It turned out 62 didn’t have to go to the outhouse to throw up. The cafeteria worker’s apron caught the vomit just fine.
CHAPTER 18
“WE’RE GOING BACK.” Blue was shoving clothes into a bag. 00 leaned against the end of the bed, his pack already slung over his shoulder. 62 noticed a set of Adaline-style clothes amongst the shirts and pants on Blue’s bed. “We’re running low on meal tabs again, and nobody sneaks in and out of there better than me.”
“With a little help,” 00 added. The harshness between the two Boys wasn’t as blatant as it had been before, but the competitive tension between them was still there.
“I went in once before you got here,” Blue sneered.
“And nearly got picked up by a Nurse for loitering with kids outside of your age group, if I heard the story right,” 00 snipped back.
62 sat on the edge of Blue’s bed and stared at his friends, helpless. “Is that all you’re going to do? Just walk in and get food for us and then walk out?”
Blue squinted and shook his head with a snort. “No, of course not. I’ve gotta make my rounds. Find the folks who help me out so I can return the favor.”
“Will you see 42?” Blue and 00 shared a worried glance over 62’s question. 62 settled his gaze on Blue. “You helped him know where I’d be when I needed my chip swapped out. You guys help each other, right?”
“Sure,” Blue said tentatively. “Yeah, of course. I mean, if I can find him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” 62’s hands gripped the side of the bed. “Why wouldn’t you be able to find him?”
Blue slowed his packing. He looked at 62 with cheerless eyes. “You said that Adaline was using you to find other dreamers before they decided to get rid of you. I mean, they’d even used you to find your other friend, right?”
62 thought back to Defense and the last dream he’d had there. They’d used his connection with 71 to find and capture him, and then had tried to use 62 as bait to get the old teacher to open up about where in Adaline others with the dream anomaly were hiding. It’d been horrible, watching his friend become severed from their shared dream by force. It was what had kept him awake many nights since, worried that his connection to dreams would somehow put others in danger.
“And you’d shared dreams with 42 before, hadn’t you?” 00 asked.
“Yeah, but Defense didn’t know about 42 having the anomaly. I never connected to a dream with him while I was in there. For all they know, he’s just a doctor that works on chips.”
“Mmmhmm.” Blue nodded as he picked up an extra mask and shoved it into his bag. “A doctor who fiddles with weird kids’ chips until they look normal. Like that doesn’t look suspicious.”
“He does it in secret. Nobody knows about what he’s doing except me and 71.” 62’s eyes went wide as he realized the implications. If Defense had convinced 71 to join their cause, or if they’d somehow found a way to force their way into his mind, of course they’d find out about 42’s involvement in covering up anomalies.
“Right.” Blue zipped his bag closed. He picked it up and slung it over his shoulder. “If I find him, is there something you want me to tell him?”
62 looked around the room. There was so much he’d like to tell his old friend, but he wasn’t sure what he could tell 42 that would be safe for the doctor to know. He glanced at 00 and thought about how awful it had felt thinking he’d died. “Can you tell him that I’m alive?”
Blue gave a sharp nod. “I can.”
“Then I guess that’s it.” 62 shrugged. He stood and shook his friend’s hands.
They exited the room in silence, and when they made it to the hall Blue locked his door and then tossed the roughly made key to 62. “We’ll be back in a week or two. Make sure none of those jerks down the hall get in my room. They’re all trying to get rooms closer to the exit and I’ve had to beat them out of here twice already.”
“Sure.” 62 curled his hand around the key, feeling the cool metal against his skin. He turned to 00. “Want me to do the same for you?”
“Nobody wants my room,” 00 sighed. “Not even me.”
Blue laughed and slapped 00 on the shoulder. “Maybe somebody really stupid will take it, and when you get back you’ll get an upgrade.” 00 gave a sheepish grin.
“Stay safe,” 62 urged.
“Ain’t no use in staying safe. Nothing would ever get done. But we’ll come back in one piece, more or less. And with enough meal tabs to keep you off real food a while longer, unless 00 eats them all.”
“Well you’d better hurry then,” 62 said with a weak smile. “Parker wants us to try this stuff called creamed wheat, and it looks horrible.”
Blue grinned. “We’ll try to be back before he brings it to class, then. That stuff’s worse than it looks.”
00 and Blue were supposed to meet their travelling group by the town’s main gate and 62 followed them there. The three friends hardly spoke as they walked, 62 totally at a loss for what to say as his peers marched toward the danger of Adaline once more. He wanted to hug them tight and tell them how much their friendship meant to him, but something deep down kept his arms locked at his sides and his words shut up in his chest. The way Blue avoided eye contact and 00 shuffled silently made 62 wonder if his friends felt the same. Afraid to say goodbye in case it would be the last time.
62 recognized Chance and Rex from the rescue weeks before, but everyone else was new. It made him wonder just how many people lived in Hanford. He rarely saw anyone milling around outside, but there seemed to always be fresh faces wherever he went. He decided to ask Mattie the next time he was feeling brave enough to be in the library. Maybe if he showed up with new questions she’d forget to tease him about running away from her poop stories.
Chance wouldn’t let 62 past the gate. “Sometimes people forget to go back home once they get on the trail,” he’d said. So, while his friends fell into line and started marching west out of town, 62 leaned up against the dirty chain link fence to the side of the gate and watched them walk away.
The trail was visible up to the hills and 62 stood in silence until he saw the line of people reach the first bundle of bushes at the top of the incline. He thought he remembered where his friends were in the line, but the group was so far away it was impossible to tell. Eventually the bodies disappeared, blending into the sparse brush. 62 let out a deep sigh. A second later, two tiny figures popped back out into the open. Arms went up high, flying back and forth in a grand wave farewell. 62 grinned beneath his mask and waved back, sure that the goodbye was meant for him.
CHAPTER 19
“LET’S TALK ABOUT LAWS.” Parker sat at the head of the classroom, a heavy blanket pulled around his shoulders. It had been getting steadily colder since the first snow, and the small wood stove was having a hard time keeping the chill at bay. It looked like everyone had brought at least some of their bedding with them to class in an effort to keep warm.
“I thought we’re criminals,” 11 grunted from under his blanket. “We already broke the law by coming here.”
Parker shook his head. “You broke Adaline’s laws. Hanford has laws, too. I’ll admit there’s fewer of them, and they’re relatively easy to follow compared to where you come from. But if we break the laws here, the outcome is just as dire.”
62 thought about 37113, who’d been killed during their escape from Adaline. “Is leaving Hanford against the law?”
Parker scratched at the hair on his chin. “Yes, and no.”
“I thought you said the laws here were easy to follow,” 11 grumbled.
“Well, I was going to start with some of the simpler ones like, ‘don’t steal from others.’ But, we’re jumping right into the deep end, apparently.” Parker adjusted the blanket around his shoulders. “In general, it’s not advisable to leave Hanford. If you stumble into a hot zone of radiation on accident, you could die. That’s not a law, but it’s reality. Because of that, leaving isn’t encouraged.”
“But some people do leave,” 62 commented. “To get supplies and find more people like us.”
“You mean steal supplies,” Man 11 huffed. He glared at the teacher. “I thought that was supposed to be a simple law, professor.”
Parker leaned forward and rested his chin on fists hidden beneath the blanket. “It is simple. When you’re above ground, you don’t steal from anyone else above ground.”
“But stealing from Adaline is okay?” Boy 14, who was huddled under his own blanket three seats over looked at 11 for approval. He nodded back and they both turned to face the teacher.
“Yes.” Parker’s answer was strong and assured. “It’s fair to take what we need from Adaline because not only do they keep a surplus of materials, but without those supplies refugees like you wouldn’t make it here. There’d be no meal tabs for you to wean off of. No nutrition liquid to spike the juice tanks. We wouldn’t have enough medical supplies to go around when someone gets hurt. Everyone who got sick would probably die due to lack of medicine.”
“So, if we’re on a mission we can steal from Adaline. But up here, we don’t steal from each other.” 62 turned the opposing rules over in his mind. He didn’t want to die, and although some of the other refugees were having a hard time with the new world around them, he was sure they didn’t want to die either. “Seems simple enough.”
Parker slouched back into his seat a bit, seeming to be glad for an opportunity to steer the conversation away from theft. “Another law to be aware of is that injuring another being isn’t allowed, unless hurting that singular being will protect Hanford. As an example, we don’t hunt animals for pleasure. We only kill those animals that we intend to eat.”
62 thought again to the gunshots that rang out when 13 tried to return to Adaline. “But what about hurting other people? Why is that allowed?”
Parker’s mouth twisted beneath his mustache. “In general, it isn’t allowed. In general, another person’s life and body are to be respected and protected as much as your own.”
“But there are times when it’s okay to hurt someone?” came a voice from the back of the room. “How come?”
The teacher sighed. “I don’t think this is usually how this lesson goes. I’m supposed to simply lay out the rules, have everyone nod, and then leave class early. But I can see you guys have already been made aware of some special cases.”
Everyone in the room nodded, leaning forward in their chairs as they tried to glean the importance of having two sides of the law.
“Hanford exists between two worlds.” Parker paused, seeming as if he had more to say but deciding on how he was going to say it. He cleared his throat. “On one side there’s Adaline, churning out a massive army of humans, unaware of the rest of the world. On the other side, there’s the rest of the world, unaware of Adaline. And here in the middle, there’s Hanford. We know about all of it, and the elders who founded this place have given us the task of being the gatekeeper between the two societies.”
62’s eyebrows practically touched, they were so scrunched together in confusion. “Hanford’s a gatekeeper? Does that mean there’s something beyond Hanford?”
The entire class looked around at one another. One of the adult refugees near the door spoke up next. “But there’s hardly anything alive out there. Unless you’re protecting Adaline from snakes and spiders.”
Parker frowned. He stared off into space, as if he could see something in the air in front of him. Something troubling. “There are others. Far away. We’re able to survive in peace as long as we help them sometimes.”
62’s heart jumped. It hadn’t been all that long ago that he’d thought Adaline was the entire world. Now here he was, sitting at a desk inside of a strange town that he’d only reached after walking across miles of desert. Suddenly, there was even more world beyond. “What are they like?”
Parker’s vision snapped back into focus at the question. “What are who like?”
“The others. The ones who live far from here.” 62 inched forward in his chair with excitement.
“They’re horrible,” Parker whispered. His mouth turned down and his eyes became cloudy, a visage of troubled thoughts. The whole classroom sat in silence, waiting to hear more. Parker shook his head as he spoke. “They’re a powerful people, full of hate. They’re known as the Oosa. They have limitless resources, far more than anything in Adaline, if you can believe it. They could level Hanford completely, the same way Curie was destroyed. They remind the Women of that every time they come. For decades, they’ve allowed Curie’s descendants to live here. But the peace comes with a price.”
“If they threaten to attack, but never do, there’s no real danger from them, right?” Man 11’s voice trembled, his usual arrogance fading.
Parker began to nod, then shook his head. “It’s not quite the same. Adaline is dangerous because it murders its own citizens in a ruthless quest for perfection. Yes, the patrol bots will shoot down anyone who doesn’t belong out of self-preservation. But until the bots have a reason to come up from below ground, Adaline keeps to itself. The Oosa are different. They come to Hanford every year and demand that some of our females volunteer to be taken away.”
The entire classroom gasped. Mutterings between students were quickly extinguished when Parker continued. “They hide anyone from Adaline when the Oosa come, of course. They have to. If they found out about us refugees, Adaline’s existence would be given away. The elders are too protective to put anyone else in the Oosa’s crosshairs, even Adaline. But, once a year, there’s a call for Curie’s descendants to volunteer for this duty.”
“What happens to them after they volunteer?” 62’s skin was clammy beneath his blanket. He’d had his own experiences of being taken away by strange people and when given the chance, he’d protect others from that torture, if he could. Although he wasn’t sure what reasons the elders had for keeping the Oosa away from Adaline, he was glad that they had. He thought of the community he’d left behind, unaware of the danger stalking the world above their heads.
“Half of those who volunteer are impregnated, and are sent back to us.” A room full of puzzled eyes looked back at Parker and then he explained, “An undeveloped infant is inserted into their bodies, for them to carry until it’s matured enough to be born. Like a biological laboratory.” All of the students grimaced at the thought of this unusual torture.
“What happens to the ones who don’t come back with babies?” someone asked.
“Nobody knows.” Parker’s eyes took on the sudden sheen of held back tears. His voice went ragged with emotion. “The Oosa were here not long before your group was rescued. Sunny; she and I were... she was...” He looked up at the ceiling, lips trembling, undecipherable words passing between them. Finally, he took a deep breath in and wiped his eyes. He looked back over the classroom with sadness. “Sunny used to teach this class. She volunteered to go with them this fall and hasn’t come back.”
62 covered his mouth with his hand. He felt sick. Far sicker than even Mattie had made him feel when he’d talked to her about digestion. Mattie. She was a female descended from Curie. She was older than him. How much older, he wasn’t sure. He hoped she’d never go with those horrible people to have a baby inserted in her, or worse. He asked, “What happens if no one volunteers?”
Parker’s face lost some of its color. He closed his eyes and slumped his shoulders. His voice was so quiet that if anyone in the room had been breathing, his words would have been lost in the breeze. “If no one volunteers, they take the ones they want by force. If any of them fight back, they’re killed and another female is taken in their place.”
CHAPTER 20
THE DOOR TO THE LIBRARY swung open hard and hit the railing behind it with a bang. 62 ran through the shelves, looking for Mattie. His heart pounded in his ears, and the skin on his arms shivered with goosebumps. He hadn’t met many females yet, just Dr. Rain and a couple of other doctors in passing. But he knew Mattie. She might even be his friend. The thoug
ht of her being dragged away to an unknown land filled him with dread.
When he found her, he nearly collapsed at her feet. He keeled over, hands on knees, panting from the run and reeling from the happiness of finding her whole. He reached a hand out toward her and wheezed, “There you are.”
Mattie was sitting on top of a low, wide bookshelf. Her feet were propped up on a stack of thick books, a sheaf of papers lay in her lap. “Here I am,” she said coolly. “What’s got you all in a rush? You do know, there aren’t any late fees here.”
62 looked up at her, screwing up his blotchy red face in confusion. “What?”
Mattie waved her hand dismissively. “Library humor. Never mind.” She looked him over and tilted her head in concern. “What’s going on with you?”
“I just —” 62 looked for a nearby chair. There was none, so he flopped down on the floor in the middle of the aisle. “At school, Parker told us about the Oosa.”
Mattie’s face went slack, a look of troubled seriousness filling her eyes. Then she covered up the look of concern with her normal sarcastic smirk. “Seems a little early for Parker to be telling you about Hanford’s dirty little secrets.”
62 pulled off his mask and shrugged his jacket onto the floor. “He wasn’t going to.”
Mattie pulled the papers from her lap and stacked them into a neat pile. She lifted her feet up a few inches, set the papers down on the stack of books she’d been using as a footrest, and in one fluid motion twisted her body down off of the bookshelf. Mattie sat down on the floor across from 62. Now that they were on the same level he could tell how much taller she was than him, something he’d never really paid much attention to before. She slouched her back against the bookshelf so she was eye level with him. “He was in love with Sunny, you know.”
62 looked into Mattie’s knowing eyes and was filled with exasperation. He threw his hands up in the air. “What does that even mean?”
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