by Eliza Green
‘Creatures?’ said Sheila.
‘Yes, infants. Children. Choose what name you want. It doesn’t matter to me.’
She waved her hand and walked away, as if she couldn’t bear it any longer. She exited through a single door on the back wall.
Sheila and Yasmin glanced at each other, then followed Dom and June inside. Only Anya stayed where she was; rooted to the spot, clasping and unclasping her hands. Maybe she was cold-hearted, like the supervisor.
The cries rose into full-blown screaming that no volume of music could obscure. Anya flicked her gaze to the door Supervisor Two had used to leave. She thought about following her.
But she caught Dom looking over, full grin, with a baby draped over his right shoulder. He hooked a finger at her with the same hand he used to rub the baby’s back.
Anya took an uneasy step forward into the transparent cube/day-care centre.
Dom put the baby back down and picked up another that screamed for attention. He burped it, and it seemed to settle.
It? He? She? Anya had no idea if they were boys or girls. They all wore white baby grows.
June picked up a different baby and cradled it in her arms, using her little finger as a pacifier.
‘I can’t believe they’ve just left them here like this.’
Anya took another step inside and peered into one of the cribs. The baby was about three months old. Another, whose crib was larger and taller, was standing up. He or she was around nine months old. Some cribs were just shallow boxes for the babies who didn’t seem to move much. But where were the colourful mobiles, the stuffed animals, the books? Such a sterile environment with nothing to distract them. No wonder the babies were so upset.
‘Apart from the crying, they seem to be well looked after,’ said Dom. ‘This one’s just been fed.’
Anya stared at Dom, impressed. She knew so little about him.
‘How did you know to do that?’
‘My mother used to run a crèche in Foxrush. I picked up the basics.’ He gave her a lopsided grin. ‘You don’t like babies?’
‘I don’t know what to do with them.’
Her eyes slid to Sheila and Yasmin, who both seemed to be getting the hang of it.
Dom moved to a different cot and picked up another irritated baby. He sniffed the air and his nose wrinkled. A table with a changing mat was pushed up against the wall of the room with a white box full of nappies underneath.
He carried the baby over to the table. June did the same with hers.
‘I’ll race you,’ said June, grinning at Dom.
He rolled his eyes. ‘You won’t win. I could do this with my eyes closed.’
‘We’ll see about that.’
The diaper-changing competition commenced. They were neck and neck right to the end, but Dom managed to secure the last tab before June.
‘Told you.’
June tickled her baby and it laughed. ‘They’re sociable creatures. They just want to be held.’
Dom dressed his baby before placing it back in the cot. He looked at Anya. ‘You want to try?’
She stared at the baby as if it were an alien. That earned her a chuckle from Dom. ‘Here.’ He picked up the baby and cradled it in his arms. ‘Hold him like this.’
Him.
She took the boy and held him as if he were a delicate piece of china. The baby must have sensed her awkwardness because he began to cry. Anya’s eyes flitted to Dom, then back to the baby. Dom pressed a fist to his mouth to stifle his laugh. He took the baby back and put him in the crib.
‘Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.’
She didn’t want to get used to it. She wanted off this floor and to move on to the ninth. Then she wanted go home. Her eyes filled with tears. She ran from the room and stopped at the wall that was as far from this ridiculous test as possible. She leaned against the cool surface and dipped her head.
She should be better than this. She was built for babies, after all.
Dom walked up to her. ‘Are you okay, Anya?’
‘I don’t want to be here.’
He turned her to face him. ‘Is it the babies?’
Anya shook her head. ‘I don’t want to be here, in Arcis, trapped inside their creepy test, programme, whatever this is. I want to get out.’
‘We’re almost there.’
‘I don’t understand what’s happening here. How you can be so calm? Have you forgotten what this place is?’
‘No,’ said Dom, his voice almost a whisper. ‘But it’s not the babies’ fault they’re here. You heard them screaming. We may be the only people they see today. I wanted to remind them that there is still kindness in the world.’
‘I suppose I didn’t think of it like that.’
He lifted her chin with a finger. ‘Let’s just make it through this floor. Then we’ll be free.’
‘Will they really let us go?’
Dom’s eyes dulled for a moment and he released her chin. ‘I don’t know.’
Anya drew in a long breath and stared at her hands. ‘Okay, so let’s talk through what happens next.’ She couldn’t look at him. ‘What will happen when we get out of here?’
She felt him inhale, go rigid. ‘You mean between us? You want to know if this is a one-time thing.’
He stared at her. She refused to look at him.
Dom leaned in. ‘You have to ask?’ His lips touched hers gently. Then he pulled her closer, fitting his body to hers.
‘Oh, God—’
He parted her lips and kissed her deeper, harder.
Her knees buckled and she didn’t know how she was still upright. Somewhere deep in her core, her body set itself on fire. She threaded her fingers through his soft, loose curls and pulled him in tighter. She preferred this hair to his dreadlocks.
His ragged breathing sounds accompanied his hands that slid down her back, along her hips, and up her arms, to cup her neck.
Dom couldn’t decide where he wanted his hands. Anya wanted them everywhere.
He moved his lips briefly to her ear.
Every part of her shivered hard.
‘Anya,’ he said, resting his head against hers. ‘I wasn’t helping you on the ground floor because I was being a good Samaritan. It was for purely selfish reasons. This isn’t circumstantial, at least not for me.’
She bit her lip, wanting him close. But the tension in her body forced them apart.
He held her gaze. ‘Unless it is for you?’
‘No, it’s not. I just... I don’t know how to explain how much—’ His lips on hers interrupted her. The flame smouldered in her core, driving her to bite his lower lip, just for a second. Dom groaned.
She became aware of eyes on them both, watching their moment from inside the cube. Sheila gave a muffled yell, ‘Get a room,’ quickly followed by June saying, ‘I think it’s cute.’
Dom held her face and kept the kiss soft. Anya tried to ramp it up, to ignite more within him. His body was rigid with tension, as if he held back. He kept the pressure soft and even.
She felt him smile. ‘I don’t know if you’re aware, but we’re not alone.’
‘I don’t care,’ she said.
‘Well, I’m not going to kiss you like that here, so you can stop trying.’ His voice was deep and husky.
She kissed him over and over. ‘You already did, and why not?’
Laughter rumbled in his chest. ‘Because we’re not in some porno film.’
‘I thought you were impulsive.’
‘I’m trying to change.’
She tried to get him to open up again. His defences slipped as his body leaned into hers. She did everything she could to evoke a new response, because it felt like it would end soon and it would never be this good again. So she kept kissing him, pulling him closer, wanting to remember this moment, how he felt, and every word he said to her.
Something inside urged her to treat every moment between them as if it were their last.
Dom broke the kiss first. Sh
e gripped his T-shirt to keep him close but he was too strong for her.
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen and I’ve no idea what to expect on the next floor. But I do know one thing. I want you with me.’
‘Me, too.’ Anya smiled up at him and he touched her cheek.
He flashed a familiar grin.
Remember, Anya. Remember all of it.
A thought tugged her back to reality. She examined the transparent cube, and turned back to Dom.
‘Where did these babies come from?’
Dom stood back from her and frowned. ‘A crèche of some sort. For the supervisors’ children?’
Anya shook her head. ‘The supervisor was even less interested in the babies than me.’
Dom touched her face; an action that felt so intimate and natural. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘I don’t know. Something’s bothering me about this floor, and it’s not the babies.’
Her gaze settled on the giant red velvet curtain which split the room in half.
‘What’s on the other side of this?’
She walked towards it. Dom followed her.
She found a break in the curtain. Dom pulled it back to reveal a frosted-glass partition, and a door.
They opened it and stepped through to another room within a room. Before them was another transparent box with no privacy, but much bigger than the first.
This one was sectioned off into ten separate units. Each section contained a child. The boys were dressed in white tunic separates, the girls in long white dresses with long sleeves. Their ages ranged from around three to ten years of age.
They were quieter than the babies next door. Each unit had some toys and books while some also had small tables and chairs and colouring books. The youngest played alone with primary-coloured shapes and squares. Some of the children sat and read, while others watched them with bright, strange eyes.
The eye colour was all wrong. Too vivid.
She heard Dom draw in a sharp breath.
‘What are they doing? I mean, how?’ He ran a shaky hand across his neck.
Anya circled the box. The children watched her impassively as she searched in vain for a way inside. She came around to the front again.
She found Dom staring at one boy in particular. Dom had gone pale.
The boy sat on the floor with his back to them. He was about four years of age and hunched over an opened colouring book, clutching a stubby crayon. He coloured perfectly within the lines. Anya was about to say something about how she wished all kids were that neat when she noticed what Dom was looking at.
As he leaned into his work, the boy’s top had slid up.
And there it was: the same crescent-shaped scar that was on Dom’s back.
He’d been sick as a child. That’s what he had told Anya.
Had these children been sick, too? Or experimented on?
‘What are they doing here?’ Dom tugged at his hair. ‘Why does he have—?’
Anya tried to calm him. She held his arms down by his side.
‘Maybe they were sick, like you were.’ She didn’t want to worry him.
But his eyes were wild, unfocused.
‘Talk to me!’
Dom snapped his gaze back to her. He grabbed her hand and pulled her back to the side with the younger babies.
‘I don’t know. I just don’t... I need to leave.’
Anya wrapped her arm around his middle, surprised to feel him slipping to the floor.
The lights dipped overhead. At the same time, she felt a strong vibration running through the floor.
Without a word, Dom returned to the baby room and busied himself with one of the babies. Anya watched from the outside, as before.
Dom kept his focus on the babies.
What must it have been like to lose a lung or a kidney at such a young age? She couldn’t imagine.
Dom gripped the baby tight against his chest. He looked pale and unsteady. She wanted to know his secrets so she could help him. She wanted to know what magic words would make everything okay.
The strange eyes of the children next door continued to haunt her. Had they come from Praesidium? Had Quintus ordered them to be here? Were they an extension of the test on the previous floor?
For an hour, Anya didn’t move from the entrance to the box. She thought about going back to the older children and asking them some questions, but she imagined Quintus watching her every move.
Supervisor Two appeared in her peripheral vision, alarming her.
‘Put the babies down,’ she said to the others. ‘We’ve learned all we can from your interactions. You’re being rotated to the final floor.’
53
Anya should have felt relief to be heading for the ninth floor. But she stepped into the final elevator feeling numb, as though she were still on Compliance. She gripped Dom’s waist so hard she thought he might object. But he gripped her back just as firm. June, Sheila and Yasmin held hands behind them.
The doors closed. She looked behind her to Sheila, who jerked her head towards Dom and gave her a what-the-hell-happened look. Anya shrugged and faced the front again. She couldn’t tell Sheila what they had seen.
The elevator jolted slightly, then hummed its way to the final floor: the mushroom cap sat on top of Arcis. She kept her eyes forward despite Dom’s gaze on her. Her heart thudded too loud. She closed her eyes and concentrated on taking controlled breaths.
In, out. In, out.
Dom struggled to control his own breathing. He hadn’t said a word to her since he’d seen the boy with the scar.
So, this was it. The end.
She would be brave. For Jason. For Dom. For her mother, who had tried to protect her from this moment.
She loosened her grip on Dom when her own breaths quickened. She didn’t want to die, or vanish like the others who had gone through Arcis. She wanted to show Jason she could be brave, as Grace had always believed her to be.
The hummingbirds returned, smacking their tiny wings against her heart; slicing her, making her bleed. She jammed her fingers into her chest. Dom grabbed her hand, breaking through the pain. She looked up at him. He stared straight ahead.
Remember this, Anya. Don’t be erased from existence. Remember all of it.
The elevator doors opened and they exited into a corridor of partitioned walls made of frosted glass. A soft yellow backlight gave the glass a welcoming feel to it. The corridor ran in a straight line to a single door at the end. The space soothed the rough edges of Anya’s earlier panic.
Her group looked around. Nobody wanted to move on.
June placed her hand against the nearest partition. ‘What’s beyond these walls, do you think?’
‘Is this another test?’ said Sheila.
Dom shrugged at her.
Anya touched the wall, to test its organic state like the ones on the fifth floor. But it felt solid, with no hint of a ripple.
‘Participants. Welcome to the ninth floor.’
A voice she recognised cut through their solitude.
Dom’s jaw tensed as he searched the ceiling; for the cameras, Anya assumed.
‘Please continue through the door at the end of the corridor. Don’t delay. There isn’t much time.’
A powerful tremor—much stronger than anything she’d felt on the lower floors—ran through the floor into Anya’s legs. She readjusted her feet to compensate.
‘What was that?’ said Yasmin.
‘That’s exactly what I felt on the floors below,’ said Anya to June who nodded and examined the corridor some more.
Dom took the lead, keeping hold of Anya’s hand.
‘What’s going to happen to us?’ said Yasmin. ‘I mean, we finish this, and then what? We don’t go back to Essention. So where do we go?’
‘Please, Yas,’ said Sheila. ‘I’m nervous enough as it is.’
But Yasmin was on a roll. ‘I can’t go back to those grey prison cells in East Essention they call homes. I want to do s
omething with my life. I don’t want to be stuck in a pokey town forever, wishing I had nicer things.’ She looked up to the ceiling and spoke to Quintus. ‘Did you know I wanted to be a doctor? I know Praesidium has a really good programme and a medical facility. I’d like to do something worthwhile—’
‘Shut up, Yasmin,’ said Sheila. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking for.’
Yasmin frowned at her. ‘Of course I do. I’m not going to say no to an opportunity if it comes my way, just because you told me a couple of things—’
‘Everyone be quiet,’ said Dom. ‘We can talk about this after.’
Anya bit her lip and focused on the only door in front of them. This felt too real, too dangerous. She wished she was still on Compliance, like Yasmin.
Another tremor vibrated through the floor and rattled her teeth.
The door was just twenty metres in front of them, but they walked so slow it might as well have been ten times that. Dom slowed down on purpose, probably running last-minute strategies through his mind.
Then he let go of her hand and opened the door.
Anya took a deep breath.
54
‘Congratulations to you all for making it to the ninth floor,’ said Quintus. ‘Please keep moving. We have no time to waste.’
They stepped further into a room the size of the atrium on the ground floor; the mushroom cap atop Arcis.
Anya saw no windows, only light-grey tiles covering every inch of the area, from floor to rounded ceiling. A large machine sat in the centre; an open tunnel with archways that divided it into three sections. A different-coloured light marked each sectioned archway: white, blue and green. The open tunnel, sat on a raised platform and connected to the floor by three steps, reminded Anya of a wooden pergola draped in climbing plants. Her eyes followed the curve of the first arch, its edge decorated with inlaid blinking white lights.
They stepped further into the room, standing shoulder to shoulder now.
‘Wow,’ said Yasmin, to Anya’s left.
On her right, she heard Sheila take tight breaths.