Visions of the Future (63 page)

“It can hear you, alright. But it communicates via sonar.”

“So I won’t be able to talk to it.”
A shame. I would like to have listened to its story.

The first man laughed. “Not yet, anyway.”

Not yet—?

The two men led her to a doorway. One pressed a button, and the door opened into a small room. They stepped inside.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“It’s an elevator,” the second man said. “Just get in, will you?”

Kaybe glanced back at the half a dozen demons. One waved. She waved back, and walked into the tiny room.

With a lurch, the room dropped. She clutched the wall. After a long moment, the room slowed, and stopped. The door opened. She followed the men out…

…into a warehouse many stories tall. Kaybe craned her neck to take it all in. Men at work. Demons, too. Their misshapen bodies were stronger than they looked. Here and there they lifted large crates, plastic barrels, juggling them and stacking them like firewood. At one end of the cavernous space, many doors, shut. At the other, children—demon children!—ran and played and shouted, leaping impossibly high into the air to catch a ball.

Kaybe gulped. “Where. Are we?”

“Welcome to the Department of Austerity, child,” the first man said.

“I want to go home.”

“Well first we have to find out where that is,” the second man said briskly. “Come this way, please.”

A narrow walkway led between the stacked crates and barrels and the wall. The two men gestured for her to go ahead, and walked close behind her. Now and then she caught the eye of a demon at work. Those red eyes—and they all had red eyes—looked away. As though they feared her or hated her or pitied her. Kaybe wasn’t sure which.

At the end of the walkway they came to a pair of double doors. The two men halted behind her.

“Please,” said the first man. “After you.”

“What is it?” she whispered. “What’s there?”

“They’re going to take you home,” said the second man, and she knew it was a lie.

Her feet pattered across the concrete floor before she realized she had taken a decision. A hand grabbed at her collar, but she yanked free, weaving and ducking through the chaos of crates and barrels, demons and men. She swerved around a fat man in coveralls who bellowed at the demons, “Catch her!”

But the demons merely stopped work and stood still, watching.

The chase did not last long. Where was she going to go? She couldn’t even find her way back to the elevator. She was hungry and weak and tired. She flattened herself against a crate. A meaty hand circled her throat. When she struggled, the hand tightened, and the world grew dark. Kaybe fell to her knees. The fat man in coveralls looked down at her.

“You are a naughty girl. Do you know what we do to naughty girls?” He grinned. “I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

The man dragged her, tripping and falling, back to the double doors, and dumped her on the ground. “Level C,” he growled.

“But we don’t even know who she is!” the first man protested.

“Does it matter?”

Kaybe got to her feet. She brushed herself off. Then with both hands she slapped the double doors open and disappeared inside. And before the darkness took her, she thought, but what about my proof?

She woke in a bed. A comfortable bed. At home she slept on an ancient mattress stuffed with dried grass and old rags. But this… this was nice. The light was bright and she closed her eyes once more, listened to beeps and boops around her, a groan, a child’s cry, a flushing toilet.

Where am I? What did they do to me?

A needle in her arm. She flexed her fingers. They itched.

“She’s awake,” a bored voice called out.

Shoes clacked on tile. Maybe if I pretend to be asleep, they’ll leave me alone.

Fingers pried her eyelids open, and she squirmed back.

“Awake alright.” The hand opened her mouth, felt her neck and throat.

Kaybe squinted in the bright light. A red man peered down at her. She blinked twice. His skin was red. But he didn’t look like a demon thing. He looked like an ordinary man. Except his skin was red. And scaly.

“What’s going on?” she croaked. “Where am I? Who are you?”

The doctor sighed. “The usual questions. Give her the usual answers, will you?” And so saying, he clacked off.

A red woman in a nurse’s outfit sat down next to the bed. “Hello, dearie,” she said. “Welcome to Camp Wannamaka.”

“A… camp?”

The woman giggled. “It’s a joke. Camp Wannamaka. ‘Wannamaka Better Human’? Get it?” She giggled again.

“O… K…” Kaybe stretched in the bed.

“Oh don’t do that now, you’ll pull out your IV.” The nurse fussed with the needle in the back of Kaybe’s hand.

“So you gonna give me the usual answers?”

“Well if you’ll be patient you’ll hear all you need to know.”

“Like how come you and the doctor guy are all red and stuff?”

The nurse giggled once more. An irritating sound. “We were an earlier batch,” she explained. “Worth keeping, but not quite there yet. Some call us the one point niners.”

“One point niners?”

“The others—you know, the big ones—they’re Human 2.0ers. We’re the 1.9ers. We’re smarter, faster, stronger, more flexible, more adaptable than regular humans. But our generation didn’t get the right formula. I don’t mind, really,” she said, stroking the red scales that coated her forearm. “I like a bit of a natter with the girls, you know? How am I going to do that if I’m sonar-only?” She opened her mouth wide like a fish.

Kaybe couldn’t help laughing.

“You’re lucky,” the nurse said. “Not everybody gets Level C.”

Level C. That’s what the fat man said.

“What—what’s Level C?”

“Human 2.1,” the nurse said. “Working out some of the kinks and bugs in the GMO.” She patted Kaybe’s hand. “You’re getting the latest, greatest formula. Who knows, you could be the best human we’ve ever created!”

Kaybe was quite sure she did not want to be new and improved. But it seemed counterproductive to say so. She waited for the nurse to leave so she could rip out the needle and try to escape again.

“Won’t be long now, dearie.” The nurse consulted her watch.

“Until… what?” Her hand strayed toward the needle.

“Do you realize you stand on the cutting edge of evolution?” the nurse gushed. “Isn’t it exciting? Oh how I envy you!”

Kaybe grabbed the needle and pulled—only to find a red hand gripping her wrist. The needle stayed.

A gasp. “You’re… strong!”

“I told you,” the nurse said. “I’m a one point niner. Stronger, faster, smarter. And red!” She giggled. “I confess it’s not my favorite color, but it seems a small price to pay.”

Shit. Now what am I going to do?

“And… done.” The nurse said. She removed the needle from Kaybe’s arm.

“That’s it? I don’t feel any different.”

“It takes a few days or weeks before we’ll know if the formula was successful. Can you get up?”

Kaybe swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her toes grazed the floor. “I think so.”

“Put your clothes on, then follow me.” A claw tapped her cheek. “Don’t even think about trying to escape. You really don’t want to see how fast I am.”

She got dressed. They’d even kept her squirrel skin cap. The nurse crooked a red finger, and Kaybe followed.

Where are we?

Something had blinded her, knocked her out—a gas?—when she walked through those double doors. And now? She could be anywhere. On the surface, a mile underground. Escape seemed somewhere between unlikely and impossible.

A horde of little red children raced past them in silence, mouths wide, gills quivering. A ball bounced at Kaybe’s feet and she picked it up. A pair of small feet came to a halt in front of her. She knelt down, held out the ball.

“Here you go,” she said.

The little boy’s gills twitched, he took the ball, and retreated after his friends.

The nurse came to a heavy metal door and pressed a button. The door swung open. They entered a small room and the door behind them closed. A second heavy metal door opened at the nurse’s touch, and they stepped into a corridor.

Two men armed with rifles stood to attention. One held out his hand. The nurse dropped her claws into his, and he bent to kiss a knuckle.

The nurse giggled. “Oh don’t tell anyone,” she said to Kaybe. “My husband would be terribly upset. Consorting with a 1.0er.” To the man she said, “Got a Level C here.”

The man straightened and barked an order at the other man. “Max here will show you the way.” He winked.

Max led them stiffly down the corridor until he came to an unmarked door. He unlocked it and pushed the door open.

The nurse stroked her hair. “I hope to see you soon. Good luck to you!”

A hand pushed Kaybe forward, the door slammed shut behind her, and then she knew for sure.

She was trapped.

A score of other 2.1ers lounged around the large cell—and despite its comforts, it was clearly a cell. Sofas, a ping-pong table, books. A ball for children, but there were no children present. Kaybe recognized no one. They must all have come from nearby towns. Her own community seemed without representation. Kaybe wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Was there another camp closer to home where they experimented on the naughty boys and girls who disappeared?

Several of her fellow prisoners looked up when she came in, but most of them ignored her. Many were in poor condition. The top of the pecking order sat in the sofa, the rest forced to sit or lie on the floor. Some had fused fingers, like Benji with the outlaws. Others had a pink tinge to their skin, but their shirtfronts were covered in blood. Vomited blood. Still others lay flat on the ground, their chests rising and falling the only sign of life.

Time to show some spunk. What would Dad say?

“Hi!” she said, with more confidence than she felt. “My name’s Kaybe. What’s yours?” She put her hands on her hips.

“My name’s death sentence,” croaked a prematurely gray woman on the floor. “Zip it, kiddo.”

“Aww, don’t be so hard on the kid,” a man in a suit said. “She doesn’t know. What does she know?” To Kaybe. “What do you know?”

“I know… they captured me. And put me in a hospital bed. And stuck a needle in my arm. And the nurse brought me here. That’s all I know.”

“Then you know enough,” the woman said. “Prepare to die.”

They had little to say to her after that. The prisoners on the couch frowned at her, as though daring her to challenge them for a seat. Instead, Kaybe slumped down into an unoccupied corner of the room and, much to her surprise, slept.

Level C made you sleepy, apparently, or so the other inmates explained when she woke. She felt no different than before. But each time she woke, there was food, and water, dead inmates to cart off, and new inmates to join them. Camp calculus. It took on a certain monotonous routine. No one wanted to engage in conversation, and Kaybe was too tired to press the point.

Half a dozen sleeps later, she woke with a gasp.

A new proof occurred to her. Several, in fact. She needed something to write on, anything, anything at all. She rummaged through the books on the shelf, looking for loose pages, a pen, a pencil, anything.

“Whatchoo looking for?” asked a newcomer, sprawled on the floor in a puddle of excrement. “No hidden keys. Only way out of here’s in a casket.”

“Pretty sure you don’t get a casket in this joint,” somebody else called out.

But her equation!
Maybe if she bit the tip of her finger, she could write it in blood on the wall—

Her hands were red.

Her hands were red and she had claws.

Her hands were red and she had claws and she was some sort of monster!

She pushed back her sleeve. The rest of her skin was red as well.
No time to waste. Get this proof down. Now.

Kaybe tapped the wall with a claw.
Or maybe scratch the proof into the concrete?
She dug the claw into the porous surface, and gray powder trickled down to land at her feet. She wrote her name in the concrete with soft, quick strokes, and stepped back. Legible. More than legible.

Then quickly, quickly, she began.

She covered the wall in squiggles, a long train of indelible truth, provocative, yet undeniable. The others asked her what it was. Some mocked her. Others called for the guards. She worked faster. Kaybe was down to the last two lines when a key jangled in the lock.