by Martha Adele
Janice? First Henry, then Sam’s mother, now Janice?
“Hey.” I nudge John in the arm. “How do they know it was a Bestellen extremist?”
“That’s classified.” He looks over to me then back to the hologram with a dead expression. “Trust the system.”
Trust the system? Janice was the person who actually welcomed us to Bergland, and now she is dead. Or supposedly dead. If they can’t even tell us how they knew she died in the process, how are we supposed to trust them? Who would kill Janice? Why would they kill Janice?
The same type of people who killed Henry. The little boy with so many hopes and dreams he wanted to fulfill, but never could because he died fighting someone else’s war.
He deserved better.
Riding home in a cab, there is nothing but silence between the driver and I. I say nothing and think about everything. I think about Sam’s mom. I think about Henry. I think about Janice and Emily. I think about Mavis, and I think about Sam.
When I finally make it home, I head inside and find Eric making dinner. I am usually the one who makes our meals, but Eric seems happier than I’ve ever seen him. Giddy, even.
“Glad you’re home. I just finished.” Eric plates the fish and vegetables and hands me my dish. We sit down at the table, and Eric digs in.
I take a bite and find it a tad bland, but I ignore it and continue eating. “So what has you in such a good mood?”
Eric looks over to me with a smile on his face as he chews.
“Did you finally get a girlfriend?” I raise an eyebrow at him and pop another piece of the fish into my mouth. “Possibly your physical therapist?”
Eric mumbles something under his breath and takes a bite of his vegetables.
“What was that?”
He rolls his eyes and looks back at me. “I’ll get a girlfriend when you ask Mavis out.”
I scoff. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t like Mavis.”
Eric looks at me with an unconvinced expression.
“Whatever, man.”
“You know you do,” he tells me, “but we both know you are too scared to ask her out.”
“What are you talking about? I asked her to the inauguration ball.”
He sets another bite of fish into his mouth. “Was that a date?”
“Huh?”
“Was. That. A. Date?”
I pick up a vegetable on my fork and hold it up. “Define ‘date.’”
He snickers. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
I take another bite of food, and we sit in a standoff, chewing our veggies. “How about this,” I tell him as I finish swallowing. “If I ask Mavis out, you have to ask someone out. Not just anyone, but someone you actually like.”
He rolls his eyes and extends his hand. “I’ll take that deal, only because I know you’ll never do it.”
We shake on it, and I take another bite of food. “Whatever, man. You never did tell me what you are so happy about.”
“Oh right. Okay, so I spoke with John today.” He cuts into and stabs the last bit of his fish. “And he got me a job.”
“Oh yeah?” I take the last bite of my vegetables. “What’s the job?”
He lifts his fish meat into the air and takes his final bite. “Fisherman. Up in State Two.” Eric chews with a smile. “I’ll be leaving in a few weeks.”
“Um, I …” Baffled, I look at Eric’s giddy expression as he chews. “Congratulations.” He has always wanted to be a fisherman and now he will be. “Do you have a place to stay up there?”
He shrugs. “I think so. John said he has it all set up for me.”
“What about a roommate?”
“I don’t know all the details. John and I are going to talk about it tomorrow.” Shoving another piece of food in his mouth, he smiles. “I will fill you in on everything then.”
Now that Eric will be moving out, maybe I should get a roommate.
Sam.
Sam needs a roommate.
If he moves in with me, he won’t have to keep working on the farm.
After dinner, I head over to Mr. Gohaki’s house then hike my way back to Sam’s. Once I get there, I knock on his door to find no one home. I back off the porch and make my way out to the barn half a mile away to see if I can find Sam there.
The smells of the occasional fresh pile of manure find their way to my nose and bring me back to reality.
What am I doing?
Sam just lost his mother. Should I really be asking him if he wants to move in with me? There are upsides, sure. Sam won’t be alone, and he won’t have to work on the farm anymore, but it is really soon.
It’ll be weeks before he moves in anyways, so what’s the harm of asking now?
Once I get out to the barn, I can see through the boards Sam speaking with a man who has a set of dark tattoos on his neck. I enter through the doors, catch Sam’s attention, and know I can’t back out now.
The two of them smile at me and make an obvious change to the subject. The tattooed man clears his throat and turns back to Sam. “So have you heard anything about the poisonings?”
I continue to approach and turn to Sam with a slight smile. “Poisonings?”
“Um …” Sam looks back at Bram with a goofy smile. “Our friend Markus told us that there were about fifteen people that were picked off one at a time in State Four.”
“Yeah,” the tattooed guy tells me. “They had holes in their backs from where someone had walked up behind them and stabbed them with some sort of lethal liquid.”
“How did Markus know?” Sam asks the tattooed man.
“Markus’s friend works in the hospital down there.”
“Do you think that the poisonings are related to the conspiracy theories?” Sam asks us both.
“I don’t know,” the man answers, “but over the last week or so, Markus would say something about this every night and come up with a new theory. So he certainly thinks so.”
Sam chuckles. “I actually think some of his theories are true though.”
“Like what?” I ask them.
Sam looks around the barn then back to me. “There’s word going around, and not just by Markus, that the bombing of the Palace wasn’t by a Stellen extremist, but by the new government.”
“What?” I scoff.
“Yeah, the word is that they have people out on the streets and spies in the home that monitor you.” The tattooed guy gives me a little smile. “And if you feel like Frieden is gaining too much power or if you don’t agree with something they believe, they will kill you.”
“That’s why the Palace was bombed,” Sam tells me. “Janice and the others didn’t agree with the chancellor on something, so he wanted them out of the picture.”
I shake my head in shock and disbelief. “There’s no way that any of this is true.”
The tattooed man walks past me and pats my shoulder. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. If you want to know, you need to look further into what’s going on.” He makes his way out of the barn. “Rather than believing the news or what we are saying, think for yourself.”
“I’ll see you later, Bram.” Sam waves to the man as he exits the barn and throws a bag of feed over his shoulder. “Hey, Logan, sorry about that. What can I do for you?”
“Well, first, you can tell me if you believe the theories.”
“It all makes sense, and nothing the theories propose can be refuted.” Sam carries the feed up a step and into what I assume is the feed room.
“It has been refuted by the news reporters and the investigators, hasn’t it?”
Sam exits the room and comes over to grab another bag. “Has it really?”
After all the lies and deceit I have been fed my whole life by the news, I don’t know what to believe
anymore. As Sam carries one of the bags back to the room, I bend over to help and grab one of the remaining bags. As I throw it over my shoulder, I feel a horrible pain in my lower back shoot through my spine and down my legs. I immediately drop the bag of feed, spilling the corn all over the floor.
Sam exits the room and looks around the floor, seemingly growing with frustration until his eyes fall upon me. “Logan, are you—”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, grabbing my back and making my way out of the barn. “I’m very sorry. I have to go.”
“Logan.” Sam runs over to me. “Are you okay?”
I turn to him and nod with the only smile I can muster up.
“No, you aren’t.” He heads over to his little cart and helps me up onto a seat. “I’m going to take you back to my place and call you a cab. You need to go to the hospital.”
“No, no,” I tell him. “I don’t. I just need to go home.”
“But, Logan—”
“I’m fine.” He takes me back to his house, calls the cab, then drives me over to Mr. Gohaki’s driveway without another word.
Sam helps me get into the cab when it arrives and looks at me once more. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I can tell he is worried about me. I assume he is overly worried because of the way his mom died without warning, but I assure him once more. “I’m okay. Thank you.”
With those final words, I make my way home, never getting to ask my question.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sam
The sun has set.
The day is over.
I head home and take a shower to get all the crap and hay off me from work. After getting out of the shower and heading into the main area, the first thing my eyes fall upon is an orange-and-yellow frosted cake sitting on the counter in a fancy glass dish.
Being only in a towel, I turn around and head back into my room to change. Once I am fully dressed, I come back out and examine the cake more closely. Carrol seems to have made a sort of swirl pattern all throughout the frosting that blends the yellow and orange together without forcing them to become one.
I consider inviting Carrol and Aspen over to enjoy the cake with me. I have all of my work done for today, so what would be the harm?
The more I think about it, the more I realize I don’t feel like having anyone over right now.
I turn away from the cake and head to the radio on the mantel. I turn it on and take a seat on the couch.
“I’m not surprised. It was just a matter of time before the New Care Act came through,” one man says to the other.
“You’re right. This has been a hot topic for years, and I for one am glad to hear that Oswald has taken a stand and is following through on his oath.”
A woman’s voice comes out of the radio following the second man. “For those of you who aren’t familiar with the New Care Act, it is the proposal that will be reinstating the medicine at birth that cures certain disorders. This act has made these medicines mandatory.”
Thank goodness. I don’t know why it took so long to pass. They have been discussing this for years, so I guess they were just waiting until they got back out here, but still. By doing this, no one would have any more mental disorders, right? This process seems not only helpful, but it also seems like it is the moral thing to do.
But isn’t that what Bestellen thought?
“After the New Care Act was passed, Jonathan Riley, one of Oswald’s advisors, announced that they will be cutting down on vials. He told the crowd when he addressed this issue that ‘the vials have become too addicting and, with this cure, unnecessary. There were vial dealings back in Bergland, but not nearly as many as there are now. There have been over thirty reported cases of vial overdose in Frieden since we arrived, and we don’t like those numbers.’”
I head over to the radio and turn it off. I don’t need to hear this. I use the vials when I need to. I use them when I can’t sleep or when I can’t feel any peace. I just lost my mother, and now they want to take away the only thing that can help me feel calm? The only thing that can help me feel normal, like a functioning member of society?
I wash my hands and head back over to Carrol’s cake, where I plate a slice and take it over to the table. As I sit down and blankly stare at the cake, I pull my mother’s gemstone necklace out of my shirt. I pull it off and find myself stroking my thumb against the orange jewel.
A bite or two of cake finds its way into my mouth as I continue to stroke.
At least while I was in Bergland, I had already prepared myself to never see her again. Sure, I held on to hope, but not so much that I believed in it. I was preparing myself to either be right or to be pleasantly surprised.
But now, I feel even worse than I would have if I would have come back from Bergland to find her dead. It is so much worse to have her practically come back to life and then be snatched away just when I think everything is great again. We were just getting back to normal. Her arm was supposed to be getting better. She just said she was sore.
I wish she would have died before I got to see her again. That way, I wouldn’t feel like this.
No.
I don’t feel that way. I just miss her.
I miss her so much it hurts to think that I’ll never get to feel her hugs again. I’ll never get to feel her warmth again and never get to tell her I love her again.
My messenger vibrates to life on the couch. I check it to find Bram wanting me over at his and Markus’s house. I message him back to tell him I am on my way then sit back down at the table and finish my cake. Though it is a pity cake, it is a very good one, and it should not go to waste.
Maybe I made the right choice not inviting Aspen and Carrol over to share it.
Once I get to their house, I make my way to the door and knock. Markus swings it open and looks me up and down. “Hey, Sam.” He lets me in and points over to Bram. “He’s over there.”
I follow his directions and make my way into their kitchen. On the counter is a vial case, which I assume is why he called me here.
“What’s up, Sammy boy?” Bram says to me as he slides me the case. “Are you ready for today’s assignment?”
I can’t help but chuckle. “You make it sound like school.”
“This is even better than school though.” Bram walks around the corner and places the case in my hand. “Because you’re getting paid.”
I nod. Bram tells me where to meet, and I head out. Once I get behind the bakery, I look around and observe my surroundings. The easiest thing to do would have been to just hide the case in the dumpster, but instead, I come up with a more original plan.
A plan that even I am impressed with.
As I climb up on top of the dumpster to reach my hiding spot, I find a familiar mark spray painted on the back of the building. This one, though, is much smaller.
REER.
Respect existence or expect resistance. I have seen this abbreviation several times since the day that I was mugged. And every time I see it, it makes me more aware of the fact that people in Frieden seem to be upset with the way it is being run. Other than this New Care Act, what do we have to be upset about?
After placing the case, I wait and wait, and the two women finally come around the corner.
“Are you Steve’s guy?” one of them asks me.
“No.” I shake my head and look around.
“Bram’s?” the other one asks me.
I nod.
“Good. We just needed to make sure.”
One of them comes over and slides an even thirteen hundred into my hand. “Where’s the case?”
I smile at them and point up. Their eyes slowly rise to find the case sitting on top of one of the thick tree branches that provide the bakery with shade.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” I tell them.
By the
time I make it around the back of the bakery, one of the girls has already hopped on top of the dumpster and pulled the case down, the same way I put it up there. I can’t help but feel proud of my hiding skills. I wasn’t a jerk and made it hard to get, but I was smart and made it hard to see.
I head back to Bram’s and hand him three-quarters of the cash. He nods to me and smiles. “Thank you very much.”
I nod back to him without another word.
“Do you …” Bram turns to Markus then back to me. “Do you want to stay here for a while?”
“What?” I ask him. “Why?”
“I don’t know. We know you lost your mom, and we …” He looks back to Markus again. “I don’t know.”
Markus moves over to one of the desks in the room. He pulls out a small purple vial and hands it to me. “Here. This is a type of vial that we don’t usually give out to people.”
I take it and roll it around in my hand. It looks to be the exact same as the blue vials, only a different color.
“Go ahead and try it,” Bram tells me. “It’ll help you feel better.”
I continue to stare at the vial. “Take it here?”
“Yeah,” Markus says.
I look at both of them and go take a seat at the table where I did the last time I took something here. I hold the vial in my hand and look it over once more before injecting it into my thigh. The purple liquid drains just as the other vials do, and I close my eyes.
“So”—Markus nudges Bram—“did you hear about the Palace bombings?”
“Obviously, dude. It was all over the news.”
“No, I mean the theory. Someone told me that they found out what really happened.”
As they continue, I zone out. My mind somehow drifts to Aspen. What would happen if I ask her to dinner sometime? I don’t want to ask her out right now, of course, but I can’t help but think about it anyway.
Taking the time to walk slowly home, enjoying the sound and smells of nature and its breezes, I walk into my house on the farm and see Aspen. The room is warm as she has already lit the fireplace, and the smell reminds me of the store we were in when we went shopping for our mothers.