Radioactive Page 18

  However, A350 is still dissatisfied.

  “Look at this as warm-up training. We are not done yet!” She says in an imperious tone. “Switch partners!”

  A350 sends Asha to train with Finn. Zoe partners with Ruby, and I am to spar with Clyde. Is she serious? I wasn’t able to hold my own against Asha, how am I supposed to have a chance against Clyde? Incredulous and exhausted, I stare at her.

  A350 just shrugs her shoulders. “In the mating battles, you will have to compete against the strongest of the strong if you want to win. We do not have enough time to let you compete for days against opponents of your level. Do your best!”

  Clyde blushed slightly at her words and throws me an apologetic look. Since grumbling and whining will not help anyway, I admit defeat and make my way back to the starting position.

  “Okay. Three, two, one... Go!”

  Unlike Asha, Clyde doesn’t fire; he instead waits for a reaction on my part. It is too late for a surprise attack so I try to outwit him with speed, like I tried with Asha most recently. As if stung by a tarantula, I start running and fire a shot when I find myself behind him. Clyde responds much faster than Asha and before I know it, he stands in front of me and knocks my gun arm away with his left arm. I am not used to such physical battles in the arena. Usually these fights work at a distance, but Clyde now sweeps his feet under my legs so that I fall to the ground. I know that he could easily shoot me now, but instead he backs away and gives me the opportunity to stand again. We stand apart from each other. I fire a shot and Clyde swerves to the side to avoid it as Asha had done before. My goal is to chase Clyde across the field, like I did before, but Clyde is faster than I am and ends up behind me again. Instead of shooting me, he throws me roughly to the ground.

  “Very good! Had he shot once, odds are you would have avoided it, but if you’re laying with your face in the sand the odds of you dodging decreases exponentially,” A350 comments while I spit sand out of my mouth. It is the second time Clyde had me dead to rights but did not fire. He is vastly superior to me.

  Exhausted, I turn back and look into the brightness of the ceiling lights.

  “Get up!” A350 cries. “I did not allow you to rest!”

  Clyde leans over me and holds out his hand to help me up. Relieved I grab his hand.

  “Damn it! Why did you did not shoot him at that moment?” A350 says as soon as I’m back on my feet next to Clyde.

  Taken by surprise, I look at her. “He offered me his help. If I were to shoot him then, how unfair would that be?”

  “The mating fights are not about who is fairest, only about who wins,” she shouts with a red face and then walks threateningly toward me.

  “If you want to get out of this without being fertilized, then you should fight by all means,” she hisses at me.

  Now she seems as exhausted as I am, even though she did not fight.

  “I think it is time for a break,” she says good-naturedly. She probably also realized that for us to continue fighting as tired as we are would not work well in the end.

  Clyde pats me encouragingly on the shoulder as we walk away from A350 to the other end of the arena.

  “You’re not so bad; your endurance is actually pretty good.”

  I know he means well, but I also know that if I cannot conquer my enemy, I run away from them. I have to shoot in order to win.

  Asha, Zoe, and Ruby sit in a circle on the floor. Finn leans on the wall away from them.

  I look to Zoe, but she only makes a dismissive gesture. “I’ve tried everything, but he’s more stubborn than any donkey. At least in that respect he’s still exactly the same. Believe me; I’ve tried to reach him. Told him all sorts of childhood memories, it did no good. I yelled at him and punched him,” she looks down in shame. “But nothing has helped. It almost seems as though he would fight tooth and nail against every memory and the more I try, the further away he becomes. I am really at a loss,” she admits to me desperately. Compassionately I nod to her. I understand only too well, but that’s the problem. The more we hope that Finn recalls his past and the more we press him, the more we lose him. It was already surprising that he was ready to participate with the training. The convincing argument was that this could help him improve his ranking. He is concerned about himself, not about wanting to spend time with us.

  Nevertheless, now I slowly head toward him because I simply cannot bear to see him standing all alone next to the wall. Whether he remembers or not, he is a part of me.

  He looks at me suspiciously when I stand in front of him. He says nothing.

  “Well, how was training?” I ask him as I sit down. Amazingly, he follows my example and sits down beside me.

  “D523 is great. She’ll have no trouble in the mating fights,” he complains with a derogatory look in Zoe’s direction. She looks over at us and sticks her tongue out at us when she notices his gaze. Finn looks away quickly. I chuckle softly.

  “And Asha?”

  I specifically use our names rather than the Legion names. I introduced Finn to everyone by name before we went into the arena, but he refuses to use them.

  “She’s good and has ambition. She knows what it’s about.”

  “Did you win against her?” I ask with a smile.

  “Yes,” he replies proudly.

  I am glad the fighting is going well for him. Actually, I expected he would be the worst of us because he never received lessons, but he is proving to be a natural talent. Who knows, maybe he would be a fighter like Clyde had he grown up from birth in the Legion. Or perhaps even a Legion commander, like me.

  We are silent for a moment and look over the battlefield to the stands where the Legion commanders typically sit. Our arms touch each other and I feel goose bumps. Although he is no longer the old Finn, my attraction to him has not diminished.

  “Are you still sad?” He suddenly asks and turns to face me. Surprised, I shake my head. I did not expect this question. I did not think he cared, but apparently he does. He just thought of me. This realization makes my heart pound and my hands shake slightly.

  “That’s good,” he replies. I have a feeling that he wanted to say more, but he hesitates and looks around. Lost in thought, he stirs up the sand next to his legs with his fingertips.

  “I also wanted to say something,” he begins haltingly. Words do not seem to exit his mouth as fluid as he would like. “I believe you now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I believe you and Zoe. That I am who you say I am.”

  “Do you remember?” I ask, immediately curious. But Finn shakes his head.

  “No, but I know you would not lie to me. You are honest.”

  His blind faith touches me. Apparently I have not done everything wrong.

  “I know that you and Zoe want nothing more than for me to remember again, but I do not know if I want that. To be honest, I’ve been pretty scared.”

  “Why?” I am horrified and want to know. Apparently he is defensive against his own memories.

  “This Finn seems to me to not be a good person. He is a traitor and a criminal. Someone I do not want to be. I like it in the Legion. I like my job and the regular routine. It gives me security.”

  His words prove to me that he really cannot remember. The old Finn would have never loved the Legion. He would have felt like an animal in a cage. His freedom was the most important thing to him. But another thought comes to mind. Perhaps the new Finn is a much better fit for me than the old one because in a way, I like the Legion. It is my home.

  “The only reason this Finn cannot have been quite as terrible as it seems to me, is that you liked him.”

  In his eyes is something like melancholy. I still mean something to him, even without his memory.

  “I like you, even now, but I never thought it would be that way,” I answer him honestly. “You always seemed rather annoyed by me.”

  Finn laughs. “I was! A lot! But that was only because you only spoke to me about who I was and no
t who I am now. You only cared about who I once was. But that has changed. For example, today, you approached me and asked me to come here. If you hadn’t, I probably would not have come.”

  “True, I understand that this is a great pressure on you, you know nothing of fighting in the Legion.”

  “I wish Zoe would understand,” Finn sighs and I realize immediately that this time he used her name and not her designation. It’s as if he dropped his protective walls.

  We look into each other’s eyes and although it is not like it used to be, it feels good. He is closer to me than ever before. For the first time I have the feeling that he really understands me. Between me and the old Finn, our differences were always about how we viewed the Legion, but that’s over. The new Finn sees the Legion as home, just as I do. He has forgotten everything that he was, yet he still likes me. He loves me just as I am. I have nothing to hide from him and he understands me. I feel understood by him.

  “Do you know why it’s important for me to achieve a high ranking?” He suddenly asks quite unexpectedly.

  I thought he was talking about his job in the Legion, but because he likes his job, that cannot be what he means. So I shake my head.

  “I want to get a chance to fight against you and win.”

  While he speaks, he does not take his eyes off me for a second. He stares deeply into my eyes.

  “Do you know what that would mean?” I say, confused.

  He nods without taking his eyes off me. “You were right, we’re not all equal. You may look like all of the others and are just one of many, but to me, you are unique. You’re the only girl that I’ve ever seen cry. I cannot stop thinking about it. You got something moving in me that I cannot describe. But since that day, nothing has been the same.”

  I become overcome with his emotional outburst and press my lips to his. I do not think A350 can see us. Everything around us has vanished in this moment. Finn does not pull away. Instead, he puts his rough hands gently on my cheeks and pulls me closer. Our noses touch each other while he looks into my eyes. It seems like he’s searching for something. I am now totally confused and do not know what I should think or feel. In this moment I long so much for the old Finn that it hurts and in the next moment I know the new Finn might not be so bad. I think it’s impossible for him to remember the past, but while he reciprocates my kiss as though he never forgot a second of our time together, I no longer know what to believe. Could it be perhaps that Finn recalls his past and just does not want to admit it? Is he playing with me?

  I look around. Maybe no one has noticed. I let my gaze wander across Zoe and the others. I do not have to let my gaze wander too far to find something to be afraid of. A350 is staring directly in our direction. She saw the kiss and trembles with rage.

  After training, I can feel every single muscle in my body. They seem to be totally overworked. I would like to just lie in my bed and not get up for a week, but training continues the next day and even now there is no time to rest. I have to redeem a promise.

  As I slip into the safety zone elevator, the sky has already turned dark blue. Clouds obscure the view of the stars and moon. It is a dark night.

  Hardly a second after I leave the elevator, the double doors of the sickbay open. Ruby walks through accompanied by Zoe and Finn. While Zoe bounces uneasily from one foot to the other, Finn stands in front with his arms beside him. He seems rather annoyed. Ruby sees me and rushes angrily in my direction.

  “You’re five minutes late! Can you imagine the panic you set off in me?” She asks me reproachfully. I know she was not worried about me, but for her to be caught in the atrium with two D-Class residents. I’m sure they had an excuse ready in case they were discovered.

  “I’m sorry,” I reply politely and open the doors to the sickbay with my finger. The doors reopen and grant us admission.

  As soon the doors close behind us, Zoe wraps her arms around her body, trembling.

  “I am happy that I no longer live in here. Even the air smells like torture to me.”

  Finn looks at her skeptically and seems more interested. He probably hardly remembers his first few hours here. His rehabilitation was carried out very quickly.

  Ruby, however, is in a hurry. She is always on the alert and always vigilant. Perhaps this is why she was never exposed as a spy. I do not even know how she supplies the rebels with information. I bet if I ask her about it, I would get no answer anyway. She would probably reply something like, ‘The less you know, the better.’

  The corridors of the sickbay are still like a labyrinth to me. But this time I’m better prepared than last time and had secretly printed a map for the entire ward so it will be easier to find Z318’s cell.

  As we stand at the door, Zoe’s face is almost as pale as the gray walls around us. Finn raises his right eyebrow when he reads the name on the door.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “”It’s a home visit,” Zoe replies coldly. She seems to lose patience with her older brother more and more.

  “Why? I do not even know most of the residents. I know of no one with a Z designation. Why is their home way out here in a cell block?”

  Obviously she did not tell her brother who Z318 is. If he knew, he probably would not have come.

  “Do you think it’s right for the Legion commanders to lock someone away just because they have a different opinion? Zoe complains with clenched fists.

  “Hey, let’s go inside,” I try to calm the two. “We’ll check it out. After that you may go wherever you want,” I say to Finn. That seems to calm him down, but he still seems tense.

  I open the door and we enter the dark room which is only lit by the bright light from the small window in the cell.

  I can almost hear Zoe’s heartbeat. She stands as if rooted in the room, staring at the little window as if it is the gateway to a different, better world.

  Slowly she approaches the door, as if she were afraid that it would disappear into thin air if she were to approach it too fast.

  Very carefully, she puts her hands on the cold pane of the window and looks into the interior of the cell. Startled, she gasps and begins to sob. “It’s her.”

  Tears swell inexorably from her eyes as she turns to me and repeats her statement again, as if she could hardly believe it. “It’s her. Can you open the door?” She adds imploringly.

  I do not know if I can open it. The door is secured by a number field. Last time I was afraid to try to enter any number. I was afraid of Z318. I am still afraid of her.

  “Do you want to see?” I ask Finn, but he just shrugs his shoulders indifferently.

  “Why should I? You’re fixing to open the door, right?”

  He seems angry at me, that he had to come up here at all. Maybe that will change when he sees the person standing before him is his mother.

  The only number that comes to my mind is the year of the founding of the Legion: 2105.

  With trembling fingers I type the number into the keypad. I expect to see a red light and hear the computer voice telling us access is denied. But nothing happens. Instead, the door clicks and swings open a crack.

  There is no stopping Zoe. Before I could do anything, she storms past me and rips the door open. She runs into the interior of the cell and throws her arms around her weeping mother.

  “Mama,” she sobs again and again.

  While Maggie looks even more surprised at first, she takes Zoe firmly in her arms and buries herself in her neck. Tears seep from her cheeks into the brown fabric of Zoe’s suit. She strokes her daughter’s bald head.

  This scene touches me and strikes me as odd at the same time. I cannot say how, but it seems to me as if I have seen this before. No, not seen, but felt. Above all is the caring response of Maggie, which is probably typical of a mother, but this reminds me of someone. Perhaps Grace? But she and Emily were never separated. I never observed such a scene with them.

  I look away to treat the two to at least a little privacy. My view affixes
to Finn, who stands behind me, staring spellbound inside the cell.

  Now I notice Maggie and Zoe looking at Finn. Both of them smile, stretching their outstretched hands out to him, inviting him to their midst.

  “Come to us,” Zoe urges him, but her voice trembles with emotion.

  Panicked, Finn shakes his head and takes a step back.

  “Finn, my son,” Maggie whispers lovingly and takes a step in his direction.

  Shocked, Finn strikes the door shut so his mother and sister disappear behind the cell door.

  Furious, he looks at me. “How could you do this to me?”

  I am overwhelmed and do not know how to answer. I just wanted to help.

  “I thought that seeing your mother would help you to remember...”

  His fist thundered against the closed door, even before I could finish my sentence.

  “And again, it’s all about my fucking memory! I thought you understood that I have started a new life. The old Finn is dead!”

  His voice reverberates like an unpleasant humming in my ears. He tells me that the old Finn is dead, yet at that moment he behaves exactly like him: Aggressive and baseless.

  “I understand, but it does not change the fact that Maggie is your mother,” I reply sheepishly.

  “Z318,” Finn replies coldly.

  I cannot believe how unemotionally he talks about his own mother. His mother, whose death had almost driven him insane. The mother, to whom he wept and mourned for days, nights, weeks, and months. The mother, for whose death he was willing to destroy the entire Legion to avenge.

  He remembers... he must! Otherwise he would have hardly been so petrified at the sight of her.

  “Take me away from here!” Finn calls to Ruby. She does not look at me before opening the door for Finn to leave.

  “I would like nothing better,” she murmurs softly. Finn follows her through the door. I feel horrible. Just a few hours ago, Finn and I were so close, and now he’s mad again.

  I breathe deeply in and out, trying to push back the rising tears. I would love to shout loudly and bang my fists against the wall. The pain in my heart is too great. I’m trying to get the trembling in my hands under control and rid my head of all the thoughts and memories.