Chapter 10 — Chosen

Chapter 10

The first voice comes through the speakers at 6am.

Not an alarm. A voice — calm, measured, the kind of voice that has been recorded in a studio with the specific intention of sounding like no one in particular. It says:

"Good morning. Welcome to the facility. You will be briefed at 0800 in the assembly hall on level two. Attendance is not optional."

Then silence.

Kenzou, who slept somehow, opens one eye from his position on the floor of the common area where we all ended up the night before. "Did it say good morning."

"Yes," Yuma says.

"Polite," he says, and closes his eye again.

Level two assembly hall is white like everything else. Chairs in rows. A screen at the front currently showing nothing. We are not the first ones there.

The room has other students.

Forty, maybe fifty. All our age, all in school uniforms from schools I don't recognize, all sitting or standing with the particular expression of people who have been awake since before they were supposed to be awake and are processing things at different speeds. Some afraid. Some angry. Some with the blank careful expression of people who have decided to wait before they feel anything.

I recognize that expression. I wear it often.

We take seats together automatically — the six of us, same positions we always fall into, like the rooftop rearranged itself in a white room on an island.

I look around.

Kaito is looking at the other students the way he looks at things he is cataloguing. Kurenai has already identified something across the room worth watching — I follow her gaze to a group of three near the front, two boys and a girl, sitting in a way that suggests they are not surprised. Comfortable. Like they have been here before or knew they were coming.

Hori is talking quietly to Yuma. She has the small notebook out again.

I watch Hori write something and close it.

The screen at the front lights up.

Not a face. A symbol — clean, minimal, the kind of design that cost someone a great deal of money to make look like it cost nothing. Beneath it, words:

PROJECT X

I look at it.

I think about a dead president with a long memory. A list of schools. A facility on an island. A serum and a plan that started before any of us were old enough to understand plans.

I think about Kaito on the train. I know. I know.

I think about Hori writing in her notebook at 6am on an island she has apparently already decided she is comfortable on.

I think about my father on every television in Japan saying things that sound like promises.

Beneath the symbol the words change:

YOU WERE CHOSEN.

The room is very quiet.

Kenzou leans over to me and whispers: "chosen for what."

"I don't know yet," I say.

He nods. Sits back. Looks at the screen.

For the first time since we woke up on this island he doesn't look like he is waiting for this to make sense.

He looks like he is deciding something.

I look back at the screen.

PROJECT X.

My father's government is funding this facility. My father's policies sent Kaito's family into poverty. My father's name is on every billboard in a country he is slowly taking apart from the inside while wearing the face of a man who is putting it together.

I have been moving toward something for five years.

I think it just moved toward me.

The screen changes one more time:

WELCOME TO THE PROGRAM.

I put my hand in my pocket. I feel the edge of my wallet. I don't take out the photograph. I just hold it.

The briefing begins.