The Sentient
Page 13
With a subtle shift of his arm, his NASH badge glinted behind his jacket. Amira hesitated, but watching Rozene cower under beatings and threats from men all day renewed her defiance. She cowered under similar threats once, but never here. Never in Westport.
“We both need each other,” she said, grabbing his jacket lapel and pulling it over the badge. Hadrian stepped back, surprised. “I can cause as much trouble for you as you can for me. But I like us better as friends. Let’s keep it that way. I want to know about Tony Barlow. Help me out and I’ll do the same.”
Hadrian gave her a mock salute as she exited the ship. She continued without acknowledging the gesture, face flushed in triumph. A small victory, for herself and Rozene, in which she refused to break or bend under another’s terms.
* * *
Energized by the success of the reading sessions, Amira continued the Oniria treatment. After several days of exploring childhood memories, the time had come to revisit the shed.
Soon, they were back within its cracked wooden walls, only this time it was the heat of the sun, not water, that fought to break through.
“Let me out,” Rozene howled, banging her small fists against the door. “Please, I’ll burn alive in here!”
“Rozene,” Amira said, addressing the actual, comparatively sedate Rozene beside her, shoulders slumped to one side like a broken lever. The subject’s eyes squeezed shut and a single bead of sweat ran down her forehead. “Breathe deeply and don’t panic. Look around the shed. There’s a shovel to your right.”
“Yes, there is,” she said lightly, as the dream version of herself stopped pounding on the door and began moving her hands wildly over the ground.
“It’s propped against the wall,” Amira said calmly. “Maybe you can use it to break the door open.”
Rozene grabbed the handle of the shovel and Amira heard the agonizingly familiar hiss of skin burning. Shrieking, the holographic Rozene dropped the shovel while the catatonic, real version rubbed her hands together in agitation.
“There’s no way out,” the two Rozenes cried in unison.
“There is. There’s always a way out.”
Amira switched off the holomentic machine, the disc slowing its spin while Amira disentangled Rozene from the apparatus. Rozene smiled and closed her eyes, a gesture of relief, but she shook out her fingers as though cooling them from a burn.
Rozene recovered after a lunch of cactus salad, even snorting with laughter when Amira joked that every compound must have the exact same shed, designed by Elder Cartwright himself, to support his war against teenage girls. After trading stories of milder transgressions that sent them to the shed, they resumed the reading.
“Do you know why you’re here, girl?” a man asked Rozene.
Rozene sat in a small office surrounded by men in matching black robes. Her parents stood anxiously to one side. Trinity posters and slogans adorned nearly every inch of the sand-colored walls. The same words and phrases, arranged in different ways. A faint but fiery voice came from a radio on the windowsill, delivering a sermon in crackling fits.
Rozene gave no indication that she heard the question. A large horsefly buzzed overhead and she followed its path toward the window, watching it rap against the glass.
“Rozene, speak when the Elder addresses you,” her mother snapped.
“The last time you found yourself here,” the Elder continued, “your mother caught you at Elder Ron Ballard’s guest house, with his daughter Marlee and other delinquents, watching pornographic filth from the cities.”
“It was just a movie,” Rozene said quietly. “It was a comedy about a fashion designer we found on the Stream.”
On the hologram, additional memories interrupted the scene in the office – a group of girls gathered their skirts across a dried-up creek; the same group circled around a television, engrossed in snapshots of the world outside the Trinity, where women wore bright colors and long, free hair that snapped with the wind. A halo of light framed a single girl in each memory, the same girl. Marlee, the daughter of an Elder’s second wife, smiled shyly at Rozene, her round face framed by thick, curly charcoal hair that bounced with each step she took.
“Don’t try to make excuses,” the Elder said, his voice rising with a snarl. “Anything from the cities is filth and poison. Their music, their movies, their so-called ‘free press’ – all of it created to promote selfishness. It is through the collective, not the individual, that we bring new souls into this world and learn the mysteries of the Conscious Plane. The cities, and every last sinful soul inside them, are destined for the Neverhaven, and you are evidently ready to burn with them.”
Muted sobs arose from a neighboring room. Rozene turned away from the window and stared in the direction of the cries.
“I’ve tried everything, Elder,” Rozene’s mother said, thumping her chest with theatrical fervor. “You see how she is. We take Chimyra every day and never miss Unveilings, and yet we’re afflicted with these daughters. They know what awaits them but don’t seem to care! After her sister’s disgrace, I’m doing all I can to keep her away from boys and men alike. I follow her to school. We keep her bedroom door open at all times and her window locked with three bolts. We drill the fear of the shadeless world into her bones. And what do we get in return? Crimes against nature under my own roof!”
“Your husband’s roof,” the Elder said coldly. “Do not forget your place, Mrs. Hull. You have indeed failed with yet another daughter. Barely out of girlhood and already steeped in perversion.”
The hologram shifted to another scene, of Marlee sitting on the edge of Rozene’s bed, the book of Elder Cartwright’s sayings in her lap. Her fingers danced over the pages, as though she were playing an invisible instrument, while Rozene read a passage from her own copy in a monotone. Their knees touched on the bed, each stealing glances while the other read. Both girls sat upright and rigid as footsteps rose from the creaking stairs just outside the open door. Rozene’s eldest brother passed, casting a leering glance at Marlee before heading downstairs, magnetic-rifle in hand. Summoned to pursue another escape attempt, the third this month.
At the sound of the front door closing, the book slid from Marlee’s fingers to the floor. The girls fumbled together on the far corner of the bed, tugging at buttons and sliding hands underneath thick blouses and skirts. Their lips met, carefully at first, but with growing hunger as Rozene lay back against the headboard, pulling Marlee closer. Marlee snatched her veil off, sending thick ringlets of hair springing in every direction.
A shriek came from the far end of the room. The girls separated in a split second, untangling and darting to opposite sides of the bed. Rozene raised her head, struggling with her loose veil, to find her mother at the room’s open door, horror and rage etched into her thin face.
In the office, the Elder held a folded whip at his side, considering Rozene carefully. A large bottle of Chimyra bulged from the pocket of his robes, no doubt to enhance the effect of whatever punishment awaited. Another cry, louder and pleading, came through the wall.
“This is a crime for which an Unveiling alone cannot atone,” the Elder said. “But before we begin, you may beg for forgiveness.”
Rozene suddenly looked directly at the main Elder with the whip, her eyes alight with fury.
“You think you know the universe’s plan for me,” she said. “Well, I only answer to the Plane that binds the worlds, not some angry, dirty old middleman. Half of the community is sick because the Feds cut the medicine rations and all you care about are what teenage girls get up to.”
Her mother gasped, in time with Amira. Rozene sat back in her chair, her chest rising and falling underneath her heavy dress. Her eyes danced with rage and excitement, relishing the reaction she inspired. Two men advanced, each one grabbing an arm. The main Elder stared incredulously back at her, the thin wisps of his beard trembling with fury.
“Do not concern yourself with men’s affairs,” the Elder growled. “We will deal with the sick. Your concern is to learn obedience, to be a wife and mother, to bring children into this world in place of those that ascend to the Nearhaven. Three days in the shed should help you think about your priorities. No, don’t take her yet! The lesson isn’t over.”
The men holding Rozene’s arms bent her over the desk. Her father turned away, but her mother nodded approvingly at the main Elder. As the first blow fell across her back, Rozene gritted her teeth but didn’t scream. The blows continued and the scene in the office faded into the background, replaced by the comfort of Marlee’s smiling face, lips slightly parted. The Elder pried Rozene’s mouth open, spilling Chimyra down her throat. Marlee’s face began to blur and distort, changing into a man’s. Rozene howled in rage.
“Stop!” Rozene cried angrily as Amira removed her goggles. “That’s private.” Her face reddened to match her hair before she turned away with damp eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Amira said gently. “We can stop for today. I’m afraid nothing is really private anymore, Rozene. Not in here, anyway. We’ll try not to linger on those memories unless we need to. And try not to be ashamed.”
Rozene scowled and turned away, looking out the window.
“Look, I understand,” Amira said. “I lived on a compound too, and went through the same thing you did. We all did.”
And it was true. She did not have an equivalent of Marlee, but she remembered those late afternoons in her bedroom, when she would twist her bedroom pillow and place it between her legs, rocking back and forth against it with her eyes trained on the lock on her door. Her parents caught her more than once and doused her with cold water as punishment while she crouched naked behind the shed. When her nipples tightened and swelled from the cold, she was doused again and beaten until her back was numb.
Rozene avoided eye contact with Amira for several days after the reading, speaking as little as possible. Amira avoided the topic of Marlee, until she could no longer ignore the aftermath of the Elder’s discovery.
“How did your parents respond after the day in the Elders’ offices?” Amira asked.
Rozene sighed, but leaned back in her chair, surrendering to the Oniria’s effect.
“They kept us far away from each other, but you know that already,” Rozene said. “They also decided to find me a husband. An important one.”
At these last words, Rozene flinched, jerking her head to one side. The memory. Amira turned the reader’s dials, following the reaction. The hologram obeyed, unveiling a wide panorama of the Trinity. Amira directed the holographic platform to the open floor in the ward’s center, expanding it to fill most of the room.
The Hulls’ home stood at the far end of the Trinity Compound, under the shade of the foothills that ran along its eastern border. Rozene walked each day across the compound to collect water at the wells, an exhausting task in the hot summer months. She dragged a metal case of water in each hand, sweating through her shapeless floral dress. Hover-carriers existed to carry water, but Elders encouraged manual labor in place of Unveilings when appropriate. Her skin was beginning to brown under the blistering sun and her river of smooth long hair clung to her back in rivulets of deep red – Rozene always removed her scarf the minute she evaded her mother’s watchful eye.
The ground rumbled at the approach of an all-terrain vehicle, its engine growling in protest as it hovered inches above the parched earth. The marshals frequently patrolled the eastern edge of the compound, the only side protected by mountains rather than walls and barbed wire.
Rozene kept her brisk pace as the hovercraft approached, her eyes carefully trained on the ground in front of her. The engine softened to a low, deep vibrato as it slowed to a halt, the vehicle still suspended in the air. She looked up, squinting through the sun’s glare, at a group of men towering above her atop the hovercraft. At the center was a very tall man in a long, tan coat. She tried to shield her eyes from the sun to get a better look at him, but his face was obscured by the shadow of his wide hat. As Rozene tried to look even closer, her pulse rose dramatically on the monitor and everything in the hologram, sky and earth alike, turned a dusty red.
“Rozene,” Amira said sharply. “Who is that man?” Amira walked to the center of the hologram and moved her hands apart to expand the image of the patrol. As she suspected, his face was not merely shaded but blurred beyond recognition. Another tampered memory.
Rozene shook her head in agitation. She twitched in her chair, arching her back to accommodate her heavily pregnant frame.
“I can’t see,” she said. “I…I don’t know.”
“Open your eyes.”
Rozene’s heavy lids opened groggily, blinking as though she were waking from a long, deep sleep. Her eyes widened as she noticed the scene in the ward’s center. A surreal experience, Amira knew, to have your mind’s eye presented to you in such clear detail, like a still reel from a movie seen too many times.
“Let’s keep going,” Amira said. “You were carrying water when the patrol stopped next to you. What happened next?”
Rozene frowned and exhaled slowly. “I remember they were interested in me, but I didn’t know why at the time.”
She closed her eyes.
The frozen figures came back to life. The man, his face still obscured, turned to another man next to him and nodded. This second man, shorter with a long beard, asked Rozene for her name. She replied cautiously, and the vehicle sped away.
“That was it?” Amira asked. “There was nothing more?”
“I…don’t think so.”
“There’s something significant about this memory, Rozene. Try to think about it. Who is that man in the all-terrain? There’s something about him that’s important, that maybe even ties in to why you left the Trinity.”
Rozene ran her hands through her hair as she contemplated the scene, her fingers brushing against the sensory pads attached to her head.
“Our Elders wore coats like that,” she said. “So he is – or was – important in the compound. The Elders are mostly older men, although sometimes a younger one will move up quickly. The rest are marshals like my brothers. They aren’t important.”
“Let’s keep going. Count backward from ten to one….”
Suddenly, the scene dissolved, replaced by a fleeting image of a man with a shovel, standing under a bright moon. Then, the hologram turned pitch black and silent, punctuated by the soft sounds of a woman breathing. Amira sat tensely beside Rozene as the darkness spread to the corners of the ward, dimming the lights around them. The breathing stopped abruptly, as though someone was holding their breath, followed by the faint trace of footsteps, growing louder.
“Rozene,” Amira said, her voice tight with fear. “What’s happening?”
But Rozene was lost in the memory, her eyes closed tightly. A small sound escaped from her throat. Something shifted in the dark, and the faint outline of a figure appeared in the hologram, growing taller and taller as it neared the center of the room. Amira realized at that moment that the hologram displayed the memory from Rozene’s viewpoint directly, rather than the usual wide lens perspective of the holomentic display. Only the most vivid and recent memories were displayed from the subject’s direct viewpoint, too raw to be experienced with the luxury of distance.
The figure stood over Rozene’s bed. Rozene’s breath quickened, but she remained still. Silently, the figure leaned forward, revealing a face covered by a surgical mask and a white cap. It moved as a ghost would, without voice or f
ootsteps. Rozene squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to wake up. She opened her eyes. The figure was still there, hovering in the same place over her bed. Her eyes burned with sweat trickling from her forehead, causing the figure’s face to blur. It held a finger up to its lips in a conspiratorial gesture of silence.
Then, to Amira’s horror, the other hand came into view, holding a syringe full of clear liquid.
Rozene screamed.
The figure vanished.
The ward brightened again as the two women sat there, breathing rapidly. The holographic platform stood empty, the disc continuing to rotate.
“Someone came into this room late at night,” Rozene finally said, turning to Amira with wide eyes. “Here in this room. I thought it was a nightmare, but I remember now. It was when I first came here, more than once, after they…implanted the…the cell and I became pregnant. What does that mean?”
For a moment, Amira leaned against the wall, speechless. Though it had been her longstanding theory that the modification to Rozene’s memory had been deliberate and malicious, it was still shocking to see the evidence materialize literally before her eyes. Had Jessica Alvarado and Nina Leakey endured the same treatment?
She finally managed to clear her throat. “I’m going to find out. I have to report this, and we’ll figure out what happened. I’d do it now, but we’re the last ones here. I can find some security in the meantime. Maybe I can get Sparkes to stay outside your room—”
“No!” Rozene cried. “You can’t report it! What if it’s her who’s behind this? It could be all of them!”
Amira frowned. For all her faults, she had come to doubt that Valerie Singh herself would directly sabotage her own project. Rozene, conditioned to distrust, would not be so easily convinced.
“Rozene, I’m just afraid it isn’t safe.”
“Of course it’s not safe! I know that. But maybe if we keep going, I can get my memory back and find out who it was. You can’t let anyone know.”