Death Thieves (29 page)

I stopped midway through my inspection of the cradle. Was Jen taking fertility drugs? I snorted softly at myself. Surely, she would know that fertility drugs can create a multiple birth situation. Her doctor would inform her if such a thing were being prescribed. Would the regents, desperate for babies, have included fertility drugs in our inoculations? I scowled into the cradle.
Stop dwelling on things that don’t matter. Focus on your job!
With that admonishment and a bit of a shake to jolt myself back into my own reality, I finished checking the cradles.

Once home, I entered the data from the cradles into my lapdesk and spent the next couple of hours analyzing the difference between my data and the books I’d checked out from the library on healthy live births.

“Don’t tell me. You’re studying.” Alison carried several shopping bags. It amazed me that she didn’t overextend the credit given her on her IDR

“If you don’t study the problem, you’ll never find a solution.

“The problem you’re trying to fix is obsolete.”

Alison used the word obsolete? No matter what she said, she had to be studying a little to have so vastly improved her vocabulary. I didn’t argue with her about the problems I wanted to fix. There had been a few dissenters in the New Youth, but for the most part, the New Youths loved believing they were better than everyone else. Alison waited for some reaction, but upon getting none, she sniffed in disdain for me and likely for her bad luck on ending up with me for a roommate rather than someone fun. She went to the bathroom, got ready for bed, and slid under her covers. She made a huge show of putting on an eye mask to help eliminate the light from my lapdesk before rolling over in her bed so she faced away from me.

Alison hadn’t been able to guilt me into turning out my lights so she could sleep for months. She likely believed I took some demented sort of pleasure in torturing her, and, when I felt like being honest with myself, some part of me did find satisfaction in making her miserable.

After another hour, when I felt certain Alison had fallen asleep, I went to her lapdesk and ran a search for “Shaw, executed, crazy.” I used her lapdesk because out of all the New Youths, she was the least likely to be watched for nonconforming behavior.

There were over 58,000 pages with those key words. I narrowed the search by adding San Francisco. 23,467 pages. I narrowed it more by adding Professor Raik’s name. 129 pages. My heart pounded as I opened the first page.

Kirk Shaw had worked as a physicist in the research of making long space travel possible. His programs were funded by the university under the approval of Professor Raik.

Kirk Shaw. Tag’s father worked, however indirectly, for Professor Raik. The possibility of him being a different Shaw was there, but this fit so well into current circumstances. The article applauded Kirk Shaw for his vast achievements in physics. That’s Tag’s specialty, too.

There were many more articles on Kirk Shaw the physicist. All the articles had similar themes; Kirk Shaw had achieved this great goal. He’d solved that great mystery—until page 67.

I read page 67 with an increasing horror. My vision clouded with tears.

San Francisco Times—May 13, 2102

The regents were forced to take action on one of their own today. Kirk Shaw was sentenced and terminated according to crazy law. Shaw worked as the number one physicist under Professor Seaver Raik in the quest to perpetuate human life on other worlds. Shaw had made great advancements in his field when it was discovered by anonymous sources that he and his wife, Joy Shaw, had been harboring a crazy in their home nine years past the time of testing. Both Shaw and his wife were terminated under crazy law. Shaw held police at bay while the crazy and the Shaw’s son escaped the house. The children were missing for several hours, sending police on a manhunt that ended in the park several streets from where the Shaw family resided. The crazy held a child hostage at knifepoint, but after a forty-five minute standoff, released its hostage and accepted its fate. The Shaw property was confiscated and turned over to the state regent to disperse throughout the community, which had suffered from this ordeal. Professor Raik said, “It is a shame that the community lost such a great mind simply because that mind was not strong enough to live within the laws of our great regents.” Professor Raik has assumed authority over Shaw’s discoveries and will continue his research.

Who was the hostage? What was Tag’s sister’s name? Why had the article told so little? What kind of lousy reporter wouldn’t want to add all the juicy sorry details of an orphaned child?

Only two of the other pages available under my search included any news of the execution and the crazy child. But those articles were less detailed than the first. All the others were accolades to Kirk Shaw’s amazing mind. I rubbed my eyes, noted the late hour, and with a groan, moved to my bed. My fingers rubbed against the worn edges of my sun quilt, safely hidden underneath my sheet and bedspread, and I fell into the nightmarish sleep I’d grown used to over my life. Only in this nightmare, a crazy sister held me hostage, and Tag stood in front of us, not able to decide which of us to save.

4-1-2114

Yourit, your people are stupid. Nothing personal, and, no, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. I know you’re different. But the scientists of the future have some pretty childish ideas. It’s as if the trauma of a dying world, and the war you won only due to lack of organization on the part of the crazies, made your scientists infantile and incapable of doing significant work on their own. I’ve been researching sterility and mental disorders and sexually transmitted infections. And guess what? They’re all linked. Both chlamydia and gonorrhea cause sterility in men and women. And cytomegalovirus and chlamydia both can lead to mental disorders. When we pull blood samples and samples of the birthing fluids, we always test positive for these things and several others. But there seems to be a sort of symbiotic relationship happening with these three. The viruses are acting as a retrovirus, integrating their genetic material into the chromosomes of the human cells. The virus is taking advantage of the nerve cells being damaged by the bacteria that causes infertility. And the bacteria are hiding under the cover of the altered cells—feeding and breeding at a cellular level. They’ve actually altered the cells—damaged genetic code begets damaged genetic code, causing mental disorders and sterility resulting in no babies and crazy people. Professor Modesitt is looking for a cure to the craziness in the birthing fluids, but I don’t think the birthing fluids are the problem. The problem is the genetic material donated to create new life. I could be wrong, and I don’t have enough training and education to make any announcements to the medical community, but I really think they’re looking in the wrong places to find a solution to their problem.
The maternal genetic material in the mitochondria can, and has, mutated, causing mental instability
. I know you deal with physics, but you’ve helped with my biology in the beginning. How advanced is your knowledge? Can you take a look at my tests and find anything? I don’t know enough to try to find a cure, but at least looking in the right place for the problem might be half the battle . . .

Let me know what you think.

Sunny

I finished writing the letter on the stripped-down cardboard back of a shipping box for aquariums and tried to figure out how I was going to fold it up and stick it in
A Sliver of Midnight
. I hadn’t mentioned Tag’s family and how I knew what had happened there. If I ever got another chance to see Tag and talk with him one-on-one again, we might be able to discuss it then, but it seemed cold to bring up such painful memories and not be there to hug him after.

I finally left him a much shorter message in
A Sliver of Midnight
telling him to look in
Australia’s Ancestry
for the real note.
Australia’s Ancestry’s
huge size made it possible to hide the note without needing to fold it.

After an hour of perusing medical books on genetics and sexually transmitted diseases and infections as well as books that specifically covered HTHBI, I stacked my armload of new research and prepared to leave.

“Quite a heavy load, Miss Rae.”

I peered around the stack of books to see Professor Raik leaning against one of the glass columns and grinning his congressman smile at me.

“It’s not that heavy.” My heart quickened with the fear that he might have been following me. Had he seen me leaving notes in books?

“Not in literal weight maybe, but it is heavy reading, wouldn’t you agree?”

I did agree. Only an idiot would look at my stack and think I’d picked out fluffy bunny books. I shrugged noncommittally, not sure of his intentions. “You did say I should take some science classes.”

“So I did. Mind if I walk with you?”

I shrugged again and offered over an awkward smile. We passed under the sensors at the doors where the computerized female voice agreeably thanked me for my book selections and reminded me to return them in fourteen days. Professor Raik hadn’t offered to help carry my books home proving once and for all that chivalry in the future was dead.

“Are you happy here?” he asked finally.

“Happy, sir? Is anyone really ever happy?”

He raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow and cleared his throat. I shifted my books so they didn’t topple onto the sidewalk and waited for him to initiate a more specific conversation.

“Eddie invited you to a dinner party.”

So that was the problem. Eddie was always the problem. “Yes, he did.”

“And you declined?”

Well duh! That’s what I would have said if it had been anyone but Professor Raik. “Yes, I did.”

I turned down the sidewalk to go toward the garden tubes, but Professor Raik stopped me and motioned toward his car. I swallowed hard, but got into his car, settling the books on the seat next to me. Once seated across from the professor, I remembered the note from Tag still in my pocket. The message carried nothing incriminating. Just idle chit chat from someone named Yourit. But if he already suspected . . .

“Eddies worries about you.” He started again.

“Does he?”

“I’m trying to understand why you would reject him out of hand.”

The car jolted forward, speeding along down the rails. Honesty might be the best policy. “Eddie has all the intelligence of lunch meat. Any discerning female would reject him, and I’d hardly call it out of hand.”

“Intelligence. So you’re looking for an intellectual equivalent.” Professor Raik mulled this over a moment before he said, “Young Taggert is quite intelligent.”

I willed myself not to blink, fidget, or shift with my sudden nervousness. Playing stupid with Professor Raik would, in fact,
be
stupid.
You have the right to remain silent,
policemen used to tell suspects. I wondered briefly if they still did that, or if they just ex-ed them and let the cleanup crew handle the rest.

“You’ve been running some interesting searches. And frankly, I’m curious.”

“Curious about what, sir?”
They’d checked my searches. Stupid, stupid, stupid! How had they checked my searches?

“Curious about your relationship with Taggert.”

I snorted. “You think because I find Eddie repulsive that I have a relationship with a soldier I haven’t seen in a year?”

The car jolted as the locks holding us to the rails released. We didn’t slow our speed but instead accelerated and lifted off the tracks altogether, taking to the sky. Professor Raik viewed the landscape as it swished past.
Where were we going?
He took his time in forming his answer.

“When was the last time you saw Taggert?” he asked. He still kept his gaze toward the window, but I knew he wasn’t missing anything. He likely had a vid-cam recording me so he could rewind and analyze our conversation later.

“The day I broke into the barracks.”

“And yet you’ve dated no one while here. Doesn’t that strike you as out of the ordinary?” He briefly flicked his eyes in my direction and offered an assuring smile. I hated his smile. Some of the girls thought Professor Raik was handsome, and they’d have made a play for him were it not for the directive that we were not to fraternize with anyone who had diseased blood. That put the professor in the off-limits category. Still, I wouldn’t have been surprised if any of them had tried to seduce him. They loved him. I was terrified of him, even more now that I knew he’d been involved in the executions of Tag’s family, and even more now that I was trapped in a flying car with him miles above the ground whisking off to who only knew where.

“I had a boyfriend at home. Nathan died in the car wreck I should have died in.” I willed myself to look weepy, which wasn’t hard. Nathan hadn’t deserved his fate. He could have been amazing if he’d had the chance to live.

“So you abstain from romantic interests out of mourning?” His gaze settled on me—locking me into place.

My breath felt erratic; could he see that? Could he see how my blood raced through my veins out of sheer panic? “Survivor’s guilt is painful. Besides I’m learning. You said we should learn. I’ve—”

“Oh I know.” He waved away my protest. “I see those searches, too. You’re on a quest to cure the disease you don’t understand.”

I opened my mouth to tell him he was as stupid as his scientists, but bit down on my tongue hard enough to taste the blood. Insulting the man who scared me to tears didn’t seem all that smart. “Lots of us aren’t in relationships. My roommate isn’t serious with anyone—”

“You know your situation is different. None of your classmates are investigating their soldiers, even the ones who had Taggert. None of the rest of your classmates worry about the commoners.”

He said commoners as though he weren’t one of them—as though his heart didn’t pump HTHBI through his body, too. I held his gaze as levelly as possible, my muscles hurting from holding still.

“How did you locate his name?” Professor Raik asked.