Invitation to the Game by Monica Hughes

Author:Monica Hughes
Language: eng
Format: epub

SIX

Autumn and Winter, 2154. The Milk of Paradise

We almost had to drag Benta and Rich with us on the now-familiar train to Barton Oaks. Benta was listless and numb, and looked at me so coldly I could hardly bear it. I found myself echoing her accusation. Why did we have to think of her?

Rich was vociferous. “Over my dead body,” he shouted. “Those power-hungry bureaucrats have manipulated my life. I’m not going to let them manipulate my mind.”

We got them onto the train, mostly because they were startled by the subway system and subdued by the glares of travelling workers. “It’s wonderful,” I whispered to Benta, holding her cold hand. “It’s like… all your dreams come true.”

She drew her hand away and turned to stare into the darkness beyond the window. Rich heard and mocked in an undertone. “Dreams come true. Listen to yourself, Lisse. They’ve brainwashed you, turned your mind to soup, and you don’t even know it!”

If it is brainwashing I won’t give in, I thought savagely when we got to Barton Oaks and, when the grey couch unfolded backwards until I was reclining, I swore I wouldn’t let myself be hypnotized. I stared at the ceiling, concentrating on the patterns of light, counting the repetitions. I won’t… I won’t. Then I blinked and was staring up at soft blue sky.

It’s not real, I told myself. It’s an illusion, I said. I drew in a breath of damp, spicy air that set my toes and fingers tingling. The desert and the grassland were behind us now, and we had awakened — or been transported — to the edge of the mysterious, misty lands. Ahead of us rolled hectares of parkland, set with trees whose branches spread wide above the short, bluish-green turf.

Benta clutched me, and I could swear that her nails digging into the flesh of my arm were real. No dream. No hypnosis.

“Lisse, am I dreaming? It is so beautiful! And those are nut trees. Like the ones on the farm. Before they cut them down.”

She ran across the grass, her arms wide, and embraced the trunk, running her fingers down its smooth bark. She laughed. “It feels real. Oh, Lisse, it is real, isn’t it?”

I took a deep breath of sweet, untainted air and nodded. “You bet it’s real, Benta.” I was persuading myself as well as her. I pushed the memory of the gum in Scylla’s hair out of my mind. If the dingy streets, the factory, the craziness of nightlife in our DA were real and this was not then life was meaningless. I laughed. “As real as real!”

Then I saw Rich. He sat hunched over, looking down, not at the vista ahead, his hands clasped together. “Rich, are you okay?” Karen bent over him and shook his shoulder. When he moved away from her hand, I saw that he was taking his pulse.

Poor Rich. “It’s not hypnosis. It’s not a dream.” I yanked him to his feet. “Just look for yourself.” It must be real, I wanted to shout.

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