by Eliza Green
Living quarters stretched out for miles beneath the contaminated soil. The atmosphere, controlled by a filtration unit, converted the putrid air into fresh, clean air. The hydroponics bay was on hand to supplement the replicated meals with fresh produce. Caroline and her team were some of the healthiest humans on Earth, but maintaining healthy environments like these didn’t come cheap.
She stood next to her male assistants who were studying the Berlin data. Anton, bound and sedated in one of the detention rooms, was not a current threat to them. She’d heard about what had happened to one of Deighton’s doctors. To counteract the entity’s natural strength she’d ordered an extra dose of sedatives. According to data from the other medical facilities, the prisoner had been subjected to a high number of experiments. Their reports said Anton’s attitude had shifted from mistrustful antagonism to reluctant acceptance.
Species 31: the scientific term for the Indigenes. Their origin was known only to Deighton and the elite board members, and those involved in the genetic trials. Deighton had even leaked details of Anton’s capture to the public to help generate a renewed public interest in Exilon 5. The public was obsessed with the idea of life outside Earth. But perhaps not a walking, talking version of humans living on their new home.
Anton’s mind held the key to the Indigenes’ evolution. And to learn his secrets, Caroline would need to meet with him. While the Indigene had helped the facilities to amass much genetic data on the new race, they had yet to break him.
An argument began between Felicity and MOUSE.
‘I don’t know what to tell you. What do you want me to tell you?’ said MOUSE.
Felicity’s cheeks were bright red. ‘But when did it happen? I mean, exactly?’
‘I can’t be everywhere at once, can I?’ said MOUSE. ‘All I can see are his vitals and that’s what I’m reporting back, like a good sentient being.’
‘You can be everywhere at once. That’s the whole point of your existence.’
‘I was being metaphorical. You have eyes, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, like you do. Except it’s not my job to keep my eyes on that thing.’
Caroline slammed her mug down on the counter. ‘What’s going on here?’
Felicity shoved her hands into her pockets, making her thin shoulders slouch. She was a pretty girl, but her unkempt appearance made Caroline question her ability to be organised and tidy. ‘MOUSE says that thing has been awake for an hour. He’s only getting around to telling me now.’
‘I told someone a while ago, but everybody seemed too concerned with the Berlin data,’ said MOUSE. ‘I continued to monitor his vitals during the hour, as I’m programmed to. He’s awake now, so I’m telling you all again.’
‘Is he a danger? Is he still restrained?’ Caroline’s voice shook. The thought of facing the Indigene unnerved her.
‘Yes, he’s restrained and calm, and not moving about,’ said MOUSE.
She released a soft sigh. ‘I think I should speak to him alone.’
‘I can’t let you enter the room without backup. It could be a trick.’
‘After two months in captivity, Anton’s bound to be weakened, both physically and mentally. I’ll be fine if he remains restrained.’
‘Sorry, I cannot allow that,’ said MOUSE. ‘My orders come from the top. I’ve just erected an additional force field around the room so you can’t get near him without my authorisation. There are also three military personnel standing by.’
‘Military are of no use to me in there. I need my team. Julian and Felicity, come with me.’
Two of her assistants followed her. A few minutes later, she approached the area with the detainment rooms.
‘MOUSE, drop the force field.’ She passed three tense-looking men in military uniform. They fell into line and brought up the rear of her group.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,’ said MOUSE.
‘Drop. The. Force. Field,’ Caroline repeated.
‘So sorry, I missed what you said. Could you repeat the request?’
She was about to yell at the sentient when she remembered MOUSE liked manners.
‘Please.’
‘I’ll think about it. I’m still recovering from Felicity’s earlier insults. They’re still fresh in my mind. I’ll need time to compose myself.’
She wanted to shake the person who programmed emotions into the AI designs.
Caroline stopped outside the metal door leading inside the room. She held up her hand, feeling the vibration from the active force field. ‘MOUSE, I’ve brought extra people with me, as you have so helpfully suggested. I would be most grateful if you would drop the field... please?’
‘Well, since you asked so nicely—’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome Dr Finnegan. See Felicity? That’s how you talk to a sentient being.’
Felicity flipped him off.
‘I saw that!’ said MOUSE.
‘I thought you couldn’t see everything,’ said Felicity.
‘I said I couldn’t be everywhere. Listen next time.’
‘Quiet you two,’ said Caroline.
The electrically charged air flattened and the metal door slid back inside the wall. Caroline entered the detainment room, closely followed by her assistants and the military men. White walls, a grey floor and a long counter against one wall gave the room a clinical appearance. But the dimmed overhead light softened the edges of the linear space. Weak shadows danced on one wall as she inched closer to the environmentally controlled containment bubble at the back of the room. Inside, Anton lay strapped to a long metal table. Caroline tensed up as she neared. She picked up a gel mask and oxygen canister from the counter.
The containment bubble, rippling with a non-lethal energy, was large enough to hold ten people standing. She pushed her way inside and fixed her gel mask to her face to counter the lower oxygen levels. Her heart raced at the sight of a semi-alert Anton. Stopping three feet away, she shone a pocket light at him. Anton squeezed his eyes shut; Caroline caught the glassy look in his eyes before he did. MOUSE had reported all medication was out of his system. So why did he still look like he was drugged? She had no data on how the drugs affected a second-generation Indigene.
‘He should be lucid, Doctor,’ said MOUSE.
Anton was nowhere near as feisty as the other facilities had reported. She remembered MOUSE’s earlier warning this could be a trick.
‘Lower the light further.’
The light dimmed until there was barely any illumination in the room. She blinked against the new conditions. The shadows deepened, making everything look creepier than before, including her patient.
‘Careful Dr Finnegan, it might not be safe.’
She heeded MOUSE’S warnings as Anton opened his eyes and looked at her.
‘Who are you? What do you want?’ His tongue, swollen with disuse, thickened his words. He licked his lips to moisten them.
‘I’m detecting a slight elevation in his heart rate,’ said MOUSE. ‘Proceed with caution.’
Caroline nodded in response to the warning. ‘My name is Dr Caroline Finnegan.’ Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. ‘Do you know where you are?’
Anton smiled and looked away.
She repeated the question.
‘Should I know?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Then why are you asking me, if my odds at guessing correctly are so poor?’
‘I’m testing your lucidity.’
‘I am at peace.’
‘Peace?’ The statement confused her.
When Anton didn’t answer her, she said, ‘You’re in a special medical facility in Ireland. It’s a small island on the edge of Europe, on Earth. Are you aware of what I’m saying to you?’
Anton looked at her again. His eyes remained watery and unfocused. ‘It’s peaceful where I am. No harm can come to me. I can’t harm others.’
She looked up at the ceiling. ‘What’s wrong with him,
MOUSE?’
‘I don’t know, Doctor. His heart rate is stable. There’s physically nothing wrong. Could it be that Anton is traumatised?’
She’d considered that; the experiments carried out on him had been brutal. Anton may have dissociated from reality to protect himself.
Caroline focused on her patient again. ‘Is that the case, Anton? Are you traumatised? We know you killed someone. Was that your first human kill?’
He ignored her.
‘Are you protecting yourself?’ she said.
Anton smiled and turned his head away from her. ‘You’re not real. Stop talking to me.’
‘But I am real.’ She inched towards him. ‘And so are you. You’re here on Earth and you’re alive. Let me prove it to you.’
‘Do whatever you want. Nothing you do matters anymore.’
‘MOUSE, do something,’ said Caroline. ‘I need him lucid.’
‘What should I do?’
‘I don’t know. Shock him. Get him out of this funk.’
‘What a splendid idea. Let’s make the alien angry. Just so you know, I’m in favour of this doped-up version. This version is friendly and safe.’
Caroline’s face got hot. ‘MOUSE.’
‘Fine, but you had better stand back.’
Caroline exited the containment bubble while MOUSE administered a small jolt through the electrodes attached to Anton’s body. It didn’t appear to alter his mood.
‘Again,’ ordered Caroline.
MOUSE administered another jolt, this time at a higher level.
Anton’s body shuddered, but not much else. ‘You will never turn me into something I am not.’
‘Snap out of it, Anton,’ Caroline muttered. ‘MOUSE, crank it up to ten thousand mill amperes.’
‘Are you sure? That’s quite a hit.’
‘We know he can take it. I don’t have time to argue. Just do it.’
MOUSE jolted Anton again with a shock severe enough to stop a human heart. From her position of safety, Caroline caught the sting of the electricity in the air. Anton convulsed on the table. She waited for the electricity to dissipate before returning to the containment bubble to stand beside him. The glazed look in Anton’s eyes disappeared to be replaced by anger.
‘Keep away from me, human,’ Anton growled.
‘Finally.’ She had no time for pleasantries. Deighton had her on the clock. ‘Are you ready to talk to me?’
‘You can start by telling me where I am.’ Anton struggled beneath the restraints. His movements were still sluggish, but she could see a glimmer of his former self surface.
‘I’ve already told you. You’re in Ireland, on Earth. Why don’t we talk? I don’t want to shock you again.’
Anton blinked once. ‘Leave me alone. Even better, send me home.’
‘That will come, but not yet. You don’t understand how important you are.’
‘More important than you, it would seem.’ Anton glared at her. ‘I’ve heard the way he talks about you.’
Caroline had heard the stories about Deighton at his worst, and what he thought of the medical facility staff. ‘Yes, he believes you’re more important than us, and for good reason. We’re familiar with the physical differences between us, but what interests me is how your brain works.’
‘Your technology is more than capable of taking a look.’ Anton reeled off the specifications of the nearby image resonator, right down to the security detail embedded at a micro level.
Caroline didn’t hide her shock. ‘How did you do that?’
‘I can see the components.’
She composed herself. ‘It’s detail like that which interests me: your brain connectivity—how you learn—how you communicate—how everything is interpreted.’
‘Kill me and you can see for yourself.’
‘It doesn’t work like that. I’d learn far more by talking to you. That will enable me to see the connections for myself.’
‘Talk away. You will learn nothing new.’
‘Where do you go inside your mind to heal?’
‘Where I always go.’
‘And that is?’
‘Into my subconscious—the same as you do when you sleep.’
‘But you have accelerated healing abilities. How does that work? Does something other than sleep get you through the pain?’
Anton didn’t respond.
‘Do you have any superior cognitive abilities?’
‘Like what?’
‘Telepathy, thought transference, call it what you will. Anything that allows you to connect to others of your kind through thought processes alone. While you’ve been in captivity, we’ve recorded activity in certain areas of your brain that exceed normal human levels—in areas that deal with memories, sensory connections, receipt of information and so on. Your prefrontal cortex is enlarged, the area that gives you and I our higher brain functions. Telepathy is something we have experimented with, but haven’t cracked. We know mind-to-mind connectivity is a latent human ability, but so far it hasn’t developed in any meaningful way. Has it developed in you?’
‘Thought communication is possible in close proximity.’
‘To what level? What about over distance?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Let me simplify it for you. Have you communicated with anyone over the last two and a half months?’
‘I don’t remember. I was a little busy trying to stay alive.’
Caroline frowned at her uncooperative patient. She gave up and left the containment bubble intending to try again later. She ushered her staff and the military men out of the secure room.
‘Perhaps he’s unaware of all his abilities?’ suggested MOUSE when they were in the corridor.
‘Possibly.’ The sentient’s suggestion gave her no comfort.
She only had a short amount of time with Anton. Perhaps if she got to know the Indigene on a more personal level, he would come to trust her. But she had to work fast before Deighton moved him on. Before the abuse changed Anton into something he would never recover from.
8
At King’s Cross station, Bill Taggart purchased his ticket for the Maglev train to Inverness. He searched for Platform 8 on the virtual information display board that hovered millimetres below the decorative iron rafters in the ceiling. Seeing a train had just departed, he set off to the platform.
He’d been back on Earth for ten weeks now and still Simon Shaw, his ITF supervisor, hadn’t put him on active duty. Deighton had to be involved in that little move. To add to his worries, he still hadn’t heard from Stephen since the Indigene left Earth. Had he made it back safely? Through his limited channels, there had been no discussions about the captured Anton. Laura had attempted to locate him through the Earth Security Centre, but she’d reported no information on the missing Indigene.
Isla, his wife, was another matter entirely. Her letters had revealed a more sinister government focus on the second generation Indigenes. Not only that, but Laura had shown him a file with her picture in it, and the words “to be destroyed” emblazoned across the front. Together they’d trawled through the micro file to uncover further evidence to support this discovery, but found nothing further.
‘Hurry now. Follow me to Platform Eight.’ A young schoolteacher with her class broke through his thoughts. The excited chatter of little voices filled his ears as giggling girls and rowdy boys passed him.
Bill followed their group to his platform and set his gel mask on his face. The seal tightened as the gel moulded to his contours. Pulling the baseball cap down over his eyes, he pushed through the force field protecting the terminal to the outside, where the platform was. Ahead of him, the Maglev to Inverness waited. A large red clock imprinted on the side of the first carriage counted backwards from two minutes.
He climbed onto the nearest carriage and sat down in a seat that had seen better days. Bill angled the peak of his cap downwards and draped one leg over the second worn seat. He removed his mask and looked out the
window at the other passengers boarding. To his relief, the teacher and her kids boarded a different carriage. In his carriage, nobody tried to sit with him. He removed his leg off the second seat.
Of all the things going on, his travel restrictions to the UK worried him the most. Simon had called him on the Light Box last week and reinforced the order originating from the ESC.
‘Gilchrist wants you to stay put. No spacecraft travel. Land based travel only, ‘said Simon. ‘Don’t take it personally. She and Deighton are paranoid about a lot of things at the moment. I’m sure you can understand.’
Bill tried not to think about that pair. It made him too angry.
‘Not really. Before I left here and on Exilon 5, I was briefed about everything that went on. Now, I’m being told nothing.’
‘Listen, Bill’—Simon glanced over the top of his monitor before leaning in to the screen—‘Do I really need to explain their behaviour to you?’
Bill narrowed his eyes. ‘If you know something, spill.’
To his irritation, Simon just smiled. ‘It’s just one of Deighton’s temper tantrums. You know how he gets. Gilchrist’s just following his orders to appease him.’
Bill had only experienced Deighton’s charm, not his tantrums. But his travel restrictions were hurting him more than he could explain to Shaw. Sitting in one place made him an easy target, and he liked to keep one step ahead of his enemies.
‘I can’t keep doing bullshit tasks for you, Simon. When are you going to put me back on international duty?’
‘Soon, Bill. I can’t bring you in until Deighton approves it.’
The Maglev train pulling out of the station jolted Bill out of his memory. At its top speed of eight hundred miles per hour it would reach Inverness in little over an hour. The skyscrapers, chopped in half by the low-hanging clouds, became just a blur as the train sped up. The air inside the train felt hot and restrictive, as if the environmental controls were on the blink. He kept one hand on his mask that wasn’t working as well as it should.
A promotional video about Exilon 5 played on board the train along with a message that scrolled across the bottom of the screen: ‘If you’re having difficulty breathing, please arrange to have your gel mask checked.’ A number flashed on screen; Bill saw several people scribble it down.