Perfectible Animals: A Post Apocalyptic Technothriller (EidoGenesis Book 1)
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Authors: Thomas Norwood
PERFECTIBLE ANIMALS
Thomas Norwood
Copyright © 2013 Thomas Norwood
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0992355214
ISBN-13: 978-0-9923552-1-0
To my parents, who made me who I am,
And Iliana, who has to put up with that.
C
HAPTER
O
NE
MY ELECTRIC VEHICLE slows as it joins the line of traffic waiting to get through the gates to the regulated zone. I watch a group of poor people sitting around on the dusty ground in what used to be a park, waiting for someone from inside the fence to come out and offer them a job. It happens sometimes – someone might need a laborer or a cook, even the occasional accountant or teacher. Nobody is safe from unemployment these days.
There is a fire burning in a forty gallon drum and a man is spit-roasting the remains of what looks like a wombat. People are lining up for it. A woman collects the money while the man cuts slices directly onto plastic plates. A couple of guys with sawn-off shot guns stand nearby in case of trouble, no doubt taking their cut of the profits. A wombat must be a rare find these days – and the man and woman will probably live like royalty for a few days before returning to their pre-wombat squalor.
Behind the park, a new shipping container housing estate is going up, surrounded by blackmerries which are rolling across the land like a floodwater. The bastard child of wild blackberries and genetically-modified blackberries, blackmerries are drought and herbicide resistant and seem to be in a race with
Homo sapiens
to take over what is left of the world.
A fight breaks out in the line of people between a man with a matted beard and a woman clutching her emaciated child. I consider getting out of the car and giving the woman a couple of hundred dollars so she can get a decent meal for a few days and feed her son, but the line of vehicles moves on and I’m up at the checkpoint having my retina scanned.
“Returning home, sir?” a guard holding a machine gun asks.
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me where you’ve been?”
My com profile, which he has access to, contains all the information he needs to know, so I’m not sure why he’s asking me questions. I wipe sweaty palms off against my trousers.
“I’m a scientist. My company has a facility in the medical exclusion zone. I’ve been working there,” I say.
I think back to the clinic in the desert, from where we’ve just evacuated over one hundred genetically modified children.
“Company name?”
“Geneus.”
“Have you been through quarantine?”
“Yes.” Again this information is all on my profile. Why is he stalling?
“Just a moment.” He walks back inside his cubicle and I see him talking to another guard. I watch my clock. Two and a half minutes go by. I try to read their expressions or gather information from their body language using an app on my visual overlay but it tells me nothing.
Finally, the guard comes out again. “Go on through, sir.”
As my car takes off I breathe out with relief.
My house is located in a gated community in what was once inner Melbourne, but is now a beachside suburb. Ten years ago, one particularly hot summer, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed and caused a global sea level rise of two-point-eight meters. Melbourne, along with all the other major coastal cities in Australia, was partly destroyed. Those who had enough money took over the dry houses, and those left without jobs were forced to move to shanty towns outside the city, where crime and disease run rife.
Before long, unofficial lines were drawn between the protected enclaves and the unprotected poor, and it wasn’t long after that that official lines, marked with heavily guarded fences, were erected, inside which government control still operates and outside of which they no longer bother.
It isn’t only the flooding that is causing this turmoil; weather extremes in the world’s key food bowls means it is now impossible to feed everyone. Democratic governments around the world, unable to adequately protect their citizens, are losing their grip and being taken over by military dictatorships, rebel groups or corporations, and even in Australia, where we were shielded from the worst of it for years thanks to the wealth generated by our large supply of coal, uranium, steel and oil, things are difficult.
Ironically, some of the poorer countries are surviving the flooding and weather extremes better than the wealthy ones. Many of their citizens have always been subsistence farmers, and they know how to grow their own crops and tend to animals, so the loss of industrial farming capabilities in centralized areas hasn’t hit them so badly.
My car pulls up to the gate leading into our community and my window opens so I can identify myself to the retina scanner. I give Henry a wave and drive on through as he opens the gate.
Inside our house, I find Annie in our bedroom packing our cases. Her dark eyes look up at me. I brush her hair away from her pale face and we kiss. I hold onto her for a minute, inhaling her sweet smell.
“How are you feeling?” I say.
“A little better,” she says, brushing my chin and going back to her packing. “Have you heard anything about the children?”
“No, not yet. Last I heard they’d left the compound but hadn’t boarded the planes. Dylan said they were having trouble getting clearance to land, and they might have to fly in to another airstrip.”
“Is our plane ready?”
“I hope so. Apparently it’s waiting for us at Essendon airport.”
“Which shoes do you want to take?” Annie says, squatting down in front of our closet where my shoes are neatly lined up. “I don’t think we can fit all of them in.”
“Here, I’ll do it.” I bend down to select my shoes. “Are you all ready?”
“Almost. Do you really think leaving is the right thing, Michael?”
“I’m not sure. If anyone finds out about those children and what they’re capable of, though, we’ll be arrested.”
“Maybe you should turn them over to the government,” she says.
“So they can turn them into soldiers? Create more bio-weapons?”
“Yes. You’re right. Can we take these photos?” She holds up one of the framed photos we have on our dresser – the one of us on our honeymoon in Paris, smiling in front of the Eiffel tower.
“Of course.”
Annie puts the photo into her suitcase and zips it up. I take my three favorite pairs of shoes – two pairs of sneakers and a pair of brown leather boots – and squeeze them into the side of one of my own cases.
Half an hour later, everything is packed into the car and Annie and I take one final walk through our house together. There are still books on the shelves, paintings on the walls, rugs on the floors. Annie’s favorite cup is out on the kitchen bench. Memories of the last ten years of our life here are stored in every corner, in every room, and I take Annie’s hand and squeeze it gently as we stare around for one last time.
We lock the front door on our way out. Annie has already contracted a real estate agent and the house will be put on the market next week, the money wired to us via bitcoin when it’s sold.
“Well, this is it,” she says.
“Yes, it is.”
We climb into our car and I ask it to take us to the airport.
As we are leaving our one way street a black van pulls up in front of us. We wait for it to move but four men in dark suits climb out and surround our vehicle. A police badge flashes through my window and knuckles rap on the glass. A hand goes to the side of a jacket where I see the bulge of what I assume to be a pistol.
I consider switching the car into manual and flooring it in reverse, but that would involve running over the man in my rear-vision mirror and possibly getting shot at. Besides, there is no escape. It’s a one way street.
I lower the window.
“Michael Khan?” the man says; a square-jawed, close-shaved, cropped-haired brute of a man. His gray eyes look in at me through flawless skin and I wonder if he’s one of the new androids the police force is using.
“Yes?” I try to sound casual.
“You’re going to have to come with us.”
“Where to?”
“Just step out of the vehicle, please.”
I look around me at the four solid men with guns and realize I have no choice.
“Michael, no!” Annie says. She puts her hand on my arm.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s going to be okay.”
I tell the engine to switch off and climb slowly out of the car. Adrenaline floods me like cold water. Everything is happening in slow motion. I can hear the men’s feet on the concrete, their breathing, a siren wailing in the distance.
The first man takes out a pair of plastic handcuffs.
“Can I ask what this all about?” I keep my back to the car as if there is still a chance I might be able to return to it.
“You’ll find out soon enough. This way please.” He grabs me by one arm and twists it around behind my back while another of the men, slightly older with thinning hair on top, comes around and grabs my other arm. Before I know it they’ve got the handcuffs on me, digging into my skin.
Annie tries to open her door but one of the men leans against it and stops her.
“Please remain in the vehicle, ma’am.”
“Let me out! What the hell is going on?”
The three men holding me push me in the direction of the van. What will happen if I run? Will I be shot down in the street? The one who spoke to me first has a bulky, animated, athletes body, and the other two, although shorter, look like they could easily outrun me too.
One of the men, a cold, blue-eyed, ambitious looking unit, forces me into the van and sits across from me. His jacket is forced open by his weightlifter’s chest. I look back to see Annie getting out of our vehicle but the man who was holding her back jumps into the back of the van with us and we take off on autopilot.
Are they really police officers? Or am I being kidnapped?
“What is this about?” I say.
“Everything will be explained to you when we arrive,” the man across from me says, no emotion in his voice.
I try to access the net on my com, a nano-tech computer built into my brain, but they’ve somehow put a block on it. I have heavy-grade firewalls so, whoever they are, they’re very well equipped. As far as I know only the government has the technology and the authority to do that.