Saidan turned to me. "What do you think we should do?"
"There has to be an exit somewhere," I said. "We have to get out of here and return to the Science Building before curfew."
"You're not curious about what this place might be?" Saidan almost looked hurt that I cared more about getting our skins out of our situation in one piece than the actual use of the facility. I suppose that I was being selfish: it was our relationship that I was trying to protect. Valeria's plight seemed to pale in significance to keeping Saidan safe. Not much of a scientific view, I know, but I was changing with every minute of every day that I spent with Saidan.
"Sure, but we can come back and investigate later. Right now, we have to avoid getting ourselves in any more trouble." I thought I sounded sensible. I hoped that whoever was watching us, be the Sisters or some other forgotten A.I., would understand that we had chanced upon the location by mistake and just wanted to get back to the city.
Saidan gave me a look that I could only class as disapproval. "This facility might house the answers we're looking for. Why are you so afraid?"
I realized Saidan had cut me right to the bone. He was right, I was afraid. Afraid of what we might find. Scared of the consequences. "We're already in a lot of trouble. This could be the one thing that sends us both to Re-Education."
"It might also be the solution to our entire problem. This facility is being powered somehow. It's not getting energy from the city all the way out here. It must be using some other force. What if its source is the life on Valeria?"
I stopped and stared at him blankly for a second, knocked off balance by his brilliant perception. My mind snapped out of self-preservation mode and into scientific thinking as I put the pieces together and ran the theory through my mental fact-checker.
"Do you think it might be possible?" I shook my head. "We can't jump to conclusions. It might have some kind of power plant of its own. It seems to be a pretty large facility."
"I want to know what its purpose is," Saidan said. There was a look of stubbornness and determination on his face. "This facility is no accident, and the fact that it is still running suggests the Sisters are in control of it. There must be a reason for its existence. I'm going to find out why." He stalked off, choosing a tunnel and walking through it. I jogged to catch up.
"I'm in," I said. "Yes, I'm scared, but you're right. We need to find out the purpose of this facility." We stopped and I looked around at the tunnel. Huge tubes and wires ran through it and the lights on the floor pulsated eerily. I looked at Saidan.
"Something's not right about this place," he said. "It chills me to the bone. I don't know why, but my intuition tells me it's important." He took my hand. I knew that someone had to be watching, but I didn't pull away. I needed the comfort of his touch to continue.
He kept hold of my hand and led me through the tunnel. I was surprised by Saidan's courage, but then wondered why it came as such a shock to me. He'd been the courageous one all along. He'd taken all the risks that had allowed us to meet. He'd given me all the glances that showed me he was different to the drones. He'd taken all the risks upon himself. I felt like a coward when I realized how little I'd given him in return.
I was about to say something to Saidan when the tunnel started to widen. Saidan increased his grip on my hand as we came out into a massive room. Tanks filled the room, each with a Valerian figure suspended in liquid inside. Saidan let go of my hand and rushed up to a tank, rubbing away the dirt and condensation to reveal a familiar face. A young version of Nineteen Twenty-Nine stared back at us with lifeless eyes.
Saidan took two steps back, visibly shaken. "What... What is this?"
"I don't know," I said. I put my hands on his shoulders, offering support. "That's Twenty-Nine. He's dead. I don't understand..."
I let go of Saidan's shoulders and walked up to the next tank, rubbing off the condensation. Nineteen-Thirty. The next tank. Nineteen Thirty-One. The similarities were striking and I finally put the pieces together.
"They're still alive," Saidan said. "I don't understand."
"I think I do," I said. "They're synthetics." I looked across the room at the hundreds of tanks, filled with people who were created and born as adults. That was why One hadn't known about parents. She'd never seen a child, or had parents of her own. "Your entire race is made up of artificially-created beings, grown in tanks."
"I'm not real? I was never born?" Saidan looked around at the impassive, suspended faces floating in front of him. "What am I?"
"Let's not jump to conclusions. You're a lot different from the others. Think about what you know, Saidan. Help me out here." I grabbed his shoulders from the front and turned him to face me. "Don't freeze up on me. I need your help. Saidan, do you remember growing up?" I asked.
"I was a child. I grew up in the Children's Building." Saidan's amber eyes studied the tanks, trying to put together the pieces in his head.
"Were you? What was your childhood like? Were you smaller? Did you crawl about, a helpless toddler, or were you born like this?"
"I was always this size. Do humans begin small?" Saidan's eyes widened.
"Yeah... All organic beings begin life as infants. I doubt Valerians are any different. The Sisters have interfered with the natural order of this planet... but for what purpose?"
"What if I'm... not real? What if I'm just replaceable?" Saidan put his hand on the nearest tank.
"Saidan!" His eyes were distant, his mind going into shock. I did the only thing I could. I kissed him. My lips on his revived him a little. "You're real," I said. "Being created instead of born doesn't change anything. You're still alive."
"Thanks," Saidan said, but it was barely more than a whisper from dry lips.
"The short lifespans and your delicate bodies. I understand now." It hit me like a blow to the head. "Easy euthanasia. Of course, you can just create more people."
"Each room has a distinct individual. I wondered why sometimes the dead seem to be replaced with similar faces. I thought that perhaps family members took their places." Saidan paced, gathering his thoughts.
"Right. My room. Nineteen-Nineteen is gone." I marched down the row of tanks until I reached one labeled Nineteen. I rubbed off the condensation to see a synthetic looking at me. Large, female eyes stared lifelessly into space.
"But why?" Saidan's hands rested on the first tank, looking at the lifeless body before him. "I don't understand. Who are we? Why do we exist? Why would anybody create a race of synthetics?"
"This must be why the planet's dying." I paced the room, a hundred pairs of dead eyes watching me. "You were right. This facility is sucking the life from the planet to create and store new life. I'm supposing that a power plant simply wasn't enough."
Saidan wandered away from me, still in a daze. He walked to Twenty-One and rubbed off the glass. The tank was empty. He beat his fists on it. "Is anything real? What am I?"
"You're a person. A Valerian. A synthetic is still a living being with full personhood rights, according to the United Planets Council Charter."
"Valeria is a lie. What happened to my people that this was the only solution?" Anger flared up inside him. "Sisters, answer me! I demand that you answer my question!"
"Saidan!" My mind raced back to self-preservation. "We have to get out of here. We can take my ship, go back to Earth. They'll never let us live knowing what we know. The United Planets has banned synthetics. They'll come down on this planet like a ton of bricks with sanctions."
"You go." Saidan fell to his knees. "I'm not leaving this planet until I find answers."
"Then I'm staying with you."
"No. You have to go and report this to the United Planets. Bring a full investigation down on this planet."
"I'm not leaving you!"
"You must!" Saidan's voice was loud in a way I'd never heard it before. "We're not real. Nothing is real. Perhaps Valeria never existed. What if we're nothing but the designs of an A.I?"
"What if you are? You're still Saidan." I put my arm around him, but he shrugged it off.
"It all makes sense now. Why our lives are so strictly controlled. We're all the creations of the Sisters, born of their need to have control. They probably made most of us simple-minded on purpose. It makes ruling people so much easier if the people don't think." Saidan stood up and started to pace. Making a decision, he walked down the aisles. I followed, afraid for him and wanting to follow his thought patterns. He stopped at One and wiped down the tank. It was empty. "Whatever One is, that is also what I am. An anomaly placed into the system, a wild card. Somebody has to keep order. Somebody has to keep the level of science above industrial levels. But who are the Valerians? Did a race ever evolve on this world?"
I offered my hands to Saidan and he took them. "Saidan, it doesn't matter why you were created, or what the Sisters' plans were. You can choose your own destiny, be whoever you want. 'Synthetic' and 'evolved' are just words."
Saidan seemed to rally a little at my words, but he was still shaking. "What are we going to do?"
"We have two options. We can leave on my ship and escape to Earth, or we can stay and see what happens. We might find answers if we stay, but we will be in grave danger after what we've seen here."
"Earth has great scientists, right? Maybe they'll be able to find out who I am."
"Without a doubt. They will know if your genome was designed, altered or naturally occurring. We have a dark past with synthetics ourselves, Saidan. Humans, of all people, should be able to figure out what's going on here."
"Then we need to get out of here."
"Right. We'll take the bus back like nothing's happened. When we reach the Science Building, we'll keep on walking."
Saidan leaned in so close I thought he might kiss me, but then I realized he was avoiding the gaze of any cameras. "I've got a better solution than that. I think I can hack the bus to take us to your ship." He pulled a small device from his pocket. "I was working on this for you, actually. It's a kind of jammer that temporarily disables the cameras. I created it on the side while working on our project. It's risky and will draw attention, but I think I can re-wire the bus while the cameras are out."
"All we need to do is get to my ship and take off. Once we're in orbit, it won't matter. Valeria doesn't have space capability anymore. We can do this."
"Right." Saidan nodded. "Let's get out of here." I took his shaking hand and we continued to follow the lights as they led through a maze of rooms. We passed through a dozen chambers of synthetics. We saw one being birthed, a machine sucking the synthetic out of the tank. She opened her eyes and gasped for breath, but we didn't have time to stop for her.
"There must be a room of synthetics for each building," Saidan said. "There must be some repetition. I can't imagine that even an A.I. as sophisticated as the Sisters could create much genetic diversity."
"That's probably why relationships are banned. Many of the synthetics are probably related in a strange way. Altered, yet still sons and daughters of the same genetic origin," I speculated.
"Indeed."
We reached a large steel door, but it wouldn't open. A keypad sat on the wall, waiting for a passcode we didn't have. Saidan pulled the panel away from the wall and started touching wires together. Eventually he found the right ones and the door heaved open, letting moonlight into the chamber.
"It's night time already." Saidan bit his lip as we stepped outside and climbed a sandy ridge. The bus was a short distance away. "I guess it doesn't matter anymore, right? We're running away." He stopped at the crest of the hill and looked out over the ocean. "I'll never come back here, will I?"
"Probably not." I put my arms around Saidan, holding him close to me and kissing his hair. "Saidan, whatever happens, whoever you are... It won't change how I feel about you."
"I know." Saidan closed his eyes, leaning into my embrace. "Am I wrong for leaving? Whatever happens here will continue after I've left. The Sisters will continue to keep the synthetics in her iron grip. They may be simple people, but I know they want more than this as well. They're simply too scared to act." The moonlight bathed his face in pale light and he looked almost holy to me in that moment.
"The United Planets might help," I offered.
"You know that any good interplanetary government has a policy of non-interference."
"How do you know that?" He was right, of course. The United Planets would declare Valeria off-limits and that would be the end of it.
"An educated guess based on logic. The results of interference in a planet's growth and development could be disastrous."
"It was the Sisters who invited me. I suppose they weren't expecting me to break all their rules." I listened to the waves crash on the beach: a soothing sound.
"I suppose not." Saidan managed a wan smile. "I'm glad you did, though."
"Even after what we've learned?"
"Yes. I always knew something wasn't right in this world. Now I know what it is. I'm a synthetic, whatever that means. My world is a lie."
Gentle rain started to fall, telling us it was time to go. As we made our way to the bus, I couldn't help but feel that the Sisters had let us go. Why they had allowed us to see the synthetics? Did they want their secret to be out at last, or were they incompetent? I've worked with A.I.s in the past, and they are anything but. I feared the Sisters had some reason behind my invitation, and that we were never going to leave the planet.
I was right.
Saidan rewired the bus's computer terminal. I wanted to ask where he'd learned such an illegal skill, but he was deep in thought and I remained silent. My own mind was racing with thoughts about our escape and what Earth authorities would think about Saidan's arrival. He'd be able to apply for asylum after the insane things we'd discovered, but it would be a long and complicated road.