Surveillance is security, Papa used to say.Only criminals need privacy.
I glance at Soledad, who still wears his old military fatigues, the front pocket adorned with the tricolored emblem of a buried era. He lost an arm during the post-revolution skirmishes and wears his prosthetic proudly, one sleeve rolled up to reveal the silver gleam of muscular machinery.
“So,” he says. “We can set up here, or we can head back to central. Your choice.”
I cast a furtive glance around the pit, which comprises a cluster of cottages, square windows aglow in the gray morning light. People scurry along, heads down, avoiding eye contact with Soledad, who’s never paid the pit a visit without doing some damage. Those who live here have been sanctioned—cut off from the community for any number of infractions—but no one has lived here longer than Clara and me,who’ve never known another home on the island. In the chaotic weeks after our supreme commanders were slaughtered, Papa sent us here with Mama, promising to follow as soon as he could. It turned out Papa had stayed behind on purpose, voluntarily surrendering to the rebels. As a reward, we were sanctioned upon arrival.
“Do we have to do this now?” I ask, thinking of Clara, shivering and starved. “I’d rather keep our appointment for tomorrow.”
“Why, you have plans this morning?” He says this like it’s a joke. “You’re not allowed a shift at the mill today.”
A sharp pang of hunger cuts through me then, nearly taking my breath away. “Just some things to do.”
Soledad grabs my chin and I suppress a flinch, steadying myself as he forces me to look at him. He stares into my eyes for a long beat before letting go, and I kill the flare of revulsion in my chest, compelling my racing heart to slow.
I remind myself that I am dead inside.
“So strange not to know what you’re thinking,” he says, a notch forming between his brows. “All these years and I still haven’t gotten used to it. Makes it hard to believe you’re always telling the truth.”
Another slight tremor moves through my right hand. I’m the only person here unconnected to the Nexus. Even Clara was brought online before Papa was arrested. Just before the end, all civilians under the directive of The Reestablishment had been connected to the neural network,a program quickly dismantled by the new regime. Soledad and the others like to remind us that the reason we lost the war was because the rebels hadn’t been chipped.
I have no acceptable excuse.
“Pity we can’t seem to get you online again,” Soledad says finally. “Things might’ve been easier for you.”
Memories flare to life: cold metal; muted screams; drug-induced nightmares. With Mama dead, there was no one to beg them to stop. No one who cared whether their experiments would eventually kill me.
“I couldn’t agree more,” I lie.
Soledad shifts his weight. Blue veins of light pulse through his metal arm, silver fingers flashing as they flex and curl. “So,” he says. “Why’d you miss the meeting last week?”
Just like that, an unofficial interrogation has begun. Here, in the freezing cold. While my neighbors watch.
Clara, I realize, can probably see us from the window.
There’s a sudden chorus of shouts and my heart stutters, steadying only when I spot Zadie’s twin boys, Jonah and Micah, tackling each other in the snow. One of them punches the other in the gut, this accomplishment punctuated by peals of laughter. I catch the drifting scent of breakfast meat from a nearby cottage and my knees nearly give out.
I return my eyes to Soledad. “Clara was sick.”
“Coma?”
“No.” I look away. “She spent most of the night throwing up.”
“Food?”
“Blood,” I clarify.
“Right.” Soledad laughs. He sizes me up through Papa’s overlarge coat. “That makes more sense, considering the fact that you’re both starving.”
“We’re not starving.” Another lie.
A fresh circus of sound short-circuits my nervous system. A murder of crows lands heavily on a nearby roof, eerie calls clamoring, wings flapping. I’m watching them, fascinated a moment by an iridescent sheen of black feathers when two earsplitting shots ring out.
I stiffen on impulse—then force myself to thaw, my fingers to unclench, my pulse to slow.
“Fucking birds,” Soledad mutters.
He walks over to the duo of fallen bodies, then stomps on their small, hollow bones, smearing blood and feathers into the snow. I blink, exhaling softly into the cold. I’ve been dead inside for years, I remind myself.
