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“But Director Anand,” Aerie said, clasping her hands together and putting on her best humble beggar face, “I really have an appointment today. I was mistaken before, but today I really do have to go to the med center—”
“We have to finish up the NETech training today, Comrade—”
“I already know about it,” Aerie insisted. “I finished my training with it.”
“You finished your training with it, but it was far from perfect.”
“I did better than anyone else.”
“You need to work on the basics still,” Anand argued, his tan face beginning to flush over with an angry red. “It is inconceivable you did as well as you did on the NETech training when your comms are regularly reported for failures or your incompetency.”
Aerie blushed, but she pushed it back. She knew that she did any number of things to slow down the system. She just didn’t care enough to try anymore.
“But, sir, I have to leave. I have my physical—”
“Stop.” Anand frowned at her, his tan face wrinkled in displeasure. “You have been lying to get out of working late all week, Comrade St. Cloud.”
“I’m not lying now,” Aerie insisted, even though she knew he had a point. She had lied to him. At this point, she could only hope to avoid that particularly grueling conversation.
The good news, Aerie thought, was she had plenty of practice this week avoiding conversations. She had managed to sidestep Brock more than once, and, while she had never been particularly chatty with Serena or her brothers, she had taken on a new project to divert their attentions.
They thought she was going down to the rec center to swim so she could work on her injured shoulder. It was a nice cover, and they all believed her.
And why wouldn’t they? From what Aerie could tell, all of them believed the story that she’d fallen from the ropes course. No one knew she’d gotten shot, and no one suspected she thought otherwise.
“Comrade St. Cloud,” Anand said, “you cannot expect me to believe you after all the—”
“You can’t expect me to work my hardest if I’m not feeling my best,” Aerie interrupted. “I’ve been trying to work with my physical therapist all week, getting in extra hours, just so I can do a better job.”
“I also find that hard to believe.”
“I need to go,” Aerie insisted. “I can bring in a note from my doctor tomorrow, if you’d like, but I absolutely need to go.”
Anand hesitated, and Aerie glanced worriedly at the clock.
She rejoiced a second later when he sighed. She knew that sigh, even though she’d only been working for two weeks now.
“Fine. But this is the last time, do you hear me?”
“Oh, thank you!” Aerie bowed, saluting him formally as she grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair.
“Wait,” Anand called. “I’m not finished. You will have to come early tomorrow to make up for today. The whole department has to have full mastery of the NETech by the end of next month.”
“Why?” Aerie asked. “Why is it suddenly being pushed?”
She recalled some of the lectures she’d attended on it with Master Harrick and her classmates only a few months ago. It seemed strange that the URS was determined to roll it out so quickly. They usually took years to develop and test new equipment.
“That is not any of your business,” Anand told her in his usual, disappointed tone. “You need to be here tomorrow at 400 hours, Comrade.”
Aerie faltered as the excitement rushed out of her. Great. Just great.
Anand continued, “You owe a debt to the state for all the things that it has given you over the years. It is only fair.”
“Alright,” Aerie agreed, trying not to sound completely defeated as she left the room. She waved good-bye to Claire, who was still packing up her things.
Claire didn’t notice.
Either that, or she doesn’t care.
Aerie decided she didn’t care if Claire responded or not. In the last week, she’d largely ignored or overlooked Aerie’s attempts at conversation.
On the bright side, she’d given up on telling Aerie to answer her comms, so Aerie didn’t feel quite as pressured if she slumped down in her chair and took a break several times an hour.
She bounded down the stairs of Comms Sec, and then she headed off toward the med center. Aerie grinned to herself when she was sure no one was looking.
She had an appointment alright—just not one with her doctor. Aerie had “scheduled” an appointment with herself, to go and look for Meredith.
Aerie knew her only remaining clue to finding the truth was to find the girl who had led her to the hospital.
Every day after work for the past several days, when she was able to get out of it, she’d taken care to find a place to watch the med center. She was lucky to find an old library, where she would go and pretend to read for several hours before she had to go home for the night, all while keeping an eye out for the girl who called herself Meredith.
Aerie was surprised, and disappointed, she hadn’t seen Meredith around.
She tried to come at the time when Meredith had come for her before, thinking it wasn’t too much to hope that she would go out for lunch, or even take on an extra assignment to go and fetch someone else.
If she worked at the med center at all.
“Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered to herself. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? If Meredith had only been sent to find me, it’s possible she was only used to come and get me.
Aerie sighed as her stomach rumbled.
Speaking of a lunch break, she thought. Anand was a raging beast at her today, making her work through lunch, after he discovered—by pure coincidence—that she hadn’t gone to her physical therapist’s office yesterday. One of his unit members saw her at the library.
Which, she thought, was probably being watched now. Anand and her father made no secret that they were in contact.
She steered away from the library at the last moment. Aerie was about to head into the med center to pretend she had a real appointment, when she saw her.
Meredith.
Aerie squinted. From where she was, she could see Meredith—or a girl who looked like her—as she hurried down the street. She was still wearing her medical assistant robes, by the look of it; it was hard to tell completely, because she was wearing a large coat overtop, one of the ones that were more appropriate for when the winter would settle in.
Aerie didn’t hesitate. She took off after her.
“Meredith,” she called, and the girl faltered enough that Aerie was sure she heard her.
That was why, when she sped up, Aerie only felt the fury she knew she reserved for the worst sorts of people.
She knew I was calling her! Why is she trying to lose me? Aerie wondered as she ran, struggling to keep Meredith in sight as she wove her way through the crowds.
“Come back,” Aerie called.
When others started looking at her, Aerie stopped calling and slowed down a little. She didn’t need another source for the General to use to spy on her.
It was only when Meredith disappeared down an alleyway that Aerie let out a loud groan. “Ugh! This is so unfair.”
She glanced down at the ground. Lying at her feet was a small roll of bandages, the kind that they used in the hospital to treat wounds.
Did she drop this? Aerie frowned.
In the end, she pocketed the bandages in her own jacket and turned around, looking to see where she was. Aerie hadn’t paid too much attention to where she was going while she was trying to keep track of Meredith’s movements.
She was relieved to find she was close to her old school, the New Hope Education Center 616.
“I haven’t been here ... since graduation, I guess,” Aerie said, as her head prickled with pain.
A sudden burst of inspiration unleashed itself through her mind.
“I can go and see Master Harrick,” she said aloud as she made her way toward the building.
She dreaded school while she was in it. As Aerie passed through the familiar halls, grateful no one thought to pay her any attention, for once, she easily recalled several memories.
Laughing with Brock and some of her other friends, the few that there were, as they headed toward the commissary.
Talking about homework with some of her kinder teachers, the ones that didn’t seem to notice when she daydreamed in their class—or at least, the ones who were kind enough to repeat the information.
Waiting. Endlessly waiting for some big moment to come, always on edge because it was never certain that it would come.
Aerie stopped short as she tried to put a name to her silent expectation. What had I been waiting for? she wondered. Probably acceptance. Or love.
Her heart beat faster at the thought, and she had to grip it to get herself to keep moving. Flashes of a fragment of her memory appeared before her: Eyes colored blue, as hard as ice, full of sadness as much as sureness; they softened, melting into joy as she watched them.
Before she could cry out the unknown name inside of her heart, her head screeched with a new surge of soreness. She whimpered at her discomfort.
“At least it’s only my head,” she murmured. Aerie was grateful she’d found the empty hallway where she remembered the broken air duct was. Otherwise, it would have been even more awkward to explain herself to someone else.
After the pain dissipated to a manageable level, Aerie hurriedly climbed up to the surface.
She breathed in the fresh air on top of the underground city. There was a spiked quality to it, one that prickled her nose, as the unfiltered air carried the natural bit of nature; Aerie breathed in deeply, intoxicated as much as she was repelled.
Once she regained her resolve, Aerie didn’t stop. She set out for the Memory Tree, a new hope rising within her.
Only to be crushed as she reached the place where the Memory Tree once stood.
There was only a mess of ash and soot around her, all gathering around a huge hole in the ground. Scorch marks clawed through the area; rainwater had puddled into the new scratches on the surface of the earth.
“It’s not here,” she said.
More images flashed across her mind. Her head burned in pain as she recalled bruising it when she was captured, picked up with the tree.
Aerie slumped over to her knees. “I ... I can’t believe it.”
Thinking of something, she hurriedly stood up. “Moona!” she cried. “Moona! Where are you?”
There was no answer. Aerie noticed that there were no other people here this time. She thought about trying to find one of the homeless or crippled people she would see sometimes, to try to figure out what had happened.
“Moona!” she tried again.
Aerie turned around, taking in the new landscape. There were broken buildings, burned down, and twisted beams of metal laying alongside blackened shards of glass.
She gasped at every turn, and even more at the memories flooding over the tidal wave of pain in her mind.
“I should’ve known you would find your way here before too long.”
Aerie nearly screamed. She whirled around to find her father glaring at her. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“What am I doing here?” the General asked. “What are you doing here? You know coming to the surface is forbidden.”
“You’re up here,” Aerie said, knowing her argument was weak.
“I make the rules,” he said. “I can bend them as often as you break them.”
“I guess Anand told you I was skipping out of work early?” Aerie asked, changing the subject. She didn’t want to know if she would be punished for this or not—or what the punishment was likely going to be, since she didn’t think there was a way her father wouldn’t punish her for this.
“Yes,” the General said. “Not that you need to know. And it’s Director Anand to you. You are a full citizen, but you are still a worker.”
“Yes, sorry. So Director Anand was the one who told you about me leaving,” Aerie corrected herself. She was momentarily sidetracked from the loss of the Memory Tree at the thought of grabbing her boss and folding him up into one of her file boxes. Considering how much he loved his dull, immaculately starched uniforms, she knew that would be enough to send his system into shock.
“He told me that you seemed to be going to physical therapy a whole lot than what could be beneficial for your health.” The General eyed her, clearly angry.
“I thought the fresh air would be good,” she said.
“Don’t lie to me, Aeris,” he snapped. “I knew of your visits here before you graduated, as does the URS. That’s part of the reason they didn’t want you in the military, remember?” He smiled disdainfully. “No, I guess you wouldn’t remember.”
“I remember that I got shot,” Aerie told him, deciding the bluff was well worth the risk just to see the shock and horror on his face.
She was easily disappointed; while he narrowed his eyes, her words had no other apparent effect on him.
Aerie took her chance. “I want to know the truth.” Her words were soft, but her heart cried out for the truth, desperate to know it above everything else.
“How much do you remember?”
“I remember I was captured.” Aerie glanced back at the Memory Tree.
The General’s eyes closed for a long moment, as if he needed to steady himself. When he opened them again, he took a step closer to her and put his hand on her good shoulder. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of you,” he said. “I am sorry that I underestimated your strength.”
It was Aerie’s turn to be shocked and horrified. Her father? Apologizing?
Terror swept through her. “What did you do?” she whispered. “You did something, didn’t you?”
“Look, Aerie,” he said softly. “I know there are likely some empty spaces still. You were captured by MENACE and its allies. You were tortured and shot. If I did anything horrible to you, it was to protect you from the memories of what you went through.”
“MENACE captured me ... and destroyed the Memory Tree?” Aerie recalled the feeling, knowing it was gone to her.
“Yes. And you can’t tell anyone about this. You can’t,” the General said. “I knew at once what happened when I found your hat at the scene.”
“You knew I was up here at the time,” Aerie said, putting it all together. “And you got me back.”
He nodded somberly. “It took me several days to get a hold of your captor,” he said. “When you were returned, you were in pain. So I changed your files. I put you on approved medical leave in the system. Osgood doesn’t know what happened.”
“No one else knows ... no one knows I was captured?” Aerie repeated.
“No. That’s why I was hoping the concussion would take care of your memory, alright? There is nothing good that can come from you remembering. I would be reprimanded at best. You could be taken into the States’ custody, where they might make you relive all the awful things you went through.”
She wanted to yell that nothing horrible had happened to her. But she wasn’t sure. “MENACE does have a horrible human rights record,” Aerie remarked, her voice listless against the stillness of her surroundings. She felt lost again.
The General nodded. He dropped down to one knee and looked at her. “You are my daughter,” he said quietly. “I would do anything to keep you safe. Anything. That is the truth.”
Aerie looked into his eyes and felt the tears well up in her own. She reached out and launched herself into his arms. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Daddy.”
“I’m sorry too,” he said, squeezing her back.
Aerie allowed herself a long moment to revel in his embrace. Ever since her mother died, she had wondered if her father was lost, too. But in that moment, Aerie wondered if he’d always been there, trapped within his own grief.
He pulled away from her gently. “That’s why I need you to stay away from here, Aerie. I need you to stay safe. The URS suspects something; I have Osgood’s trust, but I have a lot of enemies. Any man would, in my position. There are some who would do anything to get to me, and that includes using you.”
Aerie glanced over his shoulder toward the swirling mass of crusted earth, where her favorite place had once been. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll stay away from here. And I can play the game when it comes to the URS, too.”
“We do not win against death, Aerie. Survival is not a game. And even if it is, it is not one we will ever win against.”