“We’ll have to have you decontaminated,” she says. “Take them there first. ” Then she smiles at us. “Welcome to the Rising. ”
As we leave the tiny building the three Officers watch us. Two have brown eyes, one has blue. One female. Two males. All with fatigue lines around their eyes. From working too long? Doubling as Society and Rising?
They’re going to sort me, but I can do the same.
After we’ve washed, a young woman swabs our arms and checks for contamination. “You’re clean,” she tells us. “It’s a good thing it rained and diluted the poison. ” Then she leads us through the camp. I try to take in what I can while we walk but don’t see much more besides other cinder-block structures, little tents, and one enormous building that must house something huge.
Once we’re inside another small building, the woman opens one of the doors that line the hallway. “You’ll be in here,” she says to Indie, “and you, in here. ” She opens a second door for me.
They’re going to split us up. And we were so intent on survival, we didn’t even think about what we should say.
I remember the prisoner’s dilemma. This is where they catch you; how they tell if your story is true. I should have assumed the Rising might use it, too.
There’s no time to decide. Indie looks at me and gives me a little smile, and I remember when she helped me hide the tablets on the air ship. We managed to keep things hidden before. We can do it again. I smile back at her.
I just hope we both think the same things should stay secret.
“State your full name, please,” a pleasant-voiced man says.
“Cassia Maria Reyes. ”
Nothing. No flicker. No sign of recognition at the name, no mention of Grandfather or the Pilot. I knew b
etter than to expect it, but I still feel a tiny chill of disappointment.
“Society status. ”
Decide, quickly, how much to tell. “Citizen, as far as I know. ”
“How did you come to be in the Outer Provinces?”
I will keep Grandfather and his poems out of it; the Archivists, too. “I was sent here by mistake,” I lie. “An Officer in my work camp told me to board the air ship with the other girls and wouldn’t listen to me when I told him I was a Citizen. ”
“And then?” the man says.
“Then we ran to the Carving. A boy came with us but he died. ” I swallow. “We came to a settlement but it was empty. ”
“What did you do there?”
“We found a boat,” I say. “And a map. I read the code. It told us how to find you. ”
“How did you learn about the Rising?”
“In a poem. Then again in the settlement. ”
“Did anyone else come with you out of the Carving?”
The questions come too fast to think. Is it better to let them know about Ky? Or not? My hesitation, small enough, has given it away, and I answer honestly because I’m preparing to lie about something else. “Another boy,” I say. “He was from the villages, too. We couldn’t all fit in the boat, so he’s coming on foot. ”
“His name?”
“Ky,” I say.
“The name of your other companion, the girl who is here now?”
“Indie. ”
“Last names?”
“I don’t know. ” It’s true of Indie and partly true of Ky. What was his last name when he first lived out here?
“Did you find any indication as to where the people in the canyon might have gone?”
“No. ”
“What made you decide to join the Rising?”
“I don’t believe in the Society anymore after what I’ve seen. ”
“That’s enough for now,” the man says kindly, shutting off the miniport. “We’ll access your Society data and find out more about where we should put you. ”
“You have the Society’s data?” I ask in surprise. “Out here?”
He smiles. “Yes. We’ve found that while our interpretations differ, the data itself is often sound. Please wait here. ”
In the little cement room with walls completely devoid of life, I think back to the Cavern. It had Society all over it—in the tubes, the organization, the camouflaged doors. Even the crack in its shell, the secret way in that Hunter knew, was like the cracks in the Society. I remember other things. Dust in the corners of the Cavern. A tiny blue light on the floor burned out and unreplaced. Did the Society become overwhelmed by everything they have tried to control and hold?
I picture a hand letting go, drawing back, severing a connection, and the Rising coming in instead.
In the end, the Society decided that I wasn’t worth saving. My Official thought I was an interesting experiment; she let me skip taking the red tablet and she watched to see what I would do. I mistook her individual interest for Societal interest—I thought they might think I was special—but it seems I was never anything more to them than an excellent sorter, an interesting research project that could be dropped at any time because I would ultimately do what they predicted.