Gods of Anthem (7 page)

“Liza, we’re sending
you home.”

For some reason, I’d known he would sound like this. Speech is normally air rushing past the vocal cords. But when Pretend Man speaks, it’s metallic; a clicking that rounds out into sound. Hard not to imagine the battery aftertaste in his mouth.

My voice is subdued in comparison. “I have no home.”

He gives no sign of arguing with the truth of my statement. “Off the island, to the mainland, then.”

Nothing. I should feel something, but there’s only the sense that I’m being tricked. Freedom is supposed to be a dream come true.

After my run-in with Mr. Grey Eyes, they’d thrown me into solitary.

Until
he’d
come and walked me to the other side of the island again.

“Do you have any questions?” he asks.

Pretend Man keeps his quarters in the very corner of the prison, a place I thought I’d never been before. But then again, I’d thought this area was a dream.

I want to ask him so many things, because I suspect he knows them. He’s watching me now, eyes bluer than any natural blue, as though he gleans that I’ve guessed what he knows is infinite. He seems to find pleasure in this.

Gift horses and their mouths come to mind, but I have to ask: “Why?”

His mouth lifts at the corners, as if he can hear my thoughts. “We know who you are, Liza. Now, at least, we know everything.”

I’m not confused or perplexed. They’ve just figured out who my father is—was. “What does that have to do with sending me back?”

Pretend Man shifts in his seat, because we humans expect him to, and not for his comfort. He’d most likely remain perfectly still, not even breathing, if he didn’t remind himself to appear this way.

“Tell me, Liza, what do you think is left of the world? In one word.”

Three come to mind: Death. Survival. Complacency.

I volunteer none of these and shrug instead. I’m not interested in guessing games.

His eyes are like mirrors, though not of his soul, but mine. Difficult to look away, yet staring at them is … exhausting.

“Subsistence,” he says. “It’s like complacency, but not exact.”

Even though he’d plucked the word “complacent” from my brain, it’ll do no good to let him see my goose bumps.

Broad face alight with some amusement, he continues, “Maintaining one’s self at the lowest level—not truly an existence, but beneath that. What’s left of our planet … ‘thriving’ is too big a word. People fight for their lives, but what do they live for? The Authority isn’t stupid. They realize that a person’s will to survive is only as strong as what there is to survive for. And again, we know who you are. I’d like to send you to the mainland, where you can live your life and hopefully thrive there. What you bring to it is a real existence again.”

“But?”

“No buts. You and your art will find each other. It is your destiny.”

A sound escapes me. Four years ago it might have been a laugh. Now, it’s akin to the crinkling of paper. “You know my destiny?”

“I have seen it.”

My core shifts. Just a flutter. And my heart strives to keep pace. “I’m sorry, come again?”

“I see it,” he says, as would any demented thing that wills fear to override your good sense. “Your future is written all over your face.”

What can he mean? He wants me to compose music, that part is certain. As for this intended future …

“And my art? I don’t have that kind of love anymore. You need love to create.”

Pretend Man nods slowly to himself, ignoring my thoughts this time, though now I feel foolish for thinking he could hear them in the first place. “We need more beauty in the world, Liza. You’re healthy now, it’s all good news. You should be very happy.”

That fake smile is back, and this time, it’s easy to mimic.

Perhaps we’re not so different, Pretend Man and I.

I give in to my curiosity. “When?”

“Today.”

And together we say: “Anthem City.”

I am being
molded. Like many others who are in training, I am a human weapon that will be used for the betterment of the Underground. I am becoming something that I never thought possible. I am being molded
…

From the start, the UG forces us to learn this mantra. Now, it’s a skull-numbing chant that repeats in my head as I walk through the dark labs of the Underground’s facility. Specials lie in beds to my left and my right, all in various stages of pain. Hearing men cry like toddlers getting their first shot is deadening.

Women don’t cry as often, but they also don’t come to C wing on the days we do, as if somehow the segregation of the sexes helps lessen what’s being done to us as subjects.

I’m here in the labs for more tests to make sure my recent alterations are working. Sweden, frigid Sweden, and the last base we have still standing.

They’ll treat me like a circus animal for a few hours until they’re certain I’ve run out of tricks. And like the blurry-eyed elephant that arthritically climbs onto the back of another at the crack of the barker’s whip, we too have stopped fighting and have succumbed to the ministrations.

Telling them everything’s in order doesn’t keep me from being poked with needles and prodded by icy hands that pull my skin, not without pride, to see what they’ve done.

My brain says:
impossible
.

My body says:
nothing is anymore
.

In the beginning, we’re all made to say the same thing to replace our will, in order to control their projects against the Authority. But for me, it’s a wall inside my head; a stream playing to block those who might see inside, and there
are
those who can now.

The C wing is where the pain begins and likely only ends once you exit. Taking a deep breath, I press through the doors marked with that letter, and to the lowest place in the labs. The smell of blood and cleaning supplies is like getting slapped by a wet hand.

They let me in right away as an invited guest. One nurse gestures to an empty bed that holds a green gown for the next poor sucker who’ll be jabbed.

She doesn’t even bother leaving as I pull off my shirt and shove my pants and boxers down. Her eyes stay averted, though not out of modesty; this nurse has been selected for this wing just like the rest, because she’s focused on one thing and one alone: getting results from the subject.

She has me step on the scale, and when it creaks noisily from strain, it’s the first sign of life from her—an eye that twitches from the display, to me, and back again. She writes down the reading, and I don’t bother to look, because I’m too busy fading out as best I can.

The nurse leaves, and I sit on the cold table to wait. There’s a mirror across from me, but I avoid the reflection. Whenever I give in and meet the dark eyes, I see someone who’s scared, defeated. And that’s not me. Not the Thomas Ripley-Hatter who used to wear the same button-up shirt every Sunday, and who followed his old man to church on his bike because he didn’t want anyone to know the preacher was his pops.

Even more chilling is when I see something else looking back.

Monsters may have taken over the world, but the monster they’ve built inside of me—built inside all of us—to fight back is far worse. What they do, what they’ve already done … Let’s just say their
patriotism
has no limits.

In my dreams, I show them the overflowing despair, so dark, so cold … If they find a way past my façade … Sometimes I wonder if I should just let them see.

I am being molded
…