Traitor Born (Secondborn #2)(91)
Energy thrums and snaps in the air. There’s an overcharged, singeing scent. If I licked my fingers, I could probably taste it on my skin. As it is, I feel it in my chest. My hair rises, from the smell and from fear.
Agent Crow teeters on the edge of mania. His insolent smile cuts through my haze of disbelief. “Would you like a history lesson of the Fates Republic, Roselle?” he asks. “Not the one you’ve been taught in Swords about the nine Fates forming for the common good to create perfect symmetry between the classes. That’s mostly propaganda. I’m talking about a real history lesson.”
“Enlighten me,” I reply.
He clasps his hands behind his back, and we stroll together through a ring of the glowing tanks. “As you know, our species has made such medical strides in the past centuries that we live significantly longer now than our ancestors did—sometimes a hundred years longer or more. Advances in medicine and technology keep driving those ages higher. Once, our population exploded. We were on the brink of exhausting all our natural resources, bringing catastrophic destruction to the planet. We were wasting away. Something had to be done. At the same time, a powerful ruler by the name of Greyon Wenn the Virtuous came into power. Have you heard of him?”
“Of course,” I reply. We continue between the glowing containers like lurking rats. “Greyon was a ruthless warlord and a brilliant strategist. Brutal in his tactics, he slaughtered his rivals when they surrendered, and he set about systematically toppling every other government until he became the first supreme ruler to dominate the world. He formed a single unifying government and presided over it with ruthless aggression.”
A sudden spasm of motion explodes in the cylinder next to me. I lurch away. Hands press against the transparent surface. An open mouth with sharp fangs gropes the glass. The eyes of the creature are completely black. Gills cover its neck. Webbed fingers paw at us through the fluid. I’m not sure if it was once a person or not. I shudder. Hawthorne shoves me away from the tank, propelling me in Agent Crow’s direction.
Agent Crow chuckles and keeps walking. “You surprise me, Roselle. You know our true origins. Your mentor, Dune, taught you well,” Agent Crow says. “You’re not as ignorant as most people I encounter.”
“Dune always said, ‘Know your past so you can avoid it in the future.’”
Agent Crow chuckles. “What else did he teach you about Greyon Wenn the Virtuous?”
“I know Grisholm Wenn-Bowie was said to be a direct descendant of Greyon,” I reply numbly.
“Yes, you could trace his family line all the way back to the supreme ruler . . . but the same could be said about you, Roselle. The St. Sismode line directly descends from Greyon. Some say that the Wenns and the Bowies have the name, but it’s your family that has the blood.”
“They’re all dead now,” I say tonelessly. “You and your minions decimated them.”
“All except for you and your mother. But the Wenn and Bowie lineages lost their nobility and intelligence years ago. We simply rectified the genealogical error. We relegated them to where they belong—a footnote in history. But getting back to Greyon . . . The world was staggeringly overpopulated, and growing more so in peacetime. Greyon Wenn decreed restrictions be enacted on procreation. His government began issuing birth cards, a rudimentary way to give permission to a couple to have a child. Firstborns weren’t the only ones allowed to have birth cards. It was based purely on genetics. Once undesirable traits were expunged, it became an issue of privilege. Cards were dispensed at higher and higher prices. Families died off. Inherited wealth became a way to ensure the survival of the family name. Finances were pooled and given to firstborn heirs to keep family lines alive. Only the elite could afford to have children.
The government began issuing cards for secondborn children, but with the explicit provision that the child be given to the government when the secondborn reached adulthood. And voilà! The Fates Republic was formed. Of course, there will always be rule breakers, and enforcement of laws is essential—so Census was born.”
I consider trying to choke him to death, like I did when we first met. I could probably do it if I could get my cuffs over his head. Hawthorne lingers so near to me, though. It wouldn’t take much for him to break my arms. I contemplate other killing scenarios as we pass more tanks. The beings inside these appear more human, but these people have machine parts grafted to them. The fine-boned lines of one woman’s face are covered in a shiny coating of metal. Her left eye has been replaced by a protruding lens. She doesn’t move as we pass.
Agent Crow drones on. “Over time, the population scales tipped, and we slid back the other way. Our low birth rate threatened us with extinction. Depressing the birth rate was never meant to be a permanent solution to overpopulation, and even though we were living longer, the population was declining. So again, something had to be done.
He has led us to a Census bunker. He scans his moniker under a blue light near the security doors, and they roll open. We walk a short corridor to the lifts and enter an elevator car. The last time I was in a Census elevator, it filled with lake water, and I almost died. I feel like I’m drowning now, too. The elevator doors close, and we descend.
And still, Agent Crow continues his history lesson. “Scientists were put to the task of finding a solution to our complex problem. Cloistered away from society, they lived like kings and queens on this island oasis, creating generations of offspring we affectionately refer to as zeroborns. A harvesting plant was built right here on this military Base.”