Blaze

by Mara, Alex

  That seemed to be the way of things: the newest started at the bottom, slowly climbed their way up as the ones ahead of them were found insufficient, ended up recycled in ones and sometimes twos.

  Of course, I’d done it differently. It wasn't hard to understand my model, considering they were all just different iterations of me. Or you might say I was just different iterations of them.

  Whatever the case, I saw their intent immediately in the mess the other day, because the tray trick was exactly the kind of thing I might have tried if I was feeling petty.

  Or if I'd been worried about my standing.

  For some reason, I wasn't. I never had been. It was in my model's archetype to be status-conscious, to be "the alpha," but from the moment I'd woken to Darcy West's face, I hadn't much cared where I stood.

  I stood apart from them. To me, there was no pecking order.

  I emptied the next clip into Ides. Three shots to the heart, two to the spot between his eyebrows. That should take care of him.

  I tried not to think about tomorrow. I’d be seeing Darcy West for my psychological evaluation, the first time she and I would talk since she'd taken me aside after the obstacle training.

  We had passed each other twice in the hallway since then, and I could tell from her avoidance that I made her nervous, uncertain. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  Both times the warmth had come over me again, the desire for her. As soon as her intoxicating scent entered my nose, I remembered she was different from other females.

  I had crossed paths with the female infiltrators in the halls, and while their faces and bodies bore perfect, beautiful ratios and proportions, they had none of Darcy’s pull for me.

  And it wasn't just physiology. It was, but the moment I'd seen her running across the room to 8017, kneeling there beside him, something had changed in me.

  I understood kindness. There it was, as tangible as the bars I would end up swinging across. It was in the splay of her fingers as she reached out to him, the intensity with which she surveyed his condition. And when it was clear he would live, it was in the relief on her face.

  She was utterly unprecedented. Even I, with less than a week in the world, could sense as much.

  Darcy West wasn’t engineered—she was imperfect: one of her eyes turned a little lazy when she felt nervous, and from somewhere she had acquired a fingernail scar seated high on the side of her neck. I wanted to know what had happened to her.

  I wanted her to tell me her secrets. The truths of her and this place.

  I jettisoned the clip, set a new one in. A fresh target swung around for me, this one non-human. The outline bore some sort of fur over its entire body, and it stood like a quadruped, all four limbs on the ground.

  As I leveled the sight, I knew there was a reason for this. Another secret.

  I wasn’t designed to fight other humans.

  * * *

  6:25 p.m.

  In the mess, 8016 was talking to me. 8016 had never talked to me.

  “There’s a plan, Blaze.” He spoke so low I had to put nearly all my focus into his voice.

  He had figured out the exact decibel level that would be picked up by the camera in the ceiling, and he spoke just below that, his face turned to his food as though he weren’t talking at all. Our model could be supremely subtle in that way—a massive aspect of our engineering.

  “Do you want to know more?” 8016 said.

  His voice carried a faint note of desperation, but I couldn’t tell if it was genuine. This was as likely to be a test as an actual plan. Either way, I wanted to hear more.

  “Tell me,” I said, taking an overlarge bite of the mush. I chewed and chewed and appeared totally absorbed by the all the masticating I was doing.

  “8014 has the ear of one of the staff. He said he could help us get out of here. He’d be willing to accidentally leave the door to the capsule room unlocked tonight,” 8016 said.

  "They can't just be left unlocked." I'd understood at once that all the important doors in this facility were fingerprint-activated. That included the capsule room where the current crop of male infiltrators slept. Us.

  "Well, he said something about the door being open," 8016 said.

  This plan was sounding worse and worse. But it didn't put me at much risk to hear him out.

  “And then what?” I asked, setting my spoon in the container.

  “We sneak out, make for the weapon racks. Once we’re equipped, the guards haven’t got a hope.”

  “The guards are infiltrators trained to fight us,” I said. “Hell, they’re teaching us to fight.”

  “Right,” 8016 said around a bite of his mush, “so we activate our claws. You show us.”

  I nearly lost my spoon in my food—nearly. I’d been designed with better reflexes than that. “That’s insane,” I said. The most insane part, to me, was escaping this place after a few days or a week in the world. 8016 wasn't ready. I wasn't ready.

  The claws were still an abstract concept to me. I'd only managed to activate them once, and I definitely couldn't train anyone else to do so.

  Besides, what could the world possibly hold for us if we were being engineered and trained to seduce and assassinate? It could be a utopia; more likely it was a hell.

  “Got a better idea?” 8016 asked. I could hear the note of agitation in his voice, the strain on the vocal cords.

  My lips parted, and then a third tray set expertly down across from us, and a shadow fell over my food. "You two look like you're having a very serious conversation."

  That voice. Raspier somehow than the others.

  I lifted a blueberry, popped it into my mouth as I raised my eyes to 8013. "Please, sit."

  8013 stepped over the bench, lowered himself onto it and steepled his fingers. His eyes shifted between me and 8016. "Please, don't let me interrupt." Mirth passed across his face like a cloud in front of the sun.

  He knew. Somehow he knew.

  8016 went unhelpfully silent, eating his food like he'd been starved for days.

  I tossed another blueberry into my mouth. "8016 was asking me about the time I activated my claws on the obstacle course."

  "So you did," 8013 said, sliding his spoon into his meal. He didn't lift it to take a bite; his eyes remained on me. "I noticed you haven't done that in the days since, 8024."

  I shrugged. "It wasn't necessary."

  "You activate your claws and decide later you don't want to get in on that action again?" 8013 shook his head. "I call bullshit."

  He and I stared at one another. What was he fishing for?

  "It was anomalous," I said. "Anomalies get recycled."

  8013 snapped his fingers. "There you go." He took a spoonful of dinner before he sat contemplative, his eyes surveying the two of us. "That one isn't worth your time."

  He was pointing at 8016, who finally stopped eating to stare murderously at 8013.

  "I'll decide that," I said.

  "You know it's true," 8013 said. "I don't like you, either. You're almost as cocky as me, except without the restraint to make your way. You'll probably get recycled, 8024"—his eyes flicked back to me now, held my gaze—"but I didn't say definitely. So don't fuck up again."

  He was referring, of course, to 8016's "plan." The message had been transmitted as clearly as if he'd spoken it.

  "And you?" I asked him.

  "And me what?" 8013 said.

  "How will you avoid it?"

  He leaned forward over his tray. "By not fucking up."

  I stared at him for a time. Then, slowly, I lifted another blueberry toward my mouth. I paused, popped it in. "I've finally decided: you're like the asshole version of me. The asshole version of me really pisses me off."

  He scoffed. "Remember our duel? I’d imagine you’re still feeling that knife to the back.“

  "I gave you a nice souvenir, too.” My eyes flitted to his neck, where the nick was still in the satisfying process of scabbing over.

  "You did," he said.
"Once you've had two weeks in this place, you come to me. I'll still be around—I promise you that—and you tell me whether you haven't become the worst version of yourself."

  "Is that what you are? The worst version of yourself?"

  "I'm the version of me that survived," 8013 said. And for the first time I saw something flicker beneath the anger, the hate.

  It was pain.

  He left 8016 and me alone at the table, depositing his tray with a clang.

  I glanced over at 8016. “This plan of yours…don’t do it.”

  “Why?” he said.

  "8013 knows. He'll out you."

  8016 exhaled slowly. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you, but you’re slated for recycling. That's why I'm asking you—well, that and the claws.”

  I kept chewing, but my heart's pace quickened. Darcy wouldn’t do that to me; 8016 was baiting me into the plan.

  But then…8017 and 8018 had both gone to the bin, and neither of them had nicknames. Neither of them had asked what they were on awaking. And neither of them had skipped out on the infiltrator pecking order and sprouted claws.

  Anomalous. I was anomalous. He might be right about the whole recycling thing after all.

  “So?” 8016 said. He had nearly finished his meal, would soon need to take his tray back to the dispenser.

  “So,” I said, finally meeting eyes with him, “8013 knows, and he's loyal to whomever or whatever will keep him alive. I can promise you: that person isn't you."

  For the first time, I saw what my own face would look like if I were truly afraid. 8016’s eyes went so wide I could see the whites at the top and bottom, and then he stood.

  “We aren’t given many choices here, 8024,” he said, lifting his tray. “And this is the first time I’ve had one.”

  With that, he left the mess.

  So it had been true desperation in his voice. That was bad: desperation led to desperate decisions, and desperate decisions got you killed.

  Like a good infiltrator, I finished my meal, my eyes on my food.

  * * *

  2:14 a.m.

  I had been asleep for four hours.

  The whisking sound of a capsule unsealing had become as familiar to me as my own breath. I woke from a dream, and two other capsules hissed open around me.

  I depressed the button to unseal mine as though I had to use the urinal, and when I sat up, 8014, 8015, and 8016—the three eldest, aside from 8013—had all left the empty eggshells of their beds, were crossing toward the bright and luminous rectangle of the hallway.

  They were clad only in their black sleeping shorts, and when my capsule opened, 8016 looked back at me.

  I swung my legs out, stood. Very carefully, I turned my head left and right. No. Don’t do it.

  8014 and 8015 kept going. And after a moment, 8016 did, too. He’d seen me shake my head—we’d met eyes—and he’d gone anyway.

  Was it desperation or hope? Maybe they commingled. Maybe there was always a little desperation in hope. Whichever it was, the feeling had led three of my model into the hallway, led to them disappearing into the light.

  I stood a moment, staring after. The camera would be on me, recording every movement—or non-movement. After five seconds, which was very nearly too long, I crossed to the bathroom, came to stand in front of the nearest urinal.

  I didn’t lift my eyes, but I knew now there was a camera in here, too, at the far wall. This one was small enough it had taken me some time to spot, but during my time in the mess I’d heard stories about fights and screwing in the bathroom; by consequence, there wasn’t a single place we could go to be unseen.

  That was the irony, of course: we were infiltrators, designed for stealth until the right moment. And we were being kept in a place where most of us would be watched from the moment of our waking until the moment we were schlepped into the recycling bin.

  I liked ironies; they were helpful during the awful, dire moments, I was learning. Done right, they injected a little humor into the unlikeliest situations. Like this one.

  I had just lowered my shorts when the shots came: bam-bam-bam, all together. Given the amount of time they’d been out of the pod room, the three of them hadn’t even had time to reach the weapon racks. I knew exactly who'd tipped off the Gales.

  And like that, 8013 stepped up to the urinal beside mine. "Poor bastards," he breathed.

  Anger coursed through me. If I'd had a tanto, I would have done more than give 8013's neck a warning nick. I'd put him down for good.

  But as soon as I'd had the thought, Darcy's face appeared in my mind. That sweep of hair behind her head as she came to 8017's side. Her face in profile, watching with worry.

  And like that, she'd come to occupy a small place inside me. It was the place that said, "You're better than that."

  So I finished, turned, and left without a word. There would come a time, but this wasn't it.

  Seven

  Tuesday, May 5, 2053

  4:06 p.m.

  Darcy

  Another attempted escape last night, and now 8024 was six minutes late for his first psychological evaluation. I had confirmed he wasn’t among them, but even his lateness was an anomaly—probably one I should’ve been marking on my stenopad. But for some reason I hadn’t even lifted my pen from the desk.

  It wasn’t just the attempted escape—those were commonplace. The truth was, for the last few days I’d been acting out of character. Moving slower, staring at my notes longer, taking different paths to and from my office and the mess.

  I'd skipped dinner last night. Instead, I'd come back and slept.

  I was anomalous, and I couldn’t quite figure out why.

  Beside me, a yellow and white fish in the projection on my wall had stopped, fins waving, to inspect me with bulbous eyes. I stared back, and for a good ten seconds we considered each other. “I’m not looking away first, Goldie."

  The two of us kept staring. Easy enough when the subject was a fish, but every time I’d seen 8024 in the halls since we talked in the interrogation room, I’d avoided looking.

  And he had definitely watched me go by. He wasn't supposed to do that, of course—he was just supposed to pass from one room to another, eyes straight ahead. But he did, and I felt undressed both times, vulnerable and laid bare.

  Not a single infiltrator had had that effect in me, not only because I’d designed them, but because the psychological effects weren’t as effective when I’d been the one to come up with their tricks.

  Like magicians, much of it was smoke and mirrors.

  Maybe, though, 8024 hadn’t been playing any tricks. Maybe our interactions had been what they were because of some cosmic interplay, some unlikely chemistry.

  When he'd smiled at me in the interrogation room, the nerves along my spine had fired in synchrony.

  I shook my head, lifted the projector remote. That was crazy thinking—not like me. “You win, fish.”

  I switched it to a forest scene. At once, my curious fish disappeared, and my cabin shifted from a deep blue to a luminous white. Snow lay on the branches, coated the ground like frosting. The moon sat like a fingernail clipping in the sky.

  I hadn’t seen snow since I was a child, couldn’t even remember such cold, but something about it calmed me. The quietness, the perfect canvas of white.

  “That’s something,” a voice said, the tone like honey over my nerves. I knew that voice; I had programmed it.

  I spun, had to stop my chair from traveling too far. 8024 stood in my doorway, had somehow entered without noise.

  Not somehow—I’d engineered him to do that.

  He wore the black uniform from martial training, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows. Already he bore a casualness in the way he spoke and moved, but I felt as he approached my desk that it wasn’t an affect. He'd just settled into who he was.

  No, Darcy, I thought. It's all an affect. You designed them to seduce dumb women like you.

  I pointed with my pen at the forest s
cene behind me. “You like that?”

  “I do,” he said, turning the wooden chair by its back so he could straddle it. His biceps pressed like branches against the metal, folded overtop. “Do you?”

  His directness caught me. It didn’t help that my pulse had increased when he entered the room. “Yes,” I said. “I grew up in a forest.” It was a mistake to tell him that—he could be recycled in three days, which meant we couldn’t get cozy and familiar. And I was one of his handlers, not his friend.

  “Our biome training indicated that trees are gone from this part of Earth,” he said.

  “Yes, that’s true.” My heart still hadn’t mended from the last trip above ground: around Beacon, the endless wastes of the dead zone stretched beyond what I could see. They might as well have stretched to the ocean, as far as any of us knew.

  My eyes flicked up; he’d been watching me closely. Business, Darcy. Focus. “Tell me about your trainings, 8024.”

  “They've gone well, Doctor. I thought I should let you know: the others still call me Blaze, though I've instructed them to refer to me as 8024,” he said, his lips very nearly forming the smirk I had seen on his first day. That curl of his full mouth flipped my stomach over.

  Blaze. The nickname that wouldn't die.

  I frowned, pressing the nib on the end of my pen. Where had the rest of them learned the name? Probably he'd introduced himself that way on that first day, and it had caught on like wildfire. All because I'd said an offhand thing after he’d finished on the treadmill, and now that was his name.

  Somehow I felt complicit. Another mistake of familiarity, of treating him like something other than a clone. “Who calls you that?”

  “Most of them. In the mess, in the training rooms, in the capsule room.”

  “You all talk?” I asked. I knew they did—they always had, which was how they established the pecking order and practiced their humanness. But it was better to pretend ignorance in order to fully probe his answers.

  “Of course. Don’t you talk to other people?”