Want (Numbered #1, YA Scifi Dystopian) Wattpad Featured Story

Chapter Eleven

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No one noticed the three of them carrying Nicholas through the corridors, or if they did, they said nothing. An unconscious body in a hospital was nothing to be remarked upon, anyway. Jonathon's personal transport pod was waiting at the gates, and they laid Nicholas in the back. Aurelia buckled her seatbelt and sat back.
"We should blind her," Elza said.
Jonathon shook his head. "No, Elza. She's trustworthy. You have the proof now. She can see where we're going."
Elza kept silent after that.
Aurelia watched Nicholas with one eye and the landscape with the other. Nicholas seemed to be fine; his breathing and colour were both good. She thought she saw his eyelids flicker a time or two but couldn't be sure. The landscape was odd, different. The pod had turned away from the centre of Lunar and was making its way through narrower streets than Aurelia had seen before. There were no neon lights here, and the buildings, whilst still tall, had a decrepit look about them.
"Worker housing," said Jonathon, noticing her watching.
Towards the outskirts of the city, the pod began to drop down as the dome over the city grew lower. It took a good twenty minutes to reach where Jonathon had planned on taking them. A large, square black building approached. Shit. She knew what that was. Just as she thought they were going to swing past it, the pod turned slightly and brought them around to the back of the building.
Getting out of the pod, Aurelia held her breath. Then she berated herself for being childish. Once she was breathing normally again, she noticed that there was not even a hint of smell from the Crematorium. With Elza and Jonathon carrying Nicholas, all she had to do was follow. They went through a small black door and down an ill-lit corridor. The place was institutional; it smelled of the same bleach soap used to clean schools and hospitals, a smell that was familiar and comforting for Aurelia, who had spent most of her life in these places.
When Jonathon used a key from his pocket to open another door, Aurelia could see a golden shaft of light pierce the corridor. The room inside was large and beautifully furnished. It was also square, the clean-angled corners seeming odd to Aurelia; she was used to rounded rooms, or at least the curved corners of hospital pods. Nicholas was laid on a couch, and Jonathon relocked the door.
"What is this place?" was Aurelia's first question.
"We've been using it for a while now," Jonathon said, opening a cabinet in the wall and pulling out a bottle of water. "It's the perfect location. The Crematorium is no longer in use." He looked over at Aurelia. "We send all bodies down to Earth now; didn't want to pollute our own air. Anyway, no one wants to come near the place, which means it's a great place to hide away for a while when necessary."
Elza was bending over Nicholas, pulling his eyelids down and taking his pulse. "He'll come around in a few minutes," she said, brusquely.
"Jonathon, I don't want you to hurt him." Aurelia didn't want to plead, but she would if she had to. "He's my friend. I think he can explain things better than I can, but please, please don't hurt him."
Jonathon was about to answer her when Elza gave a bark of laughter. "You understand so little, but you'll learn. Sometimes this is the way we have to do things."
She wasn't exactly being rude; her voice was kinder towards Aurelia now, but she wasn't being her familiar self either. Aurelia guessed that the woman wasn't going to forgive her quite so easily. At the moment, though, she didn't really care.
"Jonathon, please, don't hurt him. He'll tell you what you need to know."
Jonathon sighed. "I'll do my best, Aurelia, but things aren't always that simple. I need the information that he might have, and sometimes the best way to get people to remember things is with pain. I don't like it, but that's the way it is."
Aurelia gritted her teeth. "That's not the way things should be, then," she said, her voice trembling. "Nicholas saved your life; just remember that. Whatever it is that you believe, whatever he says, just remember that if it weren't for him you wouldn't be here."
"And he was sent to kill me," interjected Jonathon. He'd poured glasses of water for all of them and handed one to Aurelia. "I understand what you're saying, and I'll tell you again, I will do my best. But, Aurelia, he is a Clone; please remember that."
She was boiling with anger now and could feel even her skin throbbing with emotion. The intimation was that because he was only a Clone, he wasn't worth worrying over. There was no doubt that she loved Jonathon, and even now she could feel that, but looking at his high, patrician nose and the expensive clothes he was draped in, it was hard to divorce his intentions from the fact that he was Elite. Whatever he might say or want, there would always be a piece of Ruling Class in him, and that included the way he saw Clones.
"He's waking up," Elza said.
Nicholas was stirring, his eyes fluttering open.
"Where am I?"
His mouth was dry - Aurelia could tell from how he sounded. She went to him and, lifting his head slightly, offered him her glass of water.
"Just tell them the truth. About everything," she whispered.
He creased his brow.
"Everything," she repeated.
"Everything," he said.
Jonathon came from behind and touched her elbow. "Aurelia, I think you should wait next-door; I don't think you should see anything that happens in here."
"No. I'm staying." She wasn't going to leave Nicholas alone here. She thought she could trust Jonathon to restrain his emotions, but she wasn't so sure about Elza.
Nicholas was quickly coming to his senses and, looking around, realised exactly what was going on. "No, Aurelia, you should leave," he said.
Jonathon looked startled at this, but he nodded in agreement. "It's for the best."
"And that way, my story can't be compromised; no one can say that you gave me signals or anything," Nicholas added. "It's better, Aurelia."
Reluctantly, she straightened up. "If that's what you both think."
Jonathon took her arm and led her to a door different than the one she had entered by. "Wait in here," he said. "It's comfortable."
The small chamber had a bed and a chair, as well as an old fashioned looking cabinet which contained a decanter of water and some glasses. Everything both in here and in the room next door had looked old, antique, a reminder of Earth days long past. She contemplated lying on the bed. Her whole body was aching, but she knew if she did, she might not be able to get up fast enough if she heard sounds from the next room. Instead, she pulled the chair as close to the door as she could and sat.
She heard nothing other than the murmur of voices. No shouting, no screams.
Her life had changed incredibly fast. She had so little to cling to. But the more she thought about things, the more she came to three indisputable conclusions. First, she missed her parents - but that had always been the case, was expected and something that she could deal with. The second was that she loved Jonathon. That had come as a surprise, but it was absolutely true. There might be things he did or said that she didn't agree with, but she had no control over the chemicals and hormones in her body, and they had chosen that she be with him. Oddly, she felt comfortable with this. The feelings had overtaken her quickly but seemed natural, as if they had always been lying there latent, just waiting for a catalyst. The third thing was that joining the Resistance was the right thing to do.
She leaned her head on the back of the chair and wished that she'd got herself a glass of water before she sat down. Now her legs seemed too heavy to get up again. The Resistance. She believed everything she had been told. It wasn't a question of naivety, or simply because she loved Jonathon. It was because the more she heard, the more things made sense. It was like she'd seen flashes of pieces of a picture all her life, but it was only now that she was being given the opportunity to see all the pieces together.
And that meant that the life she had known, the Earth she had known, was all based on a lie. The ideals of sacrifice, giving yourself to help society rather than to help yourself, educating yourself to help all people, were all wrong. Or at least misguided. From what she could see, it boiled down to the fact that she, as all other Workers, had been moulded into exactly what it was the Empire needed so that the rich could go on being rich. The reason her parents would never have the other children they had so desperately wanted, the reason the Fails were taken from their schools and families and eventually euthanised, the reason that she herself had injected a woman whose name she didn't even know, all those reasons were the same. Greed. Not on her part, or even that of anyone she knew, but on the part of a small group of people who wanted to live lives of luxury.
Her head was beginning to ache. She persuaded herself to get up out of her chair and pour a glass of water, which she drank straight down. She had always had a sense of fairness, and that sense had always seemed satisfied by the way she'd lived. Now, though, she was ready to change things. Do what needed to be done. She wanted no one else to have to live the kind of life that she had had, though it hadn't been a terrible life by any means. Finding that everything you had lived so far had been a lie, though...that was like having the ground ripped out from under your feet.
She placed the glass back on the cabinet. And then there was Nicholas. As far as she could tell, all these issues were very much interconnected. She could see no reason why the Clones and Resistance wouldn't join forces; they wanted more or less the same thing, though for different groups of people. The only thing standing in their way was a prejudice that had been deliberately created to keep the Clones separate.
There was a bang from the next room, followed by a scream and then thudding. She froze for a brief second and then jerked herself into action. Aurelia moved so quickly she knocked over the glass, which shattered. She threw open the door. Jonathon was clutching his arm. Nicholas was jumping to his feet. Elza was lying on the ground. Her eyes were closed.

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