by Sarah Noffke
“Okay, fine. But Rogue, I already knew the injections weren’t working. That’s why they increased my dosage. And they keep tweaking the formula to get it right.”
“No, they increased your dosage because I bet they fear you’re developing a tolerance,” he says.
“What? Who exactly are you talking about? Who increased my dosage?”
“My father.” He pauses, gives me a guarded expression. “His cabinet.”
“What? That means my father...”
“Yeah, he’s involved.” he says, remorse in his tone. “I’m sorry.”
My thoughts are suddenly clouded. Shrouded in a tight-fitting net. But I asked for this information and I must stand up to it. I shake my head, dispelling the clouds within. “Rogue, what you’re saying doesn’t make sense,” I say, rejecting his claim, ignoring the ache in my throat. “The injections—”
“Are a suppressant. They suppress the part of the brain which harnesses Dream Travelers’ gifts.”
“But why would they do that? Why would they want to do that?”
The cold and honest expression on Rogue’s face makes the dread of what he’s about to say beat like a foreboding drum. “They don’t want you to have your gift.”
“Wait. You’re saying my father is responsible for the reason I don’t have my gift?”
He nods, an alarming sincerity in his eyes.
“My father…” I whisper, mostly to myself. And I know I knew it all along. Sensed it. But still, to know my father is hinged in this conspiracy is a shard of glass I’ve been forced to swallow. It’s lodged in my throat. And soon it will threaten to cut me from the inside out.
“Well, your father is no mastermind,” Rogue says, “but he’s an excellent puppet to my father. And they share the same vision, which is based on fear.”
“Of what? Teens who can see the future or read minds?” I almost laugh at the outrageousness of this all. “That’s ridiculous.”
“They’re afraid of losing control.”
“But not everyone’s on the Defect list. It doesn’t make sense why only some of us would be stripped of our gifts. Zack and Dee aren’t Defects.”
Rogue nods his head, understanding. “That’s because those on the Defect list are kids who have shown from an early age a tendency toward rebellious thinking.”
“Oh,” I say in a hush. I scan through the Defect list in my head. Every single person meets that criterion. And as much as my logical brain is trying to tear it to pieces, find the holes, there are none yet. What Rogue says makes perfect sense. And that means… I feel the strain on my face as the implications fill in. How long have my parents berated me for not being normal like them? And yet they did this to me. But why? Why did they make me a Defect? And now they’re doing it to Nona. I swallow down the shard of glass in my throat without concern as heat flares in my head. Rogue steps closer to me. Picks up my hand and holds it between both of his. It’s warm and covers my hands completely.
“I know this is a lot to process,” Rogue says in a soothing voice. “I remember when I found out how difficult it was.”
“That’s why you left,” I state, the realization dawning on me. And then another chilling thought hits me like a block of ice. “Rogue, you were the first. The first Defect—I’m mean, one on the list. Your father, he took away your gift,” I say and almost can’t believe the words as I say them. But they’re true and so is what President Vider did to his own son.
Rogue, to my astonishment, actually smiles. “He tried.” And in his hand, out of nowhere, my iPod appears. I slap my hand on my pocket where it was a second ago. It’s empty. I snatch the iPod from his hand, unable to resist smiling at his mischief. He’s the most rebellious person I’ve ever known. Of course his father would have been afraid of who he became.
“So what do I do now?” I ask.
He gives me a pained look, his smile falling away. “I already told you, there’s nothing you can do. You were given fair warning.”
“But I want my gift,” I say.
“The only way to get it is to stop the injections, and there’s no way to do that without being punished.”
“Unless I leave.”
“That’s not an easy thing to do,” he says.
“But I have to do something,” I say, almost exclaiming to the forest and birds. I begin pacing almost at once, stopping at an old madrone tree and then shuffling back the way I came. My thoughts race inside me as I make the third lap.
Finally Rogue reaches out and grabs my arm with a gentle pressure. I pause and bring my eyes up to his. The sober look on his face lays a new weight on my heart. “Em, you don’t have to do anything drastic. Just think on this. Because if you leave you can’t ever come back.”
I pin my hands on my hips and scowl at him. “Says the guy who left and is standing in front of me right now.”
Chapter Twelve
Maybe Rogue was right and I was better off not knowing the secrets he knew. Already the notion that our government experiments on Middling children has spun my moral compass out of control. Zack had said that these parents offered their children willingly and were compensated for their participation. That seemed like a good thing. But to experiment on children. And what they did to them was unclear.
But even if I didn’t know the truth now, I’d be in that perpetual state of sensing there was something nefarious. For months I’d been obsessed with figuring out what was “off” in our society. That torture may not be worse than knowing what my father has done to me, but at least now I know. I’m not ignorant. I’m not in a position where I’ll blindly allow myself to be manipulated. I’m a robot who has awoken to the realization that I’ve been damaged so I can’t perform, so I can’t take my rightful place within this society. And I don’t want to be damaged anymore.
The waiting room is full at the lab. I slide up against the wall far away from the swinging door so I don’t get hit when the next Def—Rebel enters. It’s going to be hard to reprogram my thoughts. To take out the messages of lack they instilled in me from an early age. But I will. I just can’t let anyone know I’m breaking out of the mold, especially my father.
Rogue told me not to do anything drastic. To think on this. My plan doesn’t involve anything radical. It’s downright sneaky, and if it works then I’ll be one step closer to figuring out this mess I was born into. To stopping it. But I fear the road to freedom is long. Actually, I know it is.
“Em Fuller,” Tammy says, not even opening the door more than a crack.
I catch it with my fingertips before she lets it slam shut. Already she’s hurrying down the stark white hallway, her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. I jog to catch up with her. All the rooms are full again, I can tell by the folders hanging on the walls outside of them.
“Busy?” I say, arriving right behind Tammy.
“Oh gods, ‘busy’ doesn’t even begin to cover it,” she says, leading me to the back room of the labs again. I’ve had all my injections here since that first time. The door I snuck through has never been left open though. “Hopefully, they’ll be hiring more doctors and nurses to assist us soon,” Tammy says, out of breath. “We can’t keep going at this crazy pace.”
Busy is good. I’d planned for this. Hoped.
We’re almost to the lab door when I hear the quick steps behind me. I don’t allow my smile to surface. Pretend not to notice the intrusion which is about to occur.
“Em! Em!” Nona’s voice echoes down the hallway. I turn just before she halts next to me, almost knocking into my shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt,” my little sister says, pushing her sweaty bangs off her forehead. “It’s just that Father has an urgent message he needed me to pass along.”
“Nona,” I say, “is everything all right?”
“Yes.” She nods her head, her face beet red from running. “It’s just there’s something of a personal nature I need to pass along.”
“Have you had your injection today?” I say, feeling Tammy’s presence growi
ng impatient behind me.
“No, but—”
I hold up my hand, silencing my sister, and turn to Tammy. “Can we have our injections in the same room, so that way my sister can relay this information from our father to me?”
Tammy doesn’t even stop to consider it. “Whatever,” she says, slipping my chart into the holder beside the door. “I’ll be back with your chart, Nona,” she says, rushing away. I knew she wouldn’t argue. Our father holds the clout of the President. A message from him would have to be delivered. And since we are a higher-class family who deserves privacy, Tammy is unlikely to speak about the matter to anyone else…except maybe to Parker.
Nona and I both clamber into the lab. Last night, I’d snuck into her room. I didn’t want to burden her with what I knew, but I also couldn’t keep it from her. I’m not sure how to keep her from getting her injections, from stopping the evil routine of suppression which has happened to us. But I know that if anyone can help me start a rebellion by learning more of the truth, it’s Nona. And she almost made me cry when she nodded, like a seasoned solider, after hearing what Rogue had told me. “What can I do to help?” she’d said at once.
“We have to start small,” I had replied. I wanted her to be the one to avoid the injections, but she refused.
“No, your powers will be stronger because you’re older,” she had said, shaking her head, her round cheeks glowing from the moonlight streaming in from her window. “And besides, you’re the one who does investigations and I’m the one who distracts. That’s how we always play this game.”
I couldn’t help smiling at her incredibly forgiving and adventuresome mind. When I began to suspect something wasn’t right in our government, Nona covered for me while I snooped. She never seemed flustered by the idea. And as soon as she learned that our own parents were behind it she just shrugged it off. “I never liked them much anyway,” she said, twirling her hair around her small fingers. “I don’t think Mother has looked at me directly in years. If it wasn’t for Tutu and you, I’d get no attention at all.”
“You know, Nona,” I told her as we sat knee to knee on her bed, “no one sees the lion either, until it’s about to feast on them.”
A satisfied smile sprang to her lips.
Neither one of us slept well last night, too consumed with this plan. Multiple times my sleep cuff alarm sounded to warn me that I was being reported to the sleep commission.
Now we are sitting in the back room of the lab, silently waiting for our cue. After less than a minute I hear Nona’s chart fall into the holder outside the door. Now I have to wait again until Tammy is down the hallway. I count to myself, a long five seconds. Then I slip the door open, reach my hand out, and pull out the thicker folder. My chart lies in my hands. With an urgency to match someone dismantling a bomb, I flip the chart to the empty page. I fill in the date and all the information, careful to match the handwriting of the prior entry. Continuously my eyes flick up to the door, hoping Parker doesn’t rush through ready to inject me with poison.
When I’m done I hand Nona the folder, a bit reluctantly. She slips it behind her waistband, careful to cover the top portion with her blouse and blazer. The smile she wields gives me the confidence which had recently dissipated.
“Don’t worry, Em. I got this.”
“I know you do.”
“Now get out of here.”
I don’t respond; instead, I open the door and hurry out. If they catch us now there are a dozen lies we can use, but most probably won’t work. Now our biggest hope is for me to get down the long hallway and to the exit. Thankfully it isn’t back through the waiting room, where Tammy is probably calling another batch of Rebels, as Nona and I’ve taken to calling them. We like the label much better than Defects. It fits us and gives us a purpose, not a complex like our former title.
When I push through the exit door the sunlight greets me like an old friend, glad to see me after a long ordeal. With hurried steps I clear the lot that divides the labs from a set of boutiques and artisan stores. Conscious not to appear suspicious, I walk casually, like I’m five minutes early to an appointment. I turn the first corner and halt. Not much occupies this area. A bike rack. A green patch of grass. A water fountain.
Ten minutes I stay hidden in plain sight, smiling casually at the people who hustle by on their way to the office or on their way home with fresh-baked goods from the Middling bakery. As if she is on her way to play in the fountain in the main plaza, my sister skips down the sidewalk. She pauses after passing me by a few meters and offers me a ridiculously adorable smile over her shoulder. “Well, are you coming? We’ve got to go do that thing, remember?”
Hesitantly I approach her, careful not to look too tense. “So?” The one word hangs in the air like it’s a long gigantic question.
“So…as we intended, it went perfectly. Without a hitch,” she says, threading her arm through mine. “So get that nervous look off your face and skip home with me. That’s what kids do in the summer, don’t you know?”
“I know,” I say, allowing myself to relax slightly. I can’t believe such a simple, yet chancy plan worked. Nona had been able to slip my chart, signed off by the doctor for this morning’s injection, into the “refile” stack on the receptionist’s desk. I’d seen Parker do it a thousand times with other patients’ charts and knew this was how their process worked. Now it appeared to the lab that I’d had my injection. I had been there. Been admitted. And my chart showed I’d received my injection by the doctor. Now all I had to do was pray that Tammy and Parker didn’t talk about it, that she didn’t mention Nona and I were both there, and that in his overworked state, Parker wouldn’t remember not giving me an injection this morning. There was a lot of hope riding on this, but it was worth it. I was already making progress. This is the first injection I’d missed in over three years. This was the first day of change.
Chapter Thirteen
Skipping this morning’s injection was only supposed to buy us some time. There’s no way I’ll be able to pull that off again and I’m not certain that I’ve been entirely successful. In order to avoid this afternoon’s injection Nona and I are going to have to work fast…and experiment.
Giorgio, our family’s chef, is at the market buying fresh ingredients for this evening’s meal. I know he always leaves for the errand midmorning, but since I’m never around the house during this time, I’m not certain when he returns. He won’t mind that Nona and I are scavenging through his kitchen. Most likely he’ll offer us a puff pastry and comment on how big we’re getting. But I’d prefer not to have to lie to him about what we’re doing in his kitchen, so we need to hurry before he returns.
“You check the pantry and I’ll look through the refrigerator,” I say to Nona as soon as I ensure we’re alone in the kitchen.
“Exactly what am I looking for?” Nona asks, tucking her head into the darkened pantry and squinting. She’s probably never been in the pantry before. Why would she? Giorgio has made all our meals and snacks since our first baby teeth pushed through. All we ever had to do was ring the bell and he’d trot through the swinging door, his grin wide and eyes bright. Maybe Middlings are naturally happier people. Or maybe my father drugs him, like he does us, but for different purposes.
I tap the light switch next to the pantry door and bright light fills the walk-in closet. “Look for hot spices. Something that will upset my stomach.”
Nona shrugs and begins pushing jars of spices around the shelves. “And what are you doing?”
“Creating something that will make me puke,” I say, pulling peanut butter, anchovy paste, and a jug of buttermilk from the refrigerator.
“Wait, but what if this mixture really messes you up?” Nona asks, plucking a jar full of something vibrantly red from the middle shelf.
“Whatever works,” I say, taking a dollop of peanut butter and stirring it into a glass of buttermilk.
I flushed my immune booster down the toilet this morning. Also something I’ve t
aken consistently for years and skipped today. I’ve always known that a patient can’t have the injections if they’re sick. That’s why they test our temperature before each injection. Actually, it’s rare for a Reverian to even be sick.
The aluminum tube is cold between my fingers as I squeeze a tablespoon of the anchovy paste into my concoction. The combination of smells almost has my stomach turning. Nona takes three pinches of cayenne pepper and deposits them into my glass, eyeing it like it’s toilet water.
“Maybe it won’t taste so bad,” she says, her voice light, but her face contorted with disgust.
“Oh, it’s going to taste rancid,” I say, pinching my nose and pressing the glass to my lips. I pause for too long, looking down at the orangey sludge I’m about to drink.
“Just gulp it down,” Nona says. “On the count of three, okay? One. Two. Th—”
“For the love of the gods, don’t drink that!”
I peel open one eye and then the other. Tutu stands just inside the kitchen, leaning on her cane, a look of amusement on her face.
“Tutu!” I say, looking from her to Nona, searching for an excuse. A lie. “I was just—”
“Dear child, I know what you’re doing,” she says, walking over to us, barely using the cane to support her. “Ronald filled me in entirely.”
“Oh,” I say, eyeing the glass and then her. She’s smirking at me, obviously entertained by catching me in the act.
“It’s just that I learned that the injections—”
She waves her hand at me; it’s withered in a glove of wrinkles. “I know about the injections. Ronald was spying on you a minute ago and also all night while you two girls plotted.”
I switch my gaze from her light blue eyes to Nona’s freckled face, which has gone white as a ghost.
“Then you know I have to do something,” I say, facing Tutu, who is almost a head shorter than me now.
“All I know is if you drink that”—Tutu indicates the glass still pinned between my fingers—“you’re going to have a fierce stomachache.”
