The Killing Jar (16 page)

CPI-RQ2-04, NEW YORK

AUGUST 10, 2232

A knock sounded at the door, right on time. She pulled it open to see Jane with a smile on her face. While Dasia wore the plain white cotton pants and tank top provided by the facility after cleaning, Jane looked ravishing, a vid star in a fitted blue sundress.

“Ready?”

Dasia gulped. “I guess.” She didn’t really know what she was supposed to be ready for. A meeting, but she didn’t know anything else.

“Come on! It’s finally starting,” Jane said as she grabbed Dasia’s wrist and pulled her into the hall. She barely had time to close the door before they were off.

Osip was ahead of them a ways down the hall and turned into a wing she hadn’t seen yet. Jane fussed happily as they followed him. “You have no idea what it was like before. So boring. You don’t even know. It was just me and Osip for weeks. Ugh. It’s so much better now. Did you see that new guy? He has to be a Scholar. May the best girl win him,” she said with a laugh.

Dasia smiled in return. She felt better than she had in weeks. Completely sober for the first time in years. The cleaning had helped eliminate her exhaustion. Aside from the persistent ache in her chest, she was in great shape.

And she had a friend. Jane talked too fast about things Dasia mostly didn’t understand, but at least she was there.

“What’s in that room?” Dasia asked as they passed an old wooden door that looked like something out of her farmhouse. It had no place in the sterile white hallway of CPI.

“I don’t know. We weren’t allowed in this section until this morning. I’ve never seen it before. Looks weird.”

The two walked until they reached the wide room with high vaulted ceilings and two rows of stadium-style seating, each with only four seats. Jane pulled her into the two in the middle of the front row, eager for whatever this meeting was about.

Dasia had never been to a meeting of any kind. She had no idea what could be so great.

Osip sat in the far seat on the back row next to the new guy, the only other person present with the same white garments. The two boys sat quietly, waiting, their eyes on the others that streamed in one by one.

The next was super tall, at least six feet. He had long, shoulder-length brown hair and sallow cheeks. It was a look she knew well. Many in Monarch had struggled to find enough to eat.

“Who is that?” Dasia whispered.

“I’ll tell you later,” Jane mouthed back, sensing he was already too close as he took his seat. The skinny one sat beside Dasia and offered her a perfunctory smile.

Jane didn’t say a word to him.

Dr. Pastromas walked in with a plastic crate of tablets, wearing one of his usual pressed suits. He heaved the box onto the table and looked about the room.

“Hey guys. Missing one?” he said when he saw the empty seat next to Jane.

“Any guesses?” Osip said with a laugh.

“All right, just give us a few minutes. There’s a lot of important information to go over this morning.” Dr. Pastromas pulled his personal tablet from the crate and made several rapid finger motions. Probably writing an ecomm, Dasia decided.

Moments later, a middle-age man appeared with a good grip the last one, the girl with black hair. The piercings from her face were gone and her neck was free of tattoos, though the sour expression was still there.

“Let go of me.” She twisted her arm out of his grip.

“Get your seat,” was all the man said.

The girl hurried away from him and sank into the seat with a thud.

“Thank you, Dr. Arrenstein,” Dr. Pastromas muttered as he pulled up the presentation from his tablet.

Ah, now she knew who he was. Jane had mentioned the name before.

Rather than leave, Dr. Arrenstein found a spot to lean against the wall. Based on Dr. Pastromas’s annoyed glare, that wasn’t the norm.

“Now that we’re all here, we can go ahead and get started. Most of you know me already. I’m Dr. Nick Pastromas, Assistant Director of CPI.”

A few exuberant cheers sounded until he put up a hand to quiet them.

“This program is pretty intense and we’ll be spending a lot of time together. I prefer that you call me Nick. Dr. Arrenstein on the other hand prefers his official title.” Dr. Pastromas—Nick—motioned to his boss leaning against the wall.

“Let’s go ahead and do intros. Some of you have been here several weeks, some of you are relatively new. You’ll all be working together for the next months or even years, so you might as well get to know each other. Georgie, will you get us started?” He motioned to the boy with long brown hair that sat beside her.

The boy, maybe seventeen, stood up, his shirt and pants loose on his wiry frame. His nose was sharp and his chin jutted out from sunken cheeks. “Sure, Nick. I’m Georgie Blackwell. I’m from San Diego, Southwest Sector. I, uh—” He seemed to choke on the words.

“That’s all right, Georgie. Just whatever you think we need to know. Dasia?”

Nick stood with his eyes on her, waiting. Dasia jumped to her feet, suddenly nervous. “Um, I’m Dasia Daugherty,” she said too quickly. “I’m from Monarch, Montana in the Northwest Sector.”

She hadn’t meant to say his name, to make it as if it were her own. But it was too late now. Dasia didn’t want to explain it to any of them.

With a hint of an upturned smile, Nick said, “Thank you. Jane, you’re next.”

“I’m pretty sure everyone knows me, but I’m Jane Gallagher.” A hand elegantly flipped her hair over her shoulder as she turned to address the entire group. Dasia would have loved to have a quarter her confidence. “I’m a Scholar with a focus on robotics and mechanical engineering. Oh, and I’m from Philly.” She shot them her winning smile and descended back to her chair.

“Very nice, Jane. Mable?”

The black-haired girl didn’t move, no response whatsoever.

Nick recovered quickly, as if he expected it. “Well, anyways, this is Mable. She’ll come around soon. Osip?”

Osip stood, and for once, he was taller than everyone else. He was loud and boisterous, his hands moving wildly as he spoke. “Yeah, I’m Osip. About as Russian as they come, born and raised in the underground. I picked you all up from the shuttle dock so, I’m sure you know who I am.”

Nick laughed along with the rest of them. “And Theo, you’re up.”

The object of Jane’s affection stood tall behind them. “Yeah, I’m Theo, like he said. I’m from Lancaster.” He sank back to his seat in a heartbeat.

“Thanks, Theo.”

Dasia found it strange how they all refused to talk about themselves. Aside from Jane and Osip, it had been like pulling teeth. Especially the one on the end, Mable. She wouldn’t even look up from her shoes.

“At this time, you should each have completed the cleaning process.” More than a few eyes fell to the girl, though it took Dasia a moment to realize she must have been the one screaming so much the day before.

“As a member of CPI, you will often be required to change your appearance. The cleaning process ensures an unbiased canvas, so to speak. Your appearance is of no concern during your training, but in a few weeks, for those of you that make it, your appearance will cease to be under your control. You will wear what you are required to wear, cut, dye, or shave your hair as we see fit.”

Dasia’s interest soared at the mention of such a change in appearance. She could be someone else, if only briefly. She thought that would be a much-needed reprieve from being herself.

The entire room was quiet. Nick had the complete attention of all six recruits, save for the one girl on the end who looked at the floor with crossed arms.

Something must have happened to her.

“Now, before we get into the confidential files, I want to be clear. Each of you violated some rule of society, some unbreakable law and found yourselves here. We don’t take a kid’s future away. That being said, each of you has a past and that won’t be held against you here. Whatever class you came from, whatever it is that you’ve done, it’s over now. At CPI, you are all equals.”

No one said a word, though Dasia could imagine some squirming at the prospect. Especially Jane. She wouldn’t like being the same as everyone else.

“Osip, could you come down here and give me a hand?” With a flip of his blonde waves, Osip jogged down the steps and arrived at the table. Nick handed him a stack of tablets and gave him instructions to distribute them.

“These tablets are for your personal use here at CPI. They’re coded to allow you access to certain resources you’ll need during your training and in your careers, but for now, they work pretty much like every standard tablet on the market. The main difference is the reporting system. Every swipe and search will be sent straight to my files. If you’re compromising CPI in any way, I’ll be notified.”

Osip stood in front of the first row and handed each of them a tablet. When he got to the girl on the end, she refused to acknowledge him. Osip set the tablet on the floor next to her and moved on.

Dasia pressed the only button and brought it to life, surprised when it said her name across the front screen. She’d never had a personal tablet before. In the last few years, her father had been able to afford one, but they shared it as a family.

If only Cole were there. He would sit beside her and help her get it set up, download his favorite programs, and show her some of the more interesting features.

The sadness hit her hard, unexpectedly. She set the sleek black device in her lap and focused on keeping her tears from leaving her eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll show you how to use it,” Jane offered sweetly, misunderstanding the onset of her emotions.

Dasia shook her head as if that would send her thoughts away. Thankfully, the others were absorbed in their tablets.

When she looked up, Nick stood with his hands in his pockets and didn’t speak for nearly a minute, his head bowed low in thought. He looked as if he were about to deliver bad news.

“From this point on, you are all property of CPI. You can never leave. You can never retire. The information shared today is classified on the highest level. You will be given every possible accommodation for your service, but at no point will you be free of this program. You are here until you die.”

They all stared in shock. They had known. Dasia had known from the moment she agreed to come that she would never leave, but it had never been put quite so harshly.

Dasia shook with nerves.

What the hell had she gotten herself into?

CPI AUDITORIUM, NEW YORK

AUGUST 10, 2232

What idiots.

Mable was already tired of the lot of them.

They’d all done something, committed some crime. Silas or his sidekick or whoever had come to save them.

Yet here they sat all guppy-eyed and teary when they learned they would die here.

Of course they would. Everyone died here.

When Arrenstein’s boy toy offered them an hour break to set up their tablets, Mable took the opportunity to get away from them. She didn’t have the energy for such useless saps.

In a way, she almost felt bad for them. None of them had really known the degree of their commitment, or how far Arrenstein was willing to go. But she didn’t have it in her to care. Mable didn’t have enough heart left to care about anyone else.

Everyone she ever loved had been taken already.

Without waiting for the others, Mable darted for the door. Arrenstein was distracted answering a question. She bolted right past him, her name shouted behind her but she didn’t stop.

A quick trot brought her to her room where she collected her bag. She didn’t want to leave, not yet. She would ride out the storm until she knew she was in a better place to get Hadley out.

But Mable had to get away for a while.

She pulled a loose woven cap over her head and slid a thin jacket over her now ink-free arms. The sight of them brought back memories of the pain.

Physical pain. Temporary. Nothing more.

Some of the others were in the hallway as she passed, but none regarded her other than to give her space.

Getting out of the cylindrical building that housed CPI was easy. She found an unlocked door in the parking garage that led her to the outside. The grounds occupied four solid city blocks, though most was nothing more than grass. On the south side, she could see the stalks of crops and vines clung to posts. Someone put a lot of time in it, but Mable didn’t plan to stick around so long. She easily climbed the ten foot fence that surrounded the property.

The first several blocks were shiny, shimmering buildings. One of the first to get its dome, New York had replaced many of the chopped down sky scrapers with new, shorter construction. It almost looked like a city again.

Mable knew it was little more than a façade. Even the most beautiful places had scars. No one could find them better than her.

Repelled by the cleanliness of the streets, she sought out the hidden spaces. High rise offices gave way to crumbling structures in various states of disrepair. On the corner of one such building, she saw the first sign of the underworld. A green trident, no larger than her hand, painted onto the stone.

The symbol itself meant nothing, probably the icon for a particular group on the underground. It was the presence of the symbol that mattered. There was an access port nearby.

Mable found four more tridents as she wound her way through the back alleys and abandoned streets on the edge of the city. At last she found what she was looking for.

“Halo,” she said to the shoes, all she could see of the person hiding in the crack between buildings.

“Who goes there?” came a voice, though the shoes didn’t move.

“Mable of the Root. I need to deliver a message.”

“Long way from home, Mable girl.” A bearded face emerged from the shadow, filthy as the surface guards had to be.

There was no way the man could have known to call her that. Mable girl was a name only Ryker would use. “They’re looking for me?” she asked and the man nodded.

As soon as she said it, she knew it had to be Katherine. Disappearing mid-job with no word wouldn’t sit well. Of course Katherine would assume her absence was due to her plans with Connor.

Gross.

“Are you going to tell her I’m here?” If Katherine learned Mable had mysteriously appeared in New York within only a few days, she’d know there was someone on the surface involved. She might not immediately think sadistic government entity that kidnaps children, but she would never trust Mable again.

“Not my job to go ratting out little girls.” The man crawled from the space and stood. His clothes were worn and his skin was covered in grime, but there was something in his eyes, kindness maybe. “What’s the message?”

“That I’m alive and well, and not to worry. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Mable held her arms out the side so he could see she was uninjured. CPI was hardly the haven of safety, but she didn’t want Hadley to come looking for her.

“Who’s it for?”

“Hadley, or Rowen, of the Root.” The stranger didn’t take any notes, on paper or tablet, but he seemed confident enough.

“You’ll make sure they get it?”

“Said I would. Go on, now.” Mable didn’t appreciate his tone but she wasn’t about to piss him off. She needed him to deliver the message.

With grudging feet, she turned back to CPI, to Arrenstein and his troupe of whiners. She felt better with the hope the man would keep his word, that they would know she wasn’t in any immediate danger.

Retracing her steps back to CPI, she caught sight of it in the distance. A cylinder maybe six or seven stories high with a blacked out top floor, a hideous ugly thing.

Not three steps in the door and she heard, “What the hell Maggie?!”

Arrenstein was on her with his classic iron fist around her upper arm. She squirmed to get free but was nonetheless dragged into his office and all but thrown onto the couch.

“Hey!”

He slammed the door shut. “You can’t just leave. Ever again. You understand me?”

“The doors weren’t locked.” Mable did her best to regain her composure after such treatment.

“I thought they didn’t have to be. I thought we understood each other. This isn’t a vacation.” He looked upset, harrowed, his hand combing through his mid-length waves several times.

For the first time, Mable had managed to fluster him. Oh, how she enjoyed it. Watching him fret over her. She was the most self-capable person in a five mile radius, and here he worried when she left the building.

Arrenstein slammed his hands on the top of his desk. “Dammit, Maggie!” he screamed, despite the fact she hadn’t said anything. The sudden sound of impact unnerved her, but she maintained her fortitude.

His head dropped low, his arms tense. “It’s my job to keep you safe. I need to know that you won’t leave the premises again.”

“I won’t leave again,” she lied.

Arrenstein pushed back to standing and stared at her for a while. “Yes, you will.” He let out a pained sigh. “Look, I get it. You hate me. You hate it here. But this isn’t about whether or not you like it. We both have a job to do, and if you hadn’t skipped the briefing this afternoon, you’d know that.” He wrung his hands together several times before saying, “I promise I’ll do my best to get you out of here, but you have to play along for a while. Nick is pretty adamant about terminating you.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Mable’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t just another old shoe to be thrown out.

“It means if you keep doing this, I won’t have anything to say to keep you here. You’ll be sent to Sri Lanka, or maybe Cuba if you’re lucky. I can’t go to bat for you if you never take a swing.”

Mable had never seen him look so—bad? His eyes darted around the room, refusing to look at her. His skin looked almost grey.

Maybe there was a human in there after all.

But that was impossible. Arrenstein had contributed to—if not caused—Alex’s death. There was no forgiving that.

He was just a very good actor.

“So, if I play along with all this, then you’ll let me go home?”

“I can’t promise it’ll be anytime soon. Years at the very least, but I’ll do what I can.”

Mable sighed. She could give up a few years to make sure she and Hadley could live in peace on the outside. No running, no one looking for them. Mable could buy their freedom with a few years at CPI.

“What do I have to do?” she asked, determined to get it done and be on her way.

“You have to find them. And kill them.”

“Who?”

“The bugs.”