by Teri Terry
“And I couldn’t sleep last night.”
“You couldn’t?”
Her degree of surprise is beyond anything reasonable: I’m sure lots of people wouldn’t be able to sleep after what we went through yesterday. Spike must be right—they may have let us out of our solitary hospital cells, but somehow they’re still controlling us with drugs. I stuff down the anger, hide it for later.
“I couldn’t sleep at first. But then I slept really soundly, which is weird. I usually can’t sleep in new places.”
She smiles. “Hopefully that means you are settling in well.”
“And not knowing where we are is just so…weird.” I sigh and look down through my lashes. I wish I’d gotten the role of bad cop; I’m being so sweet and helpless I’m making myself want to vomit.
I look up at Dr. Smith again. “And we’ve been here for ages, haven’t we? What’s going on out there? I’m from London originally; are my friends in London still safe?”
“Yes. The quarantine zone boundaries are holding; they’ll be fine.” She’s sincere. That much she knows.
“But you know where we are now, don’t you? You know that we’re safe here?”
“You’re safe and sound, I promise.”
“Will I ever be able to see my friends in London again?”
“I don’t know, Sharona.”
“Call me Shay.”
She smiles, like being given my nickname is a treat. “Shay, then. We’re hoping we’ll find a way to…decontaminate you, and then you may be able to leave this place and go back to your lives as much as you can.”
Decontaminate? They think we’re contaminated? I’m forgetting to radiate sweet; now I’m just shocked.
She must read my face. “Don’t worry, Shay. No matter what—you’re safe here. Now, how about we start with a few simple psychological tests?”
She shows me some blots of ink on paper and asks me what they look like. Then tries the I-say-one-word-and-you-say-whatever-pops-into-your-head malarkey.
And then finishing sentences.
“Try this one, Shay. The thing I want most in the world is…”
“Mum and Kai back.”
She smiles sympathetically.
“I’m really good at…”
“Science. Puzzles. Finding missing pieces, working things out.”
“I’m really bad at…”
“Housework. Remembering where I put things.”
She nods intently and records what I say. “We’re nearly done for today; I just have one more question to ask you. Since you were ill and then recovered, what has changed?” She says the words in an offhand way, like this is a throwaway at the end—but there is something about the intensity of concentration in her aura that tells me this is the most important thing of all.
“What has changed? Let’s see: both my world and the world. My mother died. Almost everyone where I lived died. Once I realized I was a carrier I turned myself in, and instead of being thanked for my civic-mindedness, I was drugged and brought here unconscious to be experimented on.” Sweet can fly out the window.
“I can appreciate how difficult that—”
“Really, can you? Do you know what it feels like to think people all around you died, just because they got too close to you?”
“No. I guess I don’t. But that isn’t what I was asking you. How have you changed, Shay?” This is the thing she most wants to know.
I stay silent.
“Well, I can tell you a few things.” She consults her tablet. “You can tell truth from lies—as if you were reading minds, one witness said. You could stop yourself from bleeding; heal yourself.” She doesn’t believe that one. “And you can make people sit and listen, and stop them from interrupting or doing anything at all.”
And I killed people too. Do they know that? I consider her carefully and dismiss it—they don’t know. At least, Dr. Smith doesn’t. The soldiers I killed were part of SAR, and they were trying to kill me, so it was self-defense, but if Dr. Smith is anything to go by, they don’t know about it here.
“Go on, Shay, tell me: what were you thinking just then?”
I’m startled. “Can you read minds too?”
She smiles at my slipup—at saying too. “No, I don’t share that ability. Though at times it’d be really useful to my work, it could be a burden, I think. I’m just good at reading the signals people make. Is that what you do?”
If her aura is just another kind of signal, then yes. And she is so curious; she wants to know, to understand.
So do I. The thought hits me with force: I want to know why and how I can do the things I can do. Maybe she could help me work this out?
I regard both her and her aura carefully. There is nothing threatening about her, this Dr. Smith. But who else might be listening? For all I know, SAR could be pulling her strings without her knowing about it.
“Shay, being different from other people can be really difficult. If you explain to me how things are for you, maybe I can help. What has changed about you since you were ill? How about you start with explaining how you can tell if someone is telling the truth or lying, like you did at the air force base in Shetland.” She is intent, encouraging, but I don’t know what I should or shouldn’t say, so I opt for evasion.
I shrug. “I just guessed. Maybe I’m just good at reading signals too.” And auras: hers is disappointed.
“That’s okay, Shay. I understand that you’re scared and find it hard to trust me just now. I hope that over time you will. We’ll talk another day.”
Next I’m sent to another room to do a written test—an IQ test. I sail through it without really having to think. The questions are easy; too easy. Is this because of the changes inside me, the ones that Dr. Smith is so interested in? It must be. We did one at school last year and it was really hard.
Even as part of me wonders if I should slow down or get some of them wrong, I can’t stop myself. The sheer delight of getting questions right and knowing they are right pulls me through in a race to the end.
CHAPTER 5
BACK IN THE TV ROOM, board games have been abandoned, and there is an ongoing battle for the remote control.
I tune out, close my eyes, and pretend to sleep.
Spike?
Yeah?
We were definitely drugged. And they want to study us and work out how to decontaminate us.
He’s shocked. Then rueful. Well, there you go. It is true that you can attract more flies with honey. Good work. A pause. I don’t want to be decontaminated.
Me neither. At least, I don’t think I do. It sounds somehow very wrong, but then I’m wistful—maybe they can fix me, and then I can leave this place, and be with Kai.
Who’s Kai?
I’m surprised. Didn’t know I’d broadcast that.
You’re not used to being around other survivors, are you? You can choose what to share, what to keep to yourself. It’s like this. He shows me how to separate projected thoughts from private ones—how to send the thoughts I want to out, but at the same time hide the rest of me behind walls visualized in my mind. But Spike’s curiosity remains.
Kai is—was—my boyfriend. He’s immune.
Was?
I left him to turn myself in. This time I carefully shield any thoughts of that day.
You turned yourself in? You’re crazy!
Gee, thanks. It seemed like the right thing to do, rather than randomly infect everyone I came into contact with.
He’s silent for a while; shielded. Another time—we need to talk properly. But back to Dr. Smith. I pretty much got the good doc to admit she doesn’t know where we are, but apart from that didn’t come up with much.
I may know a little about that, though not from Dr. Smith. And I show Spike in my thoughts the view I’d had from the bird flying above.
He’s startled. How the hell did you do that?
So there are things I know that he doesn’t? I kind of reach out to the life around me; it’s hard to explain.
Show me, he says, and I try—remembering every detail with the bird from the time when I first sensed her above me.
The landscape looks familiar—we could be in Yorkshire, maybe?
Does it matter where we are? We can’t leave.
I’ve got to try this bird trick. Does it work with people?
Do you mean being able to look out through their eyes? I don’t know, I haven’t tried it.
Maybe it wouldn’t work with survivors anyway, like how it is with the way we are talking now.
What do you mean?
We can only do this if we both agree—and then we only get the thoughts we project to each other. You can’t dip into my mind unless I let you.
So that’s why he was giving me the raised-eyebrow, unspoken-question look before—he wanted an invitation to chat.
A hand pushes my shoulder, and I open my eyes. “Now you’re the sleepy one,” Ami says. “It’s time for lunch.”
It’s a buffet and it looks okay—marginally better than a school cafeteria. There’s someone with an I on their hand handing us plates as we go in.
Spike’s there already, waiting for us, looking at the man doing the plates. I wonder…I can read the words he hasn’t said: he wants to try to see through the man’s eyes, like I did with the bird.
Better not. If it works and they notice, you could get sent to solitary.
If they notice.
Ami pushes in front of me to the buffet. “You snooze you lose,” she says, and I wonder if I’ve been staring off into space again.
You need to learn to divide your attention, or they’ll wonder why you take so many naps. Watch.
Spike starts an out-loud conversation with Ami with a running commentary inside my head at the same time, never missing a beat with either.
Ami is smiling up at him, her head tilted to one side, playing with her hair, and I see what I hadn’t noticed before when she looks at him that way. He’s kind of cute, in a geeky sort of way.
Why, thank you.
Don’t be so cheeky. Stop eavesdropping in my head.
Remember to screen and I won’t be able to.
Ami is telling some story about sneaking into a concert, her hand on Spike’s arm.
Watch out, she likes you.
What? He’s startled and loses his train of thought with Ami in midsentence, and I laugh.
Ami turns to me, raises an eyebrow. “What’s so funny?” she says, and that makes me laugh more.
“Nothing,” I finally manage to say. “Sorry, it’s just me.” Now Spike is struggling to keep a straight face too, and he turns a laugh into a cough.
In the afternoon those of us who’ve had our little meetings already are shown the gym and library and told to amuse ourselves.
Time to work out. I’m on a cross trainer; Spike is rowing. Ami is on a treadmill and trying to look like she is fit and working out without actually sweating, which is quite a thing to achieve. Beatriz isn’t interested and sits in a corner with a book.
I look around me. People seem to have naturally settled into small groups—mostly along age lines, like ours. They’re chatting, exercising, or reading—but something isn’t quite right, and it hasn’t been for a while now. I’m liking the cross trainer and feeling my muscles do something when they’ve been lazy for too long; it feels good, but…
It also feels wrong. We’re all so content, chill. All the fear and anger and pain has slipped away; we’re all so…agreeable. Doing what we’re told. Even Spike seems to have forgotten his endless list of unanswered questions.
Spike? I think we’ve been drugged again.
How so?
Everyone is too happy.
Silence. I know I should be angry, and I sort of am, but not like I should be.
Give me a minute. I think there may be something we can do about it.
My feet and arms keep doing their thing on the cross trainer, but I close my eyes and reach—reach inside me. I’ve done this before to heal myself; can I find whatever is in my system and neutralize it? I concentrate, remembering to keep going on the cross trainer at the same time so no one will notice I’m zoning out again.
Inside me, my blood rushes through my veins and arteries, doing its usual work but faster, since my heart rate is high from this exercise. There’s a warm flush on my skin.
Look in; closer. There is hemoglobin; white cells; platelets. Closer. Molecules…atoms…particles, and I want to get lost with them as they spin.
Focus.
Something is foreign.
There is something in my blood that shouldn’t be there. I follow it around my body and my brain and send it to my liver at top speed to be processed and dealt with.
Gradually my head starts to clear, and I speed up the process until all traces of it are gone.
Finally I open my eyes. I’m furious to the core but trying to hide it from my face as I look around—at Beatriz, smiling at the book she is reading; at Ami, laughing and flicking her hair as Spike tells her some joke or other. They’re managing us, aren’t they? Making us safe, compliant. Enough of that stuff I found in my blood, and no doubt we’d do anything they asked us to do, like how I raced through that IQ test earlier.
Spike?
Hmmm?
You can eliminate the drugs by speeding up how they are metabolized. Watch. I link to his thoughts and show him what I did and how. Then I leave him to try it for himself.
I get off the cross trainer. The people around me were strangers just a day ago, yet we share so much—we’re all survivors. We’re a disparate group of people brought together by unique abilities and the tragedy of what we are at the same time. I have more in common with the people in this room than anyone else on the planet—Kai and Iona included.
A day ago we were all torn apart by emotions we couldn’t deal with, and now…they’re happy.
Beatriz giggles at something in her book and turns the page. Being an only child, I haven’t been around a lot of younger children, other than when we visited my cousins now and then.
Another pang of loss.
But she’s nothing like I expect an eight-year-old to be.
Her aura is calm—all clear primary colors. She answers questions if asked; otherwise she mostly sits still and quiet—so composed it’s scary.
Unlike Ami, who never shuts up.
As Beatriz continues to smile at her book, I wonder: is it such a bad thing to make her feel better?
When Spike touches my mind again a bit later, his fury is so strong I nearly trip up, as if I’d been slapped.
Tonight. Deal with whatever they put in our dinner the same way, and we’ll talk tonight.
CHAPTER 6
WE GO BACK TO OUR ROOM to shower before dinner. After that Beatriz is still reading, Ami is playing with her hair in front of the mirror, and I’m lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling.
“What do you think they are going to do with us?” Ami says.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“It’s probably against the UN or human rights or something to keep us locked up in here forever.”
“I guess. But I’m not sure that applies if letting us out could kill ninety-five percent of the population of the planet.”
“Good point.” She’s quiet for about three seconds. “I call dibs on Spike.”
“What?”
“Spike, you know—the cute one with the glasses.”
“I know who he is, what do you mean?”
“If we don’t get out, man options are limited—I’m staking a claim.”
“Honestly, are you serious? Is there something else we can talk about, anything? Please?”<
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“Oh, somebody is sensitive. Are you jealous?”
Unexpectedly Beatriz looks up from her chair in the corner of the room. “You shouldn’t be like that, Ami. Shay’s got a broken heart.”
I look at her in surprise.
“It’s there, I can see it.” Beatriz gets up—holds out her hands to me over where my heart is, then gives me a hug.
And something happens. A warmth spreads out from her to me, but it isn’t from this small girl who has lost everything getting up and out of herself and reaching out to me—not in that way. She’s doing something—or trying to.
Stop that, I say in her mind.
Doesn’t it make you feel better?
Yes. But that isn’t the point. It’s not me feeling that way.
She’s disappointed but withdraws, and the pain rushes back.
“You’re doing the zombie face again. Are you two talking inside your heads so I can’t hear you?” Ami says, finally working out what’s been going on.
“If you talked less, then maybe we’d get more of a chance to talk out loud,” Beatriz says, and my eyes widen in surprise. Ami scowls.
“High five!” I say and hold out a hand, and Beatriz hits it. She almost smiles.
That night when we all go to our rooms, the weight of needing to sleep is pressing in on me again. I’m fighting it, wanting to stay awake—to process and sift through the things that have happened, to try to work some things out—and wasn’t there something else I need to do? I’m nearly asleep when some fragment of consciousness reminds me to reach in, focus—find the drugs in my system, neutralize them, and open my eyes.
CHAPTER 7
I CREEP SILENTLY TO MY BEDROOM DOOR. I’m early; Spike had said to meet in the TV room at 2:00 a.m., and it’s only just after midnight. I hesitate, somehow unable to believe it could be this easy—that we can just slip out of our rooms and go and have a chat without being noticed.
But why would anybody bother watching, when they think we’re all in a chemically induced sleep?
They would if they knew we could neutralize drugs like I’ve done. Or if they’re extra paranoid.