the truth anymore.
She mouthed the word, testing it out.
A smile threatened at the corners of her lips. She forced her face to stay neutral, knowing how it would look if she smiled at the mention of a dissident conspiracy.
“These dissidents saw schools as places full of young impressionable minds. They looked at people like you and saw potential recruits, naive kids whose minds they could poison with their lies.”
No, that was how Internal saw them. That was why they had classes like this in the first place—to get them to believe whatever Internal wanted them to believe. Becca twitched her legs, suddenly restless. Now that she understood, how could she keep sitting here as though nothing had changed?
“But they underestimated you.” The teacher struck the chalk against the blackboard for emphasis, leaving a single white dot. “Do you know who brought this conspiracy to Internal’s attention? It was the students in the schools that had been infiltrated.”
There hadn’t even been a conspiracy. It was all a lie.
Next to Becca, some boy she didn’t know spun his pencil on his desk. Over by the window, Laine passed a note to another girl, who covered her mouth to hide her giggles. Somebody scraped his chair back and forth along the floor. The clock above the door ticked out the seconds until the final bell.
Just like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that.
Mr. Adams stopped in the middle of his speech about watching other teachers for signs of dissident sympathies. “Becca? Are you paying attention?”
Becca brought her gaze back to the front of the room. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“What’s the first thing you should do if you suspect a teacher of having dissident sympathies?”
“What if you’re not sure whether a teacher is a dissident or not?”
“Report them. Internal will be able to figure it out better than I can.” The same answer she would have given yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that.
Mr. Adams, satisfied, nodded and returned to his lecture.
The clock ticked away another few seconds.
She was a dissident… and it didn’t mean a thing.
For the rest of the week, Becca sat in class like always, and stayed quiet like always. She and Jake ate together at lunch and talked about nothing, their secret hovering unspoken in the background. She sat at home alone over the weekend, hoping her mom wouldn’t get back from 117 before she went to bed, then fighting nausea as she remembered just what her mom was doing at work all day. She paced back and forth in her room; it did nothing to dispel her growing restlessness. At school on Monday, her teachers kept telling her to pay attention.
Monday night after dinner, she watched executions, listened to the dissidents recite their meaningless confessions. Tuesday and Wednesday she left the TV off. She could still hear them.
On Thursday, two teachers disappeared.
They probably hadn’t even been dissidents. Or if they were, they hadn’t been part of this giant conspiracy like everyone was saying.
What did it matter? Knowing the truth hadn’t let Becca save them.
“Thanks for inviting me over,” said Heather as she walked into Becca’s room. “I’ve missed you. It feels like I haven’t been here in ages.”
No hint that she remembered their argument. It was as if it had never happened. Becca paced from the door to the bed and back again. “I need to talk to you.”
Heather fingered her Monitor pin. “Is it about what happened at school? The teachers who were arrested?”
For the first time in a week, Becca felt something approximating hope. Maybe she was going to be able to do this after all. Maybe it would even be easier than she had thought. She couldn’t save those teachers, or anyone else in 117, or the dissidents on TV, but maybe she could save Heather.
“I was hoping you’d come to me,” said Heather.
“You were?” Maybe her attempts to get Heather to acknowledge what they had found hadn’t been futile after all. Maybe Heather had finally realized what a mistake this Monitor thing was.
Heather nodded. “And I think you should do it.”
Becca blinked.
“It’s worth it,” Heather assured her. “I finally feel like I’m doing something useful. Something important. And with everything that’s going on, we need all the help we can get.”
It took a couple of seconds for Heather’s meaning to sink in. “You want me to join the Monitors.”
Heather looked perplexed. “Isn’t that what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“No.” Becca started pacing again. Touch the door, pass Heather, touch the bed. Pass Heather again. She forced herself to stop, to restrain her restless energy. “I wanted to talk to you about your parents.”
Heather’s face darkened. “They’re gone. They got what they deserved. What is there to talk about?”
“I remember what you said last time we talked.” Becca drummed her fingers on her desk. “You told me you’re only doing all this because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to deal with what happened to them. But you’re helping the people who killed them. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Heather frowned. “What are you talking about? I never said anything like that.”
Denying everything just like Becca’s dad. What stories did Heather tell herself to help her forget why she had really joined the Monitors? Did she try to make herself believe she had always hated her parents? Did she tell herself that what happened to them was for the best because it made her understand what was really important?
Becca kept going. She couldn’t give up now. “Do you really think this is what they would want?” Her voice grew louder and higher until the last word turned into a hysterical shout. She clamped her lips shut. She didn’t want to yell at Heather. She just had to do something. It was hard enough to watch the executions go on exactly like they had before she knew the truth, to see people disappear and know that her new understanding did nothing to help them. She couldn’t keep watching Heather slip away too.
“Why does it matter what they would want?” While Becca struggled to keep from pacing, Heather held herself like a statue. Every muscle was tensed, as if she thought she might have to bolt at any second.
Becca was fighting a battle she couldn’t win. The old Heather was gone. It was too late to save her from what she had become.
But it was the only battle she could fight.
She took a deep breath. Calmed her voice. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to try and do something to fight the people who killed them, instead of turning into one of them?”
Like what? There was nothing Heather could do. Nothing Becca could do.
“Becca… you’re scaring me.” Heather started to take a step toward her, then stopped. “That dissident stuff you were saying last week was bad enough. I figured I must have misunderstood or something. I mean, I know you. You’re not a dissident. But now… what are you saying? Fighting Internal? Fighting the government? What’s happening to you?”
Becca saw her own helpless frustration reflected in Heather’s eyes.
“Please tell me you’re not saying what it sounds like you’re saying.” Heather looked down at her Monitor pin. “I don’t want to have to turn you in.”
If Becca dropped this, if she let Heather slip away, she would be giving up not just her best friend, but her only chance of saving somebody from Internal.
If she kept going, Heather might turn her in.
No. Heather wouldn’t turn her in. Heather was her best friend.
Heather was a Monitor now.
“I didn’t mean it.” Becca looked down at the floor. “I don’t even know what I was saying.”
She could almost feel a disturbance in the air as her last chance to save Heather, her last chance to save
