by Teri Terry
I reach out.
There’s a spider on the wall in the hallway and I watch from his web, staying quiet, waiting. I’m about to give up and open the door when the spider web sways ever so slightly—from movement in the air or vibration of the wall?
Or footsteps.
I feel him now. A man. Bored and walking back and forth, up and down this hall and the next one, past our rooms.
He walks to the end, and I count the seconds between when he walks past my door, then reappears again.
Spike’s door is the other way, and I don’t think there is enough time to get out of my room and away before the watcher turns around again. I need to distract him from his duties and send him away.
Thirsty, so thirsty. Parched. Tea, kettle; thirsty, so very thirsty…
I project thirst and tea at him over and over again, until finally he goes through the door at the end of the hall to the dining room. The door shuts behind him.
I open my door.
The hall lights are on, but dimmed. I slip down the hall, fast and silent on bare feet.
All the rooms have the names of their occupants on the doors. I walk quickly, reading as I go, until I find the one with Spike on it.
Spike, are you awake?
Shay?
There are footsteps behind me now and I open his door, slip into his room, and shut the door quietly behind me. They are too loud to be the watcher this time—it sounds like several sets of feet. Have they noticed I’m missing?
There’s someone in the hall—someone’s coming.
Hide, here. Spike gestures urgently to the space between his bed and the wall.
I sprint over and duck down just in time: the door opens. I look under the bed, along the floor, and across the room: there are two sets of feet coming into Spike’s room. There are wheels too—a wheelchair? They’re across the room. There are sounds of something being moved, and then there are feet on the wheelchair’s footrests.
The door opens again, and the chair is pushed out the door. It closes; they’re gone.
What the hell? They’ve taken Fred.
I get up and look across the room, to where Spike points to an empty bed.
We decide it’s safest to stay where we are to talk. Spike’s other roommate is snoring so loud in his drugged slumber that he’ll cover us if we’re quiet. We sit next to each other on the floor between his bed and the wall, a place where I can duck down and hide again if anyone else comes.
“So let’s analyze the situation,” Spike whispers, choosing words over silent conversation, as if he doesn’t trust his thoughts to be coherent just now. “They drugged us at dinner to make us sleep, and one of us was taken in the night—and we have no idea where or why. They also drug us when we’re awake to keep us happy and compliant.”
“Yep, that’s it.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. We could tell everybody, show them how to neutralize the drugs.” But then I think of Beatriz and how she smiled at her book today: does she really want to feel everything again? “But even with the drugs, we’re better off than we were. I don’t want to get sent back to solitary, which they might do if they realize their drugs aren’t working.”
“So shall we take them, and be happy and have a good night’s sleep all the time? That’s not so bad.” That’s what he says, but he radiates fury. “We should confront them, so they know we know what they’re doing. And that it is pointless.”
“I can see why you want to do that. But how about we try to learn all we can about what they’re up to while they don’t know we can stop the drugs? Let’s work out what’s really going on here before we decide what to do.”
“Maybe we should get a few of the others to help us, ones that are still under the radar and can get away with more than we can?”
“Ami?”
He smiles. “I think she…er…lacks the mental stamina to be secretive.”
“Huh.” I hesitate. “It may seem crazy, but Beatriz? There’s more going on with her than you might think.” I tell Spike what she did earlier.
“Wow. She did that without your say-so? And she somehow knew stuff about you? She must have been in your head without you knowing.”
“Or maybe she’s just a good observer of people? But if she can do that to us, imagine what she could learn from Dr. Smith. Influencing someone with simple suggestions—like convincing that guard he’s thirsty so he goes to get a drink—is one thing. I’ve never managed to really get into someone’s head to sift through their thoughts without them knowing it, even non-survivors.” Like Kai. “I wouldn’t dare try when so much rides on not getting caught.”
“I think we need to remember she’s only eight years old, though. She might do that with Dr. Smith and find things that upset her. Should we be putting her in that position?”
“Fair point. Maybe we should think about it some more.”
Spike suggests a few others that he knows and thinks will be up for it—Ali, who he has to describe before I remember which one he is. And Elena, the quiet woman in her sixties who lost her children and grandchildren to the flu.
We talk through much of the night, trying to come up with something resembling a plan, watching and listening in case they bring Fred back.
They don’t.
Finally I creep down the hall before the bell, past the watcher, and into my room.
CHAPTER 8
AFTER A WAY-TOO-EARLY 6:00 A.M. ALARM and a breakfast that tastes like dust from worry, I’m summoned to see Dr. Smith.
“Good morning, Shay,” she says when I peek through the door. “Did you get to sleep more easily last night?”
“Yes, thank you,” I lie.
I sit in the chair when she gestures. “Today we’re going to do some more tests, all right, Shay?” Dr. Smith says. “But first I’m going to tell you a little about what we did yesterday.” She seems really excited about something and beams at me.
“Sure.” I remind myself I’m supposed to be all happy and not have a headache from having been awake all night and smile back at her.
“It’s your IQ test result. You got a perfect score—this has never been recorded before, to my knowledge. And you did the test faster than any member of Mensa has ever done.”
“I did?” I’m startled, even though it had seemed way too easy. “How about everyone else here?”
“Well, I shouldn’t really discuss other patients with you. But everyone did ridiculously well.”
So I was right: being a survivor has booted up my brain to a new level, and there is the proof. There’s a weird shiver inside. The only perfect score…ever? And everyone else did well too: it’s not just me, it’s all of us.
“Let’s get started now, shall we?”
She starts with a video test. People tell facts about themselves, looking toward the camera, and I have to guess if they’re lying or telling the truth, then push the corresponding button.
And I have no idea: I can’t see auras in a recording; I can’t feel their thoughts when they’re not here.
Then she’s got a list of things to read out herself: true or false. And while the answers are obvious in her aura, what I should do isn’t. But then I think they already know I can do this, don’t they? And I wouldn’t be obstructive if I was all happy, like I’m supposed to be from their drugs. In the end I answer honestly.
“You got every single one correct. How do you do that, Shay?”
“I don’t know,” I lie. I project a feeling of truthfulness at her, since I’m not a great liar. “I just sort of know, but I don’t know why.”
“There is one more phase to this test. Can you follow me, please?”
We go down a hall to a medical room with equipment and a few white-coated types, and fear rushes in. Have I been here before? But I don’t quite remember.
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“Don’t be scared. We’re just going to do a scan. It won’t hurt.”
I swallow, trying to quell my heart rate, to stay placid like I should be. “Dr. Smith, why are we doing these tests?” I can’t stop myself from asking.
“We’re trying to work out what is different about you,” she says, and she’s telling the truth, but that isn’t all of it. There is something she isn’t saying.
“You know you can’t lie to me,” I say.
“I suppose not! I wouldn’t anyhow.” Again, the truth.
“Do you know why we’re doing these tests?” A different question, with different emphasis.
How involved is she in what happens in this place?
She half frowns. “To learn everything we can. Why else? To work out how your brain works and what has gone wrong.”
“So you can fix it.”
“Exactly.”
“If I do this, will you show me the results? Will you explain them to me?”
She hesitates. “I’ll have to check, but yes: I can’t see why not. Now, lie back here and listen to my words—try to stay still.” She gives me a button in each hand. “If I tell the truth, push the button in your left hand. If I lie, the right one.”
The machine whirs and makes weird noises. I hear her voice inside of it. I can’t see her aura anymore but I reach a little, and she isn’t far—I can see the truth, the lies. I do her test, but the whole time, part of me is in a whirl of panic.
They want to fix what has gone wrong in my brain, but it hasn’t gone wrong. It’s gone right—more right than it ever has been before.
I’ve got senses I never knew existed before I was ill. But now that I’ve tasted the world this way, taking them away would be like cutting out my eyes.
They can’t take this away from me and leave me whole.
CHAPTER 9
THAT AFTERNOON WE’RE BACK IN THE GYM, and Spike has arranged a group-think: something that is new for me. Spike explains how it works. Our merry band of mischief makers now includes Elena, Ali, and a surprise guest: Beatriz. It turns out that even though we hadn’t decided whether we should include her, she noticed something was up. She’s here whether she should be or not.
It feels weirdly like trying to listen to four radio stations at once.
Spike: Fred still isn’t back.
Elena: One of the women is missing as well—Carmen.
Ali: What’s happened to them?
Beatriz: I can’t reach them. They must be unconscious or far away or dead.
Her thoughts are so matter-of-fact.
Spike: I asked Dr. Smith about Fred, and she felt surprised and worried—I honestly think she doesn’t know anything about it.
Me: They know we can get truth from people; it stands to reason they’d keep knowledge they don’t want us to have from the people who interact with us directly.
Elena: Good point.
Me: I didn’t know whether to be honest or not in the tests. We need to decide what we’re okay with them knowing about what we can do, and what we’d rather keep to ourselves. I probably just confirmed to them without meaning to that we need direct access to people to know what they’re thinking.
Spike: I think we should go further than that and go on strike. No more tests; no more displays of our abilities. Unless and until they’re straight with all of us about their plans and tell us what happened to Fred and Carmen.
Ali: That’ll only work if everyone, not just us, agrees. And we’ll have to show all of them how to stop the drugs from working.
Me: I’m nervous about being this direct. You know that honey thing, Spike?
Spike: I know, I know—more flies with honey. But I don’t think subtle will work with this group. If we don’t take a stand, how far will they go? Who might disappear next?
The others agree with him.
Spike: Okay then, we need to get everyone else in on this next.
Elena: And then we can bargain with these doctors. Her thoughts are grim; she doesn’t think we’ll get anywhere.
Spike: Maybe we need to come up with an “or else.”
At dinner that night—when all the remaining twenty-one of us are in the same room—Beatriz and I talk to each of them, one at a time. Silently. We all agree not to do any more survivor tricks or displays of our weirdness. We’ll see how long it takes them to get bored watching us. And Beatriz—who it turns out is the best of us at projection—shows everyone how to stop the drugs from working.
We all head for the TV room after lasagna and a not-bad tiramisu. There are no current channels; it’s all old series and movies playing on an endless loop. No news of the outside world or anything to worry us. But a Friends marathon session is a great way to avoid actual thought.
Sooner or later they’ll start to wonder why we aren’t all falling asleep.
Spike’s mind touches mine somewhere in the middle of the third episode. Shay, I’m not sure we’re taking this far enough.
What do you mean?
I still think we should try to control one of the guards or doctors and see what we can find out.
No! Try this first, see what happens. That is way too risky. If anyone notices, you know what Dr. Smith said?
I know; back off to solitary. But that’s only if I get caught.
He grins, and I’m full of fear for him. Promise me you won’t!
He hesitates. No promises. But I’ll wait and see how things go, like you said.
I try again but he still won’t promise anything beyond that, and I’m full of unease.
CHAPTER 10
THE NEXT DAY I’M SCHEDULED TO BE FIRST with Dr. Smith again. Today I’m not going to play.
But I am curious.
“What happened last night, Shay?”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone staying up late and watching TV. We were a little surprised.”
“Because of the sleeping drugs?”
Her curiosity is even stronger than mine, but as if she knows there is no point, she doesn’t ask.
Yet. Instead, she opens a laptop, angles it so we can both see the screen.
“I said I’d show you your test results from yesterday: here they are.”
She’s got cross-section scans of my brain and graphs underneath. “These show brain activity. There are whole regions of your brain that were active that normally are not.
“And see here: When I lied—where there are x’s on the graph—this happened; there is a peak there. When I told the truth—the y’s on the graph—the peak is here instead.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve got no idea, but I’m hoping we can find out! Today we’re going to—”
“No.”
“No?” She’s surprised.
“I don’t want to do any more tests.” But I’m lying, aren’t I? I’m dying to know what all this means.
Yet I don’t want to actually die for it at the same time. I don’t want to get to the point where they can’t learn anything else from tests and scans and decide to cut up my brain instead.
I stand up and walk to the door, half expecting to be stopped, but nothing happens.
I turn back and look at her.
“Tell whoever is pulling your strings that we need to talk.”
CHAPTER 11
IT’S ANOTHER DAY BEFORE I’M SENT FOR BY ALEX.
“You seem to be a revolutionary,” he says, and from the way he says it, he approves of revolutionaries.
“Who, me?”
“You and Beatriz, and a few other friends. I haven’t quite worked out who they all are yet.”
I raise an eyebrow, surprised they noticed Beatriz, that they’d even suspect her of anything when she’s so small.
“Why have you stopped cooperating with the tests?” he asks.
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br /> “I have a question for you first.”
“Go on.”
“Is Kai all right—do you know?”
“I don’t know where he is.” He’s hiding something—it’s in his aura. He’s not lying, exactly, but there is something he’s not saying.
I frown. I can read this in his aura, but his thoughts? They’re opaque, and I don’t know why. Has he somehow worked out a way to block us?
He smiles as if he knows what I’m thinking, and I’m disturbed.
“So are you going to answer my question now?” he says.
Two can play at this game. “As truthfully as you answered mine—of course. We’re not lab rats. We want to know what is going to happen to us and why.”
He nods slowly. “That seems fair. I’ll come after dinner tonight and have a chat with everyone.”
I go back to the TV room and update the others; Spike isn’t there, and my stomach twists in knots. His appointment was a while ago; is he still in with one of the doctors? But surely he would have just refused to do their tests and then walked out, like I did?
Maybe he’s still with the doctor; he probably couldn’t resist arguing with her. Once he’s had his say, he’ll leave, and everything will be okay. I tell myself this, but I don’t believe it.
Spike, where are you? What have you done?
There is no answer.
CHAPTER 12
SPIKE DOESN’T COME TO DINNER THAT NIGHT. I check his room and ask everyone—no one knows where he is. I cast about for him over and over again with my mind, but there is no answer, and my panic is increasing. Beatriz tries to find him too, and she can’t either.
Alex comes just after dinner, like he said he would.
Not that I’ve eaten much with my stomach twisting with worry. But I did notice that dinner came without sleeping drugs tonight; I guess they figured there’s no point when we can stop them from working.
I fix Alex with my eyes. He will tell me where Spike is; he will bring him back to us.