Boneyards & Badlands: The Complete FTW Series

by Morgan Hobbes

  After all my time in the boneyard I wouldn’t have thought there could be this much water anywhere in the world, but here in front of me is a whole room filled with it.

  “What is this?” I whisper to Rosalie.

  “It’s a swimming pool, ma’am. You swim in the water for fun,” she whispers back.

  “Is that what Jameson is doing? Swimming?” I say, pointing at Jameson who looks like he’s just thrashing about. “It doesn’t look fun.”

  “Yes, ma’am. As he swims, he’ll get closer to us.”

  It’s true. As uncoordinated as it looks with feet and arms splashing water everywhere he is indeed getting closer.

  When he’s within a few feet of the end of the swimming pool he stops, wipes the water from his eyes and looks up at me.

  “What do you think?” he asks.

  “It’s amazing. I’ve never seen so much water!”

  “Go with Rosalie. She’s got some swimwear for you. Once you’re ready, jump on in. I can’t stick around, but feel free to use it as long as you like.”

  “Thank you,” I say and Rosalie leads me to a small changing area.

  The swimsuit doesn’t look like much, but Rosalie assures me it’s what I should wear. It looks like a plastic version of my underwear.

  I put it on and pad back to the pool, crossing my arms over my stomach and feeling incredibly self-conscious walking around in so little clothing.

  Jameson is no longer here, so it’s just me and Rosalie.

  “Do you need anything else, ma’am?” asks Rosalie.

  “No, thank you. And I’ve told you, call me Echo.”

  Rosalie smiles but shakes her head.

  “It wouldn’t be right, ma’am. Enjoy your swim,” she says and I’m left standing alone in this huge room of water.

  I walk up to the edge of the swimming pool and look at the steps leading down into its depth. Tentatively I place a toe in the water.

  It’s cool but pleasant, so I carefully lower in the rest of my foot. After a while the water relaxes me and I step further into the pool and sit on a step. The cool water comes up to my bellybutton.

  I sit and daydream there on the step for I’m not sure how long, but eventually my thoughts turn back to the boneyard.

  Nobody there would have ever seen so much water, even Arga who makes it her mission to collect as much as she can. If she saw this room full of water, it would make her eyes pop, and the thought of that makes me laugh.

  Instinctively I want to share the moment with Kara, and it hits me that I’ve barely thought about her since I found out Jameson is my father.

  My happiness fades away and I stare into the water’s depth and try to picture her in my mind. I’ve spent most of my life around her, but the memories are faded somehow. Surely I can’t be forgetting her already.

  I snap out of my funk with queasiness in my stomach. Ever since I arrived in this place, all of this has been distracting me into forgetting my life. All the incredible food, the clean water, and the ridiculous clothes for me to wear. All of it sent to tempt me into forgetting.

  But no more. Sitting around here in this pool won’t achieve anything, so I stand and step out of the pool.

  As I do someone walks in through the doors and my muscles involuntarily react. Life in the boneyard has trained me to jump for safety when possible danger is near, such as men from the upper-world.

  My foot slips on the step and I fall backwards and crash into the water. I flap my arms and legs around like Jameson did, but it does nothing, and I sink under the water.

  I’m under for less than a second when something thumps in next to me and grabs me by the waist. My instincts tell me to struggle, not knowing what’s going on, but the person holding me is too strong.

  My head is suddenly above the water and I cough and splutter and find it’s Reed who has rescued me.

  “Calm down, it’s not that deep!” he says between me spitting water at him and thrashing around. “Look, your feet can reach the bottom.”

  His words sink in and as I calm down I find I can stand comfortably in the water.

  “I’m sorry, I freaked out. I’ve never been in water before.”

  Reed laughs and says it is fine.

  “Maybe that’s enough excitement for one day though. Come on,” he says and helps me out of the pool.

  He picks up a towel from a pile sitting on a chair and hands it to me.

  “Dry yourself off and then come through to the house. I’ll give you a tour if you like.”

  I walk back to the changing area and stand there numbly thinking of how the person who just saved me would have gladly taken my life had he met me in the boneyard.

  When Rosalie walks in, she finds me standing there not moving. She doesn’t say a word, just wraps a towel around me and helps me dry off.

  Rosalie tells me if I’d like to rest for the day in my room she can pass on an excuse to Reed.

  “I think that’ll be for the best. Tell him I’m still shaken from falling in, and with all the excitement the last few days has brought that I just need some time to myself.”

  After she helps me to my room, she closes the door quietly behind her and I sit on the end of the bed.

  This is all so overwhelming. I can barely believe I’m thinking it, but I miss my home in the boneyard.

  11 - Hell Hounds

  I stay inside my room for a few hours before Rosalie knocks quietly and enters.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you ma’am, but Mister Fox has asked I show you to the media room so you can get an education.”

  “Do I have a choice?” I ask.

  “It’d be better if you do as he requests, ma’am. You can study at your own pace though.”

  Reluctantly I agree and Rosalie shows me through to what she calls the media room. There’s a comfortable-looking chair and a large table, on top of which sits a large, glass panel.

  “Mister Fox said he’s personally arranged your access to everything you need. The system is easy to use.”

  I look at the glass panel sitting on the desk. I’m not sure how a blank piece of glass will teach me anything.

  Rosalie shows me how to access the training through the glass panel. It turns out it’s really easy to use.

  I’ve always looked at the discarded tech in the boneyard and thought it all must be incredibly complicated, but as Rosalie shows me all I need to do is say what I want and the screen will show me.

  After Rosalie leaves the room with a promise to check in on me during the day, I pull up the comfortable chair and sit in front of the screen.

  I figure if it’s as clever as Rosalie says it is it should be able find someone with a tattoo for me.

  “On,” I say to the screen which responds to my command.

  “Voice print identified. User: Echo Fox. Security Level: Elevated.”

  I don’t know what any of that means but it sounds positive.

  “Can you find someone for me?” I ask, feeling a little silly talking to a piece of glass.

  “Affirmative. Please state their name.”

  “Um, I don’t know their name. Can you find someone based on a tattoo? They had a dog’s head tattoo.”

  The screen darkens for a few moments then pictures of tattoos appear on the screen. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of different ones to look at.

  “Oh wow, this’ll take me ages,” I say.

  “Enter additional parameters to narrow your search. Color, location, activity, for example.”

  “Oh, okay. It was brownish and howling.”

  The screen changes again and lots of the tattoos disappear.

  “Like that!” I say, pointing at one.

  A circle appears around the one I pointed at, and the screen changes to only show me tattoos which look like it.

  There are still hundreds of them, but they all look very similar.

  “What does this tattoo mean?” I ask.

  “Elevated user request accepted. Information request will be log
ged. Proceed?”

  “Yes?”

  “Tattoo shown is the logo used by the Hell Hounds, proprietors of the Boneyard Death Match reality show.”

  “The what?”

  “Boneyard Death Matches pitch death-row inmates against each other in a no-holds-barred competition for leniency and possible release. The Hell Hounds control access to betting and other transactions where only elite members of society are granted admission. Vision exists for upcoming match, would you like to view?”

  “Yes, show me.”

  The screen darkens again and is replaced by a man looking directly at me.

  “To all members, have we got something special for you next week! A rose among thorns, so to speak. She’s by far the prettiest thing we’ve had in a long while.

  “Don’t let her looks fool you though, she’s a cold-blooded killer, convicted of murder of over a dozen children. She joins us all the way from penal facility seven, let us introduce: Kara!”

  My head spins as suddenly on the screen I’m looking at Kara. My Kara, alive and well after I watched her die in my arms.

  The man on the screen continues to talk on but I’m no longer listening. How could she be alive? And a murderer of kids? No way am I buying that.

  “Best of all,” the man on the screen continues, “she’s accepted our offer of armor and weapons upgrades in exchange for cloning rights. So you heard me right, we’ll be cloning off copies of her for a select bunch of lucky viewers at home.

  “She’ll be a limited release though, so if you want her for yourself, be it a sex-slave, maid, punching bag, whatever, we don’t judge, you need to get in quick.

  “All bids need to be placed by midnight Friday, and we’ll announce the winners during this weekend’s Death Match.”

  My stomach churns and I vomit onto the ground at my feet. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

  My Kara, my unique and beautiful Kara is being auctioned off like a piece of meat.

  “Where... where is she?” I ask the screen.

  “Please clarify your request.”

  “Kara, the girl on screen. Where is she?”

  “Two levels down from your current position. Clone lab.”

  “What? She’s here in this building?”

  “Affirmative. Clone initiated at the request of Reed Fox.”

  “Reed? But...”

  But then it hits me.

  “Does Reed have a tattoo like the one you found earlier?”

  “Affirmative,” the screen replies, and Reed appears on screen. He turns and covering his back is the tattoo.

  I sit there shivering for ages, petrified. The tattoo of a howling dogs head is unmistakably the same.

  Reed was in the pack that murdered Kara. Hell, he probably was the one who killed her.

  “How do I get to Kara?” I ask once I regain my senses.

  A chime rings out to my left and a set of polished steel doors slide open.

  “The elevator is waiting for you,” the screen says.

  After a brief trip in the elevator the doors open to reveal a dark room. From where I stand the only light is coming from six glass cylinders towards the center.

  Each of them glows with a soft blue light. There’s a dark shadow in their depths which I can’t yet make out.

  I step from the elevator as quietly as possible and panic for a second when I see someone in white.

  On closer inspection it’s a coat hanging on the side of a cylinder. I walk over to inspect the source of the blue light.

  What I find in the first one almost makes my heart stop. Floating in the blue liquid is Kara, perfect as the last morning I saw her.

  There’s a small screen attached to the side of the cylinder. I tap it and say “On.” It looks like the one I used earlier.

  “Is Kara alive in there?”

  “Affirmative. Clone has reached maturity and is awaiting memory dump.”

  “What’s a memory dump?” I ask.

  “A snapshot of the brain is applied to the clone in its last recorded state. Current snapshot is waiting cleansing before deployment.”

  “Cleansing? What’s that involve?”

  “The clone’s memories are slated for wiping, leaving basic motor functions and language. Additional skill sets to be applied in preparation for Death Match deployment are standard hand-to-hand combat package, small arms proficiencies, and traps and evasion techniques.”

  “Can you... can you just put it back the way she was? Without cleansing and all that other stuff?” I ask.

  “Affirmative. Proceed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please wait.”

  After a few tense minutes of waiting Kara twitches in the blue liquid. Her eyes snap open and look directly at me, a panicked expression crossing her face.

  “Is she okay? Open this thing and let her out right now!” I say, banging on the glass.

  “Emergency purge request accepted,” the screen says, and the cylinder lifts from the ground.

  Blue liquid gushes from the bottom and Kara gets sucked along with it and seconds later she’s slides along the floor in front of me.

  She’s stark naked and covered in the blue stuff, but she’s alive.

  I grab the white coat from the cylinder and fall to my knees, scooping Kara into my arms and wrapping the coat around her.

  She vomits out a bucket of the blue liquid as I raise her, but she coughs and takes a deep breath and I know she’s going to be okay.

  She’s confused, and as I wipe away the blue liquid still on her face I’m reminded of the last time I did this, wiping away fresh blood.

  Unable to hold myself together any longer I break down and cry, sobbing over Kara as I hold her in my arms.

  Kara coughs up more blue stuff and her breathing is getting under control. Around her forehead is a metal ring.

  I push at it and it falls off and clatters to the floor. It has left small indentations around her forehead. They remind me of the ring of burn marks I saw on her head as she lay dying in the boneyard.

  “What the hell? Where am I? Echo, are you okay?”

  Through my tears I can’t help laughing.

  “Am I okay?” I ask. “I held you in my arms as you died, and you’re asking if I’m okay? You’re back from the dead.”

  “I died? Of course,” she said holding her forehead, “how could I forget? I remember now, a pack of hounds attacked me.”

  “They killed you so they could clone you for their own sick purposes.”

  I give Kara a brief rundown of what I’ve been through and what I’ve learned about the Death Matches and what they planned to do with her.

  Kara struggles but with my help she sits up, and I cradle her in my lap.

  “I’m a clone?” she says, trying to comprehend it all.

  I can only nod silently.

  “I have all of her memories, up to where they left me to die. I know she loved you so much. This is so confusing. I know I’m a clone of her, but I have all of her memories and I feel like I’m the same person. I can’t help feeling the same way. I love you as much as I did when we were home.”

  I pull her in close to me to avoid saying anything. On the one hand I’ve gotten the one thing in the world I wanted. I got Kara back. But at the same time, is she really my Kara?

  She looks and sounds like her and has all her memories, but am I disrespecting the original Kara by loving her clone?

  In the end I say nothing, and we stay cuddled in each other’s arms for I don’t know how long.

  “I know who killed you,” I say eventually.

  “You do? How?”

  “I found him when I got here. He’s my half-brother. Reed Fox.”

  “Damn,” Kara replies, her eyes getting the far-away stare she gets when she’s deep in thought.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Kara blinks a few times like she’s clearing her thoughts.

  “Just, well... I’m not sure what to think. Your half-brother killed me, what
does that mean for us?”

  “He’s dead to me, if that helps. I want nothing more to do with this messed-up family.”

  “Where is he now?” Kara asks.

  “Screen,” I say, not exactly sure how I’m supposed to address the helpful screen. “Where is Reed Fox?”

  “Reed Fox is entering the building now. I alerted him when you released the clone known as Kara.”

  Kara grips my arm.

  “He’ll kill us if he finds us here. He was so strong, we can’t fight him. We need to run,” she says.

  We jump to our feet and a thought strikes me.

  “Screen, can you still upgrade Kara’s memories? The combat skills you were going to implant for the Death Match, can that still happen?”

  “Affirmative. Please reattach the mind halo.”

  “What’s a mind halo?” I ask, and the screen shows me a picture of a metal ring like Kara had on when I released her from the tank.

  Searching through the puddles of blue liquid on the floor I find it.

  “Kara, do you trust me?” I ask.

  “Of course,” Kara replies, somewhat confused.

  I place the mind halo on Kara’s head and tell the screen to start.

  Kara’s eyes flutter for a few moments and I hold my breath.

  The doors to the elevator ding and slide open and Reed sprints into the room.

  “What the hell?” he shouts.

  He balls his fists and runs towards us. Kara’s eyes flick open followed by a satisfied groan. Her back straightens, and she’s ready for action.

  “Oh hell yeah,” Kara says cricking her neck to the left.

  Reed raises a fist, ready to strike. As soon as he’s close enough Kara drops to her knee and with the quickest of motions sends Reed flying over her shoulder.

  His momentum carries him through the air to the far wall.

  Kara looks up at me, pleased.

  “These new skills will definitely come in handy,” she says, then jumps to her feet and runs over to where Reed is pulling himself up.

  Her fists move so quick they’re like a blur. Reed tries to defend himself but Kara is too fast and lands blow after blow.

  His face is turning to mush under her onslaught. Kara lets up and Reed lies on the floor, moaning. He’s not far from death from what I can tell.