by ID Johnson
Questions bombarded her before she could even get the door closed and hang her backpack up. Gale and Breeze alternated asking her how she was, where she’d been, what she knew, and a million other questions while Rain tugged her tablet out of the bag, just wanting to be left alone. She really wanted to take a shower, but the idea of being naked during an emergency wasn’t appealing--especially since she’d been close to naked when the ordeal had started. So, instead, she sat down on her bed and waited for them to stop talking before she decided what to say and what to keep to herself. Mist wasn’t asking anything, but she wasn’t looking at her tablet either. She was curious.
“I’m fine,” Rain assured them. “It was a little scary, but I’m all right.”
“What happened?” Breeze asked, her bottom lip trembling slightly. She flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and squeezed Gale’s hand a little tighter.
Shaking her head, Rain said, “I’m honestly not sure. I was in IW and was just about to leave when the emergency lights came up and all the power in the room failed.”
“Really?” Gale asked, her green eyes wide. “So… the Inseminator was… free?”
Rain nodded. “He was. But they gave strict instructions for the men not to move or anything. So he didn’t.” She looked at Mist then, and her best friend tipped her head to the side slightly. If anyone knew when Rain was lying, she did, and she could tell now. But the other girls couldn’t see Mist’s reaction. “I just sat on the floor for about twenty minutes until the electricity came back on. He was strapped back in, and then a Mother came to the door and asked if I was all right. I told her I was. She let me out. Another Mother told me where to go. I went to the dressing room, changed, grabbed my stuff, and came home.” She tried shrugging nonchalantly, hoping they’d buy her “it’s no big deal” approach, but they weren’t done with the questions.
“What did he look like? You know, with the lights on?” Gale asked, a grin pulling her face so that she looked like a small child trying not to giggle in class.
“Yeah. Did you get a good look at… it?” Breeze wanted to know.
“It?” Rain stared at her for a moment, pretending she didn’t know what Breeze was talking about, trying to force her to articulate. Mist was shaking her head at Rain in disbelief.
“You know. His… thing.”
“His...?” Rain held her arms up, out to the sides, like she couldn’t grasp what she was getting at.
“His… manhood.”
“Oh, that.” Rolling her eyes at her own alleged silliness, Rain shook her head, and Mist covered her mouth to keep from laughing. “Sure. I saw it.”
“What did it look like?” Breeze asked, her eyes like saucers.
“What did he look like?” Gale repeated. “Was he muscular?”
“Of course he was muscular. They have to be.”
“Was he tall? Which one was it?” Gale asked as Breeze repeated her question about Adam’s appendage.
“Uh, I couldn’t tell how tall he was because he was in the chair the whole time. Taller than me, I’m sure. I think I might’ve picked… 28D? No, maybe it was 34P. I can’t remember.”
Gale let out a hot breath that resembled her name. “How can you not remember?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been through a traumatic experience. It’s hard to recall a lot of the details. I spent most of my time looking at the door, waiting for someone to let me out.”
“Ugh, you’re no fun.” Breeze tossed her pillow at Rain, and she laughed, knowing she was joking around. Rain tossed it back to her. “Your one chance to see a naked man with the lights on, and you blew it.”
“I guess so. I did see his manhood, though. It was weird looking, about how I’d imagined it.” It wasn’t as if all of them hadn’t felt enough of them. Or seen pictures in medical books.
“Sometimes they feel a little misshapen,” Breeze noted. “Was it like that?”
“No.”
“Was it big?” Gale wanted to know.
“I would say so. But he’d already fulfilled his insemination responsibilities, so I’m guessing, even with the shots they’re given, it was smaller than it had been before he finished.” Rain tried not to think about what Adam told her about those shots, or anything else he had to live with. She wanted to talk to Mist about it, but she didn't want to confide in the other two. Breeze was a blabber mouth, and Gale would break under any sort of pressure at all.
Lying back on her pillow, Rain dangled her sneakers off of the bed thinking she shouldn't get her blankets dirty but needed to keep her shoes on in case something happened, and they needed to run. Rain still had no idea what the blood had been about or why a Medic was dead.
The two on the top bunk went back to looking at Breeze’s tablet, talking about hairstyles and clothes. Happy for the reprieve, Rain closed her eyes for a second, trying to collect her thoughts. But all she could see behind her eyelids was Adam’s face.
There were so many other things Rain wished she would’ve asked him, questions that popped into her head now that she hadn't thought of then. What was it like growing up in IW? Did he know what his duties would require when he was younger? Did he remember being in a nursery, or had he gone to IW when he was just a toddler, before he was capable of remembering life before? What kind of books did he read? What did he dream about?
A loud buzz came over the speakers in the hallway making all of them jump, even Mist. It’d been a long time since anyone had used the public address system. Rain couldn’t even remember the last time it had happened.
“Women, pardon this interruption, but it has been brought to my attention that the earlier risk is completely under control now, and you may go back to your regular activities. I repeat, you may go back to your regular activities. While it is perfectly safe to go outside, we suggest everyone stay in for the evening, with your friends and loved ones. Thank you, and have a good evening.”
“Was that Mother Thunder?” Breeze asked, still staring at the ceiling as if she could see the woman through the speaker--and the wall.
“Yes.” Rain recognized her voice having just spoken to her in the hall. She wondered if it was true that the threat was over. If that was the case, then why couldn’t they go outside? Were they just afraid something else might happen, or was there really someone or something still lurking out there?
“Well, I’m going to go eat. I’m starving.” Breeze slid down off of the bunk, her feet contacting the floor with a jar.
“Me, too.” Gale used the ladder. It wasn’t a surprise they’d go together. They were hardly ever apart. A lot like Mist and Rain. Well, how they had been anyway… until recently.
The girls put on their shoes and headed out the door, chatting about one of the hairstyles they’d seen on the tablet. Rain was glad to see them go. Now, maybe she could take a shower and go to sleep.
Mist had other plans. As soon as the others were gone, she slid to the edge of her bed, placing her feet on the floor, and waited for Rain’s full attention. With a deep breath, Rain turned her head and looked at her friend. “Now, tell me what really happened.”
Chapter Nineteen
Rain did her best to calm herself, taking a few more deep breaths before she opened her mouth. Even the thought of recounting everything that had transpired while she was in IW had her heartbeat increasing and her palms beginning to sweat.
Mist was still looking at her intently, waiting patiently for Rain to respond to her inquiry. Realizing she was under no obligation to tell Mist anything, Rain thought through the situation. Why should she tell her friend everything when Mist was keeping information from her?
“How did you know something was going to happen?” Rain asked, leaning forward so that she was closer to Mist and keeping her voice low. “You did know, didn’t you?”
With a shrug, Mist adjusted on the mattress. “Sunny heard a few things, rumors, from the older women. She said she had an idea they were going to do something, that it might get dangerous, but she didn't kn
ow the details.”
“Do what?” Rain wanted to know. Mist was being purposely vague, and she wasn’t buying the fact that she didn’t know anything else.
“It was a test,” Mist said, leaning in, her voice barely a whisper. “They were trying to see whether or not there were weaknesses in the electrical system.”
“Why?”
Again, Mist shrugged, so Rain waited--two people could play that game. “In case… they ever decided to plan an escape.”
Rain felt her insides tangle up, much the same way as they had when she was in IW and everything was happening so quickly. “An escape? What kind of an escape?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I think it has to do with the men. I think… there are some people who believe the men in IW don’t deserve to be treated the way they are being treated, that they’d like to see them have the freedom to make choices for themselves.”
Rain’s heart was beating out of her chest now. Her breathing staggered as if pulling in a deep breath would cause her lungs to explode. “Escape… to where? How?”
Mist was shaking her head animatedly. “I don’t know, Rain. All I know is what I told you. Now, what really happened? Did you talk to him? Was it 24C?”
“Yeah, it was. He… did talk to me a little bit. But… he didn’t say that much.” Rain still wanted to protect him, to keep him from getting in trouble, even though she knew Mist wouldn’t tell anyone. “He told me a little bit about his daily activities. That’s really all.”
“Like what?”
Sucking in enough air that she could speak again, Rain said, “Just that they are required to do certain things, like lift weights. That they have to eat mostly protein. That they use hydration pills instead of real water, that sort of thing.”
“And he told you he doesn’t like living this way? That he wishes it was different?”
“How do you know that?”
“I just assume… if I was in that situation, if I finally had a chance to say something to someone, that’s the first thing I’d say. I’d want to ask for help. But he probably assumed you wouldn’t want to help him.”
Rain thought about the way she’d responded to Adam, how he’d wanted to reach out to her, but she’d shut him down pretty quickly. The longer she’d spoken to him, the more open she’d become. Mist was right, though. If she’d been more approachable, Adam might’ve been more willing to talk. “I don’t think there’s much I can do to help him.”
“There’s probably more than you think.” Mist had that disappointed look in her eyes. “Especially since they were obviously right. There is a weakness in the system. They were able to turn the main electrical supply off.”
“But now the Mothers will know how they exploited it and fix it.”
“If they know how. I don’t think they do. From what I hear… this was just a probe. The women in Communications who are part of the resistance know more weaknesses than the one they tested today.”
Bile rose in the back of Rain’s throat as she realized what her friend was saying. “This was just the beginning? Women are going to try to overthrow the Motherhood?”
“I don’t think they’ll be able to do that exactly, Rain. They aren’t powerful enough. But they want to free the men in IW. They’d free all of the men if they could, but the ones in IW, the ones with the least amount of freedom, those are the ones they want to help most of all.”
“And… are you a part of this, Mist?”
Slowly, her friend’s head rocked back and forth. “As much as I can be. Right now, they need people in Communication and Medical. I can only be useful on the outside.”
“On the outside?”
“Once the escape is underway.”
“Wait--are there women planning to go with them? To where?”
“We don’t know yet,” Mist said, shrugging again. “That’s part of what I’m trying to determine, along with the other women in my department.”
Rain was having trouble believing anything Mist was saying was true. “You’re thinking of… going with them?”
“I’m definitely going with them, Rain.”
She ran her hands down her face, wishing she could come up with the words to talk Mist out of it. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?” She remembered the hard look Mother White had given her, and a chill went down her spine.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to keep living this way, Rain? We know what they’re doing is wrong. Every day, they ingrain it a little more into our brains. They’re killing people for no reason other than they aren’t perfect in their eyes. It’s not right, Rain. None of it’s right. The world used to be different.”
“Yeah, women were the oppressed, not men.”
“Do you really think that was the case? That women were held against their will and used only for breeding, the way we use men? Come on, Rain, you know that’s not true.”
“How can you be so sure?” Rain shot back, fighting to keep her voice quiet. “How do you know that wasn’t the case?”
“I just do. It doesn’t make any sense. Besides….” Mist’s eyes went to the door for a second and then across the room before she looked back into Rain’s. “I found something that proves it.”
Rain raised an eyebrow, realizing she had to be talking about whatever it was she’d found in the cellar in the woods. “Show me, Mist.”
“Rain, once I show this to you, you have to realize there’s no going back. If you want to continue to stay in your delusion, to think that women are superior to men and that men deserve the treatment they get because of the way they used to treat women, then you do not want to see what I have.”
With a deep breath, and a flash of blue eyes playing across her mind, Rain said, “Show me.”
Chapter Twenty
Mist had a weary look in her eyes as she slowly got up off of her bed and walked across the room. Rain was fairly certain the expression had nothing to do with the possibility that their roommates might walk back in at any moment. Locking the door wouldn’t do any good since their roommates had codes to punch into the door the same way that Mist and Rain did.
From where she sat on her own bed, it was hard to see what Mist was doing. Rain didn’t want to alarm her by walking over and interfering, so she waited patiently. Her roommate was kneeling on the floor near one of the windows, next to a desk any of them could use when they needed it, and it sounded like maybe she was pulling up one of the baseboards. A few seconds later, Mist came back, sitting next to Rain on her bed with a familiar-shaped item, wrapped in a white towel.
Rain held her breath as she watched Mist carefully unwrap whatever it was she’d found in the cellar at the house in the woods. Once the towel was removed, Rain realized she was looking at a book, one made of paper, something she’d never seen before, though she knew they existed. It was certainly old, the pages crinkled from weather. Looking at the edge, it appeared as if some of the pages were missing large chunks.
Mist scooted toward her but didn’t let go of the item. “Look,” she said, tilting the front cover of the book toward Rain.
Parts of the front cover were missing as well, but Rain could clearly make out what it was her friend wanted her to see. In the picture, a woman in a long, elegant gown, with flowing blonde hair, had her arms around a man in a gray uniform. His arms were wrapped around her waist as he smiled down at her, and the woman looked just as happy as she tilted her face toward his approaching lips. They were about to kiss. On the mouth. And the woman seemed to welcome it.
Shaking her head, Rain tried to reason through what the picture might mean. “Maybe… a man wrote it,” she said, attempting to fit this new artifact into her picture of the past. Mist flipped the book over and showed a picture of the author on the back, an older woman with glasses and short curly hair. “So? That doesn’t mean anything. It’s possible a man wrote it and pretended to be a woman, just to spread propaganda.”
“Rain, you can explain it away however you’d like, but Sunny
has a friend in Communication who has a Translator Device. She borrowed it, and though we didn’t get a chance to read the entire book, we were able to get the gist. This man and woman in the book had intercourse. Both of them enjoyed it. It sounded a lot like the way the Marrieds do it--on a bed. When he touched her, when he kissed her, the woman enjoyed it immensely. The man was allowed to show his pleasure, too.”
Still unable to process what she was hearing, Rain continued to shake her head. “Again, it could be something invented by men to make women think what the men were doing to them was all right, that they were meant to enjoy it.”
Undeterred, Mist said, “It talks about how life was like back then, and while it’s true men were the leaders, women were important, too. They had roles they played. This was written about a time called the Civil War, though Sunny figured out it was actually written a couple of hundred years after the war ended. During the Civil War, women helped the men that were fighting. Some of them ran their plantations and farms. Others even fought in the war, disguised as men. And, during the time that this book was written, the author says she’s a business owner and the mayor of her town. Rain, this is enough proof for me to believe we’ve been lied to. I do think there were times when men acted as superiors to women, but I think it was a really long time ago, even before this war, and I don’t think women were ever treated as badly as we treat men today.”
Having heard enough, Rain got up and walked across the room, tempted to put her hands over her ears to block out Mist’s arguments. None of it made sense. How could it be that women weren’t actually treated worse than animals? That they weren’t bound and used for men’s pleasure, forced to cook, clean, and keep the home? To take care of the children but only speak when spoken to? It seemed as if the entire world the Mothers had convinced generation after generation of women was once a reality may never have existed at all.