“Just because I had to desist didn’t mean I stopped being in charge,” Saretha went on.
Instead of arguing with her, I thought it would be easier to just thank her, but the words caught in my throat. In among the vines, there were men and a few women, bent low to the ground, brushes in hand, dabbing at an apparatus attached to their Cuffs. I slowed. The Indentureds ignored us.
At the field’s rim, a few guards in tan jumpsuits turned—men of odd and troubling proportions, with that same heavy brow and dim, thuggish look as Lucretia’s bodyguards and the brothers who had murdered Sam. Each clutched a black metal gun slung around their shoulders. They seemed agitated and suspicious, but made no move to intercept us. The van was doing its job.
I scanned the vastness of the fields and felt the insurmountable task we were facing close in on me, even as the space seemed to sprawl out to infinity.
“How will we find them?” I asked Saretha. We weren’t even in Crab Creek yet. The farm was still miles away on the map, an hour’s worth of travel.
Saretha gasped. Her face was horrified. The outlook was bleak, but her gasp seemed somehow out of place and melodramatic until I spotted what she’d seen.
Two children were looking up at a guard, showing him something in a roughly printed basket. He nudged one of them back with his gun. The younger one started to cry, then smothered her tears so as not to attract any more ire.
There were children working in those fields. Kids as young as Sam was and younger. One woman had a baby on her back, sleeping, brown-skinned in the relentless sun. A boy of about ten ran a hand across his brow, and one of the guards yelled at him for the pause. A child-sized Cuff was on his arm.
“How’s this possible?” Norflo whispered, his eyes wide. “Kids aren’t supposed to be here. You got to be at least fifteen ’fore you face Indenture.”
Norflo’s face reddened with anger as Mira and Margot moved to look out the windows. His head shook, refusing to believe it.
“We could have been with them all along,” Saretha said.
At first, I couldn’t quite take in what she meant. I couldn’t really understand anything for a moment. “Who?” I asked.
“Mom and Dad,” Saretha said. “We could have come and worked with them, like these families.”
My insides filled with ice. Did she really believe that was a solution? How could that really be what she wanted?
“Saretha, do you realize what this means?” I asked. “This isn’t about paying off some family debt. This is about them making families—our family—slaves.”
“Slaves?” Saretha said.
Margot held Mira close, as if someone might snatch her and put her to work in the field. Worried that her fear might not be unfounded, I drove us faster. I checked the mirrors in case someone was behind us, but I saw no one other than the Indentureds. The land around us was lush and green—beautiful, really, save for the people forced to work it, suffering, dead-eyed and broken.
“It’s worse than being Indentured,” I said. I explained what Kiely had told me as we began passing untended fields. Water sprayed up in high jets, misting back to the soil. The sky was a clear, deep blue, made deeper by whatever the black glass of the van did to filter it. A low, dark cloud smudged the horizon, like an ominous warning.
The road became straight and flat. The foreboding clouds hung low and strange, billowing in thick swells, like they were spewing forth from something just over the horizon. I was new to the sights of the outdoors, so it took me a while to realize I wasn’t looking at clouds.
“I think that’s smoke,” I said. I felt everyone shift to look.
“Is that a volcano?” Mira asked.
“No,” Margot said, moving Mira gently back as if it might be. “The road is blocked ahead.”
A security van was parked sideways, purposely blocking the way. Several more lined each side. Guards were gathered around it in the same tan overseer jumpsuits we’d seen earlier. Some were out in the field, but I couldn’t see any Indentureds.
“We should find a way around,” Margot said.
“There isn’t any,” I said, removing the Pad from its perch and handing it back to Norflo, since he was closest. He and Margot leaned in, scrolled and swiped, looking for an alternate route. Mira jumped to try and see.
“We’d lose too much progress,” Norflo said. “We’re almost there.”
The source of the smoke came into view. It billowed from a long, low barracks, like those we’d seen in OiO™. A large crab listed from the roof, its claws emptied of fruit.
My ribs seemed to tighten around my heart. We’d arrived at the edge of Crab Creek, and it was on fire.
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Kel’s reminder to proceed with care rang in my head, but I don’t think she’d expected Crab Creek to be in flames. We’d expected a fight, but it had happened before we arrived.
“Is it time to abandon this idea?” Margot asked, her voice flat, her eyes scanning around for other routes.
“Abandon? This is it,” I said, worry and despair churning up through me. “All I wanted was to find my parents. This is where they’re supposed to be.”
Margot’s face told me she thought it was too late.
“Maybe we can fake our way through?” Saretha suggested, terror in her voice.
“The only thing protecting us is the black glass,” I said. “If they see inside...it’s over.”
“Floor it,” Norflo suggested.
“Speth,” Saretha said my name like I needed to listen to her. She wanted me to slow, to come up with a plan. She wanted me to trust that she knew best, but I couldn’t.
I squeezed the wheel. We drew close enough that I could see the men were facing away. There were more men in jumpsuits out in the fields, sweeping the area, like they were looking for something. They weren’t blocking the road into Crab Creek—they were blocking the way out.
“Slow down!” Saretha cried.
I ignored her and kept up my speed, looking for a way around that wouldn’t involve mowing any of those men down. To the right, I found my opening and pulled on the wheel. A blast of wind hit the guards, knocking the hat off one of them. He raced to pick it up, receding into the background. None of the others raised their weapons. None tried to give chase. A few watched us, scratching their heads in confusion. But whoever they thought we were, we weren’t worth their time, or pursuing us wasn’t one of their orders.
Ahead, a small dome was burned out, leaving a mound of melted plastic behind in a ring around skeletonic shapes of whatever had been inside. Smoke wisped up in thin sheets. Beyond, a larger dome burned steadily along its perimeter. The plastic casing flared and noxious black smoke rose, carried and thinned by the wind into the distance, where it spread in a neat, ugly line. It appeared to have been burning for days.
“No one’s putting it out,” Norflo noted.
He was right. The landscape was empty of inhabitants. The larger dome seemed to be at the tail end of a massive fire. Nearby, long molten bands of plastic sludge smoldered—the remains, it seemed, of more barracks.
“Saretha...” I paused, trying to find the right words to say. Her gaze was frozen out the window, likely thinking the same thing I was. Fear rose up in me. This was where our parents lived.
“Everyone has fled,” Margot said mechanically, taking Mira by the hand and sitting down as the van raced past the fire. “There is nothing here for you.”
“Maybe they ’scaped?” Norflo suggested.
“How do you know?” I asked unsteadily, desperately hoping they were right.
“The workers are not in the fields, but the guards seek them,” Margot said, a little more life in her voice. “The company would not set fire to its own property. It would not kill its workers. They are worth money. The road is blocked to prohibit escape. They did not care about us coming in, but
they will care about us trying to leave. We are, again, trapped.”
“We aren’t theirs,” Saretha said. “What do they care?”
“Stole this van,” Norflo said. “That’s one thing. Has a big crab on the side. They’re gonna want it back. Also, ’spect they’ll want to know who is inside eventually.”
I scanned the landscape for clues or ideas. My mind kept coming up blank. What was the point of all this if I couldn’t put my family back together?
“I am sorry, Speth,” Margot said, like she understood the depths of my disappointment.
“Who’s that?” Norflo pointed. In a field among more vines with yellow flowers was a solitary figure, brush in hand, dabbing at his arm and then into the petals. There were no guards, just him. He brushed a flower, then the next, took a step and repeated the process.
I slowed the van, curious.
“Speth, what are you doing?” Saretha asked me.
“I’m going to ask some questions,” I said, pulling the van into the field and bringing it to a stop.
The man had to have noticed us, but he didn’t acknowledge us as Margot, Norflo and I exited the van and approached. He kept at his task, robotically moving from one flower to the next. He looked like he’d led a difficult life, or was very old—perhaps both. His skin had the same leathered look as my parents’, but it was darker and much more wrinkled. His hair was a mix of bleached blond and white, with a large tuft missing over his right ear. As we came closer, he watched us with a side-eye, but kept on brushing.
I didn’t bother with an introduction. “What happened?” I asked.
He painted a few more dabs, then wiped his brow. The air was warm, and the fire burning nearby added to the heat.
“He can’t afford to answer you,” Norflo whispered in my ear. He and Margot stood on either side of me. Saretha and Mira watched from the van.
“Is that true?” I asked. “You can’t afford to speak?”
He stopped. He held out his Cuff the way people do when they want you to pay for their speaks. In return, I showed him my blank forearm. He didn’t look. He kept his eyes on his chore.
I took a nervous look around. We wouldn’t go unnoticed for long.
“We can remove your Cuff,” I said. Margot had a little blue teardrop device out. Kel must have given her a new one because Henri’s was lost—with him. Sorrow washed through me.
The man shied away, putting his body between us and his Cuff. His Cuff was different than I was used to seeing—it was larger and held a long container full of pollen.
He bent down and wiped a hand in the dirt. It seemed like a meaningful gesture, but I couldn’t work out what it meant. He made sure to hold his Cuff out, away from his body. He kept his head up, looking at the flowers, but scratched at the soil.
“Might have lost his mind,” Norflo whispered.
“No,” I whispered back.
The man went back to painting flowers. At his feet was an arrow. He’d drawn an arrow in the dirt. He’d used his finger and made the mark, and beneath it, he’d written a letter T. This was more frightening to me than any words he could have spoken. Even children weren’t allowed to do this—though they occasionally would, often when they were too young to understand. They were badly punished for it. When Sam was five, he was beaten for it. As Mrs. Harris lashed him with a belt, she coldly explained that writing words, symbols or marks like this simply wasn’t allowed. The Rights Holders had money to collect.
Despite the fear they’d instilled in us, I’d known for a long time that such a thing was possible. You didn’t technically need paper or a pen to write. But in the Onzième—in the entire dome of Portland—there was no place for it. The plastics they used to print buildings weren’t always great, but you couldn’t easily scratch a message into them. Sam had only managed because he’d made shapes out of crumbs from a stale UltraGrain Harvest™ Bar.
It took a minute longer for my brain to realize what the old man was communicating. He casually brushed the arrow and the T away with a foot as he moved down the row to the next tangle of vines. He’d been careful not to look at his message, or its erasure, so his ocular implants wouldn’t pick up on what he’d done. The arrow clearly meant something, but what? I followed the line of it, but all I saw was a break in a line of trees at the edge of the field. I needed more.
“What does the T mean?” I pleaded. He turned and stared blankly into the distance. He made no sound and no gesture. He glanced for a moment at his brush and then away. I looked down at it, too. It rested in his shaking hand, casually, not in any way you could describe as significant, but it was pointing right at my heart.
“I’m looking for my parents,” I told him. No answer, of course. “Do you know them? The Jimes?”
A little smile appeared. He knew them. He flipped the brush around, so it pointed to him, but then stepped out of the way so it was pointing at precisely the same angle as the arrow he had drawn. This was no accident.
“Did they escape? Did they go that way?”
He nodded so slightly I would have missed it if I hadn’t been watching so carefully.
That made no sense. If my parents had escaped, they would head to Portland. They’d do exactly what we had done, but in reverse. They would try to rescue us. They would come for Saretha and me. Wouldn’t they?
“8391.” A voice spoke urgently through his Cuff. Margot and I jumped, but the man seemed unsurprised. “Have Indentureds returned to your location?”
A pause.
“We will pay for your response,” the voice added.
He licked his lips and twitched a smile.
“Haven’t seem ’em in two weeks,” he said. “Not since that OiO™ revolt where everyone escaped.”
He lingered on the word escaped, like he loved the taste of it in his mouth.
His Cuff buzzed with the cost and its transfer. Then an InstaSuit™ popped up for his “overarticulated response.” Five hundred dollars. He laughed to himself.
“8391, please limit response to necessary communication,” the voice reprimanded. “Are you alone?”
“Who?” he asked.
“Are you alone?” the voice repeated irritably.
The man paused, thinking. I realized he was stalling. He hadn’t looked at us purposely, so they wouldn’t see us on his feed. His Cuff, though, must have registered talk in the area. He was stalling so we could get away.
“Alone,” he said, looking contemplative. “No one’s helped me since everyone ran.”
“We are proceeding to your location. Do not move!”
Margot tugged at my arm, and the three of us broke into a run for the van. They were going to figure out we were here, if they hadn’t already. I climbed inside and started the engine.
“What did you find out?” Saretha asked.
I put the van in gear, seeing a route between two rows of differing crops. It was in the same direction as the man’s arrow. “We’re heading that way,” I said, pointing.
“To what?” Norflo asked.
I thought of the T and the only thing it could mean.
“Téjico,” I said.
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I pulled us into the field, following a long set of tracks on the ground and a trail of crushed, unripened fruit. I couldn’t tell how many vehicles had driven through, but it was definitely more than a few. In some spots there were footprints, like the ruts had been examined, or maybe there was a struggle. I didn’t know how to read them, only that sometimes on crime shows they could see things in the tracks people left behind. I was left with the distinct impression the Indentureds had been pursued.
“If our parents escaped, do you think they went home?” Saretha asked. I had to think for a moment to realize that she meant Portland.
“Nah, man pointed to Téjico.” Norflo said the name as if that other country would
magically provide answers to everything. I understood how he felt, and I wanted to share that feeling, but my heart was uneasy. If my parents were in Téjico, how would we ever find them?
We had to trust that the old man’s arrow would lead us toward something better. My parents had come this way, I felt sure. I prayed we could pick up their trail.
“I don’t understand,” Saretha said. “Why aren’t they looking for us? Why wouldn’t they go home?” Her voice was pleading. She felt like we’d been abandoned and left behind.
Margot gave her an uncharacteristic bit of comfort by putting a hand on Saretha’s back. I didn’t have an answer for her, so I just said, “We can’t be disappointed until we know what happened. We don’t know that they had a choice.”
Margot sighed, like I’d made her sadder.
Dirt and caked mud scattered out across the pavement where they had escaped. I turned the van to follow, no doubt leaving our own trail of dirt behind. The soil thinned as I followed the path. Soon it became little more than an occasional dirt clod. Then nothing.
“Maybe they knew?” Norflo said. “Maybe they felt the same pull?”
Margot silently fumed for a time before finally bursting out, “Téjico is not pulling us.” I could feel angry heat radiating from her. I knew she was devastated by the loss of Henri, but something else was stewing inside her. Part of me wanted to remind her I’d lost Henri, too, and my brother. I’d expected my parents to be at Crab Creek, only to find them missing. How did she think that felt? But I couldn’t think of a way to say those things that didn’t feel petty and awful.
“Following the direction of that old man’s arrow is our only real choice,” I said.
“Yes,” Margot said. “That is my point. Téjico is not drawing us toward it. We simply have no options.”
“Téjico’s an option,” Norflo insisted.
“Is there somewhere else we could go?” Mira asked, her voice a little afraid.
“You’re gonna like Téjico,” Norflo assured her.
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