(18b): Re. proliferation of twins (Topside).”
“Topside?” He looked up at me.
“That’s here.” I gestured at the window. “Aboveground, I mean. In the earlier papers, they call it ‘the surface.’ But later it seems just to become Topside.”
“That’s us, isn’t it,” Piper said, his finger holding his place on the page. “When they talk about secondary twins. That’s the Omegas.”
I watched them as they read about the first appearance of the Omegas:
Examples noted by Expeditions 49 included: polymelia; amelia; polydactyly; syndactyly (in many cases, the twins presented with both [polysyndactyly]); gonadal dysgenesis; achondroplasia; neurofibromat . . .
It was as though the mutations were so horrifying that they couldn’t be contained by ordinary words, and the writer had needed a whole new language to describe them. I watched Piper as he read, and wondered which of those garbled terms, if any, referred to his single arm. Or to my seer’s mind, jerking backward and forward through time.
Piper’s and Zoe’s heads were bent at the same angle, their eyes moving in unison as they scanned each line.
. . . a drastic genetic response, essentially compensatory in nature, to the sustained exposure to residual radiation . . . by which in order to create a viable subject (the primary twin), the mutations are effectively displaced onto the secondary twin, who may be viewed as an unfortunate (but necessary) epiphenomenon.
“I don’t know what half of that means,” Zoe said. “More than half of it. Genetic? Epiphenomenon?”
“Me either,” said Piper. “But it seems to be the same thing we’ve always thought, doesn’t it? That we evolved this way so that the species could survive. That we Omegas carry the burden of the mutations, from the blast.”
I nodded. I was remembering the General’s words to us during our meeting on the road, just a few weeks earlier: You’re a side effect of us. Nothing more. Had she read these same papers, or similar ones?
“This is the bit you really need to see,” I said, picking up a page from the far end of the bed. It was delicate, a lacework of paper and holes. Instead of passing it to them, I read it out loud.
Yr. 46, Dec. 14. BRIEFING PAPER RE. TOPSIDE TWINS: TREATMENT OPTIONS
The ongoing study into the continued simultaneous twin deaths observed Topside confirms a link that goes beyond any existing understanding of twins (either dizygotic or monozygotic). While the mechanism for this link remains unclear, we have been able to establish that the twinning itself is susceptible to treatment. With the correct medical regime (see Appendix B for medication list) for primary twins, the twinning should be reversible in future generations. This treatment, in conjunction . . .
Piper interrupted me. “The medicines that they mention—the list,” he said. “Was that in the trunk?”
I shook my head. “If it once was, it’s gone now. It could be in the Ark—or destroyed altogether.”
“And there’s nothing more on that page?”
“Nothing.” The writing petered out, overtaken by mold. I looked up to see whether the convoluted words had managed to communicate their meaning. The silence in the room was loaded, heavy with more than dust.
Zoe spoke first. “No wonder they killed Joe. Bloody hell. A way to undo the twinning.”
They were all standing now. Zoe’s hand was squeezing Piper’s shoulder. Simon was slowly shaking his head, a smile spreading on his face. The Ringmaster’s eyes were narrowed, his brows drawn together.
“It’s not as straightforward as that,” I said. They should have known that there were no simple solutions in our blast-warped world. “Listen.” I read on.
However, in consultation with the Interim Government’s Surface Directives group (see Appendix A), the task force has debated the advisability of this treatment program, given that while the resulting subjects will not be twinned, they will nonetheless continue to manifest mutations. The treatment that brings about the cessation of the twinning is likely to mitigate the worst of the mutations, meaning that the subsequent (untwinned) subjects should demonstrate fewer of the most adverse mutations currently present in the secondary twins. Nonetheless, our modeling suggests that mutations are likely to be pervasive.
One argument cited in favor of the treatment is the fact that autopsies have shown that the mutations in secondary twins included (in all cases) a complete malfunction of the internal reproductive system—an obvious obstacle to repopulation. However, some in the Surface Directives group maintained that this is a pragmatic evolutionary limiting of the mutations.
“A pragmatic evolutionary limiting of the mutations,” Piper echoed. “Sounds like they were glad, some of them, that we