Description: The Uprising 1 SUNLIGHT I SIT IN AN uncomfortable metal chair, facing a row of six scientists in white lab coats. These are my inquisitors. I''m deep inside Destiny Station, sequestered in a small chamber carved into the massive sandstone mesa that I''ve called home for the past three weeks. The rebel scientists who run the station use this room for depositions and debriefings. It''s one of many such rooms and tunnels dug like burrows into the strange rock formation. Large digital screens are mounted in a row on the wall behind the scientists. The screens show different images. Many of them display footage of Prison Island Alpha--the colony for banished teens that Liam and I escaped from. A desolate tropical island known as "the wheel," where life expectancy is eighteen years of age. I was only on the wheel for two weeks, but every day was a fight for survival. Supposedly, we were sent to the wheel after failing a test meant to predict a tendency for future violent and criminal behavior. Instead, we were actually exiled there by our corrupt government, because we were immune to mind-control drugs that they deployed to subdue the population. This meant we were a risk. We might rebel against the government, so they wanted us gone for good. After Liam and I managed to flee the wheel, we were rescued by the rebel scientists in Australia, who gave us refuge in Destiny Station. I glance up at the digital display screens. They now show an array of faces that I recognize from my time on the wheel. Many of these kids were my friends. I''m wearing a row of electrodes around my left wrist, like a bracelet made of wires and sensors. This is to monitor my subconscious physiological reactions to these images. One of the scientists is crouched over a computer, noting and analyzing my responses. Dr. Vargas-Ruiz, who helps run Destiny Station, sits directly in front of me, leading the deposition. I''ve been in this room for two hours already today. And for three hours every afternoon since I arrived here. The scientists ask me questions about every detail of my life on the wheel. Often, it''s the same questions over and over, until I feel like I''m going crazy. The scientists mean well. They''re trying to get as much data as they can from those of us who got rescued. But these individual depositions are grueling, like a test that never ends. I''m struggling to adjust to life in general at the station. After so many years living in the United Northern Alliance--that wretched nation known as the UNA, where most personal freedoms were banned--it''s hard to adapt to normal life again. Not that Destiny Station is anything close to normal. Mornings are spent training for the battle ahead when we return to Prison Island Alpha. Nights are spent strategizing. Twelve weeks from now, we will be leaving Destiny Station. The scientists believe this is the optimum time frame for departure. If we leave any sooner than that, we might not be prepared. But if we wait much longer, the scientists fear that the UNA will figure out our plans and bomb Destiny Station. After we leave Australia, we will join up with other rebel bases scattered around the globe and then return to the wheel. There, we will take control of the island, and then use it as a new home base to launch an assault on the continental UNA. "Alenna?" Dr. Vargas-Ruiz suddenly says, adjusting her glasses. "Please pay attention. Look at the photos." "I am," I snap back. "But can''t we hurry this up?" A single face flashes onto all the screens at once. A beautiful, blond-haired girl with wide blue eyes. "Meira," I say absently, before the scientists can even ask me who it is. "The co-leader of our village on the wheel. Still alive, unless our village has been destroyed." Dr. Vargas-Ruiz nods. "And you never saw any sign that she was secretly working for the UNA? As a spy?" "No. I already told you. She was kind of cold and calculating, but she and her boyfriend Veidman kept everything running. They were a few years older than me. I never thought they were spies." I can picture our village perfectly in my mind. The wooden shacks, the hammocks slung between trees, and the dark river where we bathed. On the wheel, us banished kids formed two tribes: the villagers and the drones. Liam and I were villagers. We only wanted to make the best of things, and find a way to escape the island. In fact, Liam was our village''s most respected and fiercest hunter and explorer. But the drones were wild, and susceptible to new, experimental drugs that the UNA secretly dropped on the wheel. The drones followed a masked prophet who called himself "the Monk"--a man who turned out to be Minister Harka, the exiled leader of the UNA. He had been secretly banished to the wheel by traitors in his own government, and had taken on a new identity there. A body double had taken his place back in the UNA so that no one even knew that he was gone. His followers on the wheel caused chaos and constantly attacked our village in an attempt to gain control of the island. They wanted to enslave us, and make us fight one another for their entertainment. Another photo appears on the screens. A girl with dyed-blue hair, a sleeve of tattoos down one arm, and a knowing gleam in her dark brown eyes. "Gadya," I say, swallowing hard. Her absence makes my heart ache the most. She was my best friend on the wheel, and she saved my life more times than I can remember. "I told you, the last time I saw her, she was alive but injured. Do we really have to go through this again?" Dr. Vargas-Ruiz nods. I know that the scientists will show me everyone. Including the faces of the other friends we left behind, either trapped or captured, like David, Markus, and Rika. And the faces of the dead, like Veidman and Sinxen. I''m still in mourning for them. Seeing their faces on the screens makes the pain more acute. But what the scientists show me next surprises me. It''s a topographic map of the wheel. From above, it resembles a large, jagged circle. The different sectors, which look like misshapen pie slices, are marked with their respective colors. Our village was inside a region called the blue sector, which was the last remaining area of the wheel not controlled by drones. The other sectors--orange, purple, yellow, and red--had already been taken over by them. And the gray zone, which houses the machinery that transports kids to and from the island, was uninhabitable. I lean in for a closer look at the map. I try to imagine what my friends on the wheel are doing right now. Probably some of them are battling the drones. And I know that others are cryogenically frozen in pods in the specimen archive--a giant hive located inside the gray zone. Flying machines called selection units kidnap kids and take them there to store until UNA doctors can dissect their brains. When I return to the wheel with the rebel scientists, I know we will face battles with both the drones and the selection units before we can conquer the island. I''m not certain that we''ll win. Most of us might end up getting killed or getting snatched by the machines. "Alenna, what are you thinking about? You have to tell us," Dr. Vargas-Ruiz prompts. "I''m thinking about the specimen archive. About how the UNA will keep dissecting kids until they discover how to synthesize some kind of ultimate drug--one that will brainwash everyone on the planet. And if we fail in stopping them, then no one will be able to prevent the UNA from dominating the entire globe. . . ." My stomach lurches. Suddenly, I can''t take it anymore. All the questions. All the photos of my missing friends. All the stress. I feel the jagged rock walls closing in on me like they want to devour me. I can''t catch my breath. "Tell us more," Dr. Vargas-Ruiz keeps saying. "Yes--" another scientist begins, excitedly motioning to a colleague to look at the computer screen displaying my reactions. "You think we''ll fail in our mission?" I stand up, shoving back my metal chair with a loud clatter. Everyone stops talking at once. The screens go black. I rip off my electrode wristband and throw it onto the table. "Alenna?" ?Vargas-Ruiz asks. "What''s wrong?" "I''m sick of this!" I say. "You already know the answers to everything. You''ve already asked me these questions before!" "Depositions are a normal part of life at the station for new arrivals like yourself," Vargas-Ruiz says calmly. "You know that." "But I''ve been here almost a month! When are you going to stop?" "When we''re certain that we''ve learned every detail about your experiences on Island Alpha, and how you feel about them." A bearded scientist gazes at me balefully over his glasses. "If it weren''t for us, you wouldn''t be alive right now. You''d be cut up in a UNA lab somewhere. Isn''t this a better option?" I glare back at him. The scientists are just watching me. Staring at me like I''m a lab animal. "I need to find Liam," I say, the words coming out in a burst. He''s the only one who understands exactly what I''ve been through. No one else shares our bond, or knows how strong it is. "I''m taking a break." "Alenna, wait--" Vargas-Ruiz begins, but I don''t want to hear what she has to say. I just want to get out of this

Please Wait