by Ramona Finn
When I woke up, my body ached and the sun was peeking over the horizon. I’d slept all night on the couch, and my body was complaining about it. As I went about washing up, my mind went back to last night’s show. How had it ended? Maybe I’d missed the best parts, where something had actually happened.
With a bowl of something that was called oatmeal in my hands, I watched the repeat broadcast. I also noted that filming had been over hours ago, and it wouldn’t have taken Ben that long to get to my place. He wasn’t coming.
That was fine with me. I wasn’t going to spend the day sitting around and waiting for him. But I wanted to finish the repeat broadcast anyway. Having been to the actual set, I wanted to pay more attention to exactly what each character was doing. And, really, they weren’t doing anything. The assistants poured liquids into test tubes, picked them up, shook them, and put them back down again. They did that over and over again. Even someone like me, with no experience in a lab, could tell that this was all for show. Why hadn’t any of us noticed this before?
I listened carefully to the Farrow family discussion. Again, nothing they said indicated that there had been real progress on the Cure. They didn’t mention me or Kev, or the fact that they suspected some of us had a natural immunity. It was the same old garbage that they’d fed to us in the Geos for years.
A boulder the size of my room sat in my stomach, weighing me down so low that I couldn’t get up off the couch. I stared at the Farrows—seeing their mouths moving, their lips smiling—and wondered how many hours they’d spent practicing their acting. Or did lying come naturally to them?
A tiny voice in the back of my mind questioned my logic. Where did all this suspicion come from? An evening ago, I’d been on cloud nine, making out with Ben and planning our union. Sure, I was mad with him right now, and also disappointed that something so small as a peek at the lab’s computer systems would split us up so easily. But I was scared, too…scared that I was about to connect myself permanently to a man who I really didn’t know, who in one moment was crazy about me and in the next was trying to control me. Who was the real Ben? Was he his father’s son? Could I live this life?
I needed advice, and to talk this through. My mind went to Skylar Two. When I’d been with him, none of these questions had arisen. It was so easy to simply be myself with him and not fear being admonished or corrected. But talking to Skylar Two was impossible on two levels; I had no idea how to reach him, and I didn’t think he’d enjoy hearing about my escapades with another boy.
I needed my parents. We didn’t always agree on things, but when things got desperate, they were always willing to listen. And I needed to know if Mom was okay. That worry worm in my chest was growing into a full-sized python.
Enough! I told myself. No more sitting around and waiting for Ben Farrow. This wasn’t who I was. I’d grown up in the toughest environment on our world and survived the Acceptance, for crap’s sake. Get off your butt and do something, Tylia Coder!
I went to the computer that hung on the wall by my front door. Now that I knew Amara existed up here—and a more advanced version of her, even—I tapped my way into the AI’s operating system. The screen came alive with concentric circles of every color. This told me the AI was ‘awake.’
“SKY, could you open a comm channel to the Geos?”
“Unable to comply,” came her answer.
“Ben Farrow told me that I had approval to contact my parents in the Geos.” Unless that had been another lie.
“Unable to comply.”
“But I’m Tylia Coder, winner of the Acceptance. My parents are supposed to be transported here to the Greens. I should be able to talk to them.”
“I do not understand your request.”
“I wish to speak to my parents.”
“Unable to comply.” It was impossible to negotiate with SKY. She had no sympathy.
“What is the reason you cannot comply?” I finally asked.
“Tylia Coder does not have the required security level.”
“So, how can I obtain the required security level?” It was probably best to speak in her language.
“Seek help from the communications department.”
“Show me where that is.”
A map of the Greens appeared, showing me my location and where I needed to go. I straightened out my tunic and brushed back my hair as I studied the map of the Greens and memorized my path.
The second lowest floor in this Sky Lab housed the communications headquarters. When I’d lived in the Geos, we’d heard that every Elite had access to communication devices that let them call anyone they wished to speak with at any time. Now that I was one of them, I figured I should have the same rights.
The communications department was a dim but airy room segmented into tiny cubicles. Every cubicle had a terminal and an Elite sitting in front of it, staring very seriously into the screen. It reminded me of a nicer version of the Coding section in the Geos, except for the long counter that greeted me as I entered. Its purpose appeared to be to separate anyone entering from the Elites in the cubicles on the other side.
I noted that the counter was numbered, breaking it into four sections. I read the instructions that glowed on a panel to the side of the entrance. It told me to stand behind the yellow line in front of the shortest queue. I headed to counter number four where there was no line. In fact, there were no lines at any counter. It was so quiet, I wondered if the Elites in their cubicles ever had to deal with real people.
If we’d had a department like this in the Geos, where people could go to talk to those in charge, it would have been packed with people every day, coming in to complain about what wasn’t working. Because there certainly was a lot of that happening in the Geos. Most things didn’t work properly anymore.
In the Labs, everything functioned perfectly.
“Hi.” I leaned over counter number four and spoke to the girl in the nearest cubicle. She looked up at me with a blank expression—she wasn’t surprised or happy, or even bothered to see me. Another two girls, in neighboring cubicles, glanced over at me. They were all clones, but with different appearances than Max and Dax. I wondered how many sets there were in the Labs.
“How may I help you?” She sounded bored. I couldn’t blame her.
“I’d like a security clearance so I can use a communicator,” I said. I didn’t know how much I should reveal right up front.
“Name?” She looked back down to her terminal.
I gave her my name and which apartment I was staying in. She tapped at her terminal and then looked back up at me. “You already have clearance to use a communicator,” she said.
“Then why can’t I call my parents?”
“Which Sky Lab are they in?”
“They’re in the Geos,” I said. I had a feeling she’d already known that as soon as I gave her my name.
She tapped some more at her keyboard. “You are not cleared to call anyone in the Geos.”
“Yes, I know that.” I tried to sound patient, but I wasn’t having much success. “I want to change that.”
She stared at her terminal, and then back at me. She blinked several times before giving me the news I almost expected to hear by this time. “You may not use the communicators to call the Geos. No one but the Farrows has that clearance.”
“Can you at least check to see if they’ve left the Geos?” I asked with my best polite-sounding voice and manners. “R.L. Farrow promised he’d transport them on his private ship.”
The clone stared at me, unimpressed by my name dropping. Maybe lots of Elites did that. “I am not privy to Mr. Farrow’s flight manifests.”
I could swear that had been piercingly sarcastic. Oh, she was testing my patience. I thought about what to do next. There had to be a way to get clearance. If my parents had been there in the Labs, I would’ve known, surely. So, if they were still waiting in the Geos, they’d be wondering what was going on. I had to get in touch with them.
I chewed the
inside of my lip and played the only card I had left. “I’m Tylia Coder. I’m about to be partnered to Ben Farrow.” Even though I wasn’t sure that was still on. “He promised that I could call my parents in the Geos. They’re waiting to be transported here. I need to update them. Don’t you think they’d want to know about what’s happening to me here?” I took in a deep breath and did my absolute best to keep my tone level as I spoke my next line very deliberately. “All I want to do is check in with them.”
The girl clone blinked back at me again. This time more slowly. The others stopped what they were doing to watch our stand-off.
“Only the Farrows may contact people outside of the Sky Labs.” She’d spoken deliberately, as if to say, ‘Let that sink into your thick head.’
There was going to be no reasoning with this girl. I was going to have to ask Ben.
“Can I at least send them a message to tell them I’m fine?”
Blink.
I’d never wanted to hit anyone as much as I wanted to smack this girl. But I tried to remember that she was a clone and that she had to fulfill her function.
“You will have to ask the Farrows.”
I could’ve screamed. Instead, I marched out of there fuming. My heart was thudding so hard, it made my head hurt. I walked up and down the Greens’ levels, not seeing anything but the cloud of fumes in my head. Ben was still mad at me, as I was with him, so if I wanted to talk to my parents, it meant only one thing.
I was going to have to swallow my pride and make nice with Ben. My stomach twisted.
Suddenly, this beautiful place called the Greens felt like another prison to me.
Prison. That reminded me of Kev. Where was he?
I found a SKY terminal and asked the computer to locate Kev. Surprisingly, he was in an apartment not far from where I was standing. He wasn’t in the brig or anything.
I headed for his place.
“When did you get out of jail? Why didn’t you call me?” I started to throw my arms around him but pulled my arms back quickly. A flash of the last time we’d been together shot through my mind, and I realized he could still be mad at me. Kev had given himself up to save me, and he’d faced punishment for that while I’d gotten what amounted to being engaged to a Farrow. That was reason enough for him to hate me. Did he?
Kev was standing at his doorway, mouth agape, hands hanging by his sides like limp cucumbers. I stepped back, red-faced, and waited for a reaction. He was dressed in a white tunic and dark pants, like many of the Elites in the non-Farrow section of the Greens. It made me conscious for a second that I was in blue, the Farrow family colors. How would he react? I would take it if he yelled, if he never wanted to speak to me again. I would have understood.
“Oh my stars, you’re all right!” He stepped out and pulled me into a big, warm hug. “You got out? Did they hurt you? How are you feeling?”
“What?” I was so confused.
Kev looked up and down the hallway outside his quiet apartment. There was no one there. He pulled me into his place and locked the door behind us. His apartment was a lot smaller than mine, and very sparsely furnished. His living room window looked out into an atrium that showed only other apartments. Quickly, Kev moved to shut the blinds, protecting us from potentially prying eyes.
“Sit,” he said, leading me to the small counter at his kitchen entrance. He had no dining table, I noted. A small door to the side of the kitchen was ajar, revealing a tiny bedroom. “Tell me, when did they let you go?”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. “Kev, are you all right? What did they do to you?”
Kev looked down at his hands for a second. “You need water,” he said. “And food.” He busied himself in his kitchen, programming the synthesizer to produce a bowl of something that looked less appetizing than the sludge we got in the Geos. He placed the small bowl in front of me and looked so expectant that I couldn’t not eat.
Whatever it was, it had the texture of porridge, but the taste of mushed-up paper. I tried not to show him that.
“What happened to you?” I swallowed a spoonful of the porridge. The bland taste didn’t help. It got stuck in my throat. “I’m so sorry for leaving you.” It was the porridge that made me sound like I was about to cry more than my actual emotions—I was as much confused as anything.
Kev reached out and put his hand over mine. “I would do it for you again if I had to. I just hope you weren’t too hurt by the torture.”
Torture?
I put my hand over his and waited for him to continue.
“They kept me for several days,” he said. “It was weird. In the beginning, they wanted me to say that you’d cheated your way into the Acceptance.” He looked at me with glistening eyes. “I thought they were mad that we’d sneaked out of our rooms, but…can you imagine they’re still thinking about the Acceptance?”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. My heart rose into my throat. The Farrows were still suspicious of me? After all those tests? And R.L.’s suggestion for my partnership with Ben? Maybe he was making doubly sure I was legitimate. I forced myself to look at Kev, to encourage him to keep talking. I hated making him recall his suffering, but I needed to know what he’d told them.
“I told them there was no way you cheated. You are the most honorable person I know.” The smile he gave me ripped through my heart. I’d done this to him. His suffering was all my fault.
Kev scratched the back of his neck. “After a while, they gave up and started accusing me of cheating. They couldn’t believe two people from the Geos could be immune in one trial. So, they pricked and prodded me with all kinds of needles, saying they’d prove something was wrong one way or another. I only got through it all because I thought about how you were suffering, too. I sent you lots of good thoughts, hoping you’d make it through. And you did.” He grinned.
The porridge rose back up into my throat. He didn’t know I’d escaped consequences because of Ben.
“Anyway, I’m ashamed to say I broke,” he said, squeezing my hand. “I cried like a little kid and begged them to leave me alone. I guess it worked because they let me go.” His shoulders slouched as he stared at his hands. The silence filled up the whole tiny apartment.
Then, he straightened up and looked at me with a big smile. “They gave me this apartment, and R.L. Farrow even sent me a personal message via SKY. He apologized for my suffering and told me I could become a valued member of the Greens. I think he gets a bad rap sometimes. He seems like a decent person.”
Kev’s sudden ups and downs disturbed me. But having met R.L. Farrow myself, I understood how Kev might have come to this conclusion.
“Now, tell me what happened to you?” he suggested, looking so earnest that I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth.
“Let’s not talk about me,” I began. “But it looks like we both got what we wanted in the end—we’re a part of the Elite now.” The smile I gave him was weak. I was not a good friend.
“Come on.” He took my hand and led me to the door. “We should celebrate. We’re Elites now, so let’s go eat some real Elite food.” He laughed as the door slid open and he pulled me along the hallway. We followed a sign that read “Cafeteria 125.”
The cafeteria was an open atrium. It was filled with sunlight that shone through the domed, transparent ceiling. It looked as if it could easily fit every Elite in the Greens at one time. Tables and benches filled the white-patterned floor while food synthesizers way bigger than the ones in our apartments lined the walls on one side. Elites dressed in the same uniform tunics as Kev’s walked back and forth with blue food trays. They gathered in large and small groups, chatting and laughing.
When Kev and I walked in, the Elites at the tables closest to us stopped what they were doing and stared. My first thought was that I was in a different colored uniform. Did I have a right to be there? Maybe this was only for those who wore white tunics. Their reaction spread through the atrium like a ripple widening on the water surface.
“I think they know who we are,” Kev whispered. Clearly, Kev didn’t know what our different uniforms meant. I didn’t have the heart to tell him just yet.
The Elites looked at us like they knew we didn’t belong. No matter what color I was wearing. The fact that we’d come up from the Geos was probably enough. They probably knew we were from the Acceptance and resented us for making it this far. But why hate us for doing something that would potentially save them, too, in the future? It made no sense. But at least they limited their resentment to glares.
Until we were walking to a table with trays of food in our hands.
One Elite bumped me from behind, sending my tray out in front of me to crash to the floor. Food went splat on the pristine white floor, and water sprayed out onto the nearest bench, as well as all up my trousers.
The whole room went quiet. Kev sputtered words of comfort as he placed his tray on the nearest table to help me wipe myself off.
“Are there any cleaning supplies?” he asked generally.
I froze, staring at the mess I’d made. The whole bumping scene played over and over again in my mind. I hadn’t crossed anyone on my way to the table. Why would someone bump me? Unless they’d meant to do it.
“Why don’t you wipe it up with your tunic!” someone called out. Others snickered. “You could always get your clones to make you a new set, wannabe.”
I whipped around to see who’d said it. Everyone was looking at me with smirks on their faces. I couldn’t believe that grown Elites would behave so badly. Someone in their family or ancestry had to have been from the Geos because that’s where we’d all started out before the Labs were built. They or their ancestors had once been new to the Labs, and they’d forgotten. So, this was how they treated newcomers. Or was it just Kev and me?