Page 16 of Inceptive (Ingenious #3)

16

ZACH

Z ach sat with his head in his hands, silently crying. Outside, pteryox surrounded the cabin, waiting to attack whoever opened the door. The thatch roof was vulnerable. He’d heard them poking it, then pained cries when pulling away had cost them feathers.

He doubted Will would survive the night. Somehow, he must gather the strength to put Will inside a burial bag tomorrow.

He brushed his fingers through the damp brown curls. “Stay with me awhile longer, my amazing Will. I wish we’d explored every pleasure. I was a fool to call it depraved. It was the best of times with you.”

The disk on the tiny collar glowed. Belle trilled and landed beside it. “Yes, yes! I be nice if Dante saves my Will.” She tilted her head, listening. “Yes, yes. We be ready. Yes, I let you read him.” She picked up the disk and placed it on Will’s chest.

Grateful for any help, even if he didn’t know what the thing was, Zach stepped away with Belle perched on his shoulder, warbling in distress.

The disk streamed red and blue lines that traveled up and down Will’s body. Strange symbols floated and then were sucked into the disk.

Round-eyed, Zach watched. The disk contained a working tech chip. Belle didn’t have the collar before leaving them to lay a clutch. “Where’d you come from, Belle?”

She squawked at him, “An egg. Where else?” She hopped off his shoulder as the lines encircled Zach. “Master Dante checks you for contagion.”

He stood still, hands dangling helplessly at his sides. The scan was painless.

“Master Dante said that you are perfect. Not a carrier.”

Zach waved a hand over the disk for its attention. “Can you cure him?” He asked, though he didn’t expect an answer.

“Your friend will die within hours without life support and an immediate blood transfusion. You must bring him to me and submit to blood transfusions. The lab will require more of your blood to find a vaccine. Do you give permission?” the disk asked using a crisp voice.

Shocked, Zach fell back on his ass. “Anything to save Will. Where are you? If I leave the cabin, the pteryox will attack.”

Belle listened at the door, then hopped to the disk. “Many bad birds outside.”

The disk glowed. “I have outfitted a boat. Its canopy is flimsy, and the fuel cell is weak. Hopefully, the noise will frighten the pteryox long enough to allow you to board. Wear the helmets on the seat. The pteryox will attack the roof when they realize the noise is harmless.”

Zach wrapped Will’s limp body in a blanket, covering his head, then carried him over a shoulder. He gripped a paddle because he could swing it in a wide arc. Will moaned from the jostling.

Belle hovered at the door. “Boat is here. Move! Jump in.”

The boat’s motor revved louder as it pulled up to the porch. Lights flashed, and the pteryox screeched and flew off the porch. Zach jumped into the cart-sized boat, his feet hitting a ribbed metal floor. The metal sides were knee-high, and corner poles supported a flimsy canvas roof. This was a hasty project, and probably why help was delayed. He put on a helmet with a visor—good thinking, Master Dante—buckled Will on a hard seat, and covered his head with a helmet. Zach remained standing, balancing on the balls of his feet, with a paddle ready to swing and hoping he didn’t fall overboard.

The boat retraced the path where it had plowed through the cane to get to the cabin.

“Wherever home is, it better be near!” Zach cried to Belle.

“We go to the tunnel.” Belle perched on the rear, head swiveling. “Pteryox coming at you from left—swing!”

Zach swung his paddle. Bone cracked, and feathers flew. Two pteryox swooped toward the front, distracting him from the one coming from the right side—he already knew that trick and broke its neck when it lunged at Will.

Belle shrieked that the roof was under attack. A beak and head pushed through a rip, and he shattered the elongated skull. The flock retreated, calling back and forth.

The boat reached the tunnel’s flooded gate, and a ramp lowered from an up-till-then invisible door that was three levels above the gate. He’d always believed the section was solid stone. There were no cracks anywhere. The hull lined up with a rail on the ramp and glided up.

“Home,” Belle sang. She flew inside with the collar and disk.

The ramp retracted smoothly, and the entry closed. Zach’s heart pounded as his eyes adjusted to the dim interior. He knelt on the wet floor, bracing a hand on the side as the boat swiveled, aligned to another rail, and sped down a tunnel with sections lighting as they approached, exposing spongy gray walls. The lights darkened behind them, as if saving energy. This tunnel was inside the middle of the basin’s wall, and the farmers in the cave dwellings had never known it existed. On the right, facing the town, were closed doors, darkened panes, and platforms at intervals that he thought were lifts to other levels. He sensed this place had as many levels down as up.

He checked Will’s pulse. It was thready now. Will was fading faster than the boat-cart, which sputtered as if running out of fuel. They stopped at a door that opened to a cubicle like the surgical room where Riley was treated.

Instead of speaking through Belle’s disk, Dante’s voice came from a white ceiling globe, instructing Zach to place Will on the exam table and step away. Mechanical levers with hands dropped from the ceiling and inserted a tube down Will’s breathing passage, then efficiently stripped and sprayed him. Will’s eyes briefly opened from the oxygen infusion and met Zach’s scared gaze. His lips curved in a slight smile around the tube, and he gave Zach a thumbs-up. When the bed rolled through another set of doors, Zach glimpsed a huge room humming with equipment before they closed.

He'd heard rumors that the Islanders had suspected secrets deep inside the basin’s wall, but they’d never solved the mystery. The stone was impenetrable to laser drills, and scans had displayed a solid stone center. The consensus was a solid stone barrier with a gated tunnel enclosing ten miles of an unfinished agricultural basin with cave dwellings.

An exam table rolled into the cubicle for Zach. He submitted to being stripped, sprayed, and strapped down. The table whisked him into a room with beige stone walls and cold dry air. Tubes dangled from the ceiling, and a dozen levers with clever metal digits for fingers had their way with him. He’d anticipated having his blood drawn and tissue samples taken, but not the indignity of scopes in every orifice, especially up his ass, which drew a shocked squeal from him. Dante’s disembodied voice from a ceiling globe explained the procedures and the readouts flowing across hovering screens.

He didn’t understand a word of it.

“Zach, you have exceptional strength and are a perfect donor to save Will. Do you consent to the transfusions?”

He understood the words to save Will and replied, “Whatever it takes to save him.”

“Do you have questions?”

“What’s infecting him?”

“A biological weapon designed to destroy humans without harming other lifeforms. Scientists in the Arctic Sanctuary had the insane concept of allowing Earth to heal and evolve without the presence of humans. Its network halted the project and sent the files to the rest of the sanctuaries, warning them to ban all research on the protein. The network’s bots buried the weapon in a vault and scheduled it for incineration. Unfortunately, when the meteors and earthquakes struck, the protein was released. It’s harmless to plants and animals but poisonous to normal humans.”

“Why am I not sick?”

“Because my creations have perfect immunity. The protein cannot attach to your body’s receptors and is excreted in your feces.”

“How can I save Will?”

“He’s in a deep sleep and awaits a blood transfusion to cleanse and repair his organ system. His vitals are stabilized.” Dante spoke as if to a child, and Zach felt like one.

A tube was inserted in the crook of Zach’s arm. A lever positioned his head on a pillow and raised the rails. A helmet with a dark visor and earpieces was fitted over his head. His head buzzed from the images flitting over the visor. This was a video, a device which was forbidden in Fort Hope because it agitated young minds with games and fantasies.

Illustrations flowed, narrated by Dante, about Ancient Earth, the ancestors, and preparations for an epic disaster that would destroy the planet. He watched and listened. If he asked questions, the flow halted, and Dante patiently explained the odd words. Zach had so many fucking questions. He was aware of being fed, his muscles stimulated, his body rotated, of drifting into a light and being pulled away again and again back into a void with Dante’s voice.

Thousands of dedicated, brilliant people in the Carolina Sanctuary spent decades and trillions of dollars constructing oceanic domes and a land habitat in the hope of humans surviving. There were other sanctuaries, each with the mission of providing a safe refuge for thousands of people of exceptional health and skills whose descendants would emerge when the atmosphere and surface were self-sustainable to human life.

A team of scientists in the Arctic Sanctuary, disillusioned with humanity, had bioengineered a protein to protect the new Earth from the return of humans. The information was leaked, the research confiscated, and the protein was stored in a buried vault for incineration. Files were sent to other sanctuaries, warning teams not to pursue prototypes of the protein. The early meteor strikes probably wrecked the vault and released the protein, which was harmless to all lifeforms, except humans that consumed it.

However, pteryox were post-apocalyptic mutations that carried a bacterium in their digestive system that attached to the protein and replicated it. The protein was excreted in the yellow feces and was absorbed by plants and animals. It was harmless unless a human ingested it. In humans, it accumulated in the gut, but instead of being excreted in feces, it was absorbed into the bloodstream. Circulating in the blood, it attached to cell receptors throughout the body and blocked the cell from regenerating. The protein didn’t multiply like a virus. It accumulated by the host eating more contaminated foods. Small amounts caused no symptoms, and medical scans didn’t detect them. The onset of symptoms was slow. The first symptom of toxic accumulation was aches, followed by fatigue, absent-minded activity, then a sleepwalking state. These symptoms were attributed to malnutrition, depression, and the unrest of a deteriorating Island.

The protein had no cure. It had to be purged.

Dante’s creations had perfect immunity. Massive blood transfusions containing their special T cells attacked the protein, detached it from receptors, and eliminated it from the body in feces that had to be incinerated or bleached. However, unless contaminated food and soil were incinerated, the protein would accumulate in the person again. Once the brain was congested, transfusions were too late.

Will had barely survived, his body shutting down as millions of receptors were attacked.

Hunting the pteryox to halt further contamination would frighten them into finding a new habitat. They must be destroyed in one sweeping attack to prevent the spread to other territories. Over four decades, yellow fertilizer had spread the protein into every crop. All Islanders had been exposed. The indentured servants in the basin were in the sleepwalking stage because they were well-fed with produce from the yellow soil. Smuggled soil had contaminated the Island Federation, and the upper classes who used it in their kitchen gardens were infected at a faster rate than the average citizen.

Farmers had noticed a weariness in their servants that they blamed on the malnutrition on the unhealthy ships where most lived during the offseason. The farmers treated the weariness by feeding them plenty of fresh food, unknowingly spiking the numbers to reach a dangerous threshold.

Solutions of powerful disinfectants would destroy both the protein and the people. Incineration over 600 degrees would destroy the protein but would also turn the soil into useless ashes. Fort Hope and Islanders would starve.

Purging using blood transfusions of Zach’s people was only a treatment. Not a cure.