Family

by Robert J. Crane

  She didn’t answer me at first, and I saw her hand reach toward me, the light catching something she was holding, glinting and shining through it. She brought it up to the window – a water bottle, filled. I reached up, desperate, banged my elbow on the side of the box, sending a shock of pain to my fingers, but I didn’t care. I grasped at it, pulled it from her and heard the satisfying crack as I broke the seal and twisted, my hands shaking as I did so. I brought it up to my lips and felt the cool water pour over them, cracked, and felt it caress my tongue, coating my mouth. It reminded me of a plant we’d had in the kitchen years ago, in a red clay pot – the dirt had dried out after a few days and when I poured water into it after remembering that I had to water it, it stayed on top of the dry soil for a few minutes before soaking in. My mouth felt that way, like the water was sitting in it, waiting to absorb through the tissue and re-hydrate everything, like that dry soil.

  I swallowed and felt the cool water running down my throat, and chugged it, drinking hungrily. My stomach roared as the liquid fell into it, a pitiful sacrifice and not at all what the rulers of my belly wanted, but it would have to do for now. My skin was sticky everywhere, and my clothes clung to me. As the water cleansed that awful taste of bitterness off my tongue, it was replaced by the seeping smell of the box, of me.

  “Have you had enough?” Mom leaned forward and rested her hand on the opening of the slit through which she passed me the water. I saw her eyes, intense, staring in at me.

  I remained silent as I took the last drink. I felt sick in my stomach, pain and cramping from drinking it too fast after not having anything for so long. “Yes,” I whispered with a slight spray of spittle as I pulled the plastic ring of the bottle away from my mouth. “Yes.”

  “I don’t expect we’re going to have any more problems with you doing your chores, then?” There was a tone of patient expectation, but it was harsh, and cold.

  I felt resentment stir, tempting me to say something I would regret. “No,” I answered after a beat, and only a beat.

  “All right,” she said, and I heard the pin slide out, unlocking the box. She stepped back and the door swung open from its own weight, on a slow arc. I took two steps and fell onto the mat, felt my knees give out and send my face against the canvas, where it rested. My legs stretched out and I enjoyed the feeling of open space, unfettered, uncramped, and I let myself rest, face down.

  “When you’re done, get upstairs and shower, then fix yourself some breakfast.” I turned my face to look up at her from where I lay. She stared down at me, her arms still crossed. “I’m going to work. When I come home tonight, my bathroom had better be clean.” I still felt a dryness in my mouth, and I looked up at her. “Do you hear me?” she asked, and I shied my eyes away from her and nodded. “I can’t hear you nod your head,” she said, and I stared down at my sweatpants, stained from my hours trapped in the metal case behind me. “Answer me,” she said with rising urgency.

  “Yes,” I said, my voice cracking. “I’ll clean it up.”

  “Good.” She took a step away. I still didn’t look at her, but stayed on the mat, pressing my face against it, smelling the sweat of all our efforts, our workouts, on it, and loving that smell more than the overpowering one that radiated everywhere in the basement, from the box, from that hell. “Now clean yourself up. Only someone who’s totally pathetic would just lay around on the floor all day. Get up.” I heard her feet recede onto the stairs, heard them click against the wood steps, one by one, and I knew she wasn’t looking at me anymore.

  I heard her feet overhead, heard her walk to the front door and open it, heard the tell-tale beep of the alarm, then heard the door shut again. I sighed, and I continued to lay there, my face pressed against the mat, and I didn’t get up for several more hours.

  Chapter 16

  Now

  I awoke on a narrow cot, my eyelids fluttering as I heard something. The room I was in was small, about ten feet by ten feet, an army-style cot in the middle of it and not much else for decor. The walls were bare and set in small segments, carved squares from floor to ceiling, which was a good ways above my head. It was the room I’d woken up in after arriving at the Directorate for the first time, or at least one identical. There was a single glass pane on the wall opposite me, and I waved humorlessly at it with a big, fake, smarmy smile as I sat up and felt my feet touch the floor. The floor was dry, and squeaked as I rubbed my sock against it.

  I shook the cobwebs out of my brain and rubbed my eyes. The lights turned on as I moved, either because they were set to motion sensors or because someone watching on the other side of the mirrored glass decided to grace me with illumination. I blinked as the lights flickered on overhead, the sterile fluorescence painting the scene in even starker black and white detail, the gray of the squared walls a depressing spectacle.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said aloud, feeling the pressure on my bladder that came after awakening. I waited, and didn’t hear anything for a few minutes. I stared at the walls, trying to remember which set of squares concealed the door; it was hidden into the ornamentation of the wall, which was both annoying and probably very practical for when they kept prisoners. Disorientation makes it harder to escape, after all.

  I heard the faint hum of the overhead lights and nothing else save for my steady breathing, which I had been attuned to since I woke up. There was no real smell in the air; it was a room well ventilated and there was not even a scent of the air conditioner at work, or of food (though I was hungry and thought I might be imagining the smell of pancakes), and the feel of my weight on the cot was infinite, enough to make me not bother even standing up. What was the point, anyway?

  I heard a series of clicks come from the wall to my left and I turned my head as the door opened, appearing as if by magic from the lined squares on the wall. A familiar face stepped inside, along with a familiar body – Zack’s dirty blond hair at the top of his lean frame, his face grimmer than I remembered it being last week, when we were still dating. “Come on,” he said with a jerk of his head toward the exit.

  I stood and walked over to him, my feet feeling the firmness of the tiled floor which seemed metal, it was so cool and steely. He moved back from the door to let me pass and once I was in the colorless hall, he gestured which way to go, and that I should walk in front of him. I didn’t want to break the silence (and I didn’t really have anything to say to him, anyway), so I just went along. He led me to the bathroom and left me alone for a few minutes while I showered. There were fresh clothes laid out for me and I put them on, not bothering to dry my hair since there was no hair dryer. I didn’t have anywhere to be, anyway, and the damp coolness of it brushing against my neck was a pleasant enough sensation.

  Once done, I took a syringe out of the small leather case, along with the vial of clear liquid that was waiting. I tapped my arm until I found a vein and slipped the needle in, not even wincing at the pinching sensation. I was getting pretty good at this. I put my gloves back on when I was done, ignoring the little drop of blood that sprang up; it would be gone in a minute.

  I pulled on the University of Minnesota sweatshirt that was waiting for me. It had a familiar aroma, and I put my nose up to it – it smelled like Zack. The jeans were all me, though, and I put them on along with socks and walked out of the bathroom with my wet hair still against my neck. He was looking down as I came out of the bathroom. I could have knocked him senseless by the time he had brought his head up, but why? Where else would I go? What would I do?

  He followed me back to my little square room and I went inside wordlessly, turning to look at him as he stood at the entrance, staring in at me, face inscrutable. “How long until I can get out again?” I asked. “Because if you’re going to keep me under wraps for a good long while, you might consider transferring me to Arizona—”

  “You’re not going to Arizona,” he said, and I watched his brow crease and turn down.

  “You sound pretty sure of that,” I said, and I rea
lized I sounded as sad as he did.

  “You didn’t betray the Directorate,” he said, and he looked away for a moment before his gaze came back to my eyes. “I’d stake everything on it.”

  “Nice to know somebody believes.” I felt that burning at my eyes again. “Even after—”

  “Don’t.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  He took a step back and his hand caught the door, ready to close it, but he hesitated. “Why?”

  I stared at him, trying to pretend I didn’t know what he meant. “Why what?”

  “You know,” he said.

  I shrugged and tried to play it off. “I don’t. Why what? Why am I in here? Great question.I’d like to know the answer myself—”

  “Why did you break up with me, then almost sleep with another guy?” I blinked as he said it, felt the gut punch of emotion that came with it, and resisted it with everything I had, tried to pretend there were little pipes that ran through my whole body that carried emotion. I could feel them twisting my stomach and I tried to pretend I could just shunt them away, away from my heart, from my eyes.

  I let the question hang in the air between us as though it were a bomb, ready to explode, and all it would take is the lightest touch from me to set it off. I didn’t look at him, but took a few steps back to where I knew the cot was, and I lowered myself down on it. “I don’t know,” I said, more out of reflex than truth. I was stalling, unsure of what to say or how to say it.

  “That’s it?” He shook his head and started to shut the door.

  “Wait,” I said, quiet. “Because there’s no future for us.” I looked up at him and saw eyes filled with pain. “None. With me, you’d always live half a life, and you didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger, so I did.”

  “Oh, you’re so noble,” he said, words dripping with sarcasm. “Thank you for thinking of me when you did that. When you started to sleep with the other guy, were you thinking of me then, too?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was thinking of you then. I was wishing it was you.”

  The little head of steam, of righteous indignation, I could see building in him just deflated. His wounded look crumpled into something else, his face fell, the anger gone. “Why did you do it?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I was a little drunk. Not too gone, but just…there. And he touched me, and I realized I could touch, and I just…” I shook my head. “I just did. It was stupid, and it was reckless, and it was unlike everything I knew I should do, and I did it anyway. Because I wanted to.” I blinked at him. “Because I couldn’t with you.” I didn’t put an ounce of blame into the last bit, just let it ooze with regret and pain, and I saw him take another step back, stare at me from the door for another minute without saying anything, until he finally closed it. The clunking noise it made as the lock slid back into place was the last noise I heard for several hours afterward.

  The look on his face stayed with me long, long after that.

  Chapter 17

  The lights stayed on, even when I lay for a while on my cot, staring up at the ceiling, composed of (what else?) squares of ceiling tile. They were one-foot segments, I figured out at last, ten in a row on each side, a hundred in total, and for some reason that number appealed to me, and I found it oddly comforting. I counted the walls and realized they were in the same configuration, then looked at the floor and realized that though the tile there was different than the steel walls, it was the same size. I was surrounded by six hundred equal-sized squares, six hundred little squares that made up the big cube that I was in.

  One big box.

  I spent a little time examining the watch that I still had in my pocket. I didn’t know if it was a mark of trust that they hadn’t bothered to search me, or if they were just that lax in their security. I had no idea if it was set to the proper time, but I watched the second hand tick away, the finest entertainment I had with me. No one burst into the room and took it from me, and I was sure they were watching, so I chalked it up to them not caring I had it.

  When the door opened again, the noise of the lock sliding cued me to look for it. I didn’t bother getting up, though. I hadn’t eaten yet today, which was a mark in nobody’s favor, but I hadn’t asked, either. I was a little thirsty, but again, I hadn’t asked for anything to drink because it hadn’t gotten urgent yet. Frankly, this was nothing. I had plenty of space to move, if I wanted to. I didn’t want to.

  The door opened and Ariadne came in with a tray, cafeteria food resting on it. I saw meatloaf, which I hate, but I was past the point of being picky. I stared at Ariadne when she came in; she stared back at me. “I brought you lunch,” she said at last, reluctant. Her heels clicked on the tile like a hammer hitting concrete, each step at odds with her manner, which was mousy and hesitant.

  “I didn’t know we’d moved past breakfast yet, since I didn’t get any.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and brought the tray over to me, extending it with one hand. It was light, I could tell, a styofoam plate on a brown tray, with a little plastic spork and a couple cartons of milk, like I was a kid. The meatloaf itself had some red ketchup on it, the only point of color on the tray, and it reminded me of my hands after my fight with the vampires. Or after Andromeda died.

  “I asked Zack if you were going to ship me to Arizona,” I said, breaking the spork out of the little plastic bag that it was sealed in. I balanced the tray on my knees and Ariadne stood above me as I took my first bite, taking care to get plenty of ketchup to cover the taste of the meatloaf itself.

  “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t even be holding you like this if not for the fact that finding the bug in your room is the last in a long line of circumstantial evidence—”

  “My circumstances suck.” I took another bite and chewed as I thought about that.

  “But it could all be wild coincidence,” she said, as she lowered herself to sit next to me. She didn’t look at me as she did so, and I cast her a sidelong glance that it was probably better she didn’t catch full-on. “I’m aware that nothing we’ve got is really proof; not the kind I’d like before accusing a long-standing trainee of betraying us—”

  “Why?” I said with a shrug. “I think it’s obvious at this point that my mother is playing some sort of game here. If she was willing to keep me locked in a house for over a decade, is it really out of the realm of possibility that she’d try and stick me undercover here for six months to pull off whatever it is she’s up to?” I shrugged, balancing the tray. “I don’t think that’s farfetched.”

  Ariadne looked over at me. “I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility for her. I think it would be completely out of character for you.”

  I froze, spork halfway to my mouth, and just held it there. I didn’t want to look at her. I forced the bite into my mouth and chewed it slowly, swallowing it with extreme difficulty. “What are you going to do with me?”

  She seemed to crumple under forces that were not visible to the eye. “I don’t know. Wait for the Director to return from Texas and make the decision for me.”

  I could have made some crack about the pressure of leadership on her, or how she might not be up to it, but I couldn’t think of one, and I didn’t really want to anyway. “I don’t want to be in here anymore,” I said, and meant it. I sat the tray on the ground and looked at the walls, and the room seemed smaller than ten by ten by ten now, much smaller.

  “I know,” she said.

  “Know, but don’t care?” My voice was shot through with more than a little ‘don’t care’ as well.

  “I wouldn’t say that.” She leaned forward, placed her hands on her knees and then stood up. “I’ve got J.J. in a cell, too, which isn’t making me feel any better. And Kurt.”

  My eyebrow spiked in a raise. “Kurt?”

  She cocked her head. “They left him alive when they ambushed you; that’s more than a little suspicious since they tried to kill the rest of you. I’d put your friend Reed in a cell too, but
I can’t really afford to alienate Alpha since they seem to be the only allies we’ve got.”

  Words broke through the wall around my head. “Why do you have J.J. in a cell?”

  “Because he, you, Reed, Parks and the pilots were the only ones that knew about Reed’s little excursion home to call his bosses,” she said, looking down at me, her shock of red hair the only color in the room.

  “But I thought your office was bugged,” I said with a shake of my head. Wasn’t that the reason I was here?

  “It appeared to be,” she said. “But my office gets swept regularly for listening devices, and this one just happened to be there right after our conversation. It could have been placed by any number of people, but the timing is just strange. The last sweep of my office was at midday. I have a list of appointments during that time, a half-dozen people, and Mormont is interviewing every one of them, too.” She shrugged. “I’m following Mormont’s recommendations on this until the Director has a chance to weigh in. It’s clear that the chopper flight was betrayed to Omega to give them a chance to shoot it down and kill Reed, cutting off our only line of communication to Alpha.”

  “Which would still have been cut off if I hadn’t fought off the vampires that attacked.” Honestly, I didn’t care; they’d either realize I hadn’t done anything wrong or they wouldn’t. Nothing I could say at this point was going to do anything to diminish the suspicion on me.

  “True,” she said. “I don’t believe you’re the one I’m looking for. But forgive me if I don’t release you quite yet.”

  “I’ll take it under consideration,” I said, and turned to stretch my legs out on my cot, laying back down. “After all, I’ve got plenty of time to consider here. Not much else to do, but plenty of that.”

  She hesitated. “Would you like an e-reader? Something to help pass the time?”