The System

Lucy sighed. She turned to Huck just as he wiped away a single tear. She shut her eyes again. “You mean,” she started, feeling her heart skip as she mounted her attack, “like a fast-moving virus?”

“Exactly like that, yes,” Huck replied without missing a beat. Then he leaned down to her, and put a single hand on the bed to steady himself. “I accept your confusion. But I’m here to tell you that your arrival here is very important.”

“Please…” Lucy didn’t want to ask again.

“Your parents thought you might have died,” Huck told her. “Of course, they assumed you would come. It hasn’t been long…they don’t know what it’s like to give up hope.” For the first time in their talk, Lucy felt ill-at-ease; the resentment leaked through his avuncular exterior. “But here you are. Hope is rewarded. They will be thrilled. Thrilled.” She detected the hint of disdain. “The rest of my dome? With the people I think of as my family? Not so thrilled, perhaps. We shall see, we shall see. It’s very complicated, Lucy. Very complicated indeed.”

He pulled back and dug into his pocket again.

“Here,” he said and he extended his hand. Lucy clenched her hands into fists. So, Huck dropped a small trinket to the side of her bed. She looked sidelong at it and could tell from the coil shape, the glint of a jewel, that he had given her a necklace. “It belonged to my daughter.”

“I don’t want it,” Lucy said quickly.

“Of course,” Huck replied and he nodded. “You think I’m evil and horrible.”

“I just want to see my family,” Lucy bit back the tears, angry at herself for cracking and showing him just how badly she wanted to see her family.

“I want that too, darling.” He pushed the necklace forward. “My daughter tried to drown you in the tanks after disobeying the System’s rules of not going outside without an express order from the Elektos cabinet members. To jog. She disobeyed our community’s rules because she thought she was above the rules and she wanted to run, with her dog, in the sunlight. A petty and stupid reason. But yet…she feared me so much…that she was willing to sacrifice you.”

“Okay,” Lucy said. “I don’t care what you tell me; I don’t care what lies you tell me. You can’t keep me here.”

“I’m many things,” Huck continued, his voice deepening. “But I’m not dishonest. Ask me anything. Go on.”

Lucy scowled. She stuck her lip out and frowned with petulant frustration. “Fine,” she finally answered. “Why won’t you let me see my family?”

Huck cleared his throat. “I need to decide the consequence for Blair before I can tell your father that she tried to kill you. It’s unfair to ask you to lie for her. It is my own dilemma. My own burden to bear. But the System has rules and, unfortunately, my dear daughter won’t fare well once the details of her actions come to light. I’m afraid, to put it bluntly. Afraid for her well-being.”

“My father will forgive her…because I’m alive,” Lucy said. She knew this to be true. Her father was many things, but the one quality she simultaneously loved and hated was his capacity to forgive. When it came to forgiving his own children, Lucy thought this was an amazing trait. When it came to forgiving the people who trespassed against his family, Lucy found his agreeable attitude alarming.

“I’m sure that is true,” Huck said. “But I’m not sure I can forgive her, you see. Maybe if she thought that you were an outsider, I could understand, but you and I both know that she knew you were Lucy King and still left you to die. Right?”

Lucy shrugged. Maybe he was fishing. Her lungs still hurt, and she felt none of her father’s carte blanche blanket of absolution; no, she wanted Blair to pay. But more than that, she didn’t want to give Huck anything—not an iota of information.

Honesty was one-way. Reciprocating only gave him back the power.

“No,” Lucy then answered.

“No?” Huck asked, his eyes wide. “She was merely protecting the System and not killing one of my best cabinet member’s daughters?”

Lucy didn’t answer; she searched his eyes, and remained silent.

“The rooms are wired, Lucy,” Huck said with a sad smile, after a beat. “I’ve seen the tape.”

Lucy blushed. Immediately caught. She felt hot tears sting her eyes.

“I understand you want to protect her…to speed up the reunion?” he said, his tone asking a question, but his words offering her the way out. She hated to take it and give him the satisfaction of orchestrating the situation, but she felt trapped.

“Yes,” she mumbled.

“Then maybe Blair didn’t know you were Lucy King.”

“Maybe.”

He pointed to the necklace on the bed. “My oldest daughter loved this necklace. I gave it to her on her thirteenth birthday. She was a little superstitious…I gave her the gift and said that thirteen was a beautiful number, nothing to be afraid of. She wore it and said it made her feel brave. Do you believe that an object can do that?”

“What?” Lucy asked him. “Make someone feel brave?”

“Yes. She believed it had power. And so I believe it does.”

“Why are you showing it to me?” Lucy looked at it directly for the first time. It was an aquamarine gemstone suspended inside a twisted ball of metal and wires and then attached to a long silver chain.

“It’s an apology. For everything I’m responsible for…and I realize the list is long. I’m sorry, I am. And I hope you can trust me because we’ll be asking a lot from you Lucy King and I need you to be brave.”

It was a beautiful and unique necklace; the kind of jewelry she would want to buy, but couldn’t. But Lucy already had a necklace around her neck that belonged to a dead girl and that necklace, more than this one, would remind her of all that she had faced on the outside. Huck Truman’s dead daughter’s necklace was an unworthy token compared to Salem’s crucifix and she wished she could tell him that.

“I’m already brave,” Lucy said and she turned her head away from him.

Huck laughed. “You are indeed, Lucy. You are indeed.” Then with a sigh, he stood. There was the sound of the door sliding open and then sliding closed, and the female medic from the tank room appeared to the side of the curtain surrounding Lucy’s bed. She motioned for Huck to come closer and then she whispered something in his ear; she made quick eye contact with Lucy before casting her eyes to the floor.

“I’m quite sorry to hear that,” Huck said and then he added. “The Kings can be notified that Lucy’s in the medic pod now. I’ll accompany you, if that’s okay.”

The medic nodded. “I’ll wait outside,” she said and then slipped back out the way she came in.

“Well, Lucy, I’m so terribly sorry to end our talk on such a horrible piece of news…” he cleared his throat and Lucy felt her body turn cold. Somehow she knew what he was going to say; she sat herself up on her elbows and shook her head.

“No,” she said. “No bad news. No. Don’t tell me anything.”

“I’m afraid,” Huck continued speaking over her pleas, “that the friend you arrived with—”

Lucy shook her head back and forth, her damp hair flying, and she couldn’t stop the tears. More than sadness, rage built up inside of her. Big blocks of fury set the foundation for all her other emotions; she teetered upon them and stared into an abyss. “No! Shut up. Shut up.”

Huck looked as if he had been slapped. His hurt was evident and made Lucy even angrier. “I do hate to be the bearer of bad news…but it appears your friend took his own life.”

The words hit her ears and she froze. With her chest heaving, her heart pounding, she stopped and stared at him, unblinking. No. That was wrong. That was a lie. Honest Huck. Full of lies. No. There was no way.

“They found him hanged in the tank a few moments ago.”

“No,” Lucy said with confidence, all the fight and fire leaving her body. She sat deflated and confused. “How? With what? On what?” She lobbed each question at him with a measured level of disbelief and self-assuredness. “And…he wouldn’t have,” she added in a whisper.