Guardian

by Alex London

  “The hood of the Purifier is a symbol that the individual is not the—” she recited.

  “Shut it,” Liam snapped. “Now I know you. Both of you. No one else can know where Yovel is staying. If anything goes wrong . . . I will see you again but you will not see me, understood?”

  The boy nodded. The girl nodded.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he said and he let Cousin lead him down the hall to the metal exit stairway.

  “You enjoy that, don’t you?” Cousin asked as they walked away.

  Liam refused to answer. He pushed his way outside into the humid night air of the jungle-crusted city.

  Cousin took a deep breath and puffed his cheeks out as he exhaled. Liam stood by his side and listened. It was well past curfew. The only sound was the background buzz of the jungle at night.

  “Oh yes.” Cousin exhaled. “I do love the silences.”

  He strolled off and Liam followed. There was no real rush. Doctor Adaeze Khan would not be expecting them.

  [11]

  THE MEETINGS DIDN’T ALWAYS go this late. The large tent in the middle of the barren field glowed and even from a distance, Marie could see that it was packed with people. The tent was the only point of light for miles and she kept stumbling on the dark furrows of dirt as she made her way toward it. One step into a muddy irrigation pit nearly sucked her boot off her foot. Another stumble and she scraped the palm of her hand on a jagged rock.

  She squeezed her hand into the cloth of her uniform to clean the small wound and to stop the bleeding. It stung, but she stifled the urge to curse. Even when she was alone, she tried to obey the new guidance about forbidden words. It wasn’t arbitrary that many of the old words were outlawed, and it wasn’t merely for the Advisory Council to assert itself. They were scholars, after all, and they were attempting to use their understanding to reshape society.

  Language formed the world, and if they could reform language, they could reform thought. The new minds that would blossom within the people would never again drift back to corruption and greed. A society would be born based on mutual concern and shared sacrifice. No one would even think to exploit anyone else; they wouldn’t even have the words to conceive of the idea.

  Marie believed this. She did her best to believe this.

  The walk out to the farming cooperative had taken hours, her arm still aching, although the medics had repaired it so well it would barely scar where Liam had shot her. By the time she got out to the co-op, she expected the meeting would be over and she’d planned to find her parents in their barracks.

  When she arrived, the barracks were empty, save for one young Purifier, napping against a motorized tractor. His green uniform was far too large for him. It hung like a blouse off his shoulders. He’d taken his white mask off to use the thick material as a pillow. He didn’t hear her approach over the whoosh of the wind turbines until she stood directly above him.

  When he pointed Marie on her way toward the meeting tent, he shook like a leaf and tried to throw his mask back on at the same time. It ended up backward and he twisted and turned it, frantically stretching the fabric until he was peering with one eye out of the mouth hole.

  “Thank you, friend,” she told him. “I didn’t mean to startle you. If you need to rest, rest. The Reconciliation does not need your exhaustion.”

  The boy nodded and got his mask right. His eyes were wide and damp through the eyeholes. Marie felt certain he would not be sleeping on duty again tonight. Often a reminder that they served a cause greater than themselves was enough to bring most of the young Purifiers in line. All but Marie had been proxies for some spoiled brats under the old system. It amazed her that they were not all as committed as she to the new way of things. Further proof that the Advisory Council was right: The old ways of thinking had to be purged if there was any hope for the future.

  “What’s your name, Purifier?”

  “Tom Sa—” he said, then caught himself, cleared his throat. “I mean, my name is Arik the Destroyer.”

  Marie stifled a laugh. Some of the names these kids chose for themselves. Not that she should judge. Not everyone had the luxury of keeping their old name. In truth, the boy looked more like a Tom than an “Arik the Destroyer,” but perhaps he’d grow into the name by the time he had hair under his arms. She nodded and went on her way, leaving the boy standing nervously alone in the dark.

  As she grew closer, Marie saw that everyone from the co-op was crammed on uncomfortable salvage benches beneath the blazing lights of the big tent.

  She saw the lead Purifier of the co-op standing in the front of the room, addressing a man in tattered slacks and a filthy open jacket—what would have no doubt once been fine clothes in Mountain City. He wore no shirt underneath the jacket and his skin had a sickly yellow color, the heavy blue lines of his veins showing through. He stood beside the Purifier with his head bowed, scratching at his arms and bare chest, scraping angry red lines into his skin.

  As she drew nearer, the desert wind that turned the turbines carried the conversation to her ears.

  “If we had not caught you, would you have stolen food from the central kitchen?” the Purifier demanded.

  The man nodded. He would have.

  “What would you like to say to your friends?” The Purifier gestured over the crowded tent.

  The man coughed and began to speak in a hoarse voice.

  The Purifier beside him raised a hand to stop him.

  “Louder, friend,” he said. “A confession should be made with confidence . . . unless you do not believe the words you speak?”

  “I believe what I say,” the man confirmed. He cleared his throat and straightened his back. With great effort, he spoke, loudly enough for his voice to carry all the way to the rear of the large tent:

  “I apologize to each of you and to the Reconciliation, which I have betrayed with my covetous thoughts. My intention to steal food came from my past as an executive with Birla Nanotech, when I would profit off the labor of others. The desire to take for myself what belongs to all is ingrained in my heart. I deeply wish to purify it, and I thank you for preventing me from following through on my dark desires. With your help, I may succeed in becoming a healthy member of a community of mutual concern and shared sacrifice.”

  “And do you renounce your greed?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you renounce your past?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you renounce the Machine?”

  “I—” The man hesitated. He looked up at his interrogator.

  The Purifier punched him in the stomach, bending him double with the blow. Marie flinched, but no one else in the tent even blinked.

  “And do you renounce the Machine?” the Purifier repeated, pulling the man upright again by his hair.

  “I cannot renounce what is not real,” the man said, his voice strained. “There is no Machine. Only fools believe the networks could ever be restored.”

  The Purifier studied him. All eyes studied him.

  “Good,” the Purifier said at last, then turned to the assembled crowd. “How best shall our friend purify himself of this greed he has confessed?”

  There were murmurs in the crowd. This was a chance for the members of the cooperative to demonstrate their commitment to Reconciliation. As former elites, they were all suspect. Other white-masked Purifiers stood around the tent, watching everyone closely, no doubt noting who appeared reluctant to punish a transgression, who might themselves be tempted to transgress.

  “The crime is from the past,” a voice called out. “Let the punishment be as well.”

  The crowd quickly concurred with a round of clapping and stomping. The man in front nodded and stomped his feet, agreeing readily to whatever punishment was assigned to him. Reluctance to be punished would be a sign that he still harbored guilty thoughts.

 
“Very good,” the Purifier beside him said. “In the Mountain City, when a patron committed an infraction, his proxy would be administered jolts from an electro-muscular disruption stick.” The Purifier pulled out such a stick. No one needed an explanation. The old system had existed until just a few months ago. The EMD sticks themselves were outlawed, but it was widely known that they still circulated, and the Purifier cadres used them freely.

  The Purifier activated his, and through the mouth hole of his white mask, Marie clearly saw a smirk sneak its way across his face. For a former proxy, the chance to shock a former patron this way had to be a thrill. This Purifier was bold to show his enjoyment in front of everyone. It was not supposed to be a joy.

  He touched the stick to the man’s side, and instantly the man’s body jolted. After a second shock, he collapsed and quivered on the ground. Two Purifiers rushed forward to hold him up. Another shock was delivered. And another. And another. The man spit up on himself, his legs gave out, and still, another shock followed. No one dared look away.

  Marie scanned the crowd and saw her parents sitting side by side, together, both of them watching the punishment being administered without the slightest emotion on their faces. Surely, they would have known this man before, when he was an executive. Her father’s company did extensive business with Birla Nanotech, who installed much of the biodata into people’s bloodstreams.

  Marie didn’t recognize the man, but she could imagine him standing in their living room at a cocktail party, laughing and telling jokes. Maybe she’d even gone to school with the man’s children, if he had any. It didn’t matter. He would never see them again.

  Marie knew it pained her parents to watch, but they had avoided seeing the suffering that the old system caused for so long, only seeing its benefits, that seeing suffering now served a vital purpose. Facing the pain that greed created, perhaps they could learn to build a world where greed no longer existed. As the punishment went on, her father whispered something to her mother, who nodded grimly.

  When the meeting broke up and everyone began to make their way across the fields to the barracks, Marie weaved her way through the crowd to walk with them.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said quietly, matching her pace to theirs. “Hi, Dad.”

  Her father glanced at her and held back a cry of joy. He gave her a quick one-armed hug. “You aren’t wearing your disturbing mask?”

  “I’m not on duty,” she said. “And they’re not disturbing. They are meant to remove the individual from the job. All the Purifiers are, in a way, the same Purifier.”

  “Anything that hides the face of the person with power over you is disturbing,” her father whispered back.

  “Oh, like a corporation?” Marie replied.

  “Don’t fight,” her mother interjected. “Please. It’s so nice to see you, Marie. I’m glad you could visit with us.”

  “Do your meetings usually go this late?” she asked.

  “Who can tell?” her father said. “No way to tell time.”

  “The Reconciliation tells you when you need to be somewhere.”

  “Praises to the Reconciliation!” her father exclaimed. “We’d be so lost without them. Or ‘us,’ I mean. We’re all one, no? We’d be lost without ourselves?”

  Marie sighed. Her father’s bitterness was as disheartening as it was foolish. If the wrong person were to overhear . . .

  She looked at him in the dark as they walked. He had on a simple synthetic shirt and DuraStitch work pants. Marie had arranged the clothes. She knew giving special treatment to her parents was wrong, especially since they had been such anti-revolutionary figures. Her father should, by all rights, be awaiting his execution. Instead, he was with his wife, on a food production co-op wearing comfortable pants that fit him. Or at least, that had fit him a few weeks ago.

  Now the pants hung off him. He’d used up the notches on the built-in belt and had tied a cord of some kind around his waist to hold them up. His shirt draped around his thin shoulders. He reminded Marie of the nervous kid she’d surprised in his nap. He was not the proud and powerful executive she’d grown up with. As they walked, he kept scratching at his chest and his arms. She noticed her mother quietly take his hand, wrap his bloody fingers in her own. There were marks on his neck and she could see the skin had lost its color, was nearly translucent to the layer of vein and muscle below.

  She couldn’t deny it, life on the co-op was not being kind to her father.

  And now she had to give him her news.

  “I made a mistake this morning,” she said.

  “Everyone makes mistakes,” her mother said, rather unhelpfully.

  “I let down the Reconciliation,” she said. “I put Syd—er—Yovel in danger through my foolishness, and am being justly punished.”

  Her parents stopped walking. Other figures passed them in the dark on the way back to the barracks, and in moments, they were alone in the field. Even in the dark, she could see the worried glisten in her parents’ eyes.

  There was little moonlight and her black hair and dark green uniform were almost invisible. The single white stripe on her collar seemed to glow and her parents stepped toward it, leaning in close. They knew, of course, that she was their only protection. Even the other members of the co-op knew who her father had been. Many of them had been his employees. The only reason he hadn’t been killed and dumped into an unmarked pit in the field was that his daughter was a respected cadre of the Reconciliation and was a friend to the savior of the people. If she fell from grace, her mother and father would be killed faster than the rumor of her disgrace could reach them.

  “Are we—?” Her mother lowered her voice to almost a breath. “In danger?”

  “No,” Marie said. “But my rations, and yours, are being cut in half.”

  “I noticed at mealtime this evening,” her mother said. “I assumed the cook was stealing from us.”

  “That doesn’t happen anymore,” Marie objected. “Personal greed has been eliminated.”

  Her father snorted a bitter laugh. “As we have just witnessed.”

  “Your father’s not well,” her mother whispered.

  “Take him to the medics,” Marie suggested.

  It was her mother’s turn to laugh. “You’re young, Marie. Even with your uniform and your rank, you are very young.”

  “All people have a right to medical care,” she said.

  “You forget that your father and I are not really people.” Her mother shook her head. “We are on probation until we can prove our old ideas have been purged. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what this so-called farm is for? To reinvent us?”

  “To purify you,” Marie said. “To reeducate you. To bring out the communal spirit that we all possess.”

  “Others have gone to the medics.” Her mother looped her arm through her daughter’s and led her on, with her father on the other side. “They do not come back.”

  “They’re getting treatment,” said Marie.

  “They never come back,” her mother said. “Better to keep our illnesses to ourselves.”

  “At least they still belong to us,” her father coughed.

  “Stop it, Xiao,” she admonished him. She turned back to Marie. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll make do. It’s a new world now. You wanted to make the future and so you are. You’re an important person with opportunities to rise in the ranks. We’re museum pieces. Don’t let us drag you down. There’s no profit in it.”

  Marie’s head darted around to make sure they were alone in the field. “Profit” was an outlawed word too. Why did her mother insist on using it? Was she so incapable of change?

  Marie wanted so badly for her parents to see the good in this new world. It was a harder life, but one where everyone’s fate was shared. People grew the food, not machines. People ate what they could grow, not what branding and marketing departmen
ts told them to. People enforced the laws, not bioengineered Guardians. People were at the center of the world now and if her parents would just embrace it, they would see all the good it could bring, all the good it would bring.

  Soon the dirt would produce enough for everyone to eat. Soon the restrictions on movement and speech and thought would be unnecessary because the Machinist cults would be eliminated. Soon no one would long for the old way of living, because they would come to appreciate the new. There would be a kind of peace that the world had never seen. Her parents would understand that she had been right all along.

  “I have to go,” she told them. “I’ll come visit again soon. Just work hard and be mindful.”

  “You do the same,” her mother said, kissing her on the cheek. Her father stepped around and hugged her. He still had his strength, but as she looked closely into his face, she could see the veins running beneath the skin, like they were swelling, darkening.

  Could it be—? No.

  The Reconciliation said the sickness could not spread. There was no danger to the public as long as the Guardians were eliminated.

  And yet, as she walked away from her parents back across the fields, she was glad for the dark. She did not want anyone to see her tears.

  Birthing pains, she told herself. At the birth of a new world, there will always be pain.

  [12]

  DR. KHAN LIVED IN a housing unit in the secure sector not far from Syd’s run-down school building. The housing was newer than most in the city and in relatively good shape. The jungle plants that crawled into the cavernous ruins of skyscrapers from other eras had been cut back, much of the structure restored and an elevator even rebuilt.

  “The doctor lives on sixteen,” Cousin said. “I suppose she likes the breezes up there.”