Affinity

by Dianne Wilson

  She pulled away from him, pushed off the floor and settled on her knees opposite Peta.

  Torn clicked his fingers and a door on the far side swung open.

  A young girl slipped through with two plates of food in her hands. The room filled with the aroma of roast beef and potatoes…a smell so rich, one could get full just by breathing it in. She set them down on the table and left, eyes sliding past the faces staring at her.

  The moment food landed, Peta grabbed a fistful of the thinly sliced meat and shoved it into her mouth. She picked up a roast potato in the other hand. Her cheeks bulged, stuffed full. It was as if nothing existed but the plate of food in front of her.

  Eva didn’t budge, made no move towards the steaming food in front of her.

  Nobody spoke.

  Only the noise of Peta chewing and swallowing broke the silence. Peta’s distrustful friend had buried her face in her hands as if looking would make something bad happen. It all felt wrong.

  Eva considered the food and those watching. They had all been here longer than she had, and there was no doubt they were starved. Tension was building in the room, thick and heavy. She couldn’t do it.

  Torn leaned in close, and chemicals washed over her, rolling her stomach. “Eat.”

  “Not unless we all do.” Swallowing was suddenly hard.

  He grabbed her by the throat. “Eat.”

  She couldn’t answer, breathing was only just possible. She shook her head.

  Torn seem balanced on a knife’s edge. He seemed ready to lose it and crush her throat. His eyes flamed with cold anger at her defiance. Instead, he lifted her by her throat and dragged her back to her place along the wall. “Suit yourself.”

  A pale boy with makeshift cardboard shoes strapped to the bottom of his feet fidgeted opposite Eva. His face was hidden in shadow and he balanced on the balls of his feet tucked underneath him. He rocked forward and back as if to stand up, but didn’t.

  Torn paced, edgy and restless. “So, scum. You know the rules. If you want the food, you can have it. You just need to come get it.”

  What did he mean? There was an edge to his voice that Eva didn’t like.

  Cardboard shoes jumped up. Tension rippled through his body. He hung back for a moment, and then stormed the table. He pushed Peta, taking the potato from her hand. It was no real contest, since he outweighed her bodyweight twice over. She kicked at him, but he caught her foot and twisted it sideways. She came down hard, skull smacking into the tiles. Blood ran down the side of her face. The impact made her swallow and gasp together. The half-chewed food in her mouth slipped down her throat, going the wrong way. The struggle for air was on Peta’s face as she lay on the floor, gasping. She was choking.

  Something in the room snapped. From every side, kids flew at the table, after the two plates of food.

  Cardboard shoes, his eyes wide with rage, fought to keep his meal.

  Dodging fists and feet, Eva scrambled to get to Peta. She flung her body over the little girl to keep her from being trampled. Managing to slip an arm around her ribs, Eva dragged her to the side of the room. Fists balled in Peta’s sternum, she jerked hard. Chewed beef shot from her mouth. She could breathe again. Eva kept her arms around her, fought through the chaos and bottomed down in the corner of the room.

  Peta clung to her, and sobs wracked her tiny frame.

  Eva cradled her, running a soothing hand over her hair, pulling her close. Her face was wet with tears, blood stained her shirt from Peta’s wound, but a deep fury kindled in her belly.

  This was not OK.

  22

  “I’m telling you now, she’s not there.” Kai shrugged. “I went into every room in the same section where they held Runt. All those rooms were empty.”

  TrisTessa straightened the picture she was hanging. Afternoon sunlight streamed in through the gallery window, carefully positioned to never allow the direct sunlight to touch any of her exhibits. The one she’d just hung was a photograph of a seashell on the beach. Each grain of sand that caught the light sparkled like a shard of diamond. Splintered diamonds sprinkled through all the dull sand and caused the sunlit scene to glow. “We need to find her.”

  Someone skipped down the passage. Who would be skipping? It was a small girl, her long, swinging, shiny hair tucked behind her ears. She wore a floaty dress in lilac fading to turquoise, her feet bare on the cold tiles.

  Kai turned his attention back to TrisTessa. He still couldn’t bring himself to think of her as ‘Mom’.

  Something punched his leg. Hard. “Ow! What are you doing?” He whipped around to see the girl. She grinned at him shyly, holding her skirt and twisting this way and that for his approval.

  Runt. She peered up at him, unsure.

  The change in her was unbelievable.

  “Well, look at you, Runt!” He mock-bowed. She giggled. He’d never heard her do that before. It made him want to think up a million funny things to say so that she’d never stop.

  “Teva, not Runt!” TrisTessa was opening a window. The smile on her lips flooded her eyes with light.

  He didn’t trust her, yet she seemed so good. So kind. She picked up the next framed photograph for hanging and mounted it on a different wall. A map in sepia, the old-fashioned kind that still showed crease lines from being folded small enough to fit in a glove compartment of a beat-up van that had trekked across the continent enough times to know the way itself. The picture sparked a thought.

  A map.

  Maybe...

  He let himself out of the gallery and jogged home. Locking himself in, he settled on the bed. The bag that Zee had given him on the other side had come back with him, even though Bree hadn’t. Guilt welled up, but he tucked it deep inside and focused on the bag as if it were the only thing that existed. Noise from outside filtered through to him, car tires screeching, drivers swearing. He undid the catches on the bag and threw back the flap. He reached inside, hardly breathing. His fingers closed on a rock. No. More rummaging, then a cold tube. The map!

  He took it out and unrolled it. It was tight, resisted being unrolled, and appeared as blank as the day he’d first seen it. He flattened it out on the bed, running his fingers over the corner where the musical note had appeared last time.

  Someone was catcalling outside his room.

  His hand reached for his temple when the silvery lines shot through the page the way they’d done before. It was as if the line that separated there and here was disappearing and the two worlds were becoming one. Kai couldn’t wrap his brain around it.

  Lines covered the page. It looked like a floorplan of sorts. But of what? Probably didn’t mean a thing.

  The catcaller was getting closer now, the voice sounding through the thin walls of Kai’s room. The door handle rattled and someone knocked frantically, trying to get in.

  Kai didn’t want trouble, and he didn’t want to get involved. But now it seemed that trouble had found him. He checked that the chain was on and opened the door a fraction.

  “Let me in!” It was Runt, shaking and scared.

  Kai shut the door, unhooked the chain, and opened again for the small girl.

  The catcaller was drunk. He staggered closer in his expensive clothes, all bedraggled. He stopped, frowning, none too steady on his feet. His face screwed up in concentration, he took another swig from the bottle in his hand. It must have been empty. He threw it down with a roar, bellowing half-hearted curses. He tripped over the curb and came down hard. The impact shut him up and he sat there, dazed for a moment, before keeling over sideways.

  Kai shut the door, locking him out, though in his current state where standing upright was tricky, he posed no real threat. “What are you doing here?”

  Runt grinned at him, ignored the question, and peered around his legs. “Whatcha doin’?”

  “You can’t be here. How did you find me?”

  Runt shrugged and stared at him as if he had half a brain.

  “You followed me? All across town? Are
you nuts?”

  Runt rolled her eyes. “I can look after me.” Her head tilted sideways and she peered past him. “You gotta cat! Two cats!” She ducked past him and ran at the kittens that were eating side-by-side from one bowl. Her feet slapped the floor and they scattered.

  Kai thought about telling her not to chase the cats, but he changed his mind and went back to the map on his bed. He held his thumb over the music note in the corner and watched the silver lines run across the page. Same as before. Not even a hint at where Zee could be.

  Runt gave up on the cats, ran over, and clambered up on the bed. She reached for the map, and before Kai could stop her, she grabbed it and pulled it closer to see. The moment her fingers touched the corner closest to her, a silvery jolt ran through all the intricate lines on the page, doubling up, reinforcing. A tiny pair of silver wings lit up Runt’s corner. The flat page bulged top and bottom as an image grew in shimmery 3-D from the lines on the page. Silvery lines escaped the confines of paper, as if an architect were drawing with light. Kai couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was a holograph of the OS, inside and out.

  The top six floors glowed above the map, and the bottom six stretched down below the page. Looking at this, he could see that he’d only been to the very bottom to rescue Runt. He had no idea how to get to the other floors.

  Runt took one look at the glowing building and her eyes grew wide.

  “Do you remember this place?” Kai asked.

  Runt nodded, subdued.

  He pointed at the floors he’d never been to. “Do you know how to get here?”

  Another nod.

  “Can you tell me how?”

  A violent headshake. Runt let go of her corner, and the image collapsed back to the flat, silvery lines on paper.

  He rolled it up, tapping it on his palm. “I have to get in there. You need to tell me how. Please.”

  Runt frowned so hard, her eyebrows met in the middle, two tiny caterpillars kissing. Another head shake that made her long hair swish.

  Kai was getting nowhere fast and Zee was almost out of time. “They have Zee. I need to go rescue her. But I can’t do that unless you tell me how to get in there.”

  The stubborn little girl shook her head, “Nope.”

  “What do you mean? Zee needs me.”

  “No telling. I show you.”

  “I don’t want you anywhere near there. Do you understand? They will take you again. I have to go get Zee by myself.”

  Runt slid off the bed, scooped the grey kitten up in her arms, and twirled around the floor with her. “I know where Zee is.” More than that, she wouldn’t say.

  Kai tried cajoling it out of her, but she just giggled at him and shook her head. He tried tricking her, but she dodged that too. There was nothing for it but to wait until her energy ran out.

  The sun was setting and Kai was ready to give up hope that Runt would ever fall asleep. She’d spent the day playing with the kittens. It fascinated her how unlovable Raff was, and she’d made it her mission to woo the stubborn animal. With all her energy and attention focused on her goal, Kai made plans. He’d wait until she fell asleep, lock her in so she’d be safe, and go get Zee. He’d be back before she woke up.

  He ran a thumb over the silvery mark on the inside of this wrist. The ladybug that Runt had drawn on his chest was fading, but it still seemed to carry enough power to shift states when touched with his wrist mark.

  It wasn’t something he could wrap his brain around. He couldn’t explain it or deny it. It just worked.

  Runt crawled halfway under the bed, and the cat hissed at her.

  Let me make sure this hasn’t all been a weird dream. He laid his hand over his heart; tingling shot through him as the two marks touched. The familiar slide, then the strange forest with its purple and teal trees. When he pulled his arm away, he was back in his room. Kai couldn’t help grinning. Getting Zee back would be simple. He just had to wait until Runt nodded off.

  “I’m tired.” Runt announced half way through her peanut butter sarmie. She left the other half on the paper plate on the floor, climbed onto Kai’s bed, and fell asleep.

  Kai waited a few minutes, watching the rise and fall of her chest settle into deep, even breathing. He pulled a blanket over her, let himself out, and padlocked the door.

  It was time to rescue Zee.

  23

  The ache in her belly woke Eva. She lay on the floor in the dark, her brain a muddled, spaghetti mess. The injection they’d given her when she’d arrived had left a hard bump on her shoulder that itched now. What had they injected her with? Her body ached in places she didn’t know could ache, and under all the pain lurked deep hunger. It gnawed at her constantly.

  Peta rolled over, whimpering in her sleep.

  Eva tried to comfort her, but she’d been sleeping on her arm and it was numb, heavy, too clumsy to cradle the little girl. Eva flopped onto her back and winced as blood flowed, running pins and needles through to her shoulder.

  Peta snuggled closer and tucked her head into Eva’s armpit. Oh yes, so much more comfy...

  With no daylight, Eva had lost track of whether she’d been here for hours or days. It could be either. She was kept with the group who’d been in the dining room with her. The riot in the dining hall had been cut short by overhead sprinklers.

  Normally, according to the bald boy, after the first proper-food meal, they’d each get their daily rations of slop, but as punishment that day nobody got anything. It was a soaked and sorry group who were led back into their sleeping quarters. No one said much, their eyes downcast as if they were unable to look each other in the eye after fighting for food out of each other’s mouths. They walked hunched, wearing shame that weighed heavy enough to bow their heads.

  Being here was messing with Eva’s head.

  Something moved near the door. Peta’s friend, the one who’d urged her not to eat, the only one who’d hung back from the food riot stood there. She sat down next to Eva and leaned close, voice low. “It’s good that you didn’t eat.”

  Eva shrugged. There was no heroism in not doing something one simply couldn’t.

  “She likes you.” The girl gestured to Peta, who lay with her back to Eva’s side. She snored softly with her nose buried in Eva’s armpit. “That’s enough for me. The name’s Morgan. You are?”

  Morgan. What kind of name was Morgan? “I’m E—”

  “Wait! Not your real one.” She shook her head as if Eva was about to skydive into an erupting volcano.

  OK, then. “Um, Zee…call me Zee. Why are we here?”

  “You don’t know?” Morgan frowned. “You must have been a capture, not a recruit then. Affinity Training. You heard of it?” Eva shook her head. The heat from Morgan’s arm radiated off of her. Eva wanted to shuffle closer. The cold was making her teeth chatter.

  “Affinity—the ability to see beyond what is seen. Some have it, some don’t. This bunch here, we all have it to some measure. Most volunteered to be tested, others—like yourself, I’m guessing, showed signs and were taken. Peta is one of those. Probably why she’s taken a shine to you. The bald one in the corner, he’s Riven. Doesn’t say much, but he’s smart. Next to him is Zap. That boy’s got too much energy. The big one—he’s Big G, all fierce on the outside, but as soft as they come when you get to know him. The girls are Ant—the big one. She’s kinda our unofficial spokesperson. Kezia,” she pointed to a skinny girl stretched out on her belly, black bob fanned over her face so that just her nose poked through, “tough as nails and loyal. Next to her—Nixx, and then there’s Lacey.”

  Lacey moaned in her sleep as if she’d heard her name. Her skin was as pale as her white hair, which stretched down her back in a straight curtain. “A real space cadet, that one. Though I think she’s probably smarter than us all put together.”

  “That’s only seven. What about the others?” There were at least a dozen that Morgan hadn’t mentioned.

  Morgan brushed a hand over Peta’s cheek, he
r smile soft. “They won’t last. There are only a few of us who’ve been here long enough not to crack. We’re always fed a few at a time, always in front of the others who aren’t given anything. Sure you get the slop afterwards, but it’s like eating ground-up bricks. At every meal, at least one kid cracks and becomes violent, just like tonight. Each time that happens, the first one to lose it gets taken away, and they’re never brought back. Most times we can resist. Tonight…” her voice trailed off, strangled by the same shame that bent all of them double. “It’s been a long time since we’ve eaten anything other than slop. Let’s just say that. We’d better get some sleep.”

  ~*~

  Kai pulled his jacket tighter and moved away from the curb. Rain fell in fat, generous drops adding to a rising torrent flowing down toward the storm water drain. If this carried on, he would be sopping by the time he got to OS. A car skidded in to park, sending a sheet of water cascading over him. He didn’t notice until it hit him full in the face with an icy thwack. Not funny.

  Ignoring the shivers that wracked his body, he picked up the pace and reached the OS as the doors opened for the evening. He didn’t have his guitar. He could be walking into a trap, but he shoved common sense out into the cold rain, straightened his back and skipped to the front of the queue. “Muso coming through.”

  The crowd parted, some more reluctantly than others, but he’d picked up enough fans from the previous gigs that he was inside the club within minutes. He ducked behind a pillar, scoping the room. Rain water ran off him. He was leaving a puddle on the floor.

  Slow and steady, he worked his way around the room to the passage he knew so well. He checked to make sure he was alone, facing the wall with the hidden panel that would take him to Zee. He slipped his hand to his chest, just as he’d done each time.

  Nothing.

  He moved his hand around just in case he’d missed the spot. Still nothing.

  He pulled his shirt neck down, looking for Runt’s drawing on his chest. It was gone. One more time, he pressed the music notes on the inside of his wrist to where he remembered Runt’s drawing to be. No shift in state, no purple trees. Just the worn-out inside of the dirty night club. The one thing that consistently connected him with the other realm had washed off in the rain.