General Marsh stared at her, his face a drawing of shock and resignation as he took in the two people he had presumed long dead. He briefed them on what had been happening. The other plebes and Mange had been rescued the same day as the attack, they had all been fine apart from some shock and mild pneumonia. The plebes had described the skyship pushing air at them but none of them had seen Blackburn and Anna since the ship started blasting. It seemed Blackburn's neural processor (the computers planted within the brains of every plebe and Blackburn,) had been externally disabled by someone very sophisticated and the Spire had been unable to reverse the damage. Without Blackburn there running the Spire, for he was essential for its smooth running, they had been forced to rely on external 'experts' from Vengerov's company who had been hounding the place like wolves for a long time. The Spire had run with limited power. Wyatt Enslow, the rudely oblivious girl who hung around with Tom Raines and had been trained by Blackburn personally, had taken over much of the work and the programming competency of the plebes had naturally gone downhill in his absence.

Anna's parents had been told she had died, though she suspected they hadn't cared much, a sour taste in her mouth. Her mother was a high ranking banker who only really cared about the money and was constantly working and her father indulged himself in little projects such as hypnotherapy, pottery and even a chutney making business at one point. He never stuck with anything but money was no barrier with her mother's high wage. Neither parent had ever had much time for her. Oh they had probably had a funeral, her father making sure he looked the part, with his designer suit and dark cufflinks, dressed up. He would have spent hours styling his hair, his beard, polishing his shoes before the memorial. Her mother would have smeared on the eye liner, possibly going with black or grey lipstick and they both would have milked it for all it was worth. Heck they'd probably gone on holiday with the bereavement leave they'd received. And Comco would have paid them a substantial amount in compensation. It was sick. They didn't care, she had just been a distraction, another project for them.

Marsh was evidently pleased to have Blackburn back but he looked at Anna like she was some mythical prodigy, some sort of rare creature he could not understand. She supposed in a world where no one killed, (sure, supposedly, she snorted at the thought), a world where there was no more war, that something as horrible as being Castaway, left to their own devices for a year and a half was unimaginable. Blackburn repeated the undetailed tale he'd spun the captain the night before. Marsh seemed unwilling to push too far into the delicate time of their lives, he seemed unsure how to proceed. But he was very clear, Anna was to report to the counsellor, Olivia and would continue her training.

They reached the Spire, the place where plebes were being trained to fight intergalactic wars against the Russio-Chinese for resources. These wars meant no one would die as they were done in space, using machines, the plebes could connect with them using their minds, their neural processors. The Earth was now controlled by a few big companies, the main ones controlling food and water. Venegrov was head of one of these corporations, he was one of the most powerful people in the world. Anna ignored the stares of the plebes as she walked through the corridors to her room. Daisy had since moved up in ranks, as had others in the time she had been away but she was still to share a room with the girl. She was occasionally accosted by people hounding her with questions, what had it been like? What was Blackburn like? How did she survive? Anna remained silent, saying nothing, hoping the pounding would stop.

Blackburn had immediately busied himself undoing the blocks to their neural processors and redoing the 'work' of the 'experts' who had been replacing him. Wyatt told Anna that he often swore at their incompetence. Anna was sitting on her bed when it happened. She had her head in her hands and was trying to block out Daisy's incessant chatter when she felt a jolt of electricity reach through her. Her fingers tingled and she jerked back onto the bed in a fit, her muscles seizing up. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and suddenly everything was still. She felt different. She glanced around, her eyes sharper, clearer. She saw Daisy looking at her in shock, her name popping up in Anna's vision. Her neural processor was back online! "Are you alright? What happened?" Daisy rushed over in confusion, her hands not quite daring to touch the stranger who had come back into her life, wilder and more dangerous than before. Anna simply stared at her for a few seconds, taking in the new experience of the extra focus, and euphoria of having the processor working again. "He's fixed my processor. He's done it!"

The next day Anna was back in lessons. She also had her first therapy appointment later that day. It felt so strange, following orders from teachers, walking the dimly lit corridors again and attending classes like nothing had happened. She sat next to Tom Raines in her history class taught by an old Professor with pale skin who always seemed to be wearing cufflinks on a pressed shirt. He always looked like he'd just waltzed out of a ball. Tom looked paler than before, but had not changed physically: the neural processor required all growth to happen soon after it had been inserted. He glanced at her, his blond hair longer than before. He cautiously asked her "hey, how you doing?" Anna smiled a little and gave the same answer she'd given a hundred times before that day. "I'm fine thanks."
Tom frowned. "No – really?"
Anna sighed. "It is just a bit weird you know, being back. But I am okay thank you." Her tone discouraged further conversation. She couldn't afford any attachments in a world like this. Blackburn had said he wouldn't do anything unless he had to, but the problem was that in a place like this, it was unpredictable, he might decide that she was too much of a risk.

Tom shifted round in his seat to look at her properly. He scrutinised her face and asked in an almost mocking tone "so you spent almost a year and half with Blackburn then?" It was more of a statement than a question. "What's he like? Did you see what he's really like?" Anna's heart stopped, it was just her and him in the world. Tom Raines was the only other person who knew the real James Blackburn. He had been strapped to the census device for two days if the rumours were to be believed. They had said that Blackburn had dug through his brain, churned up his memories to find something specific though no one knew quite what. Anna was thinking about what to say and how best to answer when they were interrupted by the Professor. "Raines, Faeilr if you have so kindly finished interrupting me I will continue! Faeilr, considering you haven't been present for fifteen months I would think you would want to make up missed time." It felt like a slap in the face. Anna was tempted to yell at him: "the reason I haven't been here is because I have been stranded with a psychopath!" but she used her usual defence mechanism, silence. She simply glared at him and spoke only when she absolutely had to for the rest of the lesson.

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What do you think?