by P. S. Lurie
“Sydney Preston. Status: Denied.” The next watch does even less by not being recognised by the panel.
Zeke throws both to the ground. “Damn.”
“What’s behind there?”
“No idea.”
It’s my turn to drag him away from the pointless exercise and we turn down a corridor as a handful of young guards in intimidating uniforms appear in the concourse and race towards us. I shouldn’t falter but I turn to take in their faces; none is Ronan. There’s no one in front of us as we race down another corridor, again, unfamiliar territory but Zeke seems to recognise it.
“Theia,” he says, as he slams into the door at the end. “I can’t believe what I’m about to do.”
“Which is?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
If he can’t get through then we’re at a dead end and surely out of chances because any second now the sentry will appear. “Get us out of here and I’m sure I’ll love whatever it is.” As I garble my words, I can smell something. It’s musty but I can’t place it, unfamiliar and seeming to be out of kilter with the sterile fortress.
Zeke holds another watch to the panel. Again, it gives a name and then says we’re denied access. “Last watch,” he says. This time it beeps. “Emmy Tenterhook. Status: Approved.”
We push through the door – the stench is now overbearing – and slam it behind us because the smell is nothing compared to the danger we leave behind. I catch my breath as I look ahead at the cavernous room and it dawns on me where we are.
Or rather, what we’re here with.
2 P.M. – 3 P.M.
Selene
“I’m glad to see you’re well Selene,” says Dr Penn. He’s lit up by the open freezer that contains my mother’s hand, with only my silhouette casting a shadow over part of his body. “One more step and I’ll shoot.”
I could try and lift my own gun and pull the trigger but he’s aiming one at me and would get the first shot. Even if I had the chance to kill him, something compels me to figure out what he’s doing here.
“Drop it.”
I follow his orders and place the gun by the sink.
Just seeing his face, knowing that he’s alive, sickens me.
I glance at his hand. There’s a replacement watch over his wrist but he’s missing a thumb.
Nathaniel’s father waves his hand at me for full effect. “This was a bit of a nuisance but didn’t get in the way of my work. I take it from you being alive that you didn’t run into my army.”
“They’re children.” I think about Ronan and what this man did to him and hundreds of others.
“They were children. Now they’re... special.”
I turn back to the freezer and feel sick at the revelation that he has severed my mother’s hand. “What did you do?”
“Her grave wasn’t hard to find.”
I know that Ruskin and Jack buried her and I’m disgusted that even in death the Upperlanders have no respect for anyone they don’t value. “Where is she now?”
He shrugs. “Mass graves? The birds? Who knows? Speaking of family, you killed my son.”
“No,” I argue back. “You did. The Upperlanders. You were going to let us board the Utopia.” I tense up, feeling renewed strength that I could kill him with a single blow, not needing the gun.
“You stupid girl. Always punching first, thinking later. Just like your mother.”
“My mother was...” I’m stopped in my tracks by what he’s just said and the horror must flash across my face as he smirks, pleased that I am thinking the words through. Dr Penn has no reason to know anything about my mother. According to Melissa, my mother was a shell of herself in the Upperlands so even if he’d followed her during her year in the barracks he’d never have seen her flare up. “What do you mean?”
Dr Penn continues to smile cruelly. “You should have listened to me Selene. I tried to warn you. Both of you.”
It’s like I’m back in the ocean. There’s a freedom in floating aimlessly but the truth starts to weigh me down like an anchor and that even if I struggle to shake it off and swim away I’ll just be tangled in chains and dragged to the sea bed. There are too many avenues in what he’s telling me that I want to pursue and I don’t know where to start. Instead, I just feel myself struggling to breathe, the water clogging my lungs. I gasp and drop down against the freezer but I don’t feel the cool air on my back.
I hear Nathaniel’s voice: “There’s one thing you need to know. The truth is...”
It sickens me that his words start to make sense. Nathaniel is dead, that much is confirmed but there is more. Something about my mother. Something about Nathaniel’s words. In the same way that I never let go of that vision of myself floating in the sea, I start to wonder if these past six months I’ve had inklings of what it could be but batted the thoughts away.
I should have killed Dr Penn whilst I had the chance and saved myself from heartbreak but I’ve hung on for this long and now all I can do is to wait for him to start talking.
Jack
The past six months have been spent in my house or at the command centre and not much else in between. On the odd occasion I wandered the parts of the Middlelands that were still occupied, I watched the daily lives of those who survived the great cull. They know who I am and choose mostly to ignore me, not wanting reminders of the threats beyond the Fence. Children, of which there were a few that weren’t Rehoused, were fascinating to me. I doubt they were told explicitly about what had happened but they must have understood the gist because most of their play revolved around shooting one another. I remember the day a girl jumped out from behind a hedge and pointed a stick in my direction. “Bang,” was all she needed to say before I began to sweat and had to return home.
“It’s a game,” Ruskin told me. “Only a game.”
It’s because of this that I expect that Ruskin will tell me the boy and girl in uniforms pointing guns in our direction will shrug it off as a game, but then I see his panicked face and know that there is nothing innocent in their arrival. It’s a wonder we’re not dead already.
“Wait,” Ruskin says, and slowly raises his hands.
“What are you doing here?” the girl says, sporting a pointed noise and her hair tied back in a severe, tight ponytail that ages her.
There’s no explanation that could be adequate because we shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be alive. The last time we were in the arena we accidentally survived and this time President Callister has sent more of her army to correct the mistake. “President Callister,” Ruskin lies badly. “We’re spies for her.”
“You’re too old,” the boy says, about Ronan’s age, at least six years younger than me.
I find my voice and take over from Ruskin. “It’s true. We were sent into the Middlelands to find out how many of them are alive. We came to report back.”
“Why are you up here watching the army?” the girl asks, unconvinced.
“Curiosity,” I say, twisting the truth into something vague. “Wanted to see the Fence open up before returning to the fortress.” Even if Ruskin or I had a gun, there’s no way we could raise it or overpower two trained soldiers despite their shorter statures. They’re smaller than us but have the upper hand. It’s my fault we allowed ourselves to split off from the group and be detected. “Please, we haven’t done anything wrong.”
The boy, with the same cropped haircut as Ronan, takes a step forward. He could be anyone’s child from the Middlelands, saved on the night of the great cull. I heard of a scattering of parents that managed to escape that night but left their children behind to be Rehoused, hoping for a better life for them. This boy’s parents could still be alive. Or maybe his comrades heading towards the sea have parents in the boats. The consequence of the army catching up to them is too distressing to consider. “Names.”
“Jack Benetton,” I say, not seeing the point in lying.
“Ruskin Peters.”
“Ruskin?” the girl says, h
er eyes widening with recognition.
I join in with her surprise. “You know each other?”
Ruskin shakes his head.
“Where’s Ronan? Is he alright?” she asks.
“What’s going on?”
“Did Ronan make it to you?”
“Yes,” Ruskin says, cautiously, trying to figure out whether this is a trap. “He brought us back here. We split up.”
The girl breathes a sigh of relief. She slaps the boy on the arm. “Told you he’d make it.”
I play back some of the conversations we’ve had with Ronan. “You’re the friends Ronan mentioned that helped him escape.”
“We’re famous Francine,” the boy jokes to the girl, the couple’s demeanour dropped since they’re no longer worried about us. It takes Ruskin and me a while longer to feel as safe around them.
“You’re not going to kill us?” I ask.
Francine thrusts her gun in my direction, then laughs and puts it away. “There have been so few of us. How many people did Ronan bring?”
“Nine, plus him,” I say.
“Not bad,” the boy says. “There are only a few guards remaining in the fortress. What’s the plan?”
“We’re meeting soon at the entrance to the fortress.”
“Good. Finally. We’ve been pretending for a long time but with the final push today we had to act. Cal, look.”
The boy joins us at the edge of the balcony and I turn to see the empty arena once more. He’s comforted, not just that Ronan is alive but that the Middlelanders discovered the attack with plenty of time to make themselves scarce. I want to ask about the boy and girl’s families but it doesn’t seem appropriate, not that there would ever be a good time to bring that conversation up.
Coincidentally, the boy – Cal, I think – answers anyway. “My parents might be on board. They fled to the boats during the great cull but left me in the house. They hoped I would have a better life up here. I don’t know if they made it.”
I feel the pit in my stomach grow; I hadn’t considered on the flipside that for eighteen months some of these children may have lived unknowing the fate of their families.
“What were their names?” I ask.
“Rebecca and Charles Clark.”
I shake my head, not having met anyone since then with those names but then again we’ve mostly kept to ourselves. Ruskin also doesn’t know. “That doesn’t mean they’re dead. There are more people down there than you might think.” Cal looks hopeful. “They should be well on their way to setting sail by now. They have enough food to last them a day or two.”
“How about you Francine?” Ruskin asks.
“Nah, they killed each other long before sunrise. A few doctors in the fortress tried to convince me that they hated me but I remember that night differently to the Upperlanders. Anyway, Ronan made it over the Fence. Impressive. We left him in the fortress.”
“Actually...” Ruskin starts to say. I realise he’s referring to Ronan’s injury and I cut him off.
“Ronan is making a detour with some of the others.” I check the time. “We’re meeting in thirty minutes.”
The four of us make our way up the raked steps and towards the main exit to the bottom of the arena. Francine plays with the device on her sleeve. “I wanted to radio him but it wasn’t safe.”
“We’ll see him soon,” says Cal.
“How many of you are there?” I ask. “I mean, people that aren’t brainwashed anymore?”
“You’re looking at them,” Francine says.
“Yay us,” Cal adds weakly. I like this couple: sarcastic and still fighting despite what they must have gone through. “What’s the actual plan? We made it as far as pretending Ronan had died.”
“We go to the fortress and kill President Callister,” I say.
“And rescue Theia and Leda,” Francine says.
I nod, impressed that they were able to discuss so much without being detected by the Upperlanders. “That’s the idea. How many soldiers do you reckon are still in the fortress?”
“Twenty? Thirty? Don’t need anyone protecting the sheep.”
“Sheep?”
“People mindlessly going along with President Callister. Apparently, that’s what utopia is.”
“You’re not going to be missed?”
“We agreed to monitor the gate,” Cal says, proudly. “Stop any of you, what’s the word, scum, from sneaking through.”
“Oops,” Francine adds, sardonically.
The two soldiers lead the way and I throw Ruskin a smile, relieved that Ronan was telling the truth and that we might have a fighting chance after all.
Melissa
Tess, Ronan and I do the best we can to hide in the bare ward that has no exit other than the one set of sliding doors; Ronan slinks to the side of a cabinet full of toys and Tess and I are under a bed, the sheets draped over it to conceal us but they flutter and I try to pull them so that they fall still. From what I saw before we cut ourselves off from view, Samuel and Travis pushed themselves against the walls on either side of the doors, ready to ambush anyone that comes our way. I hope that whoever was in the hospital decided to leave unannounced so that we can get back to the others without any other hitches.
I start to wonder if the train was a mistake, alerting President Callister’s army to us but I’m cut off by a beep. I recognise it: I didn’t have time to switch off the ultrasound machine and it’s powering itself down. I curse myself silently and throw Tess a pained expression because anyone in the vicinity would have heard it too.
A few unnerving seconds and then the doors squeak on their hinges before a scuffle breaks out. Screams of annoyance. “Get off me,” someone unfamiliar says.
“What the hell,” I hear Travis say.
“Get off me,” the girl screams again.
“Stay here,” I say to Tess, and crawl out from under the bed. Ronan has already stepped into the middle of the room, seeming to be fully revitalised and he, Travis and Samuel are restraining a young couple. They’re not in police uniform and instead look dishevelled, as if they’ve been impoverished for some time. They’re younger than me but older than Ronan and I can only get a good look at them once they’re pinned to the spot.
The boy starts to wrestle once more but I’m able to take in the girl’s features. Just like with seeing Patrick, I think I’ve seen her before but the recollection is faint.
“How do I know you?” I ask.
Tess emerges and Samuel helps her to her feet before she burrows herself into his arms, not yet able to have a private conversation about the pregnancy and what she’s doing here, putting herself and their unborn baby in danger – or, for that matter, what Samuel will think about me when he finds out I knew all along – whilst Ronan and Travis each hold one of the captives.
“You were on the Fence,” the boy says. “Took our places.”
The memory returns to me. Theia, Ruskin, Jack and I ascended the elevator built into the Fence and we watched as two people ran across the arena, too late to board the Utopia. They ran away, expecting the Fence to detonate and flood the Upperlands but I’d assumed they’d been caught up in the Utopia’s explosion. I never paid them another thought. Inadvertently, we saved their lives. “You would have died if you’d boarded,” I say, unconvinced by his misplaced anger.
“You didn’t,” the girl adds.
“Who are they?” Travis asks.
“They survived the prison too. Middlelanders?”
“She is,” the boy says. “I’m an Upperlander. We didn’t believe their nonsense about great culls. That was enough for them to find us disloyal and lock us up.”
“Smart people,” Tess says. “You’ve been here ever since?”
“We’ve kept to ourselves. It’s not much of a life but it is living.”
“What do we do with them?” Samuel asks.
“Hey,” the girl says. “We did nothing wrong. We saw their army pass through then spotted you on the way here and wanted
to find out what was going on.”
I realise that their presence may have solved a mystery. “There was a man in the prison, trapped in the cell. Patrick. Did you release him?”
“Not us,” the boy says, and I believe him because he has no reason to lie but that leaves me as clueless as before, although I’m now aware that any number of others could have survived the explosions.
“We’re headed to the fortress,” Ronan says. “It’s going to be dangerous.”
“No thanks,” the girl replies without a moment’s delay.
“You should find somewhere to hide,” Samuel says. “You too, Tess.”
“Don’t be crazy. I’m coming with.”
“Maybe if you weren’t pregnant.”
Travis groans. “Are you serious? Melissa, did you know about this?”
Ronan stops me from being admonished. “We don’t have time for this. We achieved what we had to here and now need to get back to the others.”
“Count us out,” the boy says, unfavourably. “Spent too long surviving to now die in some unwinnable fight.”
“Way to take responsibility,” I say. “Whatever. Stay here. Whoever is coming back, we’re leaving now. Ronan, how are you feeling?”
“Fine.” His stock answer so I’ll have to take his word for it. I’m not sure I believe him but the stitches have held up, colour is flushed through his cheeks and it will have to be good enough for now.
Ronan and Travis release the couple, and the boy and girl massage their wrists after being held tightly. The girl only then notices Ronan in his uniform and exclaims pitifully. “You’re one of them.”
“He’s on our side,” I say.
“How many of you are there?” she asks.