Nineteen
Eenie
The sound of low beeping wakes me up.
I’m inside a hospital… I know this hospital. The round walls and the simple round rooms with a single bed in each, and the door placed at the opposite end as my head. I’m back inside the Dame’s Dome.
A woman walks into the room in a Doctor uniform and smiles pleasantly at me.
“How are you feeling?”
My head starts to throb as I sit myself up. I rub up and down on the center of my forehead with two of my fingers to relieve some of the pain bouncing around inside.
“What happened?” I groan.
“You fell off a swing and hit the ground. The impact your body took made you black out and slip into unconsciousness.” She says simply, typing on her paper-thin tablet.
“I did?” I ask, eyeing her. I know she’s lying. One: because those words sound rehearsed, and two: because I remember exactly what happened before I blacked out. More or less. “What made me fall off the swing? I mean, we don’t do very many things that will make us fall off, and the safety belts are pretty snug on our laps. They adjust to our weight and circumference, and I should know—I’ve repaired a couple hundred in my day. If I didn’t, I’d be a horrible Mechaneer and probably be kicked out of the Dome because of the strikes from not knowing. Not to mention the night I broke a swing and felt everything but the seatbelt break on it. So what happened, exactly?”
She looks up at me and sucks in her cheeks, thinking. She smiles at me crookedly. “You don’t remember?”
I snort and shake my head, tired of playing games. But I can feel that pull at the back of my brain again, the same one that was there when Murkas was asking me what I saw on the outside of the Dome walls when the panels went clear. I should play dumb. Should.
“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. But if I do? What will you do to me? Nothing? Tell on me to the President? Go ahead. Living outside the Dome isn’t so bad, you know. It’s possible. I’ve been doing it for how long now? Or maybe I haven’t. Maybe it’s all a figment of my imagination. But either of those stories will send me into a life of Doctor visits and no free will, am I right?”
She types something else in.
“Of course I am,” I snap and shake my head.
I move my arms and feel things pulling at it. Needles. One of them is attached to a wire connecting to a bag with a clear liquid inside of it, the rest to a large, white machine sitting next to the bed. All of the needles are poked into my left arm, while half my right hand is wrapped with gauze that spirals half way up my arm.
“Hello?” I ask, my voice flaring with attitude.
Maybe I’m not supposed to remember. Maybe that’s what the liquid being slipped into my veins right now is supposed to be doing. Making me forget.
I lift up the material on my right hand and peek under it. It’s still purple, and the color has spread a bit since I last looked at it. It’s starting to reach the halfway spot between my wrist and my elbow, and work itself down my knuckles.
I pick at the little needles, wanting to pull them out.
“What are these for?” I ask her.
She looks up from her tablet and down at my arm. Glancing back down, she tells me it’s for my headache.
I smile and rip the first one out.
“Good news, it’s gone,” I lie and pull another one out.
Her face twists into horror as she sees me.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t want these in my arms anymore.” I say as I pull another needle from my veins.
She rushes over to pick up the needles as I pull out the last one. I stand up on the opposite side of the bed and head to the door. I won’t let the Government trap me inside their lies anymore. I’m going to find out what is outside that Dome, even if it kills me.
“Hello, Eenralla.”
President Murkas opens the door, blocking my only escape. Well, there is a window…
I smile a fake smile at him.
“Hello, Murkas,” I spit, letting the corners of my mouth fall.
He smirks and closes the door behind him. We stand only a few feet away from each other, and I can smell the food he ate for lunch. Ham.
“How are you feeling?” His tone is mocking.
I grit my teeth.
“You tell me, Mr. President,” I say icily.
He stands with his hands in his pockets, smiling down at me evilly.
“Do you know where you are?”
“Where I was born,” I say, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
My tone is defensive, but my hands are shaking. This is the most powerful man in the world, and he gets the final say in everything. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let him push me around any more. I’m sick and tired of it. One wrong move, and, like he said when I wore the dress, he could kill me.
“Do you know why?” He asks, leaning forward.
I shrug, and unwrap my arm. The President looks down at it and smiles as he shakes his head.
“Do you?” I spit, looking up from the purple.
President Murkas straightens up, taking in a deep breath.
“I want answers. Now.”
Something about him is not right. Something about him makes my hair stand on end and my stomach twist until it hurts. I just don’t know what it is.
President Murkas plants his feet firmly on the ground and stares into my eyes, his cool smile disappearing from his face.
“I’ll answer anything you want to know,” He says, not moving a muscle.
My mind goes blank. There are so many things I want to ask, but they all escape me. The Dome. I was outside of another one. One that encloses the three I’ve known about my entire life and the one I learned about from the Rebellion.
“What is the Dome for? The big one? Why hasn’t anybody found the other Dome before me? Why am I back inside of the Dame’s Dome? How did I get here?”
He smiles and takes a deep breath.
“We were out on patrol looking for the rebellion base, and we were alerted by the civilization on the other side of the Big Dome that one of ours had come through.”
“The civilization? What civilization?”
He chuckles. “The Future Civilization. They live—they thrive because of what we do inside of these Domes. Without us, they would be nothing. We helped build them up.”
“Why? What is our purpose?”
“To provide workers for them,” He says, still not moving a muscle from where he stands. “To provide an army, a people for them.”
“So that’s what happens after we turn thirty…” I say, lost in thought. All of the rumors about what happens after we’re taken for our deaths, they aren’t true. No one dies… everyone just works. No wonder why they train us so hard and so much and so early. Because that’s what we’re meant to do when we come out of the Domes.
“And as for the big Dome,” He says, shifting a little bit. “It’s so nothing gets in, and nothing gets out. We’re trained not to look for differences in the world, the people, and that’s why there have been no rebellions until now. We are trained not to explore, not to wonder, not to question. We know the facts, and that’s all. Even Analyzers don’t ask questions. They just do what they’re told. That’s why no one has discovered the Outer Dome until now. No one has gotten out because that’s the way it’s supposed to be—the way we’re supposed to be.”
“But I did get out,” I say, confused but still cocky.
“Yes,” He says, shifting his weight. “We’re just going to have to fix that, now won’t we?”
“How?” I ask, my confidence disintegrating. “What are you going to do to me?”
He laughs.
“Nothing at all, Eenralla. We’re just going to seal it off completely so that it doesn’t happen again. Ever again,” He threatens.
“And if it does?”
“It won’t.”
I smile slightly and look down at my bare feet. All of the cuts and bruises are gone and I
feel no pain anywhere. They healed me while I was passed out.
“What about this?” I ask, lifting my arm up in front of me. “I touched the wall, and now it’s doing this. Why?”
President Murkas sighs and sits in a chair that had been placed by the bed. The light blue material scrapes against his suit loudly. He leans back and gets comfortable, smiling pleasantly.
“The walls have needles in them. They’re tiny, and almost invisible to the naked eye, except when up close. There is liquid placed in the walls. Gallons, and gallons of clear liquid are pumped into those needles, waiting to be released. That liquid is your future, all of our future. But your brain is not ready yet. Not yet. Not until you’re thirty—”
“Not until you’ve worn my brain down to mush with all of the injections given to me over the years?” My mom flashes to the front of my mind as the words slip past my mouth.
“And your brain is ready to receive it,” The President snaps. He sighs and fixes his blonde hair, which is balding on top. “Your brain is not ready to receive the serum, and that’s why you’ve had symptoms that have taken so long to appear—”
“I think it happened rather quickly—”
“The process takes four to five days to fully Change someone. Yours has taken months, hasn’t it? Pretty soon, you’ll be hurting. You’ve been changing too slowly. So slowly, that you’ll feel like you’re close to death when the pain washes over you. You’ll feel every neuron and every organ moving and changing, and every bone cracking and relocating itself.”
“I—”
He shifts in the chair, but his eyes stay on me.
“There have been multiple cases on Domespeople that have touched the wall, but there’s only been one other like you,” He says slowly. “One other that has touched the wall and that has gone through the complete Change exactly like you have. She touched the wall when she was fifteen and she went ‘insane’, as we like to say. It was her brains’ response to what was happening to her body. She got caught, of course, because we know everything about everyone and where they are at every moment. She was standing right where you are now, and she agreed to the proposition I’m about to make to you. Of course, by then she was already in so much pain…” His eyes flash with danger. “Pain you don’t want to experience. Pain you won’t have to feel if you take to the offer I am about to give you.”
“What is it?” I ask quietly. My brain races with all of the possibilities of what he’ll say and searches for ways out of them. Whatever is happening to me they can take it away. They can get rid of it.
But what if I don’t want to get rid of it?
“It will be quick—painless even, if you say yes.”
“I don’t want to die,” I growl, jumping to conclusions.
He chuckles. “You’re not going to die, you’re just going to be a little different than before. All it takes is one yes and everything goes away.”
“And if I say no?” I ask, picking up my chin to look like I’m sure on my decision.
“Then we’ll force you.”
“I’ll scream.”
“This room is soundproof.”
“I’ll run.”
“The doors are locked.”
“Then I’ll jump out of the window.”
He smiles at me and laughs.
“They’re bolted shut.”
I stand with my nails digging into my palms. I don’t want this all to go away. I don’t want all my freedom taken from me. I just want to go home. I just want to sleep in my bed. I want to go to my job. I want to…
I want to be away from him.
But I can’t. I can’t if I stay in this Dome. If.
But it’s the only thing I can think of doing.
I fling the door open and step out into the hall. Murkas’s bodyguards turn and reach for me. I try and dodge their large hands, and I yank and pull at my arms to free myself, but nothing succeeds. They grab me and spin me back around to face the President.
“Why do you always run, Eenralla?” He stands up and smiles at me, all of his teeth showing. I glare at him through my long blonde hair and try one more time to break free from the men holding me. I get one arm free, and send an elbow into a jaw.
I try to twist the other one out, but the man holds tight.
“Let her go,” The President chuckles calmly, placing his hands in his pockets.
I glare at him as he smirks at me. He’s so smug. So cocky. No wonder why the Rebellion hates him. Why my mom hates him.
My headache begins to throb with my heartbeat as I try to catch my breath.
“Go,” Murkas says simply, and the two bodyguards step aside, leaving the door open for me to run, to escape.
Could it be a trap? Is he trying to trick me?
“So you try to run until I tell you to run? Interesting,” He hisses. “There’s something about you, Eenralla. Something that is so familiar…” He brings a hand out of his pocket and reaches toward me, but waves the thought away and motions to the door with his hand. “Go.”
Hesitantly, I turn and sprint down the hall, away from the man who holds the world in his hands. Nurses and doctors squeal as I run past them, and papers are thrown into the air. I shove my hair from my face and slam through a set of double doors. I take a left turn, and then a right, and I’m out in the openness of the Dame’s Dome.
I run to Nad’s house. I have to see my best friend. I have to warn her about Murkas. About the Rebellion. I have to tell her what’s going on, and I have to let her know about her brother. I have to let her know he’s alive and that I can take her to him. Maybe. If I can find him…
I bang on the door and wait for a response.
Nothing.
“Nad! Nad, I need to talk to you! Please! Before they change their minds about me! Nad!” I slide open the door, and walk in to the dark space that Nad calls home. “Nad?”
Things have been moved and rearranged. There’s nothing inside that says that Nad lives here. Not anymore. I see her neat bed, usually covered with a yellow blanket, draped with a gray sheet. Her closets are filled with white jackets and clothes, and her bookshelves are filled with thick, gray books. Nad’s room used to be happy and upbeat with things the Government would allow us to have, and now it’s like someone painted over her house with gray paint. Have I been gone for that long?
I stand inside the doorway, gaping at the room. The glow of her clock says it’s mid-afternoon. She should be off work. She should be home. She should be here.
“Shoot, I left my… Who are you?”
I turn around and see Nad, standing with a book in her arm on the sidewalk. I run up to her and throw my arms around her neck. I have my best friend back.
She shoves me away and looks at me like I’m on fire.
Like I’m a complete stranger.
“Nad?”
“Who are you?”
My heart sinks in my chest as I look at the face of my best friend. Suddenly, I know how Peter had felt when I acted in the same manor to him.
“It’s me, Eenie… Nad, come on! I haven’t—”
“I have no idea who you are.”
“What?” I ask, my shoulders dropping. “I haven’t been gone for that long, Nad. Stop playing with me.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know you.”
“It’s me…” I squeak. “Eenralla Land.”
Something clicks inside of her brain. Her posture relaxes and her eyes light up a bit. Suddenly, she’s the Nad I remember.
“Ohh, right. You’re back from your surgery. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“What? No, Nad—”
“It’s fine, I understand. I’m sorry I didn’t remember you. I’ve just been so busy, and things are so blurry and hazy…” She puts a hand to her forehead. “It’s really hard to remember some things sometimes.”
I stare at her. She’s changed. Her enthusiasm is subtle, not as prominent as usual, and she wears her hair up in a tight, brunette bun. She never wears buns. She hates b
uns. She’ll wear anything but buns. And on top of that, she’s wearing white—she’s wearing white. But she’s a…
“You’re not a Mech anymore?” I ask her, my voice catching in my throat.
She looks at me, puzzled. “I’ve never been a Mechaneer, Eenralla.”
I take a step backwards, stumbling over the sidewalk. What did the Government do to her? Why didn’t she remember me and then suddenly remember me again? Why is she saying she was never a Mech? She was a Mech. I was a Mech. But she says she wasn’t. Why…? How…?
The world around me goes blurry and starts to spin.
“Are you okay?” Nad asks, taking a step toward me.
I take another step back and look her in the eyes.
“What happened to you, Nad?” I ask quietly.
“Noth—”
“What happened to you?” I shout, tears filling my eyes. I put my hand on my chest to help me breathe slower. To calm down. “Why don’t you remember me? What did they do to you? What…”
I’m suddenly scared. And sad. And angry. And confused. All at once.
Nad puts her hands on my arms to steady me as tears start to slowly fall from my eyes, and my breath comes out sharp and quick. Everything that’s happened… I can’t take it. Suddenly, my stomach starts to hurt.
“I’ll take you to the hospit—”
“No!” I shout. I don’t know if it’s the pain, or if it’s the shock of information finally reaching my brain that makes me shout at her, but I do. I shout at Nad. “Why don’t you remember? You were my best friend… my… best—friend… We were Mech’s together. We both got assigned to our jobs… me from breaking a… a stupid swing… and you because of your brother… oh, your brother…”
“I don’t have a brother, Eenralla.”
My wet eyes meet hers. “Yes you do. Of course you do. His name is Peter. Peter Hemmings. You told me about him one day. You both climbed a tree to watch your parent’s funeral and got a strike… and—and you don’t know why your parents named him that because it’s such a weird name…”
“Eenralla,” She says, looking in my eyes. She’s only thirteen, but right now she’s acting like she’s twenty, like she’s older than I am. I’m the one acting like a thirteen year old. “I don’t know what medications they gave you, but none of that is real. I don’t have a brother, and I don’t work as a Mechaneer. You don’t either. You’re a Government Official. It’s how we met. Remember?”
My heart skips a beat, and I just stare at her.
“No…” I say, standing up. “No, no, no, no. No. This isn’t right. No. No.”
“Come on,” She says, taking my arm and pulling me to my feet. “I’ll take you right now.”
“No,” I say sternly. “I’m not going anywhere near that place. Near that man. Ever again.”
I rip my arm from her grasp and walk across the street to my house. The door slides open easily and I look around. Nothing has changed. Nothing but my closet.
It’s filled with white clothing and white coats.
On my bed lies a single white dress, folded just right so the bodice is sticking out, shining in the artificial sunlight streaming through my window.
My mother’s dress.
“Eenralla,” I hear Nad behind me.
I ignore her and walk to the dress. There is a note on white paper beside it.
Dearest Eenralla,
We found this at the site of the bombing the day after you disappeared. I’m sure that you will be pleased to know that everything is in tact, and some of the Shifters decided to fix it up for you. I hope you like your new job. You had a very high percentage.
Welcome to the team of Government Officials, Girl in White. I hope you enjoyed your freedom while it lasted, because you’re never getting it back.
Sincerely,
The President
I grip the paper so hard it rips in my hands. It rubs against my skin as it tears, making it burn and itch. I drop the pieces and look at them. The skin on my palm has turned red, and the tips my fingers are turning purple.
“Your hand,” Nad says. “What’s wrong with it?”
I turn to look at her. I look her straight in the eyes. She isn’t Nad anymore. Not the one I knew. Not my best friend. Not anyone. She’s just another one of the Government’s playthings, isn’t she? Just another person’s life to ruin, to control, to use.
“Tell me your name,” I say to her slowly.
“Excuse me?”
“Your name. What is it?” I press, stepping closer to her.
She laughs at me then turns to leave.
“You really are insane.”
“At least I know my name,” I say, following her to my porch. “What’s yours?”
“N…” She gets a blank look in her eyes. Her body twitches and her posture straightens. She blinks and looks me over. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?”
“Sym Lation,” She says, shaking her head. “Where am I?”
I feel my heart sink.
This isn’t Nad. Not anymore.