by Tessa Clare
“I’m positive. As a matter of fact…” I reach into my pocket and pull out the tattered envelope that Leonard had given me. “I have something to show you.”
Autumn, who has probably never seen an envelope in her life, gazes up at me questioningly. Then she opens it. The first thing she notices is a photocopy of what appears to be a driver’s license.
“Paper?” Autumn asks.
“Read what’s on the paper.”
“It’s a copy of a driver’s license for someone named Miranda Tonkin.”
“Look at the picture.”
“I don’t see the…” But Autumn gasps as soon as she recognizes the face on the picture. I grin in satisfaction. “Is that Mom?”
“It is.”
“So, she’s alive?”
I want to say that she is, but I have no way of confirming until I see her with my own eyes. “It looks like it. I’m going to find her, though.”
“How will you do that?”
I point to the address on the license. “For one, I’m going to start there. If that doesn’t work, then who knows? I’ll probably just have to do it the old-fashioned way and ask around.”
“That sounds complicated.”
“I’ll make it work.”
With those words, we stand in silence as we think about the implications. I can see the sun starting to rise high on the horizon, and Darcy will be awake soon. That means that I’ll need to say goodbye.
I brush away a stray tear that’s fallen onto Autumn’s cheek. “I’ll see you again. That’s a promise.” Autumn tensed at those words, so I continue, “I know I’ve broken a lot of those. I hope you don’t hate me for it.”
“I could never hate you.”
“I’d deserve it if you did,” I admit quietly.
“Why do you think that?”
I glance at the rising sun, bringing the rest of the world hope and shrouding me in darkness at the same time. “Because I’m selfish. I’m hurting two of the most important people to me in the name of staying alive.” The sun is blinding me, so I need to look away. “I used to blame Mom for abandoning us in the name of staying alive. I was so angry with her; and yet, here I am, running away. But I don’t want you to think that I’m abandoning you forever.”
Autumn doesn’t say anything. Together, we glance towards the house. In the window, Darcy is brewing a pitcher of coffee. I think about the fact that Darcy doesn’t have a CLEO to assist her with simple household tasks – not that she needs it because her house is so small. It hits me that Darcy could have easily used Autumn’s trust fund money to purchase upgrades to make her life more comfortable – but she didn’t.
Instead, Darcy is giving her something that I can’t: a normal life.
“We should probably go,” I whisper. “Darcy’s going to be looking for you soon.”
Autumn throws her arms around my neck. In my arms, she’s a toddler again. Not too long ago, I was able to carry her with one arm. Now, she’s practically a woman that’s standing on her own two feet. We pull apart at the same time. As soon as Autumn turns to walk back towards the house, I climb into my car. My hand moves to plug in the address to my next destination, until I remember that I don’t have a GPS console anymore – nor do I have a place to call home. For a moment, my hand hangs in the air – lingering, waiting. And then, it balls into a fist. I bring it to my face to cover the choking sobs that wrack through my body.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ROMAN
F or the first few days, my routine is consistent: sleep, eat, and wish I was asleep. Occasionally, I’ll fill out a job application; but when I do, self-doubt fills me. All I can hear are April’s last words to me: ‘You’ll only hold me back.’
I spend those days trying to figure out what she meant. Once, being with April empowered me. It made me strive to be a better person, and the fact that I hold her back guts me. Have I been a burden to her? What could I have possibly done to make her think that?
One week after April’s departure, my Mobiroid starts buzzing on a regular basis – probably my parents, though I don’t have the courage to talk to them right now. I turn it off and remove it from my wrist. It finally dies after it goes two weeks without being charged.
It’s two weeks after April’s departure when the Divinity Bureau finally releases their election report. I do everything I can to ignore it, but I make the mistake of using the internet to fill out a job application on that day. On every site I visit, the news is determined to follow me.
LEAK CONFIRMED: APRIL MCINTYRE HAS BEEN ELECTED BY THE DIVINITY BUREAU.
At that moment, I decide that I can be unemployed for a little longer.
A few days after that, I hear a knock on my door while I’m in the middle of cooking dinner.
“She isn’t here,” I groan loudly, certain that it’s another round of paparazzi.
“Roman?”
I recognize the voice on the other side. Hastily, I rush to the door and pull it open. Usually, when Tate is around, April isn’t too far away; so I open it in hopes that he has news on her. Unfortunately, he doesn’t; but he does have a bottle of vodka in his hand. It’s the next best thing.
I find out that Tate has been calling me in the last few days. He learned of April’s departure over voicemail.
“She called me a few times in an hour,” Tate admits. “I couldn’t answer because I was at work.”
In her last call, she left him a voicemail to explain the situation. She told him that she loved him, and she thanked him for being there for her. Then she spent the last sixty seconds begging him to look out for me. That only confirms my theory that I was a burden on her.
“By the time I tried to call her back, her phone was disconnected,” Tate says regretfully.
When I turn my phone back on, I have three voicemails from Tate, one from my mother, and another from a phone number that I don’t recognize. I give it a listen and find, to my surprise, that I have a job interview at a computer hardware store. I call them back the next morning, and I have an interview for that afternoon. By the time the day is over, I have a new job.
Tate is the only person I can think of sharing the good news with. He asks me, “Do you have to wear a uniform now?”
I think of the hideous polo shirt that they handed me at the interview. “That’s the only downside. Still, it’s a job!” I would be working as a computer repair technician for an electronics store. It isn’t warding off hackers – though the situation with April did force me to sharpen my skills – but it’ll pay the bills. “Let’s head to the bar to celebrate!”
That is what we do. After spending the last several months with a twenty-year-old, it’s liberating to be able to go to the bar across the street from my apartment. Tate and I drink until we can barely remember each other’s names. By the time the night is over, Tate is unable to remember his address to plug into his car’s computer system, so I let him sleep on the floor of my apartment. I’m forced to half-drag, half-carry him through the apartment lobby and keep him from stepping on a man that’s passed out in the middle of the hallway. I sit him on the futon while I look for my stash of extra pillows and blankets. In a slurred voice, Tate points to a letter that’s sitting on my coffee table. “What’s that?”
I glance at the letter, debating on burning it at that moment. “It was my breakup letter.”
“Do you know what it says?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I hesitate, before I admit, “Because I don’t want to know.” When Tate tilts his head in confusion, I continue, “She wasn’t going to break up with me in person. If I hadn’t come to the mansion, she would’ve just left.”
‘You’ll only hold me back.’
“I don’t know what she’d say if I hadn’t been standing right in front of her. Considering how much it hurt then, the last thing I want is to make that wound any bigger.”
Tate closes his eyes and falls against the futon. “There’s a chance those words cou
ld also heal you.”
I’m not ready to bet on those odds. Once I read that letter, I’ll never read April’s words or hear from her again. I’m not willing to close that door yet.
I begin my new job a few days later and quickly find myself growing accustomed to my new routine. I work longer days (twelve hour shifts), but the tradeoff is that I have more days off. Those days are typically spent grabbing drinks with Tate, hanging out in my apartment with Neville, and catching up on sleep. Occasionally, I’ll eye the letter that continues to sit on my coffee table. While I’m at work, I tinker on computers while the projector blares in the background. The work is easy: fix computers and occasionally explain things to customers. As a result, I spend a lot of time staring at the projector. I absently notice the lack of media coverage on April’s disappearance, though they seem very keen on covering her election.
“We’re standing outside the McIntyre Mansion, where authorities believe April McIntyre is hiding following her tragic election.”
I change the channel with a click.
“Mr. Fitz, you said that the removed barriers were only temporary. Why are we still electing underage citizens?”
“Well, Shelly, these are dark times. Sometimes, dark measures are needed…”
Click.
Weeks pass this way. A flipped switch here, a replaced wire there – but the job requires minimal supervision, and it keeps my mind occupied for a long while. I keep the projector off news stations and talk shows. If I hear ‘The Divinity Bureau’ and ‘April McIntyre’ one more time…
“Roman, a customer wants to talk to you,” a customer service agent says, popping his head into the backroom.
“Who is it?”
The boy shrugs. “I don’t know. He just says that he needs you to look at something.”
I glance at my latest project – a palm-sized hard drive that’s hardly salvageable – and decide that I can take a few minutes to talk to the customer. If a few moments is all it takes to keep whoever’s computer that I worked on from coming back to me, then maybe it’s worth it. I emerge from the backroom and find myself standing feet away from someone that I was hoping I’d never see again.
“Hello Roman,” Finn greets cheerfully. “How do you like your new gig?”
I stop in my tracks. “Did you not hire my replacement yet?”
“Yeah, but they’re not nearly as good as you.”
“For twelve sterling an hour?”
“Your pay rate wasn’t my decision,” Finn says. “Neither was firing you.” He glances around the room before lowering his voice. “Listen, is there anywhere we can go that we can talk privately?”
I shake my head. “I’m working. If you had anything that you wanted to say to me, you had two years to do it.”
“I got fired,” Finn blurts out.
I’d feel sorry for him, but he knew the McIntyre’s were being targeted and didn’t do anything about it. “Welcome to the club. Unfortunately, I’m not interested in recruiting new members.”
Finn runs a hand through his hair. “Listen, Roman. They elected my daughter. My nine-month-old daughter! She hadn’t even learned to walk yet!”
I remember seeing an infant on the news when the Divinity Bureau first started electing people outside of their guidelines. She was the youngest person ever elected.
His voice lowers. “I learned some things. Some of it isn’t pretty. I hope I can make it up to you by telling you everything I know. A lot of it pertains to April.”
My first instinct is to assume it’s a trap. I can relate to Finn’s emotions, and I can’t imagine holding a funeral for my child, a healthy child that had to be sacrificed to make room on the planet for other people – and that’s exactly why I don’t trust him. Someone has to know that this is one way to lead me into a trap: catering to my emotions.
But something about Finn’s face makes me trust him. I’ve seen that look before: I’ve seen it on myself.
In the end, I decide to meet with Finn when I go on my lunchbreak. I ask a sales associate to watch the service desk and text me if anything urgent comes up, but I doubt that will happen. With my bases covered, I put on my face mask and follow Finn outside the store
“So…” I begin as we walk, but I’m immediately hushed.
“Not here,” Finn says gruffly, passing shoppers as though they might be poison.
I close my mouth and follow Finn. I’m not sure where he’s planning on taking me, but we walk through a parking garage. He finally stops in front of a red four-seater vehicle. “Get in.”
I glance at the shopping mall hesitantly. “I only have an hour-long lunch break.”
“We won’t be gone long.”
Hesitantly, I climb into Finn’s car. I notice that his self-driving car is no longer self-driving. The dashboard has been smashed in. I think of the state that I’d seen April’s car in before she left.
“I feel like that’s starting to become a trendy design,” I say dryly, pointing to the loose wires. I’m careful not to touch them.
“Do you have your Mobiroid on you?”
I glance at my wrist. “Well, yeah. Of course, I do.”
Finn lets out a groan. “We’ll have to wait to talk then.”
I stare at him, a chill running down by back. “Finn, please don’t kidnap me. I don’t have any wealthy relatives. The only ransom you’d be getting out of me is my student loan debt.”
That’s a bit of a white lie. I didn’t miss the large deposit April had made into my bank account shortly before her departure, but I transferred it into a savings account with the determination that I’d never touch it. That money is tainted.
Finn shakes his head. “I can’t risk anyone hearing us.”
“Who could hear us?”
Finn doesn’t answer – instead, he takes the highway and drives for a few miles until he finds an exit that’s pointed to a national park. After a few minutes, we’re parked outside of a forest preserve.
“Leave your Mobiroid in the car,” Finn instructs as I climb out of the car.
I hesitate. “I’d rather not.”
Finn rolls his eyes. “Roman, I’m not kidnapping you.”
“Then why are you acting weird, bringing me to a forest preserve, and telling me to leave my phone in the car?”
“I’ll explain in a second. Hurry up!”
I weigh my options. Then, after determining that Finn is smaller than me and that I can take him in a fight, I pull my Mobiroid off my wrist and follow him on a trail towards the forest.
“Sorry if I scared you,” Finn says once the car disappears. “It’s been a long few weeks.”
“It’s okay,” I say, even though I’m not sure if it is. I think of the smashed dashboard. “What… what happened?”
“You know what happened.”
“Yeah – but… how does this relate to April?”
Finn looks away. “It doesn’t. Well, at least, my daughter didn’t. But I was confident that I could find a loophole to keep her alive.” There’s a pause like he’s lost in thought. “You have no idea how it felt. My daughter – my beautiful, healthy little girl – was on the verge of death, and there wasn’t anything that I could do about it.”
My throat goes dry. “I’m sorry.”
“I found other things, though,” Finn continues. “Correspondence between the Divinity Bureau and the National Security Division.” I swallow. The National Security Division is another agency of the Confederal Districts. They’re responsible for keeping the country safe from threats, such as terrorism. “I thought, ‘well, that’s odd.’ What does combatting overpopulation have to do with fighting terrorism?”
“Let me guess: they’re related?”
Finn shakes his head. “They’re not just related. They’re one and the same.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Think about it, Roman: overpopulation wouldn’t be a problem if the world were overpopulated with citizens of a particular… ah… type, I should say. If
we had three hundred and fifty million saints occupying this world at one time, the world would be a far better place. The problem is that humans are selfish and destructive, which is how we ended up in a mess in the first place. Maybe we should have just started electing the raging criminals of this world before we elect innocent children.”
“But that’s…” I can’t even find the words.
“Morally ambiguous? Subjective?” Finn finishes. “Well, yes. It is. And that’s why we have the Divinity Bureau.” He stares right at me. His gaze is cold. “Imagine the pollution worsened and you needed to give people ventilators to live. There’s only a limited supply of ventilators, so you can’t save everyone. Who would you save? The youngest? The sickest? Or would you leave it up to fate?”
“I don’t know…”
“Would you save a kind-hearted doctor before you save a stone-cold criminal?”
“Maybe. I’ve never thought of it…”
“Or how about if you had to choose between that same doctor and your girlfriend?”
I clench my fists. “Why are you asking me this?”
“The reason why we elect District Chairmen is that they’ve already made that decision. And so has Gideon. You think it’s random selection, but it isn’t. Sure, most of it is – and they throw in a few names to ensure that the public thinks that’s the case. And they hold appeals to make sure that the wrong people don’t get elected. The ‘over 100’ rule didn’t apply until Henrik McIntyre took office. He was petrified that he’d outlive his daughters, so he made sure that that didn’t happen.”
“But what about…” I want to ask him about his daughter, but I hold back. I’m worried that I might be bringing up a sore subject.
“Ginny?” Finn asks, his voice breaking. “Well, it turns out, Gideon was planning on giving her an appeal due to her age. She was just an accident. But as soon as I learned what was happening, I confronted him.” A weak smile crosses his face, but his eyes are vacant. “We buried her next to her grandfather.”
My heart breaks for him. It was hard enough losing April. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to lose a child, to bury a coffin big enough to fit in your arms.