by J B Cantwell
Marla gradually came into focus. A short woman with thick, gray hair pulled back into a low bun. She wore pink hospital scrubs with little hearts printed all over them.
What was this place?
I put my hand up to my face and suddenly realized that it was bandaged as well.
“What …?”
“Listen, Audrey,” she said, her voice mildly scolding. “You really must leave those ones alone. I will let you use your eyes for a time, but your face is definitely not ready to be uncovered. Do you understand?”
“But—”
“If you’ll promise me not to touch your face, I will tell you more, as much as I can.”
I frowned, but I took my hands away from my face and laid them down at my sides.
“Where is Alex?” I asked, my first and most important question.
“He is not here,” she said gravely.
“Why?”
“He was captured, dear. I’m so sorry. It was only you they were able to rescue.”
“Is he … dead?”
She smiled a sad sort of smile.
“I’m so sorry, but I just don’t know.”
Captured. Dead. Tortured. It was all the same. It was all hell on Earth.
“Doctor Chambers is still awaiting your decision. You do understand that it would only be a single phasing, yes? Just enough to get you over the rough part.”
“What? I don’t understand. I was shot in the leg.”
I looked down at my body and found I had more bandages than I’d realized. I had been so out of it before that I hadn’t even noticed.
Bandages covered my breasts and my knee, which was in a sling held up by a metal rod that hovered over the bed.
“You really should consider it, you know. You could be out of pain by morning. Better than out of pain.”
Her tone made me suspicious.
“How do you know?”
“My son,” she said simply. “He was made a Prime when he was in the Service. Afterward, he was badly injured in battle. He was lucky; he was one of the larger Primes, and they saved his life. If he had just been an ordinary soldier … well … you know what the rules are.”
Yes. I knew.
“Anyway, he was offered an additional phasing once he was back in the hospital. He took it and was up and walking in days. And he had nearly died. Though, of course, he didn’t have the choice, and you do.”
A choice?
I looked down at my bandaged body.
“Get Chambers,” I said, a command to a woman who held all the keys to the kingdom in Chambers’s stead. She controlled so much. The water. The broth. The pain medicine.
She frowned at me, then nodded.
“I’ll go see if I can find him.”
She turned to leave.
“Thank you,” I whispered, a single tear spilling from my eye and disappearing beneath the bandage on my cheek.
I closed my eyes, confused and overwhelmed. None of this made any sense. Why would they save me? Me of all people? The risk involved must have been enormous. And Alex? They had abandoned him and taken me in his stead. He might’ve wanted it to be this way, but he would have been wrong.
I was no fighter. I was just a girl. A girl who had never wanted any of this.
I sat in silence, these thoughts floating around in my brain, too much to handle.
I wanted to roll over to my side; my back was sore for lying flat for however long I’d been here. But I couldn’t move. Even breathing was difficult if I spoke too much.
Speaking. Now that was an interesting problem. Just another something that I didn’t understand.
I opened my mouth, cleared my throat carefully, and spoke.
“My name is Riley Taylor.”
It didn’t sound like me. It must’ve been the injury. I tried again.
“My name is Riley Taylor.”
My heart started pounding.
“My name is—Riley—Taylor.”
Tears again, not from frustration, but pure fear.
It wasn’t me. None of it was. Not my voice.
Whose?
The hospital door opened, and Chambers shuffled inside.
“What did you do to me?” I asked. I tried to use my full voice. That other voice. To not whisper.
“First tell me your decision, please,” he said. “You do understand that it will take you months of physical therapy to recover, and that even then we cannot guarantee that you will walk again. We were able to save your leg, but just barely.”
“Why? Why did you save me at all?”
He chuckled.
“You, my dear, were the only one left worth saving.”
“Saving for what?”
His smile fell away, and his face became grim.
“We needed someone on the inside. It would have, of course, been Kiyah, but … well …”
Was that a tear in his eye? On his cheek? He reached up and wiped it away.
The loss of Kiyah was more important than just a stroke of bad luck; it was a tragedy, one that we both shared.
“You were the only one left, you see. You are the best fighter the Volunteers have. They are a scrappy bunch; I’ll give them that. And that Melanie. Well, let’s just say she knows how to turn a curse. She was livid with me when she found out about what had happened. About you.”
“What about me? That you saved me?”
He shook his head sadly back and forth.
“No. Of course everyone was relieved to learn that you’d survived. But her good will didn’t last long when I told her what needed to be done to really save you. To keep you off the Service’s radar forever.”
“What have you done?” I asked, my voice low. Her voice low.
“We had to make changes,” he said. “I’m so sorry that you were not able to be involved in those decisions, but you were already so close to death. It only made sense for us to do the rest. Our need is so great.”
He paused, waiting for me to respond, I guessed. But I didn’t have a response. I thought about all the places on my body that were hurting. I had only injured my knee. There was no reason that the rest of me should be in such pain.
He stood from his seat and let one hand hover over my head.
“Face.” His hand moved slightly down. “Eyes.” Again. “Voice. Breasts. Knee. And, of course, chip.”
My blood ran cold.
“No one will recognize you now,” he said gravely. “You are our last, and only, weapon.”
Chapter Two
I couldn’t find my breath.
No one will recognize you now.
I tried to speak, but nothing came out. Just a silent scream. Not one of rage, but of horror. I shook my head back and forth, pain radiating through my damaged vocal chords as I stretched my neck too far.
I was holding it, not able to speak or breathe or think.
“You must breathe, girl,” Chambers said. “Do it. I will be forced to sedate you if you can’t calm yourself.”
I tried, tried to forget this warped reality I seemed to be part of. Finally, after what felt like a long time, I let my breath out and gulped in another.
My chest hurt. It went up and down with my shallow gasps for air. I was dizzy, breathing too fast now. I opened my mouth to try to scream again, but the only sound that came out was a tortured sort of cry, scratchy and painful.
“I’m going to give you something,” he said.
Immediately, I protested, grabbing for his hand.
“No. Please.”
“It won’t sedate you. It will only calm you a bit. Then we can talk more. Do you understand?”
“No,” I whispered. “I don’t want it.”
“I’m afraid that choice is not up to you.”
Just like so many other choices that hadn’t been up to me.
He stuck a needle into the IV and pushed a drug into my system, one of how many, I didn’t know.
But he was right. Soon, I felt calm. Not relaxed exactly, but able to breathe again. Able to think.
<
br /> And I thought about murder.
His murder.
“You should have let me die,” I said, voice hushed again.
He smiled, but not in a mocking sort of way. More of a sad smile. He shook his head.
“I am so sorry. I … we didn’t have a choice.”
“Yes, you did.”
“On that subject we must agree to disagree.”
I held my tongue, stayed quiet for a little while, waiting for the drugs to relax every part of my body.
“I want to see,” I finally said. I could already hear.
“Your bandages,” he began, “They’re still—”
If I could’ve screamed, I would’ve. If I could’ve reached out for him, torn him apart, fingernails, teeth, I would’ve ripped him to shreds.
I gritted my teeth.
“Take them off.”
He sighed heavily, then relented.
“You’re not going to be happy.”
Of course I wouldn’t be happy. What a stupid thing to say.
But he was right. As soon as the skin beneath my bandages felt the cool air around us, it smarted as if I had just been slapped. I hissed, sucking in breath, trying to stay calm.
It hurts.
I wanted to say it. I wanted him to give me more drugs, to push me into oblivion for just a bit longer.
But then there he was, rising and walking to the other end of the room, picking up a mirror from the counter and bringing it to me.
“Here you are,” he said. “I hope you understand, we wouldn’t have done any of this if we’d thought we could’ve saved you any other way.”
I held the mirror, too terrified to look at my face now. I had become a monster, an abomination. I shook my head again.
This time, he helped. He seemed to have seen the courage in me, to know that I was waxing and waning between grit and fear.
He held up the mirror.
I closed my eyes.
“You must see,” he said finally. “It is not so bad. Open your eyes.”
I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, trying not to panic again.
I could do this. I could face this.
I opened my eyes. And saw …
I saw someone else. Someone refined. Even beneath the mask of raw, red skin, I could see the changes to my features, recognize that their surgeries had rendered me beautiful. No … stunning.
My nose, unremarkable before, had been delicately chiseled until it looked like a work of art. My cheekbones were noticeably higher, eyes set more widely apart.
Eyes.
Green eyes now.
Whose?
Lips full.
What had they done to me?
The question seemed to reach Chambers despite my inability to speak.
“You have been made to look this way for many reasons, but for two most in particular. First, you will be safe now from the Service, safe from the Champions, from the Guard. Any facial recognition systems will be fooled, and they are the most dangerous things to you. At least, at first.”
I took the mirror from his hand and held it closer to my face as he spoke.
Manicured eyebrows.
Tattooed eyeliner.
“When you are well again, we will have a trainer come. She will help you learn about the places, the targets you will be assigned to. You will live in the most luxurious apartments, eat the most delectable of foods, and you will be coveted by both the men and women you meet. She will teach you how to be … the woman we have made you into. To be proper. To be unforgettable.”
The irony struck me, and I nearly laughed.
Unforgettable.
People would forget the real me, but they would never forget the new version.
Was it true?
“You must take the phasing. I know you’re in pain, and I know you don’t want it, but we really don’t have time to lose. Everyone in the Service is on high alert. Rumors are spreading; an update to the lens software is on its way. After the Guard realized how much danger the server buildings were in, they turned that place into a fortress. There is no way to attack it now, or ever again.”
I laid the mirror carefully in my lap and looked at my knee. I wondered what it looked like beneath the wrapping. Surely mangled. A girl doesn’t twist her leg around like a corkscrew and expect it to look normal again.
“Will you do it?”
I blinked. I hadn’t been listening.
“What?”
“The phasing. I won’t force it on you; you’ve had enough decisions made without your consent. But you must understand. Time is short.”
I stared up at him and frowned. Then, I felt my face, her face, harden.
“I want to see him.”
Chambers stared down at me, his face stoic, hard, his smile gone.
“I’m afraid that isn’t possible.”
I felt stronger then, just for a moment, ready to take him on.
“No deal.”
He sighed.
Did he really mean it? Would he really leave the choice up to me? And what about this woman, this trainer? How strong was her voice in all this? How heavily would she weigh in?
“I need to see him,” I said quietly.
And what could he do? They could cut me and open me up and take apart all the pieces, then put them back together like some sort of sick jigsaw puzzle. They could force me through phasing after phasing if they wanted to. He knew it, and I knew it.
But I also knew something else.
They couldn’t force me to join them. They couldn’t force me to stay alive. To keep this beautiful face, to keep their chip. Audrey’s chip.
“I won’t do it without him,” I said.
Finally, he nodded.
“I will see what we can do.”
And he stood up and left the room.
Marla was fussing around again, clucking her tongue at me.
“He never should’ve taken off your bandages,” she said, irritated.
“Why?” I moaned. “May as well.”
“Listen to me,” she said, stopping her scurrying. “You need to be fit and well for the world you’re about to enter. I, for one, don’t understand why they are even making your phasing a choice.”
“What? Why?”
“You owe it to us, dear. To all of us.”
“I owe it to you?” Despite my desire to cry for the last hours having left me wracked, her words made me forget all of that. “I don’t owe you, or anyone else, anything.”
“Do you think I don’t know what’s going on?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“My son. After they saved him, they threw him to the wolves. They used him again and again, sending him to the front lines, breaking him into pieces and then phasing him again until he was unrecognizable.”
I snorted.
“And?”
“And, you are the one who has the power to stop it all.”
“I didn’t choose this,” I argued, motioning to my many bandages.
“Oh, but that’s not true. You did choose it. You chose to fight for your country. You’re just angry that it’s not the fight you were expecting. But you have the power to save us, to find the good that is left of our nation.”
She stopped walking and leaned over my bed.
“I was there,” she said, her voice trembling. “I was in the Stilts when the bombs fell. And from what I hear, you barely made it out alive, yourself. So you should know. You’ve seen what our government can do, has done. We are all working toward a solution, working for you, supporting you, so that you can go win a battle we ourselves cannot fight.”
“Don’t you see, though?”
Couldn’t she see?
“I’m no different than your son. You all have done the same thing to me that the Service did to him. He didn’t have a choice, and neither did I.”
“Perhaps.” She folded her arms. “But you have a choice now. You can decide to help, to be at the center of the revolution. Or you can
crawl into a hole somewhere and wait for death to find you.”
Death. Would that be enough? Could I die now, knowing that Alex was still out there? Was he fighting? Was he even alive?
Chambers opened the door and came right to my bedside. He looked noticeably nervous, sweat on his brow.
Suddenly, a message appeared in the upper right quadrant of my lens. The name “RJ Cooke” was its sender. I looked up at Chambers.
“That’s it,” he said, breathless. “RJ Cooke is my pseudonym. Open it.”
I moved my eyes and blinked toward the right hand corner.
And there he was. Alex. Prisoner.
He was in a hospital bed, the room dark and empty but for a heart monitor and a machine that snaked a tube down his throat.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound that meant trouble … warning … alarm … imminent death.
And the hose took air from a pump, forcing it down into his lungs, breathing for him.
The clip ended.
My heart started pounding, and my throat was closing, spasming. I wanted to cry, to scream, to die.
He was there all alone. Without me.
“I’m sorry,” Chambers said. He sounded like he meant it.
His hand reached for a syringe on the table, and this time I didn’t fight him on it. Instead I pulled up the clip of Alex and watched it over again as the room around me faded away.
I would choose life.
I woke to find Chambers at the foot of my bed, passed out with his head at my feet. He reminded me of my mother, drunk on the couch years ago. Only, of course, he must be sober.
I wanted to give him a kick, but I could barely move the lower half of my body without my leg screaming in agony.
“Hey,” I said, my voice hoarse from sleep, thirst. “Chambers.”
His eyelids fluttered, and he sat up, awake. He was flustered, falling apart, even.
What was it, I wondered, that made a man like Chambers tick?
“I’ve decided,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
For Alex. For the country. For my Volunteers. My Volunteers, not his.
He sighed heavily, relief obvious in his posture, his face.
“Then let’s get started,” he said, standing.
“What, here?”
“There is nowhere else.”
“But aren’t we in a hospital? Isn’t there some sort of special room you need to take me to?”