Exodia

by Debra Chapoton

  “I’m just not a good speaker,” I repeat.

  The stony silence lingers. All of the flames have extinguished now.

  I’m not a good speaker. Maybe he accepts that. Maybe I can go now.

  Your brother is a good speaker. Take your brother with you. I will send him to meet you.

  * * *

  I hurry back to the car, sloshing the jug of water a little, but saving the first swallows for Kassandra.

  I don’t have a brother.

  My mind is on overload. I jump over a rock and grab at a young sapling to pull myself up the hill.

  That crazy burning house …

  Did I really speak to David Ronel? How do I explain this to Kassandra?

  I reach level ground and look for the car. The sun is mostly up, but the trees block the rays and I’m standing in the shadows. Trembling.

  I take a couple of deep breaths.

  I spot the car and notice that both solar panels have tilted themselves automatically, a small bit of mid-century technology not lost. I wonder if the burning house is some kind of power or communications station. I look over my shoulder. I can’t see down the hill, but I make out the tip of an old cell tower popping up through the tree tops.

  I’m no longer shaking so I walk toward the car and peek in my window. Kassandra is leaning against her door with the baby nuzzled up under her chin. Her eyes flick open as soon as I put my fingers on the door handle.

  “Found some water.”

  I stuff myself into the driver’s side and hold the jug up to her lips so she doesn’t have to move or disturb Gresham. She gulps and a trickle of water finds its way down her chin.

  “Remember when I told you that one of the men who helped me escape, Vinn, said something really odd about my mother?”

  She furrows her brow.

  “Maybe I didn’t tell you. Anyway, I might have a brother.” I suppose it would have sounded just as crazy to add that a talking house told me this. She puts both her hands on the baby’s head and back to hold him against her chest as she wiggles herself straighter in the seat.

  “What? Where’d you get the water?”

  I nod toward my open door. “Down there. From David Ronel.”

  She shifts totally my way. “We’re there? We’re at the outpost already?” She’s confused. She moves Gresham into her left arm and grabs her door handle. She pushes open the door but it only goes halfway before hitting something outside.

  I speak as she repeatedly bumps the door against something, “No. I don’t think this is the outpost. If it is, it’s pretty well hidden. Or burned up.”

  I get out my side again and walk around the car. I move the obstruction so she can get out. We both stare down at the large basket.

  “How did that get here?” she asks, rocking on her feet to soothe Gresham who has begun to make protesting cries.

  I remove the cloth cover and find more water, bags of irradiated meat, and a pile of clothing scraps that look as if they were cut from blankets. Pretty useless as clothing, I think, until Kassandra squeals.

  “Diapers. Oh, Dalton, look. Just what we need.”

  She turns back to the car and lays Gresham on the seat and proceeds to change him. She talks with her back to me, all excited about the hospitality of these outpost Reds, while I look for footprints.

  * * *

  Dalton kept his eyes on the ground as he walked away from the car. Kassandra finished changing Gresham and left him on the seat. She pulled out the backpack that had been taking up half the leg space on her side and added the dirty diaper to the plastic lined side pocket.

  “Whoa, that stinks. I hope the outpost has a place to wash these.” Dalton probably didn’t hear her. She looked at the food packages and tore one open. “So much for clean hands,” she mumbled. She bit into the flavorless meat and watched Dalton as he walked around the area. He stopped by a grouping of young pines and lifted his eyes to the sky.

  Could he be praying? She didn’t understand him, was sure she didn’t love him, and, at this moment, wasn’t exactly happy with their life. Her mind kept wrestling her thoughts back to when she first met him. He puzzled her. Trying to understand him was like trying to hold smoke in her hand. He insisted that he was not a gemfry yet there were things he did and said that defied any other explanation. He used to say that she was the one with all the power. He used to say he loved her, but she knew he didn’t mean it. He hadn’t said it in months.

  Dalton’s movements changed to a hurried panic. He took hold of a large feathery pine bough and ripped it from the slender trunk. He pulled down another and another. What could he want with them? She glanced around and noticed their tire tracks. Perhaps he planned to attach the limbs to the back fender so as they traveled they would brush away evidence of their passing. She didn’t think it would work and besides, they weren’t being followed or they would have been caught by now.

  Kassandra heard the unmistakable buzz of a small aircraft. She panicked, couldn’t move, couldn’t draw a breath, and imagined a posse of soldiers about to surround them, recapture them.

  Dalton dragged the pine boughs over and spread them on the roof and covered the solar panels. He threw the backpack into the car and lifted Gresham out, closed the door, and guided a stiff Kassandra into the woods. All without a word.

  Kassandra sat next to him, sheltered under the low limbs of a big pine. She felt safe again though she whispered, “How far to the outpost? You should’ve gotten the bag.”

  Dalton shook his head. “I told you. This isn’t the outpost.”

  “But you said you talked to Ronel.”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “And what did you say about your mother? Something about having a brother?” She stared at his face, looking for a sign. Maybe she heard wrong. It didn’t make sense. His smile was so faint she thought he might be kidding.

  The plane flew over directly above them, but Kassandra kept her eyes on Dalton as he looked up through the branches, silent as usual, still ignoring her question. She studied the scar on his neck, the one he told her he got while training to do the most horrible combat imaginable. She had watched him mature these last two years as he worked hard with her father, helped her with the sheep and the crops, and joined the neighbors in building houses and barns. But she didn’t melt inside, not even a little, when she looked at his strong, masculine face. As filthy as he was, bits of dirt and grime sticking to his hair, he was still quite attractive, though she realized that she felt nothing toward him.

  “I don’t know.” He pointed down the hill. “There was … a fire down there. Some kind of communication device–but it’s not the outpost.”

  None of that made sense to Kassandra, but she cuddled the baby and waited for him to continue.

  “I think it’s gone. The plane … it’s gone.”

  “So what do we do now? You’d better uncover the solar panels or we’ll be here forever.”

  Dalton got up, flicked several ants off his legs, and strode away. Kassandra called after him, “How long do you think it’ll take to recharge?” She watched him shrug his shoulders. She hoped it wouldn’t be long. Couldn’t they drive while it sucked up the sun’s rays? The soldier told them to park and wait for dawn. Well, it was dawn.

  * * *

  I drive down the hill with my foot on the brake, staying in the middle of the curving road until it straightens out. We pass several turnoffs, dirt roads and crumbling paved ones, but I’m careful to follow the map. The way is pretty clear and we start to see people. Not close up, of course, except when an old car chugs past in the opposite direction and the people inside stare hard at me. But we see people out in fields or walking along the road or pulling carts. Some look at us with curiosity, others turn their backs. A couple of kids point their un-tattooed elbows our way. I’ve seen this challenge before when I sat in a high passenger seat in government cars.

  I hear a loud rumbling before I see the heavy construction equipment that looks out of place in
the early morning peace. We are close to the interstate highway that is marked on the map. There are several canvassed trucks carrying men to a work site. Reluctant laborers. Slaves, really. Reds who are whipped into working on the disintegrating system, moving mags from secondary roads and burying them where the Exodian government demands. We follow one of the trucks, staying far enough behind, I hope. The guard in the back waves an intimidating rifle. I power down our little Beast and let the trucks get further ahead. I turn right on the next road as if I know where I’m going, as if we belong on this road. And then left again, hoping to keep parallel to the other road, but out of sight of the soldiers.

  We pass a farm and the terrain gets rough and hilly again. There are no more crossroads so we continue this way for quite a while.

  We might be lost. The map doesn’t help. Finally we come to a gravel turnoff and I take it, hoping it runs toward the interstate. For the second time Kassandra asks me if we’re lost and for the second time I shake my head.

  The road rises, twists, turns and climbs higher. I suspect that we’re not going to find the highway up here, but I’m committed to this direction and something about the sun shining and the power indicator reaching a hundred percent and the baby sleeping makes me feel that I’m on the right path. That we are safe.

  And then I see the road block.

  I slow the car more quickly than I should and Kassandra clutches back Gresham. He gives a teeny purr, but Kassandra makes a louder whine.

  “Why would someone leave that there?” she says.

  “I’ll move it.” I stop completely and press the park button which I finally noticed. I have my door partly open when a truck pulls out of nowhere behind us and blocks us in.

  “Bluezools.” Kassandra breathes the word out with a mixture of surprise and fear. I close my door. She fumbles with the pack at her knees and I briefly picture her using dirty diapers to fight off Blue bandits. “I have your nano-gun,” she says.

  Now I’m the one to react with surprise and fear. I look toward the blockage in the road. It wouldn’t be hard to ram it aside and race on. I don’t want to use the gun.

  I look back at the truck. Both doors begin to open. If they have weapons I’ll have to use the gun.

  “The money,” I say, remembering what I had hidden in the bag. One or two coins should buy our way past them.

  A tall man jumps out of the truck, slamming the door closed. From the other side a woman emerges; she walks to the front of the truck to join the man. Slowly, and with perfect synchronization, they bend their left arms and tap their elbows. I can hear their voices softly singing. These aren’t bandits.

  They just stand there waiting, silent now, staring at us, so I open my door again. I ignore the gun that Kassandra is wiggling by my knee.

  As I rise to my full height and face these two they nod a greeting and the woman sings the last line of the song again. She sounds like my nanny. The words are clearer: at the birth of Bram O’Shea. Bram O’Shea.

  Bram O’Shea. It echoes in my memory the way my nanny sang it to me. I remember Lydia’s voice, too, when she sang so softly I only caught mo-shay. I move a step closer. Kassandra’s harsh whispers come from the car. She warns me of something. I’m vaguely aware that I’m now standing within arm’s reach of the man who seems to be my double, but a few years older. The woman is perhaps thirty, a younger version of my nanny.

  “Jacky?” It can’t be her, but there’s such a familiar feeling here. “Nanny Jacky? You look like someone I know.”

  “Our mother,” the woman says, fingering a golden locket at her throat.

  The man grins. He doesn’t hold out his elbow for a bump, but instead spreads his arms like he wants to embrace me.

  My feet don’t move. He shouts, “I can’t believe it.” His voice is comforting, baritone or maybe deeper. He lowers his arms. “Man, I can’t believe we’re finally reunited. I’m Harmon, your brother and she’s Mira, our sister. You can’t remember it, but you were saved from the Culling Mandate when our mother gave you to Battista’s daughter to raise.”

  I recognize them now. From the house nanny and I visited. The house with the crying man.

  Maybe deep down I always knew the truth.

  * * *

  We sit around their campfire. Their truck and our car are hidden well away on this deserted mountain. They’ve been here several hours waiting for me. They’ve explained it several times and yet I still ask the same questions. I insist on being called Dalton and not Bram.

  Kassandra has told them some of the anagrams that her sister has made from the name I’ve used for as long as I can remember. She wants to know my real full name. They tell her Bram Colm O’Shea and I mumble, “A lamb’s moocher.”

  My sister Mira laughs and says, “Labor aches mom.” And I see that one, too, how it fits. And then Mira tells me how my real mother, nanny Jacky, gave me to the only woman who could insure that I would not be killed when the Culling Mandate took effect. She hired on to nurse me and helped raise me until Mother sent her away.

  “Why did my grandfather, I mean Bryer Battista, allow his daughter to keep me? Wasn’t he suspicious that I was a Red?”

  Mira answers, “He didn’t know. Olivia Battista used to visit the old birthing clinic in the Red slum. That’s where she met mom. They were both expecting at the same time. Bryer found out that she wasn’t seeing the capitol doctor and forbade her to go back to the clinic. When her own son was stillborn she sent for mother and begged her to switch babies.”

  “So it wasn’t so much to save me as to replace her own child.” There were so many times my mother, that is, Olivia, was less than maternal.

  Mira nods and goes on with the story, “I went to the capitol with mom, carrying you in a bread basket, swinging you along like you were nothing important so the guards wouldn’t suspect. Luckily you didn’t make a peep or you’d have been … culled.” She glances at Gresham. “It was awful carrying away the dead baby. He got put in the mass grave with all the little Red bodies.” Her voice trails off, but then she clears her throat and says, “And mom got to work at the capitol and take care of you.”

  I rub my elbow and say, “You must have missed her … all those years she lived with me.”

  Mira nods but Harmon bites back his response, then shakes his head, “We had a tight family, good times after she came back, until they sent her and dad to work at the Suppression Border. They never came back.” He looks straight through me and says, “Bram Colm O’Shea. Bro came, shalom.”

  Kassandra smiles. She’s been quiet through the serious stuff as if it means nothing. “Shalom,” she repeats. “I like that word. It means peace, doesn’t it?” She steals the focus of the conversation but it gives me a chance to think about my real parents, to take this painful revelation and glaze it with a little hope that they’re still alive.

  “Yes,” Mira reaches for the baby, her nephew. “That’s why we’re here. Bram, I mean Dalton, is the only one who can inspire all the people to unite against the Blues.”

  “Why me?” I force myself back into the discussion.

  “I don’t know,” Mira says. “That’s what Ronel says and we believe him.”

  “Why?”

  She puts my son on her shoulder and shrugs at the same time making Gresham’s head bobble. “I don’t know. We just do. He’s always right. He knew where we’d find you today.”

  We talk until late. I tell them all about the burning house and they explain how there are several set up around the country to mimic the early century parsonage burnings, the beginning of the bans, or the Suppression uprisings. The fires keep Blues away, but there are transmission receivers and listening devices hidden inside and usually two people to man the station, Ronel’s agents, who covertly help the cause.

  I repeat Ronel’s command that Harmon is to speak in my place. He frowns at that, but doesn’t protest as I’d done.

  Chapter 10 Blood

  From the fourth page of the Ledger:

 
; When he saw the blood on the child he cried out. Then he did to his wife what she had done to his son. For he was noble.

  MIRA AND KASSANDRA slept in the bed of the truck with the baby between them while the men camped on the ground. Twice during the night Kassandra fed and changed Gresham. Mira helped and each time the two women spent a half an hour whispering back and forth.

  Kassandra was happy to have a sister-in-law. She liked Mira, fell into an easy confidence with her, and enjoyed being the younger sister for the first time. At Gresham’s second feeding she confided some concerns.

  “What do you think I should do?” she asked.

  Mira stretched out and rested her head on her hand. “In a perfect world you wouldn’t have to mark your precious baby and permanently brand him to a life of slavery, poverty, and oppression. But if you try to hide who he is, sooner or later the truth comes out.”

  “Like Dalton,” Kassandra said. “He really wants to tattoo Gresham, but I wasn’t raised that way.”

  “Let me tell you something that may change your mind. Executive President Truslow has passed a new amendment to the immigration law and it extends to every single person, Blue or Red.”

  “What is it?” Kassandra frowned in the darkness.

  “Death to all who are not tattooed. Babies included. You have until the baby is eight days old.”

  Kassandra shivered. “He’s twice that.” She thought about it for a while and became conscious that they were both missing something important. “Mira …?” But Mira had fallen back to sleep. Kassandra mulled it over some more. If Dalton was the supposed great liberator of the Reds, why should they continue to submit to the Blues? The greatest resistance would be to ignore such a mandate and leave Gresham, and herself, untattooed.

  Yet it seemed that Mira was encouraging her to resign herself to subjugation.

  She was suddenly too tired to make sense of it all. Gresham finished nursing. She burped him and tried to get as comfortable as she could, cradling her son as if she were wearing the sling. Her last thought before slipping off to sleep was of Sana yelling at her in her cryptic code: rotate dot.