“What’s so funny?”
She sits up and faces me, smiling with her eyes shut tightly. “I told him that I loved you.”
“Valerie, oh my God. You know that’s why he separated us in the first place.”
“Oh, you should have seen him. It was great.”
“Why do you do such things to the Senator?”
“Because baby, I want you and only you,” she says, putting her arms around me. “I don’t want anyone else gettin’ all up in there.”
“What’s he going to do with you when he finds out you came over?”
She shakes her head. “He’s not going to find out, he’s asleep.”
“And you know that how?”
“Because I just came from there. When I heard your squad was returning home, I knew he wouldn’t let me see you, so I went to his apartment, smoked a joint with him, gave him a hand job and he fell asleep. Then I came here.”
“Oh,” I say with a deadpan look on my face.
“You’re so funny baby,” she says.
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
“Seriously, Evan, are you jealous? You need to relax.”
“What if he wakes up and checks your L-Chip recordings on the Government Database. He’ll hear our conversation, it’ll show you came over.”
“It won’t. I took care of it.”
“You took care of it?”
“After he went to sleep I powered up his Mobile Security Console, you know the one he carries around with him all the time. Well I took it and logged on to The Database. I switched a few things around, so now when he checks, and I know he will, it’ll look like I went home and slept in my own bed, all by my lonesome. And if he checks yours, which is pretty likely, I changed The Database on you too. You were sleeping when I looked on the console earlier tonight, so I just cut and pasted on your timeline. And voila, you’ll be sleeping till 7 am tomorrow.”
“Hold on,” I say, getting up from the bed. “You changed The Database? You changed the official record?”
“Yeah, I could broadcast Val’s daily devotional if I wanted to.” She cracks herself up. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because this isn’t a joke, Val.”
“Would you prefer I didn’t come over?”
“Of course not, you’re missing the point.”
“Don’t worry babe,” she says calmly. “No one’s going to find out. In fact, I manipulated the YP’s that were standing outside his room. I timed it so there would be a flash of static going off in their heads when I walked out of Willenger’s room. They have no clue I ever left.”
“You can do that?”
“It takes a little skill, but I’m pretty good at it.”
“Does Willenger know how to manipulate The Database like you can?
“Not like me, but he changes stuff around on the timeline all the time.”
“Why? Why does he need to do that?”
“I don’t know, Evan, he just does. All politicians do it, they all change the official record from time to time.”
I flop back down on the bed and take a deep breath.
“Evan,” Val says as she slides up next to me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I know how much you admire the Senator and the Nation.”
“No, I’m glad you told me. It’s just been a confusing day, a confusing month. I used to think Youth Nation could do no wrong.”
“And what about now?”
“I don’t know, Val, I don’t know what to believe.”
“What if I told you I’m still pregnant? Would you believe that?”
CHAPTER 24
“What?” I blurt out. “You’re serious? You’re still pregnant? You didn’t get the abortion?”
“I didn’t,” she answers defiantly. “And Willenger doesn’t know anything about it either. I thought he did, but he doesn’t.”
“Well you can’t keep it. You’re a Youth Nationer.”
“Fuck you, Evan,” she says, getting up from the bed and walking over to the windows. “Fuck you!”
“Why are you mad at me? I’m just telling you the fact that you can’t keep it. I mean, what are you going to do with it? Take it with you on tour? Leave it on the shuttle while you’re performing?”
“I know I can’t keep the baby, I’m not crazy. I just wanted to be a mother for a little while longer. This is the closest I’ll ever get. I’m not supposed to get pregnant, I’m not allowed to, even after I age out of Youth Nation, my L-Chip is programmed to prevent that from happening.”
“Well that’s Youth Nation Policy.”
“You think I don’t know that? All us girls know that.”
“Then why are you so upset?”
“This is our baby, Evan, it’s ours! We have a baby! But tomorrow is my diagnostic and tomorrow our baby will be…” Val stops, she can’t say it. She looks away from me and stares out the window. “I just didn’t want to give her up so soon.” Her voice cracks. “This is how my mom must have felt when I left her.”
“Your mom was a religious fanatic, you had to leave her.”
She turns her back to me, obviously hurt by my words.
Shit, why did I say that?
“I’m sorry, Val,” I tell her. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” I get up and walk over to her by the window. I put my arm around her, but it does nothing to comfort her.
“My mom wasn’t a fanatic,” she says, pushing me away as she fights back the tears. “She wasn’t evil. She played music, that’s all she did. I’d lie underneath our grand piano and listen to her play for hours. People would come over and tell stories and sing songs, but I can’t remember one single song they sang. Why is that? Fuckin’ Santa Verde! They’ve pulled it out of my head, goddamn them! I can’t remember anything. I can’t even remember what my mom looked like. I’ve tried looking her up on The Database, but I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know her name!”
“It was a long time ago, Val. You can’t beat yourself up over it.”
“Goddamn Santa Verde!” She punches me in the shoulder and goes and sits on the edge of the bed. She looks down, staring at the floor, shaking her head. “Why did I ever go to that Youth Nation Concert?” she mumbles. “I was only seven. Seven! Why did I go? I remember my dad…” She pauses, she looks at me. “Wait; I had a dad. Oh my God, I had a dad. I remember he told me not to tell anyone about the church that met at our house. Why did he tell me that? I didn’t even know it was a church. If he hadn’t said anything I wouldn’t have told anyone. None of this would have happened. Why did he tell me?” She buries her face in her hands.
“Val, it’s okay. You thought you were doing the right thing.”
“I didn’t want my parents to get in trouble.” She looks up at me with tears streaming down her face. “I remember how the Youth Music Singers performed that evening. They were amazing. Ashley was amazing; she spoke as if she was talking directly to me. She told us how great Youth Nation was and how our parents were evil and it was up to us to help them. So at the end of the concert I told a Youth Nation Counselor about the church that met at our home.” A blank expression falls on her face; the same expression the kids had at the conditioning center. “They came,” she says sadly. “They came the next day.”
“Who, the Patrol?” I ask.
“I was in my usual spot, underneath the piano,” Val recalls. “Everyone was there that day. We were all there listening to a man talk about a woman turning into salt. I remember the man saying the woman wanted to go back. Back to what? I’m not sure? But when she turned to look, that’s when it happened, poof, she was a pillar of salt.
“What a crazy story,” I say. “Did the woman stay like that forever?”
“Don’t know, Youth Patrol broke in and arrested everyone. I was never able to hear the rest of the story. I remember my dad looking at me with a disappointed look on his face. He just said, ‘Oh Val.’ And didn’t say anything more. He knew I was responsible.”
�
��I’m sorry, Val.” I sit down next to her on the bed. I put my arm around her, and this time she leans in.
Then all of a sudden, she stands up, looking at me with disgust. “Wait a minute, you’re a Youth Patroller now, you’re one of them. You would have arrested my parents; you would have taken them away. My parents aren’t fanatics; they aren’t killers! Not like yours!”
“Stop it, Val, stop! Calm down!”
“Your parents strapped a bomb to you! You were supposed to blow yourself up and kill thousands! Now that’s fanatical!”
“I know. I know it is, but I didn’t go through with it. I wanted to live.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know you’re fuckin’ story. We’ve all heard it a million times. It was all over the billboards. Evan Sparks, the greatest Youth Nationer to ever live, bla bla bla. You should have blown the whole goddamn stadium up when you had the chance. You would have done us all a big favor.”
“What about the innocent lives?”
“What innocent lives? We’re all fucked up, anyway. Don’t you get it, Evan, everything changed that day; everything changed because of you. Youth Patrol became more aggressive, it got more funding, and then six months later I was a Youth Nationer too. Why couldn’t you have just ended it all?”
“Is that what you want, Val? You want me dead?”
She grabs her clothes from off the floor and quickly puts them on. She starts to leave, but stops at the bedroom doorway. Her back faces me. “I don’t want you dead, Evan,” she says softly. “I don’t.” She then walks out of the room. I grab my shorts, put them on and run after her, but when I get to the living room, she hasn’t left; she’s standing in the middle of my apartment just having a look around.
“What’s up, Val?”
“Let’s get out of here?” she says, almost in a whisper.
“Okay, where do you want to go? The Town Square?”
“No. I mean leave Santa Verde all together, let’s leave it all, Youth Nation, the music group, everything.” She turns around. Her face is lit up; she’s excited. “Let’s run away, Evan. You, me and the baby. Let’s run away, just the three of us!”
“We can’t, you know that. They’d track us down; they’d find us. And besides where would we go? Utah?”
She looks upset. I didn’t answer her like she wanted me too. She heads for the door.
“Don’t go.” I tell her.
“It was stupid for me to come.”
“Stay with me, Val. I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not! You’re not sorry at all.”
“Yes I am, I really am. I wish things were different, but they’re not. Go get the abortion, and everything will go back to normal.”
She looks at me with such loathing; such hatred; she’s repulsed by me. “I never want to see you again!” she yells, touching her stomach. I step towards her, but she retreats. “Don’t touch me, Evan, don’t you ever touch me!” She turns around, opens the front door and leaves. She’s gone.
CHAPTER 25
I think about running after her but what’s the point, she hates me. What would I say to her anyhow? Tell her she’s not thinking rationally? Tell her Youth Nationers don’t have kids–ever? Remind her it’s our way in helping to control overpopulation? Or maybe, I should tell her that I love her, and I want her to stay.
I put my hand on the handle of the door ready to open it, but reality hits me. She doesn’t want me, I blew it, she’s gone and she’s never coming back.
I go back to bed alone, still thinking of Val; I can’t get her out of my mind. What would life be like if we really did run away? I need to stop thinking about this; it’s stupid. I need to believe in Youth Nation again, I need to believe in its Policies.
I roll over and try to think of something else, but the only thing I can I think of is the map I found at the gas station. I start thinking about all the cities and states that used to belong to the U.S. Why does it bother me that I didn’t know all that territory was once part of America. Maybe I should just download our country’s history and find out what really happened. I’m not on L-Chip lockdown anymore; I could totally do that. But then again, that kind of ‘info dump’ is useless. It’s impossible to retain all the information. I should just trust the Government. If they wanted me to know the history, I would have known. This thought makes me happy. My eyes close and I begin to drift off to sleep. Then the faces of the kids on the school bus pop back into my head. Not again. I quickly stream static from my L-Chip to flood my mind with white noise. It works. I fall asleep.
Cheetah Squad! Emergency! A mind-text comes flashing across my thoughts. It’s from Jeremin. Report to the Town Square at once. Be in uniform and ready to go.
I stumble out of bed and scramble around for my uniform. I find it and put it on. God, I’m so tired. My eyes are literally half closed. I leave my apartment and force myself to run to the Town Square. The fresh air helps me to wake up. I arrive just as the equipment manager is passing out the weapons. He shoves a rifle and helmet into my hands. I’m back on duty.
“Listen up people!” Jeremin shouts. “One of the kids we brought in this evening has breeched security! I told the YP’s on Guard Duty to stand down and let us go after him. He’s Cheetah Squad’s responsibility. I know most of you are pretty pissed off at me right now for interrupting New Arrival Day, but I don’t care, we have a reputation to uphold. I’ve relayed the runaway’s L-Chip signal to your visors; you should be seeing it now. He’s hiding out on the rooftops over by the north end. I want Blue Team to go around to the east side. Red team; take the west side. The rest of us will go straightforward; it shouldn’t take us too long to get him. And one more thing, we’re back on L-Chip lockdown for the night, so do what you need to do. Keep to the mission and we’ll be done with this in no time, now let’s roll.”
We begin to climb up the buildings that surround the Town Square. The Youth Patrol Uniforms make the task quite easy. The hydraulic cables intertwined in the fabric help us to leap up with little or no effort at all. We go up higher and higher, leaping from one ledge to another. We make our way to the taller structures around the edge of the city. We must be between ten and fifteen stories up. We jump from rooftop to rooftop, heading in the direction of the runaway’s signal. Dirk seems possessed by the chase. We can barely keep up with him. “No one interrupts New Arrival Day, no one!” he hollers as he crashes onto a balcony. He’s like some insane animal. I’m actually kind of scared of what Dirk might do once we catch the runaway.
We close in rapidly on our target. The kid’s L-Chip signal comes in loud and clear. It’s Perry’s cousin, Bobby. Is Perry with us? I didn’t see him at the Town Square. As we get closer, the kid realizes he’s been had. He gets up and runs. He might be fast for a 14-year-old, but there’s no way he’s getting away from Youth Patrol.
“Run fucker, run!” Dirk taunts the kid, firing his weapon into the air. This startles Bobby, causing him to stumble. He slips and begins to fall, but at the last possible second, the kid reaches out and grabs the edge of the roof. He’s left dangling high above a fifteen-story building.
“Well, well, well, look at you. Got nowhere to go, do you?” Dirk mocks the poor kid.
Bobby struggles to pull himself up. “Don’t kill me!” he desperately cries out. “I’m not escaping. I want to stay in Santa Verde!”
“Then why are you running, kid?” Dirk teases.
“Because he found me; he’s coming for me!”
“Who?” Dirk inquires. “Who’s coming for you?”
But before the kid can answer, he loses his grip and falls. He bounces off a ledge, flipping several times before landing on a steep slope on a nearby building. He claws and scratches frantically, trying to prevent himself from sliding any further. He reaches for a decorative rod iron fixture attached to a window. It holds, but only for a second.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
We hear him scream as he plunges another eight stories down to the ground. We hear the thud.
“Oh fuck,” is all I can say, but Dirk starts to laughs. “Stop it!” I shout. “This isn’t funny.” I jump to a lower balcony and then to another. I take one more leap … straight down. It’s a long way to the bottom. I hope the uniform’s exoskeleton holds up. This is gonna hurt. WHAM! The impact rattles my bones. I stagger to get up and hurry over to the kid. Some bystanders have already gathered.
“Get back!” I shriek. “Get the hell away from him!”
They don’t listen, so I shove them aside to get to the boy. Bobby’s body is contorted and twisted; blood is everywhere. But somehow, he’s still alive. He slowly turns his head and looks up at me. “Don’t kill me,” he utters, coughing up blood.
“I’m not going to kill you. Just don’t move.”
“He’s coming for me,” the kid explains, straining to speak. “He’s coming.”
“Who?”
“Oh God,” the kid weeps. “Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry God, please forgive me.”
“Bobby!” I yell, trying to get his attention. “Who’s after you?”
“I didn’t want to talk to him, you gotta believe me. I know Youth Patrol will come for me if I do.”
“Who are you talking about? Who don’t you want to talk to?
“Don’t kill me mister, it wasn’t my fault, I was trying to hide from him, but he found me.”
“Who, Bobby? Who found you?”
He tries to answer, but blood gurgles up from his mouth. He tries again, but the result is the same. I then notice he’s drawing something in the blood with his finger. Is he trying to write it down? He strains with all his might, but he never finishes the task. His hand falls flat. He’s dead. The lights of the city reflect off the blood. I’m able to detect what the kid was trying to draw. It’s an upside down V. I think he was trying to draw an arrow, the symbol of the Resistance. Was he trying to tell me the Resistance was after him? Are they here now? Are they inside Santa Verde?
Jeremin and the rest of the squad finally arrive. As soon as they see the kid, their excitement level amplifies. “Oh dude. No fucking way,” one of the YP’s laughs.
Youth Patrol Page 14