Death Thieves

by Julie Wright

  I didn’t understand. Not even a little bit. My life had been kind of crummy up until the day of the accident, but it was still mine. I still wanted it.

  Alison chattered away like a happy little squirrel, blissfully unaware of the boy standing behind it with a slingshot.

  She chattered until the room chimed three long bell tolls—our warning that it was time to go meet this professor. Alison hopped off the bed and smoothed down the skirts of her dress before she looked at me and paused midstep to the door. She stared as though just barely seeing me for the first time, in spite of the fact we’d been together in our room for two hours. “You aren’t really wearing that?”

  It was as much of a question as it was a statement. She may as well have told me flat out I looked horrible. I glanced down at Winter’s ruffled blouse and my jeans. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  “Don’t you want to make an impression?”

  An impression. I did want to make an impression, but the question was, what kind of an impression did I want to make? The question offered no answers, but Winter’s shirt wrapped around me like armor protecting me. I had no intentions of changing.

  “I like what I’m wearing.” I lifted my chin a little, like a stubborn child refusing to take off her superhero costume for school.

  “Kathleen asked us to clean up and change into something appropriate.”

  “But who decides what’s appropriate?” I continued walking to the door and had it open while she still stood stammering about clothes in the middle of the room.

  She caught up in several steps and looked like she might push me back into the room. “Pants are never appropriate.”

  I smiled and closed the door to our room with a resounding slam so she’d know I had no intentions of going back in for any reason. “When I’m from, everyone wears pants. And they look appropriate almost all the time.”

  “Your time sounds terrible. I’m certainly glad not to be there.” She wrinkled her nose in dissatisfaction as we walked to the elevator. Well, I walked; she flounced. I’d never seen a real honest-to-goodness flounce before. It was almost cute. Irritating and cute, exactly like a squirrel.

  Going down, the elevator said.

  “Isn’t this place just amazing?” Alison said bouncing slightly on her toes as though she couldn’t contain her own energy. “Talking elevators? Sidewalks in the sky? Cars that fly? And how sleek everything looks? It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Amazing,” I muttered.

  “Are you not impressed? Oh, did cars fly in your time, too?” She moaned. “Oh how I must seem silly to you, gawking like a child at a department store window.”

  “No. Cars didn’t fly in my time. You don’t seem silly to be amazed by things you’ve never seen. If I’m not impressed, well, it’s because it takes a lot to impress me.” That was true. I’d expected better things of my future than to kill babies and have wars. Alison’s soldier probably hadn’t told her any of that. Tag had likely said a great deal of things to me that he shouldn’t have said simply because we had so much time together and there was nothing to do but talk.

  I wondered what sorts of things they might say at our orientation. Would they tell us the truth? Would Tag be there? I hoped with all my might that he would be there. Please don’t have killed him for bringing me late.

  The elevator doors opened to what Kathleen called the casual room. People were already there—a lot of people. I blinked several times in bewilderment over how full the room was. It looked like a high school dance with all the suits and dresses. Instead of feeling out of place in my jeans and Winter’s shirt, I hugged my arms to myself so I could feel her shirt against me. I’d never gone to a new school without her. And here I was—alone. My clothing was the closest I would get to having my Wineve with me.

  I stepped out of the elevator and into the casual room. The people all seemed to be my age. They were in their late teens or early twenties. They all looked like clean cut, upper class kids, the kind who would grow up to be bankers and lawyers. How did I get mingled into this mess with people who would snub me the moment they found out I was practically an orphan, that my mother had been so drugged out she forgot to feed her own children?

  But as I walked through the crowd, the apprehensive mood coming from everyone else struck me. These people had all been ripped away from their homes, too. These were all people who’d survived something tragic and terrifying. Alison’s flagrant disregard for the tragedy that had befallen her didn’t mean that everyone was like that. These were people with families and dreams, all gone. And I was one of them. Would my past matter when we shared that bond? Would any of them need to know my past at all?

  No one seemed to notice my jeans. They were all quietly talking to one another. Little clumps of huddled, frightened kids. In one group near me, I heard whispers of a boating accident. He’d been swept off the boat in a storm and almost drowned.

  In another group, they whispered of a kidnapping. Her abductor had meant to kill her and would have succeeded if her soldier hadn’t come like a guardian angel. Tears trailed down her face, and her lips trembled as she spoke.

  I stood with them, eavesdropping on their stories and finding myself, in some ways, grateful to the soldiers who had taken them away from what would have been the final moments of their lives. She’d been kidnapped for real, not like Tag had taken me, but by someone who meant to harm her and then dispose of her. Could I say the soldier hadn’t been right to rescue her? The kidnapper had drugged her to make her more agreeable, but given her too much. She would have died if help hadn’t arrived to force the drugs from her system. Even if she never saw her family again, at least no one would hurt her. Could I argue with that?

  I stood with them, wondering if I’d misjudged. I stood with them and waited for proof one way or the other.

  “My students!” The voice called over the hum of quiet conversations. Everyone fell silent and turned to the raised platform at the end of the room. The man’s long, thin fingers curled around the sides of the podium as he gripped it. His short-cropped black hair had been feathered back. He was tall, but not so tall as to be overbearing. He looked like he could be running for congressman. He waited until he had everyone’s total attention.

  “My students. No doubt you all feel bewildered by today’s events. No doubt you are all tired and in need of rest and time to think and mourn. I know how hard today is for many of you.”

  Thus far, he’d pegged my feelings completely. His quiet voice carried strength, and, without wanting to, I found myself nodding as he spoke.

  “I know your hearts, my students. And I call you my students because I have brought you here to learn and to better yourselves. I am a professor, after all, a teacher, a guide. My name is Professor Raik. I expect to be addressed this way at all times. I’ve brought you out of the senseless tragedy that would have been the end of your lives so you might yet accomplish great things for humanity.”

  He let that hang in the air, and I truly felt from the soft kindness in his words that my death would have been a tragedy—that I really did have things to accomplish still.

  He shifted and ran his gaze over the room, almost seeming to be picking out every individual and acknowledging them personally. When his gaze fell on me and then moved away, it immediately swerved back. His brow furrowed slightly. I held my breath, wondering if he would call attention to the fact that I didn’t belong, wondering if he would yell out that my mother had allowed her boyfriends to try to hurt my sister and me while she got high on the drugs they brought her. He didn’t say anything, just inclined his head in a nod and finished his visual accounting of the room without another glance at me.

  He talked about the great university where we would attend school. He talked about the importance of self-cleanliness and our accountability to ourselves to maintain standards higher than everyone else we may come in contact with.

  “You are the elite. You are the New Youth of the world. You are not to mist
reat others for their limits, but neither are you to lower yourself to their levels, or you will find yourself limited as well. But for now, I welcome you. Build friendships with one another. Learn as much as you can from one another. There are no dating restrictions among yourselves, but you are not to fraternize with people born naturally to this time. You are above them. You are better. You are my elite!”

  A cheer went up. I almost joined in, so moving was his speech patterns and his convictions in the words he said—except the general entered the room. He stayed off to the side and tried to fade into the background, but his red hair drew my eyes to him whether he’d intended it or not. Several others noticed him but discarded the information of seeing him as though they’d already taken the professor’s words to heart and considered themselves much more important than this soldier, even if he was a general.

  Or maybe they didn’t know he was a general. Maybe they thought him to only be a soldier. Either way, seeing the general made me remember that I wasn’t above all the people of this crazy future. I considered Tag to be my absolute equal.

  The general’s presence made my mouth go dry. Had he executed Tag already and come to tell the professor? I slipped through the crowd, the kids talking with more animation now than they had before. The professor was using this moment to lean close to the general.

  I eased through a small cluster of girls and wedged myself close to the podium, where I could overhear what the redheaded general was saying.

  “. . . has been silenced.”

  “Does anyone in the barracks know about Taggert’s time lapse?” Professor Raik asked.

  “No. I’ve kept it quiet.”

  “Good. We don’t need questions or concerns about loyalty at this critical moment when it all comes together. Get back to the barracks. Keep the soldiers occupied. Offer them a bonus for their work, they’ve earned it.” The professor turned back to his podium, and I immediately nodded vigorously at the girl across from me as though agreeing with whatever she’d said.

  The professor cleared his throat and began his oration anew. More pretty promises of luxury and elitism, more enticing promises of education, position, popularity, and power. He explained the state of sterility humanity faced, the reality of the world’s inability to create posterity. But he left out a lot of details, important details. He made the world sound far more needy and sad than Tag had. Tag had spoken about things as they likely really were. Professor Raik made it seem as though each of us in the room was solely responsible for the future of mankind. He didn’t mention public nurseries. He didn’t mention the crazies, the war, the law, the fear. His words were coated with hope and sincerity and promises.

  Ugly wearing a beauty suit.

  But his words were like static roaring through my ears. I could only think of the words, “has been silenced.” They’ve killed him, I thought. They’ve killed Tag.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The professor stood down from the podium and invited everyone to partake in the refreshments set up on the opposite side of the room. He crossed the room to where the refreshments were located at a leisurely pace, taking the time to shake hands and welcome his students.

  He exchanged soft words of comfort to a few who had voiced concern over their families, and encouraged them with even more words. Everyone he neared seemed to stand taller. His charisma and ability to put people at ease wiped out any of the discordant rumblings that had been evident at the beginning before he’d begun talking.

  I’d have likely felt the same way except . . . they killed Tag.

  Once he’d arrived at the refreshment table, he announced he would be meeting with us each individually to discuss our plans. He poured a drink, handed it off to the girl next to him, and poured another. Of that one he took a sip, smiled, and excused himself from the room.

  The room’s volume grew immediately. I heard the word dreamy and looked around to find Alison talking with another girl. I would have smirked but was too busy trying to devise a way out of the building without anyone noticing. Without the ability to move in and out of buildings, how could I ever get into the barracks? If only I had one of those stupid rings! I had to find out for sure if he was okay. The speculation—the mere thought of them killing Tag drove me to irrationality unlike any I’d ever experienced.

  Because if they killed him, then it would have been all my fault. And though Tag and I had shared a rough beginning, he was all I had left in the world.

  Kathleen tapped the girl who Professor Raik had given the drink to on the shoulder and whispered in her ear. The girl blushed and stammered and hurried to follow Kathleen out the same door Professor Raik had gone through.

  I moved through the room, coming near but never entering conversations as I inspected the windows and how they opened. Tag had mentioned something called entry sensors. He’d said that any unapproved entry was recorded and investigated by the police. That crossed windows off my list of escape plans.

  Five minutes later, the girl returned, still blushing, though no longer stammering, and fiddling with a ring on her hand. As she moved through the door, it glowed green for her as it had for Kathleen and Professor Raik. They’d given her an IDR.

  Kathleen tapped a guy this time, and he followed her out, only to return a few minutes later with a dazed expression and a ring on his hand. One by one, we would all get our rings, our symbols of belonging here in this future. I moved closer to the refreshment table and, consequently, closer to the door, eager to be given access to the world in which I now lived.

  “This is all really wow, huh?” A blond guy who stood a whole head taller than me said.

  “What?” If my face looked as confused as my mind felt . . .

  “It’s a lot to take in.” He repeated similar sentiments to what I’d told Alison. At least one person here was capable of rational thought.

  “Yes. Quite a lot.”

  He stuck out his hand. “I’m Jay Savage.”

  Cautiously, I took his hand. “Summer. My name’s Summer Rae.” I paused. “Savage? Is that your real name?”

  He smiled. “The one I was born with. So how did you . . . come to be here?”

  At least he didn’t ask how I’d died. “Car wreck and a soldier. You?”

  “Hiking accident. I was falling—and then I wasn’t. I don’t know how he saved me. The soldier said wild animals ate my corpse so no one ever found me, until some scout troop was out climbing in the same place nearly half a century later. They identified me through the id in my wallet and old missing person ads.” He picked up a glass, filled it with whatever they were serving as punch, and handed it to me. The glass looked like glass but felt like the weird hard plastic dishes back at the house Tag and I’d stayed in.

  I accepted his offering, but didn’t drink. “Your mother must have been relieved to finally know what happened to you. After all those years.”

  His smoothly shaved face darkened. He bit his lip and scowled as though working through something important in his head. He gave himself a little shake and offered over a tight smile. “I doubt she ever found out anyway. My mom wasn’t young. She was forty-eight. Forty-eight just yesterday and today . . .” He gave himself another shake. “Half a century would make her near a hundred. She would’ve died without knowing.” He nodded as if we’d agreed on his assessment. I nodded, too. He needed me to agree—to be on his side. His pain was etched deep on his face. “They had me leave my shirt with the wallet at the scene, like a land marker of what should have happened. I’m grateful to be alive—don’t get me wrong. I just never imagined my life turning out like this.”

  I smiled sympathetically. “I hear you. This is . . .” I shrugged. Jay looked so lost, that changing the subject seemed the only way to keep him from crying. His worries took the focus off my own. “So what year are you from?” The get-to-know-you questions we used were weird. How did you die? What year are you from? And yet, we all seemed to be acclimating to those questions as though they were perfectly normal.


  “1987.”

  “Wow. I wasn’t even born yet. How old are you?”

  “Seventeen. What year are you from?”

  “2010. I’m seventeen, too.” I answered the question before he could ask it.

  “I’m still older than you.” He smiled and took a sip of his drink.

  “Oh whatever! We’re the same age. I might even be older, since I’m turning eighteen in a month, or at least I was turning eighteen in a month. I don’t know how that works anymore.” I eyed the table and found that the food looked pretty good. I grabbed a plate and started loading up. If I got my ring and was able to get out and find Tag, there was no telling when my next meal would be. I had agreed to help save the future, but I couldn’t do that without confirming his safety.

  “Still, I was born twenty-three years before you.”

  I snorted softly. “Well don’t go thinking that makes you more mature than me. Chronology and maturity aren’t the same thing.”

  He laughed. His laugh made me smile. It felt good to talk to someone in my same situation who seemed normal.

  He sobered up a bit and glanced over the rest of the room. “How many people do you think are here?”

  I followed his gaze and did a quick estimation. “Maybe one hundred fifty?”

  “We’re going to be here a long, long time, then, if that guy plans on taking that much time with every person.” Jay’s acidic tone made me pause.

  “You don’t like him?”

  “I don’t trust him. Let’s get our food and find a place to sit down.”

  I almost protested, believing that by staying close to the door, I’d be picked out among the first and could be on my way. But I had a pile of food to plow through on my plate and would need some time to eat it. I followed Jay to one of the couches.