by Edge, T. C.
Some small part of me feels sorry for him. He may not have been ripped from his home and family in the same way as me or Ellie or anyone else, but he's been ripped from the life he knew, the path he expected to walk. In that sense, he's just like the rest of us. Stuck with this power that's more like a curse. So, during my weaker moments when he's not looking down his nose at me or making a snide comment, I still feel for Theo, just like I do for the others.
I don't know if it's a blessing or a way of punishing him, but Ajax makes Theo wait all day before sending him into the Grid. Over the last few days, it's become increasingly common for people to volunteer early to get it out of the way. Better that than waiting around, hour after hour, watching the others come and go. Watching them disappear behind the door and return in various states of distress.
For that entire day Theo says nothing. He just sits there, in the corner, lost in his own world. When his time comes up, he's already visibly shaken by it all. I wonder with him, more than others, what exactly he's seeing in there.
Gradually, people begin to open up, though, Ajax telling us that vocalising our experiences is helpful in accepting them. I speak to Link a lot, who admits what I've already suspected. That his time in the Grid generally involves fire and destruction and often the burden of reliving the death of his father. He quickly develops a thick skin to it, though, his outlook more positive by the day. Soon, he's telling me it's a good thing, that every time he goes in, he comes out that little bit stronger, that little bit more hardened to his fears. As he speaks, I notice Ajax in the background, nodding his approval.
By the sounds of it, people's fears are as varied as they are terrifying. The twins go in individually, but both suffer similar manifestations relating to their fear of flying and fear of heights. Amir, it seems, has the worst of it, though. He tells us he grew up suffering from night terrors, dreams so horrifying they seemed real, filled with murder and death and strange creatures. After several days, he admits to me that his main recurring dream involved his father killing his mother in a horrifying way. Now, when he goes into the Grid, he's forced to relive it all over again.
Ajax continues to lead us away after each experience. At first, speaking about it is difficult and I just want to shut myself off from the world for a while. Gradually, however, it becomes easier to describe what I saw and what happened, and I begin to realise that this training is more than just learning to control our fears. It's also learning to explain the visions we have. Learning to pick out the tiniest of details so that they can be acted upon when it comes to the real thing.
It's about two weeks since we arrived on Eden when I spend the evening being guided around Surface Level 8 by Leeta. I'd requested she take me, and she'd agreed, although she didn't seem too happy about it.
“Only the people who live there go there,” she tells me. “You're not officially authorised to enter that level.”
I brush off her concerns and say I'm going anyway, with or without her. The truth is that there's a large part of me who feels beholden to find out how the other side live on Eden. Whether there really is such a disparity here as there is with the mainland. So, after a bit of persuasion, Leeta relents, despite hardly knowing the area. We spend several hours walking through the cramped level, the walls fitted busily with door after door. Inside, singles and pairs and families live, mostly in overcrowded living quarters like the one I grew up in.
It smells funny too. That stuffiness that too many bodies can bring. That smell of sweat and body odour that seeps out from each room and infects the corridors and passageways. Leeta holds a cloth to her mouth and nose as she goes, careful not to breathe in the fumes, as she calls them. I stuff the cloth back into her hand when she offers me a spare.
I talk to some people and ask them what life is like here. They're mostly positive, happy to live on this great city when they might be on the mainland with a much harsher life. Many can tell I'm from Agricola, just from the sight of me, and often I end up fielding more questions than I ask. In truth, however, my skin is already beginning to fade to a paler shade of golden brown, and my hair has started to lose some of its shine. When I look in the mirror now, I can already see the girl from Arbor starting to dim.
When Leeta and I return to the deck, she finally pulls the cloth from her nose and sucks in a large breath of clean air. I look at her and wonder how much she must have changed over her years here. She doesn't say it aloud, but I can tell she looks down on these people. It's as if she's been indoctrinated to how Edenites think, each year losing more and more of who she truly is underneath. I promise myself, right there and then, that I won't let myself be the same. That I'll always see everyone as equal.
When I return to my room, I hear a light sobbing next door. I knock and hear no answer, so call out Ellie's name. I wait a moment as the sobs die down, before the door opens. She stands in front of me, her eyes red, holding a small picture frame in her hands.
When my eyes drop to the frame, I see the face of a woman. She's beautiful, her hair tightly curled and a deep shade of brown, her eyes green like the grass. Ellie backs off and lets me through, before quickly putting the frame into a drawer.
“Your mother?” I ask.
She nods, wiping her eyes.
We sit together on the bed, and I wrap my arm over her small shoulders. I understand now why I've been finding her in tears so often. Why she goes quiet at times and regresses into herself. She's thinking of her mother, of home.
I tell her that it will get easier. That she'll be able to visit her, that she may even be assigned nearby as a Watcher once she's finished her training. Yet when I speak the words I intend to be comforting, she merely breaks down once more, tears spilling from her eyes.
I squeeze her tighter until her tears relent, and finally her voice croaks as she tells me the truth.
“I'll never see her again,” she says.
“You may yet,” I respond quickly. “You might get vacation or be assigned there, like I say.”
She shakes her head wearily. “You don't understand. I'll never see her again because I know she's going to die soon.”
My voice now loses its comforting tone, a realisation dawning on me. “You've seen it?” I whisper, and she nods.
“I didn't know what it was before coming here. I had dreams of her out in the woods, attacked and killed by a bear. I...I thought they were just nightmares.”
“Visions?” I say. “Do you have them often?”
“Not here, not any more. Ajax says I'm too far away to see it now.”
“Well, can't we warn her...or assign a guard to her or something?”
Ellie lets out an exhalation of air, a sound of deflation. “I asked Ajax that,” she says. “They can't help her, though, unless I can give them a time or date or exact destination. It was only blurry. It could be anywhere, at any time. She might,” she says, her voice cracking again, “be dead already.”
I wrap my arms around her as a fresh stream of tears flows down her cheeks. The words of Ajax begin running through my mind. In general, Watchers can only see a few days or weeks ahead. That's what he told us. And only events nearby to where they're currently located.
Ellie would have had these visions weeks ago now, before we even set sail for Eden. They would have faded as we moved further from her home, further from her mother. I can only imagine how hard it must have been when she found out those nightmares she had when she slept were more than dreams. That they were visions, destined to come true. That now, being far away from her mother, she'd have no way of helping her.
I think of her crying after her first meeting with Ajax on the first day. How she will have told him what she saw, begged him perhaps to help her. I know what he will have said. That without any exact details, there's nothing they could do. That unless there's a Watcher in the area who may have seen the same thing, this vision of premature reality, of the future, will be impossible to alter.
I think of home. I think of the deaths that occur
across the regions. People killed under harvesting machines. Those killed by wild cougars and other dangerous animals. I think of the explosion in the factory when I was young. I think of what Link had told me. That where he's from, factory accidents are common.
Yet each time, there's no one there to see it. No one there to stop it. The deaths of a few paltry mainlanders doesn't warrant the need for a Watcher. Ajax told us they're spread too thin, that there aren't enough of them to cover such a huge area. Perhaps that's true, or perhaps the reality is that those in power just don't care.
I sit with Ellie for a while that evening, letting her vent her emotions and feelings. Letting her curse the world and get it out of her system. Eventually, as the small hours of night approach, she passes out on her bed, and I tuck her under her covers.
My sleep that night is filled with death and destruction. I see bodies littering the golden earth, blood seeping through the dirt. I see flames and explosions, hear screams of pain and suffering. Yet all of it comes in flashes, all blurred as if I'm seeing and hearing it through water.
When I wake, I remember little of the events. They're so blurred and indistinct that I barely even know if they're dreams or visions. I still tell Ajax, though, as he'd instructed me to, when I go down to the Grid. His stony visage crinkles as I tell him, his frown deepening, yet he says nothing but what he told me before. To tell him whenever I see anything else, whatever it happens to be.
Our training continues, and it grows apparent that some are finding it easier than others. Link, whether through sheer bravado or bravery, always walks into the Grid confidently, and comes out with his head held high. I see him speaking more often with Ajax now. Clearly Ajax has found his star pupil.
Others don't fare so well. Ellie remains immersed in her grief, walking here and there like a zombie. Amir often comes out in the worst state, panting heavily and with wide, staring eyes. One of the twins, Larna I think, appears to be slowly cracking too. They both seem like such gentle souls, but I'd put Lorna as the more dominant twin. She spends much of her time comforting her sister, coaxing her through the worst of it.
Everyone else, including Theo, are in varying states of acceptance, each day growing stronger and more numbed to their fears. Ajax talks to us all individually, as always, noting our mental state, asking us questions, always telling us that things will become easier.
For me, seeing Jackson die, day after day, feels like my soul is being chipped away, piece by piece. I fear that soon they'll be little of me left. Little of the girl from Arbor, picking fruit under the morning sun. The girl who cared for her mother and had a forbidden friendship with a boy. The girl with golden skin and shining blonde hair who used to play in the fields as a child.
What's left of me will be corrupted beyond recognition. Broken down, bit by bit, until I'm nothing more than an implement for Eden to use as it wishes. I look at Ajax and wonder what he must have been like when he first came here. Young and fresh faced, not knowing what lay ahead of him. I wonder how long it took for him to control his own fears. How long it took for him to morph into the man ahead of us today, uncompromising and devoted to his duty.
My mother returns to me in my dreams now. She comes to me, night after night, telling me to be strong. Telling me that I was always special, that she knew I'd be destined for something great. I see her face so clearly, full of colour and beautiful as she once was, before the virus stripped her bare. Her blue eyes shine, her hair sways in a light breeze, and her white smile lights up the room as it used to.
Each time I wake, I feel my mother's old watch in my hand. I run my thumb over the cracked glass and squeeze it tight, a tear trickling down my cheek. Then I stand, dress, and return to the Grid to face my fears.
14 - Breaking Point
When I look upon the faces of the other trainees, I see different people to those I first met. Faces have grown staunch and resolute. Eyes have narrowed and intensified. People walk into the Grid, heads high, and walk out with cold eyes and gritted teeth. Day after day they harden, all except one.
It's about a month after we started our training when Amir steps into the Grid. He's grown more introverted each day, more scared of his own shadow. I catch him talking to himself sometimes, whispering words of support that others aren't giving him. I try to help, but he only tells me he's fine.
I know he's a proud young man, and showing weakness is considered a major flaw of ones character here. So he soldiers on, pushing through the pain, stepping up each and every time he's asked to. I can tell Ajax is watching him closely, his eyes missing nothing, yet he doesn't intervene. He watches and waits for an outcome. Either he'll sink, or he'll swim.
That day, Amir spends longer than usual in the Grid. As the minutes tick by a growing tension builds among us. His fellow recruits from Aquar, Anders and Kyle, are most vocal, calling for Ajax to open the door.
“This can't be right,” says Kyle. “Something's got to be wrong in there.”
Anders moves to open the door, but Ajax stops him, his hand dropping to his wrist and ripping it from the handle. “There's nothing you can do,” he says. “Only he can find his way out.”
The minutes keep turning, yet nothing happens. It's silent among us now, each of us waiting with bated breath for the door to open, for Amir to reappear. We share nervous looks with each other, but Ajax does nothing. His eyes just stare at the door, waiting for it to move.
After what seems like an eternity, there's a click. All eyes turn quickly to the metal handle, which rotates slowly down. Then there's another click, and the door falls open a crack. Ajax is the first to move, followed by Anders and Kyle, who jump in behind him from their seats.
I stand at the back, but all I hear is a thud. Through the crowd I see a body, lying face up on the floor beyond the door as everyone rushes forward.
Ajax is quickly on his knees, his fingers reaching for a pulse. I hear sobs from the twins, see Kyle and Anders' faces contort in worry. Amir lies, eyes wide open and staring straight up towards the ceiling, arms flat by his sides.
Ajax is calling to him now. “Amir, can you hear me. Amir, come back to us.”
Nothing happens. Ajax calls again, louder this time, shouting into Amir's ear.
“Is he dead?” cries Larna, once more in her sister's arms.
Ajax lifts Amir's body, his strong arms easily moving him off the ground, and begins carrying him back through the door.
“Is he dead?!” comes Anders' voice, echoing through the hall.
Ajax shakes his head. “He's not dead,” he says. “He's broken.”
He carries on towards the main door, which slides open with a hiss, and disappears out into the corridor, leaving us all behind.
There's a state of shock in the room, the silence only peppered by shouts of disbelief and the sobs of Larna. Ajax returns after several minutes, his face sombre.
“What's happening?” calls Anders. “What did you mean, broken?”
“The mind can only take so much. Some people run, and when that happens, they may never return.”
“Never return?! What the hell does that mean?!” Anders asks again in panic.
“Amir's mind is lost in the Grid now, lost to his fears. He ran from them, so they engulfed him. You must never run, never hide, or you can become lost forever.”
Ajax walks towards the door to the Grid and slams it shut. “I told you all that in there, it's real. You have to master your fear, not run from it. This is not a game, this is not fantasy. What happens in there can break you if you let it.”
“What will happen with him now?” asks Theo, his voice emotionless.
“They'll try to help him, try to bring him back. If they succeed, he'll be assigned somewhere else. But he'll never be a Watcher.”
“And if they don't succeed,” I ask.
“Then nothing can help him.” says Ajax.
That afternoon we all return together to the deck level, a weight hanging above all our heads. I get the sense, in some str
ange way, that Ajax is pleased with what happened. That he let Amir keep going and going until he broke just to teach the rest of us a valuable lesson. To show us that there's no turning back now. That we either become Watchers, or break like Amir did.
In the following days he appears to show no remorse over what happened. We just continue as always, now with the stakes even higher than they were before. The loss of Amir hits Anders the most. They were friends on Aquar before they were sent here and had known each other for years. Now he, like myself, like Ellie and Link, has to deal with the grief of losing someone he cares about on top of everything else.
In my private sessions with Ajax I'm not afraid to question him further about Amir. I ask him if he saw it coming, but he tells me he had no idea it would happen, and that Watchers cannot have visions about things that go on in the Grid because it isn't true reality in there. I'm finding it harder and harder now to know if he's lying or not. The extent of his own abilities are unknown to me, and I truly have no idea whether he's letting us in on everything he knows.
I spend my evenings with Ellie and Link most of all. We often walk together, through the city, feeling so out of place yet looking, at a glance, like we belong. When people hear us talk or get close enough to see Link's scar, however, they immediately know we're not natives of the city. Sometimes we catch sight of others like us. Those from the mainland who have been assigned to Eden for other duties. One night, I see some of the mainlanders that Ellie and I met on the boat. Trainee Scientists and Engineers, laughing and enjoying the city like most people would.
For us, however, it's all like a dream. Gradually it becomes harder to know what's actually real and what isn't, caught between visions and dreams and strange manifestations in the Grid. It all just blurs and bundles into one. One long hallucination that it's impossible to wake up from.
