The Elect: Malevolent, a Dystopian Novel (6 page)

Claire is next. Wearing a large backpack, she lays on her stomach, letting her legs dangle over the edge. Once she gets started, she scales down almost as quickly as Jay.

A boy with long arms and legs pushes past me, almost knocking me over the edge. “Move aside, little girl,” he says. He grips the pipe Jay swung from and follows the same course he took. Alice follows him. And then several others follow her. One girl who is about my size almost falls. Her foot slips off a jutting piece of concrete and she hangs from a pipe for a few heart-racing moments. Then she swings her legs and finds solid footing. She makes it the rest of the way without any problems.

Before I know it there are only three of us left. Mattie, me, and another boy whose face is as white as bleached wheat flour. I take a deep breath and gently pry my hand out of Mattie’s grip. “We can’t put this off any longer,” I tell her. “I’m going.”

“Be careful,” she mutters.

I smile, hoping that the expression will calm her. “See you at the bottom.” After sliding off my shoes and tossing them down, I grab the pipe and flip over onto my stomach so I can dangle my legs over the edge like Claire did. I swing to find that first foothold. When my left foot touches it, I breathe a sigh of relief. I look to the right for the next one, too focused to worry about how far up I am. My right leg stretches. It’s a long reach. My fingers curl, my grip on the pipe tightening. I tell myself I can make it, but the strained muscles in my leg tell me otherwise. Every muscle is stretched to its fullest length; still my toe doesn’t reach it. I have to let go of the pipe. My fingers unfurl and for a brief instant I feel like I might fall backward instead of dropping straight down. My toe touches the floor edge below and my fingers find a hanging piece of cable. I hold onto it and inhale. My head spins.

I look down. The tree is still at least ten feet below me. I search for my next foothold, a jutting pipe on the left. I stretch until my arms are fully extended. Success. I don’t have to let go this time. The next two movements are easy and then I’m at home in the trees. I have never been so grateful for the burn of rough bark against my skin. When I reach the ground I look up. Mattie is staring down at me, terrified.

I read in a book once that half the challenge of overcoming any fear is believing you can succeed. I cup my hands around my mouth and yell, “You can do this. It’s easy.” It wasn’t easy. But I’m hoping if she believes my fib, it might help. “Just go slow.”

“Okay.” Her voice cracks. She follows my lead, flipping onto her stomach to find the first foothold. Reaching the second one is easier for her. Her legs are longer. So is the third. It isn’t long before she is standing at the bottom, next to me, grinning. “You were right. That wasn’t so bad.”

We both look up. The last boy is standing at the top, staring down at us. He sits on the edge like Jay did, grabs the pipe and swings. His foot misses the foothold and he pendulums back the other way. Legs thrash. He panics. I want to shout up at him, to tell him to calm down. There’s a pipe right there, next to his legs. But when I open my mouth no words come out. I’m so scared for him I can’t speak. His legs kick harder, and I cup my hand over my mouth. He’s going to fall. I can’t watch him fall. I can’t.

I squeeze my eyes shut just as his body starts flying toward us. Someone screams. I shudder as the sounds of cracking tree limbs fill my ears. Mattie’s arms clamp around my shoulders.

A dull thump travels from the ground up my legs. I feel the vibration in every cell in my body.

Someone shouts, “No!”

A girl’s wailing slices through me like razor blades.

Holy shit! This is real. Horrifically real.

We aren’t playing games. There are no safety lines or nets to catch us if we fall. We will be doing dangerous, life-threatening things. And some of us will fail. Some of us…will die. Just like Jay said.

We are down from eighteen to twelve. Will three more die before this is over? Will more than three die?

My insides twist into knots.

What have I gotten myself into?

* * * * *

My heart is bruised. I’m sure of it. It’s beating so hard against my breastbone it hurts. We have been running for hours. My legs are so wobbly I feel like they’ll give out after every step. My lungs burn. I need air. I need to stop. But I can’t. Mattie whimpers behind me. I’ve held back tonight, keeping her in sight so she won’t be the seventh to fail. She struggles so much with the running. She’s threatened to give up more than once in the past hour. It’s been hard to keep her going. But I refuse to let her give up.

I hear a noise and stop, my breath is sawing in and out of my chest so hard it feels like my lungs are being shredded. Mattie has stopped again. We’re on a twisty wooded path. We will lose the others if we don’t keep going. We won’t know how to find the safe house either.

“Mattie,” I whisper.

She’s on hands and knees, vomiting.

I rest a hand on her shoulder to let her know I’m here to help.

When she stops, she straightens up. Sobbing, she says, “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can,” I tell her. It’s kind of a half-lie. In truth I’m not sure she can do this. At least, not the running part.

She sniffles, her face wet, her eyes watering. “No, I really can’t. I can’t take another step.”

“It isn’t much farther. You can make it one more step, right?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“Sure you can.” I take her hand and pull her onto her feet. One foot drags in front of the other, literally scraping the ground. “See?”

She laughs. Then she cries. “I fucking hate you.”

“I hate you too.” I tug on her hand, coaxing her to take another step.

She sniffles and sobs and chuckles. “You aren’t going to let me quit, are you?”

“No.” I pull her harder, forcing her to take several steps in succession.

She curls her free arm around her middle. “You should go ahead, stay with the rest. So you don’t get lost.”

“I can’t do that.” I change tactics, standing next to her, my arm helping support her weight. “So, shut up and keep moving.”

“Even if it means we both get lost?” Her feet scuffle across the ground.

“I am not going to leave you.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m your friend. That’s what friends do. They stay by your side, no matter what.”

She sniffles. “You’ve only known me for two days.”

“So?” This is hell, but I can’t stop. I have to be strong for both of us now. I bite down on my lip and force myself to move faster. We can’t get too far behind the others. I look up. I can see the last few stragglers, but they’re way ahead of us. If they take a sharp turn I’ll lose sight of them.

“So, how good of friends could we be in just two days, Eva?”

“The best of friends. Lifelong friends.”

“Well, the way things are going, maybe that is true. Maybe lifelong won’t be so long.”

My insides twist. I feel sick now too. “Mattie, don’t say that.”

“Sorry.” She stops, bends at the waist.

“Come on. Take one step. Only one,” I plead.

“That’s what you said last time.” Her eyes are watery and red. She drags the back of her hand across her face, smearing the wetness.

“And I’ll keep saying it. I’ll say anything to keep you going.”

“You are such a fucking liar.” She blinks at me. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” We take another step. And another. And another five. Another ten. Another twenty. I stop counting after that. We push on, driven to keep going by raw determination and fear. The terrifying fact, what neither of us will admit, is we can’t let ourselves get lost out here. Because then we will be alone. In a world that is completely foreign to us.

As we round a bend, we hear a sound up ahead. Voices. Have we caught up to the others? Pulling on Mattie’s hand, I urge her faster.

“This way. I think they’ve stopped,” I tell her.

“Oh thank God!”

A twig snaps and leaves crackle under our feet. I push a tangle of shrub branches out of my way with my free hand. Up ahead I see them, standing in a huddle.

“The bridge is out,” someone says as we approach. Most of the recruits are sitting under a massive tree, its branches nearly spanning the narrow but very deep crevasse we need to cross. At the edge of the cleft Claire stands, arms folded over her chest.

I approach her. “Is there another bridge?”

“No. Not without going hours out of our way. That kind of delay would be dangerous. We won’t make the safe house before sunrise.”

I glance over my shoulder. Jay is leaning against the gnarled roots of a tree behind us. My eye travels up the thick trunk and along one of the lowest branches. “What do you have in that backpack? If we had some rope, we could tie it up there.” I point up. “Then maybe we could swing across, one at a time.”

“Brilliant idea. I have rope.” She slides her backpack off her shoulders. It drops on the ground, the impact sending a puff of dirt into the air. She unzips it, pulls out a thin rope and heads for the tree, still bare of foliage. Agile as a monkey, she swings up into the branches. I, along with the other recruits, watch her from below. She moves with ease in the tree, walking along a branch as if she strolls along tree limbs every day. But as she approaches the far end of the branch, I hear a sound that sends a shudder through me. A cracking sound.

I know what that means.

I open my mouth to warn her the branch is about to break, but it’s too late. The limb gives way and she falls, arms flailing. She lands with a heavy thump and cries out.

I rush to her.

So does Jay.

“My ankle,” she says, hand cupped around it. “It twisted when I landed.” She looks at Jay first, then me. “Someone else has to tie the rope and help everyone get across.”

“I can do it,” I say before Jay has a chance to speak. I run to the rope, now strewn over the ground, loop it over my shoulder and swing into the tree. Not wanting to fall, or tie the rope to a branch that will break, I test each limb as I climb. The lower branches are brittle and weak. I climb higher to find stronger ones and knot the rope around it the way my father taught me when we tied my tire swing to the tree in our backyard. Then I climb down and test the rope and knot, tugging as hard as I can.

It feels strong.

I knot the bottom end, for a footrest, and step back. There’s only one way to make sure it’s safe.

I sail across the chasm and drop on the opposite side. Then I wave over the next person. Claire goes second. I help her land, steadying her as she tries not to put pressure on her bad ankle. Mattie is next. Within minutes everyone is safely across, including Jay. The other recruits all look at me as they land. Something has changed. Their gazes aren’t quite as cold or judging now. I think this
hick
has earned their respect.

Jay and I help support Claire as we continue on, arms wrapped around her waist as she hops. I am smiling. I saw the most horrific thing earlier today, a boy fall to his death. And tonight has been hard. And scary.

But overall it’s been a good day. Very good.

I miss home already. I miss my parents.

But that’s not all. I miss the sounds of birdcall. I miss the smell of damp earth and green grass. I miss the feel of a gentle summer breeze combing through my hair. I miss the warm kiss of the sun on my face.

Our new home is a massive concrete and steel fortress. I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. We are preparing to fight rebels, an enemy that has eyes everywhere. Living in a building with wide windows would be stupid.

Stupid, but so much better.

Our new home is dark inside and very different from where I grew up. I can tell already and we have just arrived.

But there is one bright side. Only one.

Him. Jay. There is something special about him. As we’d helped Claire hobble the rest of the way to our new home, I’d gotten a glimpse of his personality. He’s strong. He’s a little quiet and mysterious, but that just makes him more interesting. But he’s also thoughtful and kind. I like him. More than I should. More than I thought I would like another guy, considering how I felt—how I
feel
—about Sam.

I glance his way.

At the moment Jay is talking to another guy who appears to be about the same age as him. Jay’s expression is dark. He shakes his head, jerks a thumb in our direction, and walks away. The other guy glares at him.

Are they arguing? I wonder why.

“Hello recruits,” Jay says as we gather in the wide open space at the bottom of the staircase. “Welcome to your home for the next few weeks. Tomorrow you will start your first of three phases of training. As I told you before, not all of you will make it through training. And of those who do, only the top three will have their choice of positions within the agency. The others will be assigned duties.

All around me, my fellow recruits whisper to each other. I hadn’t expected to be competing against them. From the bits and pieces I’m catching of the others’ conversations, I’m gathering they didn’t either. Now it isn’t just about surviving our training and helping each other. It’s about being on top. That puts a whole new spin on things. One I don’t like.

I glance at the boy to my left. He’s taller than me by at least a foot. And his arms are muscular. I ran faster than him, but if it came down to a test of strength, I would lose by a mile.

Next to him is Alice. She isn’t the fastest runner either. But she’s smart and strong. And there is Mattie. She struggles when it comes to the physical stuff, but she knows computers. Her father even taught her some computer programming. And then there are all the other kids. I need to be better than nine of them.

Crap, it’s hopeless.

Then again, I know Mattie can’t run. And I can. If I’m able to compensate for my weaknesses with strengths that the others don’t have, maybe I’ll have a chance. Maybe being a hick will give me more than one advantage.

Maybe.

We still don’t know what kind of training we’ll be facing—physical or mental.

“Follow me,” Jay says as he opens a door at the far end of the area. We travel through a maze of dark, narrow tunnels. The ceilings are sloped, and it feels like we are descending lower, lower, into the bowels of the earth. Lanterns punch weak yellow holes in the darkness every twenty feet or so. Between gold areas are stretches of thick blackness. As we weave up and down, right and left, I see more of the same, branching off the corridors we take. I hope that everywhere we need to be will be close. I can’t imagine finding my way around this maze on my own. It’s like a groundhog’s den.

We stop in a big, open room with a soaring ceiling and white-tiled walls. After being in such dark, confined spaces, it feels bright and open. I smell food. Long tables with benches attached fill half the area. People, all of them wearing black shirts and pants, are laughing, talking, eating. Silverware clatters. No one looks our way as our group stands there, watching, like a line of tourists. “This is the cafeteria. It’s open around the clock.” Our guide leads us down another corridor. At an intersection, he points. “This is the recruits’ dorm room. We’ll come back this way when we’re done. Follow me.” We continue down the same tunnel, stopping at the end. There, a room about twice the size of the cafeteria is packed with strange-looking machines. Most of them have cables attached to flat plates. People are standing or sitting near them, pulling, pushing, straining. Their faces are red, teeth gritted, muscles tense.

Jay tells us, “This is the gym. You are free to use it whenever you are not in class.”

A gym? This is nothing like the gym we had in our school. It was a wide-open space with a polished wood floor.

We move on. Our next stop is in an even larger room. This one is filled with desks. And on each desk is a glowing screen. People sit at the desks, staring at the screens, fingers tapping what look like small, flat typewriters.

I’ve seen pictures of these machines in books. They’re computers.

Oh. My. God.

I inch closer to a desk and look over the shoulder of a woman working nearby. The white screen seems lit from behind. Black type runs in strings across the page. I try to read the writing but it’s gibberish.

“This is our computer lab, where we study and practice programming,” Jay tells us.

If I have to learn programming to pass initiation, I am doomed.

The doors behind us open. I hear the squeak of a hinge. All the tap-tap-tapping stops. The room falls silent. And every head turns our way.

Someone nudges me and I step aside, glancing over my shoulder.

I recognize the young man standing inside doorway. It’s the one who was talking to Jay. Up close I realize there is something about him that makes me uneasy. He isn’t particularly scary-looking. Some might even call him handsome. His blond hair is cut shorter than I like, cropped close to his head. His jaw is strong, cheekbones carved with sharp edges. His eyes pale blue-gray. A neatly-trimmed beard covers his chin. Everything about him is very cold and hard. His icy gaze sweeps the room.

“Jay,” he says as he walks past us. “Would you like to introduce me to the new class of recruits?”

“Sure,” Jay says, his voice a little sharp, as if he isn’t so happy to introduce this man to anyone. I wonder why. Jay motions to him. “Recruits, this is George, director of the NDA.”

George, the director of the NDA, looks at me. His gaze wanders up and down my body. Feeling vulnerable, I cross my arms over my chest. “Welcome. A couple words of warning. Any trainee who is incapacitated for more than twenty-four hours will be immediately removed from the program.” Great ice-breaker, that is. Then he says directly to me, “Interesting selection of recruits this year. We’ll see how long you last.”

Talk about a slap in the face. He doesn’t know me.

I open my mouth to tell him that I’ll be staying to the end but no sound comes out. I can’t exhale. I can’t speak. But once he looks away I’m glad I didn’t say anything. I hated feeling his eyes on me. I want to be invisible to George, the director of the NDA. I don’t have anything to prove to him. Or to anyone else.

Only to myself.

He walks past me to assess the next initiate, and I breathe a sigh of relief. My stomach growls, reminding me that I haven’t eaten in hours. Mattie hears it. She giggles and elbows me. Embarrassed, I clap my hand over my stomach.

Jay says, “I can escort you all back to the dormitory. Or, if you prefer, the cafeteria.”

“I know where you’re going first,” Mattie whispers. She smiles. “I’m hungry too. I can’t remember the last time I was so hungry. I think it’s all the running. Maybe I should’ve started running a long time ago. Then I wouldn’t be so fat.”

“You aren’t fat,” I whisper back.

Mattie pats her slightly rounded belly. “You’re being polite.”

We don’t need any help finding the cafeteria. It’s down the hall from the computer lab. Most of the other recruits come with us. I grab a sandwich and a small yellow bag printed with red letters. I don’t know what’s in the bag, but Mattie took one so I do too. I get a bottle of water and we sit at an empty table. To my surprise the other recruits sit with us.

“I’m Paul,” says one boy as he sits next to me. He’s tall with red hair and lots of freckles. “Gotta admit, that thing in the tree was impressive. Where did you learn to do that?”

My face heats as I shrug. “I guess I got bored a lot when I was a kid. I climbed trees.”

“She’s from Riverview,” Mattie tells him. “No TVs. No video games. No computers. No phones.”

“Oh, I get it now.” He shakes his head. “I think I would go crazy.”

“She reads,” Mattie says, as if that’s the most unheard of thing ever.

His eyes bug out. “No way!”

“Yeah!” she exclaims.

Wow, I read. I climb trees. It seems I’m an oddity to the Middleton group.

“Yes” I say, “I’m hoping the reading will come in handy someday…like the tree climbing.”

Mattie shrugs. “You never know.”

“Yeah, you never know,” Paul agrees.

“To me, the whole thing was uncivilized,” says Alice as she sits next to Paul. “Climbing a tree? Like an ape? Who does that?”

I do.

“Who cares about being uncivilized,” Mattie says. “We are, after all, being trained to fight terrorists, remember?”

Alice wrinkles her nose. “Yes, but there’s no need to actually get…physical. We have machines to do all the dirty work for us. Computer-controlled drones and robots. We won’t be soldiers. We’ll do our battles in a computer lab, not a forest. I don’t understand why we have to run.” She turns her attention to me. “How much do you know about a computer, hick?”

I know they use electricity, which is deadly in my world. I know they are connected to the ‘Net, which is also deadly in my world. Because anything that the Amiga can control can be, and has been, used as a weapon.

When I don’t respond, because anything I say will be twisted around anyway, she jerks up her chin and smiles, “Yes, I thought so. No need to worry about this one.”

“I still thought the tree thing was impressive,” Paul says.

Alice scoffs. “You would. You’re impressed by a mound of dirt.”

“And you’re a bitch,” says a second guy as he drops into the seat beside me. This is the one I had noticed earlier. He looks strong. That’s clear from a mile away. But up close his features are more noticeable. His eyes are a really unique shade of golden-brown. And the smirk pulling his lips, coupled with his dark shaggy hair, makes him look young and playful. He offers his hand. “Tomas. Tom for short. I thought the tree idea was brilliant. And the way you scaled that building yesterday, too.”

“Thanks,” I say, feeling my face blush again. “I’m afraid you’ve seen the best of me, though,” I admit, feeling like I need to own up to some weakness. I don’t deserve the admiration I see in their eyes. I’m not that special. All I did was climb a tree. “First, I know that was a setup, a test. I’m sure Claire and Jay knew how to get across. I was just the first one among the trainees to see the solution. That’s only because of how I grew up. And when it comes to computers, I know absolutely nothing. I’m sure being able to use computers is much more important than knowing how to climb a tree.”

“Don’t worry. We can teach you,” Mattie reassures me.

“Sure,” says Paul.

Alice rolls her eyes. “Why would you do that? It’s a competition, remember? Only the top three get to choose their positions.”

“Maybe there’s more to life than being at the top,” Mattie offers.

Alice smirks. “That’s what losers say. Because otherwise they would feel like losers.” Alice leaves. I’m glad she’s gone. Because I was thinking the same thing. And I don’t like hearing my thoughts spoken aloud.