Chapter 16: Silas
Silas didn’t remember when the pain stopped or who dragged him into his cell. He must have blacked out because the next thing he knew he was in his bed. His head buzzed, but everything else felt back to normal. Someone had also removed the broken collar. Silas reached up to touch his neck. His skin was tender.
He glanced around the room. The light shone brightly from the small barred window near the ceiling. It was a little after lunch and he was still in his cell. There was a tray with a piece of chicken, some mashed potatoes and a cup of water sitting on the floor near the door.
“You have no idea how hard it was to leave that,” Patton said.
It didn’t make sense that they would bring food just for him.
“When did they do that?”
“‘Bout ten minutes ago. You were really out of it. I thought they’d drained you and run out of places to put you so they dumped you back here.”
“When did you go to lunch?”
“Didn’t. They brought my meal with yours.”
Silas rolled out of his bunk and managed to land near enough to the tray to reach it and pull it close.
“You didn’t go to the cafeteria?” Silas asked. He took a bite of the room temperature chicken and it tasted surprisingly good.
“Nope. They must have thought it would be better for everyone to stay separated. We didn’t go in the yard either.”
Silas finished the chicken and scooped the potatoes into his mouth. When he was done he slowly stood up and placed his tray under Patton’s tray sitting in the empty cubby nearest the door. The cubby that anything left in it would disappear by the next day. Something Patton had learned the hard way when he put one of his new books there and never got to read it. Silas considered putting some of his stuffed animals in it, but even though he didn’t care about them, they were all he was given and for that reason alone he kept them.
He was sure how he would feel when he first stood up, but as he straightened he felt much better than he had all day. The food must have helped. If he didn’t think about it, he didn’t even notice the slight buzzing in his head. There really wasn’t much to do in their cell but rest and that was the one thing Silas felt like he needed the most. He slid back into his bunk and closed his eyes.
The next thing Silas knew he heard a door slam shut. Feet scuffled in the hall and another door, this one closer, was opened.
“Out,” Westminster said. More feet shuffled and then they faded away down the hall.
“What’s going on?” Silas asked.
Patton was sitting straight up in his bed, not leaning against the wall like he would if he were reading. “You’ve been asleep for hours. They’re taking everyone out cell by cell, but I think they’re also bringing them back.”
The outside light had shifted making the room a bit darker, but not enough to need the light on. Silas rubbed the grit out of his eyes and stretched. He felt a bit stiff from his nap, but otherwise almost completely back to normal.
More feet echoed in the hall. Doors opened and closed. They were getting closer. Silas went through his list of what it could be. They were given a yearly medical exam, but they’d already done that for this year. This whole situation didn’t bode well for him or Malina. How could they know the guards’ schedule if there was no schedule? Things had been relatively normal until Jamar came. That was when it started to go wrong. That’s when the food portions were messed with and when Freddie and Dan decided to take matters into their own hands and when their implants were set off. How quickly everything could change only served to remind Silas how little he could control. He was a fool to think that he could escape, that he could save Malina.
Yet, Silas couldn’t help thinking they still might have a chance, even now though it might be slim. He didn’t know how he could get them out, but Silas was determined not to give up. It didn’t matter if he was a fool or not, because as long as he was alive he could plan and he might be able to figure something out.
Their door opened and Silas stared up at Westminster.
“Out,” he said.
Silas stood up and Patton hopped down off his bed. Together they walked into the hall. Hugle, his face covered in purple bruises, was saying the same thing in the cell next to theirs and when the two boys joined Silas and Patton in the hall, all four were led toward the Machine.
They left the ward and entered the long hallway leading to the Machine. Instead of heading straight to the Machine room Hugle stopped them in front of several opened exam rooms. While Hugle watched them, Westminster took Patton into an exam room, had him sit in a chair and buckled straps around his chest, arms and feet. Westminster took the other two boys into rooms and did the same. Then he came for Silas.
Silas wanted to resist, but knew what would happen if he did. Guards would come and force him to sit in the hardened plastic chair bolted to the floor. And it wouldn’t be pleasant. Instead Silas hoped that whatever they were going to do wouldn’t hurt and would be over quickly. He tried to relax as Westminster strapped his wrists to the arm rest. His right wrist was bound facing up and his left facing down. Silas tried to move his right wrist around, but the strap was too tight. Next Westminster buckled Silas’ legs and then he strapped Silas’ chest so tight it kept him from taking a regular breath. Once he had checked the straps, Westminster left the room and shut the door.
The bright overhead light gave off a hum that filled the silence. Silas tried to shift in his seat to make the chest strap looser, but nothing he could do helped. Finally he tried to relax. Who knew how long they would make him wait.
The chair made Silas face a white wall with the door to his right and just as Silas was certain he had every bump and grain in the wall memorized, a light from inside the wall flicked on and a screen appeared. It was blended well into the rest of the wall and he tried to spot the boundaries now.
The symbol for the Cartiam, an upside-down y, appeared slowly revolved on a blue screen. A brass intro began and the picture changed to grainy images from history.
“Two hundred years ago the Radiation Age changed all life as it was known. Many of the events were so terrible that the leaders of that age dictated they should be stricken from memory.” Scenes of destruction and a crying baby covered in dirt. “All that remained at the close of the Radiation Age were the people who survived and from them emerged four distinct classes: Tireans, Faans, Ajaks and Carillians.” Four quick iconic images of the classes flashed on the scene. A Tirean family looking up, a Faan warrior glaring back at the camera, two old, worn Ajak men with shoulders sloped and a Carillian woman screaming, about to pull her hair out.
Silas glanced down at the straps and tried to twist his right arm around again. This was the same video they showed every few weeks in the cafeteria.
“Some classes were volatile and refused to be content with their lot.”
They meant Carillians.
“They threatened to destroy the peace and they had no respect for the well-being of others. This class was so opposed to freedom that they had to be stopped. The other classes saw this as an opportunity to rise above the unevolved stage man had existed in and they were victorious.” The voice droned in the background and Silas did his best to ignore it. All the film basically said was that Carillians weren’t worth much. It justified why the Machine was the right solution and left Silas feeling weak and powerless. The slamming of a nearby door made him tense up.
The video changed to a woman in a suit who continued the speech. “It is only through Tirean compassion that this class was saved from complete annihilation, but since they refused to see reason, they have lost the spark that gave them individual personhood. As sub-persons they can only serve the interests of the other classes and must be content with their chosen lot.”
The shot changed to a young man. “We all have our place in society and no one can take that from us. We can never question why--”
The door opened and Silas tuned out the rest of the video. In the doorway was a man w
ith a thick head of dirty blonde hair that was slicked back to give him another inch and a half in height. He wore a white coat. He didn’t look at Silas as he walked in, instead he examined the syringe in his hand, held it up to the light and tapped it once.
“What is it?” Silas asked.
The man didn’t answer. He bent over Silas’ right arm, tested the skin with the needle and then stuck it in slowly squeezing the plunger as he did. Silas tried not to jerk at the pinch in his arm.
“What is that?” he asked again. His heart beat faster, but he didn’t know if it was because of the injection or that he didn’t know what it would do to him.
His eyelids grew heavy and he felt more than saw the man leave. What did they do? He realized his eyes were closed and he jerked them open. But he didn’t see the white wall in front of him. He was standing in the yard by himself. How did he do that?
“Hello?” he asked. His voice sounded hallow in a way that it had never seemed when there were others in the yard. The ground was dry and firm beneath his feet.
There was short cry. It came from one of the corners and Silas walked toward it. To his surprise there was a small brown kitten with matted fur. The kitten’s front paws were on the wall and it tried to jump up the lowest stones. As Silas stepped closer, the kitten startled and its eyes the same color as its fur darted around.
“It’s okay,” Silas said softly. He’d never seen an animal so small or so close. Silas knelt down and stretched out his hand. The kitten looked at it and took a step closer. Stretching out its thin neck, the kitten sniffed at Silas’ fingertip. Seeming to decide that Silas was safe the kitten rubbed his palm with the top of its head and then curled around Silas’ legs.
Carefully, Silas placed one hand on the kitten’s back and stroked its fur. The kitten began to purr and Silas kept petting it. The more Silas rubbed the fur, the more he realized the hairs were actually white underneath the dirt and grime. Whole chunks of dirt puffed in the air and crumbled to the ground. Soon the kitten was completely white. Its fur glinted in the sun and the kitten seemed quite pleased with itself and began to lick its’ paws.
A wind picked up in the yard and blew around them. The kitten shuddered and seemed to hop in place, but instead of hopping up and coming down the kitten stayed at the highest point. Silas blinked and looked at the kitten again only now it was more the size of a small cat. The kitten kept growing. It didn’t stop growing when it reached Silas’ shin, or knees or mid-thigh. The back of the cat reached Silas’ waist, until it was the size of a large white, panther whose purr rumbled deeply.
Silas reached out to pet the panther. Its fur was soft, like silk, but the muscles underneath were thick and taut. The panther looked over at him and their eyes met. It was as if he knew the panther in some profound way that words could not express and a deep cloud of sadness surrounded him. Silas half expected the panther to speak, but it didn’t. The panther’s skin flickered and Silas removed his hand. Without looking back, the panther bunched its legs underneath and launched itself to the top of the wall.
“Wait,” Silas called after it. He wanted to go with the cat, but he was still stuck in the yard. Yet he felt certain that if he tried he could jump the wall.
Silas closed his eyes, gathered his feet under him and sprang into the air. He could feel the wind blowing and smelled the fresh scent of pine, but then the air stopped and when he opened his eyes all he saw was the white wall of the exam room. Even after he was taken back to his cell there was something haunting about the white panther that lingered.