by Ben Oliver
“You’re right,” she says. “I’m sure when Wren arrives she’ll explain that this is just a malfunction or something.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“Yeah,” Kina agrees, and we let the silence between us stay there for a while.
“Got any more books I can borrow?” Kina asks. “I’ve read all of the ones you gave me twice.”
I laugh even though the sense of unease hasn’t left me. “Of course,” I say. “Any requests?”
“Anything at all.”
I look through the selection of books I’ve brought outside with me, trying to decide which ones she’ll like best.
* * *
The commotion of the yard still hasn’t died down when the end of exercise alarm sounds.
Kina and I say goodbye, and it’s not until I’m lying on my bed reading the penultimate chapter of the second Lord of the Rings book that I realize that I didn’t run today. I suppose I was too distracted by the Delay and the late rain.
I finish my book and pick one that I haven’t read in a long time. One thirty comes and goes, and Wren doesn’t appear.
She’s been late before, I tell myself, trying to focus on the words, but I can’t seem to find my way into the book. I keep glancing at the time: two o’clock, two thirty, three o’clock, three thirty, four. Still no Wren.
I get up and pace my room. It only takes a few steps to walk from the door to the back wall, but I need to do something to distract myself.
Finally, at a few minutes to five, the hatch slides open and I see Wren’s tired eyes staring back at me.
“Wren,” I say, moving close to the door, “what’s going on?” I don’t mean to sound so panicked, but I can’t help myself.
“Hi, Luka,” she says, and something in her too-wide eyes sets me on edge. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“So here’s the deal,” she says, and something in her listless voice tells me this isn’t the first time she’s had to give this speech today. “The Delay is not a mistake; it’s been confirmed by the Region. There’s an enormous clinical trial coming up, and the Delay will be cumulative, meaning it will be added on to whatever existing time you have on your last Delay contract.”
“Right,” I say, surprised by the leniency shown by a government that could just as easily take away our banked time and sweep it under the carpet. After all, it’s not like any of us will ever get out of here alive to tell anyone. “And if I don’t accept it?”
“Unfortunately, not accepting it doesn’t mean your Delay reverts back to your previous postponement of your sentence,” Wren says, and her eyes rise up as though she’s remembering the rules of the new Delay. “Refusal to accept will still result in the commencement of your sentencing.”
“So I’ll be Deleted if I refuse?” I confirm.
“Essentially, yes.”
“I suppose I’ll accept, then.”
“I suppose that’s best,” Wren replies, and again I sense apprehension.
“What about the groups? What’s the difference between groups A and B?” I ask.
“That I don’t know,” Wren admits. “All I’ve been told is that the groups were assigned at random.”
“Right. Hey, but nine months until my next Delay,” I say, shrugging. “That’s pretty good.”
I walk to the screen and raise my finger to press the accept button.
“Luka, wait,” Wren calls.
I stop and lower my finger from the screen. “What is it?” I ask.
She bites her lower lip and shakes her head. “No, just go ahead. You have to take it.”
“Wren, what is it? If something’s going on, I should know—”
“It’s not that. I don’t know … I have a bad feeling. I’ve heard some things.”
“Wren, if this Delay is going to kill me, then I’d rather just decline it.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know what it’ll be but …” Wren trails off and then looks up and to the left—activating a menu in her Lens. Her eyes move right and then she mutters the voice command, “Surveillance off.”
“Are you allowed to do that?” I ask.
“Luka, listen, I shouldn’t tell you this, but a file was sent to my government email. I think it was a mistake—it was lines of code, really complex stuff. They were deleted from my Lens files almost immediately, but it was a program, an executable file. There was also a document attached. I only had a few seconds to read it before it was erased, but it said something about Phase One and the Great Selection, and something about the Sane Zone and the Battery Project. I don’t know what it all meant, but it didn’t seem right, Luka. It scared me.”
I look to Wren’s Panoptic camera, knowing that she’s taking a huge risk. The government isn’t supposed to watch the footage back without good reason or consent, but the way things have been going recently, nothing would surprise me.
I think about what she has told me, try to make sense of the words. “It’s probably nothing,” I say, but I can hear the doubt loud and clear in my own voice. “The government uses code names for plans all the time.”
“The file was accidentally sent to all government employees, but it was addressed to ‘Tier Three applicants.’ This was on Saturday night, four days ago. Fifteen government employees haven’t been heard from since.”
“Wren, I don’t have a choice; if I don’t take the Delay, I’ll be killed anyway.”
I turn back to the screen and get the familiar flare of adrenaline and nerves as I press the ACCEPT button, only this time amplified a thousand times. The fingerprint and eye scanner appear. I hesitate for a moment, just a moment.
The scanner accepts my prints and recognizes my iris, and the contract is signed.
The screen flashes green and then more text appears.
YOUR TRIAL WILL BEGIN IN 2 DAYS, 13 HOURS, AND 2 MINUTES.
“Three days?” I ask Wren, surprised.
“Yes,” she replies, her voice shaking. “Group A heads out tomorrow morning. Group B is two days later.”
I swallow and nod.
“Well,” Wren continues, wiping a tear from her eye, “I better get on with telling the rest of the inmates what’s going on.”
“I understand,” I say, and I want to ask her if tonight is still on, if we’ll be meeting as usual at 2 a.m., but I have to be tactful in case anyone’s listening. “I suppose you’ll be looking forward to getting some sleep after the day you’ve had?”
She looks at me, and a small smile forms on her lips. “Not too tired—think I’ll probably be up until the small hours tonight.”
I smile back. “Bye, Wren.”
Wren reactivates the surveillance function of her Lens and smiles sorrowfully back at me.
“Bye, Luka.”
The hatch shuts.
Wren’s words echo in my mind. Phase One and the Great Selection? The Sane Zone and the Battery Project? The fear in her eyes and in her voice have set my mind racing. What does it mean? Why has everything been so strange recently? What’s going on in the outside world?
It takes me hours to calm down, to convince myself that everything will be okay.
But that night, after the harvest, as I stand at the window and wait for the rain, all that anxiety comes flooding back—tonight, the rain doesn’t come at all.
* * *
When 2 a.m. comes, there is none of the usual joy or jubilation. Instead we stand together, sharing apprehensive glances and a sense that something bad is coming.
“So,” Malachai says, breaking the silence, “who’s in Group A?”
Chirrak and Catherine slowly raise their hands; Harvey raises a crutch.
“Group B?” Malachai asks, and raises his own hand along with Pod, Igby, Pander, Juno, Adam, Fulton, Reena, Akimi, Alistair, Emery, Woods, and me.
“Does anyone know what’s going to happen?” Harvey asks, shifting his balance and readjusting his crutches.
I think abo
ut what Wren told me and steal a glance over to her, but she looks down at the floor.
“It’s going to be fine,” Malachai tells him, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We’ll all meet up this time next week and laugh about it, right, Wren?”
Wren nods and forces a smile. “That’s right,” she says, “nothing to worry about.”
“Now come on,” Malachai says, looking around the group, “we only get this opportunity once a week, let’s make the most of it.”
Slowly, the crowd begins to break off into smaller groups.
Wren makes her way through the crowd, talking to us individually, making sure we’re all right, sharing jokes, and trying to reassure the Group As that tomorrow is nothing to worry about.
I hang back, leaning against the wall, watching, unable to enjoy this precious time as thoughts of the mass Delay occupy my mind.
As Wren approaches me, her bright eyes locked on mine, I feel my heart swell and I forget, momentarily, about my worries.
“How’s things?” I ask, and then correct myself. “How are things? How are you? Are you okay?”
Brilliant, I think, really smooth.
I hear Malachai laugh somewhere off to my left, and I’m sure he’s laughing at me. I feel my face flush and glance over to him; he’s leaning against the wall on one hand and is talking to a clearly besotted Reena. She’s ceased her skipping around the Loop to talk to the Natural, pushing a strand of curly red hair back underneath her hat.
“I’m fine, Luka. How are you?”
“Good, I’m pretty good.”
“Listen, what I said earlier, I’m sure I was overreacting. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Scare me? I wasn’t scared, I was never scared. It’s just an unusual situation.”
“Good, I’m glad you’re not scared. I overreacted, that’s all.”
“Yeah, like Malachai said—we’ll all be laughing about this next week.”
“Exactly.”
I nod. “Hey, listen, the new girl, Kina, she seems okay, you know? She seems like maybe she might be one of us?”
I look around our little group. Wren’s eyes follow mine.
“It might be a bit too soon,” she says. “We have to be sure, one hundred percent sure, that she’s … a good fit.”
“She is,” I say.
A smile forms on Wren’s face, and her eyes narrow. “Luka Kane, do you have a crush?”
“I … well … no, I … no crush, she’s just … she seems …”
Wren laughs. “Let me talk to her,” she says. “Maybe in a few weeks, we’ll see, okay?”
“It’s not a crush,” I say, getting control of my words. “I don’t have a crush on her.”
Wren laughs again and walks over to Akimi, handing her a bag containing her weekly outfit.
“I don’t have a crush on her, because I’m in love with you,” I say under my breath. “I should have said that.”
Pander is singing over by the wall, and I sit down beside her, listening to her pitch-perfect voice as she belts out some twentieth-century pop song that has been rereleased so many times I don’t even recognize which version she’s mimicking. She reaches up and adjusts the settings of one of her hearing aids and smiles as the sound comes through more clearly. I listen to the lyrics, a song about being young and defiant, a song about love and heartache. It’s beautiful and ambient as her words echo off the concrete walls of the Loop.
Akimi exits her cell, spinning and admiring her green dress.
I feel a wave of sadness engulf me. Although all our conversations and all our interactions have been masked by the unwritten rules of the 2 a.m. club, I love these people, and I can’t help but feel it’s all about to come to an end.
At 7:30 a.m., the wake-up call comes.
I slide carefully out of bed and order breakfast, and my mind continues its cyclical stream of unanswerable questions. After a few minutes, the conveyor belt takes my uneaten food away.
Happy tells me to prepare for Galen’s speech. I sit on the edge of my bed and face the screen, which shows nothing but blackness for four or five minutes before returning to normal.
“Great,” I whisper to no one. “I guess everything has gone to hell.”
Hours later, the back wall opens up, and I’m greeted, for the first time ever, by silence from the yard.
I step outside and listen to the breeze until Tyco, who must be in Group B as well, finds his voice.
“Luka, are you there?” he calls.
“I’m here,” I call back.
“I’m going to kill you one day.”
“I know.”
Silence again.
It’s eerie knowing that half the inmates are not here, knowing that they are being experimented on as we stand in the sunlight. For all I know, they might be dead.
“Luka?” Kina’s voice comes from my right.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I,” I tell her.
“Do you think Group A is okay?”
“Yes,” I say too quickly. “I’m sure they’re fine. They’ll be back later today, and we can ask them what happened at exercise tomorrow.”
“And then it’s our turn,” she points out.
“Luka Kane,” Tyco yells, “I’m going to kill you.”
“Give it a rest,” Malachai yells back.
And Tyco falls silent.
Today’s conversations consist of quiet muttering, as though they don’t want to disturb the rest of us. The one-minute warning comes, and we say goodbye and reenter our cells.
* * *
Too many hours pass, and I convince myself that Wren has been arrested, thrown in the Block, and I’ll never see her again.
I hear the hatch sliding open.
“Hi, Luka.”
“Hi, Wren,” I say back, and I can’t stop myself from inhaling hard against the surge of comfort that washes over me. I turn to look at her, and my emotions double. She’s so perfect and so beautiful that it makes my heart hurt.
“Hey, listen, I got you a book,” she tells me, holding up a small paperback for me to see.
“Wow, Wren, thank you. I’ll read it as soon as I’ve finished Lord of the Ri—”
“No, read it tonight, Luka.”
I look into Wren’s imploring eyes.
“All right,” I tell her. “I’ll read it tonight.”
“Good,” she says, her voice shuddering as she breathes through the words. “I think you’ll find it really interesting.”
I look at the cover of the book—the picture shows a great castle atop a cliff; below is a raging sea. “The Count of Monte Cristo,” I read aloud.
“Yes. It’s a classic,” Wren says, and then reaches down and holds a container of food out to me.
I stand and reach for the box, ignoring the infiltration alarm as Wren’s fingertips touch mine and she stares pleadingly at me once again. I nod, confirming that I understand that something is amiss, and take the food from her.
“Well, I have to go,” she says. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Wren, wait.” But the hatch closes, and I’m left in silence.
I look first at the container of noodles, then at the book. I throw the container onto my bed and open The Count of Monte Cristo at page one and skim the words. The writer speaks of a great ship pulling into a dock. Nothing significant, nothing that elaborates on Wren’s obvious attempt to communicate something of great import.
I turn another page and then stop. Scrawled across the printed text on page three, from top to bottom in red ink, is Wren’s handwriting.
I snap the book shut as fast as I can. I think about the surgically implanted camera in my forehead, and I wonder if Wren knows something I don’t; I wonder if the government is watching us more closely than usual.
I casually throw the book down onto my bed and pick up the food. I spend the next twenty minutes chewing on noodles that I don’t want to eat, waiting for night.
* * *
It’s 1 a.m. before I can read the book.
I’m so distracted that for the first time in over a year, I don’t watch the rain. I make a show of stretching and yawning. I know that the likelihood of anyone watching my Panoptic camera footage is low, but I can’t take chances.
I crawl into bed and rest my head on my pillow. Then I reach down and grab the book, pulling the blanket over my head as I do so. I rest one hand against my forehead so that the Panoptic camera mounted there is covered, and I’m hidden from prying eyes.
I turn to page three and read:
I read the warning a second time and a third.
In a little over twenty-four hours, I’ll be taken to the Facility and whatever happened to Group A will happen to me too.
I turn the page and remove my hand from my head. I pretend to read the words of the novel while my heart returns to its normal rate.
How the hell am I supposed to escape? No one has ever broken out of the Loop in its seventy years of existence. No one has even come close.
It can’t be done. Wren’s note serves only as a forewarning of almost-certain death.
All right, I think. If that’s what it means, then that’s what it means. How much longer could you have remained sane in a place like this anyway?
I swallow back tears and steel my resolve.
When the Delay comes, I will be ready to capitalize on any opportunity to escape that may arise, but if there truly is no chance, then I will accept my fate.
I close the book and turn to the screen.
“Happy.”
“Yes, Inmate 9-70-981?” the screen replies.
“Panoptic playback. Day 1 in the Loop. Time: 5:17 p.m.”
“Right away.”
The screen dissolves into blackness for the first twenty seconds and then comes alive as I cross the threshold into the prison. I hear my terrified, gasping breaths as I’m led along the corridor, followed by a guard with a heart trigger in his hands—a small cylindrical device that’s linked to the infinity-shaped explosive that’s just been implanted in my heart. I hear the soldier’s voice telling me to stop as he walks in front of me and opens my cell door. I’m shoved inside, and the door is slammed shut behind me.