I can’t move. There is no pain, but I have no control over my body. I lie flat on my back staring up at the rusty beams supporting the roof, unable to blink or twitch a finger.
“What did you do to her?” I hear Kai yell. Someone grunts, feet shuffle and something metal clangs against the concrete floor.
“Did the gold card come loose?” A guy asks.
“Of course it did. I designed the gun to free it myself,” an indignant voice says from the back of the room.
A short man walks into my line of view and the T-Man follows appearing on my other side.
“You should have thirty seconds before it reboots,” the T-Man says. The short man nods and crouches down at my side. I feel my hand turn over and a small tug as he pulls the gold chip from my palm, then he runs for the door. His touch leaves my hand tingling, but I can bend my fingers a bit and I can blink. Things I couldn’t do a second ago.
The T-Man bends over me and I see his face for the first time. If it wasn’t for the brightly intent look in his eyes, or his tattered clothes, he could have been a guy you pass on the street and never notice, yet I know I have seen him before. The guy they had originally picked to be a companion, Daniel something.
“You were one of the companions,” I manage to say. My mouth tastes like smoke and I try to swallow it away.
“Yes, I was,” he laughs. “As soon as I heard the Mayor was going to try to get one the candidates out of the Compound I knew I had to have a part. And you would not believe how hard it was to pass their detailed inspection, to finally make it to the final selection, only to have you disapprove. All the planning I had done, in one moment was nearly destroyed, but then you took a liking to Kai and things fell back into place.”
He straightens. With every ounce of strength I have I try to lift myself up, but I only raise my head an inch before it becomes too heavy and falls back.
“Noah, tie her hands and feet,” the T-Man says and the guy who brought me here comes over. He grabs my hands and although I pull my arms back I am helpless to stop him as he wraps a coarse rope around my wrists.
“Red, what are you doing?” The T-Man turns to the red-haired man holding Kai in some kind of bent over headlock. “Tie him too.”
The man called Red lets go of Kai to grab the rope held out to him and Kai collapses on the floor gasping. Noah starts to tie my feet as Red ties Kai’s hands with sharp yanks and pulls.
“Bring them to the dock,” the T-Man says in a loud voice. Then as Noah pulls me to my feet, the T-Man leans close to me, his breath carrying the scent of vinegar and onions, and whispers, “My uncle told me you’re afraid of the water.”
“How would your uncle know that?” I ask. The fog is lifting from my body and I am almost able to feel all my limbs, although balance is beyond my reach especially since my feet are tied together. I have to lean back on Noah to keep from falling because his tight grip on my arms does little to keep my knees from buckling.
“My uncle was an official for the Compound. He trained you before you turned against him and destroyed our whole family.” There is no sign of mirth anywhere on the T-Man’s face and for a moment I am confused. Then my legs can’t hold my weight.
“Second Official Whit.” I whisper, but the T-Man doesn’t notice. Things start to make sense. I look at the T-Man again and see flashes of resemblance between the two. The way he winked as a companion. The way the skin of his cheek vibrates when he glares at me. The way he waves his hand when he talks. They are all reminiscent of Second Official Whit’s mannerisms. Even the color of his eyes, a cold gray, is Second Official Whit’s. Some things are different like the shape of the T-Man’s nose is long and slender, not short and small and his lips are thinner. He is also shorter than Second Official Whit was. But the shared family genes cannot be ignored and staring up at him I feel like the stupid, lazy, little girl Second Official Whit often said I was.
“Your stunt caused him to lose concentration and that’s why the other girl died.” The T-Man is pacing in front of me.
“Stunt? I don’t remember--”
But the T-Man ignores me. “And then you lied about how he treated you so they kicked him out and refused to give my sister, and anyone else he was related to, the treatment they needed to live.” He pauses and points a finger in my face. His eyes hold back no hatred, but ray after granite ray crashes into me. “You killed my sister. The day she died I swore to her that I would destroy the Compound. Killing you two is only the beginning. Even now, the Compound might think that they have two other candidates, but by the time they realize they need them it will be too late.”
“What are you going to do to them?” I ask. I try to make my voice strong, but it sounds wobbly and broken. Noah pulls me closer to keep me standing.
The T-Man smiles again, but doesn’t say anything. He jerks his head at Noah and I am dragged across the warehouse to the open door in the back. I hear bone hitting concrete and then see Red dragging a limp Kai by his feet.
As we enter the blinding light of the suns, I can smell water in the air and I start to shake. Every fear I had with Second Official Whit comes back to me and I can’t breathe. There is a short wooden dock and we move to the edge overlooking the gray brown water. Kai groans next to me.
“Any last request?” the T-Man asks. His smile is all too familiar to me.
“Let Kai go,” I say. At first it is a whisper, but then I repeat it louder.
“No.”
Noah stiffens behind me. “We’re dumping Kai too?” he asks.
“Yeah, you got a problem with that?” Red says.
Noah hesitates.
“But why?” I say. “Kai has nothing to do with the Compound and you said yourself that he has helped you. Let him go.”
“He’s just as much a part of the Compound as you are and I have no intention of letting him go.” The T-Man leans closer. “Besides having another person with you would be just like the last time. Only this time justice will be served and you, the real murderer, will die.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. The T-Man ignores my question as he attaches weights and chains to my feet and Red does the same to Kai. His eyes are open, but do not seem fully aware of what is happening, since he is not struggling.
“My uncle told me the truth. He said you challenged the girl to see who could stay under longer and then you broke her call button so no one would know she was drowning.” The T-Man leans closer to my ear. “Her death and my sister’s are all your fault.”
The T-Man pushes me hard from behind and I fall over the edge of the dock. Water closes around me before I have a chance to remember how tightly it grabs and holds. There is another splash and Kai sinks next to me. His eyes wildly looking around until he sees me. He tries to pull the chains off his ankles, but the ropes on his wrists are so tight he can’t even bend a finger.
I wait for the panic to rise and overwhelm me, but the T-Man’s last accusation makes me pause. He said his uncle had told him the truth. That I challenged Heather to a breath holding contest and broke her call button so she couldn’t signal Second Official Whit to bring her up. But that day is burned into my memory, a purple-red scar that refuses to heal completely.
I was afraid to go in the water. Second Official Whit threatened me and yelled. Heather took my hand and said it would be all right as we waited by the edge for Second Official Whit to finish hooking up our weights. She asked if we were doing thirty minutes, like normal and Second Official Whit yelled again, how he was the trainer and he would do what he thinks will make us the best. Then we jump in. Heather smiled at me as we sink and I smiled back. Being underwater wasn’t as bad that time. But the minutes tick away and I thought we had to be close to the thirty minutes. Then Heather started to struggle and pressed her call button.
I looked up to see Second Official Whit’s shadow watching us. He didn’t move. Heather began to breathe water and spasm with noiseless coughs, wisps from her hair came loose and floated around her face. I froze unable to take my eyes off her. Her thumb pressed the call button rapidly, then slower and slower until it fell from her fingers. I grabbed my call button, but my hands shook and it falls from my grasp. I looked up, found my call button again, and pressed it as hard as I could. This time I see another shadow next to Second Official Whit and our weights are released. Heather crumpled over as her body took its time rising. I started to shake and when my head broke the surface I couldn’t speak. Water poured down my face and salt mixed with the chlorine.
The whole scene washes over me and sends my emotions rolling. But when they begin to settle one thing remains. Second Official Whit lied. He lied to himself. He lied to the T-Man. But mostly he lied to me. He told me it was my fault and I believed him because I did not press my call button sooner. I thought I could have saved her, but her call button wasn’t broken. It was tested every week by Second Official Whit and I would not, did not, tamper with it. If the call button was broken Second Official Whit was the only one who would know about it. He was also watching us and he would have been able to see Heather struggling. He chose to ignore her. That is why she died. It wasn’t my fault. Her death was not because of me. Even if I had pressed my button earlier it wouldn’t have mattered.
Another thought fills me with ice. That other shadow. Seventh Official Anderson had come to take us to our classes. If he had not come early Second Official Whit might have let me drown as well.
The realization that I could have died with Heather doesn’t matter as much as the fact that I did not cause her death. I feel lighter and heavier at the same time. Lighter because for once the guilt I have been living with is gone and heavier because Second Official Whit, the man who was our primary guardian, could not be trusted with our lives. I knew he was a hard man, but I never suspected he would resort to murder. He must have snapped. Perhaps the pressure from the other officials got to him. And he never took Heather’s standing up for me well. There was always a punishment waiting for her, even if I never saw it. Dark circles around her eyes in the morning, extra or harder workouts when I had lunch. She took it all without complaint. But if he did the same to me she would tell him to go easier or threaten to tell the other officials. She stood up to him and he hated her for it. He thought it questioned his authority and he cared about little else.
All of this flows through my mind in seconds, yet in this moment I feel free. The water no longer suppresses me, smothering me with guilt. Now it builds me up, surrounding me to make me stronger, to wash away all the responsibility I have felt over Heather’s death. I’m not afraid anymore. And when I look over at Kai still trying to grab his chain I could laugh.
I am light, gliding through the water. I reach out and together Kai and I try to pull the chains loose. I have more maneuverability with my fingers, but after a few tugs it is apparent that I can’t get my own hands free. Kai must realize this too, because he holds his wrists out to me and I pull at the knots. The water has made the already tight rope tighter.
It is after five minutes of twisting and turning that I get one loop loose. I glance to see how Kai is doing and he seems as alert as I am, so I keep pulling. The knots start to fall away one by one and then the rope slips away completely. It doesn’t take Kai nearly as long to untie me, but by the time my hands are free I can tell he is moving slower. Surprisingly enough, the looped chains on our feet are easy to remove now that our hands are free.
Kai and I both look up to the surface. We have to move our arms to keep from rising. Lights flash on the dock. Red, blue and white beams circle the water above us. I don’t remember seeing lights there before. Kai pushes up to the surface and I follow him. I hear muffled noises that grow progressively louder until they become shouting and blaring sirens.
“Stop. HC police!” Someone yells. “Stop or you will be neutralized.”
I wipe the water out of my eyes in time to see Red running along the side of the warehouse. Then his whole body goes ridged as he spasms in pain before collapsing on the floor. Two men dressed in a blue uniform bend over Red securing his hands behind his back.
Hands reach out and both Kai and I are pulled out of the water.
“Are you okay?” A concerned man in blue asks and I nod. Behind him members of the T-Man’s gang are laying on the ground. A speeder has landed with lights flashing and a figure emerges from them coming toward us. I look up and can’t make out his face because of the glare, but I recognize his form.
“First Official Foreman.” I am surprised he is here. “How did you find me?”
“The necklace Anderson gave you contains a tracking device along with other sensors that allowed us to monitor you. We saw your heart rate spike and knew your location was not safe so we contacted the authorities.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“I was actually on my way to find you,” Foreman says. “I realize your three days are not completely finished, but you need to know that the disease is spreading faster than we accounted for. The officials have asked if you would be willing to cut your time short and come back with me now.”