“So nobody in Sector 20 pays attention to the Regulation Committee, is that what you're saying?”
He watched her pace for a moment in front of him. “Please sit down,” he said.
She hesitated, but sat down after staring at him.
“Something isn't right about you, Jonah. Sorry – I'm not complaining or trying to be insensitive... But there are so many differences, and I can't imagine that it's just because you're from a different sector. I keep bracing myself for you to say that you're from the future, or the past or something, like The Toynbee Convector.”
Jonah's heart calmed as her voice smoothed. “What did you mean, asking if I was contaminated by them?”
“You should have paid more attention in Pseudo Modern Food Substance lectures... I know it’s required - I had it about three years ago. There were a number of things that they kept as individual food substances – like nuts – because a few of the Facility's children population would get sick, and even die if they ate them. One time, someone gave a certain nut food substance – I think nut substance P – to a leader's child. The child died, and the leader went on to make all of the individual food substances illegal.”
Jonah tilted his head. “If only a few people could get hurt by them, why would they make them illegal for everyone? Why wouldn't people just take the responsibility of keeping their kids, or themselves, away from it?”
“Actually, I remember one of his speeches from the lecture: 'if P nut substance has the possibility of killing even one more child, why would we allow anyone to consume it?'”
Jonah shook his head. “What if they keep finding things that hurt only one person? What will they do with that new food?”
“Oh, they do all the time,” Talitha responded. “They ban a new individual food substance at least once a year. If a person falls ill, the Wellness and Pain Management Committee breaks down the food substance that they ate to determine which ingredient made them sick. They usually can replace it with a similar synthetic, and no one knows the difference. They’ve been working extra lately because of the number of people that started getting sick a couple days ago.”
“Do you know how the food substance is made?” Jonah asked, wondering if everyone in the Facility knew about the cages in the Resource Center.
“Almost everything is synthetic now – a long time ago people would put things in dirt in order to eat it. Or they would raise a species from birth just to eat it. I have to admit, it seems a little gross if you ask me. I can't understand how they did it – how they would have been able to create food substance without the technology we have now, but I guess that's something we'll never know.”
Jonah thought again about the cages, and then his own farm. She had no idea how food was supposed to taste. “Would you like to try this pecan, or am I going to eat them both myself?”
There was a long, awkward pause.
“I've never eaten anything but the regulated food substance... How do you know it's safe to eat something unprocessed - especially nut food substance?”
He grabbed one of the pieces of the nuts that had already been cracked open. He popped it in his mouth and chewed. “I've been eating them all morning,” he said. After a moment, he sat back down in the chair.
Talitha looked away and held out her hand. He walked over to her and placed the pieces in her hand, lingering when he touched her skin.
After seeing no sign that Jonah was falling ill, Talitha slowly, cautiously, put a small piece of pecan in her mouth and swallowed.
She immediately began to gag, coughing violently. “I'm contaminated!!” she gasped for air as her shoulders shook.
“You're supposed to chew it first!” Jonah cried. He ran to her side, not knowing what to do.
“Fluid!” she coughed.
Jonah looked around for a faucet of some sort – the only one he remembered being the one in the Sanitation Unit – so he ran to grab some water from the tap. He frantically looked around for a cup, but found nothing.
Running back into Talitha's room, he found her drinking from a tube protruding from the wall. Her coughing had ceased.
“Where did you go?” she asked, still trying to clear her throat. “Were you trying to kill me?”
“I went to get you some water, but I didn't know how to bring it back in here,” Jonah reasoned.
“From the Sanitation Unit??”
“I... I didn't know how else to get water.”
She held up the tube from the wall. “I couldn't expect you to know how to get a normal fluid tube from the digitiles,” she coughed again. “I guess you drink Sanitation Unit water in Sector 20.”
She slammed the remaining pieces of pecan onto the table beside her bed. “I think I'll refrain from trying to kill myself today.”
“Sorry,” he apologized. “I assumed you'd know to chew it up before you swallowed it.”
“That's not how we eat in Sector 37,” she said as she took another drink. “That's not how anyone in the Facility eats.”
She furrowed her brow.
“Ok,” she said, “I'm serious. What is with you?”
“What do you mean,” Jonah tried to respond innocently.
“I mean, if you don't tell me what is going on – why you are so weird, and why you tried to kill me with unprocessed food – then you're going to have to leave.”
Jonah sat stone cold for a moment, not knowing what to do. He obviously wasn't a good enough liar to keep her in the dark, and he definitely didn't want to be thrown out of her home.
“You...” he started. “You wouldn't believe me.”
“I'm pretty sure I don't believe you now,” she said, “so I doubt you can surprise me.”
Jonah took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“I'm not from here.”
Talitha was not satisfied.
“Yes, I think we've established that,” she responded. “From where, then? And don't tell me Sector 20.”
“From...” Jonah didn't know if his next words would get him thrown out, thrown into some sort of jail, or thrown into the arms of the girl sitting in front of him.
“From up there.”
He pointed at the ceiling of the room.
She looked up, then back down in his eyes. Her eyes were narrow.
“Like, you live in some secret level above this one?”
“Not quite,” Jonah breathed. “I live on the surface.”
Talitha was silent for a moment.
“Oh, I understand now,” she said, as if she had a revelation and connected all the dots in her head. “That's why you brought unprocessed food. And you wanted me to drink water.” The level of sarcasm slowly rose in her voice, and ended in an obvious tone. “And why your chip isn't functional, and why you say that you work, and why you're thin and your skin is tan.”
She ended her rant by running her fingers across his face, as if expecting the color of his skin to come off.
Jonah sat helpless.
“Did Dawkin set this up? Well, very funny Dawkin!” she yelled, moving toward the door. “You got me – I look like a moron!”
Jonah stood with his open palms out to Talitha, wide-eyed. “Shhh... Please don't say anything,” he pleaded.
“You know, Jonah,” she said, turning back around towards him. “I actually liked you. Even with your quirks. You're one of the first people in my life that seemed like more than just some... some robot. But you're just here to make fun of the unhappy girl. To ridicule me for wondering what it was like before the Surface's End. To make a big joke out of the fact that I think stars are pretty, and that I'm jealous of the people that were able to see them without their skin burning off. Well, great job. Ha. Ha. Ha.”
She turned away from him, pursing her lips.
Her mother came into the doorway, flustered. “What's all this commotion about? Talitha, are you trying to make a fool of yourself in front of your guest?”
“No,” Talitha said. “Jonah was just leaving. And I'm not the one try
ing to make a fool of me.”
“But,” Jonah protested. “I'm not trying to make a fool of you. I'm trying to—”
“Mom – would you show Jonah out?”
Jonah looked over at Gabet's confused eyes surrounded in blue, and realized that it was not the time to try to redeem himself with the truth. If Talitha wouldn't listen, then her parents definitely wouldn't.
“Well, it looks like it's time to go,” Gabet said to him with a steady tone.
Jonah walked through the Coomy's Family Unit. As they approached the door, Gabet whispered, “Sorry about Talitha – she can get a bit – excited – about things... I'm sure she'll be fine in a few days. Of course, I guess you'll be back to your sector, since everything will be back to normal by then!”
She seemed a bit too happy in relation to Jonah's distress.
When the door closed behind him, he made his way back through the ducts, and found himself at the slits in Talitha's wall.
Stars shown all over her room, and she lay face down on her bed, sobs muffled in her sheets.
.- .-- .- -.- .
Jonah awoke in his own bed, tiptoeing out of the room to get to his normal morning routine. It had been days since his return, and he tried to keep to himself more than usual. His family was simply trying to help when they realized that he seemed depressed, but this time he spent his time dodging their questions.
His father found him in the middle of their cornfield – which took a decent amount of effort on a lame leg, so Jonah felt that the least he could do was talk.
“When'd you meet her?” Thomas asked, after nearly catching his breath.
“What?” Jonah shot back, a bit too surprised.
“Bud, you've been moping around here for the past couple of days. Before that it seemed like you couldn't get back to the hunt fast enough – or wherever you were trying to go. I don't know of too many things that can change a man's mood that fast.”
Jonah avoided eye contact with his father and continued picking ears of corn off the stalks. “It doesn't necessarily mean it's a girl,” he said.
“True,” Thomas said, leaning on his crutch. “Go ahead and tell me about the non-girl-related situation, then.”
Jonah worked in silence for a few seconds.
“It doesn't necessarily mean it's not a girl, either,” he finally admitted.
Jonah's dad smirked.
“Well,” Jonah said, pausing. “I saw her during my last hunting trip... From another town.” He technically hadn’t seen Talitha on the trip that he killed the buck, but at this point his fascination with the object in the Deathlands was overtaken with his fascination with her.
His father nodded knowingly, still smiling.
Jonah continued, “and I met her this last trip out... But I don't think she wants to see me again.”
When Jonah offered nothing more, Thomas said, “I remember the first time I saw your mother. That woman took my breath away.”
“Dad,” Jonah said, “you and mom grew up together... I doubt that playing leap frog at four years old is quite the same.”
“I used to be quite the leap frogger,” Thomas quipped. “Don't think I could keep up these days,” he said, patting his cane.
“But, no, that's not what I meant. The first time I really saw her.”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and continued, “I guess I was about your age, and I was gone for a summer to help Doc Thorton's uncle with his crops a town over. All of his kids got sick, and two of them ended up not making it, so the doc and I went out there to try to take care of things when he was in bad shape. That's actually the reason that Doc got interested in medicine – he was pretty close to one of his cousins that died and he didn't want to lose anybody like that again.
“That was a hard summer. The doc ended up spending most of his time trying to get his other cousins well – reading a bunch of old books and what-not – and I did everything I could not to let them lose any of their crops, as if that meant anything compared. Working from sun up to sun down, and then canning everything I could ’til I pretty much collapsed into bed.
“When my work was done and all the crop was in, I hopped on my horse and rode back to town by myself, feeling like I hadn't had a good night's sleep in a few months. All I could think about was your grandma Whitfield's cooking and a little bit of hibernating.
“But I saw her at the edge of town, standing up at the top of Miller's hill picking flowers. Lord, I still remember how the wind was blowing her red hair in her face. She'd just keep brushing it back. Looked like the sun was shining just for her – like if she walked away it would've been the middle of the night.
“I led my horse to the pond at the bottom of the hill, and just sat there staring at her for forever. I think she must've liked the attention, because she kept picking the same dang flowers,” Thomas smiled, lost in nostalgia.
“Truth be told, I barely even recognized her. Before I left that summer, she was just a girl that I’d seen on the playground – but when I came back... Heck, it took me two days before I got up the nerve to kind of re-introduce myself. And when I did, I stammered all over the place.
“I thought I came back to town to get a little rest, and get back to my normal life – but I didn't get much sleep after that. Her daddy would have to shoo me off their front porch every night, and I'd work faster than ever so my daddy would let me go so I have a little more time with her.”
Thomas stared off into space for a minute, reliving memories. “And I'm the luckiest man alive now – I don't have to get shooed off the front porch anymore. I get to brush the hair out of her face when I wake up every morning.”
Jonah realized that he had stopped picking corn while his father spoke, and he started back up again.
“I know I seem like an old man to you, Jonah,” Thomas said. “But to tell you the truth, I don't think that forty is very old. And if it weren't for my leg, I think I'd still feel like I was twenty. I remember what it felt like to be scared of having your mom tell me that she could never love me. To tell me that she couldn't see me as anything but a boy that used tease her or reject her to go play with the boys.
“And I hate to spoil the surprise ending, but despite the fear, I realized it was worth putting myself on the line. The worst thing that could happen is that I was right... That she didn't care about me, and I would have my heart broken. But, if that were the case, at least I would've known it for sure and I could stop wondering and being afraid. But – the best thing that could happen is what happened. And all this - even you kids - couldn't have happened if I hadn't risked it.”
Jonah took a deep breath and looked at his dad. “But what if it's the first option? What if she really doesn't want to see me anymore?”
“Well,” Thomas said, scanning the cornfield and letting out a small chuckle. “If that's the case, I guess you can go ahead and keep being depressed, after you know that for sure.”
But what if she says no, and I get thrown in some sort of a jail in the Facility? Jonah wanted to ask. Instead, he just said, “Thanks, Dad.”
“Welcome, bud,” Thomas said as he started walking out of the field, every other step a little slower. “And you know what I found out later? Your mom hurried to finish her chores just so she could pick the same flowers at Miller's hill every day that summer. She'd been waiting for me to notice her long before then.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jonah changed into the Facility uniform that he stashed in the tree after bathing in the creek and the morning sun.
He had realized his dad was right, and that he’d rather he - and Talitha - knew the truth than wonder for the rest of his life. When he was about to leave his home again, his mother had probed so intensely that his father made up a story about sending Jonah to another town for some supplies. After she pressed even more, asking what supplies the other town had that wasn’t available nearby, his father told her that Jonah held the family’s load on his shoulders for a long time; that if Jonah wanted to go,
he had more than earned it.
He pedaled his bike into the Deathlands. Seeing the first flag he placed well within the boundaries of the gray ground, he was positive that either the flag had moved even further – or that the Deathlands had. The ring of dead grass was gone.
He arrived at the Coomy's door, and Talitha's mother finally opened it after he waived his arms and knocked for a while.
“Oh – hello!” Gabet said, surprised. “Are you still here? I assumed that you went back to your sector?”
“Uh... I did,” Jonah said, clearing his throat. But I came back to see Talitha.”
Gabet smiled and moved out of the doorway. “Come in, then. She's in her room. You're so nice for coming back – hopefully she won't have another outburst.”
“Thanks,” Jonah said as he walked past her.
“By the way,” she said as he crossed the room, “use your wristile to notify us that you’re outside next time. We almost never pay attention to the manual motion alert. And you might want to check in with the Fashion Committee.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he responded as he left the room.
He knocked on Talitha's doorframe, and she looked up, sitting on the floor.
“Hi,” he said sheepishly.
“Hi,” she said, looking back down at the book in her lap.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
Talitha paused, shrugged her shoulders, and motioned her hand toward the chair. It wasn't the glowing reception he'd hoped for, but he sat down.
“I figured you would've gone back to your sector now that everyone is well again. Or was that part of the charade?”
Jonah pulled out a handful of flowers that he'd gathered on the surface and laid them down in front of her.
“Do you think that flowers will make me forget about what you did?” she asked, barely noticing them. “I still don't know who put you up to it – Dawkins hasn't said anything, and he would've been rubbing it in every possible moment if it was him.”
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