Silence drips over the room. All five of the Developers watch me across the table, as if they’re waiting for me to initiate the conversation. Or trying to break my confidence. It won’t work.
“What do you want with me?” I ask, not hiding my annoyance.
Commander Charlie presses his fingertips together. “Tell me, Clementine, what really happened to the dosages of serum you took with you to the Surface?”
I knew he didn’t believe my story. “I told you—I lost them. But they wouldn’t have worked anyway. The serum wore off much faster after the second dosage.”
“It’s interesting how easily you’re able to overcome the serum,” Commander Marshall says. He has warm eyes, the kind that should belong to nice men, not ruthless dictators. “You seem to build up more resistance every time we alter the formula.”
“I’m not the only person who can resist it,” I say. All the people I met in Karum prison, who’d been branded “Unstables,” couldn’t be controlled either, and neither could most of the rebels in the Alliance. That’s why they stopped believing the lies of the Developers and started fighting to overthrow them.
“No, you’re not,” Marshall says. “But you’re … shall I say … the most interesting of the people we’ve come across. No one can fight our serum quite like you, nor are many people as strong-willed and intuitive.”
“So I’ve heard.” I cross my arms. “But that’s not the whole story, is it? You need me for something. You don’t have time to develop a stronger serum to force me into helping you. If you want me to cooperate with you, you’ll tell me the truth. All of it. No more secrets.”
Commander Regina leans forward in her seat and replies, “Here’s the truth, Clementine. In order for us to have any chance of defeating the Mardenites, there is something we require from you.”
My heart’s pounding in my chest. I keep quiet, waiting for an explanation.
Regina and Charlie look to Commander Talbin, the twitchy, balding man who serves as head historian of Kiel. He clears his throat. “I believe you already know this isn’t the first war we’ve had with the Mardenites. There’ve been skirmishes between us throughout all our recorded history. In the most recent centuries, there’ve been two major wars, both within a twenty-year period, brought on by famine here on Kiel. We attempted to return peacefully to Marden and reestablish our civilization there, but it turned into a bloody fight. The Mardenites wouldn’t accept a peaceful return.”
His story doesn’t match up with everything I’ve heard before. He’s warping what happened to make it sound like the Mardenites were the instigators. But I’m pretty sure humans started both of the wars. “Colonel Fred told me we tried to enslave the Mardenites and they fought back,” I say.
“Yes, well, there were instigators on both sides,” Talbin says, his eyes nervously shifting to Commander Charlie. “Prejudices and hard feelings that hadn’t been forgotten. Regardless, war began and it didn’t end quickly. We refer to a short period of time between the two wars as ‘The Calm,’ but it was really fraught with preparations for the war that would follow it, when we sent even more battleships to Marden, an army we were sure would wipe them out. We’d enslaved many of their people in the first war, so their numbers were far fewer than ours by this time.
“But our second attempt to overtake their civilization also failed, as you know. The Mardenites unleashed new weapons unlike anything we’d seen before: chemical gases and poisons capable of crippling us in remarkable ways, even manipulating our thoughts and the decisions we made. The only reason any of our troops were able to return to Kiel was because some of them weren’t affected by all of the chemicals the way the rest were. They made the decision to pull us out of battle before we could be completely demolished. Of course, the Mardenites followed us back and you know what happened next: They built the acid generator on our moon, meaning to wipe out more of us without injuring any more of their kind.”
This is interesting and all, but most of it isn’t new information. “What does this have to do with me?” I ask.
“Everything,” Commander Charlie says.
“When we were all belowground, out of harm’s way of the acid,” Talbin continues, “the leaders at the time turned their attention to investigating the effects of the Mardenite chemical weapons on the wounded, and testing those who had been largely unaffected by the poisons. There was something in their genes that made them more resistant to the side effects.”
The back of my neck tingles as I put the pieces together.
“We knew the Mardenites would be back for revenge, whether in a hundred years or a thousand, and we knew their chemical weapons would be even stronger,” Talbin says. “We had to be ready. We began working toward creating a superior race of humans, one that would be more resistant to their weapons. We chose to speed up evolution.”
Talbin glances at Marshall, who says, “We call it the Mod Project, short for Genetic Modification.”
The definition of that phrase floats out of my memory, from a textbook I read in school years ago.
Genetic Modification: (Noun). The alteration or manipulation of an organism’s genetic makeup using biotechnology.
I remember learning that Core scientists genetically engineer many of the plants we grow on Kiel, in order to make them as rich with nutrients as possible. Scientists also genetically engineered the silver aster flower, which they used to create the basic form of the control serum. The serum I’m allergic to.
But the Developers aren’t talking about genetically modifying plants right now. They’re talking about humans.
“For a little over two centuries,” Marshall says, “we’ve been carefully controlling the genetics passed down from person to person, selecting the genes that would help us defeat the Mardenites in a future war. You know the primary ones as ‘Promise’—strength, intelligence, and obedience. When it comes to obedience, we’ve actually been selecting for two different types of people: the first, people with weak wills who can easily be manipulated; the second, people who can’t be controlled. The serum we use to control citizens is a derivative of the strongest poison the Mardenites used against us in the last war. The goal has been for a portion of our population to build up resistance against the serum. You, Clementine, are our strongest prospect yet. We’ve been watching and testing you since the day you were born, to assess how well your modifications worked.”
The Developers haven’t just been controlling who lives and who dies—they’ve been breeding us. Building soldiers in their labs.
“That’s why you picked me for Extraction,” I say.
Charlie laughs softly. “You weren’t picked for Extraction. You were created.”
A faint memory tugs at my thoughts. Flashes of light on needles; nurses leaning over me in bright rooms that smelled like bleach and antiseptic. When I was young, a new child in the sanitarium on the Surface. Finally, I know where the memories came from: the Mod Project.
Charlie taps three fingers on the table, turning on a holographic screen, and pulls up a file with my name at the top. My citizen file.
NAME: CLEMENTINE
CITIZEN NUMBER: S68477
GENERATION: 11
SUBJECT: 7
PRIORITY: HIGH
There’s a mess of data and observation notes underneath: test scores from school and lab results from health examinations. I scroll down the file and find pictures they’ve captured of me with their cam-bots over the years. Hundreds and hundreds of pictures. Me sitting in classrooms in the education building, my head bent over lab work. Me walking hand in hand with Logan down the street to my shack. The two of us curled up in the cot inside my shack.
A sick taste fills my mouth, and it doesn’t go away no matter how many times I swallow. I knew people had been watching me all my life, but I had no idea it went so deep.
“Every generation, we select individuals in the work camps who show the strongest potential for Promise based on the genetic makeup of their parents,” Commander Charlie says. “Before birth, we engineer their genes to strengthen a particular set of traits, and once they’re born, we make sure they receive the proper training to enhance those traits.”
“Wait,” I say, suddenly remembering something that doesn’t make sense with all of this. “My mother, Mae. Beechy knew her when he was younger. He told me she kept her pregnancy a secret and I wasn’t taken to the sanitarium until after I was born. So when did you modify my genes?”
“Yours was an interesting case,” Regina says, pulling up a new file on the hologram.
My mother’s file. Her picture renders me speechless. It’s the first time I’ve seen her face. She had hair like mine—stringy, red-orange curls—and she was even skinnier than me. She looks so small in these pictures, it’s hard to believe she was able to give birth. The fierceness in her eyes makes me smile. I bet she caused plenty of trouble for the Developers.
“Mae showed great resistance to control, but she was too sickly for us to pick her for Extraction,” Regina says. “She wasn’t supposed to be paired with anyone to conceive an offspring. But she became pregnant by one of the officials in her camp. A lieutenant who was later sent to an early quarantine for his refusal to carry out orders. Because Mae didn’t want anyone to know she was pregnant, you were born in the camp almost two months early. But that was lucky for us. We can continue to modify genes until babies reach full term. Yours already showed remarkable potential, thanks to your parents.”
“So,” I say carefully, trying to make sure I understand all of this, “the reason why I can’t be controlled by your serums is because you made me this way. You engineered the genetics of my parents and then my own, making me strong and intelligent but also resistant to your control serums, so one day you could use me or my offspring to defeat the Mardenites in war.”
“Indeed,” Regina says. “There are others with similar modifications, of course, but you’re the one who’s shown the most resistance to our serums. And with the arrival of Marden’s army, there’s no more time to test all the others. Which is why you’ve become our most important subject.”
“And you want to send me and the others like me into battle?”
“That was our original intention,” Commander Charlie says. “We hoped to be able to continue the Mod Project for five more generations, in order to build a larger force of people who would share your resistance. If all had gone according to plan, we would’ve separated the Core from the rest of the planet and prepared to launch an attack on Marden with our battle station a hundred years from now. But that didn’t happen.” Charlie’s eyes bore into me across the table.
I’m the reason that didn’t happen. I screwed up their plans.
“When you and the Alliance rebels destroyed the weapon the Mardenites had placed on our moon,” Charlie continues, “it seems you triggered some sort of signal that alerted them and made them fear we would be infiltrating Marden. So they sent a fleet of battleships to our planet instead of waiting for us.”
There’s a pinch in my gut. If all these theories are true, this war is partially my fault. I thought I was saving everyone in the outer sectors by getting rid of Charlie’s bomb, but I was wrong. I only prolonged their suffering.
“Now we’ve had to come up with a new plan,” Charlie says. “There aren’t enough trained soldiers with your type of resistance to the Mardenites’ chemical weapons. But we believe we can change that.”
“Based on our previous studies,” Regina says, “we believe we can synthesize antibodies that will protect our soldiers from the Mardenite poison gas, using samples of your blood. A new serum that will give non-modified soldiers immunity. Of course, poison gas isn’t the only weapon in our enemy’s arsenal, but it is a powerful one. A resistance serum won’t make us invincible to their attacks, but it will enable us to send warriors and battleships to the Surface with a much stronger defense than we currently have. Those who’ve already been infected by the poison, Colonel Parker’s sick soldiers and the others who returned from your mission, will take days to recover without the proper antibodies. And we don’t have days; we need all our soldiers fit for battle as soon as possible. Which is why we need your help.”
“You need my blood,” I repeat.
“Yes,” Regina says, smiling sweetly. “And your bone marrow. You’ll have to have a few small procedures and tests so we can extract what we need. But it won’t cause you any major discomfort, nothing a little pain medicine can’t fix. We’ve done many of these procedures on you before, most recently when you were under observation in Karum prison, but it’s likely your body has built up more resistance since our last tests. We need to be sure we have the strongest samples to work with.”
My stomach clenches at the mention of Karum prison. They did perform procedures on me there, operations and tortures that made me sick. They even took my eggs without my permission. Now I know why—so they could genetically engineer my offspring to make them even stronger mods, if they’d had more time to build their army.
“But you won’t treat me like you did in Karum,” I say carefully.
“When you were in Karum, you’d broken our laws,” Commander Charlie says in a voice as smooth as silk. “You were being punished for your crimes, as everyone who rebels must be, no matter how important they are to the Mod Project. But if you help us now, we’ll pardon you for past misdeeds, including any false moves you made while you were on the Surface. This is your only chance to ally with us, Clementine. I can assure you none of the procedures will be painful.”
I hesitate, searching Charlie’s face for a sign he’s lying to me again. But his face is unreadable.
“If we have your cooperation, we can begin your tests immediately,” Commander Regina says. “There isn’t time to waste.”
I run my teeth over my bottom lip. “What will happen if I don’t agree to help you?”
Charlie’s jaw twitches, and Regina’s lips purse ever so slightly. They weren’t expecting any more argument from me, it seems. But Regina answers in an even voice, “There are other Mod subjects we can go to, but it will take longer. And your genes would provide the best opportunity for helping us develop a strong resistance serum for our troops. We can’t afford to send them to the Surface without the strongest serum possible, seeing how many soldiers in Colonel Parker’s squadron have already been crippled. In other words, we need you to agree to help us if you want us to follow through with the war plan you proposed. Otherwise, we’ll return to our previous plan. We’ll put Operation Stryker in motion and sacrifice all the child workers in the Surface city.”
The only way the Developers will abandon Operation Stryker is if I agree to give them what they want.
My heart is beating at a faster pace than normal, but I feel calmed by this new information. Finally, I understand: The Developers have kept me alive because I’m their best hope for defeating the Mardenites. That day I ruined their plans and used their bomb to destroy the acid generator on the moon, Charlie was so angry with me, he would’ve killed me. But now the army is coming and there isn’t time to find anyone else. The Developers need me.
I can do this. I can ally with the Developers, just for a little while. Just until they’ve helped me take out the bigger enemy—Marden’s army. Then I will turn against them and make sure none of them are able to control Kiel’s government ever again.
I take a deep breath. The Developers need my help, then they need to earn it.
“I want to help you,” I say. “But you must understand, it’s hard for me to trust everything you’re telling me when you’ve lied to me about a hundred times before. And even if I help you, it won’t ensure the survival of everyone I care about. Whether or not my blood is enough to make everyone resistant to the poison gas, you said yourself the Mardenites have lots of other weapons. They still greatly outnumber our war fleet. There’s no certainty this serum will help us defeat them. So if you want my cooperation, I need you to promise me a few things in return for my help.”
“We can consider your requests,” Regina says, an edge of impatience to her voice. “What is it you want from us?”
Who do I care about saving?
“First,” I say, “I want you to grant pardon to all the Alliance prisoners for their past misdeeds and release them from their cells. I’m guessing many of them are your stronger Mods. They were once your best soldiers, pilots, and analysts. You’ll need their help to defeat Marden’s army, as we need yours. Make a temporary truce with them until the war is over.”
I pause to let the Developers talk among themselves. I don’t expect them to agree to this, but maybe they’ll give me something. And starting with this request will make the rest seem smaller.
Finally, Commander Charlie turns back to me. “Those who cooperate with us in any assistance we require for the war effort will be granted pardon once the war is over. But we will decide when to release them from custody.”
“It’s a matter of Core security,” Commander Marshall says. “I’m sure you understand.”
“Fine,” I say, trying to sound less agreeable than I really am. That’s much better than I expected them to give me. “Second, Logan. If you won’t release him from custody, you have to let me see him anytime I want. I want to talk to him before I go through with the tests, to make sure he’s alive and healthy. You can’t harm him anymore, in any way. Nor will you transport him anywhere without notifying me, under any conditions.”
“So long as you cooperate, you can visit the boy and he won’t be harmed,” Regina says, waving her hand as if that request is nothing substantial.
There’s amusement in Charlie’s eyes. It makes me angry. He should not be amused by any of this; he needs to understand I will not cooperate if any of these requests are broken.
“Third,” I say, raising my voice, “you’ll agree to rescue Beechy, Sandy, and the others who were captured by the Mardenites at the earliest opportunity.”
“Once it’s possible to rescue them without endangering the safety of our citizens, of course we will,” Charlie says. “Do you really think I would abandon my daughter to the aliens?”
“Anything else?” Regina asks.
My mind’s racing. This might be my only opportunity to get what I want. What have I forgotten? I need to ensure I’ll have some future influence over what happens in the war. And I want to learn as much about the enemy invading Kiel as possible—not from the half-baked lies of the Developers, but from the old war records. The primary and secondary sources.
“I want a seat in all your strategy meetings. I want to know what’s happening in the war, every step of the way. I want access to your records concerning the last war. And I want clearance to speak with the Mardenite you have in captivity here in the Core. Alone.”
“Your terms are acceptable,” Charlie says with a smile. He pushes his chair back and stands up, and the rest of the Developers follow suit. “We have an agreement.”
I get to my feet as they move around to my side of the table. Regina is at the front of the group and offers her hand. I shake it. Her skin is warm through her glove.
“We’ll have a guard take you for a quick visit to your friend in his cell,” she says, dropping her hand. “And we’ll inform the doctor in charge of the Mod Project you’ve agreed to help us, so we can begin your tests right away and get started on developing a resistance serum. You Mods are the best hope we have of winning the war.”
When she smiles at me again, showing her perfect white teeth, I smile back. But staring into her cold gray eyes, an itch of worry crawls across my spine. I hope I’ve made the right decision.
Regina turns and heads for the door, her high heels tapping on the linoleum. The other Developers approach me one by one and shake my hand.
When Commander Charlie reaches me, he gives me a demure smile. “I’m pleased to finally have you working on our side, Clementine,” he says.
“I’m pleased to work with you too,” I say.
He grips my hand so tightly, it feels like he might crush my fingers. I bite hard on the inside of my cheek, trying not to let him know I’m in pain.
Finally, he lets go. But instead of walking away from me, he holds out his arm for me to take. Another challenge; he knows how much I hate being near him, let alone touching him. I smile and slip my arm through his. My heart’s beating fast.
As we walk out of the room, I notice there’s an odd, pungent aroma wafting off his clothes, some sort of perfume that reminds me of the bleach smell in the quarantine facility in Crust, where the worthless—people without the strongest modifications—are taken to die. I wonder if he put it on just for me once he heard I was returning from the Surface mission.
I know what he’s trying to tell me with this demonstration: No matter what I think, he is still in control of me. He and the other Developers might have agreed to my conditions for helping them, but when it comes down to it, once I’ve cooperated with their tests and operations, they won’t need me anymore. I will be disposable, easily cast aside.
So I need to prolong the tests as long as possible.