The Surface's End

by David Joel Stevenson

  Talitha looked at Jonah helplessly, then let go of his hand. She lowered her head and took one step forward.

  “What are you doing?” Jonah frantically whispered.

  Talitha didn’t look up. “I’m complying with their order,” she whispered. “They must have tracked us in there.”

  “No,” Jonah whispered back, then raised his voice. “No!”

  He grabbed her arm and ran along the wall, away from the Control Officers.

  “Jonah - what are you doing? There’s no way out of here!” Talitha struggled to keep up, obviously not wanting to.

  “I can’t let them take you!” Jonah yelled as the Control Officers started running after them. Jonah and Talitha had a head start, because the officers were obviously surprised that they ran. Jonah had no doubt that their usual suspects didn’t resist, and they weren’t accustomed to using their training.

  “They can track me no matter where I go in the Facility, Jonah! There’s no use in running,” she yelled at him.

  “Then we’ll just have to get out of the Facility.”

  Jonah grabbed a vent cover on the top of a wall, and pulled with all of his strength. The cover ripped off the wall after a moment, and he threw it at the oncoming men. Not waiting for Talitha’s decision or permission, he grabbed her by the waist and tried to heave her into the open duct. Before he could, however, the officers grabbed her and pulled her down.

  Two officers pulled Talitha to the side, while the two others clumsily tried to restrain Jonah. He punched the first officer in the opening in his helmet, forcing him back. He pulled his elbow back into the light body armor covering the ribcage of the second officer. When both officers stumbled back, he sprinted toward Talitha.

  The officers holding Talitha shoved her to the ground and braced for the attack. He yelled out, “Get into that duct!” then he crouched and forced his shoulder into the stomach of the third officer, pushing him forward. Before he knocked him to the ground, the fourth officer wrapped his arms around Jonah’s torso and wrestled him to the ground. As Jonah regained his bearings, the second officer was on top of him, punching him in the face.

  “Jonah!” Talitha screamed, collapsed on the floor.

  Between punches Jonah yelled, “Get to the vent!” Punch. “Find a way to the surface!” Punch. “Follow the flags!”

  The third officer rushed in and started kicking Jonah in the face, causing blood to spurt out his nose.

  Jonah saw the first officer’s bloodied face approach slowly. Pulling out a long black stick, the officer touched the end to Jonah’s forearm and the other officers immediately ceased their attack. Bloodied and exhausted, Jonah breathed out, “On the surface, find the Whitfields.”

  The first Control Officer wiped blood from his mouth and pushed the handle of the stick. “I never thought I’d get to use this thing,” the officer said just before Jonah’s body convulsed, arching up from the ground.

  “I didn’t request to be a Control Officer for this,” one of the officers said as he pulled Talitha from the ground. “What in the world did he think he was doing?”

  Talitha was crying.

  “I don’t know, but he’s still moving,” another officer said.

  The first officer pushed the button on the stick and held it. “Guess he needs more than the recommended dose.”

  Pain shot through Jonah’s clenched body as it convulsed out of his control. He couldn’t hear his own screams above the hum of the stick’s power in his head.

  He slumped to the ground like a rag doll when he fell unconscious.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Talitha sat in the corner of her bright cell in the fetal position, rocking slightly back and forth. Her uniform had been changed to all black, and her wristile was gone. The walls of the room were uncharacteristically dull metal, unlike most other rooms in the Facility, which had interactive glass on almost every surface. This room looked a bit more like a Resource Duct. For the first time in her life, Talitha felt dirty.

  Her father’s hands gripped tightly around the bars that made up the door, white with angry pressure.

  “What were you thinking?,” he demanded. “You might have gotten me thrown off the Regulation Committee! Imagine a committee member whose daughter doesn’t even follow regulations. Unheard of!”

  Talitha continued to rock without looking up or responding.

  “What did you even copy, anyhow? It’s bad enough that you viewed anything on the Central Facility Computer, but to copy something from it… Are you insane? What could be so important that you would need to copy it?”

  Silence.

  “You heard that boy died, right? Stupid kid. Why in the world would he have defied the Control Officers - especially when they weren’t even after him. Yours was the only unauthorized Identification Chip found anywhere near the computer. What in the name of the Leaders did he think he was doing to help you? And why would he want to help you, when you had just broken several regulations? Your mother said there was something strange about him, but this is unbelievable. I just got over the sickness, and now you’re trying to kill me with stress.”

  Talitha had stopped rocking. “He’s dead?,” she asked, looking down, tears falling from her cheeks.

  “Yes, he’s dead. They can’t even notify his family, I’m told, because his Identification Chip shorted out during his attack. And you shouldn’t be worrying about him, anyways - you should be worried about yourself. Or at least your family, for Forefathers’ sake.”

  Talitha’s sobs grew louder.

  “What did I do wrong with you?,” Quilen wondered aloud. “I mean, Dawkin isn’t perfect, but I don’t think he’d ever pull a stunt like this. I should’ve put a stop to all of your dreaming and talk of the surface a long time ago. I wanted you to be happier, but I didn’t think it would drive you to become a treasonous criminal. I’m doing everything I can to keep them from casting you out onto the surface, but I’m having a hard time.”

  “Let them send me to the surface,” Talitha said, wiping her wet face. “Not that that’s what they actually do. They probably just kill me and recycle me for Food Substance.”

  “That’s hideous, Talitha,” her father snapped. “You and I both know that Food Substance is synthetics. Or are you wanting to die? Should I stop fighting for you? Because if you don’t even want to get out of here, then why am I putting my neck on the line? It’d be a lot easier for us if I could tell them to do what they want with you - that way they’d know that at least some members of this family are loyal.”

  Talitha drew a sucking breath of air through her nose. “What did they do with him?”

  Quilen looked at her with astonishment. “What did they do with him? That’s all you want to know? About a dead boy’s body? Not ‘how’s my poor mother’ or ‘is Dawkin okay’ or any concern about us? I don’t know what they did with him. All I know is what they posted on the Public Messages; that two criminals - you’re one of them, thank the Forefathers they didn’t release your name - were apprehended, and that one of them died after almost murdering four Control Officers. They’ve been showing loops of video of him trying to kill them for the last twenty-four hours, and everybody’s glued to their tiles even more than usual. You sure got the whole Facility in an uproar. We haven’t had any attacks in the Facility for decades, so it’s all anyone cares about right now. Some people have apparently been missing their assignment posts because they’re watching it constantly. Not that they’re giving much new information. They only said the bit about his Identification Chip not working because they’re trying to find his family. They’re hoping that someone with a missing son will come forward so they can end this matter. I told them that he’s from Sector 20. Right? That’s what your mother remembered. Said his name was Jonan or something.”

  “Jonah,” Talitha corrected him.

  “Jonah, then. I’ll tell them to look for the records of a Jonah in Sector 20. Maybe if they can find evidence that he’s the one that put you up to this, they�
��ll go easy on you. I bet they’d be a lot nicer on you if you started telling them that’s the case. That is the case, right?”

  Talitha remained silent.

  “Well, I hope whatever you found was worth sitting in this detention unit for possibly the rest of your life. Or worth Jonah dying. I’m going to go give them his name.”

  Talitha cried as her father left. She never felt that he was very protective of her in normal situations, usually telling her to be more normal and quit questioning things so much, but she never realized how little he cared. She had read books about men who fought for their families, and who sacrificed for other people rather than themselves, but she didn’t know any of those men in the Facility.

  Anyone but Jonah. And he wasn’t even from the Facility.

  Now that they had taken her wristile away, she had no proof to show anyone that the surface didn’t really end. No one would believe anything she said now that the Regulation Committee deemed her a criminal. She wondered if the Regulation Committee even knew about the surface - if anyone knew about the surface. Or if the lie had been passed down for so long that no one ever questioned it.

  It would be hard to convince anyone on any committee, and they would probably just label her as a lunatic, influenced by some under-the-radar terrorist from Sector 20. Her face would be plastered all over the Facility Messages during her trial, if she even got a trial.

  And this after she just discovered so much. About the surface, of course. But also about Jonah.

  Not only was he constantly at risk simply being in the Facility, but he fought for her. Died for her. His last words were to give her the way out. The way to the surface - to her dream.

  “I should have said yes,” she cried out loud. He had put his heart in her hands and she asked for more time. She was caught up in what is common for citizens of the Facility to do, even though she shared almost nothing with any of the other citizens. Why would she share their views on love?

  Why would she need another ten or fifteen years to know that this once-in-a-lifetime person, who she now knew loved her enough to die for her, was worth her ‘yes.’ She was afraid of a commitment, and he was afraid of nothing.

  A ‘yes’ probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome - the Control Officers would have still been outside the Magnet Tram, and Jonah still would’ve fought for her. But at least she wouldn’t have to live with the painful regret. She would go the rest of her life - years, months, or possibly days - with a part of him that she felt like she didn’t have now.

  She climbed into the metal slab bed, covered her eyes to shield them from the bright lights that she could not control, and cried herself to sleep.

  .- .-- .- -.- .

  Talitha awoke the next morning when a metal plate of Food Substance flew through a slit in the barred door, skidding a few feet. The slop that once sat in separated piles made a trail marking the path of the plate.

  “Morning, traitor,” a Control Officer said, smiling. She noticed that he was missing a tooth, and his lip was swollen, and recognized him from the ambush. She diverted her eyes away from him and back to the mess of Food Substance as he walked out of sight.

  She had a pain in the pit of her stomach that she’d never experienced before, and realized that she hadn’t eaten since the previous morning. The pain had kept her up much of the night, and she assumed it was guilt, but when she saw the plate she knew it was hunger. The guilt was much worse than the hunger.

  She crawled to the center of the room where the plate rested, and scooped globs of Food Substance into her mouth. She quickly consumed everything she could spoon up with her hands, and - stomach still growling - licked the plate clean. She stared at the edible smears on the ground, debating licking that up as well. In a Facility where excess was normal, they had given her less than half what she was used to eating in a single meal - which was far less than the others in her family.

  Heavy footsteps echoed through the hallway outside, and she scurried back to the corner. She assumed it would be her father again, and she didn’t want to look at his face. Her entire childhood seemed to have been a sham, and she would prefer not to be reminded of it anymore. She wondered if her mother would ever come to see her, or if the last memory she would have of anyone in her family was her father condemning her. He was never a man of affection, but surely her mother had compassion, or at the very least would have listened. But she didn’t know.

  She glanced up when a shadow crept into the room.

  The footsteps belonged to a large balding man, tufts of graying brown hair combed to seem more substantial than it truly was. She recognized him from the times she was required to visit her father’s office during the Purpose Assignment Committee’s yearly assessments. All of the children would spend a day at the location of the purpose assignment they most likely would have - which was almost always determined by their parents’ pedigree. Her lecture class was made up almost entirely of children of the Regulation Committee, so she would do what she could to get lost in the crowd so that her father wouldn’t even know she was there.

  “Do you know who I am, Talitha?,” the man asked, breathing heavily.

  Talitha put her head back down.

  “I’m Mr. Gisk, the Chairman of the Regulation Committee. Your father’s superior.”

  It was obvious that he assumed she would be impressed, or afraid, or something. He was not pleased that he garnered no reaction from her.

  “I only have a few questions for you today. Your father filled me in on an abundance of helpful information, and I simply need to fill a few holes.”

  Mr. Gisk snapped his fingers and a Control Officer brought a chair for him to sit on. He slowly sank into the cushion, not confident in it until it held his entire weight. Once he was completely seated, he took a deep breath, as if to rest. He then motioned for the nearby officers - whom Talitha couldn’t see, but knew were always there - to leave the area.

  “Keeping in mind that I already know much about you and your situation,” he started cynically, “would you like to tell me why you and your friend Jonah stole from the Central Facility Computer?”

  Talitha’s mouth moved, but no words came out. She didn’t know if the truth would help her or hurt her, even though she felt that what they saw and did was innocent enough. Obviously, she would expect some sort of punishment for watching videos on the Central Facility Computer, but her treatment told her that she had hit a nerve in the system.

  Mr. Gisk reached into a pocket on his shirt, and threw the object he retrieved through the bars. It landed a few inches in front of her.

  A piece of pecan.

  “Your father was more than willing to let us overturn your entire family unit to find clues as to what you would have been up to. It seemed that you didn’t even try to hide this. Or the flowers. Were they supposed to be a message to us?”

  Talitha looked up at him. “Message?,” she asked.

  “Don’t play me for a fool, little girl!” Gisk yelled, red faced, and most likely would have stood up if it wouldn’t have taken any effort. “We know the videos you copied. We know that you’ve been obsessed with the surface since you were a child.”

  She was confused. If they knew about the videos, and assumed the pecan had been a message…

  “You know that the surface is safe?,” she asked, bewildered.

  Mr. Gisk laughed. “I don’t think I’d call it safe, but the Leaders know everything, Talitha. Everything that has happened in the Facility before now, and everything that is currently happening here, is at our fingertips. It’s unfortunate that your actions weren’t discovered until after they took place - otherwise this might have ended differently. But you have simply exposed an obvious lack of security that we will now remedy. So, for that, I suppose I should thank you.”

  “My father knew the surface was safe, but let me be miserable for years?,” she said, hanging her head.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Mr. Gisk responded. “I said the Leaders know everything. Your fat
her is far from being a Leader. Though, I now have more faith in his loyalty than ever with how he handled this situation.”

  At least her father hadn’t betrayed her by keeping knowledge of the surface away for years - even if he betrayed her in every other way possible now.

  “Your father, just like everyone here, has a part to play. He is told what he needs to know in order to do the tasks set before him by the Leaders. If he knew too much… If the Regulation Committee knew why they controlled the citizens as they do, then it would be easy for them to fail to do so. If the members of the Technology Maintenance Committee knew how the entire facility worked, rather than the individual machines to which they are assigned, then they would fail to follow our priorities. And so on and so forth with every committee.”

  Talitha barely heard what he was saying, focused only on one thought.

  “You know about the surface… But you still allow the entire population to think that we’re imprisoned here?,” she cried.

  “Imprisoned?,” he said, looking genuinely hurt. “This Facility hinges on a delicate process. If one piece of the puzzle is removed, then our fragile ecosystem would collapse. Indeed, we’re already on the brink of collapse now, but we are constantly making strides forward. I think we’ve finally figured out how to bypass the manual approval of the Resource Harvest Extension. I don't know why the Forefathers thought it necessary to require a Resource Officer to push a button to approve extending the reach of our harvesters. It is, on its own, perfectly capable of starting the action when supplies are low rather than sounding an alarm. But that’s besides the point.

  “If the entire population knew that they could go to the surface, almost all would stay. But do you know who would leave?”

  Talitha thought of everyone she knew. She was the only person that ever seemed to want to leave the Facility. She was the only one that desired a purpose beyond the roles that the Facility Committees thought it necessary for her to play. Everyone she knew was content with moving through the halls and units, gorging themselves on Food Substance, tile games, and Chemvapor - none of which she’d ever acquired the taste for.