by Sadie Turner
“Ah. When are you scheduled for Monarch Camp?”
“This winter.” I close my eyes, hoping to politely end the conversation before I start having to remember the lies I am spewing so that I don’t start backtracking. I can’t afford to get caught. With one push of a button, Harrigan can report me.
“Best summer of my life.” Harrigan gets nostalgic and starts to wax on about her intended mate while I drift in and out of sleep.
For the next two days, I travel at night and sleep during the day. I keep to back roads and alternate between walking and hitchhiking inland. At the various diners which pepper the main byway, I easily hail one of the many truckers who are carting foodstuffs to the capital, pay a small passenger fee and spend a couple of hours in the cab before moving on. I am careful to not stay in one vehicle too long, lest they report a minor passenger. As long as a passenger rides for two hours or less, it is considered a “favor” rather than a “job.” And I need as many favors as I can get as most of the journey is across a desert, which is virtually uncrossable during the day. As each trucker lets me off, I backtrack a little to cover my steps and find another vehicle.
Once the sun comes up, I locate a pocket of protected shade: an abandoned barn or thicket of remote trees, and curl up and sleep. Though I use the term sleep loosely because my slumber is anything but relaxing. With each dream, the nightmares are getting worse. They always begin the same; I follow the woman down the hall. But the tortures became progressively more awful. Sometimes, I am hanging upside down; sometimes I am being choked within an inch of my life. And just at the moment of my greatest sensation of fear, I pass out … as if something is pushing me to my furthest point of pain and then feeding off of my terror.
Sabbatical City is the heartbeat of the Americas. It’s located in the middle of the desert, in a place that used to be called Las Vegas. I visited once with my parents when I was a little girl, although I hardly remember it. But I’ve seen plenty of pictures, and Rane’s brother Cannon sent her holos from his honeymoon there. It is the most popular sabbatical spot in the Americas. Most people honeymoon in Sabbatical City because there is so much to do. So many cultures and so many artifacts of days past.
The last truck, a twelve-wheeler filled with technology chips imported directly from the mines in Argyle City and operated by a Labor called McGee, drops me off in the center of the city. McGee is a grandfatherly type who gives me a few pointers of what to see and where to eat before he drops me outside the main strip. He warns me to keep my eyes open for thieves who are rampant in the city. Young hooligans, he calls them. I promise to be careful and wave goodbye as he heads off to the Caesar where he is dropping off Third components for Sobek’s personal scientists.
Alone, I am immediately confronted by a deluge of sights and sounds. It is overwhelming simply to look up. While my Ocean Community is mostly flat and vast with both the ocean and the sky uninterrupted for miles, this area is compacted into a city in the clouds. Every space seems to be filled with buildings and helicrafts and passageways in the sky connecting the various edifices. The citizens in Sabbatical City all live in very tall structures that used to be called casinos. More than half of the population of the Americas live in this city. It was one of the only areas untouched by the Great Technology War because when the floods came, it was so far inland and most of the buildings so high that the entire area was not affected. So, it’s almost retro compared to the rest of the Americas. Old school. From a different time, except that the Global Governance built it up even further, and all the buildings’ roofs serve as landing and takeoff pads for the Protectors’ helicrafts.
I’m grateful to be wearing Mrs. Aames’ Lycra one piece. It is oddly fashionable, and I do not seem out of place among the hundreds of people busily walking on the street. I am suitably invisible. Sure, I am one of the few people wearing blue since I am now so far inland, but no one gives me a second glance. They probably think I am a tourist on sabbatical. Most people who live in Sabbatical City belong to the other six communities, especially Renewable Energy and Academic Communities. I see more red and yellow than any other color. Although there are also a fair number of greens and browns and purples. And Protectors.
There are always Protectors.
Still, I decide to change in case they are looking for me. Even though it is easy to get lost in this city, a tall, redheaded girl in blue stands out like a sore thumb. I check my currency chips: I have enough money to survive for a week, which will hopefully be long enough to find what I am looking for. Hopefully.
There are many souvenir shops along the road and I’m not sure which one to enter. As I survey the long row of shops, I see a small, blond girl across the street. She smiles at me and I smile back. She wears her long hair in two braids, and she looks no more than eight years old. I wonder if she is lost because usually minors are accompanied by their parents. But there are no adults anywhere near her. She is also wearing blue, one of the only Ocean Community citizens on the busy street. I watch as she leans against a storefront, looking incredibly self-assured. I cross the street, strangely drawn to this girl. The moment she sees me, she darts into the store. Clearly, her parents told her never to talk to strangers. I follow her into the store. It is a huge wardrobe shop and I scan the vast isles, looking for the blond girl with the long braids.
“Excuse me, did you see a girl just come in here?” I ask the bored clerk.
“I see hundreds of girls come in here,” she says, not even looking up from her tablet.
I do one last survey of the premises, but the girl is nowhere to be seen. She probably ducked out a back door. I shrug. If she needed my help then she would have stayed to talk to me. Besides, how will talking to some kid help me find Labyrinth? I look at the wardrobe choices. Inside the enormous emporium are rows and rows of clothes in all seven colors. I wonder which color will make me look most inconspicuous, and then I realize I don’t even know my fake identity in order to make the purchase.
Hiding behind one of the tall racks, I examine each of the identity chips my father set for me. Kenzie is a member of Ocean Community. Kiara is Labor and Kallie is a Protector. How could my father know that I would be a Protector? There are so many unanswered questions, and I wish I could talk to him. I shake off my moment of self-pity, put the Kallie chip into my watch, and walk determinedly to the back of the store.
I ignore the salesclerk’s suspicious stare as I head over to the rack of black clothes. There is an enormous selection to choose from, although most of them are highly impractical, such as shimmery mini dresses and five-inch black heels. I find a pair of black jeans, black work boots, a few black T-shirts, undergarments, and a black leather jacket with a softly lined hood. I bring my selections up to the counter.
“Don’t you have to try them on?” she sneers. The clerk wears dull purple, a member of Labor. She clearly has a distaste for Protectors.
“I know my size, thanks.” I smile politely. “Do you have somewhere I can change into these?”
“You have to purchase them first. Can I see some identity, please?”
“Of course.” I click on Kallie’s holo, projecting my face and community onto the counter. Yet, the woman hesitates. Perhaps she senses my nervousness.
“I’m going to need to see a second form of identity.”
“But this is all I have,” I panic. If she reports me, I won’t be able to help my father. His capture will have been for nothing. “Wait,” I say before she can reach for her security button, “I can show you my tattoo. I just graduated from Monarch Camp. That’s why I’m a little out of my element,” I add with an uncomfortable laugh before unzipping my bodysuit and revealing my newly inked butterfly.
“Well, that certainly solves that.” She smiles. “Didn’t mean to question you, but you can never be too careful these days. Especially with so many people pretending to be Protectors.”
“Why would they do that?” I ask.
“Who knows? There’s a whole shoplifting gan
g here. Been working the strip the last few months. I suppose they think they’re the least conspicuous of the communities. In any case, we’ve been told to double and triple check anyone who comes in. Especially people claiming to be Protectors. But your tattoo is definite proof. Most thieves run off after the second ID. You can change in the dressing room. It’s just through the back.”
I take my new clothes to the large dressing room and put them on. I turn around, admiring myself in the mirror. A pale redhead dressed head to toe in black. I try to stifle a laugh. I look … tough.
I look like a Protector.
A FEW HOURS LATER, Calix and Sarayu were sitting in chairs in what appeared to be a waiting room. They were both dressed in black tunics. Calix couldn’t remember how he had gotten here, but Sarayu had been wakened in the middle of the night and brought here. She was terrified.
“Calix, what’s going on?” Sarayu said.
“I don’t know,” Calix lied. He had seen what his father had intended for them. That sick bastard was going to make him and Sarayu, two teenagers, endure the torture the children were experiencing.
“Just drink the water. When they ask you to drink the water, drink the water. It will make you forget.”
Just then, a Protector nodded for them to follow him down a long hall. Calix clasped Sarayu’s hand, trying to protect her, but really trying to calm himself down. When he left this place and returned to the Caesar, he was going to find a way to disappear. He was done taking orders from his father. He was done being his puppet.
The pair reached the end of the hall and were led into the cavernous room filled with butterflies. Claudia Durant appeared and handed Sarayu a cup of water.
Calix whispered, “Drink it. In one gulp.”
He watched her terrified tiger-like eyes as she lifted her shaking hands up to her mouth and drank the drugged concoction. Her eyes quickly glassed over as if she were in a trance.
“Where’s my drink?” Calix demanded.
“Your father thought you would benefit more if you were fully conscious,” Claudia Durant said cruelly.
Calix felt a rope being tied around him and Sarayu, binding them together. He barely managed to turn his head to look at the two-way mirror, imagining his father’s glee on the other side of the wall.
Just before he was hoisted into the air, Calix looked at his father and mouthed five words, “I’m going to kill you.”
I am desperate.
I’m down to my last currency chip and I still haven’t found Labyrinth.
I’ve been in Sabbatical City for a week and am no closer to finding him/her/it than when I got here. My frustration level is enormous, as I have spent my currency chips on food and clothes and a place to stay, and now I am almost broke. Every day, I roam the streets, overwhelmed by the noise and frenetic energy. I can barely hear myself think. I keep looking, looking, looking—trying so hard to find something that I have no idea how to find.
I look at my last currency chip, turning it over and over in my hands, and I almost feel a sense of relief. I’ve failed. Both my father and myself. I couldn’t do it. Everyone told me to listen to my voices; yet they haven’t been talking since I’ve arrived in this loud, crazy city. They’ve given up on me and now I’ve given up on myself. Whatever was supposed to happen, did not.
I sit down at a swanky outdoor cafe and order a large steak. I might as well have a good last meal if I am about to be penniless. Knowing my entire journey has been for naught allows me to relax for the first time since I’ve been in Sabbatical City. No longer looking over my shoulder and wondering if I’m being followed, I take a deep breath and just sit. Relax. Breathe. Take in the sights. The entire outdoor restaurant is packed. The concierge at the casino hotel told me it has the best food in Sabbatical City, so I decide to treat myself. After all, I have nothing left to lose. The waiter brings me the sirloin, and I savor each bite, torn between laughing and crying at my predicament. The whole situation is almost comical—my brave attempt to help my father when I didn’t have a clue how to begin. And now, a complete failure, I know exactly what is going to happen: I will finish my exquisite meal, get a lift from a lorry driver directly to Ocean Community, not caring that my trip will be recorded on their holo, go back to Annika’s, and get taken in by the Protectors. The end. I will do whatever it is they want me to do and, hopefully, see my father again.
Who was I kidding? A whole bunch of people, including Inelia, thought I was special. My father clearly believed in me as well because he entrusted his precious secrets to me. Little good that did him. I guess they read me wrong. I’m not someone who can save the world; I can barely survive in it by myself for a week. I want to go back to the Ocean Community and turn myself in.
I want to give up.
I hate myself for feeling so much self-pity, but I am suffocated by it. And because I don’t try to fight it, I relax even more. I let go. Resolved to surrender to my miserable fate, I try to enjoy my last bit of freedom as I watch the other diners … mostly Renewable Energies and Academics who are all engrossed in conversations, oblivious to the world around them. Everyone seems so happy, so resolved, so clueless. It’s as if an entire tranquility has settled over the diners and I am the only outsider at the party. I am invisible, which is what I suppose I had always wanted to be; yet, lately, I have felt like I was meant for something more. But no one sees me. I am flanked by tables where people are engrossed in their own stories. Next to me, parents dining with their small children are cutting their meat for them. Renewable Energies gesticulating animatedly as they discuss a new theory on thermal energy. I find myself smiling sadly, wondering what it’s like to really belong somewhere. To be seen.
Suddenly I feel a chill on the back of my neck. There is someone else who is crashing this party of normalcy. I slowly turn my head and see the perpetrator. It is the same blond girl I noticed my first day in the city. She is now dressed in black and is accompanied by a gangly older boy. As I continue my meal, I watch them, completely engrossed with the young pair who skulk near the restaurant’s periphery. To anyone else, they might just seem absorbed in their conversation; however, to me, they are definitely lurking. Is it just a coincidence that the last time I saw her she was dressed in blue and now she’s dressed in black?
Is she hiding like I am?
I watch as they easily amble up to a table on the perimeter, approaching a pair of tourists whose table has the requisite cartograms and travelogues. I noticed the table when I first sat down, since they were fairly loud, and the corpulent man was showing off for his mousey bride by ordering practically everything on the menu. They had caused noise pollution, and several tables around them had moved. I continue to observe the unfolding scenario as the gangly boy addresses the table, smiling and clearly asking them something. The man is trying to push him away, but the woman holds her husband’s hand and forces him to talk to the boy. While this is going on, the small blond girl deftly grabs the woman’s purse, which is hanging on the back of her chair.
Within a second, they are gone.
And I am right behind them.
The chase lasts for over a mile.
I am grateful for Inelia’s taxing physical calisthenics because I am still in great shape, and no matter how hard they try, the thieves can’t shake me. I don’t even know why I’m chasing them, but I know that I am supposed to. I have a feeling. The minute I first saw the little blond girl, my voices returned, instructing me to pay attention. Even before they stole the purse, I had already taken my last bite of steak, put down my currency chip, and gotten up from my table.
As the pair slips into the heavy foot traffic outside, I follow them, staying within a few feet. Immediately sensing me, they pick up their pace and dart in and out of the Casino Towers. I easily stay in pace with them, slipping in and out of crowds and keeping them directly in my sight. After several attempts to shake me, they slow down and lead me straight toward the Caesar. Toward Sobek’s estate.
Yet, rather than cro
ssing the street and going into the palace, the pair join a group of tourists who are gazing at an enormous fountain that seems to be dancing on the large manmade lake. Music blasts and the water shoots up in complicated patterns. Many of the tourists are taking vids and holos with their identity watches. They are oblivious to the young couple with the stolen purse who walk directly up to the fountain … and disappear.
It is impossible.
I watch as the boy disappears first. Then the girl looks around until she finds me, winks, and then disappears behind her cohort. I run up to the spot and, sure enough, they are gone. I watched them vanish right in front of me. I look around the area; but there is only the ornate fountain shooting water into the air against the backdrop of an ancient song that was popular long before the war. Where did they go? An older couple disrupts my concentration and asks me to take a vid of them. I reluctantly comply, arranging them just in front of the fountain where I saw the kids disappear. I focus the techno-camera and then, just to the couple’s left, I see a small indentation in the granite. I quickly take the picture, return their camera and go to the irregular spot. I am sure this is the spot where the pair disappeared, although I still cannot figure out how they did it. I bend down to examine the granite, quite aware that mist from the fountain is slowly drenching me. I am about to give up when I hear a familiar voice just behind me.
“I was wondering when you were going to finally show up, Beanpole.”
CALIX DIDN’T KNOW WHICH WAS WORSE, being choked or being drowned.
He was able to tolerate the hanging upside down, but the other methods were more painful. What he hated even more than his own punishment was the torture Sobek and the Protectors were inflicting upon Sarayu. With each of Sobek’s “lessons” she became weaker, more frightened, more beaten down. She clung closer to Calix, hanging onto him for dear life even when they weren’t bound together. During many of the sessions she had passed out, and he couldn’t get over the sensation of seeing the fear in her eyes.