In the mean time, I wanted to share an extract from the draft of "Departing", the next story in my "Walking" series! I was told I needed a new story to bring in for workshopping in my fiction class, so I wrote this draft over the last weekend. I thought I'd share part of the draft, and not the finalized story, so you can perhaps see a little bit into how much my stories may change in the revision process.
Finally, I did indeed submit my story "Cold Warriors" to Analog a week or two ago. No word yet.
The building
is mostly empty right now, and I see rooms full of advanced equipment. This
must be the laboratory where the bulk of the genetics work goes on. I feel
gratified that my hunch was right. Merrick leads me to a room towards the back,
where the lights are mostly off. I see a few computers idling, along with
several tables of lab equipment. It seems to be empty.
“Doctor Moreni?” Merrick calls
out. Silence. Then a woman emerges from a doorway on the far side of the room.
“Yes?” she says. She steps
forward into the light, and I involuntarily feel my breath catch slightly. Her
wavy brown hair is tied back in a ponytail and draped over a lab coat that has
faded to gray, which in turn rests over a surprisingly rustic full-length
dress. From her face, I can see she’s probably in her thirties, but I can’t
guess better. Most striking, though, are her eyes, a brilliant green which seem
to glitter like emeralds in the dim light. Those eyes study me with more than a
little curiosity.
“Who is this?” she asks.
Merrick half-turns towards me. “This is...Doctor John Smith. He’s been
with us for about two weeks now, and I thought he might be able to help with
the problem you mentioned.” Her head tilts in interest and she looks at me with
something more akin to excitement now.
“You’re a doctor? Of what?”
I give my customary half-smile. “Why, practically everything.” She smiles
politely and shakes my hand when I hold it out.
“Well, I’m Catherine Moreni, lead scientist for New Hope. I hope
Merrick’s right, we’ve been having some…growing problems, that I can’t figure
out for the life of me.”
“I’m glad to help out,” I reply with a smile. “It’s been a long time
since I’ve done any kind of molecular biology, but I know a bit about it. As
long as I don’t have to tend to the plants directly. I’m pretty horrible at
that. My brother was the one with the green thumb in the family.”
I’m relieved to see she finds me amenable, as she smiles and begins
walking back to where she came from. Merrick nods at me and heads out, leaving
us alone. I follow Catherine to the back, where she’s retrieving a small box of
microscopic slides.
“I was just about to go over the latest batch of samples. Care to join
me?”
I smile again. “I’d love to.”
---
I lean back and rub my eyes, surprised at how tired I feel.
“I just can’t believe it,” I say quietly. Catherine looks up from her own
equipment. “Every sample… Traces of degeneration and…corruption at the cellular
level, even in plants and animals that otherwise appear healthy.”
Catherine’s brow furrows. “Corruption? What do you mean by that?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. It just seems the best word to describe this.
Somehow these cells are just…wrong, but darned if I can explain it. I also
can’t believe,” I glance at my pocketwatch, “That we’ve already been at this
for three hours. Care for some dinner?”
As she stretches she smiles back at me. “I’d love to.”
“I have to say, I’m impressed.” I speak between bites of food a half-hour
later. I’m enjoying a mixture of breaded meats, while she picks at a salad
that’s half-fruit. “I haven’t seen such a large collection of intact computing
and lab equipment before. How long have you been working at this?”
“It’s been going for…over ten years now, I think,” Catherine says. My
eyebrows flick up for a second. “I’ve been here for most of the last five.
We’ve traded, scrounged from old Solar Alliance bases, wherever we can find it.
It’s been a lot of hard work for everyone.”
“I’m sure. How do you power the place? Merrick won’t tell me.” I take a
long sip of my drink, silently longing for some Aldeberan whiskey.
“He doesn’t really tell anyone. We had some cobbled-together generators
at first, but they all broke down eventually. Merrick found a replacement a
year after I got here, and it’s worked fine ever since, baring the occasional
glitch.” She looks up at the last phrase as some of the lights flicker
slightly, a phenomenon everyone seems to be largely used to. “What about you?
Where are you from?”
I shrug slightly. “Oh, nowhere in particular. I’ve been travelling for a
very long time.”
She leans in, her mouth curling with mischief. “Even better! You must
have some good stories from outside. I haven’t left the dome in over a year.
What’s it like out there?”
“About the same as it’s been for centuries. Desolate, not much alive out
there. People still fighting over what’s left, or just trying to get by.” She
nods soberly. “It’s not all bad, though. I stopped in a town called Sinkhole
not too long ago…”
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