It was hard to believe that such a world ever existed, but the stories she had been told as a child erased any doubt. Her grandmother, the last and oldest elder in Settlement 109, had regaled five-year-old Amber with tales of her childhood.
Almost everything had already died even back then, but for a short while, the resource center had managed to keep a few things alive within its sanctum. They had eventually died, too, but her grandmother had been lucky enough to see the last of them before that happened. She would spend hours recounting the vivid memories, and Amber would sit at her feet, hanging onto every word.
The idea of feathers had captured Amber’s imagination above everything else—soft, magical bundles of fine hair that made it possible for birds to fly. Although she would never admit it, she had sometimes cried herself to sleep at night as a child, secretly overwhelmed with sorrow at the knowledge that she would never actually see birds or feathers herself.
The stories had made her feel as though a tiny piece of the old world was still there, but that feeling had died with her grandmother’s last breath. No one remained who had personally witnessed any plant or animal life, and now, the settlement’s books were her only connection to what had been lost. The end of the workday meant she would finally have time to read, and she picked up her pace, shifting the weight on her back as she tried to hurry.
They reached the dumping ground, and Amber tilted her head, gazing up at the mountain of dirt. It towered over her, and she clenched her teeth, trying to prepare herself for the climb.
This was the first of four different dumps outside the settlement, each one reaching up into the sky. There had been talk of closing this one to start another farther back, which would increase the distance from their grid to over half a mile. That meant they would need to travel even farther to discard the tailings from their grid, and she hoped and prayed that she would be chosen for the resource center before that happened. In the meantime, people were required to dump loads at the top instead of around the perimeter in hopes of slowing the mound’s expanding girth and delaying its closing.
She began scaling the pile of dirt, her feet stamping craters in the loose, unstable surface as she tried to keep from falling over. She leaned forward, angling her body almost parallel with the mound as she used her hands to steady herself. Almost there.
Her leg suddenly disappeared, sinking through the dirt up to her knee, and a hot flash of panic surged through her veins as the ground broke away beneath her. The weight of the load of dirt pulled her over, threatening to send her flying backwards, and her stomach leaped into her throat as her arms began to flail. Her eyes locked onto the surface of the ground far below, her heart cringing with dread as she braced herself for the fall.
Then, a moment later, she was pinned to the side of the mound. Amber blinked in terrified confusion; the ration was on top of her, its body holding her in place. She gasped in surprise, her heart racing as the fear slowly faded. The dull look in its green eyes seemed to disappear for a moment as it gazed at her, then it slowly stood back up as if nothing had happened, a blank expression on its face as it continued climbing.
She pulled her leg free, staring in open-mouthed shock as the ration ascended the mound ahead of her. She had never seen a ration do something like that before, and a tingle of nervous worry washed over her skin. Maybe there was something wrong with it, maybe it was defective. She shook her head, forcing herself to focus as she began climbing again. Her family couldn’t afford a problem like that.
They reached the top without further incident, and Amber dropped the sacks and began opening them one by one. The ration did the same, emptying the dirt out, and she showed it how to fold the sacks for the walk back.
“Two more loads,” she muttered, turning to retrace their steps back down the side of the mound. At least now they had trampled a path to follow when they returned. It would be gone by morning, though, blown away and covered up by the freezing night winds.
They trudged back to the grid. Amber replayed her near-fall in her mind as they prepared to take another load, her brow furrowed in thought. Something definitely wasn’t right, and she tried her best to ignore the feeling that she should tell her parents about it.
They finished the last trip, returning to the grid one final time to leave the hauling sacks for morning before heading in the direction of home. The sun was low in the sky, but if she was lucky, she would have just enough time to read before night fell.
†‡†
CHAPTER FOUR
Each settlement was on a yearly rotation for books, and Amber had made it through nearly half of this year’s small collection. Every resident was encouraged to read, and since there were no schools or teachers in the settlements, this was the only source of education for those that didn’t live at the resource centers. In March, a courier would pass through with the next rotation of books, and she hoped she would have a chance to finish the rest of this collection before that time came.
She sat down on the stoop outside of her house, opening the book as she chewed absently on the second of her three pieces of meat for the day. It was an astronomy volume, and she quickly flipped through the pages to find her place. She was glad this rotation had included it. The subject was a welcome reprieve from the other books that, like her grandmother’s stories, told of a life she would never know. The stars were the only things that remained unchanged from times past, the only things she could actually see after reading about them.
“Hey, Amber,” John greeted her, smiling as he approached. “Did you find anything at your grid today?”
She looked up, frowning as he sat down next to her.
“Nothing. What about you?”
He shrugged.
“The same. I don’t think there’s really any salt left anymore.”
“Or maybe we just need to dig forever to find it,” she sighed, making a face. “That’s the only good thing about having to visit the resource center every cycle—it’s a break from digging every day.”
“I suppose,” John mused, absently dragging his fingers through the fine dirt on the ground. He eyed her. “Speaking of which, where’s your ration?”
“Inside, like it’s supposed to be,” she answered, returning to her book. “I don’t see why my parents made such a big deal out of being a keeper, it doesn’t seem that hard.”
One glance at John’s face told her she had struck a nerve, and she gave him a reassuring smile, reaching out and putting her hand on his knee.
“It’s okay, John, you’ll be a keeper next cycle.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said quickly, his face instantly relaxing. “I’m fine. Why don’t you put that away and talk to me?”
He moved closer to her, his body heat adding to the already unbearable warmth of the day, and she shrank back.
“You don’t want to talk!” Amber laughed, rolling her eyes, and he grinned as he put his arm around her shoulders.
“So what if I don’t?”
“Stop, John, I want to finish this.”
He gave her a frustrated look.
“That’s the same book you’ve been reading for the last month, I know you’ve already finished it by now.”
“Once, but there’s a lot to learn.”
“It’s not like it’s important,” he told her, yawning with boredom. “It’s just old stuff, things no one cares about anymore.”
“Well, I care,” she huffed, glaring at him. “It doesn’t matter what you think.”
He sighed heavily, dragging himself to his feet.
“I’m going to go find something else to do, then,” he told her. “Maybe I’ll see what Leah’s up to.”
She could feel him watching her for a reaction, but she knew better. He didn’t care for Leah.
“Go ahead,” she answered, waving at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Amber chuckled to herself as she watched him leave. She had known him for a
s long as she could remember, and he was the only person in the settlement she considered a friend. That definition, however, was used loosely; there was no such thing as a deep relationship in the settlements, not when life consisted of so much misery. She and John spoke to each other in passing in the mornings and sometimes they spent the afternoons together after work, but beyond that, she didn’t go out of her way to see him. Things were simpler when people kept to themselves, and that applied even to him.
Her fingers smeared the pages with dirt, and she wiped them off as she turned to the next one. It wouldn’t harm the book; long ago, books had been made from trees, or so she had been told, and they were fragile things that were easily damaged. The resource center had confiscated all the paper books, though, keeping them in an archive and using them to make plastic prints for distribution among the population. These new books would last forever just like every other piece of plastic in the world, impervious to decay.
Amber crossed her legs, bracing her elbows on her knees as she read. The text recounted the history of the heavens, describing vast oceans and the huge ships that crossed them while telling of how their captains navigated using the stars. It told of a time of war, and how the stars had provided a map for those escaping their captors in the south. The North Star, whose position never changed, had offered salvation to so many hopeless and lost people in their search for freedom.
What truly left her awestruck were the constellations. Animals lived in the skies, the only place where they could still be found, and she traced the star patterns pictured in the book with her finger as she tried to memorize each one.
She had been born in August, under the lion of Leo. She had seen it the night they walked back from the resource center, but usually she had to wait for winter. During the fall months, it didn’t come out until early morning, when it was too cold to go outside to see, but she knew it was always up there watching.
Sometimes, just as night fell and right before going to bed, she would stare up at the sky, talking to it as if it could hear her. If she held her breath and closed her eyes, she could almost feel it listening. Maybe it could hear her; after all, the stars were as old as time, and no one had ever discovered what secrets they held.
She found herself lost in the words as she turned the pages, imagining herself as a star observing the world from high above. She often wondered if the stars had mourned the death of the plants and animals, if they had felt sorrow at the destruction people had caused. They would have seen it all, silent observers to the birth of each blade of grass that had ever grown here, and they would have watched the last seed wither into dust. Part of her was glad she hadn’t witnessed it like they had, it would have been a painful thing to see.
The light began to fade from the sky as the sun disappeared from the horizon, and Amber snapped the book shut, shivering as the cold swept it. She was tired. She stood up, tucking the book under her arm and stretching her aching muscles before stepping through the plastic curtain to go inside.
The ration was sitting in the corner of the main room, quietly staring down at its hands. It glanced up when she entered, and the look in its eyes told her that she had forgotten something important. Guilt flooded Amber’s heart, and she quickly beckoned to it, leading it back outside and towards a row of small dirt huts that had been built on the outskirts of the settlement. Beside the huts were deep, open pits dug into the ground, and she pointed.
“That’s where the rations go,” Amber said, turning to step into one of the huts. She paused for a moment. Her father had always handled this part, and now she wondered if the ration would know what to do when it was done. She cringed, going inside. She certainly hoped so.
The rations’ daily supplements rendered their waste unusable, so it would be deposited into the pits to decay. Hers, like everyone else’s, would be collected in processing stations located underneath each of the huts. Liquid would be separated out, distilled and channeled through underground pipes to the water cistern, while solids would be heat treated under special lights, mixed with fine dirt and a metabolic chemical, and flash-sterilized to create the cakes of food that the rations survived on.
Amber pushed the curtain aside and stepped out of the hut, seeing the ration waiting for her. She knelt down and rubbed her hands with dirt before placing them underneath a small, solar-powered UV bulb that was fitted into the wall of the hut. The light killed bacteria, helping to prevent people from getting sick despite the lack of water for hygiene.
The ration watched her, then copied her movements. She eyed it up and down. It looked like it had managed well enough.
Her teeth chattered as she ran back to her house, her arms tightly wrapped around her chest as she paused to pick up her light from the ground outside.
“How did your first day looking after it go?” her mother asked as Amber walked through the door. Mica was holding her own light, preparing to go to bed, and Alex was asleep in her arms, his tiny cheeks fading from red to pale white as the air cooled his skin.
Amber shrugged.
“Good, I guess.”
“Good? That’s it? All we’ve heard these past weeks is how nervous you were about the responsibility, and now that’s all you can say?”
Amber reached into her pocket, taking the last piece of meat from her daily allotment and swallowing it down quickly.
“I don’t know what else to say. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be, I think I remembered everything.”
Mica cocked her head, the dim light casting shadows on the fine, sun-weathered wrinkles scattered across her otherwise youthful skin.
“You gave it its supplements?”
“Yes, of course. Right after you gave me mine, and I gave it the second dose when I got home from the grid.”
“And its food?”
Amber rolled her eyes.
“Yes, mom.”
Mica sighed, standing to her feet and shifting Alex onto her shoulder.
“It’s a big responsibility, but like I said before, I think you’ll manage just fine. It’s time for bed, go get some rest.”
She held her arm out, and Amber stepped forward, giving her mother a quick hug before turning and beckoning to the ration.
It followed her to her room, and she clicked the light on, setting it inside a small alcove carved out of the dirt wall beside the doorway. The battery didn’t hold much of a charge, but it would be enough to get changed. It would die on its own in a few minutes, turning itself off by the time she got into bed.
Amber moved towards the shelves and knelt down, reaching underneath the bottom shelf to retrieve her sleep clothing. They were nearly identical to her day clothing, made from the woven plastic fabric created by the resource center, only without the dirt carried back from working. She wished she could wear both sets to bed to help stay warm, but sleeping in dirty clothing caused rashes. She had learned that the hard way many years ago.
She prepared to undress, then she hesitated, eyeing the ration. It was watching her intently, and she felt suddenly uncomfortable under its gaze. It looked like a man, and even though she knew it lacked awareness, she couldn’t force her mind to get around the awkwardness of undressing in its presence.
She swallowed hard, trying to think of what to do, then, to her surprise, it turned its back to her. Goosebumps raced over her skin as she quickly changed, then she tapped the ration’s shoulder.
“Yours,” she said, holding out another set of clothing. It took them from her, setting them on the floor as it lifted its shirt over its head, and Amber’s face flushed with heat when it moved to take off its pants. She spun around, cringing to herself.
“It hasn’t even been a whole day and you’re going crazy,” she muttered under her breath, drinking the last of her day’s water allotment before placing the bottle on the shelf. She pulled the blanket back on her bed, climbing in and stealing a peek at the ration. Her father had been right, this one would definitely have a high yield at
the end of the cycle.
Ropes of thick muscle rolled beneath the skin that covered its broad shoulders as it lifted its arms to put its sleep shirt on. Its skin shone pale in the meager light, reminding her that she would have to show it how to mix dirt with its sweat to prevent it from burning in the sun tomorrow when they began working. The rations’ pigmentation darkened quickly after only a few days of direct sunlight, but until that happened, it could be severely burned. For a moment, she imagined her hands on its back, smearing damp clay over its skin, and she cringed with embarrassment.
What the hell is wrong with you?
She closed her eyes, grimacing as she reminded herself once again that she knew better than this foolishness. Like everyone, she had learned how things were as a small child. The rations were a means to an end, nothing more: warmth in the night and labor during the day, then food when the cycle was over. It wasn’t human, it was just food that happened to look human.
When Amber opened her eyes, the ration had turned to face her again. Her heart skipped a beat; she had been looking forward to this since the last ration’s cycle had ended, grateful that she would finally be able to return to her own bed, but she couldn’t help feeling a wave of nervousness wash over her. The creature would have been handsome if it were human, more so than any actual person she had ever seen, and the thought of being so close to it was unnerving. She gulped, wishing for the millionth time in her life that her family could afford more blankets. That way, she wouldn’t need this thing to keep herself from freezing to death in the night.
She cleared her throat and set her jaw.
“Here,” she managed to say, patting the other side of her bed. The ration stared at her, its eyes glittering in the dark. The light began to dim, signaling that the battery was preparing to die, and she patted the bed again.
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