Forget Tomorrow

by Pintip Dunn

  I pat her back helplessly. “I’m so sorry, Angela.”

  “I never got to say good-bye. A month ago, she sent a message through the Underground, begging me to come back to Eden City. I refused, and now it’s too late.” She bursts into fresh tears.

  “Oh, Angela. Surely she understood you couldn’t go back. Isn’t FuMA looking for you?”

  “No,” she sobs. “No one’s after me. My memory’s not criminal. It was entirely my decision to come here. And I’ll never go back, even for a visit.”

  “How come?”

  She pulls back. I can’t see her face in the dark, but the dampness of her tears makes my shirt stick to my shoulders. “You know as well as I do. Those of us running from our memories live in perpetual fear of tomorrow.”

  No wonder my words fell flat. What are empty reassurances in a world where you can see concrete images of the future?

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask.

  She sighs, and the breath of air flutters against my skin. Her hands grope for mine, and it’s a jolt when her icy fingers wrap around my arm.

  “I’m going to have a baby girl,” she says in a low voice. “In the future, I have the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen. Hair as soft as spider silk, eyes the color of the sky at midnight. And when she coos at you, you feel as if you would go to the ends of the earth to keep her safe.”

  My nails sink into my calves. Oh, Fates. Please, don’t let anything happen to that little girl.

  For a long moment, all I hear is the thundering of my heart, and then Angela speaks again. “In my memory, we were picnicking on a cliff by the river. One of the ComA-sanctioned ones, with the black metal railing along the edge. I turned away for one second, I swear. Just one little second to mop up the juice she spilled on my shirt. When I looked up, my baby’s all the way over by the railing. I didn’t even know she could crawl that fast. I started running toward her, yelling her name. She looked at me once, those beautiful black eyes searing into mine, and then she slipped under the railing. And crawled right off the cliff.”

  My heart skitters. Angela’s eyes swim in my memory, so clear I can see thousands of tiny fractures in their depths. I blink, and all of a sudden, overlaid over the image, are the round, innocent eyes of her unborn child.

  “Oh, Angela,” I choke out.

  “And that’s why I couldn’t go home to my mother. As much as I love my family, my number one priority is to make sure my memory doesn’t happen. There are some things you can live with. And some things you can’t.” Her voice is stronger now, as if her convictions have cleared her conscience. “As unbearable as it’s been to live with this memory, I know I won’t survive a future where it actually comes true.”

  “But surely you could return for a short visit?” I ask. “Maybe you can go to the ceremonial burning. See your family. Say your good-byes.”

  “No.” Her hair swishes against my face, as if she’s shaking her head forcefully. “The pull of Fate is strong. I’ve seen it happen again and again. As soon as you step within her reach, Fate will find a way to make you live your future. The only answer is to run as far as you can, and never look back.”

  I want to argue with her. But I can’t. Because I saw Fate at work, in front of my very eyes. I thought going to detainment would be safe, but Fate found a way to twist the situation. If Logan hadn’t rescued me, sooner or later Fate would have won.

  “You can’t straddle both worlds, Callie. You need to make a decision. Is the prevention of your memory paramount, or isn’t it?” Her hand finds mine and grips it. “And if the answer is yes, you must never return to civilization again.”

  Later that night, I toss and turn on the woven mat on Angela’s floor. She’s layered moss, grass, and leaves underneath and given me a buckskin blanket. It’s by far the most comfortable bed I’ve had since I was arrested, but the moon casts weird shadows through the hole in the roof. Plus, I can’t quite forget that I’m lying underneath the skin of a dead animal.

  I sit and pull my knees to my chest. After crying a few more minutes, Angela pulled herself together and gave me a stick to chew on. She showed me how to put a little soap on the end of the fibers, so I could brush my teeth before going to bed.

  Squinting across the hut now, I can make out a heap on the floor. As I watch, the lump shifts, and I hear a sniffle and a low-pitched moan.

  “Angela?” I say. “How are you doing?”

  The shadows seem to shiver, but there’s no response. She’s either asleep or doesn’t want to talk.

  Lying back down, I pull the buckskin over me. Is Angela right? Of course, I have no plans to return to civilization. My number one priority is to make sure my memory doesn’t come true. Even if Jessa is arrested, TechRA only wants to study her, whereas my future self might kill her. Clearly some life is better than no life at all.

  But I can’t watch from a distance, helpless in the knowledge that I deserted her. A piece of my soul will die if I stay here, safely tucked in Harmony, as TechRA bundles my sister off to their labs. I have to find some answers that will help her. But what if those answers lead me within Fate’s grasp?

  I don’t know. The only thing I’m sure of is this: I miss my sister, and I want to see her. I open my mind, for the fifth time in the last hour, and Jessa flies up and down in the seesaw pod. Again.

  Sighing, I turn over on the woven mat. There are only so many times I can look at Olivia’s blunt-cut bangs and listen to her jeers. I’ll try again tomorrow.

  My mind drifts to open fields unfurling under an expansive sky. Sweet green grass that tickles the toes. Air so fresh you want to open your lungs and take a breath.

  My body relaxes as fatigue takes over. My limbs sink into the ground, and my last conscious thought is: Open.

  I am sitting at a wooden desk. My fingers scamper around the keyball of my desk screen. The zipper of my silver jumpsuit digs into my chest, and my hair curves under my ears, tickling my chin. All around me I hear the tap-tap-tapping of fingers against keys.

  School. I’m at school, and I’m taking a test. My finger slips, and my nail gets stuck in the crevice of the keyball. Quickly, before the teacher notices, I yank it back out.

  The door lights up. A woman in a FuMA uniform walks into the room. She has bright silver hair cut closely to her head, and plump Olivia Dresden calls out, “Mommy!”

  Chairwoman Dresden. Head of FuMA. Who else?

  The Chairwoman gives her daughter a curt nod before addressing the teacher. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to pull one of your students out for a screening.”

  Mistress Farnsworth, the teacher, purses her lips. Her hair curls out riotously over her head. “What kind of screening?”

  “I’m afraid that’s confidential,” Chairwoman Dresden says.

  “Well, I’m afraid this isn’t convenient. As you can see, my students are taking an arithmetic exam.”

  The two women regard each other. The Chairwoman turns her head and considers the twenty sets of eyes watching her. “Mistress Farnsworth,” she says. “May I speak with you outside?”

  The teacher nods. “Class, please return to your exams. I’ll be back in a few minutes to download your answers.”

  They step outside and close the door. The tapping begins again, but I unplug my desk screen from the outlet and check the battery level. Half full. Tossing my portable charger to the back of my desk, I take the screen to the front of the room and plug it into the turbo-charger.

  Low but distinct voices drift from the other side of the door.

  “It’s the only way,” Chairwoman Dresden says. “We’ve received new information that the Key lies in a child with psychic abilities. How else will we find him or her without systematically screening every child in school?”

  “Where’s the reasonable suspicion?” Mistress Farnsworth asks. “Don’t you need eye-witness reports?”

  “Set aside the EdA guidelines for a moment. Nothing is more important than finding the Key. You know that.”r />
  Mistress Farnsworth clucks her tongue. “Exactly where does your information come from? How do we even know if we can trust it?”

  The Chairwoman pauses. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but we’ve found a precognitive. A real one. Not these children who play at fortune telling. Their abilities to see into the immediate future are useless. The whole world knows what they know within seconds. This one’s different. She can see years into the future. Decades. She doesn’t see everything. She only sees snippets, but she’s proven herself, and what she’s telling us is the First Incident is rapidly approaching.”

  Mistress Farnsworth is silent. I check my battery level. Three-quarters full.

  “Universal screening in schools is unorthodox,” the Chairwoman continues. “But do you see now why we have to do it?”

  Mistress Farnsworth sighs. “If people hear about this, you’ll have a revolt on your hands. You know that, don’t you?”

  “So keep it quiet. We’ll do one student at a time, starting with the oldest. Space them out over a few weeks. If the parents ask any questions, tell them it’s for academic placement.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “You don’t have to. I have a ComA decree. Who’s the oldest child in the class?”

  “That would be January One. Your daughter,” the teacher says.

  Chairwoman Dresden pauses for a heartbeat. “She’s already been tested. Who’s next?”

  Without waiting for an answer, I scurry back to my seat. My battery has reached full power, and I have no other excuse for being by the door. I plug in my desk screen and tap out as many sums as I can before Mistress Farnsworth comes back into the room.

  26

  I wake, my heart pounding. Jessa’s the youngest in her class. Her birthday is December Thirtieth. If there’s going to be systematic testing, she’ll be the last one.

  Her hair, in my future memory, fell to her shoulders. In the memory I just received, it curved under her ears, tickling her chin.

  I have time. I have time. I have time.

  But no matter how often I remind myself, my stomach churns, spinning around the stew I ate last night.

  I blink at the arched saplings holding up the roof. Angela’s still asleep across the hut, the buckskin pushed aside and her arm flung over her eyes. If I had any doubt that the two agencies were intrinsically linked, here’s the proof. Why else would Chairwoman Dresden, the head of FuMA, be talking to Jessa’s teacher about TechRA business?

  I pad over to the door and slip outside. The breeze cools the sweat on my body, and the rawhide flaps behind me. Dawn approaches. The sky looks like someone is shining a flashlight behind a navy blanket. Light creeps around the edges and infuses the entire swath with a backlit glow.

  The village square is empty. A few birds twitter, but even they don’t break into song, as if it’s too early still for that level of cheer.

  A person appears on the other side of the square. As he gets closer, I see that it’s Logan, carrying a wooden pail. He stops in front of me and sets the bucket on the ground. Steam rises from the water inside and dissipates into the air.

  “Hot water,” he says. “Straight from the fire.”

  I draw in a breath. Vats of water warm in the sun during the day, so that the people of Harmony can rinse off with lukewarm water on a rotating basis. Logan and I were added to the end of the schedule, but our turn won’t come for days.

  “For me?” I’ve washed in the river, but not like this. Not with hot water that will sluice over my skin, making me feel truly clean for the first time since I was arrested.

  He nods. “Couldn’t sleep, so I had time to kill.”

  A lot of time, apparently. Angela explained that hot water is a personal luxury, so the kindling used to build the fire shouldn’t be taken from the communal pile. To bring me this bucket, Logan had to gather his own kindling, build a fire, boil the water, and then lug it across the village.

  “Logan, I’m…speechless. Thank you.”

  He winks and begins to walk away. “I’ll leave before the water cools.”

  But I don’t want him to leave yet. I want him here, with me, for a few more minutes. “Wait,” I call, without thinking.

  He turns back around. “Yes?”

  I like you so much, I want to say. I may even be in love you. Maybe I always was, from the time you gave me a red leaf to remind me of the sun. Whatever happens, I want you to know that.

  I can hear the words in my head. I can see myself saying them, imagine his intake of breath and the light in his eyes as he says, Yes, yes. I feel the same way.

  But what if he doesn’t? What if he brought me hot water because he really was bored?

  “I got another memory last night,” I say instead. “While I was sleeping.”

  Pushing aside my unspoken confession, I tell him about the classroom and Chairman Dresden’s plan to screen every child. “Have you ever heard of ‘the Key’ or ‘the First Incident’?”

  He shakes his head. “No, but they sound familiar. You should ask around. I’m sure someone here knows something about them.”

  We both look at the bucket of water. Already the wisps of steam seem to be thinning.

  “I should get to my shower,” I say reluctantly. “After all your hard work.”

  “Enjoy every last drop,” he says. “I’ll come find you later.”

  I watch him round the log cabin, and then I pick up the pail. It’s heavier than I thought, and my hand slips on the rope handle. Water sloshes over the edge. I grit my teeth and take a firmer hold.

  As I walk past the hut, Angela comes outside, stretching her arms overhead. “Well. What do we have here?”

  “Logan brought me hot water.”

  “He doesn’t waste any time, does he?”

  I flush. “Maybe he just thinks I could use a proper washing.”

  She dips her hand into the pail. “That’s how Mikey courted me, you know. Brought me a bucket of hot water every day until he wore me down and I accepted his plant bracelet.”

  “How long did it take?”

  She laughs. “Three days, maybe? The Russell charm is hard to resist.”

  I couldn’t agree more, but it’s not the kind of thing I want to admit. So instead, I say good-bye and hurry behind the hut to the “shower” area, which is a patch of dirt cordoned by woven mats hanging from tree branches. Inside, a wooden crate holds a cake of lye soap and some old T-shirts to use as washrags.

  I strip off my clothes. The second the hot water drips onto my skin, I moan. Angela’s right. Hot water’s way better than a recited poem. More romantic than an invitation to view a memory chip. Frowning, I squeeze the T-shirt at the base of my neck, so water runs in rivulets down my back. I suppose Logan is courting me. But why? He’s not thinking about the long-term. Four or five days from now, he’ll be back in Eden City and I’ll be here, in exile, for the rest of my life. There’s no future between us. There will never be a future between us. No matter how much I want it, as long as he is needed at home, we will never be together.

  I scrub the soap over my stomach, my arms, my legs. I’m temporary. I’m temporary. I’m temporary.

  If I say it enough, maybe I’ll get it through my head.

  Even if my heart refuses to listen.

  I hang strips of venison over three long sticks resting on an A-shaped frame. Now that the deer has been cut into manageable pieces, now that it looks like meat and not the animal, my stomach no longer rolls.

  “Looking good.” Zed arranges rocks around the low, smoky fire. The rock ring will get hot and cause the heat to rise, drying out the venison instead of cooking it. “You’re a natural at this.”

  “This was one of our first lessons in our Manual Cooking class. After boiling water and frying an egg.”

  “So making deer jerky is okay. But not the part where you skin the animal?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “You saw my face, huh? My stomach was even worse. If I really want to be a Manual Chef
, I should probably stop being so squeamish.”

  I say the words without thinking. Of course I’m not going to be a Manual Chef, not with the memory I got. Even if I somehow got around my fugitive status, no program in their right mind would admit me. The profession is too competitive to take a chance on anyone without a proven future.

  Somehow, in all the turmoil of what my future memory is, I forgot to mourn what it isn’t—a vision of myself as a successful chef. I’ll never cook for the rich of Eden City—or any other city. I’ll never have my own eating establishment for those who can afford to shun the Meal Assembler.

  And yet the people of Harmony weren’t concerned about my resume. All they cared about was how my stew tasted. In the end, that’s what’s important—not some award. Not the elite’s idea of success. All I’ve ever wanted is to cook for people who will appreciate my food.

  So maybe the dream hasn’t died, after all.

  “Skinning animals takes some getting used to. If you want, I could show you,” Zed says. “I’ll start you out with something small, like fish, and then work you up to squirrels and deer. We’ll get you un-squeamish in no time.”

  I smile. “I would like that.”

  He finishes with the rocks and begins to erect a wooden shield around the fire, to protect it from the wind. I never thought I’d say this, but for a future woman-batterer, he seems like a nice guy. And as Harmony’s assignment coordinator, he probably hears a lot of things.

  “You’ve been in Harmony a while, right?” I ask.

  “Almost since the beginning. Angela and I came here only a few months after Mikey.”

  I take a breath. All morning, the memory of Chairwoman Dresden has been running through my mind. “Have you ever heard anyone talking about ‘the Key’? Or ‘the First Incident’?”

  “I’m not sure about a First Incident.” He waves his hand to shoo the flies away. “But I think the Key refers to the person who figured out how to send memories back in time.”

  I frown. “No. The Key I’m talking about is something that happens in the future, not the past.”