by Terina Adams
The sweeper deposited me at the door and left without saying a word, the door hissing behind him.
“Lie down on the table.” That was Martimon’s welcoming words this time around.
I complied, but not because of his bewitching Set words. I complied, because to refuse was to delay the inevitable, and I wanted to be away from him as soon as possible, away back with the others, so I might learn as much as I could about the desert and how I could get out of here.
Destruction may no longer have been a part of me, but I was not going to accept this fate, not if this fate meant I would be forced to join society, an alien society, as someone I was not; there was no going back when you knew too much. Never, never would I allow Mum and Ajay to suffer this life, to live controlled as they would. And what if the senate forbade us from assimilating into this world? We were aliens, after all. The senate would not want the people to be seduced by the possibility of leaving this world. Would that mean we would be locked away for good?
I lay back on the trolley bed and stared at the ceiling, resisting the urge to turn my head and see what Martimon was clanking onto the cart beside me.
“Cooperation is in your best interests. The procedure will progress quickly and painlessly if you comply with my requests. I will be forced to take certain measures if you do not cooperate.”
“I’m lying down, aren’t I?”
Standing at my head, he paused for a moment, bending over so his beady eyes could peer all over my face. From this angle, his cheeks became jowls, loose flesh drooping toward the bed. How did I see him as Santa Claus? Crowding me as he was, the strong astringent smell, like fruit left to ferment longer than required, flowing from his breath and pores reduced my breathing to tiny inhales.
He placed small discs at my brow and temples, much like the ones I had worn when playing Dominus, the ones Jax said connected to my neural pathways and dictated the way I saw reality in the game. They also read my brainwaves and body, collecting information on the use of my factional nature, my physical and mental health, and a myriad of other useful data I was sure they would gather and study during these trials.
Discs on my head, he moved farther down my body, strapping my arms then my legs to the bed. Feeling helpless like this, I couldn’t help but delve inside, looking for destruction, and found nothing, which turned into a hollowness so profound it felt like I was crumbling into the bed. Destruction was the essence of me. That’s what it felt like right now, when I needed it so much. I was cast outside myself, a stranger in this body.
It’s not true. I had to remember that. I was someone before I knew about my factional nature. And now I had to become someone better, more resourceful, cunning, and determined. Isn’t that what Jax instructed me to do the instant before he jumped from the Adolphy Tower? With no superpowers to help me in a world full of them, I would have to do as I was—for Mum and Ajay’s sake.
“How long will this take?”
“You needn't worry. You will not remember the passage of time.”
“You won't take any of my memories, will you?”
“It’s not our intention to remove your memories. It is an unfortunate side effect. For most, it is temporary. Relax during the procedure, and all will be well.”
“Will you tell me what you’re going to do?”
“It’s a very complex and detailed study. Something you will perhaps not understand. But we are just gathering our knowledge, broadening our understanding.”
“Of factional natures and how to suppress them permanently?”
“Something like that. Now turn your head slightly to the right and fix your eyes on the corner of the ceiling.”
“Why?”
“Question less and it will go smoother.”
I did, finding the joint between the wall and the ceiling when he placed his hand on my temple and pressed my head down into the bed. At the same time, something sharp pierced the skin on the side of my neck, the pain just a pinprick. Minuscule but enough to make me jerk. Thanks to his hand pinning my head to the bed, I didn’t move.
“I said relax, girl. You will only make it worse for yourself.”
“I’d like to see how you’d react if something sharp pierced your skin when you weren’t ready. What is that?”
“It's quite harmless, though vital to our study.” That was all I got out of him.
An anesthetic numbness diminished the sting at the point of entry. Martimon moved in close, feathering his breath on my throat. Because the skin was numb, I felt nothing around the needle site. Beyond that, the skin felt warm and moist in a pulsing rhythm with his exhalations.
Soon, I felt a heavy sensation across my neck, but not as it would feel if someone or thing was laid across me, more from some invisible pressure within. The pressure spread a warmth along my throat, moving upward to my face, wrapping around to the back of my skull. More heat moved from my throat down into my chest. I could feel its incremental spread like a trickle of water streaming down the skin. No longer just warmth, the invisible flow heated further, and with it my arteries throbbed. I could feel them as if they were swelling to twice their normal size and forced to pump a thick sludge along through my body.
I tried to raise my arm, forgetting he strapped me down only moments ago. As with my arm, my leg flicked outward only to be hampered by the band wrapped around my ankle. With the jacking of my heart rate, the sludge bulging my arteries spread fast. Without even concentrating, I could trace the direction it traveled, how far it reached down into my toes.
What is happening? Did I say that out loud or in my head?
The room coalesced into a spinning cloud of white. I turned my head to the side, searching for Martimon—at least, I thought I turned my head to the side. Too confused, I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I licked my lips, and my tongue ran over the swell, which now felt ballooned.
Someone returned to my side. I couldn’t see them, because my head was in such a jumble, my mind unable to make my eyes focus. And the noise, not an audible noise but a chaotic tumbling in my head, distracting me so anything going on around me became a background tinkle. But whoever it was, I sensed their presence. Like a snake, I felt their body heat and their breath shimmying over my face. With it came a fragrance steeped in leathering oils but also mixed with the smell of sweet molasses.
I jumped when, through the fog in my brain, a hand touched my arm. The hand smoothed its way down my arm to my exposed skin and rolled my wrist over, so it faced the ceiling, revealing my tattoo.
“What is happening?” Again, I couldn’t be sure if the words managed to leave my mouth. “Can someone tell me what’s happening?”
Silence.
The effort of trying to turn my head was like moving a solid block of lead. Any minute, I’d perhaps go through the table and crash to the floor; such was the weight of my body.
Seeing movement in my periphery, I doubled my efforts to look, putting all my effort into inching my head to the side like it was my lifeline. I felt the move like rocking on a turbulent sea, nauseating my stomach. Until finally I succeeded, feeling the cold, hard metal of the table touching my cheek. Through the haze, I stared into eyes, the gray so faint it was like someone sucked the color away, eyes churning and roaring like a wild storm.
“Sable.”
I knew that voice. From Dominus? No. Contacts Jax knew? No. At what point had I heard this voice, met this man?
“I want you to tell me about yourself. I want to know everything there is to know about you. All the special things that make you unique.”
My name was Sable. The questions were directed at me. He had it wrong. I wasn’t unique. But the questions pulled at the back of my mind, made me think of my life, my family, everything I experienced and had seen, the ache of losing Dad, the struggle of supporting Mum, the hatred at meeting Jax. And Dominus, the fear, the rage, the feeling of being tricked, trapped then reborn anew, the loathing and addiction toward destruction.
Words spilled from my mouth. I
didn’t know what I was saying, just felt them moving up my throat and slipping off my tongue. A jumble perhaps incoherent, perhaps poignant and on point. I followed none of it. It spilled too fast for me to keep up. Out it poured while the hand stayed at my wrist, to soothe, encourage, or warn me to keep revealing the depths of myself.
The words seized in my mouth when an instant agony seared through my head. It stabbed, burned, brutalized my mind. My body arched off the bed, ripping out a long, throaty scream, sounding like it came from deep in my lungs. Colors swirled in front of my eyes. Gone were the images I replayed with everything I said to the mysterious man to be replaced by flashes of scolding red, and blinding white, and every mix in-between. It was like the pain had torn the images apart, leaving a disjointed jumble of colors.
A sudden pressure on my forehead seared like a branding iron. I tried to thrash my head, but the pressure held my head in place. Anymore, and it would puncture through the trolley. The touch felt cold. Either the hand had come out of an ice bath or my head was on fire. More hands reached for my wrists, also cold on my bare skin. My body was on fire. I remembered the time in the tunnel under the Dome, swimming through the fiery pool and how it felt to have my skin barbecued from my body. Was this it? Was I about to burn internally, charring from the inside out?
Someone pulled the discs from my head. The moment they were gone, the pain receded, ebbing rather than disappearing completely. My body collapsed back onto the bed, and only then did I realize how long I remained coiled, muscles tensed and fighting. Fumbling at my wrists and then ankles, and then I was released. My head lolled to the side. I felt too exhausted to do anything but sink, sink, sink, hopefully disappear into oblivion, where I could sleep for eternity.
Hands slid under my body and lifted me from the table. I was too weak to fight against it. And then I didn’t want to, as I was pressed against something firm but giving, warm and smelling of life. Carried away, the gentle rhythmic rocking of my body lulled me to semi-sleep. Once or twice, my head jerked backward before I righted it again, then unable to keep my neck up anymore, I allowed my head to loll backward, arching over someone’s arm. Too tired, I didn’t bother to look where I was taken. If only this journey would end.
A harsh metallic ring pounded through my head, and then I was lowered onto a firm bed. When the arms released me, I curled to my side, rounding into a ball. No one touched me. I wasn’t moving. I was blissfully free to fall, fall into the darkness.
Chapter 29
When my eyes opened, I stared ahead for a long time, orientating myself within the room. Nothing about it was familiar. Even the nose-tingling smell of menthol, which made it feel like each inhale was opening up all my airways and expanding my lungs, gave me no memories. I pushed up from the hard, thin bed and looked around me, but found each direction had the same view. This was not my cell.
I slid off the bed then swayed, my knees buckling once they hit the metal of the bedframe and sat back down. My fingers felt thick. Opening and closing them was an exercise in slow motion. It was like they’d been held in cold storage for days, thinning my veins so no blood could flow through. Repeated scrunches and the blood shot through to my fingertips, bringing with it pins and needles. That’s when I noticed the same effect in my toes, prickling as though millions of needles were being jabbed into the soles.
What happened to me? The sweeper separated me from everyone else after breakfast. I remembered watching Jerome’s back as he skirted around the sweeper in the corridor and kept on his way. A wave of them, casting fleeting glances while they flowed around the two of us like rushing water around an obstruction in a stream, that was my last memory. Memory loss could only mean one thing. I’d been forced into one of their experiments.
And the rest of my memories? Jax, Elva, the team, Dad in prison, destroying the Amex, Holden betraying me, Alithia, Nada, and Azrael. They had the children. I sagged where I stood, the exhale of relief caving me forward. The important memories were still there. Was it intentional to wipe out everything from the experiment, or was this an unavoidable outcome?
I was still staring at my feet, wiggling my toes within my boots, when the door hissed open. On seeing Archon’s face, an image cut through my mind. Filling my mind’s eye, dark lashes, crystalline eyes, silent echoes of demands calling out hidden secrets. His eyes did that to me, always made me feel anatomized. Knowing he was an ungrafted Set was perhaps most of the reason I saw sharp-bladed lies in his gaze.
“You look rested.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing harmful or permanent.” He came close, standing as someone would who knew you well, not intimately close, but uncomfortable enough for me. I would not take a step back. I would not give Archon the satisfaction of knowing his effect on me. Every action full of provocation, every look full of scrutiny. He wanted to shred me, layer by layer, deep down into the ticking beat of me so he could understand how to twist me, how to make me cry, scream, or plead. Benevolent words shared from a poisonous heart. Was that the gift of Set?
For the first time since meeting him, his eyes dipped down the length of my body, a look used to belittle someone. “I trust you feel recovered.”
“When will my memories return?”
“It’s hard to know. You’re not like the rest.”
Because I wasn’t from his world.
“I’m told the similarities between your kind and mine are astounding. It explains the ease of breeding between your world and mine, even with missing loci of key genetic markers within your code. More in-depth analysis will need to be completed before we fully understand the differences.”
“What experiments did you do on me? I think I have a right to know that at least.”
My question surprised him. He took a moment to drill those dissecting eyes a little further into mine like he was determining the true meaning of my simple questions. “What do you remember?”
I didn’t want to tell.
“I am not your enemy, Sable. I wish there was a way to make you understand.”
“You’re Set. I’ll believe nothing you say.”
“That’s because you’ve been misguided.”
“Jax sees things clearer than any of you.”
“I was not referring to Jax, although your association with him has been an unfortunate mistake. But is it any wonder he is lost?” He shifted his gaze to the side, staring at the floor as he inhaled as if clearing his thoughts in preparation for what he had to say. My breath stalled, hanging on the silence. “It could not have been easy to discover his father’s deceit. It would’ve torn his family apart.”
My body turned cold, starting in my heart, frosting outward until my limbs were frozen in place.
“Everyone lies to some extent. But lies about love are an insidious breach.” There was no innocence in those eyes that bored into mine. “Wouldn’t you say?”
He knew. How did he know? It would mean the senate knew. For how long? Not long enough to stop Alithia and Jax’s dad from having a child, which surely meant they didn’t know. Was it his mum? Was she the one guilty of betraying his dad? Azrael would never have survived free as long as she had if Jax’s mother was guilty of revealing the secret. It had to be someone else.
“Jax needs the right assurance and guidance now more than ever. Given what he has been through, his judgement is clouded. He is unable to make right decisions for himself or for those who have unwisely chosen to follow his rebellion.”
Again, he turned his head away. His sigh sounded as though it dredged out the weight of his heart. “It was a terrible tragedy. Such violence has echoes from long ago when killing each other was akin to sport. Harmony between factions has and will always be the senate’s only goal. The murder of Jax’s family finds its precedence in pre-graft days.”
Everything he said fogged my brain. His words become chatter, filling the quiet while my mind swirled inward, spiraling and spiraling until it felt as though it was being flung apart. Or trapped within t
he Adolphy maze. Each struggling thought showed the same path, any new ideas nothing but dead ends.
“Of course, your father will be trialed according to our laws.”
Palms pressing to the sides of my head did nothing to free my mind. A pain hatched at the center of my brain, throbbing to existence. I felt hollow, insubstantial; one gust, and I’d topple.
I jumped with Archon’s touch. “Do you feel all right?”
“I don’t.”
“Perhaps I should take you to the medic. There could be side effects we are yet to understand, given your genetic makeup.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”
He lowered his hand. The lower it got, the wider his smile grew. “But you already have. And you will again. You’ll follow me to the very end.”
Now was not the time to pretend he didn’t frighten me. He reached for me, but I stepped away, step, step, step, until the hiss of the door made me spin. Spinning unsettled my balance, my head still mucked up from whatever they had done to me. Hands at my waist brought my equilibrium back, but I fought against his intimate touch, lurching myself free from his steadying hold.
“She needs to eat,” was all Archon said as he moved past the sweeper and out the door, trailing the remnants of a voice devoid of compassion.
Eat? No, thanks. But my stomach indicated otherwise once it heard the magic word. The sweeper spun and marched out, pausing at the door to ensure I followed. He waited for me to lead the way then smacked along behind, occasionally scuffing my heels if I lagged my feet. My head felt like it was attached to my body by string, which allowed it to bob about on my shoulders like a tethered balloon.
Was it lunchtime the same day? Maybe dinner… or breakfast time the day after? Trying to work that out took me the entire walk to the dining hall.
