Unafraid

by Megan Lynch

  Career. Bristol never thought to have one of those. Even back home, when he thought about what it might be like to be assigned as an artist, he’d guffaw at the absurdity. Back home, though, artists didn’t paint what they liked; they made things for city parks or the homes of rich citizens. The really famous ones painted portraits of the Ones, which he’d seen only once at the library. His new agent, Cindy, insisted it was different here. He could make anything he wanted. In fact, the raunchier, the better. He didn’t think he’d ever had the urge to paint anything raunchy, but it felt good to know he could if he wanted. And he wouldn’t even have to tie a pack of ice around his wrist to do it.

  Samara stepped into the common room with two mugs of black coffee. The mere scent of it gave him a feeling of grounding and warmth.

  “They don’t serve breakfast this early.”

  “You’re right; they don’t,” said Samara, setting one cup down. “It’s instant. I snuck into the kitchen.”

  Bristol smiled and wrapped his hands around one of the white ceramic mugs. “What are you doing up?”

  “Hoping to catch you. Jude said you’d been waking up before the sun.”

  “I just need some time alone to work.”

  “Oh,” said Samara, and rummaged through her bag. “I can…I brought a book in case you didn’t want to talk.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I can talk.”

  She smiled and curled her legs underneath her on the vinyl sofa. “Okay,” she said. “How does it feel to have a career?” She imitated Cindy’s pronunciation of the word career, and even pulsed her eyes a little wider at the beginning of it, as his new agent always did.

  Bristol chuckled into his coffee. “It’s not real yet. And it feels a little bit like I’m selling something that’s not meant to be sold. It’s not a big deal, what I do. Anyone could do it. You could do it.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t. That’s probably the difference. You actually took the steps to do it, to teach yourself. And you’re not selling your pieces for yourself.”

  “They’re paying me.”

  “I mean the real reason you’re doing it is to get the public on our side. To get us to stay in Scotland.” She raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And I know not all of them are paying you.” She looked down, and Bristol’s shoulder’s rose.

  “You mean that thing I had to do for Taye?” He sighed. “No, that was worth it.”

  “He traded one of your paintings for a motorbike ride.”

  The contempt in her voice sent a thrill through Bristol, though he tried not to let it show. “He told me what he did for you at the rally. I wish I’d thought to be there with you, but I’m glad someone was. It’s definitely worth a stupid canvas to know that you could have been hurt but weren’t.”

  Samara fidgeted. “I would have been fine. Men bring out the worst in other men.”

  “Still,” said Bristol, “you aren’t planning to go to any more of those, are you?”

  “Bristol, I have to gather information.”

  “The news already does that.”

  She snorted. “Sure, trust the media. They told us they were sending you to Arizona!”

  “The Metrics media lies, yes.”

  “What if it’s the same here? What would you rather do—put all of our trust in them or actually go and double-check that the information they’re giving us is correct?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I know what I would rather do.”

  Bristol took a long sip. Taye was right—in their one and only conversation yesterday, he’d asked if Samara had always been this way, and Bristol knew what he meant without having to ask. She had become obsessed with finding truth and delivering justice. She only trusted others to do small things for her, and she insisted on doing the rest. All this mistrust was beginning to take a toll physically. Her cinnamon curls had become dry and frayed. Her cheeks were red and chapped, and her lips, though still pink, were cracked. Dark circles hovered under her once-bright eyes.

  “What time did you go to bed last night, Samara?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “We’re not living under Metrics anymore. You don’t get rewarded for working your life away and not taking care of yourself. You look like you got about four hours.” Truthfully it looked more like two, but Bristol hoped otherwise. “I’m not saying you can’t do your best to help, but you need to take it down a notch. Let other people share the work. If you don’t trust the journalists, spend time getting to know them. Find out their motivation and who pays them. Then, maybe you can let them do some of this for you so you can focus on more important things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like finding out what Jude’s up to.” He took a longer drink of his coffee, grateful that it was cooling off. “Or Stephen. Or Denver, for that matter.”

  “Jude’s fine.”

  “Jude’s not fine. He’s getting angry again, like he was at Nan’s. He’s becoming fanatical about Daniel, and he’s not sleeping much either.”

  “Is anyone sleeping enough for you? Denver seems to get enough. Can’t you be happy with that?”

  He bristled. “Denver is packing right now, did you know that?”

  He could see she didn’t. She looked at him and spoke softly. “Where is she going?”

  “She and Stephen are going to London today to train some spies that are going to pose as Americans. And I suspect they’re thinking of doing something crazy like joining them. This is what I’m talking about; the Red Sea is using us—”

  “To liberate our home!”

  “Yes, but they’re not concerned with us as a unit. They’re just picking us off to do their bidding, and no one’s keeping us all informed of the bigger picture.” He leaned in and put his elbows on his knees. “That’s what we really need. Someone with sound mental abilities to draw us together.”

  Samara squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t know if I meet those qualifications. Sound mental abilities.”

  “No, right now, you don’t. But if you can let the media do its job, and focus on leading us, then we might have a shot.” He leaned back into the green vinyl. “And I think it’s time that everybody knew what we were doing, not just those of us who were at Daniel’s house that first night.”

  “But all of us won’t fit in Daniel’s living room.”

  “Then we’ll have meetings here.”

  “Here? The aid workers might hear us.”

  “Let them.”

  Samara thought, and Bristol saw that it wasn’t easy for her. He knew what it was like, having one’s brain functions impaired by lack of rest. He could see the cogs struggling to turn in her mind, rusty and sluggish. “Samara,” he said, putting his coffee cup down. “Go back to bed for a few hours. When you wake up, you’ll be ready to think about this some more.”

  “I wanted to go with you to do the interview. In case you need help with your talking points.”

  “I’ll wake you before I go.”

  Samara reluctantly agreed and shuffled upstairs. He was glad she no longer had her watch to distract her. Here, if she wanted to catch up on the news she didn’t trust, she had to be in the common room.

  He missed her as soon as she left. He looked at a fresh page, waiting for his drawing. He took another drag of coffee, but it had turned cold.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Denver sat in a gray seat with a tall back. Scotland often seemed like a crummier version of home, with its outdated technology and its starchy food, but today she was impressed; its trains were demonstrably better. There was more than enough room for her to stretch out her legs, which surprised her because everything else here—the refrigerators, the closets, even the money—had seemed so tiny compared to what she was used to. There was a little tray where she set her book. One of the aid workers had let her borrow a book about pregnancy, and everything she’d read so far had been fascinating. But she didn’t particularly
want to read today; she’d much rather just look out the window.

  Stephen seemed to want the same thing because he placed his own book beside hers, took her hand, and leaned over her lap to get a better view. The only thing they could see right now was the inside of the train station, with people busily walking to their trains, or waiting, or eating, or, in one case, busking. Denver squeezed her husband’s hand and focused her eyes on the man with the instrument, one they didn’t have in America. The only kind of musicians there were the ones assigned to the role. They’d never play in a train station.

  “That’s called a guitar. Daniel told me,” said Stephen.

  “It doesn’t look familiar, but it seems like I’ve heard it before.”

  “I think we have. When the pop songs come out in the spring, there’s usually a guitar somewhere in the mix.”

  Denver smiled slightly as she recalled. Of course, now that he’d said that, she could place it—in one of her favorite songs, “Silence Makes my Life Sing,” there was a long guitar interlude in the middle. Most songs had the same structure: verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus. This one surprised her by extending the bridge. She didn’t know much at all about music, so she didn’t know how long they’d extended it, but she recognized the difference and respected the unnamed musicians. They must have fought for that.

  She and Stephen held hands and watched the guitarist play until the train moved, not with a jerk and a tug like trains did back home, but with a smooth glide away from the station. They stayed with their eyes glued out the window as they watched the city whiz past the glass. Finally, only when they had left the city and sheep had begun to dot the grassy hills outside, Stephen broke away and reached for his book.

  Denver stopped him with small talk. “Did they tell you anything about London?”

  He snapped his book shut again and turned to her with bright eyes. “They gave me instructions on how to get to our hotel. There’ll be someone there to help us check in.”

  In spite of the looming cloud of possibility in the air, she was excited to stay somewhere different. She’d never been to a hotel before. Back home, only Twos were allowed to travel overnight, so she’d never even thought it would be a possibility. They talked about how quickly their lives had changed, how surreal it seemed even now, weeks after they’d arrived in this new country. Denver laughed and savored the feeling of her lips stretching over her teeth, the pull at her abdomen. She wasn’t in the habit of laughing. If Stephen stayed here and they found new volunteers to go back, maybe she could get used to it.

  When the train pulled into the station again, they marveled at the size of it all—everything seemed larger than life, and, in scale, they were so small. There were more people who looked like them, too, which made Denver feel slightly more comfortable despite her new surroundings. They took another, smaller train that ran underground to their hotel, and when they got there, a giddy young man with skin like early morning met them to show them to their room.

  “They didn’t tell you anything?” he asked them again in the elevator. He’d insisted on carrying both of their bags, but they didn’t seem to be weighing him down. On the contrary, he looked ready to fly away. Any second now, he’d hover over the floor like a hologram. “You really thought that the whole world was under your government’s control?”

  “You know, there may be things you don’t know that seem obvious to other people,” Denver said, knowing she sounded sassy and the man was just excited. Still, she wished people would stop acting like they should have known they’d been lied to their entire lives. “They tell all citizens there that Metrics is a worldwide government. From birth, that’s what we’re told. There wasn’t a reason to think otherwise.”

  The man carried their bags to a door marked 517. “Your prints will open it,” he said.

  Denver looked at Stephen, hoping he knew what that meant. But Stephen just looked back at her.

  “Fingerprints,” the man clarified, wise enough now to not show amusement at their ignorance.

  Denver pressed the pads of her fingers into a little screen. A green light flashed, and there was a clicking sound.

  Stephen shook the man’s hand. “Will we be seeing you again?”

  “Yes, I expect we’ll see much more of each other. Tomorrow morning, for one. I’m part of the team going back with you two.”

  Denver pressed her teeth together, but Stephen seemed unfazed. “Ah. See you tomorrow morning, then.”

  Despite the darker jewel tones of the walls and bedspread, the open windows brightened up the room. Denver felt the urge to draw the curtains, drown out the light, and lock the door from the inside. She wanted to hole herself up and tell anyone who came to get them that they were never coming out again, to just leave them in peace. Was that too much to ask for? Just a little peace?

  Stephen bounced playfully on the bed, totally oblivious. “Nice and springy. Want to try?”

  “Not now.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My stomach hurts. Must have been those crisps on the train.”

  He got up and wrapped an arm around her. “Lie down. I’ll lie with you.”

  “No thanks. It’s a restless sick.” She walked to the window and scanned the city skyline. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know. It looks like a giant wheel.”

  “Are they building something?”

  “Let’s go check it out. We can walk all the way there and get dinner in a restaurant.”

  They’d both been excited about this. They still didn’t have watches, but the government here had given them a card with money on it for meals to eat while they were away from Olympic Village. Denver’s excitement had waned, the sudden gloominess of reality clouding it out. Still, she didn’t want to steal Stephen’s.

  “Okay. Give me five minutes.”

  She walked into the bathroom, noting her reflection in the mirror looked a little more ashen than usual. When she wiped, there was a streak of blood on the toilet paper.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jude quickly learned that the word “fuck” was okay when one was alone, but not when one was in a crowded street, elevator, or shop. Back home, only the lower tiers used curse words. Jude was among mostly lower-tier boys at the prison, but since they weren’t allowed to talk most of the time, Jude didn’t get much experience with the nuances of cursing. He decided he’d only use his new word around Daniel until he figured out how to do it properly.

  “Or,” Daniel said, “you could try to calm down, not get so angry over things you can’t control.”

  “You sound like my teachers,” said Jude. “They were always telling us to be resilient, but what they meant was never complain, just take whatever they throw at you.”

  “What’d your parents say?”

  “My parents didn’t talk to me.”

  Daniel exhaled so completely that the papers on the table in front of him fluttered. “I’m not telling you to just lie down and take it. Surrender isn’t always weakness. You have to learn to recognize things you can control and things you can’t. Work like hell to change the things you can, curse sometimes when it helps. Swears can be useful for releasing some of that rage, but if you use them when the rage isn’t really there, or there’s not enough of it to warrant the use of one, those words can just create this low-range anger that stays with you, slowing brewing. That’s no way to live.”

  “I’m not angry all the time.”

  “Not for lack of tryin’.”

  “I’m getting real sick of your shit, Daniel.”

  “Look who learned a new one! I think in America, though, they pronounce it sh-i-t. ‘I’ like in ‘igloo.’ We’re the ones who say it like sh-ai-t. Wouldn’t want people to find out you were a Two back home, eh?”

  Jude looked at the floor, feeling, for the first time, that slow brew stewing inside. But he wanted to get it right, just in case he needed it again. “Sh-i-t.”

  “That’s right.
At least, I think. The last time I saw a movie made in America, that’s how they were saying it.”

  “You’ve seen American movies?”

  “Oh, yeah. Old ones. America used to be famous for its movies.” Daniel ran a hand over the back of his head. “We’ll watch one sometime.”

  Jude recognized that he made this invitation without quite meaning to, and he was reminded of JoJo. Jude didn’t particularly love spending time around his little friend, but he just somehow found himself in situations where hanging out had been his own idea. He felt sorry for him, in a way—he was just a little kid, and after all he’d been through, he needed a friend. This must have been exactly what Daniel thought of him.

  Jude told Daniel that he’d love to watch an American movie sometime, but never asked for a specific time and noted that Daniel didn’t either.

  He walked home the long way, through the park. Being around the trees and the pond always restored him, no matter how angry he got with the way people had wrecked the world. They sure made a mess of things, but it was comforting to know that the trees and the pond were always there, and surely there would be more trees and more ponds, even if the so-called adults in charge decided to destroy these.

  Across the pond, a figure caught Jude’s eye. What struck him was not the way this person was dressed or what she was doing; he recognized the gait of her walk: Samara. It wasn’t unusual at all; lots of the refugees spent hours here in this park—with little to do at Olympic Village, most of them braved the cold for an afternoon stroll. Jude just tugged at the corners of his jacket, content to let her pass. He didn’t want to be an annoyance to two adults today. He was just beginning to feel sorry for himself, seeing his pitiful self through their eyes, a little kid, woefully misinformed and dragging down their grownup conversations, when he noticed Samara wasn’t just walking, she was pacing.

  It was like the pacing he sometimes saw in the Fox County Detention Center, where he’d been kept for months before Samara helped him escape. Some inmates lost control of their minds temporarily, or at least that’s what Kopecky told him. In the prison yard, they’d make little paths in the dirt, walking back and forth to calm themselves until a guard came with their injection. The injection was scarier than the pacing. Their eyes would go glassy, their mouths would hang open, and their feet would be so still that they’d need help moving to another room. Jude knew Samara had transformed in the short time they’d been in Scotland, and not for the better, but had she changed that much? Was she losing control?