There were a lot of people like Samson and me, with prosthetics. Apparently, they were not qualified to live with the perfect people in Dome 1—or any other dome, for that matter. Eurasia followed a strict caste system, and the mechanically enabled, while allowed to work outside Dome 6 on night shifts during the enforced curfew, were not permitted to reside anywhere else.
"The motto is looking forward, never back," Captain Mutegi explained to us aboard the Argonaus before we disembarked. "Citizens with scars and prosthetics remind the populace of the plague, and they'd rather forget that period in their history. Or any history, for that matter. The neural implants and VR keep citizens focused on the present, always looking toward an ever-brighter future."
Samson had grumbled at that. "You know what they say about forgetting the past."
Perhaps they were indeed doomed to repeat it. Captain Mutegi warned us about terrorist threats from the outlying domes, an underground movement of citizens dissatisfied with their assigned stations in life. But he said Dome 6 didn't suffer from such dissent. The citizens here accepted their lot. It was the way of things, and no one questioned it. For the most part, none of the sicks had any desire to leave their peaceful dome in search of a better life. They were already living it.
Dome 6 was lovely, but it was not our intention to remain there. Our mission, as explained by Luther and Sergeant Bishop, was to blend in and become a valuable part of our community. By doing so, we would be eligible to participate in the exchange program where the Dome 6 Governor chose outstanding citizens to live in one of the other outlying domes for a couple months.
Meanwhile, we had research to do.
Using our own DNA samples, we were to track down our ten offspring; using Luther's and Daiyna's, we would track down the other ten. Posing as veterans from the Argonaus afforded us a certain level of immediate respect, and we were provided with all the necessary tech we required to get online. They called it the Linkstream, and even citizens without neural implants could access it via older consoles that still worked—thanks in no small part to the older citizens in Dome 6. Those with the mental capacity to work did so, repairing and maintaining devices that had become all but obsolete.
This is where Samson and I immediately began contributing to the community. He's always been good with machines, and I tend to be a quick study.
Over the years that followed, we discovered that our children from Eden were referred to as the Twenty, an honored segment of the population. They were the only citizens to be born a decade after the Terminal Age generation, thought to be Eurasia's last due to infertility plaguing the entire population.
The Twenty had been placed with adoptive families throughout Eurasia—with the exception of Dome 10—and as they grew and matured into young adults, they were assigned important roles in education, law enforcement, science, healthcare, agriculture, government, oxygen generation, and technological advancement. None of the information we gleaned was common knowledge. We had to rely on our tech-savvy abilities to navigate the Linkstream's hidden tributaries undetected, always disabling the devices we used after obtaining the information we sought. We masked our point of origin with a vacillating receiver that made it appear as though we were in multiple locations at the same time—in various domes.
Years later, longer than we ever thought it would take, by which point we seriously began to doubt whether Luther's plan or our part in it would ever come to fruition, we were chosen by Governor Hallsley to transfer to Dome 9. He'd had his eye on us for a while, noting our positive contributions to the community, but there were others ahead of us in line and only a few openings each summer. Dome-transfer was not popular; many saw it as a threat to the class system. But Hallsley made it clear that every citizen who participated in the short-term transfer would remain in his or her caste. Samson and I were responsible for maintaining and repairing technological and mechanical equipment in Dome 6, and we would have the same job in Dome 9.
There were two male members of the Twenty located in this agricultural center. One of them was related to us. We requested to be sent to the Paine farm, which had extended a welcome to the next Dome 6 transfer. Much to our delight, the Governor honored our request.
But the delight quickly turned into anxiety for both Samson and me. We lay awake at night, asking each other questions neither of us had the answers to.
"What should I say to him?" Samson's deep voice rumbled in the dark. He stared up at the ceiling, lying in our four-poster bed. Tomorrow, we would take the maglev train to Dome 9 and meet Mrs. Paine for the first time.
"We'll have time to figure that out. Erik isn't scheduled to return home for another week." I curled up beside my husband, his metal arm around me. He had it heated to just the right temperature, perfect for snuggling. "You'll do fine. You always know what to say."
"Glad it appears that way." He kissed the top of my head. My long hair fanned out across his shoulder. "I don't want to scare him off. It's taken us so long to have this opportunity, to meet with one of them in a way that shouldn't raise any red flags. Hopefully he won't report us to the authorities."
Captain Mutegi warned us that if we were found out, we could be executed. A worst-case scenario, right next to being banished from Eurasia. After all this time and effort, for it to come to nothing? Neither of us wanted to go back to life as we knew it in the Wastes. Nor did we want to serve aboard the Argonaus. Below decks, Samson nearly went mad
