Prologue
286 YEARS AGO
You don’t want to kill any children today. Or any other day, for that matter.
But as your team pulls into the district’s preschool’s front gates, a disturbing number of people have swarmed the perimeter, indicating that enough time has passed since the initial distress call. You fear that the children inside may no longer be human.
The throng parts as you and your team tread toward the scene, noting the shiny badge that bears your chest. The Captain, they mutter. He’s here to take them away. That’s a hopeful thought, you think. The crowd, you come to realize as you reach the front, is full of restless parents, crying behind their facemasks and begging your first-responding soldiers to lay down their rifles.
“My boy is healthy,” a mother cries—a Non-carrier, based on her mask. Your officer catches her before she can reach you. “He’s no monster!”
Not yet. Despite your best interest, it’s the foremost truth at the front of everyone’s mind. It’s only a matter of time before he is. And that’s your responsibility to determine which ones are and which ones are salvageable for exile.
Before you march through the door with your hand-picked squad of men, Carriers, healthy, abled men, and hopefully sound of mind enough to not let their fear trigger their finger before their best judgment, the front doors creak open.
All frightful eyes and hasty guns swing to the entrance, where a boy, no older than five, takes a step out. You immediately notice his pair of glowing green eyes. An Infectant.
Before half his body is out the door, you command your soldiers to stand down, and to the boy, “Stay right where you are.”
Nobody moves from your orders. Even the sick boy stills, halfway out the door. He listens; you take that as a good sign. Except for the mother, who tried to grab you earlier, she shouts for her son, Danvo.
A handful of men seize her before she can slip past.
“Go inside,” she cries. “They’re going to shoot you!”
“No one here moves!” You reaffirm your order. Precipitation builds on your back and your scalp under your captain’s cap. “No one will be shooting anyone!”
The boy remains between the doors. “I don’t want to get anyone sick,” he cries in his fervent and high voice. “I can’t go back in.”
His reasoning pains you. If Danvo had, in any way, greeted his teachers and classmates, chances are, they would have been plagued with the same unfortunate fate. So standing out here won’t make a difference now. But you remain hopeful since he’s still communicating. Voice clear and coherent as a human can be.
“Then stay where you are,” you reply.
Danvo listens.
You scan the rest of him from afar, no blood, no scratches, no suggestions that any violence occurred. Good. This is better than most days.
You turn your attention back to the mother who is sinking to the ground in defeat. You reason with her, what will you accomplish by storming the gates? And assure her that in the early stages of Bonucleus, his survival rates are high.
But the mother still weeps in grievance. “But he won’t be with his mother,” she whines. “He’s too young to go. Take me, too. I want to go with him.”
“How can you say such a thing?” you reply. “You see your son? I’m sure he wants nothing more than to be in his mother’s arms. But you see him standing there? He doesn’t want you or anyone to be sick. How can you deny him the last of his humanity? His last wishes?”
With the last line, the young mother sobs, unashamed of her raucousness, but ultimately remains on the ground, accepting her circumstance as they all eventually do.
Back at your job, you interrogate Danvo and inquire about the situation inside. When you have heard it all and gathered enough information, you thank the boy, praise him for being so cooperative despite his difficulties, and stand. You brace yourself for the crowd’s reaction, their phones recording the scene, news stations have also arrived, reporting live, but you are firm on your decision and call the Transport line.
When their trucks arrive, so do some of the protestors from every stance. Some believe exile is too harsh and that they should be kept in a facility close to where their family members can frequently visit. Others believe exile is too dangerous, and no Infectant should be spared, not even children. You make sure none of them get in the way of the Transport team.
“Captain Lavoran,” the Captain of the Transport squad greets you. You give her the details of what you’ve been told, accounting for the total number of people inside.
“All forty-two of them,” you conclude, solemnly. “Transfer to the Void, effective immediately.”
The crowd boos. You keep your chin high despite their protest. It’s government policy, and you enforce it. Not just because it’s your job, but you believe it’s the most humane thing to do besides killing the sick. Like surrendering an ill pet to the wild in hopes they find salvation there. Especially when there isn’t a cure for Bonucleus. There hasn’t been one for decades since the first Outbreak. No more devastation, no more deaths, not when most of them are harmless in the early stages.
They’re not monsters.
The gates open, and the Transport team marches in. You turn your attention away for a moment to breathe, and the mother slips from the corners of your eye. She runs through the gates and heads for Danvo before you can grab her. Unbeknownst to the transport team, they don’t see her coming, nor do they understand why a Non-carrier woman in a mask is running toward them unless she is also infected or mad.
One of them shoots her in the head.
The fire pierces your ears, rousing a disapproval from the probing crowd. Everything is caught on camera. You barely have time to react or command them to hold their fire. Now there’s a dead woman on the ground. Her son is yards away, staring at her lifeless body. No tears. No shout. No idea how he’ll respond.
Danvo’s eyes, brightly green, now lowered and darkened in another color. Yellow? You hope. It’s the best case in this situation that he won’t grow claws or collect his mother’s caress and sew them onto his own body. That he won’t demolish you and everyone in the vicinity.
“Hold your fire,” you command, but pull out your own gun.
Your hands shake, and your finger is heavy on the trigger, the crosshair on the boy’s head. Maybe he won’t change, you assure yourself. It’s still early. I can still save him.
But as Danvo lifts his head back up, his eyes glow red. Alarmingly red. The ones they teach you as your first lesson. When you see red, what do you do? You run. You flee, and you hope those red eyes do not catch you a second time. The same red eyes that annihilated over eighty percent of the globe twenty years ago, before humanity found a way to suspend the obliteration.
You must kill Danvo to prevent the second wave.
But when you stare into the boy’s eyes, you see fear. Was it his or your own? And how many times have you seen the same fear in those red eyes? You look at him whole, and he’s just a boy. How can you hurt him?
This is your job, your responsibility, you remind yourself. You swore an oath to protect the people in this city. So now you must make your final decision: Man or monster, where do your bullets draw the line?
