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  Antipodes 4: Caim

  Copyright © 2021 T. S. SIMONS

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is entirely coincidental.

  A copy of this publication can be found in the National Library of Australia.

  Published by Ouroborus Book Services

  www.ouroborusbooks.com

  Cover by Sabrina RG Raven: www.sabrinargraven.com

  caim

  T. S. SIMONS

  A Caim is a Gaelic word meaning sanctuary, or circle of protection.

  To my family and friends, those who form my Caim. Thank you for the ongoing encouragement, love, and support, and for believing in me, especially when I didn’t.

  Feeling my way through the darkness, I moved cautiously to avoid stumbling over a carelessly discarded toy and cracking my shin against the solid timber furniture that crowded our home. At well past midnight, it was blissfully silent, and the children tucked up in bed. Bone deep weariness after assisting a long and challenging labour propelled me to my own. Hopefully, Isla would check on the mare and her foal in the morning, leaving me to sleep.

  Kicking off my boots and dropping my clothes in a heap on a nearby chair, I couldn't suppress the audible sigh that escaped my lips as my weary head finally connected with the pillow, careful not to wake Cam, who was sleeping soundly beside me. Never had I been so pleased to be lying down. Closing my eyes, I willed sleep to overtake me.

  Short, sharp trills punctuated the still night air.

  'What is that frigging noise?' I muttered as the screeching continued unabated, like a bird announcing the approach of a predator. I rolled over, burying my head under the pillow, praying it would stop.

  Cam stirred enough to kiss my protruding neck, then lifted his head, alert.

  'That's the…'

  'Alarm!' we chorused, sitting bolt upright, my pillow tumbling to the floor. That harsh noise could only be one thing — the proximity sensor. We hadn't heard it since we had set it up years earlier, and I scarcely recalled the sound of it. Flinging back the covers, I staggered the two steps to my still warm clothing on the chair as Cam snatched at yesterday's clothes carelessly discarded on the floor. Still pulling arms through sleeves, we ran to Illy and Luca's house, Cam several strides ahead of me. Thumping coming from their home, bare feet on floorboards, echoed through the crisp night air.

  'Bloody hell, who approaches an island in the middle of the night,' I grumbled as I joined him on the doorstep, and Cam knocked lightly. Functioning with no sleep was not a strength of mine, and especially not when tumbling out of bed unceremoniously. Cam kissed me, glancing down at my unbuttoned jeans.

  'Hurry and finish getting dressed! If Luca answers the door, he'll see more of you than any of us are comfortable with!'

  My groggy, half-asleep mind pictured the times Luca had seen me naked, or barely dressed in the years we had travelled together. Coming out of a shower or daring me to go skinny dipping with him in a lake on a domed community, but my brain couldn't form the words. Fortunately, Illy answered the door, looking dishevelled but alert as she tied her heather grey robe, long dark hair falling across her face. She ushered us inside with her usual chirpy tone as I hurriedly finished fastening my jeans. Socks and shoes still in hand. She was my best friend, and I adored her, but right now, I hated her. How could she possibly be happy to see us at this hour? Once inside, she steered us towards the study and closed the door so we wouldn't wake their twin girls. Allison and Summer were six, a few months older than our youngest, Thorsten. Our bonus baby. The child we had when we thought we had finished having children. Louis and Katrin could look after the younger two if they woke and found us gone. Xanthe was our sensitive child and often had nightmares, waking screaming in terror.

  Luca had turned off the alarm and barely acknowledged our entrance, busily hooking up the larger surveillance monitor as we crowded in. Standing behind him as he fiddled with cables and camera feeds, we strained our eyes, watching the dark shadow slithering on the single screen. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could just make out a sizeable white boat mooring in the harbour at Stornoway.

  'That's not anyone from Newgrange, is it?' Illy asked as she returned and thrust a steaming mug in my hand, and a matching one in Cam's, but we all recognised the question as rhetorical.

  'Fuck,' I muttered, not removing my eyes from the screen.

  Luca was studying the craft carefully, muttering under his breath. 'I don't recognise it.'

  We all stood watching the screen, waiting for someone to appear on deck and tie up. A minute passed. Two.

  I grunted at Cam, knocking back the contents of the cup in one gulp. 'We'll go. Ils, can you watch ours?'

  Waking any of our other friends at this time of night would make us most unpopular, not to mention unnecessarily scare people. Cam's sister Sorcha and her partner Di lived with their two children on the opposite side of our home. Isla and Fraser lived between our place and Illy's, Jamie and Jacinda further down the valley. Any of them would assist, but all had young children, and would almost certainly be asleep.

  Illy smiled at me. 'Of course. I'll head down while Luca keeps watch. Are you sure you don't want one of us to go?'

  We discussed this scenario often when setting up the alarms in both our homes, what we would do if someone approached Lewis, our protected community. Self-sufficient and isolated, we loved the sense of belonging here. Everyone looking out for each other, lending a hand. That sense of interconnectedness that extended between all residents.

  Seven years ago, our community had severed ties with the outside world to prohibit the intrusive and controlling influence of the team of scientists at Clava, near Inverness. Wanting to dictate our laws, our trade, but most sinister of all, forcing us to have children with a scientifically selected partner, the scientists in the two controlling communities of Clava near Inverness on mainland Scotland, and Auckland Island off the coast of New Zealand, had devised and implemented a selective breeding program to reproduce key genome sequences and ensure their survival.

  'No,' I sighed, more than a little grumpy by the unexpected early morning call out. 'We'll go.'

  Illy grinned at Cam. She knew me well enough to know I desperately wanted to go back to bed, but we had promised. When we had established our security systems and protocols, we had agreed it was less threatening if Cam and I responded to any unplanned visitors. Illy and Luca had been military personnel before coming here, whereas Cam and I were civilians. After all, it could be anyone. A similar isolated community existed in Newgrange, Ireland, another community not part of the Collective, the association of domed communities. More protected settlements existed on the mainland of the UK, and several on the Scottish islands of Orkney and the Shetlands, although they were all now part of the Collective. People occasionally came to visit, or us, them, but never without notice.

  Luca grimaced as he sipped from the mug that appeared tiny in his enormous hands. 'I have repositioned the cameras and satellite. I will be watching. You remember the distress signal?'

  Luca handed Cam one of the few remaining operational hand-held two-way radios. We
had originally taken a large supply on one of our raids on the mainland and had spread them out across the community so people could always contact each other. With the original rechargeable batteries failing, and no way to replace them, the remaining functional units were a precious resource.

  'We do. Come on, honey. We will need to move to make it before dawn, and it will be slow going in the dark.'

  'They couldn't have thought to visit at a reasonable hour?' I grumbled as our golf cart chugged slowly up the hill in the dark, out of our beautiful valley of Roseglen, and towards the original and largest settlement of Garynahine. The lights on the cart barely strong enough to cast a shadowed light on the dirt track. 'Who do you think it could be?'

  'No clue. If they are strangers, they won't be able to see the geodesic dome openings in the dark. They will probably wait on their vessel until first light. We have a little time. They may not know we have been alerted to their arrival.'

  He slipped an arm around me as he drove, and I snuggled close. We approached the dock slowly as the dawn light tinted the horizon a pretty pink-gold, making everything glow warmly. But I was in no mood to look at sunrises. It was clear that this was no one we knew. No one had radioed ahead to announce their arrival. Friends would have arrived in daylight, not caring that they could be seen by us, and likely by the surveillance teams on Clava.

  Standing upright as we slowed, I cupped my hands and bellowed, 'Who are you and what do you want?'

  I felt Cam jolt from beside me. He shot me a sly grin in the dim light as he killed the ignition. He loved it when I played the role of commander. I felt his hand cup my bottom.

  'Now!' I boomed, making him remove his hand rapidly.

  As the familiar face drifted in view, faintly illuminated by the dawn light, I sucked in my breath, recognising Jorja's long dark hair and exotic features. We had enjoyed our weeks on Clava, the easiness of it all. Sharing a home with Jorja and Bridget had been wonderful, but we had sensed that something was off. Despite their offers of support, of relocation, we had made the difficult decision to return home to our family and friends, only later learning that we had been fed a drug to keep us compliant. The final straw that had seen us sever all communication had been learning that they had infected our friend Diana, along with several others from non-complying communities with cancer, believing that if their doctors saved her, we would join the Collective.

  What we hadn't known then was why they had chosen us all. We always knew that we were selected to ensure the survival of humanity. The part we hadn't known was that we were expected to take part in their forced breeding program. Instead of conforming like most of the other communities and choosing a life of connectedness, better technology and resources, we had chosen to isolate ourselves and set up security systems to alert us to possible intruders. We had lived in peace, but hypervigilance, so we were wary of what tricks they could be up to now.

  'Why are you here?'

  'I…' Jorja blurted, but quickly recovered her composure. 'Freyja, Campbell.' She nodded at us, a smile on her face, although I noted it didn't reach her eyes. 'It is good to see you.'

  'I wish I could say the same.' Jorja sensed the warning and flinched. 'Why are you here?'

  'We… that is, Bridget and I came to talk to you.'

  'Talk to us? You couldn't have radioed? Let us know you planned to drop by for a cup of tea in the middle of the night and scare us all?'

  'Well, the matter we wanted to discuss is a little… delicate.'

  'Delicate? I'll tell you what is delicate—learning that you and your friends were planning to breed us like pedigree dogs. Discuss our genetic profile over drinks, scribbling notes and planning who to partner us up with. Treat us like science experiments.'

  'I…' she stammered.

  'Tell me,' I snapped, not wanting to listen to feeble excuses. 'Are you an endocrinologist? A fertility specialist? All that time we lived together, you knew what they planned for us, and you said nothing?'

  'I am.' Her long black hair fell across her face as she looked down at her feet.

  'Why didn't you tell us?' I was seething. 'You told us you were a doctor.' I felt Cam's reassuring hand rest on my shoulder.

  'I am a doctor.'

  'You deliberately deceived us!'

  'Because that part of the project was still secret. No one was supposed to know. Even I didn't know all of it then, truly. They chose me to help couples conceive, to ensure that we all survived, and we all wanted that. I swear, I knew nothing about the selected partner part. Honestly. And I am a doctor, I just specialised, that is all.'

  'It was a massive omission.' Cam spoke calmly from beside me. 'You stitched us both that day and said nothing. Not to mention all those evenings we spent together. We trusted you. Thought you were our friend.'

  Jorja shrugged forlornly. 'They bound me to secrecy. My loyalty was to the project. Then.'

  'Then?' I questioned, picking up on the pertinent word.

  'I guess you could say that things have changed.'

  'Spit it out. Why are you here? And why now?'

  'Bridget and I have two children.'

  'Ok… so what?' I snarled, not in the mood to offer congratulations. 'We have four. What is your point?'

  'As the girls grew, we knew something wasn't right.'

  'What do you mean, "not right"?' Cam cut off my next comment, suspicion dripping from his words.

  Jorja stepped back onto the deck, calling, 'Bridge? Girls!' through the open hatchway.

  Bridget emerged from the lower deck holding the hands of two blonde girls, the glow of the early morning light illuminating them. She hadn't changed. Her brown wavy hair was longer, tinted with gold, and she was slightly more curvaceous. I gasped audibly, and I felt Cam's body tense beside me. These two girls were so similar looking that it was apparent that they had the same parentage. But that wasn't what had made me react. These two girls were the spitting image of our daughters: Katrin, Xanthe, and me. My mouth hung open. Judging by the gurgling noises beside me, Cam was also struggling to form words.

  'As I thought,' Jorja spoke quietly, but with an unmistakable note of sadness. 'They look so much like you.'

  'How?' I finally gasped when I had regained control of my speech, still staring at the girls standing on the deck of their vessel, the light glinting from their hair.

  'If we had never met you that time on Clava, we would never have known. We would have thought it suspicious, but wouldn't have taken it further. Neither of us are fair in colouring, especially me, but we assumed they had the same donor father. But as the girls grew, we saw more and more of you in them. We discussed it at length. How on earth could our children look like you? Eventually, we landed on only one logical answer. You are their mother.'

  A pain shot through my chest, making me exhale sharply. Bridget smiled wanly at me as she and the girls made their way over to us, and I tried to hide the pain. The girls couldn't have been more than six, but looked exactly like Katrin had at that age. How little Xanthe looked now.

  'Hi Freyja, Cam. Meet Ruby and Scarlett.' Bridget introduced us kindly. The girls hid behind her, scared at meeting these new people.

  'Can you say hello, girls? These are our friends. The ones we were telling you about. They are from Australia too.'

  'What do you want from us?' I snapped, exhaustion and shock making it sound more venomous than I had intended. Bridget recoiled, but regained her composure. One girl looked like she was about to cry. She looked so much like Xan. Instinctively, I wanted to hold her close and protect her.

  'We came to ask you questions if that is okay.'

  Cam, being a better person than I, and realising that we couldn't stand here all day with exhausted and emotional children in crumpled, dirty clothing, gestured with his chin.

  'Come on. You can stay with us while we sort this out.'

  I openly glared at him. I was in no mood to be gracious, and under no circumstances wanted them in
my home, but equally recognised that I couldn't just leave them here, exposed. Scowling, I helped Cam load a bag each on the cart, with a promise to collect their remaining items later. With the girls balanced on their mothers' knees, we began the long jolting journey home. The conversation was stilted as Cam tried to make small talk, pointing out places of interest. Jorja and Bridget were visibly uncomfortable, the girls plainly terrified. We had been friendly, once. A long time ago now. But we had been deceived and learned the true nature of why we had been chosen. They had been an active part of that deception, and I wasn't the forgiving kind.

  Xanthe and Thorsten rushed out to greet us as we came over the hill into Roseglen. I heard Bridget gasp from behind me as we neared our home and she saw our daughter, her long blonde hair streaming like ribbons behind her. A daughter so alike to her own.

  'Oh… my… God!' I heard her breathe from behind me.

  'God had nothing to do with it,' I muttered.

  Sending Illy home pleasantly, she gave me the look. 'We will talk. Later.'

  We fed the children breakfast, chatting pleasantly about our friends who had come to visit. Louis alone sensed the underlying tension. He watched them suspiciously, glancing at the girls, his eyebrows furrowed, but remained silent. After sending the children outside to play, we sat Jorja and Bridget down in our cosy living room with a second coffee. Jorja was more discreet, but Bridget could not take her eyes from Katrin and Xanthe throughout breakfast. Thorsten was darker, like a mini-Cam in appearance. Louis was not my biological child and looked like the few precious photos Cam had of Laetitia, with her chestnut brown hair and exotic brown eyes. But the girls looked just like me. Tall, blonde and with sparkling emerald-green eyes that betrayed their feelings long before they spoke.

  'Out with it.'

  Jorja spoke first, holding Bridget's hand. 'It was a few years ago when we noticed how alike the girls were. Looks, but mannerisms too. And idiosyncrasies that neither of us possess. We talked, of course, but we had needed donor sperm, so we just assumed that was it. It made sense that the girls had the same father, so they were actually related. We accepted it until one day, when she was three, Ruby rolled her eyes scornfully at something I said, and looked so much like you Freyja that my heart stopped. I questioned my colleagues, and they assured me I was mistaken. They were our own eggs and donated sperm. We believed them… for a time. After all, this was my team. But it didn't sit right with us. We sensed something was off.