Controllers (Book 1)

by Lynnie Purcell

  The week following Ace's revelation is quiet. I entertain thoughts of Maria to keep me from wallowing in depression. I wonder where she is or if she will leave the lower city for a new place. I know she has family, but she never talks about them. I wonder if they're safe. I hope so. She can be with them again. She can have a life. I love the thought.

  "Did you hear the way your brother squealed when that laser cutter touched him?" Benny hisses as I walk past him. "I've heard pigs with more dignity."

  I clench my teeth and keep my focus forward. His comments can't hurt me. Attacking him can. He's finally stopped wearing his sling, but his arm hangs uselessly at his side. He won't be able to use it again. It'll be easy to take him down.

  He's in the exact same spot when I leave class. He's been waiting for me.

  "Did you see your friend's blood in the hallway? Of course you did. Took them hours to clean it up. You're gonna be next. Ace likes to kill them. And people call me sick...At least I don't hide what I like."

  His tone is suggestive. He's talking about Maria again. I picture myself stabbing him with the fork. It brings an instant surge of satisfaction. I walk away from him and run straight into Councilor Feng. I stop dead in my tracks and stare at her. Has she come back to kill me? Why does she look so angry?

  She swears in Cantonese and walks around me without looking back. Honey and Willem are in the hall behind her. They look just as serious, though they don't look nearly as angry. They're afraid. The councilor has been leveling more threats. I wonder if it's about me. No one has said what the reaction to my speech has been. I look at Willem for an explanation, but his expression is too difficult to read. He has perfected looking indifferent.

  Honey glares at me. "Go!" she roars angrily.

  The next morning. Honey gathers all of the colors, including the people who are closer to the two month mark than me, in the exercise room. We stand according to rank. Blue is on the right, then green, and so on. I stand next to Sam. Nathan is at the very front of the line. His back is stiff and his expression is proud. The calm I so admired in him has been replaced by a need to serve. I hate seeing his pride. It makes him a stranger.

  A table sits near the glass room in front of us. It's made of black glass and looks impossibly foreboding. Willem stands behind the table. He keeps sniffing. He's not hiding his agitation well. Whatever is about to happen is not good.

  Honey paces in front of us. She's trying to look calm, but her tension is evident. It's in her eyes and face. She's under pressure. It has everything to do with Councilor Feng. Benny is behind us. The guards circle the room restlessly. They're expecting trouble. I don't know why. We're all tame and insufferably still. The others are not as worried as I am. I try to mimic their body language. I keep twisting my fingers behind my back.

  "We have decided to accelerate your training to make room for new recruits. Today, you graduate to our final level...if you pass the next test."

  There's a stir. The brainwashing has not done enough to keep us perfectly complacent. People aren't so far gone that they're like the smiling immigrants in the city. I know their irritation. We have to take a test to get to the next level? What kind of test? Is it physical, mental or a combination of the two?

  "Be still!" Honey barks. The movement dies down. She puts her hand on the table and five rows of glass vials appear on top of it. "You will come to the table and drink the liquid in the vial. If you pass, you move forward. If you don't, well, you don't," she says.

  I look over and Nathan gulps. We all know which way to move. Right to left. They've drilled it into us. He's first. None of us know what the liquid does. We don't know if it's poison. I wouldn't put it past them.

  I won't drink it. I won't. They can't make me.

  "Now!" Honey commands.

  Nathan straightens and loses his fear. He doesn't want them to see how afraid he is. He's brave. He's willing to drink the vial and face his fate. Or maybe it's the brainwashing. I can't be certain.

  He steps up to the table and picks up the vial of liquid. It's blue, like his armband. The light reflects inside the glass and I have a moment of panic. He's about to die. I want to step forward and smack it out of his hand. Before I can, he tilts his head back and downs the liquid. There is a pause and then he looks up at Willem and Honey with a confused expression. Willem nods and Honey ushers him away with a gesture. Willem's eyes flicker to mine briefly. He's worried about me.

  The rest of blue files past the table. They drink the liquid and, when nothing happens, they leave the room. It's green's turn. Three people in and I see what failing looks like. A girl puts the vial to her lip, swallows and almost as instantly grabs her head. She falls to her knees and lets out a bloodcurdling scream that can only be described as mad. People lean forward to look at her. The madness has moved to her face. She has no sense of the present. Reason is beyond her.

  The guards pick her up at Honey's gesture and she's pulled from the room. I look at Sam. He looks back fearfully. What made the girl fail? Would we? What's going on? People are talking to their neighbors and shifting in fear. No one wants to drink the liquid now.

  "Order!" Honey says. The effect is immediate. People stop moving and look at the far wall submissively. It takes me longer to stop staring at where the girl fell. "Move!"

  The line starts moving again. I stare at Willem. His expression is passive. He keeps sniffing. The snot moving around is the loudest sound in the room.

  I won't drink the liquid. I won't. I'll end up like the girl. I'll go mad. I'll never see Max again.

  It's my turn. I hesitate. I don't want to walk forward. I can't. A quick shock makes me move. The guards don't like my hesitation. I step forward with a sideways glance at Sam. He stares at me with wide eyes. He's afraid. So am I.

  I reach the table. I pick up the blue vial and find Willem's eyes again. I want him to tell me what's going to happen. I want Ace to appear out of the door on the viewing platform and make me stop. Neither happens.

  I won't drink it. I won't.

  The hand with the vial moves to my lips. Not drinking it will be trouble for Max. He'll endure more torture because of me. The liquid is cold and thick. It tastes bitter and burns my tongue. I try to hold it in my mouth, but the burning makes me swallow. It slides down my throat very slowly. It's like molasses. It takes forever to reach my stomach. Then I feel a fire in my veins. It burns through me. The pain is incredible.

  I've failed the test.

  The room swirls with colors. It reminds me of eating the flower. It's almost the same. The colors blur and dance. I want to move with the colors, but the fire in my veins keeps me locked in place. I hear a low whine. It's coming from everywhere. I want to put my hands over my ears to make it stop. But I don't. I won't let this be the end.

  The sound fades and the fire disappears. It's only been seconds. It feels like a lifetime. My back is covered in sweat from the silent war inside me. The room slides back into focus and I immediately look into Willem's eyes. His impassive expression has disappeared. He has a mixture of fear, scientific curiosity, and interest on his face. His expression flickers as he sees that I'm okay. His impassiveness returns a second later.

  I look at Honey and see her disappointment. She was expecting me to fail. Madness would have suited her need to punish me. Councilor Feng couldn't possibly punish her for my madness. I've sidestepped her again.

  I walk out of the room. The second I'm out of the sight of the others, I put my back against the stone wall and take a deep breath. My hands are shaking, and I feel the lingering fire in my blood. I don't know what was in the drink, but it terrifies me. I look down at the spiral stairs and try to figure out where I'll be tomorrow. Nothing good comes to mind.

  Sam walks into the stairwell a minute later. He does not look nearly as affected as me. "I don't get it," he says. "Nothing happened. It just tasted awful."

  "Nothing?" I ask.

  "No," he says.

  So my reaction is strange. It's not supposed to
burn. But why didn't it make me go mad like the other girl? What was the difference? We hear a girl's scream from the room and Sam and I jump. I pull him away from the door and hurry down the stairs so we don't have to hear the pain in her voice or see her get pulled from the room.

  "I wonder what's next," Sam says as we walk.

  I know exactly. Brainwashing. Stupid, God-awful smiles. Happiness we can't help. Being prisoners for the rest of our lives.

  "I don't know," I say.

  "It's weird they're in such a rush to get us to the next stage," Sam adds.

  "Yeah," I agree.

  "I wish I knew why," he says.

  "Me too," I say.

  I figure reasons don't matter nearly as much as passing the next test.

  Honey didn't tell us what to expect if we pass. She'll find us eventually. She always does. Sam and I go to the cafeteria and see Nathan. He's sitting at the blue table. Most of the guards are upstairs. Nathan decides to take the risk. He joins us at our table, his eyes on the door.

  "What do you think is going on?" he asks.

  Though he's talking to both of us, his eyes are on Sam. Sam shrugs once and I frown. They seem very serious. It's like I'm missing half of the conversation. I realize it happened a lot between them before Nathan left green. They were always having conversations that made me feel like I was missing a lot. They have a secret.

  "Do you know something?" I ask Nathan.

  "No," he says quickly.

  I don't believe him. He stands before I can press him further and joins the people at his table. Thirty minutes later, the cafeteria is full of people. There are less faces in the crowd, but almost everyone is there. Honey walks in with Benny when we're all sorted.

  "You will be moved to a new area now. Make sure all of your belongings are in your trunks by the end of the hour."

  She turns abruptly and the room fills with buzzing conversation. People are nervous, and no one knows what to expect. It's like our first day all over again, except we don't have anyone to tell us what happens next. We're in the dark. No one returns from the other part of the facility.

  The dorm is full of conversation. I'm silent as I gather my things. I don't want to worry about where I'm going next. It's a step closer to Max. It's the only truth that matters.

  An hour later, the dead-eyed man collects us. Girls line the hall behind him. They're from all levels and all experience levels. We walk up to blue and the dead-eyed man collects the girls from their dorms. The conversation has died away. People are doing a lot of trembling around me. Selfishly, I wish for Maria. She would make me feel better. I'm quickly shamed by the thought. It's better that she's free.

  When all of the girls are gathered behind him, he walks us to a wall in the blue hallway I've never noticed before. It's a dead end. I think it's another moving room, but when the wall slides back at his touch, there's only more hallway.

  The lights are dim and the walls are a bright white. It makes the hallway feel surgical, as if we're walking to have our bodies dissected. I know it's not our bodies they want; it's our minds. He takes us to the end of a hall, down a long set of metal stairs and into another long corridor.

  This corridor is different than the others. It has hundreds of doors that are very close to each other. There are heavy locks on the doors and handprint readers on the middle of each one. He walks us to the far end of the hall and then starts gesturing us, one by one, inside the rooms. The others file inside obediently and allow the man to seal them away without argument. I hate that I have to do the same.

  I'm put into a room near the end of the hall. There isn't much to it. It has four walls, a small toilet, a bed, and a sink. I can't stand in the middle without hitting either the bed or the toilet. Pods have more room. The man closes the door behind me and the light fades. My only source of light is a blue bulb built into the ceiling. It's very dark. My eyes slowly adjust to the light, but my tension doesn't fade.

  I don't like the idea that we have been separated. It makes me think that isolation has something to do with the next part of the test. They don't want us to talk to one another. The only good part about the move is that I can't do anything that will get Max in trouble. I don't think.

  I have no idea how long I am in the room before the door opens again. I sleep intermittently and all sense of time escapes me. My stomach burns with hunger. I blink when the bright light hits me. The guard is someone I have never seen. He puts a bag over my head and pulls me out of the room. I have to remind myself not to flinch away from his touch or fight him. The isolation has made me jumpy.

  We walk into a moving room and there's a swoop in my stomach as we move to a lower level. He pulls me out of the room and stops almost immediately. He takes the hood off. The light around me is the same dim blue. I blink several times in surprise as I take in the room. I'm surrounded by black glass. The room is the size of the Assembly building. It's the most glass I've seen in one place. The guard walks back into the moving room and I sense another person behind me. I turn and look into Willem's eyes.

  He puts a small, sticky patch on my neck. It has cold gel on the skin side that sends a shiver down my spine.

  "What's going on?" I whisper.

  "This is the final bit of training before they let you out."

  "Is it like the game?" I ask.

  "Yes and no. It's more personal than what you're expecting," Willem says. "I had to make it that way. I'm sorry...You can't win the game you're about to play, so don't try."

  "Why have they accelerated our training?" I ask. "Is it because of the speech I gave?"

  "The rebels have taken part of the lower city. Trade has been cut off. The council wants every available immigrant working to feed and support our citizens. They know war is coming."

  I finally understand Councilor's Feng anger. All of the government's technology and weapons couldn't protect their main source of immigrants and trade. As much as they treat us like garbage, they need us. The peace, such as it is, is coming to an end.

  I read between the lines of Willem's statement. They don't just want the immigrants to feed and support the citizens. They want us to be the first line of defense should the war get serious. We will be forced to fight eventually. I can't see them training us to fight for an innocent reason. And the brainwashing will ensure we fight until the last person.

  The idea makes me sick.

  Willem checks the sensor on my neck again. A slight blur of color in front of me distorts reality for a moment. I think there is a drug in the cool gel of the sensor, something that lowers the defenses around my mind. The blur disappears as Willem steps away. He's still calm and collected, but I sense his radiating tension. He can't help me inside the game. This game will be recorded and studied. I also know that it will last as long as it takes for the subliminal messages to sink in. It will end when I submit. I don't know how to fake that. I don't know if I'll have to. Willem seems certain the game will subdue me.

  I look up and see several cameras. I wonder where the control room is. I wonder if Honey is watching. Who else is there? What if the messages never sink in? Will the game last forever?

  Willem leaves the room. The cavernous room seems to add to the silence. It's like standing in a massive cave of glass, where sound has been forbidden and hope a laughable construct. I look down at my body. I'm not wearing a vest, nor do I have a laser pistol. All I have is the grey clothes of my imprisonment and the green armband on my right arm. Does that mean the game will be peaceful?

  I seriously doubt it.

  Chapter 27