Chapter 24
I watch and listen with unblinking eyes and relaxed lips. I guess I’m breathing but I don’t feel it.
There is an obnoxious ping, and I see I have an urgent email from the dean’s office. I have an appointment. Odd, as I never scheduled it. I climb up the flights of stairs. Dr. Preston’s door is closed so I knock.
Nothing. I put my ear to the door after checking up and down the empty hallway. Seems quiet, so I lean against the opposite wall with my arms crossed and wait.
It’s really creepy up here. Even in my own lab, I always have the sound of the acoustic data playing, and engineering is the floor above me so outside the sound booth it’s never absolutely silent.
Here, all the doors are closed. Nothing but the hum of the air-conditioning.
I yawn.
A metal door slides open and someone walks into the hallway.
“Specialist Highlands, there you are. I’ve been waiting for you. Come in.”
I slink up from the wall and follow Dr. Preston into his office. There are books and half-used papers everywhere in the little space, and one chair at his desk. He has a little window near the ceiling. It looks nice out, from what I can tell.
I stand to the side of the door and he leans against his desk. I ask him how he’s doing and he says fine.
“I smell something.”
“That’s me, sir.”
“Ah. Specialist Highlands, do you know why you are here?” Because I had an appointment?
“I believe you wanted to see me, sir?” I ask in a light, polite voice.
“Yes. Let me ask you. Do you think your performance has been satisfactory as of late?”
I duck my head for a moment before I can gather myself, and smile calmly.
“I know I’ve made some errors in my problem sets, sir, but my accuracy is still above 98%, sir. Since the cutoff is 86%, I do feel it meets all the standards in the Code of Expectations for Government Scholars, sir. So, yes, sir.”
“That’s all very true, but are you aware that your actions have caught our attention not because of incompetence but rather the fact that you have repeatedly abused the resources we make available to you? I assure you, that does not go unnoticed.” Is this about the shoes? My stomach twists.
“I’m sorry, sir? I don’t believe I’ve broken any equipment, except for those beakers but…”
“That is not what I am referring to.” My mouth is still formed around my next word. I just look at him. I won’t admit anything before I know what he knows. There comes a point where I wish he would just tell me already.
“Do you really not know?” he seems almost amused except for the cloudiness in his eyes. A light smile touches his lips and it makes me feel seasick.
My mind is a blank, however. I haven’t been caught at anything. I shake my head, no.
He sighs, “The instance I am referring to is the one in which you accessed marine life data from NOA and used it to slaughter eight shark whales.”
Oh. That.
“No, sir, I-” I’m not sure what I was going to say, but it doesn’t matter because he cuts me off.
“Do you deny it happened?”
“No, sir.”
“So you admit you accessed the information.” I stare at him.
My own voice echoes in my ears, “Yes, sir, I did do that, but I didn’t realize the information was restricted…”
“It’s not.” And he pauses.
I choke on my relief, or maybe leftover fear.
“But your use of it for an activity outside of the direction of the M.S.A. chain of command shows extremely poor judgment, Specialist. You do not have access to this equipment and the M.S.A. databases for your own personal pleasure. Your actions are disappointing. Were you even aware that the shark whale is a protected species?”
“Yes, sir, but-”
“So you willingly used the information you were given privileged access to and used it for your own recreational activities,” he says to the computer on his desk.
“Yes, sir. I did it because of the people on the island, sir, you see-”
“I don’t want to hear excuses. Don’t use the colonists as an excuse. They are perfectly well taken care of. We have one of the best Food and Other Aid programs in the nation. Did you know we populated the surrounding waters with sustainable fish? Do you know how expensive that was to develop?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you know we provide aid shipments every month?”
“Yes, sir, but…you know we burn them. They brought in too many infectious diseases and so-”
“We can’t help it if they don’t wish to take advantage of our programs.”
“Yes, sir.” I want to tell him why I did it. All the good reasons my zizi had that convinced me I should. He should talk to her, she could explain it so much better than me.
“Specialist Highlands, I see you are part of Cohort five-eighty-seven. I would like you to spend some time contemplating your actions. I am assigning you four hours in the academic focus room.” He turns to enter in the order.
“What?” I rasp.
Four hours?
That’s unheard of. There is absolutely no reason for it. The average person’s reaction to the room crosses the threshold of pain after eighty-seven minutes.
“Sir, excuse me, did you mean ‘for an hour?’”
“No. Four hours, Specialist. I want to impress upon you the seriousness of your actions. You are lucky I am trusting you to figure it out on your own rather than putting in a formal citation. You are a valuable student and we do not wish to loose you.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder and it makes me sick. My chest sinks in but I keep my shoulder frozen still under his hand. Forefathers, please grant me poise.
“Sir, is there anyone else I could talk to about this?”
His features flash. “You could always email someone at Headquarters in New York.” He waves his hand.
He knows that would take forever. They probably wouldn’t even read anything I sent them. I’m desperately trying to think of any other way out, but I just can’t in the silence.
“Do you wish to take this course of action?”
“No, sir. I’ll do it now,” I tell him, voice running over gravel. I feel the warmth glaze over my eyes and the heat in my fists from the blood, inside and out.
“Very good. Now, if I were you, I’d run along. If you login now you can be out by your suppertime. I know that’s an island ritual.”
I suppose it is. I turn and go, a vacuum in my chest from the shock that I don’t want him to see me fill.
I go to the main floor’s break room and pass the fridge and microwave and beverage dispenser. Some people are there but I don’t pay attention. I’m focused on my mission.
My throat clenches as I put in my PSID with cold, sweaty fingers. The metal door hisses and I slide it open, just enough to slip my body through. Inside is quiet.
I hate this place.
Nothing’s in here but a single, government-issued plastic chair. The room’s grey walls and floors and ceiling are exactly the same as last time. As every time, in every place. Familiar not because I’ve seen it in person so many times, but rather because of all the nights it comes to me while I lay in my bed.
The first time I saw it was the first time I’d gotten three strikes. If you’re in Cohort five-eighty-seven, you’re on a three-strike system. Other cohorts have different systems. The M.S.A. academies like to investigate different approaches to discipline in educational settings. They really want to have the best schools, with the best student outcomes. That requires both superior source material and the application of evidence-based education management techniques.
My strikes were this.
First, I hadn’t made it out of the locker room fast enough for the aquatics instructor on account of my suit was still damp from the day before and it was really hard to get on. What would happen if a river flooded and I had to cross it
to save M.S.A. citizens’ lives but I couldn’t because I’d missed swim practice?
Second, I’d been daydreaming in orchestra and totally missed an entrance, and as the only cello player it was both glaringly obvious and also didn’t I know that the entire orchestra had trusted me and depended on me to care enough to at least pay attention during class and it didn’t matter how good I was if I didn’t have the decency to play at the appropriate times. What did I think would happen if I just sat in front of my computer all day and never sent in reports on time? Would that make my brains helpful to anyone in any way? I might as well be a soldier and let them be shot out of my skull. At least then they’d have done something.
And third, I got a 59% on a pretest in general chemistry. Common nomenclature of select organic compounds. I had gotten a Great Proficient for the chapter test on IUPAC-IV nomenclature so I thought I’d be fine and didn’t feel like wasting time sitting around memorizing all the arbitrary combinations of letters and word bits that made up these other names. But what would happen if there was some formaldehyde laying around and I didn’t know what it was so I put it in my coffee? Saying you don’t drink coffee is what gets you the official strike.
So, because of all this, my name was flagged and I was informed that I’d been assigned ten minutes in the academy’s focus room. It was a little closet room identical to this one and those in all other government scholarship facilities, I assume.
Their purpose is to help us focus, obviously. Clear our minds of all outside distraction so we can come up with brilliant solutions to very important problems. It makes us better.
That first time, I walked in with no more fanfare than old Philbert wandering onto the green. But that was only because I was so unprepared. Uninitiated. Stupid, as my zizi would say. Not that I ever mentioned it to her. Because then she’d ask why I got three strikes, and that was hard to explain, and she’d be so disappointed.
Yes, that first time I went in, and, seeing nothing else to do, closed the door and sat in the chair. I looked around at the funny geometric insets in the walls and ceiling, wondering if it was supposed to be art. Inspiration, maybe. Like the sculptures stuck in abrupt corners of the campus, made by students who chose visual arts as an extracurricular. I was never a huge fan of the modern ones, but I did like the replicas of ancient gods and goddesses that were always part of the curriculum, I have to admit. One time a statue of Aphrodite took a simulated bullet for me. I thanked her, of course.
It takes two minutes for the focus session to begin.
That first time, I was still looking around not thinking about common nomenclature or the cello or stupid bathing suits like I was assigned to. The door hissed and sealed itself shut. And then it hit me.
A whump. I slapped my hands over my ears and the sound it made was violent thunder. The air was full of nothing, sucking out my eardrums. Not painful once the thunder was over. Strange, though, like a two-headed beast’s twin kiss.
Then the lights went out. That’s when I got afraid, eyelids stammering, trying to feel if they were open or closed. Too preoccupied to pray to God or the forefathers or wish for my zizi, I decided later.
A mist of something chilly puffed over me and I coughed it into my nose and mouth. My skin got cold, and then it was gone. Not just numb, but as if it wasn’t there. I couldn’t feel the ribbing on the plastic chair anymore, and only the pressure under my thighs told me I was still in it.
My nose and tongue seemed to frost over, and then they were mute.
I held very still. Was I sick? Dying? This must just be how it’s supposed to work, I thought.
Ok…I tried to remember what I was supposed to think about…
Forefathers, what is that smell? So strong I can taste it. I spit to try to get it out. Like an animal, acrid sweat and flesh, blood and fur. So heavy, it must be in here with me. Escaped from the bio labs?
I go to move and feel pushing on my body. Something flat shoves into my bones and muscles.
I hear myself clomp onto the ground and it’s like being pummeled by a thousand waves all at once, the roaring pounce of the kissing beasts.
I hear a scratching, so loud. So loud! It goes along with the wrenching and scraping on my lungs. I try to stop breathing, but it burns and conks my head to the sides. My chest is being clawed inside out. I try to touch it to still it but when I do I feel two soul-shaking punches.
I squirm on the floor and everywhere I roll my muscles are crushed. Squashed. So much it burns, and I have sinews of molten iron rods. My bones yank on them and it makes me scream. They burn, they burn, they pull and burn.
Oh, my ears! The screams rip them open and they well with blood. They drown in it. Hot and wet and suffocating. My heart boxes them from the inside. Each double-fisted pound resounding in my skull, though my veins. Bulging and ripping. I feel my fingers set to burst with each pulse.
The blood scrapes my delicate vessels, thousands of witches’ fingernails cackling through my insides.
Fire swells up my throat and my stomach contracts with a searing power I didn’t know my body possessed. I think the animal that escaped from the lab is ripping my stomach out, and it’s taking my esophagus now because I can feel the burning fire tearing up it.
My mouth fills with a rancid acid that spews out of my lips and nose and every opening. My throat is ripped apart.
My body is burned, frozen to burn and burned to frozen. Gone to a place where I loose any sense of its shape and form. I know only throbbing clouds of it hurts, in me, on me, against me, wrenching through me. That’s all there is. That’s all I am.
Until I’m not it. I am apart, hearing all the noise through a solitary thread that spikes into my mind. It lasts this way where time is not and darkness or maybe light and nothing are.
And it’s done. My breath is soft and raspy. It whispers. I am a small girl again. Smaller than I thought. I’m inside of a hard, rigid body, solid through and through. I don’t know if I’m floating or supermassive. Hot or cold. Alive or dead. Wanting or refusing. Imagination or made.
I blink once. Twice. My eyelids move. The third time there is darkness underneath and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen comes to me in swaths of black satin and smiles lovingly. She offers me her hand and I reach up as she smiles. That’s when I see the too-many evil teeth and the crumples in her face and dress and hands. I whine no and curl up.
Then the world bobs once more up and down, and flips. It dumps me somewhere. I open my shadowy eyes to see Ms. Tiffany my chaperone making me a lean-to.
That’s when I know I’m still alive. And I want to cry but I don’t. I wish I had taken the beautiful woman’s hand. She would have kept being beautiful if I stayed close, I just know it, and we could have twisted away as vapors.
But I missed my chance, and I’m still here.