Unequal

by B. E. Sanderson

  She didn’t argue. She couldn’t have. Her eyes were closed before he laid her on the soft bed.

  SEVENTEEN

  By the time Rue woke, blocks of sunlight slanted across the floor. She pushed off a fluffy blanket—Crispin’s idea, no doubt—and stood on wobbly legs. Most of the beds around her were empty, including one where a critical patient had been lying. Spying a lady standing over one of the occupied beds, she hobbled toward her.

  “Excuse me. Could you tell me what happened to the man who’d been sleeping there?”

  The lady shook her head, but the teenage boy lying on the other bed spoke in rasping tones. “Vincent stopped breathing sometime before dawn. They took him away to be incinerated with the others.”

  Cremation was part of the process, but to hear of it in such a matter of fact way nearly undid her. The boy’s voice didn’t waver. She’d dealt with death on a daily basis, but the deceased had never been someone she knew. Never someone she lived and worked with. She couldn’t imagine Max’s own end at the incinerator without feeling a lump rise in her throat.

  The lady’s eyes widened. “You’re the one who tried to save Max.”

  Rue steeled herself against the need to hide. Whatever these people thought of her, she was going to have to get past it. She made her decision. As their doctor, they were going to have to trust her eventually—whether they wanted to or not.

  She nodded, trying not to flinch. The lady’s next words came as more of a shock than a slap across her face would. But infinitely less painful.

  “Thank you. You did what you could.”

  Rue didn’t have the heart to explain what she could do wasn’t enough.

  “And Justin told me what you’ve agreed to do for all of us. Your work will serve Max’s memory as much as it will help save our people.” The lady grasped Rue’s hand and held it between both of her own. The action was so alien she almost snatched her hand back, but there was such a look of gratitude in the lady’s eyes, she couldn’t.

  “Justin told you—”

  “He understood I couldn’t leave Patrick’s side and attend the meeting, but he wanted me to know.”

  “Meeting?” She felt like a parrot, but she was too lost to come up with her own words.

  “Downstairs in the common area. Justin’s announcing your agreement to help us.” The lady squeezed Rue’s hand tighter. “This will save us. I know it will. With your help, we finally have a chance to win.”

  With my help, they could have a chance… With my help? The only thing they’ll win is a trip to the incinerator themselves. If she could’ve, she would’ve walked straight downstairs and told Justin she changed her mind. She didn’t want to be the one patching bodies back together so they could get ripped apart again.

  Max’s face appeared in her mind’s eye. She made a promise she couldn’t go back on. Or could she?

  “Are you okay, Miss Logan?”

  She smiled, hoping the pain didn’t show in her eyes. “I’m fine. But I’m fairly certain if there’s a meeting about me, I should make an appearance.”

  The lady beamed. “Your presence would be appreciated. Most of our number are anxious to meet you.”

  And Rue was anxious to meet them. Maybe she’d find the answers in their faces. She sure wasn’t capable of finding the answer on her own.

  With each step down the stairwell, Rue wavered from one decision to the other. She could save lives by agreeing to help these people in their fight. She might be able to turn the tide of their battles by providing aid to those less injured so they could continue to fight again.

  And therein lay the rub. If she patched someone up, they could easily get killed during the next encounter. She could stitch together one wound to have the body come back torn to pieces. One broken body after another parading past her.

  But how could any potential wound be worse than the damage the DOE inflicted without anyone standing against them? The bodies of their victims may be whole, but what about their minds? If not for her mother and her uncle, she would’ve been crushed beneath the Equalization Laws. She wouldn’t have lived past her second birthday. Either dead or they would’ve found a way to stunt her and force her into equality.

  Back and forth, back and forth. Without these people, Shiraz would’ve been killed in infancy. But a war might kill Shiraz now. Crispin’s sharp mind and kind heart would’ve been crushed beneath the Equalization Laws, but his beautiful face could be crushed like those people who died in the blast the day before. If they’d never tried to stand against the DOE, Max would be alive, but she wasn’t sure if cowering beneath the agency was really living.

  By the time she reached the ground floor, she hadn’t decided what she would tell those gathered. At the bottom step, the low grumbling of voices echoed down the hall. The entirety of Unequals must be gathered there. Surely, Justin’s already told them. If I don’t turn away now, they might not let me leave the room. Visions of old-time stoning sprang to mind.

  “Stop it,” she told herself aloud. Fear was making her silly. These people weren’t the DOE. They were trying to fight the very things she was mentally accusing them of. Of course, they’d be angry, but she couldn’t let their potential anger make her decision for her. Especially when, in the end, she wasn’t sure why making the decision was so damn hard.

  She tried to convince herself she was making a decision based on her principles, but after she turned it over in her head, the single principle she lived by was healing. Standing aside while people got killed went against everything she taught herself. It went against the Hippocratic Oath she’d made.

  In the end, her assistance wouldn’t be a deciding factor in whether these people fought. They would fight whether she was there or not. They’d been fighting for more years than she would’ve guessed without anyone to treat their wounds, and they would continue on without her.

  What it really came down to was whether she was brave enough to become friends with these people and potentially watch them die. Every individual she couldn’t save would cut at her heart. Her patients at the hospital had cut at her, and she never became too attached to them. If after only an hour she had become close enough to Max she couldn’t watch him die without feeling his pain, seeing these people die might break her.

  Her feet moved her closer to the sound of those voices. If she pretended she didn’t have anything to do with their movement, maybe later she could deny making any kind of choice. If she could claim it was out of her hands, maybe she could live with the decision. Maybe by blaming it all on Max, she could live with herself.

  But the reality was she had a decision to make and without consciously admitting it, she’d already made it.

  Rounding the final corner, she got her first look at the main conference area for the building. Designed as a cafeteria when the structure was built, its purpose had long since been changed. Now, instead of providing nourishment for the body, it provided food for the group’s growing anger. She didn’t have to step inside to feel it. It was a palpable mist in the air.

  At least a hundred people were gathered—maybe more, but a small sea of heads blocked her view. It was akin to standing at the edge of a copse of trees, not able to understand the immensity of the forest beyond. Beyond them, somewhere, Justin spoke. His voice was one of many but distinctive enough to pick out from the crowd. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make out his exact words.

  As she moved into the group, the individual voices nearest her fell to whispers. She didn’t look at them. She held her head level and walked forward through the thick fog of their anger. And their hush fell in a wave with her passing.

  More than a hundred, she thought, revising her estimate to triple the number. How so many people could meet in one place without DOE agents swarming them was beyond her. How so many Unequals could exist would’ve rocked her to the core if she stopped to consider it. She tried not to think about it. She had a goal. Nothing could get in the way of it or she would run from the room and hide.

>   Within a few rows of human rage, Justin became visible. His voice was raised, but he didn’t shout. His face was animated, but he was at ease. For the first time, she sensed a bit of Max in him and understood why these people followed him. He had a presence—calm and steady, with a bit of steel beneath. Kid gloves over chain mail gauntlets.

  “And I’m telling you we have to wait,” he said to a stout man with a pointed beard. “Once we learn how the DOE targeted the rooftop, and what they used to attack us, we can move forward.”

  The man huffed like a mad bull and turned his drooping eyes toward her. The anger apparent on his face changed to barely controlled rage. “We already know how they targeted us, don’t we?” One thick finger stabbed out at her. “She was inside their cells not two days before the attack. She was in the garden—”

  “And she was injured in the same blast that took Max.” Justin kept a firm hold on emotions anyone could tell were ready to boil over. “We’ve already discussed this, Thomas. I will not allow a witch-hunt to occur here. We have no reason to believe anyone helped the DOE with their attack, least of all Rue Logan.”

  He stepped off the low dais to join her. “And she is the reason we’ve all gathered here today.”

  One woman sneered at him. “I thought she had nothing to do with this.”

  “She had nothing to do with the blast, but the blast has everything to do with why she’s here.” His voice was low, but it carried over the crowd. Those few who hadn’t stopped whispering after her passage fell to silence. Grasping her hand, he led her up onto the makeshift stage. “After seeing what happened to Max…” His voice grew louder, filling the room. “…she has agreed to become the physician we’ve been looking for.”

  She stood mute while he raised their joined hands together. She longed to pull her hand away, to deny his words, but she couldn’t. “With her help, we have a chance to finally defeat the DOE.”

  Silence turned into a roar. The majority of those gathered appeared happy but here and there, fury lay behind some of those shaded eyes.

  “Justin,” she whispered, hoping her words would reach him over sound of the crowd. “We need to talk.” He pointed to one ear and shook his head. The wide smile creasing his face turned him from a handsome man into an irresistible boy. He was so certain her decision would change the tide. She was only certain the tide would rush across them and crush them all.

  Justin’s firm grasp was the one thing holding her in the room. The emotions crashing from one side to the other were more than she could take. Rue had never been amongst so many people at once. Even those brief spates when the hospital got swamped were different. She’d had so many other things to occupy her brain she never had time to be afraid. Those times bodies had poured into the emergency room, followed by a crush of doctors and nurses, she used all her energy to focus on the patients—whether she was the one treating them or not. A broken pelvis to be checked on later, a bruised ribcage to be watched for signs of internal bleeding. Now, she couldn’t focus on anything but the press of bodies and the dwindling air.

  Jerking her hand free, she turned toward the back of the room and rushed away. She thought she’d noticed a door back there, but in her haste, she couldn’t find it. As the crowd watched, she battered against the curtain-covered wall like a trapped bird.

  EIGHTEEN

  The hush finally shook Rue back into some semblance of sanity. One moment, the crowd pressed at her from every side, invading all her senses. The next, the room went silent. It was as if she was alone in the field behind her parents’ house. Missing were the sounds of crickets and the occasional caw of a passing crow. With her face mere centimeters from the velvet backdrop, she let the gentle blue remind her of the sky and of the fact no matter how many people were nearby, she might be able to find a measure of solitude here or there. Even if the best place to find it turned out to be within herself.

  Taking one deep breath—in through the nose, out through the mouth—she fought to keep her nerves steady. And then the dust within the velvet hit her.

  Without as much as a warning tickle, her nose betrayed her and she sneezed.

  The room behind her had been holding its breath, and with one collective rush, it exhaled. A second later, the first titter drifted through the air. Within seconds, the sound multiplied until the chatter of laughter filled her ears. She always hated her stupid allergy, but she thanked her dumb luck for it. For once, it served a purpose, the purpose of merely diffusing a tense situation.

  She turned a sheepish grin toward the crowd. A sea of faces—both friendly and unfriendly—filled her vision. But the unfriendly faces seemed fewer. Out amongst the Equals, her allergy was something to be hidden. Here, it made her one of the crowd. Her differences made her equal here.

  “Sorry.” The word came out meeker than she would’ve wish. If she was going to live and work with these people, she couldn’t come to them as Citizen Janitor Logan. Her former persona had tried her best to hide in plain sight. Instead, Rue needed put on the guise of Citizen Doctor Mason, and she needed to ensure it wasn’t merely an act. These people would sense a game. Rue had to embrace her inner doctor without losing sight of herself. It wasn’t going to be an easy role. The first time she had helped a patient wasn’t easy either, but it had definitely been worth it.

  Turning toward the crowd, she assumed her place beside Justin once more. The urge to flee scurried inside her like a frightened mouse, but she braced herself against it. These people were strangers to her. In order to do her best work, she would need to interact with them all individually. Fearing them in a group wouldn’t do anyone any good.

  “If Justin hasn’t already told you everything about me…” She paused to focus her eyes on one friendly face and then another and another until her confidence grew. “I’m not used to being around people. If you’ll give me a little time, though, I’m sure I’ll be right at home here.”

  The idea of finding a home was something she’d dreamed of, but behind those dreams remained an understanding. Becoming acquainted with these people would make it harder to keep a professional distance. With a little mental shrug, she acknowledged the problem and decided to worry about it later. Much, much later.

  NINETEEN

  The next few days were filled with meetings Rue couldn’t fathom and introductions she couldn’t remember. Every time she counted on grabbing a few minutes to herself, someone sought her out. They had a thousand reasons and scores of excuses. Rarely, the reasons were valid. Often the excuses were lame, even to her untried ears.

  After a decade of solitude, speaking only when either giving or taking orders, simple conversation was beyond her. You made your bed, she told herself, remembering some fragment of a phrase. But if she had really created this bed, she would’ve done a better job of making it worth sleeping on.

  She never felt at home with the Unequals, except those times she could slip away to check on her patients. The majority of them had already returned to their living quarters, but the teenager remained. His injuries were healing well. He’d be back in his home soon.

  Life among the outcasts wasn’t really very different. They lived and worked the same way the Equals outside their complex did. Many of them had jobs as Rue had, where they had to pretend to be something they weren’t. In fact, one of them had replaced Hubert at the hospital. This time, though, the placement wasn’t assigned to watch for any particular Unequal. The sole goal of Margaret’s replacement was to acquire supplies, a fact she learned when Justin came to her with a surprise.

  “I don’t need any more surprises.” Rue marveled at the easy way she had learned to talk to him. Shoving her trepidation into the recesses of her mind had worked. She could ignore his reasons for caring what she did or thought. She had become the doctor he always wanted for his people. Her feelings, or his, were secondary to doing the job.

  “Surprises are good for the heart.” His smile came too easy. He wasn’t deterred in his efforts to coax her to stay—despite giv
ing her word to him at least once a day.

  She nudged his arm, playing at being playful. Pretending got so it wasn’t as much work as it had been the day before. Who knew how easy it would be tomorrow? “I’ve never read anything of the sort.”

  He nodded. “I have it on good authority it helps with circulation.” Rue narrowed her eyes. “Seriously. Surprise gets your heart pumping faster, doesn’t it? How can increasing your blood flow not be good?”

  She laughed, the sound almost ringing with joy. “You have me there. What’s this surprise?”

  Justin reached into his pocket and withdrew a square of black cloth. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

  Usually Crispin was the playful one, but he’d been curiously absent most days and those occasions she did see him, he didn’t have time to talk. She indulged this playful side of their young leader. Seeing him smile was probably a good thing. Especially since a frown might mean a need for her medical services.

  As she stood, he wrapped the cloth across her eyes and tied it gently at the back of her head.

  “I can’t see a thing,” she said.

  “That’s the idea.” His fingers slipped between her own. “I promise not to let you walk into a door or fall down the stairs.”

  Some light came through the thin scarf but other than a faint glow as they passed a window, Rue walked without a clue to their destination. Justin led her down a flight of stairs at one point and through another door. She heard faint voices as they passed doorways, but soon they faded to nothing.

  The farther they went, the faster her heart beat. She began to wonder if Justin had turned back into Jenner. If he led her into the hands of the DOE, no one would be the wiser. A lot of anger remained in the eyes she passed every day and she wondered which of them would help Justin disappear her. Everyone she met professed a hatred for the agency, but she learned early how people lie if it serves their purposes, and how easily a person’s purpose could change. What if one of those who continued to blame her for Max’s death urged Justin to take her back to her horrid cell?