by Eliza Green
He blinked. ‘Sure, I don’t know what I was thinking.’
‘That you wanted this to work. Come on.’ She urged him forward with a gentle push. ‘Let’s take a break and talk about this.’
They returned to Zone C and the library. Dom approached the building made of glass and honey-coloured wood. It was a contrast to the other mostly white-and-grey structures the “white city” had become famous for. This one almost looked like a human had designed it.
Vanessa stepped up to the door. It was locked.
She turned to the soldiers. ‘Bring the Copy here.’
The soldiers shuffled his former Copy guard to the door and pressed his wrist to the control panel next to it. The door clicked open and Vanessa entered the premises. None of the rebels had their chips anymore. While Dom was happy about that, it put too much reliance on this figure from his painful and torturous past.
Charlie entered next and Dom followed him inside the library. Vanessa walked over to a table farther back from the dusty collection of books on tall shelves, set against the glass walls. She sat down. Charlie did the same with a puff. Dom joined them at the table while Anya and the others wandered around the space. The soldiers regarded the impressive array of books with wide eyes and smiles. Some ran their fingers over the spines. Dom assumed they must have come from the cleared-out towns. One picked up a book and began to read.
Jacob walked around with Carissa, who was pointing out books and telling him, ‘I read that one.’
He wished he could join them. But as leader, he straightened up in his chair instead of relaxing.
Vanessa had her hands clasped on the table, a serious look on her face. Charlie was looking down at the table. He’d sensed something was off with them for the last hour.
‘What?’
Vanessa narrowed her eyes a little. ‘Charlie and I were talking.’
‘About what?’
‘About the likelihood of finding the coordinates to the Beyond in this city.’
He didn’t understand. They’d all agreed to this plan. ‘You want to give up?’
‘No, we’re not saying that,’ said Charlie. ‘But it’s too dangerous to stay here. We don’t know if the Copies will return. The fact that this place is cleared out worries me.’
Sheila joined them and sat down.
Dom had no plan B. But he had a feeling the pair might. ‘What’s your plan if not to search here?’
‘Return to the camp, radio for help, bring the scattered rebels together.’ Vanessa lifted her hands and dropped them. ‘We’ve got fifteen soldiers, give or take. We lost half of Kaylie’s team and the other half is burying them someplace away from the city. We don’t know if they’ll return. The numbers we have aren’t enough. It will take us too long to search everywhere.’
Dom leaned forward. ‘That’s why we’re concentrating on the places where the humans had access, not the Copies. If Janet left the diary anywhere, it has to be in one of those locations. Some place easy for others to find it.’
Charlie placed a hand on his arm. ‘Then what, son? We all leave for this “Beyond” place? We don’t even know what it is, or if it’s another place of control.’
Dom didn’t believe what he was hearing. He sat back. ‘You really think returning to the camp is going to fix things? We’ll end up trapping ourselves there.’
Sheila piped up. ‘It’s better than getting trapped here, Dom. June is better. Her child will be old enough to walk soon. I agree with Charlie and Vanessa. This place isn’t safe. We should leave.’
Dom ran a hand through his hair. He searched the room for Anya. She was standing close by, a book in her hand. Her eyes were on their discussion. On him.
He looked away from her, needing to find the strength to do this alone. ‘Max wanted this. Max wanted to find the Beyond.’
Charlie shook his head. ‘He wanted freedom and he got killed for his dream. We don’t even know if the place exists. Vanessa and I are not prepared to lead the youngsters into a battle, or some unknown place where anything could happen.’
‘But you think I am?’ That’s what this was about—his ability to lead. Or lack of. ‘You don’t trust me to do this.’
Sheila leaned forward, her voice a whisper. ‘We’re not saying that, Dom, but this situation needs experience.’
Not her too?
Vanessa added, ‘Both Charlie and I have more of it than you. Pass the responsibility to us. Let us keep everyone safe.’
Dom stared at Sheila. He’d expected her to at least have his back. She was staring at the table.
What he wouldn’t give for this to be over.
He shook his head. ‘I have as much rebel experience as you, more, even. I spent time here.’
Vanessa leaned back. ‘So did I. In this very library.’
He scoffed. ‘Our experiences were not the same.’
‘Perhaps not, but the problem persists that this city is not safe.’
That bothered him, too, to be inside a city with no conflict. The thought drove him to his feet.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Sheila.
He ignored her and walked over to his ex-guard, lounging against one of the stacks while his warders perused the shelves next to him. The Copy straightened up when Dom approached him.
‘What’s the deal with this city?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard. Where are all the other Copies?’
The prisoner shrugged and smiled. ‘Left as soon as the barrier failed.’
‘So, why were you left behind?’
He shrugged again. ‘They trusted me to stop you.’
A fight with six dozen Copies, not one, would have been more successful for them. The fight had been too easy.
‘Are they coming back? The Copies?’ asked Dom.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘And the Collective? Is it still here?’
He would have asked Carissa, but she was no longer connected to the city.
‘It left.’
Dom was getting tired of the one-dimensional answers. ‘Where did it go? How did it leave?’
The prisoner shrugged. ‘One of the Copies downloaded their ten consciousnesses into a machine. They took that machine with them.’
‘What is the Beyond?’
The Copy averted his gaze.
Dom grabbed the front of his uniform. ‘What is it?’
The guard looked back at him. Dom wasn’t sure how to read all emotions in these things, but he thought he saw jealousy.
‘I don’t know. It’s a place the Collective is curious about. It’s a place I’ve never been.’
He pushed Dom off him. The soldiers restrained the prisoner.
Dom turned and walked away. It didn’t matter where. Without more detail, he was flying blind. Maybe Vanessa and Charlie were right. Maybe they should return to the camp and wait for more help.
He stopped and his gaze found Anya. She was clutching the book tightly. Her eyes were wider than usual. From where he stood, her grief was palpable.
Vanessa came up to him and touched his arm. ‘Let’s leave this city, Dom. We can hit this place again soon, but for now we should plan from the camp.’
The Copy guard flashed him a look. Surprise? Worry? Relief?
He shucked her off. ‘With respect to you and Charlie, I’m in charge. That’s how you wanted it, that’s how it will be.’
Charlie shrugged as if he’d run out of ways to convince him. ‘Okay, what’s your decision?’
He glanced at Anya, who looked too stiff to be comfortable. ‘We keep looking.’ He saw her shoulders relax. ‘The city is on the back foot. I intend to take advantage of that.’
14
Anya
Finding the Beyond would give her answers. That’s what Anya believed. Right now, Jason and her parents’ deaths had been for nothing. Senseless. The answer to why they had to die rested there.
She sighed with relief when Dom went against Vanessa and Charlie’s advice.
But when she caught Dom’s former guard looking at her, eyes narrowed, she straightened up and gripped her weapon tighter.
‘What are you looking at?’ she asked him.
The Copy smirked at her. One of the soldiers slapped him across the face. The Copy laughed. Hard.
Anya strode up to him and pressed the barrel of her Electro Gun into his chest. She felt him flinch. ‘What’s your problem?’
‘Filthy, dirty Originals. That’s all you are.’
It was Anya’s turn to laugh. ‘And yet, you were modelled after us. A little ironic, don’t you think?’
The smile on the prisoner’s face disappeared. ‘I’m nothing like you.’ He looked away. ‘The others are, the cowards who abandoned this city.’ He looked back and sneered. ‘I chose to stay, because I care about my home and I don’t want to see you take it over. You should know you’re all wasting your time here.’
Anya shoved the gun into his gut.
Behind her, Dom said, ‘Take it easy.’
‘Wasting, why?’
The Copy lifted his chin. ‘The Beyond doesn’t exist. If it did, we would have found it by now. But you, pathetic Originals, you can’t organise yourselves in an open-field fight.’
Anya poked the prisoner in the ribs with the tip of her gun. ‘Say that again.’
He grunted. ‘I heard what happened out there. We’re all connected, you see. The Collective, it tells us everything.’
Anya doubted that. Carissa had been talking to Quintus. He’d contacted her before their escape from the city, while in the camp, during the battle.
‘Not everything.’
Anya pulled her gun back and marched out the door. Outside, the light hurt her eyes, but it wasn’t as strong as she remembered it being when she’d visited the library as a child. The lack of barrier around the city must have removed the light distortion. She looked back at the walls of books lining the library. When they found the Beyond, she would get a bookshelf of her own and fill it with as many books as she could. Maybe, when things settled down, they could return and clear this place out.
The others joined her outside. Dom stood beside her and rubbed her back. It soothed the edges of her temper as she eyed the accommodation block a short distance away they had yet to check.
‘Are you okay?’
She didn’t answer him, pointing. ‘We should try the block next.’
‘Look, he’s an asshole. He likes to stir the shit. Don’t listen to him.’
She looked up at him. ‘Listen to who?’
She marched on ahead to the block, bristling with irritation. What if the Copy guard was right and the Beyond didn’t exist? If the Collective was clever enough to create Copies, surely it would have found it already?
Anya arrived at the accommodation block first. The concrete structure was set out on three levels with no plants or life of any kind. The doors to each unit she could see faced out. The block carried on farther back, creating side corridors with possible doors there.
She hesitated, not familiar with this place and not sure where to begin.
Jacob arrived at her side. ‘I’ll take the lead from here.’ He walked on. ‘This place I know.’
They organised themselves into groups of five to search the rooms on each block, leaving the soldiers to watch the prisoner. Some of the apartments were unlocked, others locked. They used the Copy to open the locked rooms. Anya searched one room, a studio-type apartment with a bed in one corner, a living room space in the other and a kitchenette. A bathroom was separate to the living space. It wasn’t much bigger than her and Alex’s room in the medical facility.
She walked around the space, checking under the bed, behind it, beneath unmade duvets and under creased pillows. She checked the seams of the mattress for signs of tears. Then she walked the room slowly, listening out for loose floorboards. The kitchenette consisted of a small counter and a kettle. The cupboards were bare.
This room was depressing. Even her and Alex’s room had had more character than this. Who had lived here—or, rather, been forced to live here?
She left the apartment and searched the unit next door. That one had a bed stripped of linen. It looked like it hadn’t been lived in recently.
She exited that apartment—if she could call it that—and met Dom outside. ‘Where are all the people who lived here?’
Dom shrugged. ‘They may have fled to the towns. The barrier has been down for a while.’
She supposed that made sense. ‘Anything?’
He shook his head. ‘The rooms are empty. Any idea which room Janet may have used?’
‘I don’t. We’ll have to search them all.’
The next hour blurred into grey linens and bare cupboards. The rooms all started to look the same, but the checks happened faster. Loose floorboards, ripped mattresses. Hollow panels.
She was exiting the last room in her block when Dom came out holding what looked like a book. He frowned at it, then his eyes flicked up to Anya’s.
Her heart pounded in her ears. ‘Where did you find that?’
‘Beneath the floor in one of the rooms.’
He opened the book. Anya stood by his shoulder, clenching her fists. Dom flicked through it. It appeared to be less like a diary and more like a stock book with ledger entries.
‘Is it hers?’ she asked breathless.
‘I don’t know.’
Dom flicked through more pages, containing lists of numbers. ‘Are these the coordinates?’
Anya leaned in closer. ‘They could represent longitude and latitude.’
Dom flicked on. ‘There’s too many, and no clue as to which ones might be the correct coordinates...’ He stopped on the last page, which had a hand-drawn map on it. ‘This looks more recent.’
Anya narrowed her eyes. There were no discerning markers. It was just a quick sketch, as though the route had been pencilled in a hurry. ‘How can you tell?’
‘See, the pencil lines are hastily drawn. Someone took their time with the numbers.’ Dom looked around. ‘You said you saw your parents gave this to Janet. Why is this book here and not outside the city, like before?’
Anya took a guess. ‘Because when Janet was taken to the city she had the book on her?’
‘Would the sketch have been in this before or after she arrived? Surely the Copies would have searched her belongings.’
It didn’t make sense to Anya either. ‘She must have sketched it while she was here.’
She studied it. A sweep of a horizontal line, then a vertical one, a short zig without the zag, then straight. It would be impossible to know where this was without more context.
Dom rubbed his chin. ‘If she sketched it after she arrived, it was either from memory or a map of somewhere inside the city.’ He became more alert. ‘We should check Thomas’ sketches of the buildings. One of them might match up to this.’
Anya’s heart pounded too fast. ‘You think the way to the Beyond is in the city?’
He shook the book in the air. ‘I don’t know, but something compelled her to sketch this after she arrived.’
A new thought occurred to Anya. ‘What if Janet wanted to be taken to the city?’
His eyes widened. ‘Because this was the last place the rebels had yet to search. Those who still looked only presumed they knew where it was. If she found it, she was letting the next rebel know.’
‘We could have the coordinates, Dom. I’ll tell the others.’
Dom stopped her with his hand. ‘Don’t tell Vanessa, Sheila or Charlie yet.’
‘Why?’
‘Even with this, they might still push for everyone to leave. I’m worried that if we do we might not get back in.’ He let go and waved the book in front of him. ‘This might be it, our ticket out of here.’
‘What about the rest of Kaylie’s team?’ Kaylie’s open eyes and pale face flashed in her memory. She touched Dom’s arm. ‘They’re burying their dead. Should we wait for them to return?’
Dom shrugged. ‘I don�
�t know them well enough. They were following Kaylie’s orders. Without her, they might be on their way back to their camp.’ He tapped the cover. ‘This was our reason for coming back here. It still is.’
‘I’ll get Thomas.’
For the first time, she had hope.
15
Carissa
Anya came rushing out of block C, looking for Thomas. The Inventor asked her why.
She whispered, ‘We found something,’ and showed him a book.
The Inventor smiled.
‘It looks promising,’ he said as he leafed through it.
His smile made Carissa’s heart sink.
‘We should compare the drawing with the sketches Thomas did.’
Carissa wished she had the same enthusiasm.
The Beyond was a place the humans wanted to find. What would happen to her when they did? Would the Inventor leave with his friends and abandon Carissa to this city that no longer felt like home?
‘But what are these numbers?’ he asked. ‘They look like ledger entries.’
Carissa pulled the book down so she could see it. She’d recognise that schedule anywhere. ‘They’re not ledger entries. That’s a list of the Copies’ movements.’ She pointed at one set of numbers that repeated on each page. ‘And here’s where the system carried out a health check, from 1-1.15am.’
Anya stared at her. ‘Which means the people could potentially go anywhere.’
‘But they didn’t. They always stayed in their accommodation.’
The Inventor, followed by Anya, rushed out of the accommodation block, calling out for Thomas. The brown-haired boy emerged from block D clutching the backpack with the maps in it. The others gathered around them while Dom stood at the back. Carissa muscled her way into the centre.
‘We need to see your drawings again,’ the Inventor said.
Thomas opened the backpack and pulled out the folded pages. He unfolded several and placed them down on the ground. Carissa checked her waistband for the two sketches—one of her and one of Rover—that the Inventor had drawn. It might be the last thing she had of him soon.
The soldiers crowded around Thomas.
