by Laura Bynum
"We give them the words, too, and that helps some. Most times, you need to be able to say a thing to feel it," Lilly concludes with a frown. Then, just as quickly, she smiles. "You should see the zucchini we got this year! And the tomatoes! Oh, they were delicious! If we can get in some cheese at the same time, we make pizza!" Lilly is a sprite in her sixty-year-old body. She morphs from rage to joy like a child, exuberant over zucchini and pizza. Maybe I'll feel the same soon enough, when I've been deprived of color and taste, textures that suggest a sunny somewhere else.
"Why do the younger ones get the hard chores?" I don't understand.
Lilly rolls her eyes. Such an obvious answer. "Because they want to stay mad! They want to remember their mother committing suicide on the dinner table. Their sisters and brothers taken away. They sweat and bleed to keep those old wounds good and open. And they need the sun more than the rest of us." She leans in to add, "Of course, there are some kids we can't let go up top. Flight risks." She holds out her hand and motions to the next person in line.
It's a young woman with long brown hair that shields dark, recessed eyes. She's been watching us talk from beneath her bangs. Has a vertical furrow at the top of her nose and a pink slash in place of a mouth. She's showing me some of the things that have happened to her. In her features, in her fisted hands and thrust-out neck. Maybe she's been raped or lost her parents. Maybe she came home to them, like so many. I give her a look of too much softness and she hardens. Fuck your pity. She's a girl when she's not fighting, a woman when she is. It's the schizophrenic nature of young adulthood in the Confederation. Be water, be stone.
She sticks out her hand, ready to cut mine with her rubbled skin. "Rita Ramirez." She shakes my soft palm hard.
"Harper Adams. Nice to meet you."
Rita steps forward. "What do you want to hear?"
I look at Lilly, who offers me no help. "Whatever you want to tell me."
In short, quick sentences, Rita gives me the basics. Her field number is 12,062. She'll be a guard when we mobilize. Will stand at the front of our line, carry a weapon. Stop bullets if she has to. She's had training and experience. Knows where to point. How to shoot. She's seventeen with a mother who died before she could form sticking memories and a father who drank too much. She fell in love at the oh so tender age of eleven. With a boy who knew how to break slates and help girls run away. He taught her to hunt, to track, to live off the land until he grew tired of her. Then he beat her and left her out in the woods. She was found by one of our runners and brought back to the bunker. The council hadn't wanted to let a left-for-dead girl stay, but Lazarus argued her case and won.
Rita doesn't seem all that pleased with her rescue. She's mottled with resentment, her skin splotched with little patches of blushing blood. She'd leave here if she could. I catch it in her eyes. She'd go back to living off the land if given the chance. As long as it meant dying there, too. Some people come down thinking it will be one way when it's another, my first letter had read. But Rita hadn't been recruited. She never got the fine print. Or the choice.
Rita doesn't say good-bye. Just stops talking and marches away. She's not that much older than Veracity. I wonder if my girl's coming up like that somewhere, bruised and hard. A seed pod instead of a daisy.
"That one's angry but harmless," Lilly says. "It's the ones who don't show their anger we have the most trouble with. Too quiet usually means something's brewing underneath."
I continue my introductions. Most people seem happy to have me down here. Some seem almost reverent. I attribute this to my newness. I've brought down a memory of the soil and the air. And fresh hope. They try to wipe it, like silt, off my skin. I see it in the way they rub their palms together as they walk away. In how they listen for some bit of profundity in the things I say, stopping all speech if I so much as open my mouth. They're hungry for fresh things to hear, so I find myself insinuating color into my responses. Using too many adjectives or adverbs. Bigger ones than required in small attempts to paint them moments of a life that isn't theirs. Such misplaced faith might wither some if they knew how afraid I am of small, skyless places. How afraid I am of failing them.
I'm finishing my last introduction when a voice that sounds like gravel comes from the back of the room. "Excuse me, please." It's a man's voice, doubled. As if his vocal chords have been split and are working separately. "Yes, thank you, Nancy. We'll have to discuss that later. Hello, James. How's Celia?" The words come out with two distinct tones, one rich and deep, the other strained. It sounds like two people speaking at once. This is a slate injury. I've heard it a couple times before.
The man puts cupped hands to his mouth and shouts over the crowd. "Lilly!"
I can see his full face now, towering above the people who're collecting around him. They remind me of the moths that flock to electric lights put out in summer and spring. Eager to be in his presence, they close in tight. Flutter their arms to get his attention.
"Lilly!"
Lilly has been waiting impatiently through my last introduction, picking at a callus that's developed on her heel. She stands and puts her hands up to her mouth to shout, "What, Lazarus?"
"You clear the training room?" I can see his eyes moving, assessing the number of bodies between us. The number of people he'll have to talk to between there and here.
Lilly turns to Noam, who's leaning against the wall too nonchalantly. "What's he talking about?"
Noam looks down at the floor, then pleadingly up at her. "Just one more time?"
Lilly now understands this request. She turns back to Lazarus and shouts with a finger pointed at me. "I'm not doing it!"
"There's no more time!" Lazarus's twin voices bark, then buckle. He grimaces, just slightly. Most people wouldn't notice but to a Monitor, it's obvious. It hurts him to talk. And yet he yells.
"Yes! There's no more time! That's exactly why I'm not doing it!" Lilly has read his lips. She points her bent finger to three men who've lined up in front of Lazarus on his slow way to me. "Edward! Daniel! Nabile! Leave him alone! You have time scheduled tomorrow night!"
The men shuffle away and the place goes silent. Like Moses through the Red Sea, Lazarus passes through the parted crowd. He walks like he talks, with great difficulty. Hands go out, assist him over a broken piece of concrete. When he loses his footing they reach out to catch him. And he does so often. These people love his every contorted joint, his softball knees, his long hands with marbles in the bending parts. It's as if he carries their collective pain. I imagine, were it more accessible, anyone here would gladly suffer his daily agony and my throat closes. Fills with emotions I haven't yet defined.
Lazarus smiles as he draws near and, immediately, I feel warm. He's seen my life, has been watching my every move, and embraces me without judgment. I feel loved, and by such a man as this. A man who makes the air bow before him. Can I help you walk? Maybe if I take one arm, position myself beneath your weight . . . I can see why people want to help him. He helps every one of us back.
Lazarus extends a malformed hand. "Hello, Harper. Lazarus Cobb." I take it, squeeze gently. Down here he hasn't had adequate care. In this moist hell with no sun.
"Hello," I say. "So nice to meet you."
Lazarus smiles, allows me to shake his hand long past the collapse of social grace. "You're exactly as I'd imagined."
I drop my hand. Gaze down at my feet. In addition to being a man of some presence, Lazarus is still handsome. I find myself flustered. "Harper Adams," I say again. Everyone laughs. Lazarus smiles.
He must be seventy years old. His skin is pale brown and freckled across the nose and upper cheeks. He has a mustache and beard. Has gray and white hair tufted around his head. His eyes are dark and sharp. They watch everything I do and betray nothing, not his thoughts, not the tremendous pain the rest of his body is much quicker to impart. For my sake, he is pleasantly comfortable. Infinitely kind.
Lazarus turns to Lilly and puts a hand on her shoulder. "I've requisiti
oned the guest room for her training." He looks over at Noam, who blushes.
"I never got around to telling her."
"I'm not doing it!" Lilly shouts. "I have to digitize the entire library, Lazarus! The entire thing! And I've got what? A month until the war?"
A month. Christ, help me. I feel myself falling. Put out a hand.
Noam catches it. Gives it a squeeze. "Sorry we're so unorganized. It's the war." He hasn't noticed the sweat on my forehead. I nod. Wipe it quickly away.
Lilly is pacing back and forth. "We should have been making copies years ago! Why can't we just do it the way they're doing it on the West Coast? Their retention rates are acceptable! They're able to train hundreds of people with that electronic course!"
"Because we're the government. The source from which all information will flow. We know what happens when the source is polluted." Lazarus leans closer to Lilly, whispers, "People will find a way to give up everything for another car in the driveway and a little less thinking to tax their minds. The code must be kept, Lilly."
She shakes her head. "I can't cram thirty years' worth of data into someone's brain in a month, and that's assuming she'll actually stay! It's a waste of time that I don't have! Not now! Not with those goddamned programs ready to go live any moment!"
Lazarus nods. "I understand. But it's necessary."
"You don't understand!" Lilly pushes her huge frames farther back on her nose. Sniffling, she launches into a long explanation about the difficulties of teaching language, not to mention all the topics that come thereafter. So much work for so little return. The majority of recruits bolt, can't handle the barren quarters, the lack of light, personal items, personal space, bad food, bad plumbing, the constant threat of being discovered. More.
Noam turns me away from his wife's cracking voice and her litany of reasons to leave. Quietly, he gives me something else to listen to. "Core training usually takes twelve weeks. It includes about a dozen topics: critical thinking skills first, then politics, history, technology, linguistics, psychology, art. You don't know half of those words yet so that's the first thing we'll cover. Language, so you can keep up." Noam continues but I can't concentrate. Lilly's drawing my attention with her plaintive voice.
"There's no time! I'm not doing it!"
"There's time, Lilly. We don't even know when our crew in Wernthal will be ready."
"They'd better be ready!" Shaking, Lilly points at the stairs leading to the house above us. To the sky beyond. "It's the end of summer, Lazarus! You can't put us through another year down here!"
I take Noam's hand. "What happens in Wernthal?"
Noam turns me around. Away from the other two. "We have to get into the Geddard Building. That's where the redactors are stored. The network is daisy-chained in such a way we don't know which one is the master. Thousands of slaves are linked to that one. We take out the master and the others follow. But which one . . . ?" He smiles lightly. Shrugs. No big deal.
But I know how big a deal it is. Noam's talking about the Geddard Building. The one three city blocks long constantly venting hot air. They have yet to find a way in. Then the bigger job of finding the right redactor and turning it off, all before getting caught.
They don't know how to take down the slates. To a Monitor, the need is obvious. This is how we win the war. If the slates aren't turned off, there's no chance. No way to teach others to follow us. I think of my dream. In it, Veracity believes we've successfully taken down the slates. She'll try to speak a Red Listed word sometime after we go to battle and that show of faith will kill her. All because we don't know which big black processor to turn off first.
Behind us, Lazarus is trying to put his arms around Lilly. "You're right. I misspoke," he says.
I turn and catch her shouldering him away. "Any more than four weeks and it will turn cold! We could get another blizzard and then we won't be able to move! And what about that goddamned SKEYE program? If we don't move out before the satellite goes live, we'll be trapped here!"
With a quick glance over at me, Lazarus interrupts. "I'll do the training." He sees me, pale and sweating. Misunderstands my fear. "We'll get you trained. No worries, young lady."
"I don't know," Lilly says to no one, and everyone. She expected something else. Maybe to be pushed into my training. Or maybe she's still thinking about frozen earth. "This isn't going to work. Is it?" She looks up.
Lazarus steps closer. Answers low, so the others won't so easily hear. "We're going to war, Lilly. Before these programs go live and with or without the slates having come down. We're going to war. Don't you worry."
Lilly thinks about this for a moment, then turns and leaves, shouting over her shoulder, "I have vaccinations to give. Then I'll be in the library." She sways under the weight of such a heavy thought. Another year without sun or sky.
I want to find the aluminum chair and sit down. But someone's already moved it.
"You okay?" Lazarus is looking at me. He shifts his weight and for a tortured second, his mask of calm slips. His face goes slack, eyes all but roll up in his head.
Noam strides quickly across the room and retrieves a bag from a hook on the wall. "When was your last pill?" he asks.
"Two hours ago."
Noam rifles through the bag's contents and pulls out a large amber vial.
"Next one isn't scheduled for two more hours," Lazarus protests.
"Let's say we don't worry about that." Noam twists off the vial's top and holds out a long white tablet. "Pain is not our friend today, Lazarus. And Davies isn't going anywhere. He'll be there tomorrow and the next day and next week for our med run. And then, yes, even after we win this war, he'll still be there. You're covered, Lazarus. Take the pill."
Lazarus pauses, then swallows the capsule without the aid of water.
Noam turns to me. "Davies is our pharmacist. Once a month we arrange a transfer. Davies gets us the medicines we need in exchange for banned items. Books mostly. Movies. A thing you're not familiar with called music." He yanks a thumb toward the bag he's put back on its hook. "Without those medications, Lazarus is bedbound. Same's true for about a quarter of us."
I peek around at the people who are covertly looking back at me. Most of them are older than the average citizen. I don't know how they've done it, living with nothing and doing it underground. Suffering their bodies for the cause.
"We're an old collective," Noam says, following my eyes. "We have people with diabetes, emphysema, arthritis . . . worse. Davies is as important as our contacts for food, water, and intelligence. He's our ambassador to tolerable living, if you will."
The number of words I haven't understood since I've been down here could fill the bunker. There's no good time to start asking for definitions so I choose now. "What does ambassador mean?"
"Ambassador?" Noam looks surprised. "What other words haven't you understood?"
There are so many. "I know what courage means." It's meant to be funny but both men frown.
"Come on, Harper. We better get started now." Lazarus disappears into the mouth of a hallway leading toward the back. I hurry and follow.
"Rest when you can, Lazarus," Noam calls after us.
I follow Lazarus's voice past the first few rooms, through a canvas door that's been marked with a large X. "I'll rest after we've won," he calls back.
The room is nearly empty with just a round table, two high-backed chairs, and a tall stack of books in the corner. They're one atop another, a rickety ladder that leads up and up.
Lazarus begins speaking before we sit down. "Never less than the whole will be told, regardless of how it might serve or hinder our purpose. The same information will be made available to everyone at all times. Last and most important, critical thinking is mandatory. This is the code." He collapses into a chair. Sighs. "This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you about who goes up and who stays down. Not to be late for meals, to keep track of the one blanket you'll be provided. To sign out your toothpaste and your toilet pap
er. Why we'll be coming up out of the ground and how we're going to win the war. Not with bullets, but with something greater.
"I could tell you all these things, Harper. But I'm going to ask you for one more sacrifice. I'm going to ask that you trust me. We go to war as soon as time and nature allow. It could be a few short weeks. It could be longer. But too much talk about how to live down here puts the focus on exactly that. And I need you focused elsewhere."
He's rolling me over with those big knowing eyes. Is seeing my dilated pupils blinking an SOS.
"I know how you like control, Harper. But there is method to what might appear to you as madness. A fancy way of saying you're going to have to trust me."
It's humiliating. To walk into a group of people who know every aspect of my life. All my mistakes and defects of character. I nod. "Okay."
Lazarus is amused by my pink cheeks. He crosses his arms and leans back in his seat. "You know what I enjoyed the most, watching you all these years?"
I shake my head no and catch sight of a crack in the ceiling. Immediately I'm wondering if chunks of it occasionally fall down and knock people in the head. If at any moment, we'll be sandwiched between it and the floor.
"You never became addicted to comfort. The niceties, the security. You never fell for their usual tricks. You were motivated by other things entirely."
I look away from the ceiling to Lazarus, who's restoring my mood with his words and the integrity of the structure with his gentle tone.
"You okay now? The claustrophobia pass?"
I nod, my cheeks pink. Breathing in, breathing out. "Yes."
"Think of Veracity when you get afraid. Think of what you're doing. To give your child, any child, a world better than the one you came into . . . there is no greater gift. You're showing her what courage is. Inspiring her to be the same. Incorruptible. A woman of honor."
I know I should nod, smile and agree. But I can't imagine this for my child. A life beyond the sun. A world made up of mud and straw.