Veracity

by Laura Bynum

  I look up and see a red-haired nurse leaning over me. I'm back in Chalmers. In a hospital bed with the rails put up.

  The red-haired nurse is angry with me. She clucks her tongue while squirting a needle full of something into my IV tube. "I couldn't have children," she says, and gives the clear tube a flick to get it dripping. "Some people never learn to be grateful for what they already have, I guess." She's talking about me leaving my daughter. Trying to kill myself when there's a child to be cared for.

  I'd be angry with her, but she doesn't know what's really going on here. I had to give my baby away like this. I had to swallow seventeen Occlusia in order to prove myself unfit. Have the Confederation take her away and put her with someone else so she wouldn't be used as bait, like Hannah.

  "Harper!" someone screams.

  The red-haired nurse is no longer here. Or the IV. Someone else bobs into view. Lilly.

  She's shaking me. "Wake up!" Her glasses magnify the edges of an earthen room.

  We might still be in the bunker. I drift away thinking about it when someone else comes along shouting.

  "Wake her up!" And, "Don't let her fall asleep!" This time it's Ezra.

  She and Lilly begin a discussion about my body. I have a concussion. Cracked ribs. Several gashes and a fever. Lilly thinks I need to be dropped into a bucket of ice. Other people I can't see make soft, agreeable sounds. "Good idea. We'll prepare the wash basin."

  "Harper!" It's John. His face hovers above mine. "Wake up!"

  For some reason, I'm wondering if he knows about my suicide, though I know he must. For all I know, he might have been there. I wonder if John hates me for it. I don't want him to hate me. For what I had to do to Veracity. For my prejudice. He's got to understand, trust isn't something I can afford anymore. One more time losing it and I might lose all faith.

  "I had to," I say, straining to make the words airborne, no longer even sure to what I'm referring.

  John shushes me. He picks me up and carries me down the hospital's long halls. I focus on the white acoustic tiles above us. Between each one is a bead of black, packed-in dirt. I don't remember them like that at Chalmers. Their ceilings were all white, even the seams.

  "We're taking you to get a bath," Lilly is whispering in my ear.

  Now it's not just John holding me. I'm lying in a cot made of arms, somewhere near the kitchen. I know only by the odors of meals previously prepared.

  Around me, people are talking.

  "We didn't salvage any antibiotics from Ben's run, did we?"

  "Not enough."

  "We've arranged a drop off in Kern, between here and Springfield."

  "Where?" This is Lazarus. "Skinner is still on patrol . . ."

  "I'm handling Skinner."

  "No one's handling anything until . . ."

  "Until what?" It's Ezra. I can feel her bangled wrist as it reaches over my face. The cool wood of her bracelet touches me on the forehead and I open my eyes. I'm in a room with dirt walls. Our kitchen in the bunker.

  "Hold her still now."

  I look down. See Lilly with a syringe set level with my shoulder. Ezra holds my arm still as the needle is depressed. It doesn't hurt. I don't struggle until someone tries to take off my shirt. I bat at their hands until John comes over. He slides the material down instead of up, so I won't have to lift my arms and suffer the cotton scraping over my swollen face and split chin. My trousers are pulled off and I'm left in my underwear and bra, all the while airborne and juggled by a dozen arms.

  "Get her in the tub." This is Lazarus, both voices warped with worry.

  Down I go, into a vat of ice. I'm shocked out of my reverie. Forced back into my body by the pain. The water burns like it's dissolving skin and muscle. I shout and twist. No one lets go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  AUGUST 29, 2045. AFTERNOON.

  Sepsis, Lilly calls it. A mild case of poison in the blood. Had I chosen to die, I would have. That simple, she says. Good thing I decided to fight. Though the days lost tending to me . . . She clucks her tongue. It was the worst possible timing. So much to be done. And me lying around. Requiring too much water.

  Lilly tells me that Skinner lost a bag of blood and a fair portion of his good wrist. Parts of it turned black. Some of the muscle and a strip of tendon had to be removed. Jingo took a week off for new weapons training, as he now has to hold a gun in his weak left hand. Best of all, he knows nothing of us. She then tells me John reported to his superiors I was killed that night. His explanation--I wouldn't confess. So far, his superiors seem to be willing to accept the word of a highly respected Blue Coat. But sooner or later, someone's going to want to see my body. Hopefully, we'll have gone to war by then.

  Lilly tells me before I can ask, "John is fine."

  A wound I somehow got in my right thigh has left a scar the size of a fist. It looks like a mouth grown into the meat of my outer leg. The skin there is ruffled in places. Curled around Lilly's stitches, lavender where it's just started to heal.

  "It's not going to get much better-looking," Lilly says. She's retrieving a tube that's been inserted into my wound. A drainpipe for the pus, one of our drinking straws.

  It doesn't move easily. My skin's tried to bond with it and tears some as the straw comes out. It's two weeks before I'm cleared to resume my training with Ezra. Then another few days before she lets me go rounds.

  I've tried talking to Lazarus about my concerns that one of our own is a traitor. Someone gave up Ben Dean, and perhaps me as well. I feel it, even if I can't prove it. It's in my mind night and day, but Lazarus doesn't feel the same way. He's committed to his idea that down here we're all family, and it's made him blind. I sit outside his room at night when the feeling gets bad. Nod at anyone walking by. I want them to know I'll be here until we go up top. Reading library books under the single bulb that hangs conveniently over his door.

  My training sessions with Noam go nowhere. I can't tell a man from a woman anymore. Or navigate hallways or walls. Unfamiliar spaces become traps. I can get myself inside them but, once there, don't know a redactor from a computer screen. When this happens, Amy has to hurry up and pull me out again. She turns up the lights, dips my hands in cold water and I'm thrown backward, into my body. Crashing into failure, throwing up more than I used to.

  I've done everything I know to produce the identity of the main redactor, but it eludes me. Lazarus says he's not worried and I believe him. But he doesn't know the whole story. Since my illness, I've stopped seeing colors. And I don't know how to fix it.

  Helen Rumney is on the television. She's standing at a podium on the National House lawn, the same one President uses for the early morning national talks. She's wearing a bright pink suit, an extraordinary color for a Manager, very nearly taboo. She's smiling jubilantly at the camera. Mr. Weigland isn't there.

  I grab a notepad and sharpened pencil. It's midnight in the middle of the week. Something's wrong.

  "Good evening." Her smile is huge. "We have some unexpected news. We've successfully lobbied the Tracking and Data group to have one of our new programs implemented immediately. Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to enter a new era of security. The first true satellite surveillance program in the Confederation's history has been cleared for operation. I'm happy to announce that SKEYE is officially a go!"

  Oh, Christ.

  Manager Rumney explains how this technology will prevent resisters from banding together. There will be no way for them to run. Or, once grouped, to move. Anything bigger than a bison gets tracked. Too many vehicles driving in the same direction get checked. No questions asked.

  "Starting at five a.m. eastern standard time this morning, it will be a maximum of five people per vehicle. No more caravans. No more unchecked travel. Admittedly, in the past, there has been a lack of coverage in our skies. The Pandemic took out our flying forces, our ability to adequately patrol the vast and barren wastelands where the socially inept have been wont to travel. With the SKEYE program, our sate
llites will fill this gap. There will be nowhere we cannot see. No way for errant souls to band together beyond the easy reach of well-secured society . . ."

  I race out of the library toward the sleeping quarters. Try not to think about what might have happened to the man who, in his own way, saved me--my friend Mr. Weigland.

  I come upon Lazarus making laps around his room. Despite the gravity of my message, he doesn't stop walking.

  "Lazarus! Did you hear me?"

  Lilly and Noam are already here. Still in their nightclothes.

  "You're sure?" Lilly asks.

  I nod. "I'm sure."

  Noam is almost in tears. "We had twenty-six T-Units lined up." These large manned vehicles were our sure ride to war.

  Lilly turns to Lazarus. It's strange, how beautiful her eyes are without the thick, cloudy lenses to obscure them. She's holding them in her hands, has forgotten to put them on. "What are we going to do?"

  "We have a backup."

  "We waited too long!" Noam is wearing an expression I've not seen before. Resentment. He means they waited too long for me. "And now we don't have transport and we still don't have the identity of the main redactor!" He peeks over and catches my wide eyes. "I'm sorry, Harper. It's just . . . this is an unimaginable situation."

  "That's enough, Noam," Lazarus scolds.

  "We've spent most of our lives waiting for this!"

  "Noam . . ."

  "How are we going to tell everyone?" he shouts. Next to him, Lilly jumps. "There's no transport to our production site! No way to announce the war!"

  Lazarus marches over. "That's enough! Regional bunkers have enough time to mobilize to their nearest hubs before SKEYE goes live. Let's go let them know."

  Noam's face falls. Rage becomes despondence.

  "We've always known this was a possibility," Lazarus says, looking wistfully at Lilly's white face.

  "It's too dangerous," Noam says quietly.

  Lazarus nods my way. "Harper, would you excuse us?"

  I get up and leave, listening to them all the way down the hall.

  "We'll have to take a vote."

  "No vote to be taken."

  "It's supposed to rain. Too much, I think."

  "Then we'll gather tonight and go to war the day after, when it's had some time to dry."

  "Are we still bringing in the bard for this?"

  "Wouldn't have our last night here any other way."

  Not a minute past one, it rains like the sky is coming down. I know by the darts of dark earth forming in the ceiling. The moisture worries Noam. He has three of the younger people make a late-night run out to the river that separates the barren fields behind us. They chop down a tree of the right size. Bring it in through the back entrance and prop it up in the center of the main room. I hear from multiple people that in all the time they've been down here, there's never been such a rain. It's brought eight or ten inches in only two hours. Must be a sign.

  I don't sleep. I lie in my cot watching my own dirt ceiling. Any sign of black fingers coming down through the beams and I'll go sleep in the library, where there are steel girders and joists and tall, heavy bookcases that would support a collapse. Getting rest is a wasted effort, especially with the clatter of exuberant, nontired voices outside my door.

  I step out into the hall and find it full of new people that have been packed in tight. They're wet and chattering. Smell like mildew. Despite the rain that's soaked them to the marrow, there's an excitement coming off them that makes our bunker glow. They've been up top, if just for a few hours. They've heard the good news. Tonight, there's to be a party. Assuming it quits raining soon enough, we'll have our war.

  I walk to the back entrance and watch them come in like waves. Every few minutes the door opens and six or seven new people come tripping in, all of them brought over from surrounding bunkers. Soaked and confused, their shoes muddy, they stumble to where we point. Hours ago at their bunkers, someone shook them out of a sleep and bundled them into whatever transit they could find at such late notice. Cars, trucks, even field machines like tractors have hustled them to the pass, a spot far behind the field that shields our emergency entrance. They walked the final two miles with a few of our crew out making birdcalls to guide them.

  Amy is one of the welcoming team. She stands just inside the mouth of the rear passage handing out brown bananas as people filter through. "This way to the restroom. If you'd like to change, if you brought your own clothes, we have a room set up. Sorry we don't have any extra blankets or towels. This is the last of our fruit. If you'd like some tea, we have sassafras and pine needle, someone will show you to the kitchen."

  I tap her on the shoulder between groups. Ask her where they're coming from.

  Amy's not so friendly now that I've slipped off my pedestal. "Everywhere within five hours of here," she answers without the courtesy of her attention. She's smiling at a pair of girls fresh out of the rain. Hands them each a blackened piece of fruit.

  The two girls are drenched. Their clothes wrinkled against their bodies. They don't have coats like most of the others. Just wool hats and leather boots.

  "Do you know where we can sleep?" one of them asks.

  I look down the hall. All the floor space is gone, covered with other damp, rumpled bodies.

  "Sure. Follow me."

  I take the girls to my room. Pull the thin mattress from my bed and open up the poorly sewn bag. The batting is comprised of old, worn-out clothing, feathers, and straw. I spread it on the floor and place the old cover on top, tucking the corners beneath.

  "Go ahead," I say.

  Immediately, they climb in.

  When I get to the library, it turns out I'm not the only one whose given up her room. Every single one of us is here, lying in various stages of sleep on the floor. We're head to toe a woven mat. No bit of concrete or carpet left uncovered.

  I come into this dream halfway dreamt. A mercy.

  Veracity is already to the point where she's thanking me for what I've done and is just about to use her first Red Listed word as an act of trust.

  "I understand now," she says, just like always. Her new mother's hand reaches in to give her a tissue. My daughter takes it, uses it. Looks up at where I'm always watching from my clear cell. "I know you were just trying to keep what happened to Hannah from happening to me."

  God, not tonight. Not this dream. I look down at my see-through hands. Try to will one of them to pinch the other, but they're against me and won't leave my lap.

  My daughter leans back and puts her head against the metal bar of the light. "You were just trying to give me back my name . . ."

  "No! Please!" I must say it out loud. I can feel my lips move. Am aware of a subtle shift in my waking world. Of someone over me.

  "Vera . . ."

  I hear the electricity before I see it behind her, blackening her long hair. Binding her to the ugly lamp with the swing-arm head. She can't move. Can't stop the metallic buzz issuing from her mouth that's traveled up from her slate. All the while, she's looking at me, not able to change her expression. Then her eyes roll up into her head so all I see are the whites and the thin veins there becoming wide. Then all the rest of it that's too horrible even to contemplate. It ends only when Veracity's new mother rushes in with a pillow at the end of her hands and knocks her free from the pole. But it's too late.

  "Harper."

  End this, Mommy. Finish this.

  "Harper!"

  See, Mom. See.

  "Harper!" It's Lilly above me. She's using both arms to shake me awake.

  "Lilly?"

  "Ssshhhhh. You're yelling!" She points at the sleeping forms who're stirring around us. "Only one more hour to dawn. Let them rest."

  She starts to leave and I put out a staying hand. "When are we going to war?"

  "What?"

  "Tomorrow morning. What time are we going to war?"

  "Six o'clock we set out. We rendezvous with the rest of our troops at seven. We'll find out th
en if we've successfully taken the hub. If so, we'll broadcast our mission to the rest of the country and invite them to join us."

  Thirty hours from now, if I don't have the identity of the main redactor, my baby will die. Lazarus will broadcast his plea, and in their zeal to join us, she and hundreds of thousands of others will try to speak a Red Listed word. If the redactor isn't taken down . . . I can't imagine. I have almost no time left to find it. The thought sucks all the moisture from my mouth.

  Overnight, we've grown from a bunker of forty-eight to a small town of over two hundred. We have enough food to feed our original group for a few weeks but won't be down here that long. So the council decides to plunder the next month's reserves. Most of us have known nothing but the frugality of poor supplies and spotty contacts. The bucketfuls of food going by have drawn everyone out.

  "Excuse me," says our cook, pushing by with a plastic tub full of vegetables between her pink arms. Inside the tub are white bulbs of onions, gray-brown heads of garlic, orange-red tomatoes, and tan, unshelled ears of corn with their tassels hanging out. Someone's brought fresh produce. Behind the cook, two men follow with meat. Brown paper packages closed with twine. What's inside we can only imagine. Everyone parts for the procession and sticks their head into the resulting wake to watch tonight's dinner as it's laid out on the kitchen's round table. Some people will stay here for the rest of the day. Eyes glazed over. Lips moist.

  I retrieve a mug of hot water and a packet of green tea. When I turn to leave, Rita Ramirez is watching me. The seventeen-year-old girl who was beat up by her boyfriend and brought to the bunker against her will.

  "Hungry?" she asks, a carrot dangling from her mouth like a cigarette. "They've opened the vegetable pantry."

  Rita is luminous today. Perhaps nerves about tomorrow have colored her skin. Or maybe it's excitement. War or no, the last time this girl saw the up top, she was only eleven years old, and it's obvious how much she's missed it.

  "No." I hold up my mug. "Just wanted something to drink."

  Rita follows me out of the kitchen and through the main hall. "You have something to wear for tonight?"