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Betrayal and fear, anger and heartbreak. The emotions hit hard and fast, buckling my knees, sending me to the floor. But I refuse to cry. The camera is still in the ceiling, and I will not give Dr. Barnes and the officials behind the screen the satisfaction of seeing me break. And, really, aren’t they the ones to blame for Zandri’s death? They put us in their game and asked us to survive. Whatever Tomas did, I am certain he didn’t do it to win a place on the University roster. He must have thought his life was in jeopardy.
I jump at a knock on the door. When I open it, I am handed a large tray of food and told the committee is still deliberating. The Testing official leaves, and I hear the sound of the lock sliding into place. And I wait.
The meal is extravagant. A large steak charred on the outside but pink and oozing with juices in the middle. There are slices of potato—the version Zeen created—with the skin still on, fried to a golden brown. Cold shrimp is served with tiny slices of lime and a small dish of melted butter. A salad of fresh vegetables and walnuts is tossed with something tangy and sweet. A frosty glass is filled with something clear and bubbly. There is also a clear bottle of water and a piece of cake.
This is a meal meant to celebrate making it this far in The Testing. Never have I felt less like celebrating.
The camera above makes me cut the steak. I’m certain it is delicious, but it is all I can do to chew and swallow without gagging. I take a drink of the bubbly liquid and immediately put the glass down. Alcohol. The same drink Zeen brought to cheer me on graduation night. Then the drink tasted bitter with disappointment. Today it tastes of home.
I drink the water and take tiny sips of the alcohol to keep Zeen close. I eat bits of the salad, but ignore the cake. The idea of celebrating while Zandri’s identification bracelet sits in my hand is enough to make me ill. The passage of time is marked by the setting of the sun. I watch as the last rays disappear and wonder if the decision will be made before tomorrow’s sunset.
An official collects the dinner tray. Once again I hear the loud turn of the lock. With nothing but the moon to keep me company, the minutes drag by. I think about Zandri and Malachi. I analyze every moment of my interview, turning each word over for some clue as to whether I have passed or failed. I fall asleep curled around my Testing bag.
The dawn brings a new tray. No decision has been made. The Testing official tells me to be patient before leaving me alone to pace the floor.
Trays come. Trays are taken away. No news.
I relive my days in The Testing, looking for clues as to what could have propelled Tomas to take Zandri’s life, and find nothing. While Zandri was brash and headstrong, I can’t imagine her attacking Will or Tomas. She was friends with Tomas. She might have even loved him a little. And now she’s dead. Tortured by my waking thoughts, I try to lose myself in sleep, but find Dr. Barnes and the Testing officials waiting for me there, too. One by one they evaluate the performance of the dead candidates.
Ryme. Nina. Malachi. Boyd. Gill. Annalise. Nicolette. Roman. Zandri.
A pile of bodies lies in the corner when the evaluators turn to me. Dr. Barnes shakes his head. He tells me I showed great promise. It’s too bad I trusted the wrong people. Leaders cannot afford that mistake. He tells me I failed as another Testing official pulls out a crossbow, takes aim, and fires. The quarrel punches through my stomach, and I scream myself awake before I hit the floor.
Locked in a room with no human contact other than the official who brings my meals, I feel the tension gnawing at me. I pace for hours and then sit for hours more and stare at the walls, willing a decision to be made. But no decision is forthcoming, and a small part of me wonders if this waiting is also a test. Are Dr. Barnes and his friends sitting behind their screens, watching to see how we handle it? Do other candidates pace as I do? Are my nightmares a strike against me or does uninterrupted sleep show an undesirable streak of indifference?
I stare at the camera above, not caring if the officials see that I know it is there. Or maybe I want them to know. To see I am smart enough to figure out that they are watching. As sleep eludes me, I think about the candidates who have died, and the memory wipe that is comin
g if we cannot outsmart it, and wonder for the first time if the candidates who failed the first two rounds of Testing were eliminated or if the Commonwealth simply erased any memory of this experience. Over the past one hundred years, the United Commonwealth population has grown, but has it grown enough to eliminate dozens of its most promising citizens every year? And if those candidates aren’t eliminated, where do they go?
After the morning tray has come and gone, I tire of the eyes that follow me and the ears listening to my awakening screams. Giving my audience behind the camera a small smile, I probe my bracelet, find the clasp and watch it fall from my wrist onto the bed alongside those that belonged to Zandri and Nina. I remove the second bracelet from my bag, place it with the others, then I take my bag and lock myself in the bathroom.
The feeling of being alone—really alone—eases some of the tension from my shoulders. I take a shower. I curl up on the floor and nap. With nothing else to do, I go through the items in my Testing bag. These are things I brought from home. Things my mother sewed. My father touched. My brothers worked with. Things that helped define who I used to be. No longer afraid of being judged by the cameras, I allow my tears to fall as I touch each one and hold it to my cheek, trying to recapture the person who first packed this bag. I miss the hope she felt. The optimism. The brightness of the future in front of her. If Tomas’s pills don’t work, will taking away the memories of The Testing bring her back? Can losing my memories truly wipe the shadow from my heart?
Maybe, and for a moment I allow myself to yearn for that blissful ignorance. Dreams filled with peace. A future free of too much knowledge.
I jump at the sound of a male voice and turn to see where it is coming from. It takes me a minute to realize the voice is speaking from the device clutched tight in my hands.
“The soil in sector four is showing signs of sustaining life, and the radiation levels are almost nonexistent. The new formula appears to be working.”
Zeen. His voice is strong and healthy and so wonderfully familiar. I ache, hearing the sound of it. I must have hit a button that started a playback of Zeen’s voice. The Transit Communicator is also a recorder.
“Tell Dad there are sick animals in sector seven. Might be from the new berries we cultivated there. We should run tests.”
I remember hearing about that problem over dinner—a week or maybe two before my graduation. They argued, laughed, and debated the problem long into the night, even allowing me to add a few thoughts of my own. I felt so grown-up to be included. So ready to take on the world. How silly that seems now.
For a while I am content to listen to Zeen’s voice as he records his thoughts on the sections outside of Five Lakes that my father and his team are working to revitalize. A disgruntled word makes me laugh. Mentions of Dad or my other brothers cause tears. And I wonder—how does the recorder work? I know the device can communicate with the one Dad has in his office, but I’ve never heard Dad mention that it doubles as a recorder.
It takes me a while to find the button. A small area in the back that looks to be a part of the casing but has been turned into something more. Something not originally designed to be a part of the device. Something created by Zeen.
The screwdriver on my pocketknife helps me reveal the rest of his handiwork. I can’t help smiling as I admire my brother’s ingenuity. A tiny black box has been nestled among the other wires and chips. By the way he spliced and connected the wires, I can see how he rigged the communication microphone to record voices and the earpiece to act as the playback speaker. All of it is done with seamless precision. Had I not squeezed so hard and mistakenly triggered the playback button on the back, I would never have recognized the recording device was there.
A knock startles me. Carefully, I slide the items into my Testing bag, go into the darkened bedroom, and open the door. The woman on the other side is holding a tray and wears a concerned expression. “Is everything okay in here?” she asks.
I guess my disappearance into the bathroom has not gone unnoticed.
“I’m fine,” I assure her, but from the commotion coming from down the hall, I fear someone else is not. Has one of the candidates ended the tension like Ryme did? Though I should no longer care, I worry for Tomas. I can’t help it. No matter how The Testing has changed him, he will always be the boy from home who was kind to everyone. I want him to live.
The Testing official hands me the lunch tray, tells me no decision has been made, and locks the door. For the first time, I don’t mind the solitude. I eat the chicken swimming in a delicate tomato sauce and the fresh vegetables before once again closing myself off in the bathroom.
