Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Standing there, before the white concrete mass of the Center, it felt as though I’d parachuted into a different world.
Most of the buildings here were old and colorful, and so the Center’s dome, with its sturdy structure and pristine facade of pale hexagons, stood out like a beacon: bright, serene, impenetrable against the heavy autumn sky.
The outside was encompassed by neat clusters of cypresses, pretty metal benches, and soft patches of grass interrupted by cobblestone paths leading to each of the building’s entrances, the glass doors revolving into cylinders of light.
I had a five o’clock appointment, but I got there a bit earlier, so I had enough time to relax and go through the list of questions I’d prepared yesterday.
I would be calm, I told myself. I would show no signs of fear or distress.
I would not raise any alarms because I didn’t know how the Center dealt with distressed citizens.
I didn’t know how the Center dealt with any kind of abnormality, and despite James’s reassurances, I still felt like I was an exception in a world of rules, a droplet of chaos in a universe of order.
So I would be careful. I would go through my assessment, get my answers, and leave this place as fast as possible. And then…
Then I had no idea what I was going to do.
Part of me wanted to fall back to my old rhythms. I missed going to work.
I missed the ease and comfort of my routine.
But at the same time the mere idea of it sickened me.
My every thought, my every feeling had become bifurcated.
I wanted my life back, but I also wanted to escape it.
I wanted to regain my faith in the Center and the Inside, but I also had this profound need to reject it, to start questioning everything.
Their definition of well-being, their motives, the stones upon which this whole world was built.
Yes, we were happy. Yes, we were safe. But at what cost?
There were no high walls to separate the Inside from the Outside.
There was no army, no evil force to prohibit us from leaving, to dictate how our lives should be lived.
And yet, there were words we did not know, and histories we never learned, and trauma we were told to bury instead of heal.
And maybe I was sick for thinking all of this.
Maybe I was focusing on the shadows instead of the bright golden sun that was casting them, but I could not stop myself from feeling this way, as much as I could not stop from going to where my every instinct was telling me not to.
There was something predetermined about the whole thing, it seemed, something originally wired into my brain: the need to seek help from the people who had caused me to need help in the first place.
The inside of the building was as one would expect. A sleek serenity-land, orderly and reassuring. There were no liminal spaces and no waiting rooms. Everything was open and transparent, with exposed overhead lights and a fresh, clean fragrance wreathing through the air.
After I gave my name to one smiling, soft-eyed receptionist, I was escorted by yet another smiling, soft-eyed woman in a pale pink uniform to one of the indoor gardens, where I was told to sit on a perfectly comfortable ergonomic chair and was given a glass of crisp mint water, an informational brochure, and a form to fill out, while ambient tunes and chirping birds I could not see lulled me into a trance.
After I filled the form, I read through the brochure, which for the most part boasted heartfelt patient stories—stories of people who’d gone through procedures that seemed as much alien as harrowing to me.
Memory deletion, memory alteration, genetic therapy to enhance resilience to stress, genetic therapy to improve cognitive function, virtual reality exposure to eliminate social anxiety, and neural interface therapy, which, to my horror, involved some kind of implant that modulated your entire brain chemistry.
Your desired state of being, a touch away.
There was no hurt, no phobia, no trauma the Center could not extract from you.
This was what made the Inside the utopia it was.
We eradicated the suffering and the results of that suffering from the root.
We were not just healthy. We were new. Here, you could become anyone you wanted, and if a painful memory or a bothersome insecurity was holding you back from being your greatest, healthiest, most functioning self, then all you had to do was come to the Center and start anew.
First came the physical examination, which was so thorough I was left dazed and exhausted afterwards, with a strange pressure building in the space between my eyes and my brain.
Doctor after doctor came into the overwarm, floodlit exam room to check me for one thing or another, while steady, affectless voices sounded through the intercom at regular intervals, proclaiming over and over how elated, how determined, how grateful the Center was to serve the citizens of the Inside.
By the end of it, I felt as though I’d been trapped inside these sterile rooms for years now, going through endless rounds of pointless, mind-numbing examinations, the borders of reality getting a bit more smudged every time I was told to look into a pinpoint of light, until there were no borders at all.
Then it was time for the psychological evaluation, which was both the reason I’d returned here and the reason I wanted to fling the door open and run as far away from this place as I possibly could.
I was given another form to fill and was led to another room, a similar albeit cozier space, decorated with plants and floor lamps and a plush sofa facing an equally plush armchair, two matching blotches of pink on the white canvas of the room.
For a while, I stood by the door, feeling sick, lightheaded, and barely able to listen to my own thoughts, just the ringing from my growing headache and the echoes from the intercom, until a small-framed, middle-aged woman came in with a clipboard and a smile.
Mrs. Lauren, the name tag on her pink lab coat informed me.
She had a sweet, round face, almost like a little girl’s, but her blue eyes were x-ray sharp and intelligent. “Please, Ms. Anya, sit down,” she said in a pleasant but professional manner.
Reluctantly, I unglued myself from the spot by the door and took a seat, only for the most irrational and overwhelming sense of regret to steal over me.
I shouldn’t have come, the thought rocketed through my mind, my composure peeling off me layer by layer until I was left bare of defenses, of voice and coherency.
Behind her, there was a white poster, inside a white frame, hanging horizontally on the sterling white wall.
Here we are all connected, it read in pale pink letters.
Words that had appeased and reassured me countless times before.
But not now. Now they were a giant hand on the back of my neck. Heavy. Oppressive.
“Ms. Anya?” the woman called me in a patient but clipped tone of voice, indicating she had already done so several times.
Blinking rapidly, I brushed my damp palms over my jeans and tried to fix my attention on her. “Yes?” I croaked.
“How are you feeling today?” she asked.
“Fine,” I muttered, and the slight shift in her expression told me this was the wrong answer. And this too had an alarming effect on me. This vague but daunting sense that if I didn’t give the right answers, I would not be allowed to leave this place as freely as I had entered it.
“Just fine?” she persisted. “Is there something bothering you? Something you want to discuss with me, perhaps?”
“I… I’m sorry,” I stammered, “but don’t you typically start with the questions first?”
That was what Kai had told me when I’d asked him about his last assessment a few days back.
First, they asked you a series of questions surrounding the matter of your general well-being and connection to the Inside, and then, depending on your answers, they initiated a conversation at the end of which you were to decide if you wished to go through with one of the procedures they offered.
Center-funded, of course. The Inside always cared for its citizens.
“Would you prefer that?” Mrs. Lauren questioned me, pronouncing with exaggerated precision each and every word. “Would it make you feel more comfortable if our conversation had a bit more structure?”
Distractedly, with my thoughts racing faster than I could process them, I blurted, “Um, yes. Sure.”
She gave a cautious nod, humming thoughtfully under her breath. “Do you typically find comfort in structure?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think that is?”
I shifted a little on my seat and felt a cool droplet of sweat run down my spine. Resisting the urge to start fanning myself with my hands, I rasped, “I don’t know.”
With slow, deliberate gestures she set her clipboard down on the low table between us and leaned towards me, her forearms resting atop her crossed knees.
“Ms. Anya, are you happy here?” she asked, introducing a much gentler tone.
A tone, I thought, one might employ while talking to a distressed child.
“Yes,” was all I uttered.
Mrs. Lauren nodded again, pursing her lips in contemplation. “And have you been having any strange feelings lately? Any strange thoughts?”
“Strange?”
“Thoughts of death, for example.”
It was a shock just to hear the word aloud—death.
I had never thought of death before.
“Oh,” I mumbled, somehow hearing and feeling every inward mechanism of my body. Each quick, shallow breath. Each startled heartbeat. The blood roiling in my wrists. “Um, no.”
“If life was in your hand, would you unclench your fist?” she asked.
Head throbbing, I stared at her. “Forgive me, I’m not sure I understand the meaning of this question.”