by Pintip Dunn
My last chance for a kiss. Oh, how I want to lean forward and press my lips against his. I don’t want to die having never kissed a boy.
But there’s no time. The dogs’ barks shatter the air like the rat-tat-tat of a machine gun. We hear the scuffle of feet against dirt. The officers will be on top of us at any moment.
“Go!” I shout at Logan. “Get out of here, before they arrest you, too.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but I shake my head. “Don’t. Don’t make this any harder than it is.”
With his eyebrows pulled together, Logan nods, gives my arm one last squeeze, and disappears over the other side of the hill.
This is it. My last few moments of freedom.
Turning, I raise my hands in surrender. I take a deep breath, savoring the openness of the mountain air. And then I walk straight toward the officers.
5
“You have the right to remain silent,” an officer intones. “Nothing you do can save you, but anything you say may be used against you.”
My wrists are wrenched behind me, and a jolt of electricity zaps my arms. The current marches across my skin like a row of fire ants. The officer slaps another set of cuffs around my ankles, and the ants intensify their attack along my legs. I grit my teeth, struggling not to whimper.
A dirty rag is stuffed in my mouth. My tongue retreats, searching for escape, but there’s nowhere to go. I taste other people’s saliva, and the bile rises in my throat. The gag blocks its only exit, however, so I’m forced to swallow the bile again.
“You will not be appointed an attorney,” the officer says. “You will not be tried in a court of law. Your future memory serves as indictment, trial, and conviction.”
They drag me down the hill, and my feet kick up billows of dust, which makes my eyes sting and water. I cough violently, but they don’t remove the rag. The officers march me back into the building and into an elevator capsule. We exit on a floor very different from the one where I received my memory.
Everything is cement—walls and floors. The air doesn’t move in here, as if it’s trapped underground and has nowhere to go. The smell is two-parts urine and one-part excrement.
Hands jerk around my body, taking the cuffs from around my ankles and wrists. The electricity stops, and I spit out the rag, collapsing onto the floor of a narrow intake area.
Someone pokes me in the ribs. “Are you alive?” The fingers nudge me again, this time in the stomach. “Come now. Give me a twitch. You feel anything?”
I look into the face of a bulky female guard.
“Good,” she says. “You survived the electro-cuffs.”
She places a helmet on my head and hooks it to a machine with a bunch of digital screens. I brace myself for a shock of electricity. But nothing happens. Numbers appear on the screens: 89…37…107…234. They don’t mean anything to me.
A few minutes later, the guard takes the helmet off and hauls me to my feet. She strips me naked and pushes me under a hot spray. I hunch over, covering myself, and hear her harsh laughter.
“You’ve got nothing I haven’t seen, little girl.”
I stay hunched over anyway. The needles of water stab my skin, and then the guard yanks me back out, dripping wet, and throws a yellow jumpsuit at me. It looks a lot like my school uniform, but it’s made with coarser material. I barely have time to get my arms and legs through the holes before I’m thrust down a hall. The jumpsuit rubs against me with every move, the rough material sanding off skin cells, dead and live alike.
The guard tosses me into a cell, and then I am alone. For the first time in my life, I am truly and completely on my own.
The minutes stretch into hours. The gnawing in my stomach is my only marker of time.
At some point, a bowl of cloudy water is pushed through the slot in the door. I crawl over and sniff it. It smells like urine, but everything here smells like urine. A few hours in and my skin has already absorbed the odor.
Which is worse? To smell like urine or not even notice it? To be served suspect water or be so thirsty you lap it up anyway?
I drink the water. It tastes stale and chalky, and I wrinkle my nose.
Immediately, I think of my sister in the future memory, wrinkling her nose. The food’s gross, she said. And they never let me play outside.
The entire memory rolls through my mind, from start to finish, each detail rich and nuanced. It’s as if I were living it once again.
I slow the memory down, freezing each frame and analyzing it. There’s got to be some clue in here, something to make me understand how I could do such a thing.
In the memory, Jessa’s hair fell to her shoulders. When I left her yesterday, it only reached her chin. That means I have time. Not a lot, because her face looks the same. But a few months, at least. Maybe a year.
She was in a hospital bed. Maybe that means she’ll get sick. Maybe my future self kills her to spare her unthinkable pain.
No. I pull up the image of her face, zooming in as if my mind’s eye were the lens of a camera. Her cheeks are a little pale, but her eyes are alert. Her body, even lying down, radiates the kind of energy you only associate with the healthy.
I rotate the image, viewing it from various angles, but cannot find any evidence of illness. So, not sick. Why is she in a bed with wires sticking out of her head, then? Where is she?
My mind runs through the memory again, picking out snapshots—like the golden placard, with four snail scrolls decorating the corners. Every agency has its own insignia. FuMA, for example, has the hourglass. Who do the snail scrolls belong to?
I search through the rest of the memory, looking for clues. Green linoleum floors. The teddy bear with the red bow. White blinds and white sheets…
Wait a minute. My breath catches and the images melt from my mind. How am I doing this? This isn’t…normal. The memory is playing across my mind as if it were a movie. I’m taking it apart, manipulating each piece as if my mind were a…computer. I shouldn’t be able to do this.
My pulse scampers off in a million directions. What’s going on here? This has never happened before. Is it because there’s something weird about future memories? Or is there something weird about…me?
My heart pounds, and all of a sudden I can’t get a full breath. No. Just stop. I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve never had an ounce of psychic tendency in my life. It’s not about to start now.
My body’s oversaturated with emotions, that’s all. I can’t think about it anymore.
I look around my cell instead. Mistake. There’s nothing to see. Just a ten by ten room with black bars along one wall, blocks of concrete everywhere else. No windows. No sun.
Will I ever see the sun again? In this moment, I’m so glad I took Jessa to the park on October Twenty-seventh. Glad I felt the warm rays of the sun against my face and body. Glad I shared one last afternoon with my sister. I’m even glad I ran into Logan Russell because now, at least, I have someone back home to dream about. I imagine that’s more than most detainees get.
The small bit of gratefulness fades, and I gasp at the air. Detainee. I’m in detainment. The craziness I tried to subdue comes galloping back. I gulp and wheeze, like an engine that won’t start, but I can’t fill my lungs. My heartbeat doubles and then triples. An ocean roars in my ears. Panic attack. I’m having a panic attack, and I have to stop it. Stop it. Stop it!
A red leaf. I pull my knees to my chest. My fingers turn numb, and I flex them, in and out, to return the flow of oxygen. Autumn leaves fluttering through the air. Think of the leaves.
My breathing slows a fraction. My heart no longer feels like it’s going to pound out of my chest. And I lose myself to the past.
Just another wiggle. A shift in my seat, a slight push of my arms, and my desk squeaks an inch closer to the window. An inch closer to the sun.
From the outside, our school looks like a spacecraft—long and flat, with circular windows cut out from the sides. The building’s won a bun
ch of awards. Too bad the architect didn’t think how the students would feel inside: trapped.
“What are you doing?” the boy next to me asks. He’s got the short hair all the boys in the younger classes have. We haven’t had our Fitness Core yet, but he smells like the swimming pool.
I glance at the front of the room, where the T-minus five teacher, Mistress Astbury, writes out fractions on the air screen.
“I’m trying to see the leaves,” I say to the boy.
“Why?”
I push my tongue against my top teeth, trying to figure out how to explain. “When they fall from the tree, they can land anywhere at all. They’re not stuck inside like we are. I’m just trying to see where the leaves go.”
He nods, as if what I’ve said makes sense. “I’m Logan.”
My cheeks get hot, and I edge my desk closer to the window. Of course his name is Logan. It’s always been Logan, since we started school eight years ago.
But I’ve never really spoken to him before. I know his birthday. I know he starts in the first swim lane during the Fitness Core. But this is the first time he’s given me permission to use his real name.
“My name’s Callie.”
“I know. I’ve heard some of the girls calling you that.” His smile is hesitant, as if he’s not sure he should be admitting that. “Maybe that’s why you like the leaves. Because you’re named after the calla lily.”
I’m not, actually. My father was a scientist, and I’m named Calla Ann after Tanner Callahan, the man who received the very first future memory. But I don’t correct Logan. My father thought the name was clever, but me? I kinda like the idea of being a flower. No one’s ever called me that before.
No one’s ever smiled at me like that, either. Part of me wants him to do it forever. The other part doesn’t know what to do with my elbows.
I tuck my palms under my legs, leaning far back. For a moment my feet hover in the air, with the plastic chair balanced on its two back legs. The next moment the chair comes crashing down, and I’m sprawled on the floor.
Mistress Astbury swipes away the air screen and strides to where I’m lying. “October Twenty-eight! What is the meaning of this?”
I stand up and smooth out my silver jumpsuit, making sure the zipper is straight. My elbows throb from the fall, but I hold them at my sides in perfect ninety-degree angles, clasping my hands in front of me. “I apologize, Mistress. I wanted to look out the window. I guess I… stretched too far.”
She crosses an arm over her waist, resting the other elbow on it. Fingernails sharpened to talon-like points tap against her cheek. “Since the window proves to be such a distraction, October Twenty-eight, we’d better move you to a less tempting location.” Mistress points her finger to the opposite corner of the room. “Pack up your desk screen and sit over there for the rest of the day.”
My heart sinks. The new seat is so far from the windows the light rays don’t even reach it. No hope of seeing the sun, much less tracing the path of the falling leaves. “Mistress, I…” The words die off. Like I might if I have to sit in that corner.
“You’ll do as I say, October Twenty-eight, or I’ll report you to the head of EdA.”
I obey. I have no choice. For the next hour, I fidget in my seat, turning again and again toward the too-far window. I don’t relax until the Outdoor Core.
I run across the school’s grassy field, breathing in air that isn’t cooped up inside a building. Soaking up real, natural sunlight. Watching the leaves dance wildly in the breeze. I don’t stop running until a horn blares across the field, signaling the end of the core.
I’m the last student off the field. Every step I take makes my body heavier, as if the gravity increases the closer I get to the classroom. By the time I get to my seat, I’m surprised I don’t crash through the floor.
And then I see it. There, on the middle of my desk screen, is a bright red leaf. I pick it up and glance around the classroom.
Nothing. Girls try on each other’s eye tints, boys battle each other on their desk screens, but no one waves or nods in my direction.
I look across the room, at the desk that was mine until this morning. At the boy who sat next to me but never said a word until today.
But Logan’s not looking at me. He hunches over his desk, his fingers typing on his glass-topped desk.
I let out a shaky breath and sink into my chair. Logan didn’t have anything to do with the leaf. It’s not a present. Someone probably dropped it on my desk by accident. I should put it in the compost slot, so it can be recycled.
But I don’t. I place the leaf on my lap, brushing my finger over the raised veins.
My desk screen vibrates once, and a new post pops onto my front page. “A leaf for a flower,” the message reads. “To remind you of the sun.”
It’s unsigned, but this time when I look up, Logan’s watching me. He gives me a smile so big and so brilliant, for a moment, I wonder if it can rival those golden rays.
6
“October Twenty-eight. Hey, October Twenty-eight.”
The voice pulls me from my sleep. I blink in the darkness. I’ve been dreaming of autumn leaves and sweet boys, and I don’t want to go yet. I want to stay in a time when the most complicated thing in my life was sitting too far from the classroom window.
I roll over on the hard concrete, determined to escape back to my dream. But the voice won’t let me. Worse, it’s joined by a pair of hands, shaking my shoulders.
“Hey, October Twenty-eight. Wake up. You’ve got the rest of your life to sleep.”
My eyes open. The walls in my cell are dimmed, and it’s quiet, with none of the grunting, shuffling, and screeching I heard before. It must be nighttime, or at least what FuMA has decided is nighttime. We are like fish in an aquarium, our days and nights subject to the whims of our keeper.
They already control every other part of my life. They don’t have to disrupt the only thing that gives me peace. Sullenly, I turn to the guard who’s preventing me from sleep.
And I bolt upright when I see it’s not just any guard. His russet hair has turned black in the dim light, but his face is the same. William. The guard who administered my memory. “What are you doing here?”
He presses a finger to his lips. “I called in a favor from a friend. They’re going to interrogate me, and we need to get our stories straight. Where’s the black chip?”
“I got rid of it.”
He nods. “Okay. Since there’s no chip, they’re going to grill me about your memory. What should I tell them?”
I rub my eyes, wiping away the last traces of sleep. “I’d like to leave my sister out of it.” I have a very bad feeling I know exactly why Jessa was in that hospital bed. It has nothing to do with her getting sick, and everything to do with her psychic ability. “Let’s give them the exact same scenario, but say it was a man I killed. My future husband. Probably because he was cheating on me.”
William’s brow furrows, as if he’s taking mental notes. “What does this man look like?”
“Brown hair, brown eyes,” I say, making it up on the fly. “Ski-jump nose. A mole on his chin. Crooked teeth he chose not to fix.”
“Crooked teeth, got it.” He glances over his shoulder, through the black bars. The hallway remains empty, but he stands to leave. “I can’t stay. It’s too risky.”
“Wait!” I grab his arm, desperate for human contact. “I don’t get it. Why did you help me in the first place?”
“A moment of weakness.” He gives me a small smile and gently disengages his arm. “I was there, you know. The monitors let me live your memory right along with you. I could tell how much you love your sister, and to have the memory end the way it did… Well, I felt sorry for you.” He pats my shoulder. “I am sorry for you.”
Thank you, I want to say. I feel sorry for me, too. But before my mouth can form the words, he is gone, like a ghost in a dream.
I’m not sure I sleep for the rest of the night, but I jerk awake whe
n my walls flicker on, the equivalent of a FuMA wake-up call.
My stomach growls, and I force down a few spoonfuls of the glop they passed off as my dinner the previous night. It tastes like wet sawdust and makes me want to turn my stomach inside out. Which kinda defeats the purpose of eating.
I empty my bladder into one of the two buckets in the corner. One for urine, one for feces. Lovely. And then I walk in circles around the cell. I want to think about my future memory, but I’m afraid my mind might turn into some weird replay device again. Useful, to be sure. But creepy. Really creepy.
I ponder, instead, the memory that William and I made up. A man with a ski-jump nose. Mole on the chin. Crooked teeth. I’m going to be ready when they come for me. I’ll be able to recite this version of my future memory in my sleep.
There’s only one problem. They never come. I circle my cell 1028 times. I fill in details of my made-up memory, down to the fine black hair curling on my supposed husband’s chest. My stomach begs for another serving of glop. And they still don’t come.
I hook my arms through the black bars and peer into the hallway. My cell faces a concrete wall, and if I crane my neck to the left or right, I can see the pale flesh of a few arms in the same position as mine.
And I can certainly hear the other prisoners. Hooting, hollering, yelling out unfamiliar names.
I’ve been in detainment for over two days. No one has interrogated me, no one has informed me how long my sentence is. For all I know, they’ll keep me here forever, without further explanation.
I don’t feel like waiting any longer.
“I want to talk to Chairwoman Dresden,” I call over the din.
For a moment, dead silence meets my statement. Then the chatter resumes.
“Well, I want to be waited on hand and foot,” one girl yells.
“And I’d like my smart lens so I can watch movies from my cell!”
“I want a hot bath with rose petal water!”