Infraction

by Annie Oldham

  “I wonder if there'll ever be anywhere nice ever again,” Madge whispers, studying the blinds.

  She's so full of hate and sadness right now that I have no idea what to say to her. Jane stands up and puts a hand on her arm. Madge tries to smile at her, but her expression twists into something ugly.

  “Do you ever think they're real, Terra?”

  I drag my eyes from the blinds. What? I mouth.

  “The colonies?”

  I shake my head. She must see how white I've gone. Every last ounce of color drains from me. This is the last thing I want to talk about, especially since Jack doesn't even know yet.

  “Sometimes I wish they were. Just to know there's something a little better out there.”

  Then Jane speaks. “I hate them.”

  It's the first thing I've ever heard Jane say, and the sound of her voice—small and bird-like—startles me so much that I drop my screwdriver.

  Madge guffaws. “Leave it to Jane to get right to the point.” Madge squeezes her shoulder. “I couldn't agree with you more.”

  I expect Jane to say more, but her mouth clamps closed and she returns her fluttering hands to the blinds.

  It's not that I don't understand how they feel, but to hear them say that, to hear the way Mary told me that Dave hates colonists, feels like a punch in the gut. I want to tell them that we're not all cowards and not all of us had a choice. But why in the world am I defending them? Didn't I want to run as fast as I could out of there? I think of Jessa and Brant and the genuinely good people there, and I know it's not always black and white the way I imagined it to be while I still lived there. Nothing ever is.

  We've retrieved all the blinds from the house, so we each take an armful and carry them down the porch and to the truck. I grapple with mine, the blinds and cords slipping and swimming in my arms, but finally manage to dump them in a pile. There are three women at the truck sorting and boxing and piling, and they take the blinds off our hands and start loading them.

  I look around and realize Kai's not here. I've never seen her in the cannery either.

  Where's Kai? I ask Madge.

  She pulls away and blows warm air into her hands. They're red and chapped from all the cannery work, and being out in the cold doesn't help.

  “Since she's pregnant, the agents gave her special work hours. She works in the commissary—the staff's kitchen. You know, feeding the agents and soldiers all that jam and the other delicacies we'll never see.”

  I nod, glad the subject is off the colonies. Or so I think.

  “Hey, Jane. Do you think they have jam in the colonies?”

  Jane has assumed her hunched shoulders and drooping head now that we're out in the open again, but her eyes flick to Madge. They say yes.

  I want to crawl under a rock.

  We spend a few more hours finding small kitchen electrics: toasters, griddles, mixers—anything with heating elements or gears—and bringing them back to the truck. Then the soldiers start rounding us up, and we file back to the bus.

  Just as the agent scans my arm and I get ready to step up, a soldier leans to her and whispers, “A settlement was taken up north by the Sound. We'll have new workers tomorrow.”

  My foot freezes on the step and my muscles refuse to move. No, no, no, is all I can think. Please don't let it be the school. My eyes clench closed as I see the settlement in the afternoon summer sun: the bees buzzing lazily over the strawberry fields, Red in the kitchen helping with meals, Nell combing through my hair with her fingers, Dave's mischievous eyes sparkling, Mary leaning against one of the old trees out back, rolling bandages.

  Please don't let it be them.

  I get a sharp jab in the back from a soldier's gun. “Move, worker.”

  The pain pulls me from my paralysis, and I force my feet up the steps and into the aisle. I shake my head, trying to shake the memories loose, trying to convince myself that no, it couldn't be them.

  I can't convince myself.

  Chapter Nine

  Jane leads the way back to our cell after dinner. As soon as we cross the threshold, she sits on the bottom bunk, her arms wrapped around her legs in the all-too-familiar posture. She looks like she has something to say, but then she bows her head and her hair forms a lank, yellow wall between us. I lean against the opposite wall, studying her. She's carefully not looking at me: looking at the toilet, the sink, the door, the light flickering from the ceiling, the window with its fading sunlight. It must face west. I feel the sudden need to see out the window. After spending the hours in the reclamation town under the heaviness of gray clouds, I leaned my head toward the bus window when the sun finally came out on the way back to the camp. I can't get enough of the outside. I miss waking up with dew on my sleeping bag and the green of pine needles hovering around me. I miss the sweet, rotten smell of decaying leaves stirred up under my feet. I even miss the smell of the government rations Jack and I ate in the woods; I miss it because we could eat it in the woods.

  The window is too high to stand on tiptoe to reach. The bunk is high enough, but I'd have to move it. I stand straight and wipe my palms on my pants. I need to tell Jane my plan so I don't frighten her. I've never even spoken to her so I'll probably scare her to death anyway, though I'm not sure how to reconcile her weak self with the confident, angry girl she became for just a moment today when she declared she hated colonists.

  I tap her on the shoulder. Her head jerks up and her eyes are wide, the blue irises completely surrounded by white. I'm afraid if I touch her to spell my words she'll completely freak out on me. Instead, I point to the bed next to her and write the words there.

  Jane?

  She nods, understanding, but her eyes still look like a hunted animal's.

  I point to myself. Terra.

  She nods again and relaxes a fraction. She tucks her hair behind her ears like she's tearing down the wall between us. I venture a smile, but she doesn't look me in the eye now that I'm so close.

  Move our bunk?

  She looks away from my invisible words to my face, and she studies me. I try to appear calm, neutral, kind. I'm trembling, though; the same kind of nervous tremble I had outside the settlement for the first time when all I wanted was for them to accept me.

  She mouths a single word. Why?

  She is a ghost. Pale, waifish, and silent. Even now that our defenses are down, she doesn't speak to me.

  To see. Do you know what's out there?

  She shakes her head.

  Find out. Help me?

  She nods and unfolds herself. We both lean against the bunk, but it budges only a mere inch. It's much heavier than it looks. Jane shrugs. I hold up one finger. One more time. Then I mouth to her, One, two, three. We heave against the bunk and, together, we push it. It screeches across the linoleum and we freeze, listening for the soldiers' footsteps, sure they'll come running to investigate the noise. We stand that way for five minutes, and I feel ridiculous propped against the metal of the bunk, frozen like some child with her hand caught in the cookie jar. Honestly, shouldn't we be able to put our bunk wherever we want to? If they come, they come.

  I count again and we push the bunk, leaving white gouges in the floor. By the time the bunk bumps up against the wall under the window, we're both panting and sweating. Jane gives me a goofy smile expanded by adrenaline and accomplishment. She has yellowed, crooked teeth underneath her thin lips, but her smile is the most beautiful thing I've seen since I got here. She feels like we got away with something too, and I can't help smiling back.

  I climb up the bunk and crawl to the window. Our window does face west. There's a thick line of trees, mostly evergreens with deep green, pointed tops. They cut a jagged line into the horizon. I look beyond them and discover I'm holding my breath. The sun is setting, sending yellow-orange light skittering across the clouds in a rainbow of colors, and then the light bounces off the thin ribbon of water in the distance.

  The ocean.

  I wave Jane up, and she climbs besid
e me. She looks out and her smile deepens. I lean against the wall, and she surprises me by grabbing my hand. I squeeze hers gently, and together we watch the sun set. It disappears beyond the water and trees, but I can watch it again tomorrow. They can't take the sun from us.

  Jane jumps when the anthem begins to play. She's usually asleep for this part.

  Tonight I don't think about the government or the agents or the soldiers. The anthem playing is somehow suited to the majesty before me. I watch the violet haze creep over the building and toward the horizon. Soon the sparkling water is nothing more than a dark line between trees and sky. I reach and put my palm flat against the glass. It's cold and covered in a film of condensation. I pull my hand away, tuck it under my blanket to warm, and study the outside world through the shape of my hand print left there.

  When the sky is completely black and the lights have gone out for the night, before the screams and moans begin, Jane's head droops and she falls asleep on my shoulder. Her thin frame is hardly a whisper leaning against me. Her breathing deepens. I'm awake, though, straining my eyes for the horizon.

  I'm this close to the water. The spark I felt three days ago riding in the cattle truck to the labor camp returns. I'd forgotten it until this moment. If the ocean is only beyond that line of trees—maybe two miles at the most—how hard would it be to get a small group of people there and into a sub?

  Gaea watches me; I know she does. I can picture her in her small cave of a room, the dozens of computer monitors all trained on the views of other satellites. I roll the stump of my tongue inside my mouth, close my eyes, and find I still have tears for that woman. Mother. I thought I had matured, moved past it, or whatever psych term my therapist in the colony would have used. Repressed it, more like. But I haven't; she still haunts me. The mother I should have known, but she was too afraid to face her problems and she ran. I can see that about her now. I feel a strange mixture of anger, sympathy, and pity, and I'm not sure which one wins out. I have every right to hate her, but I can't bring myself to do it. She acted so self-assured those few minutes with me before I left for the Burn. Now I think it was a mask. She ran from the colony, but wasn't courageous enough to run all the way to the surface. She hunches over those computers, drinking in the pictures she'll never be brave enough to see for herself. It's sad, really.

  Does she watch me closely enough that I could send her a message? Could I tell her I need a sub—for how many? Five, six? Ten?—and would we be able to time it exactly right?

  All of this would depend on escaping the camp. My gut clenches. I stare out the window at the guard towers. All but one is empty. In that one, in the northwest corner, there's a single soldier. The flare of a cigarette illuminates the dark silhouette. But there's no one patrolling the yard, no searchlights. Just the huge fence and the curls of barbed wire.

  Do they really believe we're all so broken that no one would dare escape?

  My heart leaps in my chest. Yes, yes they do. The steely glint in Madge's eyes tells me that. The soldiers and the agents never see that, but she's shown it to me. How many others have that same fire they don't readily share with everyone? I'm hoping it's more than they can guess. If so, this could possibly work.

  The first moan starts—low and throaty, and then it grows and becomes a wail. I've only spent two nights here, but I'm already starting to be able to ignore the awful noises now. Jane nuzzles into my shoulder, and I pull my blanket up over her. She's too frail. She would be the first one I get out of this place. Her and Kai. I frown. With her growing belly, would Kai be able to make the two-mile run to shore?

  Jane's hand eases away from mine as she falls deeper into sleep, and I finally close my eyes. I won't put all the pieces of the puzzle together tonight. Tomorrow, though. I'll be out in the yard. I'll send the message to Gaea. For the first time, I feel like there's not just hope for me, but hope for the hollow people here. The colony couldn't hold me, but I'm willing to bet it has enough kindness in it to fill these people back up again.

  Chapter Ten

  I've picked up Madge's habit—as soon as I sit down, I look for the soldiers. One is by the cafeteria door; the other is by the food line. A quick glance tells me the agents are watching a hushed conversation a few tables away. I slide my canned peaches onto Kai's tray. She gives me her limp bacon in return.

  Jane sits closer to us now, and she looks at me and almost smiles.

  Madge nudges me. “Don't know what you did, but she's never been so down-right friendly.”

  I grin. Small victories.

  I don't tell Madge about my plans yet. It's such a big announcement. Do I just lean over and write I'm a colonist on her hand? Follow it up with I'm going to break us out and take you there? I wonder when we can discuss it without all these watchful eyes. I'll need Madge's help; I'll need Jane's help. They've both been here far longer than I have, and they can tell me if my suspicions are right about how heavily guarded the camp is. This is not a conversation for the mess hall, with the roaming soldiers and the hovering agents. But soon. It has to be soon. Kai tells me she's now thirty-three weeks pregnant and she says she has seven more weeks to go.

  Time is running out.

  Maybe in the yard today. There's no way they can monitor us closely enough to hear our traitorous words.

  The mess hall doors fly open, and silence hangs over us. Two soldiers flank three new inmates. My fork falls onto my tray with a clatter that echoes in the hushed room. I ignore the eyes that fly to mine—eyes accusing me of breaking the silence and drawing attention to us—and I can't look away. I can't look anywhere else but at her.

  Mary stands between the soldiers.

  Her black hair has been buzzed, and her eyes flash defiance as she takes us all in. Then her gaze settles on mine—it's the only place for her to focus with all the other inmates staring at their trays—and her eyebrows shoot up, and the defiance softens into something I can't place. Almost sympathy or sorrow.

  Then my eyes water because I know what it means. The conversation I heard at the reclamation site yesterday was about my settlement. How many others are here now?

  The soldiers step away, leaving the three inmates looking like lost puppies. Mary shakes loose of them and threads her way between the tables toward me. Conversation resumes, and Mary is forgotten—just another prisoner in our midst. Nothing to bat an eye at. Though Madge hasn't forgotten, and she watches Mary stride toward me. Madge's eyes are too sharp, and I know she's wondering what it means.

  Mary doesn't sit with me quite yet. She sidesteps the table and attempts to go through the food line, but the agent with the scanner just frowns at her. Eating will have to wait until dinner. Then Mary returns to me, clasping her hands together on the table and staring at nothing but her freshly sanitized fingernails. Her skin is still red from detox, and she has a length of gauze wrapped around the inside of her elbow. She's had a blood draw; I only hope she hasn't had an injection. Then I notice the tracker lump right next to the twisted scar from the one that was cut out. I remember her nightmares from Seattle, the way her “family” terrified her into submission and cut out her tracker. I wonder if she thought of them every second during her visit with Dr. Benedict.

  I inch my tray toward her, offering my fork, but she shakes her head.

  She finally looks at me. “How did you get here, Terra?”

  I almost gasp with what I see in her eyes. They're filled with such churning emotions. She looks vulnerable for the first time that I've known her. I reach for her hand.

  Rounded up. Looking for nomads.

  She laughs, and the sound is humorless. “Probably a big change from what you're used to?”

  She's referring to the colony, and a few months ago I might have thought the comment was meant to sting. But her eyes betray her.

  Yes.

  “Jack?”

  They found us both.

  She nods. “I was at the settlement. They found us.”

  I drop her hand. Please no. Everyone?<
br />
  Mary closes her eyes and a tear slides out. She shakes her head. “Not everyone. Red and Nell got out. Sam, I think. A few others.”

  Dave?

  Her eyes harden, erasing all the soft edges. “He's here too. They took us at the same time, loading us into that awful truck.”

  She looks down at her fingers again. I notice a thin, pale line around the fourth finger of her left hand. She rubs it absently as she looks out the window. I tentatively place a hand on hers—she who both ruined my life and set me free at the same time—and she gives me a rare smile. But her smile is so twisted with anger and sorrow that I blink and look down.

  “We were married last month.”

  I see that pale line on her finger for what it is.

  “Behind the settlement, underneath those two huge trees. It's not legal or binding in any technical sense, of course—Red officiated—but we're still married. We still have that commitment to each other. I still would do anything—” She can't finish the sentence before the tears well up in earnest, and though she fights them, they fall out and splash the table. She rubs the shiny streak off her cheek with the heel of her hand. “They took my ring when they took us. It wasn't even valuable. Just a nail Dave managed to make into a circle.”

  I sit back. They would take her wedding ring? It infuriates me, sending heat coursing through my veins as though all my blood has drained away and nothing but anger pumps through my heart.

  Mary notices and nods. “The union wasn't legal, wasn't sanctioned by the government, wasn't documented. So they took the only token I had of it.” Her jaw clenches, the small muscle along the firm line of it pulsing. “Though that's the only reminder they can take.”