Office of Mercy (9781101606100) (17 page)

Natasha said nothing, but her eagerness showed.

“The Pretends,” Raj said quietly, “are not as completely imaginary as most people assume. You can discover quite a bit about the past in there, if you know how to look.”

“What do you mean?”

“This new program they've developed, Free Play—officially it takes thoughts out of the player's mind and forms that dream into reality. Except, as you might remember from the trial runs, that's a difficult thing to do, even for our brilliant engineers. Human thoughts, human dreams, they're too vague and fragmented to translate into the solid literal worlds we expect of our Pretends. So in the newest version of Free Play, the engineers allowed the computer more versatility. They allowed it to combine the current player's dream with the dreams of previous players. This way, the creative integrity and adaptability of Free Play would not be compromised, since the engineers still would not be scripting the sensory world. But at the same time, we would all get the immersive, convincing experiences that we citizens seem to enjoy.”

“So we can see other people's thoughts during Free Play?”

“Their thoughts, their fantasies, but especially those moments that have taken the deepest hold of their minds. The moments they try to suppress.”

“Are you saying that the missing hours in the record play out in the Pretends?” Natasha asked. “No offense, but I think that's a little far-fetched.”

“It's impossible even for players themselves to distinguish completely between their own dream and the dreams of others. But yes, if you start down the right path, if you clear your mind of expectation and force the computer to fill in as many gaps as possible, I do think you might stumble upon thoughts that are recognizably not your own.” He leaned down and spoke close to her ear. “It's probable that the citizens who experienced the entire Palm attack haven't forgotten about it. Whoever they are, my guess is that they choose to relive it in the Pretends.”

•   •   •

Natasha thought a great deal about what Raj had told her, even though the possibility of learning anything hard and true about the Palms in Free Play still struck her as unlikely. However, no matter what she believed at the moment, she couldn't go rushing off to the Pretends right away. The next day, the Zetas reached their sixth month of gestation, the time for them to receive their names. A special, cross-generational committee had been working on the project for months. They had looked closely at each Zeta's DNA package, itself a blend of what the Alphas had gathered in Pre-Storm times. Then, in an exercise at once historical, scientific, and artistic, they pinpointed the Pre-Storm culture associated with the fetus's dominant genetic patterns and assigned a name that bore some relevance to that bygone nation or community.

Usually the naming celebration (this was according to the older generations) took place in the completed nursery, with all the Alphas present and as many citizens as could squeeze in around the incuvats. For the Zetas, however, it was a much more subdued affair. The equipment in the Office of Reproduction was too delicate to risk the presence of a crowd, and the aisles were too narrow to accommodate a number of people with any comfort. Instead, the citizens packed into the Dome and watched each name appear one by one on the maincomputer. The situation was not ideal. They should have been together in a freshly painted, freshly furnished New Wing. And yet, at the announcement of the first name, Charlie Abraham, all concern and worry and bad feeling dissolved in a bright surge of hopefulness and love. Nisha Adante, Leah Broussard, Magdalena Chang, Asumana Donovan. Tears gathered in the otherwise steady, dry eyes of the older generations, while the younger ones squeezed hands and cheered till they were pink in the face. Each new name roused a fresh tumult of feeling, especially for the Epsilons. So excited and proud they were to welcome their little brothers and sisters. Christine Engle, Ali Fuhad, Yael Glassman, Takumi Goto.

The names went on and Natasha wanted, she yearned, to love the Zetas too. She
did
love them, for their innocence and their potential, for whatever absolutely unique combination of aptitudes and failings and predilections and aversions each Zeta child would possess. She loved them simply because they were
here
, because she and every other citizen had labored to make their existence possible, and because it would be her responsibility, as it was every person's responsibility, to share in the work of raising them right. The Zetas were each wholly and irreplaceably themselves; and yet, at the same time, though they could not know it, they already belonged to the citizens of America-Five, just as the citizens of America-Five belonged to them, and the Zetas, in their uniqueness, would become essential and indispensable parts of the vibrant and unified whole. Everyone in the Dome could feel it, feel the specialness of the coming of a new generation. Harold Wyeth. Su Young. Natasha loved them, she did, but her love had a bitterness to it. Because how was it fair? With the Pines and all the Tribes on the continent, how was it fair for the Zetas to force themselves into the world? By the time the announcements concluded with the naming of Frederic Ziblenski, the swelling feeling of pride in Natasha pressed with a jagged, sharp edge.

Her doubts about Raj's advice persisted, yes, but with no other places to go for information, she eventually found herself turning to the Pretends. The night of the next full moon was fast approaching, and she was seriously considering going back to meet the Pines, and trying again to get them to leave the perimeter, unless she uncovered some clear reason not to.

Eric had not spoken to her again about the Tribes. But it seemed that, despite his unease, he was willing to leave the next move to her. At the very least, Natasha felt sure he would not turn them in without warning her first.

It was after dinner, and the Pretends were crowded. Natasha had to climb up to the third level before she found an open Pod. She selected Free Play and, as Raj had suggested, she tried to clear her mind of any direct want or expectation—that wasn't too hard, because she did not really believe this would work. Vaguely, with a light probing of thought, she evoked the day of the Palm attack, of that calm summertime afternoon twenty-two years ago. And soon, only a second later, the glow of sunlight beyond her eyelids told her that she was there.

The birds shrieked from the trees and the orange sun watched like a massive eye from the cloudless sky above. The air was dank and humid and thick in Natasha's throat, even though it passed through an airfilter strapped to her back. She lay belly down on the low metal roof of one of the America-Five wings—the Department of Government—as she quickly surmised from its northwest orientation. She wore a bulky, old-model biosuit and her finger hovered over the trigger of an early-generation LUV-2. The gun balanced on a mount between two turrets, aimed at the forest beyond. The sunlight reflected off the metal roof, roasting her in its heat. A man's voice spoke to her through an earpiece.

“Aggressive Tribe approaching from due north. All citizens on high alert. Maintain camouflage.”

Natasha checked that she was fully hidden behind the turrets. From her vantage point, she could see the citizens on the ground shift slightly, no doubt nervous in their more exposed positions. At the tree line, citizens on well-concealed platforms cocked their necks to peer through the eyepieces of their weapons.

They heard the drums several minutes before they saw them.
Brrum-ta-ta-ta-brrum
. A sound in rhythm, Natasha was sure, with the marching of the warriors' feet. The noise grew louder, closer, until right when Natasha thought she would explode with anticipation, the Tribe broke from the forest and into the ring of green lawn. Two arrows whizzed over her head. A hundred Tribespeople, many armed with bows, approached the Dome. The drumbeat came to a sputtering halt, the arrows flying faster now. But the Tribe's awe at the enormous structure before them was apparent by their break in formation: some charged awkwardly forward while others stumbled back.

“They've cleared the forest,” said the voice in Natasha's earpiece. “Prepare to sweep in four, three . . .”

The Tribespeople spoke to one another,
weesh ar haar
, words that Natasha could not make out. They were naked except for loincloths tied at their hips and strings of animal teeth hung around their necks. They had wide, dirty faces and wild hair. A rock soared from the center of the group and hit the windows of the Dome with a clang. Another ricocheted across the metal roof near Natasha.

“Two, one, fire.”

The shots came from every direction, the ground and the sky, the forest and the roof where Natasha's whole body was shaking with the power of lit ammunition. In seconds, it was over. Silent, unknowing, and unrecognizable they lay, and the brassy smell of blood and dirt leaked into Natasha's airfilter.

The citizens emerged from their positions, examining the bodies. No Tribesperson had escaped this; if this indeed was the real Palm sweep, then the Pines must have been lying—no one could have survived to continue their lineage. Natasha stood up on the roof, surveying the scene below. Still, something was bothering her. She watched as the citizens began dragging and stacking the bodies and then she realized: there were no children, no old people, no one outside the range of late adolescence to full, adult strength. She hadn't noticed at first because children in the Americas were such a rare phenomenon. But not for the Tribes; they reproduced one by one, without care or planning. Their populations spread evenly over the ages and yet— She looked again. No, there were no bodies short of full-grown, and none with wrinkled faces or thin white hair.

And where was Jeffrey and the rest of that team? The manual sweep was long over now, and still they had not returned. . . .

The image of Jeffrey's face, squared by a biosuit visor, hovered before her: his shocking blue eyes, his look of grim consternation. A feeling of love and longing shot through Natasha and, as it did, the image brightened and became more solid and sharpened into a form so vivid that she was there.

Or not there. Because she was only watching. Her vision was pure and hovering and free of body. She could see the others running with Jeffrey now too. Beside him came Claudia and then Arthur and then a Beta named Gaurav Gandhi who had directed the Department of the Exterior for three decades in the mid-200s. They moved swiftly through the trees, their motions panicked, twice halting and shouting to one another and abruptly changing direction. The branches and sharp arms of the forest brush snapped at their visors and ripped across the fronts of their biosuits, but they didn't care. They kept running. They had gone many miles away from the settlement when Claudia looked at her tracking device and pointed their way, a hard left through the trees.

The team's shouts and trampling steps roused the forest to life: and their sounds were answered by terrified screams. Natasha's vision would not stay steady. The deep greens of the forest swirled and the too-blue sky tilted and dipped. The noise of destruction raged in her ears, and she could not block it out because she was not really there; she was watching but she had no eyes to close. The world exploded in fire. The flames surged up the trunks of trees, sparking the pine needles and felling the trees to the ground where the fire writhed and spread. From out of the chaos, Claudia, Arthur, and Gaurav emerged at a sprint. But no Jeffrey. Where was Jeffrey? The smoke swirled, allowing for a dark tunnel of sight into a cliff-bordered valley, and he was there. Run, thought Natasha. He wasn't hurt but he refused to run from the fire. He stood facing the flames, reaching for something he could not quite grasp. He made a final lurch and his face lightened with joy, but just as he did so, the flame licked his side and he was on fire. The screams came from everywhere; the whole universe screamed and would not stop and the fire that scorched Jeffrey's flesh enveloped all in its murderous heat.

•   •   •

The dream world of the Pretends would not let Natasha go—not as the hours passed, not as the days passed—and still very much within its grip Natasha found herself walking, sleepwalking almost, to conference room A that Sunday evening at 2000 hours.

They were overjoyed to see her, Raj and the others. Raj jumped to shake her hand. Eduardo drew up a chair for her at the table, Sarah waved, Ben nodded a nervous hello, and Mercedes, who never looked anything but angry and scornful, bestowed on Natasha a lovely, radiant smile. Raj made it clear within minutes that he suspected Natasha of holding, as the Alphas would call it, “unethical” views. He openly confessed to spying on her and Eric the night of the Crane Celebration. He had watched them disappear into the Department of the Exterior and, when they did not reemerge, had followed on the heels of a tipsy Department worker and gone looking for them. When it turned out that no one had seen them in the Office of Mercy, the Office of Air and Energy, the Office of Land and Water Management, or anywhere else, Raj concluded that they had done it—had walked out of America-Five.

Natasha refused to respond to these suspicions, though her silence immediately led the whole group to assume what they wished to believe—and what was, in this case, the truth.

“Tell me, though,” Raj continued, “there is one thing I can't figure out. Are you and Eric responsible for the failure of the manual sweep?”

“Eric wants nothing to do with helping the Tribes,” Natasha said quickly.

“Okay,” Raj said. “Are you responsible?”

Again Natasha refused to answer, and again they guessed the truth. They praised her for her ingenuity and bravery. Raj said she had accomplished just the type of action that they had been discussing for years.

“Exactly
what
do you discuss, though?” Natasha asked, seizing on the chance to move the subject away from herself. “What do you want for the Tribes?”