The ARC 03: Fractured

by Alexandra Moody

  M goes silent, as he allows his words to sink in.

  ‘Okay, I will,’ I respond, standing to leave. ‘Was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?’

  He shakes his head. ‘You can go.’

  April walks with me out of the control tent. ‘I could help with it, you know,’ she says. ‘I can use my talent to make you believe you know how to control your talents. You wouldn’t be helpless. You wouldn’t be out of control.’

  ‘Would that even work?’ I ask.

  ‘It would have to be worth a try,’ she says. ‘The control of your talents is all in your mind. You don’t believe you can control them, they scare you and you think they’re too much for you to handle, so they will be. If I tap into that and change those beliefs, you should manage control over them.’

  ‘Have you tried it before?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, no,’ she says. ‘But, for most people their talents come naturally and develop gradually. They slowly adjust to them over time. You’ve been plunged in the deep end, especially since they inhibited them the entire time you had them.’

  I focus on the dirt path ahead of us and try to honestly consider what she’s offered. I fear my talents and I want to refuse her without giving it a second thought. I’ve seen the damage they can do, and I have no idea what else they forced upon me in their experiments. I don’t feel ready to attempt to use my talents again. Not after what I did to those men in the hospital.

  How can April trust me to use them without hurting anyone, when I can’t even trust myself? The thought alone is enough to make me sweat.

  April lightly touches my wrist. ‘Please, just let me try with you this once?’

  I hesitate.

  ‘I could take you away from the camp. Somewhere you won’t be close to anybody else and you won’t be able to hurt anyone. If it doesn’t work, I won’t bother you about it again.’

  ‘Ok,’ I find myself saying, much to the surprise of April and myself. ‘But just this once.’

  She takes me to one of the large plane hangars that we passed on our arrival. The huge building is almost empty inside, but for a few old and rusted plane engines that sit against one of the walls.

  April leads me to the centre of the room where she sits down on the floor, directing me to do the same.

  As I sit, I feel nervous. What if something goes wrong? What if it goes right and I find out about talents I possess that maybe I don’t want?

  ‘People struggle most with their talents when they are emotional. They lose their ability to focus on what they’re trying to do and the talent ends up controlling them, rather than the other way around,’ April says.

  A wave of calm rushes over me and I feel a building sense of confidence and excitement at what we’re about to do. ‘Are you doing that?’ I ask her.

  She nods. ‘Yes, I’ve manipulated your mind so you believe you can do it, which will help keep you in control of your fear.’

  I smile. ‘I feel great. Should I take the inhibitor off?’ I ask.

  ‘When you’re ready.’

  I look down at the black glass that runs around my wrist. It takes little effort to push the negative thoughts that surface in my mind away and only focus on the task at hand. I know I can do this.

  I slowly ease the band from my wrist and place it on the mat next to me, still within reach. I close my eyes and allow the feeling of my talents being set free to run through my body. I feel as if my body pulses to some beat that only it can hear. The hairs on my arms stand on end and my skin tingles. It feels good.

  ‘Deep breaths Elle.’

  I take a long breath through my nose and out through my mouth.

  ‘I want you to focus on each of your different senses. First, put all of your attention on your sense of smell.’

  I think about what I can smell, but it doesn’t seem any different to normal. I can’t seem to smell anything unusual or anything with intensified strength. I’m grateful though. I’d seen a guy who was featured on the show Talented, who had a heightened sense of smell, and he could smell a rotten banana in a bin over a block away. Gross.

  ‘My sense of smell is normal,’ I say.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Pretty certain.’

  ‘Okay, how about your hearing.’

  As soon as she mentions the word, ‘hearing,’ and I begin to concentrate on it, the sounds in the room become magnified. Simple things, like April’s breathing, become incredibly loud. It sounds like her mouth is pushed right up against my ear as she draws her breaths in and out.

  It’s not just the sounds in the hangar though. As I concentrate harder, other noises seem to fight for my attention. I can hear footsteps outside. One foot sounds like it’s dragging more than another. Beyond that, I can hear the sounds of a bird’s wings beating in rapid succession. I feel like I could hear a pin drop at the entrance to the hangar at the moment.

  ‘Elle?’ April thunders. My eyes squint in reaction. I swear I can feel the vibrations of the sound in the air.

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper, so quietly I doubt April can hear it.

  ‘Open your eyes and focus on what you can see.’

  I open my eyes and focus on my sight. The sounds around me become quieter, the longer I concentrate, but my vision appears to be normal.

  ‘Everything’s normal,’ I say.

  ‘Have you tried looking at any details?’

  ‘Like what?’

  She stands and walks to the far side of the room, about twenty feet from where I sit. ‘What is the symbol on my earrings?’ she asks.

  I lean forward slightly and tilt my head as I look at one of her earrings. The small silver stud is simple, but it has a faint outline of a flower across its shiny surface.

  ‘There’s a flower on it,’ I say. ‘But anyone could see that. Couldn’t they?’

  She smiles but doesn’t respond as she returns to sit opposite me.

  ‘You can put your inhibitor back on,’ she says.

  I have mixed feelings as I return the black glass device to my wrist. It had felt amazing to be free of it, but I also still desperately crave the security it gives me.

  ‘You did well,’ she says, beaming at me.

  I look down at my hands, and smile. I didn’t break anything or hurt anyone. Having April here really helped.

  ‘So you have enhanced sight and hearing,’ she says, ‘but your sense of smell is normal.’

  ‘How did you stop the rest of my talents from getting out of control?’ I ask her.

  ‘I didn’t,’ she responds. ‘All I did was help you to keep your emotions in check. You did the rest.’

  ‘I did?’

  She nods. ‘I think by totally focusing on one talent, the effect of the others is minimised. If you’re happy to, we should do this once every morning, working through your different senses. As you become better, we can work towards moving quickly between each one and using more than one at a time.

  ‘If it’s ever too much you should focus on what you can smell. That’s a safe place for you to be as it’s not a talent.’

  ‘What about the other talents?’

  ‘Those we can slowly introduce and work on with time, but for the moment, I think your senses are a safe place to start.’

  I nod in agreement. Enhanced sight and hearing can’t hurt anyone, so I’m more than happy to focus on them.

  ‘Is that training done for the day then?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And we’ll go again tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll see you here after breakfast and we can train again,’ she says.

  We leave the hangar, and April looks in the other direction, off towards the wire fence that forms a barrier between the rest of Hope and us.

  ‘I have to go,’ she says. ‘I need to put in an appearance at the Mason’s or they’ll worry.’

  ‘Wait. Before you leave I want to ask you about Hunter and Lara. Have they been at school recently?’ I ask.

  ‘No they haven’t, not f
or a while at least. They both disappeared around the same time you did. Given their talents, and the amount of recruiter visits at school at the time, I assumed they’d been recruited.’

  ‘I don’t think they have been. Guards at the Reintegration Centre took Lara away and I have a bad feeling about Hunter. He went missing in North Hope while we were searching for Sebastian. Could you look into it for me?’

  ‘I’ll have a chat with M to see if he can check their records. It’s likely they’re in the north. They’re both too talented to be placed anywhere else. They wouldn’t waste talents like that.’

  ‘When will you talk to him?’ I ask.

  ‘I’ll be back here tomorrow. I’ll have a chat to him after our training session.’ She takes a few steps backwards as she moves to leave. ‘Don’t get into too much trouble while I’m gone,’ she says, with a wide grin, before turning to begin her trek to East Hope.

  I naturally smile back. It feels good to have her back in my life. To understand the reasons why she held me at arms distance to begin with. She was protecting me and I like to think I’d do the same for her.

  I walk towards the medical centre to visit Will. I can’t wait to tell him about what I achieved this morning. My only hope is he’s feeling better today than he was yesterday.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The next few days I fall into the semblance of a routine. In the mornings I train with April and I spend the afternoons in the medical clinic, either for more tests or visiting with Will. Each visit he seems to lose a little of his spark and I think he misses being outside, as he talks about it constantly. Sometimes Kelsey will come with me, but most of the time she’s playing with a couple of other kids in the camp who are her age.

  Sebastian seems to be keeping his distance from me. He’s still his usual self and he’s not avoiding me or anything. I just get the feeling he’s giving me the space I asked for and, I have to admit, I’m grateful. There are so many parts of myself I can’t control at the moment, and adding more emotions into my life is not a good idea.

  I roll onto my back to stare at the slats of the bed above me. I twist the inhibitor band around my wrist as I gaze at them. I hate I’m so reliant on the thing, but I’m nowhere close to surviving without it. Despite April’s help, I somehow managed to start a fire in the training hangar yesterday. It erupted from my hand with no warning and I still have no idea what I did wrong.

  Kelsey wakes me from my thoughts by jumping on top of me.

  ‘It’s time to wake up!’ she says.

  I glance at the time on the new CommuCuff I was issued. ‘You know it’s six-thirty in the morning, right?’

  ‘But the sun’s up,’ she says, pouting. ‘I want to be up too.’

  I had been enjoying lying here but, like Kelsey, I have struggled to sleep past five since getting out of the hospital. It’s near impossible to get that early morning wake-up drill out of my system.

  ‘April won’t be around for my training this morning. Do you want to visit Will with me?’ I ask her, as I sit up.

  ‘Yep,’ she responds. ‘Can Sebastian come too?’

  I smile at her question. She’s been following him around every chance she gets. It seems as though she has a new crush. I just hope she doesn’t find out how I feel about him. She doesn’t seem to like the idea of sharing her ‘boyfriends.’

  ‘I think it might be too early for him,’ I respond. I doubt he’ll be up before nine. He likes his sleep way too much. ‘Maybe next time?’

  ‘Okay,’ she responds, her small shoulders slouching. Her disappointment only lasts a few seconds though and her eyes light up with excitement. ‘Can I bring Will my picture I made for him?’ she asks.

  ‘That’s a great idea, why don’t you go get it?’

  Once we’re dressed we make our way over to the medical clinic. We’re almost there when I hear a series of terrified shouts coming from the front entrance.

  My stomach drops.

  ‘Kelsey, run back to the tents and find Sebastian. Do you remember how to get there?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she says, nodding.

  ‘Okay, go quickly. I’ll come find you once I know what’s happening.’

  As soon as Kelsey disappears from view, I race to the entrance, my heart pounding fast. I don’t know what to expect. The lone voice I can hear screaming sounds alarmed and in terrible pain.

  I round the corner and my feet shudder to a stop beneath me. ‘Aiden?’

  Aiden stands by the entrance to the medical centre shaking violently and yelling for help.

  ‘Aiden, what’s wrong?’ I rush over to his side. ‘How did you escape?’

  ‘It’s Jane…’ he sobs.

  I look around, but he’s all alone out here. ‘Aiden, who’s Jane? Where is she?’

  ‘She didn’t tell me…’ he says, between sobs.

  ‘What didn’t she tell you?’ I grab a hold of his arm to support him. ‘Aiden?’

  ‘They … they …’

  ‘They?’

  He looks over my shoulder and his eyes lock on something behind me. ‘Jane!’ he yells, rushing past me. I turn to see Ryan standing behind us, cradling a woman carefully in his arms.

  ‘Ryan? What’s happened?’ I ask, following Aiden towards the two of them.

  ‘We need to get her inside,’ he says, heading quickly for the medical clinic. I hurry in before him to hold the door open, so he can carry her through.

  ‘We need a doctor!’ Ryan shouts into the room.

  He lays the woman gently down on one of the empty beds. Her skin is deathly pale and her lips are tinged blue. I can see her chest still rising and falling as she breathes, but it looks like she’s struggling even to do that. Aiden stands beside me, staring at her hopelessly, his entire body shaking.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ I ask him, but he doesn’t respond. ‘Aiden, do something!’ I urge.

  ‘Come on Elle,’ Ryan says, taking my arm to lead me away, as a doctor rushes over. ‘We need to get out of their way.’

  He pulls me over to Will. I struggle to tear my eyes from the woman until the doctor pulls a curtain across to shield her from view.

  Will, who has just been woken by the shouts in the hospital, sits up and rubs his eyes. ‘What’s going on?’ he asks me.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I tell him. I look at Ryan. ‘What happened to her?’ I ask.

  He takes my elbow and guides me to sit on the edge of Will’s bed, while he takes a seat on the bed across from it. ‘They caught her trying to escape with Aiden the night you got out. He tried to protect her and said it was all his doing, but they wouldn’t listen. They locked him in a room and took her to trial a new experiment on her.’

  ‘She will be okay, right?’

  He hesitates. ‘I don’t know. She’s become very sick and is getting worse.’

  ‘What can I do to help?’

  Ryan leans towards me and takes my hands. ‘There’s nothing you can do now. You have to let the doctors do their job.’

  I stand, shaking my hands free of his and start pacing. ‘Surely there’s something…’ I mutter.

  ‘Why would they trial something so dangerous on her?’ Will asks Ryan, anger filling his eyes like I’ve never seen before.

  ‘Because they’re animals,’ I respond. ‘They think they can treat people like they’re nothing. They take away their choices and then subject them to things I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. It’s inhumane.’

  ‘Elle, you need to calm down,’ Ryan says.

  ‘You want me to calm down?’ I say, my voice rising. ‘How can I calm down when there are still kids left in that place? How can I calm down when innocent people are subjected to the tinkering hands of these idiots who think they can play God? How can I calm down when they’ve turned me into a monster and made Will so incredibly ill?’

  I crumble onto the bed and start crying. I feel hands on my back and can hear both Ryan and Will making soothing noises beside me, but none of it helps. I feel so angry w
ith the doctors in the hospital and Joseph who has masterminded such terrible things. How can anyone think the experiments they do in there are okay? How can we ever hope to stop them?

  ‘There’s nothing we can do, is there?’ I say, quietly.

  ‘It’s okay Elle. No one expects you to save the world,’ Will says.

  ‘I don’t want to save the world. I just want to protect the people I care about,’ I reply. ‘I don’t want innocent people to be experimented on like I was.’

  When the doctor finally draws Jane’s curtain back, we slowly approach to check on her and see how Aiden is doing. There’s a little more colour in her cheeks, but she still looks deathly pale.

  ‘They’re doing what they can to make her comfortable,’ Aiden says, from the chair he sits in by her bed. He looks like he’s aged ten years since I last saw him. His eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, and his fingernails have been chewed to the quick.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ I ask him.

  He shakes his head, his eyes still focused on Jane.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Will asks, peering at the young woman.

  ‘She surfaced too early and the mutations are killing her,’ Aiden responds, with detachment.

  ‘She wasn’t like us then?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ he replies. ‘I should’ve gotten her out of that place sooner, but it wasn’t until I read my grandfather’s message I had any hope she’d survive outside the hospital walls. When the recruiters found me trying to escape with her…’

  He puts his head down in his hands. ‘Now, I’ll be lucky if she has any chance of recovery at all. I’m worried it’s too late.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Ryan says. ‘There was no way you could know what they’d do to her.’

  I glance between Ryan and Aiden, as I wonder what exactly the recruiters put Jane through. I can’t bring myself to ask though, and I don’t think Aiden could handle repeating it.

  ‘Maybe there’s still hope…’ He stands up and for the first time since I’ve seen him today there’s brightness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. ‘We need to get in contact with the ARC. Whatever cure my grandfather has come up with may be able to help her.’