Smoke

by Mariah Esterly

  They’d had unnatural abilities that the lower class hadn’t, and they’d taken those talents as a sign that they were meant to lead. Why else would God have given them these gifts?

  But seventeen years ago, just after Gertie was born, the lower classes had rebelled against the monarchs.

  Back then Gertie’s grandfather had worked in the gardens around the palace in 1st. When she was younger he told her stories about the royals in hushed whispers. “The king,” he’d say. “Well, I could take him or leave him. But his daughter, the Princess Katherine, was lovely. She used to come out to the gardens while I worked. She’d get down on her hands and knees and help me weed. She said that being around plants helped to calm her mind. I suppose that had something to do with her ability. She could make anything grow in the harshest of conditions.” And here his face would become distant as he remembered that the princess had been executed along with all members of the royal family.

  The lower classes had deposed the monarchy and replaced it with a democracy of sorts. But from what Gertie’s grandpa told her, things hadn’t changed much. The sections still existed, the people in Sections 3 through 6 were underpaid. The people in 1st and 2nd, still spent much of their time doing nothing. The only difference was that now the people could say that they had voted for the person who ruled them. The Chancellor had sworn up and down that he would do away with the sections, but then quickly backtracked, saying it would cause too much disruption, and they would have to approach the change slowly.

  Gertie was sweating by the time she got to the first checkpoint between 3rd and 4th. The guards waved her by after scanning her bracelet. She came through this way often enough that they knew her face and knew she wouldn’t cause trouble in their section.

  The first time she’d passed through, laden with groceries for her family, they’d made her wait for nearly an hour while they went through each of her bags, checking to make she wasn’t carrying any dangerous substances.

  Her shoulders were aching when she reached the checkpoint between 4th and 5th and the sun was low on the horizon. A quick glance at the clock on her bracelet told her she would reach her parents’ house just as they were returning from the farms that bordered half of the city.

  Gertie took a deep breath when she’d passed through the second checkpoint, feeling as though she were coming home. She supposed that most of her colleagues and others who lived in 3rd would find 5th uncomfortable at best and terrifying at worst, mostly because they were unfamiliar with hard laborers. They viewed the residents here as lower than them, jealous of the comforts in the higher districts, and so a threat to them and what they had.

  The people in 5th were noticeably more exhausted. They had no initiatives here that required them to go out on the weekends, or to exercise. Their work was their exercise and they weren’t the people that the government wanted making connections.

  Gertie saw familiar and smiling faces as she walked. She waved at shop owners as she passed, feeling slightly guilty that she hadn’t purchased her plethora of groceries from them. She would transfer some funds to her mother’s bracelet before she left for the night so that they could buy whatever they needed from the grocers in 5th.

  The building that her parents lived in was a dilapidated six story walkup close to the checkpoint. Thankfully, her parents didn’t live on the top floor. She struggled up two flights of stairs. Her muscles breathed a sigh of relief as she dropped her bags outside their door. She tapped her bracelet on the pad next to the lock, heard it click and the door slid open. She dragged rather than carried the food inside.

  As she went to press the button to close the door she swore she felt someone brush by her, but her eyes told her there was no one there.

  3

  Vail

  Vail Denholm had never been so bored in his life. The girl he was tailing was extraordinarily ordinary. She did nothing but work, go to the gym and visit her family.

  He watched as she began unpacking her bags, placing some of the items in the freezer and the fridge, and putting others on the stove to heat, presumably for dinner.

  He wedged himself into a corner, trying to keep her in sight, but still be out of the way when her family came. So far, the only good thing about tailing her is that she was an excellent cook and didn’t seem to notice when food went missing.

  And she was determined, that much was clear. Not many girls her age would walk through two districts carrying five bags of food. He’d had to stop himself from helping her as she struggled along, but that would have blown his cover and the Office would not have liked that.

  So instead he’d just followed her, admiring the view from behind.

  He’d nearly given himself away by knocking over one of the bags of food she left on the counter in the kitchen. He’d only been trying to get a peek at the contents, the whole thing had toppled over.

  When she’d emerged from the bathroom wielding a can of hairspray like a weapon he’d admired her bravery, though what she thought an aerosol can would do against an intruder was beyond him.

  He’d wedged himself in the corner and watched as she moved through the living room, trying to ignore that she was only in a towel and the water that dripped from her hair to bead on her skin.

  He shook the memory from his brain, and instead focused on her fully clothed form as she moved around the kitchen.

  The front door opened and an older man came in, wearing dirty coveralls and work boots. Dirt covered his hands, and there was a smudge of it on his wrinkled cheek. Vail could tell he’d washed his hands, but the soil had clung to them, staining his skin.

  “Hello?” he called from the front door, uncertainly.

  “Papa?” Gertie asked, peeking her head out of the kitchen.

  “Oh, Gertrude!” He came farther into the apartment. She came out of the kitchen to greet him. “What are you doing here, my girl? I’m dirty.” He warned as she went to give him a hug. Despite his age, he was a mountain of a man, and he dwarfed his granddaughter as he wrapped his arms around her.

  “I just couldn’t stay away.” She ignored his warning and kissed his wrinkled cheek, right where the smear of dirt lingered. “I have something for you.”

  “For me?” He followed her into the kitchen and she pushed a plastic sack full of jelly beans at him. His face lit up.

  “Gertrude, you shouldn’t have.”

  She turned back to the stove and used a wooden spoon to stir something simmering in a pot. “I should and I will keep on bringing you sweets for as long as I can.”

  The front door opened again and two more people joined them, a man and woman in their early forties. They were similarly dressed like Gertie’s granddad, in coveralls and work boots caked in dried mud.

  Vail watched them from his spot on in the corner as they greeted each other. This family didn’t make sense. Not just that they actually liked each other and seemed to genuinely enjoy each other’s company, but they just didn’t look related.

  He tilted his head, trying to get a better look at Gertie as she hugged her mother. They were almost complete opposites. Gertie was shorter with a slim frame, had hair the color of honey and black eyes. Her skin was pale with a sprinkling of freckles over her nose and cheeks, no doubt a byproduct from her time in the fields. She was well muscled from her required work outs in the gym, but nothing compared to either of her parents, who were tall and broad, not overweight but solid. Years of labor had hardened their bodies in a way that Gertie wasn’t. Her mother had clear olive skin, black hair and greenish brown eyes, while her father had brown hair, blue eyes and tan skin.

  They just didn’t look like they were related.

  He shook his head, and caught Gertie’s granddad seemingly staring at him. Vail froze, even though he knew it was impossible for the old man to be looking at him. More likely he was just staring into space and happened to be looking in his direction. The old man blinked and looked back at his family, and Vail let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holdin
g.

  “Gertrude has brought enough food for a whole army,” he commented before reaching into the plastic bag on the counter and picking out a red jelly bean.

  Gertie was still stirring the liquid in the pot, making steam rise from it. “I just want to be sure that you have enough. I put some casseroles in the freezer and made some sandwiches and salads and stuff for lunches, so you won’t need to worry about that for next week.” She stopped stirring and turned to a cutting board where she chopped some kind of green herb before sprinkling it into the pot. “I won’t be able to come next weekend.”

  Her mother nodded in a knowing manner. “Has that guard at the checkpoint you told me about finally asked you out?”

  “Now, Marla, she’s too young for that.” Her father interjected. He was riffling through the almost empty bags.

  “Psh, I was her age when you and I met.” Her mother grinned at Mr. Penn. “She is old enough.”

  Face flaming, Gertie flapped her hands at her father shooing him away from the groceries. She dug through a bag and passed him what he had apparently been searching for. “I brought cookies. This package is for you. The other is not, so leave it.”

  Vail shifted to ease the pressure on his feet. He wished briefly that he could sit down. But the lumpy looking cushions on the faded floral couch would show the imprint from his body and he was already on edge because the old man kept glancing in his direction.

  He tried to ignore the grumbling in his stomach as they sat around the table to eat. They talked about boring, inane things. Who was dating who. Who’d passed away since they’d last seen each other. How the crops on the farms were doing. An irrigation pipe had burst on Monday.

  Vail only half listened, stifling a yawn. His stomach let out a particularly loud growl.

  “Did you say something?” Her grandad asked. Vail glanced up and was startled to see he was looking directly at the corner where Vail stood, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “What, Papa?” Gertrude asked, drawing the old man’s attention back to her. He smiled and patted her hand.

  “Nothing, my girl, I just thought I heard something.” Her returning smile dropped from her face as all of their bracelets started beeping, loud and insistent. Her father got up, turned on the TV and then returned to the table. Vail knew it wouldn’t matter which channel was on, when the Chancellor wanted to make a statement all the channels aired it.

  The screen flickered to life and they were greeted by Chancellor Duncan, standing behind a podium. The harsh lights of the cameras glinted off of his grey hair. His navy suit and red tie were impeccable, fitted to his broad-shouldered frame. No doubt he’d had a team of tailors working on it.

  Behind him to his left was his wife, the First Lady. She kept her hands folded demurely in front of her, her brown eyes looking down, almost as though she were afraid of the camera. Her black hair was twisted up into a bun at the back of her head. The cream colored dress was a startling contrast to the dark blue of the Chancellor’s suit.

  On the other side of the Chancellor stood his son, a younger version of his father. Brown hair, blue eyes, broad shouldered.

  Vail curled his lip in disgust. This whole family was a fake, a lie. They presented a united front to the world, but Vail knew better. They had intercepted information that things were not serene in the house of the Duncans.

  The Chancellor beamed at the camera, raising his hands to quiet the crowd around him that clapped and cheered. Vail wondered how they had assembled such a large crowd so quickly. They were probably a combination of servants and government workers pulled from their jobs to bulk up the audience.

  The throng quieted. “Thank you, everybody. So great to be with you. Thank you.” He glanced down at the podium and shuffled some notes around and then looked back at the camera, his blue eyes sharp. “Thank you. I stand before you today because a tragedy, a great tragedy has occurred. This morning, early this morning there was an huge explosion in one of factories in Brisco. Our agents investigated the explosion and they determined that it was caused by the Extras.” The crowd gasped. “The loss of life was immense, larger than any attack on government facilities by the Extras in the last seventeen years. Men, women, children and even little innocent babies lost their lives.” The crowd began to murmur. The Chancellor waited, his blue eyes focused on the camera. Vail’s eyes narrowed. He was lying.

  Gertie cocked her head to one side, eyebrows lowered over her black eyes. “I didn’t hear about an explosion in Brisco.” Her mother shushed her. Gertie ignored her. “But no one was talking about it in the office today. Wouldn’t it have been on the news this morning?”

  “It’s on the news now, Gertie. Now, hush.” Interjected her father, his eyes never leaving the screen.

  The Chancellor continued. “We’ve been fighting this war against the Extras for longer than any wars we’ve ever fought as a nation. We have not used the real abilities that we have. We’ve been restrained. We have to get rid of the Extras. Have to get rid of the Extras. We have no choice.” The crowd erupted with applause. The Chancellor’s wife and son clapped along with the spectators. He waited until they quieted.

  “They have to be eradicated just off the face of the Earth. This is evil. This is evil. And you know, I can understand the other side. We can all understand the other side. There can be wars between people, between nations, there can be wars. You can understand how that happens. This is something nobody can even understand. This is a level of evil that we haven’t seen. And we’re going to go to it, and we’re going to do a phenomenal job. But we’re going to end it. It’s time. It’s time right now to end it.” He glanced down at the podium again.

  “Keeping that in mind, we need to make adjustments, sacrifices in our country, in our government. And don’t get me wrong our nation is great, it’s the greatest, but we need to make changes to keep it safe. So, with that in mind, I am proposing that we reduce the number of voters in the country to make the decision-making process easier and more simple, to eradicate the probability of voter fraud. And this is something that we know happens, we know it does. So with all of this in mind, the recent Extras attacks, the voter fraud, I am putting a bill before the quorum that will limit voters to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Sections.” The crowd let out an audible gasp again, and the Chancellor held out his hands.

  “Now, I know that sounds like we are taking the vote away from the people, I know. But let me tell you, we need to simplify the process to be able have the ability, the power to make the decisions that need to be made. No more of this big government. I’m against big government and I know many of you are against big government too. I know it. This also reduces the possibility of Extras voting on initiatives that would ease the restrictions on them.” Vail’s hands balled into fists, not quite believing what he was hearing. By removing the voting rights from over half of the populace he would effectively be putting them back into the exact same place that they were before the fall of the monarchy.

  “I’m sorry, are you even listening what he is saying?” Gertie asked, incredulously, motioning to the TV. Vail swung his head in her direction. “He just said he’s going to remove the right for Sections 4 through 6 to vote. That’s you guys. That might be me, depending on who you ask.”

  Her mother nodded. “Oh, honey, that’s not what he said. He’s concerned about uneducated voters. He knows that the people who live in the lower districts don’t understand the way the government works like you do in the upper districts. He’s just trying to put laws in place that will protect us all. And by taking away the right for the lower districts to vote, he can help us.”

  “Mom, that is literally what I just said.”

  “Yes, dear, but it sounds reasonable coming from him.”

  “What?” She yelped. Her voice raised a notch higher. “It sounds more reasonable coming from him?”

  “Don’t yell at your mother, Gertie.” Her father chided, gently.

  She sighed and ran a hand down her face. “I don’t
mean to yell. I’m sorry, but do you hear what she is saying? I need to know that you’re hearing this.” She turned back to her mother, anxious to hear her denounce the Chancellor’s newest initiative. “Mom, you told me you cried the first time you voted, and you’re just okay with him taking that away from you?”

  Her mother’s brow furrowed as though she were trying to reconcile both feelings, after a moment, she nodded, “Yes, it’s for the good of the country. And he did say he’s only putting the initiative in front of the quorum, not that it is already in place.”

  Gertie dropped her fork to her plate with a clatter. “The good of the country? There was a rebellion for the good of the country and you’re okay with him putting you back to where you were then?”

  “That’s enough, Gertie.” Her father shook his head, his blue eyes stern. “No more politics talk at the table, it only upsets everyone.”

  Gertie turned disbelieving eyes to her grandfather who took her hand and squeezed.

  Well, this was interesting. It seemed that the boring government employee had at least some resistance to Chancellor Duncan. Her grandfather too.

  The screen went dark, and Gertie got up to turn the TV off and began to clear the plates. Her mother stood too, looked out the window at the rainy evening. “It’s getting late. Don’t you think you should be heading home?”

  Gertie shook her head, putting the dishes in the sink. “I have a bus token. I’ll make it through the checkpoints and back home before they close for the night.”

  “A bus token?” Her father asked, leaning back in his chair. A token allowed citizens to travel by bus between the sections. Without a token people had to walk through the checkpoints as Gertie had done earlier. “How’d you get one of those?”

  She didn’t look up from the soapy water in front of her. “There was a contest at work,” she said carefully. “I won and the bus token was the prize.” Vail could tell that she was lying. There was no bus token. Or if there was, she hadn’t won it in a contest. Her family didn’t seem to notice the lie, and allowed her to stay far longer than they should have.