——————Chapter Five——————

——— Friday October 18 2309 ———

———A Fine House in the Suburbs———

Ika lies on her bedroll. She had been lying there for the past two days. She can't get up. She can't eat. Can't breathe. She is drowning. Drowning in tears. Drowning in grief. Miren is gone. Miren is gone forever. Her best friend. Her brother. He's gone. She will never see him again until she follows him to the next life. Her grief is heavy like a thousand ice-cold boulders settled inside in her chest. Her throat feels like it's full of ice and poison. Everything inside her is wailing and raging and she's just so lost. So overwhelmingly lost. 

Miren was so good. He was good. He was kind. He listened to her. He paid attention to her needs and her wants and her thoughts and her feelings as if she was important. Miren was brave. He was selfless. He was a revolutionary. He gave up so much of what little dignity he had in order to save other people from sharing his fate. Miren was thoughtful. He was considerate. 

Miren is gone. He's gone from this world forever. Ripped away from life. Ripped away from the few other friends he could make. Ripped away from her. In losing Miren it feels as if she has lost a piece of herself. Where once there was light and comfort and hope, all that there is is an empty void. She can't can't can't this can't be happening. This isn't fair. But it's horrifically real. No matter what she does. 

She wishes she could go with him. Wherever he is it's better than this place. So much better. It gives her comfort, knowing that he's in a better place now. Knowing that he's free now. Because he is free now. Wherever he is. He is considered a person now. And she's happy about it. She honestly is. 

But that doesn't change the fact that he's gone. Gone from her life. Gone from her arms. Never again gracing her life with his fire and his light and his darkness and his song. Not until she's gone too. It doesn't change the fact that it's not fair. It doesn't change the fact that she's alone. 

She's all alone now. The days they were lucky enough to train beside each other, those days were gone now. The stolen moments at night when they could talk and dream while sharing the warmth of the bedroll, gone. The times they showered together, desperate to have every moment together they could, talking and laughing and raging and crying under the water and soap. Gone.

She remembers his sardonic humour and his dry sarcasm. She remembers his crazy ideas and his wild imagination. She remembers his fear of insects, his love for the night, his way with words, his curiosity, his terrible singing voice, his inability understand time zones, everything. And the memories stab her in the chest and soothe her wounds all at the same time. 

She wants to scream until her throat is bleeding. 

Miren had gone out with a bang at least. Like he promised he would. He didn't go alone. He went in a burning blaze of glory. And he took Anne-Marie with him. She remembers the decadence of the party hall, the expensive suits and gowns of everyone there. She remembers. She remembers the girl's terrified glare before her pink, white, and fuchsia dress was dyed red. She remembers the moment of triumph and terror all woven together in some kind of insanity tapestry. She remembers the way the world seemed to burn blindingly white for a moment. She remembers how his eyes sparkled. 

She wishes it was her last memory of him. That she didn't have to see his eyes go wide with terror as he was held down and beaten. But still. It was still somehow a sort of victory. His master would be stepping into a beaten, bruised body instead of a shiny new one. 

That's the thing with Miren, she thinks. Underneath everything he was a rebel through and through. 

Miren had shined like the sun and now she had no idea what to do without his light. 

But still. He's in a better place now. He's free. And for that she is glad. Despite the sadness she is glad. It was a sort of escape.

She doesn't know how she can still be cold under all her blankets. And she doesn't know how her body is still producing tears after all the crying it has done. She doesn't know how much time has passed. It seems to twist and stretch and knead itself into a deliriating swirl. She lies there drowning in her grief as the world spins and fades around her. 

Suddenly the door opens with a sharp thud. She startles at the sound. A figure walks in. A teenager. With platinum-blond hair and a straight jawline. 

Miren?!!! Could it be? How could it be? But no. It's not right, something's horribly wrong. The way he walks is wrong. His expression is wrong. That's not Miren it's something else. 

Her brother is really, truly gone from this world. And that thing wears his face, walks with his legs, lives in his skin. 

It's the most horrific thing she has ever witnessed.

She screams. Crazed. Feral. She doesn't notice anything around her. She has to save him, has to save him, has to save her dead brother from this unimaginable violation they're committing against him. 

She hears shouting, feels skin under her hands. Skin that should be Miren's. She screams and kicks and claws until she can see red. She takes Miren's throat in her hands - because it's Miren's throat, no-one else's - and she squeezes it as hard as she can. Miren. Miren. I won't let them do this to you. I won't let them hurt you like this. I won't let them. Miren. Brother. I won't let them.

She finally, finally feels the pulse get slower and she smiles a delirious smile. She feels no fear. Only horror. Only terror. Only agony. Only disgust. Only heartbreak. Only adoration. Only hatred. Only rage and pain and unendurable hurt. 

——————Chapter Six——————

——— Tuesday August 7 2310 ———

——Wherever Ika Happened to Be——

She hates the feeling of abject hopelessness constantly raining over her, weighing heavy and deafeningly numb and overwhelmingly sharp both at the same time. 

There is nothing. There is no-one. There is Miren's body moved like a puppet to his master's wills. There is her own death and her own body's sickening fate hanging heavy over her. There is the cold aching loneliness. There is the constant squeeze of grief. There is the constant scream that this is it. This is all there is. 

She still trains. Keeps her body fit and strong and talented and beautiful. She doesn't want to. She doesn't want to at all. But she has to. Otherwise they will kill her. 

Not that she even minds that. The prospect of death isn't completely horrible for her. It is. But at the same time it isn't. Because when she dies, all this pain will stop. When she dies her horrible life will be over. 

She'll be with Miren again. 

She wants to be with Miren again. 

But it's not in her control. Not really. Nothing is in her control. If she dies early another will take her place. 

So she keeps living no matter how much it hurts. 

Soon she'll die anyways. And it will be terrible. 

——————Chapter Seven——————

————Tuesday April 1 2311 ————

———A Sanctificum in the City———

Ika is at the sanctificum. It is beautiful and terrible and smells of incense and dread. Around her there are her younger siblings. Bakarta and Kilani and Massok and Gammon and Jinio. She doesn't get to see them often. Only twice a month when she is driven to the sanctificum. They don't get to talk much. Only during the lunch breaks which last one hour and the little stolen moments when the synth educators leave the room. Still, it's better than what she had grown up with, which was constant surveillance and no opportunity to share company. 

She loves them. With all her heart she loves them. And it hurts immensely. And it heals her unimaginably much. And love is a weakness and a strength and a knife and a balm and she does not know what she is doing when she takes love by its horns and holds it but she does. She always does. Because no matter how much grief love gives her, it also gives her so much strength, so much belonging, so much confidence, so much becoming. 

The educators always assert that the synths are not capable of love. But the synths are the only ones capable of love. Love isn't a soft, many-petalled red rose carefully grown in a garden of greenery and soft soil. It is a resilient, hardy weed that takes root in the most hard, cracked concrete of the most dry, polluted city. And it is the brightest flower ever that blazes with the light of the sun and the mystery of the night. It grows and thrives and burns into blossom from and amidst hardship and misery. It is just as much a part of the hard, unforgiving concrete as it is a respite from it.

The children are just children. Massok is nine. He loves songs. He is affectionate. Cuddly. And he can't stand the cold indifference his masters treat him with. But he has to. Kilani is six. She is sensitive, expressive. She feels everything so strongly and in her there is rage and desire that makes her want to burn the world down. But she can't. Jinio is eleven. They are a little soldier. But they don't want to be. They are perceptive. Quiet but wise. But inside them is so much aching jagged brokenness that needs to be smoothed over by affection and kindness. Bakarta is ten. She is intelligent and inquisitive. Her mind is so powerful. But all she is ever valued for is her body. She loves hearing stories and she loves sweet things that she can only taste if she steals. Gammon is five. He is fiery. He is talkative, incredibly talkative. He is brimming with ideas and full of energy. And yet his masters force him to be silent. Force him to be invisible. 

"Ika. Ika. Ika what happen after all this?" Gammon asked with some solemnity in his voice. 

"After what?" Jinio asks, affection in their voice. They are always delighted at the antics of the younger kids. Well every synth is.

"After we go. Away." 

"Oh. You mean like. After we turn eighteen?" Bakarta's voice is solemn and serious, and just a little bit horrified. Like the sad still blue of twilight. 

"Yeah." 

"Why would you want to know that? There are nicer topics" Jinio asks slowly, dead serious. 

"Don't we all want to know?" Massok says, full of thought and with a protective undertone. Gammon starts speaking but Ika focuses on Massok. "Think about it. We all know death isn't the end. We wonder." 

"I know what happens," Kilani states point blank. Everyone stares at her. "There was a sacred cycle of life once. It was broken." 

Everyone is quiet for a spell. And then they all start speaking at once. 

"Guys you're all right." Ika says. "You all have good ideas. Let's figure out what there is together." 

"There has to be something more. Their has to be." Bakarta's eyes are wide and insistent. 

And they talk. Every two weeks they gather together and they talk. And it's not just them. All the synths. They all gather together to examin the knowledge they hold in their souls, to pull that knowledge from the waters of the deepest parts within their heart to the air of language and communication.