The Regenerates Trilogy Book One: Project Phoenix

Project Phoenix

Dedicated to Kathy and Annabelle. You are my inspiration.

Chapter One

I shivered in the cold air as the crowd around me was pushed forward, the rain creating a tiny pitter-patter sound against the cobblestone of the town square. In the middle of the square stood soldiers, dressed in a deep black. Each held guns to the heads of convicts, who wore sacks over their heads.

Pay the ultimate price for rebellion, A voice echoed through the square. "The Emperor’s word is absolute, there is no higher power. His word is law."

As the gunshots fired I closed my eyes, turning away. The people around me began walking home, others gathered around the podium, begging the soldiers for money or food. I hugged my arms closer to my body, ignoring the rumbling of my stomach. It had been a while since I had eaten.

Dodging a band of pickpockets, I found shelter from the storm underneath the branches of an oak tree. Mornings like these were normal here in Bellona. The crowd today was lucky the soldiers didn’t decide to gut the prisoners.

Things hadn’t always been this chaotic, this brutal; at least it hadn’t been in the Old Country. North Korea had launched the first attack that had started the war series; they had called it World War III back then. Here in Bellona we call it the First War of Revelation.

The United States of America is now gone. After the First Revelation, the people attacked their own government and overthrew it after the collapse of several political parties. Destroying the constitution, the founders of Bellona created new governing laws which resulted in a new age of monarchy. The government started to ennoble the weak-minded and prey on those who would oppose them. The leader of the pack of carnivorous wolves was the alpha, Emperor Viktor Oleander.

Like a snake hidden in the bushes waiting to strike, the Emperor preys upon the weak and vulnerable of our society. Coercing people into worshipping him as a god, he would threaten and deceive anyone who stood in his path. To those who only see his face, he doesn’t seem like a man who would rule a country like Bellona, but deep down inside everyone was aware of his hard and cruel personality. Rumors said he was cruel because of his brother. Others said he was kind behind closed doors, and that the cruelty he inflicted upon the Provinces was just for show.

The Emperor always says that everything he does is for the good of the people, and for Bellona. Sometimes I would try to force myself to believe him, then I would remember the painful reality of all the horrible things he had done.

There was always something about him, about his family. Whenever he walked into a room a person could feel as if they were never in control, even the most dominant of personalities would turn submissive.

When I was a child, I was terrified of him. I had scared myself into believing a nightmare that the Emperor would come into my room in the middle of the night and take me away to the palace, where he would devour me for his dinner.

Sometimes I would imagine my father taking me in his arms, embracing me tightly as he whispered comforting words in my hair. Don’t worry, he would say. I won’t let him hurt you. The only thing was, I had no father. Without him around, my mother and I are left alone.

It wasn’t uncommon for teenagers in my sector to be missing family members. Civil War and sickness has taken many in Bellona, including children. My mother told me when I was young that I had a brother, but he died of the plague a few years after I was born.

Those who survived the plague are lucky, and the government continues to look for an antidote to different strains. Those who live in poverty like my mother and I do often have to sell their bodies to the government for experiments. In one way or another, debts pile up and there is no way out. The hole is dug too deep.

I didn’t remember why, but I had a memory of walking through a darkened hallway when I was a little older than five. I had no idea where I was, but I knew that I didn’t like being there. I remembered a deep voice, speaking to my mother as I shifted around the room quietly behind her.

-due to the massive backlog for cures, we need the sample today. Unless you would prefer to spend a few nights in prison leaving your little girl to fend for herself?

I recalled seeing a dark room behind me. The shadows crept up the wall and seemed to follow people as they walked into hallway. The door handle had a bloody fingerprint on it, and that was when I knew the person inside was hurt. Another doctor came and spoke to my mother, speaking to her in hushed voices. I snuck away while she was distracted, moving towards the room to see what was inside. When I pushed aside the door, I screamed. There were needles everywhere, marching up her arms and legs. A few stuck out of her neck, each needle covered in dried blood. The woman’s skin was ghost white and her eyes were clouded and pale. She was staring right at me.

"Help...me," she said in a soft voice before her chest stopped moving.

She was dead. I don’t remember what happened afterward, just that I began to cry and fled from the room.

My stomach rumbled as a wave of nausea churned in my belly, breaking me from my thoughts. The town square was now deserted, leaving me standing alone with the dead. Rainwater dripped into my eyes, forcing me to look away.

A dull bell chimed in the distance, bringing life into the streets as people emerged from their houses. I walked into the crowd, keeping my arms close to my body as I moved towards the dining area. If I had enough money I could sit down and eat, but the dining area was designated only for clean families who attended the court of the Emperor.

If you belonged to a clean family, it meant that you had been blessed by God himself. Each person born in Bellona would have their blood tested from birth for defects like cancer or plague. Clean families had been clean for generations. They made up the aristocracy, and if any child had been born dirty in a clean-blooded family, they were tossed into the street; forgotten. If you were born poor, your ancestors had faults in their DNA the capitol didn’t want mixing in the clean gene pool, whether it involved obesity, cancer, plague.

Like the rest of the workers I stayed at the side of the Dining Room, turning down the service hallway away from the sitting area. Swiping my keycard at the entrance, I moved out of the hallway to the back of the dining area away from the tables to the kitchen where I could clean dishes.

The dining area was a tough place to work at first, but I got used to it. Families moved in and out through the day, often leaving leftover food on their plates. The sweeter foods always tempted me to take a quick bite before washing the remnants away into the swirling water pool. I never did though, I knew the punishment. I knew clean-bloods who would eat in the Dining Area that would tempt the waiters and other workers to eat the food all so they could have the entertainment of watching some poor soul get beaten. If you were caught eating the leftovers you could be whipped 50 times for the delicacy you ingested. Often it was more, depending on the mood of the centurions who were on patrol in the forum.

The centurions are Bellona’s police and soldiers. Hundreds are stationed throughout Bellona, with the single job of tormenting the citizens who haven’t been designated clean into submission. Most centurions are from clean families, but others come from poor backgrounds. If a family is desperate enough to earn money, once a member of their household is eighteen and has passed different screening tests, they would be deemed fit enough to join the centurion ranks. The centurions aren’t considered dirty or clean, but they are close enough to dirty that they sit in a different area of the dining hall. The dishwashing station I work at is close to the table where they eat every day.

Washing dishes isn’t the only job I have. It pays very little compared to other jobs that are available in my sector, but I don’t have enough experience or training to do any of them. I’ve always had to pick up odd jobs I could find available. However, with all the jobs I could find, I still struggle to make ends meet. Some nights I don’t even have enough to feed myself. My mother has tried to help by getting a job herself, but she has been fired from all her other previous jobs because she never shows up to work, or is always drunk whenever she does.

My father’s death was the first time she ever touched a drop of alcohol. Since then, our house has always been littered with empty bottles of moonshine and homemade liquor, or any other type of fermented drink my mother has tried. Before she was always clear headed and strong, always smiling. After my father’s death, she wouldn’t stop crying, she would forget to pay the bills, she wouldn’t eat or sleep.

She was a doctor at the Hospital in the main sector of my Province, but then her hands started to shake. She would drink before, during, and after work. By the time I was ten she had been fired, and reassigned to work at the sector infirmary where nurses would take care of wounded centurions or host a clinic for the poorer people from our Province. My mother’s supervisor knows that when I show up instead, my mother would not be available for work, but he doesn’t complain. Medical personnel are scarce in my sector, which raises the mortality rate among the Province.

When I work at the infirmary I am forced to change into my mother’s uniform which barely fits. The uniform is a pale gray and government issued. The older women who work in the infirmary say it is because all medical personnel must look alike to not cause any distraction among other staff or the patients. Otherwise, if we were dressed differently, and the Emperor ever stopped to have a look around, he would be angry that his royal seal was not on my chest.

Even if someone did think for herself, she wouldn’t tell anyone, on threat of getting punished by the sector centurions. Some days I think about the Old Country that was here before us. Did they have problems like this? If the people ever did, someone should have done something about it to save us all from this Hell that we know today.

It’s too late now. It’s only wishful thinking. My own cowardice gets in the way of my thoughts when I am reminded of my mother living on her own after I am executed. She would become homeless, living under a bridge or in the forest struggling to survive. I let wishful thinking be wishful thinking, and ignore my anger for my mother. I try to be loyal, to be brain dead like everyone else but it never works. I still want him gone.

"The Emperor’s words are law, the voice echoed through my head. Pay the ultimate price for rebellion."

I will never be loyal to the Emperor. I am not brain dead. The Emperor’s word will never be absolute. Then again, wishful thinking can go a long way, even for an impoverished teenager.

Chapter Two

Dirt can always pile up on china plates very quickly, so I have to start scrubbing right away when I begin my shift. After the morning’s execution, the aristocratic families piled into the dining area, feasting upon eggs benedict and toasted sugar-rolls. Wrinkling my nose as the smell drifted over, I started scrubbing a stain harder. A man and his wife laughed at my concentration as they passed and I held back the urge to splash the dish water onto their shoes.

If the calendar by my station was correct, today would be one week before my eighteenth birthday. If I was younger and naïve, I would wish for a cake like the richer children would have. I would ask for a present, something expensive too. I knew I wouldn’t be getting anything for my birthday, I usually didn’t receive anything besides a pay check.

I liked thinking about my own birthday cake, what it would look like. I wanted it to be circular, like the tall fancy cakes that were served in the dining area. A short circular cake with plain buttercream, decorated with blue and yellow flowers. The candles would be white, tall and thin. What would I wish for? There were so many things, too many to list, and I am too greedy.

I jumped, almost dropping a china plate as shouting interrupted my thoughts. I looked up from my dirty towel, seeing a man dressed in overalls, a dirty blood, with slicked backed hair starting to throw rotten eggs at the clean bloods who were eating breakfast. The centurions that sat in the dining area quickly rushed from their seats, incapacitating him.

What could have started such a negative event? a woman who sat nearby asked in a stuffy voice. She narrowed her eyes as she caught me staring at her, turning back to her eggs benedict.

I don’t know, the man she sat with answered her. Perhaps he had tried to submit himself with hopes of money and was turned down? I wish the centurions could just move them all away into the forest and leave us the city, but sadly we must live among these wretches.

I glared at the two strangers and looked back down at the plate I had been scrubbing. When the poor get desperate they turn to anything to get them out of their slump. Some sell themselves, their children. Some steal, others turn to the law for help. For some the only option they have is to sell their bodies to the scientists who have been searching for a cure to the plague. Not being able to coerce people into submitting blood, or DNA because of too much opposition, the Emperor and his council decided to create a law that would allow the drawing of random names from a sector each month. Everyone in the sectors knew that if you were desperate for money, you could always volunteer. It was never recommended for a person to volunteer themselves due to the classified nature of the experiments. A person could walk into the building where the experiments took place and come back out in a coffin.

Rumors always sparked in the sectors about what took place in the government research facilities. One rumor most know were true was what could happen to a person if you were tested for the Regenerate gene. No one knew much about the Regenerate gene, and what it mutated in a person’s body, but people knew that you could be executed for possessing it. It has always been that way, facts about the gene itself were highly classified. Whispers still managed to find their way to the sectors, rich or poor. What was known about the gene was very little, but people thrived on the information they could find. Some say that the gene infected you with a disease that was highly infectious, even more than the plague.

It is common to see groups of centurions taking away people in my sector, which is like a village, to be executed at the palace. The families of these people don’t even say goodbye; they just turn up their noses and let them get dragged away to die.

No matter how poor we get, or how close we come to losing our house, my mother has never mentioned volunteering for the experiments. Even when we are supposed to submit our names for the drawing, she has never said anything about what would happen if either of our names were drawn. I think she has always feared it.

The bell tolled in the square, signaling the end of the work day. I placed my final clean plate down, and ended my shift at the dishwashing station, swiping my key-card. As I hung up my apron, my supervisor came by, and handed me my payment for the week.

Get somethin’ good with this money girl, he said. Don’t let ya mother take it again.

I’ll try sir, I said, shoving the money into the pocket of my jacket. The centurions of my sector told me to take it off regularly, because it was a man’s flannel shirt. It belonged to my father, and was one of the final items of clothes he left behind after he died. I loved the smell the faded olive green fabric held. The faint smell of an early morning’s rain was forever intertwined with the wool, and gave me a sense of comfort.

I began my walk home through the forum. People selling numerous items shouted at me, noticing the envelope that created a bulge in my pocket. I passed a booth decorated with jewels, ignoring the vendor’s cries.

Young lady, A man said, touching my shoulder. Have you no pity for the poor?

I frowned, recognizing the voice of the sector priest, Father Donovan. All priests in Bellona were a member of the Emperor’s counsel, and were often the people to turn in families who harbored their children from being experimented on. I didn’t know why his church existed, few people attended his services the days it was open.

I have plenty pity for the poor, I said. I need this money. I’m not going to give it to you just so you can put it in the Emperor’s pockets.

Mind your tongue girl! Father Donovan spat. The Emperor is an angel, sent by God to protect us from the evil and desperation of this world. He saves us every day from hellions like Regenerate!

That’s a load of crap! I snapped. I’m going to spend my money on something that is actually needed. Everyone knows that the offering given to your church is used to fund the Centurion’s Armory. If there are any poor who needed help, I’m sure they wouldn’t come to you.

The priest turned his back on me and began ranting to another group of people walking by. I rolled my eyes and pushed my way through the crowds.

A group of men crowded around a smaller group of girls, and I shivered in my clothes. I recognized the hunger in the men’s eyes as their money fell into the hands of the booth owner, and a corresponding girl left with the customer. I turned away quickly, not wanting to stare. I never wanted to sell myself, but others like me had no choice. Some didn’t have enough training or skills to find odd jobs, and they were forced into the work.

I looked nothing like the girls who sold themselves. Their hair was curled and their clothes free of any tears or dirt stains. I wore jeans that threatened to fall apart any moment I made big movements, along with an old shirt of my mother’s over a thinner, tan colored shirt with sleeves. It was an outfit I had to wear mostly everyday along with my thick dark hair that remained in tangles.

Thinking about joining the business Morey? a teasing voice said behind me.

I rolled my eyes as I met the gaze of my neighbor, Jerran. He ran a produce booth with his father in the forum. I used to play with him when I was a child, and when my mother was away I would stay with his family. Jerran was the annoying friend I didn’t want and barely talked to. He was my only friend.

No, I am not, I replied. I feel bad for those girls. I know what it feels like to run out of options.

Jerran smiled, his eyes moving up and down my body. Are you sure? You’d make a pretty escort. I know men who would pay triple the amount they do for those girls to get their hands on you.

I glared at him, shoving my way past his body and back into the crowd. Jerran laughed, jogging up beside me. You can be a real jerk, you know that? I hissed.

I’m only kidding! Jerran cried, holding up his hands in submission. I’m just trying to talk to you. I thought you would like a good joke.

Well, guess what? I don’t find you funny! I snapped.

Jerran’s smile fell as hurt washed over his face. I’m sorry, he said, his voice becoming quiet. Why don’t I make it up to you? Come to my Dad’s booth. We just harvested fresh produce this morning!

I sighed, agreeing to follow him. No matter how much Jerran annoyed me I couldn’t deny that his father grew the tastiest vegetables and fruits year-round.

Jerran showed me an array of boxes, each filled with different combinations of meats. We slaughtered the pigs yesterday, he said. You can get some pork for extra.

I’ll just have a market basket, I said. You know I can’t keep raw meat for long in my house. If you have any that is already cooked I can take that.

Jerran turned away, gathering together what I ordered.

My stomach rumbled as I thought of the contents. Over the years, I had watched Jerran’s father grow his vegetables and herbs. Once I was even allowed to help plant a row of pumpkins for the fall harvest.

Jerran brought back a basket that was filled with cucumbers, some melon, tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, two small containers of squash, and a bag with roasted chicken and pork.

Here you are, he said, gently placing the basket around my arm. I’m sorry again, for what I said. I met Jerran’s apologetic green eyes and shrugged. You know, you’re going to be eighteen soon, Jerran continued. I was thinking.... We’ve known each other ever since we were kids. I know you are still struggling to pay the rent and debts. My father is going to pass the business onto me soon. The farm has had a good year. In fact, we’re almost have enough money to apply for a middle-class status.

Really? I asked. Jerran, that’s amazing!

Thanks, Jerran said, a smile coming across his lips. So, when your birthday passes in a week or two, would you consider maybe taking a trip to the capitol with me to get a license?

Why would I need a license? I asked. Jerran, I already have plenty of jobs. I can’t have another.

That’s not what I’m asking, Jerran said, a blush moving across his cheeks. Kat, I’m asking you to marry me.

Jerran, are you insane? I don’t love you. A marriage license costs more than I make in a week!

I’m not asking you to say yes right now, Jerran said, putting his hands on my shoulders. Just, think about it? If we get married your mother can come live with us, and you can sell the house to pay off your debts. You will be able to live a more comfortable life.

Jerran—

I met Jerran’s gaze, taking in his words. Maybe life wouldn’t be too bad? I could eventually fall in love with him and his dark brown curls. I would no longer be struggling for money, especially if I was married to someone who had middle-class status.

Fine, I said. I’ll think about it. But don’t think that I’m making any promises, because I’m not!

Jerran smiled widely, and twirled me around him in a circle. You’ll see Kat, he said. I’ll make a good husband. Jerran kissed me on the cheek before walking away, behind the booth to help his father with another customer. I sighed, wiping my face on my sleeve as I walked back into the crowd.

Moving past other vendors, my stomach growled when the dessert cart passed through the traffic. A smile came across my lips as I closed my eyes. I could taste the sugar on my tongue as if I had just taken a bite out of the largest cinnamon bun. When I reopened my eyes, I was reminded of the prices for