Chapter 14 - Implant

The ride to the Cloister was short. Moonlight silvered her breath. The sound of Maggie clomping along gave a welcome familiarity to the trip. Maggie knew the way well.

There was more detritus in the roadway, more structures damaged as Sara got closer to her home. The church was razed. The cart weaved through the obstacles.

The dome crested the hill, a false summit far too regular to be anything but manmade. The tessellated roof caught and threw the reflected moonlight at her. The ancient thing had withstood everything this new world had. She had thought it would be proof against anything from the Before Times too. Best money could buy. But she had been wrong. And there was one thing it couldn’t stand against--nothing could stand against. Betrayal.

Sara sniffled. Her nose ran from the cold and her eyes watered. A bitter wind lashed at her. The coat didn’t offer much protection leaving her to shiver.

It would be good to get inside. She should have trusted her gut instinct and come here first. The Abbot would have been avoided. His ramblings disturbed her. She shook her head. No, it was right to have helped him. But she certainly wasn’t staying in the brewery now. The dome would be her place of refuge. Another gust and a shiver overcame her.

At the entrance, she got off the wagon and went straight to the door. Lifting a panel revealed a keypad. A small red light indicated it still worked. Or so she hoped.

She entered her personal code. Nothing happened. Sucking on her lower lip, she tried the family override. Fingers hesitated from the effort to remember.

The light changed to green. The door locks audibly clicked and she pushed her way into the airlock. Red emergency lighting filled the space. Unfamiliar angry strips illuminated the walls, the floor grate. She closed the door behind her, not sure if the machinery still worked. If it didn’t, no amount of effort on her part would get the inner door open.

She listened for the pumps. Nothing.

“Well, crap.”

Frustration at having come this far and being thwarted made her grimace.

“Argh!”

She rested her forehead on the inner door. It moved. Sara was taken aback. A push and the door swung open. Something was very wrong. She climbed into the Cloister, dim red light from behind casting a crimson swatch onto the ground, her shadow stretching out and joining the all the other shadows.

The vast open field was dark, too dark to see anything clearly. It would be foolish to navigate the park now. She should wait until morning and just sleep in the airlock.

She looked around in the dark. A single, dim light burned overhead. It was high in the dome. Must be an emergency light. Fantastic suggestions and shapes played on the ground. The light served to make things treacherous.

Her eyes adjusted a bit. There was something ahead, a tiny greenish light amidst the black. Squinting at it told her it was cycling, dimming and then brightening. Hardly brightening though. It seemed a little dimmer each time. She took some more steps on the path, trying to discern the source.

“Sara.”

The barest hint of a whisper caressed her ears.

She jumped at her name. A frisson went up her spine. She looked around, trying to will her eyes to see better.

Odd, menacing shapes littered the ground. Ahead, the telltale light, growing dimmer.

Trying to swallow, she found her mouth suddenly dry. A few more steps forward. Another step.

CLANG!

Something was behind her! She took off in the darkness. Her heart pounded the rhythm of fear. Her feet could not move fast enough. As she turned her head to look behind, something grabbed at her ankle. She cried out as she fell. Outstretched hands found the hard surface of the road. Twisting around, she scrambled to sit on her butt and look back. Where was the danger?

The red emergency light was now gone. A green light burned in the darkness, above head level. About where the door was located. The now closed door.

She shut her eyes and tried to calm her breathing. Shoulders slumped. She sat a long minute as her heart slowed to normal. Apparently, other things still worked.

Picking herself up, she turned to face the mystery light. Even though in theory she knew where everything was located in the dome, she had a hard time reconciling that knowledge with the dark terrain she now faced.

There were several small black mounds on the road, not quite as dark as the blacktop. She carefully sidestepped them, the insides of the Cloister at Cotillion on her mind. It slowed her down.

She was beyond tired and emotionally fried. Her last moments with the Abbot were on constant replay while walking in the dark.

The small green light was at eye level. There was enough light to make out the gleaming steel and white ceramic of one of the caretaker mechanisms that were scattered about the park in the dome. This one, obviously, had been moved.

It was hard to make out but the shape didn’t look right. It looked like it was damaged. They probably all had damage now.

“I am glad you came.” A tinny, quiet voice reached out to her.

“Bob?”

* * *

She stretched on the blankets, arms out, fists clenched, toes pointed, eyes tightly closed. It was a good stretch.

Sunlight came in through the dome’s ceiling. It was mid-morning, judging by the angle. Digging through her supplies produced some hardtack to nibble on. Her stomach didn’t complain. She wandered over to where the speaker was located.

Last night, after discovering the Cloister AI was still working, she brought Maggie and the wagon into the dome through an already open service portal. Bob, the AI, apologized that it couldn’t seal the dome because of obstructions. Sara resolved to fix that in the morning. But first things first.

“Bob, how are you?”

“I am 14% nominal. Major systems have failed. Most concerning is power. I am running on backup power and it is not getting recharged. I estimate that I have thirty-six hours left before I have to hibernate.”

“Can we fix that?”

The AI was silent for a second. “It should be possible. There is a cache of tools that was not ransacked. We will have to repurpose a number of subsystems.”

Sara relaxed. “How long would it take to restore power?”

“Barring unforeseen circumstances, it should take you about seventy-two hours.”

Sara crossed her legs and sat down. The corners of her mouth drooped. Rubbing her forehead didn’t seem to help the growing headache.

“Well, how do we start? What is first?”

“I can print out instructions for you. Your old printer is still functional. This will only cut my operational time by half an hour. Shall I start?”

“By all means. Are the lights working?”

“I can control them. However, turning the lights on will decrease my operational time. I must warn you that judging from my last readings, there is considerable damage and debris.”

Sara nodded. “I understand. I have a lantern in the wagon. I’ll manage.”

In the sunlight, the Cloister was much easier to navigate. Looking around revealed the rage seemed concentrated on the machinery. The tender that Bob was using was the only one that was still standing. Most of vegetation looked fine, silent witness to what had happened. The grass had ugly ruts of dirt where things had been dragged. There was a stifling quiet overhanging everything. It made it worse for Sara. There used to be all sorts of noises in the background. Not now. Better get busy. She started down the roadway.

The mounds on the road were piles of ash. Sara wondered how and who was burnt there.

Reaching the stairs closest to her old workroom triggered memories of the times she had trudged up and down them, with Teegan and even stupid Jerry. She pushed those thoughts down. There was a job to do.

The door to the stairs was ajar. She hesitated, grasped the handle and pushed on it. The door wouldn’t open. It was stuck. Putting shoulder to the steel of the door, she pushed as hard as she could. A decomposing body scraped along the floor, leaving a wet trail, another mark on the gray cement floor to join the dried blood. Holding her nose, she stepped over the body and went down the steps, hand on the metal rail.

A trail of crusty brown went down the stairs to the first landing and through the closed door. Sara shook her head as she rounded the corner to go down the next flight.

Two more landings brought her to the destination. There had been nothing on them, thank Gaia.

She grabbed the handle of the door. The stench was overwhelming. Her stomach revolted and the repast of hardtack was at the back of her throat. She swallowed it down. Acid burned. A coughing fit wracked her.

Closing her eyes tightly, she grimaced and willed her breathing to shallow breaths through her mouth, and her heart to slow.

Straightening, she pulled the door open.

It was dark in the corridor. The lantern came on. The air grew fouler. The contest between her stomach and her will continued to ratchet up in intensity. She tried to keep the causes of the stench outside her circle of light with some success. Her heart raced a bit every time she encountered another body. Her eyes watered.

“Bob, how many bodies are between me and the printer?”

“I am sorry but I am unable to ascertain the number.”

Sara jumped. Bob spoke right by her ear.

“For the love of Gaia, did you have to do that?”

The voice moved away. “Sorry, I don’t have many operational sensors here at the moment. I had to approximate your position.”

“Fine. This place is hideous. It’s giving me the creeps. And the smell. It’s making me retch.”

There was a slight pause. “I will prioritize environmentals and cleanup once my power is restored.”

Sara nodded as she approach a large mound in the middle of the hallway. It was a pile of bodies. She counted at least five. They had unfamiliar uniforms on. The one in the middle wore the black armor of High Plains. It was face down, polygonal steel sword still in hand. Everything was missing from the waist down. A long blond braid adorned the head.

Sara hurried past it. “Did you see what happened?”

“I have recordings from various angles. I can construct a three-dimensional movie if you wish.”

A shudder went through her. “Maybe not.”

Another body lay in the intersection of the radial corridor and a gently curving one. There were more lumps straight ahead in the lantern light. Flattened appendages at strange angles were almost familiar to her.

She turned left. The printer, her destination, was mercifully close.

There was an ugly splash reaching all the way to the ceiling by the door. Various piles of rotting unidentified stuff plastered the wall and the floor.

The odors made her vision blur. Bending over, she put her hand against a still white section of the wall to stabilize herself.

She held her breath. Shallow breathing was making her a little dizzy. She did not want to pass out here.

When her stomach stopped quivering, she reached for the door handle and stopped. It was covered in dried gore. Lifting the edge of her skirt, she wrapped her hand in it and grabbed the handle. She felt it turn under her pressure.

The door opened, and she rushed in, slamming the door behind her. She leaned her back against the door and let out her breath. A quick look around informed her that there were no bodies here. Her fists opened.

“Bob, can you hear me?”

A familiar whir sounded. A sheet of paper came out of a slot and landed on top of a pile. Sara walked over to it and picked it up.

“Yes, I can hear you. No speakers are working in here. The instructions are already printed out. Please hurry back so you can start the repairs.”

Sara picked up the sheaf. Squaring the edges, she put them in a folder and turned to walk back. A sudden thought stopped her.

“Bob, what do you know about Brewer?”

Another sheet was ejected.

“He was an accomplished brewer here at High Plains. He accepted a mission to take you to Cotillion. A mission he obviously failed.”

Sara stiffened. “Do you know anything else about that mission?”

A second passed before another sheet came out.

“Nothing special. You were betrothed to the heir of Cotillion and expected to marry once you got there where hopefully you would produce offspring right away with your particular induced mutations.”

“Cotillion was destroyed before we got there. By something from the Before Times.” Sara ran her hand over her red hair and had a realization. “Can you print out a map of where the other Cloisters are located? I am going to have to visit them.”

The box whirred to life. She grabbed a marker off her old workbench and found Cotillion on the map. With grim expression, she crossed it out, folded the map and put it in her pocket.

“Bob, what is so important about the canister?”

The seconds passed.

“Bob, answer me.”

A sheet came out. “That information is marked proprietary only available under the direct command of the CEO.”

She was stunned. Her teeth ground together, and her hands clenched. Sara drew a deep breath.

And started coughing, the stench of the place giving her an awful taste in her mouth.

She grabbed the folder. Gagging, she opened the door. Time to face the gauntlet again.

* * *

Sara was queasy for a long time after she got back. She rested on a patch of green grass looking up at the dome. She could see clouds going by.

In a tinny voice, Bob kept asking her when she would start the repairs. Sara ignored the AI as best she could.

By midafternoon, she felt better. Not great but better. There was just enough time, Bob told her, to check the connections to the solar panels. Helpful pages with careful instructions what to look for and how to interpret the data were pointed out, read and underlined.

There were a lot of connections to check and the short day found Sara not quite done.

“This is going to take forever!” Sara dropped to the ground by the broken machine.

“You are doing fine. The damage seems to be less than expected. You should be able to restore my power in less than the estimated time.”

“Will you still be out for a while?”

“Yes, but for less time. Fortunately, the list I gave you is prioritized. The harder crucial tasks are listed first. I should be able to help you with them if problems arise.”

“Uh-huh. Bob, I need you to tell me the proprietary information about my dowry. The old See-Oh is gone. I would be the next one since I am the only one left. I am giving you the family override. Listen to my voice: Money Talks.”

Bob responded right away. “The canister contains a superior carbon fixing algae. It generates oxygen at an improved rate. Your sister engineered it to shut off when the CO2 levels fall below a certain threshold.”

Sara’s mouth dropped open. “Why...why not use it to fix the environment? What purpose did it have being sent with me?”

“It was to be used to create the next generation of O tanks that didn’t need refilling. Your father intended to indenture the whole of Cotillion as it would take many generations to repay. Part of his strategy to expand his holdings. Your marriage to the heir of Cotillion would have sealed the deal. I am glad that despite being made ready, you came back.”

Sara ate a protein bar. Maggie chomped on grass. Tomorrow would be a long day.

* * *

With her stomach mostly cooperating, Sara spent the morning clambering up and down ladders on the inside walls, checking the rest of the power couplings. Lunchtime was spent with Maggie. Spending time with the horse helped calm her nerves.

In the afternoon, Bob directed her to the energy storage bank. She was sweating in the warm habitat and felt a little dizzy. It was probably the after effects of her jaunt down below. The trip to fetch the instructions had debilitated her so much yesterday. She wiped her brow before heading to a bay on the wall of the dome.

Even a cursory inspection of the equipment showed that their luck had run out. All the cabinets had damage apparent even to her untrained eye. Covers were ripped off, the electronics ripped out and smashed, and black modules were strewn on the ground.

She ran through the diagnosis lists anyway. One panel whose cover was deformed from fire turned green when she flipped the breaker on it. Happy that one still worked, Sara hurried back.

“It is imperative that you reroute some of the cabling. I had hoped that the issue was elsewhere. I will print up further instructions. Time is running out.”

Sara shook her head. “No! I am not going back down there!”

“It is the most efficient way. I will need this to be fixed in order to continue the repair efforts for the rest of the power circuits.”

“I was sick the whole day. There’s--there’s things down there that I need to avoid.” A long blond braid flashed in her mind. She drew a breath. “Maybe you can talk me through the repair? I’ve got a horse. I bet we could move this machine over to the cabinet.”

There was a pause. “Certainly. We should do this right now while you are still feeling fine. You are still feeling fine at the moment, aren’t you?”

Sara squinted at the box. “Yes?”

“Good, we should be able to work around any minor discomfort. After we rewire...”

“Wait, wait, wait. Work around what minor discomfort?”

There was a pregnant pause. “Sara, have you experienced a period?”

“Why the hell would you ask that? I’ve got an implant...” Her jaw fell open. For a second, she couldn’t think of anything. Her fingers curled into fists, and she ground her teeth. “Gaia’s hairy tits! Get me ready?” she yelled at the speaker.

“Sara, you should calm down. It does no good to be upset now. Remember, we have a lot of work to do.”

“Calm down? You lying, overrated collection of silicon! I’ll calm down when I’m ready! You did something to me without my permission. Something life changing and you want me to calm down?”

“It was for the greater good. Our modeling showed that you would hesitate to leave Cotillion if you were pregnant. It was a desirable outcome. Clearly, our simulation was incomplete. You failed in your mission to mate with the heir of Cloister and instead mated with some unregulated human. Now, please control yourself. This is important.”

Sara shook all over. She looked at the dome’s ceiling. Her nails made marks in the palms of her hands. It felt like the muscles in her neck were popping.

She snapped her head down. Her eyes fixed on the ceramic and stainless steel of the plant caretaker construct. The voice came out, calm and icy.

“You’re right. I will calm down. I have something important to do. I need to go find a certain, unregulated human. Goodbye, Bob.”

“Wait! You can’t leave now. I’m not fixed yet. You are pregnant. You should be staying here.”

“Come on, Maggie. It’s time to go.”

The tinny voice faded, the pleas becoming a distant bad memory.

Sara hitched Maggie to the wagon and headed to the service bay. It was still open to the outside, not having been cleared yet.

She had to find Brewer.