Craved

by Elin Wyn

  Valrea rushed towards her but her way was blocked by one of the faceless guards. “What are you doing?” she screamed at him.

  The old man cackled. “You know better than that. Don't you remember meeting your own older sister?”

  Valrea shook her head, numbly.

  “Well, that doesn’t matter now. If you don’t give me any more trouble, I'll let you pick this one's punishment.”

  Valrea rocked back. “What do you mean?”

  “It's amusing to watch each of you try to pick something that will hurt the next one less.”

  He looked at the Companion, still, unmoving.

  “Don't you think so?”

  The Companion didn't answer.

  The little girl flopped down to sit and sniffled.

  By the time she'd worked herself to a full wail, the Companion had crossed the room and gathered her into its arms.

  “Fine,” grumbled the general. “Take it away. You can begin its training tomorrow.”

  Before the Companion left, I would have sworn that it looked directly at Val. But there was no telling what was behind the black dome.

  “I hate you,” Valrea hissed.

  “I know.” He motioned for the guards to lead us away. “Oh, and I thought you should know. It wasn't the Companion who betrayed you.”

  I froze.

  I wouldn't give him the pleasure of reacting. No matter what he said, his words were weapons, carefully aimed to hurt Valrea.

  She kept her back rigid, but her step faltered.

  “The Mechanicals chief, the one you’ve been spending so much time with. She was caught altering recordings by one of her juniors.” He cackled. “That man is faithful to the cause at least. I’ve promoted him to her station as a reward. After interrogation, we traced her steps. It wasn't hard to determine where you'd show up. You’ve always tried to get to the lab.”

  The bed rustled, tubes and wires clinking together as he laid back. “She’ll face the Devourer tomorrow for trying to help you. I thought you should know, have a little time to think about it.”

  A guard pushed Valrea forward and she stumbled.

  “Don't touch her,” I growled.

  General Melchior's laugh was the last thing we heard as we were led away.

  The interrogation cells hadn't been on Tianna's map. I sniffed the air. Possibly because they didn't ever need their plumbing looked at.

  We passed three doors with narrow barred windows before we were shoved into a dark room together.

  As the door slammed shut behind us a recessed panel lit into the ceiling.

  Valrea instinctively turned away from it.

  “Does the light still hurt your eyes?”

  It wasn't the most pressing of our concerns, but it might be the one I could do something about it.

  “No.” She shook her head. “It’s the cameras. They're always in those panels.”

  Charming.

  I glanced around the room. A hard shelf protruded from one side of the cell, a drain opened in the far corner. That was it. I could smell the traces of blood and shit from the previous occupant under the fresh coat of grey paint.

  It obviously wasn't meant to hold people for long.

  I examined the drain covering more closely. No bigger around than my fist. We weren't getting out that way.

  But it might be good for something.

  Decidedly not thinking too hard about it, I gripped the grill covering the drain and wrenched it off.

  “I don't think you want-” Valrea started.

  “I know I don't want to.”

  The twisted piece of metal I was left with wouldn't be good for much. But it was a start.

  “Cameras you said? Microphones, too?”

  She bit her lip. “I don't know. I've never had anything I've said come back to haunt me, but honestly, I never talked much.”

  “We'll have to chance it.” I looked at the panel of translucent plexi.

  It could hide anything up there.

  “Go close to the door, turn your back and cover your eyes.”

  Valrea caught on, moved quickly.

  I flung the sharp remains of the drain towards the ceiling.

  It flexed, bouncing back.

  I caught it, hurled it again, harder this time, watched where the impact stressed the material.

  Again, a fourth time, and on the fifth blow, the panel shattered, raining shards of plexi around the room.

  Valrea squeaked.

  “Are you cut?”

  “No, just surprised.”

  “How long do you think it will take before they come to let us know we've been bad?”

  “No telling. Believe it or not, I've never been down here. I always thought prisoners were taken directly to the cage.”

  I went to help her brush shards out from her hair. “I doubt they'd waste the opportunity to collect any collateral intelligence.”

  She didn't answer, just focused on rebraiding. “You must hate me,” she whispered.

  I couldn't have told myself what I felt then, a chaos, a seething cauldron of emotions. But none of it was hate.

  “I will never hate you, Valrea, but no more secrets. You've gotta promise me.”

  She nodded, and I folded her in my arms, safe by my heart, where she belonged.

  “She must be so scared. “I knew we were both thinking of the tiny girl and her wide, wary eyes.

  “It won't matter for long. We'll get out of here, and when we come back we’ll rescue her.”

  She shook her head, pushed away. “Then you can rescue me then, too.”

  “Dammit! You know you're at risk. The general has made it clear he's not interested in keeping you around.”

  “I don't care, I can go back…. someplace,” she caught herself before revealing our camp by the river to any microphones.

  She touched my cheek, traced down the jawline.

  “Would you leave one of your brothers here? A defenseless child?”

  I snorted at the image. “We weren't defenseless from the moment we were taken from the incubating vats. But I know what you mean.” I heard footsteps come down the hall.

  “We’ll argue about it later, okay?” I kissed the top of her head. “First we’re getting out of here.”

  She stood in the corner next to the door where she would be clear of the line of fire. The footsteps stopped, and I widened my stance, braced.

  The door slid open and I charged forward, fists ready to strike.

  But it wasn't the guard.

  Instead, the Companion waited, utterly still.

  “You should come with me. There are many things left to learn.”

  Valrea

  “Get away from him!”

  I'd know that voice, those words, anywhere. I darted out to charge the Companion.

  “Valrea, wait. She gave us your medicine, remember?”

  “My medicine?” Fury raged through me, a pale shadow of the flames that had tortured me. “It's not medicine, it's what she drugged me with, addicted me to.

  I whirled to face Geir.

  “You said it wasn't my fault? Who else should be responsible except the thing who gave them to me?” I shook, my hands curling into claws to tear the hated mask away. All the words, the bile, the hatred, and pain spilled out of me in an unstoppable flow.

  “It made me wait until I begged, never, never told me why.”

  The Companion just stood there.

  “I am sorry,” it finally said.

  I stopped, the words like a bomb.

  Of all the things the Companion had done to me over the years, for me, it had never apologized.

  “I still don't understand.”

  Raising its arm, I saw that it held Geir’s knife.

  “I retrieved this for you. You should come with me. There is still much to learn.”

  Geir grabbed the blade from its hand. “Why are you helping us?”

  “Because I am finally able to,” was the surprising answer.

  “All
right,” Geir said. “Let’s blow the lab, then get that shuttle.”

  I shook my head. “We've got to save Tianna first. And I can't leave my sister,” I pleaded.

  The Companion ignored us both. “There is someone else you need to see. I will not ask you to trust me. But you should.”

  Geir and I exchanged long looks.

  The Companion had given him the pills I needed to stop the withdrawal. Had brought his knife.

  But still, trust was a long way away.

  “Where we are going, there are a number of guards,” the Companion stated flatly. “They will need to be killed or disabled without raising alarm. I understand that you should be able to do that. Is that correct?”

  Geir laughed. “Depends on how many we’re talking about, but yeah, kind of what I'm built for. But I'm not bringing Valrea into a fight.”

  The Companion nodded. “I am capable of protecting Val.”

  I didn't trust it. But it didn't seem like we had many alternatives.

  Carefully the three of us passed back through the prison.

  I wondered if Tianna was in one of the cells, or was she already in the cage. Would we be able to save her?

  Even if she had betrayed us, she would not have had any choice. No one here ever did.

  The Companion led us through sections of the hall that I didn't know existed.

  “How did you know this was here?” I whispered. “I've never seen it.”

  “I was here when it was built.”

  Once again, its reply didn't answer any of my questions, just brought up new ones.

  Finally, it raised a hand for us to stop before the hallway we passed through opened into a wide, high-ceilinged open room.

  Geir slid from behind me to look over its shoulder.

  “Do you see?” The question was so soft I could almost have imagined it. “Four. And two more above in the balcony, there and there.”

  Geir nodded. “A lot of resources to put on one door. What's behind it?”

  “Who.”

  He shrugged. “With different levels, it’ll take me a minute to get all of them. How fast will they call for backup?”

  “I can block their signal, but only for a short time. In me, it was an imperfect adaptation.”

  Geir didn't seem surprised, just nodded. “Keep Valrea safe.”

  “That has always been my goal.”

  He spun, crushed me to him, his lips devouring mine. “Always good to give someone something to look forward to,” he grinned and then leaped to the attack.

  From the shadows I watched as he tore through the guards, the knife blade blurring into a fan of silver and crimson as it sliced through the enemy.

  The first three were down before the others even noticed.

  One raised his blaster to Geir’s back as he gracefully sliced through the throat of the last guard on the ground floor.

  Heart in my throat, I stepped forward to warn him, but the Companion pulled me back.

  “He is skilled at this. Do not distract him.”

  I glared at it, but with uncanny grace Geir spun, using the dead guard’s own weapon against the attacker, then sprang up to the balcony to deal with the two snipers above.

  Next to me the Companion stumbled, fell to its knees.

  “What's wrong?” I asked.

  Surely, the flicker of worry was that it claimed to be our safeguard, our guide. I couldn't, wouldn't care about the Companion.

  “My ability to block their signal causes pain. I will not be able to hold it for much longer.”

  Pain. For all the years, I had never thought, never considered that the Companion could feel pain.

  “Lean on me,” I said roughly, pulling it up and wrapping my arm around its waist to support it.

  “If a call for backup did go through, we’re going to have to move quickly.”

  In the seconds it took Geir to finish with the guards, I realized how startlingly close in size and build the Companion and I were.

  I'd always thought of it as a giant, looming over me. And once, almost too long ago to remember, a safe, comforting presence, a bulwark against the dark.

  Geir loped up, the dark smile on his face distracting me from old memories. “I've been wanting to do that for a while. Where do we go next?”

  The Companion rested its arm loosely on my shoulder as we crossed the blood splashed chamber to reach the door.

  Unsurprisingly, it was locked by a palm plate.

  “I don't have Tianna's tablet anymore; how are we going to get in?”

  The Companion placed its hand on the lock. “I have come here often. The guards were used to me, but your presence would have been difficult to explain.”

  I glanced back at the bodies of the guards.

  It was hard to feel sympathy for them. They'd been part of father's loyal cadre, his weapons against the rest of the compound.

  But I felt something. They were dead simply because we would've been difficult to explain.

  The door slid back, drawing my attention back to what lay ahead.

  The Companion stepped through without waiting for us.

  “I have brought them, as you requested. Now you will finish helping me?”

  “Of course, child, I always pay my debts.”

  An old woman's voice, hoarse and cracked. Not one I recognized, but Geir stood rooted to the floor, for the first time I'd seen him completely at a loss.

  “What is it?” I whispered, ready to run, hide from whatever horror the room concealed.

  But he didn't hear me, just stepped into the room, eyes wide and staring.

  “Doc?”

  A vast laboratory. Vials and beakers, consoles. Row upon row of giant tanks.

  But nothing seemed to be running. The tanks sat empty, disused, and a light film of dust covered it all.

  This wasn’t what I’d searched for, the laboratory where I’d been made.

  Geir stopped, facing a tiny, elderly woman. Her head barely came to his chest, her hands pressed into the cheeks of her wrinkled lined face and her eyes shone with a film of tears.

  “Oh, my brilliant boys. I didn't believe him when he said he'd captured you.”

  “You were dead.” His words echoed softly through the room.

  “No.” She stepped forward, but he stepped back, maintaining the distance between them. “It was a failed body from an old experiment, one I'd kept in reserve for years, in case I need to throw someone off the scent.” She dashed away a rogue tear. “But like everything else lately, it didn’t do me any good. The Hunters found my hiding space, and all my decoy achieved was to make sure you boys didn’t come after me.”

  She thrust her hands into the pockets of her coat. “I was content with that, thought you'd all stay safe.”

  Geir’s laugh was more of a bark. I went to his side, wrapped his icy hand with both of mine. Whoever this woman was, it was killing him to see her here.

  “Safe. We’re a long way from safe, Doc. But I don't even care about any of that right now. I want to know what you had to do with this.”

  The old woman frowned. “Had to do with this? I took jobs for Melchior from time to time. His scientists and I collaborated on some projects. Knew he was always looking for gene shapers.”

  “Did you build the Hunters?” The low threat under Geir’s words raised prickles up my neck.

  “Course I didn't, sloppy work.”

  “Did you clone Valrea?” he hissed. “Have anything to do with what they've done to her?”

  “No.” Her keen eyes flashed between us as she shook her head. “I knew nothing about it. Could've told him it wouldn’t work.”

  “And it was wrong,” Geir insisted.

  The Companion stepped forward. “You do not understand. She is helping.”

  “Helping who? How?” This woman looked just as much of a prisoner as I had ever been.

  “Helping me.” The Companion raised its hands to its covering dome.

  “Sure that’s a good idea?” The old
woman questioned but she hurried around to the Companion’s side to assist anyway.

  “She needs to understand.”

  The release of the seal sounded like a sigh, and slowly Doc exposed the Companion's face.

  One bright eye regarded me warily, the other lost in a mass of scars.

  Shaved russet hair. A face, though distorted by pain and age, was still recognizable.

  Mine.

  “You always asked why you were being punished,” the woman said as I clung to Geir’s arm for support, my knees suddenly weak.

  “I couldn't answer before, the compulsions our father programmed into me were too strong.”

  The Companion turned slightly so I could see the wires leading in and out from the back of her shaved head, running down into a long thin shell that still clung to her spine like an obscenely large beetle.

  “Doc has been helping.”

  “It was a crappy job.” The old woman glanced up at Geir. “And it was ethically wrong. Never thought you'd hear me say that, did you?”

  Her words were a distant murmur as I stared at the Companion, transfixed.

  “Your punishments weren't for you,” she continued. “He only thought of it as how they would wound me more.”

  “I don't understand. I was there,” I cried. “They happened to me.”

  She closed her eye and I was grateful to be relieved of its ruined gaze.

  “I know. But he didn't think of it that way. He knew every time you, any of our sisters were hurt, it hurt me. And he knew I could do nothing to stop it. Could do nothing to warn you, nothing to save you.”

  Her fists clenched. “You had to find your own way out.”

  “That's why you gave her the stories, isn't it?” Geir asked.

  I looked up at him, shocked. “The fairytales?”

  “I am glad your prince can do more than just fight,” the Companion answered. “I wanted you to look for allies. To know your own strength. To know someone was always watching out for you, even when you couldn't see them. Even when it seemed like you were alone and lost. Our father thought it was nonsense, just a teaching tool.”

  Warmth cracked my chest, loosening the steel grip of my breath. “What was - no - what is your name?”

  “I was the first Valrea, of course. But why don't you call me Rhea instead?” It's lips - her lips - twisted into a hopeful smile. “If you'd like to.”