Shield

by Rachael Craw

  My hands are on his waist, my face is in his chest, his arms are tight around me but it’s just momentum, physics to keep us from falling onto the bed. The door closes and we stand there clinging to each other, listening to feet pass in the corridor. Slowly, we right ourselves. I won’t say that it takes longer than it should for us to separate – dwelling on it isn’t helpful.

  “What are you doing in here?” I whisper. “How did you find– Jamie, what happened to your face?” I step right back into the forbidden zone, my fingers coming to the split skin on the rise of his cheekbone. His lips part, his pupils expand and his gaze falls to my mouth. His hands hover at my waist and his scent makes me stupid. I let it happen – the dip of his head, the near brush of his lips. I even tilt my chin up, his breath and heat in my mouth before I stagger back.

  Jamie squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. That was … I didn’t come here to make things worse. I was afraid you’d be sent home before I got to talk to you.”

  The backs of my legs hit the side of the bed and I plump down onto the mattress. I stay there, gripping the edge. “I’m not going home. I’m on the team.”

  A blank pause. “You are?”

  “Non-combat, tech support.”

  Wrong-footed, he widens his eyes.

  “What happened?” I nod at his face.

  “A fight,” he says, distracted. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Tell me.”

  He drops his gaze. “Benjamin was in the mess hall at lunch.”

  The ceiling pulses at me and I’m glad I’m sitting.

  “Some of the others recognised me. Made some comments. Benjamin told them to shut their mouths but it got pretty ugly.” He rubs at his red, raw knuckles and I wonder how many of those men walked away under their own strength. “Knox has done a bang-up job, poisoning minds.”

  I picture the field agent who killed my brother, Benjamin, dark-eyed and brooding. “About me?”

  “About the Initiative.”

  “About me.”

  He presses his lips together.

  I shudder at the thought of a whole compound of hostile Shields thinking vicious thoughts about me. “How did you find my room? They’ll murder us if they catch you in here.”

  “I went to see the Director of Residence but there was no one in the office. She has a whiteboard with room numbers and … listen … Helena and I talked for a long time this morning.”

  Can organs actually shrivel? Is that what’s happening in my chest? Heart and lungs?

  “I told her it’s not going to happen.”

  “What?” I’m back on my feet. “No. She’s your way out.”

  “I’m not having this conversation again, Everton. You don’t get to choose for me.”

  “Have you talked to Ethan?”

  His grey eyes drill mine. “Have you?”

  “Davis told me.”

  Jamie blinks like I’ve poked him in the eye. “Davis?”

  “He explained she’s had a bad time with her last Spark. She wants to deactivate. She needs you.”

  “Don’t put that on me.” His voice rises, the muscle knotting in his jaw. “How can you still want this? Doesn’t it weird you out? Why aren’t you angry?”

  I give a low, bitter laugh. “I’m too tired.”

  “I wanted to tell you as soon as I found out. Ethan made me promise not to. He was worried it would interfere with your recovery.”

  “Like having her sprung on me is better?”

  He drops his head. “It’s why I came looking for you – to apologise. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, you didn’t know she was going to be here.” I think back trying to remember signs of secrets and withholding. Our time together after Aiden … the atmosphere was fraught with so much said and unsaid. “I guess it was always coming.”

  Jamie’s head snaps up. “Wait, what?”

  “Deactivation is his life’s work. Ethan was hardly likely to give up on the idea of you and Helena – not just to spare my feelings.”

  “Hang on. I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing …”

  The bandwidth crackles and I jerk my head towards the door, finger to my lips. Silence makes no difference. The slider opens and the Director of Residence stalks in clutching one of those small silver discs. I raise my hands like she’s pointing a gun, bracing for the agonising bolt of pain in the back of my neck. “We’re just talking.”

  “Have you two forgotten you have trackers in the backs of your heads? The dorms are monitored for a reason.”

  “It’s my fault,” Jamie says. “I thought Evangeline was leaving. I needed to talk to her. I went to your office. You weren’t there.”

  “Tell it to Knox.”

  HONEYMOON

  I’m not prepared for the size of the room, the blast of signals, or the plunging sense of vertigo. Some kind of central command on level two – a colossal concrete cube of a room divided by four massive intersecting screens. A giant X. The inside edge of each quarter wedge is lined in tech, manned by all men or all women. We stand above it on a metal walkway that circuits the room. I catch a brief glimpse of the Thurston sisters monitoring the work stations, each with her own tablet and headset. Juno has already spotted us, her face a stony mask.

  My attention rivets on Knox, overlooking the command hub on the opposite side of the walkway, still and watchful like a bird of prey. All I can think of is ReProg, pain and loss of control. Everything I associate with Knox is humiliation and agony. A dizzyingly painful note pierces my inner ear. If I blow, would it bring the entire operation to its knees? “I shouldn’t be in here.”

  The Director of Residence gives me a look made sharp with loathing. She knows exactly who I am, what I’ve done.

  The electricity in my spine pulses with the flickering light along the edge of the room. Jamie grips my shoulder. His signal fills me but it doesn’t calm me down. “I shouldn’t be in here,” I repeat.

  “Get her out!” Juno Thurston from the control room floor, her arm like a spear pointed at the door we came through.

  Every head in the room tips up, searching for and finding the problem.

  Knox stalks around the distant edge of the walkway.

  The hum of a power surge in the ceiling. White lights pop behind my eyes.

  “Get her out!” Juno shouts again.

  “But …” The Director of Residence pales beside me.

  Knox breaks into a run.

  I stumble backwards. Jamie steadies me. Then Knox is there, a vice-like grip around my bicep, dragging me out into the empty corridor.

  “Let her go!” Jamie shouts.

  Knox slams me back against the wall, pale blue eyes charged and hungry. The thud of my skull on concrete coincides with a blinding fissure in the bandwidth and a violent plunge into Knox’s signal. ReProg, writhing agony, bolts of fire in my bound limbs, the black walls of the Symbiosis where a girl dies again and again. First loss. My loss. My shame. Then the wall to the right drains clear and I see into a second ReProg room where a boy lies limp in the suspended chair, his eyes wide and blank, no rise and fall of his chest. A scream rips from my throat.

  “No.” A low, rough word shared by four people.

  I slump against the wall surrounded by blanched faces. The Director of Residence holds her head and darts frightened looks from Knox to me. Jamie recovers and goes to support me. Knox stops him, a hand to his chest. Only the briefest flinch gives away Knox’s dismay. “Well, isn’t that curious?”

  “It was an accident,” I stutter, rattled in the aftermath. “I wasn’t trying to see.”

  “And now we all see. You’ve laid me bare.” He runs a hand over his face, surprised by the tremble in his fingers. He turns his palm, examining. “Look at that. What a powerful gift you have. Such an Asset.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the Director of Residence says. “You said to notify you if–”

  “Notify,” Knox says, lips pulled back from h
is teeth. “Not bring a maladjusted telekinetic into the Nexus, the billion-dollar central nervous system of the compound.”

  “I – I was …”

  “Leave us.” Knox turns his back on her, removing a silver disc from his pocket. He nods at us. “Walk.”

  Jamie and I exchange a look. Should we refuse? Demand to see Ethan? Knox will just zap us and have us dragged wherever he wants. Can Jamie sense the terror in my signal? Secrets ricochet inside my skull. If Knox was gunning for me previously he’ll be ruthless now I’ve tapped his private memories. I can’t be the reason Ethan’s work is shut down again. I can’t lose my one chance to make all the losses count, to make Aiden’s death count for something.

  We don’t walk far. The corridor reaches a dead end with double doors of frosted glass. Knox brushes between us, my skin crawling with the aggressive thrust of his signal. He pushes the doors open and we follow slowly. A swish and click as the doors lock behind us. It’s an apartment-sized room with leather couches and lush rugs. There’s even a huge gas fireplace – as though it’s a fancy hotel, not an underground fortress. Canvases of modern art cover the walls with brief eyefuls of rough concrete between. There’s a bowl of fruit with fat grapes, pomegranates, strawberries and peaches on a low coffee table. Everything is sleek and luxurious. Another set of doors opens onto a plush bedroom and beyond it a glimpse of marble bathroom.

  The jarring sense of wrongness breaks through my Knox-induced terror. What is this, the honeymoon suite? Then I remember Jamie’s words about the sanction, spoken in Miriam’s hallway when we made our first attempt at goodbye. The sanction is monitored, signals measured for signs of an accord. The words recited like a mantra, eye contact, physical touch, the accord sealed with “ceremonial acts”. Warning shrills through my head.

  Knox strides towards a black lacquered sideboard and a complicated array of technology. Monitors and displays. Panels with symbols that mean nothing to me. He gestures at the couches. “Sit.”

  Jamie and I go to take opposite seats.

  “Together.” Knox raises the silver disc.

  We comply.

  While Knox’s back is turned, I take Jamie’s hand. It’s a horrible, weak act. Selfish. Extremely selfish. I push into his signal wanting to hide. Jamie responds without the slightest resistance, opening to me in the bandwidth, wrapping his signal around mine, that deep thrumming note: Home. Safe. Mine. I know I’m undoing almost four weeks of good behaviour but if I lose it now, here, with Knox … if I land myself in ReProg …

  Knox flicks on the monitors and displays then turns to face us with a curious smirk and his hand pressed to his chest. “You know, I haven’t thought about Eric for years. My heart’s actually racing after that little Harvest.”

  My throat’s too dry to swallow. “It wasn’t deliberate–”

  He cuts me off with a dismissive wave, his gaze caught in the middle distance. “I’m not much for sentiment on the whole but … I’m quite moved.”

  “Eric?” Jamie asks. “The kid in the other ReProg room?”

  Knox gives him a sharp look though his smirk doesn’t waver. “My brother. Idiot boy. Wouldn’t yield.”

  I shudder and press back into the couch. Jamie squeezes my hand.

  “Goddamn waste of a life,” Knox mutters, opening the top drawer, removing a syringe.

  Jamie jolts to his feet. “What the bloody hell is–”

  A bolt of pain stabs through the back of my skull, white light, obliterating. I slump back on the couch. Jamie collapses next to me, crushing my side, his head thumping hard on my shoulder. Knox moves quickly, loading the needle. He grasps Jamie’s arm, twisting it, jamming the shaft into the crook of his elbow, discharging a pale cherry-coloured serum through the plunger.

  Knox reloads and repeats the procedure on me.

  The drug works quickly, reminding me of the reptilian chair in the ReProg room and the creeping calm emitted by the glowing white light in the armrests. This calm is more than the smudging of fear or the gentle erasing of worry. My muscles unknot. My pulse slides into a steady lower gear and my breathing deepens and lengthens. There’s a warm and sensual loosening in my joints. Where I am, how I got here and what’s going on no longer concerns me. The agony of the implant zap evaporates. Jamie’s weight sends waves of heady tingling through my body. I don’t want him to shift. It’s hypnotising and his scent is so good all I want is to breathe him in. I go to stretch and find I can; the paralysis has lifted. Jamie groans and rolls off my shoulder, straightening in his seat. I sit up next to him, a pleasant swimming in my head.

  Knox opens another drawer and removes another needle. He comes to me and takes my arm. Foggy and bemused, I watch as he draws my blood, a scarlet rush into the barrel. He talks as he works at the sideboard, detaching the needle, capping the vial. “I made the mistake of trusting your core sample procedure to a subordinate and the results were destroyed. I can’t tell you how deeply that frustrated me. I’ve learned my lesson.” He pockets the blood and turns with a conspiratorial smile. “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”

  He takes something from the open drawer and crosses to the coffee table. He shifts the bowl of fruit and sits facing us, his knees nudging mine and Jamie’s. He opens his palm, shows us the small gauze sensors, peels the adhesive and presses one to Jamie’s neck just behind his ear and another to me. I’m not alarmed by his closeness or the medicinal smell of his skin or the way he lingers over me, his face inches from mine.

  When he sits, he closes his eyes and draws a slow meditative breath as though calming himself. “I hope you’re relaxed now. The serum contains a suppressant that acts on all negative receptors in the brain, diminishing pain, fear and anxiety, while amplifying pleasure receptors, stimulating endorphins and producing a sense of euphoria.”

  My body hums with contentment.

  “We used this a lot in the old days, to assist in attitude recalibrations among resistant Assets.” He lifts his shoulders. “Of course it was abandoned with the Reform along with so many useful things.”

  Softening his voice, he leans forwards. “You know Ethan and I have struggled to see eye to eye since we met. In fact, it feels like we’ve been locked in the same tedious argument for more than twenty years about the values of this organisation, but this is the first time I have ever had cause to doubt his integrity.”

  He withdraws the vial of my blood and holds it up, blinking at it in the light. Pinhead pupils set in glassy irises. “As much as Ethan’s ideology has always struck me as suffocatingly naive and unforgivably wasteful, in my heart I’ve always counted him as a sort of worthy adversary. It’s … disappointing.”

  A cloud forms on the edge of my thoughts but Knox’s open smile and easy tone clear the horizon. I settle into the embracing leather couch cushions, hypnotised by the magnetic thrumming of Jamie’s signal … deep in my skin … in my bones … in my blood.

  “You can imagine my surprise when a little bird whispered in my ear that I should take a closer look at the two of you.” He studies our faces, a warm appraisal. “Needless to say it was a very long night familiarising myself with your records and the astonishing inconsistencies in your file, Evangeline.”

  Again something nudges in the back of my thoughts but he turns the vial of blood in his fingers and the colour and light distract me.

  “Masterful forgeries that would escape individual inspection. Archives tampered with, test results falsified, even your ETR readings are disguised beneath layers of unnecessary data. I had to ask tech support to unscramble it in a separate network.”

  I blink, trying to clear my head. “Wait – what?”

  With a flourish, he closes the vial in his fist. “If it were only your ETR I would assume Ethan was simply trying to keep a Synergist pairing for himself – for his own research – but your file shows evidence of tampering that goes right back to your birth records. Add the business of your over-protective aunt and suddenly the math makes sense.”

  I
can’t process my growing sense of unease and I look to Jamie who frowns at Knox like he’s speaking another language. “I don’t understand … what’s happening?”

  “I believe it’s called the inevitable,” Knox says.

  Jamie leans forwards, a slow tilt on an uncertain axis. “Leave her … alone.”

  Knox puts his hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “Relax, my friend. Both of you – or you’ll spoil the mood. Before anything’s settled we need clear evidence and that’s why you’re here.”

  With a reassuring smile he rises to his feet and crosses to the sideboard where he taps on the screen. “Your readings will confirm your Synergist status with hard data. Later we’ll look closely at how your reproductive rights may benefit the Proxy program. While you two are busy here, I’ll take Evangeline’s sample to the lab.”

  “Reproductive what?” I murmur, struggling to see straight.

  He crosses behind the couch and circles his arm around my shoulder, bringing his wet lips to my ear. “There’s so much to look forward to, Evangeline. Your lover’s arms. Your father’s ruin. Your mother’s just desserts. Soon every cell in your beautifully engineered body will find its purpose here.”

  “That … doesn’t sound good.”

  “Everton …” Jamie groans.

  Knox strokes my cheek and straightens up. “Now listen carefully, the most important thing to remember is that you are safe here and everything is fine. You’re together. You’re in love. You were made for each other. The room is all yours. No one’s going to interrupt and you’re going to have a wonderful time. That should do it.” He pats our shoulders and leaves the room, humming under his breath. The doors click closed and it’s just Jamie and me in the lamplight, intent in the air.

  An electronic beep from the monitor and an exquisite pulse moves through the atmosphere, through the bandwidth, through me. Worry and confusion evaporate in the blissful current. I catch my breath and Jamie exhales with a low, “Mmmph.”

  Everything grows dream-like, soft and slow and muzzy. My body is warm and boneless but there’s a question nudging in the back of my mind. “Is this a dream? Am I asleep?”