Middle Ground (23 page)

I nodded. He could go to jail. He would most likely be linked to what was happening at the DC. The crime would be on his shoulders as well.

“Dad, I know you started something with the best intentions. I know you did it out of love. But the system is broken. Remember the reason you started DS—to save lives. But look at me. There are thousands of kids like me in these centers. And it’s all covered up. Richard is covering it up. And you have the power to stop it. Please, support us. That’s all I ask. Be honest.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Do you think we’re ever going to be at a point where we can trust each other, Madeline?” he asked.

I nodded. “Maybe we can start to try.”

The office door opened and Connie stalked out. I backed away from my dad and followed her to the dorms. I looked over at him before I went inside and even in the direct sunlight his face was shadowed in anger. Anger can unravel you. It can give you the fuel you need to make a change. I could only hope it would work on my father.

Over the next month, the stifling air inside the dormitory started to move. Doors began to open. The atmosphere was spiked with life.

The changes would have been invisible to the average person, but they jumped out at me like flashing lights. The first time I noticed something different, I was on my way to the bathroom. I passed a girl in the hall. Usually, if we saw another person in the hall, we bolted. We avoided one another like we carried contagious diseases that could be transferred by any connection, even eye contact.

But this time in the hall, neither the girl nor I cowered. We didn’t hug opposite sides of the hall. We looked right at each other. Our eyes locked. She was skinny, like me. She had red hair and freckles. Her eyes were light brown. Her mouth curved into a shy smile. She said “Hey” when she passed, and it nearly made my heart stop with surprise.

“Hey,” I said back to her and returned the smile. I was beaming. My body was flushed with so much energy I wanted to sprint through the halls and scream. By the time I made it to the bathroom, my eyes had filled with tears. I closed the door and slid down the wall to the floor and basked in that simple moment. I’d forgotten how desperate I was to feel hope, to see some kind of acknowledgment that this struggle was worth it. I wiped the tears off my face. I hadn’t realized I was walking such a fine line, so close to the edge of despair. I’d been avoiding it the past few months. My friends helped me avoid it. They helped me to only see courage and strength and love. And that’s what got me through. I’d never looked down into that giant abyss of despair because my friends had forced me to keep looking up.

That girl, that stranger, had looked at me; she smiled; she spoke. The counter-drug was starting to work. We had a chance, a real chance, to free these people. It wasn’t a dream anymore.

The more I looked for signs of life, the more I saw. People were leaving their doors open. Voices flooded out. Music filtered out. Girls started hanging around the food machine like it was a coffee shop. Conversations spilled into the air. The Eyes reported us and extra counseling sessions were called, but the MindReaders didn’t work anymore.

The DC fought to contain us. They added extra security. Doors were locked permanently and we all had to have escorts every time we left our rooms. The Eye reported all our movements. But it didn’t matter. We were winning.

***

I settled into my desk chair with a cup of coffee. Only three more weeks until my six-month sentence was up. I could taste freedom. The nightmares had stopped completely. I hadn’t met with Dr. Stevenson in over a month. I’d behaved since then; I stayed in my room and focused my energy on getting out of here. I dedicated my time to finishing my DS classes. I paid my dues and served my time. Now I just needed to coast through, blend in, and stay out of trouble. Then I could shut the whole place down.

I turned on my wall screen to finish a research assignment for Computer Ethics, the final project for my last DS class. My screen suddenly locked and I set my coffee cup on the desk with a frown.

“Hey,” I mumbled out loud and tried to restart the computer. A blinking yellow light alerted me I had a message. I touched the light and there was a note informing me I had a mandatory counseling appointment.

I sighed at the screen. It must be my last session, maybe to discuss how the release works. Would someone be allowed to pick me up? I checked off that I’d received the message, and the screen brought me back to my DS assignment.

***

After eating dinner and sliding my food tray through the slot, I headed for the elevator. My scrubs still hung on me, but I had gained enough weight that my face had some color, and my cheeks were filling out again. I rode the elevator downstairs to my assigned counseling room, but when I walked inside, it wasn’t Dr. Stevenson waiting to greet me. Standing next to the wall seat was Richard Vaughn. I stopped at the edge of the room. I started to back up, as if I’d walked in on someone else’s counseling appointment.

“Madeline,” he said with a smile that was too friendly to trust. He waved me in. “Come in,” he said, and motioned to the chair next to him. He was taller than I’d imagined, taller than Justin. He pressed his hands down into the pockets of his long white lab coat, which reached almost to his ankles.

When the door shut behind me, the wall screens snapped on. Classical music filtered through the surround speakers, long dramatic chords of violins and cellos. It was graceful and melancholy, like music convincing you to move on after a tragedy. I looked around the wall screens and my eyes absorbed the most picturesque landscape I’d ever seen. The sky above was deep blue, cloudless, and stretched over us like a canopy. The room was no longer a detention center. Richard and I were on top of a hill looking down at a green valley below us. We stood on an old asphalt road that curved down a gentle slope. Green hills rolled through the distance like frozen waves of land. They looked as soft as velvet to touch. The hills dipped toward a crystal blue lake in the center. The still water reflected the sky and the hills. There wasn’t a single person or building in sight. Just wilderness and sunshine. The classical music seemed to flow out of the ground and down from the sky, and the wind and the trees moved to the rhythm.

“It’s paradise,” I said, like I was in a trance. I didn’t want to walk out of it. My feet floated like I was caught in a spell, like I could join the flock of white birds passing overhead. “Does this place actually exist?”

Richard walked in a circle around me. He smiled out at the valley and nodded. “Of course it exists, Madeline. It’s my favorite program,” he said. “Anything we want exists. That’s the beauty of technology.”

I watched him carefully.
Beauty or power?
I wanted to ask. I made my way across the room and sat down on the seat. He approached me and the landscape snapped off. I reached my hand out and wanted to pull it back. I could get lost in that valley and down those warm, inviting hills. The landscape turned into pale flesh-colored walls. Richard walked over to me and rested his hand on my shoulder. My body tensed under his touch.

“When I’m in town I like to meet with a few of the patients personally,” he said. “I’m the DC director, but I used to be a psychiatrist myself.”

I politely shrugged his hand off my shoulder. There was no point in pretending to cower in front of Richard.

“I know your background,” I said. “You specialized in neuroscience at UCLA. You won awards for discovering hallucinogenic herbs. Then you specialized in memory-recovery treatments. You helped people with Alzheimer’s regain memory by using shock therapy. You made millions in the drug market and sponsored digital school.” I was quoting information Molly had dug up on him—details I never would have been able to find in the DC.

He tilted his head to the side. “That’s right,” he said, clearly impressed. “I’ve dedicated my life to the study of the human brain. It’s the most complicated computer ever created. It’s a beautiful machine.”

“Organ,” I mumbled, to clarify that it was
not
a machine. I wished Justin were here right now. This was a topic he would love to debate.

Richard took a cord out of his pocket that was attached to the same MindReader Dr. Stevenson used with me, and I obediently slipped it on. I felt the familiar tingling sensation in my head. I wasn’t scared. I knew any memory he tried to download would be blocked.

“Dr. Stevenson told me you were reluctant to cooperate with our program.”

“Reluctant?” I asked, and my mouth fell open at this accusation. I had experienced everything every other student had faced. I’d had just as many nightmares. I didn’t cut any corners. The only difference was I fought back.

“It’s as if you’re immune to our therapy,” he said, “which is very rare.” He pointed at the wall screen. An image of my brain appeared, its tunnels and ridges and canals wrapped in a tight bundle. It was the same picture I’d seen at my first counseling session. Once again, the blue and red colors were drastically unbalanced.

POSITIVE:
3%

NEGATIVE:
97%

I couldn’t help but smile. I had managed to build even more defiance against their system. Then, staring at the image, it hit me what these numbers actually represented. It was another trick. The DC switched around the emotions. The 97 percent didn’t stand for anger and panic and anxiety and negative energy. That number was the positive reading; it stood for hope and courage and optimism and strength.

“In all the years my program has thrived, I’ve never seen a student actually become more hostile from our procedures. You certainly have a lot of your father in you, don’t you? A very strong character. Mentally incorrigible.”

I looked back at him and nodded. “You mean unbreakable?”

“Defiance has its limits,” he said, and paused for a few seconds. “That’s why I’m scheduling you for a second round of treatment, one counseling session a week,” he said, and smiled at me. “With a slightly different drug. I think you’ll come around this time.”

“What?” I said. My hands clamped down on the sides of my seat and squeezed the plastic cushion. I looked back at the screen and the numbers were already changing as panic started to take over. “You can’t do that.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “I run every DC in the country,” he stated. “I assure you I can. I’m lengthening your sentence to another six months, since your last sentence appeared to be such a joke to you. You don’t waste our time inside of here, Madeline.” His wrinkled mouth formed a thin line. “You only waste yours.”

I took a deep breath. This wasn’t happening. I’d come this far. I’d endured months of torture. But I couldn’t do it again. I knew I couldn’t physically or mentally go through the nightmares again. I was getting nauseated just thinking about it.

“We’re also going to freeze your computer use for the time being. I don’t think you’re ready to be involved with digital school or socializing yet.”

“Dr. Vaughn,” I said, and tried to keep my voice steady, as if he would bargain with me. “My sentence is almost over.”

“We have the right to extend it if we feel you aren’t ready.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why do I need more counseling sessions?”

His pale blue eyes were hard on mine. “Because you’re a threat, Madeline. You’re dangerous to society. We can’t let you out knowing you’ll just cause problems again. People are happy now, don’t you see? They like to be entertained; they feel entitled to have everything they want handed to them. The world you are fighting for simply cannot happen.”

He leaned in closer until his face was inches from mine. “And I’m not about to let one teenage girl jeopardize my entire program.”

My walls of self-assurance crumbled. Richard had found my pillar of confidence and ignited an explosive at the base of it. I’d be worthless if I went through another round of nightmares. I’d take up all of Justin’s time again, making him hold my hand through another taxing round of treatment. I’d risk my friends’ lives to keep them meeting with me. This whole thing had been pointless. I felt tears prick the back of my eyes and blinked them away. I pressed my lips together to keep them from shaking.

Richard walked into the center of the room and pointed up at the screen, at the image of my brain still suspended there. He reached his hand around it like he was holding it. It made my stomach clench.

“Let me tell you why the brain fascinates me,” he said. “Our entire lives, we’re educated. Logic is painstakingly drilled into us. If we were smart, we would be more logical. But for how large our brains are, humans defy logic. They only want to make decisions with their emotions. Logic is wasted on us.” He looked over at me. “That’s what makes us dangerous. We’re the smartest, yet the most unpredictable force on this planet.”

“Emotions aren’t always bad,” I pointed out.

He raised his arms up helplessly. “We can’t control them. When something is out of our control, it needs to be monitored. We’re irrational creatures. We make self-indulgent decisions, not wise ones. How can you trust such an unpredictable species?”

“Our emotions protect us,” I argued. I was desperate to prove a point. “We’ve existed for thousands of years for a reason. We wouldn’t be here today without our emotions. Fear makes us smarter. It forces our senses awake. Anger makes us change. Love makes us compassionate. Maybe you’re focusing your counseling sessions on the
wrong
emotions.”

He shook his head. “Humans refuse to learn. We make the same circular mistakes over and over in life because we always let our emotions get in the way and do the thinking for us. Our own minds are our weakest link. Someone needs to put us in our place.”

“We don’t belong in a cage.”

He frowned. “Metaphorically speaking, yes we do. Wouldn’t you agree that you’ve always lived within boundaries? Schedules? Rules? You’ve always been guided. It’s the only way we can survive. We think we’re the smartest, most superior species on the planet, Madeline, yet we’re the only species that is destroying it.”