“Almost done,” the woman whispers into my ear. I can’t see her. But I can feel her fingers as she touches the top of my earlobe. “Ready . . . set . . .”
I scream and buck against the restraints, trying to get away from the waves of agony that echo from my ear down my body. My stomach heaves as the wave of pain swallows my will to fight.
A tingly coolness of something wet against my ear soothes away the sharpest edges of pain. “Hang in there,” the woman says, patting my shoulder. “Almost done.”
I can only whimper in response.
Tears burn when someone prods my ears. I whimper again at the sting of something heavy pushing against the wound. Then there is a click. The hands let go, but the heaviness in the center of the aching remains. A trickle of warm runs down the side of my neck as someone passes some kind of electronic instrument to the official who is working on me. There are a series of beeps and the official says, “You can release her now.”
Through the haze of tears and pain, I register the fastenings being loosened. The Marshal pulls me out of the seat and the world tilts. My stomach churns. Something oily and hot snakes up my throat as one of the women from the station speaks to me, but the words swim out of reach. Something about pain medication kicking in soon and being fine as long as I don’t try to pull it out.
Pull what out?
My legs are uncertain as I follow the Marshal out of the space and down the dirty blue runner toward another opening in the concrete wall. Slowly, I lift my hand to gently touch my ear. There is something metal and plastic that wasn’t there before. But it takes until I catch my reflection in the polished chrome plate of a light sconce that I can tell what has been done to me.
My head spins. I blink several times, desperate to understand what I’m seeing. It looks like an ear cuff—one of those things that wraps around the outside of the earlobe, only instead of being able to clip it on and off, this one is riveted through the center of my upper ear. The edge of the cuff is deep red, but it is the markings on the front that makes me gag and fills my stomach with slick horror.
A series of black and white lines.
The device in my ear is a barcode.
I’ve been tagged.
Eight
That’s not me, I think as I stare at the barcode. This can’t be happening to me.
I want this to be a terrible nightmare that I’ll wake from. But the pain isn’t imagined. Neither is the line of blood that has trickled down my neck.
This isn’t a dream. It’s real.
A heartbreaking wail rips through the air.
And it isn’t just happening to me.
“If you rip it out, they’ll just put a different one on you—and that one won’t be nearly as pleasant,” Marshal Melissa says from behind me. “Now let’s go.”
Rip it out? My stomach roils at the thought of pulling out the ear cuff. My legs are uncertain as I shuffle next to Melissa down another cold, damp concrete corridor. There’s a line of doors to our left. A large Marshal with close-cropped brown hair is standing nearby. He looks bored despite the weeping leaking from behind one of the doors.
Marshal Melissa opens the middle door and motions for me to enter. “You’ll find a change of clothes on the table. You’re to put what you’re wearing now in one of the bins next to the door.”
I step into the threshold of the doorway and hesitate. “What happens to the clothes I’m wearing now? What do you do with them?”
She cocks her head to the side. “Why does it matter?”
It shouldn’t. All the clothes I cared about or fit my personality were packed up and carted away by the government weeks ago. But it does matter, which is why I say, “It matters because they’re mine.”
For a second the smug look she’s been wearing falters. There is a glimmer of something human in her eyes. Then she straightens her shoulders and says, “And now they aren’t, so you’d better get changed.”
She closes the door with a bang behind me and I stand, numb, in the small room with the same concrete floor and unpainted walls as the rest of the parking garage. The muffled sniffling of the woman next door bleeds through the pale gray drywall as I sink to the cold, unforgiving floor and gulp back my own tears. If I cry, I might not be able to stop, and I have to stay strong. I can’t give in to my fear.
I knew there was a risk in taking this step. I did it anyway. I told Atlas the risk was worth it. That the truth mattered enough to do whatever was necessary to make people open their eyes to it. But the reality of the cages—the barcode riveted in my ear—the weeping woman next door . . .
Stop!
I swipe at the stray tears that sneaked past my resolve and push to my feet. Freaking out will only make things worse. Atlas and Dewey will look for me, but that doesn’t mean I can just assume they will be able to stop the transport and set me free. I have to think. Observe every detail. Keep myself steady until I get out.
A single stingy light bulb swings over a square metal table with three items of clothing folded atop it and a pair of cheap, elastic booties like people wear in hospitals. I won’t be able to wear my shoes out of here.
Slowly, I remove my sneakers and feel inside the lining of the left one to check the carefully constructed pocket where the tracking device with its tiny built-in camera is located. It’s round, slightly larger than a quarter, and four times as thick. Small enough to hide uncomfortably in my shoe, but too large to use where people might notice.
Taking a deep breath, I slip the device out of its hiding place, turn the pinhole lens toward me, and press the camera button. That done, I have to find a place to stash the device in my new clothing or everything I’ve risked was for nothing.
The provided short-sleeve shirt is lightweight and looks if it was accidentally washed with a stray red sock, which gives the pale gray fabric a slightly pink cast.
Carefully, I pull my black shirt over my injured ear, use it to dab at the blood on the side of my face, and ease on the new top that is far too long and twice as wide. Which gives me an idea. I gather the access fabric and tie it at my waist, then slip the device into the thick knot. It’s not ideal, but after a couple of attempts I am able to move around with confidence that it can’t be seen and won’t accidentally fall out.
I pull on pants made of the same depressing color with a thick elastic waistband and wide cuffs at the bottom that I have to turn up to keep from tripping. Sitting down, I slide my feet into the thin-soled booties, then pick up the final item on the table. It’s a thin, slick black hooded jacket with Velcro and plastic snap fasteners. The lining of the jacket is a fuzzy material that I assume must make the garment warm in addition to waterproof. Something I’m grateful for in the musty chill.
The coat stretches to my mid-thigh. I cuff the wrists so my hands are exposed, but leave the front unfastened so the knot of my shirt can be accessed easily. Now that I’m completely dressed, I fold the shirt, jeans, and shoes I was wearing and walk toward the bins that flank the door. I flip open the lid of the first. The container is almost full. So is the second. I clutch my own clothes to my chest and open the next two. Both are packed with ripped jeans, collared dress shirts, high-heeled boots, and silk ties. I dig into the last one and find cargo shorts, high-top sneakers, and sports jerseys of both the Chicago Cubs and the White Sox, as well as expensive suit jackets piled on top of faded, hole-ridden T-shirts that stink from a lack of laundering. But it is the vibrant teal-and-lemon-yellow shirt I pull out of the pile that almost brings me to my knees. It is the same size shirt I would have worn when I was in fifth or sixth grade. Maybe even younger, I think as I run my fingers across the sparkly silver lettering across the front that spells out: “Believe!”