The place Chimma had found was an old animal shed. She pulled the door open, but Denzin just bumped against the low sill. Kayda tried to pick his body up a bit to help him over it, but said it must weight hundreds of kilograms, and she couldn’t do it.

  “This won’t work,” Denzin told them. “Let’s just go behind for now.”

  Even that was impossible, as the pavement was quite broken. At least at the side of the little barn, they were unlikely to be seen.

  Denzin tried to explain.

  “Sis, I don’t know if you can understand this, but I hate this thing I’m trapped in.” His eyes blurred, as he let his pain surface. “And yet, it’s become my very body. I call it my body, now. I can hardly remember it not being my body. I can’t say the word for the things you drive on. Walk. You’re Talls, both of you, and you don’t have a wonderful body like I do. I feel sorry for you, Sis. So, so sorry that you don’t have a body like mine.” He shook his head and took a deep breath.

  He rapped lovingly on the metal before him. “This is my lap. I have no other word for it, now. There’s no word in my head for the part of my body that my hands sit on, to keep them safe. But it’s a very intimate part of my body, and it just feels so good to hold myself there. It’s just the right place, and it’s exactly where they should always be. And when Chimma tore half my face away, my mouth …” the tears began to fall now as his voice came in whisps, “my lips are just so incomplete, so empty, so, so … wrong is the only word I have for it. Half my face is missing. Half my face is missing!” He shook his head again, and Chimma wiped away his tears. “Where is the rest of my face, Chim?”

  “He’s been like this since around Mid-Winner,” Chimma told Kayda. “I think it’s the long nights, hooked up to the gas. He’s only off it for a few minutes before sunset and after sunrise, when they give him some sort of liquid diet. We think they drug the morning dose, because he falls asleep immediately after it.”

  “My face,” he whispered longingly. “It’s my face. Where have you put it?”

  “No, Denzin, this is your face.” Chimma slowly ran her hands from the top of his head, working their way down, as she narrated. “Your forehead. Your eyebrows. Your eyes, Your cheeks. Your nose. Your upper lip. Your lower lip. Your chin. Your jaw. See, it’s all here, just as it should be. It’s all here, Denzin. What I took off you is what keeps your mind a slave. No, this is your face, Denzin.” She leaned over and began to plant kisses ever so softly over all the skin on what was left of his face.

  It felt almost as intimate as when he held his body in his hands.

  They then began to explain to Kayda how the different pieces of his body worked, and what could be moved or removed, and what couldn’t.

  “At first we started taking turns with the mask, because he got in trouble for not enough air being used. They basically tortured him when he came back not having used enough.”

  “Helped me, they said. And strangely, I felt so cared for. But yeah, my shoulders ached for days afterwards.”

  “We experimented, and we found that there is a certain key word that seems to lock commands in place.”

  “A key phrase,” Kayda corrected them. “The first word strengthens the command, but the second word sets it in stone when they’re used together. It rewires your brain, somehow. Those words are programmed into everyone in the Under, somehow. Even me. Haven’t worked out how yet.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “And that is why Chimma’s hand is resting in my lap at this very moment.” Chimma blushed, and took it away. But as soon as she looked at Kayda again, it was back.

  “You are both as stupid as one another, then!” Kayda exclaimed.

  Both of them talked over each other, trying to explain that they didn’t understand the gas and were experimenting with how it worked, just like they did with figuring out how his … body … worked.

  “What else have you done with the gas, besides that hand?”

  They both went quiet. His eyes fell back to the wonderful hand resting so comfortingly on his lap.

  Finally, Denzin offered, “At different times, I think we let our emotions get the better of our brains. With the gas affecting both of us, we’ve somehow imprinted on one another than we cannot risks ourselves for one another. And we can’t put each other in danger, either. I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but….” he stopped, memories of the beatings he’d had suffered at his sister’s hands silencing him from what he was about to say as surely as Chimma’s commands. It wasn’t safe.

  Chimma continued, giving the helpful sidestep. “That’s why I had such a hard time believing you, trusting you. I was afraid I was putting myself at risk by trusting you. And putting Denzin at risk. I’ve been trying to think of all sorts of plans to hide him away, free him, even escape together with him still in that thing, but everything I can think of involves risking one or both of us in some way, and my brain refuses to go there.”

  Denzin lifted his face to his sister, his eyes searching hers. Then hunted for where her fists were. There weren’t any fists. Just her hands. One, she rested on his lap.

  “So we prayed, and Senda sent us you, Sis.” He shrugged. “We need help.”

  Kayda stroked this lap, and caressed his body in that special place where his own hands should be. But one of his was wrapped around Chimma’s left hand to keep her from getting stuck in his lap again. The other had fallen to the ground. He’d forgotten that he could lift it, now. He did, and put it in his lap.

  “And you haven’t found the way in yet?”

  “I know my Helpers get in, to recharge me and do whatever. But I’m always asleep when they do it.”

  Kayda crawled around behind him. “What’s this do?”

  Chimma let go of his hand and joined her. Where the rest of his face was hiding. He hoped they’d give him the rest of his face back soon.

  “Can’t figure it out. It looks like the touch points to unlock his hands, but I’ve tried everything, and it doesn’t seem to work.”

  “Put your hands behind your back, Denz.”

  He tried. He really tried. But not even his elbows could he coax behind his shoulders, much less his hands.

  “This is as far as I can make them go,” he said defeatedly, unable to obey her.

  “Let me try.” Kayda took his right hand, and pulled it easily behind his back. Chimma and Denzin gasped!

  “I reckon it’s like the thumb prints at the Checkpoint. It’s one of your fingers, Denz.”

  Just then, the first shock arrived.

  “Quick, get me back together. I need to go. I have no idea how long it will take to get back Home again.”

  Chimma sprang into action, as she explained what he meant by Home.

  “I don’t even know how I got here, to be honest. Tomorrow. Come again tomorrow, Sis! Please! And tell Mam and Dad I love them!”

  And his face was made whole again, his hands once more caressing his body. Air and gas = life and slavery – filled his lungs, and the voice in his earpiece told him where to drive. At just the right speed, he left his sister and his friend and headed Home.

  He aimed for those two trees. And in an instant, he was back in the Under. What had he just been aiming for?

  He didn’t remember. All DEN003 knew was that he was heading Home. That’s all he cared about. Serving his Pandrakon. Loving his Pandrakon. Giving his life for his Pandrakon.

  Denzin wanted to pull his hair out. But he was nothing but a tiny sliver of consciousness riding along in a machine that held him captive.

  But he was happy. And oh so grateful. His Pendrakon had given him such a wonderful body, and it felt so incredibly good to be whole again. He was so grateful to his Pendrakon that he would do anything for him. Anything. Absolutely anything.

  And Denzin screamed his silent scream.