Subterrene War 02: Exogene Read online

  After she finally returned to the barracks I tried to hug her, but Megan stepped back. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Why? What did Mother say?”

  She shrugged and removed the first aid kit from her pack. “They worry about us. You and me. They have seen us together.”

  “So what?” I asked. “It matters for nothing, we are not the only ones who love each other.”

  “It matters for everything!” Several of the other girls stopped what they were doing and stared. Megan lowered her voice. “Tomorrow is our final exam. I want the lily, can’t you understand that? To be one among a hundred is a great honor. Second only to death. Our feelings make us less efficient, get in the way of duty, make us impure.”

  I felt as though she had knocked the wind out of me, and said nothing. I wanted the lily too. We showered in silence and walked through the mess line without speaking to each other, not even saying good night when the lights went out. The carbine kept me awake. Its cold barrel poked me in the cheek, and wouldn’t let me drift off, making me more and more nervous so that I forgot about Megan as the next day approached. The day of our final test. Reveille sounded before sunrise, and we rolled from our racks, dressing in fresh uniforms and boots. I had never been that nervous. But we were so ready—all of us—that they could have put us in a cage with a thousand lions and we would have leapt at them, shredding with our bare hands anything stupid enough to resist us.

  Instead of lions, however, they gave us kittens. Our mothers issued them soon after we reached fifteen-equivalent and ordered us to care for the animals, to play with them several times a day. Mine I had named Megan, and Megan had called hers Catherine, and as we waited on the cold morning of our final exam, Sister Miriam stood in front of a row of APCs on the parade ground, where she pointed at stacks of small animal cages. You heard the kittens—now full-grown cats—mewling, and I felt something then, but didn’t know what to call it, didn’t recognize horror until later.

  “Good morning, my daughters,” she said.

  We answered in unison. “Good morning, Blessed Mother.”

  “My people were created in God’s image, and you were created in ours. Facsimiles, identical to each other in every way, close to perfection. Serve humanity loyally and without question and, like us, you will earn a seat at His right hand.

  “Today you become women. Perfection. The first of your kind were male, Germline-A, a failed experiment who turned on their creators, their aggression untamable, their bravery so psychotic that they became strategic liabilities and tactical failures. Not so with you. Today you are sixteen-equivalent. For the next two years you will kill at every turn, and the sight of fallen enemies will warm your hearts. Across the atelier right now, there are hundreds of ceremonies like this one, all of you destined for eternal glory, but within this group, in my family, there is one. One among a hundred. One Lily, pure and without sign of spoil.”

  Megan shifted beside me.

  “Megan. Step forward.” When she approached, Sister Miriam placed her hand on Megan’s shoulder and handed her the cat, Catherine. Then she attached a series of sensors to Megan’s forehead and stepped back. “When I give the command,” Sister Miriam said, “snap its neck.”

  I didn’t know if anyone else saw it, but I did. Muscles tightened on Megan’s jaw and she cocked her head forward, signs of sadness that I recognized instantly. Even I felt something, a whisper, like someone had sent an invisible message that what was about to happen was more than just wrong. Evil. In the aftermath of the test and by the time we landed in combat, the sensation had gone, burrowed into the darkest parts of my mind where I never thought I’d see it again, but on that day it was clear.

  “Now,” said Sister Miriam. Megan didn’t hesitate. She twisted the cat’s neck and Sister Miriam watched the screen on her palm computer, hit a few keys, and then smiled. She pulled a small metal rod from her dress and pushed a button; the end of the rod glowed white a few seconds later as she walked behind Megan. “Lean forward,” she said.

  Sister Miriam turned to us then and raised her voice. “This is your Lily. Follow her and listen to her words, for in them there will never be spoil, never a taint. She speaks for us, for the ateliers, and for God.”

  Megan never flinched. Her skin smoldered, a quiet hiss as the brand melted the thin layer of flesh at the back of her scalp. We all lined up then, one by one slaughtering our cats. But a few of the girls must have done something wrong because technicians led them away and we never saw them again.

  Where Megan had been branded a Lily, on the head, we also received the brand, a single mark on our skin, mine identical to all others: the number “1.”

  I saw the lily on Megan’s head now, as the sun set over Tamdybulak. The scar had blended into her skin and one of the two enamel flowers on her armor had lost its petals; the other had completely broken off, and I wondered if she still felt the same about the honor—if time altered a Lily the same way it had spoiled me—but there wasn’t a chance to finish the thought. We had finished digging defensive positions and stared to the northeast when she pointed. A lone Russian in combat armor had crawled to the edge of a distant rubble field.

  “Contact,” Megan said over the net. “Enemy scout sighted. Catherine.”

  I wrapped my finger around the trigger, bringing up the sighting reticle, and slowly rested the carbine on a rock to wait for the feeling of joy that always preceded a kill. But it didn’t come. Instead the reticle trembled, its crosshairs bouncing around until I tongued another tranq tab, waiting for it to dissolve and cool me with a promise of control. The trigger pulled, a burst of a hundred flechettes impacted against the Russian’s faceplate, and he fell back to disappear in the wreckage.

  “Clear,” said Megan, and she placed her helmet against mine so nobody else would hear. “Why did it take so long?”

  But there was no answer to give. Something had shifted in me, perhaps during the plasma shelling east of Keriz, or in the APC as we fled in the face of advancing Russian forces; I didn’t know. But whatever it was felt like a betrayal of the mind, a mutiny of the limbs, and when the truth materialized it hit me in the chest so that my breathing quickened to the point where my bio-readout blinked yellow in warning: I was hyperventilating. The spoiling had finally reached my core. It was fear.

  “I wanted to take my time,” I lied, “to enjoy it.”

  Megan laughed. “There will truly be a special place for you. In heaven. Because in hell they are all too scared of you.”

  TWO

  Birthdays

  For sinners, there is only destruction at the hands of My enemies, for they have taken of an accursed thing and have stolen.

  MODERN COMBAT MANUAL JOSHUA 7:13

  The Marine commander clicked in. He had surveyed the defensive line an hour before and I recognized his voice because he sounded musical, like someone who had once sung hymns to us in the tank, and for a few seconds it made me wonder if this was all a simulation—that an hour from now I would be born again, new and fifteen.

  “Marine and Foreign Legion forces,” he said, “are ordered to retreat and reform at Uchkuduk. Genetic orders incoming.”

  Megan and I heard men shouting and we rolled over to watch while Marines, some of them tossing their weapons into the rubble so they could run more quickly, retreated into their APCs, and when the vehicles had finished on-loading, the wheels turned slowly, rumbling southward in clouds of dust. Abandoning us.

  One of the Marines shouted as his APC hatch swung shut. “See ya, bitches!”

  And time stopped. My hands trembled in their gauntlets in a way that was noticeable only if you looked closely and the suit air had turned rank, forcing me to endure the smell of terror, a sweat that wouldn’t stop although it was cold enough inside the carapace to make me shiver. The newness of the sensation fed on itself, made the fear grow in my chest until I clenched my teeth so that they wouldn’t betray my anxiousness with chattering. Concentrate on the sky, I thought, the ground, a
nything, until finally I saw a single clover that had survived the trampling, plasma, and digging that Tamdybulak had suffered for the last several years. The thing was new. Green, and it waved in a breeze. I was about to look away when the realization hit that it had survived everything, without a display of emotion and without fear, so that I slammed my fist against the plant until it collapsed into the dirt, buried under concrete and rock.

  Orders eventually popped up on our displays: Enemy attack expected within ten to twenty-four hours. Hold Tamdybulak. No relief expected. Maintain as high a kill-loss ratio as possible.

  “We need to increase the kill-loss ratio for series one,” said Alderson. He sat across from me, wearing the same white coat as always but this time he had come closer to the lines, underground, where wet air draped everything in a thick and invisible mantle. The atmosphere was steamy, and surrounding rock hummed with the sound of ventilation as a hundred pumps fought to bring cooler stuff from several kilometers above and force hot airborne waste—along with its scent of decay, sweat, and burning ceramic—into the alleyways of Shymkent, into the sky, into the lungs of Kazakhs. And there were other sounds. Plasma shells pounded the rock above and my ears noted the vibrations, sending data to my mind where neurons converted frequencies into probabilities in less than a microsecond: these were Russian shells intended to deny the topside while their infiltrators crawled into our lines. Soon I would move upward. We would meet them, the Russian nonbred who had overcome fear and so deserved my attention, had earned more than an average death from heart disease, or old age, or cancer. Our humans called them Popovs. But the word didn’t fit and felt too demeaning, for even though the Russians were nonbred, at least they showed a kind of dignity in their efforts to die rather than fade off, showed fiber in a world of rubble and cowardice.

  Then there was Alderson, trying to hand me something. My vision didn’t register on what he held but instead on the tremble in his fingers, a shakiness that infected the man’s throat so that when he spoke, his words vibrated like the walls.

  “… so take this.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, not moving for the packet he offered.

  “Never mind me, you’re sixteen and a half. Equivalent. And according to our data your group has the highest kill rate, and the other genetics in your outfit call you ‘the Little Murderer.’ We like this. So you have to take this medicine. It will help with our research.”

  “But you shake. Why? The only thing that could possibly reach us here is a deep penetrator and the Russian attack suggests they want our underground positions intact, not collapsed. Even if they did penetrate, we would be invincible in glory. Death and life are not the same; death is better. And Bentley was a better man than you. Even though you’ve done the right thing by coming here, to where it all could end, I still think he was more like us.”

  “I don’t have to ask for you to take it. I could call my Special Forces escort and have them force you. An injection.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Alderson didn’t say anything at first, and tapped the table.

  “Because you are almost perfect at killing. Better than even the current crop of Lilies. The most promising prototype we’ve seen, an operational example of what we intended when designing genetic units. So we thought you should be asked. That maybe you’d take the agent willingly. We were being nice, Catherine.”

  I grabbed the packet and ripped open the top before he could flinch. Better than the Lilies, even Megan? “What is it? A lie?”

  “A psychotropic cocktail. Multiple pharmaceuticals designed to shut down portions of your nervous system, depriving the brain of certain signal pathways. A few months ago my research team in Bethesda found studies that had been conducted over two centuries ago; when taken in the correct doses, low doses, the treatment can stimulate creativity. It opens new neural connections. As a result, we think an appropriate regime could result in your brain generating new ideas that otherwise would remain buried, making you a better, more inventive soldier.”

  “You want me to find new ways to kill.”

  Alderson shrugged. “Let’s say we want you to be creative. Artistic.”

  The liquid tasted slightly metallic, like our recycled water, and I squeezed the packet as hard as I could, tilting my head back to shake out the last droplets. After a few minutes I shook my head.

  “It doesn’t work.”

  “Give it time,” he said. “Sometimes these types of drugs don’t kick in for an hour, or their effects are so subtle that you don’t even notice. In the meantime our recon drones suggest that the Russians are attempting another infiltration topside, but the data is inconclusive. If they come, we want you and the other Germline-Ones to meet them. Sentry bots will be deactivated and your mission will be to stop the attack with no support.”

  “All of us have been given this treatment?”

  He grinned and took out his computer. “Just you. We’ll follow your progress via drone, documenting changes to your effectiveness.”

  “Then I should rejoin my sisters.”

  “No.” Alderson motioned for me to stay in my seat and began typing. “There’s time for that still. Right now I need to ask you some questions.”

  And then I noticed. The vibrations of plasma impacts moved through the rock and into my body so the energy became a living thing, communicating anger, whispering about the plasma shells’ rage at having been denied real tissue, which I understood and which made me sympathetic to them, made me want to bring Alderson topside. They needed a sacrifice. If the rounds consumed him they would have at least something for their troubles and the shells showed more bravery in their short existence than he had in an entire nonbred life. But then it changed again. Alderson’s coat shone brightly, even in dim combat lamps that should have made it seem blue, but instead the garment became so brilliant that I could only stand to look at him for a moment. Each thread came into focus—as if my vision had reached a new level of acuity, perfectly tuned.

  “And now for the last question,” he said.

  “What? I thought you had a lot of questions for me.”

  Alderson laughed. “I did. You’ve answered most of them for me already. It’s been… illuminating. You don’t remember?”

  “How much time has elapsed?”

  But I already knew from my chronometer, and Alderson confirmed it. An hour had gone by and I didn’t remember a thing. It underscored the sensation that had already seeped in, soaking into my brain the same way blood sank into the ground, slowly and quietly: the world had changed, along with my perception of it.

  “Are these effects permanent?” I asked.

  “The sensations the drugs bring on are not, but over time, as you grow accustomed to the treatments, we predict that new neural pathways will likely be established to the point where you can access them without treatments. If this works, it should make you sharper and keep you there, until you’re discharged. Shall we continue?”

  I nodded.

  “Have you ever been afraid?”

  “I don’t understand.” My mind raced at the thought, and the room shifted sideways, replaced by the vision of our mother beating Megan, the cane whistling as it arced downward. “I fear nothing.”

  “Good. Then get back to your sisters. We’ve just gotten word that Popov will be here in twenty-four hours.”

  It was almost exactly twenty-four hours between the time our humans abandoned us at Tamdybulak and the moment the Russians arrived. Marines had left us three broken-down but semi-serviceable APCs, and we did our best to camouflage them beneath dirt and concrete blocks, after which there was nothing to do but wait. It only took an hour for the silence to make me tremble.

  “Alderson said that I killed better than the rest,” I said to Megan, just to break the monotony. “Even better than the Lilies.”

  “What are you talking about? What made you think of him?”

  “When I blinked out a little while ago, it’s what I saw: one of my int
erviews with him. He said that I was the best killer in Germline-One and better at it than the Lilies.”

  Megan shifted, and I sensed her staring at me, but my eyes didn’t move.

  “We call you the Little Murderer. That was after Majda was taken, when the killing really started, and I think Petra thought of it, started the name behind your back. You were always better than me at killing. Better than anyone.”

  “He told me that too. The inside of my head feels cold now, Megan.”

  I got tired of scanning the horizon and slipped deeper into the hole, letting Megan handle the watch as I spoke. “It’s not so easy anymore. Do you remember the name of our first Special Forces escort? When they assigned them to us, before their mission changed to hunting us down?”

  “No.”

  “I see him sometimes too, and it’s always the same dream, always takes place during our first advance into Shymkent. Sunrobe. His last name was Sunrobe. What do you think it means? In my visions you can always see it clearly, stenciled on his armor in yellow, the way Special Forces liked it instead of black. But I think that is a strange name to have.”

  “I think they’re all strange. All the nonbreds.”

  I shook my head and knocked dust from my carbine’s breach. “I want a last name too, Megan.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re important.”

  She snorted. The helmet speakers amplified it, made it sound like a burst of static. “Important to the nonbred. To the soft. But not to us.”