“I’m sure.”
“Okay,” she said. She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him hurriedly. Then she was out the door and John was left alone with a robot spinning its wheels in the kitchen, singing a happy song to itself. It was a song he had sung to his daughters when they were little. It was a song he and Hazel sang to Gizmo to get him to learn it.
My Bonnie lies over the ocean. My Bonnie lies over the sea…
Part of him wanted to deactivate the robot—to shut him off and stick him in a closet so he would never utter a happy word again. Another part of him prevailed, however.
Water came to his eyes as he whispered the lyrics to himself in a tune that ached him to the core. “My Bonnie lies over the ocean. Oh bring back my Bonnie to me…”
12
Eight Years Ago
“Just open it already,” Lillian said. “I don’t see why you’re savoring the moment. You already know you got in.”
The two of them walked slowly down the cracked sidewalk toward their small neighborhood on the outer edge of the city. The clouds overhead were dark and low, suggesting a night of storms to drench the city around them. Hazel didn’t want to open the yellow envelope she held loosely in her fingers. It was tied closed by a thin piece of thread. What if it didn’t say what she hoped it would say?
“Do you know how many applicants there are every year?” Hazel asked.
“I don’t know, hundreds?”
“Thousands,” Hazel said. “And do you know how many applicants are accepted every year?”
She held up a finger. “That, I do know. Four hundred.”
“Four hundred!” Hazel nearly yelled. “The odds of me getting chosen for university are…” She looked at the ground, her lips moving silently as she actually tried to calculate the odds.
“Hazel, it doesn’t matter. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. You’ve made a perfect score on everything since we started school.”
“It takes more than perfect scores,” Hazel said. “They evaluate your personality, your goals. They want to know everything about you before they will accept you.”
“I’m sure they like what they know about you,” Lillian said.
Hazel wasn’t so sure. In fact, the psychiatric evaluation was what she worried about the most, though it wasn’t as if she had spent any time in a room with someone as they asked her questions. It was one of many written tests taken in a large room with hundreds of other prospective students who, statistically, weren’t going to make it into the university either. The woman administering the evaluation had told them that there was no wrong answer.
Hazel knew better.
Throughout the test she strategically answered each question that she thought those with the authority of choosing would want to hear. About halfway through, she started to panic because she wondered if they would be able to tell that was what she was doing. Maybe they weeded out those who weren’t being themselves. Of course, maybe they wanted people who would bend to their every wish, and they weeded out people who just tried to be themselves.
Some questions eluded her, however. One such question was this: You are on a walk, enjoying the spring weather when you reach an intersection. As you are waiting, a black cat crosses in front of you toward your right. It stops for a moment and looks at you, then continues on its way. Do you:
A) Walk straight.
B) Turn left.
C) Turn back
D) Follow the cat.
The question left Hazel baffled. Since it was a psychological assessment, she didn’t think there was any possible way she was over analyzing the question. Whatever she answered meant something. She wondered if choosing A) Walk straight, meant she was determined and unfazed by distractions. She didn’t have a thought for B) Turn left, and she thought C) Turn back might show that she was afraid of something. Then there was D) Follow the cat. It’s meaning could have been anything—a healthy curiosity, a distracted mind, a fascination with felines. Ultimately, she chose A) Walk straight. This one had been her own choice since she didn’t know what would be the preferred answer. If she was out on a walk, enjoying the spring weather, she didn’t think she would follow a black cat that took an interest in her for a moment.
Ever since she took the test, that was the only one she really agonized over. It didn’t seem like all the other questions. It was the most vague and seemingly pointless one. What if to the left there was a great view over a river? What if she went straight because that was the path she was already on and she preferred the sidewalk? What if she turned back because the sun had been in her eyes and she preferred to walk with the sun at her back?
Looking at the envelope in her hands, she wished she had picked D) Follow the cat. She had a feeling that it was one of those secret questions that made the rest of the test invalid—that if someone answered the cat question correctly, he or she would be considered for the university.
The university. There was only one in Mainland, and as far as she knew, the only one left in the world. Mainland was all that was left of the civilized world. At least, this is what they were told by their president and other people in power. Hazel didn’t really believe it. Mostly because if it were true, it would be a sad story for humanity. A hundred years had passed since the global nuclear wars that left most of the earth uninhabitable. Mainland had ushered in a new age of prosperity though it was nothing like the world before. It never would be.
“Do you want me to open it for you?” Lillian asked.
“I kind of want to open it with mom and dad,” Hazel said. “You know mom has been asking me for weeks if I’ve heard any news.”
“What if you just let me look? I won’t say anything!” Her younger sister reached for the envelope but Hazel pulled it close to her chest.
“Your face will give it away,” she said.
“No it won’t, I promise!”
“Lillian, seriously.” Hazel wore a stern look, but she knew it wouldn’t work with Lillian. It never did. She persisted until she got what she wanted. But this time, Hazel wanted to wait more than Lillian wanted to see so she gripped the envelope tightly. “I’m not going to let you do this again where you badger me to death until I give in. You’re always doing this and it’s so—”
Lillian wasn’t listening to her. She had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk as if a witch had unexpectedly turned her into a statue.
“What are you doing?”
Lillian’s mouth hung open and she slowly lifted a hand and pointed across the street. “What’s going on?”
Hazel looked in the same direction and was first taken aback that they had already reached their neighborhood. She had been so deep in thought she hadn’t notice the distance they’d walked. But that feeling was left in the dust when she saw people standing on top of almost every house.
People did this from time to time in their neighborhood. They were all so close to the edge of Outland that people liked to get a view of the outside world such as it was. Storms in the distance would offer spectacular light shows at night. But this was different. Hazel had never seen all the houses covered with people. Each of them stood tall as they tried to get a good look toward the border.
“What’s happening?” Hazel asked.
Though Hazel hadn’t been searching for an answer, Lillian offered one. “Maybe there’s a tornado coming this way.”
Hazel doubted it. People wouldn’t be on their rooftops if a tornado was coming. Besides, there was hardly any wind. No. This was something else.
The alarms started going off. They were slow and bellowing, loud enough to make Hazel want to cover her ears even though it barely did any good. These weren’t storm alarms. These were the take cover alarms. Then she heard something in the distance that sounded a lot like thunder even though she didn’t see any lightning.
She looked over at Lillian who was breathing hard now, her chin starting to shake. “What’s going on Hazel? What is that noise?”
Hazel could
put two and two together. Though the clouds above them were heavy and ready to burst open with rain, this was no storm.
They were under attack.
Hazel grabbed Lillian’s hand and pulled her close. “Stay with me,” she tried to yell over the sirens. Hazel wasn’t sure if Lillian could hear her, but her sister stayed with Hazel regardless.
The two of them sprinted across the street and into the neighborhood. The people on the rooftops never looked down at them, and Hazel barely watched where she was going. A few times she nearly ran straight into a parked car or a lamppost as she tried to get a glimpse of someone’s face. She was distracted more than once by a man or a woman pointing in the same direction. Whatever was happening, Hazel and Lillian would know soon enough. Their house had one of the best views of Outland in the entire neighborhood.
With Lillian still holding tightly to her hand, and Hazel gripping the envelope in the other, they went another block down until they reached the house. As expected, her father and mother were both on top of the roof, staring out toward the horizon.
Hazel and Lillian rushed past the open fence and into the house through the back door. Up the stairs they went until they made it to the master bedroom at the very end of the hall. The window was already open and offered easy access to the roof by way of a small balcony and ladder. Hazel let go of Lillian’s hand and crawled out first.
Only their mother paid them any mind as the two crawled on all fours to the middle of the roof, but even she turned away to stare back at the horizon. Hazel then saw it too and she barely felt Lillian squeeze in beside her.
What shocked Hazel the most wasn’t that there was a fight on the border with guns blazing on both sides of the wall. It was the sheer number of Outland forces on the other side.
“John, don’t you think we should head toward the middle of the city?” Hazel heard her mother say.
He shook his head. “How many times has this happened before?”
“I know, but there are a lot of them,” she said.
“They’ve never broken through that wall,” her father said. “They’re not going to start today.”
His dark, brown eyes stared hard into the battle like a hawk might stalk a prey. Hazel knew his stories quite well. He loved to tell them, and in detail. Because of this, she knew that her father wanted to be in the middle of that fight more than any person in Mainland, but an old back injury kept him out of it.
Hazel met eyes with Lillian and she reached out to squeeze her hand. “You okay?” Hazel asked.
Lillian lifted an eyebrow and shrugged. “This is more entertaining than anything else I’ve done today.”
Hazel gave a slight grin to her sister in reply, but she didn’t feel the same way. People were dying out there as they sat and watched on their roof like it was some spectator sport. The only difference was that nobody cheered. Everyone watched in pure silence.
Hazel looked at other houses about a block away. She could see that a few others actually had lawn chairs out to be more comfortable.
Hazel wondered if she should make some popcorn for the family as they watched the Mainland Military decimate their enemies like they usually did. It was a fleeting thought meant to be sarcastic in her mind. She wasn’t hungry. She hated that she didn’t want to look away from the carnage in the distance. She hated that she found just a little bit of pleasure from knowing that the Outlander savages were probably dying by the hundreds. The less of them, the better, right?
They were evil. They deserved nothing less than the pain they received. It was because of them the world was the way it was—reduced from billions, to only a few million, to half a million in such a short time.
The more she watched, the more she was sickened by the sight. She tucked the yellow envelope inside her jacket pocket and slowly started to pull away from the group. The only one that seemed to notice was Lillian, but even she didn’t say anything. There was one fleeting glance before she turned back to the battle waging far away, no doubt wondering what it was like to be in the middle of it—what those people must be seeing.
Hazel didn’t wonder. She knew. She’d heard enough stories from her father to know. And she didn’t want any part of it.
Today wasn’t the day to open the envelope. Good news would be wasted because of the battle at hand. There would be a hug or two, maybe even a congratulations, but that would be all. Bad news would be met with an at least you’re not dead, and a nod toward the fight.
But it wasn’t attention that kept her from opening it. It was blind fear. She wanted to go to the university more than anything in the world. She had worked hard for it and deserved it. Lillian was right, there was no way she didn’t get in. But what if the letter inside expressed the university’s condolences? What would Hazel do then? What would her life become? She would either be married off to some labor worker or become one herself. She didn’t want either. She wanted to study. To program. She had the gift for it and she already felt like she was on to something big.
Hazel walked into her bedroom and pulled the envelope out of her jacket. Part of her just wanted to do it—to find out then and there what the answer was. But more of her wanted to wait. So, she set it on her bedside table.
In the morning, she thought to herself. Whatever the news, it will be better to know it in the morning.
A sharp, high pitched voice behind her made her jump. “Good afternoon, Hazel! How are things today?”
Hazel sighed. “Things are good, Gizmo. How are you?” She knew she didn’t even have to ask. The answer would never be anything but positive.
“I’m on top of the world!
“Why aren’t you on top of the roof?”
“Your father thinks I will fall off and break myself,” he said. “I assured him that if that happened, I would do my best to make repairs.”
“Anyone tell you what’s going on out there?”
“Fireworks!”
Hazel shook her head. “A battle. The Outlanders are trying to get in again.”
“May the Mainlanders be victorious!”
“Yeah,” Hazel said, barely above a whisper. “Go Mainlanders.”
13
The man stared at Hazel from the other side of the elevated train. His thick, bushy eyebrows seemed to be stuck in a downward, disapproving expression, his eyelids closed just enough that he looked perpetually angry. Orange lights above the street zoomed past the windows, casting an ominous, flashing glow on his face as the train move ahead. Hazel gripped the handle that dangled from the train car ceiling with a white-knuckled fist. The grainy image of her father’s intruder had been sent to Esroy and she wished she could look at it again and compare it to this man, though she wasn’t sure it would help. She needed Esroy’s software to be sure but he still hadn’t gotten back to her.
He broke his gaze every few seconds to look from side-to-side almost as if to check if there were still people in the car. Thankfully there were five. Maybe the man wouldn’t try anything with others on board. She was tempted to get off at the next stop even though she was still four stops away from her own, but she didn’t know where she would go. And what if the man followed her? What would she do then?
She stared back at him, never taking her eyes away. She didn’t want to be caught by surprise in the event that he lunged at her. She gripped the handle even tighter as the train slowed into the next stop. The doors opened and she could feel the stuffy train air leave in an instant, replaced by the night’s cool, spring breeze. Her heart started pounding in her ears when she saw movement both to her right and left. The five others, like the stuffy air, left the train car with only fresh air to replace them.
She didn’t even hear the doors close, but she felt the train move. She braved a hopeful glance to her right and left, wishing there was someone she might have missed—a man who may have fallen asleep in the corner, or a woman nursing her baby. But no, it was just Hazel and the man with the bushy eyebrows.
Hazel swallowed hard and started to ta
ke a step toward the next car, a distance that would require a sprint to get there in five seconds. The man would surely be on top of her before she made it. But before her first step reached the floor, the man spoke to her.
“What do you want?”
Hazel froze. The man’s voice was so rough and scratchy, like he had had a cold for several days. She couldn’t tell if it was the same voice in Gizmo’s recording, not that she could put much stock into that anyway. The robot was outfitted with such old equipment and was made on a small budget years ago.
“What do you mean?” Hazel asked. She could feel the blood drain from her face, stunned in place by the man she had feared almost since the beginning of her trip home.
“You’ve been staring at me for the last ten stops,” he said with a snarl. “If you ask me, I think it’s a bit unsettling.”
Hazel’s mouth dropped open. She felt stupid—like she had forgotten how to speak. This man had been staring at her, not the other way around!
He stood from his seat and a sudden shift of the train car made him stumble a couple of steps in Hazel’s direction. She let out an involuntary squeak that was halfway between a mouse and the yelp of a small dog. The man glanced up at her with a look that said she needed help. And not in the ‘you need help to get away from the guy that is after you’ sort of way, rather the ‘you need mental help’ sort.
The train eased to another stop and Hazel still didn’t let her eyes leave the man. The doors opened and the breeze swept in. The man shook his head and stood in the middle of the car as a new crowd of people pushed past him, filling the seats with more bodies, more shifting eyes, more people she was going to have to watch. She knew she was being paranoid. The man had been staring at her because she was staring at him.
Hazel shifted her weight from leg to leg as the train moved ahead again. She shut her eyes tightly and shook her head. There was no point in acting like this. It wasn’t going to help anything and it would only add unneeded stress. But when she looked up again, the man was making his way toward one of the doors to their right.
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