The center of the room is filled with rows and rows of capsules arranged in concentric circles; they remind me of cryogenic tubes. Their glass surfaces perspire with droplets of moisture, which makes the interiors opaque. Snakelike, scaly tubes descend from a nest of computer terminals suspended from the ceiling and feed into each of the capsules. I approach the nearest one and wipe the condensation away. I’m surprised to find it frosty, considering the heat being generated by all the blinking gauges and equipment in the chamber. Beneath the glass surface, I can barely make out a dark figure lying perfectly still in the thick, swirling cryogenic fog.
At the head of each of these capsules are digital readout displays that seem to be monitoring the vital signs of the patients inside. But these readouts track power levels and electrical impulses, which is odd. The data seems more like the kind of information you’d get from diagnostic and performance tests given to machinery and equipment, not to live human beings.
Digory looks up at me from the capsule he’s been examining, a puzzled look in his eyes that I’m sure is reflected on my own face.
“Let’s open one,” I say.
He joins me and together we comb the surface of a capsule, searching for the release mechanism to spring open its hatch.
After a few minutes of trying in vain, I slam my palm against the glass. “There’s got to be a button that opens this thing.”
But Digory doesn’t seem to think so. He leaps onto the pod and tears out one of the tubes feeding the pod with his bare hands.
I check to make sure no one’s coming. “Or we can do it that way.”
The hose hisses like an angry serpent. Digory wraps it around his fist and pummels the glass shield. A crack appears on the cryotube, which splinters into a thousand crystal streams before it’s punctured with an earsplitting crack.
The moment the container is breached, the lid bursts open with an arctic blast of mist, evaporating the sweat pooling on my body in an instant. I wave my hand until the haze dissipates enough for me to peer down at the capsule’s occupant.
A familiar-looking face stares up at me. And for a second, I think I’ve lost it.
It’s Crowley. Or at least a part of him. His naked torso seems intact, but his arms and everything from the waist down are covered in foul-smelling slime. It’s some kind of bio-synthetic cocoon. Wires and tubes slice into his skin as if he were a human pincushion. I can see flashing lights beneath the gooey membranes and hear the sickening squish as the substance fuses with Crowley’s skin, which has turned from the pale chalk color it was the last time I saw him to a sickly greenish tint.
Cassius announced that Crowley was dead. Seeing him like this, I wish it were true.
I lean closer to get a better look, and that’s when his hand darts up in a flash and grabs my arm, pulling me toward him. His eyes spring open, irises milky white.
Digory’s at my side in a flash, but I wave him off.
In spite of the horrific condition Crowley is in, there’s something truly pitiful in the way he’s looking at me, a mixture of fright and complete and utter dread that shreds my insides.
“Spark,” he whispers, his voice a thin rasp of its former self. As he speaks, noxious liquid dribbles from the corners of his lips.
I grip the hand that’s clutching me. “What have they done to you, Crowley?”
Milky white tears ooze from his eyes. “They’re changing me… making me one of them…”
His voice trails off, but I don’t need him to finish to know who them is.
Fleshers.
“We’re going to get you out of here.” Even as I say the words, my eyes dart across what’s left of his body and I feel helpless and frustrated.
He shakes his head. “Too late. No time. This whole place…”
His eyes wander for a few seconds. “All of these people… prisoners… Incentives that survived… they change them… turn them into…” His face screws up and an agonized mewl twists from his throat.
My body is racked with the shakes. Crowley is delirious with pain. That’s why he’s talking such craziness. The Incentives that survived… the loved ones of all the Imps… they can’t be in this place. I’ve seen Imposers communicating with their kin at Haven, carrying on conversations in real time. It’s the one carefully greased cog in the machine that keeps them following orders: knowing that those they care about are at least being taken care of, living a life they would otherwise have no chance at, all thanks to the sacrifice the Recruits have made. The continued well-being of what, in essence, are Establishment hostages is at the core of its lethally trained forces.
I scan the room, my eyes darting from one control panel to the next. “There must be a terminal—some kind of control panel with a database,” I tell Digory, my tone breathless with the possibilities.
Digory takes my cue. Between the two of us, we comb the lab until minutes later he’s ushering me over to a keyboard inlaid in an alcove in the far corner.
I scroll through the entries. A list of names I don’t recognize at first. But as I near the end of the chronological list, the entries become more familiar to me. Residents of the Parish. Old friends and neighbors. People who served as Incentives for those who were selected in Recruitments just prior to my own.
On a hunch, I search for Cassius’s name on the roster. But all details of his own Recruitment are missing.
Did he wipe the information from the system? If so, why?
What’s he hiding?
By this time the keys are slick with my sweat as I toggle through the names and come across the Incentives of Arrah, Rodrigo, Leander, and Dahlia. I select the names by Arrah—
Her parents. But only one of them is lit in green—her mother, the Incentive who survived the Trials when Arrah was a Recruit.
My heart is at full throttle while I scroll to the option labeled Begin Interactive Simulation and press the enter key. A low hum fills the room and an image appears on the computer screen. I see the resemblance immediately. Arrah’s mother is staring down at me with a smile on her face. It looks like a real-time video. She’s outside somewhere; it’s a beautiful summer day with a lake glistening in the background.
I turn to whisper to Digory. “She’s supposed to be at Haven, the Incentive compound somewhere.”
“Why, of course I’m at Haven. Where else would I be?” she asks, startling me with her cheerfulness.
“You can hear me?” I ask.
She nods. “Yes, I can hear you.”
It’s uncanny. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear we’d actually established a live feed with her. My mind’s racing. What if we have, somehow? If I could track the location of Haven—
Digory tugs my arm and point at a list of other options.
Age Progression. Time of Day. Location. Health variables.
A rapid clatter fills the room as I select one option after another, watching as Arrah’s mother ages—a few years. Ten. Twenty. At the tap of a key, the simulated figure changes location. Outdoor lakes become indoor fireplaces. Day becomes night. Eyes swell as if with a minor cold, then look more sickly, and then look the picture of health.
“Are you Arrah’s mother?” I finally ask.
She nods. “Of course I am. Have you seen my daughter? I miss her very much.”
On the computer, information scrolls by. Line after line of data, information on Arrah and her mother down to the most minute details. All the information one would need to replicate a perfect copy capable of interacting with their loved ones.