by S. L. Baum
LUSH
by
S.L. Baum
Book Description
Bluebell has spent the last twelve years of her life at Training Tech, the government-run boarding school all children are required to attend. Now that she's seventeen she is fully prepared for Incorporation; a time when females and males are allowed to mingle again, for the first time since they were toddlers. It is also the day she must endure Citizen Branding - the mandatory searing of a mark into the flesh of the left wrist of all new Citizens. O for fertile, X for infertile. The fate of every Citizen, male or female, is determined by the results.
Bluebell knows that a Citizen’s duty is to live for the glory of Concord, just as she was taught. But the frantic dreams and hazy memories that haunt her make her different, and the questions she cannot deny threaten to turn her world upside down.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright 2013 by S. Baum
All rights reserved.
I share a house with these four people, so…
* Thank you, David, for all that you do… I love you… Around the World and Back Again.
* Thank you, kiddo #1, for loving to read so very much and encouraging me in my writing.
* Thank you, kiddo #2, for being proud of me and telling your friends that your mom is an author.
* Thank you, kiddo #3, for giving me love and reminding me when I’m working on my books too much.
Table of Contents
* Chapter One *
* Chapter Two *
* Chapter Three *
* Chapter Four *
* Chapter Five *
* Chapter Six *
* Chapter Seven *
* Chapter Eight *
* Chapter Nine *
* Chapter Ten *
* Chapter Eleven *
* Chapter Twelve *
* Chapter Thirteen *
* Chapter Fourteen *
* Chapter Fifteen *
* Chapter Sixteen *
Chapter One
Get Up, Bluebell
The room alarm was beeping its “wake-up” pattern – two short squeals and one long, high pitched one. The pattern would repeat for exactly three minutes, increasing in volume until the entire dorm was awakened. The alarm would start out so quietly though; it had a way of invading my dreams. That morning my brain had turned the noise into a woman’s voice. She was standing on a bridge, whispering, Get up, Bluebell... Get up, Bluebell... Get up, Bluebell... By the time the beeping had reached its loudest setting, the woman in my dreams was screaming at the top of her lungs, her eyes bulging with fear. GET UP, BLUEBELL!
My eyes flew open.
A bead of sweat trickled down the side of my head; it hit my temple and I felt the icky wetness as it slid all the way down the side of my face. I wiped it away with the back of my hand. My heart was racing, and I could still hear her voice in my head. I took a deep breath as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, trying to calm myself and erase the desperate need to get up and move somewhere, anywhere, as fast as I could. I felt like I was supposed to run. I shook my head to clear it.
The little lights near our headboards flickered to life at the exact moment the alarm shut itself off. I knew what time it was, without having to look at the clock in the wall above the door. Six-thirty. Time to get up, Bluebell, I told myself.
Lily groaned and I heard her shifting her body. She had an uncanny way of ignoring the alarm.
Lily slept in the bunk beneath mine, and had ever since the day we were assigned to the same dorm room. My friend knew that there were exactly five minutes between the time when the headboard lights came to life and when the bright overhead light would automatically turn on, illuminating the entire room. That meant that her head would be under her pillow, desperately trying to cling to the last precious moments of sleep, until our Guardian opened the door to make sure we were getting ready for our daily classes.
“Lily,” I called down to her, “get your lazy butt out of bed.”
“Five minutes,” she mumbled, still half asleep.
It was the first thing we said to each other each and every day. Well, every day since we were put together, in the Transition Hall.
Instead of letting her slip back into her semi-aware, semi-comatose, semi-asleep state, I leaned over the side of the bed, my long, brown hair hanging down, almost touching her bunk. “Lil-lee,” I said, in a quiet sing-songy voice.
“Blue, let me be! Go away!”
“Lil-lee,” I repeated a little louder.
“For goodness sake, Blue. Alright, I’m awake.” Lily pulled the pillow from her face and sat up. “What is with you this morning?” she asked and rubbed her hands up and down her arms; she has the most perfect, creamy, milk chocolate skin and I am ridiculously jealous of it. “Is it cold in here?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Weird dream. And the temperature is the same as it always is. Regulation standard.”
“Of course it is,” she yawned.
“Hey,” I whispered. “It’s Incorporation Day.”
Her big brown eyes lit up. “Oooohh, I almost forgot about that.”
“You did not!” I laughed at her. “It is all you’ve been talking about for the past week.”
“Shhh,” Lily whispered, pulling my hair. “I don’t want to be put on hold – like Ivy was.”
A few months prior, when Ivy turned seventeen, she bragged to her roommate that she was going to kiss the first boy she saw. Her roommate told their Guardian, their Guardian told the head Guardian, the head Guardian told Alpha, and Alpha informed The Council. It was against regulation. Ivy was put on hold and deemed ill equipped to handle Incorporation.
Lily and I had recently turned seventeen; our birthdays are exactly one week apart… on October 19th and 26th. At some point during everyone’s seventeenth year, it is time for Incorporation. There are only two Incorporation days per year. One is in the first week of June and the other is in the first week of December. You qualified for the Incorporation that fell directly after your seventeenth birthday, unless you were put on hold. The girls and the boys had been kept apart from each other since the age of five – upon entering Training Tech. According to The Council’s Mandate of the Great Restructuring: males and females should be educated separately and should not even socialize until they are Incorporated; because that is when they are old enough to understand the complexities of a male-female relationship.
Whatever that meant.
Other than the fathers that came to Training Tech on Social Visit days, I hadn’t been near a boy in twelve years. I’d never understood what the big deal was. We are girls and they are boys. We needed to learn to work together in harmony and find a match that suited us, so we could eventually procreate. I’d read the Incorporation Guide, it all seemed logical to me. People like Ivy made a big deal out of it, acting like they were going to find some instant and true love. I’d seen my parents interact... I’d seen almost all of our parents interact... love didn’t seem to be a big factor when finding a match. Love was just a word that people said, an empty emotionless word. I love you didn’t seem to mean a thing. In fact, I had never heard either of my parents utter it once to each other.
The bright lights turned on.
I jumped down from the top bunk just as soon as our Guardian popped her head in the door. “Morning girls,” she trilled. “Incorporation Day!” And then she was gone – off to the next room to say the exact same thing. She worked her way through the entire hall, every day, within just a few minutes. I had no idea how she could sound so lively, so early in the morning.
After our Guardian left the room, I s
ighed to myself with relief. It was a blessing to have a wealthy and prominent father, I would not have to worry; I would not be destined to the life of a Guardian, no matter what the tests showed.
I ran out the door toward the bathroom and Lily yelled out after me, “Want me to curl your hair today?”
“Sure,” I yelled back. I would never understand why she didn’t need the bathroom, first thing in the morning, like I did. I really wished we had more than just a sink in our room.
As I sprinted to the end of the hall, I looked at the calendar that digitally scrolled across the wall: Today is Saturday: Incorporation Day… Today is Saturday: Incorporation Day… Then I ducked into the bathroom.
Saturdays were usually a school day. Our weeks were regimented, with six days assigned to schooling and organized activities. Sunday had always been our day of rest. When we were Year Six students, Trainer Alpha taught us that in the past, Sunday was the most common day of religious observance. But with the numerous acts of terror and killings carried out in the name of one god or another, the practicing of religion was finally outlawed just over a century ago. All religious texts, symbols, and places of worship were destroyed. For several years after, the few groups that openly rebelled were exposed and all government benefits were withdrawn. Eventually, the die-hards were forced to flee the cities and perished in the wilds without protection, food, or shelter. I guess Sunday was kept as a day of rest out of habit.
Incorporation Day was traditionally held on a Saturday. My guess was that The Council decided we young creatures needed a day of rest after being around the opposite sex for the first time in so many years.
I actually remembered playing with boys, back home I think, somewhere where it was green and wild; not like the manicured gardens in Training Tech. I remembered running through lush, tall grass by a stream. There were a group of us, consisting of both boys and girls. But it was all fuzzy. The memory was from before I turned five, from before my parents drove me to Training Tech and dropped me off with the head Guardian.
After I exited the stall, I walked to the sink and stared at myself as I washed my hands. I looked tired; my eyes were ringed with grey shadows. I hadn’t been sleeping well. I’d toss and turn in bed most nights, trying to get back to sleep after blasting awake from one strange dream or another. The tall trees, the dark shadowed places where things hide, the woman with the dark hair screaming at me, the strange need to run... to flee... to hide... all those things made it hard to fall back asleep. I wished the dreams would stop. I wished I didn’t look so tired for Incorporation Day. I wished…
“Bluebell is totally zonkered,” giggled Holly.
“I’m just a little tired.” I shook my head and looked over to where she and Willow were standing, openly laughing at me. “Oh, you’re right, Holly,” I admitted, looking back at my reflection in the mirror. “I look completely and totally zonkered. I am a mess.”
“You’re not a total mess, you look fine.” Willow smiled at me in the mirror as the two passed behind. “Well, we’ll see you in the cafeteria.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled, drying my hands, and then I followed them out the door.
I trailed my hands along the walls of the dormitory as I walked back to my room. I had wandered these identical halls for so long, I could hardly remember anything else. I only had a few fuzzy, unreliable, flashes of life before Training Tech. How many people could clearly remember something that happened when they were four?
My great-great (some kind of great) grandfather, on my mother’s side, established Training Tech soon after The Council was formed and the government was reconstructed. One of The Council’s main objectives was to raise responsible human beings. It was determined that the poor were over breeding, childhood obesity was at an all time high, education standards were inconsistent, and because not all people were immunized, certain diseases (long thought conquered) had begun to return. The Council seized control and implemented birth control, education, fitness, nutrition, and general health standards. A few years later, when Training Tech opened its doors, the raising of children was taken over as well. My mother said that the people were reluctant to comply with the changes, so my great-great grandfather persuaded The Council to see the truth… that the new government knew what was best for the survival of our society.
When I got back into our room, Lily practically bounced off the walls. She was already dressed in our standard uniform that consisted of a brown skirt and a white shirt, with a pink and brown striped tie at the neck; I hated pink. Her hair had been wet down, and her natural spiral curls rearranged. Poor Lily repeatedly told our Guardian that it would be easier on her hair if she could shower in the morning. But the rules stated that we shower exactly one hour before lights out, and the rules would not be bent for a hairstyle. Lily couldn’t wait until the day we left Training Tech for The Career Education Center. Our lives would be less mandated then, our classes varied, our days less scheduled.
I dressed quickly as Lily chattered on about the future.
“Six months of Incorporation, and then we get to move back to our homes,” Lily said.
“It’ll be weird,” I worried.
“I can’t wait. I hardly remember what the house looks like.”
“My parents have moved. Nothing will be familiar for me anyway,” I reminded her.
“Oh, yeah! I always forget… when did he get his Council Seat?”
“When we were Year One. Aspen goads him with that, like he should have been on The Council earlier. She likes to remind him that her family has held a seat on The Council since it was formed.”
“That’s right. You’re lucky he’s Council. There are lots of perks that come with being a Councilman’s daughter and granddaughter… and great-great grand or however far back you go. You will never have to worry about being a Guardian or being stuck with some other low level job.”
“Neither will you. Your father may not be Council, but he is in charge of Armory Development.”
“True,” Lily sighed. “When did you stop calling her Mother?”
“Aspen? When I was ten. She insisted I stop and told me to call her by her first name, instead. Are you going to curl my hair or not?” I said and plopped myself on the chair in front of our self designated glamour station. I hated talking about my family. My mother, Aspen, was always cold and detached whenever she chose to show up on a Social Visit Day. On the rare occasions that she would attend, she’d sit near my father, with a possessive hand on his back, uninterested in our conversation, staring with distaste at everything that caught her eye. She always had a fake smile for the other mothers, well, the ones she deemed important enough to grant eye contact.
I wished my parents were more like Lily’s parents. They have always shown genuine affection for Lily, as well as each other.
At 7:15 another alarm sounded, it was our signal that it was time to quickly make our way to the cafeteria. Breakfast - a mundane experience. Multigrain oat bread, a protein and vitamin shake, and a piece of fruit were prepared on identical trays that had to be picked up from the service area, while we kept ourselves in an orderly line. Then we all sat down to eat. The Guardians watched over us and reported any student that didn’t consume at least seventy-five percent of their meal. Sharing was forbidden, but talking was not. Mealtime was our time. The gossip always flowed, and Lily and I started to get an earful the moment we sat down at our table.
“I get to see my brother, Ash, today,” Holly squealed with excitement. “My mother always brings a picture of him when she visits, but I can hardly remember anything about him. He definitely grew into his good looks, like I did. You girls are in for a treat!” she laughed.
“That’s right! I forgot you have a twin.” I said, and gulped down my drink as fast as I could.
“We both had blonde hair and blue eyes the last time I saw him, but his hair is much darker now, in the last picture I saw. Mother said he’s excelling in his classes. She keeps saying he’ll be quite a catch. They go ov
er to the boy’s ward every Sunday after they visit me. He used to snatch my toys and run from me all the time when we were little. I think he hated that I was the older twin. I am seven minutes older than him, you know,” Holly smiled.
It had always seemed silly to me that siblings weren’t permitted to socialize or at least visit… unless they are of the same gender, siblings will go years without seeing one another.
“I’m three minutes older than Petunia,” Petals winked, nudging her twin sister.
“Petals thinks that means something. But we all know that youth wins,” Petunia smiled.
Petunia and Petals or “Pet 1” and “Pet 2” - as we liked to call them - were the only identical twins at our Training Tech. Although Lily and I had heard our Guardian say something about there being another set of identical twins… males… in Three (we lived in One - where the founding government resided).
I looked at Willow. She wasn’t talking to anyone. She was just staring down into her lap.
As the rest of the table continued on with their giggles and stories, I began to rub at my left wrist. I repeated the back and forth motion, not fully aware that I was doing it. My skin grew warm from the friction. Lily grabbed onto my hand, stopping me. She gave me a reassuring smile.
The table grew suddenly quiet. All talking had stopped. My friends glanced nervously at me, looked at each other, and then stared down at their own wrists. Willow stared into my eyes and nodded, letting me know that she was just as uneasy as I was. I nodded back. I wasn’t quite sure how I’d get through the next part of my day.
We all finished our breakfast in silence.
There are two things that happened every Incorporation day. The second one… was being in the same room as the male students for the first time in our lives. The first one… was Citizen Branding. Every Citizen must have a mark imprinted into the flesh of his or her left wrist. A single circle. At the end of Incorporation when each Citizen’s medical tests were finalized and the results revealed, an X would be added through the center of the circle – if a Citizen was barren and would not be able to produce offspring… or an O would be added in the center – if a Citizen was more than likely to be fertile… The fate of our future rested on those test results.
