Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu (24 page)

Running through the trees,
barefoot amongst the pine-needles, young branches whipping at my
legs and arms. Nothing could catch us, nothing.

I tasted blood; I’d bitten the
edge of my tongue this time. A second dream so quickly after the
last one was unusual; normally I’d go for at least a couple of
weeks without anything.

The Sign at the hospital
said:

The Calcutt Institute -

Dwelling on the Beach of
Eternity’s Shore

I had no idea what the second
line meant. It sounded like pretentious twaddle to me.

By contrast to decrepit
Pittsburgh, the Institute was clearly designed for the executive
elite; it was way beyond even my Dad’s pay-grade. It looked as if
it had been transplanted stone by stone from Europe. As I clambered
out of the ambulance, I wondered what the fuck I’d gotten myself
into.

“James Conway?” asked a
beautiful voice behind me.

I turned to see that the
voice’s owner was at least as attractive as her voice had been.
Judging by the business dress, my guess was that I was looking at
some high-up’s Personal Assistant.

“Uh, yes, that’s me,
Miss...?”

“
Ms
. Jenson” she
replied, emphasis on the ‘
mzz’,
“If you’ll follow me please,
Doctor Calcutt is expecting you.”

The doctor sat behind a large
desk, a predator with steel grey hair, studying a folder full of
hardcopy. After what seemed like hours, he closed the folder and
examined me with piercing blue eyes.

“It says here that you have
headaches...” He paused, waiting for a reply. “...I’m not
interested in headaches” he continued, dumping one of the folders
in his waste bin. “What I need are employees who fulfil certain
very specific criteria. He paused, looking up my name.
“James...”

A job offer? I hadn’t even
graduated yet and I ‘knew’ I wouldn’t be winning any academic
awards. That said, I had the distinct feeling that saying ‘I don’t
want this job’ might easily be interpreted as ‘I don’t want
any
job
ever
’.

“Uh, thank you doctor, uh sir.
Um, what’s involved exactly?”

“I’m afraid I can’t go into
specifics until you’ve signed the contract; intellectual rights you
understand” Calcutt explained, pulling a sheaf of papers from a
drawer and sliding them across the desk along with an uncapped
fountain pen. His expression was unreadable, rather like a poker
player who’s just flopped a pair of kings.

I picked up the contract, fully
intending to read it closely, looking for the inevitable
loophole.

Employee: Mr./Mrs./Ms. of
(heretofore referred to as Medical Specimen:16) shall act
as....

Sixteen... Sixteen...
Sixteen

The number echoed in my head
and something seemed to go ‘thunk’ in there, sort of an archetypal
version of déjà vu.

Looking down, I found that I’d
already signed, without consciously doing so... and I hadn’t even
finished reading page one yet.

I passed the contract back,
trying my best to look competent.

And that was that, I was
doomed.

My apartment (Room No. 16)
wasn’t exactly large, but for someone who’d lived at home for all
seventeen years of his life, it looked magnificent. The wardrobe
contained several sets of gym clothes, each with my number in large
red letters. I expected to have another of my ‘dreams’ that night,
something about semi-clad primitives drawing intricate pentagrams,
and calling upon deep powers, but instead, I slept like a babe and
awoke feeling ready for anything.

The rest of the numbered
specimens were waiting for me at breakfast.

“Finally woke up, huh,
Sixteen?” said the nearest guy, arms folded across his muscular
chest. “I’m Eleven. These here are Twelve, Fifteen, Fourteen and
lucky Miss Thirteen there on the end.”

“Go screw yourself, Paul”
snapped the girl. “He’s Paul, that’s Calvin, Jeaki, he’s Korean,
and Salil from Saudi”

“I’m Sixteen.” I replied. “I
mean uh James... I’m James”

Slipping into my seat, I took
my first swig of orange juice and set about finding out what
exactly I was supposed to do for my pay. It turned out that none of
us knew exactly what we were here for. The others had all arrived
in the last few days, but hadn’t been given any duties as such.

Just as I was finishing my
food, a man in a doctor’s coat walked in briskly, looking overly
tall and a bit too thin. Introducing himself as Dr Blake, he
instructed us to follow him. I instinctively took a dislike to
Blake; something about him set me on edge.

Blake guided us to a
sub-basement level that, if anything, seemed even bigger than the
mansion above. We were taken to a room that was like a gym, but
with loads of extra monitoring stuff. Three further doctors were
waiting for us.

“Good morning” said a fat one.
“I am Dr Gupta; this is Dr Hart, and on the end Dr Clarke. I am
certain that you are wondering why you have been selected.” We all
nodded, or made noises of agreement. “You have noticed all, I am
sure,” continued Gupta, “that the number of lethal diseases has
been escalating exponentially over the last decade or so… what the
media call terrorist ‘bio-weapons’” His speech was formal, as if he
was briefing a CEO.

Suddenly this was serious and
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one wondering how deep in the shit I’d
just fallen. I wish I’d read that contract.

“The truth is that there are no
bioweapons,” Gupta said. “They don’t exist. What is happening is
that the human genome itself is changing. Immune response failure
is the most obvious symptom. More importantly, fertility levels
have dropped off a cliff. Babies are still being born, true, but
almost all are severely premature and need incubator care. Looked
at from an evolutionary viewpoint, we are already technically
extinct.

We all shifted uncomfortably in
our seats.

Gupta smiled. “Fortunately,
there’s still hope. Every teenager in our Education Program was
tested for genetic markers and certain other telltales. You six, I
am happy to say, are all significantly healthier than the average
and not suffering from any infertility issues that we can detect.
We propose to test you in detail, both physically and mentally. Our
intention is to identify the specific gene sequence that makes you
special. Once we have that, we can create an aggressive gene
therapy and tackle B.I.I.D.S. head on.”

“Bids?” I asked

“Bigger Infertility and Immune
Deficiency Syndrome - B.I.I.D.S.”

I glanced at the other
‘volunteers’ and then back at Dr Gupta. “Given the stakes, I guess
the only question is ‘when do we start?”

For the next five days we were
physically tested, mostly under Dr Clarke’s supervision.

On the sixth day (a Sunday), Dr
Blake stuck bio-monitor pads all over us and cheerfully announced
that we were free for the rest of the day. The other specimens
headed out like school kids released early, apart from Sarah who
hung back waiting for me.

“Now that we’re alone,” she
said, “I need to ask you something.”

“Sure, what’s bugging you?”

Sarah paused and looked me
directly in the eye “What are you hiding, Sixteen? Why do you fear
the researchers?”

I looked back at her, trying to
gauge how much to say, whether I should laugh it off, say nothing,
or tell all.

“I dream, Sarah,” I replied,
kind of surprising myself that I was opening up to her, “and
sometimes those dreams are utterly alien, like I’m still ‘me’ but
my reactions to the things I see are, like, way wrong. I’m worried
that they’ll think I’m unstable and kick me out.”

“I did some poking around the
other day,” Sarah confessed, changing topic abruptly. “Our medical
records make interesting reading; particularly the section on
paranormal ability. Each of us has an entry. Paul for instance is
listed as a ‘short range clairvoyant’, and I’m listed with a talent
for ‘truth divination’.”

“Weird. Do you really have
superpowers?”

“I just know when people are
lying to me. I’d call that a curse not a talent, trust me. Want to
know what yours said?”

“Me?” I asked

“It said ‘subconscious
precognition’ I figure they must think those dreams of yours are
significant.”

“Holy crap! What about the
others?”

“Just ‘further evaluation
required’.”

“I see. Have you asked Paul
about this clairvoyant business?”

“No. I wanted to talk to you
first. Paul’s a bit…” her voice trailed off

I nodded despite myself. Paul
tended to be a jerk. My mind was still spinning. If Calcutt and
Gupta already knew...?

“Do you think they’re right
about your dreams?” asked Sarah

I shrugged “I don’t see how
they can be. It’s more like seeing glimpses of life on a different
planet... one with magic and all the people are like these weird
elves, but without the pointy ears. You might just be good at
spotting lies, and my dreams are probably just intensely weird
dreams. Let’s go ask the others and see what they think.”

“....and that’s basically what
the med-records say” I concluded, “So fess up, any of you got
talent?”

*Telepathy*
said a very
faint whisper in my head.

We all looked at Jeaki, whose
face appeared to have drained of colour.

“It takes considerable effort”
he replied, leaning against the wire fence for support. “My sensei
believed that this ability drains my ‘chi’, my soul energy. He
recommended that I should not use this gift frequently.”

“Is the fertility thing just
bullshit?” asked Salil suspiciously

“No,” Sarah replied firmly “I
was focusing on Gupta; he was telling the truth.”

“So what do we do ‘bout this,
then?” asked Calvin

“Nothing” I said. “We’re
getting paid and fed. That’s all that counts these days.”

I figure they had us bugged.
The next day there was no more physical testing. Instead, we were
asked to perform the sort of psionic testing you see on bad science
fiction shows. Dr Blake explained that it was almost like a new
stage of evolution; good fertility, health and odd mental abilities
seemed linked. Paul made a bad joke about X-Men. No one
laughed.

“Blake’s not telling the whole
story.” Sarah told us later

“His mind is not on us” added
Jeaki “He is anticipating something.”

Upon entering the cafeteria I
was surprised to see it crowded, instead of the usual near-empty.
Five of the tables were filled with tough-looking men wearing the
black uniform of Citadel Garde Securitae, the CGS. These were the
guys you called in when you expected terrorists for dinner, or had
one in a cell that you didn’t want to get loose. My vision seemed
to tunnel in on the muscular CGS man on the far table, I’d seen him
before.

Dead sightless eyes looking up
at me. I kicked the corpse anyway. Scum.

Feeling deeply sick, I ran from
the room and proceeded to throw up in the restroom sink. It wasn’t
that I’d just seen a dead man walking, it was the lethal hatred the
dream-me had had for the
alien
on the floor.

Heading back to the psionics
lab, I was about to turn the corner when I heard two familiar
voices arguing.

“It’s not ethical!” hissed
Clarke

I slowed my pace, and then
stopped entirely. I’m a sucker for good gossip.

“We’re becoming extinct, David.
We don’t have time to pussyfoot around anymore.” replied Hart “The
fastest way to get the data we need is to use Six and go straight
to live tests; that’s what I’ve recommended to Calcutt.”

“Calcutt? Jesus Christ, Jon.
What if you get it wrong?”

“I’m not wrong. Besides, it
won’t be that fast-acting; we can flush it with a full blood
replacement.”

“It’s bad science and I won’t
be a part of it. You don’t know the dosage; you don’t even have a
defined outcome. As a friend, Jon...”

“Nonsense; if a bunch of
streetscum can synthesise it, it’s hardly rocket science. Besides,
once we know how the Wraeththu’s designer drug transcribes, we will
have the perfect delivery system for Gupta’s DIIPS Antidote.”

Back down the corridor, the
elevator door dinged and a CGS trooper emerged. Hastily I resumed
my walk to the lab. As I came into sight, the two doctors glanced
at me and clammed up, clearly waiting for me to pass.

I wish I’d paid closer
attention to the science stuff, but right then mention of a ‘Six’,
presumably a Specimen Six, was all that interested me.

“So, who’s this Specimen Six
guy, then? Can we meet him?” I asked as soon as I got to the
lab

“Who told you about Six?”
snapped Dr Blake

“Dr Clarke and Dr Hart were
arguing about him in the Corridor.” I shrugged

“How come we ain’t met this
guy, then?” asked Calvin

“It was felt that he’d be a
disruptive influence. We thought that it would be better if you
settled in before you met him.” explained Blake.

“Disruptive? I don’t
understand”

“Let’s just leave it at that
for now. You guys take a break. I have to speak to Dr Calcutt about
this.”

As soon as Black had left, I
turned to the others, who looked as bemused as I did.

Sarah shook her head before I
could ask.

In fact it was closer to an
hour and a half before Dr Blake returned; looking stony faced.
“Director Calcutt wishes to observe your interaction with Six over
the security monitor,” he said. “Follow me. I’ll take you down
now.”

Blake ushered us down a level
past several CGS checkpoints and into a room, where three walls
were made of metal and the fourth what appeared to be one-way
glass. The only furniture in there was a single chair.

Beyond the glass, we could see
another room, where a teenager sat cross-legged in a meditative
pose, his beautiful face serene. He’d clearly been given a uniform
identical to the one I was wearing. The difference was that he’d
ripped the garment to shreds, creating a sort of loincloth and long
thin strips of fabric that he’d tied around his wrists and biceps,
with shorter lengths tied into long rat-tails of hair that started
near his ears and dangled down as far as his navel.