Authors: Abigail Collins
“He can’t see me,” the girl confirms before I can ask. “But everything else in here is the same. Please don’t speak,” she interrupts when I open my mouth to do just that. “Your instructor can still hear what you say. But don’t worry – I can speak enough for the both of us.”
The girl smiles broadly; her teeth are bright and crooked, with a small gap between the front two and one missing on either side of her incisors. Her smile kind of reminds me of Fray’s – so innocent and childlike. But then she sweeps her fringe to one side of her forehead and I see a glint of red metal shining against her smooth skin.
This little girl – who can’t be much more than ten years old – is a Digit. I’ve never seen one that had imperfections like crooked teeth, and I’ve
certainly
never seen one this young before.
“I am not your enemy,” she says, pushing her hair back over the chip in her forehead. “Your opponent has been temporarily disabled, but you can still shoot him. I would encourage you to do so soon; your instructor is beginning to become suspicious.”
I turn my head as slightly as I can and I see that she’s right; Signa is looking at me with narrowed eyes, his gaze shifting from my gun to my opponent’s and back again.
Quickly, I take aim and fire a shot that hits my enemy in the calf, careful not to shoot him in a more vital area; the longer he stays standing, the longer the simulation lasts, and I’m more than a little curious to find out what this girl snuck into my sim to tell me.
“Good. Keep doing that every minute or so and I expect you’ll have no problem prolonging the simulation. You don’t mind if I talk for a bit, do you?”
I’m about to tell her that I don’t when I remember that she told me not to speak, so I shake my head instead, just enough for her to see but not so much that Signa notices.
“Thank you,” the girl says, smiling. “My name is Rin. It’s so nice to meet you, Everly. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I wish I could ask her what she means, but I just have to hope that she tells me on her own. It’s difficult not being able to talk when the answers I’ve been searching for could be standing just a couple of feet in front of me.
Rin waits for me to fire my gun again – a single bullet arched into my opponent’s thigh – before she continues speaking.
“I am not from this camp. Currently, I am boarding a train that will take me to your location; I’m communicating with you though your Halo – the band around your forehead that is creating this simulation. Because I have technology inside of my body, it is easy for me to send messages through other pieces of technology – though the instructors in your camp have guarded their equipment well. It’s taken me until now to find a way in, but I am very glad to have been given the opportunity to speak with you.”
It’s jarring to me just how eloquent this girl is; I know that she’s a Digit, so her manner of speaking is expected to be more proper than the average human’s, but she still looks like a little girl. It would be like if Fray suddenly started reciting poetry. But then I remind myself that Digits are just humanoid versions of archaic robots, and as such, they do not age. Rin could have been created a century ago, or just last week, and it would make absolutely no difference.
I nod for her to keep going, cocking my gun to one side and aiming a shot around her body; it hits my opponent in the stomach, and his frame begins to flicker like a dull light-bulb. There is one thing that I am immensely thankful for – that Digits do not bleed. I don’t think I would be able to shoot one knowing that they did.
“We don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll make this short. The people who brought you here may have told you that it’s safe – that they have something to offer you in exchange for your loyalty. That is a lie. They’re using you, and you’ll find that out soon enough on your own if you don’t believe me.”
“I do,” I whisper, forgetting for a moment about my vow of silence. As soon as the words leave my mouth I frantically fumble with my gun, managing to fire it just quickly enough to drown out my voice and distract Signa from whatever he may have heard. My bullet misses its target, but only by a thumb’s width of air.
Rin, however, appears to have heard or at least seen what I said. Her eyes light up like I’ve just given her the most amazing present in the world – an expression I didn’t even know Digits were capable of making.
“Wonderful; that will make things so much easier for us.” She steps aside as I fire a shot just over her shoulder, then repositions herself after the bullet makes contact. “I am on my way to you as we speak. I am going to help you escape from that awful place, and I will take you to my Division instead. You’ll be safe there, I can promise you that.”
I shoot again, aiming for the simulated Digit’s shoulder, but I miss and end up catching him in the side of his neck instead. His entire body fades in and out, blurring around the edges. I don’t have too many shots left to take before the sim is over, and so is my conversation with Rin.
Rin smoothes out the front of her dress and shifts her weight to one foot, saying, “I know you probably have a lot of questions, about how I found you, or why I am doing so much to save you. The Digits here promised you answers, I’m sure, but you need to know that they do not plan on giving them to you. The longer you stay here, the worse things will become for you. Once we finally meet – in person – I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I know about your mother, too, and I will tell you all of the things you don’t know about her.”
The simulation flares and dims again when I fire a quick shot at my opponent’s ankle. I am trying my best to shoot him in places that will keep him alive long enough for Rin to finish telling me what she came here to say, but it’s proving more difficult than I imagined. Signa is watching me more closely now, clearly aware that something is wrong; I haven’t missed my target this badly since I finally let myself shoot.
“Tell me,” I plead, speaking as softly as I can. “Please, tell me. I
need
to know.”
Rin shakes her head, and my heart sinks. “I’m so sorry, but I cannot do it here; there is too great of a chance of my message being intercepted. But I will come for you tomorrow, and once we are outside of your camp’s walls, I will answer every question you have.”
The girl’s body shivers and she holds her hands out in front of her, watching them flicker before her eyes. She doesn’t look surprised or alarmed, but her eyes narrow and she takes a step towards me. The outline of her dress is fading, and her skin is becoming translucent.
“Why should I trust you? You’re one of
them
.” I take a deep, steadying breath and lift my gun level with my chest. Another shot hits my enemy’s thigh, burning a hole into his image and making Rin tremble.
She smiles, her wide brown eyes boring into my own; they look so much like Fray’s eyes, it alarms me. She holds out her hand, but it passes through my forearm like the wind. It leaves behind a strange tingling sensation that makes my arm itch.
“I’d be surprised if you
did
trust me – I don’t expect you to. But I am offering you freedom and answers, both of which you seem to be lacking in here. It is your choice, though. I will come for you tomorrow, but you don’t have to leave with me.”
Rin gasps and her entire body begins to dissolve. I am distantly aware of the sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard behind me, and I know that Signa must have realized what’s going on – or, at least, he must have some idea. I spoke too loudly, forgetting again that I am supposed to be alone in this circle. I have to hope that he didn’t understand what I said, but judging by how quickly the simulation is shutting down around me, he knows more than I want him to.
“Just think about it,” Rin chimes, her voice getting lighter and less distinct as her body breaks down. “Please.”
The last part of her to fade is her eyes, which are still looking up at me pleadingly. She sounds almost like she’s in pain, gasping and wheezing every time another piece of her frame is torn away, but that can’t be true. She is a Digit, and Digits can’t feel anything.
When the simulation finally disappears completely I fall to my knees, my gun still held tightly with both hands at my waist. Signa steps into the circle with me, and I pull of my headband and hand it to him silently, but he doesn’t take it.
Instead, he grabs one of my arms at the elbow and hauls me to my feet; my gun slips out of my hands and clatters to the floor loudly. I look around me, expecting someone else to notice what is going on and come to my aid, but everyone else is too preoccupied with their own simulations to see me being pulled from the room by the rough hands of an angry Digit.
I try to fight my way out of his grasp, but his fingers tighten around my arm and pinch me hard enough to bruise. At first I think he’s leading me to the cafeteria, because we pause at the doors off of the hallway for a second, but then he steers me around a corner and up the spiral staircase. I’ve never been on the upper level of this building before.
It doesn’t take me long to realize why.
Chapter twenty-one
The noise is the first thing that hits me, even before we’ve completely ascended the staircase. I hear the creaking metal of doors being opened, closed, and latched, the whirring of something that sounds a lot like a drill, but louder, and groans sounding out from behind a few of the locked doors. I think I even hear a scream once, but it is drowned out by a metallic clicking noise coming from the opposite hallway.
Everything looks like it’s made of tarnished silver, from the low, rectangular doorways to the walls cut out into rooms every few feet; even the floor is the same color, and every time I step down on it my footsteps reverberate down the hallway and back to my ears.
I crane my head to look through the small glass windows set into each of the room’s doors, but I can only make out the blurs of motions from inside. A Digit with short, choppy blonde hair comes out of one room towards the end of the hall, carrying a silver tray with a platter and a syringe on top of it; I look behind her as she closes the door, and see a lanky boy who I do not recognize sitting on the end of a bed near the door. I wonder if there is a person inside of each of these rooms – and if there is, then why? Is that where Signa is taking me? To my own personal prison?
Signa pulls me down another hallway and we stop in front of a large set of double-doors with steel bolts crossed on the front and slotted windows on either side. He knocks three times in quick succession, and the doors creak open automatically.
I expect this room to look like the others I saw on my way to it, but it doesn’t; it is much larger, and in place of a bed and dresser there are two desks with computers and other technology on top of them and one large circle in the very center of the room. The setup reminds me a lot of the stations in the Main Lab downstairs, but with only one circle and many other devices I have never seen before.
I count four other Digits in the room, one seated at a desk and the other three clustered together on the other side of the circle; they all turn to look at us as we enter. Signa tightens his grip on my arm and pulls me forward, twisting his hand roughly and sending jolts of pain along my skin.
Part of me expects Tesla to be there, both because I have yet to find out where she’s been staying in the compound and because she seems to have a knack for always appearing where I least want her to be. But, to my immense relief, she isn’t among the Digits in the room; I recognize one of them from the Main Lab – the instructor of the small girl I met on the train ride here – but the other three are unfamiliar to me.
“What is it now, Signa?” the tallest of the three standing Digits asks, narrowing his eyes at me; he’s got black hair and just a hint of stubble around his chin, but the rest of his face is shiny and spotless. “Why did you bring a
human
up here without my consent?”
I’ve never seen Signa look as flustered as he does right now; he stands up a little straighter and scrapes his fingernails against the inside of my elbow.
“Sir,” he says quickly, “I detected an attempt at interception in her simulation sequence this afternoon. I have not yet found out who is to blame, but I caught
her
,” he shoves me closer to the other Digits, standing behind me and leaving me no room to move away, “speaking to someone about us.”