Talker 25

by McCune, Joshua

I like her. “Melissa.”

  “Do you believe in Jesus Christ as our lord and savior?” asks a mousy girl with a Bible clutched in her hands. Talker Thirteen.

  Jesus Christ.

  “Of course she does, Pam,” Lorena says as I stumble for an answer. To me: “Dragons are the devil’s creation.”

  Pam scowls. “I wasn’t asking you.”

  “You bet,” I say. She doesn’t look convinced. Lorena winks at me. I force a smile. “Everybody knows dragons are the devil’s creation. Only faith in Jesus can save us from them.”

  The scowl deepens, but Pam backs off.

  Five returns with a pair of black scrubs, which Evelyn presents to me. “You want to—”

  A scrabbling noise interrupts her. A child who can’t be older than twelve emerges from beneath one of the beds. Her eyes dart everywhere. “She’s not a vulture in disguise, is she?”

  “No, Allie, she’s one of us,” Lorena says. “This is Melissa.”

  “I’m Twenty-One,” the girl says. “You don’t want to screw with me, no, no.”

  “Twenty-One, that is not proper language for a young lady,” Pam says.

  Twenty-One sticks out her tongue, then flicks her off. She comes closer, circles around me, sniffing.

  “It’s best not to agitate her,” Lorena whispers.

  “You’re not a chocolate thief, are you?” Twenty-One asks. She glowers at Sixteen, a girl with a bandage across her nose. Sixteen, who’s got at least two years, five inches, and thirty pounds on Twenty-One, shudders and ducks behind Lorena.

  “Be nice, Allie,” Lorena says.

  Twenty-One purses her lips, looks back to me, wrinkles her nose. “You don’t smell like one, no, no.”

  “I’m not.”

  She shrugs. Her eyes drift to my chest and widen. “Ooh. Can I have that? Can I, can I?”

  I follow her intense gaze to the dragon brooch. I’d forgotten about the stupid thing. “Gladly.” She runs to a corner, settles into a crouch, and strokes the silver brooch like it’s a pet.

  “What’s with her?” I ask.

  “Allie was reconditioned. Sometimes it backfires,” Lorena says. She turns to the others. “Back to bed, everyone. Show’s over.” Evelyn’s minions shrink under Lorena’s gaze, but don’t retreat until the blonde nods her okay.

  “You want to sleep on our side, Twenty-Five?” Evelyn gestures at the right half of the room. Based on the silence and stares I’m getting, this is a critical decision. An easy one, though.

  “I think I’ll stay over here.”

  Murmurs come from Evelyn’s crowd. She raises her hand for quiet. “Nice meeting you, Twenty-Five. Remember, actions have consequences,” she says, way too perky, then turns on her heel and marches to bed.

  “She been reconditioned, too?” I ask.

  Lorena laughs. “Nah, she’s just drunk a lot of the Kool-Aid.” She nods toward the screen. “We better get moving. This is the last episode of the night. Once the message boards go off, we’re in the dark.”

  I glance at the screen. Frank, Kevin, Mac, and L.T. are skulking up Mount Kumotori. There’s a red glow in the distance. Several of Evelyn’s girls watch, wide-eyed, hands over mouths or clutched in worry. The fab four open fire, and the girls cheer.

  “They’re rooting for the soldiers?” I say. “Is that what that crap about choosing sides was about?”

  “Pretty much,” Lorena says.

  “And we’re on the other side?”

  “No, we’re on the stay-out-of-trouble side.”

  “Sounds like something my dad would say. . . . Where are the adults?”

  She shrugs. “Somewhere else. Most of us had parent talkers. One or both. None of them showed up here.” She looks away, shakes her head. “Probably a good thing.”

  She leads me through a door at the back to a restroom with a shower, a pair of stalls, and another thinscreen. A girl sits on the tiles, entranced.

  “That’s Claire,” Lorena says as we walk past. Claire, Talker Fifteen, a thick girl with dark fuzz on her upper lip, waves a bandaged hand at me when I say hi, but otherwise remains hypnotized by the show.

  “Reconditioned?” I whisper.

  “Yep,” Lorena says. I’m about to pile my scrubs on the floor, but she takes them from me. “The first rule of survival here: keep your clothes as clean as possible. Laundry only comes once a week. I’m serious. Lots of things suck here in Georgetown—”

  “Suck?”

  “Yeah, euphemism, I know. Be happy with what you can, control what you can . . . like your clothes. Unless you’re offering an invitation, change here.” She guides me to a stained section of tiles adjacent to the shower, motions toward the shadowed ceiling. “Infrared cameras monitor our activities. This is pretty much the only blind spot in this place.”

  “You haven’t tried to escape?” The last word’s no more than a second out of my mouth when my CENSIR delivers a low-level jolt.

  “Blind, but not deaf. They got mikes built in.” She taps her circlet. “Big Brother’s always listening.”

  She keeps talking while I undress. “It can’t read thoughts beyond emotional states. They don’t like it when you’re upset. When you’re in the dragon dicer or battle room, you’ll be tuned to a specific dragon frequency. Everything’s on an internal line, so you’ll be safe.”

  “Safe?”

  “They’ll start you in the call center, where you’ll be tuned to transmit to the world. You’ll be tempted to contact any dragons you know. Don’t.”

  I step into the shower with a questioning look.

  She hooks her thumb at Claire. “She was the last one who thought she could beat the system. Her and Twenty-Three.”

  “That one of the boys?”

  She shakes her head. “I’ve been here three summers. Nobody gets out.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  21

  The next day begins too early with a fanfare of music, a low-level jolt from my CENSIR, and, worst of all, a chirpy “Wakey, wakey, everyone” from Evelyn. By the time I’ve opened my eyes, the other girls have gathered near the entrance, a couple nodding in rhythm to the Kissing Dragons theme song blaring from the screen.

  “Wakey, wakey, Twenty-Five.”

  I groan into my pillow, then stagger to my feet and join the group.

  “Where’s Lorena?” I ask Pam. It appears Claire’s missing, too. Unless she’s still in the bathroom.

  Pam shrugs. “Probably in the battle room. Lorena’s a top operator.”

  I start to ask what she means when four soldiers enter the barracks carrying boxes overflowing with clothes. Evelyn and company fawn over them like they’re rock stars handing out autographs, not gun-toting soldiers doling out jackets, boots, gloves, and ski caps. Twenty-One, counting her fingers repeatedly, whispering “Burn, burn, burn” as she does, is starting to look more normal by the second.

  Evelyn beams at the thick-necked soldier guarding the door. “Everyone was up on time, Lester, except Twenty-Five.”

  “She’s new here. Why don’t we give her a break?” He tosses her a Kit Kat. She thanks him like he just awarded her the Miss America crown. Terrific. Whenever Big Brother’s not spying on us, I’ve got to worry about Ms. Perky and her band of informants ratting me out for chocolate.

  The soldiers load us onto a black bus outfitted with monster tires and a snow plow. Inside, a steel grating separates the driver from the rest of us. Evelyn and her crew crowd the front seats, chirping away or flirting with the soldiers, who scan our faces and monitor their tablets.

  A half mile down, we debus and single-file it into a mess hall with a small buffet area and several long tables, most of them occupied by All-Blacks. Several leer at us as we enter. A couple hoot or whistle.

  One gropes my ass. “Hey there, pretty girl, what’s your number?”

  I ignore him.

&n
bsp; “I’m Lover One,” he calls after me. His buddies laugh. Their taunts follow me into the buffet line, where a server loads my tray with runny eggs and overcooked sausages Pam assures me don’t come from dragons.

  We head for the table farthest from the entrance. Pam indicates a pair of girls seated at the far end. Talker Twenty and Talker Twenty-Two. Each has a Bible laid open beside her tray.

  “Would you like to join us?” Pam asks.

  I don’t, but I don’t want to be rude. I bow my head as she recites an opening prayer. “‘We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.’ Amen.”

  I give the obligatory amen, smile amiably, and dig in.

  Breakfast tastes like heaven. While I eat and pretend to listen to a Pam lecture on suffering and hope, I scan the table on the other side of the cafeteria where the male talkers sit. I count seven, all high school or college age, none of them familiar.

  “Where’s James?” I ask Lester, who stands behind us. “Talker Twenty-Six,” I clarify when he doesn’t respond.

  “Best you forget about him,” he says.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Means you should forget about him.”

  Something tugs at my pant leg. I look down to find Twenty-One beneath the table. “What are you—”

  She presses a finger to her lips. “Everyone you care about, everyone you care about, gone. Poof,” she whispers. “Make them go. Kill the dragons, or the dragons kill them. Burn, burn, burn. Yes, yes, yes.” She nods, spins around, and crawls to her chair.

  We’re clearing our trays from the table when Lorena, Claire, and two boys enter the mess hall under guard. Though I can’t be sure, it appears they’re all holding Kit Kats. Claire says something. Lorena slaps her, throws the chocolate at Claire’s feet, then storms out of the cafeteria. A soldier races after her.

  “She’s in trouble,” Evelyn says. “Actions have consequences.”

  I imagine stabbing my plastic fork through the smile plastered on Evelyn’s face. My CENSIR shocks me.

  “Control your emotions, Twenty-Five,” Lester says, finger poised over his tablet. “Violent thoughts will not be tolerated . . . even against her.”

  “I wasn’t going to do anything,” I say.

  Once he’s sure I’m calm, we join the others on the bus and make the short commute between a pair of missile launchers to the opposite side of the road.

  We idle close to the entrance of what must be the ER—thankfully out of sight of the parapet of dragon heads. A tractor pushes a flickering Red strapped to a rolling slab up a ramp and into a garage bay.

  “Give me fifty on that lightbulb not making it past the flame bath,” I overhear the driver say to Lester.

  “Only if you’re paying triple. That thing probably won’t make it past intake,” Lester says. “At least it’s got a thick head. Should make for a good workout.”

  They both laugh.

  Under the guidance of a couple of soldiers, the slab is maneuvered onto some sort of rail system. Four figures dressed from head to toe in black—faces hidden by goggles and masks, a couple carrying hatchets—walk into view. The slab rotates ninety degrees, pointing the dragon down the length of the ER. A semicylindrical sheath lowers from the ceiling, comes to a stop inches from the dragon. The tractor reverses, the garage bay closes.

  The driver opens the bus door. The stench of burned meat wafts in. I hear the faint grind of what sounds like chainsaws.

  A seat ahead of me, Sixteen tenses.

  “One, Five, Twelve, Eighteen,” Lester calls.

  A chorus of excited thank yous rings out from the front. Sixteen relaxes.

  “Kill the dragons, yes, yes,” Twenty-One says.

  A soldier escorts Evelyn and three tagalongs toward the ER. The girls smile the entire way.

  We cross back to the other side of the road to a building decorated with massive dragon-wing skeletons. Must be from a Green.

  Or Baby. I swallow. No, they wouldn’t have killed her already. They’d want to experiment on her first. Doesn’t matter. One day soon, she’ll be a trophy on a building. On several buildings, maybe. Will I recognize her?

  Lester checks his tablet. “Seven, Ten, Nineteen.”

  The rest of Evelyn’s posse offers up more overzealous thank yous and plastic smiles as they follow a guard off the bus.

  “Or the dragons kill them,” Twenty-One says with a gleeful laugh.

  A block down the road, we stop again.

  “Thirteen, Sixteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two.”

  “Chocolate time. Burn, burn, burn.” Twenty-One bounces up from her seat and skips down the aisle. Pam crosses herself, mumbles something beneath her breath, then follows.

  When the bus starts moving again, it’s just me, Lester, and the bus driver. “Where are we going?”

  “To get you processed,” Lester says. “It shouldn’t take long. Assuming you cooperate.”

  We drive to a three-story building that looms at the end of the road between a pair of artillery. An American flag flies from the pole atop it, glimmering in the sunlight. We park beside a cluster of cages similar to the dragon ones, except smaller. Exiting the bus, I get a better view of the flag. It’s made of dragon scales.

  Lester takes me to a top-floor office occupied by a grizzled man, a painting of Saint George spearing a dragon, and a half dozen thinscreens. A couple broadcast the twenty-four-hour news stations; the rest are turned off.

  “Colonel Hanks, this is Twenty-Five,” says Lester.

  “Thank you, Sergeant.” The colonel dismisses Lester, then gestures to the chair opposite his desk. I remain standing. His eyes a narrow a fraction. “Do you know what we do here, Twenty-Five?”

  Horrible things, but I say, “Hunt dragons?”

  Another fraction. “We do God’s work. And he has granted you a great gift.”

  “This great gift has gotten me into a lot of trouble.”

  He removes a plaque from the wall, sets it on the desk so I can read it. DO NOT BE DECEIVED: GOD CANNOT BE MOCKED. A MAN REAPS WHAT HE SOWS. GALATIANS 6:7.

  I snort. “What does God say about torture?”

  “The house of the wicked will be destroyed, Twenty-Five. Whether you are inside or not is up to you.” The colonel indicates my CENSIR. “You know why we make you wear that?”

  I don’t respond. He shows me his tablet. The screen contains my brain image, personal data, and biometrics. I choke off a bitter laugh when I read the words. Current synaptic state: confused, angry, scared. No kidding.

  “The CENSIR is meant to help you find the righteous path, Twenty-Five. You have been led astray by evil forces.”

  He switches the CENSIR to record mode. “Be warned, any lie or omission will be detected. Tell me the names of every dragon and insurgent you know.”

  I hesitate. Colors appear on my brain image, accompanied by text that indicates my reluctance.

  “I am disappointed,” the colonel says. He uses the tablet to activate a thinscreen. A moment later, Simon Montpellier’s awful voice fills the room.

  “Sometimes the face of terror is obvious,” he says. A picture of a scowling black guy with a scar along his jawline flashes onto the screen. I squint. The same guy from the Shadow Mountain lookout picture? He disappears. A new image forms, the pixels sharpening slowly into focus. “Sometimes it’s the last person you’d expect.”

  My junior-high yearbook picture crystallizes.

  It’s a teaser for that Kissing Dragons spinoff.

  “Why does a girl destined to be valedictorian, a girl from a loving, patriotic family, join the other side?”

  The screen flashes to the famous clip of Mom leading the Green away from the Arlington suburbs in the yellow Bug.

  Back to my yearbook picture.

  “Melissa Callahan, a
good girl from a distinguished family . . . a family with the darkest secret,” Simon says. The image shatters, to be replaced by a video of me on Baby amid the gunships. They’ve made her into a Red. She releases a blast of CGI fire that consumes the screen. White text appears: Kissing Dragons: The Other Side debuts after Kissing Dragons. (Check your loyalty at www.kissing-dragons.com/TheOtherSide).

  “You know what happens to the families of traitors, Twenty-Five?” the colonel asks. “Your brother and father will be eviscerated by the media. . . . What did they do wrong? How come they didn’t see it coming?” He pauses. “Or maybe they were involved.”

  My throat constricts. “They didn’t know anything.”

  “I pray that’s true. That teaser hasn’t gone live. The producers are eager to air the episode, but the army has final say in the matter. Now, Twenty-Five, tell me the names.”

  Two choices. Don’t cooperate and they’ll broadcast the interview, my brother and father will suffer the consequences. Or betray the insurgents and dragons of Loki’s Grunts, help put them in holes and cages and shooting ranges.

  “Gretchen,” I whisper. “I don’t know her last name. I don’t know if she’s alive.”

  “Please give her description.”

  I do. Everything I say appears in bold text beneath the image of my brain. Colonel Hanks checks the content, asks a few more questions, then saves everything.

  “Who else?”

  I go through names and descriptions the best I can remember.

  “Anybody else?” he asks.

  I shake my head, but my thoughts give me away.

  “Twenty-Five, you have taken a step away from the devil’s side. Do not fall back.”

  “Preston,” I say. The tablet indicates I’m suppressing something. I clench my fists. “Williams. Preston Williams. He was a transfer student to our high school. Maybe that’s not even his real name.” God, I hope not.

  “Anyone else?”

  Yes, one more. The one that hurts most. I scour my mind for a way out, but my mind is the trap.

  “Do not make me ask again.”

  “Keith,” I say, feeling like an executioner delivering the death blow. “Major Keith Harden. That’s it. That’s all of them.”