Revolutionary

by Krista McGee

  “This is my laboratory.” James presses a panel that opens a glass door. His laboratory, like Loudin’s, is white. But every wall is filled with cooling appliances. They are taller than I am and only about a foot wide. The sides are some sort of metal, but the panels on the front are made of a thick glass. The glass isn’t transparent, so the objects inside seem blurry. They are some type of containers, but I cannot see what kind.

  Metal tables appear throughout the laboratory as well. Some tables have microscopes and other tables house instruments whose uses I do not know. Every surface glows—no dust, no fingerprints, nothing out of place. And the smell is different—a pungent, too-clean odor that makes my eyes water.

  “All the ingredients for life are stored here.” James motions to the cooling appliances. “I began gathering these before the War. I went all over the country, taking samples, talking with other Geneticists, determining how to store and create. I learned from the greatest minds in the country, and I had the newest technology. I even patented some of my own. Had the War not occurred, I would have been very rich.”

  “Are you sure you should be telling me this?”

  James smiles. “Do you think Berk is the only one who can disable the equipment in here?” He sits on a chair by one of the tables and motions for me to join him.

  I pull the chair out so I can sit across from him, the metal under my hands cold. “So no cameras?”

  “I programmed the image to repeat.” James shrugs. “All Loudin will see is an empty room.”

  “What if he looks for me?”

  “You’re subdued in a medical chamber.” James weaves his fingers together. “The lights are out, so the image might be slightly unclear.”

  “What about the Monitors looking for me?”

  “They received a communication from Dr. Loudin that the search was successful and they should continue on with their previous assignments.”

  How did he do all that in the time since he left the cremation chamber? And what does he have to show me? I lean forward.

  “As I said, these are all the ingredients for life.” James leans back. “I have made more babies here than I can count. ‘Designer babies’ was what they were called before the War. The technology had developed rapidly, and parents were desperate for it. In my parents’ day, all they hoped for was that their children would be born healthy. But by the time I completed graduate school, good health was practically guaranteed. Unless someone had a child without the help of a Geneticist. But that was becoming more and more rare.”

  I have never heard any of this history. It landed, I suppose, under the “primitive behaviors” section—too many strange ideas and practices to be listed for us, too unnecessary for us to learn.

  “My parents were not pleased with my career choice.” James looks down. “They thought I was playing God. But, of course, since I didn’t believe in God, I didn’t listen to them. I listened to Loudin. He had such vision, such intelligence. I had never met anyone like him. He was just a few years older than I was, but he seemed so much older than that. No one was surprised that the president chose him to build this place. Loudin certainly wasn’t surprised. And I was so honored to be part of it. I’ll never forget the first time I came down here. It was beyond anything I’d ever seen before. An engineering marvel, a scientific marvel. There was literally nothing else on earth like the State.”

  I cannot imagine what he is describing. The State was all I knew for seventeen years. It was not marvelous. It was a cage. It is a cage—one I desperately want to be free of. I prefer the “primitive” life of New Hope and Athens to this sterile, oppressive environment.

  “Once I came here, I was hooked.” James sighs. “I told Loudin I would do whatever he wanted me to do, if only I could be part of it.”

  “What did your parents think of that decision?”

  James looks at me, his blue eyes so like John’s. “They tried to be supportive, but I knew they were disappointed. I was turning my back on everything they taught me. At the time, I just felt sorry for them—Loudin called people like my parents ‘underevolved.’ He said they were too mired in the old systems of belief that they could never come out, their minds were fossilized.”

  “Your father was an incredible man.” My face warms, despite the temperature in the room.

  “I know that now.” He shakes his head. “But it took forty years for me to see it. It took you, Thalli. Seeing you—one of my designer babies, a product of Loudin himself—break out of the mold I had designed for you. I can’t describe it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There had been anomalies before you.” James looks at the cooling appliances. “At first I designed more anomalies than ‘normal’ babies. Not intentionally, of course. Loudin was so angry at me. I asked for more Geneticists to help—older ones with more experience. But he insisted that all of us working in the State be young, fresh out of school.”

  “Because he planned the Nuclear War and he knew you’d be the only survivors.” That fact still makes me feel ill. Kristie’s reminder to never forget what happened that day stays with me, will always stay with me.

  “Yes.” James places his hands in his lap, hands that have helped create life and helped destroy it. “I didn’t know that at the time though. I promise.”

  “But why didn’t you leave with Kristie and the others, when they knew there were pockets of survivors left?” I run a hand through my hair. “Why stay and keep doing this?”

  “We didn’t know the effects of the Nuclear War on the survivors.” He stands and moves behind his chair, then grips it for support. “We didn’t know how far the radiation carried. Even though people survived, we had no idea what those people looked like. The effects of the toxins could have affected every cell in their bodies. They could have been sterile. Or if they weren’t, they could have only been able to produce children with severe disabilities.”

  “But they didn’t. They produced people like Dallas and Alex. And so many more.”

  James’s Adam’s apple bobs in his thin neck. “That is miraculous. Truly.”

  “But you didn’t believe in miracles.”

  He lowers his head. “I believed it was possible that the only way to ensure the survival of the human race was here, in this room. I was suddenly vitally important—Loudin needed me.”

  “But he needed the others too.”

  “Yes, but the others didn’t have anyone here that Loudin could use against them.”

  I swallow hard. “Your father.”

  “Yes.” He presses his lips together. “As long as I did what Loudin asked, he would allow my father to remain alive.”

  “John was kept locked up in the lowest level, only allowed to interact with people scheduled for annihilation.” I stand, knocking over my chair. The sound echoes in the silent room.

  “I thought it was best.”

  “Loudin thought it was best.”

  “And I believed him.” His shoulders slump. “I believed everything he said. I believed in his ideas and his plans.”

  “But it’s been forty years.” I pick up the chair and set it back on the ground, but I remain standing. “How could you have gone along with him for that long?”

  “There was always another project, another plan.” James does not look at me. “I love research. I love this laboratory. And I got to spend all my time here, doing what I loved. And in doing that, I was preserving mankind, helping to save the earth. I thought we would be revered throughout history, that our legacy would carry on for thousands of years. It was a heady thought.”

  “But now?”

  “Now I am ashamed.” His eyes close. “Ashamed that I ignored my parents and listened to Loudin, ashamed that I lived my whole life pretending there is no God when everything I did—everything I worked with—told me otherwise.”

  “So you are no longer a follower of Loudin.”

  “No. Never again.” James’s eyes open. “He has to be stopped. I see that now. And I know h
ow to do it.”

  CHAPTER 27

  What are you doing?” I watch as James taps on his communications pad.

  “Shutting down my laboratory.”

  “What?” The lights on the cooling appliances turn off, making the glass in them look more like mirrors than windows. “Why?”

  “I refuse to create another generation.” He looks lighter, his smile wide, eyes glowing. “There is no need.”

  “But is it right to destroy all of these?” If these are the ingredients for life, locked away in these appliances, are they not valuable?

  “These represent a continuation of the State.” James lowers his communications pad onto a table. “Destroying these is the first step toward destroying the State.”

  Destroying the State. “Can we really do that?”

  “I can do this.” He motions to the now-silent appliances. “But I need your help.”

  “How?”

  “As soon as Loudin sees what I have done, he will kill me.”

  “No—”

  James raises a hand to stop me. “Watching Kristie die changed me. It made me realize there are worse things than death. Continuing to do what Loudin wants—that is worse than death. I gave my soul to that man forty-five years ago. It’s time to take it back.”

  “Your father would be so proud of you.”

  He blinks back tears. “I have time. Loudin won’t know right away what I’ve done. The specimens will thaw while he is gone. I will turn the appliances back on before he returns. Nothing in them will be viable, but he won’t know that.”

  “How long until he realizes it?”

  James places his hands on the desk. “He wants very much for a new generation to be born in the next year. But he is also very focused on all the survivors.”

  “With the Athenian pharmaceuticals, he can control the survivors.” Not that I want him to find that formula or make it work. “He could repopulate the State with some of them.”

  “He has discussed that.” James sits back in a chair. “But they lack the training and conditioning you all have.”

  “Yes, but that training takes years—couldn’t he apply those same years to training the survivors?”

  “You want him to do that?”

  “Of course not.” Loudin needs to be stopped, but we need time to develop a plan. “But as you said, it will keep him occupied and it will keep you alive.”

  “I told you, I don’t care.”

  “But I do.” John would not want his son to sacrifice himself. “Besides, we need you here. You know what Loudin is doing. You can tell us.”

  “He doesn’t trust me.”

  “No, but he needs you.”

  James leans his head toward the appliances. “He thinks he needs me.”

  “Then let him keep thinking that.” We can do this. We can stop Loudin. I feel more hope than I have since I have arrived in the State.

  “What about the people he is bringing back? Do we allow them to be given the drug?”

  “Don’t worry about that yet.” I wave off James. “He has to get the formula and find a way to reproduce it before he even can go out to the other surviving colonies. Hopefully we can stop him before then.”

  “And how will we stop him?”

  “I don’t know.” I look at his communications pad, fear replacing my joy. “You are sure he can’t overhear us?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” He lifts his pad and taps on it. The image of this room fills the screen. It is empty. He taps again and the image of a medical chamber is on the screen, a lump underneath the sleeping platform. A machine beside it shows a heartbeat. “This is what Loudin sees if he taps into the quarter’s cameras.”

  “Won’t he know he is being tricked?” Loudin always seems to know everything, to be steps ahead of everyone. “How can we be sure he doesn’t suspect us?”

  James taps the screen again and I see the aircraft. Loudin is sitting in the front, a Monitor beside him.

  “There are cameras everywhere.” James winks.

  I look back at the screen and watch as Loudin directs the Monitor to follow the flight path to Athens. He then walks to the rear of the transport and sits next to Alex. “Right now I have Thalli in a room wired for electricity. You step one foot out of line and she will pay. Do you understand?”

  Alex nods, and my heart constricts at the look of pain and horror on his face.

  “It has taken me four and a half decades”—James watches the screen—“but I have finally learned that Loudin is not God.”

  “But he thinks he is.” I want to crush the smug look from Loudin’s face.

  “Not for long.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Take her to Pod C.”

  James is in the room where I have been “sleeping.” I snuck in here while the Assistants were diverted with a project James assigned them. The cameras are now live, and if Loudin is watching, he is seeing me being woken up by two large Monitors to be taken to Pod C to join the others.

  I stand on the transport as we return to my childhood home, and I think of the time I took a transport just like this to New Hope, so many weeks ago. I pray for Alex, returning there now with Loudin in an attempt to find the formula, reproduce it, use it against people all around the world. Against us. I swallow down fear that rises into my throat.

  I look up at a panel far above me, and I see a glimpse of the sun shining down, blue sky surrounding it. How I long to be there. Music plays in my mind and I close my eyes. It has been so long since I have heard music, played music, so long since I have held an instrument in my hands. I am overpowered with longing to do what I was made to do. God never seems as close as when I am playing, my prayers never as complete. So much has happened, so much that I want to play, to express through my fingers, channeling my thoughts and feelings, my prayers and fears, into my violin, the piano, anything.

  The transport lowers itself to the ground in front of Pod C. The flowers that used to line the walkway are withering, their reds and yellows now a yellowish-brown, crisp at the edges. Even the grass is neglected, patches of brown showing through what used to be lush green.

  “Thalli.” Berk rushes from the entrance to the pod and lifts me into his arms. “Where have you been? Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

  “I am fine.” I can barely speak, he is holding me so tightly. I don’t mind though. I love the feel of Berk’s arms around me.

  “I was so frightened.” He releases me and we enter Pod C. I smell food being prepared in the cooking chamber, see a Culinary Specialist bending over the cooking appliance.

  “We need to talk.” My gaze goes to the Monitor behind me. “Alone.”

  “There is no privacy here.” Berk sighs. “You know that.”

  I turn my face so only Berk can see me. I mouth, We are safe.

  Berk raises his eyebrows, but he follows me down the hall, into the isolation chamber. His forehead crinkles a little as his lips press together—he must be recalling our last conversation here, the one where I told him about Athens and Alex, the one Loudin listened to that started all of this.

  My heart drums a rapid rhythm. What if James’s work on the camera in Pod C wasn’t effective and Loudin can see us? But James’s words play again in my mind. Loudin is not God. He doesn’t know everything, doesn’t see everything. He can be defeated. He can be outwitted.

  I draw in a deep breath. Then exhale. I will trust James’s work, and I will do everything in my power to work against Loudin so he cannot do to others what he did to my friends from this pod, what he did to Kristie.

  “Where did you go?” Berk closes the door to the isolation chamber and takes my hands, lacing his fingers through mine. “I wanted to look for you, but we were surrounded. I was worried Loudin was taking you with him to Athens.”

  I pull Berk to the couch and we sit. He pulls me into his arms, my back against his chest. “James found me.”

  “Where were you going?”

  “I was trying to find the aircraft and s
top Loudin.”

  “And then what, Thalli?”

  I lean my head back against him. “I don’t know. I just wanted to stop Loudin. To be honest, I wanted to kill him for killing Kristie.”

  “I know.”

  I turn into Berk, holding on to his waist, burying my head in his chest. “I hate him, Berk.”

  He runs a hand through my hair, down my back. He says nothing, and for several minutes, we sit there. I alternate between grief and rage.

  “You said we’re safe?” Berk breaks the silence, pulling back and looking into eyes I know are swollen and red.

  “James did something to the cameras.”

  “Disabled them?”

  “No.” I think of the image of me lying in a sleeping platform, attached to medical equipment. “He made it so if Loudin looks at us, he will see us here. But he won’t see us here. I don’t know how to describe it.”

  “He has it on a loop.” Berk smiles. “Brilliant. For how long?”

  I feel the warmth of that smile all the way to my toes. “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me everything then.” He pulls me back against him again.

  I want to just enjoy his nearness, this moment, but there is too much to say, too much to plan. I fold my arms over Berk’s, though, and breathe in his scent. “James destroyed the ingredients for life stored in his laboratory. He refuses to create another generation.”

  Berk’s breath catches. “Loudin will kill him.”

  I explain that hopefully Loudin won’t know, that James will plug the appliances back in so they will appear to be working. I tell him that Loudin wants to use the Athenian drug on survivors he plans to bring back to the State from other parts of the world.