by K. Makansi
Bear points out the window to a hill in the distance. “Good flat spot up there along that ridge, maybe. High ground and far enough off this stretch of old road to avoid anyone coming or going. And plenty of tree cover to stay hidden.”
I nod, surveying the ridge.
“The hovercar won’t make it up there, though. The angle’s too steep. We’ll have to leave the car down here and carry our gear up.”
We survey the area until we find a gulley suitable for hiding the hovercar. I lower it to the ground and shut it off. We empty the car of our gear—mostly lightweight camping gear, food provisions, some radio equipment, light firearms, and the hand grenades I stole from Normandy’s armory. I throw a shimmer blanket over the car for camouflage. Bear and I shoulder our equipment bags and trudge up the steep ridge line to flatter ground.
After we set up camp, Bear munches on oat bars and venison jerky while I lay out our bedrolls.
“We should both get some sleep today,” I say, checking the thin wristwatch I brought from Normandy. “It’s one in the afternoon, plenty of time to rest before night sets in. Then, I think we should go exploring. I want you to show me the Farm while it’s dark and quiet. You can show me your old home.”
Bear shudders, looking pale.
“Wouldn’t hardly call it home anymore,” he says.
“Are you anxious to see your friends? The ones you’ve told me about?”
He nods. “Won’t be too easy finding them on the inside, though, but we’ll get through to them somehow.”
“You figured out how we should start the conversation?”
Bear stares at me a second before responding, as if trying to put his words together in his head.
“The people I’m thinking of, they’ll listen if I tell ’em something. Not the brightest of folk, but then, neither am I. But the rest of ’em—they’ll be harder to get through to. But you made all them notes and drew those pictures. We’ve got plenty of good speeches. And when the time comes, we’ll tell the truth, I guess.”
Tell the truth, I guess. I nod. Words to live by.
“See there? That’s where the Dieticians’ lab is. All the little cabins are where we live.”
The moon isn’t full tonight, but it’s not far off, and I brought two weeks worth of our infrared contacts for both of us. I showed him how to put them in, and how to blink rapidly three times to shift between the infrared and the visible light spectrums. It took him an hour, but I think he’s got the hang of it.
“So the little buildings are where the workers live. And there’s a compound—that, there—where the Boss men and women stay at night.”
He points out a few other buildings until I feel comfortable with the general layout.
“Who do you want to try to talk to first? We should try to contact them as soon as possible. Tomorrow morning, maybe.”
“One of Sam’s old friends, name’s Luis. And a girl I used to talk to. Another one of the ones who asked questions. Fierce, she was. Rose, is her name. Rose and Luis are good friends.”
“What do you think is the best way to get a message to them?”
Bear stares at the plain below us, his eyes narrowing as he considers my question.
“Been thinking about that, and I got an idea. Used to be an old Boss we all liked, Joral. Real nice, he was the one who let me take Sam to your parents when he got hurt. He won’t like it if I talk to him—just cause he’s nice don’t mean he doesn’t support the Sector, he’ll probably turn me in—but you can go. You can find him and ask him to get a message to Rose and Luis.” Bear grins at me in the moonlight. “‘Specially if you give him some of that chocolate you brought along with us, he always liked that stuff.”
I consider this idea.
“How will I know it’s him?”
“He’s real striking. Sharp grey hair always sticking up no matter what he does, and a big, huge, honker. You see that nose, you know it’s him.”
“Should I pretend to be a Farm worker?”
“No,” he says. “He’ll know you aren’t. Sometimes people who aren’t with the Farm come and go ’round about here. So long as they aren’t Outsiders, some Bosses let ’em alone. That’s what your parents did. If you pretend you’re one of them, or maybe tell him you met Luis or Rose on a market day.”
“What’s a market day?”
“Once a season, we have a gathering, hear some music, and socialize for a time. Of course, it’s all organized by the Farm Boss, but, sometimes folk from around join in. Tell Joral that you’re passin’ through and just want to see how they’re doin’. Maybe he’ll pass a message to them.”
“Okay,” I nod. “What should the message be?”
“How about one of your drawings? That one of Sam you did. That’ll get their attention.”
I watch Bear, his mouth set in a sad little frown, staring out over the place he once called home.
“We’ll use that one, then. I’ll go in the morning, at first light, before work starts. I’ll tell them we want to meet them tomorrow at twilight.” I clasp Bear’s hand and smile at him. “We’re going to do this, Bear. We’ll avenge Sam, my mother, Tai. We’ll do it together.”
Bear smudges dirt on my face and charcoal around my eyes, trying to disguise my features. I wrap a woolen shawl over my head to cover my hair. It’ll be hot come midday, but I’m not planning on having this excursion last more than an hour.
“Try not to talk like you usually do,” Bear is saying, coaching me on how to blend in. “You sound like you’re from Okaria, not one of the peasant folk who wander the Wilds. And Joral’ll try to convince you to stay on the Farm. Sometimes people who pass by end up joining a Farm just ’cause it seems nice to have a warm bed, hot water, and plenty of food. He’ll try to talk you into staying. Just tell him you got a husband or something waiting for you out in the woods and he shouldn’t bother you after that.”
“But I shouldn’t say I’m in a group, right?”
“No. Then he’ll think you’re an Outsider, and he might send you off or call in some more Boss men to find out where the rest of the group is.”
It shouldn’t surprise me how suspicious the Bosses are of the Outsiders. The massacre at the SRI that killed my sister wasn’t the only crime that’s been attributed to the Outsiders over the years; the Sector finds it convenient to blame mysterious and violent incidents on the Outsiders. With so much hatred directed their way through Sector propaganda, it’s easy to see why people are so afraid of them. Yet, from what Bear says, the fear seems even more pronounced on the Farms than it was in the city. Maybe the propaganda against the Outsiders has increased since I’ve been gone.
Bear stops smudging charcoal around the edges of my eyes, and sits back to admire his handiwork.
“You look nice,” he says. “Like the fancy ladies at the Solstice balls.”
I shoot him a wry smile.
“I’ve got dirt all over my face.”
“Well, yes, but….”
“Let’s hope no one else thinks I look like a socialite from Okaria.”
“They won’t,” he says, and cracks a wide smile. “Not with that dirt on your face.”
I push myself to my feet and look one last time at the drawing I did of Sam, as best I could remember him, his face wreathed with spring flowers and autumn leaves. I roll it up and drip a bit of melted wax from one of the few candles we stole from Normandy, and press the scroll closed. A seal, like from the ancient world. But unlike the ancients who used signet rings or cylinder seals, neither one of us want our identification known until the scroll is opened. So instead of pressing one of our fingers in the wax, we press it closed with a leaf. Once it’s unrolled, Rose will see the message Bear scrawled in the corner.
Beaver Creek, midnight. A.B. The initials of his real name, Antoine Baier.
“They’ll come,” he says, a hitch in his voice. “They were like family. They’ll come.”
We walk around the edge of the cleared land, sticking to the shadows and
trees. Just because our jackets help hide our thermal signature from drones, doesn’t mean the guards have gone blind. I’ll have to take off my jacket soon enough—of those who wander the Wilds, only Outsiders and Resistance fighters have heat-cloaking clothing, and I don’t want to be associated with either group. By the time the sun is fully up and we can see the stirrings of activity in the camp, we’ve found what looks to be a footpath that leads into the cleared plain of the Farm.
“This is how some people get in and out,” Bear says. “Not many people know about it, though. You get outta le foret, you’ll see there’s a slit cut in the fence. Easy enough to push through.”
“Do the Enforcers know about this?” I ask, wondering at the fact that this glaring oversight has gone uncorrected for so long. At my side, Bear shrugs.
“Joral does. Maybe a few others. Some of them aren’t so bad. Just doing their job.”
“Won’t they know I’m an intruder?”
Bear laughs.
“You aren’t gonna go in that way right now. That’s for tonight, when we go to meet Rose and Luis, if you can get the message through. Right now, you’re gonna go up through the pedestrian gate and ask real nice if you can talk to Joral. Like I said, as long as they don’t think you’re an Outsider, they’ll let you come and go as you please. Might even give you some food if you look desperate enough.”
I stare at Bear, wondering if I’ve gone completely insane. I, Remy Alexander, daughter of Okaria’s Poet Laureate, member of an active “terrorist network”, escaped prisoner of the Sector, am going to walk right up to the gates of a Farm and ask to be let in. They better not recognize me.
Bear leads me a little ways further through the trees. I take off my jacket and hand it to him, my heart pounding.
“Remember, you’re the last person they’ll be expecting,” he says, a serious expression on his face. “I’ll be waiting.” I smile reassuringly, trying not to show how nervous I am. It feels like walking into the maw of a giant beast.
“If I’m more than two hours—”
“I lay low for twenty-four hours,” he interrupts. “If you’re still not back, I radio Normandy.”
Taking a deep breath, I smile and nod.
“You’ll be fine,” he says.
I turn and walk off, tightening the shawl secured around my frizzy hair, trying not to touch my face for fear of smudging Bear’s makeup job. I jump down out of the undergrowth and onto the cleared path, checking quickly around me to see if guards are watching. I follow the little cleared path, wide enough for two to walk side-by-side, right up to the gate, where an Enforcer with bored eyes and a handheld Bolt greets me.
“Name.”
“Anna Renault.” My heart sounds like drumbeats in my chest. But the guard simply touches a few buttons on a plasma in front of him without looking at me.
“Passing through or visiting?”
“Passing.”
“Okarian citizen?”
“No.”
“Any affiliations?” He wants to know if I’m with the Outsiders, like someone would just announce that.
“Brother working on Farm Eight as of three months ago.”
“Is that who you’re visiting?”
“Non. My mari and I live fifty kilometers on the other side.”
He nods.
“Who are you here to see?”
“I hope to speak with Joral.”
The Enforcer nods and then speaks into his headset. “Some woman from the Wilds named Anna Renault here to speak to Joral.” He keeps looking at me. “Yes. Okay,” he says into the handset. “Stay right on the main path until you reach Outpost One. He’s stationed near there. Go on, and be quick. He hasn’t got all day.” He gestures half-heartedly toward the Farm as the gate opens and I exhale an enormous breath that carries my tense shoulders down with it.
Inside the gate, a female Enforcer presses her hands up and down my sides, checking for weapons. They’ll allow small knives through, he said, but nothing more sophisticated.
“Saw an Outsider shot on sight for carrying a crossbow,” he had said as though it were an everyday occurrence.
“How did you know it was an Outsider?”
“Carried a crossbow. Only Outsiders have crossbows, or bows. Least ways that’s what I was always told.”
I hung a skinning knife on my belt when I was dressing this morning, thinking it would be more suspicious if I didn’t have one, as they’d wonder why a lone woman was traveling the woods unarmed. But it doesn’t make me feel any safer as the female Enforcer lets me through to face the vast, open swath of the Farm.
“Make sure you sign out at the gate when you’re done with your business,” she says.
I nod and head into the heart of the Farm. Laid out in red brick, like the garden at my parents’ home in Okaria, the main path is lined with dormant strawberry patches, interwoven with sage, rosemary, parsley, bay, and some varieties of sprouting spring greens. A tiny creek, an irrigation channel, flows alongside the path I walk. A budding orchard peeks up over the hill to my left.
I keep my head up and focus on the task at hand. I try to remember what Bear said about Joral. Stark grey hair, enormous nose. I watch for any sign of someone by that description. But as far as I can see, the land is empty.
Past the strawberries and herbs, I turn right at a fork and come across some workers training growing vines to wooden stakes. I make eye contact with a girl about my size. She straightens, watching me. Her expression is unreadable and unnerving, and I try to ignore her gaze as I pass by.
I marvel at the sheer size and scope of the Farms. It looked big from far away, but it’s positively huge now that I’m walking through it. I’d never quite thought about how big the Farms must be in order to provide food for the entire population of Okaria. The brick path I’m on has branched out several times, and every time I’ve diligently kept along the right-side path. Even though Bear tried to orient me to the layout, it seems much more expansive than I thought. I can see a field of marshy ground that looked like rice paddies, wide-open wheat fields and wildflowers for honeybees, countless nut and fruit trees, an olive grove, and a vineyard, terraced into the side of a steep hill, and at least fifty different types of vegetable plants I couldn’t begin to identify.
Just when I’m beginning to despair of ever finding the first outpost, thinking that I’d somehow missed it or made a wrong turn, I spot a few structures in the distance. As I get closer, they turn into little houses, scattered seemingly at random, interspersed with wild grasses and big trees. And there—I recognize that larger building. That’s the Dietician’s lab that Bear showed me last night. I turn up towards my right, and sure enough, the forest here bends around much closer to the cleared land. I put my hand over my eyes for shade and study the landscape. I can see the ridge where Bear and I were perched, staring around at the terrain below with our binoculars.
One last right turn along the path and see him. Joral, in a green Enforcer’s uniform, standing, arms crossed, in front of a small, nondescript building.
“Tu es Joral, s’il te plait?” Please, are you Joral?
“I am,” he says gruffly, not bothering with French. From Okaria, then, I think, trying to get a sense of him. A fair few Okarians from the capital don’t bother learning the Old French, considering it beneath them. Who needs it anymore? they ask. Everyone in Okaria speaks Modern Sector English. “Are you Anna? What do you want?”
“Do you know Rose?” I ask. Bear told me it would be safer if I asked for the girl—that way no one would suspect any romantic attachment, which would be sure to get me thrown out.
“I do,” he responds. “You passing through?”
“Yes, but I’ve got a mes—something for her,” I say, chiding myself. “A gift. I’d like to give it to her.”
“How do you know Rose?”
“Met her last time I passed through, walking along the perimeter. I’d fallen in a gopher hole, twisted my ankle. She told me about a doctor that comes
around sometimes, and I want to thank her.”
“You come here often?”
“No. Sometimes.”
“You looking for a home? You like it here? You’re welcome to stay. We’ll give you a proper bed, and food, and all.” I smile, remembering what Bear said. He’ll try to convince you to stay on the Farm.
“Got a man waiting for me on the other side,” I respond. “Mon mari.” My husband.
“Ah,” he says, chewing at the side of his mouth, eyeing me thoughtfully. His hair sticks up as though he’s been electrocuted. Bear was right, his nose dominates his face. It almost makes him look less threatening, despite the suspicious frown.
“All right,” he says, at length. “What have you got for her?”
“Promise me you’ll give it to her.”
“I’ll promise when I see what it is.”
I hesitate, trying to look afraid and unsure. From the pocket of my sweater I pull out the rolled piece of paper. He gasps audibly.
“Where’d you get paper like that?” he asks.
“An old factory out in the Wilds. Way south.”
“Hmm.” He looks intrigued, but doesn’t say more.
“You’ll give it to her?”
“Don’t see any harm in it.”
Thank you,” I say, handing the scroll to him. I also take a piece of chocolate and hold it out as an offering. “Please make sure Rose gets this. She was kind to me and it’s very important that I give her something in return. And please take this, for your trouble.”
Still gnawing at the inside of his lip, his eyebrows shoot up when he sees the bite of chocolate. He nods his thanks, takes the paper from my hands, and turns away from me, sauntering off between the little houses. I stare after him, before I turn to leave, releasing the tension in my chest with a slow breath.