by Eliza Green
‘I’m nothing like her. Take that back.’
‘If the shoe fits...’ He stood up. ‘Stop trying to fix my life and concentrate on your own.’
Alex stormed out and into the courtyard, leaving his tray on the table.
His accusation rocked Anya to the core. Where had that come from? The two soldiers got up and followed Alex out.
Everyone watched her. Her hands shook as she dropped both her and Alex’s tray back to the counter. She fought against the blush that stained her cheeks.
‘Screw this.’
She marched through the dining area nestled in a section of the town hall, to the corridor and main foyer. She faced the direction of the battle room she’d been in once, but instead of going there, she turned and left through the town hall’s front door. Assuming the chances of Max letting her in were low, Anya crept to the back of the hall and searched for the window to the battle room.
She found it and saw Max stood in front of a table that had been pushed up against the window. He was speaking to the room. Anya’s heart caught in her throat when she saw Dom. Sheila and June stood either side of him. His hands were stuffed into his pockets. He looked distracted, staring at the floor.
Voices carried through the window’s single pane of glass. Anya turned her head, needing to hear more. That’s when she saw her brother, standing with another boy around his age, with similar, brown hair.
‘Why does Jason get to be in the meeting?’ she muttered.
Anger caused her hands to shake harder. She balled them into fists to deal with it.
She considered storming the room, demanding that Max include her in discussions. But she tempered her impulsive thoughts and observed who else was in the room. Her heart almost jumped out of her chest at the thought of seeing one person. Worse, if that person was being given an elevated status, above her.
She released a tight breath when she couldn’t see Warren. Knowing that Warren breathed the same camp air as her made her want to hide.
The talk permeated through the glass as mumbles. She caught words like machines and magnetic, but the lack of context forced her to abandon her idea to listen. She walked away. Not too far, just to the trucks parked around the grassy patch where she waited for the meeting to finish. It did, about ten minutes later.
Dom emerged first, followed by Sheila and June, who chatted to each other. Dom said something to them, then peeled off and headed for the courtyard where the soldiers trained. Others Anya didn’t know came out next. Her brother emerged last with the young man who’d been standing next to him.
Anya ran to catch up with him. ‘Jason.’
Jason glanced behind him, then at his companion. ‘I’ll meet you there, Thomas.’
Thomas nodded and strode in the direction Dom had just gone.
Anya stared after the skinny boy. ‘He doesn’t look like the exercise type.’
Jason smiled. ‘He’s not. He’s in the tech workshop, in the alley behind the training room. Remember me telling you about it?’
Anya shook her head as Thomas carried on past the entrance to the courtyard. This amnesia must be affecting her short-term memory now. ‘Why wasn’t I in the meeting?’
Jason shrugged. ‘That’s up to Max, not me. Sorry.’
His dismissive reply irritated her. She folded her arms. ‘So what were you talking about?’
‘About how to defend this place.’
She uncrossed her arms. ‘What’s coming?’
She’d expected the city to come looking for the escapees. But who or what would they send?
‘We don’t know. But we need to prepare.’
She wanted, no, she needed to be of use. ‘I can help.’
Jason shook his head. ‘Not with my stuff. You know nothing about electronics.’
That was true. Growing up, Anya had hated anything to do with it.
‘Okay, then, with attack or defence training.’
Jason lifted his palms. ‘Max is the one you need to speak with.’
He walked backwards, ending their conversation.
‘Okay, I will.’
She stomped off and returned to the town hall. This time she headed for the battle room where she found two soldiers chatting outside.
One put their hand out when Anya reached the door. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘I need to speak with Max.’
‘About what?’
Nothing she wanted to discuss with them. ‘I want to help.’
‘Max has enough help. He’ll come find you when he needs you.’
Anya could have kicked and screamed her way inside, but that wouldn’t have helped her cause. She needed distance from Canya and she knew better than to throw a tantrum like Carissa.
‘I’ll find another way to talk to him.’
‘Uh huh. We’ll let him know you called.’
The soldiers smirked at her as though she was a nuisance. They resumed their discussion about guns and training—two things Anya knew more about than them. Her skill in school had centred on sports and training, including with guns.
What she wouldn’t give to show them up at the shooting range.
She returned to the outside, angry and needing to talk to someone, anyone, to help her calm down. She settled for Alex. Anya spotted his guards first, stood close to the perimeter fence marking the boundary line between the occupied compound and the rest of the town. She startled when June appeared from behind the last building. Anya hid as she strode up to the guards. June had a quick word with the guards, who nodded at her and left. Then June disappeared out of sight.
Anya crept up to the corner of the building, hearing June’s and Alex’s voices the closer she got. She stopped at the corner and listened.
‘That was so cool,’ said Alex.
June replied, ‘I’m a rebel too, so they have to listen to me. Don’t worry. They won’t bother you when I’m around.’
‘I guess I’ll have to keep you around all the time, huh?’
Anya could hear Alex’s smile in his words.
June’s soft laugh punched a fist-sized hole in Anya’s heart. She backtracked from the scene before she made one of her own and tried to control her frantic breaths. She walked around the compound, a fraction of the size of her hometown Brookfield. While the camp’s size wasn’t tiny, the close quarters were already making her feel claustrophobic.
Everywhere she went, she sensed hostility from soldiers she’d never met before. Max’s choice to exclude her from matters wasn’t helping her transition from amnesiac to prisoner to rebel. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t remember.
Not only that, but having to keep track of Warren’s movements filled her with a sense of dread. It was only a matter of time before she bumped into him. Maybe he’d play it smart and stay away from her. Up until now, Alex had been her buffer; Warren might be less likely to approach her if she had company. But she’d just lost him to June.
Anya rubbed her arms as a sudden chill caught hold. Feeling vulnerable and alone, she hurried to a busier location. Her journey took her down a street with a barber shop. She touched her hair, tied back in a low ponytail. It had grown too long and lost its style. She walked up to the window, but the shop was empty, Anya turned away, disappointed.
A voice behind her startled her. ‘Looking for a haircut?’
She spun round to see Charlie, Max’s father, standing there and sporting a friendly smile.
‘I, uh...’
Charlie opened the door to the shop and gestured for her to enter. ‘I don’t bite. Plus, I dispense free advice, and you look like you need some.’
Anya hesitated, but only for a moment. She needed company more than advice. Being alone right now scared her.
Charlie pointed to the only seat that was an actual barber’s chair. ‘Sit.’
She did and stared at her brown hair in the mirror with a crack running through its centre. The tiled floor was swept clean, in contrast to the dustiness of the counters. It must have
been some time since anyone had used this space.
Charlie pulled out the band from her hair and ruffled it. The action sparked a memory.
She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘I know you.’
Charlie smiled. ‘We never met before you came here.’
But the memory stuck with her. Someone else was getting a haircut, someone with hair the same length as hers was now.
‘No, I remember. You cut someone’s hair in your kitchen. I was watching through the window. I wasn’t supposed to be there.’
Charlie’s hand stilled in her hair. ‘What kind of hair?’
She frowned in her effort to remember. Then the image came to her. ‘Dreadlocks, I think.’
Charlie laughed and picked up a comb, then ran it through her hair. ‘I remember. That happened while we were in Essention.’ He wagged the comb at her. ‘I thought I heard someone at the back of my property.’
She held his gaze. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to spy.’
He smiled and shook his head at her through the mirror. ‘I don’t think you understand. That, my girl, is one of your lost memories.’
A weight lifted off her shoulders, but soon returned when she thought about what else she’d forgotten. Sadness returned to her eyes. It wasn’t enough.
Charlie shook her shoulders as if to break her out of it. ‘That’s a good thing, Anya. It means your memories are not completely gone.’
He combed out her hair. The action felt good. She hadn’t done anything with it for too long.
‘I suppose. But it still feels like I’m missing so much.’
‘Do you remember anything else?’ Charlie got out a water bottle and sprayed her hair wet. ‘Sorry, no sinks or running water in the camp. I can’t wash your hair.’
She hadn’t shared the memory Canya had returned to her with anyone. But it crippled her so much that she had to tell someone. ‘I remember one event with one of the boys who came here.’
‘Good or bad? I don’t need details if you’d prefer not to say.’
She swallowed. ‘Bad.’
‘Do you want to say who it is?’
She shook her head. She could deal with this—she should deal with this—on her own.
‘I’ll figure it out.’
The water weighed her head down. Charlie sectioned out her hair until he had separated the top and side parts from the back. ‘How short do you want to go?’
Anya hadn’t given it much thought; she’d only wanted company. ‘Have at it.’
Charlie chopped the dead weight from her head. With the loss of her hair came a lightening of her mood.
‘So what else is bothering you?’ Charlie pressed the scissors to his chest. ‘Don’t worry. My barber shop is a sacred space.’
Anya bit her lip. ‘Max had a meeting in the battle room and I wasn’t invited.’
‘Maybe he doesn’t want to put too much on your plate.’
‘But I need to be useful. I need... distractions.’
‘From this boy?’
Anya stared at her lap and concentrated on the sound of the scissors, metal against metal making fine snips into the ends of her hair. She looked up in alarm when she saw Charlie had cut quite a bit off.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said when he caught her expression. ‘I’m very good at what I do.’
Anya slumped in the chair. ‘I need for my time in Praesidium to count for something. I need to make the Collective pay, not only for stealing my memories but for killing my parents. Above all, I need for the right individuals to escape Max’s punishment. Not all the Copies are bad. One helped us to escape.’
Charlie paused with the scissors in the air. ‘And you’re worried Max will run in there and kill them all?’
‘They were prisoners as much as I was. It’s not fair to kill them when they have no control over their lives. That was Alex in there. That was me for a time.’
Charlie continued chopping with the scissors, applying speed and dexterity to his cuts. ‘Your main priority is to work on restoring your memories. The fight with the Collective won’t happen without you, of that I’m certain. Your time there is valuable, but Vanessa believes your parents might have inadvertently shared key information with you.’
Anya jerked her head up. ‘Like what?’
Charlie snapped his scissors out of the danger zone. ‘Like a place called the Beyond. A safe zone that exists outside of the control of the machines. When this is all over, or if we can’t defeat the machines, we’ll need to go there.’
The Beyond. Could there really be a map to a safe zone somewhere inside her head?
8
Carissa
Carissa woke to the feel of something wet on her face. A part metal tongue slathered her in saliva. She jerked awake and scooted back from her attacker.
Rover panted like a dog as he assessed her with mild curiosity. Not that long ago, she’d feared these magnificent beasts, created by the Collective to serve the Collective. She’d witnessed the same Guardians supervise the participants in Arcis when she’d watched them through the city’s screens. From afar, they’d appeared to be menacing. Similar beasts that had also patrolled the business district and the perimeter in the city had kept her well away from it. Carissa hadn’t been brave enough to test out how friendly they were.
Until now.
The Inventor’s creation, under his command, had broken down her defences. She’d fallen asleep next to the beast with no thought for her own safety. And the Guardian had woken her with a tongue bath.
Carissa watched Rover, who was sitting up now, looking more alert than he’d been when she’d first arrived. Maybe the wolf was just lonely. She understood loneliness. Rover had been separated from his master. Carissa had lost the only family she knew.
Despite her promise to the Inventor, she searched for her connection to Quintus and the family she’d left behind, despite her chip no longer working. Still, a deep-seated curiosity drove her to seek out a sliver of her old life.
She searched for the ringing to indicate a connection had been made. She hunted for the voices of the other Copies that had melded into a singular hum, before she’d been forced out of the city. Carissa squeezed her eyes shut and grunted with the effort to connect.
Nothing. She opened her eyes and huffed.
Rover watched her, curious in disposition. His rigid mouth indicated new tension, as though he understood what she was trying to do. She made another attempt, but the same silence greeted her.
Rover slid back down to the floor, as if he, too, had given up. He rested his metallic head on his paws once more. Defeated, Carissa sat down beside him, beside her only real connection to the city and the only living beast that truly understood her. She patted his exoskeleton, made of the strongest metal known to the Collective. The action emitted a rumble from deep inside his lungs.
Alex wasn’t like her. He was a Breeder, born human, his growth and maturity accelerated so fast that years passed in months. He had no NMC, no way to communicate with the Collective. To Quintus, he’d been nothing more than a vessel with which the Ten could create their army and break free from their machine prison. The Collective had used the Originals, or humans, to learn how to interact when it gained that freedom.
Jerome was a newborn, a creation without an NMC who shouldn’t have been able to survive alone. Carissa had been a newborn for a week, before she reached maturity and gained the neuromorphic chip that put her on the same network as the other Copies. She had no memory of her time as a newborn, no experience of living without voices in her head.
But Jerome did.
She got up, prompting a similar reaction from Rover. The Guardian wolf whined when she started for the door.
‘I’ll be back, boy. You and I need to stick together now.’
The wolf barked once. She hated leaving him, but he also had to get used to being alone.
Carissa stepped out into the bright sunshine, spotting her female soldier escorts straight away. They looked bored sitting on th
e ground, but they clambered to their feet as soon as she approached. Carissa strode past them, her chin lifted high to convey her status. Quintus had said Originals were of lesser importance than the Copies who’d been created to transcend them.
Her chest swelled upon remembering his teaching. This might be a new prison for her, but she didn’t have to act like a prisoner. She searched the compound for Jerome, finding him in the building with the open front on the same street as the barber shop. The storage area was one of a few she’d seen in the compound. This one was crammed with more common items the rebels had collected, from hairbrushes to soap to spare boots.
Jerome worked alongside Warren. Together, they sorted through new stock from a box on the floor.
Carissa stared at Warren, the strawberry blond haired boy with freckles who had hurt Anya and acted selfishly in Arcis. Her skin prickled with anger when Warren glanced at her then down at the box of equipment, as though she deserved only a second of his time.
Jerome, the boy with skin as dark as his hair, looked up at her and gave her a nod. ‘You’re Carissa, right?’
‘Yeah.’
Warren’s attention shifted suddenly from the box to her.
‘I don’t think we’ve met properly. I’m Jerome and this is Warren.’
She ignored Warren, not liking the intensity his look held.
She pretended she was back in Praesidium speaking to one of the Originals there. ‘I require a moment of your time, Jerome.’
‘She’s very formal,’ said Warren with a sneer. ‘What’s the matter, you think you’re still in the city?’
Carissa ignored Warren’s attempts to undermine her. She waited for Jerome’s answer.
He replied with a shrug and told Warren he’d be right back.
Warren replied with a shrug of his own. ‘Your funeral.’
Jerome stepped outside and onto the street. Carissa pulled him away from the storage area and the barber shop.
‘I wanted to talk to you about something,’ she said.
Jerome frowned at her. ‘Okay.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I want to know how you do it.’
