“It seemed appropriate.”
“If you believe that, then you're the defective one.”
Something touches a nerve, and the next thing I know, I am pinned against a wall.
“I am perfect!” he hisses. “I am everything you could have been and more. I will be the chosen one, with or without your help. I will lead our army into a great and glorious future!”
The guards twitched when he moved the first time, but they do nothing now. Possibly they enjoy me being taken down a peg or two. I did burn at least one of them. Or, equally possibly, they’ve been told to give Adam free reign. He is the golden boy, after all.
I want to tell Adam I’ll stop him, that I will be no part of any of the Institute’s machinations. I want to laugh and tell him he’s insane. But these would all be betrayals of my goal, of the part of a loyal soldier. I can’t afford a retort.
So I kick him in the groin instead.
“Don’t touch me,” I seethe, as he twitches on the ground.
He is not down long. My aim was slightly off and I didn’t get him as hard as I wanted, and we are rarely immobilised by pain. He is up in seconds, running for me. I roll away and fire a stream of flame in his direction. It misses by several inches. I turn, running back a few paces to gain a better angle, but each shot I fire is dodged. He anticipates every move. Of course. He’s sparred with Eva.
I abandon my flames and meet him with fists instead. Adam is an easy match for my strength, and I barely outdo him on speed, either. They always told me I was the best, but I’m not so sure, now. He has trained more in the past five years.
I have never seen him this angry, though. He was always the collected one. I’m the one who used to fly off the handle, who used to let emotions cloud her judgement and fought with fury. It was only because I had Gabe and Mi I was ever able to control it. When Gabe was in the room, his mere presence would curb the brunt of my anger… when he wasn’t infected by fury of his own. Mi, of course, was always faultless in this regard. The guy could soothe lava.
Mi. Michael, I miss you...
The thought clears my head. I know what it’s like to fight angry, like a puppet on a string, controlled by your emotions. Your vision tunnels. All you see, all you feel, is your opponent. Everything else falls away. Your defenses are lowered.
I take two punches and then jab him in the side. Punches might smart but unless it leads to concussion or affects your vision, it won’t incapacitate you. Jabs to certain parts of the stomach will. He curls inwards, allowing me to elbow the back of his neck and knee him once more. He falls to the ground just as hot white pain surges through the base of my spine.
I collapse on the floor next to Adam, twitching like a dying spider. Over me, one of the guards brandishes a taser. I’m already down, defenseless, but he prods me again to make sure, as the other comes towards me with the manacles.
Well done, Eve, you’ve done it now.
For the first time, I forget my name is Ashe.
Chapter 20
The stunt earns me five days in solitary without food. Water is supplied, just often enough. The isolation gets to me quickly, and on the third day, I almost see myself as Eve in the other corner of the room, wearing Adam’s smile and jeering at me.
You’ll never get out.
I try to think of home, to summon happy memories to beat back the darkness, but the shadows push back. I try to imagine more time with Nick. He said he was going to take me to a hotel, when things were quieter. I try to recreate that glorious bed we shared, before we were together. This time, we take off our clothes. We do a whole lot more. The thought makes my flesh tingle.
But there is only so long I can spend on that. For the most part, my thoughts are preoccupied with Eva.
I have a child. A biological child. It should not bother me, the nature of blood. I know that the blood of the brotherhood is thicker than the water of the womb. I know they made others with a little piece of me. But it bothers me that they made her. I am not a mother, and yet I am. It has been forced on me.
I can see me in her face, a younger me. I've never seen that before, my resemblance in another person. I’m just guessing with Ben, hoping with him. But she... she has my hair, my nose, my mouth, my face. She cannot take what I still have, and yet she has. She has stolen parts of me--
No, they have.
She's not your daughter. She's your clone. A clone with a bit of Adam mixed in. Who even knows what a DNA test would reveal. Who even cares.
I care. I’ve never had a blood relative before. My family tree is happening the wrong way round. I feel violated, abject, lost, angry. I want her to crawl out of existence, to go back to being just data. She should not be a person. They should not have taken her out of me.
After five days, a small tray of food is brought to me, which I devour so quickly I almost throw it back up. Shortly after, the Director steps into the cell. I am so weak with hunger still that I almost topple over when I stand to attention.
“At ease, soldier,” he says sternly.
“Thank you, sir.” I adjust my position accordingly, but it’s still difficult to stay upright.
“Oh, sit down,” he barks, seeing my difficulties. “Your posture matters little to me after your latest escapade…”
I slide to the floor. I do my best to look humble, and it isn’t hard. Exhaustion wears a similar mask.
“Well then, Eve, what have you to say for yourself?
“I’m sorry, sir,” I tell him. No acting is necessary; I am completely sincere. I am sorry I messed up my plans, but at this point, I would say anything, believe anything, just to get out of this room and back to my bed.
My bunk. The bunk. The cell that’s been assigned to me. It’s not mine. Not at all.
I try to draw up the picture of my real room, the one that’s waiting for me, but it slips away like a pearl in oil. It fades into shapeless matter.
“I… I lost my temper. It’s inexcusable.”
I could point out that Adam started it, but what would that achieve? More time in solitary. More festering thoughts. Let me go, let me go, please.
For the longest time, the Director just stares at me. I cannot read him; I do not know what he wants. More grovelling? More penance? More fire? I have nothing, nothing left to give him…
I need Gabe. I want Nick. Nick or Mi or Abi or Ben or someone. Someone, anyone to cling to, to hold, to spill into. To be me with. If I can just find a pair of stable arms to hold me, just for a moment, I’ll remember the shape I’m supposed to be. Instead I’m just slipping against the void.
“Thankfully, no one was hurt,” he says eventually. “But this sort of behaviour cannot be repeated.”
“It won’t… it won’t… I swear it.”
“We’re suspending your lessons with Beta-6 for a while. We have another task for you.”
Chapter 21
The “other task” turns out to be cleaning the lower levels of the Institute. The building had been abandoned for so long before they repurposed it that there were whole floors regarded as unfit for use. If it sounds like I’ve got off easy, I haven’t. The lower levels are a series of floors, rooms and corridors so far from human touch that they’re practically jungle. Moss coats the walls and there’s a sickening, sewage-like smell. I barely know where to begin. How is this place ever to be fit for use again?
I’m told this is a fitting punishment since I burned down their last facility. It’s only right I help make their new one as optimal as it can be. It is hard to agree when I am handed a handful of rusty, insufficient tools, and told to get to work.
It is better than solitary, but in truth it is little different. I have something to occupy my mind with, but I’m still kept away from the others apart from at breakfast and dinner. The rest of the time I am locked below.
I clear the main corridor of debris first, a task so laborious it takes the better part of the day, then getting to work scraping off the moss. Sunlight filters down through some barred w
indows, high above me. They’re rusty and with my tools I could probably break through them, but there is still the main gate between me and freedom and they would not have let me down here if they thought I’d be able to escape. No, I’m in here for the long haul.
At first, I don’t see the point of this exercise. If they truly wanted the levels cleared, they’d have us all working on them. For all that the job is difficult, the punishment aspect could easily be worse. Then I see the look on people’s faces as I show up to dinner, filthy and reeking. This is a deterrent, reminding those that even the mighty can fall.
Stay strong, Gabe’s thoughts fall into me, even when he cannot even risk a glance in my direction. He lets me know he’s there.
I want to talk to him about Eva, but I am not given the chance. He must know something is up, though. I cannot keep my eyes off her and my thoughts spiral with every glance.
It’s on my third day of cleaning out the lower levels that I feel something watching me. Cameras, of course, would make perfect sense. I’ve never been unsupervised before, why would they start now? But this… this doesn’t feel like a camera. It feels like a person.
Still scrubbing, I span out with my super-hearing. Somewhere, close by, someone is breathing. My initial thought is that they’ve sent someone to creep up on me, to test me, but this other person doesn’t move.
I go into another room, much further along. I cannot hear it any more. They haven’t followed me.
I head to a room in-between the two and try to focus on the sound again. I can hear someone, something, moving very carefully. They are small, light on their feet. I try to keep scrubbing, maintaining the illusion that I’ve noticed nothing, all the while creeping closer to the door. It’s closer now, only a few feet away.
I leap out into the corridor, fists raised. My opponent shrieks and darts away into the room. It’s incredibly fast: all I see is a blur of copper fur.
Fur. It isn’t human. But then… what was with the shrieking?
“Hey!” I call out. “Come back! I won’t hurt you!”
The creature does not reply. I follow where it went, but the room looks empty. I scan around for any sign of it. There’s a small hole in the ceiling, too small for anything to crawl through, surely?
“Are you… are you up there?" I call. "I’m impressed if you are. Not sure I could squeeze into something like that.”
I’m probably going to have to try, if I want to solve this mystery. I flip down the remains of an old bunk and climb on top of it. It groans uneasily under my weight. Carefully, I grab hold of the sides of the entrance and pull myself up. A face rises out of the dark, causing me to fall back with such force that the bunk comes free at the wall and I topple onto the hard concrete.
I swear very loudly, hoping there really aren’t any cameras. I am not looking like the model soldier at the moment.
The little face peers out of the hole. It is some kind of monkey, canine, human hybrid. I remember a few from back at the old Institute. Most were killed before reaching adulthood, and those that weren’t… probably wished they were. They came before me. The early experiments. The imperfects. They were faster and stronger than mere humans, but they didn’t look like them, and thus their usefulness was deemed minimal.
Why was this one spared?
Deciding I pose no threat to him, he slips out and lands neatly on the ground. He should be older than me, but he’s the size of a child, not much bigger than Ben. A long tail curls around his bare feet. He’s wearing out-of-date, standard issue clothing, but it’s ragged beyond repair.
“Hi,” I say, somewhat dumbly.
The creature tilts his head. “Hi,” he responds.
“You… you can talk then?”
He nods. “Out of practise, though.”
“What… what do you mean?”
“Been here a long time. Alone, a long time.”
“You… you didn’t come from the other place?”
He shakes his head.
He’s lying. He must be. Or… or he’s confused. How could he be here by himself? How could he survive?
This is another test. It must be. They want to see if you’ll report him, or…
I think back to the child they made me kill, to prove myself to them. He was not dissimilar from this chap. Was that not enough for them? Had this one been placed here for me to befriend, to test my loyalties?
“I… I shouldn’t talk to you,” I say quickly, getting up. “In fact, I should report you.”
“Don’t,” he says quickly, “I don’t like what they do with the ones that look like me.”
“How… how would you know that?”
He points to his eyes. Oh God, he’s seen it. He’s seen what they do.
“I’m sorry,” I continue, “but I must. It’s my duty–”
“Please… don’t… Eve.”
I freeze. “How… how do you know my name?”
“I remember it. From before. Eve and Gabriel and Michael and Moona and Abi--”
“Wait.” An old memory resurfaces, of a face like his staring at me across the infirmary, many years ago. Could… could this really be the same boy? “You… I remember you. But you’re supposed to be…”
“The nice lady took me away. Brought me here. Said she would come back. Didn’t.”
“The nice lady? You mean… the nice scientist?” I know who he means. There was only ever one. She sometimes gave me books to read while she was running tests. I’d always had a horrible feeling that she hadn’t left willingly.
He nods. “She called me Xaphram. Xaph.”
Another angel.
“Look,” he says. “Stay. I show you.”
He scurries away, back into his hole. I hear him shuffling about the walls. He returns moments later, clutching a well-thumbed children’s book to his chest. It’s yellow with age, the pages frayed and peeling with overuse. He flicks to a specific section and holds it out to me; two chubby angels, hand in hand. Michael and Gabriel.
I know this book. I used it to give the boys their names, countless years ago.
If his story is true, then perhaps… perhaps no one does know he’s down here. Can he really have survived alone for all this time? He vanished ten years ago…
“Xaph… how have you stayed alive down here, all this time?”
“Good hunter. Catch food.”
“But what did you–” In answer to my question, a rat scuttles past me. “Yeah, that tracks. What about water?”
“Drink the rain that trickles down.”
Lovely. “Do you… do you ever go outside?”
“Used to. A few months ago, way was boarded up. People at the gate. Guns.”
“You remember those, huh?
“Don’t want to.”
“It must have been very lonely for you.”
He tilts his head again. “Lonely?”
“Yes, lonely. To be by yourself. Alone.”
“Always, alone.”
Did… did the imperfects ever have a unit? Were they kept together, or by themselves? I’d never thought about it before, never wanted to. I can’t believe someone at the Institute had it worse than we did. Suddenly, following their orders seems like a small price to pay for company. That was the one thing that kept me from going mad.
“I… I see.”
I’m still not convinced this isn’t a trap. How perfect a test would it be, to present me with this person to befriend, and then ask me to kill him? Adam had taunted me with being given an order to kill Nick. They don’t have him, but Xaph is innocent enough to present a moral conundrum at very least. At the same time…
He’s made tunnels. His fur is matted, his clothes filthy. He definitely looks like he’s been down here for much longer than a few months...
“Why are you down here?” Xaph asks.
“Punishment.”
“Good punishment,” he says.
I frown at him, looking around at the mess I am to clean. He creeps forward and pulls up his shirt. T
here are parts of his back where the fur has been peeled away entirely, leaving only white tissue.
“Bad punishment,” he explains.
I guess the first batch didn’t have the super-healing we do. I’d have marks myself if not for it.
“You’re safe down here,” I tell him. “I won’t tell anyone where you are.”
He thanks me, but as soon as I’ve said it, I realise I’m going to tell someone. I’m going to tell Gabe.
Chapter 22
As I’m still banned from morning exercise, speaking to Gabe is incredibly difficult. I attempt to get his attention every morning, trying to catch his eye and sending him psychic messages. I know that he’s understood that something has happened and he needs to speak to me, but he dares not reply. I don’t know what they did to him for his last indiscretion.
It’s days more of scrubbing before we finally get the chance to speak. The task has become less monotonous now thanks to Xaph’s presence, but I’m conscious of being distracted. They are rigorous with their checking and scrutinising of my work. Xaph tries to help me out, but he is not a great cleaner. His presence is still welcome. I share my lunch with him and fill him in on stories of the outside world.
“Outside world sounds scary,” he concludes.
“It can be.”
“In here is scary too.”
“Exactly. At least outside we’re free to be scared. We can be together in it.”
“I like the word ‘together’.” He draws a winding circle in the dirt. The whole basement is full of them, if you look closely. Xaph’s little figures. He has so little else to do.
He shows me how he used to get out, before they moved back in and boarded up the hole. It would not take long to break out again, if I had the time. The thing that makes it a poor route is the heavily-guarded outer wall. There’s no way to get to that without being shot at and raising the alarm, and a part of me still isn’t sure this isn’t a test, even if they don’t know about Xaph. Maybe they’re just trying to see if I’ll go for it.
Finally, after almost a week of desperately trying to get Gabe’s attention, we have the chance to speak in the showers. I’m still being kept isolated from the others, but every so often they permit me to shower. Gabe slides in next to me and turns on the stream. We have three minutes.
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