Men died as the girl turned seven years old.
She was one of the few that were lucky enough to be saved. When the red streaks crept up her arms and her eyes rolled back in her head, she was gently lifted into a sterile transport and taken to the facility. Her mother was left lying in the bathtub, the water red where she had tried to scrub away the taint. Her father was collapsed on the kitchen floor, naked and covered in scratches, his eyes nothing more than liquefied pulp, his tongue a few inches from his mouth on the bloody floor.
The twin boys, both young, were checked and discarded. No use now, not after the eyes filled with blood. Just the girl, then. There was room for only a few more, anyway. On the way back to the facility, they calmed her with cool cloths and tingling balms. The disease could be countered, if it was contained quickly enough. The trouble was, it had started before anyone had realized what had happened. The symptoms were simple; a red rash that itched like fire, nausea and vomiting followed by a thick bloody clot being expelled from the mouth. The skin became heated and a build-up of pressure on the brain lead to madness and loss of speech. Very few survived, and those that did kept the red whorls upon their flesh until the end of their remaining days.
The girl was not alone in the transport. There was her next-door neighbour, a fat boy of nine who had pulled out most of his hair. She didn’t recognise any of the others in her fever, but some of them looked familiar. Really, the only thing she could concentrate on the pain ebbing and flowing through her racked body.
When the transport arrived at the facility, it was made to wait in a cleansing space for more than an hour before the safety checks were confirmed. The patients were unloaded by men in cover-alls, who breathed heavily into their facemasks, and then taken deep within, to find mercy in death or slow recovery at the hands of technology.
The girl knew then, that she was the only one left. They took her into the darkness and made the burning go away, finally, it had stopped, oh thank the father above. If only they’d managed to find the boys as well, she would be good if she could see them, could know that they were alright. They were going to help Mummy make her a cake today, because it was her birthday and they liked to lick the bowl, so Mummy would let one of them hold the egg while she mixed together the flour and sugar and chocolate. The little boys had just learned how to say her name, even though they had the lisp, but that was fine, because she really didn’t mind, and now that the burning had stopped, could she see Daddy again?
She tried to say his name, and couldn’t. Her tongue moved and the sounds were right there in her throat, but all that came out was a strange garbled noise that certainly wasn’t Daddy’s name. She tried to get her hands around her throat, but they were tied to something, thick leather straps that still stank of disinfectant and blood. She tried to scream then, the nameless girl. But nothing came, until the men appeared with their steel fingers and worried eyes.
‘One of them has to recover. Surely…’
‘Only three so far…’
‘The others keep the rash, and their bodies seem to have recovered and…’
‘And what?’
‘Adapted, sir. This one grew himself a new heart, sir.’
‘Are we in the military yet, boy? Leave it off.’
‘Yes, sir. I mean, no sir. I mean, yes, Doctor.’
‘How long does she have?’
‘Minutes. I’ll get the serum.’
‘Wait, was that a spasm, or did her hand just close? My god, boy, is she conscious?’
‘The charts say no.’
‘She kicked.’
‘The charts say…’
‘For god’s sake, will you look at her? Use your eyes!’
‘I’ll get the supervisor; this one might be worth saving.’
And so the nameless girl got a second chance. They woke her up again and pinched her all over and stabbed her with needles and pulled back some skin. She couldn’t feel anything, but she could see it, and she could hear it, and the worst noise of all was the sound of her bones being drilled. You know the ones, right under her ears and at the side of her mouth, because her whole head shook. Her blood splashed red on the floor, just like Mummy in the bath trying to get clean. She said I was always such a good clean girl, didn’t she?
Who are you?
When she woke up, years or hours or minutes or decades later, she could feel that something was different. Too weak to sit, too weak to stand, too weak to even lift a hand off the bed to touch her face; she knew that something had changed. Or, that something had changed her.
Two days later, she realised that she could remember everything around her in the room, even with her eyes closed for hours and hours, and that if the men came in and moved so much as a glass of water, she would know about it.
Three days later, she realised that she could hear every single word that was said around her, even when she slept. She could remember. She’d amuse herself by replaying the conversations of the head doctor and his assistant as they checked on her at night. They had no idea, of course. But they knew that she was the first one to make it this far with the fusion. This girl had temerity.
The fourth day was the day she learned that the bonds on her flesh could be broken as easily as she used to snap a spider’s web with her finger. It was also the day that she discovered that she could not stand without falling over and in that moment being overwhelmed with a surge of numbers and figures that flashed all at once behind her eyes and sounded in her ears. I’m going to hit the floor now, she thought. And so she did. She counted the dust-particles that stuck to her eyelashes and waited for the thundering footsteps of the nurses who would help her back to bed and strap her in again, all the while muttering meaningless pleasantries. Sometimes they said nothing at all. It didn’t matter, the nameless girl could hear all about it later when they talked in their rest station across the hall. She could hear people fucking in a closet on the second floor. She tried not to listen, the way she had when Mummy and Daddy had gone to their room at night. Thin walls were the curse of her childhood, before a real one had come knocking.
Strapped as she was, she could still cry. The hot tears slid down her face so often that the doctors thought that the disease had flared up again. They shot her full of medication again, and for days she did not feel a thing.
The day that she was un-strapped was a birthday, too, although she did not know it at the time. Later she would look back and realise that she was born again at precisely that moment, when the buckles were snapped open and a hand was held out for support. She sat up and looked down at her pale white body. At the time, she did not know that it would mark her forever an outcast.
They called her Six. Her drug-hazed mind was too blurry to realise that it was her name, until a few weeks had passed and they dropped the dosage. By then she was being helped out of bed every morning and set to learning how to walk again. The numbers kept arriving in her head, and only got louder as the drugs wore off. She realised that she was seeing things with a strange crispness. Occasionally, the world would flicker a bit, and she’d stumble against the walking poles. When she closed her eyes, she could reply parts of her day. Or delete them. But she didn’t like to do that, because it made her feel like parts of her body were being chopped off.
‘There we go, Six. Walk to me, come on.’ The nurse at the other end was big and blond and stupid. Six hated him. She wanted to scream at him and tell him that it wasn’t six, it was something else, say her real name! But she couldn’t ever remember it. One day she tried to go back to the beginning, to see what she could remember, but it was full of saws and sick splattering noises, so she stopped. The nurse noticed her tremble.
‘It’s OK, Six, just keep walking, you’ll get there. One foot after the other, that’s my girl.’
‘I’m not,’ whispered Six, her voice tiny and scared. Was that her voice? It didn’t sound right, didn’t sound true. The nurse stopped and cocked his head. He leaned forward with an encouraging smile on his face.
‘What was that, honey?’
‘I’m not,’ said Six, her voice rising almost not at all. ‘I’m my Daddy’s girl.’
‘Of course you are,’ said the nurse, looking confused. ‘Now, one foot in front of the other, that’s it.’
Six steeled herself and clamped down her hands on the wooden walking aides. They were at a horizontal angle and set just far enough apart for her to drag herself up and down several times a day. One foot forward. It sounded easy, and she could remember something about skipping, but her ankles were stiff and her hips couldn’t sway the right way any more, so she slipped again. The walking bars crashed against her armpits, and the nurse dashed forward, righting her and checking for breaks. The bones did shatter so easily at this stage, right before they were correctly set. But movement often helped the healing process.
Six wished she had a window. Her room was small and narrow and lit by a couple of yellowing light bulbs. She missed the sun on her skin. The day of her birthday, she was going to go swimming with the boys in the creek… Or was that someone else’s birthday? She couldn’t remember. Everything before the blackness was uncertain and queer, like a dream that seemed happy but that got darker and more violent as it went along. Daddy and Mummy were there, though. But was that Daddy from the television, or Mummy from the classroom? Six didn’t know. But she did know that she wanted to go outside.
‘Can I go and play?’ She asked of the wrinkly woman who came around with meals. ‘Do you have any balls?’
‘No no, honey. Not yet. It’s not safe to go out just yet, my dear. The air filters are still picking up traces of the red dust.’
‘What’s the red dust?’ asked Six, biting into her sandwich.
‘Why, that’s what made people very sick, but everyone is better now.’
Six could tell that she was lying. It was something about the tone of her voice. I’ll remember that, she thought. That pitch, that tone. That’s how I’ll know people lie to me.
‘Now, do you want apple juice or milk, honey?’
‘Juice, please,’ said Six. Well, then. She could hear the fans blowing at night, when the winds were high, but she hadn’t known why. And they must keep the really important people much higher up, because she never heard anything useful.
When she learned how to walk without falling over, they made her do slow laps of an indoor circuit with a big high roof. There was nothing to do but walk around and around while music played. It was boring, but it was better than sitting around in bed all day, or putting up with the stupid nurses telling her what to do. Sometimes they’d put big blocks on the track so that she’d have to clamber over them. She liked it when they did that, because she’d always been a good climber, much better than her brothers. Six knew that if she saw the boys again, everything would be fixed. She knew that she’d see her Mummy and Daddy again, of course, but the boys were always running off and fighting in the mud, so what if Mummy and Daddy couldn’t find them? They’d gotten sick before, too, but they looked so much better than she had, with just their hands itchy and red. But if the wrinkly lady had lied, had they really gotten better? They’d be at home, if they were anywhere. When things got scary, they’d always go and hide under their beds. Six used to go and jump on the mattresses when she knew they were underneath, and they’d laugh and roll out again and they’d all tickle each other and Mum would come and see what all the racket was about. She wished she could jump on her brother’s beds again, but it was always this stupid track.
The music was nice, though. She liked the strings, and sometimes she’d stop walking around the track and dance in place, with her hands outstretched and her eyes closed. She could remember where the blocks were, so she never crashed into them. The nurses didn’t mind when she danced, as long as she kept moving. It was to build up her strength, they said. When they noticed that she could dance and miss the blocks with her eyes closed, they started turning off the lights for a few minutes every time she was on the track.
‘Is that OK, Six? Is it scary when the lights go off?’ The doctor asked her one afternoon.
‘I’m seven, why do you call me six?’ Six giggled.
‘Well, we didn’t know your real name, so we thought you might like to be called Six. Someone else is already called seven,’ he said, marking things off on a black clipboard.
‘There are other kids here?’ Six asked, bouncing. ‘Can I play with them?’
‘You’ll see them soon,’ said the doctor. Six was pretty sure he wasn’t lying, but she wasn’t sure. He kept his voice very steady all the time. ‘We’re helping them to learn to walk again, just like you. Now, Six, do you mind if we take the lights down when you’re out going for a walk?’
‘No, I can still see,’ she replied. The doctor looked startled.
‘Can you, Six? Just like normal?’ He scribbled on his paper.
‘Almost,’ said Six, ‘not really the same. I know that it’s dark, but I can still see. Sometimes things flicker a bit, and I feel like I’m going to throw up. I hate it when that happens!’
‘We’ll see what we can do about that, Six. But you can still see where you’re going?’
‘Of course!’ Six yelled, throwing her sandwich into the air. ‘Can’t you?’
‘Not yet,’ said the doctor with one of his funny smiles. ‘Maybe soon.’
After that, they turned off the lights for much longer. Six didn’t mind, because they still played the music. She’d dance, and then walk, and then climb a block and then stop and dance on top of it for a while. She liked it when the lights went off, because it made her feel brave and strong. She’d pretend that there were foes behind every block, and would jump down and shout ‘Ha!’ whenever she climbed over one of them. The music would swell, just like it did at the movies. It was all full of strings and big booming drums, just like a soundtrack. But it was like one of those old shows, with people in dresses and those funny frilly hats. Old music. Classical, she thought. Yes, Dad used to play it sometimes when he was sad. He’d sit and listen to music and drink some of his beer and Mummy would leave him there, and not give him any hugs. But Six used to run up and jump into his lap and the boys would tumble and do handstands until Daddy smiled again. He always did when Six and her brothers were there.
Six went to bed tired every night, now. She’d get up in the morning, have breakfast, shower with stinky soap and then walk around the track. Then have lunch and walk the track in the dark. Then she’d have some dinner and go to bed. Some nights the big blond nurse would come in and kiss her goodnight, but she didn’t like it because he’d put his tongue in her mouth. She learned to pretend to be asleep and buried under the blankets when she heard his footsteps in the corridor.
It was only after a few weeks that she realised that she didn’t know anyone’s name. They all knew her, though. They’d say hello to her in the morning before they took her to the track and goodnight to her when they took her back to her room. Six liked the wrinkly woman who brought her lunch best. She was old enough to be her mother, she thought. And the lady would sneak in extra desserts with dinner sometimes.
One day a different man came. He had badges on his chest and had almost no hair on his head, although there was a lot of hair coming out of his nose. Six thought he walked like a fat man, but he wasn’t fat any more. He just looked at her, rubbing his moustache. When he left, Six heard him talking to the doctor who’d brought him in.
‘Does she know about the scarring yet?’
‘No, we don’t give them mirrors, and it’s mostly on her face. It should heal well, given time. The surgery is very delicate.’
‘Do you think it’ll cause problems?’
‘Why would it? We’ll make her a shadow.’
The man with medals laughed, then. ‘I’m surprised that you haven’t already, Carson.’
‘We’ll let you know when we start putting them together.’
That would be the doctor, then. Carson. Six would remember his name when he came back to talk to her after dinner. He came most nights, and would spend some time asking her about her day. Sometimes he asked her the most embarrassing questions. Once he asked her what she did when she went to the toilet, and she wouldn’t tell him. He didn’t get grumpy, though, he’d just write things down on that notepad of his. Write, write and write. Six hadn’t known about the scars, though. She touched her face, trying to feel where they could be, but nothing felt different. Maybe they were really small. She hoped that they were, because everyone had said she was such a pretty little girl. She knew that they’d cut her black hair short, so that she almost looked like the man with the medals on his chest. It was spiky and prickly under her fingers.
The next day she met Five and Three. They were in the lap room with her when she arrived in the morning. Five was another girl, with short hair like Six. She was taller, though, and older. Her shoulders were curved, so it looked liked someone had punched her in the stomach. She smiled when she saw Six, but didn’t talk to her. Six couldn’t speak because she was too busy staring at Five’s legs. They looked like a robot. Five was wearing the same light blue shorts and t-shirt that they dressed Six in every morning, except with a five where she had a six, and Six couldn’t see any skin on her legs, just shiny metal and little flashing lights.
‘Noticed my legs, did you?’ Five asked, her smile dropping a bit. She reached down and tapped her fingers against a thigh. Before Six could say a word, she was off and running around the track, her silvery legs flashing as she went. Three looked apologetic. He had a metal hand that finished half-way up his arm. He held it up for her to see.
‘Implants, you know. What do you have?’ He asked, peering in the dim light.
‘What? I don’t have anything like that,’ said Six, stepping back a bit. Three had light blue eyes that burned into your face. He was shorter than Six, and stout. His short hair looked good on him; maybe it had always been that long.
‘Yes you do, or you wouldn’t be here.’ Three came closer. ‘Who are you, anyway? I’m Three.’
‘I know - you have it on your shirt.’
‘What?’
‘Right there, on your chest. In purple,’ she replied. Three looked down, puzzled.
‘No I don’t. It’s all just blue. Just the same as yours,’ he said, pointing. There was a large number plainly on her t-shirt. ‘You must have bionic eyes!’
Six burst into tears just as Five rounded the bend and flashed past them once more. A nurse came and took her hand and led her out of the room, giving her a tissue to blow her nose. The wrinkly lady was waiting for her in her room.
‘What’s the matter, Six? Didn’t you like making new friends with Three and Five?’
‘No,’ said Six, sullenly. ‘They’re stupid. They can’t even read.’
‘There aren’t any words in the track room, dear.’
‘Yes there are!’ Six was tired of telling people. ‘I have a six right here!’ She slapped her chest, hard. ‘Why can’t anyone see it but me?’
‘I don’t know, Six. What colour is it?’
But then the doctor came in, the one who had the secret name. He shook his head, and the wrinkly woman went away. He sat down on Six’s bed and even put down his clipboard.
‘The reason nobody else can see the number is that you can see some ultra-violet dyes, Six. Did you know that?’ Six shook her head. Nobody had told her about that, had they? She didn’t remember anything about it, and these days she remembered everything. ‘We printed it into your clothes to keep them in order, just in case they were ever lost,’ said the doctor. But he’s lying, thought Six. He doesn’t think I can tell, but I can. ‘Do you know why you can see it and nobody else can? No? Do you remember being sick a long time ago, Six? We found you and we decided that you were just well enough to fix up. You see, the Red Plague took a lot of people away. Some people managed to get better all by themselves, but a lot of people didn’t. Do you know what that means?’
Six nodded. ‘They died,’ she said, in a small voice. ‘Like my cat Blackie did when the car hit her.’ Daddy had sat Six down and told her all about it, and Six had cried and cried. But Mummy and Daddy were always going to be alive.
‘That’s right, Six. I’m sorry to have to tell you all about this, but it seems that you’re ready to hear about it. Lots of people died. Nearly everyone, actually. But as I said before, some people got better by themselves. They’re still living out there. For them, the red itchy rash stayed on their skin, so they look different to us, now. Here at the facility, we kept the disease away until we could find a cure, but we didn’t have enough for everyone and a lot of people had died by the time it was found. So we went out to see if there was anyone still alive. That’s how we found you, Six.’
‘What about my Mum and Dad? And my brothers?’
‘They might have recovered, Six, and if they have, they’ll be waiting for you when you’re ready to see them.’
‘Can’t I just visit them for a while?’
‘No, I’m afraid not, my dear. We cured you, you see. But the Red did a lot of damage before we could save you. We have to make sure you’re all better before we can let you go out and see your family, do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Six, ‘but then can I go out and see them?’
‘Of course you can, Six! Of course!’
He was lying, she could tell. She wondered if her parents would hate her now that she was better and they were all red and patchy. That was probably it. But they had to still love her, didn’t they? She was their little girl.
‘Why can I see the dye and Three and Five can’t?’ asked Six, screwing up her face. ‘Are my eyes sick?’
The doctor laughed. ‘No, not at all! In fact, they’re better than ever before. Remember when I asked you if you could see when we turned off the lights? And you said you could?’
Six nodded.
‘Well, your eyes did get sick when we found you, but we managed to make you some new ones, using some very new technology. They work just like your old ones, but they also feed into a tiny computer that we’ve installed just under your skull.’
‘Like Five’s metal legs?’
‘Yes, exactly. Her legs were sick, so we made her new ones. Your eyes were sick, as well as your ears and some of your insides, so we took them out and fixed you up,’ he said, smiling. ‘Don’t you feel better?’
‘Yes,’ said Six, just like she had when her Aunties had asked if she loved them. ‘I feel better now.’
‘Good! So, now we think you can record what you see and think about it later. Can you do that, Six? As well as hearing better?’
‘I heard someone say your name was Carson.’
The doctor stopped for a moment, and swallowed.
‘Six, when did you hear that? We’re not allowed to use our names when we’re in this building. I would have been a kilometre away when someone spoke my name.’
‘It was when the man with the shiny medals came to see me.’
The doctor made a note with a shaking hand.
‘Well, we didn’t know about that,’ he muttered. ‘As well as sharpening your hearing and your sight, we’ve given you some tiny computers that run around your body and fix things. They’re so small that you can only see them with a microscope. But they make sure that you’ll never get sick again. Isn’t that wonderful?’
‘Yes,’ said Six, looking at her stomach. Tiny computers in her belly? What if they wanted to get out? Or got lost and made her sick?
‘So that’s what the man meant when he was talking about the scars. Because we’ve had to go in and fix things, there are a few little marks on your head. Just behind your ears, and underneath your hair at the top of your head. But don’t worry about that, because they’ll go away and you’ll look just like you always did! The little robots will have you looking well again in no time.’
‘Why does Three have a metal hand?’ Six asked, pulling the blankets closer. ‘Why doesn’t he have robot eyes as well?’
‘Three’s hand was so sick that we had to take it off,’ said the doctor, pulling his nose. ‘But it’s much stronger than his real one. And his eyes were just fine, so we left them as they were. Five’s legs were the most damaged part of her, so we built her some new ones.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they were sick, of course.’
‘No, why us? Why did we get to be fixed, and not everyone else?’
‘We helped the people that we thought needed help the most, Six. And you were well enough to be worth fixing! We weren’t sure if people were going to get better, so we tried to save as many people as we could.’
Six nodded. That made perfect sense.
‘But where did the Red come from? Why did everyone get sick?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ said the doctor. ‘But we’re trying to find out. It’s hard to talk to people these days, because when everyone got sick, a lot of people got angry and broke the telephone lines. But we know that there are people out there who got better, and who have survived on what they could find. We might just have a chance to get back to normal again!’
The doctor’s eyes were gleaming, and he sat straighter than he had before.
‘And you! You and the others are going to be the start of something new. You’ll never get sick again, and you can help us find people who need our help, too. Would you like that?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Good. Well, it’s your bed time now, so we’ll say goodnight and see you in the morning.’
‘Goodnight, Carson.’
‘Uh, goodnight, Six.’
Two
After breakfast the next morning, Six expected to be taken to the circuit as usual, but instead she was shown to a smaller room with a series of panels inside.
‘Do you know what this is, Six?’ asked the doctor, who had refused to answer to Carson.
‘No. A maze?’ replied Six, peering.
‘That’s right, Six. We’ve made this up just for you. Now, we’re going to play a very, very soft sound in the centre of the maze, and you’ll have to find your way through it. Do you think you can do that?’
‘What does it sound like?’
‘It’s a tiny siren, Six, like on a fire truck. Remember those? We’ll switch it on when we’ve all left. If you can get to the middle in less than three minutes, you’ll get a special treat!’
‘Okay, Carson,’ replied Six.
‘I’ve asked you not to call me that, remember?’ he said, face tightening just a little. ‘You can just call me Doctor, okay?’
‘Yep,’ said Six, already staring deep into the labyrinth.
‘Ready to go?’ asked the doctor, making his way out of the room.
‘Go,’ whispered Six, straining for the slightest sound.
When the alarm rang, she was nearly knocked off her feet. The siren wailed like a scream and rang in her ears painfully. Six knew that they must be observing her, because it dropped down almost immediately. She whirled around to the door to give them a filthy look, or at least stick out her tongue, but there was nobody there. Cameras, then? She couldn’t see any on the roof. Maybe they just hid them really well? But there was the maze, and she wanted to see if she could make it in time.
The panels were about twice as tall as she was, so there was no chance that she could look over the top. At the very first junction, Six paused for a moment, listening. The sound seemed to come from in front of her. She took a few steps down to the right and the siren faded just a little. Left, she thought. I’ll start with left.
The lights flicked off, but she was used to that. Six could still see the white panels in front of her, and had no trouble finding her way. Exactly one minute later, she had turned left again, right, gone straight, jumped over a hole that opened in the floor, gone right, left, left again and found the siren in the middle of the maze. There was a button under the flashing light, so she hit it.
The wailing stopped and the lights came back on. The doctor’s voice came in over a loudspeaker.
‘Six, you did a great job. Could you hear the siren the entire time?’
‘Yes, Carson!’ she yelled into the empty room.
‘Six, call me doctor, remember? Well, we turned it down so low that most dogs couldn’t hear it. Isn’t that great?’
‘I suppose. Can I have my treat, now?’
That night the wrinkly lady bought chocolate cake and let Six eat as much as she wanted to. They even played some music and for a change it wasn’t the classical stuff they played in track room. Six didn’t even mind that she was too old for the Wiggles. When all of the cake was gone, the wrinkly lady tucked in Six and said goodnight. Six yawned and fell asleep straight away, vaguely wondering where her mother was, and what she looked like.
Over the next few weeks, they alternated Six on the track and in the maze room. She was getting stronger and faster every day. Even though her skin was pale from the lack of sunlight, she felt stronger, and knew she was putting on some muscle. She never had a headache or a bellyache any more and sometimes they let her on the track with Three and Five. Three was slimming down, too. He told Six once that they only let him have food if he was good and did his exercises quickly. Five was morose as ever as she tried to adjust to her metal legs. They stopped about half-way up her thighs and she complained that they were always cold in the mornings, even though the doctor said they’d stay warm in night.
Six turned eight, or nine. She only knew because she got a tiny birthday cake one morning, with a single candle. That night she cried, not because she missed her parents, but because she didn’t. Five told her later that the doctors were just guessing at their birthdays. She had been counting the days, and they were a whole month early on hers.
‘Did you ever remember your real name?’ she asked Six on the track one day.
‘No, I’ve tried, but it’s gone. How about you?’
‘Nah. They’ve called me Five for so long that I’ve started to call myself Five in my head. Imagine going back to school with a name like that!’ Five huffed as she leaped over a smaller block in one smooth motion. ‘So, what do you think they’re training us for?’
‘Training? They’re just making us well, aren’t they?’
Five barked a laugh. ‘You’re stupid if you believe that. My Uncle was in the Army. We’re being trained for something, I know it. Do you think we’ll have to hurt people?’
‘No! Why would we? Besides, there aren’t many people left. Carson told me.’
‘Who is that?’ Five said, slowing to a jog. ‘Nobody has names here.’
‘He’s the doctor. You know, the man with glasses who comes around with a clipboard.’
‘Oh, him. Yeah, he’s alright. Hurry up, Three! That hand does nothing but slow you down, I see! And make your jumps higher, Six. Get up! Up!’
‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ said Six, sullenly. ‘You’re not my boss.’
‘I will be, one day. If you start giving orders, sooner or later people start to follow them. My Uncle, that’s what he used to say.’
‘Don’t care,’ muttered Six.
‘What did you say?’ yelled Five, pulling Six around by the front of her t-shirt, making her stagger. ‘Did you just say you didn’t care? Because you’ve gotta care in here, you idiot! Don’t you see what they’re doing to us?’ For a moment Six thought Five was going to hit her, so she put her hands up to shield her face. Five stood over her for a minute longer and huffed, her face bright red. Then she shook her head in disgust and dropped Six on the ground.
‘We’ll see what happens when they start giving you orders,’ she snapped, starting off around the track again. ‘You won’t last a second.’
And from that day, Six started having lessons in the late afternoon. It was just like school all over again, except Chris Butterworth wasn’t there to pull your hair or push you over in the mud. She learned all the things that she thought she had forgotten, but faster. Six could remember everything her teacher put on the board and recite it back perfectly. She started to take books to bed, trying to see if she could read the entire thing and then retell it without missing a word. She could, unless the wrinkly woman came in to listen. Then she got embarrassed.
They started to teach her about all of the wars that had been fought before the Red had come and killed everyone. She learned the names of the commanders and saw how they ordered their troops and the mistakes that they made. Her favourite was Alexander the Great. He was taught by Socrates and he won lots of big wars. And he was so handsome with his armour and his lovely white horse. Six didn’t like Hitler. He always looked so angry, and he killed a lot of innocent people. She was sad when she watched videos of the camps he put people in. Nobody had any clothes and they were so skinny. There was always a lot of smoke coming out of the big chimneys, which Six thought was bad for the environment.
She learned about different kinds of soldiers and where to hit people to make them fall asleep. They gave her lessons in physical fighting, too. She didn’t mind, because she got to dress up in white pyjamas and shout a lot. She could always kick harder than her brothers, anyway. And then there was more maths and English lessons and even some languages that she’d never heard of before. She would read dictionaries in different languages and a book or three in that same language, and then she would know how to speak it. They made her listen to tapes so that she said the words right. Her favourite was Swedish, because of the funny little dots. She thought that her Mum would like that she knew French, though. Her Mummy had always said that she wanted to learn and go to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. Well, now Six could help Mummy learn, when she knew that she was better and got to go and see her family again.
Six had a harder time learning all of the maths that they set her. She could always remember the formulas (she liked the ones with squiggles best) but sometimes she couldn’t remember which numbers to put where. It did help her to make sense of the numbers that flashed into her mind when she was running around or jumping on something, although she could make them go away if she wanted to. She usually did, unless she wasn’t sure that she was going to make a jump or something. Then she’d just think about it and wish for the numbers, and there they would be. Once she couldn’t stop laughing because the numbers told her exactly how many nose hairs the doctor had and they danced when he got annoyed. He didn’t think it was funny at all, even when she told him why she was laughing.
Three hardly ever spoke to her any more. He told her that he had more lessons than she did, because they’d done something to his brain to make him smarter. They would plug a little cord into a little dock at the back of his head and dump in big files every day. He told Six that sometimes he couldn’t stop thinking about what they’d told him, or that he could see things that he was sure weren’t there. They had to put something in his food to make him sleep at night. It was mostly about battles or killing people, so he had nightmares even when he did sleep. He had big hollows under his eyes and his skin was even whiter than Six’s. When he spoke, all of the words came out in a tumble and he shook when he stood still.
‘Are you sick? I thought we had little robots to keep us well,’ Six asked as they walked around the track together. The classical music was playing again, but softly, so it was okay to walk and talk.
‘No, they just stop you from getting ill, but they can’t make you better if you can’t sleep. Six? Will you remember for something for me? I used to live on Blake’s Road, and my Mum’s name was Susan. Just remember that, and I can forget it and let everything else in.’
Every time she saw Three, she would remind him. He would nod, looking sicker and sicker. Once, some of his hair fell out as they were walking. He just looked at it on the floor and started to cry.
‘How will my Mum recognise me if all my hair falls out?’ Three sobbed. Six gave him a hug.
‘Don’t worry, she’ll know who you are. I’m sure they miss us very much and want us to get better soon so that we can go home.’
‘Fools,’ said Five, who had crept up on them. ‘The only way to get out of here is to do so well that they can’t keep you any longer. Now, hurry up. I want to see you two doubling your old lap times.’
‘Leave us alone!’ screamed Three, his eyes bulging. ‘Just shut up! Shut up! I’ll get home soon, you’ll see!’ He launched himself at Five, who stepped out of the way and stuck out a foot. Three almost tumbled over it, stepped over the foot at the last second. He whirled around and punched Five in the mouth. Six could only watch, horrified, as her numbers told her where to hit Five to make her fall down, or break her knee, or snap her wrist. But it was over as quickly as it began. The doctor rushed in and pulled Three aside with his aide taking care of the bleeding Five. She kept screaming that Three had knocked out her tooth, but they looked fine to Six. The wrinkly lady took Six straight to her lessons after that, telling her that she might not see Three for a little while. He needed a rest, she explained. Six could hear the worry in her voice.
‘You look after Three. He’s my friend,’ she said stoutly, hands on hips. She looked startled.
‘We will, Six. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of him. I promise.’ The wrinkly lady smiled. Another lie, Six could tell by now, without even really listening.
They started to reduce the drugs that they put in her food. Six remembered the bone saws again, the splattering of blood that marked the change into her new self. She stopped washing, stopped eating and wouldn’t let the nurses take her to the track room or the maze room. Instead, she’d lie in bed and replay the memories over and over again, hoping to catch a glimpse of the person who did it to her. In her heart, she knew it was Carson, but he’d treated her so kindly…
No, he hadn’t. He’d treated her like a wild animal in need of taming. The first time he’d let her look in a mirror, she’d screamed. Her eyes were literally a liquid-metal trapped within a clear-plastic-like orb. They were robotic and cold, and not the blue eyes she’d once had. Well, now she was going back to the jungle, away from the wrinkly woman and the big blonde nurse who tried to kiss her and the track room and Five’s stupid orders. They started strapping her again. She broke out. They used wire-enforced straps. She snapped them in minutes. Each time she slipped her bonds, an alarm would ring. They’ve probably got tags on me, she thought. Maybe I could find them and rip them out. Then they wouldn’t be able to catch me. I could hear them coming and hide and they’d never know. Six realised that she’d had such thoughts the entire time she’d been in the facility. The bastards were drugging me the entire time. She played back the memories of her dancing in the track room and nearly vomited. At least Five seemed to have the right idea. Six wondered why she’d never tried to find Five and Three’s rooms. She couldn’t hear them, so perhaps they were on another floor, or in another building. With the lack of drugs, her senses grew sharper again. The flicker in her vision was back, but she was used to it now.
Doctor Carson came in to see her.
‘Six, is there any reason why you’ve stopped washing and going for exercise?’
‘I don’t want to. I don’t see the point. What are you training me for?’
‘We’re just testing your limits, Six. Seeing what you can do with all of the help we’ve given you. Don’t you want to help people?’
‘Carson, I am not a little girl any more,’ Six replied.
‘You’re nine years old! Or thereabouts!’ Carson actually laughed.
‘I stopped being a little girl when you cut me open and filled me with your gadgets. I have a photographic memory, remember? I’ve learned things since you put me to reading. You’re using us. We’re nothing but lab rats to you. You waited for the plague to give you fresh victims to experiment on, didn’t you? There was nobody around to stop you from doing your research. My parents are dead, aren’t they? I’m a ward of the state. And now, after the Red, that means that you think you can do whatever you want to me. To us.’ Six took a deep breath.
‘It’s not like that at all, Six.’ Carson flashed his fakest smile. ‘We went out to find you to help you. Your parents might be dead, but we’ve looked after you like you were our own. Are you honestly saying that you’d rather be dead? We pulled you right back from the edge, you know. You’d be dead if not for me and my work.’ His eyes burned with an almost religious fervour.
Six nodded slowly.
‘Maybe so, doctor. But you owe me the answer to one question. Why? What are you training us for?’
‘Protection,’ said Carson, simply. ‘We don’t know how the population will react to you when we tell them what we’ve done. We just want you to look out for us if they come for you. Anyone who recovered from the Red was damn lucky, you know.’ He sat down and took off his glasses, twirling them between his fingers.
‘Most of them decided to live their life as they always had. Of course, after the plague there was a certain amount of readjustment. Houses had been pillaged, stores damaged, half the world dead. It took a while to get things going again. And then a new group of people came together. They claimed that the Red was a holy thing, something sent from on high to, well, to test them. They say that those who survived did so because they were blessed. And anyone who had a cure or who has been patched up with technology is the worst kind of sinner imaginable. They hate you, and they’d love to see you dead. They call themselves the Red Hands. Touched by the red hand of god, they say.’
‘Does everyone think this?’ Six was horrified, mostly at herself for not realising that she was, of course, going to be different.
‘No, not everyone. About a tenth of the remaining population. But that tenth is dedicated to finding those who had cures given to them and putting them down. They believe you blaspheme against their ‘Red god’ just by existing.’
‘But, we didn’t choose to be saved! That’s ridiculous!’
‘Have you ever done a study of post-Red religion, Six? The radicals of any religion have some pretty strong beliefs, and they’re not shy about pushing them on others. The Red Hands don’t know about us now, we think. But if they ever find us, they’ll break down our doors and burn us all alive. That’s why we need you and the others. You’re strong, much stronger than anyone else around these days. You can resist them. We’re men of science, not men of war. We’re doing the best we can with some of the quarantined generals, but they have more to worry about than this small facility. We’re trying to get you ready, Six. For your sake as much as ours.’
‘Does Five know? Or Three? Have you told them about this, or are they as ignorant as I was five minutes ago?’
‘Five has guessed some of it. She’s very smart, and she’s had dealings with the military before. We’re pushing her hard, you know. Three isn’t coping with the training. We don’t know what’s wrong with him, actually.’
‘You’ve got to stop! Give him a rest! Let him be a kid!’
‘I’d love to,’ said the doctor, ‘believe me, I wish all of you could grow up and have a normal life. But the plague touched you, and we healed you and now everyone is going to have to live with the choices we made. Six, if the Red Hands hear about this place before you’re ready… they’ll come. And we can’t stop them.’
‘So what? What do I do?’
‘You learn how to fight, how to protect. We have a few people on the outside who have identified some of the key figures in the Red Hand movement. It may become necessary to…’
‘What? Kill them?’
‘Yes. Kill them before they come and kill us. When you’re older, you’ll see why…’
‘I see why now,’ said Six. ‘I’m not a stupid child, you know. I might look like I’m nine years old, but when you’re not drugging me into insensibility I have the mental age of around twenty. If you’d give me some decent books, I could surpass the lot of you in a year.’
The doctor looked startled.
‘We had no idea how much you retained, Six. If we had of known that the drugs were slowing you down… the bionics should have dulled them to almost nothing…’
‘You knew. You wanted to keep me happy and docile. Carson, if you’re serious about wanting me to protect you, you’ve got to start letting me work at my own pace. Give me the books I want, if you have them here. My muscles are too underdeveloped for much strength training, but I can do ballet and things like that.’ Her face was hard, a mockery of a real child’s expression. ‘If you had of explained the situation to me…’
‘It was too risky. We couldn’t. Even Five doesn’t know the extent to all of this, although she thinks she does.’
‘Tell her. And tell Three. I’ll need them. We’ll have to work together. Are there any other kids like us here?’ Her voice made the term a joke.
‘Not in this facility. We have another about an hour away by car. We can’t move openly between them too often, but there is an emergency tunnel that takes about a day to walk. One and Two are there, as well as Four. Seven isn’t even in the country. To tell you the truth, we don’t even know where Seven is. She went rogue. Tore out her tracking monitor. She may have left the country, which is quite a feat these days. Our worst nightmare is that she’s contacted the Red Hands about the location of our facilities.’
‘And why would she have wanted to do that?’ came the sardonic reply. ‘After you treated her so well with all of the experiments.’
‘Seven was the most damaged. We worked on her the most. She’s the best of you. I doubt we’ll ever see something that magnificent ever again.’ Carson’s eyes shone. ‘I can give you her specifics, but they won’t do you any good. She’s perfect. She doesn’t have a weakness.’
‘Everything and everyone has a weakness, Carson.’
And that was the moment in which Six left her childhood behind forever.
The training got harder. She studied personal combat manuals on loan from the Army for hours at a time, and then spent time in the ring with Five to sharpen the moves she’d learned. Five had a memory dump too, she discovered, but she decided that her recorder was better. The dump made Three and Five nauseas and disorientated. They all learned several kinds of martial arts and harassed Carson for weapon training. But he refused them, saying that he couldn’t trust them yet.
‘If the Red Hands come for us, I’m not going to be able to stop them with kicking,’ said Six. ‘We might actually need some firepower.’
‘In time,’ was all he said. Six and Five continued their hand-to-hand training.
They would wear a white uniform with black belts, for they were both knowledgeable enough to be black-belts of multiple disciplines, although they had never been graded. Five spurned the Taekwondo arm and leg armour that was allowed, making do with the chest-shield. Six wore arm protectors that had been re-enforced with a new kind of plastic. It gave slightly upon impact, which meant that Five wouldn’t injure herself when Six blocked her kicks, but was stronger than steel. Carson wouldn’t tell her what it was made from, but Six had the idea that it contained at least small amounts of spider-webbing. She hated kicking with the leg and foot protectors. Besides, the gauntlet-like arm guards could be worn close to the skin under normal clothes. The leg protectors took too long to put on. Five, of course, wore the same plastic-like material wrapped around her legs, to stop herself from killing Six with her powerful kicks. Metal legs would be particularly unpleasant to fight against for real, Six discovered.
‘Come on!’ Five said as she bowed. She sprang into a fighting stance. Six bounced on the balls of her feet, back and forth, her hands circling the air in front of her face. Five was angry, fast and predictable. Six liked to think she was the adaptable one. Five jolted her out of her thoughts by aiming a kick at her face. Six stepped to the side and pulled back her head and shoulders, snapping a kick off her front foot. It nearly caught Five by surprise, but she pivoted and punched for Six’s stomach. Six once again avoided the blow by turning her body, yanking on the fist to pull Five over her foot. Six knelt and stopped a fist just short of Five’s nose.
‘You’re dead,’ she said, grinning. She hauled a scowling Five to her feet. They dropped once more into their fighting stances. Quick as a snake, Five lashed out at Six’s head. Six ducked into the blow and tackled Five around the waist and they were over again. And up again. Six stepped out off the mats to give Three a turn after twenty minutes. He had been doing push ups and patterns to stay warm and ready. Five beat him easily three or four times, until he used a strange kick that involved him spinning up onto a hand and lashing out with his feet. Five was so surprised that she let herself be kicked in the teeth.
‘Brazilian dance-fighting,’ he said, a self-satisfied smirk on his lips. ‘I found a reference to it ages ago.’ He stopped smirking when Five slapped him across the face.
‘You never beat me!’ she screamed, her short hair making her eyes bulge even more. ‘Never! Never!’ It was the first time in months that they drugged any of them, and Five was listless and blank-eyed for days afterwards.
Finally, Carson let them have weapons. It was just staffs and blunted nunchuks to begin with. He made them wear helmets when they sparred with the staffs after Three nearly got his eye poked out. The helmet just encouraged them to more violence. Six was troubled to find that she actually liked learning how to maim ‘the enemy.’ She had never felt so strong and fast and powerful in her life. After training, she would do a few quick circuits in the track room with clenched fists from all of the energy pulsing through her. It was all she could do not to kick and punch things out of people’s hands when they came with meals. The numbers were forever telling her the weak points and the right angles for kicks. She tried very hard to dull her awareness of the numbers when she fought with Three and Five, however. One day they might not respond, and then where would she be? She liked fighting in blindfolds best, for she could already see in the dark. Once they made her and Three and Five fight each other to the centre of the maze room, all with blindfolds. They’d all come out of the maze bloody. Six had won, but only because she heard Three and Six coming with far greater accuracy than they had. Five’s metal legs meant that she could traverse vast distances in a hurry, but Six could always hear her coming, no matter how soft her tread. It was the tiny metallic clinks that they made when she bent her knees. Three could sneak very well, and use his tactical knowledge to plan ahead with greater accuracy. He was something of a genius when it came to strategy, a skill developed, Six though, from constantly competing with herself and Five. They outmatched him with their robotics, he knew that. So he was forced to be very sneaky in order to compete.
Three
They all grew. Three lost his puppy-fat and began to grow some muscles. They were underdeveloped, as not a one of them had reached adolescence yet, but they were strong. Five shot up and lost the stoop in her shoulders. She still kept her blonde hair short, and it stuck out at crazy angles. Carson would often take her away to his labs to make sure that her legs fitted. The calves were the adjustable parts, Six knew. She would always have to get used to them whenever she fought. It slowed her down a little, but not much. Six got a little broader in the shoulders and grew taller. Her muscle was tight and hard and close to the bone. She’d be small when she was full-sized, but strong. Her black hair was still short and made her look like a ghoul with her pale skin.
Carson would let them go outside now, just for a few minutes each day. They had to get used to the sun again, he said. He was right, after only a few minutes, the sun burned their tender flesh to a crisp. They had to forgo a day’s training because they couldn’t move from the sunburn. After that, they started going for jogs on a small outdoor track. The air was clean enough, Carson said, and besides, they’d judged their nanobiotics strong enough to resist the disease if they ever came into contact with it again. They were still pale, and had to slather on vast amounts of sunscreen before their jogs, but by god, it was good to be outside again! The sky was so blue, and the clouds like spun sugar! Six revelled in the feel of the air against her face and the tingle of the sun on her delicate skin. She didn’t care if she burned, she could peel the skin off later. But a breeze! The grass! She almost wept with joy when she saw a few straggling weeds poking up out of the dry yellowing grass. Six broke from her run and dropped to her knees next to the colourful little things, touching them with a fingertip, inhaling their scent with her powerful senses. Three and Five joined her and for once they were smiling.
She realised how animals must see the world, with her eyesight showing her a wedge-tail up on the air currants and scents coming to her thick and fast. After the stale facility, it was heaven to be able to take in the smell of baked concrete, the twang of chlorophyll and even the crispness of the air in the searing heat. She smiled crazily as she continued her run. See? Hadn’t Carson let them out when it was safe? And how beautiful it was to be alive and outside and free! Well, perhaps not free in the strictest sense, but very nearly. Carson let her study anything she could find and… and what? Her parents were dead. No doubt about that. Her brothers, too. She couldn’t even remember their faces. But she’d known it all along, hadn’t she? That she was the only one left? So what else did she have to do with her life but help to protect the people who had saved her from the Red? As much as she hated Carson and his smiles, she couldn’t help but feel some measure of affection for Three and even Five. They were her new brother and sister, Carson practically an Uncle. How could they not be close with everything that they’d been through? How could she turn on them now?
Almost silent feet, two hundred metres away. Six whipped her head around, caught like a fish in a net by the unfamiliar sound. Everyone at the complex wore boots or went barefoot. Nobody had to sneak, so what was that noise, that scuff of soft leather on concrete?
‘Three. Five. Wait, I hear something. An intruder… or someone sneaking around, anyway.’ The pair looked up. They knew how finely tuned her senses were, having been surprised by her on a number of occasions.
‘Who is it?’ asked Five, immediately, leaping to her feet. ‘Let’s go and get them!’
‘Wait, you idiot. We have to see who they are, first.’ This from the practical Three. ‘Six has the best sight, let her have a look. Can you see anything?’
‘Lift me up,’ said Six, holding out her arms. The other two braced her against their bent thighs and then stood, balancing her feet in locks upon their hips. With the added boost, she could see more clearly. There! A man in black with a tiny patch of red splashed on his chest. A red hand? An assassin! He had a number of bulky objects on the belt at his waist and a knife in a sheath on his calf. The man was skinny and tall, with barely any muscle. He had a bright red patch of skin on his face, covering one whole cheek and his nose. The numbers told Six that she and the other two could take him out if they needed to. The way he used his hands suggested that he’d broken a wrist in the past. Six tapped Three and Five on the shoulder and they dropped her back onto the dirt.
‘A Red Hand. He’s trying to break in. I don’t think he knows that we’re out here. He had a knife, and I think I saw a gun. Could have been a stunner. We should disable him but keep him alive if we’re going to get anything out of him. Three, you stay back in case he gets away. Five, with me. You go high, I’ll go low. Remember, disable only. We don’t want to kill him. He might even be completely harmless.’ Five let out a bark of laughter at the last.
Five dashed ahead moving almost silently on her gleaming metal legs. Only Six could have heard the miniscule clicks from the knee-joints. From tree to tree she sped, with Six following behind closely. Three swept around on an angle to stop the man if he broke free. He wouldn’t have much of a chance if the man got away from me and Five, thought Six. But maybe by then the alarm would be raised and Carson could… well, probably do nothing, apart from flinging test-tubes at the assassin. She would have laughed at the image if she had of thought she could get away with it.
And then they were there. Five launched herself into a flying kick and caught the man between the shoulder-blades. The solid thunk of metal on flesh echoed in Six’s ears as she swept her leg swiftly at the man’s ankles. He went down with Five on top of him, groaning. He tried to reach for his weapon, but Six kicked it away, hard. The gun spun in the dust and lay there. Five planted a metal foot on the back of his neck and gripped both wrists while Six sent Three inside to get something to secure him. He returned a moment later with rope, Carson and the blond nurse (whose name was Steve, Six had learned). Five kept him down while Six wrapped the ropes around his hands and feet. Hog-tying was one of the more interesting aspects of her education, she though, as the man bucked and swore.
‘Quiet, or I’ll tear it off,’ Five said, grinning. He shut up. Nobody was foolish enough to mess with a look that manic. It took three of them to lift him onto a small transport that had carried Carson and Steve out. As soon as he was in the vehicle, Carson stabbed him with a needle.
‘What the hell was that?’ asked Five, scowling. ‘You going to experiment on him already?’
‘It’s just a sedative to keep him nice and docile. We’re going to want to question him. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to try out the new sodium pentothal that we’ve been working on,’ he said with a dark gleam in his eye. ‘But that was excellent work, you know. We’ll try to extend the range of the motion sensors we have out here. I suppose they were confused with you three running around. Not to worry, I’m sure that they’re not going to get that close again.’
Six was confused. So the Red Hands were actually a real threat? Sometimes she was convinced that they were made up to give them a motivation for all of the training. She honestly couldn’t tell when Carson was lying any more, and that made her uneasy. If he told them that the Red Hands were out to get them, it could very well mean the opposite. And what would that be? That they were actually out to rescue the children? Or that they had no ill will at all, at the very least? She had to know for herself. She couldn’t trust anyone, least of all Carson. Fate had perhaps given them a common goal, but it didn’t mean she had to believe a single word he said.
