by Kyle Andrews
“I will find your mother,” he told her, still staring at the door. “I will make sure that she knows you're safe and I'll make sure that she is too.”
“What about Sim? His birthday is coming up... What day is it?”
“October third.”
“His birthday is in a couple of months. He's going to be assigned.”
Justin looked to the ground again, without saying a word. Once again, Libby wanted to hit him for it. She didn't even know why his silent moments made her so mad, but they did.
Then he said, “Sim plays all the sports. The climbing. The fighting. He was picked to help track down the tagger when HAND and the police were looking for Collin Powers.”
“You think he's going to be assigned to HAND,” Libby concluded. She had thought about the possibility before. Looking at Justin's face, so she could read his response, she said, “He could be police. Or military.”
“The police are underachievers. Sim is a star. And the military... That's where they send the people they don't want hanging around home. People like me, if they suspected but didn't know for sure what I was. People who could rebel. Fight back.”
“I thought they picked the strongest to fight overseas.”
“That's what they say. But their training is crap and they don't have a fraction of the budget that HAND has. None of the technology. The government lets the world lead us into battle, and allows our allies to put our men on the front lines, to get slaughtered first.”
“How do you know this? I mean, if they're all overseas, how do you know?”
“Rumors. Legends. Letters smuggled home by people who have been dead for decades now. If it was that bad then, I can't imagine what it's like today. So if I were you, I'd pray that Sim was assigned to HAND. Then I'd do my best to avoid ever seeing him again.”
“I can't just...” Libby was going to argue with Justin and refuse to simply walk away from Sim, but she stopped herself and backed up to something else that Justin said. “Pray?”
He was silent. Again.
Standing and walking to the door, Libby tried to wrap her mind around what she had heard come from Justin's mouth, but it wasn't happening. She could not believe what he'd let slip.
“You're a theist?”
“It's not what you think it is,” Justin tried to explain, but Libby put her hands up and shook her head, stopping him.
“This isn't about politics or the government,” she scolded him. “This is about people deciding to hate other people because a fairy tale made them do it. You're following a figment.”
“More lies that they taught you, so you'd hate people like me.”
“Hate? You want to talk about hate? How about hating other races because they're not like you? How about treating women like property? Condemning all gay people to some fiery pit?”
“I don't condemn anyone.”
“No. Your magic genie does.”
Justin stood up and walked to Libby now, standing as close to her as she had when she wanted to punch him in the face. He was angry and she thought for a moment that he might do something with that anger, but in typical Justin fashion, he resisted.
“There are moments when I think you're so close to understanding what's been done to you,” he said, in a surprisingly calm tone, before allowing himself another moment of silence. When he spoke again, he just said, “I'm going to look for your mother.”
And with that, he opened the door, nudging Libby out of his way as he walked through it. She made sure that the door was closed behind him.
“Unbelievable,” she said under her breath as she stood there.
It was just her luck that she would get stuck in a building full of crazy people. They could try to convince her all they wanted, but this wasn't about a government conspiracy. It was about history proving that religion was dangerous and ignorant. It was about undeniable facts. Science. Logic.
No matter what they tried to tell her, she was still allowed to believe what she believed.
3
When Justin walked out of Libby's room, he didn't know what he was going to do, or where he was going to go. He promised her that he was going to find her mother, but he had been looking for weeks and he hadn't been able to find any hint of Amanda.
There were hundreds—possibly thousands—of buildings in the city, with citizens stacked on top of citizens. When someone lost their home, they were quickly shuffled off to a new one. Amanda could have easily been miles away from her last building, or right next door. There was no way to know.
Of course, there was another possibility. She was Libby's mother, and that meant that there was a chance that Amanda would be taken by HAND, either for interrogation or for use as a bargaining chip. If they threatened her and Libby found out, she might turn herself in. Funny how that worked, considering how the authorities had done everything in their power to break the family bond. Children were required to start school by age two. From that early age, kids were taught to rely on the system for their needs, not their parents. Yet when a child woke up in the middle of the night, the vast majority still called out for their mommy or daddy.
Justin didn't have that option. His parents were both dead. Once they were gone, the only people whom he would consider family were Uly and Libby. Uly had always been like a brother to Justin. Libby was... something else. To think of her as a sister would have made matters even more awkward than they already were.
As for aunts or uncles, maybe Amanda could fit in there somewhere. She was always nice to him. She visited him after his mother died, and sat with him for hours. He was fifteen at the time, but on that night he might as well have been five.
His father died when he was too young to remember. He had that in common with Libby. In his case, it was a freak accident at work. One of the machines had broken down, and Justin's father went to fix it. Power was supposed to be cut. It wasn't. The machine took his father's arm and he bled out before anyone could do a thing about it.
In the common area of the Garden—usually referred to as the lobby—Justin stood and looked out across the crowd of people. They were each going about their own work and their own lives, but he didn't have anywhere to go. All he could do was watch, and it was driving him crazy.
“How's our girl?” Rose asked, startling Justin as she approached from behind. She always smiled when she could sneak up on him, though it wasn't hard to do. His mind was always a million miles away.
“She's still adjusting,” he replied.
“Which means, she is kicking, screaming and climbing the walls?”
“Pretty much.”
“Can't say as I blame her. I'd be going nuts too if I was locked up in this place all day.”
“Might help if she walked around a little bit. Maybe found a job to do.”
“I can offer to let her clean my room. I mean, if it helps. I'd be willing to do that. For her.”
“Not what I was thinking.”
Across the lobby, Justin saw the leader of the Garden, Aaron, walking toward the wall of TV monitors, where Freedom members were keeping an eye on all of the day's broadcasts.
Aaron was in his mid-40's. Tall and muscular, he probably intimidated anyone who didn't know him. He could get pretty angry and yell at people, but there was something about his personality that kept him from being scary to anyone who knew him. Not that Justin really knew him. He'd simply observed the man often enough to know.
As the leader of the Garden, it was Aaron's job to monitor crop output and distribution, make sure that the medical center was well supplied (though Justin didn't know where their supplies came from), and oversee whatever other bits and pieces of business that went on in the Garden.
Basically, Aaron was the guy who had to tell some people that they couldn't have that extra bit of food when there just wasn't enough to go around. He was also the guy who had to confine Libby to the Garden so that she couldn't reveal their location, either on purpose or by mistake. It was not a job that Justin envied.
He'd heard stories of bases that had been compromised. Legends, mostly. They were drilled into his head when he first joined Freedom, because everyone needed to know the consequences of their actions.
There were evacuation plans in place, just in case, but everyone knew that if the Garden were ever compromised, people would die. Aaron could very well have to choose who those people would be. Justin had a hard enough time, just looking out for Libby and her mother.
Justin started to walk over to Aaron, leaving Rose without a second thought.
Hurrying to keep up with Justin, Rose told him, “It's rude to walk away from a conversation like that.”
“You're right, I'm sorry.”
“Accepted.”
Justin reached Aaron and stood behind him, waiting for Aaron to be done talking with one of the news watchers. He waited quietly and patiently for his chance to speak with Aaron, but Aaron didn't even notice Justin standing there when he moved away from the monitors and went about his other business.
“Aaron,” Justin called out, following close behind the man.
He was nervous. He didn't normally attract too much attention to himself or try to engage the older and more experienced members of Freedom. He normally waited for someone to tell him what to do, but this time was different.
Aaron turned around and looked at Justin, waiting for him to start speaking. Honestly, Justin hadn't thought much beyond getting Aaron's attention. So when it was his turn to speak, he found himself at a loss for words.
“I don't have much time, son,” Aaron told him.
“Right. Sorry.”
“He apologizes a lot,” Rose smiled. She was much more comfortable around Aaron than Justin was.
Ignoring her, Justin said, “I was just wondering if there was any new information on Libby's blood tests. She's eager to know what's going on.”
“We don't know anything yet,” Aaron told him, and started to walk away.
Following Aaron, Justin continued, “It's just that... Well, at the hospital, Uly was having a new type of test run. A DNA profile scan, or something like that.”
“We don't have that sort of machine here.”
“I know. So, I was wondering how we're going to—” Justin started, before being cut off.
“Listen Jason, I know you're concerned for your friend, but I can't discuss every detail with you. We're looking into it. Other than that, it doesn't really involve you.”
“Right. Sorry,” Justin nodded.
He was about to turn and walk away when Rose said, “His name's Justin, Aaron. Not Jason. And if this doesn't involve him, just who does it involve? Because it was his best friend who got killed. It's his friend who's locked up in this place. He was the one standing on the sidewalk watching it all happen. He's the one who brought her in to us... With my help, of course. But that's beside the point. This does involve Justin. Quite a bit, really.”
Aaron locked eyes with Rose. He didn't seem happy. Justin was almost afraid to look at him because he was worried that Aaron's anger might bounce off of Rose and land in his own lap. The last thing he wanted was to cause a fuss.
“Collin Powers was a book runner, down in the Station. He got his orders and he carried those books wherever he was told. He didn't know everything that went on in his base. He didn't know where to find other bases. He didn't know any names that he shouldn't, or faces that he shouldn't. And do you know why he didn't know any of those things?” Aaron asked, looking Rose squarely in the eyes. “Because if he did, he would be talking right now.”
“I can help you,” Justin said to Aaron, surprising himself almost as much as he surprised the other two. Both Aaron and Rose looked at Justin as he said, “I don't really know how, but I have access to Uly's life. Same with Libby. I know them more than you do. That might be important.”
“I appreciate your concern and your desire to help us, Justin. I really do. But this is a delicate situation that I can't tell just anyone about. There are aspects of this that you can't know about. I'm sorry. I truly am. And I promise that I will let you know when the situation changes,” Aaron told him, trying to sound as diplomatic as possible. “Now if you'll excuse me, the kids on the third floor are waterboarding each other again.”
Aaron walked off, leaving Justin and Rose with no more information than when they first approached him. That was the thing about Justin's life. He was a part of this movement, and maybe Libby thought that he had some sway or impact on what happened there, but when it came right down to it, they didn't even know his name. He wasn't fighting any war. He wasn't making a difference.
He should have felt lucky just to be a part of it. He had more food than most people. He had access to more books and education than most people. When he got the flu, he was given medication, which was more than most people in the city were getting. Of course, it cost him some of his food rations and he had to sort files every day for two weeks just to get that medication, but it was still more than most people had.
“You're doing that thing you do,” Rose told him, shaking her head.
“What thing?”
“Going all quiet and getting inside of your own head. Probably thinking about how useless you are.”
“You scare me.”
“A lot of men tell me that.”
“Does Paul tell you that?”
“We're not talking about Paul.”
Justin started to walk, with nowhere in particular to go or anything in particular to do. He just needed to feel as though he were doing something.
His mind went back to Libby, locked away inside that one room of hers, pacing back and forth like a caged lion. She could have wandered the Garden all she wanted, but whether she knew it or not, she would have been watched closely. She wouldn't be able to make any phone calls or leave the confines of that building. He was supposed to be the person who looked out for her and saw to her business in the outside world, but he felt as trapped as she was.
“Left at the next hallway,” Rose said, keeping up with Justin. He hadn't noticed her walking with him any more than he knew where he was going, but she seemed to.
“Why?” he asked.
“I just assumed you were headed for the exit,” she replied, holding up her wrist and showing him her watch. It was nearly six o'clock. “I assumed that you would be rushing down to the factory where Libby's mother works, hoping to catch her as she got out. It's probably your best chance to find her.”
“I've tried it. More than once.”
“Have you tried talking to the people who know her?”
Justin didn't answer. He hadn't tried talking to anyone. He kept his distance, never knowing who was watching.
“I just assumed that even though you were told to leave it alone, you wouldn't be able to. Because that's not who you are,” Rose added pointedly.
“Have you met me?”
“I've met the you that handles life in this place, yeah. But I also know the you who couldn't let his best friend's cousin—who you're totally not in love with—get caught. That you is a lot like the me who couldn't sit back and watch one of her friends get thrown in a HAND prison, where his pretty face would lead him to all sorts of sleepless nights.”
Justin smiled, “You think I'm pretty.”
“Did you ever read the note that Collin Powers left behind when he was caught?”
“There was a note?”
“Top secret. Need to know only,” Rose said, with a stern expression on her face, reaching into her pocket. “But one underling got her hands on it and made copies, so it's been making the rounds.”
“What did he say?”
Rose handed Justin a folded piece of paper, which Justin unfolded and read to himself.
As he read, Rose told him, “Basically, he said that he's tired of sitting around and waiting for the world to fix itself. We need to step up and do something. A lot of the people in this movement are content to just live in the shadows and shake their fists at the TV screen, but a lot of us aren't.”<
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Rose stopped walking and grabbed Justin's arm, stopping him as well. She took her copy of the Powers note back and looked around to make sure that nobody was listening to their conversation.
She then spoke in a soft and serious tone, saying, “Maybe Aaron does have a plan for Libby. I don't know. Maybe there is a whole team of people setting up a brilliant mission. But we aren't talking about a friend of a friend, or people that none of us know. We're talking about your people. Your responsibility. Why should you just trust the system to handle the situation? That's not exactly how we roll here, am I right?”
She wasn't wrong. One of the main philosophies of Freedom was the personal responsibility to ask questions and not accept answers without proof. Could he bet Libby's life on a promise that everything was being taken care of? After all, these were the people who never officially approved her rescue in the first place.
This was a larger issue than he was willing to deal with at the moment. He couldn't think about the entire structure of Freedom, and how he might rebel against their rebellion. He had to set his mind on smaller goals for now.
Justin started walking again, with Rose by his side. He asked her, “What does any of this have to do with finding Libby's mother?”
Rose smiled and wrapped her arm around Justin's as she said, “I wasn't saying what I said because of politics. I just assumed that you'd want to find Libby's mother to make Libby happy. I've seen the way you are with her. Protective and all 'knight in shining armor' or whatever.”
“It's not like that.”
“You care for her.”
“Yes. But not the way you're implying. Not for a very long time.”
“Why not?”
Justin chose to respond with silence, which Rose eventually accepted. Instead of pressing the issue, Rose said, “I assume you'll want your trusty sidekick to come with you when you go looking for her mother tonight.”
