A half hour later I’m sitting in science, wondering if it will work. Wondering if anyone knows we weren’t talking about tackle or setting up a study session, but establishing a code.
The code works. By late afternoon, everyone knows about the tunnel, the books, and the flag. We all know when each of us will go offline. I have to wait five days to visit the tunnel. Oliver and Sam can go early tomorrow.
We’re all interested in the books. I wonder what else might be down there. Why someone hid them in the first place.
My memories of life in the Sand are smudged, distant. I remember my father leaving each morning. His UDR uniform was stiff like his posture, his service cap tucked under his arm. He had old-fashioned ideas that my mother indulged: kissing him goodbye at the door as if her day would involve mopping the floor, baking cookies, and watching satellite dramas. Once he was gone, we had to rush to make the train. She dropped me off at child care before hurrying to her job at Health and Welfare.
Things didn’t change all at once. We don’t notice what we have, only what we lose. When my mother’s nanochip no longer got us extra meat at the base commissary, I whined. When I wasn’t invited to swim with the other officers’ kids, I cried. Then one day, my mother was pushing her cart through the neighborhood grocery just like everyone else. She could barely lift her head. I studied the half-empty shelves and rotting produce in wonder, as well as the scorn on our neighbors’ faces. I heard the words under investigation whispered by a store clerk. Something had brought us low. I didn’t know what.
My father started to sag and fade inside his crisp uniform. It scared me. I worried his uniform would walk itself to the door someday, with nothing of my father left inside it.
When my father said goodbye each morning, I clung to him, crying when he let go. On our last morning together, his hand shook as he pulled it from mine.
“Be good, Adam.” He kissed my head. “No matter what.”
I never saw him again in person, but his execution trended for weeks online. I’ve watched the State Press coverage many times since. The same reporters say the same things about national security. They call my father a traitor, but they never say what law he broke.
Maybe no one else noticed. I did.
My mother visited me at the state home for a while, but she couldn’t take me home, no matter how much I begged.
“But I belong to you,” I said.
Her face ran with tears. She clenched her hand in a fist and pressed it against her chest. “Yes, Adam. And you always, always will.”
She kissed me and left. I never saw her again. I still don’t know if she’s alive or dead, or why she never came back. The only thing I’ve learned is I never belonged to her at all. Not in the eyes of the state.
Now we’ve been using Reed’s code for several days, and I’m remembering things about my childhood which were meaningless at the time. Like how my parents talked about games they didn’t play. About the price of food they never ate. Was it a code like ours?
“Did your parents use code?” I ask Reed one night in the shower. It’s an awkward place to talk, but the water masks conversation.
“I don’t know.” He frowns. “I never thought of it.”
“My parents talked about backgammon but never played. They talked about eggplant we never ate.”
Reed is silent for a minute. “Once I remember my mom saying she would pick up cold medicine, but I thought it was strange. None of us were sick.”
“Mexadryl?”
His eyes meet mine. “Yes.”
I nod, then step back to rinse my head. Reed’s parents used the same code as mine, which means they must have been part of the same rebellion movement. A movement that could still be out there somewhere.
I wonder if my mother is with them.
Chapter 15
Xoey
* * *
Winter creeps in at night, cloaking the House in snow. The drifts are heavy, pushed by sharp winds, piling up against the buildings. The UN Inspector cancels his visit. Travel is not safe.
I imagine the school disappearing from UDR satellites, swallowed whole by the coming solstice. I imagine it never resurfacing.
It is still dark when I walk to the cafeteria in the morning, the only warm place on campus except for faculty housing and the Short Timers’ dorm. No one else is around and I feel strangely sized for this white wonderland. I cannot decide if I am too big or too small.
My cheeks and fingers burn as I make my way through shin-deep snow no one will ever shovel. Once I am inside, it melts and sloshes in my canvas shoes. They will stay wet all day. We were offered nothing warmer for winter, though a sweet girl named Tabatha found a box of jackets in the dorm basement, which I helped her distribute. They are thin and drafty, but better than nothing.
I worry about the students who have only just recovered from the stomach flu. They are weak and susceptible to developing something worse, like pneumonia. Our workload in the drafty munitions plant makes it much more likely. Tabatha greets my concern with sad resignation.
“We lose some every winter,” she says.
Sam and I are the only two members of the six-pack who did not fall victim to the flu. Most of the teachers are sick too, along with Zak, Claire, and Chad. When Kino got it, she retreated to her cottage, taking Vardelos and Monica with her to attend to her personal needs. They have remained there for more than two weeks. I see smoke rise from faculty chimneys and watch members of the kitchen crew deliver their meals: high quality food that students smell but never taste.
I have done what I can to help the sick, but they mostly need rest and water. Anyway, those of us left standing are expected to work. With school cancelled until the teachers are better, we have been working long shifts at the munitions plant under the direction of Mr. Haak.
He is too mean to get sick.
As soon as Mr. Patrick got well, he returned to help where he can, which makes me like him better than I did. He is as gaunt and weak as any student, but I have seen him deliver food to those who are too sick to get out of bed. He has even cleaned bathrooms: a job so vile, I get sick every time I attempt it.
One day he intervened when I was trying to get between Xu and a new girl named Marie. Xu cornered her in the stairwell leading down to the west laundry room when I heard her scream. I dropped a load of clean sheets and ran up to help her, grabbing his arm to try and pull him off. He slapped me and I went down hard, banging my hip on the slippery stairs.
Mr. Patrick found us there. Stronger than I would have guessed, he dragged Xu up the stairs without any effort. I followed, watching at a distance as he leaned in close and said something to make Xu’s face drain of color.
As far as I know, he has left Marie alone ever since.
That afternoon I found Mr. Patrick asleep at his desk. I hoped to set down a hot cup of tea and get out without disturbing him, but he startled awake. For half a second, his face expressed horror like I have never seen. Then he rearranged his features.
“Thank you.” His hand shook when he reached for the cup. “You’ve been a great help to your classmates during this crisis.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
For a moment he focused on my red cheek, still sore from Xu’s hand. Then he swiveled toward the window and stared out at the frosted world beyond. “No. No it’s not.”
I tiptoed out, leaving him to his thoughts.
Sam and I have struggled to keep clearing the library by ourselves, but our progress is pitiful. He is learning to trust me though, and has started telling me about his favorite comics. I am not at all interested in Ice Man and Swamp Thing, but he is incredibly observant. I like listening to him.
“Am I boring you?” he asks from time to time.
I always tell him no.
I recognized Sam as soon as I got to the House. He is older, of course, but when we were younger, he and his parents were often featured on the gossipy entertainment shows my father favored. I have only seen one movi
e starring Jasmine Rush and Tom Hayward. It was the typical kind of thriller about government scientists who stop extremists bent on destroying the ecosystem. A year later they costarred in an historical movie about two American workers murdered by corporate thugs after trying to unionize. They both won Guild Awards.
“The first couple to win in the same year,” my father kept saying.
But when I was about ten years old, media coverage of Jasmine Rush and Tom Hayward started to take on a darker tone. “I told you,” my father said to Mom. “As soon as they had that kid, they threw it all away.”
“What does he mean?” I said later. “What’s wrong with having a baby?”
“Nothing is wrong with having a baby. But their son is different.”
“Different how?”
“It’s complicated.” She lowered her voice. “It has to do with the way some people process information and what society thinks about them.”
Mom often took on that kind of clinical tone. She worked for the census bureau, keying in details about citizens all over the Sand so the government could track trends. She was very smart, and good at her job.
“Almost all citizens today are designated NT, or neurotypical,” she said, “including you and me. But back when your great grandparents were young, there were quite a few atypical people too.”
“Atypical? What do you mean?”
“Their brains are wired to process information differently. They are also very sensitive to things we NTs can easily ignore.”
“Like what?”
“Light, sound, texture, smell. For some ATs, the differences were severe and they needed a lot of care and support. Others coped well with their differences and contributed to society, just like NTs. It’s a spectrum condition, like vision: some people just need a stronger prescription than others to see clearly. Society accepted them for a long time. Even rallied around them, rooted for their success in life.”
“And Samuel Hayward is atypical?”
“Yes, and that’s rare now. Right about the time your grandparents were born, scientists learned to identify atypical neurology before birth, just like they had in decades past with chromosomal differences. The government started mandating penalties for people who gave birth to atypical children: they did not qualify for health credits, education, guild placement, or retirement. Abortion became a frequent solution. Now ATs have all but disappeared.”
“But Jasmine Rush decided to have Samuel anyway?”
“Yes. Being famous has perks. I imagine they thought they could afford to finance his care from their…sponsors in high positions. When he was a baby, people supported them. He was cute, of course, and there were no questions about how they cared for him. Now he’s older, and people are starting to complain. To remember society’s fairness doctrines.”
I tilted my chin toward my father. “And he thinks Jasmine Rush should have aborted her son?”
“Yes.” Mom laced her fingers and frowned at them. “I suppose he does.”
I watched the media become vicious over the next few months. Jasmine Rush and Tom Hayward were mocked. Everything from their clothes to their home was scrutinized and criticized. Jasmine’s last movie became a late night talk show joke while vids of Tom shouting at a street reporter trended for weeks, drawing sharp criticism from Sand to Sand.
Jasmine finally spoke out during an annual Music Guild show when she was supposed to be presenting an award. Instead, she started a passionate speech about the first tenant of our society, Tolerance for All, and how it was being ignored for people like her son. Before she could finish, she was dragged off stage, screaming for justice. The audience sat in stunned silence, all except for Tom. The camera cut away as he rushed toward the stage, shouting Jasmine’s name.
They were both convicted of treasonous speech and sentenced to death. My father watched every second of the trial coverage, cursing at the pixel wall while downing a full bottle of vodka. He came out of his stupor just in time to learn a faction of ardent fans intercepted Jasmine and Tom’s prison transports, intending to free them. They were successful with Jasmine, but Tom Hayward was killed during the escape. As far as I know, Jasmine Rush made it out alive.
Mom said there was no freedom in her escape. “With her son left behind, and in the hands of people who oppose his existence, her life must be nothing short of torture, wherever she is.”
Since coming to the House, I have often wondered why Sam was sent here. If the government wanted him dead before his birth, why were they keeping him alive now?
I lose sleep at night, wondering, praying for his safety.
“Hi Sam.” I sit down across from him in the cafeteria. “You okay?”
He nods. “The guys are getting better, but the dorm smells so bad.”
I laugh and tilt my bowl toward him. It is filled with watery cabbage. “Worse than the cafeteria?”
“Yes.” He wrinkles his nose. “Much worse.”
By the time everyone is well, I have been through the tunnel twice. Once with Reed and once with Riley. We have created a narrow path through the stack of books and have found even more in the cavernous room beyond. It is like a museum of paper, vinyl and plastic, filled from floor to ceiling with not just books but newspapers, magazines, records, discs, and boxes and boxes full of memory sticks. Stacked in the middle are old electronics: computers, televisions, music players. Reed and Sam are already tinkering, trying to get them to work.
There are other treasures in the tunnels, though none as exciting as the books. I found several bags of yarn and crochet needles. Riley and I dragged them back to the dorm one night. I do not sleep much anyway, so I am learning to make hats, mittens, and blankets for the girls who are still sick.
Riley suggested we carry books out too, just a few at a time so we can read. We hide them behind three layers of broken paneling in the library basement where we continue to work every afternoon, clearing out debris. Riley calls it our lending library. Some of the titles are familiar to us, but when we compare them to the modern versions, we find out a lot has been censored.
I love the novels: Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harry Potter. I also found a stack of Bibles in several versions and languages. Reed prefers political works like Common Sense and full texts of the American Bill of Rights and Constitution. I think it’s why he has started watching news programs on one of the common room pixel walls every evening. Others grumble at him, but he just points them toward another wall and keeps watching.
Oliver asked him about it one night. “What are you watching for?”
Reed mumbled something about his grandmother. The next day, he asked me if I would start reading a blog called Floodlight.
“It moves, but Sam can help you find it again.”
Sam is enthralled with the comic books we found. They are filled with super heroes he loves even more than Ice Man. Adam pours over the albums and CDs, reading their lyrics since he cannot hear the music. Oliver likes the history books. I have seen him flipping through 1776, Unbroken, and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, though he stands when he reads, bouncing from one foot to the other.
Riley likes the novels too, but mostly she studies the maps we found, always exclaiming at how the cities in the Sand used to be smaller and separated by hundreds of miles of empty land. Even more shocking is how huge the Dirt is. So much larger than the Eastern and Western Sands combined. Now Reed is studying them too.
The last night we were in the tunnel together, she gasped. “Xoey! Come see this!”
I put down Prince Caspian and focused my light on the children’s geography book in her hands. A full-page picture showed a towering green statue with a city in the background.
“The Statue of Liberty,” I read.
“It’s huge.”
“And beautiful!”
“Have you ever heard of it? It was once in the Eastern Sand.”
I shook my head, amazed.
It has been frustrating, having only stolen minutes to r
ead. Greedy for more, we take turns during detention, five of us working harder so the sixth can read. It is never enough. One day Reed asked Sam if there was any way to adjust the Cit-Track system so we can be offline for longer periods of time.
“Only if there were two of me,” Sam said.
I am still not sure what he meant.
The last couple of days have been twice as hard since we have not been in the basement at all, but perched precariously on the roof to staple a tarp over the hole. Oliver hovers near me, worrying about my ankle, but it is much better. Anyway, there is nothing scary about rooftops. I feel as free as a bird in the open air. Today I study the snow already piled up inside and wonder if we are too late to save the library. All the wood is bound to rot. Haak says the inside of the building is not important.
“As long as it looks good from the outside come next spring,” he says.
Riley and I exchange glances. If the outside of the building is all that matters, how long will they keep us working in the basement? The idea of losing access to the tunnel is heartbreaking.
The next day is Friday and everyone is exhausted after our first full week back at school. Our science teacher, Mr. Surino, is no exception. His typical ambivalence has turned surly. My feet are raw inside my damp shoes and my nose is running. I hear several people cough. I have distributed only three pairs of mittens and ten hats, but I am teaching some of the other girls to crochet too.
Riley and Reed are also sniffling, sitting across the lab table from me. We are supposed to be working together on a biodiversity flowchart, but no one is doing much. Reed just mumbled something about inflated carbon values and Riley is glaring at him. I lean my head against the window so I can see bits of blue sky pushing through the clouds high above. There’s a song I don’t recognize repeating in my head, driving me crazy. I pray for just a few warmer days, imagining they will do wonders for morale.
I do not see it coming, but I would like to think I feel something. A millisecond when everything goes still, when God tells me to move. Maybe that is why I straighten on my stool, pulling my head away from the window just before it explodes.
Stealing Liberty Page 9