Rise of the Red Hand

by Olivia Chadha

  “It’s okay, it’s going to be okay,” I lie.

  I lay Synch down gently. Then I take off my jacket and press it to where his hands clutch his chest.

  “Hang on, Synch. Push down here. Don’t let go.”

  His eyes are desperate. Shit. He’s gagging on blood, so I turn him on his side.

  I dodge a fat man’s swipe at me with a pipe, and he overextends himself and flops to the ground like a bloated barracuda. Though I am smaller than him, I’m fast. He probably underestimates me because I am a girl. Mistake of his life. I punch fat-man in the center of his back with my replacement. My chrome hits him like a ton of bricks.

  “Stay down!” I yell. Fat-man groans and gets acquainted with the concrete.

  Then the thin man comes at me like a fighter in his first battle, sloppy, all arms, weak legs. Idiot.

  I shake my head. They have no idea what I can do. But, I guess, neither do I. Not really.

  He stabbed Synch and won’t be walking away from this.

  The thin man takes a swing at me with his fists, like it’s going to be easy to knock me down. I plant my feet and pull my replacement arm way back, releasing its full power straight at his gut. The sound is sickening. The attacker flies back, and back and back in the air, over the edge and into the water. Done.

  The fat man sizes me up and takes a few steps back.

  “What are you?” he stammers.

  “Human,” I say and chase him down. If he gets free, then everyone will think Synch is still alive. This way, Synch can become a memory, and his mother might stop the hunt.

  I restrain myself and smash the fat man in the face at half power. I still break his nose and jaw. He begs and I stop because I am not a monster. And while I want him dead, he needs to deliver a message.

  “Please . . .” He spits blood.

  “On one condition. You go back to your employer. Tell her there was an accident. That everyone else died, including Synch. Everyone fell into the sea. They will not be found.”

  He nods as fast as he can. The blood trickles down his chin and through the new gap in his smile, courtesy of the missing teeth and my fist.

  “Okay then.” I slip a chip into his neural-synch and pull it out once it’s done reading his info.

  “I’ve got your code. I’ll be watching you. If I find out you even hinted that any of this happened, I’ll destroy you. Understand?” I hold his head and he gets it. His eyes don’t lie, and now I can track him anytime I want with the info I pulled onto my hacked device. Even if he’s lying to me, I can still keep track of him and use that to our benefit.

  I let the goon fall back and tend to Synch’s wounds.

  Synch . . .

  Oh my god.

  I gather him in my arms and his eyes are fluttering closed. I know I should hold it together, but I cry anyway. I can’t control it. If he dies, it means that . . . I broke my promise. My chest feels like it’s a supernova. He can’t die. Not like this. Not when I could have helped him. Not when I promised he’d be fine. Not when I made him hack Solace for me. This is my fault.

  My mind races. I need to get him to Saachi now. I call her on the open comms, knowing it will be dangerous. That anyone can monitor the call.

  My comms screen appears in the corner of my vision, white flashing numbers and letters. “Saach, I need a transport quick! Read my coordinates. Sending them now.”

  I turn to him. His eyes are closed now. But he is still breathing, shallow, shallow breaths.

  “Come on, come on, don’t give up.” I lift him the best I can and take him near the transport that’s tipped on its side. Crews in the Narrows will arrive soon to check on the commotion.

  We hide in the van’s shadow from view. I hear a cough and look inside the transport. The woman is pinned. She’s in bad shape too.

  I can’t help her. This is all her fault.

  When Saachi arrives minutes later in a stolen produce transport, I don’t think Synch or the woman are alive. He hasn’t opened his eyes, and she’s stopped groaning. I’ve been alone with my desperate thoughts for too long.

  Zami and Saachi lift Synch into the transport. I take a look at the woman. Her eyes open when I lift the metal seat off of her mid-section.

  “Help me, please,” is all she says. Then her eyes close again.

  I want to yell at her. Tell her that all of this is her fault in the first place, that she’s an evil bitch who worked for the big, bad empire. But I carry her to the transport and the heavy metal door slides shut behind me. She may prove useful in all of this. Saachi drives like a demon while Zami tends to us.

  “Where are you hurt?” Zami asks.

  “I’m not. The blood is his.” I’m covered in gallons of the stuff by the looks of it.

  “Glad to see things went as planned,” Zami says.

  I shake my head and press my jacket to Synch’s chest. “We got the coordinates, but they were on to us. Her team came to pick him up to reset him. But it went sideways.”

  “His own mother? Damn, I knew Uplanders were cold, but soulless?” Zami says.

  “He’ll need blood. Lots of blood.”

  34 //

  Taru

  They lift me from the cot on wheels and put me down on something cold. When I hear a door shut, and their voices are gone, I open my eyes.

  Bodies.

  I’m on a shelf that’s ten levels high in a room full of such shelves. Each shelf has a body. I am one of the bodies. Heat builds up in my gut and I try to fight it, but lose, vomiting up the last ration bit. Such a disappointment. But the smell, the smell comes in waves. Right when I think I adjust, it returns again.

  Death. Death and disease.

  What now? I scan the room for the living, but they’re all dead. I slide off the shelf and my bare feet curl when they hit the icy ground. I look at my feet, my legs, that have been the weakest part of my body my whole life and I wonder. Was it all in my mind? Where did the lies originate? No, it was real. My pain was real. But could my diagnosis be wrong? Do I even trust the technology here? I shove these questions down under my tasks at hand. I have to be fast and silent.

  There are old clothes in a bin, and I pull on the first thing I can find. A thick gray tunic and pants. I don’t find shoes, but I see thick socks that will cover my replacement foot.

  When I pass a mirrored glass wall, I flinch, thinking it’s someone else. My friends did a number on me; no wonder the janitors didn’t question my death. Dark bruises look like the Fever all over my face. In a water closet, probably used for cleaning the bodies, I scrub my face with a sponge. When I’m done, I look better. But I still feel rough.

  I push my hair back into a ponytail and tie it with a string. Back in front of the mirror, I look less dead. I don’t really look like an Uplander medical assistant, but the gray tunic helps.

  The door opens easily. I don’t know why I’m surprised, but then I remember the dead aren’t supposed to move, much less walk and open doors—so why would they lock the room? The hall is empty, so I inch along. Suddenly, voices echo and I pick up the first thing I see—an offline tablet—and pretend to busy myself with it.

  “Assistant.” The doctor’s voice is empty.

  “Yes?” I say.

  “They need help in Exam Room Twelve.”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  “What happened to your shoes?” he asks.

  “Contamination from the last Downlander I pulled from containment. Filthy. Had to lose them,” I say, though my tongue is getting thick with the lies already.

  “Head to the main office for a new pair, then go to Twelve right away.”

  “Yes, sir.” I say and start walking away.

  “The other way, kid. And, what’s your name?”

  “Er, Jasmine,” I answer.

  “Hurry along.”

  I go. My life depends on it. I can’t believe how quickly I answered his questions. Maybe I am strong, maybe I can do this. All the doors look the same in the hallway. Metal, cold, gray, s
teel. But there’s a lot of movement near the one at the end. Must be the main office.

  One push and I’m inside. Doctors, assistants, and guardians move about the room with ease; their footsteps all have a sense of urgency and purpose. Screens line the room with Info-Runs and reports. In the center of the room is a large desk with a petite and thin woman standing behind it.

  I’d recognize her as soon as I would my own reflection. The Minister of Communications.

  My breath evaporates. I turn my head away, but too late. I feel her eyes on me. “And you are?” she asks.

  Someone pulls me. “She’s with me, Minister.”

  Thank the gods, Dr. Qasim.

  I say, “I’m here for shoes. The last ones were contaminated.”

  She is perfect. Perfect skin. Perfect makeup. Perfect clothes. Ageless, untouched by our sickening air. Almost otherworldly. Tidy as they come.

  “Go.” She waves her hand and goes back to monitoring whatever she is doing.

  Dr. Qasim doesn’t let go of my arm, but firmly leads me into a subset of rooms and halls, and finally into a prep room of sorts, with lockers and disinfection showers. Only then does he let me go.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks. “How did you get inside?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I need access to an uplink. I need to get a message out. Can you help me?”

  He shakes his head. “Not possible. Everything is monitored.” His voice wavers.

  “We can’t let this happen. Whatever they’re doing, the world needs to know. The Planetary Courts, the GHO and Planet Watch would not allow—”

  “They’ve received approval for this operation. The world’s fear of the Z Fever is greater than their desire for morality.”

  “That can’t be . . .”

  “President Liu sees Z Fever can undo all of their plans.” How can anyone shrug off torture?

  “No, President Liu is a moderate, focused on keeping us all alive. Wait. What have they done to you, Dr. Qasim?” Then it hits me.

  He turns from me. “Look, you need to make a choice: Either make your escape or go back to the unit. I can’t help you. I have a job to do and when it ends, I can see my family. My children.”

  “If you help slaughter thousands, they give you your family back?” My head spins.

  “It doesn’t matter, they’re going to do it anyway. I . . . the Fever is real, Taru. It might infect everyone in Central eventually. That’s why they’re increasing the testing. It’s already arrived in the Americas. They think the civilians in the Narrows are somehow immune.”

  “How do they know?”

  “Influenza zephyrus breached the SA Province’s water supply. It was an accident. And not a single case of Z in the Narrows has been detected. Only in Central.”

  “That’s why they took us? For testing?” But something doesn’t sit right. “Why the replacements? They only took those of us with cybernetic enhancements.”

  “It’s something Solace missed. The Downlanders who have survived the radiation and poor living conditions are the most resilient. The ones who’ve survived replacement surgery are the strongest of the strong. They have fierce immune systems. Their bodies went through near death to survive the replacement surgery. The anti-rejection medication courses that we all endured, that led to a new resilience. Yes, Downlanders can still die from heat death, starvation and a lack of basic resources, but they’ve adapted an immunity to certain viral and bacterial strains. This is not something Central can fix with a quick nano-bot update. Central wants strong hosts for their vaccine.”

  He is caught in the trap. Either submit or die. He chose himself. I don’t blame him.

  I say, “Solace made mistakes because it conceived a world and population without taking into consideration the resilience of the human spirit and our ability to adapt with replacements. If she made that error, I’m sure she made millions more.”

  He nods.

  Like she could have wrongly slotted me as unfit. “Just let me hook up the tablet to the main line. For five seconds. That’s all I need,” I say.

  Dr. Qasim pauses, holding the tablet in his hand.

  “Just five seconds and you can forget you ever saw me,” I say.

  He slips the uplink into the tablet. I go to the main comms and type as fast as I can. And just as I am about to hit send, the door opens and startles me, so I accidently let the tablet fall to the hard floor, and it cracks and turns off. Another assistant enters, covered in blood. Rao.

  “Exam Room Twelve is terrible,” Rao says through tears. When he sees me, his eyes widen, but he’s more concerned with his state than mine. He strips and heads into a disinfection shower.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. But I’m saying it to myself, really.

  Dr. Qasim shakes his head and picks up the broken tablet.

  “Do you know where Masiji is? Is she okay?”

  His face is gray in the fluorescent light. “She’s in critical. Her injuries are too grave. I don’t think she’ll make it. I am sorry. For all of this. I really am. It’s better that—”

  I slap his hand away from mine. “This is all your fault.”

  “I’ll do what I can. Please get out of here. Stay safe.” As he walks away, I pray he doesn’t snitch on me. But he wouldn’t, not now. It’d be too dangerous for him to show our connection. He tosses the broken tablet in an incinerator that destroys it instantly.

  When I’m alone, the silence builds around me like a tomb.

  Rao returns from the showers and gets dressed.

  He hugs me. “I thought you were dead. I saw you being wheeled up on the death train.”

  “How’d you end up here? Working for them?” I ask.

  “I’m not. I mean I am, but someone had to. I worked my way through the ranks. All the way up to clean up.”

  Rao chuckles.

  What a foreign sound. I can’t help but smile. “What do you mean, someone had to?”

  “To find a way out, steal food. There are a few of us spies in the regime. Sorry about the vague message. I couldn’t risk being heard. Playing dead was a brilliant plan, but where are you going from here?” Rao asks.

  “I don’t know. I had to do something.”

  “Exactly.”

  “There are a few others. We need to go somewhere without eyes and ears.” He signals to the back of the room.

  Rao opens a closet door and I follow. Kneeling, he lifts a ventilation grate and slides inside. The hole is so small, but I make it and follow him through a series of metal tunnels only the size and shape of my body. I’m weak, but only fall behind once. We reach a vent and he lifts the opening in the floor. It’s dark below.

  “Come on. You won’t fall,” he says.

  I lower my legs into the darkness, take a breath, then let go. I fall, and feel a fluttering of fingers and hands catching me, and helping me to stand.

  “Rao?” I whisper in the darkness.

  A hand takes me and sits me down on the ground. Someone turns on a lantern and then I see: three children surround me, all in different states of health, from well and wearing assistant uniforms, to sick and bandaged.

  “What is this place?”

  “This is the abandoned part of the facility. It was left when a contamination alert was broadcast. Or I should say, when I broadcast the contamination. No Uplanders would dare come here. We keep it dark just in case.”

  “Clever. How long . . .”

  “They took me like they took so many others from the undermarket before the raid,” he says. I realize he’s one of the missing, from the posters we see all over the Narrows. Have they been taking our children in secret and now they just needed more bodies? “We help whomever we can when possible. There’s something you need to see.”

  He reaches his hand out to me and leads me toward a computer. “We’ve done a lot of work. Just yesterday, I think we figured out what they are doing here. Beyond the Fever.”

  “Don’t they just want to clear the Narrows?”

&
nbsp; “Yes and no. They’re frantic. Increasing testing. Gathering anybody that’s been replaced. It’s their resilience they’re after. Those who are able to survive the replacement surgery are stronger. Their bodies can survive terrible scenarios. We don’t know why, though.”

  “They need an inoculation.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Have you figured out a way out of here?”

  “Containment is outside Central—way outside. We think it’s on an island.”

  “Island? There aren’t any islands left.”

  “We think they made one.”

  Makes sense. Isolation. My heart sinks. “No way out.”

  “Only by air-transport.” He pulls a light closer and shows me the plans. “It lands here, at the entrance, once a day. It leaves two hours later. Quick in and out. Four guardians or more. They bring people and supplies.”

  “We’ll need help. Lots of help. We’ll need to smuggle all the children we can into this area. They are small, easier to miss. Build a team.”

  “Good idea.”

  I think about the hundreds below still suffering those devastating tests. We have to find a way out or die trying.

  “I have an idea. But it’s going to take everyone in a coordinated effort. Do you have a secure line?” I ask.

  “Yes, but it’s only linked to the underweb. Why?”

  “I have to send a message to my family. Hope they can hear me.”

  35 //

  Ashiva

  “You should try to rest, Shiv. He’s not going anywhere.” Zami’s voice is calm, sleepy. He’s worked all night as Saachi’s assistant. They won’t let me help. Said I’m too emotional. Too close to . . . whatever. I stay at the edge of the laboratory and pace for hours. Why didn’t I leave him? I could be halfway to Taru by now. What’s wrong with me?

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  “We’ll find another way,” Zami tries to comfort me, but I’m not taking it.

  I watched as they opened up his chest, replaced his lung with a balloon-like machine that will help him breathe, then replaced his shoulder and rib cage with metal bones. But the most noticeable replacement is his cheek bone and jaw. It was broken beyond repair, so Saachi installed a titanium replacement and removed the bone fragments, bit by bit, using a large magnifying glass and tweezers in her steady hand. All the while, Zami held lights, offered tools and wiped her forehead. Saachi was meticulous.