Dawn releases a long sigh and I realize I’ve once again said something wrong. “This is Mariah’s apartment,” he says. Oh. Right.
“It’s, um, nice.”
He snorts. “Yeah, sure. You should have seen her parents’ house.”
“Oh right,” I say, remembering Duske’s story. “She was of some kind of royal blood, right?”
Dawn nods. “If Mariah had continued on the path she was born to take, she would have been one of the Circle of Eight by now,” he says. “And probably married to Senator Duske.”
I raise an eyebrow. “But he’s so old.”
“He’s twenty years older than her. But that doesn’t change how he feels about her,” Dawn replies. “That’s probably why he allowed her to Moongaze to Earth instead of killing her when he had the chance.”
“Interesting.” No wonder he’d been staring at me like that back at his house.
“In any case, the Circle of Eight consists of four men and four women, and the positions are passed down from generation to generation,” Dawn explains. “The idea is that unlike the democracy we had before the war, no appeal for votes or campaign contributions will force the governing official to be swayed in policy. The Circle will always be in power, and therefore there is no threat to them ruling fairly and decisively.” He shakes his head. “That’s the bull they feed us, anyway. In reality, the Circle is probably more corrupt than any democracy ever was. And because you can’t vote them out of office, they are able to do anything they please.”
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” I murmur. “So, what made Mariah decide to rebel?”
Dawn is silent for a moment, staring at the blank wall in front of him. “She met me.”
“Ah. So it was like a postapocalyptic Romeo and Juliet kind of thing? Indy and Dark Sider?” I’m almost amused at the cliché.
Dawn snorts. “Not exactly.” He fiddles with a ring, pulling it off and on again. “I wasn’t always a Dark Sider either.”
I raise an eyebrow. This I did not expect. Though I guess I should have—after all, he doesn’t have the deformities of the others. “So you were an Indy as well?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I don’t think we’re going anywhere tonight.”
Dawn gives me a rueful smile. “It’s also a big secret. If word got out about who I really am, I would be killed on sight.”
I remember the identification card back at his apartment. “So, what? Are you on some ten most wanted list or something? I kind of figured all the Eclipsers were anyway.”
“The Eclipsers are a nuisance to the government, yes,” Dawn says. “But I’m a walking, talking liability. And the Senate doesn’t exactly like to leave loose ends like me wandering around.”
“What do you mean?” I’m beyond curious.
“Look,” Dawn says, turning to me. His blue eyes are earnest and concerned. “What I’m about to tell you can’t leave this room. If they find out who I really am, they’ll track me down and kill me without a moment’s hesitation.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “I’m trusting you here. Am I right to do so?”
“I’d never betray your secret,” I assure him. I lean forward on the couch, eager to hear what he has to say. What secret could be so big?
“The surface of our world, as you know, was made unlivable after warring nations decided to bomb each other into oblivion,” Dawn explains. “The types of bombs they used allowed for the decimation of life without destroying the infrastructure. So there are a lot of treasures up there on the surface. Stuff the government would kill to possess.”
“I can imagine.”
“In any case, my birth wasn’t the result of two people making love,” Dawn continues. “I was an experiment by the government. Egg, sperm, and a boatload of cybernetics—all mixed together in one big genetic soup. A few semiconductors in the brain, lead/titanium plates under my skin, and the pièce de résistance—a palm implant that emits special radioactive nanoparticles, which allow me to heal people.” He stares down at his hands. “I don’t know all the details. Never got to see my own blueprint. But the idea was to create superhumans who were immune to radiation. Beings who were extra strong and able to go up to the surface and labor for long hours, looting old buildings and bringing their treasures back below.”
“So you’re a …” I’m not sure what word I’m looking for.
“Nothing awful,” Dawn assures me. “Just a genetically enhanced human. I’m flesh and blood like you. I can feel. I can think. I have all the emotions a regular person would have. Only more.”
I nod, feeling a bit relieved that I hadn’t just been making out with a robot.
“That’s how I healed your arm,” Dawn adds. “I was created to be a surface medic. To take care of the others when something went wrong.”
“That’s a pretty useful skill,” I remark, glancing down at my wrist. You could never even tell it’d been broken. “So, what happened? Obviously you’re not working on the surface now.”
“The experiment was a failure. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t create a radiation-proof neuro-Terran—or nT, as they call us. Eventually, just like any human, we’d get sick. But did the government decide to stop the program when they learned this? No.” He shakes his head, disgust twisting his mouth into a frown. “The treasure retrieval is too valuable to their operations. So they continue to use us. Once we become too sick to work, they dispose of us and create new nT workers to fill our slots. Luckily for them, we’re cheap to manufacture.”
I stare at him, horrified. “They’d dispose of you? Like, kill you?”
“They call it ‘retiring.’ But yeah, it’s pretty much just murder. Though by the time they take someone off the job, they’re so sick with radiation poisoning, it’s almost better to die and get it over with.”
My stomach churns with nausea. How can anyone do something like that to another person? “How do people stand for that? How can they just sit back and watch it happen?”
“Easy. The government tells people that the nTs are nothing more than mechanical creations. That we’re metal monsters with no feelings.”
“And people believe that.”
“Some do. Some don’t care either way. They choose to stick their heads in the sand and ignore all the atrocities. The government pacifies Indys any way they can—alcohol, drugs, little luxuries, and nowadays, Moongazing. When life is good and you’re feeling happy, people tend to ignore what’s going on, as long as it’s not in their faces. Indys figure it doesn’t involve them. They don’t know any nTs, so they simply don’t care what happens to us. Just like they don’t care what happens to the Dark Siders.”
I screw up my face in disgust. “I can’t believe they’d just look the other way, enjoy their lives, sponsored by the labors of the exploited classes.”
“In their defense, some don’t know the truth,” Dawn amends. “They believe what the government tells them. That the nTs are manufactured worker robots without feelings or family. If you think of it that way, the fact that we’re supposedly disposable doesn’t seem all that bad. I mean, woul