The old monument in the park stands soaking wet and covered in fallen leaves. The moss crawls over the skin of the figures, and years of contaminated rain has caused their facial features to melt like dripping candle-grease.

The statue depicts a woman. On her shoulders she carries a child, its head has been chopped off. Tears of rust flow over her pointy bust, partly covering the inscription below it. To mankind.

I've always loathed this statue. Everything from the woman's silly, submissive expression to the rust around her mouth, which makes it seem like she just took a bite of the child. There's something sickly delightful about it where it stands, like an overgrown tombstone, marking the loss of everything we were and could have been.

A ring of naked trees surround the park area. Beyond them the city shines in its cape of withered facades. Clouds of steam leaked from the fuel generators slither across the streets, cloaking everything in a dream-like shroud that makes it hard to distinguish elements in the distance. The locked up buildings and narrow alleys seem to continue forever, and the lid of fog makes it feel like we're all swimming around in a very shallow fish tank. Gazing up at it makes it hard to breathe.

Through the mist figures in large hoods and tattered clothing walk in stiff lines. Like a chain of prisoners they pass and are devoured, one by one. They come. They go. Someone else takes their place.

It's been 327 years since the War of The Living. 327 years since we locked our doors and established NPU – the New Pacific Union. While the rest of the world were still crawling in the dust, we took action. Recolonized. Set up walls. Build or die.

The hairs on my neck suddenly rise, as if an invisible hand caressed my bones. I spin around. As far as I can see I'm alone. Buildings, bridges and signs with rules founded by the Humanitarians. No raised voices. No weapons carried. Upon suspicion of smuggling or trading with artificials, report to the nearest facility. The only sound comes from the water dripping down a pipe. It smells of sour decay. Fear lies poisonous in the air, tearing us down just like the acid rain eats through the buildings.

I start running. Mud splashes up on my legs. I don't stop until the chilly air makes my windpipes contract, forcing me to catch my breath in front of a partly sacked stone wall.

The bitter face of a politician gazes down at me from a large sign. Beneath him various messages are sprayed in graffiti. One of them says damn you all, another depicts a cylinder shaped glass tank. Inside it a lump of flesh slumbers, all tied up in wires.

No time to play God. Stop the production.

I start to run again.

”Taalia!” Dad's voice greets me as I burst in through the door. ”It's almost dark outside. Think I want you home in pieces?”

I clench my jaw and lean against the wall to shake off my boots, my heart still beating fast.

”Sorry. Lost track of time.” I'd rather not confess that I've taken the route through the park to stare at the monument again.

”Come on in then.”

The world pushes against the walls, desperate to get inside. I quickly lower the front door's security bar. The apartment smells of herbs and grease. A bowl of something I think is supposed to look like meatballs lies on the table. I pick up one and bite into it cautiously. I frown at the rubber-like consistency.

Artificial manufacture.

”It's ten times cheaper”, dad says. ”Nothing's real in this world anymore. Might as well accept it.”

A monotone voice hums through the room. It's coming from a small TV-screen mounted on the wall. The picture jumps with static, but I can see it depicts the parliament with its soft, turquoise walls. In the foreground stands a middle aged man with carefully combed, slightly grayed hair and eyes framed by glasses. A small notice in the left corner tells the viewers that he represents the Humanitarians.

”... to create something better”, he grunts. ”Every glass child inside the walls of the Union are required to submit themselves to registration. Any and all tries to produce, trade with, or hide artificial life will be regarded as national treason.”

A thunderous applause rises from a crowd somewhere out of view. The man frowns and looks down at his papers. Behind him men and women are hurrying past while throwing frightened gazes at the lens.

”Let's talk about the real problem.” The man with graying hair slowly braids his fingers together. ”These... architects. Thanks to these idealistic fools, dozens of glass children are smuggled past our walls every day. They're building an army out there, an army whose main purpose is to infiltrate our fortress and prod for weaknesses. This threatens everything we've striven to achieve. When the time comes we must -”

The picture flickers and goes black. Dad stands behind me with his usual, stern expression and the remote in hand.

”I wish you'd stop listening to that crap. The government is chasing their own tail. They wouldn't recognize a glass child if they tripped over it.”

I want to protest, but resort to simply shrugging.

On my way to my room I pass the faded photograph hanging above the hob. The portrayed woman's smile beams through the years passed and lights up the hallway. I see my own face rendered in the reflection of the photograph's shiny surface, it protrudes like a boil in comparison. Except for the blood red hair we don't have much in common. My mouth is thin and pursed, and I always look like I smelled something sour. My skin is chapped, the cheek bones way too broad, and my eyes have the color of muddy water.

Mother aches in every fiber of my being. Hot. Pulsating. I close my eyes and imagine the beautiful face torn to shreds. They fall down like pink snow over my feet.

Chopped up. Butchered.

”Who did it?”

”No one. It was a protest. They threw shrapnel grenades. The bodies could barely be identified.”

”Who did it? Theirs or ours?”

“You have to stop thinking like that, Taalia.”

Dad is quieter than usual during the dinner. My jaw aches from trying to chew through the rubbery bits of meat. On the living room screen the news are flashing by. Demonstrations. Uprisings. Big smuggle transport stopped by the border. Someone shot down five people before he hung himself from the victory valve at the town square. The picture shows faces crying, mouths screaming, medical troops carrying the bodies away. The eyes of the man are wide open where he dangles from the noose. On his coat two words are written in black ink: Architects, rise.

I look down at my plate, where I've separated the artificial meat from the mashed potatoes in two piles. Us and them. And standing between us, balancing on the edge of the glass that keeps us apart, men and women in red uniforms, ready to fight for our safety. Our world boils beneath the surface, caving in with each breath. Us against them.

It's the architect's fault that we are here. Genetic engineering became popular after war three, making it effective, lifelike and cheap to manufacture children. People were grown like tomatoes in a row. Physically optimized, and what's more – who wants a normal, boring human being these days? - equipped with a biotechnological defense system we call the Antronet.

It was the Antronet that led us to war four.

I'm floating in mid-air above my bed.

My eyes are closed, my body fluttering like a sheet in the wind. And through it all courses a digital roar, like an endless phone line.

I wake with a start. The cold sweat makes my covers glue up against my skin. Outside the window, a small shard of the moon is missing. The stillness feels unreal. I feel the familiar numbness spread through my palms.

My thoughts are cut off by a bang like a pistol shot from downstairs. I freeze and listen. Someone is moving down there, steps echoing against metal.

I rise from my bed so fast that the covers twist around my ankles like a snare, and I fall flat to my stomach. Furious and embarrassed I kick my way out of the fabric's grip, then I grab the iron pipe I keep on my bedside table. For safety's sake.

The muffled, rhythmic sounds from downstairs continue. I tighten my grip on the pipe, which feels cold in my hands. Carefully, I push open my bedroom door. The stairs are bathing in moonlight, excepting the last step, which lies in darkness. Slowly I make my way down, one step at a time, gripping the dusty railing with one hand and the metal pipe in the other.

”What do you want?” Dad's voice sounds like a dull blade.

”We've come to fetch our property.” A stranger's voice, a man's. He's standing right at the foot of the staircase, on a few inches from my shivering body.

”What? No, you can't take her! You can't, I've... please. For goodness sake, she's just a child.”

”You've no right to keep her.” A woman's voice this time. ”She doesn't belong to you.”

”Step aside”, the man says.

”Like hell I will!” I feel the change in the air as dad makes a lunge towards the strangers, the clinking sound of metal soles against the floor. ”She's my daughter. You've no right to wander in here and kidnap people. She's my daughter, you understand?”

”Dad!” I take the last three steps in one leap and land as the woman screams ”don't”, met by a buzzing sound and a sigh, the soft splash of a body hitting the floor.

I stand petrified in the hallway, trying to see peer through the darkness. I can't distinguish the faces of the intruders, but their bodies are coated in metal, and between them, in a sad pile on the floor, lies what appears to be a pack of clothes and limbs. The whites of my father's eyes shine in the dim light.

I scream.

”That's her!” The two figures emerge from the darkness and approach rapidly. Their movement is surprisingly smooth considering the metal outfits, they slip like shadows between the splashes of light seeping in through the window. I back up, trip over the first steps, get back on my feet and retreat up the stairs. The image of the pile of clothes with unmoving limbs is chafing against my cornea.

Just as I've swung open the door to my bedroom, one of the intruders grab a hold of my shoulder. The metal plated fingers dig into my skin. In blind rage I swing the iron pipe, aiming for the space between his eyes. There's a cracking sound and he looses his foothold. Wasting no time, I slam the door shut after me, after which I quickly pull down the security bar from the inside. A body collides heavily with the metal from the other side.

Panic stricken, I look around for an escape route. The clothes from yesterday are sloppily thrown over the chair, and the assignment we got on the history of the New Pacific Union lies unmade at the foot end of the bed.

I hurry up to the window and pull the knob that keeps the security drapes shut. It comes loose with a screech and I throw it to the floor. I force the window open with my elbow and crawl up on the sill. A cascade of freezing rain hits my cheek like a hundred needles.

It's a twelve feet drop down to the plated roof, a distance which seems longer still from up here. The cold fingers of the wind search through my thin night clothes and make the small hairs on my body stand up. I know I'm only making it worse the longer I wait, but I just can't bring myself to leap straight out into the darkness. It feels like the night might devour me if I let go of the windowsill. I close my eyes and decide to count to three.

I haven't even made it to one before the safety bar on the door breaks, the door is ripped off it's hinges and falls to the floor with a bang. I throw myself out into the night.

It seems like I'm falling through the rain for an eternity. Then I land, soft as a feather, on the roof plating. I've only managed to take a few steps towards the edge before something hits me from behind and presses me to the tiles so that a blood filled bomb explodes in my mouth.

”Shh. You'll understand.” The woman fumbles with something by my neck. The sharp edge of a needle grazes my skin. I twist and turn violently to escape her grip, but she then puts her hands to my neck. The touch makes me cramp as if I was hit by an electric shock. Paralyzing waves of energy jolt through my body. I scream and try to kick to woman, but her grip has me nailed down. The pain intensifies by each second, I cry louder and just as I think I'm about to die, an invisible force settles between us like a repellent layer, pushing the woman away from me. In the next moment she hits the plating with a surprised gasp.

The signal rings in my ears.

I roll to the side until I fall off the edge of the roof and hit the ground on all fours – again, too softly, as if I weighed nothing.

I hear the woman yell something behind me. Quickly, I wipe away the streak of blood that has found its way down my chin, and start running. For a moment I'm torn by a need to run back into the house, but then discouraged by the fear of the thing lying on the floor, limbs cracked into impossible angles and staring, glossy eyes. I head for the street.

The gravel digs into my bare feet and the rain sedates my face, but the fear makes my legs work like a machinery. I forge ahead, past the garden roses that dad desperately tried to make survive the autumn rain, continue along the driveway while I call for help. On the other side of the forest belt runs a highway where dad forbade me to walk.

My soles are all but numbed by the cold and I feel as if I'm running on a soft mattress instead of stones. I jump over the ditch and throw myself into the grove. The vegetation swallows me whole, bald branches hit me in the face as I fumble through, too busy ducking under trees to notice the ground disappearing beneath my feet. I fall headlong down the verge, hit a tree stub och rip open a burning would over my shoulder, breathe in dirt and tumble around and around until I hit something hard and unrelenting.

The world is turned upside down. I pull myself over the rugged asphalt, calling my last strength, which renders me unable to turn when the darkness around me is blasted in half by a blinding light. I prepare to be hit by the car body, flung like a doll through the air and die, but then the brakes screech like a tortured animal in the night. The headlights stop, the doors are opened. Instinctively, I raise my hands to defend myself against the stranger's figures dancing around me. I can't make out whether there are three or thirty of them. A warm current grabs me like a hook beneath my rib cage and rips me out of my body.