The Experimental Cosmos

13. What Lies Beneath The Surface

It's been months since Astha's revelation and since I found my mom's truth. My reality and my world both changed that day, and I have realised that we all are walking on thin ice in this world, and that nobody is safe.

My classes have actually been going pretty smoothly, except for the Language class-
Ms. Catherine Lodge, our English teacher, distrusts and mentally tortures every student that walks into her class so that they may slip up and tell her things that would otherwise stay hidden.

It says on her profile in the headquarters that she used to work as a translator for the government, but almost every initiate thinks that she used to be and maybe still is, a lot more than that for the Central.

The seven of us sit in the dining hall for breakfast, our plates filled with fruit, when suddenly Catherine Lodge marches into the hall, a strange man in a dark blue suit close on her heels.

We all watch as she makes her way to her table and roughly asks Astha to follow her for a questioning.

It is then that I notice the logo of the Central on the man's suit, and for a moment I forget to breathe.

I am suddenly aware of Lodge's eyes in me, and I feign a calm composure, but it is too late, because she has already caught my expression, and she gestures to the man, who asks me to come to the questioning too.

As we exit the dining hall, I look back at Jay, and our eyes lock, and he manages to reassure me in a second that we can do this.

Astha and I are separated and taken into separate rooms for questioning.

I am made to sit in a metal chair with lie detectors connected to me. Catherine Lodge walks up with a syringe in her hand and pushes my head to the side to get a clear look at my neck.

"Sodium Pentothal" she says in a steely voice as she plunges the needle in without a warning.

Oh boy, this is NOT going to be sweet.

The strange man sits in front of me and for the first time, I get a good look at him.

His face has hard lines on it, with a premanent frown etched between his eyebrows.

His jaw is set hard and he is so clean shaven that he looks cruel, and then his cold and demanding eyes meet mine.

"My name is Christian Heights. This is a questioning by the Central. The purpose of this questioning is to keep you and everyone else safe, and it would do you good to cooperate. You get that?"

"Yes sir" I say, light under the influence of the truth serum.

"Has your friend Astha ever said or did anything that was against the policies of the government?"

Well, the Central has never openly declared the Abstruse to be criminals, so this should be smooth.

"No sir."

The lie detector shines with a green light.

He looks hard at me for a moment, then gives a half nod and asks the next question.

"Has your friend Astha ever told you to hide a secret for her?"

My heart rate spikes, and I force my mind to get it back down.

Half truths are not easy to detect.

"We all share our secrets with our girl gang, sir. It helps us get through tough time and helps us love ourselves."

I give the most social media influencer answer I can think of.

The lie detector takes a moment to decide, but then it turns green again, and I almost faint with relief.

Then Lodge steps in. And I know that I can no longer pretend to be an innocent student.

"Nebula. In name of the Central and the Reticence I ask you to speak the truth. Is Astha Abstruse?"

I know now that I cannot say any half truth about this, because there is none.

So I have to keep quiet and resist the truth serum, because the moment I open my mouth, Astha's secret comes out.

So I do just that. I force my heart rate back down and just stare at my two interrogaters, tight-lipped, managing to resist the serum.

Catherine Lodge, however, is getting increasingly agitated and she walks up to me and injects another dose of Sodium Pentothal in me without warning.

I suddenly feel my nerves go slack, and the truth slowly trying to coax its way out of my sweat-lined lips, but I jolt awake from the impact of the drug and stretch my nerves to their limit, gripping the sharp metal edges of the chair with all my might, just hoping that the pain will keep me awake.

When they see I am still not yielding, crazy Lodge fills up one more dose, but Christian stops her, the legal limit of the drug already surpassed.

"We can't hurt her. That is against the law." he says, and I almost breathe a sigh of relief, but then crazy Lodge says,

"WE can't"

And she opens the door an inch and gestures to a figure to come inside. My insides clench with fear, bile rising up my throat, but I am even more shocked when the figure comes inside.

A purple hood is thrown back to reveal the sharp and ever so familiar features of Bella, a knife glinting in her hand.

"I implore you in the name of the government to tell the truth. Or you WILL face the consequences."

My mouth has gone dry, but my courage will never break, and I stay silent.

She gestures to Bella, who slowly comes behind me and holds the tip of the knife to my throat. When I still don't say anything, Christian gives her a nod, and she lightly slices along my neck.

I feel the warm blood, but I never feel the sting of the blade, and I look down in confusion at my neck.

The blood shows I am wounded, but then I realise that the blood is not mine.

Bella made a show of sliding the knife across my neck, but the thing she actually wounded is her own finger.

Before I can process this, however, Bella suddenly rounds in front of me and slaps me hard enough to draw blood from the edge of my mouth.

Suddenly, the door is thrown open and Ms. Maya comes in, taking in the scene before her.

She demands in simple sentence to release me immediately, and there is a visible struggle of power, but eventually the man takes off the lie detector and steps back to let me go.

I give Ms. Maya a grateful nod and she gives me a sympathetic look, and I hurry out of the room, Bella close behind me.

I quickly walk the other way, I am not strong enough to take her right now.

Some time later, I sit in my dorm, as Jay brings ice for my swollen lip and bandages for my palms which were sliced open by the metal edges of the chair.

He gently cleans my wounds and wraps my hands up, and then he brings the ice pack up to my lips.

The sudden cold sends a jolt through me, and I close my eyes, but that brings back memories of the interrogation, so I force them open again.

My lip is numb from the cold, and then Jay retracts the ice pack and places his fingers on my mouth, warming the too cold parts of my lips.

I gasp and a strangled sob escapes me, my fear and sorrow finally free to reveal itself, and I collapse in his arms.

Almost an hour later Astha walks into the dorm, shaken but unharmed, her secret safe for now.

At night when we return from the dining hall, Astha gets a call from her parents.

Her uncle has been shipped off to the Futuristic, proved an Abstruse.

And we finally realise how small our hold on the reality and our power on the world is.