by V. K. Ludwig
“Hm,” her tone had nothing of the I-give-up qualities one might expect. Not with Ruth. From her, the breathed sound carried a whole lot of we-ain’t-done-yet. The council would never replace her though. Besides, she already knew too much.
“Guess we discovered the first lapse in this experiment,” she said, trying way too hard to sound nonchalant.
Nonetheless, I spun around and tried equally hard not to sound too interested. “What lapse?”
“How are you going to evaluate your independent variable? If you want to measure how attracted you feel to a woman… then you need?” Her voice drew the end of the sentence into a high-pitched question.
I felt my shoulders drop at the fact that she had realized it too. “A woman.”
“Exactly. If you don’t want me as your constant variable to observe your changes and reactions, well… then there is no experiment. And it's not like you can just wait and see how you react to the women around you. They might notice something and report you.”
My blood froze in my veins, threatening to make my brain burst from my skull. How could I have been so stupid? She was right. As long as I didn’t know how I would react to the water, being around other women could blow my cover. Our cover.
I paced back and forth between the window and the holo-projector. “Alright, sidekick. What do you suggest? And don’t even think about coming that close to me again. I have to work with you every day, so let’s keep things less awkward than they already are.”
Questions spun in my head like a Ferry’s Wheel. What if the water didn’t control my — I swallowed hard — sexual desires? At some point in history, the council deemed them dangerous enough to have a massive ten-feet steel reinforced concrete wall separate us from those who didn’t suppress them. Talking about a broad hint…
“Here, sit down.” Ruth got up from her chair and rolled it over to me.
I sat down, and for a moment her eyes hung on the rats across the room, probably munching on carrots and celery behind a sheet of glass. She shifted her gaze to me and cocked her head, but her tight blonde updo remained still. “I found you a controlled variable, Max, and she is
absolutely perfect.”
I swung my arms behind my back, a barely audible crack coming from somewhere along my spine which shot tingles across my body. “It’s already bad enough that you know. We can’t risk involving more people. Besides, people in the Districts aren’t exactly open-minded when it comes to those things.”
“I agree.”
She walked over to me and kneeled down beside me, playing with her holo-band until a projection opened up. Plato, one of our most popular news anchors, moved his lips, but Ruth had put the volume way down. He interviewed people with earnest-looking faces, probably experts on one thing or another. Then the hologram changed into a woman with hair the color of an old penny, a huge guy covered in tattoos standing next to her.
“She is absolutely perfect,” Ruth said. “And who would be more willing to help us with this project than a clanswoman?”
“Wait, wait, wait.” I held my hand up gesturing her to slow down. “A clan is sending one of their women? Like… over here?”
“They announced it last night. How can you not know about this, when the news beams lit up at every corner to transmit the interview with councilwoman Kenya?”
Because the Drainpipes had no news beams. “Must have fallen to sleep on the couch.”
Wow! A clanswoman in the Districts. Probably the reason why I went in and out unnoticed. Everyone had stared at the building-high hologram of a government official, while I sneaked through the Drainpipes.
“Controlled variable aside, we can’t trust the clanswoman to keep her mouth shut about all this. And even if she did, why on earth would she be willing to help us?” My mouth turned as dry as the disabled well on the other side of town, making me grab for my bottle so I could have another sip of uncertainty.
“How about you come up with something? Offer her something she is used to but can’t have here. Or how about we just tell her that the trial is sanctioned. Or hey! Tell her we are… um…” She snapped her fingers, looking for that one word people rather avoided.
“Nonconformists?” I asked.
She gave me the thumbs-up, the expression on her face suddenly wary as if she knew she just stepped on that unknown terrain I called home. Of course, she did. Everyone in this district had heard just where exactly I came from.
“Maybe a mix of all those things?” she continued. “Do they use protein powder over there as well, or do they still hunt and raise livestock for meat?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “How would I know?”
“Hm.” She tapped her index finger against her pale pink lips. “Just wondering if we can get meat. Don’t exactly have the connections.”
The way she stretched that last word made her real question all the more apparent. She supported her theatrical ignorance with a cocked head and innocent eyes.
I swiveled my chair away from her. “I was told the walls are pretty tight now, and not much is getting in or out.”
“Who told you that?”
My dad. Last night. “Just something I picked up somewhere when I walked by the Drainpipes. Still, even if all this works the way you picture it, how would we even get in touch with her to make this work? Wouldn’t the council chaperone her?”
“You are looking at her chaperone.” She stood up tall and pushed her chest out, a devious grin on her face making my stomach bubble as if the water wanted back out the way it came in. “They assigned Lisa first, but she came down with a stomach bug this morning. Unexpectedly.”
“A stomach bug?”
“Riiight?” she asked, quickly turning away from me. She walked over to the rat cages, rummaging one of the drawers for dried carrot chips and other rodent snacks.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I jumped right at the opportunity and offered myself as a replacement.”
“Of course you did…” My voice came out thick with sarcasm. The experiment hadn’t even started yet, and things already got wonky.
She ignored me and kept on talking. “She will be my roommate for a year, and the council gave permission to let her help here at the lab. That means I can bring her to the lab without anyone growing suspicious. You should meet her as soon as she gets here! And Max…”
Ruth turned around and pointed her finger at me. Her jaw clenched. Her posture stiff. Screaming guilt before the crime. “Please, please… just for once think before you speak, and try to be as charming as possible.”
A sudden twitch tugged on my eyes. What the hell did that even mean?
“Charming?” I told my body to relax, but my arms swung in front of my chest as if on trial. “For your information… I grew up with a sister, so I know how to handle women. Don’t you worry about my charm.”
Chapter 7
The Districts
Autumn
They had pulled the good china out, a rose theme polished to a shine, which kept the daisy-white tablecloths down that danced underneath a soft breeze.
After they had paraded me through one of their three gates, people staring at me with pity as if they had taken in a refugee, they brought me here. They rubbed their grandeur right under my nose.
I stood there, all dressed up and with nowhere to go, and counted the seven round tables which stood scattered across the immaculately trimmed lawn.
Each grass stalk cut to the same height stood at attention like a battalion of obedient soldiers. Except when seaweed braided slippers pushed them into the ground with nonchalant steps.
The sun blasted down on us and warmed my body. Almost to the point of sleepiness. But the withered ferns in the black and white striped pots told me they had surrendered to the first hard frost.
The dinosaur who had introduced herself as councilwoman Kenya fanned a hand at herself. Her eyes darted around with the uneasiness of someone who had the runs but no tree to hide behind.
“They told me
she is usually very reliable,” she said, “and I have no idea why she did not arrive here in time. But not to worry. This will be a great opportunity for you to get to know the others before she takes you to your community home.”
All I had for her was a lazy nod, and sure enough, just a minute later a guy strolled over to us with a big, friendly smile on his face.
“I am councilman Merrick,” he said and did a quick almost-but-not-really bow.
I held my hand out. “Pleasure to meet you.”
His eyes wandered across my fingers as if checking for a contagious rash first, but he eventually shook it like a little girl which made me giggle on the inside.
“I didn’t expect I would meet someone from the clans in my lifetime, but here you are.”
“Yeah,” I raised a brow at him, “here I am.”
Here I was, standing in my steel-capped tactical boots among tree-huggers, who strolled across the symmetric gardens in what seemed like thirty different shades of tan. Their hands folded in front of their chests, I could have sworn they all prayed for my salvation.
That was bullshit of course because we all heard the stories about how they closed down churches and burned religious books in sky-high fires. Nobody cared about salvation here — especially not mine.
He glanced over his shoulders and leaned in closer. “I always wondered if it is true that the Clan of the Woodlands sacrifices a person once a year, hoping to appease their heathen gods and ask them for a good harvest.”
Excellent, another tale of the savages living beyond the wall, scaring the kids who won’t eat their brussels sprouts. His question shouldn’t have surprised me, but the fact that they saw nothing in us but a group of freaks made my fingers tingle nonetheless.
“Councilman Merrick that is hardly an appropriate question.” Councilwoman Kenya supported the irritation in her voice with a dismissive wave of her hand.
My blood already roared in my ears.
“Only if we can get our hands on a male virgin,” it blurted out of me, “the wrath of the gods would strike us down if we offered anything less. I guess if you had the same custom here you wouldn’t have to worry since you have so many of them.”
Shock loomed on his face, manifesting itself in clenched lips and a forehead lined with such deep craters, they grew all the way up to his half-bald head. The bigger his eyes grew, the wider stretched the smirk on the councilwoman's face, which she hid from him underneath her hand.
“It… it is true then,” he stammered. “Young lady, you have my sympathies for having to live among them.”
“The young lady has a name, councilman, and it is Autumn,” Kenya said. “I was told a few decades ago it became quite popular to name children after something nature-related. Am I right?”
I nodded, taking my death-stare away from councilman Merrick and letting it soften once it reached the wrinkled face of Kenya.
Merrick cocked his head which formed a double chin on one side of his neck. For a moment I couldn’t help but wonder how that came to be on a diet consisting of veggies, fruits, and protein powder.
Kenya continued, “and why is that if I may ask?”
“I mean, I got no clue who came up with the idea,” I said, “but it is supposed to remind us where we come from and where we belong. We are part of nature, along with everything that surrounds us. And as a part of it, we have to obey its rules, even if that means —”
“Oh, there she is!” The councilman stared right past me and lifted his arm up.
Asshole. Guess my stories were only interesting for as long as they pictured us as the women-raping, gizzards-eating, virgin-burning savages they thought we were.
I took a step toward him, ready to give him a piece of my mind, but Kenya gently wrapped her hand around my wrist. “Autumn, say do your children sometimes play whisper down the lane?”
Her question confused me at first, but I played along. “Uh-huh.”
She leaned into me. “The clans have been a sore subject for decades my dear, and there was little to no communication between us during all this time. You will meet a lot of prejudice while you are here, but your brother assured me that you are fit to handle it.”
A reassuring smile followed. “After all, we are hoping that this exchange will bring us closer once more, and open new ways to openly communicate with each other. He meant no offense.”
I swallowed hard at her words and pulled the collar of my rabbit-hide vest. A poor choice as it turned out, and I brushed the fur off my damp neck underneath the blasting sun.
This was the Obsidian District, or so I was told, which was the top-most northern part of the Districts, and home to the council. But still, my mouth watered at the thought of the many fruits I was sure they could grow down here.
Definitely apricots and maybe even persimmons if they used greenhouses along with light reflectors. A step up from the seven varieties of apples we grew, and the occasional pear. Oh, and lingonberries, of course. Lingonberries everywhere — as jam, on pancakes, on steak, mixed into salads or dried for a quick pick-me-up.
A woman about my age walked up to us, visibly exhausted and puffing like a fire choked by a fresh load of leaves. Blonde strands had fallen out of her tight updo and into her ruddy face, which she fumbled out of the way, struggling a smile on her chapped lips.
“I am so sorry. The tram…” She walked up next to me, leaned over, supported her hands on her thighs and took a couple of deep breaths. “The tram, they… it wasn’t repaired yet, and I had no idea. So I had to… had to run all the way here, because the bicycles were all —”
“Oh, that is quite alright, dear. We should have told you that the tram took quite a hit and send a car to pick you up,” Kenya said.
Merrick crossed his arms in front of his chest. “It is an embarrassment that those people were able to put one of our lines out of commission like that.”
Kenya’s eyes squinted him an angered look, and she shook her head ever so slightly, but his statement already caught my interest.
“What people? And are you saying that someone broke it?” I asked.
Kenya’s eyes flung upward. The girl next to me looked to the side as if her mind tried to escape the tension which built up inside the little circle we had formed.
Merrick sucked in his lips and see-sawed back and forth from his heels to his toes, tugging on his sleeves like someone who had spilled the beans.
I knew something had happened. Something they didn’t want me to know. At that moment, my perspective of this stupid exchange took a shift. What if I can get my hands on some insider information?
“One of our trams has been giving us grief ever since the last thunderstorm,” Kenya said. “Councilman Merrick thinks the repairs have not been handled efficiently by the crew who was supposed to have it fixed days ago. Is that not what you meant by what you said, Merrick?”
His head nodded up and down like one of those seals people used to train back when there were zoos. “That is correct. I apologize if what I said confused you, Autumn. Our community members don’t have a reason to break things. Is vandalism a problem the clan struggles with?”
Do broken chairs, shattered mugs and punched noses count if vandalized during one of the many brawls between our men after they had one too many? I contemplated that for a moment. “Not really, unless you count the damage trash panda’s sometimes leave behind.”
“You have panda’s up there?” the girl squealed. “I thought they went extinct decades ago, not to mention they aren’t even from this continent.”
“No, not real panda bears. I meant the raccoons. They often come at night and rummage through our trashcans and sheds scavenging for food, and they can leave quite a mess behind. We just call them trash panda’s because of the …” I let my voice trail off, gesturing both my index fingers over my eyes.
“Oh!” Kenya said in awe. “We have raccoons at one of our faunatoriums only twenty minutes from here. I always found them adorable, with their impressive fi
ne motor skills.”
I smacked my lips together, trying hard to keep my mouth shut. If a raccoon hisses at you from your pantry, with nothing on you but your pajamas and a broomstick, you might not find them quite so adorable.
“Um.” The girl turned to me with a shy smile on her face. “I am Ruth by the way.”
I was just about to shake her hand, but as soon as I put a smile on my face, she pulled me into a warm hug saying, “I am so excited to get to know you better.”
“I guess with all the talk about trams and trash pandas I forgot my manners,” Kenya said. “Ruth will be your roommate while you are with us, and she will also serve as your guide. With that being said, I think you should take her straight to the community home, Ruth. I am sure Autumn is very exhausted from her travels, considering their car broke down and left them stranded for an hour.”
Merrick tapped his holo-band. “Ruth, please don’t forget that we sent you the files with all the things you can show Autumn while she is here, along with less than a handful of restrictions.”
He turned toward me, putting his most-winning smile on. “While you are with us, we want you to feel as much at home as possible. At the same time, we would like you to learn a little bit more about our way of life here.”
After I didn’t say anything about his proposal, he went on, “Nothing on the list is mandatory, but there are a few things we recommend you tried. You have a functioning holo-band waiting for you at the community home. But if you want to get in touch with chieftain Rowan, it can be arranged at one of our projectors that ties into both networks.”
After we exchanged formal goodbyes, Ruth led me along a red brick pathway toward the corner of the park, where a black Hummer waited for us.
The drive took less than ten minutes, during which I pushed my face against the window and answered most of Ruth’s questions with less than six syllables. Everything about this place fascinated and creeped me out at the same time.
Other than the trunks of the ornamental trees, which were planted along the narrow asphalt road in an alternating pattern of pink and orange blossoms, nothing seemed to be made of wood.