Into the Abyss

by Stefanie Gaither

  I don’t think it would be worth it, anyway, however much or little time it took. I have no plans to become more like Catelyn—to be any more in touch with hurt, whether mine or anyone else’s. Whatever pain I notice, all I want to do is file it neatly away where I don’t have to feel it. Where I can control it, and not the other way around.

  Because the second I start worrying about other people hurting, I end up in places like this, with my mind racing with all these things I don’t understand. I end up forgetting about myself, and the danger I might have put myself in by staying because of Catelyn.

  “It’s been calm outside for a while now,” I say quietly. “The president is probably wondering why I haven’t come to see her yet.”

  Anger is one of the simplest, easiest emotions to read. And now it’s unmistakably written all over Jaxon’s face. “Yeah. You should go,” he says, and I can feel him glaring after me, all the way out the door.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The hallway outside the president’s room is dimly lit, aglow only with the pale-white security lights that line the bottom half of the wall. The headquarters are almost completely quiet, wrapped in an uneasy hush and forced calmness as members follow protocol to finish restoring order. Our walk here didn’t contribute any extra noise either. Yes, our walk, and not simply mine, because Catelyn supposedly wanted a change of scenery. And Jaxon didn’t want her to go alone, so he came too.

  I am not sure why they had to walk with me, though.

  They remain quiet company, at least. Quiet enough that all three of us hear a voice long before the person it belongs to—a middle-aged man with graying hair and a sharp chin—rounds the corner ahead. Catelyn averts her gaze, but I keep staring at the man walking toward us as she whispers, “That’s Silas Iverson. Josh’s dad.”

  I already know this, but I don’t bother to point it out. I’ve seen him before, and all it takes is once; I remember him the same way I remember everything I see and hear. And he and Josh look so much alike that I don’t think he could deny his son even if he wanted to.

  His attention remains fixed on the conversation he is having over his communicator, his pale-blue eyes staring straight ahead until he has almost walked right past us. Only then do those eyes dart toward Jaxon. He gives a curt nod. Indifferent, still—at least until he truly catches sight of me. Then his step slows. His voice starts to trail off, almost to complete silence before he realizes it, and he has to apologize to whoever is on the other end of his communicator.

  He doesn’t say a word to us, though. He just averts his gaze and picks up his pace again.

  “I wonder where he’s heading off to,” Catelyn says, once he is well out of earshot.

  Something in her tone strikes me as odd; she sounds too concerned about what looked like nothing more than a man going for a walk to me—especially since half the CCA is awake right now.

  I think it might be simply because she is still worrying about my run-in with Josh earlier, until Jaxon turns to her and says, “Probably off to another of his committee meetings. I’m sure they’ll have lots to discuss after tonight.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” She turns the direction Iverson disappeared toward, and takes a step as if she is thinking about following him.

  “What meetings?”

  Catelyn hesitates before glancing back at me. “He and a few others formed this . . . group thing, a few months back. They said their goal was to help bring the CCA back to its roots, to the philosophy they started with, which . . .” She doesn’t seem like she wants to finish her sentence, but all I have to do is think about his son, and the way Silas himself hurried away from me just now, and I can guess the rest on my own.

  “Which probably didn’t include harboring a clone within the very walls of the CCA, for whatever reason?”

  Catelyn picks at her fingernail instead of looking at me. “Something like that.”

  “It was only a few of them at first,” Jaxon says. “Mom figured it was just a knee-jerk reaction to her bringing you back here, a protest that would die out before it gained much momentum. But more and more people seem to be listening to him lately, and they’re getting more secretive about things. We’re pretty sure they’re holding meetings somewhere outside of headquarters, but we haven’t been able to figure out where—or what they’re planning, exactly.”

  I suppose this means Seth wasn’t lying when he mentioned the changes taking place around here, then.

  Should I have trusted some of the other things he said, after all?

  Almost as if she can read my thoughts, Catelyn forces her eyes to mine again and says, “Maybe you should talk to the president about leaving for a while? If you won’t go back to our house, I’m sure she can figure something else out. She has plenty of connections.”

  Is there really no other option for me, other than running away?

  Catelyn is watching me closely, waiting, but I just silently walk over and press the buzzer outside the president’s room.

  We messaged ahead, so she knew I was coming. Still, it is several long moments before someone comes to the door: a man with a bruise on his left cheek, who I could swear actually jumps at the sight of me. I hold in a scowl. I haven’t done anything to startle him.

  Though I will admit, the longer I stand here under his wary gaze, the more tempting it is to offer him something frightening to jump about. To simply become what they all seem to expect of me.

  But I restrain myself. This time. What I can’t stop, though, are those stupid words Seth said earlier from running through my head: Do you ever wonder why she brought you back? Just so everyone here could hate you?

  Maybe it is time I stopped wondering and started asking.

  I like this reason for my still being here better, at least: the idea that I was pursuing knowledge, instead of being dragged along by some connection to Catelyn that I couldn’t manage to control.

  I leave Catelyn and Jaxon and follow the man inside. There is another door once we step through the first, one with a security code panel beside it. I watch his fingers move over the panel, slowly, as if he hasn’t been entrusted with the correct numbers for long enough to have them fully memorized.

  The next space we enter is set up as a formal kind of sitting room, not as cold and clean lined as the office the president usually operates from, which is just down the hall. But it is still clearly a place meant for business. She and a handful of others are gathered around a large table in the corner of it, their heads bent over a flat display screen in its center.

  The man who escorted me in walks over to the president, and only once he is directly beside her does she seem to notice his presence. From him, her eyes travel to me, and they linger there as she stands up straight and dismisses most of the table, informing them that they will finish their discussion in the morning. While the others file out, my escort stays by the president, as does one other woman, who I recognize, though I don’t know her name. Her eyes are cold, her hair pulled back in a tight, severe-looking bun. Both she and my escort stand like sentinels on either side of the president.

  I am not surprised they’re staying. Now that I think about it, I don’t know that I have ever had a conversation with the president alone.

  I feel that scowl from before threatening again. Not even she—a woman who I have never seen show anything like trepidation—can brave the sight of me on her own.

  Can that be true?

  I want those other two to leave, suddenly. I want to be alone with the president, and I want her to tell me, and only me, all the things that I deserve to know. Why am I here? Why am I the only one? And is there a way to bring back the Violet I was before—all eighteen combined years of her?

  There is so much I should know that I don’t.

  “You look like you have a lot on your mind,” President Cross says.

  “A lot has happened tonight.”

  She nods, and takes a seat in one of the tall leather chairs around the table. “Come sit,” she says, g
esturing to the chair beside her. I would rather stand, and normally I would, but I decide to simply go along with whatever she asks for now. It might make her go along more easily with me when I start asking my own questions.

  “A lot has happened tonight,” she repeats, leaning back in her chair as I slide stiffly into mine. “I’m glad to see you escaped all the violence unscathed.”

  “I slept through most of it.”

  “Though you weren’t in your room the whole time.”

  “I went to find Catelyn.”

  “I know where you were,” she says thinly. “I have security cameras. Plenty of them, in strategic places—one above the right wing bridge over sector C, for example.”

  Having a conversation with the president is often like playing a game of chess. And this time is no different. I consider every angle of everything I could say next, all the ways it could leave any pieces of me vulnerable to capture and defeat, before I finally say, “I had to pass by there to get to Catelyn’s room.”

  “Did you see anything interesting while you were there, by chance?” she asks. And then she just leans back and watches me. Waiting, I assume, for me to move a pawn into the wrong square.

  I am already tired of playing this particular game, though, so I look directly into her challenging gaze, and I say, “You have cameras. You know what I saw.”

  “Perhaps. But I am still trying to decide exactly what I saw. The personnel who responded to Emily’s distress call found only you when they reached her. They’re convinced you warned the other clones and allowed them to escape. And they did escape, if you wondered.”

  “I didn’t,” I lie.

  “All the same, the security footage was interesting, if inconclusive.”

  “And what did Emily conclude about what happened?”

  “Nothing. She claims to have been too shocked to remember the exact details of it all.”

  I try to hold back a derisive snort. “Well, I think I may be suffering the same problem, unfortunately.”

  The president’s guards shift uncertainly at the mocking tone of my voice, but she only smiles at me, and her voice is equal parts steel and ice when she says, “We both know your memory is flawless, Violet. And so you remember, too, who brought you back? It wasn’t Huxley. Just keep that in mind the next time you encounter their clones and you have to decide which side you’re on.”

  “I was not on their side,” I say.

  But I know I wasn’t on Emily’s, either.

  Watch your footage again, I want to tell the president. And you’d see me standing in the middle.

  In the middle, and alone. As alone as I was on that day she brought me back. I wonder if she can understand that, somehow—that I don’t feel like I could ever completely belong to either side. Did she think about that while she watched the shell of the old Violet sleep, all those months ago? Did she consider it at all before she decided to wake me up?

  That should be the first thing I ask her, I decide, out of all the questions spilling their way into my thoughts.

  But before I can settle on exactly how to phrase this question, President Cross stands and pushes her chair in.

  “Wait a minute,” I say, getting to my feet as well. “I need to ask you some things.”

  “And I need sleep, unfortunately. You know the way out—and do me a favor, will you, and have the decency to look like you’ve received a proper scolding in here. It probably won’t be enough to pacify the members you’ve upset, but we might as well make the effort. Right?”

  I haven’t made any movement toward the exit. “I have questions,” I say, more firmly this time. She gives me the same cold, placeholder smile she used earlier, and then turns and disappears through a door on the far back wall, one that I’m fairly certain leads to her own private quarters.

  No one follows her.

  My escort clears his throat. “Curiosity killed the clone anyway, right?” he says, giving me a pointed shove toward the door I first entered through. I recoil from his touch and throw a wild glare his way, no longer caring whether I frighten him or not.

  He lets me walk myself out.

  The security door clicks behind me. I stand for a moment in the low-lit vestibule on the other side of it, thinking. I already have two messages in my communicator—both from Catelyn; one wants to know how the meeting is going, the other suggests that just the two of us get together in her room afterward and talk. But there isn’t much to talk about, is there? None of my questions have been answered—they weren’t even asked.

  Nothing about tonight, nothing about me, makes any more sense than it did before.

  What should I have done? If I had tried to stop the president from walking away, things might have turned violent, and it wouldn’t have been a fight that ended well for me. It will never end well for me, as long as she is surrounded by bodyguards and personal aides—most of whom are eager for an excuse to take a swing at me anyway. And then I will only have proven all of the president’s detractors right and made the division among the members here that much greater.

  Do I care, though?

  Should I care?

  I lean against the wall, clenching my fists. My eyes lift upward, searching. Just as Emily’s did earlier.

  The only difference is that mine actually find a possible solution.

  Or a hiding place, to be exact.

  On each of the walls left and right of the door to outside, there are knockouts that look like they’re intended for storage. They are high—the bottom at least seven feet above me—and reach to the ceiling. I can’t tell from where I am how far back they go. But if it’s deep enough for me to fit inside, then the chances of anyone walking by and actually noticing I’m up there will be slim. And as far as I know, there are only two people I have to count on not noticing me.

  Even as the plan is unfolding in my mind, I realize how crazy it is. All of the painfully bad ways that it could end. I can already see that disappointed look Catelyn does so well, her frown falling deeper as I try to explain what I was thinking, attempting this.

  I press my ear against the security door behind me, listening. And suddenly I am out of time to think my plan through, because I hear two sets of footsteps approaching from the other side. I look to my left, determine the angle quickly, and hit the wall with as much speed as I can gather in the small space. My reflexes do the rest, legs bending and then pushing off with enough force to propel me across to the storage space on the other side. With no time to calculate a more graceful landing, I hit hard, my upper body flopping into the open storage space and my knees slamming hard against the wall beneath. I scramble the rest of the way inside and curl back as far as I can—which unfortunately isn’t very far. At least this space is dark.

  The security door opens.

  I hold my breath and stop trying to curl myself smaller. The president’s bodyguards are talking quietly among themselves as they step inside. It’s hard to make out exact words, though, between the way my arms are cramped awkwardly up by my ears and the beeping sounds of the security panel below as one of them tests to be sure it’s armed.

  What feels like an eternity later, they leave. I still don’t move right away, waiting and listening for any new voices or footsteps of bodyguards who might be coming to take their place. The president is known to enjoy her privacy, so I don’t think she regularly sleeps with any more security than the alarmed doors and whatever other computerized defenses lie between here and her.

  But after tonight that may have to change.

  Luckily for me, though, after five minutes I am still the only one here. Keeping an eye on the outside door, I slowly untangle myself and slide out of my hiding place, dropping soundlessly to the floor. I turn my attention to the glowing white screen of the security panel next. With a bit of concentration, I access the memory I stored of my escort’s hand moving so slowly across it earlier, and I copy his movements with my own hand. My first attempt fails, but on the second try the screen glows green as I pull my
hand away, and the door’s latches release with a click.

  Motion lights flash on as I step back into the room on the other side. I almost freeze up, but there is no point in stopping now. I rush forward and open the door the president disappeared through . . . only to find another entry hallway. And at the end of that, yet another door. There is no security panel beside this one, but I am not foolish enough to think it will be that easy. If it isn’t locked, then other security measures must be in this hall. I just can’t see them.

  I slip the communicator from my wrist and press a few buttons until it opens the device’s digital camera. Then I point it toward the seemingly empty hallway, and with the aid of the camera’s lens, I can see them on the communicator’s screen: infrared beams. Invisible to the naked eye. Waiting for me to cross them and set off an alarm. There are several sets of them, crisscrossing my path and reaching from the floor up to two, perhaps two and a half, feet from the ceiling. An abysmally small space to try to jump cleanly through, even with inhuman strength and grace on my side.

  I could simply trip the alarm; it would get her attention I’m sure, send her running out here within moments.

  But how many others would it attract?

  Even one or two would be too many. So instead, I creep back to the room behind me, quietly grab a chair from around the table and carry it back to the hallway, taking care not to drag or bump any of its feet against the floor. I don’t trust even the smallest sounds; there may be things monitoring for those, too. It’s going to be impossible to do this completely silently, though, so I need to be quick. The less time she has to react to any noise I make, the better.

  I climb onto the chair, size up the space one last time, and dive through it.

  I hit the ground in a tumbling roll on the other side, and spring back to my feet—only to find myself facing an open door.