Anomaly (14 page)
It is over and we are at the bottom of the mountain. This looks similar to the other side. Dust as far as I can see. But this side has no pods, no people. Stone holds his hands out to help me up. Instead of letting go when I have risen, he pulls me closer, wrapping his arms around my back. I lean into him, enjoying the feel of my face against his chest, his breath in my ear.
“I have missed you.”
I pull away, but Stone keeps his arms around me. Our faces are so close that my eyes struggle to focus. “Why?”
Stone lets go of me and laughs.
“What’s so funny?” This response seems quite strange. Everything about Stone is strange. I find myself almost as curious about him as I am about Progress itself.
“You are so innocent.” Stone shakes his head.
“Innocent?”
Stone takes my hand and we begin to walk. “It isn’t a bad thing. It’s just so different.”
“Different?”
“Out here, feelings are encouraged.” Stone squeezes my hands. “Lots of feelings. We get angry. We get excited. We love people and we miss people.”
My heart is beating faster. “I have heard of love.”
Stone stops and turns to me. “What have you heard?”
I am embarrassed to tell him about John and Amy. Will he think I am feeling that way about him?
“It’s all right. We don’t have to talk about it right now. We’ll have plenty of time.”
I sigh. I am relieved that he isn’t pressing this. We walk again, and I see something in the distance. “What is that?”
“A building.” Stone smiles and pulls me along, moving faster.
“Building?” I recall that word from my history lessons. “Built by the ancients?”
“Exactly.”
I cannot believe it. “But I thought everything was destroyed.”
“
Almost
everything.”
“But our lessons said that nothing was left standing. That our community only survived—”
“Because of the reinforcements put in place by the Scientists?”
“Yes.” I am surprised he knows that.
“Some of the newcomers have brought their learning pads with them.” He shrugs.
“So the Scientists lied?”
“The Scientists really are good, Thalli.” Stone stops and looks at me. “But they can’t let everyone know everything. Sometimes it’s best to withhold the whole truth in order to protect people.”
“I suppose.”
“Not everyone is like you and me.” Stone moves closer to me. Our shoulders bump as we walk along. “The others down there, they are programmed to be productive. To help the State survive. They don’t need to know there have been some unaffected areas in order to do that.”
“But it’s okay for you to know that?”
“And you.” Stone motions behind us. “The original settlers of Progress broke free from the programming and they raised us the same way. And the Scientists recognize that is good. We will be the ones to move our generation on to bigger and better things.”
Stone is so confident, so inspiring. So sure. I am still struggling to understand that I am really not malformed. It’s a wonderful thought, but it’s also a little frightening. How much of what I was taught is false? How long will it take me to unlearn what I have learned?
“Have I lost you?” Stone stops again.
“I am sorry.” I keep walking, my eyes looking down at my feet. “I was just thinking.”
“About what?” He grabs my hand again, this time fitting his fingers in between mine. “I want to know what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t like feeling so unsure. Just a few weeks ago I thought I knew everything. Now I don’t know what I know.”
“That is one of the beauties of living on the outside.” Stone releases my hand and places his arm around my shoulder. “You don’t have to know everything. You
can’t
know everything.”
I feel like I want to cry. But I don’t know why. I look up and realize we are almost there. “The building!”
“Cinema Royale.” Stone points to the faded letters above us.
“How do you know that’s what it was?” All I see are a few scattered letters, some barely hanging on.
“Come inside and I’ll show you.” He pushes aside a sheet of plastic, like the ones we came in on, and I am in a massive room. Bigger than I have ever seen before. “Welcome to Cinema Royale” is written in huge, sparkly letters on the wall to our right. I can tell people have visited this place often because it is free of dust. But it is so strange. “What is that?”
“The concession stand.” Stone steps behind a long counter and pushes a button that brings a machine to life. In minutes, the machine makes a horrible noise but emits a wonderful smell.
“A concession stand?” I reach toward the machine, but Stone pushes my arm down.
“Don’t. It’s hot.”
“Oh.”
“And that isn’t a concession stand.” He points to the machine. “That is a popcorn machine. This whole thing is a concession stand. People who worked here would sell all kinds of things. Most of it requires ingredients we no longer have. But this”—he opens a small door and fills a metal bowl with some of the contents of the popcorn machine—“this we can use.”
“Is it safe?”
“Of course.” Stone takes a handful and stuffs it into his mouth. “Try it.”
I lift just one piece to my mouth. It dissolves almost immediately. “It’s good.”
“I told you.”
“But how does it work?”
“I’ll explain it to you later.” Stone leaves the concession stand and walks in the opposite direction. “But there’s something else I want to show you.”
We walk down a dark hallway where I see half a dozen rooms. Stone leads me into one of them. It is even darker than the hall. Chairs are in there, strange chairs whose bottoms are folded to meet the backs. Stone folds one down and tells me to sit.
“I’ll be right back.”
I am too overwhelmed to say anything. I am in a building. Eating popcorn. I feel like I have jumped into one of the lessons on my learning pad. I lean back and the chair follows. It doesn’t move like the white chair in the isolation chamber, but it does move. My eyes adjust to the darkness and I can see art on the walls. Cloth pictures of strange people wearing strange hats and clothes. I want to get a closer look, but then the wall in front of me blinks on. Then I hear music. Amazing music. Instruments I cannot identify, all playing together. I have always wondered what that would sound like. I close my eyes and just listen, picking out the violins and flutes, percussion and piano. So many people playing.
“Don’t close your eyes.” Stone is sitting next to me. “You’ll miss the movie.”
“Movie?”
“It’s an ancient form of entertainment. My father and I want to reinstate it. We just haven’t quite figured out how. But we did find a few old movies hidden away in this building. This one is my favorite.”
His father. He says that so casually. I want to ask what it was like to grow up with a father and a mother. With children of different ages. But I don’t have time.
Images fill the screen, and I see places that are beautiful. Cities filled with buildings that are new, with a ground that is clean. People who had no idea their world would be destroyed. But I can hardly concentrate on what they are saying because underneath almost all their talking is music. I wish I could turn the voices off and just hear the instruments. I wish I could play with them. I can hear a part for my violin, a harmony that could be played just under the melody.
I feel Stone’s gaze on me. “You like it?”
“Yes.”
I am captivated by what I see. It’s like the simulations, only better. I am part of the story, but I only observe. The people on the screen speak only to each other. Their accents are different. Like John’s.
As the story progresses, I grow uncomfortable. I feel like I am watching someone’s private interactions. I see two people go out together alone, like Berk and I did on the picnic. But they are in a building filled with tables and flowers and Assistants who bring food to them. Afterward, the couple walks on the shore of an ocean. The man takes the woman in his arms and puts his lips on hers.
Stone is looking at me again. I feel his arm brush against
mine. The music is swelling to a crescendo and my heart beats in time to the music. I feel dizzy and scared and . . . wonderful.
“Are you all right?”
I look back up at the screen. “I’m sorry. I need to go.”
I rush out of the room, out of the hall, all the way back outside. I finally stop and I am panting, gasping for air.
Stone rushes through the plastic at the entrance. He pulls me to him in a tight embrace. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I thought you’d like it.”
“I did.” I pull away, needing more air in my lungs. “I do. It’s just . . . so different from anything I have seen. The music. The places. That couple—”
“They were in love.” Stone smiles at me. “Many of the films we have found are about love. That is one part of the Scientists’ formulations I don’t understand. Why eradicate love? It’s beautiful.”
I think about John and Amy and I must agree. Love doesn’t seem like something that would create division. Could it?
“Do you want me to take you back?”
I can only nod, grateful for his understanding.
“You know”—Stone takes my hand again as we follow our footprints back to the base of the mountain—“if my dad and I can figure out how to make movies, we will need a Musician to create the background music. Do you think you might be interested?”
My heart beats faster. Make music like that? “Oh, Stone. Yes. But I would need others.”
“We have some you could train. Or we could record you playing each instrument, then play the recordings together. You could be your own orchestra.”
We spend the remainder of the walk discussing movies and music and techniques and plans. It is wonderful. I can hardly believe when we are standing at the door.
“You don’t have to go.” Stone takes a step closer to me, his hand grazing my cheek, then cupping my neck.
I see the couple from the movie in my mind. I am scared. Stone steps back. “It’s all right. We have plenty of time. I’ll see you soon?”
I can only nod and rush back inside. I am barely inside the isolation chamber before I collapse on the sleeping platform, exhausted.
I do not dream at all.
I
am back in my room. I vaguely remember being escorted back here earlier. I am holding my violin. So many notes are bombarding my brain I don’t even know where to start. I try to erase those notes from my mind. To just play what I feel. My fingers reach for my bow, and I place the instrument in the familiar spot on my neck and close my eyes and play.
I play my walk with Stone. I play the movie. I play the feel of Stone’s hand in mine. I play the fear at his closeness. I play the music of Progress. So different, so free. Scary and inspiring and hopeful. I play my sadness at the thought of leaving this place forever. Never again seeing John. Or Berk. I try not to play
Berk. His future is planned. And it is a future without me. But I cannot stop myself from playing. I see his face in the young man’s from the movie yesterday. I am the woman. He puts his hand on my face, just like Stone did. But with Berk, I don’t pull away.
I open my eyes.
Berk is standing there.
“Don’t stop.” He moves to sit beside me. “Please. I love hearing you play.”
I jump up and walk to the other side of the room. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know.” He walks to me. I am frozen. I have missed him. So much.
“The cameras.” If Dr. Loudin or one of the others sees him here, what would happen?
Berk shakes his head. “No cameras right now. They have been shut off for the next thirty minutes because of some testing going on in level H.”
He pulls me to him and I cannot resist. I rest my head on his chest, hear his heart beating loudly against my ear. How I have missed him.
“Are you all right?” he whispers into my ear, still holding on to me. Or am I holding on to him? I don’t know.
“Yes.” My head is still against his chest.
“They have me working on something else.” He pulls away and looks at me. “I tried to stay with you, but—”
“You are too important to waste your time with me.” I move away, my words reminding me of Dr. Loudin’s admonition.
“No.” Berk is beside me again. “There’s just a lot going on.”
“I know.” I want to talk to him about Progress, but I can’t.
It feels wrong to tell him about Stone. He would be hurt if he knew.
“I am trying to keep them focused on you, though.” He is speaking so softly. “I am doing everything I can to keep you from being . . .”
Berk believes I will be annihilated? He must know I won’t, that I will be sent to Progress.
Unless I am not good enough for that either. Maybe the Scientists have been watching me up there, seeing how cowardly I am. Maybe my introduction to the city was a test and I failed it. I begin to cry. I was so sure I would live.
He pulls me to him again. But this time I resist. I know how it feels to lose someone. I felt it when Asta was sent away and when Berk left to be a Scientist. I don’t want him to feel that.