Children of Eden

by Joey Graceffa

  I hug my backpack to my chest and start to weep silently, my body shaking.

  I feel his arm around me. I stiffen, then relax, then lean into him, wetting his shoulder with my tears.

  “I’m so sorry about your mother,” he says.

  “And now I’m all alone,” I say miserably. “I can never go back home. My father wouldn’t want me, and even if he did . . . the Greenshirts will find out who my mother is, and find my dad and brother through her. What will happen to them?”

  “I don’t know,” he says gently. “Right now, we have to focus on keeping you safe. After that, maybe we can help them.”

  I have no idea how that can be possible. The two of us against all the might of the Center? Still, there’s something about him that gives me hope. He sounds too confident, too competent to be wrong.

  Or is he just telling me what I need to hear right now, so I can get through the moment?

  Either way, I’m grateful.

  “Thank you for saving me,” I say shyly from under the crook of his arm. He loosens his comforting hold, and I sit up . . . and scoot a little away. “I’m . . . I’m glad I have you with me. Another second child. Do you think we’re the only ones?”

  He’s silent for a long moment, staring at me so intently that I want to look away. But I hold his gaze until at last he whispers, “I have an entire family of second children, Rowan.”

  FOR A MOMENT I can’t breathe. More second children? A family of them?

  “Are you strong enough to move?”

  I nod vigorously. If it means meeting more second children, I’m strong enough to do anything! Sleep has relieved many of my aches, given my cuts time to scab, and even my ankle is a little less swollen. I won’t be winning any races, but I can walk.

  “Where are they?” I ask, and my eagerness must be apparent on my face because he laughs and says, “Easy now. You’ve waited sixteen years to meet more second children. You can wait another hour or two.”

  “Are they out here in the beanstalks? Are they in the outermost circle?” I’m rewarded with another one of his sly, mysterious smiles.

  “Second children are everywhere,” he says. “All over Eden, right under your feet, and you’d never know.” He springs to his own feet and offers me his hand. Even though I feel a lot better than I did twelve hours ago, I’m grateful for his help getting up.

  “We have to travel fast, and be inconspicuous,” he says. “What do you have in that pack? Can you leave it behind?”

  I scoop it up and sling it onto my shoulders. I haven’t even looked inside it, but it is the only thing I have from home, from Mom, and no force on Earth will make me part with it.

  “That answers that question,” he says, and starts walking. I scurry to catch up, feeling somehow that he’s disappointed in me.

  “When we get back into the city, you need to do exactly what I tell you. Understand? They’re actively looking for you, and the next hours will be extremely dangerous. Luckily, I know someone who can reduce the risk considerably.” He slows to wait for me. “Good thing you’re tall. You’ll look the part.”

  He knows an easier route through the tangle of rubble than the one I took, and I make it through with hardly a scratch. We emerge at the back of a building and he leads me inside, through a door barely hanging on its hinges.

  “Are these the second children?” I ask. In the dim light I see bodies sprawled in corners, lying on makeshift mattresses or on the cold bare floor. It’s hard to make out details, but their faces look gaunt. As we walk swiftly through, I see a young woman with a band tied tightly around her upper arm. Below it, blue-black veins bulge. There’s a needle in the crook of her arm . . .

  Lachlan takes my elbow and hustles me away. “No. We’d never let a second child come to this. We take care of our own. We protect each other, from the Center, and from ourselves—to the death.”

  I feel a deep shiver run down my spine.

  “Don’t these people need protection, too? Even though they aren’t second children?”

  I think I touched a nerve. “They have every opportunity that legitimacy can provide,” he snaps. “If they choose to destroy themselves, it’s not our problem.”

  I don’t know. There’s something in his eyes as he looks at the addicts that makes me think his inner thoughts don’t quite match his words.

  We’re through the building in a moment, exiting onto a narrow alley that takes us within a few steps to another building. We slither through a street-level window into an empty basement apartment, and wend our way through corridors until we emerge somewhere else. Over and over we do this, traveling mostly through basements of decrepit buildings, through abandoned warehouses and empty businesses, emerging only for a few seconds at a time, using the structures like a warren of tunnels to travel out of sight.

  It isn’t long before I’ve lost all sense of direction. I don’t know if we’ve traveled miles toward the Center or in a circle. Finally we slip from one basement into an adjoining building, climb five flights of stairs, and stop at a door locked with a thumbprint scanner. Lachlan presses his thumb to the pad. He seems to shift it restlessly as he presses down.

  I frown. “Is it a good idea to have your prints on record?” I ask.

  “Good thinking,” Lachlan replies. “Luckily the scanner is just a decoy. The door unlocks from the rhythm I just tapped in with my thumb pressure. It only scans the fingerprint if someone doesn’t tap the code. Then we can track whoever is trying to get in without authorization.”

  Clever. There’s apparently a whole world of trickery in Eden that I never imagined.

  Inside we find a businesslike middle-aged woman in the sort of suit typical of a Center official. Instinctively, I flinch behind Lachlan, but he greets her by name. “Hey Rose, do you have the day’s roster?” I peek around his shoulder and look at her eyes. They have the flat, dull sheen of the implants. Not a second child, then.

  “Of course, whippersnapper. When do I not have the roster?”

  He gives her a quick hug, a peck on the cheek.

  “Who’s this then?” she asks.

  “No one—yet. I’m taking her to the others.”

  Rose raises her eyebrows and looks me over. “Has she been tested yet? She really shouldn’t be here if she hasn’t been tested.”

  Lachlan glances at me. “In the last day she’s been tested as much as many other second children.”

  “But not as much as some,” she replies, looking at him hard. “Still, if you say she can be trusted . . .”

  “I do.”

  “Then follow me.” She leads us to a back room, and then to a closet full of Greenshirt uniforms. “The usual lieutenant for you, Lachlan?”

  “Rank without too much responsibility, that’s me.”

  “And I’m guessing recruit for this one.” She pulls two uniforms off of the racks and thrusts one at me. “Change. There.” I step behind a screen and strip off my dirty, torn clothes, feeling so strange being naked in the same room as strangers, my height making my shoulders and half my chest stick up over the screen. When I’ve struggled into the uniform I step out and Rose yanks the fabric into order. “Straighten your gig line, recruit!” she says, pulling my belt into alignment with my zipper.

  I look at myself in the mirror, wearing the uniform of the enemy. My eyes look frightened . . . until Rose hands me a pair of darkly tinted glasses. Then I look as menacing as any Greenshirt. I’m a little scared of my own reflection.

  Dressed as authority figures, we move through Eden unmolested. In the outer circles, people sidle out of our way. Closer to the Center, they mostly ignore us, though some nod in greeting, believing their elite position in society means they have nothing to fear. Some of the time we travel by autoloop, but at the end we’re on foot again. For my backpack, which would otherwise look out of place, Rose has given me a large tag that reads “Evidence.” I’m just a recruit finishing up a case.

  There is a brief moment when I recognize streets I walk
ed along with Lark, and the memory brings a pang. I look at each face, thinking I might see her. But she’d be in school, and wouldn’t recognize me in this uniform, and I couldn’t dare approach her even if I saw her.

  Then Lachlan’s pace quickens, and he leads me through streets at such a pace that I get disoriented again.

  Suddenly he says, “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” I say at once, not even thinking about whether it is true. People keep asking me that.

  “Then follow me.”

  He pulls me abruptly down a side street, kicks a loose grate aside, and points to what looks to me like a bottomless black pit. It is only just wider than my shoulders. I take an inadvertent step back.

  “Don’t think. Don’t question. Just jump.” He looks a little excited, like he’s wondering what I’ll do, whether I’ll disappoint him.

  I’ve never been afraid of climbing. Though I’ll never have an opportunity to climb a mountain, I know for a fact that no matter how high I ascend, it will never bother me. Falling, though, the very antithesis of climbing, scares me to death.

  What if this is all a trick, a trap? What if he’s working for the Center and this is a pit to my doom? What easier way to get rid of a second child than to convince her to voluntarily leap to her own death. This might be an abattoir filled with the bodies of . . .

  He pushes me.

  My hands claw for the edge but I’m falling down . . . down . . . the passage narrows. The sides are perfectly smooth, nothing to grab onto to slow my descent. The walls are closing in. I’m going to be wedged in here forever, left to die . . .

  As my body brushes the sides, though, the tunnel begins to slant and instead of falling I’m sliding smoothly. The slide levels out, and before I know it I’m skidding to a gentle stop. Now that it’s over and the adrenaline leeches from my body, I decide it was rather fun. I’d like to do it again—without all the fear of death part.

  I find myself in a stone chamber. Stone! Rock! Real natural minerals just like the walls of my own house! This must be an underground cave system. Phosphorescent strips along the floor offer a gentle glow, and I wonderingly examine the whorls and crevices of the cave, the formations that hang like jagged teeth from the ceiling. I’m so lost in the marvelous sight that Lachlan bumps me from behind when he slides down.

  “I told you to do exactly what I say,” he tells me brusquely. “There’s no time for indecision in a second child’s life. Any mistake can be your last.”

  Then it is a race through twists and turns that leave me baffled. I try to pay attention to our direction—and I try to admire the amazing natural cave system I never knew was under Eden—but Lachlan pulls me along at breakneck speed. Once, I’m sure, he leads me past the same rock formation three times.

  It is such an utterly baffling labyrinth down here! I realize that these confusing tunnels are the best layer of security imaginable, probably more effective than armed guards. Even if they found the entrance, which didn’t seem likely, the impossible maze down here would thwart any invader.

  Finally he slows, in a passage that looks like every other—arching stone walls, dim lights barely illuminating our feet.

  “We’re here,” Lachlan says, and turns to smile at me. “Are you ready? You’re about to meet your brothers and sisters. An entire family of second children.” He takes my hand and squeezes it quickly before releasing it.

  I feel my breath coming fast, and smile back. People like me! Second children who have made a life for themselves! I have no idea what kind of life that is, but I am giddy at the thought of finding out.

  Lachlan presses a hidden panel in the end of the cavernous chamber and the rock seems to split. A crevice opens up that turns into a door, cleverly hidden in the stone. It creaks slowly open to a black void.

  “Go on,” he urges, his smile so joyful and welcoming. I don’t repeat the mistake I made at the pit. Without question, without fear, I step through into the impenetrable darkness.

  There’s movement, hands on my body, something heavy and wet forced over my head so I’m trapped, suffocating.

  “No! Let her go!” I hear Lachlan bellow. “Rowan! No!” I hear the sound of fighting, but I’m being dragged away. I feel a prick in my arm, and the world goes blurry for a while . . .

  When I come to my senses, the heavy bag is still over my head, cinched tight at my neck. I can feel the cords of the drawstring draped over my shoulders.

  “She’s awake.” I hear a slosh, and someone dumps freezing water over my head. It soaks through the bag, making it cling tightly to my nose, my mouth. I can’t breathe! When I shake my head, I manage to make a small gap between the canvas and my mouth, just enough to suck in a little air. But it’s not enough, I feel light-headed, drowning on dry land.

  “Tell us your name.”

  I turn toward the unfamiliar voice. A hand grabs the back of the bag, along with some of my hair, and yanks my head back, exposing my throat. I am exposed, vulnerable. “Where did you get those uniforms? Who is that boy with you?” He shakes me until my teeth rattle. But I say nothing.

  For some seemingly endless time they question me, about my own identity, Lachlan’s, where I’m from and where I was headed. I don’t say a word, not even a lie. Not when they slap me hard across the face. Not when they tip me backward under a faucet that sends a steady drip, drip, drip of water onto my nose and mouth. I suck in pitiful amounts of air through the sodden bag, getting more water in my lungs than oxygen.

  I pass out twice, and each time they haul me upright, pull the bag away from my face to give me a little more breathing room until I’m fully conscious . . . then tip me backward again. I don’t know how long it lasts. It feels like hours.

  The voice comes close to my ear, growling through the bag. “This is only going to get worse. If you talk now, you can be a Center witness against the others. You’ll get off easy.” He sounds almost reasonable now. “That boy doesn’t care about you. You’re just a pawn in his traitorous schemes. He’s using you.”

  “No,” I start to babble. “He saved me. He was taking me someplace safe.”

  “Where?” the voice demands.

  “I don’t know. Please, let me go.”

  “What is your name?”

  I bite my tongue.

  “What is his name?”

  I shake my head, and he cuffs me on the temple.

  The questions begin all over again, in an endless nightmare. I feel like if I could see my captors, look them in the eye, I could bear it better. But these hard hands and harsh voices coming at me in the choking darkness are almost more than I can take. I don’t want to tell them anything. But I have a terrible feeling I will if this lasts much longer.

  I start to cry, and every time I breathe I can taste the salt of my own tears. I talk, begging, pleading, swearing I know nothing . . . and as the questions continue, I think I hear triumph in my interrogator’s voice. I might not be giving him useful information yet, but I’m talking, terrified, desperate, and he knows it is only a matter of time now.

  Then he makes a mistake. In one of his good-cop moments when he’s leaning close to my ear, making tempting offers of clemency in exchange for information, swearing I’ll be safe if only I tell him what he needs to know, he says the wrong thing.

  “Your mother didn’t die so that you could protect scum like that boy we caught you with.”

  A white-hot rage rises up within me, burning out my fear. How dare he talk about my mother! Was he the one who killed her? Him, or someone like him.

  I all but snarl beneath my soaking hood. My mother died for me. She died so that I could have a chance at a decent, safe life.

  No matter what this man promises, I’ll never have that with the Center or the Greenshirts. Maybe I’m caught. Maybe I’ll be imprisoned, or killed. But if what Lachlan said is true, there is a community of second children, living the safe, happy life Mom wanted so desperately for me. For their sakes, and for Mom’s memory, I won’t tell them a thing.r />
  My interrogator’s head is still close to mine as he murmurs his persuasive words. His fingers clutch my shoulders.

  “Get your hands off of me, you bikking Greenshirt!” I snap, and head-butt him in the nose.

  I hear a deeply satisfying crunch, a curse . . . and Lachlan’s voice saying, “That’s enough, Flint. I think she’s proven she won’t break.”

  THE WET BAG is stripped from my face, and I find myself in a stone room without right angles, a rounded, cave-like chamber. Lachlan is standing a few feet from me, his face hard. There’s another man in the room, too, an imposing man in his forties with silvered black hair. His eyes are blue-gray, almost as flat as implant eyes, but the dark blue rings around the irises mark them as natural, and him as a second child. Blood drips from his slightly off-center nose.

  “Everyone breaks, given time,” Flint says, his face impassive.

  I look from one man to the other. “This was a test?” I ask, incredulous. “This wasn’t real?”

  “It was completely real,” Flint says. “They’ll do that to you, and worse, if they catch you. We had to know you wouldn’t talk. At least, not right away. I’m responsible for every second child here, and I can’t risk their safety by letting in someone who is weak or untrustworthy.”

  Part of me is relieved. I was sure the nightmare would continue until it was unbearable, ending only in my death. But another part—the part that head-butted Flint in the face—is furious that they fooled me, frightened me, tortured me.

  Of the two, Lachlan is in arm’s reach. The knuckles I split punching that outer circle gang open up again on his cheekbone. I don’t care, because his face splits, too, right across that long crescent scar beneath his eye. He takes it without flinching, without the smallest movement of retaliation.

  Flint wraps his arms around me and effortlessly picks me up, turning me around and setting me down out of reach of Lachlan. I’m shaking, and I clench my hands together so they won’t see . . . and so I won’t punch anyone else. Violence doesn’t seem to have much effect on them anyway.