There are so many things about what the speaker says that I do not understand that I don’t even bother trying to sort through the individual words just yet. What she said about groups piques my interest, so I focus on that. I wonder how we could possibly have been ranked according to how we reacted to our own fears; I didn’t even know that I was being tested. If I had, would I have done anything different?
I join the cluster of people making their way towards the Central Hall, which I assume must be the large entrance hall of the building in the center of the compound. I look around, and notice that Dori is walking a few paces in front of me, pushing Holden’s wheelchair along by the metal handles on its back. I am tempted to run up to them and say ‘good morning,’ but I don’t want to interrupt them. I don’t know if they made up or not, but they look comfortable right now, and I think that, for them, that might be just as good.
There is a large bulletin board erected in the middle of the Central Hall, with a line drawn on it that divides it in half and names written on either side. It doesn’t say what the rankings are or what the sections represent, but I immediately scan the list for my own name.
I am in the first section, though I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Three names below mine is Holden’s, and I search for Dori’s name in the same list, but I don’t find it.
I find it in the second list, though. That means that Dori has been ranked differently than Holden and I. At least one of us – and though I hope it isn’t me, I also do not wish for it to be one of my new friends, either – has failed the first experiment. I wonder what the consequence will be.
Chapter seventeen
“Get up, and do it again.”
I blink tears out of the corners of my eyes and stand on trembling legs. My vision is starting to blur, but I wipe my eyes with my palms and it clears.
A gunshot rips through the air, and I duck just in time. I can feel the bullet whipping past my ear, and hear it whistle like an echo, but the sound of impact never comes. The first time it happened, I expected it; I waited for the concrete wall behind me to split and throw its shrapnel over my back, but it never did. When I look around, the lab is exactly as I remember it – though only half of the sections are occupied now that our group has been split in two.
The Digit in front of me smirks and holds up both hands, each of which is wrapped around the barrel of a gun. He fires twice, and though I manage to move out of the way of the first bullet, I am not so lucky with the second one. It hits my left shoulder and buries itself deep into my skin, and I am barely able to bite back a scream. Instinctively, my right hand moves up to grip at my injured shoulder.
The pain fades quickly, and when I pull my hand away it is clean. I am not bleeding, because I am not really injured. It feels so real, it’s almost impossible to tell that it isn’t.
The Digit who shot me isn’t real, either.
“You need to focus. Again,” the Digit monitoring me barks in my direction. He is sitting behind me at a desk, typing commands on his keyboard and watching me flail around like an idiot inside of my circle. He is the same Digit who oversaw my simulation yesterday, but today he is communicating with me more. I liked him better when he was silent.
Today, I am faced with another simulation. But unlike yesterday, when I was forced to look on as my loved ones died without any way to stop it, I am a part of it. I am inside of the simulation. The same headband I wore before is now causing me to see things that don’t exist in a way that feels so real I almost forget it isn’t.
The Digits don’t explain much to us here, but they did tell me that I’m being trained for something. I think that maybe that means Tesla has found the monsters responsible for me parents’ deaths and I’m being taught how to fight so that I can take them down; but that doesn’t explain why the rest of my group is being trained in exactly the same way.
The simulation I am in right now is meant to teach me how to fight against Digits – particularly those with guns in their hands who are out to kill me. Why would the Digits here want me to learn how to fight their own kind? I vaguely remember Tesla telling me something about us having a common enemy, but it still feels strange to me to think that two groups of the same species could hate each other enough to wage war over it. Have humans ever fought each other? If they have, my teachers haven’t mentioned it in school.
Another bullet hits me – this time ripping into my thigh and biting deep. I double over in pain, one leg splayed out on the ground, and I can barely hear the angry retorts of the Digit watching me over the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears. I bite my lip to keep myself from making a sound, and I can taste metallic blood on my tongue. That part of my pain is real.
I hear a hoarse cry and look up just in time to see Holden leaning over in his wheelchair, one hand pressed against his chest and the other gripping the metal frame of his chair hard enough to turn his knuckles white. There are tears in his eyes, and I can’t help but think that it’s unfair for him to be here. I know that he chose to be, but why was he assigned to the group that’s practicing combat training right now? He can’t even move around quickly enough to dodge the bullets being fired at him. I can’t even imagine how much pain he must be in by now.
I can’t see the simulated images that the others in my group are seeing, but I can see their faces and bodies contorting each time they are hit, and hear their screams as the pain tears through them. I don’t know if it’s the headband, the circle, or the microchip in our necks – or maybe even some combination of the three – but every ounce of pain that our minds feel is reflected on our bodies, too. We can’t die in our simulations, but we can feel just enough pain that we wish we would.
I don’t know where Dori is; after lunch this afternoon we separated and I haven’t seen him since. But he and Holden seem to have patched things up, so I suppose I need not worry. But I do wonder what his group is doing, if ours is learning to fight. What’s the alternative?
A gun clicks and a bullet flies past my head so close it blows my hair back with it.
“You’re not getting out of here until you fight back,” the Digit behind the computer yells in my direction. “So you might as well give it a try. You can take a break once he’s dead.”
He’s talking about the man who’s shooting me in the simulation. There is a gun lying on the floor by my feet that has been there since I put the headband on, but I’ve been trying to avoid looking at it. Every time my eyes land on it my heart starts racing, and all I can think about is how many people weapons like that have murdered. Even if it isn’t real, if I shoot someone, am I really any better of a person than the monsters who killed my parents?
But then, on the other hand, if I just do it, just get it over with, then I’m done. I can stop. The pain and the fear and the noise will just stop and I can go back to my cabin and just breathe again.
I don’t want to shoot anybody, even a Digit. What made me ever think that I could? I can’t avenge my parents’ deaths any more than I could have prevented them. Once a coward, always a coward, I guess.
My eyes flit between the gun on the ground and the Digit in front of me. He smiles wanly and, without warning, aims a shot that hits my right foot, just below the ankle. I topple over sideways, my hands frantically scratching at a wound that isn’t there; I can already feel bruises blossoming on my skin from where I hit the floor. In the back of my mind, I am aware that the gun is right next to my head, easily within arm’s reach.
A scream tears out from across the room; it sounds like it’s coming from one of the men I saw yesterday – the one with receding hair and only one arm. I remember that he was also very loud during yesterday’s simulation, but his cries today are much worse.
I wonder if it’s possible to die from fear. I wonder how many people among me are going to die in this place.
Three more shots: one in my leg, one on my hip, and the last one hits me so hard in the chest that I am flung backwards. My head hits the tile floor hard, and sp
ots of white dance in front of my eyes.
I feel like I’m going to die. My heart is beating twice as fast as it ever has, and every muscle in my body is clenched tight against the pain. A whimper that I cannot hold back pushes out of my mouth. When I attempt to turn myself over, I fall back down, my body too heavy and worn to even sit up. The gun is still within my reach, and my hand extends to meet it almost automatically. But just before my fingertips can touch the trigger, I pull my hand back and cradle it against my chest, holding onto it with my other hand to keep it still.
I can’t see the face of the Digit overseeing my training, but I hear him click his tongue in distaste and type a quick slew of letters onto his keyboard before standing and approaching me.
I notice that my foe has stopped shooting at me. At first I think that it might be because I’m still on the ground, but then I realize that he isn’t moving at all. The program must have been shut down. But I don’t understand; I haven’t even picked up the gun, let alone fired it.
The Digit watching me taps his feet impatiently and holds out one hand. “Give me your band. You’re done for today.”
I would be excited, if it weren’t for his tone of voice. He sounds frustrated, like any wrong move I make will set him off. Not wanting to anger him further, I pull the band over my forehead and hand it up to him. My arms are shaking so badly from the effort of it that as soon as the band is in his fingers my hand falls back down like a lead weight.
“Get up,” the Digit commands, and I try again to push myself up into a sitting position, but my arms can’t even manage to pull my shoulder-blades off of the ground.
“…I can’t,” I whisper, hoping he won’t hear me; but the Digits must have exceptional senses, because I know right away that he does.
He pauses, his back turned to me. I wish he would just walk away, just leave me here and let me rest and wallow and cry, because that’s all I feel like doing right now.
After a long moment, he says, “You have done poorly today. If your performance does not improve by tomorrow, we will have no choice but to expel you from the program.” My heart leaps into my throat, then sinks back down just as quickly. “And trust me, you do not want to be expelled from the program.”
I’m tempted to ask him what would happen if I was expelled, but I assume that he would either refuse to tell me, or tell me something horrible that would make me wish I’d never asked. I decide to keep my mouth shut instead, and he seems almost surprised that I do.
“You may stay here until you have recovered enough to leave,” he continues. “But tomorrow I will not be quite so lenient on you.”
His footsteps click on the floor as he walks away. There are screams flying all around me, but all I can hear are my own heartbeat and the hiccupping sobs in my throat.
***
It feels like it takes hours for my body to recover enough to allow me to stand; I pull myself up on the edge of one of the desks and lean against it until my breathing evens out. There are phantom aches all over my body from where I was shot, but when I pull up my sleeves and the legs of my pants I see that there is no physical evidence of my pain. I find it strange that even now that the simulation is over and I’m no longer wearing my headband, I can still feel its effects on my body.
I look around, shaking off a wave of nausea that surfaces when I move my head. This time, I am the last person to leave the room. I feel ashamed at my own weakness, but also more than a little angry about my predicament. What does it matter that I can’t bring myself to shoot someone, even if they aren’t real? Shouldn’t that be a good thing?
If I am training to shoot people, then just who am I going to be shooting? I get the feeling that my parents’ murderers aren’t going to be my only enemies.
Too nauseous to even think about eating anything, I decide to skip dinner and instead return to my cabin for the rest of the day. Dori is already there when I arrive, lying on his bed with his head propped up on a pillow. His blanket is pulled up to his waist, and he’s absently fraying one of its corners with his fingernails. He looks up at me and smiles, but it’s so forced that I can’t return it.
“Hey,” I say, awkwardly maneuvering myself around his suitcase and sitting down on the edge of my own bed. “How are you feeling?”
“How are you feeling?”
“Fair enough.” I shrug and shift back until my feet are dangling over the end of the bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I know before he speaks what his answer will be. “Nope. You?”
“Not particularly.”
An uncomfortable silence settles over us, but this time, he’s the one who breaks it.
“I know you heard us last night. Me and Holden,” he clarifies, and holds up a hand to stop me when I open my mouth to speak. “It’s okay. I would have done the same thing. But you need to know that Holden isn’t like you – hell, he doesn’t even have that much in common with me. But he’s here for the right reasons, and I’m here to support him.”
“Do you… want to be here, though?” I ask. I’m pretty sure I’m just a breath away from intruding on his personal life, but right now he seems comfortable talking to me; and I need as many answers as I can get, even if I have to pull them out of someone else’s memories.
He shoots me an odd look and shakes his head slowly. “No. If Holden wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be either. And to be honest, I wish I wasn’t. I wish he’d never signed up for this. But I’m not about to turn my back on him now; he deserves to have someone on his side for once.”
“Dori,” I press, trying to steer the conversation away from more sensitive topics. “Do you know why we’re here? I don’t know what your group did today, but mine had target practice. We’re learning how to shoot people! Why would the Digits want people like… like Holden to be ready for combat?”
I picture Holden wheeling his chair through a battlefield, stopping every few feet to load and fire his rifle. I imagine the man with only one arm trying to load a gun while an army of Digits with two guns apiece charges at him, and I shiver. I wonder if these images will make their way into my next fear simulation.
“I don’t know much,” Dori admits, “but Holden has told me what he’s learned. He thinks that if he does what the Digits want, they’ll give him new legs, right? And I think it’s the same for everyone else who comes here with something wrong with them; the Digits promise they’ll fix it, in exchange for their loyalty. But the training… I can’t be sure, but you know how we live in Division 6, right?”
I nod, trying to remember the layout of the map my teacher drew for my class on the day when we learned about the Divisions.
“Well,” he continues, “I’ve heard rumors about people breeching the borders between Divisions 4 and 6, since they’re closest to each other.”
I don’t want to interrupt, but a thought comes to mind and I speak up without thinking. “My parents were murdered by a pair of Digits. And the Digit who brought me here told me that they were from another Division.”
Dori nods like this information doesn’t surprise him. “Things like that have happened before. But I think that it’s different this time. I know Divisions 4 and 6 have been at odds with each other for a long time, but now…”
He looks over at me, a sad smile on his face.
“If you’re going to war, you need an army, right?”
Chapter eighteen
The Digits of Division 6 are building an army – a human army. They’ve recruited and kidnapped the people who are less likely to be missed, those who don’t fit in or who have significant problems that are holding them back. The Digits plan to train these people to become fearless killers, and then send them to their deaths at the hands of a rival militia.
Holden thinks that they can give him back his ability to walk, and Dori is willing to do whatever it takes to stay by Holden’s side. I am here because someone from Division 4 killed my parents, and something my mother did before her death put a bounty on my head, too.
Should I be thankful to Tesla for bringing me here? She threatened and abused my friends and family, and then stole me away from them. But she also warned me about my new enemies and gave me more information about my mother than I’d ever had before.
I don’t know who to trust anymore, so I’ve chosen not to trust anybody.
On my third day in the lab, I am once again faced with an armed Digit and a gun on the floor by my side; the Digit’s appearance has changed, but he still fires at me with the same vicious smirk on his face that the last one did. This time, I manage to grasp my gun in my hands before I change my mind and fling it across the floor, as far away from me as I can.
The Digit supervising me – whose name I learn through my group assignment schedule is Signa – barks orders and reprimands at me until his frustration peaks and he leaves me lying on the floor after the simulation is over for the second day in a row.
I hear the squealing of metal-on-metal and see the frame of a rubber wheel slide across the floor next to my head. Holden stops at my side and reaches one hand down to me; I take it with my own, which trembles so badly I can barely lift it up to meet his. But I can see that his hand is shaking too, his whole arm vibrating as he leans over his chair to pull me up.
I take a deep breath and hoist myself onto my knees, crouching with my palms flat against my thighs. Holden’s face is so pale it looks almost translucent and the bags under his eyes cut sinkholes out of his sockets.
“I bet you’re wondering why I chose to do this, aren’t you?” he asks, chuckling softly. I shrug, unsure of what to say. “Nobody in their right mind would want to come here willingly. That’s what you think, right? Dori thinks the same. Did he tell you that it’s my fault he’s here? Because it is.”
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