Incubation (The Incubation Trilogy Book 1) (6 page)

Chapter Seven

Skulking past the cafeteria minutes before seven, I hear Proctor Mannisham’s voice droning on about the responsibilities of citizenship. If the goal is to get apprentices to eat more quickly, the tradition of having proctors offer “improving” or “educational” comments during the evening meal is a great way to accomplish that. Safely past the cafeteria entrance, I trot down the long hall leading to the dome. It’s empty. An iris scan gets me through the access doors. Tomorrow, when they discover we’re gone, they’ll be able to pull up the records and see that Halla, Wyck and I met in the dome, but by then it will be too late. Noticing that two scooters are missing from the docking station, I mount one and zip toward the evergreen orchard. The breeze I’m generating fans my hair. The fields are quiet, empty of workers, and I fancy I can hear the plants growing, inching their way through the loam to the surface, extending their leaves, soaking up the carefully calibrated light. It’s peaceful.

If only my thoughts were equally peaceful. I glide straight to the far end of the dome where the copse is. The evergreen plot is densely planted with trees that are all over seven feet tall, and is a favorite spot of young lovers trying to find some privacy since the bushy limbs provide a fair amount of cover. They should be called “everpurples,” though because we’ve genetically engineered them to produce deep purple needles that seem to deter the locusts. I wonder if this is where Halla and Loudon got together. Evicting that thought from my brain, I slow and maneuver the scooter between the trees. The light is dimmer here, a natural twilight. I breathe deeply of the pine scent that always relaxes me. It doesn’t work this time. I dismount, prop the scooter against a trunk, and whisper, “Halla? Wyck?”

“Hey, Ev.” Wyck emerges from between two conifers. His usual insouciance is missing; he’s strung taut with tension.

Halla steps out from behind him. She hugs me without saying anything and I cling to her for a minute, relieved that we’re okay.

We sink to our haunches and huddle together. I outline the plan I’ve been working on all afternoon. “Our first priorities are food and water,” I say. “We’ll also need maps, which I can get from the lab’s computer; weapons, if we can find them, for hunting and protection; a tarp or something to use for shelter. We can’t risk taking a train, so we’ll be walking a lot. We can only take what we can carry. Even assuming we can cover twenty miles a day, it’s going to take us three-plus weeks—if we’re damn lucky—to get to Atlanta.” The list seems pitiful, inadequate, naïve.

Not until this afternoon did I realize how little I know about what exists outside the Kube. Oh, I can label the cantons on a map, list the sites of the last major flu outbreaks and the location of the most recently discovered mass grave with more than six hundred thousand bodies in it, and pinpoint the battleground where the Maddow rebellion against the Pragmatists was put down, but I have only the haziest idea of the topography between here and Atlanta, and even less knowledge of what we’re likely to encounter on our journey. There are outlaws, of course, but I have no idea how many or where. There is wildlife, some of it dangerous. If I had more time to plan I could collect information from the computer under the guise of lab research, but we’re out of time. With Halla’s physical looming tomorrow and discovery of her pregnancy certain, we have to leave tonight.

“I can get weapons,” Wyck volunteers.

I don’t ask him how or what. I just nod.

“I’ve already got some food squirreled away,” Halla says, “and I can take more from the nursery once it’s lights out.”

“I’ll go to the lab,” I say. “I can get hydropure pills and maps”—I cross my fingers, hoping that’s true—“and maybe some other stuff that will be useful. We’ll need fire starters, for one, containers to drink from and cook in. We should each bring whatever might be helpful for getting food, protection, or shelter, but only what we can carry easily.”

“We could take the scooters,” Halla says.

“Unrecharged, they should have a range of a hundred to a hundred fifty miles,” Wyck offers.

“Good thinking,” I agree. “They might get us a third of the way there.”

“We’ll have to remove our locators,” Wyck says.

I’d already realized this, and I nod. In unison, we look at our forearms. There is only one way to dislodge the locators, and it won’t be pleasant. Still, we have no choice. If we don’t cut them out, we’ll be hunted down in hours.

We hash over our plan for two hours until Halla rubs her arms and whispers, “I’ve got to get back. It’s my night to get the four-year-olds ready for bed. I’ll be missed.” She starts to rise and I grasp her hand to help. She holds tight to my hand, even after she’s standing. After a moment, I reach for Wyck’s hand and he takes Halla’s other hand. We stand in a circle, silent, connected, committed.

“All for one and one for all,” Wyck says jauntily, but with an undertone of seriousness.

The Three Musketeers
. Buddies on an adventure. Of course Wyck would think of them. As Halla’s hand tightens painfully around mine, I feel like we’re bonded together, the three of us, our linked hands the shared electrons that form a covalent bond between atoms, virtually unbreakable. Peaceful resolve settles in me.

“Family,” Halla whispers. She lets go of my hand to lay her hand on her abdomen.

Then Wyck pulls away and heads for the scooters. “See you at the docking station at midnight,” he says.

Halla manages a smile and hugs me. “Thank you for coming with me,” she says. “You’re the best friend I’ll ever have. Better than a sister.”

A lump rises in my throat at the idea of us as sisters. Like Laura and Mary. Would that make Wyck our brother? I don’t feel very sisterly toward him these days. None of us are really family, I remind myself. My time with the Ushers taught me that the only real family is your biological family. I say nothing, hugging my best friend tightly. There’ll be time enough for talking once we put twenty miles between ourselves and the Kube.

Chapter Eight

Halla follows Wyck out of the dome, and I skim to the lab. The door
whoosh
es open at my iris scan and I walk in, merging with the hush. Refrigeration units hum, and a centrifuge clinks softly from the back. Familiar sounds. I walk the length of the lab to the computer room and sit facing a unit, placing my left thumb on the bioplate. It boots up with a whir and the display materializes in front of me. I’m uncomfortable abusing Dr. Ronan’s trust like this—he may get in trouble for having assigned me my own access code—but needs must. My fingers flick the display. I don’t have much experience with the computer and it takes me well over an hour to locate the maps we’ll need. I download them to a portable data device and then print them out as well, to be sure. For good measure, I find the precise geocoords of Loudon’s IPF base and the Ministry of Science and Food Production, which happens to hold the central DNA registry. Proctor Fonner might say the database didn’t reveal my parents’ identities, but he’s lying. Everyone’s DNA is in that database from birth.

I search the lab for other useful items, pocketing several chemical fire starters, two collapsible water-proof containers, a heat-proof beaker, sleeves of hydropure tablets, and, on impulse, some of the metal stakes we’ve been using to support the new pea hybrid. There’s wire binding the vines to the stakes, and I take a roll of that, as well. I stash it all in one of the lightweight backpacks researchers carry when they’re collecting soil, water and local area flora samples, first removing their instruments and sample containers. The researcher pack has a compass, and I take that, and then steal the compasses from two other researcher kits. I'd prefer the more advanced Navigizmos, but these will do.

I’m examining the maps when a muted
clink
jerks my head up. Dr. Ronan stands mere feet away, sipping Wexl from a lab beaker, eyes fixed on me. The glowing green liquid coats the glass as he lifts it to his lips. His incongruous blond hair is more mussed than usual and he’s wearing a plaid robe and slippers, garb no apprentice would be allowed to own, much less wear. It’s far too
individual
. I chew myself out for being so absorbed in my search that I didn’t hear the lab door open or his footsteps. The tiny
clink
comes again as the beaker knocks against his teeth. He says nothing. His throat works as he swallows, stiff white hairs of unshaved beard vibrating as his Adam’s apple moves. I don’t realize I’ve reacted until the crinkle of paper tells me I’ve crushed the maps. I whip my hand behind my back. Maybe he hasn’t noticed what I’m holding. It’s possible he’s drunk enough Wexl not to notice much.

“Dr. Ronan! I wasn’t . . . I was just—”

“You’re leaving,” he says, his words slightly slurred by the intoxicant.

“No! I mean, yes, I’m leaving the lab now. I needed to check on—”

He shakes his head back and forth in exaggerated slow motion. “No, no, no, Jax. Let’s not part with lies. You’re leaving the Kube, going in search of your parents.” He throws back the rest of the Wexl and sets the beaker down with a sharp click. He takes a step toward me, swaying ever so slightly. He’s close enough now I can smell the Wexl’s chemical sweetness on his breath.

“I had a daughter once. Did you know that?” Not waiting for my startled negative, he continues. “Nothing like you. She wanted to be a ballet dancer of all things, back when we had time and resources to indulge in the arts. Can you believe the government used to fund painting and dance, opera and photography? She took her first class when she was three, and I can still see her in her pink leotard thingie and tights with a little puff of a tutu—that’s a ballerina skirt made out of stiff netting,” he explains at my puzzled look. “She had her hair up in a bun, like ballerinas wore, and the biggest smile I’d ever seen on her little face. To the day she died, she had that same smile every time she danced.”

He clears his throat. “She seemed fragile as a dandelion puff, ethereal as a moonbeam when she danced, but she was all muscle and discipline. In that, she was like you—a hard worker, committed.”

My chest tightens at the comparison.

“She could move people to tears. Early on, I tried to interest her in science, in botany or genetics, but dancing was fundamental to who she was. It would have been a crime against nature to try to make her be anything else. I didn’t recognize that soon enough.”

His eyes gleam wetly and he reaches for the empty beaker, stares into it blankly, and then sets it down again. “She died in the second wave of the flu pandemic. My wife died three months later.” His jaw slides from side to side.

I whisper, “I’m sorry, sir,” having trouble getting my head around the idea of Dr. Ronan with a family. He seems so self-contained, so focused on his work, so beyond needing people that I have trouble envisioning him falling in love, playing with a toddler.

“It is what it is, Jax. It is what it is.” His gaze sharpens and falls on the backpack.

I stand helplessly as he pulls it toward him along the length of the lab table and rummages through it. I expect him to fling my survival items out, accuse me of theft, turn me in. I think about hitting him with a chair and tying him up or locking him in the storage room, but almost as soon as the thought materializes, I deny it. No way can I harm Dr. Ronan. I stand irresolute, trying to think of a way to warn Wyck and Halla, to keep Dr. Ronan occupied until they’ve realized I’m not going to show up at the docking station and leave without me. I pray they don’t come here looking for me. I’m so caught up in my thoughts, I don’t process Dr. Ronan’s words at first.

“I said, you’ll need medical supplies,” he repeats impatiently. “There’s a first aid kid in the storage room, top shelf, on your left. What are you waiting for? Go get it.”

Almost in a trance, I obey, returning with the compact kit. I should have thought of it myself. “You’re helping me,” I state the obvious. “You’re not mad that I’m leaving?”

“Might as well be mad at water for being wet,” he grumbles, hitching his robe out of the way so he can organize the backpack more efficiently. “Compounds have to behave in keeping with their elemental make-up,” he says. “Remember that.”

When I stare at him blankly, confused and more than a little inclined to tell Wyck and Halla I can’t go with them, Dr. Ronan straightens and glares at me from under the furry shelf of eyebrows. “Your going is pointless, but I don’t expect you to understand that now. There’s a lot of work left for you to do when you realize it, so don’t get yourself killed.”

“I won’t,” I promise, feeling half-comforted and half-foolish. “Thank you. You . . . you won’t get in trouble for helping me?” I catch sight of the time: 2355. I’ve got to go.

“Pish.” He flips his hand. “I haven’t so much helped you as turned a blind eye. Besides”—he smiles almost impishly—“no one will know anything about it. You don’t think I haven’t figured out ways of entering my own lab without leaving a record of my presence, do you? There’s no such thing as a security system that can’t be penetrated with enough time and ingenuity. And I’ve got both, goddamnit.”

I’m seized with the urge to hug him, but it feels like an impertinence, so I merely say, “Goodbye, and thank you. I’ll miss you. Oh, and the new strain of wheat? You should call it
Triticum yuna
.” I sling the backpack over one shoulder, and head for the lab entrance, resisting the urge to catalog all the projects I won’t see to completion, the data I’ll never finish analyzing, the other lab apprentices and scientists I’ll never see again. I’m close to tears.

I think I hear Dr. Ronan whisper, “Go with God,” but it’s drowned out by the sound of the cooler door sliding open and an irascible, “Where did that flask of Wexl get to?”

I step through the lab doors for what I’m sure is the last time, letting the gentle humidity of the dome caress my face, and start toward the docking station. Soon, I’m trotting, then running, the backpack thunking awkwardly between my shoulders, and my hair flying. It’s midnight. It’s time.