ADVANCED SEARCH  

Support WWEnd

WWEnd Blog

WWEnd BookTrackr™

Synopsis

After several months aboveground, Thalli had almost forgotten what living in the State was like. Programmed to be without emotions or curiosity, she was always an anomaly there. Too emotional. Too curious. Citizens of the State should behave exactly the way the Scientists designed them to behave: work in their assigned fields, maintain productivity.

Thalli's entire genetically engineered generation has been eradicated by a scientocracy that believes human life is expendable. Now a pawn in a mad game of manipulation, held hostage, and tortured in the name of the State, Thalli can barely summon the strength to hope that the future of humanity could be any better.

She clings to her new faith in the Designer. But when she discovers that even the few villages aboveground are in danger of State domination, that fragile faith begins to crumble.

As Thalli, Berk, and Alex make plans to overthrow the evil Dr. Loudin, a chilling secret explains why they have been left alive at all... a personal secret that will haunt Thalli forever. And as she struggles with this new truth, she also struggles with decisions of the heart.

Can the State's expansion be stopped? Or will humanity--above and below the surface--be irreparably damaged? Thalli is faced with a purpose both overwhelming and undeniable: to assume the role of a Revolutionary.

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

My head is pounding. Images and thoughts fly into my brain, but I cannot catch them, cannot make sense of them because my head hurts so badly. It feels like hundreds of needles are being shoved into my brain. In and out. In and out. I moan and find that my throat is dry. The sound barely passes through. It sounds more like a bassoon, played with too little air.

Needles. Needles. That image looms in my memory. White space. A needle. Dr. Williams. Loudin.

I gulp in a lungful of oxygen. Pure, filtered oxygen. I force my eyes open, and the pain in my head intensifies, followed by a dull ache in the recesses of my stomach. I am back in the State. In the Scientists' quarters. As my eyes adjust to the white walls, white floors, white bedding, the images floating in my brain begin to make sense. I was in New Hope. The Scientists came, they took Alex and Kristie and me back with them. Berk was yelling at them, demanding they release me or bring him. But they did neither. The door to the massive transport ... what did they call it? The aircraft. It shut, separating us. Then Dr. Williams plunged a needle in my neck.

How long ago was that? Hours? Days? I see a cup of water on the table beside my bed. The need for hydration overwhelms me, allowing me to forget for a moment the pounding in my skull. I push myself up on my elbows. I force myself to move slowly. The room is spinning even with this slight movement. But I need water.

I fall back on the bed. I cannot get up. I do not even have enough energy to reach the water. I will die of thirst. The pain in my head intensifies, and I squeeze my eyes shut in a futile attempt to lessen that pain.

"You're awake." The voice sounds like it is magnified a hundred times over. I close my eyes tighter, wishing it were my ears I could close. "You need to drink this."

The cup is at my lips, and I open them. The cool water seems to evaporate on my tongue before it can even reach my throat. I try to drink more, but the cup is pulled away.

"Just a few sips at first." He waits an agonizingly long time before returning the cup to my lips. I lean forward to get more of it, and the water spills down my chin, cascading down my neck.

The cup is pulled away, and I feel fingers on my wrist. I want to go to sleep. To wake up and be in my room back in New Hope, to find that this is all a bad dream. That I'm not in the State, that Dr. Loudin didn't bring us here, leave Berk and Rhen and Carey and all our other friends behind. But the pounding in my brain assures me this is reality. If I go to sleep, I'll just wake up here and start this agonizing process all over again. I ease open my eyes, wait for them to adjust. The blurry patches of white take shape. The man holding my wrist, checking my pulse, is Dr. James Turner.

John's son.

I look into his blue eyes--so like John's--and my heart aches even greater than my head. John is dead. I watched him die, held him as his life slipped away. If I had a father, I would want him to be just like John: kind, faithful, honorable. Everything his son, as one of The Ten, is not. Tears dry in my eyes as disgust takes over. How could this man have disregarded everything his father taught him? To reject the Designer I have come to love? Dr. Turner, as the head Geneticist, is responsible for the generations in the State, those of us created without real parents, created in his laboratory--after many tests failed--to be emotionless, unquestioning beings whose only purpose is to further the work of the State.

I was his mistake. I was born full of emotions, full of questions, full of doubts. An anomaly, I was scheduled for annihilation until Berk saved me, brought me here. Then John found me and taught me I was created by the Designer, loved by the Designer, given a purpose by him.

"You are not worthy of your father." John would not have wanted me to say this, but it is true. Dr. Turner's Adam's apple bobs. His fingers stop moving over his communications pad. His blue eyes stare into mine. My head hurts too much to analyze the emotions passing over his face.

He does not speak as he turns and leaves the room. The door clicks behind him, the sound intensifying the sensation of needles in my brain. I close my eyes again, exhausted, wanting to escape. I feel myself slipping into unconsciousness, where the first sight I see is Berk.

"Berk." I see him, but I can't reach him. He is on the hill in New Hope. His bright green eyes flash anger and hurt. Jealousy. He stands tall, rigid. His lips are full and firm, his square jaw tight, fists clenched. I try to run to him, but I cannot move.

"Thalli." Alex's voice pulls my eyes from Berk. I turn around, and Alex is there, a breath away. I look up into his face and see so much emotion in his blue eyes. For someone so physically strong, Alex seems weak, helpless. I pull him into my arms and let him cry, the way he cried after his father died.

"It's all right." I reach up to run my hand through his silky blond hair. "I'm here."

"No." Berk is yelling, but he is even farther now. Standing by the pond where John died, Berk's shouts are taken by the wind and blown away. I cannot understand what he is saying.

Alex is crushing me, his arms squeezing air from my lungs. I cannot breathe, cannot think, cannot move. Berk is still yelling. Alex is still crying. I shove myself from his grasp and fall ... and fall ... farther, deeper.

I gasp as I awake to the reality of the sterile room, of separation. My head feels better, but my heart is still heavy.

"Alex." He is here. The fog of sleep lifts, and I remember again that Alex and Kristie were on the aircraft with me. Brought back to the State. Why are we here? Dr. Loudin told the people of New Hope that he would be working with us, that New Hope and Athens and the State would be partners. But that is not true. Dr. Loudin did not work to create this underground State in order to share it with others. He did not push the button to destroy the earth forty years before so the few pockets of survivors could be part of the global leadership he wants to head. No, whatever his plans are, they do not include partnerships with the survivors.

I have to find Alex and Kristie, to escape. We need to get back to New Hope where we can talk with Berk and Carey and Dallas and Rhen. Together we can fight Loudin. Whatever he is planning, we can stop him. We must stop him.

I force my legs over the edge of the sleeping platform and close my eyes against the vertigo that movement brings. I cannot go back to sleep. I have to get up, to find my friends. I have to get out of here.

My legs feel like they will collapse beneath me. How long have I been on this sleeping platform? My muscles feel unused, shriveled up. I will myself to stand, one hand on the mattress so I remain steady. The door seems miles away. Like Berk in my dream, it appears to be moving farther from me. But this is no dream. I will put one foot in front of the other and I will reach the door.

I am grateful for the chair that sits by the wall, between the sleeping platform and the door. I take three unsteady steps to it and fall down, resting, breathing. Then I stand once again and reach the door in four steps. The door handle does not move. I push harder, lean my body against it, but it remains motionless.

Of course I am locked in. I am a prisoner. Abandoned. Alone.

I stumble back to the chair, refusing to lie back down, refusing to go back to sleep.

"Good afternoon, Thalli." Dr. Loudin's voice fills the room. I look to the wall screen and see him sitting in his laboratory, a thin-lipped smile on his face. The camera pulls back, and I see my friend beside him.

"Kristie!" I stand, falling toward the wall screen, touching, wishing I could break through it, reach Kristie.

"The medicine was a little stronger than we realized." Loudin's smile stays in place. His eyes look straight into the camera, appearing to bore right into my own eyes. "You have been out for three days."

Three days. "What are you doing? Where is Alex?"

Dr. Loudin is not looking at me anymore. An eyebrow raised, he is facing Kristie. "You see? She is alive and well."

"She is not well." Kristie's voice is tight, strained. She is staring at me with a pained expression. I must look terrible.

"Do not forget our agreement." His smile is gone.

"You said she would not be harmed."

"I said she would not be killed." Loudin looks beyond the camera and holds up one finger.

"No!" Kristie is standing, terror on her face.

"Do what I ask."

"Let her go." Tears well up in her eyes.

Suddenly an electric shock races through my body. I feel like every nerve is on fire. I am screaming, falling to the ground. I curl up and want to pass out, but I do not, and the pain increases. I hear voices, but I cannot make out the words. The pain is too awful.

Then it stops. I can only moan and maintain my position on the floor, feeling the effects of the shock still, fearing more.

"Do what I ask."

Kristie is sobbing, her breath ragged. I am losing consciousness. I feel myself being pulled under. In the moment before I surrender to the darkness, Kristie whispers, "I will."

CHAPTER 2

Sleep. All I want to do is sleep. Waking is horrific. Loudin always appears, Kristie behind him. He doesn't always shock me, but the threat is there. I know Loudin is using me to make Kristie do what he wants--likely repairing the oxygen-filtration system in the State. I should be strong, tell her to resist. What Loudin wants cannot be good, and if Kristie assists him, he will achieve that goal even sooner. Then he will annihilate her. And me.

I know all of this. But the pain is greater than that knowledge so I remain silent. I try to pray--praying I can escape, find Kristie and Alex, stop Loudin, return to the peace and safety of New Hope. But my prayers seem to hit the ceiling of this pod and bounce right back. My head falls onto the mattress. Where is the Designer? I tried to do what he asked. I believed that truth sets us free, believed that I can walk through the valley of the shadow of death, believed that I can do all things through him. And how has he responded to that belief?

With silence.

So I close my eyes and sleep. Again.

Berk is always there, in my dreams. He is waiting for me, smiling this time. He sits by the pond in New Hope, food on a cloth beside him. A picnic. We had one of those here, in the State, before. Before we escaped and found New Hope. Before I traveled to Athens, met Alex. Before everything changed.

A harsh sound shakes me from my dream. I bolt up in bed. Too fast. My head pounds. I look at the wall screen, but Loudin is not there. It's blank. I release a breath. James Turner walks in the door, moving slowly. Bile rises to my throat. Seeing him reminds me of how he forced his own father to remain locked away down in the bowels of the State for forty years. Unable to actually annihilate John, James forced the old man to live alone, allowed to speak only to those scheduled to be annihilated. John was the best man I have ever known. James, then, is the worst.

"Thalli." His voice is not like John's. John's voice was like a cello--soothing, calming, deep and smooth. James's voice is high, forced, like too much air being blown through a muted trumpet. Other than his eyes, he looks nothing like his father. James is thin. Sickeningly thin, all sharp angles. His cheekbones seem like they could pierce his skin, his nose rises above thin lips, sharp and pointy. The white pants and shirt hang on his frame, sleeves too short, neck too large. "You are awake."

"Astute observation, Dr. Turner." No need to be kind. Not to him. He doesn't deserve it. A tiny pinprick of guilt lights in my stomach, but I ignore it, quench it. This is James Turner. He deserves no mercy.

"I understand how you may feel about me." He moves closer. Wrinkles crinkle around his mouth, bags droop under his eyes. He looks like a sheet of ancient music that has been crumpled and straightened back out.

I sit up straighter. "You are a murderous, heartless tyrant."

"I am." James has neither remorse nor pride in his voice. Just resignation. I do not know how to respond to that.

"Why are you here?" I grab the glass of water at my bedside, sipping slowly so my eyes can remain on James. "More torture?"

"No." He takes another step toward me. I scoot back, pull the bedclothes tighter. "I want to talk about my father."

My throat feels like it will close in on itself. I set down the glass and take a deep breath, forcing my lungs to inhale. He wants to talk about John? After keeping him prisoner for forty years? Leaving him alone to grieve? To live? James's eyes are sad, shoulders slumped. If I did not know what weighed him down, I might feel sorry for him. But it is right for him to feel that way. What he has done--the things I know of, anyway--are disgusting.

"Please." He stays where he is, his head down.

"You had decades to talk to your father." I think of John in his solitary room, on his knees. Praying, very likely, for James. "Seventy years in total. And you squandered them."

James pulls the chair from the side of the room and falls into it, as if the weight of his stick-like body is more than he can bear.

"You had a father, one who loved you so deeply. And yet you created generations of us with no father. No mother. No feelings."

The look that passes over James's face is puzzling. I see guilt, but something else, something even deeper than that. I do not have time to analyze that look because my anger at what James has done bubbles over, spilling out, and I cannot stop it.

"You discarded what you were given, threw John's love in his face. You abandoned him."

James's Adam's apple bobs in his narrow throat. His eyes glisten. I am glad. He should feel pain for what he has done. But then I think of John, of who he was, what he taught me. He loved his son, and he would be disappointed at the way I am acting. He prayed for this man, longed to see him know truth. Am I now to be the answer to that prayer?

God, you stay silent, then ask this of me? I cannot think of anything I would like to do less than offer grace to James Turner, give truth to one of the men who raised me on lies. But if I refuse, am I any better than him?

"What do you want to know?"

CHAPTER 3

You have about twenty minutes before they discover this door is unlocked." James taps a code on the outside of my room and then turns to walk down the hall.

I release a sigh. Talking about John depleted the little energy I had. My head aches and my body feels as if it weighs three hundred pounds. But I have an open door and twenty minutes. I throw my legs over the side of the sleeping platform and lean my head into my hands to stop the spinning. I drink the last of the water from my glass. I stand. Slowly. I am nauseous, dizzy, weak. But Alex is here somewhere. Kristie is here. I do not know what is being done to them, but I know it is not good. We must reunite and escape. Right now, I am their best hope for that.

I force my legs to move, to walk, willing my unused muscles to wake up. I focus on the door, then the hallway. I look in each room. They have people in them, working. From their appearance, I would guess it is those from Pod B, the generation ahead of ours. If they notice me, they do not acknowledge it. They are focused on communications pads, tapping commands, completing tasks. I pass the final door and am stopped in my tracks. I go back.

The woman in this room looks very much like me. Just older. Though her hair is just above her shoulders and mine hangs halfway down my back, it is the same brownish blond, thick with waves, just like mine. She looks up from her communications pad, and my own eyes look back at me. My heart beats faster. Hers are as wide as I'm sure mine are--blue-green, framed with dark eyelashes.

But, unlike me, there is no curiosity in her eyes. They widened, I realize, not out of surprise, but because she needed to adjust her vision from the up-close interaction with her pad and the faraway interaction with me. She looked up just because movement caught her eye. She returns now to her work.

After months in New Hope and Athens, I have forgotten what people in the State are like, what "normal" is here. Programmed to be without emotions or curiosity, I was an anomaly. This woman behaved exactly the way the Scientists--James Turner--designed her to behave: working in her assigned field in order to maintain productivity in the State.

Copyright © 2014 by Krista McGee

Reviews

There are currently no reviews for this novel. Be the first to submit one! You must be logged in to submit a review in the BookTrackr section above.

Images

No alternate cover images currently exist for this novel.