The Individuality Gene

by G Sauvé

  I’m hideous. Hermit’s cream kept my nose from falling off, and the frostbitten areas are beginning to heal, but my face is now a mess of black skin and red scabs. No wonder Kara doesn’t want to be my girlfriend.

  I turn away from the curtain, feeling defeated. I need time to process, to reflect on what happened. A walk seems like the most logical solution, so I grab my winter clothes and head off. On my way out, I come across a small package. It stands by the residence’s main entrance, waiting to be discovered. Assuming it was left here for one of our hosts, I carry it inside and place in on the small table that stands within the dwelling’s central room. The package now delivered, I head back out and make my way to the Colony’s main entrance. By the time I reach it, I’m fully dressed and ready to face the rigours of winter.

  I’m a little surprised to find the sun nearing the end of its journey across the sky, but the prospect of watching it set enchants me. I barely even notice the half-dozen men standing guard by the gate.

  “Be vigilant,” warns one of the sentries. “Drones patrol the wasteland.”

  They do? That’s the first I hear of it. Then again, it makes sense. The Kra’lors must suspect some of the humans survived the ice age. It thus stands to reason they would try to find them.

  “I’ll be careful,” I tell the guard as I head off, shivering in the cold air.

  I wander around, letting the randomness of my steps carry me. As I progress through the field of giant ice flowers, my mind begins to wander. And the more it does, the more anxious I grow.

  I think of the enslaved humans and the time loop I’m supposedly trapped in. I ponder the matter of the individuality gene and wonder if it’s real. I reflect on the role I have played in this story and realize that I, more than anyone, am responsible for what has happened. Sure, Avalon was the one who tricked us, but that’s what she does. Jonn and Kara also failed to realize she was manipulating us, but it’s not their fault. I was the one who chose to trust my older self, and because of it, countless people have died. But there’s still hope. With the free humans’ help, history can be set back on course. I think.

  There’s also the whole Kara issue. She remains convinced the only way to keep us safe is to remain apart until Avalon is stopped. But how long will that take? For all I know, Kara and I will never get to be a real couple.

  Then there’s Jonn. Though he’s relatively safe at the moment, we still need to come up with a plan to rescue him.

  The more I think about it, the more I realize the entire future of humanity depends solely on the decision Snow and his fellow leaders will make. If they agree to help us, our mistake can be rectified. If he refuses, we’re back to square one.

  I keep walking for a while before the chill of impending night washes over me. The sun has now set, and the temperature is dropping rapidly. Teeth chattering, I head back and reach the Colony just as the last few shards of sunlight fade.

  My mind wanders as I make my way into the bowels of the ice castle. By the time I reach my temporary home, I have come to the conclusion that I must apologize for my actions. I don’t regret kissing Kara, but I know it was the wrong thing to do. She made it clear we can’t be together until Avalon is stopped, and I need to respect that.

  I make a pit stop in the living room to gather my thoughts and practice my apology. The package I found earlier is gone, but I couldn’t care less. I re-work my apology until I’m certain the wording is perfect, then make my way to my friend’s room. The curtain is drawn, indicating she’s still upset.

  I knock on the wall and wait.

  Nothing.

  “I’ve come to apologize,” I say.

  Still nothing.

  “Can I come in?”

  Silence.

  I can think of two possible explanations. One: Kara is gone. Two: She’s giving me the silent treatment. Either way, there’s but one thing I can do.

  “I’m coming in,” I warn. I wait a moment, then pull the curtain aside and enter.

  Kara lies on the ground, immobile. Her limbs are twisted in an awkward manner, indicating the fall wasn’t planned.

  “Kara!” I yelp and rush to her side. I nudge her, but she doesn’t awake.

  “Kara!” I repeat, more forcefully.

  Still nothing.

  I shake her, but she remains unresponsive.

  Dread rises within me. I check to make sure she’s breathing, but her lungs remain dormant. I press my fingers to her neck, hoping to find her pulse, but all I sense is stillness.

  Kara is dead.

  Memory 57

  K ara is dead.

  “No,” I mutter, staring at my friend’s lifeless body. “You can’t be dead. You can’t!”

  There’s no response.

  I reach out and grab my former girlfriend’s corpse. Holding it close, I rock back and forth, tears streaming down my cheeks. My entire body shudders as waves of sadness and anger crash into it. I remain this way for what feels like an eternity before the sadness evaporates, leaving only a deep, unquenchable thirst for revenge.

  I release Kara’s body and scan the room.

  “Who did this?” I demand.

  There’s no answer.

  I go through the list of possible suspects. Frost if the first person I think of, but she has no reason to want Kara dead, so I quickly move on. Snow is next, but like his wife, he’s an unlikely suspect. But if not them, who? I have only interacted with a handful of people since arriving here and none of them—

  Avalon.

  She’s the only one with a motive. I don’t know how she did it, but there’s no doubt in my mind she’s responsible for my friend’s death.

  I scan the room once more, only this time I do so with much more scrutiny. As expected, I notice something that doesn’t belong.

  It’s a wooden box. Small and red, it’s identical to the one I found earlier.

  I snatch it up and inspect it. It’s bare but for four small letters carved into its polished surface.

  KARA

  I hate myself for not noticing it earlier, but the time for regret has passed. Hands trembling, I open the chest. Within its black padded interior stands an elevated platform with a single red button. The sight of it perplexes me until I notice the writing on the underside of the lid.

  Press the button.

  I know better than to comply, but at least now I know what happened to Kara. Well, sort of.

  I re-read the printed command a dozen times before it occurs to me to examine the box for clues. My initial search reveals nothing, but my second attempt exposes a hidden seam between the elevated platform and the bottom of the chest. Grabbing the padded dais, I pull on it. It comes loose, revealing a hidden compartment. Tucked inside is a small roll of parchment.

  My hands shake so much I have trouble retrieving the letter, yet I somehow manage it. Unfurling it, I read the words inscribed upon it.

  Dear Will,

  If you are reading this, it means Kara is dead. While I relish the thought, we both know bringing her back to life will be as simple as creating a portal and stepping through it. But I caution you against taking such hasty action.

  Kara has been lying to you. She is not what she seems. Would a normal girl die from a simple electromagnetic pulse? Would a normal girl be able to run for days on end without ever growing tired? Would a normal girl be able to accomplish the myriad things Kara does on a daily basis that normal people could only dream of?

  The answer lies on the back of her neck.

  Enjoy,

  —Avalon

  While confusing, Avalon’s letter has revealed quite a lot. Not only was I reminded that rescuing my fallen friend is quite simple, but I now know the purpose of the button. What I fail to understand is why an EMP would kill Kara. Does she have a pacemaker or some other kind of electronic organ? I guess there’s only one way to find out.

  I focus on Kara’s body. It looks so alive I can’t help feeling guilty for what I’m about to do. But I can’t keep going like th
is. I must understand why she is the way she is. I must uncover the truth.

  I lift her into a seated position and lean her against the nearby bed. Her head and shoulders remain erect. I half expect her eyes to pop open, but they don’t.

  I avoid looking directly at her as I reach around and part the curtain of hair that covers her nape. I then feel around until I find what, deep down, I was praying I wouldn’t.

  It’s a bump. Roughly the size of a marble, the small protuberance stands at the beginning of her spinal column. In an attempt to identify it, I feel around, and in doing so, accidentally press down on it. At first, nothing happens, but then the bump retreats into my friend’s neck, and a faint hissing sound fills the air.

  I pull away and watch in a mixture of awe and fear as an invisible knife slices Kara’s beautiful face. The fissure starts at the center of the forehead and travels along the nose, past the lips, and down the chin. By the time it’s complete, more cracks have appeared. Moving perpendicular to the first, they travel along the width of the forehead, across the cheeks, and along the jawline. Soon, my friend’s face has been sliced into six neat flaps of skin. I watch, horrified, as they are peeled back by an invisible force. But what lies beneath the skin is far more terrifying.

  Instead of muscles and bones, I see gears and cogs, wires and circuits, and electronic components of all sorts. It doesn’t take a genius to understand what this means, yet it takes me a while to accept the truth.

  Kara is a robot.

  Memory 58

  I stare at the thing that used to be my friend, frozen in shock and horror.

  This can’t be real. It’s a trick, a manipulation orchestrated by Avalon.

  But why? Why would she go through the trouble of replacing the girl I love with a robotic replica? For that matter, when did she perform the switch? The more I think about it, the more illogical it seems. But what other explanation is there?

  I can only think of one.

  Kara is a robot.

  It seems impossible, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Kara is perfect, both physically and mentally, far too perfect to be a mere human. Not to mention the fact that she’s by far the best fighter I have ever known. Jonn may be strong, but Kara’s technique is flawless. She’s also an expert marksman. And one hell of an athlete. She’s the only person I know who can run for hours and not get tired. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her sweat. Or cry. Her selflessness also seems rather unnatural. No human being could be noble and altruistic to the point of risking both their life and that of their friends for the greater good.

  I think back to our past adventures and realize there were many instances where she did something that should have been impossible. She jumped off the back of a giant prehistoric snail and landed in a tree without so much as a scratch. She then jumped back onto a prehistoric mollusc without a moment’s hesitation. She wasn’t affected by the mosquito venom that put Jonn and me into temporary comas. And those are only from our first temporal adventure. More recently, she reacted to the cold in a very odd way. Instead of shivering and losing feeling in her extremities, she slowed down, almost as if her robotic body couldn’t handle the extreme cold. It also explains why I was the only one to suffer from frostbite. And how she managed to keep digging through the snow when the lack of oxygen caused me to pass out.

  There’s no denying it.

  Kara is a robot.

  Realizing the girl I love isn’t real is painful. Learning she’s been lying to me from the very beginning is worse. But I can’t blame her. She was programmed to behave in such a way, forced to manipulate me into falling in love with her. But if she’s not responsible for her actions, then who is?

  I can only think of one person.

  Jonn.

  He’s Kara’s father. There’s no way he doesn’t know she’s a robot. He may even be the one who created her. All I know is, like the girl I thought I loved, he’s been lying to me ever since we met. While I have to respect him from being honest about not liking me, I can’t help feeling betrayed by the realization that he’s been manipulating me from the get-go. Just thinking of his duplicity makes me want to punch him in the face. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

  I stand and stare at what remains of Kara. As hurt as I am by her lies and manipulations, the thought of a world without her is too painful to consider. I thus decide not to wait for Snow and his fellow leaders to decide whether or not to help the enslaved humans. Once this whole “Kara is a robot” thing is dealt with, we can return here and once again try convincing the free humans to help us. That is, if Jonn, Kara, and I are still on speaking terms.

  I tear my gaze from Kara’s robotic corpse and focus on my mother’s ring. Twisting the triangles is easy. So is watching the portal appear. The hard part is willing myself to step into it. As desperate as I am for answers, I honestly don’t know if I can handle facing Kara now that I know what she truly is. But the prospect of my knuckles hitting Jonn’s fat, stupid nose is too enticing to resist.

  I enter the portal.

  Memory 59

  I appear in an old, abandoned park. I’ve grown so accustomed to it I barely even notice the dried flowers and lifeless trees that surround me. All I care about is that I’ve successfully reset.

  Kara stands a short distance from me. Seeing her up and about brings a smile to my lips, but the joy of seeing her alive fades as soon as I remember what she’s done.

  “Where are we?” she asks.

  I ignore her and focus on Jonn. The sight of him reminds me that, unlike Kara, he was in full control of his actions. No one forced him to lie to me, to manipulate me. He chose to do it. And now he’s going to pay for it.

  I surge forward just as he starts speaking.

  “I don’t know,” he says, “but—”

  I interrupt him with a tackle. The impact nearly dislocates my shoulder, but my momentum sends us tumbling toward a nearby hedge. We smash through and land on the other side in a heap of twisted limbs.

  “What the drowned?” grunts Jonn as he shoves me aside and struggles to stand. I don’t allow it.

  “Stay down!” I speak the words with such force the large man has no choice but to obey.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, now more concerned than angry.

  I shush him. To my great surprise, he complies without question.

  Silence settles upon us. It doesn’t last long, but it’s enough for me to realize we’re now hiding behind the very same hedge Kara and I used to shield ourselves after my first reset. Avalon’s letter lies nearby, begging to be read. I ignore it, knowing the words it contains were meant for a younger, more naïve version of myself.

  “Guys?” comes Kara’s voice from the other side of the hedge. “Where are you?”

  Jonn tries to answer, but I shut him up with a slap to the back of the head. He glares at me but says nothing. We wait in silence as the sound of robotic footsteps reaches us. The noise is so familiar I don’t need to look to know the sentinels are about to capture Kara. She calls out to us, but her cry for help is cut short by the sizzling explosion of an energy sphere. The sound of a falling body follows soon after.

  Jonn leaps to his feet, but I intercept him before he can burst through the hedge.

  “Let me go,” he growls, his voice a mere whisper.

  I shake my head.

  “It’s too late,” I mutter. “There’s nothing we can do for her now.”

  “What do you mean? Is she—”

  “She isn’t dead. Then again, she was never alive to begin with.”

  Jonn throws me a puzzled look.

  “What do you—”

  I cut him off.

  “I know Kara is a robot.”

  A heavy silence settles between us. Jonn stares at me, unblinking. I stare right back, eyes ablaze with anger. It’s not until the sound of a body being dragged reaches us that the grey-haired soldier breaks eye contact. Peeking around the hedge, he watches as Kara is taken awa
y by the sentinels.

  “What happened to her?” he asks.

  “She’s fine. She’s just unconscious.”

  “Are you sure?”

  To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure if a robot can be knocked unconscious. Nor do I know how Kara survived a blast of ‘tal energy when an electromagnetic pulse completely fried her circuitry. All I know is she will awake in a cavern surrounded by women and children.

  “She’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  I chuckle. I just asked a man who’s been lying to me for the past few months to trust me. If that’s not irony, I don’t know what is.

  “We have to rescue her,” he says.

  “Later,” I say. “We have things to discuss.”

  Jonn scoffs.

  “No, we don’t.” He turns his back to me, as though threatening to walk away.

  “Turn around,” I growl. The command is so forceful the grey-haired soldier had no choice but to obey.

  He glares at me, but his icy stare has no effect on me.

  “Why did you lie to me?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth about Kara?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  My anger flares.

  “STOP LYING!” I yell.

  Jonn sighs. His shoulders slump in defeat.

  “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “Is it true?” I ask. “Is Kara a robot?”

  Jonn nods.

  The news hits me harder than I thought it would. I only now realize I was secretly hoping this was all one big misunderstanding. But such hopes have now been dashed.

  Kara is a robot.

  I take a moment to gather my thoughts.