by RaeLynn Fry
“That's disturbingly impressive,” I say, a bit cautiously.
Eta sets the scalpel down and lifts up a flap of skin that would normally cover the chest cavity. “Our skin is made up of three layers, the top layer of skin, a second layer of made up of nerve endings, sweat glands, hair follicles, and a third, fatty layer. The second layer is the thickest.” She holds the flap up. “Look at this, the first layer is the thickest layer.”
She's right. It's about a quarter of an inch thick. “How thick should it be?” I ask.
Eta holds up a few sheets of paper. “This thick. That's one of the reasons it was so hard to move him, the increased weight of the skin.”
“That can't be the only reason, though.”
“No, it's not. He also has increased muscle mass. Quickly obtained, too.” She points to a section of exposed muscle in his abs. “They're torn from rapid growth. Here's where it's started scarring and building up again.”
“This is getting kind of creepy.”
“You have no idea,” she says. “Among having a set of double eyelashes—”
“Double eyelashes?”
“What have I said about interrupting? When I autopsied the brain, I noticed an intricate latticework of veins and arteries encasing the brain. To keep it cool in extreme heat. This is amazing. Genius, really.”
When it all comes together, I look up at Eta, my eyes so wide it feels like I'm trying to push them out of my skull. “They're not just making a human that can withstand The Further, they’re engineering a super human. A better soldier.”
“One that’s faster, stronger, tougher, more resilient. Is that close to what D’mitri told you?”
“He knows about the experiments the Corp is doing with Maute, but he didn’t let on to knowing anything more than that. Although I’m sure he knows as much as, if not more than, we do. My father's plans are bigger than I thought. I never could have imagined he'd be capable of this much....”
“...Ingenuity?”
“Insanity,” I say, appalled. “Don't tell me you agree with what he's doing? Human experimentation? You just got after me for the deal I made about Kayde.”
“I don't agree with how he's going about doing it, Ethan, but our world is changing, and in our current form, we are not well equipped to survive without being dependent on something like The Corporation or abundant resources.”
“But people are dying for this experiment! And worst yet, they're not even being given the chance to agree or disagree with what my father is doing to their bodies.”
She holds up her hands. “I don't agree with how this is being done, and it needs to be stopped. But that doesn't change the fact that this is important work that’s being done.”
I know where she's coming from, but I'm still disgusted. “So this is what was happening to Kalaen? And he's survived, a success. And now the Corporation has him, to do who knows what with, to find out why he's a success.”
“We can't focus on that right now. We need to focus on what we're going to do with this information. We know, now that whatever it is your father's after, it’s definitely out in the Further. Use this information we've gathered to help yourself.”
“How?”
“I don't know yet. It's probably going to be something that you realize when you're out there. Just make sure you have your wits about you.” She turns her back to me and I hear her rustling with some of her notes and paperwork. There's the sound of vials being wrapped and clinked together. When she turns back around, she has a small pouch in her hands, filled with the things she was just working with. “I want you to take this with you.” She puts it in my hands. “It may help.”
I look at her in confusion. “I don't think a vial of blood will do me much good out in the Further.”
“It’s rumored that outside the Corporation’s control, there are colonies. Communities that are fighting some of the same things we are. If those rumors are true, they'll need this. And maybe they can figure out what we cannot.”
“They're dealing with Maute, too? But how can that be? And how are you hearing these rumors?”
“Like I said, it’s just hearsay, but I want you to be prepared for anything. And if you have information like this to trade with, you’ll be more important to them. They'll take you more seriously. But tell no one you have it until you feel you need to use it and only with those you trust. This will be the only leverage you have.”
I take the bag. “Okay,” I think about what this means and add, “Thank you. I won't let you down.”
“I know you won't.”
She's quiet for a minute. Then, “You have your work cut out for you, Ethan.”
“I’m getting that impression.”
Then, a little more gravely, “I think there's a possibility that you may not come back.”
“I was getting that impression, too.”
Day three
Ethan
I wake to a hand pressed over my mouth. My nostrils flare with fear as pulling in air becomes harder and harder. My body is stiff and I forget how to move, my eyes tearing apart the dim room with fervor. They finally settle on the face of a woman. I don’t recognize her, but I feel myself relax. She moves her hand away.
“We have to be quiet. Quick.” She pulls me out of bed with silence and proficiency, dressing me in layers. “We need to leave. Don’t say anything.”
I’m scared. I don’t recognize her, but I know she’s never shown fear like this before. I follow her without question, through the house and out the door. The sky is darkening and it’s cold outside. She’s leading me through the empty streets and I can’t keep up. She’s pulling at me but I’m only dragging her back.
She stops suddenly, clutching me to her body. The sound of our breath scratches my ears. I make out a new sound. Her fingers dig into my shoulder and arm. Feet pounding the pavement.
One word is carried to my ear on a hot breath, “Hide!” I’m shoved into the shadows and she takes off at a run. I’m too scared to chase her or call after her. I reach out and follow the rough brick wall until it disappears around a corner and down an alley. I inch further back until I run into cold, smooth metal. A dumpster. I bury myself as deep as I can into the dumpster’s unforgiving side. I pull my knees up and wait.
When I hear her scream, I bury my face into my knees and try not to hear the rest.
“I thought you said the tea was supposed to help with my dreams. It's making them worse,” I say when I wake up in the morning.
“How so?”
“They're more vivid, real. I feel like I'm there, living it. And every night, it seems like I'm getting a new piece to them.”
“Then it's working.”
“My definition of working is them going away completely and me getting to sleep again.”
“That would be silly and inefficient.”
“In what way would these horrible puffy, dark bags under my eyes going away be silly and inefficient?”
“A dream is our brain's way of giving us an answer we didn’t know we needed.”
“Come again?”
“I believe these dreams of yours are more than just dreams.”
“That's absurd, Eta. And you really should have told me the true purpose of the tea before giving it to me to drink. Don't you think I should have had some sort of say in if I wanted them to get stronger?”
“I don't believe that was ever an option. I believe they would have continued to progress, but at a much slower and more painful rate.”
“Why would you believe that?”
“I think this dream of yours is a memory trying to resurface.”
I stop. Her words give me a slow shiver. “That's impossible. I didn't start sneaking into Neech until I was much older than I am in my dream.”
“Do you recall, while in Dahn, having to take anything on a regular basis? A tea or a medication that Akin insisted was vital?”
Her question is like ice water thrown into my face, it stops my breath and heart at the sa
me time for a fraction of an instant. Why would she ask that? “Every day at breakfast,” I answer. “I had to take a white pill. My father said it was for my health, because I had been so sick as a child. He said he didn't want me to catch anything that could compromise my already weak immune system.”
“What about memories from when you were younger?”
I furrow my brow in concentration. I shake my head when I’m unable to come up with anything from the time before I was a Candidate.
She nods. “That's what I thought.”
“That’s not what they were for?” I don't know why I continue to be surprised at these revelations regarding my father. I'm starting to believe nothing is true about him.
“It's known among the Medics as Khaalee.”
I try to prepare myself for whatever she might say next. “What does it do?”
“It erases things. Gives the person administering it a blank canvas to create something new. A new past or present.”
“Why would they want to do that?”
“If someone has a memory or a loss they'd like to forget, a future they want to create, or just as a drug for a perverted version of fun. You know the twisted and irrational things that go on in the Inner City.”
“But, if my father were using Khaalee on me, wouldn't I remember something? I took it every day, and if it erases, why would I have any memories at all?”
“It does more than just erase, Ethan, it also creates. It’ genesis has more science behind it than just that. Khaalee is highly sophisticated and intelligent. The Corporation spent a lot of resources and time to cultivate it to perfection. It's chemically matched for each person. A certain memory can be programmed into the pills so that when the subject takes it, that memory is reinforced each time. It becomes so real, it becomes truth. However, they’ve yet to find a way to make it permanent. Which is why it has to be taken daily. When you stopped taking it, it started to wear off, and your real past began to seep up from your subconscious.”
“Why would anyone need to create something like this?”
“As another means of control.”
“How do—how do you know all this? How do you know it's what’s going on with me?”
“I have connections in the Inner City with other Medics. For a true Medic, medicine and knowledge come before loyalties and politics. The majority of us share openly and freely, regardless of the Caste system.”
“So you're saying, that my father was giving me those pills to keep these memories from me. But why? What could they possibly do? How could they possibly hurt him or me?”
“I've been debating on whether to let this unfold for you and for you to come to terms with it on your own, but I fear we don't have the time for that, anymore, with you going out into the Further.”
The life I knew is gone. The only thing I had to hold on to, to ground me in this unfamiliar world, is about to disappear with her next words, I can feel it. And still, knowing I will lose all that, I have no choice but to pursue the truth. “Eta, tell me.”
She takes a deep breath and looks me in the eye. “I believe you are a Sponsor.”
The news hits me hard and fast, like a physical punch to the gut. I brace my palm against the table top to keep myself steady. That word carries so much with it. Akin is not my father. Dahn is not my home. I'm from Neech. My parents are from Neech. I don't belong in the Inner City. But I don't belong in the Outer City, either. My breaths are coming fast and hard. Eta's warm hand is on my back, rubbing and smoothing.
“Deep and slow, Ethan. Breathe deep and slow.”
I let her words guide me and eventually the pain in my chest and stomach goes away. My head clears and I can stand up again. But the tears I didn't want to show her stay welled in my eyes. “A Sponsor?” I whisper. Who am I?
She nods her head in a slow movement.
“But how can that be true? If I was born in Neech and lived here until I was a Candidate, how can no one recognize me? How can I not remember that much of my life? It wasn't that long ago I was taken in.”
“It was long enough for lives to get lived in the mindless way they do in Neech. Being busy all the time and having things constantly on the mind has a very effective way of making people forget the small things that have no importance to them. You were just another soul that was ground out under the heel of the Corporation. You were only a little boy back then, you're a gown man now; you've changed so much and Khaalee is very effective. The Corporation made certain of that.”
“So you knew me back then?”
“I knew you as much as I know the majority of my patients. I was the only Medic for that area, at the time. You were from a poorer part of Neech, more populated. And everyone who was close to you, anyone that would have ever been able to identify you, died within a few years of you being taken.”
Died? “My real mother and father?”
“Your father was a laborer. They have shorter lives than the rest, as it is. He broke his leg in an accident the summer after you were Sponsored. It got infected and into his blood.”
“And my mother?”
“It was a rough winter. She got a lung sickness and she wasn’t strong enough to hang on. You had no siblings. No close family or childhood friends.”
It hurts my heart so much, not to be able to remember anything about my parents. Maybe that’s something that will come back with my dreams. Wait. That woman. All of a sudden the face in my dream becomes familiar. I know it as well as I know my own. It’s as if a lock has been turned in my brain and a door has soundlessly swung open. I feel as if I have betrayed them, somehow, by erasing their memories, even though I wasn't given a choice.
“I want you to hear something, Ethan. So listen carefully.” I turn blurry eyes towards her, and she takes my elbow. “I’m old. One of the oldest still alive in Neech, next to Ami. I have seen a total of three Sponsors be taken. Two out of those three lost all of their ties to Neech once they left. Within a few years.”
“What do you mean?”
“Anyone close enough to recognize them or present the potential to cause trouble, is dead. And I don't think that's a coincidence.”
“You think the Corporation had something to do with it?” It makes sense—in the Corp’s twisted way.
“I do.”
“But that would mean—”
“That Karis and Jeret's time is short. Along with anyone else the Corporation considers to be a threat. Journey, Kerick, Dhevan, me. Anyone.”
“No one is safe. What have I started?”
“You have started nothing. This has been in the works for a long time. But, you do need to finish it. It’s more important now than ever that a resistance be planted and we stop your father and those in Dahn that want us destroyed.”
“I can't say all this at the meetings, they already think I'm crazy.”
“No, but you need to inspire them. Motivate them to fight. To stand up.”
“Easier said than done. This isn't really the best Neech has to offer.”
She scoffs at me. “I'm there, aren't I?”
I crack a small smile. “Yeah, I guess that's a true statement.”
७
The ceiling is dark and the back of my eyes start to ache the longer I stare into the nothingness above me. Thoughts race across my mind, so fast I can’t catch and still them, no matter how hard I try, no matter how tight I try to hang onto them.
I'm a Sponsor.
Relief floods my thoughts that Akin isn’t my father. Anger follows quickly after, knowing he stole me from my real parents; that I never got to know them. It's the sadness that finally tires my limbs and mind. I will never know my real mother or father. They were taken from me, by my father's—no, by Akin's—orders, one by one, destroyed so that proof of my existence would fade. And now, that’s going to happen to Ajna and Karis and their family.
Is it my fault? If I hadn't of left Dahn, would my father have had a reason to choose another Sponsor? To ruin some other family’s life? May
be, in their ignorance, they would have been feeling happiness about their luck instead of our dread, knowing the truth.
I have a new sense of urgency to help Karis get Ajna back. But I can't help her, now. Raj has told me, that if I don't go into the Further with him, a whole new world of potential trouble will open up. But it's not just that, thinking that’s the only reason is selfish. There are answers in the Further, of that I know. Going out there could give us what we need to stop the Corporation forever.
Despite how much I want to stay here to help Karis, to get answers about who I am and what really happened to me, I have to go out into the Further. I have to sacrifice what I want for what is best for everyone. And I can’t tell Karis about who I really am. It would only push her harder into a careless plan of getting Ajna back. My plan is better, safer, for everyone. I close my eyes and squeeze them as tight as I can.
Karis is going to hate me for taking Dhevan and leaving her behind. And I won’t be able to explain to her why. I’m going to have to hope that we love each other enough to trust and get through this. Whatever this is.
७
I’m heading through the frigid, early morning cold to the fields. I’ve been muttering countless prayers to whoever can hear me to grant me favor and have Dhevan agree to go out into the Further. I’ve been praying extra hard for him to agree without asking any questions. And on the very night of his Pairing, too. No man in their right mind would agree to do that. So I’m also praying for a bit of insanity to touch his brain. I want to believe that below his lumbering passive aggressiveness, distaste towards me, and charming smile, there's a man wanting—needing—to risk everything and take action.
When the streets get busier, I make my way to the outskirts of the main road. There's something about being this close, this cram packed with other bodies, that makes me uncomfortable, and it’s not the density of bodies that’s the problem. It feels a bit like home, a long lost familiar. So different from what I grew up around. That’s why it unsettles me so much. I'm finding that the unfamiliar familiar is not my thing.