BRINK: Book 1 - The Passing (3 page)

“How could you keep this from me?” I asked her, shocked at how icy I sounded. “How could you never tell me I had a sister?”

She wouldn't look up at me.

“Your father told me I was never to speak of her again.”

I laughed, a cold, clipped sound. “And you played follow the leader, as always.”

“For the love of God, Brynn, what would you have had me do?” Her words raked over me, raw and bitter; her bloodshot eyes sought mine. “I've lived with your father nearly forty years. Do you think I could have spent a single day in peace if I'd ever contradicted his will?”

I folded my arms across my chest. “I guess you've always cared more about peace than about doing the right thing, haven't you.”

“What right thing?
What
right thing? You were three years old when Sam died. You'd never even really met her. How much difference would the knowledge of her existence have made in your life?”

“I don't...I don't know...”

“Not a damn bit, that's how much. None. It wouldn't have changed a
thing,
except to guarantee that you would grow up with a father that was distant and cold and angry.”

My jaw clenched. “I don't know if you noticed, but that's the father I grew up with anyway. So your brilliant plan failed. You
failed,
Mom.”

Never in my life had I seen anyone crumble the way my mother did at that moment. She didn't move at all, but the look on her face was like someone had cut the strings from an old-fashioned marionette and let it flop onto the floor. My father had been bent; my mother was broken.

All the anger seeped out of me and was instantly replaced by shame.

“Mom? Hey....I'm...I'm sorry.” I took a tentative step toward my mother, who immediately pulled me close, wrapped me in her arms, and held me for a long minute, crying into my hair. Eventually, I heard her sniff back the rest of her tears.

“I love you, Brynn,” she said softly. “So does he. That's why he acts this way. He just wants to keep you safe.”

Suddenly I felt bone-tired. My life was in shambles. My mind spun with accusations. But I didn't have it in me to argue anymore, so I simply nodded and hugged her back.

We've reached Community Hall, but the enormous brass doors are still locked, so we're all milling around in the courtyard like sheep in a butcher's barn. It's strange to think that we're doing right now exactly what a couple hundred people did yesterday, and another couple hundred will do tomorrow. Harlow says the average number of daily births in the City is 205. Which is good, but not enough to balance out the death rate due to old age, disease, and weak partnerships. As a species, we're still slowly going extinct.

“Hey, Brynn,” says Johanna, nudging me. “I think I might have found your life partner.”

She tilts her head to our left, and I peer around her shoulders in time to see a short, round guy with cheeks like Gala apples pick his nose and wipe it on his muddy overalls. Judging from his clothing and manners, I assume he works in one of the massive greenhouses that feed the City.

“Oh, definitely,” I mutter, scowling at Johanna. “Just my type. Imagine how pleased I am to find out how well you know me.”

Johanna smirked. “I always got your back, girl.”

We let several minutes drip by without speaking, listening to the chatter happening all around us.

“Ugh,” I finally groan, impatient. “I would give a kidney to have this all over with. Aren't you guys the slightest bit nervous?”

Johanna laughs. “Nah. I mean, it doesn't really matter, you know?”

Of course it doesn't matter. Johanna has Harlow, Harlow has Johanna. Soul mates. Partners in crime. They officially met when they were fourteen, when she dared him to jump off the Justice Point Bridge into the river below. He informed her that it was at least a fifty foot drop, and anyone who attempted it was crazy. She smiled, climbed up on the railing, and leaped into thin air. Broke three ribs hitting the water, punctured a lung, nearly drowned. I had been at a day camp for blossoming writers when I heard about her accident. Upon my arrival at the hospital, I found Johanna asleep in a post-op bed with an anxious, dark-haired kid I'd never met before sitting in the chair next to her, holding a bouquet of daisies and a ten-pound Haribo gummy bear.

“He's been here since before she went into surgery,” Johanna's mother whispered to me in the hallway. “He only left once – to get the flowers and the bear.”

“Daisies are her favorite flower,” I whispered back to her.

“Gummy bears are her favorite candy,” she replied, eyes widening.

Goosebumps immediately appeared on my arms.

“Do you think he can read her mind?” I asked, giddy with excitement.

“If he can, I need to have him figure out where she put my good leather boots. I tried to find them in her room, but it looks like a junk yard before they add the disintegration powder.”

As it turned out, Harlow had known about her preferences because he and Johanna had been in art class together in fifth grade, during which everyone had been required to make a photo collage of their favorite things. Daisies and gummy bears made Johanna's list, and Harlow's attentive brain had slipped that information away in the vast filing system he kept in his head. Three years later, he used his knowledge to charm his way into the deepest part of Johanna's heart.

It was only later that we discovered we all had the same Passing date. Johanna and I knew, of course. Our mothers had been hospital buddies, and it had been through their correspondence that we met in the first place. But finding out that Harlow would pass on the exact same day as the two of us...that made our friendship, and their romance, feel like the hand of God himself.

Despite the feeling of fate that pervaded our interactions, I might still have been annoyed by Harlow's addition to what had been the Brynn-and-Johanna show since we tied for the title of most uncoordinated kid in pre-gymnastics (Johanna had gracefully grown out of said title; I had more or less adopted it for life.) But despite Harlow's ardent affection for Johanna, he instantly became an invaluable companion to me as well. He discussed literary theory with me, helped me make it through a disastrous stats class, downloaded the best songs from my favorite bands onto his phone so that Johanna couldn't exercise complete control over background music when we all studied together, and laughed at my jokes, even when no one else thought they were remotely funny. He never took away from Johanna and my friendship, only added to it.

But tonight, for the first time, I find that being around them causes a kind of emotional friction for me. Their easy intimacy - the way he grabs her hand to brush his lips across her knuckles and slips a strand of loose hair behind her ear, the way she tilts her head at him, giving him all of her attention when he speaks to her, the lazy summer smiles on their faces....little signs of affection that would normally warm my heart now twist it like a dishrag. The Passing generates no fear for these two people. They've already made their decision. Their future is all but carved into stone. Mine, I can't help but feel, is the starkest, blankest canvas ever placed on an easel.

“Brynn. Stop worrying,” orders Johanna, almost impatiently. “Everything will turn out just fine!”

I give her a look. “Just for the sake of argument, my dear,
wildly
optimistic friend, let's go over all of the many ways in which things might not turn out just fine.”

“Now you've done it,” says Harlow in a mock whisper. “She's cracking up.”

“A,” I say, ignoring him, “The Algorithm assigns me a number so distant from anyone else that there are no suitable matches. I leave tonight without
a...partner...and
die tomorrow. B. The Algorithm assigns me a number with a whole slew of possible matches, but not a single one of them actually
wants
me. Again, I leave without a partner and die tomorrow.”

“Brynn, I'm telling you, there is no way that would ever...”

“C. The analyst entering numbers into the Algorithm has a sneezing fit while he's doing my form, not realizing that he accidentally deleted half of it, resulting in the generation of a totally inaccurate number which pairs me with a totally incompatible partner which means that I leave here tonight thinking I'm safe, but in reality, I make it a month before, again, I die.”

Harlow's eyes are twinkling. “These are grim possibilities, indeed.”

“Ahem. I'm not finished yet. D – and honestly, I find this one the most frightening of all – the Algorithm perfectly assesses me, the analyst does
not
sneeze and therefore plugs the information in correctly, my number is well within range of a couple of possible gentlemen, one of which accepts and marries me. We live to be ninety years old.....and I hate every
godforsaken
second of my life with him.”

“E,” Johanna interjects, “you find someone amazing who appreciates you for your many stunning qualities and puts up with your pessimistic, but somehow charmingly passionate, rants.”

“But the chances of that seem so slim!” I complain, mournfully. “In all likelihood, this will be the moment I look back on and say, 'Yep. That was the day that I survived but happiness died.' Am I seriously the only one worrying about these things?”

“Apparently not,” says Harlow, discreetly lifting his chin. I turn my head in the direction of his gaze. In front of us, a rail-thin guy wearing a forest green sweater two sizes too large for his body loses the contents of his stomach into the leaves of an unfortunate potted fern. I offer him the half-empty bottle of water I've been carrying with me since I left home, wondering, as he gratefully takes it from me, how I managed to make it past six security guards without someone checking its contents. I guess I'm simply that easy to overlook.

Before I can dwell too long on my relative invisibility, I hear the heavy thunk of a deadbolt being turned back. The doors are opening. Johanna, Harlow and I follow the crowd into a wide, carpeted hallway, dimly lit by sconces on the walls. The hallway begins to slope downward, then turns right, then left. Every hundred yards or so, we pass somber-faced guards in gray uniforms; none of them speak or even look at us. I can't help feeling like I'm in a terrible B-list movie – one that only ends when the last main character is torn in two by a rabid, mutant dog. Or a guy with a chainsaw. Or, you know....pick your villain.

Finally, we reach a small auditorium, lined on either side by three rows of chairs and empty in the middle, which is where we've all chosen to congregate. The collective nervous energy is audible, palpable. It's like the constant crinkle of holiday paper, the ping of a taut guitar string, the acrid smell of smoke, the dance of static across skin. There are fourteen or fifteen adults seated at a long table on a platform at the front of the room. Most of them are wearing glasses and long, white lab coats; two are dressed in simple gray suits. It is one of these two men who slowly rises and moves to stand at the podium, adjusting the microphone briefly before he speaks.

“Good evening, and welcome to your Passing ceremony. My name is Judge Crawler. I will be your officiate tonight.”

I am struck by how much he resembles my father, not in appearance so much as posture and expression. He is tall and slight, with thick gray hair and piercing gray eyes, eyes that survey the crowd with an icy humorlessness that borders on distaste. His voice is low and cold, with a raspy undertone that convinces me I would dislike angering this man. My feelings appear to be universal - the entire room has gone pin-drop silent. Judge Crawler continues.

“I would like to ask that anyone carrying food or drink please discard of it in the waste bins on either side of the auditorium, as such things will not be permitted in the exam rooms. I will give only very brief instructions tonight; I trust that you have all been made aware of the general order of events, and will therefore omit tedious explanations.”

There is a small murmur of appreciation. We've had the basic rules of the Passing relentlessly impressed upon us since adolescence – take the test with the utmost honesty, then choose the partner with the closest possible Algorithm result, regardless of physical attraction, differences in social status, or previous romantic attachments. Period. Of course, not everyone plans on following that advice, Harlow and Johanna being examples one and two.

“You will now be separated for testing. This process takes anywhere from sixty to ninety minutes, after which there will be a small amount of time for data input before we can begin the next section of the ceremony. Therefore, it is in your best interest to complete all tasks quickly but succinctly. When you are finished with your test, you will return to this room to wait for the remainder of this evening's participants. At this time, will all candidates with last names beginning with A through M please exit through the door on your left. Candidates N through Z please use the door on your right.”

Harlow and Johanna head right, I reluctantly move in the opposite direction. The door to the testing room is heavy, solid wood. When I reach it, I pull it to the side and hold it for the others, mostly just to prolong my own testing for a few more seconds. When everyone but me has passed through, I take a deep breath and follow.

Within minutes I've been ushered into one of what must be nearly fifty tiny examination rooms and have promptly had blood and urine samples taken, temperature and blood pressure checked, and a flashlight shone into each eye.

“Checking for drugs,” says the female analyst in response to my confused expression. “Use of mind-altering substances will skew the test.”

“Ah,” I say, then gasp as something ice cold is applied to the back of my neck.

“Electrodes,” she says, placing another on my left arm and two larger ones on either temple.

“What for?”

“The simulation.”

I instantly perk up. “I thought this was a written exam.”

“Traditionally, yes. But last year they developed a program that evaluates participants with a much higher rate of accuracy.”

“Higher rate of accuracy? What is a computer going to tell
me
about
me
that I don't already know?”

Instead of answering, she straps my arms and legs loosely to my chair and hands me a small, simple remote.

“When you're ready, push this button to start the sim, and this one if you need a small break. Please understand that you must finish the test for your results to be conclusive. The bottom button lets me know you're finished; push it and I'll come release you.”

Then she leaves.

For a full minute, I do nothing more than try to slow my racing heartbeat. I've never even played a sim video game before, despite their growing popularity among my peers. The idea of having images projected into my brain absolutely scares me silly. But the thought of waiting here in this tiny room until I die isn't particularly alluring, either, so I force my trembling fingers to push the start button on the remote.

At first my vision goes completely black. Then, suddenly, I'm drenched in heat and light. Looking around, I find that I'm standing in the middle of a flat plain of tall, dry, yellow grass, baking in the brightest sun I have ever experienced. From videos I've seen in my science classes or online, I would guess this is Africa, or at least a representation of Africa before the Great War. With surprise, I notice I'm sweating, and my tongue is dry. I look around for water or shade. In the distance I can see single tree; I make my way toward it.

Suddenly, my eye catches movement to my right. A gazelle.