Burn (Pure #3)(35)

They find themselves in Foresteed’s office, which is glutted with memorabilia devoted to the past and the Dome.

“I’ve never been in here before,” Partridge whispers. Lyda hasn’t either, of course. Foresteed’s assistant offered them a seat while they’re waiting, but they can’t help walking around, taking it all in. Righteous Red Wave recruitment posters are framed on the walls—young men with firmly set jaws stand shoulder to shoulder, a smoldering city in the background: JOIN NOW! BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE… In the mix, there’s a framed trifold flyer celebrating the opening of the Righteous Red Wave Museum. Lyda skims the text, remembering dimly her own childhood.

Inside the museum, live actors perform plays set during the troubling times when criminals with dangerous ideas roamed our streets, when feminism didn’t properly encourage femininity, when the media regularly sabotaged the government in its great efforts at reformation, when the government didn’t have the ability to fully protect good, hardworking citizens from harmful, dangerous citizens, and much, much more! Join us on the lawn for historic reenactments in full surround sound! Cheer on Righteous Red Wave soldiers as they defeat protestors and criminals and other evil elements! Prepare to be awed by our growing prison system, our rehabilitation centers, our asylums for the diseased… Bring your students to this educational opportunity! Families, spend time together bonding over the dark recent past and our hopeful bright future! Shop in our patriotic Righteous Red Wave gift shop. Admission for children under 12 is free.

Lyda is chilled.

Partridge walks up beside her. “I went as a kid. Did you?”

She shakes her head. “My father wouldn’t let me. I think he had some hidden ideas of his own about the Righteous Red Wave. It might be why he’s no longer with us.”

Lyda moves to a glass cabinet protecting leather-bound editions of The Academy Handbook for Girls, The Academy Handbook for Boys, and The New Eden: Prepare Your Heart, Mind, and Body—a book given to every household in the Dome. It details guidelines for the timing of the return to living on the outside, as well as lists of character traits that should be cultivated and praised—loyalty, devotion, purity of heart. Lyda remembers her family’s copy, prominently displayed on the mantel for any guest to see.

In another display case, there are old uniforms and newspaper clippings about the plans for the Dome’s construction. One includes a picture of Partridge’s father at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“I wonder if Foresteed was ever married,” Lyda says. “Did he have a family? Did they not make it in?”

“I don’t know,” Partridge says. “I didn’t know him back then.”

“He misses it,” Lyda says. “The asylums, the battles, the prisons. He misses the oppression of the masses.”

“He’s sick in the head,” Partridge adds.

Lyda walks to Foresteed’s desk, leans over it. There’s a stack of parent authorization forms for enhancements—the signatures of parents scrawled across them as if they have a choice—and then she sees a file with her name on the tab. Suddenly, everything feels more personal, setting her on edge. She lifts the folder ever so slightly. It’s her psychological evaluation from the rehabilitation center. “What?” she whispers.

Partridge is on the other side of the room, engrossed in newspaper articles about his father. Lyda picks up the folder quickly.

Reason for referral: Lyda Mertz is believed to have suffered an emotional trauma due to an event in which she participated in a theft and the disappearance of a classmate, Partridge Willux…

Under SOURCES OF INFORMATION, there’s a list of all those they interviewed and deposed—her teachers, Miss Pearl and Mr. Glassings; a few of her classmates; her mother; her pediatrician. There are summaries of their accounts and then a list of psychological tests—all waived. Why? Because she would have passed them. She wasn’t crazy.

The team who interviewed her when she was brought into the rehab center describe Lyda in her interview.

Ms. Mertz was agitated and nervous…easily distracted by the window image and often rubbed her hands on her knees. She was self-conscious about her shaved head and kept it covered. She did not make consistent eye contact…a reluctant interviewee… She found it painful to talk about her father and his death. She didn’t want to discuss the difficulties of being raised by a single mother. She talked only briefly about her life in the academy, saying it was “good” and that she’d been “happy, you know, more or less.”

She had been happy, more or less, but only because she didn’t know what happiness was. She didn’t understand it because she hadn’t ever had the freedom to make her own decisions, to choose a life. Freedom and happiness are entwined—one can’t truly exist without the other.

She sees herself in her mind’s eye—that girl in the rehabilitation center who was scared and quiet, embarrassed and ashamed. She never wants to feel that way again.

Lyda reads some dense medical language about her diagnosis, none of which sounds at all accurate.

And then the conclusions.

Short-Term Prognosis: We believe that due to Ms. Mertz’s delusional thinking, willful disobedience, disregard for rules and laws, new history of criminal activity, and deep level of denial, she is a threat to herself and others…

She shakes her head. No, not true. Not at all.