[Blank]
Breathe. I can’t breathe.
Something soft is across my face. Smothering. Soaked in a chemical that coats my throat and makes my mind wander. My hands scrabble for purchase on the slippery material.
Is it a pillow? It must be a pillow.
My nails find skin. Someone’s hands hold the pillow down. Tiny, wrinkled hands. I should be able to dislodge them but the heavy weight on my chest crushes every other thought.
“Get off me.” I waste precious air trying to yell but the material muffles the sound.
Bucking and writhing, I fight to get free. I fight to keep conscious. I fight to win. I know with a sudden certainty that if I lose this fight I’m dead.
The liquid on the pillow makes it hard to focus, makes me think how easy it would be to slip away to the fuzzy place in my thoughts.
“Why isn’t this working?” my assailant mutters.
A woman’s voice, old and stretched with time. I should overpower the owner of such a voice. I attempt to throw her off me, but I’m strapped to the bed with ties across my chest, stomach and hips. My legs are free and I kick out at the voice while my hands search for the skin on the pillow.
I’m not getting anywhere.
Think.
First I need air, and then I’ll worry about escape.
I go still. Completely. Drop my hands. Relax my legs. Freeze the thrashing of my head. My lungs scream for oxygen. My thoughts blur. Black teases the edge of my mind. Despite it all, I play dead. I feel it. A slight movement of the pillow. She thinks she’s won.
My hand snakes out, finds a wrist. I pull down hard, twisting her back and with my last ounce of strength and bring my knees up. Crack. The happy sound of kneecap finding bone is followed by a woman’s cry of pain.
Yes.
The pillow lifts a little and I suck in air, scratching at the material to get it off my face. Then I’m free and gasping. Above me, the skylight’s a black shadow in the darkness. I haven’t been asleep for long. The horrible chemical that almost knocked me out lingers in my mouth. Sweet, sickly and gut-churning.
I fight nausea down and look around. A faint light shines around the door seal but there’s no sign of my assailant. She must be on the floor. I blink, trying to adjust my sight and see deeper into the shadows, while my hands tug uselessly at the straps holding me down.
Scrape. It comes from the floor. The unmistakable sound of someone gathering themselves to stand.
Damn. I hoped I’d hit something vital. Any moment she’ll return, and I’m lying here like dessert on a platter. The straps are tied too well and too tight for me to get up. The weapon I kept by my side is gone. I have to do something
“Megs!” I yell as loud as my aching lungs will let me. “Toby!”
My only hope is that the woman who attacked me works alone. I have to believe that Megs, Keane and Toby had plenty of opportunity to take me down without resorting to sneaking in the night.
“Keane!” I shout again straining my chemically abused vocal chords.
A black shape blocks the light from the doorframe and my gut contracts. She’s up on her feet. What the hell have I done to make this woman want me dead?
There’s the click of the weapon that was within my reach a few hours ago. She swears again. “Why won’t this work?”
I stretch out in the direction of her voice, but she doesn’t move close enough for me to reach. Distance equals time. The more I delay her, the more chance someone will come to check on me. I clear my aching throat. “It’s never going to work.”
She says nothing, but I hear more clicking.
“I said,” I speak louder this time, “the Q is never going to work. Any minute someone will come and you’ll be discovered. Better make a run for it now.” I inject my words with a confidence I don’t feel.
“Better for you, maybe.” There’s frustration in every angry syllable. Frustration I don’t mind. If we’re talking, I’m not dead.
“The weapon’s broken,” I say conversationally. While I speak I’m listening for noise from outside the small room.
“They can’t both be broken.”
So she’s got another Q. It’s a hell of a way to have my immunity to the Q weapon confirmed. “Bad luck. Might as well cut your losses. Even tied down, I’m stronger than you and if I’m not asleep you won’t get close enough with that chemical to knock me out.”
As I speak, I’m picking at the edge of the straps. Somewhere there’s a weakness.
More clicking is her only answer.
“Why the attack anyway? I don’t even know you.” In the silence after I say the words, I hear a familiar step in the hallway outside the room. The drag of the slightest of limps. “Toby!” I scream.
The woman comes at me in a rush. She uses the weapon as a baton, striking over and over again at my head while dodging my attempts to grab hold. I’m hit square on the nose and my eyes tear up. So it’s with blurred vision that I see the door swing open and the light come on.
Toby’s jaw actually drops. “Eliza, what are you doing?”
The woman spins to face the doorway, hunching over. To appear small and weak, I guess. “He attacked me,” she says with a quaver in her voice.
Toby’s gaze swings from me tied up on the bed to the weapon in the older woman’s hand. “Keane will have to sort this out.” He unhooks a device from his belt and waits before speaking into it. “Problems with our guest.”
With me? More like problems with a crazy old woman on the loose. I’m in no position to defend myself. “Can you at least untie me?”
Toby shakes his head but there’s sympathy in his gaze. “Keane won’t be long.”
When I wipe my watering eyes, my hand comes away bloody. One of the woman’s blows must have opened the cut above my eye from the game. I move to get comfortable and a stab of pain from my leg reminds me of the burn. Once I notice, it’s all I focus on.
I force myself to breathe slow and deep. My teeth come together and my jaw locks. Showing these people my agony isn’t an option.
Don’t think about the pain.
I switch my focus to my attacker. The old woman, Toby called her Eliza, is lean and fit despite her deeply-lined skin and her attempts at frailty. Black pants and a black sweater combine with a tight black beanie over fine white hair. She’s dressed for the shadows and armed with both a Q and the chemically drenched pillow. Whatever this attack on me was, she planned it carefully.
Why? Did I do something before I was Blank, in the time before I remember? I try to catch her gaze but she stares at the door, arms folded, preparing her story for Keane I bet. It better be a good one. He’s not stupid. It’s clear who initiated this. The wait drags on until the tension holding Toby stiff in the doorway relaxes. Keane walks through the door a second later.
He takes in the situation at a glance.
I open my mouth but he silences me with a raised hand. Then he turns to the older woman. “Eliza, explain what happened here tonight.”
“Oh, Keane, I‘m so glad you’re here. He attacked me. I was checking on him like you requested and he lashed out. What could I do but defend myself?” As she speaks her hands wrap around each other. Over and around. Over and around. They whisper a sound like two pieces of paper rubbing together.
Keane says nothing, just watches her steadily. Seconds pass and become a minute.
His silence bothers Eliza. The movement of her hands becomes feverish. Her eyes dart from Keane to me and back and her wrinkled cheeks flush. When she shrinks before my eyes it’s no act. Her mouth opens and closes but no sounds come out.
Still, Keane waits.
I shift on the bed, to avoid the straps cutting into me. It would be nice if someone would set me free, but I sense Keane’s making a point about exactly who the victim is here. And the demonstration isn’t aimed at me.
“You don’t know anything about this stranger,” Eliza says eventually.
Keane nods. “Do you?”
“I know he doesn’t belong here.”
“The solution was to drug him in his sleep, tie him up, and Q him.”
“But—”
Keane steps toward her. “Blank’s here as my guest.”
Her head drops, but not before I see anger blazing in her pale blue eyes. “You’re going to take his word over mine?”
“I’m looking at the evidence.” He picks up the pillow, sniffs. “You came in here with a chloroform-soaked pillow and a weapon. I didn’t request you check on him. Every word you’ve said is a lie. Blank didn’t attack you. What I want to know is why you attacked him?”
The glare she gives me is deadly and I see the other side of her face. A purple bruise forms just beneath her ear from the contact with my knee. She sighs. “He’s a spy for the Company.”
Keane looks to me. “Are you?”
It’s a good question. I can’t ignore the possibility that I was sent here to cause trouble. Not when my past is a mystery. “I don’t know.”
He flashes a smile. “At least you’re honest.” Then he turns to Toby. “Take Eliza to the holding cells. She can’t be trusted.”
“No,” she cries. She fumbles for the weapon and aims it at Toby while stepping sideways toward the door. “You won’t take me anywhere.”
“It’s broken, remember?” I pipe up in the hope she won’t test it on the old sentry. At my reminder, she glances down at the black shape in her hands.
Toby lashes out with a roundhouse kick. Surprisingly fluid considering his limp. The weapon falls to the floor. In one movement he grabs her and twists her arm up behind her back until she moans. With her neutralized, he removes the second weapon and marches her out the door, throwing me a grateful grin on his way out. Then I’m left alone with Keane.
He picks up the Q from where it fell on the floor, looks at it a moment, and then throws it to land next to me on the bed. “It’s not broken is it?”
I become very aware I’m still tied down. My original relief at being believed evaporates as fast as the sweat forms at my temples. “No, it’s not.”
“That fits with Megs’ report of you taking a hit at the warehouse and Janic’s earlier story.”
He draws another Q from his pocket and flicks the safety off. “I need to be sure.”
“You’re going to shoot me?”
“Yes.” In three steps he’s standing over me on the bed. “I’ll aim for your hand though. I’m not inhuman.”
“And the straps?”
“It’d be a shame to waste Eliza’s effort. This way you won’t move and cause me to miss the target.”
I nod but my mouth dries. Despite my experience so far of being safe from the weapon, it’s not easy to be told someone intends to shoot you point-blank.
Keane holds my wrist down on the bed, firm but not painful. With the Q positioned over the palm of my hand he meets my gaze. “Ready.”
I catch myself from another nod. It takes all my will to keep my hand steady and speak at the same time. “Yes.”
Without hesitation he presses the small button. I feel the familiar tickle on my skin but no pain. A faint, round, green discoloration forms on my palm’s surface.
He shakes his head slowly. “That didn’t hurt?”
“Not at all.”
Stubby fingers press at the mark. “Do you know how it works?”
“No.”
“The technology for the Q apparently came from the Upheaval itself. Alien technology.” He says it with a sneer. “Tell me everything you know about the Upheaval.”
I search my memories of the worldwide disaster. “Depending on whom you believe, the earthquakes and tsunamis were a result of a terrible, natural chain reaction or alien intervention.”
“What do you think?”
I catch myself from saying I don’t know. I dig through the memories I’ve been left with. “My memory says aliens.” I hear the surprise in my voice. I take a guess, “You don’t think the aliens are real?”
“I think humans have done plenty to cause nature to reach a breaking point.” He shrugs. “There are no aliens here now.”
I have enough problems in my own head to worry about aliens. Like these learned memories someone or something put in my brain. “Does the government say they’re coming back?”
“It’s one of the Company’s lines. Anyway.” he gestures to the weapon. “Using laser-like theory, it’s been tuned to the wavelength of the vibrations of the molecules it targets. Bone, skin, blood whatever. The breaking of those bonds in isolation is incredibly painful. And selective.” Keane runs a hand through his hair. “Why not you?”
“I don’t know. Can you release me now?”
He reaches beneath the bed and the straps across my chest loosen. “Here.” He drags a rag from his pocket and throws it at me. “For your head.”
My muscles protest the movement as I ease to a sit, slumping against the wall. The cloth comes away bloody when I wipe my brow.
Megs taps on the open door still wearing the clothes from the warehouse. “Did I miss the party?”
I’m stupidly happy to see her but play it cool. “Seems killing the stranger is the fun thing to do.”
“Sorry I wasn’t here.”
“Me too.”
Keane clears his throat. Funny, I’d almost forgotten he was here. “We were just testing to see whether the weapon works on Blank.”
Meg crosses to stand next to Keane. “Does it?”
I hold up my hand for her to see. The green mark hasn’t faded. When I lift my top there’s a similar mark on my side where Janic aimed yesterday. Megs prods at the mark, her touch sends a whole other kind of tingle through my skin. The muscles in my belly tighten and she lingers a second before removing her hand. “It really doesn’t hurt?”
“Really,” I squeak, sliding my top back down and adjusting the way I sit. My ears are burning and I don’t meet Megs’ or Keane’s gaze. “What now?”
“We need some answers. First, why do you think Eliza attacked you?”
“I don’t—”
“Think.”
My heart rate is slowly returning to normal and with the fumes from the pillow dispersing through the open door, I’m thinking a little clearer. An image springs to my mind. Not Eliza all in black and on a murderous mission but something else. Sometime else.
“I’ve seen her before. I’m sure of it,” I say slowly. Keane waits as I mentally scan back through the events of the day before. It’s not like I have a heap of memories to go through.
She wasn’t at the warehouse or the gaming bar. Was it the market? There were dozens of people there and I’m sure the green robes are associated with the market but…No.
It hits me.
“She was in the garden when I woke yesterday morning. My earliest memory.”
“What garden?” asks Megs.
I describe the slice of green in what’s otherwise been a mass of broken concrete, dirt and mud. “I was naked and the old woman, Eliza, looked horrified. I ran for cover, assuming she was passing through, but what if she had something to do with the wiping of my memories?”
“Eliza,” repeats Keane. He doesn’t discard the possibility out of hand. A frown marks his brow and I imagine he’s turning the idea over in his mind with what he knows of Eliza. “Maybe.”
Now that I’ve started thinking I can’t stop, the words tumble out. “It would make sense. She wouldn’t want to be discovered, and it might lead to an unprovoked attack when word spread through the station that a stranger had arrived.”
“She’s been a bit secretive lately,” adds Megs.
“Maybe,” says Keane. “I’ve known Eliza for a long time.”
It’s a warning. I wouldn’t want to make accusations without proof. “I need my memories.”
“Yes.” He stands and looks down at me as though he’s come to a decision. “I think I can help you out.”
It can’t be that simple. “But?”
“I’ve heard of the process where the ‘me’ is taken out of people’s memories. We’ve suspected it’s been happening to green robes who’ve gone into the Company’s New City and never returned.”
“Can you reverse it?”
His mouth curves but it’s more of a grimace than a smile. “We’ve been working on something, but it’s hard to find a willing test subject.”
Me. He’s talking about me trying some untested theoretical process. What do I have to lose? My life. Two days of memories.
My gaze goes to Megs. I don’t want to lose her. I’ve known her for only hours but the thought of wiping from my mind this time with her, the game, even the dash through the streets is scary. Almost sad. It’s all I know.
Finding the answers was never going to be easy. “What are the risks?”
Keane’s arms cross. “Brain damage. Death.”
No.
The instant denial in my brain is all about self-preservation. My head drops into my hands. It’s heavier than ever with the weight of the decision I have to make. Either I hope that I somehow remember on my own, or risk everything to find answers. The pounding in my head makes logic painful.
“I need to think,” I say.
Keane nods. “What do you remember apart from Company propaganda about aliens? The garden where you woke and first saw Eliza, that was just before Janic confronted you?”
“A few minutes.”
“Then what?”
“The game bar, where I met Megs.”
She looks up at last. “Blank was a natural. When I bumped into him after my shift I suggested he come to the warehouse.” Her nose wrinkles. “He thanked me by kicking my butt.”
Keane’s expression doesn’t change. Maybe he’s heard this from someone else who was there. “Then after the raid you brought Janic here.”
“Yes.” But there’s something he doesn’t know. “I wasn’t alone when I woke in the garden. I found a dead boy in the pond.” The nagging guilt expands in my belly.
“Dead by your hand?” Keane barks the question.
“No. I don’t know.”
A pulse ticks in his jaw. “That seems to be your answer for everything.”
I rub at the pounding in my temples. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say you’ll let us do the procedure.” He exhales through gritted teeth. “But I won’t force you. Before you decide you need to see the world you’ve woken into.” Keane points to the skylight. “But that won’t happen until morning.”
“Finally some answers.” Answers, not about me, but the green robes and the Company. I’m too amped up to sleep but at the same time I’m weary. The aftermath of the adrenaline rush from the fight I guess. While my mind’s racing, my body’s glad for the prospect of a few hours rest. “The last time I tried sleeping in this place I nearly died.”
Keane rubs at his jaw. “You have a point.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Megs says.
“Does that work for you?” he asks me.
Does it ever. “Yes.”
He stands. “That’s that then. See you in the morning.”
When the door closes behind Keane I’m not sure where to look. I sneak a glance Megs’ way and the full intensity of her gaze is on me. When she focuses on me, it’s like I’m the only one in her world. It’s a strangely familiar feeling and the nagging guilt makes me shift on the bed. “You don’t have to stay.”
“I want to.” She pauses, twirls a lock of long purple hair between slender fingers. “I promised you’d be safe here.”
I catch her fingers and still them, reveling in the spark it starts beneath my skin. “It’s not your fault.”
“But—”
The brush of my fingers on her soft lips cuts off whatever she was about to say. “You can’t take the blame for the actions of some crazy woman.”
She exhales in a long sigh and then flashes a cheeky grin. “Okay, but your leg must be burning.”
“It is.”
In a graceful movement she rises and crosses the room to pick up the small tube I left on the table. “This the stuff?”
“Yeah, but I could’ve got it.”
She returns and kneels beside me on the bed. “Let me.”
I nod and settle back on the bed, bracing myself for contact. Dread of any touch on my burn wars with me wanting her closer. The wanting wins. My eyes close.
Careful fingers move the edges of the material away from the wound. “Wait.”
I stifle a groan. My eyes fly open. Does she know what she’s doing to me? I’m sure that’s a smirk on those pink lips. “Why?”
She points at my leg. “It needs to be cleaned first.” She picks up a towel and a bottle of water. “You might want to move off the bed.”
“What about my jeans?”
“You should probably remove them.”
“What if I’m not wearing anything underneath?”
She shoves the water at me and turns her back. “Be quick about it.”
I’m quick, but I grin at her uniquely-Megs mixture of daring and shyness. The water on my wound’s icy and burning all at the same time and not as bad as I expected. It’s begun to heal already, thanks to the balm. When my jeans are back on and I’m sitting once more, I put her out of her misery. “I’m decent.”
She settles again beside me and opens the tube. Waiting for her touch is delicious torture. Most of all I’m hoping I don’t show any pain. I tense, waiting for contact. It comes with instant cool relief. I stifle a moan of pleasure as her fingers rub the cream into the wound in firm, confident circles. The sparks from her touch make my every nerve-ending leap to attention.
She shows no sign touching me has any effect on her. Her eyes are lowered, her lashes dark against her pale skin. Her lips are pressed together in concentration.
The pain’s forgotten. All I think about are those lips leaning close, making contact. The need to know if she kisses with the skill that she flies and the spark when she speaks. It’s like a game I can’t resist playing.
She looks up, catching me staring.
I don’t look away.
“How does it feel?” she whispers.
“Good”
I guess whether she wants to kiss me too but I wait too long. She stands, shaking her head. “I don’t even know you.” The words are softly spoken but I get the message loud and clear. I should have just kissed her.
She turns off the overhead light, leaving us in almost total darkness. My pulse’s accelerated but in a different way from the last time a female silhouette approached the bed. She pauses at the edge, suddenly awkward after the intimacy of before. “Sleep time, I guess.”
I wriggle sideways in case she’s about to suggest one of us spends the last few hours of the night on the floor.
“There’s plenty of room for two.” She doesn’t move. “You’re safe with me.”
Unfortunately. Because I’m too dopey to make a move.
There’s a flash of white teeth as she smiles. She sits beside me and leans back against the wall so that our shoulders are almost touching. “I think I could kick your butt if needed.”
“Like in the warehouse?”
She chuckles. “Beginner’s luck.”
We share a blanket and the warmth from her body wraps around me in a poor imitation of the embrace I crave. I settle back against the pillow, the wall hard and unforgiving against my spine. It’s worth it not to be alone. In the morning Keane will want my decision.
I’m not sure I really have a choice.
There is always a choice.
The memory of a girl’s voice trickles into my brain. It disappears before I lock it down.
“What do you think I should do?” I murmur the question to Megs, unsure whether she’s still awake.
She turns to face me in the dark. Our breaths mingle. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness and I see the lines on her brow. She bites at her lower lip. “I don’t think I’m the one you should be asking.”
Her voice lowers, the rage in it snakes between us. “Answers about what happened to you might help in our fight against the Company. And might help me get revenge for what they’ve done to my brother and my parents.”
Insane that I didn’t think she had parents. Maybe I have parents and other family who want to avenge me with the passion in this girl’s voice. I feel no sympathy for these people I don’t remember and it’s easier to feel for Megs. “What happened to them?”
“Killed by a Q.” Her head bows to touch her knees. “The Company of course. Toby says they looked into joining the rebellion because a friend of theirs disappeared mysteriously. They were killed before they could decide. I was only five and Janic wasn’t even walking. Someone left us at the door of the old headquarters and we’ve been with the rebellion ever since.”
Where I expect to hear pain, her voice lacks any emotion. She could be talking about the weather. But her shoulders? Her shoulders shake with tiny, jerky movements. This time I don’t think. I reach out and slide my arm around her, pulling her close to my side. I ignore the flash of guilt in my mind. I’m not thinking about kissing Megs, I just want to take some of her pain away.
She holds herself stiff. The knowledge I could be a Company spy rears between us. Without my memory I can make no promises, but I know one thing.
“I don’t want to be Company.”
She relaxes and leans into my side.