by J B Cantwell
He looked at me, almost pitying.
“This used to be a hospital. Now, it’s a falling apart, flooded building. We brought you in by helicopter. The first two floors are underwater. But we don’t have much time for small talk right now. Doctor Fanning will be here within …” He paused, looking at his lens. “Within two hours. And he’s not a fan of the phasing process. I’d rather have you well underway before he arrives.”
“Why isn’t he a fan?” I asked.
“Because he’s been through phasing, himself. Not everybody gets the drugs for pain. And the pain is intense, as you may remember.”
I remembered.
My eyes grew wide as I recalled the burning that had permeated my body, the screaming that had come from my throat, my voice.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “The process for you will only be a day, and just once. We have plenty of pain medications we can give you. You won’t even know it’s happening.”
I thought about all of the times I’d been unconscious in the past few days, and suddenly, I didn’t want the medications.
“Don’t give them to me. I don’t want them. Just do it. I want to know.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“You don’t know what you’re saying, girl. You don’t understand just how painful it can really be.”
“I have an idea.”
“The screaming alone will rip your vocal chords to shreds.”
“Then I won’t scream.”
“Everybody screams. Everybody.”
But I didn’t care. He could make the choice now. He could put me out in a matter of moments, control my waking and dreaming with a simple push of a syringe.
“I won’t,” I said. “Do it.”
He turned and went to a cabinet across the room, pulling out a small ring of keys on his way. He opened a drawer and took out a syringe. The ultimate syringe.
He didn’t waste time. He was at my side a moment later, pushing the drugs through my IV.
“It’s not too late,” he said. “If you can’t take it, just ask. We have plenty of—”
But suddenly I couldn’t hear him anymore. The fluid pulsed through my arm, my chest, my torso, then legs.
I wouldn’t wish for mercy. I wouldn’t break, wouldn’t ask.
I would, instead, take the pain, just as Alex had been forced to do innumerable times.
It was only twenty-four hours.
Twenty-four.
One. Two. Three.
I breathed, tears already starting to fall.
Four. Five. Six.
Just six seconds in.
It was going to be a long day.
Chapter Three
I stopped counting around a hundred. I kept my promise, though, and I didn’t scream. That didn’t keep me from writhing, though, and that hurt more than anything.
I was vaguely aware of movement in the room. Someone, a stranger, came in, went out, then in again. Marla would show up occasionally, cluck at me, then leave.
But it was all a blur, and every moment, I wished for relief. For death, even.
No.
Don’t.
I sobbed through a haze of drugs, burning, killing my old tissue and growing anew.
I wondered what I would do if someone were to take my pain away. If someone, some glorious someone, would make it stop. Would I do anything for them? Change my name? Change my allegiances? Kill for them? Die for them?
Yes. Of course I would. Anything.
But I wanted control of this thing, for once to be in charge of what was happening to my own body.
So I stayed inside, gulping down my cries.
And I found I had times of respite. The number of seconds left didn’t taunt me anymore. Slowly, deliberately, the pain eased, and eventually, sleep even found me.
When I woke again, it was to the whispers of strangers.
Doctor Jacob Fanning
Designation: Green
Alma Reedly
Designation: Green
I couldn’t speak. My mouth was too dry. I looked down at my body. My leg had been released from its sling, and what had been an unbearable roar of pain was now just a twinge.
I sat up, but they didn’t notice. I reached for the cup of water on the side table and slurped it through the straw. They turned.
“You’re up!” the doctor said. “I’m Jacob.” He held out his hand to shake mine. I ignored him.
“I’m hungry,” I said, surprised by the lack of pain in my throat. I cleared it.
My name is Riley Taylor.
I would test it later.
For now, I was ravenous.
Jacob stepped back, seeming confused. Maybe he’d been expecting a warm welcome.
I felt strong, and while I didn’t feel the level of energy I’d felt the one and only time I’d gone through phasing before, I felt ten times as angry.
I stood up.
“Did you not hear me?”
“I’ll get it, Doctor Fanning,” Alma said. She turned and headed for the door. I followed.
“Wait just a moment,” Jacob said, putting a hand on my shoulder as if to stop me. I shook it off and walked past him.
“Are you kidding me?” I scoffed.
I stayed hot on Alma’s heels, bouncing behind her as she moved into the hallway.
But when I walked out of the room, I stopped, surprised.
Chambers had told me that we were in an old hospital, but I hadn’t expected it to be totally deserted. And it was. A ghost town.
He had said the first and second floor were underwater, a piece of information I’d all but ignored.
It was strange to see the reality of it, though. A single bank of lights lit up what once had been a nurse’s station. Down either hallway, nothing but darkness. Old, unused items in disarray. Papers littering the floor. Only the lit area was clean, though perhaps not hospital-level clean.
“Why are you following me?” Alma said sharply, looking over her shoulder.
I didn’t answer. She huffed and walked around the entry to the nurse’s station. From a shelf she retrieved a sleeve of nutrition squares.
“Are you out of your mind?” I asked. “A full phasing without pain meds, and this is what you have for me?”
She scowled.
“You’re lucky to get anything at all. If it were up to me, I’d have—”
“You’d have what?” I puffed up my chest like a chicken ready to fight. “Let me starve? Where’s the real food?”
She smashed the nutrition squares down on the small counter.
“We’re fresh out.”
It was all I could do not to slap her.
Instead, I took the package and turned away.
“You’d better watch yourself,” she said as I headed back to my room.
“Or what?” I called as I walked in and slammed the door behind me.
I knew where this anger was coming from. And I wasn’t sorry. These people were responsible for making me what I was today. I wasn’t about to grant them any favors.
I pushed open the door and stuffed a square into my mouth.
Jacob awaited me, a slight smile on his face.
“You’re doing quite well,” he said as I hopped up onto my bed. “Hungry. Angry. All good signs. I was worried you wouldn’t survive. Doctor Chambers may have told you that—”
“Yeah, he told me you weren’t for it. And maybe that would’ve mattered to me a couple years ago.”
I reached for the water cup and washed down the crackers.
“The least you could’ve done was get me some decent food. I’ve been eating this crap since I was a kid.”
I looked around, then spied the hand mirror Chambers had held for me the day before. I grabbed it and took a good, hard look at my face.
Skin smooth, not a blemish to be found. Hair brown and floating to my shoulders in a silky sheet.
“Hold this,” I commanded Jacob, and handed him the mirror.
He took it and held it up for me.
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I looked down at my hospital robe and, without a shred of modesty, ripped it from my body.
They had done a nice job. My breasts were big, but not enormous. And perfect. Just like everything else.
I raised my eyebrows at Jacob, who was smiling in earnest now.
“Oh, please,” I said, picking up the gown again. “So, when do we start?”
“Start?”
“The training. Where’s this queen of propriety Chambers promised me?”
“She’s back in the city,” he said.
“And clothes?”
His mouth fell open, clearly surprised by my request.
“Don’t tell me you guys didn’t get me any clothes to wear.”
“Um. I’m not really sure, actually. Let me go check.”
I loosely draped the gown back over my naked body and hopped back onto the bed.
The idiots. They tore me apart and then expected me to be, what, nice about it? No food. No clothes. They were on the wrong path if they wanted me to take this gig.
I’d thought my fight had drained away with their plans, their alterations. But now it was back full force, loud and clear.
I swung my socked feet back and forth as I sat on the bed, impatient.
Jacob entered the room again, a short stack of medical scrubs in his arms. I recognized the pattern as the same that Marla had been wearing; pink with little hearts.
I shook my head.
“You all better pick things up. Somehow, after going through all that, I don’t much feel like messing around.”
“Noted,” Jacob said.
“So, when do we leave?”
They may have brought me in by helicopter, but we left in a boat. There was no pomp to it, either, and I wondered where they’d dug it up from. I remembered, two years back now, the small boat that had been intercepted by the garbage trawler I’d been riding on. Was it against the law to travel by your own vessel?
Maybe there had been something else about those two men they’d arrested. Maybe, even, they’d been without designation.
Well, I wouldn’t have that problem. Then I realized; I didn’t even know what my new designation was. For most of my life I’d been a Green. Was I again?
I looked at the top of my lens readout and opened the system files. And there it was. My new name. My new designation.
Audrey Page
Designation: Platinum
Platinum?
I spoke loudly above the ocean spray. It was just Jacob and me, along with a boat captain, if you could call him that.
“What’s the deal here?” I asked. “My designation says ‘Platinum.’ Is that even a thing?”
“It is a thing,” he said. “The very rich sometimes carry that designation, though it’s possible for people to earn it in other ways, working for the government, mostly.”
“Doing what?”
“I don’t really know. There are rumors, but never any admissions by their side. Some people say former assassins sometimes gain the designation. Some say it can be earned by turning spy against one of the factions like the Volunteers or the Champions. I’m not sure where Chambers got your chip, but it’s quite detailed. Most people, and software, will have a hard time proving that you’re anyone other than Audrey Page.”
“How? It was such a big deal before, getting a new chip and making sure it had enough background to not look fake.”
“I really don’t know. There are still hackers among the Volunteers. Some survived the purge that day, though not many. But they have talent, the few that are still around. And then there are, of course, the dead.”
“You mean this chip was taken from a dead woman?”
He shrugged.
“Or a man. It’s possible. They might’ve been able to keep someone’s history on the chip but change the name and other identifying details.”
But where would they get that sort of history? This kind of chip?
Murder?
I looked away from him, out at the water and the land on our left side as we raced up the coast. The boat bucked up and down against the waves, the spray splashing me on the face with each bump. Far in the distance, lights shined into the night, high up in the sky.
Manhattan.
I was nearly drenched from the waves, but I wasn’t cold. In fact, I was roasting. I remembered Alex, his hands always so warm. He had run hot since his phasings. I wondered how long my own heat would last.
I was going to do this thing. I was going to figure out how to get him back, how to rescue him from whatever prison he was in. Chambers, Jacob, Marla, Alma, and who knew how many other people, had put their faith in me to do a job. But what they didn’t do was think about the consequences of assigning a mission like this to someone like me. I had revenge on my mind, and it wouldn’t end with Alex’s captors.
The boat captain dimmed the light as we got closer to the city. We were flying over the waves in the dark now.
“Where are you going to drop me?” I asked.
They couldn’t very well smuggle me into the city in drenched, pink hearts scrubs.
“Our ride will wait for us in The Bronx. We’re going to disembark there, and someone will be waiting with a car.”
“And clothes, I hope.”
He nodded.
“Definitely. You’re about to start a new life. The most dangerous thing we face tonight is getting you up to your apartment. There’s everything you need in there, but you’ll need to look the part to gain entry, no matter your designation.”
How funny. Even with a Platinum designation, I would need to fool the guard in the lobby.
“Kind of seems backward, doesn’t it?”
“It does. But appearances are everything. You’ll learn all about that.”
As if I didn’t already know. The importance of seeming like you belonged, even when you clearly didn’t, had not been lost on me.
The boat slowed as we entered the bay. It would take longer to get to The Bronx, but it would be safest if we hugged the coast on our way up.
As we got closer to Manhattan, I stared up at the buildings that towered over us behind the wall. I wondered which of those windows would be mine. Would I be at the very top?
Then, like a ghost, what was left of the Stilts came into view. I hadn’t gotten a good view of it on the day the buildings were bombed, but now I could see. Somehow it seemed like the remains should still have been smoldering. But the buildings were dead, lifeless. No more Volunteers hid within their walls, those that still had walls.
I wondered how Marla had escaped during the attack, and for a moment I felt like I should’ve been nicer to her. None of this was her fault. Not Alma’s, either. Or even Jacob’s. Even Chambers’s.
We all had a piece on the board. We were just trying to make it through the game alive.
Half an hour later, I was riding in the back of a stretch limousine on my way into Manhattan. I’d never so much as seen one before, except for maybe on my lens. Maybe on one of those videos that Service put out, calling to us, the poorest of the poor, to join their ranks.
I had already stripped down, to Jacob’s amusement, and changed into a pair of black pants that looked more like a skirt. Then, a button down blouse of silk. My skin had never felt fabrics like these before. It was strange, and oddly unsettling, to not feel the slightly scratchy edges of worn cotton seams.
I pulled my wet hair back into a low ponytail, then looked up for his approval.
“Close enough,” he said. “We’ll be there soon.”
“Are you coming up with me?” I asked.
“Oh, no. That would be very dangerous. Even riding in the car with you is putting our operation at risk. But someone had to accompany you into the city. It should’ve been Chambers, honestly, but it would’ve looked too suspicious.”
“So, if you’re not coming in with me, what am I supposed to do?”
“Just act like you own the place. From what I’ve seen, you already know how to do that.” He smirked
.
“A little guidance would be nice here, and I don’t appreciate the sarcasm, either.”
My temper was rising again. Considering how dangerous all of this supposedly was, I expected, and had the right to expect, some level of professionalism.
“Sorry,” he said. “All you’ll need to do is use the retinal scanner once you’re in the elevator. That’ll take you to your apartment.”
“Okay. Then what?”
“Well, I suppose you’d better get some rest. You’ll be hearing from us early in the morning. Janeen has been notified about your presence in the city. The next several days you’ll be all hers.”
“Yeah, that’s right. ‘Training.’”
“You got it.”
I looked at him sideways and briefly considered throwing a punch his way. But there wasn’t time, because the next thing I knew, the car was slowing down and pulling up in front of a posh looking building. The driver put it in park and climbed out his seat.
“Listen,” Jacob said, his parting words. “Don’t cross Janeen. She’s not to be messed with. Though I expect you’ll learn that on your own. Just be careful.”
It was nearly a taunt. A challenge.
“Oh, I will be.”
“Good luck.”
I think he might’ve been being earnest.
He held out his hand, the second time that day. And for the second time I ignored him.
The driver opened the door and held one hand out help me out of the car. I ignored it, too, and climbed out on my own.
Good luck.
By the time I was done, these people, these fools, were going to get an education of their own.
I stepped out of the car and stared up at the building.
Time to go home.
Chapter Four
There was a man at the door. He must’ve read my designation before I even reached for the handle, because he held the door wide open and nodded to me respectfully as I crossed the threshold.
For a brief moment, I considered looking back toward the limo. I don’t know what for, maybe some sign that this was the right thing to do, that I wasn’t making any mistakes.
