by Eliza Green
‘Wait up!’ he said.
Their weapons were gone, exchanged for safety.
She slowed when the door came into view. Two of Agatha’s soldiers were guarding the exit.
‘How soon before the door opens?’ she asked them.
One soldier looked at her like she was crazy.
Dom repeated the question.
The soldier said, ‘The door isn’t opening again.’
Not what they’d been told.
‘Agatha said it was on a twenty-four-hour timer,’ said Anya.
The soldier shrugged. ‘It’s not opening again.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Agatha doesn’t want anyone leaving. The Region cannot be accessed again.’
Anya looked to Dom, who wore a deep frown. He turned and marched back to Agatha’s office. She followed him up the steel stairs and he knocked on the door.
There was no answer. He tried the handle. The door was locked. Next to it was a flat plate, like in Arcis. Like in Praesidium.
‘Where is she?’ he asked, his voice rising in anger.
‘We should check the rest of the base.’
Anya crossed the walkway and tried the door on the same level. It was also locked. She returned to the ground level and began her checks in the rooms closest to the area, needing to do something. Many of them refused to open. The ones that did were occupied by doctors or lab technicians. This military base—that’s what it felt like—was feeling stranger by the minute.
‘Maybe it’s too early.’
She wished she knew what time it was. Jason’s watch, the one she’d borrowed and taken to Arcis, was still there.
Dom’s lips turned thin and white. ‘I’m responsible for them. Charlie, Vanessa, Thomas, Jacob—even Carissa.’
Anya touched his arm. ‘It will be okay. Let’s keep looking.’
They continued their search, ending up outside the control room where Anya had caught Alex snooping last night. It was closed. She hadn’t told Dom about it or her chat with Sheila—or June. She didn’t want to worry him.
Another corridor led into an area she had yet to explore. Three guards appeared from a hidden room and stopped them from going any farther.
‘You don’t have permission to be in this area,’ one said.
Dom stepped forward. ‘We need to speak with Agatha.’
‘She’s sleeping.’
‘I don’t care. Wake her up.’
‘Go back to your dorm room.’
‘Why isn’t the door to the Region opening again?’
The soldier glanced at his colleagues. ‘Wait outside her office. She’ll be with you shortly.’
Anya and Dom returned in silence to the place they’d just come from. They climbed the stairs and sat on the top one. The area was void of life, the trucks below idle.
‘What’s going on here, Dom?’
‘I don’t know, but Agatha has some questions to answer.’
Five minutes later, a noise carried from across the walkway on the same level as Agatha’s office. They both stood as the leader exited through the door and crossed the walkway. Agatha was dressed in an electric-blue pant suit and looked fresh, not like she’d been woken from a sleep.
She walked past them and opened her office by pressing a chip in her wrist to a flat plate. Just like in Arcis. Just like in Praesidium.
Agatha entered the room first. Dom went next. Anya closed the door and took the remaining seat next to Dom. Agatha sat down in her chair opposite them.
Dom wasted no time. ‘When is the door to the Region opening, Agatha? Your guards seem to think it’s not.’
Agatha clasped her hands on the table. Her eyes were downcast. A sick feeling swirled in Anya’s stomach.
‘You never planned to open it, did you?’ she whispered.
Agatha looked up at her. ‘No.’
Anya’s chest heaved from the unfairness. ‘Why? There are people trapped on the other side.’
‘There are also synthetics on that side that cam harm us.’
Anya stood, too angry to sit. She would not lose another person to that place.
She pointed at the woman before her. ‘Open the door, Agatha. Or I’ll...’
Agatha eyed her. ‘Or you’ll what?’
‘I’ll open it myself.’
Agatha laughed. ‘The door is on a timer—that’s no lie—but I control it. You won’t open it without my authorisation.’
Anya folded her arms. ‘We came here believing this place was a sanctuary. But it feels to militaristic for that. What is this place for, Agatha?’
The woman’s expression darkened. She gestured for Anya to sit, which she did, but perched on the edge of her chair.
‘What do you two know about the Beyond?’
Dom said, ‘That it’s a place the Collective doesn’t control.’
‘And what do you know about the Collective?’
‘It’s a group of ten artificial beings who control Praesidium,’ he said.
Agatha lifted a brow. ‘Nothing else?’
Dom and Anya shook their heads at the same time.
‘Should we know more?’ asked Anya.
Agatha unclasped her hands and leaned back in her chair. ‘The Collective is just one individual, an artificial being gone rogue. Quintus—the Latin word for “fifth.”’ She released a hard breath. ‘It appears Quintus found a way to clone himself. From people who started arriving here, we learned that he created nine others, and that those others helped him to run the city called Praesidium.’
Quintus had contacted Carissa. Never the others. It made sense he would be the ringleader in all this. But something didn’t make sense.
‘How do you know he’s just one and not ten?’
Agatha’s lips thinned. ‘Because we created him.’
Anya’s mouth dropped open but no words came.
Dom had no trouble speaking. ‘Excuse me?’
Agatha stood and rounded the desk. In the space between them and the exit she paced, before stopping and turning to face them.
‘The Beyond is a military facility. I’m guessing you’ve already figured that out. Eighteen months ago we created Quintus to run this facility—an autonomous program, if you will. Except Quintus turned on us and locked us out of key systems. We struggled to rein him in; we had the best programmers working round the clock to hack his system. But he knew how everything worked. Only one choice remained.’
‘And that was?’
‘To contain him.’
Anya’s chest tightened.
‘In the Region?’ she whispered. Agatha nodded. ‘Where we live?’
Agatha’s gaze shifted to the floor a second time.
Anya wanted to be sick. ‘There’s more?’
Agatha walked back to her desk. But instead of sitting, she perched on the edge next to Dom. ‘The Region was designed to control him. We wiped his program as best as we could. But the Region had to look foolproof to give Quintus a purpose. So we sent families to live there.’
Anya stood up too fast, knocking over her chair. ‘That’s bull. It was our home for years. I was born there. Alex, the Breeder in our group, told me he’d been created twenty months ago. How is that possible if we were only there for twelve?’
‘Time became skewed for the people living there.’
Dom got to his feet. ‘Enough of your lies. Open the door or we will.’
‘It’s not a lie, Dom. It’s the truth.’
He laughed. ‘How can the Region be fake if we remember our lives there?’
‘In the same way that a group of teenagers had their memories wiped by a machine in Arcis.’
Bile rose in Anya’s throat. She swallowed it back down. ‘You’re saying... the people who lived in the Region... had their memories wiped?’
‘Not quite.’ Agatha held her hands up. ‘Let me explain.’
Dom was shaking. Anya tried to calm him with a touch, but it was she who needed calming.
He sat down, l
ooking too stiff to be comfortable. ‘Explain.’
Anya remained standing. She gripped the back of her chair keep from crumpling to the floor.
‘We banished Quintus to the Region or, more precisely, to a city that existed before he did. We limited his access to technology by creating towns that neither had nor needed tech to survive. The city and Quintus’ presence were both meant to help the volunteers adapt.’
Anya snorted.
Agatha continued, ‘To live a good life. The volunteers agreed to the mind regression because they knew it was the only way to stop Quintus. If they didn’t remember this place, then Quintus couldn’t gain access to it. But when Quintus found a way to override the safety protocols in his program, it spawned a rebellion. The shock of events in the Region knocked loose some memories that hadn’t been buried deep enough. Some volunteers suddenly remembered how to access their true home, which they designated the Beyond.’
Anya shook her head. This was too much.
Agatha said, ‘We created as real an environment as possible and gave people false memories to make sure the sentient program didn’t suspect anything. It was only supposed to be for a few months. By that time, Quintus was meant to be subdued and we could safely remove him.’
‘But,’ Dom prompted.
‘But Quintus found his way out of the hard reset, designed to remove his knowledge, and multiplied himself. He remembered how to make technology he had access to here. He replicated it, including a cruder version of the memory regression machine we’d used on the volunteers.’
That would explain why this place felt so familiar. But Anya wasn’t ready to believe Agatha’s farfetched story just yet.
‘He used us to learn more about humans,’ Anya said.
Agatha nodded. ‘His goal became to leave the Region and return here. In his current, evolved state, we cannot let that happen.’
Dom grunted. ‘If this is all true, let our friends come through to this side. We have people who can help you.’
Agatha shook her head. ‘They have a Copy with them. Copies are built to follow commands, and any sentient being that was connected to the Collective will have a little bit of Quintus in their programming.’
‘So you’re going to let the volunteers die?’
Agatha’s lips thinned. ‘We can’t risk opening the door again.’
Dom stood up roughly, knocking over his chair. ‘We’re not going to let them die.’
‘They won’t die. They have resources.’
‘You have no idea what that place has become.’
Agatha smiled sadly. ‘I have an idea. We lost good people when Quintus took over this base. He got control of the weapons system. People died trying to protect this place.’
‘And people have died in the Region trying to get us away from the Collective.’ Anya’s lower lip wobbled. ‘My parents and my brother died in their attempts to keep us safe. Don’t let their sacrifice be for nothing.’
Agatha’s gaze sharpened. ‘So you understand more than most why we can never open up access to the Region again.’
That wasn’t what she meant. She needed Agatha to see reason. ‘Not all the Copies listen to Quintus. Some have developed independent thoughts.’
‘Like Quintus did.’
‘Copies who’ve rebelled against him. A couple of them helped us to escape Praesidium.’
Agatha’s eyes widened a fraction. But then she shook her head. ‘We can’t take that risk. If we expose our systems to him again, we risk losing not only the military base but the entire city on this side.’
This couldn’t be the end.
Anya stared at Agatha, hoping to see some remorse. Her hardened gaze told her all she needed to know.
‘What are you saying?’
The commander said, ‘Mourn your friends and be grateful you made it this far.’
26
Carissa
The sound of soft whimpering woke Carissa. She bolted upright and rubbed her eyes. As a Copy sleep was sporadic, but ever since she’d left the city she’d found herself falling into a regular sleeping habit.
She’d had the strangest dream. The Inventor had been waving at her as he walked away. She’d run after him, but the harder she’d tried to catch up, the farther away he’d gotten. She shook the feeling of abandonment away with a shiver.
118-C, sitting on the floor next to the workbench, watched her curiously. She wore her medic uniform—white tunic and trousers with red trim on the collar and cuffs—and had her feet pulled under her.
Carissa blinked. ‘How long was I out for?’
‘It’s morning,’ said the medic.
She looked around. ‘I heard whimpering.’
‘It came from you.’ 118-C stared at her. ‘How can you sleep?’
‘It’s what the humans do, so I do, too.’
118-C touched the discs in her head. ‘The upload rooms are all I know. I don’t know how to exist without them.’
That’s what Carissa had thought, too, when they’d escaped the city. She smiled and repeated what the Inventor had said to her. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll help you.’
Remembering her dream, she scanned the workshop for the Inventor, breathing out when she saw him and Thomas sitting in one corner. Thomas had his pencil and paper out and was showing him something. Vanessa and Charlie sat in another corner, looking tired and ready to try a new idea. But this remained their best chance at escape.
The last thing Carissa remembered was seeing the Inventor and Thomas hooking 118-C up to the monitoring machine a second time. She must have fallen asleep during it.
‘Did they find anything new about where Quintus went?’
118-C shook her head. ‘But it’s possible one of the Copies downloaded him and the other nine, and is keeping them safe until we leave. That’s probably why the Great Hall is under protection, for when they return.’
The thought hadn’t occurred to Carissa. Knowing Quintus could still be on this side filled her with relief. ‘We can’t let him upload in this city again.’
‘I agree. He’s always had too much control over the Collective.’
‘Over all of us.’
The Inventor let out a deep, frustrated sigh. Carissa had become attuned to his noises and what each one meant.
She got to her feet and walked over to him. ‘What did you find out?’
‘Not much, miss. 118-C’s recollections have been interfered with.’
‘By whom? The Collective?’
‘Who else could it be?’ He sighed again. ‘I’m afraid I can’t shed light on where the Collective is hiding out, or find information on the Beyond.’
Carissa’s dream of abandonment hit her again. Her heart pumped fast and set her hands shaking. This was it. Everything that had happened—that was happening—would push her away from the Inventor.
But perhaps, for this plan to work, it demanded that Carissa let him go. Perhaps, to get out of this mess, she needed to make a sacrifice. A sacrifice could work. And that terrified her.
But the Collective’s unknown whereabouts still bothered her.
She turned to 118-C. ‘What happened in the days after our escape?’
118-C frowned at the ground, then at her. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘I’ve been hearing Quintus in my head these last few days. Is there a way he could be on a separate network?’
118-C considered it, then shook her head slowly. ‘I’m not sure.’
Carissa turned to the Inventor next, refusing to give up. ‘What about the frequencies? Could we determine where Quintus is hiding from those? Maybe he can lead us to the rest of the Collective.’
The Inventor nodded slowly, like the idea might work. ‘We could try.’
He gestured for Carissa to sit in the seat next to the diagnostic machine.
She did and he hooked her up to the machine. She settled back in the worn, leather chair and huffed out a breath. ‘There must be some trail his communications have left that can lead us to him. We
can’t leave this place without knowing where he is.’
The Inventor and Thomas crowded around her. Vanessa and Charlie joined them. The presence of all four plunged her into deep shadow. 118-C got to her feet but stood back, looking uneasy about the new attention on Carissa. In some strange way, their proximity made Carissa feel safe—loved, even. And for that, she would do anything she could to protect them.
Thomas jabbed his finger at the screen. ‘Look, there’s a second frequency showing up. One is yours. I assume the other belongs to Quintus.’
‘Only one?’ Carissa asked, leaning forward.
The Inventor double-checked and nodded.
Her hope deflated. ‘That means Quintus has found a way to separate himself from the other nine.’
She sat back with a sigh. They had run out of time to find them.
118-C drew nearer to the machine. ‘Are you saying the others are gone?’
‘It’s possible.’ The Inventor frowned at the machine. ‘The frequency trail went cold some time yesterday.’
That information tied in with when Carissa had stopped hearing him. ‘I thought he might attempt reconnection, but I’ve heard nothing.’
The Inventor drew back from the machine in alarm.
Carissa’s part-organic heart thundered loudly in her chest. ‘What is it?’
He slid his eyes to her. ‘Communication stopped around the time we attempted to cross over to the Beyond.’
Vanessa said, ‘I don’t understand. Do you think the scanner above the door might have disabled his connection to Carissa?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Charlie.
No, that’s not what the Inventor was saying. Her hands shook and her breathing quickened.
‘Miss?’
She turned away from him, not ready to believe it. Her stomach churned. Her skin burned with a sudden fever. This was just... like... a panic attack.
The Inventor gripped her arm. ‘What’s wrong, miss?’
She looked up at him, eyes wide. Her mouth opened and closed but no words came.
She swallowed. ‘I think... I know where Quintus is.’
‘Where?’
Her voice was barely a whisper. ‘H-he found a way to cross. Using me.’