When We Wake (5 page)

It was the one thing Alex and I couldn’t agree on. I didn’t like war, but I thought it was sometimes necessary, and of course I supported our soldiers. Alex was very antiwar, and sometimes, when she forgot how I felt about it, she was antisoldier, right in front of me. I got up every Anzac Day for the dawn remembrance ceremony, while Alex, who was normally an early riser, stayed pointedly in bed until noon. Dalmar’s mum and dad had fled several wars before they arrived in Australia, so he wasn’t that keen, either. But they weren’t going to stop being friends with Owen and me for loving and missing our dad.

They might have thought differently about cryonics being used to revive dead soldiers.

But I was proud to be a part of it.

I can’t believe I was such an idiot.

“So when do I get to leave?” I asked Colonel Dawson the next morning. Dawson didn’t look like much of a military man, being sort of skinny with a zillion wrinkles in his olive skin, but he was clearly in charge. The other military doctors were all captains or lieutenants, and then there was Marie, who was
Doctor
Carmen, thank you very much, and only military by association.

“We can talk about that later,” he said, and his eyes flicked up and away from me.

I blinked at him. I didn’t actually want to leave right away, but something about his evasion made me nervous. “What if I said I wanted to leave now?”

“Well, Tegan, I’m afraid that legally you don’t necessarily get to make that decision.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I signed my dead body over to science. That doesn’t mean I signed over the rest of my
life
.”

Dawson cocked his head, like a bird eyeing a worm it was thinking about eating. “Tegan, you make it sound as if
we’re monsters. Are you unhappy with the care you’ve received?”

“No, it’s okay. I just… I don’t want to stay here much longer. I never see anyone my age.”

“You’re under a lot of stress,” he said. “It will get easier.” He sounded as though he meant it.

“When are you going to let me out?” I groped for something stupidly far away, just so that he could reassure me. “Like, in a
year
?”

He should have laughed at my ludicrous suggestion. Instead, he looked very serious. “There will probably be a fairly lengthy transition period—for your own health and safety as much as anything.”

Ice settled in my stomach. “I don’t want that. I want to leave now.”

“Tegan, where will you go?”

“That’s up to me,” I told him.

“Don’t be so childish.”

Wow.

I didn’t like him, but I didn’t think Dawson was evil. Patronizing, and with no idea how to talk to teenagers, but not really a bad man. After all, he was in charge of a project trying to save soldiers’ lives.

But you could have asked anyone in the progressive movements of my time and they’d tell you that there were plenty of mostly okay people doing bad things, thinking they were right. People like Alex and Dalmar came up with all sorts of ways to deal with those people, to force them to change what they did.

I hadn’t been as into it as they were, but I’d paid attention all the same.

What I needed was leverage. And I was the only leverage I had.

“I’m on a hunger strike,” I said. “Effective immediately.”

He stared. “Tegan, what—”

“And I’m going on a talking strike, too,” I interrupted. “As soon as I’m done with this explanation. When you want me to stop, you’ll come and ask me what I want, and when I tell you, you’ll do it.” I smiled at him, as wide as I could. “That’s all.”

“If you would just explain your wishes, I’d be happy to consider them,” he said patiently.

I said nothing.

“Communication is essential to negotiation,” he tried. “Surely you can’t expect me to proceed without more data.”

I picked up the book I was halfway through—a really good supernatural romance that was published only fourteen years after I died—and started turning the yellowed pages.

After a while, there was the soft click of the door closing behind him.

I didn’t eat lunch. I didn’t eat dinner. I didn’t say a word to anyone for the rest of the day.

The hollow in my stomach ached and would get worse, but I knew two things. One: They needed me. They wanted me healthy, if possible, but talking, for sure.

And two: They hated surprises. Dawson had been thrown into a complete tizzy when I’d jumped off the building because
it wasn’t in his plans. It was time to give him a lesson in just how surprising Tegan Oglietti could be.

Marie came in with my breakfast the next day, and I knew that was no coincidence.

“Please eat, Tegan,” she said. “I want you to be well.”

I shook my head.

People came and went all day. So did food. I was getting dizzy, and it was harder to read, even though I was getting to the bit where the banshee was going to have to decide between saving her boyfriend and obeying her queen. So I started singing the Red and Blue Albums in my head, in the correct song order. I got stuck on whether “Lady Madonna” came before “Hey Jude” or after, and then decided it didn’t really matter. I drank a lot of water, sipping it slowly; death was no part of my plan.

It was pretty peaceful, really, though I could hear my mother’s voice complaining about all the food I was wasting by turning it away.

But I knew she’d approve if she knew all the details. No way she wanted me helpless in this bunker for a “lengthy transition period.”

On the fourth day of the hunger strike, Dawson came back in.

“The Department of Defence does not bow to the whims of
teenagers. You either start cooperating, young lady, or you’ll be made to cooperate.”

He stared at me for a while.

I stared back. I wasn’t reading or singing inside my head. I was mostly napping, now that the gnawing in my stomach had given way to a floating emptiness.

“You’re seriously retarding our progress. Do you want to be the one who tells children that their mother or father won’t come back from the war, because Tegan Oglietti won’t talk to us?”

I flinched.

“Dr. Carmen will not return until you eat,” he said. “She’s very disappointed in you.”

I started crying big, fat tears that dripped out of the corners of my eyes and down my face onto the pillow, pooling around my neck.

Dawson looked vaguely satisfied. “Now, be a good girl, and have something to eat, and she’ll come back,” he said.

I closed my wet eyes and drifted back to sleep.

On the fifth day, Dawson tried to bribe me with a guitar.

My fingers ached for it, but I locked my mouth shut before I let anything out.

Hail Mary, full of grace
, I began, and went through a decade of the rosary before he left the room.

Pray for us sinners now and at the time of our death.

On the sixth day, I tried to get up and go to the bathroom. I passed out instead.

I woke up in bed, with something that I recognized as an IV poked into my arm. Light brown fluid was flowing through it, and I felt much stronger.

Dawson and Marie were standing at the foot of my bed. Dawson looked grim. Marie looked nervous and hopeful.

“All right,” Dawson said tightly. “What do you want?”