Bryn

“Ah … stitch!” I hiss and grip my side, my mouth twisting in annoyance as I rub. And here I thought I was pretty fit after Rayburn’s training. Greyson laughs, while Lenora looks confused, and I take a moment to study her without her holo-glamour.

She’s still beautiful. Annoying, that. She has a handful of golden freckles dusted across her cheeks and her eyelashes are so blonde they’re nearly invisible, but she still has a petite nose, the most perfectly bowed lips (a tad chewed on, which makes me feel a little better), and her fiery red hair peeks out from beneath a dark green hood. She looks like a punk tree faerie in heavy boots and a frilly pale green skirt.

I totally won, I send Greyson as the ache in my side eases. I stretch my hands over my head and breathe deeply, filling my lungs bit-by-bit and feeling my ribcage expand.

As if! he crows. Finish line was L5. You ate my dust.

Oh, mute it, Grey, I snipe, straightening quickly as our distraction gets sorted. The teacher is leading two kids towards us, both wearing identical pouts.

“Come on,” I whisper.

Greyson leads, passing through corridors lined with coffins until we’re in front of a familiar grey door. Already I’m not sure if I can find my old coffin. For a place that’s always seemed impossibly big, I’ve clearly outgrown it, a whale in a bathtub … or is it a shark in a pool?

“Hurry,” he murmurs, holding the door open after giving it a forceful shove. As we sneak in, the lights flicker on quietly. The cradles are still stacked where we left them, covered in a fine layer of dust, as if the cleanbots haven’t even been in, though you could see their tracks crisscrossing the floor.

We settle in the same spots and it’s like a visual echo. I’m facing Greyson and Lenora, except this time Greyson is radiating energy like a sun radiates heat, invisible, but I can feel it from here. Lenora’s pale and small in comparison.

“You were right,” she says. “About the Evictions and the Mediators being a part of it,” she rushes out, both apologetic and defensive at the same time. She shrugs her bag off her shoulder and the contents clunk when she gently rests it on the floor. In a room full of dusty spare parts and disused cradles, she’s a fairytale princess accidentally written into existence on a far-flung spaceship.

Greyson

“Tell us, from the start.” I’m doing my best to be patient-like.

“Okay,” Lenora sighs, relaxing her shoulders and straightening her back until confidence ripples off her skin like she’s switched on a holo-glamour. “Last night I was unfortunate enough to witness a raid by my father on Level Eight.”

On Level Eight? Bryn asks me and I hush her.

“Whereabouts?” I say, though I’ve a fair idea.

“Bone City.”

And I know what she’s going to say. Chaim Bones, Grounder king, and ringleader of the black-market and all those dealings settled firm-like in the grey, has truly been snagged.

“I went through my father’s files and the conspiracy is bigger than you thought.” Lenora’s calm facade disappears and she surges to her feet, flexing her hands in time with her two-step shuffle. “There’s evidence that whole neighbourhoods have been Evicted!”

“Whole neighbourhoods?” Bryn’s skeptical.

“Here! Proof!” Lenora flings out her arms. For a sec nothing happens then something, a virus maybe, tasting of artificial intelligences, wiggle-worms its way into my system. I can see, hanging in the air in bright gold, documents full of numbers and maps of neighbourhoods, profiles of whole families with faces overlaid with large letter Es and lists of dates and figures stretching back well before my parents were commissioned and my parents’ parents and my parents’ parents’ parents. Back generations to when families were genetically related and people were actually born. I stand to get a fair look. Bryn draws the profiles closer, flicking through faces as her own becomes real pale.

“They look familiar,” Bryn murmurs and pauses on an image.

“The last mass eviction occurred fourteen years ago,” Lenora states.

I expand the most recent map, flip-switching it between two fingers as I try to locate it within the station. “Ashville?”

“The neighbourhood of Ash. A ghost story,” Bryn says. “It’s only make believe.”

Lenora

Greyson has a way with the tech. He’s calling up more maps, layering them on top of each other before dismissing them. It swirls around him, ribbons of information correlating into subgroups of relevance. A handful he flicks off towards Bryn, without her having to ask, as she surrounds herself with the Evicted profiles. She’s looking for something, seeing connections where all I see are faces: wrinkly ones, smooth chubby ones, ones pretty and plain, most tired.

“Why doesn’t anyone notice all these people are gone?” Bryn asks. “Surely a whole neighbourhood couldn’t be erased without someone noticing their absence!”

“We didn’t notice,” Greyson points out.

“But we were four!” she snaps.

“Now, though?” Greyson asks. “Your high-ranking brother’s gone, and it’s like he doesn’t exist!”

Bryn flinches. “Glitch, Bryn, I’m sorry,” and Greyson moves through his collected data to bump up against her, hesitant as though he half expects her to push him away. Instead, she barely tenses and after a moment relaxes, leaning into his side as though he can protect her from the world. I ache just looking at them.

“He’s right, though,” Hugo says and gives me a gentle smile. He’s sitting on the VHS cradle I abandoned, legs stretched out in front of him and his hat rotating in his hands, the rim flexing in his fingers.

Does he know what I’m thinking? That I’m even more desperately in love with him?

“If you’re disconnected, you cannot exist,” I say. “If you have enough Friends, you’re safe.”

“My brother wasn’t safe,” Bryn says, “even though … what’s that sound?”

We all freeze, straining to hear beyond the walls. A squeak, the buzz and creak of a spring releasing and tightening, the rasp of canvas. My bag moves.

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“She’s waking up,” Hugo crows.

“What’s that?” Greyson frowns, his voice edgy and a little broken. I drag the bag into the middle of the three cradles and the two take their seats while I perch on the end of mine as Hugo refuses to budge up.

“My father brought it home after the raid on Bone City. I think it’s broken.” I peel open the bag to reveal the unblinking robot, mouth still open and one ear slowly flicking.

“Zipper?” Greyson whispers.

Greyson

My knees crack as they hit the floor and I scoot forward with a push of my toes until Zipper rests between my thighs, statue still, except for her ear. I caught the ear in the door when I was fair bitty and it’s got a tendency to fritz out when she hasn’t been oiled.

“Is she okay?” Bryn whispers.

“Are you familiar with it?” Lenora asks. I ignore them, running my fingers over Zipper’s cool chrome bod, checking joints and panels, testing for damage, and then slipping my thumbs under her jaw to feel for the latch. Her face snaps up and I’ve access into her core circuitry. Her systems should be lit up like a nebula, pulsing rosy-purples, white-blues and violent-reds. Instead it’s colourless, lightless, bare a flash-flicker to show the bot’s even active.

“Greyson?” Bryn prompts.

“She’s running on basics. I thought …” I click-snick her face back into place and straighten her wire whiskers. “I was wrong.”

“You can’t fix her?” Bryn sounds so hopeful-like, as if she finds it hard imagining there’s something I can’t do. If my father was here, then maybe. I just don’t know enough. I look at Lenora and she’s frowning, her head tilting a bit as if she hears something. The room’s soundproof. I listen anyway, trying to pick out noise beyond the soft clicking of the bot’s ear and the creak-squeak of Bryn’s boots.

“Lenora? Everything okay?” Bryn asks, noticing Lenora’s pinched look, too.

I’m not sure if I like the idea she’s communicating with someone outside, Bryn says.

She can’t. Room’s shielded. Why I chose it in the first place.

Then who’s she talking to?

The girl ignores us, her lips moving as she mumbles under her breath, arguing with someone until she frowns, huffing a quiet “fine.”

“We can fix her,” Lenora admits and hugs her body tight-like.

“Excuse me?” I splutter.

“Well, I can’t.” She chews on her lip, reluctance screaming in the way she perches, the tension in her calves as she balances on the tips of her toes before rocking onto her heels, the cradle sway-swaying with each movement. “My friend can.”

I want to reach out and shake her, get her friend to fix Zipper, except she looks like she’s about ready to shatter into a million circuits.

“Lenora, who’s your friend?” Bryn asks, and the girl’s bottom lip right trembles.

“Hugo. His name is Hugo and he’s my Imaginary Friend. My best friend.”

Seriously? Bryn barks at me, surprised and amused as wariness is replaced with a sense of pity. Geez, I can’t even remember when I outgrew mine!

I don’t say I never had one. Ma couldn’t afford it, and I’d Zipper. I’ve wondered what it was like, a friend designed to keep you, and only you, company. They’re meant to train you in social skills, you know, so maybe that’s what went wrong with me.

“You’re not joking, are you?” I’m leaning over Zip, her ear flit-fluttering against my sternum, getting in close to Lenora’s face so she can’t turn away. Her throat pulses as she swallows before her head tilts, ever so slight, as if she’s listening to someone, seeing someone who isn’t really there.

“He says she was never deleted,” she answers and edges back, flushed. “She’s safe. The memories are just locked away. You only need the right key.” She gestures for me to reopen Zipper’s head and my fingers shake as I connect to Zipper’s system, following Lenora’s prompts as she recites the code that’ll unlock her.

There’s nothing for a sec and then a buzz of sensations, a tingle down my spine, and she’s there, slotting into my brain as if she’d never left.

Greyson, took you long enough, she teases, rasping her rough tongue against my cheek.

Bryn

“Bryn! It’s Zipper!” Greyson crows and slings Zipper up beneath her front legs. Zipper’s whiskers are twitching, and I can hear her purring from here, despite Greyson swinging her around like a toy.

“Hugo says she has a message for you,” Lenora pipes up. Greyson’s face brightens, carefully depositing Zipper on his abandoned seat.

“That right, Zip?” There’s a suspended moment as the two conversed privately and a shared icon shaped like a paw flickers up on the top right of my mode screen, a link to Greyson’s father’s message from over ten years ago.

“Should I activate it?” I ask, hesitant because this message could be private.

“It’s fine, click it.”

I wink it open. It’s a memory. Zipper’s memory.

The Professor inserts the last three months’ worth of notebooks (June-August 371), data cubes containing his recent project and two artworks by Greyson, folded in quarters in a canvas satchel, at a speed that suggests he is agitated. The air tastes of his anxiety, sour with a slight electrolyte imbalance and he’s had a 5.3% increase in grey hairs since the last evaluation.

His modes are jostled fifteen degrees off centre as he reaches up to yank schematics from the wall and his jacket collar is moist with sweat.

It is 23:48.

Greyson has entered his second REM cycle for the evening, his serotonin levels are increasing, and his current dream is becoming restless as he searches for his parents in empty school hallways. A small adjustment and he relaxes as the hallways are filled with colourful balloons.

“Are you recording, Zipper?” The Professor asks.

Yes, Professor.

He collapses into his chair, his hands rubbing up over his face and dislodging his modes. They bounce and skitter across the floor, disappearing underneath some shelves. He doesn’t pick them up and a note is made to remind him later.

“Okay, okay, just give me a moment.” He presses firmly against his temples then takes a steadying breath.

Professor?

“Right. Greyson.” He clears his throat. There’s a mug of cold tea on his workbench, four-fifths full and he downs two-thirds, grimacing. “I wish … no, I didn’t want to start with wishes. Heavens, you’re only four years old, but I know I’m talking to you all grown up, a man, and you’d have learnt that wishes are pointless, and that’s my fault you think that way, will think that way.” He stops, drinks the rest of his tea. “I was asked to join a secret program under the Guardian’s directive addressing the issues of over-population on the lower levels while the top levels desire more and more space. It was an honour to use my skills to aid our station. I should’ve asked more questions, investigated more thoroughly what I was being asked to do.” The Professor’s silent for a moment.

Professor. Time’s precious.

“Sorry. By the time I realised I was designing the destruction of a whole neighbourhood, I was at risk of losing you and your mother, and I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t save Ashville. I failed all those people, and now it doesn’t exist anymore. In a week’s time, Coleridge Place will open all shiny and new, and no one will even remember Ashville. I suspect it isn’t the first time and I refuse to let another neighbourhood full of people, of families and children, be purged, just because we need more space.” The Professor’s shaken, wrung out, his system out of balance, metal stressed to breaking point.

“By faking my death I’m ensuring I’m not Evicted, that your memory of me, your mother’s memory, will help you find the right path. You won’t be alone. Dylan Rey and Rhia Morgan will help you and I’ll leave all the pieces here for you to find.” He gestures to his workspace, quiet and messy. Something beeps, soft and persistent.

“I thought I’d have more time before I had to be on Level Four,” the Professor mutters, then straightens. “Zipper, look after my boy, and Hugo, attached is the necessary code for your final assignment. Be watchful and I trust you to make the right decision when the time comes. The Professor’s fingers flick a data package and it settles deep into the core system.

Shall you perform the information Block now?

It is 23:56.

“I’m sorry, Zipper,” the Professor murmurs and he locks away all the memories tagged with this event.

I’m dumped from the memory gasping, a sob half caught in my throat as I drag trembling fingers over wet cheeks.

I’ve lived my entire life in Coleridge Place. I started my first collections of pretty pieces of plastic along those lane-ways. My unit has seen hundreds of sleepovers and study sessions. My neighbours stayed the same – the Kleans and their son, Wilbur, who’s two years my junior, are next door, Filip the software engineer across the way, either side of him the Meyers family and Bell and Maxine Jones who’ve been petitioning for a baby for eight years. I can’t imagine remembering other people living in their places.

But Jonas remembered. Mr Lee and his little stall full of bottles and boxes, smoking a pipe with the dexterity only a man who’s part dragon could pull off, and Martha and Mollie, who saved me buttons. I couldn’t remember them. In Jonas’ shared experience I hadn’t felt a flicker of familiarity as I looked at their faces. I assumed that was just the flakiness of a young mind yet to learn how to record memories properly. A quick run through of Jonas’ memory makes me sick. I don’t remember any of the people moving around the streets and in and out of the units near ours. They’re all strangers.