Thirty Two
I spent the night in the labs with Erin. Marin came for me after dusk, but we’d reached a critical point with the shot. I stayed to help her finish. My eyes lingered on Marin’s back when he left. We did need to talk.
Roger had decided on hepatitis. We’d seen the virus work on the bodies in the lab. There were immunizations the clones received once they were born to prevent it, but they couldn’t disrupt the brine. Unless something could be mixed with the fluid they floated in, the only other thing we could do was mess with the immunizations they received, or more accurately didn’t receive.
Erin’s idea was two-fold. We could introduce the disease to the brine. Viruses grew well within the media. The clones couldn’t be immunized until born. The second was to eliminate the hepatitis section of the shot. This would give us guaranteed exposure with a lack of antibodies to fight the virus. She estimated the disease would affect nearly half of their current crop and each batch consisted of ten thousand drones. Each copy had a lifespan of three to five years last Erin knew, but this had been increasing.
The hepatitis wouldn’t slaughter the E’mani like the prion disease did my people. The virus would not spread like the madness had, but it would weaken them and destroy their newest crop, anything to delay their advancement. We were on the right track.
Roger and I had the virus cooking. We were working on dispersal models to accurately predict the best way to infect them with the disease. Erin worked on the logistics. Not her favorite subject but at least she was somewhat learned. But one thing bugged me.
Every member of the remains was chosen for their possible contributions to this goal. Xade needed Erin for her immunization and public health knowledge, Roger for his virology expertise. The twins knew systems, and Dela was a savant on the computers. Rael and Prog contributed brute strength. What did I bring to this ball game, what was so special about me? Next to the others, I felt like a petri dish. He kept me around for samples? It was degrading and unnecessary. Or was I merely there because I reminded him of his wife? And wow, what a gross thought. Where did I fit into this picture?
The next day dawned bright. There was no fighting overnight and no sign of the E’mani. That was a bad thing. I couldn’t feel them nearby, but they were close. My skin crawled.
Everyone planned to meet in a half hour to go to Bretelyn. The Avaresh were leading us. One Fost traveled with one Avaresh so that they could fly us out of there quickly if need be. Thorn, me, Marin, Dela, Zanth and Zara along with the Rocian twins comprised the team.
We would get in and study the numbers, the buildings, and what was inside. The twins wanted to get in every system and determine the goals and electronics. I wanted to find the hives, the areas where they kept all the copies. That would be where we deployed the hepatitis. We had the lab we worked out of currently and that would do for now. Dela swore that he disrupted the signal enough that the E’mani had no clue we were using it. To them, the lab was another abandoned facility, its contents a loss.
When we finally left, the trip took us over seven hours. Flying would have been a hell of a lot easier. The terrain was rough in spots and several ridges forced us to take the long way around. The city appeared empty. It was a true urban center, like home, causing me to shudder, a city made of the semi-transparent rock with paved roads and everything.
The fences still stood but no current seemed to be flowing. Thorn threw a stick at the nearest pole and there were no sparks. We approached the gatehouse with caution then we were through.
The first building we encountered was a square box, no windows or doors visible, and approximately one story. The doors here, unlike at the lab, did not slide open when we neared. Warner and Vale ran around the building scoping the joint out while the rest of us sat and waited for a way in. It only took the twins about fifteen minutes to locate a recessed panel.
With a scrape, the doors opened. As with the lab, the air was stale, the walls white, the feel sterile. A desk rose at our approach. Dela fiddled with the program while Marin and I explored nearby.
His hand held mine and I squeezed tight. He brought my knuckles to his lips. “What was this place Dela?”
“It appears this was a gateway, a check-in point of sorts. The port is to the south. They docked there and traveled here. This is perfect. I should be able to find out everything we need here.”
The other rooms were filled with desks without any workers, no bodies, no supplies, nothing. The walls blank just like the clones’ expressions. This building only had one floor. Werner and Vale left to explore outlying buildings with Thorn and Zara as guards.
I wandered back to the entrance to check on Dela’s progress. “Anything?”
Dela nodded as his fingers flew across the keys. “I have found a map that should be useful. The E’mani are meticulous in the construction of their cities. Each area is well demarcated. The clones are in the east corner, here.” Dela displayed a hologram of the city. A red X glowed on the building that was our target. Satisfaction flashed through me. This was good. I glanced up at Marin to see his answering smile.
“Zanth,” I called out. “Round up Werner and everyone else. We found the clones.” The Star Wars theme song drifted through my head.
We proceeded along the paved road cautiously. Bretelyn so far appeared deserted, but unlike a city at home, there was no clutter, no paper fluttering in the breeze. It was empty and full of towering glittery rock. I insisted on caution and stayed near the edges of the roads. Thorn pushed for speed. We argued until we heard the first sign of the opposition.
A faint hum filled the air. We scattered behind the nearest building to hide. A hoverboard with a lone E’mani streaked past, heading toward the gates.
I mouthed, “I told you so,” to Thorn. He grinned and winked in response.
The closer we got to our destination the more E’mani we saw. We were reduced to a crawl until Rael and Prog recommended personal escorts, one Averesh to every Fost. Rael’s ability to block sound and sight came in handy.
The building we aimed for did not look like much from the distance, but as we got close, I couldn’t help but quail at the sheer size. It was over five city blocks wide and as tall as the eye could see.
Werner and Vale set to work as the rest of us hid. The waiting grated on me. How many clones could they make in a place like this? Their numbers never seemed that high even given their technology. What limited them from creating a massive wave? There had to be a crucial ingredient they must have to create the life. I needed to learn more about the cloning process.
Werner and Vale met with no success until late in the afternoon. We’d been waiting hours and it was harder and harder to stay still, stay hidden. Rael plastered himself to my back, Prog and Zanth to my right. All the groups surrounded the Rocian twins as they examined the building for access. An innocent trip provided our answer. Vale fell sprawling out and his head hit the rock. A chime filled the air and a panel opened.
“Smooth move,” I muttered.
Werner threw me a wink.
The rock inside was porous and had thin filamentous cables that the twins began to manipulate.
Within five minutes, they had us in the door. The E’mani patrolled the area, but they entered and exited on their boards about three stories up.
Once inside, the lobby expanded into a pentagon with desks lining every wall. The walls behind the reception area were glass. Bodies were stacked in tubes, thousands of feet high and wide, two feet between each row. Lifts were located between each mound of flesh.
I stumbled at the sheer number and size of clones this represented. There were ten such buildings in this city alone and hundreds of such cities in Industry though most were minimally staffed like here. No one manned the monitors. Dela set to work on the system.
The view drew me in. I walked and placed my hands on the glass. The chill of it caused me to shiver, bodies floating in liquid. If Xade activated all these clones with their advanced weaponry, we wouldn’t stand a chance. There were millions plus, and we numbered so few. My hand shook against the surface. We needed to stop them. We had no other choice.
Dela spoke behind me. “I’ve got it and now I can access this information from Center’s lab. The codes to get into and out of the systems are based on DNA, and as we were made by them, it recognizes us. Unless Xade can change the key to strands we all don’t carry, we can get into most of the buildings once Werner and Vale show us the access points.”
Warner nodded. “The building accessss is the ssame. Once we find and follow the main powerr it routess to the frront. We sshould alwayss be able to get you in.”
My stomach flipped. This was really happening. We could do this. “Is there a cache where the fluid comes in from? We need to work on where that fluid goes.” I’d stayed by the window. “That means we need to get into this main room.”
Dela tapped on the monitor. “It looks like they work from the top down. The new bodies are on the bottom and age as you go up. From this data, it is at least a twenty-year process to produce one clone. That would be why their numbers are limited.”
“Time and what else, why not make more? Cover the surface with them? What ingredient limits their progress?”
“From this it appears the source DNA is the deciding factor. It takes a certain amount of pluripotent cells to begin the process. They can’t use the clones as their genome degrades quickly. They need original sources and there are only so many progenitors to go around and only so much material you can take.”
I held a hand to my belly, sick. “By original sources do you mean us?”
Dela tapped. “No, Xade and some of the older E’mani are the progenitors. They are the source on which all the clones are based. They splice our DNA in and make a batch. That leads to a twenty-year gap before finding out results. That is a pretty significant delay. If the change is not a success, they scrap it. So the numbers are limited more by what Xade’s end results are. He didn’t want to make a clone army. He is trying to solve something in their lines.”
“So we only need to find a way to affect this system and we could set him back twenty years if not more.”
“Yes.”
This was good.