Vocafeum rose up on the moors, a monster that refused to be slain with the mag-road as its silver tongue, leading to the hopefully evitable jaws of death.

  The hov hadn’t even landed before we leapt out, armed with Briar’s laser guns that Daniella reluctantly agreed to let us use.

  We’d descended some way away so as not to be seen by the patrolling wardens, ducking between the trees and bushes that blanketed the moors, a weird quiet hush settling upon our surroundings.

  We got to the gates, timing it for the brief period the wardens were on the other side of their parameters. The lasers from our guns burnt a hole in the lock, allowing us to open the gate just wide enough for us all to squeeze through and dash to the institution’s main entrance, with no clue whether we’d arrived too late.

  The reception welcomed us with its bleakness, the receptionist’s grey eyes widening as she reached for the phone to call for help. My gun was at her face before she could move another inch.

  “Don’t.”

  She slowly released her hand in surrender. Not that she needed to, I’d never shoot someone, but she didn’t need to know that.

  “Have they left yet?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, I’m not in the mood. The people here are being sent to the Estate. Where are they?”

  “In- In the basement loading chamber,” she answered meekly, a bead of sweat running down her perfect makeup.

  “Briar, keep guard of her, make sure she doesn’t move,” ordered Daniella, gesturing for the rest of us to follow her as she walked out of the room. “Niles, we’ll go left. Niva and Ayla, you two go right.”

  We set off towards the main flight of stairs but from above and below I could already hear the thudding of warden boots.

  “We’ll take the lift,” I said, and Niles and Daniella split off, leaving me and Niva to make our way to the lift at the end of the right hand of the corridor.

  It trudged slowly to our floor, opening with a ding.

  “State member number and destination please,” demanded a familiar robotic voice.

  “VC2104 for the basement,” I blurted out, both of us stepping inside, but the lift wouldn’t budge.

  “VC2104 is no longer a valid member number, please use a different one.”

  I smacked my head against the wall.

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Niva kicked the lift before pausing, and went rummaging through her toolbelt. “It’s got to be here somewhere… aha.”

  She whipped out a screwdriver and set to work opening the panel, revealing a mix of red and black wires.

  “This is so much easier than breaking into the labs,” she said.

  “Good,” I replied as the wardens came into view, “Because we need it working now.”

  With a pair of scissors from her toolbelt she snipped two of them, closing the doors and making the lift jolt as we went down, just as the wardens started raising their guns.

  “Do you really think we’ll be able to do this?” I asked, suddenly realising what an impossible task we had ahead of us.

  “I don’t know,” Niva answered sincerely, then cocked her gun, “Now pull yourself together and get ready to shoot.”

  The lift ground to a halt and the doors opened to reveal Ramya about to get in. At least until she saw the two of us.

  Niva’s gun clattered to the floor.

  “Mother?”

  “Niva?” Her face scrunched up as she tried to think, the wheels and cogs in her brain turning and turning. “You shouldn’t be here. You’re meant to be in the Estate. It’s not safe here, we need to go.”

  Yet neither of them moved.

  Ten years yawned between them and the differing paths they’d taken, and they needed to close the gap in precious seconds, which we didn’t have.

  “Ok,” Niva proclaimed, snapping herself out of her daze. “There’s a lot I need to say to you but we’re putting a pin in that until after the people at risk are rescued.” She grimaced at Ramya’s face, still blank as if peering through a ghost. “Why are you looking at me like that? Have ten years changed me so much?”

  “No,” Ramya’s face softened. “Though I admit I never expected you to take the risk coming here…”

  Niva looked at me and understanding spread across Ramya’s face.

  “Ah.”

  She rolled forward in her chair and the two women locked themselves in a crushing hug.

  “Look how you’ve grown.” Ramya sighed, tears brimming in her eyes as Niva buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. “All those years I’ve missed, all that time we need to get back.”

  “You should’ve been there,” she half-shouted, muffled by Ramya’s clothes. “I thought I was going to live my life without a mother.”

  “I know,” said Ramya, stroking Niva’s hair, “I know.”

  Niva pulled away, wiping away her tears before I could blink my own at their reunion. Proceeding to then wipe her hands on her trousers, she sniffed, trying to compose herself. “We need to get to the loading chamber,” she said coldly, now all business.

  Ramya nodded.

  “It’s this way.”

  White light flooded the heart of Vocafeum, so bright I had to squint. I’d been to this part of the institution many times but with the walls so well-lit, it had become somewhere else entirely. A tunnel to death, if anything.

  “I usually come to collect the ration shipments for the infirmary,” Ramya explained, “But yesterday the wardens started rounding people up and bringing them down here.”

  “Did they take everyone?” I asked.

  “Everyone who wasn’t staff. They never reappeared.”

  We sped up the pace, certain the sun was already rising at this point. How long had it been?

  Two lefts and a right. Another right.

  Black door to the loading chamber at the end. So close.

  But the wardens had to ruin it by doing their jobs and ambushing us, trapping us from in front and behind.

  I opened fire on the wardens behind us, only aiming for arms and legs.

  Ramya rolled her eyes.

  “Ayla.”

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Give me the gun.”

  I handed it over sheepishly and it slid perfectly into her arms.

  “Niva, I trust you know how to use yours?”

  “Yes mother.”

  “Good. The wardens have had this coming ever since they dragged my arse to this shithole.”

  Niva raised her face to aim.

  “Agreed,” she said.

  There was years of pain behind the sentiment. No wonder Niva wanted revenge.

  In a flurry of gunfire, all of Ramya’s targets went down like popped balloons.

  I stared as their bodies hit the floor and watched Niva do the same, but reinforcements quickly made up for the loss.

  We needed to get out of here. Quick.

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  “Niva,” I asked, “Can you get me as far as that door on the left?”

  She fired a couple more shots from her gun, then looked to where I was pointing.

  “Sure.”

  “Ramya, do you mind me moving your chair?” I asked her.

  “Yes, I’d rather you didn’t leave me here to get shot.”

  The mother-daughter duo started shooting faster, the buzzing of the laser beams piercing my ear when they got too close, knocking down the wardens before they had a chance to shoot.

  A path cleared with contrasting, agonising slowness, the wall of wardens thinning and eventually parting as we formed a wedge through their defences and stumbled through the door.

  I switched the safety latch, locking us in, while the wardens banged on the heavy metal doors. They’d hold longer than my attempt on that fateful day when I’d locked myself in the storage room, hiding after defending Ramya. A small victory.

  “Great, we’re trapped in a room. Now what?” Niva panted.

  I threw a hand around the room with a grin.

  “Welcome to Galton’s lab,” I announced.

  Red light washed over the room, illuminating the ghostly swathes of cloth covering each experiment. Some of them were dusty, abandoned failures from years ago, while others lead the charge to the forefront of my memory, forcing my brain to relive the sensations as if I’d only felt them yesterday. Electricity poking like wires through my veins, machines stealing so much of my blood my limbs ached.

  All his tools were laid out neatly on a table, from simple screwdrivers to chainsaws, all of them familiar. But there was only one thing I wanted. And it wasn’t on that table.

  “There should be an electricity generator somewhere,” I started, scanning every shelf, every corner. “It might not work as well as your DNA bomb, but if you can make some adjustments, I’m sure it’ll give us a fighting chance.”

  Her jaw dropped.

  “Do you really think we’ve got enough time for that? If I don’t have enough time to make a second bomb I definitely don’t have enough time to make a makeshift electrocuter.”

  “We have to try,” I replied, and Ramya rolled in front of her daughter.

  “I taught you better than to give up so easily.”

  She looked hard between me and her mother.

  “Fine,” she relented, “But if this doesn’t work, you’ve gotten us all killed.”

  “When has that stopped you before?” I joked, resuming my search for the device.

  It wouldn’t be surprising if he’d hidden it out of spite, knowing if we ended up in this situation we might need it.

  I flung open each cupboard, smashed every glass case, but the machine was nowhere to be seen.

  I moved on to tearing down the giant cloths from the experiments, gathering giant dust clouds with each experiment I uncovered until I uncovered one of the towering structures to find the generator resting on top of it. It sort of looked like an ugly metal hat complete with sockets and wires around small protruding antennae.

  “It’s here!”

  They came rushing over.

  “This. Can you make it so it sends a shockwave of electricity to disable all the wardens out there?”

  Niva scoffed.

  “Redirect the current pathways to affect people not connected to the device? Sure, as long as you don’t mind being electrocuted.”

  My heart sank.

  “Is there a way we won’t be electrocuted?”

  “Not unless you happen to have two pairs of rubber boots lying around.”

  “Would these work?”

  I checked under the bench where Galton stored his safety boots and found two pairs.

  “They might be a bit big,” I warned but she rushed to try them on and I copied her.

  Then noticed Ramya still wore her normal working boots.

  “We need a third pair,” I noted, but she raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

  “Ayla, what part of my chair is touching the ground?”

  “The wheels…”

  “And what material surrounds the wheels?”

  “Rubber…” I murmured.

  “There you go.”

  Niva had already brought out her tools and set to work adjusting the electricity generator.

  In less than five minutes she’d reorganised the wires and held it up proudly.

  “I should work under pressure more often.”

  “Great,,” I said, “Let’s welcome our guests.”

  I walked towards the door and unlocked it.

  The wardens burst in while Niva pushed a switch on the device, tendrils of electricity reaching through each warden’s head down through their body, the current discharging onto the floor. They dropped to the floor, convulsing and twitching as their bodies struggled to regain control from the jolts of electricity hijacking their nervous systems. I looked away at the pained expression on their faces.

  “Let’s go.”

  Finally. Finally, we reached the door right at the end of the corridor and kicked it open.

  It was the loading chamber.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. Maybe another bunch of armed wardens ready to kill. But whatever it was, it wasn’t what we found.

  Ten massive double-decker hovs were lined up ready to leave, and standing between us and them was Galton, flocked by a couple more wardens. Each single dark hair still perfectly in place, his long blue coat unruffled. He’d beaten us here with barely an effort.

  “Alright then,” he sighed, adjusting his cufflinks. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

  Niva switched on the generator, sending out another shoot of lightning that arced through the air and down into his body, but the only sign he was affected at all was his clenched fists and a snarl through the pain. By the end of it he remained standing, a twisted smile stitched onto his face. The other two weren’t so lucky, but no one seemed concerned about that.

  He rolled up a sleeve, and held up his arm to observe the electric burn scars fading.

  “I should thank you, Ayla, honestly our experiments have yielded such useful results. Years of hard work culminating in power most people don’t even dare to dream of. I’ve effectively rendered myself immortal.” His attention shifted entirely onto me. “How does it feel, the only person you want to kill being the only person you can’t?”

  The hammering of my heart told me the answer. He must’ve seen the fear on my face because he opened his arms, palms up.

  “Please, by all means, test it out. What sort of scientist would I be if I didn’t encourage fact-checking?” He almost laughed to himself. “I might be bluffing. I might not. So shoot.”

  I did.

  I ripped a laser gun off one of the fallen wardens, and shot him. Once. Twice. Three times.

  The part of me that clung to some sort of innocence, some line I’d never crossed, died.

  But Galton didn’t.

  It took mere seconds for him to heal, and his low laughter was that of a devil, eternal, merely amused at mortal antics.

  “You have lots to learn about how to play the game. But go on, do what you came here for.” He jerked a chin towards the hovs, but something stirred in the pit of my stomach.

  Too easy. And he was too happy.

  If there was one thing I knew about Galton, it’s that he was always where he wanted to be, always ten steps ahead. If he was here, it was because he knew I’d lost, that I failed. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe there was still hope.

  I blocked out the dark, creeping doubt as I barged down the door to the first one, a large white hov with enough space for at least fifty people.

  The first thing I noticed was how spacious it was.

  Because there wasn’t a soul on board.

  I raced to the next one, barging down the door again.

  No one.

  And the next. And the next. And the next.

  Not a single person anywhere.

  On the final hov, I stalled, with the hope that there was one last hov that might contain the rest of the Relegates being the only motivation to open it.

  No one sat on the seats. No one looked up with relief as they realised they were being saved. No one saw me drop to the floor, head hung low.

  I was too late. And now hundreds of people were going to have all their emotions, their free-will, everything that made them them, taken away. And it was all my fault.

  How many more times did it have to be my fault?

  I picked myself up and returned to Galton.

  “Very funny.” I slow-clapped, “Now tell me where they are.”

  He tilted his head in mock-pity. “What’s wrong? You couldn’t save everyone you wanted? Or anyone, for that matter?”

  I laughed. Cold, short, and hollow.

  “Tell me where they are. I won’t ask again.”

  “I could,” said the doctor, “Though you might want to hear me out first. One way or another, I’m walking out of here unscathed. But you, you have a choice. I can tell you where they are and you can save the Relegates from Vocafeum right now and be forever on the run, or you can become a Custom and help the Triumvirate change things for all Relegates. It’s not too late.”

  The offer hung in the air for a few seconds, silence filling the room.

  “Take your time.”

  I couldn’t abandon the people I’d grown up with, but I couldn’t give up the chance to change things either. Otherwise, what was the point? What was the point of almost getting killed for Niles? Or Ramya? And getting tortured for countless others?

  Half of me wanted to throw the offer back in his face, find a third way to have it all, just to spite him. Spite the man who’d tortured me for years, the ghost that haunted my nightmares, the devil on my shoulder.

  I couldn’t kill him, but maybe as a Custom and by changing things I could make him insignificant, and that would have to be justice enough.

  It seemed like the sensible choice, yet something in my heart stopped me from making it.

  Once upon a time I’d have given anything to be a Custom, for the chance to be someone else, someone better, especially when it could change things for everyone.

  But now a good Custom was going to be in charge, and in my bones I knew it wouldn’t change much, so what would I, who had even less power than Elian be able to do? What did I have, apart from Galton’s word, to guarantee that the Triumvirate would listen to me, even as a Custom? Elian would be Chancellor now, but if he truly believed he could change things by himself, why had he helped the Lion Legion? Why didn’t he trust the Triumvirate to agree with him?

  I knew the answer.

  Because they never would.

  I looked at Niva and remembered the words she’d spoken ages ago. It seemed like ages, anyway.

  Customs and Typics gain too much putting you lot into institutions for them to give it up so easily.

  And I had hoped, hoped like a fool that she was wrong. Because it had been done once and I believed it could be done again. And maybe I was right, maybe there was the odd Custom who could be persuaded to our cause, but as long as they were in the minority, it truly didn’t make a difference.

  Elian’s run as Chancellor had only just begun. There was hope for all Relegates yet, but whatever he did wouldn’t be quick enough for the ones at Vocafeum.

  Ramya rolled toward me, leaving Niva with her laser gun still trained on him, for all the good it would do. He seemed quite satisfied with himself, knowing he’d cornered me.

  “We trust you, Ayla,” she murmured, “It’s not fair that you have to make this choice, but ignore the pressure and do what you think is right. We’re with you all of the way, no matter what you decide.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and meant it. “I choose to save the Relegates of Vocafeum. So do we have a deal?”

  I turned to Galton and caught him rolling his eyes.

  “Will you set them free?”

  “Of course. You’re making a mistake but you have my word that the minute I walk out of here, the Relegates will be placed on the north-facing hill opposite Vocafeum. And you’ll be on the run forever. As will they.”

  “How do we know we can trust him?” Niva interjected before those last words settled, glancing between me and her mother. “What’s to stop him lying?”

  I narrowed my eyes at Galton.

  “He never lies.”

  Galton ducked his head, almost in a bow, and took that as his cue to leave.

  “Such a shame,” he sighed as he reached the door, “The world could’ve been great.”

  I didn’t want to know what he meant by that.

  “This isn’t the last time I’ll see you Galton. I will find a way to kill you, and when I do, you better run.”

  His face lit up a bit, fuelled by motivations known only to himself.

  “Oh, my dear, I’m counting on it.”

  He disappeared from view, leaving nothing but the dying flames of hatred to rekindle into something more akin to vengeance. It burned to the extent I needed to match what I felt inside externally, give Vocafeum a fraction of the pain it had caused me.

  “Do you have matches in that toolbelt of yours?” I asked Niva.

  She scoffed before tossing them to me. Of course she did.

  “What do you need them for?” She asked, unusually curious.

  A small part of me filled with glee.

  “Watching history burn under the stars.”

  I struck the match.

  This room, all of Vocafeum, was a rotting corpse, and I intended to give it the proper send-off it deserved.