We pulled out Roderigo’s jerky and chewed on a meager breakfast. Jerky was the best. It’s one of those foods that force the slow eat and tricks the brain. I let Flea take two pieces, though it made me cringe. Normally, his size would warrant the extra rations anyways, but he still needed more than he should have taken. I wondered how many calories a day he was used to. His frame was big with broad shoulders. Everything about him screamed genetically pure, and I contemplated what Caste he came from. It was obvious he’d never wanted for food, until now at least.
“How old are you?” He asked.
“Seventeen.”
“Me too! Just took my Exits.”
Exit exams. I guess he’d given up hiding his recent Colony departure. I would have taken my Exits that year too. I would have sat at a harsh wooden desk and scribbled answers on the test document. I would have stressed and agonized over every answer, just like I did with every test I’d ever taken. But that was my old life. It didn’t feel right to talk about school out here. It was like talking about sunshine in the middle of a hurricane.
His questions kept coming. “How long have you been out here?”
“My whole life. I was a Stationary until I—“
“You don’t have to lie. It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me the truth, but just say you don’t want to tell me. I’d rather hear you don’t want to tell me than a lie.” His expression grew ancient, like he knew more about me than I had ever told.
I tried not to show it rattled me. “How’d you know?”
“You slip into the accent— our accent too much. You try to hide it, but when you’re nervous, it slips. Like with that man yesterday.”
Something small. It always boiled down to something small that gave me away.
“How do you know so much about Stationaries?”
Xavi threw a stone into the water so that it skipped four times before sinking in. We’d sat in silence for a while, trying so hard to find the words to talk our way out of what had just happened. The kiss. The hands. The exposure. Things got more muddled once we were safely dressed in dry clothes, and I broke the silence by asking him about Stationaries? I immediately felt like an idiot.
“I was one. My parents and me. We made this cabin into a home, but they eventually found us. I was out hunting, and, on my way back, I saw the fires. I went to the rendezvous point, but no one was there.”
I tried to imagine Xavi’s story. The words fell as if from a dream, and I couldn’t see it clearly. There wasn’t enough emotion in his voice to catch the tragedy of it all. His parents were killed too, just like mine. Suddenly, instead of Xavi’s parents, I only saw mine with their slack-jawed expressions as the light left their eyes. I felt the shudder of a tear, and wished I’d never brought the topic up.
But Xavi continued. “I waited for a month, but the weather was changing. I was lucky it all happened in the summer, but when winter made it’s entrance, I would have died had it not been for—“
“Hey there!” A girl’s voice interrupted from the trees. “Fancy seeing you two here!” Mari, Oldie, and Goldie emerged, ragged and travel worn. Then Polo followed behind them with a sheepish grin. His presence pulled me up from where Xavi and I sat, and laughter exploded from me before I could trap it in.
“I thought you were headed west?” Xavi accused. He’d made it pretty clear he didn’t like Polo very much.
“We were.” Mari laughed. “But my brother said this lake sounded like a great spot after Niko described it. You know Marco Polo. He’s always up for an adventure.” She shot me a sly smile to let me know it had nothing to do with adventure and everything to do with me.
Chapter Seven
I shook Flea. He was curled up in a ball where he’d finally fallen asleep. “There’s a yard a few miles up. We’ll have to foot it from here.” We could have stayed on the freight, but I needed supplies. Plus, despite everything that had happened since I met Flea, I was still determined to make it to the beach and needed to switch lines. Xavi always refused the coast, and I got the hint that there were some memories there he didn’t want to revisit, so I never pushed. But it also meant it’d be the last place I’d run into him, and that was all I wanted.
Flea copied how I braced myself on the corners of the car until I reached the ledge and clambered down the ladder. The train shuddered with that shake it gets when the wheels start to protest against brakes and rail. It was preparing for the entrance into the Colony.
I leaned back on my calves like I was sitting and peeked around the car. It was already at an easy speed, so there was no need to tuck and roll. I hopped off with a parachute fall. I never knew where the name came from, but it helped to have a way to run-fall. Flea wasn’t as graceful when he hopped down after me, but he didn’t face-plant. I thought to praise him for it, but decided against it.
“What next?” He asked.
“We stow our packs.” I rummaged through and pulled out the satchel from the bottom. My satchel was it’s own optical illusion. It fit so much more than it promised to just by looking at it, yet it was flat enough when empty to fit snuggly in the bottom of my pack. I hated leaving my pack to go into town, but it was too bulky not to arouse suspicion. A shoulder bag was more subtle.
I put the important things in it: the water purifier, the water bladder, and the money. I couldn’t bring more than that, because I needed room for what we’d snag. I hid my pack behind a tree and piled leaves and a log over it. Leaving it was a risk, but everything was a risk on the Tracks.
“What if someone steals it?” Flea asked.
“Then they steal it, and we find a way to get new ones.” Again, I went with the nonchalant. Losing our bags at this time of year was hypothermia waiting to happen, but I had to trust in luck. I needed supplies.
I turned to start the walk into the Colony, but he reached up and grabbed my hand. “Wait. Let’s think about this. You really want to go into town?”
“Duh.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the last place we should go. I’m wanted.”
“We all are. There’s a price on every head out here, even heads that aren’t Rebels.”
“You’re not a Rebel?”
Again with the question. “Seriously? Do I look like Rebel material? Not like that matters though. They’ll still torture us for information, so, do exactly as I say.” I thought about leaving him to wait for me, but it’d be more of a risk to leave him alone with my pack. What if he took it while I was gone?
He sighed. “Wouldn’t it be better if we adjusted our plans, just a bit, considering—“
“Look. Not to be crude, but I need supplies.”
He laughed. “We have food and enough water to last a few more days.”
“I know they don’t go into graphics during Propriety Lessons about the way a female body works, but I’m pretty sure you’ve recognized I’m a girl? And, as a girl, I need certain supplies, which I’m out of.”
I didn’t know how to bring it up, but Xavi, as always, read my mind. He bartered for me, and I didn’t even know it until I saw the tampons sitting in the pack with the other hygiene products. He kept trading for me until we met Celeste and she taught me how to get them for myself.
Xavi went to the Outdoor Supply store, while Celeste and I went into the supermarket. I knew it made him nervous to separate from me. We’d never been that far apart since we met, but Celeste growled at him when he protested. “Sheesh, Xavi. Take the training wheels off already. She’s a big girl.”
In the supermarket, food I used to eat all the time stared at me from the shelves, and I had to ignore the rumbling of my stomach. Celeste grabbed a cart and began to mosey down the aisles. She even examined the labels the way Mama used to, as if she was worried about calories and fat.
Celeste’s fingernails were immaculate. She had made me scrub my fingers in the stream until my skin felt raw. “It’s weird how much of a difference clean hands make on a person’s appearance,” she explained. “Stealing is all about avoid
ing suspicious glances and keeping fingernails clean. Sure, clean clothes help, but a lot of attention is drawn to the hands when you hold a product in a store.” I examined my hands in the water, and I noticed all the calluses blooming on my fingers. I was growing Track-hands.
In the Colony, it was hard to tell Celeste was a Vagabond. Even the grime on her clothes were less noticeable, and her dreads were braided into an intricate bun. It confined the wildness that normally followed her around out on the Tracks. She looked like an average Citizen despite the tiny signs screaming she was not.
Then it was time. She talked about school… about some test, and when we turned down an aisle, she bent down into the box and scooped up a handful. It was so quick, so perfect, so normal that no one would have noticed. “Oh. Crud. We forgot the eggs. Let’s head back to Aisle 4.” She did this several times and snagged this item or that item under the pretext of making sure she had everything she needed in her cart. Nuts. Tuna fish. Granola bars. Sunflower seeds. They filled up her satchel.
When we got to the checkout stand, she stood there so calmly. I couldn’t figure out what she was playing at. It wasn’t as if she had money, but she slowly pulled out every item from the cart and set them on the belt. She nodded at me to help and kept talking about a Literature exam. The store clerk looked bored and slid each piece of food along the scanner. The beep, beep, beep, was too slow, because my heart was beating too fast. Celeste reached into her satchel, and I gasped. One wrong move, and she’d show the clerk what was in there!
She pulled out a tattered wallet and leafed through it. “Oh, no! Mama’s going to be upset!”
“What?” I asked.
“I left her ration card on the table! All she asked me to do was this one, measly thing, and I blew it!” The tears pooled at the corner of her eyes. “I was even hoping to have dinner ready by the time she and Daddy got home from work. They’ve been working so hard for the G.E.G.”
At first, the cashier narrowed her eyes, but at the mention of the Genetic Engineering Guild and the presence of Celeste’s tears, she softened. Celeste looked so sweet and innocent when she cried that pity was the only reaction you could afford to give. I knew she was in her early twenties, but, in that moment, she looked even younger than me. “I’m so sorry. Perhaps you can come back with the card? We can hold onto the cart for you. We’ll have to put the perishables away, but at least we can save you some time when you return?”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Of course!”
Celeste’s face grew bright. “Gee! Thanks! I can be back in ten minutes! Promise.”
Peanut butter. It was one of the most sought after foods for Vagabonds, and the new jar that rested in my satchel was a pretty slick steal. I scratched the barcode with my fingernail so it wouldn’t make the buzzer at the door go off, and Flea’s bulky shape made it easy to hide from the cameras while I slipped it into my bag. I bent down to tie my shoe, and a couple granola bars fit perfectly into the cuffs there. And the holy grail of tampons littered the bottom of my bag. I’d only needed a handful to get me through the next day, but now I had enough for three months. Flea was the one who swiped them! Even Xavi’d never been able to help me with this part without getting jittery, but Flea knocked the boxes off the counter and fumbled with putting them back. His clumsiness worked in his favor, and he looked like an awkward boy sent to run the most embarrassing of errands. There was even a clerk walking the aisles who grinned at him endearingly then walked away. This attempt to give him privacy as he put the boxes back up gave him extra time to swipe more.
It would have been an in and out deal if the announcement hadn’t blared through the speakers.
“Mandatory gathering in the square. Thirty minutes. Mandatory gathering in the square. Thirty minutes.” The voice was mechanical, but I knew it was going through every speaker on every street, in every store, in every school, and in every home. “Democracy only works when the people participate in it, so any municipality business is non-negotiable,” Daddy had explained many a time.
I had intended to pay for the cheap toothbrushes and paste since I had Roderigo’s money. It was less suspicious than if I had left without buying something, but the speakers were unavoidable. The cashier let me be the final purchase before she had to usher out the rest of the crowd. I handed over the bills and smiled. I shoved the items and the change into my satchel and said thank you. My Colonial accent was worth gold in these situations, and it had gotten to the point where Xavi trusted me to do most of the talking when we ventured into towns. My vocabulary made me stand out, even amongst most Colonists, as someone of intelligence and learning. Even if people got the suspicion I was a Vagabond, my voice quickly dashed it away. Sliding back into the accent was like sliding into an old pair of shoes. The words reminded me that I had a life like this before, where I’d stop by the store for something as mundane as toothpaste. The words reminded me that I wasn’t always a fugitive, thief Vagabond— that I used to have a family and dreams. The accent held memories of my parents, and I felt a mix of happiness and sorrow when I heard their voices and expressions within mine.
Our voyage into town had been going too easily, and I should have expected the other foot to drop. I nodded to Flea, and we followed the throng of people walking into the square. Within thirty minutes, everyone could get there from any point in the Colony. They kept Colonies big enough for diversity, but small enough so that travel within it was manageable. They were also big enough for Vagabonds to hide in plain sight, as long as we didn’t stay too long. Flea and I spread out in the crowd and pretended not to know each other, but I kept him within my sights and he kept me in his. I knew better than to let too many people get between us, since my height made me impossible to find when lost in a crowd. Sometimes it was a blessing. Sometimes it was a curse.
The square filled up, and soldiers bordered the roofs and edges of the crowds like stitching on clothing. Their black uniforms were pristine and took on the unnerving qualities of bright. I didn’t look their way, because I didn’t want them to see the nervous in my eyes, and I willed Flea to avoid eye contact as well. The boy couldn’t help it, but he already stood out, especially in this Colony. For the first time, I really looked at him and realized it was stupid to bring him with me. He was beautiful and definitely high above the Castes of those around him. He looked like a Celebrity in comparison to the other musty faces around us. Most of the skin in this Colony was a little too pale, and I even noticed freckled faces on some, which were mostly bred out by now. Flea’s skin was that flawless caramel, as if every freckle in the world had perfectly blended together across his entire skin.
I caught the furtive looks some of the girls shot his way, and I blushed. I remembered the times I’d glanced at boys like that. We weren’t supposed to think of them in that way, but it was normal to break that rule to an extent. We all did. Staring at beauty in secret was such a rush back then. After all, teenagers had trouble learning how to control urges. It was why Propriety Lessons were so important: they provided a safe place to talk those urges out over nervous giggles so that acting upon them never happened.
“Nikomedes, is there anything else you’d like to add?” Aeschylus asked. I always found it hard to talk about boys to the old man, but I guess that was the point. By the time we turned fourteen, we were supposed to be nearly cleansed of those emotions. They’d already transitioned us out of female only groups so we could learn how to appropriately interact with boys, and most of our Institute classes were even mixed by that point. But I was smarter than the others, and I’d figured it out first. We weren’t supposed to have much more to confess by that point, and I knew to keep whatever thoughts I was having on the topic to myself. Since I was flagged, I had more to prove than the others, and I held in any confession that I may have had. It pleased the old man. He was plump and firm with his frayed beard and his salt and pepper hair. Aeschylus. I wondered if he’d changed his name when he ventured into this profession, or, if the pro
fession found him because of his name? With a name like “Shame,” he was in the perfect place to inflict it on the young.
Once, my best friend, Berenike, confessed she had an inappropriate dream about a boy in our class. Aeschylus made us watch an entire video of a woman giving birth. It was a stillborn baby with a smash-smooshed face. He explained, “That’s what happens when you procreate without a proper license. You put forth a different kind of evil into the world. The Genetic Engineering Guild saves you from entering into a relationship that can put forth mutations into our genetic codes— the same mutations that nearly wiped us out after the Great Disaster. You don’t owe it to yourself to trust science. You owe it to Humanity. You owe it to your future children.”
“But, we should be safe now. We’ve all heard the rumors that we’ve—“
“Ah. There’s the keyword, Berenike. Rumors. Rumors are a danger to democracy. The strength of the Republic is in the search for truth and logic through science. Trust in that over rumors,” our instructor reasoned. “A well educated public is a public that survives. Use that brain of yours, sweet girl, and tell me there’s no danger. Rumors? Bah. Look at the Terrorists. They’re out there breeding haphazardly. Every time we catch one, we see within their codes all the digression from their choices. Rumors? Let’s try facts. Get out your tablets and go to the G.E.G. site.”
We followed his directions and followed Aeschyulus in searching for Terrorist Anomalies. Snapshots of faces were listed, along with all the genetic deformities found upon the autopsies.
We all understood then. I thought Berenike did too.
My cheeks deepened in color when Flea sent a subtle wink my way. I knew he was just signaling me to stay calm, but I looked away as if he could read my mind. I’d been staring at him as if I’d been staring at the sun for too long, and I looked back to the front of the crowd. The stage was high above our heads so that everyone could see. The metal blinked in the sun, and I stood expressionless as the officials took the stage.
Vagabond Page 8
