Evalene's Number: The Number Series

by Bethany Atazadeh

  In the middle of the room, Jeremiah turned to Luc and spoke over the quiet conversation around the room. “Is everyone here?” When Luc nodded, he began without preamble. The chatter died down naturally as people stopped talking to listen.

  “Yesterday, I promised I would elaborate on the Low Level Employee Work Rule. Our mission. Are you ready to hear the assignment?” Jeremiah swung around, directing the question to each corner of the room.

  Everyone’s eyes were riveted on his face. Some lit up with excitement for the long-awaited mystery while others, older and more experienced, looked on anxiously. But there were nods all around the room, and even a soft call of “Yes, please!” from a teen and “I am!” from his friend sitting next to him. They immediately hunched down into the crowd to hide where the voices came from.

  But Jeremiah smiled slightly and nodded in their direction as if to praise them for speaking up. “What I’m about to tell you about the Work Rule is something almost no one in Eden, including the Number One, knows.” Evalene frowned at the idea of the Number One not knowing one of his own policies. She saw similar frowns across the room. Jeremiah clasped his hands in front of him and touched his fingers to his lips, as if choosing his words carefully.

  “The Work Rule has only two purposes. First, we are helping all of you… to escape from Eden.”

  Everyone gasped.

  Jeremiah spoke over the murmurs that rose all around the room, “Without the Number One, or the Regulators knowing it, we have helped you leave the country. You are now officially in free waters. And you will arrive on free land.”

  The whispers grew to outright conversation as everyone voiced their excitement, shock, disbelief. Jeremiah let it sink in for a moment.

  Swiveling to look at different people around the room as he spoke, his eyes met Evalene’s briefly, then moved on, “When we land on the island, I want you to understand that Numbers don’t exist there at all.”

  Instead of whipping the talkers into a frenzy, the room froze, as everyone held their breath. It sounded too good to be true, and Evalene could tell she wasn’t the only one who thought so.

  Jeremiah repeated himself, driving the point home. “From this point on, you no longer have a Number either.” Though he had said similar words to Evalene the day before, it still didn’t feel real to her.

  “Now, you can stay and live the rest of your life on the island. Or travel to another country altogether. Or,” he paused, “you can be a part of something greater.”

  He gazed at those in front of him, then swung back in Evalene’s direction, and she watched the fire in his eyes as he told them, “The second purpose of the Work Rule is to gather an army and fight to take our country back.” He emphasized each word as he spoke, enunciating so that no one misunderstood. “Our hope is that you will stand with us against the Number system – against the Number One himself – and fight until Eden is free!”

  Jeremiah’s voice and charisma were captivating. Evalene liked how he talked with his hands. The room was so still that the only sound was the cooks in the kitchen banging pans together as they prepared dinner behind the metal window. But Jeremiah ignored it, continuing, “Over the last two years, we have gathered a small army. Using the Work Rule, we sailed back and forth between Eden and the island, rescuing people just like you.” Someone whooped at that, although quietly, and cut off quickly. Jeremiah nodded to them, again praising bravery.

  “But there are thousands more who still need us.” The cheers died down at the sobering thought. His voice rose again, challenging them. “Do you see anyone else standing up for us? Who will fight for our friends and our family if we don’t?”

  His questions hung in the air. The room was silent, quiet. The crowd shifted at the challenge, uneasy. To offer freedom and then ask them to give it up? His speech wasn’t earning him any cheers now.

  In a soft voice, almost a whisper, Jeremiah pleaded with them. “Think of those who have been disciplined with death row by the Regulators. Or what about those who simply disappeared?” Evalene thought of her mother. She tried to imagine how Pearl would have responded to Jeremiah’s words. She blinked back tears as she pictured someone just like Jeremiah saying these things to her mother years ago. He spread his hands wide as he stared into their faces. “Who will be next?”

  Around the room, faces hardened. A couple people sniffed, and hands tightened into fists, men, women, and teenagers alike. Jeremiah’s voice grew hard as well. “Eden cannot afford to be a land of Numbers any longer. Your friends, your family, everyone back home needs us. We have to fight for them!” A few soft murmurs of agreement rose around the room, but Evalene took a shuddering breath. What if he was right?

  “I am extending this invitation to all of you, just as I have to those who came before you,” Jeremiah continued with his hands outstretched, and everyone hushed immediately, hanging on his words. Through the crowd, Evalene caught a glimpse of Talc and his friends, as angry as ever, but now their eyes were trained on Jeremiah and his words.

  “Join us.”

  Just two words, but they hit Evalene in the chest as if she’d been punched.

  Jeremiah stepped back, dropping his hands to his sides. “I won’t tell anyone what to do. I’m not the Number One and I never want to be.”

  He pointed towards the front of the ship, in the direction it was going. “Tomorrow we reach the island. We will spend three days there while we rest and finalize our plans. Please take those three days to consider my invitation. You are welcome to stay in the tents with us while you decide. If you have any questions between now and then, please come talk to me or Luc.”

  Evalene studied the faces around her as he spoke, trying to gauge who was moved by his plea. Everyone looked riled up to some extent, but she couldn’t tell by their frowns if they wanted to fight or flee. Maybe they were as conflicted as she was.

  Jeremiah spread his hands expansively. “On the fourth day, we will return to Eden. And we will fight!” A few people shouted in agreement at that, including Talc, who moved forward as if to volunteer right then and there. The volume was so loud, Jeremiah yelled his final statement: “It’s time to be Number-free!”

  Everyone burst into applause, shouting approval, thrilled that someone was taking their side. Amid the chaos and cheering, when Evalene was sure that Talc wasn’t looking, she snuck through the hatch that led to the bridge.

  She made her way to the secret panel that Olive had showed her the day before. Testing the wall, she glanced back over her shoulder to make sure she was alone before she pushed, hard. It slid open.

  Grateful, she sighed in relief and snuck inside, immediately sliding the door closed behind her. Without the glow sticks, her heart pounded anxiously in the darkness, but she didn’t care. Talc couldn’t find her here. That’s all that mattered.

  She crept blindly towards the back of the storage, as far from the entrance as possible. This was where she would stay until they arrived at the island tomorrow. She was tired enough that she could sleep anywhere. And she’d gone without food much longer than this. It wouldn’t be hard. That fate didn’t bother her nearly as much as her conscience did after Jeremiah’s speech.

  She’d only had her freedom for a few days, and now she was considering giving it up?

  23

  Jeremiah’s Dream

  J EREMIAH NOTICED RIGHT AWAY when Evie left. It was odd that she’d disappeared so abruptly. Maybe she felt judged. But he couldn’t follow her out; the faces around him were full of questions.

  Luc joined him in the middle of the room without needing to be asked. They had this whole speech and the aftermath down to a science. Though the crowd was still shy of acting above their Number, some would undoubtedly turn from talking to each other and move to talk to them. He and Luc would be there a long time.

  Sure enough, a few people from several groups stood and began moving towards him and Luc. A large, hostile man approached first. “If we join you, can we do whatever we want to the high N
umbers after?” he asked without bothering to introduce himself.

  This was always the most difficult question to answer, and it came up on almost every mission. Jeremiah tried to side step it. “We are planning to change the entire country of Eden, to do away with Numbers entirely.” He made sure to pitch his voice so that his answers could be heard by everyone in the room who might be listening. “There will be new leadership, a new government run by the people, and new laws that will protect everyone equally.”

  Jeremiah was unsurprised when this didn’t satisfy the big man, who scowled, “Where is the justice in that?”

  But Jeremiah stayed firm, crossing his arms. “There will be justice to all who cause harm, including those who try to take revenge afterward.”

  This was enough to make the man back down, at least for the moment. Jeremiah wasn’t foolish enough to think he wouldn’t try something down the road. But he would still allow the man to fight with them. They needed all the help they could get. As he thought this, he noted a few people slipping out of the room towards the racks. But most stayed, even if just out of curiosity.

  Another shy face stepped forward, a young man who held the girl’s hand next to him. “What if we,” he swallowed, hard, “we want to help, but we also want to start a family…”

  Jeremiah held his hands up. “You don’t need to make any excuses to me,” he said, cutting the young man off, again he spoke to the room as a whole. “No one needs my permission to stay. The offer to join us is just that – an offer. Not a requirement.” As soon as he said it, another five or six people stole out of the room.

  But others stayed.

  These were the people he needed to convince.

  A third person, an older woman who looked thin but had strong, wiry muscles built up from years of hard work. “Can we ask how you plan to do it?”

  Nodding, Jeremiah began to explain his goals for taking over the news stations across the country. To have the Regulator stations surrounded. To have as many rebels in the fight as there were Regulators, if not more. How they would storm the Number One’s home and remove him as leader.

  Jeremiah knew the more time he spent helping them understand, explaining his hopes for a peaceful transition, the time frame for the takeover, and the adjustment period, the more comfortable they would be joining the cause. So he stayed. And explained. And repeated himself.

  They needed every volunteer they could get when they shipped out in just a few short days. As the kitchen began to serve dinner, he and Luc continued to field questions until his voice grew hoarse. Luc went to work with the crew while Jeremiah remained with the group as it slowly dwindled. Many left to eat and then returned. Having missed questions while eating, they would ask the same ones as those before them. The dinner hour ended, and they continued late into the evening.

  Stomach growling as he finished speaking with yet another anxious passenger, he eyed the closed meal station in disappointment. He sighed in relief as Luc came back to relieve him. Jeremiah stood and left the job of winning over the last few concerned individuals to Luc before moving towards Operations to check in with his crew. Though he’d told the passengers they’d arrive at the island tomorrow, they would actually reach it sometime around two or three that morning.

  He clapped a hand on Welder’s shoulder as he entered Operations. The older man had been with him since the beginning. As one of the few people who’d known how to run a submarine prior to their plans, he’d been instrumental in training the crew. Equally important, he was a good leader, and a member of the council Jeremiah had formed on the island.

  Exhausted from the hours of conversation, persuading, and empathizing, Jeremiah slipped away to the captain’s quarters, to his private bunk.

  It was late. He needed sleep. But he was wide awake.

  After hours tossing and turning, he finally dozed off. He dreamed of his mother. She smiled at him and he clapped in excitement, a five-year-old boy again, grinning back at her. They were in his childhood home, and as she worked, he followed her around like a puppy at her heels.

  She turned from the little stove to smile and ask him what he wanted to eat for lunch. A second later, they were sitting at the table enjoying his favorite dish of noodles that his mother had always made. She smiled and asked him what he wanted to do that day. They played jacks in his childhood bedroom for what seemed to him like hours. Then she smiled and asked, Why do you have to lead the revolution?

  He stared at her in confusion. But she just repeated herself, asking him again and again why he had to lead the revolution? Why? She started to cry. Why? She screamed at him. In a heartbeat, she morphed into a 12-year-old version of Jeremiah himself. Why? His own voice screamed back at him now, high pitched and childish.

  When he looked in the mirror, he found that he was now his father. His 12-year-old self continued to scream at him, Why did you leave me?

  Turning away from the mirror and the image of his father, he found that it was the girl Evie who now stood next to him. She fluttered her lashes at him, moving to sit on his small bed. Tell me, why do you need to lead this revolution?

  Frowning in confusion, Jeremiah opened his mouth to repeat what he’d told people for years. But nothing came out. His mind was empty. What were his reasons?

  That’s what I thought, she said, sighing and averting her eyes. You’re going to die. So matter of fact. Was that what she thought of him? He felt a noose around his neck. Lifting his hands to it, his fingers felt the coarse threads of a rope, tightening.

  It’s too bad you won’t stay. It would’ve been nice to get to know you better. Standing, Evie came to stand in front of him, just inches away, so close he could see the flecks of gray in her blue eyes. But why would I be friends with a dead man?

  She brushed past him, out of the room, leaving him alone.

  Jeremiah woke up in a sweat. He hadn’t had that dream about his mother in months. And now he dreamed of Evie as well?

  24

  Day One: The Island

  E VALENE STEPPED THROUGH THE hatch, out onto the flat, narrow surface of the black metal submarine deck, blinking in the bright sunlight. After spending the night in the pitch-black storage room, she felt like she’d been buried alive. The night had gone on forever, but Olive had found her there in the morning.

  “Evie, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Have you been here all night?” the girl had said the moment she found Evalene in the back of the room. Evalene’s nod wasn’t enough explanation though. “What’s going on? Is it that Talc fellow? I can talk to the crew –”

  “No, no, that’s okay,” Evalene told her friend, standing stiffly and feeling the consequences of sleeping on the metal ground. “I don’t want to do anything. Just leave it.”

  “Why not?” Olive asked as they made their way into the bridge, her forehead furrowed. “We could remove him from the rebellion. Causing conflict is taken seriously in camp.”

  But Evalene shook her head as Olive slid the storage door closed and led the way up the spiraling staircase in the bridge towards the conning tower. “If the camp and the island are as big as you say, I won’t run into him again. But if he’s removed from fighting, he’ll find me and blame me for it. I’ve known people like him my whole life. Please, I just want to drop it.”

  Frowning, Olive clearly didn’t like it, but before she could argue further, they’d reached the top of the sub and the tail end of the group as they disembarked.

  The rays nearly blinded Evalene. The submarine was docked in deep waters against a long cement wall that curved out from the shore and across the mouth of the bay, keeping the crashing waves of the surf out and the inside of the bay calm and still, with just one small opening on the far side for smaller ships and boats to sneak into the bay.

  Stepping onto the gangplank between the submarine and the thick levee wall, Evalene crossed carefully. Her first step onto the smooth, dry cement felt momentous, like a band should be welcoming her with a song of celebration. She had esc
aped.

  But instead there was only the roar of the wind and the waves crashing rhythmically onto the sea side of the thick wall, drowning out most of the conversation between the other passengers as they walked along the long, cement wall in clumps of twos and threes ahead of her. Evalene stared in awe at the shore, drinking in the wide-open spaces of the harbor.

  Only a few tall buildings rose in the distance, too far to make out any details, and the rest of the landscape was covered in green trees and smaller, colorful buildings with mountains in the background. Just a quarter mile down, the levee gave way to sandy beaches all along the waterfront on the other side of the bay, a stark contrast from the crowded, manmade Delmare harbor.

  As they walked along the cement embankment, they passed docks inside the bay where smaller boats anchored, floating and bouncing cheerfully in clear blue water. Evalene’s nose crinkled a little at the fishy smell floating towards them on the wind as they passed, mixing with the salty ocean air. Seagulls called to each other as the waves lapped at the boats and the docks. Staring at the birds in awe, she stopped in her tracks to admire them. The island had so many birds! Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a few others stop to gawk at the birds as well.

  It felt like a dream, but the sun was too bright and the smells too powerful to be imagined. Trailing after the group, Evalene picked up her feet as they neared the beach. Once she reached the sand, she picked up a handful and felt the soft grainy pieces pour out of the cracks between her fingers until she let it spill back to the ground.

  A memory of when she was a little girl and her family travelled to a beach struck her. Instantly, she craved that feeling of her bare feet in the sand. She’d taken to leaving her boot laces mostly untied. Just needed to undo the knot at the top, and with a quick tug they slipped right off. She wiggled her toes in the warmth, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply.