by Jodie Kobe
Chapter thirteen
V I V I A N
The next morning, Rian leaves me at the place I’m supposed to be working at. He tells me he has to show Megan around, then he walks off.
It turns out Verity, the girl who called my hair “19th century,” works at the same job I've been assigned. I head over to her just because she’s the only person here that I'm familiar with.
The room I work in is large and bright. The vast number of people in here makes this room uncomfortably warm. And I’m wearing a sweatshirt.
Where’s the air conditioning?
Mr. Welds told me I’ll be moving boxes. But what’s inside this room aren’t boxes. They are bags wrapped in black plastic. And on most of these bags, there seem to be labels plastered on. Many of them are marked with names so I wonder what could possibly be inside.
“So what’s in these bags?” I had asked Verity the second I entered this room.
She replied with, “The belongings from people’s past lives. Apparently, before we were all frozen, many of us brought our stuff down here and labeled them with our names in case we survived.”
I wonder if I did anything like this.
“Have you ever found your bag?” I ask now, flipping one of the plastic bags over in my hands. I’m searching for the label. Maybe my bag was already sorted.
“Not yet. I’m hoping to.” Hers might have been found by someone else as well.
“How long have you worked here?” I ask, tossing aside the bag I’ve been looking at. I inspect another one, still attempting to look for my name.
“I’ve been working here for as long as I’ve been living here. Two months. How about you? How long have you lived here?”
I scoff. “Four days.” We’re expected to be sorting the items in the bags, disposing of the rotten food and keeping the good items. I want to look for my bag first. It disgusts me that someone would actually try to pack food to keep for all these years.
Verity notices I keep picking up and tossing different bags every five seconds. I don’t look through any of them.
“What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?” she asks.
She’s already halfway done searching through a bag and I’m sitting here, trying to look for one marked with my name.
Maybe I didn’t pack anything. Janelle said I had been murdered so why would I have a reason to pack anything from my past life if I didn’t know I was going to die so soon?
“Look,” Verity continues, “You were given a job so you might as well do it. I mean, they take care of you here. So why not help them?”
She has a good point. I did ask for a job and I was given one.
I sigh and get to work, pulling open the next bag without checking its label. Almost immediately, a gut twisting odor escapes the bag.
Verity notices me recoiling and laughs. “Hold your breath,” she warns me a little too late.
I cough and plug my nose as I dip my head toward the bag. Inside it are some items I’ve seen before along with some I have no clue about.
Reluctantly, I reach in and pull out a notebook. If feels fragile but doesn’t fall apart in my hands.
Verity gets interested so she scoots over to me as I gingerly start flipping the pages. There are words written here. Some sort of diary.
“This is like the hundredth notebook I’ve seen. They actually use paper from these to make their own paper.”
I close the notebook and set it aside. “I haven’t seen any paper. All they use are tablets.” The odd cloth tablet too.
Verity shrugs and goes back to the bag in her hands. I continue searching through the one I’m holding, interested to see what else this bag holds.
The next few items I pull out are a box of pencils, a candy wrapper (but I don’t see any candy), a photo of a family (which I stared at for a while), and many more objects. Verity and I continue to search through bags in silence. We exchange a few words here and there.
“Do they give these things back to the owners?” I ask.
“Only to those who want it back.”
“Why don’t they give it to us the day we wake up?” By wake up, I mean come back to life. She seems to understand what I mean.
“They look through it first and keep what they think is important to them. Then they give the leftovers to their rightful owners.”
“How would they get the important objects if we’re looking through them right now. It’s not like we know what they think is important. And that’s basically stealing.”
“We clean them. After that, they look through the cleaned bags.”
“We don’t actually clean—”
“We pull food and junk out. I count that as cleaning.”
“What if someone were to take something out of this bag and keep it for themselves?”
Verity points up to the ceiling. “You’re being monitored. But stuff like that happens.”
It goes quiet once again.
After a few minutes has passed, I ask her about the other name on her bedroom door. I remember seeing the names Verity and Fawn the day Rian brought me there.
She answers as if she were answering a math question. “She’s my little sister.”
“How old?”
She continues to search through her bag without looking at me. “She’s twelve. I have two sisters. We’re just waiting for the last one.”
“Really? She’s here?”
Verity nods. “She’s not alive yet. A couple of weeks ago they told me they’re planning on bringing her back soon.”
“How old is she supposed to be?”
“Fourteen.”
“So you’re the oldest?” I ask.
“Yep. Eighteen.”
“Are your parents here?”
Verity’s head shakes. “My parents were too old to be accepted here. That was the rule. If you were 35 or younger, you would have been preserved. If you were older, you were rejected. It was the way it was, I guess. How about your parents?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I was told I had been murdered. Mr. Welds said my parents died of natural causes.”
Verity grimaces. “Ooh. Tough luck. Getting murdered? So you didn’t have an illness?”
I shake my head but honestly, I don’t know if I did or not.
Verity says, “I did.” After she utters those two words, we go silent. She stops searching through the bag and I stop searching mine. She finally continues, “I used to have a strange virus.”
She doesn’t say anything else until I ask, “How do you know this?”
“They told me.” By they, I’m assuming Mr. Welds, Welds, or Janelle. Possibly Rob. Or one of the scientists, of course.
I move to the next bag after finishing this one. To my relief, I don't find any rotten food inside. The unpleasant smell must be here only because these objects are so old.
“Well...they didn’t tell me,” I say, anger surfacing. “Mr. Welds had refused to tell me what had happened to me and why I'm here. They told Verity. Why not me?
“I lived here longer than you have.”
“Actually, Mr. Welds refused to tell me when I had asked him.”
Verity moves on to the next bag and starts coughing in disgust as she opens it. Her eyes search the inside of the bag and she pulls a can out.
“Non-perishable food items,” she says with a grin on her face. She sets the can down and comments on what I said. “Your brother told me he was informed of his past.”
The bag nearly slips through my fingers. “What?”
They told Piers about his past life? I don’t care if Verity and Piers lived here longer than me, I want to know what happened to me. Why am I here? How did I die?
“They told your brother,” she repeats. “He said he used to be some kind of medic in training. There was this war going on and they needed doctors.”
“They said that?”
“Yeah.”
“Is Piers one of your friends?” It's a random question, but I'm curious. I remembe
r she was sitting in the same area Piers and I sat back in the cafeteria when I first met Verity.
She shrugs. “I guess you could call me one of his many friends. He helps take care of Fawn sometimes.”
“Isn’t he busy being a scientist?”
Verity shrugs again. “Yeah, I guess. He said he’ll help with Megan once they bring her back.” She watches my confused face for a second. Then clarifies, “Megan’s the other sister we’re waiting for.”
I freeze, just for a second. “Megan?” I say aloud, the disbelief clear in my voice.
Verity just shrugs and says casually, “You act like you know her.”
“Megan?” I repeat, louder this time. Verity nods. My words are flowing out quicker now. “Red hair? Fourteen years old?” While Verity keeps nodding, I bring my hand up to my head, indicating my height. “About my height?” Obviously I’m taller than Megan but she’s not too far behind. I wouldn’t say I’m tall either. My stature is shorter than most.
Verity’s head bobs up and down a few more times before she actually starts talking. “Yes! How did you know?” Her eyes brighten and her expression is filled with hope. “Did you see her?”
Very slowly, I nod my head and Verity practically yells, “She’s alive?”
A few heads and eyes turn our way.
Megan had said she had sisters. So these must be hers. Fawn and Verity.
“Yes. Rian and I watched her wake up yesterday,” I say, “I think she’s with him right now. He’s giving her a tour.”
Her voice turns cold. “Yesterday? And they never told me?”
Now she understands how I feel. They didn’t tell me anything either. I say nothing and Verity jumps up to her feet.
“I need to see her,” she says.
She pulls me to my feet and I don’t know why she wants me to come along with her. I won’t be a major help anyway. These buildings and its many rooms are still new to me so I wouldn’t be able to show her where Megan is. “W-why would—”
She cuts me off before I can continue. “You need to come with me.”
I suddenly feel like the job is more important than seeing Megan again. She’s not my sister. I don’t need to see her.
Verity, who has been trying to drag me to the door, lets her arm fall to her side. She sighs and her voice is hesitant as she says, “Look.” A pause. Then, “Look, I’m sorry for calling your hair 19th century, I really am.”
So she thinks I don’t want to come with her because of what she had said to me a couple of days ago? I shake my head and laugh.
“No,” I say, “you’re mistaken. That’s not the reason I don’t want to go—”
She throws her hands up in exasperation. “Then help me.”
She needs my help to get to her sister. Can’t she find her own way around? She’s been living here more than I have so she must have an idea how to get around this place.
I take a deep breath and say, “Why do you need my help?”
She starts talking before I’m done with my question. “I don’t want to go alone, okay? I’m not exactly fond of everyone here. Besides, you said she’s with that Rian guy.” Her arms flap against her thighs and her feet start rubbing against the floor. She looks down at the ground. “I don’t really like him too much.”
I stare at her. “You hate Rian?”
She shrugs. “I don’t hate him but I don’t like him. It’s somewhere in between.”
“Does he scare you?”
She cringes. “No. It’s just...he gave me a tour my first day here and...he was so boring.”
I raise both my eyebrows. I’m not too talented to raise just one. “You don’t like him because he’s boring?”
She points a finger at me. “I’ve seen you talking to him. He might like you better than he does me so—”
I snort and she stops talking. “You’re being paranoid,” I say. “He will not do anything to you. But okay, I'll come with you.” But silently, I scoff to myself. She hates Rian because he's boring?
Verity looks relieved.
We abandon our job and I wonder if it’s possible to get in trouble by doing so. But Verity is so sure that her reason in doing so is excusable. She wants to see Megan right away, and she has already waited forever.
She moves fast as we head down the hallway. I fall behind her a few feet, not on purpose.
The large hallway is almost empty. Everybody seems to be either working or eating in the cafeteria.
I can tell Verity is eager to see Megan. When I’d met Piers here for the first time, I had yelled at him. I wonder how Megan’s and Verity’s reunion will look like.
But there’s one problem. I don’t know where Verity is going. It seems like she knows what she’s doing, so I don’t question her. I just question the reason why she wanted to take me with her. There really is no good reason.
We reach a room and I find myself standing in front of a desk. Welds sits behind it and Verity talks to him a little. He seems to be giving her directions but I can’t be sure. Their voices are murmurs.
Before Verity and I take off again, Welds asks me, “Ms. Clancy. How’s your job so far?”
“It’s fine,” I reply.
We leave.
Verity starts talking as I trail behind her in the hallway. “Welds told me my sister and Rian are checking out designs and inventions and stuff. I think I know where that is. I’ve visited that place so many times I’ve lost count.”
I wish I could do that, visit places many times. That way I would be able to remember where a specific room is. But I can’t, because I know nothing of this place.
And Rian is showing Megan the inventions? That’s not fair. I got a psycho like Rob to show me.
I spot Janelle walking not too far away from us. She’s heading in our direction. As Verity and I close the distance between her, I see Janelle’s walking with something brown and furry in front of her. Something small. And it seems to be a living creature.
Verity notices it too and squints her eyes. “Is that a—”
“Dog?” I finish for her.
It is. It’s scurrying in front of Janelle and barely passing her. If she had just increased her speed, the leash around the dog's neck would’ve tightened and she would have been dragging it across the floor.
“Dog?” Verity echoes. Her eyes widen. “Oh my gosh, it's a puppy! I haven't seen those in forever!”
She forgets her sister. Her kid side takes over and she's running toward the dog in excitement, startling a calm Janelle. Janelle stops walking and I hear Verity ask in a loud voice, “Where did you get her?”
Janelle clears her throat as I reach them and says, “Him. We’ve had him for a month now. Dogs need their exercise, you know.”
“Oh.” Verity kneels down and starts petting the dog’s furry head without getting Janelle’s permission first. Janelle looks displeased and tries to tug the dog away from Verity. She’s getting a little too possessive over the animal, but Verity doesn’t seem to notice. She continues stroking the dog’s back.
Janelle clears her throat again. “Could you please stop touching it?” She waves her hands at Verity, expecting her to move away. “The dog needs his space.”
Verity immediately backs down. “Sorry. It’s just...I haven’t seen a dog in forever.” She looks up at Janelle. “What other animals do you have?”
I imagine hundreds of animals isolated in containers, frozen in place and waiting to be thawed. Just the thought makes me shiver inwardly.
“I’m not too comfortable with giving that type of information out to you,” Janelle says. “Our experiments aren’t for you to be part of.” Just briefly, I catch her eyes darting to me before she adds in a murmur. “Unless you’re some people.”
And what is that supposed to mean?
I quickly forget about it after Verity jumps to her feet and apologizes for touching the dog. Janelle completely ignores her and continues walking like nothing ever happened. The small dog struggles to run by her side.
“No you don’t,” I mutter. She doesn’t hear me and asks for a repeat.
I say nothing.
We continue down the hallway in silence and I’m assuming Verity is leading me to the room where her sister, Megan, is. Verity leads the way and I try to memorize where everything is. It’s hard because all of the doors look the same. There are no turns in this large hallway. All we do is go forward. The only turn I’ve seen so far is the one that leads into the corridor with the bedrooms.
We stop at a door and Verity’s hand hovers over the doorknob for a few seconds before she pulls the door open.
We enter a familiar room. There are only two people inside. Rian and Megan. Megan is in the middle of putting sunglasses over her eyes.
Verity and Megan both freeze when they see each other. The glasses slip from Megan's hands and she scrambles to catch them before they hit the floor. Rian casts me a look and I shrug.
Megan is the first one to speak but Verity it the first one to move. She throws her arms around her little sister.
Megan starts muttering. “You’re alive? How a-and w-when?”
Verity doesn’t pull away from Megan yet.
“Two months,” she tells her. “They never told me you’re alive.” When they pull away, I see Megan has started crying. When she raises her right hand to wipe her eyes, Verity lets out a small gasp. She snatches Megan’s wrist and stares at the tattoo around her fingers.
Stuttering, Verity asks, “W-w-what is th-this?” Her head snaps to me and she points a sharp finger in my direction. “Show me your right hand.”
I come over to her and lift my right hand. She snatches it, her nails digging into my skin. Her eyes scan over my tattoo.
Her first “no” is quiet. When she repeats it, her teeth are gritted. She drops my hand, leaving me with my eyebrows furrowed.
“Rian,” she says firmly. “Show me your hand.”
Reluctantly, Rian steps forward and lifts his hand up, showing his tattoo.
Verity purses her lips together, her head shaking. Her eyes lift to Megan, who's is staring back at her sister, unblinking.
“What’s wrong?” Megan asks her sister. She lifts her tattooed hand. “What does this mean?”
I find myself nodding. “Yes, Verity. What does the tattoo mean?” I was curious before and I’m curious now.
Verity doesn’t stop shaking her head. “I don’t know. But at least three people carrying it must symbolize something.”
“There are more of us,” Rian says, indicating his own tattooed hand. “Four more.”
“Four more?” Verity looks as if she’s about to faint. Her hand goes to her face.
“That I know of,” Rian adds.
Verity’s eyes widen and she repeats, “That you know of?” She wraps her hands around her own neck and pretends to strangle herself. “What?”
“Verity.” Megan snaps her fingers in front of her sister's face. “Verity. It’s fine. I’m fine. They have done nothing to me.”
Verity grabs Megan’s wrist again. “Then what does this mark mean?” she asks her. “Huh?”
Megan shakes her head and yanks her wrist out of Verity’s grip. “I don’t know.” She gestures to Rian and me. “They wouldn’t tell me.”
I point to myself just as Rian is about to step up. “We,” I say, “don’t know anything about it. We would’ve told you already.”
Rian told me he doesn’t know what the tattoos stand for either. I don’t know if I should believe him or not. He’s part of these “bringing people back from the dead” projects. They could have told him to keep this confidential.
“I haven’t seen anyone with these marks,” Verity spits, pointing to Megan’s tattoo. “I don’t know how new this is but—”
Rian cuts in with, “The mark has been around for three years. One of our group members has been around for three years and he's the first person who got this mark. That I know of.”
Verity might not know what Rian means by “group.” I would tell her it’s the tattooed people, but she doesn’t seem like she’s in the mood to listen to me.
Verity scoffs. “I don’t need your that I know of garbage.” She wraps her arms around herself. “I just want to get out of here.”
Megan says, “I was told we’re never getting out. The air is—”
Verity waves a hand to stop her. “I know, I know, I know.” She turns to the empty wall behind Megan.
“Is it boring here?” Megan asks, directing the question to me.
I shrug, not able to answer it. I haven't been here that long, but yeah, I guess I can admit that it can get a little dull here sometimes.
Rian answers for me. “If you wake up every morning grateful to be alive, you'll be fine here. You just never get to go outside, that's all.”
Is that what he lives by?
“Can you drive here?” Megan asks.
“It’s possible, yes,” Rian's laughs. “But there’s no such thing as earning your drivers license and following road rules. Here, you can’t use a vehicle unless you’re part of a certain business.”
“Can you fly here?” Megan asks, eyes bright.
Rian shrugs. “Not sure yet. But they might be working on something.”
Verity crosses her arms. “I haven’t seen a vehicle yet. Neither have I seen animals. Until today, of course.”
Nobody is listening to her. Even Megan is absorbed in what Rian has to say to us. She just continues asking questions, and I'm not sure if she's ignoring her sister on purpose.
“How old do you need to be to drive?”
“Older than ten, that’s for sure.”
“How old to get a job?”
Rian shrugs. “Older than seven.”
Megan continues bombarding Rian with the questions, which tells me she still wants to continue with her tour. I guess meeting her sister isn't interesting enough.
Annoyed, Verity pulls me out of the room and starts muttering under her breath. I can hear some of her words but they’re not clear enough for me to understand what she is talking about.
“So that’s it?” I ask her. “You wanted to meet your sister so bad but now you just leave because you’re angry?”
Verity breathes out and itches her nose. “I just need some time to cool off. She’s obviously not happy enough to see me healthy and alive.”
“You’re the one who freaked out. She's glad to see you,” I say.
She just shakes her head. “I just don’t want my sister to be their experiment.”
Aren’t we all experiments?
Verity doesn’t take us back to our job. Instead, she heads over to a room that looks a lot like a lounge.
She plops down onto one of the white couches, droops her arm over the couch’s arm, and sighs.
“Sit down,” she tells me, kicking her feet in the direction of another white couch in the room. “Relax.”
I don’t sit down. That’s because I believe I have better things to do other than sit around and do nothing. I mean, I’m finally useful in some way.
“Verity?” I say.
“Yeah?” She slips her shoes off and swings her legs onto the couch.
“You do realize we have a job to finish?”
Back in the room with the bags, she had told me to do my job instead of tossing the bags around. I’m telling her the same thing now.
Verity spreads herself across the couch and folds her hands over her stomach. “I’ve been doing my job for two months.”
“Since when did you get so lazy?”
“Since I first woke up. Two months ago.”
“Won’t they punish you for skipping work?”
Verity closes her eyes and shrugs. “No. They’re not that strict. Besides, I don’t get paid.”
“That’s all you want to work for? Money?”
>
She looks at me. “Isn’t that the purpose of work? Wouldn’t you?”
Yes. But also to earn people’s trust.
She closes her eyes again when she sees I won’t answer. “You’re welcome to go back there.” Her voice turns sarcastic. “I’m sure they will notice you’re missing in a room filled with a hundred people.” She smirks. “Because you’re that special.”
I walk out of the room and shut the door behind me a little too hard. I’m not angry. I just wasn’t expecting the door to close that easily.
Somewhere in the distance (because this large hallway does nothing but go straight), I spot two familiar figures. Rian and Megan. Megan seems to be skipping, looking a little too happy as they near me. She waves at me.
I don’t wave back.
Rian notices Verity’s not with me. Once they both reach me, he asks, “What happened to the other girl? Did she leave you?”
“Did she die?” I hear Megan mutter under her breath.
I answer Rian’s question and ignore Megan. “No. I left her alone. She wanted to relax.”
“What’s her name?” Rian asks. “I think I remember her from somewhere.”
“Verity,” Megan and I say in unison. We exchange glances and she smiles.
I don’t.
Turning back to Rian, I say, “I have a job, so I might as well finish it.”
