Qualify (47 page)

“No . . . no, it’s not.” I move in closer to George and speak in a high whisper. I don’t know why I am bothering to whisper, since every movement, every sound is being observed and recorded. But it just feels better somehow to speak that way, a weird illusion of privacy, maybe?

“Okay, I have to tell you something,” I begin. “On the night of the shuttle incident, I was—I was
there
.”

“What?” George’s eyes widen. He slants his head and stares hard at me.

I start talking. I am babbling, but somehow I manage to tell him the entirety of the incident.

“Wait, you
sang
and the shuttle levitated?” His jaw drops. “You
sang?
No way, that’s crazy! How can it do that? How’s that even possible?”

“I know it’s crazy,” I mutter hurriedly. “I know, I still can’t believe it when I think back, but it was a split-second reaction—it just came out!”

“But how did you make it hover? That ship must weigh a ton! It’s not like some skinny hoverboard! I mean—how loud did you even sing? You must have been really loud—”

“Top-of-my-voice loud! I started out screaming, like I just told you, and then I just flipped it around into a note. . . .”

“But you—” George hesitates at this point. “But you
don’t
sing. . . .”

“I know.”

“You haven’t sung for ages! Not since Mom—”

“Yeah. I didn’t even know what I sounded like any more. It was like someone else’s voice. It was
unreal
—”

As I recall and describe the moments, I feel a gathering of something painful in my throat, as a lump returns to choke me. I shake my head and put my palm flat against his jacket again in a gesture to make him stop.

George nods, understanding me immediately.

“Okay,” he says gently. “Enough of that. So then what next?”

I tell him how I got Aeson Kass out of the shuttle. When I am done, my brother remains silent, thoughtful, as though considering what to say.

“Gwen,” he says. “You saved his life. And this is his crazy way of thanking you? He should be giving you a medal or something!”

I bite my lip and shake my head. “There’s more. . . .”

And I tell him about Laronda’s arrest and the missing chip that was found in her pocket.

“So, wait, how does that connect to you?”

“Her dorm bed is right next to mine. And we’re friends. We hang out together a lot.”

“So? Could still be a coincidence. Only remotely suspicious.”

I shrug. “I am guessing that
anything
suspicious is enough for them to connect the dots. And you must admit, it does look kind of bad. Even I get that.”

“So their machine recognized your voice, and your BFF was found with the chip.” George exhales loudly and shifts around in place, making the flimsy cot underneath us creak. He puts his head down and runs his fingers through his messy dark hair, then looks up at me again. “Yeah, this is bad,” he says. “But there’s got to be something we can do. Find whoever’s really responsible. . . .”

I sit with my hands digging into the blanket on both sides of me. I am numb and there is really nothing that comes to mind. But seeing George of all people look this crestfallen and glum, I have to at least pretend.

“Yeah, there has to be something. And if there is, I will find a way, Gee One,” I say, putting one hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “Meanwhile, you tell Gracie and Gordie I’m okay. Tell Gordie—tell him we have matching shiners now, he’ll love it. It’s kind of funny!”

Moments later the guard returns to take my brother away.

And again, I am all alone, with the four walls closing in on me.

Chapter 26

I
have no idea how much more time passes, and I am getting hungry and thirsty. And yeah, I manage to use the toilet while awkwardly covering myself up with my jacket.

Eventually I lie down on the cot, on top of the blanket, and stare up at the ceiling.

At some point, the door opens again, and guards come to escort me outside.

This time I am led back through the corridor toward the front portion of the building. We pass the cubicle farm, where again every office worker stares at me, this time with reproach. Or at least it seems that way, from what I see in their eyes. We go through the glass double doors and outside into the very front portion, and then the lobby.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask, but the guards do not reply, only propel me by the arms, onward, and out through the main glass doors of the building.

Outside it is late afternoon. There is no sign of the morning overcast and drizzle, and except for a few patchy clouds, the sky is bright blue and turning to gold on the western horizon. Looks like I’ve been detained for most of the day.

As I look around, I see a bunch of people I know milling around. Both my brothers stand propped against the walls, and there’s Dawn and Laronda sitting on a ledge nearby. Hasmik is sitting down on the floor concrete slab with her feet stretched out before her next to Janice Quinn. Jai, Mateo and Tremaine and even Jack Carell are standing up talking in a semi-circle. My heart lurches because there’s Logan, next to my brothers, and some other guy and a few girls I barely know are with them, many of them sitting all along the side of the building with their backs to the wall.

Laronda sees me first. “Gwen! Oh, my God, are you okay?” She springs up, followed by Dawn and pretty much everyone else. They turn toward me, people scrambling to get closer.

But the guards stand between them and me, and they continue propelling me forward. “I’m okay, guys!” I say hastily, glancing back at everyone.

“Hey, where are you taking her?” George says loudly to the guards. “That’s my sister, where are you taking her? We have a right to know what’s happening!”

“I don’t know!” I cry back. “They won’t tell me—”

“No talking,” says one guard. “Keep moving. The rest of you, please stay back.”

But my brothers and my friends are now walking alongside us, and behind, keeping a short distance but keeping up—all of them, everyone’s coming along. In fact, other Candidates who are outside are beginning to stare. Some are starting to follow along also.

We walk past several buildings at a rapid pace, so that I almost stumble a few times to keep up with the guards, and each time it happens my brothers’ voices are heard from the back, “Hey! Slow down, don’t push her!”

Way to go, George and Gordie!
I think gratefully, wanting to bear-hug them. But then I think of where I might be going, and my gut grows numb with cold.

We pass one more building, and there’s the airfield.

About a hundred feet into it, in the middle of the clearing, an Atlantean shuttle sits on the ground.

I stare, and there’s a group of people gathered around it. Some of them are clearly Atlanteans, judging by the radiant metallic hair that shines from this distance in the setting sun.

Before the guards even direct me toward the shuttle, I start to get an inkling of what might be going on here.

We enter the airfield that has been swept clean and pristine of any earlier debris from the disaster of a few days ago. “Keep going,” one guard tells me, propelling me firmly toward the grouping of individuals around the shuttle.

I step upon the special surface-treated concrete and walk forward. Behind me I can hear my brothers and friends walking. No one is stopping them at least, and for that much I am grateful.

Yeah
, I think with a burst of morbid humor,
if they were going to have me face a firing squad, I don’t think this would be the best place for it.
So at least I am not getting executed—just yet.

On the other hand, I could be facing a trip “upstairs”—up to the closest mothership for some kind of special Atlantis brand of judgment and/or punishment. Well then, on the bright side, I would at least get to see one of their great ships up-close and personal, before I am Disqualified or worse.

We approach the shuttle and the people near it. With a sinking feeling, fueled to a significant degree by embarrassment—for what, I don’t know, but I do tend to become particularly ashamed of being reprimanded by authority figures, especially teachers, maybe because it happens so rarely—I recognize most of them.

Nefir Mekei stands next to Xelio Vekahat, talking softly. The sun shines with molten metal reflecting off Nefir’s hair, but disappears into the black-hole abyss that is Xelio’s black mane. A few steps away are the two Correctors who interrogated me, silent and impassive, heads glinting with halos of light like stern angels of judgment, observing me approach, with unblinking eyes. Then there’s Mr. Warrenson, of all people, appearing both out-of-place ordinary in this gathering of Atlanteans, and also nervous and somewhat curious at the same time. Next to him, Oalla Keigeri and Keruvat Ruo look at me with undisguised disapproval.

Last of all, there is Aeson Kass. He stands silently watching me approach, with his arms folded at his chest in his typical stance. The wind moves strands of his long hair, and he too seems to have a halo of light about him—only
his
light is all implacable merciless brightness, scalding like the sun.

I get it, suddenly. . . .

Phoebos Apollo
.

I am made to stop before these people—my Instructors, and now apparently my judges. The guards stand aside and retreat, and I am left alone. Somewhere behind me, I hear my siblings and friends, gathered to support me in whatever this thing is.

I
feel
them with the back of my head like a sixth sense.

Or I merely tell myself that’s how it is.

“Candidate Gwen Lark, today you made a claim that you were able to safely levitate and then land a shuttle just like this one, purely with your voice—a voice that is mechanically unassisted.” Aeson Kass looks into my eyes as he speaks, and his gaze is neutral and impassive, or maybe it is veiled in so many layers that it’s impossible to fathom. “I do
not
for a moment believe that you have this exceedingly rare ability. However, before further measures are taken against you, I have been advised to allow you to prove yourself one way or another.”

He pauses, and I can hear a wave of voices swell behind me, as Candidates suddenly understand what is going on here, what is about to happen.

And I too understand at last.
Holy lord!

This is a demonstration. A demonstration of me being a liar, or not.

A public shaming and humiliation, before the rest of whatever it is they have in store for me.

Immediately I am overwhelmed by a general numbing sense. It is pure terror and panic and it blankets me with weakness.

They want me to
sing
. And not just sing, but sing loudly, at the top of my voice, sing with all I’ve got. . . .

Mr. Warrenson anticipates my thoughts and says gently, “Ms. Lark, if you might recall from our class, please sing the initial sequence that keys an object to yourself. Follow it up by a sequence to lift an object vertically. And—only if you manage to do such a thing, naturally—once the shuttle is airborne, let’s say at just about the height of the nearest building, about fifty feet up should do it, then you sing the hover sequence. That is—if you manage it, of course—”

At which point I hear a soft sound of disdain. It comes from Aeson Kass. I glance briefly at him and see that he shakes his head, while his lips curve into a dark smile.

A jolt of anger strikes me in the pit of my stomach. It acts as a strangely energizing force, and suddenly I am
burning
with something—a sense of rightness, of injustice that needs to be rooted out.

“Now, I suggest you use a C Major sequence for your tonic starting point, since it’s easiest,” Mr. Warrenson continues.

“Well, Candidate?” Aeson Kass says. “Any time now is good. So—will you grace us with your demonstration, or are we to conclude correctly that your claim is a sham, and return you to your confinement?”

“Can I have some water first?” I say, as I begin to hear a pulse racing in my temples. “I’ve not had anything to drink since morning. Can’t sing with a parched throat.” And saying this, I stare directly at him.

In response he makes another mocking sound. But he turns to one of the guards and indicates for him to bring what I ask.

“Oh! Gwen,
janik
, wait! I have a bottle here!” I hear from behind me, and it’s Hasmik. I turn to look and she is waving at me and raising a water bottle.

I look at Aeson and he nods.

The guard goes over and brings me Hasmik’s water bottle. I unscrew the cap with trembling fingers—trembling with energized fury and not fear—and I take a sip then a few deep gulps. The cool water runs down my throat and dribbles down my chin, but I don’t care that I look like a fool while a whole crowd of people is watching me drink from a bottle—talk about a moment of crazy zen.

“Had enough?” Aeson says.

“Yeah . . .” I reply, wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve, as I hand the water bottle back to the guard.