The Culling (25 page)

thirty-four

Hours later, after a sleepless rest at the holding station and a wordless breakfast of ration bars and water, we’re trekking past the end of the field and through the metallic arteries of the Skein once more. The only sounds are the drag and shuffle of our boots against the steel floor. Along the way, I pop a few more of the antibiotics into my mouth. But instead of swallowing, I swish them around my mouth from side to side and grind the pills with my teeth, concentrating on each bitter particle as it dissolves against my tongue.

With each chew, one thought echoes in my brain.

There are only four of us now.

We finally reach the end of the corridor.

I force the last of the gritty medicine down my throat.

Before us looms a silver bunker lined with five metal doors, four with names stenciled on them that correspond to each of our own:

Juniper Tycho Goslin Spark

The surface of the fifth door is blank and marred by a series of scratches, as if someone hastily removed the name that recently appeared there. I glance behind us. A needle stitches through my heart.

The speakers above the doors crackle with static.

Greetings, Recruits. Congratulations on making it this far in your Trials.

If Slade’s announcement is intended to bolster our moods, one look at the sullen expressions plastered on our faces is confirmation of the utter failure of that attempt.

When you’re given the signal, you will each enter the chamber that is marked with your name.

We shamble past each other like sleepwalkers and line up outside our individual doors.

This Trial will involve two phases. In Phase One, you will race to disable the explosive mechanism you will find in your chamber. Whoever accomplishes this task first shall emerge victorious. However, if none of you disarms the explosive, it will detonate and all of you, as
well as your Incentives, will be shelved.

It takes a moment for the words to penetrate the shock.

A
bomb
?

Slade said we’d
all
be shelved. Recruits and Incentives alike. What if Cole’s just beyond that door, only a few feet away, closer to me than he’s been since this whole ordeal began? A blast at such close range would kill him. And he’d never even know I fought for him. He’d die thinking I abandoned him. The thought terrifies me so much I can’t even move.

The bomb could kill us
all
. And given my track record with disarming explosives … only it’s not a Sim this time. And if I’m the one to screw up and set it off, it’ll be like I murdered everyone myself.

My eyes flit to Digory. The lines etched into the stone of his face tell me he’s struggling with the same anguish.

Should one of you succeed in preventing the explosion from triggering, then that Recruit shall proceed to Phase Two and await further instructions.

My eyes fix on the iron door with my name on it, examining every inch of its shiny surface, every circular bolt screwed into its perimeter, including the flecks of paint that have withered away like dead skin, exposing patches of red rust like mottled wounds.

“I can’t do this,” I whisper to Digory.

He reaches out and squeezes my hand. “You can and you
will
do this.”

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The locks on each of our doors disengage. They spring open in a chorus of drawn-out creaks, exposing slices of darkness within.

Proceed inside your chambers and begin weapons diffusion.

Ophelia’s halfway through her door before Slade’s voice finishes echoing through the speakers. I practically leap through my own door, catching a blurred glimpse of Digory entering his to my left.

It suddenly occurs to me this may be the last time I ever see him—

SLAM!

The door crashes shut behind me, blocking out the light and leaving me in total suffocating darkness.

I freeze in my tracks, afraid to touch anything that I might accidentally set off. Try as I might, my eyes can’t penetrate the black veil. I take a tentative step and my foot’s blocked by a hard surface. Reaching out my arms, I find I can’t stretch them out fully before they, too, are blocked by cold, sturdy metal. Panic sets in. My mouth dries up. I can’t suck in air.

It feels like I’ve been buried alive inside a vertical coffin.

Thoughts crank through my head on well-oiled gears. What if my chamber’s been sabotaged? Cassius has obviously been keeping tabs on Digory and me. It wouldn’t be beneath him at this point to rig it so the explosive detonates, killing both of us.

“Something’s wrong!” I yell at the top of my lungs. “
I can’t see!
”

But there’s no response. Thick silence seeps into my ears, clogging them until I feel a pressure in my brain that grinds my thoughts into anxious grit. I bang a fist against the cold metal barring my way before I can stop myself. The impact rattles the bones in my fingers. Pain jolts through my hand, echoing into a throb. I bring my hand to my lips, sucking on the sore knuckles.

Is that my heartbeat rippling through the sound vacuum in my head?

No … it’s too high in pitch and not nearly as fast as the throbbing in my chest and temples.

It’s a steady, measured sound,
blip … blip … blip …

Like the sound a timer makes … or a countdown clock …

What if I’ve set off some kind of timer when I struck the panel?

But how the hell am I supposed to disarm a weapon I can’t even
see
?

I still have my flashlight. I thrust my hands into my pockets, not caring how many ration bars and penicillin tablets spill onto the ground, and pull out the flashlight, flicking it on.

There’s a circuit board to my right, and a vent right above it.

I wonder what’s supposed to come out of
there
?

My eyes lock onto the circuit board instead, studying the configuration, trying to commit every facet to memory.

I recognize the basic setup from the schematics during our explosives training and Sims. It’s a standard detonation device composed of three elements: Primer. Reactor. Ignition timer.

The flashlight flickers and dims, even as my heartbeat kicks it up several notches.

“C’mon! Not
now
!”

I hunch closer to the board and scan it with the ebbing light, trying to see the digital readout so I can figure out just how much time I have left before—

But the beam fades away and dies before I can get a good look, drowning me once again in pitch black.

I shake the flashlight a couple more times, but it’s no use. At least I have an idea of what I’m dealing with now.

I reach a trembling hand down to the circuit board, trying to dredge up from my memory as many of the details as I can picture. I make contact with one of the three thin wires, gripping it between two fingertips. It’s cold, like the bloodless vein of a corpse. I relax my grip, afraid that my trembling fingers are going to pull it free. Unless I splice the wires in the correct sequence, everything that I’ve gone through until now will have been for nothing.

I strain the threads of my memory until they’re taut. “Cut the wire leading into the primer
first
. Then the reactor wire. And
finally
the wire that feeds the ignition timer.” I speak the words aloud, as if that’ll somehow lend accuracy to my sketchy recall.

Letting go, I brush my fingers across the rest of the board, past the other two wires, until they come to rest on a square shape.

It’s
got
to be the primer.

I can feel one of the leads jutting from it. This is the first one I have to cut.

I think
.

No pair of wire cutters either. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my knife and position it just above where the icy tendril feeds into the metal cube.

My blade rubs right against the wire …

I pause.

What if I’m wrong?

Inhaling deeply, I slice through and brace myself for the explosion—

Nothing happens.

I parole the breath I’ve been holding and unclench all my muscles, which ache with relief.

Just two more wires to go.

Unless someone else blows us all to bits first …

Once again, I reach down and grope my way across the panel until I trace a rectangular piece with a protruding filament. My knife hesitates above it.

Is this the reactor wire?

RING!

The sound of an alarm pierces my ears. I tumble back and smash against the wall.

Attention Recruits! Attention! One of you has just clipped the incorrect wire and activated the detonation sequence. Unless someone correctly deactivates the explosive within the next thirty seconds, it will be automatically triggered and all of you will be shelved, along with your Incentives.

Blip … Blip … Blip …

I reach out my arms, fumbling until I make contact with the control panel once more, my fingers retracing the path to the reactor wire. Along the way, I come across a smaller box.

Is
this
the reactor wire instead? Or is it the ignition timer?

Sweat trickles into my useless eyes and I don’t bother to blink it away.

This is exactly where I screwed up during the Sim. And I could actually
see
what I was doing then.

My sweaty hand runs between the two possibilities one last time before settling on my original choice.

Blip … Blip … Blip …

Gritting my teeth, I hack through the wire—

Nothing happens. No loud explosion.

I was
right
this time.

I’m running on pure adrenaline now. No time to fear. My palm engulfs the remaining box and hacks off the lead feeding into the ignition timer.

BEEP!

The sound screeches through my ears.

I messed up—

Searing light engulfs the room, blinding me.

Then it feels like the room’s moving. And I’m still in one piece.

Congratulations, Recruit Spark. You have successfully deactivated the explosive and emerged victorious in this Trial.

I sag against the circuit board, too fried to feel anything remotely resembling joy.

The vibrating motion ceases abruptly and the room cants left and right before coming to a stop. My eyes adjust
to the brightness at last and I take in the cramped chamber.

It really does seem almost like a coffin, with barely enough room for me to stand. I spy my supplies strewn across the floor and hunch down on creaking knees to stuff them back into my pockets.

Woosh!

A slot above the control panel slides open, letting in more light. Bracing myself against the wall, I push myself back up to my feet and peer through the glass.

Digory, Cypress, and Ophelia peer out of identical oblong rooms arranged in a diamond pattern. Digory is directly across from me, Cypress is to my left, and Ophelia is to my right.

Digory presses a hand against his window as if he’s greeting me. Despite the mics embedded in the glass, neither one of us says a word. His cheeks are drawn, his eyes somber. I mimic his gesture with my own hand and try to smile, but the muscles in my face feel numb. My eyes dart from Cypress to Ophelia. Both looking exhausted—

And
afraid
…

A terrifying thought oozes through my skull.

If
I
won, and no one else was able to disable the bomb in time, how are they going to determine who will have to endure the Culling?

What
is Phase Two?

Recruit Spark. As the victor, it now falls upon you in Phase Two to decide which of the other Recruits must choose between their Incentives.

My gaze lingers on each of them. And then I tear away.

“I
won’t
do it—I
can’t
.”

But even as the thought escapes my lips, I know I have no choice.

A panel rises from the circuit board containing round buttons numbered one through three. All are lit in vivid green.

Recruit Spark. Before you are three numbered buttons. When you are given the prompt, you must simply press any one of these buttons within ten seconds, blindly choosing one of your comrades as the losing Recruit. The losing Recruit will, in turn, make a blind choice between their own Incentives. If you should choose Recruit Juniper, she will be selecting the manner of her remaining Incentive’s shelving, just as Recruit Warrick did. But be warned that the wrong selection will make
you
susceptible to shelving, despite your victory.

A blind choice. Someone else’s life will be shattered by my whim.

And if I should select Digory’s button, then he in turn might end up blindly selecting
me
—and therefore my Incentives—for execution.

There’s no choosing correctly.

Recruit Spark. Make your selection now.

Everything in the room seems to shrink around me, everything except for the three green buttons which grow larger, pulsating like noxious slugs.

My hand hovers over them, wavering.

I slam a fist down onto button
One
.

My chin slumps to my chest. I don’t care what happens to me.

What if I’ve not only condemned myself, but murdered Cole and Digory as well?

DING! DING! DING!

I take a deep breath and look up.

Nothing’s changed. Digory’s looking at me, just the same way he was a moment ago.

Then he smiles wide.

I almost laugh out loud.