The two of you have a lot of explaining to do.
These words ring in my ears as Everett and I hurry to keep pace with the Foreman, who is now heading through a heavy door in long, brisk strides.
Eventually, I find myself standing beside Everett in front of the very same room that we'd run past yesterday in our frantic escape to the pods. I recall hearing a faint female voice through a crack in the door — a voice that seemed to be coming from the screen sitting on a massive table in the otherwise empty room.
Now, the Foreman pushes the door fully open and steps inside. As Everett and I follow reluctantly, he moves to stand behind the desk and directly in front of the screen. There is no sound emanating from the screen, but I discern that something is being displayed on it because of the flickering lights and shadows falling across the Foreman's face. His severe features look ghoulish against the screen's glow.
"Explain," he says simply. After a heavy beat of silence, he adds, "What happened yesterday night, F930?"
"Uh, I . . ." I exchange a panicked glance with Everett. Clearing my throat, I try to keep my voice level. "Nothing . . . ?"
The Foreman quirks an eyebrow. "Two people were walking around the Imperium, unauthorized, in the middle of the night. So, I'll ask again. What happened?"
Long after Everett fell asleep last night, his chest rising and falling evenly beside me, I stared into the darkness around me, trying to concoct a story, an excuse for this exact moment. But I came up empty, and now, my mind is racing incoherently.
"How did you . . ." I falter, desperately trying to buy some time. "How did you know it was us and not someone else?"
I know it's a senseless question. A citizen of the Imperium breaking its uncompromising rules and routines is entirely out of the realm of possibility.
Unless, of course, that person is broken.
"I think you already know the answer," the Foreman says tonelessly. "I suppose you thought you could mislead the trackers by leaving your bracelets at your pods? A futile exercise, of course."
Everett and I exchange a silent glance, neither of us rushing to correct his assumption.
The Foreman opens his mouth to say something else but is interrupted by a rapid beep, beep, beep coming from one of the remotes at his belt. He freezes in response again, much like earlier in the corridor when we first heard this noise from his remote. Tension flickers across his face for an instant before his expression returns to his typical, impenetrable frown.
"Wait here," the Foreman says, stepping out from behind the desk. When he's near the door, he turns to us. "Do not leave this room, and do not touch anything. I order you to stay here until I am back."
"And how long will that take?" Everett asks.
But the Foreman strides out of the room without another word. I feel a momentary sense of relief now that he is gone, but I know my anxiety will come back, trailing right behind the Foreman's towering frame whenever he returns.
I step closer to Everett and ask, "What are we going to tell him? When he comes back and asks about last night."
"I don't know," he murmurs, furrowing his brow. "But I don't think anything we say now will make a difference anyway."
"Yeah," I mutter as I move to sit on the floor, cross-legged. Everett joins me, and we sit together in silence, alternatively staring at the blank walls and checking for the Foreman every time we hear footsteps down the corridor.
I think back to the botanical garden where the perfect blue sky, the changing thickness of the bushes, and my mounting exhaustion were the signs of the day passing by. But here, in this windowless room, I have no way to gauge the time.
Eventually, I stand and wander around to stretch my legs. It's only when I tentatively step around the desk that I realize the screen is still displaying something.
Right away, my eyes are drawn to a young, light-haired woman in the middle of the screen. She's sitting behind a long white desk, speaking and gesturing with her hands, but I can't hear her. I stare at her, struggling to make sense of all the colors on her. The gentle, floral pink of her top, the inexplicable deep red of her lips, the golden glint of the small objects dangling from her earlobes. I glance down at my monochrome appearance, pale and lifeless in comparison.
Raising my eyes to the screen again, I take in the rest of it. There's a thin red strip with white text flowing quickly across the bottom of the screen, but I'm too disoriented to catch any of the words. This is unlike anything I've ever seen on a screen before.
"Everett, come here," I call, my voice shaking as I beckon him with one hand. "You need to see this."
Sensing the urgency in my tone, he hurries over. He follows my line of sight and watches the screen, wide-eyed. I'm somewhat transfixed by the woman's intriguing appearance when Everett suddenly exclaims, "Hey, look . . . There's something here."
Everett slides his fingers into a grove in one of the rectangular compartments under the right side of the table. With a quick tug, it falls open, revealing several remotes stacked on top of one another — remotes that are identical to the ones hanging from the Foreman's belt.
"Here," Everett says, handing me one of the remotes before grabbing one for himself. I examine the rows and rows of buttons on the sleek device, each button marked with a symbol I don't recognize. As I flip the remote around, my fingers accidentally press some of the buttons. Suddenly, the woman's silent speech on the screen bursts into sound, loud and clear, causing me and Everett to flinch.
Frantically pressing buttons on the remote at random, I mutter, "Fuck, why won't it stop?"
But Everett lays a hand on my arm and says, "Hold on, look."
The screen shifts, the woman's image shrinking and moving to the left until a new image materializes on the right. A man appears, his attire slightly darker but just as confounding as the woman. Unlike her, however, he's standing in an open patch of dry land under a reddish-yellow sky with dull gray clouds. His forehead and neck are coated in a fine sheen of sweat. A few paces behind him stands a wall of coiled wire with bright red signs.
"Thank you for joining us, Tony," the woman is saying, presumably to the man on the right. The man starts to respond, but I'm distracted by a new strip of words at the bottom of the screen. This time, I manage to catch a few snatches of the text.
Special report . . . investigation . . . unmarked facility . . . Bersauk, Virginia . . . reports of drones shot down . . .
What does any of this even mean?!
Frustrated, I turn my attention to the man. His voice has a slightly muffled quality to it as he points to the tall fence behind him and says, ". . . closest we can get is here, over 30 miles away. What lies beyond this point has been a matter of intense speculation for years, with conspiracy theories ranging from human experimentation to underground labs with evidence of extraterrestrial life. In recent times, reports of—"
"Wait," Everett says suddenly, stepping out from around the desk. "I think I hear footsteps."
"Keep an eye out for the Foreman," I reply, panic crawling up my throat. "I'll try to turn the sound off."
I grip the remote with trembling fingers and start pressing buttons at random again until finally, thankfully, the screen falls silent. With my remote in one hand, I grab the one Everett had picked up and placed on the table earlier.
Everett peeks outside and quickly turns to me. "He's coming!"
I move to drop both remotes into the open slot under the table, but in a split-second decision, I slip one into my pocket and drop the other inside the table.
As the Foreman's footsteps grow louder, I join Everett, and we sprawl out on the floor as though we were there all along. I breathe deeply to calm my racing heart and meet Everett's eyes. His brilliant blue gaze mirrors the bewilderment in mine, and an unspoken question hangs in the still air between us:
What is going on?
Happy new year! This is the first update of UCS for the year and it's a pivotal point in the story. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments and please vote if you enjoyed reading. :)
I'm excited to keep writing as we get closer to the end of this story.
I hope you all have a happy and healthy year ahead! Take care.
Love,
Amethyst