The Breeders

by Matthew J. Beier

  It had to count for something.

  But Marvel was sneaking around again. While making her way from the empty mess hall to the temporary airline passenger quarters, Grace saw and smelled a cloud of cigarette smoke rising from behind one of the makeshift walls near the hangar’s entrance. It was Marvel. She was standing across from a set of collapsible barracks, where most of the soldiers on site would now be. There were guards on duty, of course, but not to watch over the grounded airline passengers; they were stationed outside with infrared thermal imaging systems that could detect body heat as far away as fifteen miles. Natives were the threat here, not civilians.

  The hangar door was open enough to provide a five-foot doorway to the taxiway, and the cool night air blowing through it smelled of ocean.

  Marvel turned her head as Grace approached. “Care for a smoke? I swiped a pack from one of the tables.”

  “I thought smoking was bad when you’re—”

  Marvel’s curls bounced as she held up a hand to shush Grace, who snapped her mouth shut so hard that it sent a cold pain into her teeth. She had forgotten how easily voices carried during the night.

  “I mean . . . no, I’m fine. Thanks though.”

  “I made friends with a couple of the night guards,” Marvel said. “They were actually sort of nice. Probably because they’re just so bored out here. They’re waiting for natives to attack. Sounds like a blast, huh?”

  Grace gave her a sarcastic nod. “Are you going to the beach tomorrow?”

  “Probably. Except . . .” Marvel, who was courteous enough to blow the cigarette smoke out the door, stepped closer to Grace and lowered her voice. “Except I’m starting to feel like they can’t possibly not realize we’re all . . . you know. Nobody is totally obvious yet, but I’m getting there. If we’re really stuck here for another month . . .” Marvel’s gaze drifted out of the hangar, into the black night. Shadowy bags weighed down her eyes. She flipped a quarter inch of ash from her cigarette, then whispered, “I just don’t think we’re going to get out of this.”

  Grace had no good response to offer, so she stood with Marvel and stared into the night. The strip of sky made visible through the opening of the hangar’s massive door was alight with stars in a way Grace had rarely witnessed. A few distant lights lined the edge of the airport’s perimeter, but the moonless night brought an awesome display of stars so bright and so countless that it seemed to make the ground sink away. Grace felt as if the world was about to tip forward and thrust her off, into that vastness. It was so close, so clear. If there was one good thing about the fallen civilization under their feet, it was this: the calm of the stars, the galaxy haze spreading through them, and the other worlds that must exist somewhere, out there, in peace.

  “I’m never going to see my moms again,” Marvel said.

  Grace put an arm around her shoulder. “You’re on a new adventure now. We all are.”

  “How many natives do you think are out there?”

  “I don’t know. It seemed like a lot, from what they said.”

  “D’you think it’s possible to hide from the NRO’s body heat sensors? At least until the squads are sent back out to hunt?”

  “I’m not sure. The natives seem to be doing it.”

  More silence, more stars. Somewhere inside the hangar, a man grunted to sexual climax before his sounds disappeared into the darkness.

  “I think I will go to the beach tomorrow,” Marvel said.

  It was the last thing Grace ever heard the girl say.

  THE NEXT MORNING, after breakfast, the soldiers started the electric bus and announced a beach run. Marvel was one of the first to stand up. They had been sitting together at a mess hall table, eating breakfast in silence. Grace felt Marvel’s hand drag over the top of her head in what seemed like a peculiar and fleeting display of love. Not their fake lesbian love, but something real. Grace asked Marvel to wait up, but the girl barely turned her head to acknowledge it. As the bus bounced west along the fractured road leading out to the old highway, Marvel showed Grace only the back of her head, which remained turned toward the window. But they were holding hands, still playing lesbian. When the bus stopped, Marvel squeezed extra hard, then turned to Grace. Tears were falling down her eyes. Marvel smiled, and the reason for her disassociation became too obvious to doubt.

  She’s leaving.

  They stood in the surf, holding hands like two lovers. The waves in front of them crashed, washed up, enraptured their feet, then pulled back. It was peaceful, a fitting goodbye. Behind them, the guards were playing naked volleyball with some of the stranded men, including three failsafes, who actually seemed to be having fun. Strewn along the beach were at least thirty more people enjoying the bright, blue reprieve from the airport hangar. Sea birds sang around them. For those few minutes, it was like heaven.

  Marvel let go of Grace’s hand. It took Grace five minutes to build the courage to look after her. When she did, the girl was far down the beach, disappearing into the sparkling morning haze. If the soldiers were keeping tabs on her, they probably thought she was simply walking, like so many of the others.

  The haze swallowed her. She did not come back.

  The soldiers were nowhere near organized enough to do a headcount of the passengers, and nobody but Grace missed Marvel when they returned later that afternoon. As far as the soldiers or other passengers were concerned, everyone who had journeyed to the beach that morning made the return trip. Grace knew better than to go after Marvel; the girl’s resolve had been clear enough. If she wanted to come back, she knew the way. As air travel would be restricted for at least another month, Marvel would have time to rethink her decision.

  Only she did not. First one day, then two, then three. Marvel had gone to find the natives. She had chosen to become one of the hunted, a human breeder trying to survive in the City of the Dead.

  CHAPTER 38 (HIM)

  DEX WALKED. He did not know where he was, though he assumed it was somewhere in Kansas or Missouri. Four days had passed since whatever force running the universe spared his life, and with each breath and passing step, he praised it with gratitude and humility. He would never try to take the easy way out again. From now on, he would live to serve what he knew in his heart to be right and true. Dex’s experience on the train had unlocked something in him, a unique—perhaps universal—awareness of something bigger, an acknowledgement that actively doing good was far superior to simply behaving in a neutral, passive manner. His mistake in leaving Grace at Sterile Me Susan’s had to be remedied, if only by these simple steps that were now bringing him across Missouri.

  The two left-fitting shoes Exander had thrown to Dex during the evacuation became a godsend. They made walking a bit painful, but it was preferable to the alternative of bare feet. On that first day, he had made a successful escape across the field, to the trees. Deflated when he failed to catch up with his cellmate, Dex continued running until he was sure it was safe to rest. The trees were not the grove he had assumed they would be; they were a true stretch of forest, providing enough safety and security for him to ponder what he had just lived through. The military had not sent dogs to chase down its prisoners, nor had they sent hover jets to scour the area with thermal imaging systems. Perhaps the necessity of cleaning up train wreckage that was not yet supposed to exist and avoiding any looming questions had rendered the possibility of a few escaped prisoners harmless. Bigger fish would fry for this accident, and Dex was determined not to get caught again in the crosshairs.

  There was nobody to talk to on this walk, and he welcomed the silence. Judging by the position of the sunrise, he was moving west. Dex used the time less to think than to meditate, and each minute passed like some brilliant, hypnotic gift. He had rested easily that first night, despite the cold, and the second. Only on the third, after tree cover had disappeared and he was exposed to potential threats, did Dex allow the unease brought on by common sense to direct him. He walked by night when the weather was coldest in order to
stay warm, then napped under the sun by day. Winter in Missouri was not the snowy mess that Minneapolis was, but it was still dangerous enough to risk freezing without thicker clothes. He could barely feel his feet, but at least they were dry.

  There was the problem of food. All he had eaten since his jail cell were wild winter berries and one tough corn stalk, which had been nearly impossible to chew. He was still tramping the open fields, avoiding roads, and he had yet to see another section of uncut corn left for the winter animals. Dex was one of those animals now, and he dreamed of finding an actual corn cob buried in a frozen husk, somehow left unseen by scrounging deer. The reverie kept his feet moving, even though the fields ahead of him were barren. The morning was cold enough for Dex to see his breath, but it was not freezing. A low fog hung around him, but the rising sun made it shimmer: first pink, then yellow, then white, before it cleared.

  Later, the growl of a hydro truck engine and the crunching of tires racing over gravel woke him from his daytime sleep. It was closer than Dex thought possible. He was huddled in a fetal position, facing the noise, and the sun was startling in its warmth. As the truck grew closer, Dex dared to open his eyes.

  Three hundred feet away, a rusted utility truck roared by, as if through the muddy field itself. It took Dex a full ten seconds to realize he had been walking along the edge of this particular section of farmland. The ground rose at a slight incline, and as he had heard only the sounds of nature for the past two days, Dex had assumed it was simply a roll that descended back onto another stretch of cropless winter soil. But no, there was a road. The truck was high enough for its driver’s side window to be visible, which meant the driver could see him. Dex hoped he or she would not decide to glance left.

  The truck passed, but not before the driver tossed something yellow out the window.

  A banana peel.

  When Dex was sure the road was clear, he jumped onto his feet and dashed toward the fallen bit of food, which was already browning. There was a bite left of the banana at its base, and the peel itself would at least fill his stomach for a short while. The peel had a muted, chalky taste on the outside, and sweetness on the inside. Dex ate it in seconds and experienced a gloomy sense of emptiness when the experience was over. He would need more food and water, and soon. The snow that had dusted the fields four days prior was gone now, and he had come across only five streams with water clear enough to risk drinking.

  Suffering a stomach ache after eating the banana peel, Dex tried to fall back asleep, wondering just how publicized the derailed train had been. If farmers in the area knew to suspect bio fugitives of crossing through their lands, he could have little time left as a free man. Even so, he was lucky with the warm weather. It could turn back to a freeze at any time, rendering the issue of starvation moot.

  You need to keep walking. Follow that truck.

  Whether its destination was a home or a town, Dex had no way of knowing. Following the road was his best bet, but was it worth the risk? He could always run again, if the wrong person found him out. And there was always that last question: How many people knew about that train, and how many people now knew what it was built to do? If there was any good left in the world (and despite his exhausted state, Dex was now sure there was), there would be people who did not support the government’s genocidal intentions. He simply had to find them before the weather turned. At the very least, he needed heavier clothing and some solid food.

  And a new TruthChip, he thought. One scan of my wrist, and it’ll alert the police.

  As it turned out, luck was not finished with Dex.

  From the field, he followed the road all day, lying flat whenever an automobile passed. By nightfall, there were lights in the distance—a farmhouse, he saw after growing closer. The road led to its long gravel driveway, at the end of which was a red and white yard sign reading “Support Unity!”

  Support Unity. It was a slogan supporting heterosexual reintegration.

  The lure of food and warmth took his feet toward the wraparound front porch. The house was very large and extremely old, a boxy Midwestern farmhouse built under a triangular roof. Dormers adorned the highest floor on all visible sides.

  Come on the right night, and I bet you’d see a ghost standing in one of those windows. It was an unusual thought for Dex but also characteristic of who he had become since escaping the oven train: a man thinking more and more in terms of the metaphysical. Or, perhaps, he was simply more hungry and fatigued than he realized. A long shoe rug under the porch’s awning caught his eye. In what seemed like a perfect decision, Dex picked it up, shook out the dirt, and sank to the wooden floor, using the rug as a blanket. He was a small man, and it covered him head to toe. Thoughts of warmth and a friendly world lulled him into a deep sleep. At multiple times during the night, between his dreams, he woke, then slipped away again, to the sound of distant hover jets.

  CHAPTER 39 (HER)

  NOT EVEN THE COOL SEA AIR mixed with blistering-hot sun could cheer Grace. Thoughts of her immediate family, memories of lost friends, and her sense of dislocation and isolation had pulled a shade over her world.

  And there was another problem.

  One of the soldiers, a man with a dirty-blonde crew cut who looked no older than twenty-five, had begun staring at her. Grace noticed it the afternoon Marvel left, and it continued into the next day. He was paler and thinner than most of the other soldiers, still muscled but lanky enough that his stature looked more awkward than powerful. Something about him struck Grace as different; he carried himself with an air of reservation and artificial confidence. It was possible he was just shy, and seeing as he did not strut with the same sexual swagger as most of the other soldiers, it could have been that his leggy body left him feeling out of place. On the day Marvel disappeared into the mist, this soldier had been playing volleyball on the beach. Grace thought nothing of him then, but later that evening, she caught him staring at her from across the mess hall.

  The following morning, when Grace stepped out of the hangar to greet the hot sun, he was sitting on a lawn chair to her right, in rainbow faux-camouflage pants and a white T-shirt. He was reading something on his pocket com. On her other side, three soldiers were kicking a small beanbag around, guffawing in their fun.

  In her peripheral vision, she saw the whites of his eyes shift toward her. On instinct, she slouched forward so that her lower abdomen’s profile would not give away her condition. She moved as if to turn her head toward the soldier, and his gaze darted back to the com. Grace finished her motion by glancing upward at the fresh blue sky, but her attempt to look relaxed felt phony and forced.

  He knows something is up. Get away from him.

  Grace returned to the hangar and lay down for the remainder of the day, but her nerves remained heightened. That evening, she walked to dinner late to avoid the crowd of hungry, stranded passengers. A cargo plane of fresh produce and poultry had arrived that day, and dinner was to be a feast. Grace thought she would be lucky to get even a chicken leg, but as it turned out, the scraps were enough to feed another army. Grace loaded her plate with a chicken breast, steaming vegetables, a salad, two rolls, and a bowl of strawberries for dessert. For a moment, it brought a flashback to her early adulthood, when food had been a crutch so frowned upon by her family.

  Let me be an Obesaland fatty, she thought, digging into her meal. I’ve got a baby to feed and feelings to purge.

  The food was palatable, far better than the cardboard military rations they had been forced to eat over the past five days. Grace had no idea when her next normal meal would be, so she went back for seconds. And thirds. Each bite made the confusion, doubt, and loneliness burrow deeper inside her chest. They were funny things, feelings. Even though the brain produced them, they seemed to bloom or hurt or shatter in the heart. People sometimes put hands to their hearts when verbally communicating a feeling. Tonight, Grace would have done that had there been anybody to confide in. Most of the Cliff House women kept to their two- or
three-person friend circles, none of which included Grace. Only one, the young woman Hilda, had approached Grace since Marvel’s departure. “Is everything all right?” she asked. Grace had simply nodded and smiled, ashamed at her inability to welcome Hilda’s friendliness. All she wanted was to get out of this dead city and take the next step toward something—anything. Comfort, family, and love were things of the past, and accepting that fact would be the least burdensome modus for facing new days.

  She ate another strawberry. With it came the warmth of a recent memory: Dex Wheelock, feeding the fruit to her in the bath.

  “I won’t blame you if you decide to save yourself and run,” she had told him that night. “Just give me the word, and I’ll figure it out myself.”

  Is that what she was doing now? Figuring it out herself? Hardly.

  “What happened to your wife?” a voice asked from across the table.

  Grace jumped out of her mind, shocked, and looked up from her bowl of strawberries. The lanky soldier was sitting directly across from her, resting his folded, square arms on the table. Up close, the idiosyncrasies of his face were more apparent. His wide-set eyes were an unnerving green, and his prominent nose and inset lower jaw lent him a falcon-like shape that made his expression look like one of perpetual distaste. It seemed almost pompous. Staring straight at Grace, he reached across the table and ate one of her strawberries.

  “Don’t worry, we have more.”

  Am I being interrogated? “It’s okay. Take what you need.”

  He leaned forward, his gaze still boring into Grace. “So, what happened to your wife? Or was she your girlfriend?”

  “Marvel?”

  “Short, almost stocky. Dark, curly hair. You know who I’m talking about, because she was holding your hand on the beach the other day. She didn’t come back on the bus.”

  Red, inky heat rushed into Grace’s face. She looked down at the last two strawberries, then pushed the bowl toward the soldier. “Here, have these. I’m done.” Making to get up, she stopped when the soldier held up a hand.