Free Feedback by Robison Wells Page A

sit.
    “Feedback,” Jane said, and tapped her head. “Shelly still has an active dupe.”
    “And that makes it so she can’t stand up?”
    Shelly was sitting cross-legged now in the dirt, her face in her hands. She was sobbing, loudly enough that we could hear it thirty feet away.
    “Like I said,” Jane answered, taking a deep breath and turning away, “if the dupe is feeling a really strong emotion, then it’s all you can see. It takes over.”
    “She’s crying,” I said stupidly.
    “Her dupe’s been down in the underground complex for two days,” Jane said. Her voice was quiet, somber. “She probably thinks she’s going to die.”
    I sat on the edge of the newly dug trench, next to an enormous mound of gravel, and watched Joel and Walnut mix concrete in an old wheelbarrow. The cold earth under me felt good—my muscles were tired and sore, and I was sweating despite the winter air. I wanted to take the scarf off my face, but didn’t dare.
    Maybe the reason Birdman wanted me down here was just because he didn’t want to shovel out the foundation himself.
    “You got a minute?” Without waiting for a response, Shelly sat down beside me.
    “Sure. Feeling better?” Despite her earlier episode, she looked completely normal.
    “I’m fine,” she said. “Totally used to it.”
    “That makes one of us.” Shelly had a Southern accent, something I didn’t remember her dupe having. Then again, I didn’t know her dupe well.
    “You should have seen what this place was like before.” She leaned back on her hands and turned her face to the sky as though she were trying to get a tan. “You saw what just happened to me—imagine that happening to everyone, five or ten times a day each.”
    “Sounds dangerous. What if it happened when you were crossing the stream or something?”
    “We have the buddy system. You know when Birdman cuts your arm if you’ve been alone? That’s his paranoid take on a rule I started with the Greens. He uses the buddy system to make sure we don’t have dupes infiltrating the town, but I started it to make sure no one falls down the stairs or drowns in the stream because they’re getting feedback.”
    Mouse was watching me from across the field, her face still a massive bruise. I couldn’t help but notice that a lot more Greens were working on the barracks than kids from the fort.
    I turned to Shelly. I wanted answers. “Someone told me you Greens are cowards.”
    Shelly’s face didn’t change noticeably. She picked up a handful of gravel and began tossing the rocks into the dry grass one by one.
    “We’re not like Birdman,” she said, her voice even and emotionless. “Or Mouse or Harvard or Jane.” On Jane’s name Shelly glanced at me for just an instant before throwing rocks again.
    I folded my arms. It was surprising how quickly I’d gone from overheated to freezing. “I’ve seen what they do with the maps and the lists,” I said. “At least they’re trying to escape. What do you guys do?”
    “We’re not cowards,” she said with a cold smile. “Who’s more paranoid? The people who hide in a fort and slice arms open, or the people who live out in the open?”
    “If you’re not paranoid, you’re stupid.” I stood up and offered her a hand. Walnut was pushing the heavy wheelbarrow toward us.
    “What do I have to be afraid of? I’m not breaking any rules, and I don’t know anyone who’s breaking any rules.” She took my hand. “Except for the people who are hiding you.”
    Shelly brushed dirt from her jeans. Walnut heaved the wheelbarrow up, and Joel scraped the cement into the trench.
    “So what’s your strategy, then?” I asked as they pushed the wheelbarrow back to mix a second batch. “You’re just waiting for someone else to solve your problems? Birdman’s right—you are cowards.”
    I was goading her, making her mad on purpose. If there was any truth to what Lily said, I didn’t want to waste my time with Harvard’s crazy midnight