“Searching for windmills?”
The guy who’s talking is tall and thick, with a scowl that seems like it might be permanent.
“What?”
“I asked if you’re searching for windmills.” His lips twitch, but there’s nothing friendly about it. “Most new shells spend their first day scouring the skyline. ‘Where are the windmills?’” He fake whimpers, then laughs. A few others join in.
“Brock, lay off,” Oliver says.
Brock ignores him, keeping his focus on me. “There’s no bay either, if you’re wondering. No windmills, no bay. Just dirt. Miles and miles of it. And you see the dirt out there beyond the fence? Well, that’s explosive dirt, okay? You dig out there, you won’t find potatoes. You’ll find yourself dead. Dead!”
Another guy grabs Brock’s arm, but he shakes it off and laughs like a maniac. “So don’t get any ideas, shell. Just pull your own weight and don’t get any ideas.”
“Time for a water break, Brock.” Oliver steers him toward a pump several meters away.
“What was that about?”
Everyone ignores me. They just keep digging like nothing happened.
“Anybody?”
The guy who helped Oliver sighs, then straightens to tower over me. He’s built like a tank and, for a minute, I think he’s going to start something I can’t finish. Instead he sticks out his hand.
“Adam Quincy.”
I shake it. “Reed Paine.”
He nods and squints into the sun. His teeth are startling white against skin several shades darker than mine. “Last month, this new shell started mouthing off about escaping — how no real guards watch us, how there’s a blind spot where the Sentribots can’t monitor us over the ridge. We tried to tell him, but he wasn’t the listening kind. Two weeks in, he tears off and finds a weak place in the fence. Didn’t take ten steps on the other side before he stepped on a landmine. Blew himself to bits.”
For a minute we both stare east. I try to imagine the pain, or what it would be like to see it happen. I can’t.
“Brock was sent out to clean up the mess — Kino’s orders.” Adam’s still wiping his hands, like they’ll never be clean. “He wasn’t nice to begin with. He’s been worse since.”
“She made him do that alone?” I shake my head. “No wonder he’s nuts.”
Adam bends over, returning to his potatoes. “He didn’t go alone. She sent me with him.”
At midday Mr. Haack drives up with our meal. He stays in the truck cab, leaning back against his seat while the crew descends on the back, tearing into small loaves of brown bread. By the time I get there, there’s only a small end piece left. I grab it and walk toward Xoey, who’s still standing in the field.
“You okay?”
She nods and I hand her my bread. She breaks off a piece and tries to give most of it back to me.
“No, you take it. I’m good.”
Her bruises appear even worse in the harsh daylight. With her fair skin, she’s going to have a painful sunburn too, I can tell.
Oliver joins us, pressing another piece of bread into my hand. “It’s not much, but it should see you through to the end of our shift.”
“Thanks.”
He nods then turns to Xoey, who eats her bread one pinch at a time, like she’s savoring each bite. Oliver’s perpetual smile slips as he takes in her cuts and bruises. I wait, expecting something — a kind word maybe, or even an offer to escort her to the Med Center. I’ve seen the way the other girls ogle him. How he flirts back. He seems like someone who always has an answer, but not this time. He just stands there, watching Xoey eat bread until the silence becomes so awkward, I have to fill it.
“How long is the harvest season?”
Oliver keeps staring. When he finally seems to realize he’s being weird, he steps back and clears his throat. “A few more weeks. Every day until the fields are cleared.” He nods at both of us and walks away.
I lay in bed after lights out, too tired to move, too tired to sleep. The other guys in my room are comatose except for the one named Sam. He doesn’t fidget exactly but whispers to himself. I think I hear him say Floodlight, but I’m not sure. Has Zak been talking? People my age don’t often care about politics or renegade bloggers, but then again, this place is different. Our parents are all rebels.
Grandma told me about Floodlight right before she died, the last time I visited her at the retirement village. “Senior storage,” she called it. When I was a kid, I loved those visits. She always gave me her dessert. But years had passed since I was easily bribed with pudding. I spent my last day with her checking the time. I had better things to do.
“Sit down, mijo,” she said. “I have something to tell you.”
Then she told me everything.
She was a journalist. Not the kind you see today — pretty faces defending whatever the president does, covering one-party elections or debating issues where everyone expresses different shades of the same opinion. She worked for one of the last real American media companies.
Everything changed a few years later. The terror attacks and election scandal, the second civil war, the outbreak — then the aftermath. Grandma’s company was absorbed by the State Press, surviving the end of one government and the beginning of a new one. She kept her job by keeping her head low.
“I wrote what I was told and I learned to bite my tongue.”
She had a baby to feed, after all — my mom, who defied the odds and survived the contagion. Grandma’s son and my grandfather were not so lucky.
Over the years it got harder for her to ignore the censorship and corruption of the State Press. So she secretly started writing as Floodlight, posting articles on the dark net. Years passed and her readership grew. Soon she was broadcasting on rebel radio too, her voice camouflaged with whatever tech was available at the time and picked up from Sand to Sand.
“I worked hard, investigating the old fashioned way,” Grandma said. “While writing lies for the State Press, I told the truth through my alter ego — Floodlight. No matter whom it hurt or benefited — whether I liked the truth or not. And they hated me for it, mijo. They still do, after all these years.”
Path encryption codes hid her well for more than four decades, but government tracking software was always on her heels, closing down server after server. It interrupted the output, but not before Floodlight popped up on some new host, more popular than ever. They never found her. Their software just looped around, tying itself in knots like a million miles of thread.
After Grandma died, someone picked up the torch. Floodlight lives on. But two years ago, some famous hacker got caught and told the FCC what they wanted to know for years — Floodlight was Elena Reed, my grandmother.
The State Press went ballistic with their damage control. She was one of their own, after all. They ran stories to discredit her, painting a picture people would scorn. Elena Reed was a daughter of wealth, they said, with family ties to a Mexican drug cartel. Married young to a corporate heir apparent, audited for tax evasion, in league with terrorists, tied to a hateful, intolerant religion. She mocked settled science and backed rogue politicians. She was an idiot and a mastermind. On and on they went — speculating, exaggerating, pulling her words out of context.
As the slander piled up, Mom’s mouth became a flat line. Her eyes blazed. She and Dad came under fire in their guilds and went through vigorous scrutiny at work. It didn’t scare them. They just got angry — and ripe to aid the Resistance when someone came asking for help.
They were not careful. I know that now. Otherwise, they would never have gone looking for this place.
I roll over on my side and wish for a warmer blanket, then tap my ear, just to hear Luna’s voice tell me the time. None of it keeps me from picturing Grandma’s face on the news with the name Floodlight underneath.
Grandma told me people hated her for telling the truth. I guess that’s the thing I can’t get over. If the truth was so important, why did she wait until
her life was almost over to share it with me?
Chapter Six
Xoey
* * *
I wake up screaming, clawing at the darkness of my nightmare, struggling to breathe.
“Shut up!”
A shoe flies through the dark and bounces off my bunk frame.
“I’m sorry!”
“Save it!”
The girls in my dorm room grumble and swear for a few more minutes. I feel bad, but I cannot fix it. I always have nightmares after time in a closet.
Yesterday, Monica returned and unlocked the door after what felt like hours. It had only been one. She would not let me leave until I signed her tablet saying I was fed, housed, clothed and provided religious accommodation, as requested.
Director Kino greeted us on the library steps. “You can worship once a week, if you like.”
My voice shook. “Like this?”
“Didn’t you read what you signed?” She pointed to Monica’s tablet. “Expressions of faith must be confined to a private space so no one else can be offended by your worship. No apparel, jewelry, literature, articles of faith, hand gesturing, or posturing indicative of worship are allowed in public areas of the school.”
It sounded as if she was quoting a statute.
“But surely there are others like me who—”
“Who what? Want to share your closet?” She laughed. “It’s impossible to accommodate believers in a group. You zealots fight about everything. Love, unity, peace. What a joke! No, you’d have me erecting statues, arranging prayer mats, and installing stained glass windows and then, within no time at all, I would end up pulling you off each other.”
“So all I get is a dark closet?”
“Most students give up religious accommodation after a week or two.” She took a step closer and whispered. “And I’ve never seen God intervene. Not once.”
My heart continues to pound long after my dorm mates settle down again. There is no way I will fall back asleep, so I slip out of bed and head to the showers. Even here, my hands shake. I drop the soap. Sometimes singing helps, so I search for a song.
Be strong and courageous and do not be afraid...
He’ll never forsake you…
Don’t be afraid…
My teeth chatter when I try to hum the melody, so I sing in my head instead. It helps me calm down.
I dry off and dress, then tiptoe out to the sidewalk. The morning is clear and cold, and I shiver as I head toward the broken fountain. Frost covers the grass, but when will it snow? I have no experience with bad weather, just warm sun, palm trees, and ocean breezes. We never went to the beach, though. My father always had better things to do than stare at oily water on sand imbedded with ocean trash.
Like watching web programming?
I never said it out loud, but it was true. He spent every evening bathed in pixel glow, devouring entertainment news, red carpet interviews, and celebrity talk shows.
“He trained in the entertainment guild to be an actor,” Mom once told me. “He was dismissed at tier two.”
“That’s why he hates his job at the bottling plant?”
Mom shushed me and sent me to bed before my curiosity set off one of his rages. For a few days I wondered if I had my father all wrong. Maybe he was not cruel, just unhappy: stuck bottling beer all day when he actually wanted to pretend, like me. I tested my theory and asked him to play with me one evening when he got home from work. I still remember the scorn in his eyes, the sting of the back of his hand.
He didn’t want to pretend, he just wanted to be famous.
My eyes sting and I swallow a bitter knot in my throat. I miss my mom. The sun rises, peeking through the buildings to bathe me in glory. The melody I remembered in the shower keeps playing in my head, and I remember I have someone to talk to. I bow my head.
My tragus implant pings this morning, then relays an automated message. I am not to report to the fields. Instead, a girl named Claire collects me from the cafeteria and leads me upstairs to the Med Center. She says nothing, just unlocks the door and points inside. The first thing I notice is how humid it is, filled with heat rising from the kitchen below.
The only other person in the room is Reed. He stands by the window, looking west toward the train yard. Thunder rolls in the distance and it starts to rain, splashing against the dirty pane.
“One at a time into the Medibooth,” Claire says. “When you’re both done, press this button to watch your orientation video. I’ll be back in an hour to collect your signatures.”
She leaves while I focus on the Medibooth. It will not be my first time, of course. Once a year is required by law. But the taller I grow, the smaller they seem. My heart pounds. All I can think about is the closet. How different is this?
I cannot do this.
“Do you want me to go first?”
Reed must have crossed the room because he’s suddenly at my side. I just nod, unable to speak. By now, I’m sure he thinks I am mute.
Reed enters the Medibooth and the door makes a mechanical noise, whirring shut. I find a nearby chair and sit, watching his shadow inside. It is light in there, I remind myself. And there is a handle, so you can get out any time. For the next fifteen minutes, I talk down my fears. When Reed emerges, I am almost myself again.
I wait for the sterilization program to run, then step inside the Medibooth. The on-screen doctor first instructs me to sync my nanochip, which displays my Fit activities in a colorful graphic. No sanctions this year. I have taken enough steps to meet Health and Human Service standards. Next I tap in my answers to dozens of questions. Illustrations show me how to use the scale, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, and stethoscope. When I was little, the drawings were narrated by an animated Iguana who spoke with a squeaky voice, but when I turned thirteen, the drawings grew up and the Iguana disappeared. The blood draw does not hurt and the urine sample is efficient, if unpleasant to collect. Results are promised within minutes and, if necessary, prescriptions will be dispensed at the Med Center or through sterile med ports in each dormitory. I breathe a sigh of relief when I step out of the box. I did not panic. It is a small accomplishment, but today, it’s enough.
“You ready?”
I nod and Reed presses the control button, launching our orientation video. The lights dim and the wall in front of us pixelates away from health posters and advisories, filling up with the vid instead.
The first part of the orientation explains the purpose of reeducation facilities. It does not vary much from what Director Kino told us yesterday: We have been wards of the state since birth. Our parents were only allowed to raise us so long as they supported the state’s goals for our wellbeing. It is their failure that brought us here. If we follow orders and pass our evaluations, we will be considered realigned with UDR standards. Then we can regain our citizenship and return to life in the Sand, apply for training in one of the guilds or, for a select few, admittance to a university.
Next, it explains security at the House. A system called the Citizen Tracker, or Cit-Track, communicates with our nanochips. Illustrations point out the electromagnetic gates, razor-wire, and Sentribot towers on campus. A bird’s eye diagram of the dormitories shows pulsing red lights, each one tracking a particular student. Next it shows a red light pulsing in a restricted area. Sirens sound, Sentribots lock on their target, punishment is swift.
The transition into the next topic is jarring. Sex ed videos have never been fun, not in a classroom full of students, not at any grade level. But watching one has never been so awkward as it is now, with just one other boy in the room. I know my cheeks are flaming red and my neck is stiff since I do not dare turn in his direction or away either. The narrator moves from reproduction facts to birth control options. Then she blandly tells us how to deal with STDs and unwanted pregnancies. Her tone infuriates me. As if my choices are predictable. As if those outcomes are inevitable.
I am relieved when the vid moves on to civic duty, ending with a montage of
images: Guild workers in a pharmaceutical factory, building transports, and laying tracks for more bullet trains. Next we see the glittering coastline at night, hundreds of miles of connected cities on the Eastern and Western Sand. They are pretty in the dark. The graffiti, crumbling buildings, and razor wire are edited out. Finally, President Amaron fills the screen.
“The United Democratic Republic is committed to your reeducation,” he says. “Won’t you pledge your commitment to us?”
As the credits roll, Reed gets up and returns to the window, which is now fogged over by rain and humidity. I use the control panel to stop the video. The wall pixelates back to posters, food pyramids, and evacuation procedures.
“How depressing,” I say.
Reed stays focused on the window. “Have you ever noticed? They never say ‘America.’”
“What?”
“America.” He’s drawing on the window with his finger. “Technically, this is the United Democratic Republic of America. No more ‘United States’ after the Governor’s Act, I get that. But why no more America?”
“You know why.”
He nods. Core academies teach us all the same facts, no matter where we live. America was the land of greed, war, hate, and bigotry. Even the American flag symbolized blood-filled trenches and bombs in the skies. Everyone is ashamed of it.
Claire should be back by now. I stand in the middle of the room, not sure what to do. Reed keeps drawing on the window. After a few minutes, he glances upward, drawing my attention to a camera in the corner. I wonder if that is why he likes the window, because it is one of the few places outside the camera’s reach.
“I’m not ashamed of our history,” he says. I guess he is still talking about the America thing. “But I suppose sometimes you have to play by the rules of someone else’s game if you want to win.”
I nod, though I’m not sure what he is talking about. Then he shifts away from the window, showing me what he has been up to. It turns out he was not drawing, but writing a message for me. One that will soon disappear.
Stealing Liberty Page 4