Vagabond

by Brewer, J. D.

  We walked miles upon miles out of town, circumventing the freight-yard. As the night sucked away the sun, the search lights cut back and forth across the sky and trees. I’d been right about the increase in security measures.

  My heart ached from all the pounding it was intent on doing. There was so much bounce in Flea’s step, and I wanted to slap it out of him. He pretended not to notice my bad mood until we were well out of the grasp of town. I knew he still thought I was upset at having to watch an execution, and not at all the hidden things the execution told me about the world I lived in. I just couldn’t stop thinking of Xavi and how much he didn’t love me.

  The night wore into my muscles and nerves, and it was time to take a break. The air got colder and added to my shivers. Since Flea hadn’t left yet, I decided to take advantage of his warmth. We’d have to sleep like the night before, with one on alert at all times and our packs ready to go. We half-walked, half-climbed, and mainly slid down the ravine near the tracks, until we found a good tree to prop ourselves up against.

  I decided to sleep first, since Flea was all pins and needles with excitement. When my head was finally resting on his arm and my eyes were about to send me into oblivion, he asked, “Did I do something wrong?”

  “Are you really that dense?”

  “Tell me how you really feel, why don’t you?” His muscles tensed. I hated how I was getting used to his smell, and how the scent of him was changing to take on the dirt and sweat and earth of travel. It wasn’t a gross smell. Some people we came across had a straight-up putrid stench that overpowered every other smell. Others figured out how to maintain a sense of hygiene. Then there were those who were naturally lucky and smelled of freshness no matter how much sweat poured from their pores. I could already tell Flea was one of the lucky ones.

  I sighed. “That could have been us back there— with the needle in our arms. Had Roderigo not pushed me from the train, we would have been along side them.”

  “I know. Don’t you see how lucky we are?”

  “Escaping is nothing to celebrate. Every time the Republic does that, they do it to us. Roderigo and Annabeth may have tried to steal from us, but they are still a part of us. It’s the Bond of the Vagabond. Every death deserves reverence, whether you were the cause of it or one of the ‘lucky’ ones who escaped.” I took a deep breath, because it was the next part that tore at me. It was the next part that filled me with contradiction. “And, we didn’t escape. Not really, at least. We are a threat to Humanity, and the Republic is right to hunt us down, but I’m too scared to die, so I break the laws. One day, they will find me. One day, that will be me. One day, that will be you. It will be our deaths that contribute to Humanity, not our genetics, because anyone who turns to the Tracks is an anomaly. You. Flea. Are an anomaly.”

  He said nothing at this. I could tell his smile faded and his mood deflated.

  I left him to his thoughts and forced myself to sleep.

  “Mari!” Polo screamed as he ran to the fire, and I stayed frozen behind the tree-line. I’d reached out to grab him, but my hand grasped at air. The space where he used to be was empty, and, instead, I fell into it and landed on my hands and knees. It took everything I had to move my chin up so that my eyes could see. The fire lit it all up and bounced off the bright black uniforms. The older woman was still slumped by the tree, but she was missing the snores, and Mari screamed while she held Goldie. Blonde hair turned maroon in her arms where the gun shot had landed square in Goldie’s temple.

  Polo ran straight into it.

  And I was on the ground crying silent tears. They blurred my vision, but not my hearing. Another gun shot rang out, and I didn’t have to see clearly to witness Mari falling back with Goldie in her arms. I didn’t have to see clearly to watch a solider wrestle Polo to the ground.

  A hand slid over my mouth and made me bite down. I squirmed and kicked my hands and feet out in every direction. “Shhhh. Shhhhhhh. It’s me,” Xavi whispered. “It’s me.” He pulled me through the trees. “We have to go. We have to go.” He whispered in twos. Every time he stopped tugging, my feet planted firm so I could grow my tears up and out. I shed leaves and leaves of sorrow while Xavi repeated, “We have to go. We have to go,” marching the sentences two-by-two into my ears.

  We had to go, because Polo and Mari and Goldie and Oldie were gone, and we were not. We were still here.

  Chapter Nine

  Over the next few days, Flea grew quieter and quieter. I almost felt guilty for making him feel so bad, but he needed to know. He needed to know the danger of it all, and the unfairness he’d encounter with a life on the Tracks. For those days, the only joy we shared was over peanut butter. We stuck my pocket knife into the jar and licked with caution and reverence.

  The sweet.

  The salt.

  The contradiction.

  A week passed, and he still kept following me. We ran into no one else as we hopped onto trains, then off again when I got the urge. “Why not just travel through and get to where you’re going?”

  “A friend once told me that I already am where I’m going. Where’s the rush, when I’m already right where I’m supposed to be?” It was a Randolf-ism, and I smiled softly. I pointed at one of the trees that caught my attention. Some Vagabond had climbed high up on it to char the tip of the pine for a trail marker. “We may meet some others, if you’d like.” It was my new plan to get rid of him. Maybe he’d finally let me be if he met someone else who could take him to his precious Rebels?

  We began the journey in, and I picked up on the trail clues. A ribbon of torn fabric tied here, an X cut into the bark there. As we walked he slowly pulled himself back out of his shell. He began to read my face like a mood ring and knew when to shut up. I was thankful for that, and it made me less annoyed with him. But, sometimes a voice is good to hear when you’re in the middle of nowhere. It keeps the sanity sutured to the brain.

  Every morning, something about his face would grow on my memory. Some people were calluses on the mind like that, and their connection forms before you can stop it. His face still bugged me. It was as if I’d seen it before and it meant something important. Every time I’d get close to figuring it out, it’d hang on the tip of my tongue and taunt me like a phantom limb.

  I pushed a branch forward and held it so it didn’t snap back to hit him in the face.

  “What’s a fish without an eye?” he asked. I sighed, and shrugged. “Fsssssshhhhhh. Get it? Eye. Like eyeball. And I like the letter?” He slapped his knee as he laughed.

  “Yeah. I got it. Corny.”

  “What about this one? Knock knock…” he looked at me expectantly, and the expression pulled out a laugh that surprised me.

  “Who’s there?” I gave in.

  “Oink, oink.”

  “Oink, oink, who?”

  “Make up your mind! Are you a pig or an owl?” His giggles were rambunctious as they rumbled out.

  “Those jokes are so sophomoric!”

  “Ohhhhh. Look at you with those big words!”

  I laughed. “I was smart, once upon a time. First in my year at Institute.”

  “Thought you were a Stationary?”

  “Thought you didn’t want me to lie. Truth? I was kind of a genius.”

  He thought it was a joke and laughed even harder. His peach-brown lips stretched over bright teeth, and his eyes crunched up so that the blues and greens grew watery— almost sparkly. I had a feeling he’d get plenty of attention when we finally ran into others, especially after witnessing the looks the girls in the Colonies snuck him during the execution. His genetics were too telling.

  I’d heard the rumors about people in my generation nearing perfection. I wasn’t in that category, of course, but my pairing was supposed to set my children on that path. My partner and me? Our potential genetic cocktail gave my entire family hope before everything was demolished. Sometimes I mourned the children I would never have. So much possibility was stolen from me when they killed my par
ents, and I wondered who they partnered Paramonos with when I ran away? The G.E.G. had scheduled our meeting for a year out to give me time to say goodbye to the life I’d known. They’d asked me to change Colonies for the pairing, and I was to have the honor of “providing diversity to a new gene pool.”

  I’d spent my entire childhood wearing the red-mark of shame— that flagged status that meant one thing more often than the other. For most of my life, I ran on the assumption that my genome was inadequate rather than being needed to provide diversity. My imperfect body led all logic to convince me I was a dead-end. Then, the notification came. The G.E.G. gave me no information, other than a name, and that he was the son of someone very important.

  Being around another Colonial did strange things to my thoughts. Even though he was just telling stupid jokes to pass the time, he brought all those wonders to the forefront of my brain. My past had always been so solid in my mind, but lately, even that was a fleeting memory as I learned the Tracks. Venturing into a different life than the one I’d begun to imagine for myself made it difficult to remember the moments that used to feel so steady. My reality, in comparison to what was supposed to be, was so vastly different. I tried to avoid thinking about it the past two years, but Flea rubbed it all in my face.

  Flea.

  The poor sap still didn’t realize everything he’d given up by shunning the Republic. I wondered how he’d react when he figured it out? I wondered if it’d hurt him the same way it hurt me?

  “Niko! Honey! You’ve been paired!” Mama squealed and held her tablet out so I could see. On it buzzed a letter from the Department of Human Relations. “He’s the son of some official! You’re moving up eight Castes! Eight! Oh, honey! Things are going to get very exciting for you! See! I told you it was your brains they wanted! I told you!”

  I grinned, but I didn’t know if I was supposed to be happy or nervous.

  At the age of fourteen the Department of Human Relations always sent the notices, but as my birthday came and went, all hope had left. I finally knew. The proof was in.

  I was a genetic anomaly.

  So many whispers had grown around me my entire life, and being flagged from the start made me an easy target for gossip. Early on, I accepted I’d never be paired, and the older I got, the better that option felt to me. I’d never have to touch a boy or tear up my body with childbirth. I could focus all my energy on working with the G.E.G. and leave a different kind of legacy— one of scientific discovery.

  I was completely content with this path until I heard Mama crying in the kitchen one night. Daddy tried to shush her, but she went on and on about Xenon. “But, she ran off and became a Terrorist! She couldn’t contribute, and it made her crazy! What if that happens to Nikomedes? How can we help her? How will she be able to contribute to Humanity?”

  It was Mama that made the guilt come. I couldn’t put her through that.

  After that night, I worked harder and studied harder. In Propriety Lessons, I became a model student of stoicism. I promoted the Republic’s cause through my own independent studies in genetics with my experiments in the greenhouse and the labs. I learned the art of modification and generational patience as I bred this flower with that flower. I even rediscovered the color blurple where the blue married with the purple in neon brilliance, and Aeschylus sent the results to the G.E.G. himself.

  I was determined to show Mama there was more to contribute than just children, and she eventually began to hope for my future again. She came to terms with it as much as I had, until the notice came and turned all of that peace upside down. Instead, Mama was given a new kind of peace— the kind she forgot she was missing.

  We walked the trail for a few days, but we still ran into no one. We had the moments of silence that happens from being trapped in our own thoughts and the moments of chatter that comes out naturally from being around someone. We conserved water when we didn’t cross any streams, and our water-bladders got emptier and emptier. The peanut butter was half-eaten, and sooner than later we’d only have the granola bars and jerky. I’d been checking my path on the compass to mark our changes each time the trail wandered, but it was time to make our way back to the Tracks. I needed to move on, and I wanted to go west.

  Despite our depleting supplies, Flea was bouncy, and he had an endless vault of stupid jokes and stories. His innocence took me back to all the places I missed, and his presence crawled all over my skin and dug in deep. He made me like him in spite of myself.

  He also talked about things I never had. Chocolate and cake— how he got as much as he liked. “My favorite ice cream was buttered pecan,” he explained. The way he described it brought images of the cool before the melt— the burning of the cold.

  Ice cream was so rare in the 18th, so the fact that he even had a choice of flavors described his life in ways I’m sure he hadn’t meant to. I wondered what Caste he came from? I knew it was high, but that high? Which Colony did he run from? Why? But I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

  The only flavor I’d ever gotten was vanilla, and the only time I’d ever had it was on Republic Day.

  Daddy handed me the small cup, and I gasped at the coldness of it. “Where’s yours?” I asked. I knew my eyes were wide as I imagined the sweet flavors that were about to meet my tongue.

  Mama smiled. “You know this. Only children eight through twelve get a scoop.”

  “That’s silly, Mama. You should get some too!” The unfairness of it all made my heart freeze. For years, I’d watched the older kids get a scoop on Republic Day, and I envied the way they spooned it in their mouths before it melted.

  Daddy knelt down. “Honey. You like science, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, the real reason for this is our metabolisms are off kilter in the 18th. We have to be more diligent about what goes into our bodies. Every Colony has their little sacrifice they endure for the good of Humanity. One of ours is to moderate our sweets. We do it to protect our bodies so they reach their entire potential. When your Mama and I were eight, we got to eat our fair share. It’s your turn now. You’re old enough to appreciate it.”

  “But you’d appreciate it more than I would. You’re old.”

  This only made him laugh. “But, we were honored with year twelve. We mastered the art of putting indulgences aside. Since our metabolisms are weaker, we prolong our lives by healthy eating. It’s an honor to refuse what is bad for you, and, one day, you’ll get to practice this honor. Soon enough though. For now, enjoy it.”

  “But if you wanted a cup?”

  “I could have it,” Daddy said. “It’s not like ice cream is illegal. But, why would I risk my health? Why would I set a bad example for others?”

  I frowned. The heat was already making the white pool in tiny pockets at the bottom of the equally white cup. I heard somewhere that higher Castes were allowed to eat ice cream all the time, and when Celebrities came into town, they were always given milkshakes during interviews. It didn’t seem fair in that moment that Mama and Daddy weren’t able to even have a tiny scoop. I hated that our Caste made ice cream a luxury that only certain age groups with certain metabolisms were allowed to eat once a year.

  I took a small bite. It was sweet and sticky on the tongue, but seeing the sideways glance Mama gave me soured it. I knew she worried about the pudge growing into my face. I knew the ice cream was full of sugars and calories not approved for the 18th. I took another bite and felt a euphoric escape. Then I was hit with a different realization. There was a bigger reason our Caste was denied ice cream. We still had to prove ourselves in ways higher Castes did not. We still had to make up for our genetic shortcomings through greater sacrifices. That second bite hadn’t even made a dent in the mound, but it made my gut twist. Sometimes I hated being smart. I discovered secrets about the world I wasn’t supposed to know yet.

  “Mama. I don’t think I like ice cream,” I lied. It was a lie that tasted better than the ice cream, though, because it meant I’d done something e
ven those in twelfth year had trouble doing. I could be stoic earlier than the others.

  I nodded at the solider near the trashcan as I threw the rest of my cup away. I couldn’t see her face through the black shield guard, but she nodded in approval.

  I looked one last time at my full cup tipped on top of all the empties and had a mini ice-cream funeral in my head while Mama’s pride became its own shadow. Daddy swooped me up into a big hug and said, “Let’s go watch the parade my sweet, sweet girl!”

  Flea also talked about his best friend. Tycho was two years older than him, but they grew up next door to each other. “His name means to hit the mark, and he did. He was in line to become a Celebrity, but chose to join the Militia first.”

  Flea had given up on pretending he was anything but a Colony-kid, which was an interesting strategy if he was trying to infiltrate the Rebels. People on the Tracks rarely talked about life in the Colonies to strangers. I guess he read me right. I’d spent two years not talking about the Colonies, and it felt good to let it all come out.

  “I didn’t know Celebrities could do that.”

  “It actually improves your Caste. It takes years upon years to move up the Celebrity ranks, but joining the Militia moves you up faster. It was strange that we got to be friends though. They handpicked all his others. You know. That nurture the nature philosophy.” Again, Flea neglected to realize what that story revealed about him; he was important enough to be friends with someone of Celebrity status.

  “Nurture the nature.” I grinned. “I like that description. I get so tired of the debates saying one is more important than the other.”

  “I know! I always thought the separation of Science and State was stupid. Any idiot can see it takes both to help the Republic. One day, I’d like to see that change.”

  “One day? You say it like you still have a chance at it.”