“So… you’re from the Directorate?” one of the girls asks, looking at me. Her hair is dark and her eyes a deep brown. Ginnie, I think.
“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” What I wouldn’t give to be back there now, eating my assigned meal, in the quiet of my own home with my family. Not to mention near real medical help.
“What’s it like in there?” she asks. She opens a basket and pulls something flat and brown and delicious-smelling onto her plate.
I’ve never really thought about it before. It’s just what it is. It’s normal, what life is supposed to be. “It was… nice. Everything was organized. Everything was taken care of. Predictable.”
Their eyes are all on me, somber and curious. I try not to think about Gracelyn, or my parents. I refuse to cry again, at least not in front of them.
“Right. Organized,” Connor says. He stabs at some food on his plate. The way he says it, it's like it's a bad word. “More like controlled.”
His brows pull together and his cheeks flush. It makes me want to back away. “Controlled?” I echo.
Kinlee nudges me, holding out one of the baskets. But I'm too distracted by Connor's glare. She proceeds to spoon something onto my plate.
“Yeah,” Connor says. “As in, they control everything about your life and don’t let you make any of your own choices.”
“It's not like that,” I snap. It comes out harsher than I mean it to, but what’s he doing? This is what he was doing last night. As if the Directorate was trapping us in there, rather than protecting us. “They keep us safe. They make sure we live optimally to our departure date, happy and healthy.”
Kinlee has taken my plate and seems to be pulling over all the baskets that have passed our way.
“Right. Like they kept you safe. ’Til your departure date,” Connor snaps back. “And what then?”
My mind goes blank, and it's like the floor’s dropped out from under me. People didn't talk like this in the Quad.
“Food time! Everyone shut up and eat.” Kinlee glares at Connor and shoves my plate back to me.
I look down at it, and find it overfilled with piles of foods that look strange and malformed. I’m supposed to eat this stuff?
One brown-ish pile seems somewhat like some of the carbs we eat in the Quads, except it's not in a neat square. It’s all sort of cut up into a pile.
I pick up some of the mush with my fork. “What is this stuff?”
“Are you serious?” Kinlee asks. “It's potatoes. Hash browns.”
“I've never seen food look like this before.”
I scrutinize the rest of what Kinlee has put on my plate.
“Okay. Right.” Kinlee glances across the table at Connor, who stares blankly back. “So this is eggs. Bacon. Toast. You’ve really never seen any of this before?”
Sure, in theory, I always got it – the proteins come from animals; fruits and vegetables are grown from the ground. But this egg is a strange yellow, all broken into weird squiggly pieces. The bacon isn’t much better. In the Quads, the food printers offer up our meals in tidy squares.
But everyone else is eating, and my stomach is growling fiercely. I shut my eyes and take a bite.
And whoa.
The food in the Quad was always fine. But we didn’t eat it for the flavor, we ate it to optimize our bodies. These hash browns explode with flavors, crispy and savory and crazy delicious. I devour the rest of my plate, taking samples from everything Kinlee passes my way, then handing each basket on to Connor and down the table.
But when I pass the bacon, he pulls away and hands it quickly over to Ginnie.
“No bacon? But it’s so good,” I say. I take another bite and savor it, warm and salty.
He crinkles his nose. “I have a strict policy of not eating animals I know.”
I frown. It never occurred to me to think about where my food came from before – I didn’t have to, it just came from the printers, rearranging the molecules from the nutrient packs it was loaded with. And it never tasted like this. I shrug it off and savor the flavors.
When I'm done, I want more.
“How do you know how much?”
“What?” Kinlee replies, chewing.
“How do you know? How much you're allowed to eat?”
“Allowed to eat?” She blinks at me. “Are you hungry or full?”
My eyes wander to the baskets sitting on the table. It all smells so good. “Hungry.”
“Okay then.”
Kinlee picks up the closest basket and hands it to me. The biscuits inside emanate a bready, buttery aroma. She doesn't have to tell me twice.
Meanwhile, Kinlee and the others are rambunctious – joking, laughing, shoving each other around and shouting with mouths half-full. Don’t they worry about choking? About falling off the benches? There’s not even a back to them as a safeguard.
They don’t wait and make sure everyone is keeping up. They don’t check in or take turns to share about their day. They’re reckless, somehow bigger than these worries. I shrink back behind their wild gestures.
As they finish eating, people start to get up and leave.
“All right, Ellie. You’re starting with me.”
I turn around to the familiar voice to find myself face to face with Sue, the stern lady from the Med cabin who wrapped my ankle last night.
Oh no. I bite on my lip to keep from saying it out loud. I’m starting my job rounds with her?
“It’s Evie. With a V.”
She looks like a Sue. As in, so sue me. One of those funny old phrases the Directorate made irrelevant and you don’t hear anymore except in those old video feeds they used to make, movies. I don’t really know what it means, something about courts, back before the Directorate put order to everything. But the gist is, you don’t give a shit.
And that’s what Sue’s face says right now. Her expression is hard and tense, her eyes wary. She raises an eyebrow.
“Fine then, Evie-with-a-V. Let’s go.”
Then she heads off towards the Med cabin, expecting me to keep up, crutches and all.
I huff after her. Of all the people I’ve met so far at this camp, I can’t believe I’m stuck with her all day.
A loud giggle from the table makes me look back. Kinlee is leaning forward, making a goofy face, and the others are playing along and laughing hysterically. Except Connor. He’s twisted around and staring at me still, his frown softened into something more pensive.
On impulse, I frown back, but the intense way he’s studying me makes the back of my neck tingle. Something I’ve never felt before tugs at me, something I don’t know what to do with. Then I realize we’re both staring, my cheeks flood with heat, and I turn away to follow Sue.
Chapter Sixteen
Evie
Sue leads me to one of the other cabins. I push in through the door, and am met by more hideous, old wooden furniture – a desk in the middle of the room at the front, a series of shelves full of overstuffed stacked boxes of supplies along the side walls, and two beds and another desk flattened against the back of the room. But everything inside it is tidy, scented of powder and antiseptic.
From the side, a man steps forward from a partially-loaded cart.
“I'm Noah,” he says, stretching out his hand. “Boy are we glad to have you here. We could really use the help.”
He is warm and friendly, the opposite of Sue. More like people in the Quad. A big smile breaks through his scruffy beard.
I shift awkwardly on my crutches to shake his hand.
“Yeah?” It’s impossible not to smile back at him. It’s taking the edge off my anxiety already. “I hope I can help.”
He turns back to continue loading the cart. On the other side of the cabin, Sue is marking up some papers on a clipboard. On actual paper. With an actual pen. Before Tad, I’d only read about this in history texts. But then, without digipads, I guess you have to do your own writing sometimes. I still don’t feel quite complete without mine.
When they’re do
ne with the cart, Noah and Sue step towards me.
“Well Ev, this is the Med cabin,” Noah says, throwing his arms wide. “It’s our home base, of sorts. Where the equipment and medications live. And it’s where we start and end each day. But we don’t spend the whole day cooped up in here. We do a lot of cabin visits and check-ins.”
Ev? No one has ever called me Ev. It’s hardly even a full sound, let alone a proper name.
He slaps the cart he’s been loading up since I got here. “That’s what this is for. Sue is about to go out on rounds. And you’re going with her.”
“What?”
Sue looks as displeased about this as I am. But she stands behind Noah’s proclamation.
“You need to get a quick understanding of how things work around here,” she says. “And we need you to be able to help fast. Perhaps you have noticed that you’re the only one your age here right now. We can’t force anyone to work in medicine, and the sick aren’t as cute as the sheep.”
“You can’t?” In the Quads, positions are always assigned. The Directorate makes sure we go where we’re needed. “Why not?”
“Because here we believe in choice.” Sue’s voice is sharp. “And that everyone is better off when they have free will.”
I can’t imagine anyone volunteering for this work, where other people’s lives are in your hands. It’s too much risk, too much responsibility. Especially without Instaheal.
Sue stares at me, seeming to dare me to say anything else.
I can’t help myself.
“Did you say there’s sheep here? Real sheep?” Didn’t Connor say something about chickens last night? I was so overwhelmed by everything that it’s only now coming back to me.
“Yes.” Sue rolls her eyes. “This place was designed this place to be as self-sustaining as possible, off the grid. That includes keeping shipments into the camp minimal for things like food and clothing. Now let’s go.”
Sue takes the cart and heads out of the door.
She doesn’t check to see if I am keeping up on my crutches, but even with the cart’s wide wheels she has to move slowly to get across the uneven ground outside. We weave through the trees, past the campfire and tables where we ate breakfast, past several cabins, and approach one of the doors.
Sue parks the cart against the outside of the cabin. “Come here,” she says.
I hobble to her side. “What can I do?”
I do want to help, if I can actually do anything. I might not be happy about the situation, but these people did save my life. Only, I’ve never been all that helpful. With such an early departure date, I wasn’t expected to be.
“Take these,” Sue says. “Don’t drop them.”
She puts some supplies into a bag – some pills, a needle wrapped in plastic, a bottle of a strong-smelling liquid, thick cotton pads, and a large roll of the same canvas-y wrapping they used for my ankle – and hands the bag to me.
She starts for the door, then hesitates and turns back to me.
“Now look,” she says. “This man is injured. He is in pain. And I know, pain is not something you encounter in the Quads. He also has dementia, and some of what he says may not make sense. Don’t argue with him. I need you to handle yourself and do as I say. If you don’t think you can do that, don’t come in at all. Got it?”
What am I about to walk into? My gut squirms. I want to run away, far into the woods, and never come back. But then I remember Kinlee's fearlessness, and the carefree attitude of all the others.
Surely, I can at least stand in the same room with someone else in pain. “Got it.”
Sue opens the door, and I brace myself. A whiff of thick odor wafts out, dense and sour.
“Morning, Sue,” a voice calls as she steps in ahead of me. It’s not the grizzled voice I expected. A woman sits in a chair close to the bunk on the opposite wall. She looks tired, her hair limp.
“Hi Carla,” Sue replies. “How’s my favorite guy today?”
The abrupt change in Sue’s voice makes me look at her. She’s different all of a sudden, holding up a front of cheeriness. Except – it’s not a front. It’s more as if the opposite has happened, as if a defensive layer has peeled away and suddenly the real Sue is coming through. This is a Sue with purpose, and even some kind of cheer that I’d have never expected.
“We’re having a pretty good morning,” Carla responds.
A figure shuffles in the bed. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Frank. It’s Sue.” Sue walks towards him so he can see her.
The man props himself up on wobbly elbows and squints. “Sue?”
“That’s right,” Sue says. “And I’ve brought someone with me.” She snaps her fingers at me and gestures for me to come closer. I hobble over as quickly as I can, and she takes my arm, pulling me closer into Frank's view. “This is Ellie.”
“Evie!” I cut in.
She continues without acknowledging me. “She’s helping in Med for the next few weeks.”
She pauses, to let Frank take in this information. He stares at the foot of his bed without any response. Can’t he hear us? My throat constricts, and I can feel the thick wheezing in my breaths that comes before an attack. I want to shake off Sue’s hand from my arm, run away from this strange man and take in some fresh air.
Sue’s grip tightens, as if she can read my thoughts. She continues talking to Frank. “Evie is from the Directorate, Frank. Like you.”
“Directorate…” For a moment Frank’s eyes seem to sharpen with focus, and then it fades again. The expression on his face shifts, and suddenly he’s in a panic. “I’ve got to get out. We’ve all got to get out,” he says.
“You’re safe, Frank. We’ve got you,” Carla replies. She takes his hand. “You understand, Frank? You’re safe.”
“No!” he shouts. “They want us dead, all of us.” He lurches upwards in the bunk, then seizes, gasps, and collapses back to the mattress, clutching his side.
“Take it easy, Frank,” Sue says. “I know, it hurts. That’s why we’re here. We’re going to help you get better.”
She looks over to me. “He fell and broke his hip a month after we got him out.”
Shit. The sprain in my ankle was bad enough … but an actual break? And in a hip, too. Why are they allowing him to suffer like this? He doesn’t even know where he is.
“Okay, Frank, let’s have a look at this, shall we?” Sue pulls up a chair next to the bed. “Right here,” she says to me, patting it.
Oh no. A whooshing noise floods my ears. A front-row seat to this old man’s debilitating injury is the last thing I want.
But Sue casts me a sharp look, and I do as I’m told.
Sue turns to Carla. “Now’s a good time for you to step outside if you’d like. You deserve a break. Get some air. We’ll be here an hour or so.”
A whole hour of this?
“Sounds good.” Carla leans over to Frank so she can see his face. “You hear that Frank? I’ll be back real soon. Sue and Evie are going to take good care of you.”
Then she leaves.
Sue takes a pair of latex gloves from the box in my bag. “Get the supplies out of the bag and put them on the tray. And grab a pair of gloves.”
I do it. The gloves smell like rubber and are powdery against my skin.
Sue has me spray down a wash cloth with soapy water, and she washes him from head to toe. His wrinkly skin rolls around his upper arms, at his waist, and on the insides of his legs. Under the bandages, his hip is a swollen mess of purple and black, and rusty stains of blood run along the seams of his stitches. His limbs hang limp in Sue’s strong hands. He mumbles occasionally, moving in response to Sue’s prompts and nodding along as she chats with him.
My cheeks flush hot and I feel I should look away, but I can’t stop watching. My eyes keep drifting back to the bloody stitches over the skin of his hips and the swollen bruises around it. How does he bear it?
When Sue is finished, I help her get Frank into clean clo
thes, and then she sits him up on the edge of the bunk.
“Frank? It’s time to stand up,” Sue urges.
What? She wants him to use that swollen, bandaged hip? Suddenly my palms feel cold and slick.
Frank’s eyes go wide. “Stand up! No, no, no.” His face scrunches, as if he might cry. His hand trembles in mine, clenching to me tightly. My heart softens – he’s so scared.
“Come, now, Frank, what’s all this?” Sue’s voice holds sympathy.
He shakes his head side to side.
“Frank? Why won’t you stand up? It will help you get strong again.”
“F-f-fall. I’m going to fall.”
“We’re not going to let you fall again. That’s exactly why we’ve got to get you up. So you get strong and don’t fall.”
Frank nods.
“We got you, Frank. Up you go.”
Sue somehow coaxes him onto his feet. He clings to my hand with a grip stronger than I would’ve guessed him capable of, and we get him a full ten steps across the cabin before Sue pulls a chair behind him to rest. Then, the real work begins. Sue coaches him through a series of leg lifts and pushes and other exercises.
All through it, Frank grimaces and whimpers. I feel so helpless, so angry, faced with his pain – why are they putting him through all this? He should’ve been allowed to depart. He should never have lived to be weak enough to fall in the first place. But Sue coaxes and cheers him through it all, and Frank keeps on. Turns out he was hiding a lot of fight under all that hesitation.
Carla comes back, and I can't believe the time is gone already. When it’s time to walk back to the bed, Frank is as resistant to lie down as he was to stand up. We leave him sitting in a chair near the bed, with Carla.
“Not bad,” Sue says as we push the cart away from the cabin. She gives me a stern half-frown, like she is studying me. “For someone from the Directorate. You all get so squeamish around illness. But you did just fine.”
Departures Page 9
