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            "I don't understand how you know what you're looking for."

This was what I told Art as we ventured into the woodland, ducking under the wispy tendrils of overgrown plants and stepping over tree roots that stuck out from the ground. To me, it didn't look like we were going to find a lot here. Even fifty years ago, the place must've been a similar kind of wood, because it was impossible for so many trees to appear out of the blue. Left to nature's devices, the place had become wildly overgrown, and the canopy of trees above was so thick it blocked out every ray of sunshine.

If we did find anything, it likely wouldn't be useful. Countless bits and pieces were scattered among the greenery, but it all looked like litter to me, degraded by decades of exposure. Nevertheless, Art continued to stride ahead, eyes transfixed on the ground, like at any moment he might stumble upon a pot of gold.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I thought you were looking for stuff that was part of the city," I said, narrowly avoiding a stumble as my ankle caught on a trailing plant. "Out here, it's just... wild. It doesn't look like anything was here, even years ago. Surely you'd have more luck combing through the old buildings back there?"

It seemed like a sensible enough suggestion, at least from my perspective, but Art continued walking. Noticing how far he'd strode ahead, I quickened my step.

"Back in the city is a dead end," he said matter-of-factly. "When we first got here, we spent the best part of three months combing through those places to see what we could find. Some of it was useful. The lab equipment from the university was well-protected, so Thomas managed to salvage that. But the rest... well, there are more offices than you can count, and all their electronic equipment's useless. Not only is it ridiculously dated, a lot of it's been ruined by fifty years of extreme weather."

"But there were more than offices," I pressed. "What about everything else?"

"What? Like food?" he asked, and I nodded. "Well, there were some people expecting an apocalypse who stockpiled tins, but we ran through that supply months ago. The reason most people died was starvation. Fifty years on, there's not a whole lot of food floating around."

He had a point. I'd never known what it was like to go hungry, so it was easy to detach myself from what people here must have experienced all those years ago. Genetic modification had saved many, as was drilled into our minds from a young age – but we hardly ever considered those it had been too late for.

"Oh." It was the only word I could find.

"There's more than you think out here," Art said. "Especially with all the crazy weather. All those floods over the years have spread things further than they should've."

I still didn't quite get it. "Like what, though?"

"Well..." He came to a halt, glancing around the immediate vicinity, looking for an example. All I could see was wet grass beneath our feet, the tangle of bushes complete with both flowers and thorns, and a huge spider web stretched between two branches. There was surely nothing here, and yet... "What about this?"

He bent over to pick something up, and my eyes were instantly drawn to what was in his hands. Tube-shaped and silver, it glinted in the stray beams of sunlight that managed to get through the trees, its exterior thoroughly scratched. It looked like...

"Aha," Art said. "Exhibit A."

"Is that...?"

He popped off the lid, and when I saw the deep red colour underneath, I was proved right. "Lipstick," he finished for me. "Just hidden here, out of sight."

I didn't even know what to say. It was such a strange thing to see, so out of place here where appearances were the last thing that mattered. With the only mirrors being the cracked ones in the communal showers, I only saw my reflection once a day. Since being here, I'd barely spared a thought for what my face looked like. There were more important things on my mind.

He held it out, and I paused, not sure whether he was joking. "For you?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Fifty-year-old lipstick," I said sceptically. "Now that sounds like the most unsanitary thing I've ever heard."

"Really? You couldn't just call it vintage?" He held it up closer to his face, wrinkling his nose as he inspected the item close up. "Maybe you're right – I'm pretty sure that's mould. But I'm kind of impressed it's still intact. Not to mention it proved me right."

"I think it only counts if you find something useful."

"You could make use of it," he argued. "I mean, there's the risk of some hideous infection, but our immune systems are supposed to be able to handle that, right?"

I turned up my nose. "I'm not about to test it out."

He laughed, tossing the silver tube back where it had come from. It felt strange to see someone litter – New London had been pristine, due to strict environmental rules – but with so much already around us, it hardly made a difference. We were only restoring the natural order.

As we trekked on, I had to give it to Art: he was definitely onto something. Though most of the stuff nestled between branches and covered in dirt was rubbish, the process of seeking it out was actually pretty entertaining. So far away from everything, it didn't feel like we were in Birmingham at all. Alone, away from Nova, Jace, and everything that reminded me of all I'd lost, I could almost pretend we were anywhere.

It was easy to lose track of time, and I didn't know how long we'd been out. I just knew that it was long enough for the tension to leave my body, putting the spring back in my step and the laughter back in my voice. Art was easy to like, easy to be around. It was refreshing.

"Hey, look at this!"

I followed his voice up ahead, and when I got close enough, saw the reason for his exclamation: an old, battered football that he passed from foot to foot before kicking up and catching with both hands.

"No way," I said.

"Whoa, does this take me back to being a kid, or what." He caught my eye, and after a wordless exchange, I anticipated the throw in my direction. Coordination had never been my strong point, but I managed a clumsy catch. I squeezed, feeling it deflate slightly between my fingers.

"You played football?" I asked.

"Kind of," he said. "Not seriously. Used to kick one about with my dad on the weekends, and it was always good fun."

He gestured for me to kick it back. It was a simple enough request, but I paused – and he picked up on my reluctance.

"Come on," he said. "It's not that hard."

I let the ball drop to the ground, resting in front of my feet. It really shouldn't have been such a difficult ask, but I was suddenly overcome by self-consciousness, rendered rigid by the knowledge that I was about to embarrass myself. Taking a deep breath, I drew my foot back and took aim.

It was a pathetic kick, barely rolling the whole distance between us, but it was a kick all the same.

With the football back in Art's hands, he raised an eyebrow. "You never played?"

I shook my head. "I was never really the sporty type," I said. "And since I was no good, I didn't enjoy it in the slightest. I much preferred staying inside with my textbooks."

"Huh. Interesting." For a second, he studied me, before his attention turned back to the football. His hands let go, and when it hit his feet, he bounced it up and down on the spot for a while.

I gave him a look. "Now you're just showing off."

"This isn't showing off – this is terrible. I'm completely out of practice." With one last kick, he caught the ball again, before tucking it under his arm. "We're definitely taking this one back. Might make for some good entertainment on a slow day."

I couldn't resist asking. "What do you think Nova will have to say about that?"

"I don't know," he said, maintaining eye contact with me. "Did she ever play football? Or did you have some kind of strict no-sports rule in your family?"

This dragged a smile out of me: one I couldn't hold back. "No, there was no rule," I told him. "She did go through a sporty phase. Didn't last very long, mind you, but maybe seeing the football will reawaken something."

His face seemed to light up. "You really think so?"

My mind went to what she might look like upon our return, and I couldn't help pulling a face. "Probably not," I said, shaking my head. "In fact, if I had to place my bets, I'd just go for a severe telling-off when she realises we've been gone all this time."

I thought it would dampen his spirit, but he didn't seem worried. Instead, he waved me off dismissively. "I can handle her. This little trip was necessary."

"Was it?"

"Yeah," he said. "To show you that it's not all doom and gloom around here, even if the last few days have given you that impression. I know it's different. It was an improvement for us, of course, but that doesn't take much when you've broken out of prison. For you and Jace, it's been more of a culture shock."

"Yeah..." My voice trailed off as the thoughts crept back in. Just like that, the feeling of freedom had disappeared, and I was right back where I'd started. "Jace seems to be struggling, too."

"It'd be weird if he wasn't," Art said. "It's a lot to handle. For anyone... but particularly him."

"I know. It just worries me."

"Why?"

I considered it for a moment, waiting for the answer to spring to mind, but it didn't come as easily as I wanted. "I know he needs help – he needs it desperately. And I'm trying, I really am, it's just... he keeps pushing me away. Nova said to leave it, that people only get help when they ask, but... I don't know how long he can carry on like this."

"Are you two close?"

The question caught me off guard. At first, the automatic defence seemed right there on the tip of my tongue, but something stopped it at the last minute. The answer wasn't so clean cut, so easy to explain. In fact, I didn't even know if I could properly express it in words.

"I don't know," I said eventually. "I thought we were getting there, at some point. We were both searching for something, together, secretly... there was at least some kind of connection there. But in the last couple of days, it feels like everything's changed."

"That's because it has."

"I know," I said quietly. "It just doesn't feel like a good sign."

Suddenly, I was overcome by aversion – I no longer wanted to talk about it. The short exchange of conversation had been more than enough, bringing Jace back to the forefront of my mind – which was the worst place for him to be. Like Nova said, he didn't want my help. I couldn't change that until he did.

"We should head back," I said. "I don't want to test Nova's patience any more than I already have."

Art studied me for a second, his eyes sweeping over my expression in search of a clue – but he didn't seem to find anything, because this was followed by a nod. "Okay."

He led the way, either because he sensed I wasn't about to move first, or because he had a shred of common sense and realised he was better suited to navigating. I let my footsteps fall one pace behind his, a silence stretching between us that bordered the line between bearable and uncomfortable.

I didn't want to feel like this. This should've been a welcome getaway from back home – a chance to finally live without the risk of being caught and punished by the government. Sure, there weren't quite the same home comforts, but I could live without them. If the people I cared about were here, that was enough for me.

And yet, at the same time, they weren't. Two years had seen Nova morph into a complete stranger, and I wasn't sure I'd ever known Jace in the first place. Despite a few moments of exception, it had been a depressingly lonely few days.

It was a long walk back, and I didn't want to worsen the mood by spending it in complete silence. Wallowing in my own miserable thoughts had become my default setting, and I really had to stop.

Maybe I had to be more like Art. Which was when I started thinking. I'd learnt a little about him, touching upon his and Nova's back story, but there was so much more I didn't know. There were his eyes, completely mismatched, and how they really didn't bother him. And a desire to explore outside the boundaries, in the hope of finding something out of the ordinary. The more I thought about it, the more intrigued I became.

So, out of nowhere, I said it. "Can I ask you something?"

My voice seemed to come as a surprise, because he looked over questioningly. "That sounds ominous," he said, "but sure. Why not?"

"Where was home?" I asked. "I know you said this place was an improvement on prison, but that's a given. There must have been some place before that. What did you leave behind?"

He let out a breathy laugh, which seemed kind of misplaced in the circumstance, but I guessed it had something to do with the unexpectedly heavy question. I knew it sounded dramatic. I just wanted to know, especially at a time when I was finding it difficult to stop looking back.

"Wow," he said, with a smile. "You really don't hold back."

I looked sheepish. "Sorry. I didn't mean to put you on the spot or anything. I was just curious."

"It's okay. I'm just wondering where to start." He reached up, running a hand through his sandy-coloured hair, his fingers leaving imprints where he'd slicked it back. The action seemed like it was buying him time.

I decided to help him out. "Are you from New London?"

"Yeah." He looked thankful for the starting point, as if he'd been dropped somewhere he recognised in some kind of tangled maze. "Lived there my entire life, before the whole prison thing. On the outskirts, though. My parents didn't have the budget for any of those city centre properties, but it was decent enough."

I stayed quiet, thinking of my own house, choosing not to mention it had been exactly the type he was referring to. Huge, extravagant – and with a price tag to match.

"They didn't live beyond their means, not usually. None of the latest technology or expensive gadgets. But there was one thing they heard about that they couldn't resist."

I could guess what was coming. "BioPlus."

"Yup." He nodded. "Dad heard whispers from people at work who were considering it. The whole thing was pretty new on the scene, you know – not widely tested, a little sketchy. Still cheap, too. And BioPlus were being careful themselves. They weren't going crazy with the modifications, at least not yet. A few tweaks here and there, to see how things turned out. And they were right to, really, because obviously their methods weren't perfect."

Unable to help myself, I looked at his eyes again. The contrast between the two was striking, a collision of two worlds right there on his face. What struck me most was how the blue didn't stand out. It should've, purely by design, when there was such a bold colour staring back at me. But the dull brown warranted attention of its own, for different reasons. There'd been no reason to change it in the first place.

"Looking back, I think I might've been one of their guinea pigs," he said. "It certainly didn't work as well as it should've. I guessed they perfected the method in the years after, for people like you and Nova..."

I suddenly felt stupid for my narrow view of modification, my assumption that it all went perfectly – just because that was all I'd ever known. But the bias was obvious. Of course only the success stories would make it to the academy, even into public. People lesser than perfect defeated the whole purpose, and therefore they were hidden away.

I swallowed, hardly daring to ask. "Did they try to change anything else? Other than the eyes?"

"Um..." There was something else running through Art's mind, something that brought with it more distress; I could tell by the look on his face. He was toying with whether to reveal it at all. "They went for athleticism," he said eventually. "Nothing major, just a little physiological boost – muscle strength, lung capacity, that kind of thing. Intended to give me a competitive advantage that wouldn't look suspicious."

"And did it work?"

I almost didn't want to hear the answer.

"Oh, it worked," he said, but an uncomfortable note in his voice told me there was much more to the story. "Worked great, in fact, for the most part. I was a sprinter. One hundred, two hundred metres, either one. I was top of my school's athletics team with no real effort on my part. And it was great, you know – my parents were happy, and it kind of made up for the eye thing, because at least one of the things they'd wanted had come through. As I got older, it was looking more and more likely that I'd qualify for the New London Olympics. Then... well, it went downhill."

"What happened?"

"I still don't really know," he said. "Something clearly messed up biologically, but I never got as far as finding out what. The tests were inconclusive."

Without warning, the flashback filled my mind: being strapped down in a BioPlus lab, injected with some unknown solution, taunted by the technician's cryptic remarks about Nova.

Please remain calm. You must complete the test.

It was all inside my head, but fear rippled through me anyway. I tried my best to shut it out.

"It happened on the most important day of all," he continued. "The regional qualifiers. I was seventeen, had everything riding on this one race, all hope of making a career in athletics. I was all set – trained as hard as I possibly could. There was no reason for me to fail. But then on the day... I don't know. I just did."

I realised then I was holding my breath, caught in suspense while waiting for further explanation.

"The starting pistol went off, and I started to run, but... I can't explain it. It was like my muscles just... lost all their strength, in a single moment. They were too weak to even hold me up. I just crashed there on the track, in the most excruciating pain I've ever experienced, with everyone looking on wondering what the hell was happening."

"That... doesn't make any sense."

"I know," Art said. I suddenly felt bad for making him relive it; it had clearly been distressing, and I could tell by the lines on his face that little had changed in the years since. "I knew something was wrong with me. I could feel it. It was something to do with the modification, waiting there, ready to cripple me at any moment..." He stopped, shaking his head. "So I quit."

"No," I breathed.

"Yup," he countered, with the type of resignation that made it obvious he'd given up long before. "Quit competitively, at least. And pretty much ruined my future in the process, because that was the only hope I had of a scholarship. I just couldn't take the risk."

I didn't know what to say; no words seemed enough to fill the gaping hole the conversation had left behind. The stories here were worse than I could've imagined, and the truth was that the problems with modification had begun long before the authorities started hunting us down.

"I hate the whole idea of it," he said suddenly, as if reading my mind. "Modification is sick, and twisted, and to be honest, I hate that I was forced to be a part of it. And most of all, I hate that even after me, my parents didn't learn their lesson."

Something deeper lay beneath those last words, and I glanced over in an attempt to work it out. "What do you mean?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he snapped, and within seconds, his stride had lengthened, allowing him to rapidly pace ahead.

As I watched him go, a deflated breath escaped me. I couldn't quite wrap my head around what had just happened, like my brain lacked enough energy to process it. There was something more to the story; that much was obvious. But as my footsteps fell into sync several metres behind his, carrying me further back to base, I realised that this wouldn't be the time when I found out.

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Please excuse this being a day late. It's been a rough couple of days, and this completely slipped my mind. I had to say goodbye to the dog we've had for the last twelve years today. If anybody who's experienced similar has any words of comfort, I'd love to hear them.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. As always, let me know what you thought in the comments.

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- Leigh