Rebels

by Jill Williamson

  Another groan from Omar, this one even more pathetic. Less than twenty-four hours without some sort of stimulant and his brother was falling apart. Mason prayed the deprivation wouldn’t kill him.

  “Where do you think they’re taking us?” Omar managed to pant out. “We should have been back by now.”

  The ride was taking more time than it should. It had been a five-minute ride from the Rehabilitation Center to Champion Auditorium that morning. They’d been in the van twice that long already.

  “It’s been too long, hasn’t it, Mase?” Omar asked. “If they’re just going to kill us, the fact that Levi and Zane can see isn’t going to be much help. And it’s not like they can see where the truck is taking us right now.”

  “I don’t think liberation is death,” Mason said, though he had no evidence to support that theory. Liberation was a mystery in the Safe Lands. It happened to everyone at age forty, though some were prematurely liberated when they died, reached three strikes on their record, or if the Safe Lands Guild decreed it must be so. Omar had three Xs, or strikes, after this last infringement. Mason now had one. But the Guild had voted in favor of liberating Mason too. Lawten’s idea.

  “But what else can” — Omar sniffled and panted, having difficulty breathing again — “liberation be, though?” Another pant. “Seriously.”

  Mason didn’t know, but he thought back to something he’d overheard. “When we were at Champion House, Lawten told Otley that if Otley killed him, Otley would be liberated. Otley said he’d never be liberated. Then Lawten said, ‘It’s that or the Ancients.’ As if Otley had a choice between those two things.”

  “Ancients?” Omar squinted at Mason. Could withdrawal affect eyesight? Perhaps it was a migraine. “Those guys in the hoods?”

  Mason nodded. During their trial — or lack thereof — in the Champion Auditorium, there had been sixteen people sitting up on the platform wearing black hoods. Lawten had addressed them as the Ancients of the Safe Lands. “What if that’s the ultimate promotion? Perhaps becoming a hooded Ancient is the only way to avoid being liberated at forty.”

  “Why would anyone want to wear a hood for the rest of their lives?”

  “If liberation is death . . .”

  Omar rubbed his temples. “You’re saying that a select few who know liberation is death have a way out by becoming an Ancient? Wouldn’t everyone sign up?”

  “I don’t think they can. Lawten said that he doubted the Ancients would accept Otley, knowing how treasonous he was — as if he needed to apply. And such knowledge is likely only open to the top government officials of the Safe Lands.”

  “That’s good stuff, Mase.” Omar panted and sniffled. “The Owl should look into that.” He looked directly into Mason’s eyes. “Look into those hooded Ancients.” He pretended to pull a hood over his head, but it just looked like he was scratching his head. Then he slouched back against the wall. “Still, where would they live? I’ve never seen any old people walking around the city.”

  “Maybe they’re forced to live apart from everyone else?” Mason suggested.

  “Maybe they’re not old, Mase. Maybe they’re young. Maybe Luella Flynn was under one of those hoods.”

  “Their voices sounded old.” Though Mason had only heard a couple of them speak.

  “I don’t know, brother. I still think liberation is a firing squad.”

  “That would be too messy for the Safe Lands. Death by lethal vaporizer is more their style of execution.”

  “If they’d let me OD on brown sugar, it wouldn’t be a bad way to go at all. It’s almost like flying.”

  The comment pricked Mason’s nerves. “Don’t say that stuff, Omar. That’s stupid.”

  “It just itches so bad. What if they don’t give me anymore? What if — ” Omar straightened. “We’re stopping.”

  Indeed, the van had slowed down, and now it stopped suddenly. Mason strained to listen but could hear no voices. He did hear a garage door, though he couldn’t guess whether it was opening or closing.

  The back door of the van opened. It was darker outside the vehicle than inside. A single enforcer stood on the ground at the back of the van, visible from only the waist up.

  “Welcome to lib prep.” And he raised a SimScanner at Omar and fired.

  Before Mason could think about offering sympathy to his brother, the enforcer shot him with the SimScanner as well. A pulse of electricity blossomed from the SimTag in his right hand and instantly spread through his body.

  His muscles cramped at the electrical disruption of his nervous system. It hurt. Adrenaline rushed over his body like a flash of heat. He lost all motor control but could still see and hear. Being shot with the SimScanner didn’t feel much different than when he’d been shot with a stunner. The only difference was the steady sting at the location of his SimTag.

  The enforcer climbed into the back of the van. “Bring the stretchers.” He unhooked Omar’s ankle cuffs.

  A second enforcer hopped up into the van, then turned and crouched to help a third enforcer with a stretcher. The front legs of the stretcher collapsed against the back of the van as the enforcers rolled it inside, inches above the floor and from Mason’s toes. The two enforcers who were inside the van moved Omar onto it, strapped him down, then pushed it back out to the enforcer still on the ground.

  They repeated the process for Mason, and soon he was being wheeled under a high concrete ceiling with round bay lights shining down on him. The current that had been pulsing out from his hand stopped sending its charge, and Mason’s body relaxed. He still couldn’t move, though, and his nerves seemed to throb along with the buzz of the overhead lights.

  They wheeled him into some sort of laboratory, where two medics stripped off all his clothing and placed him on a paper-covered exam table. The table had no legs but stretched across the end of the room, attached to the walls at the head and foot. A circular indentation had been cut into the wall at Mason’s feet. The circle was about a yard in diameter, and the end of his bed hit the wall in the circle’s center. Tiny lights ran along the top quarter of the circle.

  The medics strapped Mason to the table and left the room, closing the door behind them. Heat burned in Mason’s chest and cheeks. He was mortified to be lying there naked. Movement had returned to his fingers and toes, and he wiggled them, hoping it might speed the recovery of movement to his limbs.

  A mechanical hum throbbed from his feet, as if someone had turned something on. The tiny lights on the circle lit up. Something beeped. The circle emerged from the wall with a whoosh and stopped a few inches out, vibrating in the air. Narrow glass piping along the inner ring lit up bright blue. The circle moved out again, this time very slow and constant, sliding its way up and around Mason’s body. It must have been scanning for something, though Mason couldn’t imagine what.

  When the circle passed over his head, it hissed, the lights went off, and it sailed back to the wall by his feet. The door opened and the medics returned.

  “He has them too,” one of them said. A male. Mid-thirties, perhaps? He stopped at Mason’s side and looked down. “Nothing goes with you into Bliss. No need for SimSight there.”

  SimSight? The contact lenses. The circle must have scanned Mason’s body for foreign materials and found the lenses.

  The second medic — also a male, though slightly younger — stepped up beside the first and handed him a squeeze bottle. The first medic pulled on blue latex gloves while reaching for Mason’s eye, soon holding the lid open and squeezing liquid onto the pupil.

  Mason flinched at the coldness. The medic’s finger easily swiped the lens to the side of Mason’s eye and pinched it out. He repeated the procedure with the other eye, then handed the bottle and the lenses to the second medic.

  So much for his friends being able to see what was going to happen to them.

  “I’m going to unhook you now,” the first medic said, pulling at the straps across Mason’s chest. “There’s a jumpsuit on the chair by the d
oor. When you’ve got the feeling back in your body, put it on. Then we’ll take you to the liberator.”

  Well, that certainly sounded foreboding.

  The medic left, shutting the door behind him. Mason lifted his arm. It went only a few inches off the table. He turned his head and saw the chair by the door and the orange fabric folded on top of it.

  Orange? A strange color choice for a journey to Bliss. It reminded him of what prisoners wore in all the Old movies he’d seen.

  Was he still a prisoner?

  He caught sight of a yellow camera in the top corner of the room, pointed down at the table he lay on. His nakedness was being recorded? Wonderful. That thought inspired him to try to sit, which he managed without too much difficulty. He swung his legs off the side of the table and found it was too high up for his feet to reach the floor. His gaze landed on the puckered scar on his thigh where Otley had shot him. Amazing what they could do with technology here. No stitches. It still hurt to walk, though. As if he’d been badly bruised.

  Mason pushed himself off the side, and his legs buckled under his weight. He turned and grabbed the table to keep from collapsing on the floor. The concrete was cold under his feet. Once his legs felt stable, he limped backward toward the chair — childish perhaps, but he felt more comfortable with the camera behind him.

  When he reached the chair, he picked up the jumpsuit and sat down. A pair of underwear fell onto the floor. He sighed. Safe Landers had not likely expected such humiliation as part of the exciting journey to Bliss. Though perhaps this was merely the journey for those convicted of crimes against the Safe Lands. Maybe upstanding citizens received better treatment.

  Mason had barely zipped up the jumpsuit when the door opened. An enforcer stood outside, pointing a SimScanner at Mason and waving him out.

  Mason limped into the corridor. A black rubber mat covered the floor and was warmer under his feet than the concrete had been. The enforcer had a partner, who was also pointing a SimScanner at Mason. With their blue uniforms and gray helmets, they looked identical. They didn’t even have name patches.

  The enforcers motioned Mason down the corridor. The walls were concrete, and bright bay lights and yellow security cameras hung down from the ceiling every few yards.

  “Where’s Omar?” Mason asked as they made their way along the endless hallway. “I came here with him.”

  “We can’t talk to you, peer,” one enforcer said. “Save it for the liberator.”

  The liberator. Of course.

  The corridor finally ended in a T, and the enforcers prodded Mason to the left, where a doorway opened automatically. Inside was a chamber no bigger than the hallway’s width squared. A closed door stood opposite the one he was looking though.

  “This is where we leave you, peer,” the enforcer said. “Find pleasure in life.”

  “Happy liberation,” the other said.

  The enforcers pushed Mason into the chamber and shut the door, which shook closed with a clank of metal against metal. Inside, Mason pushed against the door. It didn’t budge. He tried the same on the other door. Nothing.

  All right. What now? It occurred to him that maybe liberation was death, after all. Perhaps gas would filter in through the ceiling, and this little room would be where he died.

  He stood in the chamber for a span of thirty seconds before the other door swung open. Mason walked out the doorway and met two enforcers — older-than-forty enforcers, if he wasn’t mistaken. They wore green uniforms with brown helmets rather than the navy blue uniforms and gray helmets that the city enforcers wore. They had patches on their uniforms, though. One said Penn, and the taller of the two was Blake.

  “Let’s go, shell.” Mason noticed Penn had a gray mustache. “Time to see the liberator.”

  Mason followed Penn and Blake down another corridor, though this one was only about ten feet long and ended with another automatic door. They passed into a small lobby.

  An elderly woman was sitting at a counter, tapping on a GlassTop computer. She looked up, smiled, and pushed a SimPad his way. “Tap, please.”

  Mason set his fist against the pad and it beeped. The woman focused back on her computer. Mason’s face came up on the screen.

  “Oh, dear. You did get into some mischief, didn’t you?”

  No reason to pretend otherwise. “Yes, ma’am. I mean . . . miss.”

  “No bother, boy. Have a seat there until you’re called.”

  The enforcers led Mason to a row of chairs, and Mason went ahead and sat down, which made his gunshot wound twinge until his weight was off it. The enforcers stood out in front of the chairs as if Mason might make a run for it.

  Mason studied the lobby. There were only four doors in the room: One behind the counter, one on each end of the lobby, and the one they’d entered through. A sign on the wall behind the reception desk said, “Taskers in this office may use sarcasm in a way you are not accustomed to. You might suffer severe mental damage.”

  Lovely.

  The woman stepped back up to the desk. “The liberator will see you now, Mr. Elias.”

  “Let’s go, striker,” Penn said.

  Mason got up, and the enforcers escorted him to the door on the left end of the lobby. Inside was a small office. It had concrete walls, a steel desk with a GlassTop installed in it, and a Wyndo screen on the wall behind it. It also had a yellow security camera in the corner of the ceiling. There was thin industrial carpet on the floor, white walls, halogen bulbs on the ceiling, and a big black swivel chair with a man sitting in it. He too was dressed in a green enforcer’s uniform, though he wore almost as many bars and medals as General Otley once had. He was older — late fifties, perhaps? His salt-and-pepper hair was cut short, and he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

  “Another premie. Good. We could use some more muscle down here, though it doesn’t look like you’ve got much, striker. That’ll change in a hurry. Have a seat.”

  There were two metal chairs in front of the desk, so Mason pulled one out and sat down. His enforcer escorts remained standing behind him. “You’re the liberator?” Mason asked.

  “That’s right. I’m General Dannen, head liberator for the Safe Lands. You were sentenced to premature liberation by the Safe Lands Guild, which, frankly, is not good. It makes you a striker despite the fact you never Xed out. You probably think that ranks you higher than your Xed-out peer. Not so. For some reason, the task director general wants the worst for you. Put you in Livestock. Sector five. Frankly, I don’t think the Tasker G knows what’s what down here. If it were me, I’d have put you in one of the slaughterhouses.”

  Slaughterhouses. A chill raced up Mason’s arms at the very idea.

  The liberator looked Mason up and down and sighed. “Life in the Highlands and Midlands, that’s all about pleasure. Task a little bit, play a lot. That’s all over for you. We task here so that the young can play. Since you’re a striker, you get to live with the other strikers. And, lucky you, the Tasker G put you in the men’s bunkhouse. That’s about as bad as it gets down here, so I guess maybe he does know something about this place. You’re in 2C. That’s the second floor, block C. Bed 26. Your SimTag will let you in. Strikers have a curfew. You must be in your block by ten o’clock each night or your SimTag will shock you and let us know. You cannot leave earlier than five in the morning or the same will happen. Blocks are locked at night.” He raised his eyebrows and looked Mason over again, and this time Mason shivered.

  “Good luck with that. Women aren’t allowed in the men’s bunkhouses or striker residences, and men aren’t allowed in the women’s bunkhouses or striker residences. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. When you’re off shift, you can go most anywhere else, though, and even into private residences if you’ve been invited. If you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be, we’ll see you and your SimTag will let you know. Down here, we watch everyone through all these fine yellow cameras you’ll see everywhere.” He motioned to the one u
p on the ceiling. “If we see you messing up, enforcers will drag your sorry carcass to see your warden. And you don’t want to see your warden. Ever. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I like your manners. You should keep that up. Now, you get ten credits a day to use however you want. We’ve got stores and clubs and restaurants and theaters in Cibelo. That’s the shopping district. You need something, tell the block enforcers or your task director, who is . . .” He tapped on his GlassTop screen and squinted, pulled his head back like he needed glasses. “Gabon Gacy. He runs the cattle feedlot.”

  Mason was going to work with cattle? That wouldn’t be so terrible. He’d worked with cattle back in Glenrock. “Are we still in the Safe Lands?”

  The liberator grinned. “This is the Lowlands, shell. Welcome to the rest of your life.” He looked over Mason’s head. “I’m done here, so you can take him out.”

  Before Mason could protest, Penn prodded him out of the chair. “Let’s go.”

  “Find pleasure in Bliss, shell,” the liberator said as the enforcers ushered Mason out the door.

  They left the office, walked down another long hallway, then took an escalator that emptied into some sort of train station.

  This “train” was more like a tram. It had an engine on the front that looked like a miniature truck, and it had three cars attached to it, steel with no walls, just five benches in each car, all facing forward, all empty. The enforcers directed Mason into the front of the second car, then they climbed on three rows behind him, resting their SimScanners on the back of the seat in front of them. No one else got on.

  The tram pulled forward and into a dark tunnel, which produced a cool breeze on Mason’s face. Thirty seconds passed in the darkness until a light shone up ahead. It grew steadily until the tram passed through another station. There were a handful of people waiting, but the train didn’t stop. Painted on the wall beside an escalator up were the words “Sector One: Drugs.”

  What could that mean?

  A few minutes passed in the darkness until the tram sailed through “Sector Two: Produce.” Since Mason was in sector five, which was Livestock, he surmised that each sector must produce some sort of raw materials for the rest of the Safe Lands.