OFFICIAL ORDER OF THE ROYAL HIGHNESS THE RULER OF THE PALACE
CONFIDENTIAL
(excerpt begins, date uncertain)
. . . became quickly apparent that the HEPER project had spun out of control. So potent and immediate was the HEPER’s effect, whole groups of Scientists—renowned, levelheaded, intelligent—soon turned on each other, and attempted to inject one another with the HEPER virus. Nothing could quell their desire for HEPER-transformed flesh, and for the red liquid which ran under said flesh.
The HEPER project is more than an unmitigated disaster. It has produced—and this cannot be overstated—a potentially devastating weapon. One which, if unleashed upon the population, accidentally or otherwise, would cause widespread death and violence, and, very possibly, complete extinction of our species. Though it appears the effects are easily reversible, make no mistake. The HEPER virus, in the wrong hands, can be used as a Weapon of Mighty Devastation. It must be wholly and completely eradicated.
Thus, by Royal decree, it is hereby declared that all formulas and data and results and paperwork related to the HEPER project be permanently deleted, destroyed, and/or burned. It never existed. The good citizens of the metropolis must never be told of its existence.
It is further decreed that the HEPER Bureau be established. The purpose of the HEPER Bureau is to give explanation for the existence of the hepers who managed to escape into society. The citizenry are curious and are demanding answers. Said Bureau will fabricate a false evolutionary history and science behind the existence of the hepers. No expense will be spared to ensure the denizens of the metropolis are forever kept from the truth behind the genesis of the hepers. To that end, the HEPER Bureau will be given unlimited resources in the years, decades, centuries, and even millennia to come.
It is also ordered that the Commander Scientist and his colleagues be injected with the HEPER virus and then detained in the catacombs of the Palace. Their fate shall be later determined by the Ruler.
In addition, it is (excerpt ends).
Sixty-four
FOR ALMOST A half hour, I read my father’s transcribed pages. I turn the sheets slowly at first, uncertain of what I am reading, their meaning still veiled. But as I follow the flow of my father’s hauntingly familiar handwriting, passing over the occasional ink blot where his pen, as if paused in stunned disbelief, had bled into paper, I eventually, page by page, piece it all together.
These papers are obscene.
I pull away from the workbench, away from the stack of papers still only half-read. I stare outside. Nothing is the same; everything has changed.
“Back at the Domain Building,” Sissy says, her whispered words drained of life. “On the fifty-ninth floor. I saw documents just like these. Old, moldy papers, falling apart, each with this crescent moon insignia. They were in an opened box half-empty. Somebody had broken into that floor, discovered the box. ”
I stare at the pages, their crescent moons glinting. “It was my father who broke in,” I say. “Those were his shades you found. ”
Sissy nods, sadly. “These are the papers. He stole them and brought them back to the Mission. Translated them here. And afterward, hid them himself, their contents too unbearable. ”
I glance at the cratered hole in the corner of the room. “Ashley June,” I whisper. “She was here. She found the papers, dug them up. ”
Sissy steps toward the workbench. “Look to the moon,” she whispers, her finger trailing the moon insignia on a page. “The truth is in the moon. ”
I remember those words. Ashley June’s words. And I remember something else she had said, how she had uttered them like a warning.
Sometimes the truth doesn’t set you free. Sometimes it haunts you. Sometimes you wish you never found out.
And I realize that I can’t talk. Not about this, like it is something that can be discussed, analyzed, grappled with, brought under control with mere words. And suddenly I’m bursting out the door, needing to be away from the laboratory, needing to be outside, needing to have nothing between me and the stars and the moon.
“Gene!”
And still I keep running, as if pain in my legs and lungs might erase the truths learned, the knowledge acquired, the innocence lost. And even as I sprint as fast as I can, choking back tears, I feel it: the encumbered body. So different from the soaring grace with which I’d sprinted across the Vast as a dusker, the harmony between my moving limbs, the segueing of brute power with grace. Now, my human body jiggles upon my frame ungainly and burdensome.
“Gene! Wait!”
The lake looms ahead of me, the destination I never consciously set upon but toward which my eager feet now move ever swifter. The wind howls, whipping around the nape of my neck, nipping at my exposed ankles. And then I’m running down the slight bank, leaping over driftwood logs. My feet smash through the smooth surface of the lake.
The cold cuts me like glass. But before I can wade any deeper, Sissy grabs my arm.
“Gene!—”
I pull my arm away. But she holds on and the sudden shift in equilibrium causes both of us to tumble into the water. My hand smacks into sharp rock sitting on the shallow floor; blood spills out from my cut palm. We surface gasping and dripping, all air sucked out of our lungs. The cold is a thousand needles pricking into me.
“I should have turned years ago!” I shout, slapping at the water. “Why didn’t I just turn! Why the needless fight, why the stru
ggle, night after night, month after month, year after year!” My body is freezing, but my eyes are hot cauldrons of fury. “Why, Sissy? Why the daily struggle to survive when we’ve been nothing but mutants? When we’ve been nothing but aberrations?”
“Gene—”
“We’re the ones at odds with the universe! We should have just turned!” Hot tears gush out of my eyes, burning twin trails down my face. “When I was five, when I was six, seven, eight, when I was thirteen. I should have just turned! And this living hell would have ended! I’ve been one cut, one drop of saliva, from turning—turning back to normal, to the real me, the natural me. Not this!” I pound my chest, slap my face. “Not what I’ve always thought was true! Not this freak show that I am!”
And she looks at me, her lips trembling, and she doesn’t know what to say. Something in her face crumbles, and strange gasps and cries tumble out of her twisted mouth. Because she knows it’s true. We’re outcasts, aberrations. We’re germs, and this world of purity has no place for us.
“My damn father!” I yell, staring up at the stars, my anger unbridling. “You should have let me turn! Instead of using me as your test mouse, you should have—”
“He didn’t know, Gene!”
“He must have known! He found the formula for the Origin, he must have known its backstory. ” I look at Sissy, my chest heaving. “He knew. He knew we’re food. ”
I see her wilt a little. She shivers, her eyes blinking faster. But then something happens. Resistance, insistence flash in her eyes. “He didn’t know,” she maintains in a low-pitched voice. “Not in the beginning, anyway, not all those years he was with us at the dome. The way he treated us, it was like we were special. Like we were the originals, and they were the anomalies. ”
She glances back in the direction of the laboratory. “I don’t think he had an inkling until he returned to the Mission. Until he transcribed all those old documents. On to Mission paper, did you notice that? It was here, after he left the dome, only after he transcribed those documents, that he realized. ”
“How would you know what he thought—”
“Never forget who you are. ” She looks me square in the eyes. “He’d never have said that if he thought we were . . . ”
“Freaks?”
“That’s not how I would put it. ”