The Facility

by Eliza Green

  Her hands shook; from anxiety or the after-effects of the electricity, she wasn’t sure. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess. Anger, rage, frustration: all rolled together in wave after engulfing, drenching wave.

  Dom had said that whatever she felt, she should maintain a cool head and keep going. But what she felt like doing was jumping off the walkway to the ground floor and running out of Arcis. For that reason, she kept Warren close whenever she crossed the walkway.

  Warren didn’t seem to mind. He liked the new, angry Anya.

  Sometime in the afternoon, the timer reset to ten minutes. The shorter period had served her anger well—made her smarter, sharper and more aggressive. But as the anger retreated, so too did the layer of fog that had kept her thoughts in a hazy, unclear state of denial.

  Her hands no longer shook when she felt hungry. When she looked in a mirror, her pupils appeared to be the least dilated than she’d seen them since arriving in Essention. Her fear of the unknown, of people whose actions she couldn’t control, no longer served her. She was that girl in Brookfield again, but older, wiser and stronger.

  She worked out her timings with military precision, the way she did when she tried to better her timed laps when she ran. She noted how long it took to get to the records room and find the right row. She factored in extra time, in case others got in her way or if the files were out of order. She would never be the slowest worker again. The others sped up, too, and for the rest of the day everyone avoided electric shocks.

  Ω

  That evening, Anya entered the infirmary room on 2B wearing a borrowed pyjama set and clutching a towel and soap to her chest. Her hair was still damp from the shower the supervisor had ordered her to take. A dozen or so beds occupied the antiseptic-smelling, white-walled space. White curtains hid some of the beds.

  June and Frank sat on a bed each, their hair also damp. June was alert. Frank was staring at his hands. Anya’s backpack was by a bed between them.

  Workers dressed in boiler suits buzzed around important-looking hospital equipment. Frank got up and snapped the curtain closed across the front of their beds, leaving the partitions open. The flurry of activity from the infirmary workers died down, replaced by the occasional soft padding of shoes on the grey floor.

  The front curtain opened, and Anya watched as a girl of around sixteen holding a screen looked at all three of them. She made a note, then snapped the curtain closed. Anya could hear her doing the same to the other curtains.

  She wanted to tell the girl she felt fine. In fact, she’d felt okay about ten minutes after Dom’s injection. Her hands and feet had already healed.

  The soft padding drifted further away.

  Ω

  A gentle sobbing sound woke Anya. She sat up slowly and looked around. Surrounded by darkness, she groped for the lamp on her bedside locker. She flicked it on and checked on June. But June was snoring gently. Frank had his back to her, his shoulders moving in time with the sobs.

  ‘Are you okay? Are you hurt?’ His crying surprised her. This wasn’t the usual bright, bubbly Frank. ‘Should I get someone?’

  He sniffed. ‘I’m fine, Anya. I do this every night. I don’t need your help.’

  Anya pulled the covers up to her chin. Seeing Frank like this... How well did she really know her friends?

  ‘Want to talk about it?’ she whispered.

  ‘No.’ Frank got up and yanked the partition curtain closed. He continued to sob. Anya listened to the sound of the creaking bed as he shifted his weight.

  On the other side, June stirred. Her hands were nestled, prayer-like, against her cheek. ‘He misses his father.’

  Frank shouted over. ‘Shut up, June.’

  ‘We all miss someone in here,’ she said louder, for his benefit.

  ‘Who have you lost?’ said Anya.

  June looked down. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  Frank called over from the other side of the curtain. ‘Oh, but you want to talk about my family.’

  ‘Jesus, Frank. Go to sleep.’ June turned her back to Anya.

  Anya switched off the light. How could she sleep knowing that Arcis, deemed to be the safest place, according to Jason, was not helping the teenagers deal with their grief?

  Her mind sparkled with insight, with clarity, and with more sorrow than she could handle. She had slipped up, allowed the pressure of Arcis to get to her. She had been stupid. The electric shock was a reminder for her to shut up and put up. To learn. To survive.

  And she would begin her healing by forming an alliance with Warren.

  Ω

  On the third day, the supervisor released Anya, Frank and June from the second floor ward. She left Arcis behind, eager to sleep in her own bed again. That thought made her pause on the Monorail platform. When had she come to prefer her prison block over Arcis? The sun felt good on her pasty-white skin. She closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh, clean air. The train pulled up to the platform and she climbed on board.

  Dom had said she would feel different. That evening, she saw the urbano in a new light.

  Her walk from the platform to her apartment in East was quieter than she remembered. Groups of girls in street clothes passed her but made no small talk. Workers dressed in the royal-blue uniforms of the factories walked on without a word uttered between them. Anya never remembered it being this quiet before... Dom gave her something.

  A chill passed through her and sped up her walk home. She tried to forget that rebel sympathisers might be in Essention. She’d almost forgotten Jason’s talk earlier about leaving this urbano.

  The little terraced block that contained their unit came into view. Anya hesitated at the front door before opening it. When she stepped inside, Jason appeared from nowhere and nearly knocked her over with the force of his hug.

  ‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried about you. I thought—’

  ‘Thought what?’ Anya put down her bag.

  Shit. Arcis must not have told him what had happened.

  ‘I thought you were dead. There was a huge power-dip at work, and Max said it was because something happened at Arcis. Then when you didn’t show...’

  His unsettling gaze forced her to walk on. ‘It was nothing. I had an electric shock and had to stay in the infirmary for a couple of nights. I’m fine.’ She walked into the kitchen and he followed her.

  She spotted a loaf of stale bread on the counter and found a tin of beans in the cupboard.

  Jason watched her from the doorway while she grabbed a can opener from one of the drawers.

  Her spine stiffened under his intense gaze. She felt different to before, less able to deflect Jason’s concern without feeling angry.

  ‘I said I’m okay. Stop staring at me.’

  ‘Are you sure? Electricity can have lingering effects.’

  She turned to face him, one hand gripping the can opener.

  ‘They injected me with something. I feel fine.’

  He looked sceptical. ‘So they have a way to ease the after-effects of electric shocks now?’

  ‘Apparently.’ She positioned the opener on the can and twisted the side until the lid popped free. ‘And I’d say it’s a good thing, because otherwise I might not be here right now.’ Her face felt hot with his attention on her. Why did she need to explain herself anyway?

  Jason said nothing as Anya put a pot on the stove and emptied the can of beans into it. She turned on the heat.

  His silence unnerved her. She sensed he was working up to something.

  ‘I’m leaving tonight.’

  News of Jason’s departure didn’t surprise her, but something new—something rational—pushed her to argue against it.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Her throat tightened. She watched the beans.

  ‘To a town called Foxrush. It’s the closest.’

  Before, she might have accepted his plan to leave. But now, nothing felt right.

  ‘And how will you get past the guns?
You can’t scale the wall. It’s too high.’ She forced the wooden spoon in her hand to stir the beans.

  ‘There are no perimeter alarms under the wall. The tunnel will take us far enough outside of the guns’ range.’

  ‘Why do you have to go?’ Her voice quivered as she met his gaze.

  ‘Because I was picked for this job. I’ve already told you this.’

  She looked away from an angry Jason.

  His tone softened. ‘I’m sorry Anya, but I have to do this. I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.’

  ‘And if you’re not?’ She stared into the pot.

  ‘Then you must finish your programme at Arcis. Essention has been good to us. We’re the only generation to survive the cull in Foxrush. That means we’re important.’

  Tears formed in her eyes. ‘What can I say to change your mind?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Then don’t tell me what I should do. I don’t need protection, least of all from Arcis.’

  Jason banged his fist down on the counter, scaring Anya. ‘Why are you being like this? You were okay with it before.’

  ‘And now I’m not.’ Anya glared at him.

  ‘Fine. Then I guess there’s nothing more to say. I’ll see you when I get back.’ He picked up a bag from the floor, turned and left. A moment later, the front door slammed shut.

  Anya dropped the spoon and slipped down to the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest. The anger she couldn’t control crushed her heart. They’d argued many times before. But this was the first time Jason had left.

  The beans burned in the pot above her. It didn’t matter. Her appetite had vanished. With her clearer mind came the belief that the rebels had not slowed down their activities on the outside. Maybe Jason needed to see that evidence for himself.

  Ω

  In the morning, her anger was gone, but the pain of losing Jason stabbed at a fresh wound held together by flimsy stitches. In the cold light of day, the monochromatic unit they called home felt colder and more suffocating than usual. She grabbed some clothes from her dresser along with a family photo, and put it all in her backpack.

  Anya snapped the front door shut and looked back at their grey block one last time on her way to the Monorail station.

  A couple of days.

  Even when Jason was in Essention, he was never at home. Why did she care if he left?

  She didn’t need her brother anymore. She would complete the programme. Then after, she would leave Essention for good.

  23

  With a change of clothes and some food, Jason travelled by foot to Max and Charlie Roberts’ house in Southwest Essention. The lights were off in the bungalow with the pale-green door. He slipped around the back and shoved a key Charlie had given him into the lock.

  It was dark inside, but noise rumbled from below. He tensed when he caught movement in the living room. A boy around fourteen years of age jumped up from where he’d been sitting on the sofa.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he asked, shining a light on Jason’s face.

  Jason shielded his eyes. ‘It’s just me.’

  The boy stood in the doorway between the living room and hall.

  ‘Oh, shit. Don’t tell Max I wasn’t watching the door. I was just resting my eyes for a moment.’

  ‘He won’t hear it from me.’

  Jason pushed the boy’s arm down until the light lit up the floor.

  ‘Just pay attention. No sleeping while you’re up here, okay?’

  The boy yawned and nodded.

  Chatting and murmurs, but no laughter, hit Jason as soon as he opened the basement door. The mood had a sombre feel to it.

  Eight sets of eyes watched him descend the stairs. Max Roberts stood in front of a map pinned to the wall. Gathered round him were eight volunteers, young men and women deemed too old for Arcis’ skills programme.

  The tunnel Jason had helped to dig would take them beyond Essention’s perimeter and the guns. Charlie had Praesidium technology in his possession that would help mask their location. The plan was to get back before anyone noticed they’d left.

  Excavated earth had been piled high in a section of the basement. Tracked mud made the floor uneven. Max had said there was no point in hiding their efforts. The wolves and orbs never came to this part of the urbano.

  A trestle table in one corner of the room had several items laid out on it. Max turned around and looked at Jason.

  ‘Glad you’re here,’ he said. ‘I was just about to go through the plan.’

  He pointed to a red ‘X’ on the map. ‘This is Foxrush, where we’ve received news of the crop revival. It was the first town the rebels attacked, and if the land is clean there, we can expect the other towns to follow suit within a matter of days or weeks. We will leave Essention under the cover of night, but don’t underestimate the range of the disintegration guns or heat sensors on the wall. They operate in all conditions. Our aim is to emerge far enough outside of their range so we won’t be detected.’

  He pointed to the little green clusters on the map.

  ‘You’re aiming for this forest area. When you’re out of the tunnel, make a run for it. Keep running east until you reach a clearing on the other side. Wait for me there and we’ll make the journey together.’

  Max handed out three compasses from the trestle table. Jason took one.

  ‘Those who have compasses, stand to one side.’ Max divided the remaining people into the compass-led groups. ‘Everything will look the same in the dark so use the compass as your guide. Stay in your groups. Don’t wait for the others or me. Just reach the clearing.’

  Jason frowned at the compass in his hand as another problem came to mind. ‘How are we going to mask our location?’

  Max opened a small black box on the trestle table. He held up what looked like a pearl-coloured disc. ‘This is magnetic. It attaches to your skin using the polarity in your chip. It will delay the signal between the chip marking your location and sending the info to Arcis. The disc will give Charlie time to intercept the signal and replace it with a false location before it reaches Arcis. If everything works as it should, all nine of you should show as still being present in Essention.’

  Max and Charlie sure were going to a lot of trouble just to check a few crops. But Jason liked the idea of sneaking out and back in.

  ‘What about the rebels?’ one of the boys asked.

  Jason wondered that too. They were venturing into rebel territory. Who knew how many of them still operated after their radiation attack? Their motives for the attack were still unclear. Some people believed their targets had been the orbs that roamed the landscape between Essention and the towns. Others, including Jason, believed the rebels contaminated the towns’ food and water supplies so the residents would fall in line.

  ‘They haven’t been seen for a few weeks. The towns are clear. That’s all I know. If we travel under the cover of darkness, we should be fine.’ Max pointed to a box of food under the trestle table. Jason saw fruit, cans of beans and pots of meat in it. ‘Take as much as you can carry.’

  Jason’s group included a girl and boy, both about nineteen. He stuffed as much food as he could into his backpack.

  They gathered behind Max at the entrance to the tunnel, bulging backpacks slung over shoulders. Max and Charlie’s house was close enough to Essention’s perimeter wall to shorten the length of the tunnel dig by a couple of weeks. When they’d broken through to the other side, Max had tossed several stones out of the hole to test the disintegration guns. They hadn’t fired. Jason hoped the brief test was enough.

  The tunnel’s narrow width and low height forced Jason and the others to drop to their hands and knees. He twisted his backpack around so it rested on his front. Its weight pulled him down, causing him to breathe harder.

  His hands pressed into cold earth and chilled upon contact. There was no light to guide them, just the person breathing up ahead. Jason concentrated on making his own steady and even.

  His skin pi
nched from the cold seeping into his knees, arms and back. His muscles strained as the tunnel began to veer upwards towards the opening. He could hear someone’s shoes slapping against the grass as they exited the tunnel and ran for the forest.

  He twisted his pack to sit on his back, and groped for the surface. His hands pulled at clumps of grass as he scrambled clear of the tunnel. He straightened up and ran for the forest without looking back.

  The guns didn’t fire. But there were also the heat sensors beside the guns. Max had no idea of their range. Jason’s racing heart matched his erratic breathing as he looked down at the chip in his wrist, expecting it to detonate.

  It didn’t.

  At the edge of the forest, he removed a torch and the compass from his backpack and checked for east. Others ran past. His group came together, and he used his torch to shine a way forward through the cluster of trees.

  Jason’s lungs burned and ached after just a few minutes of steady running. He blamed his lack of fitness on his interest in electronics—an activity that required little more exercise than sitting in a chair.

  His fight with Anya weighed heavy on his mind. He’d wanted to explain how he was doing this for both of them. But while she was on Compliance, Anya would never see things his way. Max had warned him that’s how Compliance worked. It swayed the user’s thoughts to side with the wrong people.

  Jason rested against a tree for a moment, his lungs heaving. When he returned, he would convince Anya that home was more than a prison with scanners and cameras and guns set high on the walls.

  The rest of his group stopped, too.

  ‘How far is it out to the clearing?’ The girl tried to catch her breath.

  Jason wheezed. ‘I don’t know. Let’s keep going.’

  They found the target clearing on the far side of the forest. Torches shone up ahead as the other groups arrived.

  He shone his own torch to guide their feet over the rough terrain. Something brighter flashed ahead of him: a set of lights turning on and off. The sound of grass being squashed beneath the wheels of a vehicle froze him to the spot.