The Beyond: Dystopian Survival Fiction (The Breeder Files Book 4) by Eliza Green (most popular novels TXT) 📗

‘Reasonably.’

‘Explain.’

Dom shrugged. ‘As well as can be expected.’

The doctor nodded. ‘Have you been ill at all?’

He’d been operated on, given new tech and brought to the brink of death. But none of it had been naturally occurring.

He answered honestly. ‘No.’

The doctor recorded something, then turned to Dom. ‘Roll up your sleeve.’

He did, presenting the arm without tech in it. The doctor placed a blood pressure cuff on him. Pressure built up, then lessened.

He took it off. ‘One twenty over eighty. Normal.’

Dom rolled his sleeve down.

Two new doctors dressed in white coats wheeled in a black machine big enough to stand in.

Panic flared in Dom’s chest. He hopped up from the chair and back, instantly recognising the design. ‘What the hell’s that doing here?’

The lead doctor looked intrigued. ‘What do you think it is?’

Dom eyed the machine again. ‘A copying machine.’

‘Actually, no. It’s a harmless body scanner.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘But I’m interested to hear about this other machine. What did it copy?’

Dom settled at hearing that. His pulse settled, too. But the man was too interested in his answer.

‘Nothing important.’

The lead doctor gestured to the chair again. ‘You seemed pretty rattled by it. What did it do?’

Dom sat down, not sure how much he should tell this stranger. He’d agreed to this examination as a way to see more of the place. But he still didn’t know what this place was or who these people were.

Yet, they knew about Copies.

‘It copied the Copies.’

The man lifted both brows. ‘A copy of a copy produces an inferior product.’

Didn’t he know it? Dom had been copied a few times. Each attempt had been marginally better than the first one.

He sighed, not wishing to see a repeat. ‘Are we done here?’

The lead doctor slid his glasses on. ‘No. I need to scan you. Head to toe.’ He looked over the top of his glasses. ‘Will I find anything unusual?’

Dom hesitated. ‘I have machine tech inside me.’

The man’s eyes widened briefly. He recorded something on his screen, then gestured for Dom to stand up and enter the machine.

Dom slowed his walk to it. The machine didn’t look exactly like the one he’d seen in the medical facility. For a start, this one had four open sides. Nor did it have a container of biogel needed to make an actual Copy.

He released a quiet breath and entered it by the front, then stood facing the doctor. A blue scanner started from his feet and swept up and back down. The scanner didn’t make his skin tingle. But neither had the machine in Arcis, right before his Copy had appeared.

‘You can exit now,’ said the doctor, frowning at the screen. ‘According to the scan, you have one new lung, one kidney, a new liver and adjustments to your arm.’ He looked up. ‘What would you say if I asked to see the tech?’

‘I’d say, over my dead body.’ He inched closer to the exit. ‘Are we done now?’

‘Not quite.’

The man nodded at the entrance. Dom turned to see the two spare doctors were now blocking the open door. Three soldiers appeared in the gap outside. The blockade parted suddenly and a frowning Agatha walked through.

‘Mr Pavesi,’ she said and the blockade closed again. ‘It appears you’ve been lying to us.’

‘How so?’

‘You fooled our scanners, brought unknown tech through to this side.’

‘You never asked.’

‘How many of you have this tech in you?’

‘Just me.’

Alex was human, as was Frahlia. And Jerome was more biogel than anything else. Carissa’s neuromorphic chip must have triggered the alarm, not any organs she might have received.

‘No matter. The physical exams of your followers should determine that.’ She stepped closer. ‘Your presence creates a dilemma, Dom. One I hope you can help us with.’

‘Help?’

‘Yes. We created this place to keep the machines out.’ Her hands disappeared behind her back. ‘But the fact that you fooled our systems tells us the machines have found a way to circumvent our controls. It means they pose a threat to our haven. Do you understand?’

‘Not really. Your scanner stopped the only Copy among us.’

Agatha paused. ‘The scanner we use separates humans from the Collective’s synthetic designs through a specific frequency the Copies put out. Humans emit a natural low frequency, but machines... they run on a network. Theirs is more of a vibration.’

Dom guessed Carissa’s self-repairing NMC emitted that vibration.

She brought her arms to the front and folded them. ‘We need to study the tech in you to determine why our scanners allowed you to pass.’

His blood ran cold. His pulse thundered in his veins.

Dom forced a smile. ‘Can we do this later? I’m starving.’

Agatha pursed her lips, then nodded at one of the soldiers. ‘Take him to the dining hall.’

One armed soldier led Dom out and away from the circle of doors, back down the corridor and into a wider one that ran beneath Agatha’s elevated prefab. It bothered him that he was being taken farther away from the Region, as Agatha had called it. Charlie and the others were still trapped there. He didn’t want anyone here to forget about them.

Despite his dilemma, any decision making would be sharper on a full stomach and a little sleep.

The soldier dropped him off at an entrance to a large room. Inside, tables and chairs were laid out in rows, with an aisle separating the rows into sections at intervals. Other Beyond soldiers looked up at him when he entered.

One pointed to a counter at the back wall.

‘Go there,’ he snapped and resumed eating.

Dom increased his step to the counter, partly to escape his armed escort, partly to see what food was on offer. He’d been living on rations