Unworthy: Marked to die. Raised to survive.

by Joanne Armstrong

  “What’s her name?” I suddenly ask, tying the straps of my backpack.

  “Who?” He remains focused on the items he is packing.

  “My new identity. Shouldn’t I at least know my name?”

  He stands and smiles confidently at me. “No, it doesn’t matter who you think you are. You can lie, but your DNA can’t.” I squint at him in confusion. What he’s just said makes no sense to me. “Watch and learn,” he adds.

  I realise that he is not going to tell me any more for the moment, but strangely it doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable. His confidence is calming. He comes over to me and winds a bandage around my left wrist, tucking the end in securely. “That,” he says, “we should keep out of sight.”

  As we set off down the hill, the river sparkling below seems to beckon us across the plains and to the city. I wish it were that easy, I think to myself. I wish it were as easy as winding a bandage around it. Then it occurs to me that he said “we”. When did “I” and “you” become “we”? I glance at the Polisborn soldier tramping down the hillside next to me, and realise that he has been treating me as an equal for some time. I avert my eyes quickly before he notices, and keep them steadily trained on the rough terrain. He has not forgotten that I am marked. But he has been treating me as though I’m not.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Hayes adjusts our pace through the morning so that we don’t arrive at the gate to the Polis too early. We’re able to stop briefly by the river and eat a proper breakfast from his dried stores before continuing across the plains towards the city. The going is relatively easy and I have time to think. I know that Hayes has been told to answer any of my questions, so all I have to do is ask. This is like never having seen a toy before and then suddenly being offered my choice of hundreds. I simply don’t know where to start. I try to calm the hive of bees in my head so that I can ask him something. I don’t know what will happen once we’re inside the Perimeter, but I have a feeling that I’ll never get this opportunity again.

  “What was your childhood like?” I suddenly blurt. When the only sounds have been of cicadas thrumming in the long grasses, my question takes him by surprise. “Well,” I murmur, “you did say anything.” I’m going a bit pink.

  “It just sounded very personal, that’s all. I wondered where it came from,” he replies, a little confused. I haven’t told him that he spoke out loud when he was fevered. I’m not sure how he’d feel about me knowing what he said. Embarrassed, I’m guessing. Vulnerable.

  “How about telling me what Polis childhoods are like in general?”

  He’s nodding, relieved to be on more comfortable ground. “Very different from hub childhoods, I would imagine. Life in the Polis runs by quite a different set of values. I was raised by my mother, which is not rare in our city. Women either choose to continue serving the Polis in the army or to have children. I suppose mine chose the children.”

  “But your father… he’s still alive, obviously,” I say.

  “Yes, but he didn’t live at my mother’s home. If you’re in the army, you live and eat and sleep in the barracks.”

  I didn’t know that. There really is a different set of values. “Why?” I breathe.

  “Commitment. It’s more than a job, what we do.”

  “But… can’t you be a soldier and have a family?”

  He looks at me blankly. “I’ve just told you that my father -”

  “I mean have a relationship with your family,” I cut him off.

  His annoyance is clear when he answers, “It’s just the way it’s done.” He doesn’t look at me and I hear Grandad’s voice in my head telling me that I’ve been asking the wrong questions.

  As we walk in silence, getting ever closer to the city and its summons, the questions that keep coming into my head are not factual ones, but emotive ones. How do you feel about your father? He seems so distant. Don’t you want more? Why would you attempt to end your own life?

  I am wondering how I can phrase such prying questions without causing offence as we join the path of a sealed road. On the well-kept asphalt we make good time and it’s not long before he taps me on the arm. I look up to where he’s pointing, and I can see that there is a low building up the road, on the horizon.

  My heart jumps into my mouth with the realisation that we’re nearly at the gate to the Polis.

  “Just follow my lead,” Alex says. “There will be a camera recording from the corner of the cell. Keep your head down so it can’t capture you clearly.” Panic begins to rise, constricting my throat. It had sounded so easy earlier, but the reality of what we are about to do starts my heart thumping wildly.

  He must notice my distress because he adds, “Don’t worry! They won’t ask anything.” I try to smile but I can’t.

  As we draw closer to the gate, he adopts the more relaxed posture which I saw with the refugees, and the upright soldier arrogance is gone. Somehow he manages to look humble. His body language makes me consider my own. I wonder what it is that I do which allows them to judge my status.

  Close enough now to see a five-metre tall metal gate across the asphalt road, I also make out two Polis uniforms standing guard in front of it, their black and white blending with the black of the road and the grey of the low concrete building on the left. Another pair of soldiers stand to the left of the road, and a third to the right. I lower my eyes in an attempt to slink by without gaining their interest. I try to be invisible.

  A little irritated with myself, I realise that’s my learned behaviour and that it’s not going to be particularly useful here.

  Both the soldiers at the barrier hold up their weapons as we approach and signal for us to stop. “Leave your bags here and step into the holding room,” one of them drones, and waves us through. She’s obviously done this many times before. She doesn’t comment on my pale face or wide eyes. In fact, she hardly spares me a glance. I do as she says and follow Alex into the grey building.

  It’s dim inside but I can make out steel bars running the length of the bunker and dividing the room in half. We stand on the entrance side, with a desk, some technical equipment and lockers. The other side of the bars must be the cell. It’s currently empty. The guard motions us through a narrow opening and clangs the cell door shut behind, sealing us in whilst also keeping us in full view. A new guard, this one decked in the green and black of the Firstborn, approaches the bars with a tray and Alex steps closer, opening his mouth. My unease forgotten for the moment, I watch in fascination while the guard uses gloved hands to insert a stick into Alex’s mouth. When the guard turns to me I mimic my cellmate’s actions, and he puts another stick in mine. I feel it briefly on the inside of my cheek then it’s gone.

  “Drink your tonic,” the Firstborn says, and returns to the desk. He has left the tray propped between the bars and two plastic cups wait, half-full of pink liquid. Alex is already picking one up, and tips his head meaningfully towards the other. I lift it to my nose and take an experimental sniff. It smells like apples.

  I glance through the bars. None of the soldiers are paying us any attention. The one who brought the cups is at the desk, tapping on a screen, and the others have returned outside.

  “What is it?” I mumble, reluctant.

  “Drink it,” Alex whispers through clenched teeth, the cup at his lips. “It’s fine.”

  I drink. The immediate sweetness gives way to a lingering bitterness which does nothing to alleviate my suspicions and which makes me wonder how I came to trust the Polisborn in the cell with me so much.

  After placing the cups back on the tray I ask quietly, “What was in that?”

  “Nothing,” he replies, then one side of his mouth lifts, “and everything. Truly, nothing bad. Everything your body needs. Health in a cup.”

  “Needs for what?”

  “What do you think? Glossy hair and nails?” He’s smiling. His light tone takes me by surprise, but helps me to relax.

  “How long will it take?” I whisper.
<
br />   “Stay calm,” he answers, “Five minutes tops.”

  He’s right. I have a moment to glance around the cell, furtively looking for the camera, but I see nothing that looks like one. I notice that Alex is keeping his back to one wall though, where an electric light is fixed behind a wire cage high on the wall. I try not to stare. Within a couple of minutes the Firstborn is back. He unlocks the door and the bars swing open. “Be well,” he says, by way of dismissal.

  I follow Alex back out into the sunlight, where the two soldiers hand us our bags. After we strap them on again they guide us through a small side gate and say to us, “You know the drill. Stick to the road.”

  Alex says, “Thank you, Sir,” and we leave them.

  I let out the breath I hadn’t realised I was holding. I can’t believe it was that easy, but Alex had been right. I’ve got hundreds of questions for him, but my attention is caught by what’s behind the concrete bunker that we were held in.

  We’re walking along the centre of the road, lined on either side by high fences. There is an enormous compound on both sides of the road, and inside are more machines and weapons than I can name. I recognise the vehicles that are used in Greytown - motorbikes, covered trucks and an assortment of what Bastian has sweepingly called “four-wheel drives”. But there are other things as well, some smaller and some a whole lot bigger. One looks like a huge box on wheels. They all look dangerous as hell.

  Alex takes my arm. “Come on,” he says. “Don’t gawk.”

  I move faster. “I wasn’t gawking,” I lie. I’m meant to have seen all this before.

  Once the fences come to an end, there’s just the road in front of us. On either side is a wasteland. Some straggly grass has taken root here, but there are no trees or bushes to break the monotony. The Perimeter. About every five metres, I can see a metal tripod rising a hand-span above the tangled grass.

  “Are they…?” I point to one in a whisper, as though they might activate at my voice.

  “Turrets, yes. Keep to the road and we’ll be fine,” he answers calmly.

  I can’t help staring. Row on row of these little metal rods stretch into the distance either side of the road. I look ahead. “How deep is the Perimeter?”

  “A kilometre,” he responds. I want to run. Every cell in my body is crying out to get this over with as soon as physically possible. Just the thought of the blankets of death on either side of me makes me feel like I’m suffocating. I have a tickly sensation all over my skin, as though a hundred spiders are tapping me with hairy little legs. I can feel my back becoming slick with sweat.

  Suddenly I feel my hand enveloped in his, and I look up in surprise.

  His eyes hold mine steadily. “It’s alright, Arcadia. Keep breathing. You can do it.” I look back at him for a moment and take a deep breath. Still shaken, but calmer, we continue walking up the centre of the road.

  The warmth in his hand stills the trembling that had begun in mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Eventually the wasteland comes to an end. A fence runs off to my right and left, as far as the eye can see, dotted with warning signs. Beyond it, the buildings of the city begin.

  I don’t know what I expected, but nothing quite like this. The organised uniformity of it takes my breath away. Every asymmetrical building is identical, lined up in rows, disappearing into the distance. Corrugated iron roofs slant atop ribbed steel walls. On the low wall, each has one storey, indicated by one row of square windows. On the tall side, a second set of windows runs perfectly in line with the first, representing a second storey. A jointed iron staircase on the outside leads to a door under the apex of the mono-pitch roof. Everything is an insipid, colourless grey.

  “Is it all like this?” I breathe.

  He shrugs. “Not exactly. This western side of the City mainly contains factories and warehouses. But I suppose the general effect is similar.”

  I’m mesmerised by the repetition. So many straight lines, so much grey iron. I’ve never seen so little green anywhere before. I find it hard to tear my eyes away.

  “Alright, what’s next?” I ask Hayes, partly to distract myself from the sinking feeling that I am walking into a prison.

  “The General told me to bring you straight to him, at Headquarters on the southern side of the City. However, I want to call at Vicki’s on the way, to see if she can find out something more.”

  “Like what?” I ask, intrigued.

  He keeps his voice low as we pass the grey buildings, and the presence of people - in either Polisborn or Firstborn uniforms - can be heard and felt. “I wondered if other Unworthy are being sought from other hubs. If it’s on file anywhere, Vicki will be able to access it.”

  I can tell that his tone is not confident. “You don’t sound too hopeful,” I point out.

  “My orders were verbal. I don’t know what’s going on, but someone is very keen not to leave any kind of trace,” he replies. “I need to contact Vicki. Come on.”

  He turns down a side street and I notice a subtle change to the structures here. They are closer together, and have fewer windows. They seem older, and some have walls of brick or stone. There are also more vehicles and people, and we find ourselves often sidestepping to allow uniforms past. A squad of soldiers marches by, boots tapping perfect time on the tarmac. Alex chooses an alleyway and we duck into it.

  He hunkers down in the alley and leans up against the red brick of the wall. He pulls out the monitor from his bag and after a moment the grey static on the screen clears, and Vicki Watson’s face appears.

  “Vicki, you’re brilliant. We’re in without a hitch,” he says.

  “Alex, what are you doing with her?” Her playful tone has evaporated, replaced with concern and a touch of anger. “How could you bring me into this?”

  He is taken back for a second. “Vicki -”

  “Seriously, I can’t help you anymore. Do you know what she is?”

  “Alright, maybe I should have told you she was a hubbite, but I didn’t think it would show up -”

  “A hubbite! You think she’s a hubbite?”

  “What she is is irrelevant!”

  Suddenly the panic disappears from her voice and she is pleading with him. “Does she know who I am? Please tell me that she can’t identify me.” I’m not following this conversation at all.

  “Vicki! Stop!” he hisses into the monitor.

  “I won’t have any more to do with this, Alex. You’re on your own,” she says with finality.

  I crouch down next to him, and pull the monitor around to face me. “What did you find out about me, Vicki? What do you know?”

  Her image looks back at me for an instant. “How are you even alive?”

  I shake my head, uncomprehending. “Is this about my mark? The fact that I’m Unworthy?”

  “You really don’t know?” she asks, slowly, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You’re not just playing me?”

  “Vicki, please tell me. If you’ve found something out, please tell me.”

  She nods, her anger dissipating, although she is still hesitant when she says, “Okay. I ran your DNA, as you know - ”

  The device crackles in Alex’s hands and the screen goes blank. Tendrils of smoke begin to rise from its casing and he drops it onto the stones. Both of us stand, the wreckage of the box at our feet.

  “Well, I’m so sorry about that,” a voice at my elbow drawls. Even before I turn I know whose voice it is.

  “Elyssa,” I say, and turn to find the point of a knife resting on my collarbone.

  “Don’t move, idiot,” she flicks her eyes at Alex.

  “It’s alright, Elyssa,” he replies calmly, and raises his palms to her to show his submission. “We’re on our way to the General right now. You can escort us if you like.”

  “Escort you! Don’t you wish!” she cackles.

  “What are you going to do with us?” I ask.

  “What I should have done at the start, Yarco. Kill you,” she smiles
, her head tipping to the side. “And you,” she says to Alex, “are going to get what all traitorous scum deserve.” I can’t help but notice that she’s keeping her voice very low. She doesn’t want to be heard.

  “It’s alright, Elyssa,” Alex is raising his voice. “You can take us to the guard post. We’ll talk to the Lieutenant and tell him how clever you are.”

  “You maybe,” she hisses at him. “But not her. I’m going to carry out my orders NOW.” She returns her attention to me, turning the blade’s point gently. I stand stock still and draw a ragged breath.

  The noise of bootfalls on the asphalt make her look up towards the end of the alleyway, where three uniformed soldiers have halted and are coolly regarding the scene in front of them.

  “What’s going on here?” one of them asks sharply.

  Elyssa huffs in frustration, and lowers the blade, sliding its flat down my arm. “Captain Elyssa Greene, Tracker. I caught these two inside the perimeter.”

  The soldiers come closer, drawing their dazers in unison. I expect Alex to say something, but he remains silent, watching their approach.

  “Who are they? Firstborn?” the soldier asks.

  “No. This one’s a traitor,” Elyssa says, cuffing Alex across the head. He lets his hat fall on the ground.

  “What about her?” another soldier points his dazer in my direction. I struggle to stare at him calmly the way Alex has.

  “This one’s a hubbite,” Elyssa says maliciously, and spits at the ground near my feet.

  “Hubbite?” one of them echoes. They only hesitate an instant before snapping into action and train their weapons on me. One moves round behind me and grabs my arms roughly. The second circles Alex warily.

  “Just a moment, Soldier,” Elyssa interjects. “She’s my prisoner. My orders are to kill her.”

  “Not here, Captain,” the third Polisborn meets her challenge. “Not within the Perimeter. They’re coming to the guard post.”

  She glares at the soldier and forcibly sheaths her knife. “I’ll speak to your superiors then. I’m coming with you,” she informs him, and he shrugs.