by Eliza Green
The Beyond
Book 4, The Breeder Files
Eliza Green
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
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29
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35
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37
BOOKS BY ELIZA GREEN
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1
Anya
The acrid smell of gun metal settled in Anya’s nose.
‘Again.’
She cocked the revolver while one of the soldiers a couple of years younger than her swapped the bullet-riddled target out for a new sheet. He scurried back when she popped off a new shot without warning. Three more bullets slammed into her target.
It didn’t have a face. She didn’t need one. The face of any Copy would do.
A stern woman with black hair and pinched lips came to mind, one of the Copy supervisors from Arcis. The memory of Arcis had been cruelly stripped from her. The Collective, too worried about what she might do if she kept them, had erased the last three months of her life.
But she’d clawed the memories back, thanks to a machine the Inventor Jacob, her brother Jason and the rebel technician Thomas had designed. Now, everything about that time couldn’t be clearer. The tests. The lies. Not to mention the memory-wiping machine the cowardly Collective had used on her.
Sheila, Dom’s close friend and now hers as well, stood off to the side, her arms folded and a frown on her face. She’d been there all morning, looking annoyed and close to saying something. Anya knew what this bullet-wasting practice must look like to her. They were about to return to the city and needed all the ammo they could get, but Anya didn’t know how else to deal with her grief.
Sheila huffed loudly when Anya aimed at the target again. She ignored her and fired.
‘Does Dom know you’re using all the bullets?’ Sheila said.
Anya paused before her next hit. ‘Yeah.’
Shooting targets was distracting her from other things. Julius, who had been the rebels’ second in command, and two foot soldiers from the city had taken Alex and Jerome back to Praesidium. Jerome was a newborn and friend she’d met in Arcis. Alex, also a friend, was a Breeder. Anya had rescued him from the Collective’s twisted programme. She guessed the Collective wanted back all its “property”.
None of them had known about the traitors in their camp. That put them all at fault. But the giant boulders to the front of the camp made it impossible to follow them in the trucks. And Dom was refusing to leave until they had transport that could get them there fast and also protect them.
Sheila uncrossed her arms and, with a loud huff, stalked off towards the city hall. Probably to see Dom to tell him how unreasonable Anya was being.
Good luck winning that battle, Sheila.
Anya aimed the gun again.
Four, five, six.
She didn’t care if she hit the target. This session wasn’t about accuracy. A second revolver, lodged in her waistband, dug into her side.
She removed it and handed the empty one to the nervous boy soldier hovering close by. ‘Set a new target.’
‘Uh, are you sure?’ The boy sounded nervous. ‘Max said we shouldn’t waste the bullets.’
‘Max isn’t here.’
One of Praesidium’s giant guardian wolves had killed their leader out on the same battlefield where one of the Copies had killed Jason and Warren.
The boy wiped his sweaty brow with his sleeve. ‘Sorry, I forgot.’
Her activity had attracted quite the crowd. Male and female soldiers watched her curiously. Before the memory wipe she’d been a nuisance around here, unsure of herself. The soldiers hadn’t wanted her around because, above all things, she’d doubted her ability to shoot. After, she had transformed into a killing machine. And that made her useful.
‘Reload.’
The boy did and handed the shaking gun back to Anya. She emptied all six chambers, hoping that her activity would dislodge the hard knot in her chest. After a long period of inactivity it felt good to shoot again. Her returned memories had reignited her love of competition. Competition put her back in control.
She wanted to be useful to the rebels’ cause. More than that, she wanted to avenge Jason’s death.
A lump rose in her throat.
June stepped up beside her, a revolver in her hand. Her gentle smile snapped Anya’s grief away.
‘Want company?’
Anya relaxed her tense shoulders. ‘Sure.’
The boy soldier stood well back, looking like he wanted to flee. Others stood around in an arc. The temporary shooting range rested against the gable of a disused house near the back perimeter fence. The spectators watched with a mix of curiosity and something else Anya couldn’t figure out. She spotted three of the female soldiers who’d been rude to her when she’d lost all except one of her memories: the one of Warren attacking her. She and Warren had fought publicly. Without knowing why, the three women had thought it appropriate to take Warren’s side.
But that scared and timid girl who had first entered the camp was dead. It sent a thrill through her now to see their looks of confusion while Anya did what she did best. Fight.
She flicked open the chamber and popped in six new bullets, then snapped it closed. June was one step ahead. She already had the gun at eye level, one hand steadying the other. She brought it down and looked at Anya.
‘Best out of five?’
Anya nodded. The person to hit the bull’s-eye after five shots would win. She pointed at the boy soldier, then at the targets.
The jittery boy ran up, pinned two targets against the gable and ran back. Both were plain, white sheet of papers with a series of circles drawn on in pencil.
June went first. She needed to let off steam, too. Not only was she carrying a child from Praesidium, but Max’s second in command had taken Alex, whom she’d gotten close to. Imogen, Max’s first in command, stood off to the side. Her eyes refused to settle as she brushed her short hair back. She chewed on her thumb.
They were all to blame for not seeing the threat in their camp.
Reliving the memory of her brother’s crumpled body threatened Anya’s resolve. It reminded her who deserved the real blame.
June fired the first shot. Anya wondered if her target had a face. Her memories of Arcis had yet to be returned—Jacob’s memory machine had not worked on her and Junior—but it seemed at times like June was remembering on her own.
The boy soldier checked the target when June nodded at him.
‘It hit the second last ring,’ he said breathlessly.
June lowered her gun and looked at Anya. ‘Your turn.’
Anya took aim at her own target, picturing the female from Arcis again. She’d been cold towards her group. Unfeeling. She fired her first bullet in this round.
The soldier marked the hole with an X. ‘Anya won that round.’
Winning usually fuelled her, but today she
couldn’t muster up a smile.
‘Two in a row,’ she said to June, already tiring of her activity.
June aimed at her target before the soldier had cleared the area. He scuttled back in fright just as she fired off two shots.
The soldier checked and marked them. Anya followed with two of her own.
‘June was closer,’ he said when he went in to check.
‘It comes down to these last two shots, I suppose,’ said June.
‘Make them count.’
June cocked her gun like a pro. She’d had training. All the rebels had.
She raised her arm, steadied it and fired one, two.
The soldier checked. ‘Bull’s-eye.’
June grinned at Anya. ‘Beat that.’
‘No problem.’
June might have had training, but Anya had perfected her marksmanship with hours of practice. She lifted her gun twice as fast and, without looking, popped off two shots at the target.
A gasp from the crowd sent a thrill down her spine.
‘She didn’t even look,’ said one.
‘I think she hit it,’ said another.
Gone was the timid girl who’d arrived at this camp. In her place stood Anya Macklin, strong, brave and willing to fight for what was right.
Even the women who’d written her off before gushed with praise.
Another young woman stood there, Kaylie, who’d been intimate with Dom once. Anya looked over at her. Kaylie gave her a tight nod.
She looked back at the target. She could see her shot was closer to the centre of the bull’s-eye than June’s, but the soldier checked anyway.
‘Anya won that round.’
Her fingers fumbled in her pocket for more ammo, but she found none. Dom had said not to use too much. She had counted out enough bullets to soften the hurt but not the supply.
The last two days had been a blur. Everything had happened so fast out on the battlefield. Now, a day after losing her brother, she combed through her memory of events, wondering if she could have done anything different. In the end, Warren had saved Jason, but another Copy had shot both of them.
The Copies were all the same. Murdering, lying robots.
Except they weren’t. Carissa and the ex-guardian wolf that Jacob called Rover had helped them. But Carissa was also hearing one of the Collective in her head. Anya worried that Quintus might say something to make the girl loyal to the city once more.
‘You okay?’ asked June, touching her protruding belly.
Thanks to the growth repressors in Carissa’s biogel, the rapid growth of June’s baby had been stemmed, for the moment. It could so easily have been Anya. In Praesidium’s medical facility, she and Alex had been pushed together and expected to breed. Sheer willpower had ended that dalliance.
But June hadn’t been so lucky. She had been used as an incubator, a vessel to grow the foetuses created between human and Breeder.
Bad for June. A success for the Copies.
‘I will be,’ said Anya. ‘You?’
June rubbed her belly. ‘I will be.’
Anya tucked the revolver into her waistband.
Not all the Copies were the same. A medic had helped Alex and Anya to escape. The same medic had prevented Dom from being turned into something that would set a metal detector off at a distance.
‘Eh, do you still need me?’ said the boy soldier.
Anya blinked away her stillness. ‘No. I think we’re done.’
The soldier sighed with relief and scurried off. The others who’d watched their session dispersed, smiling and shaking their heads. Some looked impressed with her skills. Others who had mocked her weaker, amnesiac self just days ago still weren’t sure what to make of her.
The old Anya would have apologised for scaring them. The new Anya didn’t care enough to hold people’s hands. It had been too long since she’d practised. Over three months, probably closer to four. But she hadn’t forgotten the basics.
Set, aim, shoot.
That’s all she needed to do. They would be going back to Praesidium soon and she wanted to be ready. Because the city wouldn’t know what hit them.
Imogen stayed behind. She approached Anya and June, running a hand over her short hair a second time. Her eyes were red and puffy, like she’d been crying.
‘Anya, June?’ she said softly. She didn’t sound like the confident soldier who had commanded many training sessions.
‘Yeah?’
‘I... um... just wanted to apologise for what happened with Julius.’ She blew out a long breath. ‘I had no idea he was under the Collective’s control.’ She looked at them, then away. ‘And now he’s taken Jerome and Alex.’
The reminder made Anya’s chest ache. She glared at Imogen. She had worked closest with Julius. How had she missed what he’d been: a newborn under the Collective’s command? Jason had died because of her mistake.
Anya gritted her teeth and looked away.
‘It’s okay, Imogen, we’re going to get them back,’ June, the diplomat, said.
Anya looked back to see her touch Imogen’s arm. Imogen nodded and dropped her gaze. It wasn’t her fault, but Quintus wasn’t here and Anya needed to blame someone.
‘I’m going to check on Dom,’ said June, ‘see if he’s got a plan to get us out of here.’ She elbowed Anya. ‘You coming?’
The crowd had already dissipated, except for Kaylie and the three women who had been rude to her before. They hung back, looking like they wanted to speak to her.
Kaylie said softly, ‘Nice one, Anya.’
Anya gave her a quick smile. ‘Thanks.’
‘Hey, that was some fancy shooting,’ one of the rude women said.
Anya breezed past them with barely a look in their direction.
June caught up and elbowed her again. ‘Welcome back. I missed the ballsy you.’
Anya stopped in her tracks. ‘You remember?’
June smiled. ‘It’s coming back to me.’
2
Dom
‘I need to speak to you about Anya.’ Sheila stood next to Dom in Max’s strategy room, hands on her hips. ‘She’s using up all the bullets.’
Dom leaned over the table, a map of Praesidium resting on it. With Jacob and Vanessa’s help, two rescues from the city, they’d been able to draw out a rough plan. It didn’t fill in all the gaps of the intricate city, but it was a start. Dom had added his limited knowledge of the medical facility’s first floor to it, but he’d been too out of it to remember much beyond his room and the space where they’d operated on him.
Carissa had filled in more from her own explorations. The schematics she’d downloaded on the battlefield right before Quintus had disconnected her were still in her memory banks. But without Jacob’s diagnostic machine, currently sitting in his half-destroyed workshop in the city, the maps were unusable.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Sheila huffed. ‘Anya and June are out there shooting the crap out of paper targets.’
‘I know. She asked me if she could practise. I didn’t see the harm.’
‘Harm?’ Sheila threw her hands up. ‘She’s using up the ammo! Are we even going to have enough left to hit the city? How much did you say she could use?’
Dom loved Sheila, but she could be a pain at times. This was one of those times. He pinned her with a look that he reserved for when they were alone. Which, right now, they were.
‘Real bullets don’t harm the Copy machines. We have their weapons, the ones they dropped, plus our own. The revolvers will only be used to distract.’
‘Okay... will we have enough “distracting” ammo then?’ She air-quoted the word.
‘Yes, Sheila.’
He sighed. Max’s death twenty-four hours ago might have elevated him to the position of commander over the rebels, but he wished everyone would stop complaining to him over every little thing.
‘I mean, you’re the leader. She needs to listen to you.’
‘And I said she could use them.’
He hadn’t quite given her that order but he trusted Anya would only use the amount she needed. And yes, he was the leader now. Not that he had a clue what to do. Soldiers had been injured on the battlefield. June had a fast-growing foetus in her belly. Anya using a few bullets wasn’t high on his list of concerns.
But Sheila was far from settled. Her lips were pinched and she was tapping her foot.
Dom turned to face her. ‘What’s this really about?’
It felt like more than a few bullets.
‘She won’t talk to her.’
‘To who?’
Sheila straightened up. ‘Imogen! She’s sick with worry that everyone is blaming her for Julius going rogue.’
‘That’s stupid, Sheila. It wasn’t her fault. None of us saw what he was. Not even Max.’
Her eyes shifted to the floor, then back to Dom. ‘I know, but she feels responsible.’
‘Do you want me to talk with her?’
Sheila shook her head, getting angry. ‘Tell Anya to stop blaming her for what happened with her brother.’
‘She doesn’t blame her.’
‘Tell her.’
The door opened and Anya and June walked in. He turned from a huffing Sheila and grinned at his girl. Despite the frown Anya wore, having her near calmed him. It also made being commander that little bit easier.
Imogen entered next, followed by Kaylie. Sheila’s face lit up. To Dom’s relief, she gave up on her tirade and went straight to the woman she’d gotten close to. Dom nodded at Kaylie. She nodded back, in soldier mode. Even if Anya hadn’t returned to him, it never would have worked out between them. But he was glad to have her support now.
His girl sidled up to him, quieter than usual. Anya had been through too much in the last few days. Right now, he’d give her all the bullets she wanted.
She slid her warm hand into his, her eyes on the map.
June came round his other side and nodded at the schematics. ‘Hey, how’s it going?’
Dom sighed. ‘It’s not much. What we really need are the areas not covered by this map.’
‘What about Carissa’s downloaded maps? Will they show more?’
‘She doesn’t think so. Many of the tunnels we want were never on the maps available to her.’
Anya pointed to a section below ground, a short distance from Jacob’s workshop. It showed two tunnels, one leading to the medical facility, which they’d used to escape, and another running parallel to the streets. They’d followed it for a while until a new set of stairs had brought them up and out, close to the Business District. Neither tunnel had been on any map Carissa had seen.
