“Bring you back in?” I frown. “For what? More testing? Torture? What do they want to do with you?”
“I have no idea,” Juliette says, shaking her head. “I have no clue who these people are. My sister is apparently still being tested and tortured somewhere. So I’m pretty sure they’re not bringing me back for a big family reunion, you know?”
“Wow.” I look away. Blow out a breath. “That is some next-level drama.”
“Yeah.”
“So—what are we going to do?” I say.
Juliette studies me for a second. Her eyes pull together. “I mean, I don’t know, Kenji. They’re coming to kill everyone in Sector 45. I really don’t think I have a choice.”
I raise my eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ll have to kill them first.”
Five
I leave Juliette’s room in a daze. It doesn’t seem right that so much horrible shit should be, like, allowed to go down in such a short period of time. There should be a fail-safe in the universe somewhere, something that automatically shuts down in the event of extreme human stupidity. Maybe an emergency lever. A button, even.
This is ridiculous.
I sigh, feeling suddenly sick to my stomach.
I guess we’ll have to wait to discuss all this tonight, after the symposium, which is going to be its own kind of shitshow. There doesn’t seem to be a point to attending the symposium now, but Juliette said she didn’t want to bail, not this late in the game, so we’re all supposed to make nice and act like everything is normal. Six hundred sector leaders gathered in the same room and we’re supposed to make nice and act like everything is normal. I don’t get it. It’s no secret to anyone that we, as a sector, have betrayed the entire establishment, so I don’t understand why we’re even bothering to pretend. But Castle says maintaining these pretenses means something to the system, so we have to follow through. Jumping ship now is basically like flipping off the rest of the continent. It’d be a declaration of war.
Honestly, the ridiculousness of this whole thing would almost be funny if I didn’t think we were all probably going to die.
What a day.
I spot Sonya and Sara on my way back to my room and I nod a quick greeting, but Sara grabs my arm.
“Have you seen Castle?” she says.
“We’ve been trying to get ahold of him for an hour,” says Sonya.
The urgency in their voices sends a sudden spike of fear through my body, and the viselike grip Sara’s still got on my arm isn’t helping. It’s not like either of them to be so anxious; for as long as I’ve known them, these two have always been gentle and generally calm—through everything.
“What’s wrong?” I say. “What’s going on? Anything I can do to help?”
They shake their heads at the same time. “We need to talk to Castle.”
“Last I saw him, he was downstairs, talking to Warner. Why don’t you page him? He’s always wearing his earpiece.”
“We’ve tried,” Sonya says. “Several times.”
“Can you at least tell me what this is about? Just so I don’t have a heart attack?”
Sara’s eyes widen. “Have you been experiencing chest pains?”
“Have you been feeling unusually lethargic?” Sonya chimes in.
“Shortness of breath?” Sara again.
“What? No. Guys, stop—I meant that as a figure of speech. I’m not actually going to have a heart attack. I’m just—I’m worried.”
Sonya ignores me. She rummages around in the messenger bag she carries around in case of emergencies and unearths a small medicine bottle. She and Sara are twins and our resident healers—and they’re an interesting combination of gentle but extremely serious. They’re doctors with the perfect bedside manner, and they never let any mention of pain, illness, or injury go ignored. Once, back at Point, I said casually that I was sick and tired of being underground all the time, and the two of them forced me into a bed and demanded I give them a list of my symptoms. When I was finally able to explain that I’d been joking—that “sick and tired” was just a thing people say sometimes—they didn’t think it was funny. They were irritated with me for a week after that.
“Take this with you, as a precaution,” Sonya says, and presses the blue, cylindrical bottle into my hand. “As you know, Sara and I have been working on this for a while, but this is the first time we feel like it might be ready for the field. That,” she says, nodding at the bottle in my hand, “is one of the test batches, but we haven’t had any trouble with it. Actually, we think it might be ready for production.”