“We need to get back to the group. It's dinnertime.”
At dinner, most of us are pretty spent. We're too tired to engage in anything more than middling conversation, a far cry from the gab-fest we had at lunch. I worry about my body odor and discreetly sniff my underarms from time to time. I eat quickly, mindful of my proximity to others. Gaunt Man seated next to me is given to occasional twitches. He doesn't say anything, but a couple of times, his nostrils enlarge in my direction.
Ashley June sits on my other side. I am conscious of her every move: the closeness of her elbow to mine, every time she picks up and puts down her utensils, the sway of her hair as she ties it into a ponytail to keep it from fal ing into the drip cups. Mostly, I notice her silence. A strong urge pul s in me to look at her. And to move away from her, keeping my odor from her.
By midmeal, I'm more than worried about my body odor.
And the more ner vous I get, the more odor I emit. A quick and quiet exit is what's needed. I stand up; all eyes at the table immediately turn to me. Stepping away from the table, I look for my escort sitting at his own table somewhere in the surrounding darkness. He emerges from behind me a few moments later.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes, fi ne. I should be heading back to my lodging. I'm worried about the sunrise.”
He looks at his watch. “It's not due for another hour.”
“Even so, I'm a worrier. I don't want to chance getting caught outside by a premature sunrise.” Everyone at the table is staring at us now.
“I assure you, our dawn– dusk calculations are never wrong,” he says.
I cast my eyes downward, realizing I actual y don't have to feign tiredness. I'm truly worn to the bone. “If there's nothing else for to night, I think I'm going to retire early. Pretty pooped.”
I sense him staring at me, trying to understand. “But the food— there're so many more succulent dishes to come.”
I realize what's going on. “You know you don't have to escort me back. Stay and eat. To your fi l . Real y. I know my way back from here. Two fl ights down, left down the hal way, right, another left, then out the double doors with the Institute emblem.”
“You don't want to stay for dessert?”
“No, I'm fi ne, real y.”
“But the choicest, bloodiest meats are yet to come!”
“Just knackered, is all . Real y, don't you worry about me.”
“You sure you're fi ne getting back without assistance?”
“I got this.” And before he can object, I leave. And as I walk away, I shoot a quick look at the table.
They're all supposed to be eating, ignoring my conversation with the escort, stuffi ng their faces. But instead they're looking at me with befuddlement. No; more than befuddlement. This is bewilder-ment, the kind that nests in people's minds, keeps them wondering.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I mutter to myself as I walk down two fl ights. Idiot, idiot, idiot, I inwardly reprove myself as I head down the hal ways. “Moron, moron, moron,” I say out loud as I push open the double doors to the outside. And then it is my father's voice in my head: Don't do anything out of the ordinary, don't do anything that sticks you out from the crowd. Avoid anything that'll draw attention.
Even when I reach the doors to the library a few minutes later, I am still chastising myself. Imbecile, stupid, moron, doofus.
Back in the library, I roam the aisles, the back rooms, hidden corners, scour every inch. But it's useless. There's no drinkable liquid of any kind in the library, not so much as a drop. And in the restroom, like in all bathrooms, there's nothing but hard sanitizing dispensers. Knowing better, I dab a few drops of the sanitizer on my tongue. The sanitizer drops scour my tongue with an acidic burn that leaves a foul after taste. I'm really worried now. Away from my supplies stashed at home, from all my instruments of subter-fuge— my shavers, bottles of water, odor suppressors, teeth whiteners, nail fi lers— things are deteriorating quickly. The lack of water is causing my head to spin. I can't concentrate. On things. all my thoughts are jagged. Short thrusts. A pounding headache.
I lift up my arm, take a sniff of my armpit. There. Even I can smel it now. And if I can smel it, they can. No wonder Gaunt Man and Beefy were so distracted at dinner.
I don't know if anyone suspects me yet. Gaunt Man and Beefy might have smel ed something at dinner, but I don't think they've connected the dots to me yet. But by tomorrow, I'l be reeking.
I head over to the leather couch and plop down. My head: stil pounding, spinning. Outside, a hint of dawn presses against the windows. The shutters will close soon.
I throw my elbow over my eyes, not wanting to think but knowing I need to face reality. Plan A seemed perfect not so long ago: Fly under the radar during training period, break a leg right before the Hunt. But now, things have changed. With my body sending out eatme smel s and my tongue as dry and coarse as sandpaper, I won't make it to the Hunt four nights away. I'l either die of thirst or be savagely devoured. Probably the latter.
Lying on the couch, a numbed alarm pressing down on me, I begin to drift. Actual y, it's more like a plummet into a deep canyon of sleep.
Thirst awakens me. I cough: a thousand splinters pierce my parched throat.
Slowly, I peel my draped arm away from my face. The library is dark: the shutters have closed. But something is odd. I can still see, with a dim clarity, the interior of the library. As if a candle is burning.
Impossible. I spin around, drowsiness quickly shaken off. I see the light source.
It's right there. A single, thin beam of sunlight shooting from a hole in the shutter behind me. The beam shoots past my ear, reaching to the far wal of the library. It is a piercing line of light, laser-like, seeming to carry a physical heft. I hadn't noticed it yesterday.
But then again, I was on the other side of the library, fast asleep during the day hours.
I walk over to the shutter. Tentatively, I reach toward the hole. I half expect the light to sear my skin. But there's just a pinprick warmth where the beam hits my skin. The hole in the shutter is a perfect circle, smooth along the edges. Very strange. This is no accident, no result of the building's aging pro cess. This hole was intentional y made— drilled—through a two-inch steel- reinforced shutter. But for what purpose? And by whom?
The kooky Scientist. That part is not diffi cult to fi gure out; no one else has ever lived here. But why would he do it? A beam of sunlight like this would not only keep a person from sleeping, but cause permanent ret i nal and intestinal damage. None of this makes sense.
Or perhaps the Scientist had nothing to do with this.
Perhaps the hole was dril ed by the staffers later, after he'd disappeared.
But why? And if they knew they were going to house me in the library, surely they would have patched it up before I moved in. Again, none of this makes any sense.
And then a thought blizzards into my mind, chil ing me.
I shake my head, as if to banish the thought. But it's latched on to my brain, irrevocably now. And the more I think about it, the more likely it seems.
Somebody dril ed this hole. To night.
To test me. To fl ush me out.
To fi nd out if I'm a heper.
It makes sense. To night, with my unwashed body giving off an odor, suspicion is aroused. But more proof is needed before I can be accused. Sending a surreptitious sunbeam into the library during the day is perfect. Subtle yet dispositive. A sunbeam so smal that it wouldn't awaken a heper, but enough to jolt any normal person awake, making him fl ee to the far side of the library and demand a new room at fi rst dark. The perfect litmus test.
I pace down the aisles, trying to keep fear at bay. My fi ngertips brush against the dusty spines of leather covers.
There's a fl aw in my thinking, I realize. The only people who could possibly be on to me are those who've been in proximity. That would be the hunters and the escorts. But they've been with me all night long; we've never left one another's sight. Nobody has had the opportunity to slip away and dril a hole through two inches of reinforced steel.
I head back to the hole and study it even closer. The edges are weathered and dul ed, not shiny or sharp as they would be after a fresh cut. I bend down to the fl oor, looking for any fresh shavings.
Nothing. This hole has been here a while.
That leaves me in a bit of a pickle. If I feign anger tomorrow and complain about the hole, staffers will come over to take a look before sealing it up. But that hole will invite questions about my fi rst day of sleep— why hadn't I complained after that fi rst day? On the other hand, if I say nothing and this is indeed a ploy to trap me, then I'd be fl ushed out.
Then something clicks inside my head. Perhaps the beam is just a side effect of something more important. Maybe it's the hole— and not the beam— that is really the key to this whole mystery.
I peer intently at the hole now, taking in every tiny scratch near it, its height from the fl oor, its smal diameter.
But of course. It's the perfect size.
To peer through.
But when I look through the hole— the light outside blinding — it's a nothing. Just the bland, monotonous Vast, stretching endlessly in front of me, the hot sun bleaching whiteness into it. Not even the Dome is in sight. Dust and dirt and sand and light. That's it. There's nothing to see.
For the next hour, I pace the fl oor, study the sunbeam, peer through the hole; but it's useless. I can't fi gure it out. What kil s me is the feeling that I'm so close, that I'm actual y staring at the answer. Eventual y I sit down, my aching feet worn to the nub. I close my eyes to focus; and when I pry them open some hours later, the sunbeam is gone, the shutters have opened, and somebody is pounding at the door. Dusk has arrived.
Hunt Minus Three Nights HEPERS ARE BELIEVED to be anywhere between fi ve and ten mil ennia behind us on the evolutionary ladder.” The Director's voice drifts from the lectern with antiseptic detachment. “Certainly, hepers display the more primitive behav-ioral traits that our ancestors discarded many centuries ago. Think, for example, of their exceptional swimming ability. That trait harkens back to their relatively recent amphibian origins, when they dwel ed in the sea from which all life derives.
