The Fall (Tyton #2)

Prologue

Stop, mom!” Lusa snatched a stuffed lion out of Callie’s hand before she tossed it into the box along with all of the other things on her bed. Ila and Kuak leaped around outside the door, excited to take over her and Pinga’s room.

“Sorry.” Callie muttered. Lusa sighed in teenaged exasperation.

“Aren’t you too old for that?” Pinga said, wholly unwelcome and ironic given she regularly threatened to kill anyone who touched the tattered blanket she’d had since birth.

Lusa stroked its mane with her thumb, trying to hold it from view.

Callie intervened, shooting Pinga a look before anyone died.

“It doesn’t even look like a lion,” Pinga said under her breath.

She should be grateful for her mother stepping in, but she wasn’t. It only reinforced what she knew – everybody at the Lake thought she was unstable and dangerous. Lusa gripped Minuschok tightly.

“It’s a different kind of lion,” Callie explained. “The real Minuschok is a girl anyway.”

Rolling up the remaining furs on the bed Lusa headed for the door.

She had expected to feel sadder at leaving the family house, but the allure of freedom overshadowed everything else.

She and Pinga had been promised their own MobilePods just next-door last year when it became clear Ila and Kuak needed their own room away from Panik and Amka.

Getting away from Pinga and her incessant mouth was the real treasure.

She found Grandma Cat waiting inside. “You can leave everything here,” she said. “Uncle Tornit will move it all while you’re in Tyton tomorrow. Excited to go?”

“I guess?” Showing too much emotion had always been hard for her. She moved carefully around the new space, hoping that she hadn’t offended Cat, but the words and tone had slipped out before she could think about them.

Cat seemed to take it in stride. “I remember when we first moved here. You and Pinga were barely a year old. I had no idea what to expect.” She busied herself putting plates in cupboards.

“Why did you move here?” Lusa didn’t hate The Lake.

She loved the woods, the trap lines with Sesi, swimming and careening free in the grass.

She loved testing her strength with Talia on the training runs.

But it was also cramped. The same eyes that saw her in nappies and playing too rough as a child couldn’t see her become her own person.

She wasn’t the only one who thought so either. The other girls wanted the trader boys, most of them, anyway. Everyone understood why they couldn’t bring one here, but no-one liked it. Tyton was a much bigger place with more things to do. Or so she had been told.

“No-one told you?” Cat cocked her head.

“I mean, yeah. I know about the nanites in your blood and how me and Pinga and the other girls don’t have them. And it’s bad if we do because we won’t be able to have babies or something.”

Cat laughed and pulled out a chair. “Your moms met in Tyton, yes, but only Sesi doesn’t have nanites. Callie and Talia do. Which means they can use implants and the DocPod, but you and the other girls and their moms can’t.”

“And if we let boys in, they’ll infect us. I know.” Lusa looked sceptically at the chair, not sure whether she wanted to sit and have this conversation again.

“Not you,” Cat clarified, “any children you have.”

Lusa had heard the story a dozen times. Their moms had stopped Model 21, a large model AI that was secretly the uploaded consciousness of Dr. Morgan Black. Model 2 tipped off Talia to his plan to infect every living thing with a virus that caused the body to produce nanites and then control them.

In people, they allowed cyberware and DocPods, but greatly reduced fertility, causing the Great Regression, where men tried to control women.

Women revolted. Countries collapsed and corporations took over.

The AI models that fuelled the products for capitalism were moved to the company towns around the Arctic.

Humans still dwindled closer to extinction with every generation.

Except for a few isolated women who never encountered the virus. They couldn’t use cyberware. Couldn’t interact with the infrastructure, Ghosts using retro tech to get by when they needed, but otherwise, invisible. They had children in secret and kept them separate, here at the Lake.

In the meantime, they searched for nanite-free men, but they hadn’t found one yet. Uncle Tornit and Sparx even travelled south in their search. All they found were dried-up rivers and abandoned cities.

Model 21 shut down, as did Model 2, stopping the production of all new products and most corporations collapsed. Tyton was left to the gangs.

Every time her moms told the story, they added more unsavoury details.

It wasn’t until the fifth or sixth retelling that Lusa learned that Sesi and Talia had been part of one of those gangs – the Adlets.

Or that they had kidnapped Callie and Auntie (at the time) Sparx.

Or that Talia had been part of a fertility cult.

The juiciest details came from Sparx. Cat always kept her retellings clean.

“If we stayed in Tyton, it would have been a lot harder to keep you safe.” Cat made sure Lusa was looking at her. This was important. “You don’t know how valuable you are. All of you.”

“I don’t want to be valuable,” Lusa complained. “I don’t even want kids.”

“Neither did Callie. Or Sesi. Until you and Pinga came along.”

That chafed. The last thing Lusa wanted was to be told she’d change her mind when she was older. But arguing was pointless. “What about Talia?” Talia was always the least maternal. Also the one Lusa felt closest to.

Cat pursed her lips in thought. “I never heard her say she didn’t want kids. She was more afraid that she wouldn’t be a good mother.”

To everyone else, Talia was a paragon of competence and confidence. Few knew of her self-doubt. Cat, apparently, was one of them.

Squeals of laughter outside disturbed their peace. Cat rose and peered out the window before shaking her head. “You’re on your own, Lulu. Amka and Panik are throwing rotten potatoes at each other.”

“That’s why I don’t want kids.” Lusa spread her hands, resting her case. Cat didn’t argue, but Lusa could tell she didn’t believe her.