by Amy Johnson
Maybe it would be Cyrus they captured. Stronger than Linux, Cyrus would put up something of a fight. He’s always had a strand of sympathy for the cybernetics. I can’t envision my tall older brother lying on the third floor tile. The image of his chest open like double doors twists my lungs until I feel like I might black out.
I would rather die than see anyone I love on the operating table, and yet, that’s exactly what they are proposing. My life needs to be taken first and then, they’ll go after my family.
I can’t let this happen. It has to end.
This isn’t over.
Zwei holds my hands behind my back, parading me through the crowd of faceless Artificials, and I tilt my chin up, taking short, quick breaths.
Chapter 10: Afraid
Linux
I pace up and down the hallway in front of the meeting place, knitting my hands in front of me. The cold air inside the tunnels whips around my feet and the icy water intensifies it. My skin matches the white paint of the directory beside the door, pale from the countless hours I’ve spent holed up in my room.
Two weeks have passed since Eden was taken.
In those two weeks, no human has left the Underground.
I’ve had enough.
“Why did I need to call an Elder’s meeting?” Cyrus asks me as he leans on the wall. I study his appearance, noticing how much weight he’s lost over the past two weeks.
“Because we have to go above ground, Cyrus,” I say as I push my glasses up on the end of my nose. “We’re out of medicine, and there’s a stomach bug going around. Without medication, it could turn bubonic. That’s why Eden was up there in the first place.”
I came to him first because he oversees the health of the Underground. If anyone should care that we have a virus going around, it would be Cyrus.
Instead, he rolls his eyes at me.
“She’s not going to allow it,” he says, voice laced with bitterness. “You and I both know that.”
“It doesn’t hurt to ask.”
“Maybe not, but I’m tired of arguing with her,” he mumbles. “I’m sick of fighting with the four of them.”
“Is peace down here worth all of our deaths?”
Cyrus analyzes me for another minute before turning and walking to his chair with a sigh. His shoulders slump forward as if they can’t bear to hold up their own weight. Black circles line the bottom of his eyes and cast shadows around them. His clothes hang from his once full frame, dirty and littered with holes.
He might have lost all hope, but I haven’t.
If I can convince Emory to let me go on a supply run, I can sneak over to the Anthros and see Eden, even if it is just through the glass. She has to know that I’m here, alive, and that I’m killing myself trying to figure out a way to hack into the mainframe of the star network. With every passing day, though, the likelihood of that slips farther into oblivion. Without the chip, it’s impossible.
The darkness in my room eats away at my sanity, gnawing on the edges of my selfishness and inching me toward a braver option. I could go alone--leave one day and just break her out. I’m capable enough, but the fear holds me back with iron chains and a brass guillotine. More than once over the past two weeks, I’ve stared up at the manholes with one hand on the rail and one foot off the ground.
No matter how much I want to go up there, I can’t bring myself to do it.
“What is going on, Cyrus?”
Emory’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts, and I turn to watch her walk into the meeting place. The three other elders flank her like good little soldiers.
“Lin wants to talk to you,” Cyrus states, shrugging his shoulders.
What’s happened to him?
“What is it, Linux?”
Emory takes her seat and waits for me to speak. Even though I’ve known these people for almost three years, I still struggle to find courage to speak in front of them. They think I’m insane--too smart for my own good. I confuse them with big words and detailed definitions.
Why even waste my breath?
The words catch in my throat and manifest in the form of cold sweats and clammy hands.
“I want to go on a supply run,” I whisper.
“For what reason?” she asks. Her eyebrows shoot up as she stares down at me.
“We need medicine,” I mumble, looking down at the ground, “before this virus gets worse.”
“We’ve fought off viruses before without medicine. We’ll do it again. Plus, that’s Cyrus’s job, not ours.”
“But the herbs are out of season. There’s nothing left from last year.”
“Can’t the kitchen workers grow more?”
“Yeah, if they call up a genie and ask for some magic powder to speed it up overnight,” I snap. Heat rises up in my cheeks. Her eyes go wide at my show of attitude. Even I’m surprised with myself.
What is she so afraid of? She hasn’t even seen the machines that took Eden. I have, and I’m standing in front of her volunteering to go.
“Don’t get snappy with me,” Emory hisses. “It’s not safe up there. I told you that already. I told everyone that.”
“And we’re so safe down here? We’re sitting ducks, Emory. Our own fear is going to kill us.”
Emory’s face morphs into a shade of purple comparable only to a grape. She rises up out of her seat and looms over me where she stands.
“Listen here, Linux,” she hisses through her teeth. “I am in charge here. If I say you won’t go above ground, then you will not. I am trying to protect you! You have a job to complete, and you can’t do that if you’re dead.” She takes a shaky breath. “I absolutely forbid you to go above ground. Do you understand?”
“You can’t forbid him to do anything,” Cyrus mumbles, glancing over at us.
Emory turns her head slowly to look at him.
“Excuse me?”
“I said,” Cyrus repeats. “You can’t forbid him to do anything.”
Emory lets out an indignant breath.
“And who exactly are you to tell me what I can and can’t do?”
“Well, last time I checked, this was a democracy, not a dictatorship.”
“Oh, big words for someone who can’t read,” another Elder says under his breath.
Cyrus’s mouth drops open in stunned shock. How dare they pull that card? Cyrus is worth twice his weight in wisdom and experience.
This place is falling apart with Eden gone.
My hands shake at my sides.
All I understand is that everyone in this room is a coward. They fear what hunts us more than they fear death. They would rather starve in these tunnels.
There was a point in time when I was that scared. The machines that took Eden haunt my nightmares and bring tears to my eyes even in my waking hours. Yet, a stronger presence wedges itself in between the fear and selfishness.
Determination.
I never give up.
I made the mistake of leaving Eden in that alley, giving up on a fight I never could have won. Every day, I live with that regret and wish I would have stayed to die. The days are empty without her.
Empty and painfully lonely.
Regardless of how scared I am, I refuse to let it control me for another second. Eden deserves a better best friend than the frightened, cowardly Linux I was. I will be better.
“I understand,” I say, setting my face with resolve.
“Good. Now, go back to work,” Emory orders.
With a nod, I turn and walk out of the meeting place. I go right, towards my room.
The walls drip with sweat. We are one and the same--liquid fear pours from my skin and plasters my shirt to my back.
First, I stop at my hideout and pick up my paralyzer stick--the weapon I invented. In the days before I discovered the connection between the cybernetics programming, I modified the design of the long metal rod so that it has a small, portable battery hidden in the black, taped handle. There’s also a small switch now to turn it on and off.
Eden would laugh at me if she saw me tuck it away into my pants leg. Knowing her, she would call it a lightsaber, whatever that is. I would roll my eyes at her, and she’d hit me for having an attitude.
A pang of emptiness rings through my chest as I leave my room, heading right again, towards the manhole Eden and I last crawled out of, towards everything I’m afraid of.
I climb the ladder with shaking hands and the taste of bile on the back on my tongue. If my shoes felt heavy the day I was running, now they feel like they weigh down my feel in galactic proportions.
Yet, standing in the dim light cast from the alley, my feet melt into the concrete. I can’t move an inch. Every cybernetic’s thundering footsteps drives my brain into a fresh panic so severe that I can’t breathe.
I’m back in that alley five years ago--a trembling ten year-old whose parents have just been stripped out from under him. My lungs burn as I gasp for air, drowning under the weight of memory and loss. A vast loneliness devours me, and I back towards the manhole I came up.
Once I stand at the bottom of the ladder, I slide down against the wall and clutch my knees to my chest.
Eden deserves better.
“I’m so stupid,” I mumble to myself as I bury my face in my arms.
This is why I need Eden.
Shame and embarrassment join the loneliness.
Everything I’ve been through, everything she’s done for me, and I can’t even walk down the sidewalk without her.
At least one thought brings me comfort: she’s a thousand times stronger than me. Whatever she’s going through, she will get through it.
Eden will come home. I just have to have faith in her ability to overcome.
Chapter 11: Panicked
Eden
I remain mute as the service machines clean me again, spraying my body down with water and scrubbing every inch of me with their soft pads. They scrape off the dirt that has gathered on the bottom of my feet and give me new clothes to wear.
A cybernetic stands by at all times, even when I’m pulling on the white shorts and shirt in the clothing room. His unnerving gaze drifts over my naked body, never shifting. When I run a hand through my hair, smacking myself in the forehead with the heavy cuff, he exhales and turns toward the door, motioning for me to follow him.
As if I have a choice.
Before Eins and Zwei left, they asked the cyber assigned to monitor me if there was any extra security to prevent me from escaping again.
So, he has placed me on a leash. A three-foot metal chain connects my wrist cuff to the cyber that leads me out of the room. It loops around his wrist. During my cleaning, they attached it to the solid metal table.
When we pass the Hair exhibit door, banging finds my ears. I glance at the door and see it shaking on its hinges.
“Don’t let them win!” Subject 12 screams. Her animalistic, guttural sounds morph into a new sound--high pitched and feminine. The door stops shaking. I stop walking; my hands tremble at my side.
“I won’t,” I whisper, pressing a hand to the door.
“Move, Subject 23,” the cyber orders, jerking my leash. The chain rattles against the floor, and I wince as it digs into my skin. My eyes fall to the floor again, and I follow.
We pass Knox’s door, and mine is propped open. The bed has been removed, and my blanket sits in the middle of the floor, folded neatly on top of my pillow. In the middle of the room, a metal loop rises up out of the floor.
The cyber leads me in and attaches the metal chain to the loop. I’m forced into a sitting position as he locks the two together using a heavy electronic padlock. Unlike the door locks, this one emits a bright blue light and bears no keypad. Instead of typing in a numerical code, the cyber touches the interface with his thumb, and it clicks closed.
So, in order to break out of this, I’ll need his finger.
That won’t be an issue; I’ve always been able to fight cybers. Tearing his finger off won’t be a problem at all.
He leaves me there, locking the door behind him. I listen to see how many digits he punches into the keypad lock, surprised that it’s still six. I assumed they were smart enough to change the code, but maybe I’ve overestimated them.
“Eden!”
I jerk around at the sound of Knox’s voice. It is muffled, as if he’s talking through the glass of the dome. My eyes fall on the window. Where four metal bars used to be, a plastic, net-like barrier has been installed. It resembles the street grates that line the ground above Charlie’s garden, and Knox’s face fills the minuscule gaps.
His multi-colored eyes stare at me, moist and wide. Words jam in my throat, held down by anger. If he had gone with me, maybe I would have made it out. He could have held the door for me at the silver box, and maybe Eins and Zwei wouldn’t have been able to trap me.
Millions of different scenarios race around my brain, competing for a front row seat to the storm I feel building in my chest.
“Eden, are you okay?” He presses his hands against the covering, blocking out most of his face.
The thunderclouds around my heart manifest into lightning, and laughter spews out of my mouth. My hands smack my bare legs; my head bounces up and down as I shake hysterically. Tears pour down my cheeks, and I gasp for breath, clutching my ribs.
“Why are you laughing?”
I look up to see Knox glaring at me.
My breathing turns into short, fast intakes, and my eyebrows sink into each other.
“Am I okay?” I whisper, crawling towards him as far as the chain will let me. Knox’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, and his eyes move over my burning face.
“I have never seen you this angry,” he whispers, mouth forming a thin line.
“How. Dare. You,” I say, throwing myself toward the grate. The chain catches me, jerking me back towards the center of the room. So, I kick towards the grate. It rattles with every impact of my heel, making Knox jump. “You don’t get to ask if I’m okay like you care.”
Knox’s face twists in confusion.
“Of course I care, Eden.”
“Then why did I have to go alone?”
I scream the words at him, jerking wildly on the chain. He flinches every time it pulls me back, sucking air in through his teeth.
“That does not make sense,” he says. “Can I not care about myself and you at the same time?”
I run a hand through my hair, grab a fistful, and pull. The pain centers my mind, distracting me from the intense rage I feel building up.
“My Rose replied: I am now only a stump twig / I gave you all, even though it painfully pricked / Love is a choice of offering / A voluntarily self-sacrificing / Patiently, an unselfish giving / There's no greater love than this: / To lay down one's life for a fellow friend!”
The words tumble out like water set free from the bursting of a dam. As soon as they slip past my lips, I wrap my arms around my body and protect myself from the impact of the memory the poem drags behind it.
My father stood at the bottom of the ladder leading above ground. My mother tucked Cyrus’s too-big shirt into his pants to hold the gun tighter there.
“Why is it always us that goes out on supply runs, Dad? Can’t someone else go?” I asked, holding my arms in the air as he knelt down to adjust my weapon’s belt.
“Your mother and I are glad to volunteer, Eden,” he said, gently, with a tap on the end of my nose.
“But it’s dangerous,” I argued as I watched him climb the ladder.
“Love is a choice of offering,” he recited, smirking over his shoulder at me. “A voluntarily self-sacrificing, patiently, an unselfish giving-”
“There’s no greater love than this,” Mom jumped in, raising her eyebrows.
“To lay down one’s life for a fellow friend,” I finished as I gripped the rungs of the ladder and followed him up.
That was the last time we climbed a ladder together, the last time my father would recite a poem to me, the last time my mother would give
me a gentle shove out of the manhole, and Cyrus’s last supply mission. Later that day, my parents defined sacrifice in the best way they knew how--by giving themselves up to the machines for Cyrus and me.
Knox couldn’t possibly understand how impossible it is to care about yourself and someone else at the same time. He’s never had anyone die for him, right in front of his eyes, boring that scene forever into his beautiful irises.
“That is not Sara,” he whispers, breathy and distant.
“No. Paul Sebastian.”
Knox stares at me, face void of emotion.
Does he understand?
How can he?
“I am sorry,” he whispers, pulling away from the grate until I can no longer see him.
The tone in his voice opens my chest and drains all the air out of my lungs. Sadness laces through the three words and links them together like the fibers of the shirt I wear. Can I blame him for caring about himself more? Knox has only ever known himself. He’s spent all of his life alone.
It’s not his fault that I’ve always been surrounded by humans to live for.
No— humans to die for.
Knox doesn’t know how to care about me, not in the same way that I care about him. He’s watching a movie and wanting so badly to help the characters in their tragic struggle but doesn’t know how. There’s a wall of glass between his world and mine, and neither of us own the tools required to break it.
He’s just as caged as I am, and the worst thing about his situation is that he doesn’t even know it.
The anger dissipates, fading away like mist as my shoulders slump forward, and I sigh. It’s replaced by pity.
“Eden, I’m sorry,” he repeats, but his tone is different, full of emotion and pain. I glance up at him and smirk.
“You used a contraction,” I whisper.
“A what?”
His eyes narrow, and he cocks his head to one side, which only makes me smile wider.
