Controllers (Book 1)

by Lynnie Purcell

  We're kept in our dorm for a full day and night. The guards stand outside our door and only let us out to use the bathroom. Food and drink are brought to us. We do not shower. The room becomes claustrophobic and impossibly smelly. No one complains. We're all happy to be alive.

  Maria doesn't talk for the first half of the day. She's silent until she can't bear it anymore, then her words come tumbling out of her in a great rush. She wants to talk about everything. She wants to make sense of what happened. I don't. I just want to figure out how to keep the same thing from happening to me. I don't want to look into a mirror and see madness in my eyes.

  I finally sleep. My dreams are not restful. Max is pulled away from me over and over again and sent to a facility where dead-eyed people spend all of their time trying to kill him. He does not survive.

  I awake to the sound of the dorm door snapping shut. I hear heavy breathing and someone shifts on their cot. It's very early. I can't see the clock in the dark, but I sense the dawn. The past week has taught me day from night without looking at the sun.

  I look at the door, wondering if someone has just left. It seems like it. Maria sniffs once and I know she's okay. She's crying because of the attack. I reach out and touch her hand. She flinches away from me.

  "Are you okay?" I ask her softly.

  "Oh," she says brokenly. "Yeah."

  I reach for her hand again. This time she takes it. I try to smile at her, but the dark obscures my features. It's just as well. I feel my smile. It's more like a grimace. The lights slowly grow brighter and the door opens again. It's Honey.

  "Classes this morning," she announces. "Some of you may think the riot gives you an excuse to miss. You are wrong. More than ever, you need to understand that order is preferable to chaos. You need to understand why we are giving you these lessons."

  Her eyes shift to mine. It's like she wants to blame me for something, perhaps the fact that her son will never be able to join the RFA. It doesn't really matter. I don't think she'll ever look at me kindly. She turns away and the door swings open and shut again.

  Everyone starts moving at her command. We know we don't have long before we need to be in our first class. Maria showers in the stall next to mine. I hear her sobbing. She tries to hide it, but the water does not mask the sound nearly as well as she would like. I clean myself with too-soft soap, dry off with a too-soft towel, and put on the familiar grey. I'm convinced that I will never get used to how soft things are. It's strange that so much softness can exist in such a hard, cold environment. Maria meets me at the door. Her tears have dried. She looks grim and focused. We walk to the cafeteria in silence.

  I'm relieved to see Nathan at the table. I walk over to him before I get my food. "Are you okay?" I ask him.

  He shakes his head. I feel bad news looming. "Josh is dead."

  My stomach drops. I sit next to Nathan and feel a wave of depression surround me. I can picture Josh easily. The last time I saw him runs through my mind. And now he's gone. Like camp. Maybe even like Max. Sam sits down next to Nathan. He slides a plate over to Nathan mutely. Neither boy touches their food. Maria sits across from us, her eyes wide.

  "I didn't know," Nathan says, his face full of shame. "He was there one minute...and then the riot moved on and he was just laying there. There was nothing I could do."

  I reach under the table so no one can see me and squeeze his hand. He squeezes it back and then grabs it firmly as I try to pull away. He needs the comfort. He needs to know that someone cares. I'm afraid to hold his hand for too long and have the guards notice, but he's more important. I can handle a shock from one of their sticks as punishment. It helps that his touch brings me a lot of comfort. It makes me feel grounded and steady. I hold his hand until time for class. His hand slides out of mine as he stands. The others are just as silent. We follow him out of the room, knowing that everything has changed with the riot. Josh is dead. One of our friends is gone.

  Honey makes no mention of the riot again. We barely see her for the rest of the week. She does not patrol the halls and drop in on classes like normal. She becomes a ghost. Benny does not disappear. He is everywhere I look, but there's a change in him. The happy glee is gone. He is all manic tension and anger. He smiles less, and his body boils over with frantic need. I think it has something to do with Ace's words. If Benny had once entertained the thought of joining the RFA, his dreams are now shattered. Ace has made sure of it. I wonder how badly Benny failed in the riot. No one speaks of it.

  In contrast to Honey's sudden disappearance, Ace is at the facility every day. He walks the halls, two guards trailing after him at all times. There are also more guards than normal in the halls. They are alert and present. There is no gossiping and lollygagging with Ace around. They all defer to him immediately. He doesn't look at me when I pass him in the hall or in the cafeteria and I don't look at him. There's nothing a look can say to express my confusion, doubt and fear of him.

  Maria becomes withdrawn and barely speaks to me at all. I think it has everything to do with the riot. She is still affected by the dead and the loss of our friend. The dead bother me as well, but my memory serves better in thinking of Max. Depression and fear won't bring him back to me.

  The most surprising thing about the riot is the fact that the dead-eyed woman did not survive. I had not thought her easy to kill. She seemed as indestructible as the facility. No one tells us what happened to her. A man roughly her age takes her place. He orders us around the exercise room dispassionately, and his eyes are just as dead. I wonder if they somehow took her eyes and put them into his body. He, too, is nameless.

  The week brings Nathan and me closer. We are joined together in our attempts to keep Sam and Maria on stable ground, to keep them focused and out of trouble. We are the rocks in the storm. He and I keep sharing looks when no one else notices. In the hall, in class, in the game, we glance, we smile, we look away. I'm surprised I can smile at all after the riot. I wonder if holding his hand has done something to us. A door has been opened that neither of us can close. His touch has reminded me that I'm still a person with feelings and thoughts that don't necessarily always make a lot of sense. The fact that it's forbidden to like him just makes me want him more.

  Maybe I'm a rebel after all.

  In the exercise room, a week after the riot, we share smiles again as Maria says nothing next to us. I try to goad her into conversation. She says only a word or two in response before closing her lips together again and staring at the far wall.

  "Laser tag!" our new teacher commands.

  We have come to expect the command. We get it every day. I try to see what Ace means by it being preparation for something else. All I see are people having fun. We line up behind the door and the gear is passed out. Nathan is right behind me. I feel the heat of his body. I like that he is so close. It momentarily takes away my worry for Maria.

  The black glass arranges into a cityscape. Sometimes we're near the river; other times we're in a district with large buildings and monuments. The scene changes everyday. Ace does not play again. He's too busy teaching and patrolling. The way Benny and Ace looked before I stepped inside the game is telling. Benny is defensive. His arms are crossed and his shoulders are tense. He does not try to talk to Ace. He has finally learned silence.

  I step behind a stone building and wait for Maria to find me. She usually does so fairly quickly. We know where the others hide; we know how to avoid them. After ten minutes, she is still missing. I wonder if she has gotten trapped. It's happened a few times. The others look for her hard. They all know that she has the best score in the game.

  I push away from the cold stone at the thought and hug the building as I search out the fighting. I hear people yelling in the distance. They're always yelling. I don't get why they do it. It just means I find them easier.

  I'm a block away from them when I hear sobbing. I know who it is. My week has been full of similar tears. Maria is nearby. I turn a full circle as I look for her, then spo
t her behind a large statue of a man. She's sitting on the ground, and her head is on her knees.

  I sit next to her silently. "Is it the riot?" I ask after a moment.

  She wipes at her tears and doesn't reply. I begin to feel she's keeping a secret from me. I know Maria. I know she's stronger than this. She does not allow them to see her cry. She's brave and determined to survive. Death does not scare her like it does the others. I can't figure out the change.

  "I..." She trails away and looks down at her hands. "No," she finally admits.

  "What is it?" I press. I want to help her. I hate to see her so sad.

  "I'm so ashamed," she says in a broken voice.

  "About what?"

  "Benny," she whispers his name with a mixture of hate and self-loathing. I don't understand what he has to do with her sadness. He's a menace, but he's never paid her any attention. His focus is usually on me. She doesn't look at me, but she knows I need a better explanation. "He's been sneaking into our dorm at night," she adds so quietly I barely hear her.

  I remember the door slamming shut the night after the riot, and then I remember Benny's taunts. He asked me if I thought Maria a virgin. My hands clench, and my breathing turns ragged. The moment has everything to do with rage. My insides grow cold as I look at her face, and calm detachment surrounds my body. I'm suddenly a stone. I have to be in order to figure out how to make him stop.

  "Every night?" I ask her.

  She nods and her tears glisten in her eyes. "I can't make him stop. He's going to keep coming to me until I'm dead. If I fight back or try to say anything, he'll have me killed. Even telling you...He said he would kill me."

  I don't doubt his promise. He has found a way to make me suffer that gets around Ace's unspoken warning. It was a only matter of time before he hurt Maria, I just hadn't realized it. I'm sorry, angry, and completely full of guilt that her pain is because of me. It's my fault. The truth is clear. I'm the only one who can make him stop. Plans rush around my head as I consider the situation. I can't change what has been done, but I can certainly make sure he never does it again. I'm thinking; I'm plotting. I'm coming up with revenge that will mean he never even looks at her without feeling fear.

  "I'm going to make him stop," I tell her darkly.

  She looks up at me with wide eyes. She sees the anger and determination in my face. She knows I'm serious. "You'll get us both in trouble," she says. "And I can't stand to get you hurt because of my..."

  "It's my fault," I say. "He's doing it because he hates me. He's doing it because you're my friend. I have to stop him. I can stop him. I have a plan."

  Her wide eyes grow even wider. She's startled and afraid. She doesn't know whether to be happy or sad that I have a plan. She knows there will be violence. She can see it in my eyes.

  "What are you going to do?" she asks.

  My smile is slow to dawn. If Benny could see it, he would tremble. He would know what fear looks like. He would know the pain in his future.

  We spend the entire game talking about my plan. Maria is reluctant to get in trouble, but she's also as brave as I have long thought her. She hears my plan through to the end and finally agrees to it with some minor modifications. She's uncertain if I can go through with the plan without backing out, but she sees how serious I am. She also knows she can't stop me.

  Nathan finds us eventually. He's the last person in the game besides us. He raises his pistol and starts to fire. Then he realizes that we're having a serious discussion. "Are you okay?" he asks Maria, though his eyes are on my face. I know I look very grim and serious. Max always used to tell me that I look like a serial killer when I'm serious, but I can't stop the emotion. I feel it too deeply.

  Maria nods and we stand. I hold my hands up to surrender to Nathan. Maria does the same. Nathan hesitates, his eyes lingering on my face, and then fires twice. The city disappears. We leave the room together, Nathan on my heels. I don't pay him the attention I normally do. I'm too distracted.

  I glare over at Benny. He's sparring with a boy. He's doing a lot of charging and slamming. He has none of Ace's grace. I want to get into the ring with him and hurt him using everything Devlin taught me. But my retribution has to be slicker than that. I can't let them know I'm behind his pain.

  Ace has his arms crossed as he watches the fight. He's not impressed by what he sees. His eyes flicker to mine then away again like he's afraid to linger on my face. What he sees in my expression pulls his eyes back to me. He frowns and a muscle in his jaw twitches. He's noticed the looming violence on my face.

  The dead-eyed man dismisses us and we leave the room. Ace follows me to the stairs. He opens the door behind us and Nathan, Sam, Maria and I look up. We freeze at the sight of him. We're all scared. Unlike the others, I'm scared he sees the plan on my face.

  "I'm teaching a class to the dregs in police training," Ace tells us curtly. "I need you three to lay out equipment. Right now."

  Nathan mutters an insult under his breath at the use of Ace's dreg, but he turns automatically with Sam. Maria turns as well, though her reluctance is on her face. I hate that she has to spend more time around Benny. I hate that it's Ace's fault. I follow them up the stairs slowly, my thoughts saying all the things that could get me killed if I spoke them aloud. I take the time to get my expression under control. It's not enough. Ace grabs my arm angrily when I reach him.

  "What are you doing?" he whispers.

  "Setting out equipment."

  "That's not funny," he replies.

  "I wasn't trying to be," I say.

  "The look on your face suggests..."

  "It has nothing to do with you," I reply.

  I don't know why I'm suddenly brave, but I don't fear my words like I had only seconds ago. I try to pull my arm out of his grip. No matter the amount of exercise and weight lifting I have done, he's still stronger. He doesn't let me go. He won't give me control of the situation. He's still calm and collected, but I notice a change in his eyes. The emotion looks a lot like fear.

  "You'll be killed," he warns me. "Whatever you're planning, stop. No one here will show you mercy. Not even me."

  He says it like he's apologizing. I don't want to hear the apology while he's in the middle of threatening me. I don't care if killing me will be hard on him. He'll still do it. I know where his allegiance lies.

  "The others are looking at us," I say.

  It's the only way to get him to let me go. He cares about appearances too much to continue such a serious conversation with me. He doesn't release me. His eyes flash with anger and my fear returns. Will he punish me after all? He pushes me to my knees by twisting my arm behind my back. My muscles pop and sear painfully. He's going to pull my arm out of its socket. He's strong enough to manage it.

  "Don't ask questions, dreg," he says.

  Though his words are not loud, everyone hears. Benny's lips lift up at the sight. He has found his good humor again. I plan on taking it from him very soon.

  Ace releases me and I know the attack serves one purpose: to make the others think they know why he stopped me. He's skilled at lying. He is also very skilled at reading my face. I will have to work harder to keep my emotions off my face when he's around. I have to learn to keep my thoughts better contained.

  I join Maria, Sam and Nathan near the gear and we unload everything Ace wants us to. Ace doesn't look at me again. His eyes slide right over me to rest on Nathan, Sam or Maria. His tension is palpable, however. It's in his shoulders and neck.

  I'm angry until I realize that Ace's subterfuge has given me the chance to steal what I need for the plan. The storage closets are full of gear no one will miss. I grab one of the hand wraps - a wrap that is used by everyone - and stuff it in my pocket when no one is watching me. I also steal a small knife sharpener. Both will serve me well.

  When we're finished with our task, we hurry to dinner. I know we don't have long before the plates stop refilling themselves. I sit at the table with Maria and play with my food. I want to e
at. I know I need the strength, but Ace's warning rings through my ears alarmingly. I'm about to do the stupidest thing I've ever done in my entire life. It scares me. But I'm willing to do it and more for Maria.

  I slip a fork into my pocket as I'm about to dump my food. No one will notice it missing. My weapon carefully hidden, Maria and I leave the room. Nathan, who spent all dinner trying to get my attention and failing miserably, goes one way in huffy silence with Sam. I go the other with Maria. We wait until no one is looking at us, then we slip into an empty classroom that I know is out of sight of the cameras.

  Maria sets her stance as she turns to look at me. She knows this part of the plan is going to hurt the most. There's nothing for it. It has to be done in order for no one to suspect she's involved. Benny can't blame her for his coming misfortune. She'll be killed if I don't take care of her first.

  "Are you sure?" I ask her as she looks at me.

  She takes a deep breath and nods grimly.

  "We can find another way," I point out. "You don't have to do this."

  "Just do it," she says. "And make it look good."

  The cold calm surrounds me again at her words. I carefully ignore Ace's warning and focus on Maria's face. This is about her, not me. It doesn't matter if I get in trouble. I pull back swiftly, so she can't duck reflexively, and my elbow connects with her jaw. Her eyes cross and she stumbles, but she doesn't go down. I have to hit her again. It takes three more times before she falls. We both know she can't fake being knocked out. She finally hits the floor. I check her pulse nervously and then quietly leave the room. I know she will be found soon. The guards always check the rooms before bed. I slip behind a group of girls in the hallway to avoid the camera seeing me and then slide into the dorm room silently.

  Ten minutes later, I hear the rush of heavy feet on the ground and raised voices. Someone is calling for the medic. I run to the door with the others and see Maria in the hall. They have pulled her out of the room. I push past the others. I know I will have to make my act look convincing.

  "Maria!" I yell. "Maria!" I try to go to her but a guard holds me back.

  The medic arrives and quickly makes an assessment. "She needs to be in the infirmary."

  The guards pick Maria up and carry her away silently. The guard holding me keeps a firm grip on my arm until Maria is out of sight. Tears are shining in my eyes as I strain against the guard's hands weakly. Everyone sees the tears. Everyone sees my worry and feels sympathy. They know she's my best friend. No one suspects me of hurting her.

  The guard shoves me into the dorm room and the other girls catch me to prevent me from falling. They tell me Maria is going to be okay. They fearfully question why she was attacked and who could have done it. They decide it's a guard. No one else would hurt her. We don't attack one another. It doesn't help us survive, and the guards show preferential treatment to no one. We are wise enough to focus our hate on our captors.

  The talking finally dies down. I pretend to read as I wait for the hours to fade to night. I really spend the time covertly sharpening my metal fork with the knife sharpener. The metal becomes shinier and pointier. I hope news of Maria's injuries don't get back to Benny. I hope he comes to our room as planned.

  When the room is totally dark and the last bit of talking has turned into heavy breathing, I sharpen my fork as much as I can, then clean off my fingerprints with the stolen hand wrap. I have learned from my books they can use fingerprints and DNA to catch murderers. There are whole institutions dedicated to it in the city. They will be able to identify me if I am not careful.

  I wrap the fabric around the handle last and then wait. I listen to the sounds around me with hyperawareness. I can almost feel the other girls' heartbeats. I'm linked to every single one of them. I slide out of bed when I'm certain no one is awake and crawl into Maria's bed quietly. I hide the clean knife sharpener under the bed, hoping no one can link it back to me.

  My hand tightens around my fork. Devlin's words pop into my mind. I picture the memory clearly. He's explaining how to fight with a knife. He's telling me that certain areas don't kill but are very painful and cause permanent damage. He shows me the areas on Max. Max makes faces at Devlin when he isn't looking to make the lesson fun, but he's also listening hard. I scoff at Devlin as he tells me to practice on Max, wondering when I am ever going to have a reason to knife someone. He tells me that it's better to be safe than sorry.

  I finally know what he means.

  The door opens two hours later. I hear footsteps cross the hard floor. I know without having to look that they belong to Benny. They are confident and cocky. He has no reason to fear his presence in our room. Who will punish him? His mother? She'll hide the truth. No one will care that he's attacking Maria.

  He gets on the bed with me. His hot breath is on my neck. His hand moves to my breasts, and he kisses my neck. My hand tightens on my fork. I turn so I'm facing him. His breath is in my face now. It smells like cheese and meat, his dinner.

  I lash out before he can take his kissing further. I stab him in the stomach twice and then I ram the fork into his back as hard as I can, all while holding him down with my elbow. He screams into Maria's pillow, which I place over his face to muffle the sound, and I jump off the bed as he passes out from the pain. I slide under the covers of my bed and make my breathing shallow and steady. My back is covered in sweat and my heart is racing. It's the first time I've ever attacked a person and really wanted to do them harm. It's not as difficult as I've always imagined.

  A few of the lighter sleepers get up to check on the sound. They are astonished to find Benny in Maria's bed. A girl runs out of the room to get the guards. I keep my breathing steady. I pretend that I'm not tied to the rhythm of the guards' steps or the fear around me. The guards rush into the room, order the lights on, and then yell out their surprise. The room descends into chaos at the sight of Benny bleeding on Maria's bed. No one knows what to do.

  I rub my eyes sleepily and stand as someone knocks into my cot. The guards start ushering us out of the room. I catch a glimpse of Benny. His eyes are closed and the blood has covered his shirt. The fork is still sticking out of his back. A hot surge of satisfaction circles my body. He will never come near Maria again.

  We're taken to the cafeteria and forced to sit. I'm in my underwear and tank top. The room is very cold. The other girls hover near each other for warmth. I'm still sweating. My thoughts are full of panic and bleak happiness. I wonder if they will be mad at Benny for being in the girls' room. I doubt it. They don't care about us as much as they care about the guards. We're dregs. So what if one of them attacks us?

  If they figure out the truth, I'm dead. They'll kill me easily. My hands clench at the thought. It's worth it. I can't look Max in the face again knowing I did nothing for a friend in need. He wouldn't be proud of me for keeping my head down. He will be proud of me now, even if I die.

  Which is a very real possibility.

  Chapter 16