Office of Mercy (9781101606100)

by Djanikian, Ariel

  “Just until we finish the wing,” Jeffrey told her. He was being brave, but Natasha could hear the pain in his voice.

  “Sure,” said Natasha, matching his tone. “Small price to pay for the betterment of America-Five.”

  She smiled, though she had already felt it—the flicker of fear that what she had with Jeffrey was too precarious, that it would not survive a break.

  “Shouldn’t take too long,” Jeffrey said. “And then we’ll get our shifts together again in the Office of Mercy. I promise. You’ll be sick of me, you’ll see me so much.”

  Natasha laughed a little and they said a quick goodbye, both wanting to say more but unable. What they had together was private, and this was not the moment to change that.

  He squeezed her wrist, pressing the veins under her skin with his thumb.

  “Have fun in construction,” he said.

  Natasha flushed. “I will.”

  She watched him go. A trumpeting of new voices emerged from the elephant, and the bodies crossed the Dome before her. Finally she turned and joined the swelling crowd at the entrance to the New Wing.

  The temporary airlock still separated the Dome from the construction area. The workers did not need full biosuits, as they would not be coming into direct contact with any natural elements; however, because they were still building the exterior walls, they did need masks and airfilters. Wires hung from the ceiling and the piping systems overhead cut off abruptly, needing their next fittings. The sound of zippy hammers and electron saws echoed in the massive chamber, and at the center of the room were eighty-three cylindrical and dome-topped vats, the incuvats for the third phase of the Zetas’ prebirth development. The incuvats were empty of fluids now, and about ten citizens were fiddling with their electrical systems, installing small generators through open panels in the base. Other citizens were adjusting intricate webs of tubing that connected the clear, bubblelike interiors to the pipes on the ceiling. The bubbles were where the Zetas would go, and from where they would emerge to take their first breaths—if only the citizens could get this wing ready in time.

  Cameron Pacheco did indeed look as if he had lost several pounds; his round, usually cheerful face was wan and tensed, and he was dashing from one area to another, determined to check every bolt and section of wire that went into the walls. He had all the labor he needed now. Though except for his core construction team and the Electricity and Piping crews (of which Raj was a member), everyone was undertrained and out of their depth, and required thorough and detailed instructions before they could even begin to help.

  Natasha joined a team working ten feet off the ground on a long scaffold, bolting a row of metal panels into place. Originally, the open strip in the wall was supposed to receive a series of colored glass windows—each depicting a scene of everyday life in the settlement—though with the work so rushed, such extravagances would have to wait. It was one of the more difficult jobs; the panels were heavy and cumbersome, and required a person on each side to hold them in place while a third person (usually Natasha) drilled. Natasha worked hard, and she thought she was doing a pretty good job until Dalton Tulis, the construction worker in charge of this project, noticed she was using 3.5-centimeter bolts instead of the standard 6-centimeter and, nicely suppressing his own frustration, handed her a pair of zippy pliers to undo her work from the entire morning.

  Natasha was down on the floor sorting through the supply bins (more carefully this time) when she noticed Raj. He was sitting on the lowest rung of a ladder, taking a break with several others. A group of three men from Electricity and Piping passed by.

  “Hey, what’s this?” one of them snapped at Raj. “Think you’re too good to work for the Zetas?”

  Raj did not answer, but sat calmly, looking straight ahead.

  “He doesn’t think he’s too good for the Zetas, he thinks he’s too good for Electricity and Piping,” a second man said. “Had a bit of an attitude, haven’t you? Ever since they sent you down from the Archives.”

  “I hate the Archives,” the third man said. “I hate anyone who doesn’t work to keep this place running.”

  (He’ll get a course of reeducation for that, Natasha thought automatically. Every Office keeps the settlement running.)

  Raj still would not respond, and so the third man, with a grunt of anger, kicked Raj’s hardhat, which was resting near the foot of the ladder, so that it skidded across the floor.

  Cameron Pacheco and Walker O’Reilly, who headed Electricity and Piping, descended upon the group in seconds.

  “What’s going on here?” Walker asked.

  “This traitor is slacking off again,” said the first man, pointing to Raj. “And the rest of us are getting sick of it.”

  “My group just finished installing the eighth yard of piping,” said Raj, willing to speak at last. “We agreed to take a break before starting the next set.” Raj was standing now, but he looked very alone. The other men and women on his team had returned to their task, and none were coming to his defense.

  “Well, we can’t have that,” Cameron said. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we’re all working hard to get this thing done. Whatever views you hold against the collective goals of the settlement, please, this is not the time for a protest.”

  Natasha could not believe the injustice of it, especially because she had never known Cameron to be anything but kind and fair-minded. Now practically everyone in the New Wing was glaring at Raj, muttering in low voices to nearby citizens, their faces under their visors screwed into expressions of bitter disgust.

  “But he was only taking a break!” Natasha said. “He’s been working just like the rest of us.”

  The glares of the citizens shifted to her, and Natasha went silent. Raj, in his steadiness, in his own silence, was warning her not to continue; and, amid a group near the airlock, the eyes of Ben and Sarah jumped out at her, anxiously urging the same.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Walker said. “My crew, I want you focused, now.”

  Heads turned back to the tasks at hand, and the clamor and movement of construction started again.

  Only hours later did Natasha have the chance to talk to Raj, allowing him to intercept her at the supply bins.

  “I’m sorry,” Natasha said in a hushed voice. “I shouldn’t have spoken up, it was stupid.”

  “They’ll forget,” Raj said. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “Me?”

  “It’s going to get worse, Natasha, much worse, if we do what we’re planning. I’m used to this, I honestly don’t care how they treat me. But you need to understand how much things will change for you. Everyone, all your friends, they’re going to turn against you. They’re going to hate you.”

  Their eyes met briefly over the bin of silver washers, and then they both looked quickly down. Natasha wondered if Raj knew about Jeffrey. She considered assuring him that she had thought through all the possible repercussions already, personal and professional both, but decided against it. That was no one’s business but her own.

  “Nothing will change if we can’t find a way out of this settlement,” Natasha said instead.

  “No breaks on your end, then?”

  “I keep coming back to the same problem. I need to be in the Office of Mercy to shut off the alarms on the green. But then, even if I let you out of the settlement and stay back myself—”

  “Someone will see us sneaking into the Office of Exit,” Raj finished. “And we still can’t get into the Strongroom. Well,” he said, after a pause, “I’m working on something too. It’s difficult, and it could only work once.”

  “We only need once.”

  “They’ll kick me out if they catch me . . . if not worse. Honestly, I don’t know what they’d do.”

  “If it’s good, then it’s worth it,” Natasha said. “It’s worth the risk.”

 
“Later,” Raj said, lowering his head. “People are looking.”

  Construction on the New Wing kept the days full, and Natasha did little else but eat, sleep, hammer, drill, and return to her sleeproom too exhausted to miss Jeffrey or worry about the Tribe. Several more times she witnessed Raj getting bullied by other members of Electricity and Piping, but she did not dare to speak up again. She noticed, too, when Sarah got snubbed by the other workers from Health during lunch, and when three Deltas deliberately turned their backs on Eduardo after he’d asked for help snapping one of the new incuvats into place. It will be worse, Raj had said, and Natasha believed it. If this was payback for holding “antisettlement” views, then she could hardly imagine the citizens’ fury when she and the others betrayed America-Five and the Alphas outright.

  As it turned out, the extra push did the trick. After eleven days of nearly nonstop labor, the New Wing—though it was not really complete—was at least in good enough shape for the transfer. Natasha stood in the crowd just inside the New Wing doors, waiting to get her first glimpse of the new generation. Raj, Mercedes, Eduardo, Sarah, and Ben were nowhere to be found, and Natasha wondered if they had skipped the event in an act of peaceful defiance. Part of her wished she could have skipped it too.

  The Office of Reproduction scientists, all sporting long white lab coats and proud smiles, wheeled in the first tiny Zetas one by one. The new generation did not look like much—just pale, large-headed blobs floating in a slightly cloudy liquid. Their thin limbs curled against their bodies and a long, fleshy, purplish cord connected them to the base of their now too small, phase-two incuvats.

  Zeta followed Zeta and everyone sighed in awe and applauded. Arthur whistled, eliciting cheerful admonishments from those around him. Min-he and two other women from the Archives were making a big show of themselves, holding their hands over their hearts and sighing long “awwws” every few minutes. Jeffrey, on the opposite side of the New Wing doors from Natasha, was more subdued, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, though he was certainly just as enthralled as the others. At one point near the middle of the long procession, Natasha glanced over at Eric, who stood next to her, and was surprised to see tears in his eyes.

  “You’re really excited about this!” she said, taken aback.

  “Yeah, I am,” Eric answered, wiping his face with the collar of his sleeve. “It’s spectacular, bringing all these people into existence. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel how amazing it is?”

  “I don’t know,” Natasha said. “I guess with everything going on I hadn’t thought about it much. With the construction so rushed, and the Pines still out there . . .”

  She trailed off, but Eric’s posture stiffened. Up until now, Natasha had been careful to avoid making any references to Eric about the Tribes, except when absolutely necessary.

  “Well, you can’t help thinking about them,” she whispered. “We have no right to be producing more generations with so many people suffering out there.”

  “Can I give you a piece of advice?” Eric asked, his voice dry. “Don’t love anything on the Outside.”

  “Do you love them?” Natasha quickly countered. “The Zetas?”

  “Not yet, but I’m starting to. Look at that little guy.”

  Eric pointed to the incuvat passing by, where inside a male Zeta, his eyes tightly closed and his minuscule hands balled into fists, was turning somersaults in the gently undulating fluid. Eric laughed, joining an amused chorus of several others. But it was impossible. The citizens’ thoughts did not extend beyond the walls of the settlement; Natasha could not feel what they felt.

  As the transfer continued, her thoughts drifted back to earlier that morning, when one of the Betas had posted the projected rankings for American settlement population growths. It was an act clearly motivated by prideful and competitive feelings, and Natasha was shocked that the Alphas had allowed it. Perhaps the old ones had thought the numbers would boost morale and, granted, for most people, they did. In two months, assuming the healthy birth of all eighty-three members of the Zeta generation, and the clean, successful sweep of the Pine Tribe, America-Five would soon lead the continent in both Tribespeople swept and settlement population. For Natasha, there was a terrible sickness in the symmetry of those numbers. Why can’t we take in Tribespeople instead of making new generations? She had asked once and she would ask again; especially now that she felt sure, more sure than ever before, that no one—not Jeffrey or Arthur or even the Alphas—could give an acceptable answer.

  Finally, the scientists declared the transfer complete. They stepped away to reveal four rows of Zetas, all floating lethargically in their new, slightly larger homes. Natasha watched them turn and bob. The Zetas had not asked to be created, or asked not to be created. A series of infinitely complex events had conspired to bring them into their present state of existence, and here they were—here and here and here—from airy possibility to flesh and blood and bone. Natasha’s heart strained in their presence. She felt the pull toward them and the yearning to give them the unadulterated love that every innocent creature deserved—but Natasha felt distant from them too. She resented their luck, a luck they did not know they had, in coming to life in America-Five and not in the Outside.

  Applause swelled from the crowd, and several speeches followed, but Natasha did not hear a word. She grabbed her own wrist at the place where, days ago, Jeffrey had touched her last. There was an anger growing within her, anger and resentment and a bitterness that she could not control. She knew something. She knew what she had never allowed herself to know. Her breaths came quick and shallow, and when she closed her eyes, she saw fire.

  • • •

  The smell of smoke wafted through the trees, rich and unmistakable. But it was wrong; it was not the comforting sensation it should have been, not the harbinger of warmth for the long night or a feast of meat about to fill their bellies. Instead the smoke was ominous, a sign of a danger too great and too big and too hot to control. The smell pervaded all. It saturated leaves and clothing and wrapped between the moving bodies. This smoke was a bad smoke; the smoke of a bad fire that would consume the trees and rabbits and deer and climb the hills and stop only when it hit the ocean.

  Natasha cowered, clutching tightly around the neck of the man who carried her. She was small; gravity hardly pulled on her, and her sweaty, clumsy little fingers could not keep their hold on one another.

  In a flicker of thought, Natasha knew it was really quite odd, her smallness. Only four or five times had Natasha ever experienced a simulation at an age different from her actual one—and never had she asked the computer to situate her perspective so far back in her youth. But this was Free Play. She had not directly asked for anything. She had come into the Pod with a mind of hot and jumbled emotions, and now the computer was reading her thoughts—thoughts too deep for Natasha to name. Though it was also true that Natasha knew these images and feelings, that she recognized them as hers as soon as they leapt into life before her wakeful senses.

  She held on tight, squeezing her legs around the man’s torso, her chin knocking against his hard shoulder as they moved. She tasted the smell, and yet she saw no flame lighting the brown-green mesh of forest from where they had come with such hurry.

  A question sounded from her own self in a voice that was hers and yet not hers, because it had a highness and ungainliness that she must have shed long ago.

  “Where is the fire?”

  No one answered, though many people swarmed around her now: women with their lips stretched back in gummy shouts of fear, the babies strapped to their backs wailing and slipping by at eye level; hearing them cry made Natasha cry too.

  The forest was quiet and then it was loud and then it was fast. They were running, running from the smell. Natasha’s chin knocked hard, making her teeth crash together. From where they had come, there were others; fear made their faces long and tight and t
heir legs weak so that sometimes a pair of eyes would be looking ahead and then the eyes would be down in the dirt. Others banged against their sides, crushing Natasha’s legs.

  She wanted to stop. She pushed around and saw the sharp gray-green cliffs that shot up to the sky. The people were trying to climb the cliffs, but that was silly, they had never climbed them before. Here in this valley, they slept on clear nights with the stars white pricklings in the black that shimmered hello hello if you looked for long and lay still.

  She could taste the smoke in her throat; she coughed. She did not like the scrape of bodies climbing the cliffs and falling limp-limbed to the ground, and she did not like the screaming. The smoke arrived now, lazy and billowing black against the sky; and then she could see the bright orange, brighter than sky, winking at her through slats in the forest.

  There. She pointed and spoke its presence without words. Two hands grabbed her around the middle, the familiar hands of a woman but not her mother—because her mother was gone with the other mothers and fathers to fight—these arms held her and rocked her back and forth.

  But the fire was coming closer now and Natasha wanted to see; it was a bad fire to run around on its own, all the good fires stayed in one place and never wanted to eat the trees.

  When the bodies pressed back, Natasha slipped out of the arms and landed on her open hands and knees. She scampered fast over the feet and legs that kicked and kept moving until she got away from them, but it was still hot.

  The fire glared and the trees were torches. There was no place to go that would not be hot and then her body shook and shook and she coughed and she looked up to find the sky between the smoke. All she wanted was for the blue sky to reach down and lift her away. She raised her face to the blue, pleading for the white clouds to reach down and cradle her in their grasp.

  And then the arms came, long and white from above. Arms like clouds; they grabbed her and she was flying over the tops of the flames. Her cheek pressed against something cool and soon the trees circled around her again; and she could breathe easily now, and she held on to run away from the fire.