The Arc by Oliver Benjamin

Author:Oliver, Benjamin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicken House

Day wasn’t the only one who didn’t survive Happy’s second attempt to kill the rebels. Seven people down in the subway station lost their lives when a portion of the roof fell in on them, five Missing and two Clones. The youngest was only seven years old. If Pander had not had her healing capabilities, the shard of glass that had sliced through an artery in her throat would have killed her too.

Kina and I had returned to the mall and found one half of it still standing. We’d picked our way through the damage to what remained of the computer store, and salvaged some solid-state drives. Igby said they should be enough – a small mercy.

That was four or five hours ago, and Igby has been working relentlessly ever since. Instructing a rolling band of helpers to type code, to insert lines of ones and zeros, to plug in cooling units and external hard drives. The Missing and the Clones who helped out seem pleased to be finally doing something.

We stand around, mostly adhering to Igby’s theory (backed up with equations) that we should stay more than two metres apart to reduce the risk of Mosquito drones recognizing the heat signature of a mass of people.

We listen to the crying of those who have lost people they love, and we talk about Day, and those who died during the mass exodus of Purgatory, and all others who have fallen along the way.

When it’s my turn to copy the code that Igby had written freehand before the computers were up and running, I try to lose myself in the work, try to absorb the void of the cold numbers and letters and commands, but even that seems impossible.

‘It was crazy, by the way,’ Igby says, interrupting my tedious task of typing.

‘What was crazy?’ I reply, barely looking up from the glowing bank of screens.

‘Slipping that eyeball into my pocket before you left with Tyco.’

‘I thought you might be able to use it.’

‘Oh, I can use it,’ he says, soldering an ancient mother-board. ‘But you could’ve warned me that you’d basically put a locator device in my pocket! Do you know how close I came to letting that fucking thing see me?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I was trying to help.’

Something in the flatness of my tone seems to irritate him – I’m not in the mood for joking around. ‘What is wrong with you, man? You’ve been morose as fuck since you came back from the dead.’

I don’t answer his question, instead I try to change the subject. ‘Oh, hey,’ I say, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the bag of Ebb Day had given me. ‘I found this in the city, thought it might be useful for . . . I don’t know, something.’

Igby looks at it and then takes it. ‘I guess Dr Ortega could use it as an anaesthetic or something.’ He puts it into his pocket. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘What question?’

‘What is with you? What’s up?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say.

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