The Individuality Gene Page 16

  Memory 30

  I break the surface and inhale deeply. My head aches and my vision is blurry, but I’m otherwise unaffected by the recent lack of oxygen. Still, it’s with a slight buzzing in my ears that I study my surroundings.

  The lake in which I wade is small, far smaller than it should be. The last time I was here, the body of water took up more than half of the cavern’s surface. Now, it barely takes up a quarter. This, combined with the diminished water level, confirms the flood Jonn and I survived was a direct result of the subterranean lake being breached.

  It takes a while, but Jonn eventually appears next to me.

  He looks like hell. His face is the colour of snow, and his eyes are glazed over. The mere act of maintaining his massive frame afloat is challenging.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “I’m fine,” he snaps, but I can tell it’s a lie. Every few seconds, his head dips beneath the surface, and he comes up sputtering. It’s only a matter of time before he sinks. I consider helping him, but the last thing I need is for him to drag me down with him.

  “Kara!” I yell. “A’lara!”

  There’s no response.

  “We need help!”

  “No, we d—” begins Jonn, but his head sinks beneath the surface before he can finish. I wait for him to resurface, but he doesn’t. I’m just about to dive in after him when he bursts from the water like a whale from the depths of the ocean. He rises higher and higher and vanishes into the darkness that lies above.

  I tread water for a while before the same invisible force that carried my friend to safety takes possession of my body. Moments later, I’m being deposited on solid ground. Standing before me are my friends.

  “Thanks,” I say, smiling at A’lara.

  You’re welcome, she says.

  Jonn stands nearby, struggling to recover from his recent oxygen deprivation. I would feel bad for him if not for the fact that Kara rushes forward and kisses me.

  “We heard an explosion,” she says once our lips part. “Then we came here and saw the water level had dropped. We… we thought something bad happened.”

  “It did,” I say. I explain what occurred, going into as much detail as I can while still keeping the story short. Once I’m done, Kara pulls me in for another kiss. By the time she pulls away, Jonn is back to his old self.

  “If you two are done,” he says, “maybe we can discuss just how the drowned we’re supposed to free an entire species.”

  He’s right. We need a plan.

  We discuss our options for a while before realizing there’s only one way to put an end to the human enslavement. We must mount a rebellion.

  “How are we supposed to do that?” asks Jonn. “The humans are so doped up they may as well be animals.”

  “We must keep them from ingesting the drug,” I say.

  “How?”

  “I’ll take care of that,” says Kara. “I just need to make sure I’m reassigned to the kitchen.”

  All eyes turn to A’lara.

  I will do what I can.

  “Great!” says Kara. “I’ll stop putting the compliance drug into the food and, within a few days, the humans should emerge from their stupor.”

  “Then what?” asks my hulking friend. “A rebellion is pointless without an army.”

  “There has to be a way,” I say. “Maybe we can find an army.”

  Jonn snorts.

  “Really? And how do you suggest we do that? Unless, of course, you happen to have an entire army shoved up your—”

  “We can build one,” interrupts Kara.

  “How?”

  “The humans.”

  Jonn scoffs.

  “They’re weak and untrained.”

  “We can train them.”

  “How? There’s no way we can train an entire army without the robots noticing.”

  “They’re called sentinels,” reminds Kara, “and we can bring the humans here, train them in this cavern.”

  Jonn considers this for a moment.

  “It could work,” he admits, “but how do you plan on keeping the sentinels from noticing the missing workers?”

  It’s Kara’s turn to hesitate.

  “You can’t think of anything. Can you?” says Jonn, apparently more interested in winning the argument than finding a solution.

  “Give me a second,” she snaps. Her tone tells me things are about to degenerate. Under normal circumstances, I would intervene, but the truth is I feel as though I’m onto something. It takes a while, but I finally realize the solution has been staring us in the face the entire time.

  “I know how we can build an army without people going missing for more than a few hours,” I announce. “As an added bonus, no one will get hurt. Well, not really.”

  My friends stare at me.

  “How?” asks Jonn.

  “Two words,” I say. “Star Wars.”

  Kara and Jonn stare at me with blank expressions, reminding me that neither of them has seen the iconic movie. I consider explaining the premise of the film, but it seems like a waste of time.

  “Clones,” I say. “We clone a few people a couple hundred times, and we have our army.”

  My friends consider my suggestion for a moment.

  “It could work,” says Kara.

  “Yeah,” admits Jonn. “Not bad, Will.”

  The fact that he used my real name means he’s impressed.

  There’s a problem, says A’lara. Only three perfect clones can be created. Any more and they start to deteriorate.

  “Deteriorate?” says Jonn. “What does that mean?”

  It’s simple. The more clones you create, the more senseless they become.

  “Intelligence is overrated,” says the grey-haired soldier. “As long as they can follow orders, they can be useful.”

  Beyond a dozen, continues A’lara, ignoring Jonn’s comment, their life expectancy starts to drop. Past twenty or so, they develop deformities.

  “That’s irrelevant,” says Jonn. “Most of them will die anyway.”

  Kara glares at him.

  “We can’t just send them to their deaths.”

  “Why not? They’re not real. Dying for a good cause is better than being fattened and turned into food.”

  Kara doesn’t seem pleased with her father’s pragmatism, but even she can’t deny the logic behind his statement.

  “All right,” she says. “Let’s do it.”

  There’s a problem, says A’lara. We can’t sneak into the cloning facility without being seen.

  “Can’t we wait until nighttime?” I ask.

  A’lara shakes her head.

  Sentinels stand guard at night.

  “There’s also the issue of housing and training,” says Jonn, boarding the defeatist train. “Even if we somehow manage to create a clone army, where will they stay? Where will they train?”

  “Here,” says Kara, gesturing at our surroundings.

  She’s right. The cavern is big enough to house hundreds of clones. The training can also take place here. As for water, there’s an entire lake. Food could prove to be an issue, but that falls under the category of “mere details.” My friends and I spend the next few hours talking. After dozens of false leads and a few arguments—courtesy of Jonn and Kara—we come up with a plan we’re confident will succeed.

  “So,” says Jonn. “It’s settled?”

  He glances at Kara and me in turn. We both nod.

  “All right,” he says. “Come on, Will. It’s time to go.”

  He stands and dives into the nearby lake. I hesitate for a moment before following. The last thing I want to do is leave my girlfriend’s side, but we both need our rest. Tomorrow will be a big day.

  Memory 31

  T hree days. That’s how long it’s been since I saw my girlfriend. Three days of hard labour. Three days of listening to Jonn complain about our lack of progress. Three days worrying whether or not the sound of our pickaxes hitting the stone wall that stands
before us will alert the sentinels to our clandestine venture.

  The plan is simple. We dig a shaft between the tunnel system and the cavern where my friends and I hatched out insane plan. Normally, such an endeavour would be perilous, but the recent flood caused nearly a third of the tunnels to be abandoned. All Jonn and I had to do to reach our new workplace was wait for the workday to begin, then sneak past the few sentinels that remained.

  We did it a total of three times so far. On the first day, we dug through a blend of earth and stone and advanced an astonishing five metres. On the second day, we hit a hard patch and ended up progressing less than a metre. And now, the third day is coming to a close, and we have yet to advance more than a few centimetres.

  “We should just blast through this drowned rock and get it over with,” grumbles Jonn.

  “We can’t,” I say. “It would make too much noise. Not to mention the fact that it could well cause the tunnel to collapse.”

  “I know that,” snaps Jonn.

  “Then why did y—”

  “Shut up, Won’t.”

  Under normal circumstances, I would get upset, but I’m too exhausted to care. I lift the pickaxe and let it fall onto the rock.

  “You call that a swing?”

  I glare at Jonn but say nothing. I strike the rock with more force, and a stone fragment detaches from the wall and falls to the ground. Unfortunately, my tired hands fail to maintain their grip on the pickaxe, and the mining tool goes flying.

  “Hey!” snaps Jonn. “Be careful.”

  Normally, I would apologize, but I’ve had just about enough of my his bitter outbursts.

  “You be careful. If you weren’t so damn big, maybe you wouldn’t get in the way so often.”

  Jonn glowers at me.

  “Are you calling me fat?”

  “No,” I admit, “but do you really need to be that big? What use is all that muscle when there’s no brain to accompany it?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I suspect he’s merely being troublesome, but I respond with the utmost sincerity.

  “It means you’re dumb. If you spent more time reading and less time lifting weights, maybe you’d know that.”

  Jonn drops his pickaxe and takes a step forward.

  Oops. I think I just took things too far.

  The grey-haired soldier halts mere centimetres from me. Towering high above me, he peers deep into my eyes with glaring intensity. Every muscle in my body begs me to run, but I’ve known Jonn long enough to know the only way to handle him is to stand up to him. So, although it terrifies me, I stand my ground and return his glare.

  We stay that way for what feels like an eternity before my friend’s expression finally softens. Taking a step back, he looks me up and down, snorts, then walks off, splashing in the water that covers the tunnel floor.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “I have to pee,” he calls back as he vanishes around a bend in the tunnel.

  I take advantage of Jonn’s absence to take a break. Sitting on the stone floor—once upon a time, sitting in water would have bothered me, but such trivialities no longer matter—I lean against the wall and close my eyes. I take a few deep breaths and focus on the air moving in and out of my lungs. It takes a while, but my energy eventually returns. Determined to advance the tunnel, I retrieve my pickaxe and get back to work.

  I work in near-total silence for a while before the splashing of footsteps reaches my ears. Thinking it’s Jonn, I keep working. It’s not until nearly a full minute passes, and my friend has yet to get back to work that I glance in his direction.

  It’s not Jonn.

  A sentinel stands before me. Its body is battered and scratched. Its eyes are so dim they barely glow, but the robot’s chest retains all of its brilliance. Its left arm is missing, but the right one remains intact. The sight of its damaged frame ignites something within me.

  It’s a memory. One of a sentinel facing a wall of water, desperately attempting to seal the cracks in the wall. The last I saw of it, it was being swallowed by a tidal wave of water and stone. I assumed it was destroyed, but I now know better. He survived, and now he has but one objective.

  To destroy me.

  I stare at the sentinel’s glowing hand and wait for the pulse of energy to assault me. I don’t know whether it will incapacitate me or kill me, but at the moment, I’m too exhausted to care. I merely stand there and await my fate.

  Reconstructed Memory 6

  T he objective is in sight. It calls to Kara, luring her forward with the promise of a better future. Ignoring the fattened clones that surround her, she breaks into a run. The slapping of her feet on the hard floor echoes throughout the warehouse, but the time for stealth has passed. Only speed matters.

  Kara’s attention remains on the door. Nothing can stop her now. Not fear. Not fatigue. Not even…

  A sentinel.

  It appears before her, its chest glowing fiercely.

  “Drowned!” mutters Kara as she skids to a stop.

  The robot raises a metallic palm. Yellow energy blossoms from it. It grows brighter and brighter until—

  BOOM!

  A powerful explosion rocks the warehouse. The sentinel lowers its arm and runs off. Kara’s lips curl into a smile.

  The plan worked, but it’s only a matter of time before the robots realize the explosion was merely a decoy, designed to trick them into abandoning their posts.

  Kara bolts toward the door and reaches it in record time. A press of her hand is all it takes to spur it into action. Splitting down the middle, it recedes into the wall and reveals a miniature room. Within stands a control panel with a single button. Kara’s lips curl into a smile as she presses it. She waits with breathless anticipation, but nothing happens.

  Her grin evaporates, and her brow furrows.

  Why isn’t it working?

  She presses the button again, but the result is the same. She’s debating whether a third attempt is warranted when a soft clicking sound reaches her ears. Moments later, hundreds more follow.

  Kara turns to find an awe-inspiring sight. The restraints that once held the clones in place have been deactivated. Not all notice the change, but those who do leave their racks and begin to explore the warehouse. They are tentative in their approach, but the sheer number of wandering clones should suffice to distract the sentinels long enough for Kara to complete the next part of her plan.

  She hurries off, dodging clones and workers alike. Her journey leads her past a few sentinels, but they’re so busy struggling to keep the growing mass of clones contained they don’t even notice her. In less than a minute, she has reached her destination.

  The cloning facility is just as she recalls. The only difference is it’s now deserted. Well, almost.

  A sentinel stands before her, arms outstretched and palms aglow.

  “Drowned!” mutters Kara. The plan is ruined.

  Memory 32

  I stare at the sentinel, unmoving. Its single palm glows fiercely, yet the sphere of yellow energy is never fired. I find this odd until the robot topples over, a pickaxe protruding from its metallic head. Standing behind it is Jonn.

  I stare at him for a while before realizing he saved my life. Again.

  “Thanks,” I mutter.

  He says nothing.

  “Is it destroyed?” I ask.

  Jonn shrugs.

  I approach the fallen sentinel and study it. The yellow glow that once inhabited is gone.

  “So?” asks Jonn.

  “It’s harmless.”

  “Good.” He walks over to the robot and yanks the pickaxe from its skull.

  “Should we keep digging?” I ask.

  Jonn shakes his head.

  “The workday is almost over. We should head back, or we’ll be stuck here all night.”

  I nod, and moments later, we’re on our way. We progress in silence for a while before Jonn starts complaining. He’s irritated by our lack of progr
ess and the fact that we were attacked. He also makes derogatory comments about Kara and A’lara, but I’m too tired to listen. It’s not until we leave the flooded tunnel network and merge with the rest of the returning workers that he finally stops talking. He remains silent throughout dinner. It’s not until we head to our scheduled meeting that he starts talking again.

  Reaching the cavern where Kara and I were first reunited isn’t easy, but we manage it with a little air to spare. We wait for A’lara to lift us out of the water, but the alien is nowhere to be found. Kara is also missing.

  “Where are they?” asks Jonn.

  I shrug.

  “Do you think something happened?”

  “Kara can take care of herself,” he says as we swim to shore. Scaling the stone outcropping isn’t easy, but we manage. One look at our surroundings reveals our companions are absent.

  “What do you think is keeping them?” I ask.

  “Why are you asking me? How the drowned—”

  A loud hissing interrupts him. At first, I can’t quite make out where it comes from, but then I notice the smoke rising from the nearby wall. A portion of the stone surface begins to melt, causing holes to appear across it. Smoke and beams of yellow energy emerge from the depressions. I stare at the strange display until the smoke starts to hurt my eyes. I blink the pain away, and by the time I recover, a large circular hole has appeared in the wall. Within it stand two shapes, advancing toward us at a steady pace. I struggle to make them out, but the brightness of the background keeps me from identifying them. It’s not until they emerge from the gaping maw that I finally recognize them.

  Kara and A’lara.

  Reconstructed Memory 7

  K ara stares at the sentinel. The glowing of its palm intensifies until it’s so bright it resembles a miniature sun. It’s beautiful to the point of distraction. By the time it occurs to her to try to escape, it’s already too late.

  The sphere begins detaching itself from the robot’s palm, but the separation process is interrupted by another blast of yellow energy. Much more powerful, it slams into the sentinel, sending it crumbling to the ground. Unable to fight the intensity of the beam, the robot’s metallic frame begins to melt. Within seconds, all that remains of the automaton is a smoking pile of halt-melted limbs. Kara stares at it for a moment before focusing on the beam’s source.