by Lisa Jade
I run as fast and hard as I can, until the muscles in my legs are screaming at me, begging for a moment's reprieve. I vault over a pile of rubble and a few broken down pieces of machinery - and catch my foot on something jutting out from a disabled bot that lies motionless in my path. It sends me sprawling to the ground and I try to gather my composure, but it's too late. The bot is upon me, and as I whip around and aim my Launcher, I already know it's too late. I fire blindly, my mind in a panic, and everything goes black.
I snap awake again, cold sweat dripping from my face – the nightmares are still there. Every night, every time, fear and agony and pain. I bring my hands to my face. When will this end?
I start to daydream about sneaking off into the city and finding my way back to Street. I can’t do it – it would be like another betrayal to the people of Fairground, who have tried so hard for me and given me so many chances. So many opportunities that I didn’t deserve. I start to think about how kind they’ve always been to me. Dr Newton, for teaching me and defending me. Adam, for giving me a chance and coming to save me when I needed him. The Scouts as a whole for being there, every single time I’ve needed them. Max and Minni and Bree, too. Not to mention Sparrow, with her endless patience and calm integrity. Everyone’s been so nice to me, and I’ve given them nothing in return.
It’s a hot day when I stand just inside the gates, that feeling still swirling in my stomach. My head hurt and my stomach hurts, and the air around me is so hot I feel like I’m swimming in scalding water. I wipe the sweat from my brow and stare, out into the city. There’s not a great deal to see from down here on the ground; just a road lined with rubble and the tops of skyscrapers in the distance. I stare at it, remember how I yearned for it, both as an adventure and as a return. I still want to go out there now, for both of those reasons and another, lesser one, which is so scary I refuse to put it into words. I remember Sparrow telling me how everything had fallen part for her and how she had wanted to go into the city to die. While I can’t say I feel the same, I’m afraid that I’m starting to.
“Afternoon.”
Someone steps up beside me, and I vaguely recognise the voice as Kicker. He shuffles a little, likely shoving his hands into his pockets, and eyes me carefully.
“You okay?”
I don’t respond. I’m frightened of what might happen if I look into his eyes, what I might see there.
“You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to. Just listen, alright?”
He heaves a sigh, and I’m surprised to hear how resigned he sounds. It’s not like him at all – he’s usually the one with boundless energy and good humour. I suppose this is a bad time for everyone.
“Me and Brick… we weren’t around when it happened. We heard the bells ringing, but we were so far that by the time we made it there, it was too late. We, uh… we’ve both been struggling pretty badly with that. If we’d been closer, or run a little faster, maybe it wouldn’t have turned out that way.”
There’s an odd relief that comes with knowing I’m not the only one who blames myself, even if I’m the only one who could realistically be blamed. I stare up into the sun and blink hard, trying to rid my eyes of the dark spots that settle in the corners of my vision.
“Adam… he’s a wreck. But you already knew that. He was a wreck when he thought Nick was dead, and he was a wreck when he thought you were dead, too. He’s the type to blame himself for everything that happens, even if it wasn’t his fault.”
I recall for a moment that day Adam returned from his first trip into the city, how I had ran forward to meet him but been greeted with cold eyes and a look of disdain. It wasn’t targeted at me; it was disdain for the world, for the struggles he’d faced. Something hurts in my chest and my limbs begin to feel heavy.
“I don’t know how you’re doing,” he admits, “but I’d assume it’s not good. From the crashing I hear every night in the infirmary, I’d figure you’re struggling a bit too.”
I shudder. I had hoped nobody else knew about that.
“I, uh, just wanted to break this silence. Adam’s angry, and you know him. If we don’t break him out of this funk he’s going to sink into it and be miserable forever. And we need him. He’s a moron. Completely, totally. But we need him. I don’t suppose…”
He continues to speak, but suddenly his words sound like nothing to me. The black spots in my vision seem to grow, and my body is too weak to hold up my heavy limbs. I sway a little, trying helplessly to regain my balance, but the spots take over and for a brief moment the word turns black.
I wake a little as I fall, and have just enough awareness to feel his arms around me. He catches me at the last moment and stumbles to his knees. When he speaks, I can hear panic in his voice.
“H-Hey!”
What’s wrong with me? The world is dark, my body is weak, and I can feel something akin to sleep tugging at me, pleading with me to rest up. I feel my body being shaken, just a little, and manage to open my eyes just enough to see through my lashes.
“Oh god, not you too. Ash!”
Kicker’s face is one of worry. One arm tucks under my shoulders, the other shaking me. I hear my name being said, again and again, the desperation building every time. It’s not that I don’t want to reply – I’m just so very tired. I allow my eyelids to slide shut.
Chapter Thirty
I wake drowsily, and I’m immediately aware of myself. I lie on my back on a table that feels familiar under my skin; I can tell without opening my eyes that I’m in the infirmary. Someone mills about, and I can hear them speaking with someone else in a low voice.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Dr Newton, his voice measured and calm.
“I-I don’t know exactly,” comes Kicker’s reply, “she just kind of… collapsed.”
Suddenly there’s a light in my eyes, so bright that I find myself stirring.
“There we go,” Dr Newton says, “time to wake up.”
It takes an unbelievable amount of effort to force my eyes open. I can see Dr Newton leaning over me, and immediately he moves closer, perhaps looking for signs of what went wrong. I pull away and try to sit up, but my body is still weak and I fall back against him. He holds me there, and with a satisfied grunt he ticks something off on a scrap of paper.
“Don’t move too much. Just hold up, alright? This is going to hurt a little.”
Something pricks my arm, and after a moment I can feel something cold coursing the length of it. I lift my wrist and stare. A drip. Great.
“Is she okay?” asks Kicker, and I can feel the nerves in his voice.
“Don’t know for certain just yet. People don’t pass out for no reason. But I don’t presume it’s anything too serious. Could you please go and inform Adam of what’s happened?”
“Adam?”
“Yes,” Dr Newton replies, “As much as he has on his plate right now, I’m sure he’d be concerned to learn one of his Scouts has been taken ill.”
Kicker nods and a moment later, I hear the door.
“Alright,” says Dr Newton, pulling me into a sitting position, “let me look at you.”
He watches me carefully, and I try to behave. This is embarrassing, and if my limbs didn’t still feel quite so heavy I would likely be trying to run away now. I’d give it a shot if I thought I could stand a chance at getting away.
The door bursts open, and someone runs in – it takes me a moment to recognise them. Adam. He looks so different. His hair is unkempt, his face smudged. There are lines around his eyes and his clothes are crumpled as though he’s slept in them for days. This is what happens to a good man when he loses people. It breaks them inside.
“I just got told Ashley collapsed,” he gasps, “what happened?”
Dr Newton waves at him, and he seems to calm down.
“Don’t panic, Adam. It’s nothing serious.”
“It’s not?”
Dr Newton stands up, pacing across the room to him.
&
nbsp; “Heat exhaustion, I’d say.”
“W-what does that mean?”
Dr Newton gives a small smile and begins to root around in a drawer.
“I think that some days, we all forget where we are. The leaders of this city intended to protect the technology we have here, and oddly enough the only method Shard Industries could decide on was a glass globe. That thing isn’t just a glass to trap us in here like spiders. It boils the air in the day and chills it at night. Combine the regular daytime heat with a slight shortage of liquids, and it’s perfectly reasonable that someone might pass out from it.”
I blink, slowly, purposefully, and sit upright a little more, swinging my legs over the side of the table. Adam chews on his lip, runs a hand through his hair, and frowns.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. A day or two of replenishing lost fluids and perhaps a little time out of the sun, she’ll be fine.”
He turns to me now, and somehow that hate I used to see in his eyes is gone, replaced by concern.
“And you? You feel alright now?”
I hesitate, not sure if I should reply, but then give a small nod. His reaction is instant; he leans back and hits the wall behind him hard, wiping the sweat from his brow and heaving an almighty sigh.
“Thank god. For a minute there, I thought the Scouts were about to lose another one.”
“Don’t be silly,” Dr Newton tells him, “you know we’d never let that happen.”
Adam smiles, and I feel a rush of something odd. Despite what I’ve done to him, despite all the pain and trouble I’ve caused him, he still cares. I’m a terrible person, there’s no doubt about that, but the fact he still felt worried is a massive testament to his character.
“Alright then,” Dr Newton pipes up, “Ash, you need to get some sleep.”
I reach to remove the drip from my arm, but he reaches out to stop me.
“Nope. Leave that in. It’s going to make you feel better.”
I pout. I know that. I just don’t want it there. I feel pathetic, worthless. Like I made a scene. I slink away into the other room, blood boiling in my face, humiliation burning in my veins.
It’s another day before I’m allowed outside again, and I’m not granted full freedoms even then. Dr Newton wants to keep me around, close by, just in case. I spend my time out the front of the infirmary, reading Minni’s journal. I’ve finished their history now, and I’m reading up on the plan she’s always had in mind. Something stirs in me; maybe I should show this to Adam. He can read. Maybe he’ll take it on board to pass to the next leader of the Scouts. I had planned to hold onto it, but something tells me I won’t be able to.
Next to a crudely-drawn image of the main tower in the centre of the city is an arrow. It labels the tower. Network Tower – Shard Industries. Shard. It’s a name I’ve heard a few times before. They were the people who built the city, who decided to place our lives in the hands of the bots. But clearly, despite the mechas at the gate and the globe overhead, they didn’t give enough thought to security. Something went wrong.
Bots don’t have the natural capacity for violence. But they are open and flexible, and if Minni’s right and they’re all controlled by the Network tower, then it would make sense. Something would have to go wrong there, corrupt it, and infect all the systems at once. A virus perhaps, or a flaw in the system. Either way, it isn’t something that could just happen. This had to have been an act of betrayal against the city, a decision made with sole purpose of killing everyone. My stomach clenches. Who would do such a thing?
“Reading anything good?”
I look up; Adam stands near me, his expression carefully neutral. Since I last saw him he’s changed. His hair is tidier, and the circles under his eyes look a little less severe. He still looks exhausted and miserable, but there’s something else, too. I wonder if something finally managed to pull him out of that funk, just like Kicker said. Something’s snapped him out of it. I smile a little at that – though my own misery has changed to a solid, painful ball in my gut, it’s nice to know that he’s starting to feel better.
He eyes the journal and I tuck it away. I don’t want to show it to him. He’ll get it eventually – being the leader of the Scouts, it will become his role to pass the information on to future generations. But right now, I’m being selfish. I want it to remind me of Street and the friends I made there. I need it.
He takes a seat next to me and for a moment, we sit motionless. Then he turns his head to me and looks me up and down, an unusual look on his face.
“Are you okay now?”
I nod. I was fine after a good night’s sleep and a few hours on a drip, despite Dr Newton’s caution. I’m supposed to be stronger now, anyway. Something twists inside me, the thought that I was wrong about that. I’m no stronger than I was before. In fact, I’m more fragile than ever.
“Good. You really know how to make me worry, did you know that?”
I feign a chuckle; yes, that’s something I’ve heard a lot lately. I seem to have a penchant for making stupid decisions or causing people to worry for me. All my wishes, all my foot-stamping and insistence that I’m strong enough to not need their help have been vastly undermined lately.
“You know, I was pretty scared,” he continues, much to my surprise, “I was in the base, and then Kicker comes barging in, all panicked. And he just looked at me and said you collapsed. I was horrified. I thought you were going to die.”
I shake my head. That isn’t what I wanted. I’ve tried so hard to prove I’m not helpless, but it’s all been thrown away.
“And I’m not saying you’re weak. I know that’s what you think – you think that any time someone shows concern for you, it’s because they think you’re weak. But that’s not it. If you were weak, I think I’d have been less worried. It’s because you’re so strong that I assumed it was serious.”
I stare at him, incredulous. Does he mean that? Does he really think I’m strong? My doubt must show on my face because he smiles.
“Don’t look so shocked. I know I’ve never said it before. But you seem to have this constant fear of looking helpless. When really, nobody thinks that about you.”
I shake my head in disbelief.
“I’m serious. It never came down to that.”
I grimace, and he heaves a sigh.
“Look. I know you think I’m an asshole, because I didn’t want to bring you into the city. But that’s the thing. It wasn’t about you, as bad as it sounds. It was my own issue.”
I lean forward, and tilt my head, opening my eyes wide and smiling softly. Tell me.
“You really want to know, huh? It might change the way you think of me.”
I shrug. Nothing could ever change the love-hate relationship we seem to share.
“Okay. But you asked for it.”
He leans back, closes his eyes and begins.
“I really wanted to go into the city. I begged and begged to be allowed out – just like you did, I suppose. Difference is, nobody tried to stop me. They saw I was strong and smart and they wanted me to go out as much as I did. I thought it would be like my old video games, running in, firing guns in every direction, and being branded a hero once the day was over.”
He scoffs a little.
“It wasn’t like that. Of course it wasn’t. War isn’t a game, and sadly I didn’t realise that until it was too late. We were out there for about three hours before I realised I was probably going to die. Have you ever had that moment, where everything is going to hell around you, and you know it would all get better if you could just suck it up and be brave?”
I nod. Oh, yes. I know that feeling.
“I’m not a brave person. Any time you see it in me, it’s going to be bravado. I act because I don’t want people to die and that’s it. And that day, I learned what happens when I don’t act.”
The memory flashes by; the men bringing in the motionless form on the stretcher, the defeated look in Adam’s eyes.
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��That trip ruined me,” he says softly, “I felt like I would never be happy again. And then we came back, and I saw you. You seemed so happy and so clueless and you didn’t understand. I wouldn’t expect you to. But when I saw you, I realised that if I tried to be close to you, I’d probably end up scaring you away. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want you to see me as a broken man. I figured that if I pushed you away and you hated me that was fine, because at least you’d still be all innocent and pure and that would keep me going.”
His words hang in the air as he pauses for breath, and they hurt, but I hold back because I want to hear it all, every last word of his story, before I consider its meaning.
“So I pushed you away and tried my best to keep you away from any danger. But you seemed determined to fight back. You just wanted to prove yourself, like I did. You became the Doc’s assistant and kept fighting me, always constantly fighting me.”
I nod. I argued my corner for years, pleading with him to give me a chance.
“So I tried my best to keep you here. I didn’t want to lose you, and more importantly I didn’t want for you to be tainted with the madness that seems to overcome those of us who go into the city.”
Madness. I suppose that’s a good word for it. I think of Sparrow, and her untold love for destruction. I think of me, and the way my blood pumps in that odd, painful, exhilarating way. I get it.
And then he stands, and I stand too, and he steps towards me with fervor in his movements.
“But you didn’t care what I wanted, did you? You were determined to prove yourself. And you did. I’m not blind and I’m certainly not an idiot. You went out there and you had a tough time, and just like the rest of us, it made you stronger. Despite my best efforts to protect you from the world you just wouldn’t obey. You went out there and became tainted, ruined, just like the rest of us.”
I consider this for a moment. I don’t feel a joy in destroying the world around me, and I don’t feel a sense of control when I’m out there. All I’ve felt is loss. So much loss. The loss of family and friends and comrades. Death and partings and endless, endless goodbyes. Something sticks in my throat. Tainted, huh? Tainted is a good word, too.