While We Run

by Karen Healey

  The realization was a blow to the head, leaving me sick and dizzy, a low throb at the base of my skull. She’d told me to be nice to Ruby. Diane wanted me to be very nice to her. After all, what was the risk? Ruby was going to die tomorrow, to sink selfishly into her icy chamber, waiting for the dawn of a new world to thaw her out. Ruby wouldn’t risk her future on the word of a handsome boy, whatever he told her about what was really going on. But she might make a final donation for the chance to bed him.

  Please, I thought, staring across the room, willing Diane to hear me and rescue me at last. Please don’t do this to me, too.

  Ruby followed my gaze, and her tone sharpened. “Why are you looking at her?”

  Diane turned away.

  My tongue was thick, moving like a sluggish snake in my dry mouth. I made a noise that couldn’t be mistaken for words, while I groped for self-control. I couldn’t say an outright no to this woman. I couldn’t even be unpleasant in the hope that she’d reject me.

  “We could dance,” I suggested, my stomach flopping around like a dying fish. I summoned a smile that strove to be playful.

  Ruby smiled in return, taking the gesture as compliance. “There’s no music,” she said. “We can dance in my hotel suite.” Which was no doubt being monitored by SADU. They’d be recording everything. Did Ruby know? Did she even care?

  But I could think of no escape. Even the balcony behind me was too far away. Perhaps inspiration would strike on the way to her rooms.

  In the elevator, Ruby leaned against me. She’d drunk a lot of the wine during dinner, but I didn’t think she was that intoxicated. “I’m going to miss my mother,” she said.

  “I miss mine,” I said, unable to keep the sadness from my voice.

  “But I won’t miss anything else,” she continued, blithely ignoring me. “All these boring people, these boring parties… I want something new, Abdi. I want an adventure.”

  And that was what I was to her—an adventure, not a person. As we slipped out of the elevator and into the penthouse suite, her hand slipped under the hem of my shirt, stroking up the plane of my belly. I stared into that beautiful, blank face and wondered if it might not be so bad.

  I saw the white bed over her shoulder, lush and soft.

  No. No matter what it cost me, no matter what it cost Tegan when I didn’t comply, I couldn’t do it.

  I caught Ruby’s wrist. “No,” I said simply.

  She blinked. “What?” I was guessing people didn’t say no to Ruby Simons. “Is this about Tegan? She’ll never know. You can keep your little girlfriend; I’ll be gone tomorrow. I thought you wanted to have some fun.”

  My mouth wasn’t working properly again. “No. I can’t do it.”

  Ruby leaned in and kissed me.

  I shuddered, a full-body rejection that I couldn’t disguise, and pushed her away from me, almost violent in my disgust.

  “Hey!” she said. “I don’t like that. They told me you’d be nice.”

  And that was it. The dams that kept my anger curbed burst, and rage flushed through my body, hot and roiling.

  If I was going to be punished anyway…

  My fingers bit into the soft flesh of Ruby’s arm. “Don’t go,” I said.

  She stared at me, right on the edge of panic. “What?”

  “Don’t freeze yourself! Don’t board the starship. You’ll be profiting off slave labor, making money out of human misery. Don’t do it, Ruby!”

  “But I’ll get old,” she said.

  The former Abdi could have found an argument to persuade her. Appealed to her vanity in some way, made her think about the fame she’d acquire if she tried to stop the Resolution and find a better solution for the dying world. But all I had now was fury and despair, and I was clumsy with it. The last two months work, of making Diane think I was being good, of trying to lower her suspicions and curb my rebelliousness, had just been utterly wasted.

  Only my mother’s training could save me now. I was reaching for the answer, grasping for any rhetorical strategy I could muster, when Diane activated the implant and my world exploded into pain.

  I hit the floor, the taste of my own blood sharp in my mouth as I writhed. Ruby screamed for help, even as she knelt by me.

  “It’ll be okay,” she was saying, hands frantically patting at my cheeks. “What’s wrong, Abdi? Stop it! Stop it now! Somebody help him!”

  “Holy crap!” an unfamiliar voice said, and then there were shiny shoes around me as hotel staff and SADU security surrounded me, calm voices soothing Ruby’s distress.

  The last thing I saw was lavender silk and Diane’s angry eyes before my nervous system overloaded with the agony. I passed out on Ruby Simons’s pretty, pretty carpet.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Elegy

  When I came to, I was strapped onto a narrow float-bed, back in my gray Melbourne cell. There was an IV sticking into the back of my hand, and I recognized the empty, dizzy feeling of being fed by liquid nutrients for a while.

  “Did you hear?” Diane said brightly, from where she was perched at the foot of my bed. She was dressed in her SADU uniform now, no flowing lavender silks. “The Save Tegan campaign tried to poison you as a traitor to their cause. You went into convulsions in the middle of the dinner party. It was deeply shocking. Lucky I was there to administer treatment and get you airlifted to safety.”

  Experience had taught me that people were willing to abandon hard truth in favor of comforting falsehood in almost every circumstance, but it was still hard to believe anyone would believe such a huge lie. But people liked big lies, lies that were so big they couldn’t believe they were lies—because who would dare to tell such a big lie?

  “What is the Save Tegan campaign?” I asked, risking the question on her good mood. She was always in a good mood after I’d been severely punished.

  Diane shrugged. “Reckless, dangerous idiots intent on overthrowing the democratically elected leaders of Australia.” Her smile flashed. “And as of last night, terrorists. I don’t think you’ll be hearing much more from them.”

  Before last night, I’d never heard of them at all. Eavesdropping at these events had been my only way of gathering information in my media blackout. Apparently, I should have had more faith in humanity—and not the part of it that came to those parties. Someone cared. And was making enough noise that even selfish, self-absorbed people had noticed.

  Diane must have seen the hope in my eyes, because she stopped smiling. “Did you and Ruby have a nice talk?” she asked.

  My hope died. “I’m sorry, Diane,” I said mechanically. “I won’t do it again. I was just surprised. I didn’t understand.”

  She stood up and sauntered to the head of my bed. I flinched when she reached for me, but she only stroked through my hair, long fingers gentle on my scalp. “I forgive you,” she said. “It was a brief impulse. The heat of the moment. And I smoothed things over with Ruby. She went into her cryocontainer this morning.”

  So Diane’s attempt to prostitute me had been unsuccessful—but so had my efforts to persuade Ruby to stay alive in the present day. Diane would have plenty more opportunities to carry out her plans. Would I?

  “Unfortunately, Abdi… you missed your catch-up with your parents. And one of the waiters got footage of you flailing about on the floor and ’cast it on the tubes. He was fired, of course, but your parents saw the ’cast. They’re very worried.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said dully. I was sorry for the waiter, mostly. I hoped SADU wouldn’t take any further steps.

  “They asked all sorts of questions. I explained that we were in hot pursuit of the perpetrators, but they keep insisting that you’d be much safer back in Djibouti. We’ve set up another call for tomorrow morning. You’re going to have to be very convincing.”

  “I can do that,” I said.

  Diane smiled. “I know you can.” She pulled her computer out of her pocket and snapped it open. “But you might need some extra motivation.”

  T
egan appeared on the computer screen. She was standing in a luxury aircraft, pale cream walls and plush furnishings. Her bright blue gown was beautiful and her dark hair elegantly arranged, but the expression on her small face radiated sheer ugly terror. I tended to freeze when I knew punishment was coming. Tegan was more kinetic, though, and her reaction was to move. She never tried to hit them anymore, but she couldn’t be still, either. She twisted and tugged in her handler’s impassive grip as if escape wasn’t a futile option, never quite daring to strike him.

  “No, no, no,” she was saying, her voice distorted with her terror. “I’ve been good, so good. I’m a good girl.”

  “Are we ready to go, Lat?” Diane asked pleasantly.

  Tegan’s handler held up his controller. “Ready.”

  Tegan’s breath sobbed out, and she went dead still, her eyes fixed on the camera. “Abdi,” she said.

  My eyes were trained on Tegan, but I spoke to Diane. “Please don’t,” I said.

  “You know how this works, Abdi.” Diane sighed. “I’d hoped you’d learn a little faster. I really don’t enjoy having to do this.”

  That was a lie. Diane loved her job. It was in the mocking slant of her smile as she held the screen in front of my eyes. Sometimes I wondered what had been done to her, to make her like this. Surely she hadn’t been born evil. But most of the time I couldn’t spare the energy to care. “You’ll watch,” she said, her voice quiet and clear. “You’ll watch and you’ll remember. Tomorrow morning, you will convince your parents you love Australia and need to finish your work here before you can even think of going home. And tomorrow night you’ll go to the fund-raiser with Tegan and President Cox, and you will turn in a perfect performance.”

  “Please don’t hurt her,” I begged, and then, more desperately, “Please don’t make me watch.” I hated the tone of my voice, the sick churning in my belly. And I couldn’t stand the shame of the second plea being more important to me right now.

  Tegan, on her SADU-controlled plane, with her SADU handler gripping her arm, wouldn’t have the luxury of passing out. Over the last six months, the tiny tendrils attached to the implant core had worked their way around nearly every bundle of sensory nerves in our bodies. If we went off script in public, Diane and Lat could shut us down immediately, and claim convulsions or terrorist attack. But in SADU-observed privacy, when it didn’t matter what we said or how loud we screamed, they didn’t give us the oblivion of unconsciousness.

  Tegan would suffer for a long time because of what I’d done. And I would have to watch.

  “Diane, please!” Nothing I’d said had ever made any difference, but I still had to try.

  She hesitated. “Well… you have been very good lately.”

  I was already bracing myself for the inevitable denial, and it took me a second to realize the opportunity. “Yes!” I said. “I talked about the camps.”

  “That’s true.” Diane’s eyes shaded over. “And it is understandable that you panicked when you were supposed to go with Ruby. You didn’t know what I wanted.”

  “Tegan’s behavior has been excellent,” Lat rumbled. He was looking at me with disapproval. “Not a single incident all tour.”

  Tegan looked at him, then through the computers at Diane. “That’s right,” she said eagerly. “I’ve been very good.”

  “It seems a pity to punish her,” Diane agreed, tapping her lips. “And you’ll cooperate next time, Abdi?”

  I swallowed hard. I knew what she wanted. I’d have to let her pimp me out without voicing a protest or whispering a word about the horror SADU had trapped us in.

  Eventually, they’d make me do it anyway; with enough time and pain, they could make me do anything. And until I did, they’d hurt Tegan for my disobedience. I looked into her wet eyes, huge with hope, and couldn’t face being the cause of her agony again.

  But I couldn’t face what Diane wanted, either.

  Lie, I thought. Pay for it later. Lie now.

  “I’ll do it,” I said, and met Diane’s amused eyes, pushing sincerity into my own gaze. “I’ll do whatever you want, Diane. I promise. I’ll do anything.”

  Diane’s smile was a slap. “That’s nice, Abdi. But I’m afraid Tegan has to pay for the mistake you’ve already made. Lat, go.”

  Lat looked displeased, but he held up the implant controller, and Tegan’s face crumpled into terror again.

  I lunged for the computer, but Diane held it out of reach. As Tegan’s screams began, I stared into Diane’s mocking face and hated her with every part of me.

  “It’s very easy, Abdi,” she said, tilting the screen so it was in front of my face. “Just stop screwing up. Now, watch what you did.”

  When it was over, I had lunch. My appearance was as carefully planned as a battle and subject to the same military discipline; every calorie had to be accounted for, every muscle worked and streamlined and pushed into the appropriate size for the image they’d created for me.

  After what I’d just witnessed, the food sat like a lump of stone in my stomach. I had to force each mouthful down and keep it down, but I knew better than to refuse to eat. Tegan had managed four hunger strikes; I’d only tried once before the pain and humiliation of force-feeding made me give in.

  After lunch came the exercise routine, then bathing, hair depilation, skin conditioning, costume fittings, and all the other inescapably dull activities required to keep me looking good. Before, I’d enjoyed fashion and taken pleasure in finding bright colors to contrast with my skin. But I didn’t get to do anything now. It was all done to me. I stood for half an hour while the SADU tailor moved around me with memory cloth and clips, trying not to think about how Tegan had looked as Diane had ripped her hope away.

  But it didn’t work; my memory was too good to dismiss the way agony stretched her features, the way her body strained as the convulsions hit. It was harder to remember Tegan as she’d looked when she’d still been defiant, still resisting the process of becoming a puppet. It was harder still to remember her before we’d been caught. She’d been so strong then, the frozen girl reborn, facing her future with determination and a yen for justice and a reckless disregard for her own safety. She’d faced down a hostile media and school bullies, she’d defied religious zealots and her army handler, and she’d confronted head-on the dangerous truth of the real reasons behind her revival. They’d tried to make her a tool and a spokesperson, and instead she’d escaped to tell her own truth.

  That wild courage, that fierce strength. I could have spent all day kissing her for that.

  Instead, we’d had two nights. One night, locked in darkness under the Inheritors’ compound, I’d told her about my ambitions: that I wanted to be a lawyer, then a politician like my mother. I’d told her about my family and the way they guided my choices—but that the choice to come to Australia had been mine, and helping to smuggle vaccines into Africa was my decision and mine alone. I’d listened to her memories of a world gone by, and her hopes for the future.

  And on the second night, I’d promised a speech-shy Tegan that she could tell the truth about the Ark Project. And she did. She talked all night to tell the world everything she’d discovered about the frozen refugees and the secret starship. We’d thought everything was going to change. In that long night, I’d allowed myself to hope.

  In the gray light of the new day, SADU had come to take us both away. And we’d discovered that up till then, the people in charge had been playing nice.

  “Don’t move,” the tailor said irritably, jolting me back to the present.

  “Sorry.”

  She snapped the fabric tight. “You’re still growing.” It was more complaint than observation.

  I glanced at the full-length mirror, something I didn’t do much anymore, because it was so hard to look myself in the eye. I looked good; it was true—a tempting morsel for people like Ruby. High cheekbones; full lips; and dark, polished skin, dark even for a Somali boy. Under arched black eyebrows were my light brown eyes, an o
dd color that caught yellow light in the sun—golden, Tegan had called them. Amber, said Ifrah, the time I’d complained about them. I’d wanted eyes like hers and my mother’s—deep brown and soft. My face hadn’t changed too much in six months; a little stiffer maybe, the jaw a little more defined.

  But my shoulders had broadened, straining against the dark blue cloth. The muscles in my thighs were clearly outlined in the tight pants, exaggerated to a point that looked almost obscene.

  “The exercise routine,” I said. I’d been lean before, fit enough to play a game of soccer without getting winded, but not bulky. Now I had a lot of new muscles, and new strength and nothing to do with it. Sometimes the trapped energy fizzed beneath my skin until I thought I would burst.

  “You’re getting taller, too.” The tailor sighed and shook her black curls. “We’re going to have to give Tegan higher heels again.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault,” she said, and met my eyes. I blinked. Most of the time the tailor treated me as an inconveniently fleshy mannequin. She’d never even told me her name. “I’ll fix it. Getting taller isn’t your problem.”

  I felt my rusty political instincts creak into gear. This was the closest thing to genuine sympathy I’d heard for six months.

  “I’m sorry I’m making more work for you,” I tried, and caught the wry lift at the corner of her mouth.

  “That’s my job,” she said. “Everyone’s gotta do their job.”

  And you’re becoming less comfortable with yours, I thought. I knew better than to make the same mistake I’d made with Ruby and push too hard, too fast. But while I kept my mouth shut, I couldn’t stop my mind from jumping ahead. It would be very useful to have someone inside who was unhappy about what SADU was doing to us, especially someone who had access to both Tegan and me. Eventually, she might be willing to pass messages or get word out to this Save Tegan movement.

  It would take patience and time. A lot of time.

  I wasn’t sure how much time I had left. SADU’s endgame was obvious; break us to the point where they didn’t have to break us anymore. They’d like nothing more than for us to believe the lies we were telling, rather than just repeating them.