Unworthy: Marked to die. Raised to survive.

by Joanne Armstrong

  I stand up, and leave him by the fire. I’ve heard enough. I move away and go over to the horses. Absentmindedly I begin to brush them. I’m sickened by what I saw this afternoon, but also by what I’ve learned about the Polis. Although I know that nothing should surprise me anymore. No level of depravity seems to be below them. All for the sake of their control and their laws.

  I lean my head against the horse’s neck, and think of my Grandad again. I wish he was here. I want to tell him what I’ve just learned, and hear him berate the Polis and their brutal ways. Actually, I realise that I don’t think I’ve ever heard him berate the Polis and their brutal ways; that was what I’d do. He would just listen while I’d sound off to him, then give me some philosophical advice which would help me deal with my frustrations. I wonder what he’d say today. I sigh. I miss him so much.

  A new thought goes off in my head like an alarm, and I drop the brush. I turn back to the fire.

  “I left,” I start slowly. “And you said that me leaving is a secret…” I’m not quite sure how to ask him for information, but he knows what I’m getting at.

  “You left. And when you haven’t been seen for a day or two, questions will be asked. And a tracker will be sent after you.”

  “Okay… so can’t you just contact them? Let them know that I’m required in the Polis or whatever? That I’m with you?”

  “No.”

  “No? Why not?” This guy is infuriating as heck and slow with information.

  “I told you… this trip to the Polis… it’s classified. No-one knows where you are now, or where you are heading. And we’re going to keep it that way.”

  “But someone is coming after me… to kill me, and you won’t call them off? And… you knew this?”

  He sighs and slides his palms down his face to rest his chin on his steepled fingers. Again he looks at me as though he’s trying to decide how much to tell me. “Alright,” he finally decides. “Yes, they will send someone, and yes, I knew they would. It’s just policy. But we have a couple of days on him, and the Festival is going on right now. That should buy us some time. This is my problem to worry about. Plus, I’m better than anyone they’ll send.”

  This is a semi-comforting thought. At least he’s backing himself. There’s something else niggling in the back of my mind though. A small thought, a cold thought, that’s trying to make itself heard amongst all the other new ones that are clamouring at once.

  “When they ask questions… Bastian will tell them I went with you…”

  “No, he will tell them you left with a Polisborn soldier, which they won’t believe. Locals leave hubs all the time. But there’s no record that I was in Sector Four and certainly no record that you were needed in the Polis. It will sound like a ridiculous story.”

  They will think he’s lying. I sit down, hard, in the dirt opposite him. I whisper, “What will they do to him?”

  “That depends. How smart is he?”

  I narrow my eyes at him, pressing my lips together in confusion. What’s he getting at?

  He shrugs his shoulders and continues. “If he’s smart, he’ll stop saying you left with a Polisborn when he realises it’s not on the record. If he’s not, and he keeps claiming you left under Polis orders, he’ll be punished.”

  I think of my childhood playmate. Honest even if it meant a reprimand. The creeping thought has finally worked its way forward. I swallow, hard. They’re going to kill Bastian.

  “We have to go,” I jump up, immediately ready. I start grabbing at my belongings.

  “What are you doing?” Hayes stands. “We’re safe here for tonight.”

  “We have to get back! We have to get back NOW!” I am just about screaming at him.

  “No. We aren’t going back. You can’t help your friend now.”

  I stop what I’m doing and turn to him, backpack in hand. “Then I’ll go on my own. I can find the way back. You can stay here if you want, or go to the Polis, or whatever it is you need to do, or you can come with me, but I am going back.”

  He sees the determination on my face and gives in. “Alright, fine.” Secretly I’m relieved. I’m actually not that sure I could find my way back, but my act seems to have convinced him.

  He takes a step towards me. “And when you get back, what then? You’ll have been gone four days. That’s if you don’t get lost along the way. Or killed by the tracker. So, if you find the way and if you don’t get yourself killed… what then? What will you tell them? Where have you been? And what’s with the story your friend keeps repeating? Will you start repeating it too?”

  I have no answer for that. My frenzied panic is draining away, leaving behind a chilling numbness.

  He steps towards me again. He’s close enough so that his next question is a cold whisper. “So, you’re telling me you want to get back to your hub so that you can die with your lover?”

  I spin away from him so that he can’t see my face. My hands are clenched in fists at my side and hot tears threaten to spill onto my burning cheeks. He’s right. My fingers grip the hem of my tunic. I can’t go back; I am powerless to do anything. I stamp the dirt in frustration. I can’t do anything to help Bastian. My frenzied panic is draining away, leaving behind a chilling numbness.

  I pick the least offensive part of his barrage. “He’s not my lover,” I manage to mumble through clenched lips.

  He grabs my arms and suddenly I’m twisting round, tumbling. I try to kick him off but when the world stops spinning he has me pinned to the ground, holding me face down with one hand on my neck and the other holding my wrists. His knee is in my back and there is no way I can move.

  His voice is calm, steady, as though he’s not spent any energy in the tousle. “I don’t care who or what he is. My orders are to take you to the Polis. I told you, I can tie you up and drag you behind me if that’s what you want. It’s up to you.”

  I lie there for another minute after the knee leaves my back. I hear his tread retreating to the forest and he is gone. I slowly roll to my side and then sit. There is no-one in the clearing but me. Alone, finally, I close my eyes and let the tears slide down my cheeks. For the Roberts family, for Bastian, for Grandad and for me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Few words pass between us that night and the following morning as we continue our journey northwards. Hayes is remote even by his usual standards, but I can’t say it bothers me. I’m in no mood to make small talk, I just want to be free of him.

  What I do find hard is not looking back every five minutes to see if someone is following me. By our mid-morning stop my paranoia has become full-blown, and is affecting my horse, making him nervous and jumpy. With a bland, expressionless face, Hayes hands me the monitor.

  “Go ahead, take a look,” he says. “There’s no-one but us.”

  I look carefully at all areas on the screen, but can only see the pinpoints of shadow in the centre. Just us and the horses.

  “A wild pig briefly picked us up about an hour ago, and was interested enough in our scent to follow for a while. There was a small mob of deer we passed to the west, but nothing else has registered on the machine. There’s very little out here. It’s a wilderness.”

  I hand it back to him, feeling a little calmer. After that I stop looking around so often, which my horse seems to appreciate.

  We frequently cross streams and rivers making their way from the melting snow in the mountains to the east coast and the sea. We’ve had to pick our way upstream a couple of times, looking for good places to cross, since there are no bridges out this way. To the east, closer to the coast and the Polis roads, bridges span all of the major waterways. On daytrips with my Grandad I’ve been as far as the bridges north and south of Greytown, but never crossed them. They’re perfect places for the Polis to have checkpoints.

  While we ride I consider the fact that I have never been through a Polis checkpoint. Only Firstborn go to the City so I’ve never had to travel there, and I’ve certainly never wanted to. It occurs to
me that if I’d turned up at a Polis checkpoint I would have then been added to their records. The only reason I’m not on them yet is because Grandad wanted it that way. But if he was so desperate to keep me hidden for so long why would he have urged me to go there now? You’ll have the chance to save more than twelve…

  I shake my head when I realise that I’ve been looking at it the wrong way. Avoiding the Polis checkpoints would have had more to do with Grandad than with me. If he really was Matthias Clark, a Firstborn who died seventeen years ago, a Polis checkpoint would have been the last place he’d want to show up. Why would he be hiding from the Polis?

  We are still following the same creek that we picked up after the grasslands, but it has gone off in a lazy loop to the east and we have to cross its bulge. The trees are gone and we are out in the open, making our way over a hill of dry grass that reaches up to the horses’ bellies. The sun is high in the sky and my mount has slowed to a walk. The world is a hazy vision of blue above and pale yellow below, bouncing in heat waves and rustling grass. The pounding heat from the noon-day sun and the sounds of cicadas trilling in the long grass has been lulling me off into a daze.

  Suddenly a piercing cry shatters the daydream and a pair of plovers burst out of the undulating grass. Hayes has come to a startled halt. The birds wheel angrily in the sapphire sky, screaming their warnings at him. Roused from my sleepiness, I urge my horse to catch up to him.

  His dazer is in his hand and his eyes dart, searching for the threat. The look of shock on his face is so funny I can’t help but laugh at him. “They’re just protecting their nest. It will be around here in the grass,” I say.

  “I know,” he replies defensively. “It took me by surprise, that’s all. But I think we should get out of the sun.” He indicates a dark patch of forest ahead of us which will provide some shelter from the heat.

  As soon as we enter the cover of the forest, the temperature drops. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust after the bright glare on the hill, but I can see that our cover is provided by a well-established forest of beech trees. There is the remains of a road here - pieces of broken asphalt are visible from time to time between the grass and bracken.

  After refilling the canteens at a creek and adding purifier, we pick our way along the broken road, passing fruit trees, blackberry brambles and willows. The stream follows a tight curve and we ride through its arc. The trees open up at a grassy clearing, maybe fifty metres across.

  A metal frame stands alone on the far side of the meadow, and as we draw closer I realise what it is. There’s one in the playground at the school in Greytown; it’s the frame for a swing. It’s rusty and only small patches of paint remain, the seat itself gone. Lying half-hidden in the long grass is another metal frame; this one is two sides of a triangle. When I cock my head to one side I can see that once upon a time it was a slide.

  A quietness settles on me with the realisation that this was a playground, and that there would have been many houses nearby; probably a settlement. I wonder what happened to them all, and how long it has been since this playground was in use. I don’t often see reminders of the past like this, and when I do, they are always unnerving.

  Perhaps Hayes is struck by a similar thought, because he too seems thoughtful.

  “If trees could talk…” he says, motioning the forest around us. He clicks his horse into motion again and I follow him out of the meadow and back onto the broken road through the forest.

  We continue along the meandering creek and downstream a little way the water tumbles over some rocks into a deep green pool. He dismounts and obviously means to make camp here, pulling out the triggers and disappearing into the trees. There is less grazing for the horses by the little waterfall, but I am relieved that he didn’t call a halt at the playground. It had a stillness about it which was unsettling.

  Once the horses are sorted I set to work on a fire. I’m absolutely famished, and realise that it’s well into the afternoon. I’m not sure why we’ve spent so long in the saddle today already, but I’m very happy to be putting so much distance between me and the tracker’s work.

  “Don’t go far,” he cautions, as I move away from the fire.

  My surprise couples with irritation. How does he know that I’m going off? I’d only just decided that myself.

  I brush some dirt off my clothes. “I’m just going back to the playground,” I lie.

  He nods as though I was seeking his permission. “Alright, but keep to the route we’ve already taken.”

  “Control freak,” I mutter under my breath as I stomp through the underbrush thick with new saplings.

  I move into the trees, and follow the stream back up. I turn away from the broken path we were tracing though, feeling rebellious. Climbing the bank a little way, I find place to sit where I can lean up against the trunk of a well-established pine. From here I can see numerous trees in full blossom, their pink and white blooms collecting around them like a carpet. Daffodils are dotted all around the grassy banks, bright yellow splashes on the green of spring.

  Beautiful as they are, they make me feel so sad.

  There was once a settlement here; the flowers, road and playground are testament to that. In school we learned that the population of our country once numbered over four million, back in the days before the Isolation. I try to imagine a country where there are hubs scattered everywhere about the land, rather than just one in each sector, but I can’t. It’s so hard to imagine that many people needing that many towns. But the dark times that followed the Isolation were truly brutal. There were decades of violence and unrest, with everyone turning on their neighbour. A whole generation of children were born, grew up and died, knowing nothing other than famine, distrust, fear and war. By the time the Polis military was able to restore peace we were down to less than one million.

  It is frightening to imagine that a society could be so dependent on its economic, social and legal structures that it crumbles so intensely without them. That a person who is one day a neighbour is the next day an enemy, someone to kill if it means survival.

  I feel a great emptiness inside me. Season after season comes and goes here in this quiet valley, unnoticed. Daffodils bloom, blossom drifts, and the playground rusts.

  I lean my head back against the bark of the tree and close my eyes. The repetitive questioning note of a bellbird echoes across the gorge. His lonely call goes unanswered, and I know how he feels. I want to be at home. I want to be with Grandad. I want to check on my remaining Seven; feel a little thrill of elation when I see them being carried by their mothers at the next Festival. I want Bastian to put his arms round me and look after me.

  Thinking about Bastian makes me shiver with dread. I know that Hayes was right and that there is nothing I can do for him, but that doesn’t make it any easier knowing that he’s likely to be in trouble right now because of me.

  I’m not sure how long I stay by the tree, but the damp is creeping through my clothes when I finally wipe my cheeks and take a deep breath. I shake off my homesickness. Greytown has never felt like a home to me, not in the way that involves a sense of belonging. It was only ever Grandad who made me feel as though I belonged, but he is gone.

  I stand and stretch, then make my way back down the slope. I’m disoriented, but when I listen carefully I can hear the sound of running water on my right. Branches crackling underfoot, I make my way towards it, knowing I can follow the stream back to the campsite.

  Suddenly my feet are pulled out from under me and I’m slipping on the groundcover of beech leaves. The world spins and I let out a stifled gasp. A pain shoots up my leg and I feel a lurch. The dizzying sensation eventually slows and I find myself hanging upside down by my ankle, the noose of a strong cord clamping around it tightly.

  “Damn!” My anger flares. Off guard, I’ve wandered into a trap and am now swinging a metre off the ground. I feel stupid and angry, and am not looking forward to the smugness which Hayes will show me for it. Unless I can get mys
elf down without him knowing.

  I trace a hand along my thigh feeling for the sheath of the knife. It’s empty. I tip my head back to see it glinting in the dry underbrush, well out of reach of my fingertips.

  “Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn,” I curse.

  I tuck my knees into my chest. It takes an effort to bend my body over double in order to reach the cord around my ankle, and I try to pull on the rope to take some of the weight off it. I can’t loosen it enough to get my boot through, so I start to untie the laces.

  “Lean on me,” a voice commands at my ear. I’d been so engrossed in the trap that I hadn’t noticed Hayes approach.

  “I’m fine,” I reply sulkily.

  “Do it,” he orders, and straps one arm across my back. He reaches up to cut the cord. I grab him round the shoulders as my leg is released. He steadies me for a moment while my head swims.

  “I had it covered,” I grumble, putting space between us once I’ve found my feet and picked up my knife. I’m hungry, cold, homesick, upset, embarrassed, grieving and angry, and I’m ready to pick a fight with him. “You don’t get to order me -”

  “Are you alright?” he calmly interrupts my rant, sheathing his knife, and his concern stops me in my tracks.

  “I think so,” I reply, but still he bends down and makes me lean on him while he checks my ankle. It makes me feel awkward. “Honestly, I’m fine, just a little -”

  “We’re leaving now,” he interrupts again, and takes my arm to just about drag me through the trees. We come to the campsite where he hurriedly packs up and kicks dirt over the fire. He helps me mount. Less than five minutes have elapsed between his cutting me from the trap before we’re moving on again.

  Once we’re riding and I clear the pounding from my head, I have a chance to work out why he’s in such a hurry. My embarrassment at being caught in the trap was distracting me from what he realised immediately; that the tracker must be very close.