Water's Child Chapter Four (Patreon)

She woke to find water was her reality, as well, though when she tried to thrash her way to the surface, she found that her muscles barely responded, and she only managed to move her arms and legs in weak, uncoordinated motions. The water was oddly thick, and when the red light began to shine, it seemed diffuse and distant, unlike when she had seen it from outside.

The ‘wall’ in front of her cleared slowly, revealing Dr. Rosenthal standing there, staring at her, while Pin peered out from behind him. ::Sorry, sorry,:: the boy sent, voice sounding distant and hollow. ::I didn’t know it would scare you. That’s Chordie. She’s still sleeping. She’s the same age as us, but we got decanted too soon, so-::

Dr. Rosenthal spoke, clearly unaware that Pin was already talking. “There, girl. You didn’t say you were injured.” His eyes roamed over her, and to Kris’ intense embarrassment, she realized she was naked. There was nothing in his eyes to indicate that her nudity mattered to him though, as he examined her in much the same way Madge, the village healer, would have.

“You had a cracked pelvis, and multiple grade three contusions. Had to use quite a bit of my remaining biogel to fix you up,but you should be fine. Now,” he reached behind him and pulled Pin forward. “I know you have a lot of questions, but Pin here will help you get out and dressed if you swear not to panic again.” He frowned between the two of them. “MWE7 is due to be decanted next week, and if we don’t want another failure, I have a lot of work to do. Pin, use your words.”

Turning, the elderly man stomped off, though Kris couldn’t see clearly enough to tell where or how far away he went. Concentrating with all her might, Kris thought, ::Not. Dead?::

Pin winced. ::I can hear you. Chordie’s not dead. All the experiments are sleeping,like you were, a minute ago. There’s sedative in the biogel. Once they reach viability, Dr. Rosenthal keeps them sedated until he’s ready to try decanting. Some of them,:: he shivered, ::there’s something wrong with them that we can’t see, and when we try to wake them, they either go mad or just… die.”

He reached up and laid his hand on the surface of the column. The yellow bar slid down his hand, before shifting to the green circle. “Decant,” Pin said, and the light shifted to orange. “Authorization Rosenthal BA27.” Orange turned back to green, and the fluid surrounding Kris burbled and began to drain away.

Slowly, she sank, until her bare feet came to rest on the ridged bottom of the column. With a soft shush sound, part of the wall behind Kris swung out, and she turned, frightened again, but still unable to move with any urgency. Pin stuck his head through the opening.

“Sorry,” he said, then continued mentally. ::It’s just me and Dr. Rosenthal, now. I’m not used to having to explain anything.:: He held out a hand, and Kris laid hers in it.

“Now?” she asked, voice slightly slurred. She was surprised to find that her throat no longer ached. Usually, it took longer to recover from straining her voice.

The boy turned sad, black eyes toward the ground. ::When I,:: he glanced up, venturing a small smile, ::we were decanted, there were still four scientists alive. Dr. Rosenthal is the youngest, though, and the others have died in the years since. For a few years, one of our brothers, Cid, was here as well. He wasn’t quite right,:: his lips pinched, ::and he died when I was ten.::

Kris shook her head. “You keep saying ‘we’, but I don’t… I don’t remember any of this. I grew up with my mother, Lara, and my father, Paul, in the village nearby.” Her throat was already beginning to hurt again.

Pin tilted his head, looking faintly melancholy. ::That must have been nice. Dr. Mendel was very kind. She used to play with me, and sometimes she’d even read me stories, instead of technical manuals. She died a long time ago, though.::

“Pin!” Dr. Rosenthal’s voice sounded from somewhere on the other side of the now-empty column. “I don’t hear you talking!”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Can’t. Hear,” he said, tapping his forehead.

Kris blinked. “Isn’t he the witch that made you? How can he,” she coughed before continuing, though her voice was raspy now, “not hear… that?”

::Witch?:: Pin looked confused. ::Like the witch who tried to eat Hansel and Gretel?:: At the sound of a throat being cleared, he sighed, and spoke out loud. “Just story. No witch.”

Kris shook her head vehemently, then looked around to see if Dr. Rosenthal could see them. When she peered around the column, however, he seemed intent on a series of numbers flickering across yet another semi-translucent column holding yet another floating child. Carefully, she thought, ::No. I witch. See?::

Glancing around once more, Kris walked over to the enormous tank of water, and climbed the steps, amazed at the complete lack of pain in her side and hip. When she reached the platform, she stood on her tiptoes and peered down into the water. Opening her mind to it, she spoke.

It was slow water. Fresh was always better, but even water that had been sitting for a while would listen to her if she tried hard enough. A thin, wobbly strand lifted from the surface, wrapping itself around her wrist like a shimmering bracelet.

Pin, standing beside her, stared in amazement. ::Hydrokinesis,:: he sent. ::That’s amazing! It’s something that’s mentioned in the historical documents, but I’ve never read anything indicating they’d isolated the genes for it.::

Kris twisted her wrist, and the water fell back into the tank, leaving her skin completely dry. ::Magic,:: she insisted. ::Bad. Mother says.::

The boy beside her just shrugged. “Science. Everything.” He pointed at her wrist, then around the room. ::There’s nothing science can’t answer, just questions we don’t yet know how to ask. Come on!:: He grabbed her hand and tugged her back down the stairs. He led her across the room to a wall that was so far away she hadn’t even been able to see it properly before, and she was amazed again at the sheer size of the space. Had there ever been enough scientists to fill all the empty desks and tables?

Staring, she saw that the wall was covered in pictures of animals she had never imagined, much less heard of. Beneath each animal, written in perfect script, were strange words, like ‘Chordata’ and Odobenidae’. At the top, far off to one side, she saw the figure of a naked man, and beneath him, the words, ‘Homo sapiens sapiens’.

“What is this?” she whispered, reaching out to touch a blobby monstrosity with tiny organs visible inside its crystalline body. She traced a line to a branching line, leading to a tentacled thing  on a stalk called an ‘Actinea’, and then further and further until it wound its way to what looked like a common snail.

::A tree of life,:: Pin said. ::Every one of these creatures has something called ‘DNA’, that tells it to… be whatever it is. The scientists take a little of this,:: he tapped a furry rodent-like animal, ::and a little of that,:: a wriggling worm, ::and mix it together with man.:: He pointed up towards Home sapiens sapiens. ::Sometimes what they try works, like us, but more often,:: he swept his gaze around the room, filled with hundreds or thousands of silent columns, ::they fail.::

“Why?” She asked, eyes filling with tears as she thought of all the ‘experiments’, both past and present.

He sighed. “Had to,” he said, simply. ::There was something wrong with the planet. It got too hot. There were huge storms, and earthquakes, and millions of people died. The ones that were left had hardly anything, and instead of helping each other, they fought. Some of them thought science could save what was left of humanity. Lots of scientists tried lots of things to fix it. The scientists who taught the scientists who taught the scientists who built this place thought they could adapt humans to live in the places that were devastated by war and natural disasters. They knew a lot more, then, though. Even Dr. Rosenthal doesn’t understand half of what he does. He just follows instructions they left behind, hoping that someday he’ll succeed.::

His lips quirked. ::They thought we were failures. I was too much animal, and your brain patterns were ‘outside of the acceptable range’, so we were shunted to a backup lab. While we were there, there was an equipment failure, and the Fanatics came to investigate. They destroyed the above-ground facility and killed a lot of the scientists. There was a fire, and our growth chamber burst in the heat. We were ejected, and Dr. Mendel found me, but there was no sign of you. From the blood and glass nearby, it looked as if you were hurt when you fell, so they assumed you died and the fire destroyed your body.::

Kris shook her head. “No, Mother and Father. Took me. They came to investigate a fire. Bad men came, but Mother and Father escaped. I was born…” She trailed off, realizing the truth at last. Her mother hadn’t given birth to her prematurely. Lara hadn’t given birth to her at all. The woman had seen a baby, abandoned and injured, and taken it with her as she fled. Kris wondered if Lara had realized then how strange the baby was, or if she simply hadn’t cared.

Pin nodded enthusiastically. “Fanatics,” he said. ::They’ve been killing scientists since the world fell. They think science caused the Fall, and whenever anyone learns too much, they find and kill them. There aren’t many scientists left.:: He bit his lip. ::Dr. Rosenthal may be the last. When I was young, they used to send messages over the datalink, and every now and then someone would come to visit. That hasn’t happened in a few years though. We’re not sure if the link is broken, or if everyone else is… gone.::

Kris’ eyes widened with realization. “Rooney and Thal! They must be Fanatics! We have to tell Dr. Rosenthal!”

Pin frowned. ::Rooney and-::

::The men who were with me!:: She switched to mind speech to spare her throat. ::They came to our village from somewhere else. They were escorting the Mayor’s grandson’s new bride, I think. They’re the ones who made me come here, though. They knew about scientists and ‘biorhythm’, and ‘genetic markers’. When I got away, they probably went to get others, so they could force their way in. We should still have a few hours, at least, but we should tell Dr. Rosenthal they’ll be coming back.::

Pin’s expression was horrified by now. ::You got here yesterday. You were in the biotank overnight, while you healed. We thought you came alone and managed to stumble into the bunker when it recognized your DNA as one of the KR series!:: He grabbed her hand and pulled her into a stumbling run, back toward the scientist, who was back to muttering and tapping at his rectangles.

“Doctor!” Pin gasped out. “Fanatics! Coming!”

Dr. Rosenthal looked up, eyebrows lowering behind the glass and wire device that was once again strapped to his face. “Nonsense. None of the sensors have gone off.” He swiped irritably at the glowing rectangle, and the words he had been adding vanished, replaced with a picture that was similar in style to the map Widow Mathison proudly displayed on her sitting room wall. This one, however, only showed a small area, rather than several large land masses, surrounded by water.

Pinching thumb and forefinger together, the scientist placed them on the glowing device, then stretched them apart. For a moment, nothing happened, but then the picture shifted, showing a series of lines that looked vaguely like the outlines of buildings.

A large area near the bottom glowed a threatening red, and the word WARNING flashed repeatedly nearby. Paling, Dr. Rosenthal tapped the word, and it expanded into several.

Threat detected. Breach imminent. Estimated time remaining for evacuation: 02:37:41

“Damn it!” the old man hissed, lifting his hand as if to hit the device, but he stopped himself and whirled to the watching teenagers instead. “The warning system is malfunctioning. All the engineers are dead, and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to fix anything!” His expression was a terrible mixture of fury, despair, and utter defeat. Brown eyes darted back and forth between the two of them.

“There’s something,” he whispered. “There’s something left. You two have to get out. And,” he glanced aside, at the column he’d been working on, then at two more. “We’ll have to decant CH56, MWE7, and IR632. They’re all ready, I just,” his voice cracked, “I hoped someone else would come, or call. Someone who could help if anything went wrong. We’ll just have to do our best.”

His eyes and voice sharpened. “Pin, CH56 is yours. You’ve been watching her for years. Girl,” he paused, as if realizing for the first time that he’d never asked Kris’ name.

“Kris,” she croaked.

“Kris. KR15. Your parents must have read your line name and number from the broken tank. Kris, then, MWE7 is the most stable. I’ll get it started, and then you’ll have to help him the best you can. I’ll do IR632. She’s too young, but all the markers look good. She could survive.”

Kris’ gaze swept around, taking in column upon column, each presumably containing a child, waiting to be born. “The rest?” she asked.

He shook his head in weary resignation. “Some flat-lined. Some have no brain activity. Some are empty. I was never the best scientist, you know, but I did my best.” He smiled, just a little, “I always did my best.” He shook his head, clapped his hands together, and pointed at Chordie’s column. “Pin, go!”

Pin spun on his heel and darted for the column. Dr. Rosenthal grabbed Kris’ shoulder and turned her toward the nearest column. “Now, put your hand on the reader…”