Ration

by Christina J Thompson

  “Can you fix the strap?” Mica asked, walking up to them with more bags. Richard knelt down, inspecting the broken plastic.

  “I think I can tie the ends together,” he said. “At least I hope I can, otherwise I’m going to have to use my shirt to hold them. They’re too heavy to just carry in my arms.”

  “You can’t do that, it’s going to be too cold,” Mica answered. “It can just carry these, too.”

  “That’s too much,” Richard told her, shaking his head as he tried to tie a knot. It seemed to work but the straps were much shorter than before, too short to fit across his chest.

  “I’ll carry them,” Amber said quickly.

  “Your calories weren’t adjusted for that, though,” Richard said. “I was given an extra half day’s allotment, and you know I can’t share with you.”

  “It’s just two bags,” she answered, taking the first one from him and lifting it over her head. The weight settled on her shoulders; she instantly regretted the decision, but it was too late to admit it now.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, dad, I’m sure.”

  “Number 485!” a voice called out.

  “Here!” Richard answered, turning and waving. A woman approached, a small electronic tablet in one hand and the end of a rope in another.

  “Number 485, Ordell?” she asked brusquely. He nodded, holding out his arm. A light flashed on the tablet as she moved it closer, scanning the number tattooed on his skin.

  “Here’s your ration,” she said, handing him the end of the rope. “Do I need to go over the care requirements?”

  “Nothing has changed since last time, has it?”

  “No, it’s all the same.”

  “Then we’re fine. I know what to do, I’ve done this enough times. How much food for this strain?”

  She paused, tapping the screen of her tablet. The device was old, like all technology that had survived throughout the years, and the once-clear screen looked hazy from all the scratches that covered it.

  “Six per day,” the woman announced. “The certified order is in with your supplements, just give it to your council and they’ll update the allotment. Any other questions?”

  “No, I think that covers it.”

  “We’ll see you back in six months then. Have a safe trip home.”

  “Thanks,” Richard said, nodding. The woman stepped aside, turning to walk away, and Amber caught her first glimpse of the ration.

  This one looked much different than the last one, and her mouth dropped open in surprise. It was big, the largest she had ever seen this early in the cycle, and her short, lean frame was dwarfed by its towering height and massive build. It was male, like all of the rations were, and she studied its form, starting at its thickly muscled legs and moving up to the wavy, dark curls that framed the strong features of its thinly-bearded face. It met her gaze, its bright green eyes staring at her for a moment before looking away.

  “Step aside, Amber,” Richard said, interrupting her focus as he handed two of the bags of pills over. The ration reached out to take them, its strong arms flexing as it lifted them up onto its broad, muscular back.

  “It has something on its arm,” Amber said, pointing, and her father nodded.

  “That’s its strain number, 27680.”

  “None of the others have ever had a tattoo like that.”

  “It’s because this one is the first of its particular kind and they always mark the first. That would explain why it’s older than usual, it was probably held back to create more.”

  “It’s late enough, we need to get going,” Mica announced after a quick glance at the sun. “We have a long walk ahead of us.”

  “Alex wants a drink,” Amber said, turning her attention back to her family. “I promised him I would tell you.”

  Mica nodded, pulling out the plastic flask that was marked with Alex’s name. She filled the small lid to the top, lifting it to his lips as he sucked it down.

  “Let’s get going,” Richard called, taking a deep breath as he shifted the weight on his back. “We should make it home by morning if we hurry, I don’t want to get caught outside when the sun comes up tomorrow.”

  He handed the rope to Amber.

  “This is your job this time, my dear,” he said, nodding at her. She smiled, giving the rope a slight tug. They began walking south, the ration following behind.

  †‡†

  CHAPTER TWO

  The light slowly faded from the sky as the sun vanished, and with it went the warmth of the day. Amber shivered as the night set in, her skin burning with goosebumps from the cold. She was falling behind; the weight of the sacks of supplements was wearing on her.

  Mica carried Alex in a plastic sling across her chest, and Richard set the pace at the head of the line. The rope wasn’t necessary once they left the resource center behind, and Amber had removed it, letting the ration fall into line on its own as she had seen her father do so many times in the past. It was just in front of her, keeping its head down as the group slowly made its way south to the settlement Amber and her family called home.

  The dry, cracked ground was flat and bare, and the journey would have been relatively easy if not for the cold. It was one of the few benefits to the dead earth, along with the clear, unobscured night sky. The clouds had long since vanished with the disappearance of grass and trees, revealing a sky filled to overflowing with billions of sparkling stars that provided enough light to make travelling at night possible.

  Amber sighed, pausing as she shifted the sacks. They still had a long way to go, and she was already beyond exhausted. The work she endured back home had made her accustomed to carrying a lot of weight, but that was for short distances. The sacks of supplements, though lighter than she was used to, seemed to grow heavier as the minutes passed, and she stared down at her feet as she walked, struggling to breathe as she counted each step.

  She glanced forward, seeing that her family was even farther ahead of her now. She began to jog, trying to catch up, when she felt a tug at the weight on her back.

  It was the ration, it was trying to take one of the sacks from her. Her mouth dropped open with surprise; the rations never approached their keepers. It lifted the sack of capsules from her back, adding it to the ones it was already carrying, and she quickly decided that she was too relieved to care. She winced as she stretched her sore muscles before continuing.

  It walked beside her now, keeping pace with her easily despite the load it was carrying, and she watched it out of the corner of her eye. Its face resembled that of a full-grown man, and it was obviously older and much further along in its growth cycle than the others her family had gotten in the past. Her father had said it was slightly past its prime, but she had never seen one that appeared older than she was now. She hadn’t known it was even possible for a ration to live that long.

  It was gazing up at the sky as it walked as if it had never seen the stars before. Perhaps it hadn’t; after all, the facility was indoors, and she doubted that the rations ever went outside prior to being distributed.

  The longer she watched it, the more uncomfortable part of her seemed to become, and she almost felt like she was supposed to say something to it. She rolled her eyes at herself for even considering it. Everyone knew the rations couldn’t understand, they were primitive, barely-conscious animals capable of nothing more than simple tasks.

  As the minutes passed, though, she found that she couldn’t hold herself back any longer.

  “They’re called stars,” Amber finally whispered, pointing at the sky. The ration didn’t react, just as expected, and she hesitated for a moment before going on.

  “Stars. They look tiny, but they’re as big as the whole world and very far away. The books say that people tried to go visit the stars a long time ago, but they never made it that far.”

  She pointed at the moon.

  “They did make it there, and one other planet called Ma
rs. Mars is red, that’s why it’s called the red planet, but you can’t see it right now.”

  “What are you doing, Amber?” Mica’s voice called.

  “Just…just looking at the sky.”

  “Are you talking to it?”

  Amber felt her face grow hot with sudden embarrassment.

  “No…I’m just…talking to myself.”

  “Better save your breath. We still have quite a distance ahead.”

  Amber fell silent, shivering. The ration’s face was still tilted up towards the sky, and she picked up her pace, trying to ignore the cold wind that blew across the dirt desert that surrounded them. Only a few more hours to go.

  The sun was coming up when they reached their settlement, and just like that, the cold was gone, pushed aside by the wave of heat that billowed across the vast dryland to sear her face. Amber sighed with relief, pausing at the top of the last hill and looking down at the settlement below. Finally.

  At only a little over twenty years old, Settlement 109 was one of the newest settlements established by the government. Its official designation was Mining Settlement 109-Salis-3, founded to replace the two now-defunct salt mines in the area, but nearly everyone had foregone the formal reference over the years. It wasn’t needed; according to what Amber had been told, their settlement was the only remaining location that had the potential to produce any salt.

  Before Amber was born, her parents had belonged to a salvage settlement, and their task had been collecting plastic for recycling. They had spent their days digging through old landfills, and sorting through the layers of garbage had been difficult. Despite having no mining experience, her parents had jumped at the chance to move.

  They had considered themselves lucky to be counted among those who were granted residence when the new settlement first opened, hopeful that access to fresh ground would make it easier for them to meet the production requirements imposed on each settlement by the resource centers. They had needed to salvage four times their usual quota of plastic just to apply for the move, but thus far, it seemed to have been for nothing. Mining had fared them no better than salvaging plastic had.

  Attempting to access the mine’s resources required a large workforce, so Settlement 109 was nearly twice the size of most of the neighboring settlements. Close to a thousand people called it home, and almost three hundred clay houses rose up out of the ground, harsh silhouettes that seemed out of place in the flatness of the surrounding earth. If not for the shadows they cast, the whole settlement would have blended right in with the brown landscape. There was no color here, not anymore. Everything looked the same: dry and dirty and lifeless.

  Like all the others, their settlement was built in a circle, with rows of small homes coiling tightly around its center. Inner homes were highly coveted, as the surrounding outer homes offered a bit of shade during the day and a windbreak at night. They had one of the outer homes, located on the outside edge of the circle and possessing little protection from the elements.

  That was the lot they had been given, unfortunately, and there wasn’t much they could do about it. Each person in each region had to take what was assigned to them, and without anything to barter with, there was no way of moving to a better location. Unless their family’s grid suddenly became more productive, they were stuck.

  Outside the settlement was the mine that the people worked throughout the day, each grid assignment marked out with lines and numbers cut into the dirt. The ration’s presence would make things a little easier; it would be able to help move waste material for the next several months until its cycle was up.

  Amber broke into a slow jog as she descended the hill, hoping to arrive at the settlement before the sun rose even higher. She needed to fill her water and food allotments for the day. The ration imitated her, staying by her side as she crossed the last of the dry ground that separated her from the meager shelter home would provide. She was tired, but there would be no sleep, not yet. The day was too hot for sleep.

  Her throat burned from thirst, and she couldn’t help thinking that the ration probably felt the same. It would get slightly less water than she would, but that’s what it was designed for. Its food, on the other hand, was completely different.

  The rations survived on waste, much like the pigs books told of. The settlement’s waste was processed in solar-powered stations that rendered it into bitter, dark cakes of matter. When she was a child, she had once tasted one. It wasn’t as horrible as she would have expected, but it certainly wasn’t good, either. Not like the sweet saltiness of the dried staple everyone else ate.

  Only forty families at a time from Settlement 109 were assigned to each month’s ration cycle. There were dozens of groups across the region, each one with subgroups on a different six-month rotation. This was to prevent even more overcrowding at the resource centers and no one was ever allowed to get their ration early, which meant that Amber’s family would have to make sure their supplies lasted the full cycle. Running out early would mean certain death.

  For the next five and a half months, it would be Amber’s responsibility to fill both her own and the ration’s water allotments every day, a task she would be completing for the first time now that she was finally old enough. She dropped the sack of supplements on the floor in the main room of the house, motioning for the ration to do the same, then she retrieved the spare flask from where it had been stored after the last ration’s harvest.

  Two weeks’ worth of dust had accumulated on the plastic surface, and she used the edge of her shirt to wipe it as clean as she could. It was red, like all the rations’ flasks, and Amber ran her fingernail through the letters carved into its edge to get the dirt out. ORDELL, 485—her father’s number, since he was the head of the household.

  The ration walked beside her as she made her way to the water line, waiting for the call that would announce the opening of the taps. Her father and mother were a few steps ahead of her, but not far enough to keep her from hearing Alex’s tired, miserable cries. She was grateful for one thing: the benefit from returning from the resource center was being pushed to the front of the line for water.

  She could feel the stares of the other people as she stood in line waiting. From the looks on their faces, they were just as surprised as she was to see a new ration at such an advanced stage.

  “Good morning, Amber,” a voice called, and she turned to see her friend, John Haft, approaching. “Glad you made it back safe.”

  John’s tanned face was bright as he stepped closer to her, his sunbleached hair shining golden blonde in the morning light.

  “Now I just have to make it through today,” she answered, grimacing with dread. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired.”

  He was handsome, and Amber knew that he liked her. She liked him, too, at least to a degree. His sky-blue eyes looked like they were always smiling, and his square, stubbled jawline made him appear older than he actually was, especially coupled with his lean, muscular build. He was the closest to her age of all the boys in the settlement despite being two months younger than her, and while they weren’t yet officially a couple, the lack of other relationship options seemed to make the future possibility inevitable.

  He laughed, his eyes sparkling as he nudged her playfully.

  “You say that every cycle.”

  “I mean it this time.”

  “TAPS ARE OPEN!” the call rang out.

  “Finally!” Amber breathed. They stepped forward as the line began to move. She saw John glance at the ration, looking it up and down. He raised a brow.

  “Well, this is…different. I’ve never seen a ration like this before.”

  She shrugged.

  “Me neither. It was the last of the strain the Peterson’s had last cycle, my father talked the ration officer into giving it to us because the new strains aren’t guaranteed yet.”

  “Interesting. Looks like it’s no good, though, it looks too old.”

&nbs
p; It was her turn, and Amber leaned down, carefully filling her flask before filling the ration’s. She rolled her eyes at the haughty judgment in John’s tone; he was just jealous that he wasn’t yet old enough to serve as keeper for his own family’s ration.

  “Well, my dad says it’s good, and he’s always been right. It’s guaranteed, so I guess that’s all that matters.”

  John filled his own flask, taking a quick sip before putting the cap back on. She shot him a warning glance; they weren’t supposed to drink in line to ensure that no one tried filling back up.

  “Relax, no one saw,” he said, dismissing her concern. “Besides, I know you want to do it, too, you’re probably dying of thirst after that walk.”

  Amber didn’t answer, stepping off to the side to open her flask. She filled the small lid, forcing herself to sip slowly as she savored each drop of the muddy water. It was hot; the underground storage cistern did nothing to keep it cool. Instead, it acted almost like an oven, maintaining the water at near-boiling temperatures at all times. That was part of the reason for the strict water rations, there was too much evaporative loss since the cistern wasn’t deep enough underground.

  They had tried to dig a deeper one several years ago, but the ground was too brittle. Each attempt had caved in on itself without structural support to shore it up, so instead, the cistern remained a shallow pit covered with a few layers of thick plastic and dirt. It was better than nothing, though, and the heat mixed with the natural alkalinity and minerals in the earth helped keep bacteria from growing in the water supply.

  Amber finished the small drink, immediately filling the lid for another, when she noticed the ration watching her.