Chapter One
Raven
I shouldn’t have, but I did.
Everyone told me not to go beyond the wall, that I’d find everything I wanted inside the city of Tharia, but they were wrong. I was on the cusp of a major discovery, so close to creating the most potent suppressant in history. Nothing available now even came close to it.
It would change the world as we knew it.
Just one aerosolized dose would render our instincts obsolete for five years. It would save the Health Commission billions of credits every year, plus it would change the future of the city for years to come.
I looked up at the sky through the glass windows of our airship, observing the opaque shimmer from the dome that encapsulated us all, the dome that kept the airborne suppressant in circulation so that none of us fell prey to the feral urges inside us. Without it, we’d be nothing more than rutting animals fueled by the need to breed.
I owed it to the population to keep them safe, no matter what that required.
I licked my lips, turning my eyes to the thick cement walls that kept us contained and protected from the wilds. From the uncivilized men and women who refused the suppressant. From the predators that had evolved into monsters since the time of the Great War. Although I was confident in the members of my expedition, a tiny piece of myself began to grow anxious.
No one from the city had wandered beyond the walls in a very long time. At least not as far as we were going to.
I placed my hand on the crate stowed away in our hovercraft, filled to the brim with the injectable form of the suppressant.
We’d be safe. We were prepared.
“Dr. Kelly, the rest of the provisions have been loaded onto the vessel and we are prepared to depart,” said Jasper, my security team leader. My employer, Genwell Laboratories, had insisted on providing me with protection for this expedition, ten men to be exact.
It was now or never.
“Let’s move out,” I replied, and he nodded. It was time to go.
The gentle whir of the steam engines began to hum, and the creaking gate started to lift in front of us. I don’t remember the last time anyone left. The only thing that traveled outside the city now were convoys that shipped provisions to the other domed cities far away, and even those were totally automated.
Once the gate was fully open, our vessel lifted off the ground and moved forward into the wilds. A veritable sea of green, massive, ancient trees rose up before us. Thick vines curled around their trunks and a multitude of heavy bushes surrounded their bases. Luckily, there was an overgrown main road that our vessel was small enough to maneuver along but I knew that would only take us so far. Eventually, we’d have to continue on foot.
Cold nervousness washed over me as I looked back at the city one last time. I was leaving my home, my friends, and everything I had ever known. I shivered and bit my lip, folding back against the supple leather seats. Instead of my uneasiness, I tried to focus on the mission ahead. I looked out the window as we flew down the road at top speed, traveling far faster than we ever could on foot.
The only other member of my team who was brave enough to want to venture into the wilds with me was Alix. My eyes glanced over to see him sitting beside me.
“I can’t believe you’re actually going through with this whole thing,” he chided, and I just grinned at him, covering my unease with my smile. He’d been my friend and coworker for years; we bounced ideas and hypotheses off one another all the time. He’d been furious at first upon hearing about my expedition into the wilds but had insisted upon coming along all the same. He was that kind of guy, and to be honest, I was grateful he would be with me.
“You know me. Always sacrificing myself for science,” I answered teasingly.
“You seriously think this drug will do what you predicted? Suppress the urges with only a single dose for years at a time?” he asked, searching my eyes for an answer.
He and I both knew the current drug was problematic. In order to work successfully, the airborne meds had to be in constant circulation. If that ever stopped, our bodies would quickly break down the biological structure of the suppressant, rendering us vulnerable to our instincts. Injectable versions of the drugs lasted even less time once the doses stopped.
“I do. I’ve done the calculations a thousand times. The prototypes performed incredibly well in our primate studies. I mean, you’ve seen the data. You know I’m right,” I answered. He grunted in agreement. He turned and stared at me, cocking his head to the side.
“You know what that would mean, right? Travel between world cities would finally be safe for the first time in five hundred years. That hasn’t been seen since the Great War,” he mused.
I nodded.
I’d been working on an experimental version for some time and it was almost complete, requiring just one additional ingredient, but the plant I needed had gone extinct within the city walls several years ago and only grew in the wilds now. Once complete, the ramifications of such a monumental development were vast. Humanity could finally emerge from behind domed city walls in complete safety, free from the rigid animalistic instincts that demanded strict obedience. Free from the bonds of genetic slavery.
Behaviors that were written deep in our DNA. Once, long ago, they would have been called mutations, twisting and intercalating into our genetic backbone. There was no cure for them, only management. I shivered, imagining what life would have been like for me if the suppression drugs hadn’t been invented long ago.
I knew what I was, but I kept it secret. If that information ever got out, I’d face a multitude of hostile reactions. Even if it went unsaid, there was a deep-seated animosity against my kind, like it was my fault I had been born this way. I’d probably be let go for some inane reason from my job. Be forced to live in the special neighborhoods meant for women of my heredity. They’d tell me it was for my own protection, but I saw it as a prison all the same.
So, I kept it a secret.