“My parents hooked up with a colony of Exilers in some caves outside the city. That’s where I was born. I lived there until I was eight and it was no picnic—the kind of stuff that still gives me nightmares like watching my Mom slowly die after giving birth to Leila. Eventually, the Exilers took control of an entry portal and found a new exit portal, and so my dad made good on a promise he’d made to my mom to get us out of here, and placed me with ‘Jennifer,’ his trophy wife on Earth.”
My eyes grow wide, and I shake at the implications. He was born here? In Exile? I don’t know him at all, I realize. “Keep going,” I say. One swirling canyon light keeps illuminating and then darkening Blake’s face—a creepy effect to accompany his equally disturbing tale.
“The thing is that I’ve been trained since I was eight to do what we’re doing right now—to come back here as a Recruit and get information my dad and the other Exilers need to take control from the dictators who run this place. They’re not good guys, Kira. They’re seriously evil, and the cities here are really just some large-scale experiments. Worse, the Second Chancers are just a bunch of pawns. Those in charge would kill me in a second if they knew who I was or what I was doing.” He stops, letting me absorb the information, though he can no longer look me in the eye. His whole life has been one big training exercise.
“Ted Rosenberg hatched the plan with my dad and helped me prepare for the Test, even though I was pretty much a shoo-in with my DNA. He’s my dad’s mole within the SCI organization, but, until now, he was stationed on Earth, not Thera. Ted knew that I couldn’t get in and pull off the scam alone. Since Recruits are always partnered so that the SCI can try to Cleave them off and keep them on Thera, he had to find me a suitable match that we could trust not to blow my cover,” he says, pausing. The pained look on his face tells me I’m not going to like what I hear next.
“So that’s where I come into play? This has all been about getting me on board?” I ask, seething as the pieces start falling into place: the “pact” we made, the trust building, and the fake relationship. Blake pretending the fake could become real. He’s the plant, and I’m the pawn.
“I swear I didn’t know about the partner thing until the day of the Test, and I wasn’t happy. I mean, they’d trained me to trust no one, and then tell me that I can’t do it alone, and that I’m going to be responsible for another life. A girl’s life. Your life. Ted told me it was going to be you that afternoon after you insulted him in the interview. But he was worried you weren’t going to be cooperative. So after the whole disaster unfolded at the Goodington’s, I knew they were behind it.”
“What do you mean ‘they’ were behind it? So who are the ‘they’? What are you saying?” Deep down, I already know the answer and can feel my bones frost over before he even responds.
“The SCI killed your friends and my sister to make sure we’d commit—you’d commit. They caused the blast that night and engineered every single thing that followed,” he says. He pauses to allow me to process and respond. It takes me a full minute to do so. I saw him at school every day for two months following the accident, and he never said a word. He knew we’d end up here together and my life would be in danger.
“And you knew, and you let me come.” The last puzzle piece ratchets into place, and I understand why he thinks I’m going to hate him.
“I didn’t know if I could trust you, didn’t think you’d believe me, and was selfish because I needed you. Without you reacting to Thera the way you did it would’ve been obvious I knew too much. So yeah, I knew, and I let you come to preserve both our lives,” he explains.
There’s nothing more he can say, or, at least, nothing more that I want to hear until I can process what he has already told me. He removes his hands from mine and proceeds to roll me up the path towards our home in dreary silence.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Blake
Earlier that evening
Kudos to Ted Rosenberg for scoring the job as our Handler and shedding new light on my deal here. I learned as much in our fifteen-minute debrief last night as I did the entire week of training, with exception of the visit to mini-Garden City which was the equivalent of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for me.
First, our house is bugged, but there are no cameras—at least not in the living area because Ted’s words didn’t match his non-verbal signals. For one, after he described the so-called surgery for reproductive lesions I asked if that’s what they were doing to Kira. His words said “yes,” but he was shaking his head “no.” When I said children weren’t in my future—because I’m not sure I have a long life expectancy ahead of me—he says they will be, his body language screaming “count on it, whether you want it or not.” And he made sure I knew that my tests have squat to do with making sure my sperm’ll make the swim team cut.
Second, he was all in my face about my deal with Kira—even if it’s a good cover I’ve got to keep trained on my real mission. Like I don’t know that. Though I have to admit, holding her in my arms to comfort her last night had my body going haywire. Nothing a cold shower couldn’t remedy.
Third, the powers that be are totally buying the whole relationship thing.
Four, there are moments where I forget the relationship isn’t real. And that means I’m screwed. The moment I tell her the truth she’s going to turn on me and that’s going to open her up to Tristan’s full court press for a quickie Cleave. I doubt she’d turn me in at this point, but the living situation could get unmanageable fast. And I need her to stay on my side, so she can cover for me when I’m off doing daddy’s bidding.
Five, Bailey’s going to be a real obstacle for my fake relationship, no question. Almost makes me wish she had her memory back. She spent our entire workout educating me on ways to have “fun” without crossing the Cleaving line. If I thought she was pretty creative during our short relationship before…the stuff she whispered to me had me blushing (and otherwise reacting) and I don’t embarrass easily. That conversation required an extra long cold shower post-workout.
Six, I’m pretty sure that my fake relationship with Kira and potential Cleaving has everything to do with Kira and me being the “future of Thera.” I’ve got whacked thoughts like they want us to breed a bunch of super DNT babies which would explain why they’re all about our reproductive systems functioning. I just can’t tell how far they’re taking it.
All I know is the clinic just made me give them a sperm sample. And they’re in there doing who knows what to Kira. With any luck she’ll be able to detail it out for me, but I’m betting they’ll make sure she can’t. Ted told me the pregnancies were all done in-vitro, which screams “lab creations” to me. For all I know, they’re manufacturing a bunch of mini-me’s right now, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Or maybe they’re shoving my goods up her to try to get her pregnant, but that doesn’t really jive either since we’re not Cleaved, so that means any pregnancy, “assisted” or not, and we’d be Exiled. However, it’s equally likely my upbringing has made me overly paranoid, and they’re just trying to grow some DNT in a lab, and the repro deal is a huge red herring.
My dad trained me for just about every scenario, but we never covered reproduction in a whole lot of detail. In fact, I don’t think he ever factored female influence into the equation which was a major oversight on his part. He shut down my relationship with Bailey the moment he found out—beat the crap out of me for getting involved with her. So between his reaction and Bailey’s reaction, I equate girls with pain. Sure, I have a teenage sister. But it’s a heck of a lot different having a girlfriend, fake or not. I could foist my sister on my step-mom when she got touchy and emotional, but I’m expected to shoulder that responsibility with Kira and I am way out of my element. I would give anything for a laptop and an hour of Internet access because a little research is in order. Google would be my best friend about now. I wonder if somewhere deep within the SCI administration buildings if they don’t have some internet cable that runs throug
h a portal.
I realize Kira hasn’t been in for long, but I want to see her, and I find myself pacing the small lobby of the clinic. The receptionist keeps glancing up like I’m an annoying distraction, but I don’t give a crap. I need to know what they’re doing to her and whether they’re hurting her. My sleep suffered as I spent the hours reliving how my body felt holding her. Though, if I’m being honest, I might have been thinking about some of Bailey’s suggestions, too. Bad-news Bailey is the kind of distraction that could blow the mission completely.
The door to the clinic opens, and I’m surprised to see Ethan the Intern stroll in.
“Hey, Ethan,” I say. He looks as shocked to see me as I am to see him.
“Hi. Blake was it? What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for my partner, Kira, to get out of surgery. They’re removing a lesion or something.” I try not to put too much emphasis on the “or something” but fail.
“Is she okay?” His fists are balled and clenched enough that I almost think he might deck me, so I back up a step. What’s got him strung so tight?
“She better be,” I respond. “She’s supposed to be out any moment.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his feet as if he’s trying to figure out what to say. Sounds like he mumbles “Crap, not now” under his breath.
“I better check in for my appointment. I’m late,” he finally says in a nervous tone and then walks over to the desk. After whispering something to the receptionist, he’s immediately motioned to follow her back to a room. I had to wait twenty-five minutes for my appointment. “It was good to see you again, Blake,” he adds before disappearing down the hall.
“You, too,” I mumble. I hear some loud voices coming from the hallway but can’t make out the conversation. One of the voices sounds like Ethan’s, but I can’t be sure.
After Ethan disappears, I hear the fight continue behind closed doors. Then I make out fragments of a conversation between Kira and a nurse in the hall which doesn’t sound pleasant. About a minute later, the nurse wheels Kira out in a wheelchair. As much as I want to question the doctor about what they did to her, I decide to take her home. She’s resisting a bit and mumbling something about hearing the voice of someone she knows and needing to wait to see if it’s really him, but I assume she’s just loopy on the drugs, so I get her out of there. Ethan’s here, and I would still like to avoid the two of them meeting.
She tells me everything’s okay but doesn’t know the details of what they did. But then the chair comes to a halt and Kira’s looking for answers, and refusing to move until I tell her. So I do. I unload the stuff I know, leaving out the nastiness about what I think the SCI has planned, and it doesn’t take her long to cut to the heart of the matter. She was headed for hell, and I didn’t warn her, and that is freaking betrayal with a capital B. Sugar coating it isn’t going to help. I did what I did for good reason, and it’s too late to change it now.
I release my grip on her hands and push her on up the rest of the way to our house, cursing the screwed up situation. Letting them assign me a partner was a mistake. Allowing myself to care about her and what she thinks was an even bigger one. My chances with her were nil from the get-go between my sins of omission, she being way out of my league, her lover boy being brought back from the dead, and my focus needing to be on my mission and not some volatile chick who can’t possibly understand how important my success is.
The truth is that I’m not sorry and I’d do it again. Had I told her at any point before seeing the Second Chancers, we’d have both been exposed as frauds and be dead—and it’s not like we’d have been given another go at life on another planet. I’m done apologizing. It’s time to stop fretting over my fake relationship and for me to get to work. She’s going to have to get over it and help me because neither of us will have a decent future if we don’t deliver. Nor will my dad, the Exilers, or the Second Chancers.
Whatever lust-filled or other feelings I’ve got going for Kira (or my evil-ex) need to be extinguished for the duration.
Ten years prior
My father taught me to turn off my emotions. He’s an expert. He practically worshipped the Grand Council and Presiding Ten until he’d discovered their rap sheet. After that, he axed the relationship cords. It was much easier to plot against them without consideration of the human factor—all the dinners, parties, and stories they’d shared. He figured “screw them all, they deserve what they have coming,” comparing them to the Third Reich during the Holocaust. They were playing God and mucking with the natural order of things.
I knew precious little about Garden City or its inhabitants until my father allowed me to join his band of humanitarians on a stakeout of the Eco barrier as a “teaching exercise,” wanting me to learn survival skills. The group hoped to figure out a way through, over or under the toxic strip so they could steal supplies from an outlying warehouse. Doc Daryn came along to attend to the injuries he was sure the group would suffer, leaving his Cleave as nurse to the rest of the Exiled.
Our humble cave dwellings sat just two canyons away from Garden City, less than a night’s walk. So we left at sundown, traveled the night, and arrived by sunrise to a deep cave west of the city where we setup camp for the day. I was well accustomed to sleeping in sauna-like conditions, so curled in the back of the cave against a cool rock and slept until woken.
The first night, we traversed a three-mile stretch along the barrier, throwing rocks from a distance to see if there were dead spots between the triggers of the deadly gasses. While the men fought to uncover the barrier’s secrets, my father taught me the plants of the canyons, showing me the varieties that were edible, those that were poisonous, and others that stored water. He instructed me how to craft a makeshift rope from canyon brush, tie knots, and chisel foot holds into canyon rock.
I already knew to find shelter from the sun for the day, but he taught me tricks of how to tell which cave ran deepest. And upon our return that first night, he schooled me on ways to build a safe fire pit within the cave to ward off creatures and to cook any available food or sterilize water. He had Doc continue on into the morning, teaching me first aid skills—from burn treatment, to bandaging a sprained ankle, to proper care for cuts, bruises, bites, or gashes. I look back and blame my eagerness to be taught for his later decision to make me a permanent student in his school of Theran life and coup d’état.
Night two had been spent trying to dig under the barrier, with zero success. I was forced to watch the debacle from a distance. The sandy, rocky nature of the canyons caused immediate collapse and ignition of the gas bombs. The men barely ran to safety before causing permanent damage to their lungs and skin, even while wearing Doc Daryn’s safety masks. This frustrated my father since Garden City had an elaborate tunnel system, but even the engineer in the group couldn’t figure out a safe way to proceed given their limited tools.
The men left me behind the last night as they walked the distance of the barrier all the way to the ocean, trying to determine if there was a way in by sea. I spent the early part of the night at the mouth of my cave, gazing at the city and canyon lights, pondering the words of my father, and wondering if I would ever live in a city such as the one before me, or the fantastical one my father had promised my mother he’d take me to somenight. Things like running water, bathrooms with toilets and showers, kitchens with refrigerators and stoves—not to mention technological gadgets—were absolutely foreign to me, no matter how accurately described.
Bad, evil men were also alien to me. The Exiled men could be characterized as rough, but who wouldn’t be that way given our living conditions? From my father’s tales, those Exiled from Garden City had been exiled for unjust causes. That night, however, I met, face-to-face, two very bad men who’d been Exiled for excellent reason.
I saw two figures scrambling up the canyon face towards me, and thinking they were part of my father’s group, I called out to them. But as they got closer, I realized they weren’t
familiar. I immediately recognized their Exile attire, so I knew they’d been in the city recently as every Exiler ditches the orange suit first chance they get.
One man stood at least six and a half feet tall, was at least twice as wide as my father, and had curly black hair covering his head, neck, and arms. His companion had a small build, a bald head, and a scruffy gray beard. At first, they were friendly, and I was taught to be polite, so I invited them into the cave.
“You Exiled like us, boy?” they said.
“My dad was Exiled before I was born, and all our friends are Exiled,” I responded.
“You live here?” the tall man asked.
“Nope, we live a night’s walk from here,” I said, wishing my father would return, so he could answer their questions.
“Then why are you here all alone?” the small man asked.
“My dad and his friends are out but should be back soon,” I said, even though I had no idea when they would return.
“We’ll hang with you and keep you safe, then,” they’d said. And stay, they did, making small talk and asking questions about Exiled life until my father and friends showed up a couple hours later.
As the group entered the cave and my father called out to me, the big guy grabbed me into a chokehold, my legs flailing beneath me. He threatened to snap my neck if my father didn’t do exactly as prescribed. I remember gasping for air but not being able to suck in enough. It felt like a three hundred pound weight was crushing my chest. Despite all the death I’d seen at a young age, it never occurred to me that kids could die. Or that Exilers could or would even want to kill other Exilers.
Exilers always arrived desperate, greedy, and willing to do anything to survive, so my father had been well versed in proper etiquette for diffusing panic. He greeted them warmly and assured them they were among friends and not harsh government dictate. Upon the promise of food, supplies, and lodging for the men, the man released his grip and dropped me to the cave floor. Shaking, I scrambled to my father’s feet, but my father’s eyes stayed trained on the men as his sales pitch continued.
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