Unsuitable

by Dawn Norwell

  I started to panic as the effects of the medicine presented themselves. My heart rate accelerated, and it became much harder for me to breathe. My vision started to blur, and my equilibrium became unstable. My legs trembled uncontrollably as I tried, unsuccessfully, to run for help. I stumbled and staggered drunkenly around the room, sending medical trays and equipment clattering to the ground.

  After several minutes, my wobbly legs finally gave out, and I tumbled to the floor. Paralysis set into my extremities. The room dimmed around me as I faded out of consciousness. The only sound was that of Drayman’s laughter echoing formidably in my ears as I faded into oblivion.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: JUDGEMENT & JUSTICE

  T he drugs were powerful, so powerful that I felt like I was drowning beneath the weight of them. Each time I started to come back to consciousness, I was pulled under once again.

  I was aware of what was going on around me, but only just. As Drayman had promised, I was paralyzed in every way, except for inside my own mind. It was the most egregious form of torture, being intellectually alert and cognizant of what was happening around you, but unable to do anything more.

  Occasionally, I would regain sensation in various parts of my body, but before I was able to move, I would be heaved back into helpless oblivion by the unyielding medicine. Blackness surrounded me, consuming me, leaving me with little to distract my overactive mind. All I could think about was what my future held. I expected whatever my fate, it would not be pleasant.

  It was quiet for a long time, just me and my thoughts. As the shadows engulfed me, I wondered how much time had passed. Had Drayman managed to transport me from Nova without detection, or would someone stop him before he could do any more damage?

  My questions were answered when I heard the loud hum of TIMs hover close by. My heart accelerated, adrenaline coursing through my veins as the natural fight or flight instincts took over, but I was unable to do either in my incapacitated state.

  I felt the hard thump of my body hitting a hard surface as it was thrown to the ground. Voices echoed in some faraway place, too far away for me to call for help. People scurried about, adjusting my body and attaching wires, ready to carry out whatever harrowing plans the Syndicate had for me.

  “Initiate the regeneration process,” someone said, and I heard the quiet whoosh of another syringe being pressed into my skin.

  The new drug worked as quickly as the one that had immobilized me. The cloudy daze enveloping my mind faded away, and my eyelids fluttered open. I felt my body coming back to life little by little. The sensation returned to my hands and feet first, then spread upward through my arms and legs. I panicked when an aggressive, uncontrollable convulsion began in my extremities, almost as though they were seizing.

  “Don’t be alarmed. It’s just a side effect of the medication,” a familiar voice said. “It will wear off after a few minutes once your nerve endings are fully revitalized.” I turned my head to see Mr. Alta- my medical trainer- sitting beside my hospital bed. “Welcome back, Kai,” he said with a sad smile.

  “What… what’s happening,” I stuttered, my lips still partially numb. “W-w-where am I?”

  “You’re back in Concord, in the penitentiary,” he says, a myriad of emotions flashing behind his eyes. I knew that I was one of his favorite students; Mr. Alta had not been shy about that. He praised me openly and often because I grasped his lessons so easily. Seeing me chained to the bed this way would be hard for him, no matter the reasons behind it.

  I glanced around the unfamiliar room. The penitentiary was one of the few places in Concord that I didn’t recognize. My father had refused to bring me down here when he worked as a guard, no matter how much I pleaded. Now, I could understand why.

  The penitentiary was buried deep under the city, out of sight of the naïve and unsuspecting inhabitants above. It reeked of the rotting flesh of those who were sentenced to spend their lives here, wasting away one day at a time. It was as if the ghosts of those who’d died behind these bars still haunted the eerie chambers. It would be harrowing for a child to come to this dark, stony crypt with its thick metal bars and no windows. A chill ran through me as I contemplated how long I would have to remain here.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” I asked in a small voice, but I already knew the answer.

  Mr. Alta shook his head. “Well, you will await trial at the Ceremony of Sanctions like the other convicted felons. Based on the tribunal’s verdict, you will then be punished appropriately.” His gaze fell to the ground, unable to look at me; we both knew what the council’s verdict would be.

  “But don’t worry about that right now,” he said with a forced smile. “The Ceremony is still several weeks away. For now, you just need to rest up. The drugs are still lingering inside your body, so you’ll be groggy for a little while. The best thing you can do is get some sleep.”

  A guard on the outside whistled, and the doors opened. Mr. Alta frowned. This wasn’t a social visit. He had done his job in reviving me, and now it was time for him to go. A part of me was grateful; I wouldn’t want him to see what awaited me next. But I was also terrified of being alone with whatever horrors awaited me.

  Mr. Alta stood and walked toward the exit, pausing in the entryway for just a moment, as though he wanted to say something. Then, with a defeated sigh, he left the cell without another word. My heart sank as I comprehended that I would likely never see him again.

  As the dense silence set in, I realized just how much danger I was in. My heart sank when I saw that my hands were bound with holographic handcuffs. Once these were locked in place, it was impossible to be free of them unless you knew the access code, which was reserved for the most trusted officials in Concord.

  I let out a sigh of defeat. Even if I managed to get out of the cuffs, the likelihood of my fleeing Concord was minimal. I had escaped the dome once before; I wasn’t naïve enough to believe I could do it a second time. The Syndicate had me right where they wanted me, and they would never let me go again. Nor would they show mercy when the inescapable trial came. They could never forgive what I did. I would be made an example of, a deterrent for the rest of the community who might consider overstepping their bounds.

  For hours I laid tied to the bed, awaiting my unavoidable future. I started losing track of time, and I began wondering how long it had been since I was taken from Nova. Could it have been only a few hours ago that I was enjoying my new life, free of the Syndicate’s control? Why had I volunteered to stay late at the hospital; just to avoid a fight with Zander? It seemed so petty looking back.

  Zander… Intense guilt washed over me when I thought about him. By now, he would have realized that I was missing. It wouldn’t take long to review the hospital’s security footage and see my confrontation with Drayman.

  I prayed that he wouldn’t overreact or try anything imprudent. There wasn’t enough firepower in Nova to attack Concord without getting everyone killed- Athena had said so herself. So what good would it do for Zander to start a war to try and avenge me? All that would do is cost innocent lives and get him locked up- if he didn’t get himself blown up first.

  I hated that the last words I said to him were those of anger. Yes, he had been drinking all night, but did that really matter when I looked back on it? He was upset because I wanted to join the resistance, and he worried that he would lose me. I told him not to think that way, that I would be fine, that he needed to trust me. But I was wrong. I’d caused his fears to come true, after all.

  **********

  Mr. Alta was right about the drugs’ intense side effects. I often found myself in and of consciousness for unknown amounts of time, with no control of my body movements. When I finally come to for good, I was no longer lying on the comfortable hospital bed, but on the cold, stone floor. My clothes and shoes had been stripped off, and I was clad in nothing but a ragged, threadbare t-shirt, three times too large.

  It was cold, too cold, like I was living inside an igloo. Froz
en chills racked my body, causing me to shiver uncontrollably. An icy waft caressed my head. I reached up and was alarmed to find that my hair had been shaved off.

  “I’m not going to lie, bald isn’t a good look for you, sis,” a familiar voice called. Thane was standing outside my cell, a delighted smirk on his face.

  Seeing him sent fear flooding through me, as I remembered his reputation as a relentless and merciless interrogator of the imprisoned. Thane had always hated me, and I knew he would enjoy my torment more than any other detainee’s.

  “What are you even doing here, Thane?” I snapped.

  “I heard that they finally caught your rebellious ass. I guess I wanted to see it for myself. Especially since I’ll be in charge of your interrogations,” he said, unmitigated delight dancing in his eyes.

  My heart sank into my stomach. Desperation consumed me as I imagined what my future was going to hold. I walked toward him, ready to plead for mercy and make him understand why I did what I did. But the moment I was within ten feet of the prison bars, my holographic handcuffs turned into shock bracelets that sent volts of electricity coursing through my body. My teeth clenched together, and I fell to the ground, shaking uncontrollably. A horrific moan escaped my mouth as I seized, like that of a wounded animal. Then, just as quickly as the pain began, it was over.

  I gasped for breath, my deprived lungs burning with need. My heart thumped aggressively against my chest, recovering from the ventricular fibrillation. My fingers and toes tingled with the aftereffects of the jolt. The shock couldn’t have lasted more than ten seconds, but it seemed a hell of a lot longer.

  “Yeah… I probably wouldn’t do that again if I were you,” Thane said with a jeer.

  I wanted to scream at him, to tell him to go to hell, but my lips were still numb from the electric current. It infuriated me that he was getting so much enjoyment from my pain. We were still siblings, for God’s sake! Couldn’t he even pretend that he cared about my well-being, instead of sitting back and enjoying the show? I wondered what our parents would think if they could see us now.

  There would be no hope that I would get off easy just because I was Thane’s sister. I suspected quite the opposite would occur. He would be sure to take advantage of the situation to gain favor with the Syndicate, to show the people of Concord that disobedience would not be tolerated, regardless of who you were related to.

  I dreaded the idea of what was to come, but I refused to let Thane see this. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how much my fear consumed me, how desperately I wished I could go back in time and change my fate. Instead, I gave him a small grin.

  This seemed to genuinely throw him. “What the fuck are you smiling at?” he asked. “You know you’re going to die, right?”

  The reality of his words weighed heavy on me and nearly broke my concrete exterior. Somehow, I was able to maintain my resolve. “I would rather die by the Syndicate’s hand than be dead inside like you,” I mumbled with a forced smile, trying to control the incessant tremors as electrical currents continued resonating through my body. “I guess I’ll be seeing you soon, big brother.”

  My response seemed to puzzle him. We sat in silence, his eyebrows furrowing together as he analyzed me, before letting out a small snicker.

  “I suppose you will,” he said. He walked away with a smile on his face, whistling to the tune of Hush Little Baby.

  **********

  Although I had kept a bold bravado while talking to Thane, my ironclad fortitude quickly vanished when the real interrogations began. An “inquiry” was what the process was called, but this was a very loose word for the methods that Thane had in store for me.

  He began the process with questions about Nova, just as I had expected. I remained tough in my resolve, keeping my mouth tightly shut. I vowed not to give intel about the unsuits for as long as I could withstand Thane’s techniques. Many people had been good to me during my stay in Nova, and I refused to say something that could result in their death.

  My silence became harder to maintain as Thane’s approach grew in intensity. When asking politely failed, Thane became more aggressive, resulting in shouting, belittling, and mind games. Although frustrating, they were just words and were nothing that I couldn’t handle.

  Then came the time when he began incorporating the shock treatments, weakening my steadfastness. By the time we had progressed to more forceful interrogation procedures, I almost gave in. Almost. Every time I was on the brink of telling him what he wanted to know, the faces of those I cared about the most would flash before me. Zander, Ximea, Athena- I couldn’t put them at risk. So I gritted my teeth and pushed through the pain, brazen defiance propelling me forward. The dumbfounded look on Thane’s face always made the torment worth it in the end.

  Time in the penitentiary knew no limits. With no windows to show the outside world, days and nights wove together interchangeably.

  The majority of my captivity was spent in solitary confinement, a cruelty all of its own. The only interaction I received from another living creature was during the hours of torture endured at Thane’s hands. I quickly learned that psychological chains will bound you faster and more effectively than any physical restraints ever could.

  The rest of the time, I would lay in the fetal position inside my tundra of a cell, trying to lessen the insatiable, gnawing hunger in my stomach. Thane gave me enough food to keep me alive, but no more. It didn’t matter, though, because my body was so impaired from his cruelty that it made me sick. I ended up retching any sustenance I received more times than not.

  I held my body tighter, trying to retain some of my body’s warmth, as I picked at my wounds from the previous day’s inquiry. Small, circular scars blemished my left arm, courtesy of Thane, and his iron hot branding tools. He sent his message loud and clear- ignore a question, get branded, say something sarcastic, get branded, scream too loudly, get branded. It was a terrible punishment, one of the worst he’d inflicted thus far. I hated showing emotion in front of Thane, but it didn’t take long for the angry tears to pour down my face as the poker disfigured my hazelnut skin.

  Today he had progressed to more extreme tactics, life-threatening ones. Waterboarding was no joke. Even the toughest person would consider talking after feeling like they were suffocating for hours at a time. I would have told him anything he’d wanted to know if I could’ve stopped choking long enough to spew the words. I curled tighter into a ball as I remembered the gallons of water being poured over my face, slowly drowning me from the inside.

  All the while, Thane continued whistling “Hush Little Baby” as he pushed me closer and closer to the brink of death with each basin. Not close enough to kill me, of course; that would be a task for the Syndicate to enjoy. But Thane made sure to inflict just enough agony to make me wish he would put me out of my misery.

  I reviled Thane with every fiber of my being. I hated the way he ridiculed me, and the amount of satisfaction he received from my suffering. I hated how devoted he was to the Syndicate, and how they’d given him free rein to do whatever he wanted to the Concord prisoners. Most of all, I hated that he was able to see me at my weakest moments and that there was nothing I could do about it. I made a silent vow that, if the impossible occurred and I was ever able to get out of this cell, I would kill him myself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: VERDICT & VENGEANCE

  A s the hours counted down to my trial, I thought about the people who had occupied this cell before me, enduring these same punishments before being forced to the Ceremony of Sanctions. I questioned how many of them were guilty and how many were executed just because they knew too much. I reflected on the countless lives that were sacrificed under the pretense of keeping our world sustainable when, in reality, it was just a means to keep the Syndicate in control. And I wondered when innocent until proven guilty, became guilty until proven innocent.

  I pondered what my ceremony would be like, and how it would feel to be on the other end of the proceedings. I
knew that I wouldn’t get off with just a warning- I was considered dangerous. I had defied the Syndicate, made them look like fools, and now I would have to pay the price. That left only one option- execution.

  I shivered as I thought the word. I was certain that it would be as public and gruesome as possible so that others would learn from my choices. I reflected on the decisions I'd made, and a small smile crept onto my lips. I realized that I wouldn’t change a thing, not a single decision, even if I knew that this would be the outcome. Because in the end, my choices had led me to Zander, and that made it all worth it.

  I worried about how he would take it when news circulated that I was dead. I hoped that Athena would talk him down, tell him that behaving foolhardily would do me good, that he needed to let sleeping dogs lie. He wouldn’t like that, but I hoped that he would heed her advice.

  The truth was that after these grueling weeks of torture, I welcomed the Syndicate’s murder sentence. Did I want to die? Of course not. But at least I wouldn’t be miserable anymore. Death would be a welcomed reprieve after my stint in prison. Accepting my fate, I was able to rest peacefully for the first time since I arrived in Concord.

  **********

  The loud clanking of the cell door unlocking woke me up.

  “Get your ass up. It’s time to go,” Thane said when the time finally came.

  I nodded and sat up. Standing was a slow process, for I was weak with hunger, and my atrophied muscles were unreliable. With as much energy as I could muster, I hoisted myself onto shaking, unsteady legs, testing them slowly to ensure that I wasn’t going to fall.

  Thane rolled his eyes, his minimal tolerance already gone. He grabbed my tattered shirt and dragged me into the hallway, forcing me forward with the butt of his gun. My initial irritation soon turned to bliss when I realized that the reason Thane was upset was because he wouldn’t be able to torment me anymore once I was executed.