Third Wave: Bones of Eden

by Zaide Bishop

  There was a sign by the gate, faded now, with dead roots marring the surface, as if someone had ripped away a portion of the vines smothering everything else.

  After the dinosaurs fell, the megafauna rose!

  Experience life as it was forty thousand years BC, when mammoths and saber-toothed tigers roamed and ruled. Brought back from extinction in 2057, the globe’s megafauna lives once again. Prehistoric Park is the world’s largest megafauna zoo, with animals from the Asia Pacific, South America and Africa.

  See the first-ever second-generation diprotodon. Meet Kenny, the world’s largest megalania!

  Adult: $198

  Child/Concession: $150

  Family Pass: $499

  Weekend tour package: $1400

  The pictures were of megalania, smilodons, short-faced bears, thylacines, moas and long-tusked mammoths.

  Tango headed for the shore, dragging the canoe out of the reach of the waves and picking her way nimbly to the sign. Xícara hurried after, scanning the roads and fallen buildings as if a smilodon was going to leap out and attack her at any moment.

  Sugar gave an exasperated sigh, rolling his eyes, then glancing at Charlie. He seemed to remember he wasn’t talking to her before she could smile in return. He stalked up the beach without her.

  Her shoulders slumped, and she trailed after him. For an instant, he’d been about to talk to her. How long was this going to go on? What if she gave birth and they still weren’t talking? What if he never got to feel their babies kicking?

  “Look at them.” Tango touched the images on the sign. “It’s hard to believe they made all these things.”

  “Why?” Sugar said, irritated. “They made us, didn’t they?”

  “But these were all extinct. Then they brought them back and stuck them in cages so they could look at all the things they destroyed.”

  “Maybe Eden was a zoo, too,” Xícara said.

  “There’ll be a sign at Eden.” Charlie looked up the beach toward the dome. “Paperwork. We’ll know for sure soon.”

  Tango looked at her hands. “Maybe it’s a bad idea. Maybe we’re better off not knowing.”

  Charlie put her arm around her waist, leaning her head on her shoulder. “We might not be happier, it’s true. But we will be better off. I promise.”

  “How can you promise that?”

  “There’s nothing good about ignorance, that’s why. Come on, let’s get a move on.” She pointed to the saber-toothed smilodon. “In case that is hiding out somewhere in the zoo.”

  Chapter Six

  Xícara took the rear, where he could watch the others and where he hoped he would be the first to be attacked if something was stalking them. Charlie should have been his priority, that her safety should be more important than anyone else’s, but it was still Tango he worried about the most.

  He didn’t understand her at all. She had risked everything to bring him food when the Elikai were starving in the wet season. She blushed and mumbled when she had to talk to him, yet when he had tried to tell her he wanted to be close to her, she had rejected him. He’d been hurt, but mostly it was confusing. She was the only reason he was here. Charlie and Sugar could look for their origins and magical new science all they liked. All he wanted was to get Tango home safely again.

  He looked up at Eden, a looming, shit-stained dome. He never wanted to come back here. He loathed the place, loathed all memory of it. He had hated living every day apprehensive, waiting to be dragged away for needles or punished for pissing in the wrong place. When he had been young all he wanted was to play in the mud, chase the dogs and eat honey. All of those things seemed to warrant punishment, and he spent many nights hungry or cold or bored as they took away his privileges.

  Who had the right to take away the freedoms of someone else? The memories of being little, of being controlled, still gave Xícara nightmares.

  The hole Tare had dug through the wall of Eden was, as Xícara remembered, far too small for them to get inside.

  “Did we really squeeze through here?” Sugar stared at it, aghast.

  “We were smaller,” Xícara repeated.

  “I don’t feel bigger. Certainly not...” Sugar crouched down and wiggled his arm in the gap. It was too small for even his shoulder to fit inside, let alone his head. “We’re going to need something to chip it open.”

  Charlie crouched down beside Sugar, who hopped backward to get away from her.

  “This is blood, isn’t it?” She touched old stains so faint Xícara had barely noticed them.

  “Tare hurt himself a lot getting out. He sort of lost his mind for a bit.”

  She frowned. “We should look for another way in. Just in case.”

  Sugar nodded, and together, the four of them made their way around the building. The huge doors that led into the facility had once been walled off with gates and guard houses, only just big enough for a Kai to stand in. At some point, someone had tried to seal off the perimeter with miles of razor wire, all tangled together in a huge twelve-foot nest of wire and spikes. There were bodies in knots of metal and burns across the walls. People had died in the dozens trying to get inside Eden.

  They were little more than dust shells now, their bones scattered by animals small enough to brave the deadly tangle of wires.

  “I don’t think we’re going in this way,” Tango said, eyeing the scene with distaste. Xícara fought back the urge to touch her. To reassure her.

  “What about over there?” Charlie asked.

  Some sort of machinery, like a large car but with huge metal prongs on the front, had plowed into the smooth expanse of the dome. The prongs had pierced the wall, and the gap was considerably larger than the one the Elikai had made when they were children.

  Sugar clambered cautiously onto the machinery, testing if it would hold his weight before he eased himself down onto the flat metal prong, peering into the darkness.

  He crinkled his nose. “It stinks like jaguar piss.”

  “That’s not a good sign,” Xícara muttered.

  “It’s getting late.” Tango glanced up. “We need to secure a shelter.”

  On the beach, to the south, the sun still illuminated the sands, but they were all standing in shadow now. The high rise of the dead buildings blocked the last of the afternoon light.

  “You’re right,” Sugar said. “I don’t think we should camp inside Eden. We need to find somewhere we can defend out here. Somewhere we’ll still get moonlight.”

  Charlie pointed up. “The goats seem to think it’s safe up there.”

  Sugar glanced up at the sagging, moldering buildings and frowned. “I’m not sure...”

  Xícara nodded. They looked unstable and more than a little creepy.

  “Sleep down here, then,” Charlie said with a scowl, picking her way across the road and scrambling onto the roof of a car. From there she jumped, grabbing the railing of a balcony and hauling herself up and over the rusted fence.

  “Careful!” Tango called. She followed her sister onto the car. Xícara tailed her, waiting on the road.

  “There’s nothing up here but goat shit,” Charlie called back. Xícara stood on his tiptoes, trying to see where she’d gone, but he could only make out her shoulder. Then she vanished.

  “Charlie!” Tango pulled up onto the balcony after her, mounting the railing with ease. “Go and get the supplies from the canoe,” she said, glancing back at Xícara.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.

  Tango frowned, looking into the building. “Yeah. I think so. Give me your spear, then go.”

  Xícara handed it up. His fingers brushed hers, and a thrill ran up his spine. Sugar was still standing on the other side of the road, shifting back and forth uneasily. Xícara didn’t care about the stupid fight with Ch
arlie. He was going to go where the Varekai went. If Sugar wanted to sulk on the road all night, he could do it alone.

  “I’ll be right back,” Xícara promised.

  Tango nodded, then slipped out of sight after Charlie.

  Xícara stopped by Sugar’s side. “I’m going to get the packs, then I’m going up there with Tango. Are you coming?”

  Sugar’s jaw worked as he glared sullenly at the dark space the Varekai had disappeared into. “Yes.”

  Xícara swallowed his impatience. “Good.”

  Together, Xícara and Sugar carried the packs from the canoes up the street and handed them up from the roof of the car to Tango and Charlie, then they scrambled over the railing themselves. Once, there had been glass doors leading out onto the balcony. They had shattered, and patches of pebbly glass still clung in the corners. It had broken smoothly, the glass collapsing into round nodules that littered the balcony and the floor inside.

  The room was vast compared to the huts and shelters the Kai made on the islands. Bigger, even, than the caves the Elikai camped in, though the ceiling was much lower than the vault-like Varekai cave. It felt exposed to Xícara, but at least it was high up. Broken furniture had been heaped against the only door.

  “Did you do that?” he asked.

  Tango snorted. “Yeah, we had time and energy to throw around a heap of old junk.”

  He stepped closer and realized the stack of furniture was all liberally coated in dust. “Someone must have locked themselves in here.”

  “No sign of them now,” Charlie said. “Just a dead rat.”

  She kicked the aforementioned creature off the edge of the balcony. It was so stiff and dry it held its shape as it bounced across the road below.

  “We can break up some of this,” Tango said, pulling at a desk leg. “And make a fire. Should keep predators away.”

  “Still, someone has to keep watch,” Sugar said.

  “I’ll go first,” Charlie offered.

  Sugar looked away, and Xícara exchanged a look with Tango, both of them equally frustrated he was still avoiding Charlie. Together, they started setting up their camp, cleaning away the glass, laying out their hides to sleep on and making a fire. They passed around water bottles and shared the food. Sugar prepared the spit, and they tied the piglet onto it with scraps of wire Sugar pulled out of a computer.

  Darkness drifted down, and soon there was only the orange light of the flames and the crackling of wood and pig fat. The smoke and sizzling meat relaxed Xícara, making him feel like he was home again, even though home was a long way away across the channel. Which felt like an impossible distance now he was tired.

  They ate in silence, listening to the strange sounds of the mainland—hoots and wails, screeches and long, echoing moans. Once they were full, Sugar stretched out and closed his eyes. Tango yawned, speaking quietly to Charlie for a few minutes before wrapping herself in fur and leaning against a wall to sleep. Charlie padded out onto the balcony, sitting cross-legged to watch the street. The fire was burning low, and her hair seemed to glow from behind.

  Xícara studied Tango, eyes already closed. He wanted to be close to her, but he didn’t want to disturb her. Instead, he rose to his feet and picked his way over to sit beside Charlie.

  “What are you hoping we’ll find in there?” he asked quietly, indicating Eden across the road.

  “The truth.”

  “If it isn’t there?”

  “Then we’ll know there is nothing worth coming back for.” She took his hand suddenly, pulling it onto her belly. “Here. Feel that?”

  He was startled. “No, I...” Something squirmed under his palm. He almost jerked away. “Wow.”

  “See?”

  “They’re moving.”

  She chuckled quietly. “Yeah, mostly when I’m trying to sleep.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No. Just feels weird.”

  They sat in silence for a while, and she let go of his hand. He folded it in his lap. Down below, he thought he saw the smooth, hairless shape of an animal, sulking through the shadows. It was gone before he got a good look at it.

  “Tango...” He looked at Charlie, then at his hands, not sure how to finish.

  Charlie smiled. “She likes you.”

  “She does?” His heart skipped, a sudden hope rising up inside him.

  “She’s always asking Tare about you.”

  “Why won’t she talk to me?” He picked at his fingernails.

  Charlie shrugged. “It’s hard, having feelings. Remember we used to think it was sickness? Some kind of madness? I feel bad for the Kai who got killed because they loved someone and we didn’t know any better. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed too.”

  “I just want to make her happy,” Xícara murmured.

  “She gets tongue-tied. I think she feels like an idiot.”

  “She’s not,” he protested. “She’s wonderful.”

  Charlie grinned. “Yeah. I don’t have the answers, Xícara. I kind of screwed everything up.”

  He was silent for a moment. It was hard not to have mixed feelings about what had happened during the storms. He would probably have died if not for Tango. “You did the right thing in the end.”

  “Sort of.” She sighed and leaned on him. “I don’t regret it. Am I a bad person?”

  He shrugged. “No, you’re just a person.”

  Chapter Seven

  Tango took the last watch and saw nothing but the fleeting shape of a pig vanishing into a doorway. She watched the sun rise as the others slowly woke. They packed up quietly and clambered down from their nighttime shelter, making their way across the road to where the machinery had pierced Eden’s shell. They slipped inside one at a time, Sugar lighting torches and passing them around. They had never been in this part of Eden. A grand foyer led to a security checkpoint, now barren and empty. The smell of feline piss was heavy and stale in the air, along with a worrying rot-mold smell. While many molds were harmless, many more could be toxic. A chest infection could kill, and both tribes had always been wary of bats and their guano for this very reason.

  “We need to find the power room,” Sugar said. “See if we can get the lights on.”

  “Do you think they’ll still work?” Charlie asked.

  He shrugged, and for a moment, Tango thought he wasn’t going to say more. He’d been going to great lengths to ignore her. Finally he added, “We don’t know why they went off, but I’m pretty sure the building has solar power. I asked one of the teachers once, during a lesson about fixing the solar panels. He said the power grid was unreliable and the sun was the only constant source of energy.”

  “I didn’t see any solar panels on Eden,” Xícara said. “Not the black ones we were trained with.”

  “No, but there are thousands on the other buildings in the street.”

  Charlie frowned. “Then how come none of the lights work? In the street? Shouldn’t they come on on their own?”

  Sugar shrugged. “Maybe the wiring is damaged. Maybe there’s a kill switch somewhere.”

  “So, where do we start?” Tango asked, moving around one of the security desks and rifling through the crinkled paper there. Most of the papers on the desk were faded and brittle, but in drawers she found pristine pages, unweathered and almost new. Visitor forms, visitor lists, a facility map.

  “Here.” She slid one of the maps out. “This is a map of Eden.”

  The others crowded around the paper. “The text is too small,” Charlie grumbled. “I can’t read this.”

  “That’s the Elikai dome.” Sugar pointed. On paper, the two domes looked like a brain split down the middle into two halves. “And that’s the Varekai dome. We’re here. The labs are in this crescent here.” He tapped the far side of Eden. “Living quarters an
d utility are back here.”

  “We have to get to the other side?” Charlie’s shoulders slumped a little.

  “There’s the walkway,” Sugar said. “Right between the domes.” He drew his finger across the map.

  “Okay,” Xícara said. “Have we got enough torches, though? We don’t want to be trapped in there in the dark. It’s a long way.”

  Sugar nodded. “We’ll put out two of these, then light them one at a time.”

  Tango snuffed her light and so did Sugar. Charlie took the lead, with Xícara at the rear.

  The doors, once all securely sealed and requiring keycards to access, could now simply be pushed open. Sugar dragged furniture or stacks of files to each door, propping them open. “In case they all lock when the power comes back on,” he explained.

  The corridor was long, dark and smelled of musty rot and cave dirt. Halfway along, a set of stairs led up to a viewing platform on either side that must have looked over the domes. The idea the teachers had been up there, watching them while they played, ate and slept gave Tango a cold tingle up her spine. All that time, they had thought they had some measure of control in their own lives. Really, they had been prisoners, as helpless as fish in a net. They had never even realized.

  They reached double doors at the end of the corridor, and Xícara and Sugar had to shoulder them open. The teachers’ living quarters were cramped. Four beds to a room, a locker with four locked cubbies against the wall. Here and there the flotsam of life had been abandoned. Shoes, ties, socks, cans of soda, books and magazines.

  Charlie scooped one up, and Tango peered at it over her shoulder in the flickering orange light from the torch.

  There was a Varekai on the front with black around her eyes and abnormally swollen red lips. She appeared almost entirely hairless but for a mop of blonde curls and was perched somewhat precariously on a stool. Her position looked uncomfortable. The words splashed across the page, while all in English, seemed to be mostly nonsense.