Reaping

by Makansi, K.

  “But I shouldn’t say I’m in a group, right?”

  “No. Then he’ll think you’re an Outsider, and he might send you off or call in some more Boss men to find out where the rest of the group is.”

  It shouldn’t surprise me how suspicious the Bosses are of the Outsiders. The massacre at the SRI that killed my sister wasn’t the only crime that’s been attributed to the Outsiders over the years; the Sector finds it convenient to blame mysterious and violent incidents on the Outsiders. With so much hatred directed their way through Sector propaganda, it’s easy to see why people are so afraid of them. Yet, from what Bear says, the fear seems even more pronounced on the Farms than it was in the city. Maybe the propaganda against the Outsiders has increased since I’ve been gone.

  Bear stops smudging charcoal around the edges of my eyes, and sits back to admire his handiwork.

  “You look nice,” he says. “Like the fancy ladies at the Solstice balls.”

  I shoot him a wry smile.

  “I’ve got dirt all over my face.”

  “Well, yes, but....”

  “Let’s hope no one else thinks I look like a socialite from Okaria.”

  “They won’t,” he says, and cracks a wide smile. “Not with that dirt on your face.”

  I push myself to my feet and look one last time at the drawing I did of Sam, as best I could remember him, his face wreathed with spring flowers and autumn leaves. I roll it up and drip a bit of melted wax from one of the few candles we stole from Normandy, and press the scroll closed. A seal, like from the ancient world. But unlike the ancients who used signet rings or cylinder seals, neither one of us want our identification known until the scroll is opened. So instead of pressing one of our fingers in the wax, we press it closed with a leaf. Once it’s unrolled, Rose will see the message Bear scrawled in the corner.

  Beaver Creek, midnight. A.B. The initials of his real name, Antoine Baier.

  “They’ll come,” he says, a hitch in his voice. “They were like family. They’ll come.”

  We walk around the edge of the cleared land, sticking to the shadows and trees. Just because our jackets help hide our thermal signature from drones, doesn’t mean the guards have gone blind. I’ll have to take off my jacket soon enough—of those who wander the Wilds, only Outsiders and Resistance fighters have heat-cloaking clothing, and I don’t want to be associated with either group. By the time the sun is fully up and we can see the stirrings of activity in the camp, we’ve found what looks to be a footpath that leads into the cleared plain of the Farm.

  “This is how some people get in and out,” Bear says. “Not many people know about it, though. You get outta le foret, you’ll see there’s a slit cut in the fence. Easy enough to push through.”

  “Do the Enforcers know about this?” I ask, wondering at the fact that this glaring oversight has gone uncorrected for so long. At my side, Bear shrugs.

  “Joral does. Maybe a few others. Some of them aren’t so bad. Just doing their job.”

  “Won’t they know I’m an intruder?”

  Bear laughs.

  “You aren’t gonna go in that way right now. That’s for tonight, when we go to meet Rose and Luis, if you can get the message through. Right now, you’re gonna go up through the pedestrian gate and ask real nice if you can talk to Joral. Like I said, as long as they don’t think you’re an Outsider, they’ll let you come and go as you please. Might even give you some food if you look desperate enough.”

  I stare at Bear, wondering if I’ve gone completely insane. I, Remy Alexander, daughter of Okaria’s Poet Laureate, member of an active “terrorist network”, escaped prisoner of the Sector, am going to walk right up to the gates of a Farm and ask to be let in. They better not recognize me.

  Bear leads me a little ways further through the trees. I take off my jacket and hand it to him, my heart pounding.

  “Remember, you're the last person they'll be expecting,” he says, a serious expression on his face. “I’ll be waiting.” I smile reassuringly, trying not to show how nervous I am. It feels like walking into the maw of a giant beast.

  “If I’m more than two hours—”

  “I lay low for twenty-four hours,” he interrupts. “If you’re still not back, I radio Normandy.”

  Taking a deep breath, I smile and nod.

  “You’ll be fine,” he says.

  I turn and walk off, tightening the shawl secured around my frizzy hair, trying not to touch my face for fear of smudging Bear’s makeup job. I jump down out of the undergrowth and onto the cleared path, checking quickly around me to see if guards are watching. I follow the little cleared path, wide enough for two to walk side-by-side, right up to the gate, where an Enforcer with bored eyes and a handheld Bolt greets me.

  “Name.”

  “Anna Renault.” My heart sounds like drumbeats in my chest. But the guard simply touches a few buttons on a plasma in front of him without looking at me.

  “Passing through or visiting?”

  “Passing.”

  “Okarian citizen?”

  “No.”

  “Any affiliations?” He wants to know if I’m with the Outsiders, like someone would just announce that.

  “Brother working on Farm Eight as of three months ago.”

  “Is that who you’re visiting?”

  “Non. My mari and I live fifty kilometers on the other side.”

  He nods.

  “Who are you here to see?”

  “I hope to speak with Joral.”

  The Enforcer nods and then speaks into his headset. “Some woman from the Wilds named Anna Renault here to speak to Joral.” He keeps looking at me. “Yes. Okay,” he says into the handset. “Stay right on the main path until you reach Outpost One. He’s stationed near there. Go on, and be quick. He hasn’t got all day.” He gestures half-heartedly toward the Farm as the gate opens and I exhale an enormous breath that carries my tense shoulders down with it.

  Inside the gate, a female Enforcer presses her hands up and down my sides, checking for weapons. They’ll allow small knives through, he said, but nothing more sophisticated.

  “Saw an Outsider shot on sight for carrying a crossbow,” he had said as though it were an everyday occurrence.

  “How did you know it was an Outsider?”

  “Carried a crossbow. Only Outsiders have crossbows, or bows. Least ways that’s what I was always told.”

  I hung a skinning knife on my belt when I was dressing this morning, thinking it would be more suspicious if I didn’t have one, as they’d wonder why a lone woman was traveling the woods unarmed. But it doesn’t make me feel any safer as the female Enforcer lets me through to face the vast, open swath of the Farm.

  “Make sure you sign out at the gate when you're done with your business,” she says.

  I nod and head into the heart of the Farm. Laid out in red brick, like the garden at my parents’ home in Okaria, the main path is lined with dormant strawberry patches, interwoven with sage, rosemary, parsley, bay, and some varieties of sprouting spring greens. A tiny creek, an irrigation channel, flows alongside the path I walk. A budding orchard peeks up over the hill to my left.

  I keep my head up and focus on the task at hand. I try to remember what Bear said about Joral. Stark grey hair, enormous nose. I watch for any sign of someone by that description. But as far as I can see, the land is empty.

  Past the strawberries and herbs, I turn right at a fork and come across some workers training growing vines to wooden stakes. I make eye contact with a girl about my size. She straightens, watching me. Her expression is unreadable and unnerving, and I try to ignore her gaze as I pass by.

  I marvel at the sheer size and scope of the Farms. It looked big from far away, but it’s positively huge now that I’m walking through it. I’d never quite thought about how big the Farms must be in order to provide food for the entire population of Okaria. The brick path I’m on has branched out several times, and every time I’ve diligently kept along the ri
ght-side path. Even though Bear tried to orient me to the layout, it seems much more expansive than I thought. I can see a field of marshy ground that looked like rice paddies, wide-open wheat fields and wildflowers for honeybees, countless nut and fruit trees, an olive grove, and a vineyard, terraced into the side of a steep hill, and at least fifty different types of vegetable plants I couldn’t begin to identify.

  Just when I’m beginning to despair of ever finding the first outpost, thinking that I’d somehow missed it or made a wrong turn, I spot a few structures in the distance. As I get closer, they turn into little houses, scattered seemingly at random, interspersed with wild grasses and big trees. And there—I recognize that larger building. That’s the Dietician’s lab that Bear showed me last night. I turn up towards my right, and sure enough, the forest here bends around much closer to the cleared land. I put my hand over my eyes for shade and study the landscape. I can see the ridge where Bear and I were perched, staring around at the terrain below with our binoculars.

  One last right turn along the path and see him. Joral, in a green Enforcer’s uniform, standing, arms crossed, in front of a small, nondescript building.

  “Tu es Joral, s’il te plait?” Please, are you Joral?

  “I am,” he says gruffly, not bothering with French. From Okaria, then, I think, trying to get a sense of him. A fair few Okarians from the capital don’t bother learning the Old French, considering it beneath them. Who needs it anymore? they ask. Everyone in Okaria speaks Modern Sector English. “Are you Anna? What do you want?”

  “Do you know Rose?” I ask. Bear told me it would be safer if I asked for the girl—that way no one would suspect any romantic attachment, which would be sure to get me thrown out.

  “I do,” he responds. “You passing through?”

  “Yes, but I’ve got a mes—something for her,” I say, chiding myself. “A gift. I’d like to give it to her.”

  “How do you know Rose?”

  “Met her last time I passed through, walking along the perimeter. I'd fallen in a gopher hole, twisted my ankle. She told me about a doctor that comes around sometimes, and I want to thank her.”

  “You come here often?”

  “No. Sometimes.”

  “You looking for a home? You like it here? You’re welcome to stay. We’ll give you a proper bed, and food, and all.” I smile, remembering what Bear said. He’ll try to convince you to stay on the Farm.

  “Got a man waiting for me on the other side,” I respond. “Mon mari.” My husband.

  “Ah,” he says, chewing at the side of his mouth, eyeing me thoughtfully. His hair sticks up as though he’s been electrocuted. Bear was right, his nose dominates his face. It almost makes him look less threatening, despite the suspicious frown.

  “All right,” he says, at length. “What have you got for her?”

  “Promise me you’ll give it to her.”

  “I’ll promise when I see what it is.”

  I hesitate, trying to look afraid and unsure. From the pocket of my sweater I pull out the rolled piece of paper. He gasps audibly.

  “Where’d you get paper like that?” he asks.

  “An old factory out in the Wilds. Way south.”

  “Hmm.” He looks intrigued, but doesn’t say more.

  “You'll give it to her?”

  “Don't see any harm in it.”

  Thank you,” I say, handing the scroll to him. I also take a piece of chocolate and hold it out as an offering. “Please make sure Rose gets this. She was kind to me and it’s very important that I give her something in return. And please take this, for your trouble.”

  Still gnawing at the inside of his lip, his eyebrows shoot up when he sees the bite of chocolate. He nods his thanks, takes the paper from my hands, and turns away from me, sauntering off between the little houses. I stare after him, before I turn to leave, releasing the tension in my chest with a slow breath.

  Now, all we can do is wait.

  12 - REMY

  Spring 5, Sector Annum 106, 23h30

  Gregorian Calendar: March 24

  Bear and I inch down through the trees, trying not to stumble along the steep ridge in the darkness. Infrared contacts are very nice and all, but they’re nothing compared to good old sunlight when it comes to avoiding large roots that threaten to send you headlong into a thorny briar.

  At the fence line, Bear shows me the slit through the mesh fence. What could have been strong enough to cut through these fibers? I don’t know much about material science, but this is the same fencing that guards the perimeters to several of the Seed Banks. Eli told me once it would take a laser or synthetic diamond to get through it. Doesn’t seem likely any Farm workers would have access to tech like that. Outsiders? I wonder. Or someone on the Farm or from the Sector interested in helping the workers?

  Or both? I think, remembering Chan-Yu.

  We slip through and Bear leads me through the Farm at a light jog, his movements those of someone who's been over this ground a thousand times. I quiet the stream of questions in my head, and focus on keeping my breathing quiet and my heart rate low.

  When I see a run of cattails and reeds up ahead and hear the rushing water of a nearby creek, Bear pulls up short and drops to a crouch.

  “Welcome to Beaver Creek. See anyone?” he asks. I shake my head in response. I check my watch. It’s fifteen minutes before midnight. Plenty of time.

  We wait, as patiently as we can. I hope against hope Joral passed on the message, and we’ll be met by Bear’s old friends and not a group of Sector soldiers ready to take me back to the capital for more of Philip Orleán’s “fresh figs.”

  After a few minutes, dim splashes of color appear in the distance. Heat signatures. As the figures draw closer, they crystallize into the forms of a man and a woman.

  “It’s them!” Bear whispers, making to leap up, to signal to them, but I push a hand into his shoulder. Not yet.

  Soon enough, they’re not even ten meters away, and I can feel Bear trembling at my side. I can make out their faces from here: the man's short, snub nose and deep-set eyes, the woman's delicate, narrow bones. I keep my eyes on the surroundings, reminding myself that this could still be a trap, that soldiers could be hidden in the surrounding brush waiting for us to give ourselves away.

  “Rose!” Bear squeaks, and the two workers jerk their heads around towards us, and Bear jumps up and almost leaps at them, hugging them both, letting out hushed cries of happiness. As far as I can tell, there’s no one else with them.

  “J’ai pense que tu etait mort,” Luis says, in a rich baritone.

  “Est si bon de te voir, friend,” Rose says, the words tumbling out in a mix of Old French and North American, as they embrace yet again, exchanging kisses on both cheeks and with smiles to rival Eli’s at the best of times. I can’t keep up with the language—I barely know what they’re saying. I smile nervously and stand off to the side, suddenly aware of how Bear must have felt these last few months, constantly surrounded by strangers, in over his head in a new world.

  “Qui est ta amie?” Rose says, coming over to me and kissing me on both cheeks. My heart seems to sigh in relief as I realize they haven’t recognized me—that Bear and I have time to frame our story, to tell it how we want, instead of facing a barrage of questions about why I’m here on the Farms and where I’ve been for the last three years.

  “This is Remy,” Bear says, going on in American English, smiling at me brightly so I know the linguistic switch is for my benefit. “She’s my friend from the Re—”

  “From the Wilds,” I say, cutting Bear off. I don’t want either of us to associate ourselves with the Resistance before we know where these two stand. They may be Bear’s friends, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be friends of the Resistance. “Bear and I are traveling together.”

  “Why’d you come back?” Rose asks Bear.

  “Why’d you leave?” Luis demands. “When we saw your initials on that drawing….”

  “And whe
re’s Sam?”

  Bear bows his head. A chill runs through my bones that I know has more to do with the knife I buried in Sam’s throat than the spring cold in the air.

  “Sam ... Sam is dead.”

  Another pause, an extended silence where I hold my breath and wait to see if my name will come into play in Bear’s retelling of this tale.

  “How? When?” Luis asks, finally.

  “It was my fault,” Bear says, after a moment of hesitation. “You both know what he was like before we left. You know he didn’t do much thinking by then. But we’d been out in the Wilds for the better part of a month, and met few kind words and fewer friendly faces that might help us on our way. I saw a nice boat out on a little river one night and thought we might steal it, get ourselves a nice little place to stay while I figured out what to do next. But there were two ... two folk from the Wilds on board, didn’t seem too happy about the prospect of us taking their boat.” Bear glances at me, and I bow my head, grateful to him for pardoning me of this crime. “We attacked first. Shouldn’t have done, but did anyway. Sam got a knife to the throat, and I….”

  Bear trails off, as though he can’t quite finish the story. Maybe he can’t, really, or maybe he just doesn’t want to say the end: I was taken prisoner by the people who murdered him, but I forgave them, and one of them is standing right next to me. Now I have joined with them in the Resistance, and that’s why we’re here.

  I don’t blame him for ending the story there. I’m not sure Rose and Luis are ready for that second part, yet. For that matter, I’m still grappling with how Sam’s story ended, and how Bear became one of us.

  Rose reaches for Bear’s hand. She pulls his fingers to her lips and kisses them, and then pulls him in for another hug. When she lets him go, I can see tears shining along her cheeks, but her voice is strong when she speaks.

  “Sam was dead long before that day, Bear. You were the best friend to him he could have asked for.”