Rebirth

by Sophie Littlefield

  “You’ve already taken him?” Malena demanded, her voice going high and shrill. “You’ve already taken my Devin? Can I go see him?”

  Pace exchanged a pointed look with Kaufman. “You told them about the modification?”

  “No-” he replied hastily “-I didn’t say a word to them, I swear.”

  “Lester? What about you?”

  “No, we were together the whole time. He didn’t say anything.”

  “What are you talking about?” Malena demanded. “What modification? What are you doing with my Devin?”

  “Relax,” Pace commanded, his face pinched with irritation. “The procedure is standard for the entire general population. Please don’t worry. Your son is in good hands. I understand that he is ill, and he will be given his medication while he is recovering. He’ll receive a standard dose for the next three days. And I’m sorry that we cannot provide medication after that, but your work evaluation will take into account his condition. We’ll try to find a position that allows you to spend as much time with him as possible until his determination.”

  “But this is all wrong!” Malena cried. In Cass’s arms, Ruthie whimpered softly and pressed her face against her neck, and Cass rubbed her back, trying to soothe her. “My boy is an outlier. Devin is an outlier! He’s supposed to get his medication! You have to take care of him!”

  Kaufman stepped forward and took a gentle but firm hold of Malena’s arm. She tried to shake him off, but he held fast; she was no match for his strength. Pace stepped out of the way, trying to conceal the look of distaste on his face.

  “We’ll do everything we can for him,” he said stiffly. “But medication for chronic conditions is available only for outliers.”

  “But Devin is an outlier!”

  “No. No, he’s not. His test came back negative.”

  “You’re lying! Why are you lying? You wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t an outlier, you can’t-”

  “I’m here for them.” Pace nodded in the direction of Cass and Ruthie.

  It took a moment for comprehension to dawn on Malena’s outraged face, but it was quickly replaced by fury. She wrestled her arm free and threw herself at Cass. “You? You can’t be an outlier. You tricked them. You made them believe your lies! What did you tell them, you whore? What did you do?”

  Kaufman moved quickly, pinning Malena’s arms behind her and dragging her backward.

  “Where did you take him?” she screamed, spittle flying. “Where have you taken Devin?”

  “The same place every man goes who fails the test,” Pace said impatiently. “To be neutered. Now, if you’ll come with me.”

  “Neutered? What-”

  “He’ll be given a vasectomy under sterile conditions. He’ll be made as comfortable as possible.”

  “Trust me, it’s hardly the worst thing anyone’s been through around here,” Kaufman said. Malena stopped resisting and slumped against him.

  “Only thing you need is a bag of frozen peas,” Lester said, not unkindly. “I mean, if we had ice.”

  “Or peas.” Kaufman winked at Cass, but she could only stare back, stunned. Was he trying to joke with her? Cheer her up?

  “They run old movies off the generator,” Kaufman said, leading Malena toward the table, but she went limp, her knees buckling. Cass rushed to help and together she and Kaufman lowered Malena into one of the chairs. “Get a bunch of guys lined up on the couch-they’re all in it together, it’s not so bad. And you miss a couple days off work. You know, not the worst thing ever to happen, hear what I’m saying?”

  “But my son is a boy! He’s not even a man yet!” Malena looked wildly from one of them to another, pleading, tears welling in her eyes. She jerked away from Kaufman but he held her wrists tightly. “Don’t let them do this. You have to tell them. They made a mistake. Devin is an outlier. Tell them to do the test again.”

  “Ma’am…” Kaufman started. His face was carefully flat, not without sympathy. He exchanged a look with Pace. Cass knew what they were thinking: the boy would be lucky to survive a week, much less all the way into manhood.

  And what of Dor? She knew she shouldn’t care-after all, who wanted to bring children into this world? And she supposed the procedure he’d receive was probably no more dangerous than the drive down here. It might take him out of commission for a couple of days-but she could use that time to learn, to explore, to see if she could find out where Sammi had been taken.

  She found herself unexpectedly thinking of Dor’s tawny skin, smooth and hot under her hands in the cramped den of the house two nights ago. With only the single candle for light, she hadn’t been able to see anything but shapes, shadows-but his skin was surprisingly silky under her fingertips, his chest muscular and practically hairless. Somehow she’d expected the tattoos on his arms and neck to have a texture, a surface that would abrade or pulse. But no…

  Of course last night she’d seen nothing in the dark. With her hands pinned above her head she’d felt-well, of course she’d felt him in other ways. When he brushed against her, gritting his teeth and making a strangled sound in his throat. When he’d entered her in one pitiless thrust—

  Cass felt her face flame and tried to look away, but Malena was staring at her beseechingly. “Make them understand!” she implored.

  “Malena…”

  “Make them stop!” Her voice escalated to a scream as she tore one arm free and reached for Cass, her hand thin and grasping, her nails bitten and ragged. Cass lurched away from her, bumping into Ruthie, who had silently followed her back into the room. Cass saw that Ruthie’s face was pale and anxious, her eyes wide with fear.

  “Don’t worry,” she said hastily, picking Ruthie up and turning her, away from the sight of Malena, red-faced and desperate.

  Her little girl whimpered against her neck. At the sound of her faint mewling Cass tried not to react, but she hadn’t heard that sound since getting Ruthie back, save a few times while she slept. Slowly, cautiously, she pulled Ruthie away and examined her face. Tears streaked her cheeks and her hair was damp, a few strands stuck to her skin.

  “Help him,” Ruthie whispered.

  Help him.

  Help the boy who Cass thought Ruthie had never noticed, who had neither spoken nor moved since they arrived, the boy who was little more than a ghost lingering between life and death.

  Cass swallowed the lump in her throat and pressed her cheek to Ruthie’s. Of all the things she’d longed to hear her daughter say…her first conscious sentence was this, a plea for something Cass could not promise-for all she knew the boy was already gone.

  What was she supposed to say?

  She had vowed, the day she stole Ruthie back from her own stepfather that she would shield her daughter from all the ugliness in the world. No man would ever do to Ruthie what Byrn Orr had done to Cass-he had put his clammy hands on her and told her that she wanted it, that she was a dirty slut who needed a man to drive the sinfulness from her. That she was born unclean and his touch would redeem her. That had been the third-worst of his lies, after “I have to do this because I care about you” and “You made this happen.”

  Lying on her side, face turned to the wall, while Byrn pushed her nightgown up over her buttocks, Cass had promised herself once she got away, she would never let anything like this happen again. Instead she’d won her freedom only to squander it on one drunken, faceless encounter after another. But when Ruthie was born she realized that she could protect her daughter from the ugliness of the world, even after she’d failed to protect herself.

  “Help him, Mama,” Ruthie whispered a second time, and Cass felt rent in two. How to protect her now from the most basic ugly truth of the world? How did she tell her daughter that they could not save everyone? That they had to let some people die, Aftertime, because there just wasn’t enough to go around? Not enough resources, enough time, enough energy-enough of anything?

  “Oh, sugar,” she heard herself say, and she held Ruthie close, rocking her against her
body. “Sugar.”

  She could not make this impossible promise. She’d just make everything worse. She couldn’t help Devin, and soon he would die, and she would be in the position of having to tell Ruthie that she hadn’t been able to help him after all. Ruthie would know that Cass had lied. Cracks would form in Ruthie’s trust. And trust was the only gift Cass had to give Ruthie besides her love. Didn’t her daughter deserve to know there was one person on the earth who she could always count on? Even Devin had that-as unstable as Malena was, upbraiding Kaufman and Lester and even Pace, screaming about her son-she had never flagged in her dedication to him.

  Cass had made one other promise, in a moment of weakness. Several months ago, when she’d first awoken after the Beater attack, she’d met a girl in the library that had been her shelter. Sammi-Dor’s daughter. Sammi was lively and brave, and when she asked Cass for a promise, she could not say no. Sammi had asked Cass to find her father. And Cass, tired and lonely and unmoored, had said yes. It had simply been easier than saying no.

  Cass never believed it would happen-but it had. The odds of finding one man in what was left of the little mountain towns dotting the Sierras…well, the odds were small. And yet she had ended up in the Box, with Dor, and she’d passed on Sammi’s message of love and hope and longing for the father she never forgot.

  Cass knew better than to ever imagine that she was blessed, that there was a lucky star over her or a divine shepherd looking out for her. Her own father was little more than a distant memory, a hazy dream that she’d relegated to the other memories of childhood, in a far corner of her mind. And yet, the thing she had promised had come to pass-she had found Dor. If it had happened once, wasn’t it possible that it could happen again?

  But try as she might, Cass could not embrace faith, not this time.

  “It will be all right,” she said to Malena, who’d sunk back into the chair. Cass chose her half-truths with care. “But we can’t do anything now. I’m sure they’ll let you see him soon-right?”

  “Uh…yeah, soon,” Kaufman said, hedging. “I mean, maybe not today, what with the…procedure and all. But tomorrow. For sure tomorrow.”

  “I have to wait here until tomorrow?” Malena wailed. “I don’t get to see him?”

  Pace picked up a sheet of paper. It was printed with a grid, handwritten words lined up in the squares. “Actually we got your work assignments. Devin…well, given his special status and all, they’re going to do a special determination.”

  “What’s that? What the hell is a determination?”

  “All it means is special circumstances.” Kaufman looked increasingly uncomfortable. “Look, I’m sure he’ll get some sort of desk job. Or something.”

  “Yes, I can’t make any promises but they’re looking for a few people in the records department,” Pace said, but he wouldn’t meet Malena’s eyes and Cass figured he was lying. “And you’re not going to be too far off. You’re in the receiving depot. Trust me, that’s a good assignment. You should be happy.”

  “Shit, I started in demolition,” Kaufman said. “Breathed mortar for two weeks. I would have loved to get receiving.”

  “What about me?” Cass asked. “And David?”

  “You’re an outlier,” Lester said, with a trace of envy that he didn’t bother to mask. “That’s way different.”

  “I’ll have an assignment for you soon, but it’s only temporary,” Pace said crisply, giving Lester a disapproving glance. “For one thing, you’ll be spending a lot of time in research. As for David, he’ll be considered for an assignment from the regular population pool. That may change when you move to permanent outlier quarters. But no moves will be feasible until spring, at the earliest. There’s a great deal to do. Now, let’s get everyone moving. There’s a new group that should be here any minute.”

  As he and Kaufman talked in low voices about how best to move Malena, Lester touched Cass’s arm, his expression wistful.

  “Those outlier quarters? When they get them done, it’ll be the closest thing anyone’s going to come to Before ever again.”

  25

  DOR WAS WAITING WHEN LESTER ESCORTED CASS and Ruthie to their room in the temporary quarters reserved for those waiting on their permanent assignments, a nearly empty floor of an unremarkable brick dormitory. The door of their room was propped open and he was sitting on the edge of one of two narrow beds, his jaw set in a hard line. He jumped to his feet and stood glowering, large hands hanging at his sides.

  “Where have you been?”

  “What are you doing here?” Cass couldn’t help staring at his crotch, which looked like it had the last time she’d seen him-if he’d had a vasectomy, he’d also had a remarkable recovery. He was wearing the same jeans he had on yesterday and a shirt she didn’t recognize. He’d shaved, but it wasn’t the precise, close shave he preferred, and she supposed no one had returned his pack to him yet. Dor’s one indulgence was his razor, which he paid the Box barber to sharpen twice a week. Entrepreneurs themselves, raiding parties often brought shaving cream or new straight blades to barter with Dor.

  “I’ve already been snipped,” he growled, “like I told you all before. We could have saved a little time if you’d listened to me.” He directed this at Lester, who shrugged and turned to go, hand on the door frame.

  “Just following orders. Besides, it’s not like you had to go through hell to prove it. See you around.”

  His steps echoed down the hall. They were on the second floor of a boxy brick dorm. It was eerily quiet; Cass supposed most people were working at whatever jobs they’d been assigned.

  “How did you prove it?” Cass kept her voice casual, unwilling to let out any of her emotions, especially not the embarrassment and shame that came to the surface the minute she saw him.

  Dor shrugged. “Jacked off into a Dixie cup. With a copy of Penthouse from 2012. You’d think they’d be able to find a few copies from last year, given all the raiding they do.”

  Cass felt her blush deepen, but she was determined to keep things light between them. “Who was on the cover?”

  “I didn’t notice. I just looked at her tits.”

  “Ha.” Cass didn’t believe him. Something in her wanted to think he probably didn’t look at anything at all, that he closed his eyes, that his mind was somewhere far away and unknowable to anyone but him.

  And if she imagined for a fraction of a second that it was her he saw when he closed his eyes, then she was the biggest idiot of all, pathetic Cassandra Dollar, wondering, as she had a thousand mornings after, if the man she brought home was thinking of her as he drove back to his own house or apartment or trailer or wife, wearing the clothes he’d had on in the bar or party or parking lot or wherever they’d met. No man ever did, of course, she knew that now. They thought only of making a clean getaway, of washing all traces of her down the drain.

  But Dor couldn’t get away. Dor was stuck with her. Well, they were both adults-they would just have to find a way to deal with it.

  “How did they know…you know?” Cass asked, aiming for nonchalance. “I mean, are you really, um…”

  “Shooting blanks? Yeah, I had a vasectomy after Sammi. I think they just put some on a slide and check it out under the microscope. Hell, you could probably do it with one of those cheap scopes they use in middle school. The little fuckers are swimming around in there or they aren’t, you know?”

  Cass wrinkled her nose. “Um.”

  “Look, Cass, long as we’re on the subject…” His brief attempt at levity, rare enough for Dor on the best of days, was clearly over. He turned away from her, made a show of lining up the items on one of the two student desks-a pen, a pad of paper, a plastic cup-in perfect symmetry. “Just in case you’re wondering, I have no issues.” He cleared his throat. “Health issues.”

  For a moment Cass didn’t understand-and then she did. There had been a recent outbreak of crabs in the Box; one of the most popular items being traded lately was RID shampoo. There had also been
a couple of HIV-positive people in the box-once-hardy people who, deprived of their medication, were now getting sicker and sicker. Safe sex, once as easy as a trip to the drugstore, was a lost luxury-though most people were willing to take the chance, given the life expectancy Aftertime. Smoke had told Cass one day, shaking his head in amazement, that in the comfort tents sex with a condom brought the seller almost no premium over sex without-no one believed they’d live long enough to suffer the consequences. As one old-timer put it, a phrase he repeated every time he scraped up enough to afford a night’s entertainment, “I’d rather die with a smile on my face and a withered dick than with all my parts working and nowhere to use them.”

  “Oh,” Cass said in a small voice. She focused on Ruthie, who had slipped over to Dor’s side and was looking longingly at the neat row of objects. Cass knew Ruthie had her eye on the pen and paper, her favorite entertainment in all the world.

  “And you? You…and Smoke-everything…healthy?”

  Anger rose like sap in Cass’s veins. None of your business, she wanted to say. The last time she and Smoke had made love, the morning before he betrayed her, she lay in his arms afterward-foolishly, obliviously-thinking that they would never be separated in this lifetime. That he was the last lover she would ever have.

  But she’d been wrong, and now it was Dor’s business. Because she had made it his business.

  This is wrong, he’d said.

  I don’t want you.

  But she had forced him.

  And then last night he had punished her, and she’d fought him for it, demanding more.

  She hung her head. “Yes. I, uh…before Smoke, before everything, I had a checkup, must have been a year and a half ago. Clean bill of health.”