by R A Doty
Calla shrugged her shoulders. “Not really.” The Power Select’s words repeated in her head. If not for dedicated citizens such as you, Ancada would cease to exist.
“They put April back in the kennels,” Aaron said. “Carla told me they’re going to sever her vocal chords so she can’t speak anymore.”
“They can’t do that!”
“Shhh.” Aaron said. “She’s scheduled for the surgery tomorrow.”
“We have to help her, Aaron. There has to be something we can do.” Calla thought silently. “Maybe you can somehow get a message to the Power Select that she’s different from the others, and that’s why she learned how to speak so quickly.”
“Are you crazy? If the Power Elite ever found out she could speak they would harvest her immediately. That goes against everything Ancada stands for.”
“Then what do we do?”
“I think I’ve got a plan to save her, and you, but it may put both of you at a greater risk than you’re facing now.”
“What could possibly be worse than April being harvested or me being locked in this room to be forced to give birth to nutrimen?”
“Escaping to the mainland. Even if we managed to free April they would eventually find her, and then both of you would be dealt with immediately. Unfortunately, either way puts both of you at risk, but at least you have a chance to survive on the mainland.”
Calla considered the options, and the thought of leaving Ancada and going to the mainland terrified her. She had always been told how dangerous the world was outside of Ancada, and without the safety of a government controlling the mainland the chances of survival were bleak. She could easily stay in Ancada and perform her appointed duties, and probably live a decent life at some point in the future when she was no longer needed, but April would inevitably be harvested if she did. “How would we get to the mainland?”
“With one of Ancada’s boats. There’s one in particular that I use quite a bit as part of my job.”
“Why would you do this for us?”
“I don’t know. I never met anyone like April before. She’s different. It’d be a shame if anything were to happen to her.” Aaron smiled. “You’re different, too. Who in their right mind would teach a nutrimen to speak?”
Calla smiled and gave him a quick hug. “Thank you. You’re coming too, right?”
Aaron hesitated.
“You have to, Aaron.” They would eventually find out it was you that helped us, and who knows what they’d do to you.”
Aaron thought about it and realized Calla was right. Besides, he always wanted to see the mainland. Even as a small boy he fantasied what it must be like to live in the wild, free from government control, to do as you please. He was filled with excitement, and the idea of leaving Ancada made him feel nervous, yet, eager to join the girls. “Okay, I’ll go,” he said.
“Now let’s go find April,” Calla said.
Aaron’s attention turned to the couple passionately embracing each other on the television. The room’s sensors monitored a spike in his heart rate as he stared at the naked young woman.
Calla grabbed him by the hand. “Come on, Aaron. Let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
APRIL NO LONGER HAD a desire to speak. She no longer had a desire to learn, either. In fact, she no longer had much of a desire to do anything. She just wanted to exist until the time came. She always knew it would come eventually, but it was fun to pretend that things may have turned out differently, although she was too intelligent to believe it. She remembered a proverb she stumbled upon one evening when she first discovered Calla’s tablet: ignorance is bliss. It was as if it had been created just for her at this particular moment. She wondered what would be worse: not knowing what you’re missing, or knowing everything but not being able to have it. The answer suddenly became clear as she stared at the windowless concrete walls of her cell, thinking about all the people having such fun in the city at that exact moment. She smiled, remembering the day she had spent with Calla and Sarah. Her life had been non-existent until that day. The cries of children from across the hall pulled her from the moment. She turned in their direction.
A small girl stood naked in the center of a large room. A row of similarly naked children, both male and female, lined up against the wall, beside the girl. A woman dressed in white walked up to the child and positioned her so she faced directly forward. “Now raise your arms,” the woman shouted. The girl whimpered. “I said, raise your arms,” the woman repeated, lifting the girl’s arms. “Now keep them raised until I say otherwise.” The woman winced. “Why do you mainlanders always smell so bad?” She glanced at another woman standing across the room. “This one smells like dead fish.”
The woman walked over to the wall and grabbed a water hose coiled around a hook. She aimed the nozzle at the girl and pulled the handle. The girl gasped when the ice-cold water pelted her body. “Keep your arms up,” the woman shouted.
The girl raised her arms and turned her head to the side. After the water subsided, she cried and trembled from the cold. The other woman wrapped her in a towel and pulled her to the side, making room for the next child. After the girl was thoroughly dried she was pushed to another line where a much older boy was waiting. He comforted her with a hug—their pale, naked bodies seemingly glowing in the dimly lit room.
“Don’t cry, Jessie,” April heard the boy say. “I won’t let ‘em hurt you.”
After ten more children were cleaned and dried, the woman wrapped the hose around the hook on the wall. “There,” she said. “That’s the last of that batch. Let’s get them to their pens so we can get outta here.”
“What about her?” the other woman asked, glancing across the hall at the female nutrimen standing solitarily in her cell.
April turned away.
“She’s not one of them. Weston said not to touch her. I think she’s some kind of a pet-project of his. Anyway, she’ll be outta here first thing in the morning.” The women led the large group of children down the hall and through a steel double-door.
The sound of shuffling feet and whimpering voices echoed all the way back to April, as she stood with her face pressed tight to the bars watching the last of them slip through the doors. The doors flapped open and closed until finally coming to a stop. The hallway was eerily quiet, as if the children were never there at all. And then the lights went out and all was dark. With her arms stretched out in front of her, April maneuvered her way to a bed—the only piece of furniture in the cell.
TO SEE AARON WALKING down the hall with a nutrimen or surrogate never came as a surprise to the lab staff; it was his job. So when he walked past the main office gripping the wrist of a surrogate, nobody paid much attention to him; they just kept tapping their keyboards.
Calla, however, expected one of them to run after she and Aaron at any second. “Wasn’t there a less conspicuous way we could have gone?” she said, when they were well past the lab.
“There’s nothing to worry about. They don’t know what’s going on half the time.”
“I hope you’re right.” Calla stared through the window on each door as she passed. Dozens of young women stared blankly at the televisions in the rooms. Some were seated in a chair, an exact duplicate of the chair in her room, and some were lying on the bed. All had emotionless expressions on their faces. Some rested their hands on large, round stomachs, and many had stomachs no different than Calla’s. Calla stopped suddenly when she passed one of the rooms.
“What are you doing?” Aaron asked, being tugged to a halt.
“I thought I saw something.” Calla pulled Aaron back to the room. When she peered through the window she noticed a young woman sitting on the bed with her head facing the floor.
The same meadow and pond that appeared on Calla’s television was covering the wall in the background. The woman raised her head and stared at the door.
“It’s Sarah!” Calla said. “We’ve gotta get her outta there!”
“We can’t,” Aaron said, glancing through the window. “I don’t have the keys to this room.” He tugged Calla’s arm. “We have to get April, Calla, before we get caught.”
When Calla pressed her hand to the glass, Sarah lowered her head back toward the floor. Calla’s hand slipped from the window when Aaron pulled her away. She felt a great sense of regret having seen Sarah. How many others have been affected by her decision to speak to a nutrimen? What’s become of her parents? What will become of April, or Aaron? Would she do it again if she could turn back time? She had no answers, as she followed Aaron silently down the hall. All of the questions left her head when she noticed a large group of people walking toward she and Aaron from the other end of the hall.
“Good morning, Aaron,” one of two women said with a large group of children trailing behind. The other woman smiled at Aaron with a nod.
“‘Morning, ladies,” Aaron replied.
The first woman locked eyes with Calla, and their heads turned in each other’s direction as they passed.
“Who are all those children?” Calla asked Aaron when they turned a corner.
“Mainlanders. They’re for a new project Weston’s working on.”
“But they’re not nutrimen. I heard some of them speaking.”
Aaron shrugged his shoulders. “That’s all I know.” After walking through a pair of double doors, the hallway lit up, sensing movement. “April’s cell is just up ahead.”
“Why is she in a cell? And what is this place? I’ve never seen it before.”
“Because Weston wanted to isolate her until the operation. He didn’t want anyone else to know she could speak. He said it would change everyone’s opinion of the nutrimen, and they would look at them differently.”
“So what is this place? It looks like a prison.”
“It basically is. I’m not sure why, but they used to bring men they got from the mainland here.”
“For what reason?”
“I told you. I don’t know.”
Aaron stopped in front of a wall of bars and stared up and down the hall before retrieving a key from his pocket.
“April!” Calla yelled.
“Shhh,” Aaron said, opening the cell.
When the door opened, Calla rushed over to April and wrapped her in her arms. “I missed you so much.”
April glanced at Aaron as Calla held her tight. Aaron smiled.
“We’re getting you outta here,” Calla said, pulling away. “You remember Aaron?”
April nodded. “Where will we go, Calla? You’ve already got into enough trouble because of me. You don’t have to do this. I would understand.”
“Of course I do. We’re sisters. Remember?”
“Wait. What?” Aaron said.
Calla smiled. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later.”
“Okay, but we have to get going. You guys can reminisce when we’re on the boat.”
Aaron led the girls down the hall and out a door that brought them to an alley just off Main Street in downtown Ancada. “Okay, here’s the plan,” he said, the girls huddling before him. “The boat is docked at the last pier before the kennels. Its name is Morning Sunrise.”
“I remember seeing that one,” Calla said. “Isn’t that the light blue and yellow one?” Calla asked.
Aaron nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’ve always loved that one. It’s so pretty.”
Aaron didn’t quite know how to respond. He never thought of a boat as pretty. He continued with the plan. “We’ll take the boat to the mainland and then, who knows, I guess we’ll take it from there. Any questions?” The girls said nothing. “Good. Now let’s go.”
Aaron hurried down the alley and stopped suddenly. “Dammit,” he said.
“What?” Calla asked.
“I think I forgot to lock April’s cell back up.”
“Yeah, so?”
“If it isn’t locked a notification is sent to the main office after ten minutes. You guys go to the boat, and I’ll catch up. If I’m not there in fifteen minutes, leave without me.” Aaron started walking and then stopped again. “In case I don’t come back, the ignition code to start the boat is one, two, three.”
“Couldn’t you have come up with a better code than that?” Calla said. “That’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?”
“I’m not the one that determines the codes. The Power Elite is. Now come on, you’d better go.”
“Try to hurry, Aaron,” Calla said. “And be careful. I never drove a boat before.”
The girls ran forward, and Aaron went back in the direction they came. April was the first to reach the door in the concrete wall behind Calla’s house. She pushed the green button.
The door opened just as Calla arrived. “How’d you know how to open it?” she said.
April smiled. “It just seemed logical to push the green button.”
WHEN AARON REACHED April’s cell, the door was wide open. He thought he may have forgotten to lock it, but he could have sworn he closed it. He carefully grabbed the bars with both hands and quietly pulled the door shut. When he turned to leave he was startled to see Carla Briggs standing in front of him with two policemen by her side.
“Forget something?” Carla said, her arms crossed over her chest.
“No, Carla. I mean, yes. I just wanted to make sure everything was locked up before I left for the day. I have a dental appointment this morning.” Aaron backed up as Carla walked closer.
“I had such high hopes for you, Aaron, coming from such good stock. And now you’ve thrown it all away. Such a pity. So where are they?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, Carla.”
“And to think I trusted you.” Carla nodded to the two men, and they grabbed Aaron by his arms. “Take him to the harvesting room. Weston has plans for him.”
“THIS IS REALLY NICE,” Calla said, standing behind the steering wheel of the boat. “Look at all the gauges. I wonder what they’re for.”
April walked over to Calla and began pointing at the gauges. “That one tells how much charge is left in the battery. That one shows the direction we’re going. That one tells the speed.”
“How do you know so much about boats?” Calla said with a laugh.
“I found everything I wanted to know on your tablet.”
“That’s crazy. Why would you want to know about boats?”
“Everything interests me. Especially modern inventions and technology.”
“It’s been at least fifteen minutes,” Calla said. “Aaron should’ve been here by now. What do we do?”
“He said we should leave without him.”
“We can’t just leave him.”
April tapped Calla’s shoulder. “Look,” she said, staring back at the beach. “I don’t think we have a choice.”
Six men dressed in red were walking from house to house, knocking on doors.
“We gotta go,” Calla said, frantically searching for the ignition. “How do you start it, April?”
April stood behind the wheel and punched the numbers 1, 2, and 3 on a numeric keypad. The boat hummed to a start. She thought for a second, trying to rekindle the memory of when she briefly studied boats on Calla’s tablet, and then pushed a familiar looking lever forward. The boat slowly began to move but then stopped abruptly.
“Wait,” Calla said. She rushed to the side of the boat and untied a rope hooked to the pier. “Okay, let’s go.”
April pushed the lever again and the boat left the pier. She steered toward open water and pushed harder. The boat raced forward, nearly causing Calla to lose her balance.
Calla noticed the men staring in their direction. “Faster, April!” And then she saw the house she used to call home. It must be so quiet, now. She thought of her bedroom, the closet filled with clothes, and the collection of books she had obtained over the years for when she wanted to actually hold a book in her hands and not listen to the story being read to her. She thought about the soft, comfortable bed
she had always looked forward to climbing into, especially on cold winter’s nights—all elaborate props of a dollhouse. She was glad she discovered the truth and her fictitious life had come to an end, but deep inside, she knew a part of her would always miss it.
The boat sliced through the ocean as it headed toward the mainland, a V-shaped wake trailing from behind. Tall, dilapidated buildings of a once thriving city rose up from the land, and in the midst of the buildings glistened a cross atop a church steeple. Having read the Holy Bible in its entirety on Calla’s tablet, April steered toward the cross thinking it represented a place that would be safe. She was excited to begin her new life, and the thought of having Calla as a sister was more than she could have ever hoped for. As the wind tossed her hair away from her face, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the salty sea air filling her lungs. She smiled.
“Thanks for reading! If you loved the book and have a moment to spare, I would really appreciate a short review as this helps new readers find my books. And, truth be told, I really enjoy reading that someone enjoyed the characters or stories I created. What greater pleasure could a writer receive? Thank you so much in advance.”
R.A. Doty
To learn more about R.A. Doty and his upcoming books visit: www.radoty.com
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Other Books by R.A. Doty
Immediate Empire book two:
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE
(released early 2019)
You might also like:
THE LAST CICADA
(a stand-alone novel)