LEGACY RISING (16 page)

              The group moved low and silent through the twisted, blackened weeds, their feet sinking into acrid muck as they drove forth. They passed the thick trunks of mangled, half-dead trees—beasts they’d never seen, rumors and myth alone. “So this is where the trees come from,” Legacy whispered to herself, remembering the snippet of conversation she’d overheard at the founder’s ball.

Trimpot sniffed at the humid swamp air. Legacy smelled it too. Tantalizing. Syrupy. It reminded her of that pear, and indirectly, of Kaizen’s mouth.

              “What’s that smell?” Trimpot wondered aloud. “It’s so . . . sweet.” His eyes scoured the terrain for the source of the fragrance, but it passed, and the dome loomed into view, revealing itself to be a huge complex of glass triangles superimposed in a half-circle formation. They supposed they never had any sense of self about the size of their own dome, being as that they were constantly inside it. “Shit,” Trimpot hissed. “The people in there are still up and moving around! Lights and—shit! Duck!”

              The group hunkered down as the headlight of a trolley swept by, exiting from a vacant lot next to the dome and trundling off on the silver rail, over the dilapidated highway.

              Creeping around the perimeter of the dome to closer investigate the lot, they found four canvas bins labeled SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE, and TOWELS. There were also more stacks of crates, identical to those in the basement of Taliko Center. The group took refuge between a row of crates.

              “Let’s blend,” Trimpot whispered, gesturing toward the bins.

              “But what if someone sees us first?” Rain whispered back.

              Trimpot rolled his eyes. “I’ll go,” he sneered, slinking over the pavement.

Legacy glanced back to the entrance of the dome. A grip tool hung in the air, idle. Didn’t she . . . recognize that model?

Legacy took an uncertain step forward, squinting. Then she took another.

“Leg!” Dax hissed behind her. “Leg, wait! What are you doing!”

She had almost circled fully to the entrance in order to verify that this was the same clamp which had clipped her braid for a DNA sample as the police carriage delivered her across the drawbridge to the Archipelagos.

Which probably meant they wouldn’t be able to pass without the correct DNA.

Legacy expelled a sigh of disappointment and the grip tool jerked, alerted.

“Verification sequence initializing.”

Legacy fell a step back, but it was too late. The grip tool shot out on a stiff cable, fastening to her wrist and scraping for loose skin cells. She tore at the clamp, panicking at the thought of what might happen when the scan was complete, when Dax cropped up behind her, prying at the clamp with his two free hands.

“Get it off, get it off,” Legacy whined, clawing at her wrist.

“I’m trying!” Dax yelled, forgetting all efforts at stealth.

“
Coal-106, coal miner, unit #106. Positive ident—”

The grip tool sprang open and the tether pulled taut, receding, leaving Legacy’s tender wrist raw and pink.

“Did . . . did you hear that?” she asked Dax. “Did you hear what it just said?”

“I don’t know,” Dax replied sharply. He seemed almost angrier that she had been freed than he would have been if she’d been caught. “I thought it was calling someone. Let’s just get out of here.” Without another word, he pulled back into the shadows of the crate stacks.

“It said that the identification was positive,” Legacy continued, following him. “It said something about a coal miner!”

“Then why didn’t the door open?” he snapped.

“Because you pulled the clamp off!”

“Because you begged me to!”

“Why don’t you two yell a bit louder?” Trimpot asked them. They’d almost shot past the crew, who were hunkered down in the shadows and had changed into the smocks. “I don’t think the Duke of
Icarus
heard you. Here. Put this on.” Trimpot flung a small tunic at Legacy, and a large at Dax. “Must admit, it’s not exactly what I thought I’d find here,” he mumbled, glaring down at his smudged, gray smock. “Anyway, let’s just keep our gear under these. But leave our shoes and our pants here. Here.” He shoved open one of the crates. “Augh.” Inside were slimy patties of uncertain origin. “Let’s put our stuff in this one. Everyone want to keep their rebreathers on?”

“Just in case,” Rain answered. “We can always take them off if we need to.”

“I think Legacy may be able to open the door,” Dax announced. “It’s a DNA grip.”

“If it’s a DNA grip, there’s no way we can get that door open,” Vector said. “Is there? How could—how could Legacy open the door?”

“I don’t know,” Legacy seethed. “It said something about a coal miner.”

“Would you be willing to try it again?” Vector asked.

Legacy hesitated, but in the end, she knew that the positive verification damned her curiosity to satisfaction. She couldn’t just walk away from the knowledge that her specific chemical makeup was a key to this dome. “Yeah,” she answered, realizing that she hadn’t spoken. “Let’s go. Are you all ready?” she asked Trimpot, knowing he had to be equipped with his gear beneath the tunic.

“Always ready,” he quipped. “Let’s go.”

The group crept to the entrance and Legacy again stepped forth. The grip tool swiveled at her motion, darting to her wrist and fastening. Again its mechanisms furiously scrubbed at her wrist, this time breaking the skin. She winced, and the grip tool unlatched and drew away. “
Coal-106, coal miner, unit #106. Positive identification verified. Stand clear.”

The doors swung open.

              The streets of the complex were largely deserted. Drab, uniform structures lined the walk, entirely dim except one. A throng of expressionless individuals, wearing nothing but frayed towels, trudged toward them in a single file line, and the group ducked into an alleyway and went rigid.

“They saw us, they saw us,” Rain whispered. “We’re so caught. We’re so caught!”

“Shh,” Dax said.

The throng shuffled past, toward the well-lit building.

Legacy stared after them with peculiar interest.

“I think that must be their administrative, governmental, you know, official center of the like,” Vector deduced. “Look at it. All of these other spots are dark. That’s got lights. All these other spots have open entryways. That one’s probably got a lock, so—Shit!” He smacked his forehead. “Left the Cipher-Scope on the elevator!”

“It’s okay,” Legacy responded. “They’re going in. We can just sneak in behind.”

She couldn’t help but stare after the people of Old Earth.

One of them looked just like her.

When Trimpot and his followers entered what appeared to be the administrative facility of this dome, he immediately gestured for them to diverge from the crowd. Hallways branched in separate directions. The shuffling horde must have been directed by some kind of hive mind, for they did not speak amongst one another, nor were they being led, yet each seemed to share their destination.

“Clearly we shouldn’t follow the
zombies
,” Trimpot said, indicating the hallway opposite of the retreating mass. “
They’re
not going to be going anywhere of high clearance. All eyes on me?” As if that was ever an uncertainty for Neon Trimpot. “Let’s move.”

The group slunk along the wall. The doors here didn’t have doors. Nor did they have, then, locks. They only bore vague labels, like FREIGHT CHECK and ORDER RELAY.

“Seems like a . . . factory, almost,” Trimpot noted with disdain. “Or a loading dock.”

GENERAL MEDICAL STATION. SMOCK STOCK.

“Why isn’t anything being guarded around here?” Vector wondered aloud.

“I was thinking that too,” Rain whispered back. “And I also think we’ve disproved your theory of New Earth as exclusive resort location for the super-rich, Neon,” she smirked.

Trimpot only sighed in response.

RECORDS.

“Here we are.” Trimpot smiled, and the group ducked into another storage area, this significantly less organized than the crates. In fact, it more closely resembled an unkempt library. There were thick books of pressed gold paper, each bearing the acronym
N.E.E.R.
and three letters of the alphabet, some high on the shelves, others vertically stacked in no discernible order, and still more open on tables.

“N.E.E.R.?” Dax wondered aloud. “That sounds familiar.”

“N.E.E.R.,” Vector repeated. “New Earth Extraneous Relocation. It’s the New Earth’s contingency plan for unplanned births. You know. The ‘mistakes.’ Obviously, it doesn’t get much play on the radio waves, but it’s always referenced like an adoption program. Or like, you know, a relocation program. Send your accidental baby to work in the mass production units of Heliopolis! That sort of thing. Put them where there’s room for them.”

“Like Old Earth?” Dax suggested darkly, poking open a dusty volume titled L-I-T. Then he remembered Legacy. How she’d been able to use her DNA to open the door. Did she maybe . . . have a brother or a sister here? Some kind of family? Dax cast his eyes about, but she must’ve been behind one of the shelves. He began scouring for the volume L-E-G.

“L-E-G,” he muttered to himself, scanning. “L-E-G.”

There! It was upside down and misplaced between D-I-M and D-I-N, but there it was. Dax snatched it from the shelf and began flipping through names. Of course, with a name like Legacy, it was bound to be quick work. “Leg!” Dax called over his shoulder. “Get over here! I think I may’ve found something!”

“God, keep it down,” Trimpot snapped. “We’re being stealth, aren’t we?”

Dax’s eyes ticked over the names on the sheets, and he’d almost forgotten that he was calling for her until he saw the name.

LEGACY, PATRICK AND FURNICE. COUNT: 1. SEX: FEM. WARD ENTRY: AUGUST 27, 2291.

That was Legacy’s birthday.

“Leg!” Dax cried again.

“Keep it down!” Trimpot reiterated. “Although also, Legacy, could you pass me that eyeball thing, please? I assume it can record an image.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Legacy,” Trimpot said again, testily. “The eyeball thing, please.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and glanced around the room. “She’s not here,” Rain deduced.

“Shit!” Dax cried. “God damn it, when did she leave?”

“I don’t know!” Trimpot responded with equal fervor. “I was looking out for guards and stuff, same as you! Come on, we’ll just . . . find her. She can’t be far.”

An automated voice pounded through a speaker system in the ceiling.
“Severe storm warning,”
it noted coolly.
“Severe storm warning in approximately thirty minutes. Please return to your units. Thank you.”

“We’ve got to get our stuff,” Trimpot said immediately. “That stuff can’t get wet. The damn Contemplator is in that open crate! We’ve got to get our stuff, and get out of here.”

“Like hell!” Dax yelled. “We can’t just leave Legacy behind, you traitor!”

“We have no idea where she is, mate! No way to get in touch with her, either! Maybe she’s back at the elevator, waiting for us!”

“I’m not leaving without her!” Dax insisted.

“We have to leave at some point,” Vector interjected, “or we’re all good as dead.”

“And she heard the announcement too, if she’s here,” Rain added helpfully. “She should know to start heading back to the elevator, shouldn’t she? Won’t she meet us there?”

Dax glowered at the other three, infuriated that none of them—nor he—had noticed her absence sooner.

“
Fine,
”
he seethed. “Let’s go, then. But I’m not going up without her. You can be damn sure about that.”

The group fled from the administrative building with no proof of what they’d seen, then exited the dome. They could see what the mechanized voice had been talking about. The clouds were low and thick, rumbling ominously. Clusters of lightning laced the sky in the distance, approaching. The crew circled back to collect their clothes and Trimpot’s satchel from the crate in which they’d been hidden, and within a minute, they were rushing through the overgrown cattails and ferns, racing to the freight shaft which tethered the Old Earth to the New.

But when they reached the wide glass capsule, its Cipher-Scope still attached, Dax froze.

“She’s not here!” he announced.

“The storm is coming!” Trimpot countered. “Get in the damn elevator, Dax!”

But Dax balked. “I’m not going without her,” he reiterated.

“All
right,
” Trimpot allowed. The sky was starting to pelt rain. “Just get into the elevator and we’ll
wait
for her.”

“Do you promise?” Dax asked, edging toward the cabled box of glass.

“I
promise,
” Trimpot said. But as soon as Dax was inside and the doors had shut, with the rain hammering on and streaming down its sides, Trimpot lost his grip on his claim. “We’ve got to
go!
” he insisted. “Look! You can see the damn thing from here!” And it was true; a curtain of rainfall was closing in. “It’s bound to be
dangerous
to operate the lift in weather conditions like that! We can’t
wait
any
longer,
Dax!”