Red Lines
Thirty thousand feet off the ground, the situation doesn’t look so bad.
The realization comes after you touch down, right that moment the stench hits you. The smell always comes first. Millions of tons of decaying plantlife and infected soil on the wind, the redline making its presence known from all across the continent. There’s another reason detox masks are standard procedure. Across the pond, if the wind’s right, you can just catch a whiff of it. There it might make you gag. Here, just two hundred kliks off the edge of the Rift, it will kill you.
I meet Amanda off the runway. She’s wrapped up in her mask and labcoat, so out of place in the midst of the grime and decay it’s almost a comic image. Doctors are still respected out here, though God knows how much longer. They might think everything is under control back home, but it’s been pure anarchy after Gouveia bit it, with nothing the UNICXF does having the slightest effect on either the militias or the alien vines surging out from the Rift.
‘Nice flight?’ Amanda asks, her voice muffled by the mask. Her eyes are watering behind her lenses from the air getting in through the cracks.
‘Just peachy,’ I reply. I make sure my own is fixed tightly in place. I’ve been here for a long time, but all the tolerance in the world won’t be enough if what's in the air gets in your lungs. ‘Looked like the red passed Amapá from the plane.’
‘It did, two days ago,’ Amanda confirms. ‘The evacuation went well. There weren’t that many people left.’
Not alive, anyway, is the unspoken addendum. I take the news in silence. Projections had Amapá at two weeks from now, at the least. The redline’s spreading faster. From the air, you can find a strange, alien beauty in it. The xenoflora covers the continent in great swathes of crimson, like the highways of mad giants. There’s little of the rainforest left, the Rift doing what we tried to with much more efficiency and fewer moral qualms. Nothing grows under the redline, and what animals survive are killed off by the air sooner or later.
Redline infection's a nasty thing. The seeds take root in your lungs, and sooner or later, you suffocate and bloom, the vines bursting out from your mouth, from your eyes, from every orifice they can find, before your ribcage gives in and they burst in in all their macabre glory. Fire gets rid of the growth, if you're early enough – there are corpsepiles burning from here to Port Andea.
'Let's get inside,' Amanda suggests, breaking the silence. 'There's someone I need you to see.'
***
That
someone doesn't bother me until we get to Containment. Here, in the heart of the fortified lab complex, the air is sterile and cold, but infinitely better than out on the runway. Last time I was here, the walls were still a perfectly clean white, the floors meticulously scrubbed. The staff who did that don't seem to be here anymore. I decide not to ask Amanda about it. The lights and electronics still work, the same-old hum of sturdy military generators and the whine of the ventilation coming from the walls, and for a moment I can imagine it's still six years back, and the Initiative for Conservation of Xenoflora is still the bright, optimistic research project unaware of what's coming out of the Rift.
'What are we doing here?' I ask, finally.
Amanda releases the heavy doors with the security code – 4363, typing it in with quick jabs of her fingers – and walks us in before answering. The Containment corridor is lit by stark, white lights it takes my eyes a moment to get used to.
'It's... she's called Subject Nine. Or Lucia,' Amanda says, with a nervous smile. 'She- she likes that name better.'
Amanda's eyes turn towards the last cell in the corridor. The door light is blinking green. The door's locked – so the room's occupied.
'I thought you weren't using this wing anymore,' I say.
'We found her on a militia bonfire. On it, sir. They were going to burn her alive,' Amanda says. I follow her to the cell door. There's something in her tone that makes me uneasy.
'Who is she, exactly?' I ask, hoping to bring Amanda back to earth.
It seems to work. The good doctor is silent for a moment, pursing her lips. She hesitates, reaching for the door panel.
'Lucia's... she was infected. Months ago. A particularly hostile strain – or so we thought. Normally, you'd be paralyzed at that point, just waiting to bloom. But something happened. Something... I don't know what to call it yet. We don't really fully understand it.'
Realization begins to dawn. 'She's resisting the infection? Still?'
Amanda shakes her head. Her smile is stronger this time. 'Not resisting, sir. Overcoming it. Taking
over it. She can control the redvine, sir. She... she's the answer we've been looking for all this time.'
She clicks the cell door open. The lighting inside is dim, but I take in everything.
Growths of redline fill the room. Except, these aren't any strain I've ever seen. They spiral and arc in every direction, sprouting fragile, flower-like growths. Some are bioluminescent, seeming to pulse like they were following a heartbeat. The white panels of the floor have given way to grass-like strands. I half-expect a stench like the rot outside, but the scents here are subtler, and full of vibrant life.
In the center of it all, wreathed in vines, is a girl – sixteen, seventeen? - with dark skin broken by patches of red. It's exactly like terminal-stage bloom, but this girl is unquestionably alive. She turns to us as Amanda enters.
My brain focuses on the practicals first. We don't have any protective gear, and this looks enough like redline to set all my alarms off.
'Won't the air-'? I start, but the girl interrupts me. Her accent is local, her voice strangely low.
'It's not... dangerous,' she says. 'I am keeping it under control.'
As to demonstrate, the vines stretching out across the floor begin to contract and bend away, leaving a clear path on the floor.
'How?' I ask, deciding not to question what any idiot could see.
'We don't really know,' Amanda admits. 'There must be something in her DNA... some quirk of genetics, that allows her to control the chemical reactions inside the xenoflora. It should be impossible, but... you're seeing the same as I am.'
'At first, it was not much. I could only... slow it down, or kill it,' Lucia says. 'But I am getting better all the time.'
She raises her hands. There are tiny red lines running across her palms. As I watch, they ebb away, retreating under her skin, only to emerge in a circular pattern moments later. Her smile is almost triumphant.
'Is this... can we use this? Can we kill the vine?' I ask Amanda.
'I think, more than that. We can use it. Control it. I'm sorry, sir – you're thinking too small. If we can synthesize whatever makes this work, spread it. We could be talking about the next step of humanity as a species.'
That gives me a chill. It's not entirely a bad one. 'Or clear a way to the Rift and give the bastards who made it and give them a taste of their own medicine,' I say. Amanda shrugs.
Alright. Alright. I take a deep breath, letting the alien scents of the room flood my senses.
'Let's get to work, then,' I say, and offer Lucia my hand.
***
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Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___ (Read 314210 times)