The Erasure Initiative

by Lili Wilkinson

  But the wristband. Surely it can be used to track us, like a beacon. And where will he go? We’re on an island. There’s no help to find, unless he also happens to find a boat, or a telephone.

  All is silent.

  Then, a scream, high and animal.

  Seconds after that, the jungle ejects Riley back onto the road. Scratches streak his arms and face. His hand is around his forearm, clawing and scrabbling, trying to take the wristband off. He stumbles back down the road towards the bus, his face a mask of pain and horror.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask, but he doesn’t answer, just drags himself up the steps. His arm is covered in raised red welts, radiating out from the wristband.

  ‘Burning,’ he gasps, his voice hoarse.

  On the bus, someone passes him a bottle of water, and he pours it onto the welts, wincing and grunting with pain. Then he takes a deep, long swig, and releases a shuddering breath.

  ‘The further I went from the road, the hotter it got,’ he says. ‘Turning back was the only way to make it stop.’

  I put my fingers to my own wristband, and feel iciness ripple down my spine. I wonder what would have happened if Riley had kept going. Could it have killed him?

  Sandra sends Riley off to the toilet to run the burn under the tap, leaving the rest of us in uneasy silence.

  ‘So we can probably rule out pop science TV show,’ Paxton says at last. ‘These guys are not messing around.’

  Sandra looks like she wants to argue, but she says nothing.

  The trolley problems continue.

  …

  When she’s not out on the road, Nia is busily tapping away at her display, more determined than I’ve ever seen her. I check in with her after the fifth trolley problem of the day.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I ask.

  ‘Like I really want to get off this fucking bus,’ she says.

  I see no sign of the broken, vulnerable Nia that sobbed into my shoulder last night. Her steely gaze is back, and she glares at her seatback like it’s her mortal enemy. The display on the adjacent seatback – the one I’m sitting in front of – has text on it too, the now-familiar list of slowly decrypting files.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m trying to break into the server, where the surveillance feed is going.’

  ‘Can you do it?’

  Nia shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What happens if you do?’

  ‘Hopefully we can disrupt the feed,’ she says. ‘And then, once they can’t see us anymore … I don’t know. See if someone comes to fix it and overpower them?’

  I nod. It’s not much of a plan, but I can’t think of anything else right now. Plus it feels gross knowing that whoever is behind this is sitting somewhere watching us. Watching me pee. Watching Paxton put his hand down my jeans.

  ‘What can I do to help?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing right now,’ says Nia, flashing me a smile. ‘But I’ll let you know.’

  I almost tell her how beautiful she looks when she smiles, but I know she’d just growl at me. Instead I stare at the display in front of me and watch the numbers tick up, until finally a file entitled YatesPhotoScandal.pdf reaches 100%.

  ‘Hey, look,’ I say.

  Nia reaches over and taps out a brief line of code to open the file.

  It’s a screenshot of an online news article about a political scandal featuring senator Sandra Yates and her son, Paxton.

  I read the whole thing twice, to be sure. ‘We should tell the others.’

  We gather Paxton, Edwin and Sandra around the screen. Catherine is asleep again, and Riley is hunched up in his seat, looking miserable. He shakes his head when I call him over, turning to stare out the window.

  ‘So Paxton is indeed Sandra’s son,’ Edwin says. ‘And Sandra is a senator.’

  Sandra looks relieved. ‘Yes,’ she agrees. ‘And more than that. I’m high profile. I’ll be missed. It means that whatever is going on here, either it’s controlled and will be over soon, or someone will be looking for me. Either way, we’re going to be fine.’

  I don’t know if I agree with any of that, but I’m glad she’s feeling better.

  ‘It explains why Riley, Paxton and I recognised her,’ Edwin continues. ‘If she’s a public figure who was recently embroiled in some kind of scandal, knowledge of her would be in our semantic memories.’

  ‘How come Cecily and I don’t recognise her then?’ Nia asks.

  And how come they all recognise me? Me, Nia, Sandra. We’re all left in the dark.

  The wardrobe. The crying baby.

  ‘Maybe—’ My voice comes out hoarse, so I clear my throat and try again. ‘It looks like I knew her personally. The article mentions Cecily Cartwright. Does that mean that my knowledge of her would be in my autobiographical memory instead of my general knowledge? So it would have been erased?’

  Edwin nods. ‘It’s certainly possible.’

  ‘So I knew her too,’ Nia muses.

  Paxton shakes his head. ‘That can’t be right,’ he says. ‘Because then I wouldn’t recognise her. And I do. Hundred per cent. And you, Cecily.’

  ‘Can we see the photos?’ Sandra asks.

  Nia shakes her head. ‘They’re not here.’

  Paxton swallows, uneasy. I nudge him in the ribs, trying to be playful. ‘Looks like you were my boyfriend after all.’ He grins down at me, suddenly back to his usual self. ‘Were?’

  ‘What about the Russian spy?’ Edwin asks.

  I’ve been wondering about that too. Was that what I overheard, in Sandra’s wardrobe? Was it the reason Paxton was so anxious about me being in her room?

  Sandra shrugs. ‘You saw the article,’ she says. ‘It was a scare campaign from the opposition. Fake news. I bet it happens all the time.’

  The breeziness with which she dismisses it is astounding. I wish I was so confident about literally anything to do with my own past.

  I want to talk to Nia, but before I can get her alone, my name comes up on the displays again. Another fucking trolley problem.

  I get paired up with Edwin, and am shocked when everyone unanimously chooses to spare him, instead of me.

  ‘What the hell?’ I say to Pax. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be my boyfriend?’

  He shrugs. ‘You’re strong, you can handle it. He’s just a kid.’

  I’m not sure Edwin is that much younger than me, but despite myself I feel a flare of pride cutting through the irritation. I am strong. There’s still no way I’m ever choosing anyone except myself, though.

  I face the bus again. It’s astonishing how quickly you can get used to near-death experiences.

  Once our wristbands let us move, I turn to see Edwin scurrying back towards the bus. No escape plans for him. He stumbles, tripping over a crack in the bitumen and falling flat on his face. His glasses go flying and skitter off the road into the jungle.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I say, as he drags himself to his feet.

  I jog over to help him find his glasses, but he gets there before me. He holds them up. One lens is cracked, the other shattered.

  ‘At least next time you won’t be able to see the bus coming,’ I say helpfully.

  Edwin holds the one remaining cracked lens to his eye and peers through it. ‘They don’t actually seem to make much difference,’ he says.

  I take the warped plastic frame and hold it up to my own eyes. He’s right – the glasses don’t do anything. I turn to look at Edwin. ‘You don’t strike me as the type to wear fake glasses for fashion reasons,’ I say, passing them back.

  Edwin folds the arms of the glasses as best he can, and we return to the bus.

  …

  I’m heading back up the aisle when Nia grabs my arm. ‘Can I talk to you?’ she asks.

  I slide in next to her. ‘What’s up?’

  She glances around and leans over to me, her lips right against my ear. ‘I’ve located the surveillance feed.’

  Her breath whispers against my skin
and makes me shiver. I lower my own voice. ‘Really? You broke in?’

  ‘Not yet. The server has a firewall that I can’t get past. I need to break it with a web shell – it’s when you get a series of other computers to bombard the firewall with requests, until it overloads and drops.’

  ‘But we don’t have other computers,’ I murmur.

  ‘We do.’ Nia looks pointedly at the seatbacks.

  ‘Okay. So what do you need me for?’

  ‘The server will try and protect itself. As soon as I launch the attack, I’ll have two minutes to execute the shells before the system will automatically reboot. I need everyone to help me run the shell programs.’

  My expression must be dubious, because Nia reassures me that all we’ll have to do is bring up the virtual keyboard and type a simple command onto the displays.

  ‘Will two minutes be enough?’ I ask.

  Nia grins. ‘A lot can happen in two minutes.’

  ‘When do we do it?’

  ‘Tomorrow. I need to get some other things in place first.’

  Nia goes back to her display, and I watch her for a while as the day fades into twilight. We eat another round of mystery-meat sandwiches, and everyone settles down to sleep.

  But I don’t want to go back into the fog.

  I feel restless and caged. Whenever I close my eyes, I see the bus coming flying towards me. I feel the impact that never happened, the jolt as it hits my body. Over and over again.

  I have to get out of here. Nia’s plan has to work.

  I make my way to the front of the bus and stare out the windscreen. We’re on the part of the road that rises above the ocean into sheer-faced cliffs, and the ocean spreads out beside us, huge and black and featureless except for the silvery reflection of the moon.

  Someone comes up beside me, their body pressing against mine. Fear rises in my throat.

  His hand over my mouth.

  It’s Paxton, sliding his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder. ‘Hey there, girlfriend,’ he murmurs, low so nobody else can hear. ‘I’ve been looking forward to tonight. We can continue the … conversation we were having.’

  I am so not in the mood. My shoulders are sore from sleeping upright, and from the tension that I’m trying to pretend I’m not holding. And I can’t stop turning it all over in my mind. Facing the bus. The crying baby. The article about Sandra and Paxton. And me.

  What did I hear, in that wardrobe? Was it enough that someone wanted to have me killed?

  Paxton nuzzles at my neck.

  Keep your enemies close is something that I know to be true, and I can’t rule out the possibility that Paxton is an enemy. So I follow him back to his seat and snuggle in the crook of his arm. We whisper secrets to each other, but none of the important ones.

  A question leaks out over the dam I’ve made. ‘So … you don’t think there’s anything to it either? The thing about the Russian diplomat?’

  Paxton snorts. ‘Of course not.’ He plucks at his shirt. ‘We’re the good guys, Cecily. You’re the one who said it. And you feel it, right? I may not remember anything about my life, but I know in my heart that I’m decent. I have values, and I stick to them. I don’t let a team member down. I protect my family. I am fair. I’m good.’

  He’s certainly inherited Sandra’s breezy arrogance. I wish I had that certainty. Riley thought he was good too. So did Nia. Does everyone?

  I kiss him, because it’s better than listening to him talk. I put my hands on his body, and let the connection fill my brain with desire instead of questions. We press against each other, and the heat between us burns away the fog of lost memory, leaving blissful blank, scorched earth.

  Afterwards, when Paxton’s breathing slows into sleep, I go back to watch Nia as lines of code spill from her fingers.

  She doesn’t comment on what I’ve been doing with Paxton. We were quiet, but I’m sure she still heard.

  ‘You think it was him, don’t you.’ She doesn’t look at me when she speaks. It’s not a question, which is good, because I don’t want to answer it.

  ‘You think he made the wish. You think he asked … asked the Blue Fairy to kill you.’

  I close my eyes, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. I can’t bear to think about it.

  ‘It makes sense,’ Nia says relentlessly. ‘You and Paxton were dating. You were over at his house one day, and could hear a baby crying. You went into Sandra’s room, and Paxton found you and freaked out. He shoved you into the cupboard and Sandra came in with some mystery guy. And while you were in there, you heard stuff. Stuff about whatever shady business was going on with Sandra and the Russians.’

  I shake my head. ‘No.’

  ‘We know Paxton was involved. The photo. And the way he hid you – he knew his mum was up to something. And to his credit, he was trying to protect you from her. But you heard too much, and he knew the only way out was to get rid of you. So he made the wish.’

  I wish Cecily Cartwright was dead.

  It can’t be true. After all, I’m here. I’m not dead.

  A squeal of tyres. A wet thud.

  Am I?

  Dear Parents,

  It is with a heavy heart that I inform you of the death of one of our students.

  The entire school is grieving, and as Principal it is my duty to keep parents informed, as you may wish to discuss this tragedy with your children. Due to the high-profile nature of Westbridge’s student body, we are choosing to not reveal the name of the student at this time, in order to shield their family from the inevitable media onslaught. Word travels fast on campus, so we ask you and your children to also respect this decision, and not make any statements to the press.

  Yesterday, one of our brightest Year Eleven students was struck by a car in the student carpark. The car was unregistered, with no driver. It is not known how it managed to bypass campus security, but be assured that we have contracted a prestigious consultancy firm to ensure that this never happens again.

  Several students witnessed the accident, describing the student’s heroic efforts in pushing another student from the path of the oncoming vehicle. Unfortunately this act of bravery was to be their last. Although an ambulance arrived onsite within minutes, the student sustained extensive injuries and died on the way to the hospital.

  We are deeply shocked and saddened by this tragedy. We have engaged a team of grief counsellors that are available to the whole school community, as well as scheduling extra equine therapy and mindfulness sessions for the rest of semester. A memorial service will be held next week, and a plaque commemorating the student’s bravery and contribution to Westbridge will be commissioned for the Tranquility Garden.

  While we encourage students to remain at Westbridge for the duration of the semester, we understand if any students wish to return to their families.

  A full investigation will shortly be underway, so that we can fully understand this regrettable event, and ensure that it never happens again. The safety and wellbeing of Westbridge students is, and always will be, our top priority.

  With solemn regards,

  Achiko Hanabi

  Principal, Westbridge Academy

  11

  DAY 4

  06:03

  What if Cecily Cartwright is dead? What if it’s all some weird game? What if I’m someone else, some random girl who’s been led to think she is Cecily Cartwright?

  There is some comfort in this idea. If I’m not Cecily, then there’s hope for me. Nobody wanted to kill me. There’s hope that this is all some bizarre psychological experiment and when it’s over I can go back to a normal life.

  I wonder who I’d like to be, if I could be anyone. Jane, I decide. Jane Brown. She’s ordinary, unremarkable. She’s smart, but not too smart. Good grades. On track to get into a good-but-not-great university. She’s going to study something comfortingly dependable, like economics or teaching. She has a younger brother who plays soccer. Her mother manages a suburban bank branch, her fathe
r is a high school English teacher. She plays the piano (badly, but it makes her grandmother happy) and netball (fairly well, but not well enough for it to matter). She has a boyfriend who she has kissed on the mouth, but no tongue. He tried to touch her boobs once, and she stopped him. She still sleeps with her childhood teddy bear.

  I think about the dog that Paxton made up for me. Sadie the apricot cavoodle. Jane wouldn’t have a dog. Maybe a cat. Sure, a cat, called something predictable, Tigger or Smokey or Max.

  But Jane isn’t real.

  I am Cecily Cartwright, because I have Cecily Cartwright’s memories. The wardrobe. The smell of nutmeg and cedar. Paxton’s hand over my mouth. The crying baby.

  I am Cecily Cartwright, and I think my boyfriend is an election-rigging criminal who wanted me dead.

  …

  Riley wakes up in pain. The red welts on his arm have turned grey and crusty overnight, and are leaking yellowish goo. His lips are cracked, and he seems disoriented.

  Sandra wets toilet paper under the bathroom tap and lays it on the wounds to give Riley some relief. ‘He’s okay,’ she reports. ‘It looks worse than it is.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Nia asks.

  Sandra smiles at her in a vaguely patronising way. ‘If he wasn’t, someone would come and take him away.’

  ‘Do you seriously believe that? You still think that this is some kind of controlled experiment?’

  ‘Of course. There’s no other logical explanation.’

  ‘How do you figure that?’

  ‘Let’s look at the evidence. We’re clearly participating in an experiment about ethics, perhaps televised. Innate goodness and badness. I’m the high-profile public figure – a good, upstanding citizen with a proven track record. I’m participating with my son and his girlfriend, who are students at one of the most prestigious schools in the world. We represent good breeding, good education, good fortune. We are good people.’