After the Fear (Young Adult Dystopian)
Page 9
I don’t want an answer to that.
At least Alixis is better at these than the fitness exercises. She knows it, too. Her melancholy finally breaks around the same time we hear the whir of a spinner in the distance.
We stare as it lands behind the gate. Gideon checks his digipad and takes in a broken breath, his eyes smiling. He darts over the field and down the path just as Dao passes through the gate.
I guess that’s the signal that our training is over for today. Without a word, Alixis and I head over to the Wetpod. I imagine we’re both thinking the same thing.
In three weeks, that will be us returning.
We hope.
THAT NIGHT, as I sit up in bed, I tap out Dylan’s name on my digipad. I hit the link to city Victor, and am confronted with a choice of over two hundred Dylans.
Thinking fast, I tap out the name of Coral’s ‘BFF’, Tulia Hurn. Her profile zooms up at me. I flick my finger across the screen to find her ‘following’ list.
My name is one of the first on the list. I can hardly believe what I’m reading.
It doesn’t fit among the other Demonstrators’ names and I’m not sure I like it. She’s following me. Me—the girl who couldn’t have paid anyone at school to talk to me, and not only because I didn’t have any money.
Although I know it’s a tiny bit pathetic, I smile at the thought of Coral reacting to this betrayal by Tulia. My finger hovers over Coral’s name for a moment, but I clench my fist. The one good thing about being chosen is that she is out of my life, and I won’t invite her back in by checking her Debtbook.
I cast my eye over the many male names in Tulia’s ‘following’ list before I reach Dylan’s. Blossoming guilt tells me I shouldn’t be doing this, but I tap on his name before I can change my mind.
Dylan Casey.
His profile picture is now one of him fighting. My eyes are drawn to the way he holds his sword, angling towards his victim lying on the ground.
He has 100, 681 followers, five times more than me and the most I’ve ever seen. His latest status reads: Dylan Casey is the winner of: Demonstration in Sierra. Dylan Casey vs. criminals convicted of breaching Act 11: all persons must comply with regulatory procedures.
The statuses and comments don’t end. I lose count of his Demonstration wins after fifty and flick through them faster, desperate to find his first status as a Demonstrator. Finally, I reach a page which seems different. It has more gaps, and—I realise with a jolt of excitement—comments from non-followers. This is it, before he was chosen.
There’s a comment left by someone called David Harpen. He’s asking Dylan if he can come over and play on his model rail set. Above it is a status which makes my throat go dry. The words still inject fear into me, even now the worst has already happened.
Dylan Casey has been chosen to help pay the Nation’s Debt.
The date next to it shows December 2nd 2088. Eleven years ago. That can’t be right. I race back up to the top of his profile and check the date of birth underneath his name. August 31st 2079—that makes him twenty.
So he was nine. Just nine years old when he was chosen.
I think of William—crouched in his own urine, shaking in the corner. Is that how Dylan acted at his tryout? How did he survive? Why hasn’t he gone home yet?
Part of me wants to tap out Dad’s name, but I’m too scared. What if he’s stopped going to work? What if the last status is from days ago, showing he’s still in the flat?
He’s never written on my wall, and that scares me, even though I know why. He’s a profile monitor; he knows the kind of people who watch what everyone writes, knows how innocent comments can get someone into trouble.
Even if he is hurt, I can’t contact him directly. I can’t help him. So it’s easier if I hold his image in my head and carry around the hope that he’s okay. That he will be waiting for me when I finish my tour.
I lie back down and think of Dylan. I want so much to be home, so why doesn’t he?
I WISH I COULD HAVE spoken to Dylan at least once before he got together with Alixis. Okay, I don’t know for a fact that they’re an item, but they sit together at breakfast and dinner now, talking in hushed tones and looking as forlorn as war-torn lovers should. I’ve taken to sitting on the other side of Alixis and shovelling my food into my mouth as fast as possible.
Gideon still trains us. Days pass in a flurry of attack drills, parrying with Gideon, and sleep. Even in the dead of night his voice seems to scream, ‘persistence and resistance!’ right into my mind.
At least I’m seeing a difference. My stomach is hard and flat from the crunches. My arms and legs seem stronger, carrying me and my weights for thirty-two laps before finally creaking and giving up like a broken digipad. Even my flexibility has increased. Gideon has gone onto teaching us the more flamboyant moves, designed to impress rather than to survive. To get someone on the floor, the most practical thing to do would be to kick them between the legs, then attack them until they’re down. Now I know to crouch and sweep my leg out, knocking them from their feet. If I need to evade a blow I should try to leap over it rather than just get out of the way. This works especially well coupled with a blade throw right after, so Gideon says.
One aspect of training which I fear is creating our own ‘signature move’. All the Demonstrators have one, apparently, and performing it is like a silent acknowledgment to all your followers. As I never followed Demonstrators before, I don’t recognise any, but Alixis gets excited at this and starts to talk about this one woman who used to leap in the air and do a ballerina type spin before delivering her final blow.
‘You can often draw inspiration from your tryouts. Shepherd Fines will upload the footage to your digipad if you ask to review it,’ Gideon informs us after I express my anguish over the move.
At the thought of watching the tryouts, I shudder. I can’t think of anything more likely to reduce me to a fainting wreck.
‘Shepherd Fines would upload footage of a raging rebellion if Sola asked,’ Alixis teases, giving me an over-the-top wink. She’s in one of her better moods today. During her darker times, she doesn’t take my new friendship with the Shepherd quite so lightly.
We’ve only been chatting here and there, Shepherd Fines and I, but his jokes seem to be getting funnier—or my sense of humour’s getting worse—and I kind of like his company. Especially since Dylan’s avoiding me.
Two days after Alixis’ comment, Shepherd Fines visits me in the indoor gym which perpetually smells of old socks. I’m sparring with Dao, who sets off on the spinner almost every other day now that his tour is in full swing. Dao is the total opposite of Gideon: quiet, unassuming, and gentle. When I’m with him, I want to protect him even though I feel he’s protecting me. He’s saving me from going insane with his soft laughter and tactile touches.
Anyway, Dao is going easy on me, and I manage to get past his defences to land a hit with the plastic practice sword right in between his ribs.
As soon as I make contact, a booming chuckle sounds through the apparatus. Dao and I whizz around to see Shepherd Fines standing by the spectators’ bench, a grin stretched across his face and his light brown hair gelled so thickly to one side it looks black.
‘Well done, Miss Herrington!’ he calls, beckoning me over. Dao bows his head, taking a few steps backward before darting from the room.
I head over, swiping the sweat from my forehead and trying to catch my breath. Shepherd Fines holds something in his hand.
‘I’ve been hearing good things about your fighting, Sola. Now I see that they are all true.’ He looks into my eyes when he speaks, stressing his words as if he means every single one of them. Heat sears through my cheeks, and I look away, mortified.
‘I do believe you deserve a gift, or should I say loan?’ He chuckles and holds out an old, battered book. I examine the front cover.
‘Frankenstein,’ I read. It sounds familiar although I’m not sure why. I turn it over in my hands. I’ve never seen
any other book in my life than the one of Red Ink. I heard that they were all destroyed part way through the Shepherds’ occupation. We can download approved material from our digipads, but physical books are too hard to keep track of, I think. They could fill our minds with all sorts of ideas, and before we know it we’d find ourselves in the Stadium, fighting a Demonstrator.
I almost chuckle at this thought. Well, I guess I’ve got nothing to lose now. I take it, grateful and mesmerised.
‘I mentioned it a few nights ago and thought to myself, what a shame it is that young Sola can’t read this. It’s a brilliant book. However, this stays between us, yes?’ Shepherd Fines raises his eyebrows, giving me a wink at the same time.
‘Of course. Thank you.’ I flick through the pages, smelling the rusty, almost paint-like scent which lives between the paper. Shepherd Fines claps his hands together and clicks his tongue.
‘Great stuff. Well, I’ll let you get back to your training, although—’ He looks around the room. ‘—you seem to have lost your partner.’ He makes a face like ‘oops’ before grinning and heading towards the door. I’m still turning Frankenstein over in my hands when he calls back to me.
‘Oh, and feel free to pop by my office to discuss anything about the book. I’ll be expecting you.’
It’s only been six days since then, and I’ve spent four of those evenings in Shepherd Fines’ office of adventure and spice. He is a little presumptuous, I’ll give him that, but underneath it I think he’s a nice person. We drink steaming Gekruide tea, talk about why Dr. Frankenstein made his monster, and after I ask, he even shows me where we are on one of his maps.
‘I didn’t even know we were in Ireland,’ I say, tracing my finger around the small outline. There are only four cities in Ireland—Zulu, Victor, Whiskey, and Yankee. They sit on the map like dots; if I connected them, I would get a perfect square.
‘Well, we’re not. We’re in Zulu.’ He laughs and waggles his finger at me as if he’s telling off a naughty child.
‘Oh yeah, of course . . . but between you and me, it’s Ireland right?’ I check. Shepherd Fines seems taken back by this. He surveys me for a minute, then smiles. It’s not one of his trying-to-charm smiles, but a real, cheek-dimpled one.
‘Well, between you and me, have a look at this map.’ He darts behind his desk and retrieves a large, rolled up scroll from a drawer. He unravels it on the table and the stacks of paper underneath make a bumpy surface, causing the map to rise and fold like mountains. He places his glass of tea on one end of the paper to secure it.
I inch closer. I sense Shepherd Fines grinning, looking from me to the map.
It’s funny looking, the landscape stretched into an oval, and for a moment I think it’s a giant pod, but then I think it’s more like looking through a camera lens. Realisation blooms, and I inhale slowly, careful that a large breath could blow the paper away.
It’s a map of the world.
Not Juliet, Not Ireland, but the whole, amazing world.
I run my eyes over the picture for England. There’s a large shape towards the bottom which takes up about a third of the map. I point.
‘Is this England?’
Shepherd Fines tries to stifle a laugh. Then he places his hand over mine, guides it about three inches east. I’m left pointing at a small reversed L-shaped dot on the paper.
‘Try there,’ he says.
The shape is so small that the cities are represented by mere speckles of ink. I look back up to him to see if he’s joking. He’s not. In fact, his smile is gone, replaced by an intense stare. His gaze darts down, and I follow suit. That’s when I’m aware his hand still covers mine.
I jerk my arm away and bring it up to my neck in a pretty terrible attempt at disguising the action.
‘I can’t believe we’re so tiny,’ I say to fill the silence. Shepherd Fines doesn’t look up, but clicks his tongue once. I’m not really sure what’s just happened. Did I over-react? Is that why I’ve offended him? He probably thinks I’m some stupid girl who assumes everyone is coming on to her because they try to be nice. So why was he looking at my hand like that?
My tongue grapples around in my mouth for something to say.
‘So there must be millions of Stadiums around the world then?’
He looks up, his eyes hard around the edges. It lasts scarcely a second before his grin is back and he claps his hands together.
‘Right, that’s about enough of that!’ He begins to roll the map away. ‘So, why do you believe the monster acts the way he does?’ he asks. It takes me a moment to catch on that he’s talking about Frankenstein. I launch into my theory, settling back down on the couch and glad of the distraction. I take another sip of my tea, but it has gone cold.
TODAY IS THE FIRST without training in four weeks. Every Demonstrator has the day off.
It takes me about three seconds after I step out of my pod shaft to find out why.
Tryouts.
The word is whispered, spoken and shouted through the camp. There’s a buzz in the air, like the kind heard crackling in an electrical wire.
Even the Herd officers look more alert than usual, as if when we’re not training we’re more hassle. It strikes me that they probably know they’re more of a placebo than a real policing force. I mean, how much damage could they do against nearly a hundred trained killers? Once they ran out of ammo, what then?
I smile at the thought.
‘Come on, I’m starving,’ Alixis says. ‘So, what did you get up to with Shepherd Fines last night?’
My defences rise. I’m starving after lying in until 10am and really not in the mood for her jibes.
‘We just talked,’ I mutter.
‘He’s too old for you.’
‘I don’t think of him that way, okay?’ I stop still. She walks one pace in front before swinging around, her tongue in her cheek so that it looks like she’s sucking on a lolly.
‘And how does he think of you?’
I open my mouth to protest, before remembering the hand-on-map incident.
‘Leave it,’ I say.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing, that’s all,’ she replies, and smiles as if it’s all sorted. Her arm drops onto my shoulders. ‘Oh look, there’s Dylan. Dylan!’ She shouts over the tarmac to him. My insides freeze. I take a sharp breath.
‘Oops, sorry, I forgot you two weren’t talking,’ she says with a devilish grin.
I don’t even have time to hiss yeah right before Dylan strides over. I consider ducking away like I usually do, but on a day like today, when people will soon be fighting to survive, it seems a bit childish. So I mess around on my digipad for a bit while wondering what I can say to him. There’s no point pretending everything’s okay when we haven’t spoken in almost three weeks, but how can I acknowledge it?
‘Hey, Alixis.’ His voice is as low and magical as I remember. His accent comes through even in one word. My eyes flicker up involuntarily.
‘Hi, Sola.’
Oh. Wow. My name in his mouth sounds so delicious that I can’t help but take a broken breath.
I give him a half-smile and look away, feeling Alixis withdraw her arm. Then with about the subtlety of a propaganda advert, those two start a silent conversation beside me; I can see Alixis jabbing her head towards me even with my eyes cast downward.
Sure enough, when I glance up, I catch Alixis with eyes as round as coins and Dylan shaking his head pointedly at her. He sees me looking, and takes a deep breath.
‘Look, there’s something I really need to tell you—’
‘Sola!’ A cheery voice shouts behind me, and I could kiss Shepherd Fines for interrupting us. I wave a little too enthusiastically, ignoring Alixis’ groan. I know my unhealthy obsession with Dylan is probably making me imagine his relationship with Alixis, but I’m still worried he was about to break their ‘good news’ to me. I don’t want to hear that, not today.
‘My darling, I have the date of your first Demonstration!’
‘Are you all right?’ Dylan’s gentle voice is next to me. There’s a soft touch on my arm, but it’s gone as fast as it came.
‘She’s fine, of course. This is what she wants! Gideon recommended her as ready.’ Shepherd Fines claps a hand on my shoulder. I can’t bring myself to react. I just stand still, letting everyone talk around me.
‘Have you got my date?’ Alixis now. Her voice hopeful.
‘No, you haven’t been recommended. I’m sure it’s merely a matter of time. Anyway, don’t you wish to know when the big day is?’
His question pierces through the fog which clouds my mind. I shake my head, look up.
‘Um. No. I mean Yes. Yeah, tell me when it is.’
‘Six days’ time. November 5th. It’s in city Yankee against three criminals already detained. I could get some details on them for you if you wish?’
‘No! Please, I don’t want to know anything about them.’ They’re not people. They’re not even criminals. They’re only in between me and getting back home. I try to cast everything I’ve ever heard about those from Yankee away from my mind.
‘Very well. The first three Demonstrations are on this island.’ He gives me a sly grin, alluding to our insider knowledge that we are in fact, in Ireland. ‘So you’ll have a short journey. Anyway, you enjoy your day off with your—’ He looks around. ‘Oh, I seem to have scared away your friends. Well, I’ll be in my office if you need me—or even if you don’t!’ He chuckles to himself, before giving me a tongue click and turning away.
Six days.
In six days’ time, I have to fight for my life, again. The reality hits me like a defibrillator, sending shockwaves through my body. I would give everything I have right now for a hug from Mum. But I learnt a long time ago that that isn’t going to happen. So I take a deep breath and ball my hands into fists.