by Adriana Ryan
The living room is neat and tidy, with a child’s collection of toys stowed away in a basket to one side. I sit on a chair close by. “Naiad told me she had a daughter.”
“Yes. I’m Janus, her partner. Despina should be waking up shortly.” She hesitates before sitting down across from me on the sofa. “What is this about?”
“I know Naiad was innocent,” I say. “And that she loved her family. On the day she was taken, she showed me a likeness of her little girl.”
Janus looked away for a moment. “Naiad lived for Despina. She was everything to her. And now…I’m not certain how we’re to continue.”
“Perhaps you can emigrate,” I say. “Your job—”
“I didn’t pass the physical fitness test. And Despina…she might qualify to go without me, but what life awaits her there? Who will be in charge of her? I don’t trust the government—the same people who took her mother—to take care of her.” Her voice breaks on the word “mother,” a manifestation of her broken heart.
A little girl toddles out of a back room then, her heavy-lidded eyes betraying her sleepiness. She looks at me and yawns, her little rosebud mouth opening wide.
“Who you?” she asks, her voice husky with slumber.
“This is Vika, bunny,” Janus says, a tear escaping. She hastily dries it off. “She used to be Mother’s friend.”
“Mother had to go on a long trip,” Despina says to me, all business. “But she won’t be long.”
“I’ve told her the truth several times,” Janus says. “But she can’t seem to grasp it.”
I close my eyes. Then, slipping my hand into my pocket, I pull out the two vouchers I’d got for Mica.
“Take these,” I say, trying to convey with my eyes the importance of what I’m doing. “They’re two long-distance travel vouchers. They were taken out from BoTA using my identification badge, so they can’t be traced to you two. It might be your best choice.”
Janus takes the vouchers from me, looking baffled and amazed at once. “Are you sure? Can’t they trace these to you?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say. “Just…be safe. For her.” I touch the top of Despina’s head lightly, and then let myself out.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
By the time I arrive at my apartment, I’m much surer of my decision. There’s no possibility of me sitting out the mission to free Ceres while hoping for a safe future for my baby. My mind can’t cope with the incongruence of the two actions.
I walk into the kitchen, where Shale is busy washing some pots. He sets them aside as I enter and turns to me, his eyes searching my face. “Are you alright?”
“Yes.” I smile. “I visited Naiad’s people. And my mother.” I take a deep breath. “I want to help with the mission, with all the things Tomas asked me to do. I’ve made up my mind.”
Shale puts his hands on my shoulders. “Are you sure? With the pregnancy, you have a free pass to freedom.”
“Maybe. Or maybe they’ll take our baby and make him or her join the army as a child soldier. I’ve come to realize there aren’t any guarantees. Perhaps the only thing to do is what you feel is right at any given moment. And in this moment, I want to stay with you.” Without quite meaning to, my eyes drop to Shale’s lips.
When we kiss, my mind goes blank, overloaded with sensation. Why does my body insist on reacting this way to him?
Shale pulls back and grabs my hand. “Come with me.”
My mind reels at the sudden change. I wasn’t fully finished with that kiss. “Where?”
“There’s something I’d like to show you.” He leads me out the front door and up the stairway, just a shadow ahead of me in the murky gray light.
“I don’t know anyone who lives up here,” I say as we pass the eighth floor. I don’t think I’ve been this high up in all the years I’ve lived in this building.
“I don’t either,” Shale says. “We’re not visiting.”
I keep quiet because it’s getting harder to talk the farther up we go. It’s no wonder I didn’t pass my physical fitness test; I’m not in the least athletically-inclined. If I’d known to expect the physical test so soon, and at my Match Clinic, I might’ve prepared. But I bury the thought. It doesn’t matter anymore.
After we pass the apartments on the twelfth, and last, floor, we get to the landing at the top of the building. Shale stops in front of the big metal door to the rooftop. There’s a padlock on it. He reaches into his pocket, comes out with something that looks like a woman’s hair pin, and slips it into the key hole.
There’s a click as the lock opens and he flashes me a victorious look. I smile in spite of myself as I follow him through the door. Closing it behind me, I turn around.
The view leaves me breathless.
All around us, the city of Ursa sprawls out like a giant grey tentacled creature. It births smoke from smoke stacks and streams of people out of buses and doorways. Our desperation to get somewhere, to escape this disgraceful fate, feeds it, keeps it going. It is beautiful and frightening all at once. Gray clouds above, gray concrete below. We’re suspended in an ashen sphere.
“This is spectacular.” I turn to Shale. “Do you come here often?”
He rests his elbows on the ledge and looks out. “Sometimes. It’s easier to think when I’m up here. I don’t feel so closed in.”
I close my eyes for a moment, letting my mind believe that I feel the sea breeze brushing my cheeks. “Thank you for bringing me.”
Still looking straight ahead, Shale takes my hand. I look at it ensconced in his, reveling in the feeling of warmth, of touch, of skin-to-skin contact.
“Love builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.”
I glance at him, startled. Heaven and Hell are mythical religious concepts we’re not supposed to mention. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a line from an old poem, I believe. My father loved poetry, as did his mother before him. I picked up a little bit from listening to him recite.”
The urge to cry is so strong, I have trouble breathing. I look away and blink, struggling to get my emotions under control. What might Shale have been in another life? Could he have spent his days writing poetry under shady trees? What about me? Ceres? My mother? Perhaps there are twin versions of us all somewhere in another universe, living out the destinies of which we’ve been robbed.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Two weeks later
I show my identification badge to the Guard, trying hard to be nonchalant. “Transporting Maintenance workers to the bus leaving at eight.”
Already. I can’t believe we’re already here. I’ve scarcely had time to breathe. To say my goodbyes to Mica. To pretend like my last day at work was like any other day; that when the whistle sounded, I wasn’t going to a meeting where I’d discuss my role in perpetrating treason.
The Guard nods briskly, not paying attention to our faces as much as our badges. Then she waves us through. The weight on my chest lifts a tiny bit. One hurdle down.
We travel through the gate and walk until we see signs for the bus terminal. A quick right down a dirt path and we emerge where so many families have been broken, where so many children found their worlds were not quite as safe as they’d imagined them to be. I stand there for a long moment, wondering what details Ceres took in here, eight years ago. Did she see that lone tree, struggling to survive amongst all the concrete? Did she see the buses parked in a row, looming like mechanical grim reapers? Did her tears blur everything so she couldn’t make out any details, adding to her panic? I close my eyes against the pain of my thoughts.
Shale touches me briefly on the shoulder. When I look at him, he raises his eyebrows just the tiniest bit—asking me if I’m okay. I nod imperceptibly, then look away in case anyone is watching.
We board the bus and my pulse begins to throb in my ears. I show my identification badge—does the driver spend an inordinate time examining it or am I simply nervous? The men show their badges, and then we’re asked to be seated to wa
it for the Défectueux. There is already another Guard and her team of Maintenance workers on the bus. When I catch her eye, she gives me a small, cold smile.
The children are brought by the Escorts. I notice that they’re all under the age of twelve, and that they are all crying. As they approach the bus, single file, I can see that one or two out of the thirty-two children are visibly disabled, with the sloped forehead of the developmentally disabled, or a missing limb from a genetic mutation. But most of the children appear to be physically normal, and I wonder who informed on them. Like Ceres, have they been deceived by the very person who gave them life? Are there mothers all over New Amana at this moment, ensconced in the quiet of their rooms, silencing their guilt by insisting they did what was best for the country?
When the children climb into the bus, they take turns looking at all of us. The men in their Maintenance worker uniforms are immediately taken for threats, but two or three of the youngest children try to smile at me and the other Guard, perhaps because we are women, like their mothers. It breaks my heart not to smile back, but I cannot put everybody at risk by doing so. Instead, I clench my fists on my lap and look out the window.
Did anyone show Ceres kindness the day she was taken by smiling at her? Asking her if she’d like a drink of water? I know it’s unlikely. She was probably scared the entire time. How has living in the brine of fear changed her, pickled her brain?
The bus belches as the driver releases the brakes. Once the last of the children has sat down, the bus moves forward with a lurch. Soon, we are leaving behind the only city I have ever known. I crane my neck so I can watch the dust trails the bus leaves, the intermittently-lit crooked buildings disappearing in a fine mist of it like a magic trick.
The hours that pass in the bus seem to ricochet inside my head like little glass balls, heavy and loud. The children continue to cry—some begin to keen horribly, while others, mercifully, pass out from exhaustion. As dawn’s fingers begin to scratch at the black sky, the bus driver pulls into the parking lot of a public washroom on the deserted highway.
The driver stands up. “The Défectueux will climb down in two groups to use the facilities with the Guards and one Maintenance worker,” she says.
When she motions for the children on the right of the bus to disembark, they stand up, their hands manacled together with iron chains. They are shaking, and the sharp sting of urine reaches my nose. Someone has already had an accident, and will likely pay for it at the Asylum.
But not if we can help it, I think. I must stay positive.
The other Guard and I stand up. I look toward Shale, but another Maintenance worker—not a Rad—is the one to accompany us. Fingering the electric prod I’ve been given to authenticate my role as a Guard, I silently beseech the children to behave.
I wait outside the restroom with a few of the children while the other Guard takes the rest of them inside. When I hear the pop-pop-pop sound of gunfire, my stomach turns to ice and I stand stock-still, my body refusing to respond to what I know is happening. Finally, I’m able to force myself to turn toward the bus. There is a flash of red and someone slumps against the window. He wears a bright orange Maintenance uniform, blood-soaked.
I begin to run.
When I get to the bus, there is shouting and screaming. I think perhaps some of the screaming comes from me. As I scramble up the steps, someone pushes me back down. I land on my hands and knees and twist around. Shale is on the steps, his gun in his hand.
“Run, Vika!” he screams. “The mission has been compromised—run, run!”
I reach for him but a bullet whizzes past his head and shatters the corner of the windshield of the bus. I put my hand against my stomach—the baby. Shale has a gun, but I am unarmed except for the electric prod.
I turn and run, making straight for the desert bordering the washroom and the highway. The children who were outside with me have run into the washroom with the other Guard. I cannot risk going back in for them, not when my own child’s life is in danger. But that doesn’t defuse any of the guilt and pain squeezing my chest as I race to safety.
When I stop running, I can feel that the insides of my boots are slick with blood. I have cut my foot on something. Our boots are not made of high quality material; whatever I stepped on has sliced the thin rubber. I slow down, and my stomach lurches into my throat. I lean into a thicket of spindly bushes—some of the only kind of vegetation that can endure the deserts of New Amana—and vomit. When my stomach is empty, I continue to dry heave. Just when I think I might die of suffocation, the heaves slow and stop. I take a deep, shuddering breath, tasting dust and bile in my throat and mouth.
Oh, I think. Oh, Shale.
I sit down on the dusty desert floor. I do not move. I cannot form a coherent thought.
Now what?
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
I move, keep moving until my feet are on fire. The back of my Guard uniform is soaked with sweat, my hair is plastered against my face. Delirium beckons from the edges of my vision, but I fight it. I expect the Escorts to come beating through the brush to find me. Will I see a flash from the muzzles of their guns as the bullets leave them?
Where is Shale?
The thought comes unbidden, and I push it back where I can’t reach it anymore. I don’t want to think about him or Ceres. I do not want to think about failure and pain and endless sorrow because if I do, I might sit here until I am a husk of a woman, just dehydrated skin and bones.
I ran from Shale and left those children to keep my baby safe, and I am determined to do that. I will find Shale. And I will find Ceres. I cannot give up on them.
Once I feel like I’ve put sufficient distance between me and the bus—wincing, I force the sounds of gunfire echoing through my mind—I take off my boots and examine the wound in my foot. It is not deep but it is long, and I worry about infection. If I hurt my feet and can’t manage the desert floor, I will be lost. I can’t afford to take a bus or other public transportation, not when the Escorts might be out looking for me.
I continue to walk through the desert, keeping close to the brush so I am not as much of a target. Once or twice, I glimpse animals peering at me, and I am taken back to that first night Shale took me to the outskirts of town to meet Tomas. I push that memory back with all the others. I was scared back then, but what did I know about fear?
This is fear, I think. A baby inside you, the man you love in a gun fight, and endless desert. This is fear.
One minute I’m walking through the desert, and the other, I step into a small clearing and realize it is man-made. There is a tent about twenty yards away, with a black stripe down the middle of the canvas cloth. I backpedal into the brush and fall to my stomach so I am not visible, thankful for my drab sand-colored Guard uniform for the first time.
I am not sure how long I lie there in the shrub, sweat dripping down my forehead and stinging my eyes. Occasionally, a current of wind stirs up the dust and sand so it forms a light coating on me. I am thirsty and hungry, my foot throbs, and I have to use the washroom.
So, when a short, squat man comes out of the tent wearing a black shirt and black pants, I feel a tug of relief. They are Rads. Surely they’ll help me when they realize what has happened.
I wait till the man has turned to go back into his tent after a washroom break to stand up. I call out softly, but he still turns with a gun in his hand. My arms are in the air, and I am sweating even more, my shirt plastered to my back. Perspiration rushes down my arms and legs and face.
“Please, don’t shoot.” Embarrassed at my wavering, cowardly tone, I try again. “Please don’t shoot. I’m on your side.”
“Yeah?” The man keeps his rifle trained on me. “Why don’t ya walk forward real slow so I can be sure?”
Two other men come outside, their rifles trained on me. I don’t take note of their faces as much I do of their guns. Can’t they see I don’t have a weapon? My mind turns to the electric prod. It’s not much of a weapon, but if I could
get to it, it’d be better than absolutely nothing.
“We were ambushed.” I begin to walk toward them, my legs trembling. “I was with the Rads from Ursa, but there was a shooting, and… I managed to get away. Please, you have to help me. I’m pregnant.”
I’m close enough now that they can see that my foot’s bleeding. My boots remain in the brush.
“She’s right. I know her.”
I jerk my gaze to the tall man who’s spoken, and memory rushes back to me. It’s Drew, the Rad who failed to tell us about Celeste being replaced. The man Tomas shot and threw out of the group. My stomach seizes; now that I’ve aligned myself with the group that threw him out, what will he do to me?
He smirks at me and lowers his rifle. The other men do the same. “Do you remember me, Vika?”
My lips feel gummy when I speak. “You’re Drew.” My eyes fall, unasked, to his leg.
He barks a laugh and lifts up his pants leg. “Just a nasty scar.” His knee is lopsided and the skin looks like it was pieced together in a hurry by someone with a large needle and no medical skill, but he seems to be able to bear weight on it. “I’ll bet Tomas would be disappointed.”
The short, squat man, the first to discover me, spits something fat and wet on the sand, where it glistens in the sun. “Why are you dressed in that uniform if you were with the Rads?”
“It was part of our plan to infiltrate the Asylum in Toronto.”
Drew nods. “Yes, the Great Plan. Come on in and tell us how it all went. Obviously not well from the sight of you. In any case, let’s not stand around outside. That’s an easy way to lose a head in these parts.” He glances at my uniform. “Let’s take this so we don’t have any accidents.” With a flick of his wrist, he takes the electric prod from where it hangs at my side.
The third man prods me in the back with the muzzle of the rifle, and I enter the tent. It smells like food and sweat in here and my tender stomach revolts. I manage not to gag by taking shallow breaths. I explain all that has happened to this point.
