Rebels

by Jill Williamson

  “I’m here to observe,” Shaylinn said, then swept past Tova and into the room.

  Shaylinn found the outsider children — there were seven — standing in a line against one wall, looking uncomfortable. The classroom was furnished with two large GlassTop tables that already sat six students each — girls at one desk, boys at the other. There were no extra seats. A small GlassTop desk stood in the front corner of the room to the side of a Wyndo wall screen. The teacher’s desk, Shaylinn assumed. Hadn’t Tova prepared a place for the new children?

  “Didn’t you know we were coming?” Shaylinn asked Tova.

  “My husband told me.” Tova turned her back to Shaylinn and strode to the front of the class. “You may sit or stand in the back of the room.”

  Shaylinn’s cheeks burned. But she needed to set a good example, make the best of things. Besides, maybe it was going to take time to find so many more desks. It was unfair for her to expect the Kindred to be able to provide for every need so quickly.

  Shaylinn waved the children to follow her. “Come and sit,” she said in a cheerful voice.

  She settled them on the floor along the back wall, though she soon realized they were unable to see the Wyndo screen over the heads of the students. So she put the boys in one corner and the girls in the other where they could see down the space between the tables and the walls.

  Tova sat at her desk in the front. “Open to page twenty-six in your history text. Resi, will you read, please?”

  A little girl on the side near the door cleared her throat and wiggled in her chair. Shaylinn recognized her as Tova’s older daughter. “Though Seth wanted to leave, he was now in prison, where he would remain for two years. When the day came that he was released, the fences around the city were now stone walls. He was trapped. But at least his son was free.”

  “Thank you,” Tova said. “Hart?”

  A soft voice came from the boy table. “Seth found a task as a car . . . car-pen-ter. He learned to build many things. He made friends and met Syd-ney Williams. They got married and had seven children. In the year 2029, the Safe Lands Guild established a boarding school for all minors. Seth and Sydney did not want their children to go, so Seth made a way for his children to hide in their bass . . . ment?”

  “Basement. Thank you, Hart.” Tova stood and walked to the center of the classroom. “That was the beginning of our people, the Kindred. For we were chosen to go below. We alone were saved from the evil that takes place topside. Thank the Lord and our Forefather.”

  “Thank the Lord and our Forefather,” the children murmured.

  “You weren’t the only ones to be saved,” Trevon said, sitting up on his knees. “We didn’t grow up in the Safe Lands. We’re from outside the walls.”

  “You will speak only when called on,” Tova said.

  Trevon frowned and looked to Shaylinn. “But she said a lie, didn’t she?”

  Shaylinn lifted her hand. “May I speak?”

  Tova’s body heaved up with an intake of air. She seemed to hold it, looking down her nose at Shaylinn from across the room. “You may not refute what I teach in my classroom, Shayleen. But if you have a question, I will answer.”

  My, my. Shaylinn phrased her question carefully. “Have you told your class who we are and where we came from?”

  “You are refugees that our councils saw fit to offer asylum. You will learn our ways and adapt to them. Only if you are uninfected and join the Kindred may you marry with our people.”

  “Marry? These are only children, Ms. Tova. And we will not be here for long. Our elders will find a way out of the Safe Lands and we will return home to our village in the woods.”

  The children at the tables murmured.

  “That was not a question, Shayleen,” Tova said, her voice a scolding yell. “If you break the rules again, I will ask you to leave.”

  Shaylinn’s eyes widened. How could anyone be so mean?

  At that moment, the classroom door opened and Eliza leaned her head in the opening. Behind her, Shaylinn could see the outsider children filing past. “We are leaving. Shaylinn, bring out the children, please.”

  Leaving? Good. Shaylinn pushed herself to standing, which was harder than she had expected. Her body was getting heavy again. She ushered the children to stand.

  “Where are you going?” Tova asked.

  Eliza opened the door all the way and stepped inside the classroom. “Our children will not be attending your school,” Eliza said. “We will not allow them to be treated as if they are of lower value. And we will not allow them to be lied to.”

  “Who has lied?”

  “This is not the time.” Eliza glanced at the children. “Samara can explain my concern, or I’d be happy to talk with you about your ‘curriculum’ later.”

  “This school is not yours to run,” Tova said. “Our councils approve our curriculum.”

  “I mean no offense,” Eliza said. “But why should your councils make the decisions for the children of Glenrock, Jack’s Peak, or the Safe Lands? If you simply taught reading and math, we might be able to work together, but your righteous judgment is not acceptable.”

  “This is my school. I will decide what and how to teach.”

  “I thought this was the councils’ school,” Eliza said. “But never mind. We will start our own school.”

  “If you feel you must.”

  “You’ve given us little choice. Come, children!” Eliza waved the kids out the door. “We will learn in the park today.”

  They left the school and walked to the park, single file down dark corridors that smelled of soil, though Shaylinn saw no dirt. By the time she reached the park, the children had already raced ahead to the playground.

  Eliza sat on a bench. “I’m going to let them play a bit. In fact, maybe we should bring them here during school hours so they can have this place to themselves. Then have our studies in the afternoon.”

  Shaylinn knew what Eliza wasn’t saying. She wanted to keep the children away from the Kindred children as much as Tova wanted to keep the Kindred children away from them. It didn’t seem right.

  She sat beside Eliza on the bench. “Once we’re free, we will all move away from this place, the Kindred included. Shouldn’t we try to get along?”

  “Once we’re free, they’ll find a place to build their own village,” Eliza said. “They still won’t want to live near any ‘evildoers.’ You should have seen what happened in that classroom, Shaylinn. Samara made our children stand in front of the class, then she told them that everything they had been taught up until now was a lie. As if she even knows what the children had been taught. Even Safe Lands children learn that one plus one is two. Is that a lie as well?”

  Shaylinn shook her head. “Trevon spoke up to correct their history text that said the Kindred alone had been saved from evil.” And Shaylinn shared how Tova had rebuked Trevon for speaking out of turn and what had happened when Shaylinn had tried to defend him.

  “They’ve categorized everyone who is not like them as evil,” Eliza said. “We’re not people. We’re different and therefore dangerous.”

  “I heard Ruston tell Levi that the Kindred believe in the Bible,” Shaylinn said.

  “Yes, I heard that too. But you have to watch their actions to see what they truly believe. So far, their behavior doesn’t match the self-less love Papa Eli taught about,” Eliza said. “They value control above everything else.”

  “Papa Eli did teach about selfless love,” Shaylinn said, “but he was afraid of the Safe Lands too. He warned us never to come here. Yet we’ve seen good here, as well. Wasn’t that fear as irrational as the Kindred’s fear of us?”

  “Papa Eli was warning us away from the thin plague. He was trying to protect us.”

  “But now we’re here. And Omar and Mia have the plague. Does that mean they no longer deserve our love? The Bible says we’re to love all people, not judge them because they are different from us. I still think we are supposed to love the Kindred,
even if they treat us badly. We are to love Safe Landers, even if they have the plague. We are to love the people from Jack’s Peak, even if they don’t believe the same things we do. And love does not mean to be nice to their faces and judge them behind their backs or point out how we think they are evil and dangerous. It means to love them unconditionally. To accept them how they are and treat them no differently than we’d treat our own children.”

  Eliza wrinkled her nose. “It’s not so easy to love people who hate you.”

  “No, I guess not. But we’re supposed to do it anyway. And I don’t think isolating ourselves from them is very loving. Look at how they treat Zane. Tova has exiled her own son, even after he came back and admitted that he made mistakes. We must show them that loving people is always the best way, no matter how they are different from us. No matter what kinds of mistakes they’ve made.”

  They sat together in silence awhile, watching the children play.

  “The elder council will have to talk about this,” Eliza said finally. “I’ll ask Levi if you could come and share. I like what you said, and I know I won’t be able to repeat it as well as you could.”

  “I’m too young to be on the elder council,” Shaylinn said.

  “Maybe,” said Eliza. “But you’re not that much younger than I am. And now that Mason is gone, well . . . we could use a logical perspective. You don’t tend to get emotional like Mary and I do, and you know your Bible better than anyone I know.”

  The very idea of speaking to the elder council scared Shaylinn. But it also filled her with a surprising thrill. It was important to educate the children. But Shaylinn felt it was even more important, while they were in this place, to be an example of selfless love to the people in this place, be they Kindred or Safe Lander.

  CHAPTER

  6

  When Omar awoke the next morning, he still hurt. The grass had only made him hungrier for the real thing. But he managed to get up and make it to the slaughterhouse by eight that morning. He had to task from eight to six with a one hour lunch break in the middle. And so he tasked. He must have boxed up a hundred chickens by the time lunchtime came. He’d put seven carcasses in the incarcerator too, and he sort of liked watching the iron door heat up until it glowed a reddish black.

  Kurwin had told Omar about the strikers’ cafeteria where the meals were only one credit, so Omar went there for lunch. He didn’t see Kurwin or Prav in the cafeteria, so he ate as much as he could and wandered back to the slaughterhouse.

  Another thing he was thankful for: working out in the yards. It stank. But with the nose plug, it was tolerable, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as working inside the slaughterhouse would be.

  Omar walked the yard. He found a dead chick and carried it to the incinerator. There was still ash inside from the last time someone had run it. So he set the dead chick on the floor, grabbed the hand broom, and swept the remaining ash into the ash pit. Once the inside was clean, he tossed the chick’s body inside. Then he crouched down at the bottom of the incinerator and pulled out the sump trap. As many chickens as they burned, it needed to be emptied several times a day. By the time Omar had managed to pull out the drawer and carry it to the ash dumpster, his hands and arms — the whole front of his jumpsuit — was covered in pasty gray soot. Soot almost like charcoal.

  It made him want to draw.

  Could he draw with chicken ash? Was it unsanitary? He was already dying, so what was the worst that could happen?

  Maybe he could find a container to collect the ash in. Then he could experiment with this new medium. He’d need black paper, though, since the ash was so pale in tone. Unless he could find a way to color the ash. An ink pen, maybe?

  He tasked out at six o’clock that night, exhausted. His limbs trembled with every step he took away from the slaughterhouse. He hated feeling weak. What little muscle he’d built up wouldn’t stay if he didn’t get his act together. Did it really matter though? Was there any point? He was as good as dead here. At least he’d managed to free Shaylinn from Otley and Bender and Rewl and the Tasker General after they’d kidnapped her. He’d have to entrust her and the babies to Levi and Jordan. His babies, if Mason was right about the donor sample.

  Levi and Jordan would do better for them than Omar ever could.

  He sighed heavily, breathing out his depression and pain in one long exhale. He had two hours before he had to meet Prav and Kurwin to learn about the off-grid tasking, so he wandered the city called Cibelo, wishing he had the money to buy whatever he wanted. He’d come to the Safe Lands with millions of credits and big, naive dreams.

  Now he was here.

  He’d tasked two days now, so he should have twenty credits, minus the two credit slice of pizza he’d eaten last night and the one credit lunch he’d had in the striker’s cafeteria. He was starving. For food and juice. And he no longer knew which was more important.

  He was walking past a bar, smelling the hint of alcohol on the air, when he saw a man toss a half-eaten sandwich into the trash. He walked straight by the trash can and looked inside. The sandwich was just sitting there on the top, still partially wrapped in foil. It looked to be shredded steak with green peppers and onions. Omar snatched it out of the trash and took a bite.

  It was still warm.

  Afraid someone had seen him, he strode back the way he’d come, scarfing the sandwich down. He slipped into the narrow alley between a Sparkle cosmetics store and a SimSight dealer. He slid down against the brick wall of the Sparkle shop and savored the last few bites of the sandwich.

  He was pathetic. This was what life had come to. The Owl eating trash.

  The Owl was dead.

  When he finished the sandwich and licked the juices from the foil, he folded the wrapper carefully and put it in his pocket. He might be able to collect ash in it from the incinerator.

  He didn’t know what time of night it was. And even though his stomach had been somewhat sated, his body sill hungered for brown sugar. Just thinking about it made his bones ache.

  He finally forced himself to get up and walk toward the club district. He’d seen it last night. Heard the music and wanted to go. But he’d made himself stay away, afraid of what he might do in desperation.

  He passed a Sweet Spot store, which sold a million types of candy. He went in and walked around. There were lots of machines where you tapped the pad to pay and the candy rolled down into a little slot. Omar checked all the little metal doors for any forgotten candy and found a gumdrop, a chocolate caramel, and a minty gumball. He was about to walk down the second row when a tasker from the shop walked up to him.

  “Either buy something or get out.”

  “Sorry,” Omar said. “I was just looking.”

  “I know what you were doing. Stop spending all your credits on juice and maybe you could afford to buy food.”

  The words shamed Omar and he left the store immediately, chomping on the tiny bit of gum. The club district was quiet. Most places probably didn’t open until at least nine or ten. Why had Prav told him to come at eight? Maybe that was when taskers got the club ready for the night. If Omar could get a second task, he might be able to afford what he needed to survive. Perhaps real tasks paid better than the measly credits strikers got. Would this Rain woman care that he was a striker? Prav didn’t seem to think so.

  He found Fajro, but it hadn’t been easy. The place was deep in the heart of Cibelo, down several twisting roads and alleyways. Omar had had to ask five people to find the place, and several had given him a look — a glare, really — before answering. He figured it was the orange jumpsuit.

  Fajro was a door in the wall between two bigger clubs. One called Ludo, which had a marquee with fuchsia and chartreuse neon lights that flashed silhouettes of curvy women. And the other called Zendax, which had piped stripes of white and black light alternating along the front, like pinstriped fabric. The lights moved too, flashing, which made it seem like the club front was made of water. It made Omar dizzy to look at it.
>
  But Fajro was nothing more than a bright sanguine-red door, solid and glossy, set in a black wall. No lights. But the word “Fajro” had been painted on the black wall above the door in letters that looked like fire.

  Someone might hire an artist to do such things in Cibelo. Maybe Omar could make credits doing some painting like this.

  He knocked on the door, but no one answered. He looked for the SimPad but found none. It took him a blank moment of confusion before he saw the doorknob. He hadn’t seen one since Glenrock. It seemed so foreign here.

  He took hold of it and turned. It was unlocked, so he went inside.

  It was dark, and though he couldn’t see at first, the air smelled like incense and stims and alcohol and sweat, and Omar’s stomach clenched at the very idea that he might find a breath of brown sugar here.

  His eyes adjusted to the low red lights that edged the front of the bar that ran down one side of a very narrow room. No one stood behind the counter, but the shiny bottles of liquor made his mouth water, spoke to him. Come to us, Omar. Drink us.

  He walked toward the bar.

  “Can I help you?”

  Omar jumped and clenched his fists. A woman had stepped out of a doorway at the back of the bar. Not a door, really, but an opening where a door should be. It was covered in shimmering red and orange and yellow strands of crystal beads.

  “I’m looking for Rain,” Omar said.

  “Rain quenches fire,” the woman said.

  “Okay.” Whatever that meant. “Do you know Rain?”

  “You look too young for her. You look lost.”

  “I’m not lost, not literally anyway.”

  The woman cackled, baring a wide smile and very white teeth. “Aren’t you funny? Who sent you?”

  “Prav and Kurwin. They said to come at eight.”

  “It’s only seven.”

  “I couldn’t find a clock.”

  “How long you been here.”

  “In the club? I just walked in.”

  “In the Lowlands.”

  “Oh, this is my second day.”