Extraction

by Stephanie Diaz

“If you refuse to do this,” Commander Charlie says, “then it is possible we were mistaken about your Promise. Maybe you are intelligent or physically strong, but if you cannot understand that this is the safe and right thing to do, it’s possible you are one of them. It’s possible you are Unstable, and therefore a threat to our society.” He sighs and rubs his temple. “Regrettably, in the case of your refusal, we will not be able to send you home. An … alternative method of departure will have to be used. I truly hope you will make the right decision.”

  No one says a word. No one moves an inch.

  My heart beats fast—fast—faster.

  He’s going to kill us. I thought he’d send us back to our old sectors. Then I wouldn’t be alone anymore. I’d die at twenty, but at least I’d have a couple more years with Logan.

  Now I wouldn’t have any more years. I would become nothing, because that’s what death is. We don’t go somewhere better when we die; we go nowhere. We become nothing.

  I ball my hands into fists. I have to do what he wants. I can’t die tonight.

  Beside me, tears sparkle in Ariadne’s eyes. “It’s not fair,” she whispers.

  I almost ask her what she really expected. Our whole lives have been unfair.

  “Let’s form a single-file line,” Cadet Waller says, directing us to move with the help of the other instructors and the officials.

  I don’t want to move, but shoulders bump mine and jostle me, separating me from Ariadne. I don’t want to kill, not now, not ever. But I have to do this or I’ll die.

  So will Logan. I won’t be able to save him.

  Someone presses a gun into my palm. An instructor, I think. She’s a young woman with short black hair and a metal stud in her nose. “Don’t be scared, sweetie,” she says, and smiles.

  I swallow, staring at the weapon in my hand. The barrel is thin and dark.

  I’ll pretend it’s fake. I’ll pretend this is a dream.

  A boy from another sector knocks his shoulder into mine as he gets behind me in line. “Sorry,” he says quickly, and gulps. His clean, pale palms are different from the callused fingers of Surface kids.

  “Are you nervous?” I ask.

  “Aren’t you?”

  I press my lips together. Give him the slightest nod of my head.

  I’m terrified of the guilt, of the ache in my gut, and the shaky hands. Of not being able to breathe because I will have killed someone. I’ll have killed a person.

  “But … we don’t have a choice.” My voice cracks a little. “We have to do it, even if we’re scared. We have to save ourselves.”

  The boy looks at his gun and doesn’t say anything.

  The door at the back of the glass box opens, and pain stabs at my chest. Two officials with green light beaming from their helmet visors lead in the first Unstable.

  This one is a man, probably middle-aged. Cloth covers his eyes and nose and part of his mouth, but he’s bitten through most of it.

  Bruises and mud cover his bony legs. His torn clothes reveal places I don’t wish to see on anyone. And there is blood: on his fingernails; on his raw, bare feet; and trickling from cuts on his wrists and calves.

  Bile threatens to fill my mouth. I swallow again and again to make it go down.

  His wrists are already clasped in chains. One of the officials attaches the shackles to a small brass ring in the roof of the compartment, chaining him to the ceiling so he can’t move much at all. But he’s still trying.

  The square of red glass on the front of the box slides to the left, leaving an opening for a gun. I can hear him sobbing.

  “Whoever would like to go first may begin,” Commander Charlie says. “Impress me.”

  Please don’t make me do this.

  The girl at the front of the line waits several moments, then steps aside to let someone take her place.

  A boy takes a hesitant step closer to the glass box, lifting his gun to shoot. But his hand shakes. He’s too afraid.

  I wonder if I should go first. I wonder if I should shove my way to the front, aim, and fire, so I’ll be remembered. So I’ll prove my obedience in front of everyone and in front of Commander Charlie.

  But my feet won’t budge.

  My hands won’t move.

  My heart won’t stop fluttering.

  Crack.

  Red splatters all over the glass. My eyes widen.

  The shot didn’t come from one of the Extractions at the front of the line. It came from a boy standing well off to the side, a solid fifty feet away from the small hole in the glass. Yet he made a perfect shot.

  The Unstable inside the box is limp as a wet rag now, hanging from the ceiling by his shackles.

  The shooter turns and grins at us, a sly, cocky grin. He’s wearing a tight gray suit, a belt with gun holsters, green gloves, and knee-high black boots. His blond hair sticks up a little. His gun still smokes.

  “See? That’s how you do it,” he says.

  He must be an official-in-training. That’s the only way he could shoot like that, kill like that, and still smile like that.

  “Thank you, Sam, for that lovely demonstration,” Commander Charlie says on the wall screen, his eyes full of approval. “Extractions, it’s your turn. Prove you are Promising.”

  Cadet Waller and the other instructors move to the front of the line, and direct the kids to begin. They have to wait for an official to bring in a new Unstable first, though. They have to wait for the dead one to be taken away.

  I tighten my hold on my gun. I don’t want to shoot, but I have to. It’s my life or the life of an Unstable.

  They’re dangerous, anyway. It’s like Commander Charlie said: It isn’t safe for them to be allowed to live.

  One by one, each Extraction in line steps forward, pulls the trigger, and flinches at the gunshot. The glass box turns into a river of red and black chunks. Officials drag bodies away and return with fresh, living ones. The Unstables slip on the bloody floor as they’re chained to the brass ring in the ceiling.

  People are talking, laughing, cheering in the viewing pods. The sound makes me sick to my stomach.

  Ariadne fires. Her arm shakes so badly she nearly drops her weapon. But her fire blasts a man’s head to bits. She’s led away by an instructor to one of the nearest pods, where all the Extractions are going once they’ve finished.

  The girl in front of me walks away, and it’s my turn.

  “As soon as your Unstable is inside, you can go ahead,” Cadet Waller says to me. Her smile isn’t as warm as I’d like it to be; it’s full of expectancy.

  I hold my breath as two officials bring in a new Unstable. A woman. I stare at the brass ring where her chains will go, afraid to look at her face too closely.

  Behind me, the boy with the glasses is breathing loud. Heavy. I risk a glance at him. His face is white as a cotton sheet.

  “What’s your name?” I ask, to distract myself.

  He takes a hoarse breath. “Oliver.”

  “Clementine, your Unstable is ready,” Cadet Waller says.

  I take a shaky breath. “Don’t think, Oliver.”

  I take a step forward. Then another, until I’m only three feet away from the hole in the glass.

  Gritting my teeth, I raise my weapon. Now I can’t help but stare at the face of my Unstable. She’s bitten off so much of the cloth, I can see one of her eyes. It’s the color of the sky, and tears trickle from its corner. She struggles to get her hands out of the shackles, but they’re too strong for her.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t do this if I’m looking at her, if she seems real and not dangerous at all.

  I have to do this. I’ve come all this way.

  I open one eye, only enough to check that my gun is still aimed at her face through the hole. When I shut it again, I block out her sky blue eye from my mind and focus on the crowd’s voices echoing in my ears. My heart’s beating a thousand times a minute, and my hands are sweaty, but I have to shoot. It’s the only way I’ll be allowed to
stay here, and that’s the only way I might be able to save Logan. I have to save him. I have to.

  My finger almost slips when I pull the trigger. But not quite.

  The shot rings in my ears. The recoil makes me stagger back two steps, breathing fast.

  My Unstable screams. I force myself to look at her.

  Blood trickles from her side, so the bullet must have grazed her. But she isn’t dead. She’s slipping out of her shackles somehow. My limbs freeze up.

  One of the officials who brought her moves to stop her, but he’s not fast enough. She breaks free all the way and half-stumbles, half-lunges for his neck.

  Mutters and shouts peal through the crowd. I can’t say a word. I can’t do anything.

  A second shot rings out. Her body slumps to the floor behind the glass. The official tucks his gun back into its holster, looking disgusted.

  The crowd all around me is silent. On the balcony, Commander Charlie purses his lips.

  I didn’t kill her. Someone else did.

  He’s going to kill me.

  “What a shame,” Charlie says. “Your fellow Extractions played a key role in the protection of our society, while you failed.”

  He’s going to kill me.

  I’m shaking so badly, I don’t think it’s ever going to stop. This can’t be it. This can’t be over.

  Please.

  You have to let me stay.

  “Still, your efforts will be rewarded.” He gives me an odd smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “You were willing to shoot her, at least.”

  The crowd goes wild. Relief stills some of my trembling, but not all of it.

  “Come on,” a voice says. The young woman with the metal stud in her nose slips a hand around my wrist to guide me to the stands.

  My legs feel like rubber when I walk, and every breath trips on its way out. I’m safe. I didn’t kill her.

  But I still feel sick. I almost did.

  10

  I shoot Logan in my dream.

  It’s the day he turns twenty, and I’m one of the officials who has come to take him away.

  He’s already awake when we break down the door. He’s already crying.

  “Please go away,” he says.

  A small voice in the back of my mind says that I should leave, I should let him go.

  But I have my orders. I help the other official haul him out the door.

  “Clem, what’s wrong with you?” Logan says, his voice choking as it grows louder. “You promised!”

  You promised.

  You promised.

  “Shoot him,” a voice says in my ear.

  I pull out a gun and I shoot him. Logan falls limp in a puddle of his blood in the dirt.

  *

  I wake to a burning feeling in my throat. I’m breathing fast, and there’s wetness on my cheeks. My shaky hands fly to wipe the moisture away.

  It was just a dream, I assure myself. I wouldn’t shoot him.

  But why would I dream something like that? I wrap my arms around my stomach, squeezing my eyes shut.

  I’m glad there’s no one here to see me crying. Ariadne slept in the other bed in the room—we were assigned to be roommates last night after the welcome ceremony—but that bed is empty now. Its blankets are in a heap, trailing on the thick carpet.

  My own, oval-shaped bed has a foam mattress that molds to my body. The room has a domed shape to its ceiling. My nightdress is made of soft cotton fabric and my blankets are warm, but a shiver runs across my skin. There’s an unnatural silence, except for the low hum of the blue ceiling lamps. There are no screams outside, no cam-bots buzzing, no pounding footsteps. Usually, I wake beside Logan with his breath on my face and his arms holding me against his chest.

  Nausea constricts my stomach. Only yesterday, I was with him. His fingers lingered on my cheek and his muscles softened against mine. He told me not to forget him.

  He had other words he wanted to say, words that might’ve meant everything. There’s a chance I’ll never be able to say them back. He might not last much longer; he might give up before I can go back for him. And I’ll be left with too much regret to bear.

  A clattering noise comes from the bathroom, startling me. Ariadne peeks her head around the corner. “Sorry,” she mumbles.

  “It’s fine.” I sit up, rubbing my eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Eight o’ clock.”

  It’s funny how I feel tired, since I usually get up for school before the sun is even out. But then, it took me a lot longer than usual to fall asleep. It was hard to forget those gunshots.

  Ariadne ties her hair into a ponytail. Her eyes meet mine, then lower. “We have new clothes.”

  “What?”

  She points to a black slot in the wall near the foot of my bed. I push the covers back, get to my feet, and move to the slot, curious. My finger barely touches the red button beside the wall slot and it whirs open, revealing a pair of shiny black boots, fresh socks, and a folded outfit: a pair of skintight gray pants and a matching shirt. Ariadne’s wearing a matching outfit.

  Last night I folded my old dress and left it on the floor, on top of Laila’s boots. Did someone come in and take them away during the night? The thought makes me tense, because I should’ve heard them if they did. I shouldn’t be letting my guard down.

  I wish they’d given Laila’s boots back. They were old and tattered and smelled of mildew, but they were still hers. They were the only thing she left behind.

  “I expected something nicer,” Ariadne says, picking at the thin fabric of her shirt.

  After last night, I have no idea what to expect.

  I slip the slacks on under my nightdress. “Do you know where they want us?”

  “Nourishment Division for breakfast.” She points at a small blue screen on the wall over by the door, which Cadet Waller said will relay important messages about our daily schedule.

  “Does it say what comes after that?”

  Ariadne shakes her head.

  I slip socks onto my feet. Cadet Waller said last night that the worst is over, that Commander Charlie wanted to be certain of our obedience to him, of what we were willing to do to stay alive. He wouldn’t want to waste resources on Extractions who care more about the lives of dangerous Unstables than their own.

  She said we don’t need to be afraid anymore.

  Ariadne meets my gaze and then pulls away from it. “Are you ready?” She bites hard on her lip.

  “Almost.” I pull on my new black boots and tie them.

  I wonder what they did with Laila’s shoes. I wonder if they were given to a new owner, or recycled, or thrown away, like the Developers threw away Laila.

  *

  Rows and rows of glass tables fill the Nourishment Division cafeteria. The room has a rounded shape and a domed ceiling like most of the rooms I’ve seen so far in the Core. Extractions dressed in gray sit on the right side and Core citizens sit in clumps of color on the left. Many people are still up and about, balancing breakfast trays and placing orders through an array of buttons and touch screens on silver panels on the walls.

  An instructor guides Ariadne and me through the steps of picking our meals. There are main dishes and side dishes, drinks and desserts. I don’t know what a lot of the words mean until the instructor explains them to me. Hodgori is a baked custard made with caramelized brown sugar and shir grain. Bansa is a stew. A raerburger is a coura patty topped with spicy beans and cheesy sauce, served between two wheat patties.

  I’ve never had a choice of food before, and it’s daunting.

  We find open spots at an Extraction table. It might just be my imagination, but some of the Core kids at the table next to ours look like they’re pointing and whispering at us. Maybe even laughing.

  Memories come rushing back to me: boys knocking me down in the streets; kids throwing mud at my face; people making fun of me and bullying me because I was short and better than them in school.

  I hoped I’d escape that here. I hope I�
��m imagining this.

  I duck my head and slip onto the bench, setting my tray in front of me. I picked slivers of hoava root and woreken sausage in a thick, sugary sauce. I’ve never tasted woreken before, though I fed the snorting, fat creatures many times on the Surface.

  I take a bite of the sausage. Sweet and tangy juices fill my mouth. The meat is delicious, but so different from the tough muckrat I’m used to eating that I have trouble swallowing it.

  Across from me sits Oliver, the boy with the glasses. His eyes are on his plate. He has a strip of butter-soaked coura meat halfway to his mouth when he lifts his head and notices me. “Oh, hello—Clementine, is it? You look different without the … gun.”

  I smile. “So do you. Less shaky.”

  A light shade of red rises in his cheeks.

  I introduce him to Ariadne, who gives him a shy smile. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says. “Where are you from?”

  “Crust,” Oliver says.

  I think back to what I saw of Crust through the window on our way here: the dusty, rocky caves. The coal mines.

  Oliver nods, and his glasses slide forward. He pushes them back up the bridge of his nose.

  Ariadne’s eyes meet mine for half a second. I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing as I am. On the Surface, those with poor vision rarely make it past age five or six. Their lack of vision usually makes them ineligible for high Promise, and since they can’t see well enough to be much use in the fields, they’re usually replaced early.

  I wonder how Oliver survived, let alone got picked for Extraction. His intelligence, maybe. I study his face, wondering how fast he can solve a chemical equation or divide 201,388 by 23.

  “This food is good,” Ariadne mumbles, more to herself than anyone. “It doesn’t taste like rocks or paper or dust.”

  “Shh.” Oliver cuts her off, his eyes widening like he’s trying to point something out.

  The cafeteria has fallen silent.

  Commander Charlie stands inside the entrance doors, two officials flanking him. His eyes sweep the tables, and a smile plays around the edges of his mouth. It seems almost possessive. “Don’t mind me,” he says.

  The chattering slowly picks up again, but remains quiet.

  He inspects us from the entrance doors for a moment, and then turns and walks away. Only after he’s gone do I realize I wasn’t breathing.