by Eliza Green
The Inventor stirred from his deep thought. It gave Carissa hope.
He turned to Jason and Thomas. ‘I’m worried the power surge from the node might overload her circuitry.’
The what?
Thomas slid the cap closer to him. ‘I can add a circuit to limit the input and output.’
‘Do it,’ said the Inventor, before turning to Carissa. ‘Now, miss, if I’d put this thing on you, it might have killed you. Patience is never a bad thing.’
Carissa’s mechanical heart beat to a near frenzy. She swallowed hard. Thomas made an adjustment that took another half an hour, but this time Carissa could wait.
When the cap was ready, the Inventor ordered her to sit in a chair closer to the workbench where the power node sat. She did, but what came next made her hands shake. What if it didn’t work? Worse, what if it killed her?
She looked up at the Inventor for some reassurance. He smiled down at her like this was no big deal. ‘You look like you’re about to bolt from the room. I’m just glad Rover’s in the storage shed otherwise he might not let me do this. Relax, child.’
Carissa took a deep breath and faced forward. She closed her eyes, feeling the cap slide over her hair. She heard someone fiddle with some knobs, then the Inventor say, ‘Crank it up slowly. Let’s start with a low energy burst.’
A what? Before Carissa could ask, the cap delivered a jolt to her synapses. They fired wildly inside her head, making her skin tingle.
‘Oh!’ The word rushed out of her.
The Inventor’s hand on her shoulder soothed her. ‘Are you okay, miss?’
She opened her eyes and nodded at him.
With a smile, she said, ‘More. I can take it.’
Thomas turned the dial on the monitoring machine up another notch.
Then he pressed a button. She gripped the arms of the chair. The new jolt caused her head to shake. She steadied herself against the power.
‘More.’
She sucked in a breath and steeled herself against the next hit.
But the Inventor touched her arm. ‘Slow down, miss. Now, try to think back to before you became a Copy, to your time as a newborn. What do you remember?’
Carissa released her breath and concentrated on any memories that preceded her first one as a Copy: when she’d found herself on a table in the medical facility in Praesidium. A medic had looked down at her. She’d felt her voice inside her head. A second voice, belonging to a male named Quintus, had congratulated her on her Copy status. While she hadn’t seen him, it had felt like she already knew him and the other nine just like him.
Carissa tried to think further back, but the memories lacked clarity and she struggled to make a connection. She shook her head.
The Inventor patted her arm. ‘One more, Thomas.’
Thomas clicked one more notch on the dial. This time, the energy burst shook her bones, right down to her ankles. She gritted her teeth against the pain and exhaled. Not waiting for the Inventor’s command, Carissa thought back to those loose memories from before. One drifted away from the pack and called to her.
It was of Mags, the Inventor’s wife. Carissa had just broken her favourite figurine. Amid her telling off, Carissa remembered feeling more smug than sorry at having broken it. Mags hadn’t been as easy-going as the Inventor. But the repercussions of her actions had hit home when an upset and angry Inventor had returned.
She opened her eyes and stared up at the Inventor.
‘Well?’ he said, his eyes round.
She swiped at her tears and fought against the lump in her throat. More memories of that time hit her, all of her giving Mags a hard time. All reminding her of how selfishly Canya—Anya’s double—had behaved. How badly Carissa had behaved to someone the Inventor had loved.
‘What’s wrong, miss? Did the shock hurt you?’
Still wearing the cap, she stood up and wrapped her arms around the Inventor’s middle. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Tears stained the Inventor’s overalls.
He stroked her head. ‘Sorry about what? That it didn’t work? Don’t worry. Jason, Thomas and I won’t give up.’
She pulled away and sniffed. ‘Not that. About how I treated Mags. I... I was... horrible.’
She bawled louder than she’d ever done before. The sound surprised her, as all of her newborn’s emotions as well as the memories hit her. Carissa buried her face in the Inventor’s belly.
He shook her gently and said, ‘Come on, now. That was a long time ago. Mags didn’t hold grudges.’
Carissa sniffed her latest tears away and looked up. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. But you know what?’
‘What?’
The Inventor grinned and cupped her face. ‘We’ve just found a way to reverse the memory wipe.’
31
Anya
Anya felt lost that morning, wondering how she might help the rebels’ efforts against the city. Vanessa had finally cornered her last night and forced her to talk about her time at home. She needn’t have bothered. She still couldn’t pinpoint any specific mention her parents might have made of the coordinates to the Beyond, or a person holding that same information. She had apologised to the woman who’d been a friend to her parents. She wanted to do this for her—for all of them.
‘Maybe the memory wipe has affected your recollection of certain things,’ Vanessa had suggested.
Anya had shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
She couldn’t bring herself to tell her it was possible her parents had never discussed the issue. Max and the others were counting on her. If she revealed her doubts, it could crush everyone’s hopes.
The responsibility on her shoulders weighed her down. But last night had been difficult for another reason. She’d seen Dom, a young man she didn’t remember but whom her subconscious refused to let go. She’d also seen Kaylie, a woman as beautiful as Sheila, watch him throughout training. Something primal had stirred in her belly at the attention she gave him.
To focus on something else, she’d shown Warren, Alex and Jerome how to shoot again. But she was distracted by the fact Jacob, Jason and Thomas were busy building a machine that might or might not access her wiped memories.
Given the failure of her attempts with Carissa, she didn’t hold out much hope for that.
But Kaylie’s attention bothered Anya for reasons her mind refused to explain to her. That morning in the dining hall as she sat down with her food, her suspicions about their connection intensified. She overheard Kaylie telling Sheila she’d been in Dom’s room last night.
‘I don’t know,’ Kaylie said to Sheila. ‘I think he just needs time. If I leave him alone, I think he’ll come around to the idea of the two of us.’
Sheila shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Kaylie. What happened in the city was traumatic for all of us. I don’t know what he’s feeling anymore.’
Kaylie nodded and played with her food. ‘That’s why I’m giving him space. He didn’t say there was anyone else, so that means I still have a chance.’
Anya’s food lost all taste after hearing that.
Sheila caught her eye for a brief second. Anya blushed and concentrated on her food. To her relief, their conversation switched from boys to training.
Her out-of-control emotions should make her hate Kaylie, but she didn’t. The young woman hadn’t spread rumours or tried to ruin Anya’s good name. But then, she didn’t know about the three months spent in Essention with Arcis at its centre, or the vague memories of Dom that had surfaced to remind Anya he might have been someone to her.
She dropped her tray back and took a walk outside. Aside from being excluded from most discussions, she didn’t want to bump into Dom. That would only open up a new discussion about things she couldn’t recall.
Carissa startled her by racing out of the alleyway. She was headed straight for her.
Jacob ran after her, puffing and out of breath. ‘Slow down, miss. Don’t frighten her.’
The girl ran up to Anya, eyes wide a
nd a big smile on her face. Anya had never seen the Copy so animated before.
She tucked her hands behind her. ‘We have something for you.’
Had Jacob been successful? She lifted her cautious gaze to him. When he gave her a nod, tears welled in her eyes.
Jason came running up next. ‘Okay, sis. Time to see if our experiment works on you too.’
The Copy grabbed her hand and led her to the workshop. Anya looked around, worried that either Vanessa or Max would see and drill her for more information about the Beyond. But to her relief, the streets were empty and the dining hall was full.
‘I don’t want anyone to know about this until we’re sure it works,’ she said to Jason.
‘Our secret for now.’
Carissa’s hand felt cold in hers as she dragged her along. ‘Come on, it only hurts a bit.’
Anya glanced at Jason in worry. ‘What hurts a bit?’
Jason laughed while Jacob clucked his tongue at Carissa.
‘Not hurt, I meant pinch,’ said Carissa in an attempt to undo her mistake.
But Anya didn’t care. She would take whatever pain the machine offered, if it meant regaining a lost part of her.
Carissa pulled her into the workshop. A chair sat next to a trestle table with three monitors on it. On the table, a swimming cap with protruding wires appeared to be connected to a round, black energy source. Anya looked around for the replication machine that she’d expected Jacob to build.
‘Where is it? Is it in the shed next door?’
Maybe it was too big to wheel into this space.
Jason shook his head while Jacob picked up the cap.
He shook it gently. ‘This is it.’
Anya stared at the simple mechanism, not seeing how it would do anything. The machine in Arcis had been huge and imposing, according to anyone who’d seen it. How could a tiny cap undo its work?
‘Sit, please,’ said Jacob.
‘Okay...’
She slid into the seat amid four pairs of eager eyes, and waited for Jacob to explain.
‘I gave up on the idea of building a replication machine in favour of this. It’s a neural stimulator and the idea is that it jolts the active neurons in your brain to get them firing. Some part of your brain is on memory lockdown, and that means hibernation or possibly retrograde amnesia. So, with a burst of power, we hope to do for you what we did for Carissa.’
Anya looked at the excited Copy.
‘The Inventor, I mean Jacob, tried it on me. I remember my time as a newborn.’
Anya stared at her. Would it be that easy?
Jacob slipped the cap over her head and ordered Thomas, who sat at the workbench, to turn the dial up one notch. Anya waited nervously, remembering Carissa’s outburst about this hurting. A small jolt was delivered through the discs that connected to her head. It felt no worse than a static shock. She tried to remember something from Arcis, but nothing came to her.
‘Anything?’ said Jacob.
Anya shook her head.
He nodded. ‘Okay, we’ll take this slow. I don’t want to hurt you.’
There was that word again. Anya gripped the chair as Thomas clicked the dial up by one. He hit something and a zap pierced her skin.
‘Ow!’ she said.
‘Try again, Anya,’ said Jacob. ‘I don’t know how far we need to crank this dial up.’
She focused on the block of time that had eluded her thus far. Other than the couple of memories, including Warren’s attack on her and Dom’s haircut, she couldn’t remember anything. She shook her head a second time, trying to temper her own expectations.
‘Again.’
Jacob nodded to Thomas, who twisted the dial.
She braced for the next hit, which delivered a short, sharp prick of pain.
‘Shit...’ she muttered, gritting against the jolt that she hoped wouldn’t do any permanent damage. ‘Are you sure this is safe?’
Jacob patted her on the shoulder. ‘Nothing in this world is safe anymore. But we need to try this.’
She agreed and tried to recall something from her past. Nothing came to her.
‘Are you okay?’ said Jason.
Anya nodded. ‘No worse than the times Arcis shocked me, I guess.’ She settled into her chair and braced for the next hit. ‘Let’s try this again.’
But when Thomas didn’t turn the dial and the others stared at her, she blinked in surprise. ‘What?’
‘What did you just say?’ said Carissa.
She didn’t understand. ‘I said I got shocked.’
‘By Arcis,’ said the Copy.
‘Yeah, so?’
She didn’t see what the big deal was.
‘That happened in Arcis,’ said a smiling Carissa.
The time it had first happened hit her. The shooting pain she’d experienced due to her failure to keep to a timed schedule.
‘Did I just remember something from Arcis?’
Jacob grinned. ‘I think you did, young lady. What else do you remember?’
Anya closed her eyes and concentrated, but that one memory masked any others. She opened her eyes. ‘That’s the only thing.’
‘Then what say you to another blast?’
Elation warmed her as she agreed to more torture.
Thomas clicked the dial one higher and this time Anya welcomed the pain. It shuddered and shook her so hard, she almost bit her tongue. A new memory trickled through. This one was of the ground floor and the wolves. Then another of the food fight on the first floor. Tahlia’s death on the same floor hit her hard, then Frank’s on the third. Warren’s competitiveness from the ground floor and his insistence they become allies preceded Dom’s confession to her that he was a rebel. June, another rebel, had been her friend throughout. Sheila’s brashness, which Anya had seen as bitchy, had been a front for something else.
Then her connection with Dom. It was a whisper at first that transformed into a loud roar in her ear. In Praesidium, when she and Alex had gotten closer, she had recalled someone with scars. That person had been Dom. While she hadn’t remembered him, her subconscious had never forgotten.
She bolted up from the chair, alarming Jacob. ‘Are you alright?’
‘Yeah,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve got to go.’
She made it to the door and Carissa asked, ‘Did it work?’
Anya paused and turned to Jacob, Carissa, Jason and Thomas. All four waited for her answer.
She smiled and left the room.
32
Anya
Anya rushed out the door of the workshop, her hands shaking as a torrent of new memories, feelings and emotions invaded her mind. Her time in Essention and Arcis knitted together like the pieces of a puzzle.
Tahlia’s death hit her the hardest. She’d been to blame for that, scuppering her chances to reach the terminal on the first floor so the rest of them could improve their chances to rotate. Frank’s death, while gruesome, had not been her fault. She’d done everything she could to save him. She remembered Jerome now, Frank’s closest friend. He had forgiven her.
Her feet stumbled over the stony ground in her search for one person. She entered the courtyard, pulse pounding hard in her veins. The yard was full of soldiers but she couldn’t see him. She almost didn’t hear someone calling her name.
‘Anya!’
In a daze, Anya looked round. A concerned Sheila approached her. ‘Are you okay? I was calling you. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ Her eyes widened and she drew in a sharp breath. ‘You have them back?’
Sheila: intuitive and sharp as always.
Anya managed a quick nod, which drew a giggle from Sheila.
‘Holy hell! So how up to speed are you?’
Anya couldn’t think straight as the memories muddled her thoughts. She was still processing. Three months’ worth of information. Three months of hell. And elation.
She pressed her fingers to her head. ‘I’m getting there.’
Sheila folded her arms and flashed her a
cool look. ‘Well, I guess you remember we hated each other.’
Anya smiled. ‘Yeah, I remember.’
Sheila’s face softened into a smile and she punched her on the arm. ‘Now, go find him.’
Anya had no idea where to look next. ‘I thought he’d be here.’
She pointed to the opposite side of the camp. ‘He went to get guns. He’s there with Kaylie.’
The mention of Kaylie made Anya’s blood run cold. ‘Are they an item?’
Sheila rolled her eyes. ‘So what if they are? You gonna let that stop you?’
No. Not after this long.
Anya flashed Sheila a grin. She ran back down the street she’d just come from, taking a right turn at the street that housed Charlie’s barber shop. She slowed as she passed, seeing Charlie inside cutting one of the female soldier’s hair. He looked up and frowned at her. She responded with a grin, to which he smiled and nodded.
Anya approached the end of the street and took a left towards the perimeter fence. She passed several ransacked properties with open-sided entrances that made them perfect for storage and not much else. The last one had people in it. She stopped when she saw Kaylie leaning against a half broken wall, smiling at someone she couldn’t see. Anya walked up to the open entrance, breaking Kaylie’s attention away from Dom, who was bending down to pick up boxes from the floor.
‘Oh hey, Anya. What brings you here?’ she said.
Dom jerked up too fast, banging his head on the lip of the table.
‘I just needed to talk to Dom for a second. Do you mind?’
Kaylie looked between Dom and her, clearly unsure what to do. ‘We were just going through the gun supplies.’
Dom turned around slowly, his expression cool. ‘What’s up, Anya? We’re kind of busy. Can it wait?’
His attitude surprised her. Had Kaylie’s arrival, a person clearly from his past, changed things between them?
It didn’t matter. She hadn’t gone through what she did to give up now.
‘It worked.’
Dom frowned and folded his arms. ‘What did?’
She said nothing, waiting for him to catch up.
