by Estes, David
“Think so. It’s been a while since we’ve been here.”
The massive screen is strategically placed directly across from the old memorial for the victims of the Rise. They watch the 3-D images projected from the screen.
A real helicopter-view video of a flooded city. It’s the most famous video shot during the Rise. New York City. Stunted buildings that are supposedly a hundred stories tall poke from the water like tiny two-story houses. There are bodies on some of them. Splintered wood, garbage, and other debris float in the brown water streaming between the buildings. A giant green arm holding a torch appears. Not a real torch, but a green one made of metal. A massive statue. The Statue of Liberty. Janice taught Benson all about it. How it used to be the symbol of America’s freedom. Now the Border Wall is the symbol.
Mother Nature changed everything; although, according to experts, humankind did everything in its power to help her along.
The screen changes to satellite images of the size of the American continent before and after the Rise. Although the difference is striking, it’s hard for Benson to imagine the reality of it. Huge chunks of the landmass gone. Millions dead. It’s a wonder humans still exist at all. And yet…
“Why don’t we value human life?” Benson says to himself, the random thought slipping through his lips.
Check glances at him, then back at the billboard. “We do,” he says.
“No, I don’t mean you and me. I mean humans in general. After all we’ve been through, why do they try to stop people from having families? Seems it should be the opposite.” Rod’s story of his family being attacked and killed spills through his mind. They’re quickly replaced by the memory of his father sitting in front of the holo-screen, drunk, the news portraying the death of a five-year-old girl like a huge victory for humanity. None of it makes sense.
“Otherwise there won’t be enough to go around,” Check says. “At least so they say.”
So they say, Benson echoes in his thoughts. “Most people seem to be doing all right,” he says. “Other than our kind.”
“Maybe it’s because everything’s so controlled?” Check says. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s all a load of horse manure. That’d be my guess.”
As if in response to Check’s statement, the holo changes once more, to brightly colored charts showing the experts’ projections for natural resources, fresh water, and food, based on varying levels of population. According to the chart, a mere ten percent increase in population would be catastrophic for everyone else. Even a one percent rise would have a significant detrimental impact on the standard of living.
The final image is a plea to help control the population by placing anonymous tips on suspected illegals, including Unauthorized Beings, Jumpers, and Diggers.
For a slim moment, Benson feels as if the ad is shouting accusations at him. But no—it’s not. He’s nobody. Just Benson Mack—an unimportant orphan. Even when he had a father, his father was the Head of Population Control. Surely he sent Benson away for personal reasons. Reasons Benson may never fully understand.
But what if his old fears are valid? he wonders. What if the conclusions he came to years ago are right? He’s pushed them so far down it’s almost as if they don’t exist, but even he can’t ignore the facts about what he may be. How would his friends react if they knew the truth? Would they shun him, cast him out? Would they blame him for their own problems? Surely not. After all, if they blamed him they’d have to blame Rod and Gonzo, too.
“Anyone who’d kill an UnBee deserves to die,” Check mutters under his breath. And with that single statement, all of Benson’s fears drift away across the river.
His friend won’t abandon him, no matter what he is.
~~~
Benson goes to bed early, but he doesn’t sleep.
Eventually the light from the holo-screen blinks off behind his eyelids and the murmured sounds of his friends’ voices fade away. All is silent, except for the occasional siren from a Crow vehicle.
Rod and Gonzo begin snoring, as they do, managing to alternate their breaths in a mildly unpleasant nasal symphony. Hollow footsteps echo across the floor and he hears the door open and close. Check, who’s a notorious insomniac, heading out for his nightly stroll, either returning to the river or trying to sneak into some club he can’t afford to get into. If not for Check’s ritual, Benson might never have met him—might never have become a Picker and ended up in this place. Would a Crow have found him and taken him to some over-packed orphanage, like his father said?
Sometimes Benson goes with his friend, but not tonight. Not when his thoughts are so dark.
A creak snakes across to Benson’s ears. The building settling or something else? He pulls the covers tighter around him, trying to block out the chill, listening for any other sound.
A scuffle.
Someone’s moving toward him.
“Hello?” he says, sitting up.
“It’s me,” Luce whispers in the dark.
A shiver starts in Benson’s feet and runs all the way up his spine. “Oh,” he says.
“I thought you might be asleep,” she says, her voice sounding much closer. If he were to reach out, would his hand find her?
“Not tonight,” Benson says. “Look, about earlier…”
“No,” Luce says. “You don’t have to say anything. It was my fault.”
What was your fault? Benson wants to ask. That I made a fool out of myself, or that we didn’t kiss when we should have?
“I—I was worried it would destroy our friendship,” Benson says. He shifts his foot and freezes when it rubs up against something. Is that Luce’s foot? His heart skips a beat at the thought.
If it’s her, she doesn’t react. “There’s something I want to tell you,” she says. “Something about me I’ve never told anyone. I don’t want any secrets between us anymore.”
His eyes adjusting to the dark, Benson can barely make out Luce’s blurry form. She’s much closer than he thought, practically right on top of him. “S-Secrets?” he says, the word coming out like a snake’s hiss.
“Yeah. I need you to understand why I ran away earlier.”
He hears her, but he’s still stuck on “Secrets.” What secrets? Whose secrets? “Okay,” he says. A thought fires through his brain. “Check has a massive crush on you,” he blurts out. How’s that for a secret?
Luce laughs lightly, obviously trying not to wake the others. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
Oh. Duh. Of course she would know that. Check asks her out practically every other day. Although he passes it off as a big joke, apparently Luce knows there’s a lot of truth behind it. “He’s my best friend,” Benson says.
“I hadn’t noticed that either.”
“But I really like you, too.” Everything coming from his mouth sounds idiotic to his ears. For once, he wishes he could be more like Check, bold and funny and confident.
“I like you, too, Benson.”
“Then why did you…” He lets the unfinished question skip away.
“I was scared,” Luce says.
Not what Benson expected to hear. Scared of what? Of him? He waits for her to continue.
“You know my parents were hit by a malfunctioning aut-car when I was five, right?” she says.
“Of course. I’m sorry,” Benson says. What does this have to do with her dodging his attempted kiss?
“It’s okay. I survived. Bad stuff happens to everyone.” Luce pauses, as if considering how to tell her story. “I was sent to a Pop Con Home. Geoffrey was sent to a different one, for babies. They said we’d have the chance for a new home if someone was authorized to have a child and weren’t able to do it naturally. Sometimes couples would come in and look at us, talk to us. Most of them had big smiles on. They’d choose a kid and leave together. I always hoped they’d pick me, but they never did. At some point I realized they only wanted the really young ones—the babies or toddlers. Before I even got there, I was too old.”
�
�But didn’t you escape?” Benson asks. Although Luce has never told him the details, she’s mentioned running away from the Home many times.
“Not until I was twelve,” she says. “There was a new headmaster at the Home. At first he was real nice, always smiling, always complimenting us. Not the boys, just the girls. He hated the boys, especially when they’d talk to us girls. One night I woke up and saw something I wasn’t supposed to.” A bitter taste climbs up the back of Benson’s throat. He realizes Luce’s hand is on his knee, although he doesn’t have the slightest clue when or how it got there. This time, he doesn’t hesitate to take it, hoping she won’t notice the clamminess that’s settled into his palm. She squeezes back and continues. “One of the older girls, fully developed, was sitting up in bed. She didn’t have clothes on. It was dark, but the moon was bright, coming through the windows. The new headmaster was with her.”
“Oh, God,” Benson says. “That’s awful.” Her head rests on his shoulder. Feeling bold, he runs his thumb up and down hers.
“I wanted to run, to scream, to escape that place and never come back; but instead, it was like I was frozen to the bed. Nothing worked, except my heart, which felt like it was about to pound through my chest. Not my muscles, not my voice, not my brain. After what seemed like the longest time, the girl lay down and the headmaster left.”
Benson knows it’s not the end of the story, but he doesn’t push her. This is her tale to tell.
After a few minutes of silence, she opens her mouth to speak and he almost wishes she wouldn’t. The rest of the story might be better forgotten.
“After that, I stayed up late almost every night. Some nights he never came, but most he did. He’d choose a different girl each night. At first it was just the older ones. The next day they’d sometimes have red marks on their necks, but they always got an extra helping of dessert. Sometimes they’d be wearing new jewelry. No one talked about where it came from.”
A well of anger forms inside Benson. Nothing about this story is right. She was just a little girl back then. She squeezes his hand and his anger subsides. She doesn’t want his anger now—just his ears. “You don’t have to…” Benson says, letting the response fade, not sure what he was going to say. Hold my hand? Tell me the rest of the story?
“One night he chose a younger girl. I was thirteen by then, and she was only fourteen. Maria. I’ll never forget her name. She was the first one that struggled.”
He squeezes her hand and she squeezes back, their grips slightly too tight to be pleasant.
“She kicked and screamed and clawed at him with her nails. He slapped her and told her to shut her filthy mouth.” Her cheek settles in next to his. It’s wet with her tears. The toughest girl he knows, who could scare the hair off a bear, is crying. Releasing her hand, he ropes his arm around her and holds her close. He’s always wanted this, but not this way, not because of this story. All he wants to do is take her past and rip it to shreds, burning each individual piece. She shouldn’t have to remember this.
But that’s the thing about memories: The ones you never forget are either the ones you hate or love the most.
“He forced himself on Maria,” Luce says through clenched teeth. “For a while she fought him, but not for long. He left her naked and broken and sobbing into her pillow. I didn’t sleep for three nights after that, but the headmaster didn’t come back.”
Luce wipes away a tear and then rubs her forehead, as if massaging away the bad memories.
“So you ran away to escape that freak?” Benson says. Please say yes.
“I thought about it, but each night that passed without his presence in the girls’ dormitories gave me hope that that was the end of it. I was wrong. After two weeks he returned. We all pretended to sleep as his footsteps padded across the room. When they stopped at my bed, I swear I almost died right then. I could feel his shadow over me. He stood like that for a long time, my heart pounding, his breaths breaking the silence. I heard the clink of a belt buckle and the shuffle of cloth hitting the floor. Then he slipped into my bed.”
Benson jams his eyes shut, grits his teeth so hard he wonders whether they’ll break. This can’t have happened. Not to anyone, but especially not to her.
Luce twists away from Benson and slides a few feet back. The warmth that had bonded them is replaced with an icy void. Is this the part where she runs away again? If she does, this time he’ll understand why.
“At first he just held my hand, rubbed his fingers along my skin, spoke in a soothing voice. ‘Everything is going to be okay,’ he said. ‘This is just a natural part of life. If you don’t fight it, you don’t have to get hurt.’ I was pretending to sleep, but my body was trembling so much I knew he could tell I was awake. When he slipped his hand under my shirt, I freaked out. I grabbed his hand, bit it as hard as I could, and kicked my feet behind me. He groaned so I think I hit him where I was aiming. Then I screamed bloody murder and ran.”
“You got out,” Benson says reverently, almost like a prayer.
Luce nods in the dark. “I’d been eyeing up one of the windows for weeks. One with a crack in it. I knew it would break easier. There was a wooden chair nearby. I smashed it through the glass and climbed out. Feel here.”
She reaches both hands forward, like an offering. When Benson’s fingers find hers, she flinches and almost pulls back. But then she takes a deep breath and pushes them toward him once more. When he holds her hands this time, they’re trembling.
“Luce, you can show me another time,” Benson says, hating to see the usually fearless girl acting so scared.
“No,” she says, taking another heavy breath. “I need to do this now or I may never do it.”
Using one hand, she guides Benson’s fingers across a spot on her palm just below her thumb. He feels a long, jagged line of raised skin. Why had he never noticed the scar before?
“A shard of glass slashed my hand open, but I barely felt it. We were on the second floor, but I managed to grab a tree branch and shimmy down to the ground. From there I ran until my feet gave out and my arm was slick with blood from my hand. I curled up in an alley and lay there until Rod and Gonzo found me. They stitched me up and helped me find my brother, who was in a different Pop Con Home, and together we broke him out. Apparently he’d been adopted twice, but both sets of parents ended up returning him because he misbehaved too much. Then we met you and Check.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me before?” Benson asks, still stroking the scar, in awe of the courage of the girl sitting across from him.
Her fingers retract suddenly. “Sorry,” she murmurs. “Sometimes I can handle touch and sometimes I can’t. Yesterday…I thought I’d gotten past my life before, that I’d pushed it so far down that it couldn’t hurt me anymore. But when you tried to kiss me, all I could think of was the headmaster’s hot breath on the back of my neck, and I freaked out. I’m sorry.”
“No,” Benson says. “Don’t be. I understand. Now I understand. I won’t try to kiss you again, not unless you want me to.”
“Sorry I’m a damaged freak,” Luce says.
“No. You’re not,” Benson says. “Never apologize for what that creep tried to do to you.” The safe in his mind bursts open, like a sneak attack, and the truth about his own past threatens to pour from his mouth.
But before he can say anything, Luce pulls away, offering him a whispered goodnight.
For the hour it takes him to fall asleep, Benson tries desperately to think of nothing but cold showers and his favorite Picking techniques, so he doesn’t have to think about what happened to Luce.
~~~
Past article from the Saint Louis Times:
Prison Overflow List Created to Allow More Authorized Births
In the latest of several creative and innovative new Population Control laws, undesirable prison inmates with more than ten years left on their sentences will be terminated to allow for new authorized pregnancies by law-abiding citizens looking to start a family. Qualif
ying couples can now apply for the Prisoner Overflow List (fees may apply), yet another way to receive birth authorization. Pop Con second in command, Corrigan Mars, said, “We’re pleased to provide options for couples looking to start a family. The goal of population control isn’t to restrict births, but rather to amplify the positive effects each successive generation has on our society. The Prison Overflow List is a groundbreaking example of how to replace criminals with seeds of potential.”
All prisoners meeting the terms of the new law have been notified, as well as their families. The terminations will begin on Tuesday, with over fifty thousand new birth authorizations to be issued, a historical most for a single day. The Prison Overflow List, however, has already stretched to over five hundred thousand.
These new laws have no impact on current laws that call for all Pop Con violators to be terminated immediately. Future offenders will also be terminated without trial.
Have a question about the Population Control Decree? Speak ‘Get to know Pop Con law’ into your holo-screen. The new interactive Pop Con Quiz will ensure you and your family are up to date on the latest legislation.
Have a comment on this article? Speak them into your holo-screen now. NOTE: All comments are subject to government screening. Those comments deemed to be inappropriate or treasonous in nature will be removed immediately and appropriate punishment issued.
Comments:
Patty1: Yes! My husband and I are number 82,551 on the Prisoner Overflow List! We’ve been waiting five years for authorization, and now it seems like it might be right around the corner. Thank you Pop Con!
HarryJenkins17: Guess I won’t rob U-Bank like I was planning. The twelve-year prison sentence would be over the limit and then I’d be dead!
EdwardFung8: Comment removed and disciplinary action taken.
Chapter Twenty-Three