How long would I be in Isolation for this?
It was then that Mary screamed, a bloodcurdling scream, that caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. It went on forever, so loud that the whole of Haven Hospital & Halls should have awakened. Except Terminals who were so drugged, they slept through anything.
Ms. Iverson ran to her. Dr. King swung the flashlight around the room like the cry had startled him, too.
“Mary, Mary. Shhh.”
“The light,” Mary said. She thrashed in bed. “The light.”
“Turn it off,” Ms. Iverson said.
Part of me wanted to sit up, but I didn’t move. I would have slept through Mary’s nightmare like she always slept through mine.
“I told you we would bother them,” Ms. Iverson said. She sounded angry.
Dr. King sighed. “You’re right.”
The flashlight died.
Ms. Iverson made soothing noises. It took only a moment to quiet Mary.
Every muscle in my body was rigid. Would they never leave? Just concentrate, I thought. Think yourself to sleep.
Then next to my ear came Dr. King’s voice.
“I’m watching you all,” he said.
21
Even after they were gone, and had been gone for a while, neither Abigail nor I said anything. I heard the clock dong two more times before I slipped out of bed.
“What are you doing?” Abigail asked.
I pulled my shirt off. “I’m going to sleep. Really this time. That was too close.” My whole body felt like it tried to tremble free of my skin.
Abigail crept over to me, crawling.
“We have plans for tonight,” she said. “And the males need to know what’s happened.”
The light that came from the hall was shadowed by my bed and where we crouched near the floor.
“There’s always a price for freedom,” Abigail said.
“They’ll make us pay,” I said.
“Everyone pays. They always have. We’ve seen it on the computer. Looking through the Histories. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Joan of Arc, even John Steinbeck.”
“I don’t want to be punished.” My voice cracked. “I don’t want to die.”
Abigail didn’t say anything for what seemed a forever. When she opened her mouth I thought sure she’d say, I don’t either. But she didn’t. “You’re going to die, Shiloh. You stay here, you die. Part by part, piece by piece. Only we can save us. Only we can be our heroes.”
With the wax of the Tonic removed, I felt what maybe the Whole felt. Fear, yes. But, there was a bit of a promise, too. Not just the empty words I had thought about hope before. More than that. The chance we had to make a difference.
“I’m scared,” I said.
“Me, too,” Abigail said. “Me, too, Shiloh.”
* * *
It took us longer than usual in the halls. Every sound, every crack or creak, made us hesitate. When we got to the main corridor, it was as huge and open as it had been that first night I’d left. But tonight, with Dr. King’s voice in my ear, it seemed more dangerous. I gripped Abigail’s hand in mine.
“We do this,” she said, “for all the Terminals.”
For us, I thought.
We had to succeed now. They knew something about what we were doing.
We jogged all the way to the basement. Quiet as spirits. We flung open the door to the closet of a room we met in.
“What took so long?” Daniel said. “You’re more than an hour late.”
I didn’t even blink before saying, “He knows.”
“What?”
“Who?”
Daniel and Gideon spoke at once, Daniel grasping the wheels to his chair, Gideon rising to his feet.
“Dr. King.”
The door clicked shut behind us.
“Tell us,” Daniel said.
Even at this horrible time, I couldn’t keep my mind on track. Not with Gideon here. I thought of holding his hand. Him touching my face.
“He came to our room tonight,” Abigail said. The walls seemed to meet each other at the ceiling. “We had just changed our clothes to come here. We were moments from leaving. If we had been any faster, he would have caught us in the corridor or gone from our beds.”
I hadn’t realized how close we were to getting caught. My muscles tightened with the understanding.
“He came close to me. If I had been taking the Tonic, I might have fallen from the bed from dizziness,” I said. “And told me he’s watching us all.”
Daniel backed his wheelchair up a little. “What did you say?” His eyebrows were together, his face tight.
“Nothing,” I said. There was an awful taste in my mouth. “I pretended to sleep.”
Gideon sat. The computer screen illuminated his face. He let out a long sigh, like he was tired.
“One of us has given ourselves away.” Daniel looked at me. “What have you done, Shiloh? Dr. King spoke to you.”
“I … I don’t know.” Why had he come to me? Was it my comment in class today? My watching the other Terminals? Had someone seen me sniff the sunshine this afternoon? My every move was suspect. Had I put us all at risk? I felt sick.
“We do things,” Abigail said. “In the beginning when we’re coming off the drugs, we make mistakes. This isn’t her fault.” She cleared her throat. “Dr. King said he was watching us all. That means he knows about more than one of us.”
My heart felt like a fist, beating out slow, dark thumps. Dr. King had spoken to me, not to anyone else.
He knew something about me.
What had I done wrong? What had given me away? And what would happen to me now?
The fist settled in my gut. “If they know,” I said, “I’m the next one gone. That’s how it works, right?”
Gideon shook his head but Daniel answered. “You’re used when they need you. You may get Isolation, but they’ll not hurt you. You’re too important. You’re worth a lot of money to them.”
“I can’t see them taking you for no reason,” Gideon said. “And anyway, Shiloh, if something happened to you, the world would know.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your Whole connection has made a lot of noise about you, and the world is aware. It makes sense. Dr. King threatens you because you’re a pawn.”
“Something must have happened during your operation.” This was Daniel.
I’ve changed my mind.
“Like what?”
“We don’t know for sure. As we’ve reviewed different videos, there’s been talk of Replicant complications.”
She looks too much like my daughter. An unsettled feeling grew.
Gideon said, “Something bad. Why did they take only one lung? Your Recipient had several operations lined up.”
“Enough that I wouldn’t be here now?”
He nodded. “Some were serious, too. Your recipient needed you.”
“She looks too much like my daughter.”
“What?” Abigail asked.
I hadn’t meant for the words to come out. “That’s what she said.”
“Who?”
“The little female’s mom. Ann. I … I thought it was a dream. I thought it was because of the operation.”
For Victoria, Ann. We’re doing it for Victoria.
Just this once?
Yes. Just this once.
And if it doesn’t save her … if we don’t see a marked improvement?
Right.
I saw the bright light. Struggled with people holding me down. Heard the voices.
I’ve changed my mind. She looks too much like my daughter.
“Ann didn’t want to do the operation. But two males talked her into at least part of the procedure.”
You paid for it.
“The it was me. Dr. King called me ‘it.’ He told her I had been paid for.” I closed my eyes as the memory unfolded more clear than ever before. “They would operate only one time. She made them promise.”
r /> “The female’s kept her promise. She’s fighting for you. Nothing will happen to you until she loses the court battles she’s started to get you free from here.”
“What happened to the female … the Recipient?” The room was too cold and I wished I had brought my jacket from Planting Committee.
“There was a failure. In one interview, the male who came to get you said operation orders were halted when it was obvious that it wasn’t going to work. The Recipient is now deceased.”
“She died?”
“We think so, Shiloh,” Gideon said. “We’re not sure if she—”
“The Recipient was named Victoria,” I said.
No one said anything and then, “We’re not sure if she died on the table or later,” Gideon said. “We just know all operations were concluded.”
“So Dr. King doesn’t have a one hundred percent success rate,” Abigail said.
“What doctor does?” Daniel asked.
“They could have parted me out,” I said, “but they let me live.” I was theirs to use. A Duplicate, a Terminal with no soul.
“Let’s go to bed,” Abigail said. “Pretend like we know nothing just for tonight.”
“I agree,” I said. The information was overwhelming.
“We can’t hide now,” Daniel said. “They know something about Shiloh, for sure. They’re watching us all. Their knowing means we have to go. Soon.”
“They’ll force us to take the Tonic. They’ll bend us back to what we were,” Gideon said. “They’ll use us up.”
“So now we plan,” Abigail said. “Then we leave.”
“When?” I asked.
“Two nights from now,” Gideon said. “After lights out, after everyone is asleep.”
“We just have to get to the right people.” Daniel turned to the computer. “Shiloh’s owners. And maybe get help from Ms. Iverson.”
A map came up on the screen.
“This is the city proper.”
The photograph seemed to be a shot from the air, with buildings tiny as game pieces.
“Here’s where we are.”
A blinking triangle moved over a small black dot.
“That’s Haven Hospital and Halls?” I asked.
He nodded.
“We have to get here. To the city building.” He moved the arrow to the other side of the computer screen.
“How far is that?” Abigail asked. Her face looked ghostly. She gave me a halfhearted smile—one that didn’t seem so unusual anymore—and I could see how nervous she was.
Was she thinking about the stone wall, the fence we had peered over? Was she wondering how we would all get over that? How would she? And what about Daniel? And then after that, how would I walk for miles? None of us was whole enough to do this except Gideon.
“Not too far,” Gideon said. “A couple of miles. That’s what it says here.”
“How do we find help?”
Daniel didn’t look away from the screen. “We go to Ann.”
“There used to be a way to communicate over Interstar. We found the remains of it.” Daniel made quotation marks in the air with his fingers when he said remains. “But that’s all been disabled.”
“Recently?” Abigail asked.
“We’re not sure,” Daniel said, shrugging.
“Look over the map, Shiloh,” Gideon said. “Do you think you could memorize how to get to where we need to go?”
“It’s not far, like you said. And the path is easy. But Haven Hospital and Halls is in a remote area. We’re isolated out here.”
“I’m exhausted,” Abigail said. She was still worried. Her eyebrows worked together. I touched her hand, and her skin was clammy and cool.
“We can do this. We’ll succeed,” I said, but the words seemed a lie. I wasn’t sure I believed them myself. “We have to hope. You said that yourself, Abigail.”
Abigail said, “We all have to promise something.” She put her arm around me, grabbed Daniel’s hand.
“Sure,” Daniel said. He held on to Abigail.
“We keep going, no matter what. We run for help, no matter what. No matter who is left behind, the others keep going.”
“For the Terminals,” Gideon said. He logged off the computer. The room grew dark.
“Just a minute, okay?” Daniel said. He spoke low, quiet. Not a thing like the Daniel I knew away from class. “We can do this. We’ve all done worse than running away. But if it comes to it…” Daniel moved in his wheelchair. “You leave me behind.”
“We’ve already talked about this,” Gideon said.
“I’m a burden, Gideon. I’ll slow everyone down. You know it.”
“I don’t care what you say,” Gideon said. “I’m not losing anyone else.”
Something awful passed through me. I had worried about this very thing, and now here we were talking about it. What Daniel said made sense and that made my face burn from guilt.
“Me, too,” Abigail said. “If I slow you down, you have to leave me behind, too. Whoever can, keeps going.”
“No,” I said. It felt as though someone strangled me.
“We all leave together.” Sound went swirling down the hall and I waited to see if we would be found out. “We’re letting people know we’re all worthy to live. That all Terminals deserve a chance. We are doing it. Now I’m done with this tonight.” Gideon left the room, disappearing so I couldn’t see even a trace of him.
Abigail whispered, “We’ve been away too long. Dr. King may visit our room again.”
“Shiloh.” Daniel grabbed my wrist so tight, his grip hurt. “Think of the Cause. Gideon can’t see past the personal. You’re whole enough to make it. Don’t let Gideon surrender just because he has a heart.”
I thought of the Heart and Soul plants leaning in the morning breeze.
“I’m not sure any of us could leave someone behind,” I said, shaking Daniel off me.
“We’re going together, Daniel,” Abigail said. She knelt in front of his wheelchair. “It’s all of us or none of us.” Her voice softened.
Daniel pulled Abigail up and she sat on his lap. Her arms went around his neck.
“We have to do what’s good for all of us,” he said. “If one of us doesn’t make it, that’s no big deal. If none of us make it, we fail.”
“I can’t leave you,” Abigail said. “Gideon can’t either, Daniel. We won’t.”
Daniel ran his fingers through Abigail’s hair. She leaned her face close to his and he pressed his lips on Abigail’s face. This wasn’t like Ms. Iverson and Mr. Tremmel, but gentle and sad. I felt like we were stuck in a bottle. Strangled, like we didn’t have a chance.
“Do what’s best for the Cause,” he said.
Abigail kissed Daniel again, then once more. When she stood, she kept a tight grip on his hand.
“Be able to let me go,” he said. “For everyone.”
Daniel rolled away, the whisper of the wheelchair all that I heard. He didn’t get far when he stopped and swung around. “Be aware,” he said. “For some reason, they’ve picked up on you.”
Then he was gone.
I can’t be asleep long, when I start awake.
What was it I heard? Outside the window, the sky is still dark, with no promise of morning. I’m tired and can’t quite get my eyes open all the way.
Covers to my chin. Fingers curled around the cloth. Flat on my back.
Is it Abigail? Awake?
Then I see him there at the end of the bed. A male. Huge.
No face.
I try closing my eyes but there’s no doing what I want.
He wants me to see him. Wants to frighten me.
Somehow, he’s to the side of my bed without taking a step.
“Shiloh,” he says. His voice is like water. “Shiloh.”
Fingers touch my throat, and his skin on mine burns.
“You know better than to break the rules.”
If I could move, I would nod. But his fire touch keeps me still. I want to c
all for Abigail. If I do, she’s caught, too.
He bends so close I can see through the blackness.
Gideon.
“We won’t leave anyone,” he says. His lips are the color of a storm cloud. Gray as fireplace ash.
When he presses his mouth on mine, I think I might choke on the dust that surges past my teeth.
I thrash about, trying to push Gideon away.
But he’s strong.
So strong. His hands are on my shoulders, burning me every place he caresses.
He climbs on top of me, the blanket between us, his teeth are on my throat.
And
I know I’m going to die.
22
Seeing Gideon at breakfast (though I pretended not to look) made my pulse quicken. Would he kill me like my dream said? I didn’t even believe there was truth to dreams, so why did I care?
That was what the old Shiloh would think, the Shiloh drugged by the Tonic. It wasn’t at all what the almost-free female Terminal would wonder. We were a team.
“Meet me,” Gideon said when I left my breakfast dishes on the kitchen counter. Miss Maria stood near the conveyor belt, checking our food consumption. “Same time.”
Miss Maria is large. Thick. “Good girl, Shiloh,” she said. “Keep on working.”
Her words slowed me midstep.
What did she mean by that? Good girl. What was that?
“Okay,” I said, and moved off from the growing stack of used plates that slid into the kitchen.
Ahead, Gideon stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered away, not even waiting for an answer.
Terminals don’t watch each other.
But, I noticed.
I noticed that Gideon stood straight and tall, looked at people, moved like the Whole did. I saw he made eye contact with Miss Maria.
Stop this. Get going. I need to get to class.
That image of him walking as though he wasn’t a Terminal spread all through my body. Gideon wasn’t like the rest of the Terminals. When I put my mind to it, I realized that I couldn’t remember him ever having been out for Illness. Yes, he had spent time in Isolation. Plenty. But he’d never had an operation. Why not?
I tripped on nothing. There was too much the Tonic would have wiped out. Comments and attitudes. Nightmares and plans.