Dissolution

Chapter 20 - Going, Going...

           

The sun glowed distant and cold in the sky. It leapt across the unimaginable distance, making the city shine so brightly around me I had to drop my eyes. A sea of feet shambled past, accompanied by the hum of transactions and the flash of Ads. I looked at the Promenade with tired eyes. I'd spent hours of my life here, just eating away time. Maybe even days. I remembered the first time I'd dragged Jake here, how we'd tried to come up with the most ridiculous outfits. It had been a good day. We'd bought PERCO's TripleChoc Ice Cream afterward and savored it together. A safe day.

Jake. I looked at the Promenade now and all I saw were the towers flanking it like mercs. The towers that had held sway over me for so long, over both my waking life and my dreams. MERCE. ANRON. In the distance, I saw the gleam of PERCO Center and HARLIN Solutions, and I knew that if I turned around, I'd see the rows and rows of DRAYTH's warehouses. I took three breaths in quick succession. ANRON was the tower I noticed now, yawning above me, casting a shadow as thick as dust.

Defiantly, I walked under it and into the nearest shop.

There was a single girl at the front watching something on her UConn. She didn't even glance up as I moved past her and let the shop swallow me whole into a different world. A world of pastels and soft music, of artfully arranged beauty. I took my time, brushing my hands over the soft fabrics and inhaling the scent of clean clothes. They smelled sharp, almost warm. I grabbed a handful and moved to the back.

I'd never noticed it before, but the dressing rooms now seemed too confined. Too flimsy. It reminded me of stepping into Jake's office and the moment I'd realized what the heavy footsteps outside had meant. Well, I wasn't running for too much longer. I gritted my teeth and yanked the curtain across to hide me. Suddenly it could have been last week, when I'd been shopping for my Auctioning clothes with Carly and Eleika. I remembered pouting at the mirror then and killing myself laughing, finding it hilarious. Now, I was afraid that if I started laughing, I wouldn't stop. I leaned against the cold mirror, hard, and then started stripping. It felt like crawling out of a cocoon. I hadn't realized that on one side, the professor's blood had stuck my sleeve to my skin. Her blood crumbled to dust as I pulled it off. I watched the flakes float through the air. After a while, I squeezed my eyes shut.

When I was naked, I forced myself to look at the ugly thing in the mirror: at my swollen limbs and my reddened skin from the chemical burn. It was actually less awful than I'd imagined. I put my nose up to the glass just to check. Yes, the redness had mostly faded, and it'd even taken some of my imperfections away with it. The shiny skin on my forehead that had once been puckered with acne scars was now soft and clear, burned to purity.

I looked away, feeling not quite human. I wondered how long I'd stay alive with whatever ANRON decided to do to me. Whether they'd cut me open again and again, or whether they'd just kill me outright and dissect my remains. Which would give them the most data? What would be the most profitable to them? I didn't know. My body started trembling and it did not stop. As if somewhere, it had an animal instinct for the oncoming death, or that sixth sense that made rats abandon a sinking city. In that moment, I looked into the mirror and recognized my mother's eyes staring back. And something broke in me. It unfurled like the light from the illusion room spreading its secrets across the walls.

I saw it all then, finally. The fear beneath my mother's devotion to ANRON. The way my father's gaze slid away from his shaking hands when she spoke. The air suddenly seemed too thick. Too bitter. The weight of it crushed my lungs. I couldn't believe it. After all this time—after eighteen years—I finally understood my parents. When I'd never see them again. When I'd missed my chance to press my father's shaking hands still in mine and hold my mother as she coughed her awful, rasping cough and tell her it was okay, I understood now. What ANRON had done to them. What ANRON had really done to them. I wanted to laugh and cry all at once.