Chapter 9
One morning, straight after breakfast, we are escorted to the gym and told to line up with our units. I quickly pass Gabe on the way to mine.
“What’s going on?” I ask him.
“Sparring tournament. To determine if our rankings are correct. They happen every three months or so.”
He points to a screen overhead, displaying each of the sixty or so chimeras in the room. Adam is at the top, of course. Gabe is second to him. I want to ask if he’s ever managed to beat him, but the question is likely to be met with anger. It’s not worth it.
I remember sparring tournaments. I remember winning them. I don’t remember them being so often, or having much affect on our rankings, but then no one in my group ever went up or down. They were only ever replaced.
Archer, Forrest, Moona. I will not forget them.
“Omegas,” a voice booms, “you’re up first.”
Wordlessly, we move into the three arenas that have been set out for us. The screen flashes to show us who our partners are. They pair me with the biggest, a strong guy with cold, dark eyes. He’s not yet found his place in any group and keeps being reassigned. He fights like a robot. There’s power in each swing, but he moves like he’s been programmed to. He’s predictable and easily bested. I quickly work my way through the omegas, and before long am crawling up the ranks.
Down go Echo-2, Delta-3, Beta-2. Some are more challenging, others easily dispatched. They don’t know how to fight a way outside of instruction. Only one or two I would call resourceful.
I almost feel sorry for them. An opportunity to move up in the ranks clearly doesn’t present itself often. Some will have trained for it, longed for it.
And there she is, Eve again, festering in the back of my mind. They should have worked harder.
“Beta-6, please join the Omega in the circle.”
Adam’s pet steps into my arena. Her entire face lights up; I am the opponent she wanted. One of the scientists nearby glances at her, registering the hunger in her eyes.
“Usual tournament rules, Beta-6. Don’t go overboard.”
She sighs, folding her arms crossly, like a child told they’re not allowed any more treats. She’s too old to act this way, surely?
“Beta-6…”
“Fine!” She unfolds her arms, and takes her first stance. As always, I wait for my opponent to attack first, but this seems to be her method too. Finally, I take a fake lunge. It causes her to bolt, misjudging the distance slightly and almost toppling over. This angers her. She regains her balance, eyes blazing. Without thinking, she takes a swipe at me. I dart backwards. She’s fast, but not particularly strong. Her judgements are off, at least now. I’ve unnerved her. She wouldn’t have made it this far if she wasn’t better than this.
More swipes, each with the ferocity of a cat. “Stay still!” she hisses at one point.
I do. I stay still just long enough to catch her arm, twist it around her back, and push her to the floor. I could hold her down and win now, but she won’t learn much from that.
“You’re not playing fair!” she insists.
“I’m playing by the rules. You’re not thinking clearly. Slow down!”
“But I’m so fast!” She narrowly avoids my nose as I twist to avoid her.
“Good things come to those who wait…” I strike her in the back, sending her crumpling to the floor.
“You’re toying with me.”
“Then be less like a toy, and more like an opponent.”
That really gets to her. She leaps off the ground, her hand coiled into a fist. I catch it neatly in my own. There’s a lot more power behind this one. Her skin radiates with intensity. My own starts to feel like it’s burning.
I drop my hand away, letting her fall with her own force, and sit on top of her until she’s counted out. She cries in frustration, and stamps to the side of the room.
I massage my hand, my skin pink and warm, while my next opponent is readied.
Finally, I’ve worked my way to the top of the leaderboard. Only Adam and Gabe remain. Gabe takes his place in the ring, grinning ever-so-carefully. I recognise the slightest twitch in his cheeks, and the satisfaction spills out of him. He has been waiting for this. For five years, he has been waiting for this.
He gives me a curt nod, and the fight begins.
He goes for the face first. He always does. Nothing has changed in that regard, although his punches pack a lot more bite than they used to. None of them make contact, of course, I’m far too fast, but they sting the air beside me.
We continue in this way for a good few minutes, Gabe swinging, me dodging. I almost forget to fight back; I’m having too much fun cart-wheeling out of his grasp, playing with him. Toying with the others was fun, too. But this…
No. This is wrong. I should not be enjoying this. If I win, I face Adam. Why do I want that? Why do I want to win at all?
All cheer dies away. I hate the fact that I love this. I love being the best again. The winner. Eve is crawling back into my thoughts and I cannot push her away. I try to think of Nick. He was the least Eve-like thing about me. The epitome of selflessness. What Ashe could have been if she’d known him longer…
Gabe twists my arms around my back and pins me to the floor. “Where’s your head at?” he whispers. “This isn’t like you.”
I shuck him off me, using his own weight against him, and roll him over.
“I don’t want to do this.”
Gabe frowns, but recovers quickly. He takes a swipe at me and I jump back, both quickly launching to our feet. We parry, back and forth.
“Don’t want to hurt me?”
“I don’t want to win.” I don’t want to face Adam. I don’t want to be the best, their best. Their golden girl. Their best is my worst.
Gabe stops. “That really isn’t like you.”
“Alpha-1, Omega, do not stop,” a voice booms overhead. “You must finish the fight.”
But I don’t want to.
Gabe launches at my middle and knocks me to the floor. I struggle, but my heart isn’t really in it. Gabe feels this. He isn’t as forceful. He’s also disappointed. A voice counts me out.
I climb to my feet, trying not to shake, slathering on a mask of annoyance, anger. It barely clings to my features.
“Why? Why didn’t you want to fight?” Gabe asks. His voice, face and feelings all riddled with genuine shock.
“I’m losing myself,” I whisper, desperately hoping no one is listening. “I’m falling away from the person I want to be.”
Gabe shakes my hand, seemingly in the fashion of good sportsmanship, but he holds onto it much longer than necessary.
“I like who you are,” he rushes. “I’ve always liked who you are.”
Chapter 10
Nick
April 10th
I had a sudden thought last night.
What if you were still alive?
I know, I know. Dumb. Stupid. Massive explosion.
But we never found your body.
Yes, I know, it could have been any one of the dozens we found there. We had no way of telling. But in comic books, if there's no definite, absolute dead body, that person's coming back.
Actually, in comic books, everyone comes back. (Apart from Uncle Ben) Maybe comic books aren't the best thing to base my sudden hunch on.
But whatever. Better to grasp at straws than wallow in misery. Gets me out of bed, doesn't it?
The thing is, if you weren't dead, you'd have to have been taken by the Institute. Or have lost your memory. Because otherwise you'd be back by now.
I don't see you laying low. We'd have heard some rumours of a fire-starting badass warrior by now. So taken is far more likely.
I feel awful for feeling joyful at such an idea. What did you say to me, once? “Worse than being dead would be being back there.”
I knew you meant it, but I like to believe you'd still prefer the narrative where we rescue you, you come home to your family, you
have some goddamn therapy and you and I live happily ever after. Eventually. After we kick more butt and save the world.
I like the idea so much that I spend the morning sketching an image of the two of us walking off into the sunset. I stare at it guiltily when I'm done. I'm sure Julia wouldn't think this was healthy, clinging to some make-believe idea.
Then I feel sad, because I look at it and realise it's probably never going to happen.
Unless you really are still alive.
◆◆◆
I head to Rudy's study and ask him if he has anything for me to do. I need a distraction.
His jaw tightens uncomfortably. “There's one thing,” he says.
“Go on.”
“We need to evacuate the prison. We've got a tip that they're increasing guard presence in the slums in light of the recent bombings. Our prison can't withstand a Lucan assault, and it's not exactly concealed.”
It's a converted school building. It sticks out considerably. “Right.”
“We have a facility in the wilderness that'll suffice... mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“We can't take the chimera girl. It won't contain her.”
I wait for him to finish. “So…”
“We leave her behind.”
“If... if no one discovers her... she'll starve.”
Rudy nods grimly. "So, I either kill her now–”
“You can't kill her!”
“She's dangerous. Neither Mi nor Julia have had any luck deprogramming her—”
“She's a person, not a robot!”
“She's a weapon,” Rudy insists. “She's not... she's not Ashe, Nick. There's not much human about her at all.”
“You can't let her starve to death.”
“No. You're right. So I kill her outright.”
“We can't just set her free?”
“I do not like the thought of her loose in the slums. Do you?”
No. Of course not. If her survival instincts kick in, she'll do anything to survive. Innocents could suffer.
“Tell the guards where she is,” I implore.
“They might just kill her. The Institute appears to have disowned her.”
“She'll have a chance, though.”
Rudy mulls it over. “Very well. I'd like you to oversee the transfer of the rest of them. Let Harris alert the authorities.”
“Sure thing.”
I get together a crew and leave for the site almost immediately. There aren't many prisoners to transfer, thank God. Most of the guards from the attempted assault were returned long ago. Only ones left are criminals deemed "unsafe" that we rescued from "slum justice". Rudy doesn't like to intervene too much on law and order in the slums. He's against crime, but he doesn't want us to become judges, juries and executioners. Occasionally, however, he'll intervene. He can't help himself.
Vixen –that's what you called her, right?– is exercising in her cell. Her spine healed. She's back to being faster than the rest of us. She glances up at me as I go past, utterly unperturbed by all that's going on around her. I tap at the glass, not foolish enough to go in. It’s thick stuff, but not soundproof. I know I don’t need to shout.
“Hey. I’m just letting you know we’re moving out. The authorities will be alerted to your location.”
She continues to practise her lunges. “It would be kinder to kill me now.”
“That’s not really what we do.”
“There are worse things than death.”
I swallowed uncomfortably, thinking of your words. “If you think that about them, why do you want to go back?”
“Go back?” she balks at me. “I can’t go back. I’ve dishonoured them. I am not worthy.”
I chose my next words carefully, trying to ignore the disgust her response evoked in me. “Were… were there any other firestarters at the Institute?”
She shrugs. “One.”
“How… how fireproof were they?”
Vixen’s face glides to mine, her lips twisted in an awful smile. “You’re trying to work out if she could have survived.” Her eyes glisten gleefully. “Trust me, boy. No one’s that fireproof.”
“You… you heard then… that we destroyed the base?”
“Walls here aren’t exactly soundproof.”
“So we destroyed your precious Institute. There’s nothing left of it.”
She laughs. “You cut off a finger. It’s not a chimera you face, boy, but a hydra.”
April 12th
A hydra. Cut off one head, two more grow back. The Institute has more than one base.
I should be angry, disappointed, shocked. All that you sacrificed, and you still didn’t defeat them? But instead I am hopeful. It means they have power, resources.
It means they might have you.
I’m worried about asking Harris for help. I’m worried for two reasons. One, I imagine there’s little he can do. He’s been monitoring rumours of the Institute for years, ever since he met Sia. If he heard a whisper of anything, he’d say something.
The other reason I’m worried is that I know what he’ll think. He won’t want to raise false hopes. He’ll be concerned. He’ll definitely tell Julia. A word of caution: Harris tells Julia everything. Never tell him anything you don’t want her to know.
Julia will be worried about me, and I hate making Julia worry.
So, two days later, I bite the bullet and seek out the one person who might be able to help and who might actually help me.
My grandfather.
◆◆◆
I haven’t willingly visited him in about two years. Julia used to insist upon it. I don’t know why. He’s always been horrible to her, acting like she stole me rather than raised me when nobody else would. My grandfather did me a favour in ensuring the government didn’t rescind my access to the city when I was cast out, presumed dead, but I know he did it for himself. He keeps trying to guilt me into “coming home.” He never understood that Julia and Scarlet were my family now.
Putting on smart, Lucan clothes somehow seems like a betrayal, but it has to be done. Time to be Nicholas Lilywhite, bored socialite. The footman tells me to wait while he dials up my grandfather’s apartment to ask permission. I’m escorted up in a lift.
The bright, white hallway is impossibly clean. It's almost clinical, and just as lifeless. Each one of the paintings stamped on the wall could probably raise enough to feed a family for a year, and very few of them are better than anything Abi could knock up in an afternoon.
I grew up surrounded by wealth like this, not knowing what it truly meant, not knowing that it meant anything. Never again.
The door opens. “Nicholas,” says my grandfather, his eyes wide, “I wasn’t sure… when the footman said my grandson was here…”
I think my name was mentioned, but I do have a couple of male cousins. I haven’t seen them since I first left the city.
“Disappointed?” I ask.
“No. No, not at all. Please– come in.” He waves the footman away and closes the door behind him. “I’m glad to see you’re fully recovered. Your girlfriend was able to assist you, then?”
“She said she was my girlfriend?” It shouldn’t matter, but for some reason, I cling to it. Things between us definitely weren’t official then. I was still only dreaming of kissing you.
I still dream of kissing you.
My grandfather seems to find this amusing. “Not quite, but it was rather obvious.” His face turns a little greyer. “I heard… I saw the images… she’s dead?”
I swallow. “It appears that way.”
“It appears?”
“She blew up a building. She was inside. We didn’t find… we couldn’t know for certain she…”
“But if the building exploded–”
“Ashe was a little bit fireproof.”
“I… I see.” He turns towards his bureau, his eyes darting over the photos. This gaze hangs there for several moments. “Why are you here, Nicholas?”
�
�Because I think the Institute has multiple facilities. I want to know if you know anything.”
“There are a few research facilities,” he confirms. “I couldn’t tell you where they were, or anything that they do.”
“Could you… could you see if…”
“You want to know if they have her." He pauses, and I wait for the mocking to begin. It doesn't. "If she’s still alive.”
“I… I need to know for certain.”
“There might be little I can do.”
“Please. You’re the only one I know who–”
“You wouldn’t have come otherwise, right?”
I look down at my feet, shamefully
“And… and what will you give me, if I can find anything?”
“Give you?” I hadn’t thought of payment. Not that it matters. “Anything. Anything within my power.”
“And what if I asked you to give up, to come back and live with me, where you belong?”
My stomach twists with the thought of agreeing to such a request, but honestly, what choice do I have?
“Then I’d say yes.”
“You'd really do it, wouldn't you? Leave all of it behind, if it got her back.”
“I wouldn't like it. I'd resent you for it. But yes. There's nothing I wouldn't do for her.”
“What if I asked you to tell me where your base was?”
Fear twists inside me. “Don't... you wouldn't…”
“People always say they'll do anything. They won't. There's a limit. Would she strike the same deal, for you? Betray her family?”
“No. But then she wouldn't be the person I loved if she did.” I pause. “What... what do you really want, grandpa?”
“I'll settle for lunch.”
“What?”
“Every other Sunday. Your cousins will be there. Your aunt and uncle–”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. That's if I find anything, of course.”
“I'll do it.”
“You certainly get the better end of the bargain.”
I say nothing, waiting for him to request something further, another addendum. “Why... why would you help me? And expect so little in return?” For so much risk, I think privately, glad he cannot hear my thoughts.
Resurrection Page 3
