[Incubation 01.0] Incubation Read online

  “Where did you learn all this?” I ask, leaning over, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. My ponytail flops over my shoulder.

  “Mostly Alexander. Some others who aren’t with us now. They taught me how to be strong, how to fight back, how to protect myself. Now, I teach women like you. Two hundred each push-ups, sit-ups and squats. Then, be back here at five-fifteen for another lesson before dinner.”

  She moves with striking cobra speed and without knowing quite how I got there, I’m on the ground again and she’s walking out of the ballroom. “Lesson one!”

  I want another shower after I complete the exercises, but don’t want to waste water. I climb the stairs and check the dorm for Halla, but she’s not there. I descend again and wander through the old mansion, ending up in the kitchen, a cavernous space with an actual wood-burning brick fireplace against one wall. It’s soot-stained, but long cold. This place must have been built at least two hundred years ago, in the late 1800s. I wish I could see the exterior. I spot a door that looks as if it leads to the outside and head for it. I turn the doorknob and tug, but the door doesn’t budge.

  “You can’t go outside.” Saben’s voice is angry. I swing around to face him.“No one goes outside. As far as anyone knows, this house has been deserted for years, like most of the others in this neighborhood. That’s why we come and go via the tunnels, why the windows are black-filmed, why there’s never a fire in there.” He points to the fireplace. “We can’t have a drone spotting activity nearby or an informer telling the IPF that they saw someone outside this house. Think, will you?”

  I’m embarrassed by my near-gaffe, but tired of being treated like a moron. “We’re not all experts at skulking around and fighting and outlaw stuff,” I say hotly. “If you’d just tell us a few things, instead of yelling at us when we screw up, we might not make so many mistakes.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  “Where are we?”

  Saben shakes his head. “Can’t tell you. Our location has to remain secret. Hence, the blindfolds.”

  “You don’t trust us. Me.”

  “About as much as you trust us.”

  Point taken. I think again. “Okay, how many people live here?”

  “The ones you’ve already met, plus Casanova, Milo and Gunter on the men’s side. Fiere is our only female agent, but we’ve got three passengers staying here now, waiting to move on. They’re in the women’s dorm. One of them’s leaving tonight.”

  “Can you really help Loudon and Halla get away?”

  “If he wants to go with her. Otherwise, we can move her and the baby on their own. It’ll take a couple months, but we can get her to an outpost where she’ll be safe. We’ll build a new identity, make sure she has a procreation license and ration cards, give them both new names, a history.”

  “Can Wyck and I go with them?”

  Saben shakes his head. “Nope. Too many of you together would make it easier to hunt you down.”

  “Fiere said something about Bulrush sympathizers in key places . . . do you have anyone at the central DNA registry?”

  Saben gives me a curious look. “Why?”

  I’m not ready to tell him; in fact, I feel a little foolish at the idea of telling this geneborn guy, who can no doubt trace his genes back several super-intelligent, motivated, carefully bred generations, that I don’t even know who my parents were. Rather than answer him, I say, “Are we prisoners here, or can we leave?”

  He hesitates. “You’re not prisoners, but you can’t leave, at least not without someone to get you through the tunnels and far enough away that you won’t be able to ID the house. We can’t put our passengers, the whole organization, at risk. Do you want to leave?”

  I’m surprised to realize I don’t. I’m tired of the road. A rest will do me good. “Not at the moment.”

  “Good.” Saben smiles. He looks younger and disturbingly attractive. “Help me make dinner.” He opens the door of an antique refrigerator with the name “Whirlpool” on the front, and pulls out lettuce, tomatoes, and an eggplant. All have the golden tinge that says they’re genetically manipulated.

  “You’ve got fresh vegetables.” I’m astonished.

  “Sympathizers in key places,” he murmurs. “There are four domes in the Atlanta area, you know.”

  I didn’t know. I have a burning desire to visit them, to see if their practices are the same as ours at Kube 9, to talk with their researchers. I know that’s nothing but fantasy right now, but maybe someday. I rinse and tear the lettuce while Saben chops tomatoes. It reminds me of my younger days at the Kube, when I served in the kitchen like all the under-tens. Vegetable peelings go in a large compost bin. It’s a comforting routine, although working alongside Saben makes me nervous. It’s his eyes. The gold eyes so like Keegan’s. He’s careful to keep the kitchen knife for himself, setting me to tasks that don’t require one. Our mutual distrust makes the large kitchen feel crowded.

  We make stilted conversation about topics raised at the last Assembly until Saben asks, “Why’d you leave the Kube?”

  “Why are you here, with Bulrush?”

  Impasse. We stare at each other, neither willing to reveal anything remotely personal.

  “You hold onto that like you’re guarding a formula to make bread out of stones.” He nods at the messenger bag slung across my chest. “What have you got in there?”

  I hesitate. I’m not going to share my Little House book, but there’s no reason not to show him the feather. I pull it out and explain what it is and where I got it.

  “It’s amazing,” he says, the light in his eyes making me like him a bit better. “The gradations of color, the graceful curve of it, like a flowing line from a paintbrush. I’ll have to find an albatross picture.”

  I’m wondering how he can research albatrosses when I hear a distant clock chime five times. “Oh, I’m supposed to meet Fiere for more training.” I wipe my damp hands along the jumpsuit.

  “Go.” He waves me away.

  I leave, feeling a bit unsatisfied with our interaction. I put it aside for now. I reach the ballroom ten minutes early, per my plan, and press myself up against the wall to the left of the arch through which Fiere will enter. She arrives minutes later and I use a move she taught me to sweep her legs out from under her as she comes through the arch. She takes me down with her, hard, but I get up with the satisfaction of knowing I got the drop on her.

  “Lesson one,” I can’t resist saying.

  She pops up, lips set in a grim line.

  It’s a long, painful session.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After dinner, eaten family style on the floor of what used to be a dining room, I get a chance to talk to Wyck, whom I haven’t laid eyes on all day. We find a small room off the front hall, what might have been called a “parlor” back in the day, and huddle together by an old piano. I guess looters couldn’t move it. Leaning against one of the instrument’s sturdy legs, I ask, “Where have you been today? I got self-defense training and served in the kitchen.”

  “I helped dig tunnels. We had to use actual shovels because excavators would be too loud.” He holds his hands up, palms out, to show blisters at the base of every finger.

  I touch one lightly. “Ow.” I roll up my jumpsuit leg to show him some of my more lurid bruises. “Fiere. What are the tunnels for?”

  He shrugs. “Cas and Milo wouldn’t say. But I get the feeling that they’ve got a whole tunnel system running beneath Atlanta, tied into the old sewer pipes. We skimmed underground at least four or five miles before starting to dig. Oh, and we recharged the ACVs by tapping into an electric line right underneath the parliament building. They’ve got cables that they insert into the line that charge the ACVs much quicker than our docking stations. Cas says I can take one apart to see how it works, as long as I can put it together again.”

  He looks pleased at the prospect. Wyck and his gadgets. Halla’s been seduced by having a doctor on site, and now Wyck’s
been co-opted by the opportunity to play with new technologies. Am I the only one of our trio not completely taken in by Bulrush?

  Wyck leans forward and brushes my lips with his.“I missed you last night,” he says in a low voice. “You don’t snore like Cas. He sounds likes a locust swarm, I swear. Did you know he got involved with Bulrush when his sister and her husband were denied a procreation license? She got pregnant anyway, and Bulrush helped them escape to an outpost in the Rocky Mountain Canton. Cas had already done his border sentry service and was training to be a transportation engineer when he quit to help his sister.” Wyck’s tone is admiring.

  My interest in Cas is minimal, at best. “I missed you, too,” I say, although all my missing occurred before I fell onto the mattress. I lean forward and kiss him, but he turns his head after a brief moment. I draw back. I’m confused and hurt by the way he blows hot and cold, by the passion in his kiss in the swamp followed by weeks of nothing more than cuddling at night, like dogs seeking warmth. I’m on the verge of saying something about it when someone clears his throat in the doorway.

  Alexander is standing there, holding onto the jamb, a twinkle in his eyes. “Come on. I want to brief everyone on what I learned at the IPF base today.”

  Wyck and I spring up and follow Alexander into the great room where the others are already gathered. There’s more tension in the air than last night. Fiere sits forward in her chair, one foot tapping constantly. Saben is pacing. Alexander seats himself on the sofa. Idris stands behind him, almost like a bodyguard. Two other young men, one tall, one stocky, hover near the door; Wyck greets them as Casanova and Milo and goes to stand next to the tall, handsome one I guess is Cas. I choose a seat at Halla’s feet and she leans forward to ask Alexander, “So, did you see Loudon? Is he okay? Did you talk to him?”

  Alexander holds up a hand to stem the flow of questions. “I met with a contact from the base. He said Loudon’s unit is doing training maneuvers north of Knoxville. They won’t be back until the sixth.”

  “That’s ten days.” Halla’s eyes widen with dismay.

  “Yes. Unfortunate. Still, it could be worse. You don’t want to travel at this point until after you deliver, and you’re in a safe place with a qualified doctor on hand.” He gives a slight bow. “We’ll get in touch with Loudon as soon as his unit gets back in garrison—”

  “How?” I ask.

  “—and assess his willingness to go with you.”

  “He’ll want to go with me and Little Loudon,” Halla says fiercely. She rubs her stomach. “I know it.”

  “We’ll start making plans and creating documents as if that were the case. Saben is a talented forger,” Alexander says, his expression neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Halla.

  The next seven days assume a pattern. Wyck extends the tunnels, mostly with Cas and Milo or Gunter, but sometimes with Saben, and receives training from them, as well. Halla puts on a little much-needed weight, her face filling out again on our better diet, which is to say we eat more often than every other day like on the road. We meet two women Bulrush is helping, although one of them departs the night we arrive. The other is four months pregnant but doesn’t know who the baby’s father is or where she was living before connecting with Bulrush.

  “SMO. Specific memory obliteration,” Fiere tells me, sadness in her eyes. “No way to know who did it or why. Maybe she was raped and the rapist wanted to obliterate her memory of the act. Trouble is, the technology isn’t precise enough yet. You can wipe too much, or the wrong thing, or leave fragments of memories to torment someone.”

  The woman doesn’t seem tormented to me, merely vague and very passive. Maybe she was like that before the SMO. “Can you get wiped memories back?” I ask.

  “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The brain is a tricky thing. It can rewire itself in astonishing ways. I’ve seen it happen. My brother—” She shuts down and I don’t push.

  I know there’s another traveler in residence, Kareen, but her mattress and effects disappeared from the dorm and we never see her. I wonder at the secrecy. I train with Fiere, consistently getting beaten up, but reacting with ever increasing quickness. She drills me on what she calls lesson two, saying that my reactions need to become reflex.

  “You won’t have time to think in a fight,” she says. “You need to count on muscle memory to react. Reflex.”

  We finish each session with strength and flexibility exercises. I can feel myself getting stronger even though I was so sore after the first few days that lifting my arms to wash my hair was a painful task. I would never tell Fiere, but I’m a little bit proud of how muscular I’m becoming.

  Idris approaches me on our second day with Bulrush, and says, “Alexander says you need to know weapons.” His expression makes it clear he disagrees, but he leads me up a flight of pull-down stairs off the men’s dorm to an attic. It’s hot and stuffy, and smells musty, like rodents nest under the wooden floorboards. Idris flicks a light switch and illuminates a long room that clearly runs the length of the house. The walls are a pale gray with a strange sheen to them. I stroke my hand down one. It feels almost metallic, but with a little give.

  “The same armor the IPF uses on its transports and tanks,” Idris says, “with muffling foam behind it. This room is sound-proof and weapon-proof. We can conduct executions with no one the wiser.”

  He moves toward me, pale gray eyes flat, and I jump back. He laughs. “Chill. It’s for training, not killing. Usually.”

  I can see he’s getting off on keeping me off-balance, so I smooth my expression and say, “We’d better get to it, then.”

  “So serious. That’s good, because what Bulrush does is serious. Vital, even.” He moves to a long table where a variety of weapons from ultra-modern beamers to ESDs, guns, a cross-bow and an actual sword are laid out. All the weapons look battered: pitted, bent, rusty. “We use what we can get,” Idris says, watching my gaze move from weapon to weapon. “Sometimes silent is better,” he adds as I run a finger down the sword’s blade. I quickly pull my hand back.

  “Let’s start with a gun,” he says, choosing an automatic pistol with a black finish marred by scratches. “Still effective and plentiful, despite the government’s attempt years ago to outlaw them. Easier to conceal than a beamer. Hold it like this.” He demonstrates. “Aim at center mass.”

  Before I can ask what that means, he straightens his arms at shoulder height and lets off four shots, not even telling me to move, but firing past me into the far wall where projected outlines of human figures have appeared. The bullets impact with a muted thud. “Center mass.” He points to where red light bleeds through one outline’s torso.

  My ears are still ringing from the shots, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of complaining. My science brain is wondering how the IPF armor is engineered to stop a bullet’s momentum so completely that it simply falls to the ground on impact, rather than ricocheting.

  “Come here.” Handing me the gun, he shapes my fingers around the grip. His hands are cool, impersonal. Positioning my hips and shoulders with equal detachment, he steps back. “Try it.”

  I fire and my arms jerk up slightly with the force of the bullet leaving the barrel. I fire twice more, trying to keep my arms level and my stance steady. I look down range hopefully, but there’s no red light poking through the silhouette I was aiming at.

  Idris shakes his head, ponytail swishing. “This is a waste of ammunition. Again. Eyes open this time.”

  It becomes clear during that first week that Alexander is in command, with Fiere as his deputy. Saben and Idris, it seems to me, are jostling for the next rung in what is clearly a military-style hierarchy. They all come and go at odd intervals, conduct private meetings, and generally exclude us from everything. I explore whenever I get the chance and find myself growing fond of the old mansion with its elegant marquetry and crown molding, the graceful sweep of its banisters, and its perfectly proportioned rooms. Despite holes in the plaster, missing floor boards, and the lack
of furniture, it still retains a certain tattered grandeur. I wish I could see it with natural light streaming through the windows. I muse about its comedown from family home to bordello to Bulrush headquarters. The house is like a grande dame forced to prostitute herself. I laugh at myself for the whimsical thought and poke around until I find two more tunnel entrances, one in the basement, and one leading from a small room near the back door I imagine led to a courtyard or carriage house when the home was built. I tell Wyck about them, and he reveals that he’s doing his best to map the tunnels as he works in them.

  I seize the first opportunity I get, of course, to sneak into the off-limits wing. It’s five days after we move in. Picking a time when everyone seems to be out of the house, I slip down the forbidden hallway, armed with my EMP lock buster. The first door I come to is open and leads into a small room stuffed with cartons and racks filled with clothes and uniforms of all types and sizes, wigs, accessories and other gear. Disguises, or new gear for the “passengers,” I decide. They probably have to leave behind everything they own when they run, like Wyck, Halla and I did. I don’t waste time in here.

  The next room is empty, except for a bed and a nightstand with a Bible on it. I wonder if Alexander sleeps here, since I can’t imagine him sacked out on a mattress in the dorm with the other men. I reach for the nightstand drawer, but hesitate with my hand on the pull. I feel slimy invading Alexander’s privacy. Backing away, I try the door of the room across the hall. Locked. Aha! Promising. I try the gadget but nothing happens. I feel stupid for not realizing earlier that these locks are antique, not magnetic locks that rely on electricity. Putting an eye to the door crack, it occurs to me that I can slide back the tongue if I can find something stiff yet flexible to wiggle around it.

  Returning to the first room, I paw through the messenger bags and portable pockets lined up on a shelf until I score a used up ration card. It takes me two minutes to fiddle my way around the old fashioned iron doorknob with it. I push the door open, bracing for a squeal of stiff hinges, but they’re well-oiled and silent. My gaze immediately falls on a computer. A model very like the one we have in the lab. So this is how Bulrush communicates with operatives, or gets information. I don’t imagine Alexander can risk using it often or for more than a few minutes at a time. I make a note to ask Wyck what kind of equipment Bulrush would need to avoid detection and location. I’m tempted to turn it on and see if I can figure out what the last search or communication was.