Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me Man, did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?
— Paradise Lost, Book X, 743–745
I grew up in the ruins of Geneva. We lived in the old Sécheron subway station at the northern end of the central business district. If you could find a well-sheltered vantage point, during the day you could see what was left of the lake—a shimmering heat haze, just barely visible on the horizon.
The subway used to be an open-air train line. They dug out tunnels to replace them as the city grew. The tunnels sheltered us from the sun and made Sécheron a safe place for us to live. Sometimes I wonder what our childhood would have been like if the subway had never been built. Whether we would have survived at all—and, if we did, whether we would have grown into the same people.
The station housed just under a hundred people, including our family, and was just one of a handful of settlements that called the remains of the city ‘home’. Our leader was a man named Renard Mercer, a resourceful older man who had lived in Paris before the world ended. Sécheron had an array of scavenged solar panels that collected enough electricity to keep us going day-to-day, so we were able to amass a respectable stockpile of fuel for the generators. Beneath the lowest level, the station had a water bore plunging deep into the earth, so we even had a reliable source of potable water. Two of the platforms were given over to hydroponics, giving us enough food for everyone to eat—most of the time, at least.
My brother and I were lucky to grow up in such a place. We had food, water, power…when I was young it felt like Geneva was the whole world. I didn’t realise how well we lived compared to most others until I was much older.
My mother and Mercer were involved, though she never called him our father. I have vague memories of another man before that, but she never spoke of him to me. My grandmother lived with us back then as well. She was alive when the world ended; she had been only eight years old. She used to tell me about the world as it was before. ‘It was so beautiful, Adele,’ she would say. ‘I wish you could have seen it.’ She was thirty-nine when she died. I was eleven.
The subway tunnels could be dangerous, but they allowed people from the scattered communities to roam relatively freely through what was left of the central districts of Geneva, even during the day. When I was a child, my brother Travis and I used to sneak out to play in them, much to our mother’s distress. We were young and did not yet comprehend the world we lived in and how precious we, as children, were.
We were never alone, of course. There were other children. Madeleine Devereaux and I were like sisters—we were around the same age and remained close friends for many years. Davin was slightly older, a mischievous little boy with an impish grin and quick fingers. There was another boy, Thierry, who used to play with us as well. I have only vague memories of him. One day after sneaking out, he didn’t come home. We never found out what happened to him. Or at least, our parents never told us. We stopped playing in the tunnels after that.
My mother, Josette, styled herself a doctor and a chemist. She had found books on medicine and the physical sciences and taught herself. Sécheron was large enough and fortunate enough to be able to support a specialist like her, and she was well-liked and respected. She mixed the nutrient solution that the food grew in, rendering down and recycling the bodies of those who died to help feed those that were left. When the others inevitably injured themselves or took ill, she would treat the sick, clean and dress their wounds, set their broken bones, and do what little could be done for those unfortunate enough to be burned by the sun. Once I was old enough, she began to teach me as well.
When I was fourteen, she took ill. I did everything I could to save her, but it wasn’t enough. I stayed up each day while the others slept, studying her medical encyclopaedias and textbooks. I was convinced that there was some secret that would let me save her, if I could only find it. It was hard, when she died. I swallowed my grief and did what was necessary—her body was rendered down and consigned to the nutrient solution that fed the crops that fed us. Sécheron mourned her passing, but the world continued on in her absence. People did not stop hurting themselves or falling ill, and so I took her place.
When I wasn’t treating patients, I studied my mother’s books, reading them over and over again. Once I’d learned all I could from them, I managed to scrounge up a few more mostly-intact volumes in the hospitals near the southern end of the city. The buildings there were once part of a university; a place of learning. Can you imagine it? Hundreds—maybe even thousands—of people all learning to be doctors and nurses and surgeons. When your entire world consists of less than a hundred people, the existence of such a place seems to verge on the absurd.
It was there, at that absurd, impossible place, that we found it.
I had organised for a group of scavengers to take another expedition to the hospitals. Have you done much scavenging? It can be quite surprising, really, how much useful material is still waiting to be recovered in some places. After a few decades of survivors picking through the ruins you might imagine there would be barely anything left at all but in my experience, that is rarely the case. There are just so few people left, compared to before the end of the world, and most are limited to taking what they can carry easily. I myself had been to the hospitals three times before, yet we’d still always manage to return with enough to have made the trip worthwhile.
Maddy came along, as she always did. I was always able to depend on her. Accompanying us was Davin and his mentor—a slightly older man who went by the name of Gage. Gage was a mechanic, and many felt that he was personally responsible for much of the success of Sécheron. He had been the one to recover and install the solar panels that supplied our electricity, many years ago. Davin was learning his trade as I had learned mine from my mother. Gage had been on several expeditions to the hospitals before, and was more knowledgeable of their layout than anyone. I remember that Travis had wanted to come as well, but I made him stay behind. While he didn’t have quite the breadth of knowledge and experience that I did, it was a constant worry that someone might seriously hurt themselves while I was away. Travis, at the very least, knew enough to provide emergency care until our return.
We followed the subway tunnels as they made their way south, passing beneath the decaying buildings of the city, and emerged at Genève. Just to the west of Genève station is a small settlement at Les Charmilles, a handful of families living together in the lower floors of an old department store partially buried in rubble. We had to pass by Les Charmilles before crossing the dry riverbed to get to the hospitals.
It was always a nerve-wracking experience to encounter a group of people outside of Sécheron, even when you recognised them as some of your closest neighbours. Despite generally friendly relations and frequent trade, altercations over scavenging rights were distressingly common. Worse, there were those who would steal or even kill if they thought they would not be caught. We never left the station unarmed. I had a small calibre service pistol that belonged to my mother before me, but I had been lucky enough to never have a reason to use it.
The university hospitals were a sprawling set of buildings that covered what seemed to be an entire city block, scarred and pitted by exposure to the sun. Scavenging in buildings was generally dangerous work. The risk of a sudden collapse or a chance meeting with a group of strangers constantly hung over one’s head.
On this particular expedition, while exploring one of the low-set buildings around the easternmost side of the hospital grounds, I happened across a disused elevator shaft plunging deep into the earth.
‘Useless, ignore it,’ Gage said when I brought my discovery to the others’ attention.
‘It looks intact. What’s down there?’
‘We checked it out ages ago, back when your mum was still around. It’s all sealed up. There’s a set of big steel doors once you get to the bottom of the shaft, but we couldn’t get ‘em open.’
‘Any idea what’s down there?’ I said.
Gage scratched at his bald scalp, shaking his head, ‘No idea. Can’t see in, and it’s not on any of the maps we found. The doors are locked with one of those hand scanning things. No electricity here even if we had someone who could open them, anyway.’
‘Could we take another look?’ I persisted. ‘There could be something of use down there.’ I didn’t quite know what had triggered it, but something about the elevator shaft or Gage’s description of what lay below had sparked off an intense sense of curiosity. The feeling itched at the back of my brain, begging to be scratched.
Davin interjected, ‘It couldn’t do any harm to check it out, right?’
Gage looked doubtful, but offered no further resistance when Davin and I dropped our backpacks and began preparing for the descent. Secured by nylon ropes, the two of us were lowered down the shaft while Madeleine and Gage remained above. It was dark below and we weren’t sure of its exact depth, so we cracked a glow stick and dropped it down first. The sickly green light of the chemicals probed feebly at the pitted concrete and rusted steel, the dim light heightening the sense of claustrophobia and anxiety that one feels when exploring such places.
The thought occurred to me that the ropes we had brought may not be long enough. However, after descending for several long minutes we reached the elevator at the bottom of the shaft. We touched down, ensuring that our footing was secure before we detached the ropes. The hatch on the top of the elevator was open and we climbed down into it before emerging into the short corridor beyond. The darkness here, beneath hundreds of tonnes of earth, was absolute, broken only by the frail illumination of our wind-up flashlights.
Immediately ahead of us, perhaps fifteen feet from the elevator shaft, lay a set of steel double-doors. Our lights crept over the metal, revealing a pair of small windows set into the doors at head-height and the black, dead screen of the biometric scanner that would have once allowed ingress to whatever lay beyond.
‘Doors like this usually have a manual release,’ Davin said, kneeling down next to the scanner. He dropped his flashlight down next to him and started to probe at the seams between the device and the wall, seeing if there was a gap he could use to pry the cover away.
‘What do you suppose is in there?’
‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Treasure?’
I grinned in the darkness. ‘Probably.’
While Davin busied himself trying to access the door locking mechanism, I stepped close and tried to peer into one of the windows. It was pitch black inside. The way the toughened glass reflected the light of my flashlight made it difficult to see anything at all. I tried pressing my cheek right up against the glass and cupping my hand over my eye, touching the torch to the window just below my face. In this manner, I caught a glimpse of what looked like large work tables covered in bulky shapes.
‘No use,’ Davin said. He had managed to pry off the scanner cover and was shining his flashlight at the wiring behind it. ‘I can’t see anything that looks like a release.’
I touched the wall to the side of the door. Solid concrete; nothing short of a jackhammer or some kind of explosive would get us through by force. I grunted, frustrated, then turned on my heel and stalked back over to the elevator shaft. There, I scooped up a loose chunk of concrete about the size of a cricket ball and returned to where Davin stood by the doors. Hefting the concrete in one hand, I let out a yell as I smacked it as hard as I could against the glass. My war cry became a yelp of pain as it bounced off without so much as leaving a scratch. I dropped it and shook my hand. ‘Ouch.’
‘That probably won’t work. Maybe if I got a crowbar and whacked at it for a good five minutes,’ Davin said, trying not to smile. ‘But it would be useless anyway. Those windows are way too small to get through.’
I made a disappointed sound in the back of my throat.
‘Gage has an oxy-acetylene torch, back at his workshop,’ Davin suggested, once we had exhausted all of our immediate options. ‘The door isn’t that thick. If we’re careful, we could cut our way in.’
I felt my face flush in excitement. Davin smiled at me, down there in the dark, as our flashlights began to fade. That was when I kissed him properly for the first time. His lips were cracked and dry, but warm. He almost fell over in surprise.
We had grown up together, of course, and flirted and played silly kissing games as children do when they are young, but in the two years since my mother’s death I had withdrawn into my own world of medical textbooks and science. Madeleine and I had been encouraged by our parents to explore our sexuality from an early age. With so many women sterile from radiation and so few children being born, for our species to survive it was necessary to discover whether a girl has the potential as early as possible. My grandmother was lucky, one of the few alive at the time not immediately rendered sterile, but she did not have another child after giving birth to my mother when she was fifteen. My mother had my brother and I almost six years apart. It was unlikely that she would have ever had a third child should she have survived.
When I stopped showing any sort of interest in sex, I could tell that it did not sit easily with the rest of the community even though no one spoke to me openly about it. I got the feeling that Mercer may have had words with some of the others behind closed doors. If anyone had brought it up, however, I would have told them that I already knew I was infertile. Not long after my mother’s passing, I had spent some time studying ovulation and the reproductive cycle. Without access to any of the equipment I would need to administer a test I had no definite proof either way, but my irregular, thin menstruations and several other signs were all I needed to decide that it was true.
I knew that Davin and Maddy had been experimenting sexually for some time now, while I spent my time stitching wounds and reading about chemistry. However, Davin frustrated Madeleine and they had fought too many times for any sort of serious relationship to develop. I had thought about it before, of course, but up until that moment I had forced myself to ignore my hormones. Ostensibly, this was to focus on learning and fulfilling my role in the community. I see now that it was also partially due to some obstinate subconscious teenage rebellion, revelling in the restrained disapproval of the adults that I now saw as my equals.
When I kissed Davin there that night, however, it was like a dam had broken within me. Animal desire rose within me and I pressed up against him, raking my fingers down the taut muscles of his chest and stomach. His body responded immediately and I could feel him growing hard against me as we ground up against each other.
Once we returned to Sécheron, we snuck away to a secluded spot and spent much of the day making love while everyone else slept. He had grown into a handsome young man, my Davin, full of insatiable teenage vigour. From that day on we spent whatever time we could spare exploring each other’s bodies. It became something of an open secret—everyone knew what Davin and I were doing whenever we made our excuses and snuck off. Even so, just as before, no one ever brought it up.
Gage was the biggest hurdle. ‘Canisters for this girl are scarce,’ he said to me when I went to see him about borrowing the oxy torch. ‘You use up some of what little we got, maybe later we don’t have it when we need it.’
When Davin saw just how eager I was to explore the sealed rooms, however, he joined his voice to mine. ‘It’ll be worth it,’ he said, his voice brimming with certainty. ‘Something locked up tight like that, completely untouched? There’s got to be chemicals and medicine down there.’
‘It’ll be worth it,’ I repeated, willing it to be true.
Gage scratched at his head and sighed. ‘I don’t like the idea of risking my equipment like that, but go ask Mercer. I’ll abide by what he says.’
Satisfied at making at least a little progress, I went to see Mercer. He was more receptive than Gage. With a little help I was able to convince him that—while it was a gamble—there was also a very good chance of it being, in his words, ‘a worthwhile expenditure of the community’s resources’.
‘What do you mean, I can’t come?’ Travis had pestered me as I made preparation to head out. Once Mercer had given us the go-ahead for the expedition, my young brother had immediately volunteered to help out.
‘You need to be here in case anything happens,’ I told him. ‘If an accident happens while I’m away, you’re the next best doctor that Sécheron has. Mercer made the decision that you need to stay behind and I agree with him.’
‘Fine…that makes sense, I guess.’ There was a distinct note of disappointment in his voice. His enthusiasm for my discovery encouraged me nonetheless. Finally, we were able to take our leave and return to the hospitals.
We took the oxy-torch along with extra ropes and climbing equipment, and set out through the tunnels. A few hours later, we were at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Gage set about cutting through the bolts that locked the doors in place. The rest of us stood well back and waited while he worked. I paced, full of nervous energy that kept me in constant motion. When he had finished, Davin and I used a crowbar to pry the doors apart.
Once the gap was large enough to admit a person, I took a deep breath and cautiously stepped inside, sweeping my flashlight over the interior of the room. I was greeted by the sight of tables covered in darkened computer monitors and high-end scientific apparatus. Behind me, the others came through one at a time as I slowly advanced, taking in my surroundings. It was a medical laboratory of some kind; that much was obvious from a cursory inspection.
I’m not sure what I was expecting to find, but at first I was almost disappointed. While the equipment was advanced and looked mostly, if not completely, intact, most of it would be impossible to get up the elevator shaft. Even if we did manage to take it back to Sécheron, we simply didn’t have the electricity to run it all. I realised I was still holding my breath and exhaled slowly before breathing in the smell of the place. The air was dry and scratched my throat on its way down into my lungs, hints of sterility and iodine reaching my nose.
There were doors leading off from the main room and we set about exploring the place. One area was flanked by rows of plexiglass enclosures. I walked down the centre aisleway, sweeping my light back and forth as my footsteps echoed hollowly on the tiled floor. Mummified corpses of mostly-recognisable animals lay individually segregated in many of the enclosures. Dogs, monkeys, the occasional sheep or goat.
There was a pair of cells set apart from the rest at the far end of the room. When I approached them, at first I took their contents to be the bodies of another pair of monkeys. As I drew closer and my flashlight illuminated the enclosures, however, I could see that they also contained small beds, faded blue tables and chairs, scattered scraps of yellowed paper and scrunched up bundles of filthy cloth. I knelt down next to the plexiglass, horrified once I realised what I was seeing, yet also entranced by the macabre sight. The remains were curled up in the foetal position, pressed up against the barrier that separated the two cells as though huddled for warmth or companionship. Even in their decayed state they were eminently recognisable for what they were…a pair of small children.
We explored further, passing through several more small separate labs before finding a small room containing a computer server rack and a large generator. Gage examined the generator. It appeared to be in working order, though its fuel reserves had been depleted. It was the kind that could run on several different sources of fuel—propane, natural gas or gasoline would all work equally well. With this discovery, my heart lifted slightly again. The computers in the labs here were on a separate server to the ones in the hospitals above. With physical access to the intact server and electricity, it should be possible to gain access to the data contained within.
Even as I thought it, I felt surprised at myself. It seemed extremely unlikely that whatever research was being performed here would be of any benefit to us, yet my curiosity refused to let me forget about it. Even before we had returned to Sécheron, I had made up my mind to petition Mercer for a tank of fuel from our stockpiles so that I could attempt to retrieve whatever information I could from the computer systems.
Beyond that, the workrooms contained stores of various chemical compounds that were of more concrete value. We loaded down our backpacks with what we could carry safely before ascending the elevator shaft once more.
Our return to Sécheron was without incident and I immediately approached Mercer with my request. He and Simon were discussing the matter of a small group of immigrants that had shown up earlier that week who had expressed an interest in joining the community. Simon’s job was coordinating the scavenging efforts of Sécheron. He was also probably Mercer’s closest friend.
I knocked lightly on the open door to Mercer’s study, unable to force myself to wait. ‘Sorry to interrupt. Have you got a few minutes?’
He exchanged a glance with Simon, who sighed and leaned back in his chair. Looking back at me, he nodded. ‘Sure, Adele. Is this about the hospitals? What did you find?’
‘There’s some kind of medical laboratory down there, very well equipped. We managed to bring back a lot—medicine, chemicals. There’s a fair bit more still to be recovered.’
Simon perked up at this. ‘I’ll arrange to have another group head out there tomorrow, then.’
‘Splendid,’ Mercer smiled at me, obviously pleased. ‘It looks like you were right. Good work, Adele.’
‘There’s more,’ I said. ‘The computer systems look intact. The lab has its own backup generator. If you let me take a tank of fuel back there, I think I can get it working.’
Mercer’s forehead creased. ‘The notes on whatever they were working on will probably be useless to us. What do you think is on the computers?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I admitted. My mind raced, trying to find a justification, some legitimate reason beyond my own curiosity, but came up blank. ‘It could be worth looking into, couldn’t it?’
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