by Melissa Faye
“Well I don’t know anything about anti-cloners.” I paused for a second. Anti-cloners. ACers? My mouth fell open a tiny amount.
“What? What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what this is, and –“ Vonna cut me off.
“And you don’t want me to be a part of it. I know, I know.” She picked up a paintbrush and started mindlessly painting more of the wall with her sloppy strokes. I looked at her. She was wearing those childish overalls under her new insignia, and her round face made her look so innocent. She was right, of course. I knew no one her age should be part of this.
“Well, what do you even think it means?” I asked. I followed her example and started painting the wall again. We painted in silence as one of her classmates, a Bronze, passed by behind us.
“I don’t know. Anti-cloning? What would make someone anti-cloning? I mean, if it weren’t for cloning, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Right. So the anti-cloners don’t think we ‘belong,’ it sounds like. They think we should just...” I pursed my lips.
“We should what? Go extinct? Why don’t we belong just because we’re still stuck on this fertility thing?”
“I don’t know, Vonna.” I really didn’t. Over the past week, I had become more and more frustrated about what was going on with the F-Lab, and what the government might be doing without anyone’s say. I couldn’t help thinking that if the government didn’t want us to solve the crisis, they had some ulterior motive we were all missing.
Maybe this resistance group was right; humans didn’t belong anymore. We painted again in silence. Vonna ran to get us another can to switch colors for a nearby column. I watched kids running around with paintbrushes. Did any of us deserve to be here? What about our clones? Where were they, and were they thinking the same things?
“What about what Breck said?” Vonna asked when she returned.
“What did he say?” I asked, pouring the new paint can into a different tray.
“About activism. About groups of people coming together –“
I knew I could be short with people, but I tried very hard to make an exception for Vonna. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hold back anymore.
“No groups are coming together!” I nearly shouted. “Breck is full of it. He has big ideas but...he doesn’t know anything.”
“People do come together.” Vonna held her paintbrush out while she turned towards me, pointing it at my chest. Splatters fell to the ground in large drops of medium blue. “I’ve heard things. Groups exist.”
“Fine, Vonna,” I said. “If these groups exist, then what are you going to do about it?”
“I want to find one,” she said. “I want to be part of it. You know I don’t always agree with how things work in Young Woods. And what Breck said made a lot of sense to me.” I mumbled angrily to myself. “Get over it, Yami! I’m going to find a way to be a part of this. And I had hoped you would help me.”
“Well, I’m not going to,” I said. I turned back to the column to paint, making as big of a mess as Vonna had before.
“Fine. I’ll ask Breck.”
“No, you won’t,” I snapped. “He’s getting involved in dangerous stuff. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“I thought you said he doesn’t know anything!” I sucked in my lips. My argument was falling apart. “Do you?” asked Vonna. “Do you know more than you’re telling me?”
“No!” I was trying to calm my tone but failing.
“But you know more than you’re telling me.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But if I’m not telling you things, it’s because it’s dangerous.”
“Fine!” Vonna’s face was glowing red and I heard her voice wavering. “If you won’t help me, I’ll find someone else who will.”
I grabbed the paintbrush out of Vonna’s hand and dropped both of the brushes into the paint tray. “Stay away from that stuff,” I grumbled. “I mean it. My job is to help you grow up and make good choices. But you’re acting like a kid with all these crazy ideas, and having a tantrum about your career. Obviously I am failing you here. But I won’t do it anymore. Stay away from this, or...”
I didn’t have anything to threaten Vonna with. I couldn’t stop meeting with her; it would be too miserable for both of us. I had no leverage. And what’s more, the comment about Vonna being upset about her career was completely uncalled for. I had gone too far.
Luckily, Vonna was ready to act like more of an adult than I was.
“I’ll be safe, Yami,” Vonna said. She looked at me carefully as her face softened. She looked down at the brushes but didn’t move to pick them back up. “I promise. I’ll be careful. I want to help make things better. Is that so wrong?”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. Of course it wasn’t wrong. But it was silly to think a person could make a difference with all the power community leaders had.
“No, it’s not wrong,” I said. “If anything happened to you...”
“I know, Yami,” she said. “But nothing will happen to me. Really! It’s just people talking about making the community better. Helping to solve the crisis sooner. Making everyone know what’s going on. I will be fine.”
I had a mental image in my head, the second time that week, of someone I loved disappearing. I would go to the cafeteria to meet Vonna for lunch, and she wouldn’t show up. I would message her and not hear anything back. I would go to an Underground meeting, and they’d tell me she got caught telling her classmates about some secret government conspiracy.
I looked at Vonna’s sweet face and pleading smile.
“Ok,” I said, forcing myself to smile. “You’ll be fine. You’re right.”
AFTER MY FAILED PAINTING session, Ben caught up with me on my way back to my place. He caught my eye before I could pretend I didn’t see him. I railed on him.
“What??”
“Hey!” he said. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry about the other day.”
Ben was never sorry. He diplomatically but conveniently changed his opinion. I was wary of him.
“Really,” he continued. We walked towards the Gold commune, and I turned up my coat’s collar against the cold. “I still think leadership needs to know about Etta’s pregnancy. But if you don’t, I’ll follow your lead.”
“Oh really?” I said sharply. I stopped walking and turned to face Ben. I mindlessly felt my hair for fly-aways. “You’ll follow my lead?”
“I guess,” Ben said. I sighed. “I’ve been looking into the Records Room. There are some old texts about childbirth. Centuries old. More than we found in the book you borrowed. Which, if you’ll remember, I haven’t even asked you to return yet.”
I gave Ben a half-smile. “If you find something, can you get it to us? Take pictures, or download it, or take it out of the room? How does that work?”
“I can borrow texts, but they keep a record of it. I don’t have access to everything since I’m just an intern. I can take pictures of what I can get access to, though, and send them to you.”
“That’s something, I guess.”
“Can you tell Etta?” Ben asked. “Just tell her...I don’t know. Tell her I’ll help however I can, ok?”
This did make me smile. Ben was a little scared of little Etta. I wanted to refuse, just to see the look on his face, but I obliged.
“I’ll tell her,” I said. “But if you ever say any of that stuff again, about telling the Chancellor about her, you’re on your own.”
Chapter Seven
The next week was Sprain Week at the Med. The Chief of Medicine had decided that for this week, all sprains, breaks, and twists would be managed by the interns. I reviewed some procedures on my TekCast as I got ready in the morning. I didn’t think much of the extra noises outside my windows until I left the commune.
Apparently the Underground had been busy, because the community was covered in flyers about the F-Lab secret. They were stapled to trees and taped to doors and windows. I probably saw a hu
ndred of them on my walk to work. People gathered in crowds around the signs and talking loudly. Children were pulling the signs down and flapping them around in the air, like they were some paper flags. I pulled one off the wall of my building to read it.
WE ARE NO LONGER RESEARCHING FERTILITY
WE HAVE GIVEN UP ON FINDING A SOLUTION
TELL US WHY, CHANCELLOR!
The strangest part was that on the top and bottom of the words was the same symbol I had seen on the note Vonna found. An oval with a V stretched out in the center. How were the Underground and the Anti-Cloners related?
I hurried towards the Med where more copies of the flyer was taped to the door. I ignored them and hurried to my desk. No one else was there yet except Charlie. He sidled up to me.
“Do you think it’s true?” he said under his breath. “That all this time, the F-Labs are doing nothing to solve the crisis?”
I shrugged. I pulled out my TekCast and opened back up to the sprain section. Charlie leaned in closer.
“I think it’s true,” he continued. He looked around as one of the other interns came in. “Hi, Heron!” Heron smiled and left his bag on his desk before taking off for a different part of the building.
“No, really,” Charlie said as he turned his attention back to me. He leaned over and pushed a button to turn off my TekCast holoscreen. His fingers brushed against mine, and I shivered. There was something about having Charlie’s attention like this that made my heart jump. “I don’t think it’s a prank. If it is, I’ve never seen anything like it before. But it kind of makes sense.”
“How does it make sense?”
“Well, so much that happens around here is kept secret, right? Not once in the history of the community have we seen any real progress. And no one talks about it. At some point, you’d expect something to happen, right? This would explain why nothing has changed for a hundred years.”
“It doesn’t explain why someone would be so stupid to put those posters up,” I said. I clicked my TekCast back on and inched away from Charlie. I grabbed my lab coat off a wall and threw it on before walking out of the room. Charlie followed right behind.
“Stupid, yes. But now everyone knows, right? I mean, if they believe it.” He followed me to the lecture room, where the interns were gathering to get instructions about Sprain Week. It was a large room with glass walls and rows of two-person lab tables. A screen filled the entire front wall that all the seats faced. Not many people had arrived yet.
“If it’s true, how would anyone even know? That’s what I’m really wondering.” Charlie sat down at the lab table next to me. “I guess you could hack into something, somehow. Maybe look at the F-Lab data and see that...something is off? Or maybe you could hack into government records...Maybe the Chancellor talked about it in front of the wrong person. Maybe there’s a leak.”
“What do you even know about government leaks and hacking?” I hissed under my breath.
“I used to have a mentor who worked in the tech lab. He let me tag along at work all the time,” said Charlie. “My career test said Medicine, and I like it a lot, but I kept working on programming skills in my free time. I can do some stuff!” He puffed out his chest.
This demanded a large, over-the-top eye roll. “What stuff?”
“I’ve tried to get into the government system,” he said, more quietly now. “I couldn’t get far. I got one level in and found a list of the Chancellors going back for a while. Saw some notes from some of the council members’ meetings, but most of them were encrypted in a way I couldn’t understand.”
I never knew Charlie was into programming technology. I never saw anyone so versed in a topic outside their own major. It was strange enough to study outside your major; this also crossed color lines. Medical was Gold; Technology was Silver. I wouldn’t have guessed Charlie would do something like this; he seemed like a rule follower. If he was hacking into government data systems, what else was he doing? What else were other people doing behind closed doors? I knew the faces of the people who were part of the Underground now, but what other groups existed below the surface?
“How do you keep from getting caught?” I asked.
Charlie shrugged like it was no big deal. I grinned. He seemed proud that to be impressing me. “It’s not that hard. They don’t expect anyone to attack the system, so there aren’t a lot of security measures in place. But there are still some easy ways to cover your tracks. Make sure your own program can’t be traced, and even if it could, it wouldn’t be traced back to my TekCast.”
More people were coming to sit down around us, surrounding us with white coats in all directions. Charlie waved to a few of them while I stared straight ahead, rearranging my hair into a tighter twist. We didn’t need to talk more quietly now that there were other conversations filling the room.
“What if they did trace it back to you?” I said.
“I think it’s still worth it,” Charlie said. “The risk. I’ve tried getting into the medical system before. You know, I tried to avoid the data wiper, and see if I could access data outside the lab. Just see if I can get in there. I’ve almost figured it out.”
The room went quiet while the Chief of Medicine, Pablo, entered the room. “Good morning, interns,” he said as he stepped to the front of the space. He was a small man with a thick beard and glasses. He had only been in the job for a few years, but from what I could tell, he was good at it. He held his TekCast in front of him and looked surprisingly nervous, given his usual composed demeanor. We could all see that the TekCast was projecting something in front of him, but from behind the holoscreen it was nothing but a fuzzy pink rectangle. “I’ve been instructed to read a memorandum from Chancellor Lorenzo. You’ll also find it as a message on your own TekCasts.” He pressed something on his screen and our TekCasts buzzed.
Pablo read aloud in a stilted voice while many of us, myself included, pulled the memorandum up on our screens to follow along.
“As you know, a group of activists littered our community overnight with flyers positing that our F-Lab is not currently working towards a solution for the fertility crisis. Please know that first, this information is a lie perpetuated by what is likely a small number of citizens trying to instigate trouble in our safe, calm community. Second, if you have any information as to who disseminated this lie or know anyone who might have information, please reach out directly to a member of the Young Woods council. Thank you.”
The room was silent for a moment as interns stared at their TekCasts and avoided looking directly at Pablo. Pablo himself had a strange energy, like he was not sure what to say or how to continue. After a few moments, he spoke again.
“I’m sure no one in here has any information, but I do urge you to speak with the council on the off chance that you do,” said Pablo. “Few of you would remember, but fifteen years ago we saw a surge of anti-community behavior. The protestors – or terrorists, as the council called them – created fear and mayhem by interrupting community activities with their demonstrations. Several were identified and disappeared. If you do know something and are later discovered as having held back information, the punishment could be severe.”
There was another uncomfortable silence that turned into a low murmur. Soo Yen was standing by the wall closest to me, and I saw her lean in to the doctor next to her. “Why are we wasting our time with this?” she whispered. “If the Chancellor isn’t even running fertility testing anymore, maybe he should send us more doctors and interns. I could use the extra help.” I smiled. Soo Yen doesn’t even have patience for Chancellor Lorenzo, I thought. He’s as good as an intern to her. And she might even believe what the posters said.
I watched Pablo compose himself, taking a deep breath and switching off his TekCast. He went to the screen on the wall and pulled up the intern schedule for the week. As he described how Sprain Week would work, I could feel the tension in the room dissipate slightly. We were uncomfortable, but work made things less so.
VONNA WAS
WAITING FOR me outside the Med after work. She got up from her bench and walked beside me as I headed for my apartment. I noticed that the flyers were all gone.
“Who did that?” Vonna asked me in a hushed voice while we walked. “Do you know?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Vonna,” I said. I kept my head down and walked straight ahead, uninterested in engaging in this conversation again.
“And what about that symbol? The circle and the V?” said Vonna. I didn’t respond.
Suddenly, I remembered where I had seen the symbol before. It was on a ripped piece of paper in Alexis’s room, taped to a wall. I saw it every time I was there, and finally asked her about it a few months before she disappeared. “What is this? Is it a logo or something?” I pulled the paper down from the wall, careful not to rip it. The symbol was scratched onto the paper with a pencil.
“That’s nothing,” Alexis said with a half-smile. Her half-smiles usually came with some half-truths. “Someone drew it for me.”
“What is it then?” I asked, sitting down at her desk and squinting at the lines, trying to see if they would form themselves into a recognizable shape.
Alexis reached over and took the paper from my hand. “It’s an owl. See?” She traced the lines with her fingers. “The oval part is his head. The V part is his beak. An owl!” I could see sort of. I would have never guessed.
“Why do you have it, if it’s only a little sketch?” I asked.
“My...friends use it,” she said. “We like what it stands for. The owl represents Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. It’s about learning, and finding out everything you can. Sharing information with others so we can all work together.”
I frowned and cocked my head to the side. “That’s kind of like the UCA motto, right? What’s best for the community is best for me? You’re saying if we can work together, everyone benefits.”
Alexis laughed loudly, though I wasn’t sure why. “I guess so. Kind of. It’s kind of the opposite, too.”
