by Eliza Tilton
“Hello, Ivy. My name is Sally,” she says with a genuine smile. “Are you hungry?”
My stomach is still roiling from my ordeal and I shake my head. I don’t think I would be able to keep anything down.
We stand in the little kitchen, the tantalizing smell of seasoned beef wafting from the stove. My pulse is still racing, and I wrap my arms around my body as I glance around the spotless kitchen.
“How about something to drink?” Sally asks.
“Yes, thank you.”
Sally walks over to the fridge and grabs a jug of orange juice. Rob pulls out a chair and motions for me to sit down. Even though I don’t want to, I sit.
“What happened?” he asks.
Bethany.
Eric.
BORAS.
Bethany.
Tears fill my eyes. I try to speak, to say something, but my voice is lost. I don’t know what to say or not say. I can’t tell them the truth, but if I don’t, then I certainly can’t expect them to let me stay, and I desperately need to rest.
“It looks like you’ve had a long night,” Sally notes kindly as she places the glass in front of me. “Why don’t you get some sleep, and we can talk tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, and proceed to drink every drop of the juice she’s given me.
“Come with me, sugar. You can stay in our guest room.”
“Thank you,” I voice, and place a hand over my throbbing stomach. The cut I got when I escaped through the window pulses with each beat of my heart.
Sally leads me upstairs. She holds on to the banister as she walks, taking the steps slowly. Her shoulder length blonde hair has streaks of grey running through it. I glance back at Rob, who’s staring at me. Wrinkles crinkle near the corners of his eyes. The wariness clearly shows in how his arms are folded across his chest.
I don’t blame him for questioning me or my story. He should be wary of me.
I’m being hunted by BORAS: Bio-metrics Optogenetics Research Assimilation Solutions. They are powerful, technologically advanced, and know everything about me.
Anyone who helps me is putting their life at risk. I know it’s too much to ask of anyone, but if I fail my mission, all of humanity will be in danger.
And that’s just the beginning of it.
Three
~Damion~
“At the close of the second quarter, our earnings have increased by one-point-seven percent and we stayed seven-hundred-ninety thousand dollars below budget . . .”
The CFO continues in a monotone voice as he reviews the financials. I don’t really need to be here for this portion of the meeting, but Dad is prepping me to run the company. Normally, I do pay attention, but not today. I can’t stop thinking about the vid.
Jims knows I don’t mesh female lead VRR’s. It’s too weird. The first time I accidentally put one on, it started with a kiss. Worse vid I ever experienced. Since then, I strictly watch vids with guy avatars. So why would Jims give me one with a girl?
When the vid started, I couldn’t tell the sex of the character, but I felt the icy spikes of fear and adrenaline like it was coursing through my own blood. The sensory applications make everything come alive in a vid: colors, smells, sounds–as if it were real. The porn industry tried buying in, but BORAS wouldn’t budge. All the vids created by sub-companies were employed by BORAS, and for some moral reason they wouldn’t allow their vids to reach the pornographic point. There had been a few black-market vids that came out, some erotica, some horror. Those were the good ones. Nothing like a little sex and murder to keep things interesting.
The guy next to me taps at his pad, and I remember I’m supposed to be paying attention. I check my watch, reading seven twenty-five A.M. Not even halfway done.
I go back to thinking about last night’s vid.
It’s been awhile since I meshed a good thriller. I need the rush of adrenaline to spike through me and wake me out of this everyday emptiness. The last few thrillers were more mystery with a homicide detective and a typical serial killer. Almost five full star reviews and yet, I didn’t care enough about the story or characters to be pulled in. Even though this vid features a girl avatar, I’ll give it another shot. I don’t know why I’m invested. It could be because this vid has a better sensory application. Jims did say it’s unique.
I wonder what she’s running from?
“Damion.”
Dad’s voice breaks through my distracted fog. He glares at me, not with hate, but pure annoyance. “Do you have details on the Crux Project?” he barks.
I nod. I’m ready to give these suits our latest goodwill endeavor. “Yes, sir.” I push back my chair, stand, straighten my jacket, and walk to the front of the conference table.
I already have the presentation keyed into the computer, so as I approach the front of the room, I press the pointer and the first slide appears on the center hologram in the desk. “This is the Heritage Orphanage located in Midtown,” I begin. “As you can see from the slide, the exterior needs simple repairs, mostly cosmetic work.” I click to the next slide and delve into a deeper explanation of the projected work, costs, and value it will bring to the community.
Sweat beads at the back of my neck. If there’s one thing my dad and I agree on, it’s that we can’t let Midtown continue to crumble into nothingness, especially when more homeless children keep filling the streets.
If I don’t wow these suits, they’ll vote the project down. Thankfully, all five are gazing at the hologram, and not at their pads.
Every year, Scole Towers takes on a restoration project for the city. My future role with the company will put me in charge of choosing and leading all those projects. When I graduated from high school a year early, Dad recruited me into the family business. I could have chosen to work in any department, but I wanted to be involved with the charity division. Since we are an architectural company, most of the charity projects we take on revolve around restoring broken-down buildings, and in this city, there’s a never-ending supply. The process of taking a once beautiful structure and restoring it back to its original grandeur gives me a sense of purpose. Mom, in her sensitive way, says that finding a nice girl would brighten my spirits even better than sticks and bricks. Maybe it would, but I don’t know if I’m quite ready for that again.
The penthouse is filled with the mouthwatering scents of roasting garlic and I inhale, a smile coming unbidden to my face. Mom and her best friend, Linda, are in the kitchen chatting. Every Wednesday night, Linda and my mom cook an old Italian recipe from some paper cookbook Mom keeps. She’s big into keeping traditions.
“You’re home! And just in time,” Mom chirps as she bustles around the kitchen island to wrap me in a big hug. Her sweet perfume mingles with the olive oil she splashed on her shirt, making her smell uniquely her. “How was the meeting?”
“Riveting,” I deadpan, rolling my eyes as I hug her back. “They voted yes to the Crux Project.”
“I knew you would do great.” Mom pats my cheek and returns to the stove.
“Hi, Linda,” I greet.
Linda raises her wine glass, sloshing dark red liquid onto her equally dark red shirt. “Hello, handsome,” she purrs. Even though she smiles, her face barely changes due to all the Botox she gets injected on a regular basis.
She’s got a set of killer green eyes a guy could fall in love with, and I’m sure when she was in her twenties, she had them all lining up. She winks at me and I shake my head, smiling.
Mom walks back to her sizzling pan filled with chicken and white sauce and tosses in spices. She counts out the measurements and pushes her long, brown hair back behind her ear. Cooking would be a lot easier if she used one of the recipe apps on the TV screen in the kitchen.
Old fashioned to the bone.
“How long before dinner?” I ask while hanging my coat in the hall closet.
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“About a half hour.”
Just enough time to slip in. “Call me when it’s ready.”
Four
~Ivy~
I’m lost in a sea of blue, blurry images, flickering around like one of those starry lights they used to hang in the facility during the holidays. Twinkling stars scatter the ceiling and billowy mist curls around my bare feet.
Where am I?
Squinting at the empty distance, I move forward, waiting for anything to appear. Moments pass and pass and I wonder if I will ever be free of this place.
A bed appears twenty feet away. Someone is laying on it.
“Hello?”
My voice echoes, vibrating into nothingness.
The someone is a boy, dressed in black with dark hair to match. He’s lying on his side, hair covering his eyes. Is he asleep?
“Excuse me? Do you know where we are?” I tap his shoulder.
He rolls onto his back and his hair falls to the side, revealing obsidian eyes. “Ivy.”
I bolt upright, panting, as my gaze darts around the room. Once I realize where I am, I take a deep breath and try to calm my racing heart. I check the silver bracelet clasped on my wrist. The circular light on it flashes green—a sign the jammer is functional.
I’m safe. Just a nightmare.
The jammer is working. That’s all that matters.
Eric warned me against leaving the facility when I did. He wanted to run more tests on the jammer, but we were out of time. I had no choice. I had to trust that the device he created would block the tracker we knew BORAS implanted in me.
When I first arrived at the facility, I didn’t know anyone, and cried almost every night. Eric was a few years older—his twin brother and he used to visit their mother who was a patient. The facility didn’t have many adult patients, and the ones they did have were very sick. He brought me a brown, stuffed bunny. He was too shy to say hello, so he threw it at me and ran.
The memory makes me smile and I hug the blanket closer to my chest.
It wasn’t until after his mother passed that we became close. I brought him my bunny and we sat in an empty corridor together while he cried.
There is no one else in this world who cares for me like Eric. I have to believe he’s out there, keeping to our plan, doing everything he can to take BORAS down.
I just wish he would’ve left the facility with me.
Queasiness fills my belly at the thought of Eric back at the facility. I don’t know if he’s in danger, if he got the vid out in time, or what happens if I can’t find his brother. There are so many unanswered questions running through my mind, I think the weight of them might crush me.
The cut on my stomach begins to throb again and I decide to get up. Staying in bed will only delay my mission, and I know I won’t be able to sleep with the knowledge that BORAS is still hunting me . . .
Keep moving.
A plate of biscuits sits on the nightstand. I swing my legs over the side of the mattress and push myself out of bed, grabbing one of the flaky breads and taking a bite. It’s no longer warm, which means Sally must have left these hours ago. Every movement of my arms causes pain to rip through my stomach, a burning sensation that makes my head dizzy and everything in the room sway. Slowly, I lift my shirt and examine the bandage I put on last night. I was lucky to find them in the bathroom. It would have been difficult explaining this cut.
Fresh blood is already beginning to seep through the white fabric. I need to be stitched, and soon.
I reach the bedroom door, twist the knob, and open the door silently, peeking out into the hallway. The warm glow of lights in the stairwell heading downstairs tells me I must’ve slept the whole day.
Since my gracious hosts appear to be downstairs, I tiptoe to the bathroom. Once inside, I lock the door, lean against it and close my eyes. I breathe in and out, trying to calm myself. I don’t have time to cry.
I quickly find the basic med kit I used last night. Besides the white cabinet above the sink, there isn’t much in here. It’s an empty room with a simple shower stall and toilet. It must be for guests, and all their main supplies are in their bathroom.
The healthcare reform movement forced many people to tend to themselves, and as a result, almost every home has simple medical supplies. Doctors are only used for the most severe injuries.
I open the steel medical box and flip the latch. Inside the med kit, I find a suture thread and needle. The only thing I’ve ever sewn was Bethany’s doll.
Bethany.
I attempt to clear my head, steeling myself for the task to come. My hand shakes. I grab a towel and shove it into my mouth. I have no idea how much this will hurt.
Before I can change my mind, I thread the needle and push it through, wincing and silently screaming as white-hot agony splinters up my side. Another loop and my side aches even more, but I keep going, trying my best to remember my first aid class back in the facility.
Each stitch throbs and burns. Silent tears trickle down my cheeks, and right as I reach the point when I don’t think I can stitch anymore, I’m done.
I force myself to take heavy, deep breaths, and then turn on the faucet. As I splash my face, neck, and stomach with cold water, I suddenly realize I need to lie down.
Using my right hand to grab the counter, I pull myself forward. My legs wobble and tiny white spots skitter across my vision. I focus on the door, taking a shaky step toward it.
Five
~Damion~
“Damion, dinner!” Mom calls from the kitchen.
I pull the VRR off, panting.
“Damion. I can’t promise we’ll leave any left if you don’t hurry.”
“I’ll be out in a minute,” I finally answer, my voice hoarse.
I swing my legs off the bed and onto the floor, resting my elbows on my thighs, staring at nothing.
Too real.
I immediately touch my stomach, but of course there isn’t anything there. I don’t have a gaping wound. She does.
It’s been a while since I watched a vid with such vivid sensory overload. I wince as I remember the sensation of her threading the needle into her skin, the agonizing pain biting into my side. Real pain. I think back to every black-market vid I’ve ever seen, but none of them caused intense physical sensations; pain or otherwise.
Jims is right. This vid is worth the money. I can’t wait to plug back in, but first I need to eat.
Mom sits at the table, laughing with Linda, a fork full of chicken dangling in her hand. Linda’s got another full glass of wine and is leaning over her plate, deep in conversation. They continue to chat and gossip. The three of us often have dinner together. I’ve gotten used to Linda’s flamboyant stories, and she makes Mom happy. Some of our other neighbors give Mom grief about going to Midtown, saying it’s dangerous and not fit for our kind. Everyone who lives in the Court thinks we should only socialize with others in the Court.
“You two sure seem to be having fun,” I joke as I take my usual chair next to my mother.
Mom smiles and blots the corners of her mouth with a red cotton napkin. “Linda was just telling me about her latest fling,” she confides.
I arch an eyebrow at Linda. Cougar.
“You know, Damion,” Linda starts, her cheeks flushed from drinking, “I have the perfect girl for you. She’s the lead in the latest musical. Stunning.”
This isn’t the first time Linda has found the ‘perfect’ girl for me, and I know it won’t be the last. “I’m sure she is,” I answer graciously, grabbing a spoonful of chicken and dumping it onto my plate.
Linda is endearingly insistent in her attempts to set me up. It bothers her that I’m rich, good looking, and single, not to mention young. A bit too young for her, but in a couple of years, I’ll be fair game in her eyes.
Don’t get me wrong–I’ve
dated; nothing serious, though, until Gia. And after . . . well, I decided vids were safer.
“Oh, Damion, that reminds me.” Mom puts her wine glass down. “Do you think you could help me out at the soup kitchen this Thursday?”
“Of course,” I agree, distracted.
Shoveling the rest of dinner in my mouth, I swig my glass of merlot and politely excuse myself to my room, feigning tiredness. Jims won’t be expecting me for another few hours. Plenty of time to mesh.
Six
~Ivy~
My stomach rumbles at the enticing smell of roasted vegetables. Not wanting to appear too famished, I daintily cut the squash with my knife and take a bite. Garlic, lemon, and salt melt on my tongue. I silently sigh as I enjoy the most wonderful food ever to touch my lips.
When Sally hands Rob a basket of rolls, I’m mesmerized by the way she looks at him. Her eyes dance with inner joy, as if he’s said the most wonderful thing to her. Is that love?
Girls and boys were kept separate from one another at the facility, because the doctors were afraid that inter-mingling would be unhealthy. As such, relationships were forbidden. Since most of us had been at the facility our whole lives, no one questioned it. We were all sick with some type of cancer or a life threating tumor, so even if we wanted to be intimate, we physically couldn’t be. It was best for everyone, especially when someone you loved didn’t survive treatment.
We eat in silence for a few minutes; the warmness of being in a real home is comforting. I’ve only known life in the facility and the orphanage. When I was old enough to start asking questions, the nurses at the orphanage informed me that my mother died in an accident shortly after I was born. With no living relatives, I was sent to the orphanage. Six years later, Dr. Hecks from the facility came and took me.
“Ivy,” Rob prods carefully.