Lost (Book 2 of the Idyllic Series)

Prologue: Helpless

Knox

"What a waste."

The voice hovering above me is unfamiliar, mechanical and precise. It is also deep, reverberating through the frozen metal I'm laying on. I sense every shiver as it crawls along the icy surface.

Somewhere near me, a machine taps out a rhythm. Slow and steady, up, up, up. Another pushes air into the room. Yet another drips liquid into a small canister.

A blueprint of the room appears in my head before I've even opened my eyes. Small and square, lined with service machines, topped with white, hot lights. I'm not alone. The voice hovers nearby, but there are also two other heartbeats. Two other slow, steady rhythms echoed on an attached monitor.

"Four Idyllics ruined," the voice muses, "and one on the run."

A blur of memories creeps back to me. Tunnels and darkness. The Artificials and electric blue fire. Blood. So much blood.

And death.

Yet, there's also a memory of another loss. Someone not taken by death but removed by choice. Her choice. Eden. My angel.

A pain shoots through my chest, and before I can stop it, a moan escapes my lips. My hands tense into fists at my side. Footsteps approach me like dual hammers slamming into the ground.

"Up the sedative."

A faint whirring answers the voice. Slowly, like I'm waking up from the deepest sleep of my life, I peel my eyes open. I need to see who he is before I'm out again.

But the figure over me is nothing more than a dark shadow. Narrow, sharp shoulders frame his upper half, and a glint of metal lines his back. I shiver with fear. As the shadow moves, the hiss of hydraulics joins the assortment of sounds I'm trying to muddle through.

"Hello, Vier."

That's not my name. Yet, my body recognizes it. The familiar buzz in my bloodstream answers to him, coming to life instantly. I feel the nanos crawl to life as they hurry to correct the damage that I don't remember receiving.

"Who are you?" My voice is thin and frayed. Exhausted and hoarse. "What happened to me?"

"You fought a heavily armed battalion of Artificials." He laughs— the sound more like nails against glass than true laughter. "And lost."

I cringe as the memories start coming back. They'd been trying to follow Eden past the city limits. I'd panicked and attacked fifteen Artificials. At the time, the consequences had been... well... inconsequential. As long as Eden got out of the city. As long as she was safe.

"I say lost," he continues, typing at a small service machine with his back to me, "but in reality, it was a close fight. You managed to disconnect twelve of the Artificials before one of them finally killed your main sensor."

That explains the dull ache in the back of my neck. I try to lift my left arm and rub the pain away, but heavy plastic holds me down. I'm restrained. Panicking, I jerk at all of my limbs. It's useless, and pulling only intensifies my fears.

Did she make it out? Are the humans safe? Is she safe? Where are they going now? How will I watch over her if I can't find her? What if the other Artificials followed her?

I know Eden can protect herself, but... Guilt clouds my judgment. I'm the reason she's running; it should be me ensuring her safety.

I watch him move around the room with a grace unlike Null, almost equal to Zwei. His body shimmers in the fluorescents, catching the light even through his white shirt. He ignored my question about his name, but I'm positive I've never seen him before. He's an Idyllic, though... Where did he come from?

Another thought hits me: are they going to admit me back into the Anthropological Park? I couldn't be that lucky. What use would they have for me like this?

"What are you going to do to me?" I ask, setting my voice firm.

The stranger glances over his shoulder. His metal arm catches the light and reflects it towards me.

"Up the sedative again," he responds. Not to me this time but the service machine beside me. It answers with a series of beeps, and then the pump activates. If I felt sluggish before, it's nothing to the cloudiness that follows seconds later.

"What are you going to do with me?" I repeat through gritted teeth.

The corners of the room creep inward on me; the table pulls me towards the ground. A heaviness settles across my body until my head slams into the metal with a clang. I strain to keep my eyes open.

"I'm going to wipe your programming." I can barely hear him speaking through the thick fog surrounding us. "Start over from scratch. You're stronger than Eins and Zwei; you proved that. But I've got to get rid of this annoying fascination with that Drei. Maybe this time I can turn it around. Obsession turned to hatred. Something Null should have done to begin with."

The next few words are lost in the haze. My body swims in the space, mind drifting between a cold blackness and a warm fluorescent brightness. He's mostly talking to himself, anyway.

Is what he's proposing possible? Can he erase an entire person from my memory? No, that's not what he's planning. He wants to manipulate the memories I already have, and the other two Idyllics are living proof he can do that.

There's no way of knowing what will be left when he's through. The nights I spent singing Eden to sleep. The rugged edges of her hands pressed against my own soft, weak ones. The sound of her voice and the look of joy in her eyes as she recited poetry. The brush of pink across her cheeks on the riverbank.

And the kiss.

My chest pulses at the thought alone, lips tingling in yearning. The monitor beside me goes wild as I fight back a scream of anger and sadness.

"Begin the reset." His voice is a thousand miles away. My eyes slip closed, beyond my control at this point. "Rest, Vier, and when you awake, we'll discuss your next mission."

Despite my drowsiness, I manage to open my mouth and rearrange my sandpaper tongue. The voice that comes out is strained but undeniably mine. "What... mission..." Every word is crammed through a sewer grate.

"To find Drei," he says, echoing in my ears, "and kill her."

***

And so, the story begins again. Are you guys as excited as I am?!

-Amy