by Ben Oliver
All right, I think, I’m still here. Still sane as far as I can tell. Time to die.
The water rushes in, and I’m not scared. Instead I’m relieved. All of this will soon be over.
I brace myself as the water fills the tube. And then I do it; I exhale until it feels like my lungs are folding in on themselves and I sink to the bottom.
Through the clear water, I see my cell door open.
No, too soon, I think. The guard isn’t supposed to come in until after the water has drained.
Two figures slip into my cell and my fractured mind makes me see them as Pander and Kina.
Somehow I find an extra millimeter of breath in my burning lungs and I laugh again, embracing the madness.
What if it’s real? a voice from the final reserves of hope asks.
It’s not. It’s not real.
But what if it is?
The Pander mirage raises a long-handled ax over her shoulder, and I have time to think, What is she going to do with that? before she swings it hard and fast at the harvest tube.
The glass spiderwebs under the blow. I watch the cracks fragment and join other fractures, and I think I understand; I think this is my insanity manifesting itself into a delusion, the cracks in the glass are the cracks in my—
Pander swings again and this time the ax pierces the glass. I feel the pull of the water forcing its way out.
One more swing and the tube is destroyed completely.
I gasp in air as the water tumbles around me. Small shards of the destroyed tube have dug into my face and my bare chest and I laugh again, exhausted and oxygen-starved.
“Luka, get your shit together!” the Pander delusion commands. And this just makes me laugh harder.
“You’re not real,” I tell her, looking up into her face, seeing the white symbols tattooed onto her black skin. Her deep blue eyes stare at me.
“Shit, we’re too late,” the hallucination says, turning to the Kina mirage.
“Luka, get up, we have to go, now!” Kina says.
I laugh again. There is no doubt in my mind that I have finally let go of my grip on reality. I have finally let go of hope, and this is where I have fallen to.
“All right, all right,” I say, turning onto my back, feeling more glass slide into my skin. “I’ll play along. Where are we going?”
“We’re getting you out of here, crazy,” the imaginary Kina says as she bends down and grabs my arm.
And when her fingers touch my wrist, I know what’s happening, I know that this isn’t real, it can’t be real. I haven’t lost my mind either, though. This is just another attempt by Happy to extract information.
“I’m not falling for it,” I mutter, pulling my hand away from Kina.
“Luka, this is real. We have to move, now.”
I push myself to my feet and hobble over to my bed, resting on the edge of the frame. “Yeah, sure,” I say. “You’ve gotten better at the whole dialogue thing, Happy, I’ll give you that, but I’m not stupid.”
It’s more than that, though; there are little details in this simulation, like Pander wearing a Block uniform as part of her infiltration into the prison, and the mixed look of panic and excitement in Kina’s eyes. I begin to pick bits of glass out of my hands and I watch the tiny wounds heal themselves. Suddenly, Pander is in front of me and I realize that she’s not wearing glasses—Happy’s got that wrong—then I see her fist plunging toward my face. It connects with my eye socket.
“Fuck!” I cry as the pain shakes through me.
“We don’t have time for your shit, idiot. Now get up.”
“All right, all right,” I say, rubbing my eye. “But I’m still not telling you anything.”
I stand up, thinking that the aggressive simulation certainly seems a lot like Pander, and then Kina takes my hands. “Luka, this is real, this is not Happy trying to extract information, this is not the Sane Zone. This is happening.”
“Yeah, you would say that,” I mutter.
Kina’s eyes search mine. It hurts too much to look back, so I concentrate on the glass in my arms.
“The first time we ever spoke,” Kina says, “you gave me a book, The Call of the Wild. I thought it was great, but the best one was Never Let Me Go; I loved that book, and a part of me wondered if I was falling in love with you just because you had been so kind to me.”
I stop focusing on the healing wounds of my arms and look up into those beautiful dark eyes. There is silence between us for a moment.
“Don’t do this to me,” I say, my voice cracking. “Don’t make me believe that this is real and then break my heart. I can’t do it again.”
“The first time we met face-to-face,” Kina continues, pulling me to my feet, “was on the station platform while we waited for the Dark Train to take us to a Delay. The guard forgot to close the hatch. It was the first time I had laughed since being imprisoned in the Loop.”
“Can you two hurry this up? We’re on the clock here!” Pander calls from the doorway.
“And the first time we kissed was right out there,” she says, pointing to the corridor outside my room. “That was when I knew I really liked you.”
I look at her, and I dare to believe that maybe I haven’t gone insane. This time I kiss her. And when our lips touch, I know, beyond a doubt, that this is real.
“Romeo, Juliet, enough of the rom-com shit. Let’s move, right now!” Pander hisses at us.
I look to Pander. She looks older than her thirteen years. The hardships she has been through and the horrors she has seen show in her eyes. She has the ax in one hand and a USW rifle in the other. She reaches into the bag on her back and throws a hat and a jumpsuit at me.
“Put these on. I’m already sick of your gross body.”
“Gross?” I say, looking down at my nakedness.
“I don’t like dudes,” she says. “Why am I explaining this? Hurry up!”
I look at the white prison uniform and for a second I’m transported back to my first day in the Loop. I shake it off and climb into the garment. I then pull the hat low over my forehead to hide the Panoptic, a tiny pinhole camera embedded there.
“Okay,” I say, feeling the tide of insanity begin to subside from my mind, “we need to get Woods, Malachai, and Wren,” I say.
Pander shakes her head. “No, we’re getting out of here, now.”
“What are you talking about?” I demand. “We’re not leaving without them.”
“Yes, we are,” Pander says, peeking her head out of my cell and looking both ways along the walkway.
“I’m not leaving them behind!” I tell her, stepping forward on still shaking legs.
“Luka,” Kina says, reaching out a hand to touch my own, “Malachai and Woods aren’t here.”
“What?” I ask. “What do you mean they’re not here?”
“Their cells are empty. They’re gone.”
I stare at Kina for a long time, trying to work out what her words mean. “Are they dead?”
“We don’t know,” Pander says. “All we know is they were transported out of the Block two days ago. That’s why we decided to come in early for you and Kina.”
I breathe heavily, trying to fight back against the tears that are climbing toward my eyes. “And Wren?” I ask, turning to Pander.
“Luka, the only reason you and Kina have any semblance of sanity left is because of the healing tech inside you, and the Sane Zone.”
“Surely Wren has had the Sane Zone too,” I say.
Pander shakes her head. “She doesn’t have your healing capabilities and they weren’t willing to give her the procedure. She was just a short-term source of energy for them.”
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“Wren will have lost her mind a month ago. The kindest thing we can do is kill her,” Pander says, throwing the ax onto my bed and checking the display on her USW rifle.
“No,” I say, pushing past Kina and then Pander.
I limp along the metal walkway,
not caring about guards, about cameras, about the noise I’m making as I begin to run to Wren’s cell. I pass a tied and gagged guard lying unconscious on the floor.
Malachai and Woods were taken away. Why? To be executed? Did they lose their minds and become useless to Happy? I shake my head hard against the pain of it.
I reach Wren’s cell and pull at the handle. It doesn’t budge.
I turn to see Pander and Kina moving silently toward me.
“Open it!” I demand, glaring at Pander.
“Luka, there’s no—”
“Open the fucking cell, Pander!”
She sighs and leans down until her eye is beside the scanner. Somehow it works and the door lock clicks.
I open it and step inside.
Wren is lying paralyzed on her bed. In the seven weeks that she has been in this place she has wasted away to skin and bone. It’s hard to recognize the beautiful Alt I was infatuated with during my time in the Loop. My eyes move to her right shoulder, the space where her arm used to be before it was severed by the automatic hatch in my old cell door. I move quickly, pulling the needles out of her body and then lifting her until she is free of the paralysis.
She gasps as I carry her toward the door, her eyes open in wide, glaring horror, and she begins to scream.
“No! No! No!” Wren cries, over and over again, her voice thick and guttural.
“She’s gone, Luka, we need to shut her up,” Pander says, walking with purpose toward Wren and shouldering the rifle.
“We are not leaving her, and we are not killing her,” I command.
“Look, this hurts me too. Wren was my friend, but this isn’t Wren,” Pander hisses. “She’s going to alert the guards and she’s insane, Luka. This is what she would want.”
“We can bring her back,” I say.
“Listen, Luka: She’s been a Smiler, had her arm chopped off, been drugged with drone poison, and used as a battery for seven weeks. There’s no coming back from that.”
“This isn’t a debate, Pander!” I yell over Wren’s screams. “She’s coming with us.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Pander mutters, letting the rifle hang by its strap. She holds a finger to an earpiece in her left ear and for the first time I realize she’s not wearing her hearing aids either. She nods, responding to a voice that I can’t hear. “We need to go, now.”
“Okay, all right,” I say, hoisting Wren up until she’s draped over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”
I walk past Pander and Kina and into the hallway. I move toward the staircase that leads down.
“No,” Pander says, grabbing me by the arm. “This way.”
As we begin moving toward the staircase that leads up to the top floor, the lights once again dim and Happy’s voice comes over the speakers while red lights begin to flash. “Escapees on floor three, moving toward floor four. Complete lockdown initiated.”
“What’s the plan?” I ask as we move toward the top floor of the Block, with no means of escape.
“Keep moving,” Pander replies from ahead of me.
I hear the massive doors at the ground-floor level begin to open, and the sound of dozens of running footsteps rise up to meet us. At first they sound solid as the soldiers’ feet hit the concrete of the ground floor, and then they turn into echoing rattles as they connect with the metal of the staircases.
Kina, Pander, and I climb to the top floor. I lay Wren down and try to catch my breath.
“We’re stuck here,” I point out, “there’s nowhere to go! Great plan, Pand—”
There’s no time to finish my sentence—the great glass roof above us shatters, sending enormous shards glittering onto the nets and down to the ground floor.
The building is now an enormous open-roofed atrium. A flying car lowers itself down inside it until it’s parallel with us. I stare openmouthed at the Volta Category 8, the same car (with a few new scratches and dents) that had saved me from certain death on top of the Black Road Vertical, and had crash-landed not long after.
As the last of the glass fragments fall, I see Igby smiling at us from the Volta. He’s even thinner than he was before, making me wonder about how my friends have been surviving out there.
“How’s things?” he asks, nodding at Kina.
“Not too bad. You?” she replies.
“Eh, fuck it, you know, could be worse,” he says, and then turns his attention to me. “Luka, long time no see.”
Igby’s pantomime is cut short by USW rounds zipping up from below, slamming into the metal of the staircase and the underside of the car.
“Do not kill them,” an emotionless host instructs from below. “We may need spares.”
“Go, go, go!” Pander calls, shoving Kina toward the vehicle.
Kina climbs up onto the railing and leaps into the back of the Volta 8; still weak from the harvest, she barely makes it inside. Pander takes Wren from me and goes next, passing the still-screaming girl to Kina, who drags her inside.
I follow Pander, climbing up onto the railing just as Kina did. I gauge the distance between myself and the car and propel myself forward, forcing the haggard muscles in my legs to work, but something is wrong. I feel an impact in the calf of my right leg at the same time as I hear the USW round screeching through the air. The ultrasonic wave enters my skin, distorting and tearing through muscle and meat, into my shin bone. I cry out in pain and my forward momentum falls to almost nothing. I feel as though I’m hanging in midair.
My hands windmill in front of me, reaching for the car, then grasping for anything and finding nothing. I’m going to fall. I’ll land in one of the nets and I’ll be taken back to my cell once again.
All of this happens in the space of a second. And just when I know all is lost, a hand wraps around my wrist, gripping me with immense strength.
I look up and see Pod, an expression of grim determination on his face.
“Go!” I hear Pander call, and the car lurches upward into the air, back through the shattered roof.
I look down at my right leg. From below the knee it looks like a sock full of billiard balls. The damage done by the ultrasonic wave hurts like hell.
We exit into the black night air and begin speeding toward the city.
I bite down hard against the pain that emanates up through my knee and into my thigh, and I look up at the millions of stars above us. For a second I forget the agony and the fear, and I’m lost in wonder.
The car takes a steep right turn and I’m brought back to the present.
“Pull me up,” I yell to Pod, who grins back.
“No point,” the enormous, broad-shouldered boy calls back.
“What do you mean?” I ask, feeling the cold air rush around me, pain sparking up my shattered leg. “What if your hand slips?”
“That’s sort of the plan,” Pod says, and then he releases his grip and I’m falling once more.
A sense of disbelief rolls through me, and I have time to think, Happy got to him. Happy uploaded itself into Pod and now he’s killed me.
The logic is flawed, but there’s no time to acknowledge that as I hit water and whoosh deep below the surface.
My broken leg bends the wrong way and I almost black out from the sudden burst of agony.
For a few seconds I don’t know which way is up, and then I’m kicking with my one good leg through the ice-cold water, swimming for the surface.
I break through and gasp in oxygen. All around me my friends burst to the surface too. I look up to the sky and see the taillights of the Volta flying across the city, on and on until it’s no longer visible.
“Shame,” I hear Igby say. “I really liked that car.”
I look around and see Kina, Pander, Igby, and Pod, who is carrying Wren. Wren has fallen silent now, but her eyes move mistrustfully from one of us to the next.
“Come on,” Pod says, rolling onto his back to keep Wren above the water and kicking with his legs.
We follow, making it to the edge of the enormous body o
f water. I have to turn and hoist myself backward onto the banks. I sit there for a minute, watching my leg heal, feeling the pain dissolve away as the bone fragments fuse into place.
“Okay,” Igby breathes, and now that his wet clothes are clinging to his body, I can really see how slim he is. He leans forward with his hands on his knees as water drips from him onto the concrete embankment. “That should buy us some time. Happy’s minions will be searching for that car for the next hour; the autopilot will take them as far away from us as possible.”
“So, you know?” I ask. “About Happy? About how it took over the government, the world? About how it’s uploading itself into human hosts?”
“We know a lot of things,” Igby replies. “Can’t say too much now with your Panoptic working—the cameras might be covered, but the mics still work. I’ll tell you everything we’ve found out later. For now, we need to keep moving.”
“Where the hell are we?” I ask.
“Can’t say,” Pander replies, touching her finger against her forehead.
Pander takes off her jacket and wraps it around Wren, who is shaking from the cold. Clearly she had not intended on saving her, as she did not bring a third jumpsuit for her to wear. She does, however, pull out a hat from her pocket and places it low over Wren’s head, hiding the Panoptic camera.
“We have to keep moving,” Pod says once Wren is ready to go.
We take off again, following the path alongside the lake or reservoir or whatever it is. Pod carries Wren in his arms; her breathing is fast and shallow, and her eyes are still as wide and terrified as before.
We walk, moving quickly and quietly, until we reach a boarded-up old building that looks as though it used to be a place of business once upon a time. Igby walks up to the wooden slats that board the old doorway and knocks three times slow and twice fast.
The boards begin to fall away and Akimi’s face appears in the gap. Her sharp, beautiful features break into a smile and she ushers us inside.
I follow Kina in and look around. The place is a perfectly preserved coffee shop that looks as though it closed for business eighty or ninety years ago. The prices above the counter are still in old-fashioned dollars and cents instead of Coin.