Resistance: Mechanized, #2

By Wendy MacGown

Administrator Jane Murphy is exiled from the sequestered home habitat upon her lone child's majority. Her mate stays to mate with another. She becomes addicted to Quench, a carcinogenic depression medication, in a world without hope. While her aunt plays with destruction, her powerful mother plots with imprisoned teens to kidnap Jane, the Administrator who incarcerated them. Jane's escapes to the polluted Outside changes everything. Yet there's no escaping the revenge of her mother's enemies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wendell Mack
• Release date: Mar 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224400362

Wendy MacGown

Wendy MacGown, a long-time resident of Massachusetts, worked in tech for more than four decades, 20 plus years as a tech writer. She moderates the Witch City Writer's Workshop Meetup and works with multiple peer edit groups and individuals. She's an active member of Boston Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Club meetups. She's won multiple awards for short-stories and self-publlished novels, and Society of Technical Communicator (STC) awards for excellence, distinction, and merit.

Book preview

Chapter 1 – The High Council – August, 2379

Induction

J ane Murphy?

Yes. She squinted at the vid screen across from her bed.

Thin face, dark hair, hawk-like nose, hard predatory eyes. Are you ready? he asked. The eyes softened.

She pulled the sheet up over her naked breasts, why the hell she’d answered no longer a valid question. This was ‘the call.’ She should have been up and dressed already.

I’m Anthony Patricio. His thin lips curled. Your induction? It’s a big day.

She swallowed. So much for acting like a professional. Yeah, and she’d overslept. Making mistakes must be her new hobby.

The man’s face and name slammed together and she sat up, resting her chin on her knees. She’d heard of him—something about pod development. He was her parents’ age. Some of her contacts in Mexico City claimed to like him. She moved a leg, then a foot, straightening it out. He should know better than to call this early—when people in Pro-Prog were just getting their kids ready for school.

This wasn’t Pro-Prog.

Hi, yourself. She dangled a leg over the side of the bed. I’ll be as ready as most. A servo arm hovered at her elbow, offering her a small cup, which she took and quaffed without thinking.

His barking laugh made something in her midsection clench, though she stood and looked him in the eye. He scanned her with a leer and she laughed—a tinkling sound. How interesting that her appearance pleased him.

Though thirty-seven and in great shape—few parents aged-out before fifty—she no longer masked her recessive traits. In Pro-Prog, she’d darkened her skin three shades and frosted her blond hair with chestnut streaks. Living in the Real World meant she no longer had to worry about DNA—and embraced her natural coloring.

His look didn’t waver. You’ll dazzle us all, Jane Murphy. Your training records are outstanding. Seeing you now, I realize that you’re about to make a significant mark on the High Council, maybe on all of humanity.

Please. She held up a hand. No flattery.

Yet the glint of humor in his deep set eyes opened the tight spot inside of her. He was gangly and dark, and something about him made her yearn; for what, she had no idea. She’d learned that love could not be trusted and friendship came in strange packages. In a place without children, age and looks were supposed to hold no value.

She wet her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. After years staying faithful to a disloyal mate, it was time to branch out.

Will you be there, Anthony?

Yes, and please, and call me Tony. I’ll be at the podium right beside the president to welcome you to the High Council. Though I’m not a member, your great uncle wants you to feel at ease. Maybe later, we can converse over a drink or two. I know the perfect place.

She studied him, taking her time. She’d heard he had powerful friends. Forest Whaling, the High Council President, her maternal uncle was a prize in her political pocket. But what was Tony’s connection? Everyone in government had an angle.

I wish you welcome, came his official words.

I wish you wisdom, she replied with practiced ease, glad it was he spouting the customary litany. But to speak the welcome in her bedroom? It was ... unusual.

Will wishing for wisdom make it so? he asked, his eyes narrowing.

You are . . .? she gasped. No one deviated from the script.

I will see you this day, he said, surprising her again.

They were supposed to be her words, her part of the litany. She’d learned the litany among sundry things in the Mexico City Sphere, as part of the Facilitator’s two-week post-age-out process.

I surely will, she said, chuckling as his image blinked out, his laugh echoing in her head.

She closed her eyes as the sudden feeling of disgust overwhelmed her. She folded her arms across her chest and rocked, her stomach aching, her head pounding. What had she eaten? Or was it something she drank? Quench laced everything, keeping everyone passive and happy post-age-out. She’d been careful so far.

Or had she?

Suddenly, a vision hit, like a slap in the face. It often felt this way—like sandpaper rolling from the inside out, eyes slamming back in her head. She braced herself against the wall as a faceless man laughed at her, his eyes dark and gleaming with evil joy. He stripped off his clothes, one piece at a time, then moved toward her, snakelike. Suddenly, he jumped up and danced; his arms and legs flailing, maniacal, and disjointed. He twirled in a pirouette, focused on her frozen face with each rotation. It looked like Tony.

Then, just as quickly, the vision dissolved and she collapsed on the bed, gasping. She crawled back under the covers, seeking comfort.

This was her mother’s fault. She’d inherited her proclivity for visions, recessive DNA, and the inability to hold a mate beyond contract, or achieve a five quota—five precious progeny.

Her mother had many faces: Athena, voice of the Resistance, Lady on the Moon Colony, Franny Murphy, pagan high priestess, and forensic scientist. She’d taught Jane to welcome the visions and perform the rituals in a world where a kaleidoscope of religious practices had not survived three hundred years in a closed community.

Dian-nao, Jane muttered. Time to induction?"

A banner on the wall flashed thirty minutes and then 29:59.

Jane threw off the covers, the air cold and damp on her bare skin.

Frigging room needs a humidity adjustment, she mumbled as she elbowed her way up into a sitting position. Renato, can’t we...? Her breath caught. She stared at the empty place beside her in bed.

Renato.... She sagged, wanting to scream his name. She wanted him beside her, holding her, telling her that everything would be okay. She wanted to stop hating him for staying in Pro-Prog to mate with someone else.

Dizzy and hungry at the same time, she leaped out of bed and strode to the hygiene unit at the back of the room. If she didn’t know better, she’d think she’d taken quench.

At four by four meters, the hygiene unit was larger than typical, with smooth pearly walls and a toilet stub at the back. She stepped in and the space sealed up, much like the unit at home.  In a microsecond, scanners surveyed her from several angles. The toilet rose up and then retracted upon her discharge. She raised her arms as machines rained down the prescribed mix of products. A pair of servo-arms cared for hair and teeth. She reacted automatically, making a set of poses she’d learned as a toddler.

Back in her bedroom, a mirror dropped down from the ceiling and then a pair of servo-arms. She turned left then right, arms out, as they draped her with the silver, body-forming gown of the High Council. They dropped a pair of silver plexisoles, which she slipped on her feet. Half sandal, half sneaker, they were comfortable, versatile, and durable.

Her mirror reflected an attractive middle-aged woman, not the strange looking creature beneath hair dye and skin darkening agents who’d failed to create a proper family, the sole thing she’d promised to do.

But she was done with all that and it was time to move on. Her credentials were all that mattered. In Pro-Prog, she’d enacted Diversity Rule 11, which removed the children of murderers and suicides from the gene pool. Those under ten years old went to new families. The older children—too damaged at the cellular level for procreation—went to the Hilo Sphere, where they awaited age-out to an unskilled assignment. That edict was her proudest achievement.

She closed her eyes for a second, trying to empty her mind of doubts, seeing Pax’s innocent beseeching face. Pax, the child she’d loved, whom she’d saved from a trip to Hilo with a word to the right person. It was just politics; she couldn’t save everyone.

Jane looked up at a whirring sound. A servo-arm held out a clear glass. Automatically, she reached for it, then yanked her hand away. It had to be quench-laced; addiction came too easily.

Dian-nao, bottled water.

A servo dropped a bottle into her hand and she opened it. She pulled a vial she’d snagged from a Mexico City Sphere black market stall from her pocket and dribbled a few drops into the bottle. Seconds passed and the water stayed clear, so she chugged down.

The clock banner read 9:59. In less than ten minutes, she had to leave.

She lifted a wrist and a servo arm slipped a comm onto it. It was a newer model: sleek and silver like her dress. Half bracelet, half-computer, it connected her to the world. Her hands trembled but she ignored it. This was not the time to get sick.

As she paced the small room, the floor softened beneath her feet. Amidst play dates and yoga classes, she’d dreamed of this day. A pod would be waiting outside the front door, its destination the Beijing Sphere, the seat of the High Council. While most people had to deal with public pod terminals, her new community, housing credit-flush citizens, came with pod slots on the street outside each home, connected to the primary Boston pod terminal. It would take five or six minutes to travel across the planet.

At High Council Chambers, she’d promenade up onto the dais. She’d give a small speech to a thunderous applause and then later, attend informal meetings, followed by a lavish banquet.

The clock banner beeped: a minute left.

She passed into the apartment’s great room, the door sliding open at her approach. Artificial light filtered in through gauze-shrouded widows. Just outside, peonies of every hue, lilies-of-the valley, and mounds of bright blue forget-me-nots bloomed fragrant—not that she’d have time to enjoy them. Aside from her interest in trees, she knew little of vegetation.

The great room was empty; her things had not yet arrived. She looked around at the empty space, imagining the new friends she’d entertain, her mother and siblings visiting. They hadn’t returned her calls.

She stood in the middle of the room, her feet firmly planted, and closed her eyes, imagining a string inside her going deep into Gaia, Mother Earth. She pictured the Goddess, dark-haired and muscular. She pictured her own mother; blue eyes like her filled with compassion as she’d said so many times, In this safe and sterile world that we have created, it’s only the people you love who truly matter.

She sagged as memories came: her sleeping baby, a soft weight in her arms, Renato’s warm skin as he’d held her, kissed her. Leah standing beside her new mate as Renato walked away.

The banner alarm rang and the vision ended.

She straightened as the door slid open. Outside, she stopped short, wondering at the air’s milky coolness and the slight shadow across the neat rows of her housing matrix. Faded trees swayed in an artificial breeze. She scanned the other fifty-odd white bungalows in her section, hoping her days here would be short. A Beijing apartment was the prize—her name on a waitlist behind thirty people. It didn’t pay to get too comfortable with neighbors, a lesson she’d learned in Pro-Prog, where long-term friends had no problem watching her leave.

She shuddered, seeing a pod rise out of its slot just beyond the first hedge. Though pod transport should feel normal, it jarred her nerves. Human evolution had taken great leaps in transport modes throughout history, from walking to horseback to sailing ships and steam engines. Moving across time and space in cars, airplanes, and trains was considered ancient technologies. Before the Dark Times, a flight from Boston to Shanghai had taken twenty-three grueling hours. Even the concept of flight—a metallic tube passing through the sky via fossil fuel—seemed far-fetched.

Streamlined bullet-shaped containers called pods, driven by a vast computer network though tubes deep in the earth and across space moved everything.

She looked up, rejecting the habitat’s sparkling iridescent dome as insignificant. It was as plastic as the city beneath it. Her gaze snagged on a small crack in the sphere’s mantle, its sole flaw. A pink flag caught her attention. Attached by a pole to the next bungalow, it flapped uproariously, reminding her of her daughter’s blanket.

The street lights flickered. It must be part of a strike. In Pro-Prog, the Maintenance Group liked to emphasize their threats with power grid interruptions. Maybe it was the same in the Real World.

Background noises ground to silence. Bungalow doors flew opened. People tumbled out in varying stages of undress.

Jane stared up at the dome as it slid open with a grating shudder. This was no strike. Who’d crack open a sphere, letting in the horrific pollution? She raised both hands to her ears and then dropped them, the sight of the dark night wrenching a hole in her heart.

Stars glittered like precious diamond points.

She stared up in wonder. All her life, she’d only read of the gorgeous, velvet space in which the planet traveled.

It was the moon that did her in, its silver essence a phantasm of her most secret dreams. It was spirit exposed, pulsating, and luminous.

She fell to her knees, arms lifting all on their own, her throat constricting in prayerful recognition. All around her, others were doing the same.

She gazed at the moon, enthralled, expectant. Raw emotion gathered in some deep well she hadn’t know existed, filling her and overflowing. She sobbed as it torched her heart, unleashing unimaginable grief. Her hands, and then her entire being began to tremble.

A sweet smell struck: like cinnamon buns she’d had as a child. Her heart soared. It was like coming home. Beside her, something creaked and popped. She turned, dragging her attention away from the moon.

It was her pod, its door open.

She rose, unable to help herself, riveted by the music spilling from within: ethereal, rippling, and delightful. She gaped at the seat inside it, the tray holding a water bottle, the plush pale blue carpet. The pod seemed to be waiting for her.

Torn between the sky and the pod, she didn’t know which to choose. The pod’s outer surface seemed to quiver with anticipation. The water bottle twinkled in invitation. She licked her lips, desperately thirsty.

The music in the pod softened, calling to her. She headed inside.

Hilo Kids

LILY GLANCED AT HER comm, which read 4 a.m., HST, or Hawaiian Standard Time, a leftover name from pre-Dark Times. The air conditioning droned high, then low, yet did nothing. Sweat trickled down her neck and between her shoulder blades.

A small light flashed to her left.

She slid to the floor from the top bunk, her oasis amidst a vast grid of bunks that spanned the old Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium in the Hilo Sphere. Lights here and there illuminated pathways between sections.

Time to go, Ravi said, emerging from the shadows. Dark and slender, he moved as if on springs—feral and intelligent—an appealing combination. With his parent-status—the son of a mass murderer—he’d had his pick of Hilo girls. But he’d brushed them aside for her.

Maybe she was stupid to trust him, but she had no choice. It was either go with him or to pod to the Gaborone Sphere, where she’d shovel shit for the rest of her life. And never see her family again. It was her eighteenth birthday, the transfer scheduled for eight.

This month’s pick was the Gaborone Sphere, next month somewhere else—thanks to Jane Murphy, the Administrator, who’d bent her own asinine rule to suit herself.

Lily had met Jane at the clinic once, mooning over a pregnant teen under Lily’s care. The girl hadn’t gone to Hilo like a normal reject; she’d aged-out the habitat of her choice, thanks to Jane’s intervention.

Lily nodded at Ravi, then turned to her siblings: Maura, Jin, and Nico—sixteen, fourteen, and twelve—who slept below and beside her. Time to go, she whispered as she shook each of them. With Bo, their baby sister, they’d made a perfect five-quota.

Pro-Prog was all about dominant DNA: dark hair and skin, dark mono-lidded eyes, a sturdy shape. She and her siblings shared a range of traits: from Bo, with straight black hair and dark mono-lidded eyes, to Maura, with violet eyes and curly brown hair. Lily and the boys fell somewhere in between. Achieving a five-quota meant nothing with two dead parents, one of them a killer.

Pack fast, Lily whispered, blinking away tears as the kids stretched and sat up. She stuffed clothes, toiletries, and tools into her backpack, then helped the others, handing them things, pulling zippers, laying a hand on a shoulder or an arm in encouragement. There was little to take.

Let’s go, she’d whispered, and they followed her to the kitchen area, a big change from the moody, mouthy kids they’d been in the Shanghai Sphere, the heart of the Project for Progeny.

The kitchen area—previously, a concession stand—was dark and empty. By day, it was a war zone of competing cliques. They tiptoed past rows of battered banquet tables surrounded by plastic folding chairs, glancing with trepidation at the far corner: the councilors’ love nest. Cordoned off by blankets, the current rotation were making good on their last chance to procreate before ejection to the Real World.

The kids came to a halt at the food dispensers. Fresh fruit and veggies had been out of stock for weeks. Fresh protein was nonexistent. Standard—a dried and flaked foods source— came in one flavor—marshmallow, which tasted like plastic.

Eat up, Lily whispered, as she grabbed cups, filled them with standard, and handed them around. Their next meal was an unknown, as was what they’d find at the end of their trek. Ravi kept the details to himself, saying only that Athena, the voice of the Resistance, was involved, and their escape part of her plan.

Lily watched her sibs as they stuffed flakes into their mouths, checking expressions, wondering how they’d fare. Dad’s job had earned few credits. He’d spent most nights drinking with friends. She’d kept the kids fed, housed, and safe long before their fragile mother’s death. She’d forged her mother’s signature on the medic program she’d joined at thirteen, hoping to earn services for her family. She’d worried constantly about turning eighteen and mating or aging-out, leaving the kids in Dad’s care.

It didn’t matter now.

She choked back a sob. They’d lost everything and it was time to take a stand. No one should be ripped from their family. When Ravi aged-out in two months, he’d land somewhere else. Then, Maura and Jin would age-out, leaving Nico alone. Within two years, Nico would become a thug or dead. One by one, her family would scatter and she might never hear from them again. From the Gaborone Sphere, she’d never find Bo.

Family was a right, not a convenience set aside by a politician’s whim. Not something to forfeit from a selfish parent’s act. These kids were her family; she would not abandon them.

She met Maura’s gaze, seeing questions she couldn’t answer. Maura moved closer. We have to go, she whispered. You can’t leave us on your birthday. She took Lily’s hand. The boys reached out, touching Maura, forming an undivided unit, as they each wished Lily a happy birthday.

Lily pictured bright faces blowing out candles, multicolored balloons bouncing the ceiling, from which streamers hung down. She could almost taste creamy white frosting on a tangy lemon cake, or chocolate on chocolate, or a yellow cake with raspberry jam—the surge of sugar in her veins.

It’s time, she whispered, and they broke apart, each of them precious.

Ravi met them at the door. She winked as she and her sibs approached. It didn’t matter that he nodded, barely making eye contact as they filed out of the building and fell into line behind him. Nerves meant nothing. She knew he’d kept to the plan.

The Hilo Sphere dome loomed overhead. Silently, they made their way past other decrepit buildings toward the pod bay in a massive old warehouse. It was a poor excuse for a pod bay. No one took care of it, or any part of the sphere, for that matter. It was just a transit point for kids who didn’t matter. The sphere itself was an afterthought, a cheap fix, hurriedly constructed by shoving one of the Oahu Sphere’s test spheres around the ancient city of Hilo—one last usage of expensive equipment.

The warehouse door, a wall of slats, stood ajar.

Ravi pushed it open and they ducked inside. Lily flicked on her comm, using its light to find her footing, then flicked it off. The entire building creaked and groaned. Water dripped from several places overhead. She shuddered, taking in the high rafters, the feeling of being watched overwhelming. She spied a small movement and peered up into the darkness. Someone was up there. Kamaria came to mind, one of the girls she’d befriended in Hilo. Kamaria was bound for Gaborone too, having turned eighteen last week. Her uncle lived in that sphere; he’d take care of her.

Lily crouched as she moved along, trying to diminish her profile. She could barely see as she stumbled after Ravi, his flashlight on dim. Her feet scrunched through what felt like a patch of small bones. She swallowed, refusing to lose her breakfast, the only thing she’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours. She skimmed a hand over a pile of crumbling boxes, and swung wide to avoid a curtain of spider webs. She leaped over a jumble of pipes, letting her mind wander, imagining with Ravi in the Oahu Sphere. It was a dumb fantasy—blue sky thinking. If the clinkers caught them, their next home would be prison on Satellite Three.

Ravi glanced back, his eyes hooded and predatory, not looking like a kid at all. She’d known kids like him in her medic program: steady like her, performing surgery in the absence of doctors, refusing to accept a bleed-out. His skills, however different from hers, might bring them to freedom.

Light flickered in an arc from Ravi’s flashlight, illuminating the wet spots and the ghostlike trashed objects all around them. The fans were off, maybe to conserve energy, or just rusty and broken like everything else.

She glanced back at Maura and Jin trudging behind her. Nico swayed as if he were half asleep, tripping over things, slowing them down. The sound of their feet echoed in the cavernous space, and she shivered despite the heat.

Go faster, she hissed. We don’t have much time. She grabbed his hand and he squawked as she pulled him along. He tried to shake her off, but she gripped tighter. At twelve, he was almost as tall as she was, but still a kid. Jostled out of the title of ‘youngest’ by Bo, he’d developed a habit of sulking to get her attention.

She bowed her head, fighting panic, trying to picture her baby sister with another family. When Bo was afraid, she couldn’t speak. She’d curl up into a ball for hours. When she got tired and frustrated, she’d explode, kicking and screaming her rage. Some adults thought her defiant, making things worse.

Something clanked overhead and she jumped.

It’s okay, she whispered to Nico, and stared up at the rafters, daring someone to drop down. Keep moving, she said, and jerked her chin in Ravi’s direction.

Ravi had stopped, his body posed for a fight. She shook her head and he moved along. No matter the source of the sound, there was no going back.

She peered through the dark, struggling to see the door that led to the pod bay. She glanced at the comm on her wrist, grateful they’d let her keep it, that no one had stolen it. A half-hour had already passed.

She thought of her mother as she hurried along. Rose Chang had danced above life, a range of illnesses her sole job, producing progeny a romantic prospect. Mom had looked at her with wounded, needy eyes after Bo’s birth, begging her to help as she’d bled out. The midwife, who’d arrived too late, said there’d been complications.

From the lack of medical staff to bother with a poor woman giving birth at home! Lily had screamed at her.

The adults standing around her mother’s body had looked at her with scorn. They didn’t seem to get that she was just a kid, holding her howling newborn sister, her hands still bloody, while their father cried as he rocked his mate’s body. That countless women now lived because of what Lily learned that day did not remove the sting.

Lily closed her eyes, picturing Bo’s precious face on that last day—when she’d clogged the toilet, so earnest in her lies. She’d loved that kid with every fiber of her being. She’d changed her diapers, kissed her boo-boos, taught her to use flatware and chopsticks, taught her to sing. It had been tough, juggling childcare along with household chores, school, and the clinic. But by all that was right and fair in the world, Bo had been hers.

Lily stomped along, gripping Nico’s hand so tightly that he cried out and shook her off. He kept walking, and cradled his hand, looking at her with wounded eyes—just like Mom’s, melting her heart. Nico had loved Bo, too.

Sorry, she mouthed, refusing to cry.

No talking, Ravi said, shooting her a concerned look as he came to a sudden halt. He made a cutting motion and then one finger to his lips. He’d told them that pods were voice activated. This close, only he could speak. Setting off protection codes might kill their plan. Somehow, someone had keyed his voice for transport codes.

The kids made a semi-circle around him. He pressed the wall beside the door with careful fingers. The door