The White Lilac

by Christina J Adams

  Chapter Fifteen: Caryn

  There is a loud thump outside my door and I pull my pillow tighter around my head hoping to quiet the noise. I thought it would be easy to fall asleep and stay that way after all I did yesterday, but this is the third time I wake to hear someone running for a doctor in the halls. My eyes feel like I have grit under my eyelids and my mouth tastes bitter as feet clomp down the hall. I want to shut everything out. I know what is happening and no doctor can stop it, yet.

  The Compound should never have let it go this long. Better to have half a batch of the vaccine than none at all. No one should even be getting sick, and especially not the children. It is unfortunate they are the ones first hit with the symptoms, then the symptoms move on to teens and adults. Most of the old adults received a vaccine long ago and will go through the next week unscathed. Anyone eighty and younger will get sick, perhaps not this week, but within the next month. The time frame depends on how much they have been exposed to the toxin and the strength of their immune system.

  I open one eye to see what time it is and want to groan at the 4:37am readout.

  Last night we walked in and I booked two rooms, one for me and the other for Kai. He was surprised, but I wasn’t going to let him sleep on the street. Mister Shrug and I-sleep-wherever-I-feel-like-it is going to have a real bed to sleep in for the next few days.

  Another door slams and I throw off my blankets. Swinging my feet around to touch the floor I pull myself to a sitting position. My new pajamas stick to my skin and the cool air in the room flows through the thin material giving me goose bumps. I listen for any noise and after sitting that way for what feels like a half hour, I stand up and yawn. How can I feel this tired and be unable to fall asleep?

  I sigh. My chest feels like it is being crushed. My mouth still tastes bitter, I grab a small cup of water and roll back into bed. It takes another hour before I fall back into a restless sleep.

  Only then do the nightmares I used to have return. Second Official Whit stands above me telling me to swim another ten laps. My arms feel like I have already completed a thousand laps and my eyes are so tired I have a hard time keeping them open, but I push away from the pool wall and strike down my lane again.

  Somehow I manage to reach the other side in ten strokes and Second Official Whit is already there waiting for me.

  “You have to hold your breath longer than that if you’re going to help anyone,” he says and he pushes me under before I have a chance to breathe in. I can feel every muscle in my body rebel, only I am not strong enough to break away. My eyes start to glaze over and my mouth opens against a flood of water waiting to fill my lungs.

  And then I see Heather. She appears exactly as I remember her that last day except that her hair is loose and floats around her face like a halo. She smiles at me and half waves with her hand and I don’t feel like I am drowning anymore. The belt connecting her waist to the pool floor is tight and only Second Official Whit has the remote that will release it. I also have a belt around my waist and my head is free from Second Official Whit’s hand. Somehow I know I’ve been holding my breath for thirty minutes, but Heather has been under longer than I have. She is always under for longer. He’s pushing her too hard, determined to have his candidates be the best. Already both Heather and I show promise, but it is not enough for him. We have to break all the records.

  I see her press the panic button on her wrist once. We are used to pressing it just once and he lets us up, but not this time. Heather looks up at the surface and presses the button again. This time I remember to press my panic button too. The smoothness of the button rubs against my thumb each time I push it down. I am not frozen in horror, condemned to only watch helplessly like before. I try to swim to her to help her with the buckle, but my own belt keeps me from reaching her and this time I am two feet away when she opens her mouth and swallows water. Her eyes are wide, her body convulsing and I still can’t do anything to stop it.

  My dream turns black.

  “What happened?” Anderson asks, his hands grabbing my shoulder.

  I am wet standing at the edge of the pool. A zipped black bag lies ten feet away. I want to tell him, to trust him, but something holds me back.

  “Did he do this?” Anderson asks and I nod.

  Second Official Whit looks over at me, but instead of being angry he gives me a small smile and winks.

  Then I am standing in the Compound Hall and Second Official Whit is glaring at me. Foreman pronounces that Second Official Whit will be stripped of all titles and benefits of his position, given a dishonorable discharge, and placed on the Compound’s Black List. A list of only the worst of the worst since it also prohibits that individual from access to the Haydon cure.

  This time Second Official Whit is livid, his face red and the veins in his neck bulging out, and he glares at me from across the room. He starts to walk toward me and although I want to run or hide behind Anderson I can’t lift my feet.

  “Look what you have done! Selfish, loveless child. Do you not care that you have destroyed the greatest chance I had of saving the world? This,” he pauses, his voice deepening, and points a finger in my face, “is entirely your fault. When death comes for you, remember that you deserve it.”

  My chest tightens at each piercing word and the words enter my mind like a bullet, but they don’t leave and can only bang against the inside walls failing to escape. Although they drag him away and tell me I am a brave girl, it does not ease the guilt one fraction of a centimeter from my mind. It is not that I want to die. I should die. Second Official Whit is right, I deserve it.

  I deserve it.

  I deserve it.

  The line echoes in my mind over and over as I slowly rise back into consciousness. My whole body is tight and my lungs ache like I have been holding my breath in my sleep. For a brief moment I wonder why none of the other girls woke me. My heart skips a beat as I hope I have not missed practice. It is nearly 8:30 in the morning and I can already hear the speech the officials will give me.

  Then my eyes recognize where I am and my heart slows down. Out of habit, I make my bed before I slip back into my regular clothes. I finger my necklace and check the mirror to see if it is lying straight, then I rush out of the room. As I come out of the elevator I see Kai standing in the middle of the lobby watching the broadcast screens. I smile, noticing his fluffy hair, no longer hanging in clumps and his lighter skin.

  “Good morning, are you hungry?” I ask.

  He jumps slightly as he turns to look at me and says, “Yeah.”

  We walk into the lobby restaurant and they take us straight to a table. On our way there we pass a gentleman drinking his coffee and for a moment I see Second Official Whit, but then I blink and he is gone. Anderson heard that Second Official Whit committed suicide a year after being removed from the Compound. Even though my head knows he is gone I keep watching the man after we sit down and it is only when he leaves that I can relax and eat. Second Official Whit’s voice still whispers in my ear and I wonder what would have happened if I had never told Anderson how Second Official Whit would keep us underwater to make us hold our breath longer. Perhaps if he had believed me the first time I told him Heather wouldn’t have died. It was my fault for not saying something sooner and my fault for saying anything at all. Nothing I do now can change the fact that two people are dead.

  “You still sleeping?” Kai waves his hand in front of my face and I blink several times.

  “Hmm.”

  “What’s the plan for today?” Kai asks. He scraps his fork against his third plate to gather up loose crumbs and syrup.

  I feel for the itinerary in my pocket and pull it out.

  “I have a meeting with the Mayor at ten followed by a doctor’s appointment, but other than that we have free time.”

  Kai nods as if he expects as much.

  “Are you going to eat that?” he asks, pointing to the leftover piece of toast on my plate.

  “No.” I’m not hungry t
his morning. He takes my toast and devours it in three bites, by now I am somewhat used to how much, and how quickly, he can eat.

  Ralph is waiting for us in the hotel lobby. For a moment I wonder how he knows we are here, but then I remember the gold card and realize they are probably able to track the purchases made on it too. He ushers us into an elevator that takes us to the mayor’s speeder on the roof and we shoot across the city.

  I don’t recognize the building we land on and when I ask Kai about it he just shrugs and says he doesn’t know it either. The mayor is talking to her handheld, but when we arrive she switches it off and gives me a squinty smile.

  “Caryn! How are you enjoying your visit thus far?” she asks.

  “The city is so big,” I say and she laughs.

  “Well, you’ve been hidden away in a box all your life. No disrespect for your home intended dear.” She pats my shoulder and guides me to the door. When Kai tries to follow us she looks back at him and says, “You wait here.”

  Once the door has closed behind us, she says, “We understand that Dr. Hubbard’s clinic has started to see patients.”

  “Yes,” I say after she pauses and stares at me as if waiting for an answer.

  “What are your thoughts about that?”

  “About the children being sick?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s horrible.”

  The mayor’s lips twitch in a smile that disappears too quickly. “Yes, it is, dear.”

  “I wished the Compound had not waited this long.”

  “So do we, but the Compound could have done more to prevent this. Come with me.” She takes me down the hall and I recognize the smells of disinfectant and urine. As we pass a closed door, I am startled when someone screams. The mayor says, “It’s all right. They are secured and can’t hurt you. You know, you aren’t the first candidate we have tried to contact. Five years ago there was another girl. We had a man inside, but he didn’t have a chance to tell her much before she died.”

  I picture the new custodian; the one Heather was talking to after a late practice. I didn’t see him after she died, but I’d never realized it until now. “Heather, you were going to talk to Heather?”

  “Yes, we were. May I ask you a personal question?”

  I nod.

  “Why do you want to gather the cure?”

  A hundred reasons fly through my thoughts like bats out of a cave. Because it’s what Heather wanted to do, because it is what I was trained for and what the Compound expects of me, or because of all the admiration I have had for all the White Lilacs before me. But although they are all part of the reason, they are not the answer to what motivates me at my core.

  “I want to help people.” May and Janissa spring into my thoughts.

  The mayor tilts her head and her hair flops a bit. Her lips gather into a grim smile.

  “I hoped this would be your answer. You see, what I am about to show you depends on your desire to save others. A mission I also hope you will see has other meanings that do not hinge on the Haydon cure.”

  I can’t imagine anything being more important than the Haydon cure. The hallway is empty, but I can see several nurses watching us from the nurses’ station. Each room we pass has an individual in it, some just lying on a cot, others pacing, or standing looking out the window. One man hits himself so hard on the head over and over that I wonder why none of the nurses have moved to prevent him from injuring himself.

  The mayor stops in front of the door of an elderly man. He is even more frail-looking and wrinkled than the mayor.

  “Mama!” he calls when he sees us standing in the hall. “Mama!”

  His cries are so heartbroken and filled with longing. He glances at us and then slowly walks to the door’s window where he looks up and down the hall calling for his mother. When his mother does not appear he begins to weep and bang his fists against the glass.

  The mayor walks toward the nurse’s station and when we are far enough to hear each other speak in normal tones, she says, “That poor man is Jimmy Humner. He is at the mental age of a two year old and he has been calling for his mother for nearly 250 years now. But he wasn’t like this before he was given the cure. Something in the cure changed him.”

  My head buzzes as we take the elevator to another floor and stop in front of an office with Doc Hubbard’s name spelled out on the door. The mayor knocks once and the door opens revealing Doc hunched over a flat computer screen with several applications open. He straightens and his hands briefly fly to the various files and new ones pop up.

  “I apologize for the mess,” he says.

  “Dr. Hubbard has been working for the past thirty years on the effects of the Haydon cure,” the mayor says.

  “What kind of effects?” I ask.

  “Mental disability, suppressed immune systems, longevity.”

  “But longevity has always been a side effect of the cure,” I say.

  Doc nods. “It has, but the original cure only extended life forty to fifty years, now it is common for people to live two hundred years past that. The Compound has changed the cure to do that.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  The mayor laughs, a hoarse crackling sound. “It doesn’t seem that great when you reach my age, but the problem isn’t that we live longer the problem is that every person who signs for a cure must also give the Compound permission to experiment with the effect the cure will have on that person. Sometimes the results are like those people we saw down the hall; sometimes the results are old people like me.”

  “The fact is that we can’t control it. If we want the cure, we have to allow their experimentation. And we can’t create our own cure.” Doc brought up several models of DNA, each different in order and colors. “They individualize the cure to each person so that the important elements necessary for re-engineering are masked or disappear. I’m friends with several scientists who have studied the cure for over a hundred years and still can’t find enough similarities to start the re-engineering process.”

  The mayor stops and faces me. “Caryn, while the Compound controls the Haydon cure, they hold us all hostage. They can decide who will live and who will die. And they can manipulate people like Jimmy Humner into signing anything just to get the cure.” She pauses and takes a deep breath. “We, the other mayors and rulers of Beta Earth, realized we were given an opportunity when the Compound waited so long to gather the cure, because the person who gathers has to have the jigger scent on their skin and because we have a binding contract with the Compound that they must provide the cure within seven days of the first reported victim.”

  I see Doc stiffen. He looks up at the mayor as if he is afraid of what she will say next.

  “That deadline is this Saturday just two days away and if they break their contract we will have legal rights to their formula for the cure. We wanted you to come here and see the truth about the Compound. We wanted to show you what the Compound has done and to ask you to consider not gathering for them, to not gather the cure at all.”

  I frown. If the cure is not gathered this week, people--children--would die.

  The mayor nods, reading the concern on my face.

  “Yes,” she says. “Some people would die, but think of the millions of lives that the Compound has changed for the worse over the last two thousand years. Dr. Hubbard could show you statistics proving that one in five people to get the cure are adversely effected. The only reason no one has done anything yet is because the death ratio is only one in ten million.

  “Look.” The mayor pulls up the sleeves above her elbow and flattens the loose skin. There is a dark patch of skin at her elbow. It is bumpy and scaly, but then I lean closer and see that they aren’t just rough patches of skin. They are actual scales, dark fish scales. The mayor rubs them, a scraping sound like nails on plastic, before pulling her sleeve down. She sighs and says, “It is silly to complain about mutated skin, especially when so many others have it much worse. But I had no ch
oice about what happened to me and I am willing to sacrifice a few thousand now if the generation to come, my tenth generation of great-grandchildren, can have a choice. The Compound is evil and they must be stopped.”