EHuman Dawn (8 page)

“Suffice it to say, I’ve been tracking their Candidates as well. I have my reasons. They have faith in finding a savior. I myself am looking for a betrayer. And I won’t stop until I have that betrayer back in my grip.”

“I don’t understand—” she stuttered.

“You don’t have to understand,” he replied, releasing his finger from her chin and rising from his seat, “Just know this, Dawn has begun to bring in the Candidates for testing. Her first candidate will arrive at their headquarters within hours. If he’s the One, she will lead her attack on the WG. We must be ready.”

“And how do you suggest we prepare?” the World Leader asked.

“You must unplug New Chelyabinsk in Russia,” he said.

“Kill more people,” she repeated, without a note of dismay. She knew full well that mass slaughter was a favorite pastime of his. She’d let go of her guilt at least a century ago.
eHumanity was nothing to him; therefore it had become nothing to her. Closing her heart to their suffering was the only way she could survive.

“Yes, a few million more Lux released from the Earth will drive Dawn to act sooner than later. Besides, it will send her a message,” he said.

“And what about the Candidates?” Rosario asked.

“Ah, leave that to me,” he replied confidently, “With time, the One will come to me. And I’ll know just what to do when that glorious day arrives!”

Rosario beamed at him with all the affection and adoration expected from a devotee. Religious practice had passed from the Earth the day Dawn had first opened her eyes. Immortality made the worship of the gods obsolete. But for Rosario, religious fervor still lingered within her soul; it was Edgar Prince whom she worshipped. For his part, Edgar was completely at home identifying with the godhead. He was after all, the “Father of eHumanity.” Rosario’s complete devotion awakened his desire.

Edgar could smell it.

“Come here,” he suddenly commanded.

She rose and approached him. He roughly drew her closely to his chest. Sending his own desire in waves through his hands, he reached around her back to the waistline of her skirt, and parted the standard slit that covered her plug at the base of her spine. Slowly he ran the tip of his finger around the outside of the plug, driving her wild with pleasure. Rosario threw back her head and let out a small groan as Edgar thrust his entire finger inside her, sending an immediate shock up her body. She cried out in delight. Then, he withdrew his finger and forcefully pushed her out of his embrace.

She stood in front of him, shaking with longing and ache. For him to tease her in such a way was almost too much for her to bear. But she couldn’t protest, for that would be overstepping her boundaries.

“Go to my private chambers,” he ordered.

The World Leader nodded with relief, the hot flush of desire still pulsing through her system. She’d been yearning for weeks to service him as only a properly Pleasure Zone outfitted eHuman could.

“Yes my dear,” she whispered.

Immediately she left the room. As the door quietly shut behind her, Edgar contacted his secretary.

“Hold all communication requests,” he advised, “I’m going to be offline for the next few hours.”

Ah, the pleasures of Rosario’s latest eHuman body. He smiled when he thought of how the slovenly eHuman masses had to plug into Neuro to enjoy the orgasmic highs of life, when all he had to do was lie back, and let Rosario’s hands satisfy his unending craving for climax and pleasure.

He walked to the door to follow her. Finally, after almost two centuries of waiting, the Candidates were being tested. The One would be found soon, Edgar knew it. And in a few hours, millions more eHumans would die at his command. Sexual servitude from Rosario was the icing on the cake.

“It’s good to be the king,” he murmured as he sauntered down the carpeted hall towards his recharge room humming, “Time Is On My Side.”

CHAPTER NINE

Adam turned to Dawn. He pointed at the eHumans with a trembling arm and opened his mouth to speak, but Dawn shook her head. She mouthed the word, “Later,” and directed him to follow Origen. Eager to put as much distance between himself and the pile of rusting eHumans as possible, Adam trotted forward to catch up to the man and fell into step.

Origen followed the river for a few more miles. Then he took them off track and into the forest. These trees were not necessarily grand, but the forest was thick with untamed and wild vegetation. Suddenly Origen disappeared from in front of his eyes.

“What the—”

“Down,” Dawn pointed to the ground below her feet. “He went down.”

Adam saw the hole, obscured by thick grass. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? Reluctantly, he jumped into it. The drop was farther than he expected, and he hit the ground hard, falling and rolling. Dawn was right behind him. She made a much more graceful landing.

Adam picked himself up and looked around. They were inside a circular cement tunnel running in both directions as far as Adam could see. A constant trickle of water, only inches deep, ran under his feet. The place had a musty, ancient smell. A hatch slid back and the hole to the outside world disappeared. Adam felt his eyes automatically click over to night vision.

“It opens and closes only for members of the Resistance,” Dawn explained. “It’s an entrance to the sewers.”

“What are sewers?” Adam asked.

“Before the Great Shift, every city had a sewer system. It was where human waste was taken and sanitized. Do you know what I mean by human waste?”

“Yes, of course.” Adam had found the files in his system. “The byproducts of food metabolism. Major disease vector.”

“Correct,” Dawn continued. “The need for sewers and the entire sanitation process became obsolete when we left the flesh. Most of our eHuman capable cities share a border with the previous city location, so that the population could enjoy seeing them rise from the ground in all their technical glory. New Omaha was modeled after Omaha, and built along its western border. When New Omaha was ready, the citizens literally Jumped into their new bodies and awoke in their new city. Shortly after the Great Shift completed, Omaha—along with all the other original cities of the world—was burned to the ground and left to nature. Hence the forests that surround all of our cities. And nothing remains of Omaha, except the underground infrastructure.”

“Like the sewer tunnels,” Adam said.

“Yes,” she replied, “Most city dwellers don’t know they exist. And references to them have been slowly removed from the public databases. The WG knows of course, but they’re not interested. We use them to travel underground during the day. We’ll be down here for twenty-four hours at most. We’ll resurface in the deep wild, and travel the rest of the way to the RCC in the open.”

They began to walk.

“Why…the bodies in the dump?” Adam asked.

“Leftovers from Jumps,” Origen replied condescendingly, “No one will take a used eHuman body. It’s against the law to recycle them. When someone Jumps, the body gets sent to the dump. It’s been very useful to the Resistance, actually.”

“Seems wasteful to me,” Adam said.

“It is wasteful. But we use the rejects for research, to make our own bodies resistant to Guardian upgrades. What we’ve learned allows us to get on Neuro without detection.”

“Ah, I see,” Adam nodded, suddenly feeling claustrophobic and hemmed in by the concrete tunnel that surrounded him on all sides. “So, you never told me why you formed the Resistance.”

“Fighting a totalitarian government that controls eHuman thoughts and memories isn’t a good enough reason?” Origen demanded.

Adam paused for a moment. He’d interviewed hundreds of people in his lifetime, but none were as crass and hard-assed as this guy. He wanted to say something smart in return, but one look at Dawn’s face told him that to tolerate the bastard was the path he needed to take if he wanted to impress her in the least bit.

“No, it’s a good reason,” he answered, “But I have a feeling that wasn’t what drove you to leave your cushy life as a superstar and go undercover. Something must have happened that triggered you?”

Origen turned and looked at Dawn. The newbie was right. It had been a singular, catastrophic event that had forced them to form the Resistance. Adam watched the two interact and noted the pain that appeared to blanket both of their faces. But there was something else in their gestures that made Adam take note; they seemed to be talking to one another. Yet not a
single word was being said. Adam had been to enough MindJuke nights at the club to know they were conversing wirelessly. Yet how could they do that down in the tunnels?

“Hey!” he cried out, obviously interrupting whatever it was that the two were arguing about, “How the hell are you one-to-one communicating down here?”

“Who said we’re communicating?” Origen demanded.

“I’m a reporter. I notice things,” Adam retorted.

“Oh please, Adam, you’re not a reporter,” he taunted, “You’re a Newsreel host! Nothing but a pretty face that presents the WG’s lies to the people!”

Adam knew if he attacked Origen, he’d lose any chance with Dawn. But in his rage, he no longer cared. Origen’s comments had hit their mark. As he took a step forward, Dawn gracefully slid in front of him.

Like most women, she was oblivious to the fact the quarreling men were fighting over her. All their posturing seemed like the typical male insanity that made living on Earth so difficult sometimes. Yet she hadn’t expected there to be such tension between the two men. Origen was her best friend and confidant. So why would he be so rude to her guest? Not in her wildest dreams could she imagine that it was simple jealousy that led the men to hate each other.

“Adam,” she said in a calm voice, “We have a feature in the Resistance that allows us to talk one-to-one without Neuro. We TeleSpeak wirelessly to one another using a direct channel, encrypted with our own private keys.”

Her words had the soporific effect she’d hoped for. It seemed that knowledge and information could calm Adam down. He nodded at her and smiled, which pleased her greatly. Something about his smile turned her on in a way that no one else had in a long, long time.

“Thank you,” he replied, “Seriously, the two of you act as though it’s unusual for a new recruit to be curious.”

“I don’t normally handle new recruits,” Origen grumbled.

“Really?” Adam countered, “Then why are you here, wasting your time with me?”

“Because I asked him,” Dawn quickly replied. She needed to switch the topic—and fast. “Anyway, back to your original question. Origen, why don’t you tell Adam why we formed the Resistance?”

“The Dawn Project was a gamble from the beginning,” Origen began. Even though he hated picking up the newbies, he actually enjoyed telling the story. That he’d spent centuries fighting the WG compensated for the fact that deep down, he really felt like nothing at all most days. It is strange that a man could be a hero to millions, yet be an absolute failure in his own mind.

“Our inventor, Dr. James Neville, had been working on the eHuman for decades, mostly as a solution for those who were terminally ill, or handicapped, to have a new chance at life. That the eHuman would be the sole form for human existence had never crossed his mind. As it often goes with scientific advancement, he needed more money to continue the project, and eventually sold the eHuman rights to Edgar Prince, CEO and founder of Guardian Enterprises.

“Prince was the technological leader of his day. And well connected. He easily convinced the government to go along with his plans by showcasing his most wonderful creation: Dawn. Born of the flesh as a simple girl named Sophia Castalogna, she was reborn on November 1, 2042, in an experiment witnessed by dignitaries, scientists, and business leaders from all nations in the world. At 12:01 PM EST, her Lux was Jumped from her carbon body and successfully entrained to live within the eHuman form. From that day forward, nothing would ever be the
same. In a matter of five years, the Great Shift began and the marketing campaign to convince humanity to become eHuman was launched with full force.”

Sophia,
Adam thought. The name elicited the feeling of unexplained grief within him. He glanced at her and at once looked away, unwilling to show her his emotions.

“That’s where you and the O12 come in,” Adam replied in an attempt to keep the romantic yearnings at bay and remind himself of his professional reasons for following the enchanting woman down into the sewers, “History tells it you were pretty successful. 100 percent adaptation was achieved.”

“In spite of what your history tells you, not everyone was on board, Adam,” Origen continued. “Some groups, like the sick and infirm, signed up immediately. Environmentalists were also eager to Jump into the cleaner world, decrying the overpopulation and pollution issues of the time and accusing the carbon-based body as dirty and the root of all their problems. But there were others, like the religious, who claimed that to cheat death was sinful to the God who created us, and that it went against God’s plan for humanity.”

“Nonsense,” Adam replied.

“To you. But to the faithful of 2050, it was a serious thing to be forced by their government to commit what they considered a mortal sin. Many of them refused and began to move from the cities and into the country to avoid the Great Shift altogether. Eventually, they were joined by a larger group of people, the Moralists, who simply didn’t care to live forever. They weren’t religious, so to speak, but they were against what they called ‘the eradication of the human being.’ Their argument was that it wasn’t the body that was imperfect or destroying the Earth, but human consciousness. To them, the carbon body was the perfect vehicle for experiencing life on Earth. Therefore the eHuman solution wouldn’t solve the problems of our
race, since it kept human consciousness continuously alive in a bodily form that could never really be a part of the Earth or evolve in any way.”

Adam wanted to dismiss this argument as well, but found he couldn’t. Dawn smiled at his silence, finding comfort in it.

“It’s a compelling reason to be left alone, isn’t it?” she murmured.