Outcast: A Corporation Novel (The Corporation)

by RaeLynn Fry

  He certainly does ask the right questions the first time around. “I got this sickness, the altered Mark I got in the Black Market was faulty, it was breaking down my body. Apparently, faulty Marks were created by the Corporation as a way of stopping citizens who could potentially cause issues for them.”

  “Ouch, that’s harsh.”

  “Tell me about it, I almost died. If it wasn't for someone in Dahn who gave us the remedy, I would have. I got better, and then everything was different.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “I don't know, really. But to be honest, I have no idea where to even start.”

  “I think you should start where it all began. With where you got the faulty Mark.”

  “Bak?” That was genius, but not an option. “He's not here. It was a set up. He's in the Inner City.

  “Is he?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you checked?”

  “I don't need to, he's not there.”

  “Have you checked?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then we will. Tonight.”

  “It's pointless, he won't be there.”

  “Then there's no harm in checking.”

  “There's a lot of harm in checking.”

  “You want answers?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “He's the only one that has them.”

  Adami is right. “You're not going with me.”

  “Of course I am going with you. I'm done staying in this room. Plus, I need to work out my legs they've shrunk to an embarrassing level.”

  “Lies. Eta said your body’s muscle retention was remarkable.”

  I think it over. Company would be nice. Especially in that part of Neech. The Black Market would have moved, but Bak did live there. It was worth a shot. “Fine,” I finally say. “But you have to do what I say no matter what.”

  “Hey, I'm just along for the ride. Let's get started.”

  There’s a knock at the door and I hear Papa’s footsteps continue on down the hall. Time to get to bed. “Not tonight. It's late and you've only just woken up. You need a bit more of your strength back before I risk my safety taking you anywhere.” I smile a little.

  “Ouch,” he says, then smiles, too. “But true. You've got yourself a deal, Karis.”

  “Good. Now, sleep.”

  He settles down into the mattress. “When?”

  “Soon. Goodnight.”

  Ethan

  We've been walking for the better part of a couple of hours, and I hate to admit it, but my cushy life in Dahn, has made me soft. I'm ready for a rest and we haven't walked for more than a few hours total. Dhevan hasn’t really said much to me, as far as conversation goes. Which I wouldn’t mind, normally, except that leaves me with only Raj as an alternate.

  The muscles in the arch of my foot begin to cramp. I try to push through it, but eventually my gait takes on a shuffle. Then a hobble. Then a limp. I look over my shoulder, somewhat awkwardly. Neech looks like a scale model. I turn around and stop walking, not missing that Dhevan and Raj continue on. I cock my foot to try and release the cramp, measuring the height of the city between my thumb and forefinger while squinting one of my eyes. It's about a few inches. Walking the amount of distance to make the city that small deserves a rest, in my opinion.

  “Oy, Dhevan!” I holler as I turn back around. He keeps walking. “Dhevan!” I refuse to run to catch up, but I do pick up my pace, only because the cramp has lessened.

  “What?” Dhevan says.

  “We need a rest.”

  “No, we don't.

  “Alright, fine. I need a rest.” Guess Dhevan isn't much of one to help keep a fellow man's pride intact. I hate to ask for it, but it’s getting near impossible for me to continue. Why couldn’t Raj have wimped out first?

  “So rest. Raj and I will keep going.”

  Raj smirks a bit. A bug has obviously crawled up his nose and died—or some other equally horrid event. He’s being meaner than normal.

  “While you two continue on?” I say.

  “You’re the one who kept insisting we put as much ground between us and the cities as possible. Besides,” he pats the water containers hanging at his side, “I'll be fine.”

  “Man alive,” I swear under my breath. “You'd leave me here? What is wrong with you?” He can’t possibly, actually, hate me that much.

  “Yes, I would leave you here. Stopping when we don't absolutely have to wastes time. Time wasted is a delay in our journey. A delay in our journey is more time away from my Pair.”

  I can't help but snigger a little bit. “A delay in your journey is time away from your Journey.” I don't know why it's funny. Apparently, neither does Dhevan. Raj finds it somewhat amusing with a quiet-ish snort.

  Dhevan whirls on me, his face hard and impassive, like it gets when he has to slaughter one of his cows. “We can't afford to stop, Ethan. We need to find shelter and resources.”

  “But look, Dhevan, we've already come a long way.” I turn away and sweep my arm across the Further to show him how far behind us Neech is. But I can't. “It's gone,” I say.

  “What's gone?”

  “Neech.”

  “That's impossible. We've just gone farther than you thought and it's so small it's barely noticeable. Especially in the dark.”

  I shake my head. “No. I just saw it. It was this big.” I hold up the space between my fingers. “I walked a few more yards, turned around, and now it's gone. An entire city can't just disappear in three yards.”

  Dhevan’s quiet. “I guess we haven't walked so far that Neech would be completely out of sight.”

  I roll my eyes and look up towards the cloudless sky. Something catches my eye amongst the stars. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” Dhevan and Raj's gaze follow mine.

  “Up there, in the sky. It looked like a spark.”

  He raises his brows in doubt. “A spark? In the sky?”

  “There it is again.” My hand shoots up into the air as I point in the general direction of where I saw the strange light.

  “I don't see anything, Ethan. C'mon. Let's get moving.” As he turns to go, he stops, squinting his eyes. “I think…”

  “No, he’s right,” Raj says. He’s chosen the right time to start speaking again. “I saw it, too.”

  Another spark ignites in the sky. “See!” I all but shout.

  “Yeah, I saw it.”

  Then another pops. And another. Before we know it, a dozen sparks explode in the dark sky. We throw our arms over our heads, to protect us from what, I'm not sure. Then, the strangest thing happens. The air in front of us starts to jerk in and out, like bad reception on a databoard. And for a second, Neech is visible again. Then it's gone, the sparks along with it.

  “Did you see that?” I ask.

  “What is it?” Dhevan says.

  “I don't know, but when it happened, we could see Neech. Which means, there's something hiding it from us.”

  “But what? I don’t see anything.”

  “Exactly.” I start to walk forward with slow, deliberate steps.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Raj asks, irritably.

  “What are you doing?” Dhevan stands his ground. “Stop messing around.”

  “I'm not messing around; I'm investigating.” I stretch my arms out in front of me and feel the air as I walk. I can't be sure, but I'm fairly confident I feel something there. It seems thicker, if that’s even possible. “Come here,” I say over my shoulder.

  Dhevan sighs, but he comes. Raj follows. They stand, one on each side, their shoulders next to mine. In a voice that lets me know he's irritated, Dhevan says, “What?”

  “Do you feel this?”

  “No.” His voice is deadpanned.

  “Stick your arms out, like this.” I grab his right arm and stick it out. He jerks it free and scowls at me.

  “I'm capable of doing it myself.”

  “What is it about me that b
rings out the worst in you?” I ask, shaking my head.

  “What am I supposed to be feeling here, Ethan?”

  “Don't think you’re getting out of that conversation. I'm here to stay, so we'll have to have it one of these days.”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “My arms are getting tired,” Raj says.

  “What you're supposed to be feeling, my friend, is a slight heaviness in the air.” To my surprise, he doesn't give me one of the looks he's been so fond of lately. Instead, he furrows his brow in concentration.

  “Yeah, I think I do.” He runs his hand up and down in the air.

  “I feel it too. What do you think it is?” Raj is running his hands to the left and right, stretching out to see how far he can feel this strange sensation.

  I shrug my shoulders. “I'm not sure. Whatever it is, I think it's cloaking Neech from us.”

  “But why?”

  “The Corporation obviously doesn't want anyone out here to know the cities exist. I guess they don’t want us to see what’s really out in the Further, either.”

  “For protection or to keep us caged?” Dhevan brings up a good question.

  “You're so sure it's them?” Raj says.

  “Of course it's them. Who else could it be?”

  “It's about the same distance out as the end of the Biodome, wouldn't you say?” Dhevan says.

  “Good catch.” I nod my head. “So the Biodome isn't a Biodome at all, then? It's a shield of some kind that keeps Neech and Dhan invisible to the rest of the world?”

  “Maybe it is a Biodome and it keeps us from seeing what's really out here in the Further.” Raj offers. As much as I despise his presence and don’t trust him in the slightest, he’s a thinker.

  “I'll go back in,” Dhevan says. “You stay out here. Let’s test the theory.” He takes a step forward and begins walking sideways.

  “What are you doing?” I say. “I thought you wanted to go back in?”

  “I'm trying,” Dhevan says with a growl. “It's not letting me. It’s pushing me back.”

  “That's ridiculous,” I say, walking forward. But he's right, it's not letting us back in, it's pushing us around. Kind of like a pair of same-sided magnets. “Come here, I want to try something.” Dhevan's back at my side. “I want to see how this reacts to us; if it's designed to not only hide the cities from us, but also to keep us out.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Raj asks.

  I walk back a yard or so and wait for my companions to join me, Dhevan on my right, Raj on my left. “Walk in as straight of a line as you can until I say stop.”

  We move forward, ignoring each other as much as possible as we walk our lines. I pay particularly close attention to my feet and where they land. I'm proud of myself. I haven't deviated from my straight line, and I haven't noticed anything especially strange about the film in the air that we noticed earlier.

  “Okay, stop.” I look up, expecting to see Dhevan no more than a couple of feet away from me, but he's more like thirty or so yards in the distance to my right, and he's not whole. Parts of him aren’t visible. From his knee to his hip is missing on his right leg and he looks much thinner than normal. “I thought I told you to walk in a straight line?” I yell over to him.

  “I did,” he shouts back.

  “Obviously the giant has lumbered along the wrong straight line,” Raj says.

  “Ever stop to think that maybe you were the one walking crooked?” Dhevan hollers.

  “Not possible. Walk back. Same thing—straight line.”

  This time, we watch each other as we move. Sure enough, it doesn’t look as if either of us has detoured from our designated straight lines, but the barrier protecting the cities is pushing us away. It's so subtle, I don’t even notice it happening.

  I keep an eye on Dhevan’s missing leg, and while we merge back together, it becomes visible again. When we’re back to where we started, I say, “Who knows how many people have passed us by without even knowing we were there?”

  “Which makes me wonder how the Untouchable found us.”

  “An Untouchable found the cities?” Raj says with surprise.

  “And how he got in. This barrier seems to be one way—you can leave, but you can't get back in.”

  There's a moment of silence. “Which means we don't exactly have a simple, clean way of getting back home, do we?” Dhevan says.

  That thought hit me only seconds before. “I'm working on it,” I say, thinking of Karis. There's no way I'm never not going to see her again.

  “What Untouchable?” Raj is aggravated we’re ignoring him. “There’s an Untouchable in Neech?” I can see something being mulled over in his brain, it shines bright through his eyes. “And you didn’t tell the Corporation? How easily you flip sides.”

  “Drop it Raj, it doesn’t concern you.” He shuts his mouth with a smug smile. My words may have silenced him for now, but I can tell he’s not going to forget this.

  “Maybe it has something to do with our Marks,” Dhevan says, staring down at his arm.

  “Maybe, but then, why haven't other Untouchables found their way in? I would think that the Corporation would want to keep them out, not let them in.”

  “Maybe this one was actually looking for us and knew something we didn’t about getting in.” Dhevan turns around and starts walking again. “C'mon,” he says. “We need to keep moving, make up for lost time.”

  I fall into line after Raj and Dhevan, thinking of what this new information means for us, and trying to think like my father to know what the truth of it really is.

  Day six

  Karis

  I hardly slept last night. I tried a thousand different ways to shut my mind off, to drown it in darkness and sleep, but no matter how hard I tried to think of nothing, my mind was filled with everything. It kept going and going and wouldn't keep still.

  Adami is awake.

  He's going to help me.

  I have an ally in him that I never had in Ethan.

  He's actually encouraging me.

  Over and over again, like a loop.

  I leave the house before Papa even made it downstairs. I'm so anxious and excited I don't have the stomach to eat any breakfast, only a few gulps of strong black coffee. I'm out the door and on the streets, putting my mask and duster on in the process, with only the stars for company.

  I don’t wait for Journey this morning. I’m still too upset with her taking Ethan’s side. She made me look like a completely unreasonable person last night at dinner. It's like I don't know who anyone is anymore. Since Ethan left, the day before yesterday, Papa's been trying to talk to me about Ethan's choice, telling me he did it for all of us and that I needed to not think too harshly of his decision. I understand that, but he still chose to tell everyone but me.

  A cold rain has started. I hug my arms around my middle, trying to stay warm. It's funny how when the air is wet around you, it suddenly seems so much colder, to the bone, and getting warm again feels near impossible.

  I hurry to the factory, the doors will be open. I need to be doing something to pass the time until I get to go home and talk more with Adami about our plan. I don't pay attention to anything around me; I'm careless and sloppy, not worrying about Guards. Finally, I'll be getting answers! I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

  The Factory is empty, but the lights are on. Granted, it's the bare minimum. The machines sit like dark beasts, lurking in the shadows. My footsteps echo through the empty space, clipping off the walls and into the ceilings, disappearing up into the rafters. There's not another soul in sight. I'm here about an hour earlier than the earliest person.

  I push through the old double doors and listen to them creak on their rusty hinges, they pass each other with a raspy whisper. The inner sanctum is empty, as well. I didn't expect it to be any other way. The foreman's office is black, the door closed. A path is cleared through the dusty floor, created by shuffling feet. It goes in a stra
ight line, deviating only to other sewing stations.

  At least one pane in each of the big three by four paned windows is broken out. They line the south wall of the factory, four tall. Broken panes in the lower windows have been cleared of shattered glass and covered by cardboard or plastic. But the windows that are higher, those panes are dressed with shards and no coverings, letting in the crisp fall air.

  The windows offer some light, but it's filtered by years of a dirty film of who knows what. The air is stale and has an oily tinge to it from the factory's old life, whatever that was. When bodies fill the building, the smell only gets more pungent, mixing with the sweat and salt of workers.

  I sit in my chair, the bin in the center of our circle as full as it was the day before. On the side of my seat is a pouch which holds my thread, needles, scissors, and various other sewing items I might need.

  I take a man's shirt and lay it in my lap. I grab my pack of needles and choose one, threading some gray thread through the eye. I snap off a good length with my teeth, tying a knot in the end. In another pouch on the other side of my chair, is an assortment of buttons. I find one that matches close enough and start to sew.

  Almost immediately, I lose myself in the monotony that my job brings. In and out, in and out, in and out. If only life were this simple and mundane. I finish the shirt and grab another garment from the bin. I work fast and efficient. It's surprisingly easy to do when I'm not surrounded by gossiping, clucking hens. I smile to myself. By the time the first of my sewing circle group members shows up, I will have already done around two dozen items.

  Aaral is the first to show up. “Karis, what are you doing here so early?”

  “Couldn't sleep.” I don’t look up when I say it. “Good morning.” I keep sewing. If I stop, I’ll think only of what Adami and I plan to do tonight, and then the day will drag on.

  Ami comes in next, but besides the brief pause she gives, she doesn't act like this is unusual behavior. I appreciate that. “Morning, Karis,” she says.

  “Today marks two months that Ajna was chosen for a better life with the Corporation,” Devna says with an excited smile.