City of Shadows

Chapter 32

13 September 2001, Interstate 90, Newton, Massachusetts

‘Where did she go?’

Becks looked at him, a growing expression of anxiety on her face. ‘Maddy… said she was going to get some supplies.’

‘Said… she said… so maybe she wasn’t?’

The support unit could only look at Liam plaintively. He grasped her slim arms firmly. Arms that easily could have shrugged off his grasp and twisted his head off his shoulders if she had the notion to do so. ‘Becks! Come on! Where’s she really gone?’

‘She… said — ’

‘She’s gone to her old home, hasn’t she?’

Becks looked conflicted, torn between an instruction to lie and a logical imperative to speak the truth.

Liam cursed. ‘I knew it!’

‘That is an unwise action,’ said Bob. His cool eyes looked around the others gathered in the girls’ motel room. ‘The pursuing support units may also attempt to travel to the same location.’

‘I don’t think we could’ve stopped her,’ said Sal. ‘I think she’s too close to home to not try to see them. She really misses her family.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘I know it’s what I’d want to do.’

‘And I miss me own ma and da just as much!’ said Liam. ‘But Bob’s right — that’s a stupid thing she’s gone an’ done! I should have known she’d do this!’

‘What if they’re clever,’ said Rashim. ‘What if they don’t attack her there, but instead follow her back here?’

‘Exactly!’ said Liam. ‘She could lead them right to us all!’

Just then a key clicked and rattled in the motel room’s door. All heads turned as the door opened and daylight stretched across the mottled pattern of the room’s threadbare carpet.

Maddy.

‘Perfect timing!’ said Liam. ‘We were wondering…’ His voice tailed off. She stood in the doorway staring back at all of them. On any other occasion he would have expected her to do a double-take at them all staring wide-mouthed at her and irritably snap ‘ What’s up? ’ But instead she stepped slowly in, kicking the door shut behind her. She sat down on the end of the bed and stared listlessly at the blank glass screen of the TV set, reflecting her own sullen expression back at her.

‘Maddy?’ said Sal. ‘You OK?’

No answer.

Liam could see her eyes were red-raw beneath her glasses. Her cheeks were wet. She was crying. He sat on the bed beside her. ‘Maddy?’

‘She appears to be distressed,’ said Bob.

Liam waved him silent. ‘Maddy? Is everything all right?’ She shook her head silently.

Liam didn’t dare ask the next question. But it needed asking all the same. ‘Maddy? Your family… are they all right? They’re not hurt in any — ?’

‘They’re not my family,’ she muttered.

‘Uh?’

‘Not my family,’ she said again. She turned from her dim reflection in the TV screen. ‘And they never were.’

Liam leaned in closely to her. ‘Maddy? What do you mean? What’s the matter?’

He’d never seen her like this before, not even when things had seemed at their worst, not even that first day when they’d all met in the darkness of the archway, freshly plucked from the very last moments of their lives. This wasn’t normal Maddy: stressed, irritated, annoyed or frustrated. This was a totally alien Maddy Carter: utterly crushed, defeated.

Sal got up off the chair by the door and knelt on the floor in front of her. She could see it in her face too; this was Maddy right at the end of her game. She reached out for her hand and squeezed it. ‘Tell us what happened?’

‘I… I’ve worked it out,’ she said, her voice a mucus-thick whisper.

‘Worked what out?’

She looked at Liam. ‘I’ve worked out who we are.’

‘Who we are?’ He frowned. Confused.

‘Or more to the point,’ she added, ‘I’ve figured out what we are.’

‘What we are?’ Liam turned to the others, then back at Maddy. ‘What in the name of Jesus an’ Mary are you talkin’ about?’

‘Shadd-yah!’ Sal muttered under her breath.

Liam looked at her. The one eye of hers not hidden by her looping fringe had suddenly widened with realization. She seemed to have some inkling of what Maddy was talking about. ‘What, Sal? What’s she mean by that?’

‘We’re not who we thought we were, Liam,’ said Maddy.

‘Not who we…’ His brows locked. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Your life is just a lie, Liam… a story,’ said Maddy. ‘Fiction.’

‘Maddy? What happened?’ asked Sal.

Maddy laughed. More a wet snort of snot mixed with tears. ‘They obviously didn’t expect we’d come looking for the truth. Why would they?’ She took her glasses off and wiped at her eyes. ‘I mean, Foster made such a big thing of it, didn’t he? That we should be dead already… that this extra life was like a bonus or something. A gift.’

Liam nodded. Of course he had. The old man made no bones about that. There’d been a choice right at the end of their old lives: not much of a choice admittedly, but a choice nonetheless. He could have gone down with the Titanic if he’d wanted, but he’d chosen to join Foster.

‘We all chose it, Maddy,’ said Liam. ‘Right at the end, when he saved us all.’

She laughed. A miserable, choking sound. She shook her head. ‘But that’s the point! We didn’t!’

‘Didn’t?’ Liam hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. ‘Yes, I did. I chose to — ’

‘No… no, you didn’t,’ said Sal quietly. Nodding. She understood now. ‘Or me… I didn’t either.’ Her one visible eye was beginning to spill glistening tears on to her dark cheek.

‘Ah Jay-zus! You crying too? What’s up with you both? Why’re you crying? What is goin’ on here? ’

‘None of us chose to join this agency in the last moments of our lives, Liam,’ said Maddy. ‘Because none of that ever happened.’

Sal’s head dropped, her face dipped out of sight. He could see her shoulders heaving gently. He looked around. The only other person here who seemed utterly bewildered by all of this was Rashim. He offered Liam a sympathetic shrug that seemed to say, I got no idea what they’re talking about either.

‘Our memories, Liam… everything we thought were memories of our lives before the archway, before we were recruited…’ Maddy’s chin dimpled as fresh tears streamed down her face. ‘Everything. My home, my mom, my dad, my school, my job… they’re all lies. They’re phoney.’

‘Information: memory implants.’ Even Bob seemed to have an understanding of what she was saying now.

Maddy nodded. ‘Faked memories. Our lives are just made up. I never lived in Boston. Sal never lived in India. And you…’ Her voice faltered. ‘Oh, Liam, you never came from Ireland.’

‘But…’ Liam bit his lip. ‘But I’m from Cork! I know I am! I’m… that’s… what kind of nonsense do you think you’re — ’

‘We didn’t come from those places. We never lived there; we never even set foot in any of those places.’

‘Whuh?’

‘I get it.’ Sal’s soft voice drifted up through the drooping curtain of her hair. ‘We came right out of three giant test-tubes.’

Maddy nodded. She reached out and rested a hand on Sal’s shoulder. A reciprocated gesture of comfort.

‘Do you get it, Liam? Do you see?’ said Sal. ‘We’re support units.’