Rehabilitation: Romantic Dystopian (Unbelief Series Book 1) (10 page)

His hair is dark and ashy colored, like there’s gray dust coating it. His gaze is directed firmly forward, like he doesn’t want to catch my eye by accident. I can’t see them well, but I think they might be green.

After several moments of walking in silence, we reach the end of the hallway. It’s split off now going in opposite directions. Down each of these new halls is a set of doors without windows.

“Raymond,” the woman says addressing the boy next to me. “Your Judge is waiting behind that door.” She points to our left at the first door.

Raymond, paling slightly, nods his head and walks silently to the door. It opens on its own when he gets there and he disappears into the room. The door shuts, leaving me alone with the Selector. She turns to me, an odd expression on her face. It passes after a moment and she points down the opposite hall.

“There,” she says. “The third door.”

I turn down the hallway, heading to my door. I can feel the woman’s eyes boring into my back as I go. Like Raymond’s door, mine opens on its own, revealing a square room, all white, with only a long table in the middle of it. An empty chair waits for me. Along the back wall is a mirror. My eyes are caught by my reflection when I enter, and I stare at myself, seeing a small, empty looking girl with mousy brown hair and pale skin.

On its own, the door closes behind me, making me jump. Tension flooding through my body, I take a deep breath to calm myself and take a seat at the table.

Now, I wait.

I
wait for a long time.

I shift, restless. The chair is uncomfortable. It’s cold, stainless steel, and as you might imagine, extremely unforgiving. I’m left there waiting for what feels an interminable amount of time, so I shift my weight again, trying to achieve a level of comfort. Or at least get rid of some of the numbness settling in my rear.

There is an empty chair on the other side of the table. That’s where my Judge will sit and test me to see if I’m a Believer. It’s been a while since my last Trial, but you never completely forget what they’re like.

My eyes flicker up from the chair back once more to the mirror. Usually, there isn’t anything in the room besides the table and chair. It’s just a white box with stainless steel in the middle of it. That mirror is weird to see in here and it makes me antsy.
 

I don’t know why, it’s only my reflection staring back at me, but I can’t shake the feeling there’s someone else there. Someone who I can’t see, but can see me.

A shiver runs through me and I decide in an instant I want out. I shove back my chair, its legs making a high-pitched scraping sound along the floor, and stand. I’m not sure what I would have done—there’s nowhere to go, no way to hide—but I’ll never find out, because just as I turn toward the door it opens.

In walks a tall woman in the same white all the Elite wear—a sign of the purity of the After World, one based in science not superstition—with brown hair pulled back into a tight bun and thick rimmed glasses. She is holding a clipboard in her hand with a stack of papers clipped to it.

She said nothing to me at first, just raised a single eyebrow in surprise at my standing, and otherwise made no acknowledgment of my presence. She walked across the room, her white heels clicking on the tiles, and took a seat across from me in the other stainless steel chair. Placing her clipboard beside her, she whips out a pen from her coat pocket.

She clicks it open, before looking at me squarely in the face.

“Miss Sinna Reardon,” she says, only half asking a question of confirmation.

I nod my head.

She folds her hands in front of her over the table. “You understand why you’ve been brought here today?”

Clearing my throat, I nod my head again. “Yes, ma’am,” I say in a shaky voice.

After staring at me for a moment, she reaches for her clipboard. Flipping through the first couple of pages, she says, “You’ve never been for a Mistrial before?”

“No,” I blurt.

“Alright, then we will start with procedurals.” She flips through the pages on her clipboard and folds them over the back. “Mistrials are similar to normal Trials in that they are tests designed to evaluate your ability to integrate and assimilate into the general population. This means a basic skills test, social screening, and logic versus fallacy test.”

I’m only half listening as she explains the Trials. We all know by now exactly what the tests are and what they’re designed for.

Skills test to see where you’re going in life and if you’ll get stuck with the same lot you’ve always gotten stuck with.

Social screening to identify if you associate with problem individuals and to see if you can suck up enough to advance in life.

And the logic versus fallacy test, the only one that can completely destroy your entire world in an instant.

“We’ll go through these tests as per protocol,” the woman continues. “After these, we will continue on to the Mistrial portion of your testing.”

I bite my lip. I had promised myself I wasn’t going to do anything stupid like ask questions, but I figure if I’m trying to get myself into Rehabilitation anyway, I might as well gain as much knowledge out of it as I can. “Why is this a Mistrial instead of a Trial?”

The woman looks up at me from her clipboard, her eyes registering annoyance behind her glasses. She isn’t a woman who likes questions—which I find odd, considering the Elite are such a proponents of science. Science is nothing but questions from what I can tell. Her lips twitch in aggravation before she lets out a sigh. “A Mistrial suggests that the original sentencing passed down from the original Trial was either inconclusive or has been overturned due to new evidence.”

I consider this, then blurt before I can think it over, “So they made a mistake. They were wrong.”

She freezes. She doesn’t like that word, wrong. None of the Elite do. They pride themselves on the idea that no matter what, science is never wrong. Science may ‘change’ as new evidence is brought to light, but it’s never wrong. People are wrong all the time of course, but science is what keeps them on the right path. Science is what keeps them from making mistakes and trials are
supposed
to be infallible. I have to withhold a snort at that thought. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t appreciate my observations.

After a long moment, she flips over another page from her clipboard, clearing her throat. “We’ll begin with your logic versus fallacy test.”

I frown. We don’t usually start with the logic versus fallacy test.

She pulls out a small disk from her pocket and unclips a silver band around her wrist. It’s thick and flat, with two glowing green lights on the edges of it. She slides her finger across the flat surface, causing a ripple to shimmer over the silver band. It beeps and the lights flash twice. She inserts the tiny disk into port, swiping her hand over the surface again. The lights flash once.

“Put this on,” she tells me, offering the wristband to me.

I accept it, taking a deep breath. I slide it over my wrist, adjusting it so that the two lights are right above my pulse point. Once there, they turn from green to red and flash once.

I don’t entirely understand how this works. I know it has something to do with our responses to questions presented to us, the data being recorded into the little disk she put into the band, but beyond that, I’m not sure.

I don’t know what good and bad responses are or how to give the ones we’re supposed to. I guess that’s the point, though.

“How old are you?” the woman begins, pen ready to scribble some information onto her clipboard.

“Sixteen,” I say.

I feel a tiny spark that tells me the wristband works just fine.

“Where do you live?”

“The Gate,” I answer automatically, then shake my head. “Um, I mean, Elite Sector Five.”

She makes a low hum of disapproval, then checks something off on her board. “Do you have any siblings?”

“No.”

Another note. “Do you live with your parents?”

The spark this time is as sharp as the lingering pain in my chest. “No,” I answer.

“Are they dead?” she asks bluntly.

The aching in my chest increases. “Yes.”

She makes a note, then pushes further, “So they aren’t with you?”

I frown. This is one of those weird phrasing things they do sometimes, but I’m not sure what she is trying to get at with this one. I shake my head. “No. They’re
dead
,” I say, emphasizing the word, like she’s dumb.

Her eyes glance at my wrist and she gives me another hum of disapproval. “I see. Have you selected a partner yet?”

I don’t know if it’s the analytical way she asked or if I’m just prickly from her last question, but I can’t help folding my arms across my chest and fixing her with a glare. “That’s none of your business.”

Which isn’t true of course.
Everything
is their business. I feel resentment well up, but force it down.

“I repeat: Have you selected a partner yet?” Her voice is stern now, even angry. “Answer.”

I grit my teeth as a sharp shock goes through my wrist. “No,” I say and another spark travels through my arm, almost painful now.

She doesn’t look happy about my answer. “Why do we denounce love?”

“Because it breeds war,” I parrot immediately. It is the answer we are indoctrinated with as kids to keep us from questioning such a law—but sometimes, it only serves to make me question it more.

They usually mean romantic love. Being too attached to your partner makes you vulnerable to being hurt, and when people get hurt by someone they’re so strongly attached to, there can often be violent results. What about familial love, I wonder? I loved my parents, didn’t I? Jacob loved—
loves
—his sister and she him, right?

Did those things breed war, too?

Another shock runs through my wrist. It’s starting to throb with soreness now, but I refuse to allow the Selector to see my discomfort.

“And why do we denounce war?” she continues.

“Because it is a violent endeavor ruled by superstition, fear, and passion,” I offer in answer.

She writes something down on her paper as another shock travels all the way up my arm this time, thrumming in my shoulder. I grit my teeth again and look past her, tired of listening to her voice and looking at her face. Behind her is the mirror and I look at my own reflection, unnerved that I look so...
angry
.

Anger isn’t a good response to a logic versus fallacy test.

“Alright, Miss Reardon,” the woman says. “Just one last question for you.”

I steel myself for it. The last one is usually the worst, whether it’s the most probing or just the most provoking, it’s hard to say.

“If I were to present you with an offer to walk out of that door right now,” she begins, tilting her head to the side as she watches me. “Would you?”

My eyes dart back to her face, her question catching me off guard. That’s not the kind of question they usually ask. Everyone knows the answer to that question, how could anyone get it wrong?
Of course
everyone would walk out the door? It would be crazy not to.

“Yes,” I burst out, and disregarding the spark at my wrist.

And I ignore the little voice in the back of my head that reminds me I’m lying.
 

The truth is no... no I wouldn’t.