Caged (The Idyllic Series Book 1)

by Amy Johnson

  Yet, I have been given a command.

  The nanos rush through my veins like bees, crawling under my skin and wrapping themselves around my spine. I focus on the feeling of them repairing my wound--the gentle tugging and hammering. It sends goosebumps down my shoulders and neck, causing me to close my eyes.

  When they stop moving, my mind kicks itself back into gear and pushes me up off the ground. I stare down at the bloodstain on the white marble of the fountain and touch the base of my spine. My hand returns coated in red blood. Yet, I feel nothing anymore. The pain has disappeared.

  “Go, Drei,” Null commands, tapping his foot. The vibrations find me, and I take shaky steps away from him and toward the Anthros.

  “Run!” he screams, causing me to tremble.

  My body does as it is told and breaks out into a sprint.

  What am I doing? Why can’t I fight back? How will I ever defeat him when I can’t control myself?

  Finding an Artificial proves easy. One stands outside the front gate of the Anthros, staring out at Druxy below. I wave a hand in front of its face, but it remains motionless.

  Linux’s plan worked on them as well.

  I make a mental note to give him a hug if I ever see him again. He’s succeeded when all I’ve done is fail over and over again. I pushed my luck one step too far this time. I should have gotten the Luddites out and ran as far away from here as possible.

  Now, I’m stuck under Null’s thumb.

  I yank the gun extension out of the Artificial’s weaponized arm and press it tight against my body as I sprint back toward Null. The glass from the domes crunches like thirsty blades of grass under my feet. I weave through the labyrinth of cybernetics, sliding to a stop in front of Null.

  He holds his hand out for the weapon and, without hesitation, I pass it to him.

  “Good, girl,” he says, smiling at me. “Now, kneel down again.”

  I do, this time sitting on my feet.

  Null points the gun at me. It presses into the soft skin of my temple.

  “I’ll let you in on a secret,” he whispers as he crouches down in front of me. “Idyllic have one weak point. I designed them in such a way that they aren’t wholly invincible. You see, I needed a way to terminate them in case of an unfortunate turn of events.

  “I can’t have you running around with my technology freeing humans. Your mind won’t be satisfied with destroying this Anthropological Park. You will hunger for more, starve to death for someone else to save. You will be unstoppable; I made you that way.

  “So, you understand that I have to kill you, right? It is a terrible waste of potential, but I can’t have you tarnishing my name. You’ve already done enough damage.”

  With that, he stands back up and tosses the gun down in front of me. I look up at him, swallowing the knot rising in my throat.

  Real fear wracks my body. It causes my hands to shake.

  “Pick it up,” he commands, and I lean forward to wrap one hand around the handle. “Press it to your temple.” My elbow bends and brings the gun up to the tender spot. “It only takes one bullet. I could do it myself, but I would rather feel the satisfaction of watching you kill yourself.”

  He walks back to the top of the steps and smiles down at me.

  “Go ahead,” he says. “Kill yourself, Drei.”

  I gasp for air, and my entire body shakes.

  No.

  God, no.

  I clench my eyes shut as my finger wraps itself around the trigger. The cold metal breaks through my panic. The barrel of the gun matches it in temperature. It vibrates against my skin, scratching like sandpaper against plastic.

  An animalistic scream pierces the air around me.

  My eyes shoot open, and I release the trigger.

  Something sprints across the clearing and slams into Null with incredible force. It sends both of them to the ground in a blur. When they roll to a stop, I catch sight of two things that steal the breath that’s already caught in my throat--faded blues of tattoos and a worn-out gray hoodie.

  “Cyrus!” I scream, watching as my brother’s hood falls off to reveal a neck full of colorful tattoos. His face burns red and twists in rage.

  Null’s face portrays more surprise than I thought it capable of.

  Cyrus swings for Null’s face, landing his punch square to the jaw. His fist bounces off and he roars in anger and pain. Null simply laughs and pushes Cyrus off with one bored shove.

  Cyrus hits the ground hard, and his breath leaves him in one short rush. Null climbs back to his feet, driving a kick into my brother’s ribcage.

  “Cyrus! No!” I scream, dropping the gun to the pavement.

  My desire to protect him overrides the command to kill myself. Panic rises like a tsunami in my chest and I scramble to my feet. The control Null has over me is weakened under the thought of him hurting Cyrus. I have to remember: I’m still a human in my head. Those memories are stronger than the nanos.

  “Stay!” Null commands, causing me to trip over my leaden feet as my body attempts to do as he says. I hit the pavement on all fours and crane my neck to see Null jerk Cyrus up by the arm.

  “Don’t you dare touch him,” I growl as my entire body begins to shake.

  “Is he someone important to you? This little human?”

  He gives Cyrus a shake, but the boy only turns and kicks him in the ribcage. Null cocks one eyebrow at him, chuckling.

  “Tell me, Drei. Who is this?”

  I clamp my mouth shut, feeling the words pressing upwards out of my core.

  He can’t know who Cyrus is. I’ve already given too much away by panicking when he appeared.

  “Drei. I command you to tell me who this Cyrus boy is.”

  I clench my eyes closed, fighting the army of nanos trying to break down my willpower. Not Cyrus. I have to power through for him.

  “Fine,” Null says in a flat tone. Cyrus screams, and I jerk my eyes open.

  My brother lays on the steps of the administration building, arm twisted at an unnatural angle behind his back. Blood pools on the stairs, and a white bone protrudes from the bend in his forearm. He pushes himself off the concrete, face twisting in agony as he scoots forward off the stairs.

  Null takes the steps two at a time, lifts his foot, and places it firmly on the back of Cyrus’s head. He squishes Cyrus’s face against the ground, turning the boy a dozen shades of pink. His lips pucker out, and he closes his eyes against the pain.

  “Stop! Please,” I beg as I gasp for breath. I can feel Cyrus’s heartbeat through the ground as it races in fear.

  “Tell me who he is,” Null says with a shrug.

  “He’s my brother,” I admit, lowering my head in defeat.

  “Oh, well, in that case--”

  He swings his foot back and kicks Cyrus in the side of the head. The boy rolls away from him, spitting blood and saliva onto the ground.

  “Eden, please,” he whispers, gargling the huge amounts of blood rising in his throat. They spew forth and coat the front of his chin and neck. My body jerks with animalistic sobs. I clench my hands into fists, unable to tear my eyes away from him again.

  “I’m so sorry,” I mumble, but the words are lost as Cyrus screams again. Null continues to kick him around the pavement in front of me.

  “I’m bored,” Null blurts out, leaning down and grabbing the front of Cyrus’s shirt. He sets the wobbling boy onto his feet. Cyrus’s body sags forward, but he manages to stand upright. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  Null places one hand on each side of Cyrus’s head, forcing him to look into Null’s eyes. Cyrus stares at him with a disgusted expression--as much as he can through the swelling and bruising.

  “Say your goodbyes, Drei,” Null says, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

  “Don’t you dare,” I hiss, baring my teeth. Hot tears soak my cheeks and plaster strands of black hair to my porcelain skin. Through the curtains of black, the world turns red.

  If he hurts C
yrus, it’s over.

  “Is that really the last thing you want him to hear you say? Choose your words wisely.”

  I glare at him, but Cyrus turns his eyes toward me. His lips move, and I stretch my hearing further to catch the whispers that flutter out of them.

  “I love you, Eden. It’s okay,” he whispers, and I let out a strangled sob. “Mom and Dad would be so proud of you. Don’t give up now.”

  “No, no, no,” I mumble, fighting my own mind’s command to shut down and bend to Null’s will. The gun sits within arms reach, waiting on me to pick it up. One bullet aimed directly at my head. That’s all it would take. I’m supposed to be killing myself.

  I can’t, though.

  There are twenty-eight people counting on me to deliver them.

  Cyrus is counting on me, too.

  One bullet.

  That’s all it would take to kill Null.

  If my hand would just move a few inches to the right. Thinking about moving, though, brings a fire to my muscles that threatens to throw me into unconsciousness.

  I look back up at my brother, taking in the mud of his eyes. I see years of digging through dry dirt and repotting pathetic vegetables. I see the precise slices of his blade through tomatoes and his dirty fingernails as he turns the page of his Holland book. His laughter as he slides across the frozen river, his smile when I return safely from another mission, and his comforting embrace when I begin to panic in the overwhelming small of the Underground flit through my mind like a flip book of images.

  If anyone deserves to live, it’s him. Not me.

  “I love you, too, Cyrus,” I manage to spit out, fighting against my trembling lips and shaking arms.

  “Isn’t that sweet?” Null whispers as he looks back at Cyrus. “Humans are pathetic.”

  With that, he sets his face into a solid, emotionless slate.

  “Actually, Drei,” Null says slowly, glancing over at me. “Why don’t you pick up that gun?”

  The muscles in my arms tense, and the sound of machinery grinding in his metal arm assaults my ears. I recognize my own mechanics turning. My hands move without warning. They find the gun and hold it in front of me.

  “Why don’t you do the honors?” Null asks as he takes a few steps down towards me. He holds Cyrus in front of him like a shield.

  No. He can’t be serious.

  Yet, with every heavy footstep against the concrete, reality sinks deeper and deeper in.

  I have been given a command. There’s nothing I can do about it.

  Null brings Cyrus to my level and grabs my hand. He positions it so that the barrel of the gun rests against my brother’s temple. Tears stream down my face, but the nanos don’t allow my body to tremble. Every fiber of my being is screaming for me to stop, to drop the gun, and to run.

  “Shoot the boy, Drei,” Null commands, and the nanos rush through my body to bend to his will. I grit my teeth and shake my head violently. The movement sends fire down my spine and pain down my arms. I shouldn’t be moving.

  I can’t do this.

  Not Cyrus.

  Please, not Cyrus.

  “Drei,” Null prods, but the gun just quivers in my hand. My finger tightens on the trigger, but my mental resolve is fading. The nanos back off, and the gun moves an inch away from Cyrus.

  I can do this. I can overcome the hold Null has on me.

  “Fine,” he barks, jerking Cyrus away from me. The gun slips out of my hand and skids across the concrete. Null holds Cyrus’s head between his hands. My brother’s face twists in pain as the muscles in Null’s arms tense and strain.

  A macabre pop fills the air, but I can’t look away. Both sides of his head cave in at Null’s touch, and blood rushes down the sides of his face. There’s no explosion of pink material, but the skull rises up in the center. Cyrus’s eyes sink in before he falls to the ground, limp. The red liquid continues to pool around his head and my knees.

  Seeing him dead pushes my mind into overdrive. The nanos grapple for the intense rage building up in me and morph it into insanity. I dive for the gun, throw myself across the short space, and tackle Null.

  The man roars in surprise, reaching for the gun in my hand, but I’m infinitely faster.

  I take a deep breath and listen to his heart beating at a snail’s speed in his chest. I feel his mechanics under me vibrate. The heat of his body sinks through my skin, furthering the illusion that I’m on fire.

  I press the gun against his temple, grounded by the ice-cold trigger on my index finger.

  “I warned you,” I growl, and the gun quakes as I fight the tremors rolling over my body. “No one hurts my brother.”

  My finger closes on the trigger at the same time that the words leave my lips. Null’s eyes go wide as the bullet slices cleanly through the skin, spraying blood and clear lubricant across the both of us. I feel the bullet grind through his reinforcements and sink into the soft, weak muscle beneath.

  He opens his mouth, and a hiss of air escapes. The stench of oil wraps itself around me, blending with the copper scent of blood already surrounding me. His eyes roll back as he falls limp below me.

  I let out a long sigh, and a weight lifts off my chest. The rage settles into the empty spaces of my body as the nanos relent.

  I killed Null.

  But he killed Cyrus.

  I push myself to my feet and turn on my toes slowly to face Cyrus’s body.

  Chapter 22: Metanoia

  Eden

  My library of knowledge defines eternity as “infinite or unending time.” It can also mean “a state in which time has no meaning”. It comes from the Latin word aeternus meaning “without beginning or end.” In a theological sense, it’s a state of being after death.

  All I know is that an eternity passes as I stare down at the body of my only brother, my only family, all I had left, lying on the concrete of the Anthros. His pallid skin juxtaposes with the black surface, paired with the pile of cherry red blood still spreading beneath him.

  This can’t be happening.

  I fall to my knees and breathe in hungry gasps of air.

  It’s not enough. I don’t deserve to breathe. I couldn’t protect him.

  Why am I a machine if I couldn’t protect him?

  “Oh, God,” I whisper as I crawl towards him on my hands and knees. Blood splashes up my hands, splattering across the front of my shirt like confetti.

  His eyes stare up at me, stuck in an open position. The black pupils lack life and have already turned a murky gray color.

  I wrap my arms around his shoulders and drag him up into my lap. Blood streaks across my black pants as I cradle his head and stroke his hair.

  “I’m so sorry, Cyrus,” I whisper, over and over again, rocking back and forth as I continue to sob. The four words repeat on an endless loop while we’re trapped in our torturous eternity.

  The skin around his skull bears heavy gashes, and the sides of his skull sink in unnaturally. Blood coats my palms as they rest on each of his cheeks, begging and pleading for him to wake up.

  “Please,” I sob, lowering my face down and pressing my forehead into his, “I can’t do this on my own. I need you. I’ve always needed you.”

  Yet, his temperature drops to record lows the longer we sit on the pavement, until my hands feel as if they’ve been dipped in ice. The Anthros falls into thick night, illuminated by Druxy waking up in the distance. Street lights blink to life and cast yellow beams of eerie light down upon us.

  The machines’ silence clings to us.

  No grinding of service machines working. No hydraulics of motion technology. No chatter of Artificial and cybernetics. Even the music has died, and natural night envelops us.

  Birds chirp in the distance, brought to life by my enhanced senses. Below the ground, whispered voices sprint back and forth on the balls of hurried feet. Crickets are aroused from their sleep to sing a song of tranquility written in low, continuous heartbeats. A hungry raccoon ruffles through an empty trash bin
in the distance, hissing in disappointment.

  “Do you hear that?” I whisper to Cyrus, closing my eyes to focus on the symphony around me. “It’s Sara’s world. It’s like they’re celebrating the termination of the machines.”

  How long will this last?

  Hoping for an eternity of quiet seems too optimistic and unrealistic.

  I can’t keep sitting here, though. If the machines wake up and see me sitting in a pool of blood beside a demolished Idyllic, they’ll kill me, and as much as I want to die, I can’t.

  Twenty-eight people mill around below the ground.

  Cyrus was counting on me to lead them to safety.

  I won’t disappoint him. Never again.

  With careful, precise hands, I lift Cyrus up and press his head against my shoulder. I tuck his hands into his lap and carry him, bridal style, through the horde of immobilized machines. We pass under the gate and into the streets of Druxy before the atmosphere around me changes.

  Clicking replaces the cricket’s dirge, coupled with beeping and hissing. Gears turn, slamming into one another in a slow rhythm. Liquid floods through thin plastic tubes and jumpstarts fake hearts made of synthetic fiber and metal caging. Computer chips whir back to life to animate the cybernetics one at a time.

  The sounds snowball around me and drown out nature’s farewell to Cyrus.

  I push forward, not bothering to pick up the pace.

  I dare them to come after me.

  The streets prove easy to maneuver, illuminated by the countless billboards and screens that flash images of different human faces. My own face joins them, but it’s my old face. The electric blue eyes cast onto the screens lack the silver ring.

  I risk several glances up as I hurry through the thickening crowds of machines.

  Knox and Mason.

  Subject 12. Teddy. The exhibits.

  The machines move fast; I’ll give them credit for that. They’ve put out all-points bulletins for every Luddite and exhibit missing in Druxy. I stick to the shadows to hide Cyrus from their lustful eyes.