A Song of Silence

Chapter 17

Callisto

Earlier

"Hey."

I recognize the voice as Astrid's before I even look up to see her. "Hey."

"Congratulations on getting apprenticed to the vaccine scientist. Dr. Alaina Everett." Is that jealousy I hear in her voice? I'd happily trade with her if I could. Anything not to blow my cover. I hate her, even though I only just learned her name. Dr. Alaina Everett.

"Thanks." The word is small and meaningless, especially with so little energy or enthusiasm behind it. "And congratulations on getting apprenticed to the, um..." I've already started, but by the time that I've gotten to the end, I realize that I have no idea what I was going to say next. After all, I didn't look at her name, as she must have looked at mine.

"Hayden Verrill, executioner." Her tone is passive and emotionless, a wall that I struggle to see behind. I take it back about trading. That's got to be the worst one.

"Oh," is all I can manage. Maybe some pity creeps in, but I try to disguise it and draw attention away from it by shoving a spoonful of potatoes into my mouth.

Her face turns pensive as she eats as well, and neither of us have anything more to offer until she speaks up again.

"Training starts on Monday, then?"
I swallow a little too fast at the reminder and have to force myself not to cough. Like I don't know that already. Like I haven't been overthinking it, wondering who would be my next source of misery until I figured it out this morning. Now all I'll be able to do is try and calculate how to hide it. If they were to figure out that I'm immune, they might tweak it so I would succumb to it like the rest of them.

I try to keep my face blank as I tell her, "I suppose it does. It's all happening so soon. I can hardly believe it's real." I hope that has enough of a positive connotation to keep her from asking me anything more.

I surprise myself by kindling the fire of the conversation when my curiosity, the same curiosity that has been stolen from them, gets the better of me. "Do you think there's a reason they assigned us to each mentor?" I've been dying to figure out why they put me with the vaccine scientist. Was it pure chance, or do they happen to suspect something more?

"There could be," she says after a few moments of thought. There could be. It's not a guarantee either way. "But who are we to question them and their decisions?"

There it is again. Coming back to the central idea that we can't even so much as think for ourselves, and that they are at the center of everything. They expect to be obeyed. They expect it all from us, and they don't give anything back. They say they do, but they don't. All this leads back to one phrase that is rooted in the same question that asks the opposite, that contradicts what they want us to be:

"Who are we?"

***

Tick, tock, goes the clock above. History class.

Tick, tock. It is not Mr. Amery today, but instead the one who does the Pouring. The one who lets no emotion peek through his face, and the one who does not smile. It might not seem notable, but it is, especially so in a world where teachers are hardly ever absent, if only for the most important of events, and everyone is meant to be smiling. I suppose maybe they don't care for the officials, as they would have been tested and trusted. Perhaps they are not even under the control of the Imperium at all and are only acting of their own accord. Is there a way for them to turn off the control once one has received it?

I must not think like this. It is too dangerous. Even if I had the means, the opportunity to switch it off, I could not risk it. Besides, they are happy like this, or so they seem to be. They are happy to not have to worry like I do. "Ignorance is bliss." A phrase from a long time ago, before anyone could even fathom the beginnings of the New Era, yet still applicable to this day.

Is it really better to live your whole life being sheltered and coddled with no risks, or would you rather know but have to face the truth, the reality? Choosing the first would be a selfish decision, but I cannot claim that I'm not guilty of wishing that I didn't have to think every word through carefully and explore the hazards and what ripple effect it could bring. I cannot say that I have never before wanted to live that life that every mother wants to give her child.

Creaking jolts me from the spiraling staircase that leads down, down, down into the depths of my mind, and it's worse when I resurface than it would have been. Once when I was younger, the happiest day of my life, my parents took me to a nearby beach for my birthday on the twenty first of June. It was pure bliss to lie in the sun and build castles in the sand and splash in the water like I imagine any normal child with parents that cared would. That feeling of resurfacing from the water was like the sound, a grapple that pulled me out. It was magical to come out from beneath the waves, but the breeze soon left me shivering as I emerged. And now, I realize, I have gone straight down the path I was trying to prevent myself from taking once again.

"You're late," this test administrator tells the boy who has only just arrived. His dirty blond hair is scraggly and sticks out in every direction, and his eyes widen as he notices that it is not the kind, forgiving Mr. Amery that he is used to, but instead the administrator of the famous test.

"Where's Mr. Amery?" he asks. Already I am convinced that this is a mistake; one of the unspoken rules that we all have learned from young is not to ask questions – a rule that is even more important around officials.

—DON'T STAND OUT DON'T SPEAK UP STAY QUIET BE WHO THEY WANT YOU TO BE—

Don't ask questions about them, don't question them, don't disrespect them, don't disobey them, don't speak out, and you will be fine. Probably.

You can tell from the substitute's narrowed eyes that this will not be taken lightly, unlike how Ms. Hendrix excused me earlier. I got off easy then. But with such an important official like this? Such a question could cost him his success in the future, something he clearly did not think through completely.

"Would you like to repeat that for the class?" The tone that our "teacher" uses is accusatory yet with a certain sly curiosity that yearns to see how he will react.

"N-no," the boy mutters, dropping his gaze to the floor. "I didn't mean any disrespect."

"So then you will not object to your punishment?"

This is where the true peril is for him. If he objects, he will likely be killed. If he doesn't, then he could be killed in the case of an extreme punishment for lateness and "disrespect". That's not much of a choice either way.

"No. I mean, I will not object," he stammers tentatively, nervously looking from side to side as we all sat by and watched, each one of us aware that if we were to step up, we would be punished right alongside him.

"Speak up, boy. And speak clearly."

"I do not object," he repeats, louder this time.

"Good. Then you will not complain when I tell you that you will spend your afternoon with me, is that correct?"

He pales, the blood draining from his lips, but beyond all odds, he can force the word from his mouth.

"Correct."