Chapter Seventeen
CASSIA
The Training Center is wrong at four in the morning. The quiet sits heavy, like it’s waiting for something, and my steps click against the floor as the sound runs ahead of me and returns to accuse me of things.
You don’t belong here. Step. You’re an impostor. Another step.
I shove the constant thoughts away as I count the cameras.
I know the sweep pattern now. West corridor rotates every eight seconds; the junction by the laundry is dead and has been since my first week here; the service stair on the north side breathes cold air from the lower levels as the ventilation kicks higher before shift change.
I keep my head angled and my pace steady as I move, and do not peer up when a lens passes over the crown of my mask.
I time my steps with that soft mechanical hum and the far throb of generators two levels below.
The showers are empty—they always are at this hour.
The room smells like bleach and damp towels and metal.
I slide the curtain closed, only then slipping the mask off.
My cheeks are damp where the rubber sealed, the cool air relieving the sweat along my hairline as I hook the strap on the peg and turn the water.
Cold first. It shocks the skin and gives me something simple to hold on to.
The pipes rattle and settle while the spray needles my scalp.
Scrubbing my skin clean is no longer relaxing as the soap bites each cut along my knuckles, and my shoulder pulls as I raise my arm and stretch under the stream. The sound is steady. I breathe with it.
I try not to think about last week. I try to focus on the movements—wash, rinse, repeat—and not the transport door closing on Mira as her eyes fixed on mine like that could change anything.
I still taste the sting of panic as I remember the men who pulled her away and the ones who died loving her.
The question I don’t say out loud washes up anyway as I scrub my arms hard enough that the skin turns pink.
Why didn’t you help?
You could have tried.
The sentence lives in the hollow of my chest, dense and thrashing. The water engulfs my face and I count to five before I breathe again.
The shower is fast. I dry with a thin towel as a ceiling vent pushes in cool air, and I twist my hair into a tight knot at the base of my skull the same as every morning.
The strap settles into the groove along my hairline—where I’m sure it’s made a permanent dent—and the familiar pressure at my cheekbones returns.
The dingy mirror outside the stalls is spotted and warped at the edges.
Lachlan stares back when my eyes find their reflection.
Cassia is still there behind the uniform, but there are days where I have to remind myself she exists, and this is one of them.
An hour before most of the center wakes. Enough time to try again.
I traverse the corridor and descend the back stairs as they keep me off the main cameras, pausing at each landing as I listen for the elevator’s cables and the rhythm of footsteps.
The smell changes as I proceed—less detergent and bodies, more cold dust and stone.
My fingers go slick when I arrive at the door to Sublevel Eight.
Hovering the keypad, I enter the four-digit code I heard an Enforcer muttering to another when I had taken a leisurely walk yesterday and found myself staring at the archives.
I didn’t have time or opportunity to inspect anything then, but I’ve made time this morning.
Thank the stars no one is in here when the door slides open.
Sublevel Eight isn’t a series of rooms and halls like the others; no, it’s a singular room, where the air inside is colder than the stairwell. It smells old—paper, dust, a faint sting of isopropyl—and the lights flicker before they settle. They must always be on.
Metal shelving runs the room in seven long rows.
Boxes are stacked to shoulder height with labels in neat block letters: BELKEN, ELESBURN, AILRIDGE, PYREM—PERSONNEL, PYREM—MECHANICAL.
A single terminal sleeps on the desk with a green light blinking slowly at the top.
The chair has a slickness to it when I touch the back, and I pull my hand away to wipe my fingers on a thigh as my attention shifts to the shelves.
I don’t have the time to read everything, but I don’t need to.
I need the outline, not every miniscule detail.
Sliding two boxes onto the floor, I kneel on frigid, unforgiving concrete.
FACILITY PROTOCOLS—LOWLAND gives me intake checklists and rotation charts along with supply ledgers that list columns of numbers that add up to lives.
Rations divided by headcount, medical kits by lot numbers, restraints by type.
It’s all here and none of it helps right now.
When I touch a page that has writing along the bottom margin, something jumps in my heart—sharp and hot—forcing my knees to lock as a wave of fear that isn’t mine pushes through paper.
It diminishes quickly, but the aftertaste stays—stale breath and a thin edge of adrenaline.
I drop the page before flexing my fingers until they stop trembling as I blink away the wetness fogging my eyes. That’s new.
Moving on.
PERSONNEL—PYREM HUB is list after list. Names, tests, assignments, transfers. Half of it is coded and the other half reads like men reduced to rows of statistics.
Hale—fitness exemplary, discipline adequate, loyalty affirmed.
Stilen—fitness adequate, discipline poor, loyalty affirmed; assign to low-stress post.
I skim and allow the names to lodge in a place where I can retrieve them if needed. Not for today, but later.
Time is a pressure thrumming around my stomach as I move through the aisle. The ventilation deepens with the waking Enforcers somewhere above me, and water trickles through pipes, shortening my clock that much more. I put one box back, shifting attention to the next label.
TRANSIT LOGS—RIVERTON DISTRICT. The tape at the edge is newer than the rest. I lift the lid to find carbon forms with imprints that shadow through three layers.
A few are stamped with the Syndicate seal in faded black.
Another stack is rubber-banded and marked VARIANCES in a thinner hand, and the band bites my palm when I pull it up.
Form 17—Variance.
Route br-6 to RVN-03.
Time 0300.
Escort detail: deviated per verbal authorization.
Receiving: RIVERTON—Annex B.
That name means nothing in the simple way names can mean everything, and a cold spot opens in my head as I read it again. “Remember that,” I whisper to myself.
Another variance is unreadable where names should be, the fields blurred by a stamp that reads ANONYMIZED PER DIRECTIVE 8.
A different pen added ‘Confirm with Central?’ in a tight line in the margin and underlined it twice.
No confirmation stamp follows. Two pages forward, the same destination appears, and someone drew a small blue five-pointed star next to it, chalky enough to smudge when my thumb passes over it.
I don’t know the symbol, but I know I haven’t seen it before.
The terminal remains asleep on the desk when I glance at it. Badge and ID required for entry, something I would need to steal to gain access. I’m sure all the valuable information is stored there, while everything I’m sifting through is just considered busy grunt work for whoever catalogs it.
Footsteps echo through the hall, and I shove the papers back into the box before sliding the lid on as the latch of the archive door clicks in that soft way people use when they think they’re being quiet.
Two voices enter, the smell of cold air and soap drifting my way. One man yawns as his boredom becomes evident; the other has the sharp scent of a new uniform and a sourness under it that makes me think he’s a nasty person.
“…told you, sub-two’s camera is still stuck on the blind,” Bored says as a stack lands on the desk and paper rasps. “Two weeks and counting.”
“Shut up about blind spots,” Sour answers, a drawer squealing in his wake. “You want to keep your post? Stop stringing those two words together.”
They are three steps into the room, and I am six rows back. There’s no solid cover, just cardboard and chance. I slide left as I keep my profile tight and let the shelf hide the shape of me. The metal is cold through the sleeve as I press in and slow my breathing until I’m dizzy.
“Inventory says this should’ve gone upstairs,” Bored remarks with a scoff. “Upstairs says downstairs.”
“Their problem then.” Soap taps something rhythmically on the desk. “You picking up the extra watch or am I?”
“Depends on whether the morning crew keeps losing the keys to Sublevel Four.” The chair creaks as he drops into it. “Who keeps misfiling transit anyway? You see this? Someone stuck Riverton returns between the vehicle logs for South Gate.”
The pulse in my neck increases with those words.
“Whatever,” Bored mutters. “I’ll sign, you stamp, and we won’t die in this room yet.”
They do exactly that—two thumps of a rubber stamp, a pen scratching, a frequent sigh—and then the door hisses open again. Their footsteps retreat the way they came. The silence after feels brighter as my heartbeat slows back into something I can stand.
My mind counts to ten before allowing my body to move. I don’t take anything with me—I can’t. Everything returns to where I found it as a habit of erasing myself out of rooms I shouldn’t be in. I’ll come back another time for the missed rows.
The corridor outside is cold when I slip out, and I fold back into the path I know, matching my steps to the camera sweep and pausing at the places where the sound of voices travel. I am careful not to run and keep my head straight as a cart rattles past me in the main corridor.
Back in my room, the door clicks shut and my back rests against it as the tension runs out of my arms. My hands still shake. I clench and unclench them until the tremor edges off and stretch every limb twice over.