by Krista McGee
“This gas will only put Rhen into a sleep deep enough to allow her to be placed in the simulation.”
The wall screen behind Rhen changes. In the top corner, I see her brain, but a new color is lighting up, a purplish-pink. The rest of the screen shows my music, but in a way I never could have imagined. It is a place. A three-dimensional location, with each note residing in a specific position. The treble clef is the ceiling, the bass clef is the ground. It is like a maze. I can’t see a beginning or an end. But then I see Rhen. She is there. In my music.
She looks at the music. I see the image of her brain in the corner. It is filled with so many colors, all moving and growing. Blues inside reds, yellows inside purples.
Dr. Loudin looks up from a machine to stare at the screen. He is amazed too. He walks to the image of the brain and moves it around, examining it. He is smiling the entire time. I have never seen him smile so much.
I look back at Rhen. She is moving the notes. They are light, so light that all she has to do is touch them and they float to a new position. In minutes, she has created a straight line. Berk leans forward. Dr. Loudin sits in his chair, ignoring even the lighting of the brain as he watches this.
Whole notes, half rests, flats, and sharps are all lined up. Rhen makes rows upon rows out of the music. What was once a maze is now an organized passageway. Rhen even adjusts the notes themselves so they are all the same height, blending into one another. She walks down one row and up the next, touching notes that are not lined up exactly right.
The notes aren’t in the order I wrote them, but as I read the measures she has lined up, row by row, it makes sense. She is creating a new song. She is lining up all the parts by the key in which they were written. She has started with the up-tempo parts, those notes are closer together. Where I have written a slower tempo, the notes have spaces between them. They are in their own row. They stand taller than the faster notes. It is beautiful. What I wrote as a compilation of my musical knowledge, Rhen—logical Rhen—is adjusting to create beauty.
And she doesn’t even realize what she is doing. She is simply following the logical progression, being given clues to the meaning of the notes, the tempo, the keys, through the probes in her brain. Information I gave to Berk that he programmed into the simulation, that guides Rhen to make choices I never would have considered.
Then the music begins to play. My music. Rhen’s music. I recognize it and I don’t recognize it. The room vibrates as it plays, a synthesized sound. I think it would sound better with a piano or violin. With a wood and string or even brass instrument. It is too beautiful for the computerized notes. They can’t express the complexity of each line the way an instrument could. The way I could. I want to ask the Scientists to pause the simulation, to allow me to return to my room, to get my violin, to show them what this music is truly capable of. But they are far less concerned with the beauty of the music than with the message that music conveys.
Then the music stops. It is so sudden, I am sure its echoes are still bouncing around the observation chamber. I look through the panel at Rhen. The screen in front of her is black. The music has disappeared. But Rhen is still there. In the simulation. The image of her brain is still lit up. She is confused. She cannot see. I know that feeling. I want to help her but I can’t. Dr. Loudin looks to Dr. Williams. She is adjusting the knobs on the machine by Rhen’s chair. She shakes her head and looks back at Dr. Loudin.
“What’s happening?” I ask. No one answers.
Then Dr. Loudin’s voice comes through the room, barely above a whisper. “She cannot get out.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
I jump up. “She can’t get out?”
Berk puts a hand on my shoulder and I sit back down. Dr. Loudin is still staring at the image of Rhen’s brain. Dr. Williams is tapping into the computer.
“I didn’t prepare an exit for her,” Dr. Loudin says. “When we programmed the simulation for Thalli, we programmed her return. She began and ended in the same room.”
I remember the pink room. It is strange to miss something that doesn’t exist, but I do.
“Why didn’t you prepare an exit for Rhen?” Dr. Williams asks the question that I want to ask.
“I assumed she would do that herself.”
“Why would you assume that?”
“This is a different simulation.” Dr. Loudin turns from the screen and looks at Dr. Williams. “It was important for Thalli to believe she was in actual reality. This was obviously not a reality-based location. Rhen should have been able to decode that and remove herself.”
I want to burst into the room and hurt that man. How can he blame Rhen for being trapped in his project?
“What will we do?”
Dr. Loudin looks at Rhen, still sitting in the chair, electrodes attached to her. “Annihilation is the most humane solution.”
I jump up again, but Berk pulls me down before I can speak.
“But all this work would be lost.” Dr. Williams looks back at the screen. “We don’t know what she had decoded. It would take months to understand what she did in there. We need her to tell us.”
Dr. Loudin sighs. “We would need to create a simulated reality then. That would take just as long as decoding would.”
“Couldn’t you create a reality using the music?” Dr. Williams asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Before her surgery, Thalli experienced excessive emotions, correct?” Dr. Williams says.
“That is why she was brought to us.” Dr. Loudin nods gravely. “She fell to the ground crying after playing a piece of music.”
“Could we connect her emotions to the music?” Dr. Williams looks at Rhen again. “If Thalli’s emotions are connected to her music, couldn’t she also connect memories and locations?”
They want to see what I feel when I play? The thought frightens me. But then I look at Rhen. Without my help, she is trapped. Forever. She will be stuck in the darkness of the music until she is annihilated.
Dr. Loudin blinks several times. “I suppose that is possible. But her memories have been erased and the emotional excesses have been removed.”
“Could you reverse that surgery?”
“I suppose.” Dr. Loudin says the words slowly. “But I have never attempted a reversal.”
My stomach tenses. I have to tell them the surgery wasn’t a success. Berk looks at me, his eyes wide. He knows what I am thinking, but he doesn’t want me to say anything. His life will be in jeopardy if I divulge this—Dr. Loudin will know that Berk and I have conspired to keep this secret from him. But Rhen’s life is in jeopardy if I remain silent.
I close my eyes. I want to pray, but the Designer feels distant. Has he abandoned me? Why is this happening?
When I open my eyes, I see both Scientists coming into the observation chamber. I see Rhen lying in the chair. I feel Berk, tense, sitting beside me.
I know what I must do. I cannot allow Rhen to be annihilated so I can keep my secret. I could not live with myself if I did that. I pray Berk will understand. And surely he is too valuable to be punished as severely as I will be punished. They need him too much.
“I do not need the reversal surgery.” I speak before I have a chance to change my mind.
Dr. Loudin looks at me, his brows raised. “Excuse me?”
“I have a hypothesis.” Berk’s hand is on my arm. “I believe she can record the music she composed before the surgery. The memories she had while she was writing should still be in there, deep in her subconscious. She will not know consciously what she is playing, but it will translate in the simulation.”
What is he doing? My mind races through this scenario. If they choose music written since I arrived here, they will see me and Berk. Together. They will know. And Berk will be punished. But I will not be, because they will still believe my memories have been erased.
“That is an interesting hypothesis.” Dr. Williams nods.
“But it is just that,” Dr. Loudin says. “A
hypothesis. We have no way to know if it will be successful until we test it.”
“Which is what Scientists do,” Dr. Williams argues.
“When we have the luxury of time, yes.” Dr. Loudin shakes his head. “But we do not have that. We need to assume this entire experiment has been a failure and start over somewhere else.”
“No!” I don’t mean to shout, but I can’t help it. “Let me play. Please.”
“Two more days, Dr. Loudin.” Berk is trying to remain calm. His tone of voice reminds me that I must do the same. “We can surely spare that. If it works, we are on the way to finding a solution to the problem with the oxygen. If it doesn’t, all we have lost is two days.”
“If I perform the reversal, the music will be both in Thalli’s subconscious and in her conscious memory. We can be certain the memory is intact, and we do not lose any more time.”
“What if something goes wrong with the surgery?” Berk is trying to keep himself controlled. But the muscles in his jaw are twitching. “We risk losing the patient altogether. We do not have another like her—both musical and emotional.”
“We do have others like her because she is no longer emotional.” Dr. Loudin’s face is red. “Which is why we must reverse the surgery.”
Dr. Williams steps forward. “Dr. Berk makes an excellent argument, Dr. Loudin. This mind is our best hope right now. Let us not do anything that could potentially damage it unless we have no other options.”
“Very well,” Dr. Loudin says after a long pause. “But I want the music recorded today. And I want to use her most recent composition.”
My heart plummets. I know exactly what I was thinking and feeling when I wrote that. I played about the Designer and love and Berk and freedom. Any one of those thoughts can result in annihilation. All of them combined guarantee it. And not just mine. Berk’s. Possibly even John’s.
Rhen’s life may be saved. But I have just sacrificed the lives of everyone else I love in order to save her.
I pray I have not made the wrong choice.
CHAPTER FIFTY
I cannot make my fingers play the notes. I have been sitting at the piano for half an hour. I can’t play scales, can’t play chords, can’t play anything. Berk is silent. Assistants are everywhere, so I know we cannot talk about this, we cannot go into the practice room. His eyes are willing me to play. He is resigned. He is at peace.
I am not.
Berk walks over to me and leans down, his mouth inches from my ear. “John once told me that the Designer said, ‘The truth will set you free.’” He pulls away and arranges the music in front of me. If the Assistants noticed the exchange, they do not say anything.
“The truth will set you free.” In choosing not to tell the truth, I have certainly experienced the opposite of freedom. But wasn’t it right to conceal the truth of my relationship with Berk? Of the surgery’s failure? So much damage would have occurred if I had revealed those truths.
Damage that will occur anyway now, with consequences that could be even worse than what they might have been had I been honest from the start.
“Are you ready to begin the recording?” Berk looks at me and nods.
I close my eyes. I have not felt the Designer’s presence the last few times I have tried to pray. Is it because I have wanted him to help make my deception a success? Would he answer that prayer? I try again, this time asking him to give me the strength to be free, to be truthful. No matter the cost.
And I feel him. He is here. He is with me, helping me. Despite my lies, despite my trying to manipulate circumstances and come up with my own solutions, he is here.
I nod to Berk, and he attaches the probes to me and to the piano. With each touch, he communicates love and hope and faith. I am not alone. I was designed for a purpose. The Designer works in impossible situations. He has done it before. I choose to believe he will do it again. I ask him to play through my fingers, to bring life and freedom to my friend, to me. To use my gifts to help the State.
And I play. If this is my last time to touch a piano on this earth, I vow to make it my best. I will not hold back. I play a way for Rhen to get out of her simulation. I play my love for the Designer, my love for Berk and for John. I play faith and truth, and I pray that the Scientists will see that and know that in their desire to maintain peace at all costs, they have removed from the world what the Designer never intended to be removed.
I am crying as I play, but I don’t bother to try to hide the tears. The Scientists will know soon enough that I am not playing from repressed memory. I want them to know. I want them to see how beautiful feeling and loving is.
I know I have never played so well. I have never felt so connected to an instrument. I am not just doing what the Scientists designed me to do. I am doing what the Designer designed me to do. This may very well be the purpose John told me I was made for. And so I play.
And the truth sets me free.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
An Assistant comes for me. He doesn’t speak as we take the long walk from my room to Dr. Loudin’s laboratory. I recorded my music yesterday. When I finished, as I wiped the tears from my eyes, an Assistant began tapping on his pad. I am sure he was alerting Dr. Loudin and Dr. Williams of my status, my deceit. I am also sure those two Scientists were watching the cameras in the performance pod, seeing my reaction, my emotion. They knew. Their response was immediate. The Assistant looked from his pad to me and frowned.
“Dr. Loudin requests you return the patient to her room,” he said to Berk.
“I have not finished compressing the file.”
The Assistant’s blank stare revealed nothing. “Dr. Loudin says that will not be necessary. This test has been deemed a failure.”
I looked at Berk. The freedom I felt in listening to the Designer, in trusting him, was so much greater than anything I had felt before. I no longer feared the Scientists’ power.
Berk walked me back to my room and held me before I went back inside. We didn’t care that cameras were watching us, that Assistants might come by and see. We didn’t bother going to the stairwell. We held each other in the open, defying the Scientists’ rules. There was no purpose in continuing the pretense.
“I love you, Thalli.” Berk whispered the words in my ear, and I repeated them to him.
I visited John last night before I went to the sleeping platform. I told him everything, and he hugged me and assured me I made the right choice. He shared more of the Designer’s words with me, words about heaven. It is a wonderful place. And there will be no tears there, he said, because there is nothing to cause tears. There is only joy and peace and worship. I found myself longing for this place. Ready to go.
“I have to admit, though,” John said, smiling, “I’ll be disappointed if you get there first.”
I slept better than I have slept in weeks. Even knowing this might be my last day on earth, knowing I have sentenced myself—and possibly my friends—to death. The truth has set me free. I know that whatever will happen is part of the Designer’s plan, and I can trust him to make far better decisions than I ever could.
The Assistant is walking quickly, and we are in Dr. Loudin’s laboratory before I realize we have even reached his floor. The door opens and I see Rhen, still attached to the probes. Berk is in the observation chamber. Dr. Loudin doesn’t look at me. His mouth is set in a tight line. Dr. Williams is working, her head down, fingers flying.
I enter the observation chamber and Berk motions me to him, his hand holding mine even before I am seated. He squeezes my hand and we look ahead.
“Why are we here?”
“Dr. Loudin changed his mind.” Berk speaks quietly. “He realized we were too close to a solution to give up.”
“Even though he knows about me?”
“About us.” Berk squeezes my hand again. “He called me back to the performance pod late last night and had me complete the file compression so we could attempt the simulation with the new music.”
I look at
Berk closer. There are bags under his eyes.
“And if it works?”
Berk shakes his head. “I don’t think there is any hope that we will be allowed to live. But he will keep us alive until this test is over.”
Berk will be annihilated? My heart constricts. Surely not. Surely they wouldn’t sacrifice him because of me. I refuse to believe that.
“And Rhen?”
“I don’t know.” Berk sighs. “She has done nothing wrong, and she is no longer sick. Hopefully they will find that her logic is too useful to destroy.”
The screen in front of Rhen is still black. Her brain is no longer lit up. Just a few spots of color. She is sleeping, mercifully unaware that she is stuck inside a dark simulation.
And then the screen lights up. The music from yesterday plays again. Rhen wakes and is caught again in the structure she assembled. It is vibrating, the synthesized notes humming, and then the music changes. It is the music I recorded yesterday in the performance pod. A light comes from the corner of the simulation, brighter than the notes Rhen assembled from the first simulation. The light changes into a door.
Rhen opens the door and the music is only sound. The notes aren’t in this room. I am there. With Berk. We are in Pod C. He is holding my face, looking into my eyes. The scene is so intimate, I am upset that others are watching. These moments are ours. But this is the only way Rhen can return.
The music plays louder and Rhen looks around, assessing the situation. She knows where she is, but she doesn’t know why Berk and I are there, doesn’t understand what we are doing, why we won’t speak to her. She walks from cube to cube and all are empty, except for the one that has been set up for my surgery.
She bends down and touches the bare floor in the living area. When she stands, the couch is there.
Dr. Loudin steps forward. Rhen is adjusting the reality in there, the same way she adjusted the reality in the music. She moves around the living area, tables and chairs coming up from the floor. The image of her brain is once again lit up, all colors, all over. Dr. Williams is frozen, her eyes watching Rhen.
