TRUEL1F3 (TRUELIFE)

“The technologies of the deadworld almost destroyed the world entirely, Lemonfresh. The thinking of the past almost erased all possibility of a future. And still, humanity refuses to embrace a new way. Is that not true insanity?”

Lemon felt her fingernails biting into her palm. Her heart ached, thinking of New Bethlehem, that missile lighting up the sky. She thought of Diesel, flinging herself and Grimm across the desert, right toward it. She pictured Grimm trying to hold back that oncoming calamity with his bare hands.

God, he’d been so brave …

She felt tears burning her eyes, pawed at them with her grubby sleeve.

“You want me to admit the world is a stupid and ugly place?” she asked. “Fine. I grew up in the thick of it, cloneboy. I know damn well how sick it gets out there. It’s septic and it’s defective and it’s broken almost all the way.”

“And BioMaas has discovered a better way,” the Directors said. “We live in harmony here, Lemonfresh. We do not fill the sky with pollutants, do not take without giving back. We have seized control of our evolutionary path. No randomness. No form without design. Each task is assigned to a pattern perfectly suited to accomplish it. We are one in the genome.”

Lemon blinked. “What the hell is that?”

The Directors waved in unison toward the BioMaas logo on the liquid screen, spinning and twisting endlessly.

“The genome is Mother and Father. Lock and key. The pathway toward infinite possibility, and the clay from which you, and all, were sculpted.”

Lem breathed deep and tried to keep hold of her patience. Half this talk sounded half insane, and the rest of it sounded insane all the way. But despite how angry she was at being snaffled, despite the burning grief she felt for Grimm, she was acutely aware that she was alone here. Surrounded on all sides in a city she didn’t come close to understanding, with no hope of rescue.

So maybe it was time to get smart, not mad.

“Look, honestly, what do you want from me?”

The closest Director to her produced a thick stack of documents, enclosed in a folio of black rubber. Lemon saw the words CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT: GENOME PROPRIETORSHIP and a ream of code embossed in the cover. Flicking through the folio, she saw wads of waxy paper covered in indecipherable CorpSpeak. At the back of the folio was a small ident marked PLACE THUMB HERE.

“CityHive wants permission to harvest her genetic material,” Director said.

Lemon frowned, looked from the contract to the crescent of identical faces around her. “I don’t get it. You people already took my blood on—”

“The sample taken aboard Nau’shi was for testing alone. And we require different genetic material for emulation.”

“… What kind of material?”

“Ovarian,” they replied.

Lemon’s eyes went wide, her hands slipped involuntarily to her belly. Her voice sounded small and distant in her ears, like it belonged to someone else.

“You want my …”

Four heads nodded. “Pluripotent stems offer the greatest opportunity for modification. Once the document is signed and the material harvested, Lemonfresh will be free to leave.”

“Just like that, huh?”

The Director nodded again. “The procedure is simple. Swift. Almost painless.”

She swallowed thickly. “… And if I say no?”

“Lemonfresh is the key to winning the struggle against Daedalus. Lemonfresh is the gateway to a better future. Lemonfresh is important.” All four leaned forward, four pairs of hands steepled at four chins, four pairs of dark eyes glowering. “We are hoping she will see the beauty in this city, and this way of life. We are hoping she will volunteer her material for the betterment of her species. We are hoping we will not need to resort to … unpleasantries.”

Silence descended on the room like a boot heel. Lemon sat in the stunted quiet for a long moment, staring at the stack of documents, the full weight of the Director’s request sinking in. It took her a long time to sort through the riot in her head, to ponder how she could possibly respond to a request like that. She was in danger here, true cert. Surrounded by gene-modded insanity, nobody to rescue her. She had to negotiate this properly, she had to dance it right, she had to play this smarter and cleaner and chiller than she’d ever played before.

And so, Lemon rolled her shoulders.

Breathed deep.

“Well, pardon me,” she said. “But you can all go fuck yourselves.”

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