The Far Dawn (21 page)

She holds out a syringe and moves it toward my hand. “I can't put you under, but I can numb your hand. Shall I move the screen so that you can see?”

I think no, but then I say yes. I want to see the saw tearing apart the cast fibers, revealing the lumpy purple mess of my wrist.

Want to see the moment when the skin of my right pinkie resists, before the scalpel cuts through and the blood flows.

When the skin is peeled back and pinned in place.

The medi-arm lowers, a green sensor scanning.

It hums louder, gathering energy, preparing to work.

19

THE BEST PLACE TO VIEW THE VAST DOME OF EdenEast, Rana tells me, is from the top of the great pyramid of Giza. She promised to take me there when I last saw her, because that is where we will meet up again.

By solar sail, it is a two-day trip from the Flotilla around the Horn of Africa and north through the Red Sea. I spend most of it in a fog, lying in the
Solara
's infirmary, taking pain medication. There is a vague burning in my finger, a dull throb from my now-cast-free wrist, the pain on my thigh. And my eyes . . .

I keep them mostly closed.

Serena keeps an eye on me, but I learn from our brief conversations that she does not approve of my plan the way that Robard does. I think she wishes there were another way.

But the reports that we hear on the Northern News Network suggest that time is running out:

 

The pandemic that was carried initially by the elephant cockroaches has now officially spread to humans, and the entire Asian continent is being locked down under quarantine. . . .

 

Fighting has reached a fever pitch today in Lagos . . . fears of collapsing into civil war. . . .

 

Repeated transit bombings have led Copenhagen to declare martial law. . . .

 

The number of cases of radiation poisoning in Siberia is expected to top twenty thousand. . . .

 

Massive die-offs of pronghorn . . . reportedly just lying down and succumbing to the sun . . .

 

Fires in the French deserts that have jumped the containment lines . . .

 

“The whole planet,” says Serena sadly as she removes the bandages from my right hand and wrist. “It's dying.”

We have slowed and are nearing the shore, a desolate, moonlike expanse of the Egyptian coast. The Suez Canal to the north is controlled by fierce pirates, so we are docking here to meet Robard's contact and will travel overland the rest of the way.

“These are looking pretty good,” Serena says, running her fingers, the nail polish still black, over the stitches. I hold up my hand and look at my finger. It is a bit swollen and blotchy. The stitches are small and clear and expertly done, located on the inside of the finger, on the opposite side from where I now carry a bar code.

Dr. Viram used the two samples to create a fake one. There is some small chance that her fabricated code will actually match someone's in the Eden system. If that is the case, it's better to have a mix-up with an existing selectee than to be identified as either an enemy of Eden or a deceased soldier, as would have been the case if we'd copied Victoria's or the commander's code.

And even if there is a mix-up, it should still work, because I have the second necessary form of identification, which I will need for getting into an Eden dome to begin with.

You don't need a selectee code for that.

All you need is a retinal scan.

But it can't be Owen Parker's retina. He's already in their system.

Serena removes more bandages, and I try, for the first time to open both eyes at once. As I do, Serena watches a computer pad carefully.

It takes a minute for the blur to begin to reset itself. The colors are not quite aligned.

“I'm calibrating the depth sensors now,” she says.

Focus begins to clear.

“And now the movement oscillator . . .”

I try glancing to my right and left, and there is a weird splitting of the information, but then it syncs up. The information from my real eye . . .

And my bionic one.

An artificial eye with a retina matched to a forged identity in the Eden databases, assuming Robard's contacts are able to hack the system. Getting access to the selectee information is nearly impossible, but the regular old citizen information? That is much easier.

Suddenly, Lilly is there in my head.
I don't like this, O. Bionic eye, that's halfway to becoming Paul.

For days I have worked so hard not to think, to keep her out of my thoughts as best I can, but I can picture her now and I can almost smell her she seems so close. The eruption of grief inside me is nearly overwhelming.

Don't think about that
, I tell myself.
She's gone. Dead. I am doing what it takes
.

This is what it takes.

And yet I can just imagine what Lilly would say to that
. That's probably what Paul tells himself.

Maybe.

I blink, and here in the silence of the ship, I hear a little hiss. There is a cool sensation, and a momentary blur in my vision.

“Did you feel that?” Serena asks, touching the pad. “I've only worked with this calibration software a couple times, but I think I just synced the tear ducts with your blinking musculature.”

I blink a few more times and things clear up. I run a finger below my eye, and find a stray drop leaking down, like a tear. I look at the liquid and see that it's slightly pink.

“There are antibacterials in the initial coatings,” says Serena when she sees me noticing this. “It will clear up after a day or two.” She puts down the pad. “And how is that wrist?”

I grit my teeth and try moving. There is stiffness, but the wrist moves like it's supposed to. There is a slight sound like rolling when it does.

“Some of the wrist bones were crushed,” explains Serena. “Dr. Viram replaced them with titanium bearings. Pretty elite treatment. Roll on your side.”

Serena peels a bandage away from the side of my left thigh. “This looks good,” she says. “Want to see?”

“Sure.”

She holds out a mirror and I can see the thin seam of clear plastic that runs down my thigh. It looks like an old scar. Just below it, there is a coin-size mole that also wasn't there before. I can feel the dull pain all around the area.

“If anyone asks, you can say you had one of the degenerative joint infections as a kid and had surgery.” Serena starts pulling off her gloves. “Well, I think you are good to go if you want to get dressed.”

When I first slide down off the bed, my thigh burns, and balance is tricky with the still-new vision. The bionic eye has a small focal point square in the center of it. The eye is supposed to sync perfectly with the other, but if there is ever a delay or malfunction, I can press the inner right edge of the eyeball with my fingernail and this will manually focus. It's working fine now, but the square is a constant reminder: no matter where I look, I see what I've become.

Serena works at a far cot while I dress. One of the
Solara
's crew took a stray bullet at the Flotilla.

“I'm going to go up on deck,” I say.

“Okay.” Serena sanitizes her hands with foam and comes over. “Owen, I . . .” Her eyes start to well up, and she wraps me in a hug. “You're very brave. I am glad to have known you.”

This should probably make me feel scared. Maybe it does, but more than anything, I feel a cold wash of guilt, for reasons no one can know. I excuse myself as quickly as I can.

The
Solara
docks at a tiny shanty village. It is evening, nearly seven, and the sun is blood orange and setting. The air is still unmercifully hot and baked.

Robard and I descend the gangway over brown, polluted water, flanked by four soldiers. A band of five heavily armed men waits for us. They have dark skin and ratty NoRad clothes. The rest of the village's residents stay out of sight.

“Stay alert,” Robard says under his breath. “They are Nomad Alliance but also probably pirates, and they may smell a nice bounty for delivering us to Eden.”

We stop before the group, their weapons on their shoulders but their hands near triggers. Robard speaks in what I think is French, and the group's leader responds. He motions to a pair of sailcarts up the rise at the edge of town, like little sailboats on wheels, their masts catching the last pink rays of sun.

The conversation rises in volume. The group's leader points at Robard repeatedly and says something that sounds like
double
.

Robard grows agitated.

The group leader shakes his head.
“Cette mission est trop dangereuse,”
he says.

“We had a deal,” Robard says in English.

I can feel my pulse speeding up as their voices shade toward anger.

The group leader shouts now, and guns come off shoulders.

Robard grows louder. He turns to me and our soldiers. “He doesn't understand what's at stake here.”

The group leader shouts again, and starts backing up.

Robard throws up his hands, speaking forcefully, and the group leader whips a pistol from his belt.

“C'est fini!”
he shouts, waving the gun at us.

Just then, one of the soldiers looks up and his eyes go wide. He shouts to the leader in a panicked tone. “
Général! Un fantôme!
” They all turn.

I look over my shoulder and see the pale white light.

Rana has arrived early.

She lands beside me and I am glad to feel her glow on my skin, to see her hollow eyes and downturned mouth. She still carries the black bag with her—
Lilly's
—skull inside.

To all the soldiers around us—including the
Solara
's crew and Robard himself—though, Rana's appearance is otherworldy, impossible, terrifying. Not to mention that she has drawn her twin blades and holds them ready to use.

I'd almost forgotten that other than me, this is still a planet where no one knows of such things as crystal skulls, ancient Atlanteans, or dead girls who linger.

“This is my friend I was telling you about,” I say mildly to Robard.

He regards me with wide eyes that flick to Rana and back, and then nods slightly. I realize that I have become something foreign to him now. And when Rana speaks:
“Y at-il un problème?”

One of the soldiers actually runs.

The others train their guns, but the tips shake.

“Tell them to take me where I need to go,” I say to Robard, and after he translates, I add: “And tell them afterward to spread the word: beware the boy who walks with the ancients.”

We load into the two sailcarts. Rana and I sit in the back, and everyone leaves space around us. The carts gather wind and shoot off across the hardpan, single headlights spearing out from each, their wheels bouncing off the rocks. As we gather speed, their windward sides lift off the ground, and we skim on two wheels.

The breeze grows cool and refreshing as the heat leaves the world. My bionic eye starts to stick, maybe drying out, and I press my finger against the acrylic surface, wiggling it until some tears leak out. I already hate the thing, but whatever.

Robard talks with the other leader as we travel. They all glance at us from time to time.

“Good timing,” I say to Rana, leaning close to speak over the wind. It is weird being near her surface, because she gives off no heat, has no smell. Tight corners cause us to lean into each other, and she dissolves partly into me, or me into her, depending on the angle, and there is a cold tingling when it happens that feels strange, and yet I've started to find it comforting.

“I thought so,” she says. She looks at me. It is hard to tell with her eyeless gaze but I think she is studying my eyes.

“How do they look?” I ask.

“Like you have a real eye and a fake eye,” she says.

“Great.”

“No one will look at you from as close as I do. But the colors are slightly different.”

I never would have let you do that
, Lilly's voice echoes in my head.

I push it away.

Still, I find Rana looking at me. “What?”

“What is it like, to have parts of you be machine?”

“It's different.” I feel myself tensing at this question. “But not really. Why do you ask?”

“I just wonder how it changes you.”

“You sound like—” I almost say she sounds like Lilly. “You sound like you don't approve of this plan.”

“I understand it, probably better than you do.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“We shall see.”

“Fine then.” I hate how sulky I sound, and so I concentrate on watching the shadowy desert world slide by.

We cross the dark plains for five hours. Finally we stop on the shore of a large body of water. Its coast is devoid of any plant life. A dull yellow glow lights the horizon.

“This is it,” Robard says to me. “We can't go any closer or we'll trip their sensors.” He hops out of the sailcart.

I join him at the lake edge but then recoil. The water gives off a scent of rot and feces and decay so strong it feels like my nose is burning. Without the humming of the sails, I can now hear an incessant buzzing of insects, and flies start to slap off my face and head.

“What is this?” I ask.

“Sewage runoff from EdenEast,” says Robard, wincing. “No need to treat the sewage when there's no one around.” He points around the coastline a little ways to where a line of lights leads up a gentle rise. The lights outline a cement river, more like a trough. “Follow that trail of sewage, straight to Eden.”

I pull my LoRad jacket up over my nose. “Okay.”