The Outcast Ones

by Maya Shepherd

But unlike me on that faraway day, F701 isn’t frightened. She calms under my touch. Her big eyes stare at me. There’s a dampness shining on her dirty cheek. Almost automatically I lay my other hand on her face and wipe away the wetness. Her lips quiver and she tries to understand what’s happening. I don’t understand it any more than she does. Why did I do that? But the fact is, it helped her. She’s not sobbing any more, and her trembling has stopped.

  Even though we’ve been kidnapped by the outcasts and our future is uncertain, there’s one positive thing I can find in all this: for the first time in my life, I can see a starry sky, or at least a tiny part of it, through the hole in the ceiling of our cell. The stars shine brighter than I ever imagined. They lie on the dark blue sky like sparkling stones, restful in their slow movement. They remind me a little of my home in the safety zone, where each day’s repetitive cycle protects us. Sometimes I found my life boring, but now when I am in fear of dying, I long for the regularity and predictability of the Legion.

  Everything was so easy and uncomplicated. Maybe the Legion commanders kept some secrets from us, but I’m sure they had a good reason for it. They never warned us about the outcasts, but who would have guessed that these madmen would invade the safety zone and kidnap us? We would only have worried needlessly. It was right that the commanders didn’t tell us about them, although we always knew it was possible to be cast out if we caused too much danger for ourselves or the community.

  The next morning, the heavy iron door opens again. The man with the lovely green eyes enters. In his hands he holds a big brown lump. This lump is giving off a strange but wonderful smell. I can’t describe it, because it’s not like anything I know.

  The man holds out the lump towards us, while his other hand holds a silver canteen. “Breakfast!” he explains, grinning, but gets only questioning looks in reply. Breakfast—what’s that?

  He shakes the canteen and we hear the familiar splashing of water. My mood improves. Breakfast must be something like morning rations.

  F701 seems to have the same idea, because she reaches her hands towards the water bottle. The green-eyed man smiles and passes it to her, and at the same time, he presses the brown lump into my hand.

  It is soft and warm. The smell rises into my nose and makes my mouth water. It must be edible. It smells delicious.

  I raise the lump before me and begin to inspect it from all sides while the others watch me. F701 seems to be just as curious as I am, but the other prisoners are behaving more stand-offishly. This lump is strange to them, and during educational training, we always learned to fear what is strange because it could be dangerous.

  The man observes our baffled behaviour and kneels down in front of me. He takes the lump in his hand and breaks off a piece. The shape emits a small cloud of steam that rises into the air. The inside of the lump is light brown.

  “This is bread. Try it,” he suggests, and puts the broken-off piece into his own mouth. He chews and swallows it down. “Delicious!”

  I hesitate and look around at the others, asking for help. They all shake their heads as if in a panic, but F701 reaches over and does as the man did. She tears off a piece of this “bread” and sticks it in her mouth. An expression of happiness appears on her face and the corners of her mouth pull up with enthusiasm. Hungrily she reaches for more, even while her cheeks are still full. She chews and swallows, and her eyes glow with joy.

  “Are you coming? Or do you want to feed them yourself?” growls someone from beyond the iron door. It’s HIM again. There’s so much hate and disgust in it that I would recognise it anywhere. His coldness gives me a chill although the temperature here is warm. Maybe it wasn’t really sadness I heard in him?

  The man stands up and gives me an encouraging nod, then goes out and locks the cell behind him.

  “Take a piece, it’s better than anything you ever ate before.” F701 is trying to convince me, all while continuing to stuff her face with the bread.

  Warily I watch her eat. She’s a small child, maybe eight years old, at that age people rarely lie. And why should she?

  “You don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s dangerous.” D276 is sceptical.

  “It tastes even better than the pink tablets,” says F701 firmly, her mouth still full. I know how much she likes the pink tablets.

  I run my hands over the bread’s hard crust. Under my fingertips I can feel the fine texture and the slowly fading warmth. If I press it, the bread gives way.

  “Maybe they want to kill us with it. It might be poisoned,” D276 warns me again.

  “So what? We’ll die of radiation anyway,” hisses back F701 in a rage. I’m surprised how loud she is. We’re not used to raising our voices to each other. That means unrest, which is a predecessor of war. “I’d rather die with a full stomach than die from hunger,” she continues. So contrary. I’m impressed. On the one hand I think this little girl must really be mad, and the best place for her is sickbay. But on the other hand she reminds me of D523: both full of life, their reactions unpredictable, a surprise every time.

  I tear off a tiny piece of bread and place it in my mouth before I can change my mind. The warmth spreads across my tongue and palate. It’s almost as if it spreads through my whole body. I close my eyes and enjoy the taste on my tongue. It tastes only very distantly similar to a cereal cube. Much fuller, much more intense. I chew on the bread and it spreads around in my mouth, filling it completely. When I swallow, it slides easily down my oesophagus. It’s soft, not like the tablets and capsules. I don’t need water to wash it down, but I take a drink of it anyway. Even the water tastes different here—cool and somehow fresher.

  I offer the others water and bread several times, but when they continue to refuse, F701 and I eat all of it by ourselves. It would be easy to eat and drink this forever. When we’re finished, we feel like our bellies could burst.

  A sigh comes out of F701’s throat. She lays her head on my shoulder and falls asleep. I envy her that, because I didn’t sleep the whole night, and I don’t feel I could now, either. Too many questions and fears are tumbling through my head. Lost in thought, my fingers stroke F701’s head. She’s something special. Although she’s still so small, she’s what I’d miss most here.

  Maybe it’s because I’m dysfunctional. I should not have eaten the bread

  When the door opens the next time, F701 leaps up in shock. She seems confused and it distracts me for a moment, before my gaze can return to the door. I hold my breath and stare in disbelief at the strange face. He’s young, maybe my generation, but the deep wrinkles between his eyes give him an angry expression. His eyes are blue, but not at all like ours. They shine bright and then dark, depending on how the light falls. Although he’s angry, everything about him is lively and wild. His hair too, shimmering like gold, falling in uncontrolled waves around his head.

  “Where is D523?” he roars at us with a voice of pure ice. I swallow and remember how I took her place. She should be here, not me. But why?

  No one answers him, and this only increases his contempt for us. “What’s up? Can’t you speak? It can’t be that hard.” His angry shouting makes F701 tremble again. Even though she herself raised her voice today, she too knows the meaning of threatening words. Something terrible is going to happen.

  “Leave them. They can’t tell each other apart. Everyone is all the same to them,” says Green Eyes, trying to calm the young man. For the first time I hear contempt and disappointment in his voice, too. I’d like to tell him that’s not true, but I don’t dare.

  The angry man’s gaze wanders around the room and stops on me. He’s probably noticing that I’m the only one from D523’s generation. His eyes narrow to slits. “You! Where is she?”

  He steps closer to me. I feel threatened. Just like F701 I am trembling from fear. I can’t do anything to stop it. He seems so huge, standing over me while I cower against the wall.

  Now the other man enters the cell, too, and lays a hand on this one’s shoulder. This ges
ture seems to calm people, because the young man stands still while his shoulders remain tense.

  “They’re scared, don’t you see that? They’ll tell us nothing for sure. We wouldn’t tell them anything either, would we?” says Green Eyes.

  The other man’s shoulders relax somewhat. “Then we’ll make them talk!” he hisses, and leaves me alone. His finger points at D276. “We’ll start with you!”

  D276 shakes his head in a panic and presses himself even farther back against the rough rock wall, but the young man is merciless and grabs him roughly by the arms. Instead of fighting back, D276 cries desperately, “No, please no!”

  The outcast only pulls at him more roughly. He pushes the old man out of the cell, and none of us would go to help him. The door closes with a loud bang.

  D456 has her hands on her ears so as to stop hearing the cries. The others stare at the ground. Only F701 can’t be calm. She gasps for air and again makes that sobbing, heart-wrenching sound. Water drips from her eyes and ears, and she wipes them away with her small hand. “They’re hurting him!” she wails desperately, while more and more water spills out of her eyes—which have gone all red. I’m so sorry for her, and there’s a big lump in my own throat that gets bigger when I look at her.

  When Green Eyes laid a hand on the angry man’s shoulder, he calmed down. The last time I touched F701, she calmed down too.

  I lay my hands carefully around her heaving shoulders. That’s all it takes—she throws herself trembling and shaking against my chest. I feel the dampness from her eyes soaking through my dirty suit. Like she rocked herself back and forth before, I do the same with her now. “It’ll be okay,” I whisper in her ear, and F701 relaxes in my arms. I only hear quiet sobs now. I don’t know why I said that, but I won’t give up so easily. These outcasts are still alive, after all. Maybe there’s a chance for us.

  The door opens and I’m happy to stare into green eyes again, but I’m horrified by his next words: “You two, come with me!”

  05. ISOLATION

  F701 holds my hand tightly. Her little fingers almost disappear inside mine, but the firm press of her hand gives me strength. We’re not alone. We have each other.

  Our new cell is hardly any different from the previous one. The rocks have different shapes and the hole in the ceiling is nearer the wall, rather than being in the middle. It’s hard to say how long we’ve been isolated from the others. 45 minutes, or maybe 55. I find it hard to count the seconds and minutes in this place.

  I don’t know what these strangers want from us and why they separated us from the others. We didn’t do anything wrong, quite the opposite—we were the only ones who even tried their bread. If I’m honest I’d actually like more bread now. Now that my stomach has had some food, I can feel how starved I really am. It’s like a drop in a bucket.

  F701 is too frightened to be hungry. Her eyes dart around the small cell and she spits out one question after another, but I can’t answer any of them.

  “What are they going to do with us?”

  “Will they kill us?”

  “Will they give us more food?”

  “How many of them are there?”

  “Are there any little children that are outcasts?”

  “Do you think the Legion is searching for us?”

  My answer, again and again, is “I don’t know.” At the same time I ask myself if I should hope to be found by the Legion. We are contaminated with radiation, so we are a danger. What would they do with us? What would I do in their place?

  Footsteps pass by our door. That’s new. We’ve never heard anything from outside the cell before. The walls must be thinner here.

  Curious, I get up from the floor and step towards the opposite wall. My fingers touch the rough surface and the red sand crumbles in my palms. When I look closer, I see many tiny holes in the wall. Through one of these I peer out. It’s so small I can hardly see anything. Something black in front of the hole is blocking my sight. But then it’s gone, and at the same time the door opens.

  To my dismay it’s not the friendlier man with the green eyes—but the other. When he sees me so close to the door, his eyes widen for a moment. He probably didn’t expect that. Warily he peers around the cell and then looks me up and down as if I’ve done something wrong. The angry wrinkle between his eyebrows becomes even deeper. His eyes narrow to slits, reminding me of the layer of ice we put on some machines to keep them cool.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  His lips become as narrow as his eyes, he tenses his shoulders and appears to become even stronger than he was before. He stands like a threatening shadow in the doorway. He wouldn’t believe me for a moment, that much is clear. But it’s true. It’s not my fault they have holes in their walls.

  He turns his gaze to F701. “Come with me,” he commands her in an icy tone.

  The girl freezes stiff and stares up at him, horrified, without budging.

  “Come on, or do you need a special invitation?” He takes another step into our cell.

  “Why?” I force out. I step between him and F701, blocking his view of her.

  I see in his eyes how he must hate me. He is disgusted that he has to speak with me.

  “I always thought they teach you in the safety zone to follow orders, without asking questions,” he says contemptuously. I doubt that he’s ever been in the safety zone, or he wouldn’t despise it so much. The longer I am parted from it, the more I miss all the many rules that leave nothing open.

  “But we’re not in the safety zone,” I answer dryly, too quietly to appear brave, but he hears me anyway.

  His hand flies up. It’s curled in a fist, but then he stops. He waves his hand about between us like a threat while we lock gazes. Did he really want to hit me? Another reason to abhor this place. All violence is forbidden in the safety zone. We see it as uncivilised, a sign of weakness in people who think that words won’t help them.

  “All right, then let’s just start with you,” he concedes, and grabs my arm roughly.

  I glance back once at F701 before he drags me out of the cell and the door falls into the lock behind us.

  The room we enter is filled with light. Just like the cell, it’s made of uneven red stone, but it’s much bigger. It almost reminds me of the Atrium, because this place also appears to be some kind of centre. From here, various corridors lead away, and there are other doors beside our cell door. Are there prisoners behind all of them?

  I don’t even have time to count the doors before the man shoves me into the next cell. It’s much darker than the previous rooms. A solar lamp stands on a wobbly wooden table, throwing a flickering light into the narrow room. There are two chairs at the table; in one of them is the man with the beautiful eyes. Relief floods through me when I see him. He won’t do anything to me, I can feel it. He’s friendly, unlike his colleague here, who shuts the door behind us and stands threateningly in front of it. He crosses his arms on his chest, making him look even wider than he is.

  “Sit down,” says Green Eyes, pointing at the chair opposite him. “Please.”

  I know that word. Still it sounds odd to my ears. In the safety zone, we rarely use it, because everyone only fulfils their own tasks and therefore no one needs to thank anyone else. We know our rules and don’t ask for favours. In spite of all this I do as he says and settle on the groaning chair.

  “Are you thirsty? Would you like another drink?”

  “She’s supposed to give us answers, not fill her stomach,” comes the angry voice from the door.”

  “But it’s hard to speak with a dry throat,” says the other, unimpressed, and pours a clay cup of water for me. I hesitate, then take a sip and feel it running, cool, down my throat. I look at my dirty fingers and the thick layer of muck under my fingernails. It would be so nice to get into a steam shower right now.

  “You don’t need to be afraid. No one will hurt you here,” he continues, just as friendly, but the image of the other m
an’s raised fist slams into my inner vision. Oh, really?

  “What’s your name?”

  “My designation is D518.” Name is just an old word for designation.

  “Where do you work, D518?”

  “In nutrition distribution.”

  Everything goes quiet in the cell. It almost seems as if both of them are holding their breath.

  “Do you know D523?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  I decide to be honest. “In the night when you kidnapped us, D523 and I were working. Shortly before the guards came to get us for a special task, D523 had to go to the toilet. Because she wasn’t there, D375 ordered me to go with the guards instead of her.”

  “No!” The man at the door curses. His fist hits the metal and it startles me.

  “It’s a silly misunderstanding, that’s all. She’s fine.” Green Eyes tries to calm him.

  “Fine? She’s still stuck there. She should be here, not THIS one!” He points at me accusingly and his eyes shine with dampness just like F701’s.

  “We’ll get her out later.”

  “When later? Do I have to wait ten more years? The Legion will investigate. Heads will roll.”

  “The wrong heads. We planned it all right.”

  Instead of answering, the other now stomps towards me and grabs my shoulders. He shakes me so that my head flies back and forth.

  “Talk, why don’t you? Do you really think it’s okay to lock people up against their will? Dammit, she was just a kid.”

  Panicked, I gasp for air. Then he finally lets me go, and leaves the cell without another word. The other man sighs heavily, then closes the door and turns to me.

  “Please excuse him, he’s just worried.”

  The Legion commanders also worry about small children if they don’t develop as they should or if they break the rules, but they don’t get violent. Somehow I know it’s just not the same. D523 must mean a lot more to this man than we do to the Legion commanders, and that’s why he’s so angry. I can even understand it in some ways, because D523 is really something special. Different from everyone else in the safety zone.