Read Online Office of Mercy (9781101606100) by Ariel Djanikian - Free Book Online

extinction. Only your Alphas asked instead: How can we start over? How can we live better than the way we are living now?
    The heaviness in Natasha’s chest gave way a bit. She had always found the Alphas’ tone in this section jarringly and almost humorously self-aggrandizing. They gave scant information about the Yang political group, and yet still managed for several pages to assert their superiority over their predecessors. (On page 284, for example, the Alphas dismissed the Yangs as “fumbling moral philosophers, who, if they were to spot a venomous spider perched on the shoulder of their dearest friend, would not know which creature to save.”) Granted, the Alphas had good reason to feel proud. The members of the Yang party had all died around the time of the Storm, back in Year 0 (the current date in the settlements was Year 305), while the Alphas, who were in many cases the biological children of leading Yang members, had preserved themselves through those dangerous times and, subsequently, had kept themselves alive century after century with the bioreplacement programs of their own invention. The Alphas had also remained overseers of the old Yang bunkers, rescuing the structures from decay and transforming them into the brilliant homes they all lived in today.
    A click came from high over the foot of Natasha’s bed: the circular light above the door was glowing weakly, the first phase in five of the underground dawn. By 0700, it would be shining across the full solar spectrum brightly enough to illuminate every nook and cranny in the room, and with a high-intensity spike at 297 nanometers, enough to warm the flesh and activate a morning burst of vitamin D in the system. Natasha replaced the Ethical Code to its spot in the drawer and crawled out from under her blanket. From the basket beneath her bed she fetched her robe and pulled it snugly over her nightclothes. She tore off her socks, tossing them onto the bed, and slipped her feet into a pair of rubber leisure shoes.
    The hall was empty, as she’d expected, and only one of the ten stalls in the women’s shower room was in use. A warm white steam hung in the air, and the hot damp smell carried with it just a tinge of lavender shampoo. Natasha pushed open the creaky cedar door to the changing stall, and closed the latch behind her. She removed her robe and nightclothes and hung them neatly on the metal hooks. Then she stepped behind the curtain and gave the water some seconds to heat up before moving under it, her chestnut brown hair darkening a shade and becoming wet and heavy on her back.
    As she washed—the pounding warmth relaxing her muscles and sliding down the length of her body—Natasha was careful to keep her lips tightly closed. The water, which came from underground streams and rainwater gathered on the roof, was treated and purified of course, though not with the same attention as the water that went to the kitchens. She turned her face to the spigot and scrubbed her cheeks, nose, and forehead with rapid motions, at last feeling fully awake.
    After Natasha had wrapped herself in her robe again, she left the changing room, expecting to find the shower room empty. The sight of a second reflection in the mirror took her slightly by surprise: the intelligent eyes and black bangs that made a severe line across the forehead, a perfect and striking contrast to the pale, oval face beneath. It was Claudia Kim, the Gamma who worked at the adjacent back cubicle in the Office of Mercy—and one of the last people Natasha felt like seeing right now.
    â€œOh,” said Natasha, “I didn’t realize there was still someone here.”
    Claudia sniffed; she laid her hairbrush aside, meeting Natasha’s gaze in the foggy reflection.
    â€œWhat did you expect, Alpha treatment? Are we supposed to defer to you, give you privacy?”
    â€œI’m sorry—what?”
    Claudia turned to face her.
    â€œLook, we all