SWAB (A Young Adult Dystopian Novel)

by Choate, Heather

  “Yes. It echoes the wind in the leaves and the fall of rocks in the canyons. Come to Origin sometime,” the beetle replied, “and you will hear it for yourself.” With that, the beetle crawled back over to the shade under his grass. I guess the conversation is over.

  I straightened.

  Nathan looked at me with eyebrows raised high. “Pretty awesome, huh?”

  “Yeah,” was all I could say back.

  “This one,” Saki said, “is a scout. In fact, all of the Origin we have found are scouts. From what we’ve learned, the Origin planet sends them out to other worlds to expand the Great Colony. If they are successful, as they have been on Earth, the spores the Origin carries will bind themselves with the native population, creating a new branch for the colony.”

  This reminded me of all the alien movies I’d seen as a kid, about tall green beings seeking universal domination. And now I was one of them. They’d sucked me into it.

  I turned to Saki. “So how did you become scarb? Did someone stick you in a chamber full of these things and wait until you changed?”

  Saki blinked. “No. Actually, you are the first new hatchlings we’ve had.” She looked around at us like we were precious babies. “I became scarb in Chicago seven years ago, shortly after the city was infected. Things were quite a mess, then, since colonies hadn’t really been organized. Emerald found me and took me in. I followed her here to set up a colony of our own.” She put the tips of her fingers against the glass. “Nearly all scarb are made that way, exposure to wherever the beetles are.”

  I thought about this. “I was in Kansas when the infection hit. Why didn’t I turn into scarb then?”

  “Good question,” she applauded. “We’ve found that, just like in your case, it takes some humans longer to respond to the spores. Some never do. That’s why there were so many human casualties. Most of the ones who Changed more quickly or were exposed to more spores killed humans ignorantly.” She put a hand on the glass of the tank. “It isn’t in our nature to allow competition to live at the cost of our own safety and the protection of our resources. There can only be one dominate species on a planet at a time. Humans who didn’t turn scarb quick enough were unfortunately lost.”

  I hissed at her hollow-sounding remorse.

  She bristled a little. “Scarb killed scarb, too. So many lives were lost in the chaos of the Early Days. Colonies give us structure and safety.” She addressed the entire group, but then she turned to me. I wondered if I was the only one who heard her next words, “I hope that the longer you are here, the more you will see how wonderful life as a scarb can be.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nectar and Divish

  While Saki showed us more her lab, Nathan’s stomach gave a loud rumble.

  “Oh, dear,” Saki exclaimed, putting down the double-headed dragonfly she showed us. “Here I am jabbering away, and you are all hungry. Let me get you some food at the storage facility.”

  Everyone else seemed to sigh with relief. “What do we eat?” I tried to whisper to only Nathan.

  “Honey nectar,” he chimed, like he’d just laid out a five-course meal for us. I scrunched up my face at the memory of the honey nectar. “Don’t worry,” he added. “It actually tastes pretty good now.”

  The others filed out after Saki, but I stayed behind just a moment to get one last look at the Origin beetle. He was now sleeping, upside-down under a rock.

  “So much fuss over such a little thing,” Derrick said behind me. Even with the change, he hadn’t lost his southern accent.

  “Yeah,” I agreed and moved over so he could have a look, too. All of the others had left the room.

  “Do you really believe all that stuff about coming from another world and everything?” he asked me.

  I thought about it. “It makes as much sense to me as anything. With everything that’s happened, what can you believe anymore?”

  Derrick moved a little closer to me. “Do you still believe Ray is here?”

  Ray. My heart gave a little twitch. “I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ve got to find that red-haired flier.”

  Derrick nodded his head, the tips of his ears gleaming like wet oil in the light from the tanks. “I’ll help you keep an eye out.”

  “Thanks,” I said. It felt good to know he was still on my side.

  He shifted his weight a bit, and then said more softly into my thoughts. “Most of the others seem pretty convinced by this Saki girl and the others. It seems like some of them are already fully embracing being scarb.”I thought about Nathan. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t really trust all this ‘colony’ stuff. For years, scarb have only wanted to kill humans. Why are they trying to recruit them now?”

  I wanted to talk to him more, but Nathan’s head appeared back in the doorway. “You comin’, sis? Food’s a-waitin’.”

  I wondered if all Nathan cared about was his stomach. I looked back at Derrick, but he was already walking out the door. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

  As we followed Saki and the others through the vast halls of the colony, Nathan chatted about how great all the people were here, how Mrs. Weatherstone was training for a position in the infirmary and how Officer Reynolds considered becoming a leaf-tender. My thoughts were still on what Derrick had said. Why would they want to make us scarb now?

  “Hey, Nate,” I interrupted him, “have you ever seen that red-haired flier scarb who captured me from the battle?”

  He paused and scratched one of his neon-orange horns. “No, I haven’t, but Saki said I’m going to be introduced to the other fliers tomorrow. I can look for her then. They want to train me. Cool, huh?”He looked like he’d been the first pick on a kid’s soccer team.

  I didn’t want to crush his happiness. It had been so long since we’d been happy, but what if it wasn’t real? “Just… be careful, okay?”

  Nathan gave me a weird look. “What? Why? Are you afraid of me flying or something? Jack told me it will be at least a month or two before my wings are strong enough.”

  “It’s not that,” I said slowly, trying to keep my thoughts directed at only him so that no one else would hear. More and more scarb were filling the halls as they sloped downward. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. Be careful about trusting them.”

  “‘Them’?” he repeated. “Sis, there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ now. We are them. There’s no more fighting. No more little island to protect. None of that. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to us, Cat.”He gave my arm a little punch. “Lighten up.”

  Apparently bored with my attitude, he went over to Gray. They whistled at a long-legged female scarb in a mini-skirt. She carried a silver tray filled with tiny pastries and two glasses of golden liquid out of an alabaster doorway.

  “This is the storage facility,” Saki told me.

  “A.K.A., food!” Gray and Nathan yelled and craned their necks back like a pair of famished wolves.

  Derrick held the door open and slipped in behind me. “Careful about how you talk,” he said in a low growl. “I heard you and Nathan back there, and I wouldn’t be surprised if half the colony did as well.”

  My cheeks flushed. And I was trying so hard to focus. “I’m sure the colony won’t take well to a mutinous new recruit,” he continued. “They are all about ‘devotion to the queen.’” He pointed to a large mural painted on one side of the vast room we had entered. It was of a grand woman. She had short, curly, brown hair that was slightly graying at the roots, sharp green eyes, and thin lips with five white spikes sticking out of her cheeks. The painting commanded respect. I did a double take on her eyes. They had only two irises. Emerald. Out of the several dozen scarb I had seen so far, none of them had fewer than three. Except for me.

  But then my thoughts were distracted by the bustle of the room. Scarb went in and out chaotically. Five doors arranged in a semi-circle opened up into the room, with five corresponding walkways leading down to the main floor wher
e goods were loaded and unloaded onto massive shelves filled with crates and boxes of all shapes and sizes. It was like being in a massive warehouse.

  “Excuse me,” a gruff voice said behind me. I turned just before being barreled into by a large black scarb carrying a box five times his size on his shoulders. It was labeled “Leaves” in hasty writing.

  The black scarb stomped down the walkway and disappeared behind the first row of shelves. Ten more like him moved up and down with boxes.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Derrick said.

  “Yeah.”

  “They want me to work here,” he said, softer.

  “Really?” I looked over to him. “Why?”

  He flexed his biceps. “All those years of hauling hay, I guess.” I laughed, and he did, too. “These are the workers,” he explained. “They’re in charge of bringing shipments in and taking them out.”

  I watched three scarb pull a large flatbed trailer full of crates and barrels up the steep walkway.

  “Where do they take them?” I asked.

  “Other colonies,” he answered.

  That struck me as odd. “Why? Don’t they fight other colonies?”

  “Saki told me that they do at times,” Derrick said as we made our way down toward the main floor. “Their treaties are fragile things, but just like human civilizations, the scarb population is too vast to sustain itself without some exportation and importation of goods. Thus, the treaties. One bad shipment, though, and boom, all hell breaks loose.”

  “Forced cooperation,” I muttered as a smaller scarb hauled in a box labeled “Cheetos.” Scarb colonies seemed so volatile, I could only imagine a war starting because of stale chips.

  Derrick started laughing. “What’s so funny,” I asked him.

  “Your war,” he said. “Over Cheetos.”

  “You heard that?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he replied. “You’ve really got to try to conceal your thoughts.”

  “I’m trying,” I gritted my teeth as we followed our little group past the rows of shelves.

  He chuckled. I didn’t find it amusing. “I’ll teach you after we eat.”

  We passed about ten more rows of towering shelves, and then the room lost its warehouse feel completely. I felt like we’d just stepped into a five-class restaurant as my boots clicked against the alabaster marble floor. Round, four-person tables with gold and ivory tablecloths filled the dining hall. Scarb sat around the elegant tables eating and talking softly to one another. Several tall waiters with white aprons tied about their waists and napkins draped over their arms walked through the tables, carrying silver platters of food. A solo violinist played his instrument from the far right corner of the room, using two tendrils that protruded from his chin instead of fingers. The tune was melancholy and haunting but seemed to complement the atmosphere. I’d never been in a place so formal or fancy except for one time when my grandmother had taken us out for Italian for my father’s birthday.

  “I can’t wait to dig into a hot plate of divish,” Gray said, licking his lips with his purplish tongue.

  “Me, too,” Nathan agreed and then turned to me. “It’s this dish they make here, with apricot nectar, hibiscus leaves, and pureed cinnamon bark.”

  It sounded totally disgusting to me.

  “You’re going to love it,” he added. As we passed the first tables, all the scarb sitting around them stopped eating and talking. One black male even dropped his spoon. The silence spread like frost through the room. Saki slowed our pace, but we kept walking. As I turned from right to left, I noticed that most of the scarb’s eyes were on me.

  “What’s going on?” I tried to whisper to Nathan, feeling nervous. Did I do something wrong? Why was it I always felt I had a target on my back, even when I’d become one of my enemies? It seemed I was doomed never to fit in anywhere.

  “I don’t know,” he said as we headed to the back of the room. “They probably think you’re hot.”

  Maybe. I thought. Or maybe they want to take my head off.

  Saki stopped and asked a female waiter for a larger table to accommodate all of us. She disappeared through two white double doors, swinging her dreadlock braid behind her. The room came back to life, and only a few eyes still shot over at me. Moments later, the waiter returned with two muscular scarbs carrying a long table. She set it with delicately painted china plates, silver spoons and crystal champagne glasses.

  “Is this where you always eat?” I asked as I took a seat between Nathan and Derrick, as far away from the stares as I could. I wondered if all this finery was for some kind of special occasion.

  “Three times a day.” Nathan grinned and eagerly opened his menu. I did the same, grateful for something to hide behind, and read its contents:

  Deviled eggplant with wild mushrooms.

  Honey nectar and pecan soup

  Fresh rye seed and wheat stalk salad

  Rominash and hashed celery

  Mango nectar, cranberry, and salted willow leaf

  Divish on bamboo stalks

  Grilled spinach wraps

  There were several items I couldn’t even pronounce, let alone guess what they were like: hibalkingqk, joswvinx, and dropped fia soup. No descriptions were offered.

  “Can’t I just get chicken strips or something?” I muttered, turning the menu upside down to maybe understand it better.

  “Just go with the divish,” Nathan told me. “Trust me. Besides, we’re vegetarians now anyway.”

  “Vegetarians?”

  “Yeah, that means we only eat plants,” Nathan said like I was stupid. “But don’t worry, it’s good.”

  So, when the dread-lock waitress returned to take our order that’s what I told her. Did she hold her eyes on me just a little longer than she did the others? Maybe it was my eyes. Maybe having only two irises pinned you as some kind of freak. When she left, I took a moment to observe the others at the table with me. What makes me so different? Officer Reynolds picked a leaf out of Mrs. Weatherstone’s turquoise streaked hair. They laughed about something. Travis and little Jorge talked with Saki about some kind of field training they were going to that afternoon. Nathan and Gray took turns picking fake berries off the floral centerpiece on our table and throwing them at the backs of the scarb at our neighboring table. They were trying to see who could throw the most without getting caught.

  “That’s eight,” I heard Nathan argue with his friend. Gray chucked another berry, and it landed in a fat lady’s soup. She turned and scowled at the boys, her mandibles clicking.

  “You lose,” Nathan laughed. “And you made need to make a run for it if that heifer decides to get out of her chair and chase your sorry butt.”

  I rolled my eyes and turned to my right. Derrick stared at me, navy blue eyes bright with laughter. I jumped.

  “Easy, soldier,” he said with a hint of amusement on his lips. Why do I have the feeling he knows something?

  Saki suddenly broke into my thoughts. “How are you liking Fiskar?” She sipped her water.

  “It’s… very different,” I answered as honestly as I could. Really, it was a lot better than I had thought it would be, but it still didn’t feel quite right. Like how everyone looked at me like I might have a bomb attached to my back. I didn’t feel comfortable here, and unlike Nathan and some of the others, I didn’t know if I’d ever feel comfortable here. I was scarb now; that much I had to deal with. But that didn’t mean I had to just accept everything I was handed. I still had my choice, and I still had people I loved and cared about. I leaned my elbows onto the table. “Saki, do you know a red-haired scarb that belongs to this colony? She’s a flier.”

  Saki blinked her violet eyes and said with a sigh, “I’m afraid I spend too much time in the labs. I’m not much of a social butterfly and don’t know many of the others.” She pursed her lips. “I really don’t know. Why, dear?”

  “She’s the one who captured me,” I answered. “And
she took my friend.” The entire table fell silent and turned to us.

  Saki’s lips twitched and she seemed to stiffen. “Do you want revenge?” It was a dangerous question.

  “No,” I answered carefully. “Only information.”

  “I’ll let you know if I see her,” Saki said, twitching her eyebrows. The waiter returned with a silver platter. “Oh good, our nectar is here.”

  Everyone around the table seemed to relax. Glasses of spinning golden liquid were set before us. Saki slowly sipped hers, but Nathan downed his in one gulp.

  “Might as well tell them to bring a pitcher,” Gray said, burping as he finished his. Golden juice ran into his spiky goatee.

  “Try it,” Nathan urged me, seeing that my glass was the only one untouched.

  I didn’t want to try it. I didn’t want anything to do with being a scarb for the moment. Looking through the golden liquid, the china plates, the fake flowers and even Saki’s chin all looked fat and coated in amber. The world gone strange.

  “Well, if you’re not going to drink yours, I will,” Nathan said and reached for my glass.

  “No way.”I snatched it and downed the entire glass before he could even blink.

  The liquid ran smoothly down my throat and left my tongue sweet and tingly, like mint and honey. It instantly warmed my stomach, which I hadn’t realized was clenched in knots. The muscles of my arms started to relax and my mind calmed.

  “Good, isn’t it?” Nathan raised his eyebrows.

  I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of admitting that it was, but when he wasn’t looking, I sneaked some from his glass each time the waiter refilled it. I couldn’t believe how famished I was. Has my stomach turned into some kind of bottomless pit?

  When the food came, I hardly noticed how beautifully it was arranged on the plate with little leaves and flowers. I was shoving it into my mouth too fast. The divish was delicious, a tangy explosion of exotic spices. After three plates of that, I went for a dish of wildberry and spring leaf salad. I even tried the asparagus and acorn soup. With each bite, I felt my body gaining strength and energy. My head felt light and giddy. I drank more honey nectar than I thought my body could hold.