Quantum state, p.4
Quantum State, page 4
Then, I wonder why bots have not found the blueprints just hanging there for anyone willing to see. Perhaps because they're just directed to fulfill a mission and exit? Not to snoop around like me and Esfir have. They aren't curious like we are—like humans. They have a program to fulfill and they do. That's it.
I often question their ability to govern us—humans, I mean—because they are so far from anything human, from understanding human feeling. They try. I know they do. Even at Pod, educatebots ask questions, prying into the emotions and thoughts of all of us students, as if they'll somehow figure out some key component that makes them so different, that makes us so…human.
I don't think they've figured out much yet. I imagine it would be like us trying to understand the mind of a butterfly—one of the few insects inside of Cherni besides flies, gnats, and bees. Maybe we could ascertain some certain things—but we could never really know what thoughts circulate inside the minds of such boundless beauty.
Sometimes I stare at the eyes of my educatebot in Pod, when it's busy tending to another student. I wonder what circuits control it, how it understands its commands. If it ever does anything MAQS doesn't want it to. Inevitably, it looks up at me and I have to turn away.
I nestle under my covers where I'm warm, as thoughts of bots, the Cylindrical, and Mama's words pound my brain. Get out while I still can? Find the truth? When I get up tomorrow morning, I'll only have twelve more days till my eighteenth birthday. I have more questions than answers and no idea where to begin, except that Esfir—the one person I can rely on nowadays—might be up for another break-in at the Cylindrical.
State of Captivity
When we arrive at the Cylindrical with our facial disguises this time, it's still 7:30 p.m. Dark enough to give us coveted cover, but not past curfew yet. We're developing a routine—one I'm happy to perform if I can find answers. We take the same path as we did the previous day, and I stay close behind Esfir as he leads me toward the Cylindrical. Even in all this darkness, I'm not used to how magical the structure appears—like a castle in the clouds. I remember reading a story at Pod called Jack and the Beanstalk when I was only six, and this mission reminds me a lot of that story. Only MAQS is the giant.
As we step closer to the Cylindrical, I keep my eyes wide open in search of the weather balloon, but I don't see anything red above us, and the string I attached to the tree branch is gone. “MAQS found the balloon!” I shout in a whisper and Esfir remains cool, except for the fingers rubbing against the tree trunk and the veins in his tense forehead.
“Never mind the balloon. I brought the vials. We can use those.”
My sigh lifts my chest as disappointment washes over me.
“You were hoping for another weather balloon?”
I shrug with a half-smile. “Yeah.”
“It was near impossible to get the first one. There's no way we're going to get another balloon. Mama added a digital lock to her cabinet when she found one missing.”
My brows arch; I feel the angle digging in my face. “Did you get in trouble?”
His voice turns scratchy. “I told her I didn't take it when she asked. I'm not sure if she believed me, but she didn't turn me into MAQS.”
“Still, what are we going to do with vials?”
His pinky finger plays with his bottom lip as his eyes squint, like they do when he's got a brilliant idea. “I thought we'd take a sample of that blood on the blueprints inside, and maybe we could have it analyzed.”
I nod my head as a broad smile crosses my face. This addition to our simple weather sampling is a clear win. “Yeah, great idea.”
Esfir hits the near-invisible button on the Cylindrical and the door swooshes open. “Come on.” He waves his hand at me.
When we slide into the Cylindrical, I'm not as afraid anymore. Maybe because I'm familiar with the layout and know what we're looking for this time. I don't want any more surprises. Esfir leads, but reaches his hand back to me where I slip my palm into his warm clasp. He pulls me with him as we head toward the other side, to the wall with the black paper and chalk-white diagram.
I point with my forefinger. “There. There's the bloodstain.”
Esfir grins in a quick wink before he dabs a moist swab of the blood from the paper and then sits the swab inside one of his vials. “Got it.” Then he carefully tucks the vial back into his knapsack.
“And the blueprints.” I gesture with a tug on one corner. “Let's take 'em.”
“I like the way you think.” Esfir's grin widens as he helps me lift the black and white diagram off of the silvery wall. He rolls up the paper and then slips the blueprints into his knapsack with the vials. “Alright, let's go.”
Just as we turn to head back to the door, my watch vibrates. “Curfew.”
“Let's just get out of here,” he says as we both eye each other. Neither of us wants a repeat of yesterday.
Darting back to the silvery door, I keep my eyes on the knapsack and wonder whose blood will turn up in the analysis, and then where we'll even be able to analyze the sample. We'll have to steal a keycard and sneak into either my stepmum's lab or his mama's lab.
As the door swishes open, and my eyes explore the greenery of outside, I hear the buzz buzz I dread. “They've found us!”
A crimson chest glow fades in and out near the trees, the color denoting bots engaged in stopping criminal activity. Funny, I never thought of myself as a criminal.
The bot in front orders, “Step out of the Cylindrical and wait for arrest.”
We don't intend to wait for them to arrest us. Esfir looks to me and I nod with a sure glint in my eye, so we race out of the Cylindrical together, the weight of both our bodies knocking the bot over momentarily. We have to dodge the other two bots behind him, as Esfir swings left and I go right. We head toward the West where we'll find that zone from yesterday. At least this time we know where we're going.
But Keepers are prepared for us, waiting on either side of the bots about ten feet away, and one grabs my wrist as I try to dodge him. MAQS must have put up additional security because of the break in last night. Two Keepers jump Esfir, knocking him to the ground, but he's had practice fighting in school with boys who pick on him for having red hair.
The practice pays off, because the two Keepers obviously have little experience at taking someone down. Esfir kicks and frees himself from one Keeper and then uses his hand and the force of his body to push the other Keeper off until he's freed enough to jerk up and run off from them. They chase him, shouting at him to stop or he'll face harsher sentencing, but Esfir doesn't listen. Nothing can stop him now.
I slam my heel into the foot of the Keeper who's clasped me and the sudden shock causes him to scream and release me. I race toward Esfir.
“This way,” Esfir shouts as we meet on the other side of the Cylindrical. I keep to his side, our arms brushing against each other as we hustle over the hill. I tilt my head to glance behind me and see a human face in the short distance, maybe only a few yards away. His blue eyes haunt me and so does his mocha-colored hair, whipping over an angular chin. I remember that face—from somewhere.
I flip my head back around to follow Esfir and my left foot hits a large rock. My toes ache as I stumble forward and land on my knees and palms. Esfir doesn't notice until he's several yards in front of me, and bots have surrounded me. When Esfir looks back, concern swallows his face, and I wave him off. “Get out of here!”
His feet hesitate, and I know every fiber in his being wants to throw a few punches and knock out a bot or two before he's taken captive with me, but I yell at him again—this time more firmly—and after he looks at me for a few seconds, I can see it in his eyes that he's come to peace with it, and he instead races away. He'll have to save me another day. He knows how much this evidence means to me, to freeing Cherni.
I could live with myself in jail knowing we had uncovered evidence to take MAQS down. I couldn't live with another failure, and Esfir knows it. He knows me too well. So, when he darts away from me, he doesn't look back, and I turn all my attention to my captor.
Hard metal fingers press against my forearms, and I don't fight. We got what we wanted. The bloodstains, the blueprints. Esfir will know what to do with them, and with the bots focused on me, Esfir will have more time to get away and study them.
Two bots lift me to my feet in a jerk, my body moves in one quick motion as my eyes scan the shadow of a Keeper marching toward me with a heavy stride. The grass scrunches under his thick black boots, and his sturdy legs reveal more muscle than fat. He is an inch shorter than Esfir.
When he stands in front of me, moonlight trickles over his face and his stormy eyes capture mine. I'm not sure why he is so familiar, and curiosity keeps me unwittingly staring. Bots don't recognize me yet, the facial disguise continuing to confuse their system's metrics, but when the Keeper wipes one cheek and under-eye clear of the shoe polish, he half-grins. “Masha Mikhailov.”
He knows my name. I instinctively jerk back—as far back as I can on grass filled with bots—uncertain of his advancement. “Why are you acting so afraid?” He steps closer to me, leaning over me, his deep breaths wafting on against me.
“I…I'm not afraid.” My chest puffs and I try to stand taller and more sure of myself, even with metal fingers gripped around my arms.
“Then why don't you say hello?” His big lips ruffle in a welcoming smile.
“Why?”
“Because you know me.”
I shake my head. “No, I don't,” I say plainly, though I know I've seen him somewhere.
He laughs, his roaring guffaw the loudest sound on the hill.
“What's so funny?”
His head shakes as his laugh softens. “It'll come to you.” He turns to the bots. “Bring her with me.”
The bots march behind this strange young man clad in a dark gray tunic who can't be any older than eighteen, whose backside is wide and shoulders broad. I keep my focus ahead and on the sporadic stars of the deep night sky as I think of Esfir reaching the next zone safely and I grin.
A few short Keepers walk by my Keeper's side, awaiting instructions, as if ranking lower than him. I notice they only have one blue stripe across their left chest, whereas my Keeper has three. I've learned from studying about Keepers that they receive a stripe with each promotion and that promotions are based on their contributions to Cherni. “We'll take her to the jailhouse,” my Keeper commands.
The other Keepers look up at me with disgust in their eyes, as if I've killed some defenseless animal.
“Twice in one week.” One Keeper shakes his head in reference to my Cylindrical break-ins.
All I did was defy MAQS. “So I broke into the Cylindrical, so what?!” I growl, spit flying from the corners of my mouth.
One Keeper, with a scar on his cheek, retorts, “Like mat, like daughter.”
“Now, now, none of that here,” the obviously lead Keeper commands with a fix around my arm, and they all hush.
“MAQS sure keeps you all on a short leash,” I press, wanting a reaction, a fight. Anything to keep my mind off the fact that I won't be with Esfir when he discovers what the blood means. Anything to keep them busy and off Esfir's trail.
The Keeper who first addressed me says, “We chose to be Keepers because along with the bots, they are the backbone of Cherni.”
“Whatever you tell yourself,” I hiss.
They escort me out of the park and through Esfir's zone, and over the sidewalk past a few more zones before entering the Keeper's area where they'll thrown me into jail. And I swear, as we traverse toward the jailhouse I feel as if we're being followed.
When we finally reach the Keeper's area, I'm escorted into the jailhouse and placed behind bars. I kick a few times, and might have even hit the Keeper with the scar, before the rusty door clicks shut. My palms clasp the bars and I kick the metal cell as the scarred Keeper grins before walking away from me.
Screaming doesn't seem to help, and then my Keeper, my captor with the stormy eyes dismisses the other Keepers before he stands by my cell. I plop onto the cold concrete block next to a tiny window against the far wall. It takes a moment before I notice piled blankets on a table outside the cell, against the wall near the entranceway.
“So, are you just going to stare at me all night? Or are you going to give me a blanket?” I rub my shoulders. “It's cold.”
“Of course.” The Keeper, my captor, grabs a thin sheet from behind him on the tarnished wooden table and slips the cotton sheet through the bars. “And the name is Kazimir. Kazimir Kuznetsov.”
Even his name is familiar and leaves me restless as I cuddle with my blanket, huddled hard against the concrete corner. “How long do I have to stay in here?”
Kazimir rakes his fingers through his thick hair, which dangles over his shoulders, and chuckles.
“Something funny?”
“For someone willing to get into trouble, you sure don't know a lot about the consequences.”
My grip around the blanket tightens. “Maybe I'm more focused on the important things?”
“Like getting yourself thrown into jail?” His gaze is soft, but his words are sarcastic and burn me.
“That wasn't part of the plan.”
“So, what was the plan?”
“Nothing. You wouldn't understand.” I'm defensive and hide my cheeks in the warmth of the blanket, wanting for morning to come soon.
He stands by the cell, quiet, waiting for me to say something more. Or maybe he just likes staring at me.
“So, how long will I be down here?”
He fiddles with the pocket in his tunic, the one with the key to the cell, and then answers sympathetically, “A few days. Bots will order a sentence for you before you are allowed to be released.”
“Bots, sure,” I say with a resonating disapproval in my tone.
He is about to step away, into the corridor and to his desk, most likely, but instead he hesitates, his left heel freezing, and he turns back to me. “You'd prefer to be sentenced by Keepers?”
“At least they're human.”
“And therefore can be in error.”
I grumble, “And bots can't?”
The sound of his sandals hitting the floor grows closer until his fingers wrap around the iron bars of my cell and my eyes gaze up at his, hopeful for an early release that won't happen. “Bots are programmed by MAQS. They don't have any intention other than what they are programmed for, and so they don't lie, don't abuse their power, and don't make mistakes like humans do.”
“So, you believe they are more trustworthy.”
“Of course. I'm a Keeper, aren't I?”
“Well, that's why you wouldn't understand my plans.”
“It's funny.” His face lights up and he scratches the side of his temple.
“What is?”
“That you sound so much like your mama.”
Suddenly, I grow very quiet and don't know what to say. I just breathe until I burst. “What do you mean, my mama?!” I stand up, letting the blanket drop from me to the hard floor as my feet pound toward the cell bars, my fingers wrapping too close to his own, Mama's white ribbon on my left wrist still dangling.
“You don't know?” He shakes his head, remembering something relevant. “Oh, of course not. Only Keepers keep the criminal histories of Cherni.”
“Know what? What do you know?”
He clears his throat and then glances behind himself as if he doesn't want anyone else to hear, and then his sea-blue irises grow big on mine. “I saw video of your mama when she was brought into this cell. That's how I know what she sounded like.”
I feel like he's told me a forbidden secret. “This cell?” I suddenly feel a chill cut through me like a razor as I glance around the room in search of ghosts.
“Yeah, the cell you're standing in held your mama.”
“You mean she—”
His head lowers. “Yeah, this is where it happened.”
I know he means her suicide, the one decision that MAQS couldn't make for her, and I'm not sure if I feel creeped out, privileged, or sad—but I know one thing for sure. I hate him, hate everything the Keepers stand for, that MAQS stands for, everything that killed Mama.
I feel faint, and have to catch my breath before I glance at the white ribbon on my wrist and forget I'm talking to someone I despise. “There's video of when it happened?” My voice shakes.
“No, unfortunately video was not running at that time.” His expression is remorseful, and that angers me more—Keepers don't care—but I refocus on Mama's ribbon. “We do have a few hours a day of her in here for six years.”
“Six years,” I say aloud, angry in being reminded how long she was kept away from me. “She was held for six years, with no rights to see her family, to see me!” My hands tremble and I feel like I'm losing control.
“MAQS does what's best. You must trust that,” Kazimir explains, but his propaganda falls on deaf ears, because I know better.
“What is best?!” I snap, and turn from the bars in a quick pace back to the concrete block in the corner.
“I know it's hard to believe sometimes, but you can trust MAQS,” Kazimir says, so sure, so devoutly. I don't know if I admire him or despise him more for that weakness.
I take a deep gulp, swallowing my pride. “Can I see the videos?”
Kazimir pauses before replying. “I'm afraid that would be up to MAQS. Not me.”
“Then ask her,” I say, almost begging, my bottom lip in a soft quiver from the cell's chills and my own desperation.
“Okay, I will,” he says without argument, with a certain commitment in his expression, although I can't believe he'd do that for me. “I'll let you know tomorrow.”
I try to forget I hate him. “Thank you.”
“Why don't you get some sleep? You've had a long day.” Kazimir steps into the corridor, and then I hear him say, “So have I.”
