The Calling

by Rachelle Dekker

  At first, Damien had met with the Scientist out of rebellion and curiosity. But as their clandestine study sessions continued, he slowly began to appreciate and eventually adopt the man’s ideals. In time Damien found himself fully committed to the Scientist’s vision for the community. Together they imagined and began to work toward a clear picture of order. The ability to set boundaries around what a person could believe, to control emotional reactions and infuse proper ways of thinking. With Dr. Reynard’s mind and Damien’s will, the limitations for what they could achieve were nonexistent. And now that Damien’s rise to power had been realized, the road ahead was clear. But still the odds stood against them. Constant obstacles, constant persecution. People were afraid of what they didn’t understand; their minds were weak. Damien intended to change that. A plan was in motion, but timing was everything.

  “The second round of trials showed much better results than expected, but the mind is a tricky little beast,” the Scientist said. He turned to face Damien and the light from the sun showed how unkind time had been to him over the last couple of years. Then again, time was an unkind thing. Dr. Reynard’s face was losing its proper hold, and age was dragging his skin toward the ground. His hair was white and thin, his eyes less vibrant than Damien had once known them to be. He was becoming as frail as the world saw him, but Damien knew his mind was stronger than ever.

  “It’s the self-delusional concept of a soul and free will that are tough to navigate,” the Scientist said. “The key lies within inhibiting the brain’s ability to enlighten the mind.”

  “Control the source,” Damien said.

  “Precisely.”

  “Can it be done?”

  The Scientist chuckled and ran his bony fingers along the bookcase within reach. He swept a line of dust off with his touch and Damien watched the old man rub it between his fingers.

  “I would have thought by this point you would know the answer to that question.”

  Damien felt rebuked. The Scientist was like a father to him, more so than his actual father had been, and hearing disapproval in his tone filled Damien with shame. He dropped his eyes. “Of course it can be done.”

  “All problems can be solved with the right equation, the proper formula. You are never as far off as you believe.”

  Damien nodded. In all arenas of life, Damien prided himself on having authority. In his work, his sham of a marriage, his social engagements. He held a firm, controlling hand, but in this office he always felt like a child, with his instructor calling out his faults and playing with his shortcomings. He allowed no one else to make him feel inferior, but the Scientist was his mentor, and Damien couldn’t ignore the constant need to seek his approval.

  “Speaking of problems,” the Scientist continued, “how are things with our soft-minded leaders?”

  “They are turning in our favor; the Council is beginning to see the light the future holds. It won’t be long now,” Damien said.

  “Good. Things will unfold quickly when the trials are complete. We need their full and undivided cooperation.”

  “They will be ready.”

  The Scientist smiled and nodded. “I have no doubt in you.”

  Damien masked his delight at the Scientist’s words and felt his pulse quicken. Everything would happen fast, and change would finally start to take root in the streets. This was a task Damien had committed his life to, and the ultimate fulfillment of all his work could not happen soon enough.

  Trial Entry 37 | Patient 11-4 (Maria Talcum)

  Age: 23 / Gender: Female / Status: Authority Worker

  Drug administered at 15:34 hours

  Time in observation: 11 days

  Patient log

  Day 1 after administration: I woke up in a strange place. It smells like lemons and bleach. I’m in a single room, alone. It’s cold, colorless. I’m afraid and no one will tell me where I am or why I’m here. My head is pounding, and I don’t know if it’s from fear or pain. There’s a large mark on my left arm. It was bandaged when I woke, and a man in a white coat came in a little while ago to remove the dressing. He seemed nice, but he wouldn’t answer any of my questions. He was accompanied by two CityWatch guards. I didn’t recognize them, but I try to avoid CityWatch guards so that makes sense. If I do as I’m told hopefully they’ll let me go.

  Day 4 after administration: I don’t know how long I’ve been here. The days run into each other. There’s no way for me to know what time of day it is. There aren’t any windows, but there is a large dark glass square on the far right wall. Whoever brought me here is watching me. I keep praying that someone notices I’m missing, but I know the chances are low.

  Day 7 after administration: I feel strange, like my mind is scraping against the inside of my head to get out. I can’t tell if I’m happy or sad. Food makes me sick, but I’m starving. They’re killing me. I wish somebody would help me. They’re killing me.

  Day 10 after administration: My skin is on fire, and my face is starting to blister. My mind keeps trying to think of ways to be free of this place, but then sometimes I don’t want to be free at all. Most of the time, I just wish for death. Death would be easier.

  6

  Remko found the camp in full swing when he returned. The tunnel looked as if they had been there for days, as if this had always been their home. People sat around fires, eating, chatting, some even sharing a laugh. Children played, completely unaware of the danger that followed their every move. One could almost forget that death had touched them so deeply only hours before.

  He saw Carrington cradling Elise by the farthest fire, sitting with Kate and Lesley, a small smile on her lips as she played with the tiny baby. His shoulders eased at the sight of joy on his wife’s face, even if it was slight and possibly forced. He moved to cross the distance toward the fire and felt a body approach.

  Remko turned to see Neil Stone headed toward him. Neil had spent fifteen years as a lead construction architect for the Authority City’s largest structures. His knowledge of the buildings’ foundations and the inner workings of the city had been invaluable to the team. He’d come to the Seers on his own nearly four months ago with his six-year-old son, Corbin. Neil’s wife had died during childbirth, and the message of hope that Aaron had delivered to Neil years after he’d given up on being a good father had saved not only his life but also his relationship with his son. But time was cruel and fear real. It was hard to remember the truth in the face of both.

  “Hello, Neil,” Remko said.

  “Remko. Glad to see most of you are back safe,” Neil said.

  If Neil was trying to hide the bite behind his words, he was failing. Remko tried to keep his face clear of expression and waited for Neil to continue.

  “Can I steal you for a moment, before you head down for the night?” Neil asked.

  Remko nodded and followed Neil away from the main commotion of camp.

  “Is everything all right?” Remko asked.

  “I know we’ve spoken about this before . . . ,” Neil began, and before he finished his sentence, Remko knew exactly where he was headed.

  “Neil . . .”

  “I know you’ve spoken with him. I just assumed after several months of being with this group that we would have moved away from this place.”

  “I understand your concern. . . .”

  “Do you? You say that, but do you really? We lost another of our own today. Aren’t you afraid of the risk you are putting on your daughter by being so close to the city?”

  Remko said nothing, but his expression grew dark. Neil saw the change and shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, but I have a son too, and I just can’t help but think that staying this close is a huge mistake.”

  Remko still said nothing. Had he not just voiced these same concerns to Aaron moments ago? Had he not struggled to sleep the last couple of weeks with heavy thoughts, wondering what they were all doing this for?

  “I’m not the only one who feels this way. There are others i
n the camp who believe we would be better off packing up and moving as far away from this place as possible.”

  “Aaron says—” Remko started.

  “Have you ever considered that maybe Aaron is wrong?” Neil said.

  The question echoed the thoughts already stumbling around in Remko’s mind.

  “I know it sounds harsh, and I will be forever in debt to him for what he did for me, but he is just a man. He could be wrong.”

  Remko found it hard to quiet the nagging voice in his head that whispered its agreement.

  “I’m not suggesting we do anything drastic, but some of us are starting to question whether Aaron is really fit to lead. I mean, he’s hardly ever present, and when he’s here, he never wants to discuss strategic maneuvers or the future; he just tells stories and plays with the children.” Neil ran his hand across his forehead with frustration. “I have a responsibility to my son, Remko, to keep him safe—as do you to your own family.”

  Remko felt heat rise up the back of his neck, and he crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t appreciate Neil accusing him of not understanding his responsibility to his family.

  “I don’t mean anything offensive by that; I just . . . are we sure that our safety is Aaron’s top priority?”

  Remko knew he needed to stop this line of thought, even if he wasn’t far away from it himself. “Neil, I know what you are feeling—I understand the risk better than anyone—but for now we are called to this place. I’m not saying it will be forever, but for now this is where we stay.”

  Neil didn’t look appeased.

  “Next time Aaron is here, we will sit down with him and discuss your concerns, but for now you have to trust him, and if not him, then me.”

  Neil still looked less than pleased, but he nodded.

  Remko thought about Neil stirring up contention with others in camp and reached out to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “No one feels the loss of our own people more than I do. Losing Larkin was a tragedy, one that nobody is going to forget quickly. I understand the danger you are putting yourself and your son in by remaining with the Seers. And it may seem easier to run, but we need you, Neil. You are vital to this camp. Please understand that following Aaron’s lead is our best choice right now.”

  Neil nodded with more sincerity and gave Remko a weak smile. “All right—I’ll pass the message on. For now we stay, but we can’t afford to lose any more Seers.”

  “I know, believe me,” Remko said.

  With a final nod, Neil left Remko and headed back for the camp.

  Once alone, Remko let his guard fall and rubbed the sides of his forehead with his fingers. He wondered who else in the camp shared Neil’s concerns? How many were there? Was it a majority? And more important, how was he supposed to convince them that following Aaron’s plan was best if he wasn’t sure of it himself?

  Damien stood inside the small space reserved for the head religious official. Beyond the single red curtain behind him waited the fresh gathering of Authority Workers, rejects from the latest Choosing Ceremony. Lints, the name given to them by the city’s people. The poor souls who would now face the rest of their days as outcasts, as was mandated by the law. A flawed use of resources, if Damien were to be honest with himself.

  He’d never fully understood the long-standing tradition of the Choosing Ceremony. It was a ceremony put into place to respect the will of God, his father had always told him.

  The will of God.

  And what was a person supposed to do with such a force if one didn’t believe there was a God? He had asked his father this once—a mistake Damien had realized too late. His father had never looked at him the same after that day, and had it not been for the protection from his mother, Damien might have found himself cast aside, destined to be a CityWatch guard, as much an outcast as the girls who waited beyond the curtain.

  “All rise for Authority President Gold,” a voice said from inside the chapel, where the new Authority Workers had gathered.

  Damien grabbed the ornate copy of the Veritas perched before him and pushed himself through the heavy curtain. The book felt like a weight in his hand, a leather-bound representation of how much change needed to happen to this city in order for it to grow. How he longed to preach a different message from this pulpit. One that offered hope to a gathering of girls no different than he once was. Cast aside from their community because they’d failed to meet the standards set in some ancient text that was scientifically improbable at best and downright ridiculous at worst. How he longed to help rid them of the rules that kept them enslaved like animals and watch as they ascended into a higher existence.

  But he couldn’t say that, not yet. He was confined too, obligated to play his role still. Which meant going through the motions that grated against his skin.

  Damien swept his eyes across the scared faces of the young girls and hid his disgust for such wasted energy.

  He opened the Veritas and began the required reading. “The Veritas reads, ‘Let every citizen be subject to the Authority. For there is no true authority except for God, and those who have been appointed have been instituted by God.’” The rest of the passage fell from his lips, the words familiar and sour on his tongue. His mind drifted as his mouth worked like a programmed machine.

  He would possess the minds in this room, in time. They would all change. Change was inevitable, necessary, and already happening. Damien clung to that truth when it felt like the fools around him were committed to halting progress.

  He wouldn’t confess to believing in hope, but if one were to ask him where he put his hope, he’d say it lay within the wasted people of this city. The people no one was looking for anymore. Those people would be the instruments he would use to perfect and bring about change. Whether people were watching for it, or hiding behind their God’s law, change would happen. And then all of this would no longer be necessary. Damien had hope in that.

  7

  Carrington shivered as a rush of early morning air swept through her hair. The sun was hardly up, throwing its first beams on the western hills, and she already had to squint against its harsh light. Sam and Kate walked several feet ahead of her, lost in quiet conversation about the happenings to come. Remko had announced last night to her and the rest of the usual team—Wire, Kate, and Sam—that Aaron needed some of them to head back into the city for another retrieval. The mood had been somber to start, but the news had brought another layer of quiet retreat.

  Carrington watched the cracked pavement under her feet as she followed the siblings. Old, worn-down homes sat scattered on either side of the street. Broken windows and open doors, showing the structures empty. It always gave her an eerie sense to travel through what used to be Old American normality. To think about the way life was hundreds of years ago, when people lived in these homes, dying from a vaccine they thought would save them. Those people had traveled these same streets, but how different everything had been then.

  She shook off the uneasy feeling and her thoughts returned to her current situation. She remembered when the Seer camp had housed just a handful, back before the birth of her daughter, before so many deaths, before the pain had become heavier than the joy. Back then, whenever Aaron asked them to move into the city and gather more Seers, an excited energy had infused them. Now it felt as if their duty to bring all that were called out of their imprisonment within the city walls electrified them with fear.

  Remko especially. Carrington saw sides of him the others never would. The cracks in his armor. The things he let slip when he was staring at Elise and didn’t think Carrington was watching. The things he murmured in his sleep that kept her awake at times. The pain she couldn’t comfort or fix.

  She thought back to the last conversation she’d had with Aaron. It had been a couple weeks ago; he’d walked with her alone, sensing her anxiety. Her uneasiness. She’d been worried about Remko; he’d stopped sleeping regularly. Even when he was with her, a part of him was somewhere else.

&nb
sp; “He will find his way,” Aaron had said.

  “You keep telling me that, but as the days pass I wonder if he’s only becoming more lost.”

  “Being lost is part of the journey.”

  “He’s started stuttering again. It’s still rare, but it’s been months since he’s stuttered at all and now . . .”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “No, of course not. But it bothers him. It makes him feel weak, as though he’s failed. The pressure he puts on himself . . . I want to save him from this, but it feels overwhelming sometimes.”

  “Be careful not to lose yourself in trying to help him find his way. Trust that the path he is on is exactly where he’s supposed to be.”

  Carrington tried to hold on to his words now as her mind drifted to Larkin. Tears stung the insides of her eyelids and she dropped her gaze so that Kate and Sam wouldn’t see. She knew grief well, understood time was necessary for freedom from its grip, but she wondered how long it would be before the thought of Larkin didn’t threaten to cripple her. Her knees shook and she found catching her breath nearly impossible. She reached out and pressed her fingertips to the tree beside her for stability. If her body failed her, the last thing she wanted was to end up on her knees, out here in the morning sun, weeping.

  Sam would insist they take her back if that happened and she needed to be away from camp right now. She’d insisted to Remko that she was well enough to go on this scouting run, and she needed to be right. Carrington had thought for a moment that Remko was going to demand she stay at camp and rest. His body language clearly stated that he didn’t agree with her choice, but she could be very stubborn when she wanted to be. And she needed to be doing something other than lying in their tent crying. In a different place, in a different time, maybe spending days, even months, mourning the loss of her best friend would be appropriate, but this was not that time or place.