Greyson

Bones knows I’m back. He isn’t the unofficial dark lord of Grounders for nothing and though he’s only got one eye, he may as well have thousands cos I’m being watched. Have been ever since I sneaked into L8 from one of the lost passageways, I reckon. He’s waiting for me to come to him. He likes to act like a real gent with rules and manners and thanks and pleases when he’s lopping off bod parts to add to his bone playground. He’s got to be pissed I took what’s owed him.

Rayburn was wary about my talking to Bones, too. Sure, Bones’s the Undercamp’s inside man – despite communication only being one way up until now – but he isn’t going to upset the status quo and risk the neat niche he’s carved out for himself. So I’ve put off seeing Bones.

I caught up with Bryn on her home level, ate doughnuts (more squish-mush than shape but I hadn’t the heart to turn my nose at them) and cheered her up the only way I knew how – by dragging her to my lab and getting her to strip wires. By the end she was getting into it, ranting under her breath as she wielded the pliers with fair gusto. And Rayburn called again, voice oddly deep-like. Whose body was he borrowing this time? He wanted to know where I was with the invention and wasn’t too pleased with my answer — I won’t know until a full diagnostic’s done.

Bryn went back to her wire stripping and I did my best to stay clear until I ran out of wires and sent her home to coma-fy. Maybe I’ll build her an animatronic to keep her company? Maybe a bird to sit on her shoulder? Zipper would’ve …

Well, after Bryn left, I worked on my father’s invention though I’ve no clue how it works, but it’s coming along like the schematics says. But in my mind is this nag-nag-nagging. Bones’s going to wait only so long, and I like where my fingers are right now ta very much.

And that’s how I’ve ended up across the street from Bone City, peering up the Bone Corridor like it’s going to bite, and it could do, with all them teeth. In my pocket’s a gift for Bones to take the edge off his anger and I check it’s still there again. And again.

I’m stalling.

Blackout’s been in place for hours and it’s mostly quiet as I cross the street and step inside, ignoring the grinning skulls around me.

And you know what? I should’ve waited five glitching more minutes.

The door-minder is still flicking through his touchpad when the Mediators swarm the Bone Corridor like a tsunami of black armour and beating batons. One baton sharp-clips me in the shoulder and I crash into a wall of bones, dropping to my knees to avoid the follow up blow to my head. Crawling through the bone dust, I’m more at risk of being accidentally kicked than arrested until I plough straight into a pair of carbon-nano covered legs.

“Well, glitch,” I swear as the Mediator heaves me up by my collar to shine his mode-light straight into my face. Blind, I stumble along as he hauls me sideways.

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“Let go, you …” I hiss, but the Mediator cuts me off with a stiff cuff around the ear.

“Mute it, Ward,” the man grunts.

“How’d you know my name?” I growl, wiggling about, seeing if there’s any room for me to make a quick escape.

The man huffs, pressing me up against the crumbling bone, and, reluctant-like, says, “I knew your parents.”

“Who’re you, then?” I demand and the Mediator yanks up his visor, revealing his jaw, tip of a nose, and a deeply creased mouth.

“Dylan Rey. Your father and I were … friends.” There’s a heavy pause. Is he going to let me go or not?

“What of it?” A beat of the space station’s blades and it clicks in my head. “You knew,” I say, quiet enough only he can hear. “You knew he faked his death.”

“Yes.”

“Why? Why’d he do it?”

“He thought he was better than us,” Rey growls. “He made the same choice we all did, but had a change of heart. He only had himself to blame for what happened.”

“Wow, how glitching illuminating.”

“Mute it,” Rey spits, shaking me firmly. “It’s his fault things had to be this way. If he’d only kept his mouth shut, he wouldn’t have had to fake his death, Hannah would be safe where she belongs and I wouldn’t have had to erase my own wife’s memories.”

“I don’t…” I splutter and yank down on his arms, hoping to ease the pressure on my throat.

“Thad always had plans within plans, but he asked too much. He wanted me to protect Hannah, to protect you, when he was gone, but the Guardian…things didn’t work out. I had my own girl to think of. We did what we could. Mari had Hannah design clothes, just like she used to, but The Guardian couldn’t overlook your father’s actions and in the end, you and your mother paid the price.”

“What did he do?” I ask and the rage boiling under Rey’s skin quietens. It’s like he’s finally seeing me, not my father. Not the man he once called friend.

“He should’ve explained it all in the message he left in some toy.”

Zipper. He means Zipper. Zipper who no longer exists, her memories destroyed and with them my father’s message. Curse Bones. I wish I’d never met him.

As if my thoughts summon the man, Bones is led twisting and howling from his fortress, suspended between two Mediators, his toes barely brushing the bone-dust ground.

“Guardian, you glitching dishonourable cheat!” His face is a ruddy red, his blind eye madly rolling in his head. “Without me, us Grounders would’ve revolted decades ago, no matter what mind tricks you have, and now you’ve the nerve to Evict me?”

“You outgrew your usefulness, Mr Chaim Bones,” a voice announces from the speakers embedded in all the Mediators suits, even Rey’s. A flickering hologram appears before Bones, the man’s long jacket brushing against tall, leather boots. I can’t see his face, but I know who this is. No one else has the ability to manifest a hologram without the aid of working modes.

The Guardian steps closer to Bones, near enough to smell his fear.

“All I do, I do for the greater good,” the Guardian says, almost regretful. “Evict him and anyone else you find in his so called Bone City.” The Guardian disappears and Bones is dragged away, yelling a constant stream of abuse.

Rey loosens his hold, his suit glinting cruelly under the spotlights being set up. “I’m sorry, boy. I truly am. But I’m just following the Guardian’s orders.” He sounds so sincere I nearly don’t react in time. Two other Mediators, like shadows, sweep in from nowhere, thick arms reaching out to snag me but I’m quick, jerking out from under them.

Thank sky I’ve one trick left up my sleeve. I take off soon as I hit the gift I’d been planning to give Bones, my annoy-the-dirt-out-of-mediators-cos-I-can blocker, leaving dark statues along the glowing bone corridor in my wake like Old Earth tombstones.