Authors: Abigail Collins
Instead, she takes me to the train station, and I board a train for the first time in my life.
Chapter eleven
I would be excited if I wasn’t so terrified.
There are mostly Digits aboard the train, but I notice that a few of them, like Tesla, appear to be toting human cargo. There are about half a dozen people standing beside their captors with varying degrees of confusion and fear on their faces. I notice that they are all young, like me; not a single one of them appears to be a day older than eighteen.
There’s one other girl, with long blonde hair tied into braids on either side of her head and a dress that’s dirty and torn in several places. She’s facing the ground, and judging from her size I would guess she’s only somewhere around fourteen years old, if that.
I look around, taking in all of the frightened faces and wondering if mine looks the same. There’s a boy who’s probably a year or so younger than the girl who looks like he’s going to throw up at any moment. He’s probably the youngest; he’s definitely the smallest and the most fearful-looking.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is a boy, around seventeen or eighteen years old and clearly the oldest of the group. He’s at least a foot taller than I am, and probably triple my weight, though it’s kind of hard to tell since he’s sitting in a wheelchair. That surprises me; I haven’t seen a lot of physically disabled people in my life. I wonder what he does with his time when he’s not in school. Obviously he can’t work in the fields or do any of the manual labor jobs that most young men do.
His hair is light brown and cut so short it’s hard to see that he even has any, but his eyes are a dark green that’s
very
noticeable. Especially since they’re staring right at me.
He smiles when he sees that I’ve noticed him watching me and waves, and I wave back tersely even though I don’t really want to. I guess since we’re all going to the same place, we might as well not hate each other right away. I’ll save that for later, once I figure out
where
exactly it is we’re going.
Besides the Digits either staring down at or physically holding onto the children in their charges, there are also quite a few other Digits stationed at various points along the inside of the train. They all have at least one hand with a gun held tightly in it, and some have both. I’m guessing they’re here to make sure that none of us leave. Where would we go, anyway?
We could just jump off of the train. We’d probably die, but who knows? Maybe we’re going to die anyway, once we reach our destination.
I wish they’d at least give us something to do while we wait. There are chairs lined up on either side of the room, but nobody dares try to sit in one. I wish I was brave enough, because my legs are starting to get stiff from standing for so long. And there aren’t any games to play or books to read, and nobody is talking, so the only sounds are the bumping of the train along its tracks and my own heart beating loud in my ears.
I entertain myself for a little while by making faces at the boy in the wheelchair, and he does the same back to me. At one point, he sticks his index fingers in his nostrils and his thumbs in his mouth and I have to bite down on my lip to keep from laughing. Apparently the face I make while doing so is entertaining, because the boy lets out a sharp burst of
giggles
that earns him a swat on the arm from his Digit companion and a few angry guns aimed in his direction. And a few smiles from the other children, the widest of all from me.
After a couple of hours and several more reprimands from our captors, the train screeches to a halt. The boy in the wheelchair catches my eye one more time and gives me a thumbs-up. I return the gesture and wonder if we’ll ever see each other again. I hope so.
Outside of the train, my feet touch down on the ground of a place that I do not recognize. I’m definitely not in the same city I grew up in, and maybe not even the same Division. The more I look around, the more differences I see between this new place and my home.
The first things I notice are the buildings. There are no houses and no stores; instead, there is a large fence that surrounds the town, stretching out so far in each direction that I cannot see the corners from where I’m standing. Tesla and the other Digits lead their human cargo through the front gate, and the Digits with the hand-guns stay behind to keep guard. One of them locks the gate behind us, and I suddenly feel very claustrophobic, even though the space inside of the fence is as large as an entire city.
The buildings on the interior of the fence look more like prisons than homes. There are several small cabin-like structures along the perimeter, and they would look a lot more welcoming if they weren’t all identical; they’re each a muddy brown color with one level, one door, and two windows. As we pass, I notice that a couple of them have people inside, but I can’t get close enough to see what they’re doing.
The rows of cabins branch off into a single column of larger buildings, each similar in design to the one Cyrus took me to for interrogation, and in the very center is one structure that towers over them all. It’s the only building that isn’t brown; instead, it’s an off-putting shade of red that looks far too much like blood for my liking. So of course, as luck would have it, this is the place that the Digits choose to lead us into.
Inside, the building looks bigger and more intimidating than it did from a distance. The ceiling is high and the walls are all painted a pale yellow color that clashes horrendously with the red tile floor. There are rooms branching off on either side of the hallway, with a long, winding staircase down the center leading to the upper levels. The boy in the wheelchair smiles nervously at me as we pass each other and are led in opposite directions by our guardians.
Tesla grips me by the sleeve of my shirt and pushes me into one of the rooms off of the main floor. The door is closed but not locked, and it slides open without a sound. We are alone in here, with just two chairs, a desk, and a metal table surrounding us.
This room looks a lot like a doctor’s office; except I’m not sick. At least, I don’t think I am.
As soon as I hear the click of the door closing behind us, I wrench my arm out of her grasp and take a step back. She frowns at me for a second before rolling her eyes and turning away from me, busying herself with something in the top drawer of the desk that I cannot see from where I’m standing.
“Where are we?” I ask, my voice getting louder with each word. “Why did you bring me here?”
Tesla pulls a couple of items out of the drawer and sets them on top of the desk. One of them looks kind of like a syringe, but instead of a vial full of medicine, there is a small black box in the center.
“The results from our scanner indicated that you were telling the truth,” Tesla says, ignoring my questions completely, “when you said that you didn’t know anything about the circumstances surrounding your mother’s death.”
I’m glad her back is turned, because I’ve always had trouble with my facial expressions giving away more than I want them to. Right now, if Tesla were to look at me, she would see that I know more about the deaths of my parents than I did when she first tried to pick the information out of my brain.
“You scanned me? That’s what you were doing?”
“We had to. The cause of your mother’s death is as much our concern as it is yours. We are just as invested in finding her killer as you are.”
“So you didn’t…. I mean…” I wish I could just glue my mouth shut sometimes, because everything I try to say lately seems to come out wrong. I stop myself before I can further offend the woman who has my life in her hands right now.
Tesla pulls another piece of the syringe out of the drawer and connects it to the first. It attaches to the end, and looks like a thicker, shorter version of a typical needle.
“No, we didn’t kill your mother. And we didn’t take your father’s body. How can I make that any easier for you to understand?”
I’m trying really hard not to lose my temper, but the way she’s talking to me makes my pulse pound.
“Well, sorry for not believing you after you tortured my friends, threatened to kill my brother, and
kidnapped
me!”
My tone of voice alone should be enough to provoke Tesla, or at least agitate her, but she just shrugs her shoulders and finishes assembling her machine – or whatever it is. After she attaches the last piece she sets it down and rests her hands on the edges of the desk, but she doesn’t turn around to face me.
“What else was I supposed to do to get you to come here? Would you have accompanied me if I’d simply
asked nicely
?”
“Well… n-no, but it’s obvious why!” I say. My head feels like it’s splitting in two, and my heartbeat is so loud in my ears that I can barely hear myself speaking. “You’ve hated me since we met. You think I would
trust
you to just take me away without even knowing where we’re going or why?”
“Distrust and hatred are not the same thing. And I think, given your opinion of my race, my lack of trust in you is more than warranted.”
Of course
. She picked my brain. She must know
exactly
how I feel about her and the other Digits. Great. I’ve just made myself another enemy.
“So then, we both have trust issues. But
why
am I here?”
Tesla finally turns and looks me in the eye. She doesn’t look upset, just… serious. Concentrated. Composed.
“You’re here because you and I have something in common. I’ll help you if you help me. We both stand to benefit from this.”
“Benefit from… what, exactly?”
“Finding out who murdered your mother, and making them pay for it.”
Suddenly, I am having trouble catching my breath. I want to say something, but my lungs feel like they’re deflated and my mouth just opens and closes silently. Tesla smirks and speaks for me.
“You’re going to be staying here for a while,” she says. “You will be taught everything you need to know, and when you are ready, I will tell you what
I
know about your mother’s murder. But not until I choose to tell you. I need to be certain you’ll cooperate, and not just run away after you get the information you want.”
“And…” I begin, finally finding my voice. “And in return? What do you want me to do?”
“Think of it as myself being the brain, and you the brawn. I’ll handle the decision-making process, and you will do whatever it takes to carry out the results of those decisions. Including the punishments of the people who destroyed your family. Once we find them, I’ll let you do whatever you want with them.”
My mouth feels dry, and even if I could think of something to say, I don’t think it would come out as more than a hoarse whimper.
Tesla doesn’t wait for me to talk this time. Instead, she asks, “Are we in agreement?”
Part of me wants to say ‘no’, because she’s a Digit, and because I still don’t trust her. I have no way of knowing whether she’s telling me the truth or not – for all I know,
she
killed my parents and is just trying to push the blame off on someone else. But I don’t really have much of a choice, since I still don’t know where I am and I have no way of getting home. Plus, just the possibility of getting revenge for the murders of my parents is enough to make my decision for me.
I nod mutely, and Tesla’s grin widens.
“Perfect,” she says, reaching behind her and taking hold of the syringe she was putting together earlier. She holds it up, and the hollow needle on its tip glints in the light. “Now, all I need you to do is turn around, and we’ll make this official, shall we?”