The Testing (The Testing 1)

Despite the pain I feel, laughter erupts out of me. Zeen flashes the smile that I grew up idolizing as he rushes toward me. I start to reply when I see movement to my left—the barrel of Symon’s gun as it is placed in position. I push Tomas to the side and raise my weapon, but I know I will be too late. That after all I have been through, I will die as Symon pulls the trigger.

Gunfire fills the room. A scream rips from my throat, but the bullet never finds me because Zeen gets there first. My brother jerks as the bullet punches into him and groans when he hits the ground next to Symon. I do not hesitate as I squeeze the trigger of my weapon. A wound blooms in Symon’s chest. A second—from Will’s gun—appears in his left temple, and Symon drops to the ground.

Zeen. I can barely whisper his name as I kneel next to him, ignore the pain in my arm, and roll him over to see the injury he has sustained. I choke back a sob as I see the hole in his chest. Instinctively, I reach for my bag to find something to help, but my bag isn’t here and even if it were, I know there is no healing this wound. Zeen’s lungs have been damaged. Maybe his heart. It won’t be long before both stop working.

Despite what I know to be true, I scream for Will and Tomas to find someone to help us. I don’t care if I am arrested and punished. Zeen needs to live. There has been enough loss. Enough death. Too high a price has been paid. I can’t lose him. Not now. Not when we are finally together again.

Will yells that he’ll go to the Medical residence to find help and disappears out the door. When Tomas finally moves, I think that he too is going to look for aid. That he believes there is a chance Zeen could live. Instead, he kneels opposite me, next to Zeen, and takes Zeen’s other hand in his. I see tears streak down Tomas’s face. I want to cry, but there are no tears to wash away a loss this huge. Dr. Flint used to say that the severest wounds often cannot be felt by the victim because the nerves are too damaged to transmit pain. Seeing Zeen in my arms, struggling to breathe, has cut too deep for tears.

He coughs and I smooth back his hair and whisper encouraging words like he used to do when I was little and scared or sick. I tell him that I love him. That I am so glad I am with him now. That everything will be okay. But it won’t. Because Zeen’s breathing is becoming shallower. His heartbeat is slowing, and his eyes are filled with anguish.

“Do you still have your bag?” I ask Tomas. “Can you give him something for the pain?”

Tomas looks down at Zeen and nods. He stands and walks to where he dropped his bag. He pulls out two bottles. One marked with a circle. The other with an X. I see the question in his eyes as he holds them out to me.

Zeen coughs. His hand tightens around mine. His face has drained of color. His chest barely rises as he takes his next breath. I reach out and take the bottle with the circle on it and help him drink. Maybe it is selfish of me, but I want these last moments with him to last as long as they can. It will be hard enough to go on after Zeen is gone. I cannot be the one to bring about the final moment of his life.

“Cia,” Zeen whispers. “Remember what I said when you graduated. And tell Mom and Dad I saved you. They’ll be proud.”

They find us sitting with our hands joined. Tomas, Zeen, and me. Zeen’s heart has stopped. He is no longer in pain.

I try to console myself with that as Safety officials do not shoot but instead ask us to stand. When I try, I find I cannot. I am too dizzy. Too tired. Too overwhelmed. They let Tomas help me into one of the chairs as a medical team works on my arm. Tomas sits beside me as they clean and bandage our injuries. When I ask about Stacia, anguish crosses Tomas’s face and I know before he says it that she is dead. Tomas tells me he’ll explain everything later, but that she died at Professor Chen’s house. When he falls silent, I don’t press for answers because I have had enough of death.

My arm throbs, but the pain lessens when the medical team applies an ointment and begins to wrap the wound with a bandage. They have done all they can here and will need to treat me further to prevent infection or a terrible scar. As if anything they can do will prevent the scars I will wear from this night forever.

A team of officials in purple appear. I think they must be coming to arrest me, but instead they walk to where Zeen lies. I scream when they try to carry Zeen’s body out. That’s when President Collindar arrives. She tells them to leave Zeen with us and orders her staff to remove Symon and to keep everyone else out. When the medical officials are finished, she asks them to leave us alone. She allows Tomas to stay, which is good. He would have refused to go.

Once she is alone with Tomas and me she says, “There is much we need to discuss, but most of it can be done in the days and weeks ahead. My officials found Dr. Barnes down the hall. He and Symon are both dead. But that is not true of everyone on the list I gave you.”

Dr. Barnes is dead.

I close my eyes and try to feel relief that someone succeeded in killing him when I could not. After all, he is the reason my brother and so many others lost their lives. But there is no joy in his death. Only sadness and a sense of confusion, since I will never know whether his final words were the truth—that he believed The Testing should end and was willing to give up his life to make sure that it did.

I open my eyes and choose my words carefully as I reply to the president’s unspoken question. “Since Symon had a hand in creating the list, I decided it was best to learn what I could about the people on it. Of the twelve, only five were involved in the University and Testing process in a way that eliminating them would affect your agenda. Those are the ones we opted to remove.”

“I’m impressed.” President Collindar smiles. “It is not always easy to lead with caution, especially with so much at stake. After giving you the list, I began to wonder if Symon included some opponents of The Testing. Had they been killed, you would have eliminated those who could have been influential dissenters.”

Are her words the truth, or did she herself have reason to want those people removed, as Dr. Barnes’s explanation suggested?

The president’s stolid expression provides no insight. “For your sake and the sake of your friends,” she says, “we will make a public announcement that the deaths of several prominent officials and members of the University came at the hands of one Symon Dean—the leader of a group created to destabilize the Commonwealth and our revitalization mission. He will also be blamed for the explosions that occurred here on campus and on the other side of town, as well as for the deaths of the students and officials who have been fighting tonight. I have already talked to the leader of the students who believed they were doing what was necessary to help end The Testing. He and his fellow students will be given amnesty for their actions, as will all those who followed Symon.”

“And is that when you’ll announce that The Testing will end?” I ask.

President Collindar straightens her shoulders. As she looks at me, I recall the words Dr. Barnes spoke tonight. Does she know that I was not the one who killed Dr. Barnes? Have my actions been sufficient to prove that I am strong enough to be a leader even though it was not my hand that accomplished that task? If Symon killed him before coming after me, then there is no one to tell her differently. But if someone else was behind the act, and Dr. Barnes was being honest, I’m not sure what she will do.

“Yes.” She smiles again. “I will also announce that the University selection process known as The Testing will end. Once the University and its programs are legally shifted under the Debate Chamber’s jurisdiction, I will direct the Chamber to choose a new head of the school and institute some necessary changes.”

“What kinds of changes?”

“It will be a while before that can be determined, but I can promise you that none of the candidates for our University will have to go through the trials you did.”

Her smile is reassuring but her words are not. My brother and my friends did not sacrifice their lives for half promises.

“What about the students who failed to pass The Testing?” I ask. “The ones in Decatur Colony. What will happen to them?”

For several heartbeats there is silence as President Collindar studies me. Gauging how much I know. How much she should say. “I’ve only recently learned that there is a research group known as Decatur Colony. Perhaps you will be interested in taking a trip there with me to see what work is being done.”

I think of Raffe’s final request that I find his sister Emilie, and I nod. “I would.”