Page 18 of Inceptive (Ingenious #3)

18

ZACH

Z ach didn’t get a chance to speak before Will threw his arms around him and cried. “When I begged Dante to slow the transfusions before he drained you to death, he said he couldn’t. ”

“I gave permission,” Zach said softly, then kissed him until both sank to their knees, rocking and hugging before pulling apart for a ragged breath. Then more kissing and grinding until the rush of being alive to kiss again collided with the harsh reality that their reunion would end badly.

Will settled on Zach’s lap and rested his head on his shoulder. “Dante said he couldn’t slow the transfusions. He tried to stop, but the network forced him to choose the life of an Islander over the life of his creation, or he’d be shut down. It’s a mandate he can’t overturn. If there’s a fight for survival, Dante must side with Islanders. He loves his creations, but Islanders are the true heirs.”

“There’s no way Fort Hope has enough blood, and there’s no way we can clean the land without starving everyone to death. I fear that Riley and the other patients stuck on the Island have been drained.”

“Islanders have spent centuries advancing medical care. Their cloning technology to cure diseases is superior to Dante’s. Doctors have probably used your cousin’s blood to clone synthetic blood to detach the protein.”

“If Riley and other patients died so that a cure was found, then Fort Hope would call the deaths a sacrifice for the good of all. But if there’s no cure, merely adding years to a few lives of high-ranking officials, then my people will fight to the death before becoming blood slaves. Islanders may claim our land, but we’ll shed our blood before giving them a drop of it.”

Will gave an unhappy laugh. “Islanders will argue that had Fort Hope shared the basin, the swamp would’ve been cleared long ago, and the pteryox wouldn’t have settled there.”

Zach tipped Will’s face up. “What’s done is done. We have to warn Fort Hope to keep its gate locked when the bridge is clear.”

“Thousands of infected will scale the rampart’s gate if you refuse to open it. Plans for an invasion have been discussed for centuries. What good are archers against gas grenades? Only a thin line of morality has stopped us.”

“Fear that we have secret weapons to fight back has stopped you.”

“You can’t win a war if my father orders an invasion. Believe me that he’ll launch gas grenades that can travel for twenty miles and stop you in your tracks. You aren’t immune to this weapon. More importantly, the gas won’t spill blood. Actually, it’s the only way. And then there will be fighting among the Islanders over who gets a blood slave. Both sides are doomed if there’s an invasion.”

That Will had revealed the strategy meant he’d side with Zach. “If warned before the bridge clears, Fort Hope will evacuate the town and settlements and lock ourselves inside the basin. Only a strong laser can melt the tunnel’s gate, and no way do Islanders have that kind of power supply. Even if they could find the energy, the chips operating the weapons would be corrupted before they reached the rampart. My people can live in the basin for two years if necessary. By then, most Islanders will be dead of starvation or the protein. Except you. You’ll have survived.”

“Would you open the tunnel if I brought young orphans to live in the sanctuary? Even if they don’t receive transfusions, the clean food would lengthen their lives until a cure is found or help arrives. I can’t just abandon my people, Zach. My ancestors survived centuries in oceanic domes. Their descendants deserve a future.”

“I’d put the proposal up for vote. I believe it’d pass. The children would be confined to the sanctuary, and eventually, my people would offer transfusions. I will volunteer first to encourage others to donate. But the tunnel’s only open during the dry season. Once it floods, there’s no way in for six months. We’ll have to send messages through Belle.”

Will frowned. “What if the basin isn’t safe from an invasion? If there’s a hidden inside ramp, I bet there’s a similar outside ramp that will lower for an army of Islanders to invade the basin and turn it into a prison camp for blood slaves. Dante’s hospital could be used for the transfusions and the sanctuary’s farms could supply clean food.”

“Dante will refuse to lower a ramp and let the Islanders inside. He’d let the network kick his ass—if he had one—into stasis. Without Dante, the sanctuary will shut down again, and the ramp can’t be lowered.” Zach rubbed his nape. “How odd that my mind tells me this is truth, not false hope.”

“Yeah. Same with me. Dante would choose to be shut down because he knows that when a message finally arrives from the other sanctuary asking how we’re coping, the system will reboot him to answer. Ha! Mandate, be damned.” Will rubbed his temples as if wondering why he spoke with such confidence. “Dante said I didn’t suffer brain damage, yet I feel odd, too, as if I’ve learned more than the videos taught us.”

Zach’s gaze locked with Will’s. “I sense a ramp near the outside of the tunnel.”

“So do I,” Will whispered.

“The tunnel always opens a week after the bridge and main road have opened for traffic. It’ll take us four days to reach the town on foot if we wait for the tunnel to open. By that time, my people will be enslaved. We can’t wait for the tunnel to open. We have to find that outside ramp, leave as soon as the road is passable, and warn the town to evacuate.”

“Then you ask Dante to help us leave before the tunnel opens. What’s wrong, Treetop?”

Zach’s mouth tightened. “He’ll ask why. The network’s mandate will shut him down before he can show us an exit that’ll help us warn the town to evacuate. He needs a good reason to show us a way out, one that helps the Islanders to survive. You’re an Islander. Find a reason for escaping early that’ll satisfy the network’s mandate.”

Will took a deep breath and seemed to wait for a reason to pop out. His shoulders sagged as he exhaled. “I’ve got nothing. When will the water begin to recede from the main road?”

“In a month. The road clears first, and then the bridge. But the tunnel is last.” He stared at Will. “Sensors may read expressions and actions, but they can’t read your mind. Can you invent a reason and use your acting skills to fool Dante and the network? They’ll know I’ll warn the town to evacuate. It’s you—the patriotic son of the viceroy—who must convince Dante that you’ll sabotage the evacuation and open the rampart’s gate to allow an army through.” Zach scraped a hand over his face and groaned. “Aw, shit. What could you come up with that wouldn’t stink like a spitting frog?”

Will spread his hands and bowed. “Aha. Got one. Trust me. I’ll be amazing .”

Their quarters consisted of four rooms off the living area, a bathroom facility, two bedrooms, and an office. The bare walls were gray stone embedded with glassy red sensors, currently grayed-out by Fran for privacy.

Will demonstrated the flush toilet as if Zach were ignorant of one. The condescension annoyed Zach, who drawled, “I understand aim and flush.”

However, Zach was ignorant of the showerhead and controls and that stepping inside to check out the cubicle automatically closed the door and activated the shower. The cool water drenched him, while Will guffawed before explaining their voices were coded to request temperature changes.

The thin blue tunic clung like a second skin. Zach peeled it off, twisted it, and pushed on the door. “Open.” Nothing. He pounded the door.

“Um… turn the handle.” Will snickered.

The handle was a crystalline lever placed where it should be.

Will was out of the bathroom, shutting the door before the soggy tunic hit him.

Zach activated the dryer vent. As he turned with arms lifted, he noticed a full-sized mirror on the door. For the first time, he saw his naked body clearly from head to toe. Though Will had trimmed the beard, the face looking back at him was intimidating, with deep-set brown eyes, thick brows, strong nose, and a wide jaw supported by a muscular neck. Much to fear, little to admire. And certainly not a face to invite kisses. He had a broad chest and torso with plenty of hair but less muscular padding after the transfusions. A body full of work was prized, not a handsome face.

Zach inspected his back and ass, pleased it wasn’t as hairy as the rest of him. He spread his butt cheeks and checked out his hole. He didn’t understand Will’s fascination with the pale brown pucker.

His cock twitched. A few tugs brought it to half-mast. He faced the mirror, hands on his hips. Of course, he knew his size. But seeing the reflection was seeing his grandeur with the eyes of a partner. He understood why Will’s appreciation wrestled with caution.

He peeked out the door, conscious of his tented towel. Will’s bedroom door was closed, and Zach darted into his room, where he found shelves filled with his personal belongings. Bots must have removed them from the cabin, probably at night using the odd boat, and had cleaned them. Soap and water could remove the protein from surfaces, but the contaminated water had to be incinerated.

The bed that folded upright into the wall had an airy mattress. He dropped the towel and tested the mattress, which smoothly adjusted to his weight as he moved. He lay on his side and caressed the empty space. What would life be like married to Will? He imagined Will wearing a thin nightshirt and a smile that welcomed whatever Zach wanted.

He closed his eyes and imagined Will living in the sanctuary, raising Island orphans with Dante’s full support. Zach would live in his cabin with a crew. The living conditions would be bleak, giving him a reason to refuse marriage until it was safe to sire children. Visiting Will and supervising the indoor farms would be acceptable. They would continue as friends and secret lovers.

Zach slept solidly, awakening at a knock on the door. The room disoriented him. “Where am I?” A screen dropped with his location in the sanctuary, the time of day, and identifying Will as the one knocking.

“Will asks permission to enter,” a voice chimed. Oh, yeah, that cheerful voice belonged to Fran.

Zach had fallen asleep naked. “Uh… are you watching?”

“No. Will activated command mode only. I respond to a vocal summons, complete the command, then withdraw. Sensors are gray unless visual is desired. Nudity doesn’t offend me, Zach.”

“You are watching!” He snatched a sheet over his hips.

“An assumption. Will is waiting.” The voice had two modes: cheery and cheerier.

“Let him in, then turn off everything.”

“Certainly, Zach.”

Fran unlocked the door, and Will strolled into the room, wearing drawstring pants and tee, his light brown hair damp from a shower. “Good morning, sleepy head.” He sat on the edge of the bed, his smile wobbly and eyes puffy.

“Come here.” Zach held out his arms, and Will fell on top of him, hugging like an exhausted swimmer who’d found land. Zach fumbled for words to comfort him. “Whatever’s happening out there isn’t our fault. But we can’t hide from it. An old saying goes, where there’s a greased rope, neither side has a handhold .”

“Yeah, no way to choose wisely.” Will lifted his head. “Are you hungry? Fran’s bot has delivered a tray of foods to sample. Dante wants us to decide what agrees with our digestive systems before planting the rest of the sanctuary’s fields. After we eat, he’s taking us on a tour.”

Their rocking chairs were in the gathering room, along with the cabin’s rugs and a lantern that served as a heating plate to boil water for the teas. A small round table held saucers of food samples that were farmed in the uncontaminated sanctuary.

Will ate a spoonful of stew. “It’s good. Potato soup with moss-based meatballs. Fran told me that no meat is raised here. The roots and tomatoes are similar to the ones grown in our gardens, but the doughy pods are from the starship. Watch this.” He dropped a pod in a mug of hot water. It puffed like rising dough, then split and altered the water to become a buttery gravy.

The dough looked better than it tasted—bland, chewy, and oily. Zach dipped his spoon into a saucer of speckled black paste, then hesitated. “Is this food?”

“Fran said the paste improves gut health. I think it’s a nutritious mold.” Will swiped a thumb through it. “Hey, Belle, you hungry?”

As if ordered by Fran not to beg unless invited, Belle flew out from under the table where she’d been pouting. Her tongue lapped his finger. “Ick.” Her crest flattened, and she hacked.

Will set the bowl on the floor. “Cross this one off the?—”

Before he finished, she’d shoveled up all the paste with her beak.

“I thought you didn’t like it.” Will stared at the greasy spot that was all she’d left.

“Is good.” She blinked her lashes at Zach’s untouched spoonful.

“Mine.” Zach slurped it down. It tasted as foul as it smelled. Damn that bird’s mean jokes. He chased the taste away with tea. “What was that stuff?”

A screen appeared, identifying the paste as ground worms.

Fran chimed, “The worms are a staple. They aerate and fertilize the soil and provide high caloric and nutritional value to food.”

“Highfalutin words don’t change it from being worms.”

“Tasties,” Belle chortled.

After the meal, the men sat in their rockers by the table, waiting for a bellyache from the food. Belle was happily napping off her big meal on Will’s bed.

“Dante is outside and requests entry,” Fran chimed.

Will glanced at Zach, who nodded and said, “Fran… let him enter.”

Expecting Dante’s disembodied voice, Zach startled like a slink caught in the light of a lantern as the door opened and a figure in a shapeless brown tunic and pants glided in. The face was oblong, vague, waxen, and lacking fluid expression. A curly gray wig covered the head. Red insectoid eyes observed them.

The figure bowed, the wig sliding forward. “I am Dante, named in honor of the founder.”

“Why show yourself now instead of earlier?” Will asked.

“The synthetic skin for my body mold is unfinished.” Dante straightened the wig. “Do you prefer male, female, or gender-fluid humanoid?”

Zach ogled the face. “What’s humanoid?” He hoped it was something without those disturbing red eyes.

Dante stuffed the wig in his pocket, revealing a bald, elongated skull. He bowed. “This form is basic humanoid without hair or genital attachments.”

Before he could ask to see attachments, Zach grunted from Will’s kick beneath the table. Instead, Zach rubbed his leg and mumbled, “Basic humanoid is fine.”

“Thank you. The wig does appear unnatural.” So did the four spindly arms with hands and the protruding red eyes. “Would you like an update on the basin before touring my sanctuary?”

“Do the farmers know the cause of the illness?” Zach asked.

“I’ve created an updated pair of CinderX scouts to provide information. Beware that Belle is jealous of their blue feathers. The basin’s farmers believe the illness was contracted on the Island and is spreading here. Ironically, farmers feed their servants as generously as they feed family, thereby increasing the rate of saturation.”

“No good deed goes unpunished,” Will murmured.

“The Cinders reported that the townspeople are unaware of the danger. The faulty power grid corrupts their chips if Cinders cross the rampart to report on the Islanders. We must assume there is a higher percentage of infected receptors among the upper ranks and the people living on the ships. Malnourishment causes a swifter decline in the poor, while the upper class eats food grown in garden balconies fertilized with yellow mud.” He tsked at Will. “You were well-nourished, with a level nearing the onset of symptoms. You could very well have sleepwalked off your balcony had you waited another year.”

“I never planned to die!” Will paled at what might have been.

A screen materialized in the middle of the room, projecting views of the foggy bridge. “Will, can you estimate the time before the bridge opens for traffic?”

“My balcony overlooked the bridge, and I’ve watched the fog for years. As thick as it appears on the screen, I’d say four to six weeks.”

“The basin usually opens a week later,” Zach said.

“How will we determine if an outbreak has happened?” Dante’s red eyes fixed on Will.

“If Riley isn’t the first one across the bridge, it means the hospital drained him, and any covered wagon crossing over to deliver orders will be filled with soldiers carrying gas grenades.”

Zach whirled on Dante. “Can you give Fort Hope weapons to stop them from crossing?”

“I have no weapons. The network diverted all energy reserves to the hospital to save Will and you.” The unblinking red eyes regarded him. “Islanders may launch grenades from the bridge and scale the rampart, but the locked gate will only succumb to an enormous laser blast.” He paused, then remarked, “The tunnel’s gate requires twice that power.”

Zach winced from a kick to his ankle. Another kick drew a gasp. Looking down, he saw Will’s thumb discretely hiked at the bathroom.

“Is something wrong?” Dante inquired.

“The ground worms aren’t agreeing with him,” Will said.

Zach clasped his stomach. “Uh… yeah. Gotta go again.” He darted to the bathroom, leaving Will alone with Dante. The bathroom’s sensors turned gray, offering privacy, and he lingered until Will knocked on the door and told him it was safe to come out and talk.

“Did you find out anything?”

Will grinned. “Did I ever. There’s a ramp out. As soon as the main road’s passable, we’re leaving. Apparently, I convinced Dante that while we were drunk in the cabin, you bragged that Fort Hope has crates of gas masks and rockets to diffuse the gas because servants in the steam lodge confessed that grenades would be the first line of attack if we invaded. Your people have accumulated the masks for years, knowing an attack is inevitable because the Island can’t handle its growing population. Archers always carry masks and are prepared to fire rockets of dust clouds to break up the gas. The town holds annual emergency drills and will have evacuated before the militia can scale the rampart. The water will corrupt powered vehicles crossing the bridge, and Islanders have no ponies to chase your wagons.”

“Dante believed your half-assed story?”

“He was quiet as he sorted through feedback from the network. Then he asked if I would destroy the masks and sabotage the rockets if he instructed me on how. The network will permit him to build me a few explosive grenades to destroy the rooms housing the masks and rockets.”

“But we don’t have masks or rockets. The Trading Post has a small stable of ponies.”

“What matters is the network believed me. I think Dante sees sinkholes in my story but chooses to ignore them. He let the network give him feedback without questioning its logic.”

Zach gripped him by the arms and lifted him to eye level. “You fooled the network!” He kissed Will and backed him toward a bedroom.

Will wriggled free. “No sex. A cart’s waiting in the hall to take us on a tour of the sanctuary. Dante’s body won’t accompany us in the cart. He’s using it to assemble the grenades. Sensors will narrate what we see, and he’ll answer questions if we speak his name.”

The two-passenger rail cart driving Will and Zach through the sanctuary stopped on the observation level, where they surveyed hundreds of miles of choppy blue lake with specks of islets through a one-way viewing window. The immense lake disappeared into the west. No shoreline was visible to the naked eye or to the early drones that had disappeared into the west. No pteryox were sited over the water. Fish with mouths wide as melons vaulted from the water and snagged low-flying birds. Pteryox were either clumsy fishers or had discovered the big fish would drag them down and drown them.

Zach wagged a finger at Belle, who’d joined them at the window. “Don’t you ever fly low over the lake for fishies—understand?”

Belle bobbed her head, speechless for once. Then she squeaked, “Belle didn’t know they were there. Always hunt smaller fish in the river.”

Will munched a grain bar free of the protein. “This tastes like charred bones and seashells. I want real food. I’m so hunnnnngry, ” he said, mimicking Belle.

“Real food bad for you,” Belle scolded him. She snubbed the piece he offered.

As they snacked, mindful not to reveal escape plans, Dante streamed a video on the window showing what another CinderX had recorded during a scouting flight over Fort Hope. The images and chatter from the street were loud and clear.

The town was completely ignorant of the outbreak. A thick fog still covered the bridge. Farming settlements in the uplands operated normally.

The town was built on higher ground atop a construction site for the oceanic domes. Drainage shafts prevented the area from flooding. The meeting hall and stores faced the main street and were built of stone painted in muted colors. Lining the side streets were neat rows of cane homes with yellow fertilizer in every fenced garden.

“Zoom in on that end of town.” Will pointed at an isolated building. “What’s in there?” Will had raised his voice and pointed to what was obviously a barn. His eye twitched.

What the heck was wrong with his eye? Oh. Zach understood a cue to elaborate on the supposed storage area for the masks and rockets. “It’s a special storage area.”

“For the smoke flares?”

“Uh… yes and other secret stuff.”

Will smiled. “The stuff you told me I wasn’t to know about, right?”

“Right.”

Will finished his grain bar, staring at the barn as if figuring out how to sneak inside it.

Zach pretended he didn’t notice the interest. But he knew Dante and the network had noticed and would process the data.