Return

by Corrie Brundage

  “Keep working with her, for sure. And don’t worry about the progress you make. Let me talk to Elizabeth,” I added, and soon her face filled the screen.

  “Hi, Mina. I’m … so sorry about Jack. But please don’t worry about us out here. We’ll forge ahead.” Her face was serious and withdrawn, as if she wasn’t surprised this new horror had befallen me. It seemed she always expected the worst to happen, and then it did. It was a mindset we shared.

  “I’d like you to be in charge of Charlie’s curriculum while I’m away, ok? And try not to worry about us,” I said but knew my words wouldn’t comfort Elizabeth much.

  Elizabeth nodded mutely, and with one last half smile, logged off. I looked past the island in the kitchen toward the living room and saw Lulu was still engrossed in her nature show. I cut up some of the brownies and juggled them along with two glasses of milk, hoping we could just sit and relax together for a while before I needed to start thinking about what tomorrow would bring. I bit into a brownie and it tasted like ash, but Lulu seemed to enjoy her treat. I brushed her hair with my fingers, loving the silky feel and the closeness of my child. I began to zone out, letting my mind wander to a time when I’d been pregnant with Lulu and Jack had had to cook for me almost nonstop. My hunger had been voracious while I’d been carrying my baby, and Jack had been a great sport about it.

  A flashing news bulletin came across the screen of the program we were watching and I snapped to attention almost immediately. Lulu stayed motionless between my legs where she’d settled for our grooming ritual, and I commanded the volume up higher. The broadcaster appeared, a little crease between her sculpted brows.

  “Citizens of Origin, we have information coming in from Continent Four that large-scale war has broken out. The bombing of the capital city of Pacifica has caused an uprising of unknown proportions. We do know that opposing factions protesting the recent election have come into possession of weaponry newly created by Facilities around the world, consisting of gravitational disruptor capabilities. The damage is …” She paused at this, as if to compose herself, then finished with, “Immense. We take you to the West Coast of Continent Four where our affiliate there is surveying the damage and talking to survivors. Again, there have been multiple bombings that have leveled entire cities. Bands of militants have sprung up around the weapons technology, as they fight for their candidate to overtake the Council. We go now to our affiliate.”

  In the brief moment the broadcast switched over to Continent Four, I had found my voice to begin reassuring Lulu. She had never known a world where war was a problem, but here it was. And the Travelers … they’d know. My heart was racing and my stomach was a lead lump in my gut, but I didn’t stop combing Lulu’s hair.

  “It will be ok, Little Owl. Continent Four is very far away from here …” She had turned around to watch my face, and I’d need to be careful about what she saw there. The broadcast continued, and it was almost impossible to see the journalist amidst the gray dust that surrounded the camera.

  “This is Vivienne Warwick coming live to you from Continent Four. The damage here is impossible to assess at this time, but I’ve been told the bomb sent shock waves at the speed of light to level an entire city. Behind me is what remains, and as you can see, there’s not much left. The loss of life stands in the many thousands, but an exact number can’t be arrived at just yet, because there are no remains. The bomb has eradicated not only buildings and transportation systems but an entire city population. Some citizens were able to evacuate before the bomb was detonated due to a late warning, and we go now to some interviews with them.”

  Lulu had grabbed my hand, sensing that the people’s suffering would be great. I wanted nothing more than for Jack to be here, with us, telling us it would all be ok. That war wouldn’t come to our continent, that the Travelers were too far away to care … anything. But he was drugged and in a cage in the Facility, a half-morph thanks to the very Travelers I now feared were watching the drama unfold on Earth.

  A bedraggled woman appeared on the screen, her face streaked in the same dust that filled the air on Continent Four, what was once my home country of America. Tears tracked down her cheeks, and she woodenly answered some questions, her eyes both empty and full of anguish. She coughed often, and I wondered if the dust was toxic. I didn’t know enough about this new weapons technology to know if it was radioactive, like nuclear bombs had been in my day. It was nuclear bombs that had finally killed off all remaining life on Earth after I had died in that tsunami, and the Travelers had brought back the entire planet from the scorched soil that had remained. This looked much different, as if the bomb had not only flattened the buildings and rail system that was prevalent in all cities now, but it had torn things in half where the blast, if that’s what it was, had hit. And the parts of structures that remained looked … melted somehow. But there were no bodies, no signs of any life at all, except for the evacuees who now had to be subjected to tortuous interrogation.

  “Mommy, can I send some food to those people? I want to help them,” Lulu said, and I turned my attention to her. I wondered if Jack would somehow know about what was taking place in the world, and hoped he was oblivious.

  “I’m sure there will be lots of ways we can help those people very soon. I bet your teacher at school will come up with something for your class to do.” I absently continued to brush her hair, my mind now far off.

  The camera cut back to our journalist here in Origin, and the city behind her looked placid and perfect in stark contrast to the disastrous ruin we had just viewed.

  “We go now to the head of the Origin Council, who has an announcement for all Originals.” I sat up at this, and Lulu protested. The camera cut to Rory Gallach’s ruddy face and hulking frame, and I knew what he would say would be crucial. The journalist was standing next to him, interviewing the head of the respected Council.

  “Councilman Gallach, can you reassure all Originals that what is happening on Continent Four won’t happen here, in Origin?” she asked, and I saw a thunderous look cross Rory’s blocky features.

  “We don’t know how the fighting factions on Continent Four got ahold of Facility weapons technology, but they did. But know this, our Facility is taking extra precautions to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen here.” Hearing his thick brogue and bluster, I recalled the first night I had met him. He had been terrifying then, and in his fury, he was now.

  “But all Originals, and other citizens of Continent One, can rest assured that war will not be coming to our cities. We do not condone the actions of the citizens of Continent Four, and we hope a resolution is arrived at quickly. Ye can bet on that.” He stormed off the screen, leaving the journalist looking baffled. I felt a little better knowing Rory was so opposed to what had just happened across the ocean, and that the Facility was on lockdown.

  “Mommy, why does that man look so angry?” Lulu asked, and I smiled a little. It was true, Rory always looked like a rough Highland warrior itching for a fight.

  The tones of my communicator went off then, and I wondered who could be calling me. Probably my team to talk about the war on Four and what impact that would have on us. I’d have to reassure them that our work would continue, even though Jack was a half-morph, and I had no idea when I’d be back to the forests. Tearing my eyes away from the screen and the destruction that was being broadcast again, I commanded my device to answer. To my dismay, it was Councilman Rory Gallach. If he’d looked angry on my television screen, he now looked both furious and as if he was about to tell me the world was going to end.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Alyssa

  I’d been the “other woman” before, but never like this …

  I was being held in a cramped, cold cage in the Facility warehouse. I lay on the hard concrete floor, watching Jack’s wife kneel by his side, her elegant features in a tortured mask of pain. But I was in pain, too, not that anyone cared. I heard what they were calling us— half-morphs. It had been bad enough bein
g an Eater, but at least we’d had the fear and respect of Originals. For a little while. Jack had been helping me remember our time hunting together, and I shared a bond with him no one else could ever understand. Certainly not his wife, yet here she was, and they were clearly still very much in love. It wasn’t that I had tried to break them up, although the thought had crossed my mind. Men never could resist me for very long, and it sure as hell made me a good living in the Eros District, so I had no doubt that I could. Sure, the men who came to me in Eros might be married, but I’m certainly not interested in taking them away from their clueless wives.

  The Eros District. It’s still hard for me to believe that this is where I’ve ended up. I’d worked so hard to be taken seriously as a scientist in both my lives. Yet something always seemed to derail that. Granted, I’d played a part in my own downfall in my last life. I’d been a well-respected paleobotanist in the 1990s, a tenured professor at a prestigious university. I’d begun an affair with my married TA. I was 54, he was 23. It hadn’t ended well, and one night I got drunk and drove home during a storm. Yeah, I’d crashed my car and died. I wanted to snort with derision at the memory. Such a typical ending to a sordid affair.

  I shifted in the cage, quelling my reverie and trying to make it seem like the sedation was keeping me calm and floating between sleep and consciousness. That Mina, it seemed she was able to communicate with Jack. And while none of the half-morphs could talk, we had an elaborate body language that allowed us to read one another and know what we were thinking and feeling. Jack was trying to speak, and I knew the effort was agonizing. The nerdy researcher, I forgot her name, was standing by them trying to look helpful, and I doubted she was accomplishing anything. I didn’t think any of us would be getting out of here any time soon. After my clients heard I’d become a half-morph, the thrill of being with a former Eater would likely wear off. They enjoyed the taste of danger that surrounded me, and I played it up to my advantage. My little apartment in the District was full of luxurious rugs and tapestries, the soft cushions and low lighting reminiscent of an old-fashioned harem. Those lecherous bastards loved how that decadence made them feel. But if they saw me now … I wanted to sigh but my lungs sort of hurt. I knew my body was deformed, although I felt the strength running through it. It was intoxicating, knowing I could crush anyone with one flick of my distended arm. Not that I wanted to hurt anyone. But I was pretty pissed off that I was a monster once again, with no end in sight. Stuck in this cage, being observed by these impotent researchers who obviously didn’t have a clue.

  I could tell Mina was promising Jack she’d be back, and she’d probably bring the kid. Oh great. I hate to admit it, but I was really jealous of the fact they’d made a family and a life for themselves here in Origin. This new world wasn’t kind to clones, and certainly not to clones that morphed into an entirely different species.

  Some awkward, angular boy was approaching my cage as I watched Mina leave, and Jack slumped down again into a posture of defeat. I wanted to scream at him to stand up, be the proud and unstoppable creature he was, that I was … but no words came. And he wasn’t looking at me. The boy began injecting something into my IV drip, and it stung. I fought to stay awake and fought the urge to snarl at the kid. He was only doing his job …

  My mind returned to where I’d been when I’d begun to morph again. I was going to meet Jack at our café. We had taken to meeting there several afternoons a week to talk, and it was the best time I’d had in a very long while. His handsome, rugged features that set off those charismatic brown eyes always made me feel like an innocent again, and I could guess he probably had that effect on just about everyone. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jack … we’d been sitting at our table, out in the sunlight, when Jack grabbed his neck and began thrashing around on the ground. The Originals sitting around us basically freaked out, and then the pain began to rip through me, too. I blacked out after that, and someone must have called the people at the Facility, knowing what was going on, or maybe one of the researchers had been in the café, too. Lots of people came to the Eros District on the down low. I predicted there would soon be a time when there wasn’t any shame surrounding it. But I supposed that as a sex worker there, I had more hope my profession would be taken seriously. Well, I HAD hoped …

  We’d been tranquilized, probably for the safety of the Originals and Facility workers, although I’d already figured out none of us would be hurting anyone. I guess I could understand why they had us stuffed into these cages, watching us closely. I mean, they sorta knew what we were capable of … I looked around the warehouse at all the other clones who had half-morphed, and the thought came to me that we were quite an army. I shifted in my cage, unable to find a truly comfy position. God, my hair must be a disaster, but it was kind of freeing not to have to care about it anymore. I rarely had in my first life, and it had been a pain in the ass to care so much about my appearance as an Eros girl. It almost made me laugh, how no one here had any idea that I’d spent so much money at the salon in the upper-crust part of Origin, which all the rich housewives frequented to look good for their husbands. Some of them knew what I was, but I never let them see me look down or away from their frank gazes. I had nothing to be ashamed of. And who were they to look down on me? Their husbands were the ones to visit my bed, if they only knew. I wanted to laugh again at this thought, but the pain in my mouth prevented me from making any noise. Probably for the better; the geeky kid looked terrified while he was watching the screen of the little machine that was monitoring me. Any sudden sound from me might mean an injection of something stronger …

  I looked over at Jack again, that single streak of white in his hair separating him from the other half-morphs. I’d often joked with him about it, and he’d said his wife rarely mentioned it. It sounded to me like she was pretty stuck up and a little obsessive-compulsive. She’d been on the Travelers’ spacecraft and bargained with the Director, and I guess some Originals thought of her as a kind of hero, even though she was married to an Eater and was a clone herself. Some people had all the luck. She got to keep her cushy job working with animals out in the forest, and I’d been fired. I’d been out at an observation station, too. I oversaw the health of pretty much every species of plant, flower, and tree both inside and outside Origin. My job was vital to the health of the ecosystem, but because I was an Eater, and a sexy woman, I’d been “let go.” The Facility didn’t seem to care that I had to resort to working in Eros, and the Origin Council flat out told me it was a good opportunity for someone like me. I tried to snort at this thought, and the sound that emerged from my spiny throat startled the kid, who rushed off after looking at me closely to make sure I wasn’t going to rip open the cage and eat his face off. I lifted a hand, or … paw? I looked at the skin that had split to make way for a claw. I longed to touch my face, to reassure myself I was still me. I could tell by the way people around here looked at all of us that we were probably hideous, but I didn’t care. To me, Jack looked even more regal somehow. No matter what species he was, he’d be a sight to behold. I heaved a sigh, and the whoosh of air from my changed lungs stirred beyond my cage, and across Jack’s body. He lifted his head and made eye contact with me, although he was pretty out of it. I felt my heart start to race, because every time he turned his attention to me it felt like the world was either ending or beginning. He arranged his still recognizable features into a clear message for me: “They’re doing all they can. I need to stay strong for my family.”

  I sighed again, and the little redheaded researcher was making her way over to my cage. Eva, I think her name was. She didn’t look me in the eye, although I stared back at her defiantly. They could drug us all they wanted, we were still too powerful to be fully sedated. She looked at my monitor, then back at Jack. She knew that somehow we were able to communicate with one another, but she didn’t understand the species enough to decipher what was being said. These humans might hold the key to curing us, but for now we were beyond their understa
nding. I’d always liked being an enigma in my human form, especially to men. But even these advanced scientists couldn’t figure me out now.

  Still, what were we going to do? We couldn’t stay this way forever, and my nails were utterly ruined. I didn’t exactly want to go back to my job in the Eros District, but it did have a great income, and I’d be able to start traveling the world again once I’d saved up a little more. Maybe go off to another Continent altogether and try to start over as a natural born, no one knowing I was a clone, or that I sometimes morphed. I bet I could pull it off … but first I had to get out of this cage and back into my normal body. And leaving Jack behind, well that would hurt. His eyes were closed again, probably thinking of his family. I didn’t have a future with him, and I didn’t really have a future here in Origin. Still, looking at him now, in so much pain and longing to be with his family, I didn’t want to leave him. We’d made a good team as Eaters, even though we were murderous monsters. We’d clicked, and I knew he felt it, too. Yet he sure was hung up on that wife of his, and no amount of allure or flirtation from me would change that. I lay my lumpy, elongated head down on the floor of my cage, deciding I should pass the time with sleep. More people would be showing up, either later today or tomorrow, to see the clones they’d come to love. But no one would be visiting me. All I had was the knowledge that I was stronger than all of them, and the energy that thrummed through my strange new muscles told me I had the upper paw. For now, at least.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mina

  “Councilman Gallach, how can I help you?” I asked tentatively, standing tensely in my kitchen. Rory had seemed about to explode in his interview, and I didn’t want to be the catalyst for one of his famous temper tantrums.