Is he jesting with me?

Who asks a question like that? How do I even answer it? And why do I feel more embarrassed rather than annoyed? I shouldn’t be embarrassed, considering he isn’t human.

He is an Exon. He only asked for the purpose of education.

But knowing that doesn’t change the fact that my face feels like it’s on fire.

“There are some things, Luhan,” I say, “that you don’t need to know.” I enter the bookstore and leave him standing outside. He’ll follow me soon enough. I know he will. 

I scan the aisles of books. I head for the Argent section and trace my finger across their black and gray spines. I lift one off a shelf and flip through the pages before putting it back down. I’m not looking for anything specifically. I just need to do something with my hands. I need to distract myself from this queer feeling that has begun to imprison my conscience.

What Luhan said about the Market being a happy place is naively unassuming. It is his first time here, and I suppose the first impression would be a ‘lively, happy’ place.

But it’s not. Nothing about the Market is real. The Government’s Exons maintain the area on a daily basis. There are officials standing at every corner, watching the interactions between the citizens of the regions. There are cameras stationed on the roofs of every building and on the floors of every store. There isn’t a single area in this ‘happy’ place that isn’t supervised.

Luhan should know that. The Institute should have told him that. Perhaps that information did not come to him at that time. Perhaps he simply … forgot.

And if Luhan is capable of forgetting data that was encrypted into his heart, then of what else is he capable?

I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think about the similarities between Luhan and a human’s habits.

“Emer,” Luhan calls my name. I turn around to see that he is walking down the aisle with a book in his hand. “This is the one your mother wanted.”

“All right. Go buy it,” I tell him, and he walks toward the cash register. I watch as he hands the card to the employee, who rings the item up for him. The book is put inside a paper bag, and Luhan takes it and bows in thanks. He jogs up to me, the bag swinging from his wrist. “Did she need anything else?” I ask.

“No,” he says.

“Let’s go home, then.”

-----

The phone rings as soon as I open the door to my house. I jump forward to answer the phone and greet, “Hello?”

“Emer,” my mom says. “Are you studying for the test?”

I look at Luhan, who has just closed the front door. “ … Yeah. Why?”

“I’m free for an hour or so. I was wondering if you’d like to have lunch together.”

“Lunch? Where? The Market?”

“No. Right there at home. I’ve brought some stuff we had at the Government. I wanted to drop by on my lunch break.”

I don’t want to eat lunch with my mom. It’s not for any specific reason; I just don’t want to hold a conversation with anyone. Since I can’t turn her down, I reply, “All right. I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Okay. Bye, honey.”

“Bye,” I hang up. I stand next to the counter for a moment, biding my time. “Luhan. I don’t know what job my mom asked you to do, but you can go ahead and do it. I’ll be in my room.” I don’t wait to hear his response and skip the stairs towards my room. I close the door, pull my laptop from the desk, and lie down on my bed with it. When I turn it on, the photo of the Brasses’ test-taking facility reminds me of my studies. Although I know I should study for the test, I justify that it’s still a few months away and resort to browsing the Internet for information about the archives.

What I read on the Internet isn’t anything of which I haven’t heard. What Luhan said about the archives is true and adds to my existent knowledge of it. There is no way of knowing which specific council members have access to the Government’s archives, and no way of knowing how to become one of the selected. Any information concerning that process is tightly disclosed.

I wish I knew how to properly hack into a security system. I would ask Luhan if I didn’t know that he’d sell me out.

I visit the Institute’s website. The logo of its red eye is its opening homepage. It then splits in half, as if it is being opened by unseen hands, to reveal a silver and white layout. ‘The Institute’ is printed in metallic letters on the top of the page. On the bottom are two large links. One says 1st Generation Order Form while the second says 2nd Generation Order Form. Below each link is a phone number incase a buyer wants to call the Institute to place their order instead of filling out the online form.

 I find a link that says Affiliates and click on it. A long list of supporters who approve of the Institute’s cause is shown. Their ro