*
AN HOUR LATER I am sitting on the floor outside the Governess’s office, still thinking about Jasmine. She’ll be out on the streets now. I wonder if her wound will become infected and kill her, or if she’ll be forced to live in the Black Lanes, selling herself as a Skinmonger. She’s pretty; she’ll find that kind of work easily.
If I was her, I’d break out of the walls; the gatekeepers won’t hold one of the Virulent back. Better she die in the wilderness than die in here, they’d say. That’s what they told my ma when she left anyway.
The Governess’s raised voice begins to leak through the doorway as she relays her instructions to the Watcher who cut Jasmine.
“Clover is a sneaky girl. She has tried almost everything to escape. You must be on guard at all times.”
A moment later, the Watcher, the Pip, and the Governess all emerge through the heavy door of her office. She is smiling smugly. Pleased, I’m sure, with the prospect of a month away from me.
The Watcher types a message on the small black screen that is his messagebox and tucks it back into the pouch in his utility belt. He’s holding a wide silver bracelet in his right hand. The sight of it makes my fists tighten.
The Governess instructs me to hold out my right hand, and I do as she says. She smiles, showcasing her gleaming white teeth. I try to relax, knowing what’s coming.
The Watcher clicks the bracelet around my wrist in one smooth movement. It reaches from my wrist to my elbow and is so heavy my arm automatically falls before I jerk it back up. The Watcher then pulls a narrow silver cylinder from a pocket on his chest strap and presses it into the middle seam of the metal, where it makes a sharp hiss. The sheath becomes so hot I have to bite my tongue to keep from wincing, but soon it is cool again. The bracelet has now been welded to my arm, and only the Watcher’s device can remove it.
“Finally. Get her out of here. I’ve got so much to do before tomorrow,” says the Governess, and she turns and slams the door behind her. The Pip scurries away like a field mouse.
The Watcher grabs my arm stiffly and leads me again down the bruised hallway, past the parlor and the dangerous private screening rooms, and through the main foyer. We pass the amphitheater and make a sharp right. He pauses while a Pip presses the button that releases the magnetic hold on the door.
We travel down a long hall, this one rimmed with dust and cobwebs, and overhead lights flicker, on the verge of death. There are no windows here, but I know if there were, they would show the metal-and-glass high-rises of the city on one side, and the rec yard on the other. But the passage extends past the edge of the pond and its high containment fence, and finally we reach an office.
The Watcher types a code into the lockbox outside the door and it pops open. I memorize the pattern his finger makes, but know the code is useless without his thick leather gloves. If I touch the keys they will melt my skin to the metal with a clear acid, pinning me there until someone else can release me.
I know this, of course, because I’ve tried. The attempt cost me three skin-grafting surgeries and two weeks in the infirmary.
The Watcher’s office for the solitary paddock sticks out like a leg from the Garden. The walls are glass on all sides except for one, which is plaster. He seals us inside with another lockbox code, and then crosses the small room to a glass door. It slips open just as soon as he approaches it.
One more step and we’re outside. Here the weed-infested yard wraps like a horseshoe around the office. On one side, fifty or so paces away, I can see the outer edge of the rec yard; its buzzing fence sounds like a honeybee is somewhere close. On another side is the crumbling gray stone wall of the facility’s trash incinerator. And on the third side, completely hidden from the rec yard, behind the office wall, is the yellow Driver rental barn. Only a runoff stream separates this back lot from the back fence of the horses’ paddocks. The Pips don’t maintain this area of the Garden; no potential buyer will ever come back this far into the facility.
There are a dozen places I could sneak out. Over the stone wall, cut through the barn, follow the stream down to where it disappears into the sewer. But the Watcher’s hand is heavy on my shoulder, and as I twist, his tightening grasp becomes painful.
A stake sticks out of the ground, and attached to it is a long tarnished chain that curls like a snake. The Watcher lifts the end of it, and holding my arm steady, attaches it to my bracelet with his key. It makes a hiss, welding into place so there’s nothing I can do to remove it.
When he’s released me, I round the corner to the plaster wall, the chain dragging after me through the dirt. Here, I’m hidden from view from the office, but the Watcher follows me, seeing if I’ll try to cross the stream. Once, there was a metal roof shelter out here, but that has since rusted away. All that’s left is the orange line where the plate attached to the wall.
Before I reach the water the chain stops me. I’ve gone as far as it will let me.
I look up and the sun is only a pinprick of white through the grayish-green haze. I breathe in the soot-filled city air.
At least I’m not going to auction.