Enders (22 page)

Sweat beaded on my forehead. I tried to make my hands stiff, so they wouldn’t be able to move. But my finger slowly bent and pulled the trigger.

BANG
.

I glanced up at the control room. The Ender at the glass-enclosed viewing area spoke to someone inside.

The target rolled closer. That poor old Ender lady had been killed by a fatal wound to the heart by my gun.

Excellent
.

I felt my fingers loosen their grip on the rifle. Dawson had given me back control. It must have taken extreme concentration on his part to maintain a connection, and now he had to recharge.

“This is disgusting,” I said. “You’re a horrible, sick person.”

Sometimes we have to do things that aren’t pretty. For the greater good
.

The Ender target moved away with a sad electronic buzz of the motor, and a new target moved into the original position.

Let’s try this one
.

It was a holo of a Starter. At this distance, I guessed he was about my age, in typical street Starter wear: rags and a water bottle, handlite. Dirty, scraggly.

It was an image of Michael.

I felt my stomach lurch. I was going to put the rifle down, but I couldn’t.

“No …”

My hands brought the rifle into position, and my eye focused on the target.

“Stop this!” I screamed.

My mind raced. Was there anything I could do to stop his control? If relaxing helped, then would panic break the connection?

“You can’t make me do this!”

But in painfully slow motion my finger pulled the trigger. Nothing I could do would stop my finger from moving. Everything was happening in spite of myself.

The rifle fired with a bang.

The Enders in the control room pressed buttons that made the target move forward so I could see the results.

A wound was outlined in red, showing that my bullet had gone clean through the holo image of Michael’s forehead.

If it were really him, he would be dead.

My stomach tightened into a knot. I felt my arms get lighter. I had control again.

I gripped the rifle and sprinted down the walkway to the door. The female Ender shrilled over the microphone.

“Callie Woodland, return to the stall. Stop now!”

Callie!

I tried not to listen to Dawson but held on fast to my anger. It seemed to be fueling me. I burst through the door. The Ender guard on the other side came at me. I aimed for his leg and pulled the trigger.

It wouldn’t move. The trigger froze.

Do you think we can’t control those? They don’t work outside the shooting range, little Starter
.

“Stop calling me that!”

I raised the rifle and used the butt to slam into the Ender’s stomach. He doubled over. But what I couldn’t see was the Ender who came up from behind me and pressed something hard against my spine that zapped my nerves to jelly. My knees buckled, and everything turned black.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I woke up in the padded room with a killer headache and a mouth that felt stuffed full of cotton. The door opened, and a female Ender guard let someone enter the room. Emma. She closed the door behind her.

I looked at her. “No smoothie?”

She sat on the floor next to me. “I heard they locked you up.”

“What else did you hear?”

“That you were an expert shooter. But you attacked a guard.”

“I refused to shoot my best friend. What did they think?”

“It’s just a holo. Maybe they wanted to see if you could follow orders.”

I shook my head. “They knew I wouldn’t do it. That’s why they set up that situation.”

She bent her knees and rested her arms on them. I noticed her large name anklet again.

“So Michael, is he like your boyfriend?”

“No. He’s my friend.” Why was she asking this? Did she really care? “How is he?”

“He’s doing fine.
He
did all the tests.” She emphasized “he” to point out what a good Starter does.

“And Hyden.” She played with her hair. “What about him?”

“What about him? Is he all right?”

“He’s okay. Is
he
your boyfriend?”

I didn’t like this inquisition. The less I revealed, the better. Plus, I figured cameras were filming us.

“No,” I said. “He’s also a friend. Where is he now?”

“In another room. He refused to finish his tests too.”

I imagined Hyden being told to shoot a holo of me. It made me feel good to know he wouldn’t do that. But Michael had finished his tests. Did he have to shoot me?

She ran her hand through her hair. “It just makes everything go longer when you guys won’t cooperate.”

“What do you mean? Have you had other Metals in here before?”

She nodded.

“Where are they now?”

“I’m not supposed to talk about that.” She twirled her hair around her finger. “I wanted to ask you something. They said you knew my grandma.”

“They told you that?”

“Yes. That she rented you. Is it true?” She seemed sharper than earlier when she had been so spacey.

“How do I know you’re really Emma?”

“I thought I proved it to you, last time we talked. The bracelet, remember?”

“Maybe you were listening when Emma and I were talking,” I said.

“My grandma always kept a gun in her bedroom.”

“Lots of Enders do.”

“In the floor of their closet, under the rug, under the floor panel, in a wooden box? A Glock eighty-five?”

That stopped me. “Okay.”

“She said it was better to be prepared than to be afraid. I think the war did that to her.”

“The war changed a lot of us.”

“The one thing I hated was she wouldn’t let me get any surgery. I wanted my nose fixed. My mother would have let me do it if she were alive. I told Grandma that. She cried. I don’t know if it was because she missed her so much, or because I’d hurt her. If I do get to go back someday, I’ll tell her I’m sorry. I think about that a lot.”

I couldn’t tell Emma the truth now. She wasn’t ready to hear it.

“Even though she should have let me get the surgery,” she went on. “I had such a beak.”

“Emma, I saw your pictures, from before. You had your grandma’s nose. It was strong, and it looked good on both of you. I know it sounds lame, but it’s true—what’s on the outside isn’t as important as what’s on the inside.”

“Oh, easy for you to say.” She looked me over.

“Sure, I got the makeover like you did, but it didn’t really change me. Someday, we’ll both be Enders, and even with green laser surgery, eventually we’ll be old and wrinkled. Like everybody. But we’ll look a lot better if we’re happy inside. If we used our brains and our talents instead of stressing over what someone else defines as ‘pretty.’ ”

Emma frowned. “You don’t know what it’s like. You were probably never ugly.”

“Neither were you. It’s not that we shouldn’t be the best we can be. But surgery at sixteen? Or thirteen or twelve? I’ll bet you knew some mean girls who looked like holo-stars.”

“Oh yeah.”

“But let me guess: no one decent wanted to be around them because they were stupid bullies?”

She was silent.

“I’m telling you, if there’s one thing I learned from this whole body bank mess, it’s that looks are overrated. Beauty isn’t about meeting some holo-star standard, it’s about being you. Because looks come and go. But nobody else can be you.”

She stared at me as if I were crazy.

“You’re never going to change my mind,” she said. “If I hadn’t already done it, I’d get this doctor who’s here to do it. He can do anything.”

“What doctor?” I said.

“He’s a surgeon and a tech expert.” Her eyes were on fire.

A female Ender’s voice came over an invisible speaker. “Emma, you are wanted in the front office.”

She pouted. “I gotta go.” She got up and left.

I felt like an idiot wasting my energy trying to convince her to appreciate herself. Did she listen? No. Meanwhile, Dawson was probably cooking up some new torture for me. After attacking his guard, I hated to think what would be in store for me.

Callie?

Someone was in my head. And it wasn’t Dawson.

“Hyden?” I stood. “Is that you?”

Yeah, it’s me
.

“How is this happening?”

I stared at the gray padded walls.

Dawson and his people made me hook up. They’re here
.

“I see.” So Dawson had some new test.

I’m sorry.…

“About what?” Without intending to, I was moving toward the door. The door opened. The Ender guard stepped back to let me out. I walked out into the hallway. Everything felt floaty and dreamlike.

Keep going. You don’t have to do anything. Just don’t resist me
.

It was a strange sensation. Sort of like ice-skating down the hallway without any skates. I wasn’t trying to walk, wasn’t trying to resist. But I was moving.

I didn’t know where I was going. Not just the final destination, but whether I was going to open a door, or turn, or go to the end of the hall. I just put one foot in front of the other.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t alarming. It was almost calming. Maybe it was because I knew it was Hyden controlling me, even if Dawson was giving the orders.

Just stay with me
.

I wasn’t stupid; I knew they were making him do this. Dawson probably had a rifle aimed on him. So something was going to happen. I could hear concern in his voice.

I recognized where he was making me walk. The shooting range.

The new Ender guard there was taller and bigger than the one I’d attacked. This one opened the door for me, and I entered.

I looked up and saw the same elegant female Ender from before watching me from the glassed-in viewing area off the control room.

I thought I was going to the last stall again, but I stopped midway. I turned, and instead of a rifle, I saw a gun, a Glock 85. It was the same kind of gun that Helena had had me use. Did they know that?

I didn’t see a target. I didn’t want to touch the gun, but it wasn’t my decision. Hyden did it for me.

My hand moved down and wrapped around the cold metal of the gun. It raised.

The Ender woman behind the glass spoke to someone in the control room. I heard a rustling on the range and turned my attention there. This time, instead of a target, an Ender man wearing a black bulletproof bodysuit and a helmet walked out. He faced me, a living version of the target image I’d shot at before.

“That’s a bulletproof suit, right?”

They tell me yes
.

Hyden raised my arm and aimed, using my eyes. My finger pulled the trigger. The Ender stumbled back from the impact but remained on his feet.

The Ender behind glass spoke through her microphone. “Would the target please move forward?”

The man walked toward me until he was ten feet away. I could see where the bullet had torn a hole in his suit, at the heart. It was easy to see because of a red powder that had been released where the fibers were torn.

“Good job,” the Ender said through his protective helmet. His eyes narrowed in a look of approval.

“Target. You are dismissed,” said the Ender behind the glass.

He left. I wondered what that proved to them. Probably that if I trusted someone, that person could control my body more easily. So now …

Oh, they wouldn’t.

But yes, they did.

Michael entered the range. He appeared to be wearing the same kind of bulletproof bodysuit and helmet.

But was he?

He tried to leave, but I could see that they had locked down his boots magnetically. He struggled but couldn’t lift his feet. He was forced to stand there.

It was a horrible test. This wasn’t just a nameless, able-bodied Ender; this was someone I knew and loved like a brother. What if his suit wasn’t bulletproof?

They’re telling me to tell you to relax
.

“Don’t do this, Hyden.”

They say he won’t get hurt
.

My arm holding the gun raised.

Michael flinched.

“Make it stop,” I said. “Refuse!”

It’ll be just like the last one
.

“Don’t make me. Please, Hyden.”

I could see Michael’s eyes through the helmet. He closed them.

“I won’t do this!” I shouted at Hyden.

I fought as hard as I could. My insides were torn to shreds. I could not gain control of my hands.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to Michael.

My finger pulled the trigger, the gun went off with a loud pop, and Michael fell backward to the floor.

Instantly, I had my control back. I dropped the gun and ran to him. I pulled off his helmet.

“Michael, can you hear me?”

His eyes fluttered open. “Callie?”

I looked at his chest. Same hole, circled with red, just like the Ender.