by Joe Hart
Zoey laughs. She can’t help it. She doubles over on the couch and lets the maniacal laughter out like black vomitus. When she sits back up, wiping away tears, Vivian stands motionless without a smile, her hands laced together before her. “I’m sorry,” Zoey says, coughing out the last bit of mirth. “You stole them away from their homes so someone else wouldn’t?”
“It was necessary.”
“That word, ‘necessary,’ I’ve come to truly despise it.”
“Regardless, it was what had to be done.”
“Coming from someone who helped murder thousands of women and children, I find that deeply ironic.”
Vivian’s lip curls, but she turns away, pacing to the farthest bookshelf before returning. “We tested hundreds of thousands of men over the course of years, searching for someone who didn’t carry the duplicated gene, but to no avail. It was much later, after I assumed control of NOA, that we began work on my theory. And that’s where you come in.”
She tries to still herself and simply listen, but the question she asks comes out of its own volition. “Who are my parents?”
Vivian’s face hardens, a flicker of some unknowable emotion there and gone. “That is maybe best left for another day.”
“Tell me. You know who they are. You took me from them, the least you can do is give me their names.”
“I knew them,” Vivian says quietly. “A lifetime ago. And they would have wanted you to know the truth, and that is you are special, Zoey. You were meant to bring the human race back from the brink of extinction.”
“So they’re gone? Is that what you’re saying?”
Vivian gives the barest of nods. “Yes.”
Zoey stands, stepping away from the couch, unable to keep looking at the woman before her. She paces unsteadily, the drug still lingering in her system, to the wall where an oil painting depicts a dirt road winding away through trees on fire with fall’s colors. She can’t see the end of the path in the picture, and she assumes that was the artist’s intent: to evoke a sense of longing in the observer, to wonder where that road might take them if they traveled it. But for her the road is at its end. She’s found what she came looking for and really she feels no surprise at hearing her parents are gone. They were always absent and now the only difference is she can finally let go of the hope that surrounded thoughts of them.
Vivian clears her throat. “After the president’s death we gathered as many test subjects as we could. As I said, my theory differed from that of my colleagues, not to mention the president’s advisors, in that the solution wasn’t going to be found in a male subject, but a female.” Zoey tears her gaze from the painting and faces Vivian. “I believed that genetic weakness was a factor in why the SRY duplication occurred initially, so I built my theory on the hope that we would eventually find a subject that was the opposite: a woman strong enough to withstand what was required to turn back the Dearth.”
“The keystone,” Zoey says.
Vivian smiles. “The keystone. Yes. You see, it’s not to say you aren’t remarkable, Zoey, you are. You’re a specimen of health: great immune system, blood counts, everything about you screams strength and vigor. But we witnessed dozens of women like you give birth to males over and over again. If women were to be born again, they needed help.”
Zoey feels herself being drawn toward the couch again, but doesn’t sit. “What do you mean, ‘needed help’?”
“Did you ever wonder why the women’s food plates in the cafeteria were color coded differently than the clerics’ or their sons’?” Zoey’s eyes narrow at the memories of all the meals eaten in the large, mostly empty, cafeteria. Never once had she seen a cleric or guard eat off the same color plate as a woman, and never once had she thought to question it. “There is a specific protein called Beta-catenin encoded by a gene in humans that serves several purposes, but one of particular interest to me is its importance in embryotic sex development. It was theorized that it could help promote female sexual development and repress the SRY gene.”
“You put it in our food?”
“Actually we put an enzyme that promoted Beta-catenin overexpression in your food and gave you injections of the protein itself on your visits to the infirmary.”
The way Vivian says it, the cold, scientific statement sends chills through Zoey, and she shakes her head. “We thought you were taking care of us.”
“Don’t you see? We were,” Vivian says, coming closer. “It was what had to be done, and keeping the truth from you was part of the program.”
“It was all part of the program, wasn’t it? The control, our segregation, the propaganda, the box, the lies. All for our own good, right?”
“It was for the greater good! The only good that mattered!” Vivian yells. “If we had let you choose you would have been like all the others when the Dearth began: too stupid to save yourselves.”
“You took away our freedom.”
“Freedom is more times than not a death sentence.”
They stare at one another, less than a foot separating them, and Zoey realizes her hands are balled into fists, muscles taut, ready to uncoil into violence. She looks away, willing herself to relax. Fighting this woman won’t get her out of the ARC.
Vivian seems to deflate as well, taking a step back and rubbing her arms as if she’s cold. “What was done was done for the benefit of humanity, even if lines were crossed. It’s how any great disaster is averted, with sacrifice. If you would’ve known . . .” Her voice trails off.
“If we would’ve known what?”
The other woman wrestles with something before saying, “There were noted complications to the overexpression of Beta-catenin.”
“What kind of complications?”
“None that concern you. You’re perfectly fine.”
“What kind of complications?”
Vivian hesitates. “Possible heart disease, multiple forms of cancer: lung, colorectal, ovarian, breast, endometrial.”
Zoey stares, a lump of sickening dread forming in her stomach. “You did this to us, knowing it could cause these things?” Vivian’s mouth becomes a white line. “You said it was no concern to me. Who was it a concern to?” She waits, willing the answer to come, and fearing it at the same time.
“Terra was diagnosed with ovarian cancer before she was inducted, and Lily’s heart was enlarged.” Vivian blinks rapidly. “She wouldn’t have made it to induction.”
Zoey launches herself forward. There is no stopping the reaction this time.
It is animalistic: raw reflex and rage combined.
She slams into Vivian, her weight carrying both of them into the chair and over it.
The floor meets them and Zoey rolls, coming up on her hands and knees, scrambling back to lock her hands around Vivian’s throat.
Because now all other thoughts are gone.
Returning to the group, to Lee, to her daughter is an ebbing concept overshadowed by the fury bursting from within.
She lands on Vivian as she’s trying to lift herself from the floor. The older woman’s air discharges in a long gasp as Zoey grabs her neck and begins to squeeze.
Thumbs pressing into soft skin.
Adrenaline-fueled strength locks her grip in place even as Vivian convulses beneath her.
Vivian twists to the side, and Zoey moves with her, tightening her hold. The other woman’s eyes bulge. Then her arm is coming up faster than it should be, and Zoey has a split second to remember the gun.
The pistol connects with her temple and flashes of light glitter in the room like the sun glancing off ice on a bright day.
Her hands come loose to the ragged sound of indrawn breath.
She tumbles backward, trying to put out a hand to break her fall, but her arm is suddenly weak and she drops to her back.
The office’s ceiling spins then stills, the glinting ice melting away.
She forces herself up into a sitting position, rallying the will for another assault, but Vivian is already on her feet,
the pistol in one hand, her other loosely clutching her rapidly bruising throat.
“Stop,” Vivian croaks, choking on the word. She coughs, the gun barrel wavering. “Don’t move.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Zoey says, crawling to her feet and rocking there as an internal gust of wind nearly bowls her down again.
“You don’t want to do that,” Vivian says, voice returning to something vaguely human.
“Why?”
“Because. Then you’ll never meet your daughter.”
“You won’t let me go so what does it matter?” She stares at the gun’s muzzle, readying a strike that will send it flying.
“No,” Vivian says, reaching out to touch a button on the Director’s desk phone. “I mean your other daughter.”
44
Lee watches the dark masses of crumbling homes on the slope far below for the signal.
He sits in what Ian called a rocking chair, the places where the feet should be, only rounded lengths of wood allowing him to tip back and forth with the baby in his arms. At first the notion behind the chair was strange, almost silly, but once he settled into it, the squalling infant in his arms, red faced and breathless with hungry cries, he’d silently sent up a prayer of thanks to the chair’s inventor.
She had begun to cry again in the early evening as they were stopping before the home on the bluffs above the river. Tia, Newton, and Merrill were already gone, vanished down the valley’s side and into the dilapidated town standing along the river’s edge. Ian had volunteered to go with them or set up a sniper’s position directly above the town within sight of the ARC, but Merrill had refused, saying that if they were able to locate the hidden entrance there would be no helping them in or out once they were inside. He’d sent the older man with them after a brief embrace and a long look shared between them saying more in silence than could be put in words.
The house above the river was large and singularly alone. “Forgotten” would’ve been the word Lee used to describe it after pulling to a stop in its turnaround drive. It was two levels with a rounding expanse of windows, all miraculously intact, looking out over the impressive views made even more so by the setting sun. Far below, at least two miles, was the small town above the riverbank, and slightly past that, the hulking shape of the ARC set before the dam, its top crenelated by an intermittent line of lights on its walls and the occasional strobe from what he assumed was the helipad.
He brings his gaze down to the child in his arms, a warm ball of blankets fit tight to his chest. She’s asleep, tiny lips parted, the smallest of squeaks coming with each inhale. Hunger was what had caused the screaming and fitful movements of her small body, for her diaper had been dry when he’d checked and she had only just woken from a nap. They had no milk of any kind and she refused the water he offered, though he wasn’t sure if it had been the liquid itself or the system of delivery it was in; they’d found a clean plastic bag and poked several tiny holes in one corner. It had been Chelsea’s idea, in her indelible wisdom, to mix warm water with a bit of flour and sugar together to make a milky substance. At first the baby had refused the makeshift meal, but in the end hunger had won out and she’d drunk nearly half of the mixture, falling asleep with the plastic still between her lips.
Lee shifts her weight into a more comfortable position, a sense of marvel washing over him. She is so small, vulnerable in a way that nearly brings tears to his eyes. This tiny life in his arms is part of him, a notion he’d only given fleeting thought to over the years, but now is overwhelming in its immensity. It’s like he’s stepped from one life into another.
He breaks his gaze from the girl and looks out over the blackened landscape. The clouds that were high and thin earlier have clotted and hover over the river valley, the water itself flowing in a deeper shadow below. He scans the area the others were going to be searching in, Merrill’s last instructions being to watch for several flashes from his light in case the radios failed.
Someone approaches from behind him, and a second later Chelsea appears in the gloom.
“How is she?”
Lee smiles, not sure she can see his expression, but unable to repress it. “Sleeping hard.”
“That’s good. I was worried we might not be able to get her to eat.”
“Glad you didn’t show it; I was worried enough for both of us.”
Chelsea laughs. “You’re doing fine.”
“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”
She is quiet for a time. “I know. But we’ll get her back. One way or another.”
Lee finds himself looking at the baby again. Studying the lines of her face. Will she have Zoey’s nose? His eyes? How will her tiny hands ever get bigger? “It’s funny, I gave up hoping for a future after my dad died. Everything was so convoluted, so strange. It was like I didn’t know who I was anymore without him, without the structure of the ARC, my job. I didn’t understand any of it. I didn’t . . . didn’t know how important she was to me until I left.”
Chelsea lowers herself onto the edge of a small table, her face toward the window and the town below. “Before the Dearth, I used to drink this tea that had sayings and quotes on little pieces of paper attached to the strings. They were meant to be inspirational and deep. ‘A task unfinished is an opportunity missed.’ Or ‘It’s always darkest just before the dawn.’ I read them and always kind of thought they were silly. I lost my father fairly young, and when my mother passed away, I was basically in charge of raising my sister. Life seemed meaningless at times, even cruel, like there was a force out there with a sole purpose of causing pain, and if it got a glimpse of you, it never let you go.” Her head droops a little. “I quit reading the quotes on the tea bags. I’d tear them off and throw them away. They felt like a mockery of my life, especially after the Dearth started.” She straightens, putting one hand on her belly, which is beginning to round beneath her shirt. “Now I regret not reading them because they weren’t a mockery: they were another perspective I didn’t understand.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you.”
“My sister made a sacrifice to save me. Your father died for you and Zoey, and now you and Zoey are doing what you have to for her,” she says, motioning to the sleeping infant. “We don’t always understand the bad parts of our lives until they’ve passed, most times we’re blinded by the pain. But there’s things to be learned even when we’re hurting. Especially then.”
They share a comfortable silence that’s broken when the baby wriggles in her blankets and yawns, issuing an unmistakably satisfied sound.
Chelsea laughs quietly. “At least one of us is enjoying herself.”
“You should get some sleep. I’ll stay here with her, I’m not tired.”
“Are you sure? Because—”
“What is that?” Lee rises from the chair, vision hooked on something in the distance. Chelsea moves to the window, pressing her hands against the glass.
“I don’t know. They look like lights.”
Over a mile away a glittering line bobs and blinks like a glowing snake slithering from a draw in the land. It grows from only a few tiny dots to a dozen, two dozen, a hundred. As the string of lights comes closer and closer to the edge of the river gorge, they begin to wink out, one after another.
“Oh God,” Chelsea says, pushing away from the glass. “They’re here.”
45
Merrill exits the remains of the small house and glances up the street to where Tia appears a moment later.
She jogs toward him as he steps off the rotted porch. “Nothing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. Checked each level. No new footprints or any other sign they passed through here.”
“Where’s Newton?”
“At the last one in the block. Here he comes now.” When he stops before them Tia says, “Find anything?”
“N-no,” Newton says, and it still sends a small shock through Merrill every time he hears the younger man utter words.
> Merrill glances around, gaining his bearings. “Okay, so we’ve covered these four streets. There’s one more along with the rest of the town on the other side of the river.”
“You’re sure they would’ve hidden the entrance in a building, not in the ground somewhere or the side of the riverbank?” Tia asks.
“No, I’m not sure, but it’s where I would put it. Besides, if it’s not in a building it could be anywhere and I’m not ready to start considering that just yet.”
A ripple of static comes from the radio attached to his belt, quiet enough to pass for the rustling of leaves, but Merrill hears it. A breathed word issues from the speaker as he brings it up to his ear but he misses the rest of the sentence.
“Didn’t catch that, say again,” he whispers into the radio.
Silence, another crackle of static. Then Lee’s voice, hurried and strained. “. . . ight above you.”
“Above us?” Tia says, turning to look up the steep grade beyond the houses.
“Say again, Lee.”
“They’re coming down the . . . ope. Right . . . ove you.”
Merrill snaps the radio off, the thumb of his right hand flicking the safety of his rifle as he stares up past the nearest houses toward the shadow-laden hills. “Listen,” he whispers.
And below the other night sounds comes the tread of many feet trying to be silent.
46
“What did you say?” Zoey asks.
She balances on the balls of her feet, the explosion of motion held back only by the other woman’s words.
Instead of answering her, Vivian speaks to the phone. “Bring her in.”