by A I Knowles
Zhen turns to look at me. A sad smile plays at the edges of his mouth. “Even if Tina had not spoken, your mother would never have finished speaking his name. She hasn’t spoken it aloud since his death, not once in almost fifteen years. Even if she did, would it mean anything to you? You never knew the man, and had no connection to him.”
Maybe. Maybe not. I think back to the moment when the Nandroid told me I was orphaned. At that time I’d accepted the explanation, but throughout my childhood, there had been many bitter moments when I wished I knew who my parents were, and that I’d had a chance to grow up with them rather than within the gray walls of the Compound.
When I don’t respond, Zhen begins walking again, and I have no choice but to follow. I walk in the old man’s wake as he leads me to the stairs and down. When we emerge into the corridor on the ground floor, I find El standing there waiting. He stands with his eyes fixed on nothing, his arms crossed over his chest and one foot propped on the wall behind him. A strange little thrill runs through me when I see him. Despite meeting both my mother, and someone from my past, he is the only person here who truly feels safe, who feels familiar.
When the door closes behind us, El stands up straight.
“Elian, will you please continue assisting our newest community member in getting settled in? I imagine she would appreciate the chance to pick out some clothing which isn’t threatening to abandon her at any moment.” Zhen’s tone is gently chiding, and I glance up at him and grimace at his wry smile. He’s obviously noticed how I keep having to pull up the sides of the shirt’s neckline to keep it from sliding off my shoulders.
“Yes, father. Of course.”
Father?
Zhen nods to both of us, then turns and walks away. When I look at El, he pulls a face. “Sorry. I had to guess.” He shrugs. “You ready to go pick out some stuff?”
I nod.
***
“Don’t you wish we could stay human long enough to have one of these?”
I look up at Linea in shock, abandoning all pretense of working on the sketch that lays on the table in front of me. I watch her cradle the baby in her arms, study the way her face lights up as she speaks to the little girl. “Don’t say that.” This is the first time I’ve seen her look happy since the Nandroids dragged her away and drugged her up, and I can’t stand the thought of her making things any worse for herself. “You know what they say.”
“Yeah.” Her voice is absent-minded. Most of her attention is focused on the baby. “There’s no need for us to have children because HAs live forever and if we all had kids, the population would grow out of control.” She glances up at me, and my stomach tightens when I see the tears in her eyes. “But can’t you imagine? We could give them all the love we never had. They’d grow up knowing someone cares about them.”
“The HAs care about us.”
She shrugs. “Maybe, but it’s not quite the same.”
I lower my voice to a whisper. “You can’t talk this way, Linea.” I watch as Linea waves at a passing Nandroid and passes the baby off, then walks back to sit across the table from me.
“Well, the next year better go quick, then.” Her gaze fixes longingly on the baby as the Nandroid carries it out of the room. “I just…”
“I know.” Sketch finished, I tear it from the notebook and slide it across the table to her. She gently touches the pencil lines. I’ve drawn the baby’s face, every chubby outline and shading. A single tear falls from Linea’s eye and splashes on the paper.
“Thank you,” she whispers. She folds up the paper and slips it into the pocket of her skirt.
***
I shake off the memory as I flip through the racks of clothing. I force myself not to look at the woman nearby, who has a baby strapped to her chest in some sort of sling.
We never saw that baby in the Compound again. With only a year left until my Process, I didn’t dare rock the boat, and I didn’t ask what happened. But I heard whispers in corridors and amongst the other girls. The baby had taken ill, they said. It was removed to a medical facility where it could receive better care than the Compound could offer. Linea’s drug dosage had been upped, turning her back into that shadow of her former self. It was rare that I ever saw glimpses of who she used to be after that.
I pull things from their hangers at random, anything that looks like it will fit. El says I can exchange them later if I don’t want to use them. I’m allowed five full outfits, and when I asked El what I do with the ones I’m not wearing, if someone delivers them to me each day, he just laughed and told me we’d worry about that later.
A few moments later, I emerge from the dressing room with my arms full of clothing. El opens a large tote bag and holds it up, obviously intending me to place the clothing inside. Then he slings it over his shoulder and takes off. I follow, and he leads me to the furniture room, where he has me pick out two pieces to adorn my room. I stare at the piles and stacks of furniture for a long while, so used to minimalistic white and chrome that it takes me a moment to force my brain to make sense of the chaotic mass of wood and plastic.
When I give up on deciding and wave at two random pieces, El pulls a tiny pad of paper from one of his many pockets and sticks a neon pink square on the ones I indicated. “Someone’ll come get them later and put them in your room.”
By the time we emerge from the furniture room, there is a mass of people in the corridor who are all heading in the same direction. It’s time for lunch.
Chapter 9: The Plan
I’ve been here for over a week now. It feels both much longer and much shorter. I can no longer imagine a life without El in it, or without the sense of community I feel here. I’ve met several other people who were rescued from the Society and its compounds.
The only thing I haven’t done is figure out where my mother and I stand. She’s only been back to the Rebel hideout once, and even then I only saw her across the crowded mess hall. Sometimes the old council member Zhen will seek me out and we will walk the halls. Occasionally, he will tell me stories of the rebellion’s history, but more often, we walk in silence. I appreciate his presence. I am used to quiet and solitude, and while I’m grateful to be safe and cared for, sometimes the constant noise and chaos of the people here is overwhelming. There is no escape from it, not even at night. Even when the lights go off, I can hear them whispering and breathing all around me. Some nights I roam the hallways, searching for a place to be alone.
One night finds me once again walking the long halls, my bare feet silent on the shining floors and my blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Winter is well on its way, and only the gathering areas are heated. The halls are cold and silent but for the sound of my breathing.
I look up from my introspection when I hear a footfall, and find El walking toward me. His head is down and his arms are crossed. I could swear he’s limping again. He doesn’t seem to recognize me.
“El.” I nod at him, intending to let him pass, but he jumps as if startled and raises his eyes to mine.
“Alyss?”
I gasp when I see his face, and hurry forward. “What happened?” A deep bruise surrounds his eye, and there is blood around a rip in his sleeve. “Are you okay?”
He nods, and when I reach out, he takes my hand in his and gently pushes it away. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
He regards me with wry amusement. “Of all the times you pick to start talking, it’s now?”
I frown at him. He often teases me about how little I speak, but he doesn’t understand what it’s like to grow up where words can be the difference between a comfortable life, and Reprogramming or death.
“Seriously, I’m fine. Don’t look at me like that.”
Now it’s my turn to cross my arms. “I don’t believe you.”
El sighs and rolls his eyes. He rubs his hands over his face wearily. “Fine, I’ll tell you, but let’s go to the mess hall first. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
I f
all into step beside him as we make our way to the giant room, which now stands dark and empty but for the slight illumination of light that spills out from the kitchen door. I sit at a table and wait while El walks to the kitchen. I can hear him rummaging, then he comes back carrying a plate on one hand and with his other wound through the handle of two steaming mugs. He sets one in front of me, then puts the rest down at the seat across from where I’m sitting. I watch as he lowers himself into the chair, grimacing as if in pain.
It isn’t until he’s eaten half of the large sandwich on his plate that El sighs and raises his eyes to meet mine. “We had another rescue mission. It was Compound three this time.”
“So soon?” From what he’d told me before, rescues were usually a month or more in between.
He nods, and pushes his plate aside to cup his hands around the mug. From the expression on his face, it seems the mission didn’t go as desired. “We didn’t get her.” His gaze falls to the mug and my chest tightens as I watch him stare into its depths. “She’s probably dead by now.”
I fight the urge to reach across and touch him. “I’m sorry, El.”
El shrugs. “When I told you ten kids have been rescued since I started helping, I wasn’t lying. What I didn’t tell you...was that not all rescues are successful.”
“How many?” I don’t specify what I’m referring to, but he seems to understand.
“More than nine out of ten rescue attempts end in failure.” He almost sounds as if he’s quoting a book or a script.
My breath catches in my throat. Only one person saved out of every ten tries. I was that one. “You mean...there’s been a hundred rescue missions?”
He looks up at me and the sadness in his brown eyes is haunting. “One hundred...and thirty five. In under two years.”
Any response is stolen away from my mind in the silence that follows. One hundred twenty five lives lost, and he’s been there for them all. Watched that many people go to their deaths before they ever had a chance to truly live. In that moment, the weight of the rebels’ goals hits me and leaves me feeling breathless. They aren’t just fighting an oppressive regime--they’re watching the last vestiges of humanity being slaughtered. One hundred and twenty-five times, El has gone on a mission and returned, knowing his failure means someone died.
This time, I do reach across the table and touch his hand. “I’m so sorry.” He flinches from my touch, but when I go to withdraw my hand, he grabs it and grips it in his own. His thin fingers are full of wiry strength and a strange sort of desperation.
When he finally speaks again, his voice is little more than a whisper. “They made me a team member because of who my father is, and because I’m one of the best. Most don’t join teams until they’re twenty-one. Because of who I’m related to, they look up to me. I have to be strong for the rest of them. I have to show them even when we fail, we get right back up and we keep moving forward.” His eyes raise to mine and his gaze locks on my eyes.
I can’t tear myself away from the pain there. I find myself wanting to warn him and tell him the Nandroids will sense his distress, even though I know there are no Nandroids here. There’s no one to drug us for feeling emotions, nobody to drag us off to Reprogramming because we’re too damaged to become HAs. But still, fourteen years of training doesn’t disappear so easily, and my stomach twists with anxiety.
“You are strong.”
He shakes his head and draws in a breath that sounds like a sob. “What if I don’t want to be?”
I return his grip on my hand. “I won’t tell anyone.”
El closes his eyes for a moment, then releases my hand and brings his mug up to his mouth and takes a sip. His attitude changes and he becomes more of the El I know, lighthearted and determined to be happy. Only now I know the pain and despair hiding behind that ready grin and easy laughter.
As El finishes his hot chocolate, I watch him, wondering if I’m the only one who has seen past the young man’s walls, and wishing desperately that I could be brave enough to trust him as he has trusted me.
***
I wake to the rattling of my gate. Sitting up so quickly it makes my head swim, I grab the blanket and throw it around my shoulders, then stumble over to where someone is pounding on the fence. I flip up the latch and let the force of the blows push it inward, blinking in the glow of the lights outside.
“What’s going on?”
And unfamiliar man stands there. He’s dressed in a white button-up shirt and some of the blue pants El calls “jeans.” His skin is deep brown, and his head is so bald it shines under the lights. “Lily wishes to see you. Meet her in the conference room in twenty minutes.”
I squint at him and blink the bleariness from my eyes as I raise my watch. It’s only six in the morning, and the racket he’s made has already woken other people, who are beginning to complain. “Fine.” Not wanting to be the object of the community’s annoyance, I close the gate and hope he’ll go away. When his footsteps finally depart, I sigh with relief and walk to the little two-drawer nightstand to find some clothing.
A few short moments later, I’m dressed in the warmest pair of pants I own, which are an unfortunate shade of deep purple, and a black shirt with long sleeves. The clothing does little to ward off the chill as I shuffle along the fence toward the stairs. My stomach growls so loud I am certain anyone who’s awake will have heard it. I can hear people moving around and grumbling, and I quicken my pace so I don’t have to face their ire.
I walk through the doorway and ascend the stairs, passing the ground floor and continuing upward to the room where I spoke with Lily and the other council members. The sound of my steps echoes back at me as I walk. I haven’t bothered to put my shoes on. If Lily wants to wake me up at the butt-crack of dawn (I don’t know what this means, but El likes to say it and his friends think it’s hilarious), then she can deal with seeing my bare feet.
Once I’m on the floor, I follow the barely-visible trail of footsteps in the dust until I come to the door which will admit me to the conference room. The hallway is so dark, I’m lucky I didn’t miss it altogether. Taking a deep breath, I reach out and push the metal bar, which clanks as the door creaks open.
The room inside is lit by several candles and a small, battery-powered lantern which emits a much whiter light. A large board has been propped over the window, and behind it I can see the edges of a black fabric. Lily and the other council members sit gathered around the near end of the large table. They all look up as I enter and stand blinking in the sudden increase of light.
Lily gestures for me to take the empty seat between Tina and Zhen. “Please join us, Alyss.” She doesn’t comment on my bare feet, though I note the way her eyes flick to them as I walk into the room. I lower myself into the chair and look at the papers, which are spread on the table.
“What is all this?”
“Alyss, we think we’ve found a way to speak with children inside the Compounds without destroying their implants.”
I glare at her with suspicion. “You think? You don’t know? I almost died.” To make my point, I push my hair back behind my ear, giving the people around the table a better view of my still-vivid wound. I watch their eyes touch upon the gash, then feel a small sense of satisfaction when all but Zhen visibly pale or shudder. I know I should just be grateful they rescued me, but I’m still young enough to resent the fact that they have disfigured me for life.
Lily clasps her hands in front of her on the table. “I’m sorry, and I wish I could guarantee nothing will happen. But Alyss, all of these children will die if we don’t save them. We have to take the chance.”
Her words sober me. She’s right. In the face of certain death, maiming becomes a lesser concern. “Fine. What do you need from me?” She pushes the papers toward me. I see sketches which look similar to my Compound, but with a multitude of slight differences. I glance up at her face. “What are these?”
“Maps of various Compounds. The only one we’ve never managed
to get a good description of is yours. Neesha was…” she trails off for a moment. “She wasn’t the most helpful in describing the Compound’s features. We’re hoping you can do better.”
“Why do you need maps, if you rescue us when we’re on the way to the Process?” Silence follows, and my gaze flicks between council members. As they look uncomfortable, their plan dawns on me. “You want to invade the Compound itself, don’t you?”
Lily nods. “If we can get into the Compounds, we can rescue multiple children at once, and not be subject to the need for quick mobilization when we get word of a Process transport. But…” she trails off, and taps a map with one finger. “It’s much more dangerous this way, and we can’t attempt it without a foolproof plan.”
She has no idea. I don’t think any of these people has any clue how rigid and redundant the Compound systems and security are. There are hidden cameras and microphones in nearly every room, and I assume the outside of the building is similarly surveilled. The Compounds are in the heart of Society-controlled territory. “What you’re trying to do...it’s not dangerous, it’s impossible.”
