TWENTY NINE

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I was woken up by what felt like an earthquake. Something shook through my bones, shook through my dreams, and woke me up with an awful lurch. I sat bolt upright – tangled in my sleeping bag – and stared around me, disoriented.

What was I doing in this massive concrete box? Where was my bedroom?

The earthquake struck again, and I realised someone was kicking my mattress.

My sleep-clouded eyes focused on a pair combat boots as the mattress attacker crouched at the end of the bed, arms crossed casually between their knees.

Zoe studied me through half-closed eyes, her head tilted to one side as though I was a spot of rust on her precious assault rifle, or a new target in the shooting range. Suddenly, she grinned at me, aggressively chewing a piece of gum at the same time.

"Good morning, my little squishy buttercup. Time to rise and shine."

I stared at her, bewildered. Her eyes weren't as dark as I'd once thought. With her head angled, her irises were lit up by one of the bulbs on the wall – revealing them to be a startling caramel colour.

"Think fast!" she said, and I ducked instinctively, still traumatised by the day before. Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough. A wave of icy water hit me in the face with the force of a punch. It washed down my front, soaking my sleeping bag and mattress.

I was too shocked to react, and just stared at Zoe, dripping. A soaked chunk of hair flopped in front of my eyes.

Zoe carefully placed the empty plastic bucket behind her and looked slightly disappointed. "I thought you'd scream," she said.

"My bed's wet," I replied, touching my mattress. It made a sad squelching noise.

"Well," said Zoe, "I woke you up, and gave you warning, so don't come crying to me."

"Why was that necessary?" I kicked my sleeping bag off. "I was awake!"

"Call it an initiation," said Zoe carelessly. "Rao wouldn't like me to mess up his man bun, and Jake's my boss, and I was afraid that if I hit Mila with water, she'd melt like the Wicked fucking Witch of the West – so you're the first person I've initiated."

I scowled at her. "What's your problem?"

"That's the spirit," she said, unperturbed. "You're fucking welcome."

I swung my feet off the mattress and scraped my fingers through my hair, fuming.

Zoe bounced to her feet. "Breakfast is in an hour," she said brightly.

"An hour?" I said, furious. I could have used the extra thirty minutes sleep, at least.

"You could go for a run with me, if you want," offered Zoe, bouncing on the spot in a vaguely athletic way

"I'd rather die," I said simply.

"Well, you might, Chupa Chup, if you can't keep up with Rao and me when we're outrunning a motherfucking Angel."

I scowled even more deeply. Chupa Chup. I'd take an Angel over cardiovascular exercise with Zoe and her insulting nicknames any day.

She jogged out of the room backwards. "You'll be wishing you'd listened to Auntie Zo when an Angel is chewing on your leg, or a slaver's inking you up..." The heavy metal door slammed, cutting her off and hiding her from view. I was left staring at my damp mattress. I guessed I wouldn't be going to sleep again.

I might as well use this opportunity to write down what happened yesterday, though I doubt it'll ever be erased from my memory.

After I'd somehow offended everyone yesterday by announcing that Rao was a Waker, Zoe gave brief introductions.

"Rao's our resident sniper," she said. "And our resident seamstress. It depends on the day. As you so impressively pointed out, he's a Waker." She jerked her head at Mila. "Mila's a Partial, like me. She makes robot cats."

Mila threw her hands in the air and left the room.

"I like cats," said Paige.

"Is that all?" I said.

"Well, excuse you very much," said Zoe. "Let's see if you say 'that's all' when one of Mila's robot cats is the only thing standing between you and a Hierarch. They're vicious little fuc –"

"I mean," I interrupted, running a hand through my hair nervously. "Is that all the people here?" I turned towards Jake, "I thought there were lots of people in the rebellion? Lots of cells or units or whatever."

Jake didn't say anything. Zoe smirked.

"We're the best. The crème de la crème. The little marshmallow at the top of your fancy hot chocolate. The..."

"Come here," Mila had returned again. She was lurking in the doorway. "Anna and... Jake."

Everyone in the room tensed, even Zoe. The air felt sharper somehow.

"Mila," said Jake. "Not now."

Mila knifed a look at him, "Time to take some responsibility for your actions, Jake. Yes, now." She raised her eyebrows at me. "Hurry up. Time to see whether you're worth the effort and risk Jake took bringing you here."

"Uhh..." said Zoe. "Mila... maybe you should let the librarian settle in, first. I mean, I'm all for baptisms of fire, but this is a little traumatic."

"Traumatic?" I said. "Baptism of –"

Also, librarian? I don't look like a librarian.

"Not now," said Jake. "Anna hasn't slept. She was in the unworld last night. She killed an Angel and carried Paige for hours."

"Fuck you," said Paige.

"Paige," I warned.

"I mean," said Jake, pointedly, "She's tired. She won't be able to –"

"Well, boohoo for Anna," said Mila nastily. "Either she's worth the risk or she isn't. We need to make the decision sooner rather than later. You know why."

Jake crossed his arms. "I'm not doing it now. No."

"Excuse me, but what's 'the decision'?" I asked. Everyone ignored me. Paige leaned against my side, her eyes flicking warily from face to face.

"Rao will do it," said Mila.

Everyone turned to look at Rao, a thin figure still leaning silently against one of the columns.

He didn't move, said nothing. Mila scowled.

"I'm not doing this for my own enjoyment. You know why, Rao. We can't have it happen again."

At her words, both Zoe and Rao looked at Jake. A glance like a guilty reflex. As though Mila had said something she shouldn't have. Just for a moment, Jake looked wounded, shocked – as though he'd been stabbed by someone he trusted. Then he turned away, avoiding my gaze.

Studying Jake's hunched shoulders, then Mila's fierce expression, Rao pushed himself off the column in a fluid movement and nodded.

"Well, fine," said Zoe. "As long as everyone makes up afterwards. I hate it when Mummy and Daddy are fighting."

Suddenly the room was in motion. Zoe grabbed my arm and started to haul me towards Mila, dislodging Paige. Zoe's long fingers hurt, wrapped tightly around my forearm.

"What the fuck are you doing?" snapped Paige, bounding alongside us. "She's not a fucking Hound."

"Listen up, cranky face. If she were a Hound – she'd be so full of holes she'd function as a cheese-fucking-grater. We don't let Hounds down here. This is the luxury treatment – this is kid fucking gloves –"

"Zoe," said Jake. "She hasn't done anything wrong. Let her go."

Zoe let me go, throwing her hands in the air. "I was just trying to hasten the proceedings. Get this over and done with. I don't want attachments forming. Band-Aid. Rip. Etcetera."

"Get what over and done with?" asked Paige furiously.

Mila crossed her arms. "Let me say this once. Clearly. And slowly. If a Waker wants to stay with us, they have to prove they're not a waste of time, resources and risk. That is a test."

I glared at Jake, feeling deeply betrayed. Never, ever in my life have I not been prepared for an exam of any kind. Someone should have provided me with an assessment notification at least two weeks prior to any test. As well as a syllabus. I'd told Jake I needed a syllabus. He kept his face turned away from me, and I felt my annoyance replaced by something else. Unease.

"Follow me," said Mila brusquely. She turned on her heel and strode down the corridor behind her doorway.

That spike of fear still thrilling in my bloodstream, I touched Paige's shoulder. "Paige, you don't have to... I mean, maybe you should stay here –"

"No!" snapped Paige, glaring at me.

Zoe gestured grandly at the corridor in front of her with her assault rifle, and I slipped past her, Paige sticking close to my side.

"It'll be ok," I told her. She looked at the concrete walls that surrounded us, her small face pinched with wariness, like it had been at the slaver's compound. I wondered whether I'd taken her from one prison to another, and felt a flash of anger.

Zoe strode along nonchalantly behind us. "This is the way to Mila's lab," she told us. "In my opinion, she's got inferiority issues. Wishes she was a Waker – that's what all the welding and inventing shit's about. Me, I'm far more adjusted, the picture of mental health. I mediate."

"You gave your gun a name." Rao's voice emanated from somewhere behind us.

Zoe spat like a cowboy. "Fuck you, Rao," she said. "That's personal. I told you that in confidence."

Ahead of us, Mila disappeared into a doorway set deep in the wall. I swallowed and followed her.

Inside, another massive concrete room was brightly lit by more of the strange empty bulbs. Pipes and wires ran along the walls like haphazard spider webs. The air felt different, and after a few seconds, I realised what it was. If I listened, I could hear a constant hum, just at the edge of sound. Barely a noise – almost a sensation on the skin. Familiar.

"Electricity," I said.

Mila was already fiddling with something on the floor. It looked a lot like a narrow metal coffin. "Way to go, Captain Obvious."

Rao stepped beside me, reaching up to his hair. He pulled the long, metal pins out of his bun, which unravelled. In his fingers, the two pieces of his shard shivered and melted, pooling in his palms like silvery water.

He walked over to the narrow metal box and crouched at the head of it, pressing his hands against the sides. His shard rippled out from beneath his flattened palms, wrapping around his skin like gloves, melding his fingers to the metal.

"What the fuck?" said Paige.

Peering over Rao's shoulder, Zoe pulled a strip of gum out of her pocket, carefully unwrapped it, and popped it in her mouth. "This is one of Mila's failed inventions."

"It's not failed," snapped Mila.

"Fine, then," said Zoe, "Mila accidentally invented something that worked – but it wasn't actually what she was trying to make, but Jake and Rao like to practice Waker shit in it, because why not?"

Mila apparently couldn't bear Zoe's explanations. She popped up on the other side of the coffin structure, looking impatient and slightly grease-stained.

"Jake told us you've been in a Waker Hound's immersion before."

It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyway, remembering the fog, the empty ferry – the woman, her red-lipsticked mouth stretching in a scream.

Mila seemed to have read my thoughts. "She was obviously weak. Barely a Waker, almost a Partial, because, a: the Hierarchs hadn't bothered taking her, even though I guarantee the slavers she was working with would have tried to sell her to them; and b: an untrained Waker – you – managed to hijack her immersion."

Paige crept a few steps closer to the metal coffin and Rao. "Is that what this is all about? Immersions only work in virtual," she said. "Everyone knows that."

Mila sent her a sour look, and then turned to me. "Wakers are the only one who can create immersions. They push a fragment of the unworld into the virtual world. It's a bubble. A net. They can shape that piece of unworld to reflect whatever environment they want. They make empty landscapes that hang over the virtual world."

"Creepy shit," interjected Zoe, attempting to blow a bubble with her gum. She failed.

"Quiet," said Mila without looking at her, still focusing on me with pale grey eyes. "The environment will be empty, except for the people the Waker chooses to bring across form the unworld, usually their slaver friends." She walked up to Rao and briefly touched his shoulder. "Physical contact is required." She let go of him and looked at a glowing screen on her desk. She swiped and tapped on the glass, continuing to speak without looking up. "The Hound temporarily places this piece of unworld, this empty landscape, in the virtual world. Blinders walk right though it, the immersion. They don't see anything. Loonies, Wakers and Partials get caught. Then they get taken."

"So?" snapped Paige. "Everyone knows that, already."

Zoe kicked the side of the metal coffin. "Think of this as your friendly neighbourhood immersion machine," she said cheerfully. "It's like a miniature piece of the virtual world. Librarian jumps in, Rao does Waker stuff. Forces unworld into the box. Librarian goes on a magical adventure in his immerison. Gets holy grail. Everyone is happy."

I looked doubtfully at the box. "In? In the box? That's a very small and shallow box. I don't know if I'll fit in the box."

I stared at Jake, who had followed behind us, and was leaning against the doorway, his face drawn. 'How did he fit in the box?"

"We didn't close the lid," said Zoe.

"Oh, that's good," I said, smiling with relief. "Because I was thinking, you know... that you'd close the lid. And I've never been claustrophobic, but I'm pretty sure that'd make me claustrophobic. And – how do you even get air in there? It looks like there's no ventilation systems. So... it's good that you're leaving the lid open."

"We're not leaving the lid open," said Zoe.

"Hm?" I said, nervously.

"It didn't work with the lid open," said Zoe. "So we closed it, and Jake was slightly compressed."

Mila snorted.

"He may have broken a rib," said Zoe. "And a finger."

I stared at Jake in horror. This place was not sounding like a safe workplace. At all.

"We had a medsticks," said Zoe. "It was fine."

"How does she know you're not going to put her in the box, then ship her off to the Hierarchs?" said Paige. "That's what I'd do if I were you. Or pick up the box and throw it in a lake. Or machine gun it. Or just bolt it closed and leave her there to die."

"Oh, well," I said, "Thank you Paige, thank you very much – that's – great. Thanks. Just what I needed, brilliant."

"Ready," said Mila. She opened the lid of the coffin. It looked even narrower now I could see the interior.

"Ok, wait," I said, "Is this really necessary? I'm still new to this – I've only known about the unworld for three days – what could I possibly do that'll change your minds?"

"You don't have a choice, bumblebee," said Zoe.

"But what am I supposed to do?" I snapped, frustrated.

"Survive," said Mila.

"What? Survive what??" I said. "I'm only here because Jake blackmailed me – if you don't want me, I'm happy to go on my way – I don't have to prove anything to you. I'll just go home."

They were all looking at me, Rao with something like pity in his dark eyes.

"You don't leave a weapon of mass destruction lying around," said Mila shortly. "You either figure out how to use it, or you destroy it."

"Jump in the coffin," Zoe said, "And don't let Rao kill you."

Author's Note:

Hi everyone! I hope you liked this chapter, I can't wait to show you what happens next. Are you annoyed at Jake?  I kind of am. Why did he take Anna here?? I'm biased, though. 

That's Mila's character board up the top. Maybe Zoe next week? I'm still trying to find the perfect images to sum her up.  

Check out the Tumblr for an amazing painting I found ages ago that inspired Mila's whole character. There are even robot cats! 

http://annawakes.tumblr.com/


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