“I will see you then,” I say to Kai.
He nods at me and turns to go. I can scarcely believe how fortunate I am. Kai isn’t exactly what I had in mind, but he is going to be a thousand times better than the other two. Even as he walks out of the building, only two or three people notice him leaving.
“We need to get back. You are late for a doctor’s appointment,” Anderson says.
I follow him back to the speeder.
“Thanks for supporting me,” I say, once the speeder has shot into the sky and we are leaving the city behind.
Anderson pulls his tie loose and sticks it into his pocket.
“Well, you were right. There is no stipulation about age. You were allowed to pick the companion, or companions, who were in that room. You aren’t responsible if they can’t control who is there.”
I smile at him, but he is looking out the window and doesn’t see, his brow is wrinkled like it does when he is thinking about an unexpected event.
The speeder lands and Anderson takes me back inside, up the elevator to the third floor, dedicated solely for our medical needs including our own scanners and operating rooms. But hearing the elevator doors open reminds me of the question that lingers from the meeting after the Tournament.
“Is the Compound still looking for an antidote?” I ask. My voice is barely as loud as the soft elevator dings that indicate the floor it is passing. The elevator halts and Anderson starts to walk out.
“Anderson,” I say a bit louder as I step off the elevator.
“What?” Anderson looks back at me.
I clear my throat a bit. “Is the Compound still looking for an antidote to combat the anemone poison?”
He frowns and looks up at the corners nearest us where the walls and ceiling meet. Part of the Compound’s security system is cameras that randomly rotate their position. I’ve often tried to look for them, but can never tell if they are there or not since they also employ camouflage to reflect whatever is behind them.
“Caryn, this is neither the time nor the place to ask such questions,” Anderson says. He doesn’t look at me but stares straight ahead at the elevator doors as they roll closed behind me. “But to answer your question, yes, the Compound is always looking for an antidote. It is one of our primary functions. The next few days will be extremely busy for you.
It’s bad enough that you are leaving the Compound, you don’t need to worry about things that don’t concern you. You need to focus on the Compound’s purpose and gathering the cure. It is more important than anyone or anything.”
I’m sorry I ask, as his explanation turns more into a lecture, a bit too similar to others I’ve heard this week, and leaves me wishing I had kept my mouth shut. Anderson is unusually quiet as we walk into the check-up rooms. A nurse tells us he is seeing May right now, but they should be almost done. We pass her desk and I spot the chairs against the wall. Suddenly my feet and legs feel tired and I can’t wait to sit down.
A gentleman in his sixties is also waiting in one of the chairs. The top of his head is bald, but brown-gray hair grows in a crescent from ear to ear. When he sees us, he jumps to his feet and walks toward me with his hand outstretched and a warm smile on his face.
“You must be Caryn,” he says, grabbing my hand and shaking it like a fish out of water. “I’m Dr. Marcus Kendel. I’m not with the Compound, but I’ve just been given access to the anemone antidote project and I’m going to be studying the research for an antidote over the next few days.” His voice runs out of steam as if he suddenly wonders if he should be talking about the antidote to me.
“Are you the only one--” I start to ask, but the door opens and May comes out followed by Eighth Official Rafferty. Her face is calm, but when she sees me her eyebrows frown and she looks away.
“She’s good to go,” Dr. Vos says, as he makes a final tap on his hand-held. I can see some colors flash on the projected screen, but not enough to tell what he’s working on. Each handheld records its’ owner’s visual spectrum and uses all the colors that person can see. While the middle, common colors are shielded from other viewers, the colors on the far ends of the spectrum are not, but without the other information it is impossible to see what he is doing. He slips his handheld into his lab pocket and scratches behind his ear. The top of his head is completely bald and reflects the ceiling lights and the hair that grows on the sides is a salt and pepper mix that his white coat makes seem more white than black.
May walks away quickly with Rafferty trying to keep up, almost as if she can’t stand to be in the same room I am in.
“Dr. Vos,” Dr. Kendel says, turning from me. “I need to get your authorization to access past research on the anemone poison.”
“Yes, yes. But first I have to see my patient. Caryn?” Dr. Vos sweeps a hand to welcome me into the check-up room. I walk in with Anderson behind me.
“I just need your signature--” Dr. Kendal says, as the door closes behind us.
I sit on the patient table and hold out my finger so he can take a DNA sample.
“Have you had any coughing?” Dr. Vos asks.
“No and no headaches or vomiting,” I say, hoping to get through the list sooner.
“Name five people you saw this morning.”
“Seventh Official Anderson, May, Janissa, their officials Rafferty and Jones, Janie the cook, Mari the assistant, Nancy the housekeeper--” I could have gone on, but Dr. Vos cuts me off.
“Excellent,” he says, as he shines a light in my eyes. “Look up to the right. Now the left.”
“How is she?” Anderson asks. He tries to sound calm, but there is always a tinge of concern when he asks it each week. The recent candidate history of dying young keeps everyone on their toes. Especially since the DNA splices can start unraveling with short notice. I’ve heard stories of some candidates who were completely fine one day and two days later could not get out of the bed they would die in. But that was before they returned to the more stable, less exotic, form of DNA splicing.
“Things appear to be normal,” Dr. Vos says. “Now I want you to lie down so we can take some scans.”
Dr. Vos always responds the same way too. I can appear to be fine, but that doesn’t mean my DNA is. The scans are very basic otherwise we would be using one of the other rooms where the heavy equipment is. In five minutes I am given the okay to proceed with the rest of my day and Dr. Vos promises to see me for another check-up the day after tomorrow at the Compound Embassy in Highton. As Anderson and I leave the room, Dr. Kendel jumps out of his seat only to wait at the doorway for Dr. Vos to finish typing notes into his hand-held.
Anderson gives me the rest of the afternoon off and I head up to the library. No class today, or the rest of the week. I love the quiet of the library and I can almost taste books around me. I don’t pick up one I just sit in one of the over-stuffed chairs, look out the window and breathe.
It feels good to relax and to be alone. Today has felt like a whole week. I can hardly believe that it was this morning I woke up wondering if I would have what it takes to win the Tournament. That girl seems like someone else now, much like the girl I was around Second Official Whit. But I don’t want to think about him.
I try to picture Heather. I know her image is captured in all of our computers, along with footage, but I try to recall her face from memory and can’t. Moments of seeing her swim, the sense she was so much bigger than me and the smile she would flash when she saw me at the end of the day, are no longer as clear as they used to be. A sheet of plastic is wrapped around them that softens the edges and keeps me from touching them. Some memories I can draw close and smooth the plastic down, but others hide in the dusty shadows slowly, quietly fading away. I wish more than anything that she were still alive now. That I could hear her laugh. That we could talk late into the night about everything and nothing.
“There you are,” Anderson says. “I should have looked here first when I found you weren’t in your classroom.”
He walks into the room and sits down in a chair across from me. I sniff away my memories and try to shift in my chair so he can’t see my watering eyes.
I can hear the smile in his voice when he says, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Fine doesn’t mean you’re okay.” He sits in the overstuffed chair beside me.
“May has been avoiding me since the Tournament.” I keep my eyes on the window, glad to have remembered May and to have a possible explanation for why I’m not happy.
“Have you talked to her?”
“No. I haven’t had time.”
We are silent for a moment then Anderson says, “I have something for you.” He holds out a small black box.
“What is it?” I ask as I take it. I’m almost completely recovered now.
Anderson just smiles and nods at the box.
I open the lid and see a necklace lying on velvet. It is the outline of a fish on a silver chain and as I look closer I realize the fish is a jigger, the same fish as the cause of the disease and the source of the cure. I glance at him, confused.
“It’s a jigger,” I say.
“It’s special.” Anderson takes the box from me and removes the silver chain. “The Officials and I got together and had it made for you. We want you to have something to remember us while you are in the city.”
“Thanks,” I say. The jigger is something we all have in common at the Compound and despite my excitement on leaving I know I will miss everyone here.
He stands and stretches. “Come on, it’s time for dinner and then you should probably go to bed. You have a busy three days ahead of you.”
I put the necklace back in the box and go with Anderson to the dining hall.
As I lie in bed after dinner, I wait for the girls to enter our room. Mostly I just want to hear them move, let their quiet whispers flow over me, and pretend that in the morning our lives will be the same as they have always been.
I didn’t think I would fall asleep before May and Janissa entered the room, but I did. I jerk awake and sit up in bed. It is 5:30 in the morning and the room is so dark that it takes me a moment before I can make out the girls in their beds. I lay back down on my pillow, but my heart is racing.
Today, I am leaving the Compound. The thought bounces around inside and I know I won’t be able to go back to sleep now. There is a brand new, white full-body suit for me to wear on my trip and I get out of bed and pull it on. I braid my hair and attach the necklace around my neck.
At six there is a knock at our door. I rush as quietly as I can and wave my hand in front of the door’s motion detector. It swings open and I see Anderson with his hair sticking up in three places and his shirt only half-tuck into a tan pair of rumpled pants.
“First Official Foreman wants to take you to the city himself. He’s waiting for you now.”
“What?” No one tells me anything.
“Are you ready to go?” he asks.
“But I haven’t seen May and Janissa--”
“Say goodbye quickly.” Anderson stuffs the rest of his shirt into his pants.
“What is going on?” May asks behind me. She sits up in bed and rubs her eyes.
“I am leaving,” I say.
Janissa lifts her head and her eyelids part enough to see me.
“Have a fun time,” she says, her voice slurred, and then her head sinks back down. I wonder if she will remember this when she wakes.
“I will,” I say. Three days suddenly seems like a long time and water gathers in my eyes. I look up at the ceiling before returning to May.
“Will you see us when you come back?” May asks. Her eyes are bright in the hallway light and her brow is slightly wrinkled, like it does when she is sad or angry.
I can’t tell by her tone if she is being serious or if she is mocking me, but I smile and say yes before walking out the door and out of the building.
Anderson takes me to the landing platform and then says, “I’ll see you when you get back.”
“You’re not going with me?” I ask. The thought of spending the whole ride to the city alone with the First Official scares me a bit.
“You are spending the next three days without me. You will be fine. Besides it’ll give me a chance to catch up on my paper work.” He smiles, but it doesn’t take away the sad glint in his eye.
First Official Foreman is waiting beside a speeder and I wave at Anderson before stepping inside it. Foreman doesn’t say anything as we fly up in the sky and into the city. It is not until we have exited the speeder and are back in the large room I was in yesterday, about to exit the building when he stops and faces me. We are in front of the main door and I try to give him my full attention, but there is a bird singing somewhere outside and it calls to me. Instead, I find myself staring up at his dark brown beard liberally sprinkled with gray. There is a serious look in his eyes I have never seen.
“Caryn,” Foreman says. “Some of the officials would like me to order you to return when your three days are up, but if you give me your word that you will return, then that will be enough for me.”
“I promise I will return,” I say, wondering why he would even think I wouldn’t come back. I know what is at stake.
“Then I will see you in three days,” Foreman says. He opens the door and I walk out.