them burst back out, moaning and crying. He threw himself to the ground near her feet, tearing at his face with his fingers, trying to gouge his own eyes out.
Two Ripers appeared and carried him away.
Hyper-reaction, the whisper went round.
Dread wound around Retra’s stomach. Will that happen to me?
She forced herself to step into the vacant booth. It was empty other than a black circle painted on the floor and an articulated metallic arm that hung from the ceiling.
As she stepped into the circle the door closed behind her and the mechanical arm dropped down, a hand of instruments unfolding from it. A brace snapped tight around her head and probes skittered into her ears and nose. She felt pinpricks at the base of her spine and neck.
Biological age 6387 days. Health – acceptable. Adrenal modifications successful. Psychological/neurological profile recommends faux badge. Proceed. Place your hand between the plates, said a disembodied voice.
She complied with the voice and the plates closed together, locking her hand in position. A probe punctured the skin at the centre of her palm, making her twist in pain.
Faux badge administered. Test orientation download … starting … now …
After the blackness passed, she woke up on the floor in another bare room. She was alone in it, apart from Markes. He leaned against the wall, hands in his coat pockets, hair curling over his eyes, watching her.
Her tunic had ridden high up her thighs. Embarrassed, she smoothed it down. She wanted to move closer to him, as if proximity might ease the dull throb in her thigh and the sharper, newer, sickening pain in the palm of one hand.
She rose up onto her elbows. Better not. The last thing she wanted was to be sick on Markes.
He came to her instead, kneeling, grasping her shoulders, giving them a little shake.
‘How are you?’ he asked
‘W-what happened to me?’
‘The probes give some people grief.’ He shrugged his hair from his eyes long enough for her to get a shiver from their liquid warmth. Then he moved his face closer, as if he might put his cheek to hers. ‘Why do I get the feeling you’re here for a different reason than the rest of us?’
Retra turned her head away from his. His closeness suffocated and elated her; stirred things in her.
‘They put something on my hand. Th-then they tested it and … I woke up in here with you,’ she said.
His fingers tightened, crushing her shoulder bones. His lips hovered near her earlobe, breath so light she could barely … No! She couldn’t feel it.
He persisted with his question. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I –’ Her desire to tell him the truth compelled her to speak, as if confession might absolve her of guilt and the fear, but a sliver of suspicion pierced her consciousness as she opened her mouth.
No breath. He has no breath.
The pain in the palm of her hand snaked up her arm to her skull and stung the bridge of her nose. But Retra knew pain. Knew how to think through it.
‘I-I want to have a good time, that’s all,’ she stammered.
She reached a hand out to his lips, to test their moistness, but Markes and the room dissolved before her eyes. A heartbeat later the pain stopped and the Register released her from the cubicle into the dark.
She stumbled out of the exit, dazed, and was caught by the chill hands of a Riper – the same one who’d pulled her aboard the barge and then watched her leave it. She found herself unable to struggle, as he carried her from the Register to a narrow path strewn with rock and encroached upon by the undergrowth of the darker dark. He knelt, laying her onto the ground.
She had a vague impression of movement in the twilight to the side of them.
Smell good, said the invisible voice/thought again.
The Riper made a hissing noise. He leaned over her, his hair falling across her face, filling her vision with his ashen skin and hollow eyes. ‘The Register is satisfied but I am not. I’ll be watching you. You remind me of someone,’ he said.
His touch triggered a bottomless fear in her. When one long, pale finger looped a strand of her hair, she lapsed into shivers.
‘W-what d-do you m-mean?’
He lifted the strand to his mouth and slid it between his lips as if tasting it.
Growling, unearthly noises crawled into the air around them and the Riper let go of the strand.
Mine, said the thought/voice.
The Riper stiffened and