by Kyle Andrews
She eventually wandered into the lobby of the Garden, with all the TV monitors and people hovering over computers. She watched those people scurry about their daily routines. Each of them had a purpose and a reason for being there. As she watched them, she thought about what her role could be in that place. If this was going to be her home, she needed to earn her keep. But how?
Having already told Aaron that she wanted to learn how to fight, Libby considered the paths that she could go down. Was she a warrior? Could she ever be? Probably not. The idea of her running through the streets, taking out HAND officers with her trusty slingshot seemed fun, but not realistic in the least. Still, she had to think of some way to contribute. Not growing food or cleaning clothes, but really contributing to the fight.
The problem that she faced was that each time she thought of a job that needed doing, she tried to picture herself in that role, and nothing fit. If she tried to physically fight the war, she would probably get people killed. If she trained to be a medic, she wasn't sure that she would be able to remember which medication was which, or how to pronounce any of them. She lacked the impulsiveness that she'd seen in the two Freedom drivers that she'd worked with in the past, so she doubted that she would be able to evade the authorities in a high speed chase.
Everything was beyond her grasp, and she was terrified that when all was said and done, she would end up costing more than she was worth.
In all the time that Libby had spent in the Garden, she'd never visited the main garden itself. She'd even done her best to avoid touching any of the plants that were scattered around the entire building. Maybe it was because of all the classes that she'd taken in school, against her will. Maybe it was because she always found plants to be boring. But now, as she thought about her place in the world, she wandered away from the lobby, and through all of the back rooms which were filled with fruits, vegetables, nuts and even flowers.
The smell was like going home. The first time the scent of manure hit her nose, she was taken back to the life she once had, and the classrooms that she had always hated.
Things were simple back then. She could sleepwalk her way through life without thinking about what she wanted to do or how she wanted to pay for her mother's medical bills. She simply followed orders and showed up for gardening classes every once in a while.
The UV lights were a nice change of pace. She hadn't been out in the sunlight for so long that she forgot what it felt like. This was a poor substitute to be sure, but it felt different on her skin. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine herself standing in a field, smelling the flowers around her, with a blue sky overhead, stretching on for as far as the eye could see.
“I'm surprised to see you out here,” a man said, approaching Libby from across the room.
When she opened her eyes, she was back in the Garden. No sun. No sky. Just the closest approximation that Freedom could manage to create in the rundown former hospital.
The man was older, with white hair, and glasses sitting on the tip of his nose. He wore an apron and carried a clipboard as he went about his work. Now the clipboard was by his side as he walked toward Libby and smiled.
After greeting the man with a polite nod, Libby turned toward a nearby tree, studying its small pink flowers.
“Cherry blossoms,” the man told her. “Smell them.”
Libby leaned closer to the small pink blossoms and smelled one of them. It was a beautiful, sweet smell. Not as fruity as she would imagine. She held it in her lungs for a moment before exhaling.
“You're growing cherries?” she asked the man. “I've never had them before.”
“We have a couple of fruit-bearing cherry trees. This one is just for the blossoms.”
“Just to smell them?”
“Well, mainly. We pickle some, but it's not an incredibly popular product,” the man answered. “I'm Daniel, by the way. Daniel Owens.”
“Libby Jacobs.”
“I'm not sure there's a person left in this place who doesn't know who you are.”
Libby knew this already, but hearing a stranger say it made her feel odd. She didn't like the idea of people saying her name, or whispering things about her when she couldn't hear them.
Daniel grinned and said, “I've never envied celebrity. How are you handling it?”
“As well as I can, I guess.”
“A lovely way to not answer the question,” Daniel nodded. “I don't mean to pry. Just making conversation.”
“It's fine.”
“You should hear the rumors about you. Wrong, I'm sure, but fascinating.”
“What kind of rumors?”
Daniel leaned back and put a hand on his chin as he tried to remember some of the rumors. He then chuckled and said, “One boy thought you have a computer chip in your brain. Someone else said that you're the reincarnation of Cleopatra... I heard someone else say that there's a whole library in your DNA.”
Libby tilted her head to one side and told him, “That one's true.”
“Really? A whole library?” Daniel said with wide eyes. “Can you really recite every book from memory?”
“No.”
“Sign John Hancock's signature perfectly?”
“I don't know who that is. But, no.”
“Are you really invisible to street cameras?”
“No. It would be nice though.”
“So, just the library then?” Daniel nodded, seeming to be a little bit disappointed. “I guess that's pretty good.”
“I should probably be getting back. My mother needs me,” Libby told him and started to turn away.
“What else do you do, Libby Jacobs?” Daniel asked.
Now walking, Libby replied, “I run away and hide pretty well.”
“A good talent to have when you need it. It was a pleasure meeting you.”
Libby didn't respond that time. She just kept walking away, trying to get as far from the questions as she possibly could. She had a hard enough time explaining things to herself. Trying to explain her life to someone else just sounded ridiculous.
“You remind me of your cousin,” Daniel said, just as Libby was about to leave the room.
She stopped walking and turned around. Daniel was examining one of the plants and writing something on his clipboard, as though he weren't expecting the conversation to continue.
Libby walked toward him again. “You knew Uly?” she asked.
Daniel nodded, “Oh, sure. Nice boy. Polite. Giving.”
“Why didn't you mention this before?”
“The library thing seemed more interesting. I didn't know Uly well. We spoke sometimes, when he came in to get a flower for his girl, Marti.”
“He came in here?” Libby asked, looking around the room with new eyes, as though there were a chance that she might see Uly walking through the door.
“Here, and the other rooms. One time, he gave her a tomato blossom,” Daniel smiled. “He liked to give her a different flower every time.”
Libby smiled. She never knew anything about that. Of course, she wouldn't have. If she ever saw Marti with one of those flowers, she probably would have turned her in for possession of an illegal substance. Plants were regulated under the same laws as food items. A person couldn't just grow or distribute fruits and vegetables freely.
Once again, she was reminded of that other life that Uly led. The one where he could be himself. He could laugh openly. He could love his girlfriend the way he wanted to. There was a whole community of people here who might have known him, and now he was gone and they were left with a cheap replacement.
“What was he like?” Libby asked Daniel. “In here, I mean.”
“Well, like I said, he was a giving boy. He gave food away sometimes, to elderly people on the street. I'm sure he knew them, of course, but even if they weren't from Freedom, he'd give them something here and there, and tell them that it was on his shopping list that week.”
Libby thought about all of the times that Uly brought food over to
her and her mother. In the months before he died, Libby didn't speak with Uly very much. If he came to their apartment, she would slam the door in his face, or walk away from him. But Amanda would accept the extra food when they could get it. People in Uly's extracurriculars always got better food than the rest of the people, so Amanda probably never thought to question where it came from.
“Was he happy?” Libby asked, hoping that the answer was yes.
Daniel looked at his clipboard for a moment before turning back to Libby and saying, “Nobody in Freedom is happy. But he had his moments.”
Libby wasn't sure what to do with that response. Obviously, he wasn't happy. He was living in an ugly world, with no way of making it better. But she wanted to imagine him being happy, if only to ease her own guilt over the way she treated him.
“He mentioned you,” Daniel told her, as though he were just remembering it. She hated how he kept doing that.
“What did he say?”
“He said that you were a smart girl who didn't know what you were capable of.”
“I'm not capable of anything.”
“If you say so. I'm just telling you what he said.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“I'm sure he said a lot of things. I just can't remember it all right now,” Daniel told her. His look then shifted to a much more somber expression and he said, “You never know how little time you have to talk to someone. You never think to remember every conversation.”
A lump formed in Libby's throat. Unfortunately, she remembered most of her final conversations with Uly pretty well. Now her mother was dying, and she only had more regrets to look forward to.
“I have to go,” she told Daniel, feeling a sudden need to get back to her mother.
“Feel free to visit anytime. The plants are good listeners.”
“I will. Thanks.”
Libby turned and hurried toward the door. She didn't know much about Daniel. Maybe he was a nice man, but her conversation with him made Libby feel worse about everything. She was growing more and more restless, searching for some way to make herself feel worthy of everything that had been done for her, but she couldn't think of anything. Even as Freedom became more visible to the outside world, Libby was locked away and helpless.
As she tried to make her way back to her mother, Libby found herself lost in a maze of hallways which seemed to lead around in circles.
The hallways needed to be painted. Their once-white walls were now starting to turn yellow with age. Several of the linoleum tiles on the floor were broken. The place was well cleaned. There was no mold on the walls, and the patients all looked like they were being well taken care of, but every worn element of the building reminded Libby of the way things once were.
Once upon a time, that place was new and freshly painted. Now it was a shell of its former self, still serving a purpose to the world, but the building was getting as tired as everyone else.
As she passed each room, Libby looked through the doors for her mother. She saw two or three patients occupying each room, with friends or family members sitting by their beds. The flu was hitting some worse than others, but then there were the other illnesses. The cancers and the infections. Surgical patients. New mothers. There were no special wards here. Patients were placed wherever they could find room.
At last, Libby found her mother. The door to the room was closed, but a whiteboard on the door had Amanda's name on it, along with her doctor's name.
Libby opened the door and stepped inside. The room smelled like food. Though Amanda was still unconscious, someone had brought in a lunch tray for her. For some reason, the smell made Libby nauseous when it struck her nose. Maybe it was the setting more than the smell. Or the entire situation. Whatever the cause, she had no desire to sample any of that food, and wished that someone would take it away.
Again, there were no windows in the room. The TV was in better condition than the one in Amanda's last room. There was an old sitcom playing on it, but Libby didn't recognize the show. She could hear the laugh track telling her that someone had just made a joke, but she wasn't paying attention to anything that was being said.
All of the normal tubes and wires were still hooked up to Amanda. Libby followed each of those wires back to the heart monitor that hung on the wall beside Amanda's bed. She expected the machine to make a noise, but it was silent. The whole room was silent. And that's when it struck her. The remarkably obvious fact that she had overlooked when she entered the room was that Amanda had no roommates. She was the only patient in that room, even with all of the other patients packed tight.
Why would Amanda have her own room? The question repeated over and over again in Libby's head. It didn't make sense. What made Amanda special?
At first, Libby thought that it might be because everyone knew who Libby was. Daniel had compared her to a celebrity, though she didn't feel any different than anyone else. The doctor had offered her special deals when it came to treatment. Maybe the room was a perk of being famous, but something about it didn't feel right. It felt like there was something else to it.
As the sitcom on the TV went to commercial, a brief news update came on. The reporters spoke of arrests being made around the city, as HAND cracked down on the Hate members who were tagging the sidewalks.
More likely, they were arresting anyone who dared to ask a question. Word was getting out. People weren't falling in line as easily as they normally did. The words found in Libby's blood were sparking something out there, and she couldn't take her eyes off of the TV. Lies or not, she knew what was really happening. She just wished that she could see it for herself.
36
It was a long day at school. Throughout his classes, Justin tried to listen in on whispered conversations, only sometimes catching what students were saying, while teachers tried desperately to maintain control of what went into their minds. Even the math teachers were attempting to work citizenship lessons into their lectures, speaking about demographics and the evils of creating a system where those with more money could afford to buy whatever they wanted.
Justin had to sit through lecture after lecture of teachers who were singing the praises of economic equality, societal balance and cultural evolution. According to his teachers, it would be chaos any other way. The wealthy would buy all the food and clothing, while those who were unable to get better jobs were left to starve. The rich and popular people would take everything and leave the poor to die in the gutters. The racial, sexual, and possibly even dominant-hand minorities, would be driven from their homes and forced into exile.
The fact that most of these things were already happening was not a part of the lesson. The people deemed more worthy were given better food than those whose worth was determined to be less. Those less-worthy people could do nothing to elevate their status. They could do nothing to earn a better life. Once their fates were decided, they were stuck with those fates.
In English class, the lesson was about the power of literature, and the dangers of spreading hateful ideas through fictional stories. There was no balance. No counter-point. Presenting biased ideas as realistic concepts was irresponsible and potentially dangerous. Race wars could start. Rights could be taken away. Hostile content, it was called. The idea that allowing differing opinions or questions into the minds of the everyday citizens would bring about the downfall of humanity.
God forbid that people should listen to different ideas and decide what they believed on their own. But of course, Justin would never use the term 'God forbid' out loud. After all, he might be hung for believing in something so intolerant. It would have been funny if it wasn't so aggravating.
There wasn't a single class where the teacher didn't make a speech about the greatness of the New American way. The New American Constitution. The enlightened path of equality and true freedom for everyone.
There also wasn't a single class where Justin didn't feel an urge to vomit. Fortunately, he could tune those lessons out and the sick
feeling would subside.
After extracurriculars were over for the day, students started to make their way home. Justin followed behind a couple of students, and heard one of them ask the other, “Have you read anything about hate on the sidewalks?”
The other one replied, “They're not going to open with the murder and oppression, dumb-ass. They're trying to sell their ideas.”
“But we don't know what's being left out.”
“Yes we do. They've been telling us all day at school.”
“But they haven't shown us the full documents, with the hate and all that.”
“What are you saying? Are you on their side now? Are you going to join Hate?”
“No. I just... I wish I could see...”
The other guy stopped walking and grabbed his curious friend by the collar as he asked, “See what?”
“Nothing,” the now-scared boy replied. “I don't need to see anything.”
“Loser,” other boy replied and threw his friend onto the ground. He walked away, turning a corner and moving out of sight.
The boy on the ground looked toward Justin. He was obviously scared that Justin might have heard him asking questions and that he would be beaten up or turned in. He stared at Justin, waiting to see what Justin was going to do to him.
This kid was smaller than Justin. He wasn't coming from the same extracurricular as Justin. He didn't have the muscle tone for any of the athletic groups. Odds were, Justin could snap this kid in half if he wanted to, so the boy had good reason for being scared.
Justin stared back, walking closer and closer to that boy. His face remained expressionless, which offered the boy no warning or relief.
As he got closer, Justin thought about what he could do. What he would like to do was offer the kid some help up and have a long conversation with him.
What he probably should have done was kick the kid while he was on the ground, and spit in his face as he walked away.
What Justin actually did was pull up the collar on his jacket, and walked right past the kid without saying a word one way or the other. He acted as though he hadn't even heard the boy asking questions.