by Mara, Alex
But right now, my bladder was full. I raised my finger, depressed the button to unseal my capsule. Around me, eight other capsules remained sealed, humming in the night.
As the air from the vent hit me, I remembered: I had kissed her. Not the woman in the dream—though I had kissed her, too—but Darcy West. And she had kissed me, and it had been the moment in my life from which all others rose to and fell away.
Of course, I hadn't had many moments yet.
In the closet, I had learned something, woken to it. As though her kindness and thoughtfulness and the tiniest bit of her essence had passed into me with that touch, and now I was different. I was better.
And all I wanted was to return to that closet. To leave all of this: the trainings, the Scarlets and the Gales and the recycling or the mission or whatever it was that sat at the end of my road.
I just wanted to be alone with Darcy again.
But when morning hit, our Scarlet would enter through the door and all our capsules would unseal simultaneously as she announced it was time for food. Warm-ups. The morning routine. And just before eight—a strange time to be experiencing such a thing for the first time—I would enter the final phase of my seduction module.
Darcy had told me if I got through it I would avoid recycling, but I doubted the truth of that. She'd averted her eyes when she said it.
She was hiding something. In this place, everyone was hiding something.
And this training would involve a real woman who wasn't her. A flesh and blood female. My Scarlet, and I’d be monitored as I attempted to outwit another male for the right to seduce her for real. To touch her body, to explore the precious places inside her.
None of which I wanted.
But if I succeeded, I would survive. Survive to what end? I'd heard the whispers about the final examination. If I made it through today, I would get the right to meet this Ides.
Maybe that was worth it. I could give him a shiner, let him know what I thought of his methods.
I sat up, my feet hitting the cold floor. Cold like snow. At once, the nuances of the dream came back to me: the forest, the cabin, her.
I knew what lived in the forest.
How had I forgotten my promise to myself? A shot of adrenaline surged through me, which was uncommon outside of combat. I had to protect her.
Whatever else, I had to live long enough to keep her safe. The woman in my dream had been faceless, but her scent...
I knew that scent. I had smelled it not twelve hours ago.
As I stood, I wondered what Darcy would say if I told her about the dream. Was it possible she had experienced that feeling, too? She had been difficult to read when I'd seen her yesterday, but I knew the physical signs of arousal, and she had shown all of them.
That thing existed between us, and we both knew it. It was the same feeling from my dream.
I needed to talk to her. Not just about the dream, but about leaving the facility with me. The two of us, together. She had been so conflicted, but after this...
I had to live, to protect her. It made no sense, seeing as I was below the surface, far, far from a cabin surrounded by trees. Hell, they said trees were gone. But the conviction remained steady in me.
As I crossed to the bathroom, I knew what I had to do. No matter what my body wanted, I had to pass the training. I had to seduce my Scarlet. I had to keep myself alive long enough to figure out a plan for staying alive longer.
It was as simple as that: hopping from stone to stone, keeping my toes out of the lava long enough to get to the next stone.
I had to escape, and I wanted her with me.
* * *
6:00 a.m.
Three chimes, and then my capsule unsealed. I lifted my head, glanced at the doorway where our Scarlet stood looking back at me.
Well, that was uncommon.
"Good morning, infiltrators," she said, her dark eyes shifting over the other unsealed capsules and the clones inside them as all of us sat up. "You have ten minutes until you're expected in the mess. 8024, you'll be meeting me in interrogation room one."
Definitely uncommon.
Ten minutes later, one of the Gales—not 8013—escorted me down the length of the hallway to the room where I'd talked with Darcy after my first obstacle training.
As per usual, he carried a semiautomatic. Except not as per usual, this one was walking behind me. Normally they at least showed you their backs.
When we came to interrogation room one, I stood in front of the door, filling my lungs. This was going to be a very different talk than the one I'd had with Darcy.
When the door slid open, Scarlet was already inside. She'd been seated cross-legged on the interrogation chair, and now she stood with the kind of movement only an infiltrator could manage: perfect balance, as though she'd pooled up from the chair and toward me.
"Stand outside," she told the Gale. "This will only be a few minutes."
When the door had shut behind him, she and I stared at one another with some mixture of cordiality and seething dislike. Her lips parted as she smiled at me—aggression—and then with impossible speed, she slapped me across the face.
"The Scarlets are trained that way," 8017 had explained. She'd been trained to operate with an iron fist in a velvet glove.
Still, I had to be impressed; she moved so fast even my reflexes had hardly registered her movements by the time she'd delivered the blow.
The sound of it clapped through the air like imitations of thunder I'd heard in my earliest trainings. And it stung, though my face remained unmoved, impassive. I said nothing.
And then, with her other hand, she stroked my unslapped cheek. Her eyes traveled over my face with compassion. "It's hard not knowing what to expect—isn't it, 8024?"
I said nothing.
Her nails traced my jaw. "But you think you've got a handle on this place, on me and your rival 8013. You think you're clever and self-aware enough to get through whatever we throw at you so you can plan your grand escape."
Something tightened in me, and she smiled. I'd kept my face impassive, but she had caught even the slightest tense of my muscles.
"How old do you think I am, 8024?" she said.
My shoulders lifted, dropped. “It’s not in my programming to guess a woman’s age.”
She laughed. "But it’s in your programming to analyze and assume her age, isn’t it? Well, I’ll tell you: a year. I'm a year old, which you'd never guess by looking at me. Where are all the scars, you're wondering. Well, you'll find out—if you get the honor of undressing me in the next training."
Silence fell between us as she waited for my response. But I'd already resolved to give her nothing. I stared back into her dark eyes.
"The thing is,” she said, “as an infiltrator, you should have realized by now that if we haven't got a camera, then we've at least got a microphone. And I know all about your tryst in the closet yesterday with the doctor. 'Come with me—let's escape here, etcetera etcetera.'"
I swallowed, and my Adam's apple must have bobbed, because her red lips curled. "What I don't think you've considered, 8024, is whether the doctor is part of the testing. What makes you think she's not still observing you in all this?"
Of course I'd considered it. Scarlet could be right: Darcy West could be testing me, gauging my loyalties and intentions.
But what I'd felt between us had been real, unmistakable. There was a truth of the body that couldn't be hidden or covered, and if I understood anything, it was the body's truths.
But my Scarlet was an infiltrator with all her trainings complete, and I could feel the persuasiveness of her words oozing right into my brain. Muddling it.
"I'll tell you, 8024," Scarlet was saying, her fingernails now stroking my neck. "I've witnessed a lot of you. Iterations who think they're different, special. I've seen your rivalry with 8013, and I prefer him. I think he's hot and cool at all the right times, whereas you're impulsive, and boringly predictable in your impulsivity."
&n
bsp; “If you prefer him, then why did you bring me in here?”
“Because you're the one with the most potential, 8024. You’ve already started using your claws. Doesn't matter how much goodwill I feel toward you."
I felt tired, slow. I knew I should just give her whatever she wanted, but I resisted. "I thought I was predictable."
"To me. But like I said, I'm a year old. To the rest of the world? You're entirely unexpected."
"But you think I'm disloyal."
"Oh, I know you are. You've got an escape plan that you've implicated a staff member in. And I’ve got a report to write which will go straight to Ides tomorrow morning. Guess who’s guaranteed a trip to the recycling bin? And which doctor might end up disappearing?”
My eyes flashed on her the moment she threatened Darcy's life. I wanted to set a hand to this woman's neck, press her against the wall and keep her there until her face turned as red as her hair.
But that wouldn't accomplish anything good except my own temporary satisfaction. “If she’s testing me, then why would she disappear?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? Is she testing you, or is she real?” Scarlet’s eyes glittered.
“If you have a point, I’m ready for you to get to it."
“Here’s my point, 8024: I know you’re going to pass the seduction module unless you royally screw it up."
"How do you know I'll pass?" I said.
"Because I know something you don't."
"And what's that?"
She leaned close, whispered something that slithered into my ear. "Darcy West is testing you. She's as disloyal to you as you are to this facility."
I leaned back to meet her eyes. "And what makes you think that'll make me want to fuck one of your awful kind?”
Her lips curved against my ear. "If you do, you'll become too physically powerful for them to recycle."
Eleven
Thursday, May 7, 2053
6:00am
Darcy
I woke with a headache. It was the crème de menthe; I was getting too old for drinking after midnight.
In three days I had woken three more mindless infiltrators. Not a blip, not a spark. 8025, 8026, and 8027, all of them entering the world with aching dullness, their pruned fingers reaching for me like I was their mother. They shook. Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid.
I hadn’t spoken to Terrell since our conversation over dinner. When he passed me in the hall this morning, I knew he wouldn't even meet my eyes. We had tentatively agreed to a plan, and now both of us didn't know what to say to each other.
I wanted to go to his cabin and tell him I wasn't going to back out, that I was committed to this, but despite the alcohol my entire body felt like it was in a vice grip, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to think of anything else until today's seduction training had happened, was done.
I stared at the lightening sky projected onto my ceiling and considered taking a sleeping pill from the bottle on my bedside table so I could wake up when all this business was done.
The stars were winking out into morning, and around me the pines jostled with a soft breeze that sounded so real goosebumps rose up my arms.
The dream.
It came flashing back to me, every moment and sigh and gasp. The good man atop me, and the bad one—blue-eyed—at the door. The claws, the eyes, and the awful intent.
I sat up in bed, and one hand went to my pounding head. Around me, the forest rustled at my movement, and my squinted eyes scanned the circumference of my room, surveying the trees and snow.
If these projections really were able to tap into my thoughts, then...
There it was. I climbed from the bed, crossed the room to stand at the far wall by my desk. My finger went up, traced the geometric outline of it. Logs hewn and stacked horizontally, snow resting on their swells. The white, A-frame roof and the door standing open.
The cabin door was open into the night.
This was the one I had dreamed about. I turned a slow circle, as though the projection was more than just a dream, more than just my mind. I wanted to memorize this clearing before it shifted into something else.
I had seen him pass through these woods, the man in my dream. And if he wasn't 8024 precisely, then I knew 8024 had something to do with it.
And surrounded by the trees and the snow and the cabin, I thought: He needs to survive. I need to get him out.
I had to tell him about the dream. I had to make sure he didn't sabotage this last training.
I glanced at my clock. 6:08am. I had less than two hours.
I darted to my closet, yanked out a shirt and pants. I needed to talk to 8024. I needed to get my feet through the legs of these pants.
* * *
6:20 a.m.
"But where is he?" I said to the Gale that had once been 8013. The hot one—8024's rival.
"I'm afraid his Scarlet didn't inform us, ma’am,” he said, and I sensed a certain satisfaction to the line of his mouth. An upturn. “Ma’am” my ass, I thought. "She personally took him from the capsule room this morning and neither have returned yet. Would you like me to contact the Gale who escorted them?"
"Yes. Contact him," I said. As he whispered into his earpiece, I tried not to pace in the hallway outside the capsule room—I couldn't look too conspicuous, not now—and ended up grinding my nails into my palms instead.
"She's conducting a one-on-one with him," 8013 said to me. "I'm afraid it's a meeting outside your purview, ma’am.”
"Outside my purview" meant I wasn't authorized to know. The Scarlets had certain privileges with the infiltrators, mostly pertaining to mind control, and often engaged in one-on-one trainings with them to achieve full control.
But that was the last thing I wanted right now. "Tell her I need to talk to him."
"I can inform the Gale posted outside, but I'm afraid he's not allowed to interrupt the training unless it's an urgent request."
I sighed. Bureaucracy. Who would have thought, thirty years after most of humanity was demolished, it would still be plaguing those of us who were left?
I couldn't make an urgent request without it looking bad for me. "Fine," I said. "Tell the Scarlet I want to see 8024 as soon as possible after her training. Before the seduction module starts at 7:30. Understood?"
8013 had that look again. I finally placed it: loathing. "Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
6:45 a.m.
"Terrell," I rasped through the cabin door, “wake up."
I proceeded through a third round buzzer-ringing, and finally descended into outright knocking. My knuckles resounded down the hallway, which I was sure all the other staff appreciated.
But I didn't care; time was running out on me. I'd already lost precious minutes wandering around the facility, staring into every likely room in the hope of spotting 8024 and his Scarlet. I'd even gone to the seduction training room.
No dice. Wherever they'd gone, she'd tucked him away good and well.
When Terrell finally opened his door, his red hair emerged first, and beneath it his eyes were still shut. "West, you're a beautiful woman, but you know I'm faithful to my wife."
"Shut up." I pressed my way into his cabin, which was all sorts of disorganized. The place looked like a greenhouse itself, though I shouldn't have been surprised; the man worked in the dome.
When the door had shut, we turned to face one another, Terrell rubbing his eyes. "Did you get it?" I said.
Terrell raised a tired eyebrow. "Darcy, it's the middle of the night. You can't just come in here and ask me about 'it' and expect me to know what you're talking about."
I exhaled. "The flower for the sleeping drug."
"Ah." He raised two placating hands. "Not yet—I haven't had a chance to be alone with it. I'm going to get it today, though. Remind me what it's for again?"
"Breaking out 8024. Blaze."
"Right, the one you have a massive crush on."
I rolled my eyes. "Also the key
to saving humanity, remember? I had this dream last night, and he was in it, and when I woke up I drank some crème de menthe and looked around..."
"Oh dear, you’re hitting the bottle. Things aren't that bad, are they, Darcy?"
The thing about Terrell: the more serious the situation got, the faster the jokes flowed. Where some people would turn grave and some turn to drink, Mike Terrell turned to...laughter.
Normally I'd have laughed, but right now I just stared. "Stop it, Terrell. Here's the thing: there's something going on here that's bigger than me and you. It sounds crazy, but I know we have to get this guy out." I stepped closer. "I need to know that you're committed, Mike."
"Woah, like I said"—he flipped one hand, the metal ring glinting on his fourth finger—"married."
"You know what I'm talking about."
When he finally caught my gravity, Terrell's hands landed on my shoulders. "Yes, Darcy. I'm committed. Isn't 8024 going into his seduction training in a few hours?"
"He is," I said. "And whether he passes or fails, you and I both know this place will destroy him. Either by recycling, or by killing his spirit. And I have a bad feeling about how things are going to go this morning."
"Why is that?"
"He talked to me about not being able to do it. He said he couldn't sleep with one of the Scarlets."
"He needs to pass," Terrell said. "Did you tell him that? It'll give us more time."
"I'm going to talk to him now," I said. "Just have the drug ready by tonight, okay? Drop it through the slot of my cabin."
"Of course, yes." He turned me around pushed me out the door. "But none of that will matter if you don't fix this situation right now."
* * *
7:17 a.m.
"What do you mean he's not here?" I said to 8013, who wasn't even trying to hide his disdain for me anymore. I was grateful 8024 rarely decided to make that face; I found it perfectly slappable.