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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Part 6
Shannon
Shannon let out a faint cry of protest and flung herself bodily against door, as if wanting to pass through the wood and come out the other side into the relative safety of the hallway. The sound of her action echoed around the room, but before it could die away, the hand gently stroked her arm again, and a voice mewled in her ear.
“Shannon.”
She started violently at this, before slowly turning and looking up into a pair of bright blue eyes that were on a level with her own. Angelo was crouched on the floor beside her, continuing to lightly stroke her arm with the backs of his fingers. She stared at him blankly for a second, before tears filled her eyes, which she impatiently blinked away.
“Oh, Angelo,” she breathed in relief, clutching his free hand in hers and repeating one of the Boss’s favorite phrases, which she had unconsciously picked up. “Oh, thank God.”
He cast a crooked smile in her direction. “Miss you,” he muttered, then turned away, glancing back over his shoulder to add, “Come.”
She willingly followed him towards the large air vent, which now stood open: a gaping black hole into which the empath vanished. As soon as she climbed into the darkness, he closed the cover behind them both and turned to her.
“Help me,” she began, before he could speak. “Please. Help me find Peter.”
Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and she could see his face quite clearly in the light that came from Raines’ office. As she said Peter’s name, his expression took on such a miserable appearance that she thought she had missed Peter’s name in the lists she had already studied from the Centre cemetery, in which the ashes of projects and employees alike were scattered.
But Angelo only shook his head, as if denying the thoughts he had detected in her, and turned to a ladder that led down to a lower level in the ventilation system.
“Come,” he said for the second time, and she went with him through the dimly lit passageways, along dusty vents and down numerous ladders, until she had no idea what level they were on. Of the numerous offices they passed, some were occupied and others weren’t. Once, they passed a row of simulation labs, the familiarity of which made Shannon shudder as she glimpsed people working busily, while sweepers and overseers watched in silence.
Some time later, they stopped at the bottom of a ladder and Angelo pulled her to one side, into an alcove formed by the intersection of two vent passages.
“SL-25,” he told her in muted tones.
She was immediately puzzled. Nat had told her that this was the level that housed the massive security system that kept an eye on everyone and everything inside the Centre, and that there were no subjects kept here. So she had no idea why Angelo had brought her here.
“Peter,” he said, pointing down the longer of the two passages.
For a second, she considered arguing the matter with him, but the inner voice that had been silent for the journey into the bowels of the building suddenly spoke again in a single word. Yes.
Obeying both instinctively, she walked down the passage, which was high enough for her to stand upright in it. The air down here was dusty and seemed to choke her, but she couldn’t cough for fear of being overheard by someone working in one of the rooms. So she ignored the tickle in her throat and continued past the first few covers that let the limited light into the dark space.
Through them, she could see the great machines that took in and recorded the footage from the hundreds of cameras in the Centre. Another room held the massive electronic stores of data that comprised the mainframe, and in which, somewhere, Nat had that tiny chip that allowed him to get any of that information whenever he wanted it.
She was approaching the final cover, and had so far failed to find any room that would be suitable for a subject, who would never be permitted to work with the equipment that was kept down here, for fear of sabotage. But, as she drew closer to the final room, various sounds greeted her and encouraged her onwards.
A high-pitched, regular beeping was the first sound that reached her ears, followed quickly by a softer sighing that was somehow too mechanical to be human. Scratching of pen on paper made her hesitate before coming up to the cover and, finally, peering through it into the room beyond.
The walls were lined with machines, many of which spewed out sheets of paper on which data had clearly been recorded. This was strange enough in itself to warrant a second look, for almost as far back as she could remember, everything had been done electronically and recorded on disks. That paper could contain records was strange and somehow frightening.
The room was filled with a massive ‘T’ shaped bed, on which a figure was strapped. Metal clasps bound his legs at the ankles and knees, securing them with massive bolts to the table. Another covered his waist, and yet another on his chest, allowing only room to breathe. A narrower band of metal covered his throat; still more on his elbows and wrists held his arms out at right angles to the rest of his body. His head had been shaved, and small knobs were glued on, the wires from which ran to one of the machines that spat out numerous sheets of paper every moment. He was dressed in the usual black garb of subjects, although the sleeves had been cut short. His feet were bare.
Shannon remained frozen, her fingers clutching the sharp edges of the vent cover, her breath stuck in her throat, her mouth open, but unable to utter a sound. For this was worse than anything her many nightmares had presented to her. She had still fondly imagined him working in their old sim lab, perhaps occasionally thinking of her even as he struggled to please a man whom neither of them had ever satisfied in their two decades of working together. But this…
Without realizing what she did, she pushed on the cover and, when it moved, swung it open far enough that she could slide into the room, which seemed massive – even more so than Raines’ office – when she regained her balance and looked around.
The first things that caught her eye were the numerous red lines, some faded, but other still bright and new, that marked Peter’s arms, feet, and disappeared beneath the black cloth that covered his legs. The scars suggested major operations that had been performed for unknown reasons, and Shannon felt something rip painfully in her chest at the thought.
She had forgotten where she was and the danger that threatened her at every moment. She had even forgotten Raines’ predilection for security, and only one desire burned in her mind – to get close to Peter, to touch him and to see if there was anything in him that would remember her. With this aim at the forefront of her being, she moved forward, her hands already stretching out to the motionless figure on the bed.
Her eye caught a glimpse of the shimmering red line at the same instant as Angelo’s warning cry rang out from the darkness inside the vent, and Shannon managed to bring herself up short just a hair’s breadth away from the laser line that was doubtless connected to an alarm. Angelo’s hand came out of the vent and grabbed her sleeve, dragging her towards him. She scrambled up into the vent behind him, and the cover closed only an instant before the door opened and a man in a white coat, carrying a clipboard, flicked a switch on the wall beside the door. A faint whining noise faded to silence, and Shannon saw the laser line disappear, even as the doctor moved over to one of the machines and looked over the printed results.
Angelo nudged her and tugged at her sleeve in the direction of the ladder at the far end of the long passage, but Shannon couldn’t bear to leave, her eyes fixed on Peter’s face, seeing for the first time the scar near his right ear that disappeared into his hair and the dark rings around his eyes, into which his pale eyelashes seemed to disappear.
Once more, and more firmly this time, Angelo pushed against her with his body, forcing her along the dark tunnel and away from the well-lit room. Briefly, with no idea what she did, because she seemed to have lost the ability to think upon recognizing Peter’s beloved features on that bed, she fought against him, silently struggling to get back to the place where she could see him, but Angelo was stronger, and managed to get her even beyond the sounds made by those machines.
When they stood together in the dark silence, he placed one hand on each of her shoulders and, forcing her against the wall of the vent, gave her a single, firm shake. She blinked, stared blankly again for another second, and then tears filled her eyes. Slowly, she slid down the wall, until she was huddled on the ground, sobbing bitterly but silently, the tears dripping between her fingers and soaking the dust-covered black pants in which she was still clad. Angelo lowered himself to the floor beside her and wrapped his arms around her, rocking her as if she was nothing more than a child, muttering incomprehensible words that were somehow comforting.
It took a long time before she managed to regain any control over herself, being overwrought not only by what she had just discovered, but also by exhaustion and fear. So it was many minutes before the tears ceased and she recovered her breath. However, finally, she lifted her head from her knees and, with Angelo’s help, got somewhat unsteadily to her feet.
“Must go,” he whimpered, and although it hurt, he knew she was right. What good would it do if she stayed? It would endanger the whole operation that the Boss had worked for years to put into place. Peter was obviously in no state to know her, and she was unable to get close to him. Her own situation was also a perilous one, and when Raines was once more free to roam the halls, it was more than likely that he would recognize her, no matter what she did or how she looked.
She followed Angelo almost blindly along the tunnels, with no idea where he was going, until she glimpsed a sweeper changing in his room and realized that he was taking her back to the room in which she had put the papers about the Boss’s family. A moment later, he stopped in front of the vent that looked into the room and opened the cover.
“Go now,” he pleaded in a whisper. “Go friends. Go safe.”
“Come with me,” she begged, holding his hands in hers so that he couldn’t escape. “Please come with me, Angelo, so that you’ll be safe, too.”
“Can’t,” he retorted, and gently pulled his hands away. “Friends here. Keep safe.”
His hands pushed her out of the vent, the cover of which was then swung closed and locked so that she couldn’t grab him, and when she turned to speak to him again, she couldn’t see his eyes glinting in the darkness and guessed that he was gone.
She once more briefly fought for control of herself, this time gaining it quickly and putting to use the training that had been part of her life for more than twenty years. She didn’t forget the horrors of the room in SL-25, but they were detached from the intensifying urge to leave the Centre as quickly as possible.
Her eyes fell on the folders and she pulled the sheets out of the red covers, uncaring that they were mixed up. She couldn’t simply carry them out of the Centre, of course, because nothing was ever taken home by the sweepers except personal things, and bags were always checked. But Shannon recalled a conversation she had overheard between Nat, the Boss and two men who had just finished their time as sweepers inside the Centre. They had both smuggled useful information out, tied to their bodies under their clothes, and had got away with it, as only a metal detector checked Centre staff who left empty-handed.
But she needed some way to tie the pages to herself, and there was, naturally enough, no rope or string in the room. Not willing to be beaten by something so basic, Shannon visually examined each object in her room, her gaze finally falling on the bedclothes. For subjects, the sheets and blankets were new and strong, perhaps to prevent them trying to hang themselves in their rooms, but judging by the appearance of those on the bed here, the sweepers used the covers that had been considered too tatty for that chore. Shannon could see the worn edges and, yanking off the top sheet, she soon found a rip that could be extended along the entire length of the cotton fabric.
Shannon sorted the pages so that they made up two even piles and then split those into two more piles, placing so that the topmost sheets faced each other. Her reasoning was that she would have to walk some distance to her car, and that, if she perspired, the ink of the photocopy might run. Likewise, if she somehow got wet, the outer sheets might also be damaged and illegible.
Then, when the preliminary steps had been taken, she placed one pile against her back and, with her other hand, managed to secure the sheet strip around it, before doing the same with the other pile against her stomach. Her knots were as flat as she could make them, and then she once more donned the white shirt, black tie and black jacket.
Once that was complete, she moved to the door, taking a deep breath and forcing her hands to stop shaking, before she opened it and stepped out into the silent hallway. It was important here for her to display a sense of nonchalance. That had never been harder, with the voice in her head urging her to hurry, and every nerve in her body on edge. But she knew that to give in to such feelings would be fatal, and even as the blood throbbed in her temples, seeming to say ‘hurry’ with every beat, she calmly walked down the hallway and pressed the button for the elevator.
Nathan
Nat’s computer, which was on a table beside the easy chair in which he had been having a nap, beeped sharply, rousing him and drawing the attention of the others in the room. Even Josh, who had finally fallen asleep on the rug in front of the fireplace, close to where Jarod sat, was roused by it and sleepily lifted his head to look at the young technician. Nat leaned forward and ran his eyes over the data on the screen before sitting back and looking up to meet the Boss’s gaze with a sigh of relief.
“She’s out.”
Only two words, but the tension that had been the room drained almost visibly away. The Boss got up and left the room, pulling out his cell phone as he did so. He would phone the ‘sweepers’ from their team who lived outside the Centre and get them to try to find her, as well as to tell Cici and Lucy. The others smiled at the news and, for the first time, allowed themselves to discuss other things, including the successful ambush of the previous night. This had previously been a taboo topic, the potential result having been too awful to be discussed.
Nat, his former weariness now forgotten, drew the computer onto his lap and propped his feet on a convenient footstool that Joshua pushed over to him, before the boy got up and curled into the corner of the sofa closest to Jarod, who slid an arm around his shoulders before continuing the conversation he had been having with Meg. Nat’s first act was to call up on screen the details of the sweeper created by Emily and continued by Shannon. It was the work of only a moment to wipe all trace of the woman from the Centre’s records. He deleted the name from the three sims that Emily had watched, replacing them with other sweepers put in by the Boss, and adding those same project names and details to the relevant sweepers’ identification notes.
The last time Nat had seen Shannon on the system had been when she went into the archives. He had eventually fallen asleep, waiting for her to come out, and the daily transfer of data to the massive back-up computers in SL-25 meant that he hadn’t been able to check anything until that was complete.
Now he logged into the camera archives and brought up that which showed the door leading into the archives. He saw her enter, and then the door closed. There was no camera inside the room, the constant presence of a sweeper considered sufficient security, but it was a fact that Nat now cursed as he waited for her to emerge. It was some time before she finally came out, a small pile of folders in her arms, but tension in her eyes, suggesting to Nat that she had failed to find details about Peter.
Zooming in, Nat was able to make out the figures on a corner of paper that protruded from the top folder, and he looked up at the newcomer to their midst.
“Emily?”
She glanced at him from the chair opposite her brother. “Yes?”
“Do you remember any of the numbers that were on that list you said was taken from you, the ones you planned to research later?”
Emily thought for a moment, then her shoulders slumped slightly. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It was quite a long list, and I got them together in a hurry…”
“How about this one?” he interrupted, and then read from the screen. “D862 S947 F142.”
She thought for a moment, before nodding. “I’m pretty sure that was one of them,” she agreed. “I think it had to do with Dad. Something about a transfer from one of the storage places.”
Nat smiled. “You’ll be able to check as soon as Shannon gets back here. She’s got a copy of the file you found the number for.”
He turned back to the computer and electronically followed her to the elevators, watching as one of the cars went down to the residential level and stopped there. Several minutes later, while the other elevator remained unused, the first one traveled from the level on which the sweepers slept to the level on which the high-level officials had their offices. Nat felt his stomach clench in fear, an unreasonable fear considering that he knew she had just left the Centre, but he was so afraid that it took him a full minute to type in the six-digit code for the camera system on that level.
Nat could almost feel her fear as she glanced around the corner to see the two Parkers talking in front of Raines’ office. He watched her press herself against the wall, waiting with visible impatience for them to leave, and he sighed with her when they parted company. So far, Nat had failed to understand Shannon’s target, but now, as she moved down the hall, her eyes fixed on a certain door, he barely restrained a cry of horror. His lips formed a silent protest as she swiped a key hanging from her belt through the electronic lock, and he found himself holding his breath as she closed the door behind her and the lock engaged once more, this time from the inside.
At once, he brought up the entry records from that office and deleted all sign that she had ever gone inside. It was with a sense of panic that he saw the record contained no sign of an exit for the next four hours, until Raines’ code showed up on the list of entries. Terror building up inside him, Nat opened the footage for the camera that, by chance, was directly opposite the door and set it on fast-forward, watching eagerly for any sign that she would come out. What on earth was she doing in there?
After the door remained closed for almost an hour, Nat opened another window and found the link to the camera in the Centre’s lobby. Finding the footage of Shannon leaving, he rewound it to the point where the woman came out of the elevator, seeing that she appeared calm and composed. It had to be fake, he thought, certain that her every nerve would be on edge. But the whole group had had discussions about behaviour within the Centre, and looking and sounding confident was the most important thing about being there.
He had to grin as he watched her approaching the main desk, seeing her look directly at the high camera and wink distinctly at it. Even as he vainly tried to suppress the urge to wink back, Nat wondered what any security guard who might have been watching at that moment would have thought. He, Nat, knew that it was a wordless message that she was safe, and would be back as soon as she could manage it. Then he saw her scan her fake ID card through the machine that recorded the comings and goings of staff, and, as if she did it every day, confidently walk out of the door.
Cameras in the car park recorded her quick exit, and then, as the darkness began to swallow her up, Nat believed that he saw her break into a run, something that he could certainly understand.
But this wasn’t helping him to discover what she had done after going into Raines’ office, and, it would seem, not coming out again. He rewound the footage of her in the lobby and watched the numbers on the elevator. It stopped at three levels within a space of about two minutes: SL-16, SL-4 and SL-1. He checked the camera on SL-1 that was trained on the space in front of the elevator and saw another sweeper get out. A check of the SL-4 camera saw the same sweeper enter the car, and Nat could see Shannon move to one side as the doors opened fully and the unknown sweeper got in.
So that left SL-16, which was the level on which the sweepers lived. He checked the camera that looked the length of the hallway and, watching the footage backwards, saw her leave the lift and go into the room that records told him had been assigned to ‘Lauren’. He left the two screens, that from outside Raines’ office and the one in the residential hallway, running simultaneously, until they came to the time when Shannon had entered Raines’ office, when he stopped the footage and closed the screens, thinking hard as he sat back in the chair. So she had somehow got from Raines’ office to her own room, with about four hours unaccounted for.
However, Nat had not spent so long examining the Centre’s security without learning about the air vents that rang the entire length of the building, and extending right down to the lowest sub-level. That was the most likely explanation, and Nat sighed with relief when this occurred to him. He wondered what she had done that had taken such a long time, but perhaps she had used the complicated system to tunnels and passages to try to find Peter.
He had only got this far when the door opened again and Charles reappeared. One look at his face and the conversation in the room stopped dead.
“Dad?” Jarod asked hesitantly. “What is it?”
“They haven’t seen her,” Charles replied. “It’s been an hour now, and nobody’s seen her leave the Centre.”
“I have,” Nat volunteered. “She left via the main exit and through the western parking lot. Then, as soon as she was out of sight of the guards, she took off down the road towards the highway.”
“Two of our guys were waiting at vantage points along that road for her,” the Boss told him. “But they haven’t seen her. Nobody knows whether someone got suspicious and chased after her…”
“Or if she cut through the trees to avoid everyone,” Meg suggested. “After all, if they were in a car, how could she know whether they were our people or Centre people?”
“She wouldn’t,” Charles admitted, sitting down heavily on the sofa. “But in that case, she’s going to have to make her own way back here, and with no money, how on earth will she manage it?”
Shannon
Terror had gripped Shannon as soon as she was out of the parking lot, and she instinctively took to her heels and fled between the trees, running blindly, her hands outstretched in front of her to stop her running into anything. Her face and hands were scratched by various low-hanging twigs and branches. A stitch soon tugged at her side, and her arm throbbed under the bandage that had been wrapped around it so many hours earlier. Finally, her legs starting to ache, she dropped back to a jog, and then a walk, and at last she stopped, staring around at the trees.
It had been twilight when she emerged from the building, but now, and particularly among the closely grown trees, it was almost oppressively dark. She had studied the map of the grounds for Jarod's rescue and knew the direction in which she had run: heading for the least well-patrolled exit, scooting around the roads that cut through the thick woods in order to avoid any car that might have been sent out to find her.
Her single controlling thought now was to avoid capture. To that end, when she came closer to a road and spotted a car that was parked behind a clump of bushes, as if waiting to ambush anyone coming from the massive building that loomed behind it, she veered once more into the trees and increased her speed to a pace she could continue for some time without exhausting herself.
Although the park was large, fear drove Shannon on at such a rate that it was a surprise to her how quickly she came upon the exit for which she had headed. A sweeper stood on guard, as she had anticipated, but she now showed proof of the training to which Raines had subjected her as she crept up behind the man and, with a powerful knock from her right elbow to the correct place on his brachial plexus origin, she watched him slump soundlessly to her feet. Shannon could almost hear Raines’ voice – the only time she could remember him every commenting positively on her work – in the back of her mind, as she dodged the security camera and headed for the safety of the trees, some thirty feet away.
Raines had taught her those ‘self-defense skills’, as he had called them, when she was in her late teens. Documents found by Nat showed that the plan had been for her to be sent with a team of sweepers around the world to sneak in to various organizations and steal data required by the Centre. Eventually, however, it was apparently felt that she would be unsuccessful outside the Centre, and the plan was scrapped. Reading those details had made her almost as ill as she had been on the day she had first been called on to use her newly-developed skills to injure the men who had been brought in to act in a sim of a possible scenario. What had horrified her most, however, had been the fact that she had carried out the necessary violent actions without needing to consciously plan them, the training having made them automatic.
“How ironic,” she murmured to herself as she reached the sanctuary of he trees, glancing back over her shoulder to see that the sweeper had just regained consciousness. Ironic, indeed, that the only time outside the Centre she had used those skills had been on Centre employees.
She increased her pace to a lazy jog, heading deeper into the trees, which eventually came to the water of the bay. By now, if her recollection of the map was correct, she would almost be on the far side of the bay from the Centre, and she kept an eye on the moon to ensure that she went in as straight a line as possible.
The only sound she could hear was her breath and the rapid thud of her heartbeat in her ears, but she was waiting for another sound – the wail of sirens that would alert the sweepers to the fact that an intruder had been or was still in the Centre’s grounds. It was important that Shannon was as far away as possible before they began and the voice in her head ordered her onwards: Hurry, hurry, hurry!
Finally, and just as she had begun to believe she was going the wrong way, she heard the first gentle sounds of waves breaking on the sand. Sighing with relief, she continued on her chosen path, finally coming out of the trees onto the sand, seeing moonlight reflected off the calm waters and stars sparkling in the inky blackness. She sank to her knees on the sand and cupped the cool water in her hands, splashing it onto her face and scrubbing away the makeup. Thankfully, she took out the contact lenses and let them wash away, before dunking her shorn head and hot face right under the water.
Coming up for air, she shook the droplets off her short hair and removed her black tie, thankfully undoing the top button on her white shirt. With the other hand, she removed the dentures that had so changed the shape of her face. Rolling up the tie, she shoved it into her pocket, rose to her feet – and then stopped short.
Her hands frantically patted the pockets of her pants, and then her jacket, including the concealed pockets within the sleeves, which were designed to hold fake ID cards and other passes that might be necessary within the Centre. The only unexpected thing she found was the all-access card, which she had, probably on instinct, shoved into that hidden pouch once she was inside Raines’ office. But a vital important thing was missing – her car key.
Panic filled her, and she hurriedly emptied her pockets onto the sand – her fake ID, a tissue she had taken from her room at the Centre in case she needed it, an extra bullet for her gun, but no car key. Had she left it somewhere in the Centre? Had it fallen out of her pocket somewhere in the woods? No, suddenly she remembered. It had caught on Emily’s jacket when Shannon was lowering her to the ground after the sedative had taken effect, and had probably been among the piles of leaves that she had dumped on top of Emily’s body to stop her from getting too cold, as the drug stopped her body from being able to control its temperature. No doubt, someone would already have found it – either one of the Boss’s team, or one of the cleaners who had almost certainly been checking the site ever since they arrived there. Shannon knew how thorough they had been trained to be.
There was nothing she could do about it now. Gloomily, she returned her things to her pockets and got up from her position on the sand. Looking across the water, she could see the massive bulk of the Centre, crouching beside the water as if waiting to spring. Yellow light was reflected in the water that was spread out between Shannon and her former prison, and she shuddered as she turned back to the trees and drew her jacket more closely around her to block out the cool wind.
She couldn’t risk hitchhiking – it was impossible to know who might pick her up or on whose side they would be. Instead, she would have to walk, at least to one of the closest safe-houses, and the first of those was in Maryland. Although the Centre was relatively close to the border with that state, it would still be hours of walking before she arrived. Weariness seemed to pull her down, but she forced it away, once more putting to use the lessons Raines had taught her. With a sigh that was almost a groan, she got her bearings by the position of the moon, worked out the direction in which she needed to travel, and began the long night of walking.
The moon was sinking towards the horizon as Shannon watched yet another car pass from her position in a ditch beside the road. She watched the shimmering silver disc, which had seemed to grow in size as it approached the horizon, slowly and inexorably slide down the sky to disappear behind a thick bank of clouds. From now, she guessed it was probably about two hours until the sun began to rise.
It was hours since she had left the Centre. She had skirted around Blue Cove, knowing that it was as dangerous as the Centre itself, being full of employees who might recognize her, particularly as she was no longer disguised. The land around Blue Cove was mostly used for farming, with houses dotted between the towns and larger cities. Shannon had decided that she would travel through these less populated areas, rather than risking recognition in one of the cities. It would make little difference to the length of time the journey would take, and she couldn’t believe that it would matter, being certain that nobody would be worrying about her. Why should they? They had Emily to replace her, who had the additional advantage of being the Boss’s daughter.
Shannon had no idea when these bitter ideas had begun creeping into her mind, but they seemed to have been there ever since she had left the Centre. At one point, she had even wondered if she wouldn’t have been better staying there, but she had managed to summon enough energy to quash this thought, and it had so far failed to suggest itself again.
But, as she stumbled out of the ditch and continued to follow the road, she was so tired that she had no way of fighting against the depressing thoughts that rose in her mind and refused to be quelled.
They don’t really want you, a poisonous voice seemed to hiss in her mind. They’ve all forgotten you. If you do manage to get back, there won’t be anyone waiting for you. They won’t want to see you or talk to you ever again.
Such ideas had been circling in her head for the past hour, and although she had denied them for some of that time, now it seemed futile to do so. She hadn’t yet reached the point of agreeing with them, but she was helpless to stop the tears that continually seeped from her eyes and slid down her cheeks to soak the black jacket she had done up against the cold night air.
A house appeared along the road ahead of her. Those she had passed had all been shrouded in darkness, but light shone from the windows of this one. Unable to help herself, she crept up to it and peered in through the window. A family was gathered around the television in the corner, their backs to her, but she could tell that a man and woman sat in comfortable armchairs, while young children sat or reclined on the floor around them. Shannon pressed a hand longingly to the windowpane and wished suddenly that one of them would turn and see her, and maybe invite her in to get warm.
It was a stupid idea, of course, and she knew it as soon as the wish waltzed through her mind, but it wasn’t enough to stop her heart aching as she finally turned away and continued to trudge up the road. The scene had reminded her of something she had once asked Raines. It was about a week after Peter had first described the idea of family to her, and she had just finished a sim when she turned to him.
“If I left here,” she had asked tremulously, not daring to look up into his watery blue eyes, “would anyone want me?”
There had been an instant of silence, and then he had attacked her, beating her with his clenched fists until he was breathless, and then calling on the sweepers to continue doing it for him. She had lost consciousness, and came around in the infirmary 24 hours later with two black eyes, a split lip, a cracked collarbone and two broken ribs. She’d only had a day to get over the worst of these, however, before Raines came rampaging up to the infirmary and had her taken back to her room, to continue with her work from her bed, until she was able to get up. But the question had stuck in her mind ever since, and now she seemed to have her answer: no.
Shannon continued to put one foot in front of the other, stumbling now and again over a hole or a stone on the unmade roadside. She seemed to have gone beyond the stage of exhaustion, and it was a conscious effort for her to breathe. Briefly, she tried to block out of the vicious voice in her head by reminding herself to inhale and exhale, but she knew that the voice was still there, ready to speak again as soon as she let her guard down.
Time passed without her being aware of it. The road seemed to stretch in front of her forever, and it had been so long since the last car had forced her behind the trees and bushes that lined the roadside that she had forgotten any might come and no longer listened for the tell-tale purr of an engine.
Then, suddenly, her foot caught on another rock, her knees gave, and she dropped to the side of the road, her hands landing hard on the asphalt surface. She gasped as the sharp rocks cut into her palms, the pain rousing her from the numbness that had taken over some time before. For a moment, she considered staying where she was, curling up beneath one of the trees and letting herself sleep, although she had got beyond the stage of feeling tired.
Why not? the voice hissed in her ear. It won’t matter what time you get back, will it? It’s not like anyone will be waiting for you.
Shannon listened willingly now to the voice that seemed to be the only link to reality in the world, and her only support.
“Yes,” she said aloud, her voice sounding strangely hoarse and cracked. “I can sleep here.”
No, another voice suddenly said in her head, and this seemed the same as that which had been so encouraging in the air vent outside Peter’s room. Had that all really happened only a few hours earlier? It felt like another lifetime.
No, the voice said again, more softly, and Shannon waited for the cruel tones that had brought her to such a level of depression to speak again, as they had when she had initially tried to fight against what they had been telling her. Strangely, the vindictive voice was silent. Only the warm and comforting tones were evident now, encouraging her to her feet, to continue along the road.
“I can’t,” she whimpered aloud. “I can’t.”
You can, the gentle voice insisted. I know you can, Shannon. I’ll help you. They’re waiting for you.
She never knew how she managed to get to her feet again, but suddenly she was once more walking along the road. The sky around her was no longer dark, but was brightening with every passing moment, fingers of pink stretching across the sky, and the clouds were disappearing, blown away by a brisk, cool wind that gently caressed Shannon’s face and roused her from her numbness.
As her feet carried her along the road, the voice continued to speak softly in her mind, reminding her of things that contradicted the black imagines she had been shown by the other voice, and presenting a more positive future, perhaps even one free forever of the fear caused by the Centre, blocking out all other thoughts as it spoke.
And a family, it continued, almost hypnotic in its gentleness. One day, Shannon. I promise.
Then it fell silent, replaced by the sound of a car motor, and Shannon’s shadow was thrown out in front of her with startling suddenness by powerful headlights that came over the hill. Awakened from the half-dream into which she had fallen, Shannon frantically threw herself over the hedge that here ran along the side of the road, furious at herself for having missed the earlier signs of an approaching car, as she scrambled along on hands and knees behind the bushes.
