Cured (11 page)

There were only eight seats, with two on each
side and four rows. Given there were seven of us, we nearly filled
the whole vehicle. Felix and I sat together; he didn’t look at me.
Instead he just stared straight ahead, biting his lip and blinking
more often than usual. I reached for his hand to comfort him. He
snapped out of his trance, and gave me a poor attempt at a smile.
Without any form of safety message the Copter began to move, slowly
at first, just hovering above the ground, before rapidly picking up
height as it lifted into the air, the blades underneath the cabin
were spinning rapidly and making a deafening whirring noise. The
glass shield extended overhead, and encircled us as we rose.
Finally we reached altitude, and the whirring calmed down. We
stopped ascending and, with a less than smooth transition, we
lurched forwards, moving quickly away from the HoverCopter landing
pad. Felix’s grip became tight, suffocating, but I didn’t release
his hand. What had we done?

Chapter 17

After flying for what seemed like the
briefest five hours of my life came the dreaded message from the
pilot. We were descending for landing. By the time the HoverCopter
bumped and settled onto the landing pad, Felix had beads of sweat
rolling down his forehead, and our hands were slimy against each
other’s skin. I didn’t care. He was all I had keeping me sane. We
disembarked the aircraft down a set of metal stairs and stood in a
group on the tarmac.

In front of us were three black HoverCars. On
Olympia we only used Copters to travel longer distances, generally
when we were visiting the Fields. The rest of the time we used
HoverCars to travel within Olympia. I assumed this meant we would
only be travelling a short distance in the Cars. A suited driver
was standing next to each sleek black vehicle. The machines had
four wheels, but they only touched the ground for landing.
Otherwise the Car hovered a foot above the ground as it travelled.
The drivers held whiteboards with names listed on them as to what
passengers they would be taking. I scanned the boards nervously,
searching for my name. I looked to Felix, my lips curving up in a
way they hadn’t in a very long time. Felix was already trying to
catch my eye, returning my smile; Fidus and Optime were
together.

We clambered into the car, amazed at our good
luck and petrified that it had now run out. The windows of the
vehicle were entirely blacked out, so we could not see our
surroundings.

The driver started the engine and the
HoverCar rose into the air slightly. I found the usual switch on
the roof of the Car’s interior and flipped it, closing the screen
between the driver and the backseat. Once a wall separated us from
the driver and concealed us in our own compartment, we decided to
rehash our plan, still whispering in case there were listening
devices hidden in the car. We decided it was most likely that Felix
would be dropped first, because his name came before mine on the
whiteboard, but we had no idea how far the driver would travel, or
in which direction he would go before he dropped me.

We had to scrap our old plan completely, now
that we weren’t going to be dropped in the same place. Felix
eventually came up with the bright idea of trying to reach water.
He was sure that we would be dropped in some sort of forest, to fit
the lions’ natural habitat, and said that in order to survive, the
lions would need some sort of water source. I nodded along,
although I wasn’t sure that the mutant lions needed any hydration
to live. He suggested we both attempt to travel towards the body of
water closest to us. I didn’t ask how, because I knew he didn’t
know the answer. He continued, saying that once we found the water
we should wait until we heard a lion, and travel in that direction
with the hope that the other was moving towards the same lion. The
plan was farfetched and I didn’t dare asked what would happen once
we reached the lion, but it was all we had.

The driver eventually slowed to a stop and
lowered the separation shield.

“This is you, Mr Fidus.”

Felix wrapped his arms around me, his eyes
wild with nerves, and squeezed me so hard that I thought I might
pass out. When he released me he looked into my eyes, and in a
crazy moment of fear, he leaned forward and touched his mouth ever
so lightly to mine. He then slid out of the Car and slammed the
door shut.

I reached for my temples. So many emotions
were at war in my head that my brain felt as though it were
pulsating. I steadied myself. Forget the kiss Avery. I was sure
that it was just a good luck kiss. Or a please-don’t-die kiss. But
I wasn’t sure that I wanted it to be either of those types of
kisses. I shook myself. No, Avery. I knew he didn’t feel that way
for me. I needed to forget about it.

Instead I
channeled my concentration into remembering the plan, and tried to
count the seconds starting from when the driver took off again from
Felix’s drop off point. I guessed that we were travelling at about
a hundred kilometers an hour, but that was a stab in the dark based
on minimal experience riding in a Car. On Olympia I usually walked
everywhere, the populated part of the mountain was only a small
place, and I had never ventured further down the mountain than the
town outskirts. I reached one thousand, eight hundred and nineteen
seconds before we stopped again. I guessed that equalled about half
an hour of driving. I did some of the quickest maths I had ever
done. At an estimated 100km/h that would mean that we had travelled
fifty kilometers. There was no hope in me finding Felix. We had no
idea what direction the other was in, and even if we managed to
somehow move in that exact direction, we would be walking for 25
kilometers each before intercepting. The driver opened my door and
reached for my hand, pulling me from the car.

“
How are you
feeling?” he asked in an unexpectedly kind voice. I guessed he must
have noticed my trembling, clammy palm. I looked up to meet his eye
and realized that they were almost the exact shade of my mother’s.
A woman who I loved despite her shallowness, and a woman who I
would never see again. A tear rolled down my cheek and I swiped at
it with my free hand. The driver pulled me into a hug. I wanted so
badly to tell him why I was crying. But for all he knew, I was just
another Prime. He probably thought I was crying with excitement. He
held me tight and I began to wonder why he was hugging me so
intimately. Then I heard a muffled voice in my ear. 


“
You’re
bloody stupid Ms Optime. Bloody stupid.” I jumped at his voice in
my ear, but managed to maintain the embrace. “But you’re also
bloody brave, and I appreciate that someone finally has the courage
to fight the system. Your friend is about fifteen kilometers
towards the east. It’ll only take you an hour to reach him if you
run. I told him to stay still.”

My mouth dropped open. How did he know my
secret? And surely if he knew my secret, then the Alphas knew too!
I wanted to ask him how he discovered that I was human but he
released me from the hug. He still held my hands so I squeezed them
in thanks, a questioning look in my eye. He popped the trunk of the
HoverCar and pulled out a backpack. He rushed around to his door
and retrieved a piece of paper and a pen. He quickly scrawled down
some words and stuffed the paper into the pack. He looked around
nervously and handed the bag to me,

“Every Newbie receives a pack. It should come
in handy.” He winked, turned away from me, got back into the Car,
and sped away.

I stood still until I could no longer hear
the HoverCar engine. The backpack in my hands was light. Too light
to be carrying anything other than the note the driver had written.
I turned it upside down. Only the paper fell out. I un-scrunched
the note and saw a sentence written in a barely legible scrawl. The
driver had written ‘I scrambled your voices by turning on car
music. Your secret is safe for now. Be careful they are listening.
Don’t give up. You will have support.’

I shook my head in amazement. The driver had
heard us talking. That meant he knew our secret. But the note
suggested he was on our side. I mentally thanked him, hoping that
the thanks might reach him telepathically. For the first time since
Felix’s ploy at the Cure ceremony I felt a twinge of hope. If a
driver wanted to rebel against the hierarchy, then who knew how
many people out there were willing to take a risk to fight the
system. Maybe if we could get enough support, we could try to break
Olympia and the reign of the Primes. Still, I knew there wasn’t
anything I could do until I finished the tasks. And the chances of
my survival were very slim.

Chapter 18

I finally managed to stop my mind from
envisaging a future rebellion, and began to evaluate my
surroundings. Trees. Felix was right. We were in a forest. I could
even hear water running somewhere near, so the first plan could
have worked out. But the driver had said to travel east, and my gut
instinct told me to trust him. I started walking to my right,
taking about five steps before stopping. I knew the basic compass
points and that, on paper, east pointed to the right. I had learnt
at least that much from my tutors, but I had no idea what direction
was east from where I was standing. I looked around for clues.
Nothing. I sat down on the forest floor, crunching the dried leaves
beneath me and looked around. I was in a clearing of some sort,
with the trees becoming denser to my left, and less dense to my
right. It would be smarter to travel away from the trees, because
the thick forest looked very dark. But I had to follow the plan. It
was my only chance at finding Felix. I was praying that he had
taken the driver’s advice to stand still. That would mean he was
waiting for me, some fifteen kilometres to the east, wherever that
was.

I tried to recall my classes, wishing I had
listened properly, but couldn’t remember anything about
interpreting directions. I wondered if maybe I should just try to
find the water, and hope that Felix would decide to follow our
original plan when I failed to show up. As I has been sitting,
struggling to decide what the best course of action would be, the
light had faded significantly, the sun lowering behind the densest
cluster of trees. I began to panic. Once it was dark I would never
find Felix. With a newfound determination, I stood up. If I was
going to die, it certainly wasn’t going to be alone.

After standing on the spot, pondering my
options for another long while, I decided to head for the water
even though that meant venturing into the thickest part of the
forest. At least if I got to a water source I would be able to
survive, and I was sure Felix would find me eventually. The trees
became denser as I followed my ears, walking towards the sound of
trickling water. Even though I was moving towards the setting sun,
the thick foliage blocked out the majority of the light. Soon I
would be completely engulfed in darkness. The sun kept sinking
lower in the sky. I had never felt very comfortable in the dark, so
I sped up, stumbling over tree roots and tripping on the uneven
ground. To calm my anxiety, I sung as I moved, humming quietly to
myself. The only song that my mother would let Louisa sing to me as
a child:

“
Go to sleep my darling,

It’s time to rest your head,

The sun is calling it a day

You too should go to bed,

The sleepy sun is sinking,

Into its bed out west,

So you should go to sleep now too

I think that would be best…”

I hummed the tune over and over, a broken
record trying to hypnotize myself into a calmed trance as I moved.
I must have been on my twentieth repeat of the verse when I reached
the word “west”. Then I stopped in my tracks. West. How could I
have been so stupid? I had been singing about directions for the
last twenty minutes. Repeating the answer to my dilemma over and
over. I looked up at the deep orange glow that seeped through the
thick canopy of leaves in front of me. I had been moving in the
direction of the sun.

I sung the song again “into its bed out
west;” if the sun was setting behind the trees, that meant that
they were to the west. I turned towards the clearer section of the
forest and started to run, fast, away form the sun and towards the
east. Towards Felix. I wasn’t particularly fit, but I had always
been active, so I was able to keep a reasonable pace for forty
minutes. By this time the sky was almost black. The forest was
becoming denser again, and I had to start dodging trees as I ran.
After about an hour of running, I doubted I had travelled fifteen
kilometres, and I couldn’t see anything. I slowed to a quick walk,
continuing in the same direction, and after another five minutes I
began to call Felix’s name. I knew it was a stupid move since there
were lions on the loose, but I was exhausted and terrified of
spending the night alone. I received no answer. As I walked on,
tears began to pour down my face, and my throat soon became raw
from screaming Felix’s name. Finally, exhausted and alone, I sunk
to my knees on the forest floor.

The foliage was denser than ever and my feet
were in agony. I prised my sneakers off and nearly yelled from pain
as I stretched my feet. I had blisters the size of bottle caps
covering the soles of my feet, some burst, some swollen, all
painful. If I wanted to walk any further I knew the blisters needed
to be pierced, but the risk of infection was high in an unsterile
forest. Remembering that I had hastily tamed my hair with a handful
of bobby pins earlier, I slid one from my head, releasing a blonde
tendril that fell over my eyes. I tucked the curl behind my ear and
tore at the nib of the hairclip with my teeth. Finally the end of
the clip came off and I had a tool that would be adequate to
relieve the pressure from a few of the bigger blisters. I slid the
end of the pin through one side of the first blister, and out the
other, instantly releasing a stream of pus. I pressed the skin flat
and covered it with my sleeve, applying pressure as Mother had
taught me after the many blisters I received from running around
and playing in the ridiculous high heels she put me in. Once my
blisters were relieved I sat on the leafy floor. I was absolutely
lost. My hopes of finding Felix were dashed. I was not a Prime. I
was going to die in the forest, either by starvation, or by
dehydration, maybe hypothermia, or by lion attack. Even if I didn’t
die from one of those causes, I would never be able to complete the
task, let alone the other eleven that followed this one, and then
everyone would know that I wasn’t a Prime. And they would kill me.
Either way I was a dead girl walking.