"Eleanor?"
My head shot up and I blinked. "Huh?"
"Do you understand?"
I pressed my lips together tightly and turned to look to Callahan for help. He glared at me, knowing full well what had happened. What did they expect? It was 20 minutes of him telling us not to tell the secret.
"Yes," I said, hesitantly. "I understand."
"No she doesn't," Callahan shot back. "She wasn't listening."
I reached out and pinched his arm. He winced but did nothing. The warden looked from us and shook his head.
"On paper you two are the best fit for this job, but jeez if I don't worry that I'm going to regret sending you on this mission. You fight like cats and dogs! I didn't even fight with my sister this bad."
Ha! I wish he was my brother. Maybe then things wouldn't be so tense. I could just go tattle to our parents and they'd do something about his constant bullying.
"Can you explain it again, sir?" Callahan asked. "She'll listen this time." The words came out as a warning. I closed my folder and straightened my posture.
"I will."
"Fine. I can't let you leave this bunker until you fully understand the situation anyways. If I can get this out in two tries I'll be lucky. Everything you know about your life is a lie. This isn't the one and only bunker in the world."
What?
"Why lie?" I asked, after a long moment of blubbering.
"Because we didn't want anyone trying to leave, to look for the other bunkers or to test the air. This is why we created the Young Lady program. You aren't only looking for plant life for our team of scientists to use in their search for a cure. We are testing other things..."
"The pink pills," I gasped.
"The pink pills," he nodded. "Yes. They do many things. Keep you healthy, hairless, beautiful, but also, they've changed your blood, made your lungs and the rest of you stronger. You aren't special because you can breathe above and not be damaged by the air. It's the pills you've been given for the last ten years."
"What happens if I stop them?"
"Every Young Lady stops taking them within six months of graduating the program," he answered, but it wasn't really an answer. Would I stop being able to breathe above?
I had so many questions, but I was being rushed. I wanted to know why, if we had the medicine, did the Daddies still have to wear PARA suits. Why didn't we give this medicine to everyone, if clearly it worked? And why were they still keeping us in the dark?
"Once you have returned from this mission and it's been determined it was a success, we will be more inclined to answer more questions." He stopped me short.
"Where are we going, then?" I reopened my folder. "I don't understand most of this."
"We have discovered a bunker that was abandoned. We want you two to explore it."
An overwhelming sense of dread flooded me. Another bunker? Abandoned?
"Why?"
"Why do we want you to explore it? For resources. We would like to see what their scientists had been working on."
"No," I shook my head. "Why was it abandoned?" I looked at Callahan. His face relaxed and he turned to the warden, waiting for answers. I'd never had a mission that I wasn't ready for. I loved going to the surface. I was good at what I did. But this one? None of it felt right. I didn't want to go. I wasn't sure if I'd come back.
The warden's smile slid off his face and he grew serious.
"We don't know exactly the reason for the bunker's evacuation. But... while we were testing on children, they were testing on aquatic life, and their entire bunker is one large aquarium."
"What's that even mean?" Callahan spoke up.
