“Isn’t even real?” Hannah says. “No clue.”
I shake my head. “This place is confusing the hell out of me.”
“Get used to it,” she says. “Nobody has it all figured out.”
“They must hand out ‘What the hell was that?’ manuals for the train ride out of this place,” Charlie says.
Hannah hits his arm playfully. “Stop it.”
Charlie grins. “What? You don’t know.”
You have no right to be jealous, I tell myself. We’re not even allowed to have relationships, so knock it off. “So how long has Bobby been here?”
Charlie takes a long drink of soda before answering. “The rumor is at least six years.”
Hannah taps her wrist. “But with his bracelet all messed up, nobody but the staff knows for sure.”
“Six years? That’s comforting.” I let out a short, exasperated breath.
“He’s not like us,” Charlie says. “He graduated from MIT at sixteen or something. He was doing some kind of advanced research in Switzerland. Maybe it was Germany. Anyway, he was working on—” He looks to Hannah for an assist. “What was it, again?”
Hannah shrugs. “I don’t know. Something way beyond us.”
“Where did he do his research?” I ask.
“No idea,” Charlie says. “Some place with an acronym for a name, I think. The thing is—” He leans in close and lowers his voice. “He committed suicide.”
It’s hard to imagine that kind of hopeless sorrow. The kind of desperation that would make you end your own life. And then he got stranded here. “Is that why he’s been here so long?”
Charlie shakes his head. “No. From what I’ve heard, he totally flipped out when he got here and never really recovered.”
“Doesn’t everyone freak out?” I point my thumbs back at myself. “Case in point.”
“Not like this,” Charlie says. “I guess when he killed himself, he expected nothing but darkness. The end, you know?”
“I heard he was in RPS for months,” Hannah says.
“He still refuses to accept Atman,” Charlie adds. “He thinks it’s something he can logic his way out of. He’s been working on solving the equation all this time.”
It hits me. My AP Physics class. The child prodigy from MIT.
“Holy crap, I know who he is!” My voice is so loud that Hannah jumps. Everyone in the cafeteria turns to look at me. Charlie and Hannah stare at me like I’ve lost my mind. “His name is Bobby Hammond, right?” I ask, using my best inside voice.
They exchange a bewildered look.
“We watched a documentary about him in my AP Physics class a few weeks ago. He’s brilliant. He graduated MIT at fifteen, not sixteen, and was doing groundbreaking work in particle physics. He was invited to do research at CERN.
“He suffered from bipolar disorder, but refused to take any meds. He thought he did his best work during periods of mania. Thought the payoff was worth going through the depressive phases. His parents begged him to get help. His colleagues threatened to have him removed from the department, but he knew it was a bluff. Who would they replace him with? There was nobody who could do what he did, so they left him alone.”
“Bad idea,” Charlie says.
I nod. “He shot himself on the eve of his eighteenth birthday. It was just a few days before he was due to get a huge research grant.”
“Do you remember when that was?” Hannah asks.
I’m afraid to tell them. “Eighteen years ago.”
Charlie frowns, doubt in his eyes.
“That can’t be right,” Hannah insists.
“We’ll have to take her word for it. Not like we have any way to check.” Charlie seems unconvinced. “You seem pretty sure, Dez.”
“One hundred percent sure. It stuck with me because it was the year I was born.” He’s been dead as long as he was alive, and stuck here the whole time. “Maybe we should keep this between us,” I say.
“I agree,” says Charlie. “It’s not our place to out the guy.”
“Agreed.” Hannah nods.
It’s a nice feeling, having a bit of exclusive knowledge as the new girl. What I don’t know about this place could fill the void of eternity, yet here I am, privy to a secret, knowing the history of Jhana Towers’ greatest mystery. I take a moment to savor the small victory and ponder what an amazing coincidence it is to be next door to Bobby Hammond. It’s odd to think about anything aside from my desire to not be dead, to feel anything other than anxiety and fear.
I might just have a chance.
Charlie catches me staring off into space and smiles. “What?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“Aw, come on. Spill it.”
“I just had a brief moment of non-panic when my mind was wandering. No obsessing about getting out of here or freaking out. It was my first completely normal moment here.”
“Sooner or later you’ll have a reversal,” Hannah says. “The time you spend freaked out will be less than the time you feel normal.”
“Feeling normal with any kind of frequency would be nice.”
Charlie reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. I’m sure he’s only trying to console me, but my leaping stomach feels otherwise. Everything falls away—the cafeteria, the sounds, the people, everything but the two of us. A warmth envelops me, like sunshine on my face on a cool day. The nauseating amount of puppy dogs and rainbows this is evoking should be driving me nuts, but it isn’t. His hand feels so natural with mine, like we’ve been hand in hand for years. But there’s an excitement of newness, too.
Independent Dez gets caught up in a moment of … what? Whatever it is, it’s fine by me.
Hannah clears her throat, and Charlie pulls his hand away.
“What’s going on, guys?” she asks.
“What? Nothing. I was just, you know—I mean, Dez seemed sad, so I was, uh … ” He won’t look at Hannah. “I’m going to go get something to eat before we have to head back. Anybody want anything?” he asks.
“No, I’m good,” Hannah says. She watches Charlie walk away and sighs. “I give up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look, it’s obvious he’s crazy about you, and you seem pretty taken with him.”
I begin to stammer out an unintelligible response, but she waves her hand to stop me. “Charlie and I had a fleeting moment of nothing, and I need to get over it.”
“I need a friend a lot more than I need a boyfriend.”
She reaches across the table and puts her hand on mine. “It’s fine, really. I’m officially done being a bitch. At least about this.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just know I’m getting out of the way, and let’s leave it at that.”
I slump in my seat. “Please tell me this gets easier.”
“It does.” She cranes her neck, looking for Charlie. “Just don’t fall in love. There’s, of course, the whole ‘avoid romantic entanglements at all costs’ thing. Plus, you never know when he’s going to be getting his ticket out of here. So try and stick to harmless flirting, okay?”
Well, there’s something that hadn’t occurred to me. Getting attached to people and losing them to whatever is next? This is not the kind of news I need, piled on top of everything else today. My current rotation of worries is enough to deal with.
“Thanks for that.” I lean back in my chair, getting ready to take my turn in the driver’s seat of the Bitchmobile.
“What?”
“I was finally feeling close to okay, and you dump that on me? Like I didn’t have enough to deal with?”
Hannah’s lips press together and she inhales deeply. “Look, I know you’re having a crazy-impossible couple of days. We’ve had a bumpy start, but to be honest, being dead could be a lot worse.”
Says the girl who hasn’t been chased, zapped, link-bursted into near oblivion, or had some mystery procedure performed on her. “Are you s
aying you like it here?”
Hannah lets my attitude roll right off, not missing a beat. “Think about it. We have an enormous library, beautiful gardens, lots of games, plenty of activities, anything you could ever want to eat and drink, not to mention big rooms with amazing views. It’s pretty nice.”
“But we’re stuck here. They dictate every second of our deaths.”
“We’re not stuck here forever,” she insists. “We still have free time every day, and all day on Saturdays. Besides, if it’s this nice here, imagine where we’re headed. I mean, it’s like we’re staying in a luxury hotel waiting for Christmas morning.” Her eyes glimmer with expectation.
“What about all the rules? The levels? That ‘Path to Progress’ crap? The guidance-counselor-gone-wild nightmare that is this place? The fact that they will flat out tackle your ass if you get out of line?”
She folds and unfolds a napkin while she considers my rant. “It’s no worse than high school.”
“You must have gone to one crazy school. Besides, high school ends.”
“So does this, eventually.”
“Not for Bobby.”
“You’re not Bobby. None of us is.”
“This place, all the rules—what if it’s too much? What if I can’t handle it?”
“You have to.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” I snap, crossing my arms.
Charlie returns, dropping into the chair next to me. He’s holding the biggest doughnut I’ve ever seen. To say it’s the size of a Frisbee might be a slight exaggeration, but not by much.
“What’re you ladies talking about?” he asks with a smile and a chomp. Crumbs and frosting cover his mouth, and he offers us a big, gooey grin.
“That’s a nice look, Charlie,” Hannah says.
“I was going for mysterious and smoldering.”
A vision overcomes me, like a link-burst, but less severe. The images are faded, the voices muted.
My mom is sitting on the floor in the kitchen, her back to the cabinet under the sink. Wadded-up tissues surround her. Her eyes are red and puffy. Her face is swollen. In her arms, she cradles one of the pillows from my bed. She presses her face against it, breathing in the smell of me.
Snapping out of it, I stand. “I need to go clear my head.”
“Dez?” Charlie calls after me.
“Don’t be late getting back,” Hannah calls after me. “Franklin will flip out if you miss Sharing Circle.”
I don’t look back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I push through the lobby doors at a run and burst out into the courtyard. My shaky legs carry me to the edge of Jhana Park. I fall to my knees at the base of a towering elm tree, out of view of prying eyes. My hands form tight fists and press against my eyes as another emotional collapse holds me in its merciless grip.
The steady march of time stops for no one, even when you’re dead. The minutes become an hour. Two. I can’t move. The desperation is blinding. Paralyzing.
I’d give anything to have another shot at that drive to cello practice, to see my family and friends again, to wake up in my own bed, to throw that tennis ball for my dog before I got in the car and drove away.
My sweet dog, Karma.
I picked her out of a litter of seven, surrounded by fuzzy little troublemakers. They licked my face and nipped my fingers, squeaking and yipping as they vied for attention. She curled up in my lap and fell asleep amid the bedlam, and I knew she was mine.
Will she miss me?
Will she forget?
All the things I took for granted, gone in an instant. But maybe that’s the worst part. My family, my friends—they’re not the ones who are gone. I am. Forever.
They’ll all move on.
Have lives.
Get married.
Have kids.
I’ll be a distant memory.
A scream builds in my chest. I jump to my feet, eyes wide open, arms stiff at my sides.
And then I spot Bobby.
The fiery rage slips quietly from my lungs as I duck back behind the tree.
Bobby walks down the main trail leading from the tower, deeper into the park, and I decide to follow. After a few minutes, Bobby stops. He pulls a pen and notebook from a messenger bag he carries. He looks into the treetops and jots down a quick note, then he turns down another path that winds along the banks of a stream. Hanging back about twenty feet, I creep along in the shadows of the trees along its border.
A twig snaps under my foot, flushing out a nearby pair of birds in a flap of feathers and cacophony of squawks. I freeze in my tracks. You’ve got to be kidding me.
Undisturbed, Bobby sits down on a bench and writes furiously in his notebook. His back is to the side of the path I’m on, leaving me in perfect position to sneak in for a closer look at what he’s doing. I close the distance between us, my footfalls silent.
Only ten feet or so separate us. Taking shelter behind a tree, I settle in to figure out what he’s doing.
“Surveillance,” Bobby calls out over his shoulder, “requires a measure of stealth. Based on admittedly brief encounters, one could extrapolate it is a skill in which you lack aptitude.” He continues to work, not bothering to look up.
I curse silently.
He taps the empty space on the bench next to him. “There is ample room, should you wish to join me.”
I’m torn between fleeing and speaking up.
“If you aren’t going to join me, could you at least be so kind as to chase the wildlife toward me, rather than away?”
Wiseass. I step from the trees and move to the bench. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“In this park, or Atman in general? Or do you mean at this specific point on the bank of the stream?”
“The park, the stream, either one, Bobby.”
He holds up his notebook. “Cataloging species. I find the observation of the oddities in this park, as well as the others, to be both entertaining and intriguing. Do you know there are 174 unique species of birds residing in Jhana Park?”
“How could I?”
“Of course. You’ve only just arrived.” He shakes his head. “My apologies; time has an irritating habit of eluding me.” He wiggles his wrist, where his bracelet error message is still flashing.
“Shouldn’t you be at Evening Reflection?” I ask.
“Shouldn’t you?”
“Touché.” I sit next to him and turn my attention to his notebook. “That’s quite the journal you’ve got there.”
“I feel a bit like Darwin in the Galápagos.”
“I thought quantum chromodynamics was your specialty.”
He gives me a puzzled look.
“I saw a documentary about you last semester in my AP Physics class.”
He claps his hands. “At long last, I have a fan.”
“Sorry to blow your cover. You’ve had quite the urban legend thing going, here.”
He waves a dismissive hand. “Anonymity is overrated.” He looks over toward the towering buildings of the city beyond the towers, climbing the foothills toward the sky.
I lose myself in the stunning sight. “It’s so beautiful. It’s a shame we can’t go.”
“We are not permitted to go. A subtle difference.”
“Are you saying you’ve been?”
“Of course I have.”
“But it’s forbidden, right?”
“What consequences do you fear? If you believe you’re dead, there isn’t a great deal they can do to you, is there?”
“I don’t know. Seems like they’re pretty good at making us miserable.”
“That is only the case if you allow it to be so.”
“Tell that to Gideon.”
“Resident Protection Services can indeed be a thorn in your side, but even the mighty can be bested by logic and resistance.”
“You don’t seem like the rebellious type.”
He wags a finger at me. “History’s greatest scientists have always qu
estioned authority and gone against social convention.”
“Can’t argue with that.” What will being good get me? I’m dead all the same. A jolt of energy surges through me. “You want to take me with you sometime?” The words come tumbling out, and there’s no taking them back.
He studies me as he considers my request. “You’ve only just arrived.”
“So?”
“Ask me again when next we meet. A journey to the city isn’t for the faint of heart.” He smirks. “Or for the clumsy of foot.”
“Whatever.” I’m still fixated on the amazing skyline.
“If you listen, you can hear it call to you. The haunting whisper of departed souls.”
“Really?” I try to push out the sounds of the park and focus on the city. The birds, the placid rhythm of the stream, the breeze rustling through the trees—they all seem to get in the way of hearing anything significant.
“No. That would be highly nonsensical.”
“Hook, line, and sinker, Bobby.”
“I find that a lovely analogy, as we are all just fish in the sea of life, are we not?”
“Sea of death, more like it.”
“The sea of our imaginations.” He closes his journal.
“Next time, then, Bobby. I’m not giving up asking.”
“I look forward to it.” He looks up at the sky. “You may wish to return to the dormitory, as it will soon be dark. Based on your recent arrival, I predict the darkness would make for a difficult journey back without familiarity with the terrain or benefit of a portable light.” He stands and walks off into the woods.
“Are there stars in the sky?” I call after him.
“I’m afraid not,” he calls back from the trees.
“Well, that blows.”
The sky is turning from azure to a deep purple, and the light is, in fact, fading.
I’d better get back. I’m not sure I want to find out what comes out at night around here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
My plan for sneaking back to my room undetected and sliding into “quiet time in rooms” like nothing happened is derailed before I even make it back into the building. Crosby is waiting on a bench outside the lobby doors. He’s leaning back, arms crossed, legs stretched out, one foot bouncing against the other. An illuminated Jhana Towers sign casts an eerie emerald glow over his displeased face.
Life, A.D. Page 11
