I try not to think about last week. I try to focus on the movements—wash, rinse, repeat—and not the transport door closing on Mira as her eyes fixed on mine like that could change anything. I still taste the sting of panic as I remember the men who pulled her away and the ones who died loving her. The question I don’t say out loud washes up anyway as I scrub my arms hard enough that the skin turns pink.
Why didn’t you help?
You could have tried.
The sentence lives in the hollow of my chest, dense and thrashing. The water engulfs my face and I count to five before I breathe again.
The shower is fast. I dry with a thin towel as a ceiling vent pushes in cool air, and I twist my hair into a tight knot at the base of my skull the same as every morning. The strap settles into the groove along my hairline—where I’m sure it’s made a permanent dent—and the familiar pressure at my cheekbones returns. The dingy mirror outside the stalls is spotted and warped at the edges. Lachlan stares back when my eyes find their reflection. Cassia is still there behind the uniform, but there are days where I have to remind myself she exists, and this is one of them.
An hour before most of the center wakes. Enough time to try again.
I traverse the corridor and descend the back stairs as they keep me off the main cameras, pausing at each landing as I listen for the elevator’s cables and the rhythm of footsteps. Thesmell changes as I proceed—less detergent and bodies, more cold dust and stone. My fingers go slick when I arrive at the door to Sublevel Eight.
Hovering the keypad, I enter the four-digit code I heard an Enforcer muttering to another when I had taken a leisurely walk yesterday and found myself staring at the archives. I didn’t have time or opportunity to inspect anything then, but I’ve made time this morning. Thank the stars no one is in here when the door slides open.
Sublevel Eight isn’t a series of rooms and halls like the others; no, it’s a singular room, where the air inside is colder than the stairwell. It smells old—paper, dust, a faint sting of isopropyl—and the lights flicker before they settle. They must always be on.
Metal shelving runs the room in seven long rows. Boxes are stacked to shoulder height with labels in neat block letters:BELKEN, ELESBURN, AILRIDGE, PYREM—PERSONNEL, PYREM—MECHANICAL. A single terminal sleeps on the desk with a green light blinking slowly at the top. The chair has a slickness to it when I touch the back, and I pull my hand away to wipe my fingers on a thigh as my attention shifts to the shelves.
I don’t have the time to read everything, but I don’t need to. I need the outline, not every miniscule detail. Sliding two boxes onto the floor, I kneel on frigid, unforgiving concrete.FACILITY PROTOCOLS—LOWLANDgives me intake checklists and rotation charts along with supply ledgers that list columns of numbers that add up to lives. Rations divided by headcount, medical kits by lot numbers, restraints by type. It’s all here and none of it helps right now.
When I touch a page that has writing along the bottom margin, something jumps in my heart—sharp and hot—forcing my knees to lock as a wave of fear that isn’t mine pushesthrough paper. It diminishes quickly, but the aftertaste stays—stale breath and a thin edge of adrenaline. I drop the page before flexing my fingers until they stop trembling as I blink away the wetness fogging my eyes. That’s new.
Moving on.
PERSONNEL—PYREM HUBis list after list. Names, tests, assignments, transfers. Half of it is coded and the other half reads like men reduced to rows of statistics.
Hale—fitness exemplary, discipline adequate, loyalty affirmed.
Stilen—fitness adequate, discipline poor, loyalty affirmed; assign to low-stress post.
I skim and allow the names to lodge in a place where I can retrieve them if needed. Not for today, but later.
Time is a pressure thrumming around my stomach as I move through the aisle. The ventilation deepens with the waking Enforcers somewhere above me, and water trickles through pipes, shortening my clock that much more. I put one box back, shifting attention to the next label.
TRANSIT LOGS—RIVERTON DISTRICT. The tape at the edge is newer than the rest. I lift the lid to find carbon forms with imprints that shadow through three layers. A few are stamped with the Syndicate seal in faded black. Another stack is rubber-banded and marked VARIANCES in a thinner hand, and the band bites my palm when I pull it up.
Form 17—Variance.
Route BR-6 to RVN-03.
Time 0300.
Escort detail: deviated per verbal authorization.
Receiving: RIVERTON—Annex B.
That name means nothing in the simple way namescan mean everything, and a cold spot opens in my head as I read it again. “Remember that,” I whisper to myself.
Another variance is unreadable where names should be, the fields blurred by a stamp that reads ANONYMIZED PER DIRECTIVE 8. A different pen added ‘Confirm with Central?’ in a tight line in the margin and underlined it twice. No confirmation stamp follows. Two pages forward, the same destination appears, and someone drew a small blue five-pointed star next to it, chalky enough to smudge when my thumb passes over it.
I don’t know the symbol, but I know I haven’t seen it before.
The terminal remains asleep on the desk when I glance at it. Badge and ID required for entry, something I would need to steal to gain access. I’m sure all the valuable information is stored there, while everything I’m sifting through is just considered busy grunt work for whoever catalogs it.
Footsteps echo through the hall, and I shove the papers back into the box before sliding the lid on as the latch of the archive door clicks in that soft way people use when they think they’re being quiet.
Two voices enter, the smell of cold air and soap drifting my way. One man yawns as his boredom becomes evident; the other has the sharp scent of a new uniform and a sourness under it that makes me think he’s a nasty person.
