by Eliza Green
He scuttled back and breathed hard at the sight of the lifeless copy that Arcis, or this Quintus person, may have just disabled. He got to his feet. The others stared, visibly shocked by the scene.
He gripped his aching arm that felt like it might be broken. Through intense pain, he managed to flex his fingers. ‘Stop staring and come on. We need to go.’
Warren slipped through the door and left Tower B to cross the walkway. He looked down at the atrium that was quiet and empty. Mops and buckets lay scattered across the floor. In Tower A, he tried the elevator, but it was offline again. He looked around and found a final set of stairs in the room adjacent to the changing room that brought them to the back of the ground-floor dining hall.
He crept out of the hall and into the atrium. Warren jerked to a stop when he saw the shutter to the wolves’ cubbyhole was open and three giant wolves were halfway across the atrium floor, their paws frozen in high mid-step. His eyes never left the unmoving beasts as he passed through the chaotic scene that looked like the participants had fled in a hurry. The group followed him. He gave one wolf a final glance and noticed its eye move. He pressed on quicker, afraid their frozen states were just temporary.
Max, Jason and Jerome waited in the lobby with the others. A group of frightened boys and girls controlled by Compliance huddled together looking unsure. Max looked relieved to see Warren.
‘It’s about time,’ said Max. ‘We were about to leave you behind.’
Warren’s expression hardened. Yeah, story of my life.
He swallowed his anger and disgust. ‘One of the supervisors caught me on the stairs. But I think Arcis might have disabled her. Feedback of some kind played through her communication device before she went limp.’
‘Yeah, we saw something similar happen, too on the third,’ said Jason. ‘The supervisor there just dropped to the floor as the elevator doors closed.’
‘I think we should get going,’ said Max. ‘I don’t want to be here when those wolves in the atrium wake up.’
They all agreed, even the frightened lambs most affected by Compliance.
Warren followed Max and Jason out of Arcis, towards the perimeter, to the force field. Warren, Jerome and the others still had access chips in their wrists that allowed them to pass through the force field. But Jason, Max and the soldier might not be so lucky.
But Max walked right through without any problems.
‘The force field is down,’ he said. ‘Quickly. Before this place resets itself.’
It was early morning and the sun was beginning to rise in the east. Not a soul was out on the streets.
A deep rumbling sounded beyond Essention’s walls.
‘What the hell is that?’ said Jerome.
Jason sprinted to the nearby Monorail station and climbed the stairs to the platform. He scaled a safety railing and held on to a vertical pole for support as he looked over Essention’s perimeter wall in the distance. He gasped then climbed back down.
‘Hovering transporters are coming this way. Giant diggers. Large claw mechanisms. I can see the plumes of dust swirling in the distance. They’re approaching at a steady pace. It won’t be long before they’re here. Maybe twenty minutes.’
‘What do they want?’ said Warren.
‘They’re coming to break apart Essention,’ said Max. ‘We need to get everyone out.’
11
Warren
The commotion approaching from outside Essention woke up several houses. Lights flicked on and faces appeared at windows. Some residents wandered outside to take a look.
When their group of ten reached East Essention where the orphans had been housed, Max told everyone to begin knocking on doors. Frightened boys and girls answered their doors.
‘You need to leave Essention,’ said Warren, when a girl gave him a blank look.
‘Why?’
‘Because giant machines are coming to break the urbano apart and you shouldn’t be here.’
The girl’s eyes widened. ‘I don’t understand. Essention is my home now. I’m all alone. I have nowhere else to go.’
‘I don’t have time to argue. There are others who need our help.’ Warren exhaled. ‘Look, are you coming or not?’
The girl bit her lip and looked around, unsure.
Warren walked away. ‘Fine. Suit yourself. I have to go.’
He met up with the others after they’d finished their house calls. Other orphans had joined the group which was now thirty. Warren didn’t bother checking to see if the girl he’d spoken to was with them. His survival was his number one priority now.
‘This is taking too long, Max,’ said Jason.
‘I agree. We need a better way to tell everyone. Come on. Let’s find Charlie. We can cover more ground if he can hack into the communication system.’
Max led them to a gate behind a block of apartments in East. There was a strip of overgrown land behind the houses. ‘This way. It’s blocked in parts, so we’ll have to climb over. But it’s the shortest route to Southwest.’
Max opened the gate and ushered everyone inside. Warren pushed ahead of the orphans who were still on Compliance and moving slower than him. Jason took the lead while Max brought up the rear. They exited at the entrance to Essention and close to the hospital.
The hospital block with the see-through walls was plunged into darkness but Warren saw people moving about inside. Jason opened another gate connecting to a strip of land behind the houses in Southwest. The land was better kept, easier to navigate. They kept going.
Jason stopped at a seven-foot wall covered by bushes to the rear of the houses in Southwest. Max joined him and together they pulled back the bush to reveal a hole in the wall. Warren made sure to squeeze in ahead of the others. On the other side, Max opened the back door to a house and ushered them all in.
An old man appeared at the kitchen door, wrench in hand. He held it like a weapon.
‘Where the hell have you been? Can you hear that?’
‘It’s the Praesidium machines, Charlie,’ said Jason. ‘They’re coming with diggers. They’re going to rip this place apart.’
Charlie nodded. ‘Reinforcements arrived while you were in Arcis. How did it go? Did you find her?’
‘Another time, Dad,’ said Max. ‘We’ll talk when we’re out of here safely.’
‘Right, yes. We should all get moving.’
Charlie turned to leave but Max gripped his arm. ‘Not yet. The urbano is full of disorientated and compliant kids. We need to warn them. We’re too slow on foot. Can you hack the communication system wired into the houses, get a message out?’
‘That would be even slower. We wouldn’t have enough time. But I have another idea.’ Charlie left the room and returned with a megaphone. ‘Will this do? We’ll need to get higher. It won’t reach everyone, but it’s the best we can hope for.’
Max nodded and took it from him.
Warren followed Max upstairs and watched him climb out of a window onto the roof. The megaphone squealed when he turned it on. Max brought it to his lips.
‘People of Essention. You need to leave your homes. You are no longer safe here. Praesidium has sent machines to tear this urbano apart. If you don’t believe me, look out your window and you will see the dust the machines are kicking up beyond the walls. They will arrive shortly. Take nothing and run to the exit.’
Max climbed back in the window and threw the megaphone on the bed.
‘We need to collect everything we brought. Warren, please help Charlie.’
The bungalow was close enough to Essention’s exit. Warren could leave without Max and the others, but he had no idea where to go, where would be safe. At least the rebels could guarantee his safety on the outside. He nodded.
He found Charlie in the living room, instructing the group to carry guns and equipment. Jason was emptying the contents of a hidden storage area into a bag. Charlie handed Warren and Jerome an empty rucksack each and told them to pack in food from the kitchen. He kept a th
ird bag in hand.
‘Do you think the residents will leave?’ said Jerome to Charlie as he stuffed cans and cutlery into the bag.
‘I don’t know, son,’ said Charlie, filling his pack. ‘All I know is we need to get out of here before this place reboots itself. If that happens, we’ll have more pressing worries than those diggers out there.’
‘Like what?’ said Jerome.
‘Like getting past the disintegration guns monitoring the outside, for one. While this place is offline, we have a shot. I don’t know if the guns will power up, but if they do, we won’t make it five feet past those walls.’
They gathered what they could and everyone met outside in the back garden. When they’d squeezed through the hole in the wall and were on the strip of land behind the houses, they ran for Essention’s exit.
Warren looked at the hospital again. He saw the patients inside pressed up against the windows, looking confused. Some were banging on the glass. The place appeared to be on lockdown. He wondered if they’d heard Max’s warning. Some figures inside the hospital were frozen in place. Copies, he presumed.
The shiny orbs that normally patrolled close to the hospital were nowhere in sight, and the group made it to the gate without any trouble.
Max pulled on the gate and it moved a little. ‘It’s on manual lockdown only. We should be able to open it.’
Warren and Jerome helped Max pull it back far enough for the others to squeeze through. They gathered on the other side of the gate but stopped when Max put his hand up.
‘Don’t go any further. I’ll need to check the guns.’
He approached the lip of the brick facade that was part of the recessed entrance. Warren saw him look up then pull back.
‘Shit, no. This isn’t going to work.’ Max backtracked to Essention’s main gate.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Charlie.
‘The guns. They’re active. Moving slowly, but still moving. We’d be ripped apart before we reached safety outside of their sensors.’
‘So what do we do now?’ said Warren.
Charlie’s eyes brightened. ‘The tunnel. We can use it to escape.’
‘How?’ said Max. ‘You collapsed it. Digging it out would take too long.’
They moved back to the strip of land behind Southwest.
‘I never collapsed it,’ said Charlie. ‘I just covered it up.’
‘Jesus, Dad. That was a risk. What if they’d found it?’
‘A risk worth taking, I’d say, given our present predicament.’
The noise beyond Essention’s perimeter grew louder. ‘They’re about a mile out,’ said Max. ‘I saw them while I was checking the guns. We need to go. I don’t think they’ll bother with the main entrance. More likely, they’ll hit the side of the urbano.’
Warren heard a hissing noise. He looked around and saw a thick gas drifting up through the grates in the ground. The revolting smell forced him to pinch the end of his nose. ‘What’s that?’
‘Arcis is gassing the urbano,’ said Jason, breathing into his sleeve. ‘We need to get out of here.’
‘Everyone cover your mouths,’ said Charlie.
The group ran back to Charlie’s house. Everywhere, the gas leaked out of hidden grates. They coughed and spluttered as they tried to run while holding their breath. Some dropped, and Jerome went to help them to their feet.
‘Leave them,’ said Max.
Warren’s eyes watered and stung as the gas reached him. He coughed and pulled his T-shirt up high to cover his mouth and nose. The others did the same with their clothing. Charlie and Max held the cloth bags to their faces. They lunged for the hole in the wall and groped for the back door.
Inside the house, Warren gasped and sucked in new air. They’d lost three people; all orphans on Compliance who hadn’t reacted fast enough.
He followed Charlie into the basement where he saw a false wall and mounds of dirt piled up in one corner of the room. Charlie, Max, Jason, Jerome and the soldier dismantled the false wall that covered a large tunnel.
‘Inside, quickly,’ said Charlie.
Warren turned to see the gas leaking through the air vents in the ceiling. The whole building was rigged.
He lunged for the tunnel. The low ceiling forced him onto all fours, and he moved as fast as he could. The boy in front slowed him down. Panic rose in Warren’s throat when he smelled the noxious gas at the start of the tunnel.
‘Hurry up!’ he shouted at the boy who picked up the pace a little.
Warren throat was raw and his eyes stung.
The tunnel veered upwards and Warren clambered out of the hole onto a grassy area outside of Essention. They all ran for the tree line in the distance. When they reached safety, Warren looked back at Essention.
Max had been right. Through teary eyes, he watched the diggers break through one of the side walls and begin to dismantle the urbano. Screams filled the air. He thought of all the people who had refused to leave. They had been stupid not to heed Max’s warning.
Minutes passed and one of the machines emerged from the large gaping hole in the side of Essention, carrying a pile of bodies on its flat bed. It tipped the bed and dropped the bodies onto the grass.
Warren turned away, sickened. Had the rebels been just as callous when they’d carried out their raids on the towns in the name of freedom?
Their group led by Max and Jason trekked silently through the trees. The burn in Warren’s throat and nose lessened. They entered a clearing and a town came into view: Glenvale.
Max coughed into his fist as they approached the town. ‘We need to pack everything and get going.’
Warren tensed up at the sight of snipers lacing the tops of the walls. Scanners perched up high bathed them in a blue light as they waited at the entrance.
The gates to Glenvale opened and Warren absorbed the layout of the town that acted as some kind of operational base. Floodlights brightened the main streets. There was even an armoury that soldiers dressed in green garb were in the process of dismantling.
A female soldier in her early twenties approached Max. ‘The minute we saw the machines coming for Essention we started to pack up.’
Ten minutes later, the trucks parked inside Glenvale were full and ready to go. Warren and Jerome climbed inside a truck with Max and Charlie.
‘Where are we going?’ said Warren.
‘To a safe haven in the mountains. It’s too risky to stay here now. Praesidium will be looking for us. It will know we’ve escaped Arcis. The rest of our people are at the safe haven. It’s a place the machines don’t know about.’
Warren’s pulse thrummed. Would he find his parents at the safe haven?
He gripped the underside of his seat as the truck pulled out of Glenvale, heading away from Essention.
What if there was no Beyond, no place beyond the safe haven, as Arcis had assumed there was? What if his parents had just wanted rid of him?
12
Warren
The vehicle bumped along the road on its way to the mysterious mountain stronghold. The driver had cranked up the speed to outrun any machine that might follow if or when Essention and Arcis came back online. It would most likely be one of the orbs that monitored the area around the hospital and the water pipes; Jason called them scouts. Warren had only ever seen them moving at a slow pace around Essention, but Jason assured him they could move as fast as a hummingbird. There was a reason Praesidium used them to scout the area for rebels.
Warren tried not to think about the bodies he’d seen outside Essention, or how many more the machines had added to the pile since they left. That could have been them if they’d delayed their exit from the urbano. What if the tunnel hadn’t been available? So many people gassed like that. So many people discarded like waste. How could Praesidium allow that to happen?
‘Praesidium built Essention and Arcis,’ Max had said when the truck first moved off. ‘They put machines in charge of both places. Praesidium wants to retrieve the technol
ogy. That’s why the machines are tearing Essention apart. Everyone living inside the walls is expendable.’
The thought turned Warren stomach. Being on the side of the rebels didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
Warren thought about Anya and June, even Dom and Sheila. What had happened to them? Where had they gone? Had they been sent to Praesidium? Seeing Dom’s half-copied legs inside the machine on the ninth floor had forced him to think about more than just his safety. He couldn’t understand why they had been copied at all.
He recalled his parents’ last conversation with him, the night before they’d left. They had all just sat down to dinner. His mother, Jean, had made his favourite: chicken and roast potatoes. If Warren had been paying attention, he would have realised it was their last supper together. But nothing had seemed out of place.
His father, Philip, was reading a Praesidium news article from a handheld computer—one of the broken hand-me-downs belonging to the city. Jean busied herself with preparing their meal. ‘A special occasion’, she called it. But when Warren asked what was so special about it, she said, ‘I just want to spend some quality time with my men.’
When his mother wiped away a tear when she thought he wasn’t looking, Warren said nothing, thought nothing. He’d been too preoccupied with Tahlia and her games at school to see what was in front of him.
‘It says here Praesidium is going to give us new growth-promoting lights for the vertical farms,’ said Philip.
‘Well that’s good news,’ said Jean.
‘Increases the growth by at least three times what we have at the moment.’ He scrolled down the page. ‘Possibly as soon as three months, Praesidium says.’
Jean smiled sadly. ‘Just in time for spring.’
‘Yes, I suppose. But crops and food supplies are low now. We needed it three months ago.’
‘Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.’
‘Dad, what’s Praesidium like?’ said Warren.
