Enid was sitting on the edge of one of Eyre’s skycar pads her legs dangling over the side. She was sipping a travel mug of very good coffee. The taste made her feel better, even if the caffeine had no effect. She looked out of the neon holograms the lit up artificial night of the megacity. Soon it would wake up but for now it was night. Enid heard footsteps. She knew it was Maria without looking. Maria slipped down and sat beside Enid.
“Morning sis.”
“Good morning, Maria.”
Enid smiled at her sister and put her hand on Maria’s thigh.
“Thank you for extending your stay.”
Maria patted Enid’s hand.
“Its not like I’m in a rush to find my missing sister.”
Enid looked into Maria’s dark brown eyes.
“You know, when we met, and I was told you were going to be my sister, I was so happy.”
“So was I. I always wanted a sister my age.”
“What about Plutonia?”
“She was twenty when I was born. Married and away from home. I barely knew her.”
“Did you think when we swore the blood oath to each other, we’d still be so close three thousand years later?”
Maria smiled.
“Yes. Well, I didn’t picture here.”
Maria waved her arm out over the 29th century city.
“But I knew whatever was happening, I could depend on you. Wherever we were…we would be each other’s pillars”
Enid chuckled. Maria lifted one of her knees and leaned her chin on it folding her arms around her leg.
“You just had to do it didn’t you? Go further than I did.”
Enid leaned towards Maria and bumped her gently with her shoulder.
“Wasn’t about that sis.”
“Why then?”
“I wanted to feel the light of another sun. Touch the earth of another planet. Breath alien air. Be alive again. I also didn’t want to bother anyone, so I asked Apollo for the closest terrestrial planet likely to be habitable. That wasn’t Alpha Centauri.”
“He said it was there, so I said set a course. He resisted of course.”
“But you convinced him.”
“I wonder where I learned that trick from.”
Maria laughed.
“But why such a rush? Everyone was worried about.”
Enid shrugged.
“You know…hmm. Maria by the end of my conversation with Albert I wanted to tear the ship apart, track down every single BMC location and bombard it from orbit. I wanted to kill the board with my bare hands…”
Maria nodded.
“I was angry. The kind of angry when stuff gets broken. Feelings get hurt. So… I just left. I needed to get my head on straight. Maria I wanted Christmas Eve to be special. It would have been a mess…a sobby, resentment filed mess. I haven’t seen any of you…in a century and a half, you expected me to be dead. Or maybe you expected me to be the same Enid who went into that universe. I mean all things considered I lost my husband like six weeks ago. Maria, you don’t know what I’ve done. I’m so broken now.”
Maria leaned close to Enid and put her arm around her sister’s shoulders.
“Tell me Enid.”
Enid sighed and looked out over the city.
“You know the choice you, Eyre and Amee made?”
Maria nodded her eyes growing sad.
“I had to make the same choice. I’m not a messiah, I’m a monster. I’d do it again, in an instant. I’d make the same choices you made when it came to Earth.”
Maria rubbed her sister’s shoulder. Enid leaned her head against Maria’s.
“Enid some people have the luxury of just living their lives and worrying about themselves. But we have power. The kind of power that comes with a lot of responsibility.”
Enid smiled.
“And with great power comes great responsibility…”
“Something like that.”
“You know what we’ve done, the blood on our hands, our sins. We can’t talk about it. It eats me up. Can you talk about yours?”
“I was the pogrom.”
“What?”
“When I was in Egypt… I killed Tiamat sucked her soul out with her blood, I’m the reason Remus had that scar on his face, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to kill him at some point. Remus forced me to initiate the pogrom. He… used a fallen angel to trap Hazel. Threatened to kill her. I started…but Maria… when I reached out with the blood, I sensed so much hate, so much greed, so much lust for power, so much…hunger. I just didn’t stop it. I could of, but I didn’t and I killed a million vampires in one instant. Maria, I made Remus watch while I drained the life from Tiamat then I left him there staring at her dead eyes. Father had to beg me to release him. When…my children are in danger… I don’t know when to stop.”
Maria rocked Enid gently and just listened. Enid fell into silence.
“Enid, you have always had a temper. It is part of you, you father did that to you, no matter what you do, that will always be with you. You are handling it better now though. I can tell. You were very deliberate in you rescue of Hazel and Eyre, even when you believed they had murdered Eyre. That is how I always like to look at it, you are being better than you were.”
“But I wanted to murder them all.”
“You did not, instead you accomplished your goals with minimal loss of life, rescued a teenage girl who I know for sure in Rome you would have just killed in a rage. You are what you do, not what you think.”
“I am so tired Maria.”
“I know. I know.”
“I do not want to go back to the past. I have everyone back again.”
“You know you need to though.”
Enid nodded. Maria pulled Enid closer again and touched foreheads with her.
“Enid you were always the strongest of us. I just need you to be strong for a bit longer.”
“Gods how I have missed you, Maria.”
“Sisters forever.”
“Sisters forever.”
“Hey Maria, can I keep Apollo.”
Maria laughed softly as she was wiping up blood tears.
“If It were my choice I would say absolutely. He loves you.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
“You know when I was designing him, I asked what would Enid like a lot. I guess that is why.”
“Something fast enough to be dangerous.”
“That was one of my goals.”
Enid wiped up some of her own blood tears.
“You know you look good in a uniform, Admiral.”
“You would too.”
Enid scoffed. The pair looked behind them when they heard footsteps. It was Amee who unlike them was wearing a jacket.
“You two are crazy, that’s an eleven kilometer drop.”
Enid smiled.
“We can fly.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Show off.”
Amee had her arms crossed.
“Glad I could get you two alone away from Eyre.”
Maria looked at Enid, and Enid understood immediately that no good would come from this conversation.
“I hate twins. They are always having conversations with their eyes that no one else can understand.”
Enid and Maria said in unison, without meaning too.
“We’re not twins.”
Amee quirked one of her black eyebrows.
“Could have fooled me.”
Enid took a big drink of her coffee.
“Blood?”
“No coffee.”
“Why bother?”
“It tastes good?”
Amee shrugged.
“Why not just get Aurelius to make coffee flavored synth blood?”
Enid and Maria looked at each other again. Neither had thought of different flavored synth blood. Enid made a mental note. She looked up to Amee.
“You didn’t drag your ass out of bed at four am to berate my choice of beverages, what’s up?”
“Well, I was trying to sleep but the person I was sleeping with left in her underwear and bra and no clothes and walked outside. I was worried about her.”
Enid looked down at her sports bra and black lacy underwear and smirked at Amee. Maria blinked at her sister who shrugged.
“Don’t judge me, she’s hot and as strong and tough as I am.”
Maria held up her hands defensively.
“Sorry just did not see it coming.”
“Nice choice of words sis.”
Maria shook her head.
“Sorry Amee, no mortal, no sleep.”
“Its alright. I decided I’d use this opportunity make a proposition.”
“No, I will not marry you yet, it’s only been three weeks, even if the sex is amazing. Maybe one day, and the relationship would definitely have to be open, you never know when I’m going to get stuck somewhere in the past for a hundred years.”
Amee quirked an eyebrow.
“Well nice to know its on the table eventually?”
Enid blew her a kiss.
“Seriously, what is it you need hon?”
Amee nudged closer but not so close she could see directly over the edge.
“I want you to go check out another couple of stars. They’re a bit further away. And I want you to go back to Trappist, get samples from the other planets, drop off wormhole telemetry beacons. Pave the way for…more formal exploration?”
“You realize there are probably sixty different tribes on that planet, and good luck getting the Dayside and Darkside to talk to each other.”
“I don’t care about the others; I want you to make contact with Lrrl again.”
“Amee, I just got my family back together and I have Miko to consider. Also, oh, ya reality is slowly being torn apart by time traveling demons.”
“The whole thing will take a month tops.”
Enid looked at Maria who shrugged. Enid closed her eyes.
“Look Amee, I’m starting to care about you a lot but this is a huge ask.”
“I know, but you are the only one who understands their language. Our translator keeps spitting out garbage and I have six supercomputers working on it. With what we have now, it will be centuries before we decipher it. And Apollo…he is wonderful, but he cannot do this work on his own, he has no hands.”
“Eyre will kill me.”
“Eyre will see the profit in it.”
“And what about Hazel? Miko?”
“Hazel can be registered in school here. I’ll hire tutors. Mitena said she would look after Miko.”
“You asked Mitena, she hates the WTO and corporations!”
“I told her the sooner we can find a suitable planet for colonization, the sooner the humans can get out of old domes that would be destroyed if we removed the Grey.”
“And she bought that?”
“Yes, because it’s the truth. We need places for people to live that are stable and will not crumble when the ice begins the melt, and the water starts to apply pressure to them.”
“You built a corporate dome on Titan, the pressure of the methanol is way higher than water. Because of Saturn’s gravity.”
“Some of our domes were built six hundred years ago. They’re barely holding together as it is, SATO dome is a prime example. But if we have no where to move people to what can we do?”
“Build more domes”
Amee motioned her hand around herself pointing at the dome’s surface which was just about 500 meters away from the trio at the moment.
“Dome like this, takes a century and half to build, even with all of fabrication tech. The resources alone…”
“We cannot keep up with the pace humans are reproducing now.”
“Then… advertise birth control.”
Maria shook her head at her sister.
“Sis, the slogan: ‘Be a champion, have a child, have three and be a hero’ is as ingrained into society as much as: ‘Reduce, Recycle, Reuse’. People know they are eating molecularly translated poo and they still eat that hamburger. Its kind of like trying to close the floodgates while it’s still pouring.”
“Who thought that up? That ridiculous?”
Maria pointed at Amee who was blushing now.
“Sis, it worked. Natural human reproduction is a positive for the first time since the incident.”
“Okay, what do you mean natural human reproduction?”
Enid soon found neither Amee, or Maria could meet her eyes.
“What the fuck did you three do?”
Maria shook her head at Amee. Amee sighed.
“We worked with Albert Mcdonald to generate babies with DNA mixed from viable samples we found in the ice. The last batch is in their fifties now.”
“You dug up the ice here get dead human genetic samples to create new children?”
Maria nodded.
“Two thirds of population here…are artificially generated, or they are the children of them.”
“They don’t know do they?”
Enid looked between the two and started shaking her head.
“You just made perfect little corporate soldiers didn’t you?”
Maria shook her head.
“Its not like that. They were told they were orphans whose parents died in a transport accident, or colony expedition. They were allowed to grow and develop in their own ways.”
“Following an education plan, you set before them.”
Maria shook her head.
“No, we set up orphanages all over the system. They were raised by different people with different methods. We went out of our way to avoid that exact scenario.”
“So other then being generated in a BMC lab from random pairings of DNA…they’re just normal humans now?”
Maria looked down at her bare feet.
“Ah you meddled.”
Maria nodded.
“We used it as a chance to remove several genetic defects from the gene pool we were creating.”
Amee nodded.
“Strengthen immune systems. Make lungs hardier. Increase lifespan. More adaptable to different gravities. Make them stronger, more agile.”
“How did you manage that?”
“We used genes from sample of your mortal blood you left stored in a blood gem.”
Enid closed her eyes and nodded.
“And that is how Albert got a new sample.”
“We had no idea he was going to clone you.”
“Look I’m past it now. Why did you meddle with the genetic material?”
Maria spoke up.
“We reasoned that we were going to need to colonize worlds. We needed a hardier breed of humans.”
“Why my genes?”
“Your genes are perfect. No flaws. No chromosomal damage. Even before you were turned you were stronger, faster, smarter…everything”
“But isn’t that going to reduce genetic variety?”
“No, each of the kids had three parents, you and the two random samples. You are like…the genetic ancestor too a whole new human race.”
Amee started up next.
“The genes are dominant. Eventually they will win out over the humans. We’ve been removing genetic abnormalities from fetus’s for a very long time. Humans without your special brand of…gene are still living to be a hundred and fifty. With them? Three hundred, four hundred years old. The fifty-year-olds still look like and have the health of a twenty-year-old. They’ll be able to have kids past the three-centuries mark.”
“So you brought this population apocalypse on yourselves.”
Maria shrugged.
“Damned if you do, damned if you do not. We reasoned if it was worth doing it was worth doing right.”
“So first you commit a genocide of biblical proportions. Then you genetically engineer better humans to outproduce the normal humans. This sounds very. Very. Wrong. Nazi level.”
Amee shook her head.
“That wasn’t the plan, the first was a solution to a problem…the second was a solution to another problem, there was no grand plan.”
“You two both saw Star Trek II right?”
Maria rolled her eyes.
“Aren’t you worried…they’re going to go all Khan?”
“No one will figure it out.”
“A lot of people have thought that before you.”
“Scientists have seen the changes in the gene pool, they have decided its been caused by living in the domes and the removal of genetic abnormalities from the gene pool.”
“But you stopped?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Well BMC is marking a new product. Blast from the Past. Have a baby with the man or woman of your dreams fresh from the ice.”
“And that’s going to work?”
Amee shrugged.
“Two thousand so far at three million a head.”
Enid drank the rest of her coffee down.
“You two have an amazing set of balls.”
“Eyre was just as involved in this as us.”
“She knew you were working with Albert McDonald?”
“Yes.”
“Yet, none of you noticed the old fossil was replaced?”
“We knew. He was a bit spry for a thousand-year-old human lately. His daughter too.”
“Yet you let them keep him there on that…prison ship, with a bunch of werewolves and vampires.”
Maria shook her head.
“We did not know about that.”
Amee nodded.
“The board got Jacob before we could. You see our deal was more…lucrative then the whole Alpha Centauri deal, so offing one of us, that was a step too far.”
“Daniel is fine though?”
“Yes. We used your evidence to exonerate him. And Eyre kept the Alpha Centauri deal with him. In fact he’s the new chairman of a fresh board.”
Enid blinked at the pair. Maria motioned Amee.
“Our chairwoman arranged for a tragic accident. The clones, and the board…were on a transport and it crashed into an antimatter torpedo. Nothing left to find. Now, Albert and his granddaughter are back in control of things, and Daniel is chairman.”
Enid nodded. Amee glanced at her friend, lover and possibly girlfriend.
“Albert had a lot of good things to say about you.”
“Of course, he did, he married my fucking clone.”
Amee shook her head.
“No, he said you were the perfect model of a lady. You treated him, a person you despise vehemently with more respect than anyone ever else has.”
“That wasn’t respect, that was compassion.”
Maria looked at Enid.
“Showing compassion to your enemy, what has become of you?”
Enid made a face at her sister and glanced up at the quickly brightening sky.
“We should discuss your proposal before Eyre gets suspicious and comes up to check and see why we’re out here.”
Amee looked at Enid expectantly.
“I’ll do it, but the cost is high.”
“Name it.”
“When I finish I keep Apollo, and whenever I need repairs, and armaments WTO takes care of it, and you pay for upgrades.”
Amee looked at Maria who shrugged.
“You do it, you keep Apollo, we pay for repairs and ammunition spent on any missions we send you on. We supply upgrades required for missions. And you promise never to use the wormhole generator without prior approval. Unless its an emergency of galactic proportions.”
“Okay, but I want my own penthouse apartment modern dome of your choice, fully furnished landing bay where I can do maintenance on him. So, what do you say sexy?”
Amee paused.
“What if I want you to move in with me?”
“I have a crying baby.”
Amee nodded in agreement. Enid offered her hand and Amee shook it.
“It’s a deal.”
Maria hopped up and patted her sister on the pack.
“Should have asked for more sis. She was talking about a moon.”
Enid shrugged.
“I would have done it for Apollo.”
Eyre popped out of her front doors.
“Mom why are you on my roof, half naked?”
“Your best friend was ravishing me.”
Eyre made a face.
“She’s a third your age mom.”
“Oh, if I marry you Amee, she has to call you mom. Imagine that, calling someone a thousand years younger than you, mom?”
Eyre spun around in annoyance and called out.
“I liked it better when I thought you were trapped in another universe! And put some god damned clothes on you harlot.”