Middle Ground (13 page)

“Out of your room again?” he asked.

I let go of my grip on the counter, and my heart relaxed. “I’m catching on it’s not very common around here,” I said, my throat raw.

“You don’t look very good,” he said.

I laughed darkly. I hadn’t looked at myself in days. I could only guess how disheveled I’d become. It’s hard to care about your body when you’re losing your mind. I rubbed my head and shook it back and forth. The small movement made me nauseated.

“Come on,” he said to me. I grabbed the water bottles and followed him wordlessly. Instead of escorting me back to my room, as I’d assumed he would, he opened the storage closet next to the food machine. A light switched on, and when the door shut behind us, he scanned his finger to open another door in the back of the small room. A blinding streak of light filled the doorway.

I held my hand over my eyes to shield them from its intensity. I winced as my eyes adjusted and then I followed him onto a small wrought-iron balcony, crudely constructed, as if it had been an afterthought once the building was completed. It was a narrow space that looked out to a desolate shipping yard on the other side of the electric fence. The view was nothing spectacular, just the abandoned dockyard, dusty and brown and sprouting weeds. I slowly raised my hand into the air to feel the warmth of the sunshine. The air smelled dry and it moved and circulated like a breeze.

“What program is this?” I asked, and gulped in a breath of fresh air.

“It’s not a program,” he said. “We’re outside.”

I smiled my first smile in weeks. It felt strange to wear the expression. I was using muscles I’d forgotten I had. We sat down on the metal grating.

“Aren’t you worried someone will see us?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’ve haven’t seen a person on this side of the grounds for as long as I’ve worked here. I think staff used to smoke out here, but no one uses it anymore.” He rested his elbows on his folded knees. “My name’s Gabe, by the way.”

I lifted my head to the sunshine and took a long drink of water. I listened to the breeze, the way it stirred the air, and I reached out one of my hands so it could tickle my fingertips. I could feel Gabe watching me, but I hesitated, unsure what to say to him. I wanted to confide in someone. My mom used to tell me you should trust people until they give you a reason not to. But I stopped believing that because the people I should have been able to trust let me down. I was starting to think I could only trust myself.

I decided to test Gabe. To see if
he
trusted
me.

“Gabe,” I said, “can the Eye see that we left?”

He shook his head and looked right at me, his eyes focused on mine. His eyes were light blue, with a darker ring around the iris. They were deep and calm, like water. He seemed to be studying my eyes as well, probably because it was just as rare for him to make eye contact with people as it was for me. “It only monitors the hallway; it can’t see the storage closet, around the corner. Not that I should be telling you this.” It was a relief to hear honesty. I took a chance.

“I’ve been having nightmares,” I said. I assumed he already knew this; I wasn’t telling him anything new. I was just opening up a window in my mind and giving him a little peek inside.

He nodded. “It’s just a stage. They’ll go away after a while, once you adjust to being here.”

I thought about the word
adjust.
He made it sound so simple, but to me the word meant giving in. Breaking down. Losing the fight.

“Does this happen to everybody?” I asked him.

He nodded. “It’s part of the transition process. It’s a normal reaction to the detention center.”

“Normal?” I repeated.

“Sure,” he said. “Think of all the changes you’re going through. Your life’s been completely uprooted and thrown off balance. You were separated from your family, from your past, from everything. Change is a huge stress on the body. That’s what causes the nightmares. It’s like posttraumatic stress disorder.”

I took another sip of water. “You know, if I wanted to hear a load of psychological bullshit, I would have just asked Dr. Stevenson.”

Gabe shifted next to me. “You have a lot of nerve, you know that?” he said.

I nodded because my nerve was all I had left and it was hanging on by a shaky fuse, ready to disconnect. “I’ve never had nightmares in my life,” I said stubbornly. “Why would I suddenly start having vivid nightmares that I instantly forget when I wake up?”

His mouth tightened. “I don’t know. I’m not a psychiatrist.”

We were both quiet for a few seconds. I knew Gabe was holding something back. He knew more than he let on. He didn’t trust me yet.

“What’s your theory?” he asked. “About the nightmares?”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead.

“I can’t think straight long enough to have any definite theories. It’s like my brain’s asleep half the time. But I know they’re giving me some kind of a drug. And I know I’m hallucinating. Except my mind thinks it’s real. I can feel the pain in my nightmares. I physically and mentally experience it. I can’t draw the line between dreaming and reality anymore. It’s like they’re force-feeding memories into my head. Then, when I wake up, a switch turns off in my mind. I can’t remember any details.”

“Why would they force you to have nightmares only to have you wake up and instantly forget? What would be the point of that?” he asked, as if he’d been wondering this for years but had never had anyone to talk to about it.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But my friends could help figure out what’s going on.” I met Gabe’s eyes and took a chance. He didn’t look away.

“What could your friends do?” he asked.

“They could study me, take blood tests. Give us some answers. Something isn’t right in here and you know it.”

I was taking a huge risk. Gabe could be working at the DC to spy on students, to draw out anyone still trying to rebel. But I had a decision to make and I decided to put my faith in someone I barely knew. I was gambling with my life but at this point I had nothing to lose. My life didn’t belong to me inside here.

He hesitated and it gave me hope.

“Gabe, I know you can help me. You must be allowed out of here once in a while? You can contact my friends. They’re going to try and break in here anyway, even if you don’t help,” I added, because I never stopped believing Justin was looking for me.

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, really? Who are your friends? The leaders of the digital-school protesters?” His tone was sarcastic but I nodded.

“Yes,” I said.

He looked out at the dusty gravel yard. “If you try to break out of here and it comes back to me . . .” His voice trailed off.

“I won’t run away, I promise. I need to get outside the gates, just for a couple hours.” I leaned forward. “Please, help me. You don’t agree with this place. I know you don’t, or you wouldn’t be sitting here with me right now.”

He looked conflicted. He stared down at his hands and slowly nodded.

I told him he needed to contact Justin Solvi. “He has to know I’m okay.”

Gabe perked up when the words came out of my mouth. “You’re friends with Justin Solvi?”

I nodded. “You’ve heard of him?”

“You could say he’s a household name around here. You know how much the government would love to arrest that guy?”

I smiled. “They haven’t had much luck.”

He shook his head. “Somehow his record is always clean. There’s rumors and stories but no trail. It’s like trying to track a ghost.”

“He exists, believe me,” I said. “You’ll never find him. He has no online identities. These days that does make you a ghost.”

“I’ve been following news stories about him,” Gabe said. “I know he inspires a lot of people to fight digital school, but look where it gets them. Right here,” he said.

“He’s trying to intercept people before they make it this far,” I said, defending him. “He’s trying to help.”

He was quiet for a few seconds. “You should get back to your room,” he said. “The Eye keeps track of how long you’re gone.”

“Time for some more brain-busting?” I asked Dr. Stevenson at my next appointment. I was so exhausted I could have curled up on the cushion and fallen asleep, but I did my best to look energetic. I couldn’t accept the idea that she was winning.

“How have you been feeling?” she asked as she read my pulse.

I wondered why she bothered asking. Couldn’t she plug me in and see for herself? Wasn’t that the point of her convenient technology?

“I’m fine,” I said simply.

“Any questions for me?”

I shook my head.

“Any concerns?” she pressed.

I focused my eyes on hers. She had small, narrow eyes the color of wet sand. She tried to use them to make me buckle, to spill my mind. But I’d grown up with a father whose eyes were like bullets. I was trained to deflect the blow.

We watched each other. I had hundreds of questions but was certain she’d give me phony answers.
Why do I have these nightmares that seem like you’re planting a mechanism in my brain to activate fear? Why do I wake up drenched in sweat? More absurdly, why can’t I remember details once I wake up? Where are my memories going? Why are you filling my mind with experiences that aren’t my own, with memories I would never want?

I decided to answer her with something she didn’t expect.

“There is one thing that’s bothering me,” I said. She nodded like she knew what was coming. She was waiting for me to mention the nightmares.

“I miss being around people,” I said. “I miss my friends. I wish we could at least interact with other inmates.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but then hesitated and instead of speaking nodded slowly. I knew what the hesitation was. She was surprised.

“In a few months you’ll be able to socialize again. You can make new contacts and chat all you want.”

I shook my head. “I miss being face-to-face with people. It’s so much more intimate.” I paused and had to fight a smile in response to the deep frown on her face. This, she didn’t expect. “And I miss being outside,” I added. “I miss the sun.”

Her eyebrows pulled together. “Well, we have programs to simulate sunshine. There’s virtual tanning or weather programs you can download. Sunexposure.com is a good one. Sunstreaks .com is another popular choice.”

I shook my head again. “It doesn’t compare to the real thing.”

She thought about this for a second. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s much better than the real thing.”

My mouth fell open. Did she seriously think programs that mimicked nature were superior to nature itself?

“How do you see it that way?” I asked. I felt like our roles were reversed. Now I was doing the counseling, as if she needed the therapy more than I did.

She leaned her back against the wall and looked out across the room. “It’s one of our greatest human flaws, Madeline,” she said. “We desire the very things that harm us. We don’t know how to discipline our desires. We never know our limits until we hurt ourselves. It’s what leads to our downfall—the things we want the most ultimately destroy us.”

I asked her how the sun was dangerous.

“The sun is necessary. We need it to sustain life. But we’re also drawn to it. We’re mystified by it, we bask in it, but the sun is just a ball of radiation. It’s poison to our skin, and people don’t know how to limit themselves. We expose ourselves to it until we’re burned, until we get cancer. It’s the same with eating. We need food to nourish us, but we’ll eat until we make ourselves sick. People need to be prescribed the right dose of their desires in order to live. Humans need guidelines and parameters or our desires become our own suicides.”

Looking at Dr. Stevenson, I doubted her milky skin had ever been exposed to the sun. She could be thirty years old, she could be fifty. It was hard to tell because there were no laugh lines around her eyes or her mouth. She didn’t have any wrinkles, but she also didn’t have any signs of living. There was something empty and dull about her pale skin.

“People don’t like to be forced,” I said.

“Look at it as being guided,” she said simply. “Humans think they’re invincible. They feel entitled to overindulge in anything they want. They think everything on this earth was put here for their enjoyment. Even the sun. And humans are inherently selfish. We overindulge until someone cuts us off, until we learn how to pace our desires. We are a dangerous species to let loose, Madeline. This planet won’t thrive unless we’re contained.”

She took the compact out of her lab-coat pocket and handed it to me. I took the tablet obediently. I couldn’t tell what stung more, the pill in my mouth or the anger pulsing through my spine that this shortsighted scientist was controlling my mind and I was powerless to fight back.

Or was I powerless? Was that merely what they wanted me to believe?

I folded in on myself. They wanted to open up my mind in here, so that’s what I was determined to fight. I imagined my brain was a house and I locked all the doors and boarded up the windows.
I won’t let you inside,
I thought.
I won’t look at you. You are not real. You cannot find me in here; you can’t break in. I’m not yours. This is just my body. Just a layer of me, one piece. You can’t begin to contain me.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them, they immediately started to burn. I was standing inside of a thick cloud of smoke. I inhaled and my lungs rejected the contaminated air and left me choking. Screams pelted my ears. People shouted for me to run. The world was camouflaged in white ash.

Panic took over and pushed my legs forward. I couldn’t see anything; my eyes burned with tears and I tried to breathe again but the smoke scratched against my lungs like sandpaper. People pushed past me. Footsteps stomped and dragged and tripped. Something crashed nearby and I instinctively covered my head as the ground rumbled. Glass shattered around me like high-pitched screams, and the white sheet of ash blew against me with a hot gust. I heard a child crying next to me. I reached my hand out to find her but all I felt was heat. I could smell blood around me; it had a metallic odor, like hot iron.