Reaping (37 page)

“What?” Miah turns to me, his face slack, his mouth open, questioning, 
but what can I say? 
I couldn’t speak if I tried. I feel compressed, bowed by the weight of adding one more death to the list of those I must atone for. There’s nothing I can say or do to change anything my parents have done, but the idea that they are responsible for Miah’s mother’s death is too much to bear.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper.

“Why would a healthy woman volunteer for a study that could kill her?” Miah protests. “She was perfectly fine, then she was sick, then she was dead. I never even got to hold her hand.” Miah’s broad shoulders are slumped. “They burned her body, wouldn’t even allow me a ceremony.”

“This is why we are interested in her death.” Squall says. “Please, Jeremiah. We will tell you all we know.” Miah sinks back to the ground next to me, and I watch him, hoping beyond hope that this doesn’t change our friendship, that he can forgive me whatever role I’ve played in this. Soren sits next to Osprey, and for the first time in ages, I empathize with him. I can only imagine what it must have cost him to carry this knowledge around without knowing how to share it with his old friend.

Soo-Sun, who has been quiet and calm thus far, finally clears her throat and speaks up.

“My brother Chan-Yu was not the only Outsider to climb high in the ranks of Sector bureaucracy, although he did go further than anyone had before him. We have others, too, who work in the Sector: nurses in the hospitals, assistants in the printing facilities where the MealPaks are produced, Enforcers on the Farms, soldiers in the Defense Forces. When Rachel Sayyid died, the Sector was in a time of turmoil.” She nods at Soren. “Chancellor Cara Skaarsgard was unable to control the crop destruction caused by a mutated virus, and the resulting famine and riots were devastating.”

Remy, sitting almost across from me, looks confused. It occurs to me that Soren may never have told her any of this story, that she might not know anything about the political intricacies of his parents’ fall from grace. A large part of the story is missing even for me—I never did find out what happened to Soren’s parents after they transferred away from the capital.

Soo-Sun continues: “From what we’ve gathered, Corine Orleán began testing possible biological solutions as soon as she was certain her husband would win the Chancellorship. These clinical studies involved modified strains and combinations of various intestinal bacteria. The goal was to modify the way humans absorb calories and nutrients, in order to enable the starving people on the Farms to break down a wider variety of food and to more efficiently turn more of the calories consumed into available energy. A simple idea, in theory, and a noble one. But, as I’m sure you all know, gut bacteria are notoriously fickle. One slight imbalance can upset the whole system. With modified bacteria and new strains introduced to the intestines, the risk is even greater. Some of Corine’s test subjects died during the trials. We believe Rachel Sayyid was one of them. But some lived, and genetic modifications to the DNA of the crops themselves eventually curtailed the disease while steps were taken to modify the chemicals in the MealPaks to prevent further danger to the workers.”

“Ah,” Soren says quietly.

“We believe the biggest difference between the Orleán faction and the Skaarsgard faction was that the Orleáns were willing to use citizens in their clinical trials before all the precautions were taken while the Skaarsgard faction was more cautious. It was a difference of degrees.”

“How do you know all this?” I demand.

Soo-Sun looks at me patiently.

“We know many things, Valerian Orleán, that you would not suspect. We have ways of finding things out that do not always involve stolen passwords and open backdoors.”

I open my mouth to retort and then shut it again, remembering how Chan-Yu had the same way of answering and yet not answering my questions.

“So my mom was a lab rat,” Miah says, his voice thick with grief and anger.

Another debt I have to pay. How many lives do I owe?

As if sensing my unease, Miah turns to me, his brows knitted and jaw clenched. He pokes me in the chest, hard. “Don’t you fucking apologize, Vale. It’s not your fault. Don’t make this whole thing worse by apologizing for something you didn’t do. This isn’t about you. Just let it go.”

Surprised, I nod. But my hands are clenched into fists, and I can’t seem to unfold them.

Squall takes up after Soo-Sun, his words quiet but resonant. “We are interested in your family story, Jeremiah, not only because of your powerful friends, but because of the threat your mother’s death represents. After the clinical trials were concluded and the famine officially ended, research in that direction went dark. We suspect Corine either ordered the research discontinued—or, far more likely, took it up with her own personal research team.”

“She could use it as a weapon,” Soren breathes. Squall and Soo-Sun turn to him in unison. “Bacteria are so easily transmutable,” he says. “If she could isolate one or several of the strains that proved deadly, she could drop it like a bomb on our heads.”

“This is our concern as well,” Squall says impassively.

Remy leans forward, suddenly eager. The steely determination has replaced the confusion from a moment ago.

“So you’re with us, then?” she asks. “You’ll help us?”

The elegant older woman at Squall’s side finally speaks up. She glances at Remy with a hint of disdain in her expression.

“What help would you have us give?” she asks, her voice austere and off-putting.

“This is Chariya,” Osprey says as an introduction. She sounds deferential for the first time since I’ve known her. Reverential, even. “She was a citizen of the Sector, too. Long before the Resistance was born, Chariya left and is now one of our Elders.”

“We need your knowledge, your manpower, your resources,” Remy says, cool as a seasoned diplomat. “We need invisible lines of distribution throughout the Sector, so the Resistance can penetrate the food distribution system and, without the Dieticians’ knowledge, substitute safe, unmodified food for inclusion in the MealPaks. You can help us. You can show us how you move, where you travel, how you get through Sector territory unnoticed. We have the information we need and will soon have the means to produce enough seeds—Old World, unmodified, heirloom seeds—to start a revolution. And with your help, we can grow enough to wean the whole Sector off the modification programs without anyone even knowing.”

“And if we were to help you, what would the Resistance offer us in return?” Chariya asks, her expression immutable.

“What the fuck!” Miah shouts, throwing his arms over his head. “You want to make tit-for-tat bargains while the OAC uses people like lab rats and slaves? You want to sit here and talk contracts and deals knowing Remy’s family was destroyed, my mother was being murdered, Soren’s parents were lobotomized? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

Miah’s on his feet, and I am too, my hands on his shoulders, trying to calm him, but he’s pushing my hands away and won’t let me speak. But then Chariya stands up in one fluid motion, tall and strong and somehow far more imposing standing than she was sitting. Miah clenches his mouth shut and folds his arms across his chest, glaring at the impassive, fearsome woman before us.

“Before you accuse me of bargaining, cutting deals for lives, or being unsympathetic to the atrocities committed by the Okarian Sector, you should know our story, Jeremiah Sayyid.”

She brushes past us and the other Outsiders in our group are on their feet as well, following her without question. Soren follows Osprey’s every motion, and Miah turns in a huff, his curiosity getting the better of him. In seconds, it’s just me and Remy, and then she meets my eyes.

“So much for diplomacy,” she says, shaking her head as she leaves, brushing so close I can smell the intoxicating woody, earthy scent of her hair.

24 - REMY

Spring 21, Sector Annum 106, 10h30

Gregorian Calendar: April 9

The outsiders come and go as fluidly as water. Soo-Sun disappeared as soon as we mounted our horses and began our trek up the forested mountain. Osprey decided not to join us, much to Soren’s disappointment. It’s me, Vale, Miah, Soren, Chariya, and Squall. We’ve been riding in silence for well over two hours. At first, the further we went, the darker and deeper the forest became. But then the trail sloped upwards, and the trees have been changing, growing closer together but taller and thinner. The trail is steep and slow going for the horses. The air is moist, with that wet earth smell that I find myself taking deep breaths of every few minutes. We can’t have covered more than nine or ten kilometers at most, and I’m amazed at how the flora has shifted so dramatically in such a short distance. It must be the elevation.

I sniff the air as the wind changes direction, and then notice the sound of rushing water. The path turns and descends a little ways, and soon we’re at the bank of a stream that runs downhill. This little clearing is idyllic, like something from a storybook. Lush green grass fills the spaces between the trees and the rushing creek, and yellow and blue wildflowers provide splashes of color. Though I usually prefer pen and paper, I find myself longing for a brush and stretched canvas to paint this pristine little meadow.

Chariya pulls up and dismounts, letting her reins fall. She dips her hands into the stream and pulls up a palm full of crystal clear water. “See this?” she says. “Clean. Pure. Drinkable.” She puts her hands to her mouth and slurps. “We’ve been working for decades to develop a system that uses organic materials to filter and purify water contaminated by fallout from the Religious Wars and from Old world extraction operations. Only in the last twenty or thirty years, have we managed to truly make a difference.”

Vale pulls up his horse at my side, his leg brushing mine. “On our way to Normandy, Osprey knew which streams were clean and which weren’t,” he says.

Chariya taps the side of her head. “We’ve got every square meter of the Wilds mapped and it’s all in here.”

“Maybe Chariya does,” Squall chuckles. “For the rest of us, we have our astrolabes.”

Chariya smiles at the compliment and stands up, stretching her back. Her arms sweep out, encompassing the stream, the path, and the deepening woods around us. “After the Wars, new forests took root in areas that hadn’t been completely devastated. Those trees sucked the chemicals from the soil and water into their roots and grew off of the ruination of the past. Some of those who survived and lived out here in the Wilds began helping the natural process along by planting more trees and by living with as little an impact as possible. Those people became Outsiders.”

“We didn’t call ourselves Outsiders at first,” Squall cuts in. “But Okarians began calling us that, and we rather liked the term.” He smiles slightly at Chariya, who seems unperturbed by the interruption.

“In the Sector, our ancestors started farming again,” she continues. “Cutting the trees, controlling the land, building irrigation canals, planting seeds, beginning the same destructive cycle that always leads to larger populations, more demand for agriculture, conflicts over resources, climate change, environmental devastation, and ultimately to the destruction of large swaths of our world.

“It seems every generation, every civilization, makes some form of the same mistake. We forget—or ignore—that nature has intrinsic value beyond resources for our material gain. We believe we can harness all of nature, lash it to our plow, and bend it to our own will with no consequences. We believe we can treat nature like cattle, cattle like machines, and humans like machines, and what comes of the prosperity we extract through these unnatural means? The wealthy and powerful become ever more wealthy and more powerful, while the poor and oppressed grow ever more enslaved. We think we improve on nature through science, through advanced agricultural practices, through manipulation of DNA, through this and that and the other. But we are always wrong. There is only nature, and we are part of it. If we set ourselves in opposition to nature, it will always rise up against us, eventually. And it will win.”

I sense that, like me, Vale, Miah, and Soren are having a hard time not interrupting. I clamp my mouth shut, shift in my saddle, and let the woman have her say. The only way we can hope to convince her to join us is if we allow that. As Rhinehouse said, it has to be the Outsiders’ decision. We can’t force them and we can’t bully them. All we can do is state our case.

“The Outsiders, though, chose another path,” Chariya continues. “They realized they could live off the land without chopping down the trees, without destroying the ecosystems that had sprung up in humanity’s absence. We try, where possible—like with our water filtration systems—to nurse the ecosystems back to life. It’s a harder life, yes, and we make sacrifices. It’s why we’re always on the move. It’s why we choose to limit our families to two or three children at most. Death, from disease and injury, or a lack of the latest medical care, is more common here than in the Sector. But we accept that. We are willing to pay that price because we believe that death is a natural part of life. It is not something to fear. In death is rebirth, it is both an ending and a beginning.”

I think of Tai and my mom. In both cases, their deaths 
were
 a new beginning. But I can’t accept it, not like Chariya. I would do anything to bring them back to me.

She pulls another handful of water up to her mouth and drinks, then turns to run her fingers over the feathery leaves of a fern. “It’s because of the choices we’ve made that we can live as a part of the ecosystem. We feed off of the natural world, we take no more than we need, we move to give the ecosystem time to regenerate, and we die natural deaths and are returned to the earth from whence we came. The old scripture says ‘For dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return’ and we practice that. We don’t hold ourselves 
apart from
 the land and the other animals and plants we share it with, but rather consider ourselves to be 
a part of
 the land. It’s because of the choices we’ve made that I can drink this water without fear for my health.”