Spirit Tree of the Red Rocks: Future

by Clay, Verna

  Within minutes they were rushing to escape. When they turned into the main hallway, they jerked to a halt. Bren pushed Violet behind him in a protective gesture. In front of them were Agent Jensen and Dr. Vesper. Agent Jensen held a short metallic shaft that Violet suspected was a weapon. Both men were grinning and Dr. Vesper was the first to speak.

  "Going for a midnight stroll, or perhaps a romantic tryst?"

  Bren replied calmly, "I knew you were up to something, Vesper. Do you want to share why you've betrayed our organization?"

  "I haven't betrayed anyone. I've just increased the funding for our efforts."

  "Don't you mean funding for your efforts and your pocketbook?"

  "Are you jealous, Agent Bren?"

  "Hardly. Why did you sell your soul?"

  Dr. Vesper's grin vanished. "Because of years of research that yields nothing. But that's interesting coming from you, a man with no soul." His grin returned. "A man who is actually a modern day Frankenstein. How many body parts and bionic mechanisms were scavenged to build you?"

  Violet had been peeking around Bren's body and now her eyes widened. Dr. Vesper said, "Dr. Morningstar, it appears you're unaware of Agent Bren's dirty little secret. It's a pity I have to be the one to enlighten you."

  Bren interrupted. "So why is your research worthless if you're in the midst of a breakthrough?"

  The doctor glanced at Violet and smirked. "You don't think your early morning trip to the lab went unnoticed or your ruse fooled me, do you? I saw your reaction when you studied the leaves. You didn't have the same enthusiasm as before."

  Violet responded with disgust, "Why have you genetically modified the plants? You know that eventually they'll become sterile and fail to produce. That fact was proven hundreds of years ago."

  "He did it for the usual reasons, money and power," Bren interjected.

  Dr. Vesper responded angrily, "No, I did it to gain funding. SBG has reconsidered their stance on terraforming. They're setting me up with my own lab and everything I need to continue the research. They have confidence in my ability to solve the problem that Dr. Morningstar was unable to. I just needed to convince them." His gaze honed in on Violet. "So, as it turned out, there was no need to awaken you from cryosleep. In fact, I believe SBG is going to petition the government to have you both placed in cryosleep for an indefinite period."

  Bren interjected, "Are you that blind? Can't you see you're being used as a pawn to destroy any chance at terraforming?"

  Before Dr. Vesper could respond, Agent Jensen, who had been silent up until then, motioned with his weapon. "You're both under house arrest and ordered back to your rooms." His face contorted into a menacing expression. Unexpectedly, there was a noise in the intersecting hallway and he stepped beside Dr. Vesper to hide the weapon.

  A moment later Dr. Chandler, looking sleepy eyed, rounded the corner. "What's going on? I got up for a midnight snack and heard voices." She yawned.

  Dr. Vesper said impatiently, "Nothing of importance. We're all headed back to our rooms."

  "Oh, okay." She yawned again and turned to leave. But within seconds she jerked back around and fired a weapon at Agent Jensen. He twitched and fell to the ground. Next, she fired at a startled Dr. Vesper. He also twitched and dropped to the floor. She said with satisfaction, "I've wanted to do that for weeks." She moved her gaze to Bren. "Whatever you two are up to, I back you one hundred percent."

  Bren asked, "Who do you work for?"

  She ignored his question. "I'll have the Hawthorn brothers drag them to the holding room."

  Bren repeated, "Who do you work for?"

  Dr. Chandler replied, "I replaced Dr. Vesper's previous associate and the Hawthorn brothers were already here. SBG wanted to check the veracity of Dr. Vesper's claims after he approached them with fantastic results he was having in terraforming. He wanted to defect to their side for funding and position. Of course, if he was on to something, SBG wanted to know. I convinced the brothers to work with me by promising them a whole lot more money than Vesper was bribing them with and soon discovered Vesper's claims were a hoax. Per the doctor's orders the Hawthorns have been growing corn with Dr. Morningstar's formula in a secret chamber and substituting the leaves for the genetically modified crop. The information and pictures given to SBG were all a hoax. I believe it was Dr. Vesper's plan to suddenly disappear and change his identity when he got his payoff." She grinned. "But if you're escaping, I suggest you salvage the store room and leave immediately. In fact, I encourage it. The SBG bullies will be here soon and it won't be pleasant when they arrive."

  Bren said, "Then you work for SBG and they've infiltrated the TEA organization?"

  Dr. Chandler replied, "Yes. I work for SBG. And yes to infiltration."

  Bren frowned. "If you work for them then why are you letting us go?"

  Dr. Chandler grinned. "Haven't you ever heard of a double agent?"

  26: Westward

  Bren was reluctant to leave the others behind, as was Violet, but Dr. Chandler finally convinced them it was for the best. She said that if she and the brothers came with them, it would alert SBG to her double agent status and the lives of all their families would be in jeopardy. "Besides," she continued, "if Dr. Morningstar thinks the answer to terraforming can be found elsewhere, you need to take her there. She knows more than all of us combined." She'd then hugged Violet and pushed her toward Bren. "Agent Bren, take her where she needs to go!"

  Now, following the sun, they were headed due west. Since leaving the compound the terrain had been hilly, but easily hiked. At the pinnacle of a hill they paused. In the distance they could see a flattening of land stretching toward the horizon.

  Bren figured he must be crazy to leave the protection of the compound and nearby caverns to head out into the unknown, but staying would have been crazy too.

  Violet interrupted his musings. "I want to ask you something, but if it's too personal you don't have to answer."

  "You want to know why Dr. Vesper said I had no soul and called me Frankenstein."

  "But if you don't want to talk about it–"

  "Since you've placed your life in my hands, I suppose I owe you the truth" He clasped her arm to stop her descent down the hill. Staring at the flatland they would soon reach, he finally sighed and said, "It's true. I am a modern day Frankenstein. I was conceived in a Petri dish and experimented on. When parts of my body failed, the body parts of others conceived in the same manner were transplanted onto mine. I became one giant puzzle to be fitted together."

  Violet gasped and reached to place a hand on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

  Bren rubbed the back of his neck. "What you don't understand is that all those Petri dish conceptions were me. I was being cloned over and over again. I'm the only clone who survived, but it didn't stop there. Transplanting body parts was just the beginning. After that, bionic parts were introduced. So, you see, I'm actually clone and machine." When he felt Violet step close and lay her hand against his heart, he wanted to cry—something he had never done before.

  She said, "You have more heart and soul than anyone I've ever met. You are brave and loving and kind and I admire you beyond anything you could imagine."

  Bren blinked against the sting in his eyes. His voice sounded raspy when he pleaded, "Violet, please don't do this. To keep you safe I have to be strong. I have to stay focused. I can't allow emotions to drive me. You…"

  "What?" she asked still resting her hand over his heart.

  "You make me feel. You make me want things I can't have."

  "Why can't you have them?"

  "Because I'm not like you. I'm not like the rest of humanity. I'm not–"

  She interrupted, "No. you're not. You're better."

  Bren closed his eyes and although he warned himself not to succumb to his desire, he encircled Violet with his arms and held her tightly against him. Then he caressed her hair. When she lifted her lips to his, he could no longer deny his heart's desire. She tasted sw
eet and he wanted her so much it hurt, and when she cupped his cheeks with her small hands, he deepened the kiss. It was beyond anything he had ever experienced and he knew he had touched eternity—the place where only love existed—and it frightened him. Up until now he would have given his life for Violet because it was his job, now he would do it because of love. He gently set her away from him, met her gaze, and said, "Violet, this isn't something I can do. Or maybe I should say it isn't something I want to do."

  He watched her blink and swallow. She stared at him until he wanted to look away, but he didn't. Finally, she said, "We better be on our way, the red rocks are waiting for us." She turned and continued walking down the hill.

  Violet lay on the ground wrapped in a thermal blanket that kept her toasty warm and stared at a sky bursting with stars. A falling one caught her attention and she swiped her eyes. The thought of what Bren had endured was simply too much to comprehend. Every word she had spoken that day had been the absolute truth. In her estimation, he was a hero of the highest order. He was everything she had ever dreamed of finding in a man…and he had rejected her as being anything other than his mission. She sniffed and turned onto her side.

  After a long, silent cry, she closed her eyes and envisioned the red rocks of her dreams, wondering what they looked like now. Eventually, the long day that was both physically and mentally challenging brought her into a deep sleep.

  "You must give him time, Violet."

  "Hello Frannie. Now that we're on our way to a place we've never been, it seems we have plenty of that."

  "But you have been there in your dreams, child. Anyway, I'm not here to convince you of that. I'm here because I have much to tell you about your travel tomorrow."

  Violet smiled and said, "I'm listening, Frannie."

  27: Sliver of Ribbon

  Violet turned and glanced at Bren walking behind her. He merely lifted his eyebrows as if asking if she had something to say. Smiling slightly she said, "I know you didn't agree to follow me into the unknown without a backup plan. So what is it?"

  His expression gave away nothing. "Now why would I have a backup plan when we're walking across unknown territory to a mysterious, uncharted land and toward a questionable future, just because your ancestor in a dream told you to? It makes perfect sense."

  Violet laughed so hard she had to clutch her sides. "I knew it! I just knew it!"

  "You knew what, Dr. Morningstar?" Bren replied seriously.

  "I knew you had a sense of humor hidden under all that gruffness and testosterone."

  "I have no such thing. You're imagining it."

  "Right. That's why you want to bust out laughing. Admit it, you like facing the unknown. You like this adventure we're on. So tell me what your backup plan is."

  "Keep walking and I'll think about telling you."

  Violet turned and started forward again grateful that the previous day's confidences and subsequent actions on both their parts hadn't caused any awkward moments today. In fact, Bren almost seemed lighthearted, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. And maybe in a very real sense, it had. Maybe he'd needed to confide his burden to someone.

  Bren interrupted her thoughts. "You're right, I do have a backup plan and you may not like it, but if forced to use it, I will." He paused. "Even if it means carrying you kicking and screaming back underground."

  Violet stopped walking and slowly turned around. "I'm not going back there because the answers aren't there."

  "I'm only saying that if we start to run out of food or water, we'll have to return. I have connections in the city that will hide us while we formulate another plan. Believe me, Dr. Morningstar, there are many who would do anything to assist you in solving the soil dilemma."

  "Like Dr. Glasmir—innocent people who would die for me," she responded dryly.

  "Yes."

  "Well, my response is no. I won't have anyone placing their life in danger. I would rather be the one to die than…" Bren's gaze moved past her. She turned around and squinted against the sun. "What? What do you see?" Then she grinned. "Frannie told me last night that today we would cross paths with what was once a highway. She said we must follow the road north and that I would know when to turn northwest."

  "And you're just telling me this now! Violet, I don't like being uninformed."

  She turned back to him, placed her hands on her hips, and said, "How does it feel? You only told me about the backup plan a few minutes ago."

  Bren's eyes flashed and he said, "That's different–"

  Violet didn't wait for him to finish. Turning on her heel she started toward what appeared to be a sliver of ribbon in the distance.

  The highway was much farther than it appeared and they didn't reach it until the sun had almost touched the horizon. Violet removed her protective sunglasses and head covering and stared at what had once been a main thoroughfare.

  Bren also removed the scarf around his head and whistled low. "This is amazing. I wonder what sort of vehicles traveled this road."

  "The vehicles were called automobiles or cars, and I often visited a hologram that simulated them." She grinned at her remembrance. "And what a rush of adrenaline! You could make them go fast or slow while trying to avoid hitting other cars. You would have loved it!"

  Bren's response was a lifting of his eyebrows. "Interesting. You can tell me more while we rest." He slipped his backpack off and helped Violet remove hers. She sat cross-legged on the ground while Bren removed food sticks from his backpack and handed her one. She tore open the package and bit into the tasteless bar. Pointing the bar at him she said, "Have you never tasted anything better than this?"

  "I don't remember having done so."

  She shook her head. "I can't believe how desensitized this era is. During my era we created food with taste."

  Bren shrugged. "This is all I've ever known."

  For a moment they stared at each other, and again, that ripple of awareness sparked like electricity between them. Violet remembered their kisses and quickly glanced away. She said softly, "Thank you for sharing your life story with me. I know it was difficult." She uprooted a weed near her foot. When Bren didn't respond she changed the subject. "You know if these weeds and shrubs weren't here, dust storms would make it impossible to travel anywhere. It's as if…" She hesitated.

  "It's as if, what?"

  "It's as if Providence or God, if you will, has kept us from going extinct. As if the Great Spirit, as Frannie would say, has a plan."

  "And maybe you're the key to that plan," Bren suggested softly.

  "Or maybe you are," she retorted, but in a kind way.

  "Never me, Violet. I'm just a patchwork…" He shrugged and didn't finish the sentence.

  Violet said with conviction, "You're a human who has endured and survived the unthinkable."

  "I'm just a patchwork of flesh and machine. Nothing more."

  Violet glanced away so Bren wouldn't see her tears. What he didn't realize was that he had become everything to her.

  28: Seeing Red

  Continuing along what had once been a highway, but was now jagged blocks of an unknown hardened substance faded to shades of gray, Violet and Bren walked until dusk before breaking for camp. Using only minimal amounts of water, they washed their faces and drank enough to stay hydrated.

  Violet was not visited by Frannie that night, but something else happened; she felt as if she was surrounded by multitudes of people, or was it angels. Faintly, she could hear them cheering. Was it for her, Bren, humanity? At the moment of awakening she experienced something else—unconditional love. The feeling was beyond explanation; beyond reason. And in a flash of clarity she knew it was where Frannie existed.

  The next morning as they continued along the highway Violet contemplated the purity of unconditional love.

  "You've been quiet all morning, Dr. Morningstar. Do you want to tell me what's swirling in that head of yours? Did you have another dream?"

  Violet stopped, slowly turne
d, and walked back to Bren. Lifting her hand she placed it over his heart. "You need to learn to love yourself, Bren. You are not a patchwork of flesh and machine. You are a man with a spirit and soul and the capability of loving so much that it scares you. You're brave on the outside, but inside you're lost and begging for unconditional love, as we all are." She cupped his cheek. "As for what happened last night," she inhaled, "I experienced unfathomable love and accepted it. Now I give it to you."

  She didn't wait for his response; she returned to following the highway.

  Violet's declaration made Bren's chest hurt. He couldn't suck in enough air. Her avowal of love was more than he could process. No one had ever professed to love him, let alone proclaimed it to be unconditional. Up until adulthood he had been a lab rat; a living entity for scientists and doctors to experiment on. It was only when all the other clones had died that the cloning experiment had been deemed a failure. Sick and weak, he had been admitted to a beggars' hospital to die. But he hadn't died. He'd escaped the hospital and lived in Shadow Town, a section reserved for addicts, beggars, and unfortunates. It was there he had learned to survive on the streets and it was there the Secret Police had recruited him after watching him in a cage fight that landed his opponent in the hospital. But it was while he was with the Secret Police that he'd learned about an organization wanting to bring civilization aboveground, something that seemed too wonderful to be true. His entire life had been spent in the confines of an experimental hospital and then in Shadow Town. And it didn't take long for him to realize that working for the Secret Police was a different kind of prison. It was the prison of conformity. At least in Shadow Town he could think for himself and make his own choices.

  After ten years with the Secret Police, he'd had enough. He was protecting people who were evil and it didn't make a whole lot of sense to put his life at risk for theirs. He'd quit the service when his term was up and then set about locating a member of TEA in order to offer his expertise. It hadn't been easy and they'd given him bogus assignments at first to test him, but after a couple of years he'd proven himself invaluable to the organization not only because of his loyalty, but his physical strength and abilities, and moved up the ranks. His life was often in jeopardy, but at least it now had meaning. He willingly placed himself in danger for those who pursued the good of humanity.