The Facility

by Eliza Green

  ‘No, you don’t. You’re happy to stay where you are, and that’s a dangerous state of mind. Since you won’t listen to me, maybe rotation will give you the motivation you need.’

  Dom stood up and jerked his tray off the table. He stalked off before she could reply, dropping his tray back at the food counter on the way out.

  Their fight had drawn the attention of the other participants. Anya gripped her sandwich so tightly her fingers touched through the thin slices of bread.

  She didn’t know why Dom cared so much about rotation. Or why he annoyed her.

  A couple of girls sat further down the table giggled into their food.

  Her face burned with the attention on her.

  Sheila called over. ‘Hey, Anya. Did your boyfriend dump you?’

  Anya’s attempts to ignore Sheila only egged her on.

  ‘Girls like you aren’t pretty enough for guys like him. You should stick with your own ugly kind.’

  Sheila’s nasal whine stirred something deep within Anya. She made a fist under the table and tried to focus on something else.

  The rest of lunch passed in a haze of what-the-hell-just-happened. Anya returned to the atrium with her uneaten food stuffed in her pocket. The early afternoon cast harsh slashes of white and pale-yellow light across the atrium floor. She shielded her eyes until she found safety at the wall with the cleaning vestibules, where the sun couldn’t find her.

  Dom stood with a boy at another vestibule. His spirals of hair were swept off his face, bound by a white elastic band. He was taller and broader than the other eighteen-year-olds in the programme, like he’d had a growth spurt in his early teens. He laughed at something, flashing the slight crookedness of his teeth. But his deep-brown eyes were dull, lifeless. His jaw often clenched when he stopped pretending.

  She pulled a mop from the vestibule and gave Dom a short wave. The laughter between Dom and the boy faded. His mouth shifted into a tight line as he nodded at her.

  Anya sighed and wheeled a pre-filled bucket of water towards Section Eight.

  Someone had already turned on the holographic grid for the floor. A long sweep of dark brown marked her section, and the remnants of a coffee mug lay in porcelain splinters on the floor.

  The bittersweet smell of coffee wrinkled her nose as she hunkered down beside the spill and swept her fingers through the liquid. The coffee was still warm. There were other spills, too—angry red swipes and clear swirls. She would deal with the easier substance first. The coffee.

  But the smell jolted a scene into her mind: the aftermath of the rebel attack in Brookfield...

  Anya closed her eyes and swallowed, nauseated by every little smell in the house, from her mother’s dying freesias in a vase on the coffee table, to the lingering smell of lubricating oil in the kitchen, from Jason’s little electronic projects.

  She gulped back the latest bout of heaving. The sickness had weakened her so much she’d barely had time to grieve.

  A handful of rebels had been caught and interrogated in the days that followed her parents’ deaths. And yesterday, an explosion close to Brookfield had rocked the walls of their little bungalow, enough for her and Jason to forget their sorrow and anger for a few hours.

  The town was intact, but the sickness was a new threat. The few adults who survived the culling were also affected.

  Jason held back Anya’s hair while she dry-heaved into the toilet.

  She gasped and sat back, her stomach swirling.

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’

  Jason, with his pasty and sticky skin, hadn’t escaped the clutches of the sickness, either. Anya shifted back when it looked like he might need a turn at the bowl, but then he closed his eyes and swallowed.

  ‘I’d say we should eat something, but the thought of food or water... I just can’t.’

  Anya pulled up her sleeve. She examined the skin lesions that had appeared a few hours earlier. New blemishes, red and scaly, had started to form further up her arm.

  ‘If we can’t eat or drink, what can we do?’

  ‘We need help,’ Jason croaked. ‘One of the other towns.’

  She felt so weak. ‘I couldn’t... I can’t.’

  ‘Not you. Me. You’re too sick.’

  Jason hauled himself up onto his feet. His eyes were glassy, his skin blotchy.

  Anya tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t work. So she stayed by the toilet, one arm draped over the lid, resting her cheek on the cool plastic seat.

  He groaned. ‘One of us has to.’

  Jason stumbled to the living room. Anya heard him trying to put on a coat.

  She turned and dry-heaved. There was no relief. She hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for days.

  ‘I’ll be back soon.’

  Anya’s reply came out as a soft whisper. She heard the latch on the door turn first, followed by a heavy thud and the sound of shattering glass.

  Jason!

  Anya screamed, but her voice made no sound. She wiped her brow and pushed back her matted hair. She crawled on all fours, feeling the sickness threaten to ground her. But she kept going, one hand and one knee at a time, aiming for the front door, crawling over the bloodstains, which she and Jason had vainly tried to scrub away.

  The door was still closed, and Jason was slumped against it with his coat half-on. His outstretched leg had jolted the sideboard, and knocked the picture frame to the floor.

  Anya crawled over the broken glass that stabbed at her knees and hands. She hauled herself over to Jason. With barely an ounce of energy to spare, she pressed two fingers to his neck. She managed a smile before collapsing beside him.

  A bright light woke her. Jason was still unconscious by the door. A man in a white protective suit and mask hovered above, his unsmiling face looming large.

  ‘Don’t worry. You’re safe now.’

  Anya stared at him through half-opened eyes. How long had she been out for?

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Ionising radiation. The whole town’s been poisoned.’

  Her dry mouth made it hard to speak. She licked her lips but found no relief.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘We’re from Praesidium. We’re here to help.’

  Anya pressed a hand to her racing heart as a familiar screeching, clattering sound cut through her thoughts. The metal shutter rolled up. She stared down at the coffee spill she was supposed to be cleaning, then ran to get a dustpan from the vestibule. She stumbled back to her section just in time.

  The wolves had a presence that was hard to ignore. They appeared one at a time, and Anya noticed the detail: how they arched their backs, how they used their tails to balance themselves as they trod lightly on their paws.

  She knelt beside the ceramic shards and pushed them into the dustpan using her hand. She set the pan aside and worked the damp mop through the brown spill.

  A loud shriek caused her to freeze. She looked up to where the sound had come from, but saw nothing. Dom ignored it and kept mopping.

  ‘What was that?’ she whispered.

  His jaw tightened and he mopped harder.

  Anya frowned and ran the mop over her section until the border turned green. She disposed of the ceramic shards and put her mop away.

  She tackled the clear spills next, careful not to breathe in their pungent chemical smell. Twenty minutes later, the wolves disappeared back inside their hole.

  Anya retreated to the railing in one of the camera’s blind spots. The rest of her sandwich felt lumpy against her side. She tore a piece off with her fingers and popped it in her mouth while watching a frazzled young woman rush across the first-floor walkway.

  Dom’s appearance at her side made her nervous. She didn’t need another lecture from him. He leaned against the railing with his arms folded. She turned, ready to defend herself, but was surprised to find him looking up at the first floor.

  The longer they stood in silence, the more Anya wanted to explain why rotation wasn’t an option for her.
But her throat constricted whenever she tried. She settled on looking at Dom’s strong features, which made him appear closer to man than boy. Anya glanced down at her own five-foot-six-inch body that seemed small next to Dom’s six feet frame.

  He pushed off from the railing and went back to work.

  Anya finished her lunch alone. She walked back to her section wondering if that was Dom’s attempt at an apology.

  8

  Anya’s fight with Dom played on her mind. She hadn’t spoken to him in over three weeks, and fell back into her routine of eating alone with alarming ease. She didn’t count the one time Dom had sat down and their brief discussion had turned to talk about rotation. It ended with Dom’s storming off again. Now, he went out of his way to avoid her by spending his lunch with the girls Sheila hung out with, listening to them waffle on about hair and clothes and boys they fancied. Anya could tell by Dom’s wandering gaze that he had no interest in their talk.

  At one of the cleaning vestibules, Sheila looked over at Anya, twisted her hair around one finger and whispered something in Dom’s ear. Dom’s mask slipped and he laughed at whatever Sheila had said to him. But then the mask went back up and his gaze wandered again, as it did when he wasn’t cleaning or insisting she move on.

  Her hunger released a wave of repressed pain and anger. Sheila continued to taunt her with a secret smile before touching Dom on the shoulder. Anya may be shorter and paler than Sheila, who had long wavy brown hair, streaked with gold. But good looks didn’t factor into a physical fight.

  Anya walked over to the vestibules, her eyes on the girl glaring at her over Dom’s shoulder. She reached the vestibule at the end and turned her back on Sheila.

  Her chest tightened and her breathing became shallow. Why did girls like Sheila get under her skin? Why was Dom still ignoring her? She was different to the other girls who treated this place like a camp, but maybe that was the problem. The ache in her chest made her doubt her ability to make friends. Made her doubt the importance of individuality in a place like this.

  It hurt her to think she and Dom may not be as alike as she’d first thought.

  She marched back to her section, mop in hand, and took her anger out on the floor.

  Her loneliness might not sting so badly had Jason been around more over the last three weeks. The factory made him work late most nights. When he bothered to show up for dinner, they barely spoke.

  The bell sounded for lunch and Anya put away her mop and bucket without a glance at Dom. Ignoring him was easy, even though a raw pain gnawed at her when she did.

  She made it to the dining hall first, but the few seconds of isolation before the others arrived gave her no comfort. The air inside the hall tightened around her neck as she approached the food counter. She grabbed a couple of items and hurried outside, to the one place she could breathe. Arcis was getting to her, with the same routine day in, day out. As she drew in a breath of fresh air, she gave serious consideration to rotation.

  The sun warmed her pale skin. She dropped into a secluded spot on the grass among the other workers, closed her eyes and tilted her head up until the sun lightened her heavy mood. A nearby noise jolted her from her happy place. Her eyes flashed open to see Dom sitting cross-legged beside her. Her surprise at his presence caused her breath to hitch. She plucked a blade of grass and rolled it between her fingers.

  ‘What are you doing here, Dom? Won’t your new friends get jealous?’

  ‘I was trying something new. I’m not sure it’s working, though.’

  Not working?

  ‘What, did Sheila not put out for you?’

  Dom angled towards her. Anya swallowed back tears when he smiled.

  ‘Are you jealous of my new friendships, Anya Macklin?’

  Heat spread up her neck. ‘Of course not. Sheila is nothing but a beautiful, vacuous wind-up toy and her lackeys are mind-numbingly dull. So you’re welcome to them.’

  A rumble of laughter consumed him. ‘That’s quite a description. I’ll be sure to pass it on.’

  ‘So, let me guess.’ Anya turned and leaned on her hand, ‘Sheila dumped you and you’ve come crawling back to your safe bet?’

  Dom stretched out his legs and leaned back on his wrists. He tilted his face towards the sun. ‘While the thought of going head to head with you intrigues me, I’m not here to fight. I just want to enjoy the normality for a while. Is that okay with you?’ He glanced at her, a smile on his lips.

  ‘So, taunting me is your idea of normal, is it?’ She couldn’t help it. Dom annoyed her more than Jason.

  His shoulders shook. ‘Well, I do enjoy that. But I wanted to sit in the sun alone and think about nothing.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He lay back on the grass while Anya remained seated.

  He grinned. ‘But you can stay, if you want.’

  Anya tore off another blade of grass and rolled it between her thumb and forefinger. She stole a glance at the shape of his thighs, his muscular arms, his broad chest. His arm brushed against her leg when he cupped his hands behind his neck. Anya stiffened, then unclenched her muscles. The most natural thing would have been to lie down beside him, but she felt too self-conscious.

  They stayed there for a while, Dom relaxed and Anya shifting positions to get comfortable. She spotted Sheila a short distance away, sitting with her idiot friends whose names she didn’t bother learning. Sheila tossed her golden-brown mane behind her before locking Anya in a stare that held hidden warnings. In response, Anya touched her own hair, tied up in an elastic band. She tugged at the band and shook out the hair, tucking it behind her ear.

  The siren sounded for the end of lunch. Anya caught Dom’s eyes flickering closed. Who had he been looking at?

  Probably Sheila.

  A new anger rippled through her and she directed it towards Dom.

  ‘Time to go.’ She punched him hard on his shoulder.

  He flinched and jumped to his feet. Anya was already on hers and walking away.

  Ω

  Anya slowed when she caught sight of the wolves in the atrium. Dom walked faster to his section, more alert than she’d ever seen him. He stood in an almost military-like pose, his hands behind his back.

  Anya arrived at her section last. The other participants gathered in a line before the wolves. Silence fell among those who were there the day she started. Everyone else chatted and giggled. Except for Anya.

  The lead wolf scraped the floor with its nails. The sound rattled her teeth but it drowned out the chatter. She moved closer to Dom’s section.

  ‘Participants, rotation is imminent,’ the lead wolf said in that synthetic voice she now hated.

  ‘Please remain where you are while we prepare the list of names.’

  Anya spotted a girl and boy on the first-floor walkway. A different voice boomed through the atrium’s communication system.

  ‘All participants on the walkways please report to your supervisors immediately.’

  The excited pair ran to Tower A, their ill-fitting shoes slapping against the walkway.

  Anya noticed Sheila shift from her second-row position to stand beside Dom. She touched his arm. Dom seemed distracted as he looked at her.

  So much for her theory about Sheila dumping him.

  ‘How often do these rotations happen?’ she heard Sheila ask him.

  ‘Every month,’ said Dom.

  ‘Without fail? Do they ever skip a month?’ Sheila twirled a piece of hair around one finger, still touching Dom.

  ‘I don’t know. But I expect so. Haven’t been here that long.’

  Anya looked away from the pair’s intimacy to see the others caught up in a mix of emotions: from excitement to anxiety, from apathy to curiosity. A boy with shaky hands smiled.

  ‘Jack, Emily, Fiona, Sheila and Dom,’ the wolf called out. Another seven names followed. ‘You twelve have impressed enough to be rotated to the first floor. Please follow me immediately.’

  Dom released a long, quiet breath. Sheila s
quealed and threw her arms around him, glancing at Anya when Dom buried his face in her neck. The others hugged each other. A palpable tension settled in the room, particularly among those who’d been passed over for rotation a second time.

  Anya couldn’t move. She wanted to congratulate Dom, but a stronger part of her hated him for leaving.

  The wolf moved towards the lobby. Sheila gave Anya one last look for good measure as she passed.

  Anya felt conflicted as she watched Dom and Sheila leave. Her potential friend was leaving, but so was her worst enemy.

  Dom unzipped the top half of his grey jumpsuit and pulled his arms out of the sleeves. Underneath, he wore a white T-shirt that showed off his lean, muscular contours. The other girls giggled at Dom’s show of defiance, but Anya stared at him for a different reason. The programme was for sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds. Dom looked nothing like the other thin, wiry boys.

  She picked up her mop, hoping it would act as a buffer to the pain she felt. But instead of a burn in her arms, her chest ached. Her hands shook as she watched the only bright spot in her day leave.

  Ω

  Ten minutes passed and new laughter and excitement echoed through the atrium as participants on the floors above adjusted to their new schedules. She watched the first floor, anxious to catch a glimpse of Dom one last time, to say goodbye. Three girls and two boys appeared on the walkway. They wore blouses, shirts, skirts and trousers, none of which fit them. They crossed to Tower B.

  Anya spotted Dom before he saw her. He hastily fixed a clip-on tie around the neck of his too-big shirt as he walked. His dreadlocked hair hung loose around his shoulders. He looked down at her, and her heart soared. Would she see him again? Not if she didn’t move forward. The idea terrified her. Her heart took a quick nosedive.

  Dom pushed his snarled hair off his face and secured it with an elastic band.

  ‘Just think about what I said, Anya. You don’t want to be stuck here forever.’

  She heard a small skirmish above her. Dom’s sudden tension put her on high alert. An object bigger than a coffee cup fell from above. Then a sharp chill passed through her when she saw what it was.