by S. L. Baum
Without being aware, I had been twisting a little flower ring around my finger. I looked down at the thin gold band with the small flower on it and my heart ached a little. Thorn. The ring had come from Thorn, who, once again, had slipped from my mind. If I hadn’t been wearing the ring, would I have remembered him?
“Thorn gave me this ring,” I said as the memories returned. “I lost it when I was a little girl and he found it and saved it for me.”
“It seems to fit you quite well to have been yours when you were a little girl,” Gill observed.
“I wore it around my neck, on a blue ribbon. It came off while I was playing outside in a lush green area that was filled with trees and flowers… and a stream.”
“Who was there with you?” Gill asked.
“Thorn, and some other children.”
“What about adults? Surely there were adults involved?”
I closed my eyes and tried to picture the scene. My head didn’t hurt, which it usually did when I tried to pull things out of my memory. Those yellow pills must be working, I thought. “Thorn’s mother, other mothers, and my caregiver… Hope. My caregiver’s name was Hope,” I whispered.
“Yes, it was.”
I opened my eyes and looked at Gill in the mirror. “I’m going to risk everything right now and say that I think what you were trying to tell me was that you knew my mother. Not Aspen, but my real mother, Hope.”
“We were fairly certain that with the right clues and a little time you would unlock the memory of her. Your risk has paid off. Yes, I knew Hope. She was a gorgeous woman, a genuinely nice and caring woman, and I was happy to call her my friend.”
“Who are we? You said, ‘We were fairly certain.’ I had a story that magically showed up on my regular tablet, and one day a mysterious tablet with secret files on it appeared in my room. Are we responsible for those things?”
“We are.”
“That information caused me to question everything.”
“We hoped it would.”
“After all of that, I overheard Aspen admit she is Infertile. I saw the Brand on her highly guarded wrist, and then I pieced it all together.”
“That was a bit of luck we weren’t counting on.”
“Gill, who are we?”
“There are too many to list off right now. Just know that we are out there, and we tried to help your mother flee with you when you were little. She reached out to me after she figured out that Aspen would get rid of her using any means necessary once you went off to Training Tech.”
“Flee to where? To the others that have been cast out? Are there many out there? Is she alive?”
“She was willing to take her chances outside. And only your father knows if she is alive.”
“My father doesn’t even remember her. He took me away from her, sent me off to Training Tech, and then let Aspen start feeding him Memory drugs. He’s erased her.
“Nothing is erased forever,” Gill said.
My eyes widened with hope. “You think he could remember?”
“I do.”
“Why aren’t you willing to take your chances on the outside, Gill?”
“I was, at one point. But when my wife and I received our approval to start a family, she begged me to stay a while longer. She wanted a child so badly, and didn’t want to risk a complication or birth without Medical. So we decided to stay until after a child was conceived and born healthy.”
“You have a wife and a child? How old is your child? With all this travel, I just assumed you were not in a Marriage.”
Gill looked away from the mirror and I watched as his eyes misted over. “My wife died before she ever conceived. She was delivering flowers to a Citizen who was beautifying his home for a dinner party. There was a Yard Maintenance worker on the site who had been instructed to remove all debris, even from the top of the home. He fell as he was crossing the roof, and he landed on my wife. It was a three level home; the man was up quite high. They both died during the transport to Medical.”
“What a horrible accident.”
He looked back at me. “I’m not sure it was.”
“Do you think your wife’s death was intentional?”
“No. Actually, I do not. I think that the Yard Maintenance worker’s death was intentional. My wife was a casualty of something larger. I took it upon myself to investigate the accident. I needed to know who the man was. What was his history? Medical, personal, his role in society… I wanted to know it all. What I found confirmed my distrust of Concord.”
“What did you find?”
“I found out that the man was single, with an Infertile Brand, and had been having balance issues. He’d been falling or stumbling for weeks before he fell off that roof, and he had raised his balance issue with his Doctor during a Medical appointment. But he was given a pill, told that it would cure the symptoms, and sent home. A few days later his superior ordered him to go up onto that roof, a roof that he’d never been up on before. In fact, he’d never been ordered to clean debris from the top of a house… ever… during his twenty-five years as a Yard Maintenance worker. I believe he had become nonessential to Concord.”
“Gill, what do you think is happening? I have friends with parents that have died in accidents. Aspen’s mother died, my father’s parents both died. All my life I’ve been told to accept that tragic accidents can happen at any time… and to not question anything about them, but to move on.”
Gill slowed the vehicle and stopped in the middle of the tunnel. He turned around to face me. “We believe that Concord’s Medical is not quite the savior that we’ve been led to believe it is. I think that there are still diseases and sicknesses out there that Concord cannot cure, and have chosen not to fight or treat. Did you know that in the past, before Concord, people could live a full life, a happy life, all the while experiencing some sort of daily symptom from a treatable disease? They would take daily medication, have surgery to remove growths within the body, and go through treatment processes that might not be able to completely cure them, but would extend their life and their time with family. They were given a choice.”
My mouth fell slack and I just stared at him as he continued.
“Concord Medical has put so much time and effort into the research of Youth Serums and procedures that make a Citizen look young. During the past century, Citizens have become obsessed with making a beautiful outside package. The appearance is all that matters, and the creation of that perfect porcelain complexion became so much more important than anything else, so the inside of the body was neglected. And… we believe it was done intentionally. Population Control.”
“That’s a broader subject, Gill. Population Control can be intentional exterminations… but it can also be the influencing of fertility rates among the young,” I pointed out.
“And we believe both are being done, with willful intent. I do not deny that there are some Citizens who have real and true infertility. But, I believe that in many cases if a Citizen is a threat to Concord in any way, his or her child will be given drugs or procedures while at Training Tech, away from prying eyes, which will hinder the reproductive system. Then a Council member gets to say, ‘It must be your fault that your child is Infertile. You must have skipped some crucial point in their early childhood development that resulted in this undesired Brand. You’ve never been a strict follower of the Mandates and your negligence has adversely affected your child. Shame on you.’ But in reality, the shame is on Concord!”
“Then The Council isn’t really concerned with the decline in fertility rates?”
“They are. There is a certain amount of Citizens needed to keep Concord running smoothly. Our guess is that selective infertility got out of hand and now they need to boost numbers again. And Bluebell, the Lush girl, is the perfect tool for that. We think that Concord won’t do anything detrimental to the children at Training Tech for a while, because right now the Citizens are being worked up to a frenzy, trying to follow the perfect formula fo
r creating their own Lush girl.”
The lights came on in part of the tunnel ahead of us. Gill tensed up and started driving once again. A large delivery truck was approaching, and both drivers waved as the two vehicles passed by one another. The word TEXTILES was written in large white block letters on the side of the truck coming from Concord Three. When the textile truck was far behind us, and out of sight, Gill’s shoulders relaxed.
“Why didn’t The Council do the same thing with my mother then? She was Lush before me.”
“Because your grandfather decided to use her instead. Once he found out his own daughter was branded Infertile, he was desperate to continue his family line, even if it was through deception. If he offered this Lush woman to your father and Aspen, there would be a child; it was a certain outcome. So he arrived in Three, offered Hope a new life and she took that man’s offer immediately.”
I shook my head back and forth as I tried to process all the information crowding my mind, “How is it that you, Gill the Chauffeur, have such vast knowledge of all these things?”
Gill laughed. “I’ve been driving Councilmembers and other Department Leaders around all four Concords for well over a decade. They talk amongst themselves, or conduct video chat sessions with other higher ups, all while assuming I’ll keep my mouth shut. Which I do, for the most part, and only share my knowledge within my highly guarded group of friends. My feigned silence is what led me to be one of the most requested drivers. And this partition,” Gill said, while raising the soundproof barrier between the front and back of the vehicle, “doesn’t work all that well when I have hidden microphones back there,” his voice came over a speaker in the roof of the vehicle.
The partition lowered again.
“Plus,” Gill added. “This we, I’ve been talking about, has members in all facets of Concord. Like your friend Thorn’s father, who works in Media Distribution. He has access to all types of Media and also has the ability to send files to various tablets without it being noticed.”
I sighed. “I don’t get it. Where do I fit in? What’s the point of telling me all this?”
“Honestly?”
“No. Lie to me. Apparently everyone else does.”
“We’re not one hundred percent sure, yet. But sometime in the near future, we intend to shake things up. Arranging the death of Citizens, taking children away from their parents to be brought up to question nothing while obeying everything, and adversely affecting the reproductive abilities of the youth are not acceptable ways to treat people. There are so many more things I could point out, so many more ways that The Council and its Mandates have wronged the Citizens of Concord, but that would take days.”
“But what about the good it has done. Failing health, homelessness, the poor, substandard education, crime, greed… Concord has solved those problems and many more,” I pointed out.
“Have they really?” Gill asked. “There are still health issues, and after their discovery, Citizens become a casualty of some sort of accident. Homelessness exists in the Banished and cast out. The poor still exist; if you are assigned a lower level job you do not have enough credits in your account to live in a big house and have as many luxuries as those who are in higher positions. I will agree with you on education. Every child born in Concord will have the same education as every other child. But crime and greed surely exist. The crime is the orchestrated and untimely death of Citizens. And greed is evident in every member of The Council, and in many of the elevated families. Think about Aspen. Do you think she has greed?”
I nodded my head in agreement. Aspen was greedy of attention, of beautiful jewelry, of her place in society, of a being a trendsetter. She wanted it all, and she wanted to be the first and sometimes the only one, to have those things.
“How are we supposed to solve any of those things? It is too big for me. I am just me, Bluebell, the studious girl from One who always does the right thing. I can’t change anything. My grandfather and Aspen would squash me if I stepped in the wrong direction.”
“You are the most recognizable Citizen in Concord. The people will soon look up to you, more so than anyone else. If we wait until the time is right, and figure out a way to hack into the entire Information system, we can expose Concord for what it really is. You, Bluebell, are just the girl to help us do that.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “The Citizens are so well trained to believe whatever they are told. They wouldn’t believe that Concord is capable of wrongdoing, even if you were able to find a way to broadcast that message. There have been too many years of blind faith in the system.”
“You underestimate the Citizens, Bluebell. Many are unhappy with being under the thumb of The Council. Do you think that Fertile women from low level families enjoy being required to act as a surrogate and give away their first child before they are allowed to have one of their own? Do you think that each and every Citizen is really happy with surrendering their five-year-old child to the Trainers, to only be a minimal part of their lives for twelve long years? Do you believe that every Citizen is happy and content in the career that Concord has chosen for them, or do you think that some people may crave a different life? Do you crave a different life?
“I do,” I admitted. “This is not the life I imagined for myself.”
“What about your friends Petunia and Petals… do you think it’s fair that they have a minority vote in their future mates? And you… Aspen would have you enter into a Marriage Contract with that Weaver boy. Is he who who’d choose for yourself?”
“No!” I shouted. “I do not want Weaver and I do believe that The Pets should have absolute say in who they end up with in life. I think every Citizen should be able to choose their own mate.”
“It’s too much control, Bluebell,” Gill said softly. “The Council has too much control.”
“I see that now,” I whispered. “I guess part of me has always thought that, but I just told myself that it was best to keep my mouth shut, do my duty, and be a good Citizen.”
“When the time is right, can we count on you to help us?”
I nodded my head. “Yes, Gill. You can count on me. But what if someone discovers your plan before the time is right. What will happen to me?” I’ll end up like my mother, I thought, and disappear.
“We will do our very best to protect you. I promise.”
“Gill, I want you to keep my supply of Memory drugs, well, half of them at least. If it seems like I am not really myself, start feeding me the yellow ones and even the pink ones. The whites are for Erasing and I’m sure your WE can figure a use for those.”
Gill looked at me in the mirror. “I will be watching over you very carefully. I promise. If I see anything that indicates your mind has been tampered with, I will take immediate steps to rectify that.”
“Thank you.”
“I’d expect the same from you.”
“Without question,” I assured him.
Chapter Eleven
The Beginning
It took Cimarron another hour to awake from her induced slumber. She truly was ignorant to the fact that she’d been given Sleep water, and didn’t suspect a thing. When she finally roused, she admitted that she’d been staying up late in her room, going over the notes from each day, analyzing them to see if she could have performed better, and had been missing sleep. Lucky for us, she really was exhausted and was willing to blame her unplanned nap on her continued lack of proper sleep during the prior week.
“The Mandates recommend at least seven but no more than nine hours of sleep per night,” I reminded her in an accusatory tone. “You know that, Cimarron.”
She looked over at me with a guilty expression on her face. “You are right, Bluebell. I was wrong to think that I knew better than Concord on this one, and it caught up to me.”
“It’s really not a big deal,” I told her. “I played around on my tablet while you slept, and I thoroughly went over the notes for my week in Three. You’d be proud of me.”
�
��I’m sure I would be, if I could have experienced it. But I was unproductively asleep,” she frowned.
“Don’t worry about it. I won’t tell anybody if you won’t,” I said with a wink.
“Well, I definitely won’t be admitting it to anyone at all,” Cimarron said with a grimace.
After we cleared the last checkpoint, and were raised to the surface level, Gill chauffeured us to Guest Accommodations. We checked into our suite, and Cimarron gave me a few moments to unpack my belongings and settle myself into the room for the week ahead of us. But I had barely unpacked my make-up and hair products, and was still in the bathroom, when she burst into my bedroom.
“Bluebell, come out here. There is something unreal being broadcast on my tablet right now. I was double checking the names of our dinner guests this evening when my tablet went blank, and then this showed up.”
She turned her tablet to face me. On the screen was a photo of what looked like some sort of explosion. There were charred remains of a vehicle, and the corner of a building, with TEXTILES painted on the side of it, was torn to shreds. The words TUNE IN NOW – NATIONAL BROADCAST IN 5 MINUTES, scrolled across the middle of the screen.
We went into the sitting area of the suite and sat down in front of the wall-screen. Cimarron pushed the button that brought it to life. The screen flickered for a moment and then the same photo and message that was on her tablet, appeared on the big screen.
“I thought I heard some kind of boom as we were being raised up out of the tunnels,” Cimarron said in a whisper.
“Did you?”
“I did. I really did. But when Gilbert didn’t seem alarmed, I decided it must have been the mechanism that lifts the vehicles.”
“Oh,” I breathed. “I think I know what noise you’re talking about. I though something clunked louder than usual.”
After a few more minutes, a man appeared on the screen.
“Citizens of Concord, tonight one of our worst fears has come true. Concord Three has been attacked by outside forces. The Banished have somehow banned together and attacked one of our glorious Concord communities. Armory and the Peace Keepers have been called in for protection, and have the sight of the violence surrounded.”