Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

I don't trust that thing, Erik thinks at me as we walk through the dark maglev tunnel, half a klick away from Dome 2 now. And I don't like it following us.

I'm not a big fan of him sending thoughts into my head, but I figure fair's fair. You gave it new orders.

Clones are conditioned to follow orders, and yeah, I gave it a new set, he replies. But there's no guarantee it won't revert to its original directive. Namely: locking us up for our own protection.

I glance back at the clone, hearing only the heavy, measured footfalls of its armored boots. Weirdly enough, I can see it. And I shouldn't be able to, not with the only light being an occasional glow strip mounted along the track below. Not without my augments, at any rate. But I can make out every centimeter of its white armor as clearly as if a train were speeding down the track, washing the tunnel with its headlight.

Maybe my eyes have just grown accustomed to the dark. Or maybe the capabilities of my visual augments are lingering, enough to see a bit. I can't allow myself to consider the alternative: that in addition to my newfound telepathy, I have a second bizarre ability that has decided to manifest itself.

I don't tell Erik. I don't want to encourage him. Or scare myself. What the hell am I turning into?

No. I can't allow the anxiety to take root. I breathe in and out a few times and focus on the path ahead. Once I report to MedTech at HQ and get my augments fixed, everything will be back to normal. No more mind-reading or night-vision.

But is that what I really want?

I'm surprised we haven't run into any other enforcers. After a terrorist attack, martial law should be in effect, with armed guards at every point of entry.

Erik chuckles at that. Just you wait. The outlying domes will be different. Crackdown in full effect.

Why should it be any different in Domes 2 through 10?

He glances back at me. The sun shines on Dome 1 while clouds cover every other dome.

I've heard that saying before—usually from residents of the outer domes. They seem to think Dome 1 is this majestic, opulent city favored by Chancellor Hawthorne while the other nine domes' second-class citizens live only to serve. To provide for Eurasia's every need: agriculture, manufacturing, technology, oxygen generation, recycling, and waste management, to name a few. But it doesn't matter where you live or what your job assignment is; Eurasia would cease to function if anyone gave up their responsibilities. Every dome is vital. So is every citizen.

You sound like a patriot, I think at him.

He shakes his head. You still believe I'm a terrorist?

Jury's out.

What will it take to convince you I'm not?

I've been trying to keep an open mind, to listen to what he's had to say and somehow make sense of it. No idea where exactly he's leading me right now, but he seems to think we should find the other members of the Twenty. If doing so doesn't involve working with terrorists, then maybe I'll trust him. But I have a hard time believing he got hold of an EMP grenade—and those discs he used to immobilize the clones—without some sort of shady underworld contacts.

Just because I happen to know people on the other side of the law doesn't make me a patriot.

Gritting my teeth, I restrain myself from cursing him out. I've got to figure some way to hide my thoughts—

I could teach you, he offers.

"Stay out of my head, or I'll shoot you in the leg and drag you back to HQ."

"Police brutality!" His voice echoes up and down the tunnel. "Did you hear that?" He looks at the clone. "She just threatened me!"

The security clone doesn't respond or alter its pace, walking a couple meters behind us.

"So. Tucker and Margo. Who were they?" I ask.

He faces forward and keeps moving. "You remember them."

"It's blurry."

"It'll clear up. As long as you don't use those augments, all of your memories of the early days will return in time."

If what he said is true, then we're talking extremely early. Pre-birth. How is that possible?

"Margo made us," he says, like he's discussing the latest Linkstream upgrade. "And Tucker introduced us to our parents. Our real parents."

"In North America."

"That's right."

Land of infected freaks. Does that mean we're infected, too? Is that why we can read minds, see in the dark, or jump off domescrapers?

"How do we remember them if we weren't even born yet?"

He casts a sly smile over his shoulder at me—which I can see in the dark.

"We've always been special, from the moment we were conceived. Margo was too, that's how she could communicate with us." He taps his temple. "Mind to mind."

"What do you mean, she made us?"

"Hawthorne and the Governors perceive anyone who's lived on the surface of the North American Wastes as being infected. If you breathe the air, you're contaminated. Happened to the leader of that military team they sent over there twenty years ago. His protective gear was compromised, and his superiors didn't let him back into Eurasia." He pauses. "Our parents were infected. But their sex cells were extracted in a sealed underground lab, and Margo combined those cells to make twenty viable embryos. That's it in layman's terms, anyway."

Sounds like a VR interactive. So very far from any semblance of reality. "Why?"

"Back then, Eurasians weren't having kids anymore. Because they couldn't. Sterility had become a rampant epidemic, and the Governors were afraid we would die out after the youngest generation grew up and eventually expired. The Terminal Age generation." He pauses. "People your boss's age."

Commander Bishop. She's got to be worried about me by now. Offline, not reporting for duty. If the clone's comms hadn't been damaged by Erik's immobilizer—or whatever that was—I would have contacted her. As it is, I'll have to wait until we reach Dome 2 to connect with local law enforcement.

But with