Anomaly (13 page)
I
hardly remember returning to my room last night. I know I did. The washing room was in the far corner of a stairwell that led to level C.
The stairwell makes me think of Berk and I feel guilty again. But I don’t know why. Can I not enjoy the attentions of more than one boy? I’m not sure why I am conflicted.
The day goes by quickly. I don’t see Dr. Loudin. Just Assistants who prod and poke me. I spend my allotted time in the exercise chamber, but no one is there. I miss conversations. I miss Rhen. I miss the routine of life in Pod C.
My violin is on the couch. I know I am changing when even
the sight of that does nothing to me. How do I play these feelings? I would need several instruments, playing at different tempos in different keys, to express my mind right now. I wonder if Progress has a Musician, if they have instruments. Could I teach others to play, have something like the string quartet John spoke of? That would be wonderful.
I close my eyes and play music in my mind. Berk is a cello, solid and deep. Stone is a French horn, complex but beautiful.
The door opens and Dr. Loudin walks in. I sit up straight, frightened. Why is he here? In my room? When he has so many more important things to do?
“Good morning, Thalli.” His voice is higher than most men’s voices.
“Sir.” I don’t trust myself to say more than one syllable. I stand, unsure where to go or what to do. What is the etiquette when one of the founders of the known world enters your cube?
“Relax, my dear.” Dr. Loudin sits on my couch and motions for me to return to my sleeping platform. I sit on the edge, my back straight.
“Is something wrong?” Maybe I wasn’t supposed to go up last night. Maybe Asta lied to me and they are a rebel group. Maybe he is here to personally escort me to the annihilation chamber.
“Nothing is wrong.” Dr. Loudin’s hair is an odd mixture of blond and gray. His eyes are small and hazel and they are constantly moving. “I have been monitoring your testing, as you know, and I am quite impressed.”
“Thank you.”
“What did you think of Progress?”
I exhale, not realizing I have been holding my breath. “It is astonishing.”
Dr. Loudin smiles. “I’m glad you feel that way. I think you would be a fine addition to that community.”
I nod.
“Of course, you still have several more weeks of testing to undergo.”
“Of course.” And what if I fail those? What does failure look like? All I am doing is talking and being prodded with machines whose functions I don’t understand, being placed in simulated situations that make no sense.
“You have many questions.”
“I’m sorry.” I swallow hard. Am I so easy to read?
“Don’t apologize.” Dr. Loudin’s tiny eyes stop for just a moment as they lock on mine. “Up there, curiosity is necessary.”
Then
why
is
it
treated
as
an
anomaly
down
here?
I want to scream.
Why
have
I
spent
seventeen
years
suppressing
it?
Dr. Loudin leans forward. “As you know, your friend Berk is quite a promising Scientist.”
“Yes.” I am sure his mind moves as fast as his eyes.
“We are in the process of testing him as well.”
“Testing Berk?”
“He is one of the brightest Scientists we have ever seen.” Dr. Loudin leans back. “He will likely be one of The Ten who replaces us. But we need to make sure he is capable of such a responsibility. We need to know he will not be distracted from his duties.”
Understanding hits me. Dr. Loudin knows Berk and I have spent time together. He knows we have feelings for each other. He is telling me that I am distracting Berk. That I could prevent him from becoming one of the next generation of leaders. That is why he moved Berk onto another project. That is why he wants me as far away from Berk as possible.
“Do we understand each other?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am certain you will do all you can to help your friend prepare for the important task he was designed to accomplish.”
“Of course, sir.”
“You are a bright girl too, Thallium.” Dr. Loudin stands and I follow. “Continue to focus on your testing. You will be finished soon, and then you can choose where you would like to stay.”
And what choice is that? Here in captivity, able to be near Berk but not to be with him? Or above, where I can forge a new life?
“Good morning to you.”
Dr. Loudin leaves and I lie back on my sleeping platform. I can never see Berk—no more picnics or clandestine meetings on the stairs. No more music between us. Even if he tries to see me, to rescue me, I cannot let him. He is a Scientist. He will be—should be—one of
The
Scientists. I cannot hold him back from such an honor. I will not be the reason he loses such an opportunity.
I want to run back to Progress and stay there. Why do I have to wait? Why should I wait? What will they do if I just abandon the tests and make my choice now?
I gather my belongings and go to my door. I am not locked in.
I will soon find out.
I
am locked in.
My room is the only door that is open. Every other exit is locked tight. I cannot leave this hallway. Is this another test? If it is, I am tired of them. I am tired of trying to pass inane tests that serve absolutely no purpose. I want to throw something, to yell at the top of my lungs.
I have decided that the Scientists are right—feelings
are
destructive. I wish I didn’t have them. I cannot stop thinking about Berk, but I know I can’t think about Berk. I can think about Stone, but I do not want to. Why do I want what I can’t have?
Feelings are terrible things.
I am wandering the hall now. There is nowhere to go. Surely one of the Assistants will find me and make me return to my room. Or better yet, to the isolation chamber with the pink sleeping platform.
I lean against the wall. I need to talk to someone. John. I do not realize that in my wanderings, I have brought myself right to his door.
I open it and peek my head in.
“Come in.” John walks over to me and opens the door wider for me to enter. His room smells like the Cleaning Specialists have not visited in several days.
I sit on the chair in the corner. It is so worn that I sink down farther than I expect and my feet fly up.
“I apologize.” John pats my hand and walks to his couch. “I have not redecorated in years.”
“How can you stand this?” I can’t stop crying. I don’t even care that the tears are dripping off my face and falling onto my shirt.
“It’s not so bad.” John rubs the arm of his couch. “James has offered to get me new furniture, but this reminds me of the old days. I need reminders.”
“No, not the room.” Although it could certainly use a good cleaning and, at the very least, some new fabric. “This. Life. Being cooped up and told what to do and who to talk to and who not to talk to.”
John leans forward. Yesterday I would have found his slow movements endearing. Today they are just frustrating. Everything is frustrating.
“Did something happen?”
I laugh. The question isn’t funny, but the laugh escapes anyway. “I found out there is a whole community of people living aboveground, and that if I care anything at all for Berk I can never see him again, and if I’m really good maybe I can go above and be completely removed from him forever. That’s all.”
John’s thick white eyebrows come together. It’s an odd sight. “There is a community aboveground? Are you sure?”
“Of course I am sure.” My mind flashes to the dust, the pods. Asta. Stone. “It’s . . . nice. Different.”
“A community aboveground.” John isn’t talking to me. He is somewhere else, lost in memories I can’t even imagine. “What does it look like?”
My frustration melts away. He is so eager, so hungry for news of the world he once knew. “I didn’t see much. Just some pods and gardens. And a child.”
John sucks in a breath. “A child?”
I see the little girl again. Summer. Her dark hair and eyes. Her tiny hands. “She was beautiful.”
“What I wouldn’t give to see a child again.” John sighs. “The only time I see children is . . .” He shakes his head, unable to complete the thought.
“I also saw my friend Asta.” I know Stone said not to speak to anyone down here about Progress, but this is John. “We were told she was annihilated several years ago. But she wasn’t. She is alive.”
“Asta?” John’s face changes. “Was she a young girl when she was brought here? Eight or nine?”
“Yes.”
“I spoke to her.” John puts a hand over his heart. “All she had was a little cold. Just a cold. And they—”
“They took her above.” I try to comfort the old man. “She is fine. Happy.”
John shakes his head. “No. I walked with her to the annihilation chamber. I prayed with her.”
“The Scientists must have taken her from there.” I am sure there is a simple explanation. “She wasn’t annihilated. They allow the ones who can survive above to live there. They even allow them to have children that are . . . born.”
John stands. I have never seen him so agitated. I stand to walk to him, but the door opens.
“Thalli, you should not be here.” My Assistant is at the door, motioning me to follow. She gives me no time to comfort John or even to say good-bye. She is walking down the hallway, and I know I need to stay with her. I look back and John is still standing, his eyes wide, blinking away tears. I wouldn’t have told him about Progress if I knew it would upset him so much.
“You must eat.” The Assistant opens the door to my room, where a tray with food that seems even more unappetizing than usual sits. “Then I will return to take you to isolation.”
She expects me to object. I should not disappoint her. “Isolation?”
The Assistant raises her hand to stop me. “Leaving your room without permission is not allowed. And that man—”
“His name is John.”
“He is dangerous.”
I want to defend John, to argue with this Assistant that there is nothing dangerous about John, that he is the only one down here—other than Berk—who treats me like a human. But I don’t say anything. Because she is taking me to the isolation chamber. And that is where Asta found me. Perhaps Dr. Loudin
is allowing me to go to Progress again. But this Assistant cannot know that.
“You must eat,” she repeats. I realize she will not leave until I do.
I swallow the food—a vegetable patty with sourdough bread and apple slices. I barely taste any of it. My mind is in Progress. I want to see more of it this time. Last time I was so shocked, so overwhelmed, I could barely take anything in. Not now. My curiosity—it is still hard to believe that is a positive trait—drives me to see more, to explore.
The Assistant opens the door. “Isolation.”
I haven’t heard music in a while, but it is there again. A flute plays staccato notes, trilling, skipping up and down the scale. I wish I could take out my pad and type this out. The music of Progress. Of hope.
I sit in the white moving chair and wait.
I barely have time to close my eyes before the door opens. Asta pokes her head in.
“It’s about time.”
I
am having trouble seeing. Everything looks white. My eyes water. The last time I was in Progress, the sky was darker, closer to evening. But it is daytime now. And it is bright. So much brighter than what we have below. Even with our artificial lights and our panels, our world is darker. And the sun—I can actually feel it. It is an amazing feeling. Like nothing I have ever felt before. I blink a few more times and my eyes begin to adjust.
“Stone insisted that he get you all to himself today,” Asta says as we continue walking.
Stone is smiling, two sheets of plastic in his hands. “I would have come to get you—”
“He is scared of the inside.” Asta smiles at me. “He thinks he’ll get stuck in there and not be allowed out.”
Stone rolls his eyes. “No. I just prefer the air out here.”
“Right.” Asta laughs and walks off. I have never seen people interact like this. So . . . not serious.
“Ready?” Stone hands me a sheet of plastic and I begin to follow Asta. “No, not that way.”
“What?”
Stone takes off in the opposite direction, to the other side of the building. “You’ve already seen that part of Progress. I want to show you the west side.” He turns to look at me and bends down, his face inches from mine. “Plus, I want to have you all to myself. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since you were here.”
I don’t know what to say. I said those words about Berk just a few days ago. Is it wrong to accept them from Stone now? But Berk has to remain in my past. Stone could be my future. I am confused. But I don’t have time to think about it because I am sitting on the plastic, careening down the hill. I don’t even think about the dust. I just enjoy the speed and the rush of movement. I could do this all day.
