Infraction

by Annie Oldham

  It's been two days since I sent Gaea the message—the message I hope she's received. If she didn't receive it and we can actually break out of here, I don't know what we'll do when we reach the ocean. So much can go wrong. I fully expect to have soldiers and agents on our heels, and if we come up against the water without a place to run to, we'll all die. But would that be a worse fate than what we do now? I'm alive but is this life? I'm tired from working, sure, but the work is just work. The rest of it—treating us like animals, like machines with no emotions—makes me feel like I'm living some kind of half-life, like I'm a zombie with only half of my brain functioning. But what the agents don't know is that it's the more dangerous half.

  Has anyone tried to escape before? I look out my window across the yard. The shadows are a mile long as they reach east, like they're begging the sun to rise again. The sun dips beneath the horizon, and in the purple gloom flooding the quad, the soldier's cigarette flares in the tower. Still just the one soldier. The soldiers patrolling the perimeter have gone in for the night. There's an old searchlight on the tower—I noticed it in yard time two days ago, and it looked dusty with disuse.

  If someone had tried to escape, there would be more security around this place. If there isn't very much security out there, sure we could get past the fence, but will we be able to get out of here? I think the inside will be the hardest part.

  Jane is nestled against me so comfortably I hate to wake her, but it's time to ask. I nudge her shoulder, and she buries her head deeper into my arm. I bump her again, and her eyes shoot open. This is how she always wakes—like she needs to be up and running or else she'll get plowed over.

  Ask you something?

  Her eyes relax, but her body is alert.

  Do you think we could escape? It all depends on this, whether someone like Jane—who's been here long enough to have hair a foot and a half long—thinks it's even possible.

  She sits up and the bunk springs groan at her. She nods her head.

  Anyone ever done it?

  She shakes her head.

  Anyone ever tried?

  She shakes her head again, and I allow my heart to leap just a fraction. That's why they're so relaxed, and that's the biggest advantage we have. The government is arrogant and will never suspect that a tongueless girl could engineer something like this. They're right—I can't. But with Jack, Mary, Madge, and Jane? Who knows what we'd be able to accomplish.

  It's crazy, but would you come with me?

  Then Jane speaks her first word to me. “Yes.”

  I want to wrap my arms around her right then, but I figure I'd better start slow. I grin instead, and I'm met with another one of her beautiful, crooked smiles.

  “When?”

  It seems now that the language barrier between us has been broken she wants nothing more than to speak.

  Twelve days.

  “Where?” Her words are music, like river water on rocks.

  I look at my hands. This again is the tricky part. I'm from an ocean colony. We could go there.

  She freezes, and I'm worried she'll disappear back into her sanctuary of silence and stone. The hatred I saw in the house at the reclamation site flits across her eyes, but she surprises me.

  “I knew there was something different about you.”

  I can't help but laugh. I try to do it quietly. The screams have died off already, and the silence is heavy in my ears. The soldiers would probably think it was just another hallucination or side effect from an injection, but there's no way I'll raise suspicion now, not when I have plans to make.

  I think I can get a submarine.

  “I'll help you.”

  I remember how fiercely she told Madge her feelings about colonists. Jane sees it on my face.

  “I hate them. I don't hate you.”

  Can you go there if you hate them so much?

  “I hate why they left. I hate how they abandoned us. If they're willing to help now, I won't turn my back on them.”

  She squeezes my hand with her short, slender fingers. She has such nimble fingers. When I look at her I see a blade of grass shivering in the wind, but her fingers are strong and can do more than I can ever dream about. I need her help.

  You've been here long?

  She nods. “Three years.”

  Outside won't be a problem.

  “No, it won't.”

  Inside?

  “Yes.”

  I sigh and prop my chin on my hands. I lean back against the wall and strain my eyes to see the dark slash of ocean beyond the trees.

  “The soldiers have never checked our cells before bed.”

  I perk up. We could do it at night?

  She nods. “After dinner.”

  That has possibilities.

  “Talk to Madge. She can help too.”

  I knew I would have allies. I squeeze Jane's hand again. Sleep. Talk to Madge tomorrow.

  Then I groan. In the cannery with the soldiers so close, I don't know if we'll be able to talk, and this kind of conversation will definitely be too intense for the mess hall.

  “What's wrong?”

  Can't talk in the mess hall or cannery.

  “I think we're done with the cannery. We finished the corn and the blackberries yesterday. There will be something new tomorrow. Maybe the warehouse for the things we found at the reclamation site.”

  After breakfast Jane and I enter the warehouse, and it's filled with the murmur of voices. We have to talk about what can be salvaged, what can be disassembled into its various parts, what's worthless. The soldiers and agents allow these small conversations. They keep an eye on conversations that go on for too long or are too intense, but if we exchange a conversation over the course of the work hours, they will never suspect. I hope they'll never suspect.

  Jane is too small for most of the jobs, so she does the more intricate work that suits her fingers. She usually takes strings from blinds and sorts the slats into piles by size or mends old sheets and pillowcases.

  Jane doesn't do well in reclamation, but Madge is a force of nature here. Madge can find a use for just about anything, and I can tell by the almost approving look on the agents' faces that they appreciate her work. If they can appreciate anything, I think this is the closest they would come. They leave Madge alone because if they were to harass her like the other workers, she wouldn't get as much done, and they know how valuable she is.

  Madge's curly red hair flames out behind her as she bustles down the aisles between work projects. She still has the flinty look in her eyes, but she's purposeful. I wonder if it comes from being a mother in a city—the need to make ends meet, to find new uses for old objects. I remember dipping candles with Nell and the way we used wicks made from the strings of blinds. It was much the same there.

  Most days Jane pulls away from me as soon as we enter any work area and goes off to find a job of her own. Today, however, she stays at my side and scans the warehouse for a pile of materials. I'm doing the same. I want something that looks tricky or full of possibilities, something that the agents will expect we need Madge's opinions on. There might be enough time if I pretend to be figuring out a problem.

  Jane lingers near me like a sparrow who knows there might be a few morsels tossed her way. She's so used to being on her own that she wants to fly as soon as someone comes too close, but she stays long enough to see what might be offered. It's a tricky situation to be in. I'm actually surprised she agreed to help me. Maybe the bread crumbs I offered were just tempting enough to keep her around.

  I point to a pile of shiny metal and black electric cords. Jane smiles.

  “Toasters. Perfect.”

  No one else has started working at this station, so we claim it and sort through them. Would they want them refurbished? Dismantled? I can see why Madge thrives on this so much, trying to save something from nothing. I don't focus on the problem too intently; I watch Madge wind up and down the aisles out the corner of my eye. She hasn't noticed where we are yet. She wi
ll once Jane gets her attention and we start our conversation that will take up our ten-hour shift.

  Madge finally steps between a pile of old blankets and a stack of plastic pipes. She gives a half-smile when she sees us.

  “Toasters, huh?”

  I nod and raise my hands as if to say, Any ideas?

  She shrugs. “Some of them might be able to be saved. They're a luxury in the cities. We didn't have one, I can tell you that.”

  Jane bends down like she wants Madge to examine something closer, her hair falling down to block her mouth from the soldier and the agent across the room, and I busy myself examining a toaster much too closely. Here we go.

  “We're going to escape.”

  Madge goes rigid for just a second before assuming her normal posture. I've got to give her credit for the way she can handle just about anything.

  “When?” She picks up a toaster and peers into one of the slots.

  “Eleven days.”

  “Where?”

  Jane glances at me, and I nod almost imperceptibly. I know that this part about me—being from the colonies—is essential to the plan and Madge needs to know it, but I don't know how much further I want the knowledge to spread. Mary told me so many months ago how much some people on the Burn hate colonists—and rightly so, in my opinion—and I've caught glimpses of that here. If the wrong people were to find out, I don't know what might happen to this web we're so carefully weaving.

  I nod one more time.

  Jane sucks in a breath. “An ocean colony.”

  Madge does more than just freeze then. Her eyes blaze, and there's such anger that swells over her face, I almost stagger back. I look around to see if we've drawn any unwanted attention. The agent by the door is typing something on her tablet. She yawns. Yes, she has nothing better to do than babysit us. The soldiers are patrolling the opposite side of the warehouse. I will Madge to calm down.

  “How're you going to do that?” she asks, her eyes trained on Jane.

  Jane looks unflinching back at her, but she's done enough already. I grab Madge's hand. So many people have found out from other sources. I need to do the telling.

  I'm a colonist.

  She wrenches her hand away like I've burned her. She does very little to hide the rage boiling on her face. “What are you doing here?”

  Jane comes to my rescue before I try to spell out the words that will take way too long and say far too little. “Move on for a few minutes, Madge. Please. Take a breath.”

  Madge needs no coaxing. She turns and stomps away to the next pile of junk. I can practically see the steam rising from her hair.

  “That didn't go well.”

  Did you think it would?

  Jane pulls her hand away so she can inspect a toaster. She grabs a screw driver and deftly takes off the housing. She talks to me out of the corner of her mouth, her shoulders hunching over again into her defeated posture. “No, but I wasn't expecting that. Madge is usually so calm.”

  She hides it.

  Jane nods, staring at the guts of the toaster. I marvel at the change that's come over her. She used to look beaten down all the time. Now I see it as the act it is. She's a new person in the same body. That faint ray of a possibility, the hope I've given her with our plan, has invigorated her.

  “She's trapped it for too long. She's a time bomb.”

  I peer over a toaster to where Madge stalks down the opposite end of the warehouse. She looks back at me, sees me watching her, and jerks away.

  She hates me.

  Jane shrugs and uses her screwdriver to take more of the toaster apart. “Maybe, but I doubt it. I think she just needs to cool down.”

  How will we do this? I gesture to the toasters, remembering we're supposed to be talking about our projects here, but Jane knows what I mean.

  “She'll come around, Terra.”

  Before it's too late?

  “She'll come around. She gets worked up quick and she fizzles quick.”

  Sure enough, she literally comes around. She won't look at me; she only looks at Jane. I can tell by the gleam in her eyes, though, that she's all for escape.

  “I'll help you,” she says. She has a clipboard now, and she's writing down what we've done with the toasters and what more use we could possibly get out of them. “What do you need?”

  I move forward, ready to write the words, but Jane puts a tremulous hand on my arm. “We think the yard should be easy. We're worried about inside.”

  Madge writes down a few words on her paper and says, “Mm-hmm. That's right. So you're thinking that's my job?”

  I nod, but she's still ignoring me.

  “Yes,” Jane says. “Any plan you can think of.”

  Madge pokes at toaster guts with her pencil. “I've been thinking about that for way too long. I just never had anywhere to go.” I hear the sadness in her voice. She has no idea where her children are or if they're even alive. Escaping wasn't really escaping if she didn't have somewhere to go.

  Thank you, I mouth. She still refuses to look right at me, but I know she saw it.

  Jane pulls the heating element out of a toaster, straightens the wires, and places it on a table. “We need a plan in place soon.”

  Madge nods brusquely. “I know. You said eleven days. For how many?”

  Seven, I mouth to Jane.

  She nods and glances around. As she spots the soldiers, she tenses like a deer that's caught the scent of a predator. She lowers her voice. “You, Kai, me, Terra, and three of her friends here.”

  “That's pushing it.”

  I grab her hand, and she doesn't pull away from me. She sees the burning look in my eyes. I won't take fewer.

  “Fine, but no more. Seven's risky enough.”

  I nod.

  “I'll talk to you about it in two days. Don't ask me any more until then. We've talked long enough as it is.” She walks away, leaving behind her a strange wake of anger mixed with hope.

  I can tell Jane wants to smile, but she won't with the soldiers and agents so near. For them, she's still broken. Her hair falls back around her face, and she hunches over the toaster. We don't say another word.

  When the intercom speaks several hours later, I'm surrounded by a pile of dismantled toasters, and I swear I never want to see another one for as long as I live. Who needs a small metal box just for browning bread anyway?

  A grin creeps across my face as I remember trying to swallow down the awful bread I made in the gas station, and the way Jack never complained. Funny things remind me of him and at the most random times. Then Jane offers an imperceptible shake of her head, and I quickly wipe the traitor smile off my face. I adopt her stance: head down, eyes down, spirit stomped into the ground. If I'm to last until the escape, I have to make them believe there's no more fight left in me.

  Chapter Twelve

  As promised, in two days Madge talks to us. I'm sitting at our usual table, pushing around slimy eggs and limp hash browns on my tray, watching the way the yolk swirls out in abstract patterns. Jane doesn't speak. She hasn't spoken since reclamation after Madge left with her promise to help. I haven't pushed her. She's been nervous and fidgety, her hands and fingers constantly in motion, and as many times as I just wanted to tell her Relax! For my sanity, calm down! I didn't say anything. She's on edge about the escape. When it comes down to it, I'm on edge too. Madge was just so angry at me, and I haven't forgotten the scathing look she gave me when I branded myself a colonist.

  She sat with us the past two days but didn't say a word. I glanced around, hoping the agents monitoring us would just chalk it up to drama—we are a huge group of women here—and not that something out of the ordinary was going on.

  But nothing.

  So between Madge's silence, the agents not doing anything, and Jane with her fluttering hands, I bit my nails down to the quick. Only nine more days and then we leave. There are too many variables. I'm freaking myself out.

  Then Madge sits down, shoves a bite of egg into her mo
uth, wipes the yolk that dribbles out, and says, “I'll only say this once.”

  I sit up and listen, and Jane drops the napkin she's been shredding into tiny strips.

  “I won't tell you here. I'll just tell you it'll take a few days, it will be risky, but there's a certain . . . poetic justice to it.” She says it with relish as a wry smile crosses her lips. The anger against me might simmer under the surface, but the anger against me has no comparison to how she feels about the agents and soldiers here. She's totally on board with the whole thing.

  “When will you tell us?” Jane whispers. It comes out as a croak since she hasn't been speaking. She clears her throat.

  “Reclamation.”

  Thank you, I mouth, and Madge nods curtly.

  “What're you talking about?” Kai asks. I slide her my tin of pears and take her hand.

  Something important. I'll tell you later.

  She senses our mood and nods gravely. Then she digs into the pears.

  Reclamation comes quickly. Usually I dread the build-up to work hours, but today it can't come fast enough. Madge beats us there, is given her clipboard, and starts her rounds. Jane and I hover in the doorway, trying to watch Madge while pretending to look over the piles. Our toasters disappeared yesterday. There's a pile of back packs and I nod to them.

  “There could be lots of things in there we have to talk to Madge about,” Jane agrees.

  We sit cross-legged next to the pile. I choose the pack closest to me and watch for Madge as I unzip it. She's an aisle over, talking to some women working on unstringing blinds. She'll be here soon. I look into the pack.

  Two text books, a notebook, a few pencils, and a note that says, Have a good day at school, honey!

  My stomach is urging me to lose my breakfast.

  “These were all from the school at that site,” Jane whispers, holding a piece of blue paper covered in old, yellowed cotton balls. That small square of blue sky and clouds pricks something in her, and her eyes fill with tears.

  “I had a little brother. He was eight. I have no idea where he is now. These poor kids. Do you think they were sent to a sanctioned city?”