Lenora

“Where’re we going?” Hugo asks.

“To see some people.” I tie a soft pink and gold scarf around my neck – a gift from MsDanikaStarburst.

“Has this got something to do with last night?”

I avoid his eyes, instead tugging on my modes and fiddling with the holo-glamour until they match my scarf. He can always tell when I’m lying so I choose my words carefully.

“It’s for a private project.”

“And is there a reason you’re not sharing?” he asks, amused as I stomp my feet against the floor to settle my heels in my shoes.

“No,” I reply. He lifts one green brow and waits. “Well, for my Activation performance I was reading up on shared sensory perception,” I half-fib, “and there’s this Experiencer who knows a lot about it. Jonas Morgan.”

“Jonas Morgan?” Hugo’s eyes shutter briefly, like shades pulling closed across his irises. “There’s no record of such a person,” Hugo follows me as I grab my jacket and leave the Studios.

“Exactly. He did exist and now there’s no record of him. I want to know why.”

“See you later, Miss Rey,” the building farewells.

It’s for curiosity’s sake, I say subvocally, checking the time, and hurry to the end of the street to catch a tram. A motor-carriage would garner too much attention, and I alter my holo-glamour, disappearing into anonymity.

It takes only a handful of minutes to reach the Core and then the lift down two levels. The Education District Five is in the same location as all the other schools, not far at all from the Core, yet my old school on Level 3 was much nicer. This building is less shiny, the paint a drab grey, and the virtual garden beds are basic with the exact same bushes in neat little rows, replicated perfectly, down to the last crooked branch.

Two people loiter near the front entrance.

Bryn has an odd sense of fashion. Her heavy braids, fuzzy near her scalp, are borderline chic, whether on purpose or because she has a cheap holo-glamour package is unclear. Bryn’s different, that’s for sure. She just fails at marketing herself, and I’d be unsurprised if her rank settles for life in the mid-levels.

The boy next to Bryn is lanky, dressed in a black hood, black trousers, black boots, and his back is horribly deformed, hunched so much it’s like he has no neck at all. He’s radiating anxiety – his left knee bouncing, the way he crosses his arms, how he furrows his forehead as though his modes are too tight.

“Who’s the guy?” Hugo asks.

I’m uncertain, I frown, deliberately blinking to access his profile and finally it flickers up. Greyson Ward, rank 141,228.

“I think you shared some classes with him, too.” Hugo taps his bottom lip with his index finger as he studies him. “Why do all Bottom Dwellers look alike?” He shrugs and strides ahead with little hesitation. I hurry to keep up. Bryn spots me, taking a few steps, as though she wants to run towards me. Her friend also straightens and suddenly he’s tall, at least a good head taller than Bryn, who’s by no means short.

Miss Rey! It’s truly an honour, a pleasure, I mean, so good to meet you in the flesh! Bryn gushes, hands clasped against her chest.

Please, call me Lenora, I reply and her smile grows even wider. Greyson clears his throat, the sound startling us both, and my lips twist in annoyance. Now closer, I can see his appearance is average, his modes failing to accentuate any of his features, his chin weak, his lips too wide, his nose is like a boat rudder, casting his lower face in shadow.

Lenora, this is Greyson, Bryn introduces. I give him a small nod, annoyed further when he just nods back.

“Better head in,” he says aloud and, without waiting, he enters the building, the doors swishing open automatically. Bryn follows with a shrug and Hugo gestures for me to go before him.

“Strange lad, there’s something not quite connected in there,” he says with a tap to his temple.

Greyson leads us through quiet hallways, the murmurs of the younger grades a soft background hum. For some reason the nanny-bots ignore us even though they’re always protective of their charges.

“Greyson’s got a pass. Don’t know how he’s done it, but he’s practically invisible,” Hugo informs me.

“This way,” Greyson murmurs, making an odd gesture with both his hands flat, palms up and moving in small circles. He stops in front of a plain grey door with a buffed silver panel at its centre and touches it with his palm. On the high-class levels, touch tech is quaint.

The door hisses open, sticking about halfway and Greyson wrenches at it, sending us both a sheepish smile.

“All the schools got them. It’s private,” he says, as though that’s excuse enough, and he steps through. Bryn looks at me, waiting to see what I’ll do.

“Are you sure this is smart?” Hugo asks. His shoulders are tight, his hands deep in his pockets and his eyes narrow in suspicion. My heart trips over itself and my resolve firms.

It’ll be fine. You’re here, I reassure and follow them in.

The storage room is divided in two by heavy shelving, overflowing with cables and tech junk. Whole VHS coffins are stacked like Old Earth books against the far wall. There are cradles, painted green and yellow, set one inside the other like cups near the back, reminding me of my early school years, safely cocooned in the pint-sized VHS units.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Sit,” Greyson says, unstacking three cradles and turning them upside down, placing them in a circle. He moves remarkably well, despite his deformity. The makeshift seats rock, but at least I’m off the floor.

Then we sit, staring at each other.

“Don’t want to hurry you along, Nora,” Hugo murmurs from where he stands behind me, “but you’re expected at the Studios in twenty minutes.”

Your brother’s been erased, I say into the silence. I was looking for an article he wrote when it happened. A heavy pause passes.

“Ah-ha!” Greyson yells, and both Bryn and I jerk backwards. I ignore Hugo when he says the boy’s a few fuses short of a full circuit. “Makes sense!” Greyson grins, but fails to continue.

Are you going to tell us? Bryn asks, and his grin falters.

“Talking out loud’s best,” Greyson says, rubbing his neck with a shrug. For a moment I think his back ripples, as though there’s something inside him fighting to break out, however the lights flickers and it’s still again.

“Fine. I’ve somewhere to be, so can we move this along?” I aim for gentle encouragement and as Bryn nods eagerly, Greyson’s smile drops away. It’s difficult getting a read on him.

“Someone’s deleting folk.” Greyson crosses his arms and leans forward, closer, as though he fears the open space behind him. “Someone’s getting inside our modes. Into our internal hard drives.” It sounds as though he has his suspicion as to who that someone is. “Cos you’re thinking about Jonas, creating new memories, they failed to delete all of him.” Before I can poke holes in his argument, recalling Bryn’s clueless conversation this morning, adds, “When Bryn coma-fied, they nullified the rest of him.”

“And I stayed awake all night,” I say. “Does that mean when I do sleep I’ll forget all this?” The thought of someone playing about inside my head without my permission is disturbing and my holo-glamour tingles as Hugo runs the back of his hand down my arm.

“I won’t let that happen,” Hugo says, voice fierce.

“Dunno,” Greyson says. “Doubt it. Bryn was a priority.”

Bryn’s unperturbed. She’s lounging back on her palms, the heel of one boot swiveling to make patterns in the dust.

“Why was he erased?” I ask.

“We think this will tell us.” Bryn pulls out a narrow green tablet. It’s a paperback book. She shows me the handwriting scrawled across the pages. “But we can’t translate it.”

I take the book, enjoying the fibrous paper beneath my fingertips and the indentations left by the pen. It even smells like the Archive. Or maybe the Archive has been programmed to smell like this: musty, slightly acidic, with a hint of vanilla and, I breathe in deeply, grass. Or at least the grassy smell programmed in the Cyberinth.

“I can translate it,” Hugo tells me.

Can you?

“It’s easy.” Hugo points to words that have been retraced until they’re darker than the rest. “These say Moon Phases, and a whole bunch of equations and observations. Not relevant. Turn the page?”

“Can you?” Greyson asks. He’s moved in even closer, his nose almost touching mine as I glance up. I jerk back with a squeak.

“Yes, some of it,” I offer and turn the page, pretending to study it.

“Not relevant,” Hugo says and I flick to another.

“It’s a study,” I sum up from Hugo’s musings. “Nothing yet on why your brother may’ve gone missing.”

“He must’ve reckoned something,” Greyson insists. “Last night Bryn said he was an Experiencer. But he wrote articles, too.”

“It’s not like I can remember,” Bryn says, “but I think whatever he did find must’ve been big. I mean, why would they go to all this trouble?”

“But it wasn’t trouble.” Hugo’s voice is strained. He’s pale, his lips pressed tightly together, teeth clenched as he studies a page.

What do you mean?

“Tell them this,” he says, and I repeat him. “This is not the first time someone has been Evicted.”

Bryn inhales sharply. “But they’re just stories!”

Greyson sits still, rigid as stone. I study the tight press of his lips, the slumped shoulders, the tightening of white knuckles around the edge of his make-shift seat and see guilt and pain clinging to him like a shroud.

“Jonas Morgan discovered there’ve been hundreds over the years, citizens who caused too much trouble, asked too many questions, learnt things they shouldn’t have … turn the page, Nora,” Hugo says. The page is full of sketches. Crude, yes, but showing the outlines of people, their faces smudged with ink: some old, some young.

“I know that person.” Bryn points to a man with thin eyebrows and is wrinkly as a prune, blowing vapour rings from a long, curvy pipe.

“Your brother’s wrong, then. To be Evicted means being forgotten,” I point out, relieved.

“I mean, I can’t remember him, but Jonas did. Greyson showed me one of Jonas’ memories,” she explains. “It was when I was little. I don’t remember it at all but Jonas did. And that man was there, Mr Lee. He let me hide under his worktable,” Bryn whispers, then hugs herself tightly. “I don’t like this at all.”

Greyson’s hand darts to her shoulder as though to comfort her yet he stops, drawing back.

“It’s true. I know folk who’ve been taken.” He shrinks even further into his jacket, before he reaches for the notebook, flipping through a few pages before finding what he’s after. He taps impatiently at a line of neat text even I can read.

“What’s this say?”

“It’s about a professor, Thaddeus Ward. It says he vanished too, though he wasn’t Evicted,” I say after Hugo gives me a summary.

“He died,” Greyson states flatly.

“No,” I say, and Greyson towers over me, a looming figure like a storm cloud — tense, frustrated and, above all, furious. The boy I pitied earlier has vanished like smoke. Hugo’s in front of me in a blink, a shield, and I take in a shuddering breath. “No,” I repeat, a tremor in my voice making me wince. “He left.”

“Left?” Bryn says. “Left where? His father Evicted himself?”

As though the air has been suctioned out of him, Greyson’s small again, hunched over and still.

“Well, that’s just it,” Hugo says, crouching on his haunches while keeping himself between Greyson and me. I feel safer despite it being a useless gesture. “Nora, Jonas says the people who’ve disappeared were escorted to the refuse chutes and, it’s assumed, recycled by Mediators …”

“What?” I interrupt aloud.

“What?” Bryn and Greyson repeat. I pretend to study the text.

What do you mean Mediators?

“Who else would it be?” Hugo points out. For a moment, my love for him flips and I hate him. Even though it’s only for a second, it rattles me.

My father cannot be involved in this!

“They’ve a right to know what Jonas has written, whether it’s true or not,” Hugo points out.

Fine.

“The people Evicted were disposed of,” I say through clenched teeth, “by Mediators.”

“They protect us! It’s their job!” Bryn says shrilly and Greyson growls like some kind of animal. Hugo shifts slightly, only settling when Greyson stays still.

“They were rescued, Nora. Tell them they were all rescued. By a refugee group living beneath the station.”

I pass on Hugo’s words, despite reeling at the thought that there are people who live outside the system. This is bigger than I’d thought. Bigger than anything I’d ever been involved in. The music albums, the small-time movies, even Activation Night are all tiny in comparison. My stomach lurches as I take deep, steadying breaths. This is not what I wanted at all.

“Well, damn,” murmurs Greyson and he appears to collapse in on himself, elbows propped on knees and face buried in his hands.

“Greyson, your father could still be alive,” Bryn says. Greyson lurches to his feet, an explosion of movement that sends my heart racing.

“Your brother, Pa, Ma, they’re waiting for us.” He grins manically. “And I know how to get us there!”

----------------------------------------