by Martha Adele
He scans my face as I answer, “Mavis Wamsley.”
“Ah, Ms. Wamsley. The same applies to you. Your specific skill set would best be suited to a continuous post in the kitchen. I will go ahead and assign you both new schedules.” He presses some buttons and gives Sam and me a smile. “Check in with your post leader for your new schedules. Thank you in advance for your services.” The officer nods and heads out of our sight.
“Is that what you wanted?” I ask Sam. “To work in the kitchen?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know exactly.” We walk back over toward Sarah, our post leader, as Sam continues, “I really wanted to help get my mom, but working in here is helping, right?”
“Yes, it is!” Sarah exclaims, butting in. “We are a huge part of the war effort!” She puts down whatever strange food she is working on and hobbles past us to grab a few utensils. “I see you guys were put in here too, huh?”
We nod.
“Yeah, well, don’t worry about it. Don’t take it personally.”
“What?” Sam asks. “What do you mean?”
Sarah’s face falls as she realizes something. “What?”
“You said, ‘Don’t take it personally,’” I repeat. “Take what personally?”
Sarah shrugs, avoiding eye contact with either of us. “I mean, it’s nothing really. It’s just I was assigned here because of my disorder. They told me that I’m better suited for the kitchen than the battlefield.”
“Your disorder?” I ask.
She nods and pulls up her sleeve to reveal a vial system attached as an IV. “See?”
Sam takes a step forward and observes the vial more closely. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Sam!” I whisper.
“I mean …” He shakes his head and retracts his statement. “I meant what do you have?”
“Schizophrenia. Not a mild form either.” Sarah pulls back down her sleeve and hobbles off. Sam and I follow.
“Yeah,” she continues. “The only way I can really be a functioning member of society is to make sure I get my medicine. With this attachment, medicine is injected into my body whenever it senses I need it. It has something to do with the way it reads my blood.”
“Really? Why don’t they give one of those to everyone with a disorder?” Sam asks. “Wouldn’t it be easier?”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” Sarah chuckles at the thought. “These things are not cheap to keep up. They are pretty pricey. I spend almost all of the money I make here to keep this contraption working.”
“Why do you use that? Why don’t you just use the vials whenever you need them?” I ask.
“Every disorder is different, just like how everybody handles their disorder differently. It’s just easier for me this way.” She shrugs. “Like I said, I wouldn’t be a functioning member of society without this.”
“You know …” I head over beside her and help her dice whatever the strange fruit is. “That sounds a lot like what Chancellor Meir thought.”
“How so, dearie?” she chuckles.
I look over to Sam, who is shooting me a puzzled look, then back to Sarah. “Well, he thinks that people with disorders have no place in society. That kind of sounds like what you were saying.”
“Well, that’s not exactly what I was saying,” Sarah tells me. “I just feel like I am more useful when I’m medicated.”
I nudge her arm and smile back to her as I cut through the yellow fruit. “I think you’d be great either way.”
“Thank you, Mavis. Though I may not have agreed with your statement about me agreeing with Meir, I am definitely happy that you seem to be learning a lot.”
I chuckle and look to Sam, who seems to be fuming. His face has become red, his fists are clenched, and his stature has changed completely. I turn my head back to Sarah and try to focus on her. “Yeah, thank you. I didn’t think you agreed with Meir any more than I did.”
“Oh yeah?” Sam snaps at me. “Well, maybe he was right!” Sam growls. “If … if we have medicine that can help us be more normal, why wouldn’t we take it? Huh, Mavis?” His eye twitches, and he clenches his fist. “What’s wrong with getting a little help?”
Sam storms out of the kitchen, just as the clock strikes time for the first lunch shift to begin. Right about now is the time that he and I would be heading to Janice’s classroom to work, but I am guessing with our new schedules that the plan has been changed.
People come rushing into the cafeteria and over to the server’s bar, where workers are waiting to help them out. I turn back to Sarah, and neither of us knows exactly what to say. I don’t know why Sam got so upset. I don’t know where he went. I don’t know what to do.
After a few moments of silence, Sarah croaks out, “Let’s go check and see what your new schedule is.” She hobbles over to one of the hologram computers and pulls it up. Sam and I have the same schedule. We go to our morning class with Janice and then to the kitchen for the rest of the day. We do have two hours of free time in between, but other than that, we stay in the kitchen.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m sorry if I offended you by saying that about Meir.”
“It’s fine, dearie. I wasn’t offended at all.” She gives me a kind smile and chuckles, “Always feel free to speak your mind with me.”
“Thank you,” I say again. My arm begins to grow raw from my scratching. When I realize the extent of my harmful habit, I force my arm to my side. I know when I am scratching, but most of the time, I don’t ever register that I am doing it because I am nervous. My arm just breaks out with the desire to be scratched, so I scratch.
I take a breath and try to let my skin heal. “Sarah?”
She turns around immediately and looks to me with a concerned smile. “Yes?”
“Can I … May I be excused for a few minutes?”
She smiles at me. “Yes, ma’am. Go ahead. I will get to see you the rest of the day anyway.” She winks at me, and I head off through the cafeteria.
There are multiple recruitment officers walking around, assigning posts and new schedules to everyone. “Get your new schedule from your room leader,” they tell everyone.
Doing my best to avoid people on the way, I quickly make my way to one of the libraries a few floors over. A few days ago, Mandy showed me her favorite spot to go sit and draw. It’s in the corner of the room, behind all of the columns and rows of books. There’s a single table with one chair resting on the wall behind it.
The moment I enter the room, I ask the librarian for a sheet of paper and a pencil. Never looking up, she hands me a clipboard with what I asked for. Before long, I am sitting at Mandy’s table in the corner of the uncomfortably cold library, staring at a blank page. A blank page that is soon to be more.
Soon to be whatever I want it to be.
I have so many things to draw. I can draw the escape tunnel with all of the people in it and their faces when the explosion went off. I can draw Sam and myself walking down the hallway right before he yelled at me, when everything was fine and perfect. I can draw Sarah and her vial IV.
I can draw Henry. Little Henry Smalls.
The only boy who showed us any kindness as newcomers.
I can draw Henry.
No.
I can draw Henry’s hopes. I can draw what he never got to see.
I can draw the mountains.
Logan
The Taai all meet up in the training room after an early lunch. Eric and John take the job and pass out armor to go under our clothes, along with our assigned weapons.
John heads to the front of the group as we all put our armor on and our clothes over top. “Today is your first ground mission. We have trained long and hard for this, and I expect nothing but success.” He holds up his wrist cuff and pulls up a large diagram of Bloot, Mavis’s state. “We will be entering Bloot over the wall and evacu
ating the people. Our sources have confirmed that the word has gotten out, and their people will join us with little to no resistance.” John goes on to explain the plan in great detail to the group. He splits up the large number of the Taai and gives us all a specific assignment for each sector of Bloot. At the end of preparations, we all head down to the first place that I saw when I came to Bergland, the large concrete room filled with different sorts of armored vehicles.
All Taai members who share a certain assigned sector also share a vehicle. Once we get into our assigned cars, we take off. Eric and I sit beside each other in our car, and we listen to everyone else chat about their position and go over the plan as we strap ourselves into the seats.
I look past everyone and out the front of the van to see us exiting through the same tunnel Mavis, Sam, and I entered in. As we drive though, watching the circular lights overhead pass us, an odd feeling rises in my stomach, only to leave once we exit the tunnel. For the first time in a long time, I can see outside. The view from the top part of the mountain is gorgeous. The treetops run for miles and miles, blocking out where I thought the wall was. All of the beautiful scenery quickly speeds out of focus as we round a corner of the path just before we drive off the edge of the mountain. The slight feeling of safety I once knew returns after we make it back onto the ground.
I watch John as he rides in the passenger’s seat of the car, scanning the paths for mines. Whenever he sees one, he is to shoot and detonate it, leaving the path safe for us to use. The path has been clear so far, and the ride has been smooth.
After a good portion of time, I lean over to Eric and ask, “Is this your first time on a mission?”
“Yes.” Eric leans past me and follows my gaze to John. “This is the first mission that Young has been on too.”
“Really?”
“Yup.” Eric nods and rests back against his seat. “It’s a first for all of us.”
I turn away from John and look back to all of the other soldiers in the car. “So how did Young get his position as commander?”
“Favoritism. General Wilson trained Young, so when time came to pick a new commander, he chose his favorite student.” Eric chuckles, “You might find that favoritism plays a big role in Bergland.”
“There were no tests or anything that he had to go through?” I ask, thinking back to the lack of testing I went through to join the Taai. All I really did was answer some verbal questioning by John my first day of training. Was the only reason I was allowed to join the Taai because Janice recommended me?
“Nope. Not that I know of.”
The vehicle slows down, and John aims the car’s front gun. “Everybody buckled up?”
“Yes, sir,” we all say in unison.
“Good. None of you have seen any of these bombs detonate.” John fires his gun, causing a large explosion about a quarter mile out. The smokey and fire-filled explosion takes out two trees and every living thing within twenty meters of the center of the explosion.
“Now you have,” John tells us. The fiery sparks that were spit out of the bomb are swallowed up by the smoke that followed it. When the smoke dissipates, what’s left of the lumpy dirt road with fallen trees all around us becomes visible, and we drive forward.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sam
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
The blue irises that used to be as bright and light as could be now stare back to me with dark barriers. The ugly wrinkled nose, uneven furrowed brows, and weakly clenched jaw all aggravate me more the longer I stare at them.
Why are these my features? Why do I have to look like this? Not only do I fail to be a functioning member of society without the medicine, but I can’t even make an angered face the right way.
A “functioning member of society.”
Is Sarah right? Was Meir right?
Of course they were. If you have a cure, why wouldn’t you use it? And if you have something that makes you feel better and that makes you feel calmer and more relaxed, why wouldn’t you use it?
I listen to the commotion in the cafeteria as hundreds of people walk in and out, getting food. The bathroom walls echo with the sounds of their chatter. Their carefree lunchroom chatter.
I look down to the edge of the sink counter to see my two empty vials rolling off the edge. My hands immediately swing under it just as they fall off. One tube lands in my hand while the other falls to the floor. It tinks on impact but doesn’t break due to its unnaturally strong shell.
The tube in my hand is much lighter now that it is empty. It’s much colder too. I toss them both into the trash can beside the counter and look back into the mirror. Usually, when I take the medicine, the effects last at least forty minutes. Or they did the last few times I took the medicine.
Let’s see … There was the one I took the day Zigzag and his crew got to me. There was the one I took that night to sleep. There was the one I took the next day. There was the one I took the day after … Wait, how many did I take that day?
I don’t know. I’ve lost count. All I know is that I still have vials left in the case they gave me, which is a good thing.
I have more to spare.
I pull out the last vial I have in my pants pocket and roll it in my palm. The thick blue medicine in it now looks more like solid jelly with little patches of air bubbles. The warm tube calms me as I wrap my fingers around it. The effects from the last vial are wearing off much quicker than the medicine usually does. One more injection won’t hurt anything.
Just as I lower the tube to inject, the bathroom door swings open, and a slightly chubby young man about my age enters. I shove the vial back into my pocket and turn to face him. I straighten up and wipe my eyes. After staring at me for a moment, the boy walks past me and into one of the stalls.
What am I doing?
I look back into the mirror and realize how pink the whites of my eyes are. I wonder if he noticed.
I splash water on my face and rub it all around, trying to get the haziness off my face. It’s cold and quickly heats up when my hands rub it. I pull my shirt up and wipe the excess water off just as the young man comes out of the stall.
Avoiding eye contact, I head out of the bathroom as quickly as I can and make my way through the crowd toward the kitchen. The sounds of pots and pans clashing against each other is audible from the middle of the cafeteria and only grow louder the closer I get. The source of the clashing comes from one of the sinks in the back area.
“Need help?” I ask Mavis, who is dropping dirty pans into a larger-than-life dishwasher.
She turns her head to me and narrows her eyes. The bright green coloration that used to take over her irises is now a darker green, more of a deep emerald. I can tell she is conflicted. She wants to say something, but she doesn’t know what to choose.
So she nods.
Her voice—soft, but stern—makes its way into my ears as she points over to the large pile of dirty dishes. “Grab all of the empty pans from the front and bring them back. I will set them up on the trays.”
I follow her instructions and pass by the other workers in the kitchen, trying to avert from any unnecessary eye contact. I can’t help but feel self-conscious. I don’t know how long it takes for the pink to wear down, but it can’t come soon enough.
Trying to carry multiple pans at once, I drop one on my way back to Mavis, causing a loud crash. I apologize to everyone who looks my way, pick up the pan, and scurry away. Once I get them back to Mavis, I set them on one of the steel tables beside the dishwasher. “Would you like help putting them in?” I ask, hoping to mend the bond I hope I haven’t broken.
She shrugs. “I guess.” I follow her guide and stack the pans according to her example. After a few moments of silence, Mavis speaks up, never looking away from the dishes. “I’m sorry if I upset you earlier.”
“It’s fine.
It’s not your fault. I just needed to go cool off.”
Mavis looks over to me and gives me that beautiful and comforting slight smile. “By the way, you and I both had the same schedule changes. We are to work in here for the rest of the day. We get two hours of free time whenever we want, according to Sarah.”
“Got it,” I answer.
I wonder what Logan’s new schedule is. If Mavis and I are to be in the kitchen all day because this is where we are best suited, where will Logan be all day?
Mavis places one last pan into the washer and heads off to do something. Just before I pick up another pan, I realize how quiet it has gotten. I realize that the only noises I hear are of Mavis and me with the pots and the other kitchen workers walking and talking. There is nobody in the cafeteria other than the people who are cleaning the tables and the floors.
I look around to have my eyes fall upon the large digital clock on the column in the center of the room.
I was gone for three hours?
“Here.” Mavis taps me on the shoulder with a tray of food in her hands. She extends the tray to me and nods me off. “You haven’t eaten lunch. Go ahead. I can do these.”
“Are, are you sure?”
“Yeah.” She gives a halfhearted chuckle. “It’s not like you or I have any other place to be today.”
“Thank you.” I look her in the eyes and can tell something is off. She is trying to put on a happy face, but she is obviously upset. “Are you okay?”
She nods, this time with a more serious expression. “I am. Are you okay?”
I nod back. We have a brief moment where our eyes lock, and we say nothing.
“If you ever want to talk, you know I’m here for you.” Mavis steps forward. Her voice now even softer. “Right?”
“I know.” Our eyes are still locked, and our bodies are as close as can be with the tray in between us. “And you know that if you ever need or want to talk, that I’m here for you. Right?”
She nods. “Right.”