by Annie Oldham
We stand next to a huge pyramid of boxes.
“My name's Madge. What's yours?”
I motion to my mouth and then reach for her hand. Her eyes soften.
Terra.
“Well, Terra, this is the cannery obviously. We process all the food that comes from farming camps in the northwest. We really only work in the cannery during the late summer and fall because of the harvest. Don't worry, though, those agents give us plenty of other jobs during the rest of the year. If you ever wondered where the food for supply drops comes from, look no further. Though they'll never tell their 'loyal citizens' how much slave labor goes into it.”
Up until that point, I thought Madge had managed to maintain some semblance of happiness in this place. The bitterness, however, cuts so deeply on the last sentence, that she now has my full attention. She smiles at me, but her eyes are flinty. She looks around her quickly.
“Don't worry. With all the pots boiling and people talking and the general noise of it all, they'll never hear us.” Concern crosses her face. “Though you should still be careful. Always be careful.” Madge puts a hand to her sweaty forehead. A hair net keeps her curly red hair from her face, and crow's feet stamp around her eyes. I like her; she's honest.
I nod earnestly to her, hoping she can trust me. I wonder if all the inmates here trust each other because we all have a common enemy, or if there are so many walls built up that trust is hard to come by.
I want to get to work, show her I'll help. I point to a box of ears of corn. I know corn—I tended the corn field in the colony. Surely I can do this.
“The corn? You can start there if you want. All you do is shuck it and then put it on that conveyer belt. That'll take it to the strippers.” Madge laughs. “Not the technical name, but whatever. That's what I call them. They cut off the kernels.”
I smile bewilderedly. I have no idea why calling them “strippers” is funny, and Madge doesn't look like the joke needs to be explained. It must be a difference between Burn culture and colony culture.
I grab an ear of corn from the box and pull open the husk. From a wisp of steam, my cellmate appears next to me, grabs an ear of corn, and uses her long, slender fingers to shuck it faster than I'll ever be able to. I wrestle with the long fibers and the silky threads and put the ear on the belt. She's already thrown five ears on by the time my first joins hers. Then we repeat it. Over and over again. After several hours, I'm able to shuck two ears to her five, and my fingers are sore. But she never looks at me. Her long hair, the color of the corn silk, falls between us. I wish I could speak to her. It would be less intrusive than grabbing her hand and writing words there. She's like a frightened cat: she'll come close if you ignore her, but one wrong step and she's gone.
Madge stops my hand before I can grab another ear of corn. She gently pries my fingers open, rubbing them where they're curled into fists that know nothing but corn shucking. She looks at me like she's not sure if I'm trying to win points with the agents or am just a hard worker. It wounds me that she'd think I'd try to get in with the agents.
“Give it a rest. They won't keep you on shucking long, anyway. I'll show you what else we do down here.”
She nods to my cellmate. To my surprise, my cellmate nods back. Then Madge leads me into the thick of the steam where several workers stand over huge pots. Madge guides me to one in the corner. Her face tells me she has a secret.
“That pot right there?” She nods her head toward it. We're about twenty feet away, and wisps of steam swirl into the worker's face. The sweat pouring into my eyes makes my vision blurry and I squint at the worker's wrinkled face. She reminds me of Nell. Madge leans closer. “Blackberry jam.”
I remember the skeleton blackberry brambles Jack and I slept under only a few nights ago. How we shivered in our sleeping bags. How frightened we were of the nomads. How he held my hand and we both fell asleep that way. Now I would give anything for that night again—fear and all. But I'm not sure what Madge's secrecy is about. I'm growing impatient with the games it seems everyone is playing with me. I wipe my sweaty face with my sleeve.
So?
“Have you ever gotten jam in your food rations? Ever even seen jam in a food drop?”
I shake my head. I'm assuming that's the right answer. I'm feeling light-headed from hunger, and the idea of sweet, sticky jam makes it even worse. In the several abandoned food drops Jack and I found in the wilderness, jam wasn't among the remains. But what is she getting at?
“Exactly. This jam isn't for anyone but the government.” Her eyes flash, betraying that same fire she's so carefully veiled. “And do you see the obscene amount of sugar that Lily's—” a soldier walks right over our heads, and Madge glares at him “—I mean Worker 657 is getting ready to dump in?”
I look from the soldier to Lily. She holds a brown paper sack labeled 50 lbs. Pure Cane Sugar under one arm, and she struggles under the weight. I'm ready to walk the few feet that separates us and help her. I wonder why Madge hasn't done so already. But as soon as my foot so much as twitches, Madge puts an arm out to stop me, and her eyes freeze me to my spot.
“Have you ever gotten anything more than a few sugar packets in a drop? I used to save them up for my kids' birthdays.” The anger in her eyes is suddenly replaced by such sadness that I want to cry for her. What happened to her?
Lily pulls a string at the top and the bag gapes open and sugar gushes into the jam pot, some spilling onto the floor.
Suddenly, there are soldiers everywhere.They jostle Madge and I out of the way as they surround Lily, and one rips the bag away from her. She raises gnarled hands dyed purple from the berries.
“I didn't mean to!”
The soldiers don't move until an agent parts them with her hands. “What's going on here?”
One of the soldiers jabs his gun toward Lily. “This worker wasted resources—sugar. She claims it was an accident.”
The agent pulls a small scanner from her pocket and flicks her fingers for Lily's arm. Lily closes her eyes once and then extends her arm. The agent waves the scanner, the tracker lump briefly glows blue, and the agent reads the screen. She folds her arms and narrows her eyes.
“Not your first infraction, I see. Not your first by any stretch of the imagination.”
Lily's eyes are wide, and she looks around wildly. “It was an accident! The bag is too heavy for me. It's fifty pounds. I was just trying to open it and pour it in. I didn't mean to spill some.” She crouches down and runs her hands over the floor. “Look! Only a little bit spilled. Probably not even a pound.”
The agent rolls her eyes. I know that look. The look before the storm. I try to step closer again, but Madge puts a hand on my chest to stop me and almost imperceptibly shakes her head. I glare at her. It's not fair. Lily had no business hefting that bag. Madge mouths, “I know.”
I turn back to Lily in time to see the soldiers yanking her off the ground, and she yelps with the force of it.
“I think some time in solitary should get rid of your clumsiness,” the agent says as she taps on the screen of her scanner.
“Please no! I've been down there too long.”
“Get rid of her.” The agent jerks her head to the doors, and the soldiers march Lily out of the cannery.
My hand slides over to find Madge's. What are they doing?
Madge waits until the agent has turned and disappeared through the steam. “Punishing her for wasting their excesses.”
She won't say anything more to me. Her eyes are blazing and she grinds her teeth. She has a temper, and it takes all her willpower to keep it under control. I don't want to say anything more to her until we're away from the steam, sweat, and soldiers.
Chapter Five
After working in the cannery, my hands are so red and raw that I can hardly open and close my fingers. Everyone else who had cannery work hours looks the same way: red skin—not burned enough to blister, but still sore—and sweaty clothes. I follow the stream of workers down the corr
idors and into the mess hall. I spot my cellmate at the end of the food line and step behind her.
I'm starving. I haven't eaten since the pathetic bread in the gas station with Jack, and after working in the heat for hours, I'm swaying slightly.
My cellmate hasn't spoken to me, but she hasn't looked like she wants to get rid of me either. She keeps her head turned just slightly so she can watch me out the corner of her eye. I'm not sure if it's because she doesn't trust me, or she's just not willing to put out her hand and say hi. I'm the same way. If Madge hadn't started talking to me, I might be looking askance at everyone around me too.
I stand in front of the cafeteria workers—another set of harried-looking inmates. I'm getting the sense that the work isn't necessarily the worst part; it's the way the agents and soldiers treat you like an insect they'd rather squash that can break you faster.
An agent waits at the beginning of the line and scans my tracker. She barely looks at me as she nods me down the line. One of the workers slops some unidentifiable noodley stuff on my tray. Another dumps a meager pile of canned vegetables. I raise my eyebrows, and Madge leans in. I hadn't even heard her come up behind me. For my sake, I hope she's over her anger.
“I think it's supposed to be beef stroganoff.”
I had beef stroganoff in the colony, and it never looked this colorless or congealed.
“We're on a weekly meal rotation, and after seeing it every seven days, I'm still not sure. That's what it kind of resembles though. You get used to the stuff.”
I sniff it, and the smell turns my stomach.
Madge laughs. “But yeah, don't take too big a whiff. This stuff isn't for the faint-of-heart.”
I get a cardboard carton of milk and follow Madge between the long tables. The linoleum is a dull gray. I can't tell if it's dirty or if that's the color it's supposed to be. The whole room is dingy. The cafeteria is full of women wearing the same yellow shirts and gray pants that I am. Soldiers with guns patrol the aisles, and there are some soft conversations, but no general chatter. I look at Madge.
Talking? I mouth.
She nods. “Just watch what you say. And don't talk too quietly or they,” she glances up at an observation booth rimmed with windows half-way up the wall, “will wonder what you're saying.”
I hadn't noticed the observation booth before. Two agents stand inside and survey us, their arms folded and deep furrows between their eyes.
I steady my tray on one arm and reach for Madge's hand. Recording us?
“Probably. Though I haven't seen any mics around here. There are watchers up in the corners, but I don't know how well they can single our voices out.”
The small black boxes loom in each corner, and their shiny lenses watch our every move. I'm amazed I ever thought of the watchers in the colony as intrusive. Those were there to archive our daily lives for posterity—whatever that meant. These are here just to trap us. There are so many similarities between life in the colony and life on the Burn, but such different intentions. The unease spreads from my stomach up my throat.
Madge sits down, and I slide across from her. She gestures to the woman next to me. “Hey Kai, this is Terra.”
The woman is probably ten years older than I am, and she smiles tentatively, barely showing the tips of her teeth. Her skin is the rich color of tree bark and her eyes are green. Her brown hair falls down her back in a shiny stream. She's beautiful, and her eyes are so alive she looks out of place here with all these hollow people.
I wave, and her smile broadens until all her teeth show.
“Terra can't talk,” Madge says, shoveling some noodles in her mouth.
“I'm sorry.” Kai says it carefully, her green eyes full of sympathy.
I shrug and try the stroganoff. I gag and choke—it takes three swallows just to get it all down—and take a swig of milk. I look up, and I'm shocked to see my cellmate next to Madge. I hadn't even noticed her sit down; she comes and goes so quietly.
“Told you it takes some getting used to.” Madge takes another bite, and I marvel she can eat it so quickly.
“You can eat anything, Madge. I'm still not used to it, and I've been here two months.” Kai pokes her fork in her noodles, creating swirls in the sauce.
Madge frowns. “You need to eat something.”
Kai looks away. “I'm not too hungry.”
There's concern in Madge's face, a concern deeper than I expected to see. I study Kai—her flawless skin, her full lips, her hair, and down to where her belly swells underneath the table. I grab her hand before I even think to ask for permission.
You're pregnant?
Her face twists in a grimace. “Yes.”
I look at Madge, and the concern on her face hasn't lessened. “She's thirty-two weeks.”
I don't know how far along that makes her, but it doesn't matter. I drop Kai's hand and grab Madge's instead. Why would they bring her here?
“She didn't register her pregnancy. You're too young to know, but you have to register a pregnancy within the first three months.” Instantly the concern morphs into revulsion. “So the government can keep track of populations. That's the official face of it anyway.” She glances up as a soldier marches by. Then she lowers her head without trying to look like she's whispering. “I've heard that they're going to start giving newborns trackers.”
My stomach falls. Citizens have to register their pregnancies? Infants injected with trackers? I push my tray away. My appetite has completely vanished.
“It's not like citizens have it any better, you know.”
I shake my head.
“You were a nomad your whole life?”
I nod and push the food around my plate. I don't want to get into my back story right now.
Madge props her elbows on the table. “You wouldn't know then. I lived in a sanctioned city as one of those 'loyal' citizens. There are no wages—you're given a living space and you have to be sure to make it to the supply drops every month. Or you don't eat.”
I do know about supply drops. I can still see Red climbing over the broken glass and twisted metal of old cars to go claim medical supplies for the settlement. I can still see the dark-haired man that wanted us all dead. Was he a loyal citizen?
Madge scoops up a forkful of stroganoff with relish. “At least here they make us dinner.”
The vibrancy in Kai's eyes is veiled now, and she doesn't look at anything but her tray. I watch her push mounds of stroganoff around with her fork. Her vegetables are gone though. I look at the pathetic pile of carrot bits and grayish peas on my tray and quickly scoop them up and put them on her tray.
Kai smiles at me. “Thank you.” She wolfs them down.
I ache for her. She's starving. I have no idea how many extra calories a pregnant woman needs, but I wonder if these servings are enough for even me or Madge. There's no way Kai is getting what she needs. Madge has a sharp look in her eyes but doesn't say anything, and I try not to squirm under her gaze.
Just as I turn back to my plate to contemplate my food, the lights dim and a screen lowers below the observation booth. I turn to Madge. She rolls her eyes.
“Just watch.”
From the opposite end of the mess hall, a projector shines a moving image on the screen. It's a picture of a city: vibrant, green, with no broken windows in the buildings, and people walking peacefully and freely. They don't cower and they look each other in the eye. Where is this? Then a voice starts. Male, kind, and nondescript.
“Your government works hard for you. We're restoring your cities to be the kinds of places you would like to raise a family in.” The film cuts to a picture of a mother, father, and two children walking hand-in-hand through a park with a sky scraper in the background.
Several agents have slipped into the mess hall so quietly I didn't even notice. They dot the room and watch us all intently. I try not to make eye contact with anyone and quickly look back to the screen.
“We've already made astounding progress on the Atlantic
coast in the cities of New York and Philadelphia. We've provided jobs and housing for every loyal citizen in both of these cities. This vision of the future will soon be a reality where you live. Watch for restoration workers in your city.”
Madge leans over to me. “And how do they think we'll see that? We're not going anywhere.”
I smirk along with her. I would like to see where one of these cities is—if it actually exists—and talk to the people who live there. The whole thing looks set-up.
The male voice continues, the timber in his inflection increasing, and I can feel him coming to the end of his message. “And all this is brought to you by your government. Thank you for being loyal citizens of New America.”
The lights flick on. The room fills with hisses and whispers, but there's one sound that shocks me: someone is clapping. My head whips around to find the source of it, and I'm not the only one. Everyone looks to see who could possibly be caught up in these lies. It's a middle-aged woman sitting two tables over from me, and her eyes glisten with tears and her face is alight with rapture. The agents descend on her, but carefully this time, with none of their trademark disgust. They gently lift her from her seat, and rest a hand on each arm as they lead her down the aisle toward the door. And good grief, are they actually chatting with her?
What was that? I mouth to Madge.
Madge's eyes have gone hard again. “Don't know. They show these little films just about every night, and every once in a while there's someone who buys into it. They're taken away, and we never see them again.”
The door swings closed behind the woman and the cluster of agents. What in the world just happened here?
I turn back to my tray. I have no appetite for the mystery meal, not after the lies they've forced us to eat. But I'm not sure how much work I'll have to do tomorrow, so I make myself swallow the rest of my stroganoff. I'm actually not sure there will even be a tomorrow. The faces around me are mostly blank, like no one lives insides these shells of bodies. Only a few—Kai with her smile, Madge with the fire in her eyes—show any emotion. My cellmate is like the rest: empty. I suddenly wonder how long she's been here. If she had her hair shaved and now it falls half-way down her back, how long has she endured this?