"There is no easy way to explain this," Commander Liad begins, looking at both Stephen and I. He cross his hands on the table, and his forearms rest beneath the holograms displayed in front of us. Liad scans over Stephen, then fixes his gaze on me for a tense three seconds. I twitch under his pressure.
Turning his focus away from me, Commander Liad shuffles through his holographic files. He flicks icons open and closed, searching for an unknown document.
"I can't begin to explain how this all came together," he says. "I was just an entry-level Screener when I first came to what we call Pod 14. I was sworn into patriotic secrecy and then sent here to work as a Screener."
My mind whirls at the word "Screener." He was a Screener?
"And there really isn't an easy way to explain this building or why it exists. I don't know about this Project you speak of, but I know why it looks so familiar to you," Liad repeats. Taking a deep breath, he admits the most high-profile secret of the nation:
"This location, called Pod 14, along with its 19 other replicas, is a detainment centers for citizens who have been screened."
My eyes widen in shock, and all of the puzzle pieces fall into place. It all makes sense. Perfect, insane sense. It explains where people go after they're screened, something I've always wondered. It explains why Stephen and I saw so many inmates in Pod 14's huge atrium. All those people had been screened and casted out of society like paper airplanes.
It all makes bloody, deadly sense. When Stephen was screened, he must have been sent to one of the 20 detainment centers. Then I ended up in his cell and found out about the Project alongside of him.
My first instinct tells me to back away from the Commander. He could be dangerous. He could still be the enemy, especially since he says he's a Screener. But I know better. If Liad was an enemy, he wouldn't have told us anything. I fold my hands across my lap, feeling inexplicably nervous.
Commander Liad lets the weight of his bombshell statement settle before continuing, "There are 20 Pods like this one around the nation, and they're all used to imprison screened citizens until they're loyal enough to re-enter society. Stephen, you were sent to Pod 4 for your screening that occurred nearly two years ago."
Commander Liad flips some holograms around for Stephen to see. A single video play silently showing 15-year-old Stephen being injected with syringes. The intensity of the video is so powerful I flinch as if I were being injected. Subconsciously, I look down at my wrists, and my black rectangle tattoos stare back at me. I hide them away quickly.
I glance over to Stephen, and the sight is a hundred times more painful than watching the video. His eyes are glassy, and his leg bobs up and down to try to keep him distracted. I know he feels my gaze on him, but he won't look at me.
"There are two problems with the video, though," Liad says. "Number one: all of Stephen's files are classified. I can't access them unless I'm tracked sitting in President Hybriad's personal office. Secondly, all whereabouts of Stephen's Pod 4 are missing because that Pod closed up 12 years ago."
Stephen visibly shudders. "So the Project doesn't have any records?"
"At least not in any files I can open," Liad says, "but don't forget about that locked file of yours, Stephen. It's highly unusual."
The Commander continues his spiel, turning to me. I rip my eyes away from Stephen and turn to Liad. His features stare into mine, and I'm filled with a wave of dread.
"You, Holland, were in a SkyTrain derailment, and the documents were easy for me to find. You were pronounced dead at the Train's crime scene. The funeral was two weeks after the accident. Now those records I can open freely." Liad closes Stephen's video and taps open a holograph of my obituary and my grave plaque.
Nausea hits me like a ton of bricks. The silver name plaque sucks all the air out of the room, and I can't breathe. It's like being a ghost.
Nodding at the images, Commander Liad says, "You're a dead girl living, Miss Renner, and I don't understand why. The only clues I could find were your mother's grave plaque and news coverage of the Train accident."
My chair screams in protest, and I'm on my feet, spun away from the conference table. I cover my hands over my mouth, a gag reflex triggered somewhere in my body. Just the sound of the words grave plaque send the image of my mom in front of my eyes. Her body hangs stiffly by her ankles. A sack covers her face. Oh God, I'm going to puke.
I grab onto Stephen's chair to keep myself steady. My vision unfocuses and blurs, and my fingers claw deeper into the fabric of his chair. How have I been forgetting about my mom for so long? How did I dismiss her so easily? Am I a bad daughter?
I completely ignore Liad's voice, or Stephen's for the matter. My ears become blocked and stuffy, and the conversation is shut out from my head. I turn my back to them again in a hurry.
As soon as I face the wall, my blurred vision is blinded by an abstract rainbow of artificial light. A display of holographs hover in front of me, and I swing my arms blindly to push them all out of the way. The documents fly offscreen, landing on the other glowing areas. I exhale shakily, the sound coming out louder that it should due to my blocked ears.
I spend the rest of forever trying to calm myself down. My body keels over, unable to hold itself up. An occasional sob leaves my throat and I don't bother to hold it in. I subconsciously realize I don't give a damn.
So I cry. For a really long time. And the entire time I'm asking myself why. A pleading chant forms in my head: Why me? Why now? Why this world and not another one?
I come up for air after my nose unblocks itself and my feet ache too much for me to keep squatting. Commander Liad's words begins to seep into my ears again. Stephen's voice replies rhythmically, smoothly even. It pulls me back into reality once more.
"--So I'd thought I was done. When I woke up in that room, I thought I was dead or something," Stephen says. My ears make his voice sound foggy and clouded, softer than normal. I cling onto the sound as he sniffles. "I felt a stinging on my wrist, and when I looked down, it was there: the number three."
Unstable fear twists my stomach into a tight knot. I shouldn't be hearing this. I should stand up from my crouched position and let them know that I'm listening. My limbs remain frozen no matter how many times I tell them to move.
"That was the beginning of the end for me. Every two weeks, I received an injection. Sometimes I'd be fine, unaffected. Most of the time, I'd be vomiting in the corner of the room. The worst one I ever got was hives all over my body. They didn't go away for a month."
"Were you ever given any rehabilitation lessons?"
"No."
"Were you allowed out of your detainment cell?"
"No, I wasn't."
"Did you even know why you were there? In Pod 4?"
"Oh, I knew why I was there. I missed my SkyTrain, easy as that. The last thing I remembered was being tackled by Screeners on my roof. They beat my head against the ground to knock me out," Stephen stops and chuckles bitterly. "I guess I wasn't worth as much as their syringes. I was knocked out cold without an injection."
"Well I'm sorry for your suffering," Commander Liad responds. "Pods are only supposed to rough up inmates that lash out. Other than that, our methods are rather sound. We isolate our inmates for a year, teach them respect for authority for another year, and then start them over in a different city within an additional six months."
A hint of humor catches in Liad's voice, "Of course, that's not what we do in Pod 14."
-- -- -- -- --
i hope you enjoyed reading this update as much as i enjoyed writing it. things are about to get a bit rebellious if ya know what i mean ;)
i will be using the answers to your questions relatively soon, probably the next chapter. i kinda got carried away writing this chapter without your answers. but i'm super proud of this chapter. today i'll be asking a fun question or two.
Question: Guess what chapter number this book will end on. If you're right by the end, then i'll shout you out in all caps :)
Follow-up Question: List your top three favorite candies in order of how much you like them.
for fun, i'll answer, too. i think this book will end on chapter... (haha not saying because i want this to last forever lol). my favorite candies are Milk Duds, M&M's, and Haribo Gummy Bears.