The Erasure Initiative

by Lili Wilkinson

  ‘Consider them a freebie.’

  She’s waiting for me to pick the file up and read, which makes me all the more determined to ignore it. I turn and meet her gaze, keeping my expression cool. Out of the corner of my eye I can see a blonde girl reflected in the mirror, and I long to go over and stare at her, to learn the shape of her and see if it can help me learn the shape of myself.

  Why is she hanging around? She didn’t do this with the others.

  ‘Was there anything else?’ I ask Cato breezily. ‘Because I’d really love a shower.’

  If she’s disappointed, she doesn’t show it. ‘I’ll be back soon with your meal.’

  The lock clicks behind her, and I’m alone, properly alone, for the first time in days.

  Or am I?

  I’m sure Cato’s still watching me. There’s no way she’d leave me without surveillance. So I’m not going to read whatever’s in that file, no matter how much I want to. I won’t give her the satisfaction. Instead I walk over to the mirror and look at the blonde girl.

  She’s pretty. Nia did a good job of describing her. I pull off my T-shirt, then my jeans, then bra, socks, undies. I do it slowly, knowing that Cato is watching. I wonder what she feels when she looks at my body. Is she jealous of my youth, how smooth and firm and beautiful I am? Is she turned on?

  I take my time, getting to know the girl in the mirror. I touch her smooth glass face, then I make her touch herself. She runs a finger along her perfect teeth, the dainty curl of her ear. The small pitted scar on her neck – chickenpox, perhaps? There’s a coldness to her. Something unreachable in those grey eyes. I wonder if it’s exhaustion. If it’s anxiety and grief and stress from everything that’s happened. Or was she always like that?

  I put my fingers to the white band around her wrist, and I wonder if Nia will be able to do anything with Riley’s one.

  It’s not much of a shower, but it feels like the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. I wash the grime and the sweat of the last four days. The smudges of Riley’s blood on my abdomen, where I had the wristband stashed.

  I stay in there for a long time, letting the drumming of water drown out everything else. There’s too much to think about. Too many questions that still haven’t been answered. And what’s the point of finding out anyway, if I’m going to forget them again in the morning?

  As I dry off, I look at the girl in the mirror some more. I feel like we’re just getting to know each other. I don’t want to lose her again. I pull on the fresh clothes left at the end of the bed, and realise I need to do something. It’s not enough to pin my hopes on Nia and some vague plan for Riley’s wristband. A plan to – what? It’s a pipedream. I need another plan. A better plan. I need to get out of here. I go over the apartment, looking for something I can use. An improvisable weapon, or something. But there’s nothing. No cables, nothing sharp or pointy or hard.

  My eye is drawn back to the file on the bed. I’m desperate to learn what’s inside, but Cato is probably still watching, and I’m feeling petty.

  I lie down on the bed with my hands tucked behind my head, and stare at the fluorescent tube above me. I could try to turn that into a weapon, I suppose, but I have no idea if I’d get electrocuted or not.

  If Cato Bell wants to watch, then she’d better settle in for a really boring show.

  …

  It’s nice to be horizontal, for a change. It’s hardly the world’s most comfortable bed, but there’s a lot to be said for a simple foam mattress and an actual pillow. Despite myself, I feel my eyelids growing heavy as the chaos of the last few days starts to catch up with me. I’m just drifting off when I hear a key in the lock, and the door opens to reveal Cato Bell bearing a tray of what looks like airline food.

  She’s changed. The lank, old-lady hair has been washed and pulled into a severe ponytail, with a burgundy silk scarf holding it in place. She’s wearing a black tunic and leggings – simple but clearly well-tailored from expensive fabrics. Her wristband is gone – it would have been a fake all along. Small, round spectacles in thin silver frames are perched on her nose, and her lips are painted dark red.

  There’s a digital tablet balanced on one corner of the tray, which Cato scoops up as she places the tray on the bed.

  ‘It’s not going to be the greatest meal you’ve ever had,’ she says with a wry smile. ‘But it’s hot.’

  I peel back the foil cover and poke at the meal with my plastic fork. It’s an unidentifiable stew on soggy rice, the vegetables grey and dissolving into sludge. But it’s not a mystery meat sandwich, so I dig in. It’s mouth-scorchingly hot in some parts, and cold in others. The experience of taste is kind of overwhelming, and I recognise flavours – tomato, salt, umami. It’s still not … good. But it’s different.

  Cato stands and watches me.

  ‘Do the others get this kind of personal treatment?’ I ask with my mouth full. ‘Or am I special?’

  She doesn’t answer. Instead she hands me the tablet.

  ‘Here,’ she says. ‘Watch.’

  It’s a video. I hit play and see a room identical to mine, captured from a camera high in a corner somewhere. I feel my lip curl. I knew she was watching.

  It’s not my room though. It’s Sandra’s. The door opens and Cato Bell comes in with the tray of food, just as she did for me.

  I turn to Cato, indignant. ‘How come she got pasta? I want pasta. How dare you torture me like this.’

  ‘Stop trying to be cute and watch.’

  So I watch.

  SANDRA SITS ON HER BED, EATING PASTA FROM A FOIL TRAY. CATO BELL STANDS AT THE FOOT OF THE BED, WAITING.

  Cato Bell: There’s a helicopter waiting on the promontory. You could be on it.

  Sandra: (eager) What do I have to do?

  Cato Bell: That depends on what you want when you get there.

  Sandra: I want my life back. My career. My baby.

  Cato Bell: That’s a big ask. You confessed to rigging an election. Hard to bounce back from something like that.

  Sandra: What if … What if Paxton did it all? What if I lied to protect my son?

  Cato Bell: That could work. The photos are of him. He had political ambitions of his own. And he was a mathematical genius – did you know that? He could have made contact with Kozyr himself. Made those payments. It’s feasible.

  Sandra: Yes. Yes it is. He could have done it all.

  Cato Bell: But he will take all the fall. He’ll never be able to remove that stain. Is that something you’re prepared for?

  Sandra: Do I get my life back?

  Cato Bell: I’ll do what I can to help you, if you do what you can to help me.

  Sandra: Deal.

  Cato Bell: You don’t want a minute to think about it?

  Sandra: I want to do it. I’m sure.

  Cato Bell: You’re a piece of work, Sandra Yates. You really are.

  Sandra: What about my memories?

  Cato Bell: Once the wristband is removed, they’ll return.

  Sandra: We’re good, right? I won’t tell anyone you’ve been torturing kids, you won’t tell anyone about the Russians. Deal?

  Cato Bell: [after a pause] Deal.

  14

  DAY 4

  18:55

  ‘Why are you showing me this?’

  ‘I’m trying to prove something to you,’ Cato Bell says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll find out, soon enough.’

  ‘How do I know this is now?’ I ask. ‘And not a previous reboot?’

  She seems impressed that I asked, like she’s proud of me. ‘I’ll show you.’

  I follow her outside into the cool twilight. The jungle around and below is all dark tangled shadows, hiding who knows what horrors. Beyond, stretching out in every direction, is unending grey ocean, merging almost seamlessly with the colourless evening sky. Cicadas are deafening in the grass, and the occasional silhouette of a bat goes winging overhead.

  I follow Cato back past the other cabins. Lig
hts are on, and I can hear the shower running in Nia’s one. I feel my pulse quicken as I realise that Nia is probably naked, only a metre away from me. Nothing but a thin fibro wall and a mildew-spotted shower curtain separating us.

  I clear my throat as a distant whirring breaks the stillness of the evening. Cato hands me a pair of binoculars, then points down through the jungle, where in the distance, a helicopter is landing on a grassy promontory that juts out over the ocean.

  I raise the binoculars to my eyes, and focus them to see a dark-haired woman waiting on the grass, kneeling down as the wind from the helicopter buffets her. I can’t make out her face, but I know it’s Sandra.

  ‘The winds on the island are unpredictable,’ Cato Bell explains calmly. ‘It’s the only spot my helicopter pilot will land.’

  Sandra dashes across the grass, her head bent low. She clambers up into the inside bit of the helicopter. I don’t know what it’s called. The cabin? I see a flash of white – she’s still wearing her wristband.

  The whirring noise intensifies, and the helicopter lifts up into the air, banks sharply to the right, and sails off over the ocean.

  ‘Why did you let her go?’ I ask.

  Bell takes the tablet from me. ‘Another test.’

  ‘Did she pass?’

  ‘Do you think she passed?’

  ‘I think I’m sick of running through your lab rat maze.’

  Bell turns and starts to walk back to the barracks, indicating with a flick for me to follow her. ‘She gave up her son in order to save the tatters of her career.’

  I snort. ‘So now you’re some kind of moral arbiter? The woman who kidnapped a bunch of people and forced them to participate in her experiments? Who doesn’t flinch at committing gruesome murder, because that participant was expendable?’

  Cato Bell looks unperturbed. ‘I didn’t force you to do anything. You signed up.’

  I don’t bother answering that. ‘Are you going to do it? Frame Paxton and send her back?’

  Bell hesitates, and I know there’s something she’s not telling me. ‘Restored to her former position, she could be a powerful ally.’

  ‘But she’ll know about this. She’ll remember.’

  ‘Sure. But she’ll also remember what she did, and how I made it all go away. She’ll remember the price she paid, and she’ll know that I know.’

  ‘Why now? Why not reboot her and try again?’

  ‘Honestly? I don’t think she can change. She’s never going to give me the results I need. She’s more useful to me as an ally in government.’

  There’s a smugness to Bell’s tone that is familiar to me. ‘You’re not just doing this for the experiment, are you?’ I say. ‘You enjoy it. Messing with us.’

  Bell spreads her hands in a wide shrug. ‘I wouldn’t say enjoy. I don’t really like spending time with other humans. It’s why I tend not to go out in public. But I do find people fascinating. Why you do the things you do. What drives you.’

  ‘You talk like you’re not one of us.’

  ‘Sometimes I don’t think I am.’

  ‘Why tell me?’ I ask. ‘Are you telling the others? Paxton? Sandra is his mother, after all.’

  ‘I thought you’d appreciate my cleverness,’ Cato Bell says. ‘You and I have had some interesting chats here in Camp Eleos, Cecily. We have a lot in common, you know.’

  I swallow down a shudder. I hate the idea that I’ve been here before. That Cato Bell and I have talked. That she knows more about Cecily Cartwright than I do.

  I look beyond the barracks to where a larger cluster of concrete buildings huddle at the base of the bare cliff. There are lights on in there.

  ‘Is there anyone else here?’ I ask. ‘Do you have staff?’

  ‘You think I’m cleaning the toilets and doing your laundry myself? Of course there are people here. But you won’t see them.’

  ‘How do they feel about all this? About what you’re doing?’

  ‘Feeling isn’t really in their job descriptions,’ she replies. ‘They’re very loyal.’

  Something about the way she says it makes my skin crawl. ‘Is that where you stay?’ I ask, nodding towards the buildings.

  ‘Why do you ask? Are you going to get scared in the dark on your own?’

  I shrug. ‘I bet your room is nicer than mine.’

  Bell chuckles. ‘Oh, it is. But you’re not getting an invitation, so don’t even bother trying.’

  ‘What about that?’ I point towards the bizarre crouching structure on top of the crag.

  Cato stops walking and looks up at it. In the twilight it’s even more ominous and beastlike than it was earlier.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘It’s an old triangulation station, abandoned in the late nineteen-forties. Military personnel used to watch from that slit up there for ships at sea, and relay their coordinates to Camp Eleos below. There were two others on the island, and by combining the information from each post, they could calculate precisely where an enemy ship was.’

  The slice of darkness stares at me, empty and unyielding.

  As we stop outside the door to my room, I glance over at the concrete buildings. They’re maybe thirty metres away. It won’t take long for Bell to walk back there. Twenty seconds, less if she’s hurrying?

  But that’s twenty seconds that she won’t be looking at me on the surveillance feed.

  I yawn as I climb the steps to my room. Cato follows me and picks up the tray with my now-finished meal, and makes a big show of collecting the plastic cutlery. She thinks she’s so clever.

  ‘Have you read it yet?’ she asks, nodding at the file on my bed.

  ‘I don’t have the energy tonight,’ I say, infusing my tone with extreme weariness. It isn’t hard to fake. ‘I’ve had enough twists for one day. It’ll keep until tomorrow.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’m going to go straight to bed. Gotta get my beauty sleep. Big day tomorrow, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  I flop onto my bed and close my eyes. ‘Can you turn the light out when you leave?’

  Cato hesitates in the doorway for a moment more, then leaves, flicking the light switch as she goes. The room is plunged into near darkness, a dim wash of cold fluorescent light coming from outside.

  I listen to her footsteps receding, then roll out of bed. I bundle my towel and dirty clothes under the blanket, like I’m some TV preteen sneaking out to go on an adventure, then I slide the paperclip off the file. I don’t have time to look at it, but my eye catches the first line, and even in the dim light I can make out the words. It looks like a series of text messages.

  I have to keep a low profile for a while.

  Until the Pax thing dies down.

  I resist the urge to keep reading. I have less than twenty seconds before Bell gets back to her office to watch the surveillance feed. Instead, I straighten out the paperclip and bend it back and forth until it snaps in half. I use my shoe and the edge of the bedside table to bend a wiggle into the end of the first half – like a W. I know part of it is called the rake, and I don’t want to think too much about how I know that. The second piece of paperclip I fold in half, then put a sharp ninety-degree bend at one end – the tension wrench.

  I crouch down at the door lock and insert the tension wrench into the bottom of the lock and hold it steady. Then I feed in the rake, and start to jiggle it up and down, eyes closed, trying to feel when the pins of the lock spring open.

  It’s taking a long time. Too long, maybe. I’m hoping the darkness of the room will mean Cato Bell won’t spot me, but I can’t be sure.

  How do I know how to do this? Did I read about it in a book, or see it on TV?

  Edwin talked about implicit memories – actions we know how to do, like washing your hands or riding a bike.

  Or picking a lock.

  Have I done this before?

  Paxton is sleeping on a king-size motel bed. My hand is wrapped around a lock pick, cold and hard.

 
Fluorescent lights from outside leach in through the window, staining the bed pink and blue.

  Paxton is sleeping.

  Isn’t he?

  What am I doing?

  I look down to my hands, and I don’t recognise them. They twist and move deftly, like someone else is controlling them. The lock springs open.

  My name is Cecily Cartwright, and I’m getting out of here.

  I slip out into the night, shutting the door carefully behind me.

  I keep to the shadows and head towards the concrete building where I’m pretty sure Cato is holed up. I have no idea what I’m doing, and I know the wristband won’t let me get away from here. But I don’t want to get away, not yet. I want answers. I want options.

  I step into a corridor that was once painted a crisp military green, but is now cracked and crumbling grey. Linoleum tiles peel underfoot, and ancient fluorescent tubes plink above me. The corridor is punctuated with heavy steel doors, each one with a thick glass viewing window.

  I hope there’s no surveillance in here. Hopefully she’s only got cameras in our cabins.

  The first few rooms I pass are empty and dark, lit only by the light spilling in from the corridor. I see dusty spaces with stacked mattresses destroyed by time and little burrowing creatures. A table tennis room, the net as ragged and wispy as an abandoned spiderweb. A punching bag suspended in midair like a body at the end of a noose.

  I move on to the next window, and adrenaline floods my system.

  The lights are on, and there are people, staring straight at me.

  I duck down, ready to run. But there are no voices from the other side of the door. No sound of footprints. The door stays shut.

  I count to fifty, then slowly inch my head up again to look through the window.

  They’re still there. Two men and a woman, all wearing a uniform that makes me think they’re security guards. They must be Cato Bell’s staff. They’re … sitting. Each in an old metal-and-vinyl chair. Hands resting on knees. They’re not actually staring at me, they’re just facing me, eyes open. They don’t seem to be looking at anything. They’re blank-faced. I wave at them, make funny faces. Nothing. I’m not a hundred per cent sure they’re even alive.