The air inside the tavern felt like a hand around his neck. Ben kept his gel mask on while he set up for opening. He slowed down his breathing; the air from his new canister tasted so clean, he didn’t want to waste it. The second Ben opened the door Old Pete pushed past him and sat in his seat. He hadn’t seen him since his attack on Isobel four days ago. Ben grilled him on his return; Pete, with his usual lack of clarity, shrugged and said the beer was better.
Ben sat at one table and removed his mask to preserve air. His skin felt clammy, his lungs desperate for proper relief. How much longer could they live like this? Pete stayed quiet on his favourite stool at the bar, occasionally looking over at the Italians and mock-saluting whenever he caught Ben looking at him. The normally vocal Italians stayed quiet in the old man’s presence.
Isobel showed up an hour later. She was in a good mood and, out of Pete’s earshot, even agreed with Ben to accompany him to the digital library to check out the blueprints for the underground medical facilities on Harvard University Campus. But then Albert had a quick chat with her in the storeroom and she emerged with a stormy look in her feral eyes. She glared at Ben for the longest time before putting on her coat and heading out.
Ben didn’t know what to do. Should he go without her? The blueprints meant little to him. She had to come.
An hour later, the tavern door swung open and Ben braced himself for an irate Isobel, but Kevin walked in, carrying an empty burlap sack.
From the bottom of the stairs, Albert rushed over to him. ‘Thank God you’re okay.’ He turned Kevin’s face one way, then the other. ‘Did Marcus hurt you?’
Kevin shook his head. He looked contrite. At least that was something.
Old Pete shifted on his chair and lifted his beer to his lips without a word.
‘Good.’ Albert let him go, then glanced at Pete. ‘Come with me, both of you.’ He led Kevin and Ben upstairs to the kitchen, away from Pete.
‘You’ll pay Sal back all the money Marcus gave you for the generator parts, and then you will work off your debt to me.’
‘That’s just it,’ said Kevin. ‘Marcus didn’t pay me. He told me he’ll pay when he gets the list.’
‘When does he want it?’
Kevin lifted one shoulder. ‘As soon as possible.’
Albert fell silent. He leaned against the kitchen counter. ‘I’m sick of Marcus pulling the strings around here and I’m not sure if Kevin can walk away yet.’
Ben rose to his feet. ‘You’re not considering letting him go back?’
‘At least I’ll know where he is.’
‘Marcus is dangerous, Albert. Who knows what he’s planning to do next?’
‘Kevin has an inside track to Marcus’ plans,’ said Albert. ‘And that gives us an advantage.’ Albert looked at Kevin. ‘What do you say, son? You want to do something right in your life?’
Kevin looked up, hopeful. ‘You’re giving me permission to work for Marcus?’
‘Sort of, but I want you to report back everything that Marcus says to you, every little thing he asks you to do. Do you understand?’
‘Okay. I guess I can do that.’
‘Good lad, now go put the sack away in the storeroom.’
Kevin sloped off with the empty sack, taking some of the tension with him.
But Ben couldn’t relax. Would Isobel ever talk to him again? He’d broken a promise he’d sworn to keep.
Albert seemed finished with their discussion when he set the kettle to boil, so Ben packed his backpack and prepared to go to the library alone. But to his relief Isobel returned, and, after a snipe about keeping promises, agreed to go with him to the library.
Ben hoped they could find some useful information about the medical facility tunnels in the old World Government files. Maybe they could pinpoint the exact location of the entrance to the tunnels and give the travelling party of Albert, Isobel, Sal, Jenny and Sofia some advantage when speaking to the skilled workers.
☼
A nervous Ben gnawed on his thumb as he and Isobel, wearing a head scarf, walked through the gates of Waverley. Her breaths sounded even, like she was calm. But for Ben, every guilt ridden step he took and every silent moment between them made the journey a torturous one. He would take Albert’s silent treatment over Isobel’s any day.
They ghosted on the back of a vehicle heading to Manhattan Island. As they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, Isobel’s breathing grew slightly ragged. Ben avoided her gaze that he knew was on him.
When they neared the Hudson Park Library, they both jumped off and darted down a street before the vehicle occupants saw them. Ben led the way to the side door he used to gain entrance to the library. He squeezed through the small gap. Isobel followed, opening the door wider with her Indigene strength. Inside, their footsteps echoed unnaturally in the stillness.
Ben checked the new canister on his hip. Unlike the older versions, this one had a gauge on the side that showed how much oxygen was left. The mix tasted purer than the giant refill bottles the criminals allocated to Waverley each month, and Ben found he didn’t need to breathe so hard.
The gauge was at thirty-eight percent. When he had left the tavern, it had been on forty percent. Had he been using one of his old, leaky canisters, there would be close to nothing left.
They ventured further into the giant room. With no air, Ben had to keep his mask on. His breath quickened when Isobel knocked against his shoulder as she passed.
He spun her around to face her. She stared at his hand on her arm.
‘Please talk to me. This is killing me. You have to understand... I had to tell him. If you can help in any way—’
‘I knew you weren’t to be trusted.’ Her anger didn’t match the severity of her words. ‘Why did you tell him, when I expressly forbid you to?’
‘Why are you so reluctant to help us?’
Isobel’s hard gaze softened. ‘I’m not. I’m protecting you from Marcus. If he discovers what I can do, he will punish you, Albert and Kevin.’
‘Please don’t hate me.’ He feared she might hate him forever. ‘I had no choice.’
‘I don’t hate you, but you did have a choice. You could have respected my wishes. Do you know Kevin is meeting Marcus behind your backs?’
Ben nodded. ‘How did you know?’
‘I can smell Marcus’ stench on that boy a mile away. And on Pete’s.’
They all knew that Pete had been fraternising with the enemy. But Albert would be disappointed to hear Isobel had confirmed it.
‘I promise I didn’t tell Kevin anything. Only Albert.’
Isobel sighed. ‘I know. I could sense that from him when I returned.’ She walked further inside the library. ‘Let’s check out these documents before anyone notices us in here. Where do we look?’
‘Does that mean you’ll help with the skilled workers?’ Even if there was a technology expert at the Fortress, would they be able to decrypt the message on the DPad? And even if they could, would the message fix the life support issue in Waverley neighbourhood?
‘One step at a time.’ Isobel glanced at him. ‘Beyond you, Albert and Sal, I’m not sure who I can trust. The people here harbour too much hostility towards my kind. Do you think Albert will let me go when this is all over?’
‘Albert never wanted to keep you a prisoner here. It’s Marcus you should worry about. He might not let you leave.’
‘I think I always knew that.’
Ben brought Isobel over to the librarian’s desk. He sat down and activated the DPad while she looked over his shoulder. He hadn’t given much thought to where the power for the library came from. Now it was all he could think about. ‘Do you think the skilled workers have access to the power grid controlling places beyond the neighbourhoods?’
‘I don’t know.’
Ben began his search. ‘Albert said that when the last passenger ship left, the World Government falsified stories about the true location of the medical facilities. But then someone leaked several confidential documents detailing everything the World Government owned or had created. If they’re in here, they might be in the archives.’
He ran a search for ‘medical facility’ and the DPad returned over one hundred thousand documents. He opened a few and read them but found nothing about the location of the facilities, or their design.
Ben sighed. ‘This will take forever.’
Isobel pulled up a spare chair. ‘Mind if I try?’
He scooted out of the way and Isobel flicked through the documents at an alarming speed. Ben hadn’t seen anyone move that fast since Stephen ran from Belgrave Square Gardens the second morning they’d met, when he was eight years old.
‘I found several articles on genetics, doctors and experiments. I’d like to read these another time. But so far, nothing on location. Hang on...’
Ben blinked away his surprise and concentrated on an article she had opened. It began with the line, ‘Official World Government sources say...’ and mentioned how the medical facilities were at the forefront of genetic advances and how teams of doctors were creating breakthrough medicines that could cure all known genetic abnormalities.
After meeting Stephen and discovering his true origin, Ben had learned as much about the Indigenes as he could. When he and his mother had been forced to return to Earth, he had taken every opportunity to research the race. The libraries had been better documented than they were now. He knew enough about Stephen and had read enough false reports on the race living on Exilon 5 to know a propaganda article when he saw it.
‘Ignore any article that starts with, “Official World Government sources say”,’ he said. ‘They’re bullshit.’
Isobel nodded. She added the word ‘design’ to the medical facility search, but the console became non-responsive to her touch. ‘It won’t work.’
Ben scooted his chair forward. When he tried, the console accepted his addition. ‘Must be something to do with the identity chip in my thumb. You don’t have one.’ He hit search. Several thousand documents were returned. None explained the structure of the tunnels.
‘Are you certain there are real articles about the tunnel schematics?’ said Isobel.
He looked at her. ‘When the last World Government spacecraft left, it created a free-for-all concerning information. The government destroyed all their documents, except for the ones a few angry workers had leaked to the public before they transferred. The government didn’t care since their business on Earth had concluded anyway.’ Ben stared at the DPad. ‘They’re in here. We just need the right search term to find them.’
He felt Isobel go still beside him.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Search for “Serena”. She came from one of the medical facilities. She helps to govern District Three on Exilon 5, along with your Stephen.’
Ben tapped the console with his fingers. ‘Do you think I’ll ever meet him again?’
‘Who?’ Isobel concentrated on the screen, her eyes flitting as she read the documents.
‘Stephen.’
‘Maybe, if you leave this planet someday. I don’t think he’ll risk coming back here, not after he was almost killed.’
‘What?’
‘You didn’t know about that? Probably hidden in one of your precious government documents. He and another Indigene called Anton came to Earth to assess the planet the humans came from.’
Ben froze. ‘Before or after he met me?’
‘After. I already told you. Your meeting with him was the catalyst for several things.’
A catalyst? He’d thought Isobel had been telling stories. He shook his head and searched for the name on-screen.
Several returned documents detailed the experimentations, the hosts held illegally for three days and the success with marrying Susan Bouchard’s code with Anton’s to create Serena.
‘Wait. Serena was made after Stephen and Anton came to Earth?’
‘Yes.’
‘And they came to this planet because of me?’
‘Because of the conversation between you and Stephen. You revealed to him what you were.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Isobel sighed. ‘You told Stephen you were human. In the history books, our ancestors had used that term, but the name Indigene had stuck. We always called you “surface creatures”. Stephen and the others thought of you as nothing else.’
‘How could the Indigenes have missed that?’
‘Easy to do when the Elders forbade any contact with the humans. My creation came after Serena, and in the process they gave me all the past memories, the history of the Indigenes.’
‘Shit.’ He never realised how messed up everything had got, because of him; at eight years old, he’d helped to almost destroy a race. Had it not been for his second meeting with Stephen, the military would not have found a way to break the Indigenes. He swiped at his eyes.
‘It’s not your fault,’ said Isobel. ‘Serena was the best thing to happen to the Indigenes, to Stephen.’
Ben turned back to the report. It was short but he found something more interesting beneath it: a partial schematic of the medical facilities at Harvard.
Ben sat back and tapped the console. ‘Look.’
Isobel examined the drawing of one level of the facility, located just below the surface.
‘Yes. I can see how their design might work, if nothing but earth existed above ground.’ She frowned and pointed to a sketch of a vaulted ceiling. ‘You see here? This is a weak point. If you don’t reinforce well enough, you will have problems down the line. You mentioned that the Fortress was built underneath buildings?’
Ben nodded. ‘Sofia says it’s under the old science research building at Harvard. It used to house an arboretum that stored genetic information to restore plants and animals on Exilon 5.’
Ben located the building and pointed to it.
Isobel nodded. ‘There’s a green area in the middle of Boylston Hall, Weld Hall, that’s the science building, Grays Hall, and the Widener Library. If they’ve built the medical facility under the green area with the entrance as part of Weld Hall, then the heavy library is the most likely cause of the partial collapse.’
She made a bridge with her hands. ‘If you have a vaulted ceiling at the point of the heaviest load, here...’ She pointed to the edge of the library. ‘Then you’ll create fissure cracks in your structure. I fear that’s what has happened to the medical facility. They built it without considering the weight that lay above it.’
‘But other facilities are built in the same way, all underground, under buildings.’
‘It depends on the height and weight of the building up top and whether the load is evenly compensated for below. The library is a large structure. It’s entirely possible they designed the tunnels to compensate for the load of Boylston, Weld and Grays, which are smaller buildings, but didn’t consider the much heavier Widener Library building.’
‘So, can you help the skilled workers to repair their tunnels?’
‘Possibly. But Albert must convince them they need me. They may have closed off that part of the facility and have more pressing issues to worry about.’
‘Like what?’
‘A mechanic, a medic. Depending on their circumstances, they may need those more urgently than a structural engineer.’
‘Can’t you just fake other abilities like you did with the empath ability?’
Isobel shifted in her seat. ‘I never assisted in the construction of these tunnels when I was human. While my memories of that time are sporadic, I’m vaguely aware of the tunnels’ existence. When the doctors changed me into an Indigene, my human abilities became supercharged and I could see into the rock and identify any weak spots without specialised equipment. I cannot fake how to fix machinery because I never learned it as a skill, and I know even less about human anatomy. I faked the empath ability because we all possess it to differing degrees, and humans don’t understand how it works, anyway. It was why Serena chose me to find Jenny Waterson when I returned.’
‘Because you could fake reading emotions?’
‘No, because I could learn to “fake” fast.’
Ben wondered if Stephen’s concern for his eight-year-old self had been real or fake. He had probed him for information both times they met. Maybe all Stephen had wanted from him was information. His heart fluttered at how easily the Indigene had broken down his defences. He’d felt so used afterwards.
He nodded at the schematics, swallowing back a hard lump. ‘We can’t take these with us. Can you memorise them?’
‘No need. I understand now how the tunnels work. I can analyse structures fast when I need to.’
Ben stood up. ‘I think we should head back. I’ll need to grab a few things before we get going to Harvard.’
Isobel frowned. ‘You’re not coming with us. It’s too dangerous.’
‘I’m not leaving you and Albert to fight this alone.’
He turned away but she grabbed his wrist. ‘I promised Albert I would bring you back safely. We don’t know what to expect at Harvard. But it’s no place for someone of your age.’
‘Nor is it a place for a man in his eighties.’
Isobel twisted his wrist until it felt like the bones might snap. ‘Okay, fine. I won’t go.’
‘Good.’ She let go.
They left the digital library and hitched a ride back to Waverley. On the way back, Ben conceived a plan to follow them to Harvard.