by Edge, T. C.
But they have to be wrong. It's got to be broken. When I went in the time said 2.30. Now it says 3.35. It will only take between 5 and 10 minutes, she told us.
And I took over an hour.
3 - Roamers and the Woods
I wake the next morning following a night of dreams. I can only remember sparse details: crashing waves, structures emerging from the middle of the sea, a sunset over the desert. Most of all, however, I recall the face of my mother, lifeless and still. It's the same image I saw yesterday under the scanner.
My usual routine is to immediately check on her, afraid that during the night she'd have taken a turn for the worst. But this morning I don't need to. This morning, it's her who's checking on me.
She's there when my eyes crack open, her weary face lit up by the splinters of sunlight cutting in through the curtains. She's grown more pale these last few years, and more haggard too. It pains me sometimes when I remember how beautiful she was. Those big blue eyes have turned grey with her affliction; her golden hair and skin have gone pallid.
Yet I still see the light of who she was shining inside her. When she smiles she still lights up the room, brings a glow to my heart that only she can do. I can't remember the last time I woke to see her face like this. Before she grew ill, it would be every morning, kissing each of us on the cheeks before she set out to the orchard. Now, though, it's me who checks on her.
“Big day today,” she whispers.
I can see a sadness on her face, hidden beneath her smile. I've seen the same look before on the day of my brother and sisters' Duty Call. Both were sent to other parts of Agricola, where there was a need for more workers. It's the hardest day of a mother's life. For some, it's the last time they'll ever see their children.
I nod as I sit up on the bottom bunk and hold my hand to her forehead. She's warm, but not as hot as some days.
“How are you feeling today?” I ask, staring into her cloudy grey eyes.
She reaches to my hand and brings it down to her lap before gripping it tight between hers. I can see a tear forming in the corner of her eye as she says: “OK.”
She turns her head from me in an attempt to conceal her watery eyes. I wonder how long she's been there, beside my bunk, just looking at me. Thinking that this might be it, the last time we see each other. Carson and Cassie are rarely able to visit. If I go, she'll be left all alone.
It's only now that I notice she's wearing her Pickers outfit. It doesn't quite fit her like it used to, the fabric looking slightly more baggy against her withered frame.
She answers the look on my face without me saying a word. “It's OK honey, I feel well enough to work today.” It's been several weeks since she was last out in the fields, and that was only a single shift. “You shouldn't have to think about working today.”
“But I don't mind, really,” I say. The truth is that I actually quite want to go to work. The last thing I want is to dwell on the Duty Call. Dwell on what happened yesterday at the testing. “You should rest mum. You're in no condition to work right now.”
Her face stiffens slightly at my words. “No, Cyra, I need to do this. I have to stop relying on you. By the end of today, it may be just...”
“Don't say it,” I cut in. “Don't even think like that. I'm not going anywhere.”
My mother nods, but I know she doesn't believe it. She's already seen her first two children get dragged off, so why not me?
The sound of activity reaches us from the corridor outside. Doors opening and shutting and the murmur of morning greetings as people shuffle off into the square outside to wait for their pick ups.
“It's nearing 5.45 honey. I need to go. I'll be at the school later.”
My mother gives me a kiss before I can protest and slips out of the door to join the march. I move to the only window by the front wall and watch as she emerges into the morning light. People surround her, no doubt asking her how she is. Usually their questions would relate to her illness. Today they could just as easily be about the Duty Call.
I watch as Madge shuffles up towards her and gives her a hug. For the first time in a while, there's no smile on her face. It's more a look of condolence, and brings my mother to tears. I watch from the window, helpless, as she breaks down in old Madge's tanned, leathery arms. Some come and say kind words of support. Others glance over and turn back to their conversations. Seeing a mother breaking down is no great surprise on the day of the Duty Call.
I turn away, unable to watch any longer. It's the same each year. Mothers falling apart in the street, unable to cope. They'll be crumbling this morning; out in the fields, in the sorting warehouses, across Agricola and all the other regions.
By the end of the day some of those tears will be of happiness. Delight that their children will be assigned nearby, or perhaps that they've been given a duty that is safe or carries some esteem. Others will be inconsolable, losing their kids to arduous duties hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. Knowing that they may only see them rarely, if at all, or that they're assigned work so dangerous that their life will most likely be cut short.
The room is spilling with the light of dawn when I decide I can't be there any more. I dress in my school uniform and make my way across town towards the outskirts, passing through the merchant sector where the rations are exported. We only export food here, sending it away to the other regions and sea cities. Crops, fruits, vegetables, livestock. They're all grown and manufactured and turned into food, which is then exported all over. That's why they call our region the Breadbasket.
There's a bustling merchant sector in every major town through Agricola. Food exported out and other goods brought in. The currency we all live with is food. It's the true currency of the world now. I guess, in some way, that gives us a bit of power. If we all put our hands up and said 'nope, we're not doing it any more' I don't know what would happen. I've read about things called strikes that people used to do a long time ago. They'd stop working until their demands were met. Maybe that's something we should arrange.
Beyond the merchant sector is more residential housing, primarily for Labourers and Animal Handers. Most of the field labour is done on this side of town, and the livestock is cared for and nurtured in huge pens stretching for miles across the landscape beyond. There are old farms here that were built centuries ago, made from stone and brick and strong wood. They're so much more beautiful than the converted military barracks most people live in. Our building is very much built for purpose, not pleasure. Here, though, there is at least some beauty.
One farm houses Jackson and his family. They actually occupy the entire thing, which amazed me the first time I heard about it. Both his parents were assigned to be Leaders, and since then he and his brothers have been groomed for the same work. Two of them are older and already live there with the girls they were Paired with. The other is younger, but, like Jackson, gets exemption from school sometimes to work the fields.
I always feel nervous when I creep towards his house. Leaders are generally fierce people, and no one is meant to spend time with anyone of the opposite sex outside of school. The thought is that it will cause upset when people are Paired, and may make it more difficult for the new pair to bond.
That didn't stop us, though. I was only a little girl when he stumbled across me in the fields. I'd tripped on a jutting root when playing and badly twisted my ankle. He found me and helped me back to my house several miles away.
Since then we've always had this bond. We'd look at each other across the class at school and communicate with secret smiles and eye movements. As we grew we learned how serious an offence it was to spend time together outside of school. None of the other kids were doing it, even if they wanted to, and yet it didn't stop us. There was something special about having a forbidden friendship that appealed to both of us.
Over the last couple of years, though, it's become more difficult for us to keep our desires at bay. There's something more than friendship between us, but we both refuse
to act upon it. It will only make things harder when we're inevitably Paired with other people.
It's still early morning when I reach the downstairs window occupied by Jackson. I know that all of his family, except perhaps his younger brother, will be out working their duties already. If it wasn't the morning of the Duty Call, he'd be out there too.
I tap lightly on the glass and wait for him to appear. I've never been inside, but have seen through his window on a couple of occasions. The first time, I almost fell over at the size of his room. It's about the size of mine and my mother's entire living quarters, and it's only him in there. His family get better rations as well, being Leaders. As far as things go, that's not a bad deal for the region.
He looks bleary eyed when he appears and I can't help but laugh at his appearance: blond hair sticking out at funny angles, eyes squinting at the bright morning sunshine, lips chafed and cracked from the heat. He looks at me with a feigned annoyance for being woken up. This is one of the few days he actually gets to sleep in, and I've gone and ruined it. He tells me all that with a joking stare through the glass, before pulling the curtains shut, and leaving me staring at my reflection.
I retreat to a safe distance from the house and wait for the front door to open. A few minutes later he appears, hair put back in order, face now brightly lit with a smile. He paces casually towards me, staring up at the big blue sky, his hands locked into his pockets.
“Nice day for a Duty Call,” he says. We've learned that it's easiest to try to make light of the situation. When you end up dwelling on it, that's when the crying starts.
“I'd prefer it to be raining,” I respond. “Then everyone's tears will be hidden!”
Jackson laughs and checks to the left and right as he reaches me. There's no one around. He slips his right hand out of his pocket and slides his fingers gently over my palm. It's a sign of affection that people use in the region. Somewhere between a warm smile and a tender hug. It's pretty much all we can get away with, unless we know we're completely alone.
“The Grove?” he asks, and I nod in reply.
It's a place we go when we want to be alone. The only place we can actually meet outside of school without people getting suspicious. We used to meet there a lot, before his and my duties became more of a burden. Now we're lucky if we can spend more than a fleeting hour together every week or two.
It takes us about 20 minutes to walk there along a track that runs adjacent to some corn fields just off the edge of town. Out here, there are no Custodians, the men and women tasked with making sure things run smoothly in each town and region. Some of them are stationed at specific posts, like those in the warehouses and granaries who make sure no one steals any rations. Others are assigned to roam freely, making sure that no criminal acts are performed. I don't know what their official titles are, but they've become locally known across the region as Roamers.
Out here, however, I've never seen one. They generally stick close to town and will wander to the more populous areas like the merchant sector, or even the orchards, to keep an eye on everything. The one good thing about them is that they're easy to spot. Their uniforms are made from white reflective material that is meant to keep them cool, so often they catch the light and you can see them glinting in the distance.
At the end of the corn fields there's a small section of woodland that is considered to have no real use. Time will tell whether it will be chopped down for wood, but for now it's still standing. It's what Jackson and I call the Grove, and for all the years we've gone there we've never run into anyone else. Amid this world of flat lands and open fields, it's the only place where we can see each other in private without the eyes of the world looking in.
There's a large log about halfway in that we sit on. It's the remains of an old tree that must have fallen down in a storm some time ago, and creates a small clearing in the centre. It's always so peaceful in there, with only the fluttering of leaves and the whistling of birds disturbing the silence. We know, in the middle of that thicket, that we can talk freely without fear that a Roamer will see or hear us.
Today, despite our attempts at making light of everything, I know that this might be the last time we sit here together. It's a sobering thought, and one that's hard to escape. For months, years even, we've moved towards this day, one neither of us can escape. It was right here, several years ago, that we made the plan for me to perform poorly in school once my mother got sick. Every time we've spoken, it's been a hot topic of conversation, something I've worked towards for years. Stay close to my mother. Stay close to Jackson. Beyond that, I never considered anything. Not the potential arduousness of a life as a Picker. Not the fact that Jackson will almost certainly be Paired with someone else, and so will I. I suppose there's a small chance that we might be Paired together, but it's so remote that it's not something we've ever bothered to talk about.
We sit, as we always do, straddling the log and looking at each other. Most times we meet we have plenty of questions for each other, plenty to say. Not today. Today we sit for a while in silent reflection, intermittently catching eyes with each other, but predominantly looking out at the foliage around us, sparkling under the low morning sun.
Eventually Jackson breaks the silence with the topic that's troubling me the most.
“So, how did everything go yesterday?” he asks, his voice a little strained. Clearly he's noticed the look on my face. By now he's had plenty of practice reading my facial expressions.
I don't lie to Jackson. I never do. He's the one person I'm fully truthful with, the one person I confide in over my mother and family and everything else in my life. But today, of all days, I break the trend. Today I don't want to tell him the truth because, I suppose, I don't know what the truth is.
Until the Duty Call later, all I can do is speculate as to what happened during my genetics test. And there's no way Jackson can help me come to any conclusion about why I was in there for so much longer than everyone else. As to why I saw such vivid images of things I've never seen before. As to why the small tester woman looked so curiously at me. All those things give me a dull feeling in the pit of my stomach. A feeling that today might be my last day in Arbor. My last day with my mother. My last day with Jackson.
“It went fine,” is all I say.
Jackson gives me a probing look.
“Are you sure? You seem a bit...I don't know. A bit quiet.”
“Well, it's just...today. It's all been leading to today.”
He knows what I mean. Every single person involved in the Duty Call has a right to be quiet or angry or scared on this day. No type of behaviour or emotion really needs an explanation.
“How about you though? Did you find all those physical tests as pointless as me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” I say with a derisive laugh, “what does it matter how fast we can run and how many push ups we can do. I still can't believe that that part of the testing process is still going.”
“Is that all you did?” he asks. “Push ups and running?”
“Well, more or less. There were a few other things to test co-ordination, I guess, and reflexes. Not exactly going to be helpful for the people around here. Who needs to be able to run like a cheetah when all they're doing is picking or packing fruit all day?!”
I laugh, but Jackson doesn't join me. In fact, he's got this questioning look on his face, like what I'm saying makes no sense.
“So that's it? You didn't do any virtual reality testing?”
Now it's my turn to be confused. “Um, no. We were in there for about 10 minutes each and that was it. I did think that maybe the whole thing was more for the boys, but had no idea about any virtual reality test.”
“Yeah, I had no idea coming into it either. I told my brothers when I got home and neither of them had done it. Seems like it's a new thing. I guess it was only for the boys.”
“Weird. So what happened?”
“It was bizarre Cy, really strange.
They had this machine that you lay down in and they put this headset on you. I swear I felt like I was in there for hours, but when I came back out it had only been a few minutes.”
I'm starting to realize why Jackson looked so exhausted when I woke him up.
“And what did you do in there?”
“Loads. Teamwork exercises. Leadership exercises. It all seemed so real. They had these other virtual characters that were just like real people. I had to work with them, lead them, all this sort of stuff. The weirdest thing is that it was kinda like a dream, but a really vivid one. I can only remember certain elements, but nothing too clear. Just the same as a dream.”
“So why do you think it was just for the boys and not the girls?”
Jackson shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. “No idea. I mean, maybe they're recruiting more boys to be Leaders or something.”
“Could be. But then, why test you for team-working as well?”
“Because to be a good Leader you need to know how to work in a team. That's what my parents always tell me.”
“So I guess you did well then?”
Jackson isn't the sort of boy to be arrogant. Around here, arrogance doesn't really exist. It's just a word we hear describing the people who live on the sea cities. What he does do is tell it as it is and speak his mind. So when he tells me he's done something well, I know it's the truth.
“I did well, yeah.” There's no doubt in his mind. If anyone at school was a born Leader, it would be Jackson. It's part of who he is. It's in his blood.
The fact that more boys might be trained as Leaders doesn't surprise me. They already outnumber the girls a lot in that respect, especially with certain duties. Jackson was always going to follow in his family's footsteps, and this will only strengthen that case.