Hope (Book 2, Harvester of Light Trilogy; Young Adult Science Fiction) (18 page)

“When will she
have the babies?” I asked my mother.

“Within the next
two days is my guess.”

“Queen Lucena!”

The older harvester
who greeted us when we first entered my mother’s home walked briskly towards
us.

“Yes, Walsh?  What
is it?”

“We have your
daughter’s residence ready for her inspection.”

“Good, fetch the
car so you can drive her over there.”

“I thought I would
be staying with you,” I said to my mother, not understanding why she would send
me away so soon after our reunion.

“We’ll be together
for all of eternity,” she replied.  “I thought you might like to have your own
place while we are at this camp since I need to keep an eye on Zoe’s progress. 
Was I wrong in thinking you would rather not be here while Zoe and Ash are?”

“No, you’re
right.  I don’t want to be around them,” I admitted.  “You always seem to know
what’s best for me before I do.”

My mother smiled
and cupped the side of my face tenderly.  “I’m glad you see that now.  All I’ve
ever wanted to do is protect you.  Jon and Emma just couldn’t understand that.”

My mother walked
me outside to the front of the house where Walsh pulled up in a little silver
sports car.

“Walsh will escort
you to your home.  Feel free to go wherever you want while you’re here. 
Everyone has been given strict instructions to do anything you ask them to do. 
If anyone doesn’t do what you instruct, tell me.  I’ll deal with them
personally.”

The drive between
my mother’s home and my new residence was rather boring since it was so late at
night.  There were no people on the streets except for guard patrols.  A camp’s
curfew was strictly upheld.  Anyone caught out past seven in the evening and
before seven in the morning were immediately harvested, no questions asked, no
reprieves given.  At least that’s what I remembered.

  The
neighborhoods looked almost normal except there weren’t any cars parked in the
driveways and all the windows of the houses were barred.  That was the beauty,
or nightmare if you were a human, of the breeding camps.  You were able to act
out an almost normal life.  The torture came when you realized you were only a
puppet doing exactly what your masters wanted.  Normality was within your reach
but always unobtainable.    

“We were only told
a few hours ago that you would be coming,” Walsh said, the fear in his voice palpable. 
It made me wonder what the harvesters had been told about me.

“Are you about to
try to make an excuse for something?” I asked dryly.

Walsh cleared his
throat.  “No ma’am.  I just wanted you to know that we would have done more to
welcome you if we’d had more time.  If you find there’s something that you
need, all you have to do is ask for it.  Anything at all.”

“How many humans
are in this camp?”

“Currently we have
ten thousand humans.  This is one of the Queen’s largest camps.  We also have a
harvesting and growth facility on site.”

“Growth facility?”

“They used to be
called the nursery before the Queen upgraded how we store the humans while they
grow.”

“Show me.”

“Now?”

“Do you have
something better to do?”

“No,” Walsh
stammered.  “I’ll take you there immediately.”

Walsh turned the
car around in a vacant driveway and started to drive back the way we came. 

“The growth
facility is near the river,” he said without giving a reason why that fact
seemed important enough to say.

Walsh pulled up to
a chain link fence surrounding a large compound with several large metal
warehouses and smaller buildings within.  Guard towers surrounded the structure
every twenty feet.  Walsh pulled up to the guard house nodding his head to the
harvester standing within.  When the guard saw Walsh was the one driving the
car, he immediately did something to make the gate open remotely and allow us
entry. 

Walsh pulled up to
the nearest warehouse and parked in front of its double doors.  When I stepped
out of the car, I heard the distinctive notes of classical music being played. 
It appeared to be emanating from the warehouse. 

“Why is there music
playing?” I asked Walsh.

“It’s used as a
stimulant for the subjects.”

“But it’s
nighttime.  Shouldn’t they be asleep?”

“It would probably
be simpler if you just saw for yourself what the Queen has devised,” Walsh
said, opening one of the heavy metal doors to allow me entry into the
warehouse.

When I walked in,
the music was now joined by the rhythmic hum of machinery.  A series of oversized
metal drums lined either wall of the structure.  Each stood twenty feet tall
and easily had a diameter just as wide.  A few harvesters in lab coats could be
seen with clip boards in their hands studying illuminated panels on each metal
cylinder.

In the camp my
family stayed in, the nursery was a form of torture for those who had children
taken to it.  The children were raised by the harvesters and given growth
hormones to accelerate their maturation.  Ash’s mother would sometimes sneak
close to the one in our camp to catch a glimpse of the children taken from her
at birth.  When she came back, her eyes would be puffy from crying.  Ash never
spoke about what his mother did and I never understood why she would purposely
torture herself over something she had no control over.  It was just another
example of human sentimentality which did nothing but cause them pain.

Although I felt
sure I already knew the answer, I had to ask, “Where are the humans?”

Walsh motioned
with his hand for me to follow him towards one of the black drums.

“We try to keep
from talking much in the warehouses,” he said to me in a low voice, just loud
enough for me to hear him over the mechanical hum and music.  “Sometimes they
can hear you and become agitated.”

Walsh led me up a
steep ladder on the side of one of the drums to a platform at the top.  There
was a control panel with various buttons situated in the middle of the platform. 
After Walsh pushed the keys in a specific sequence, I heard the gentle lap of
water as half of the cover on the drum lifted back to a ninety degree angle. 
Lights flickered within the depths of the cylinder, illuminating for me what the
human race had been brought down to.

Within the watery
confines were a multitude of bodies hung on racks like clothing.  They were all
wrapped in a white latex material with various black tubes attached to different
parts of their torsos.  Some of the bodies looked like full size adults and
some looked only as long as both my hands put together.  But all the bodies were
missing something. 

“Where are their
limbs?” I asked.

“To optimize room
in the drums we cut the legs and arms off.  Then we wrap them in a water- proof
latex which stretches as they grow.  We use the river water to keep them at
just the right incubation temperature.”

“What do you do
with all the arms and legs you collect?”

“We recycle them
like we do the meat that’s left over from a harvested body.”

I drug my eyes
away from the hypnotic sway of the living corpses in the water and looked at
Walsh.  “Recycle them as what?”

“Food for the
humans.  They can’t seem to tell the difference.  As long as they get fresh
meat, they don’t question where it comes from.  Humans tend to see what they
want to see.”

“Are they
conscience in there?” I asked.

“Only in the
barest sense of the word.  They’re aware of things to a very small degree. 
That’s why we keep the music playing day and night.  It seems to keep them
calm.”

I turned my
attention back to the bodies wondering if any of them could hear me.  For some
reason the sight of their mutilated bodies disturbed me, especially the smaller
ones.  The solution my mother had come up with seemed flawless but trapping
humans in a semi-self aware state between life and death struck a dissonant
cord within me.  A small voice in the corner of my mind began to scream that I
should do something to help the poor souls trapped in limbo.  I turned away from
the sight in front of me hoping to quiet the small part of my humanity which
seemed determined to reawaken.

“You can take me
to my house now,” I told Walsh as I made my way back down the stairs.

As we exited the warehouse,
a white van was passing through the gate to enter the compound and headed for a
building directly across the way from us.  Once parked in front of the
structure, the driver stepped out and went to the back of the van to open the double
doors.  The muffled cries of countless babies could be heard coming from the
interior of the van.  An orderly line of five harvesters stepped out of the
building, each pushing a dolly to the rear of the vehicle.  The driver pulled
out a series of plastic boxes with air holes and stacked them onto the dollies. 
Once a dolly was loaded, it was wheeled back inside the building.

Out of the corner
of my eye, I caught a glimpse of someone in white standing by the gate in the fence
watching me.  When I turned my head to get a better look, they were gone.  I
knew who it was though: Rose.  Shaking off the odd sensation of being watched
by her, I got back into the car so Walsh could drive me home.

I stared absently
out the window on my side of the car as we passed through the darkened neighborhoods
until something caught my attention.

“Stop the car,” I
told Walsh.

He immediately did
as I asked without asking any questions.

Standing in front
of one of the homes was Simon.  But he disappeared before I could open the car
door to go talk with him.

“Is everything all
right?” Walsh asked, having not seen what I saw.

“Yeah,” I said,
not understanding why Simon would appear just to vanish into thin air again. 
“Keep going.”

I continued to
look out the window and seemed to be haunted by brief glimpses of Rose and
Simon.  One after the other they would appear and disappear before I could even
blink my eyes.  What were they doing?  Trying to drive me insane?  If that was
their agenda, they were sorely mistaken in their judgment of my reaction because
it was only making me angry.  I felt like they were playing with me, taunting
me with their power.

Finally, Walsh
pulled up in front of a large two story brick home with a gated fence and semi-circle
drive way.  Walsh walked me up to the front door and escorted me inside. 
Waiting for me there were two women, both of which were human.  One looked to
be in her late sixties while the other looked younger, possibly in her early
twenties.  The older one smelled like a rotting corpse wrapped in moldy paper. 
The enhancement to my sense of smell from the harvester nanites accentuated the
natural decay her body was experiencing.  If the younger one smelled any
fresher, it was masked by the old ones corruptible scent.

“This is Grace and
Mary Anne,” Walsh told me.  “They’ve served your mother for many years.  I
believe Grace was your great-grandmother’s housekeeper at one time.  Is that
right, Grace?”

“Yes, sir,” the
older of the two women said meekly.

“And Mary Anne was
lucky enough to be chosen out of hundreds of women to be Grace’s apprentice.  She
will be in charge of taking care of the Queen when Grace passes.”

“Why would my
mother want a human servant?” I asked.

“I’ve asked her
that myself,” Walsh admitted.  “She says they provide her a bit of nostalgia. 
Grace was the Queen’s primary care giver when she was a child.  She knows what
the Queen likes and doesn’t like and is able to anticipate what she needs
before she has to ask for it.  So, she wanted Grace to pass down her talents to
someone else and I’m sure Mary Anne will someday pass down what she has learned
from Grace to another human and so forth.”

It surprised me to
learn my mother could be so sentimental of the servant who took care of her as
a child.  It didn’t seem logical to keep such a frail looking woman around. 
How could she possibly be of any value in her state of decomposition?

“Has the Queen’s
daughter’s surprise arrived?” Walsh asked.

“Yes,” Grace said,
her eyes cast down like the mention of my surprise bothered her.  “They are
waiting in the parlor for her.”

“What surprise?” I
asked.

Walsh gave a tight
lipped smile.  “The Queen thought you might like some help unwinding after your
conversion.  Please, follow me and I’ll show you what she sent over.”

I followed Walsh
to the back side of the house.  When we got to the parlor, I was met by a line
of ten male harvesters standing in the middle of the room, all of which were naked
leaving nothing hidden.

“The Queen thought
you might like some company this evening,” Walsh said.  “She chose these men
for you to pick from.  If you would like to choose one, he’s yours for however
long you want him.”

I looked down the
line of men and saw they were all slightly different in race, hair color, skin
tone, and height.  It seemed my mother had thought of everything in choosing a
playmate for me.

One of them stood
out among the others.  He was tall with a muscular build and short dark brown
hair.  His piercing green eyes watched me carefully.  I knew exactly why my
mother had chosen him.  His facial features favored Jace too much to just be
coincidental.

“I’ll take him,” I
said.  “Third one down.”

“Grant stay, the
rest of you can go.”

The other men
turned from me and left the room without a word.  Grant kept his eyes locked on
me.

“Have him wait for
me in my room,” I told Walsh.  “I would like to take a bath and have something
to eat before I go to bed.”

“We prepared you
your mother’s favorite meal,” Grace said behind me.  “It’s waiting in the
dining room for you.”