Caged (The Idyllic Series Book 1)

by Amy Johnson

  I feel blindly around on my side and turn myself around so that my back is against the wall. After a minute, the shape of the bed comes into view, a silver rectangle against the white surface. I crawl back towards it, pulling the blanket off and wrapping myself up in it.

  “It’s your turn,” I say loud enough so that he can hear me.

  He laughs, and the sound reminds me of snowflakes.

  “Goodnight, Eden,” he says, and then he starts singing a song I don’t know.

  What I do know is that his voice is perfect. It fills the empty spaces of the room and lights up the parts of me that are scared of the walls closing in. It’s just enough of a distraction that I can close my eyes. His voice might rival my mother’s.

  He is all I can hear as my eyelids droop closed, thickening the darkness around me.

  Chapter 8: Desired

  Eden

  I wake up sometime later surrounded by a cloud. I’m bathed in warmth, which is a feeling I’m not used to at all. I stretch my legs out, spread my toes like fingers, and listen to my joints crack. My lips form a blissful smile as I unroll myself out of the blanket, peeling my eyes open slowly.

  Then, the memory of where I am comes back in the form of the white walls and the cuff weighing down my wrist. Fear settles in the pit of my stomach and I kick the blanket away from me, scooting backwards into the wall.

  My name is Eden Cavalleri. I’m seventeen years old. My brother’s name is Cyrus Cavalleri. I’m in the Anthropological Park because I was captured trying to get a computer chip for Linux, who is safe.

  Maybe if I repeat those sentences in my mind every morning I won’t forget them when the walls come rushing in, threatening to squeeze the memories out of my brain and turn them into nothing.

  “Knox?” I call out, clenching my eyes closed against the suffocation I feel approaching. Having someone with me always seems to tone down the claustrophobia. “Please answer me.”

  “What is wrong?”

  Knox’s voice hits my ears, and I glance towards the window. It’s empty, but I see his shadow cutting through the bars.

  “Nothing,” I reply, not wanting to admit that I didn’t want to be alone. That would make me appear vulnerable and weak. I am neither of those things.

  “Okay. Good,” he says, and his shadow walks away from the opening. “Get ready. The machines will be here soon to collect vitals and run wellness checks.”

  I nod, even though I know he can’t see me. With hands still shaking, I push myself off of the ground and rub the carpet imprints off my elbows. My knees knock together as I lean against the wall, staring at the keypad above the door handle. If I knew the code, it would be too easy to break out.

  I’m not afraid of the cybers; I never have been. Yet, if I close my eyes for too long, Eins and Zwei appear in front of me. The fact that I have no idea what they are scares me more than any Artificial ever has. My only clue is one single word--Idyllic.

  The door beeps moments later, which causes me to jump. The cyber that comes in is the female who ran the skin tests on me before. She shuts the door behind her and sets a small computer on the ground.

  She says nothing to me as she takes a blood sample and prods me all over with a thin, cold, metal stick. Occasionally, she will stop and type something into her device, but she always returns to check something else on me.

  At least these tests are painless.

  After a few minutes, she leaves, and I move to the back of the room to sit on the bed.

  “How much longer until we can go outside?” I ask Knox as he settles down beside the window.

  “A few hours,” he replies. “A lot of time passes while you sleep.”

  So, I resort to picking at the hem of my shorts while I wait. Knox hums, but I wish he would just stop. My head aches from trying not to think about the fact that I’m trapped. In eight days, I still haven’t gotten used to the feeling of constantly being surrounded.

  The door beeps, making me jump, but when it opens, the cyber from the night before walks in and waves me forward.

  “Come with me,” he barks, and I hurry after him, tripping over my feet.

  He leads me down the igloo hallway to a bathroom.

  “Thank you,” I say, more out of relief than etiquette. I find myself unable to relax on the toilet, cringing against the cold plastic of the seat. For just a moment, I sit still, eyes closed, and wonder how long I can stay in here before they barge in.

  “Hurry up,” the cyber says as he bangs on the door.

  I look down at the cuff on my wrist. Testing his limits is a bad idea, considering he has the ability to bring me down with one finger.

  So, I hurry out of the bathroom and follow him toward the glass hallway leading to the Eyes exhibit.

  Knox is already waiting outside, sitting on the bench and staring out at the soft rain that falls on the dome. I join him and watch his face for a minute before I look outside.

  “You did not sit as far away from me as you could,” he says, breaking the silence. I look down at where our legs sit inches from one another. The arm of the bench on the other side gives me enough room to move.

  I shrug and scoot down away from him a little. When I look back, he’s smiling but still watching the rain.

  “Will the cybers still come when it rains?” I ask, hopeful.

  “Yes,” Knox says, nodding. “They always come.”

  I nod and begin picking at the hem of my shirt.

  “So, you cannot sing,” Knox says with a laugh. “What can you do?”

  I smirk at him, kicking at the grass.

  I fight cybernetics for fun. I salvage supplies from warehouses and dumps. I argue with the Elders and cook dinner for fifty human beings each and every day. Yet, those words slip away from me. My strengths have to remain secret, or the machines are going to use them against me. They’ll exploit the tiniest hint and hammer at the cracks until my home explodes.

  What’s safe to say aloud?

  “I memorize things,” I blurt out.

  I cringe regardless of the fact that my quirk feels safe. It doesn’t tell the cybers anything about my family or my home.

  “What sorts of things do you memorize?” Knox asks, looking over at me.

  “Books,” I say. “Poems and stuff like that.”

  It feels like another safe response. The cybernetics can’t know I memorize numbers.

  Knox’s eyebrows shoot up, and he nods.

  “You will have to share some with me,” he says, as the twinkling morning bell sounds through our dome.

  Moments later, Knox is standing in his worn-out spot by the wall, waiting for the machine to come by and ask him his daily questions.

  Our day is much quieter than the day before, which I didn’t think was possible. The female Anthros worker appears, asks me questions, requests that I sit and stand again to check my muscle mobility, and then says a stiff ‘thank you’ as she leaves.

  After she’s gone, Knox settles into the grass beside me by the water. His shoulders droop forward as he breathes in and out. He appears tired and worn--ten years older than he is.

  “Now, share a poem with me,” he says in a low voice, not looking at me. He’s not asking, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel like he is commanding me in the same way Eins and Zwei do. His voice is soft--pained almost. I swallow and dig through my memory for something fitting for this moment.

  If he’s going to ask me to recite poetry, it needs to further my purpose. The poems have to be something about the beauty of the world outside that makes it sound worthwhile.

  “There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, / And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; / And frogs in the pools singing at night, / And wild plum trees in tremulous white, / Robins will wear their feathery fire / Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; / And not one will know of the war, not one / Will care at last when it is done. / Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree / If mankind perished utterly; / And Spring herself, when
she woke at dawn, / Would scarcely know that we were gone.”

  When I look up, Knox stares at me, breathing in and out of his mouth. He turns his body to face me and leans forward with his elbows propped up on his knees. His eyes go wide as he brings his face down to rest in his hands.

  “It is about how unnecessary humans are,” he says, breathless and excited. I laugh--a small breath of air out of my nose.

  “Yes, and no,” I reply. “It’s really about the beauty of the natural world without humans and machines.”

  “What is it called?” he asks.

  “There Will Come Soft Rains,” I say. “It’s by Sara Teasdale.”

  Knox nods, beams, and says, “I like her.”

  That makes me laugh out loud, and I nod.

  “She’s one of my favorites.”

  “Do you know any more?”

  I smile at him, but the low noon bell cuts through the dome, pulling Knox’s attention away from me. He glances around the dome. There’s an instant change in his posture, and he’s suddenly sitting straighter than the back of the bench.

  His reaction throws me back to his earlier statement. He went through the trainings, too. Why doesn’t he have the same scars covering his body? Or does he, and I just can’t see them? His responses mirror my own, and I see the fear traced in the lines of his face. What horrors has he seen? Do we share nightmares?

  The cybers call us out, and I follow him back into the icy hallway with my senses alert.

  This is my opportunity. If I can see the code, breaking out will be simple. All of the other doors react to my cuff.

  One cyber turns his back to me and shields Knox’s keypad from sight. I edge forward, press my shoulder up against Knox’s, and peer around the cyber. I catch the last two digits:

  56.

  The door slides open and Knox steps away from me. He watches me out of the corner of his eye. When he turns back around, he’s squinting at me with his hands on his hips. The concern etched on his face shows in the way his eyebrows meet in the middle and in the canyons on his forehead.

  I repeat the process with my own code and manage to catch sight of the last digit.

  3.

  “Go in,” the cyber says, giving me a little shock when I don’t move right away. I bite my tongue and stand my ground for a moment.

  If I go in there, I’m trapped. There is absolutely no fresh air, no gentle rain, and no fake grass. At least the dome is outside, where I can breathe and see. Inside these four white walls, everything is different.

  I’m surprised by the second shock, one that lasts a lot longer and brings me to my knees. The cyber behind me plants his foot in my spine, and he pushes me into the room. I land on my hands and knees, listening to the door slam behind me.

  “Are you okay?” Knox asks from his room.

  “Yes,” I reply in a tiny voice, pushing myself up. A plate of food sits in the middle of the room, and my growling stomach wins. I carry the tray to my bed and cross my legs under me as I eat.

  Knox doesn’t talk to me this evening. I watch his shadow pass by the window several times, moving slowly. He grunts occasionally, like he’s lifting something heavy. After I’m done eating, I stare at the walls and count the blocks.

  “Eden,” Knox says, looking through the window. I hold up a finger to count the last column then look over. “Move your bed over here.”

  I scowl at him before walking over and kneeling by the window.

  My eyebrows shoot up when I see what he’s done.

  He rearranged the small space, and now, directly beside the window sits his bed, blanket, and pillow. He sits on the floor in front of it.

  Without answering him, I return to the metal bed frame and drag it easily across the room. Then, I join him back on the floor.

  “Time to hold up your end of the deal,” he says with a smile at me through the bars.

  “Um, okay,” I say, running a hand through my hair. “Do you want to hear about the time I found my best friend?”

  “I would love to hear about your friend. Is she like you?”

  I laugh, shaking my head.

  “He is nothing like me,” I say, “which is a good thing.”

  “Tell me about him,” Knox says, resting his chin in his hands. He’s like a child grasping the edge of his seat.

  “Well, his name is Alyx, but we all call him Linux because he’s an expert in computer code,” I say, taking a deep breath before I launch into Linux’s story. “I found him a week after my parents had been harvested. I was on a supply mission with a few other Luddites when we came across this corpse. It was still warm to the touch, meaning it was a fresh catch for the Artificials. We were near a supply building, so we assumed he had gotten caught trying to steal.

  “I remember he was so malnourished that his bones stuck out. His cheekbones were visible, and I felt so sorry for him. We tried to drag him out of the alley to the nearest entry point, but the Artificials came back for him. Everyone panicked and scattered, leaving me alone with this paralyzed and scrawny child.

  “I was fifteen; the Artificials had just taken my parents. I was terrified. The machines tried to retain me and I was too shaken to fight back. They shot my leg with a paralyzer and picked me up, but then the boy jumped up and started fighting them off with this long electrified piece of metal. It absolutely fried the machine. It was probably the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  “After that, he started acting really skittish, and I was confused because he had acted so bravely when he killed the machine. He didn’t want to help me at first, but I convinced him that I wasn’t going to hurt him.

  “It turns out that Linux is probably the most cowardly person I know. Most of the time. He’s super passionate about things he cares about, and he’s vastly dedicated. I have no idea why he chose to care about me that day, but he did. And I’m grateful.

  “We took him home that day and made him a Luddite. I couldn’t have asked for a better friend. Plus, it helps that he’s a genius and can hack into any computer system and manipulate electricity like no one else I’ve ever met.”

  I take a deep breath.

  Linux had saved my life; I would always be trying to save his. I don’t mind most days because Linux is my best friend, argue as we might.

  “Why would you risk your safety for a stranger?” Knox asks, cocking his head to one side. I smile at him.

  “We are humans,” I say. “The machines are cruel and take without regard for people’s wishes. Above all else, the Luddites strive to be kind and helpful to all humans.”

  “I do not understand why,” he says, twisting his mouth as he thinks.

  I want to tell him how complicated human emotions are. Not everyone that is a Luddite believes in the kindness that my parents fought for. Yet, I need him to think everyone is a saint; otherwise, he will never leave with me.

  “Not all cybernetics are monsters,” he says, rerouting our train of conversation.

  “Yes they are,” I reply, narrowing my eyes at him.

  “That is a broad assumption. Have you met every single cybernetic in the city?” I shake my head, and he continues. “You saying that all machines are evil is the equivalent of me saying that all humans are as smart as you are.”

  A laugh escapes my lips.

  “I’m not smart,” I argue, “and no two humans are alike.”

  “Then, why do you assume all machines are identical?”

  I stare at him, feeling the cold air of our shared space drying out my open mouth.

  He’s so right that I can’t find words to refute his claims. Out of all my encounters with machines, not one of them ended well. Yet, we stole from them. We attacked them. We blew up their storage buildings and burned down their apartments. Wouldn’t the humans have reacted the same way if the roles were reversed?

  I shake my head, pushing away the sympathetic thoughts. I’m not angry at them for fighting back. Their sin lies in their treatment of humans.

  Still, though,
can I punish the many for the sins of a few? Are there machines out there that don’t support the Anthros and unethical treatment of humans?

  No, because they can’t think at all. They don’t rationalize right and wrong like we do.

  The lights click off suddenly, bathing us in thick darkness.

  I squeal as something cold wraps itself around my wrist and pull away from it out of instinct. The soft, cold hand tightens its grip on me, though. With a laugh, Knox lets go.

  “If you wake up at night, just say my name. I can hear you better here, and I can reach you,” he says.

  “Any requests?” he asks, and the bed squeaks as he gets in.

  “No,” I answer, and drag the blanket off, just like the night before. It still doesn’t seem fair for me to enjoy the mattress when there are people at home sleeping on the ground.

  “Okay, then,” he says, humming a few notes before he starts to sing.

  I close my eyes and wrap myself in the blanket until only my head is left sticking out. If I suffocate, it could only be better than this.

  ✽✽✽

  I wake up minutes later to the sound of screaming. It’s everywhere, pouring out of the walls and snaking itself through the carpet. I’m trapped in the blanket. By the time I untangle myself, the lights are on.

  Eins stands in the doorway with his arms crossed, smiling at me. Zwei is behind him. The mechanics in her face reflect the yellow light, glinting.

  Eins has the red button in his hand, thumb poised over it. He wiggles the finger as his chest moves up and down.

  Cyborgs don’t breathe, and the two of them can’t be humans because of the machinery in their faces. They can’t be Artificials; they aren’t robotic enough. The word ‘Idyllic’ means nothing to me; everything about these two is a complete mystery.

  I blink and Eins is in front of me, hand on my throat. The screaming continues, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once, blending together with Zwei’s musical laughter as she follows Eins into the room. He lifts me up off of the ground and presses my body against the wall. Zwei grabs one of my arms, withdrawing her fork-like torture device.