by Eliza Green
‘Which means in Simon’s body, she’ll be unstoppable,’ said Stephen.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Serena. ‘There are more of us than them. We’ll be ready if they come.’
‘And when the others get here,’ said Gabriel, ‘we’ll be an army.’
‘Come on,’ said Anton, ‘we should get back and prepare just in case Serena’s efforts amount to nothing and Tanya changes her mind.’
The others ran ahead and Laura kept pace as best she could. Clement ran slower than the others, glancing behind him and checking on her progress. She blamed herself for this situation. The GS were her and Bill’s responsibility, tied to the power structure that they both operated in the board members’ absence.
How had they let things get this bad?
40
Simon followed the Conditioned pair as they dragged the trespasser into the observation room. Tanya was alert to their arrival. She was on the move.
He glanced at the cameras he’d promised he’d turn off for Stephen, to give them some privacy while they tested the neurosensor. But with an audience in the room, that option was no longer available to him.
The trespasser with the brown hair and dirt-streaked face stood in the room that rarely had visitors. Tanya must want to change things sooner if she was prepared to let a human stranger into their midst. The stranger smiled and looked around the room. Simon couldn’t read his thoughts but that didn’t matter. He didn’t trust him.
Tanya appeared from the left side behind the platform, from the tunnel that led to the laboratories and the Conditioned’s accommodation. She sat in her hover chair, back to her usual withered self, while her assistants surrounded her in a protective manner. But Tanya didn’t need protecting; the Conditioned did. Except none of them realised that.
She leaned forward, and lifted her head with great effort.
‘Step forward please,’ she said.
The stranger looked around at the others, then shrugged. Simon did not like this man.
The man placed his hands behind his back. ‘Hello, er, lady.’
‘My name is Elite One. You will address me as such,’ Tanya croaked.
Her soft voice crackled but Simon still felt the power behind her words.
‘My bad,’ said the man. ‘Elite One. My name’s Mar—’ He paused. ‘Ah fuck it, Marcus. I’m here to help you get what you want.’
Tanya leaned on the armrests. ‘And what is it you think I want?’
Marcus shrugged. ‘You tell me.’
Tanya levelled a gaze at Marcus. Then she laughed. ‘What I want is to get out of this skin. Can you help me with that?’
The stranger looked around again. ‘Er, maybe. Tell me what you need and I’ll be your servant.’
‘And what do you want in exchange for this servitude?’
Marcus cleared his throat. ‘To be changed, to become one of you.’
Tanya laughed again. ‘Do you think I was born yesterday, son?’
The man looked her over. ‘You look too old to use that line.’
Tanya smiled and shook her head. Simon couldn’t tell if Tanya was merely stringing the stranger along or taking him seriously.
‘Do you know who I used to be on Earth?’ she said.
Marcus linked his fingers behind his back. ‘No, I do not.’
‘I suppose there’s a first for everything.’ She glanced at Simon before her eyes cut back to Marcus. ‘I used to be the chair of the World Government.’
Marcus’ eyes widened for a second before he pulled his surprise back in. ‘Nice to... meet you?’
‘So you see, son, when I was human I ate assholes like you for breakfast. Tell me again what use you are to me?’
Marcus appeared to think about it. Tanya huffed and rotated her chair to go.
Marcus called out. ‘Wait! Indigenes.’
Tanya stopped and turned back. ‘What about them?’
‘Would access to their lair be of any use to you?’
Tanya narrowed her gaze at him. ‘What do you know about that?’
Simon wanted to know too. Who was this human?
‘I... I’ve been watching this place, doing patrol for a man in charge. My buddy—’ He airquoted the term. ‘—is an Indigene. He told me there were several ways to get inside the district. Not just the main one. Well, I found one. Would you like to know where it is?’
Tanya gave a slight nod. ‘Possibly. Let me speak to my advisor first. Stay here and touch nothing. Simon?’
The stranger unclasped his hands and put them up. Simon climbed up on the stage and followed Tanya’s hovering chair to the left and down the tunnel. Just clear of the tunnel, she opened the right-hand door that accessed the staging room and hovered inside. When Simon closed the door, she turned to face him.
‘What the hell was he doing out there? How did he get this far? I don’t have time to entertain this man. The doctors are ready to try hosting tomorrow morning. But,’ she glanced at the door, ‘if he could give us an advantage over the Indigenes, should I waste it?’
Simon saw his own chance to change her mind. ‘I’ve never seen him before. He could be lying just to get you on side.’
‘I had thought of that,’ said Tanya. ‘But we should give him a shot. You can keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t step out of line.’
Simon felt something in his head, a tingling presence that Stephen had warned him to expect. They must be outside, possibly visible on the cameras he couldn’t switch off. The influencer was close by. He studied Tanya, whose sharp focus turned blurry.
‘I think we should get rid of him. He’s obviously a con artist. We don’t need anyone to help us get inside the district.’
Tanya looked up at him, her focus off. ‘I guess you’re right. We don’t even know where he came from or how many he brought with him.’
Simon released a quiet breath. If Tanya was under Serena’s influence, perhaps he could stop this whole thing.
‘Are you sure it’s the right time to begin the hosting?’
‘Of course it is!’ Her gaze softened again. ‘Why? Do you think it’s the wrong choice?’
‘I do. The humans promised me access to the main feed tomorrow. We should try that and the machine first. There are no guarantees this Marcus knows of any secret entrance, or that we’d get anywhere near the Indigenes’ district anyway.’
‘You’re resourceful, Simon. I trust you. That’s why I want to use you as my host.’
He had expected that. ‘But if I’m killed before I can get in there... The machine is safer.’
Tanya frowned. ‘I hadn’t thought of that before.’ She looked up at him. ‘What’s your suggestion for that man out there?’
Memory loss must be a side effect of influence. They’d just discussed this. ‘We should get rid of him.’
Tanya nodded, but said nothing more.
Simon kept pressing while she was in a state of indecision. ‘Let’s get in there and remove the stranger, then wait twenty-four hours before trying the hosting idea. I’m all for it, but I think it’s too soon.’
Tanya nodded, pinning him with her watery gaze. ‘If you think that’s a good idea.’
‘I do.’
He pushed her chair back to the room where her aides and two Conditioned waited with a now restless Marcus. Her chair hovered a few inches over the platform once more.
‘Simon has convinced me of something, which, if I’m being honest goes against my thinking,’ said Tanya.
Simon froze at her words and glanced at the unmanned monitors. He saw several figures dressed in dark clothing running away from the back of the environ. His heart squeezed in his chest until the figures disappeared. When it looked like Tanya hadn’t seen them, he relaxed.
‘So do we have a deal?’ said Marcus.
His smirk made Simon’s skin crawl.
‘We do,’ said Tanya. Marcus smiled. ‘You will show us the secret entrance.’
She nodded to one of the Conditioned, who stepped forwa
rd and looped an arm around Marcus’ neck.
‘What the f—?’
‘Take him to one of the spare rooms,’ she commanded. Then she spoke to Marcus. ‘My charges will watch you until we’re ready to leave.’
‘Get off me!’
Marcus struggled beneath the thick arm of his captor, who dragged him on to the stage and disappeared down the right-hand tunnel.
Simon contained his shock and looked at Tanya, whose eyes had narrowed.
‘I couldn’t figure out why it was so easy for you to convince me of a new course of action back there,’ said Tanya. ‘Then I came out here and saw on screen what you tried to hide from me. Indigenes, I presume? I felt something in my head.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Yes, you do, Simon. You tried to stall the hosting. And I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want me in my head, either. But here’s the thing; we’ve come to the end of the line, the Elite and I. If we don’t do this, we die.’
‘Tanya, please. The machine... it will do what you need.’
Tanya nodded to her aides, who jumped off stage and grabbed Simon’s arms.
‘It’s nothing personal, you understand. It’s just that you’re more valuable alive than dead or missing. You’re the strongest Conditioned here, which means my chances of survival are excellent.’ She waved her hand at her aides and turned to go. ‘Lock him in his room until the doctors are ready for him.’
Simon squirmed under his restraints. ‘I don’t want to be part of this, Tanya. I never agreed to this.’
Tanya turned back. ‘I know, Simon. None of us wanted it to end up like this. My vision involved a much smoother transition into everlasting life. But this is how it has to be. It’s just business.’
41
‘I don’t understand,’ said Stephen. With the aid of the neurosensor, he read the future. ‘Tanya changed her mind. I saw it, felt it. You influenced her.’
Their group had returned to the entrance of District Three. Gabriel Anton, Arianna, Clement and Laura watched Serena and Stephen where they stood with their hands joined.
Serena sighed. ‘I felt it too. When Simon told her to hold off, she made up her mind to listen to him.’
‘So why are they still coming?’
He pulled out of her grip and tore the neurosensor from his head. He’d just seen them arrive—a brown-haired human led the way—but he couldn’t pin down when exactly that might happen. It could be a day, an hour from now.
Gabriel shook him, breaking Stephen out of his thoughts. ‘Stephen, when are they coming?’
Stephen focused on the elder. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Come on, we don’t have time to mess around. Give us a ballpark figure. Day or night, at least.’
Stephen blinked at Gabriel. ‘Day. Definitely day.’
Gabriel let go of his arms and paced. ‘Let’s assume the worst and that their arrival could happen at any moment. We can’t rely on Stephen’s accuracy. How are the others doing with the barricades?’
Anton replied. ‘The west and east entrances are completely blocked.’
‘That leaves just the south.’
Anton nodded. ‘Under the Maglev train station in Victoria. But the entrance there is tight and the air too thin.’
‘That won’t matter if they have breathing apparatus,’ said Laura. ‘Bill, Jenny and I navigated the tunnels just fine. You mustn’t assume they won’t come at you from that spot.’
Stephen nodded. ‘She’s right. We should seal off that entrance too.’
‘But it’s more likely they’ll gain access through one of the more obvious routes,’ said Arianna.
‘How strong did they appear to be?’ said Gabriel.
Stephen shrugged. He’d seen Simon in his future reading. ‘We don’t know much about the Elite, but they want to use the strong Conditioned as vessels. We should get Bill down here. He spoke to Harvey Buchanan recently, who gave him information on them.’
Stephen turned when he felt Laura’s hesitance.
She nodded and said, ‘He needs to be here.’
‘We’ll have to use our combined abilities to fight them.’ Stephen turned back round to the others. ‘We know they want access to the Nexus. Under no circumstances should they be allowed to reach it.’
‘So,’ said Gabriel, ‘we hold them off for as long as possible, then gather all remaining Indigenes to protect the tranquillity caves?’
‘That’s the plan,’ said Stephen.
‘But there are dozens of caves. How will we stop them from reaching them all?’
Stephen had never said it was a good plan.
He glanced at the neurosensor in his hand, then at Serena. ‘Right now, our best defence is Serena. If she can convince them to stop, it might give us enough time to regroup, to keep them from the Nexus.’
‘Then what?’ said Gabriel. ‘They won’t stop until they succeed. And if the Elite are using Conditioned hosts, time will be on their side.’
‘Then we must work out how to attack the Conditioned, discover their weaknesses.’
42
Simon woke on his bed to find a pair of Conditioned stood in one corner of his room, watching him.
He sat up and one of Tanya’s guards sprung to attention.
‘I’m not going anywhere.’ He touched the side of his throbbing head. One of the guards must have knocked him out. ‘No need to have a panic over it.’
The guard stepped closer and pushed down on his shoulder to keep him in place. ‘Tanya says you’re to preserve your energy for the transfer.’
Simon groaned and lay back down. Tanya may have control over his body but he still owned his mind. For now.
An hour later, two doctors, including Tanya’s personal physician, Dr Jameson, entered the room.
Jameson slipped a blood pressure sleeve on to Simon’s upper arm, then stuck a probe into the crook of his arm while he inflated the sleeve. The pressure built until Simon couldn’t bear it any longer. Then the pressure subsided, but the voice inside his head nagging at him to do something stayed put.
‘Your blood pressure is slightly elevated but other than that you’re fine.’ Jameson turned and walked to the door. ‘Bring him.’
The guards pulled Simon to his feet and herded him along behind the doctor.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ said Simon.
‘It won’t hurt,’ said Jameson. ‘It’s a straightforward procedure. You’ve nothing to worry about.’
While the guards pushed him along the corridor, Simon wondered if the doctor knew of Tanya’s plans to use his body as a vessel.
‘She plans on killing me, you know,’ he said.
Jameson turned briefly, then walked on. ‘I know.’
They stopped outside the staging room. Jameson opened the door and waved Simon inside. He looked around and saw nine other Conditioned, all males. They sat on the Elite’s beds while the Elite, in their almost dead-like state, occupied hover-chairs in front of them. The mind-mapping machine sat on a table in the centre of the room. Each of the Elite was connected to the machine via a wire and a small circle that blinked red, attached to one side of their dipped heads.
One bed remained and Tanya’s chair was positioned in front of it. The guards forced Simon to sit on the tenth bed. He locked his gaze on Tanya, hoping to reason with her. She also had a blinking red circle on her lopsided head—a device to facilitate the imprint exchange, he assumed.
A second doctor in the room removed the blinking red circle from the Elite Ten, then placed it in a round carrier on top of the machine. The carrier beeped once, and the doctor extended a small, thin wire from the machine. The wire squirmed when the doctor placed it on the neck of the Conditioned lined up with Elite Ten. The Conditioned winced when the wire pierced his neck. Simon watched it worm its way under the skin and up to the brain.
The doctor copied the procedure with the remaining eight until it was Simon’s turn to be imprinted with Tanya’s consciousness. He felt a s
harp sting in his head as the device containing the imprint implanted somewhere in his brain. Instantly, he felt a second presence. Tanya. Her consciousness stirred, as though she’d been in a deep sleep.
Who’s there? her imprint called out.
The real Tanya looked asleep in her chair.
He didn’t answer her. The voice became more demanding. Answer me, damn it.
I’m here, he said, feeling like he had no choice.
This personality would not permit him silence.
Simon. It worked! But I can’t see anything. Where am I? Can I control you? Simon’s arm shot out to the front and he strained against an immovable force. With a lot of effort, he pushed it back to its original position. Good... that felt very good.
Tanya’s consciousness continued to chatter. He had no idea how to shut her off.
I won’t be quietened. I’ve been given a new lease of life.
Simon studied the barely conscious Tanya in corporeal form to his front. She hardly moved. It was her imprint who spoke to him inside his head.
‘I need time to adjust to this. It feels... strange,’ he said aloud.
We don’t have time.
Tanya forced Simon to stand. The sudden movement made his head spin. He glanced at the other Conditioned who’d been forced into similar positions while their Elite counterparts sat immobile in their chairs.
In Simon’s head, Tanya said, Elite, how are you feeling?
Good, they all replied.
Strong.
Never better.
Then Tanya’s voice was no longer in his head; she took control of his voice box. It was his voice, but her words.
‘We are strong, we are few, but with the right weapons, we will be victorious.’
The Elite controlled the Conditioned in the same way.
Weapons? said Simon, his voice reduced to thought.
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you, Simon? We’ve been working on ways to attack the district when our friend Marcus gets us there. We created temporary weapons experts, thanks to our mind-mapping technique.’
