The Treatment (13 page)

My heart thumps; I expect Dallas to point one of her bony fingers in my direction, telling the doctor that I’m the person who has it. But her face remains neutral, loyal to Realm. Despite what he said earlier, she won’t betray him. I think Dallas loves him.

“I don’t understand,” I say, shaking my head. “Why do you need the actual pill? The formula can’t be that complicated to figure out. Wouldn’t that be easier than hunting down what might not even exist?”

Dr. Pritchard’s eyes lock on mine, and I feel myself wilt under their heavy suspicion. “No one knew the formula other than Evelyn, and she was a better chemist than any of us. Do you think I haven’t exhausted all other options? I’ve spent everything I have trying to buy scientists to help me, but they’re all with The Program—or scared of them. There’s no one left to fight with me. Except those of you here. I don’t think you realize how dire our situation is. I don’t think you realize how truly alone we are.

“If The Program finds the pill before we do,” he continues, “the formula will be lost. They plan to extract the ingredients, patent them, and make their production illegal. At least now
we can continue testing. But once they have control of the substances, then no other treatment—nothing The Program doesn’t approve of—will ever be made.”

It’s all around me then, the pressure, suffocating and absolute. When the only person left to trust is the creator of The Program, all is lost. Realm reacts, walking swiftly from the room without a word, the doctor’s eyes following him the entire way. When he’s gone, it’s like I can’t get in a full breath—like a panic attack. Arthur Pritchard continues to talk, but soon I’m heading for the door.

“I need you, Sloane,” he calls to my back. The use of my first name startles me, but I don’t turn. “Together we can change the world.”

He’s offering hope where there is none. But isn’t that a form of brainwashing in itself? Hope in place of change? I shake my head, a small whimper caught in my throat, and leave—desperate to find James.

Outside of the room I’m able to breathe again, even though I’m still trembling. The house is eerily quiet as I pass through the kitchen, not finding James, and I head upstairs toward the bedrooms. Mine is empty, and it’s like I’m engulfed in isolation. James might not sleep here tonight. It’ll be the first time we’ve been apart since leaving Oregon.

I put my palm on my forehead, trying to steady myself. I can’t start thinking of the negative. I can’t afford to lose my sanity right now. I’m a fugitive, and I have to be smarter.

Realm’s room is down the hall, and when I walk in, I find
his bed pushed next to the window. He’s sitting there, staring into the dark beyond it. He reminds me of a lost little boy, and for a second I want to hold him and tell him it will all be okay.

“I don’t trust the doctor,” Realm says, startling me. He turns, and his cheeks and neck are a blotchy red. “I think he’s lying.”

I obviously don’t trust the doctor either, but I’m curious as to Realm’s reasoning. I go to sit beside him, gnawing on the inside of my lip as I wait for him to explain. This is the first time I’ve been in his room since leaving The Program. There’s nothing here beyond the scratchy blue blanket and the hard mattress of his crooked bed. There’s nothing that says who Realm is. Even I have a few possessions, and I’ve been on the run since leaving school weeks ago.

Realm exhales, glancing outside once again. “I moved the bed next to the window because otherwise I start to feel claustrophobic, locked up. I check the pane at least three times a day, just to make sure it’s not sealed.” He looks at me. “Just to make sure I’m not locked in.”

“Side effect of The Program?”

“Among other things. And having Arthur Pritchard here doesn’t exactly help to ease my anxiety. I don’t trust him, and I need to get as far away from him as possible.”

Realm is always full of secrets. But this one he’ll have to share. “Why?” I demand.

“Because,” he says with a shrug, “Evelyn was a friend of mine. And I’m one of those patients she cured.”

REALM’S WORDS SMASH TOGETHER AND
fall around me, heavy as stones. His secret is so much bigger than anything I could have imagined. Realm has been cured.
When did this happen? What else hasn’t he told me?

Realm searches my expression. “What do you think of that, Sloane? How do you feel about the fact that I have all of my past but never told you?”

“I think you’re a dick.” Only I’m in such shock that I’m not sure how I feel about it. His sister had said he was saving it for after The Program, but he was already cured. He was lying to her, too.

Realm smiles, but there’s no humor in it. “I wish you really did hate me,” he says. “But I know you don’t. Not yet.”

He reaches to touch my hand, a movement too intimate
while we’re on his bed, and I pull away. Realm opens his mouth to speak, but then he promptly shuts it as his gaze moves past me to the door. My heart leaps and I expect James, but instead I find Dr. Pritchard standing there.

“May I talk to you, Miss Barstow?” he asks. Terrified, I look at Realm. He rubs his palm over his face, then meets my eyes.

“I’ll be right outside, okay?” he says quietly. “Nothing will happen to you.”

“You’re going to leave me here with him?” I whisper back fiercely. I’m trying to gather my nerve, but it’s not easy when the doctor is standing behind me. Because either he knows I was given the pill, or he knows Realm has taken it before. Which means Realm shouldn’t leave me alone with the Program doctor! I’m not like him or James—I can’t just lie my way out of everything.

“You’ll be fine,” Realm whispers, widening his eyes as if asking me not to reveal what he just told me. Oh, sure. I haven’t even had time to process it, but let’s pretend I don’t know. I’m hiding so many things I’m starting to lose track.

Realm touches my shoulder as he gets up, and once he’s gone, the doctor comes to sit next to me on the bed. I feel him watching me, and slowly I lift my head, petrified of what he’s here to say. Rather than continue pleading for my help, he takes out his wallet to remove a photo. When he hands me the picture, I see tears gathered in his eyes.

“I’m sorry for all that’s happened to you, Sloane.” He pauses. “May I call you Sloane?” I shrug, a noncommittal answer, and
then gaze down at the picture. “I think it’s time you hear the reason,” he continues. “The purpose behind it all. I want you to know why I created The Program.”

The words are too big for me to comprehend. It’s as if God has just shown up to tell me the meaning of life—only it’s not God. It’s the disturbed doctor who stole who I was. And now he’s going to tell me why.

Arthur Pritchard taps the corner of the picture I’m holding. “She was seven when this was taken,” he says with a faint smile. “My daughter, Virginia.” For the first time I study the picture in my hand. There’s a little girl wearing a princess crown, a feather boa wrapped around her neck. She’s yelling or laughing, I’m not sure which. But the picture is sweet and sad and oddly lonely. The doctor takes it back from me.

“She had just turned fifteen the day I came home early from the office,” he says. “I found her hanging from a wooden beam in the attic. The rope was poorly tied. I imagine she struggled to breathe for quite a while.”

I blink quickly against the sick image of a girl suffering. I can feel her desperation, her isolation. It strikes me that I was probably suicidal once, suffering and alone. I’m alive now. Had I changed my mind in my last moments? Had my brother? Had Virginia?

“She left a note,” Dr. Pritchard continues. “A page of scribbles and nonsense. Virginia’s mother passed away when she was just a baby, and so it’d just been the two of us for so long. My daughter was among the first of the epidemic.”

I want to tell him I’m sorry, but I don’t. I don’t know how to tell the man who ruined our lives that I’m sorry for his loss, not when I can’t even remember all that I’ve lost.

Dr. Pritchard tucks the picture back into his wallet, running his index finger over the plastic where the photo has started to fade. “I used to work with the pharmaceutical companies,” he says. “I would prescribe medications for depression. But after Virginia’s death, and after the news started to break that antidepressants were a possible cause, I threw myself into finding a cure. I lost six patients in one week. I couldn’t keep them alive.”

“What caused the epidemic?” I ask him. The thought of finally knowing the answer makes my body electric in anticipation.

“It was a combination of factors,” he says simply. “Side effects of medications, news coverage, behavioral contagion. The government is about to pass a law banning stories about suicide from the news networks. They claim it’s contributing to the outbreak—the cases of copycats. We’ll never know exactly where it started, Sloane. We can only guess. But we tried for a cure right away. I got a committee together—ones who were fearful enough to volunteer their own children as test subjects. We experimented with a mix of counseling and medication, intense psychotherapy. We even lobotomized one at his father’s insistence. We tried everything. But then we found that if we take out the behavior, the contagious part of the epidemic, then the patients could retain most of their personalities. It became the trick of how to target them.

“Some of the smartest minds of our time came together to create The Program. I’m the one who created the black pill, the last step in locking away the memories—the final pill you take. It was meant to be a permanent solution. Of course, it was all to be followed with extensive world-building, slow integration into society. But after a few months, we weren’t at one hundred percent and the committee made it clear that perfection was the ultimate goal. They began to turn up the pressure—they brought in handlers, embedded others. They will stop at nothing to get the results they want—and that comes at the expense of your lives. Even if you take The Treatment now, you can’t really go back to who you were, Sloane. Too much has changed now. You see that don’t you?”

“Maybe I don’t want to be who I was,” I say, a familiar ache at my words. “I just want The Program to leave me alone.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. But it’s not that easy. The Program has many flaws, and one they’re starting to discover is with the returners themselves. The brain is smarter than any therapy can be, and trauma and overstimulation are affecting rehabilitation. Mandatory resetting is inevitable for someone like you—a person in a high-stress situation. It’s the only way to keep you sane.”

My stomach takes a sick turn. “Are you saying my memories will come back?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Not all of them. Bits and pieces out of place, sometimes skewed. It occurs only under extreme duress: tragedy, grief, joining up with rebels, say. These cause
cracks in the otherwise smooth surface The Program created. I can imagine it would be very traumatizing to have these unfamiliar thoughts. People have gone crazy from them.” He pauses to study me. “Have you had this problem, Sloane?”

“No,” I lie. It happened when I remembered Miller. I saw what it did to Lacey. Dr. Pritchard’s telling the truth about this. Could he be telling the truth about everything?

“That’s good,” the doctor says, smiling. “That means it’s not too late. If I had the pill, I could clear the fog and treat the real problem. The Program’s locked away your memories, like those of your brother, to keep you from killing yourself too. What I’m suggesting is that they let patients keep the painful stuff—and no, life won’t be happy and normal. But then again, none of you were really happy, even after your transformation. You wouldn’t have joined the rebels otherwise.”

“You already told us the public won’t be on our side. So why should we risk working with you?” I realize I actually want him to give me a reason.

The doctor folds his hands on his lap. “What’s your alternative?”

It wasn’t the answer I needed to hear. He thinks he knows best, and that makes Arthur Pritchard just like my parents. Just like The Program. “I can still run,” I say.

His jaw hardens and his careful facade begins to fall away. “Don’t do that,” he snaps. “Don’t spend the rest of your life running. You’ll never be safe. You’ll never have a home.”

I had a home with James, even when we were running. I have to find him and apologize, make this right. I’m sick of all the lies and secrets. James and I can leave the rebels for good, and it’ll be just me and him—the way we wanted it. I stand, about to find James so we can plan our escape, when the doctor reaches for my arm.

“Sloane, I need that pill,” he says. I don’t turn back right away, his fingers a vise around my wrist. “We can’t let The Program get their hands on it.” Heat creeps into my cheeks as I falter for an answer.

“I don’t have it,” I say as calmly as possible, glancing over my shoulder. The Program is looking for The Treatment—that’s what this is. He’s still working for them.

“Do you know who does?” he asks.

“No.”

He studies me, trying to detect if I’m lying. “Sloane,” he says. “The pill is—”

“I get it,” I interrupt. “It’s the key to saving the world. But I can’t help you.”

He lets my arm fall, taking a moment to collect himself. “Listen,” he begins again, softer. “I know you’re angry, but we have a common purpose here. The Program is after you. You and your friends are fugitives, and in my book that makes you my ally. I’ve told you my plan, put myself at risk. You should take that same leap with me, Sloane. You have nothing else left.”

“You may be right,” I say with a quick nod, my resolve to
find James overwhelming me. “But I’m still alive, Arthur. And as long as I live, I won’t forgive you for what you’ve done to us.” Then, before he can stop me again, I stride toward the door and open it, waving my hand for him to leave.

Realm is standing in the hallway, and he glances between me and the doctor before moving next to me like backup. Arthur Pritchard sighs heavily and gets up. He looks defeated, but I can’t trust him. I can’t trust the man who created The Program.

“It was nice to finally meet you in person, Sloane,” the doctor says. “Please tell James I said hello.”