Colony 41: Volume 1 (The Era Rae Series)

by S J Taylor

  My stomach twisted, and that was all I could get out.

  “I’m going back to the 26ers,” I repeated.

  “No,” was his snuffed up reply. “You’re not.”

  He had Augustus’s MAR in his hands, pointed at my head. At close range, even an MAR can do permanent damage. I might go deaf. I might lose my sight. Might get second degree burns on my skin. I was on my knees still, with no leverage and no space to fight.

  In short, he had me.

  “Verne! You bastard, listen to me!”

  I heard footsteps snapping through the brush behind me. Heather and Thillip. She was a short spitfire, lithe and always angry at the world, and he was tall and lanky, smarter than he was strong. Both of them carried their own MARs. Both of them wore the new gray and black uniforms. I was surrounded.

  More whirring antigrav noises met my ears, from several directions, and suddenly four—no, five—of the killer robot Fluffy drones floated their way closer, bristling with weapons and eyes and murderous intentions.

  Not just surrounded. Trapped.

  Nobody fired. I was still alive. In fact, the drones backed away a bit to allow one more person into the little section of ground.

  First Marshall Blake, his face a study in disapproval.

  “Well,” he said. “This is a problem, isn’t it?”

  Not just trapped. I was as good as dead.

  I stood up, put my hands in the air. Even if I went all calm and deadly on them, there was no way for me to take out everyone around me. Avin Blake. The drones. Heather and Thillip.

  Verne.

  I looked over at the little rat now and took a slow, deep breath. “The next time I see you,” I told him, “I’m going to kill you. That’s a promise.”

  From the fear in his eyes, I could see that he believed me.

  Solitary. Again.

  Only this time I was manacled to a chair against the far wall by two Enforcers who never once spoke a word to me. They secured me, locked me in, and left me alone. I wasn’t left there for long. I had started doing a slow count in my head, a technique they taught us in our classes to help center our thoughts and focus on the problem at hand. When Avin Blake came in, I had only counted up to one hundred and thirty-six.

  “Era Rae,” he greeted me, in a voice that oozed disappointment. “That was quite the stunt you pulled, leaving my Enforcer in your Isolation room.”

  “I hope your man is the forgiving type.”

  Behind Avin came an Enforcer, tall and imposing in full gray battle uniform, with a black protective vest and pads of the same color to cover the legs and arms. A black helmet with an opaque visor hid the Enforcer’s face, and I stiffened in my seat, sure for a moment that Blake had brought in the same guy I’d beaten down twice now. Revenge is a dish best served when the victim can’t fight back, after all.

  “No, don’t worry,” Blake assured me, waving a hand in the air in front of his face. “This isn’t the Enforcer who was watching you before. I’ve reassigned that one. Permanently.”

  I had the feeling that meant the guy was dead, but I didn’t push the issue. “Why am I here?”

  Blake regarded me with interest, folding his hands in front of him. “Would you rather be in Quarantine?”

  “But that’s exactly what I mean, First Marshall.” I hated myself for calling him by his rank, but I couldn’t stop myself. In my heart I was still an Academy student, a member of the Eccoliculum, even if that part of my life might be over completely. “Why haven’t you put me in Quarantine yet? Or slated me for the incinerator? We keep playing these games and all I want to do is get out of here. I want to go back to my life. Back to the 26ers.”

  “To the 26ers?” he sounded surprised. “How do you think they’ll look at you now? After that little scene out there with Verne and Augustus. I mean, shooting Augustus in the shoulder. That wasn’t necessary. Poor guy.”

  “What! I didn’t shoot him. That was one of those flying death robots!”

  “You must be referring to the security droids. We just put those online this week. They’re going to help keep the Colony safe.”

  “Safe? From what?”

  “From people like you, of course,” he answered without missing a beat. “Real threats to our Colony. You broke out of Isolation. Attacked the Enforcers. Shot one of your own classmates.”

  “That was the… the security droid!”

  But Blake shook his head. “How do you think Verne’s going to tell the story?”

  I knew exactly what Verne would say, actually. He’d tell everyone that I’d gone crazy, that I was acting sick, that I attacked him and Augustus. Never mind that I had saved his life. Would he even tell them what had happened to Saskia?

  No. Of course he wouldn’t.

  He wouldn’t want to end up like me.

  “Oh Era, you really are ill, can’t you see it now?” he continued. “Maybe even ill beyond our help. Those skills of yours, though. The way you fight… that’s worth saving. We need you, Era. The Colony needs you,” he added, as if it was important for him to make the distinction.

  I’d had feelings for this man. A heavy crush that I would have burned to have him return. It was beyond wrong for a student to take up with a professor, any professor, but especially the First Marshall. I didn’t care. If he had come to my bunk just one week ago I would have welcomed him with open arms and given myself to him without question.

  Now I couldn’t stand to look at him.

  “You need our help, Era,” he said, not exactly pleading with me to believe him. “Let us help you.”

  He nodded to the Enforcer, who reached down low to the holster on his right side to slide out his stun pistol. It could deliver a variety of sedatives and neurotoxins, and I didn’t want to guess which one the gun was set for. With his other hand he reached up to unclip the catches of his helmet.

  “This is insane!” I suddenly shouted, unable to keep my cool anymore. Rocking in my chair, straining against the bonds on my hands and feet. “Does the Prelate even know what you’re doing?”

  “The Prelate,” Blake said with a soft chuckle. “Have you seen the Prelate show an interest in anything other than what she has to? I’m afraid she doesn’t have time to worry about sick little Era Rae.”

  “I am not sick!”

  The Enforcer finished with the catches on his helmet, levelling his stun pistol at my chest, before tossing his helmet aside on the bed, and his face…

  No. Not him.

  Her.

  Saskia.

  “How…?” I breathed. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My statuesque blonde friend looked back at me, no recognition at all in her pretty blue eyes. Half of her face was still an ugly mess of healing red welts and I could tell she would never be the same again. Her hair, once so long and lustrous, was now cut to a short scruff all around her scalp, where it hadn’t been burned away completely.

  Under the hairs were dark lines. Stitches. Half-healed scars. She’d been operated on.

  Again.

  Brain surgery… What had they done to her?

  “Saskia? It’s me, Saskia. It’s Era.” Nothing. She didn’t react to me at all. “Saskia? What’s wrong with you?”

  The barrel of the pistol lifted higher.

  “Saskia has already had my help,” Avin explained to me. Sure of himself now, he closed the door behind him, alone with me and Saskia in the room. “She was sick, Era. So sick. Poor girl got burned because of a rip in her jumpsuit. The fire spread, and this promising Academy student would have been useless to the Colony, if not for our… improvements.”

  “A rip in her uniform?” My head was spinning, hearing all this confessed from Blake’s own lips. The fire that hurt Saskia had gotten to her through a rip in her uniform. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my fault.

  But I think I know whose fault it was.

  Blake smiled at me like he knew what I was thinking. It wasn’t like the man could read my thoughts. If he could, then he would have dropped dead at my fee
t right now.

  “I’m afraid,” he was saying, “the treatment gets more extreme every year. The youth aren’t as susceptible to the truth as they once were. You were the youngest student we’ve ever had who actually saw the Event, Era. What will happen to the ones after you? Everyone will ask questions. They’ll cast doubt and suspicion with every breath. That kind of disease will spread like a pathogen and destroy this Colony as surely as any plague would. Just like what happened at 16.”

  The image forming in my mind scared me to death. The First Marshall wanted perfect little soldiers. Perfect Enforcers. Ones who acted without question and did whatever he might order them to.

  That’s what they had done to Saskia. Made her a good little soldier.

  It was what they wanted to do to me.

  “We managed to preserve most of Saskia’s physical advantages,” he promised me, like that was the most important thing, “but most of her mental acuity, the part of her brain that made her who she was… well. Sacrifices had to be made.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked. I felt the tears in my eyes, stinging and wet, but I couldn’t stop myself. “We did everything you asked. We were perfect students! All we wanted was to become Enforcers. Like you!”

  “Oh Era, my poor, deluded Era.” Blake threw his hands in the air, letting them drop back to his sides. “You might as well know. You have failed. You were part of an experiment. It was a simple, but brilliant idea that the Restored Society came up with. Could we raise children from perfect genetic stock, we wondered, to then become the kind of adults we needed? Adults who could make Humanity not only survive, but thrive. That was the question we posed.”

  He looked up to the ceiling, remembering, seeing things from the past. “Such a simple idea. So many years of hard work to make it happen. You see, we were on the verge of something great. A new society. But, we needed the perfect citizens for our new world. So, we made you. You, and others like you. Augustus, for one. Heather. A few of the others in the 26ers. The classes of 2125, 2124, even 2123. There are more perfect citizens here at Colony 41 than at any of our other Colonies.”

  Perfect citizens. What? My mind put together the things he was saying bit by bit. I was… made. Created. That’s what he said. He said I was a… a…

  A clone. A genetic experiment. A freak. My blood pounded in my ears and I took it as a sign that I was alive, but what kind of life was it? How alive could I possibly be?

  He had to be lying.

  Yet somehow, I knew he wasn’t.

  “But… my parents?”

  He shook his head. “Members of the Restored Society assigned to raise you. From everything I know, you showed promise even from an early age.”

  Who else, I wondered. Who else around me was a fake? My eyes turned to Saskia, still standing there unmoving, the threat of the weapon unwavering in her hand.

  “No, of course not,” Avin Blake said in answer to the unspoken question. “Saskia is a real human. Born from love.” He twisted the word like it was the name of its own special disease. “Still, she was the perfect student. Strong. Smart. Everything a future Enforcer should be.”

  “Then why hurt her, you bastard?” I snapped.

  His inflection never changed. “We needed to know about you. The others aren’t a problem. Augustus would shove his own hand into a food processor if we asked him to. But you? For some reason you had to question everything. You had to wonder what else there was. You had to ask why.” He shook his head. “We needed to know where your loyalties were. So we hurt your friend. I needed volunteers for my procedure, anyway, so it all worked out.”

  He turned to look at Saskia, admiring his work. “The trap was laid out for you. Would you do what you were supposed to, what you were ordered to do, or would you break every rule you were ever given for a friend.”

  With a sigh, he turned back to me. “Now we know.”

  “I’d make the same choice again.” I threw the words in his face.

  “Yes, well, we know that now, as I say. You’re no good to us. The Restored Society has no place for free thinkers.”

  “You mean thinkers like me, or thinkers like you?” My wrists burned where the manacles had cut into the skin. I knew it was hopeless. That didn’t keep me from trying to stall for more time. “How do you fit into the brand new world of your vision, First Marshall?”

  “Well, I’m one of the people directing the results, Era. I need to be who I am. I need to be able to think for myself. Everyone else…” He shrugged. “The Restored Society started off a cult. Did you know that? A cult that spread across the world. Geneticists. Thinkers. Visionaries. We had our little farms where we set up our families and our bases of operation. Only we weren’t growing plants. We were growing you Era. The first crops were… flawed. It took a few generations to get it right. A new breed of humanity, one that would help us sweep away the Old Society. Stronger, fitter, and obedient.”

  A flashback of the Event crossed through my mind. The sky, on fire. The explosions. The terror. The destruction.

  Missiles. The explosions had been missile strikes.

  “You did this,” I whispered, unable to believe what I was hearing. “You and your Restored Society attacked… the world! Your missiles. That’s what I saw exploding in the night. You attacked the Old Society. But we were always taught it was the rogue nation states—”

  “Yes.” He seemed happy to have someone to proselytize to. Every madman had a desire to prove he was sane, I guessed. Now his eyes grew distant as he continued. “The three rogue nations. Limeria, and the others. A lie, I’m afraid. Those places were blamed so we could continue our work. The Old Societies of the world, the Americas, Europe, NovoRussia and the East, they were all corrupt. They were all too busy fighting each other, and themselves, to reach the heights of what we could become, as a species. So we created our own Colonies, our own laws, our own people! You are the result of generations of planning. You are everything we ever dreamed of.”

  His face turned sour as he focused back on me again. “Then you had to go and develop the sickness of individuality. Shame. But, we can still put you to use.”

  “You wanted to rule the world.” I was putting the pieces together rapidly now. Whether he meant to or not, he had given me everything I needed to finally understand what was happening. “You and your Restored Society tried to rise like a phoenix from the ashes you created. But it’s not working, is it? The other Colonies are going silent aren’t they? Colony 16 and the others are going silent. What’s happening, First Marshall? What’s going wrong with your dream?”

  “You!” he snarled. “You and your disease. Trouble makers. Rule breakers. Individuals. That’s what’s going wrong with the dream. The same illness you fell prey to is spreading everywhere. We don’t know why. We don’t know how to stop it. So, we created a solution.”

  “Does the Prelate even know what you’re doing here?” I asked him.

  “Of course,” he answered with a smile. “She’s one of our greatest successes. She adjusted to the surgery perfectly.”

  At his command, Saskia stepped forward. This was his solution. This perfect vision of a soldier.

  A person, who used to be my friend.

  At a small motion from Avin’s fingers, Saskia gripped the pistol tighter, and aimed.

  And her eyes met mine.

  The noise of electric discharge filled the tiny room.

  With a startled scream, Avin Blake, First Marshall of the Enforcers and member of the Restored Society cult, stiffened where he stood as his eyes rolled backward in his head. He fell, his head striking against the side wall before gravity brought him the rest of the way down.

  “Run, Era.”

  Saskia’s voice was empty of emotion, empty of all humanity, as she urged me to escape. She came to my chair, not looking at me as she loosened my bonds. The straps came away under her fingers. Her hands worked woodenly, stiffly, like they were asleep. Like Saskia was asleep. “Run away. Warn… everyone.”
>
  “Come with me,” I said, tears rolling down my cheeks as I looked at my friend’s ruined face, her ruined hair. Her beauty was ruined forever. I put my hands up to her cheeks, and to my surprise, I felt the dampness of her own tears there. “Please, Saskia. Come with me.”

  She blinked at me, her lips twisting up. “I do not understand the request. Please advise.”

  My world stopped in that one moment of time.

  “Come with me.”

  Another painful pause, and then she repeated those words. “I do not understand the request. Please advise.”

  As I stood up, my knees trembled and threatened to spill me into Saskia’s arms.

  Then, for the briefest flicker, for one single moment, her eyes focused on me and I saw my friend in them again.

  “Run, Era. You have to… don’t stop. Run.”

  So I did.

  Before I left, I kissed her forehead.

  This was what love was. These feelings I had for Saskia. That I had always had for her. I realized that now. What I had felt for Avin Blake was false, and not worth my effort.

  What I felt for Saskia was real.

  “I love you,” I whispered to her. There wasn’t any response. I hadn’t expected one.

  Tears filled my eyes as I ran.

  Era’s Journal, entry #2312

  I was found by the crew of a cargo ship heading away from Colony 41. They picked me up and kept me alive and wondered what to do with me. They couldn’t go back. Not now. They had a schedule to keep. But messages were sent and demands were made and I knew my fate would be sealed if I stayed here.

  The next time the boat stopped, I broke a man’s collar bone and escaped.

  When I made landfall I was in such a state that I can’t tell you anything that happened. I was weak, and in pain, and my mind had shut down to avoid thinking about what had happened. For more than a week, my memories were a fuzzy collection of faces and disjointed conversations, and pain.