Three
My escorts pull me to a dark corner at the back of the stage where the video cameras can't follow us. The unfamiliar faces on stage blur past us. I need to find my family. My feet fall out from under me and the red-suited guards carry me under my arms down a short set of stairs and through open metal doors. I crane my neck back toward the stage, but we're moving too fast for my eyes to focus. My stomach reels; I'm going to be sick. I plant my feet, but lurch forward when the guards keep marching.
"Where are we going? Where are my parents?" Nothing but silence answers my pleas. The guards move forward without so much as a sideways glance my way. I squeeze my eyes shut. Bad idea. Behind my eyelids, the bright, flashing red lights of the Machine burn into my eyes.
I pull back again, using my limited body weight to stop our progress. The guards pause and loosen their grip on me. Yes, let's go back. I shouldn't be here. A heavy, gloved hand flies from my right and slaps my cheek. The crack of leather meeting skin echoes down the dimly lit hallway. I gasp out a choked cry. No one has ever slapped me before. Who would? The Cardinal's guards would. The truth of it reverberates around my head like another slap. The full realization of the situation is like another slap. I failed Acceptance. Slap. I've been Rejected. Slap.
"Stop, please stop! There's been a mistake." My words tumble out between ragged, sobbing breaths, but there is no one except the guards to hear my cries. Hallways whiz by me, but I can't make out any details through my heavy tears. I could disappear here and no one would ever know. I don't exist.
The silent guards open a door and march me outside into a narrow alley. Most of the dingy space is taken up by a bright-orange Airbus, "PIT Transport" printed along the side in large, black, block lettering.
"Collins, Rebecca," one of the guards barks out to a tall, wiry man standing next to the bus.
He gives a sharp nod, not even glancing up from his Noteboard.
My guards push me forward. I want to plead with the man with the Noteboard, explain to him there's been a mistake, but I can't talk through the thick sobs racking from deep in my chest. A hard shove from behind forces me up the stairs of the Airbus. I turn around, but the door slides shut in my face leaving me alone on a bus full of society's Rejects.
Most of the seats are already filled. Dozens of bloodshot eyes stare back at me, only no one is actually looking at me. Some of the Rejected teens are crying. My own sobs silenced the minute I stepped on the bus, though wet drops still slide down my face. A paralyzing fear has replaced all the other emotions that were swirling through me. Who on this bus is a future murderer, thief, or rapist? I curl into a ball on an empty seat near the front and stare out the small, round window. I can't look at the others who now share my fate.
The wiry man with the Noteboard steps inside and whispers to the Airbus controller. The packed bus powers to life and a soft hum fills the tense silence.
Noteboard man steps toward the first row, pushes his thick glasses farther up his nose and clears his throat. His eyes roam around the bus, pausing to look at each of us for a moment. His eyes meet mine and tell me everything I need to know. It doesn't matter what kind of person I was before today. Nothing I've done matters. As of right now, I'm a criminal.
"You are departing now for the Permanent Isolation Territory. Anyone unable to control themselves for the short trip will spend their first week of the PIT in Quarantine. I don't care what kind of misguided, barbaric lives you lived until today. The full strength of the Cardinal has its eye on you now."
He pushes his glasses back up his nose, steps down the stairs, and off the bus. The Airbus slides forward and I sink down lower into the seat. Outside the window, scenes of the city and the plush residential district of the capital flash by. We cross over the Great Dividing River and the landscape turns to flat farms. The bus picks up speed and the farms disappear, leaving a great expanse of trees too deep to see through. I have no idea where the PIT is and it doesn't really matter. None of the places flying past the Airbus exist for me anymore.
