Caged

8 - Tunnels

I don’t quite remember the ride back from our brief visit with the Panel.  The disappointed and confused murmurs are all a blur to me.  I don’t even remember going back up to my room and crashing onto my bed.  I guess my sleep deprivation caught up with me.

As I rub the crust from my eyes, pieces of yesterday weave themselves together.

A figure in the corner moves, and my heart halts.

“Are you awake, Velvet?” the figure asks.  She’s a women holding a cup of coffee, standing next to the curtains that glow with the sun they must hold back.  Even from here, I can tell her eyes are ice-white, like mine, and the familiarity makes me decide that she’s no threat to my safety.

Yet I’m still hesitant.  “Are you a Member?”

She shakes her head.  “My name is Carissa.  I’m your Listener.  I’m the one who observes the audio provided by the microphones in your collars.”

“Oh,” I say.  She’s the one invading my conversations.

“I’m also,” Carissa says as she walks towards me, “by default now, an expert on you.  If you ever need a second opinion on anything during your time here, you are more than welcome to ask the only other person who also knows most everything there is to know about you.”  She stops a few feet away from me, a careful distance, like someone who doesn’t want to get too close to a beast for they might bite.

Carissa extends the hand holding the mug.  “Coffee?  Black, just like how you like it.”

“How did you know that?” I ask.  As far as I know, I haven’t had any black coffee at all in Kettle, or said anything about it.  The only coffee I had was some of Atlas’, which was overly creamed and sugared.

“Your parents told me,” Carissa answers confidently.  “I got an interview with all of your loved ones, and people close to you.”

“Like who?”  I try not to sound too curious, but it’s hard not to.

Carissa considers the names before saying each.  “Your parents, your brother, Copious.  Your sister . . . Glara.  A couple of people from your school.”

“Who were they?” I ask too eagerly.

“A fellow Member, Dalton––”

“What?  What did he say?”

Carissa smiles, looking just past me at the wall behind me.  “He didn’t know any of your little quirks.  He just knew that you are the year below him and that from Testing he thinks you’re clever, perhaps deceptively clever.  And motherly.”

I’ll take that, despite its negative connotation.  There must be a way I can twist the deceptively clever part to make it sound like more of a compliment later.  “Who else?”

I can tell Carissa knows this amuses me, and she continues for me.  “A girl, I forgot her name.  Something like Laura or Laurel.  Some of your teachers.  A boy named Gregan.”

I can feel my blood chill.  “Gregan?”

Carissa nods carefully, and I know instantly that he must’ve told her the infamous story, and this is something of a holy ground for me.

“What did he look like when you were talking to him?” I ask suddenly.  I’m not exactly sure why, too.  Perhaps he didn’t say anything mean about me, or maybe didn’t tell the story at all, but the look on his face must’ve said more than his words.  Maybe.

“I don’t know,” Carissa says, pointing at her eyes.  “I couldn’t see him.”

I put my hand over my mouth.  “Are you––”