The Forsaken (4 page)

SCANNED

WHEN THE NEXT MORNING
arrives, I slouch downstairs and sit at the long breakfast table at the orphanage, next to Sandy and Claudette, two other girls my age. I’ve lived with them for six years, but we’re not as close as we could be. We orphans tend to keep to ourselves, even as we live on top of one another. All of us know how much it hurts to lose people you care about, and it’s hard to risk forming close bonds again.

“Sleep well?” Sandy asks. I nod.

Sandy always smells like cherry lip balm and spends most of her time pining over government-promoted teen idols. Claudette is thin and studious with short black hair. Like many of the girls here, both of them lost their parents in the ongoing wars with Europe and Asia.

“Ready for our big day?” Claudette asks me, arching an eyebrow.

“I guess. You think anyone we know will fail?”

Claudette peers at me over her bowl of cereal. “Well, they probably won’t send any orphans to the island.”

“Really?” Sandy asks.

Claudette looks at her like she’s stupid. “Think about it. It’d be like the government admitting they screwed up if they sent one of us to the Forgotten Place. That they couldn’t fix our brains. They’ve raised us since we were little. What would it say about them and their orphanages if we turned out to be Unanchored Souls?”

“Good point,” Sandy agrees.

After breakfast we line up with dozens of other juniors and head outside to board our bus. The local testing arena isn’t far. Just a thirty-minute drive down the Megaway, the twenty-lane highway that cuts across New Providence like a thick gray ribbon. A decade ago the arena used to hold football games. But now it’s been enclosed and subdivided into thousands of tiny cubicles, each one housing a scanning machine.

As we drive, I look out the window at all the UNA billboards. Most of them display images of Minister Harka’s benevolent, smiling face. With his dark hair, hypnotic eyes, and rugged good looks, he appears both attractive and paternal. Even the large diamond-shaped white scar on his left temple, sustained in battle, seems to enhance his appeal. But he also seems curiously ageless. Although I see new pictures of him every day in the government media, he looks exactly like he did when I was eight. Of course no one else seems to notice this, or if they do notice, they don’t seem to care.

We eventually reach our destination and turn off the Megaway. In the distance, the covered testing arena resembles the hub of a small city. Doctors in white jackets lead teams of nurses into the gigantic domed structure, and mobs of kids cluster everywhere.

We drive down an access road and pull into the parking lot. Miles of buses and cars sparkle under the sun, as automated shuttles transport people inside. I hear a loud droning noise overhead, and I look out the window of the bus to see a military helicopter passing above us, flying low, its spiderlike shadow falling across the crowd.

On the surface everything seems disorganized. But as I look closer, I see there’s a network of guards, teachers, and social workers, guiding lines of kids along.

Our driver parks, and we disembark. Some kids look excited, while others look bored. I just feel vaguely annoyed that I have to take a test I already know I’ll pass.

I wonder how that blue-eyed boy felt on the day of his test, which probably wasn’t even that long ago. He must have suspected he was an Unanchored Soul, with malevolent, antisocial forces lurking inside his brain. I realize that even though he seemed lucid on-screen, it was probably some kind of act.

I gaze around, taking in the sights before me. I wonder how they even ship the few kids who fail the GPPT to the island. Planes? Helicopters? Boats? The whole system is shrouded in secrecy, but somehow it works.

We’re led onto one of the shuttles, which comes to a halt several minutes later at an entrance to the arena. After we exit the shuttle, a guard takes us through a brick opening into a noisy atrium. The sound of the teeming crowd echoes off the walls.

Sandy, Claudette, and I are shuffled into a long line. A government official walks down it, handing out paper cards with absurdly long numbers and bar codes printed on them.

Another official appears, barking orders through a megaphone: “Keep your GPPT scanning cards safe! Do not bend them. Do not tear them. These are important government documents! You will be led into a holding pen. When you hear the nurse call your number, you will follow her into your assigned testing cell!”

The man keeps walking. He repeats his speech all over again. I realize he probably spends his whole day dispensing instructions. A robot could do his job, and might even be nicer about it.

The line keeps moving relentlessly. Warm bodies press against me, reeking of sweat and perfume. Finally we reach a large octagonal waiting area decorated with framed photos of Minister Harka. I realize this must be one of the holding pens. I just stand there with Sandy and Claudette, getting jostled as more kids flood into the room.

But kids are exiting this room as well. On the other side of the vast space is a series of openings. They lead into narrow hallways lit with flickering fluorescent lights.

Every minute or so, a nurse appears from one of them and yells out a number. I check my paper card each time.

Sandy’s hair is lank, and her face has gone pale. “You’d think they’d have some soda pop machines in here,” she complains, twisting her fingers.

“You would think,” Claudette mutters. “But they don’t.”

I shift my weight from one foot to the other.

“Number 014-562-388?” an unsmiling nurse cries, poking her head out of a long hallway to my right.

She starts repeating the digits, practically screaming them. I glance down at my card and realize she’s calling my number. I double-check it quickly, like an eager government lotto winner, then blurt: “That’s me!”

I wave good-bye to Sandy and Claudette, and I make my way through the crowd toward the nurse.

She leads me past rows of closed doors until we reach an open room. She takes my card, swipes it in an electronic reader, and gestures for me to go inside. I do as she indicates. She turns to leave, and closes the door behind her.

Not sure what to do, I sit in the lone chair, smoothing down my pleated skirt. The chair is bolted to the cement floor in the center of the tiny room. I can still hear the noise of thousands of teenagers thrumming away in the holding pens outside, like I’m in an angry beehive.

I glance around my testing cell. It’s cold, lit by an overhead bulb, with nothing on the walls but peeling yellow paint. It’s like a cross between a dentist’s office and a school bathroom.

A laptop computer and a large silver box with wires running out of it sit next to me on top of a storage cabinet. Electrical cables and a strange metal halo hang from the ceiling above my head, just under the light.

I hear a knock at the door as it opens. A tall man in a white lab coat appears. “Alenna Shawcross?”

I’m surprised he’s using my name instead of a number. “That’s me.”

He nods. “Just making sure I got the right girl.”

As he walks into the room, I check out his government name tag. Oddly, there isn’t even a name on it, just a bunch of cryptic symbols.

The man stands next to me, tapping keys on the computer and fiddling with knobs on the silver box. “I’ll be your scanning tech today, Alenna. Roll up a sleeve, if you don’t mind.”

“You’ve done this before, right?” I babble, knowing it’s a stupid thing to ask. But I can’t stand getting shots or having blood taken. It always makes me nervous.

“Ten thousand times, give or take a few hundred.” He smiles and slips an electrode belt around my chest. I reluctantly roll up one sleeve of my blouse. “Now take a deep breath and hold it.” He adjusts the belt. “Now relax.”

Relaxing is hard, but I try to ignore the medical aspects of the GPPT. Then I notice that the tech already has a narrow syringe in his hand.
Where did that come from?

“You’ll feel a small poke,” he says as he suddenly sticks the needle into the crook of my left elbow.

“Ouch!”

He depresses the plunger and shoots the scanning fluid into me, and then withdraws the needle with a grin. “C’mon. That wasn’t too bad, was it?”

As I rub my arm, he dims the light and starts lowering the metal halo from the ceiling. Right away, I begin feeling drowsy, but soon the pleasant sleepiness morphs into woozy seasickness.

“I feel kinda weird,” I manage to say through numbed lips. “Hard to talk . . .”

“Oh, that’s normal,” the tech replies blithely. He brings the metal halo down farther and places it around my head, gently pushing back my hair.

“I don’t have to . . . do anything . . . right?” I ask, my speech slurred. I’m afraid I’m going to faint.

“Naw, the machine does all the work.” He adjusts the halo, tightening the cold metal around my skull. “You can even fall asleep if you want. Most kids do, once the serum takes hold.”

“How long . . . does the test take?”

“Depends on the person.” He leans over and extracts an object from the top drawer of the cabinet. It looks like a candy bar. He unwraps it and hands it to me. It’s made of green plastic, with the texture of spongy foam.

“Put that between your teeth,” he instructs. “It helps calibrate the data.”

Groggy and unquestioning, I do what he says.

“What happens afterward?” I ask, forcing the muffled words out around the plastic. “Do I just go home?”

“So many questions.” The tech chuckles. “You need to stop talking and start relaxing.”

The plastic makes it difficult to talk anyway, so I lean back in the chair. The tech taps a few keystrokes into the computer. I shut my eyes.

But in the final moments before the injection puts me under, I hear something unexpected—other voices inside the tiny room. I realize the door to my testing cell has been opened again, and that people are stepping inside.

I don’t understand why they’re here.
I’m probably just imagining things.
My eyelids are too heavy to lift now, and the metal halo has me immobilized. I sense that the voices are talking about me.
Is this normal?
They grow fainter, and I realize I’m about to sink into a drugged slumber.

Then, out of nowhere, an image explodes across my vision in the instant before the blackness claims me:

It’s the blue-eyed boy from the island.

Beckoning me. Calling my name.

And behind him is that mammoth spiral staircase, baking under the tropical sun.

I try to ask the boy who he is, and what he wants. I try to reach out and grab his hand. But he dissolves into a million shimmering particles, like cosmic dust.

Then waves of silky blackness well up from all sides, and I succumb to the darkness.

FORSAKEN

ONE SECOND LATER, I
wake up choking and gasping, with the worst headache of my entire life.

I try to open my eyes, but blinding light stabs my retinas. I try to scream, but my lungs are filled with smoke.

My ears are ringing, and I realize I can barely hear. It hurts to think. My hands are numb, my face bruised and battered.

I must have been in an accident. Maybe a car crash on the Megaway. It’s all a blank. My memory has been shattered like a smashed mirror.

I dare to open my eyes again, and the brightness causes a fresh surge of pain. But I manage to get on all fours.

What has happened to me?

I raise a trembling hand and touch my forehead. The skin feels raw. Singed and blistered. I’m beyond terror now. I just want to lie down until the pain goes away.

But something inside won’t let me give up. I push up with both hands, like an animal rising to its haunches.

When I finally get my eyes to stay open, I’m looking at large green leaves and dense, lush foliage. This is obviously not New Providence, where everything is industrial and utilitarian. This place is tropical. I crouch for a moment, then manage to stand on shaky legs, trying to push past my pain and confusion.

Everywhere I look are ropy vines, exotic trees with intertwined branches, and neon pink and blue flowers. The air is humid and dank. It smells like earth and decay.