“Not yet,” 62 said. He smiled at the sound of his own voice, clear and loud without the mask on.
“Good. Come with me.”
62 followed Blue through the edge of town. They stopped to tell the guards at the main gate that they were heading out for the morning, and tramped out into the desert. They made their way to a low rise on the horizon, its bulk growing as they moved closer. Blue led the way to a trail that meandered over the west side of the hill, then up the north side. As they reached the crest, Hanford sprawled out before them. The sun was higher now, and the bold colors of the clouds up above had faded to puffs of white against a clear blue sky. They stood in silence, taking in the view and breathing in the dust-free air. 62 turned and raised his naked face to the bright morning sun, feeling it on his cheeks for the first time. He couldn’t help but smile. The experience gave him a new love of the above-ground world. When it wasn’t trying to kill you, it was quite a pleasant place.
Blue’s voice broke the silence. “This is why I like bringing people out of Adaline. I want you guys to know what’s possible in the world.”
62 opened his eyes and turned to face his friend. “It’s crazy, putting yourself in danger to save a bunch of people who don’t even know you exist.”
“It is crazy. That’s why I’m perfect for the job,” Blue agreed with a laugh.
“I’m glad you did it for me.” 62 saw the soft look in his friend’s eyes and knew that Blue felt his gratitude. He turned back toward the sun, then pulled off his long-sleeved shirt and spread his arms out so his chest and shoulders could soak up its rays. Despite the chill still hanging in the morning air, Blue did the same. It didn’t take long for the heat of the sun’s rays to reflect off the rocks around them. Soon the air was warm, the chill of the early morning baked off.
Eventually, the wind started up again. “It always does,” Blue said. The two friends put on their shirts and masks, and spent the rest of the morning exploring outside of town. Blue pointed out areas surrounded by chain-link fence where they couldn’t explore because of whatever poison had been buried inside them generations ago, and eventually when hunger and thirst overcame them, they headed back to town.
When they came to the gate to re-enter Hanford, a guard stopped them.
“You kids sure look filthy.” The tall Woman in a red mask and mottled brown uniform looked them over. “You been out in the plutonium?”
“No, Ma’am.” Blue pointed at a map the guard had, showing her the areas where they’d been. She told them to wait while she went into the guard shack to see if they had permission to be let through the entrance. Once she was out of earshot, Blue leaned toward 62. “That’s Joan. She’s not real fond of refugees. Just keep quiet when she comes back, okay?”
“What happens if she says that we can’t come in?” 62 watched the door of the guard shack nervously.
“Then we go around the other side to the hospital gate and go through detox.” Blue kicked the dirt under his feet. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll get in.”
Joan returned, her piercing eyes surveying the pair of youngsters. “We talked about it and there’s too much risk letting you in here. You’ve got to go ‘round to detox.”
Blue shook his head. “We didn’t go anywhere we weren’t supposed to. I told the ladies on the last shift where we were going and they gave us the all clear.”
“Well, I wasn’t on that shift, was I?” Joan shifted her weight to one side and pulled her rifle around from her back to her hip. “I don’t know what you defects were doing out there, and I’m not going to let you just saunter back in.”
“What did they say in the guard shack?” Blue pointed a finger at the unmasked guards lounging behind the glass window.
“They said they let you out this morning,” Joan replied in a spiteful tone. “But they didn’t say I have to let you back in.”
Blue took a step to one side of Joan and when she moved to block him he dipped around the other side of her. She spun around, the barrel of her rifle trailing dangerously behind him. Her voice was shrill when she called after him. “Hey, where are you going?”
“I’m going to show them where we went on the map!” Blue marched toward the door and one of the Women inside noticed him. She moved closer to the window, curiosity written on her face.
Just as Blue raised his fist to knock on the door, Joan pushed her rifle back on its sling, hanging it behind her. She gave an irritated grunt and said, “All right. You can go through. Just know that if this mole brings in anything that makes someone sick, I’m coming for you.”
Blue shook his head in silence, then waved 62 forward as Joan opened the gate. Once they’d made it back into Hanford and gotten out of earshot of Joan, 62 asked, “What’s a mole?”
“They’re a little blind animal that lives its life underground,” Blue answered. He gave 62 a sideways glance. “It’s what they call people from Adaline.”
“Oh,” 62 said. “It doesn’t sound very nice.”
“It isn’t.”
They weaved between buildings and through courtyards until they arrived at the squat cafeteria building. There was a single door for refugees on one end, and a bank of larger windowed doors along the other for longtime residents of Hanford.
“I can’t wait until you can come eat with me,” Blue said with a sigh.
“I still don’t know why I can’t. I mean, they let me out of quarantine. It’s not like I’m going crazy or anything.” 62 noticed a group of Women pour out of an alley between two far buildings. They huddled together as they walked toward the sparkle of the resident’s doors. The sound of their animated conversation was stamped out by the wind.
“You don’t know how to eat yet.” Blue pounded his friend’s shoulder. “And you don’t know how to act around the ladies.”
“I eat fine!” 62’s exclamation carried far enough that the last young Woman in the group turned her pale pink mask to look back at him before following her friends into the building. His cheeks burned under his own mask when his eyes met hers and he admitted, “You’re right though. I don’t know about the Girls. They make everything feel... funny.”
Blue burst out in laughter. “You don’t know the half of it!” He slapped 62’s shoulder again and his eyes welled with merry tears. “You’d probably melt into a puddle if a Girl actually talked to you.”
“I would not,” 62 insisted. “I talk to Dr. Rain okay.”
“Does she make your skin turn bright red and do you forget to breathe when she talks to ya?”
“No...”
“I bet she makes your heart turn to pudding,” Blue teased. He batted his eyes and fanned his facemask with his hands.
62’s face went blank. “What’s pudding?”
Blue doubled over, laughing even harder than before. Once he caught his breath he blurted out, “You find out what pudding is, and how to breathe when a Girl looks at you, and then you can come eat with me.”
“Fine.” 62 crossed his arms. “I’ll see you later then.”
“Not if I see you first.” Blue poked 62 in the side and then ran off toward the cafeteria doors.
62 trudged to the refugee side of the building. After retrieving his meal tablet he settled into a chair, took off his protective mask, and spent the afternoon talking with the small group of refugees gathered in the cafe who had recently been released from quarantine. There were eight of them now. It wouldn’t be long until they had enough students for school to start. He told them all about exploring outside of town that morning, and sunbathing on the hill. As out of place as he felt tailing Blue around Hanford, 62 felt comfortable in the confines of the small cafeteria surrounded by others from Adaline.
Afternoon had stretched to evening by the time 62 decided to go back to his room. He’d stopped by 00’s room, but the door was locked and there was no answer when he knocked. He wandered back outside to see if 00 was in the courtyard, wondering where his friend could be. He still didn’t understand why Blue was so sure that
00 wouldn’t have come hiking with them that morning. The exploration had brought on a happy feeling of exhaustion and 62 didn’t spend too much time wondering about 00.
It was the first time since he’d left Adaline that he felt he’d done something important. He reentered the housing unit just as the sun was setting. Darkness crept over the low hills on the horizon, threatening to swallow Hanford up. Dim electric lights sputtered to life here and there, but 62 had learned that everyone made the effort to get inside before sundown. There weren’t nearly enough lights to brighten the great outdoors. Even when the moon was bright and the stars shone down there wasn’t enough illumination to see much of anything.
Although there was some power indoors, the evening light was dim. One bare bulb hung from the otherwise empty ceiling of 62’s room and it only cast enough light to keep him from running into the few pieces of furniture jutting out from the grey walls. He had his own bed, an ancient frame covered in a thin mattress and heavy bedding. It wasn’t nearly as nice as the bed he’d had in Adaline, but it was comfortable enough. There was a small cabinet that held his new clothes, which he had to sort and choose on his own since there was no bot to lay them out for him. But the one thing that his new room had that was better than anything he’d had in Adaline was a shelf of books, all his own.
His first night in the room, he’d been warned by a neighbor that the light would turn off on its own when the solar power was cut for the night, and the abrupt darkness had taken him by surprise not long after. Without the light his room was a pit of black space. Darker and more ominous than he’d ever seen. The black night was terrifying, and most of the Boys he’d talked to said they simply went to sleep before the light was turned off to avoid having to stare into the darkness. He’d tried that, but the draw of the books on his shelf kept him too distracted for an early bedtime. He decided he’d just have to brave the sudden blackness of night when the light shut off.
The small shelf held just three books. One was a thin, blue booklet with a trio of people pointing at a large building printed on the cover. It was titled, Here’s Hanford. Another had a picture of a desert landscape; all sand and rock aside from one green shrub that seemed to be alive just to spite the harsh area around it. It was called, At Home in the Desert: Surviving and Thriving for a Day, a Week, or a Lifetime. The last was a book called Charlotte’s Web. The cover was colorful and full of the strangest creatures. They had eyes, ears, and mouths, but their bodies and faces were all wrong. Puffy. Slim. Long necked or spindly. 62 had spent his brief time alone in the lit evening opening Charlotte’s Web and angling the pages toward the light to read. It had been slow going. It wasn’t so much because the reading was difficult, aside from the dim light having to hit the page just so in order to bring out the words. But although there were male characters, Avery and Mr. Arable, the story was also packed with dozens of other things alien to 62’s understanding. He surmised that Charlotte’s Web was a story about the above ground. At least there were grass and buildings in it, which made it seem that way. The humans lived together, away from the other creatures. There was a mother, a father, a Boy, and a Girl living in a group called a family.
62 had a father. He’d seen him back home when his friend 71 was teaching him about the history of Adaline. Father was the one who created the Boys. In the beginning, he’d created only one, but the first Boy had been lonely and asked for companions. That’s how the legion of Boys, who grew up to be Men, had been born.
Each time 62 picked up the book, he wondered if a mother worked quite the same as a father. Maybe mothers made Girls who grew into Women. He closed his eyes against the dark night and exhaustion took over. He’d have to ask Dr. Rain tomorrow.
CHAPTER 10
THE FIRST DAY OF 62’S new schooling finally arrived. He and the other dozen escapees walked sleepily across the courtyard toward the building that housed the school. The early morning shadows still reached between the buildings, their long fingers holding the chill of the previous night and making 62 shiver. The small group of variously aged students stood outside, the door to their class still locked on their arrival. They stood awkwardly together, blowing into their hands and stomping their feet to keep warm.
“It feels colder than when we first got here,” the Man next to 62 observed.
“It’s got to be an illusion, right?” 62 hunched his shoulders and tucked his hands under his armpits. “It’s not like a couple of weeks in a place could make a difference.”
The door swung open, hinges squeaking in protest of the early morning. A person leaned out through the open door. They were wrapped in a cloth so bulky that 62 couldn’t tell whether it was a male or female. It wasn’t until the low, masculine voice spoke out of the green mask that he knew what kind of person stood before them.
“Sorry, I’m a bit late,” the adult male said. He looked around at the shivering group. “No coats yet, eh? Well, you’ll figure out what they’re for soon enough.” He went back inside, leaving the door open behind him. A light flicked on somewhere in the interior and its pale-yellow glow filled the hallway just inside. It looked warm and inviting and it didn’t take long for the students to shuffle inside.
62 was the last one in and he pulled the heavy steel door closed behind him with a clank. It was warmer inside, but only because the wind was blocked out. Otherwise, the temperature remained low and after the initial relief of being out of the wind, 62 was shuddering with cold again. He moved down the hallway and into the classroom.
“It’ll be just a moment,” the person who’d opened the door offered. He pulled his mask off and dropped it on a desk at the front of the room. He pointed toward the back of the room. “You there, bring me some of that wood from the corner.”
One of the younger students followed the male’s pointed finger to a pile of brown logs that someone had stacked neatly in a corner. He picked up two of the logs and carried them over to the person who was now kneeling in front of a short barrel-shaped hunk of metal.
“Thank you,” he mumbled as he received the logs and set them on the ground. He swung open a grate on one side of the barrel and the metal squealed with such ferocity that the whole group moaned and covered their ears. He opened a box next to the black steel device, pulling out some paper and small sticks. He arranged them carefully in the gaping hole of the barrel. From his coat he pulled out what looked like a thin bit of metal and a rock. He held them in the barrel and struck them together a few times, sending sparks dancing onto the wood.
A voice shouted, “Fire!” 62 couldn’t see where the flame was, but the press of bodies moving toward him as his classmates tried to push back through the door was enough to tell him that it was time to get out. He spun around, rushing back down the hall toward the heavy metal door to the courtyard.
“It’s okay! It’s okay!” the male shouted from the classroom. “Come back!”
62 couldn’t stop once he reached the door. There were too many bodies pressing in behind him. He shoved the handle and nearly fell outside as the door swung open. He turned to the side of the entrance and stopped. Eyes wide, heart pounding, he waited to see what would happen. The rest of the group poured out behind him. The wind rushed around them and they huddled close together, staring back through the door.
There were several moments of panicked silence before the male bundled in cloth came sauntering out. His mask slightly askew, he stood over the threshold of the door, arms crossed. He looked over the anxious group and shook his head. “The fire’s in there to keep us warm. It’s nothing to run away from.”
Scared eyes darted back and forth, each of the refugees looking to their brothers for assurance. One of the adults spoke back. “Fire is dangerous. It’s a sign of a malfunction. The symptom of a catastrophic accident.”
“No,” the green-masked Man said, irritation thick in his voice, “it’s not. This isn’t Adaline. Hanford isn’t overflowing with flammable chemicals and combustible materials. It’s not a factory. It’s —” he gestu
red wildly at the world around them. “It’s just the world. We burn fuel for energy. For cooking. For warmth!”
62’s teeth chattered over his voice. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“Yes. It’s safe.” He eyed the untrusting mass before him. “You can choose to be scared little children and run away from it, or you can follow me and we can get out of this blasted cold before you all die of hypothermia. Make your choice. I’m going inside where it’s warm.”
A few long seconds passed before anyone moved, and then it was just to huddle closer together while everyone stood undecided on what to do. 62’s skin pricked under his light shirt and he decided he was done standing out in the cold. He didn’t know the stranger inside, but there didn’t seem to be a reason for him to lie to them. Besides, he’d gone right back into where the fire was, as if he believed what he’d said about the flame being safe. 62 decided to act braver than he felt and took the first steps toward the door. He could smell smoke as he approached and it made his heart leap into his chest. He steeled his resolve and pushed forward through the doorway.
His mind screamed danger and he paused partway down the hall while he considered the fire in the classroom up ahead. He teetered on his feet, then turned around. Maybe he wasn’t brave enough for this. No sooner had he taken a step toward the exit than another person ducked his head through. Man 11 entered the hallway and strode toward 62. They locked eyes. “Not dead yet?”
“No.” 62 spun back toward the classroom as his brother passed by. “Not yet.”
They walked together, bolstered by one another’s bravery. When they entered the classroom, they passed through an invisible wall of warmth. 62 looked up at 11’s brown-clad face. “It’s warm in here.”
The Adaline Series Bundle 1 Page 40