by Melissa Faye
I was assigned to “protect” a large loop around the town. One of the other soldiers, a man named Jin, assured me it was going to be an easy assignment.
“You may need to snap at an NB if he’s heading towards the wrong sector,” Jin said.
NBs were assigned work in different parts of town, and if they worked too slowly or left their assigned area, the collars around their necks administered varying degrees of electric shocks. As a soldier, I helped keep the poor people in line. As if I was much scarier than an actual shock collar. And I had no intention of doling out discipline.
My assignment gave me a good understanding of what was happening across the camp. In the morning, the kids went to school. There weren’t a lot of school age children, but they walked to school with their parents. That was the strangest sight: kids walking around with adults with that familial look. Like old photographs and movies. They held hands as they walked, small hands in large ones, and sometimes a parent would let their child spin around under their hands.
The other strange sight was the pregnant women. They were all over. Or maybe they weren’t – I’d only seen one pregnant woman before, my best friend Etta, and even seeing more than one was eerie. Their faces varied from excited to exhausted to wistful. I couldn’t help placing a hand over my own stomach. What would it feel like to have a baby in there?
And the babies, of course. Adults walked around pushing strollers and carriages. Growing up, I only saw babies in and around the nursery, and only with their caretakers. This was different. Just like when Etta and Breck had Hope, these new parents were exhausted. I smiled at the memory.
I poked my head around the school building. If the parents weren’t working, and the camp was run by enslaved NBs wearing shock collars, who taught the kids? I did a loop of the school and watched a few kids playing hopscotch on a patch of blacktop behind the building. I swung around to a side of the building with a long row of windows.
Inside, the classrooms looked just like the ones I grew up with. Rows of desks, artwork on the wall, glue sticks and markers. The teacher in that room was dressed like the NBs: a light blue jumpsuit. She had the same B-Band I’d received when I joined Gray Suit training. No collar, though. Clearly, her job was deemed important enough and she was deemed trustworthy enough to not require one. She looked happy; the lack of a collar probably made her life much easier than most NBs.
I walked slowly down the row of windows, peeking in each one. More kids. More teachers in jumpsuits. The children got older the farther I progressed until I got to the farthest room. Middle class kids, maybe eleven or twelve.
They were studying history, and I could make out some of what was displayed on the room’s front screen.
The country’s motto, “What’s Best for the Community is Best for All” was at the top. There was a map of the country, with all the regions listed. I hadn’t seen this version before; certain regions were covered in different shades of red and yellow. Next to the map was a question: “What can I do to stop the rebels?”
The children worked in groups of 4 with their desks facing one another. They worked on smaller classroom tablets, calling out ideas while one group member recorded. The teacher strolled around the room casually, as if his jumpsuit didn’t mark him as Less Than. He was about my age and height. It made me wonder again – what had these people done to get these jobs, rather than getting a shock collar and a broom?
The man leaned over a table to point to something on a group’s tablet. He went to the front to point at something on the map, then went back to the table. As he returned, I could make out his face. He had dark black hair, blue eyes, and a smug face that last time I saw him brought out a very aggressive side of me.
I covered my mouth with my hands to keep from gasping. It was my ex-boyfriend. The one who helped us escape Young Woods with a pregnant Etta, then turned us in to the government. Seeing him created a bitter rage inside me that I hadn’t felt since before Etta gave birth. Back then, I was shut down and angry with the world. I did everything I could to keep my friends out of harm’s way, but every success was met with another failure. We got Etta out, and Ben turned her in. I delivered Etta’s child, and she was stolen by the government. We saved the children, but lost our friend Sven to a government soldier.
Ben looked up suddenly and we made eye contact for a brief moment before I stumbled away. I wanted to get as far away from Ben as possible to figure out my next step. He couldn’t have known it was me, I thought. Not in this gray uniform.
But of course, he knew. He appeared a few seconds later at the door to the school building, shouting my name. I ignored it at first, but when he got louder, I rushed back over to him.
“Keep it down!” I said. “Don’t you need to be with your class?”
“What are you doing here, Yami?” Ben asked. He surveyed me with his eyes, taking in my soldier uniform, weapon, and the leaner figure I’d developed from several weeks of intense physical training. I could have used that physical training to snap Ben in half, but I knew better. And besides: I needed to save some of it for the Chancellor.
“I’m working, just like you!” I hissed. “Go back inside!”
“No, Yami –“ Ben struggled to get the words out. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh no,” I said. “We are not having an emotional reunion where you apologize after seeing the error of your ways. You go back to your job, I’ll go back to mine, and we will stay away from each other from here on.”
“No! Please.” Ben looked at the ground below my feet while I felt my body tense up. “Just tell me how you got here,” he mumbled.
“How did you get here, Ben?” I snapped. “Weren’t you going back to town to be the Chancellor’s lackey? Shouldn’t you be on his team somewhere? How did you end up in that jumpsuit?”
“None of it matters,” Ben said, folding his arms. He looked up at me with a pale face and pleading eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried. Breck and Etta wouldn’t listen either –“
My jaw dropped.
“You haven’t seen them? They’re here. With the baby.” I flung my head around as if I might see them walking by that very moment. “They’ll be glad to see you. Or at least, happier than they are now. No one here is actually that happy...”
“Where are they? Where do they live?”
“In the former Silver neighborhood on the West side. I think their house is...319? 320?”
My heart soared at the thought of seeing my friends again. Even trapped in this bubble, they were as safe as anyone could be. And Hope would go to school, and grow up with other bio kids.
“Yami, please,” Ben begged before I turned away. “Please. All I wanted was for the public to learn what was happening. But that’s not what happened, not at all. The stuff I’m teaching in there...I know that’s not the truth.”
I stood still, my mind racing. Ben was here, teaching history, getting to be as obnoxious and condescending as ever, and his biggest concern was teaching the facts correctly.
“Let me help,” Ben said. “If you’re here, you’re doing something. I know you, Yami. You’ll figure this all out, and I have to help.”
“Why would I ever trust you again?”
“I – I don’t know.”
“Then there’s your answer.”
AS PROMISED, BEING a soldier in a Family Camp was an easy gig. I felt a twinge of guilt when I saw the NBs, knowing I hadn’t earned my freedom any more than they had earned their servitude. But I had a little freedom and I was determined to use it to the Underground’s advantage.
The Silver neighborhood was pleasant. The leaves were just starting to turn yellow and orange, and the NBs kept everything immaculate. I walked straight forward, glancing at house numbers out of the corner of my eye. Just a soldier on guard duty.
315. 317. 319.
There was no 320 – a small copse of trees and two benches sat across the street from #319. It was a small cottage, one floor, with a little yard and a garden. A bin
of plastic toys sat on the lawn right outside the front door. As I watched, the door swung open. It was Etta, holding Hope in her arms.
My eyes filled with tears. I hadn’t seen Etta in months, ever since I left Charlie and ran from Gentle Acres. Hope was so much bigger now. She smiled, a big sloppy grin, and bobbed her head happily in her mother’s arms. Etta’s lips tightened to a narrow slit when she saw me, like she was holding in her greeting. I didn’t move. We stood staring at each other for a moment.
“Hey, have you seen the yellow hat Hope was wearing this morning? It’s gonna get chilly later.”
Breck stood next to Etta at the door and paused to stare at me as well. We looked each other over. Etta and Breck looked healthy and had that wistful appearance I had seen on so many of the parents in town.
Breck looked up and down the street. A couple sat outside on their porch a few doors down and my movement caught their eyes. Breck pursed his lips.
“Excuse me, ma’am!” he called to me. “Is that my daughter’s hat right there? By your foot? It’s yellow.”
I looked at the ground near my feet, but nothing was there. I stooped over as if to pick something up with the hand furthest from the couple, and approached my friends. I passed the nonexistent hat to Breck and he thanked me.
“Actually, now that you’re here...” Etta said loudly. “We’re having a drainage problem in the kitchen and none of the NBs have come by. Can you take a look at it? Make a report? Maybe someone will help us if the report comes for you.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
With the door closed behind us, we dissolved into a puddle of hugs, tears, and laughs. With so few breeders, and so few who already had children, there couldn’t be that many Family Camps. And since I was already in a nearby region, it made sense that I’d be assigned to theirs. I just never thought of it.
“Are you ok?” Etta said. She grasped both of my hands in hers. “I mean, not just right now. Are you ok? Are you doing alright? Have you been ok since you left?”
I nodded with a sad smile. “I’m ok, Etta. Really.”
“I never thought I’d see Yami in a gray suit,” Breck said, pretending to brush some lint off my shoulder. “That’s a job that shows your allegiance to the country, Yami. Your patriotism...it just amazes me.”
“Shut up!” I said, swatting his hand away. “I’m actually...kind of...on a mission.”
I told them about working with Omer, going to HQ, and meeting Yami.
“We found out more about HQ, as you call it, before we left Gentle Acres,” Breck explained. “Ann was trying to determine if we needed to set up a central location for the rebellion, but once we found out HQ existed, we sent people there. Etta and I weren’t going to do it. Charlie had just disappeared, and we couldn’t leave Hope...”
“And the woman in charge of everything is...you?” Etta asked. “Really? That’s so strange.”
Breck laughed and fell back on the couch.
“No, not like that.” Etta shot Breck a look of irritation. “It’s strange because...it can’t be a coincidence.”
“What can’t?” I asked.
“The Chancellor always seemed to have a thing about you. Like he particularly dislikes you. How he talked to you and Charlie that day at the Med when I first got pregnant. Why did he end up talking to you guys of all people? And then how he wanted to talk to you when we caught his clone at New Waves. I always thought it was strange that he just wanted to mess with you. It probably wasn’t even the Chancellor we knew growing up.”
“What do you think that means?” Breck leaned forward again, placing Hope on the floor at his feet. She reached for a toy and rattled it loudly while we spoke.
“If he knew this other Yami was running everything, that she was really in charge, then I can see why he’s so interested in you. Clones are identical. Maybe he thought he could find out more about her by coming after you.”
“Or maybe he’s just pissed that she’s running everything so well,” I said. “He’s probably a petty man. Maybe he was just taking out his anger on me.”
Still, I stowed the idea in my head for further consideration. Before I knew the Chancellor was a clone, it made sense that he hated me. I stole Etta and the baby out of Young Woods and he couldn’t stop us. We found out about his history of bribery and coercion and would have told everyone if he hadn’t let us go.
Then again, with so much power on a national scale, it wouldn’t have mattered if that Chancellor lost his job. Maybe he didn’t care that Etta and Breck got away. They kidnapped the baby only weeks later. And now Etta and Breck were trapped in a Family Camp, under his control once more. All the systems he’d created for controlling the people...it made a tangle too complex to escape. I considered myself outside of the spider web, but here I was, lying to a couple as an excuse to have a private conversation with my best friends.
I was just as trapped as everyone else.
Chapter 16 – Charlie
I searched the faces of each NB carefully, nearly causing a few of them to leap out of their skin, hoping to see Mallory. My only guess was that she was sent to be an NB somewhere, but it wasn’t here. I passed by the man I punched in the cafeteria one day. I felt that same ball of hot anger inside my chest while slinking by. The only thing I could do for Mallory, though, was pull this camp into pieces. Followed by the Chancellor.
Over the next few weeks, I spent all of my time cycling between community functions and planning a prison break. Vonna and I met every few days. I sent her to talk to other NBs about getting out, but so far, she had little success bringing people into the fold.
Jacob was pleased with my engagement with his Chosen people. Their events were boring, but made me look like a particularly enthusiastic community member. Jane, the woman I met at a dinner party, was my new companion. I told her about Mallory, and it incited a rage in Jane that knocked away her cool, nonchalant attitude. She was ready to join the revolution.
It worked out well. Jane had no interest in me, and I had no interest in her. But when we were together, talking quietly about where our neighbors stood on the new breeding system, we seemed like a couple on their way to making a match. Zheng was distraught and kept her distance. I tried arguing with her that I wasn’t seeing Jane, but quickly realized it was better this way. Zheng could focus her attention elsewhere.
Vonna didn’t have much support from the NBs, but her supervisor was sympathetic to the cause and switched Vonna’s shifts to make it easier for us to meet. She was assigned to do some maintenance in a few houses in Jane’s part of town, so we snuck her into the house to talk with us.
“It would help if I could make a master list of where everyone stands,” Vonna said. “I don’t have the programming on my B-Band that you guys have, I don’t think. But I found a few more people this week who are willing to take some chances to get out of here. They’re just waiting on information about the shock collars.”
The collars were set up to deliver small shocks for indiscretions like leaving your sector or making a small error on the job. The shocks got larger as the infractions became more serious. One NB was caught flirting with a breeder. Someone must have seen, because a shock went through him that brought him to the ground, shaking uncontrollably. He was taken to the hospital tent in the NB area, but their supplies were always running low and he still had a limp weeks later.
I leaned over, and Vonna, used to it, leaned forward and brushed her hair out of the way so I could inspect the collar from behind her neck. It was slender and fit tightly around Vonna’s neck. Any tighter and it would make it hard for her to breathe. The way Vonna and the other NBs interacted with the collars, I knew they were uncomfortable anyway. Not just the shocks. Maybe just the constant reminder of their lack of control over their own lives.
I couldn’t figure out where the collar connected to itself. Vonna said they had snapped it on when she was brought here, but I didn’t see a place where anything snapped. No hinge, no joins. Still, I was better v
ersed in technology and engineering than the average person and was determined to figure this out.
“Ok, Vonna, I made a new program,” I said. I pushed my B-Band towards her so she could read the screen. “I’m hoping it will interact with the collar. Or at least let me look inside the collar, so to speak. See how it works. Where the signal comes from.”
Vonna scrunched up her face in Jane’s direction.
“Charlie, are you sure about that?” Jane asked. “If you mess it up, and trigger the shock...”
“I know, I know,” I sighed. “Vonna, I won’t let anything happen to you. This doesn’t even send a signal into the collar. It just tries to read the frequency given off. I could be picking up frequencies of any nearby NBs. I just don’t have other ones who will get within five feet of me.”
“Are you sure?” Vonna said, turning to frown at me. “It’s not your neck we’re talking about here.”
“Yes, trust me.” Jane and Vonna just stared. “Trust me!”
I waited for more pushback, but when none came, I opened up my program.
I hadn’t exactly told Vonna the truth. The program did attempt to hack into the collar’s operations. I couldn’t figure out a safer way to do it, so the program was as innocent as I could make it. It was like it just sort of poked at the insides of the collar. A light prod.
I turned the holoscreen back towards me and read the data as my program pulled it out of the collar. It showed me where the signal was coming from – the main entrance to the camp, which was where all official business seemed to happen – and what signal frequency they were using – which wasn’t helpful, since it could be easily adjusted. It showed me one more thing, but I slid that off the screen before sharing with Jane and Vonna.
“Ok, do you trust me now?” I smirked. Vonna and Jane ignored me and leaned in to look over the holoscreen.