The Facility

by Eliza Green

  She wished for one of the bungalows in Southwest or West Essention, with their quirky personalities and tiny gardens. Anya pulled another chair forward and put her feet up. She would never have done this at home. Grace was too house-proud.

  The eerie silence caused her to shiver. Peace and quiet she liked, but this was different. Almost like a prison, or a mental hospital, where too much silence let in the bad thoughts. She thought about things she didn’t want to remember, sounds she didn’t want to relive, faces she hoped she’d see again.

  Tears stained her flushed cheeks. She shoved a forkful of meat into her mouth, but the sweetness tasted worse than usual. She spat it into the bowl and pushed it aside.

  She opened a bottle of water from Jason’s rations and took a long, cool drink. Her shoulders heaved in the silence. Her sobs bounced off the walls. The rebels were coming for her; she could feel it. A preoccupied Jason didn’t care. Dom had abandoned her. Who was left?

  Anya tore off a piece of stale bread and chewed it, through hiccups and tears. She wiped her tears on her sleeve and swigged from the bottle again, wishing the unit had alcohol to help her forget. But she’d turned the place upside down the first week they’d arrived.

  The tears dried and she could see a new path forming; one where she wasn’t alone. Warren was looking like her only friend in Essention.

  19

  Rotation was due, and this time Anya was ready for it. Two things motivated her now: not seeing any more dead bodies, and getting as far away from the wolves as possible.

  Twenty-six people chatted and laughed around a silent Anya. Frank and Jerome teased June and Tahlia while Warren watched them. She looked Warren’s way and he nodded at her. She moved next to him, unable to stand the isolation any longer.

  The shutter rattled and squealed. One by one the wolves appeared from their dark little cave. Heads low, their eyes flitted to the slightest movement. Never trusting. Never tame enough to touch. They stopped in their usual spot while Anya and the others lined up and waited.

  Her heart fluttered. She had to leave this floor. She refused to look up. Please, no more bodies.

  The wolves moved like restless wild animals, shifting forward, then back, then forward again. Anya closed her eyes and listened to the sound of metal nails on white-tiled floor. The wait was agonising. She dried her clammy hands on her uniform.

  The lead wolf called out a bunch of names, five in total. She opened her eyes and focused on the empty walkways overhead. She didn’t recognise any of the names.

  Then the wolf spoke again. ‘June, Tahlia, Frank, Jerome, Warren and Anya. You eleven will rotate to the first floor.’

  Her pulse raced and she swayed with relief. Was this how Dom had felt during last rotation?

  She turned to see Tahlia hugging June. Then Tahlia put her hands up and Anya high-fived her. Jerome and Frank both grinned and punched each other’s arms. Anya hugged Warren briefly.

  ‘See?’ Warren elbowed her. ‘You were worrying for nothing.’

  He turned and threw himself into the middle of Frank and Jerome’s rough play, and got a friendly elbow to his shoulder for his troubles.

  Three of the wolves returned to their shelter while another led the way to the lobby.

  ‘Rotated personnel, please follow me.’

  Anya took one last look at Section Eight, at the spot where she’d knelt beside the dead girl whose name she never knew. She stared down at her knees with someone else’s dried-in blood—a reminder of the second-worst thing she’d witnessed. The first turned her into an orphan.

  ‘Get your belongings from the changing rooms.’ The wolf stood by the elevator. ‘Remain in your uniforms. I will wait for you here.’

  They ran inside and grabbed their things. June smiled so hard Anya thought she might explode. But Anya felt something else: relief.

  They emerged to see the elevator door wide open and the wolf waiting.

  ‘Your new supervisor will greet you on the first floor.’

  All eleven piled into the elevator that could hold twenty people. The door closed and Anya caught a glimpse of bright yellow eyes and the flash of an incisor.

  One floor up, the doors opened. A chubby man with thinning hair and a ruddy complexion waited. He was dressed in an all-black tunic, except for a ring of gold fabric stitched to his collar. The buttons on his coat strained against his waist. Anya recognised him from when she and Jason had first arrived at Essention. He had injected location chips into their wrists while they were patients at the hospital.

  ‘Welcome to the first floor. I’m Supervisor One,’ he said. ‘Think only of the task ahead and do not ask impertinent questions. As you progress through Arcis some things won’t make sense. But everything you do here is set to challenge you, to make you better individuals. Your time on the ground floor was to teach you about structure, balance, patience. You must bring those lessons with you as you continue on with the programme—’

  One of the girls Anya didn’t know put her hand up.

  The supervisor turned to her. ‘Yes?’

  ‘What will we be doing on this floor?’

  The supervisor glared at her. ‘Impertinent question.’

  He stepped back and waved them inside the square-shaped changing room. The walls were painted a slightly cheerier grey than the walls in Anya’s prison block. Steel benches ran the circumference of the room, split by a single white door. Above the benches, Anya counted thirty hooks. Clothes hung on eleven of them.

  The supervisor pointed to the clothes. ‘Change into your new uniform. Please drop your overalls in the bin marked ‘Recycle’. When you’ve dressed, you can follow me.’ He walked towards the white door.

  ‘Where’s the female changing room?’ said June.

  ‘You’re standing in it,’ said the supervisor, without turning around. He exited through the door.

  The girls stood on one side while the boys took the other.

  ‘How about we all agree to turn our backs?’ said Frank.

  ‘Fine by me,’ said Tahlia. ‘I don’t think I could bear the sight of your chicken legs, anyway.’

  The room exploded with laughter. Anya took the opportunity to undress while the atmosphere was good and she felt okay.

  She unbuttoned her jumpsuit and peeled away each arm and leg until she stood in her T-shirt and underwear. Holograms of their names shimmered above the hooks. She grabbed the skirt and blouse from her hook.

  The clothes hung loosely on her frame. Either she was too skinny, or the person who wore them before was a bigger size than her. She pictured Sheila wearing them and almost didn’t put them on. When had Sheila become such a big part of her life?

  Anya slipped her bare feet into a pair of black, low-heeled shoes. They rubbed a little against her foot, but other than that they were an okay fit.

  She turned around on an agreed signal. The boys were dressed in shirts and trousers. Some clipped on neckties.

  June giggled at her outfit. ‘Did people really used to wear this style?’

  Tahlia rolled her eyes. ‘About a hundred years ago.’

  They followed the supervisor through the door and stood inside a larger room with rows of filing cabinets stretching upwards about fifteen feet, to the height of the ceiling. Wheeled ladders clung to the front of each row. Frazzled first-floor workers climbed to the highest parts and pushed themselves along. The strange metallic echoes made the space sound larger than it appeared.

  Supervisor One was leaning against one of the rows. ‘The purpose of this floor is to accustom you to working conditions. We wish to observe your ability to work under pressure. It’s likely that none of you have ever worked a job in your life. The clothes you wear, the environment you’re in, has been closely matched to that of a twenty-first-century office.’ He turned and walked towards a set of white double doors with ‘IA’ marked on them.

  ‘Follow me, please.’

  Anya fell into line with the others. The supervisor opened one side of the doors to
reveal the shimmering rainbow-like walkway she’d so often stared at from the ground floor. She hesitated at the start of the impressive structure suspended in an anti-gravity stream that looked far too dangerous to cross.

  The supervisor pointed to a set of doors on the opposite side. ‘Your training begins in Tower B. So let’s go.’ He marched across the bridge.

  The others followed, clutching the floating handrail. Anya’s foot wavered at the start of the anti-gravity platform, which held together millions of temporarily solidified particles. Her head swam as she experienced a new fear: heights.

  A first-floor worker came barrelling through the door behind her and nearly knocked her onto the walkway. She grabbed the handrail. It bent, then adjusted itself as the worker galloped past her.

  Okay, now she was nervous.

  ‘Miss. Please come. Now,’ said the supervisor.

  June beckoned to her from the other side.

  Heights had never bothered her before. But an unstable floor? Yeah.

  Supervisor One stepped forward.

  ‘Get on the walkway, now. Or you forfeit your rotation.’

  The thought of returning to the ground floor propelled her forward in one jerky motion. The walkway wobbled and shook, but corrected itself for her weight. She grabbed the handrail at hip height.

  She reached the other side. The others had gone on ahead. Only Warren waited for her.

  ‘It’ll get easier.’ He held the door open. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a buddy in here?’

  ‘Your offer’s looking more tempting by the day,’ said Anya, catching the door and closing it behind her.

  Tower B matched the size of the records room. But she could see, where the ceiling extended further than the plain walls, it was a room within a room.

  Two-dozen rows of single-user terminals contained screens but no chairs. The supervisor leaned against one of the terminals.

  The room buzzed with active first-floor workers scanning transparent A4 files. Their tired and stressed faces did little to put Anya’s mind at ease.

  She searched the faces in the room, her pulse racing at the expectation of seeing Dom. She hadn’t seen him in two weeks, not since he showed her the self-defence techniques. She’d practiced the moves in her bedroom alone, but it wasn’t the same.

  There was no sign of him. But there was no Sheila, either. She could live with that.

  ‘The rules are simple,’ Supervisor One said. ‘The terminals will request specific file numbers. You must retrieve those files from the records room in Tower A. You will scan the barcode on the front of the file using this.’ He held up a black, gun-shaped object and pressed a trigger on the side. A cross-hatched red pattern decorated the grey desk. ‘The scanner will record the time of entry. Then you must deposit the file in this black box.’

  The box fitted to the side of the table and connected to the floor. The slot looked wide enough to accept the A4-sized files. Anya erased Dom from her thoughts and concentrated on her task.

  There were two doors at the back of the room, one labelled as the dining room. The supervisor touched his wrist to a control panel and exited through the second door. What lay beyond their room? Why were they confined to a small section of a larger space?

  Anya pressed forward onto her toes and felt a slight spring in the floor. She hunkered down and touched the spongy material. Then a flicker of red drew her attention to a screen and she stood up. Each terminal screen flashed with a different file number. A red clock started to count backwards from ten minutes.

  She claimed the closest terminal and memorised the file number on screen before exiting the room. She faltered at the walkway that felt as solid as air. Then the walkway firmed up beneath her. She closed her eyes but the walkway’s motion jerked her eyes open. She kept moving. How easy it would be to slip and fall over the edge.

  In the records room, each wooden cabinet was labelled with a specific range of holographic numbers. She searched for the set that her file—8351—fell into. The others charged through the doors—new workers and experienced alike—all fighting for the ladders. She panicked and climbed on the nearest one in the row with her file. But the ladder she needed was one over. Others shoved and jostled for prime positions.

  She felt an extra weight on her ladder as she started to climb down. A girl about eighteen, with blonde wiry hair, was on her way up.

  ‘Get off the ladder if you’re not using it.’

  ‘I... I’m trying to. I need a different ladder, anyway.’

  The girl grunted at her. Anya placed her foot on the lower rung, but the wiry blonde climbed over her slamming her into the frame. Anya made it down, a little shaken, and rubbed the pain from her ribs.

  Warren held the next ladder, and pointed up. ‘There, Anya. The file you need.’ A boy was trying to use it, but Warren kept pushing him away with his hand.

  She jumped on the ladder and muttered her thanks. The boy cursed and shook it from below. Warren searched for his own file on a different ladder.

  It took her a moment to find the row starting with the number 83 and even longer to find 8351. She grabbed a transparent file with a barcode stuck to the front and climbed down fast. The boy caught her arm with his elbow as she passed.

  Warren was already gone. Tahlia and Frank each gave a quiet yes under their breaths as they found their files.

  Anya hesitated on the walkway again just as a dark shape plummeted to the floor and swirled the air around her. She closed her eyes, but she still heard the sound of bones cracking on tiles.

  Her breath, short and sharp, caught in her throat.

  She looked over the side but snatched her gaze away, not wanting to see the newest victims without their faces.

  Anya rushed back to the terminal room. She scanned the barcode using the gun. The countdown clock stopped with three minutes remaining. She deposited the transparent file in the box attached to the side of the table. Her pulse raced when she thought about the body on the ground floor.

  She wasn’t the first one back—the first-floor workers had completed their tasks in less than five minutes. And the wiry-haired blonde stood beside her screen with her arms folded, glaring at her.

  Warren was grinning. She returned the smile, relieved he hadn’t seen what had just happened outside.

  Tahlia rushed into the room second-last and scanned her file. Would being the shortest person in the group cause Tahlia problems?

  ‘What happens if the clock runs out?’ Anya asked Warren.

  He shrugged. ‘No idea.’

  Anya didn’t want to know. This job was easy, compared to the ground-floor work.

  Dom had called her naturally curious. Would curiosity help or hinder her progress?

  Would she ever see Dom again?

  She quit her self-pitying. Dom wasn’t the reason she was here.

  The last boy scanned his file within the allotted time. A new number popped up on the screen and the clock reset itself. She prepared to begin again. This time she wouldn’t hesitate to push the wiry blonde out of her way.

  As Anya geared up to learn how to work under pressure, she tried to forget the deaths on the ground floor and everything Dom had taught her.

  20

  ‘Timing is everything.’

  It’s what Dom had said when she’d asked him about the first floor. After almost a day of running laps between the two towers, she had to agree. But long, repetitive work didn’t bother her. She’d spent many hours training alone for competitions she would never enter.

  As soon as the last person scanned his or her transparent file, the timer reset itself. Then they started over, and over, and over again. The supervisor was nowhere to be seen during their file-fetching.

  At the end of the day, she changed back into her street clothes and packed the skirt and blouse into her backpack. She noticed the small, thin cards arranged on the slatted bench under their hooks.

  Access card for the first floor.

  She tucked hers into the front
of her bag.

  Her eyes found an unsteady Tahlia who came in with June. Tahlia’s brown skin was paler than usual, her eyes glossy and unfocused. Tahlia, who’d played catch-up to the rest of them all day, struggled with her black trousers. She huffed when the ends wouldn’t fit over her shoes.

  June was the opposite: alert and focused. That surprised Anya; she had written her off before Tahlia. Her fine-spun blonde hair was up in a ponytail, and her normally pale cheeks were stained a soft pink. She looked at ease as she joked with Frank and Jerome on the opposite side of the changing room.

  Then June challenged Frank to a race the next day.

  ‘Hell, yeah,’ said Frank. ‘Let’s make it interesting. A wager?’

  Jerome reminded Frank he had nothing to bet with, to which he responded with a sigh. June giggled and stuck her tongue out at him.

  Anya smiled. Maybe some of June’s energy might rub off on her.

  She heard Tahlia curse behind her.

  Anya knelt down in front of Tahlia and yanked the ends over her shoes.

  ‘Umm, thanks.’ An exhausted Tahlia stood up and buttoned her trousers.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  Tahlia swayed and Anya braced to catch her, but she remained upright.

  ‘I just need to get there faster than the rest of you.’

  ‘A little practice will help. Get some rest tonight. You’ll get the hang of it.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe you’re right.’

  Anya and June waited for Tahlia to finish dressing. Sticky sweat clung to Anya’s skin, its pungent smell drifting upwards and settling in her nose. First, she needed to wash her uniform; second, she would scrub her skin in a long, hot shower. They walked in silence to the Monorail. Anya was too tired to look for Dom.

  She got off first, waving to the girls from the platform. June waved back, but Tahlia was snoring, her face squashed and pink-streaked hair fanned across the glass of the carriage.