The two of them laughed.
“What are you two going to do, anyways?” Zeke asked. “You can’t build a house for the two of you in the next few days, and I doubt you’ll want to spend your wedding night in the same bedroom as your brother and sister.”
“Very true,” Jonah said, smiling. “But my dad, Harrison and I have actually been slowly building a home in the woods towards the creek. It’s a tiny one room cabin, but it will do for us until we have a couple kids of our own. It won’t be ready by then, though, and we’ve decided not to ask any folks to help. Everybody has already helped so much with Talitha, so we didn’t want to cause any more extra work.
“Schultz has already agreed to lend us his home for a couple of weeks until we’re finished. I think he’s actually looking forward to staying with my family – to be honest, I think he’s been getting lonely. Lately he’s been talking a lot more about kids and a wife than I’ve ever heard before. Maybe because he’s helped us out so much, and watched me grow up, and now here I am getting married. He always says he’s comfortable being alone, but I don’t believe him anymore.”
Zeke gave Jonah an awkward look.
“You’ve been talking to Schultz about women and loneliness?” Zeke asked with sarcasm in his voice. “Are you the expert on love and all that stuff, now?”
“No, no,” Jonah snickered. “I haven’t asked him about any of it – he just keeps volunteering his thoughts. I don’t know what to tell him – he’s our parents’ age. I don’t ever say anything, he just talks. I don’t feel like I should be scolding him for telling me this stuff, especially considering everything he does for my family.”
“What is it he always says?” Zeke wondered aloud. “Women don’t want to be treated like junk, and that’s the only thing I know about?”
Jonah laughed.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“It would be a shame if Schultz never has a kid,” Zeke said. “He’s a good guy. And I don’t know who on Earth would want to manage all that junk after he’s gone.”
Jonah agreed.
“Well, it sure is nice of him to let you stay in his house,” Zeke said. “The view out the window in the mornings will sure be romantic, the way the rust catches the sunrise.”
“You’re exactly right,” Jonah laughed.
He stood, extending his hand to shake Zeke’s, then moved over to shake Gabriel’s.
“I’d better get going,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of things to do in the next few days, and if I don’t leave soon it’ll be nightfall. Not that I haven’t traveled this path by stars before, but I’d prefer not to chance getting stuck in the cold.”
“I was wondering when you’d leave,” Zeke joked. “I’ve been itching to break out the marbles and engage in deep conversation with this talkative guy over here.”
Gabriel smiled, displaying his off-white teeth. He merely grunted.
“Congratulations and good luck,” Zeke said. “I’ll see you and your wife when I get back.”
“Congrats,” Gabriel quietly muttered.
Jonah thanked them, bundled up, then went outside and jumped into the saddle on his horse.
CHAPTER TEN
“You have ten hours. This is message four-eight-two, and it comes from the highest Leaders of the Upper Levels.”
Quilen Coomy’s alert had been looping all day, the time decrementing on every hour, recently switching to ten hours. The message was unlike those that they were accustomed to receiving – very little information, but still with the impending doom of a countdown.
The Midlet had been buzzing since the officers had escaped, but as soon as the cryptic message started the laborers seemed to be losing their minds. Preparations for an invasion of control officers were being made, fashioning absolutely anything into a weapon. Hokmah and Reena continuously encouraged the people to refrain from violence, but their fear was too great. They knew that in ten hours or less, they would need to be prepared to fight, and possibly die, in order to catch a glimpse of the surface.
Their original plans had been completely scrapped. Everything they had intended hinged upon certain elements of surprise – slow, methodical changes to the Facility as a whole that would be easy for laborers to pull off in a normal circumstance. They would now have to deal with even more scrutiny than before if they decided to return to their old assignment posts.
But instead, the people decided to make their stand. They would rather die with a dream than live in hopelessness.
They were bracing doors, welding a number of entrances shut, and lining up defenses. They hoped if they could funnel all of the control officers through one location, they could damage anything the Regulation Committee would send far more than any loses they would receive. Though they did plan on the Stunners no longer being set to a low, innocuous level. The ones who were prepared to stand at the front lines were brave men and women who had already lost their families. They volunteered in order to create chaos and entropy, hoping that perhaps the control officers would quickly retreat from fear. But they were prepared to sacrifice themselves on the Stunners in order to disarm the enemies.
Reena and Hokmah were back in her communal sleeping unit, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of anticipation. They had been going over their battle strategy – something that neither one of them was prepared for or had ever done before. Reena asked Hokmah over and over if this was really what the Maker could want, and why she shouldn’t give herself up to appease Coomy’s demands.
“It will not stop,” Hokmah had reassured her multiple times. “If you die – if we attempt to simply go back to how it was – it will be worse. We all pledged to be part of this same rebellion only days ago. Everyone understood then what they committed to.”
She was not comfortable with others sacrificing themselves, when she felt so strongly that they were sacrificing themselves for her. She regretted her part in everything, wishing to go back a few months to before talk of a rebellion became clear.
But then she thought of Azazel. Watching him walk into an incinerator for no reason other than being a laborer. And she thought about her family. Her strong, loving husband who cared far more for her than himself. Her young son who had his entire life ahead of him.
And then she thought of every other death she had seen in the Midlet. She knew no one who simply died of old age. And beyond death, she thought of their treatment. She could merely look at faces to know how long ago it was that they were beaten for not being a perfect laborer. For not being a soulless machine that served the Upper Levels with super-human ability.
She watched Yidel walk into the busy sleeping unit, his face bruised and blood still dried in his hair and on his shirt. Soon after it happened, he had told them of how the control officers escaped – how one of them picked the lock on their chain after he must have dosed off while guarding them. He had told them that he awoke to being beaten, then was dragged to one of the doors to the outside that happened to be away from everyone’s view. He then told them about the officers knocking him out just before making their way out of the quiet tunnels.
The story was easily accepted, and it was discussed that the officers must have known more about the layout of the Midlet than they had let on. They decided that they were foolish for assuming mere chains would hold them, and that no extra security was needed throughout the tunnels and halls at the time. They would learn from this oversight if they had any future prisoners.
As he approached Reena, Yidel was sweating and his hands were shaking. It matched the look of many other men and women in the Midlet. The blood was only slightly fresher than others, but the nervousness was the same.
“Reena,” he whispered to her. “Could I have a moment with you?”
Reena looked at him with empathy, seeing a fellow laborer who was afraid. He looked exactly like she felt on the inside. “Of course,” she said, motioning for Hokmah to give the two of them a minute.
“No, I mean—”
Yidel stood
for a moment, his eyes flitting back and forth between the various faces in the room.
“Alone,” he finally said. “In a different room. I… I remember something that one of the control officers said before they knocked me out, and I’d like to discuss it with you.”
Hokmah’s face grew concerned. “Shouldn’t we all hear it?” he asked.
Yidel stumbled over his words for a moment.
“I’d feel more… comfortable… If I could, uh, talk to Reena elsewhere. Just the two of us.”
Reena put her hand on Hokmah’s shoulder in reassurance. “It’s okay,” she said first to Hokmah, then to Yidel. “Yes, I understand. Let’s talk.”
The two of them walked out of the room, Yidel’s eyes still jumping from person to person. Hokmah held a slight frown for a moment, but then went back to hovering over the new plans they had been writing on paper.
Yidel swerved through fellow laborers who were running through the dim, dingy metal halls with purpose. Reena had to quicken her steps to keep up with his pace.
“Yidel,” she called to him, “where are we going? Aren’t there quiet corners throughout this place?”
“Yes,” he said, determined. “But, I’d really like to make sure no one else can hear us.”
He paused for a moment before following up with, “At first. After we talk, I know you’ll need to tell everyone – but I would feel better discussing all of it in private with you first.”
Reena silently obliged, making a few more turns before stopping at Yidel standing in front of a door. He jiggled the handle, obviously fighting with the latching mechanism in the wall.
“Yidel, I know we can find another—”
“No, this room will work,” he said, cutting her off. A moment later, a subtle click freed the door to swing open. The small unit was completely unoccupied, which was rare for their current situation.
“Okay,” Reena said. “What did you want to tell me?”
“Hold on,” Yidel said as they moved inside. He waited for her to get through the door then pushed it closed. He again jiggled the handle until a click indicated that the latch had connected.
“I’m sorry for all of this, Reena,” he said, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. He put one of his palms on his forehead.
“It’s okay, my friend,” she said as she moved towards him with kindness in her face. “No one blames you for what happened with the guards. We all understand how it could have happened, and how it could have easily been any one of us in your place.”
She put her hand on his shoulder, her face as encouraging as she should make it. He shook away from her hand and moved towards the opposite side of the room. She followed.
“No,” he said. “I’m sorry for all of this.”
He stood in the corner, looking away from Reena. She looked at him confused, opening her mouth to speak, but Yidel’s words cut her off before she began.
“We’re ready,” he said just slightly louder than his normal speaking voice.
As soon as the words left his lips, a panel of the wall burst into the room, sliding across the floor. Before she could react, control officers were diving into the unit with their Stunners ready.
The only thing Reena was able to say was “What?” before one the Stunners connected with her midsection and her eyes closed. Her body slumped, dropping to the floor. She was scooped up by two officers while a third spoke into his wristile.
“Operation was smooth and successful, sir,” he said. “Their leader is in our possession and the informer is safe.”
Yidel couldn’t hear the response. He watched his friend’s feet dragging against the grated opening in the wall, slipping out of sight. It happened so quickly that it barely registered in his head. It was almost as if he hadn’t just betrayed one of his friends.
But a small sense of regret clouded around him.
“Yidel, right?” the officer asked, snapping him out of a short trance.
“Uh, yes,” Yidel responded.
“You are to come with us through the tunnels to meet with the Leaders.”
Yidel’s eyes widened a bit. He had made a request to the leaders, already confirmed by the alert messages looping over all public tiles in the Midlet. He had brought Reena when he said he would, right after they announced that ten hours remained. He thought at this point that he would simply transition into life on the Upper Levels – he wasn’t prepared to actually meet with the Leaders.
“Uh, okay,” Yidel said as he crawled into the tunnel, followed by two control officers.
.- -.-. -
Quilen was pacing in the hallway outside of the sector’s jail units when the control officers arrived. Gisk was late – he had said previously that he wanted to be there to personally smack the face of the laborer leader when she was brought in, but apparently something had been more important. It wasn’t surprising, as Quilen knew Gisk had a whole Facility to watch.
Quilen briefly looked up at the slits of the air duct in the wall, noting that the seams had been welded shut in response to the last incident in the sector’s prison.
I should’ve chosen another cell, he thought to himself, remembering his daughter balled up in the corner.
The officers dragged Reena into the cell, tossing her on the floor. She moaned groggily, not forming any words, as the officers exited the cell and shut the door behind them.
Quilen turned from her and noticed that the laborer who had set up the capture was standing in front of him in the hall, flanked by two control officers.
“Yidel, correct?” Quilen asked.
“Yes, sir,” he responded.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Quilen said coldly. He was relieved that the laborer leader was imprisoned, and that it might be the end of the problem, but he was slightly frustrated that it took one of them to make that happen. He didn’t love the idea of executing them for no reason, but he still felt almost offended at their presence. And here was one who had earned a way out – a place with the rest of the citizens. With his people.
“It is my understanding that your new identity is still being set up,” he continued, “as well as your new family unit and purpose assignment. Do you have any skills that could transfer to an assignment on the Upper Levels?”
Yidel smiled at the thought of a job without constant pain. “Well, sir,” he began, “I’ve been working on the Resource Harvester Extenders for most of my life. Mechanics, welding, fluid plumping—”
“Resource officer, then, perhaps,” Quilen interrupted him. “My advice is this: Don’t let anyone else know about the other assignments that you’ve worked on. If you want to fit in up here, you’ll soon need to forget that you were a laborer.
“Mr. Gisk, the chairman of the Regulation Committee, wanted to be here to give you his thanks in person, but he’s unavailable.”
“Wait just a moment,” an out of breath voice called from down the hallway.
Mr. Gisk waddled around the corner, his feet strangely silent with the weight that they were carrying. “Don’t say anything else without me,” he said, as if he were running at top speed.
As he neared, one of the control officers ran down the hallway and came back with a chair. Gisk collapsed on the chair and held his hand up until he caught his breath.
“What’s your name?” he finally asked after his wheezing grew more regular.
“Yidel,” the uncomfortable laborer responded.
“That’s right,” Gisk said, as if he were remembering. “Come a bit closer, Yidel.”
Yidel approached him and Gisk pointed at one of the control officers, motioning for him to come closer as well. The officer did so, and Gisk continued to beckon him closer until they were practically arm-in-arm. He reached his hand near the officer’s hip.
“Yidel, thank you so much for your service to the Facility and its citizens,” Gisk said as he grabbed the officer’s Stunner and smacked Yidel with it in one motion.
Yidel collapsed to the ground. Gisk looked at
the object in his hand, raising the level of intensity, then struck Yidel’s body again. He held it against the laborer until his convulsing ceased.
Gisk then lowered the intensity of the Stunner and handed it back to the officer. Quilen stared with his mouth open wide.
“Sir, why did you do that?” Quilen asked in surprise.
Gisk looked at Quilen with indignation.
“Honestly,” Gisk said, relaxing his face. “Did you want that dirty laborer living amongst the normal citizens? He doesn’t belong up here. The next thing you know, fifty more would be trying to strike such a deal. You leave out one crumb and the ants swarm. Somehow they find the smallest cracks to get through. As long as you destroy the first, the trail seems to go cold.”
Quilen continued staring at Yidel’s body as the control officers dragged it away by Gisk’s command.
“When that one wakes up,” Gisk said, motioning to Reena, “make sure you get every ounce of information from her. If she’s not alone, then this isn’t over. But understand that I’m still holding you personally responsible for whatever happens.”
Quilen didn’t have the emotional strength to even show that he understood the command. He simply watched Yidel’s lifeless feet disappear around the corner.
“We’ll post an alert to the laborers that we have her after the time is up,” Gisk said. I want them all to fear our attack so that they can feel our mercy when we don’t show up. That is, if we don’t. I haven’t decided if this sector’s laborer population shouldn’t simply be eradicated. It would be an inconvenience to bring so many laborers from other sectors, but it probably would not be a good idea to trust the ones that are there now.”
Gisk rocked back and forth until he had the momentum to get out of the chair, then he stood.
“Either way, they should have time to anticipate her execution,” he said as he lumbered away. “Let’s make it a celebration of sorts – an act of a new treaty. If we let them live, let’s give them a day or so for it to sink in that their little schemes will always fail, and that they should be grateful for any shred of life that we decide to allow them to have. And execute her more… theatrically… than simply ‘sending her to the surface.’”
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