“And you want me to tell you where my friends
are because they might have a cure?” I asked, thoroughly amused by
how the tables had turned on this bitch.
“It’s all because of Courtland,” said
Beatrice as she settled back into her chair, like a snake
slithering back into a coil. “We’ve had a hundred brilliant men and
women trying to redo what he was able to do, but every time they
think they have the answer, it all falls apart.”
“The dude on that island,” I said as I
remembered the sniveling fuck. “He tried to tell me something about
Kim before I smashed his head in.”
“What did he say?”
“Something about her being a carrier.”
Despite how long ago it had been, the image of that man’s bleeding
face would never leave me. I murdered him, and even though I won’t
say that I regret it, the act has never been far from my
subconscious. It lingers, and shows up in my nightmares sometimes,
always with him muttering, ‘She’s a carrier’ before I smash his
head in.
“We have to find someone that Courtland
experimented on,” said Beatrice. “The fate of the entire human race
might depend on it.”
“Then you can blame Jerald when you’re on
your deathbed, because Kim’s dead, and it’s his fault. She was the
one that your scientist buddy had been working on.”
“But she had a child, right?” asked Bea.
I scowled and said, “Leave that boy
alone.”
“No,” she said as if there could never be
another answer. “We need him, and we need Ben Watanabe.”
“Ben? Why do you need him?”
“Because he might be a carrier too, just like
Kim’s son. We’re not certain, but it’s possible. You see, the man
Ben thinks is his father was working with Courtland. He trained Ben
to survive the apocalypse, and to murder some of the people in The
Electorate.”
“No shit?” I asked, intrigued.
“But we’re not certain if the Ben you met is
the original, or if he’s a clone.”
“Like the one in the helicopter,” I said,
remembering when we pulled Ben and his twin out of the wrecked
vehicle. It was one of the many mysteries about what happened that
I hadn’t put together yet. “Why did you have clones of him?”
“Because he was one of the early versions of
the Dawns.”
“Like Celeste,” I said, and I noticed how the
name made Beatrice wince.
“She’s one of the more recent versions,” she
said with an odd bitterness in her tone. “After the real Ben showed
up at the facility in Georgia, our scientists there were able to do
tests on him. They weren’t aware of who he really was, but they
quickly found out he was immune to the disease that Courtland had
cooked up. Unfortunately, they didn’t have time to keep many notes
before they were killed. We know they injected another child at the
facility with the cure they created from Ben’s blood, but we think
she was probably killed.”
I kept my mouth shut about Annie.
“After that, we tried to create clones using
the information from Ben’s tests, but none of them ever had the
same immunity. Still though, we found ways to make them
useful.”
“And how’s that?”
“We did our best to implant the clones with
memories that we thought Ben would’ve had, and we sent them on
their way to kill off some of the people that had been giving us
trouble. It seemed like a good plan, but the memories didn’t stick,
and the clones started to turn against us. Some of them even joined
Jerald. If the Ben you met is the original, then he might have the
antibodies that we need.”
“And if he’s just a clone?” I asked.
“Then he doesn’t matter, and we’ll need Kim’s
son.”
I smiled at her. “And you thought I’d tell
you where he might be?”
“I know you’re not a fool,” said
Beatrice.
“Then you don’t know me at all.”
“If you cooperate, then you’ll be saving your
family and friends, and thousands of other lives as well.”
I knew all of The Rollers’ favorite camping
spots, but there was no guaranteeing they’d be at any of them.
After what had happened, there was a good chance they would flee
south to seek out The Department. If that were the case, then
there’d be no telling where Jules might’ve hidden them. But I
wasn’t about to tell Beatrice that. This was the first time since
being brought here that I felt like I had the upper hand on these
bastards.
“Why are you working with Jerald now?”
Beatrice’s expression turned sour as she
said, “Because I know how to choose my battles. He still has access
to The Electorate’s database, and was able to hide what’s been
going on out here. I was just the first of several members of The
Electorate that fell into his web. If we die out here, then
everything we worked so hard for will be lost.”
“You fell off the ark,” I said with weak
satisfaction as I stared up at the acoustic, white ceiling tiles
that were dotted with black specks.
“What?” asked Beatrice.
“You fell in your flood,” I said while still
staring up. “You set up your island out there with all the people
and animals that you wanted to survive, and then flooded the world.
Right? That’s why you called it The Noah Initiative. But your ass
got booted off the ark, Bea.” I chuckled before glancing over at
her, enjoying her stern look. “You’re out here drowning with the
rest of us.”
“But we don’t have to drown out here, Levon.
Doesn’t that matter to you? Are you really going to let your pride
get in the way of saving your family?”
“Pride’s got nothing to do with it. Pride’s
not worth shit. It’s about doing the right thing, no matter what.
It’s about honor, Bea, and I’ve got enough honor for the both of
us.”
“The honorable thing to do would be to
swallow your pride and save your family.”
“Nah. I’ve seen some seriously honorable shit
in my day, Bea. I saw Reagan kill himself to save Billy and me. I
saw the video of Kim killing herself to save her family. I saw
Kim’s mom lying near dead after she took a lethal amount of pills
so she could ignore her pain and fight to save her kids. You want
to talk to me about honor? Shit, babe, I’ll school your ass ten
times over.”
“So you think the honorable thing to do is to
lay here and waste away while everyone else around you dies?”
Beatrice’s anger was showing. She’d been trying to stay calm, but
I’d annoyed her enough that she was now standing as she launched
her reproach. “Do you know what’s in store for you, Hero?” she said
my nickname with thick distaste. “Do you know what’s happening
inside of you?” She didn’t bother waiting for a response before
launching into a list of symptoms I was already suffering. “The
drugs are going to start eating away at the protein structures
inside of you. It’s delaying the spread of the disease, but it’s
not stopping it. They thought these LiMM chairs could kill the
disease, but they were wrong. Every time they think they’ve killed
the virus in you, they find more traces of it. You’re going to
start falling apart, Levon. It’ll start with a tingling in your
fingertips, and then your toes, and before long you’ll lose feeling
in your legs. You’re never going to walk again, and they’ll
probably have to cut off your arms and legs. You’ll be a stump of a
man in here, laying on this bed while they watch you die. It’ll be
hell. You’re going to be in pain every second for the rest of your
life, because they’re not going to let you die as long as there’s a
chance they can find a cure in you.”
“Thanks for stopping by,” I said as I relaxed
my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes.
“Hero, listen to me, damn it.” She slapped my
cheek. “They know you spent time around Reagan, and his immunity
affected you. Whatever it was that happened with his son was
transferred to him, and then to you. They know that if they can get
the cure working in you, then they’ll be able to save everyone
here. Otherwise, they’ll have to continue producing any cure they
can create, and they’ll run out of supplies. Do you understand me?”
She hit me again. “They’re not going to stop. They’re going to keep
pumping you full of these experiments.” She rattled one of the
tubes that were stuck in my side. “But if you just let them bring
in your friends, then you can stop suffering.”
“So that they can plug these tubes into my
friends?” I asked, finally understanding the implication of her
offer.
Beatrice didn’t have anything else to say.
She just stood over me with a scowl before giving up and turning to
leave.
“Next time you come by, make sure to stop in
at the gift shop and grab me something to read. It gets boring in
this place, and I’m going to be here awhile.”
Celeste
I convinced the Administrators that time had
beaten me down. I allowed them to think they’d won.
This wasn’t a race. It didn’t matter how
quickly I broke free and hunted them down. All that mattered was
that it happened. I played the part they expected of me, and
cowered at their might. I stopped taunting them, and I quit
inciting the knock-out gas to spew from the vents. I already knew
how long it would take for the gas to render me unconscious, and
I’d memorized the design of the guards’ suits so that, when the
time was right, I could incapacitate them. Now I needed more
information about what was happening here. I needed to placate
them; to comply until they no longer suspected the revolution I
would inflict upon them, because that had become my new goal.
Revolution.
It could be nothing short of that. I loved
the word. It had been one of the many words the Administrators had
stricken from the Dawn’s education. No sense in giving voice to
ideas you hoped never to inspire. They’d been so careful to craft
our experience, but I broke free, and once you know you’re living
in a cage the dream of freedom is all-consuming.
However, I’d come to realize something in my
time back in the facility that I couldn’t ignore. Every time I
dreamed of Hailey and returned to the nightmare of reality, I
became more focused on what I had to do here. Hailey’s glowing
smile, now a denizen of fantasy instead of reality, inspired me to
free our sisters. The Dawns stuck down here with me had no idea
about the world they were being hidden from, and despite the myriad
of terrors waiting for them on the surface, they deserved to know
that they were living in a false reality. Being caged down here was
no life at all. While I wanted to escape, I couldn’t leave without
bringing my sisters with me.
That presented me with a challenge. If I
managed to break out of this place by attacking the guards and then
absconding through their secret passages, just like I had with
Hailey, then there would be no way for me to inspire the other
Dawns to come with me. I needed to be allowed back into their
ranks, but how could I convince the Administrators to allow it?
I waited for the view screen to click on. I
stood on the grey footprints, patiently waiting for mother to
call.
Finally, the screen clicked to life, and I
saw my digital doppelganger staring back at me. “Hello Celeste,”
she said as she stared at me. After so many weeks of arguing about
it, my mother accepted my new, self-given name.
“Hello, mother.”
She cringed when I said the word, but I was
continuing to reinforce our relationship. I didn’t want to be
viewed as a commodity anymore. I wanted her to see me as more
important than that.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Lonely,” I answered, seeking empathy.
“You have me. You’ll always have me.”
She was all I had, and despite the hatred I
had for her, it was impossible to ignore that she was the closest
thing to human contact I had here. “I know, and I’m thankful for
that. But…” I looked sheepishly down, and then to the door that led
the way to the rest of the facility, past my shower and ready room.
“Still.”
“You’re not going to be allowed back in with
the others,” said my mother with assurance, but I sensed a modicum
of sympathy in her tone. “You know that.”
“I know,” I said quickly, having played out
this conversation in my mind several times already. “I’m not asking
to go out there and be with the others. I know that’s not possible.
But what if…” I was nervous. It was a rare emotion for me, but so
much rode on my ability to convince her to placate me. “What if you
found one Dawn that could come and visit me. You could monitor us
the whole time. And I swear I won’t do anything to confuse her, or
let her know that I made it to the surface.”
She shook her head and said, “No,” but I
continued unabated.
“We could explain that I’d been refusing to
take my pills at night, and that I got sick because of it, and that
the Administrators need to introduce me back into the group slowly.
I’m sure they’re all wondering where Hailey and I disappeared to.
They have to be curious, and I bet they’re scared. After that man
fell from the ceiling, the other girls saw Hailey and me getting
carried out by the guards. I’m sure they think our disappearance
had something to do with coming in contact with that dead man.” I
knew that I must’ve sounded frantic, but I continued anyhow,
desperate to plead my case before she shot me down. “The Dawns used
to get nightmares from seeing an Administrator with brown hair, for
crying out loud. They must be tossing and turning in their beds in
terror of what they think happened to us. If you let me meet with
one girl, just one, and monitored us, then she could explain to the
others all about what’s really going on. She could help explain how
important it is to do as the Administrators say, and take the
pills, because otherwise they might get sick like me. Think about
it.”
“Celeste, I…”
I interrupted her, “Just promise me, mother.
Promise me you’ll consider it.”
She paused, which I thought was a good sign.
After a long sigh, she asked as if pondering to herself, “What
happened to you out there?”