Sam pored through the limited data Alpha had on fabrication facilities around the world. They had six ships—six mothballed jumpers they could use for the Return.
The Redemption city council had been reluctant to fund anything greater—it was still a small city by human standards, and the majority of its income went to expansion and maintenance of the lunar city and its assets. It had been hard enough to get funds and personnel to refurbish and upgrade those jumpers.
Humans were slow to wake to long-term danger. It was always about the here-and-now. About profits. About the bottom line.
If his dropnauts could find facilities on the ground that could be made functional again, it would go kilometers toward jumpstarting the effort to bring humankind back to the home world.
Alpha was behind him on this. They both knew, from personal experience, what a tenuous existence they and humanity led on this small rocky globe.
But humans, with their shorter lifespans, were starting to forget.
—From Sam’s mem cache, 6.13.2223
Sam tried the seven-million-seven-thousand-six-hundred-forty-second frequency and was startled when it actually worked.
...access: granted…
His hand passed through the field unencumbered without losing any energy.
He looked up. Night had fallen while he’d been involved in his search, and the stars now sparkled above. Luna was a quarter of the way up in the sky.
His sensors told him it was warm—probably uncomfortably so for his charges who remained on-planet. His spine sail had deployed to shed his own extra heat.
He needed to find them all, and quickly.
Still, he hesitated.
Something was holding him back. Something like fear. It was a sensation he had little experience with, and he didn’t much like it.
He searched his core, seeking the source. Then he found it.
...access > memcache: full memory. play…
Dek screamed. The AI had been trapped in its own mind on Skytower station for so long. Its cry was equal parts pain, loneliness, and despair.
The force of it knocked Sam backward. He was connected to the station mind, and its anguish became his own. Dek poured out his pain—the loss of the humans under his care, the attack which had cut him off from his own senses, and the untold agony of being trapped inside himself, alone, for almost a hundred years.
It assailed Sam bare like a bitter, hot wind, broke through his defenses, and tore him to shreds.
He slipped inside his core, back to a time when he’d been just SAM—before Alpha. Before the end of the world. Before knowing had led to feeling.
It took him three long days to rebuild his own defenses, to claw his way slowly back to himself so he could help Dek get past his own pain. And another three months for Dek to do so.
Now Sam likely faced another out-of-control AI. He was better prepared now, but he also knew the cost to his own balance and wellbeing. Much better than he’d known it then.
None of that mattered, of course. He had to save his team.
...fileto > memcache: buffer…
He filed the memory away for easy access and stepped through the EMP field, into his fear.
I’m coming.
Rosemary led them down the long hall, not bothering to glance back at them to see if they followed. She was confident—he’d give her that much.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rai caught a glimpse of a glint near the ceiling. Something shiny. He began to see them at regular intervals. They were small circles—glass, maybe? They might be lights, but none of them were lit. The light on the concourse came from shallow wells in the walls, every few feet.
Cameras.
They had cameras on Luna, of course, but public ones like these were only used around the old Alpha base.
Here they were being monitored everywhere, all the time. It was creepy. He leaned over to Aidan. “Look.”
Aidan looked up, confusion evident on his face. “What?”
“We’re being watched.” He looked at Rosemary’s back nervously, but either she hadn’t heard, or she was ignoring him.
“By who?”
“I don’t know.” Every ten feet or so was a small camera, its lens trained on them. Each one swiveled to follow their progress. “Her friends?”
They passed twenty or thirty doors, all of them closed except one.
Rai glanced through the doorway as they passed and was startled to see a naked young man pulling on pants made of the same material as he and Aidan had worn. He was maybe twenty, with dark hair, well-muscled, but his genitals were missing, his crotch as smooth as a crash test dummy’s.
Then they were past.
Rai’s hand went instinctively to his crotch. He didn’t want any unrequested modifications, thank you very much. He shook his head. This place was getting stranger and stranger. He glanced at Aidan, but Aidan didn’t seem to have noticed.
The colorful mural continued down the hallway to its end, a pair of heavy metal doors. The doors were painted with smoke and tendrils of fire. Black figures writhed in the midst of it—a literal interpretation of hell if Rai had ever seen one. Did Aidan believe in that sort of thing?
Rosemary produced a key and opened the door. It was strange seeing actual doorknobs and locks in this place, instead of the palm pads he was used to.
She led them down a long stairway. The steps were plascrete, worn into slightly concave dips by generations of feet. The stairwell was dimly lit by recessed lighting, which varied widely in color and intensity, from a bright white to a pale golden yellow.
Someone was coming up the steps from below. Rai moved to the side instinctively and stared at the pair that passed them.
The one in front was a woman about his age, with close-cropped brown hair and tawny skin. She held a leash that was connected to a collar around a man’s neck. He had white skin and a wide, pleasant, but not handsome face, and dark hair. His blue eyes met Rai’s as they passed each other, and then his gaze darted to the ground. He was dressed in gray work clothes and seemed entirely at ease with his situation.
Rai shivered. “What the hell was that?” he whispered to Aidan after the two had passed.
Aidan shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Rai glared at him. This is your planet. As if Aidan was responsible for everything that went on down here on Earth.
“All will be explained when we reach the Preserve.” Rosemary seemed unperturbed, and apparently had the ears of a woman half her age.
Just a few years before, his own people had discovered a small colony on the far side of Luna where the women had been kept as slaves in a bizarre alien-worship cult. It had been broken up, of course, and the women reintegrated into Redemption society. But Luna was a much smaller place than the Earth.
Rai wished he had one of his teammates here to talk to about all of this. Especially Ghost. Ghost would have reassured him, helped him make sense of what was happening to them.
The stairway ended in a short, narrow hallway, and another set of double doors let them out into a well-lit room, this one painted entirely white.
A woman sat at a desk, dressed in a uniform that wouldn’t have been out of place on someone in the Redemption police force. It was dark blue, with epaulets of gold on the shoulders, and she wore a matching blue beret. Her dark eyes locked on his, and he turned away, uncomfortable.
“Checking out the prisoners for a couple hours.”
The woman frowned. “Are you sure that’s safe?”
Rosemary smiled. “Baz, you know me. They’ve been pegged. If they try anything, I can bring them down. Besides, it’s been eons since we caught anyone from the outside. I need to find out where they’re from, and if we can expect any more visitors.”
Baz chuckled. “Keep an eye on them. You never know what pregelds are capable of.” She rubbed her arm absently. She had a nasty, jagged scar running from her elbow to her wrist. The guard pressed a button on her desk, and the second set of doors opened to let them through.
Pregelds. Gelds. Gelding. Rai didn’t like the sound of that. And what in cracking hell did she mean by “pegged”?
They followed Rosemary out of the room and into chaos.
They were standing in a wide white stone concourse bustling with activity. It curved away from in both directions. Behind them, the “wall” side was filled with storefronts and doorways and hand-lettered signs, a miniature city that extended far off into the distance.
People, mostly women in brightly colored clothing, passed by in either direction, some with leashes leading shirtless men wearing those same gray pants. Others were trailed by men who, for some reason, didn’t require a collar. Some of these even had gray shirts too.
All the men had an air of subservience about them, heads down, saying nothing as they made their way toward their destinations behind their women.
Underfoot and along the walls, more of the strange spider-like drones scurried back and forth. As Rai watched, one of them stopped and rose up to scan the crowd, casting a baleful red “eye” in his direction. Then the little mech scurried off and was lost in the crowd.
Rai shuddered.
On the other side of the wide concourse…. his mouth dropped open.
There was a colonnade of white columns through which he could see a wide parkland. It was vast, far greater than Riverside Park back home in Redemption.
None of the plants here glowed, but in other ways it by far surpassed his past experience with what a park was and could be. There were grassy hills topped by wooden tables and benches in the foreground, and some kind of forest or jungle a little farther out.
They had just started across the concourse toward the parkland when a blond woman wearing a golden dress who was a head taller than Rosemary planted herself in-between them and started wagging her finger at him and Aidan. “What are these two… pregelds… doing out here among civilized folk?” Her brass bangles jangled in the air as she took Rosemary to task. “It’s not safe. They should be in the stables.”
Rosemary put out her hands, palms down, trying to placate the woman. “Cherry, you know very well what they’re doing here. The Council discussed this and voted—”
“Well, I didn’t approve of it. We should keep them locked up until we learn—”
“With all due respect,” Rosemary said in a voice that said she considered the woman unworthy of it, “The Council has decided. If you disagree, you can take it up with the rest of us at the next meeting.”
She pushed past the woman, who was left sputtering in her wake. “Come on, boys.”
The crowd cleared a path before them, but Rai could feel their eyes upon his shoulders, could hear their mutters, which were angry bordering on outraged.
What the hell did we get ourselves into?
Aidan stared at the crowd. He’d never seen—had never even imagined—so many people, especially in one place. They were different sizes and colors, some light-skinned like him, others various shades of brown.
Some had big noses, others small. Some were very short—he saw one woman who must have been half his height leading a man a head taller than he was. Some were stout around the middle, and a few were thin as a sky tree sapling.
The floor beneath his feet was well-worn white plascrete crafted to emulate tiles, dull and pitted with age. But the ceiling of the concourse, a soaring arch above his head—had been painted to emulate the sky. The clouds that looked so real he felt he could reach out and touch them. They were similar to the ones he’d seen in the hall outside of their cell.
Someone bumped into him.
He stopped and looked down into a little girl’s brown eyes. They were wide with surprise. Her long dark hair was tied back in a braid.
“Are you a pregeld?”
Aidan frowned. “I… I don’t know.”
She frowned and put her hands on her hips. “How can you not know?”
“Come on, Cilla.” A woman with the same eyes and hair took her by the hand, her face flashing something that might have been sympathy at the two of them. “Auntie Sage is waiting for us.”
Aidan wasn’t sure he liked this—any of it. What’s a pregeld?
He held his questions as Rosemary led them down a long white stair and into the garden. Then he looked up, and his breath caught.
It wasn’t just a garden. It was a vast cavern, at least a hundred meters tall and much wider, that appeared to have been scooped out of the earth by the hand of God himself. Aidan did the sign of the cross over his chest, something he never did but that always brought his mother comfort when confronted by the impossible.
The dome above appeared to be a near-perfect sphere, bisected at even intervals with golden glowing lights that mimicked sunlight.
The concourse itself wrapped around the edge of it as far as he could see, though it disappeared in the distance behind a virtual forest of trees. White stone paths wound their way over the hills and into the forest in its center. “What is this place?” He’d never imagined anything like it, which made him realize the limits of his imagination.
Rai was wide-eyed, looking around at every bush and tree and blade of grass.
Aidan grinned. This must be a botanist’s heaven.
Not too far in the distance, a group of people gathered around the top of a hillside where two shirtless men grappled and wrestled with one another, tumbling down the hillside as the crowd separated with a gasp.
Rosemary turned and smiled for the first time. “Welcome to the Preserve.” She led them up another hillside to a wooden table and benches, where a meal was already laid out awaiting them. “Please, have a seat.”
Aidan glanced at Rai, who nodded.
Aidan chose a place where he could see the Preserve in its entirety. Green grassy hills sloped away from them, full of trees and bushes and flowers of what looked like a thousand kinds. A fenced paddock in the distance held a couple of animals—horses?—and as he watched, a woman opened the gate and approached one. She held out something for it to eat. Then she climbed up onto its back with the grace of a dancer and began to ride it around the enclosure.
Mamma would love this. As a child, she would read to him of horses, and once she showed him an old film called Black Beauty with a gorgeous horse whose hide was so black it was almost blue. “What is this place?”
Rosemary sat across from them, rearranging her brightly colored skirts. “We call it the Preserve. Some of the wisest women of the old world left this for us to manage, a promise for the future of the Earth.” It sounded scripted, almost religious. “I should tell you, you’ve both been pegged. I’m going to assume you don’t know what that means and explain it to you.”
Aidan stared at her. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound good.
“We’ve put a small device—a peg—in your neck, behind your left ear. Should one of you threaten me or anyone else, I can deliver a swift shock to you that can be as small as a pinprick—” She moved her hand in her pocket and Aidan felt a stab behind his left ear. “—or as painful as a heart attack.”
Aidan reached up to touch the spot and found a lump beneath his skin. It was sore, not too painful, but creepy as hell. “Why would you do that?” He was well aware of the food spread out before him—bread, grapes, and some kind of cheese?—and his mouth watered, but he didn’t touch it. It might be poisoned. Who knew with these people?
“Ungelded males can be dangerous. Until we know more about you, we can’t take the chance.”
“Gelded. You mean…?” His hands went to his crotch, and he cringed.
She nodded. “Men are violent creatures, and if left unchecked, their aggression can lead to disastrous consequences for all of society.”
This was feeling less like a miracle and more like a strangely beautiful version of one of the nine circles of hell. Dante would be proud.
“Where are we, exactly?” Rai didn’t sound scared.
Aidan took comfort from that, reaching out to squeeze his friend’s hand under the table. His stomach grumbled.
Rosemary frowned. “I’ll ask the questions first. Then you’ll have the opportunity to ask your own.”
Rai grunted, but she shot him a look and he settled down.
She took out a paper notepad—paper!—from somewhere in her skirts, along with a handmade pencil. “You should also know that you’re only here with me and not in the stables or on the gelding table because a few of us argued for more time to find out who you were, and if your kind pose a threat to the Preserve. So I’ll start with two simple questions. Where are you from, and why are you here?”
“Not until you answer a few of our questions, first.” Rai locked eyes with her. He didn’t look like he wanted to back down.
Rosemary’s hand moved, and Rai stiffened as though someone had just reached into his gut and twisted.
“Aieeeeee….” He let go of Aidan’s hand and clutched the edge of the table, his knuckles white, his teeth gritted. Sweat beaded his forehead and his eyes were squeezed shut.
Aidan’s own stomach twisted, and he felt sick. He couldn’t bear to watch him be tortured. “We’re from Boundary Peak! Rai is my brother.” He wasn’t sure why he’d lied, but they didn’t need to know about where Rai came from. Or that he had friends.
Rosemary’s arm moved again, and Rai collapsed onto the table, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry I had to do that, but we find pain is the best guarantor of compliance.” She put her hands back out on the table and jotted down a few notes. “Tell me more.”
Aidan nodded. “Our mother is sick. The two of us came here, because we thought we might be able to find medicine to help her.”
“Where is this Boundary Peak?”
“About two weeks east of here on foot. It was a military base, before the Collapse.” That was all true.
“The Collapse?” She frowned. “You mean the Winnowing?”
Aidan frowned. They’d always just called it the Collapse, but every culture seemed to have its own name for it. “Whatever. Probably? The end of the old world?”
She nodded. “How many live there?”
“Just five of us are left. My family.”
“And none of the others are here with you?”
He shook his head. Hopefully Ally and the space woman—Tien?—would steer clear of here and find a way to bring help. “Just the two of us.”
Rai lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot.
Aidan put a hand on Rai’s shoulder. “Sorry, brother. I had to tell her.”
Rai stared at him for a second, recognition sparking in his eyes. He nodded. “I understand.”
Rosemary jotted that down too. “And when did you—”
“Sorry mistress.” The young man who ran up the hill was beautiful—athletic with black hair and dark eyes and almost white skin, dressed in gray. He stopped just short of the table, his chest heaving, and put his head down. “I have news.”
“Yes, Ash?” Rosemary heaved herself around to look at him.
“Mistress Tarra. Sent. Me.” The man risked a quick look at the newcomers and then directed his gaze once again to the ground. “She says there are more of them.”
“More of what?”
“More outsiders like these two.” His eyes met Aidan’s, and then he quickly looked away.
Rosemary frowned. “Tell her thank you. Off with you now.” She flicked her hand at him, and he turned tail and ran back down the hill.
Rosemary faced them again, pulling something from her pocket. It was a square box, a golden metallic piece of art, carved to look like the sun, with a white button in the center. She held it in her palm, thumb hovering above it. “Would you like to revise your story?”