“The former two eighty-five,” Minister Alden murmurs. We pass a crooked sign announcing “Stone Mountain” and a swoop of elevated tracks that used to be a rollercoaster rises on our left minutes before I spot the dome. I can see the curve of clear polyglass from miles away. A robust IPF presence when we pull up outside the main entrance surprises me.
As she alights, Minister Alden remarks on it, saying, “We’ve deployed more Infrastructure Protection assets to the domes. Intelligence suggests the Defiance is targeting them. We can’t allow those malcontents to disrupt the nation’s food supply. Too many people would suffer. Does the Defiance not realize that all they’re doing is increasing the burden on the poor, the very people they say they want to ‘set free?’” Her tone is scathing. “Where will they get food, if not from government domes? The Defiance is nothing but a self-aggrandizing gaggle of rabble rousers who take away resources better used to rebuild this country.”
Without waiting for a response, she turns to greet the dome’s managers and chief scientists who have turned out in force to fawn over her. I follow in her wake, largely ignored and grateful for it. The familiar scent of loam and plants, a faintly bitter fragrance that seems to coat the roof of my mouth in a not unpleasant way, transports me back to the Kube and the many satisfying hours I spent working in the dome. This one is laid out the same way, but is nearly twice as big with what looks like five acres or so devoted to growing flowers. Tulips, marigolds, lilies, and orchids! What an extravagance. Thinking about Minister Alden’s comments, I wonder how they can justify not growing food. Despite my reservations, I let the vibrant colors and perfume delight me.
A veritable swarm of microdrones stream data about soil fertility and water usage, and, according to the manager touring us around, measure the amount of red light and near-infrared heat reflected from the plants to calculate the normalized difference in vegetation index. He puffs off the savings in land and fertilizer he’s been able to realize while still increasing food production. Our tour reaches its climax when we are offered tastes of the locust-proof lettuce which is an off-putting blue-gray shade and tough to chew. The flavor is okay, though, and Minister Alden compliments the chief scientist.
“With any luck, it will not be long before we can once again grow crops outside domes.” She urges me forward with a sharp gesture. “AC Derrika Ealy, a newcomer to the ministry, is close to a break-through we hope will eradicate the locusts for good.”
I’m uncomfortable being the center of attention as surprised murmurs burble forth. Two of the younger scientists approach me and we discuss my methodology for a few minutes, until the minister’s aide signals that it’s time to depart. The soldiers guarding our ACV step aside to let us in and we’re humming forward seconds later. The minister spends the first half of the ride discussing her schedule with the aide, and issuing instructions, but then she sends the aide forward to sit beside the driver, seals off our compartment with two seats facing forward and two back to enable conversation, and turns to me.
“Well, Ealy, what did you think?”
I make a couple of polite comments about the dome’s organization and the lettuce, but she waves me to silence with a wrist flick. “Yes, yes. That’s not why I really asked you to accompany me today. I want to hear about your progress, directly from you, not filtered by Dr. Usher.”
Lifting my brows mentally at that, I give her a concise run-down on my research, methodology, results to date, and planned next steps. She listens intently, head slightly cocked to one side, face impassive. This close, I notice as many silver-gray hairs as blond ones in her neat coif.
“Lord willing and the volcano don’t explode,” I finish, “we’ll have proof—”
“What did you say? Where did you hear that?” The color has drained out of Minister Alden’s face, and her eyes are fixed on me, staring, pools of ice blue against her dead-white skin.
“Proof,” I say, puzzled. “Proof that the viral vector will successfully—”
“No. That bit about the volcano.”
“A—a friend used to say it.” Her expression makes me nervous.
“You know Alexander,” she breathes.
I’m afraid to admit it, even though she knows who I really am. Confirming my association with Bulrush seems like a bad idea. I could kick myself for allowing the distinctive phrase to slip out. “Um—”
“He’s . . . alive?” She’s leaning forward and color has flooded back into her cheeks, making her look younger suddenly. The tension in her voice seems more fitting for a question about a new flu outbreak.
“I don’t know what—”
“Cut the crap, Ealy,” she snaps. “Just tell me—Alexander Ford—Is he alive?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
She sags against the seat, eyes closed. “Oh, my God.”
Her reaction puzzles and intrigues me. Before I can make sense of it, her eyes fly open. “When? Where? When did you last see him?”
I see no point to lying. “Just before I came to Atlanta. He was ill, but alive. He was injured in the attack where I got captured, but Wy—friends helped him escape and find a doctor.”
She exhales the ghost of a laugh. “Alexander had—has—friends everywhere. There’s something about him that draws people. He commands a loyalty I—” She stops on something like a sob. “I thought he was dead.”
The aide is peering at us from the other side of the tinted partition, suspicious. I turn my back on her and face Minister Alden. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind my asking, how do you know Alexander?”
She presses her index fingers to her tear ducts, perhaps to keep her eyes from filling. Blinking twice, she composes herself, and says, “He was my husband.”
I stare at her blankly. It’s silent for a long moment. Finally, I can’t contain myself. “Your husband? But he—You—He said he and his wife—you—helped found the Pragmatist party. I thought, I assumed, his wife was dead.” My mind is whirling as I try to remember everything Alexander told me about his younger days.
“We are dead to each other,” Minister Alden said, her voice steady but her expression sad. “Divorced longer now than we were married.”
“Ma’am, if you don’t mind my asking, what happened? How did you and he meet?”
“You want my life history now, Jax?”
She doesn’t seem to notice that she called me by my real name. I take it as a sign of how hearing about Alexander has jolted her, and simply nod. Thank goodness we are sealed off from the aide and the driver.
“It’s a long story. I was born in the first decade of this century, so I was a teenager—about your age, actually—when the pandemic hit. Like you, I was a science prodigy, and I was in my third year at Stanford—that was a highly respected university in what’s now the Cali-Mex Territories—researching vaccine mismatches that can occur in the face of antigenic shift under the supervision of your own Dr. Ronan.” She smiles. “He’s really a softy underneath that crusty exterior, but nothing exists for him outside the lab.”
“He had a daughter.”
Her brows arch. “Did he? I never knew. Anyway, I traveled home—my family was in Virginia—before the Presidential Order shut down air travel—but I was too late. My mother was already dead and my father on the verge of death, my brothers missing. I’ve never learned what happened to them, but chances are they’re dead, too.” She doesn’t pause for any condolences. “The next few years . . . were a struggle for survival. The lowest circle of hell. What I’ll never forget are the smells: rotting corpses, dust, bleach, sickly floral chemical deodorizers that only made it all worse.” She shudders and sniffs. “You don’t want to hear all this and I don’t want to talk about it.
“I met Alexander Ford at a meeting, a gathering for people who wanted to establish a centralized government and realized military force would be necessary to squash the militias, criminals, and roving bands of armed marauders who were looting, killing and raping at will. Alexander was strong and thoughtful. We were imme
diately attracted to one another. We married months after meeting and fought together to form Amerada and pull the country back from the brink of total annihilation. We were a team. Inseparable. Unbeatable.”
She lapses into silence and I prod her after a respectful moment. “What happened?”
“The country’s relative stability put our relationship on rocky ground, ironically. Alexander’s opinions diverged more and more from the core cadre’s as we formed the government. He argued against the RESCOs, and the procreation laws. He could have been premier, but instead, he marginalized himself by holding out for individual rights. He wouldn’t be practical. He refused to see that the people needed guidance, that the government needed to establish and run programs that would get our infrastructure rebuilt, and grow our population. He especially objected to—” She folds her lips over whatever she was going to say.
“I’ve been in a RESCO,” I say. “I know the women in there aren’t all volunteers. How can you defend that?”
“It’s a matter of national survival,” she says, almost as if relieved to have something to talk about besides Alexander. “Our population dropped to dangerously low levels and the situation was further complicated by the teratogenic effects of the insecticides used against the locusts. Too many people’s DNA was corrupted, too many women were unable to carry a child to term. You know all this.” She sounds like a proctor disappointed by a student’s inability to remember an easy lesson. “We had no choice. We needed to ensure that the babies being carried in the few available wombs had the abilities necessary to save Amerada. Don’t you see that? ‘Average’ wouldn’t do, never mind below average. Imagine the drain on our very limited resources, our already strained food production facilities, if citizens went on having babies with health issues, learning difficulties, sub-par IQs? Who would take care of them?
“We tried surrogacy on a strictly voluntary basis first—of course we did! But it wasn’t enough. Women were sometimes willing to carry one geneborn child, but not two or three. And too many of them wanted to keep and raise the baby they bore. It wasn’t viable. More people were still dying than being born. We were headed for national extinction. We—the first Pragmatists—decided that individual rights had to give way in time of national emergency. There’s precedent for that. Think of the Patriot Act in the early part of the century, the quarantines during the pandemic, and the like. The RESCOs are a natural extension of that, nothing more. They’re a temporary, but necessary, solution.”
“Alexander clearly didn’t think so.” I’m not sure what I think.
Sadness weighs her face down, dragging at the corners of her mouth. “Some of the others began to see him as a threat. I was viewed with suspicion, too, because of my association with him.”
“Is that why you left him?”
“I didn’t leave,” she says with an intensity that would bore through granite. The aide knocks on the partition separating us, clearly worried, and Minister Alden makes a calming motion. “I would never have left him,” she says. “Never. He left. He left me. I know it was both to allow me to play a role in the new government and to keep himself safe, but he should have discussed it with me, not just disappeared. I was back from a six month temporary assignment less than a week, when I found a note one morning. He was gone. With our son.”
It dawns on me that Idris is her son. I visualize his face, trying to see any similarities. Around the eyes, maybe, now that I’m thinking about it. Something in the way the upper eyelids slope ever so slightly down at the corners. Should I mention him?
“I searched for them, using all the assets at my disposal. I got sporadic reports of sightings, but nothing definitive.” She squares her shoulders. “I went on with my life. I went on with our work. I’ve made a difference, and I don’t know why the hell I’m telling you all this.” Her expression sours.
“Because I know him and I can see why you loved him so much.” I feel sorry for her and I admire her. She’s given up everything to serve Amerada.
“You are wise beyond your years, J—Ealy,” she says. Tell me how—No, don’t.” Holding a hand in front of her face, she shields herself. “He’s chosen his path and I’ve chosen mine, and our paths won’t cross again. Let’s not ever speak of this. In fact, forget this conversation ever happened.”
She delivers the last sentence crisply; it’s an order. She’s recovered herself and, I can tell, is regretting revealing so much. Part of me wants to tell her where he is, facilitate a reunion, but my pragmatic side insists there’s too much water under the bridge and that I can’t endanger him and Idris by telling her about the Belle. Idris would kill me, even if she is his mother.
Minister Alden lowers the partition and motions to the aide who casts me a viperous look as she takes my place beside the minister. I ignore her and resettle opposite them. Maybe I can get word to Alexander that she still pines for him, and let him take the initiative?
I’m pondering this when the ACV suddenly rocks. My head snaps forward. What—? Four single-seat ACVs mounted with weapons swarm around our vehicle. As I duck, I catch sight of a swathe of red hair streaming from beneath one attacker’s helmet. The hairs on my arms prickle up. Rhedyn? Surely not.
The driver’s voice comes through the intercom, tinny and terse. “We’re under attack, ma’am. I’m taking evasive maneuvers. Heads down.”
I raise my head long enough to see our outriders flash by on their ACVs. Bullets pepper the polyglass. We serpentine and pick up speed. A larger caliber weapon explodes nearby, jolting us sideways. The aide squeals and curls into a ball on the floor, hands over her head. Minister Alden maintains her calm, straightening after a few munitions-free seconds to peer out the rear window.
“The lieutenant has them on the run,” she announces, smoothing her tunic over her thighs. “Sit up and stop moaning, Eunice,” she tells the aide.
The woman slumps on the seat, still keeping a low profile. “Who do you think they were, ma’am?”
“Outlaws or opposition. If the lieutenant and his men capture them, we may discover whether it was a random attack or if I was targeted. The selection’s only weeks away. It would be convenient for some people if I were no longer in the running for the premiership.” Her lips thin to the width of a knife’s edge. “Oh, yes, Ealy,” she says, correctly interpreting my appalled look. “There are factions who would stoop to assassination to control the premiership. Your old friend Oliver Fonner . . . well, I don’t know that he would kill me, but he’s been aiming for the top job since we were in our twenties. And there are plenty of people who feel geneborns are the only ones qualified to hold any ministerial level office or above now. It wouldn’t surprise me if Dr. Usher was of their number. Although, he’d probably get my job if I were elevated, so I don’t suspect him personally. Politics is a dirty business. Always has been, always will be.”
I make mental notes, thinking this is just the kind of political intelligence Idris wants.
We continue on without further incident, taking an alternate route to the MSFP. My thoughts are dark. All in all, I hope the attackers were outlaws taking potshots at a random government ACV. My next choice would be opposition members. As awful as it is to think that someone might have tried to assassinate Minister Alden so she won’t be premier, it’s worse for me to think that it might have been a Defiance attack, that Idris might have—unknowingly—targeted his mother for death. Of course, I don’t know for sure that it was Rhedyn I saw. Red hair is not all that uncommon.
I could find a way to tell Idris . . . but, no. Alexander knows. If he wanted Idris to know, he wouldn’t have told him his mother was dead. I can’t begin to fathom his motivation for that. Trying to figure it out, I almost trip getting out of the ACV, bumping into the minister. I redden and mumble my apologies, thanking her profusely for inviting me, and then jog toward the lab, putting the dome, Minister Alden’s revelations, and the attack out of my mind. The locusts await.
Chapter Twenty Five
Torina is
still alone in the lab when I arrive. She’s hunched over a microscope, but looks up and smiles when I enter.
“Where’s Dr. Usher?” I ask. It’s a relief to have him gone, but I feel safer when I know where he is, like I would feel safer knowing a cobra’s whereabouts if there were one around.
“Traveling for two days,” she says, her smile suggesting she’s as happy as I am at his absence. “Not sure where. He might’ve gone up to see his mother—he does that a couple of times a year. I’m in charge while he’s away. Was there something you needed him for?”
Shaking my head, I stop by my work station briefly and then let myself into the locust room. I realize I’ve crossed my fingers, and I untwine them. Going immediately to the cage with the genetically manipulated batch of locusts, I stand in front of it, eyes closed for a moment. Show me no pointy abdomens, no ovipositors. The egg-laying organ at the end of the females’ abdomens develops jaws she uses to dig a hole in dirt and lay eggs. It’s a strange organ, a cross between a digging apparatus and an egg delivery tube, unique to grasshopper species, although some bees and wasps have ovipositors that can slice into a tree trunk or host to lay eggs. Our viral time-bomb is attached to the development of that organ. Instead of completing its ovipositor development, every female should just die instead, from an autoimmune attack on its own DNA.
Let me see rounded abdomens only. No jaws. No points. I open my eyes. It takes a moment for my brain to process what I’m seeing. Half of the population dead, the ends of their abdomens dark, stunted nubs. And of the live ones, no pointy abdomens. I check the next, and the next. No egg-laying jaws. I tease each one apart from its neighbor, bracing for the telltale sharp protrusions. But there are none. It works. The solution to eradication of the entire locust population—we’ve found it. This is a very small sample, and it will take years to spread the virus to every last enclave of locusts in Amerada, but we can start. There’s hope. I realize I’m shaking and grip the table to steady my hands. The table is solid under my hands, real. This is real. A wave of dizziness makes me sway, but then fierce exultation rises in me, making my chest swell so much it hurts. We did it. It’s within the realm of possibility to talk about eradicating locusts worldwide.
Incineration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 2) Page 18