by Laura Lam
There’s a flash in the corner of my vision, a small beep in my ear. I have a message. Judging by the way the others grow still, they’ve received it, too. The white wall in front of me seems to undulate in waves. I can feel the little electrodes buzzing against my skin.
“You are here because you have done well. You have served and done all I’ve asked of you.” The voice is disguised—it echoes, distorting strangely in my mind. “You have made it to a level that few can claim to reach.”
It wasn’t me. I did none of it. How did you get here, Tila? I want to ask.
“Now, for the moment, do nothing. Just watch. And listen.”
Don’t look away.
Images flow onto the blank wall, so quickly I barely register one before the next flicks into my field of vision. A praying mantis. The inside of a cat’s mouth. The glowing algae of the bay. The aftermath of a battle. Blood splattering on white walls. A decomposing corpse. A little girl in pigtails, holding a teddy bear by an arm. Ink blots, like in old psychological tests. Nature. War. Humanity. Over and over again.
Sounds come with them—from soft birdcalls to shrill shrieks and sirens. Smells appear too, and some are nice: cinnamon, the green smell of broken pine needles and the scent of crushed apples. Others are putrid: rotten fish, decomposing flesh, the oniony smell of unwashed bodies.
The man with the blond quiff bends forward and throws up onto the white floor. I glance at him but then fix my eyes to the wall.
Don’t look away.
I don’t know what this means. What it’s meant to test. Am I passing or failing?
The images go on for what feels like a long time. I clutch the sides of the chair. My stomach roils, but I clamp down tight on my tongue. I won’t throw up. Soon, someone else pukes, but still I don’t look away. I think it might be the red-haired girl.
The images cease. All returns to pure whiteness. I sag against my chair in relief. The room smells of acidic vomit and new sweat tinged with old fear.
“Now,” says the distorted voice in our minds. “Stand.”
We stand. I allow myself to look at the others. The other girl has vomit smudged in her red hair. The blond man’s hair is in disarray. The green-haired man seems relatively unruffled. I wonder what I look like to them.
“Now, face each other. Tila, look at the man with green hair.”
I almost start at being addressed by this stranger. This is the oddest test I’ve ever taken. I don’t understand the rules. I don’t know the score. I haven’t studied, as Tila’s notes stopped right before I needed the cheat sheet most.
The voice changes slightly. Still modulated, but more familiar. “Study your opponent’s face, Tila. Memorize every line.”
I look at him, and he looks at me. I see a man, but only barely. He can’t be much older than twenty. I think he’s half-Chinese and half-Mexican, or something along those lines. I wonder what awful things he’s done to get this far.
“Good. Now look at the man with blond hair.”
I look, and as I turn my head, I see the red woman and the green man have done the same. As soon as we’re all looking, the blond man crumples. Blood pours from his nose, his ears, his eyes. He’s dead.
“He failed,” the voice whispers in our minds.
Fuck, I think. I should think more. Feel more. I can’t—all I can concentrate on is making sure that it’s not me next.
“Look forward.”
We stare at the screens again. More images flash, even quicker this time, so that I couldn’t explain them even if I wanted to. I hear retching beside me. Why do they affect them more than me? My stomach hurts, my head hurts, and I feel pressure behind my eyes, but I’m still looking.
Don’t look away.
The voice starts asking me questions. I’m to blink once for yes and twice for no. The man doesn’t ask me about what I—Tila—have done for the Ratel. Instead they’re hypothetical questions. Some are difficult: Would you kill your childhood pet for X sum of money? Would you risk your life to save a drowning child? What about a drowning person who wronged you? Some are beyond asinine: If there were ice cream and sprinkles on that white coffee table right now, would you add the sprinkles?
I answer them all without thinking too hard. There are hidden layers and messages in this, impacting us all in ways we can’t anticipate. Feints and jabs before hooks and crosses. I don’t even try to outsmart them. There’s no way to.
The scarlet-haired girl goes next. Falls right out of her chair. Her red hair perfectly matches the blood.
This is insane, I think distantly. This is absolutely insane. I wonder if I’ll be the next person to die.
Maybe this is all a trap. These are people hopeful of moving up in the Ratel, and maybe the King already knows that we’re not worthy. He’s here to catch us in lies, pick us off one by one. Perhaps it’s his idea of sport.
Maybe he wants to discover whether we’ve betrayed him before he kills us.
The green man is nervous, sweat dripping down his temples. I’m surprisingly calm. I must look unafraid to him, and that makes me feel braver. I stand, staring at him. His pupils behind the darkened glasses dilate as he listens to his own instruction. Then he rushes me.
He grabs my arm, hard enough to stop the blood flow. I try to jerk out of his grip but he only holds on tighter. The man’s face is red, twisted with rage.
He means to kill me.
“Kill him,” the voice whispers in my mind. “Or be killed.”
I stomp on his insole, the way Nazarin taught me. The sharp stiletto of my heel presses on his foot and I’m sure I hear something snap. He cries out and I twist my arm, breaking free.
He rushes me again, but this time I see it coming. Nazarin’s training serves me well enough, but I won’t be able to avoid him forever. He’s much bigger than me, and much, much angrier. I look for a weapon and grab the nearest chair, stepping over the body of the blond man. I bring up the chair and swing it at him, trying to frighten him off, and then I hold it close to me like a lion-tamer against a rabid man with a mane of green hair. The signal to my implants is blocked—the voice and images are silent in my head, including the self-defense programs for the implants. I’m left to fend for myself.
He attacks me and I smash him with the chair, grunting with the effort. He barely staggers, and then reaches out and grabs the chair so hard that I have to release it.
“Stop it!” I bellow at him, even though I’m not supposed to speak. He gives a shout, more of a roar, and hits me hard on my shoulder and I drop. I cry out and roll out of the way just before he brings the chair down again, and it shatters into splinters. I grab a broken leg, sharpened to a point. Snarling, enraged as I was in Mia’s Vervescape, I thrust up.
Blood spurts from the wound, drenching my hands. The green-haired man sputters. He no longer looks angry. He looks scared, and hurt.
“Oh God,” I say, over and over again. “Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.”
He falls right on top of me, driving the splinter of wood deeper into himself. His blood seeps onto me. I push him away. He’s so heavy. I crawl away and throw up, retching until there’s nothing left. When I’m done I sit back on my heels, wrapping my arms around my knees and shaking. I’m surrounded by three dead bodies, splatters of blood and sick marring the perfect white of the room.
Now, even if Tila hadn’t killed Vuk, I’ve killed someone. I’m no longer the woman I was a week ago. I’m no longer an engineer and someone who follows the rules. I’m a murderer. I say it out loud. “I’m a murderer.” I almost choke on the words, but I force myself to say it again. “I’m a murderer.” My throat is raw from vomiting and screaming. I want to curl up and disappear.
I close my eyes tight. My heart is still beating far too calmly. I tear the glasses from my face and throw them across the room, ripping the electrodes from my body by touch.
“Open your eyes,” a man’s voice says.
I obey. The room is now completely empty but for the cooling pile of my own vom
it beside me. There’s no red woman, blond man or green man. It’s as if they never existed. They never did.
Instead, in front of me is Ensi.
The leader of the Ratel.
He’s tall, leanly muscled, with skin a little darker than mine and close-cropped, curly hair. It had been longer in Tila’s sketch. He wears a collarless blue silk shirt and black trousers, and looks almost like a priest.
He holds out his hand. “Up you come. Time to talk.”
I take his hand.
EIGHTEEN
TILA
I didn’t know how to approach Mom and Dad about escaping the Hearth. Neither did Taema.
Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. Can you ignore all your beliefs and help us abandon you?
They hadn’t been born in the Hearth, though. They knew the world outside—or at least they had known it, thirty or so years ago. They were the only ones who could get us out.
We were going to die soon if we didn’t do something. We felt tired all the time, and our ankles had swollen so much we had to wear old shoes of Mom’s, and her shoes were ugly. We never wanted to eat. I’d wake up in the night and Taema’s breath would be all hitchy. Sometimes she’d even stop breathing and I’d hold my own breath until she started up again.
I could feel our heart thumping beneath our skin all the time, like it was a fish trying to jump from the surface of the lake. Every day, it was getting harder to do basic things. Mom had to help dress us. Dad, embarrassingly, had to help bathe us because Mom wasn’t strong enough to haul us up. Now we had even less privacy.
So after dinner one night, we confronted them. They were doing the dishes, Dad washing and Mom drying them and putting them away, humming to themselves. They were still very much in love with each other. Still are, I hope, though I haven’t seen them in a decade. Seemed a shame to ruin the nice moment.
We’d agreed that I’d do the talking. We knew some hard things would have to be said, and Taema wasn’t up to it. Her fingers were digging into my ribcage and she was shaking. I was nervous too, but in this I was the stronger twin. I wasn’t afraid of saying things to our parents that might make them cry, if it meant we’d get what we wanted. Needed. A lifeline.
“We don’t want to die,” I started, cutting right to the chase.
Our parents stopped humming.
Dad turned off the water carefully. “What, Tila?” Even though he’d been facing the other way, he knew it was me. He and Mom came through and sat on the couch across from us. My mom pushed her curly hair back over her shoulder. My dad worried his lower lip with his teeth the way he did when he was nervous. Their faces were tight, trying to keep any emotion from sneaking out.
“We don’t want to die,” I repeated. “And we don’t have to, if we can leave the Hearth and get to the city. Can you help us do that?” I kept the emotion out of my own voice.
Mom’s face crumpled, and Dad put his arm around her. “My girls,” he said, his voice breaking. “I wish we could. But no one leaves the Hearth.”
“Mia did. We remember.”
It’d been hushed up, but even as children we heard the rumors. I’d forgotten about them until we started thinking of leaving. She’d left. On purpose. No one ever found out how she’d escaped.
Our parents looked away.
“Please. You have to help us … we’re dead if we stay.”
“If you escape…” our mother whispered, “you’d be apostate. You’d be damned. Surrounded by all that technology … all the Impure…”
Next to me, Taema flinched. “That’s true,” I said. It wasn’t worth telling them we—I, at least—didn’t believe in the tenets of the faith anymore. Damn, they’d been so brainwashed in the last sixteen years, with Mana-ma battering away at their brains like the rest of us. Could I even break through? I pushed on ahead.
“We’d rather be alive and damned than dead and saved. Please. We don’t want to die.”
Though for me, it was more that I didn’t want Taema to die. I knew more than her. I knew if we did get out and found a doctor to fix our heart, there was a chance we wouldn’t both survive. Of course there was. Medicine out there was really advanced, but it wasn’t infallible. I just had to hope that if death took one of us, it took me and not her.
Dad pressed his lips together as he thought.
Shit, I miss them so much. They were good parents. They did their best by us. Even then, when they knew that if they helped us they’d never see us again, they still risked their jobs and their faith to help us.
“What about smuggling them out in the supply ships?” Dad asked Mom. “We could hide them…”
She shook her head. “Mana-ma would find out that way, as so little goes back out.”
“Even if we bribe them?”
“With what? Hand-stitched quilts? Those few credits we have from thirty years ago are worthless now.”
“What goes out to the city? Just blankets and apples and stuff, right?”
Our mother looked uncomfortable. Next to me, Taema rested her head on my shoulder. She was especially tired today.
“Yes,” Mom said. “Plus several boxes I’m not allowed to open. If they get paid for any of it, I never see the money. Mana-ma packs those boxes herself, so there’s no way to sneak you out in those.”
“Doesn’t that … worry you? That she’s sending stuff out and you have no idea what it is?”
“She must be doing God’s will in one way or another.” My mother did not sound convinced as she gave us a tremulous smile. Dad looked worried.
“You’re both doubting her, aren’t you? At least a little bit.”
Taema’s head rose from my shoulder as she stared at them.
“We’d never…” Mom trailed off, unable to complete the lie.
“The closer we get to the top,” Dad whispered, “the more we see. The more we aren’t able to unsee.”
He wouldn’t elaborate more than that. This conversation was going very differently than how I’d thought it would.
“We’d have to go behind Mana-ma,” Dad said. “It won’t be easy.”
“Can you do it?” I asked.
They looked at us as though we were crazy for asking. “Of course.”
“Will you come with us?”
A pause. My parents exchanged a glance. “We can’t. It’d be too hard to sneak all of us out. We can do more good here.”
I lost it then and started crying. So did Taema. Mom and Dad came and put their arms around us. Nothing would ever be the same as before our heart attack. Or before we found that tablet and realized that there was a whole world out there, and this one was fucked. Maybe, even if our heart hadn’t been weak, we would still have tried to escape. I’d like to think we would have. Somehow.
Taema finally spoke up. “Thank you,” she whispered.
They kept their arms around us, kissing the tops of our heads.
Our heart kept skittering in our ribcage. If they were going to save us, they would have to do it soon. If they were going to be able to do it at all.
* * *
The worst part was waiting.
I was never very good at waiting. I’d rather barrel in head first and figure it out later.
Our parents were formulating a plan, but didn’t tell us the exact details. They said it’d be safer that way. It made Taema and me feel guilty and confused—what would Mana-ma do to them, or us, if she found out we were trying to leave? I imagine she’d been furious when she found out that Mia left. None of us were meant to speak of her, in any case; just like nobody spoke about the Brother.
It was hard going through day-to-day life when we could barely move. We started sleeping more and eating less. We needed canes to support us when we did try to walk.
It was terrible.
When we were feeling stronger we’d walk through the path in the woods until we reached the swamp. The air smelled thick and fetid, cutting through the scent of crushed pine needles. There were no boats on the island, for no one ever needed to leave, at least
according to Mana-ma.
We ran our hands along the ferns, their leaves tickling our hands. We wanted to leave the confines of the Hearth more than anything, but we were also so scared.
“What do you think it’ll be like?” Taema asked. She always asked that when we were alone. Now that we’d decided, and even though deep down the crisis of faith was getting to her, I could tell she was daydreaming about it all the time so that she didn’t have to focus on the here and now. I kept wanting to pretend it was perfect on the other side, that we’d have wonderful new lives. The problem was, I’ve always been too much of a cynic to believe in happily ever after.
“It’ll be the best,” I reassured her. “We can do anything we want. A whole fresh start. The world is our oyster!”
“What does that even mean?”
“No idea. It was in one of your books I borrowed.”
She laughed weakly. Up overhead, the supply ship flew for its first drop in three months.
Taema shifted uncomfortably next to me, pulling on our shared skin. “Should we go see it?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to risk anyone seeing us hanging around there this time.
The last time.
NINETEEN
TAEMA
“Tila,” Ensi, the leader of the Ratel, says with a smile. Like so many in San Francisco, he looks hardly older than thirty, but I’m sure he must be at least ten years older or more. Perhaps significantly more.
He’s not quite as classically handsome as many men I’ve seen in the city—most likely intentionally. The crescent moon tattoo by his eye glows slightly green.
I’m still shaking. “What’s going on?”
“I Tested you.”
“The others … they weren’t real?”
“No. Mere images projected from those electrodes and your ocular implants.”
“I haven’t killed anyone,” I whisper. I can’t believe how relieved I feel. I’m light-headed with it.