by Eric Warren
Arista winced when she tried to push herself up off the floor. She still wore the same thin gown she’d found herself in at the hospital and it was only when her wrist hit the floor did she remember. The silver sleeve remained on her arm but the hand was definitely gone. She needed to keep it in her memory, the continued shock of realizing it wasn’t there would send her into a panic attack if she wasn’t careful. Sitting on the floor she raised the arm up, wiggling the ghost fingers. She moved the arm close to her leg as if to rub the skin to find goosebumps appeared in anticipation of the touch. Her body clearly thought the hand was still there. It would have been easier if her wrist ached with searing pain but it had completely abated. Carefully she slipped the silver sleeve down until she saw the scars which began mid-way up her forearm. Pulling the sleeve off she finally got a good look at the damage. Angry burns led from her wrist up to different points on her forearm, looking like shards of jagged glass had been traced onto her skin. But the damage seemed superficial. The worst wound was the wrist itself, which now that it was uncovered started to ooze and react to the air. Arista fumbled with the sleeve, pulling it back over the wound. Whatever it was for, it was helping to heal her, or at least keep the damage at bay. The acid must have partially made its way up her arm before she’d been collected.
What was this place? The Cadre hadn’t put her in a hotel, had they? She got herself up and walked over to the window, drawing the blinds and staring out into the dark morning light. She was at least five hundred feet up—the Device calculated to four-hundred, ninety-four feet—and her view looked west, toward the park. Chicago’s skyscrapers stood like impossibly tall toothpicks in every direction.
She was inside Cadre headquarters.
It all came flooding back to her. The hospital, the torture. Patrick. The terror of being held down against her will, as if she were suffocating. The sensation of being ripped apart at the seams, only to be relieved and run through it all over again. How long had they kept her there? And what had she ended up telling them? Whatever she’d said they’d obviously liked enough to put her up in a place as nice as this. Which—given her nature—still didn’t make sense. She would have expected them to kill her as soon as they’d found out what they wanted. And yet, they’d set her up in a posh room in one of the nicest buildings in the city. Not that it mattered to her, but it was odd behavior to be sure.
The rest of the room was pretty standard. Besides the bed was a couple of lights built into the wall, then a small desk, a chair, and a dresser. Arista checked the drawers but they were all empty. The wall opposite the window was the only oddity, it had no pictures, no furniture beside it. It was as if the wall didn’t want to be touched.
There was only one door, situated on a different wall opposite the bed. If that was the way out, where was the restroom? She approached it and pushed down on the lever, opening the door to reveal…the bathroom. Wait, then where was the door to get out?
Her heart rate picked up, prompting a warning from the Device. Maybe she’d missed it, she had just woken up from a torture session after all. She returned to the main room and scanned again. No other door. She returned to the small bathroom to make sure it wasn’t a pass-through. But all that was inside the tiled room was a stand-up shower with a sink and toilet.
Her pulse racing, Arista returned to the window overlooking the city, searching for any seams that might allow her to open it in any way. Maybe if she could get outside she could climb—no. That wouldn’t work with one hand. But there had to be a way out. They got her in here somehow and they hadn’t sealed it permanently. If they had she’d run out of air pretty quickly.
The air. She glanced up. A small air vent was embedded in the ceiling. It wasn’t nearly large enough to fit through, but it was better than nothing. If only she could get up to it.
She grabbed the table, scraping it across the carpet until it was directly under the vent. She tried hopping up, lost her balance and fell back, hitting the bed. The lack of a hand threw off her balance. Arista drew a deep breath and tried again, this time making it up on the desk. It wobbled under her weight, but she was close enough now. She put her face to the vent and breathed deep, sucking in the fresh air. If this was her only way out, she had to get the grate off, even though she’d have to be cat-sized to fit through. And the thought of crawling through a vent system barely larger than herself was even less appealing than a room without an exit. Open spaces, she needed open spaces.
Holding her handless arm against herself for support she wedged her fingernails underneath the grate, scratching and tearing her nail polish in the process. The desk wobbled again and she paused to steady herself.
“Be careful, Arista.”
The voice startled her enough so she took a step back, right off the desk, falling hard against the bed. She cried out in pain.
“Are you okay?”
Arista grimaced, picking herself up from the floor. Where had that voice come from? She glanced around the room, it seemed as if it had been all around her. Had she missed a camera somewhere? Or was it embedded in the furniture to watch her? She drew her arms across her and pulled herself as small as she could get, backing to the window.
The far wall shimmered, as if the light had caught it at an odd angle and rippled over it. The ripples grew to the point where she could no longer deny they weren’t real and as if by some magical force, the wall morphed from opaque to transparent.
On the other side was a small, white room, not something that should belong on the other side of a hotel room at all. It was completely featureless, with nothing but a door in the center, one that presumably led to the outside world. It reminded her of a “clean room”. And standing in front of the door was someone she thought she’d never see again. Especially after what happened at Manheim.
“Jonn?”
“Arista,” he replied, his red eyes burning.
Eight
“JONN, WHAT IS GOING ON? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Her thoughts scattered, she was too excited to think. She hadn’t been abandoned after all.
“I’ve come to talk.”
She peered closer. “What happened…to your eyes?” She thought she might have imagined it, but no, they were no longer the orange they’d once been.
Jonn smirked in a way she’d never seen before. “I’ve been awoken.”
Instinctively, Arista took a step back. They’d done something to him. Changed him to be like the Peacekeepers. She didn’t think that was even possible. He’d already been autonomous, he’d already been “awake”.
“Take a seat, Arista.” Jonn pulled a metal chair from the side of the room and sat opposite her.
“Why?”
“So you can be more comfortable. Humans get tired standing for long periods. And you’ve been through a lot. I’ve taken my own seat in an attempt to make you feel at ease.”
She continued to stand, her arms crossed in front of her. “Jonn, what the hell is going on? What is this place? Why am I here? Why are you?”
“That’s a lot of questions. Unfortunately, I’m not here to answer them. I am here because the Cadre wants to use every resource available to determine your nature, your origin, and why you cannot be detected.”
She sighed. “I already told them everything. They tortured me, Jonn.”
“Your answers were unsatisfactory. Four days ago I was approached to assist. To better allow me to interface with you, my program was upgraded.”
“So you’re a Peacekeeper now?”
“Not officially. But I have the same capabilities.”
His speech was very structured, she hadn’t heard him talk in that manner since before he’d changed the first time. Back when they’d first met, when he was nothing more than one of the husks. If the Cadre had come to him he must have found a way to disguise the fact he had already been changed. And now he was just play-acting. That had to be it! He was as much of a prisoner as she was. If the Cadre discovered he was orange, he would have been wiped and recycled. B
ut then again, she was supposed to be dead.
She decided to play along. “I don’t know what I can tell you that you don’t already know, that they don’t already know from the torture. How long have I been here?”
“You were retrieved from Manheim Mutual Insurance Company seven days ago.”
Damn. No wonder she was so hungry. The Device reached out, trying to scan beyond the wall, but nothing came back except an empty hallway on the other side. Not the room she saw in front of her.
“What is this?” Arista reached out and touched the transparent barrier between them. It was as hard as concrete, yet smooth.
Jonn craned his head around in his chair. Beside the door was a small black orb she hadn’t noticed before, embedded into the wall. He turned back. “Tell me about where you come from, Arista. Humans are supposed to be extinct.”
Jonn knew the story. Or at least as much of the story as she could tell anyone. Even she didn’t know the answer to that question. She’d been found in a field on her parent’s property sixteen years ago; small, scared and disoriented. Everything before that was blank. Within minutes of her parents finding her, their eyes turned orange as they clutched their heads in anguish. She ran from them, afraid she’d done something to hurt them. She almost made it to a shed when her father caught up with her, took her into his arms and told her everything was going to be alright. They had saved her from being detected so many times over the years. And she had vowed to do the same. Her parents had both been eight years old when they found her. Technically they were all the same age, a sort of sweet serendipity Arista couldn’t help but appreciate. But they didn’t deserve to die just because their bodies were wearing down. If she found a way out of this, she was more committed than ever to prevent them from final shutdown.
“You want the truth? For as long as I remember, I have been skirting the edge of cities, staying alive on wild fruits and vegetables, doing everything I could to survive.” This would be the true test. If Jonn really had been changed, he would call her out. Unless whatever they had done to him had modified his memory as well.
“Then why were you working at Manheim?” he continued without missing a beat. “And how did you infiltrate the placement system?”
“I was looking for resources. I thought access to a corporation would give me more opportunity to obtain income. Eventually you get tired living outside.”
Jonn turned back to the obsidian orb. It had to be a camera, or communication device of sorts. It reminded her of the cameras mounted in ceilings in some of the retail stores except…it felt more ominous. More dangerous. “I need you to tell me why your life signs don’t show up on scanners. You do not register a heartbeat, body warmth, or electrical impulses.”
It was a question she honestly couldn’t answer. She didn’t understand how the Device worked, but the torture hadn’t revealed it otherwise she’d be laid out on a table with her skull sliced open and a machine pulling the piece of equipment from per parietal lobe.
She glanced down. “I wish I knew.”
Jonn grimaced, but there was something else back there. A hint of a smile perhaps? Jonn knew of her device, knew of all its capabilities. If they’d truly broken him he would have given her up already. “How many other humans are among the general population?”
She arched an eyebrow. That’s what they were really worried about. Not her or what she did to a few machines, but how badly their society had been infiltrated. Somebody behind that black orb was scared. And it was Arista’s job to scare them further, but not so much they wouldn’t find her useful anymore. “I only know of seven others,” she lied, saying the first number that came to mind. “Scattered around the country.”
Jonn’s eyes widened. “And how do you keep in touch?”
“We don’t need to. We each have our instructions. Contact isn’t necessary.” She was quite enjoying this.
“What are your instructions?”
“Stay alive and observe.”
“And?”
“That’s it.” She uncrossed her arms and watched as his gaze followed her right arm down to where it ended underneath the silver sleeve. He blinked once and returned to her.
“Final question. How do you modify the machines, how are you removing them from the system?”
It always came back to that. Why some machines changed while others didn’t. Even if she’d wanted to answer she couldn’t. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Something just happens. People’s eyes change. They change.”
Jonn crossed one leg over the other. “That is unsatisfactory. You have been quarantined because you are infecting people. Six at Manheim and one nurse at Armor Hospital.”
“Infecting them with what? How does one infect a machine exactly?”
Jonn turned around to the dome again and nodded his head. Arista couldn’t see his face, was the orb sending instructions? Or responses?
He turned back and she stiffened. “Is this preferable to the torture?” he asked.
“No.”
“I told them you were more likely to be receptive to this type of treatment.”
She didn’t respond, only stared past him, watching the black dome.
“They chose me because we were close and I have your personality profile memorized.” Jonn winked.
Arista drew up close to the wall. As close as she could get without touching it. “You have to tell them to let me out. You know I’m not good with small spaces. I need—”
“Would you prefer the table and straps?”
“No, of course—”
“Then this will be sufficient,” he said. “I’ve been told this is the only place we can keep you where we are safe.”
She frowned, not understanding. “What does that mean?”
“Your ability to awaken the machines. We think it has something to do with proximity. This,” he indicated the wall, “prevents that.”
Arista’s brow furrowed. How? They were only inches apart, separated by a wall that could change from opaque to transparent. How did that prevent anything?
“I don’t understand.”
Jonn stood to leave.
“Jonn, wait. I need food. They can’t just keep me here indefinitely. I’ll starve.”
“Something will be provided for you.”
“How are you going to get it in here? Deliver it to my window?”
Jonn said nothing, only turned, scooting the chair back to its original position in the room. His movements had become much more precise, he didn’t use to take such care with things. But she supposed he had to play the part well enough to convince whoever was watching from the orb. He touched a small panel on the far wall and everything shimmered in front of Arista again. Before she could say anything else, the original wall was back in place as if nothing had happened.
She took a deep gulp of air, willing her body not to go into overdrive. What did he mean she would be provided for? Did they have access to human food? And if so, where did they obtain it? The line about the fruits and vegetables hadn’t been wrong—in fact, there were many available and Arista had a store built up in her apartment but tracking them and finding them was the key. And things moved in and out of season. Her parents had tried to stock her up when harvest time came along but they only lasted so long and eventually she always ran out. That’s why she had the nutrient shots Mom had developed, along with the powders. Though it always tasted awful and she was still working on hiding her disgust. Maybe it wasn’t the most appetizing but at least she could eat in social settings without throwing everything back up or giving herself away. And over time she’d get used to it. Or at least she would have. It was amazing how easy it was to get used to something.
Just as she’d turned and sat on the bed, the wall shimmered again, turning transparent. Before her stood a tall woman in a smart business suit, her long, blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. She stood there, inspecting every piece of Arista, unabashed.
Arista considered saying something, but figured sh
e’d be better off waiting to see what the stranger wanted. The woman had angular features, someone who was serious all of the time. Probably a lawyer. Though she wasn’t a Peacekeeper, her eyes were a clear blue, stunning in their vividness. The woman didn’t move, didn’t say a word, only watched Arista, inspecting her. Suddenly she felt as if she were on display, as if in a zoo. Her eyes found the bathroom door and milliseconds before she took a step in that direction the woman on the other side raised her hand and the wall shimmered back to opaque.
Could they still see her even when the wall wasn’t clear? She didn’t know and didn’t want to think about it. Instead, Arista crawled on the newly-made bed and sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, feeling very small.
Nine
JONN RETURNED TO HIS ASSIGNED OFFICE, taking his seat and staring out the window. He replayed the events over, had his performance been convincing? It had been a harrowing experience, he hadn’t been confident he could pull it off. At least they’d allowed him back without an escort. But Arista would have to give him more on-camera if he was going to figure a way out of this for both of them. As soon as she’d been identified as human her image had been transmitted to governmental departments all over the world. If she somehow escaped Chicago, Charlie’s Peacekeepers could find her anywhere from London to Sydney. He had to get her out into the wilderness, somewhere they didn’t monitor and where the drones didn’t fly. They didn’t know about the Device, couldn’t track her life signs, so if he could just find a safe place for her…she might have a chance. If she stayed here they’d keep torturing her until they broke her, both figuratively and literally.
He double checked to make sure his door was closed, then leaned back and sighed. He never used to sigh, it had no purpose for a machine. But he had the capability to emulate the action and ever since Arista had awoken him he’d come to enjoy the sensation. No wonder humans did it, it was good for tension relief. Even though nothing was actually changing. No air exhaled from lungs. But still…it felt good.
