Out There (32 page)

“OK.”

“Ready.”

“Now remember to let me do the talking, OK?”

“Sure, Ava.”

“Whatever you say.”

I planted both of my feet firmly in front of the doors and pushed aside any fears or nerves. Then with one swift motion, I shoved both doors aside and marched into the room.

It was not what I was expecting.

There was a large round table in the middle with all the Council members sitting around it, looking shocked at my forced entry. Around were smaller desks and thousands of screens littered around the tables and on the walls. I looked up and saw one of them playing back footage of me running through the forest being chased by the robot. The playback stopped.

“Can we help you?” one of them asked.

Everyone was staring at me expectantly.

“Ava?” Mother stood from her seat at the head. “Ava, what are you doing here?”

“Actually, it's not just me,” I said, signalling at the boys. “I brought friends.”

Slowly, the six of them strolled over to stand next to me, and I heard some of the members gasp.

“Hi,” said Owen, waving at them and Cain had to slap his hand away.

“Are those…?”

“Yes, these are boys,” I said and stood firm.

The whole room erupted into astonished cries and panic. Some of the women even got up and stood on their chairs.

“Calm down! Ladies please!” Mother shouted out.

“Donna, I thought we handled this,” one of the ladies protested.

“What on earth are they doing here?”

“Donna, is that your daughter?”

“Quiet!” Mother yelled. “Ava, what do you want?”

“I want you to let them back in.”

There was silence, then all the women started laughing hysterically, slapping their thighs.

“She's kidding, right?”

“No, I'm not.” My voice was iron.

“Ava, you can't be serious…” Mother tried to reason with me.

“Oh, but I am.”

“Young lady, aren't you meant to be resting? You are the pregnant girl, am I right?” An older-looking woman inspected me suspiciously.

“Well, I'm sorry, I didn't really have a chance because I was being chased by one of our own robots,” I snapped. “And speaking of that…”

“Ava, please don't,” Mother pleaded.

“Did you all know that the Repopulation Phase is a bust?”

There were a few murmurs in the group.

“That's right – the brilliant innovation that your famous Sylvia Carter here designed,” I said and gave her a nod of my head. “It doesn't work!”

There was another set of whispering. So I glowered at Sylvia, but she just smiled like a pillar of ice.

“Where did you hear that, Miss Hart?” one woman asked.

“Oh, I just figured it out when they told me that my best

friend died,” I sneered. “Did you know that it kills people? Did

she convince you that it was fixed?”

Silence.

“That's why we need them, you see. They are the only safe way to have children,” I said and walked over and held Derron's hand. “And I plan to prove it.”

“Donna, what is going on?”

“Ladies, I can explain.”

“Can you, Mother?”

“Ava, what are you doing?” I saw the panic in her eyes.

“Yes, my dear,” one of the women said and stood up. “You may think that you are wise, but everything we do here is for your own good. Why do you have to stir up trouble?”

“But you are all missing the point! These people,” I said, gesturing at the boys, “are nice, generous and thoughtful and do not deserve to be tossed aside. Why can't you accept that and let them join us?”

“Ava, you haven't seen the world like we have,” Mother tried to reason with me. “You don't know what they're capable of.”

“They wouldn't hurt a fly.”

“Then we better not tell her about the rabbit stew,” Owen whispered to Cain behind me.

“Your mother's right, Ava.” Sylvia stood and walked over to me. “How about you all leave and take these boys back to where they came from?”

“Make me.”

Her mouth slowly curved upwards into a sinister grin as she said, “As you wish.”

Suddenly the doors flung open and robots came swarming in. There were six of them in total, all marked
Security
in thick black letters. As they boomed into the room, each extended a long arm from its side and began to chase the boys, clawing at them from behind.

“What are you doing!?” I screamed.

“Just what you asked,” said Sylvia and stood there smiling.

Each robot had targeted a specific boy and most of them had already caught theirs. I saw Owen and Kevin dangling from the spindly arms, kicking about frantically. My mind was racing and everything was moving so quickly, I could barely think. I saw Derron jumping over the tables as the robot chasing him began extending its arm longer and longer towards him.

“Mother, make it stop!”

“I'm sorry, Ava.”

By then almost all of the boys were strapped to the sides of the robots. I saw Cain struggling to break free and the arm hitting him over the head, causing him to go limp. Something inside my gut twisted.

Derron was still dodging one and finally it grabbed at his leg and dragged him along the floor.

“No!” I ran over to him and started whacking the robot's metal arm.

Then I felt two human arms grab my waist and yank me backwards with such force that I felt dizzy. I turned to see Sylvia force my hands behind my back and shove them into something cold and metal.

The robots began filing out with the boys dangling limp on the front. I saw Derron's sandy blonde head hanging low and felt my heart bursting.

“No! Derron!” I screamed and tears poured out of my eyes. “Come with me,” ordered Sylvia and dragged me backwards. “No!” I kicked at her. “Let me go!”

She pulled me through a back door and dragged me down a dark grey hallway which looked shockingly different from the rest of the building.

“Where are you taking them?”

She kept pulling me until we reached the end of the hallway where she kicked open the door and threw me inside. I leapt for the door just as she slammed it on my shoulder. A shooting pain flicked down my arm and up my neck and I crumbled on to the ground sobbing.

As soon as the pain subsided I looked up to see Sylvia watching me with a calculating grin through the bars of the door. I lunged at her and she laughed menacingly and sneered, “Don't even try.”

The door was locked from the outside, but it was made of bars so I could see through. It was almost like a prison cell.

“What, am I your prisoner now?” I spat at her.

“Why don't you make yourself at home?”

I looked around to see a tiny grey concrete room with nothing in it at all except for a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. They obviously didn't plan to keep me there long.

“Where are you taking them?” I demanded.

She shook her finger and said, “No no no, you're better off not knowing.”

I let out a raged scream, “You let me out of here now!” I pounded at the door with my body and fought to free my hands from what chained them behind my back.

Sylvia remained perfectly still, just inspecting me.

Finally I gave up and slumped on the floor, glaring back at her. “So you plan to keep me here forever then?”

“Oh no, that simply wouldn't work.”

“You think you can stop me talking?”

“I don't think that you'll get many opportunities.”

“What, so I'll be under confinement for the rest of my life?”

“What is it you're trying to achieve, Miss Hart?”

“Why don't you let me out of the cell and I'll show you?” I snapped.

She stood there, almost laughing to herself. “Ava Hart, you really are a little thrill seeker, aren't you? What is it you're searching for huh? Power? Defiance? Attention?”

“Answers.”

She nodded. “Well, if that's what you want. When I created the artificial embryos it was a huge breakthrough. But I had to preserve them somewhere. They were all tested and perfectly usable, but then tragically a virus infected them all. I didn't catch it until it was too late to save your friend, and so I tried desperately to fix them.” She shrugged her shoulders. “No use. And I realised that to make more would take years. We just don't have that time. So I figured that I would try another method I was working on, but here's the catch. For our city to prosper, we needed to get rid of a few… irregularities.”

“Like what?”

“I've known that you've been sneaking outside the Bubble for quite some time. You don't think I built a shield that didn't even detect when people went in or out, do you?” She laughed to herself. “But of course you did. And when I realised that your curiosity was going to be a bit of a problem, I came up with a solution.

“I never told anyone that the new method was ready for use because I knew who girl number two was, and felt that she needed… a little special treatment.”

“You know that telling me this doesn't keep it a secret, right?” “Oh, but that's the point,” she said and leant in closer. “You won't live long enough to tell.”

“What?!”

“I waited to announce the new method because I wanted you to have the old one. If everyone believed that it was fixed, then even your own mother would have no problem agreeing. And now you won't survive another few days, as I gave you a very special embryo, and then when all hope is lost, I will present the new and improved reproduction method.”

I sat there stunned. “Why are you doing this?”

“For the good of our community! Imagine if you had been successful in bringing the men into it, then there would have been chaos! For years I have made it my mission to protect the human race and I will not let some naïve little girl ruin it. But you'll never understand. Enjoy your time here, I'd be surprised if you even made it till tomorrow.” She turned and walked away.

“You're just going to leave me here?!”

She kept walking.

“Sylvia, come back!”

And then she was gone.

It suddenly dawned on me that she had no idea that I never had the real surgery. She thought I was carrying an infected embryo, when really my child was most likely perfectly healthy. I laughed to myself that I had the upper hand. But then I remembered that the boys were probably on their way to be slaughtered and it was all my fault. The guilt struck me so hard that I felt sick with myself.

Maybe I truly had ruined everything. I smacked my shoulder against the wall in anger and tried to find a window or another door. Nothing.

I tried to stay awake but eventually it was all too much and I collapsed in exhaustion.

I remained asleep until shouting coming from the other room woke me. I sat up, feeling groggy and sore, and tried to establish where the noises were coming from. Soon I figured that people were talking outside the door to the headquarters.

Without putting too much strain on myself, I slowly dragged my limp body across the floor and as close to the door as possible.

“Let me in there, Sylvia!” a voice rang out.

I tried to hear but I only picked up words.

“You can't… crazy! Open… I am… authority… daughter…”

Mother?

Then the door slammed open with a clang and I jumped back just as Mother stormed in.

“Ava?” She looked shocked. “What have you done to her?!” She ran over to the door and reached through the bars.

“Mother, please let me out.”

“Who put you in here?”

“Sylvia… where did she take them?”

“Oh honey, look at you!”

“Please get me out.”

“I will, I promise,” she said and stood to leave.

“Where are you going?”

“I don't have the key. I'll be back soon sweetheart, OK?”

“Hurry.”

She ran out of the door back to the Council Headquarters. I sighed and leant my head on the cold metal bars. Then I saw the scanner. It was pinned to the wall outside my cell and just waiting for someone to use it.

“Wait Mother, there's a…” But she was too far away by then.

I tried to fit my head through the bars in such a way that I could get a closer look. I assumed it was an eye scanner, but there was no way I could have fitted my head through far enough to reach it. I sat back and shoved my feet through the bars and kicked at the scanner in an attempt to knock it off the wall. It remained stuck pretty firm, so I adjusted my heels on the edge and pushed on it as hard as possible until I heard a screw pop out.

“Yes!”

I slapped the thing with my heels until I found the corner without a screw and shoved my foot behind the metal and ripped another screw free. I manoeuvred one foot between the scanner and the wall and the other on the other side of the scanner and, with as much force as possible, I tore it off the wall.