The line inches forward slowly, my nerves building with each passing minute, until it is Dori’s turn. A Digit I don’t recognize at the front of the line asks for his name and date of birth, both of which Dori gives up with the hint of a smile still on his face. He winks at Holden and jumps into the nearest circle with a buzz of excited energy. It doesn’t last long, though.
It’s not long after he slips the metal band around his head that his face begins to contort in pain. First, he squeezes his eyes shut so tightly I can see the veins around them popping underneath his skin. Then, he bites his lip and twists his fingertips around the hem of his shirt. Finally, a noise escapes him – a piteous whimper that sends chills down my spine. I look to my right, and see that Holden is gripping the wheels of his chair so hard the skin on his knuckles is stretched thin and bleeding white.
Holden bears the pain much more successfully than Dori did, but he is also unable to endure the entire simulation without making a sound. I learn that when he cries, it is soft and low and sounds kind of like music. He keeps his eyes on Dori for as long as he can, and it seems to help him to remain calm.
But then, midway through his simulation, Dori rips his headband off and throws it at the Digit behind the computer nearest to him. He shouts out a few curse words I don’t think even Crissy would dare use and storms out of the room with tears in his eyes and his hands balled into fists at his sides. I wonder if that’s how I looked to the Digits who tested me, when I couldn’t handle my own fears, either.
Holden doesn’t look surprised by Dori’s sudden exit, but he seems to have a lot more trouble maintaining his emotions on his own. At one point, I think he might even try to run out after Dori, but his hands pause on the rim of his headband and he lets them drop without a sound.
After what feels like hours – and probably actually is – it is finally my turn. I wish more than anything that it wasn’t, but I am also anxious to get this whole thing over with. The sooner I can complete whatever tasks the Digits have planned for me, the sooner I can leave this place and go back home to Fray and Crissy and everyone else that I love.
Tesla is nowhere to be seen, but the Digit in charge of the section I am directed to is one I recognize from the train ride here. He has high cheekbones and wild blond hair, and I distinctly remember the way he pointed his gun at each of us as we entered the compound and didn’t stop until we reached the central building.
This time, there are no trigger words said to me to make the horrific images enter my mind; as soon as the band touches my forehead, they begin to appear. I wonder why the Digits aren’t speaking this time. How do they already know what will frighten me the most?
At first, the pictures in my head are fairly tame: my first day of school; my pet fish dying; the time I accidentally wet my bed and had to wake my mother up in the middle of the night to help me change my sheets. These things were terrifying when I experienced them, but time has dulled my feelings towards them. Even as vividly as they are being presented to me now, they do not scare me.
But, gradually, they twist into the shapes of things that genuinely do scare me. I am able to – barely – handle the thought of my home burning down; I can cope – mostly – with the still-too-fresh memory of Crissy’s eye cut and bleeding. But then I am watching my father being thrown into a wall and pinned down, and my mother throwing herself in front of a bullet to protect her family.
And then there is Fray. The device around my forehead seems to recognize that my little brother’s death is my current greatest fear, and so it manipulates the pictures in my head until I’m left with just scenes of Fray being tortured and killed in the worst ways I can imagine. Each vignette is more vivid and horrifying than the last, until I can barely even tell where my brother is through the haze of blood in front of my eyes.
I realize I am crying when the first few tears drop into my hands. My eyes are closed, and I don’t even want to think about what I must look like to the other people in the room.
Though the temptation to remove the band and storm out of the room like Dori did is strong, I am somehow able to resist it. Maybe it’s because I know that there is no point in me even trying to fight the wishes of the Digits when I have no chance of winning. Or maybe it’s because I know – though I hate to admit it – that my presence here will somehow bring me closer to learning about my mother’s past, and why my family was attacked for it. Tesla has answers that I need, and staying here and cooperating with her demands is the only way that I can get to them.
So I grit my teeth and hold my hands at my sides. My whole body feels hot, and I can’t seem to hear or see anything past the images that I know exist only in my mind. I swear, at one point, that I can even smell Fray’s blood, and I am sure that if I let myself touch him I would feel it, too. But I stand still and keep my focus as far away as possible. If I concentrate enough on the details of my surroundings in the simulation, I almost cannot even tell that the body in front of me belongs to my brother.
Eventually, the images begin to blur together until I’m not even sure what I’m seeing anymore. I feel more disgust than fear in the pit of my stomach. The simulation slows to a stop, but the last picture takes the longest to fade; it stays burned underneath my eyelids and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s over.
I crack my eyes open slowly, blinking away moisture that has settled on my lashes, and look around the room. There are only two other people in here with me; it seems that the others have all finished and left. I am crouched on the floor in an uncomfortable kneeling position with my hands clenched stiffly at my sides; my fingernails have left indentations in my palms that are already beginning to turn purple.
“You’re done for the day,” the Digit sitting behind a desk in my section says promptly. “You may leave now.”
My legs shake as I attempt to stand, but I force myself not to reach out for support. Holding my arms out, I test my weight out on each of my feet and manage to find my balance. My fingers fumble on the band around my forehead, and it takes me several tries before I am able to remove it.
I don’t look back as I leave. I am almost afraid that if I do, I will see my little brother’s mangled body on the floor inside of the circle I just stepped out of, and I will never be able to shake the image out of my head.
Chapter sixteen
There is a cluster of people in various stages of grief waiting by the cafeteria doors when I exit through the hallway. It must be lunchtime. I wonder if I should be more concerned that the simulations took nearly half a day, or that these people are still able to eat after what they just saw.
My stomach lurches at the thought of food, and I quickly walk past the staircase and out the front door. The fresh air burns my nostrils, and I drink it in greedily, coughing as my lungs expand and contrast too rapidly. Every part of my body aches. The sunlight beating down feels like it’s burning me alive.
Why am I here? What is the point in making us all live out our worst nightmares so vividly? What could the Digits possibly have to gain from torturing us all?
They want us to be compliant. I’ve never felt less compliant than I do right now. This entire experience just serves to fuel my hatred of the Digits. If I didn’t have a reason to cooperate with them, nothing they did could stop me from escaping right now. And if I died trying, then at least it would be worth it.
I kneel down with my palms pressed against my kneecaps and suck in breaths until I am finally able to breathe without gasping. Every time I blink, I see stains of red blotted against my eyelids.
I want to run – to let out all of my anger and sadness until I collapse – but I know that I am being watched and have nowhere to go. So instead, I amble back to my cabin, praying that my nightmares let me rest for at least a little while.
I hear Dori before I see him. His sobs are soft, but they echo in the empty air.
At first I’m not sure if I should go in; maybe he wants to be left alone. But I also know that this is his first experience with
a fear simulation, and when I was in the same situation as he is right now the last thing I wanted was to be alone. Fear thrives on loneliness.
When I push open the cabin door and quietly slip inside, I half-expect to see Holden, sitting beside Dori and trying to comfort him. But Dori is alone, sprawled out face-down on his bed with his nose pressed into his pillow. I notice that the blanket I saw the first time we met has been thrown to the floor, along with what looks to be at least a third of the contents of his suitcase.
It takes me a moment to figure out what to say to him. Asking him if he’s okay seems a bit redundant, since he clearly isn’t. But I also don’t know enough about him to comfort him; we’re still practically strangers, even if we are roommates now.
I walk to the edge of my bed and sit down, facing the back of Dori’s head. Up close, I can see that his hair is cut in uneven layers, and I wonder if maybe he did it himself.
“What are you doing here?” he asks me before I can even find my own words to say.
“I wanted to check on you. Make sure you were alright.”
He pauses, his voice muffled into his pillow. “Why?”
I am confused by his question. Is he asking me why I wanted to see if he was okay? Why wouldn’t I? He was clearly badly shaken by the effects of the experiment. Who wouldn’t be concerned about him after seeing the way he reacted?
The Digits wouldn’t. They aren’t worried. They’re the ones who made him – made all of us – feel like this in the first place.
“Because,” I say after a beat of silence, “I remember the first time I had to face my fears like that. I saw my entire family die in front of me, and I saw it again just this morning. And the first time it happened, I reacted exactly the same way you did. It took everything I had not to run out this time, too.”
Dori turns his head until he’s looking up at me. The streaks of moisture on his cheeks seem to shine in the sunlight streaming in through the windows, and his eyes are rimmed red and puffy.
“I’m sorry,” he says; “About calling you an orphan. I didn’t even think about what that meant. My parents are still alive; I have no right to be upset.”
“You do. Everyone here has something holding them back. That’s what you told me, right? That we’re all here because there’s nowhere else for us to go.”
“That’s not true, though.” He takes a shaky breath and closes his eyes. “Not for me, at least. I have a family, and back home I had a job and a house and a life. It wasn’t always perfect, but I was happy. I would give anything to have that back.”
“Then… why are you here?”
“Because I don’t have anything to go back to anymore. Everything is here.”
I have no idea what he means by that. If his family and his home are somewhere else, then what’s here? Did he choose to come here, or is there something the Digits want from him that they can’t get from anyone else?
So many questions are swimming through my head that I feel dizzy. I blink hard and rub my eyes, letting my nails scratch along my cheeks as my hands fall.
Sighing, I begin my first question, “Why are you here, if you don’t – ” but I am interrupted before I can finish.
“Dori! We have to talk about this. I’m coming in!”
The door slides open with a groan and Holden wheels himself up the low ramp and into the cabin. His hair is messy and his eyes look almost as blood-shot as Dori’s, with a little more shadow underneath them.
When he sees me, he starts and stiffens in his chair. I don’t know why he looks so surprised to see me here. After all, somebody had to check on Dori if he wasn’t going to. Although, if Dori hadn’t been in our cabin when I came back I don’t think I would have gone out of my way to look for him. But that’s just because I assumed Holden would have been the one to do it. They are still together, aren’t they?
“I’m sorry, Everly, but could you give us a moment, please? I don’t mean to be rude, but…”
I shake my head. “No, no, I understand! You guys need some time. Just let me know when you’re done, okay?”
Holden nods, and I quickly sidestep his wheelchair and squeeze myself out of the half-open door. It creaks shut behind me, with a shuddering sound that isn’t quite loud enough to cover the anger in Holden’s voice.
“Why did you come here, Dori?” he spits. I can’t even picture what his face looks like right now; he has such a gentle resting expression that I can’t imagine him being as upset as he sounds right now.
I know that I should leave – it’s not right to listen in on the private conversations of other people. But something in Holden’s voice pulls me back and roots me in my place. I feel like Dori and Holden know more than I do about this place, and about the Digits that created it; maybe if I listen to them enough, I will eventually be able to pick out the pieces of information I need in order to get out of here.
But I’m also curious. The chemistry between Dori and Holden reminds me so much of my parents that it hurts. Did my parents ever fight like this? I want to know, but I am also afraid to find out.
“You know why,” Dori says shortly. “That’s why you’ve been avoiding me since the lab, right? Because you think this is your fault.”
I stand up straighter and press my back against the wood of the cabin’s wall. There’s an open window just a few inches above my left shoulder, and I can hear what they’re saying almost perfectly through it.
“Isn’t it, though?” Holden asks, his voice softening as his anger ebbs. “If it was the other way around, you’d say the same thing.”
“That’s because I chose this, Holden! It doesn’t matter why, just that it was my choice.”
I can hear Holden’s breath rattle in his throat as he inhales sharply. He pauses before he speaks again, and when he does, his voice is hoarse.
“I came here knowing how painful it would be,” he says, and I wonder if he’s talking about the simulation, or his situation in general. “I didn’t want you to have to go through it too; that’s why I left without you. There’s no reason for you to be here. You’re getting hurt for nothing.”
“You’re not nothing.”
“Yes, I am. I don’t have a life worth living outside of these walls. You do.”
A tight sob echoes out from the window. I can’t tell if it’s Dori, or Holden, or both of them.
“Not without you, I don’t.”
Holden is silent. I wish I could see their faces, but I also know that I am intruding far too much already just by listening to their private conversation.
So that’s why Dori is here – because Holden is. He must have found out that Holden wanted to ally himself with the Digits and knew that the only way they could be together was if he came with him. And Holden is upset, because he believes that Dori deserves a better life than this; he knows that Dori is suffering here, and that it’s only going to get worse. He blames himself.
They’re not really fighting each other – they’re fighting themselves. I wish I could just kick the door open and tell them what they should already know. They love each other so much that they’re hurting because of it, and instead they should be holding onto whatever precious few moments they have left with each other before their chance is over.
I envy their love, but I do not covet it. I’ve had more than enough experience with the people I love being hurt because of me than to ever want to get close enough with someone for it to happen again.
***
The next morning, I awake alone in my cabin. I look around, half expecting to find Dori hovering over me, but I am greeted by silence and stillness. Stretching, I haul myself out of bed and change into the first pair of clothes my hands grasp towards the top of my bag. It’s a good thing there’s nobody here I’m trying to impress.
I stopped listening shortly after Holden and Dori’s argument died down yesterday. I ate lunch on my own, and by the time I got back to my cabin Holden was gone, and Dori was acting like nothing had even happened between the two of them
. Of course, I didn’t tell him what I heard, and I don’t plan to. Some things need to stay between just them.
We had some time to kill yesterday afternoon, so Dori took me on a tour around the compound. Most of the buildings were either private – like the cabins – or off-limits – like most of the smaller labs on either side of the central building. But I learned that the showers are located on the ends of both rows of cabins, with one side for men and the other for women. I also discovered that, when the Digits let them have free time, most of the people who chose not to remain cooped up in their cabins hung out in the cafeteria – the ‘mess hall,’ as Dori referred to it.
There are no clocks here, so I have no idea how much time has passed since my arrival. At least a day, but more likely closer to two. The only indicator of the time is the crowd of people lined up outside of the cafeteria at meal times. Otherwise, the sun is out when it’s daytime, and hidden at night.
Judging from the harsh glare of light filtering through the slats in the windows, it’s already close to mid-day. I don’t usually sleep this late, but my experiences yesterday left me drained both mentally and physically. I expect that if I had slept through another session in the Main Lab a Digit would have come to get me, but I can’t tell if that’s good news or not.
I am halfway down the ramp leading up to my cabin’s entrance when a loud, metallic-sounding voice startles me. I jump, barely managing to regain my balance, and it takes me a moment to realize that the voice isn’t coming from any of the people around me. It’s coming from above me, from a speaker that reminds me of the intercom that the teachers sometimes used to relay messages throughout the entire school back home.
I assume that this voice belongs to a Digit, too, but the message is a little different than what I expect.
“Due to the results of yesterday’s experiment,” the voice says, static surging underneath every other word, “our newest arrivals will be sectioned off according to ranking. The meaning of this will be made clear to you all at a later time. For now, your groups are posted in the Central Hall, and you are expected to join them in the Main Lab this afternoon for training. That is all.”
6 Digit Passcode Page 11
