Anomaly (15 page)
“You were designed to be a Scientist.” I try to speak with as little emotion as possible. “You cannot forget that. I have enjoyed your friendship. But you have more important work to do than to help me. I will be fine.”
I open the door, refusing to allow him to speak or hold me again. I can only resist so much. He walks out. I see sadness in his eyes, and I do not like that I am the cause of it.
But this is how it must be.
As soon as the door shuts, I fall to the floor and sob.
I
cannot stay in here, cannot keep thinking about Berk.
I need to see John.
I walk to his room, then open the door. He is sitting in his chair, eyes closed.
“Thalli.” John opens his eyes and smiles. “I have been thinking of you often. The Designer has had me praying for you every day.”
“Why?”
John’s ice-blue eyes look distant, like he is seeing something beyond this room. “I don’t know exactly. But I know that you have a purpose. A great purpose. And he wants me to help you fulfill that.”
I am not sure what to think of this. “Of course I have a purpose. I am a Musician.”
John motions for me to sit. I go to the couch. He continues, “The Scientists designed you to be a Musician. And you are a beautiful Musician. But the Designer has plans that go beyond that. He has chosen
you
.”
“Chosen me?” Again I am reminded of how old John is, how strange. His mind is weak.
“Yes. I am sure of it.” John leans forward. “Listen for him, Thalli. He will speak to you if you listen for him.”
I do not know what to say. We are silent for a moment.
“I also wanted to speak to you more about Asta.” He takes a deep, labored breath.
“She is happy.” I place my hand on his arm. “She loves living in Progress.”
“I would not hurt you for anything.” John shakes his head. “And I have been thinking and praying about that young woman. I am old. My memory isn’t what it used to be. I know that. But as much as I have tried to reconstruct those events, I am certain that she was annihilated.”
“No.” I don’t want to argue with John, but I know she wasn’t annihilated. I have seen her. Touched her. “She is alive.”
John leans back. He grimaces as if he is in pain. “Tell me about your trips to see this community aboveground.”
“I take an elevator to a top level.”
“What level?”
“I don’t know. We take an elevator I have never seen.”
“Have you tried to find it on your own?”
“Once.” I think of that time. “But all the doors were locked. I couldn’t get there.”
“So who takes you?”
“Asta,” I say. “She has access to all the doors.”
“You cannot get there on your own?”
“No.” I lean back. “I can’t get anywhere on my own.”
“And she comes here?”
“Well . . .” A terrible feeling begins to take root. “She usually comes to the isolation chamber.”
“The isolation chamber?” John’s eyebrows draw together.
“Yes. It’s nice. Pink and white. I actually enjoy spending time there.”
“A room that is pink and white?”
I realize again how little John knows, how little he has seen. No wonder he is partially crazy. He has lived here, alone and trapped, for forty years. “Yes. I believe I am taken there so the others do not see me going above.”
“What others?” John asks. So many questions.
“I do not know.” I shrug. “I just know that the existence of Progress is kept secret from most people.”
John takes a long, shaky breath and then looks into my eyes. “Thalli, are you sure this community is real?”
“What?” I feel almost nauseous. How could he ask that? What is he insinuating?
“The Scientists’ technology is quite advanced.” He hesitates. “Is it possible that what you have experienced isn’t actual reality?”
“No.” I stand and walk to the other side of the room, images of Progress flooding my mind. “It has to be real. I can smell things there, touch things. I have eaten there. I get dirty there and clean up here.”
“In your room or in the pink room?”
I cannot remember. I don’t want to remember. “It’s impossible. John, why are you saying this?”
“Because you have a purpose. And you need to be fully aware of what is real and what is not when it is time for you to accomplish that purpose.”
John is scaring me. I feel light-headed.
“I’m sorry.” John crosses to me and places his hands on my shoulders. “This is too much.”
Stone said those words. Stone. He is real. I felt his arms around me, I heard his heartbeat. I looked into his eyes. No technology could reproduce that much detail, that much humanity. Could it?
I suck in a lungful of air. “No. Progress is real. I know it is real. You are mistaken about Asta. You saw her go into the annihilation chamber, but then she was taken from there. People down here had to believe she was annihilated. But she wasn’t.”
“I didn’t just see her go into the annihilation chamber. I went with her. James allowed me to stay with her until the end.” John shakes his head and leans forward, a pained look in his eyes. “I saw Asta die, Thalli. I stayed with her body.”
“No.” The room is spinning. “You just thought she was dead.”
“I stood by when she was placed in the incinerator.”
I am going to be sick. This cannot be true.
“Asta is dead.”
Those are the last words I hear. Then the room goes black.
M
y eyelids feel like they are made of lead. I try to open them but I cannot. I hear voices, but they sound so far away. I cannot understand what they are saying.
I must have fallen asleep. The voices are gone now, and I feel a sheet draped around me, all the way up to my shoulders. I try to open my eyes again. I can get them halfway up. I am in a medical chamber. Through tiny slits I see a medical wall screen with data I don’t understand. I close my eyes again.
The next time I wake up I can open my eyes all the way. An Assistant enters the room and taps something onto the wall screen.
“What happened?”
“That’s what we are trying to determine.” I wish Assistants had a little more emotion. I am scared and her cold demeanor only increases my fear.
“How did I get here?”
“You were found in your room.” The Assistant doesn’t even look at me. She just examines her pad. “You had passed out.”
I remember now. I was in John’s room. He told me Asta was dead. He hinted that Progress was not real. That Stone wasn’t real. And I passed out. But how did I get back to my room? He couldn’t have carried me. But he knew I would be reprimanded if I was found in his room. I don’t understand.
“Everything looks fine, though.” The Assistant offers at least one bit of comfort. “I will tell the Doctor.”
I go back to sleep. I am either exhausted or I am being sedated. The fatigue is too complete for me to think through which it might be.
“Thalli.” A hand is on my shoulder. I open my eyes and see Dr. Loudin sitting on a stool beside my sleeping platform.
I want to sit up straighter, but I can’t move. My body feels so heavy.
“You frightened us, young lady.”
“I did?”
“Yes.” His smile looks forced. He is worried about me? “You had been doing so well. But maybe we pushed you too far too quickly.”
“What?”
“Stone didn’t have permission to take you to the cinema the other day,” Dr. Loudin explains. “That long walk along with all the new sensations from the movie was too much for you,
I’m afraid. He is so excited to have you there all the time that he rushed the process.”
“Stone?” He
is
real? Of course he is. I knew it.
“You know, of course, that we monitor all the rooms.” Dr. Loudin speaks quietly. “I reviewed your conversation with John.”
That is how I got back to my room. They saw me in there. They heard us. They have heard everything?
“He said Asta was dead.” I swallow past a lump in my throat. “He saw her. He watched her go into the incinerator.”
Dr. Loudin runs a hand through his thinning hair. “No, Thalli, he didn’t see any of that.”
“He didn’t?”
“John is getting older.” Dr. Loudin’s smile is sad. “He has a hard time differentiating between reality and his imagination.”
“Why would he imagine that he saw Asta annihilated and incinerated?”
“Minds and bodies deteriorate as they age.” Dr. Loudin purses his lips. “John has not been completely lucid for years. We have tried to convince James that it is in his father’s best interest to be annihilated. But James insists we let John live out his years.”
“He cares very much for his father.”
“Yes.” Dr. Loudin nods absently. “But we will have to monitor him more closely. No longer allow him to have access to others.”
I want to defend John, but if Dr. Loudin is right, then John could be a danger to himself and to others. To me.
But he has never seemed like a danger. And he certainly appears lucid every time I have seen him. Of course, what do I
know? Dr. Loudin is a Scientist. And he is very kind to take time to come here and speak with me. Like a friend, not a patient or test subject.
“I want to keep you here one more day, just to make sure you are well.” Dr. Loudin stands to leave. “Then you can be released. We have almost concluded with your testing. Another week, perhaps two, and you can choose whether or not you’d like to live in Progress.”
Dr. Loudin leaves, but his words linger.
“You can choose whether
or not you’d like to live in Progress.”
I know John isn’t entirely whole, but his words linger too.
“You have a purpose. You need to know what is real and what is not.”
Which words do I believe? Or are they both right? Is John, in his haze, still speaking truth to me? Perhaps I do have a purpose greater than I imagined. And perhaps that purpose is in Progress.
T
halli.” My name is spoken so quietly I can barely hear it. I open my eyes. I see green eyes through the slight opening in the door.
“Berk?”
He motions with his head for me to follow him. I crawl out of my sleeping platform. Whatever medicine I have received is still working its way through my body. I feel so heavy.
“Hurry,” Berk whispers. “We don’t have much time.”
“Time for what?”
Berk doesn’t answer. He is scanning the hallway. He grabs my arms and propels me into the last room on the right. It looks just like mine.
“What is going on?”
Berk is out of breath. He closes the door and checks the wall screen. It doesn’t work. “The Scientists are dealing with a crisis right now.”
“A crisis? What is happening?” I realize this room is silent. Completely silent. Usually there is some type of noise, the ticking of the medical monitors, the hum of the wall screen.
Berk turns to me. “We’re safe.”
“Safe from what?”
Berk’s eyes are on mine. “Are you all right?”
“What?”
“When I heard you were here—” He takes a deep breath. “I am talking with the Scientists, trying to convince them you are too important to lose.”
“What?” I step back. “I am here because I passed out. That is all.”
Berk shakes his head. “Do you not know where you are?”
“I am in a medical chamber being treated. Dr. Loudin just came in and told me I would be released soon.”
The muscle in Berk’s jaw flexes. “He said you would be released?”
“Yes.” His tone is scaring me.
“We’ve got to get you out of here.” Berk is pacing.
“What? Why? What is going on?”
Berk stops and puts both hands on his head. “Dr. Loudin is preparing you for annihilation.”
“No.” I don’t realize I am yelling, but Berk’s hand is on my mouth. He looks at the door and then back at me. “That’s impossible. He said as soon as I finish my testing, I’ll get to choose whether or not I want to live in Progress.”
“Progress?”
“Surely you know,” I say. “The community above.”
Berk’s face is a mask of confusion. “Above?”
“Yes.” Berk is being prepared to take over as one of The Ten and he hasn’t been told about this? “People have been living there for at least twenty years. There are families. Babies.”
Berk shakes his head. “Impossible.”
“It’s not impossible.” I do not like that Berk doubts me. “I have been there.”
“Above?”
“Yes. Twice.”
He sits down on the sleeping platform and I sit beside him. I tell him about Asta, about going to the top level. I tell him about the dust and the pods and the children. I don’t tell him about Stone, not exactly. But I do tell him I have made friends. That I saw a movie and ate popcorn.
