Extraction (31 page)

27

It’s Sam. Of course it’s Sam.

A grin is etched into his face, and I want to rip it off with my nails. My attacker pushes me harder into the ground, pressing my lungs against the floor.

I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.

“Thank you for your help, Justin,” Sam says. He makes a clicking noise with his tongue and shakes his head at me, crouching with his hands on his knees. “Did you really think I left that door open by accident? You should’ve listened. You should’ve treated me well yesterday, like Ariadne treated me well earlier tonight. What good has this act of rebellion done you? Did you break the machine? Will your boyfriend be safe and happy on the Surface now?” The smirk folds easily into Sam’s face. “Funny, it doesn’t look like that to me. It looks like you are in some deep krite.”

I want to know what he did before he came here, when he lived in a work camp in an outer sector. I want to know why Charlie would Extract him early and give him a special rank in the military.

I want to know before he kills me.

He laughs and prods my jaw with a finger. “I could do you a favor, I guess, and help you get your scar back.” He stands and bounces on the balls of his feet.

I choke through my gag and thrash against the boy holding me. Let me
go
—let me
go
—

Sam grins. “Good, good, nice to see you’ve still got some fight in you.”

“What’s going on?” Cadet Waller’s voice comes from somewhere in the fog.

“Get her up,” Sam snaps.

The pressure lifts off my body, and a hand drags me to my feet. I try to break free of its grip so I can run.

Sam slaps my face, and his nails cut my skin.

Raw, raw, raw, and stinging.

Cadet Waller freezes when she sees us. Two officials flank her. She purses her lips, straightening. “Hello, Clementine. Sam, did you find her here?”

“Yes, ma’am. She was trying to mess with KIMO, but I stopped her,” Sam says.

She gives me a small, rueful smile.

“You caused quite a mess today. But it won’t happen again.”

She turns. “Sam, bring her along. I hate to rouse Commander Charlie at such an hour, but this is necessary.”

Sam and one of Cadet Waller’s officials grab my shoulders.

*   *   *

In the main corridor of Restricted Division, I keep my eyes on the ground and try to control my breathing. My heart pounds in my chest, in my throat, and in my ears. But I won’t give Sam or Cadet Waller or anyone the satisfaction of knowing my fear.

We stop outside the pair of double doors with dark blue
X
s over circles of white. Cadet Waller taps a command into a security pad in the wall. There’s a snap, and a voice comes on: “Who is it?”

“Waller. I have the girl.”

The door slides open. “Enter,” the voice says.

A hand clamps over my eyes. Sam shoves me forward, and my feet stumble. Pain shoots up my side and through my temple.

I’m disoriented when the hand and gag fall away. A bright white light blinds my eyes. I start to raise my hands to shield my face, but they’re still tied. Blinking doesn’t clear the sparkles of light and distorted shapes.

A figure steps into the light. The silhouette of someone with the power to kill me or let me go.

I don’t think Commander Charlie will let me go.

“Hello, Clementine.” He says it like I’m an old friend instead of a traitor. Like we’re meeting for a chat instead of an exile sentence.

“Just shoot me and get it over with,” I say, half choking the words. “I know you have others to kill.”

The white light dims. “I have no intention of shooting you,” Charlie says. “Not tonight.”

“Then what—”

“Your survival is very important to me,” he says. “Why do you think I’ve overlooked your mishaps thus far? As you were one of the last transfers from the outer sectors, we picked you carefully, with a certain career position already in mind. I’d intended you to become one of our intelligence agents for the military. Sam here even suggested you’d make an excellent lieutenant.”

I gape at him. “
Sam
suggested that? Why?”

“You have excellent skills in the sciences, and you’ve already passed CODA. You would make an excellent addition to the leadership of the Core security team, there’s no denying that. However”—Charlie’s frown deepens—“you caused an inordinate amount of trouble tonight, and I can’t have that. Obedience is the one area where your skills are not up to par. Is there a particular reason you won’t respect me, Clementine?”

“Why should I? You lie about everything.”

“Do I? Please, enlighten me.”

My whole body is shaking, and I’m seeing stars when I blink again. “That speech you gave tonight. You said people on the Surface are dying from the acid. But that video footage you showed was from the riot the other day.”

His eyes study me with mild amusement. “I assure you, I didn’t lie about the acid.”

“Yes, you did.” My voice rises in panic. He’s lying again. He has to be. “I was up there last week. There weren’t forty-two deaths from acid. You think no one would notice?”

“We do have the ability to keep things quiet.”

“I’m not stupid.” My head throbs harder from my anger. “And I’m not subdued, either.”

His face stirs with some emotion I can’t read.

“Yes, I know you subdue everyone,” I say. “I know that’s what the monthly injections are for.”

“I can see that,” Charlie says. He looks over to Sam or someone else behind me, then back to me. “Care to explain why yours didn’t work?”

“I wouldn’t tell you if I knew.”

“No matter. It can take time for the injections to work properly on new Core citizens. We have time.”

I shake my head. “It won’t work. I’ll fight you every time.”

“I’m offering you a chance to remain here, Clementine. Don’t you want a happy life?”

“No one here is happy. They don’t know any better.”

“They are happy. The injection doesn’t change their emotions; it makes their brains more malleable, easier to train. I keep them subdued because it makes life easier for them. The troubles facing Kiel are far bigger than you or they can possibly understand.”

“Because you hide things from us.” My voice is hollow.

He nods, quite calmly. “I hide what is necessary to ensure my people’s survival. I do what’s best for those who are most likely to survive the danger we’re in; I protect the Promising. You must understand, if I could save everyone, I would. But I can’t. So I pick the ones who can do the most to help our society. The loss of those in the outer sectors is a regretful one, but it can’t be helped. If you realized they’re weaker, and therefore less useful, their loss would be easier for you to accept.”

Hatred ignites my muscles. I lunge for his throat.

Sam pulls me back before I can touch him. I try to force him off me, but it’s no good. My legs give out from lack of energy. He lifts me back up. His hot breath touches my neck. The other official works the gag back into my mouth.

Charlie adjusts his collar and straightens.

“Daddy?” A voice emerges from the shadows behind him. A woman steps through a doorway, and my heart stops. “Daddy, what’s going on?”

Sandy stands in a silk nightgown. She sees me and frowns.

“Nothing to worry about, child,” Charlie says. “You can go back to bed if you don’t want to see this.”

She’s his
daughter
?

“No.” She smiles, and not in a warm or a kind way. “I want to see this.”

If she’s his daughter, I don’t think Charlie would subdue her. She must’ve only been pretending to be kind.

Another shadow steps into the light. And I break inside.

Beechy doesn’t say anything at all. He slips his fingers through Sandy’s, and he looks at me with an unfeeling gaze. But his eyes aren’t glossy; they aren’t covered with film. Whatever he’s doing right now, it’s his choice.

Water fills my eyes, and I clench my teeth behind my gag. He is a liar, after all.

Charlie’s lips spread apart, slowly. “I tried to reason with you, Clementine, but I can see you’re too far gone. Those who are no longer stable can’t be reasoned with. You can no longer be a citizen of the Core.”

I stopped being a Core citizen when I realized they’re all brainwashed.

“Your lack of obedience and understanding is a shame, really. Your skill set would have been useful after we set off KIMO, particularly in the coming war.” He smiles at me, his eyes glinting with a secret.

Memories flash back at me: standing in line for the officials’ obstacle course and Ariadne saying,
Maybe they’re trying to turn us into soldiers
; Sam wrenching me from the ground in Phantom, saying the game isn’t just a game, it’s a training module to help people practice strategizing—
in case there’s ever another rebellion in the outer sectors and we have to fight them
.

But Charlie’s plan with KIMO will destroy the outer sectors. There won’t be any rebellion to stop.

So who would we be fighting?

“What war?” I try to ask, but the gag doesn’t let me say the words right.

Charlie ignores me, though I’m sure he knows what I said, and turns away. He presses his hand to a spot above his ear, where some comm device must be hiding in his hair. He says something softly, then lowers his hand and turns back to me. “You won’t be returning to your room tonight. You, my dear, are going to the Surface.”

Fear and then relief slide through my bones. I’ll be with Logan. Nothing else will matter for a little while because I won’t let anyone separate us again. Our world will end together when the bomb goes off.

Charlie must read something in my face, because he shakes his head. “No, not back to your friend. You are going to the Karum treatment facility.”

His words drain every last bit of warmth from my cheeks.

“The doctors there believe they may be able to make you better before we’re ready to set the bomb off,” Charlie says. “I do hope they’re right, for your sake as well as mine.”

A door opens, and a nurse in white attire enters with a metal tray and an injection syringe. She doesn’t know I’m allergic, and she wouldn’t care anyway.

“No,” I cry through the gag.

I rip my arms free—

I kick and struggle and fight—

I won’t let them break me—

In two seconds, Sam and the other official have me in a binding hold.

I’m a glass cage. I’m a glass cage with a heart screaming to escape, but it can’t get out. I can’t escape.

Sam rolls up my sleeve to expose my shoulder. I jerk away. I shake. I tremble.

In my head, I see Rebecca, wild-eyed as the officials dragged her from the hov-pod on the Surface. I see the woman I shot in the bloody glass cage in order to enter Core society. The ones in Phantom who reached for my ankles, whispering “Help” over and over and over again.

The point of the needle touches my skin, and I shatter.

I am Unstable.

28

Blue lights flicker. I blink and they turn to dots. Crystalline. I know they’re lights because there was only darkness before. And there’s a putrid smell in my nose. Whatever hard thing I lie on feels like ice against my back.

“She’s waking.”

A blurry face leans over me, blocking the blue lights. Lips part at the face’s center, and bright white squares appear. The doctor smiles. “Can you see me, Clementine? I’m Dr. Tennant. I’m here to help you.”

His voice makes my head hurt. I squeeze my eyes shut.

He is lying. But I don’t know why. I don’t know where I am, or what I’m doing here. When I try to remember anything before the darkness, there’s nothing.

I feel a prick in my leg, sharp and piercing. I suck in my breath. “Stop,” I try to say, but my throat is blocked. There’s something inside it.

“It’s okay,” the doctor says.

I feel something hot spread through my thigh—blazing hot, like fire.

“Stop!”

“It’s okay,” he repeats.

It’s
not
okay. The thing inside my mouth makes it hard to breathe, and my arms won’t budge because my wrists are shackled.

The fire spreads to my toes.

I heave my body up as high as I can, screaming through the tube they shoved down my throat. I smash my back into the table. Glass shatters behind my head. A hand presses on my arm.

“Calm down.” The voice is firm, steady.

I scream again as the fire cuts into my torso. I kick at Dr. Tennant. He made a mistake; he didn’t tie my legs down.

Salty tears blot my vision worse than before. A door opens, and I hear shouts. Hazy figures lean over me and clamp iron cuffs onto my ankles, while I keep screaming.

I feel another prick, this time in my neck.

I’m lost again.

29

Again, I awaken on a metal examination table. The lights are blue, round this time, set inside metal disks like small satellites.

My head throbs, even though the fire’s gone. My throat feels sore where the tube used to be, and sweat drenches my body. I must be running a fever.

My heart flutters a little, but my chest rises and falls slowly. There’s a light, sweet scent to the air that calms me. Like an aster flower not covered in grime.

I don’t know where I am, or why I’m here, or how long it’s been since I arrived.

A door latch unlocks somewhere behind me. The white-coated doctor who enters the room is handsome. Dark hair flows in a soft wave over his head. When he smiles, his unspoiled teeth shine like diamonds.

“Good evening, Clementine,” he says.

Is it evening? I have no sense of time. The least they could do is put a window in my room that lets me watch the moon rise.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“Better.” The word sticks on my tongue. I swallow to fix it, but it makes my throat sore.

“That’s wonderful.” He taps something into his tablet. “Can you tell me who you are? Basic facts?”

I nod. He already knows, I’m sure, but he wants to check how much the fever screwed up my memory.

“Clementine, S68477.” Again I slip over the vowels, but I push through. “Sixteen. Surface civilian.”