The Silent Earth: The Complete Trilogy by Mark R. Healy

Author:Mark R. Healy [Healy, Mark R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-10-10T23:00:00+00:00

16

I spent a lot of time just looking at the boy, observing every movement he made. Random motions soon became recognisable as habits – grabbing at his ears, wiggling his toes, moving his lips – and they invariably brought a smile to my face. There was recognition on his part as well, I was sure of it. Whenever I spoke, he seemed to react in one way or another. Sometimes he would start at the sound of my voice, his little shoulders hunching and his arms drifting in to hug his chest, fingers fluttering slightly as they found purchase on his body. Other times he would peel back his eyelids in a languid, unhurried fashion, as if only vaguely curious of what was going on.

When he stared out with those dark eyes it was apparent that he wasn’t seeing anything distinctly. He never focussed on objects or followed my movement across the room, but he was aware of things happening around him. While his sight had not developed, his recognition of sound and vibration evidently allowed him to form some kind of impression of what lay outside his tiny world.

With Arsha and the other infants gone I felt more of an attachment to him with every passing day. He was like my conduit to the future. All of the good things in my life were tied to his wellbeing. They could only be achieved through him. Some part of me knew that I was being melodramatic, but I couldn’t divorce myself from this way of thinking. I couldn’t stand back objectively and see the bigger picture. At this moment, with Ellinan and Mish safely kept a couple of floors below, the most important thing in my world was his safety.

In my life I’d endured my fair share of loss. There had been Zade and Max, and all of those memories of my life as a human. They’d crumbled away like the rest of this decaying planet. As horrible as those losses had been, I’d come to accept them. I’d come to grips with the fact that they were gone forever, and that I would have to continue forward in the world without them. I’d found a way to move on.

Maybe Mish and Ellinan would fill some of that void. I was glad that I had saved them, and thankful that they’d been left unharmed. To know that they were safe was a great comfort in this time of uncertainty. But I knew that looking after the two Wards was not the destiny that had been mapped out for me. I was not here to be the caretaker of other synthetics. I was here to bring humans back into the world. People. That was what drove me, the goal that I sought.

That was why the unborn child in the lab continued to capture my thoughts and my hopes more than anything else.

The alerts on the touch panel were less frequent now. The heart and lungs were doing better, growing stronger. They were still not strong enough for my liking, but enough to allow me a small glimmer of optimism.

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