by Joel Ohman
And turned right.
He straightened himself as upright as possible, thinking for the briefest second of Sharif’s little partner out front, and then walked down the hallway toward the stairs like a guard who was supposed to be here. The guard uniform didn’t fit all that badly, although Sharif was noticeably bigger in the waist. Nothing that Charley couldn’t remedy by keeping the belt cinched tight.
With the uniform, he did look like he belonged here.
And now he had keys.
And a bat.
Charley tugged the brim of Sharif’s hat down over his eyes, opened the door to the stairwell, and started down. All the way down.
The stairwell that Sharif had pointed out seemed to be some kind of service access area that was likely only used by guards and other Tower staff. Charley hoped he could slip all the way down to the very bottom floor and then work his way up each floor, investigating and using the main stairways from there.
He jangled the keys in his pocket lightly and was almost tempted to smile.
This would be a breeze.
All at once, the stairway teemed full of blue-coated guards massing and milling, pushing upward. Charley found himself straining against the tide of guards all going up the same stairs that he was trying to travel down.
He couldn’t move. Looking out from under the brim of his hat, the reason for that was obvious: a big ox of a guard was barring his way.
“You aren’t Sharif,” he said.
Charley looked down at the nametag on his shirt and then back up again quickly. He silently cursed himself; he had overlooked that now-not-so-minor point.
His mind raced. Most of the steady stream of guards were already past him and exiting the stairwell onto a level above. Maybe if he waited a few moments, it would just be the two of them.
“I shaved,” Charley said. Maybe this guard didn’t know Sharif all that well.
“What?”
“I am Sharif, you idiot. I just wanted a change, so I decided to shave my beard.”
The big guard smiled, and not in a nice way.
“I don’t think so. Do you know why I don’t think so?”
Charley remained motionless. He hoped that if he just played it cool, he could still bluff his way out of this.
“The reason why I know you are not Sharif is because I know exactly who you are.” The guard’s face twisted into a menacing snarl. “You are the cocky little high-Score punk that brained me on each side of my head with our own bats.”
Comprehension dawned on Charley. This was the big oaf he had fought at the gates.
“Ah, yes.” The guard’s thick face contorted into another not-so-pleasant-looking smile. “You remember me now, don’t you?”
Charley nodded. He needed to dispatch this guy as quietly as possible. How he was going to do that, he wasn’t really sure.
“I could have called out when I first saw you. When all of the other guards were here. But I didn’t. Do you know why that is?”
Charley slowly shook his head. He was starting to get a bad feeling about this guy.
“I didn’t call out because I didn’t need to. I don’t need any help dealing with you. I’ve taken enough flak from everyone for what you did to me out there at the gates.” He slowly cracked the knuckles of his enormous calloused hands, not taking his eyes off Charley. “Now it’s just you and me.”
Charley groaned inside. A close-quarters fight in a small stairwell with an angry man the size of a mountain was not a part of his plan.
Oh well. Things change.
Charley smiled. “Since it’s just us, I won’t tell anyone if you want to turn around and run scared right back to where you came from. I would suggest maybe a bathroom stall. Shut the door, pull your legs up, and try not to whimper too loudly.” Charley traced his finger along the edge of the bat holstered in his belt, all the while smiling broadly at the guard.
The change that came over the guard’s face was remarkable. He seemed unable to speak or even function for a brief moment, his face turning from pink, to red, to almost purple. For a split-second, Charley wondered if he had finally met someone who exhibited physical characteristics of having a worse temper than even he had.
Charley continued to watch this transmutation happen before his very eyes. He wondered how people really saw him when he lost his temper. Is this what they saw? He understood a little better why even Sven backed away when he was angry. But Charley wasn’t scared of this display of anger. Charley was intimately familiar with his own anger because, well, it was always around. Eventually, you just accept it as a part of you. And then you aren’t shocked when it surfaces. It just is.
But he did need to hurry along this little encounter. Unless this guy actually gave himself a heart attack all on his own in the next few seconds, Charley needed to do something to get past him and down to the lower levels.
Without a warning, Charley exploded upward, leaping off two feet and grasping both hands onto a metal bar protruding from the undercarriage of the steps on the level above. Torquing his legs backward, he unleashed himself forward by rotating his wrists on the bar and viciously swinging both legs up and out. For a moment, he saw a younger version of himself with Alec laughing in a green field while someone pushed them on a swing. His parents? He smashed both of his boot heels directly into the big guard’s shocked face, the momentum of his swinging leap propelling him into the guard and together they tumbled down the stairs to rest at the next landing in a tangle of limbs. Somehow, he had managed to knock the guard unconscious and end up sandwiched between the guard’s great bulk and the bottom step.
He struggled free, massaged his lower back, and then straightened the brim of his hat.
The memory of swinging with Alec in that green field had been triggered by his fighting acrobatics, and it sparked something else in him. He didn’t know what the memory meant exactly, and he couldn’t put his finger on the emotions it dredged up. He would have to think it over in detail later, because for now, it was time to get serious. He was finally deep inside of the bowels of the Tower: the epicenter of the System and those who had taken Alec.
He hopped over the fallen guard without a backward glance and set off down the stairs. His heart was still racing. Now that his blood was up, he felt on alert to attack something, to do something—anything. That was the hardest part about living under the System really, especially as a kid. You were essentially helpless to change any of your surroundings. Whatever happened to you, or the ones you loved, just happened, and there wasn’t a thing you could do about it. Charley had lived with a lack of power for such a long time, this newfound above-ground ability to act was a powerful adrenaline, surging his body out of inertia.
Well, he had waited long enough. This was finally his chance.
He rounded the corner of about the fifth floor of stairs that he had covered in the last 30 seconds and was just about to round another. His heart was pounding so loudly in his chest, he didn’t even notice someone slide onto the landing beside him until they gave a sharp tug on his blue jacket.
He whipped his head around to see a petite, middle-aged woman in a white doctor’s jacket urgently indicating for him to follow.
“Guard, come quickly! We need your help in E615.”
Charley remained motionless for a moment, startled.
The doctor looked back at him, seemingly taken aback to not have her orders instantly followed. She haughtily swiped her mousy-brown bangs across a forehead that was slick with sweat. “Well? I don’t care whether it’s your shift or not. Let’s go!”
Charley hunched his shoulders, mimicking a subservient attitude. “Yes, of course. Right behind you, doctor.”
She whirled through the nearest door, and he half-walked, half-trotted behind her, trying match her furiously pounding walk. She was barely over five feet tall, but her short legs pistoned rapidly, speeding her down the hall. Before he had time to process what was happening, Charley found himself following her into the fifth door on t
he right. They had flown down the hall so fast he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of the numbering system.
Charley looked around; they were in some type of large exam or operating room. A young woman with a small but discernible pregnant bulge was on her back on some kind of table. She wasn’t lying down so much as she was bucking and straining against wrist and ankle restraints that lashed her limbs to the edges of the table. A tall, skinny guard with red hair who looked to be not much older than Charley was attempting to keep her subdued, but he was clearly in over his head, having neither the muscle mass nor the disposition necessary to keep the woman still.
“Grab her feet!” the doctor barked at the skinny guard.
The doctor pointed at Charley. “You, get over here and keep her hands restrained. She’s almost got them worked free.”
Mustering a confidence he did not feel, Charley walked over to the table, leaned down, clasped the woman’s forearms, and leaned his weight against her. Her wrists were as delicate as a bird. She stopped struggling immediately, seeming to sense that she now had no chance of breaking free.
“Yes, that’s it! Very good. Keep her restrained while I prepare a few things. It will only be a moment or two,” the doctor said before hurrying through a side door.
For the first time, Charley looked in the young woman’s eyes. Though her body had ceased struggling, her eyes were wide with panic. An image of the little girl being dragged to the gates flashed through Charley’s mind and he eased his grip.
“Why are you here?” Charley asked.
Her brown doe eyes darted to his, uncertain.
“You know we aren’t supposed to talk to the patients unless we have permission from the doctor,” the skinny guard piped up.
Charley looked up at the freckle-faced guard, now looking almost as uncertain as the woman. “You are not to talk to me unless I give you permission. Got it?” Charley said.
The young guard blinked and looked from side to side.
“Nod your head yes and then look down at the ground.” Charley paused. “Now.”
The guard obeyed.
“Now, answer me, please, miss. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
“I’m pregnant,” she blurted. “I’m pregnant, and they want to destroy my baby!” she wailed, her voice rising in pitch.
“Why?”
The woman tried to move her right arm, and Charley loosened his grip a little more. “Sorry,” he mumbled. She rotated her right arm toward him so that he could see her Score: 53. Just barely enough to keep her from the gates.
“My Score and my husband’s Score are so low that we must have our baby scanned and labeled with an in-womb Score estimate. I agreed. What choice did I have? That was weeks ago, and I thought if the Score was too low, then we could just try again. I was okay with that, but today, I saw the scan. I saw my baby’s tiny feet!” Her voice had risen to fever pitch.
“I saw my baby’s feet! And hands! I saw the little toes and the little fingers. They were so perfect. And now they want to destroy my baby!” she wailed; utter misery etched on her features.
Charley jerked his hands off the woman’s arms as if they were hot coals. He was wearing a blue coat and following a command to subdue a helpless woman. For what? So that a doctor could rip away someone she loved. Charley couldn’t bear it.
The doctor rushed back in, her hands weighed down with wicked little needles and instruments that gleamed bright in the operating light. “Guard, what is going on in here? Were you talking to the patient? And why aren’t you restraining her arms?”
Charley slowly turned to face the doctor, his eyes darkening.
He stepped toward her.
She dropped the instruments, and they skittered and clattered haphazardly across the floor, sending kaleidoscopic flashes of light around the room. She backed up slowly, her face frozen in fear.
Charley approached her and then stepped right past. The doctor let out a sharp little gasp. He turned the latch on the side door, locking it, before stepping over to the main door and doing the same. He did a quick scan to ensure all exits were now blocked.
As he did so, he saw the doctor shoot a glance at one of the sharp instruments on the floor.
“Don’t,” he said simply.
“Sit.” He motioned to a chair by the exam table.
“You too. After you undo her restraints,” Charley said, addressing the other guard and then motioning toward the corner.
The guard looked up at Charley. His jittery fingers unshackled the woman, who swung her legs over and sat upright on the exam table while rubbing her hands across her arms. The guard started uncertainly toward the corner and then stopped.
“Sit in the corner on the floor. And face away from me. I don’t want to look at you,” Charley said.
The guard folded his tall frame and sat cross-legged on the ground facing the corner, his shoulders hunched and shaking.
Charley turned toward the doctor. “Now, let’s talk about what is happening here. Doctor, let’s start with you.”
The small doctor sat up taller in the chair, possibly attempting to regain some of her lost authority. “Well, what is happening here is that we are carrying out the directives of the System. This woman is to have an abortion.”
“She clearly doesn’t want that,” Charley replied.
“Yes, well, she was already well aware of the possible consequences of choosing to have a child by another Low Score instead of one of her designated breeding partners. The System makes it very clear: all Low Scores get scanned and if the scan shows a high probability of birthing another Low Score, then the pregnancy is terminated. They can always try again—up to three times, of course. Then it’s forced sterilization. But this is the first pregnancy for this woman and her husband, so they have more chances.” The doctor seemed to regain her confidence as she spewed out this torrent of information.
“But I don’t want to abort my baby!” The exam table began to shake with the young woman’s sobs, her legs, not long enough to touch the ground while seated, swung back and forth. Another image of the swing and Alec flashed unbidden through Charley’s mind.
“You heard her. She doesn’t want the abortion,” Charley stated.
“Well, yes, it is her body and her choice, usually,” the doctor retorted. “But I’m afraid that’s not the way the System works for Low Scores—”
Charley cut her off. “Did her baby choose to live under the System? Is her baby choosing to be aborted? Did you ask her baby what it wanted?”
“Well, her baby may technically be a person because it has a distinct genetic code that we can scan to get a separate Score estimate. But the real question is, does it even matter?”
Any emotion dissipated from Charley’s face; he was far away, back with Alec on the swing. Alec’s face was split into his huge grin, and he was laughing and clapping as he watched Charley sailing backward and forward. Charley could remember the feeling of strong hands pushing him from behind, his feet aimed up to the blue sky, then back to the green grass. Blue, then green. Blue, then green.
From the edge of his reverie, Charley saw movement, and the tension returned to his jaw. His eyes snapped down to the doctor, who was reaching for a sharp instrument on the floor.
He pinned the instrument with his foot, just out of her grasp. In one fell swoop, he bent down, snatched a syringe from the floor, and jammed the needle directly into the side of her neck before she could react. He cradled the doctor’s small head in the crook of his arm and slowly depressed the plunger.
“Everyone matters,” he murmured. “Even the unwanted, even the unborn, even the disabled.”
The pregnant woman stared at Charley with wide eyes. “What did you just do?”
“She’ll be fine.” Charley paused, looked down at the empty syringe in his hand, and then tossed it behind him. “This was probably just to put you under—she’ll wake up soon with a little headache. But we aren’t going to stick around to see that happen.” He held out his hand.
“Hop down.”
The woman slid down from the exam table. Charley heaved the doctor up into her place, laying her down gently and quickly strapping her with the restraints she had only minutes ago used on her unwilling patient.
Charley looked over at the guard in the corner. He was watching him over his shoulder. The guard quickly turned his head back toward the wall and exclaimed, “I didn’t see anything!”
“Right …” Charley said. He was going to be a problem. “Stand up and look at me.”
The guard turned slowly and lifted his lanky frame off the ground.
“I want to go exploring. And you are the tour guide, got it?” Charley said.
“Umm, okay. I mean, yes, sir. Wherever you want to go,” the guard stammered.
“Good.” Charley opened his palm, displaying a scalpel that he had picked up from the floor. “I don’t have another syringe. Do you understand?”
“Ye-yes.”
“Okay, let’s go.” Charley motioned to the door.
“What about me?” The woman looked at him, still trembling.
Charley considered this. “Can you find your way out of here?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I can’t go back out the way they brought me in.”
“Okay, well, you can come with us, but I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“I want to stay with you.” She paused, and then drew herself upright. “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for what you’ve done for me and my baby. I’m Lucretia, by the way.”
Charley nodded. “Okay. Put your slippers on and let’s go.”
Charley turned toward the guard and brandished the blade in his palm. “Remember.”
The guard swallowed. “Got it. Where do you wanna go?”
Charley smiled, intentionally causing the guard to cringe. “Take us to where they put the implants in.”
“What? I don’t know anything about any implants …” The redheaded youth looked genuinely confused.
It was worth a try, Charley thought. He threw his empty hand up in the air and sighed. “Just take me to wherever you aren’t allowed to go.”
