Yes, Chimma was more obedient than she usually was. Now that Denzin had made her see it, it was so obvious. And that made her afraid of that mask – so very afraid. She came under the influence of that thing far stronger, and for much longer, than Denzin did. And she had been bound by his imprint on her not only to not exchange her own freedom for his, but not to put herself at risk. Because he loved her. As long as she knew he loved her, the drive to obey that command was as strong as her need to pull air into her lungs. And because she loved him, she knew just as strongly that she couldn’t put him at risk, either.

  Putting the mask on her face meant risking her own freedom. But to leave it on him meant risking his.

  But she’d also promised to help him get free, and that was as engrained in her soul as all the rest of those stupid vows they’d made under the influence of the mask. How could she help him get free without risk to either of them? It was impossible.

  How had they have gotten into this mess? Did that stupid mask get them drunk or something?

  Chimma pushed it all aside, and tied her apron in place. The clientele that came to the Checkpoint Caff was probably not quite that which filled the other Caffs in the Over, but they were definitely a different sort to those who she’d served in the Fest-Caff. Now she served mostly people like herself, Unders who had passed the Zam in the past and were allowed to work Over the Hill. And some of the scientists and staff who lived nearby.

  She did miss her wrinkly Mrs. Dea. Chimma hoped she was alright. Maybe on Tenthday she should pop over to the Fest-Caff for a visit. Although every Tenthday since finding Denzin again had been spent sleeping to catch up on her rest. She hadn’t seen her parents since … oh, it had been far, far too long.

  Part of her longed for the simple life she used to lead. All she had to worry about was passing the Zam. Now, she had whole new routines, behaviours and terms to learn. And a silly boy to rescue that she couldn’t rescue.

  She tried to forget that she loved him. It was hard to keep focussed on serving her customers unless she did. And to keep herself from giving in too easily to the commands of others. She had to fight it. Focus, Chimma. You can do it.

  A new face came in and approached the counter. Chimma’s hackles rose, her body on full alert. She was in danger!

  No. She wasn’t. Kayda was just there to order some food. Repeating to herself that Kayda was just here to buy lunch, over and over again, her heartrate began to calm.

  Lowering her eyes appropriately, she asked, “Yes, what can I get for you, Miss?” Everyone was either Mister or Miss. No names. Just Mister or Miss. Except for the staff of the Caff. No one called her Miss or used her name. Ever.

  “Hi Chimma,” Miss greeted her.

  No one used her name! Her eyes flashed up to the face before her, and she wrestled them back down again. How did Denzin’s sister know her name?! Why was Denzin’s sister using her name!?!?

  “Can I just have some tea, please, and a slice of that bread with some spread, please.”

  She said please. They never said please to her. She was only an Under with a star drawn on her birthmark.

  Then again, Kayda was an Under. But her star was permanent, now. It had been for a long time. How Denzin had ended up with a perfect sister like Kayda was a mystery only Senda knew.

  She carried Kayda’s tray to an empty table – no one carried their own trays in the Over. As she set the tray on the table, Kayda grabbed her hand. Chimma flinched. She was at risk!

  “Shh,” Kayda whispered. “When is your break?”

  “I was just about to take it, actually, Miss,” she replied, dropping her eyes again, hoping to make her escape.

  “Come sit with me on your break, please.” Kayda’s eyes were magnets, and there was no way to wrest hers free. “Chimma, come sit with me.”

  Three minutes later, trembling hands hidden in her pockets, Chimma obeyed. Despite the risk, she obeyed. She silently cursed that yassing gas, and obeyed. Her heart thumping in her chest, muscles tight, she sat herself down at Denzin’s sister’s table.

  “Stop looking down for a minute and look at me, Chimma.” It was impossible not to obey her. Something in her voice – her face, so like Denzin’s – commanded her obedience. “I just wanted to tell you that you can trust me,” Kayda said, again looking straight into her eyes. “You can trust me, Chimma.”

  The resonance of Kayda’s words resounded in her body. Surely, that was as obvious to every customer in the Caff as it was to herself.

  Then Kayda murmured just in her hearing, “Remember this: Chimma, you can trust me.”

  It was ever so faint, but something in her wanted to believe Kayda. Her hands stopped trembling, and unclenched. Chimma blinked, swallowing down the anxiety, only for it to be replaced by confusion.

  “Yes, that’s right, Chimma. That’s better,” she went on. “You don’t need to be afraid. You can trust me.”

  “Miss, what do you mean?” Chimma’s words stumbled out of her mouth.

  “I think you know. I want to help. Remember this, Chimma: I want to help him, too.”

  At that, she gulped down her tea in one swig and left.

  For the rest of her shift, Chimma battled the conflicting commands silently. As if all the things laid down in her brain weren’t already battling one another! As she finished her work and threw her apron into the washing machine – they didn’t have those in the Under – she noticed Kayda, standing on the street outside the caff. She wasn’t doing anything. But she was there. She was very decidedly, purposely, there.

  Chimma went out the back door and walked the opposite direction.

  Having checked the time for sunrise and knowing exactly how long it took to walk to the docks, Chimma went to sleep, trying to quiet her spinning thoughts. It didn’t take long anymore, thanks to Denzin’s words. And the gas that had engraved those words in her brain – and made her nauseous with fear at even the thought of breathing it in again.

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  Dense cloud floated to the ground, becoming fog. It was so thick, Chimma could barely see more than a few metres ahead of her. Following the kerb, she carefully worked her way towards the Checkpoint. She had to hurry, because she had to be there in time. Exactly three hours before sunrise. But this fog hadn’t been in her calculations.

  Convinced at her own stealth, Chimma didn’t see meeting him as a risk, at least. Neither of them realised that in Denzin setting the time for her to awaken, he had driven into her that she had to meet him without fail every night. Which meant convincing herself that it was safe.

  The fog became thicker the further down the hill she went. All sorts of possibilities created a fog in her thoughts, as well. What would happen if she didn’t make it in time? Denzin’s commands left no leeway for being late. What if she missed him!? What if they moved him again and she couldn’t find him in the fog? Her feet hurried on down the street she couldn’t see.

  The wooden dock rang hollow beneath her feet. Tools scraped against wood, and she homed in on her target.

  And there, emerging from the gloom, was the man she loved. She ran to him, and released the mask that held his mouth. Before she could stop herself, she kissed that mouth.

  He pulled back sharply and reversed away from her. Then he bent his neck in a desperate attempt to get his lips around his mouthpiece, tears beginning to slide down his cheeks.

  “No, Denzin, not yet.”

  He stopped a moment, then tried again.

  She began the rounds of questions to find him in the fog inside his brain, letting the darkness hide her sorrow. Far too long it took. Far too long.

  “Denzin, it’s me, Chimma. Why do you want the mask?”

  “It’s my face! I love my face. I am so, so grateful to my Pendrakon for my face. He gave it to me, and I love him for it. Oh, please, put it back on for me! Please!”

  He sounded so forlorn, she almost did it.

  “No, Denzin, it’s not your face, it’s a mask. And it’s not good for you at the moment. Take a few deep breaths and give your head a shake.”

  After one more attempt to reach the mask, he sighed, giving a little sob. Then he obeyed her.

  She asked him more questions – each night now, it took longer to bring him back. More questions to find the nub of Denzin hidden inside DEN003.

  “Oh, Chimma, it’s getting so much harder,” he finally said. She now felt she could safely release his hands. Last night, he’d wrestled her for it for a few minutes before he became Denzin again. “Even now,” he whispered, “I’m longing for it. And my hands long to hold those stupid handles. It’s as if holding them is an intimate, loving thing. Chimma, I think I’m madly in love with my body!”

  One of his hands was already wrapped back around the handle. Caressing it gently. Then again, her left hand was in his lap. She took his hand away, and interlaced her left hand with his to solve both problems.

  “You really don’t want to hold those handles,” she told him. “Trust me. And you don’t want that mask. The mask makes you a slave. Denzin Walker, you are not a slave.”

  “Now that’s where you’re wrong,” he answered, his voice sounding much more like himself at last. “You see, I don’t have any freedom. From the moment I wake up until the moment until I fall asleep, every yassing moment I have to obey them. I’m sure they even try to control my dreams, at times. The only time I can think for myself is when you’re here.”

  His hand squeezed tightly around hers – the tiny metal links digging into her skin –and closed his eyes just as tightly. Then he relaxed, and turned his eyes up to hers.

  “Oh, I love you Chimma!” he said. He stroked her cheek gently.

  “I love you too, silly boy,” she chided him. “But listen, I’m a bit late, I think, with this stupid fog. Almost got lost. And I have to tell you something important. Is your head clear enough yet?”

  “I think so.” He pulled his hand away from hers, and placed both of them on his lap. “I’m not grabbing for the handles, see? Although I still want to. And I want the rest of my face back. But I think I’m okay. At least as okay as I’ll probably get. Tell me.”

  Chimma told him what happened in the caff that afternoon.

  “Kayda?! Said the key word, and that you could trust her?”

  “Exactly that. Twice! And you with your stupid using those words on me saying I couldn’t put myself at risk, I’m having to figure out whether it’s safe to trust her, while battling her command to trust her! I’ve been going nuts ever since!”

  “Oh, Chimma! You can’t put yourself at risk. Please don’t do anything you don’t think is safe.”

  “I don’t have a choice anymore, do I? And nothing feels safe. But Denz, she said she wants to help you, too. Used the key words. Does Kayda lie?”

  After a moment, he shook his head. “She can be a bully and wants her own way, but honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever caught her out in a lie.”

  “Thanks. That helps me. I was so worried she was lying, and trying to get me to trust her lies.”

  Water trickled along the mud far beneath the dock.

  “Probably another hour before the first boats come in,” Denzin said. “One good thing about working here before – I know how the shifts work. Let’s move to a safer place.”

  “You know me, I’m all about being safe,” she quipped. “I think about that more than I have in my whole life put together, now.”

  They spent the next hour or so trying to find out how to open the pod. Chimma tried every finger on that little spot behind him. Then she tried patterns of all sorts, like the tapping code they’d learned in school. She even tried the rhythm of the City Song, but that didn’t work, either.

  “How do they get into it to charge it?” she asked.

  “You’re asking the man who is always in a drugged sleep while they do it, you realise.”

  His lips pressed tight, forming a thin line. Then Denzin’s hands turned to fists, and he began pounding on his pod. Harder and harder and harder. He was just about to scream when Chimma said, “Hush, its not safe.”

  Immediately, his voice froze, his hands stilled, although his face still raged. She pulled his hands towards her and held them against her body. “We’ll figure it out, Denzin. We will. We’ll figure it out, and we’ll get you free. I know it.”

  She hated doing that to him, but she had to protect him. She couldn’t risk him waking up the dock workers sleeping behind them. As soon as he’d calmed, she told him it was safe. One last whimper gave voice to his sigh.

  The fog was even thicker now, and they could barely see one another despite the full moon overhead creating a gently glowing amorphous orb. His hand laid itself across hers as it rested on his lap, as if reminding her it belonged nowhere else but there.

  “Senda spoke to me again in my sleep. I just … I almost said that word. It just came back to me. He said that he was sending us someone we could trust. Interesting timing, right?”

  She slapped his arm. “You silly boy, why didn’t you tell me that earlier? I’ve been fretting away here, and Senda’s already given you the answer!”

  “Oh,” he replied, his lips finding their first smile of the night. “You’re right. At least you don’t punch as hard as she does. I warn you, you don’t ever want to make her angry at you.”

  Chimma saw his body shudder.

  “It’s time, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged, nodding. “Sort me out, then. I love you, Chimma. You know, I think I loved you before all this happened.” She locked his hands back where she knew he longed for them to be but hated them being as he continued. “That first time you called me out of that storm. Sorry I’ve dragged you into mine. It’s one of my skills, I think, causing storms for those I care about.”

  “Storm or no storm, I love you, Denzin Walker. Until tomorrow.”

  He opened his mouth, and Chimma pushed the mask carefully back into place, cringing as it resumed being the other half of his face. She pulled his poncho hood tenderly up over his head, straightening it over his pod. The electric shock rattled through his bones once more as he turned. It only took a moment, and he was lost in the fog, hidden from her view.

  Chimma prayed with all her heart for Senda’s protection over him. The first dockworkers were heading out to check for incoming deliveries as she felt her way back up the hill.

  She didn’t notice the figured shrouded in the fog, not even four metres away.

  ~~~

  Frustrated that she still could find no way to make herself follow her brother, Kayda wiped her tears, turned and followed Chimma back up the hill.