Caged (The Idyllic Series Book 1)

by Amy Johnson

  The temperature has dropped since the last time I was conscious. Either that, or my senses have heightened. The latter wouldn’t surprise me.

  Null walks me over to a full-body mirror that hangs from a hook on the wall. When I’m positioned in front of it, he releases my elbow and places his metallic hand in the small of my back instead.

  “This is your new body,” he whispers, leaning down until I can feel the heat of his breath on my neck. “Familiarize yourself with it while I wake up your new partner.”

  With a small laugh, he leaves me standing alone to stare at myself.

  My mind starts digging through the memories for something to compare my new appearance to. The inside of my brain resembles a paper factory with a ceiling fan on high. Every time I grasp one of the thin memories, the wind sucks them out of my hand again.

  What I do know is that I stand taller than before. I take up the entire height of the mirror and graze the golden border along the top with my inky-black hair. My left shoulder bears a solid metal plate that fades into my skin without a seam. I lift a gentle hand to touch the metal, surprised that it’s room temperature and not cold.

  My hand moves down along the hairless skin of my arm. The surface feels tight, less like a too-tight canvas and more like the surface of a drum. I press on it, and it relents to my touch. My fingers graze over the smooth surface, coming to a rest on the back of my hand.

  I open and close my fingers, listening to the faint clicking of my new joints. The power in the slight movement surprises me. I close one fist and squeeze until the pain begins to spread up my arm. My nails don’t sink into the taut skin, though, even if they look thin and sharp like an infant’s.

  I glance back up at the mirror and inspect my appearance deeper.

  My skin is paler than before, shimmery like faded satin--the cloth that everyone in the Underground used to fight over when it came in. An intricate threading of synthetic fibers make up the surface.

  Farther down, past my hips, my two new thighs glint in the headache-inducing lights. What was once skin and bone is now a spiraling system of wires, tubes, and hydraulics. The sturdy center beam takes up the most area, linking my hip joints with my reinforced knees.

  I take a step toward the mirror, feeling confident even without Null standing beside me. Upon closer inspection, I see that my eyes are the same, except for a silver strip around the outside of the iris.

  From what I can draw from my blurry memory bank, I look similar to my past self, except for my shoulder, thighs, and eyes. I’m an Artificial version of my human counterpart, but not so much that the sight of me would haunt small children.

  “Calm down,” Null snaps, and I spin around to face him, shrinking toward the mirror like a scolded puppy.

  Both of Null’s hands--the mechanical and the human--wrap themselves around the boy’s shoulders. His face rings hundreds of bells in my head, causing me to narrow my eyes at him.

  His name, though, escapes me.

  “My name is Null. Your new name is Vier. From this moment forward, you will introduce yourself as such. The name you held as a human doesn’t belong to you anymore. Forget it. Understand?”

  The boy, Vier, nods, but his eyes wander from Null and fall on me instead.

  Even across the arctic desert between us, his eyes take my breath away. They wake up the most hidden memories, bubbling up my repressed emotions. The image of a white room appears first and foremost. Flashes of plastic grass and too-blue water filter behind my eyes. Affection rises in my chest, connecting to a memory of two hands knitted together, resting in a window with four metal bars stretching from the top to the bottom.

  How do I know him?

  What was his human name?

  I clench my eyes closed to block out extraneous stimuli.

  Think, Drei. Think.

  “That’s not my name!”

  Vier pushes himself away from Null and staggers on his legs. They shake like those of a newborn deer, trembling as he grips the bed for support. Null holds both hands out towards him.

  “Then, tell me, Vier. What is your name?”

  The boy twists his face in confusion, wrinkling up the skin on his nose as his eyes flit between the two of us. His head cocks to one side. It’s a familiar gesture; I think I’ve seen it before. I cover my face with my hands in an effort to hide the heat rising in my cheeks.

  He stands still for a moment, giving my system a minute to catch up. His messy brown hair sticks out at odd angles, matching his wide eyes.

  His skin was pale before, but now it’s a shade of white comparable only to the walls of the Anthros. From the waist down, nothing has changed except the slight addition to his muscular frame.

  When my eyes dance back up his body, though, my breath catches in my throat. From his waist up to his shoulders, a molded piece of transparent plastic rests. It blends into the skin of his sides like my metal plate. Through the crystal clear plastic, his heart pumps blood through his veins. I make out the shapes of his reinforced vital organs.

  Shivering, I move upward and meet his eyes for the second time. His own silver lining reflects the light overhead like a sparkle, but fear lives in the tears welling up under his eyes.

  “It was Knox! My name is Knox,” he blurts, shaking his head. His hair swings back and forth.

  Null grabs his arm roughly and shoves him toward me.

  “No, it’s not,” Null growls, gripping my arm and pulling us both towards a door in the back of the room. “Introduce yourself, girl.”

  “My name is Drei,” I say in a low voice.

  Knox’s--no, Vier’s--eyes focus on the door as it slides open at our approach.

  Does he know my human name?

  The room before us comes into view. Two cybernetics stand along the right wall, arms hanging limply at their sides. They blink, moving forward to greet us.

  “Machines, please fit these two Idyllic into their uniforms. I will return shortly for them.”

  He hands us off to the two machines and disappears out of the door through which he came.

  While the machines buzz around me, I orient myself with my new senses.

  My sense of hearing picks up a variety of sounds. Vier’s heartbeat reaches me from across the room, even though the organ itself is protected by a thick protective layer. As the machine dresses me, the soft rustling of fabric fills the room like sighs of breath, and I focus on the clock in the next room ticking through the walls.

  I feel every simple graze of the machine’s hands against my skin as she dresses me. Her fingers resemble a cat’s tongue--coarse and uninviting. As she nudges my arms, I lift them up, grimacing as she pulls a white shirt over my head.

  Above all, though, my eyesight proves to be my greatest enhancement.

  There’s a long window against the back wall of the room. If I narrow down my stimuli and focus on the glass, my vision finds the tiniest of creatures flying in lazy circles. His chromatic green body shakes as he lands on the translucent surface to rest his papery, clear wings against his body. Two brilliant red eyes sit atop his oblong body. Six hairy legs grip the glass with inhuman strength.

  The housefly disappears and I zero in on a cloud of smog some distance away.

  The particles of dust clutter the mist, creating a dirty blue scene that reminds me of the river that runs through the city. If I strain hard enough, I can hear the water rumbling somewhere beneath us and feel it vibrating in the concrete walls.

  Would I feel overwhelmed if I was submerged in the river?

  How would wind feel on my new skin?

  Would the heat of the sun burn me?

  I lower my arms and lift my feet one at a time as the machine pulls shoes onto them. When she stands up again, she gives me a forced smile, nods, and then walks to the door.

  I follow her by turning slowly where I stand.

  The other cybernetic joins her at the door and they both leave.

  “These clothes itch.”

  I jump at the sound
of Vier’s voice, which hammers into my head like it’s coming through a speaker. Glancing over at him, my breath catches in my throat for the second time.

  Vier wears black pants that fall from his hips to his ankles in a straight line. His white shirt buttons up the center, sporting a pressed collar and pearl-white buttons. The jacket he wears over it all makes him look elegant. In the outfit, his skin doesn’t look as ghostly, but instead is complemented by the contrasting shades.

  As the emotions form in my head, I realize that it’s not only my senses that are heightened. My emotions are, too.

  The longer I stare at him, the more I realize just how attractive he is. The white shirt pulls tightly across his chest, and the sheen of the plastic shows through it. His long, slender neck rises out of the collar with grace. The machines have combed down his hair, and now, it rests in neat strokes across his forehead, framing the striking eyes.

  The lights reflect off of the sweat building on his cheeks. One corner of his lips pushes upwards as he smirks at me and pulls at the edges of his jacket.

  The desire to cross the room and pull his body against mine reigns strong in my chest. A memory of us kissing rushes back, and the fire of his lips against mine returns. The familiar ache in my chest keeps me grounded and prevents me from walking over to him.

  I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around him and feel the shape of his back with my new senses. Would I be able to feel the heartbeat that I hear racing in his chest? Would he run his hands through my hair and wrap strong arms around me?

  I take a greedy breath, inhaling the strong scent of vanilla. After everything, he smells the same. Null couldn’t erase that part of him, even if he took away his name.

  What was his name?

  “Knox.”

  His name slips out of my lips uninvited. I grimace as he looks down, wrapping his arms around himself.

  “That’s not my name,” he mumbles, in a voice as smooth as my own. It seems more human than I remember him ever sounding. Is it possible that they made him more human? The things I know about him come flooding back.

  He’s from the Anthros.

  He loves to sing.

  His laugh reminds me of snowflakes, and each one is different from the last.

  His hands are soft cotton blankets that form a fort around me.

  I loved him.

  No, I still love him.

  My new library of knowledge connects the dots with lightning speed and blends the memories we have. It links together strings of poems with facial expressions. When the familiar stanzas of Child, Child return to me, his face hides between the letters.

  His voice, now smooth like the surface of the walls underground, turns into the action of laying in the soft skin of his ribcage. His soul, kind and careful, is the embodiment of the lilac sunsets and gray, soupy fog. I stare into the rainforest of his eyes and imagine the mist of morning dew settling on my new skin.

  “Yes, it is,” I say, gliding across the eternity between us.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nod and take his soft hand. His engulfs my own, fingers snaking into the gaps between my own as if they’ve always belonged there.

  “Then Drei isn’t your name either,” he says, bringing his other hand up to graze my cheek.

  “I can’t remember,” I whisper and squeeze his hand, careful not to crush it.

  “I think I do.”

  I take an anxious breath.

  “Tell me.”

  He glances towards the door before looking back at me and leaning towards my ear. My body tingles at the heat of his lips on my earlobe. A strange feeling settles in the base of my stomach, and I steady myself against him.

  “Your name was Eden.”

  As soon as his breath cascades down my neck and the vibrations rain down on my eardrum, the barrier holding back my memories explodes.

  I push away from him as the scenes come back to me in the form of short bursts.

  I see us breaking out of the Anthros and running from the Artificials through the dark midnight streets. His shadow looms over me on the bank of the river, begging me to run away with him, telling me it’s not too late. The blood drips off of his hands as he repeats four words over and over again on a loop.

  I am not sorry.

  All around me, I see the bodies of the dead humans. Emory slumps in her chair, blood pouring from a gunshot wound in the center of her forehead. The other elders stretch lifeless across the ground, joined by the countless other bodies.

  Everyone I know is dead, and it’s because of him.

  No, I killed them, because I brought him to them.

  When I look back up at Knox, his eyes go wide to take in the sheer rage I feel rolling off my skin. He opens his mouth and takes a step back as I launch myself at him.

  “You did this!” I scream as we crash into the floor, cracking the tile under him.

  We slide backwards on the floor until his head slams into the nearest wall. Clothes fall off of the shelves and rain down on him. As he swats them away, I stand up, planting a foot in the middle of his chest.

  “Why?” I ask when my search for a reason comes up empty.

  “I saw an opportunity to get what I wanted, and I took it,” he says, sucking in lungfuls of air as I press down harder on the plastic. It bends under the pressure, but my foot rests too low to crush anything important. “They lied to me. We were going to become Idyllic, and you were going to be free. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  I step off of him and stagger backwards.

  Knox was willing to sacrifice everything I lived for to ensure that he would become a machine. He thought we would be together, happy and free for eternity. It almost seems sweet, but the taste on my tongue is more like bitter licorice.

  Thirty human beings weigh more than thirty silver coins.

  The kick that follows comes instinctively. It lands in his rib cage, causing him to yelp.

  The rage bubbles on the surface of my skin like boiling water, threatening to scald both of us.

  “After all I did for you, Knox, you still threw me back to the wolves! You knew what those people meant to me. The stories and the poems meant nothing to you, did they?”

  By now, I’m back to screaming at him. The questions pour of my mouth. The words sit on one another in my chest, building up from the moment I left him on the riverside. A great weight lifts off of my chest as they’re released.

  With my new emotions, though, the supply of rage seems endless.

  Every question breeds another. Every bitter thought forms another ounce of rage. The well stretches down into the core of my being with no ending in sight.

  “Eden, I did it to protect you!” he screams as he pushes himself up off the ground. His face turns red. Have I ever seen Knox angry before? No. There’s nothing in my memory bank that speaks of anger. “Your way of life was going to kill you! I didn’t want to lose you.”

  “So you were being selfish?” I spit out, balling my hands into fists at my sides. “You didn’t do it for me. You did it for yourself.”

  Knox combs a hand through his hair until it stands on end above his head. The same hand runs down his cheek, pulling at the synthetic skin.

  “Of course I did,” he says after a long moment of staring at the ground between us.

  My Knox was timid and shy, considerate and caring. His hands were gentle but strong. My Knox never would have hurt me. Not intentionally.

  This machine standing before me isn’t mine. His voice isn’t the one that sang me to sleep. It’s a knife dipped in acid and driven straight through my back. Sara warned me about this--“though love be Heaven or love be hell.”

  We will both pay for his mistake for a long time, and the scars of his betrayal still burn the lining of my chest.

  For now, though, I have better things to worry about.

  “Listen, what you did was wrong, and I could spend all day screaming at you about it,” I say, rubbing my temples. “I don’t want to, though.
I have more important things to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “I have an Anthros to destroy.”

  Regardless of the things that happened prior to this moment, retribution will be paid. Every human being caged in the Anthros will be free. I failed them once. I won’t duplicate my mistakes.

  His face twists in confusion before he cocks his head to one side.

  “Null controls us, Eden. You don’t honestly think you can just storm out of here, do you?”

  “Do you see Null anywhere?” I ask, spreading my arms out and spinning in a slow circle. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

  When my circle is complete, Knox glares at me.

  “Cut the sarcasm,” he snaps, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  My eyebrows shoot up.

  My Knox wouldn’t have known that was sarcasm. This one definitely does, and he’s annoyed by it. I smile greedily.

  “Well, I know how to annoy you from now on.”

  Knox continues to glare, pacing the room.

  “What’s your plan, then?” he asks in a strained voice.

  I watch him walk, waiting for my new super brain to pump out some master plan filled with perfect logic and execution. Apparently, that’s not how it works, because no matter how hard I stare at him, nothing happens.

  Just like always, I’m at a complete loss for plans.

  Cyrus planned the missions for us; I completed them. Charlie planned the dinner menus; I cut vegetables and stirred the mix. The only plan I ever came up with was my escape plan, and that ended with me being leashed like a dog in a yard.

  Anything I come up with holds more potential to fail than succeed.

  The Idyllic assembly should have turned me into a slave--one who answered to Null with no hesitation. Instead, my memories came back with strengthened vengeance. Where the hate of humans should live, rage towards the Idyllic and other machines manifests itself. My mind runs backwards--opposite of how it knows it should go.

  I’m a failed experiment with a long history of failed plans.

  Yet, somehow, I’m still standing.

  Why not push my luck a little more?