In The Afterlight

“Begin,” he said.

It was easy enough to float the command to Dr. Freemont to push the button—I’d seen him do it moments ago, and could choreograph the small movement the exact way the doctor had done before. The White Noise trickled out again, running along my skin like an electric current. I let my eyes flick around, but it was harder to mime fear now. A swell of cool, careful control settled my mind.

O’Ryan looked back over his shoulder. “Turn it on.”

It is on, I thought.

“It is on,” Dr. Freemont said. I froze at the dull tone of his voice, risking a glance toward O’Ryan for his reaction.

The camp controller’s lip pulled back. “I’m ordering one of the testing machines back from New York.”

New York? Had they moved all of the big testing machines and scanners out already?

I forced the words into the doctor’s mouth. That could take weeks.

“That could take weeks,” Dr. Freemont said.

This is foolproof.

“This is foolproof.”

O’Ryan’s gaze was searing as it moved between the old man and me. I let my control expand, snaring the camp controller’s mind. I skimmed the surface memories, the damp mornings, fog, streams of children in uniforms, but it took a forceful shove to break past them, to plant the idea. This girl is Green. She was mistakenly identified as Orange.

I pulled back, slipping out of both of their minds, shifting my gaze to the tiled floor.

“Fine. The Orange classification was an error.” O’Ryan turned to one of the PSFs. “Get one of the Green uniforms and shoes out of the boxes. Her PID is three-two-eight-five.”

“What size, sir?”

“Does it matter?” O’Ryan barked. “Go.”

The doctor blinked. “Will she not stay here, then? I imagine it might be...disruptive to the other children if they saw her.”

“One night is enough.” He turned to look at me as he added, “I want them all to understand, no matter how far they run, they’ll always be found. They’ll always be brought back.”

A whole night. Jesus—the drugs they’d given me had knocked me sideways hard enough to lose a full day. The military would have flown us back east to West Virginia—they wouldn’t have risked ground transportation. Meaning...that would make it...the twenty-fifth of February. Shit. Three days to figure this out.

The doctor didn’t uncuff me or remove the muzzle until the PSF was back, dropping the thin, cotton uniform and laceless white slip-on sneakers on the examination table.

“Change,” O’Ryan ordered, tossing them onto my chest. “Move.”

The smell of black permanent marker flooded my nose as I picked them up, working my sore jaw back and forth. If it was a muscle or a joint, it hurt, but I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of limping as I stood up and moved to the corner of the room to begin stripping, aware of their eyes on my back the entire time. I began with my shoes, unlacing them quickly, tilting the right one back to pluck the black flash drive out of it. My hands felt swollen and clumsy as I slid it into my new shoe, pretending to adjust the cloth tongue. They were two sizes too big, at least, but it didn’t matter to anyone watching me. My face burned with hatred as I faced the wall and stripped out of my clothes. The uniform slid over my freezing skin like the dull side of a blade. When I was finished, I turned back and kept my head bowed.

The PSF who’d gone to get the uniform, Laybrook, stepped up and gripped my arm.

“Cabin twenty-seven,” O’Ryan said, the corner of his mouth twisting up in a mocking smile. “We kept your bed open for you, knowing we’d see you again. I’m sure you remember the way.”

O’Ryan gave a small signal with his hand and I was hauled, literally pulled, out of the door and into the hall. Laybrook wrenched my arm again as we turned into the nearest stairwell. God, I could almost see it—all of those little kids trailing up the other direction, not knowing what was waiting for them. I saw myself in my pajamas, Sam in her coat.

The pace was impossible to keep up with. I slipped, nearly falling onto my knees as we reached the first landing. Laybrook’s expression darkened with irritation as he gripped the back of my shirt and neck, bringing me back up onto my feet.

This is how it’s going to be, I thought, with all of them. I got out, I got out and beat their system—And now what? They had to prove to me it would never happen again? That I was just as small and powerless at seventeen as I was at ten? They wanted me to stay in that shadowy corner I’d let myself be backed into, fold myself up small, cut myself off from the others. They wanted to take everything away again, strip me down to nothing.

I snapped.

I glanced back up the steps we’d come down and shifted my gaze toward the next set, until it finally landed on the black camera watching overhead. Once we were out of its line of sight, turning the corner to start down the next flight of stairs, I bent my arm, threw my elbow up into Laybrook’s throat, and held it there. I glared up through the inches that separated his stunned face from mine, and slammed into his mind. His rifle clattered against the wall, the strap sliding from his shoulder. The man had decades on me, and at least a hundred pounds, but in the end it didn’t matter. We’d be going at my pace from this point on.

O’Ryan had been right about one thing, at least—I did remember the way back to Cabin 27. My fear remembered it, too, and I had to fight to keep myself from swaying as the camp spread open in front of me.