by Anne Tibbets
“Ask all you want, but I’m not telling you the mainframe passcodes.”
I could tell he meant that, so I moved on. “Forget about the passcodes for a minute. I have questions about my life.”
He didn’t answer, so I took that as encouragement.
“Why me?”
“Why you, what?”
“Come on, it’s no skin off your back to tell me now. I’m already out and knocked up. What’s it matter if I know? Besides, I think I already guessed the answers.”
“Answers to what?” He rolled his eyes. “You haven’t asked me a question yet.”
“What’s a carrier?”
Charle’s breath caught in his chest, but he covered it quickly. This was a good sign. This meant he knew. “I’m not telling you shit.”
“All right, let me tell you what I think,” I said. “And you can tell me if I’m right. That work for you?”
Charle rolled his eyes again, but I could tell he was listening.
“Auberge has plans,” I started. “They decide to spread some sort of genetic mutation, which they want to do secretly for some reason. So they take unwanted orphan girls from the Line, mess up their DNA, impregnate them, then send them on their merry way in the hopes that they and their children will spread this mutation around. That works out so well, they start asking for volunteer subjects in East. How am I doing so far?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Charle said. But I could tell he did know.
It was encouraging, so I continued. “Your eyeballs are as big as dinner plates, so that leads me to believe I’m not far off the mark.”
Charle clenched his jaw.
Good. Now I was getting someplace.
“Okay, I’ll continue... So Auberge sends a low-life lackey—that’s you—down to the Line to pick more girls, and you pick an orphan with no family, no real birth name and no one who would try and lay claim to the babies, and you pull her off the Line, pump her full of some experiment and knock her up out of a test tube. That about right?”
Charle’s eyes shot daggers, but he didn’t speak.
I took that as a “yes.”
“Now, the part I find a little confusing is, are the babies even mine, biologically? Or, am I just a ‘carrier’?”
Charle’s face didn’t move, but a dribble of sweat ran down his temple and dripped off his jaw.
Without having to say a word, he was speaking volumes. “Oh, so I’m more than just a carrier? So I am the biological mother?”
He cleared his throat and strained against the rope holding him to the office chair, but his eyes darted at me and I knew.
They were mine.
I felt my belly clench, as if somehow that would protect them from this news.
Ric sighed behind me. “This is getting us nowhere.”
But I felt like I was on a roll, so I kept going. “Okay. Was I right about Auberge getting me pregnant on purpose?”
Charle swallowed hard.
That was another “yes.”
I didn’t know how I felt about that. It was a mixture of relief and a sense of dread. Who was the father? If it wasn’t one of my appointments, then who was it? Or were the babies some sort of clones?
“Was I right about why they impregnated me?” I pressed.
Charle didn’t move. His eyes shifted away from mine. I knew I was close.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said.
“Unreal, Charle, unreal!” Ric raged from behind me.
I put my hand in the air to stop him. Charle’s face had already contorted with anger at hearing his brother’s voice.
Ric scoffed. “So you were just following orders? No matter how crazy they sounded? What kind of experiment did you do on her? What about the other girls? What happened to their babies?”
His brother feigned confusion. “What the fuck are you even talking about?”
Ric came around the desk. “The ones on the list! Don’t tell me you had nothing to do with it.”
Charle was turning purple with rage. The very sound of his brother’s voice colored his face. “I really don’t know what you mean.”
I interrupted before we lost his cooperation, if you could call it that. “You know what I don’t get,” I said, pulling Charle’s attention back to me, “is, why was I supposed to find a replacement?”
Charle shifted in the office chair.
“Was it just to recoup your costs of setting me free?”
“Sure,” Ric sneered. “Because business is business.”
Charle glared at his brother.
“What’s a carrier then, if I’m not just some surrogate mother?” I asked.
Charle turned his eyes away.
Ric slammed his fist against the desk and made us all jump. “What’s she carrying?”
“Probably a plethora of venereal diseases, from the looks of her.” His brother scowled.
“Screw you,” I muttered. I slid off the desk and got in his face. “Are you telling me a man as high up and connected as you doesn’t really know what’s happening?”
He swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed.
I could see having me so close was making him uneasy. Drips of sweat were now pouring from his scalp. I moved in, millimeters from his face. In fact, I leaned in so close my breasts brushed against him.
Charle squirmed in his chair and I heard Ric cough behind me.
It wasn’t making me feel any comfort either, but I liked the look of disgusted fear on Charle’s face. “Come on,” I whispered in his ear. “What’s the matter? Am I making you uncomfortable?”
I watched his eyes crane down my neck and into my shirt.
“You don’t fool me...” I said.
He spit his words. “Back off! I don’t know anything.”
Since having me so close seemed to bother him so badly, I rested my knee between his legs and gripped the back of his chair with my palms, leaning in even closer. “Sure you do,” I cooed. “Big important guy like you. I find that hard to believe.” I inched my knee into his crotch and felt resistence.
Charle grunted, then growled. I’d taken it too far. “Ric, get your dirty whore off of me.”
That was it.
If there had been a switch someplace in my brain, he’d just flipped it. With a chomp from all my teeth, I bit Charle’s ear so hard I tasted blood.
He bellowed, and Ric shouted my name in shock. When I stepped away, I kicked Charle’s chair backward and he crashed to the floor.
This was my chance. This guy had answers, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to get them, one way or another.
With one swipe of my hand across the floor, I had the scissors in my palm. I stepped over Charle and put my knee into his chest. Then I pushed the tip of the blades against Charle’s windpipe.
Hard.
He squeaked in fear. “Oh my God, please don’t hurt me. Please.” He had tears in his eyes and pulled his face as far away from mine as his neck allowed.
“Why not, Charle?” I barked. “Since you won’t tell me what I need to know, what use are you?”
I heard Ric say my name but if I stopped now, I’d lose the look of terror on Charle’s face. I pressed the tip of the scissors into the softness of his throat and broke skin. I screamed, “What’s a carrier?”
Charle was so terrorized, tears trickled from his eyes. “F-For Bio-Tox 6364.”
“What’s Bio-Tox 6364?” I pushed Charle’s chest with my knee, and he whimpered.
“It’s a biological toxin.”
“I’m carrying a bio-toxin?”
“N-no,” Charle whined. “The inoculation.”
“Then who is Bio-Tox 6364 for?” Ric pressed.
When Charle didn’t
immediately answer, I gave the scissors a twist for emphasis.
I felt a sickening satisfaction when he shuddered with fear. Blood from his throat and ear dripped down his face and neck. “If I tell you, th-they’ll have no choice but to kill you both.”
“I think we’re past that point already,” Ric said.
“You have to understand,” Charle squawked. “Auberge is everything and owns everybody.”
“Tell us something we don’t know,” I said.
“But...but,” Charle stammered, “everything and everybody isn’t enough for them. The population inside Auberge is growing faster than the people are dying. There aren’t enough jobs to go around, and trash is everywhere. Auberge isn’t stupid. Eventually, people are going to get sick and tired of this. Food will run out next. Then power. Then credits will lose value. There’ll be anarchy. The people will revolt. The only solution is to go...”
Ric’s face fell. “Bio-Tox 6364 is for the outside.”
Charle only nodded.
I hated to sound thick, but I was still confused. “I don’t get it.”
“Auberge is going to use Bio-Tox 6364 on the population outside the walls,” Ric explained. “That’s why they’re inoculating. That’s why they’re spreading the immunization through pregnant girls...”
Charle finished Ric’s sentence. “So we can take over.”
“They’re spreading it with sex?” I gasped.
All those appointments. All those men, and some women too.
I was nothing more than Auberge’s tool.
It made me angrier. I twisted the scissor blade against Charle’s throat.
He whimpered and nodded. “It’s spread through all body fluids. Sweat. Tears. Blood. Saliva. And the babies too. They’re born immune. When they grow up and have kids, their kids will be immune. And so on. Auberge estimates in two generations, the majority of the population on the inside will be inoculated without even knowing it.”
“Why not just line us up and give us all shots? Why all this sneaking around?” I asked.
“Because some idiot do-gooders could jump the revolutionary gun and start a coup,” Charle said, a hint of sarcasm seeping back into his voice. “They want this all kept quiet. And who’s the lowest form of population that nobody cares about? That nobody pays attention to? That’s sexually charged and drug-addicted and most likely will end up working as a prostitute once outside the Line?”
I needed no prompt to answer this question. “Girls like me.”
“Exactly. Look, I told you what I know,” Charle said. “Will you get off me now?”
I kept the scissors to his throat but my mind was whirring.
Tym had been right. The Line was a front. It was a way to spread the immunization to some crazy poison Auberge had concocted. Eventually, the population inside would be immune, and then Auberge could poison outside the walls, killing everybody they didn’t own. Then they’d crash through to the outside and take over the continent. Maybe even what was left of the world.
It was all about domination.
So much for Tym’s fictional fear of alien invasion.
Auberge was the invader.
And I was a pawn in their plan.
“What about the attacks from outside? Are those real?” Ric asked.
Charle seemed confused. “Of course they’re real! Why do you think they keep trying to blow up the science laboratories in East?”
Ric sighed. “To destroy the bio-tox.”
“This is insane,” I said after a moment.
I stepped off Charle, and Ric came over. He tipped his brother and the chair upright.
I tossed the scissors onto the desk. “Don’t look so relieved,” I spat at Charle. “I’m never untying you. You can stay there and rot for all I care.”
This didn’t seem to faze him. “You must realize,” he said, a trace of his attitude laced thoroughly in his words again, “that none of this matters.”
“Yes, it does,” I said.
“Auberge is one step ahead of me, you, all of us,” he continued. “They know what you’re going to do before you even have the thought. You can’t hide. You might as well turn yourself in, because it doesn’t matter where you go or how you get there. They. Will. Find. You. And it makes no difference whose babies those are, or about Bio-Tox 6364.”
“It matters to me!” I said, feeling my face grow hot.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re worried about.” Charle sneered. “You’re inoculated! The fucking Eve of Auberge. A whole new population of perverts, whores and bastards. It’s the rest of the world that’s fucked.”
I shook my head, overwhelmed with the information.
Ric grumbled, “Sounds like we all are.”
“Here, in fact,” Charle continued, looking suddenly smug, “I want to thank you for doing me a favor, Naya. Given the little love bite you just gave me.” He flipped his head in the direction of his bleeding ear. “You’ve just passed me the inoculation. And I got it without contracting one of your veneral diseases, so thanks for that.” Then he winked at me and kissed the air.
I was so disgusted by him I was crying. It made my head hurt to think I was a walking disease. I glared back at Charle, who had a sickened look on his face. “You’re a real asshole,” I hissed at him.
Charle scoffed.
“You obviously have no idea what kind of worthless orphan whore you picked when you chose me,” I said to him. “Because I’m not going to give up. You say Auberge won’t stop? Then I’ll stop Auberge. You understand? I’ll burn it to the ground before I see my kids inside these walls. I’ll work until my last aching breath to make them stop.”
Charle hardly blinked. “You’re an idiot.” And he meant it.
“Maybe I am,” I said. I leaned toward him and spit the next words into his face. “But I’d rather die trying than be a spineless asshole like you.”
His eyes blazed. He strained against the ropes holding him to the chair, as if he wanted to hit me.
I looked away. I’d heard enough from him to last a lifetime.
“If it doesn’t matter anyway, what would it matter if you give us the mainframe passcodes?” Ric asked, an air of indifference in his voice.
“The passcodes won’t give you what you want,” Charle said after a moment.
“How do you know what we want?” Ric asked.
“You want to bring down Auberge? Passcodes won’t do a damn thing.”
“What will?” I asked.
“Why the hell would I help you?” he snapped at me. “I’ve already said enough to sign my own death declaration.”
Ric came forward and moved me behind him. “If that’s true, you might as well give us the passcodes so we can verify that Naya was erased from the system for good.”
Charle’s face softened slightly at seeing his little brother, but it was quickly replaced with resentment. “Even if she’s off the computer system,” he spat, “Auberge is run by people. People who set this plan in motion who won’t just forget there’s some woman from the Line carrying babies they very much want circulated. If she drops out of sight, they’ll track her down, take those babies and dispose of her. Simple as that.”
There was nothing simple about it. I was a marked woman.
For life.
The truth weighed a ton and settled on my shoulders like a boulder.
“Then what are we supposed to do?” I asked.
The question had been directed at Ric, but I could see Charle was considering his answer. He cleared his throat and twitched slightly. If his hands had been free, he probably would have tugged at his tie. “I’d escape over the wall.”
“Outside?” Ric balked.
Charle nodded. “And don’t ask me how, because I don’t know, and that’s the tru
th. But think about it, just think...she’s immune. Her babies are immune. From the looks of you two making goo-goo eyes at each other, you’re probably immune now too, Ric. If Auberge launches Bio-Tox 6364, you’re all in the clear to start a new life.”
“And we’re just supposed to let every living person outside the walls die?” Ric ran his hands through his disheveled hair and frowned.
Charle smirked. “Not if Naya fucks every person outside. From the looks of her, she’s game.”
In a flash of rage I slapped Charle across the face. He just laughed.
Ric pulled me by the arm, leading me back into the hall.
“What are we going to do?” I breathed. I could hardly comprehend what had just happened, what we had learned.
This was big.
It was bigger than big.
How in the world did I go from a girl on the Line to this?
Charle must have overheard me, because he shouted from inside the office, “You want my advice?”
Ric and I answered in unison. “No.”
“First things first,” Ric whispered. “We need that hacker. We have to verify what Charle said.”
Charle yelled again from the other room, “You really should hear my advice.”
Ric barked from the hall into the office. “No. We shouldn’t.”
“Yes, you should!” Charle responded in kind.
Ric turned a rich shade of red and shook his head in frustration.
“What do we do with him?” I whispered. “We can’t keep him here.”
Ric clenched his jaw. “Part of me wants to use the scissors.”
“No, you don’t. He’s still your brother.”
“Fine. I’ll give you the scissors.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“By the way, remind me never to piss you off. You scared me there for a minute.” His eyes glistened with mischief.
“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”
“Hey!” Charle shouted. “Little brother. Not that I don’t love you and all, but it would make my life a lot easier if you’d please knock me out and get the hell away from here.”
Ric turned and poked his head into the office. “Yeah? Why’s that?”
“Because Auberge is on its way,” Charle explained. “I contacted them the moment I saw your motorcycle in the garage. And I don’t want them to think I’ve been helping you.”