Chapter 15: Some Truth
With the advent of the Swarm, society divided into three main groups: the scientists, the fixers, and the omies.
The scientists took over the role of the old politicians. As the scientists rose higher in the scientific community, they acquired more and more political power.
The fixers ran the biome system and created whatever the scientists deemed important both scientifically and politically.
The omies were the saviors of the human race. They were the chosen ones, and were given the privilege to live in one of the biomes orbiting the planet. It was soon discovered by many that this privilege was not as prestigious as first believed. Once someone was sent to the biomes, there was no returning.
The next meeting between Jayne and the others crackled with an almost electric tension. The room was different. It was more like an office; a woman’s office for there was an air of femininity about it.
Jayne sat. Her feet were on the floor and her hands were flat on the table in front of her. The needle had disappeared from her shoe. The silver star hung around her neck on the outside of her clothing. She was very weak. She slowly sipped the water in front of her. Her eyes darted between the woman and the man seated on the other side of the table.
The woman spoke first. “Well, Jayne, firstly we must say that we are sorry for what happened yesterday.”
“It seems you are sorry for a lot of the things that you do to me,” said Jayne.
“Yes, we are sorry and we did not do anything to you yesterday, not on purpose anyway,” said the man.
“I did not start the day sick but so far, thanks to you, I have been sick twice in two days. It has been two days, has it not?” asked Jayne. “Who are you people anyway?”
The woman spoke up. “We have decided to tell you everything. It is a risk on our part but having you on our side far outweighs the risk.”
“Me!” exclaimed Jayne. “I am just a lowly fixer apprentice.”
“Believe me, you are far more than that,” said the man.
Jayne made a face of disbelief. “Really! How?”
“You were chosen by them,” the woman said, emphasizing the last word. “I know that doesn’t make much sense to you but if you allow us to explain, it will become clearer.”
She waited, staring at Jayne. Jayne stared back and the woman held her gaze. Finally Jayne nodded.
The woman continued, “Since we last saw you, we have done some research and we discovered things about you that you are probably not aware, in any conscious sense. You got their attention after you wrote the TEM exam. That exam has some questions that are open-ended. Every question has a basic answer that makes it right or wrong but a few can also be answered with increasing depth, depending on the student’s level of understanding. You went way beyond what was expected from an applicant for the TEM apprentice program, especially for a 13-year-old still living in the nursery.”
“Those problems are the ones I like the best. I look at them and I see a tunnel that wriggles about, swelling and narrowing and spinning in front of me. I simply follow it. Sometimes I get to the end and sometimes I don’t. I didn’t get to the end of any of those problems on that test. I was worried I failed,” said Jayne in a flat tone.
“Well, as you now know, you didn’t, not by a long shot. You set off a lot of bells at the top and, from that point on, they have been studying you and trying to manipulate you.”
“Who are they? asked Jayne. “For that matter, who are YOU?”
The woman looked at the man. He stared back and finally nodded.
She continued, “I will tell you who they are first because that will really help explain who we are. It will also help explain what happened yesterday.”
“OK,” said Jayne.
The woman let a long breath escape her lungs and started, “We call them ‘The Forevers’. No one knows what they call themselves but they see themselves as being the true answer to the survival of the human race. We know they are made up of politicians and scientists. One cannot really exist without the other in today’s political landscape. The politicians supply the money and the scientists provide the expertise. The other key ingredients are power and secrecy. If what they are doing were ever made public, the resulting chaos would collapse the whole system. Nobody wants that, least of all us.”
“I thought the biomes were the true answer to the survival of the human race,” said Jayne almost reciting.
“Yes, that is what we believe. Creating a system to transport humans to new planets, with the required biological changes, will truly enable our species to populate the galaxy. They believe that the extension of human life expectancy is the real answer. They are afraid that the biome population will have lost the ability to maintain the legacy of the human race or even have the skill to inhabit the planets by the time they arrive. They want the brightest and the best minds to live until the biomes reach their new home planets even if that takes 1,000 years. They will use anyone or anything to achieve their warped goal,” lectured the woman.
“What is wrong with wanting to live forever?” asked Jayne. “I think it is rather noble. They are not giving up. They just want what we all want. They don’t want to die.”
The man stood up. He smiled, raised his arms and clasped his hands together. He spoke. “You are right. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong, truly wrong, is that they are willing to sacrifice everyone else to achieve it. They would sacrifice you or me in a heartbeat if it served their purposes. Many have already been sacrificed to serve their need to keep themselves alive. I think you have already seen one of the common examples of their inhumanity.”
“I have?” queried Jayne.
“They designed the spavators and the biomes. They incorporated ‘back doors’ in the designs. They can easily transport materials to and from the biomes without being discovered. You must have seen one of their organ transports. Didn’t you mention that you saw a human heart being stolen by a nine-fingered man? Just so you know, we have identified him thanks to you noticing his missing finger.”
“Did you arrest him?” asked Jayne.
“We are not the security police. We can’t arrest anyone,” said the man. “We can only watch and record.”
“Maybe someone really needed that heart,” said Jayne.
“Yes, I am sure they did, considering they took it from a healthy living person in a biome,” said the woman. “Someone was murdered to keep one of the Forevers alive. They decided that the survival of some old scientist was more important than an 18-year-old boy in Biome 6. Our agent informed us that the formal investigation revealed that the kid wandered into the wilds of Biome 6 and was attacked by some large carnivore and was killed. It seems that this carnivore was very selective in that it only ate the boy’s heart.”
“Are you saying that they killed a healthy person in order to give an old guy a new heart?” asked Jayne.
“I’m surprised they did not take all of his organs. After all, a healthy heart usually means a healthy liver, lungs and eyes. I understand the beasts in Biome 6 have an affinity for eyes,” the man said sarcastically. “I bet they were in a hurry and the heart was all they had time for.”
“Now you—what do they want with you? That is the million credit question,” said the woman.
“I have no idea,” said Jayne. Her forehead wrinkled. “Why did you make me sick yesterday?”
The man puffed out air and raised his hands and eyebrows in defense. “We did not make you sick. They did. More specifically, THAT did,” he said and he pointed at the silver star hanging around her neck. “We spent some time and called in some hard-to-come-by expertise to analyze that little treasure. You were knocked out so you wouldn’t puke yourself into oblivion. You have never been very far away from that star since you got it or you would know about that particular effect. The only thing we did was to put it in a safe box to protect us from possible explosions. The safe box also blocked its connection to you. That is why you
started to vomit. The connection is like an artificial addiction designed to make you feel better wearing it than not wearing it.”
“You thought my necklace was a bomb?” asked Jayne.
“Yes. It is not, but we did find out what it really is and that, as far as you are concerned, is much worse. It is also much more dangerous to us that any bomb. We have seen that symbol before in a golden locket. Only this golden locket exploded and took out three fixers. You do not want to know what happened to the young lady wearing it,” warned the man.
“Should I take it off?” asked Jayne, as she reached for the silver star dangling from the chain around her neck.
“You could but you shouldn’t. We have altered its effect on you. When you first got it, it must have injected some nanobots into your bloodstream. Did it form a sharp point and stick you the first time?”
Jayne nodded.
“That’s why you puked when you took it off. When the connection between it and the nanobots is broken, the nanobots tell your brain to tell your body to vomit. We changed their programming a little. Now, if you are more than five metres distance from it, you will feel a shiver run down your spine. That is just a reminder to always wear it. We also noticed what we assume is a flaw in the programming. It is really a transmitter that sends biological data to a receiver. Whenever it transmits, the nanobots react as if you have taken it off, hence you would feel nauseated. Have you ever felt sick for a few seconds and then it passed?” he asked.
Jayne thought a moment and said, “A couple of times. Just for a few seconds. I felt like someone was watching me.”
“They probably were. Just so you know, the only thing we changed was the effect. No more nausea, just a little shiver down your spine. If you feel it, you will know that they are receiving a transmission from the star. You must continue to wear it so they do not suspect we know what it is. We can read its transmissions and are working on a way to use it to find out more about their plans. We really want to understand why they chose you because it is more than just your intelligence,” he explained.
Jayne flushed.
“That brings us to the most important reason why you are here,” said the woman. “Will you work with us? Will you help us? Will you be a real fixer and help us fix this horror that has infested our society?”
“You really mean, will I be your spy. Right?” challenged Jayne.
“Yes,” the woman said without hesitation.
“And more,” the man said.
“If I am going to be a spy, I would like to know for whom I am spying. So again, who are you?” Jayne demanded.
The man and woman looked at each other. They nodded and came to an unspoken agreement. They would trust Jayne. The woman spoke first. “We call ourselves the Sentinels. We watch and we record what we see.”
“We watch more than just fixer society. We watch in the political and scientific realms as well. Lately, that has been our focus,” said the man, “our secret focus. We would like you to join us. We don’t know why the Forevers are interested in you but we do know that they have gone to extremes to test you. We also know that they are a very secret cabal made up of scientists and politicians. They will go to any lengths to keep their activities from becoming public.”
“We want you to work for us but we also want to protect you. You may be in much more danger without us than with us. We think this will be a mutually beneficial relationship,” said the woman.
“Are you willing to join us?” asked the man.
Jayne looked at the man and then to the woman and back again. She fingered the star hanging from her neck. She took a deep breath to pose the question inwardly and then made up her mind on the exhale. She nodded to the woman and tucked the silver star under her clothing. It felt warm against her skin.
The woman smiled and said, “Good. We need to get you reassigned. We will support an application by you to the Biome Tech Program. With your skills in TechElecMech, it will not be difficult. They might suspect something so be prepared for some…” she paused and quickly continued, “odd occurrences.”
“Odd occurrences?” echoed Jayne. “What does that mean?”
“Well, if they stay true to form, they will want to test and scan you. They are particularly fond of connectome scans. We have not really figured out why, but the possibilities are rather macabre,” said the man.
Jayne swallowed. “How do I contact you?” she asked.
The man and the woman looked at each other and back at Jayne.
“You can’t,” they said in unison.
The woman continued, “It is far too dangerous to our purpose to have any uncontrolled communication between the Sentinel home and Sentinel satellites. You are now a Sentinel satellite. All you need to do is observe and remember. Occasionally, we will need to brief or de-brief you. Only then will you report. If you see this symbol, we are responsible.” On a sheet of magnetic scribe, she drew, with her finger, a small oval with a dash in the middle.
ϴ
It was the Greek letter theta. She held it up for Jayne.
Jayne watched as the symbol slowly faded.