by Lauren Salem
* * *
As I was zoning out by the key scanner, a heavy black man with a bald head approached our group. “Vincent,” he called out. I followed him out of the glass building and into the village, where he led me to the packaging station.
The packaging station, which was a series of open-air tents, was located by the fence that separated Walnut Cherryville Village from the rest of the desert. As we approached I saw trucks parked behind the tents, being loaded with boxes. From afar, the boxes looked the same as the ones I found in the truck when my friends and I were abducted.
“This is the packaging station,” the supervisor said. “This is where we receive, pack, and ship out all our Walnut Cherryville products. Walnut Cherryville is the largest local producer of mangos, berries, nuts, and many other assorted fruits.”
We walked into a tent decorated with picnic tables, stacks of plastic containers, cardboard boxes, and tabletop produce scales.
“Now, I’m going to take you through the fruit immigration process, so pay attention. This is where all the fruit enters the packing station,” he said as he tapped the picnic table. “You will be working here as a progress tracker. Workers from the greenhouse, forest, and fields will be bringing you baskets of produce, and it is your job to collect it from them. When—”
“Excuse me, did you say forest and fields? How is that possible in a desert?” I interrupted.
“That’s beside the point. All you need to know is that it’s possible.”
“But how?”
“Do you mind? I’m trying to give you a tour here!”
“I’m sorry for interrupting; please continue.”
“Anyway, when the workers bring the produce they collected, it is your responsibility to weigh it and record on your clipboard how much weight each worker brought in every day. At the end of the day, you will return your clipboard to me, and I will give it to the governor. That is all you really have to do for now. From here, the fruit gets inspected for quality, placed in plastic packaging, and then packed into boxes that are loaded onto the trucks. Now, do you have any questions only related to what you have to do at work?”
“No, I got it. The concept is pretty simple.”
“Good, now get to work. You have a line waiting for your attention!”
I sat down at the picnic table and began to weigh the workers’ fruit while I kept a close eye on the trucks. I wanted to know where they were going or if they’d show me the way out. Once the trucks were full, the workers closed and locked the sliding doors. A driver got into each truck; it seemed like every truck only had one driver. The trucks started their engines and pulled out one at a time before they waited in line. One by one, they made a right turn and followed the perimeter of the fence for a long time. I almost began to lose track of them. The trucks were so far away, they looked like tiny ants crawling to their destination. Suddenly, I saw the ant-sized trucks make a left turn. Was this the way out of the village? It must be, because somehow these trucks found us in Phoenix. So I found a way out, but there must be some other complications that would make escaping more difficult than it seemed. From what I heard, this village took abandonment pretty seriously, so they must have been watching us somehow.
After I took care of the last worker in line, I got up to walk around and search for cameras.
“Where are you going?” my supervisor asked.
“I got up to stretch my legs and walk around,” I said. “I took care of the line.”
“Stay in this area. Don’t wander around.”
“OK.”
This area was the only area I needed to examine. I walked along where the trucks were parked and looked for evidence of cameras. Who watched this place at night once everyone returned to the glass house? A new truck arrived and honked at me to get out of the way. I moved aside, and it drove past me. Once the truck was parked, the driver got out and opened the trunk. The truck was empty, so I walked just close enough to get a good view of the inside without looking suspicious. As far as I could tell, I didn’t see any cameras inside the truck, but there were dome surveillance cameras on the overhang of the tents, watching the workers load the trucks.
I walked back to my table and continued to weigh fruit as I thought about the situation. I would imagine whoever was watching the feed from these cameras was probably watching pretty closely. Smashing the cameras would attract too much attention. Depending on the amount of light there was at night, it would be best to be invisible and sneak around in the shadows.
What happened to the trucks at night? Were they locked? If so, who held the key? Were they full of boxes for us to hide in, or were they empty? Did the trucks sit here overnight, or did they arrive in the morning? How would everyone make sure their supervisors didn’t notice they were gone? I might have found a way out, but a way with lots of risks and unknowns. Should I tell the others about it? Collins seemed pretty desperate to get out of here before he even knew what this place was about. I was intrigued by this place, and I wanted to learn more. There was so much to uncover.
I could only imagine what would happen if I told the others about this too soon. Collins would overreact and put a lot of pressure on everyone to plan the escape quickly. Johnny would plan an escape that he thought was logical, but it would be sloppy and full of holes and risks. Laura wouldn’t do anything to help, and if we got caught, she’d seduce the punisher in exchange for her own freedom. That would be a disaster. The best escape plans were the ones that were well thought out and examined every possible obstacle. To make a feasible plan, everyone had to continue to act like normal citizens, so we could gather more information without attracting any unwanted attention. For the safety of my friends, I was not going to tell them about this until the time was right. We might only have one shot at escaping, and I didn’t want them to mess it up.
Spending the entire day weighing fruit was fairly boring, so I tried to find ways to make it more interesting. During my downtime, I drummed on the table with my pencil and doodled on the back of the papers and then erased it. Toward the end of the day, a strange young Asian woman came up to me with fifty pounds of mangos. Up until now, no one had brought in this much fruit. The woman was petite and thin and looked as if she herself only weighed one hundred pounds. Her uniform and hands were bloody, but I didn’t spot any wounds.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
She first looked at me as if she didn’t know why I’d be asking her that.
“Oh, yes, I’m fine. Just a few cuts, that’s all.”
The amount of blood on her hands and the spots on her uniform looked like more than a few cuts.
“What’s your name?”
“Amy Chang.”
I searched the list for her name and recorded that she brought in fifty pounds of mangos.
“OK, you’re all set,” I said. “You should wash those cuts before they get infected.”
“I will. Thank you. Have a good day,” she responded before she walked away with her basket.
I glanced at the rest of the list and noticed Laura was on it. At five minutes to five, she still hadn’t brought in any fruit, while everyone else brought in at least one basket. I wondered what could have happened to her. Hopefully she hadn’t already gotten herself into trouble.
“What happens when a worker doesn’t bring in any fruit?” I asked my supervisor.
“You record that they didn’t bring in any weight.”
“What happens to the worker who doesn’t bring in any weight?”
“Well, it depends on how many times they’re slacking,” he explained. “In all divisions, every time a worker in all divisions doesn’t perform their job up to standards, they don’t receive shower coins at the end of the day. You get one coin per day. If the worker slacks on their work more than three times, the supervisor must evaluate why the worker isn’t doing well and write a report to the government. The government will decide the worker’s fate based on their supervisor’s report. Some workers try re
ally hard and physically can’t do the task chosen for them, so the government places them at a new job. Others who refuse to work or purposely do their work poorly face further punishment decided by the court.”
“There is a legal system here?”
“Vincent, think about Walnut Cherryville the same way you think about anywhere else you’ve ever been. Everywhere you go, there is a government that makes laws you must follow and citizens working to support their economy. Citizens don’t work to support themselves here; they work to support their economy, which is why the government doesn’t like when a worker isn’t pulling their weight. Any money Walnut Cherryville makes is used to buy supplies, pay bills, and upgrade our living conditions. So the more weight in fruit the workers bring in, the more money the village gets, which could turn into an extra pillow for every citizen or something like that.”
“That’s very interesting.”
“Well, it’s five o’clock, time for everyone to start closing up,” he said, before he walked away.
I gave him my clipboard, but unfortunately Laura never showed up. At least all she’d miss was a shower for now. I stayed at my post to watch the workers during closing time. They finished packing their last box, taped it up, and loaded it onto the truck. It looked like some trucks had more boxes in them than others, so that could be a problem if the truck we hid in didn’t have enough boxes for us to hide behind. After the trucks were locked up, the workers returned the keys to my supervisor. All the trucks looked the same, as did all the keys, so if I were to steal one, I wouldn’t be able to tell which truck I was getting, or how many boxes were in that truck until we found out which truck that key opened. The fact that we’d have to go from truck to truck, trying to figure out which truck that key opened would add extra risk of us being seen by the cameras. How did the workers know which key belonged to which truck? There must have been a label I wasn’t seeing from here. Everyone started to clear the area and walk back to the glass house, so I tagged along with them. I could do more investigating tomorrow.
Chapter 7: Laura
