by Laura Bynum
What happens next is like a scene from someone else's life. A woman with long blonde-brown hair sits down at her kitchen table with a bottle of Occlusia. She removes seventeen pills with crystalline precision and lays them out on her table-top like a swarm of bees. Black and yellow, they buzz and flutter. She produces a glass of water, downs the swarm. It's that simple.
The woman goes to the front hall and sits down on the cool tile to watch the door. Fifteen minutes in, as planned, she calls for help. There's no blacking out, just tremendous vomiting and spasms. She rocks back and forth in front of the toilet, side to side, while being hoisted into the ambulance. She vomits off the side of the gurney while being rushed down the slick white hospital corridors. Ruins her second-favorite blouse.
Of the rest, there is no memory. For a few sour moments, she simply isn't. She lets her sound waves go flat. No activity on the machine. No signals, no prescience. Then, a pulse. A beat. My words, my words, my words . . . dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum. Back to being monitored, back to being here.
For three days, Chalmers Hospital keeps me on suicide watch. When the officials come to do the standard interview, my eyes are swollen shut by a continuous stream of tears. I can't see the men. They're dark shapes explaining in monotone voices what will happen to my daughter. She's being reassigned to a new family. It's best for all concerned. I don't disagree.
I'm released. Go home and languish on my sofa.
The skin beneath my eyes is still black, my hair forgotten. Most days I pull it up into a ponytail to exempt me from the process of running a brush through the long, uneven strands. I wear whatever clothes I manage to lay out the night before. Eat only if my path takes me past the refrigerator. I'm a mess. Forgetful in the most basic ways.
Mornings are the worst. I arrive to the conscious world, my life unremembered. I'm given a few seconds of blissful ignorance before the memories come rushing in. And then I drown. Every single day.
The Confederation doctors and Mr. Weigland all tell me the same thing. I am to eat. To bathe. To go on with my life as if nothing's happened. I feel it as yet another abandonment. To live without Veracity seems crass. What will she think of me, continuing on without her? Haven't I always said it would be impossible? Keep on goin', Harper. Bullshit. I've lost my child. What else can matter?
A week later, Mr. Weigland comes to my apartment. He walks in behind a bouquet of yellow daisies, his eyes everywhere but on me. He puts his hand on my arm, asks why I haven't come to him. Do I know my job is still there? It is. It's waiting for me. I'm to come back the following Monday, resume my duties. Just the same as before.
"It'll do you good to get back into a schedule," he says. And he's right. He leans in, presses a paper napkin into my hand. Kisses me, barely, on the top of my head and leaves.
The napkin contains one poorly handwritten line. Fake it 'til you make it.
It's an act of trust. I can't return such kindness with anything but the same and burn the soft swatch of paper immediately over a gas burner.
Fake it 'til you make it.
It's good advice. I need to do the small things, the daily things that will help me forget what I won't be coming home to. I rearrange the furniture. Go back to work.
At first, the office feels completely the same. On the surface, not much has changed except for a pile of top clearance files that's grown precariously high in one corner. I delve into the work that's familiar and distracting and more soothing than I'd anticipated. It's not until late morning of my first day back that I begin to notice the Monitors passing by. They're being tender with me. Furtive. They walk by in groups. Up and down the center aisle until the moment feels right and then they begin stopping at my cubicle door. Asking me how I am, expressing their remorse for my loss. Some mean it and some are there strictly to see if I'm staying or leaving.
I've just been sprung from Chalmers Hospital. For the next six to twelve months I'll be on Red Watch. My home, my car, my work will be monitored. A special set of Monitors back at the hospital will review my schedule, my diet, and my words--all of it, every day. They'll then report back to Mr. Weigland, who'll report back to his superiors. If I say I need a break, this is the one time in my life I'll get one. All because I'm important.
When I'm gone, others will be forced into BodySpeak early. About half of my first-day-back visitors are scared to death their number will get called. Their worry is fatiguing. Eventually, I tell them so. Ask them to go away.
It's the end of the day. I know it by the masses of people who're queuing up at the elevators, ready to leave. I go to turn off my computer and feel someone behind me.
It's Evans, the mailman. The man who delivered my recruitment letter. "Hello, Miss Adams."
"Hi, Evans."
Seventy years old, Evans has a back rounded by arthritis and long yellow teeth that make him look slightly feral, the exact opposite of who he is. He's polite and thoughtful. Is always asking questions about Veracity. Wanting to know how I'm acclimating to the litany of bumps in the road of life. He knows more about the people working here than our Human Resources Department. How and why, I never think to ask.
"You've had a lot of visitors today," he says. "I hope you don't mind one more."
I unplug my earphones. Turn off my computer. For kind Evans, I lie, "I don't mind."
He puts a hand on my shoulder. Wants me to look at him when he talks. "Miss Adams, I've come to make sure you're still planning that trip we talked about earlier this summer. The one to Chesney." He's shrouded in an uncharacteristic yellow-gold today, a color that turns his liver-spotted skin green. "I noticed you haven't let Human Resources know about it yet." He's worried I'll forget myself. Say something that will net me a punitive or blow his cover. He's right to be worried. My mind is elsewhere.
I pat Evans's hand, still on my shoulder. His skin is loose. It slides over the bones as if not attached. "I'm sorry. I've changed my mind about a vacation this year."
Vacation. Evans smiles sorrowfully at our use of such a term. What we're discussing is just the opposite. "Oh, Miss Adams."
I shake my head. "I don't think I could enjoy it."
"That's not always why someone takes a vacation, is it? Some of the best things I've done in my life have been done on vacation."
I grab my purse, my keys that are already out on my desk. "Good night, Evans." I leave without looking back. "Thank you anyway."
I drive to the grocery store and go straight to the liquor aisle. It's become my routine. The choice of alcohol is inconsequential. Whatever comes into contact with my outstretched hand comes into contact with my bloodstream. White wine. Red wine. Brandy. Whiskey. Never anything cold. Nothing that requires me to so much as open the cooler door.
I have my fist bound tightly around a bottle of pinot noir when someone grabs me and pulls me away toward the back door. I'm removed from the liquor aisle and the few customers sober enough to notice. Wine still in tow, I'm taken out into the rear alley and pushed up against a wall. The arms binding mine loosen to perform whatever punitive has come up in my file, and I'm glad for it. This is how it will end. Not with me joining the resistance but being raped and murdered out here with rain coming down in hard, cold drops. I stand quietly, complicitly, with my arms bent painfully behind me. I smile for the first time in weeks. The hurt will finally end. To me, it's a miracle.
The man's hand fumbles across the muscle of my thigh. Searches until it finds the bottle of wine and pulls it free.
No.
He's not here to rape me. Murder me. Take away the pain. I close my eyes.
"No." It is a plea.
This man isn't a Blue Coat come to call out the worst numbers. This is a man I've met maybe without realizing it. Someone who could have walked past my desk, or ridden with me on the elevator just once, maybe twice. I have the smallest memory of his scent. And a familiarity with the warm blue at the heart of his colors. He doesn't work at the Murdon Building where I would have felt him, even floors away, or caught
his iridescent prints left behind here and there. Still, I'm sure that's where we must have met. It's the only place I ever go besides home. How I recognize him, I don't know. Right now, it's enough that he recognizes me.
"You're my recruiter. Aren't you?" I whisper.
His jaw against my head, the man nods in confirmation. He holds me as the grief begins to flow, and I let him.
My recruiter knows to lean in so I can clutch and sob against the wall, so no one walking by can see me beneath him. Knows to stroke the skin of my hands so I can retch up everything I've been keeping locked away. Knows to put his cheek against the top of my skull. Softly, imperceptibly, press his lips to the top of my head.
He says nothing to me. Doesn't ask if I've been restored to my mission, to my recruitment into the resistance. He holds me until I'm all cried out, and then he goes. My recruiter is the only person today who's provided me assurances, requiring no assurances in return.
I don't know what color his eyes are, or the color or cut of his hair. I don't know how young or old he might be and will have to erase from my memory the green-blue aura his hands left on the brick wall. I don't want to know him the next time we meet. Anonymity is what I've chosen because I need him as a blank slate. The fantasies I hold about my recruiter are as important to me as the man himself. There may come a day when I'll want to know who he is and what he does. But not until I'm ready and not unless I'm ready. Right now, I need him to be perfect. And, in this world, there's not one chance he could be even slightly close.
When my tears have finally been spent, I push away from the wall and he leaves. I stand for a moment, shivering. Keeping my eyes off the trail of turquoise footprints that leads away into the street.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MAY 23, 2045. MORNING.
I am eating my breakfast outside the Murdon Building. Standing in one of the numerous security gate lines that are backed up for half a block each. They're training new guards, or maybe there's been another disruption in the system, as has happened frequently of late. I don't mind. It gives me time to watch the impressive sunrise crowds collected around the prostitutes' quarters for an early morning session.
The most popular prostitute on National House Square is a small woman who calls herself Jezebel. She likes to come outside between clients. Strut her boy's frame up and down the street, makeup still smeared from her last session. It's a testament to her style, her who-gives-a-fuck attitude. She never fixes it. Goes the whole day with lipstick on her chin and mascara leaked into the half-moons beneath her eyes. Queues at Jezebel's are always the longest.
Jezebel sees me leaning against the security arch. "Beta!" she shouts. "Beta!"
This woman already knows. How fast news travels. Candace was made the Alpha. Our BodySpeak test was just yesterday. I came in second.
Jezebel struts the half block over, shushing those she's left behind--men and women who're tapping their watches. Reminding her of their schedules. They're everyone. Managers. Monitors. Blue Coats. People who should have nothing in common, least of all her.
The prostitute waves one end of her sash in the air. Pulls down her shirt and flashes me a flat, almost nipple-free breast. "How come you never visit me, Beta?"
It would be legal if I did. Sex however the customer wants it. A threesome, two men and one woman, two women and one man. Or simply two women. Two men. Gender, number of partners, whatever other variables might be considered, it's of no matter. Sex any way you like it is as common as ordering a pizza. But go and fall in love with someone of the same sex and you're classified a Cultural Terrorist. The government doesn't extend such an open mind to the less sexual aspects of a relationship. The falling in love parts. The wanting to share a family and a life. The government says this prejudice has a purpose. They need to maintain a healthy population, and two people of the same sex can't reproduce. They say there is no danger in setting such a precedent. But just as soon as they find a way to replace workers with robots and don't need heterosexual couples for the purposes of procreation, marriage itself will be at risk. President has become fearful of what even two people, united, could do.
"Come on, hotshot!" Jezebel calls, one finger beckoning.
My wristwatch beeps 7:00 a.m. and guards begin flowing out through the Murdon Building's front doors. Security Guard Jones is the first one out. He waves a hand at the small prostitute, her bare tit still on display. "You get on now," he says without meaning it. He likes her all-day energy. Her carelessness that's the opposite of his job.
Jezebel blows him a kiss and sashays back to her office. I'm cleared to go on to mine.
Candace Hillard is tall, six feet without shoes. She has long blue-black hair and toffee-colored skin, the kind our physical profiles would define as Medium-Black. Her eyes are hazel, meaning they change. Brown if she's calm, green if she's angry. She was torn from her mother's arms when she was seven. Listed under the not-too-old file, like me, in exchange for God knows what. She was given to new parents who didn't want her. Married the wrong man. Had a beautiful baby girl who's now a ten-year-old named Hannah. Got divorced and became a single mother. Pursued the wrong career. Pursue, the wrong verb, because it suggests choice. But the one she'd prefer to use, like me. I'm four inches shorter, seven months younger, my hair ten shades lighter. My skin falls into the checkbox category of Medium-White. If it weren't for our bodies, we'd be sisters.
Candace has been holding up the line with crossed arms and long planted legs. A huge gap's formed behind her but no one's asked her to get out of the way.
"Late?" she shouts. "Today?"
I don't answer.
Candace takes me by the hand and drags me past the other Monitors who've been queued up for an hour. They aren't angry at our small abuse of power, going to the front of the line. They know what we do, what we see. They move aside easily, smiling as we pass. None of them are jealous of our positions. Just the opposite.
Once inside the conference room, we're escorted down the long center aisle to our seats in the front row. A Manager is standing behind an elevated podium at the head of the room. He's young as Managers go. Forty, with a full head of dark brown hair. He's angry he's had to wait for us but doesn't dare let it show. I see it in the sparkling brown clouds that appear around his head. They swirl and drift as if on a breeze, then evaporate beneath the mask of a forced smile. In a booming voice, he begins. "Good morning, everyone!"
Candace bumps my knee. Watch. I'm to look up at the young Manager standing on the stage before us. Smile.
"Welcome to the twenty-fifth meeting of the East-Central Monitoring Division," he says.
We clap as expected.
"Today's guest host will be none other than our own Manager Strauss."
Candace leans forward in her seat as a sparkling red corona forms over her head. Manager Strauss runs a group of Monitors on the ninety-ninth floor. He demands too much of them. Time and energy. If they're pretty, more. Years ago, Candace worked under Manager Strauss. Then something happened, an event even I don't know about, and she was transferred out of his department and put in the office across from me. I was lucky. I went straight to Mr. Weigland, for whom such an abuse of power isn't a thought in his head.
The young Manager steps away from the podium and Manager Strauss takes his place. By comparison, this Manager looks as old as Methuselah. He has a narrow, skeletal face and wisps of feathery white hairs scattered over a freckled scalp. He wraps bony hands around the lectern's edge and speaks with his black eyes pointed over our heads. He tells us today he'll be covering the ins and outs of the new and upcoming technological programs. SKEYE, then BodySpeak.
"But first," he adds in a ponderous tone, "we're going to discuss the recent resuscitation of that unfortunate and painful old artifact. That bit of nonsense born of the chronically unhappy and subversive . . . The Book of Noah."
A few hundred Monitors suck in their breath and the long room goes quiet. Though, as Monitors, we're allowed to bear witness to this with impunit
y, it's still a class one Red word term and earns anyone who says it an immediate 550. There have been an unusual number of Noah incidents passing through Monitoring lately. We'd all hoped management would let it go.
"We're going to be handing out pamphlets we'd like you to read," Manager Strauss announces, and a line of assistants appears from the outer aisles.
Candace and I receive ours first.
"Take a moment and flip to the inside of the front page, please," Manager Strauss instructs.
On a flap inside the front cover, a list of Noah's accomplishments has been neatly bulleted for easy reference. Our founding father is credited with developing the coded methods of torture and murder used today by our police, drawing up the boundaries of our world, and, most important, developing the slate. None of these are news.
On the inside flap of the pamphlet's back cover is another list. All the things The Book of Noah is not. This fictitious book is not a guide to finding and joining a secret society whose sole intent is to stop progress and take down all technology. It is not a weapon to be used against the Confederation, or a new Bible, or a thing at all. The Book of Noah is nothing more than a terrorist campaign. A lie to discredit the government and all the good work they do. In between the two covers, there is a prodigious amount of information about Noah. I scan a few of the ten pages. It's all trivia. Details about Noah's likes and biology. He owned a black labrador named Duke. Was thirty-three when the Pandemic hit. Never married, having given the new country his whole life. The last few pages are a long-winded repetition of what's inside the front and back covers, repeated over and over so those basic facts stick.
"Now, I want you to take these home and read them, cover to cover," Manager Strauss says. "You're to return them by tomorrow afternoon, no later than four o'clock. It's imperative you bring them back in exactly the same condition as they are now." The old man leans down and lets his shriveled lips dangle over the microphone as he explains the ramifications of noncompliance.