62 focused on a point in front of him and pushed the air with his hands. A pen entwined itself in the fingers of one hand; a sheet of paper in his other. He wrote himself a quick note. Where would I run to? Then he folded the paper in half. He tapped the floor below his feet three times and a small square door opened, revealing a small book. He flipped the book to an empty space in the back and tucked the note inside. When he slammed the book closed, the book, pen and door disappeared with a loud snap.
62 moved to the nearest wall and pressed his ear against it. Not hearing anything, he moved a bit to the left. Then down the wall, over again, and back up until he was standing on his tiptoes. Here he could sense a vibration. There was a faint murmur on the other side and the wall bent slightly when he pressed against it in an effort to hear better.
“Hello? Are you there?” 62 called. He didn’t hear a response.
62 closed his eyes and imagined the wall splitting open. The gap was small at first, but soon he could feel air pushing against his face and the murmur grew into the booming voice of 71. He pulled away from the break in the ripped fabric of his dream, slipping his fingers inside and pulling the seams apart until the gap was large enough for him to pass through.
“Can you hear me? I’m looking for Chobham,” he shouted. Impatient, he pushed himself through to the other side without waiting for a response.
71 stood on top of a stage. Although he was a small speck on the platform, his voice echoed across every surface. Below the stage sat thousands of Boys. They sat in silence, captivated by 71. 62 started picking his way through the tightly packed crowd. He tripped over someone's foot and only caught himself by grabbing onto the arm of another Boy for balance.
“Excuse me. Sorry about that.”
None of the Boys around him broke their gaze from the brightly lit stage. The arm in 62's hand felt cold and it flopped in his grasp like a rubber hose. He pulled himself around to the front of one of the Boys and looked into its perfect glassy eyes.
“Knock knock.” 71 boomed.
The mouths of the Boys opened in unison. “Who's there?”
“Wire.” 71 said.
“Wire who?” Thousands of voices returned.
“Wire you asking me? I don't know who it is either.”
Laughter ripped through the air. The Boys whooped and hollered, their limbs suddenly able to clench into fists and pound on their knees. Some held their sides, others pointed at the stage and called out for more.
A moment passed and 71 waved his hand over the crowd. The movement caused the group to fall silent and motionless again. He wiped a tear of joy from his eye, and then looked back down at the book in his hand. He read for a moment. Not finding what he was looking for, he began flipping through the pages.
62 pushed forward again. The Boys ahead of him refused to move to the side. Their feet seemed to be planted into the ground. Giving up, he bent his knees and jumped into the air. He sailed over the crowd toward the stage and landed lightly a few feet from 71. It wasn't until the teacher looked up from the book that the crowd noticed him. As the teacher's eyes turned toward 62, thousands of other eyes turned, too.
The attention made 62's stomach flop. He eeped, “Hello. I’m looking for Chobham.”
“Hello, there.” 71 smiled. “You’ve found it.”
62 was frozen to the stage. He wanted to hide but his arms and legs were locked in place. He'd spent his whole life surrounded by his brothers. But there was something different about being up on the platform in front of them, even if he was pretty sure all of these Boys were fake.
“What are you doing?” 62 finally managed to push the words through his clenched jaw.
71 giggled and the whole theater laughed with him. He calmed his laughter and waved at the crowd, silencing them again. He gently closed the book he held, a finger trapped in the binding to save his page. He held the thing up so that 62 could see the tattered cover. “I'm joking!”
“You're what?”
“Joking. It is a marvelous mechanism. It's like a short conversation with a bend of humor. The Boys love it.”
62 found the strength to turn his head and look over the crowd. The Boys stood as motionless as Machines waiting for a command. Their unblinking eyes stared at 71. “They do?”
“Oh, yes. Well, not these ones so much. They're just here to help me test jokes on for size.” 71 opened the book again, bent the corner of the page he was on to save it for later and tucked the book into a fold in his robe. As soon as the book disappeared behind the fabric a quick snapping sound echoed through the space. One by one, the pretend Boys popped out of existence. The sound moved faster and faster through the crowd until it was like grinding gears in an unbalanced Machine. As the last of the Boys vanished, the sound dissolved.
Once the theater was empty, 62 could feel the blood flow back into his limbs. His stomach dropped down from his throat and settled back into his belly, and he was able to bend his arms and wipe the sweat from his palms.
“How do you do that?” 62 gestured out to the empty space. “Talk in front of so many Boys, I mean.”
71 tilted his head and smiled. “The same way I do anything. Practice.”
62 imagined a chair onto the stage and settled into it. Without the distraction of the crowd his thoughts organized themselves again. “Are you ever good at something right off, without having to practice?”
71 combed his beard with his fingers. “Certainly. I'm pretty good at breathing without having to practice. Although I still find it’s a good thing to concentrate on, now and again.”
“Not like that. I mean, has there ever been a skill that you’ve discovered without having to learn it?”
The teacher searched 62 with his eyes, trying to sort out the deeper meaning of the question. “Absolutely. When I was your age, it was discovered that I had a knack for teaching. And so, here I am.”
62 slouched in his chair. “Do you remember when 1125000 coded all those doors to open?”
71's face cleared of confusion. He pressed his thin lips together as the memory of the Boy returned. He nodded, silent.
“How could he do that? We hadn't learned much about coding yet. I still don't even know how to open core files up to read unless someone helps me.”
71 lifted his shoulders and dropped them down again. “I don't know. He was a brilliant child. The second that basic patterning turned up in his aptitude tests, he understood how it worked. One day he was identifying numeric patterns, and the next he had written an entire set of code that unlocked his tablet.” The teacher looked down at the floor and scowled as if discovering a stain on the glossy stage. “I had a copy of everything on his tablet, just like I had yours. I hid the records of his code from the data uploads to the Head Machine to keep him out of trouble. I wanted to see how far he could push the code. What he could do with it.”
When 71 looked up again his face was white with worry. “We both know what happened next.”
“Where do you think he was going?” 62 thought about Blue, traveling through Adaline using maintenance shafts and empty hallways. He wondered if 00 knew someone like Blue, too.
“I don't know.” 71 snorted and rolled his eyes. “Maybe he wanted to explore the parts of Adaline that he wasn't supposed to see until he was grown up. He wrote the code several cycles before his exit. It's entirely possible that he simply wanted to see if his program worked. Or, he may have been brainsick enough to try to get to the outside.”
“Outside?”
71 pushed his weight into the floor and the stage erupted into a field of poa pratensis. As the green stalks grew up between their toes, the theater ceiling lightened from gray to white, rising high above them and separating until the white was mere patches in an arc of blue. A breeze pushed warm air around them and 62 could hear running water somewhere beyond the foliage.
“Not many of us can learn to dream,” 71 stated. He pulled a fist full of poa pratensis from the ground and shook the soil from its roots. “And most
of us can't learn to dream about more than Adaline.”
“Like when I started dreaming.” 62 remembered, “I only dreamed about the pods and classrooms.”
71 nodded. “Some of us have an imagination. 00 certainly had one. The things he could create...” 71's voice trailed off as he stared down at the green blades in his hand. He stroked them with his thumb, lost in an unshared memory. He looked back up at 62. “Sometimes, we forget that our imaginations are make-believe.”
“You mean he thought all of this was real?” 62 looked around him. He knew that if he pushed the dream hard enough, he could change the landscape to be whatever he wanted it to be. He could create people, like 71's false crowd, or Machines to do his bidding. Dreams made him feel powerful and gave him control of himself, but at the end of each dream it was clear that none of it was real.
71 sighed and let the green-colored stalks in his hand fade to brown. They became brittle, cracking in his soft grip and dropping in slivers of dust back down to the ground. He held out his empty hand. “I think 00 thought if he opened enough doors, he would find one that opened into a field like this one. There are stories, rumors from troublemakers like your friend Blue, about a place like this that once existed outside of Adaline. Another world. Larger than ours.”
62's face twisted in thought. He rubbed his naked toes in the soil and tried to imagine such a thing could exist. He folded his arms into his tunic and rubbed his side. The same side that 71 had tucked his joke book just a little while ago. A spark popped in 62's mind like a new idea being born. He looked up at his teacher. “You've read books about this place. It's how you started to imagine it. Someone showed it to you and you learned it. You didn't make it up.”
71 nodded. “Yes, but–”
62 cut the teacher off. “The books had to come from somewhere. Someone knows more about all of this.” He waved his hands in the air, gesturing to the scenery around them. “Maybe 00 made it. Maybe he opened enough doors to find the outside.”
71 shook his head. His beard wagged and the lush field around them faded. His eyes flashed. “Don't.”
“Maybe it isn't natural,” 62 thought aloud. “But we aren't natural either. We're animated by the Machines. Do you think the Machines could animate other things?”
71's hands balled into fists. His voice shook the air as he commanded, “Stop. Stop right this minute. Adaline was created so we could survive. It doesn't create new life, it preserves life. Don't fool yourself into pretending that you can find a way beyond it.” 71 shook with frustration. “Do you want to know what's really outside of Adaline?”
62 nodded, his excitement pulsing like static.
“Death. That's all that's out there. The only way to leave Adaline is to die. There's no way to be reborn. We get one life. One chance to become who we are and serve the Community. To leave, to even try to leave, is the end of us.” 71 held a sob in his chest. His breath became ragged and his face wrenched in sadness. He took two large strides and wrapped his arms around 62, enveloping him in a protective embrace. “Don't do this. Don't confuse what we are with what we dream to be. I've lost so many Boys to this pretending. I can't lose you.”
CHAPTER 27
62 RAN THE TRACK AS ordered. Around and around, one foot in front of the other. Breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth just like he'd been taught. His shins protested with every footfall. A pinch in his side made him lean slightly to the left. Sweat stung his eyes. And yet, he loved to run because he didn't have to think about it. The second that Trainer told them to start running, the footfalls became automatic.
When running was first introduced to 62, he counted his laps. The pain of the run had made him wish he could stop so he counted down laps until there were no more to complete. As the cycles passed, 62 became stronger and better able to settle into stride with the rest of the pack. Now he ran until the PTS at the finish line told him to stop. There was no reason for him to count anymore. 62 knew that if he pushed through the pain, his gait would lengthen and his muscles would stop complaining. He knew that soon he’d feel happy to be running, to feel the wind whisking the sweat off his face. Besides, why bother keeping track of the laps? The Machines were counting them for him anyway.
At times like these, when 62 was able to turn off his racing mind and dissolve into a task, being a Boy seemed so easy. Every minute of the day had an assigned duty. There were no decisions to make. No time spent wondering what would come next. Each cycle had a new list of assignments and as long as 62 and his brothers completed them, everything moved forward smoothly. Of course, 62 couldn't just let life be easy.
As he ran past a wide set of double doors, one reserved for PTS and Transportation Aides, he noticed a bright light shining through the center crack. On the next lap, he couldn't help but focus his eyes on the light. It flickered through the crack at him as he ran by. When he passed again, his feet decided to slow their pace. Since he was going slower anyway, he figured he may as well turn his head a little. He noticed something propping the secure door open, just a few inches. His heart jumped with excitement and pushed him to race around again. The stitch in his side returned just in time for him to slow to a walk, squint at the object holding the door, and see four small fingers wrapped around the edge.
When 62 shuffled by, holding his pained side, a body broke the light shining beyond the crack. A blue eye and a half smile peered out at him. The fingers waved a silent hello, then curled and beckoned him inside. 62 tripped, his left foot wanting to follow while his right foot stuck to its assigned path. He caught his balance just in time, despite thoughts of what might lay beyond the door. He shook his head, trying to separate his desire to explore from 71's warnings that curiosity was dangerous.
Blue took the shaking head to mean that 62 wasn't coming. The Boy shrugged a shoulder and pulled his fingers from the edge of the door. The door drew shut. There was a click of the lock. The other runners whizzed by him with grunts of annoyance. 62 had to force himself to start moving again. To put one foot in front of the other. To breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth like he’d been taught. To will the pain in his side to subside and follow the pack of his brothers as they turned around the gentle curve of the track ahead.
Normally when 62 hit his full stride the pain of his body subsided and his thoughts cleared. But now he had to concentrate on pointing his toes in the right direction with each step. The pain in his side rolled into a gnawing ache to explore. A dangerous curiosity formed as he wondered what lay beyond the crack in the door.
CHAPTER 28
62 SQUEEZED HIS EYES shut. The light in the common area seeped into his room through the window of his door, distracting him from sleep. It had been a hard day. Trainer had them leaping hurdles placed around the track. 62's body screamed for rest, but the blasted light kept drilling through his eyelids.
He rolled over for the millionth time. The movement yanked at the muscles in his back. His knees shook against the sheets from the effort. He let out a pained sigh when he finally settled back into the mattress. He pulled the sheet up over his head to block the light, but the fabric only rubbed against his nose when he breathed, adding another item to the growing list of things keeping him awake.
As he wondered if he’d ever get to escape into another dream, he heard shuffling coming from somewhere outside his cocoon. A person coughed and the sound echoed in the distance. The fading thrum of sound perked up 62's ears. He didn't bother fighting his curiosity this time. He quickly unwrapped his head from the sheets to take a look.
On the other side of the grate in the wall, a small wavering light filled the darkness. It spilled out of the vent; competing for space in 62's cube, becoming lost in the light tumbling in from the common room. 62 watched the light wiggle around the tight hatch. It grew brighter as its owner settled into a comfortable position in the dark. The dark silhouette of a Boy formed behind the brightness.
“Pssst! You awake?” Blue's voice cut through the silence. Th
e small squeak of screws loosening followed his voice.
“I am. But I'm supposed to be resting.” 62 propped himself up on his elbow. He glanced up at the door to the common area. He hadn’t heard the PTS go by in a while. It would be coming around again soon. When he turned back to Blue, he hissed, “What do you want?”
Blue pushed the vent cover open a few inches until 62 could see his whole face. The Boy smiled briefly, his raised cheeks trying to mask the sadness in his eyes. “I wanted to talk to you one more time before I leave you alone.”
“One last time?” 62's stomach clenched and his heart skipped a beat. He knew he shouldn't want to see this strange, named Boy. He was difficult and dangerous. A friend like Blue would do nothing but get 62 in trouble. A lot of trouble. But he could feel something break deep inside with the thought that their friendship may be over.
“Yeah.” The halfhearted smile appeared again. “The doc, 42, told me that you've been talkin' to those goons in Defense. I can't be friends with someone who might tattle.”
62 sat up a little more, urged forward in his own defense. “I haven't told them anything, really. A Man came. I didn't know who he was. He knew about you. He said you're bad and asked me to help him find you.”
Blue frowned. “And what did you say?”
“How could I tell him anything? I don't know anything about you.” 62 shrugged his shoulders.
A nod came back through the grate. “That's how it needs to be.”
62 looked around the room, nervous. It didn't matter that 62 was alone in bed, or that Blue was hidden in a hole in the wall. It felt like they were being watched. “So why'd you come back?”
Blue grunted. The sound made it seem that he wasn't sure why he was there either. “Somethin' the doc told me. He said that you'd be on our side if you knew the truth.”
The edge of the bed fell away from 62. He hadn't realized that he was leaning forward over the end of the mattress, and when he leaned too far he wasn't ready for gravity's pull. He caught himself just before hitting the floor and scrambled over the loose sheet to regain his balance. His heart pounded against his ribcage once he sat upright again. Both Boys held their breath as they listened for the PTS, or anyone else, to check the cube. They exchanged relieved glances when no one came.
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