Sketches

by Teyla Branton

  Eagle muttered something unintelligible and then added so they could hear, “I wonder if that’s because we cut the grate and kids fell through.”

  “Are you kidding?” Reese asked. “If kids fell through, they’d have whooped and dived in just like we did. These aren’t pampered CORE children.”

  Eagle nodded. “Well, so much for testing the water.”

  “You wanted to run tests?” Jaxon jumped up on the cement and walked out over the circular slab. Sure enough, every bit of the grate and water was covered.

  “Remember those strange canisters we saw?” Eagle said. “After learning we all had some kind of ability, I thought maybe . . .” He shrugged. “It wasn’t a great theory anyway, because if the reason we have abilities was because of the water, Witt Jammer and all the others like him would have something too. They wouldn’t be satisfied with staying here.”

  Jaxon thought about Witt’s brother. “Maybe they aren’t all satisfied.” Keag had done something for the enforcers to send him to enhancement, and out here in the colonies, enforcers were far more likely to turn a blind eye. Half his mother’s clients had been enforcers who ignored the fact that prostitution had been outlawed in the CORE.

  Reese was already climbing the inlaid metal rungs to the top of the transfer station. She looked down on his questioning stare. “What? You’re not the only one who can stroll down memory lane.”

  He started across the slab to follow her up, but a man appeared on top of the building, dressed in pants and shirt the color of the cement and carrying an automatic rifle. Jaxon went for his weapon, but three more men stepped into view around them, equally armed. He cursed under his breath. What use was having an ability when it didn’t always work?

  A tall, dark-skinned woman dressed in a tight tank top and long, baggy pants emerged from the back of the transfer station, an assault rifle slung over her shoulder. Her short hair was as white as the straw they harvested in Colony 1, and the way it jutted out from her scalp, it looked about as stiff. She pushed past one of the men and came to stand near Eagle, sweat glistening off her bare arms and near her temples. The way she walked, the way she scarcely seemed to breathe, emitted a feeling of unreleased energy.

  “Took you long enough,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for over an hour.”

  Eagle barked a laugh. “Dani, is that you?”

  “No, it’s another black woman with white hair who knows your name. Of course it’s me. And did I say an hour? I’ve actually been waiting five years, which was how long ago the CORE realized their little science experiment wasn’t working and started scrubbing away all traces. I’d actually given up hope that you’d come. But you shouldn’t have. You don’t belong here anymore.”

  Their friend had always been tall and strong, but she’d grown taller than Jaxon had imagined she might. Her face had also changed, becoming longer, the cheekbones more prominent. This new Dani wasn’t beautiful, but her features were well-formed, and the way she carried herself, exuding strength and confidence, made her striking. Jaxon was fairly certain Dani would be able to take on any of her men in a fair—or unfair—fight and probably Jaxon too.

  Jaxon hopped down from the cement slab. “Look, we’re not here to cause trouble. We just came to talk to you.”

  “I’m touched,” Dani said, sounding anything but touched. “But you’re upsetting people, and I want you to leave.”

  Reese made it to the ground and moved past the man guarding the bottom. “It’s good to see you. We hoped you were still alive.” She approached Dani, hands empty and out before her.

  Dani retreated a step. “Stop,” she ordered. When Reese continued advancing, the men aimed their rifles, but at a quick shake of Dani’s head, they relaxed.

  Reese embraced Dani. “Thank you so much for taking care of Lyssa and Lyra after we left.”

  “And me,” Eagle smiled at Dani.

  Reese laughed. “And Eagle.”

  Dani held herself rigid for another few seconds and then slumped down toward Reese, hugging her briefly before stepping back and away. “You’re welcome.”

  “We came looking for you,” Reese said, “because the rest of our crew is in Amarillo City. Someone brought us together, and we’re not sure why. Strange things are happening.”

  Dani’s laugh was forced. “If you’re only noticing that now, you’ve been blind.”

  Silence fell between them. How odd to be here in this place with most of his crew. Jaxon almost felt as if they should sit cross-legged on the cement slab and chat like they had in the old days. Impossible, though, with the men and their assault rifles standing over them.

  “What happened to you?” Reese asked finally. “Did you get out? Lyssa and Lyra thought so. Where did you go?”

  “I got out, but I came back to help my cousin, and I met them”—she jerked her head toward the armed men—“when the sky train broke down on the way.”

  “And they are?” Jaxon asked.

  “Fringers.”

  Jaxon had to stop himself from drawing his pistol. He studied the men, who seemed no different from any other men he’d met.

  “Can you tell us why so many of the people we knew from here are missing?” Eagle asked. “And why we all have some weird ability?”

  Dani’s eyes glinted, but Jaxon wasn’t sure if it was just a reflection from the sun. “You have ability because they experimented on us,” she said. “Look, I know you’re enforcers now, but you have to understand that everything you’ve been told is a lie. Everything. The CORE, the fringers, the colonies.” Disgust filled her voice. “If we are to save people, we must begin a revolution.”

  A few days earlier, Jaxon would have contradicted her, but now he only wanted more details. “Reese and I were attacked two days ago, and Lyssa and Lyra have been followed.”

  “Of course.” Dani’s gaze darted to Reese and back to Jaxon. “If you have an ability, they’ll either enlist or eliminate you.” She gave him a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Whether or not they use deadly force is your clue as to which they intend. We’ve tried to save those we could.”

  “So you’ve been helping people,” Jaxon prompted. “Helping them escape?” A sense of relief dulled the anxiety he’d felt since learning about the missing people. Maybe there weren’t quite so many missing after all. “Is that why there are only forty thousand here now? How are you erasing them from the database?”

  Sudden fury raged in Dani’s face. “There’s only forty thousand because the CORE killed the others! Thousands and thousands of our people. And they erased them from the database. We’ve managed to save a lot but not enough. It’s never enough.”

  Jaxon stared at her, feeling as though he’d stepped into a nightmare. “Why would they kill them?”

  “Because dozens of us have shown interesting abilities, probably similar to those you have witnessed, but more of us went crazy. And I mean Breakdown crazy. Both those with and without abilities. There are more arrests and enhancements here than we’ve had reported at any of the other colonies.”

  Reported? Jaxon let that slip for now, but it was something he needed to keep in mind. He assumed the “we” she referred to meant fringers, but that would imply they were somehow a lot more involved in CORE affairs than he’d been led to believe.

  “You need to understand,” Dani continued, “that this colony is the only one ever to release people into the mainstream CORE Territories. And that was only a few thousand over a ten-year period as part of their experiment. We were one of the last years.”

  “But people have always left the colony,” Eagle said. “My grandparents talked about it.”

  Dani shook her head. “It’s a lie they sold to all of us. Oh, some colony residents are sent to live on the opposite side of the colony from where they grew up, and others are traded between colonies, but no one ever goes outside and the population never changes.”

  “What about immigrants?” Eagle countered. “Those who can’t support themselves out in the
CORE and are sent to the colonies.”

  Dani stopped pacing, and when she spoke this time, all the fury had gone from her voice. It was just sad and empty. “Because they are so few that they barely make a difference. No one leaves and no one comes to stay—that’s the first rule of the colonies. I don’t know what they’re doing to people who don’t change with enhancement, but they aren’t coming here—or living long if they do.”

  That was sobering. Jaxon knew of dozens who had supposedly been sent to a colony—some he’d personally arrested during his time as an enforcer. Now she was telling them those people were probably dead. The idea was appalling. Had they also been erased from the database?

  “You say they experimented on us,” Jaxon said, pulling his mind back to their original discussion. “How? Was it something in the water?” The memory of the canisters they’d found dripping into the water now haunted him.

  Dani frowned. “We’re not sure. It had to be some kind of drug, and the water or food would be the best method for delivery. Many of our immunizations are already ingested that way.”

  “I had hoped to get a water sample,” Eagle said.

  Dani waved at the slab. “They cemented this in five years ago. That was when we noticed those who’d left the colony were disappearing. We did some testing at that point, but couldn’t find anything in the water. But no one new has been affected with craziness or unusual abilities for years, so it’s probably a moot point. We do have water filters inside about half the houses now, though. Just in case.”

  Reese set her pack onto the cement slab, but rested a hand on it, probably near a weapon. Or was it her sketchbook? “What does this have to do with all the children here?” she asked. “They seem to be everywhere. At least compared to outside.”

  “It has everything to do with them,” Dani said, her expression sharp. “Do you know how many babies are normally born in the colonies each year? And I say normally because it’s changed here—but we’ll get to that in a moment. Anyway, normally fifteen hundred babies are born in a colony of fifty thousand people, which is exactly equal to the number of deaths we have each year. On the outset, that may not sound surprising since the CORE only gives out as many birth orders as there are deaths each year, but when you put all the babies together from the colonies, we normally have nine thousand new babies each year. That’s five hundred more babies than are born in all of Estlantic and Dallastar put together for the same time. If you look at it on a percentage basis, we have three percent birth and death rates, which is six times more than the birth and death rates in the rest of the CORE Territories. Six times!”

  Jaxon blinked in surprise. “I had no idea.” With two million people in the CORE altogether, and only three hundred thousand of them in the colonies, the total number of births and deaths in Estlantic and Dallastar should have been far greater. With a birth and death rate at half a percent, no wonder so many people on the outside were being denied birth orders. Yet here in the Coop, the CORE was paying women to have more children.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” Dani began pacing, a scowl written on her face. Her guards shifted, as if expecting some reaction from them, but Jaxon felt too stunned to even move. From the look on Reese’s face, she must feel the same. Eagle’s feelings weren’t so obvious with those dark glasses, but now he sat on the cement slab, his face silently lifted as if doing mental calculations.

  “We were supposed to get proper medical care,” Dani went on. “And the CORE Territories were supposed to gradually increase births outside and decrease them inside as people left the colonies and became contributing members to society. But instead they keep everyone here and let older people die after a certain age so that younger, stronger workers can take their place. Almost no one in the colonies survives past sixty. The CORE keeps all the numbers the same and never risks the overall productivity.”

  “And here?” Reese asked. “You said it was different here than in the other colonies.”

  Now Dani’s voice became tight and furious. “That’s right. We’ve had two thousand babies born each of these past five years, and since our average population is only numbered at forty thousand now and not fifty, that’s a five percent birthrate. That’s twenty-five thousand extra babies here in five years, and even then, those births haven’t made up for all the deaths and disappearances. Or not yet. But a few more years at this rate and we’ll be back to fifty thousand to replace all those they’ve murdered. The CORE already eliminated the last year of school, so now kids level out at seventeen and go straight to work at the factories. They were able to add a thousand workers that way.”

  If the increase in births was true, there were a lot more than ten thousand people who had gone missing. Twenty-five thousand more, to be exact, and if Dani hadn’t saved them, they were dead.

  “They’re trying to make up the fifty thousand.” Jaxon felt understanding just out of reach. “It makes no sense. It goes against everything the colonies stand for.”

  “Oh, but it makes perfect sense,” Dani said. “You still aren’t getting it. Fifty thousand is what it takes to run a colony—the farms, the cattle, the mining. Especially in the first five colonies because they’re primary industries.” Dani waited a moment for that to sink in before adding, “All of the raw materials, except what is sent here so we can make them into textiles, are shipped directly to the CORE. Everything we make is sent there too, supposedly to pay for our keep. We work twice the hours of those outside, and in much worse conditions. Then they make a big show of sending a tiny portion back to us, claiming they’re supporting the poor.” Dani’s voice became tight and low and vicious. “The truth is that the colonies exist only as a slave workforce, and without the raw food and materials produced in the colonies, the rest of the CORE Territories would starve. It’s us who don’t need them or their tiny houses and prison walls.”

  Everything clicked into place for Jaxon. The reason the colonies never changed population, the missing people, the explanation for so many children. His disbelief struggled with his outrage—and his guilt. Not for his work outside, but for his time in Colony 1. He’d thought he was making a difference, but all he’d done was to protect the CORE’s control. He’d consigned women like his mother to a life with no hope or options.

  “Then I’m guessing they chose Colony 6 for their experiment because we were the least important to the Core,” Eagle said. “Since we’re not a primary industry.”

  “That’s my guess,” Dani agreed. “And the fact that our industry is useful, but not exclusive. There are textile businesses in the Territories. But no mining, no cattle raising, no farming—at least not on any scale that could feed even Dallastar. Colony 6 was the natural choice.”

  They were expendable. Bitterness filled Jaxon’s mouth. “What did they hope for?”

  “We don’t know. Stronger humans? Smarter? A breed of soldiers? Longer life? A new youth serum?” Dani shrugged. “Take your pick.”

  “Someone’s brought us to Amarillo City,” Jaxon said. “All of us work for division now, even the twins.”

  She didn’t show surprise. “Then as I said it before—it’s either to eliminate or enlist you.”

  “They stabbed Reese during the attack. But if they had guns, they didn’t shoot.”

  Dani’s eyes went briefly to Reese and then back to him. “They might next time. Especially if they know you’ve been here.”

  “Everyone will know.”

  “Then you’d better watch your backs. And keep an eye on the twins.” Now that was more like the Dani of old. Protective underneath the gruff exterior.

  “Why don’t you come back with us?” he asked. “Help us track down these people.”

  Dani’s expression didn’t change. “I have work here.”

  “If that’s how you feel.” Jaxon wanted to tell her she’d be coming, sooner or later, but he was reluctant to let her know about his premonitions. She knew about their abilities, but not what they were, and if she did learn about h
im, she might decide that the fringers needed him, with or without his consent.

  “You don’t understand. They run everything out there. I can save more people from here.” Dani studied him for an intense moment. “But you could stay. Work with us.” She indicated the men with her. “We could protect you.”

  Of all the things Jaxon had expected from this trip, an offer of protection from fringers had never crossed his mind. “Look, Dani, I don’t know who’s behind the problems in the colonies, but there are an awful lot of good people out there too. And I have a job to do.” He glanced at Eagle and Reese, who was clenching and unclenching her fists in a way that told him she needed to record a sketch. Hopefully it would tell them more about Dani. “We have a couple of leads, and we’ll find out what’s going on. There has to be a way to fix this. I have to believe there’s a way.”

  His words apparently amused her. “Oh, there is. But will you be able to do what it takes? Because I’m telling you, it’s going to be worse than Breakdown. The people responsible for setting up all this”—she waved at the transfer station and the housing beyond it—“they enslaved three hundred thousand destitute survivors, nearly a seventh of their total population, in the name of charity, and for sixty years they have continued to enslave the colony children. Three generations with a three percent death and birth rate means eight hundred and forty thousand people who’ve lived and died in the colonies so they can continue to glut themselves on their labor. That shows a level of immorality greater than anything our people have ever experienced, including Breakdown.”

  Close to a million people in sixty years, which meant in another sixty that would double. Jaxon walked toward Dani, ignoring the tensing of her guards. “If this is true, we have to find out who’s behind it.”

  “Oh, I know who’s behind it.”

  “Well, I don’t. Look, I’ve lived most of my life on the outside now, and it works. People for the most part are happy and hard-working.”