by Eliza Green
‘My name is Vanessa Walker. Take it easy. You’re disorientated. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.’
Vanessa guided her to a seated position. She realised she was sitting on a red fabric sofa.
‘Take it slowly. It will take a day for you to adjust.’
Anya looked around. There was a desk in one corner with a reading lamp and a single bed in another corner. A door ahead of her. Hundreds of books around her.
‘Where am I?’
‘We’re underneath the library. This will be your home for a while.’
‘Why? What am I doing here?’
Vanessa took Anya’s hands.
‘You’re here to learn.’ She laughed bitterly. Looked away. ‘Well, that’s what the Collective will think, anyway.’
She looked back. Her gaze had hardened. ‘You’ll start to remember things soon. Things that won’t make a lot of sense to you.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Anya tried to stand up, but Vanessa kept her seated with a firm hand on her shoulder.
‘The Collective will only allow you to keep her memories for a short time. You will remember Arcis for as long as it interests them to observe you in your new surroundings. In a week, they will strip every single memory from you and you’ll start again. That’s what happens with all the new Copies. Every new experience from then will be your own.’
‘Where are the others? From the room— ’
‘They were taken to other zones in Praesidium.’ Vanessa’s grip on her shoulder intensified. ‘Please, I need you to understand. I need you to listen to me.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I need her memories. To help me find the others. I need you to help me before the Collective erases everything completely.’
‘I don’t remember Arcis.’
‘You will, soon enough. But I’m not talking about Arcis. I want Anya’s memories from Brookfield.’
‘But I’m Anya.’
‘No, you’re not.’
Anya leaned away and stared at Vanessa. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m a friend of Grace and Evan Macklin. I need your help to get me out of here.’
59
Carissa opened the thin paperback that Original Vanessa had given to her. She turned the pages with her finger, then brought the book up to her nose and inhaled
Musty, slightly old.
She squinted at the words, then slammed the book closed. She could read, and the words made perfect sense, but the story did not. It lacked context. She hid the book in her waistband and frowned at the library. When Vanessa had a spare moment, she would ask her to explain the story.
She watched the open car pass by. Vanessa and Anya sat in the back. Carissa was close enough to see Anya. She looked so different in the flesh. The footage showing Anya in Arcis had been grainy, lacking colour and perspective.
Anya was really here. And that meant June was, too.
She tempered her excitement by thinking about something safe: playing with her orb. The Collective didn’t need to know everything.
For a brief moment, Carissa thought about following them back to the library. Anya would remain in Vanessa’s custody for the time being, while she taught the newborn all she needed to know to live in Praesidium. The others who had arrived with her would be reassigned to tasks: guard duty, the nurturing centre, training with the Inventor.
That’s what always happened with the newborn Copies.
But the circumstances that led this group to Praesidium had been different. For one, there had been no active rebels in any of the earlier groups. She sensed the Collective’s excitement about the variation. Carissa hurried to the footage room in the east wing of the Learning Centre, eager to see what had happened to the others in Arcis; to satisfy her curiosity for a story she’d never find in a book. She closed the door and stood in front of the large screen. To her relief, they had left it connected. She overheard Vanessa tell the group they’d been in Praesidium for days.
In fact, they’d only been here less than twenty minutes. But if the lies eased a newborn Copy in faster, then lies were the best option. The newborns were always disorientated when they first came through the machine.
She saw the machine on one screen, standing idle and no longer teeming with energy. The front section—the uploader—was dead; the second part—the scanner—offline. The third part contained stores of depleted bioprinter gel used in the process of replicating three-dimensional layers of living cells.
The participants were gone, all copied. All in Praesidium.
But three people had been left behind: injured, not dead. Anya’s brother, Jason, was among them.
The machine would need time to recalibrate, to draw enough energy to make more gel for the bioprinter. But Carissa knew this time was different. The Collective had broken rules, told them too much to get the participants into the machine. They would need to dismantle urbano including Arcis, and reabsorb the viable materials back into Praesidium.
A familiar voice came through her cerebral unit.
‘173-C, we must dismantle Essention immediately. The machines will retrieve the copying equipment from Arcis. Remind the Inventor to seal off the urbano and cleanse it. The rebels will try to come for the others.’
‘Understood, Quintus.’
It was standard protocol to cleanse the site with gas, to kill anyone still in Essention. Every living thing would be wiped from existence. The urbano had served its purpose.
And that bothered Carissa.
Ω
Carissa found the Inventor in his usual spot; sat in the low-lit machine room. Unless the retractable roof was open, he never saw the sun. The Collective deemed him too important to stray from the tunnels.
‘They wish to dismantle Essention,’ said Carissa.
The Inventor smiled wearily. ‘You could have told me that over the communication disc.’
Yes, she could have. But she had one thing to ask of him; one thing she didn’t want recorded anywhere but in her memories, where she could erase it.
‘I want you to delay the order.’
‘Delay?’ The Inventor looked at her, surprised. ‘The machines are ready to go. We can dismantle the urbano now—’
‘Delay the cleansing by an hour. Tell them the machines are broken.’
‘But they’re not—’
‘Then break one. The people need time to escape Arcis and Essention.’
The Inventor stared at her. Then, he laughed and shook his head.
‘It’s beginning to make sense to me now.’
Carissa frowned at him. ‘What is, Inventor?’
He stood up straight, arms folded, smiling.
‘Miss, I’ve been so misled by this place, I never even noticed. You don’t know how long I’ve waited for one of you to finally develop a conscience.’
Ω
Thank you for reading THE FACILITY. I hope you enjoyed it. The story continues in THE COLLECTIVE. New amnesiac Anya Macklin wakes up in a strange room with no memory of how she got there. A quick search uncovers a grim reality, that her new home is a prison. But worse, she’s not alone.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE COLLECTIVE
THE REBELS is THE FACILITY retold through the eyes of Dom Pavesi and Warren Hunt. Discover how far these rebellious teens are prepared to go in this companion story.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REBELS
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Word from the Author
Hey reader superstars! Thanks for checking out The Facility. It has all the science fiction flavour I love to inject into my books but with an added bonus: Dom and Anya. I absolutely loved writing those two. They were so much fun. And there’s plenty more of their story left to tell.
The acknowledgements are all about the praise, so let me start with my sci-fi loving best friend (who prefers to remain nameless like the Copies), for beta reading the first draft of my book. And to John and Madeline for beta reading a later version and helping me to craft a better, sharper story.
Thanks to my editors, Andrew Lowe and Rachel Small, for copy editing and proofreading my book. Your enthusiasm for my words rocks! I love working with you two. Andrew, I slack off way too much on Slack. Curses for introducing me to that platform.
Special thanks to Kate Tilton, my assistant, for keeping my writing schedule on track and for speeding up my painfully slow decision-making process. I live inside my head way too much. You get in there and shake everything loose.
Thanks to Lori Baird for coming up with the right name for one of my characters: Vanessa Walker. And to Vanessa Deneen and James Blaisdell for suggesting first and last name.
To Douglas F and Mike C for their awesome help in ironing out some of the sciency bits in the book. You guys know your stuff. My jaw literally dropped open a few times.
The cover? Wow. Love this one. Thanks to the team at Deranged Doctor Design.
My launch team? I couldn’t do this without you. Seriously. You are helping in such a big way.
And love to you, my readers, whether you’re new to my books or an established fan. None of this would happen without you. I feel a crazy desire to please you all.
Word of mouth is crucial for authors. If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review where you purchased it; make it as long or as short as you like. I know review writing can be a hassle, but it’s the most effective way to let others know what you thought. Plus, it helps me reach new readers instantly.
Connect with the Author
Eliza Green tried her hand at fashion designing, massage, painting, and even ghost hunting, before finding her love of writing. She often wonders if her desire to change the ending of a particular glittery vampire story steered her in that direction (it did). After earning her degree in marketing, Eliza went on to work in everything but marketing, but swears she uses it in everyday life, or so she tells her bank manager.
Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, she lives there with her sci-fi loving, evil genius best friend. When not working on her next amazing science fiction adventure, you can find her reading, indulging in new food at an amazing restaurant or simply singing along to something with a half decent beat.
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All rights reserved. No part of this e-book publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Please purchase subsequent copies if you wish to share it with others. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copy Editor: Andrew Lowe
Proofreader: Rachel Small
Cover Design: Deranged Doctor Design
Version 2.0 Kindle Edition (Updated 2019)
Copyright © 2016 Eliza Green