by S. L. Baum
“I see that and I know it is for the best. But is it wrong to question the way things work? Sometimes I just wonder if Concord should gather opinions from its Citizens,” I voiced a concern. Worry immediately spread throughout my body. I felt a lump in the pit of my stomach.
“Look around at those Citizens that may be performing in a low level occupation, or those that do not have all the luxuries that you have been granted. Those are the families that have chosen to resist Concord in some way, to question its policies, or to accuse The Council of wrongdoing. Fighting against someone that is trying to help you is such a useless waste of energy. It is better to accept the help and be grateful for it. Don’t you agree?”
“Of course, you are right. It was a silly question.”
Cimarron sat next to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Bluebell, I do not mind if you ask me silly questions. I will always give you an honest answer. You are still young and the young are very often unsure. But…”
“But do not ask them in public,” I finished for her. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Cimarron stated with her standard smile.
“I’m going to cause you to miss a few Visitation Days with your daughter,” I stated, trying to change the subject. “I hope she doesn’t miss you too much.”
“It isn’t because of you. I do my job with pride, for Concord. My daughter, Iris, is well aware that I am sometimes needed in other places. My husband will visit her if he is able to, and she is well cared for at Training Tech, just as we all were. I informed her at the last Visitation that I would be absent for a few weeks. Iris is proud to have a mother that works so hard for Concord. It is sweet of you to think about her though,” Cimarron squeezed my shoulder.
“So what are we working on today?” I asked.
“We are working on a new speech for your Gala,” Cimarron answered.
My father and mother sent another one of their vague messages about not being home for dinner. My father had a late Council meeting, while my mother was busy trying to sort out more last minute details for the Gala. I tried to video chat with Lily, but she sent me a message saying that she was busy helping her mother with something. The Pets were on a dinner date with two of their four guys. Holly and Ash were watching some new video with their parents. Stone was spending the evening with Rosebud, and Fisher was meeting with one of his Architecture instructors for extra after-hours personal tutoring. I couldn’t get hold of Willow, plus I was starting to feel a bit desperate, so I stopped trying to think of who the next person I could message was. I just sat in my room, alone and bored.
With nothing pressing to occupy my time until I was to meet up with Thorn, the mystery tablet started popping back into my head. All I had to do was pull it out from between the headboard and my mattress. Once my index finger was scanned, the next file would be ready and waiting for me to open it. What harm could it do? It was just a file. I was under no obligation to act upon it… and knowing what some of the nonconformists were saying would help me in my arguments against them, if I was ever confronted by one outright.
It would be an educational experience to read the file, I reasoned with myself.
I reached my hand down in the space where I’d hidden the tablet and found it right away. It turned on, but instead of displaying file names, the screen was blank this time. I knew what I needed to do. With my finger placed in the center of the tablet, I waited for the solid green line to move across the screen. The tablet scanned my print, flashed black for just a moment, and then the names of the remaining files appeared.
I placed my finger above the word Second and let it hover there for a moment, asking myself if this was really what I wanted to do, and then I pressed down. The file opened.
Have you asked yourself why Concord has suddenly decided to have a Lush Ambassador? You are not the first Lush girl, but you are the first Lush Ambassador. Why do you think that is? What does Concord accomplish by creating a public figure out of you? Is it for the benefit of Concord, the benefit of the Citizens, the benefit of The Council, the benefit of your mother and father, or is it for some other purpose entirely?
What happened to the other Lush women? How many have there been? Why do we have no record of them? Do they still exist somewhere in Concord?
There are just too many questions and not enough answers. But the answers can be found. Records are kept somewhere, they must be. Ask yourself who has access to that kind of information.
We are able to give you a few of these answers. The rest you must find out for yourself.
Rumors of the last known Lush brand are from nearly twenty years ago in Concord Three. It is said that the girl came from a family with very little social status. Even though both her parents were branded fertile, neither sought to marry someone from a more prestigious family because they had become infatuated with each other during their Incorporation. They started their co-habitation period while they were still in the CEC. And because neither of them had enough money or social clout, the woman produced a child as a surrogate first, moving quickly to fulfill her duty and receive compensation, so the two of them could enter into a Marriage Contract.
Sometime later, they had a little girl of their own. The Council was not completely happy with their decision to move ahead and not wait to see what alternative pairings they could have made before settling on one another, so they made sure that the parents were never allowed to advance much higher in their low level positions. This made the parents very unhappy. So while this yet to be determined future Lush girl was in Training Tech, her parents started to urge her to strive for something more. Their life had not been the most comfortable one. They grumbled about the positions they held, they cried out that they had been forced into the life they lived, and they wanted something better for their daughter.
During Visitation Days, they were quite vocal in their opinions. They told her if she was branded fertile she should seek the most advantageous match she could possibly find, they told her to find out what would please Concord. Their daughter was quite beautiful and they hoped her beauty would make someone desire her enough to be the future mother of his future child, regardless of her parents’ social standing. They didn’t want her to repeat their mistakes.
So eventually the time came, Incorporation ended, and not only was it determined that she was fertile, she was branded Lush. The brand wasn’t publicized, attention wasn’t called to it; in fact Concord wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it, since her parents weren’t exactly pristine examples of dutiful Citizens of Concord. They had dared to vocalize their displeasure with their careers, their finances, and their home, which was more than likely the deciding factor that kept Concord from publicly recognizing the girl with the Lush brand.
In fact, there is no official record of anyone being branded Lush around twenty years ago; our account of this story is gathered through whispered remembrances of former classmates. We were told that The Council did offer to help her find a match and interviewed her to determine what kind of person she would successfully be able to share a home with. The daughter had grown tired of her bitter parents, and was determined to get away from them as quickly as possible. She told The Council that it didn’t matter. She would just be grateful if they found her a potential Marriage Contract as soon as they could.
My personal tablet beeped at me. It was six-thirty. Even though I hadn’t read to the end of the file, I put the tablet back in its hiding place. I went to my closet to pick out an outfit, quickly ran a brush through my hair, and then exited the house at ten minutes to seven. I walked toward the park, happy that I was on my way to meet Thorn.
He was waiting for me at the very edge of the park, sitting under a tree, watching my approach. He didn’t get up, he just waved, so I walked over to where he was and lowered myself to the ground to sit next to him. I leaned my back against the tree, rested the back of my head on the bark of the trunk, closed my eyes, and sighed.
“I’m a big
fuzzy mess up inside my brain right now,” I admitted.
It was the first thing I said to him.
“Why is that?” he asked.
“I can tell you anything, right? And it will never be repeated outside of the two of us. Just questions between friends, right?”
“Yes. Absolutely. Just questions between friends,” he assured me.
“Did you know we have an Identity Chip implanted inside of each of us, just under the skin, somewhere in our bodies?”
“Yes. I know. My father told me about it when we were only a few years into Training Tech. He also told me not to talk about it to anyone, because he wasn’t sure if Concord was going to keep the knowledge from the youth.”
I kept my eyes closed and continued to talk. “I don’t think very many people near our age, or younger, know about it. I wonder where it is in my body.”
“Mine is in my left forearm.”
“How do you know that?” I asked him.
“I asked my father’s doctor friend to scan me for it after we were finished with Incorporation.”
“Do you think that doctor would scan me? I want to know.”
“It’s pretty simple to figure it out yourself, actually. Once we found the spot, I inspected the area for a tiny scar. They had to get the chip under our skin somehow, so I figured it must have left a scar. I found it, right there where the scanner indicated the chip was. Look, Bluebell.”
I opened my eyes to look as he held out his arm and showed me the spot.
“Search all over your arms and your legs and look for a tiny scar,” he said. “My guess is that they go for our extremities first when implanting.”
“Okay, that sounds easy enough. Look for a tiny scar. Do you know anything about a mysterious untraceable tablet that could get me in serious trouble if I’m found with it?”
“What? No,” he shook his head. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Forget I said that last part,” I sighed. “After my Gala I’m going to be off traveling the Concords for at least three weeks. I’m not sure I want to go.”
“Do you have a choice?” he asked.
“None whatsoever,” I said, closing my eyes again.
“Then I guess you have to go,” Thorn replied. “I’ll message you a ton, so much that you might ask me to stop and you’ll be so busy answering my stupid questions that before you know it you’ll be back.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” I smiled. “You know, when we were in Training Tech and during Incorporation, I had my life pretty much settled in my head. I would get my Citizen Brand, I had minor cares about whether it would be an X or an O, but I knew that being a descendent of the Original Twenty would save me in the end. I figured I would be assigned an occupation, secure the best Marriage Contract possible, have a child or use a surrogate or adopt a child, and then live out the rest of my life.”
I felt Thorn hook his little finger with mine. “That’s what we all expected, except for the Original Twenty part, that’s just how we were all told our lives will be. It is what every Citizen of Concord is groomed to accept.”
“I would have too, you know? I would have accepted it. I know I question things in my head, but I rarely voice them. I would have been perfectly fine to live out my life, boring as I knew it would be.”
“But?”
I lifted my head and sat up a little straighter. “But then these dreams of mine started coming more and more often, and I was branded Lush, and instead of being given a career, I was told I’d be a public figure. My parents are actively looking for the best possible candidate for me to marry. They want someone that looks amazing if you wrote down a list of all his good traits. My mother sees this as a social game.”
“When did you start calling her your mother, what happened to Aspen?”
“Yesterday morning she asked me to go back to it, and I am trying to. We had an amazing day yesterday. She told me she was proud of the job I was doing as Lush Ambassador, she took me out shopping, we spent the entire day together and it actually felt good. But then this morning, it just seemed like she had checked something off her list. Be a good mother: done.”
“People don’t change in a day, Bluebell. Either she’ll continue to try and be a better mother to you, or she won’t. Give it some time and you’ll find out if she was being sincere.”
“I guess what bothers me most is that I feel like I should question everything now. Especially since you came around. Lily has always told me to ask questions, but she meant like… Where is the Gala? What time is dinner? When will you be home? You want me to ask questions like… Why don’t we remember more? Why are people encouraged to marry so quickly and so young? Why does an O make someone more important than someone with an X? Those are deep questions, Thorn. Those are questions Concord would rather we not ask.”
“We said we could ask each other those questions. So for now, that is what we will do. It goes no further than me and you,” Thorn said tugging at my little finger with his own. “And if you have some mysterious tablet that could get you in trouble, you should keep that thing hidden. I’m not asking about it. I’m just giving an opinion.”
“Not. Acknowledging. That. Statement,” I said quietly.
Thorn stood up and reached for my hands. “So we are in countdown mode.”
I grabbed his hands and he pulled me up. “What do you mean?”
“Five days until your Gala and six days until you are off to tour all of the Concords.”
“I guess we are,” I sighed.
“What should we do before you go?”
“Ask each other more questions,” I smiled.
“And try to remember,” he added.
“And try to remember,” I promised.
Chapter Sixteen
Life is a Ball
The week passed by quickly, much too quickly for me; when Friday arrived, I realized I wasn’t excited about the Gala at all. I was nervous, and not in a good way, not in a way that you’d expect to be right before a grand party was held in your honor. I was nervous about what it meant for me. I would start my tour the day after the Gala and would be really, truly, and fully thrust into the public eye. It wouldn’t simply be on a video screen anymore.
I was expected to be witty and graceful in front of crowds of people, be charming and dutiful at dinner parties, and be the perfect example of a loyal Citizen in everything I did. Cimarron insisted that I’d be perfectly perfect.
Thorn insisted the same. He said he knew I’d perform exactly as expected and that I shouldn’t be worried. I was thankful for his friendship, especially with Lily so involved with Fisher, and Stone pursuing Rosebud. It was nice to still have someone to talk to every day. My father had accepted my friendship with Thorn without question, but Aspen still questioned it. Whenever she could work it into a conversation, she somehow managed to call attention to the fact that there were better candidates out there. So I was thankful that she hadn’t been around much.
Aspen had been so busy during the week; she was determined for the Gala to be the best one Concord had ever seen. She actually made an attempt to leave messages for me and give me little details in passing. It was an effort on her part and I appreciated it. Thorn told me to give it time to see if my mother was sincere about changing, and during the week I had been encouraged to believe that we were on the right track. It felt really good just to hope.
I hadn’t picked up the mystery tablet again. It was still tucked between my headboard and the mattress. But I did peek at it every day just to make sure that it was still there. I was reaching my hand down in the space to feel for it, when there was a knock on my bedroom door.
“Bluebell, come look at my dress,” Aspen called from the other side of the door.
I got up and opened the door.
“Come see it. It was just delivered,” she said. “I love it. It is a powerful looking dress.”
“You want to look powerful?” I asked. It was a confusing statement. I figured Galas were all abou
t feminine beauty. The dresses that had been paraded in front of me had a soft feminine feel to them.
“Absolutely. I want the 1.15 family to be known as a great and powerful family. Our men are Council members and our women are fertile and Lush,” she explained as I followed her down the stairs.
There were two large boxes in the center of the room. One held my gown, shimmering and soft. The fabric seemed so light and airy. I thought back to when I’d first tried it on and how much I had loved the way the fabric billowed around me as I twisted my body back and forth. Even just lying there in the box, I loved it. The other box held Aspen’s dress. It was a deep black color, so dark it felt like it would absorb all the light around it. The gown had long sleeves, heavy looking fabric, and a high tulle collar.
“Aspen,” I said.
“Mother,” she corrected.
“Mother, that is definitely a powerful looking gown. It looks heavy.”
“It does. I think it shows what a strong woman I am.”
“Ummm, the collar is nice,” I said, not sure what else to draw attention to.
“It reminds me of the one you wore last week. That collar had strength. It framed your face and made you stand out. I loved it, so I ordered one to be added to this gown.”
“Well, you will definitely exude power in that dress.”
“Yes. I also think that together we show all aspects of the 1.15 family. The soft and the hard… You and I,” she smiled, pleased with herself. “But in a good way. I am hard because I must be and you are soft because you can’t help but be the sweet, pleasing girl that you are.”
“I guess we should hang these up for tomorrow evening,” I said. “When will hair and make-up arrive?”
“They’ll be here tomorrow at two o’clock in the afternoon. You’re scheduled for another skin glow treatment before that. So get your beauty sleep tonight and make sure that you eat something solid tomorrow, even if you feel too nervous to eat. I don’t want you fainting on me. That wouldn’t make the family look strong at all,” she teased.
