by Eliza Green
‘How did we end up in there?’
‘There are thousands of people in the Region—families mostly. We needed Quintus to think he was living in the real world and not trapped inside a program, which was our fallback option if this didn’t work. The families entered willingly, but part of the agreement was that they would not retain memories of this place. We couldn’t risk Quintus learning about this place from them.
‘We held a consultation with representatives as to how the Region should operate. They voted for self-sustaining towns and a city with medical equipment, should the need arise to use it. So we designed the Region around an existing military testing base, which you knew as Praesidium. That was part of the agreement to enter: full consultation.’
‘And why did they volunteer?’ Anya said with a shake of her head. ‘Why would they leave this behind if they didn’t have to?’
Agatha smiled. ‘The people who volunteered were in low-paying jobs and looking for a fresh start. Some with specific skills were promised a good pay-out to enter—the rest were promised better work after this was over. The Region was a second chance for them. All entrants had their memories of this city repressed and received a new set of a life lived in the Region. Many were also trained in specific skills prior to entry—farming, engineering, hunting skills—that would make their time there more believable. Everyone received training of some kind, to make the towns sustainable and everything run smoothly.’
Anya clasped her hands together. No, twisted them was more like it. ‘Are you saying my family was poor before we went in there? Dom’s family?’
Agatha nodded. ‘Dom’s, yes, but your family entered for a different reason.’
‘What?’
‘To help someone close to you. This isn’t the first time we’ve met, Anya. And I’m not surprised to find you in the group that found the Beyond.’
‘We’ve met?’ Her head swam with the lies. ‘And I don’t remember agreeing to your little social experiment.’
‘Yes, you did. Everyone who entered had to sign an agreement.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Agatha got up and picked up a tablet from a table nearby. She turned it on and swiped until she came to a page.
She showed it to Anya. ‘You signed this. The agreement was one month in the Region.’
Anya squinted at it. It could be her signature. She didn’t remember what hers looked like. ‘That could be anyone’s scrawl.’
Agatha returned to the desk and opened the drawer. She pulled out a piece of paper and a pen.
She placed it in front of Anya. ‘Sign your name.’
She did. Agatha showed her the signatures. They were identical.
‘You could have forged my signature. That doesn’t mean anything.’
‘We also have your DNA signature on file.’
Anya looked at Dom, who was staring down at his plate. ‘Do you believe her?’
He didn’t answer, grabbing the page and pen and signing his name.
To Agatha, he said, ‘Show me mine.’
She swiped a few times and showed him his signature. Again, identical.
‘We agreed to the Region?’ said Dom softly.
‘Yes, you did. In your case, it was your father who pushed for it.’
‘And the payment for it?’
‘Sitting in an account with your name on it, ready to be claimed.’
‘And my parents?’
‘If they’re dead, their payment is passed on to you.’
She flicked to a new page on screen and showed a figure to them.
Anya had no clue about the value of currency in this city, but there were lots of zeros. ‘Is that a lot?’
‘Enough to buy you a nice life here. Quintus risked the entire operating system of New San Francisco. If he ever spread beyond this city, he could have gained control over the west colony. Believe me, we would have paid double to lock his ass down.’
Dom lifted his brows at Anya. ‘Looks like we’re rich.’
33
Carissa
Carissa sat inside a grey-walled room with only a single bed and a bedside locker for company. The way out was made of solid steel, except for a small viewing window two-thirds up. This place felt familiar to her, even though she’d never been there before. After Carissa had stepped out of a large machine an hour ago, a woman in a white coat had brought her to this room. She’d said it would help Carissa to adjust to her new life.
A face appeared at the viewing window. It belonged to the dark-skinned woman who ran this base. That much she knew; she’d been there when Carissa had exited the machine. The old man with the white hair had also been there. The door clicked open and Carissa—the old man kept calling her that—sat up straighter. Agatha entered the room first, followed by Jacob. Although, she sensed he had a different name.
She frowned at the pair, one smiling the other not. She flicked her gaze between them.
They remained near the open door, having a conversation that did not include Carissa.
‘Will you consider staying on this side, Jacob? We could use someone with your expertise.’
Jacob’s eyes flicked to Carissa. ‘What will happen to her?’
‘She may live as she pleases once she passes our cognitive tests to check her emotional responses.’
‘Responses?’
‘Humans and synths can live together in this city, but only after synths prove they can recognise the difference between right and wrong.’
Carissa wondered what that had to do with her.
‘How much longer do I have to stay in here?’ Her words snapped both sets of eyes to her. ‘I feel fine. I’d like to leave now.’
She’d felt okay after stepping out of the machine and had told Agatha so, but the commander hadn’t listened to her.
Agatha rarely smiled—an oddity she’d noticed about her. But the old man, Jacob... his eyes were crinkled and his mouth had softened into a smile. She focused on him and his stance. The familiarity of him nagged at her.
Agatha stepped forward. ‘I thought you’d like a tour of the base. But I also have someone I’d like you to meet.’
Carissa stood and checked with Jacob, who smiled and nodded at her. She took a deep breath, smoothed down the front of her borrowed jeans and long-sleeved shirt and stepped closer to the exit.
Agatha walked on but Carissa hesitated a moment. The room felt safe, but the uncertainties of what freedom entailed worried her.
Jacob steered her out of the room. ‘Come on, miss.’
She jerked at his touch and he withdrew his hand. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’
He gestured for her to follow Agatha.
It wasn’t his touch that had alarmed her; it was something he’d said. Something that she should know...
Carissa hurried to catch up with Agatha, who had stopped at the end of the corridor. They resumed their walk and Agatha pointed inside rooms as they went. Carissa glanced inside them, barely hearing anything Agatha said. The commander stopped at the base of a set of metal stairs in the middle of a bay, trucks parked around it. The stairs led up to a prefab perched above the space.
‘Follow me. There’s someone I want you to meet.’
Agatha climbed the stairs.
Carissa hesitated and looked back at Jacob. ‘Are you coming?’
He smiled. ‘If you want me to.’
She nodded and he gestured for her to go on up. She arrived at the top of the stairs, where Agatha waited by a door to the prefab. When Jacob made it to the same level, Agatha opened the door and stepped inside.
Carissa gripped her left arm. What did Agatha need her to see inside a tiny space?
A hand on her back soothed her. ‘It’s okay, Carissa. Trust me.’
She looked up into the watery eyes of the old man. She did trust him. Why, when she’d never met him before?
With a nod, she walked inside the room. A woman with curly, blonde hair waited there. She wore a beautiful,
black suit that was perfectly tailored to her body. She looked important.
Agatha gestured to the woman. ‘Carissa, I want you to meet Genevieve. She’s in charge of security in New San Francisco.’
Genevieve offered her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Carissa.’
Carissa shook her hand. It felt warm. But something about her felt off.
She stepped back. ‘Who are you?’
Agatha said, ‘Genevieve is one of our synthetics.’
Carissa’s pulse went from a mild thud to an excited frenzy. She stared at the woman. ‘A-are you real?’
Genevieve laughed. ‘As much as you are. Please’—she gestured to a chair—‘let’s talk.’
Carissa sat down and listened while Genevieve explained her position in the city and that synthetics lived side by side with humans.
She couldn’t believe it. ‘Are you saying I can have a life, out there?’
Agatha nodded. ‘Synthetics have the same rights as humans.’
‘As long as they pass your test.’
It’s what Agatha had said to Jacob.
Genevieve laughed. ‘Yes, I’m afraid we must comply with the rules. Mandatory annual testing, to make sure we haven’t gone rogue.’
Carissa’s mind reeled with questions, with the possibilities of what a life in the city might look like. She glanced back at the old man who was leaning against the door.
‘Would I live alone?’
‘If you wanted to.’
She sensed she had never been alone, that there was more to her story than she’d been told. After exiting the machine, the doctor had said she was a reborn, not a newborn—a term that sounded familiar.
She looked at Jacob. He had his arms folded now. Tension lived there.
‘Where will you live?’
He uncrossed his arms. ‘In the city, like you. Like the others. Charlie, Vanessa, Sheila, June, Jerome. We will all have our own accommodation.’
He spoke to her like she was supposed to know those people. But there was only one person she truly knew.
She turned to Agatha and said, ‘I’d like to live with the Inventor.’
She heard a gasp behind her.
Agatha’s eyes widened a fraction. ‘What did you say?’
Carissa frowned and combed over her last words. Genevieve looked as confused by Agatha’s reaction as Carissa was.
‘I said I would like to live with the Inventor.’ She looked back at him, surprised to see tears in his eyes. ‘Is that okay?’
He strode forward and pressed his hands into the tops of his thighs. ‘I never thought I’d hear you call me that again.’ He shook her shoulder gently. ‘I would be delighted with the company, miss.’
34
Anya
2 weeks later
Anya settled into the warm-brown leather sofa. Her gaze roamed the office. Pictures of a family were mounted on the wall, alongside three framed certificates.
A woman dressed in a light-blue blouse and black trousers sat opposite her on a chair that matched the sofa. She had her legs crossed and balanced a screen on one knee.
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said.
Anya blinked. ‘What?’
‘I asked you if you’ve settled in yet?’
She’d been in the new city for two weeks. The shock of being surrounded by so much technology had freaked her out; she hadn’t left the base for the first three days. Agatha had arranged for her and the others to receive psychotherapy, to help to adjust to the change. Or to readjust to their old life, as Agatha had put it. According to Agatha, it was too soon—and would be too traumatic—to simply reverse the deeply repressed memories of New San Francisco. Given her current feelings about the city, Anya was in no hurry.
The psychologist waited.
‘Uh, fine.’
Anya smiled in an attempt to end this session sooner, but the woman didn’t look like she was buying it. This was her tenth session—one per day. The others had been forced to undergo similar sessions to gauge their mental stability.
‘I mean, I’m getting used to it.’
The woman nodded. ‘It takes time to adjust from the poverty you had to a city with endless possibilities.’
This psychologist was calling the Region poor but Anya had never felt that way about it. Sure, Praesidium had boasted better tech than the towns, but trade and barter, plus the ability to grow their own food, had not left the townspeople destitute.
Although, one command from the Collective—meaning Quintus—and everything could have changed in an instant. She realised that now.
‘The bright lights—I’m still not used to them. The noise of the city gives me a headache.’
It was the constant hum of cars travelling on the roads above her that bothered her the most. It created a buzzing in her ears.
The therapist nodded. ‘It’s common to feel like that. Your system is in shock.’
‘I suppose that’s what it is.’ She smiled again, done with talking about it. ‘I’m sure I’ll get used to it.’
‘Have you come to terms with what Quintus did to you?’
‘Sure.’
‘You said he had a fixation on you in particular.’
Carissa had told her that. Quintus had decided Anya was the ideal candidate for the Breeder programme. That was before he’d found a way out, using Alex.
‘I’m over it.’
The therapist paused, looking unconvinced. ‘Agatha wants to schedule your mind repression reversal treatment soon, if you want it. That should help this city to feel familiar again.’
‘Why not now?’
‘You’ve all been through a trauma and the process is lengthy. The memories are buried too deep for conventional methods to reach them.’
That must have been why the memory reversal machine the Inventor, Thomas and Jason had built had only unlocked memories from the Region.
She’d lived a lifetime in New San Francisco but she remembered none of it. This city did not feel like home. While she had only been in the Region for a year, her memories of Jason and her parents were the most precious to her. And by gaining her other memories back, she would learn why she’d entered the Region in the first place, and what she and her family had left behind. That scared her.
She anchored her hands on the arm rests, ready to get up. Only ten minutes remained of the session and the therapist was repeating the same, tired material.
‘Can we end the session early?’
The therapist cocked her head a little. ‘I heard you spoke to your Copy medic, the one who helped you to escape the medical facility where you were kept prisoner.’
Anya sighed. Okay, they weren’t done.
‘I did.’
‘How did it go?’
‘She didn’t recognise me.’
The Copy formerly called 118-C had been wiped and implanted with a new personality. Gone were her hard edges, replaced with a softer, chattier version laden with apologies for whatever she’d done in the past. Trouble was she couldn’t remember it. Not her help and defiance against the city. Not her help getting Jacob, Charlie, Vanessa, Thomas and Carissa through to the Beyond.
But Anya had thanked her anyway, because doing so felt like concluding that traumatic part of her life.
‘Do you feel at peace with it—with your time in the medical facility?’
She did. ‘I’m ready to move on, to put that place behind me.’
The therapist eyed her. ‘Including the Region?’
Anya hesitated. Was she done with it? She smiled and nodded.
The therapist uncrossed her legs and stood up. ‘That concludes our sessions, Anya.’
She proffered a hand and Anya shook it slowly from her seat.
‘We’re done?’
She nodded. ‘I see no reason to keep you here.’
Anya stood. Had her agreement to turn her back on the Region ended her sessions? If only she’d known that ten days ago.
‘Thanks for your time,’ she said
to the therapist.
‘Good luck with everything.’
A crash against the wall of the next room startled her, as if someone had thrown something. The therapist rushed to the door and opened it. Anya followed to see a smiling Sheila coming out of the next room. Her therapist, an older woman, was glaring at her.
‘You are the most frustrating...’ The older woman tugged on her hair. ‘I don’t want to see you back here again.’
‘Fine by me,’ said Sheila. She gave her a short wave. ‘Buh bye then.’
Anya’s therapist went to check on the older woman. Anya saw shattered glass on the floor. Sheila’s eyes crinkled when she saw Anya. She hooked arms with her and walked her out of the building fast.
‘Come on, before they haul my ass off to some lab.’
‘What the hell happened, Sheila?’
‘Oh that?’ She waved her hand in the air. ‘I may have tried reverse therapy on my therapist.’
Anya blinked. ‘What?’
‘When she asked me how I was coping with my parental loss and this place, I asked her why she was hiding her kinky fetish for dressing up like a school mistress and whipping her lovers.’
Anya pulled her to a stop outside. ‘You said what?’
Sheila squeaked. ‘How was I supposed to know I got it right?’
Imogen waited outside. Sheila unhooked her arm and went to her, planting a sweet kiss on her lips.
‘I see you’ve been up to no good again,’ said Imogen.
Sheila glanced back at the building. ‘I think my sessions might be over.’ She sighed. ‘I blame my psychologist parents for teaching me so well.’
‘Hey, Anya,’ said Imogen. ‘Do you and Dom want to come over for dinner tonight?’
Anya smiled. ‘Thanks for the offer, but we’ve got plans. Tomorrow, though?’
‘Yeah, let’s do it.’
Sheila added. ‘We should get everyone back together. You know, the whole gang. It’s been too long since I’ve seen everyone.’
After leaving the base, their group had been split up and sent to different accommodations in different parts of the city.
