CHAPTER 6
1552 Words
THE CROSSING
The lights went out at exactly midnight.
Mara knew because she had been watching the digital clock on the wall.
11:59.
Then—
00:00
Darkness.
Not the gentle darkness of a power cut.
A complete shutdown.
The faint hum of the ventilation system disappeared. The blue strip beneath her door went black. Even the tiny red light on the camera above her bed vanished.
Mara sat upright.
For the first time since arriving at the facility, she couldn't hear the building watching her.
She held her breath.
Nothing.
Then, somewhere beyond her room, a door slammed.
Mara reached for her notebook.
She switched on the small emergency light beside her bed.
The battery indicator blinked twice.
LOW POWER.
She frowned.
The facility had never allowed the lights to go off.
Never.
She opened her notebook and wrote:
12:01 a.m.
Then she stopped.
A thought entered her mind.
Chris.
She hated that his name was the first thing she thought about.
She closed her eyes.
Why him?
A soft sound came from the corridor.
Three knocks.
Mara froze.
Three more.
She stood.
Slowly, she approached the door.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
Then a whisper.
“Mara.”
Her heart jumped.
She knew the voice.
Chris.
She opened the door.
He stood in the darkness wearing a gray shirt and dark trousers, his hair slightly messy. He looked nervous.
“You shouldn't be here,” Mara whispered.
“I know.”
“If they see you—”
“They already know.”
Mara stared at him.
“What?”
Chris looked toward the ceiling.
“The cameras didn't go off.”
Mara's stomach tightened.
“What do you mean?”
“They're still watching.”
He pointed above her.
The tiny red camera light was dark.
But Chris shook his head.
“They don't need the light anymore.”
A cold feeling moved through her.
“You're saying they planned this?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why are you here?”
Chris hesitated.
“I saw something.”
“What?”
He stepped closer.
“Come with me.”
Mara stared at him.
Every sensible part of her mind told her to stay inside.
But another part—the part she had been trying desperately to silence—wanted to follow.
She grabbed her notebook.
“Where?”
Chris looked down the corridor.
“To the old section of the facility.”
They moved quietly.
The emergency lights flickered every few seconds, casting long shadows across the walls.
The facility looked different without its normal lighting.
Less like a government research center.
More like a prison.
They passed several empty rooms.
Then Mara noticed something.
A door she had never seen before.
No electronic panel.
No identification number.
Just a small metal plaque.
ARCHIVE B.
Chris tried the handle.
Locked.
He pulled a thin card from his pocket.
Mara looked at him.
“Where did you get that?”
“Alan.”
“Alan gave you this?”
Chris nodded.
“Why?”
“He told me he found it.”
“Where?”
Chris didn't answer.
The card slid into the reader.
A green light appeared.
The door opened.
Mara's breath caught.
Inside were rows of old files.
Hundreds of them.
Maybe thousands.
Paper files.
Photographs.
Participant records.
Names.
Dates.
Compatibility scores.
Mara walked toward the nearest shelf.
She picked up a file.
PROGRAM: DEVOTION
COHORT 07
She opened it.
Photographs.
A young couple smiled at the camera.
Underneath their photograph:
PAIR ACCEPTED.
Another page.
DEVOTION INDEX: 87%
Then:
EMOTIONAL DEVIATION: 4%
Mara looked at Chris.
“What is this?”
He was already searching another shelf.
“Look.”
He pulled out a file.
His face changed.
“What?”
He turned it toward her.
Mara read the name.
CHRIS LUKE.
Her blood went cold.
“What?”
Chris opened the file.
The first page contained his photograph.
But the photograph wasn't recent.
He looked about ten years old.
Beside him stood his parents.
Mara looked at him.
“You've been in the program before?”
“No.”
“Then why do they have your file?”
Chris turned the page.
His childhood medical records.
School records.
Family information.
Personal preferences.
Then a section titled:
PROJECTED RELATIONSHIP BEHAVIOR.
Below it:
SUBJECT: CHRIS LUKE
EXPECTED RESISTANCE TO GOVERNMENT PAIRING: HIGH.
FAMILY-LINEAGE PRESSURE: HIGH.
EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT RESPONSE: UNSTABLE.
Chris stared at the page.
“They've been studying me.”
Mara's hands trembled.
“Before you ever joined.”
A noise came from the corridor.
Footsteps.
Both of them froze.
Chris closed the file.
“We have to go.”
But Mara had already spotted another folder.
Her own.
MARA TENDO.
She grabbed it.
Chris reached for her.
“Mara—”
She opened it.
The first page was dated sixteen years earlier.
Her childhood photograph stared back at her.
Her mother.
Her father.
Delyn.
Everything.
Then she saw something that made her stop breathing.
A handwritten note.
SUBJECT FIRST DISPLAYED EMOTIONAL NONCONFORMITY AT AGE 12.
Mara remembered.
She had been twelve when her parents separated.
The year she stopped believing that contracts could create love.
The year she began writing stories.
The year she promised herself she would never allow anyone to tell her who she should love.
She turned the page.
There was another note.
WRITING BEHAVIOR INDICATES OBSESSION WITH UNSCRIPTED ROMANTIC ATTACHMENT.
Mara's eyes widened.
“They knew.”
Chris stared at her.
“They knew what you would become.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“They didn't know.”
She looked at the file.
“They made me.”
A sound came from behind them.
A woman's voice.
“You're beginning to understand.”
Mara and Chris turned.
A woman stood in the doorway.
She wore a white coat.
No identification badge.
No expression.
Mara recognized her.
She had seen her during the orientation.
Watching from the balcony.
The researcher.
The woman looked at the files in their hands.
“You were not supposed to find those.”
Chris stepped in front of Mara.
“Who are you?”
The woman ignored him.
She looked directly at Mara.
“Your deviation is progressing faster than expected.”
Mara's heart pounded.
“You put us together.”
The woman smiled faintly.
“No.”
She glanced at Chris.
“We separated you.”
Silence.
Mara felt the room tilt.
“What?”
“You were never supposed to choose each other.”
Chris clenched his fists.
“Why?”
“Because that is precisely what we needed to measure.”
The woman walked toward them.
“Love is easy to study when people follow instructions.”
She stopped.
“But what happens when they don't?”
Mara's voice became quiet.
“What is this place?”
The woman looked at her.
“An experiment.”
“On what?”
“Devotion.”
The emergency lights flickered.
The woman continued.
“For decades, governments have tried to solve the population crisis by encouraging relationships. Incentives. Contracts. Compatibility programs.”
She looked at Mara's file.
“But encouragement was never enough.”
Chris stared at her.
“So you decided to control it.”
“We decided to understand it.”
“That isn't the same thing.”
“No,” the woman said.
“It isn't.”
For the first time, something almost like sadness crossed her face.
Then she looked at Mara.
“You were invited because you write about love.”
She looked at Chris.
“You were invited because you resist it.”
Then she looked between them.
“And now we want to know what happens when two people who were never supposed to fall in love begin doing exactly that.”
Mara felt the blood drain from her face.
“You're saying we're part of an experiment.”
“You're more than that.”
The woman stepped closer.
“You are the first pair to produce a measurable cross-pairing response.”
Chris shook his head.
“We aren't a pair.”
The woman smiled.
“Not officially.”
A loud alarm suddenly sounded.
Red lights flashed throughout the archive.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS.
The woman stepped backward.
Security doors began closing.
Mara grabbed Chris's hand.
“Run!”
They sprinted toward the exit.
Behind them, the woman called out:
“Tomorrow morning, Phase Three begins.”
The metal doors slammed shut.
Mara and Chris barely escaped.
They ran down the corridor until they reached an empty stairwell.
They stopped.
Both were breathing heavily.
Neither let go of the other's hand.
Mara looked down.
Then at Chris.
He slowly released her.
“What happens now?” he whispered.
Mara looked at the notebook she was still holding.
She opened it.
On the last page, she wrote:
THEY THINK THEY CAN MEASURE LOVE.
She paused.
Then added:
LET'S GIVE THEM SOMETHING THEY CAN'T CONTROL.
Chris read the words.
“What does that mean?”
Mara closed the notebook.
“It means we stop playing their game.”
Somewhere inside the facility, a screen flickered back to life.
A message appeared.
PHASE THREE
THE CROSSING
OBJECTIVE: IDENTIFY THE SUBJECT'S TRUE DEVOTION.
Below it appeared two names.
MARA TENDO
CHRIS LUKE
And beneath them:
DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO CHOOSE EACH OTHER.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD