“I’m offering you a chance to remain here, Clementine. Don’t you want a happy life?”
“No one here is happy. They don’t know any better.”
“They are happy. The injection doesn’t change their emotions; it makes their brains more malleable, easier to train. I keep them subdued because it makes life easier for them. The troubles facing Kiel are far bigger than you or they can possibly understand.”
“Because you hide things from us.” My voice is hollow.
He nods, quite calmly. “I hide what is necessary to ensure my people’s survival. I do what’s best for those who are most likely to survive the danger we’re in; I protect the Promising. You must understand, if I could save everyone, I would. But I can’t. So I pick the ones who can do the most to help our society. The loss of those in the outer sectors is a regretful one, but it can’t be helped. If you realized they’re weaker, and therefore less useful, their loss would be easier for you to accept.”
Hatred ignites my muscles. I lunge for his throat.
Sam pulls me back before I can touch him. I try to force him off me, but it’s no good. My legs give out from lack of energy. He lifts me back up. His hot breath touches my neck. The other official works the gag back into my mouth.
Charlie adjusts his collar and straightens.
“Daddy?” A voice emerges from the shadows behind him. A woman steps through a doorway, and my heart stops. “Daddy, what’s going on?”
Sandy stands in a silk nightgown. She sees me and frowns.
“Nothing to worry about, child,” Charlie says. “You can go back to bed if you don’t want to see this.”
She’s his daughter?
“No.” She smiles, and not in a warm or a kind way. “I want to see this.”
If she’s his daughter, I don’t think Charlie would subdue her. She must’ve only been pretending to be kind.
Another shadow steps into the light. And I break inside.
Beechy doesn’t say anything at all. He slips his fingers through Sandy’s, and he looks at me with an unfeeling gaze. But his eyes aren’t glossy; they aren’t covered with film. Whatever he’s doing right now, it’s his choice.
Water fills my eyes, and I clench my teeth behind my gag. He is a liar, after all.
Charlie’s lips spread apart, slowly. “I tried to reason with you, Clementine, but I can see you’re too far gone. Those who are no longer stable can’t be reasoned with. You can no longer be a citizen of the Core.”
I stopped being a Core citizen when I realized they’re all brainwashed.
“Your lack of obedience and understanding is a shame, really. Your skill set would have been useful after we set off KIMO, particularly in the coming war.” He smiles at me, his eyes glinting with a secret.
Memories flash back at me: standing in line for the officials’ obstacle course and Ariadne saying, Maybe they’re trying to turn us into soldiers; Sam wrenching me from the ground in Phantom, saying the game isn’t just a game, it’s a training module to help people practice strategizing—in case there’s ever another rebellion in the outer sectors and we have to fight them.
But Charlie’s plan with KIMO will destroy the outer sectors. There won’t be any rebellion to stop.
So who would we be fighting?
“What war?” I try to ask, but the gag doesn’t let me say the words right.
Charlie ignores me, though I’m sure he knows what I said, and turns away. He presses his hand to a spot above his ear, where some comm device must be hiding in his hair. He says something softly, then lowers his hand and turns back to me. “You won’t be returning to your room tonight. You, my dear, are going to the Surface.”
Fear and then relief slide through my bones. I’ll be with Logan. Nothing else will matter for a little while because I won’t let anyone separate us again. Our world will end together when the bomb goes off.
Charlie must read something in my face, because he shakes his head. “No, not back to your friend. You are going to the Karum treatment facility.”
His words drain every last bit of warmth from my cheeks.
“The doctors there believe they may be able to make you better before we’re ready to set the bomb off,” Charlie says. “I do hope they’re right, for your sake as well as mine.”
A door opens, and a nurse in white attire enters with a metal tray and an injection syringe. She doesn’t know I’m allergic, and she wouldn’t care anyway.
“No,” I cry through the gag.
I rip my arms free—
I kick and struggle and fight—
I won’t let them break me—
In two seconds, Sam and the other official have me in a binding hold.
I’m a glass cage. I’m a glass cage with a heart screaming to escape, but it can’t get out. I can’t escape.
Sam rolls up my sleeve to expose my shoulder. I jerk away. I shake. I tremble.
In my head, I see Rebecca, wild-eyed as the officials dragged her from the hov-pod on the Surface. I see the woman I shot in the bloody glass cage in order to enter Core society. The ones in Phantom who reached for my ankles, whispering “Help” over and over and over again.
The point of the needle touches my skin, and I shatter.
I am Unstable.
28
Blue lights flicker. I blink and they turn to dots. Crystalline. I know they’re lights because there was only darkness before. And there’s a putrid smell in my nose. Whatever hard thing I lie on feels like ice against my back.
“She’s waking.”
A blurry face leans over me, blocking the blue lights. Lips part at the face’s center, and bright white squares appear. The doctor smiles. “Can you see me, Clementine? I’m Dr. Tennant. I’m here to help you.”
His voice makes my head hurt. I squeeze my eyes shut.
He is lying. But I don’t know why. I don’t know where I am, or what I’m doing here. When I try to remember anything before the darkness, there’s nothing.
I feel a prick in my leg, sharp and piercing. I suck in my breath. “Stop,” I try to say, but my throat is blocked. There’s something inside it.
“It’s okay,” the doctor says.
I feel something hot spread through my thigh—blazing hot, like fire.
“Stop!”
“It’s okay,” he repeats.
It’s not okay. The thing inside my mouth makes it hard to breathe, and my arms won’t budge because my wrists are shackled.
The fire spreads to my toes.
I heave my body up as high as I can, screaming through the tube they shoved down my throat. I smash my back into the table. Glass shatters behind my head. A hand presses on my arm.
“Calm down.” The voice is firm, steady.
I scream again as the fire cuts into my torso. I kick at Dr. Tennant. He made a mistake; he didn’t tie my legs down.
Salty tears blot my vision worse than before. A door opens, and I hear shouts. Hazy figures lean over me and clamp iron cuffs onto my ankles, while I keep screaming.
I feel another prick, this time in my neck.
I’m lost again.
29
Again, I awaken on a metal examination table. The lights are blue, round this time, set inside metal disks like small satellites.
My head throbs, even though the fire’s gone. My throat feels sore where the tube used to be, and sweat drenches my body. I must be running a fever.
My heart flutters a little, but my chest rises and falls slowly. There’s a light, sweet scent to the air that calms me. Like an aster flower not covered in grime.
I don’t know where I am, or why I’m here, or how long it’s been since I arrived.
A door latch unlocks somewhere behind me. The white-coated doctor who enters the room is handsome. Dark hair flows in a soft wave over his head. When he smiles, his unspoiled teeth shine like diamonds.
“Good evening, Clementine,” he says.
Is it evening? I have no sense of time. The least they could do i
s put a window in my room that lets me watch the moon rise.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
“Better.” The word sticks on my tongue. I swallow to fix it, but it makes my throat sore.
“That’s wonderful.” He taps something into his tablet. “Can you tell me who you are? Basic facts?”
I nod. He already knows, I’m sure, but he wants to check how much the fever screwed up my memory.
“Clementine, S68477.” Again I slip over the vowels, but I push through. “Sixteen. Surface civilian.”
“Any family?”
“None.”
“And what do you think of Commander Charlie?”
I open my mouth to respond, but something keeps my voice from working. Like I’m not sure what to say, only I thought I was, a second ago.
My brows furrow.
“It’s all right,” the doctor says. “Take your time.”
I try again, but find myself pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth, so hard it might form welts.
“Nothing?”
I shake my head. “Sorry.”
“Hmm.” He makes another tap on his tablet. The crease in his brow tells me I displeased him, but he’s trying to hide it.
“Is that bad?” I say.
“It’s unfortunate,” he says. “But not to worry. It will come with time.”
I nod and lick my chapped lips. “Anything else?”
“Not from me. I’m going to call the nurse in to give you a little shot. Nothing to fret about.” He smiles and shows me his pearly white teeth.
The nurse enters after he leaves. She doesn’t speak to me, but she hums as she snaps on plastic gloves and moves to a metal tin.
I bite my lip. “You’ll have to prick me again?”
“I’ll insert it into your drip bag this time.”
I lean my head back and tilt it to the side, ignoring the ache. A thin black tube connects a vein in my shoulder to a bag half full with clear fluid. The nurse turns to it, still humming, and the injection syringe comes into view. She prods the needle into a tiny hole on the side of the bag and presses the plunger. Silver-colored liquid mixes with the clear like small, expanding clouds.
I sigh and turn my head to the ceiling again. The aster smell thickens in my nostrils. In small amounts it’s light and fresh; now it’s tangy and putrid, and it makes me nauseous. Why anyone would keep a scent like this in a room, I don’t know. It’s horrid. Don’t they know I’m allergic?
My limbs freeze. My eyes widen.
Memories flood my brain:
Allergy—
Pollen—
Injection syringe—
Logan—
Moonshine—
Charlie—
I came from the Core. Charlie sent me.
“You all right, dear?” the nurse says.
My heart races to the speed of a ticking time bomb.
She takes a step toward me, her face lined with creases of concern. “Honey?”
My wrists and ankles are clamped in irons. I have no use of my hands.
She touches my side lightly and smiles. “Dear, it’s all right.”
I slam my head sideways, lift my upper body, and rip the tube from my shoulder with my teeth. It’s not as clean as I’d like it to be; my teeth catch my skin and set it stinging.
The nurse screams for help.
They’re on me in ten seconds, three guards and my doctor. I’m surprised they think they need that many, since I’m already tied down.
I gnash my teeth at their hands and shriek to give them trouble, but it doesn’t do any good. They shove a tube back down my throat, choking me. Their hands mask my eyes, and the blue lights disappear.
I know where I am now.
30
The world is dark when I open my eyes.
I’m curled up on my side against something hard and damp. My body trembles, and an aching dryness fills my throat, so much it hurts to breathe. One second, I’m ice, shivering in almost no clothes. The next I’m on fire, sweat trickling down my forehead. I’m a star burning up before it dies.
The darkness is hollow, without the tiniest speck of light. My eyes could still be closed, for all I know. The world could stretch on forever, or end, and I wouldn’t know it. Logan could die, and I wouldn’t know it.
I curl into a tighter ball. I wish he were here. I long for his face, his arms, his hands. His lips. The last time our lips touched, it didn’t last long enough.
I wish he were here, or Beechy or Oliver or Ariadne—the way they were before they abandoned me—or someone. Anyone.
Charlie has stolen everyone.
Tears threaten my eyes, and the hollowness sinks into my stomach. I clench my fists and try to ignore it. I wipe my eyes and try to stand, so I can find out where the world ends.
My hand finds a hard wall to my right. Wet and slimy, it leaves residue on my fingers. When I reach to my left and in front of me, all I feel is air.
Palm on the wall, I heave my body up, but my legs are shaky. They wobble, and weariness drenches my limbs.
My knees knock into the ground. I lie on my side, wishing I weren’t so weak.
My eyes must close without my knowing it.
*
I dream I’m a bird with silver feathers, perched on the high branch of a tree, casting beady eyes at the moon. A fierce gale knocks me off my branch. The wind throws me about, wrenching my wings this way and that. I plummet to the ground in a mess of fraying feathers.
In a deep, dark trench, I land in human form, my body trembling. Bony arms reach for me, their muddy fingers tugging on my dress. “Help,” they cry. “Please help us.”
Before I can do anything, they sprout slick navy suits. They morph into Developers who point guns at my temple.
“There is nowhere to hide,” they whisper.
I wake shaking on the hard, damp floor of my Karum cell, drenched in sweat and darkness. Go away, I tell my dreams.
My fingers fumble to touch the wall again. It’s a little easier to stand today, tonight, whatever time it is. In the dark, time is a trap for insanity.
My legs still wobble. Every step, I grit my teeth and push through the ache, the fire, the glass shards ripping through my body. My cell seems to be small. I find no cracks in the cement. No door. It’s like they threw me into a hole in the ground and built a ceiling over it.
I drop to my knees and press my palms into my forehead, breathing hard. I’m afraid they’ll never let me go. That the moon or KIMO will kill us all and I’ll never see Logan again.
I’m about to let a river of tears down my cheeks when a loud, echoing clang startles me, coming from inside the wall. I hold my breath.
In the silence, I hear another sound: a slow, shaky sob, somewhere beyond the cement. My heart flutters. There’s someone there.
“Hello?” I say, crawling and pressing my ear to the slimy wall.
I don’t hear anything at first. Then it’s there again: the quiet sobbing that isn’t coming from me. Relief floods my body.
It doesn’t matter that whoever it is doesn’t say a word. It’s enough to hear them and know I’m not alone in Karum.
I’m not alone.
*
A creak overhead jolts me awake. The roof makes a great scraping noise, and a ray of white light seeps through a crack in the ceiling.
I scramble to my feet as the light blinds me and envelops my cell. I throw my hands over my eyes and press my body against the wall.
Go away, I think. Not yet. I’m too weak to fight, if they’ve come to take me back to the metal table and the injection syringes, or to kill me. But I have to fight.
I spread my fingers apart and glimpse a metal ladder lowering into the hole. A guard climbs down, followed by an adult in a skirt, a blouse, and red high heels. I try to ignore the soreness in my legs that makes it hard to stand.
The woman steps onto the ground. Her eyes look almost yellow in the light. They trail over my figure, and she purses her lips. “Hello,
Clementine.” She hates me. I can hear it in her voice.
Good, I think. I hate you more.
“I’m here to discuss some things the staff finds intriguing about you.” She crosses her arms and taps her foot. “Let’s cooperate, shall we? I’d like you to explain why our calming injections don’t work on you.”
I bet she already knows the answer. She’s trying to see if I’ll be honest. “I don’t know,” I say. “Doctors said they’d figure it out.”
“And they will. At first it was thought that you’re merely strong-minded, but…” Her eyes trail over my petite figure. “I don’t believe that’s the correct reason.”
She thinks because my body is weak, my mind is weak. She knows nothing. I want to strangle her, but instead I latch on to what might help me more than that—weakness.
“It—it’s not the reason.” I curl into myself against the wall. “I can’t … I’m not…” I force a whimper.
Confused concern forms a crease in her brow. “Yes?”
I shake my head and clutch my knees to my chest. “I didn’t mean to cause so much trouble. I just want to go home.…”
She studies my face and taps her chin with a fingernail. “You know, Clementine, the only reason you’re still here is because you keep refusing to set your faith in Commander Charlie. If you were to change your mind and not give us any more trouble … a return to the Core would not be difficult to arrange.”
I stare at my knees. In the light I see how dirty they are, how bony. I could do it. I could keep up an act, looking like this. My body is frail, and they’d believe me if I cried. I could convince them I’ve had a change of heart and agree to never again question Charlie. I could do it, and they would send me to the Core.
But KIMO would still go off. The preparations must be almost ready—Charlie said it would take only a week or two, at the most. Logan and everyone else in the outer sectors would be destroyed. If I went back to the Core, I’d be safe, but they’d be dead.
Maybe that’s better for me than this, but it’s not good enough.
I lift my head to the woman.
She observes me with her yellow eyes. “Well?” she says.
I lunge at her, and she gasps. Pain cuts through my legs, my arms, my hands, but my fingers grab her throat and squeeze. I press red welts into her skin.
Extraction Page 25
