Solstice

by Jane Redd

  Chalice nodded as if she understood, but her face was marked in confusion. “I feel so tired.” She leaned her head against the wall.

  The door seal released, making a swooshing sound. I looked at Chalice. “You have to act like you did before—like you don’t remember me,” I said. Her eyes reflected the same fear I felt. I could only imagine the new emotions swirling around inside her. I’d been dealing with them my entire life—she was feeling them for the first time.

  “Why would I be told to ‘replace’ you? What does that mean?” By the haunted look in her eyes, I realized she’d just remembered what she’d come to my room to do.

  The cold chill returned. “I’m not sure,” I said. If Chalice was sent to shock me, then what was she supposed to do next? Take me somewhere? Would there be someone waiting for me in the corridor?

  “Were there other instructions on the tablet?”

  “I don’t think so. I only remember one message—to come to your room. When I got here, I just knew I was supposed to shock you.”

  “And then I messed it up.” I turned over the rod in my hand. “You’re free now.”

  “Free?”

  “Free from their control, but you’ll have to learn to control yourself now,” I whispered.

  “How do I do that?” Her eyes budded with tears again.

  “Take a deep breath and fight the tears,” I said.

  She followed my direction and the tears stopped, though her eyes were still red. “Why you, Jez? Why does the Legislature want to control me, and why do they want you replaced?”

  Because I’m a Clinical, I wanted to say, but I didn’t want to burden Chalice with too much information right now. I could tell she was in turmoil—fighting against a slew of emotions. “It must have something to do with the time I spent in prison, or the fact that I tried to escape.”

  “You escaped? They didn’t release you?”

  “When they caught me, they told me I’d passed their test, and I was allowed to come here.”

  She looked nervously toward the door. “Do you think they’re waiting in the corridor for us?”

  No one else had tried to come in—to ‘replace’ me, whatever that meant. Yet. Then it hit me. “Maybe this is another test,” I whispered. “Maybe they wanted to see if you’d come in here and shock me. Maybe they wanted to know what I would do.”

  “So now what?” she whispered, her voice full of fear.

  “Wait for the next test.”

  She grimaced, and I knew the feeling. I handed over the agitator. “You should probably keep this.”

  Chalice looked at it with distaste. “I don’t want to touch that thing.”

  “It makes more sense for you to have it,” I said.

  “So if this was just a test—to see if I’d obey, or whatever—what do you think they’ll do if they find out my altering was reversed?” she asked.

  A chill crept through me. “Chalice, you must act as if you’re still altered.”

  “What about the instructions to replace you?”

  I clenched my hands together and breathed out slowly. “It was probably—hopefully—a test, and no one else will pick up where you left off.” A cold sweat broke out on my neck. “I don’t have any choice but to go through my day like usual.”

  Chalice pursed her lips together, her eyes darkening. “How will I know you’re okay?”

  I hesitated, remembering what Rueben had told me about a way to communicate messages through a sequence code. But even if Chalice and I sent messages that way, the chance of us being able to open the messages right away and read them before they became encrypted was very slim. Still, it was better than nothing.

  I grabbed my tablet from the desk. With shaking fingers I clicked on the message icon. I selected my own name to send a message to. “A friend showed me how to send a private message. It will encrypt itself in about ninety seconds.”

  “Show me.” Chalice leaned over the tablet to get a better look.

  I typed in the sequence of numbers that I had committed to memory with Rueben. I hoped it still worked. He had said that the sequence was updated frequently, so I’d have to change the order of the last numbers, hoping one of them would go through. I transposed the last four digits and sent the message.

  Immediately, an alert bounced back. Message undeliverable.

  I changed the order of the last four numbers again. Message undeliverable.

  On the third time it went through.

  Chalice and I stared as the message to myself popped up on the tablet. Ninety seconds later the words This is a Test were replaced by strange circular symbols.

  “Incredible,” Chalice breathed. “Who taught you this?”

  “A friend from prison.” I met her curious gaze, and I couldn’t help but add, “He’s originally from a Lake Town.”

  Her eyes widened. “I thought the Lake Town people were illiterate.”

  “Not even close.” I shut my mouth, afraid I’d said too much.

  Chalice seemed to sense that I was done talking about it. “Tell me the numbers again so I can memorize them.”

  I repeated the most recent sequence that I’d entered. “I don’t know how long it will be active.”

  Sounds from the corridor filtered through the door. Other girls were moving through the hallways, on their way to the cafeteria. “You should leave before the hallways get too crowded.”

  Chalice shook her head. “I’ll wait here until everyone is gone. You go first.”

  “All right,” I said. “Remember to act like you’re still altered . . . You don’t know me, and you don’t talk to anyone.”

  She nodded, her eyes moist.

  “Keep the emotion hidden,” I said.

  “I’m trying to,” she said, but I heard the shakiness in her voice. Suddenly, she leaned forward and embraced me tightly. I hugged her back. For a brief second, we were the same.

  Twenty-eight

  My pulse raced as I stepped out of my room, leaving Chalice behind. We couldn’t be seen together. Especially after her failed mission that might not be a failed mission at all, but a test. I was worried about how well she would fare battling her new emotions.

  But I was even more afraid of what the next test might be—would it involve Chalice again? Sol? Someone else I knew?

  In the corridor, noise buzzed around me. I couldn’t help but stare at people as I passed them, wondering if they, too, had been altered. Or perhaps they were Clinicals like me and had just done a better job of suppressing their emotions than I had.

  I skipped the cafeteria, wanting to get to class early and be the first one in a quiet room, giving myself time to think. Once in class, I checked the incoming message I’d sent to myself. It had disappeared. Not only had it encrypted, but it had destroyed itself. I breathed easier.

  I clicked on the news icon and scrolled through the names that were listed as criminals. Rueben’s name was still there. A message from Chalice appeared on my screen. I opened it quickly in case it was coded: Don’t speak to Sol.

  I quickly replied: Why? But it took extra time to type in the numbered code, and a couple of students came into the room while I was typing. I kept my head bent forward, staring at the tablet and trying to shield it from view at the same time.

  Message sent. I kept the message application on for a few more minutes, but there was no reply.

  Why couldn’t I speak to Sol? What had Chalice found out? Was this another test?

  Worry gnawed at my stomach. I had already told him a lot—about Chalice’s altering, the testing in the laboratories, and about being Clinical. Had he been altered like Chalice? I had forgotten to ask Chalice what they had talked about.

  The geology professor began the lesson, saying, “We’ll be discussing population today and the impact it has on our city.”

  I was at full attention. I wondered if he’d mention anything about the Lake Town populations.

  “We presently have just under two million people in our city,” the pro
fessor said. “We’re also the largest city on the earth.”

  I ached to ask about the population of the surrounding Lake Towns, but I didn’t want to betray my keen interest in the outside communities.

  “Let’s look up the history of populations on your tablets,” he said.

  I eagerly scrolled through the menu until I found the population chart. It started with the year 2089 and went to the present, 2099. The population had decreased by about three hundred thousand in the past ten years.

  Two million still sounded like a substantial number, but I had never considered how many people that was—a seemingly large amount—yet to think our city might be the last major civilization to exist, the population was frighteningly small. Rueben had been right. Our population was dwindling.

  I wondered how many people were out in the Lake Towns—surely many times more than here in the city. Hopefully many times more.

  The professor talked us through each year. Then he paused. “The question came in: Why does the population decrease if there are new births each year?”

  I thought of all those who were Taken before their life cycles naturally expired. It was an easy answer, but not the one the professor gave. “Disease is the primary reason for the dwindling population.”

  I typed in a question as well. The only diseases I’d heard of were easily cured with a day or two in the hospice.

  It was clear when my question popped up, as the professor suddenly looked nervous. “Another question came in: Can diseases stop a life cycle?” He looked up, taking his time to answer. “Yes. There are diseases that exist in the C Level population which can cut life cycles short. Some children born into B Level have these diseases as well, regardless of the precautions taken during in vitro.”

  The words sunk in, and I tried to imagine a child succumbing to a disease. All around me, the students were completely silent. This was new information for all of us. Possibly hundreds or thousands of people, slowly dying of diseases. I typed in another question, as several others did the same on their tablets.

  I wrote: “What happens to the children?”

  The professor said nothing. The silence among the students grew heavier as he read through our questions. Finally, he said, “The question is: Are these diseases curable? They are most of the time, at least in adults. It depends on how well the person has taken care of himself. I cannot say more. That is information regulated to the government’s medical councils.”

  I had a new topic to research. What were these diseases and how was the government stopping them? And what happened to the babies born with them?

  As the professor continued to talk, I marveled that children were still born diseased. B Level women were carefully screened before they were allowed to have a child. In A Level class, we’d been taught that only the most promising eggs were fertilized and placed in the woman’s womb. All of the children I’d grown up with only suffered very minor illnesses. Was that because the ones who were less healthy had been relocated? What would they do with seriously ill children? Maybe there were hospice centers for them, although I’d never heard of any.

  I had trouble concentrating the rest of the period.

  After class, I hurried from the room. The men’s classrooms were in the next building, with the general auditorium connecting the two. I hoped to catch a glimpse of Sol coming out of the men’s building. Maybe from a distance I could tell if there was something different about him—something that might explain Chalice’s confusing message.

  I moved through the hallway, dodging students as it filled rapidly. Had class let out early? It seemed everyone was outside of class, and they were all headed in one direction. I saw a couple of girls glancing at their tablets, then hurrying on. I stopped as people moved around me like a parting river. Finally I pulled out my tablet, too. A message flashed on the screen: Alert. All students to the auditorium.

  My heart sank.

  I hurried along with the rest, arriving in the auditorium in time to secure a seat in one of the back rows of the girls’ section. Everyone was silent, except for some shuffling, as they stared at the front of the stage.

  Three students stood there, heads lowered, their hands bound in front of them with something similar to the ankle cuff I wore on the journey to prison. I glanced around to look for Chalice. She sat several rows in front of me. Sol was nowhere to be seen in the boys’ section.

  The walls were lined with dozens of officials, as well as professors, their eyes hard on the students. The auditorium doors shut, followed by the unmistakable sound of them sealing into locked position—a sound I knew all too well. The tension in the room seemed to double.

  I looked over at Chalice, but she stared straight ahead like everyone else around her.

  A man wearing a white blazer stood up in the front of the room and climbed the steps to the stage. An Examiner. I hadn’t seen him when I came in. If possible, the auditorium grew even quieter.

  “Students.” The Examiner’s voice was amplified, his voice booming even in the very back rows. “We have an unfortunate situation at the University this week. These students were caught performing a religious rite.”

  A few murmurs sounded about the room, but then everyone fell back into silence.

  One of the boys on the stage shuffled his feet. What was going through the heads of the exposed students? Their Harmony implants must not have been functioning correctly, or they never would have become involved in a religious rituals—it could earn them Demotion.

  “We’ve brought them before you so they can name their coconspirators,” the Examiner continued. “We believe there are more than just these three who are part of the cult.”

  My head snapped up as everyone started looking around at each other.

  The Examiner continued. “We will not leave until every last person is identified.” His voice grew louder. “We cannot afford to disobey the rules the Legislature has so carefully selected. We are one society with one voice. When we break off and form any sort of group, religious or otherwise, we begin to separate in unity and purpose, and such separation will be our downfall as a society.”

  I huddled in my seat, feeling sick for the guilty, wherever they were in the audience. Did they feel sick, too? Would it break them down into admitting the truth?

  “We are truly disappointed as a University,” the Examiner said. “Coming here and studying to be a part of the O Level society is a privilege only extended to the brightest of graduates. A breech of this magnitude is serious, and those on this stage will be Demoted. No one will leave until every member of the cult is brought forward. If we discover someone has not come forward, the consequences will be severe.”

  Now I knew why the doors had locked behind us. I looked down at my tablet. It was blank. It seemed our communication had been cut off as well. Everyone sat in silence.

  The normally cool room grew warmer. I felt prickles of sweat beading at my forehead, and I wasn’t even part of the cult. Minutes passed. No one moved, no one spoke. I discreetly wiped my hairline.

  All eyes were on the Examiner as he stepped forward and pointed an agitator rod toward one of the students on the stage. The boy’s eyes visibly widened as he followed the Examiner’s movement. But before the boy gave any other reaction, the Examiner shocked him. The boy crumpled to his knees with a cry. His hands shot out in front of him but did a poor job of stopping his fall since they were cuffed together.

  Everyone in the auditorium flinched, then seemed to collectively shrink.

  Another step, and the Examiner faced the next student.

  The boy stepped back, defenseless. I looked away as he screamed and fell to the stage.

  The Examiner’s voice boomed out, “Does anyone want to step forward now, or do you enjoy watching your fellow cult members suffer?”

  In the boys’ section, a young man stood up, his reddish hair cut so short that I could see his pink scalp. “I’m a member,” he said in a low voice that I could barely hear from my seat.
r />   The closest official immediately grabbed him and marched him to the stage. He took his place with the others after having his wrists clamped together. He was visibly trembling.

  The Examiner raised his agitator. “Anyone else ready to come forward? Last chance to choose Demotion.”

  No one moved. No one made a sound.

  Then someone to my left stood, a few rows up.

  No. I almost said out loud.

  It was as if time had stopped moving as I watched Chalice’s thin frame grabbed by the thick hands of an official. What was she doing? I thought about the ring she insisted on wearing. Could she really be part of this cult?

  My body felt cold and stiff, despite the warmth of the room, as I watched Chalice walk to the stage. I didn’t understand.

  Neither, apparently, did the other students on the stage. They looked at her with confusion and surprise evident in their faces. Of course Chalice wasn’t a part of their cult—how could she be? She had been altered until just this morning.

  “Very good,” the Examiner was saying, a triumphant look on his face. He back turned to face the audience.

  “This is my final request.” His wide eyes scanned the auditorium, seeming to pierce through each person individually and collectively at the same time. And then, for a split second, so briefly that I wondered if I had imagined it, he looked directly at me. And I knew, even from that distance, that he was the same Examiner who’d handed me the satchel with Rose’s book.

  The officials surrounded the students on the stage and escorted them through a concealed door. The two on the ground were carried off. I continued to stare at the Examiner, though he no longer looked in my direction. I gripped my hands on the arm rests, stopping myself from jumping up and calling out to Chalice.

  There was a faint whooshing sound, and I realized that the auditorium doors had been unlocked and opened. We hadn’t been excused yet, but at least we weren’t locked in anymore and the warmth in the room started to dissipate.

  My tablet buzzed to life. I looked down and saw a message had come in from Chalice. I clicked on it and was able to read it just as the encryption changed the letters. The first word was already a line of symbols, but the next three words were: