Extraction (28 page)

Overhead, the fluorescent lights seem stronger, a brighter shade of yellow. I squint to see what Nurse Two is doing. She sets the needle back in its metal tin and strips the gloves from her hands.

A nauseous feeling sinks into my stomach like a heavy weight. I press a palm to my stomach and squeeze my eyes shut.

“Is it normal to feel sick?” I ask.

“That is a potential, mild side effect. It should pass shortly.” Nurse One gestures to the exit door. “Head through there, and instructors will meet you for the final part of your ceremony.”

I nod, wondering what was inside the injection. Are they
trying
to make me sick? Gritting my teeth, I ignore that thought and force myself to rise from my chair and walk. I clench my fists at my sides and take deep breaths to steady myself.

“Have fun!” Nurse One waves me out the door.

I see spots as I walk through the hallway, and my vision blurs.

“In here,” Cadet Waller says.

The doorway tilts, and I lean against the wall for a split second, breathing too fast. My eyes are wide. They did something to me. Just like Oliver was afraid they’d do. They lied when they said I’d be safer.

Gritting my teeth harder, I use the wall to heave myself into the next room.

Cadet Waller stands next to an instructor I don’t recognize, and another whom I might, but her face is too blurry. I can’t tell where I am.

“Congratulations, Clementine,” a familiar voice says. The face is
Sandy
.

I swallow. What’s she doing here? She’s an instructor, I think, but still …

“It’s time for your career assignment,” Cadet Waller says. “Afterward, you’ll receive new civilian attire to change into.”

I nod, hoping they can’t tell how much I’m trembling. They did this to me, so I have to pretend it didn’t work. I don’t want them to know.

Cadet Waller glances at her tablet screen. “Your preliminary career assignment is mathematics: data sampling. You will report to Training Division Room 54B this evening for further instructions—”

“Wait.” I cut her off, squinting and shielding my face because the light is way too bright. “Wait. I thought we get to pick careers.”

Cadet Waller frowns. “I don’t know where you heard that. We assign careers based on our observation of your skills—”

“No, you’re wrong.” I raise my voice more than I intend to. “I need to pick—I need to work for Commander Charlie.”

“Clementine, it doesn’t work like that,” Sandy says. She seems really nervous, but I might be imagining that. “You might be able to work your way up to a position with Commander Charlie, but you can’t start with one right away.”

“That’s not good enough!” Again, I yell too loud. My voice makes me wince.

But this isn’t okay. It’s not supposed to work like this.

My head isn’t supposed to hurt this bad.

“The injection didn’t work. She’s not being submissive,” I hear Cadet Waller whisper as she reaches to turn on her earpiece. “I’ll call the commander to find out what he wants done with her.”

“No, he’s busy. I’ll take care of this.” Sandy moves toward me. “Do you feel all right, Clementine?” Her face blurs again. Her hand touches my burning forehead, while her other steadies my arm.

I think she mouths something, but I can’t tell what. A fierce ache slips through my body, like a thousand blades slicing through my skin. It takes everything in me not to cry.

“I think she’s just tired from last night,” Sandy says, turning away. “I’ll have her sit down and keep an eye on her.”

“You’re sure?” Cadet Waller says.

“Yes. Come on, sweetie.” Sandy puts her hands on my shoulders and guides me through a door. “You can change into your new clothes.”

The door closes behind us. She helps me onto a soft bench. “The red suit right there is for you.” She points at a blotchy shape on a wall hook. “Get changed, and then I want you to stay here, Clementine.” She grips my shoulders. “You hear me? Stay here. I’ll be back to check on you in ten minutes.”

I can’t tell if she’s trying to help me, or if she’s working with the doctors and Cadet Waller. I don’t know if I should trust her or run away. But I have to lie down; my head hurts too much. Tears slip out of the corners of my eyes.

Maybe I say, “Okay.” Maybe I stand and put the suit on.

Somehow, I end up on the bench wearing red, curled up in a ball. My breaths are uneven. My body shakes and sweats uncontrollably.

I have to know—I have to figure out what was inside that injection—but my head’s on fire and my heart is pounding too hard and I can’t think and it needs to
stop
. Why can’t they just leave me alone? Why can’t things be okay?

A soft buzzing reaches my ears. Through the haze of tears, I notice a tiny black blur rests in the edge of the ceiling, with a flashing red light.

A camera.

They’re watching me. Someone is monitoring the effect of my monthly injection.

Whoever’s watching has no right to see me weak like this. Especially if they did this to me. Especially if they want to make me weak.

I push myself up with my elbows and throw my legs over the side of the bench. I can barely see, and I want to rip out the knives in my arms and legs and hands, but there aren’t any. Tears still streaming down my cheeks, I grope for the wall.

Sweat makes my palm fumble on the door handle. I get it open and stumble into the corridor before anyone can stop me.

24

I don’t know where I’m going.

There are doors and more doors, and branching corridors. I run, crashing into the walls and dragging myself around corners. My stomach heaves, and I try to stop it, but it’s no good. Remnants of my breakfast end up on the floor.

I wipe bile off my mouth with the back of my palm. An elevator appears, and I stagger into it. My fingers slip on the emergency brake knob, then pull it so the whining of the shaft breaks off.

In the corner, I curl up in a ball, drenched in sweat and crying and shivering.

I’ll be okay.

I cough up something that tastes like blood.

Why
am I not okay?

Whatever’s inside the monthly injection did something to me, the same way the intelligence hub did something to me. But the hub did something to everyone else, so maybe that’s happening now too. Maybe the other Extractions are fine—or as fine as vacant, expressionless people can be.

I have to focus. I solve Yate’s Equation—the longest and hardest equation a person can solve—in my head to help myself calm down.

I try to think. I think back to yesterday, to the helmet over my head, and the cold gas seeping out of the tubes, and me breathing it in. At first it made me feel like I was floating, content with everything, trusting the Developers. And then it didn’t—then it made me hurt almost as bad as my body hurts now.

The gas and the injection must be made from the same chemical.

But the gas didn’t hurt Oliver, Ariadne, or the other Extractions. It made them more like robots.

The injection didn’t work,
Cadet Waller said.
She’s not being submissive.

It hits me. I know what the chemical is. That time in the hub wasn’t the first time I’ve been this sick—this happened to me before.

*   *   *

It was wintertime, and I had just turned eight. A slick layer of ice covered the ground. Since the crop fields were dead, everyone had to work in either the packaging warehouse or the greenhouses, where plants continued to grow hydroponically under special lights.

Logan, Laila, and I were following the train tracks home one night, running so we wouldn’t catch frostbite, when the hovercraft passed by overhead. It looked like it had come from the city and was on its way outside the settlement, for whatever reason. It was flying too low, and there was an opening at the back. When the ship tilted toward the sky to gain altitude, a couple bundles fell out and nearly landed on top of us. I screamed as Logan pulled me out of the way, tripped over a track, and skinned my knees.

While I wiped the ice off my trousers and tried to make my teeth stop chattering, Laila took a hesitant step closer to one of the bundles. Its drawstring was already loose. A simple touch made its contents spill onto the ice: delicate green stems with silver petals.

Laila’s laughter pealed through the air. “Look at these!” She pulled a heap of them into her arms. “Real flowers!”

Logan picked up one of the asters. He turned to me with a radiant smile. “I bet they’d look pretty in your hair,” he said, and tucked the stem behind my ear.

*   *   *

A cold wave of air washes over me in the elevator, making my teeth chatter. I feel like I did then, once the aster pollen seeped through my skin into my bloodstream. But I was tough, and the fever broke after a couple days. It wasn’t until later that I heard the story about the Core scientist who genetically modified aster flowers to make them useful as stress or pain relievers for sick patients.

But when we learned about the asters in school, there was no mention of their pollen being used in great amounts, even in the sanitarium. Yet silver asters were on the Surface in the back of the hovercraft that day when I was eight, for one reason or another. And their calming effect didn’t work on me. My body attacked the serum instead of accepting it.

I stare at my shaking hands.

I’m allergic to silver asters. I’m having the same allergic reaction to whatever injection they gave me.

They must have used pollen in the monthly injections.

A knock on the elevator door snaps me out of my head.

“Hello?” The voice is muffled through the wall, but firm like an official’s. “Is someone in there?”

Oh no.
I pressed the emergency brake knob—it must have alerted security. Sam did that before, and security didn’t come, but he’s an army lieutenant. The army
is
security.

I get to my feet, breathing fast, and use the wall for support. I hold down the button that keeps the door shut, release the emergency knob, and press the first floor number I find. Twelve. Good, someplace far away.

The elevator rumbles as it starts to rise, leaving behind the official pounding his fist on the wall. I drop to my knees and hold my head in my hands. My stomach churns again, and I clamp a palm over my mouth so I won’t vomit.

Silver aster pollen can’t be for disease prevention or Promise elevation, it doesn’t work like that. The pollen releases two hormones: serotonin and GABA. Serotonin calms and relieves stress; GABA slows overall brain activity. My school instructors always focused on the fact that pollen could be a pain and stress reliever, but if GABA slows the brain, it also inhibits reason. It could make it easy for a person to be influenced by someone else.

It could make people submissive.

Maybe the flowers were in the back of the hovercraft that day when I was younger because the ship was headed to the Karum treatment facility, where Unstables are kept. Maybe the Developers use the pollen to make Unstables submissive, to try to cure their craziness.

But they use the pollen on civilians too. They administer the injection once a month, probably in a subtle dose that keeps everyone docile. It makes them easy to influence.

No wonder no one has any issue with the murder of child workers in the outer sectors. Commander Charlie is controlling all of his citizens.

Wheezing, I lift my head and scan the buttons for the decks. I need to find Beechy. He said he was like me before—he said he had trouble during the last part of his citizenship training, and he must’ve meant the intelligence machines.

Maybe the pollen didn’t affect him, either. Maybe it still doesn’t. Maybe he can help me.

But I don’t know where he is. The elevator jolts to a stop before I can figure out which floor to try.

Nausea overtakes me again. I stumble out of the elevator, open the first door I find, and stick my head into a trash chute in the wall.

A snapping sound comes from a ceiling speaker. “Attention.”

I freeze, still leaning over the chute, my mouth dripping and a putrid smell filling my nostrils. The voice is hoarse, cracking in places. Commander Charlie.

“All citizens of the Core, please report to the Pavilion.”

Another snapping sound.

Silence.

I stare at the white tiles on the floor. I blink to clear my vision, but it remains blurry.

Footsteps echo in the hall outside. A woman’s voice: “—she came up here on one of the elevators. Cadet Waller said her injection went wrong, and Commander Charlie wants her found and subdued.”

My heart skips a beat. Is she looking for me?

“I don’t get why it’s so important we have to find her right this second,” a man’s voice says.

“She’s an Extraction. The commander handpicked her himself.”

I have to get out of here.

“Check that classroom, will you?” the woman says.

Gritting my teeth, I heave my body toward the room’s back door. It opens into another corridor. I hold my breath and try to shut the door softly behind me.

My fingers slip. The clang is loud.

There’s a shout.

My feet move of their own accord, and I run, adrenaline and poison coursing through my veins. They know the injection didn’t work. They want to catch me so they can try again. I can’t let them.

I round a corner and crash into the stairwell banister.

Their footsteps pound on the landing above.

There’s no time. I careen down the stairs, praying I won’t fall and break my neck. But if I did, I’m not sure I’d even notice.

Vaguely, I’m aware of Charlie’s voice over the loudspeaker. He demands, again, that all citizens report to the Pavilion. It could be dangerous, if that’s where he wants me. But in a room filled with ten thousand people, it’d be much easier to blend in.

I throw up twice more before I get there, leaving a trail of vomit for whoever is chasing me to follow. Through a Pavilion door, I squeeze into the crowd slowly filling up the viewing pods, keeping my head low so no one will see my face. There are way too many people. Their body heat makes me sweat even more.

“Clementine?” someone says.