Prologue – Scar Tissue

 

Hollywood, 2516 C.E

“Calliope Olivia Jackson, get up here right now – dinner’s ready!”

I groaned, setting the tweezers down on the workbench beside me. “One minute, Dad!” I called back, before picking up my tweezers once more and going back to work.

“Hurry up!” He yelled down the stairs. “And bring your little sister with you. She shouldn’t even be down there with you; you know that.”

I sighed loudly in annoyance, hoping he’d hear. “Yes, Dad,”

I was in the basement of our four-storey house; a place I more commonly referred to as my workshop. Mum and Dad refused to let me experiment upstairs – the furniture was far too expensive and they would never forgive me if I wrecked any of it. It wasn’t like we had over five spare bedrooms that we weren’t using that I could renovate into a better working space than what I had down in the basement, but my parents were adamant; no experiments upstairs.

In the dim light, I could see the smiling face of my younger sister, Libby, sitting across from where I was working. The two-year-old was so fascinated by the things I could do with a few wires, a battery and a handful of scrap metal; I couldn’t wait for her to grow up so I could teach her everything I knew. She had blonde hair that fell in untamed ringlets to her chin, and the same bright blue eyes as me and my two brothers. Every now and then whilst watching me work she would clap her chubby hands in excitement as something sparked or lit up; a reaction that never failed to make me smile.

Another thing Mum and Dad hated was Libby being down here with me whilst I was doing things like this; it was a widely known fact that only licensed Scientists were legally allowed to open up their inventions and fix them. Then again, it was also a widely known fact that I tend not to listen to people’s warnings. They probably hated me tinkering with all the possible things that weren’t supposed to be tinkered with, but I hadn’t accidentally exploded anything yet, so they had no reason to make me stop when it was so clearly something I was good at.

I knew it annoyed them; any normal thirteen-year-old girl is out nearly all day every day, going to the shops and the movies, going to parties and generally growing up far too fast. I stayed home and locked myself in the basement all day, pretending I didn’t exist. At least, unlike normal thirteen-year-olds, there was a method behind my madness. Those “normal thirteen-year-olds” as my parents called them, spent their time at school teasing me because I hadn’t met my Soul Mate yet. I was trying to find a way to make it look like I already found him. If there was a way to make the screen of my watch display those twelve consecutive zeroes I wanted so badly without having to wait three more years, I would figure it out. There was no ‘maybe’, no doubts; I would find a way, even if it was the last thing I ever did.

Just before Dad had called, I had found a way to the controls in the back of my watch. Now, eyes wide, I fiddled around with free wire around the edge of the inset. I needed a passcode. Then a fingerprint. I needed to hack the system; find the passcode, replicate a fingerprint.

I needed to go to the Scientists.

But patience had never been one of my strong suits.

“Can you do it?” Libby asked, her eyes wide.

I looked up at her, a smirk on my face. “Do you even have to ask?”

Returning my smirk, she shook her head. “You’re going to be one of them one day, a Scientist,” she said in awe, “aren’t you?”

“Anything to get out from under Oliver’s shadow.” I said coolly. I reached to my left and grabbed the tiny screwdriver from where I had last left it on the bench, and started working on taking out the screws of the inset.

My brother. Oliver Jackson. Hollywood’s Golden Boy. Singer, songwriter, dancer, actor, model. Four months at number one on the Aria charts. Sold over a million records in the first month. Constantly followed by paparazzi and screaming twelve-to-fifteen-year-olds. My parents didn’t care what I did as long as it didn’t ruin his reputation. I imagined they’d be the same with Libby when she got to my age, and my little brother Josh, who was ten. Nothing really mattered as long as their golden boy Oliver was still rich and famous.

“But…” Libby struggled for words. “He doesn’t make everyone ignore you on purpose,”

I sighed. “I know, Lib, I know. It’s just… hard.”

Libby cocked her head to the side thoughtfully. “If something’s hard,” she said, “it’s normally for a reason.”

I sighed again, then motioned for Libby to come closer and take a look. I had managed to take out all the screws holding the inset of the watch in place. No lasers. No fires. No explosions. Everything anyone said would happen, didn’t happen.

“Ready?” I asked Libby.

She nodded in earnest, her chin resting on her hands that were resting on the table, her face right in front of the over turned watch.

“Ok,” I smiled, reaching out to squeeze her hand before placing the screwdriver back on the bench and reaching once more for my tweezers. Slowly, carefully, I began to work the edges of the inset free.

Then, “Calliope, get up here. Right. Now.”

I jumped.

Then the explosion went off.

That’s how I nearly lost my right arm.

And that’s how I killed my younger sister.

 

Three Easy Steps

 

Brooklyn, 2518 C.E

“I don’t see the point of being back here,” I grumbled, opening the car door and clambering out. Nineteen hours in any car would have been torture, but I got stuck in the car with my family who hated me with a passion.

In front of me was the house I grew up in until I was eleven. It looked exactly the same as it did when we left, bringing childhood memories to mind; Oliver and I jumping on the trampoline in the back garden whilst Josh sat in his ball pit throwing plastic balls at us; having splash fights in the swimming pool; stereotypical sleepovers of a ten-year-old girl featuring games of truth or dare and spotlight; a baby girl’s bubbly laugh that could be heard constantly throughout—stop. I threw up a block inside my head. No. I wouldn’t break down again. I couldn’t; I was the strong one.

“Oli wants to go back to school this year, Calliope,” My mum said.

“He could’ve gone to school in Hollywood. Would’ve saved us moving back here.” I mumbled. “I was happy there.”

“Calliope Olivia, will you think about someone other than yourself for a minute?” Mum cried exasperatedly. “We promised Oli one year where he didn’t have to put up with the stress of Hollywood. You know how he gets… This will be good for him, psychologically. Besides, it will help him get over that Clarissa girl. Why he went out with her when they weren’t Soul Mates, I’ll never know…”

“Oliver just wants to have a new lot of teenage girls screaming over him. You know how he gets.” I muttered under my breath.

Mum sighed and hid her face behind her hands. “Calliope, I can’t do this now.” She muttered. “All I’m saying is, this will be good for us all. I couldn’t stand living in that house any longer. Not since…” She broke off, but the ending of her sentence hung in the air between us like a dark cloud of despair.

Not since Libby died.

Not since I killed my little sister and nearly lost my arm as karma. I would do anything to change that; anything to bring her back, anything to change it so that I was the one who died and she nearly lost her arm. Or just so that I was the one who died and she survived perfectly healthy and well. No matter how many times they said it, I knew Mum and Dad would never forgive me for it. It may have been an accident, but if I hadn’t been playing around with the inset of my watch and being impatient, Libby would still be alive. I knew they blamed me for it. They had good reason to; I was the only one to blame. Most nights I woke up in a cold sweat calling out for her, grasping at empty sheets. She was never there, though, and I knew she never would be.

I sighed and turned away from my mother. I couldn’t face her; she looked far too much like Libby. She had Libby’s blonde, bouncy curls and the bright blue eyes that our whole family inherited. She was slim and tall yet still felt the need to wear huge heals the size of every skyscraper in New York piled on top of one another. I never understood why. She always looked ready to walk out into bouts of paparazzi with my Hollywood Golden Boy of a brother, unlike me. Despite the good looks my brother got, I wasn’t anywhere near pretty enough to be the sister of Hollywood’s Golden Boy. I had brown hair that came just past my shoulders – it bugged me a lot because it could never decide if it wanted to be wavy or straight, and the majority of the time, one side would be as straight as a ruler whilst the other was almost in ringlets. I had bright blue eyes and long, dark eyelashes, but anything pretty about me was immediately counteracted by the ugly scar tissue that wound itself all the way up my right arm to my throat. The scar tissue that was my penance for killing Libby.

I looked up to walk around to the back of the car and felt my stomach fly into my throat. “Josh!” I cried, panicking, running over to him. “Hey, Joshy, you might want to pass that here,” I said softly, ruffling his hair.

“Your experiments stuff?” He asked quietly, careful of Mum and Dad hearing; they still let me experiment, but they didn’t like it at all.

I nodded, carefully taking the bag from his grip. “I can’t lose you, too.”

“Hey,” he said, grabbing my hand as I went to walk inside. “On the bright side, we’re closer to the Scientists here. You won’t have to move away if you get a job there,”

I smiled a cold smile, hastily grabbing another one of my particularly dangerous bags from his hand. “Honestly, Josh, I would prefer to move far away from wherever they are.”

“Take me with you,” he whispered.

I smiled again, a real smile that time. “I wouldn’t even think about leaving without you,” I promised him. “I’ll see you later,”

I trudged inside the familiar house; it looked exactly how we had left it. It should have made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, but it only brought guilt and nostalgia. Sighing, I lugged my bags upstairs into the bedroom I grew up in as a kid, wishing I could go back.

 

***

 

The halls of St Elizabeth’s School seemed much smaller filled with students than they had earlier that morning when I arrived late for my first day of school. I had been amazed at how wide the hallways were compared to the hallways in the small school for celebrities and their siblings we had gone to in Hollywood. A school that Oliver had never seen the inside of; he was always too bust touring or doing interviews or photo shoots. I wondered how much he would see of these hallways. Chances were he’d be at school for his first day and then pulled out for the rest of the year. That’s how it always was when he decided he wanted to start school again. He would never complain; half the time he had only been at the school for a day or two, so there was nothing keeping him there. I couldn’t imagine that there would be anything worth keeping him here in Brooklyn.

The school – St. Elizabeth’s – had the biggest library in America which, by extension, meant the biggest library in the world. Or at least, the biggest school library. Oliver reckoned that was why he wanted to come back to Brooklyn. I doubted that; he was probably just like Mum and Dad and couldn’t live in the house where Libby died. They were always so down about it and it irritated me beyond measure. You aren’t the one who killed her! I always feel like yelling. It’s not your fault she’s dead!

I remember, after it happened, they got Oliver to see a counsellor. Just Oliver. Not Josh, the one who came down to see what happened and saw her lifeless body slouched against the back wall of the basement. Not me, the one who killed her in the first place. After Josh came down, the staircase collapsed and the three of us had to be dug out. The Scientists came and took Libby’s body away before my parents or Oliver could see it. You would’ve thought that Josh and I were the ones who needed counselling. Not Oliver. And we did, but our parents only cared about the way it might have impacted Oliver’s singing career, so we had to get over our psychological issues by ourselves. We were happy in Hollywood. We had just started getting over Libby’s death. Yet Mum, Dad and Oliver never had, and that was why they moved us back to Brooklyn.

Trudging through the halls of St Elizabeth’s, I felt more alone than ever. Stares followed me everywhere I went because of the ugly scar that covered my right arm, but it wasn’t really the stares that bothered me. It was the looks of pity on peoples’ faces. I don’t deserve your pity! I wanted to yell at every one of them. I deserve this scar! But after two years of being burdened with it, I had learned to keep my mouth shut, even though I hadn’t learned to stop messing around with the Scientists’ inventions. It took my mind of things – I couldn’t help it.

My gaze swept the hallway, searching for my locker number. I found it quickly, it was right beside the only other person in the hallway still at their locker. A lanky boy with black messy hair and green eyes who was all arms and legs. He looked up as I stopped beside him, his eyes wide.

“Did it hurt?” He asked me.

I turned to face him, a look of indifference colouring my features. “If you’re going to follow that with ‘When you fell from heaven’, you can stop talking right now.” I snapped.

He smirked. “I meant your arm. How you got that scar.”

“Of course it hurt,” I said indignantly. “But when things hurt it’s usually for a reason.” My heart clenched as I repeated the last words Libby had ever said to me, but it felt like the right thing to say. Even if it was to this boy I had known for about twenty seconds.

“You’re not wrong,” His eyes travelled up and down my arm, taking in every piece, every flaw. Suddenly I felt very self-conscious about the scar.

“Look,” I said, “If you’re going to go on about how sorry you are that I have this damn thing, don’t bother. I deserve it.”

Perplexity coloured his features. “How?”

I sighed. “I accidentally started a fire in the basement of my own house. It killed my two-year-old sister.”

“Oh,” he looked down, “I’m sorry,”

“Yeah,” I muttered, hoping that would end that topic of conversation. “So am I,”

His eyes widened once more when he looked at my arm again. “Your watch! It’s—”

“Purple? Yes. I know. I did that. Blue is so boring, don’t you think?” I asked, happy for the change of subject.

“I was going to say still counting down,” he said admittedly. “Nearly everyone’s here has clocked off. They tease me all the time about mine still counting down. Though, it is pretty cool that you turned yours purple. How did you manage that?”

“I hacked into it,” I told him.

“I thought only Scientists could do that!” He exclaimed.

I smiled. “I’m going to be a Scientist one day,”

He shook his head in awe, “what’s your name, Scientist Girl?”

“Calliope,” I said. “Calliope Jackson.”

He smiled down at me. “I’m David Williamsburg,”

I smirked, an idea forming in my head. “I’ll tell you what, David Williamsburg, I’ll help you out. Three easy steps. One; take off that watch. Two; hide it in the bottom of your bag and don’t take it out. Three; follow me home tonight and I’ll fix all your problems – I’ve never liked bullies.”

 

Where the Demons Hide

 

“No way.” David scoffed as we walked up the stairs to the front porch of my house. “You do not live here. Holy shit,”

I wish I didn’t. I thought to myself idly. Mum had left because she could bear to stay with the demons lingering around our old house. Hers may have left, but mine followed me. They always did. I didn’t mention that, though. I was lucky to have David at all; there was no use loading all my rubbish onto him the first day we met. It was bad enough that I already told him about Libby.

I sighed. “Well, being related to a certain ‘Hollywood Golden Boy’ does tend to have its perks.” I made quotation marks with my fingers around the words ‘Hollywood Golden Boy’ and rolled my eyes, grabbing the key from the key safe beside the door and let us in the house.

David hesitated at the front door, one eyebrow raised. “Wait,” he said slowly. “Calliope Jackson… you’re Oliver Jackson’s sister?”

I smirked. “A little slow on the uptake there, but yes,”

David stood shamelessly in the doorway, his jaw dropping to the floor.

“I’m anything but lucky.” I told him. “Him and my parents kinda really make me wanna kill myself.”

David flinched and awkwardly walked over to me. “But you’re still here,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” I laughed humourlessly. “I think they’d enjoy my death a little too much. So there’s no way I’m handing it over to them on a silver platter.”

I spun away from him then, suddenly very self-conscious about the fact that he had been in my personal space. People tended to avoid me. When I found the rare few that didn’t, I didn’t know how to act around them. “Come on,” I said, motioning for him to follow me, and running down the stairs to the basement.

A few minutes in the perfection of my parents’ living room had already made me nauseas. They wanted our family to be as perfect as that room. I was the crack in the wall that would always reappear. The crease in a shirt that refused to iron out. So I tended to avoid being anywhere upstairs except for meals and when I was sleeping.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, David stopped in his tracks, his eyes scanning the room, an expression of wonder colouring his features. “This is… incredible,” he said, almost breathlessly.

I followed his eyes, observing the space I had created for myself. Numerous long, rectangular, wooden tables were in the middle of the room, pushed together to create as much workspace as I could. The majority of the space was already cluttered with tools and wires and motherboards. Behind that, I had hung a string of metal wire from one wall to another and slung three or four sheets over the top of it to act as a door. The walls the wire hung from had been painted over in white-board paint and were filled with equations and algorithms and experiments and results. In an over-flowing storage box that sat in the corner of the room were all the experiments or inventions of mine I could fit in there.

I raised my eyebrows. “Is that another way of saying ‘you really need to get a life, Calliope’? Because if it is, I completely understand what you mean.” I said sarcastically before my tone turned serious. “But there is no other life for me, David.”

He shook his head. “No. No! I mean, incredibly as in incredible, Calliope. How…?”

I smirked then. “I’m not one for following rules.”

“Figures,” he mumbled.

“Speaking of,” I said, walking over to the only clear table in the middle of the room. “your watch?”

He shook his head as if he could shake away the wonder, and made his way over to me, dropping his bag on the floor at his feet and rummaging through it until he found it under everything else in his bag. Exactly where I told him to hide it. He passed it over to me.

I carefully placed it on the table in front of me and began work on the screws holding the back on. Libby’s voice swam through my head, repeating the conversation we had the first time I decided to experiment with the watches.

Can you do it?

Do you even have to ask?

You’re going to be one of them one day, a Scientist. Aren’t you?

Anything to get out from under Oliver’s shadow.

Back then, getting out from underneath Oliver’s shadow had almost seemed possible. Now his shadow covered my whole life. Covered the whole world. I didn’t think I would ever be able to escape it. Or at least, not in my parent’s eyes.

“So, how does this work?” David asked cautiously as I unscrewed the last screw holding the back onto his watch. “Am I like… your Igor or something?”

I gave him a questioning look. “…Igor?”

He smirked. “In really ancient times, before the Third World War – before even the First World War, that is – scientists had these scraggly little hunch-back midget type people that would be like their assistant. The only one I can remember personally was called Igor.”

I observed the boy in front of me once more. He was tall and skinny – all arms and legs. He didn’t seem like he fitted the ‘Igor type’. I raised my eyebrows. “You’re not short. Or scraggly. Or a hunch-back.”

A smile etched its way onto his face. “It’s a metaphor, Calliope,”

“You’re not my Igor.” I said sternly, carefully lifting the back of the watch from its place with tweezers. “But you can help me if you want,”

David could barely stop the excitement from showing on his face.

“Three things, though. Rules, almost. Break them, and you’re gone.”

His expression slipped a little. “The first?”

I looked down at his watch in front of me, staring at the little screen asking for a passcode and a fingerprint, before looking back up to him. “Ever committed any felonies? Fraud? Breaking and entering?”

David’s brow furrowed. “No…”

“Get ready to wipe your innocent slate clean. We have felonies and frauds to commit, and places to break and enter.” I shoved his watch towards him, angling it so he could clearly see the words flashing on the screen in the back of it. “Starting with this.”

He noticeably gulped, but nodded. “Second?”

I gave him a stern look. “Don’t touch anything without my permission.”

He nodded again, his eyes travelling once more over his watch.

Smiling, I shoved his watch to the side of the table and pulled my hair up into a quick pony tail, getting it out of the way, but at the same time, revealing the true extent of my scar. My scar was the main reason I usually kept it down. It hid the part of it on my neck, whereas my shirts tended to cover the majority of it on my arm. I picked up my bag from where I had left it down the bottom of the stairs and turned back to David. “You coming?” I asked sweetly.

He nodded, grabbing his bag and meeting me at the bottom of the stairs.

He didn’t follow me up, I realised as I was on the second last step. I turned back to face him just as he started talking.

“Calliope,” he said curiously. “What’s the third condition?”

I smirked, “Don’t fall in love with me.”

“Why not?” He asked carefully.

“Before long, everything I love turns to ashes. I can’t afford to lose anyone else.”

 

***

 

“You’re not serious.” Was all David said when we ducked down behind a dumpster outside the perimeter of the Scientists’ workshops. “You can’t be serious.”

A smirk worked its way onto my features. “Something you’ll learn about me eventually,” I said calmly, “I’m always serious.”

“Really?”

“The majority of the time.” I shrugged.

David’s eyes travelled over the compound in front of us, a look of dread on his face.

“Come on,” I said grabbing his hand and pulling him up from out hiding space, only to have him pull me back down to the ground behind the dumpster again.

“Are you insane?” He whispered fiercely.

I shrugged. “There’s a high possibility.”

“We can’t go in there.” He told me in a stern voice. “There are police. There are rules—”

I covered his mouth with my hand. “Rules are only made so someone can break them, my dear David.” I said, filled with delight. “They only exist to stop people having fun.”

“Fun?!” He was exasperated. “Fun is sitting at home playing video games or watching movies or playing football. Not breaking into the Scientists’ compound!”

“Well, I don’t play video games. I don’t watch movies. I don’t play football. I don’t go to parties. I don’t talk to people. I don’t let people in. This is my kind of fun. Love it or leave it, it’s up to you. But I will find a way to alter my watch even if it’s the last thing I do.” I said fiercely.

“I can’t let you go in there alone, Calliope.”

“Then we’ve reached an agreement.” I snapped, standing up. “Are you coming?”

He grudgingly got to his feet, looking around awkwardly. “This isn’t safe at all,” he commented.

“Neither is giving people watches that have the capacity to explode if knocked the wrong way,” I pointed out, “but they gave us them.”

He sighed. “Ok. How do we get in? We can’t climb over the fence – it’s electric. And it’s buzzing. So it’s on.”

I smirked. “Not for long, it’s not.”

“What do you—”

“Fun fact; the Scientists made the fence inferior to substances like gold and copper, so if someone forgot the codes to get in, they could tap their necklace or earring or something onto the fence, and it would power down the section that came in contact with said substance.” I told him.

“But how—”

“No one forgets the code. Once you become a Scientist, you’re a Scientist for life. The other Scientists become your family. The compound becomes your home. I’m pretty confident that they forgot about it altogether. Now, it’s practically a fault in their security system. But it’s a fault we can use to our advantage.”

“Won’t they notice two people climbing the fence on the security cameras?” David asked, looking as if he’d seen a ghost.

“Why would they be filming the fence?” I asked innocently, taking the gold necklace from around my neck – feeling the absence of Libby’s ring immediately in my heart – and wrapped it carefully around a strand of the chain-link fence. “It’s electrified 24/7,”

“That…” he gapped. “That’s one big security fault.”

I smiled slyly, touching the fence with my bare hand. “The most powerful people in the world, brought down by a mere necklace.”

“They should probably get that fixed…” David commented.

“Yes, probably, but if they did, how would we get in?” I asked him.

He blinked. “You’re saying we’ll be coming back?”

I rolled my eyes. “For scientific purposes, of course,”

“Your scientific purposes could land me in jail,” he muttered.

“Look. Do you want me to fix your Soul Mate problem or not?”

He looked down, suddenly finding the gravel below our feet incredibly interesting.

“That’s what I thought.” Was all I said before placing my foot in a chink in the fence and launching myself up, before climbing the rest of the way up and dropping down to the ground on the other side, standing opposite him, the fence separating us. “Come on, then.”

In seconds, he was up and over and standing next to me. “What now?”

“Now?” I asked, unable to keep the smile off my face, “Now we get on the roof.”

“The roof?” He asked uncertainly.

“The roof.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”

“Elevator shafts. The only way to get into the compound undetected.” I explained simply.

He shuddered. “Would now be a bad time to mention the fact that I’m claustrophobic?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Yes, probably. But we’ve got a job to do. Come on.”

He sighed, but followed me.

I walked over to the first ladder I saw. It was attached to some sort of water tank – stark white like everything else. It was about a foot away from the edge of the roof, but also about a foot taller. Crossing that distance from that height wouldn’t be a problem for the two of us. I gripped the rung above my head and pulled myself up. After I climbed a few more rungs, I heard David mount the ladder beneath me.

“Just remember, Williamsburg,” I said lightly, “If you’re staring at my ass, you’re in an excellent position to be kicked in the face.”

He just laughed. “Puh-lease. I’m nothing but professional.”

“Only checking,” I laughed, reaching out to grab the next rung as the wind whipped around the tank violently, throwing my balance. I bit back a squeal before quickly securing my hand back on the ladder and continuing to climb.

“You’re not scared of heights, are you?” David called up jokingly.

“Of course not!” I defended myself. “But everyone’s afraid of falling.”

David paused as the wind whipped around the tank once more. “In which meaning of the term?” He asked carefully.

“All of them.” I said simply, finally pulling myself up onto the top of the tank. I helped David up after me.

He looked down. “What do you reckon they keep in here?” He asked.

“Oil?” I suggested. “Water? The blood of their victims?” I joked.

David’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before he realised I was joking. “That’s not comforting at all,” he complained.

“I’m not here to comfort you, David.” I snapped.

“I know,” he said, dropping down to the floor and twisting the wheel on a latch that opened up into the tank. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

Instead of answering, I bobbed down next to him, peering into the tank as he opened it.

“Is that…” he paused, his eyebrows furrowing. “Is that petrol?”

The smell filling my nostrils was definitely petrol, but, “That’s not possible.” I pointed out. “They stopped making petrol centuries ago. Everything’s run on solar or water or vegetable oil now. But, it certainly smells like petrol.”

I only knew what it smelt like because we had it shoved down our throat in history – not literally – when we were taught about Global Warming and how the human race nearly destroyed the atmosphere by polluting it with things like that. Still, why would the Scientists have petrol?

“Why…?” David started to say.

“I have no idea.” I admitted. “Something’s going on here, David. I’m not sure what, but something’s wrong. The Scientists work about saving the planet. Not destroying it.”

“Well,” David remarked, closing the latch, “they’re doing an excellent job. All that petrol must be great for the environment.”

“I wonder what they’re doing…” I muttered, staring down at the now closed latch, lost in thought. Why would they even need petrol? It was completely unnecessary to 26th century life.

“We should get going,” David pointed out.

I nodded, rising from the latch and making my way over to the edge of the tank that over-looked the roof of the compound. “We have to jump,” I told him.

“We have to jump from a, like, million litre, fifteen metre tall water tank – or rather, petrol tank, sorry – onto the roof of a six storey building that’s one foot away.” He said shakily. “Tell me something, Calliope, are we absolutely mental?”

Filled with adrenaline, a smile etched its way onto my face. “Most definitely.”

I jumped.

 

The Working of the Watch

 

Wind snatched at my clothes violently, thrusting my hair into my face and obscuring my vision. I swung my head to the side in an attempt to get my hair out of my face and blinked, the cold air burning my eyes as I fell. I was sure I left my brain somewhere on the top of that tank with David when I jumped. I never had been afraid of heights, but like I had told David not long before, I was afraid of falling. And whether I jumped or not, it felt like I was falling.

Then it was over, and my feet collided with solid ground. I forced my knees to bend and took a few steps after landing to keep my balance, then turned around to face David. “You coming?” I asked him breathlessly, my heart pumping a new dose of adrenaline through my veins.

All the blood seemed to drain from his face as he had watched me drop, but he nodded. He slowly made his way to the edge of the petrol tank and made the biggest mistake possible; he looked down. I screamed obscenities at him in my head but didn’t dare say them out loud in fear of us being heard and being caught, or of me startling him and him falling.

“You can do it, David,” I insisted softly, but still loud enough that he could hear me. “Just bend your knees and jump. Dead easy.”

He nodded again, his face still as white as a sheet. Not long ago, this boy had been teasing me about being afraid of heights, and now he was in the same boat. He closed his eyes, his body swaying slightly in the harsh wind that whipped around us, then he jumped. A few seconds later, he was landing in front of me. Then I heard the sole of his shoe slip on the roof, and a yelp of surprise from his mouth, as David slipped off the edge.

 

“David!” I cried, rushing over to where he had fallen chest-first onto the edge of the roof. From his waist down, he was dangling over the edge of the roof, but luckily, he seemed to have more upper-body strength that I had expected.

“I’m fine, I’m good,” he gasped, clutching at the roof tiles. “My ribs feel like they’re on fire,” he continued, “but I’m good.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding and dropped down beside him. “Come on, let’s get you up here before the Scientists notice someone dangling precariously off the edge of their roof on level 5.” I joked, my eyes scanning the main part of the compound that swiftly morphed from looking like a block of classrooms at St Elizabeth’s to a skyscraper belonging in Manhattan.

David followed my eyes as he gripped the hand I offered him. “Please tell me we don’t have to climb that too,” He breathed, cringing as he dragged his ribs across the roof tiles before pulling one leg up behind him, then the other.

“No way,” I reassured him. “There’s elevators here that are far easier to slip into.”

Hesitantly, he rolled onto his back and sat up, giving me a questioning look. “Tell me, Calliope,” he smirked, “how am I going to explain broken ribs to my mother?”

I smirked back. “We’ll drop in at the medical centre on our way back,” I promised him. “Chances are, we’re both going to get far more beaten up than we are already.”

The smirked slipped from his face faster than he’d slipped off the roof. “Fabulous,”

I laughed. “Not the word I’d use, but sure.” I dragged myself to my feet. “Can you stand?” I asked, holding out my hand to help him up.

“I have suspected broken ribs, Calliope, not legs,” he pointed out before taking my hand and letting me pull him up.

“Don’t sass me, Williamsburg. I can always leave you here on this roof to rot.” I joked, turning on my heel and heading over to the elevator shafts.

“Calliope, what happens if an elevator comes up when we’re going down?” David asked awkwardly.

I pulled my wrist up to my face, pressing the button I installed on the side of my Watch. As I lowered my wrist to the height of my ribs, a Projection erupted from the Watch, which then showed me all the security basics the Scientists were using in the building we were standing in. It took me less than a minute to disable the elevators. I let the Projection shrink back into the Watch before turning around to David and meeting his wide eyes. “It won’t.”

“Did… did your Watch just—?”

“Yes.”

“Did you just disable—?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Of course it is, David. Is there a problem?” I snapped.

He took a slight step back and shook his head.

“Then come on! We only have ten minutes before the elevators start working again. You don’t want to find out what would really happen if an elevator comes up as we’re going down, do you?”

David paled. “Okay.” He said, confidence seeping into his voice. “Come on. Let’s go.”

I nodded, a quizzical look on my face. I wasn’t sure I could put up with a boy like David, who was either scared out of his wits or incredibly over-confident. I needed someone who was brave. I would have to teach David how to be that way.

“So,” David muttered, “how do we get down the elevator shaft in the first place?”

“Well, typically,” I started, “it depends on the type of elevator. According to the most updated plans of the Compound, these in this building are traction-hydraulic elevators, meaning they have overhead traction cables and a counterweight, and they’re driven by hydraulic power. Depending on the type of elevator, some shafts have headroom at the top, but – unfortunately for us – hydraulic systems generally don’t.”

“So how are we getting in if there’s no headroom?” David asked. “Which floor did you stop the elevator on?”

I made my way over to the elevator shaft, it’s outer doors closed tight. “I was trying to stop it on the fifth floor,” I told him as I dropped to my knees, pulling a bobby pin from my hair and slipping it into the keyhole beneath the call button, “but I think I might have shut it down a little too early.” I finished, pulling out a second bobby pin and starting to pick the lock.

“What is that supposed to mean?” David stiffened.

“It means,” I said, fiddling with the lock, “it probably stopped on the fourth floor. That’s about a six metre drop to the roof of the elevator car.”

“Probably?” He pressed.

“Well, there’s a slight chance it stopped a little lower—” I stopped mid-sentence as the outer doors opened, revealing the shaft. I shuffled to the side and looked over the edge, the interior of the shaft disappearing into darkness. No elevator was in sight. I took my back pack from my shoulder and rummaged through it until I found what I was looking for. The device was small enough to sit neatly in the palm of my hand, a spherical exterior of dark, transparent plastic surrounded the small machine inside. As it registered my DNA, a small screen lit up.

“What is that?” David asked, intrigued.

I shrugged. “I got bored one day. Watch this.” I told him.

I pressed the button on the side of my Watch, the projection appearing in the air. After flicking through files, I found what I was looking for, and connected the device to my Watch. Then, I reached out into the opening of the elevator shaft, and dropped the device. It took a few seconds before anything happened. The projection on my Watch lit up and the number 8.79 flashed on and off in red. I cursed.

“What?”

“It’s about nine metres down the shaft.” I sighed. “It’s on the third floor. We’ll have to lower ourselves down.”

David ran his hands down his face, his breaths coming shallow. “How long will it take for us to reach the elevator car?”

I unzipped my bag again and pulled out a circular device with a single hook on one end and two harness clips on the other, as well as two harness belts. “It shouldn’t take too long, but because of your…” I searched for the right word, “condition, it’s probably best that we go down together. That’ll add extra weight and slow the mechanism down, but it’s better than you having a panic attack.”

He nodded.

I fastened the first harness belt around my wait before attaching it to the first harness clip that extended from the device on a thin steel cord. I then did the same with the second set to David before slinging my bag back onto my back.

“Do me a favour,” I said, “hold my hand. Don’t let me fall.”

The look on David’s face was incredulous, but he did as I said.

I moved to the edge of the elevator shaft, my toes on the edge of the drop. Gripping tightly onto David’s hand, I leant forward on my tip toes so I could reach the centre of the roof of the shaft. It only took me a few second to find something secure enough to clip the device onto, before I forced myself backwards onto the roof of the building, David’s arms instantly around my waist, steadying me.

I looked at him, confused by the contact. He could’ve steadied me by the shoulders, yet he grabbed my waist. I said none of this out loud, though. “Thanks.” I muttered, sliding my bag off my back and pulling out a small torch.

“Now,” I began, “this is probably going to be the hardest part.”

“Going into the shaft?” He asked, confused.

I shook my head. “Stepping off the ledge.”

He paled at my words, but nodded.

“I’ll go first,” I told him, “and I’ll let you know when to join me. It’s best to let the little guy get used to our weight one at a time.”

He nodded again.

I took a deep breath and stepped off the ledge. The steel cable secured to the harness clip extended from the device for about thirty centimetres, leaving me suspended below the height of the roof of the building. I gasped, not prepared for the drop. At the top of the shaft, the device flashed red and beeped. After a few seconds, the light changed to green before going out. I turned the torch on, shining it down the shaft. My stomach dropped at the distance to the elevator car. You’re not going to fall. I told myself. Not going to fall, not going to fall, not going to—

From the external elevator door, David asked, “Will I drop that far too?”

I shrugged. “You might drop a little more – you’re probably a little heavier than me, but you won’t drop more than a metre if I programmed it right.”

His eyes widened. “And if you programmed it wrong?”

I sighed exasperatedly. “I haven’t. Trust me.”

He rolled his eyes down at me, then dropped into the elevator shaft. The cable attached to his harness clip extended enough so he dropped past me by at least ten centimetres, an audible gasp slipping from his mouth. At least I hadn’t been expecting it. I had a reason to gasp. I thought to myself.

“What do we do about closing the doors?” David asked.

“I’ll sort that out later.” I told him. “Right now, we have to get to the elevator car.”

His wide eyes scanned the shaft, and even in the dim light, I could see him pale. I reached over and pressed a button on the side of my Watch, and the steel cord at the top of the device that attached to the clip suspending us over the shaft started to extend, lowering us down. Across from me, David’s breaths were shaking and shallow.

“Talk to me.” He said shakily. “I need to be distracted.”

“Talk about what?” I asked cautiously.

“I don’t know, Calliope, anything.” He said. “Tell me how the Watch works. How does it know who our Soul Mates are?”

“Okay.” I mumbled. “Okay.”

I shone the torch down the shaft, but immediately lifted it back to David. I needed to be strong for him.

“The Watch was originally invented by Codi and William Harper in 2358 following the Third World War.” I told him. “They looked into DNA coding, and found a common factor in all two humans who stayed married. Their children then had that same common factor with the person they married. It’s never really been elaborated what the common factor was, but it was in our DNA. Like a lock and key, really. A person only ever matched with one person in their entire lifetime. Actually, a lot of the time they weren’t even matched with the people they were married to, but that came from a trend that ended in the 19th century called arranged marriages where the parents would set up a marriage for their daughter or son, usually to unite families. This trend started again in the 23rd century, which was why there was a lot of difficulty surrounding Codi and William’s discovery, because a lot of the time it couldn’t be seen as a reality.”

“How did they know who their descendants would end up with?” David asked. “Like, they had DNA for present couples, but not for their children, or their children’s children.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” I said. “They computer generated and approximate DNA/chromosome chart of the offspring of the matched couples, and from that, they were able to determine who the offspring was matched to. Then, with the hospital records, and DNA samples, the Harpers continued the research into Soul Mates until they found a pattern, which they then programmed into the Watch. The original Watch took a DNA sample with a fine needle that extended from the back of the Watch into your wrist. The current Watch, known as Mark-43 – the forty-third edition of the Watch – takes DNA samples from your skin cells, which is a lot more efficient and means that you don’t get stabbed every time you put the Watch back on after showering, which I suppose is nice. Then, the Watches have GPS tracking systems in them, so they know just when the Soul Mates will meet. The numbers are kind of like length of time it would take to cross the distance between you and your Soul Mate.”

“So, it’s really that simple?” He muttered, his voice echoing off the walls of the shaft. “Just, a little lock and key in our DNA?”

I shrugged. “Lately, there’s been a lot of rumours that the Watch is just a breeding program sort of thing, but DNA sounds more promising.”

David’s eyebrows furrowed. “A breeding program?”

I nodded. “A matching process to breed a superior race. If we breed out the disabilities, breed out the mutations and diseases, we could be more than we are. A lot of people are trying to say that the Watches just match you with someone that will eliminate any bad genes you have so you have a child who is better off – genetically – than you are. But I don’t think the Scientists would go to that much effort to twist the Watches into that when Codi and William found Scientific proof that Soul Mates exist.”

“How did they know it worked?”

“You don’t know?” I asked as my feet slowly landed safely on the roof of the elevator car. “Codi and William Harper are the first ever Soul Mates on record. They proved it by accident.”

David nodded. “So,” he looked down at the floor – or rather, the top of the elevator. His voice was still shaking slightly, but he seemed a little better. “What now?”

“First of all, we need to see if anyone is in the actual elevator.” I told him, swinging my bag off my back and pulling out a small camera – it was about a centimetre by a centimetre, just small enough to fit between the grate of the emergency hatch at the top of the elevator. I clipped the cord the camera hung on to the grate of the hatch, programming my Watch to project the image from the camera, before I slowly lowered it into the elevator. Two Scientists – a male and a female – showed up in its view.

“This is getting ridiculous.” The male Scientist grumbled. “Why has no one upgraded the elevators in this block? If we had Hovers like we did in the Tower, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

The female Scientist was younger, probably a trainee. “You know as well as anyone,” she sighed, “installing Hover Lifts in this building would drain the power that the learning facilities need.”

“We could always get more power.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “We’re using too much power as it is.” She reminded the male. “Any more power usage and it’ll raise suspicion. We can’t afford for the Government to suspect anything. They’ll ruin us.”

My brow furrowed as David muttered exactly what I had been thinking.

“Can’t afford for the Government to suspect anything about what?” He asked.

“I don’t know.” I whispered. “We’ll find out. But, for now…” I rummaged through my bag once more, pulling out one of my favourite inventions. It was a cube as small as the camera, but when the cube registered my DNA from the palm of my hand, it sprouted eight legs, mimicking a spider. I pressed the button on its back, and let it crawl down into the elevator. I then stuffed my bag over the grate as hard as I could, only removing it when my Watch beeped to let me know it was safe.

“Okay.” I said, pulling my bag away and opening the hatch to reveal the two Scientists unconscious on the floor of the elevator. “Now we’re good to go.”

Impressum

Texte: Sian Webster
Bildmaterialien: -
Lektorat: Sian Webster
Übersetzung: -
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 23.09.2013

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To Mikayla, To ruin your life just that little bit more.