Chapter 8: Volume 1, Chapter 8. Alicia Dunn

October 8^th, 2992, CE

     Alicia stared out the taxi’s window while Renee sat next to her. They had talked about their lives the night before until late in the evening. Renee spoke about her husband, Miguel, and their children, Gabriella and Michael. Alicia knew all the details. She loved all her grandchildren, especially when they were still young. Nine hundred years had not dulled the heart-melting warmth she felt when she saw their smiling faces. Her first grandchild, from her first child, was on Arc Turus Secundus and into their great-great-great-grandchild phase.

     Renee’s eyes were glazed over. She was working, and her binoc displays relayed images of what the Commonwealth navy high command felt she needed to see. Alicia was proud of her daughter, a scientist in the CWN that protected all the people of the Commonwealth. Human and not. The taxi accelerated away from NuTor toward the private resort they had rented deep in the western escarpment. Renee and Alicia would arrive in a few hours. The school week would finish later, and Miguel and the kids would come then.

     Alicia leaned against the transparent window dome and stared at the icy rivers separated by pebbled stone islands. Khanath was a cold planet. It reminded her of home. She let her own eyes glaze over while she watched the tundra-like landscape pass by below. After another 30 minutes, Renee tapped Alicia on the arm. “How does it look?”

     “I love Khanath. It’s one of the best planets we found.” Alicia glanced over at her smiling daughter. She sent a compt along her neural lace. Alicia saved the video of Khanath’s landscape and Renee’s smile into a memtal for long-term storage. She would enjoy reliving it when she got through the Bridge. She had to get through the Bridge.  

     “Lucky for you the Yten were here. Khanath would be a tropical resort if it weren’t for them.” The standard Terran protocol, endorsed by the Commonwealth, was to terraform planets into sub-tropical ones. The navy’s scout ships searched for human-compatible worlds, and when they discovered one, they terraformed it. Sub-tropical planets had the broadest compatibility amongst Commonwealth species. It made everything easier; food grew year-round, simplified population growth, and they could wear T-shirts year-round. However, the drive to find new planets had slowed. The population, at least the human population, was shrinking as people joined the ASI.  

     The exception to the Commonwealth terraforming policy was when sentient life was present. The Commonwealth charter was clear that pre-technological civilizations held equal rights to their home system as members of the Commonwealth did to their systems. Until such a time that they could decide to join, they were to be protected. Usually, this was accomplished by outright avoidance, but Khanath was the only habitable planet within range of the Bridge, and the Yten were already close to leaving their home planet.

The three small settlements on Khanath, Nu-Tor, Bo-Tor, and No-Tor, serviced the Commonwealth Navy military bases and research complexes. CWN ignored the resorts, an administrative oversight that persisted because it prevented the CWN personnel from going crazy in the hostile environment. Nu-Tor was the only settlement with a civilian population, people like Alicia, and had the most comprehensive but still modest amenities available on the planet.

     “I know. Let’s hope the Yten do better with Khanath than we did with Earth.”

     “Even old Earth is mostly healed now. Some of the old O’Neill ecopreserves survived and were used to reseed it with real Terran life.”

     “Yes, I know. I was there with Pierre when we sealed Amazonia. I also know what happened afterward,” said Alicia.

     “It wasn’t your fault,” said Renee.

     “I know.”

     “The NTLs made it possible to fix everything that happened.”

     “I KNOW!” shouted Alicia. “They also allowed us to break it in the first place,” Alicia’s face was red. Her expression was exasperated.

     “You can’t deny the other benefits biosynths had. How many people born 972 years ago thought they would meet their grandkids born 968 years after them?”

     “That is true.” Alicia’s migraine pounded at the edges of her skull. The headaches were more frequent and lasted longer—they throbbed and ebbed like a river flowing in and out of her mind.

     “I’m not fond of this moping. Sure, humanity has done bad, even terrible, things. We’ve also done good. The Commonwealth still exists because of us. Because of you.”

     Not me, thought Alicia. “Darling, I love you. But you were born after humanity grew through the worst of it. You weren’t in the halo when Earth died. It would have been different if Frank Arnold had never found the NTLs and I had never put them into the biosynthesizers.”

     “There it is again. It wasn’t your fault. The histories show what Frances Caldwell did. He recorded everything and released it as some weird manifesto,” Renee spoke rapidly, and her voice was tense. Her mother hadn’t been like this until recently. Not until after she’d negotiated the release of Sergey, and he elected to enter the ASI anyway. Why Alicia hadn’t gone with him, she would never know.  

She’d been a vibrant woman – involved in the upper echelons of Commonwealth society. Most people would have given anything to be her, but not since Sergey chose the ASI. Renee compt her neural lace for a somnolent program and went to sleep. Better to discuss this in the morning when their nerves settle.

     Alicia watched her daughter fall asleep. It’d been 500 years since Renee tottered around her apartment with one hand on all the furniture used to stand upright. She enjoyed watching Renee sleep. Her daughter would never understand what drove Alicia anymore. No one could. She had to go through the Bridge. The ebb and flow of her migraine changed, and the pain moved from side to side. It would have been shaking its head if it was alive.

Frances Caldwell

April 3^rd, 2054

     The man tapped the wall with his index finger and patted his knee.   

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     Tap, pat. Tap, tap, tap. Tap.

     “Kid, I will pull your brain through your nose if you don’t knock it off. Shut it!”

     Tap, pat, pat. Pat. Pat, tap. Tap, pat, pat.  

     “Kid!” Michael Dixon, Mike to his friends, slid off the top bunk. His orange jumpsuit chaffed against his sides and was tight around his biceps. “I told you to shut the fuck up,” growled Mike as he pulled the kid out of his bed. The kid was a squirt and needed to wash the lank brown hair that hung in his face. His eyes didn’t even register Mike getting off the bunk but spun to a wide-open doe-eyed stare when Mike grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “I told you to shut the fuck up,” said Mike as he pulled his fist back.

     “I’m so sorry.” Why don’t you go fuck yourself? “I get lost in my head sometimes.” I’ll kill you. I’ll kill your whole family. “What did I do?” asked Frances Caldwell. His small-sized jumpsuit hung off his body, and his hair covered one of his eyes. 

     “Making noise. I’m trying to watch TV.”

     “Sorry.” Fuck you. “I’ll be quiet, sorry,” pleaded Frances. Mike let the kid go because the kid was sick in the head. That was obvious. How he’d survived so long in here, Mike couldn’t figure.

     “Just shut up, okay?”

     “Yeah.” You’re dead. You’re a fucking dead man. “Of course,” answered Frances.

     “Caldwell, mail,” came a rap on the cell bars, and a package slipped through the slot in the door. The guard watched as Frances crawled out of his lower bunk. “You’re old man and I served together. How did a hero like him ever make a sick fuck like you?” asked the guard.

     “I’ve been a constant disappointment,” replied Frances. Go get fucked. The guard walked down the hallway and checked on the other inmates. The package was from Pantex Corp. Frances opened the box and pulled out a consumer-grade crystal memory card. He slotted the card into the cassette for his binoc/audio recorders.

     Mike was up on the top bunk. “I hate these dam commercials. Who cares about this Apollos’ shit everyone keeps talking about. It’s going to be for the rich anyways.”

     Frances returned to his bunk and looked at the television. It was another news show that discussed Apollos’ therapies. A gorgeous news host, a favorite among the inmates, interviewed an Apollos scientist, Dr. Alicia Dunn. The interviewer was partway through a question, “Apollos’ biosynthesizer programs have released multiple new gene and drug therapies. Is the discovery of NTLs by the MARS1 crew responsible for these drugs?”

     “Yes and no. Non-Terran life biochemistry has analogs to Earth’s. The NTL DNA analog is similar yet different,” explained Alicia.

     “Is it responsible for fixing the damage caused by NOV-11?” asked the interviewer.

     “Yes. The analog stably inserts into Terran DNA. Safety tests are ongoing, but the current human treatment group no longer requires the NOV-11 gene therapy. All the animal test groups are doing fine a couple of years after their treatment.”

     The interviewer turned and asked Sergey Lake, “How will this affect Apollos’ bottom line? Are you concerned about financial losses to the company?”

     “No. I’ve made it quite clear over the years. Apollos makes no money from the sale of treatments. It does employ specialized biosynthesists to manufacture products, but that won’t change. Those people will still be at work tomorrow and the next day. Our need for biosynthetics has not changed.” Sergey ceased talking for a moment and took a drink of water. “The Singaporean Ministry of Regenerative Biology has already contacted Apollos with new projects, as have their contemporaries worldwide, so this isn’t the end of Apollos. It will let us target new diseases and make new treatments.”

     “Dr. Dunn, what is your next target?” asked the interviewer.

     “I wish I had him here to show off, but Harold is our lab’s mascot. It’s amazing what he has achieved,” said Alicia with a bright smile. “We plan to replicate his treatments. For the good of all humanity.”

     Frances looked at the TV. Mike flicked a command to the processor and found another channel playing the game. Fuck off.

     Frances laid back down on his bunk and thought about what Alicia Dunn had said, ‘For the good of all humanity.’

     Not if I can help it. Fucking Xander, he should have finished that bitch. The good of all humanity. Fucking nonsense. The end of all humanity is more like it. Frances turned over in his bunk. He took out his index finger and tapped the wall. Then he patted his knee.

 

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