The Quad’s soothing notes of meditative morning music lowers as I step on, layering with muted tones are the usual safety reminders: “Watch out for the watchlizards – keeping an eye on your safety and happiness…”
A hand pops up from the back – it’s my classmate Hanna, who lives in Neighborhood Ten, right next to mine, waving at me. She was assigned to LQM, too.
We’ve done almost everything together. We’re the same birth year, same IQ level, and the same departure class – she’ll pass on two years before me. She even shares my perfect recall. We’re the lucky ones, the top two percent across not just the Quad, but the entire Directorate.
I force myself to smile and walk down the aisle. She pulls her bag off the seat next to her and I plop into it, quickly securing my seatbelt.
Hanna is usually talkative, but as the shuttlebus rolls forward, she stares down at her lap. I know what she is thinking. There is nothing to say. Not after a departure. An inexplicable urge to shout Evie’s name rises in me – something, anything, to stop pretending everything is fine. To make Hanna look at me and acknowledge what has happened. But that is not how things are done.
“How was the first day of training?” I ask.
Hanna brightens and turns to me, her eyes widening. “Oh. It was very interesting.”
She launches into a breakdown of everything that happened, how our classmates handled it, and who isn’t going to make the cut at the end of the year.
“We’re starting in the Prevention Division – routine health scans, managing the Quad's life protection systems, continued optimization to ensure citizens have safe and pain-free lives all the way to their departure date.”
“Mhm.” I know what Prevention is. Everyone does. But once Hanna starts prattling, she turns into an encyclopedia. Which works for me right now. The more she talks, the less I have to.
She keeps going until the shuttlebus glides to a stop at the Quad center, and even as she leads me down the crowded sidewalks to the LQM office building.
“I came three times last week to practice the walk,” she says. “This way.”
I probably would have done the same if I hadn't been so busy with Evie's departure preparations. Knowing your way around means less stress, and less stress means a clearer head.
I stay close to Hanna as she weaves through the crowds to a particularly large building. It stretches an entire block. The sensor on the sliding doors only allow one person in at a time, checking our digipads for access credentials.
On the other side, security greets me. “Oh-eight-seven-three-two-two-eight-one. Gracelyn Henders?”
“Yes.”
“You were not here yesterday.”
“Correct.”
I wait for the guard to say more, to acknowledge the reason why, recognize my loss in some small way. She doesn’t.
She prints an ID badge for me. Across the top runs a yellow band – Prevention Division. Below it runs a thinner band of blue.
Hanna points to it. “It's for intern.”
The lobby is crisp white. The far wall projects a floor-to-ceiling screen of slowly swirling earth tones: brown, then clay-red, then moss-green, and more. Hanna leads me across it to the elevator and shows me how to swipe the badge on the elevator to go to our floor.
The elevator slows to a stop, and a calm female voice announces we’ve arrived. “Floor Eight.”
The office is like the lobby: white, crisp and calm, filled with a light herbal scent of rosemary, for focus, like our classrooms always were. I breathe it in, centering myself in the comfort of the familiar.
I follow Hanna past the lobby and down a hallway, into a separate section of the office. It’s filled with a series of long white eco-plastic tables, each lined with syncscreens and matching ergonomic chairs. The ambient background notes settle my mind, and some employees are already getting to work. A watchlizard crawls across the broad ceiling. I have always liked the watchlizards – it is a comfort, to know the Directorate is always watching, always looking out for us.
“We’re over here,” Hanna says as she leads me down a few rows. “I made sure we were together.”
Hanna and I have always been each other’s biggest competition. She likes to keep me close. All the same, I feel a swell of relief. Hers is a familiar face, and familiar is scarce right now.
As we pass the other first-years, classmates I have learned with and competed against every year of our lives, they don’t bother hiding their stares. I can hear the whispers that follow. Why won’t anyone just say it? My sister departed. At least Hanna has the decency, if she doesn’t want to talk about it, to pretend it never happened at all. I straighten my shoulders and fix my eyes on Hanna’s swinging ponytail ahead of me. I also need to pretend nothing has happened, if I am going to make it through this day.
Hanna stops at a chair mid-row and gestures for me to take the one next to her. I adjust the holding pod for the syncscreen, place my new ID card into the side where Hanna shows me – an extra security precaution for DMD access – and sync it to my digipad. A quiet settles over the office as we all get to work, reviewing the introductory documentation pushed to our account feeds that are only accessible when we’re logged in on-site, for security. Which means that while we’re in one of the most competitive placements, we’re only able to prepare for the exams at the end of the year while we’re in the office.
Career training starts off more academic in nature, like a particularly intense course. The real work starts gradually. Too much change at once causes cortisol to increase beyond the recommended levels.
“This must be our girl?”
The voice is melodic, breaking the silence that has filled the office all morning. It’s a young woman, perhaps a few years older than me. But she seems tall, seems so adult, with her sharp suit and casual composure, as she perches against the table. Her looks are striking: brilliant red hair in tight curls and a complexion so pale she almost glows, framed by a crooked smile. Her eyes are an unearthly shade of light gray.
Hanna straightens.
“Yes, this is Gracelyn,” she says. “Gracelyn, this is Quinn, the professional we are shadowing this year.”
I bolt to my feet. “Nice to meet you.”
She takes my hand and squeezes it. “I’m so sorry about your sister.”
A shudder overcomes me, followed by relief. Finally, someone is acknowledging what happened.
I hold her hand tight. Her touch wakes me up, as if an electric shock passed between us.
“Thank you.”
I peer up at her to see if she feels it too, but her expression is impenetrable.
She pulls her hand away. “We’re glad to have you. Your file indicates great potential.”
We follow Quinn to a conference room on the other side of the floor. Quinn takes a seat at the table. A few other students timidly sit in a second ring of chairs against the wall, with their hands in their lap, and we join them, behind Quinn. A few others join and settle in.
Just as the meeting is about to begin, the door opens, and the room abruptly falls to order. I look up and find Father settling in at the head of the table. Unlike at breakfast where he was stoic and stiff, here he smiles ear to ear. As they get into the business at hand, he even jokes with others. He laughs.
A confused heat floods through me. Father and Mother and I, we were in this together. We were the only ones that would remember Evie and keep her here. But just like Hanna, just like my classmates, just like everyone else today, Father is acting as if nothing happened at all.
All through the meeting my emotions burn, and afterwards I escape as quickly as I can into the hallway. I lean against the wall and shut my eyes, trying to sort through the thoughts rushing my mind. Maybe he’s only pretending, but how can he even pretend such cheer so soon after Evie’s departure?
A tear escapes, trickling down my cheek.
I rush to wipe it away, but it’s too late. Father catches my eye as he speaks to a colleague from the end of t
he hall, and shoots me a harsh glare. Then he turns away, so fast that I am not sure what has happened.
Throughout the rest of the day, the weight of Evie's departure creeps back into me. It follows me through the cafeteria and sits with me in the lecture hall. It adds weight to my fitness hour and rides home with me on the shuttlebus.
As I walk in the front door at home, the smell of fresh paint hits me. I still expect to see Evie’s shoes haphazardly dropped in the closet, her jacket on the hanger next to mine, her backpack on its hook on the wall. It’s all gone. Even the hook has been removed, and the hole in the wall patched up and covered with mellow beige to match the rest of the house.
Cover up. Remove. Forget. It’s better this way, they say. Like she was never here.
But she was here. Even though her coat is gone, her chair at the table, her favorite cup with the little chip on the bottom. With each little way I notice she has been removed from the house, the hole in my heart expands. I wonder if Mother or Father feels like this. If they do, neither of them shows any sign, and it makes me want to scream. Someone should react, someone should protect Evie’s memory. But I swallow my impulse and trace over the daisy pendant around my neck, one piece of her they can’t take away from me. Remind myself to remain compliant.
At dinner, Father is gentle and somber like he was at breakfast, as if he has flipped back a switch to become the Father I know again. Which version of him is the true one? The Father at home or the Father at work? One has to be a lie.
After eating, I excuse myself to my room, close the door behind me and collapse into bed. I pull the covers over my head, and allow the gaping hole I have ignored all day to swallow me up.
Will it always be like this? Part of me wishes to let go of Evie and be done with this pain. It is what I am supposed to do. But I have a feeling this kernel of her will remain ingrained, a part of me, for the rest of my long life. And I want to hold on to her.
A hundred and twenty-four years to go.
I listen to the silence through the wall. There is no scratching of branches, no wind, no creaking of the house. I heard something yesterday morning, and there is only one thing it could have been.
No matter what Father or anyone else says, deep in my gut, I know what I heard.
Chapter Fifteen
Evie
“Hey! Evie!” A voice jolts me awake.
“Uuuuuuuugh.” I roll onto my side, my eyes still shut, and curl up into a ball. As I do, I knock into the edge of the bunk, and it all comes back – I’m not in my bed at home. I’m in some camp in the middle of the forest. Back at home, they all think I’m departed.
“Wake uuuuuuup.” The voice is right next to my cot now. I squint my eyes open. Kinlee is hovering over me.
“Why?”
I’d really just as soon never move again.
“Cuz,” she says, “Breakfast. The foods. Om nom nom.”
She gesticulates wildly as she talks, as if shoving food into her mouth.
I moan. My muscles and bones ache.
But now that she mentions it, my stomach is feeling terribly empty. It growls in protest.
“Fiiine.”
“Don’t want to miss it,” Kinlee says. “Most important meal of the day.”
“Aren’t they all important?” They were in the Directorate. Everything we did was important. If it wasn’t important, it was eliminated.
I push myself up, stretch my arms and shake my head, trying to get the sleepiness out. I guess it works. A little.
“Shit.”
“That's what you said last night. We let you sleep through dinner. Mom said you needed the rest. Now she says you need routine.”
My stomach rumbles again.
“I’m starving.” Last thing I ate was that dry cereal while waiting for Mara. I pull myself up and tilt my wrist to check my digipad, and am reminded that I don’t have one anymore. “This has been the most messed-up twenty-four hours.”
The door opens and Raina comes in.
“I got you some clothes,” she says. “Just a few pairs of Alliance regulations, but at least you'll be warm and comfortable.”
She hands me three full outfits of gray and navy; sweatshirt, tee, joggers, everything.
“Thanks.” I take them from her. I hadn't had a chance to think about it yet, but I can’t keep wearing my crumpled party dress everywhere. These look like gym uniforms – ugly, boring gray and navy ones – but it’s a kind gesture, and really, at this point, what does it matter? I force a smile, hoping it shows how grateful I am, and change into a pair of the soft cotton sweats and a loose t-shirt.
“Be good to those. From now on you’re going to have to buy your clothes yourself from what you earn,” Raina says.
“Earn?” I ask.
“Yes, everyone has a job here,” Raina says. “And that includes you. But first you’ll try out a few different areas, like all the teens do when they start. So you can learn, and we can see what your skills are.”
Skills? Oh no.
“What if I don't have any?”
“Don't be ridiculous,” Raina says. “What did you do in the Directorate?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
Raina raises her eyebrows.
“Really,” I say. “With my departure date… they pushed me through education with the others, but why train me for something I wouldn’t be around to actually do? I didn’t even take the aptitudes test.”
My arm prickles where the numbers are inked into it.
Raina blinks at me. “So what did you do? After school was over?”
I shrug. “I helped a bit at home. And I prepared for the departure rituals. Final visits to extended family, gave my special things away to loved ones, planned my departure party.”
“Well, this should be fun, then,” Raina says. “A chance for you to discover something about yourself.”
I'm not so sure. “And if I’m not good at anything?”
Raina laughs. “Don’t be silly. Everyone’s good at something.”
What am I good at? I really have no idea. I was a pretty good sister, I think. That’s all I ever really was.
And I’m good at not departing, I guess. I don’t think that counts.
“You deserve to know what you're capable of, Evie. And now that you don’t have a clock counting down your time, you can plan on a long life of contributing. Find your place in the world.”
Can I?
Connor’s question from last night – about why I haven’t started ‘declining’ – nags at me. The departure dates aren't random. They're supposed to let us live as long a life as we can, before something kicks in and our quality of life begins to drop.
Whatever that something is for me, it’s still there. Maybe it's already started, and I just haven't noticed yet.
“Come on, I’m starving.” Kinlee herds us towards the door.
Outside, morning sunlight stretches through the branches with a too-bright glare, and birds are chirping. The humidity is even worse this morning, pressing against my skin and beading on the back of my neck.
Kinlee leads me – hobbling on my crutches, of course – through the trees and back to near the fire pit and scattered tables. Clusters of people are all over the place, standing and sitting in groups, chatting and laughing as they eat. Right out in the open, under the strange violet sky.
As we get close, I hesitate, struggling to take it all in. In the Quads, breakfast was a quiet event at home, at a clean orderly table, our meals predetermined by Directorate scientists.
Kinlee nudges me. “This way.”
I do my best to keep up as Kinlee dodges through clusters of people and towards a group of teens – some standing, some sitting – around the wooden table. She leaps into the air as she gets close, and pounces onto the shoulders of a guy with his back to us.
The boy yelps, and I tense up, anticipating conflict – this type of behavior would never be tolerated in the Quads. But he twists around and, amazingly, he’s grinning
. He grabs Kinlee and tosses her forward over his shoulder. I gasp and my chest tightens, but when he puts her down, she is giggling. As they settle, he rests one arm comfortably over her shoulders.
Then Kinlee twists back and points at me. “That’s the new girl,” she says. “From the Directorate. Come on, Evie, whatchya waiting for?”
I hobble closer, suddenly self-conscious about my regulation clothes. No one else is wearing them – or at least, not the way they come. They’ve all modified them in some way, cutting the sleeves short, or tying up the sides, so that they might all be wearing the same thing, but they all look different.
“And Evie, this is everyone,” Kinlee continues.
Their grins fade as their expressions shift to curiosity.
I wish I didn’t have these damn crutches. They don’t help my awkwardness at all, and I am sure I look like an idiot.
“Actual names would probably be good.” Connor walks up and stops next to me. His hair is even messier than it was yesterday. Is this something he does on purpose?
He points as he goes around the circle, starting at my other side and ending at the guy with Kinlee. “Lucas, Sam, Ginnie, Joel, Meredith, Dave.”
“Like she’s going to remember all that.” Kinlee rolls her eyes.
She’s got a point. Half of them are already slipping my mind. There’s too much going on, too fast. The crutches, and the noise, and I still feel lost and woozy from all that happened yesterday.
“Yeah?” Connor raises his eyebrows. “Bet she learns them a lot faster if we actually tell them to her in the first place.”
Kinlee sticks out her tongue. “Whatever.”
This casual interaction, completely devoid of etiquette, both shocks and fascinates me. In the Directorate, such behavior got you sent right to your mental health manager for adjustments. But no one here seems to think it’s a big deal. The adults nearby don’t even bother to notice.
Large baskets of different foods begin to pass around, and the group reassembles around the table, plopping onto the benches. As I join them, I am careful to keep my arms away from the worn wood of the table – we don’t have real wood in the Directorate for a reason: splinters. And this table’s weathered old panels look like they’re made of nothing but. But before I can say anything, I am distracted by warm wafts of proteins and carbs filling the air. My stomach grumbles.
Departures Page 8
