Infraction

by Annie Oldham

  “Workers, I have some important information to share with you. We've received word from the capital that some of the inoculations you've received may have been contaminated.”

  I expect a whisper to ripple through the crowd or some kind of reaction, but there's nothing, almost as if the workers expect this. The agent gloats over us.

  “Not to worry—there wasn't a large percentage of you given this particular lot number. But I would like any of you who received an injection over the past three days to report to Dr. Benedict. If you do not report to the doctor immediately following this assembly, you will be punished for disobedience.”

  There it is again—the desire to see us fail and to punish us.

  “The symptoms of this contaminated inoculation are fever, dizziness, and hallucinations. Dismissed.”

  Women turning into cows? Soldiers with scorpion stingers? I've been hallucinating like it's going out of style.

  “That's you, right?” the soldier says.

  I nod dumbly. Dr. Benedict mentioned side effects from the injection, but nothing like this.

  “Figured. Report to the doctor, understand?”

  I nod again. The soldier steps away from me, back to the door where he lines up with a few others. They're getting ready to herd us all back inside. This is what we came out here for? Just to hear this short announcement? Why couldn't they say it over the intercom?

  Then I realize how hard it will be to leave the sunlight on my skin and the blue sky. It's too cold to stay out for long—I already have goosebumps. After flickering lights and just the windows in Dr. Benedict's office with their offering of indoor sunshine, I don't want to go back inside. They torture us out here too.

  I turn to the door and Madge is beside me.

  “You feeling okay?”

  I shake my head.

  “You got one of those shots?”

  I nod. Did I ever. It's hitting me again as I look at Madge's green eyes, and the irises start to coil like snakes.

  “Be careful. There's something funny with them. They make these announcements almost every other week. Seems like the capital could manage to make some shots that weren't contaminated. I had a few when I first got here. I screamed for days. They didn't give me another after that.” Madge takes quick inventory of which soldiers are where, how far away the agents are. It's a skill she's perfected.

  She leans in to me, and her snake eyes hiss at me, ready to strike. I want to stay as far away from her as possible, but I need to hear her. I tilt my head closer, trying to avoid the snakes. “I don't think they're inoculations at all. Not with the way they make people crazy and all the announcements after.”

  But if they're not vaccinations or nutritional supplements or whatever, what else could they be? I step away and I'm caught in the current of women going back into building. I only have enough time to turn back and see Jack at the fence. He sees me and he smiles. I'm relieved he doesn't distort into something vile. Instead his whole face lights up like a summer afternoon. He's as glad to see me as I am to see him. I wave once. I don't want to risk more than that. I suspect personal relationships are one more way the government can cause you pain.

  It's enough, though. The look on his face as he turns his hazel eyes from me and walks toward the men's building shoots a burst of energy from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.

  Now I have to go see Dr. Benedict. Again.

  There's a line of about twenty of us waiting to see Dr. Benedict. We stand single-file in the hall. No one talks. There's a soldier—mercifully without insect eyes and a scorpion's sting—on the opposite wall, watching us intently (or what I assume to be intently; you never know with those black masks), and no one says a word under his surveillance.

  One by one the women file in. As they come out, they all have a new bandage on their arms. More shots? One contaminated injection wasn't enough? I'm going to feel like a human pin cushion if this keeps up.

  Finally I'm next, and a nurse comes to the door. She scans my tracker, jots something on her tablet, and then beckons me to follow her in. She takes me to an exam room where Dr. Benedict waits. He's wearing latex gloves and already has a syringe in hand.

  “You're starting to be a permanent fixture around here,” Dr. Benedict says, holding a hand to me to help me onto the exam table.

  I try to smile, but he sees the anger behind it. His laughing demeanor fades away, his dimple disappears, and he lowers his hand. I tell myself this is the government's fault. Dr. Benedict couldn't have known the medicine was tainted, but still he was the one who gave it to me. He sees the mistrust in my eyes and sighs. He nods to the nurse, and she leaves, closing the door.

  “I'm sorry, Terra. Really I am. But just like you, I have to follow orders.” He sets the syringe down on a tray and pulls back the sleeve of his lab coat. Fine dark hairs rise on the skin over a tracker lump.

  “We all have them, even the agents. We're all scanned and given orders. I know it looks bad because I'm the one you're dealing with face-to-face.” He steps toward me and touches my arm, and his fingers glide over my own tracker. The site is still sore and I wince, but he doesn't take his hand off my arm. I look at his black eyes, and for once they show emotion. Unfortunately, I don't have enough experience reading him, and I have no idea what his eyes tell me. His hand lingers, and his thumb traces an arc on the inside of my arm, and I can't help when I shiver under his touch. He smiles.

  “We all have to do things we don't want to. This included.” He reaches for the syringe again. His hand is slipping from my arm to take the cap off the needle when I grab his.

  I shake my head. No more nightmares.

  “You hallucinated?” His eyebrows arch, and the concern is gone and he's all professional. He grabs his tablet and starts typing. “What did you see?”

  I look at the floor.

  “Bad things? Terra, anything you tell me helps. There might be others who can benefit from what you tell me.”

  I know there are others. I heard their cries all night long. I grab his hand again.

  The soldiers were scorpions. We were all cattle in a cattle chute.

  Dr. Benedict rubs his chin and then types. “Thank you for telling me, Terra. I don't think the agents realize how important it is to provide the best care to all our citizens. Too often I feel like they don't listen.”

  He does genuinely seem like he wants to help, but as I study his face, his skin turns pallid. His black eyes flash at me and then swirl. His smile—meant to comfort a moment before—now arches up to an obscene angle, and his teeth elongate. He's a monster. I shrink back from him and hug my knees to my chest.

  “Another hallucination?”

  My hands tremble as he steps closer to me. The sweat breaks out on my forehead again, and I don't want him to touch me. I don't want that thing anywhere near me. I shove his arm away.

  The monster grabs the syringe and it looks tiny in his hand. He pulls the cap from the needle with his huge teeth. I want to kick him and run away, but the thought of putting one of my limbs anywhere near him sickens me even more. I've shoved myself up against the wall as far as I can; there's nowhere else to go.

  Then a sharp prick focuses my thoughts, and his monster face slips back into his normal concern. The long teeth are gone, his eyes black, his skin golden. He pulls the needle from my arm and slips on another stupid smiley face bandage. Now I have a matching set.

  “I'm sorry,” he murmurs. Then he reaches up and strokes my cheek. I might have let myself lean in to the touch if I hadn't just seen him as something inhuman. He sees the disgust written on my face. He clears his throat and steps back.

  “That's all, Terra. This new batch should be better.”

  It better be. I slide off the table, and the nurse escorts me out of the medical area.

  Chapter Eight

  Dinner is subdued. No one wants to talk about the assembly or about those who had to go to the medical area. I push dry bits of chicken around my plate. Kai shakes her h
ead when I offer her my applesauce.

  “The chicken's the worst. No one wants to eat it. You need that for yourself,” she says. I put the plastic cup on her tray anyway.

  Even Madge doesn't have anything to say tonight. Her eyes are fiery. The anger she usually keeps so well in check bubbles over, and she doesn't dare say anything for fear of not seeing a soldier in time. Jane scoots closer to me until our arms brush. This startles me more than anything. I don't know what changed, but she feels the need to comfort me even if she won't say a word.

  I am feeling better from the second shot, though I'm not sure if I feel this way from the new serum or from being able to see Jack if only for a moment. My anger starts to burn then, just like Madge's. I can't help but wonder—and I'm sure it's the same thought she's working through—if the government doesn't give us contaminated shots on purpose.

  I wish I knew more about medicine. I don't know enough to puzzle through this, to even understand if they did do it on purpose, why they would. I need to talk to Jack. I need to talk about the serums, but also about so much more. We have so many unfinished conversations, and they've been nagging at me. The glance this afternoon wasn't enough.

  I get Madge's attention and point out the doors. Do we have time outside?

  “Once a week.” Her voice comes out in a hoarse whisper. None of us have talked much since the assembly.

  When?

  “Chicken jerky tonight means yard time in two days. Guess that's the good thing about a meal schedule. It's something to base your days around.”

  Do the men come out too?

  “We overlap by five minutes.”

  Five minutes. Such a short amount of time, but I'll take it.

  Madge is so lost in thought she doesn't question why I'm asking. Kai's eyes shift between Madge and me, but the mood hanging over us like a thundercloud can't dampen her spirits for long. She smiles and puts a hand to her belly.

  “The baby kicked.”

  I have to smile too. She takes my hand and guides it to her side. Underneath my fingers, I feel a nudge that rolls across her skin and away from me. I grin at her.

  Boy or girl?

  She shrugs. “I don't know. They didn't tell me.”

  This starts to ignite the anger again, but she smiles, and her smile is so blissfully content as she puts a hand on her belly that I have to sit back.

  “As long as it's healthy, I don't care.”

  I'm expecting another movie tonight, but the intercom crackles on instead.

  “We have located another reclamation site. Those of you working in the cannery, instead of your normal work assignments tomorrow, you will report to the yard and be bused to the reclamation site. You will receive further instructions there.” Then the scratchy voice is silent.

  Madge shrugs. “Guess we're going on a field trip. Anything better than being in here for a day.”

  Reclamation?

  “They must've found a small town or farm or something that hasn't been picked over. We'll go out and pick it over.” She smiles at me. “They make us be the vultures instead of them.”

  The next morning, soldiers line the hall every twenty feet as we file from the mess hall toward the yard. I have a pounding headache, and even the pale fluorescent lights make me squint. I didn't have any more hallucinations after the second injection Dr. Benedict gave me, but I'm not sure which is worse: seeing things that aren't there or waiting for my head to split open.

  I lay in bed last night and couldn't even bring myself to put my pillow over my head once the anthem started. The percussion throbbed into my ears, and then the lights went out and the screams started. All I could do was clench my fists around my blanket and squeeze my eyes closed as tightly as possible. Jane didn't move (again), and I wondered how long it took her to get used to the cacophony all around us. That might just be the thing that breaks the silence between us. So, how long until I can actually sleep through the screams? Do you just have a major build-up of ear wax?

  So today I'm exhausted and feel like pounding my head against a wall, but falling asleep and bludgeoning myself aren't options, so I do my best to follow Jane down the hallway. If I look only at her head, the lights and noise don't seem quite so bad. She walks with her shoulders hunched, her head down, her arms wrapped around her middle like she's trying to hold herself together. She looks like the most pathetic thing I've ever seen, but the soldiers leave her alone. Hardly anyone notices her.

  When the doors yawn open to the outside, I'm thankful that the sky is overcast. I long for another clear day like yesterday, but I don't think my headache could handle sunlight. One bus waits for us in the yard, spewing dark exhaust into the air. The bus is painted the same mustard yellow as our shirts. The engine sputters and chokes and then resumes roaring at us. A soldier sits behind the wheel and his mask is turned toward us. A few more soldiers board the bus, and then an agent steps beside the door, scanner in hand.

  We line up and she scans each of our arms as we make our way onto the bus. Jane slides into a seat, and I sit next to her. Her eyes rest on mine for just a second, and I catch the faintest glimpse of more than the beat-down girl she always shows me. Then she turns to look out the window, and the glimpse is gone as soon as it began.

  Madge sits across the aisle from us and grins maniacally. I guess she was serious about the field trip. I just don't know how she thinks it'll be a grand time out when there'll be soldiers and agents breathing down our necks. She runs her fingers through her hair, and the curls pouf out into a frizzy torrent of red.

  “I've been waiting for another reclamation site for months.” She grips the back of the seat in front of her and sits up as the bus chugs us out of the yard and beyond the fence onto the dirt road.

  Simple pleasures.

  We drive east. We wind on bumpy roads through the forest, and all I can see on either side is green and more green. The trees threaten to take over the road at some points, and the bus squeals between branches and grumbles over tree roots. My stomach lurches, and Jane leans further away from me. Just when I think I'm about to see my breakfast again, the trees open up and a small town appears.

  It's nothing more than a handful of houses, a grocery store, and a school. It looks immaculately preserved, though, like the time between the Event and now never even occurred—like the gas station where I made bread for Jack. It's amazing the way some places are just skipped over as if they exist on a completely different plane. I'm astonished nomads or the government haven't found this place before.

  As I step off the bus and into the gray, cloudy light, everything has a magical quality to it. I've never seen anything so untouched before: the windows are covered in grime, but they're intact. There are toys still out in the yards where children abandoned them ages ago. Granted the trikes are mostly rust and look like they'd crumble under my hand and the balls are all limp and deflated, but the sense of people having lived here is tangible. It looks like they all just went for a picnic together and they'll be back at any moment. They must have left quickly to leave it like this.

  Down the street there's a truck. A ramp leads down from the back, and the inside is lined with empty shelves and boxes. I'm guessing we'll be loading what we find in there.

  We stand in a line in front of the bus. The agent peers over us with small, brown eyes.

  “You'll proceed through the town and collect anything that seems useful. You may go in twos or threes, but no groups larger than that. If you get too noisy or too spread out, the soldiers have orders to corral you back together and keep you under control.”

  The soldier standing next to her flexes his hands, and I shudder. What means do they employ to keep us under control?

  “If any of you try to run, you will be shot without warning,” she says while looking at a digital tablet. She doesn't even bother to look in our eyes. “You have four hours until it is time to load back on the bus.” Then she turns on her heel and walks away, typing into her tablet. She finds a front porch, brushes it
off with her hand, and sits down.

  Madge leans in. “You, me, and Jane. Come on.”

  We follow her. She has a knack for this, either that or she's done this plenty of times before because she leads us to a house, opens the door (it isn't locked), and parades us through. I'm kind of weirded out because it's someone's home; someone used to live here, and we're just going through it like we own the place.

  “Blinds are good. The agents think they're useful, the strings and slats and stuff. Let's start on those.”

  We were given screwdrivers. They're short, squatty things with barely enough handle to grip; the agents probably thought longer, more useful ones would be too weapon-like. It takes us a while to simply unscrew the blinds with the ridiculous tools, but we work our way through the house, making match-stick piles of blinds.

  I watch Jane and even with the stubby screwdriver, her slender fingers move deftly, and she takes down blinds faster than even Madge. It's like with the corn-shucking in the cannery. Her hands fly over the task. While she's working, she almost looks confident. Well, as confident as Jane can look. She sees me watching her, and I expect her head to bob down, but it doesn't. She studies me appraisingly. I want to look away, return her privacy, but I don't. I look her straight in the eye and offer her a smile.

  For just a second the right corner of her mouth twitches like it might just turn up. But then she turns back to the blinds she was working on.

  “Life must have been pretty good before the war,” Madge says, carrying an armful of blinds down the stairs and adding it to our pile. “Look at this place. Blinds to keep out prying eyes, a comfy sofa to sit on, plenty of food in the cupboard. Yeah, most of the cans have exploded, but can you imagine just walking into a kitchen and having all the shelves stocked?”

  I'm suddenly very busy with a stubborn screw. This does seem like a decent place; the town could have been idyllic. But still there were people who left and built colonies on the bottom of the ocean—the very colonies I was born into. No wonder so many people on the Burn hate the idea of colonists. Sure they don't know for sure if the colonies even exist, but just the idea of anyone turning tail and running for cover while everyone else gets blown up raises my hackles.