by C. G. Hatton
According to the prison records, he’d just been transferred out to another facility. If it was that simple, the guild would have known about it. It didn’t add up.
I started to take it slower, hitting up against barriers and working my way round and through, the way NG had taught me, absorbing all of it fast, starting to mentally tick off the intel I’d been briefed to gather. There was too much for one night. It was going to take time. I did what I could and started to back off. I didn’t want to push it. They were due to check on meds soon. Then I hit on a level of prisoner records that were protected. Beyond simple security. There were test results and notes on each kid but there was something else, something that was being shielded. I cracked it gently, fooling the AI into releasing the files for a routine maintenance and sync procedure, and laid it all out.
It was encoded but it just took a simple nudge to get it to realign so I could read it. There were priority tags against each name. I figured out the pattern and queried it, then fired off commands as if the system was running an archiving schedule on the data, and watched the way it was falling into place. There was still a huge dark hole of classified information beyond where I was but I’d seen enough for the night to make my stomach queasy. I stared at it, becoming vaguely aware that footsteps were echoing down the corridor.
I didn’t leave any trace of what I’d been doing, wrapped up fast, and reset the board. I threw it to the bottom of the bunk under a fold of the blanket, as if Brennan had just dropped it, and curled up to sleep.
She came to check on me first thing next day, wasn’t impressed, and retrieved her board with a frown. I was half expecting it to set off alarms as soon as she activated it but nothing untoward happened. She just left me to rest and I didn’t argue with her.
They let me out after the evening meal, so I missed food. I was escorted into the rec hall and stood there, just as much of an idiot as I had been in the mess on the Alsatia. Everyone was sitting around, playing games or reading, some of them sitting at tables like they were doing homework, some of them in the bunkrooms already. I didn’t know what time it was but it was dark outside. Jem was sitting on Hilyer’s knee, watching as he worked on a board. Raine and a couple of the other big kids were playing cards. I didn’t know anyone else.
People looked around as I appeared in the doorway, a hush settling like they were expecting something to kick off.
On Kheris, we’d all looked after each other. We’d grown up together. There was always someone there, a friendly smile and a ready hug, whatever else was going on. I’d never needed to try. We were family. As much as I wasn’t really one of them, and we all knew it, no one cared. I’d never appreciated how much that meant.
There in that prison, it struck home just how alone I was. I didn’t know how to make friends because I’d never had to before. I didn’t know how to fit in because I never had. I was nothing and nobody. Hilyer wasn’t just working a board, he was showing Jem how to do something. She was laughing and working with him as he showed her. I’d always been the one who could do stuff, the one who taught the little ones and made them smile. Now it was Hilyer.
The guard I was with gave me a shove into the room and shouted across to him, calling him Mister Hilyer again. He disengaged himself from Jem and didn’t look at me as he approached the guard, who took him by the arm and led him aside, talking quietly. They looked like they were discussing what we should have for lunch the next day or whether our allowance should be increased. They even shook hands and I’d swear I saw him palm something across to her. She smiled and clapped him on the back, barking at him to get back to it but with a sparkle in her eyes as she said it. He nodded and backed away with a grin.
I looked around, incredulous. It was like everyone else was making a point of not seeing what was going on. I hiccoughed wrong and everyone was watching. Hilyer? He had that entire place sussed.
The next morning, we were dragged out for another run. I must have had a nightmare because Hilyer woke me up before the lights came on, pulling me out of my bunk and into the bathroom. My heart was racing. He pushed me towards the sink and ran the cold tap. The way he was holding the back of my shirt, I thought he was going to punch me and hold my head under the water and I started to resist but he just held me there.
“For crying out loud,” he hissed into my ear, “you were calling out in your sleep. Get it under control or I’ll put you back in the infirmary.”
I washed my face and neck, shaking or shivering, I wasn’t sure which. I couldn’t remember what I’d been dreaming about.
The lights slammed on while we were there.
“I need to talk to you,” I whispered.
We could hear a guard at the door to the block, banging on the doorframe and yelling us to get out.
“No, you don’t,” he whispered back harshly. He shoved me and walked out.
They kept us standing in the yard, in the rain, for twenty minutes before they let us go. My knee was sore but not as bad as it had been, and pain from my cracked ribs sparked in my chest with every breath but it was bearable. The rifle felt like it weighed a ton. The thought of thirteen miles was making my stomach turn.
Hilyer was in the line behind me. Jem, Raine and the others took off fast again as soon as we were out of the gate. I walked. Hilyer dropped into step beside me. Kat stayed alongside us for a couple of steps but she exchanged glances with Hilyer and decided that maybe she’d best leave us to it.
We trudged along without a word for maybe three or four minutes then Hilyer said quietly, “You need to watch yourself with her, she’s asking questions about you.”
I was zoned out. Trying to keep going. “What?” I said stupidly, slipping on a patch of mud.
“She’s trouble. Don’t get caught in it. And she’s Gamma, for Christ’s sake.”
I blinked raindrops out of my eyelashes. She wasn’t the one ragging on my case. “So what if she is Gamma?” I asked. “It’s not like we’re here to stay or prove anything, is it?”
He scowled at me. “Just watch your back. They’re trouble.”
I didn’t see how they could make more trouble for us than the trouble we were in. I should have listened to him.
“He’s gone,” I said quietly. “Made to look like he transferred out.”
Hilyer cursed under his breath. “Bullshit. He didn’t just transfer out. They would’ve known.”
I nodded, struggling to keep up. “So we’re on plan B now?”
He was walking just fast enough to make it uncomfortable and if anything, he picked up the pace.
“Wait, Hil. This is plan B, right? This changes everything.”
He glanced back at me, eyes cold. “It doesn’t change a thing.”
“You’re ranking top on their scores. You have to start failing stuff.”
“I don’t have to fail anything.” He didn’t exactly say screw the guild, but he might as well have done.
I stopped and stared at him.
He took another few steps before he realised I wasn’t trotting along behind him and he turned.
We stood there in the pouring rain, staring at each other. I didn’t know how to say it without sounding pathetic, like I was asking for his help.
He added it up anyway, pulled a face and cursed. “Don’t tell me you’re on their freaking radar.”
I nodded stupidly. I was tagged in the records as an anomaly. Every effort I’d made to not draw attention to myself had backfired.
He laughed harshly. “I knew you’d screw it up.”
“What do we do?”
“Do whatever you want. I’m not going to mess up my chances here.”
That was what he’d said on the Alsatia but I had the horrible feeling out on that cold, wet moorland, standing there in prison fatigues, that he didn’t mean it the same way.
“Look, kid. I have a real chance here. Look around. I’m the daddy in here and wherever they send me, I’ll be the best and they know it. You do whatever the hell you want, Anderton
, but don’t get in my way. Are you done?”
I assumed he meant with the intel. “Not yet.”
“And the infirmary is the only way you can do it?” He cursed again and took off running.
He must have passed Kat because she slowed and was waiting for me when I eventually caught up.
“How are you doing, cute boy?” she said with a grin, blue hair plastered over her head and a chocolate bar in her hand. She held it out. “What was Zachary saying?”
I ignored the question, took the candy bar and snapped it in half, offering half back. She took it with a smile.
We walked without speaking and in a way it was cool.
I switched off.
I was walking on automatic and running a million thoughts through my head, anything except concentrating on where I was, and when the leaders of the pack loomed up on the path and ran towards us, I didn’t think.
It was Hilyer at the front. Even though he’d started off last. If I hadn’t been so messed up, I could have given him a run for it. As it was, I had no chance of taking on anyone. We were by the river where the path was narrow. I moved out of his way, didn’t expect the shove or quite how vicious it would be, and stepped back to catch my balance, one foot sliding and catching on a muddy root, my other on nothing but thin air.
There was shouting.
I reached to grab something, anything and took a handful of wet leaves with me as I fell backwards, half a second to grab a breath before I plunged into the fast flowing, freezing cold water of the swollen river. I opened my mouth to shout, sucked in a lungful of muddy water and was dragged down into the swirling current.
I tried to kick my way back to the surface but I didn’t know which way was up and the weight of the rifle was dragging me down. I wriggled the sling off over my head and let it go, bumping against something. Someone was trying to grab my arm but I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe and couldn’t help getting swept away.
It was quiet, a swirl of chaos around me but an eerie silence resounding through my ears.
I surfaced more by accident than intention. I could hear screaming, far away. I choked out water and gasped in a breath before I was pulled under again. My legs felt like lead, the darkness closing in surreal and sparking with flashes of coloured lights. I tried to reach out for something, anything, twisting and turning, holding my breath until it ran out and I was still surrounded by dark, swirling water.
I closed down and sank.
My chest hurt. Intensely and painfully. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Someone was shouting.
I sank back into the darkness.
Drowning sucks, it really does.
My head was full of fog when I surfaced. I didn’t exactly wake up as wander into a vague mix of reality and nightmare, merging into one. I thought I was on Kheris, on a lumpy mattress on the floor at our old place, stomach cramping, fever burning. But it was my chest that was sore, not my abdomen. I think I cried out, blinking away the confusion and trying to figure out where I was.
I was dry, warm. Clean. Lying on a bunk. There was a mask over my mouth and I was breathing clean, cool oxygen. Redemption. Not Kheris. I’d wanted to get back in the infirmary but I hadn’t reckoned on having to half die to get there.
I was in a room not a cubicle. Manacled to the bedframe. Tired didn’t even describe how drained I felt. I lay there and bided my time. It beat getting yelled at in the gym.
They kept me in all that day and decided they wanted me overnight. They didn’t like the look of my stats and were worried I’d get a chest infection, I heard one of the medics say, what with the broken ribs and inhaling that much contaminated water. Contaminated? I didn’t argue. I wanted them to leave me there. I meant to sneak off and try for the AI again that night but I crashed out and didn’t wake up until they came round for meds and breakfast.
They kept me in most of the next day as well because my stats were worse. My chest was burning like I’d been hit by a truck.
Kat came to see me mid-morning to bring me homework. I was missing math apparently.
“Calculus. I bet you wouldn’t have any problem with that, would you?” she said, perching on the bunk and tugging at the IV line in my arm. “What is this?”
“Antibiotics, I think.”
“You reckon?”
I had no idea. The way she said it made me wonder, but it wasn’t like I had any choice.
There was a guard watching from the doorway.
“We thought you’d died,” she said. “Glad you didn’t.”
“I’m glad I didn’t.”
I was still manacled to the bunk. She squeezed my hand. “I told you the infirmary sucks.” She glanced at the guard and turned back to me, leaning close, whispering, “So what are you in here for?”
I looked at her. “Chest infection.”
She punched me in the arm. The way Maisie used to.
“Not the infirmary, you dolt. I mean, here. Redemption. Why are you here?”
I thought about lying but there didn’t seem to be a need. “I hacked into an Imperial base.” It sounded weird saying it out loud. Like it wasn’t real.
“And they sent you here?”
She sounded incredulous. That made me wonder what she’d done. I blinked, trying not to flash back to it all. “It caused a lot of damage.”
She looked at me like she wasn’t sure if I was stringing her along. “You ever kill anyone?” she whispered.
She said that like she had and she wanted me to ask her about it. I didn’t care. And I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Not directly,” I said eventually.
She smiled at me sideways as if that was some kind of code that we both understood. She wouldn’t understand. No one could ever understand what I’d done on Kheris. I’d asked Mendhel how many people had died because of what I’d done and he’d told me to forget it.
“I need to get back,” she said. “We have reorientation this afternoon. You’re lucky you’re going to miss it. You haven’t had the joys of that yet, have you?”
Reorientation was counselling. Psychotherapy. Conditioning. I’d had it on the Alsatia and how to counter it. It had sucked. I’d gone to one session. They’d had no idea how to handle me. I’d skipped the rest. It would be interesting to see what this place’s version of it was like. I wasn’t sure if I was switched on enough to handle it. I shook my head and forced a smile.
“What are they going to find in your head, Luka?” she said, standing and wandering out past the guard.
“Who told you my name?”
She turned and smiled, holding onto the doorframe. “No one. It’s on the door.”
Chapter 15
I didn’t get out of it. They sent a psych in to see me. Brennan tried to argue against it. I heard them arguing in the corridor, but she got overruled. “We need an evaluation,” someone said. “This kid is high priority. We have five days before final selection.”
That made my stomach knot. The meds were making me feel sick enough as it was.
The guy who walked in was the same guy I’d seen before. So he was a psych. He still looked more like prison staff than any psych I’d seen before. He sat on the chair by my bunk, resting his notebook on his knee, and leaned forward.
“How are you doing, Luka?” he asked, friendly like we were old mates.
I was lying there manacled to the bunk. What did he think? I must have looked at him weird because he smiled and added, “There’s nothing to worry about. This is just a routine counselling session. We have a duty of care to make sure you are being looked after.”
That duty of care again. It made it worse.
He smiled. Still phony as hell.
I couldn’t help glancing around, up at the corners of the room, checking for cameras.
He knew exactly what I was doing. “This is completely confidential. Anything you tell me goes no further. My evaluation is purely for your wellbeing, Luka. You can trust me.”
Benjie had told me once to never
trust anyone who said trust me. Ironically, he’d said it to me right before he screwed me over. He probably hadn’t even realised.
The guy opened his notebook. “Let’s get started.”
He asked a bunch of questions that I didn’t answer, not waiting overly long or pushing me to comply, never quite looking me in the eye.
Eventually he sat back, put the notebook down and looked directly at me. “Tell me why you’re in here.”
“In the infirmary? Because someone pushed me in the river.” It was the first thing I’d said to him.
“You hacked into an Imperial military base.”
I stared at him.
“You’re smart,” he said, cold now, the smile gone. “We know that from the test results you tried to fake. And we’ve been watching you hack into the system here.”
I felt the heat drain from my cheeks. Even though I was absolutely, beyond a shred of doubt confident that they would’ve just seen what I wanted them to see. That was my cover story if I was caught in the system. My safety net. In case. Except the way he was looking at me made my skin crawl.
“The file on you is redacted. Someone has gone to great lengths to obfuscate the details of what exactly it is you’ve been convicted of. We’re curious, Luka. What base was it?”
Later on at the guild, they trained us in how to calm our breathing, slow down our heart rate. Right then on Redemption, I did it by instinct. I wasn’t going to let him drag me back there, as much as I could feel the lure of the smoke and gunfire.
He looked back at his notebook and said without looking up, “How much damage did you actually do, Luka?”
I knew the guild had made our cover close to the truth, for ease of construction, they’d said, and to limit our exposure of getting caught out. That some of the information in my file was redacted shouldn’t have caused it to stand out. It was standard procedure in any military case, they’d assured me of that.
I shrugged. “I don’t care. Are you going to write that in your little book?”
He smiled but that time it was like a wolf smile. Predatory. Like he’d got me. He didn’t write anything down.