by Carol Riggs
Throwing another look toward the dairy unit, I take note that he’s still talking. He checked on me a few minutes ago. If I’m going to do anything, this is the time. A buzz begins inside my head as an idea forms.
Manure. Oh, yeah.
I tug off my overboots, slip into my regular boots, and switch the cart into hover mode to guide it to the manure receptacle outside. Yes…yes, I have a massively genius idea for my final rebellion. One big act of defiance will be much better than a handful of weak ones over the next four days.
Instead of setting the cart to tilt and dump, I snatch up a nearby eighteen-liter bucket and fill it with manure. Before I can lose my nerve, I dash into the field and run behind a line of trees. With the bucket of rank goo bumping into my leg, my right arm muscles straining, I thrash through the fields. When I intersect the main road, I check for UHVs. There’s one emerging from the dwelling compound, so I crouch behind a bush.
Did the driver see me? My lungs work hard to recover from my awkward run. I wait. Seconds stretch out.
The UHV passes, heading south toward zone center.
On the move again, I hustle toward the commander’s dead-end street. In one yard, a man unloads flour bins from his UHV into his unit. I rush past before he comes back outside. I head down another street and reach Farrow’s dwelling, glad it looks vacant. I peek in the side window of the docking hangar to verify the sleek black UHV is gone.
Yes. Perfect.
I step up to the front door, scoop a gloved hand into the bucket, and splat a slimy streak of manure across the stark white surface. I swipe again to create an X.
Disgusting, yet appropriate. I try the door. Locked, of course. I smear extra manure on the doorknob for good measure, and check for neighbors again. Seeing none, I lumber to the side gate, lift the latch, and hurry to a flowerbed ringed with large smooth stones near the patio. I pry up a stone and grab a patio chair cushion. Using the stone, I bash the narrow glass panel in the back door. I cringe even though the cushion muffles the sound. Hopefully everyone is working somewhere else, or my mischief will be short-lived.
I reach past the window shards and unlock the door. Inside the unit, I work fast. I smear kitchen counters, nooks, chairs, walls, and the couch with manure. I do the same to the furniture in an adjacent office.
Once my bucket is empty, I hurl it across the lounge room. It knocks over a lud-lamp. A frenzied zeal takes hold of me. This is my last stand, my final statement against everything the aliens have done to us. I tear across the room and up the stairs to the second level. Readers fly. Figurines of fledgers and rabbits scatter. Shirts end up in toilets and bathtubs. Drawer contents spray out across the room. Everything that isn’t fastened down or too heavy, I rip open, tip over, or fling helter-skelter.
I run back downstairs and pitch dishes across the kitchen. They smash into cupboards. I crunch across the shards into a huge pantry, and stop short. A yell bursts out from my mouth, a wounded animal noise that I barely recognize as my own. Half a dozen bins of broth powder line the top shelves. On the lower shelves next to canned carrots and corn, grayish globs float in jars, suspended like deformed pickles. My stomach heaves. Pieces of brains and hearts. The commander’s generous portion of the horde’s crop yield. His due as their Master.
Sucking in air, I grab broth bins and flush the powder down the toilet. I attack the jars next, hurling them across the room. Every single one of them, even the regular vegetables. Shattering glass and exploding liquids reverberate in my ears.
The noise is unimportant. I don’t care anymore.
They’ll know I’m the culprit when they find I’m missing from my mucking duties.
When I’ve emptied the shelves, I survey the disaster that used to be Commander Farrow’s unit. My hands go slack as my rage dwindles. I yank off my gloves and slap them onto the couch.
As tears begin to dry on my face, I walk through the laundry room and let myself out the side door of the docking hangar.
Chapter Twenty-One
I leave Farrow’s trashed unit behind. The streets around me are empty and quiet except for the trills of a few craybirds, but my fate is sealed. It’s only a matter of time before I’m thrown back into a detention cell. The next time I see Rachel or Tammi or any of my friends, it’ll be from a distance. I’ll be sitting in the stadium’s viewing area at my Testing.
Then I’ll be banished, and the minutes after my ceremony will be too short and traumatic for decent good-byes. I need a longer, better memory of Rachel and Tammi to get me through the days of banishment. What I should do is go see them right this minute. Primary students attend sessions most of the day, but they have a break from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. It must be around 3:00 now. I clench my hands, which still tremble from my rampage.
If I hustle to their exercise yard, I can see them. Hug them. Tell them I’m coming back for them.
Determination hardens inside me like cold metal. I spot a hoverbike docked in someone’s side yard, and jog over to it. Before I can change my mind, I swipe the bike and start riding. My legs pump toward zone center. My shirt flutters, my legs burn, my eyes water from my hoverspeed. The track propulsion whirs like ten thousand fiddlewings beneath me. I race along, spotting a frizzy-haired woman walking away from a transport stop. The hoverbus is already in motion again, gliding farther north along the main road.
The woman is Mrs. Wright, Leonard’s mother. She gapes at me and drops a pair of viyya shears as I whiz by. They clatter onto the pavement.
I keep pedaling down the main road. Tense, precious minutes whiz by. A shiny maroon UHV glides past me, heading the opposite direction, back toward the north dwellings. I swear through gritted teeth. That looked like Lieutenant Zemik’s vehicle. Hopefully he won’t guess where I’m going and find me later.
The tower clock gongs three times as I turn a corner and ride past the stadium at zone square. Only four blocks to go. The primary compound comes into view. I might be able to make it.
A gray UHV whirs up on my left, going fast. It passes and swerves to a stop in front of me a half block ahead, angled into my path. Rourke. I swear out loud and punch my reverse air thrusters. They whine as my speed ramps down. I’m about to veer around the vehicle when a sleek black UHV also pulls up on my left. I can’t go around Rourke now. Behind me, Zemik’s maroon vehicle appears and cuts me off to my right and to my rear.
I’m surrounded.
Rourke springs from his UHV. Commander Farrow glowers through his black vehicle’s front window. I ditch the hoverbike and leap over Zemik’s front bumper on his passenger side. Rourke chases me down the permawalk, our boots pounding.
He tackles me to the pavement. We go down hard, skin scraping off my arms as we hit. Faint children’s shouts and laughter reach my ears from the exercise yard.
“Got you, you little vermal,” Rourke says with a growl. He smashes my face into the pavement, wrestles my arms behind my back, and clicks restraint cuffs around my wrists.
Two pairs of polished black boots step into my line of vision.
“Good work, Rourke,” Lieutenant Zemik’s reedy voice says. “That makes up a bit for your pathetic lack in guarding the boy. I’ll cancel the high alert.”
“Get him out of here,” Farrow snaps. “After what he did to my unit, I don’t want to see his miserable face again until his ceremony.”
Ah, he’s already seen at least some of my handiwork. Perfect. He must’ve been near his dwelling unit this afternoon—I’m lucky I got to finish. I smother a delirious laugh as Rourke yanks me to my feet and pushes me toward his UHV. He shoves me inside like I’m a dangerous criminal, slamming the door afterward.
The next minute, I’m locked in and on my way to zone hub.
The desire to laugh fades. I won’t be able to see Rachel and Tammi now. Scorch that interfering telepathic system of these aliens. I bet that’s how they found me so fast. No doubt Rourke mind-reported to the horde that I was missing from my mucking duties. Add Zemik and Leonard’s mother to the equ
ation—and probably other aliens as well—and I didn’t have a chance.
When we arrive at the detention center, Rourke confiscates what’s in my pockets—Aubrie’s Spoken-For necklace, the entry device for my dwelling, and my seeder tool. I won’t need those things anymore. I’m in serious incarceration.
It’s not long before I’m sitting in another confinement cell, slouched against the wall. The light from the hall sheds sickly illumination into my prison, and casts shadows of the bars across the floor.
I thump the wall with my fist. This is where I’ll be staying for the next four days.
About an hour later, a door crashes open down the hall and Mom and Dad enter the cell area, glaring.
Confrontation time.
Mom speaks before she even reaches the cell. “Jay Lawton, how could you do such a horrible act of destruction? We didn’t raise you to perform like that.”
Perform. As though I’m some sort of trained primate. Gritting my teeth, I stay seated to keep them from seeing my shaking arms and legs. What can I use as an excuse for trashing Farrow’s place?
“Well, Commander Farrow had no right to tell Aubrie to break up with me,” I say.
“He had nothing to do with Aubrie breaking up with you, and you know it.”
“No, I don’t. First I get thrown in confinement for letting a few worrels loose, then he gives me a lecture about how he wonders if Aubrie will still want to be my girlfriend, and the next thing I know she’s breaking up with me. That’s pretty suspicious.”
“It was her idea, since she wanted nothing to do with your rebellion,” Dad says in his most reasonable voice. “You can’t blame her there.”
“Yeah, right.” I breathe with care. Right now I can’t scream and rage. I need to tone it down, play my part. As if I were the old Jay Lawton having a heated disagreement with his caring human parents.
Dad makes a terse noise. “It didn’t solve anything to demolish his unit.”
“Certainly not,” Mom says. “It didn’t help you get Aubrie back, did it?”
I glare. “No, but I feel a whole lot better after getting even with him. He ruined my life.”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Mom hisses. “And here I’ve been concerned about making stroganoff and greshfruit pie for your birthday. You ungrateful little—”
Dad places a firm hand on Mom’s arm. “Let’s not get overly emotional. What’s done is done. Jay, what we’re worried about is your Testing score. Since it won’t be as high, you probably won’t get a cloudskimmer, a UHV, or even a laser pistol. You’ll be lucky to clear fifty and earn a wristcomm.”
I blink, stung from Mom’s remark about stroganoff and pie, and stung even more from the reminder of how I was promised a flying vehicle. “I don’t need a flamin’ skimmer. The airship comes to Fort Hope every four to six weeks. I’ll wait for that.”
“This is ridiculous.” Mom studies me as though I’m the one with the alien lurking inside me. “It’s like you’re a completely different son.”
“I am, Mom,” I say, my voice hard and dry. “In the last two weeks I’ve learned my whole life has been a lie. For eighteen years I worked and didn’t take much time off to enjoy myself. I was stupid enough to think Aubrie would stay my girlfriend forever. I thought getting a high score at the ceremony was the most important thing in my life. But none of those things are true.”
Mom lets out a gurgled scream and spins away. She stalks back down the hall while Dad’s eyes lock with mine. His face is crumpled, slack as an empty grain bag.
He flinches as Mom slams the door around the corner. “I’m sorry, son. I truly wanted the best for you. I was so proud of you.”
I go still as stone for a few seconds. Was. Past tense. This fatherly alien was proud of me. What does that mean? It almost sounds like it’s more than a matter of tastiness and top quality horde nourishment. As if his regret goes beyond losing the honor of owning the human with the highest score in the history of the safe zones.
Images of him teaching me about helioball and hoverbikes and garden tillers tumble through my brain. There’s a wet glimmer in his eyes. But then I think of his real eyes, how black and unblinking they are, how they protrude on short stalks from the fur on his face. I think of how sharp his fanged teeth are, and shudder.
“Dad,” I whisper, not sure why I care what he thinks. He’s a heartless creature who plans to hack me up and eat me after my ceremony in a few days.
Lowering his gaze, my alien father gives an abrupt huff. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his work pants and walks with rapid steps away from my cell.
…
A layer of soap covers my hands. I slather it over my body, reveling in the heat of the shower adjacent to the confinement cells. After four days of not getting to wash, the water is bliss. Rourke exercised me in the racquetball court next to zone hub and fed me well, but showering wasn’t on the agenda until this evening.
My eighteenth birthday. The night of my ceremony.
I rinse, turn the water off, and shiver as air rushes over my skin. Grabbing a towel, I try to rub off the goose bumps. I had better be successful tonight. If killing Redmond and trashing Farrow’s unit don’t get me banished, nothing will. Those acts are as bad as or worse than Mick’s yard fire…although Mick did spend a whole lifetime being a jerk.
That isn’t a reassuring thought. Today I’ll find out whether I’ve done enough. The Machine will be the final judge.
“You finished yet?” Rourke calls through the door. “It’s time to leave.”
“Just a sec.” I pull on the socks that were brought with the rest of my clean clothes. My fingers are clumsy, not moving well. I know what this shower means. The zone’s pigs, chickens, and cattle are washed before butchering—they’re fattened up, massage-scrubbed, soothed by warm yellow lights, and turned into a tasty meal. Apparently I’m not much different from livestock to the alien horde.
I slip into my boots and follow Rourke to the front door in my ceremony-blue uniform, unable to shake a sensation of coming doom. There will be pain no matter what the scales read tonight. I could be slaughtered for an alien meal—however humanely or horribly the beasts accomplish that. Will they put me to sleep? Shoot me? I chew the inside of my cheek. No, I can’t think of that outcome.
Banishment won’t be any less brutal. My forehead tingles where the branding iron could sear my skin, and my hands curl into fists.
The declining sun perches in the sky like it’s waiting for my judgment. An armed female guard joins me in the back of the UHV while Rourke gets in to drive. Soon the central street of Sanctuary slips past the tinted windows. The familiar sights of the food center, supply station, database hub, and the Nebula flash by and vanish. I may never see this street again.
We arrive at the square. “Get out,” the female guard says in a hard voice.
Bristling, I obey. I walk down the path and into the stadium, where the bleachers swarm with people. The Machine stands under its clear dome, waiting with splayed arms. Since Rich isn’t here, six portable chairs are set up instead of seven. Thomas, Niya, and the three other girls are already seated. One chair is empty.
Rourke and the female guard lead me to that seat, then take up positions near the Machine.
On my right, Thomas leans closer. “Hey. On cleanup duty I saw the inside of Farrow’s unit. Awesome job, Lawton. You should flunk for sure.”
“Hope so. What’ve you been doing?”
“Sabotaging UHV engines and pruning the lieutenants’ sweetbushes into ugly nubs. Flushing broth powder. The girls haven’t been doing much, though.” Thomas nods toward Niya, who sits on my left sniffing and wiping her eyes. The three girls next to her clutch one another’s hands. Their faces are pink and blotchy.
I search the crowd and find Aubrie sitting halfway up the bleachers with her brothers and parents. My gaze meets hers, and she moves her hand in a minimal wave. Her jaw is set and her mouth straight, but her rapidly blinking eyes give her away t
hat she still cares about my fate. I hold up a hand in return.
Across the stadium, Rachel and Tammi sit between Mom and Dad. Tammi grins and shoots to her feet, waving her arms. I wave back, trying to look cheery. Rachel adds a few waves of her own before Mom pulls her arm down. I see Dad speak, point toward the entrance, and motion for Tammi to sit.
Commander Farrow enters through the double doors, flanked by four lieutenants. His hawk eyes survey the crowd before zeroing in on the Testing chairs. I squirm, unable to remain motionless. Not that I regret what I’ve done. I hope he wasn’t able to rinse off the glass shards and salvage the bits of hearts and brains that I scattered all over his dwelling.
A minute later, Peyton and Leonard arrive. Leonard gives me a sober thumbs-up. Peyton does the same before climbing into the bleachers. It looks like she’s not ignoring me after our courtyard argument, which is good. Even after days of tossing things around in my brain, I’m not sure what to think about all the verbal bullets we lobbed at each other that day. I unclench my hands and try to concentrate on breathing.
Like a death toll, the zone tower echoes out the tune that announces the ceremony. The commander moves to the center of the viewing area and waits for absolute silence. As usual, he lets the stillness grow taut before speaking.
“Welcome, Sanctuary citizens. Tonight we celebrate the birthdays of these graduates, who arrived in Sanctuary on this day eighteen years ago. Congratulations to them. Sadly, only six of the seven candidates are here with us this evening. Rich Vorley remains in the Fort Hope hospital after a sudden attack of appendicitis last week. His condition is currently critical, since he has contracted a severe infection following his surgery.”
On my left, Niya bursts into quiet tears. Her arm trembles against mine, her shirt sleeve fluttering like a trapped willowfly. I glower at Farrow. Severe infection—what rot. I bet the horde either murdered Rich right after he discovered their secret, or he was privately Tested to add a scrap of nourishment to their twisted appetites. Lieutenant Zemik takes his turn, delivering his Rambling Mantra, the so-called history of Sanctuary. My hands twitch in my lap. How much of his tale of planetary conflict, genomide dust, and post-War reconstruction is the truth, and how much is pure deception? Will I find out once I’m in the outer zones?
