It had gone on like this for some time, as though Art was purposely trying to drag out their walk. They kept going and going and he kept telling story after story about this building or that, or the races they used to run around Arc 10. He never forgot a detail. His mind was sharp. But the Authority didn’t need sharp minds so much as able bodies.
Eventually they reached the perimeter Arc, where people believed the overhead Exchangers could mask their conversations. Owen looked pleadingly at Tosh to indicate it had gone on too long. She could see how tired he was, and understood he was mostly there for her. Time to intervene.
“Art, listen, maybe we should get you back,” Tosh said, taking his arm. “It’s almost time to burn those Ration Rewards you’ve been sav—”
“You know, this was a design flaw,” Art said, pointing upward. The moonlights hadn’t quite kicked on yet but they would soon. The gloaming was the darkest time of day. “The first bank of Exchangers was supposed to be where the second one is there. That’s why it’s so loud. IDA can’t make anything out.”
“Did you have something you wanted to say?” Tosh asked.
Art said, “Seeing as how I’m going in the Box tomorrow, I figured I ought to tell Owen why his Legacies only go back to the second generation.”
That got Owen’s attention. “Wait — how could you know that?” he asked.
“Because not even IDA knows who your true great-great grandfather was,” Art said with a twinkle in his eye, “The truth is, he wasn’t supposed to be here.”
That didn’t jive with anyone’s knowledge of history. The Originals were handpicked, screened, and catalogued down to their very DNA. No one came in who wasn’t supposed to be there. That was the whole point. Otherwise disease could’ve been introduced into the Dome. Art was simply mistaken.
“That’s not possible,” Tosh said.
“I need you both to listen to me very carefully,” Art said. “My time has ended, but what I know can’t die with me. Do you understand?”
They nodded and kept walking, rapt. It was hard to believe this was the same man who was just asking IDA about death. He may have been afraid of that, but he wasn’t afraid to share a secret so big he could only share it on the eve of his Quietus.
That’s what they called it. Not execution. Not euthanasia. Quietus. It sounded so much gentler than what it was.
“Many years ago, before the Dome Project, antibiotics stopped working,” Art said. “It threatened to send us back to the Stone Age. Two technologies rose to the fore, one a new kind of antibiotic and one a kind of synthetic biology.”
“Macros,” Owen said. “Everyone knows that.”
Art nodded. “Yes, but what you don’t know is that the antibiotic was created by a man named Bertram Hopper. The other came from Cytocorp. But just as the competition started heating up, Hopper disappeared. Cytocorp scoured the earth to find him and destroy his research but they never did. He was a ghost.
“Of course, after a while it didn’t even matter. They won. And instead of sharing their solution with the world, they sold it to the highest bidder. If you got an infection, you either payed or you died. And like an infection, they became unstoppable. Several years later…”
“…they built the Domes,” Tosh said. She knew the lessons as well as anyone. “So what happened to Hopper?”
Art smirked. “He hid in the last place they’d ever think to look.”
Suddenly she understood. Owen seemed to come to the same realization.
“Hopper came here?” Owen asked.
Art nodded. “Changed his identity, his face… everything. He even modified his DNA. His friends and colleagues hid him while the Domes were built. By the time the Dome Project launched, his name was on the official list. Only by then it wasn’t Bertram Hopper anymore. It was Welsh. Benjamin Ludwig Welsh. Your great-great grandfather.”
Owen was beyond incredulous. He actually laughed, as though Art would join him and admit to the jest, but he didn’t. “Wait — you’re serious?” Owen asked.
“He didn’t only modify his DNA to fool the screening process,” Art continued. “He used it to store his research. He started a family, and when he did, the data in his DNA got passed down, too. Generation after generation learned about their heritage when they came of age.” He smiled over at Owen. “Your mother would’ve told you, too, one day. You’re fortunate she told me.”
“I talk to my mother all the time,” Owen said. “She’s never said anything.”
“Well that’s not really her, is it?” Art said. He leaned in again. “Owen, the Company that built this place is the same one that your great-grandfather was hiding from. The same one that almost certainly took your father from you. Now maybe that’s just a coincidence, but if it isn’t, if I were you, I’d spend less time whining about the Towers and more trying to learn the truth.”
“I’m not saying I believe you, but how do you know all this?” asked Owen.
“Your grandmother’s maiden name was Behrens. There came a day when she said she was washing her hands of it. She thought the story about Hopper was bunk. Said it was up to me whether to tell you. We never spoke again. She went in the Box three years ago.”
“So… you’re Owen’s great uncle?” asked Tosh.
He nodded. “Sorry you had to find out this way, but this secret is too big to risk it spreading. Now that you know, you have to be more careful than ever what you say. If Cytocorp still exists and they thought Hopper’s work might still exist, I don’t know what they’d do.”
You could’ve pushed Owen over with one finger. “So what am I supposed to do with this?” he asked.
“Survive as long as you can,” Art said, putting his hands on Owen’s shoulders in a way that now felt appropriately avuncular. “And if you ever have the opportunity to get out, take it. And run as far from this place as you possibly can.”
24
As soon as she opened the door to sabotage, Elle regretted it. She valued Luther’s counsel and had benefitted from it in the past, but it felt wrong. They didn’t know enough to reach that conclusion. And if the evidence pointed to something else, like negligence, then what?
She liked the Nexus. The antiseptic smell of the coolant below was oddly reassuring and the soft blue glow of the UV lights played on the ceiling like some kind of cave lagoon. It was a good place to think. But the sound of the airlock opening behind her yanked her from her reverie. Luther. Judging from the look on his face, he hadn’t expected to find her there.
“Hey,” he said. “What’re you doing down here?”
“I wanted to take everyone’s pulse on the message. See if perceptions were starting to shift.”
“And?” Luther asked.
“Slight uptick. Of course, now they’re just afraid of each other.”
He sighed and approached her bearing that condescending, fatherly look she hated.
“Things will calm down once we find whoever’s responsible,” he said, his voice softening.
“What if no one’s responsible? In fact, what if we are? Then what?”
He placed his hands on her shoulders the way he did when she needed reassuring. It normally made her feel strong and in control, but here it felt oddly menacing.
“Look, there’s no blueprint for this situation. All we can do is stay out in front of it. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
“Why are you down here?” she asked.
He paused for just a moment before replying. It might have been her imagination, but it felt like he was buying his brain an extra second to think. It made what came next feel an awful lot like a lie. He dropped his hands from her shoulders and folded them behind his back, then nodded down at the submerged components.