Core Drive: A Westworld Story

Áine Part 9

I am alone in the cabin. But eyes are on me. I can feel them, feel the stickiness of unwanted attention; the skin-crawling certainty that I am the recipient of unwanted voyeurism.

The Deputy has been gone for a while. A strange sense of worry engulfs me. Makes me invent scenarios of the worst kind; blood, gunpower, strangled grunt of a struggling horse, an arrow piercing its side.

With a deep, prolonged inhale, I block the images out, then wonder why I toyed with them in the first place. I draw my focus to the barren landscape stretching out before me, past the doorway with no door. I'm not a big enough threat to warrant a room with an actual door. No, this is intentional. Tactical. Maybe it's torture; showing me freedom, teasing it, and knowing that one step past the threshold means death.

I laugh to myself, my ears discomforted by the hysteria they hear.

I try not to dwell on those feelings. So, instead, I think of what little beauty is still left in this violent world. The quiet hills, red as clay, baked under the kiln of this land's unforgiving sun. The shimmer and blur of the horizon. And something else—an emotion I cannot name—pulls my mind to the ghost, to the sound of pills cluttering like hail. He isn't in the shack with me but his eyes are an impossible thing to forget, the sadness cradled within them leaves me curious. I want to know his story. I want to master my ghosts, but I cannot choose when to conjure them and it frustrates me.

A pity, I think to myself, Being haunted would be quite the improvement in company.

A stray dove swoops in from the ceiling where rot and weathering have left a hole. It brings the draft with it as it flies with no direction, trapped. Its wings flutter anxiously until it inevitably flies into a wall, hard. It drops down with the rigor of the bodies that aren't strung up to the hanging tree anymore. I try to stretch my foot out, arch it so it extends further from my ankle, reaching out to the dove to see if it is truly dead—truly real. My joints ache and the restraint tightens around my wrists at an awkward angle, pinching skin. Then, when I am merely a whisper away from touching its wing, the dove springs back up and continues its frightened dance in the shack.

Again, it slams into a wall. And again, I reach for it. We continue this cycle until Clementine strides into the shack, gait demanding attention. Halfway from the doorway, she reaches the dove, but her eyes are fixed on me; an intent behind her gaze that makes me weary. She begins to take another step, the base of her boot about to greet the ribcage of the dove as it lays on the cool floor, wings opened wide like some religious motif.

I shut my eyes, afraid to see, afraid to confront whatever truth her steps will incur upon me. But there is no crunch. No wet squelch of a blood splatter. The next thing I feel is a dull, radiating pain in my shins. My arms go slack at my sides, no longer held up by the restraints.

"Fuck," I seethe, flinching from Clementine's kick. I search the space for the dove, disheartened to see no trace of it, but glad all the same.

"Mothballs between your ears? I said, get up," she repeats herself.

I look up at her. She's holding a knife in her hand, a sadistic smirk on her dirtied, yet perfect face. I rub the red mark on my wrists, enjoy the release of tension there. I roll my shoulders back and stretch my neck. A gasp of euphoria leaves me, soft, quiet, a personal kind of pleasure, free to move in my body as I wish.

Clementine walks to the doorway and stops, her side profile casting a silhouette that would be tempting to trace into sand. "Don't make me drag you out by your ankles," she threatens.

I am cautious to follow her out, but not brave enough to tempt fate. Clementine, The Deputy, this world, they are all so unfamiliar to me. At a disadvantage, I have no choice but to follow along. I hoist myself up, joining Clementine outside, into the false promise of my freedom.

The sun hangs low, sky drunk with rich bloody colours. I look out into the expanse, watch a handful of men and women guard the perimeter, weapons in hand. Spot the dumping ground of dead bodies, see the flies that skitter about and disappear into orifices. Glimpse horses dig their hooves into the ground, ears turned backwards as gunshots ring out from the canyons. And I see the outside for what it was the moment I awoke; an expansion of my cage.

"The Deputy brought you here because she thinks you're one of us," Clementine says, her strides impossible for me to keep up with at a leisurely pace. "I think you had as equal an opportunity to awaken with the rest of us. If you haven't already, there's no reason to think you ever will. And if you're not one of us, you're a tool for them to use against us. You have to prove whose side you're on."

"I keep telling you people, I'm not on anyone's side," I say.

Clementine huffs in amusement, "Not choosing a side is the same as choosing one. That's what makes you dangerous. Ambiguity can be both a weapon and a shield. And I need to know which stance you'll take when you're pushed to the edge."

She reaches for her six-piece shooter holstered to her hip. I take a step back and brace.

"Are you going to kill me, then?" I ask, heart pounding.

She laughs, "So self-centred, like those people over there. Juvenile thinking." She nudges her head towards the hanging tree surrounded by corpses. She studies me as she unclips her holster and offers me her gun.

I look down at the polished silver barrel and embellished ivory grip. The name that used to be carved into the grip has been scratched out with a blunt instrument, leaving grooves and scratches.

Clementine inches closer, "Go on, take it. You'll need it."

With shaking fingers, I grip the gun. Its weight is unfamiliar, strange. My heart races again, this time with a different kind of urgency.

"For what?" I ask.

"Revelation." Clementine turns towards a pose of men by a hitching post.

Her lackeys don't have the same uniformity as The Deputy's men do. The oldest among them is a man in farming apparel, scruffy hair too thin for his face. He says something to a woman in trousers and a white shirt. She laughs hoarsely, a scar present on her neck. She slaps her hand against a stain of blood on her midriff. The third is dressed more rustic than the other two, serious with the gruff appearance of an outlaw: brown hat, thick mutton chops growing with greyed strands, and meaty hands covered by worker's gloves. Beside the outlaw is a butcher, still in his leather apron, grooming a chestnut-coloured horse, laughing alongside the woman. They surround something obscured by the horses. All I can make out is a black boot.

"Bring him out, boys!" Clementine orders.

The outlaw and the farmer drag a man by the shoulders, his cheap, utilitarian boots leaving two trailing lines in the dirt. The man is clad in all black, military pants and a tactical vest over long sleeves. A black bag is drawn over his head. In a fevered pitch, rambling, he begs to be set free.

I try to take a step back but Clementine's palm is pressed against my spine, forcing me to stay my ground.

The farmer and the outlaw force the man in militant clothing to his knees.

"Please..." the man sniffles, resisting fruitlessly. "Please, I can help you. I can be of use. Don't kill me—Please!" He tries to get up. There's a tussle, sound of clothes ripping, and, in short order, he's brought back to his knees, coughing violently after he receives a fist to his gut from the outlaw. A phone falls from a tear in the man's pocket.

"Shut it," the farmer says, spitting blackened spit. Smell of chewing tobacco leaves traces of menthol and herbs in the air.

Like the dove, I am tempted to flee, let instinct take over. But the dove never escaped the shack. It operated on instinct and failed to find a way out. I will not make the same mistake.

"Ever played a game of roulette?" Clementine cocks her head to the side and I find it difficult to swallow, much less speak.

The outlaw picks up the phone. The screen, illuminated, shows no reception where the signal bars should be. The telecommunications network provider is spelt out on the top left corner of the screen before it cracks under the pressure of the outlaw's thumb: Incite.