by Eliza Green
She’d replied, ‘Your offer’s starting to look more tempting by the day.’
He’d taken her reply as sign she’d wanted an alliance. He was only asking for what she’d promised him.
So why did he feel so shitty about it?
6
Warren
The music thumped and the clock ticked back from twenty minutes. The fifth floor was a change of pace to the fourth. For one, Warren had an Electro Gun and was supposed to shoot as many black discs as possible with it. His efforts with Anya where she’d rebuked his advances had amounted to nothing in the end. At 3am the next morning, the scoreboard showed he’d lost points, not gained them. But that didn’t matter because the supervisor rotated everyone who had points. That excluded a few on negative scores, but Warren didn’t know any of those left behind.
Warren held his Electro Gun close to his chest as he navigated the fifth-floor maze. He checked the blue vein on the side of his gun that showed a full charge.
He had no game plan other than to run a lap of the entire space within the time allocated. He should be able to find all the black discs that way. The others were on similar solo runs. He heard several shots being fired off, their crackle muted by the heavy base of the music.
The timing of rotation had become inconsistent. It was thirty days when he’d been on the ground floor, slightly less on the first. But he’d spent no more than a few days on both the second and fourth floor. That made it unclear as to when they might call rotation. So his efforts had to count. Dom Pavesi was his competition.
He put thoughts of Lilly and Ash falling to their deaths out of his mind. The others were encased in a similar shock bubble. The immediate start to the game had delayed whatever reaction they might have to the event on the walkway moments ago. Lilly had shot Ash enough times to unsteady him and send him over the edge. Then Lilly had jumped. Warren had spent time drinking with Ash last night. The shock of his death should have hit him first. But Compliance kept his feelings in check. The look in Ash’s eye, the dark conversation they’d had last night made sense to him. Ash had forced himself on Lilly. And judging by his scores on the board ten minutes ago, he’d been successful in his attempts. What the others didn’t know was how much Ash had regretted his actions.
The maze changed the more Warren learned the layout. The wall shifted; sometimes it blocked his route, other times it opened up a new one. He placed his hand on it and determined it was organic in nature. With the clock ticking, he’d need to move fast to find more discs than Dom. More shots rang out. The thumping music soothed him, blocking out any feelings of shame he still had over his behaviour with Anya last night.
He didn’t realise how rough he’d been with Anya until he saw her nursing her arm in the changing room. Sheila and June had surrounded her like a couple of attack dogs. He hadn’t meant to reopen her wound, or to have her hate him. But what’s done was done. The droning music had a chaotic quality that fuelled Warren. He pushed on to complete Arcis’ latest game.
He had just fired off another shot when the music stopped and the walls retracted into the floor. Anya was close by. Dom was further off to his left. The supervisor updated the participants on the scores. Dom had won that round.
Smug bastard.
It was still the middle of the night. They settled in their dorm; boys on one side, girls on the other. Warren kept his distance, keen not to draw attention to his behaviour on the fourth floor. As he pulled a pair of pyjamas out of his backpack, Anya glanced over. He tried to catch her eye, to pass on his apology, but she looked away too fast. Sheila and Yasmin stared at him until he focused on his backpack once more. He’d noticed the little cliques that were forming. It had started on the ground floor: June with Tahlia, Frank with Jerome. It was supposed to be him and Anya. The people may be different but the strategy was the same. And Warren was once again on the outside of this new clique. He flung his pyjama bottoms away to the end of his bed and lay down. Closing his eyes, he thought about his plan to reach the ninth floor.
The Compliance in his system made it easy to switch off his emotions. He still felt everything he was supposed to, but in shorter measures. The group made plans without him. He felt angry about it, but a little concentration and he could push it away.
Ash came to mind. He lamented the loss of a possible friend.
His parents had warned him about the dangers of getting attached to places or people. His mother had worked as a teacher in Oakenfield. It wasn’t a great-paying job, but she’d seemed to like it for the most part. His father, a farmer, had adopted many of Praesidium’s ideas and tech in accelerating plant growth. But it had always felt like Jean and Philip Hunt were biding their time, waiting for something better to come along.
Warren had spent his childhood in restless fear. It made growing up difficult, not knowing if he should bother making friends in any one place. Not knowing if his parents would be there when he woke up the next morning.
Then, one day, they weren’t. The note they’d left explained their decision to leave him behind. One sentence stood out from the rest.
You’re not ready to see what we have to show you.
See what, exactly? He had taken the note and set it on fire. Then he’d carried on and tried to forget he ever had parents. Warren had seen this day coming. He just hadn’t prepared for it. His plan to forget had worked for the most part, until he ran out of food after a month and got caught stealing bread by one of the townspeople. That had been a year ago. But he’d been old enough to live by himself. Without parents.
He tuned in to the discussion in the room, about tactics. His skin bristled at their exclusion of him.
‘So how did you know to shoot the wall?’ said Jerome.
‘Uh?’ said Anya.
‘The wall. You said it was organic.’
‘I put my hand on it and it didn’t feel like a real wall. I was getting turned around so much it felt like the maze was closing me in.’
‘And it did, eventually,’ said Jerome.
If anyone had bothered to ask Warren, he could have told them he’d already figured that out. Probably before Anya. He kept his eyes closed and pretended to sleep. He opened one eye and saw people rallying around Anya. Irritation made sleep impossible. He’d been Anya’s only friend on the ground floor. Now everyone was pretending to be her friend.
‘So, Dom has earned the most points,’ said Jerome. ‘I guess we keep playing until we have a winner. How many rounds, do you think?’
‘Until we pass their test,’ said Dom.
Warren looked over at Jerome. With Frank gone, he was his best bet to get out of there. He needed someone to have his back, not to stick a knife in it. He closed his eyes again.
‘I like Anya’s idea of blasting the walls. How many blasts do we get per gun?’ said Jerome.
‘Fourteen discs, so fourteen shots each,’ said Dom.
‘Can’t we split into teams?’ said June. ‘We can each take turns to blast the wall, then the disc. The supervisor said we could do it any way we liked.’
‘There needs to be a winner.’ Even Yasmin was getting in on the conversation.
‘Why do we need a winner?’ Sheila asked. ‘Why can’t we all finish on the same score and rotate together?’
‘Okay, that’s possible.’ June added her two cents. ‘But there are thirteen of us. How do we split the teams?’
‘Warren’s with Sheila and me,’ said Yasmin. His eyes shot open and he saw Yasmin staring at him.
No. Nope. No way. Yasmin had tried to stick the blame for what happened to Tahlia on him. He would decide his own strategy.
‘We need the girls to split up, so it’s even,’ said Dom. ‘The boys are better at navigating the maze.’
The others split the remaining teams without Warren’s input.
‘Okay, so the strategy is for all of us to finish on the same score,’ said June.
That’s when Warren tuned out. He left on his sweaty clothes and climbed under the covers. The
y could plan and scheme all they wanted while he played the game his way.
Compliance made it too easy to push people away. Life in Arcis was no different to his life in Oakenfield. He cared little, expected even less, and trusted nobody. All that mattered now was locating the place he believed his parents had gone to; a place they’d said existed beyond Praesidium’s control.
And when he got there, he would find his parents and destroy their lives like they’d destroyed his.
7
Warren
Warren’s strategy to win on the fifth floor had worked, although he’d paid the price for it with two Electro Gun blasts to the body. Nine of them had rotated after the second run through the maze. They skipped the sixth floor.
Warren hobbled across the seventh-floor walkway. At first he was angry at Anya for shooting him, but it had been worth it to ditch Sheila and Yasmin, who had been trying to impede his progress. But he also knew Anya had shot him for a different reason. Guilt made him feel sick. He deserved her anger. But she didn’t understand how desperate he’d been, what was at stake if he couldn’t rotate.
Maybe you should have tried talking to her first.
It was all June’s fault. She’d acted like a bitch, scuppering his chance to earn points. If she’d helped like she was supposed to, he wouldn’t have needed Anya.
Warren looked around the room that held dozens of what looked like dentists’ chairs with screens. Twelve participants in total had made it to the seventh floor; nine from the fifth floor and three from the sixth. Warren and Jerome were on one side of the room with two boys from the fifth floor and a boy and girl from the sixth floor. June, Yasmin, Sheila, Dom, Anya and the last boy from the sixth floor were on the other side. He felt how far the division went between the groups.
Guilt made him want to bridge that gap, to explain his actions to Anya. Maybe if she understood his need to rotate, she wouldn’t hate him so much. He’d become the narrow-minded person his parents had warned him he was.
‘You’re too rigid in your thinking, son.’ His father had just told Warren about the Beyond. But Warren had seen no proof of any place existing beyond the towns or Praesidium. ‘You believe this small-minded town to be your happy ever after. Well, it’s not. This world has gone to hell and nobody has a clue. Praesidium has made sure of that. Your ignorance will be your undoing. Your mother and I have tried to explain the difference between reality and this fantasy world we live in, and you refuse to listen.’
‘That’s because you won’t tell me what I’m missing!’ said Warren. ‘If you’d actually say what it is you think exists elsewhere, then maybe I’d believe you. Or even better, why not show me?’
His father shook his head. ‘Because once I do, there’s no coming back to here, to your friends. You understand? It’s a one way trip.’
That got Warren’s back up, and he stormed off. ‘Then don’t show me. I don’t care.’
A week later, his parents had left him and he’d found their note.
Anya stood off to the side of the chairs, away from the others, but more important, away from Dom. Warren’s feelings of remorse hit him stronger now than they had last night. Maybe he’d become immune to Compliance’s dulling effects. He marched over to her before the tests began, and before Dom noticed.
‘Anya. Please. I need to talk to you.’
Her eyes widened and she backed away. ‘Don’t come any closer.’
Dom got between them and stuck his hand on Warren’s chest.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ said Dom.
‘Get out of my way, Pavesi. I need to speak—’
‘If you take another step towards her, I’ll do more than just punch you.’
‘Anya, I’m sorry. I just want to explain—’
She looked so frightened. ‘No, Warren. Leave me alone.’
Dom pushed him back. ‘You heard her.’
Warren let out a frustrated yell and muttered, ‘Asshole,’ as he walked away.
He stalked back to his chair and sat in it, hard. The female supervisor attached two white circles of fabric to the sides of his head. She explained that when a question popped up on screen, he should press the blue button on screen and think his response.
As the supervisor tended to the others, Warren’s anger gave way to strategy. How should he play this game? What questions would Arcis ask? Should he answer truthfully? He had no clue what Arcis needed from them.
The questions were basic to begin with, what his favourite colour was, what he liked about school, and he opted for the truth. A short film played, showing a mother in hospital tending to two sick children. The question was, ‘Who would you save?’
Warren answered.
Let the baby and child die. They shouldn’t have to live in this crappy world with a selfish mother.
He looked over at Anya who concentrated on her screen. Dom glanced at her when she wasn’t looking.
Warren glared at Dom. He’d shouted at him, made a fool of him in front of everyone. Who the hell did he think he was? He would find some way to make him pay. Maybe not now, but soon. His parents had taught him to act tough even when he didn’t feel it, to gain the upper hand in awkward situations. Their advice had worked, especially after they had left to join the rebellion. That was also in their note.
We’ve gone to offer our help to one of the rebellion factions. We are close to finding the place known only as the Beyond. We would have taken you with us but last night proved you’re not ready to see what we have to show you. You’re too soft, Warren. You’re not strong enough to handle the truth of what lies beyond Praesidium’s control. You’ll be safer here, in the towns. When we reach the Beyond and figure out how to destroy this place, we’ll come back for you. Survive. Be tough. Don’t let anyone break you. Burn this note after you’ve read it.
After reading the note, Warren had almost told others in Oakenfield that his parents were rebel supporters. But he’d followed his parents’ advice and burned the evidence.
Tough. Unbreakable. That’s who Warren had to be to survive in this world. He hated the rebellion; its very existence was why he was alone. If there was a rebel in the room right now, he’d kill him or her.
In a way, Warren was a rebel of a different kind.
Anya gasped suddenly and he looked over at her. She tugged the dots free from her head and bolted from her chair towards the dorm. Dom followed her just as the supervisor came into the room and told everyone to take a break.
Warren peeled the white dots off his head and got out of the chair. In the dining hall, he got food and a bottle of water and looked around the room. There was still time to make new alliances. Jerome sat alone while the two boys from Jerome’s old team on the fifth floor and the two boys and girl from the sixth floor chatted with each other.
Perfect.
He slid into the seat next to him. ‘Hey, how are you doing, you know, after Frank?’
Jerome looked up at him. His eyes were a little brighter than before. ‘I haven’t had much time to process it. I’m grateful we’ve been kept busy.’
Warren drank some water. ‘So, you ready to get out of this place?’
‘Yeah, I can’t stand being here any more. It’s getting to me.’
‘I was hoping you’d say that. We should consider pairing up, strategise a little? I know you and Frank were tight on the floors below, but I can be a good replacement for Frank.’ He tried to look contrite. ‘Sorry to be so insensitive.’
Jerome smiled. ‘Yeah, Warren. It’s cool. I don’t think you’re being insensitive. And I was thinking the same thing about pairing up, if I’m being honest. Hey, what’s going on with you and Anya?’
Warren rubbed the back of his neck. ‘A misunderstanding. She was supposed to be my buddy in here, but she changed her mind.’
Jerome scooped some egg into his mouth. ‘It’s none of my business. This place has made everyone crazy. I’m sure you’ll sort it out when we finish the programme.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Everything will be fine once we leave here.’
Jerome poked him in the arm. ‘And I saw how Sheila and Yasmin have been with you. I’m not on board with that cliquey shit. Just so you know.’
Warren shrugged. ‘That’s girls for you, right?’ He tipped back his bottle of water.
Jerome laughed a little. ‘Yeah. I hated how they went on sometimes at my school.’ He leaned closer. ‘Hey, what happened to your parents, anyway?’
Warren swallowed too much water and coughed.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring it up. It’s just that Tahlia said—’
‘Tahlia never could mind her own business.’
Jerome held up his hands. ‘Sorry, man. None of my business, either.’
Warren considered telling him straight. It might build a little trust between them.
‘Nah, it’s okay. They left. I woke up one morning and they were gone.’
‘What, no note?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Sorry. That’s rough.’
Warren shook off his irritation. ‘What about you?’
Jerome ruffled his short hair. ‘Yeah, my parents died a long time ago. I went to live with Frank’s uncle. That part you know. Nothing more to tell, really.’
‘No brothers or sisters?’
‘Only child. Frank was like a brother to me.’
‘Sorry.’
Jerome shrugged. ‘No biggie. My story’s a little bland in comparison to everyone else’s. Sometimes I think I should make up something just to fit in.’
‘Nah, bland works just fine.’
The supervisor came to get them and the tests resumed in the next room. Anya returned to her seat looking more composed than before.
The second round of questions started off more specific than the first round. Nothing too personal. Warren answered them honestly.