"Noan's ability was leeching. He leeched off everybody, off everything. He almost killed me, you know that?"

For the second time that day, Ari wondered where Kena was going with this. She didn't seem angry or mad. In fact, if not for Ari knowing what Kena had done with the Users of the city and the extent she was willing to experiment on them, regardless of outcome or morality, this could have been a casual conversation over lunch.

Except Ari knew Kena had something up her sleeve, or she wouldn't have taken Mina and specifically requested Ari's presence.

"It was just as well his repeated fails had flagged up enough in the system to require a trial. You see, the weak don't survive here; I'm sure you're well aware of that. When you are literally useless, there is no point in the City sustaining your survival until you turn eighteen. So you get purged."

Ari tasted bile in the back of her throat. "Purged?"

"Yes. He got erased. Deleted. Eradicated. I'm surprised you even know of his existence. Everyone else who was ever acquainted with him or his name no longer does."

"I saw his files in an underground flat in Area Nine."

"Ah. Yes, that was probably my compiled file after he got erased – proof that he did exist, once upon a time."

Ari's brows knitted.

"So how do you...?"

"Me?" Kena brushed a stray hair from her forehead and leaned against the metal bars again, peering down at Ari. "I write codes. I specialised in genetics and modifying them. So a lot of the secret stuff I don't want the system to scan, I code them into what seems like unrelated work. A few recipes, some shopping lists, a diary grumbling about the catty girls at school – but I wrote more between the letters. Stuff about Noan. His self-gratification, his self-pitying, his victim complex. It made me feel better, but he was my brother – or so I'm told. I didn't want him to come to harm just because I was angry. But one day he disappeared. He wasn't in the school register. His pictures vanished. No packages had his name. It was like he never existed. I had no recollection of him, either, until I read my codes and realised what happened."

"Your memories were erased?"

"Well, I recall everything perfectly. It was just everything to do with Noan was gone. Events where he participated no longer had him but someone else standing there. Conversations over dinner turned to conversations between hosts on television. It was stuff you wouldn't question, because he never existed, as far as everyone, including me, was concerned."

Kena chewed on a thumb nail and then spat it back out.

"But slowly and gradually, I noticed stuff. All the other people that don't score well in Area Nine I kept tabs on, but there were a lot of them. Those that do particularly bad on their academics, I code their names and some details into my mundane work. And, of course, come maintenance day, some of them are gone. And some new faces pop up in Class 1, ones that definitely weren't March City citizens before then."

"You kept tabs on every single citizen in Nine?" Ari wasn't sure what was more incredulous, the extent of Kena's apparently pointless work or the conspiratorial things coming out of her lips.

"Well, that's how the city does it during maintenance day, too. All the students get anaesthetised, some gets medications to keep their body going, others get taken away – permanently. New ones get inserted. Everyone's memories get modified to make it like the removed ones never existed and the new ones were always there. When everyone reaffirms the same memories, nobody questions it."

"But where do they go? Who decides who gets... purged?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"How do you come into this?"

"I figured you'd ask." Kena sounded pleased. "Noan, I didn't care for. He leeched life and my ability out of me. But he was the trigger into me looking into this city, and there was so much more to it than meets the eye. Every year on maintenance day, the weakest ones who never recovered from abysmal marks get erased. I was never as bad as them, but I felt bad for them, and with my knowledge and research into genetics and modification, I could maybe do something about it. I looked into amplifying abilities. I looked into super-stimulating the part of the brain controlling the powers. I looked into gene-typing one's abilities so that we can classify them and maybe transplant them – in theory. When I started proposing that we could modify powers, my funds got cut and my project shut down. That year, meddling with your ability in any way became illegal – except, of course, that law has 'always been there' after maintenance day was over."

The large room was silent except for the occasional drip drip drip of some archaic leaking pipe in the corner. Shadows seemed to lurk in the corners. Ari kept a wary eye out in case more of the rebels wanted to attack her whilst she was distracted.

"It sounds ideal, right? This city thrived on progress. If your ability is powerful and your control is good, you get credits. If you study hard and contribute to society, whether by breaking research or new inventions or keeping the day-to-day systems going smoothly, you get credits. I can adjust the abilities, which is half of the equation. The whole city will run better. The Users will be happier. Nobody needed to be removed for it. But for some reason, Administration didn't want me to continue the research. Somebody got worried and wanted to shut me up. I skipped maintenance day that year, because I know my time was close. The damned Peacekeepers came in the middle of the night, but I was ready." Kena scowled. The heat radiated from her. She seemed to have a real hatred – or was it fear? – of Peacekeepers. Ari hoped Shon wouldn't suddenly burst in. "I continued my research underground and made progress after progress, without anybody detecting it."

Ari began to think she was listening to the ramblings of a madwoman, but her words resonated oddly with her. She made sense. Horrible sense, but sense, nevertheless. "And I come into this, because...?"

"The issue with amplifying or transplanting matching abilities is that they surge. I'm sure you're well-phrased with that term, being a high-ranking User and all. Low achievers' bodies are not equipped for that kind of significant power nor the fluctuations in energy that came along with it. They can't control it, and no amount of genetic modification of the codes to their abilities can change that."

"And my ability gives them the chance to ground it." It dawned on Ari. Kena's grin was so wide it stretched from ear to ear.

"Clever girl."

"What do you want to do to me?" Ari asked, uneasy. Kena did make sense and her intention sounded good, but she also sounded completely crazy. Altering or transplanting abilities affected the very essence of who a User was. It was like suggesting a personality transplant.

"Unfortunately, when I tried to extract the essence in the section of the Users' brain pertaining to ability use, most of them did not survive the process. The ones that do become very... altered."

Ari had a nauseating feeling she knew that Kena was referring to.

"The monsters I've come across here."

"Ah, yes. Vexi released them when we saw your little friend arriving with you."

Ari's stomach dropped. They knew Shon was here.

"Now, we can't have Peacekeepers snooping about. They must be taken care of."

"Shon came as a friend. He was looking out for me."

"I don't care if he came as a tub of healing balm. A Peacekeeper is as scummy as the next. I hope those creatures took good care of him."

"Those are what become of Users after you strip them of their abilities?" Ari asked, scandalised. At least Shon was safe, for now. "And you want me to volunteer?"

"I know it seems ridiculous." Kena rubbed her chin in thought. "But I've worked out an agent that stimulates overgrowth of the essence related to abilities. It means I can duplicate it. I just need to sieve it out of your system, stabilise the immune response of the recipient, and administer it. No harm to the donor, the recipient gains the ability, too. And best of all, no risk of surges, because they ground whenever the energies fluctuate. Don't you see? It's perfect."

Perfectly untested, thought Ari, but she didn't want to antagonise the crazy scientist any longer. God knows how many other monsters she had lurking, even if the extra ones from earlier were still behind their cages.

"Let Mina go and I'll cooperate," she said, cautious. Kena giggled. She straightened up and meandered to the stone steps Ari hadn't noticed until now. Kena's sharp eyes didn't move from Ari's face as she descended. She was much taller than Ari expected: some half a head taller. "And let my friends go. All these horrible things you've found out about the purging and memory-erasing during our maintenance days... you don't want to be the only one who knows about it, do you? You don't want to be forgotten just like Noan was?"

"Oh, that was already sorted long ago. I didn't let my time go to waste. I made this." Kena took out a corked test tube containing a pale blue liquid. "It's a vaccine against the biological memory-altering agents used on maintenance day. All the little ones that came got an administration. I told them it was to strengthen their immunity as their stay underground may mean they miss maintenance days, but it was to stop Administration getting in the way and erasing my precious work." She paused, studying Ari. "But yes, you're right. I don't want my work to go to waste, and I'm sure there is more to the world once we turn eighteen years old... won't you help me?"

She proffered the test tube. Ari gave her a wary look.

"If I want to kill you, I have better ways." As if to prove a point, Kena uncorked it and fished out a syringe out of another pocket. She took out a small amount into the syringe and kept steady eye contact with Ari as she released a drop onto her tongue. She licked her lips. "One drop; that's all you need. Maintenance day is nothing more than a medical check-up, memories intact."

Kena replaced the lid and held the tube out again. Ari took it reluctantly and slid it in her pocket, making a mental note to get rid of it at the earliest chance. Kena might be a bioengineering genius but the conspiracy theory chilled Ari to the bone.

"I'm glad you're seeing things my way." Kena shoved her hands into her lab coat pockets and tilted her head. "Us intelligent people do resonate on a different level. Unfortunately Mina's the first one for me to test this on. She's had the immune-stabilising agent already. All that I need you to do is take the essence stimulating growth factor and allow me some blood. Then it's done!"

"You're testing on Mina first?" Ari reeled. "No... no!"

"Someone has to go first, and she was my trump card if you refused to help me."

"She's too young to go through with it. Try someone else!"

"Oho!" Kena's eyebrows shot up. "You do realise even eleven-year-olds have been purged on occasions because they had zero potential when calculated by the system, right? Why should your precious Mina be any different? Why should some other citizen undergo the experiments when yours get safety checks?"

"Because she never asked for any of this!"

"But she has everything to gain. Without you playing the mother hen all these years, she would have long been purged. Such a sweet, pathetically weak User." Kena fished out a second small test tube from her pocket. The liquid inside was innocuously clear. It could be water. "And with this, you can change the world for everyone in March City. A new life. New potential."

Ari took it with a trembling hand. She swallowed. Her t-shirt stuck to her in various places with bodily fluids and sweat. The first tube felt bulky against her thigh. She could make the difference to every under achiever in the city with this one drink. Her blood alone could save them all from the purge. But what if Kena was lying? What if she was wrong? What if Ari turned into the very monsters that almost killed her, Rale, and Shon?

But she knew well how difficult their lives were. She saw it every day in Fris, although she never complained about her hardship and tried to hide her struggles. Even though they were friends, Fris never offloaded on her, but Ari whined about homework and Hine and being caught jumping with zero consideration of Fris. Perhaps this was why Fris betrayed her. Perhaps she hated her all along. Perhaps they were never friends in the first place. Ari was too thick to see it coming. What if Mina felt the same way? What if Mina resented how Ari never worked and enjoyed the best? What if she had to do what Fris needed to do if Ari fell short in credits? If she drank this, both of them could get a safe power boost, too, and enjoy the privileges Ari had taken for granted.

And besides, Kena only wanted a blood sample.

With clammy hands, Ari fiddled with the cork and almost dropped it. Kena watched her, unblinking. Ari swallowed, placed the tube to her lips, and tilted her head back.

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