Revolutionary

by Krista McGee

  A harsh sound shakes me from my dream. I bolt up in bed. Too fast. My head pounds. I look at the wall screen, but Loudin is not there. It’s blank. I release a breath. James Turner walks in the door, moving slowly. Bile rises to my throat. Seeing him reminds me of how he forced his own father to remain locked away down in the bowels of the State for forty years. Unable to actually annihilate John, James forced the old man to live alone, allowed to speak only to those scheduled to be annihilated. John was the best man I have ever known. James, then, is the worst.

  “Thalli.” His voice is not like John’s. John’s voice was like a cello—soothing, calming, deep and smooth. James’s voice is high, forced, like too much air being blown through a muted trumpet. Other than his eyes, he looks nothing like his father. James is thin. Sickeningly thin, all sharp angles. His cheekbones seem like they could pierce his skin, his nose rises above thin lips, sharp and pointy. The white pants and shirt hang on his frame, sleeves too short, neck too large. “You are awake.”

  “Astute observation, Dr. Turner.” No need to be kind. Not to him. He doesn’t deserve it. A tiny pinprick of guilt lights in my stomach, but I ignore it, quench it. This is James Turner. He deserves no mercy.

  “I understand how you may feel about me.” He moves closer. Wrinkles crinkle around his mouth, bags droop under his eyes. He looks like a sheet of ancient music that has been crumpled and straightened back out.

  I sit up straighter. “You are a murderous, heartless tyrant.”

  “I am.” James has neither remorse nor pride in his voice. Just resignation. I do not know how to respond to that.

  “Why are you here?” I grab the glass of water at my bedside, sipping slowly so my eyes can remain on James. “More torture?”

  “No.” He takes another step toward me. I scoot back, pull the bedclothes tighter. “I want to talk about my father.”

  My throat feels like it will close in on itself. I set down the glass and take a deep breath, forcing my lungs to inhale. He wants to talk about John? After keeping him prisoner for forty years? Leaving him alone to grieve? To live? James’s eyes are sad, shoulders slumped. If I did not know what weighed him down, I might feel sorry for him. But it is right for him to feel that way. What he has done—the things I know of, anyway—are disgusting.

  “Please.” He stays where he is, his head down.

  “You had decades to talk to your father.” I think of John in his solitary room, on his knees. Praying, very likely, for James. “Seventy years in total. And you squandered them.”

  James pulls the chair from the side of the room and falls into it, as if the weight of his stick-like body is more than he can bear.

  “You had a father, one who loved you so deeply. And yet you created generations of us with no father. No mother. No feelings.”

  The look that passes over James’s face is puzzling. I see guilt, but something else, something even deeper than that. I do not have time to analyze that look because my anger at what James has done bubbles over, spilling out, and I cannot stop it.

  “You discarded what you were given, threw John’s love in his face. You abandoned him.”

  James’s Adam’s apple bobs in his narrow throat. His eyes glisten. I am glad. He should feel pain for what he has done. But then I think of John, of who he was, what he taught me. He loved his son, and he would be disappointed at the way I am acting. He prayed for this man, longed to see him know truth. Am I now to be the answer to that prayer?

  God, you stay silent, then ask this of me? I cannot think of anything I would like to do less than offer grace to James Turner, give truth to one of the men who raised me on lies. But if I refuse, am I any better than him?

  “What do you want to know?”

  CHAPTER 3

  You have about twenty minutes before they discover this door is unlocked.” James taps a code on the outside of my room and then turns to walk down the hall.

  I release a sigh. Talking about John depleted the little energy I had. My head aches and my body feels as if it weighs three hundred pounds. But I have an open door and twenty minutes. I throw my legs over the side of the sleeping platform and lean my head into my hands to stop the spinning. I drink the last of the water from my glass. I stand. Slowly. I am nauseous, dizzy, weak. But Alex is here somewhere. Kristie is here. I do not know what is being done to them, but I know it is not good. We must reunite and escape. Right now, I am their best hope for that.

  I force my legs to move, to walk, willing my unused muscles to wake up. I focus on the door, then the hallway. I look in each room. They have people in them, working. From their appearance, I would guess it is those from Pod B, the generation ahead of ours. If they notice me, they do not acknowledge it. They are focused on communications pads, tapping commands, completing tasks. I pass the final door and am stopped in my tracks. I go back.

  The woman in this room looks very much like me. Just older. Though her hair is just above her shoulders and mine hangs halfway down my back, it is the same brownish blond, thick with waves, just like mine. She looks up from her communications pad, and my own eyes look back at me. My heart beats faster. Hers are as wide as I’m sure mine are—blue-green, framed with dark eyelashes.

  But, unlike me, there is no curiosity in her eyes. They widened, I realize, not out of surprise, but because she needed to adjust her vision from the up-close interaction with her pad and the faraway interaction with me. She looked up just because movement caught her eye. She returns now to her work.

  After months in New Hope and Athens, I have forgotten what people in the State are like, what “normal” is here. Programmed to be without emotions or curiosity, I was an anomaly. This woman behaved exactly the way the Scientists—James Turner—designed her to behave: working in her assigned field in order to maintain productivity in the State.

  I walk on. I do not miss being around people who have no feelings. I do, however, miss my field, my job. As the pod Musician, I was able to play an instrument every day. I created music, played music written by others, mastered dozens of instruments. My music aided the others, increased their productivity, stimulated their brains. I am not sure why I am here now, but it is not as a Musician.

  I shake my head to clear these thoughts. Five minutes have passed, and I am doing nothing but looking in windows at people who cannot help me, people who do not know that they need help. I need to find Alex and Kristie. I see the door leading to a staircase. I push away thoughts of Berk and me in this staircase. I cannot be distracted by that now. But the images come anyway—Berk holding me, leading me out to the water reservoirs, me playing my violin for him. I do not know how memories can be painful and beautiful at the same time, but these are.

  I reach the top of the stairs and pause. I am breathing too loudly. I have to quiet down before I move into the hall on this floor. I draw in a deep breath. In through my nose, out through my mouth. My heart slows to a normal rhythm. I open the door, allowing only my head through.

  No one is in the hallway. These rooms are filled with what I am sure are those from Pod A. The first generation of the State. The Scientists must have moved everyone to their headquarters to conserve oxygen. Before I left, Pod C—my friends, my generation—was annihilated because they were using too much of the precious gas. I swallow hard at the injustice of that. They could have been moved here. Or taken above. They could be at New Hope right now, living, breathing, working. But Loudin did not consider that. Did not allow for that. To him people are expendable. Replaceable.

  All the more reason to find a way out of here.

  I pass by the next-to-last door and look in, expecting to see yet another member of Pod A hard at work. But I do not see a member of Pod A. I see Alex.

  I rush to the door and push the handle. Locked. Of course. But the movement causes Alex to look up. He moves to me so quickly, he almost falls over the tray of food on the floor beside his chair. He tries to open the door. I am sure he recognizes the futility in that attempt, but it is natural. His ga
ze finds mine and we both stop moving. Fear radiates from those crystal-blue eyes. But there is joy too. And relief.

  “Are you all right?”

  I can barely hear him through the thick door. I nod.

  “Did they let you out?”

  I shrug. “Not exactly.”

  Alex places his hand on the glass. I lift mine to his. “Can you get me out?”

  I look around for something that would break the glass, but there is nothing in this sterile hallway. “I can’t stay long.”

  Alex’s eyes widen. “Why?”

  “They don’t know I’m gone.”

  There are too many questions in Alex’s eyes. I cannot even begin to answer them all. “We have to find Kristie and escape.”

  “How?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.” I pull my hand away, then place it back on the glass once more. “I’ll find a way out. I will.”

  Alex leans his forehead against the glass, closes his eyes. I cannot stop to do the same. I cannot allow errant thoughts and emotions in my mind and heart right now. I have five minutes to return to my room before I am caught. I turn from Alex and walk back down the hallway.

  I am too late.

  CHAPTER 4

  The soft hands of a Monitor grasp mine and pull my arms behind my back.

  “How did you escape?” The Monitor’s voice is as soft as his hands. Could I overpower him? He is bigger than I am, but that doesn’t mean he is stronger.

  I lean hard to the left, and he loosens his grip. I fall to my knees, and his hands slip from mine. I crawl as fast as I can, ignoring the burning in my knees. I push myself up onto my feet and run, but he pulls at my ankles, and my chin connects with the floor. Bright-white dots flicker in front of me. I flip myself over onto my back and kick as hard as I can. The Monitor screams. When my vision clears, I see his hands covering his face, blood streaming from his nose. I roll over, push myself back up, and run to the door of the stairs.

  Alex!

  The Monitor is still covering his face. I rush to him and pull his communications pad from his shirt pocket. I see the image of this hallway in it. I press the Unlock button and hear a click. Alex has been watching from the window. He bolts out of the room the minute he can.

  “Bring that thing.” He points to the communications pad.

  I place it in my pocket and lead Alex to the stairs. We run down, two and three at a time. I ignore the burning in my lungs, in my legs. I think only of Kristie. And freedom. Alex reaches for the door on my floor.

  “No!” I pull him away and point downstairs. “They’ll be waiting for us there. We need to go down one more floor.”

  We race down the next flight of stairs.

  “Now what?” Alex looks from the door leading to the hallway to the door leading outside.

  I pause. “I don’t know.”

  Alex looks through the glass into the hallway. “No one is there. We have a little time.”

  “No.” I cannot get enough oxygen into my lungs. “They already know I am gone. They’ll send more Monitors.”

  “Good decisions are never made in haste.” Alex’s royal upbringing is speaking now. I should listen, should slow down, but everything in me is screaming to run as fast and as far as we can. “Tell me the advantages of going into this hallway.”

  Alex’s eyes are willing me to breathe, to think. He opens his arms, and I fall into them. “We could find Kristie. We could get supplies.”

  “All right.” Alex’s mouth is at my ear, his breath warming me. He rubs my back and I can breathe again. “And the disadvantages?”

  I close my eyes. “It would be easier for the Monitors to find us and for Loudin to track us.”

  “And the other door?”

  “It leads to the pods. But those are empty.”

  “That’s good, then, right?” Alex pulls away, his hands on my shoulders. “It would give us time to think.”

  “I don’t know if there is enough oxygen in them.” I think of all the people from Pods A and B in these quarters.

  I close my eyes again. God, where are you? Tell me what to do!

  Nothing.

  “There are more places to hide out there.” I point to the door leading outside. We can go near the reservoirs, where there are no cameras.

  “All right, then.” Alex squeezes my shoulders.

  “We have to get Kristie out.”

  “Of course.” Alex walks toward the door. “But we need time to strategize. We can’t just run in. They’ll overpower us.”

  I follow him out the door, half sure a Monitor or even Loudin himself will be waiting for us. But no one is there. “This is too easy.” I look around.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are cameras everywhere. Loudin always knows what happens. He even knew how to find us in New Hope. I cannot believe he is just letting us walk out.”

  “But you said this was the best place to go.”

  “I know. It is.” Something does not feel right. But going back inside does not feel right either. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t second-guess yourself, Thalli.” Alex takes my hand. “Let’s just keep going until we can’t go anymore. All right?”

  I look around, trying to remember the layout of the State, determining where we are. I see Pod A in the distance, to the west. The water reservoirs are east. “That way.”

  We walk in silence for several minutes, both of us alert, prepared to run or fight if our escape is discovered. When our escape is discovered.

  “Did they hurt you?” Alex asks the question so quietly I can barely hear him.

  The electric shocks . . . my body goes rigid with the memory. I shake it off. Alex does not need to know about that. He does not need to worry about me. We have to plan our escape. “They kept me locked in a room, and I do not want to be locked away ever again.”

  Alex sighs. “But they didn’t hurt you?”

  “No.” I hate lying to Alex, but the alternative would be too painful. For both of us. “What about you?”

  “They haven’t hurt me.” Alex walks faster. “They just keep testing me. They take my blood, put me in their strange box . . .”

  “With images on it?”

  “Yes.” Alex nods, his blond hair hanging in a wavy strand down his face. “I’m on a boat, then in a city.”

  “Attacked by a ship.”

  “They put you in it too?”

  I recall that testing before the escape. When Berk was there, trying to help me. “A long time ago.”

  “What are they trying to see?”

  I shrug. “Loudin’s expertise is in neurology. He is checking your brain to see how it functions. He’s probably looking to understand the difference between your brain and ours, to see the effects of living above versus being State born.”

  Alex stops and looks at me, his hand on my face. “We’re not very different, are we?”

  There is more to that question than I can answer. And I do not have time to formulate a diversion because Alex is thrown to the ground. Four Monitors have surrounded us. I did not see them coming, did not hear them. It is like they appeared out of the ground. One is on top of Alex, pulling his arms behind with such force I am sure his shoulder will be dislocated.

  “Stop.”

  Another Monitor pulls Alex up by his hair. I lunge at the man, but two of the Monitors stop me, one holding each arm.

  “You just don’t ever learn, do you?” Dr. Loudin walks between Alex and me. “You cannot run from me, Thalli.”

  I stare at him, hating the smile on his face, the confidence in his voice.

  “You think you can save your friends? Save the world?” Loudin lets out a maniacal laugh. “I made you, Thalli. And I can unmake you. You would do well to learn that.”

  His green eyes narrow, then soften. I cannot read them, cannot figure out what is happening in his mind. But I will not give in to him. I will not let him win.

  “Never.”

  CHAPTER 5
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  Alex is dragged away from me, back to the Scientists’ quarters. Loudin is gone. I don’t know where. I did not see him leave. I have so many questions for him. But he, of course, will not answer them. I am beneath him.

  The Monitors are taking me to Pod C. I no longer have the energy to fight them. I am spent—physically and emotionally. I will fight again. I will escape again. I will find Alex and Kristie and return to New Hope. But I cannot do any of that now. Now I simply allow myself to be led back to my old home.

  As we approach the pod, I am overwhelmed with memories. Berk and I scratching our names on the floor beneath the sofa. Rhen correcting me when I questioned too much. Meals together as a pod. We were not close—not in the way I have learned to be close to people above. But we were a family. We lived, ate, learned, and worked together. I grew up with those in this Pod. And now only Berk, Rhen, and I remain. The others were senselessly murdered by Dr. Loudin because they were consuming too much oxygen.

  Anger animates me, and I fight against the Monitors again. The one on my left tightens his grip but he doesn’t waver. The one on my right barely registers my fight at all. Neither looks at me or speaks to me. I am a prisoner, an anomaly that is unworthy of humane treatment.

  The door to my pod opens and I am shoved inside, the door locked behind me. The furniture is gone. But unlike the last time I was here, there is no medical equipment either. Nothing. Just an empty space. I remember John speaking of Jesus’ followers looking for him in the tomb and finding it empty. This reminds me of that. An empty tomb. But there is no angel here to tell me that there is hope. Just a hollow shell of the life I once had. Walls that hold memories, reminders of people I will never see again.

  Why will the Designer not speak to me? Send someone to me? Why has he left me alone when I need him? Tears burn my eyes, my throat constricts, but I press on.

  Every room is empty. All that remains is a sleeping platform in my cube. Loudin planned on bringing me here. I find three changes of clothes in the closet. I look over where Rhen’s sleeping platform used to be, her closet. I miss her so much my heart aches. What is she doing in New Hope? Is she safe? Happy?