walk past the other people there. Some of them were the jerks who were with him that day in the alleyway. He sees me coming and starts to get up, grinning.

  “I hear them talking, sniggering to each other, and suddenly that speech doesn’t come to me. I can’t remember a word of it. It’s like it just vanished from my head, but it’s not because I’m nervous. It’s not because the sight of these guys terrifies me. It’s because I don’t believe a word of it. Not a fucking word. I realise I don’t want to give in to these guys. I can’t bring myself to let those words tumble from my mouth. And now I know what I need to do. I keep walking, right up to the creep, and as he’s reaching for me I slap him in the jaw so hard he slams backward over his leather chair and lands upside down in the corner of the room with blood pouring down his face. Broke his nose.”

  I laughed. “Holy shit! Really?”

  “He’s making this pathetic keening sound, like a rat shitting its pants, and just staring at me as blood trickles into his eyes. Then I just turn on my heel and march right back out again, and before I leave the room I turn back to all those slack-jawed faces and say, ‘Y’know, this really was a good time’. And then I left. No one said anything or came after me or even got out of their goddamn chair.”

  “Probably too scared.”

  “So two things happened after that: one, they never bothered me again, and two, I came to a new understanding about myself. For the first time I realised that I was more resilient than I knew.”

  “Sounds like he got what he deserved.”

  “Yeah, he did.” She looked me squarely in the eye. “I guess what I’m saying is, you never know how strong you can be until you’ve been pushed to the edge. The coming months aren’t going to be easy for us, but we’ll make it through. You’ll find the strength.”

  An inspection of all six embryos confirmed that they had survived the thawing process in good condition, not an unexpected result, but a tremendously encouraging one nonetheless. Arsha carried the first sliver toward the nearest a-womb, her hands steady and her gaze fixed upon the target, a small aperture in the exterior of the a-womb mechanism. Sliding it carefully into place with an almost imperceptible click, she then withdrew the tongs and stood back to watch. The sliver was drawn inside the a-womb accompanied by a soft buzzing sound that pierced the silence of the lab.

  We both stood stiff, tense, as the automated procedure carried out the final seconds of this momentous occasion, both consigned to the role of onlookers, passive participants who were powerless to change the course of events. It was an odd sensation to be taken out of the loop at this most critical juncture, the time when it felt like we should be doing something, but there really was nothing to do but watch, and wait.

  I glanced across at Arsha. Her lips were moving faintly but they made no sound, as if she were uttering silent prayers or words of encouragement to the tiny embryo as it completed its journey. She didn’t blink or lift her gaze from the little red sac of the a-womb, not once. I realised that, despite her words and her outward demeanour, she was just as nervous as I, perhaps even more so.

  The transition stretched on and on, a journey of only a few centimetres that seemed more like an odyssey of great proportions, like the one I’d taken across the wasteland. I was about to open my mouth to suggest that something was wrong when suddenly there was a hissing noise as the a-womb resealed and a message appeared on the touch panel.

  Transfer complete.

  Arsha tucked a stray hair back into her cap and looked across at me, relieved.

  “Well, that’s step two down, only about a hundred to go to bring a child to full term,” she said ironically. “This is going to be a lengthy exercise.”

  She repeated the process three more times, on each occasion standing back to intently watch the insertion process complete before moving to the next. As the last one clicked home, she turned and held out the tongs for me to take.

  “Want to do yours?”

  “Sure.” I clasped the tongs in my fingers and stood before the final two embryos, the ones that had been left unengineered, and steadied myself. Arsha looked on from across the lab, ostensibly to allow me space to manoeuvre, but also, I thought, taking a moment to observe me like yet another element of the lab that she controlled – judging my ability to perform under pressure in the same way she might study a specimen reacting to the application of a corrosive chemical, collecting data on its integrity and the threshold at which it wavered.

  Resisting the urge to glare back at her, I stepped forward.

  Reaching out, I gripped the first sliver in the tongs and slowly withdrew it from the tube, holding it before me with not just wariness but also a kind of reverence. The future was in my hands. The absurd notion affronted me that I was like an ancient priest bearing the chalice of life, solemnly conveying it to a sacred altar upon which it would manifest in the form of a living being. I dismissed the thought and returned my concentration to one thing: ensuring that the embryo reached the sanctuary of the a-womb intact.

  I paced carefully across the lab to the next available unit, giving one last look at the touch panel to ensure everything was in readiness. All looked fine. The a-womb sac gave off a healthy reddish glow, and oddly that was more reassuring to me than all the numbers and statistics and green lights that flitted across the display.

  “Here goes nothin’,” I said.

  The insertion process was quick and simple, designed to work in an uncomplicated fashion that reduced the risk of error. In contrast to Arsha’s attempts, it seemed that there was only the briefest of pauses between releasing the tongs and the display reading Transfer complete. I had to bend down and double check with my own eyes that the sliver had hit home.

  “One to go,” Arsha said as I fussed over
the touch panel, verifying the numbers.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  The second insertion was also smooth and without incident, and I stood there stupidly with the tongs held out, the job done, just staring at the row of six a-wombs.

  “They’re in,” Arsha said triumphantly, moving forward again and giving one soft clap of her hands. “They’re away.” The tone of her voice implied that a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and I felt the same.

  “Now the hard part,” I said drily. “We wait and see what happens.”

  Arsha was already flicking through the touch panel nearest to her, pausing at the hCG readout.

  “Zero on hCG,” she said, “but that’s not unexpected. Implantation should happen anywhere from two to five days from now. Could be longer. When it does, those readings will start to rise.”

  I pulled up a stool and perched myself in front of the a-wombs, shifting to a comfortable position. Right at that moment I felt like I could probably sit there for a week, waiting and watching for the slightest change in the numbers on the screen, but I knew that wasn’t possible. There were many, many other duties awaiting us at the plantations.

  “We should really get home before dark and see if we can’t knock off a few of those odd jobs around the place,” I said.

  “Yeah, we should.”

  But neither of us moved. I sat staring at the a-wombs, alternating between peering uselessly at the sacs and scrolling through data that wasn’t fluctuating by more than a few decimal points. Arsha moved restlessly back and forth along the line doing the same. We were like a couple of nervous parents at a nursery, searching for some kind of feedback that everything would turn out okay, that we were on the right track, but it was simply too early to tell. All we could do was stare in futility and hope that, sooner or later, something positive would happen. That wasn’t going to occur in the next few hours, or possibly even days.

  The LEDs clicked off suddenly and I snapped out of my reverie, turning to see Arsha with her hand on the light switch.

  “It’s dark outside,” she said. “Let’s take a break. Stretch our legs.”

  I’d lost track of the time. Hours had passed like seconds.

  “Uh, yeah, sure.”

  I pushed the stool away and followed her toward the door, turning once to look back across the lab. In the dim light the six a-wombs resembled a cluster of luminous red orbs, things of mystery, of untold secrets and great power, like artifacts of an alien race. And in some ways, that’s exactly what they were.

  5

  “Brant, there’s someone in the city.”

  I looked up suddenly from the digital readout on the flip, to see her standing in the workshop doorway, tense and uncertain.

  “What?” I put the flip down and was immediately on my feet, possibilities running through my mind. The first thing that occurred to me was that she had encountered the mysterious presence I’d detected in the city over the last few months, but she quickly dispelled that notion.

  “There’s a vehicle moving around out there, a few blocks over.” She glanced over her shoulder, where the night pressed in through the windows of the workshop. “We need to kill the lights.”

  I did as she suggested, flicking off the only lamp in the room and inviting the darkness inside. Brushing my fingers across the flip’s display, I activated its sleep mode and it too went dark. Behind me, through the glass windows of the inner lab, I could dimly see the glow of the a-wombs, but they were not bright enough to be visible from outside.

  “Who are they?” I wanted to know. “Marauders?”

  Arsha edged cautiously inside the lab as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. “I don’t know, I didn’t get close enough. I heard them more than saw them.” She stopped. “What do we do?”

  I considered. “I think we have to go out there.”

  “Brant, that might be a bad idea. We don’t want to expose ourselves. If we stay here and hide, they’ll be less likely to find us.”

  “But we’ll be like sitting ducks here. What if they’ve mounted search teams and have started combing the city? We’d need to evacuate.”

  “And leave the embryos?”

  “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. But, yes, we might have to. If you and I are taken, then everything is lost regardless.” I felt my way across the lab, closer to where I could see her silhouette. “Anyway, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I think the first thing we have to do is gather more information, so we know what we’re dealing with here.”

  Arsha was obviously uncomfortable with the plan, but could see my point of view.

  “I guess so. I don’t like it, but I don’t see another choice. Come on, then. Let’s get it over with.”

  Surreptitiously using a flashlight to find our way, we proceeded down the stairwell and into the street. The trespassers were making a racket out there, the sound of chatter and gruff laughter echoing through the streets above the low rumble of machinery. They made no attempt to disguise their passage, either oblivious to the noise they created, or uncaring of being heard.

  We kept behind cover as much as possible, like mice darting between furniture on a living room floor, keeping the flashlight pointed at the ground and only using it where absolutely necessary. Finding their exact location was not easy, since sounds bounced and echoed from all directions, but after a few minutes we located the headlights of the transport on the next street down. Ducking beside the husk of a car, we crouched unseen as the intruders approached perpendicular to our vantage point.

  As we waited I pulled the binoculars from my backpack and trained them on the swathe of white light ahead.

  Voices were more clearly defined now, and I could hear at least three of them distinctly above the sound of the vehicle.

  “Yeah, but you know what? I don’t give a shit!”

  “Yeah you do. I know you do.”

  “He just won’t admit it, right?”

  They laughed.

  “Like I told her, she can do what she wants. If she goes and finds a better deal somewhere, well, whatever.”

  “Bullshit, man. You’re full of it!”

  The first of them came into view, appearing at the intersection with a swagger, backlit by the headlights of the vehicle and hefting a large rifle. He was extremely tall and broad shouldered, clothed in an austere grey uniform with two golden chevrons on the breast. Rends on his hands and face told me that he’d seen a few scuffles in his time. The tattoo on his temple that identified his manufacturer was that of an elongated H, and as he walked along he kicked at stray bricks, sending them clattering into the darkness.

  Not far behind came the vehicle, a sleek Humvee with a curved chassis and a turret mounted on the roof. As it came into view the rumbling suddenly intensified, like the volume knob had been sharply twisted now that the sound was no longer cushioned by intervening buildings. A smaller clank appeared at the turret and playfully threw an empty can which clattered off the head of the first with a metallic twang and then rolled along the asphalt, discarded. There was more laughter.

  “You’re stuck with her for good, man!” the smaller clank shouted.

  “Hey, unless you want to ride that turret all the way home, I’d…” The rest of the sentence was indistinct as the leading clank disappeared from view again.

  As the Humvee itself was swallowed up behind buildings I saw two more large clanks sauntering behind it, clad in the same uniforms as the first, awash in the red glow of the taillights. These too bore weapons. One of them, a female with long plaited hair, looked down in our direction, then lifted her eyes toward the sky. She pointed at something she’d seen and started to say something to the clank next to her, but then they were gone, and the sound began to recede.

  “So what do you make of that?” Arsha whispered.

  “They’re not Marauders. I didn’t see the markings on their cheeks, and they don’t fit the behaviour.”

  “Maybe just a few clanks who have banded together?”

>   “Did you see the uniforms? They’re some sort of military unit, possibly even Ascension.”

  “Ascension? What would they want here?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t understand all of their motives at this point. I’ve only come across them once and haven’t figured out a lot about them. I know that they consider this region as theirs, but they’re also sympathetic to clanks like us who are just trying to survive. I get the feeling these are just passing through. Normally they seem to avoid the city and head north across the wasteland, which is why we don’t see them here often.”

  “Why don’t they come through here much, I wonder?”

  “I guess because there’s no clank population here, and since it’s more time-consuming to pick through the rubble of the city, they just don’t bother. But maybe these thought they’d give it a shot.”

  The noise was dying down now, and there was no sign of any other clanks or vehicles following behind.

  “Come on,” I urged, “let’s relocate so we can watch where they’re headed.”

  We monitored their progress for the next hour, but they continued their steady advance north, showing no sign of interest in the city itself. As the headlights of the Humvee dwindled in the distance, we eventually began the walk back to the workshop.

  “Do you think there’ll be more?” Arsha said.

  “I don’t know. Assuming they were part of Ascension, it’s hard to tell. All I know about them is that they saved me from the Marauders once, and that they’re trying to drive the Marauders out of this region. If they can take Wraith and his crew out of the equation, that alone has to be worth something.”

  “You’ve mentioned this Wraith guy before. What’s his story?”

  “Oh, he’s, uh… someone I try to steer clear of. Probably the most dangerous Marauder I encountered out there. He’s clever and vicious, and he holds a grudge like you wouldn’t believe.”