CHAPTER 1   The Hunted

Every night she searched for God in the emptiness of White Out.  His Eminence had proclaimed that was its purpose.  When White Out occurred, daily at precisely 22:45, she would sit in lotus position in her small sparsely furnished cell, alone, blind and deaf, willing her mind to go as blank as her hearing and vision, hoping for a state of grace in forced meditation.  But tonight was different.  Tonight, heart pounding and eyes darting, she waited for White Out hunkered behind a large stainless-steel rolling bin, hidden, she hoped, from roving surveillance cams.  No bots worked in this kitchen.  The Magister Templi considered manual labor morally uplifting.  It was just as well; she was alone.  The infoLayer in her mind ticked off the time.  22:43:16.  Two minutes!  Two minutes and then White Out would override her hearing and vision, two minutes and then—she repeated to herself for the hundredth time—roll the bin out of the way, stand up, count 12 paces to the door, feel for the old fashioned keypad lock (can’t be hacked), manually input the code (she’d memorized the keypad), and…oh my god, 22:43:24! A minute and a half!  She swallowed past the lump in her throat…concentrate!  Input the code, open the door, walk 3 paces, turn left, then count 52 paces on the cobblestones.  The infoLayer clock kept ticking…22:44:03...one minute!  She felt nauseous—adrenalin overload…52 paces, then what’s next?  What’s next?  Yes, yes…after the cobblestones turn left again, feel for the gravel path…forty five seconds!  Only bloody forty five seconds!  Where was I?  Yes, the gravel path…then it’s 122 paces to the gate…just past the rubbish bins…thirty seconds!  Oh god, what I’d give for just a tiny hit of skag, just to take the edge off…no, stop!  Ten seconds!  I’m at the gate, I wait for it to unlock as usual for the 22:50 rubbish drone...five, four, three…oh god, oh god, oh shit, be brave!…two, one…

The world vanished into soundless sightless nothing. 

Go!

She rolled the bin, stood up, fumbled for twelve paces, no door, took three more, felt it.  Disoriented, heart pounding, her clammy hands searched for the antiquated input keys.   Bugger!  Where are they?  Groping, just to the side of the jamb, on the right, there!  Now the code, what’s the bloody code?  Shit, shit, just try to relax and remember the bloody code!  Trembling fingers keyed in the numbers she had flirted out of a kitchen hand.  Too long!  This is taking too long!  Her mouth was dry, her head useless.  No sight, no sound, a bloody brain fry.  White Out was a chip-induced hardcore mindFuck, and trying to do anything in the nothingness was like trying to do it rat-arsed on cheap shabu with a sack over your head.  Deal with it.  She had hoped to keep her mind focused, like she had practiced, but that had been White Out in her cell, doing nothing other than sitting and vegging out in the forced meditation.  White Out mixed with Real was way different, and fast turning into a royal cock-up.  Concentrate!  The only thing that came was the smell of bleach from the after-dinner cleanup.  Concentrate!  In tears, trembling, she fumbled with the lock for an adrenalin-fueled eternity—and then icy air hit her face.  The door had swung open.  Thank god!  She slipped on her gloves.  Walk three paces, turn left.  Now a long one, 52 paces.  Concentrate!  Don’t lose the count!...44, 45…she stumbled on the cobblestones.  Bloody zkuntin’ hell!  Was that 45 or 46?  46!  It was 46!…just six more…and left…it must be here!  It must!  Desperately she felt for the gravel path with her foot...it wasn’t there!  She inched forward a step at a time…where is it?  Disorientation overwhelmed her.  She crouched down, felt the frozen ground through her gloves, it must be here…maybe a little further…gravel!  Found it! 

She stood up and followed the gravel, counting to the beat of the only sound in her deaf world—the pounding of her heart.  94, 95...she slowed down and held her hand out, a few steps more…she touched the fence.  Where’s the gate?  During the one dry run she’d managed all this had taken two minutes.  With sight and sound it had seemed so simple.  Was she on schedule?  How long had it been?  In White Out there was no infoLayer.  Bed check was at 22:50, same time as the rubbish drone…where’s the bloody rubbish?  If she was missing at bed check they would immediately trace her and then…no doubt a hairshirt and extra time in White Out, maybe for days.  Stop thinking about that!  She felt a series of bars, ice-cold metal, vertical—a fence!  She worked her hands to the right…Where are the bloody rubbish bins?  She should have bumped into them by now.  She couldn’t have missed them, they were lined up by the gate, waiting for the drone.  Then it hit her—the bars felt…too delicate, not as thick as she remembered.  This isn’t right…this is all wrong!  Panicked, shaking, she heard growling.  She froze.  I’m hallucinating! I shouldn’t be hearing anything!  Dogs?  What!?  Shit!  The Dobermans!

“Going somewhere, Melody?”  The unctuous sarcasm detonated like a bomb in the barren whiteness.

“Is this why you signed up for kitchen duty?”

  The voice was no longer in her head, but behind her.  Startled, Melody spun around. She felt her hair whipping through the wintry air.  White Out had vanished.  She was in Real, confronted by a tall ascetic gentleman with long dark oily hair and a dark suit.  His pitch-black eyes glared at Melody.  Oh bloody skuntin’ fuck!  It was a holo—a holo of the Adeptus Alf, flanked by two very real Dobermans.  Their low growls exuded clouds of condensation.

 “No, I...” Melody nervously eyed the dogs.  “I...I realized that I put the wrong marker chip on the compostable rubbish,” Melody blurted out lines she had rehearsed in case things went down the pan.

“Nonsense.  I think this is a very cleverly designed escape, Melody…”  No condensation followed the holo’s words.

“No, no, of course not!”

“…but obviously you didn’t realize a blind step is considerably shorter.”  

What?  Shorter?  Then it hit her.  Melody realized she was standing at the fence next to the rose garden, nowhere near the garbage gate.  The Adeptus was right.  Plainly, her paces had been much too short, and she had turned much too soon and gone down the wrong gravel path, the one that led to the rose garden.

“No, really, it was because of the green bin marker.”  Melody shook her head as innocently as she could manage and smiled nervously.  She was regaining her composure and going into siren-mode.  She knew how to use her beauty, teal eyes and posh Brit accent to charm and mesmerize.

“You’re lying, Melody.”

“No!  Really, I was going to the rubbish bins.”  It was half the truth, so not quite a lie.

Hard dark holo eyes regarded Melody for a moment.  “Trainers, Melody?  And your winter coat?”

“It’s cold…”

“Yes…obviously.  And the rubbish drone arrives at exactly 22:50…ahh…there it is.”  They heard the clanging of the rubbish drone collecting the bins.  “Odd that you’re also here, Miss London.”

“I had to deal with the marker before the drone showed up.  I got caught in White Out, but I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t lie, Melody,” the holo cut her off with suave scorn.  The Adeptus was clearly immune to her charms and not at all mesmerized.  “You have been under observation ever since you left your cell.  Did you really think you could fool church surveillance?”

“No, of course not.  It’s just that if I’d reported my mistake, you’d have had my hide!”  Melody wiped a sham tear with the back of her hand.

“You are still lying, Melody, and I’m not amused.”

 “Why would I need to escape?  I am here of my own free will.”  Her charm and tears having failed, Melody was regaining that spirit of rebellion that she’d always possessed and had got her into this mess in the first place.  “If I want to leave, I can walk out anytime.  The Magister Templi said as much.”

“You signed a legal contract, Miss London.  It forbids you from leaving until you are clean.  So, you see, you cannot leave.  After all, the Church of GodMind’s rehab reputation is at stake.”

“I am bloody clean!”

“Addictive cravings are still registering when you sleep, and, quite clearly, you still let your emotions rule your thinking.  You have regressed since the Magister Templi spoke to you.  You are nowhere near ready to leave.”

“What?  When I’m sleeping?  That’s a load of rubbish!” Melody’s eyes burned insolent under mahogany bangs, “I haven’t touched skag in a year!  Go to hell, and…and fuck this ghastly place!”

“Watch your language, Melody.  You are already in serious trouble, having been caught attempting to escape.”

“I wasn’t, I told you…”

“Lies is what you told me,” the Adeptus Alf holo interrupted her, “we will hook you up to the scanner and test your story.  If you are lying, you will be sent to isolation.  If you are not, and you did make a mistake, you will be reprimanded twice, once for the mistake and once for not reporting it.”

“If I was stupid enough to lie, I’d make up a better story.”

“Mind what you say, young lady.  Such insubordination will earn you a hair shirt for a week!”

“No!  No more bloody hair shirt, no more bloody isolation!  I’m done with this!  I’m clean, dammit!  His Eminence said I could go home for Christmas!”

“I’m sorry, Melody, I have no idea what His Eminence may or may not have said to you.  You know very well he is no longer with us.”

“And that means His Eminence’s word is no longer valid!?  HE DID SAY THAT!!”

“Do…not…ever raise your voice at me, Melody.  You will wait with the dogs until security arrives.”  The Adeptus Alf holo vanished leaving the growling Dobermans in charge.