I didn’t know if I was being played. It seemed so stupid. How could there be a way out of here, and no one uses it, except for one person who keeps coming back? But it’s true. I’ve seen it. I asked for “proof of life” before taking off my shirt. It’s not a secret hole in the floor, not a breach high up in the fence. There’s a door! A yokits door! They use it to bring food in, leads right outside. If they wanted to, every single person in here could be out by morning, provided they have money, or the right shirt. Anyone who can beat up a cook can get out! But they’re not. They’re all staying here. Basically, they don’t need the fence or the guards. They can just tell people to stay, and they stay. Stay! There, good boy!
I remember having that conversation with my dad. Not Vincent, my adoptive dad in Puerto Rico. I asked him why people complained about politics all the time but did absolutely nothing about it. I couldn’t understand why people keep voting for the very people they loathe. They’ll protest a war, but the everyday stuff, small injustices, they just let them slide. Friends making a fortune off government contracts, paying a hundred dollars for a pencil, that type of thing, people complain about it, everyone does, but they won’t do a thing. I remember how floored I was when he told me that was a good thing, how we need a certain level of cynicism for society to function properly. If people thought they had real power to change things, if they truly believed in democracy, everyone would take to the streets, advocate, militate for everything. It happens from time to time. Thirty thousand people will block traffic to march for a cause, but they do it believing that the other side couldn’t possibly feel justified in doing the same thing. What if they did? What if thirty thousand people who believe in one thing marched at the very same time as those who believe in the exact opposite? What if it happened every single day? People who care about other things would also want to be heard. They’d need to scream louder. They’d need their disruption to be more … disruptive. People are compliant because they don’t expect the system to be fair. If they did, if they thought that was even possible, we’d live in chaos, anarchy. We need apathy, he said, or we’ll end up killing each other on the streets.
Did I mention my dad worked for the government?
I didn’t believe him then. I’m not sure he believed it either. That whole conversation started because I wanted us to open a shelter for alley cats. I was utterly convinced my parents would agree. Sure, there were some downsides to having tons of cats in our house, but you’d have to be really selfish to let that stop you from saving all those lives. Odds are that civics course was his way of telling me to learn to live with that injustice and not get into an endless argument about cats. He and my mom had raised me to argue. They said they would always welcome a debate based on logic and facts and that they could be convinced of anything if I made my case, but a hundred flea-infested strays probably fell outside their definition of “anything.” I built it, though. I got a stack of empty boxes from the corner-store trash, and I built a cardboard palace in our yard. I thought of everything. There was a playroom, so they wouldn’t get bored. I put all the couch pillows inside to make beds. It was perfect. The rain took the whole thing down after a day or two. The pillows didn’t make it. I lost a month’s worth of allowance, but I was still proud of myself. If you see something wrong with the world, fix it. Fight. Resist. Don’t use cardboard.
That’s what I liked about Kara, and Vincent, for that matter. He didn’t comply. He would have built that cat shelter, made it three floors high, with a water fountain out front. I don’t know if it’s all my fault or if it’s Kara’s death that changed him, but I miss that man.
The town’s not far. He said it’ll take us twenty minutes to get there. With any luck, I’ll be in Mariehamn by the time they notice I’m missing. I’ll have to figure out what I want to do if I make it to Sweden. I can’t just make a normal life for myself in the middle of this nonsense.
Maybe I can. Maybe I can get a job, watch TV, smile when people make jokes about the people living here. I can stop fighting, stop resisting.
Who am I kidding? I can’t get a job. They’ll just test my blood over there, and I’ll end up living in a Swedish camp instead of a Finnish one. I’ve never been to Sweden, so a work camp there will be somewhat new. Maybe I can sell my pants and make a fortune, become the Baba of Sweden.
It’s all about perspective, really. Just don’t call it a prison camp. I could be living the life in a gated community. Yokits, I’m nervous. I have to get to Mariehamn first. One step at a time, I guess. One foot in front of the other. I don’t know what else I can do. If you see something wrong with the world, fix it. But what if it’s the whole world that needs fixing?
FILE NO. EE249—PERSONAL FILE FROM ESAT EKT
Personal Log—Dr. Rose Franklin
Location: Assigned residence, Etyakt region
I have felt vulnerable, powerless even, since we arrived on this world, but it came with a feeling of excitement, like a child riding a roller coaster for the first time. Now there is nothing but helplessness. My friend is dying, and I can’t help him. I can’t see the world around me. I can’t see anything else.
It was stupid of me to think I could find a cure. I’m not a geneticist. I don’t know enough about DNA to even recognize what I’m looking for. I thought I could trick the Ekt into doing some of the work for me, but they saw me coming a mile away. Deception doesn’t come naturally to them, and they’re not really good at detecting it. Or at least they weren’t. They’re fast learners. The Ekt won’t pass on new knowledge to us, but we, humans, know a hell of a lot more about genetics than I do. I told them I could get information if I were on Earth. I could read papers, talk to people. I don’t have access to all the research we’ve done. I don’t have access to anything. I’ve explained that to them in every way that I could, but they don’t believe me, or they don’t care. I just need more data. It’s not … fair. All I want is to save my friend. I have to save him.
I can’t find the right mutations. Even if I had found them, I wouldn’t know what to do next. I need to study how their weapon worked, how it found the right cells and what it did to them. They won’t let me. I understand why they won’t let me play with that weapon, it was designed specifically to kill them, people with Ekt DNA. I understand that now. I didn’t when I asked them for a sample. They were … confused at first. They became agitated and threw me out of the lab. I suppose that “I promise to be careful” doesn’t quite cut it when it comes to weapons of mass destruction. I’ll need to find a new place to work in. I get the feeling I’m not welcome there anymore.
I’m not giving up. I don’t care what they tell me. I’ll do what I have to do. I discovered ancient alien artifacts buried in every corner of the world. I put together a giant robot that can lay waste to entire cities. I stopped an alien invasion, for God’s sake. I can save one man.
Everything I’ve done now seems insignificant next to Eugene’s life. I’ve lost people before. I’ve lost the people closest to me, and I can live with that. I can because there was nothing anyone could have done. But they can save Eugene. They can cure him in a matter of minutes, without effort. I respect, and I even understand, their principles. Where Eva and Vincent see arrogance, I see profound humility. There is a deep respect for life and the universe in their refusal to mess with it. But we’re not talking about life as a whole, we’re talking about a life, my friend’s. It might be me who is arrogant, but I don’t want to see that life gone so needlessly.
I’ll convince them. I’ll convince them it’s in their best interest to help him. I’ll find a way to make them bend their rules. I’ll steal the medication if I have to.
FILE NO. 2142
INTERVIEW BETWEEN DR. ROSE FRANKLIN AND DR. ALYSSA PAPANTONIOU
Location: United States Central Command (CENTCOM), MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida
—Dr. F … Franklin. I didn’t think we’d meet again.
—I didn’t think I’d meet anyone on Earth again, but you’re right, you’re the last person I expected to call.
—I have sssso many questions. I dd … don’t even know where to start.
—Why don’t you start by answering mine?