CHAPTER 1   The Hunted

Every evening she would search for God in the infinite white emptiness.  His Eminence had always claimed that was its purpose.  White Out occurred each night at precisely 22:45.  She would sit alone in her room, in lotus position, blind and deaf, trying to let her mind go as blank as her vision, hoping for a state of grace in forced meditation.  Now, her heart pounding and her eyes darting, she waited for White Out hunkered behind a stainless steel rolling flour bin, hidden, she hoped, from the roving surveillance cams.  It always struck her as odd that there were no robots in this kitchen.  Perhaps the magister templi considered manual labor morally uplifting?  Whatever the reason, it was just as well—she was alone.  She positioned her body directly facing the door and checked the infoLayer in her mind for the time.  22:43.  Two minutes and then White Out would override her hearing and vision, two minutes…then, she repeated to herself for the hundredth time, slide the bin out of the way, stand up, count 12 paces to the door, manually input the code on the lock, and…oh god, she checked the time again…only a minute and a half!  She swallowed past the lump in her throat, her mouth was dry…concentrate!  Input the code, open the door, walk 3 paces, turn left, then count 52 paces on the cobblestones.  Compulsively she checked yet again...just one minute!  She felt ropey, nauseous, a sickening stomach-turning adrenalin overload…52 paces, then what’s next?  What’s next?  Oh, 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, shit, be brave!…two, one…

The world vanished into soundless sightless nothingness.  

Go!

She slid the bin, stood up, fumbled for twelve paces, no door, took three more, felt it, disoriented, her clammy hands searched for the antiquated input keys, her heart beating.   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 head was useless.  No sight, no sound, a bloody brain fry.  White Out was a 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 in her room doing nothing other than sitting and vegging out in forced meditation.  White Out mixed with Real was way different, and fast turning into a royal cock-up.  Concentrate!  The only thing that came to her was the smell of bleach from the after-dinner cleanup.  Concentrate!  In tears, trembling, she fumbled with the lock for a high-voltage adrenalin-fueled eternity—and then the icy night hit her face.  The door had swung open.  She slipped her gloves on.  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 zkuntn 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 has to be here…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 blood throbbing in her veins.  94, 95...she slowed down and held her hands in front, a few steps more…she touched the fence.  Where’s the gate?  During the one dry run she had 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?  Bed check was at 22:50, same time as the garbage drone…where’s the bloody rubbish drone?  If she was missing at bed check they would immediately trace her by her chip and then…punishment—a hair-shirt and extra time in White Out, maybe for days.  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 wasn’t right…something wasn’t right.  What wasn’t right?  She was panting, desperate.  She heard something…I shouldn’t be hearing sounds.  I’m hallucinating!  She turned her ear, is that?...yes!  She heard growling!  Dogs?  Shit!  The Dobermans!

“Going somewhere, Melody?”  The unctuous sarcasm came out of nowhere and detonated inside the whiteness in her head.  “Is that why you signed up for kitchen duty?”

“I...I just realized that I put the wrong marker chip on the compostable rubbish,” Melody’s voice was soft, silvery, her accent posh Brit, and like a siren, she knew it could charm and mesmerize.  “I…I always get that one wrong, don’t I?”  She shook her head as innocently as she could manage and smiled nervously, pivoting, not sure which way to face.

“And I think this is a very cleverly designed escape, Melody.”  The voice was no longer in her head, but now behind her.  Startled, Melody swiftly spun around, her long mahogany hair whipping through the air, the White Out evaporated, and she stood facing a holo of the Adeptus Alf, with two very real Dobermans flanking it on either side.  “But obviously you didn’t realize a blind pace is considerably shorter.”   The holo was clearly immune to her charms and definitely not mesmerized.

“What?”  Melody nervously eyed the dogs.  “No!  It’s just that if I’d reported my mistake, you’d have had my hide!”  She wiped a tear with the back of her hand.  She realized she was at the fence next to the rose garden, nowhere near the garbage gate.  Then it registered: Adeptus Alf 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.

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

“I was going to the rubbish bins.”

“Yes…obviously.  And the garbage drone arrives at exactly 22:50…odd that you’re here, Miss London…perhaps you are thinking of leaving us?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Don’t lie, Melody.  You have been under observation ever since you entered the kitchen.  Did you really think you could fool church surveillance?”

 “I am here of my own free will.”  Her charms having failed, Melody was regaining that spark of rebellion that 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?  What a load of rubbish!” Melody’s teal blue eyes burned insolent under her 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, caught attempting to escape.”

“I wasn’t, I told you…”

“Lies are 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 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 good!?  HE DID SAY THAT TO ME!!”

“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.