“Now, Maxence, would you like to start this conference?” An official hands me the microphone. My trembling fingers grip the base of the black contraption, lined with blue light. My thumb runs over the cord.
Flashing lights lash across my vision. The archaic chirps of shutters opening and closing— they vocalize the moments they capture my shock. The spotlight never bothered me before. Now I feel my jaw clench under the attention. My breaths become more desperate, like the air is leaking from my lungs.
All these people expect me to explain why all my friends disappeared.
This stage is decorated elaborately, as always for any kind of public event. Renovatio went for a mostly blue theme this time; the color makes me woozy.
People fill the lobby. Of course it’s full— I’m speaking in it. I’m the star of this building. The celebrity they write about most. The one they supply with everything I need to craft projects that help rebuild the world.
Flooding and redistribution of people— something even a century hasn’t been able to fix since the climate acceleration. New problems in government, housing, structures, and environment. I, like many other engineers, am recruited to fix it.
But I can’t fix everything. I broke my own life less than a week ago; can I really continue acting like I can help other people if I can’t even help myself?
Renovatio drafted an address for me to say now. About my friends receiving opportunities elsewhere, and that’s why they all left suddenly. Without saying goodbye. Years before they were supposed to graduate Renovatio.
I pluck at my vocal cords, desperately hoping that there’s some idea hiding there. A strangled grunt reverberates through the microphone instead. Silence ripples through the audience, giving space for me to speak.
There’s that awkward pause after my noise. In the past, I would’ve immediately come up with something witty about me being nervous or having talked myself hoarse for my friends’ ears this morning.
My eyes dart to the sides of the room. Renovatio officials line the walls. I can’t escape them. I can’t escape this place. Even when I asked yesterday, they wouldn’t let me leave the building for a break. What am I— their prisoner? I thought they were supposed to help me fix the world. I trusted them.
The images from my nightmares flash through my head. Officials wrestling my friends to the ground and shoving black pills down their throats. My friends frothing at the mouth, collapsing as their muscles twitched until they couldn’t move anymore.
Alex was the only one who got away. His expression reflected my pain as he screeched the truck out of the building. I don’t see him here. I had hoped he’d somehow be in the audience— actually there, not as some figment of my mind. But then he’d be a prisoner too. All we wanted was to leave the building for a little while without Renovatio knowing.
I used to think this was a place of opportunity. They’re making me lie about what they did. And if I try to resist, they’ve got more black pills. I learned that they have a whole floor of that stuff. Drugs that control people, even to the point of ordering a body to die with a single, small pill.
And that isn’t even the worst one.
They gave me the blue pill before this press conference.
My mouth curls into a smile. “Well, what a dramatic pause, am I right?” I receive some light chuckles. “So, I’m betting you want to get to the mechanical elephant in the room. The quick travels my friends made! I want to see them again too. So, let’s call them up, shall we? Officials, can you ring up Annie?”
My shoulders shift stiffly. It’s enough for me to see the screen behind me. My smile flickers as the computer-generated video of Annie appears. She beams. “Hey, Maxence— it hasn’t even been a week! Did you miss me that much?”
The accurate voice smacks my chest. My troubles with breathing don’t seem to be over.
My voice lilts and my eyes roll toward the audience. “I just thought you might want to let us know how you’ve been doing. What, you got some engineering deal in the Argentinian region and you didn’t let me visit for a few days?”
My voice goes back and forth with the computer-generated video. I remember every word and inflection in my voice that must be included. Creating Renovatio’s perfect version of me in this idealized situation.
I really thought I could trust Renovatio— they took me in and gave me the means to change the world. All the adults seemed supportive, especially in helping me learn here.
Betrayal has swarmed my mind the past few days, but my first emotional overload was sourced in anger. In those first moments of pain, after I couldn’t revive my friends. When I ordered the technology in the self-tying neckties to clasp around their necks relentlessly. I killed the officials who killed my friends, but it didn’t fix anything.
I feel a stinging develop in my eyes. My eyes, however, refuse to cry.
I can’t even cry if I want to?
They tried feeding me the green pill, which distorts memory. But my nightmares kept showing me my friends’ last moments. They tried feeding me the purple pill, which knocks people unconscious. It only made my life worse.
And now, the blue pill is their dominant method. The one that makes the subject do whatever they’re told. For example, leading a press conference without breaking down.
The makeup they put on me hides the purple beneath my eyes, and the blemishes from injections in my arms— signs of their efforts to control me when my mouth would bite their fingers too hard. The clothes they put on me make me look less thin, as if I’m still eating healthily. They started sticking crushed pills in my food. I need to learn to cook my own meals.
As my mouth takes the lead over my mind, answering questions from the audience, I notice the dark hair. Short stature, especially in comparison to the adults in the audience. Her face. It’s the same.
Her lumbering soles creak across the stage. Dribble drips out the corners of her mouth as she sways in uneasy steps. Toward me. Such a stark contrast from her image that was behind me. Annie didn’t deserve this. None of them did.
I expect her to vanish. But she keeps approaching.
Fear clamps around my skin, trembling me with a chill. I can’t even see through her. I know she can’t be real. It’s just another hallucination. Like Alex, and all my other friends. They don’t talk. They just stand there most of the time. But this one’s moving.
“Maxence.” She mutters.
I drop the microphone. Dread jolts the fake, blue-pill-induced version of me out of my body.
My feet trip over themselves scrambling backwards and I smack into the floor. My breaths exhale so quickly, warming the floor inches from my face. Ache from the impact squeezes my limbs. When I next look up, her eyes are so close.
“You should’ve known that we couldn’t trust the adults.” Her voice dips, dejected.
I lurch to my feet and sprint for the elevators. The clamor behind me dissipates the further I get. My vision spirals until I’m back in my bedroom. It’s so far away from the lobby. Only the officials can reach me here.
I collapse on the floor, leaning against my bed. The hard frame etches away at my spine. I lean forward, resting my head against my bundled legs. If I don’t look up, I can’t see Annie sitting in the chair in front of me.
“You really lost it, huh? I wonder how Renovatio’s going to explain this one.” Alex’s voice lulls. “What if they try to blame you for killing our friends? And I can’t even be there to defend you.”
“All the adults care about is their image. They try to claim adolescents care too much about maintaining images, but at least we admit how much we care. The adults will kill to hide their care.” Annie says bitterly.
I cram my palms into my ears. Although it’s futile against their voices, it feels like I’m doing something to fight them. The pressure on my head is somewhat grounding.
Their voices are painful. Yet, the words themselves… those are somewhat reassuring. They bring up thoughts I didn’t consider. As if my friends really were here.
I look up as I consider how to answer them. But there’s no Annie, no Alex. No one here with me.
The lower part of my face feels unfamiliarly solid. A warning ache of pain threatens my mouth as I attempt to open it. Curious, I stumble into the bathroom.
There’s black thread resting on the counter. When did that get there?
In the mirror, I stare at the dark thread frenziedly stitched around my mouth, tightening it into a thin smile. My fingers delicately touch the taut thread, sticky with semi-dry blood. The hardened signs of pain look so real. Did I sew my mouth shut, or is this another nightmare? Perhaps it’s a hallucination.
A laugh bubbles up my throat; it buzzes behind my teeth. At least they can’t shove anything down my throat now. And they can’t make me lie.
If my skin were scarred, could they not inject me either?
The laugh buzzes louder. It builds in my chest, as it can’t leave through my closed lips. And my breath is too turbulent to rely on. The edges of my vision are harder to focus on.
The laughter fades when it feels like it. There’s no climactic result afterwards. Everything around me remains the same.
Renovatio will likely send officials tonight to give me more of the pills. I can’t tell if the hallucinations and nightmares are from grief or the drugs. But if my fake friends talk more… maybe I wouldn’t mind hearing what they have to say.
Another laugh buzzes behind my teeth— lighter this time. My thoughts seem insane.
Was I truly so crazy for thinking I could fix the world? For trusting the adults around me to guide me through it? For hoping I’d have so many more days with my friends?
Could I find someone that insane to replace my position?
Maybe if I ruin myself enough, they’ll let me quit and someone else can give it a try. Maybe then I can escape all this, one way or another.
Because even if I tried, I don’t think I could fix it. And I can’t be their puppet. That isn’t the role I want to play in this world. They may want me to as I grow through my teenage years. As I age to fourteen, fifteen, all the way to nineteen when I can graduate Renovatio. But mark me, I will defy their choices every step of the way.
There may not be a happy ending to this— to fighting their expectations. But even after a week of subjugation under their idealistic will, I can’t stand another second of not resisting it.
I’ll find my own way forward, thanks.