Possession

  POSSESSION

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Pulse hardcover edition June 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Elana Johnson

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Designed by Mike Rosamilia

  The text of this book was set in Berling LT.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Johnson, Elana.

  Possession / Elana Johnson. — 1st Simon Pulse hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In a world where Thinkers control the population and Rules are not meant to be broken, fifteen-year-old Violet Schoenfeld must make a choice to control or be controlled after learning truths about her “dead” sister and “missing” father.

  ISBN 978-1-4424-2125-7

  [1. Science fiction. 2. Rules (Philosophy)—Fiction. 3. Brainwashing—Fiction.

  4. Insurgency—Fiction. 5. Missing persons—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.J64053Pos 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010034675

  ISBN 978-1-4424-2391-6 (eBook)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Acknowledgments

  To my family. I would choose you

  over anyone and anything.

  1.

  Good girls don’t walk with boys. Even if they’re good boys—and Zenn is the best. He strolled next to me, all military with his hands clasped behind his back, wearing the black uniform of a Forces recruit. The green stripes on his shirtsleeves flashed with silver tech lights, probably recording everything. Probably? Who am I kidding? Those damn stripes were definitely recording everything.

  Walking through the park in the evening is not technically against the rules. Good people do it all the time. But walking through the park with a boy could get me in trouble.

  When darkness fell, another rule would be broken.

  The whir of a hovercopter echoed high above the trees. In this park, the saplings stood an inch or two taller than me. Some trees in the City of Water are ancient—at least a century old. But the forest is off-limits, and even I know better than to break that rule.

  The filthy charcoal shade of the sky matched the impurities I’d filtered from the lake in class today. I imagined the color to be similar to the factory walls where my dad worked, but I had never been there and hadn’t seen him for years, so I couldn’t say for sure.

  People don’t return from the Badlands.

  “Vi, I’m glad you finally answered my e-comm,” Zenn said, his voice smooth, just like his skin and the perfectly fluid way he walked.

  “You know my mom.” I didn’t have to elaborate. Not with Zenn. “I told her I was coming whether she said yes or not.” I tried to hide how desperate I’d been to see him, how happy his e-comm invitation had made me. He could’ve asked me to the moon and I would’ve gladly gone. And taken whatever punishment followed.

  I’d left school during the afternoon break. The Special Forces compound is a two-hour walk south of the City of Water. I’d crossed the border and trekked for half a mile in the Fire Region just to see him. Crossing borders is also against the rules, but Zenn was worth every step.

  I watched the hovercopters circle closer, comfortable in the silence with Zenn. Sometimes it said more than we did.

  The sidewalks had stopped functioning thirty minutes ago, clearly curfew for this park. As one hovercopter dipped nearer, it took every ounce of courage I had to keep from reaching out, grabbing Zenn’s hand, and running.

  Before, I might have done it. But there was something different about him. Something that made me think he wouldn’t run with me this time.

  Another quick glance confirmed it. His eyes. They held no sparkle. No life. Maybe the Forces worked him too hard.

  My sweet, wonderful Zenn. I hoped he was okay here. His eyes worried me.

  “Well, now that you’re here, I’ve got something for you,” he said, smiling.

  I angled my body toward him. Zenn’s e-comm had said he had a surprise for me—surely something he’d tinkered with until it was absolutely perfect. Like he was.

  “The Forces have kept me busy,” Zenn continued, reaching into his pocket. He didn’t seem concerned about the circling hovercopters, but he wasn’t always living one breath away from getting arrested. “But we might not get to see each other again for a while. Your birthday is in a couple weeks, and you’re my—”

  “You down there!” An electronic voice cut through Zenn’s throaty tone. I flinched and took a half step behind Zenn. A one-manned tech-craft, the hovercopter was invented especially for ruining lives. No one ever escapes from one. Not even me.

  On the bottom rudder, a red rose winked through the twilight. My breath shuddered through my chest—I’d been caught by this hovercopter before. Maybe since Zenn was a Forces recruit and had invited me here, I wouldn’t get in trouble.

  Yeah, right. Fairness isn’t something the Director cares about.

  “Cards!” the mechanical voice shouted. Zenn pulled out his lime green activity card and held it straight up. An electric arm grew from the side of the police vehicle and flew down to scan the bar code on the back of Zenn’s card.

  I slowly retrieved my own ID. No one in the Goodgrounds can so much as step onto the sidewalk without an electronic record of their activity.

  My card was blue for the City of Water. I raised it halfway as the arm jangled at me, trying to get a better angle to scan the bar code. Then I’d be busted for being out of bounds—after dark.

  Zenn watched me with a wary eye. “Vi. Don’t give them a real reason to lock you up.” He stepped close
enough for his body heat to permeate my senses. Touching was against the rules, but he’d broken that one lots of times.

  I smiled, even though he was right. Lock Up is not a fun place. The stench alone is enough to set rule-breakers straight. Still, I almost threw my activity card into the brambles where no one would ever find it.

  Zenn’s face stopped me, his mouth drawn into a fine line. My bar code would be attached to his—we were in the park after dark (gasp!)—and if I got into serious trouble, he might not be able to advance in the Special Forces. And I couldn’t have that weighing on my conscience.

  I rolled my eyes at Zenn, something he didn’t see because of my oversize straw hat—another rule, one I actually followed. The scanner beeped, and a horrible squeal erupted from the hovercopter.

  “What have you done now?” Zenn’s voice carried a hint of laughter amidst the exasperation.

  “Nothing,” I answered. “I’ve done nothing this time.” I’d been good for two months.

  “This time?” he asked.

  “Violet Schoenfeld, stay where you are!” the mechanical voice boomed. “The Green demands a hearing.”

  “Vi! The Green? Seriously, what have you done?”

  “Can I have my present now?”

  * * *

  Everyone knows the Green is just a fancy name for the Thinkers. They’re the ones who broadcast the transmissions and categorize the people. The ones who do the thinking so regular people won’t have to.

  Zenn would join Them when he finished training with the Special Forces. He’d wanted to be a Greenie for as long as I’d known him, but that didn’t stop our friendship. This arrest might—SF agents didn’t hang out with criminals.

  Inside the hovercopter, large panels with multicolored buttons and complicated instruments covered the dashboard. Glass encased the entire bulb of the body, allowing the pilot to spot rule-breakers from any angle. A window in the floor beneath the single—and occupied—metal chair provided a good view of the ground below. Since I had nowhere to sit, I stood next to the tiny doorway.

  I felt trapped in a bubble, with the charcoal sky pressing down around me. My throat tightened with each passing second.

  After cuffing me, the pilot scowled. “This return trip will take twice as long. We usually send transports for arrests.”

  I made a face at the back of his head. Like I didn’t know that. Almost as bad as Lock Up, transports are twice as uncomfortable as the cramped hovercopter. And the filth and stink? Nasty.

  With my extra weight on board, the pilot maneuvered the craft awkwardly and zoomed back toward the towers on the south end of the Goodgrounds. “I have a break in twenty minutes. I don’t have time for this.”

  Then let me out. I watched Zenn fade to a distant dot, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time I saw him.

  The hovercopter slowed and the pilot turned to glare at me. “Don’t try your tricks on me, girlie.”

  I had no idea what he meant. I gripped the handle above the doorway as he swung the hovercopter to the left. Toward the towers.

  The Southern Rim is only accessible to Goodies with special clearance or important business. I’d never been there, not that I hadn’t tried. No one I knew had ever been—water folk didn’t make trouble.

  True fear flowed in my veins as we approached. Maybe sneaking to see Zenn had been a bad idea. The thought felt strange, almost like it didn’t belong to me. It grew, pressing me down with guilt. You shouldn’t have risked your freedom to see Zenn.

  The voice in my head definitely wasn’t my own. Damn Thinkers. I shook the brainwashing message away. Zenn had risked his freedom for me last summer.

  Below me, fields wove together in little squares, some brown, some green, some gold. Crops grown in the Centrals provided food for those in the Southern Rim and the rest of the Goodgrounds.

  The fields gave way to structures standing two or three stories high. Constructed like the other buildings in the Goodgrounds—gray or brown bricks, flashing tech lights, and red iris readers in every doorway.

  Windows were blinded off from the outside world. We certainly don’t want any sunlight getting in. No, that would be bad. According to the Thinkers anyway. Sunlight damages skin, no matter what color. Our clothes cover us from wrist to chin, ankle to hip, and everywhere in between. Suits for the business class. Jeans and oatmeal-colored shirts for everyone else. Wide-brimmed hats must be worn at all times.

  Goodies are walking paper dolls, devoid of personality—and brains.

  Yeah, that doesn’t work for me. I don’t want to be a paper doll. That’s why I broke the rules and stopped plugging in to the transmissions.

  The pilot swerved and twisted around the tall buildings. I’d never seen the city up close. My eyes couldn’t move fast enough from one shiny structure to the next.

  The pilot steered toward the last and tallest building on the border of our land. The one with the symbol that can be seen anywhere in the Goodgrounds.

  The olive branch is the symbol of good. It signals our allegiance to the Association of Directors. More like Association of Dictators, if you want my honest opinion. But no one does.

  “So now you’ve seen the Southern Rim,” the pilot said. “Was it everything you expected?”

  I didn’t know how to answer, so I kept my mouth shut—a first for me. That was the Southern Rim? No magic, no golden pathways, no perfect escape from my sucky life. The wall now towered in front of me, closing off any thought of freedom.

  The hovercopter hung in midair as a door slid open in the wall. Darkness concealed whatever waited inside. And what would I find on the other side? Could I come back? Maybe I would never see Zenn again. My mouth felt too dry.

  “We’re going in there?” I asked.

  “After I process your file,” the pilot said. He made a note on a small screen. A long list popped up.

  “I’ve cited you before,” he said, smiling slowly. I remembered the last time: I’d left the City of Water after dark, crossed through the crops growing in the Centrals, and tried to enter the Southern Rim. I’d dressed up real nice in a fancy white dress and old platform shoes—which were the reason I’d been caught. No one can run in shoes like that.

  I endured six rounds of questioning until I admitted I’d stolen the shoes from the basement of a house in the Abandoned Area—another off-limits place—another violation of the rules. Wearing contraband (which I didn’t know about at the time) from an illegal area, trying to enter another forbidden district, and then there was all that nasty business about lying. Like it’s the worst thing on the planet or something.

  You see, Goodies don’t lie. Ever. Honesty is sort of bred into us, but somehow mine got out-bred. Maybe when I stopped listening to the transmissions. Or maybe because I just don’t give a damn.

  And I’m a good liar, but that’s all been properly documented in my file, which the pilot was now reading with interest. “Mm-hmm,” he said. “A liar, a thief, and now the Green wants you. It’s no small wonder, Vi.”

  I absolutely hate it when strangers use my nickname like we’re old friends. I ignored him as he eased the hovercopter closer to the wall. A red beam scanned the rose on the bottom and a signal flashed. The pilot steered into a long tunnel with black walls, hardly a wall and more like a building. As we careened through it, panic spread through me—something I hadn’t felt since learning Zenn would be leaving me behind to join the Special Forces. I wished he’d given me my birthday present before the stupid pilot arrested me.

  When we finally cleared the tunnel, I gasped at the view below me.

  A second city loomed behind that wall—an entire city.

  People swarmed in the streets. Silver instruments and shiny gadgets winked up at me from the vast expanse below. My stomach clenched painfully, and I forced myself to keep breathing so I wouldn’t faint.

  The fierceness of the advanced tech burned in my brain. I can feel technology, I’ve always been able to. And this whole new part of the Goodgrounds produced som
e serious tech buzz. My head felt like it was in a particle accelerator set on high.

  “So here we are,” the pilot said. “The Institute—the birthplace of tech.”

  No wonder I felt like throwing up.

  2.

  Everyone knows prisons have row after row of identical cells where the good-turned-bad live with concrete beds, toilets in the corners, and no projections to pass the time. Mechs escort rule-breakers to meals, and criminals are only allowed outside at certain times. I’d seen all this in school. Be good, or we’ll put you in here.

  But prison wasn’t anything like what I’d learned in class. A silver floor stretched into stark, white walls that glared down at me as I followed a wheeled Mech through a door labeled WARD A.

  I stopped just inside the entryway, staring down the hall. Numbered doors hid the cells beyond, but I didn’t detect any hint of puke. This was far better than Lock Up. In there, it’s everyone for himself. Or herself. Girls don’t normally get put in Lock Up, but I’d been there four times. The rules are really stupid. Like it matters if I don’t lock my window at night. Who’s going to come in? It’s against the rules to be out after dark.

  I had to wait for a hearing. Mechs took me to the bathroom and back. (No toilet in the corner—I’d hit the big time.) They brought me packets of food that I mixed with bottled water, which tasted funny. Metallic, almost. Tech-cleaned. One wall projected the scenery outside, and I wondered if the weather was accurate.

  My mother wouldn’t come. She’d been notified, but I knew she didn’t care. The Southern Rim was a long trip for a daughter she didn’t want. I’d broken the rules one time too many the first time. She could have at least sent an e-comm. Even Zenn—trapped in the den of Special Forces agents—did that.

  His message was short, only a few lines about how he couldn’t get away for the trial, how he was trying to get me out of prison. But he’d signed it Love, Zenn and those two words provided all I needed to endure prison and whatever it held.

  I don’t remember time passing. It was just gone. Finally, I followed a shiny Mech down a wide hall, my heart beating furiously fast. Mechanical whirrings from its wheels scratched against the polished steel floor. The only other noise came from a motionless Mech in the middle of the hall. The oily smell of burning gears filled my nose as the beeps became one constant alarm.