Z 2134

you something to loosen your lips. It’s harmless, and the side effects, as I’m sure you’ll agree, are quite pleasant. Now, you answer a question: Do you remember a man named Charles Egan?”
    The name was a far-off, painful memory, but quick to rise to the surface once summoned.
    Jonah said nothing.
    “Allow me to jog your memory,” Father said, uncrossing his arms and putting his hands in his pockets, then rocking harder on the balls of his feet, swaying back and forth like a pendulum, inching closer to Jonah. “Ten years ago, I believe this very month, a man named Charles Egan was found guilty of conspiring against The State. Egan was tried and found guilty, of course, then sent outside The Wall to play in The Darwin Games, which he eventually won. Does any of this ring a bell for you?”
    It did.
    “Of course, I remember Egan,” Jonah said, smiling as he remembered Keller’s disappointed face when Egan won the Final Battle.
    “Why are you smiling?” Father asked.
    Jonah felt a fresh wave of guilt, barely a flutter, until enough seconds passed to shatter the damn. A sudden surge of memories tore through him, and Jonah remembered how the man, Charles Egan, had been found guilty — based almost entirely on Jonah’s falsified eyewitness account placing him at a known Underground meeting place.
    It felt like a million years since Jonah last thought of the man he helped to set up and send outside The Wall. He wondered how he could have excised something so awful from his mind. From nowhere, Jonah felt a second wave of guilt, closer to a tsunami, as he remembered what happened after Egan won.
    “So you DO remember, then?”
    Jonah nodded.
    “Why did you set Egan up?”
    Though he didn’t want to confess, Jonah’s mouth moved faster than his mind.
    “I was ordered.”
    “By whom?”
    “Keller,” he said. “He said Egan was guilty, but that he’d been too careful. A witness had seen him, but the witness had protected status and couldn’t testify.”
    “Who was the witness?”
    “I don’t know,” Jonah shook his head. “Keller never said. Protected status and all; he didn’t have to.”
    Father stared at Jonah but said nothing for a moment. After he finished studying his face, he asked, “Are you sure?”
    “They didn’t tell me,” Jonah repeated, his voice cracking. He wondered if he would ever be himself again. “I never thought about it, until…”
    “Until when?”
    “Until after the trial, when Egan stared at me as the Watchers were taking him away. The look in his eyes, the anger as he begged and pleaded with me to tell the truth and say it out loud. He screamed his throat raw, swearing that I was a liar. I could hear him screaming even after they led him from the chambers.” Jonah’s voice broke as he started to cry at the memories. “That’s when I first thought that maybe something was wrong.”
    “So, why did you smile when you heard Egan’s name?”
    Jonah smiled again. “Because I remembered him winning The Games, and how pissed Keller was.”
    “And how did you feel when he won?”
    “I thought good on him . He deserved some good news after being set up.”
    “What else did you feel?”
    Jonah was uncertain what Father was asking.
    “I dunno,” he shook his head. “I’m not sure.” He wanted to say more, but his mind wouldn’t make new words.
    “Perhaps relief that the man you set up wasn’t killed in The Games?”
    Jonah nodded.
    “And what about Egan’s family? What happened to them?”
    Jonah shook his head, not wanting to revisit those memories.
    “So you know?”
    Jonah nodded.
    Father held his stare. “That’s all for now,” he said, holding Jonah’s gaze for another half-minute before turning away and heading to the door, even as Jonah screamed behind him, begging him not to go. Jonah wanted to follow, but he was bound, unable to go anywhere.
    “Please,” he cried, wanting anything other than to be left alone, cursing the drugs that turned him so needy. “Please don’t leave, Father!”
    Father’s footsteps faded down the hall until the last lonely echo fell into nothing.
    **
    Jonah wasn’t sure how long it was before he passed out, but euphoria had turned to despair, circling him until he did, forcing him to revisit his every sin and all the pain of the past few months.
    When he woke, he opened his eyes to a girl standing three feet away, staring. He blinked several times to make sure she was really there. It was the girl from the