Stem

Her heart was beating too fast. Rather, the heavy glass dangling from her neck was pulsing more intently than she’d ever felt before.

Alia grabbed at the vibrating thing on her chest as she tried to steady her breath. To the customers at the marketplace, the object was just a cute locket—a sentimental keepsake, perhaps. She wanted to keep it that way. They’d kill her if they knew the truth—that it was a warning for things to come.

The mechanism inside the locket buzzed over her heart, and Alia could feel the panic rising in her chest.

Just a month ago, the postman publicly accused her of working for the government. The news had spread to the entire village within days. Now everyone watched her with cynical eyes.

She was in the middle of the breadline. If she left now, escaped before the imminent massacre, potential survivors would know the truth. They would know she was the enemy. Although they were unlikely to make it out alive, the thought paralyzed her.

Another buzz. This one gripped her chest, squeezed until she found it hard to breathe. They were coming, and she didn’t want them to mistake her for one of the townsfolk. She didn’t want to die.

“Alia!”

She wheeled around at the sound of her name.

A familiar figure, Nero, was moving closer. He frowned as he his assessed the disappointment on her face.

“You don’t look happy to see me,” he said.

Alia let her eyes linger on his tall frame as he joined her in the line. His big, somber eyes resembled those of a small child. His skin, tanned by the sun, grazed her own before she recoiled.

An even deeper frown accompanied his furrowed brows. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

Yes.

He made her rethink her entire purpose. She’d been part of the mission for almost a year now. She’d taken the careful, long-term steps needed to embed herself within the community until they accepted her as a member.

But she had been slipping these last couple months. The lines between her and Nero had blurred two months ago. She’d almost let it slip that she wasn’t a true Stem.

The others had genes that were susceptible to the bioweapons killing off the American population. Not her. She’d almost let that one slip when Nero told her about his immune disorder.

Last month, her “grandmother” had an odd resurgence of memories. She told the postman she hadn’t had any grandchildren—that Alia was an evil government plant. That was how the rumor started.

They knew she was slipping.

She was another potential screw up. They’d tried for generations to keep the Stems away from the Picks—let them die off on their own. But the stupid humans never cared much about genes. They kept having children with the wrong people. Guys like Nero didn’t look like they had inferior genes, and that was why it was so hard to keep them out of the gene pool.

That was why her warning had come so late. On her other missions, her locket beat days before the incident. The interval between buzzing shrank as the time of doom grew closer.

Now they were giving her a narrow choice. Join the soon-to-be-dead Stems or remember what side you’re on.

Nero made it hard to remember. He had shown her things she never saw before. Some of them made her smile when she thought of them. Some made her blush. Simple things like the woodsy smell of his body or the innocent gleam of his eyes took her into a strange, foreign world in which she wanted to live forever.

So her heart—her real heart—shattered into a million pieces when the screaming started. But it wasn’t the screaming that did it. It was the look of recognition on Nero’s face once the atmosphere changed. He was smart enough to put two and two together.

It was exactly three days ago when he asked her about the rumors. She denied them.

“You really are—" he started to say, but his words caught in his throat.

The customers eyed the pair quizzically before the distant sounds of carnage registered in their minds. They dropped their baskets and goods and scrambled away. But there was nowhere to go. By now, the perimeters were blocked off.

She could have told him. She could have given him a warning. It would have been hard, but he was smart enough to find a way out of town.

“There’s no way out.”

She blurted the words out before he could run with the crowd. Her hands, trembling with self-disgust, removed the beating heart from her neck.

“This will protect you. It lets the robots know you’re not a Stem. But don’t get in their way. They can still kill you if you’re not careful.”

He was still half-turned, but an unmistakable grimace overtook his features.

“I’m supposed to believe anything you say?” he asked.

A warm tear fell somewhere, maybe to Alia’s shirt. The knot in her throat wouldn’t let her speak. She held the locket steady until Nero snatched it away.

Without the device, the robots would shoot her without a doubt. She shouldn’t have been mixed in with them anyway. She should have left once the heart began to vibrate. But her heart was with Nero, so it no longer mattered.

Something fell at her feet. The locket.

“You did this,” Nero said. His eyes watered as they looked past Aria’s face. “Now live with it.”

The robots were closing in. Their arms shot tiny bullets at the crying, wailing bodies around them. She couldn’t watch Nero fall.

Alia grabbed the heart and took off, racing past the deadly machines with her chest hot and heaving. What had she done? How could she let this happen?

A stupid, disgusting part of her had told herself she would act when the first warnings came. But they had anticipated that. And now…

She couldn’t deny that she was a part of this carnage. She had been a part of it for years and yet she never felt the injustice of it all until now.

She had always believed she was doing the right thing—that the Stems and everyone else would die anyway if she hadn’t. She had never stuck around to witness the atrocities before now. The people didn’t deserve to be slaughtered like sheep. No matter the justification, it was inhumane.

The robots moved around her, let her pass through their shooting ligaments and scanning eyes.

She formed a plan as she walked between them. The plan involved justice and vengeance and plotting. More carnage.

She’d go along with this plan for as many years it would take to end the current system—as many years it would take for her heart to stop beating.