Reaping

by Makansi, K.

  “The food supply?” They two glance at each other again and the woman says. “We haven’t eaten much since we left and I’d be glad for a MealPak. Especially for Violet. She strokes the little girl’s arm tenderly. “Our daughter is hungry. We’re all hungry.”

  “Hello, Violet,” I say, wishing I had a treat in my pocket to give her and at the same time thinking, That’s stupid, Vale, she’s not a puppy. “My name is Vale, and we’ve got some food in the airship that we’d be happy to share with you.” I give the little girl my best ‘don’t be afraid of me’ smile. She is adorable, and even under all the dirt, her eyes are bright and inquisitive.

  “I’m Elissa,” the woman says. “And this is my husband, Cal.”

  “Husband and wife? And yet, you’re wearing Farm garb. Since when do they allow official marriages on the Farms?” Soren says.

  “We done it ourselves,” Cal says. “Out here. Once we left.” He looked down at his wife.

  “How long ago did you leave?” I ask.

  “It’s been four days.”

  “No wonder you’re hungry.” I smile. “Come on, we’ve got plenty to share.”

  A half-hour later, we’re back up in the air and Violet is full and her shyness has disappeared. She’s giggling, and she and Jahnu are competing to see who can make the silliest faces. Aside from watching Jahnu with complete adoration, Kenzie’s been laughing so hard she actually got the hiccups. Once this mess is all over, if it ever ends, I can imagine them with a house full of kids.

  Firestone’s at the controls while Miah sits with Eli, Soren, and me as we share slices of bread and jam, prosciutto, and handfuls of freeze-dried berries and talk with Cal and Elissa.

  “What are they saying at the Farms?” Miah asks, unsurprisingly eager to hear what new and terrible things the Sector is saying about him.

  Cal glances at Soren and me, then turns to Miah. “All the broadcasts say you and your papa been the ones responsible for capturing all them people the last few years. That you helped the Outsiders with the massacre on the SRI il y a trois annees.” Three years ago, I translate. Now I am grateful to my parents for insisting I take Old French when I was at the Academy.

  Grateful to my parents? I shake my head, torn, as I always am, by alternating feelings of love and loathing.

  “Has anything changed, security-wise? Have they increased drone surveillance or the number of guards?” Soren asks.

  “Gotten a bit more relaxed, if anything,” Elissa says, her watchful eyes on her daughter. “Fewer drones, these days. Some of the guards have even been transferred from our Farm.”

  Eli raises his eyes in surprise. “Really? Do you have any idea why?”

  “I was sort of friendly with one of the Enforcers,” Cal says. “He left a few weeks ago. Said he was going into training to be with the SDF—Sector Defense Forces. Said it was a big type of promotion that a lot of the Enforcers were taking. More pay and privileges.”

  Fewer drones, these days. Guards transferring into the SDF. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together.

  “They’re diverting their resources,” I respond. “I’m just guessing here, but I’m sure they’ve figured, based on the Resistance’s past tactics, that the Farms aren’t a focus point, that there’s unlikely to be a threat there. And I’d be willing to bet they’re diverting the drones from perimeter security at the Farms and the towns and spreading them out through the Wilds, trying to find bases like Waterloo.”

  “Makes sense,” Miah said. “Remember what Philip said in his broadcast?”

  Kenzie looks up mid-hiccup. “We weren’t there, remember? We never heard the full replay.”

  Miah shrugs. “He said, ‘We are hot on the terrorists heels. We will track them down and hold them accountable for their crimes.’ Sounds like Vale’s guess isn’t far off.”

  “If they’re able to do what they did at Waterloo with even one or two more bases,” Soren says, “they’ll cut our numbers severely.”

  “We probably never were more than a thousand all told,” Eli says.

  “On the other hand,” I say, smiling a little, “if security at the Farms is lighter, Remy and Bear might have a shot at—”

  “At what?” Soren snaps. “We’re not going out to help Remy and Bear on a fool’s errand. We’re bringing them back so we can get on with the Director’s plan. Don’t think for a second about going along with this ridiculous scheme of hers.”

  Well, our brief moment of friendship was certainly short-lived. But, I remind myself, we don’t really know what Remy’s up to. She’s not stupid. We ought to at least give her a chance.

  Eli sits up straighter, focusing on Cal and Elissa.

  “Why did you leave?”

  “They was gonna take Violet,” Cal says, shaking his head as if still trying to wrap his mind around the idea. “Elissa and I, we want to be together—and we love our Violet. We named her ourselves.” He watches the little girl with so much tenderness, it almost hurts to watch. “When Elissa got pregnant, we were so happy. We petitioned to live in the same unit and everything, and they let us. We were good workers, never caused no one any trouble.”

  “Then Violet came along. She was a wonder,” Elissa says, watching the little girl, now tracing lines on Jahnu’s palms with Kenzie looking on. “We couldn’t stop looking at her. There’s lots of folks on the Farms don’t feel the bond with their babies. Not us.”

  “And she is smart. See it in every move. Just a month ago, some official from one of the quadrant schools came and said her tests were so good they wanted to take her away to a special school,” Cal says, continuing the story. “We didn’t want her to go, or else we wanted to go with her. So we both applied to transfer to Windy Pines, where her school was.”

  “Cal’s transfer was approved right away, I guess ‘cause he’s such a good worker, but mine got rejected,” Elissa says. “They said I wasn’t qualified to do the kind of work available. So I had to stay at the Farm.”

  Cal takes Elissa’s hand. “We told them we didn’t want to go if we couldn’t all go, but they said they were gonna take Violet anyway. That we had no choice. That it was the best for the whole Sector and that maybe some day she’d even go to the Academy in the capital. Well, we weren’t about to let our little girl go, so we decided to leave.”

  “So you just up and walked out?” Kenzie asks.

  “What else was we to do?” Elissa says. “There wasn’t no other choice.”

  “At first it was hard, cause we were all a bit sick after we left, although we’re feeling much better now. Just worn out, tired, is all. Hard to even get the energy to find something to eat.”

  “Besides that,” Elissa rubs her temples again, “my head’s been all muddled, like I can’t quite think straight.”

  “It’s the withdrawals,” Miah says. “I had a bad case. I got sick and just kept getting sicker. Hoo boy.Not fun.”

  “Withdrawals? What does this mean?” Cal asks.

  Eli expression is dark, his moods as unpredictable as the weather, and all too often just as dangerous. “When you stop eating your MealPaks, your body reacts to the absence of all the chemicals that had been flooding your system with every poisoned bite you ate.”

  “Poisoned?” Elissa whispers. “Surely, not poison! No one would do that. No one could do that … could they?”

  “It’s hard to explain, but it has to do with how the Sector was controlling your behavior by manipulating your diet. Now you need plenty of rest and some real food. There’s a Resistance outpost not too far out of our way. We’ll radio them, set down nearby, and they’ll send someone out to meet you.”

  “Will they let us stay together?” Cal asks.

  “No one in the Resistance would ever separate a child from his parents,” Eli growls.

  His. He’s not talking about Violet. He’s thinking about his own parents, how they disappeared after the hearings into the SRI massacre, remembering how he felt losing his mother and father so soon after the death
of the girl he’d fallen in love with. It’s no wonder he’s so close to the Alexander’s and so protective of Remy. No doubt hisparents’ disappearance was directed on my parents’ orders. I feel like I need to shower, scrub my skin raw to remove the stain of being an Orleán.

  “And they’ll help us there? Help keep Violet safe?” Cal persisted.

  Jahnu, usually so quiet it seems Kenzie does most of the talking for the both of them, speaks up. “As safe as possible.”

  “Is that where you are going? To this base?” Elissa asks.

  “No,” Eli’s face is stony when he responds. “We’re going to the Farms.”

  Seven hours later we’re headed north to Farm 10. After dropping Cal, Elissa and little Violet off as close as we dared to the nearest Resistance outpost and delivering an encrypted message both to the base and back to Normandy about getting the family the help they need, we headed back out to scout.

  Although we were able to get a good look at the area around Farm 12, we couldn’t get close to 11. So much for lax security. Clearly not all the Farms are diverting personnel to the effort against the Resistance. Farm 11 was crawling with OAC and Farm security personnel and equipment. Eli’s advance-warning wristband went from blinking blue to just staying on all the time, so even though we’re traveling with a drone blocker and the airship has good cloaking technology, we were afraid to get too close.

  Getting a look at the beefed up perimeter—even from a distance—reminded me of the brief exchange between Aulion and my parents just after my graduation ceremony, the day Miah and I graduated from the Sector Research Institute. I remember my mother mentioning the “troubling situation” at the Farms, but she didn’t say which one because I didn’t have an official security clearance yet. And at the time, I was much more interested in partying than anything else. After I took my position as head of the Seed Bank Protection Project, my concern was with the security at our installations. I had little knowledge of what went on at the Farms—that was Evander Sun-Zi’s area.

  As the Director of Agricultural Farm Production, and my father’s right-hand-man, Evander has one of the most powerful positions in the Okarian Sector. He oversees the Farms, ensures that the latest research coming out of OAC labs is implemented in the food production chain, and, most importantly, manages the Dieticians. Since the seed banks store and, in a few cases, actually produce the seeds using printers like the ones Eli wants to steal, they should fall under Evander’s purview as well. But when my father set up the Seed Bank Protection Project, he placed it under the military, so I reported to General Aulion instead of Evander. I don’t know who is worse, though. Aulion may be a snake, but Evander’s nickname is “The Dragon.” I never knew for sure where he got the moniker, but it sounds ominous enough.

  What is clear from reconnoitering around Farms 12 and 11 is that something’s going on that has the Sector worried. Jahnu’s take on the situation is intriguing, though.

  “What if Brinn and Gabriel’s work around the Farms was really beginning to have an effect? We know they worked primarily around Farms 9, 11, and 12, those on the Sector’s southernmost flank. What if people are being punished for asking questions? Or for taking action? Like Bear’s friend, Sam?”

  “It’s certainly something to consider,” Eli adds. “And it’s possible that the little food Brinn and Gabriel did give them made a difference.”

  “It could be that changing a person’s diet just slightly makes you less susceptible to the Dietician’s influence,” Kenzie says.

  “We need to talk to Rhinehouse and the Director. All of us just went cold turkey, and we all had various levels of withdrawal symptoms. I walked around in a fog for a month.”

  “And look at Miah,” Soren says. “He had a bad case of withdrawal symptoms.”

  “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 posi
tive 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.