inDIVISIBLE

by Hunter, Ryan

  “Did you know,” I started, remembering a lesson from political science, “that President Abbots saved One United from financial and moral ruin?”

  T looked at me as if I’d just stepped off another planet.

  I nodded. “It’s true. One United was on the verge of total collapse until President Abbots … gave us everything.”

  “He enslaved us,” T responded coldly.

  I shook my head. “He bought our businesses so he could fix them. He gave us free doctors to keep us healthier; and sensors so we’d never get lost or want for anything ever again.”

  “Except for freedom.”

  I laughed, and the sound startled me. I looked behind me to see if it could have come from someone else before I continued, trying to remember my point. “He taught the children things he wanted them to know, in schools that parents couldn’t control …” my thoughts wandered, and I fought to get them back. “He educated … no, he brainwashed the kids. He brainwashed us and then he turned himself into a hero.” My voice caught, and I swallowed, my tongue still thick and sticky. “He created the Alliance to protect …” I thought back to the news bar I’d seen the day I’d turned ten, the first time I’d questioned my father about the lessons they fed me in school.

  “How does telling Citizens how they have to live protect them?” I asked.

  He gave me the signal for silence and said, “The Alliance is the one with the research to know what’s healthiest, who has the most potential in which courses of study—” One eyebrow cocked even as he grimaced. His green eyes flickered with unspoken thought, something I grew to recognize easily when I got older, something I’d take as a signal for questioning the next time we went hiking, because that’s where my father talked more freely.

  “… to control,” I finished, remembering those green eyes and wishing my father could share the wisdom behind them with me now.

  T’s face reflected the conflict I imagined shone on mine. “They don’t control us now.”

  I shook my head, a shiver running from my tailbone to the base of my skull. “No they don’t.”

  “It may be a little harsh out here, the supplies lacking, but we’re free,” he said. T lifted the water bottle I’d nearly drained, took a small sip for himself and handed the rest to me.

  “We’re free,” I mimicked as I tried to keep the bottle from shaking in my hand. I lifted it to my cracked lips and finished it. My stomach churned, and I closed my eyes, determined to keep it down.

  “Take your time, Brynn.”

  I wondered at his calm voice, at his strength and restraint. Then I remembered that he’d trained for this—for running. Only, he’d trained to run for the Alliance, not from them. “When did you begin to question?” I asked, my eyes still closed.

  “From the time I could speak,” he said. “My parents feared for me because they knew what happened to children like me.”

  “What?”

  “They’re taken, called special and put into programs to make them forget.”

  “But they picked you because you had potential,” I justified, finally opening my eyes and realizing that the water would stay in my belly where I needed it.

  He shrugged, and I couldn’t help but touch his thinning cheek. “I had potential to win in the 800 meter dash, but I also had potential to expose them.”

  My hand trailed down to his chin, my fingers lingering, wanting to touch his swollen lips. “We should reach our potential,” I said.

  He nodded. “It’s a God-given right.”

  I smiled and a small chuckle escaped, sounding more like me this time than the last. “So you do believe in God?”

  “The Alliance convinced me for years that He didn’t exist—so far they’ve been wrong about everything else.”

  “They were wrong to tell us we couldn’t see each other again,” I said.

  T kissed me, his lips a whisper on mine. “They were definitely wrong on that count.”

  I pushed to my feet and braced myself against a tree while my head swayed. “My father apparently believed that if he could get to these Freemen they’d help him expose the Alliance.”

  T scrambled up beside me and took my arm to steady me as we began the climb up the face of the mountain.

  “Can I ask you something?” T asked.

  “Of course.”

  “If you could be anything you wanted, what would you be?”

  My face reddened and I continued forward.

  “You said I could ask,” T said.

  My lungs burned again but I refused to let my weakness stop us from finding the Freemen. “I said you could ask. I didn’t say I’d respond,” I teased.

  “I could let you go and watch you stumble,” he threatened.

  My head started to clear. “But you wouldn’t.”

  “Want to try me?”

  I stuck out my tongue.

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

  I cleared my throat and said, “A poet.”

  T laughed and I spun. I’d have slugged him if I’d had the strength. Instead, he caught me as I teetered and kept me upright.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I’m laughing because I’m surprised.”

  “Why?” I struggled up a short cliff, T pushing me from behind before he crept up next to me. As I stood there I realized we were entirely exposed to the valley and we both rushed for cover where we crouched and peered out over the hillside to see if we’d been spotted.

  “Poets just don’t exist anymore,” he said, “not really.”

  “Because they can express more than words,” I said. “They can convey ideas and feelings.”

  “Does your poetry convey your deepest feelings?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “I’d like to read some.”

  “The Alliance took it all when they took my mother.”

  T started forward again, his gait slower, more thoughtful. “There has to be something more,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They selected you for that trip to Europe. They only select people they can use.”

  I shrugged. “They wanted to bug me for more dirt on my father.”

  “And?” he asked.

  I shimmied around some loose rocks so they wouldn’t go rolling down the mountain. “And nothing.”

  T stopped for a breath and placed his hand on his hips. “They picked me because they sensed unrest in their Olympic athlete. They wanted to get me drunk, get me talking so they could see where my loyalties were. They found out— so when I got home they tried to take me and my friends out. They’re dead, and I’m alive,” he ran one hand through his hair and asked, “what about you?”

  “I was mediocre,” I said. “I did just enough to get by so I wouldn’t stand out.”

  “But?” he prodded.

  “My father once said I was borderline genius.”

  “Photographic memory?”

  I nodded.

  “Science and technology?” he asked.

  “My father was just proud,” I insisted. “All fathers comment on how smart their children are.”

  T licked his lips. “But yours meant it.”

  “The Alliance had a purpose for me. I was going to be a scientist.”

  “Which you hate,” T said.

  I nodded and ducked under a low branch.

  “And your test scores proved you hated the subject even while you excelled.”

  “So?”

  “So they put you into a subject you detest so when they offered you an alternative with some questionable morals, you’d take it because you wanted out of science.”

  “I want to write poetry.”

  “And they’d let you in your off time.”

  The rock beneath my foot rolled and I stopped, waiting for it to clatter down the mountainside but it lodged in the moist soil instead. “You’re crazy.”

  “They put me into horticulture before they recruited me to be an athlete. They took me from my family, ind
octrinated me and used me. My parents didn’t want me to go, but I was going to be an athlete. I was going to represent our country and make everyone proud.”

  “Horticulture?” I asked, taking in his lean, tall frame, his toned muscles. “You were best suited as a farmer?”

  He scrubbed his hand through his dark hair even as he shook his head. “No. I detested it and they knew it, so it was just one more way for them to convince me to join their ranks.”

  “What did you really want to do?” I asked, realizing I knew little about him at all, realizing even more that it had never even occurred to me to ask anyone before then what their personal dreams were.

  He chuckled but his eyes held no humor. “I wanted to go hiking and explore the woods beyond the designated foot trails. I wanted to climb trees and forget about keeping my uniform spotless.”

  I remembered my father tugging me back on the trails through the mountains when I was little, explaining that the plants were vulnerable and we had to stay out of nature to truly enjoy it. I’d grown angry and thrown a fit. Later he’d taken me from the trails a few times to talk in riddles that I’d only recently begun to understand. “How old were you?”

  “Seven.”

  It must have killed his parents to give him up so early, but what choice had they really had? I thought of Sofi and the comfort she’d given me through nightmares and the relentless teasing before I’d gotten my teeth straightened. “I don’t think that’s right, for the Alliance to just step in and take the kids they want.”

  He picked his trail carefully, around a shaggy pine and behind a cluster of scrub oak. I knew though, that if the Alliance wanted us, it would take more than careful maneuvering to evade them. Still, we had to try.

  “They do it all the time,” he said.

  “I don’t see why they’d want me,” I insisted. “They bugged me to listen in on my father because he never spoke openly in the home and he’d never have gone in for a visit where they could have implanted a listening device into him.

  “Perhaps it was never your father they were after,” T insisted. “Maybe they caught onto him after they started invading your life. Maybe your father wouldn’t let you go so they were trying alternate approaches.”

  “As if I’m some great treasure …”

  “Tell me, did your father talk to you more or less after your trip?”

  I shrugged but knew the answer. “Less, but he was busier at work.”

  “He knew they’d planted something in you and he was trying to protect you.”

  “Why even let me go on the trip then?”

  T gripped a branch and pulled past it. “Remember that fit we talked about … the one you would have thrown if you’d known about Sofi?”

  “You’re saying he let me go to keep suspicions down?”

  T nodded. “I think so.”

  I stopped, planted my hands on my hips and said, “I. Am. Not. A. Genius.”

  “I’m not the fastest runner in One United.” He continued as if I’d never stopped. So, maybe he had a point? I jogged to catch up but it stole my breath and made my bones ache. I breathed deeply until I could speak again, my tongue becoming sticky again, my throat feeling swollen.

  “So it’s a combination of things?” I asked.

  T nodded and we both jumped when a bird cawed overhead. “Maybe they already knew about your father, maybe not, but they have a specific interest in you.”

  “What about the others who were with us on that trip?”

  T paused. “Dead, dead, dead and government spy.”

  I sucked in a breath. “For real?”

  T shook his head and kept his pace steady. “Just a guess.”

  “Who’s the spy?”

  “Emel.”

  The image of flaming red hair and freckles popped into my head, and I laughed. “Emel?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he’s a computer geek.”

  “Electronic spying.”

  I quit laughing. “You really think so?”

  He raised one eyebrow but didn’t answer.

  “Makes sense, I guess, but it bothers me.”

  “That means you’ve got a conscience.”

  My saliva had turned to glue, and I licked my lips to try to moisten them. It felt like wood on sandpaper. “My downfall,” I whispered sarcastically.

  T’s brows drew together as he watched me walking beside him. He slowed his pace a bit, and I sighed in relief. His pace was killing me though I knew deep down that he’d been slowing for me constantly and that meant putting ourselves into jeopardy.

  T pointed ahead where the mountains fell into shadow. “From that knoll we should see the next landmark. We just need a clear view of the river.”

  I could make it to the knoll, I told myself. It wasn’t far at all. Baby steps. I just had to take baby steps.

  “Is it safe, with those men behind us?”

  T motioned for silence and we waited, watching … “I think we can get across okay. But we’ll have to hurry, and we’ll want to find a place to hide for a couple hours once we reach the other side—to sleep—you remember what this is don’t you?”

  My knees nearly gave out at the news, and I surged forward faster, taking longer strides until my muscles cramped and I had to take T’s hand to keep me going.

  “We’re going to make it Brynn,” he said.

  I wanted to ask him about the premonition because now I felt unsettled, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. So instead I said, “I know.”

  The ground rose steeply as we approached the knoll. “Another hundred feet,” T said.

  I scrambled up the hillside, taking a seat beside him when we crested it. “What are we looking for?”

  T pulled the map from his pack and with hands shaking, he pointed into the valley below, barely visible beyond the branches. “Camel’s back.”

  He pointed the bend in the river out on the map and relief pushed through my chest. We really were on the right course if we could see that obvious landmark.

  I leaned back in the dirt, unfazed by the rocks gouging through the thin fabric of my shirt and stared at the cloudless sky. My father had died putting this plan into place. I couldn’t disappoint him now.

  Too soon, T pulled me to my feet and we went in search of a discrete place to get some rest. He shoved the map in the top of the pack and jogged off of the knoll, through a narrow canyon and into a meadow surrounded by trees and filled with waist-high plants. What he didn’t tell me until I’d nearly fallen asleep is that he’d seen one of the officers through the trees. They weren’t close, but they were on the right track.

  CHAPTER 34

  I sat and stared into the bushes when the rustling began, still fazed by sleep—and I wondered how long we’d live once the officers broke through.

  T took a more proactive approach, skirting through the brush to come up behind them so they’d kill him first and come for me later—at least those were the thoughts that ran through my head as I sat in the dirt and watched, the earth moving in funny back and forth sways that made me feel sick.

  A branch broke, and I looked up at the scattered clouds in the sky, white and puffy against the crystal blue. I figured of any place, that’s where God would be.

  “Can you save us?” I whispered so quietly that not a sound left my lips. Then a second thought burst through and I asked, “Are we worth saving?”

  My chest felt warm and I wondered if it was the dehydration or an answer from God. Either way, I preferred to think of it as an answer. I scooted across the ground and clutched a stick about three feet long, holding it in my hands like the baseball bat we’d practiced with in gym during my elementary years.

  I would remain free and God was going to help me. I pushed to my feet and waited for the security officers to break through. When one foot appeared, I swung with all the strength I could muster, connecting with the intruder’s face and knocking him flat onto his back. He didn’t flinch, just fell so he laid all spread out, eyes clos
ed, blood bursting from his nose. His face was burned from the sun, his red lashes nearly invisible against his skin.

  But he didn’t wear the standard security uniform. He wore old jeans, work boots and a brown jacket. I dropped my stick. Had I just killed a Freeman?

  I nudged him with the toe of my shoe. His leg just wobbled but he didn’t wake. Didn’t show signs of life. “T!” I called.

  T didn’t respond and I inched closer to the unconscious man. I pressed my fingertips to his neck and waited. He had a pulse.

  Footsteps pounded, and I spun around, anxious to explain to T what I’d done when a man in camouflage gear and a gun slung around his torso stopped ten feet away.

  “No, no, no,” I whispered.

  “Brynn Aberdie?” he asked.

  I think I may have nodded though I hadn’t intended to.

  “I need you to come with me for questioning.”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  The man came toward me—I moved to the side, closer to the stick that had taken out the Freeman. The officer stopped and a grin spread over his features as he saw the unconscious man. “Who’s side are you on, anyway?” he asked.

  I scooted to the side again, closer to my stick, and my fingers tingled.

  T shouted in pain and I cringed, realizing he faced his own demon somewhere I couldn’t see him. I’d done this to him, taken out any chance of our survival by one lucky swing. I took another step to the side as the officer advanced. His eyes flickered from me to the stick and he smiled—a smile that sickened me to the depths of my stomach.

  “You don’t think you can take me out that easily, do you?”

  I lunged, my hand closing around the stick, and the officer’s arms wrapped around my body. We fell hard, his body crushing the air from my lungs. I couldn’t cry out for help though my mouth gaped. I fought for breath and realized my mouth might actually be my only source of protection. The man gripped my arms, struggling to free my stick. I swung my face forward and connected with his cheek, biting down as hard as I could.

  He hollered and backhanded me, jumping away. I rolled backward, the stick falling loose somewhere out of reach.