The Superiors

by Lena Hillbrand

  “That’s nice,” Cali said. She wanted to do her work in peace. Her woman’s days always gave her the worst stomach pains, and sweat had stuck her shift to her back and she kept having to pull it loose from where it clung to her skin, and she didn’t smell too pretty right then either. She’d rather people talked to her after she’d showered.

  He just kept talking though, telling her about how he’d built his house, all the things he’d found to make it, how big it was, what the inside and outside looked like. He seemed nice and everything, even if he did keep following her to the next row of beans, and kept talking like she had answered. Bragging annoyed her a little, and he bragged a lot. But she figured he was just trying to look good so she’d pay attention to him.

  “How old are you?” he asked after a while. She’d almost stopped paying attention since he hadn’t required her to say anything.

  “I’m fifteen. Almost sixteen. You?” Age didn’t really matter at the Confinement, not once a girl could have babies. It was just something to talk about.

  “Twenty-six. You got kids?”

  “No. You?”

  “Yeah. I had a girlfriend who lived with me before, and we were going to get married, and that’s why I tried so hard to get the house built. We had two kids, and we were going to get married once I had the house all ready. We even moved in before I’d finished it, because I didn’t want her to have to be in the barracks and get disturbed and wake up the babies. I took real good care of her, and the babies. I’d be a good husband.”

  Men got sent away to work on farms more often, so a lot more women lived in the Confinement. If a man wanted a wife, he could be picky. Mostly the men just gave lots of women lots of babies. The Superiors liked it when humans had lots of babies.

  “Uh huh. What happened to her?”

  “Someone bought her and the babies both. So now I have the house to myself. I like it sometimes. It’s quiet and people come over and sleep there if they’re fighting with their family or someone. But I really miss having a girl around. That’s why I made the house, because I wanted a family, and now I’m left with the house and no family. But I figure I’ll find a girl pretty fast. Everyone wants a family, and not everyone can offer a house like I can.”

  “Sounds like it’ll be easy then.” She knew what he was doing, seeing if she was interested. She wasn’t. She didn’t want to end up as that girlfriend of his, or worse, with babies. Poppy went on and on about babies, how much she loved them. The way Cali saw it, that was part of the problem. If you loved a baby and it got taken away, or you did, then what? She’d seen it happen. It was bad. The only way she’d ever want babies was if someone bought her first, and got her and a husband together, and then she could be pretty sure her family would stay together.

  The boy stayed and kept talking to her all day, until she got so tired of him she had to escape to the outhouses to avoid him. She used the composting toilet inside the plastic stall. Even though the toilets flushed, the tiny stalls sat in the sun, and the heat and smell inside got pretty bad by the end of the day.

  That evening after her shower, she joined her family at one of the tables in the noisy eating hall. “Hey, did you hear that Patty and Pat are going to make a run for it?” Poppy asked as soon as Cali sat down.

  She rearranged herself on the bench, scooting forward so the edge wouldn’t press on the backs of her knees so bad. “Uh, no. Where to?”

  “South America, of course. Where else would they go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So? Aren’t you excited or nothing? They even said they’re taking Leon with them, and they got everything ready, even. Stuff to make the big escape.” Poppy leaned forward as she talked, and whispered like someone might overhear and tell the Superiors. Which someone actually might, although Cali couldn’t understand why anyone would do something like that. After all, they should all root for each other and try to help each other get out if they could. But for some reason, some people always had to try and ruin the chances of anyone brave enough to make a run for it.

  “Do you think anyone ever makes it that far?” Cali asked, scraping her corn pudding onto her corn tortilla. Corn, corn, corn. She didn’t see how she hadn’t turned yellow from all that corn. Maybe the helping of soybeans kept her from turning into a corn plant.

  “Course they make it,” Zinnia said, holding her belly. “Sure they do. You know what they say, that way down there, on the other side of the wide water, people get to live free. Buy their own stuff, have their own animals and gardens, everything.”

  “I even heard humans can read down there,” Poppy said. “They just give them books and teach them everything.”

  “Maybe,” Cali said. “I doubt it.”

  Her sisters gave her dirty looks. “Why you gotta say that?” Zinnia said. “One day I’m going to take my baby and we’re going to go down there and I’m going to have twenty books, and then I’m going to write you a letter and put it in a book and send it to you.”

  Cali smiled. “That’d be great. Maybe I’ll come too.”

  “And me and Sandy, too,” Poppy said. “And mama and Gwen and all of us, and all our families…” She kept on talking, but Cali stopped listening. She thought about how great everyone thought restaurants were, how working in a restaurant meant you could run errands in the city alone, and do things and have things that no one here had. But it was all just another South America, only closer. Probably no one ever made it to South America. Everyone who escaped got sent somewhere a lot closer—the blood bank. And everyone around her knew it, but they’d never say it. If anyone ever made it to South America, she thought they’d be in for a shock. Probably, they’d find a place just like here. Maybe even worse.

  Cali had run a few times. Stupid, sure. She’d been a kid, though. Now she knew a little more about Superiors. Running away usually only caused more problems. Bad things had happened when she’d run away. First she’d gotten sent to a blood bank, then to a restaurant. Neither of which had been at all fun. In the Confinement, she didn’t have it so bad. She had food, and her family, and only a few Superiors bit her every night. She didn’t need anything that she didn’t have. Everything here was good enough, as good as it would probably ever get. Asking for more just seemed greedy when she was already so well cared for. As long as she didn’t do anything dumb, like kick a bloodsucker, she’d be okay.

  That night they came while she slept. Not just one of them, but a ton of them. She woke when the lights went on, and everyone started sitting up and blinking and rubbing eyes. The Superiors came down the center aisle, familiar guards and others all wearing the same uniforms. They pulled people out of the bunks, shouted, marched them all outside. Cali stood with the others in a group, all of them sleepy and silent and staring. The babies all started screaming. Inside, the Superiors started pulling the thin mattresses from the bunks, now unrolled for sleeping. They dragged every mattress on the floor, flipped them over, sometimes scanned them or felt all over them and tossed them back up.

  “What are they doing?” Maypull asked. Cali took her sister’s hand and watched the commotion inside.

  “It’s a raid,” one of the older men said. “They’re looking for contraband items.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Stuff we’re not s’posed to have. Anything that could be a weapon, I guess. Or something could be used to escape with.”

  Cali’s heart began to hammer, first slow and hard and then faster. What if they were looking for that thing she’d stolen? What if they’d found out, if he’d missed it? She didn’t even know what it was for, but she knew she shouldn’t have it. It must be a contraband item. She’d stuck it in along the seam of her mattress and sewed it back in, but they could surely tell. They had an instrument to wave over the mattresses to see things.

  But they passed her mattress without scanning it, just felt it with their hands and threw it on the floor with the others. Cali relaxed a tiny bit. But then she thought of Pat and Patty,
and she drew closer to her sister and held tighter to her hand.

  One of the Superiors inside scanned a mattress, and his little scanner started beeping. He grabbed the mattress and pulled, and it tore down the middle. A knife of some sort fell out and clattered to the floor. “Got a weapon,” the Superior yelled to the others. He scanned the mattress code to match it with the bunk and the person. The whole group of people outside pulled tighter together. But it was too late.

  The Superior came out and yelled, “Cord Jeffries. Someone give me Cord Jeffries, or I’ll come in and get him.”

  A murmur went through the crowd, and then a man came forward. No one spoke a single word. They all watched the Superior bind the man’s hands in a plastic cable thing, and then he felt all over the man for weapons, and then he snapped the cable onto one of the bunk beds and continued looking. When they had finished, they all came out, one of them holding Cord by the arm. Cali didn’t know Cord, but she had a good idea where he’d go next. Blood bank.

  “Alright, fun’s over,” one of the Superiors said. “Go back in, find your mattress, go back to sleep.”

  The Superiors moved away towards the houses, and a minute later the loud bangs came as they tore into the houses, sometimes demolishing the rickety buildings in the process, usually just knocking down a door or roof. Raiding the houses would take a lot longer than the barracks, where nothing but humans and mattresses and bunks stayed all night.

  “Do you think they heard something?” Maypull whispered. “Do you think they found out someone might escape?”

  “No, I’m sure it’s just routine,” Cali whispered, still holding Maypull’s hand. She thought about her mama, about the sisters in the house out there, about Jonathan in his house. And Patty and Pat and Leon in their house.

  “I wish your bunk was closer,” Maypull said. “I don’t want to go back to sleep by myself.”

  Nobody would get to sleep for a while—it sounded like about fifty babies were crying in Cali’s barracks and outside. The clangs of the metal houses collapsing or being pounded on or disturbed made a pretty steady racket for a long time, too. Was Poppy’s baby crying out there? Had their house gotten knocked down? Had anyone gotten in trouble? Cali wished she could run out and check, but she’d have to wait until morning. Maypull finally went off to find her boyfriend and crawl in his bunk, and Cali looked at the huge disaster on the floor. She decided not to wade into the tangle of people looking for their mattresses. She’d just wait, and the last one left on the floor would have to be hers. She could always check for the picture to make sure.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Draven met Byron for games in a café a few nights later. They had gone back to the usual routine since Byron had heard from the doctor on Cali’s condition. Still, a distance had developed between them, a small but noticeable rend in the fabric of their new friendship.

  Byron offered Draven wine, but Draven declined, remembering the unpleasant taste and effect of it from his evening at Byron’s. Byron grew relaxed, perhaps a result of the second glass of wine he sipped while they played checkers.

  “I have some bad news for us, my friend,” Byron said, trapping one of Draven’s pieces at the edge of the board.

  “Oh?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Where are you going? And may I ask why?”

  “A city further north, first. They’re in need of some help with an investigation. Then I may move from there, depending on where I am needed. Lots of Seconds live here, with the preferable climate. But up north, into the main continent, there aren’t so many, and the law enforcement in some cities is suffering. So I’ve been chosen to go north.”

  “Chosen? Does that mean you cannot refuse?”

  “Well,” Byron said, laughing. “Maybe I volunteered.”

  “Why would you want to go north? Isn’t it much colder?”

  “True. But I was offered a good enough incentive. And my contract will be over in ten years. A blink of an eye, really.” Like most Seconds, Byron had a better sense of time and found it more important than Draven’s generation. After all, Seconds had been around when time was one of humanity’s greatest obsessions.

  “That is bad news for me,” Draven said. “I have quite enjoyed your company.”

  “As have I,” Byron said, sipping his wine. “But all things must come to an end, right soldier? I’ll be sure to look you up when I come back and see if you’re still here.”

  “Where else would I be,” Draven said, not asking a question but stating a simple fact. It had been a long, long time since he’d gone anywhere, aside from an occasional work trip.

  “You may get an itch to travel, who knows. I get them now and then myself. To be honest, that’s part of why I took on this assignment. That and a small fortune was offered, plus two more homo-sapiens to add to my livestock, one before the assignment and one more when it’s completed.”

  “That is a lucrative offer, indeed, sir. No wonder you did not refuse. Will your family go with you?” Draven thought of Byron’s wife, her lascivious hairstyle. He pushed the thought from his mind and tried not to let guilt enter his expression.

  “Not until I know if I’m staying on in the mountain area. That’s where I’m going first. Once I’m done with that investigation, I’ll either move to another city for the remainder or stay there. Once I know for sure, I’ll send for my family, if they want to come. Or we’ll just visit each other until I come back.”

  “I envy your ability to take such assignments. For years I have longed to travel, perhaps to leave here altogether. I keep telling myself one day I will, but it hasn’t happened.”

  “You’re still young,” Byron said. This was true—a significant disparity existed in the men’s ages, both before and after their evolutions. Byron had been old enough to be Draven’s father when he had evolved, at least a hundred years before Draven. So as humans as well as Superiors, they came from different generations.

  “Yes, young perhaps. But not wealthy. And travel takes money.”

  “You work, you could save.”

  “I could. But I haven’t yet,” Draven said, and both men laughed. Draven thought of the paltry savings he had begun to accumulate in his tin box at home. For Cali. It would be a long time before he could travel, and having livestock would make it more difficult. He would have to transport her, too, and all the things that saps needed—bulky food, clothes for different climates, and probably more that he didn’t know of yet. Before he even thought of that, he’d have to save enough money to get a place that would accommodate livestock as well as a Superior. It would be years before he could begin saving for travel.

  “When do you leave on this assignment?” Draven asked.

  “Soon. Four to six months.”

  “That is quite soon. I will have to make the most of our short time left.”

  “Yes, we’ll have to do that. And once I’m gone, you’ll have to make due with the lady-friend you have been spending so much time with.”

  “Ah, yes. Hyoki. She is quite…stimulating.”

  “She looks like she would be,” Byron said, laughing. “I will see you again soon, soldier.”

  “Yes, sir. Quite soon.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Draven arrived at the Confinement just before daybreak. He walked into the compound and right into Bonnie.

  “Look at here, if it ain’t our pretty little dream-catcher,” she said, engulfing Draven in her arms.

  “Hello, Bonnie. It’s been a while.”

  “Yes, it has, Mr. Draven. What you been up to?”

  “Still bouncing at Estrella’s.”

  “Uh huh. Still wasting your talents, I see. When you coming back here anyway? You know you the best Catcher we had in years.”

  “I know, Bonnie. As soon as you stop sending the runaways to the blood bank, I’ll come back. How’s that?”

  “What we supposed to do with them? Put them right back in so they can run away again? Now you tell me, what eart
hly good would that do?”

  “I’m not arguing strategy with you, Big Bonnie. Just telling you my reasons.”

  “And I’m telling you, your reason don’t make one damn bit of sense. You the best Catcher we had, but you sure ain’t the best thinker.”

  “Thank you. I’ll remember that.”

  “Ah, now don’t you go being all offended. We can’t keep having the same saps running away every day, giving the others ideas.”

  “I know. Perhaps you could keep them locked up.”

  “You think we got the resources for that? You a damn waste of a pretty face. Nothing going on in that head of yours, is there, Draven? I tell you what. You give us the money to make a little lock-in here, and we’ll build one, just for your personal runaways. Until then, we’ll lock them up right where they belong—in the blood bank.”

  “Alright, you win. I’m just here to get some dinner. I’m not looking for a job.”

  “So you ain’t here for some more sweet Big Bonnie love? What, you got a partner now? Where you living at, anyway?”

  “Same place I’ve always lived. Not everyone gets promoted like you did.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. So, you being elusive on me? That mean you got a partner now?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Aw, yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. Don’t hold out on me now, Draven. She got a name? She real pretty?”

  “Yes, and yes. Her name’s Hyoki.”

  “Hyoki Kamisake?” Bonnie didn’t hide her surprise, and Draven didn’t either.