The Facility

by Eliza Green

  Anya twisted her hands together. ‘They’re coming here?’

  Jason shook his head. ‘I don’t think they could get in if they tried, sis.’

  He pushed the kettle away. ‘Stupid piece of crap. I wanted to fix it before...’ He trailed off.

  ‘Before what?’ Her voice came out as a squeak.

  Jason concentrated on the kettle. ‘There’s talk the crops are growing again in the towns.’

  ‘How’s that even possible? It hasn’t been long enough. The ground is still contaminated.’ She stood up, gripping the edge of the table for support. ‘I can’t go back there, Jason, not while—’

  Not while the rebels are out there, she wanted to say.

  ‘Relax, Anya.’ Jason sighed. ‘I’m going, just to check it out. I promise I’ll be careful. Besides, some believe the rebels weren’t behind the attacks.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘Some rogue individuals from Praesidium.’

  ‘Why? The people living there are from towns like ours.’

  Jason shrugged. ‘It doesn’t make sense to me, either. The machine city has been good to us, but I’m sure the diversion of medicine and resources from the capital to deal with our mess has pissed off some people.’ He looked at her; his pupils were barely dilated. ‘Are you still eating my rations?’

  Anya shrugged. ‘Arcis feeds us, you know.’

  ‘The food I gave you is better. Try to eat it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Jason stood up sharply. ‘Because I said so. Stop asking questions.’

  ‘So, why do you need to go?’

  ‘Because I was asked to.’

  ‘By who?’

  ‘I can’t say. Just trust me, please.’

  She laughed. She wanted to tease the boy who couldn’t keep a secret to save his life. She wanted to wish him well. She wanted him to stay.

  What was wrong with her? Her unstable thoughts had only manifested since her move to Essention. It made her more like Grace. Anya had always prided herself on being level-headed. In control.

  ‘Do what you want, Jason Macklin. Just leave me out of it.’

  She turned and marched out of the room.

  Her bedroom door wobbled when she slammed it. A sharp pain ripped through her finger. She sucked in air as she examined the nail she’d broken.

  Her chest hurt and she was close to tears. But her anger kept them at bay.

  There was a light rap on her door.

  ‘Anya, are you okay?’

  ‘Go away!’

  She got up and locked her door then sat back down on her depressing grey duvet and hugged her knees to her chest.

  Jason had to be okay. He was all the family she had left. Tears fell. She missed her father, maybe even her mother. It hadn’t been all bad between her and Grace, just in the last few years, when Anya was old enough to date.

  Her arms ached. It had felt good to let off a little steam earlier. Maybe she needed a better distraction than Arcis. It would be good to take up physical activity again.

  But not with Dom.

  She’d trained plenty of times on her own. She could do it by herself.

  14

  The Monorail hummed gently as it glided over grey rooftops and paved streets. Jason inspected the cuts on his hands that had started to heal.

  The tunnel in Max’s basement was almost complete. He and a few others took turns to dig it out in the evenings. He considered the possibility that Max could be wrong about Compliance and the crop growth in the towns. Maybe Essention had just used the drug to keep the residents calm and to stop them from running back to the rebel-infested outside.

  His fight with Anya played on his mind. He hated lying to her but the drug controlled her mood, making her more complacent than usual. He’d been swapping her uneaten lunches for his untainted rations. Compliance had no effect on him now, although drugged food tasted worse. If she ate the clean food, it would temporarily halt the drug’s effects long enough for her to feel like her old self. But without the antidote, Anya would be susceptible to Compliance like everyone else. Max had said there was only enough antidote for the group leaving Essention, and there could be no doubt, no thoughts of turning back to Essention if things got tough out there.

  Jason’s own emotions had returned to normal since his inoculation against Compliance. The drug affected the part of the brain that controlled mood, and for several hours after inoculation, he had yelled, screamed, punched things—he’d even left a hole in Max’s wall. Max had said the dominant reaction to return was different in everyone, but for the orphans, it was mostly anger.

  When the fury had dissipated, an extreme exhaustion hit him. Charlie had explained that the ionising radiation had weakened his body, and Compliance had repressed his mind’s ability to recognise the damage. But for the first time since arriving at Essention, Jason noticed his pupils were no longer dilated and his eye colour had mostly returned.

  The factories shrank away as the train sped towards South Essention.

  He had arrived at work that morning to find the food delivery from the vertical farms was late.

  ‘Several of the farmers were taken to the hospital,’ Max had said. ‘We’ve sent a few people over already to help out. I’d like you to go. See if you can find out what happened to the farmers.’

  ‘You think it’s something other than illness?’

  ‘Maybe. We heard some were showing worrying levels of aggression. I’d like to know if it’s a reaction to Compliance. If it is, we may need to adjust our antidote. Find out what you can.’

  Ω

  The farms in South Essention were laid out in neat rectangular blocks covered in white plastic and resembling mini skyscrapers, white and bright. Each block was connected by plastic-lined corridors. As Jason got closer to the farms, he could see glimpses of green foliage high up where the plastic was thinner.

  Before Praesidium’s technology made it to the towns, farming methods had been basic and crops susceptible to diseases. Recent farming technology from the city had guaranteed the towns crops all year round, even in the worst of winters. But the rebellion believed in a life without Praesidium’s help. Those who thought differently, like his parents, were punished.

  He scanned his wrist over the access pad by the grey metal door. It clicked open and he entered a small, bland room with white protective suits hanging up on one side. There was a circular platform inches off the ground in front of a second door. Jason pulled a white suit on over his royal-blue jumpsuit and yanked up the hood. It puckered around his face. He stepped onto the platform and bent his neck as a cascade of water dropped through a large showerhead in the ceiling. Several droplets clung to the suit. A strong vacuum pulled on his arms and legs and sucked the droplets away, leaving his white suit dry and contaminant-free.

  Through the second door, he saw hundreds of plant-filled trays stacked vertically, each column separated by a gap and a growth-promoting light. Jason did a double take as some of the lower-level plants grew before his eyes, helped by the special light and nutrient-rich water. Brookfield had mini versions of these vertical farms, as well as open ones, but without access to the light accelerant, their plants grew slowly. Farmers climbed up and down ladders, picking the crops as they finished growing. Jason walked between the columns and found a supervisor.

  ‘You from the factory?’ the man asked. Jason nodded. ‘We need help in the meat section to get your order ready. We’re a bit short on manpower today.’

  Jason looked around. ‘Max said some of the farmers fell ill. What happened to them?’ It was hard to imagine any illness occurring in such a clean environment.

  ‘Radiation sickness again.’ The supervisor set his fists on his hips. ‘There’s not enough of the anti-radiation drug to go around so relapse is a risk. They’re getting treatment at the hospital. Best place for them. They’ll be up and about soon.’ He nodded at a worker on a ladder above them. ‘See that guy?’

  Jason looked up and saw a middle-aged man
picking crops and placing them in a basket. He wavered on the ladder. Jason tensed and stepped back when it looked as if he might fall.

  The supervisor laughed. ‘Jim knows how to stay upright, but he’s not far off needing to go to the hospital. I won’t pull him off work until I have to. Don’t want Arcis reps coming round checking out how we’re managing this place.’

  There was no evidence of the aggression that Max had mentioned.

  ‘What about the wolves from Arcis?’ said Jason. ‘Can’t they help out?’

  The supervisor snorted. ‘They hate this place. It’s not clean enough for them. Did you know they’re germophobes?’

  It made some kind of sense. The machines were part organic, and therefore vulnerable to the same illnesses as human beings. The vertical farms, never visited by the wolves, would have been a great place to dig a tunnel if there hadn’t been a nearby hospital blocking their way out of the urbano.

  The supervisor eyed him. ‘You one of Max’s special boys?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jason tried to hide his surprise. Had Max given the supervisor the antidote?

  ‘You’re a paranoid lot that come through here, aren’t you?’ His eyes were almost black. The dilation put Jason’s mind at ease. ‘Max talks about a special group of young men and women and how they’re destined for greater things after Essention.’

  Jason released a soft breath. ‘I guess I should get the meat order ready for Arcis. You know what they’re like about tardiness?’

  ‘Yeah. Sure. Follow the corridor through to the end. You’ll find the meat lab there.’ The supervisor pointed to a nearby interconnecting tunnel, and shook his head. ‘We have to grow the meat away from everything else to keep the damn vegetarians happy.’

  Jason thanked him and walked through the corridor, passing the second vertical farm filled with apple and banana trees. The fruit grew right before his eyes. But he’d heard that genetically modified trees had limitations, and that farmers had to drench the soil with expensive nutrients before the next crop would grow.

  Beyond the second tunnel, he found the final farm. The crisp air pinched his nose. He rubbed his arms to warm them in the near-freezing temperature. The room was split into two by a dividing wall. Several large transparent boxes were stacked three-high against the dividing wall. Tiny tubes fed through the wall into the boxes, where a slimy meat-like substance dripped, like gelatinous water.

  Meat no longer came from animals, but was organically grown using stem cells to create muscle fibre. The fibre was then rapidly developed using a growth accelerator. Jason wrinkled his nose at the sight of the slimy meat.

  He introduced himself to one of the collectors who handed him a pair of elbow-length gloves. He showed Jason around the lab where the meat was grown and the collection room with the boxes.

  ‘Hate to ruin your day,’ said the collector with a nod, ‘but this is where it gets messy.’ He disconnected the tubes from a filled box, connected up an empty one, opened the meat-filled box and emptied in a bag of white powder. Jason almost gagged when the collector plunged his gloved hands into the goop and worked the mixture until the meat muscle and white powder were combined. He snapped his hands out of the box just as the meat took on a hardened, less slimy texture and readily formed into all the corners.

  ‘That’s what I want you to do. The white powder is a muscle hardener so you’ll need to work fast. We need twelve of these boxes to make the single block for your order. You ready?’

  Jason nodded weakly. There went his appetite.

  Ω

  He returned to the factory later that morning with twelve meat-filled boxes. Max was waiting with an anti-gravity stretcher and helped him unload the boxes from the truck.

  ‘Well, what’s wrong with them? Any signs of aggression?’ Max pulled a box towards him.

  ‘None. The supervisor just said the farmers fell ill to radiation sickness again.’

  Max rubbed his jaw. ‘I guess that was bound to happen. They haven’t received an anti-radiation dose since they were released from hospital at the start. Compliance controls moods. It does nothing to counteract the illness.’

  Jason pushed the first box onto the stretcher while Max pulled. ‘Is there anything else you need me to do?’

  ‘You free to help out tonight?’

  The tunnel was almost complete, but Jason wanted to spend time with Anya before he had to leave.

  ‘Is it okay if I sit out tonight? I haven’t seen my sister for a while.’

  Max’s face darkened. ‘No, it’s not okay. Charlie’s put his faith in you. So have I. Have we made a mistake in picking you?’

  ‘No, not at all. It’s just—’

  ‘We took away someone else’s chance of inoculation to give you the antidote. Charlie worked damn hard to get his hands on what little we have.’

  Jason’s heart thumped too fast. The last person to give him a dressing-down was his father. ‘Anya and I had a fight last night. I didn’t want to leave things strained between us.’

  ‘Anya will be fine where she is. If she’s under Compliance, chances are she’s not even thinking about your spat anymore. It’s time you two made your own paths in life. Are you in or out for tonight?’

  He didn’t want to tell Max that he’d been swapping Anya’s tainted food for his clean rations and chances were Compliance was temporarily out of her system.

  ‘In,’ he said.

  ‘Good.’ Max pulled the stretcher towards the factory door. Jason pushed it from the other end. ‘Won’t be long before the tunnel’s complete. Then we can go.’

  Jason’s mind raced to keep up with the changes in his life. Everything was happening so fast: the antidote, the news of crop growth, the possibility of facing a horde of angry rebels on the outside. The guns that sat on top of Essention’s perimeter wall would make their first steps outside difficult, but if there was a chance the towns were liveable, he had to know.

  He took a deep breath. He was doing this for Anya, too.

  15

  Anya’s restless sleep was punctuated with nightmares about dark, soulless eyes. But the eyes didn’t belong to her parents’ killers. They were Jason’s, and he was part of the rebellion faction that had moved into Brookfield.

  She woke with a start, her skin freezing to the touch. She stared at the ceiling until she got her breathing under control, and got up.

  Jason’s bedroom door was closed. Either he was still sleeping or he had left for work already. She didn’t bother to check.

  She was the first girl to arrive at Arcis. She pulled off her brown tunic and black trousers to reveal a light-blue T-shirt underneath. It wasn’t her favourite, but it was better than the old white T-shirt with the hole under the armpit; the one she hadn’t wanted Dom to see. She’d brought a second T-shirt—a red one that highlighted the light-blue flecks in her dark-blue eyes—that she planned to change into later for her solo run.

  Anya looked in the mirror. The harsh artificial light exaggerated the dark circles under her eyes. But her eyes were brighter, her pupils less dilated than usual. She pulled her hair into a high ponytail. Her stomach growled, but the shaking hands that usually accompanied her hunger had disappeared. Taking advantage of her early start, she sat on the wooden bench underneath her clothes hook and bit into one of Jason’s apples.

  Voices cut through her solitude when June and Tahlia burst into the changing room. Anya quickly hid the contraband in her bag and swallowed the evidence.

  June was snorting at something Tahlia had said.

  ‘What?’ The edges of Anya’s mouth curved upwards.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ June said with a wave of her hand.

  Tahlia shot June a look.

  ‘Tell me!’ Anya glared at Tahlia. She could trust her to spill the beans.

  ‘Fine.’ Tahlia rolled her eyes. ‘I saw your friend Sheila with Dom this morning. They looked like they were very cosy.’

  ‘Where?’ Anya tried to sound casual, but her voice wobbled
.

  ‘At the station. He whispered something to her and she laughed, throwing her head back in that dramatic way girls like her do.’ Tahlia folded her arms. ‘Then she slipped, coming down the stairs. And we laughed.’

  Tahlia was the opposite of Sheila in appearance. Her hair was also brown, but she had colourful streaks of personality running through it.

  Anya wondered what streaks would look like in her own plain and ordinary hair.

  June touched Anya’s shoulder. ‘Just forget about them.’

  ‘Forget who?’ said Anya, avoiding June’s sympathetic glance.

  Tahlia grinned. ‘That’s the spirit.’

  Anya grinned back at her.

  Ω

  Anya kept looking up at the first floor, expecting and hoping to see Dom, but there was no sign of him. Instead, she saw a stressed Sheila running across the walkway and smiled.

  Even though she was parched, she managed to save most of her rationed bottle of water for her run by taking dainty sips. All day she planned her route. She knew where she wasn’t going: home, or to find Dom.

  The thought of running again excited her. It had been several months since she trained. Maybe a hit of endorphins would get her out of her funk. She used to run all the time. She’d done some of her best thinking while alone.

  Why had she stopped?

  The food in Arcis tasted too sweet; she’d been eating more of Jason’s un-medicated food. Yes, she could get sick again, but the clarity of thought Jason’s food gave her was worth the risk of Arcis finding out.

  The day dragged on, but Jerome and Frank were good for a laugh. An awkward-looking Warren tried to get in on the action. He wasn’t physical like Jerome and Frank, and mock fighting wasn’t his thing. She wondered if Tahlia had exaggerated his competitiveness. More than once, Anya caught him glancing in her direction. Warren was attractive, but not her type.

  She clocked off at the end of the day. A quiet buzz of excitement ran through her as she swapped her light-blue T-shirt for her red one and slipped on a pair of running shoes. She packed away her overalls and took a left at the corner of Arcis, heading towards North Essention, to the water purification plants.