Genesis

by Lara Morgan

  Then she remembered she’d put one of the pod’s illuminating sticks in her pocket. She shoved her hands into the side pockets of her jeans and, with an intense surge of relief, felt the slim glo-tube under her fingertips.

  She twisted the top. A soft yellow glow formed and Pip squinted in the sudden light.

  “Lucky,” he said. “How long will it last?”

  “Maybe an hour or two.”

  “Great. Let’s go then.”

  Gripping the tube like a lifeline, Rosie held the light aloft and led them towards the stairwell.

  It went down three short flights. On the second landing they passed a door that had been welded shut. On the door were the remains of a name: G-5. Rosie wondered if there were unused labs behind it.

  “Hey.” She played the light over the edge of the door. “This door’s been sealed – the metal’s all melted.”

  “Rosie, come on.” Pip was two steps further down.

  She ignored him. “Do you think this has anything to do with what happened to Riley’s parents?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  He paused then said quietly, “I was here.”

  Rosie turned to him. “But that was ten years ago.” Had he been working for Helios since he was eight?

  “Yeah, I know.” He was strangely still and in his expression she saw reluctance, or guilt, or something else. Shame? “I was born here, Rosie,” he said. “I grew up here.”

  Suddenly, things made more sense. Why he seemed different to other Ferals, why he’d been so loyal to Helios. He was born into it. She took a step backwards.

  He watched her move and a bitterness twisted his face.

  “I knew you’d think that,” he said.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t have to.” He slouched back against the stair railing.

  “Well, what am I supposed to think?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m not one of them any more, Rosie. It’s different now”

  “Is it?” Despite everything, she wanted to believe him. “Are your parents really dead?” she said. “Or did you lie about that as well?”

  “I didn’t lie,” he answered fiercely and his voice echoed through the stairwell. “Yuang killed them. He used them as test subjects, just like I don’t know how many others. Kids I knew, people–” He stopped his chest working as he tried to control his breath.

  “So why did you keep working for him?” Rosie asked.

  “You think I knew?” His eyes widened in disbelief. “I had no idea. I thought I was helping. I’ve known Yuang since I was a kid. He took care of me after my parents–” He took in a sharp breath. He gripped the handrail as if he was going to rip it from the wall. When he spoke again his voice was quieter but tightly controlled. “He told me we were finding a cure for the MalX, Rosie. I didn’t know then that Helios was killing people to find a cure.” His gaze was intense. “Do you think I would have done all those things if I’d known?”

  Rosie couldn’t reply. She was shaken by the pain she saw in his eyes, the anger. Not at her but at a man who had lied to him, who’d taken his parents.

  “I saved your life, Rosie, and I’m trying to save your family and stop him now. Isn’t that enough?”

  His gaze was pleading and almost desperate. But she didn’t have an answer. She wasn’t sure what to think. “I don’t know,” she said, trying to be honest, but it wasn’t what he wanted.

  Disappointment filled his eyes and he exhaled and looked down as he said quietly, “Right.”

  She felt terrible, but really what did he expect? “So what was this?” She gestured at the door.

  He paused then said, “It was living quarters, where some of the Ferals they brought up from Earth stayed. They sealed it after the Shore lab blew up.”

  “What happened to everyone?” Rosie said, but Pip turned away.

  “They said they’d been sent back to Earth. Come on, we gotta keep going.”

  Rosie followed him, a sick feeling in her gut. From his tone it was clear he didn’t believe they’d gone back to Earth and she didn’t either. But did that mean she could trust him? What would she do if she found out everything she had believed as a kid was a lie?

  At the bottom of the stairs was a door with an ordinary handle, no security keypad. Pip put his ear to it and, at her enquiring look, shook his head. “Nothing.”

  He opened the door a crack and they both peered through.

  On the other side was a long, brightly lit hallway intersected by six doors and two more hallways a few metres apart.

  “Which way?” Rosie whispered.

  He hesitated. “I think it’s the second hallway.”

  They crept along the right wall.

  It was very quiet and smelled sharply of cleaning fluid, as if someone had only recently mopped. She turned the glo-tube off and shoved it back into her pocket.

  They neared the first door and Rosie thought she heard a soft moan. She froze. Pip had heard it too. Jerking his chin towards the door, he made a dipping and sliding motion with his hand.

  There was a square window in the top of the door and he was telling her to duck underneath it. But what if someone in there needed help? She shook her head and mouthed at him, “Let’s just take a look.”

  He frowned and shook his head violently, motioning her to follow him.

  Screw that, Rosie thought and peeked through the bottom half of the window as she passed.

  The room was deceptively long, much longer than she’d thought it would be; she could barely see the end. Lines of beds filled it, most of them with the humped shape of a person lying on top. Tubes protruded from their arms, running to square machines that hung from the roof above each bed. Moving among them were the buzzing forms of medibots, checking the machines, like farmers checking rows of crops. One of the metallic heads turned and unblinking red lights beamed at her.

  Rosie stared, transfixed and shocked.

  “Rosie!” Pip dragged her away. “Those robots have a direct link to the surveillance.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you get it?” Pip said. “He’ll have seen us now. Run!” He pushed her up the hall.

  She ran. They passed a second door and the view of what was inside burned on her retina like the aftermath of a flash. More bodies, more tubes and the unblinking red lights of the medibots.

  They sprinted around a corner and down another hallway. This one had doors only on the left side. Pip was a few metres ahead when a door opened right in front of him and a medibot glided out. It extended a metallic arm and unleashed a charge of electricity into him.

  “Pip!” Rosie shouted.

  He jolted and seemed to just hang in the air, quivering as the charge ripped through him.

  Rosie kept running and slammed into him as hard as she could, knocking him away, but the electricity conducted back into her and she screamed in pain as they fell to the floor. Her muscles spasmed and for a second she couldn’t breathe. Fighting it, Rosie rolled to her knees. Pip lay beside her, groaning, his eyes closed.

  “Pip!” She shook his arm. “Pip, get up!” She could taste blood and behind them, the medibot was whirling and turning back towards them. Beyond it two more emerged steadily from doors at the end of the hall.

  “Pip, they’re coming!” Rosie pulled at him but he only groaned. The medibot that had zapped him moved towards her, its red eye-lights steady and arm extended.

  She let go of his arm and looked desperately for a weapon, but there was nothing. She tried to remember her robotics studies. The bots were built for working, chores … The panel at the back. She ran at it, dodging the arm at the last minute and skipping behind. The medibot was not much taller than her, even hovering, and she leaped onto it, using the narrow flare at the base for a foothold. She hooked an arm around its metal head and pulled off the maintenance panel, then grabbed a handful of wires and yanked as hard as she could. The bot’s hum increased to a high-pitched wail and
it skewed sideways, its hover functions disabled. It crashed to the floor and Rosie leaped clear as it landed.

  Not stopping to watch, she ran back to Pip. “Get up!” she shouted, trying to lift him. The two other bots were advancing now and there was no way she could take on them both. They’d be downloaded with enough power to light a small town if they didn’t move. “Pip!”

  He groaned and rose to his feet. She hooked her arm around his waist and forced him into a run. “Which way?” she said, as he stumbled alongside her. He was so heavy, her shoulders ached from his weight.

  “Cage.” He pointed ahead with an unsteady hand.

  Rosie saw what she’d thought had been a door at the end of the hall was actually a shaft covered by a fine mesh. A cage? Whatever. Dragging him, she ran towards it, the bots humming behind her like a couple of bees.

  Thank God they were medibots, not the soldier robots the Senate used for border patrol. They had no guns.

  They reached the cage. Pip leaned against the metal casing, watching the medibots, as Rosie fumbled with the latch. “Rosie,” he mumbled a warning.

  “I know!” She didn’t dare turn; she could hear them closing in. The latch sprang open revealing an open-topped cage suspended in a long shaft. She helped Pip over the high lip and then jumped in herself. But as she passed the inner door, something cold and metallic closed around her ankle and pulled.

  She screamed and fell facedown. One of the bots had hold of her. It began to drag her backwards. Pip grabbed her arms, but the bot kept pulling. It was cutting into her ankle as it tried to pull her back out. “Shut the door on it!” Rosie yelled.

  “It might break your ankle!” Pip was straining to keep hold of her. His feet were braced against the floor, and she could see the effort it was taking for him to keep her inside. She felt as though her arm was going to pop out of its socket. Tears came to her eyes.

  “Do it!” she shrieked. Either way something had to give or the bot was going to wrench the bone out of her flesh.

  Pip gave her a worried look then kicked the door control. Immediately, the outer cage door swept shut. It smashed against the metal of the robotic arm and pushed Rosie’s foot hard against the cage’s inner door. Pain like she’d never felt before pierced her ankle and ran up to her hip. She screamed. The robot let go and Pip hauled her in as the inner door slammed shut. The cage shot upwards, but as it did, the medibot released a bolt of energy that conducted through the metal, hitting them both like a parting kiss. From within a haze of pain, Rosie was almost grateful as the electricity struck her and blackness descended.

  CHAPTER 37

  Rosie opened her eyes to pain. She was lying on her stomach on the floor of the cage, the metal pressing crosses into her cheek. Hot lances of agony from her ankle throbbed up her calf. She gritted her teeth and rolled over, then dragged herself to the back of the cage. She sat with her back against the cool metal. They seemed to have stopped in the middle of the chute because she couldn’t see anything through the mesh of the door other than a blank metal wall. Dim light was falling from above, enough to make out Pip lying on his back next to her, a streak of dried blood on his forehead.

  “Pip,” she whispered. He didn’t move. She reached out and shook his shoulder. “Pip?”

  He made a soft noise and, encouraged, she shook harder. “Pip, wake up.”

  “What?” he said, his voice echoing in the chute.

  “Sh! Keep it down.”

  He opened his eyes but didn’t attempt to get up.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Like I’ve been electrocuted. How’s your foot?”

  “I don’t think it’s broken.” She tried to wiggle her toes and almost bit her tongue as pain stabbed her ankle.

  Pip rolled over with a grunt and sat up next to her, the cage swaying slightly with his movements. He looked at her foot. “We should strap it.”

  “With what exactly?” The pain was making her angry.

  “I don’t know but you’re not going to be able to move fast like that.”

  “Really? Thanks, I wasn’t aware of that fact.”

  “Don’t get pissed at me; you told me to shut the door.”

  “I know.” Rosie closed her eyes for a moment. “Wish I had some of Riley’s painkillers right now.”

  “You and me both.”

  She opened her eyes. “Any idea where we are or why the cage stopped?”

  “Yeah. I think I stopped it. Just after the bastard bot zapped us I kicked the controls again before I passed out. I think I must have hit something. Maybe I broke it.”

  “So we’re stuck here?”

  “What, you’d rather be caught by the grunts?”

  Rosie tried to breathe through the pain. “I’d rather be just about anywhere than here.”

  “You should have listened to me. I told you not to look but you had to do it.”

  “Yeah, well … okay, you were right. But I saved your life when I pushed you away from the medibot.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “It was your fault they came out.”

  “So …” she faltered, frustrated.

  “So I guess that’s two to me, one to you.”

  “It’s not a game, Pip.”

  His eyes were full of weariness. “It’s not? You sure? It feels like it and you keep changing the rules.”

  Rosie kept her temper with difficulty. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  “What do I mean?” He looked at her as if she were dense. “Well, you don’t like me, you do like me, you want to hold my hand, you want me to leave you alone. You won’t trust me, but you want me to help you. I can’t figure you out.”

  Rosie wanted to slap him. “It’s hard to trust someone who lies all the time.”

  “Not all the time.” His look was steady and there was a something in there she didn’t want to deal with right now.

  “Did you really not know you were immune to the MalX?” she said, changing the subject.

  He stared at her for a moment then looked up at the cage roof. “You still won’t believe me.”

  “What do you expect? You betrayed us. My dad and aunt are dying because of you lying to me.” She paused. “You know Riley told me they tortured him.”

  “Yeah, well, he wouldn’t have been the first.” Pip avoided her gaze and picked at the hem of his jeans.

  “And that makes it okay?”

  “I didn’t say that, but–” Rosie saw that his fingers were shaking slightly as he pulled at a loose thread. “You have no idea what they can do.”

  The retort that had been on her lips faded. There was no bravado in his voice. Instead, there was a note that spoke of the experience of things she didn’t want to know about. Pain. For the first time she noticed a pale bruise on the side of his head.

  “So what are you going to do?” she said. “Kill Yuang?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  His tone chilled her. It wasn’t an empty statement. “Killing him won’t bring your parents back.”

  “I’m not an idiot.” His eyes glinted. “But maybe this universe is better off without him.”

  “Pip …”

  “Don’t,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  She leaned towards him. “Pip,” she said. “I’m sorry you had to grow up here and I’m sorry they killed your parents, but they killed my mum too, you know, and I don’t want my dad and aunt to die as well. I want to trust you – I just don’t know if I can.”

  His face was impassive. “You said your mum died from the MalX.”

  “She did. But it’s not just some disease that developed on Earth. It was Helios, Pip; they made it up here in a lab. That’s what Riley is really after. It’s not just about exposing Helios for doing the tests they did on you and your parents; he’s after proof that Helios made the MalX and released it on Earth.”

  He frowned like he didn’t believe her.

  “Don’t you see?” she said. “They sent the disease to Earth by m
istake but never tried to fix it. They knew all along and are pretending that they’re helping to cure it, while all the time it was their fault.”

  “Well,” he said finally. “I can’t say that surprises me.”

  “Is that all you can say?” she said.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know – something! That you’ll help me. That stopping Helios is important, that you won’t just run off on some revenge trip to get Yuang and leave me to–” She stopped, suddenly more upset than angry. How could he just sit there? There were tears in her eyes and she blinked them away, annoyed at her weakness.

  Pip watched her but she couldn’t read what was behind his blue gaze.

  “What?” she said angrily.

  “I wasn’t going to leave you,” he said. “Why would I have untied you in the lab if I was going to do that?”

  “I don’t know … To get the codes?”

  “But I haven’t even asked you for them.”

  No, he hadn’t. Rosie looked down at her hands and took a long breath, feeling her emotions subside. Why were they arguing?

  “My ankle hurts,” she said.

  A small smile curved Pip’s mouth. “Yeah, so does my head.”

  They sat silently for a while. All this was getting them nowhere.

  “Do you have any idea where that information on the MalX might be?” she said.

  He shifted, bending a knee and resting one arm on it. “I’d say most of the really important stuff, including the code key, would be in Yuang’s rooms.”

  “How do we get in?”

  “I know his security pass.”

  “How’d you get that?”

  He shrugged. “I’m observant. But we’re going to have to strap that.” He pointed at her ankle.

  “I think we’re going to have to get out of the cage first.”

  “Yeah, well,” Pip nodded at the panel, “it’s busted.”

  “Let me look.” Rosie got to her knees and tried to shuffle to the controls but a sharp pain stabbed at her ankle. “Ow!” She sat down heavily beneath the panel and closed her eyes for a second. Her ankle felt as if someone was hammering on it.