And for three hours every afternoon since I arrived here. I’ve been in this room for two hours already today. Vargas-Ruiz, who helps run Destiny Station, sits directly in front of me, leading the deposition.

One of the scientists is crouched over a computer, noting and analyzing my responses.ĭr. This is to monitor my subconscious physiological reactions to these images. I’m wearing a row of electrodes around my left wrist, like a bracelet made of wires and sensors. They now show an array of faces that I recognize from my time on the wheel. I glance up at the digital display screens. 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. We might rebel against the government, so they wanted us gone for good. 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. Supposedly, we were sent to the wheel after failing a test meant to predict a tendency for future violent and criminal behavior. I was only on the wheel for two weeks, but every day was a fight for survival. A desolate tropical island known as “the wheel,” where life expectancy is eighteen years of age. Many of them display footage of Prison Island Alpha-the colony for banished teens that Liam and I escaped from. Large digital screens are mounted in a row on the wall behind the scientists. It’s one of many such rooms and tunnels dug like burrows into the strange rock formation.

The rebel scientists who run the station use this room for depositions and debriefings. 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. I SIT IN AN uncomfortable metal chair, facing a row of six scientists in white lab coats.

The forsaken lisa stasse