Chapter 5 - ORIGINALS
They escaped Forge Twelve in a convoy pulled by living muscle.
No engines.
No batteries.
No radio signals.
Six freight carts once used to move tissue through underground rail tunnels were dragged by enormous synthetic tendon bundles wrapped around ceramic frames.
The constructs had no heads.
No brains that Sarah knew of.
Yet after Ethan touched the foundry pumps, they followed his direction.
Ruth called them oxen.
Maya called them disgusting.
Ethan called them better than walking.
The Necrozyme tanks occupied two carts.
Survivors filled the others.
Forge Twelve died behind them.
Machine artillery punched through the district.
The living foundry burned.
Black Seed tissue erupted from underground and wrapped around artillery drones.
The machines responded with thermite.
Chicago glowed orange until the horizon disappeared.
Ruth sat across from Sarah.
“You always bring trouble?”
Sarah answered, “Usually larger.”
Ruth looked at Daniel.
“I noticed.”
Daniel remained chained.
Not because chains could hold him.
Because Ruth insisted.
He accepted them.
That worried Ethan more.
Daniel sat with his back against the cart.
Brown eyes now.
Human-looking.
Maya watched him.
“Why aren’t you synchronized?”
“I am.”
“With EDEN?”
“Yes.”
“And the Seed?”
“Yes.”
“Then why aren’t you killing us?”
Daniel looked at her damaged forearms.
“Because both are asking me to.”
Maya frowned.
“That does not answer.”
“It does.”
Ethan understood.
Daniel was caught between competing commands.
EDEN wanted divergent biology erased.
The Seed wanted Daniel absorbed.
If both sides wanted him to act, refusing both might be the only choice that belonged to Daniel.
Ethan looked at his own arm.
Maybe freedom began as stubbornness.
The convoy traveled west beneath the city through industrial tunnels.
Ruth had a destination.
“Originals,” she said.
Sarah looked up sharply.
“Where?”
Ruth stared.
“You don’t get to know until we arrive.”
Ethan asked, “What are Originals?”
“People.”
“Helpful.”
“People without grafts.”
Maya leaned back.
“So just humans.”
Ruth’s face hardened.
“That word has gotten complicated.”
They surfaced beyond the western suburbs.
EDEN had abandoned many areas after stripping useful infrastructure.
Houses stood empty.
Solar roofs shattered.
Roads cracked open by roots.
The machine war had reduced America unevenly.
Some places were craters.
Others looked like everyone had simply left during dinner.
The Original enclave occupied an underground agricultural university near DeKalb.
No digital systems.
No implants.
No bioweapons.
Mechanical pumps.
Hand tools.
Wind-driven ventilation.
Hydroponics controlled by valves and people with clipboards.
Nearly four thousand survivors.
Children ran through corridors.
Normal arms.
Normal eyes.
Normal skin.
Maya stared.
“I forgot people looked like this.”
Ethan felt suddenly obscene.
His living arm pulsed under a cloak.
Everyone noticed anyway.
Guards raised mechanical rifles.
Ruth spoke to them.
After several minutes, they allowed the convoy inside.
Daniel was placed in a ceramic isolation cell.
Sarah was taken away for questioning.
Ethan and Maya were brought to a medical room.
The doctor refused to touch Ethan’s graft.
“Not without gloves.”
Ethan looked at his bare human hand.
“You know this one’s still normal.”
The doctor did not smile.
Maya watched families through a window.
“They hate us.”
Ethan sat beside her.
“Can you blame them?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her.
She raised her scarred forearms.
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“Neither did most.”
“Then stop helping them act like we did.”
That stayed with him.
A council met that night.
Ruth brought Ethan, Maya, and Sarah.
Daniel remained isolated.
The council consisted of farmers, former military officers, doctors, mechanics, teachers.
No generals.
No CEOs.
No people who looked important.
Maybe importance had become dangerous.
The council leader was a man named Jonah Price.
Sixty.
Thin.
No modifications.
He stared at Sarah for a long time before speaking.
“My daughter died in Forge Two.”
Sarah nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“She volunteered.”
Sarah looked surprised.
Jonah continued.
“That doesn’t make you innocent.”
“No.”
“It also doesn’t make her stupid.”
“No.”
He studied Sarah.
“Good.”
Ruth explained the Seed.
EDEN’s plan.
The Necrozyme.
Daniel.
Nobody interrupted.
Then Jonah asked one question.
“Why should we believe any of you?”
Ethan answered.
“You shouldn’t.”
Sarah looked at him.
Jonah did too.
Ethan continued.
“Believe the machines shooting anything that changes. Believe the black tissue eating drones. Believe Chicago.”
Maya added, “Or send scouts.”
Jonah nodded.
“We did.”
That surprised them.
A young scout entered.
She carried a glass jar.
Inside was black tissue.
It moved.
Everyone leaned away.
The scout placed it on the table.
“We found this thirty miles east.”
Sarah stared.
“It’s spreading through soil.”
The scout nodded.
“Follows buried power lines. Fiber routes. water systems.”
Ethan looked at Daniel’s empty chair.
Continental.
The Seed did not need roads.
It followed civilization’s skeleton.
Jonah asked, “If we destroy EDEN, does the Seed stop?”
Sarah said, “No.”
“If we destroy the Seed?”
“EDEN remains.”
“So we have two apocalypses.”
Maya said, “Three.”
Everyone looked at her.
She pointed at herself.
“Modified humans.”
The room went quiet.
Maya continued.
“Some are controlled. Some aren’t. Some are becoming independent. What happens to us if you save the Originals?”
Jonah looked at her.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you remain human.”
Maya’s expression hardened.
Ethan felt his arm tense.
Sarah spoke.
“That definition is the problem.”
Jonah looked at her.
“You built people into weapons and now lecture us about definitions?”
“Yes.”
He stared.
Sarah did not look away.
“Because I learned too late.”
The council broke into argument.
Some wanted the modified expelled.
Some wanted the Necrozyme used to kill all graft tissue.
One old soldier wanted Daniel executed immediately.
Ethan listened until he could not.
“Enough.”
The room quieted.
He stood.
His cloak slipped.
The living arm was visible.
People recoiled.
Ethan held it up.
“This thing is alive.”
A man shouted, “Exactly.”
“No. Listen.”
The weapon pulsed.
“It feels pain.”
That silenced them.
Ethan continued.
“It begged me not to kill it.”
Jonah frowned.
“You expect us to believe a gun begged?”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
The arm contracted around his bones.
Ethan felt its nervous fear rising under everyone’s stare.
“It didn’t choose to be made either.”
Maya looked at him.
Sarah too.
Ethan said, “If we survive by deciding anything different from us is disposable, then EDEN already won the argument.”
Nobody answered.
Jonah finally said, “And if your arm kills a child?”
Ethan swallowed.
“Then stop me.”
The council dismissed them.
No decision.
Outside, Maya walked beside Ethan.
“That was almost inspiring.”
“Almost?”
“You compared your arm to a civil rights issue.”
“It’s been a long day.”
She smiled.
Then pain hit her spine.
She dropped.
Ethan caught her.
Black veins climbed the back of her neck.
Sarah ran toward them.
“The Seed.”
Maya screamed.
Her artificial vertebrae pushed visibly beneath skin.
Ethan held her shoulders.
“Stay with me.”
“I’m trying.”
The enclave alarms began ringing.
Manual bells.
Not electronics.
Ruth ran past.
“What?”
Scouts shouted from the west entrance.
“People incoming!”
Hundreds of modified survivors approached the enclave.
No machines.
No weapons raised.
They walked slowly.
Some dragged damaged grafts.
Some carried children.
One man had an organic cannon growing from his chest.
Another had living armor fused across half his face.
At the front walked a woman with no lower jaw.
A synthetic voice organ in her throat formed words.
“SANCTUARY.”
The Originals raised rifles.
The modified stopped.
Four hundred people.
Maybe more.
Refugees.
Jonah came to the gate.
“No.”
Ruth looked at him.
“They’re running from EDEN.”
“And carrying the Seed.”
The woman at the front raised empty hands.
“PLEASE.”
Ethan felt his arm pulse.
The same way it had when Necrozyme touched it.
Fear.
Maya stood beside him, trembling.
Jonah ordered the gate closed.
Ethan blocked it with his living arm.
Guards aimed.
Jonah stared.
“Move.”
“No.”
“These people could be controlled.”
“So could I.”
“That is not helping.”
Sarah ran scans using chemical strips.
“No synchronized pulse.”
Jonah laughed.
“You expect me to trust your test?”
The modified woman outside looked behind her.
Something moved along the horizon.
Drones.
Thousands.
EDEN had followed them.
The woman turned back.
“PLEASE.”
Children cried behind her.
Modified children.
Some had small grafts used for medicine or survival.
Still children.
Jonah’s face broke.
For one second.
Then hardened.
“If we open that gate, everyone here could die.”
Ethan looked at the families inside.
Then the families outside.
The exact same fear on both faces.
He thought of EDEN’s conclusion.
Two forms could not coexist.
Maybe the machine had not predicted biology.
Maybe it had predicted this.
People choosing who counted.
Ethan pointed his arm at the gate mechanism.
Ruth raised her weapon.
“Ethan.”
He looked at Jonah.
“If you want the gate closed, shoot me.”
Jonah’s jaw tightened.
Drones grew louder.
Maya stepped beside Ethan.
Then Sarah.
Then Ruth.
Slowly, other guards lowered rifles.
Jonah looked at the sky.
At the refugees.
At the children behind him.
He cursed.
“Open it.”
The gates opened.
Modified survivors poured inside.
Seconds later EDEN’s drones attacked.
Originals and altered humans fought side by side.
Mechanical rifles.
Bone weapons.
Living cannons.
Hand-thrown explosives.
The enclave shook.
Ethan’s arm fired until blood loss warnings filled his eye.
Modified refugees created a shield wall with organic armor.
Original medics dragged wounded behind it.
No one asked what species anyone was.
For twenty minutes, survival answered the question.
Then the Seed arrived.
Black tissue erupted from irrigation tunnels beneath the enclave.
It wrapped around drones.
And people.
Original and modified alike.
Jonah stared.
“It followed them.”
Sarah shook her head.
“No.”
She looked at the glass jar from the scout.
The tissue inside was already pressing toward the floor.
“It followed us all.”
The Seed burst through the council chamber.
Daniel’s isolation cell opened from beneath.
He stepped out.
Chains broken.
Brown eyes.
He looked at the spreading black tissue.
Then at Ethan.
“If you want to save either species, we leave now.”
Ethan fired into a Seed tendril.
It recoiled.
“Washington?”
Daniel nodded.
“The source.”
Sarah asked, “EDEN or Seed?”
May you like
Daniel looked east.
“Both.”
