Thea spends every night in the past, taking orbitals to a desk job in Singapore, or cloning dead pets in a vet’s surgery. She doesn’t care how mundane the experience is. Anything is preferable to being on this island.
I’ve urged her to find some joy in the beauty around her, but Thea’s never cared for nature. She enjoyed cities. She misses the noise, and the skyscrapers, and the silent lines of traffic overhead. She misses seeing the faces of her friends through a crowd. She misses coffee first thing in the morning. She misses cured meats and wearing clothes that don’t itch. She misses going fast, and concerts in the park, under the glare of floodlights. She misses sport, and inky black screens.
She’s woken by the roar of water, and the cries of the firefighters coming from above.
Yawning, she cricks her neck and pushes herself upright, gasping in pain. Her palms are bloody, the skin ragged, and she’s missing a thumbnail. There are violent purple bruises on her wrists and upper arms.
Evidently, she was trying to do something about her injuries before she fell asleep, because her knapsack is open on the floor; her notebooks, first-aid kit and sundries strewn everywhere. There’s another bag next to it, filled with clean clothes, as if she was packing to go somewhere.
She frowns, plucking her T-shirt away from her body. It’s coated with dried blood, far too much to be her own.
‘What happened last night?’ she wonders groggily.
The last thing she recalls was Hui coming down the staircase, asking to sleep in the silo, because she didn’t want to go back to her dorm and face Clara.
Confusion ripples through Thea, as she digs for memories that aren’t there.
‘Have you wiped them?’ she asks, recognising the strangely woolly feeling wrapping her brain.
‘Not just yours,’ I admit. ‘Everybody’s, from curfew onwards.’
Thea presses her eyes with her knuckles, trying to think through the fug. Wiping memories used to be so routine you could buy milkshakes capable of blotting out entire days. People drank them to forget the mortifying things they’d done while drunk, or the boring dates they’d endured. If there was a film they’d enjoyed, they’d wipe their memory to experience it afresh.
Unfortunately, the drugs required to do it safely have been lost, and while I’m capable of burning the neurons away, it’s a far clumsier operation, and one with a much higher mortality rate. Even if I perform it successfully, the subject ends up unconscious for a few hours, only to endure chronic headaches for the week after.
‘Only Niema could have ordered you to do a memory wipe,’ she says, slowly putting the pieces together. ‘Why would she do something so reckless!’
‘She believed possessing the memories was a greater risk than removing them,’ I explain.
Thea stares at her bloodied clothes, her head starting to swim.
‘Why?’ Her tone is guarded, worried by the answer. ‘What could be so dangerous about the last twelve hours?’
‘I don’t know,’ I respond. ‘My memories were also expunged. I can tell you that a warehouse is currently aflame, our storehouse is empty and the fields are blighted. Every villager has sustained minor injuries, many of which require immediate medical attention. There have been seven casualties, including –’
Thea stands up, wobbling slightly. ‘Where’s Niema?’ she interrupts. ‘I want to see her, immediately.’
‘Niema’s dead.’
She drops back to the camp bed, the strength running out of her.
‘Emory found her body this morning,’ I continue. ‘Your heart rate is elevated. You should think about trying to calm yourself.’
She shakes her head, disbelievingly. ‘Niema’s … no, that’s not … it’s impossible.’
Her mouth opens, then snaps shut again, the news igniting a wildfire of emotion. Niema Mandripilias was Thea’s hero long before she became her boss. Getting a job at Blackheath was a dream come true, and for two years, she had everything she’d ever wanted, then the fog emerged. Most of her colleagues left immediately, determined to be with their loved ones.
Niema convinced Thea to stay, reasoning that her family were going to die whatever she did. At best, you’ll arrive home in time to all die together, she’d said. At worse, you’ll get stuck at a border somewhere, amongst millions of terrified refugees.
They’d watched the apocalypse side by side, digging through social-media feeds and shaky video clips, even experiencing a few of the panicked memories people posted online. Niema made sure she ate, and held her when she cried.
When they discovered that Thea’s sister was alive, Niema asked Hephaestus to collect her on his way back to the island. That kindness almost killed him, but he managed to deliver Ellie safe and sound.
‘How did it happen?’ she asks hoarsely.
‘She was struck by a falling beam which crushed her skull.’
Thea clumsily opens her first-aid kit, struggling to calm her shaking hands. She’s spent most of the last twenty years hating Niema, but now she feels like a crater has been smashed into her chest.
Thea fumbles the lid off the kit.
Yesterday, it was packed tight with supplies, but most of it’s missing this morning. After picking a few splinters out of the wounds, she sprays them with antiseptic, then applies a light dressing with the few bandages she has left.
‘Can you wake Hephaestus and tell him to meet me in the village?’ she asks.
‘He’s already on his way,’ I say.
She’s distracted by rattling metal. Clara is descending the silo’s circular staircase two steps at a time, almost tripping in her haste. She’s bruised and grimy, her eyes wide. Thea’s never seen her apprentice look so frightened.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asks.
‘Hui’s missing,’ blurts out Clara breathlessly. ‘Her violin’s smashed. Abi says she can’t see her.’
‘She’s no longer connected to my mitochondrial network,’ I clarify.
Thea hangs her head, feeling a pang of regret for her lost apprentice. This must have something to do with what she saw in the cauldron yesterday.
‘That means she’s dead,’ she interprets for Clara, before scooping medical supplies into her knapsack. ‘Have you looked for her among the bodies being brought out of the warehouse?’
‘She’s not there,’ declares Clara. ‘Abi told me there was a chance she was still alive. She said that being disconnected doesn’t necessarily mean –’
‘There are a couple of neurodegenerative conditions that can cause it,’ interrupts Thea, tossing her bag across her shoulder. ‘And a few types of sedatives we don’t have any more, but none of those would explain why you can’t find her.’
She marches past Clara, her thoughts already on other matters. ‘I need you to visit the farm and work out what happened there. Apparently our stores are empty. Find them, then take soil samples for analysis. Abi tells me the fields are blighted, and we’re going to need to understand why.’
‘I …’ Clara trails off, still struggling with the news of her friend’s death. She can’t believe Thea is being so callous.
‘There’ll be time for grief,’ says Thea impatiently. ‘But it’s not today. It can’t be. We haven’t got any food to eat, beyond what’s in the kitchen. Our survival as a species may depend on what we do in the next few hours.’
Witnessing Clara’s distress, she softens. ‘We’ll find Hui’s body eventually, but the trouble that’s behind her is still ahead of us. I need you to be strong, and I need you to serve. Can you do that?’