Anomalies

by Sadie Turner

  In the moonlight, I climb down from the cave and find myself constantly looking over my shoulder as I take back roads into town. Before I realize it, I am at Annika’s house. I stand in front of the burnished steel door—the same door I’ve rushed through every day of my life. And I wait. I can hear Annika’s family laughing in the dining room, plates clattering as the family eats dinner. I tentatively lift up my hand and knock, waiting nervously until Annika’s mother opens the door.

  I can only imagine how terrible I must look—wet, bedraggled, and barefoot, and wearing only my father’s sweatshirt. But my fears are assuaged when Annika’s mother sighs with relief, pulling me into her welcoming arms.

  “Keeva, we’ve been so worried about you, honey,” Mrs. Aames says softly.

  Without preamble, I start to bawl.

  “WELCOME TO THE HEART OF THE OPERATION,” Sobek said as his son followed Claudia Durant through the silver metal doors to the inside of the observation room.

  “What operation?” Calix walked up to the dark window that served as a two-way mirror. On the other side, he could see butterflies. Hundreds of butterflies darted through the air as Protectors busily prepared ropes that were dangling from the ceiling.

  “What is this, father?” Calix demanded.

  Sobek’s eyes danced merrily. “Have a seat, Son. It’s just beginning. You’ll see the first pair from Bunk 1 in mere minutes.” He turned to Claudia Durant. “It never gets old, does it Claudia?”

  “No sir,” she smiled before turning her attention back to the play in front of her.

  I am safe.

  “Tell me everything,” Annika insists when we get to her room.

  “I will,” I promise, “but I have to take a shower first.” I grab the one-piece bodysuit that Mrs. Aames has given me along with a pair of snuggly boots, and I walk down the hall to the bathroom. It feels so good to stand in the shower stall and instruct the heater to go up to 110 degrees. My hair is covered in ash and I wash it twice to get out all the soot. I want to stay in the stall as long as I can. I need a quiet place where I can digest everything that has happened, but my best friend is waiting for me. Annika was quiet all through dinner; clearly her mother had instructed her family to give me space. Mrs. Aames is a teacher at the secondary school and knows how to handle crisis situations. Once I finally stopped crying, she brought me into the dining room. She filled my plate and told me to eat until I was stuffed. I was in no mood to argue, as I was famished. I shoveled the chicken and mashed potatoes and garlicky mushrooms into my mouth as fast as I could. I knew Annika was dying to know what had happened, but she dutifully obeyed her mother’s request.

  Reluctantly, I step out of the shower and squeeze the water out of my hair. After I dry myself off, I change into the sleepwear and put a disposable head on the solar toothbrush so I can brush my teeth. Feeling warm and cozy, I go back to Annika’s room and slide into bed.

  “Everyone thought you were dead,” Annika says when I come into the room. Her tone is accusatory but soon softens. “I mean, I didn’t. I never would.”

  “Good.” I’m not sure what to say.

  “Besides, they never found the bodies, either yours or your dad’s, so I knew you were alive.”

  “Who is everyone?” I ask.

  “The mediacasters. It’s been on the news all morning. There are never fires around here, especially so close to the ocean, so it’s been on the same loop all day.” Annika clicks the remote and the small hologram appears on the wall. There are pictures of where my house used to be and the smoke. So much smoke. Annika taps her Third and looks at me, expecting me to do the same.

  “Um, it got messed up in the fire,” I lie as I rub the imposter Third. “I’ll get it fixed first thing tomorrow.”

  A flicker of suspicion crosses Annika’s face before she nods and snaps off the screen. “You’re not missing much, it’s the same thing over and over. Early morning fire. Missing family. No bodies found. Blah, blah, blah. Now tell me what happened!”

  “Honestly, I don’t really remember.” I say, not prepared to tell Annika the truth. Even though she’s my best friend, I feel like my conversation with my father is too private to share. I am not ready to tell Annika about his secret papers or the fake identity chips or the brutal Protectors who tasered him right in front of me and then took him away.

  So I start with the truth.

  “I was swimming early. You know I’ve been having these crazy nightmares since camp, and it was the first time I slept through the night. So I went out for an early morning swim. I had been gone almost an hour when I smelled the smoke. It was awful. The closer I got to shore, the harder it was to breathe. There was a slight wind, so the fire felt even bigger than it really was. When I got back to the house, it was completely engulfed in flames.”

  Now, the lies. As I speak, I concentrate on my fingernails, which still have soot in them. Remembering Max’s interrogation lessons, I speak slowly and confidently. “I … I couldn’t find my father anywhere. It was so early and there was no one around. I kept screaming for him, but he didn’t answer. I even tried to go into the house, but the fire was everywhere. I guess I must have inhaled too much smoke looking for him that I got really dizzy and disoriented. I kind of remember walking on the beach for a while, but I honestly don’t remember where.” I look up, the next part is the truth. “And I guess I fell asleep.”

  “For the whole day?” Annika asks.

  “Yeah. I was freaked out that I couldn’t find my father and that my home had just burned down. I mean, nothing was left.” I feel myself tearing up, “Not even a holo of my mom. I honestly just got away from the smell of the smoke and walked down the beach a bit before curling up and going to sleep. I came here the second I woke up.”

  “Why were you wearing your dad’s sweatshirt?”

  “He gave it to me.” Another truth. I just hadn’t specified when exactly he had given it to me.

  Annika seems satisfied and puts her arm around me. “You know you can stay with me as long as you want. And I’m sure they’ll find your dad. Maybe he got disoriented and wandered off also.”

  “Maybe,” I say and then spend the next two hours listening to her moon over Dante. She shows me all the holos from him on her identity watch. He is cute and funny and Annika is charmed … almost beyond words. Every time she watches one of his holos, her Third buzzes. It is strange to see her so satisfied. So happy. So content.

  She has completely forgotten my situation and is engrossed in her own.

  CALIX KNEW WHAT IT MUST FEEL LIKE to be a lab rat.

  He sat between his father and Claudia Durant, behind a secret two-way mirror as pairs of children were paraded in front of him. They were clearly half-asleep and unaware of what was happening. He watched as a small, blond boy and a petite, mocha-skinned girl were led into the cavernous room. Hands clasped together, they each wore knee length sleep tunics. His was red and hers was purple. A Protector gave them each a cup of water and the children drank.

  “What are they drinking?” Calix asked, but both his father and Claudia Durant ignored him as their eyes were glued to the scene.

  After drinking the liquid, the children blinked their eyes several times, immediately dizzied from the drugged potion. A Protector then wrapped a thick rope around the small couple, binding them together. The dazed children quickly began to cry, but everyone ignored them. As the first Protector finished knotting them into a tight cocoon, another Protector turned a large metal wheel as the pair was slowly hoisted up to the ceiling.

  “What is this, Father? Stop. They’re crying.” Calix jumped up and banged on the wall, but no one could hear him. No one could see him. He watched in horror as the children were flipped over so that they were suspended upside down.

  And then they began to spin.

  I am awake.

  The soft murmur of voices wakes me up.

  I click on my watch … “Kenzie’s” watch. It’s 4:30 a.m., far too early for anyone to be up. I cree
p out of bed and open Annika’s door. I hear distinct voices at the bottom of the stairs. Judging from the chorus of voices, they are more people than just Mr. and Mrs. Aames. I kneel down on the landing and crane my neck to peek through the banisters. I can see the backs of Annika’s parents, who are standing at the door. They speak in furtive whispers.

  “Do you know what time it is?” Mrs. Aames demands.

  “We don’t want to risk losing her again.” I recognize the big bald Protector from the previous day.

  “Her Third has been deactivated,” the smaller Protector says.

  “I know. That’s why I called you. But I didn’t think you were going to wake us up in the middle of the night. I was planning to bring her in after breakfast.”

  “We can’t risk it, Citizen Aames. She’s a person of interest and considered dangerous.”

  “Keeva?” Mr. Aames chuckles. “I’ve known that girl since she was a baby, she wouldn’t kill a fly.”

  “She’s an Anomaly, sir. Nothing is as it seems.” The Protector is trying to push his way in the door, but Mrs. Aames blocks him.

  “My house. My rules,” she barks at him, before adding, “My prisoner.”

  I’m stunned. Did Mrs. Aames just call me her prisoner? And why would she call the Protectors on me? Last night, she was so nurturing, she made me feel so safe.

  “Did she have anything with her?” the Protector asks, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Nothing.” Mrs. Aames moves to let the men in. “Now, just relax. I don’t want to spook Keeva, and I certainly don’t want to upset my daughter. Honey, make the gentleman a cup of caffeine. I’ll go get her.”

  I quickly retrace my steps to Annika’s room, slip under the covers and pretend that I am asleep. Seconds later, I hear the door open and Mrs. Aames’s feet padding on the carpet toward the bed.

  “Keeva, sweetie, wake up.” Mrs. Aames’s touch is gentle and I feel her push a strand of hair away from my face.

  “What is it?” I feign the crackly voice of someone who had been unceremoniously awoken.

  “They’ve found your father.” She smiles, “You can go see him now.”

  Why is she lying? Mrs. Aames has been like a mother to me ever since I lost my own mother. Why is she betraying me like this?

  I force a smile back and say, “Sure. Just give me two minutes.”

  She gets up and goes to the door, lingering for a second. “Everything’s going to be all right, Keeva.”

  “I know,” I say tersely, watching her shut the door. The second she’s gone, I put on the boots and go to the window. Annika is still fast asleep, snoring so loudly she doesn’t hear me as I pry open the window and climb out onto the ledge. I easily jump onto the nearby branch of the oak tree just outside Annika’s bedroom window, the same one we’ve used to climb in and out of her house since we were kids. I shimmy down the tree and race out into the darkness of the early morning. I can’t stay here. Nowhere in my beloved Ocean Community is it safe.

  I have to get to Sabbatical City and find Labyrinth.

  “I CALL IT A TRAUMA-BASED, mind-control technique,” Sobek said proudly once the first set of children were released and sent back to their bunks.

  “It’s psychotic.” Calix was stunned by the events unfolding in front of him. Another pair of children was being led into the room. It was like an assembly line. The pairs were brought in, drugged, bound together, hoisted to the air, spun around and around, and then released. “What’s the point?”

  “The point? The point?” Sobek uncharacteristically raised his voice. “The point, son, is that my technique uses a combination of psychology, neuroscience, and ritual to enslave the initiates and create compliant citizens of the Global Governance.”

  “They are five years old!” Calix screamed.

  “Indeed. Their minds are at their prime. They are most open to be manipulated. They are ideal candidates.”

  “So, you hang them upside down and torture them?”

  “Torture is such a primitive word.” Sobek grinned, “I prefer ‘educate.’ We are educating them to be productive citizens.”

  “How?”

  “Watch.” Sobek pointed to another part of the room where two children were being choked. Protectors put their large hands around the childrens’ small throats and throttled, strangling them in short shakes, until their victims passed out. In another section of the room, children were being dunked in water tanks and held under until they almost drowned. Calix felt extremely nauseous; however, his anger was stronger than his revulsion.

  “You need to stop this right now, Father. It’s sick.”

  “It’s protocol,” Sobek said, and nodded to Claudia Durant.

  “Calix, your father has created a brilliant way to form a productive and compliant society,” Claudia Durant insisted. “These children don’t remember any of this. MC-5 is simply a blur for them. Maybe they remember painting or kick-ball or arts and crafts. This part of the camp is so deeply embedded in their subconscious that they will have no memory of it. You see, we are using these methods to block the victim’s capacity for conscious processing, and then we are able to implant thoughts, directives, and perceptions in their unconscious mind, which helps them feel, think, and perceive things … such as their need for an intended partner. That need becomes so deep that they have little time to dissent as their sense of wholeness and purpose is completely wrapped up in their future spouse.”

  “Don’t you people see what’s wrong with this?” Calix sputtered. He started to choke.

  Claudia Durant quickly poured him a glass of water.

  “There is nothing wrong with creating a peaceful world without dissent.”

  “Well, I dissent. I won’t stand for this,” Calix said as he downed the water in one gulp.

  Both Sobek and Claudia Durant watched Calix as his eyes quickly became glassy.

  “What’s happening?” Calix mumbled through a dry mouth. He looked at the empty glass. He was having trouble focusing. “What did you do to me?”

  “We’re educating you.”

  “I am Kenzie.”

  I smile at the chunky lorry driver.

  Truckers are constantly stopping at the diner stops along the route to Sabbatical City. After leaving Annika’s, I take back roads to the highway and duck into the first roadside diner. I sidle into an empty leather booth and survey the truckers. Most are from Labor Community, who have come from as far south as the tip of Old Mexico, hauling water or goods from Agricultural Community. They are loners, usually singles whose intended others have passed on. They are mostly older, around my father’s age. When I enter the diner, there are six truckers in the middle of their meals. Four male Labors and two women from Agricultural Community. I pick the one who is just finishing up her lunch and follow her to the charge station where she is unhooking her truck. She is dressed in a brown uniform, complete with a baseball cap that says Orchard Harvest. When she sees me, she gives me the once over before I introduce myself.

  “You need a ride, kiddo?”

  “I do.”

  “Then you’ve come to the right driver. I was getting tired listening to the media waves. Could use some human conversation.”

  “You don’t mind?” I’m tentative. I’m not really in the mood to be chatting.

  “Not at all. Hop on in, Kenzie, I’m Harrigan McFeely.” The ponytailed driver smiles and we step up to her eighteen-wheeler labeled “Oranges.”

  “You from around here, Harrigan?” I make small talk, hoping that she is unfamiliar with the Ocean Community and the missing Anomaly whose house has just burned down.

  “Nope. Down south. Been on the road for two days. Heading to the capital, than over to East America to pick up another load, then back south. How about you?”

  “I’m just passing through.” I climb into the tall lorry. It is immaculate, the dashboard filled with a holo map of the entire route.

  “How many hours, d’you think?” Harrigan asks. If it is longer than two, she will ne
ed to log me into the data center, chronicling my time on and time off. Those are the regulations of the road. Hitchhiking is common practice in the New World. It is a safe and reliable form of transportation. Unlike the former world where gasoline emissions choked the air with noxious fumes and drivers spent large chunks of their lives stuck in traffic, there are now fewer cars, and all run on a combination of solar power and clean energy. Vehicles are distributed to citizens on a need-only basis. Citizens whose jobs require them to have cars, like most of the Labor Community, have one. I study Harrigan’s face. There is no sign of doubt or suspicion. I take a deep breath. Why should there be? Hitchhiking is commonplace, especially along the route to Sabbatical City.

  “How far to the next rest stop?” I ask.

  “About an hour and forty-five minutes.”

  “That’ll be perfect.” I drop a currency chip into her tip jar and settle in for the journey. I need to cover my tracks and do not want my journey chronicled in any way.

  “Where you headed?” Harrigan asks. She is not prying, just making conversation.

  “The capital, eventually,” I admit, “but I’m meeting my father there and he’s not expecting me for a few days, so I thought I’d take in the sights.”

  “Not many sights between here and Sabbatical City,” Harrigan says.

  “I know. But I’m working on a desalination project for school, so studying the desert’s topography is important.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Fourteen. And a half,” I lie.

  “You’re tall for fourteen.”

  “I’ve been this tall since I was eleven,” I smile. “My best friend calls me Beanpole.” I smile, thinking about Kai, remembering the first insult he hurled at me.