by K. Makansi
“The dysentery didn’t help!” Miah calls out from the cockpit. “But I’m clean as a whistle inside now.”
“Yeah, I’ve been listening to that whistle blow all afternoon.” Firestone laughs.
A smile brightens Soren’s face for just a moment, but then he looks over at me and it vanishes as if it was never there. “Miah had it bad, but somehow you seemed to have escaped. Why do you think that is?”
“I have no idea. Believe me. I’m as baffled as you are.”
I’m more than baffled actually. I’ve analyzed every minor ache and pain, every little twinge of a headache or tired muscle and I don’t think I’ve experienced anything like the others describe. It’s almost as if I was immune to the effects of the change in diet. I never felt foggy or confused. My cognitive abilities haven’t changed—at least I don’t think they have. I was never overly tired. My stamina and muscle strength remains the same—if not better from all the training and hiking we’ve done. I can’t figure it out.
“Strange,” Eli says, looking me up and down as if I’m a lab specimen. “Maybe Rhinehouse should do a blood sample, compare Miah and you. You both went off your MealPaks at the same time. Of course we don’t have a before and after profile—unless we could somehow hack into the Dietician’s database and get your files—but still, might be interesting to see what he’d find. You have any objections to that?” His look is challenging, as if he suspects I’m hiding something.
“No objections, but I don’t know what he’d find.”
“Won’t hurt to look, though, would it?” Soren says, and his look is definitely challenging.
Kenzie brings us back to the topic at hand. “The crucial thing is whether gradually replacing the food used by the Dieticians can slowly change people so they’ll be less and less under the Sector’s influence without anyone ever suspecting a thing. Instead of thinking we have to move fast to replace the foods available for inclusion in the MealPaks, we’d have more time. It would make our plan to take over the supply chain safer and give us the time we need to ramp up seed production after we steal that printer.”
“We’ll know more tomorrow,” Eli says. “Firestone’s gonna set us down deep in the woods, power down the systems so we’ve got everything on cloaking and let us get some rest. We can’t see anything in the dark anyway. We’ll hit Farms 9 and 10 and get a read on what their security situation is like. The Director’s gonna want us back soon, but we’re not going back without Remy, right?”
We all nod. At least there’s one thing on which we all agree.
14 - REMY
Spring 7, Sector Annum 106, 1h16
Gregorian Calendar: March 26
A flash of a mirror, then another two in quick succession. Rose’s signal.
It’s time.
A flush of adrenalin courses through me with its glinting, knife-edge sharpness. The readiness to run, to shoot, to be free is exhilarating. I push myself into a sprint, and the chill air against my face is exhilarating.
Behind me, I can hear Bear flip the capacitor on his Bolt to charge, and the sound almost breaks my heart. I hope he won’t have to shoot anyone today. It’s too early for him to become a killer.
Coming out from the gully where we’d taken cover, Bear and I cover the distance between our hiding spot and our target in the span of a few minutes. By the time I hit the brick wall, I’ve put fifteen paces on him. I turn to look behind us, to make sure we haven’t been spotted. My infrared contacts indicate nothing on the horizon.
Safe.
For now.
Bear hits the wall beside me, panting hard, trying to quiet his breathing.
“Ready?” I ask.
Without responding, he turns away from me, pivoting like a soldier. I cinch my belt tighter and swing my own Bolt into my hands. I don’t think I’ll need it, but I need to be prepared, in case any on-duty guards come along and ruin our evening.
Bear turns and glances back at me for a second, his eyes unblinking in the hollow shadows. I take a deep breath as he turns the corner, to keep a watch on the side of the building nearest the Enforcers’ compound. I haven’t a clue if this is the smartest thing I’ve ever come up with, or the stupidest. I’m not even positive it will work, but I studied Farm operations and talked to Kenzie about her mom’s work as a Dietician before Bear and I left Normandy for Round Barn. So, after tonight, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Earlier today, I went back into the Farm under the guise of “Anna from the Wilds” and chatted Joral up some more. He asked me where I’d gotten paper to send that message to Rose.
“Why do you ask?” I hedged.
“My son’s birthday is coming up. He has a chance to qualify for the Academy’s Art and Design program, but I think he needs more practice on paper. It’s hard to get out here, so only the kids already in Okaria will have much experience using that medium. It’s an unfair advantage, don’t you think? He’s excellent on his plasma, but I think some extra practice, and some additions to his portfolio, will give him a competitive edge. He’s really talented.”
Turns out Joral is a blabbermouth. Either that, or his job is damn boring. He didn’t seem to do much in the hour that I hung around except try to look imposing.
“Tell me more about your son,” I said. And so I learned more about Joral Jr. than I ever needed to know, although, in truth, he does sound like a good kid and Joral even pulled out his pocket plasma and showed me some of his son’s work. So I kept the proud papa talking. When I pushed, he yielded. I asked him about his wife, his job, his love of chocolate, and, finally, I told him I did have some paper to spare for his son, if he would meet me outside the Farm near midnight.
“Because it’s illegal to have unauthorized paper inside the Sector, and I don’t want you to get caught by the other Bosses, when you’ve been so kind to me.” His brows furrowed at the thought, but I didn’t give him a chance to protest. “I’m going to go see Rose now. It was nice to talk with you, and I’ll meet you tonight. Okay?”
To be honest, Joral seems harmless. But just because he is friendly and loves his family with a fervor that made me ache for my own, doesn’t mean he isn’t complicit in the mistreatment of the Farm workers, that he isn’t an active supporter of the Sector’s policies, or that he might be even vaguely sympathetic to the Resistance’s efforts. I tried to my remind myself every second that, as an Enforcer, he deserves neither my pity nor my help. But, I also tell myself that a mildly sympathetic Enforcer willing to bend the rules a bit is a whole lot better than an emphatically unsympathetic one who is not.
So I rolled up a few pieces of paper up into a scroll, tied it with a piece of twine, and stuck it in my pack to give to Joral—once he’s lying unconscious at my feet.
I turn a hard left around to the back of the building, toward the little side-door that has only a palm scanner, not a retinal piece as well.
There, Joral and Rose are waiting for me—though Joral, lying on his back and gazing up at the stars, looks nothing like he did when I spoke to him earlier.
“I need to,” he says slowly, “see Annnnnnaaaaa. She’s from the wiiiiiilds.”
Nice work, Rose, I think. I bite back a laugh. He definitely enjoyed the chocolate she was to give him earlier tonight. The chocolate Bear and I laced with dreamweed, a potent psychotropic drug, one of Rhinehouse’s creations. Eli says Rhinehouse manipulated the genes in salvia divinorum, a hallucinogen, to create dreamweed, used mostly for medicinal purposes to help ease chronic pain, anxiety, and bipolar disorder. “I don’t think he expected it to grow so well,” Eli said then. “Now, it grows all over the Wilds. Hence dreamweed.” It’s also a powerful amnesiac, if taken in the right dosage. I’m hoping we gave Joral the right dosage.
Bear and I dried a few of the leaves and ground them to a fine powder, mashing them in with some melted chocolate before allowing it to solidify. Neither of us were certain the plant would have the same effect when dried, but Joral is clearly feeling the effects.
&nbs
p; “Il est fini,” Rose says. Rose is by herself tonight. She’d said Luis was expected at some sort of meeting and couldn’t help tonight, and it was very courageous of her to agree to help us by herself.
“Thank you,” Bear says. She gives us a quick nod and disappears around the corner of the building to keep watch.
“Joral!” I whisper, as loudly as I dare, crouching down to his side. He rolls his head and grins at me.
“‘Ey, Anna,” he says, too loudly, the sounds slow, drawn-out. I even see a little bit of drool pooling by his lips. “Why’re you here?”
“I got your paper, Joral,” I whisper, fighting the urge to slap a hand over his mouth. “But I need your help, okay?”
My adrenaline rising, I check my surroundings. But there’s nothing. Unless they’re wearing heat-cloaking gear—which is very possible—there’s no one else here.
“You brought me paper? For my son?”
“Yes, for your son—and for you. Now, I need you to do something for me. Okay?”
“Okaaaay. Yeah. You help me, I help you. Riiiiight?” He’s not even looking at me. His eyes are wide but unfocused, staring through the spotted darkness of the sky.
“Joral, I need you to scan me into this building, okay?”
“Okaaaaay,” he says.
He doesn’t move.
Glancing around, aware of the fact that drones or other Enforcers could show up at any moment, I grab Joral’s hands and try to pull him to his feet. Finally, he stands, a weird, loopy smile on his face, and looks down at me.
“You’ve got stars in your eyes,” he says, staring up at my face as I drag him closer to the door.
“I’m sure I do. Can you please put your hand to the palm scanner, Joral?” He nods at me, still smiling, and this time, wobbles to the scanner and puts his hand up to it.
“Liquid,” he says, muttering. “Gooey.”
“What are you saying?”
“The ground … it’s moving.” He’s squinting at the scanner, which has just beeped in recognition and flashed green. I dart to his side and punch in the code. Another gift from Rose.
3-1-4-7-Z-H-U-C-F.
The door swings open.
I whisper a silent thank you and whistle three times, the signal to Bear and Rose that the door’s open. In a matter of seconds, they’re at my side. With Bear propping the door open, I pull the scroll of paper out of my backpack and place it in Joral’s hand. His fingers wrap around it lightly, perhaps sensing the fragility of the gift.
I help Rose get Joral to start walking back to his cabin. With luck, he’ll wake up in the morning a little nauseated, but otherwise totally fine and with no memory of anything that happened while he was high.
“Look! The sky is full of eyes and they’re all winking at me!” he exclaims. Rose shoots us a pointed look, as if to say, I never thought I’d see him like this, and they disappear into the darkness.
Inside, Bear pulls the heavy door shut behind us, enveloping us in pitch black. He takes a step forward and the lights around us come on, illuminating the interior of this section of the building. I thank our lucky stars there are no windows.
“Now what?” Bear whispers.
I stare at the hundreds of glass vials, plasma monitors, hologram displays, microscopes, and pieces of equipment I can’t begin to name. The task before us is daunting.
“We begin the revolution.” I drop my pack, and Bear does the same. I pull out our waterskins, now full of a sugar solution Bear and I spent all day yesterday concocting using stolen sugar and honey from the food stores. We were only able to make five liters, but from what I learned from Kenzie about the Dieticians and how a lab operates, that should be plenty to start.
Bear wanders over to one of the stacks of shelves, piled high with dusty old equipment, plasma screens now years out of date, empty glass jars, and broken security equipment while I carry the waterskins over to one of the polished metal tables in the center of the room, Bear starts reaching up to pull something off the shelf.
“Don’t,” I say abruptly. He jerks his hand back, as though hit by a low-charge Bolt blast. “We don’t want to touch anything we don’t need to.”
Although I know it’s nearly impossible not to leave any identifiers behind, we can still try. There’s a reason my springy hair is tucked under a black hood, both Bear and I are wearing thin gloves I’d stolen from Hodges, the nurse at Normandy, and covered nearly head to toe so as not to leave behind dead skin cells. They’ll figure out we were here eventually, I’m sure, but the longer we can delay that, the better.
“Vraiment, Remy, what is this stuff?”
“It’s a lot of different things. See that, there?” I point to a large microscope in the corner. “That’s used to look at things that are very, very small, like cells. Or even smaller, like molecules, proteins, fats, and amino acids.”
“I know what fat is,” he pats his stomach, “but what are molecules, proteins and amino acids?”
I look up from my pack and smile. Wow. No one’s ever depended on me for a biology lesson before. “Let’s see. Molecules are the smallest part of a chemical compound that can be part of a chemical reaction. I guess the best explanation of a protein is that it is an organic—that sort of means made from living or potentially living materials—compound made up of molecules that give living tissue structure.” I reach out and press his forehead with my thumb. “Your skin, hair, and muscles are made of protein.”
“And what about the last one, amino acids?”
“Amino acids are basic organic compounds, meaning they’re made of molecules, and they’re important because they are the building blocks of proteins.”
“Oh,” he says, though his head is still cocked to the side, confused. He changes the subject, pointing down a darkened aisle at rows and rows of tiny containers holding some kind of clear liquid. “Are these the chemicals we’re going to replace with our sugar water?”
“Yes.” I pause. “We might not have quite enough to replace everything they have in this lab. But we should have enough to do some serious damage.”
“What do we do?” he asks.
“I’ll show you.”
I take a skin of water over to the sink. Using a lab tray, I grab as many of the vials as possible and bring them over. One by one, I pop the rubber stoppers and dump the contents down the drain. There goes Apathy, I tell myself, and there’s Ignorance, and there’s Blind Trust, washed so quickly and easily down the drain. I know the science behind these little vials is a thousand times more complicated, intricate biochemical interactions, individual biology, and even, simple chance, but it’s more rewarding to think of this process not as chemistry but as restoration. We’re giving the people back their humanity.
Bear watches as I grab a micropipette and begin the slow process of refilling the vials with our placebo. Though I never took but the one basic required lab class, I spent enough time watching Tai and my mother work that I know my way around most of the simpler equipment. As I work, I read the labels written on the glass, trying to remember what the letters and numbers mean from my brief stint in organic chemistry, but it’s like reading another language. I’d need Soren or Eli to interpret for me.
Bear replaces the vials I’ve filled and pulls more off the shelves. I glance over my shoulder and my heart sinks: this will take hours, and we only have until dawn. And that’s assuming no one walks in on us to check on a timed experiment.
Working as quickly as possible, Bear and I pipet sugar water into hundreds of vials. Soon, my thumb is tired and I’m yawning, using all of my focus to try to stay awake.
“Only one skin left,” Bear says, finally, when I’m afraid I’m going to topple from sheer boredom. When I’ve finally drained the last waterskin, I heave a sigh of relief and pack up as quickly as possible. Bear darts around like a minnow, methodically putting everything back into place exactly as we found it. I find a bottle of sanitizing solution and quickly wipe down the counters and sink. When everything looks pri
stine, we grab our bags and turn to head out the way we came.
We weren’t able to replace every chemical on the shelf, but we got through at least two thirds of them. I wish I had a better idea of how far in advance the MealPaks are prepared. If the Dieticians prepare them the day of consumption, the workers here could begin to notice withdrawal symptoms within twenty four to forty eight hours. If the Paks are prepared in advance, though, they might not feel the effects of our tampering for a few days.
Either way, I’m betting on no more than a week before the ‘sickness’ starts to go around, and this time, the Farm workers will be capable of wondering why.
Outside, I hold my breath as I blink three times to reactivate the infrared sensors in my contacts. For a moment, I panic and imagine I’ll open the door to see a dozen Sector airships hovering overhead. But as I crack the door and stare out into the night, I’m greeted only by silence. Bear and I slip through the door, thankful that there’s not nearly as much security this time of night, and jog through the fields back the way we came.
By the time we’ve made it back up to the cliff overlook, which quickly became our favorite spot, I’m grinning like a loon and fighting the urge to shout in triumph. We did it! I want to scream to the sky. Instead, I turn to Bear, my confidante and teammate, and whisper:
“Let’s see what the Bosses make of that.”
The next day we sneak back in and spend much of the day trying to talk with the other farm workers, telling them more or less the same story that we told Luis and Rose.
But we’re not having much luck. I didn’t expect that placebo MealPaks would take effect in less than 24 hours, but it’s still somewhat disappointing that pretty much everyone acts exactly the same: hesitant, confused, skeptical, or downright hostile. A few people, like Rose, seem to have retained a little more of their defiance, their vitality, but without a personal connection, it’s near impossible to get them to listen—especially when I’m trying to remain “Anna” and not Traitor Remy Alexander. Revealing my name is just too risky right now.
