The Mirror City

three

I was lucky to be alive

"What the hell are you thinking, Troy. Disobeying the automatons like that almost got you killed. You're lucky they'd only shot you with a tranquilizer." Cleo snarled at me.

I stayed on silent mode while she patches up from behind my neck. I can't find the energy to even bicker with her. She's working her miracle while my eyes wandered the floor. There are only a few nurses here and only one doctor. Cleo's internship paid off when I could no longer feel the swollen area behind my neck. But even though, I don't care whether how swollen it is. I always dealt with faulty wiring in the maintenance shaft, being swollen is part of the job. Maintenance and Repair have the hardest internship among other jobs here in Mirror City. It completely feels like you're already doing the job aside from just learning and trying to assist as hard as we can. But it doesn't bother me that much, there's only a few people working down there, and it's the closest job I could picked when they removed the Innovator class.

Speaking of which... I searched the room for Roto, but I couldn't find the squared tincan.

"Your friend is at the Purifier station." Cleo commented, she must've noticed my actions.

I turned my head to face her but not too much so she could finish the job. "Why is he there?"

"Didn't you notice how dirty that tincan is? You're lucky you didn't get any air poisoning."

"At least you're calling them the way I do."

"Calling them with what?"

"Tincans, you didn't notice?"

"Shut up."

I let out a small chuckle, but it all faded when the daily announcement of the current status of Mirror City has aired on the monitors, with Theo bringing in the update. How couldn't have I noticed it before, his eyes are a bit swollen as if he just finished crying. Although I couldn't blame him, he's trying so hard to be the governor that the tincans want. Trying to save me from exile is the most effort he could do to keep me alive. I can't help but be even more worried as to how much hacking they did to get him to act and say anything from before.

Hacking refers to the torture and manipulation that those tincans are capable of executing. We only saw one example and that is when I was still a courier. Old lady Meridith, she was picked as the governor from the draft. She was just supposed to deliver an address, but she snapped. Losing her mind in the process, she tore her own clothes revealing all the nasty thing that can permanently mark a human. She killed fifteen members of the flock that day, gutting them to oblivion. No one can even fathom how she managed to do that with just her bare hands. She was sawed in half on the spot by the tincans to stop her. But it was already too late.

From that point every member of the flock refers to it as the hacking. A supposed foolproof operation conducted by the tincans for every governor to be drafted. We couldn't even imagine what they did just to hack a person into submission, just by thinking what happened to my brother earlier is enough to make me sick.

This is why everybody dreaded the draft. Seeing how we're just tools for this city that never even needed us at one point. Or so I've thought.

"There. All done." Cleo said, pulling me back to my own miserable reality.

I caressed the back of my neck; I could barely even feel where the swollen area were once before.

"Worked like a charm." I praised.

"Pay the infirmary with your skills and fix the damn air filter on the third floor."

"Wow, being an intern really has taken a liking to you."