Future Days Anthology, page 11
part #1 of The Days Series
Add 10ml of vial fluid to nutritional mixture of Fw#1250 – Fw#1262.
W#1528 erased the instruction. She took a few deep breaths and continued her work as if nothing had happened, until she reached Fw#1250. Her heart sped up like a tribal war drum. Did she trust the B’s? Why shouldn’t she? With as much nonchalance as she could muster, she walked over to the cabinet in the middle of the room, opened a drawer, and took out a syringe filled with an immune-boosting mixture. Fetuses that would grow to be the new generation of workers weren’t allowed to be ill or otherwise deviant – only, according to the numbers on her screen, nothing was wrong with Fw#1250.
She returned to the small seed of a human being and emptied the syringe into its nutritional feed. But instead of discarding the syringe, she stealthily refilled it with fluid from the mystery vial. This too was released into the tube that led to Fw#1250.
Nothing happened.
She slid the empty syringe into her breast pocket, which seemed to be standing slightly further out than she remembered. She felt her sore chest and couldn’t shake the feeling that bulges were forming beneath her nipples.
Pushing her worries to the dark depths of her unconsciousness – W’s weren’t supposed to fret about anything; that was the B’s job – she continued her tasks. When she reached Fw#1263 without incident, a sigh of relief nevertheless blew the boulder of worry from her shoulders.
The rest of the day passed in dreary monotony, which was beginning to annoy her: a curious sentiment she hadn’t felt before.
✽✽✽
The beast returned and immobilized her. But this time, she unleashed the full fury of her anger – another emotion she wasn’t familiar with. Surprise lurked behind the eyes of the thing on top of her. It leaned forward, and its full weight bore down on her. She screamed until she ran out of breath. After her strength had left her, she looked at the creature. Details began to emerge. The grin had disappeared from the face of the female winged gargoyle and was replaced by budding rage.
✽✽✽
A sharp inhalation. With a sudden move she sat up. Clammy clothes clung to her prickling skin. Still apprehensive, she turned her head left and right. Everything was silent, except for the curiously synchronized breathing of her sisters. It reminded her of a breeze finding its way through a dense forest, rustling the leaves on its path.
She paused. She knew what a forest was, but couldn’t remember seeing one. In fact, she had trouble recollecting anything outside of the underground warren. Surely, she had been outside once. Hadn’t she?
The soft hum that accompanied the lights prepared her for daybreak – or at least for the artificial analogue that was supposed to pass for it, she thought wryly. Her sisters stirred. She swung her legs over the edge of her bed and ran a hand over her scalp. She could already discern the individual hairs poking through skin that had always been smooth. Grass pushing through cracks in the concrete. She needed to find a razor soon.
Swiftly, W#1528 changed into her work outfit and hid her growing breasts as best she could.
She was unable to shake the feeling of intent gazes burning holes in her back. The feeling was joined by a murmur of whispers. Her sisters might have noticed her changes. But when she surreptitiously looked around, everyone seemed to be going about their business as usual.
Her tablet buzzed. Even before she read the message, the red flashing icon alerted her of its unusual content.
Daily duties suspended.
Await further instructions.
They must have found out. But how much would they know? And who were ‘they,’ exactly? B#15 and #16 did speak of insurgent elements, but hadn’t divulged any details. She remained seated while she fought her roiling emotions.
This wasn’t paranoia. Her sisters were indeed staring at her. W#1528 looked down at her hands. Fingers nervously fondled the hem of her shirt.
The last of her siblings left to pursue whatever task had been allocated to her. All alone in the large dormitory, W#1528 found herself paralyzed with indecision. Should she flee? But where could she run to?
“W#1528, follow me.”
Without making a sound, an S had appeared in front of her. The black double bands encircling his muscular shoulders indicated his rank. Not just a soldier, this one.
Wordlessly, she obeyed. The S let her pass and fell in behind her.
“Due to some...irregularities...that have been brought to our attention, the city’s surveillance cadre has decided to ask you a few questions. Left here. Please, cooperate fully and keep in mind that all we do is for the good of the city. Left again, and then the second on the right.”
The rest of the walk proceeded in silence.
“Stop here,” the tall man said, after several more turns and smoothly descending walkways.
He pushed an invisible button on the wall. It gave way slightly and a portion of the wall slid back and sideward, revealing a room that contained only a gleaming, transparent carboplast table with a chair on either side.
“Enter, please.”
She did as she was told.
“Have a seat.”
Again, silent obedience.
“Please hand over your tablet.”
A slight hesitation tempered her movements, but after a few moments submission to authority won the skirmish against insurrection. She handed over the rolled-up screen.
“Thank you. I’ll be right back.” He turned around and left. The wall slid back in place as soon as he had stepped out.
Maintaining an appearance of calm, W#1528’s mind was in turmoil and kept churning out scenarios of what might happen next.
Tiny holes, hidden away in the edges of the cubical room, began to excrete a color- and odorless gas. The last thing W#1528 remembered before laying her head to rest on her arms was the sturdy step of someone entering the room.
✽✽✽
The thing still held her down, but the obscuring fog had dissipated. Her assailant had been revealed. The gargoyle’s pale ruffled feathers and greasy strings of hair signaled a majesty long gone. Creased skin told the tale of a once healthy and fit being withering away. The gnarled joints were signposts of lost flexibility. She saw it now. Its efforts to keep her subservient were the final death throes of a blind tyrant who refused to understand that its last days crept near. Suddenly, the world quaked...
✽✽✽
“Wake up, W#1528. Wake up.” The S was shaking her. As soon as he saw her blink, he retreated from view.
Slowly, W#1528’s vision and awareness returned. She was in a large dome-shaped room, lying on the ground in a central circular depression. In front of her stood a semi-circular table. Tall, ancient men were seated there. The K’s. The fathers of all. The five men whose genetic material formed half of that of all the city’s inhabitants. Indoctrinated deference forced her gaze towards the floor and kept her prostrate before the demi-gods.
K#2 took the word. Moist smacking sounds accompanied his words. “W#1528, daughter, what happened to you? You destabilize the city.”
She shuddered with conflicting emotions. Her eyes darted left and right. “Father. Noble father. The city’s strength and dominance are all I have in mind.”
“Commendable. But still you fail to explain how your recent development contributes to this. Or how it has come about.”
“It’s... I have been chosen for this. The B’s, they told me it would make the city better. Stronger.”
“The B’s told you this? They did this? More details, W#1528. Which B’s? What’s their plan?”
By now, she had managed to ward the worst trembling from her voice. “I don’t know much, father. They fear treason. But perhaps it’s time for some change. Things have stayed static for too long.” Where did that come from? She frowned.
Despite his emaciated, skeletal appearance, K#2 didn’t look frail or fragile; quite the contrary. As he stood up, dozens of life support tubes plunging into his upper back, he menacingly towered over W#1528.
“Preposterous,” the tall living skeleton spat, looking down at the target of his ire. “Do you not understand anything? In the vigor of youth, you and yours always must rebel, like the ancients who revolted against the gods. But what you do not see, what you refuse to see, is that the gods are just as envious of you as you are of them. They lust for the joy and pain that speckles the tableau of your existence. The gods are grand marble statues, weathering the onslaught of time’s torrent, all the while coveting the frantic lives of the ephemeral ones.”
“But father,” W#1528 audaciously interjected, even though the quaver in her voice had returned with a vengeance, “do you not aspire to be like a god? If it’s so bad, then why?”
“Foolish little child! Do you not hear? Do you not listen? Never have I deemed one way of life good and another one bad. We,” K#2 spread his thin brown arms, marred by scars to include the other kings, “remake ourselves into beings at the edge of eternity so you don’t have to. What you fail to grasp, despite my best efforts and carefully chosen words, is that to become godlike, you must relinquish your humanity. For the greater good, we have chosen to do so.” A long, gnarled finger was pointed at her. “Would you?”
She swallowed. “I... I don’t know... But I would like to have the choice.”
“You insolent brat! Can’t you see that...”
“Calm down, dear.” K#2 shut up immediately. The other K’s turned their heads towards the origin of the silky voice that deserved – commanded – their full attention. W#1528 lifted her head.
From the dark recesses behind the K’s table, Q stepped forth. The one Q, the only Q. Her straight, raven-black hair lined a gorgeous face. The essence of beauty emanated from her features. Her eyes were bright blue pools of infinity that spoke of eons past.
W#1528 pressed her forehead against the floor while Q walked over to her. The only sound was the soft rustle of Q’s silk robe, clinging around curves that could drive men crazy with lust and kill women with jealousy.
“Darling daughter, please stand up.”
W#1528 carefully looked ahead, gaze falling upon the sandaled feet of her mother. She swallowed. Slowly she stood up, keeping her eyes fixated on the marble beneath her feet.
Q took hold of W#1528’s chin and gently pushed it up. “Look at me, dear.”
W#1528’s nervously flitting eyes eventually came to rest upon the divine face of the city’s matriarch. “Mother,” she whispered.
Q smiled, radiating splendor throughout the room. K#2 fell back into his chair, breathing heavily.
“My husband” – she gently inclined her head in the direction of K#2 – “can be a tad belligerent. But, my dear, this doesn’t change the fact that he has a point. We all have our function, our tasks. The preservation of the city is a goal which, I’m sure you’ll agree, takes precedence over all others. Trust me, darling, all we ask of you, all we do, all of it is for the good of the city and is based on centuries of experience and fine-tuning.”
W#1528 fought back tears of unknown origin. Awe, disillusion, shame, she couldn’t tell. She stammered. “I’m... I’m sorry, mother. I... I...”
Q folded her arms around her daughter, the rebel unaware of her rebellion, and put a carefully manicured hand on the back of her daughter’s stubble-covered head. “There, there, dear,” she whispered to W#1528, who was almost a full foot shorter. “It’s all right. Everything is all right.”
“No,” a hidden voice exclaimed.
“It is not,” another one added.
As one man, the K’s got up out of their seats and looked around fervently, life support tubes trembling like strands in a disturbed spider web.
“Who speaks such heresy?” K#2 yelled in his usual theatrical tone.
“We are, father,” B#15 said as he emerged from the shadows on the upper balcony. “We are.” Other B’s stepped forward as well, observing the dance they had orchestrated between their mother, fathers, and chosen sibling.
“Lunacy!” K#2 bellowed. “What has gotten into you!?”
“The stagnation of the city has, father,” B#15, who appeared to have taken the lead, spoke clearly.
His twin sister continued. “We quickly saw that the root of the city’s stagnation was the stagnation of its mother and fathers.”
Q, who had let go of W#1528 a few moments earlier, turned around with fluent elegance, surveying the brightest of her countless children. The gifted caste. The minds behind the city’s smooth functioning. “Explain yourselves, dearest sons and daughters.” Despite a hard edge that had been absent earlier, her tone was still friendly.
“You see, mother, the variation in the city’s inhabitants is direly low. The genetic material is too... limited, coming only from you and our five fathers. Besides,” he shrugged, “you know as well as I do that we could easily begin to remedy this. But neither you nor our fathers were willing to do so. Instead, you archaically clung to the desire to birth a whole society based on your genes, and yours alone. It has gone far enough. We will,” – he emphasized this last word – “introduce more variation, either through rescinding the reproductive inhibition or by introducing new material into the fetuses. Preferably both. And on the strength of this variation, we will build a new culture.”
The clenched jaws of Q marred her soft features.
“Mutiny!” K#2 yelled. “You won’t get away with this, you ungrateful bastards. We have given your kind the keys to the city, the chance to design eternity. We should have known it was too great an honor, that it demanded too much foresight from a caste of nothing more than ennobled W’s.”
“Too late, father,” B#15 snapped. “The wheels have already been set in motion. Look at her”.” He pointed at W#1528. “’She’s the first of the new Q’s.”
W#1528’s eyes widened. It began to make sense now.
B#16 continued. “And, if you’ve read the latest reports, you’ll surely have noticed that several fetuses are showing an unusual developmental trajectory. They’re the next ones. The seeds of our new society.”
The K’s walked in circles agitatedly. K#2 stopped and fixed his long, bony index finger on B#15. “You will be stopped. Guards!”
Amidst the confusion, Q had wrapped her hands around W#1528’s neck and had effortlessly picked up her daughter, squeezing the life out of her.
Before her vision went black, the soon-to-be Q was aware of several armed S’s storming into the room, welcomed by the loud triumphant laughter of the K’s.
✽✽✽
She thrashed and buckled in an attempt to dispel the despicable gargoyle. Its grip diminished, and she succeeded. The creature landed next to her. She turned quickly and brought all her strength to bear as she strangled the remnant of the once powerful being. Tossing aside the corpse, she got up. An intricate golden crown adorned her long black hair. Feathers of a similar color shone brightly as she spread her large wings.
✽✽✽
The impact of her fall knocked the wind out of her. The deep reflexive inhalation that followed reintroduced her to the here and now. Q lay before her, a dark red dot blemishing her otherwise flawless forehead.
W#1528 looked around.
A dozen brawny S’s circled the whimpering K’s, whose ancient faces contorted with incredulity. Cheers from the balcony overhead echoed through the large room.
“Welcome back, W#1528,” B#15 said. “Good to see you’re all right.” He returned his attention to the leading S, whose shoulders were encircled by a black double band. “Take them away.” The S nodded, instructing his kin to goad the K’s through the door behind him.
Before following his colleagues, the lead S extended his large, strong hand to the prostrate W#1528. “W... sorry, Q#1, allow me.”
Confused, she took his hand. He easily lifted her to her feet. After a dip of his head, he turned and followed the small procession of K’s and S’s.
Meanwhile, the B’s had descended and were flooding the floor like an unstoppable river.
B#15 smiled and walked towards W#1528/Q#1. “You did well. And my apologies for keeping you in the dark. We couldn’t risk premature exposure.”
“I... It’s a lot to take in. Am I really going to change into a Q?”
“Well, yes. You and several of your siblings that’ll soon be born.”
She slapped him in the face. “You’ve used me! What if I don’t agree with all this?”
The pale young man rubbed his flushing cheek. “Didn’t you say you wanted what’s best for the city? This is it. In fact, this is what’s best for the cities.”
Incomprehension furrowed her forehead, which was becoming clearly lined by black hairs. “What are you talking about?”
“Follow me and I’ll explain. Finally,” he added with an understanding look.
He left his brothers and sisters behind and led her through unremarkable hallways and corridors whose existence she’d never even suspected. After numerous twists and turns, they entered a small transparent elevator. The ascent was quick and pushed her stomach into her developing reproductive organs.
The glass box came to a halt, and B#15 handed her a respirator he had conjured up from one of his vest’s pockets. “We’ll need this.”
B#15 got out first and, with a wave of his arm, invited W#1528/Q#1 to join him on the terrace that lined the circumference of a high thin spire, as white as unfiltered sunlight.
W#1528/Q#1’s eyes got used to the brightness. The world unfurled before her. Under a sickly yellow sky, the city stretched out in all directions. They were standing on the highest point; no doubt about that. Around the spire were other tall buildings, but the farther out they extended, the lower the structures got. At the edges – a mountain range to the north, a river to the south – only single-story structures could be discerned.
“Like an iceberg floating in the ocean,” B#15 said, as if he was reading her thoughts. “The brunt of the city lies below the surface. The outside is mostly used for observation, energy generation through solar power, and defense.”
“What’s wrong with the sky?”
He nodded before responding. “Not what you’ve been told, I guess? The toxic sky is the result of...”
