The Forsaken

pen. When you hear the nurse call your number, you will follow her into your assigned testing cell!”
    The man keeps walking. He repeats his speech all over again. I realize he probably spends his whole day dispensing instructions. A robot could do his job, and might even be nicer about it.
    The line keeps moving relentlessly. Warm bodies press against me, reeking of sweat and perfume. Finally we reach a large octagonal waiting area decorated with framed photos of Minister Harka. I realize this must be one of the holding pens. I just stand there with Sandy and Claudette, getting jostled as more kids flood into the room.
    But kids are exiting this room as well. On the other side of the vast space is a series of openings. They lead into narrow hallways lit with flickering fluorescent lights.
    Every minute or so, a nurse appears from one of them and yells out a number. I check my paper card each time.
    Sandy’s hair is lank, and her face has gone pale. “You’d think they’d have some soda pop machines in here,” she complains, twisting her fingers.
    “You would think,” Claudette mutters. “But they don’t.”
    I shift my weight from one foot to the other.
    “Number 014-562-388?” an unsmiling nurse cries, poking her head out of a long hallway to my right.
    She starts repeating the digits, practically screaming them. I glance down at my card and realize she’s calling my number. I double-check it quickly, like an eager government lotto winner, then blurt: “That’s me!”
    I wave good-bye to Sandy and Claudette, and I make my way through the crowd toward the nurse.
    She leads me past rows of closed doors until we reach an open room. She takes my card, swipes it in an electronic reader, and gestures for me to go inside. I do as she indicates. She turns to leave, and closes the door behind her.
    Not sure what to do, I sit in the lone chair, smoothing down my pleated skirt. The chair is bolted to the cement floor in the center of the tiny room. I can still hear the noise of thousands of teenagers thrumming away in the holding pens outside, like I’m in an angry beehive.
    I glance around my testing cell. It’s cold, lit by an overhead bulb, with nothing on the walls but peeling yellow paint. It’s like a cross between a dentist’s office and a school bathroom.
    A laptop computer and a large silver box with wires running out of it sit next to me on top of a storage cabinet. Electrical cables and a strange metal halo hang from the ceiling above my head, just under the light.
    I hear a knock at the door as it opens. A tall man in a white lab coat appears. “Alenna Shawcross?”
    I’m surprised he’s using my name instead of a number. “That’s me.”
    He nods. “Just making sure I got the right girl.”
    As he walks into the room, I check out his government name tag. Oddly, there isn’t even a name on it, just a bunch of cryptic symbols.
    The man stands next to me, tapping keys on the computer and fiddling with knobs on the silver box. “I’ll be your scanning tech today, Alenna. Roll up a sleeve, if you don’t mind.”
    “You’ve done this before, right?” I babble, knowing it’s a stupid thing to ask. But I can’t stand getting shots or having blood taken. It always makes me nervous.
    “Ten thousand times, give or take a few hundred.” He smiles and slips an electrode belt around my chest. I reluctantly roll up one sleeve of my blouse. “Now take a deep breath and hold it.” He adjusts the belt. “Now relax.”
    Relaxing is hard, but I try to ignore the medical aspects of the GPPT. Then I notice that the tech already has a narrow syringe in his hand. Where did that come from?
    “You’ll feel a small poke,” he says as he suddenly sticks the needle into the crook of my left elbow.
    “Ouch!”
    He depresses the plunger and shoots the scanning fluid into me, and then withdraws the needle with a grin. “C’mon. That wasn’t too bad, was it?”
    As I rub my arm, he dims the light and starts lowering the metal halo from the ceiling. Right away, I begin feeling drowsy, but soon the pleasant sleepiness morphs into woozy seasickness.
    “I feel kinda weird,” I manage to say through numbed lips. “Hard to talk . . .”
    “Oh, that’s normal,” the tech replies blithely. He brings the metal halo down farther and places it around my head, gently pushing back my hair.
    “I don’t have to . . . do anything . . . right?” I ask, my speech slurred. I’m afraid I’m going to