The Chronicles of Vallanie Sharp: Novice

by Morgan Feldman

The next morning, I woke to the gentle melody of the alarm bombarding in my ears. The lights were already on, gaining power. Blinking in confusion, I wondered why my body wanted more sleep. Then I remembered the previous night.

  Fumbling to turn off the alarm, I managed to do so only after tangling myself in the sheets. I pulled myself free with a groan, dressed, and followed Scia to breakfast as usual, too afraid of getting caught to do anything differently. I sat in silence, trying hard not to fidget every time she looked at me.

  She didn’t seem to notice. “My cousin published an article the other day,” she told me without looking up from her food. “She found a way to increase the range of operating machines to miles. If her design holds, it could change surgery entirely. Surgeons could conduct their work from home, even in the countryside.”

  “That’s fascinating,” I replied not at all fascinated, before she continued to explain her cousin’s theory in detail.

  I started leaning my head back and massaging my temples in a way that I hoped would look like I was getting a migraine. Letting my eyelids fall forward, I scrunched my eyes in pretend pain, peering out from under them until I began to get an actual headache.

  She still didn’t notice. Paying more attention to her food and her reflection in the table than to me, her boisterous chat never wavered.

  Eventually, I gave up the act. When she stopped to take a sip of her coffee, I cut straight to the point. “I don’t feel very well. Would it be all right if I stop by the optical center on the way to work?”

  She looked up, tensing her face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing serious.” I blinked a few times, rubbing at my eye in fake annoyance. “Just a pain, here. I think I might have gotten something in it yesterday.”

  She nodded, adjusting a thick strand of hair on the side of her face. “Be quick.”

  “I will.” Standing, I pushed in my chair, straightened my skirt, and walked towards the Optical Center.

  Once I was out of view, I turned a corner and went back to the Ortus tables at reception. The moment my radix touched the surface, the screen welcomed me, lighting up to a fancily formatted page with dark revolving circles fading in and out of existence behind my name and picture. There was a round royal purple button that read, “Contact.”

  Getting the feeling I was being watched, I glanced to both sides, ensuring Scia was nowhere in sight before I pressed it. The screen changed to a place where I typed in the location of Clint’s hotel, followed by his name.

  With an annoying beep, it gave me an error saying there was no guest registered under that name.

  I frowned. Perhaps a room had opened up at the standard hotel and they’d moved. Surely he would have told me? I tried running a longer search, checking for him through all hotels in the city, regretting every prolonging second.

  The screen blinked blue with success, pulling up a picture of Clint beside his name in bold white letters. I tapped it, only to get a slightly higher pitched sound that was accompanied by the message, “Are you sure you want to call Clint Aurum?”

  I pressed “yes.” It had me swipe my wrist, before glowing blue and displaying a rotating image of the official government logo.

  Clint’s familiar face soon replaced the image. Standing in front of an unkempt bed, he looked tired, as if he’d just woken up, though his hair was styled so neatly, I hardly recognized him. “Hello?” he asked, his voice groggy and uncertain.

  “Hey, I know this is going to sound strange, but…” I hesitated as I realized I didn’t know what to say. Then it struck me that our conversation might be recorded. “I need to talk to you about something. In person,” I added as an after thought, and then, continuing my thought process, continued adding, “As soon as possible. It’s important.”

  His eyes narrowed and I could tell something was wrong. Still, his next question caught me completely by surprise. “Uh… Who is this?”

  “Val, you idiot,” I said quickly, “…from primary school… remember?” When the confusion didn’t leave his face, I almost panicked. Had they wiped his memory? Judging from what I’d seen recently, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

  “Oh, Val!” He smiled, but it quickly wrinkled into a look of confusion. “You’re at Central?”

  I nodded. Where else would I be? Holding back my frustration, I replied as calmly and slowly as possible, “Yes, and I need to talk to you about something as soon as possible.”

  “Ok.” He took a step back, scratching the back of his neck. “Decca and I will be there in an hour. I’ll ask her if we can leave early and meet you by the entrance.”

  “Decca?”

  “My mentor.”

  So they had already given him a new mentor. “That was fast.” I swallowed, dreading the next question, but having to ask it. “Do you know what happened to Altus?”

  He frowned. “Who?”

  My heart pounded. Clint had either been brainwashed or simply couldn’t talk over the network. I prayed it was the second. “Never mind. I’ll meet you by the entrance in an hour.”

  “All right. And Val,” he added as I reached to log out, smiling much brighter than usual. “It was good to hear from you.”

  “Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “See you.”

  I exited the call and began pacing. An hour was too long to wait. Scia would get suspicious if I wasn’t back by then, but if I went back straight away, it would be too short. For a moment I considered checking into the Optical Center just to strengthen my alibi, but I decided against it a few steps later. Realizing people were starting to stare, I began a slow walk towards the fountain.

  A thousand questions squirmed through my mind. What was going to happen to Altus? Had they interrogated Clint? If they had, had he told them about me? If he had his mind wiped because he’d spent so much time with Altus, would they wipe mine too?

  “Val!” I jumped at the sound of my name. I nearly jumped again when I turned to find Clint waving to me from across the room.

  I was so relieved, I had to keep myself from running towards him. “That was fast.”

  “What was?” I figured he must have run because his familiar bangs were loose and hanging once more over his eyes.

  “The time it took you to mess up your hair.” I laughed, but stopped short when I realized he didn’t find it funny. I looked around to see growing lines of employees and patients veering around us like ants avoiding inconvenient puddles. “Let’s go outside.”

  He nodded and followed me through the clear circular doors. “What’s wrong?” he asked the second the doors shut behind us.

  I shook my head and searched his face, pleading for some sign of familiarity. I wasn’t sure if he was safe to talk to. “Do you remember Altus?” I asked quickly, dreading the answer.

  “Of course,” he said, surprised I even asked. His face relaxed in recognition, “you know what happened.”

  “I know more than that.” I looked down at my feet. “I… last night, I went to the upper levels and I saw something I shouldn’t have. I-I don’t think the reinstallation processes are as safe as they’re saying.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There were people in cells that were…not right. I recognized some of them and they were worse off than they had been when they were diagnosed, only in completely different ways. Not only that but, I…” I paused to ensure I had his complete intention, praying he hadn’t dismissed me as defective, then continued in a whisper, “I think they’re killing people.”

  “What?” He looked surprised, but not to the extent I imagined.

  I wanted him to believe me. I needed him to believe me. “I think that’s what they do when we’re ‘retired,’” I continued, uncertainly, “it’s just a fancy word for killed.”

  He stared at me, running a hand through his hair. He let out a long slow breath before turning away. “I know. Altus told me.”

  I gulped, trying to keep the panic from my voice. They knew, and they hadn’t said anythi
ng? “Scia had to diagnose Altus yesterday,” I lied without looking at him, unable to take the responsibility for my own diagnosis, “she found him defective.”

  When I looked up, he was staring silently into the distance. Suddenly, his eyes lit up unexpectedly, and he turned to me in excitement. “Val, that’s great!”

  My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? You do realize defective minds are reinstalled, right?”

  “Yes, but if she diagnosed him, you have access to his room.” He grinned. “You can help him escape.”

  I bit my lip. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I was ready to help a patient escape, even if it was Altus. “What about the cameras?”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  I didn’t want to know how. I was looking for excuses. “What about Decca?” I asked.

  He looked up at me and blinked. “Who?”

  “Decca.” When he still refused to show a sign of recognition, I started to lose confidence. “You said she was your new mentor…” my voice lost speed as the sentence progressed, until it trailed off into a question.

  “When?”

  “Just now,” I tugged the ends of my hair in frustration, “through the Ortus.”

  “I didn’t talk to you through the Ortus.”

  “Yes, you did.” I studied his eyes, which were as steady and sincere as ever. Folding my arms, I stepped back in confusion. “I called you just a minute ago. You were at the hotel, with Decca.”

  He started to shake his head slowly, but stopped as his eyes widened in comprehension. “You typed in my name? My full name that you remembered from primary school?”

  I nodded, suddenly getting the feeling I’d done something wrong. But what?

  “And I answered?” He was radiating with so much energy, I was surprised he didn’t start jumping up and down. “I answered?” he repeated, raising his voice. It wasn’t normal, and I didn’t like it. He didn’t wait for me to answer, but walked quickly to an empty bench with an elaborate steel overhang and collapsed onto it.

  I sat down next to him, both intrigued and frightened by his sudden change in behavior.

  He was drumming his hands against his chin, looking down at his feet. “This isn’t good.”

  “What isn’t?” I asked, full of impatience.

  He glanced around fearfully before turning to me. “Look, Val, I don’t know how to tell you this,” one hand clutched the roots of his hair, while the other tapped the bench furiously, “but I’m not Clint.”

  “What do you mean you’re not Clint?”

  “I’m not Clint,” he shrugged, letting his hand fall to his side, his gaze dropping to his feet. “At least, not the one you know. I never went to school with you. I never met you until you came to sit with me in the cafeteria a few weeks ago.”

  I was shocked. I opened my mouth, and closed it again, my thoughts racing, all coming to the same conclusion. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s the truth.” He looked up at me, his face as serious as ever. “I’m his twin. Clone. Whatever you want to call two people grown from the same genetically designed DNA.”

  Twin? Clone? I’d only ever heard the words in history. “But that’s… impossible. They don’t exist anymore.”

  Clint—no, not Clint—this stranger who until recently I had considered my friend, lowered his gaze, letting his hand fall to his side. “We do.”

  “Why would they make two of the same person?”

  He leaned towards me and lowered his voice. “They don’t do it intentionally. You know how you saw them kill that woman? She was defective. Sometimes, kids are defective too. Sometimes, two kids are made when they only want one.”

  I wasn’t sure if I believed him. I didn’t want to believe him, because that would mean the world I trusted wasn’t as perfect as I thought. At the same time, I wanted to believe him, because otherwise I’d lose my only friend. I looked up, watching a metallic galaxy slowly revolve around itself. “So,” I tried to keep my voice calm, and managed surprisingly well considering the circumstances, “you’re saying that they kill children if they’re defective.” I turned back to him. “Then how come you’re still alive?”

  His eyes flashed a moment, and I thought I’d found the hole in his lie. He glanced away, then quickly back. “My mother—the woman I consider my mother—rescued me when I was little.”

  “How?”

  “She worked in the lab. She had orders to kill me but, instead she took me far away and raised me in secret.”

  “Where?”

  “Outside.”

  I didn’t understand. He expected me to believe he’d kept himself a secret from society all the time by living outdoors? “Outside where? In the streets? The nature preserves?”

  “No. Outside the dome.”

  I blinked. “In the Perimeter?”

  “Outside the Perimeter.”

  I may have at first thought he was strange, but now I knew he was insane. I even had the thought to run inside and alert Scia, but it disappeared as quickly as it ignited. “You can’t go outside! No one can survive out there. You’d die!”

  He kept his gaze steady, his eyes sparkling with a hint of amusement that I wished someone would extinguish. “Who told you this?”

  “Everyone,” I replied automatically. It was just something we knew, like you can’t jump off a building and fly: you can’t leave the dome and survive. “It’s just a fact.”

  “Well, it’s wrong.”

  I wasn’t sure what to think. My mind kept jumping from one idea to the next. I thought perhaps he was an escaped patient, or that I was actually a patient and he was just a hallucination, or that it was all some crazy test Scia had arranged for me to see how I’d react.

  I simply stared at him as he continued slowly, “You can leave the dome; they just don’t want you to. There’s a whole world outside, larger than you can possibly imagine. Larger than a hundred domes combined.”

  “But, the air-”

  “The air is fine. I’ve breathed it my whole life, and I’m fine. I could get in a lot of trouble for telling you this, but-“ his eyes darted around, ensuring we were alone before he continued at a barely audible level, “this isn’t a country, Val. It’s an experiment.”

  “What?”

  “Years ago, the government bought out Novagene Design Core, the largest genetic design company, and created an environment to test their product: the dome. Or, what was to become the dome. It was just a building at first, then a city, slowly growing until it became what you see now.” He looked up from his hands, which had been gesturing out the story, to watch me carefully a moment.

  I nodded to show that I was following him, though I still wasn’t sure I believed him.

  “After nearly thirty years of operation, they realized it served them best to be completely self-contained,” he continued. “Communication with people outside the dome caused too many problems. They wanted to intermarry. They wanted to leave. People didn’t like growing up knowing they were experiments. It became too much for the government to handle, so they cut communications almost entirely. They made up stories to keep you in, while, outside, they announced they were working on secret advancements. Except for the monthly inspectors, a few high level government officials and border control officials, the dome is entirely self-contained.”

  I didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. But instead of denying it, I asked, “Why?”

  “They wanted to make sure the children they designed would be fully operational and productive to society. They needed to know what types of people are beneficial, and what types are harmful. You know how there are regulations as to what traits you can have in a child?”

  The question was rhetorical. Of course I knew. There had to be regulations. It was common sense. You couldn’t make a child blind or schizophrenic—they had to fit in with the regulations.

  “Well, how do you think they came up with them? It’s a tricky science to know just how m
uch ambition helps drive a person in life, and just how much fuels them to initiate fights with their neighbors.” He slid closer to me with a shake of his head. “It’s all about control. Ultimately, they want people they can control.”

  I didn’t know what to think. I looked up at the tiny imitation galaxy and tried to make some sense of everything, but I couldn’t. What he said was so ridiculous, I didn’t know how he could have made it up, and yet I couldn’t take it to be true. All I knew for certain was that this was not the Clint I’d spoken to through the Ortus. Part of me trusted him, and the other part of me hated that. I looked back at him accusingly, “Does your girlfriend know?”

  “Girlfriend?” He frowned, and it took a moment before his face flushed in recognition. “Oh, you mean Kat. She’s not my girlfriend,” he said, defiantly, “She’s from outside. Altus and I weren’t supposed to be here this long. She’s a computer genius, so I guess she found a way to break through the Ortus without showing up on any of the monitors. She thought something had happened and wanted to help.” He shook his head. “She was just too early.”

  “Or Altus was just too late.”

  He gave a nervous laugh that was short lived.

  I watched him fidget with his bangs a moment, unsure what to do or say. When at last I opened my mouth, the words that rolled from my tongue were, “If you’re not Clint, then who are you?”

  His eyes met mine then dropped quickly away, heavy with shame. “David.”

  He continued to fidget, watching me from the corner of his eyes. Suddenly, I was hit with a realization that caught me by surprise: he was scared. Scared of me. Scared that I would turn him in. I would have been scared too if I was in his position. He was certainly a danger to society, running around with words like those. But even then, I knew I wouldn’t turn him in. Carefully, I lifted my hand to my side and held it out. “It’s nice to meet you, David.”

  His face lit up in a familiar smile as he took my hand, our palms pressing together in a firm shake.

  I grinned. “Now, how do we get Altus out?”