‘What about me?’ asks Edwin. ‘Who am I?’
Cato Bell turns to him. ‘Your name is Li Zhong Yoh. You have an IQ of a hundred and sixty, and you like to set things on fire.’
Edwin swallows. ‘What kind of things?’
‘Your school, for one. To your credit, you thought no one was there. You broke into the gymnasium and poured petrol all over the floor. You tried to light it with matches, but it didn’t work. So you went into the library and doused the books instead. It went up like a … well, like a library soaked in petrol. What you didn’t know was that the weekend French study club was in a small classroom next door.’
‘Was anyone hurt?’
‘The teacher and two students died. Four more were hospitalised with third-degree burns.’
Edwin looks as though he’s going to be sick.
‘So why make him think he’s Edwin Chen?’ Nia asks. ‘And why only him? Why not give us all fake identities?’
‘How do you know I didn’t?’ Cato Bell smiles. ‘When you want to test how a lab rat is responding to a drug, you make it run through a maze. All of this, the trolley problem, the hidden puzzles, the hacking, the shirts, figuring out who you really are – it’s all designed to test your responses. How you navigate challenges. How you respond under pressure.’
‘Why tell us this?’ Paxton asks. ‘Why reveal yourself now?’
‘I didn’t reveal myself. Cecily outed me.’
‘But doesn’t it ruin the experiment?’
‘It ruins this version.’
‘Is that what happened before? Is that why we’ve done this more than once?’
Cato Bell nods. ‘It’s easy enough to reset.’
Reset. She’s going to reboot us again. Wipe our memories. The thought of being swallowed up in that blank fog makes me feel physically sick. I’ve come so far, figuring out who I am. I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to lose the fragile bond
I’ve made with Nia. Or the relationship I’ve built with Paxton.
I don’t want to forget Riley – he doesn’t deserve to be forgotten.
‘What about Riley?’ I ask.
‘What about him?’
‘Did you kill him? Was it an accident?’
Cato Bell pauses for a moment before answering. ‘As I said, part of the test is seeing you respond under pressure.’
‘You did kill him.’ Nia presses her hands to her mouth, tears starting in her eyes. Her relief and rage is palpable.
‘I didn’t enjoy it, if that helps.’
‘He was a person. He had kids.’
Cato Bell pauses again, and then sighs. ‘I know,’ she admits. ‘It isn’t easy, to do what I do. It wasn’t easy to watch what happened to Riley. But I believe the sacrifice is worth it. Riley was a drug dealer and a hitman. If he hadn’t come out here, he would have spent the rest of his life in prison. At least this way, his life had meaning. He contributed.’
‘How? How did his death contribute anything?’
‘I was able to observe the rest of you under extreme pressure.’
‘Did he know, when he signed the contract?’
Another pause. ‘The contract is extensive. If he’d read it carefully, he would have seen that there were provisions made for such accidents.’
‘Except it wasn’t an accident.’
‘My lawyers would disagree.’
‘Were there others, before Riley?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many?’
Cato Bell hesitates for a fraction of a second. ‘Three.’
Three. There were three other Rileys. Three wet red explosions on the front of the bus. Three human beings, deemed expendable by a demented scientist playing God.
‘You’re a monster. You’re throwing lives away like they mean nothing.’
‘Do you think that I don’t feel grief for them? If there was a better way, I’d do it. You don’t grasp the magnitude of what I’m trying to achieve. Millions of people will be given a second chance under the Erasure Initiative. The money that the program saves can be funnelled into mental health support, drug treatment facilities, education. Crime will plummet. Imagine a world where a woman doesn’t have to feel afraid when she’s walking home alone at night. Where you don’t have to lock your doors and windows when you go to bed. This is what the Erasure Initiative can deliver. A total reshaping of our society. A new, peaceful world where every citizen gets the opportunities and support they deserve. In the scheme of things, what are the lives of a few criminals?’
‘No government will ever approve it,’ says Sandra.
Cato Bell chuckles. ‘I should think you of all people would understand how easy it is to get the government to agree to anything, so long as you grease the right wheels. My pockets are deep, Sandra, deep and full of grease.’
Sandra’s face grows shrewd. ‘You need an ally inside government,’ she says. ‘I can help you. We could make a deal …’
‘Oh, Sandra.’ Cato Bell shakes her head. ‘Isn’t that what got you into this pickle in the first place?’
‘What about me?’ I say.
Cato turns to look at me, her eyebrows raised.
‘Riley was a drug dealer. Sandra and Paxton were trying to rig an election. Nia’s the Blue Fairy. Edwin, or Li, or whoever he is – he’s an arsonist. But I don’t know why I’m here. I overheard Sandra talking about the election, and Paxton asked Nia to kill me. She obviously didn’t, so why am I on the bus?’
She pats me on the cheek and speaks in her warbly Catherine voice. ‘All in good time, dear.’
She taps at her seatback display, and the bus swerves to head up an overgrown dirt track. Vines and branches whip and scratch at the windows, and we are plunged into an eerie green darkness.
We’re off the main road. Isn’t this what we wanted? We wanted to make a ruckus and force the experiment to abort. But now that it’s here, all I feel is uneasy. Cato Bell was here all along, and now there’s a ticking clock. I can’t bear the thought of going back into the fog.
‘How many times are you going to reboot us?’ Nia asks.
‘Until I get the results I want.’
‘And what results are they?’
‘Tangible evidence that you have become better people.’
‘What made it fail this time?’ Paxton asks. ‘Was it the hacking?’
Cato Bell shakes her head. ‘It was Cecily realising who I am.’
Edwin frowns. ‘Are you going to report all the times the experiment failed?’
Catherine just raises an eyebrow.
‘That’s bad science.’ Edwin looks outraged. ‘You can’t keep tossing a coin over and over until it lands a particular way. There’s no data integrity.’
‘Bad science, yes. But good politics.’
Edwin blinks furiously, his lips pressed together. He looks like he might cry. I guess it’s hard to see your idols for who they really are.
‘Speaking of politics,’ Cato Bell turns to Sandra. ‘We met once, you know. You won’t remember …’ Her lip curls in a half-smile. ‘Even if you could remember, you wouldn’t remember. I don’t make many public appearances, and when I do, I keep a low profile. It was Jimmy Greyson’s funeral – you won’t remember him either. Well attended – Jimmy was well liked, and a prominent philanthropist. Lots of bigwigs there. But a sombre affair. He died too young. People understand that funerals are special, you know? You leave your party affiliations at the door. Rival business moguls shake hands and talk about the weather. But not you, Sandra. You worked that room like it was a campaign fundraiser. You schmoozed and smarmed your way from VIP to VIP, leaving no stone unturned. I heard you promising tax cuts, loopholes, exemptions, expedited permits. You had no problem getting your hands dirty, as long as it got you what you wanted. I get it. I’ve been there. You have to fight twice as hard to get the same level of recognition as a man. Ten times as hard, sometimes.’
Sandra doesn’t respond.
‘There was one moment that I’ll nev
er forget,’ Cato continues. ‘I was heading into the bathroom, just as you were coming out. You had toilet paper stuck to your shoe. I tried to tell you, but your eyes slid over me like I didn’t exist. You didn’t recognise me, so I wasn’t important enough to merit your attention.’
‘So this is revenge? Because I snubbed you?’
‘Hardly. I couldn’t care less what you think of me. At the end of the service, when people were invited to the podium to say a few words about Jimmy, you stood up. I never had the honour of meeting Jimmy, you said, but I know he cared as much about our country as I do. And then you proceeded to give your stump speech. Everyone was stunned. Appalled. You turned a funeral into another stop on your campaign trail. Used it as an opportunity to sell yourself. And you did the whole thing with toilet paper stuck to your shoe. I watched you make that speech, with total confidence writ large on your face, and I thought – that woman has made some terrible choices.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because in every reboot, you’ve made exactly the same choices. Even without your life experiences, Sandra, your self-interest and ambition overwhelm any sense of morality you might have. You act all sensible and caring, but it was less than five minutes of knowing who I was before you offered to make a deal with me. It’s the same for all of you. Cecily’s still a selfish brat, Nia is still antiauthoritarian to a fault, Paxton’s a walking embodiment of straight white male privilege, and Edwin …’ She pauses as she considers him. ‘At least Edwin hasn’t tried to set anything on fire. That’s something, perhaps.’
‘So the results you’re looking for – you want us to be less terrible? You think if you wipe our memories, we’ll suddenly become better people?’
Cato Bell sighs. ‘I didn’t think it would be this hard.’
I wonder if the next version of Cecily Cartwright will find the knotted thread behind the toilet.
No. I’m not letting Cato Bell do it again. We’re going to find a way out of here.
‘When does it happen?’ I say. ‘When do we get rebooted?’
‘We’ll be back at Eleos in about half an hour, and you can all have a shower, a decent meal and a good night’s sleep. Then tomorrow …’ Cato cheerfully wraps her fingers around her wrist and squeezes, then mimes falling asleep.
So we’ve got one night. One night to figure out how to get out of here, before we go back to square one.
The bus judders as we drive over a wooden bridge. It looks new, or at least recently refurbished. As we pass the midpoint of the bridge I get a glimpse of white water spilling from high atop a plateau, tumbling down over wet rock fringed with green to join the silver-brown river far below us. My stomach lurches. So it turns out I’m not great at heights. I look over at Edwin, who looks as if he’s about to throw up.
As the bus winds higher and higher, the rainforest thins and is replaced by scrubby grasses and rocky terrain. My ears pop. And then there are buildings, ugly boxes of fibro and concrete.
The bus stops, and Cato makes her way to the door, which opens smoothly for her.
Paxton looks at me, and I can see what he’s thinking. We could overpower her, right now. There’s five of us and only one of her. She may not be as frail as we thought, but she’s still an old woman. We could incapacitate her. Make her do whatever we want.
‘I wouldn’t, if I were you,’ Cato says, noticing the glance. ‘Remember what happened to Riley.’
Paxton’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.
We follow her off the bus. I force myself to look back at it, at the sticky dark blood, crusted with dust from the road. The last remains of Riley.
It’s cooler here, high above the rainforest. Wind whips through the cotton fabric of my T-shirt, bringing with it the scent of the ocean, and of rain.
We’re on a plateau, rocky and deforested.
There’s a small barracks left over from when this was a military base. The buildings are little more than fibro shacks on stilts, faded and weathered, along with a few larger concrete structures.
The plateau rises sharply at one end into a huge rocky crag. At the top there is the strangest building I have ever seen – which, given that I can only remember the last three days and there have been no buildings anywhere, isn’t saying much. It’s the same sandy orange colour as the natural rock, so it looks like it’s hewn from the crag itself. Its shape is unfamiliar, beast-like, crouching at the highest point of the island as if it’s going to spring down and devour us at any moment. It has a protruding muzzle that thrusts out from the crag, with a long horizontal slit like a dark watching eye. It looks old and dilapidated, a crumbling folly built by someone with too much time and money.
Cato leads us towards the fibro buildings. A faded sign reads WELCOME TO CAMP ELEOS.
‘Amusing coincidence, no?’ Cato says over her shoulder. ‘Eleos is the ancient Greek goddess of mercy. I purchased this island twenty years ago from the US military. It was up for sale and I thought it might be useful one day.’
Nia makes a disgusted noise, I assume at the kind of person who can casually buy a whole island in case it comes in handy. Personally I’m thinking that if Cato Bell is so loaded, it wouldn’t have killed her to put in an infinity pool and some landscaping. Maybe a bar?
‘Where are we?’ Edwin asks. ‘Which ocean?’
Cato ignores him. ‘You’ll be staying in the barracks,’ she says. ‘Not the most salubrious of accommodation, but there are beds and showers.’
She stops before the first door and opens it. ‘Sandra, this is you.’
Sandra says nothing, just stalks inside and sits down on the bed with her back to us. What I can see of the room is spartan – a single bed, and a door which I assume leads to a small bathroom. It’s probably a lot like a jail cell, which, if Cato Bell’s telling the truth, is something we are each reasonably familiar with.
Cato shuts the door behind Sandra and locks it with a key.
‘You’re locking us in?’ Paxton asks.
‘Of course.’ Cato shrugs. ‘Do you think I haven’t been paying attention over the last four days? You will all do everything you can to try and escape. There’s no way I’m letting you wander around this place unsupervised. The wristbands will stop you from going beyond the bounds of Camp Eleos, but there are plenty of things here that I don’t want you to see.’
She starts walking to the next room, and I sidle up next to Nia. ‘Hang back a bit,’ I say, keeping my voice low.
Nia’s pace slows, and we fall behind the others, enough so we’re out of earshot.
‘We need to talk,’ I tell her. ‘We might not get another chance once we get back on the bus. We can’t keep going round and round and round until we get sent back to jail, or …’
‘Or end up like Riley.’
I move my head in a sharp nod. ‘I’ve got a plan.’
I don’t.
I have hope, and fear, and one desperate shot at … I don’t know. I have something. ‘Can I trust you?’
Cato Bell ushers Pax into his room, and locks the door.
‘Of course.’ Nia’s voice throbs with intensity. I glance over at her, and she reaches out. Our fingers brush, then grasp tighter. It feels good. I believe her.
I reach under my shirt and pull Riley’s wristband free. ‘Here.’ I shove it at her, keeping my hands low.
Nia recoils when her fingers touch the bloody smears. ‘What the fuck?’
Edwin glances over his shoulder at Nia and me. He frowns.
‘Can you hack it?’ I ask.
‘Hack it to do what?’ Nia’s voice is louder than it should be. Someone will hear. Cato Bell will hear. She locks Pax’s door, and leads us to the next shack.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘To malfunction. Use it to control the others. So we could escape.’
I watch Nia’s face as she thinks about it. Ideas are running through her head, and her eyes glint at the possibilities.
‘I’d need equipment,’ Nia says. ‘A computer, at the v
ery least. And this is only one wristband. I don’t know if I could use access the others.’ She shakes her head. ‘I think it’s beyond me.’
‘Try,’ I say, pouring as much urgency as I can into my voice.
Cato Bell glances over her shoulder. ‘You’re next, Nia.’
‘Just hide it,’ I hiss.
Nia glares at me, then shoves the wristband into her own jeans. Then she lunges forward and grabs me in a rough embrace. The feeling of her body against mine is comforting, and I close my eyes for a moment and lean into it. The embrace shifts slightly, from being desperate and scared to being more intimate. There’s a closeness between us that wasn’t there before.
‘Don’t do anything stupid, okay?’ she murmurs, her lips close to my ear.
I feel something lurch inside me at her words, the same lurch as when we went over the bridge and I saw the river far, far below.
‘Break it up, ladies,’ says Cato Bell. ‘Let’s keep things PG.’
I smile at her, as ditzily as I can. ‘Which one is my room? Did you say there were showers waiting for us? I would literally do anything for a shower right now.’
I keep up the inane chatter as Cato Bell locks Nia’s door.
I don’t look back. I can’t risk it. I have to trust Nia.
I hope I haven’t made a terrible mistake.
Cato shows me my cabin last, hovering in the doorway as I take it in. There’s a single bed, a shower and a toilet, and that’s it. I find neatly folded clothes – another blue T-shirt and pair of jeans, plus underwear. There are tiny hotel-style bottles of shampoo and conditioner in the bathroom, as well as a generic roll-on deodorant. A thin white towel and bathmat. Sheets and a pillow on the bed. No windows. One fluorescent tube in the main room, and another in the bathroom. A single switch that turns both on.
And a mirror.
I avoid looking at my reflection. I don’t want to do it in front of Cato. But the lure of it is almost unbearable.
There is a slim stack of paper on the bed, held together with a paperclip.
‘What is that?’ I ask.
‘More pieces of the Cecily Cartwright puzzle,’ Cato says with a smile.
‘You don’t want me to run through a maze or decrypt a secret code first or something?’
The Erasure Initiative Page 16