by Megan Lynch
“It’s easier when you’re little.”
“Wait, how is this educational?”
“Well, when you rock, it can be rhythmic, so my parents recorded me on it reciting different things: the Pledge of Allegiance, the Metrics values. See?” She rocked it with her hand, emphasizing the words as the horse’s head dipped toward the floor. “‘I pledge allegiance to the crest of the Metrics worldwide government. And to the idea that we create an ideal people with gifts for obedience, resilience, and silence through careful measurement of our potential’—and so on, you know the rest. They claimed it was easier for me to memorize information because it was linked to activity, and it helped that I was the first in my class to memorize these things.”
“I’ll bet they expected you to keep being the first.”
“That was the condition on which they agreed to let us keep it, yes. And after a few years, they stopped asking Mom and Dad to prove it was still working. They haven’t asked about it in a long time. And I guess it worked—I’m good at regurgitating information.”
“The Metrics dream girl.”
Samara frowned. From anyone else, that would be a compliment, but Bristol’s tone was undeniably mocking.
“Tonight should have been your first clue that I’m anything but a model citizen. Isn’t that what you came here for? To ask me what happened?”
“I’m no model citizen either.”
Samara resisted the urge to point out he wasn’t a citizen at all. Instead, she just twisted her features and cocked her head as if to say, Meaning?
“Meaning that I’ve handled enough Drift in my day to know what a massive bag of it feels like, even wrapped in a napkin.”
“Well,” said Samara, growing impatient, “Don’t you want to know what I was doing with it?”
“Not really.”
“Then why are you here? To collect your return favor?”
Bristol’s expression changed into one of surprise and hurt. “Not at all. I won’t claim I’m not curious—I am—but I’m here because I’m worried about you. Drift can seem like it’ll solve all your problems, Samara, but after the effects wear off, you’re just back at your life again, with the same problems and a few more.”
It took a few moments for Samara to understand, but when she did, her brow released from its scrunch. “You thought I was using! No, you misunderstood.” She told him about Jude and the warden.
Bristol actually giggled, despite the seriousness of the situation. “You may be the first to smuggle drugs out of a prison.”
“And hopefully the last.”
“Well, what if the warden plants them on him again? He’s going to come to you again for help. What are you going to do?”
Samara hadn’t thought of that. Truthfully, she wished she hadn’t gotten involved at all, but she felt she had no other choice. She couldn’t let an innocent little boy be carted away to a place more hellish than the one he was already in.
“Why did you even do it at all?”
“Because he didn’t deserve it,” said Samara. “He doesn’t even deserve to be there. He was arrested for that.” She nodded out the window to the wall that had once displayed Bristol’s nun, now whitewashed into nothing. Bristol’s eyes gave him away; he knew what had been there before. He knew Jude wasn’t to blame. “He’s just a low-performing Two, and there aren’t supposed to be low-performing Twos. Instead of just letting him live his life, Metrics is trying to erase him and claim their genetic experiment is flawless.”
Bristol turned back to the rocking horse, tracing a finger over the brown, pointed ears. “It makes me angry too. I don’t blame you for wanting to help.”
“I appreciate you coming over and giving me the chance to explain myself. I won’t trouble you again.”
“I hope you do. If it happens again, just give me a signal. Do you still have the coffee cup I put those pills in?” Samara nodded. “Just put that out on your fire escape. I’ll come by and look, and if I see it—”
Samara raised her eyebrows. “You’re going to come by every night, just to check?”
Bristol didn’t skip a beat. “Yes.”
“That seems safe,” Samara scoffed.
“Safe for your student. He’s counting on you now. And like it or not, you’re counting on me.” Bristol drew himself up to his full height, taking up space in her little room. He looked much bigger in here than he did in the restaurant, next to the man in the ridiculous tie.
“Why do you want to be involved?”
“It’s the least I can do.”
She knew exactly what he meant, but she wanted to hear him say it: because I’m the real artist. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He hesitated, then reached out and pushed on the horse’s tail, rocking it a few times. “I’ve been in trouble before, and there were always people around to help me. I’m just paying it forward.” Samara noted how he avoided her eyes. “Guess you’ve got to get up early for work?”
“I do. But I’m glad you came, Bristol, I really am. Thank you.”
Bristol turned down her blanket and fluffed her pillow. Samara watched him, shocked at the intimacy of the gesture. Something about it was so familiar, so domestic; it was the first time anyone had readied her bed for her, but she felt it could have been the hundredth time. Without letting herself overthink it, she walked over and sat in her bed. Bristol lifted her legs in and covered them with her blanket. He looked at her with his deep brown eyes and smiled, and she returned it. She had a strange urge to ask him to stay until she fell asleep, but she’d already asked way too much of him today, and it was a bizarre thing to ask anyone to do.
“Good night,” he said, and though the words usually meant parting, he didn’t move.
“Good night.”
His hand was so close to hers. “I’ll watch for that cup.”
“Take care of yourself, Bristol.”
“You too.”
He climbed out the window.
Samara eased herself down into her puffy pillow, knowing this strange thrill she felt wouldn’t allow her to sleep anytime soon. That he was unregistered, and that she had no reason to hope for a future together wouldn’t matter at all, at least not tonight. He was her artist, he was sincere, and he wanted to help. Her heart hummed. For tonight, it was enough.
Chapter Eighteen
Denver’s marriage wasn’t going well. No, it was going well, but that was the problem. She was well acquainted with mediocrity, having grown up as a Three, but she’d never quite accepted her lot. When she was ten she was ruined for mediocrity forever, the day she’d become fascinated with an idea long forgotten, in the public library. It was an idea back from a time when there were separate countries, imaginary lines drawn to separate one place from another, and every place had something special about it. In America, it had been the simple idea that people could, through hard work, change their station in life. Even the name of this idea had a stirring, hopeful ring to it: the American Dream.
Such a silly thing, such a thinly veiled tactic to increase productivity, as she well knew from her time at the DA, and yet even in her adulthood, Denver couldn’t let it go. Work hard and change your life. She badly wanted to believe that, somehow, an energy in the world existed that would allow this to happen, and so she began trying harder, and sometimes it would work for her, sometimes not. Threes were all exempt from manual labor, and most of them worked in offices, double-checking that technology was doing its job and reporting or repairing when it did not. Denver found she had a knack for anticipating problems in the systems and genuinely liked doing anything that wasn’t really her job. Talking with people, programming the system to be more efficient, noticing which households could improve their energy use by doing something simple, sending letters to let them know. Sometimes she’d see their rations go up because of her suggestions. All she really had to do was sit there and make sure the computer’s monitoring seemed right and get up to bring coffee and sandwiches to her boss, but somethi
ng about that task made her feel like a computer herself. Anyone off the street could do that.
And she was beginning to think anyone off the street could also be married to Stephen.
He would arrive home a little earlier than she did, and he would immediately begin playing games on the sofa. He didn’t even have the common courtesy to project a screen so she could watch. He just sat staring at the tiny screen, huffing every now and then, as if he were doing real work. When she came in, he’d say hello and go back to his games. She held out on making dinner for him for as long as she could, but eventually she grew tired of his daily “What’s for dinner?” and he seemed to suspect she knew more about cooking than she was letting on. He’d take his plate back to the sofa to play more games and then leave it there for her to pick up. The little melodies and rings and dings coming from the watch drove her mad. She’d begun waking up earlier than she would have liked because he’d keep the door to the bathroom closed while he got ready all morning long, and she didn’t want to go in there with him to witness what he could be doing.
They did not fight, but they didn’t talk either. For his part, Stephen did not seem to notice the physical toll it had taken on Denver to work so hard after work, nor did he notice her lack of interest in their mandatory weekly lovemaking sessions on Sunday afternoons. Before he could even roll over to his own side, she’d click the Completed box next to the flashing red reminder, relieved to see it stop. Once, he’d attempted to stroke her cheek after it was over. She laid perfectly still and let him do it, let him sense her chill. That, at least, satisfied her in a way.
On Sundays, they were excused from an additional hour of work to attend an Introduction to Marriage class. Everyone was the same age, but Denver had to go to the Fours class, where everyone showed up in their dirty clothes, smelling of oil or cleaning fluid or sweat. One other girl, Maureen, had also married down a tier and relentlessly tempted Denver with co-misery and gossip about the other girls. Denver did her best to avoid her and ignore her spiteful asides, though too often Maureen said what she herself was thinking and was too afraid to say aloud.
Maureen could be cruel, but so were other girls, though in a different way. It seemed more of a texture of their personalities than an attitude toward anything in particular, as if they’d grown thorns under their skin. One by one, somewhere along the way, all of these girls had learned to strike first. Denver suspected most Fours had learned this lesson, and so their fights were bitter and enduring, and all the girls united around one common enemy.
“My husband told me he’d give me a tanning if I didn’t do…you know…that Sunday thing with him again on Wednesday! After thirteen hours at the nail salon!”
“Do that when he asks again and keep it in your pocket for later. My husband got mad yesterday, and I thought he might hit me, and then I said if he laid a finger on me, then I’d report it. Next time I’m going to record him begging. Why refuse it when you can use it?”
“How can you even stand it? We tried it once, and it hurt worse than getting socked. Now I just click Completed when the thing flashes.”
Denver had to ask about this one. “You click without actually doing it? How?”
The girl shrugged, as if she hadn’t really understood the question, or else didn’t want to think about it. “Just do.”
“But aren’t you afraid you’ll get a behavior audit? Your citizenship score could get severely downgraded.”
The girl shrugged again, and Maureen leaned over and gave Denver a look beneath a lowered brow that Denver took to mean you’ll never get through to them. She turned away, but Maureen’s eyes remained.
The instructor for this class was a Three, as instructors of everything were, although this particular Three must have been at the bottom of her class. Miss Tanenbalm wore earrings shaped like animals, frequently misspelled words she wrote on the screen, and peppered her speech with misused phrases like could care less. Denver imagined her as the kind of woman who spent her free time drinking alcohol with her friends, as only Threes and above were allowed to do, and exasperatedly talking about how her students weren’t getting the material—for all of her concern and hard work.
“Girls,” she was saying now, “let’s set our focus for the day. Everyone together now!”
In a hushed, slurred chorus, the women read the words Tanenbalm had written above her own head.
“By five p.m. on August 11, the newly married will be able to define household finances (fainances), articulate the purpose of a joint account, and recite their expenses and their withdraw dates.”
Denver knew she should be projecting a screen and copying these words down on her watch—Tanenbalm never kept the words projected for long, and now that Denver no longer received focus injections, she noticed her attention span was shortening. After she had a baby, she’d get to resume the injections—Metrics just didn’t want them interfering with pregnancy, and the possibility was always looming now that she was married.
Tanenbalm smiled, and Denver caught a fleck of pink lipstick on her teeth. “Wonderful, girls. It’s exactly four now, so let’s get started if we’re going to learn all this by five! Let’s start with a warm up. Tell your partner which bank you and your husband use. Go.”
There was a pause as the girls turned to their partners and silently negotiated who would speak first. Denver turned to Maureen, who rested her chin on her hand, not seeming to care that this pushed her skin up and distorted her face. Denver spoke first.
“We use People’s United.”
Maureen sighed. “We all use People’s United.”
There was half a moment of silence. Tanenbalm hadn’t provided any further instructions for conversation, and her back was now to the group. Most of the women could be heard moving on to personal discussions.
In a low voice, Maureen said, “We would never have had off-topic conversations if we were in our class.”
Denver wondered if she meant class in society or the marriage class for Threes. Stephen seemed nice enough, but she couldn’t help but long for her old rank. Life as a Four didn’t seem so bad when you were a Three, but now that Denver was here, she knew her old classification was chock full of little luxuries, like instructors who probably knew what they were talking about. Denver felt a familiar surge of panic, the kind that only comes when finding yourself amid the consequences of a past mistake. Why had she applied for marriage? Of course she was paired with a Four! It wasn’t that she deluded herself into thinking she’d be matched with a Three; it just seemed like being a Four wouldn’t be so bad. And if she was going to be honest, she really hadn’t thought about it all that much. In the silence of her mind, she bitterly reprimanded herself over her own excitement for stepping into the unknown.
Maureen let out an if you can’t beat ’em sort of breath. “Why are you here?”
“I got married.”
“No, I mean, why are you a Four now?”
“Oh.” Denver looked down at her pencil and paper where she’d begun to copy the focus but had given up when she remembered they never reached it by the end of the hour. “I have a brother.”
“Oo-oh.” Maureen’s eyes got big. “Naughty mommy.”
“She was going to have an abortion, but she said she got to the doctor and couldn’t go through with it. It happens sometimes. You just have to make a lot of sacrifices if that’s your choice.”
“Like putting your first-born in a class full of…you know…” Maureen made a gesture Denver had never seen before.
Some of the girls quieted and gave over-the-shoulder glances to Denver and Maureen. Denver’s cheeks warmed.
“They never went to high school, Maureen. They had to start work when they were twelve and they only spend time with people who—”
“Are uneducated too. Exactly.” Maureen finished her sentence for her and smiled.
Denver realized Maureen thought she was agreeing. “They’re not morons.”
“No, no, of course not.”
&nbs
p; “Why are you here?”
Maureen groaned. “Bad citizenship score.”
Tanenbalm turned back around and gave instructions, but Maureen was still talking in her low voice. “I didn’t know it, but I was connected to someone who had participated in an organized protest against Metrics. They found out, and everyone who was connected to him was deducted just enough points to knock us down one class. My husband and I were both connected to this guy. But we can build that score back up, if we want, in the next few years.”
“Maureen Short, can you recite the focus for the day?”
The words were no longer hanging in the air. She’s trying to embarrass her. Denver was just regretting her choice to stop copying it down when Maureen, speaking as if she were on stage, lifted her chin and said, “By five p.m. on August 11, the newly married will be able to define household finances, articulate the purpose of a joint account, and recite their expenses and their withdraw dates.”
Tanenbalm was visibly annoyed. “I could care less if you have an off-topic conversation, Miss Short. Just try to do it when I’m not talking.”
That night, as Stephen’s watch made those irritating, jolly noises next to her in bed, Denver looked at her own watch, scrolled absentmindedly, and wondered vaguely if she’d been too hard on Mom for her indiscretions. Before she knew it, she was typing in Samara’s number. Samara’s face appeared before her, along with the usual stats—height, weight, profession, interests… She clicked on Location as a matter of habit. It was always interesting to know where people were at the moment you were thinking of them.
According to the graph in front of her, Samara was at the edge of town, just on the outside of the fifth ring road. With her was a small yellow dot used to denote an unregistered person. Mostly these dots moved around, picking up trash or sweeping the floors. But this one stayed with her.
That was the first thing that made her angry that night. The second was when she woke up in the middle of the night after a startling dream where Samara had been destroying Bristol’s work, throwing bricks at murals on walls and slowly chipping away the image he’d created. When she woke, the muscles around her eyes were already tight with fury. She tried relaxing them, but they only tightened again when she looked beside her and realized the bed was strangely cold. Stephen was gone.
