Prologue - The Invention

The walls shook, dust seeping through the cracks in the roof of the bunker. I pulled my knees to my chest in earnest, trying to make myself small enough to escape the pounding above our heads. It had only been five minutes earlier that the all clear alarm bell went off, alerting us it was okay to go outside – that we were safe for a while. They waited long enough for people who dared rise from their bunkers to get out into the open, and then rained down every type of bomb I could name, and even more I couldn’t. You even made some of those bombs, Codi. This is your fault. A voice in the back of my head screamed at me. I covered my ears with my hands, my forehead resting on my knees as I felt Eli’s arms wrap around me and his head rest on my shoulder. Silent words were communicated through his touch; we both knew mum and dad were gone. There were too many bombs. Another bomb dropped right above our bunker, and the roof cracked even more, before  falling in, barely missing the two of us. Sunlight burned my eyes and—STOP. I blinked, trying to erase the memories. It was no bomb; those days were over. Someone was at the door, knocking. That was all.

I spun around, dropping the watch noisily on the table, hopefully behind my back. The possibility of a UN representative turning up at my door at that hour was far too great for me to continue work. We were supposed to be working on the Invention together, even though it was a widely known fact I didn’t get along very well with other scientists, especially Americans. It was a bad grudge to have, seeing as it was that kind of grudge that got us into that mess as it was, yet I wouldn’t throw it away. It was because of them I had no parents and was left alone with Eli.

“Just a second!” I called out, hoping my voice wasn’t as shaky as it sounded.

I spun back around to face my workbench, searching with my eyes for somewhere to put the watch, to hide it from whoever was behind that door, but there was nowhere. I didn’t think the person pounding at the door was Will – it wasn’t his knock. It was far too heavy handed. Far too urgent. Hands shaking, I slipped the watch on my wrist, flinching as the tiny needle dug into the skin of my wrist, hacking into my nervous system. I shuddered – a result of the connection with the watch – and pulled my sweater down to cover it. I paused – unlike usual, the watch wasn’t flashing twelve zeroes at me. Instead, it was flashing one minute and about forty-three seconds. I blinked, expecting the numbers to flicker back to zero, but they didn’t. I shook my head in confusion before pulling the sleave of my sweater back down to cover the black band, and made my way over to the door.

I stood on my side of the door awkwardly. If the watch was really working, if I had absent-mindedly fixed my mistake, my true love would be standing on the other side of the door. The person on the opposite side of the door knocked again; harder, more urgent. I jumped back, closing my— Fire was everywhere, the sound of the bombs infinitely louder now the roof had collapsed around the two of us. I felt flames flicker at my hip, but between being crushed by debris from the explosion, and Eli’s tight grip around my shoulders, I couldn’t move even a tiny bit to flinch away from the pain. Dark, black ropes dropped down through the huge hole in the roof of our bunker, before army personnel slid down the ropes and landed gracefully in front of my brother and I. The one closest to us smiled.

“We’ve got ourselves a girl,” he drawled in his American accent. He had barely finished his sentence when the three others crowded around and eagerly started pulling the debris off us. At first I thought they were there to help us, but that was wishful thinking at its best.

 The first soldier dropped to the ground at my side, his face uncomfortably close to mine. As he spoke, his hot breath blew against my face, making me nauseas. I tried to scramble away from him— STOP IT. My eyes fluttered closed and I placed a hand on the wall beside the door to keep my balance. I took a deep breath and opened the door, trying in earnest to blink the tears out of my eyes.

To my surprise, it was – in fact – Will.

 “Codi!” He said breathlessly, pulling up the sleave of his shirt excitedly to reveal our watch. The black band flashed twelve zeroes up at us.

“What?” I asked in perplexity. “It’s doing what it normally does.” I sighed, closing my eyes again. We would never get it right.

“No, no, no!” He blabbed. “No, Codi, it was counting down! It was! So I ran straight over to tell you and—” He stopped, his eyes widening. “Codi, it’s—”

I blinked, reaching down and pulling my own sleave back to reveal the black bangle. Just like Will’s, it was flashing twelve zeroes up at us. “I…” I looked up at him wide-eyed. “I put mine on to hide it – I didn’t know who was at the door; I mean, it could’ve been anyone. And… it started… mine was counting down too!”

A wide smile spread across his face. “It works, Codi,” he told me. “It works,”

My eyes flickered between the watches, my cheeks turning red. Will. It was Will. Of all the 3 billion people left on Earth, it was Will. Slowly, hesitantly, my eyes moved up his body until they met his. “You think so? You think this is right? This… This can’t be real!” I said breathlessly.

“Is this real?” He asked me softly. Before I could ask what ‘this’ was, I found his lips pressed against mine and his hands on my waist. I slipped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer to me. After what felt like hours, I pulled back.

“Yeah,” I said breathlessly. “I’d say that was pretty damn real.”

He smiled, his hand trailing down from my shoulder until he could lace his fingers through mine. “So...” he said casually, “soul mates?”

I met his eyes. “Well we can’t exactly deny it,” I laughed, “we’re a Match.”

“Come on then,” he tugged on my hand, pulling me outside, and he closed the door behind me. “We have something to show the UN.”

“You’re confident they’ll like it?” I asked, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest.

He shrugged. “Well, they can’t say we haven’t tested it on human subjects.” He winked and squeezed my hand.

I sighed. “Fine,” and I let him drag me from the alcove of my apartment.

He swung our arms leisurely as we walked hand in hand.

Two bodies. Two minds. Two soul mates.

One Match.

One invention that changed the world forever.

1. A Chance to be a Savior

 

Stark white. I was surrounded by it. The walls, the roof, the linoleum floor, the lab coats of the people around me, the blank projector screen at the front of the room. I blinked, and the white was suddenly covered in deep, crimson blood. I saw my father standing before the blood splattered projector screen, half the flesh of his scolded face peeling away to reveal a burnt, charcoaled skull. The rest of his body was red and black and blistered, burns swirling between the blemishes. He reached towards me, trying to force himself to step forward as fire ignited at his feet, spreading up his legs—NO. I flinched, scrunching my eyes closed. When I opened them, I was once again surrounded by stark white walls, and my father was gone.

Eli placed his hand on my shoulder lightly. “Codi, are you sure you’re okay to be here? I-I’m sure they’ll understand if you can’t handle—”

I shrugged off his touch. “I don’t have a choice, Eli. If it’s my sanity or the human race, I’m going to pick the human race.”

“Screw the human race.” Eli said a little too loudly. “You should be back in Nottingham, where Doctor Walters can keep a close eye on you. You said it yourself, Codi, you’re not ready to be back out in society.” He reminded me, before adding softly, “Especially not in American society.”

I turned and faced my brother. “I also said that I needed to do this to regain a little normalcy in my life.” I snapped.

“Saving the world isn’t exactly normal, Codi.”

“My job is.” I said harshly, gaining some worried looks from the seven other scientists in the room, sitting around the table with us. I ignored them, turning to the front of the room once more. I was glad to see my father wasn’t there again. “The population had already halved, Eli. I’m not leaving three billion more people to die simply because of something that happened to me in the War.”

“Something?” Eli asked exasperatedly. “You were in the hospital for six months and you still have severe anxiety and an unstable level of PTSD. You should still be under watchful observation.”

“And now I’m moving on with my life.” I told him. “Like Doctor Walters said I should.”

“Somehow, I don’t think this is what he had in mind.” Eli muttered under his breath. His eyes travelled around the room, taking in the other scientists the UN found alive. Eight, including me. One of the most popular war strategies was to attack any laboratories the different Governments had set up, stopping countries from gaining the upper hand with new scientific inventions.

At the beginning of the War, I had worked in one of England’s scientific set-ups, working with biologists on biological agents I was in charge of determining whether the biological weapons they created would impact on the genes of the offspring of any surviving soldiers. Even in the middle of the War, England was still thinking avidly about the future. They didn’t want any faults in the future generations because of the War. One day, when I was travelling to the laboratory, I got a message through the interface. The laboratory had been bombed. There were no survivors. After that, my family and I were forced into hiding. Luckily for Eli and I, they never discovered my identity when we were captured by the Americans.

“Look at them.” Eli said through gritted teeth. “Any of them could be responsible for their deaths.” Our parents’ deaths, he meant.

“I could be responsible.” I pointed out. “There’s no use pinning the blame on anyone. The War is over. They’re dead. We’re alive. And so, we move on with our lives. And if that means saving the human race, I will damn well save the human race, whether my parents are a part of it or not.”

He was quiet for a while. Then he pointed to the man sitting in the seat closest to the front of the room. The man had dark brown hair with a few grey strands interrupting the dark mass every now and then. His face was serious, his green eyes staring out into space.  “That’s Andrew Scott.” He said. “Majors in biology. He was found in the ruins of a laboratory in West Virginia. The laboratory had been attacked three months before they found him. They don’t even know how he survived. He says he can’t remember.”

“Who bombed it?” I asked.

“China.” He said, before pointing to the next one, who was dark haired and Asian in appearance. “That one’s Li Yun. The last remaining Japanese scientist. I’m surprised they needed the rest of you with him.”

“Well that’s a total confidence booster.” I muttered. “What happened to him?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

Eli shook his head. “Incredibly conceited. Likes being alone. He hid in a reinforced steel bunker six feet under his house for the entire duration of the War.”

“What, with his family there?”

He shook his head again. “Nope. Left them on the surface. Like I said, incredibly conceited. Literally only cares about himself.” He went along the line on the other side of the room. “That’s Kato Singh. Was based here in New York, with the next three – Edward North, Sam Barberry and Harley Greggory. They escaped their laboratory’s explosion.”

My eyes travelled to the last man in the room. Well – he was younger than the rest of them. Around my age. Early twenties. He had mousy brown hair that stood up at the front, the dreamiest brown eyes I had ever seen, high cheek bones and a light sprinkle of freckles over his cheeks. His broad shoulders flowed into slightly muscled arms that ended in hands with long, delicate fingers. Piano hands. That was all I could see of him over the table, yet he seemed as if he would be around six feet tall standing at full height. He was staring at his hands placed on the table in front of him, looking incredibly bored.

“What about that one?” I asked Eli, nodding in the boy’s direction. “Who’s he?”

Eli laughed. “Don’t even think about it.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Don’t even think about what?”

My brother rolled his eyes. “His name’s William Harper. Physicist. Biologist. Geneticist.” He bumped my shoulder. I knew what the gesture meant; William Harper could do my job. They wouldn’t really mind if I pulled out. “Any other “ist” you can think of. Complete and utter prat. I wouldn’t even talk to him if I were you.”

“Why? What did he do?”

Eli’s eyes flickered to William Harper and back to me before he leant close, whispering. “He was responsible for the bombing of his lab. Killed everyone inside. He was a spy for France. Not sure how he got involved with them, but he’s the reason the lab in Florida was destroyed. Apparently he doesn’t even feel bad about killing them all. Like I said, stay out of his way.”

I nodded. “Note to self; stay away from Li Yun and William Harper.”

Eli sat back in his chair. “He’s incredibly manipulative, Codi. Just because you think he’s cute doesn’t mean he won’t stab you in the back.”

“You’re too hard on people sometimes, Eli. Maybe you don’t have the full story.” I said softly.

“Even if that’s true, just stay away from him until we know he can be trusted.”

“Fine,” I rolled my eyes. “I’ll stay away from him.”

“In fact,” my brother went on, “stay away from all of them. Just because you’re the only girl doesn’t mean they can treat you like shit. If any one of them touches you, I swear to god—”

“Hello, my scientists!” A voice boomed from the doorway of the room, cutting Eli off. “My name is Steven Short. Now—”

The nine of us turned to face the man who had just entered, our eyes wide. The man was short and rather round, with a shiny bold head. He wore round glasses on the tip of his nose, half hiding his eyes, one of which was blue while the other was brown. Heterochromia. I thought to myself. The mutation of an iris causing the organism to have two different coloured eyes. Can be passed through genes or be acquired through accident or illness. Can appear as partial heterochromia where only part of an iris is discoloured, or total heterochromia— STOP. I took a deep breath. Maybe I wasn’t ready to be out in society. My brain was working through things far too quickly. Who cared about this man’s case of heterochromia? I forced myself to pay attention to what this man was saying.

“You all know why we have called you here. The War eradicated a third of Earth’s human population. This depression has now eradicated a quarter of what remained. That means the population has halved. And the population is now dwindling even further.” The man made his way to the front of the room, and stood in front of the projector screen. Beside him, my father flickered to life, the flames that had once been spreading up his legs were now at his torso. He clutched at his chest, unintentionally tearing skin away with his scorched hands. Blood gurgled in his throat as he tried to speak. He reached his hand towards me, taking a step forward.

“…Co…di.” He managed to splutter, blood spilling down his chin. “Codi… help.” He was almost at my chair. He reached his hand out further, and his blackened skin came into contact with my knee.

I screamed. The image of my father vanished, and I was instead met with concerned looks from the men in the room. William Harper was still staring at his hands. He didn’t even react.

“Codi,” Eli was saying, “Codi, it’s okay. You’re alright. Nothing’s happening.”

The man at the front of the room plodded over and pulled up a chair next to me. “What on Earth is wrong with the girl?” He asked my brother.

“PTSD.” A voice said confidently from the back of the room. Everyone turned to face William Harper. “PTSD, a severe case of anxiety, insomnia, hallucinations, black-outs, maybe a few other things. This girl’s had a shit last couple of years if you ask me. Maybe someone should send her home.”

“Yes!” Eli cried. “Yes. She should be back in Nottingham, under observation. Just like her Doctor said.”

“I’m fine, Eli.” I snapped. “I have no home to go to.”

“Codi—”

“She can’t go home,” Steven Short said gravely. “She’s the best geneticist we have. You English did a good job hiding her.”

“The best geneticist?” William Harper asked in exasperation. “I’m a geneticist. I’m just as good as her. Send the girl home. She’ll just drag us all down.”

“A geneticist who’s not a dick could be useful.” Li Yun snapped, his eyes gleaming.

The four scientists from New York nodded and mumbled agreements. Andrew Scott was off in his own world again.

“So could a Japanese scientist with feelings.” William retorted.

Li sat forward on his chair, his eyes glaring daggers. “Yeah? Well explain to us just what happened to your laboratory in Florida, Harper.”

Beside me, Steven Short dropped his head into his hands. “I’m going to start the Fourth World War at this rate.” He muttered under his breath.

I stood up, my chair making a loud, grating noise on the linoleum floor. This still didn’t stop them from arguing. “Everybody shut. UP!”

Everyone turned to face me, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, or both. William Harper on the other hand looked impressed, a half-smirk playing around his lips, one of his eyebrows raised expectantly.

“Yes, I have PTSD.” I told them all. “Yes, I have everything else Mr Harper kindly pointed out—” I narrowed my eyes in his direction, “—but that shouldn’t change anything. Yes, maybe some of us hid the entire War.” I couldn’t help but flash a disgusted look at Li. “And all of us – to some degree – were responsible for a lot of deaths. Some of us had traumatic experience during the War,” I looked at Andrew Scott sympathetically, gaining a small smile from him in return, “and some of us didn’t. But that shouldn’t count for anything.”

The room was completely silent aside from my breathing, and the tapping of William Harper’s fingers on the table. He was still waiting. Still expectant. So I kept going.

“The point is, the War is over. What happened, happened. Who cares? Bringing it up and throwing it in other peoples’ faces won’t eliminate what you did either. All eight of us, from different perspectives, were villains in the War. Now it’s our chance to be the saviours.” I looked around the room. William Harper was giving me a strange look. “That’s why I’m here, and why I’m not going home. I have the chance to save someone. Maybe even a lot of people. I couldn’t do that for my parents. But, as I told my brother earlier, I’m going to have a part in saving us whether they’re one of us or not. You guys can go ahead and start a Fourth War to destroy what remains of the world, but I promise you, until my terminal breath I will be striving to save it.”

A stunned silence was still draped over the room like a blanket for what felt like hours, until finally someone had the audacity to break it.

“The girl stays.” Was all William Harper said before winking at me and walking from the room.

2. Hallucinations

 

I didn’t see William Harper again for two days.

When he finally reappeared, it was in the cafeteria. And, much to my dismay, he headed straight towards me. I slid my tray along the counter and picked up an apple, pondering whether I would actually eat it or not. Before I could make my mind up, the apple was snatched from my fingers.

“Eating would help, you know,” William Harper muttered around a mouthful of apple. “It would settle your stomach. Maybe, if you’re lucky, it would raise your blood sugar to a somewhat normal level. Get that into your system? Brilliant. Might even stop the hallucinations.”

“I didn’t come her to be doctored, William, I came to save the human race.” I glared daggers at him.

“Yeah, I got that. Told us in that massive speech you did the other day. As if we can actually be saved. We ruin everything we touch – we might as well just die.” He stopped, thinking about the words that just flew from his mouth. “Oh, and do me a favour. Call me Will. Not ever my mother calls me William.”

I paused. “You don’t think we should be saved?”

He shrugged. “Come on, I can’t be the first scientist to think so. We destroy everything.”

“I’m a geneticist, remember? Not an ecologist.” I muttered.

“It doesn’t matter what you specialise in.” He took another bite of my apple.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the food. I will save the human race. I thought to myself. I will.

“You really think that’s possible?” The voice was weak and gurgling.

I looked up in shock, and met the eyes of a soldier across the top of the counter filled with food. His American army uniform was shredded, burnt and bloody. One side of his face was burnt, a bizarre mix of sickening blacks and reds. The other side of the soldier’s body had hundreds of glass shards wedged into his skin, his clothes, his eye socket. Blood poured from these wounds; thick, back, and pooling on the floor at his charcoaled feet.

“Do you really think,” the soldier could barely speak, “that you can save your race, after doing this to its members?”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, shaking my head. “Don’t.”

Somewhere far away, I heard a confused, “Don’t, what?” from William Harper.

The soldier stepped forward, straight through the counter, and I fell to the ground – a failed attempt to back away from the soldier in fear.

“You… Destroy… Everything.” The soldier managed.

Will came over to me then, walking straight through the image of the soldier, dispersing him into a cloud of smoke.

“Codi,” he muttered, his eyes wide, “are you alright?”

A soldier I killed over a year ago just tried to attack me. I thought to myself. I’m doing damn  fabulous. Aloud, I said nothing, I just shook my head.

“Come on,” Will took my hand in his, trying to comfort me, yet not pulling me up to stand – being cautious, “we should get you to the infirmary. They might have something for the hallucinations.”

I managed a weak smile. “Maybe I wouldn’t be having them if you hadn’t stole my apple.”

One sentence. That was all it took for me to make a friend at the New York Compound.

Will let out an exasperated laugh. “You yell at me for trying to get you to eat food, then you yell at me for stealing said food. I can’t win with you, Codi Watterson.”

“No one can win with me.” I told him, looking up at him sharply through my eyelashes, suddenly serious.

That was when I heard Eli burst into the cafeteria – someone must have told him my situation. Word travelled fast when everyone was spooked about the end of the human race, I suppose.

“Codi!” He exclaimed as the doors slammed open. I imagined his eyes scanning the room frantically, searching for his baby sister, the one who always needed protecting. I can protect myself! I wanted to say, but I knew that both Eli and Will would dispute that before the words even finished coming out of my mouth.

“Calm down, calm down,” Will waved over to him, somewhere above my head, “she’s fine. A little shaken, but fine.”

Fine? The voice in my head wasn’t mine, but there were no hallucinations that time. The edge of my vision blurred, dark patterns swirling before my eyes. Not so fine, Will. Probably not fine. I opened my mouth to say the words, but no sound came out.

“What on Earth are you doing with her? Who gave you the right—” Eli was saying, I assumed to Will.

“Whoa, big brother, step back a second—”

Then the dark swirling patterns spread throughout my vision, and I succumbed to subconsciousness.

 

* * *

 

Much to my dismay, as unconsciousness overwhelmed me, I was sent back to the bunker.

“We’ve got ourselves a girl,” the soldier closest to me drawled in his American accent. He had barely finished his sentence when the three others crowded around and eagerly started pulling the debris off us. At first I thought they were there to help us, but that was wishful thinking at its best.

 The first soldier dropped to the ground at my side, his face uncomfortably close to mine. As he spoke, his hot breath blew against my face, making me nauseas. I tried to scramble away from him, but with my back against the wall, it was useless.

“Don’t try to run, darl’.” Another one said, smirking as he threw away wooden beams from the collapsed roof. “You’ve got nowhere to go, anyway.”

“Unless you like bombs.” A third soldier joked.

I happen to make them. I thought to myself, but I knew better than to say it. They would kill me outright if they knew what I did for a living.

“Touch my sister,” Eli croaked beside me, “and I’ll kill you myself.”

The first soldier narrowed his eyes. “Then we’ll just have to kill you first, won’t we?” The other soldiers nodded in agreement. “We have uses for girls. We have no uses for you.”

“Quit messing around.” A voice said from further back in the collapsed bunker. “Just send them to the camps.”

“Which one?” The third soldier asked.

The soldier at the back was still out of my line of sight. “You heard the kid. English accent. Midlands, I bet. Send them with the rest. It’s not rocket science.”

“But, Sir. She’s a girl.” The first soldier argued.

“Yes. I heard. At least leave the girl her dignity.” The unseen soldier must have been a higher rank than the rest, considering the soldier before me called him ‘Sir’.

“This is war, Sir, I can take what I want.”

I heard ‘Sir’ sigh. “Come here, soldier.”

The soldier before me rolled his eyes and skulked into the dim light towards the back of the bunker. I heard the thud of a fist against bone, and a cry of pain. I shuffled closer to Eli, choking back a sob. I wasn’t prepared to let these soldiers know how scared I really was of them.

“You do as I say.”

In the dim light, I saw the first soldier stand up and raise his arm in salute. “Yes, Sir.”

 

* * *

 

“Codi?”

Someone was gripping my hand tightly, their thumb tracing the skin of my hand almost affectionately. My mind was shrouded in confusion; I could only sense one person in the room, and the voice didn’t belong to Eli, the only person who could possibly feel any type of affection towards me. I hadn’t heard any footsteps to signify another person leaving the room. There were no sounds other than the jagged breathing of myself and the person in the room with me, and the constant beeping of medical equipment.

I was in the infirmary.

Hesitantly, I forced myself to pry open my eyelids.

“Codi?” The voice asked again, their hands quickly slipping away from mine. The loss of contact came almost as a shock, jarring me into consciousness.

I blinked, peering at the boy beside me; mousy brown hair, streaked with flecks of blond from the afternoon sun that intruded through the window; eyes the colour of melting chocolate, gold sequins scattered around the circumference of his pupils; a light dusting of freckles across high cheekbones creating constellations far greater than any of those in the never-ending universe.

“Will?”

He looked down. “I, uh, yeah.” He shrugged. “I felt like I should come and see how you were. I mean, considering everyone thinks I’m trying to killed you like I allegedly killed all the scientists in Florida.”

My brow furrowed and I looked down, unsure of what to make of his almost-confession to the fact Eli had told me two days earlier.

“Do you believe them?” He asked hesitantly. “Do you believe I could do that to a person?”

I shrugged. “Like I said, we’re all responsible for an insane amount of deaths in the War. We all did what we had to do to survive. I know I did.”

He looked up at me, disbelieving. “What happened to you?” He asked. “Sure, pretty traumatising stuff happened to the rest of us, but none of us have side-effects like you.”

“I don’t talk about it.” I said defensively.

Will raised a single eyebrow. “Maybe that’s the problem.”

“What about you?” I asked sceptically. “Did you really kill all those people?”

He looked down. “Not those specific people, no.” He said carefully. “But I would be lying if I said I didn’t kill anyone in the War.”

“You weren’t responsible for the bombing of your lab?” I asked slowly.

“Of course not. But someone always has to be blamed. I didn’t go into work that day, so as it turns out, the only logical person to blame is me.” He shrugged. It was almost as if he didn’t mind being blamed for so many peoples’ deaths.

“So if that’s not how—”

He shook his head, stopping me before I could finish the sentence. “I don’t talk about it either.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well I guess we have an agreement then, Mr Harper.”

“I guess we do.” He looked down at his long, thin fingers as he had the first day I met him.

We were quiet for a while, our agreement eliminating any further conversation. My eyes travelled over to the heart monitor being projected into the air beside my bed, following the jagged lines of my heart beat from left to right, left to right, left to right. Eventually, I mustered up the courage to start up a conversation again.

“Where’s Eli?” I asked slowly. “Do you know? I… I would’ve thought he would’ve been here, after… everything.”

Will shrugged, a sly smile spreading across his lips. “Your brother doesn’t seem to like me very much. He refused to be in the same room as me.”

“He seemed to think you were very agreeable the other day when you told me to go home.” I pointed out.

Will’s smile turned into a smirk. “That was before I said you can stay.”

I laughed slightly, then we fell into another silence. I wracked my brain, searching desperately for a topic of conversation we could pursue. It was an odd feeling, but I didn’t want Will to leave the room. I felt almost as if I needed him there.

He looked up and met my eyes. “Do you have any ideas?” He asked hesitantly. “For the Invention.” He added, when I didn’t respond very quickly.

I shrugged. “Don’t you?”

He shook his head, the sun swirling patterns into his hair as it moved against the force of his movement. “I don’t believe the human race can be saved.” He reminded me. “So I figured maybe I could ask someone who desperately believed it could be.”

Slowly, a smile spread across my face. “I have this research,” I told him, “something I was working on before the war. I don’t really know if it would be useful, but…” I shrugged.

His eyes widened, almost in excitement. “Can you show me?”

My smile grew. “You want to see?”

He nodded, a slither of excitement breaking through the steel wall he surrounded himself with.

I reached over and closed the heart monitor projection, as well as a couple more projections surrounding me. I thanked the heavens I was in New York; I had no wires hooked up to me in this modern infirmary.  I stood up and took Will’s hand.

“Come on, then.”

His eyebrows raised. “Now?”

It was my turn to smirk that time. “Now.” 

3. Research and Development

 

I fumbled with my keys, excitement coursing through my veins. I had never shown anyone my research before; I had never wanted to. If I could get it right, it could be revolutionary – it was like my own little secret. Yet, for some reason I couldn’t fathom, I had never wanted anything as much as I wanted to please William Harper in that moment.

As the keys rattled in my shaking fingers, I could see my surroundings flickering. Another hallucination.  I knew what it would be; I remembered the cold, metal bars of the abandoned prison, the hard bed against the wall, the cheery tune the guard insisted on whistling, winking as he walked past my cell, and the way he would wave to me, the keys in his hand jingling away as if to tease me. I stopped trying to unlock the door, taking a deep breath as I closed my eyes. I would not have another hallucination.

I felt a warm pair of hands wrap themselves around mine, and my eyelids fluttered open, heat tingling through my fingers and up my hands, melting away at the wrist where his touch stopped. “Is it happening again?” Will asked softly.

“No.” I snapped, more to myself than him. I sighed and met his eyes. “I’m sorry. I just… I want it to stop. The hallucinating.”

“What’s bringing it on?” He asked carefully. “Do you know?”

My gaze dropped to my hands, resting somewhere beneath his on the door handle. “The keys.”

He rubbed the back of my hand almost affectionately. “Let me unlock the door then,” he offered, “just tell me which key.”

I did as he asked, grateful that even though I never told him how the keys were causing the hallucination, he was careful to make sure they made the least noise possible until he dropped them into my hand with a clink, pushing the door open wide and holding it for me.

“Ladies first,” he smirked.

“Well it is my room.” I pointed out.

“Exactly my point. Don’t you want to make sure you have no dirty underwear on the floor? What if it looks like a bomb went off and you want to quickly tidy the place up?”

I closed my eyes as my breath caught in my throat. I could hear the echoes of explosions in the back of my mind, and the whispers of long-forgotten screams. I heard the chuckles of the other soldiers as they laughed at the soldier their Head had just punished for making advances on me. I forced myself to breathe, in and out, in and out, trying to clear my head. No, no, no, no, no. I will not go back there.

“Codi,” I felt Will’s hand on my cheek, his touch soft as I fell against the wall of the alcove behind me. “Codi, shit, I’m so sorry. Don’t give into it. Stay here. Stay with me, come on—!”

“Stay with me.” The Head Soldier told me harshly under his breath, his rough, calloused grip on my elbow tightening. “Don’t let the other men get their hands on you.”

I nodded stiffly, wondering why he seemed to be protecting me from them. In front of us, the soldier who had been punished by the Head Soldier in the bunker had a tight grip on Eli. My brother kept glancing back at me, his face pale. I tried to tell him with my eyes that I was okay, but how could I convince him when I couldn’t even convince myself? Instead, I trained my eyes to the floor beneath me, focussing on not tripping over debris. No matter how nice the Head Soldier seemed, I doubted he would like me falling over and wasting his time.

I don’t know how long we were dragged through the wreckage of the bombing, but every collapsed building we passed was being raided by other American soldiers, looking for survivors to send to other camps like the one Eli and I were now destined for. I wondered if my parents would be still alive, but a stern voice in the back of my head told me no. There was no way they could have survived. They had only just left the bunker when the first bomb hit.

Soon, the soldiers stopped, and I had to force myself to not walk into the soldier who had earlier been itching to get his hands on me. I dreaded what would happen if I did. Slowly, Eli reached behind him and took hold of my hand, squeezing it affectionately. One of the soldiers bashed loudly on the side of whatever stood before us; I still refused to look up.

“Open up!” He called, his voice stern. “We’ve got two for the Midlands Camp!”

The crowd of soldiers before Eli and I separated, and the back doors of a truck were opened. Eli’s hand was ripped from mine, and he was shoved forcefully into the dark abyss of the truck’s cargo hold. The Head Soldier, however, still gripped me tightly, his lips at my ear.

“Listen to me.” He whispered hurriedly. “You’ll learn quickly that you need to know how to protect yourself where you’re going. Start simple. Anyone gives you trouble, knee them in the groin. Or get creative. Just don’t let them take advantage of you like I know they want to.”

I nodded, a quick, slight movement. It didn’t matter; he still saw it. Before I could thank him for the advice, I was being thrown into the truck with the rest of the prisoners. I was barely landing on the floor of the truck when the doors were closed and we were enclosed in darkness.

“Codi!” Eli called, searching for me in the darkness. “Codi!”

“Codi!”

I blinked; I was in my room at the Compound, sitting on my bed. Will sat in front of me at the foot of the bed, his face worried. You’re okay. I told myself. It’s over. You’ve not been there for a long time. I stared at the purple bed sheets while my brain took its time to readjust to my actual surroundings. When my vision finally ceased flickering, I met Will’s eyes. “How long was it?” I asked, almost desperately. Sometimes the flashbacks could feel short, but last hours.

His face was still worried as he glanced down at his watch. “Just over five minutes.”

I nodded. Good.

He reached up and scratched the back of his neck, observing the sheets just as I had done seconds before. “So… I guess I’m gonna have to be a little more careful with what I say around you, huh?”

I nodded again.

He looked up hesitantly. “I know you… don’t talk about it… but what do you see?” He asked carefully. “What haunts you so much?”

I shrugged. “Which time do you mean?”

“All of them.”

I sighed. “The first time in the meeting, I saw my father.” I said softly. “He was burnt and bloody, the room was covered in blood. He was asking me to help him. I guess it haunts me that I never could.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “You said in the meeting that your parents weren’t here anymore.” He reached out and touched my hand. “It’s not your fault, Codi.”

I decided to change the subject from my parents before I broke down. “The second time, in the cafeteria, I saw a soldier. Half his body was burnt and blackened. The other half was filled with tiny glass shards. I… I… It was a bomb. I made it out of anything I could get my hands on in the cell, really. We needed to escape. Simple as that.”

“Cell?” His eyes widened as he repeated the word.

I shrugged again. “I don’t talk about it.”

“And just now?”

I pushed myself off the bed and walked over to my desk, determined to train the subject away from my experiences in the war. “The most common. I went back to the Bunker.”

Before he could respond, I reached around to the back of the desk and flicked the on switch, red and blue Projections appearing in the air above the desk. He started from the bed, the Projections sparking his interest and excitement once more. I fiddled with the windows open, arranging them in importance, trying to give Will all the information he would need to understand my research. He was leaning on the edge of the desk, his body angled towards the floating documents before him. His eyes scanned the pages, yet I could see no understanding there. He blinked and leaned back.

“I’m sorry,” he smirked, “but you’re gonna have to explain a whole lot of this to me.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Where do you want me to start?”

He raised a single eyebrow of his own. Expectant. Waiting to be pleased just as he had the first day we met. “The beginning.”

I sighed. “This might take a while.”

The eyebrow was still raised. “If it will save the human race I don’t think it will matter how long it takes to explain.”

“Well the beginning…” I took a deep breath. “I’m not really sure what made me discover it. It… It might have been when I was working for Encorp at the beginning of the war. I—”

“You worked for Encorp?” Will asked, sounding almost breathless. “How are you even alive? I remember hearing about the lab explosion—”

I waved my hand as if I was waving away his worry. “I was like you. Didn’t go into work that day. Well, I was going to work when I heard about it on the radio.”

“Yes, okay, but you just said something about a cell. If they knew who you were, where you came from, you would’ve been slaughtered.” His eyes were wide.

“It’s okay,” I found myself reaching out and touching his arm in an attempt to comfort him. “They never figured it out. I can be invisible when I want to be. They were more bothered about me being a girl.” I explained, the soldier’s voice echoing through my mind once more. I pushed the thought away, willing myself to be calm.

Will, on the other hand, looked horrified. “I guess it makes sense now.”

I looked over at him, my eyebrows furrowed. “What does?”

“Why you’re worse with after-effects than the rest of us.”

I gave him a small smile. “It doesn’t matter right now.” I told him. “What matters is what I’m trying to show you, and you’re distracting me.” I bumped my hip with his jokingly.

“Right,” he said, the smirk appearing on his face once more, though it looked somewhat less confident. “So what were you doing at Encorp? I mean, they make bombs, what did they need a geneticist for?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Well, you know England, always thinking about the future. I was there to make sure the biological agents they created wouldn’t affect the future generations of those exposed to them with birth defects like they used to do with the Ancients. And now I think of it, it would make sense that I discovered all this from my studies there.”

From the corner of my eye, I could see Will getting increasingly impatient; his desire for knowledge that had originally fuelled his studies of all possible aspects of science was suddenly visible in his face. It sent a slight thrill through my bones knowing that in that moment, it was my knowledge that he so desired.

“What is it?” He asked in earnest, his quickening pulse visible at the base of his throat. “What did you find?”

“It’s curious,” I said, leaning forward and enlarging one of the windows in the projection. “Seventy-five percent of couples who stay married have this in their DNA.”

Beside me, Will’s brow furrowed. “I… I don’t understand. They’re like… Shapes?”

I nodded. “Each couple has a different shape encoded into their DNA. And, from what I could gather, only one person on Earth has a ‘shape’ that matches another. Like, only one person on Earth has a shape that completes mine. Sort of like a two-piece jigsaw puzzle in our genes.”

He blinked. “Are… Are you saying you discovered scientific proof of soul mates and kept it to yourself for two years?”

I shrugged. “We were in the middle of a war, Will, no one would care about some silly little theory about soul mates. Besides, soul mates sounds so cheesy, don’t you think? I just call them Matches.”

“We need to use this. This… This is incredible stuff, Codi.” Will pressed.

I looked down. “I’m sure that compared to whatever the others think of, this is kindergarten stuff. I mean, what could we even invent to use this?”

Will thought about this for a moment. “A watch.”

I raised my eyebrows. “That’s your solution? A watch?”

He shook his head almost violently. “No, no, no, no, no; not an ordinary watch, Codi, we can just call it the watch. But maybe we could somehow figure out an equation or algorithm or something that would help us figure out the Matches of people not even born yet based on the Matches of their parents. If we could put this algorithm into the watch, as well as a way for the watch to get a DNA sample of the person wearing it, then we could create something that counts down until you meet your soul mate.”

My eyes lit up on their own accord. “DNA samples would have to come from blood so they’re strong enough for the watch to process, maybe if we were two hundred years or so into the future we would have the technology to just use skin cells, but unfortunately not. So, for now, the watch will have to prick the wearer when they first put it on to sample their DNA.”

Will nodded, opening a new document in the sea of documents before him in the Projection and began typing frantically. “How would it know how long it would be until you meet your Match?”

“Maybe… Maybe we could use like a GPS tracking system. That way it could find the location of the Match-ees and calculate the time it would essentially take to cross the distance between you and your Match. We could also somehow connect it to the nervous system so it has knowledge of your actions, like, where you’re hanging out, and then it would have prior knowledge of circumstances, say if you and your Match suddenly and unknowingly decided to hang out at the same bar or something, the watch would know and would calculate the time until you meet.”

Will shook his head. “We wanna keep the watch small, connecting it to the nervous system would need much more room, not to mention power. Maybe instead of doing that, it can have a microphone, listen to conversations concerning future locations. It could maybe work the same way.”

“Isn’t that like, obstruction of privacy laws or something?” I asked.

He shrugged. “It’s to discover your soul mate, you’d be surprised how little people would care about privacy laws. Besides, it’s not like that information would be released anywhere, it would be kept encoded in the watch. We could add some kind of log in mechanism, so that only privileged, trustworthy people can access the information from the watches, we could use DNA or fingerprints for that, any other way they could get hacked into.”

I nodded. “Okay, sounds good. Now what?”

A smile made its way across Will’s face. “Now, my friend, we draw, we plan, we experiment, we equation-ate, we build, we program, and we save the human race.”

4. The Declaration of War

 

My eyes scanned the projection in front of me, the symbols and words fading into blurs as I scrolled through the information, searching desperately for a pattern. There had to be some explanation, some particular way people were Matched. It was in our DNA; there had to be something to help me create a formula. My brain was filled with an ocean of fast moving thoughts. I needed there to be a reason. Behind me, Eli sighed loudly. I turned around, my eyebrows raised.

My older brother lay on his back on my bed, one of his knees in the air with his other leg resting on top of it. His left arm was slung behind his head, as if it were a pillow, and his right arm was in the air, throwing a red rubber ball up and down in absolute boredom.

“What?” I asked impatiently.

The ball froze in his hand. “I don’t like you hanging out with him.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the projection. “Everyone here is male, Eli, you’ll have to be more specific than just ‘him’.”

“No I don’t.” Eli’s voice was stern. “You know exactly who I mean.”

I sighed. “Nothing is wrong with Will, Eli. Everyone’s wrong about him.”

“I don’t like it.” My brother pressed. “Something about the guy just feels… wrong.”

I spun around again. “What makes you think that?”

He shrugged, throwing the ball again. “I just have a bad feeling about him.”

“I don’t,” I said simply. “I like him. He understands.”

Eli sat up, raising his eyebrows. “You don’t have a bad feeling about him… Do you have other feelings about him?”

“Eli, I just met the guy a week ago!” I said exasperatedly. “No, I don’t. He just understands why I don’t want to talk about things. He doesn’t want to talk about things either.”

My brother collapsed back onto the bed again, his hands over his face. “You can stop there. I don’t want to know what you guys do whilst hanging out and not talking about things.”

I looked around desperately and threw the only physical projectile around me at my brother. I didn’t think the small, metal pen would do much damage, but his body jerked and folded in on itself as the pen collided with his diaphragm. If I ignored the fact that I was aiming for his head, I could almost say it was a good shot. “We came up with an Invention, actually.”

He sat up, rubbing his stomach where the pen had landed, his gaze curious as he sent me a sideways glance. “You got a guy like him to want to save the world?”

I made a noise somewhere between a groan and a growl. “You’re wrong about him, Eli.” I said, closing the Projection and forcing my computer chair backwards. I stood, pushing the chair grumpily under the desk, and walked over to the door of my room, snatching my jacket off its hook. “The meeting, silly.” I said, replying to my brother’s questioning look.

Eli launched himself off the bed, leaving the red ball to roll around on the purple sheets. He made his way over to me and opened the door so I could leave, before following me out. I shoved him playfully into the wall of the alcove surrounding the entrance to my room and locked the door, ignoring the rattling noise my keys made. I would not. I would not have another hallucination. I would get better.

“So,” he asked casually as we walked from the apartment block to the central building of the Compound. “What’s the Invention you came up with?”

I shook my head. “It’s silly.” I admitted. “Chances are it won’t even work, anyway.”

My brother raised his eyebrows. “It must be pretty important to you,” he observed. “I’m taking a shot in the dark here and saying that whatever your Invention is, it’s what you’ve been slaving away at in front of those projections in your room.”

I sighed. “I need to find a pattern. At this rate, it looks like there isn’t one.”

“A pattern for what?” Eli’s look begged me to go on.

I sighed again, an over-exaggerated, sarcastic growling noise that time. “Soul Mates.”

 

* * *

 

The atmosphere of the meeting room was almost suffocating. It had only been two weeks since the other scientists and I had been called to the Compound, yet it was obvious people were already picking teams, sectioning themselves off from the others. I sat towards the end of the table with Eli – Mr Short had asked him to accompany me in case of another “episode” – and Andrew Scott. Will sat across from me, two chairs empty either side of him. He was completely isolated from the rest of us at first glance, but under the polished, mahogany surface of the table, our legs were entangled. The message behind his touch was clear; he wanted to be close to me, but in such close a proximity to the other scientists in the room, he stayed away, not wanting them to treat me differently because of his formidable reputation.

Two seats over from Will sat the four New York scientists. At the very end of the table sat Li Yun, a spare seat between him and Eli. It was the furthest away he could possibly be from the rest of us. At the head of the table, Mr Short had leant forward in frustration, his head flat on the table. I thought back to the first meeting we had together, when Short remarked that we could be starting the fourth world war just with the eight of us. Looking around the room in that moment, observing the alliances and other formidable individuals, I believed him.

I had been as surprised as anyone when Andrew Scott had walked into the room and taken the seat beside me. He had flashed me a small smile before holding out his hand, which I had politely shaken.

“The world needs more people like you, Codi Watterson.” He had said softly. His voice had been croaky, as if he hadn’t spoken to anyone properly since he had been rescued from the ruins of his lab.

I had smiled back; it was one of my first real smiles since my parents’ deaths that had been brought on by a person that wasn’t Eli or Will.

Now, Andrew looked over at me and sighed dramatically. A small smile itched at the side of my mouth, and I sighed back, just as Mr Short gathered up the courage to lift his head from the table and sit straight. His eyes scanned the room, helplessness seeping into his gaze.

“We need something.” He sighed. “Anything. Even if you believe it to be the stupidest thing in the world.”

A murmur ran through the group of four scientists sitting near Short, and Kato Singh stood up. “Contacts.” He murmured. ”Like, for vision? Except, you can choose what you see. Choose how you see the world. Don’t like the colour pink? Change the colour in your vision. Like blonde haired girls but fell for a brunette? Dye it, for your eyes only. Even video game simulators! You could be slaying a dragon in Central Park whilst everyone else walks to work.”

Steven Short raised his eyebrows, but didn’t question the idea. “Draw up some plans. Get a start on a prototype. Let one of the Research and Retrieval guys know what you need. Then we’ll discuss this further.”

Kato Singh and his fellow group members nodded, and Singh took a seat. Meanwhile, Short’s eyes travelled down the table, past Eli, Andrew and I. “Any ideas, Dr Yun?”

Li Yun’s eyes rose from the polished mahogany for the first time since he entered the room. His eyes were narrowed, his gaze almost scary. If looks could kill, I thought, Short would be a puddle of blood on the floor.

“I have no interest in saving this world.” Yun said simply. “If I could help it, I would not be here. Yet you not only desired, but forced me to be here. I will not help, but god forbid you don’t give me credit for my presence.”

Short merely sighed. “You have to at least pretend to do something, Dr Yun.”

But Li Yun’s eyes were down, gazing at the table again, before Short had even finished speaking. The director then moved his gaze to Andrew beside me. “Mr Scott, do you have any ideas you wish to share with the group? We would have preferred for all eight of you to work on the project together, yet at this time it may be a good idea to split you and begin multiple experiments. You could group with Codi and William if you wish.”

Andrew nodded in understanding. “I wish I had an idea.” He croaked. “But my brain is coming up empty.” He turned and looked at me, flashed a smile and turned back to Short. “Yet I wish to work with Codi, regardless.”

I smiled and looked down.

“Then what about you, Codi?” Short asked. “Do you have an idea for the Invention?”

I shook my head. Beneath the table, Will kicked my shin. It took all my free will not to wince or cry out at the sudden pain as his shoe collided with the bone. I glanced up at him, only to meet an incredulous look.

“I…” I turned back to the director at the head of the table. “I have some research that I had been working on prior to the War.” I told him. “I still have more to discover, but”—I cleared my throat, glancing towards Will—“Mr Harper believes we could turn it into some sort of Invention. A watch, if you will.”

At the other end of the table, Li Yun scoffed. “A watch? To save the human race?” He shook his head. “The human race is dead already.”

“A watch,” Will spoke over him, “that has the ability to predict when you will meet your soul mate.”

I sighed. “Soul mate sounds so cliché, Will.”

He shrugged. “It’s alluring.”

Many people spoke at once, ending our bickering before it could start.

“You want to work with him?” Harley Gregory asked incredulously.

Sam barberry scoffed. “There is no science in soul mates!”

“How would you do that?” Edward North, unlike his two colleagues, sounded genuinely interested.

They then turned to talk amongst themselves, throwing around theories and insults as if they were gossiping old ladies who had not seen each other for years.

“Silence!” Director Short bellowed, before turning to me, his brown eye glinting. “That hardly sounds possible, Dr Watterson. Do you have proof? Could you truly create an object of this kind?”

I nodded. “It’s all in our genes. I discovered it by accident one day at Encorp—”

A collective gasp travelled through the room, and Li Yun’s head snapped up like a Venus fly trap for its food.

“Encorp?” Dr Barberry muttered gravely. “You should not be alive.” He met my eyes. “You are a very lucky woman.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“Please,” it was Edward North who spoke, “continue. I wish to know how the watch could possibly work.”

“It’s… It’s like a lock and key mechanism, almost, in our genes. Over eighty per cent of people in stable marriages have are matched to their spouse through their genetics. Matches – that’s what I started to call them – are those couples that stay together until they die, not those who are happily married for twenty-odd years then divorce. Sixty-five per cent of people in affairs are Matched with the person with whom they are having the affair.” I explained. “If I could find the pattern there, and create an equation or algorithm, I could Match people who aren’t even born yet. If I could program this into a watch of some sort, along with a DNA tester, a GPS tracking system and a few other things, I could essentially discover how long it would be until a person meets their Match, or soul mate, as Will prefers.”

The director nodded. “If you believe you can do it, Dr Watterson, then I shall allow you to work on this watch of yours.”

A smile made its way onto my face. “Thank you, Director Short.”

He flashed a smile back, then turned to look past me at Dr Yun. “Dr Yun,” he said sternly, “you must choose a group to work with, or you will be detained. Do you wish to work with Dr Singh and the rest of the New York scientists on their contact lenses, or do you wish to assist Dr Watterson with her watch.”

Yun’s eyes narrowed more than they had before. “This is no fairytale world.” He snapped. “And I refuse to work with a traitor.”—he glared at Will—“I work with Singh and his men.”

Short nodded. “Good.” He looked around the room. “Meeting dismissed. Meet here again at the same time next week with some sort of progress on your ideas.”

Everybody stood up and made their way out of the meeting room. When I met Will outside in the hallway, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. “I’m proud of you.” He whispered in my ear, no louder than a breath. I nodded very slightly against his chest. No one else would have heard or seen the exchange, only the two of us embracing.

“Codi!” Eli called, obviously trying to keep the scowl from showing on his face. “I’m heading to the cafeteria, I’m in need of a coffee. Are you gonna come?”

“Mmmmm,” Will muttered, “I could do with a coffee too. Depressing Asians really do steal my energy.”

I slapped him on the arm, despite knowing that I couldn’t hurt him is I tried. I turned back to Eli before Will could react, stepping out from the circle of his arm. “I might head back to the room, I have a bit of a headache, and need to get back to my research.”

Eli nodded and headed towards the cafeteria, starting a conversation with Andrew, who apparently also needed an energy boost. Behind me, Will reached out and touched my shoulder lightly. I turned and met his eyes, a lazy smile playing around his lips.

“I’m grabbing you tea, and an apple, to make up for the other day.” He told me. “Sugar? Milk?”

I laughed, the sound echoing off the stark white walls surrounding us. “Two sugars and milk.”

He nodded. “I’ll meet you at your room later.” He said, slowly wandering in the direction of the cafeteria.

“I know you will.”

His smirk was the last thing I saw before I turned around and followed the hallway out of the main building of the Compound. The sky was overcast and grey above the building, a storm threatening to unleash its power on everything below it. The wind whipped harshly, and I pulled my thin cardigan around me tighter, hoping for a little more warmth. I had barely taken ten steps from the entrance before I felt myself being forced against the brick wall of the building, an arm pressed against my throat as all the air was pushed from my lungs. When my vision managed to focus again, I was met with the menacing glare of Li Yun.

“You will not beat me with some stupid school girl fantasy.” He snapped, his voice low, threatening. “I refuse to be beaten by you and that traitor.” He pulled his arm from my throat and took a step back.

I fell forward, gasping for breath, clutching my throat in pain. Doubled over and struggling to breathe, I looked up and met his eyes. “I thought… you said… you weren’t interested… in saving the world.” I managed to say.

The scientist shook his head, his eyes narrowed. “You.” He growled. “You should have died with the rest of them.”

5. Haunted

 

The second I hear the keys jingle, and the front door of the cell block close, my mind is alert. The guard’s whistling echoes off the concrete walls, through the cold metal bars that trap me in their cage. My eyes slide along the floor in the path the guard will hopefully follow, and I smile slyly as I assure myself that the makeshift trip wire I had created in my cell is still in place, tied around a bar of my cell, and a bar of the one across from me.

The girl in the cell across from me is about sixteen, her parents nowhere to be seen. She had the Look, though. The look in her dazed eyes that screamed a single word; orphan. It took me only a few days sitting across from her to realise she was a mute. I know from watching her that this is a relatively new characteristic; it is a general occurrence for her to open her mouth and try fruitlessly to talk to the guards, before flinging her hand to her throat and staring at the floor, neither here nor there. Despite this, and her age, she managed to piece together my plan, until one day, I was hit in the back of the head with a scrunched up piece of paper. I turned and looked at the girl, hope twinkling in her eyes. I flattened out the paper to four simple words scrawled in blood, the only ink at her disposal.

Let me help you.

I look over at the girl now, her smile mirroring mine. She drops an eyelid in a wink before turning around, masking her face, void of emotion, as usual. I nod slightly, knowing she could see me in the corner of her eye.

I slowly stand up from my position at the bars of my cell, and move quietly over to the small, grated window in the back wall, the footsteps and the jingling keys moving closer and closer. I’m staring over at the cell block where Eli and the rest f the male prisoners are kept when the trip wire is triggered. One of the wood planks from my broken shelves in my cell swings down from the roof and hits the too-cheery guard in the back of the head. As his unconscious body sprawls across the floor, the keys that had previously been hooked onto his belt loops break free and slide across the floor. Right to the bars in front of my cell, just as I had predicted. I meet the eyes of the girl across from me as I pick up the keys and endeavour to unlock my cell.

“What is your name?” I ask her, suddenly feeling bad about not knowing.

It does not take her long to scribble down the two words and send them to me in a roughly folded paper aeroplane.

Calliope Grey.

“Right then, Calliope,” I smile as the lock clicks and the bars before me swing open, “time to get out of here.”

I run across the divide between us and quickly unlock her cell. She hugs me as she steps over the threshold. I know that if she could still speak, she would say thank you many times over, but the hug offers me so much more comfort.

I walk over to the cell beside Calliope’s and hand the key to the middle aged woman residing there. I tell her to wait for my signal to escape, and help everyone else to. When she asks what the signal will be, I simply say she will hear it. I then run back to Calliope and take her hand. The two of us run out of the door before freezing behind a stack of crates, waiting for the patrols to move out of sight. My heart pounds in my chest as I count the seconds that pass as we crouch in the dim shadows cast by the crates. Thirty-seven seconds later, we are running across the open space between the two cell blocks. We pause again at the entrance, and I reach behind my into my back pocket. I retrieve the deodorant can I managed to save from a dustbin, and place it on the ground before me. I roll it forward slowly with my foot, and at the press of the button in my hand, it fills the entryway with gas. Beside me, Calliope steps forward.

“No.” I say. “Not yet.”

I move her hands from her sides and place them firmly over her ears, before doing the same myself. Then the bang fills the camp, echoing off the night’s curtain of darkness. Calliope stares at me, her eyes wide. Terrified.

I shrug. “No time for subtlety now, come on.”

No longer bothering the be quiet, we run through the front door. Three guards are on the floor, their skin blackened between the red welts from the explosion, as they lay victim to my homemade bomb. I pull Calliope through the foyer quickly, hoping to protect any innocence she still has. I stop in my tracks as we reach what should be Eli’s cell. My brows furrow together as the boy who should be my brother turns to face me.

Li Yun sits in the cell instead.

My breathing becomes panicked. “You…You’re not really here. I don’t even know you yet!” I insist.

Yun shrugs. “I’m here as part of your subconscious, silly girl. I’m not in control of your dreams.”

I nod. “You’re right.” I gasp. “This is a dream. I’m in control.”

He raises a fine eyebrow. “Are you?” He clicks his fingers. Beside me, Calliope disappears.

A scream escapes from my throat. “What did you do? Why are you doing this?!”I ask, hysterical.

A smirk appears on his face. “I got bored of her.” He says. “She’s a little quiet, don’t you think?”

I narrow my eyes. “Just give me Eli back. I didn’t ask you to be here.”

Yun throws a ring of keys in the air and catches them. I reach for where the set I stole from the guard should be, and they’re gone. The scientist before me repeats this action once, twice, three times. Teasing me.

“Oh, Codi, I can’t do that.” His smirk grows wider.

“Why?!” I yell. “Why are you doing this to me?!”

He walks up to the bars and grips my throat tightly, his breath assaulting my face. “I. Never. Lose.”

 

* * *

I jumped awake to the sound of my door opening and closing, the dream swirling through my brain. It had been the perfectly accurate memory – until Yun. I sat up, rubbing my eyes and running my fingers through my hair, as I met Will’s eyes across the room.

“Will?” I asked, my heart thudding in my chest.

“Yep,” he smirked, popping the ‘p’, “I told you I’d come to see you, remember? Found a pattern yet?”

I sighed and shook my head, reaching over to my bedside table for a hair tie before throwing the blonde ringlets into a rough pony tail, hoping they didn’t look as damp and sweaty as they felt. “It’s a hard one.” I told him, walking over to the Projection desk and turning it on, the blue and red images flickering to life. “It’s almost like it doesn’t exist. But it has to.”

He knelt down on the carpet beside my chair, his eyes scanning the pages I had open. “There’s not a rule like, this person is really popular in school so they’re going to end up dating someone who is also really popular in school?” He joked.

I scoffed. “Unfortunately not.”

“God damn.” He let himself fall backwards do he was lying on the floor. “Singh and the rest of the New York scientists already have a semi-functioning prototype, and we can’t even find a pattern in our data.”

“They don’t have data.” I reminded him. “And if their invention is so easy to make, I doubt it will save the human race. That is, after all, the whole point of this.”

“I’m gonna sabotage their damn contact lenses, I swear to god.” He muttered.

“Hey!” I chastised. “Don’t be the bad guy they think you are.”

He sat up and shrugged. “Maybe I am the bad guy.”

“You’re not.” I snapped, holding his gaze intently.

He didn’t speak, but his gaze mirrored mine. He was arguing me without words. His gaze dropped, following my body the whole way down the ground. His eyes had barely been stationed on the carpet when they flicked back up again and he was kneeling beside me chair once more, his eyes wide. “You’re hurt.”

He reached out and trailed his fingers across the base of my throat, goose bumps rising on my arms at the ever so slight contact. I forced myself to flinch away. I pushed the roller chair back, spinning away from him before rising from the chair and finding my back to the wall of my room. “It’s nothing.” I said sharply.

Will dragged himself from the floor, his shoulders stiff. “It’s obviously not. If it was nothing you wouldn’t have reacted like that.” He took a step towards me. “Who did it?”

“I did it to myself!” I insisted. “I forgot to take my necklace off before I blow-dried my hair. It heated up and burnt me.” I lied randomly.

He raised his eyebrows. “I’ve never seen you wear a necklace, Codi.” He paused. “It was Yun wasn’t it?”

My eyes dropped to the floor.

“The bastard.” Will muttered under his breath. His eyes flicked around the room then back to me. “Were you even going to tell me?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t think you needed to know. Besides, I’m fine, I—”

“And what if you hadn’t been fine, Codi? He tried to strangle you!” Will’s voice was shaking as he tried to stop his volume from increasing.

“Well, he wasn’t exactly strangling, strangling me, but—”

“That’s beside the point!” His control snapped as he flung his arms in the air in frustration. He was across the room and leaning over me in a heartbeat, one of his hands bracing himself on the wall above my head. He was tensing so much his veins were bulging from his biceps. “He could’ve killed you, Codi!”

“Yet, here I am.” I snapped, meeting his eyes, glare for glare. “I’m not as weak as you think I am!”

His shoulders slumped and his hand fell from the wall, his eyes on the floor. “I don’t think that you’re weak,” he said softly, not meeting my eyes, “I just feel… protective of you.”

“You don’t need to feel protective of me.” I insisted. “You’re not my brother, and you’re not my boyfriend, and I can handle myself just fine.”

I regretted the words as soon as they scrambled from my mouth. They hung in the air around us, a pair of scissors threatening to destroy the small thread of whatever bond we had forged between us in those past weeks.

“Right.” He muttered, his voice clipped – guarded. “I… I’ll see you later then.” He said, shuffling his feet on the carpet. “Good luck with finding a pattern in the research.”

All I could do was nod in response as he almost flew to the other side of the room and out of the door. I was surprised that he didn’t slam it – I knew I would have, had someone just said something like that to me.

Will had hardly been gone ten seconds before my knees gave out beneath me and I sank to the floor, haunted with thoughts that I had lost the first person to make me smile since before the War.

That I had lost the one person who seemed to understand.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 06.04.2015

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