Wonder

by Christina C Jones

  What?

  “Gran. Gran… I’m not Mari. I’m Alyson, Mari’s daughter. I need you to tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m not doing this with you today, you’re not fooling anybody girl,” Gran scolded, waving me off. “I know my child.”

  “Okay. Okay,” I told her, in a soothing tone. “We can talk about something else then. Can you…” I glanced around myself this time, ensuring our privacy. “Can you tell me about the revolution in the Burrows?”

  Gran rolled her eyes. “Oh God, this again little girl? You’re damn right I can tell you – I can tell you that your little meetings don’t give you death tolls, do they? They don’t tell you about all the people that died, or got tortured, or went to prison for that foolishness!”

  “Foolishness?” I countered. “Cause it looks a lot like freedom.”

  “You’re free now! And safe.”

  “We’re not,” I hissed. “Not either of those things.”

  “Don’t you talk back – you’re not too old for an ass whipping.”

  I slid along the edge of the bench, getting closer to her, as close as I could. “Listen to me – I need you to tell me what kind of meetings you’re talking about?”

  “What meetings?”

  Goddamnit.

  “How long you been here?” she asked, when I didn’t answer about the meetings. “Where’s Nadiah?”

  My eyes narrowed. “Nadiah had classes today. Remember?”

  “Oh. Yes, I guess so,” she answered, though her expression had shifted from her anger a moment ago, to confusion now.

  “Gran, who am I?”

  Her frown deepened. “What kind of question is that baby, you’re my granddaughter. You’re Alyson.”

  I sat back, blowing out a sigh. “Right. But when I first got here, you thought I was mom.”

  Gran’s mouth cracked into a smile. “You look like my Mari. Especially with those braids. Pretty as a peach, just like her.”

  “Yeah, you’ve told me that,” I replied. “But you mentioned something about her going to… dangerous meetings. About saving people, or something like that. What is that about?”

  Her smile melted away, her expression turning solemn as she shook her head. “That ain’t nothing for you to worry about. Trouble you don’t need, okay?”

  “Don’t tell me that. I’m not a little girl anymore, okay? Why do you always get so tight-lipped when I ask you about them?”

  “Who?”

  “My parents.” I sighed again. “I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me, and there’s not a lot of time left. There’s no time left, Gran. You were worried about mom and dad – worried about them getting shot, about me and Nadiah getting taken away. I’ve never heard this before now, but I need you to tell me what it’s about. What were they involved with?”

  “Trouble.” She fixed me with a glare – familiar, immovable. “I promised to protect you – to keep you from getting involved. I may be on my death bed, but I kept it together this long – I ain’t about to break it now.”

  I huffed. “Ignorance is not protection – it’s a disservice! Do you think Nadiah and I are better for not knowing there was another option out there for our lives? Do you think we’re free, here? Safe?! We can’t even have a goddamn party! Can’t have too many people in the same aisle at the market at the same time! We’re just cogs. Keeping the wheels of the Apex turning while they live in fucking luxury and I have to make a hard decision to buy a stick of butter,” I growled. “We could’ve had a life in the Burrows.”

  Her head snapped up. “Who told you that?!”

  “I’ve seen it for myself,” I told her, earning wide, horrified eyes as a response. “If you don’t want to tell me, fine. But I will find out.”

  “You know what they do to people who ask questions,” Gran hissed, albeit shakily. “They smack them down – which is what they will do to you – to us – if you pursue this.”

  “Then tell me what you know.” I got down in her face, pleading, hoping she could see the desperation in my eyes. “There’s no need for me to go looking, when you know things! Things you have hidden from me long enough.”

  “No. No,” she said, determined.

  Only… I was determined too.

  I hadn’t come here for this – I hadn’t known this existed. But now, because of her, I did. And there was no way I was going to just let it go.

  I stood, looking Gran in her tired eyes. Any guilt I felt over going back and forth with her this way, I swallowed, because this wasn’t okay.

  We weren’t safe.

  We weren’t free.

  But we could’ve been.

  Or maybe not.

  But we could’ve had a choice.

  Instead, we’d lived years and years in fear, not knowing there was another way of life. I didn’t fault her for trying to protect us, but the truth was, I didn’t feel protected at all.

  I felt swindled.

  It was one thing for the Apex to do it, but my flesh and blood?

  “Fine,” I told her. “Then come what may.”

  I turned to leave and didn’t look back, stalking down hall after hall to get back to the entrance. I was almost there, turning the last corner, when I walked right into someone heading the way I’d just come.

  “Shit, sorry,” I muttered, stepping back to regain my footing. It wasn’t until I looked up, eyes focused, that I realized I knew the person rubbing her elbow to quiet the sting of our collision. “… Isabelle?”

  The woman frowned, bringing her eyes back up to mine. Her frown faded once her eyes lit with recognition. “Alyson? Girl, I haven’t seen you since…”

  “Graduation,” I filled in for her, nodding. “It’s been a long time.”

  At least six or seven years. I’d attended high school with Isa, and hadn’t seen her since then – she was from a worse part of the Mids than I was, close to the Burrows.

  “It has,” she agreed. “Do you ever see anyone else from our class?”

  I shook my head. “Not regularly, no. I’ve seen people in passing over the years, but everybody is working all over the place, or got to another division, or…got taken away.”

  Isa let out a deep sigh. “Yeah. What are you doing here though? At this facility?”

  “My grandmother,” I explained. “You?”

  “My father.” When my eyes went wide, she nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty messed up. He hadn’t been right since my mother passed though, and now he’s just been worse and worse. Dementia.”

  My shoulders sank. “I’m so, so sorry Isa.”

  “Thank you. We always want to see them as invincible, and strong, but then you realize they are just as fragile and human as you are. Maybe more.”

  Her bag had been hanging limp over her arm, and must have been sliding lower as she spoke. When it dropped, the contents spilled all over the floor.

  I kneeled to help, snagging a tiny, worn paperback she’d dropped. That was Isa, always, with her nose in a book.

  It was a memory that made me smile.

  Before I could glance at the title, Isa had snatched it from my hand, tucking it away in the confines of her bag, and piling everything else on top.

  “It was my mother’s,” she explained, shaken that I’d seen it, though I didn’t understand what the hell I was looking at. “From her rare collection. I shouldn’t have it out, but—”

  “You don’t have to defend yourself,” I told her. “I think it’s cool, to still have old books like that, that weren’t confiscated.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, well they tried. My mother was just great at hiding them.”

  “Do you know if you have anything that’s about a revolution?”

  Isa laughed. “Uh, yeah. Tons of stuff about all different—”

  “—in the Burrows.”

  Her words died on her lips.

  “Aly…” Her voice was quieter now – tense. Scared. “I think you know that’s not a topic—”

 
“I do. I mean, I figured. And I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything, I—”

  “I get it,” Isa nodded. “But if the wrong person heard you even asking… it’s that bad. Especially now.”

  My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, especially now?”

  “Rumblings,” Isa said. “People are getting frustrated.” She smiled. “I know you, Aly, you keep your head down, focused, so you don’t see it. But it’s there. Just an undercurrent, but still.”

  “No, I know what you mean. I know that the Apex has been feeding us lies. I know the Burrows isn’t what they’ve made it seem.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Good. But don’t get yourself in trouble. They’re not known for mercy.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “I know.”

  “For what it’s worth, most of the books are too damaged to do anything with. And of the ones that aren’t, I haven’t seen any that are about… your current interest,” she said, adjusting her words because of a nurse passing by with a group of visitors.

  “Thank you,” I told her. “You’ve still given me plenty. I won’t hold you up from checking on your father.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, I’d better move along. My husband doesn’t like when I’m off on my own too long.”

  “Husband?!”

  Not that it was uncommon, but Isa had always been more interested in books than boys back in school, so it threw me a little, though we weren’t teenagers anymore. And the derisive inflection she’d put on the word…

  “Yeah,” she groaned. “Not my choice.”

  “What?!”

  “No! No, not like that,” she clarified, shaking her head. “I had a say in the matter, I just couldn’t afford to take care of my father. So I did what I had to do. Some rich Apex bastard who I luckily haven’t had to do. Yet. He’s been too busy terrorizing.”

  “Isa…”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds. Really. I got what I needed, and he doesn’t touch me, so it’s a good set up. I’m okay.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She smiled, pulling me into a hug. “Yeah. I gotta go – I’ll see you around.”

  “Of course,” I told her, though I wasn’t that sure.

  I walked out of the care facility with my mind reeling, with way too much information. I spent the entire trip back to my house with my head on a swivel, absorbing the details of everything around me. Usually, I was so focused on not being followed, not giving anyone the wrong idea – tunnel vision, for mine and Nadiah’s protection – that I didn’t see my surroundings.

  Now I did.

  The worn and raggedy streets and buildings, the graffiti, the faded posters, the kids younger than Nadiah, begging on the streets between being chased by APF officers. People, not unlike me, ignoring it all, just trying to go about their day without making eye contact, lest they invite trouble.

  I couldn’t believe I’d ever bought into the lie that we deserved this life. That we could work our way to better.

  No.

  This was all they ever planned to give us.

  Anything more would have to be taken.

  Someone was knocking on the door again.

  This time, though, it was at the front door, not the back, and not to mention still daylight outside. Nadiah and I were putting dinner together, both intending to go to sleep early to accommodate the busyness tomorrow would bring.

  When the knocking – pounding, really – started, both of us looked up, then at each other, for a possible explanation. Nadiah shrugged, and I moved to the front door, wiping my hands as I went. I put my eye up to the peephole, then scrambled backward, almost tripping over my feet.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  I’d been warned to be careful, warned not to ask questions.

  Warned to stay out of trouble.

  And yet, the APF was at my door.

  The conversation with my grandmother had just been this morning, and already, here they were.

  Shit.

  “Nadiah!” I hissed, then turned to find her right behind me.

  “What?” she asked. “Who is it?!”

  I took a deep breath. “It’s the police, okay? Listen – I need you to hide. And get the pager Maddox gave me. It’s in my room, in my top drawer. Get it and then go out the window. Go to the safest place you can think of, and contact him, okay? And then wait for him to tell you what to do next.”

  “Aly, you’re crazy if you think I’m about to—”

  “They’re here for me, Nadiah.” The pounding started again, more urgent, more demanding this time. I squeezed her hands. “If you stay, they’ll take both of us. If you go… maybe we can get help. Go. And close the room door. I’ll occupy them.”

  “Aly, seriously—”

  “Now, Nadiah!”

  She huffed and puffed about it, but she went. As soon as I heard the bedroom door close, I opened the front, halfway expecting to be greeted with a backhand for having the nerve to make them wait.

  That didn’t happen.

  Instead, the APF officers stood back, making way for another man to step through. He was tall, and broad, dressed in the traditional stark, spotless white of people with status in the Apex. He looked down his nose at me – clearly agitated. His eyes were a cruel, terrifying gray that froze me in place, staring at the dark, jagged scar that bisected an otherwise handsome golden-brown face.

  “You are not Nadiah Little.”

  Nadiah?

  “Where is she?” the man asked, in a tone that invited obedience, and promised nastiness for anything else.

  I swallowed, hard, readying my mouth to tell the lie that she was anywhere but here.

  Before I could, she spoke.

  “I’m right here. Who are you, and what do you want?”

  My head whipped around and there she was, standing defiantly at the kitchen counter, arms crossed.

  “Adam Bishop. National Security.”

  Nadiah’s eyebrows went up, just slightly. “You mean Apex National Security.”

  “Obviously.”

  What the hell is happening right now?

  “How can we help you, Mr. Bishop?” I asked, turning back to him. “What are you doing in my home?”

  His nose curled into a derisive little snarl as he glanced around, then back. “You can’t help me. Your sister, however, can.”

  “How exactly?” I countered, not backing down. “She’s barely an adult.”

  “She was offered a scholarship. Aerospace technology and robotics. She was identified by her university as having an affinity for it. Therefore, the Apex has proffered the privilege of continuing her studies with us, where she’ll have access to better resources, limitless informational materials, and the opportunity for real life, hands-on experience,” he stated, sounding like a brochure.

  Like propaganda.

  “Hands-on experience?” I spoke up. “Don’t you mean, the Apex wants to put her to work? The privilege isn’t hers. It's theirs.”

  His nostrils flared. “It is a more than generous offer.”

  “I don’t accept,” Nadiah said, with certainty. I’d asked her about the scholarship a few times since she’d revealed the official offer, but time had made me less convinced it was a good idea.

  This little visit sealed it.

  “Excuse me?” Bishop asked, anger flashing in his cold eyes.

  “She said she doesn’t accept your offer,” I told him, even though he damn well knew what she said.

  His unsettling gaze slid to me as a slow, chilling grin unfolded across his lips. “That you believe this is optional is the funniest thing I’ve heard all day.”

  “What?” Nadiah and I echoed, both struck off guard by those words.

  Bishop stepped back, full-on smiling now as he headed for the door. “Tomorrow morning,” he said. “Present yourself at the Apex gate to be checked in, or I will come and get you myself. And I promise – I won’t be as pleasant as I was today.”

  And then he was go
ne.

  Just strolled out, as casually as if he’d come by to ask to borrow a little sugar as a neighbor, not like he was leaving turmoil in his wake.

  I slammed the door behind him, bolting it closed before I turned to Nadiah.

  “Pack a bag – we’re leaving.”

  Nadiah huffed – not defiantly. Defeated. “And going where?” she asked. “They probably already have people watching the house, there’s no way we’re getting past them. And if we do where could we go? You think we’d make it all the way to where, the Burrows?”

  “I don’t know, Nadiah!” I snapped. “But I know I am not turning you over to these people without at least trying. This isn’t just about you getting an Apex degree – they want you there to put you to work on… something. Something they can’t figure out by themselves, so they need to add you and your brain to the mix, so they can further whatever fucked up agenda they have going. But I will tell you this – if they want you without a fight, they’re gonna have to kill me.”

  “Do you think that’s a deterrent? You think they care about you sacrificing your life for mine?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not at all. But I know I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t try. Go pack a bag.”

  Her shoulders dropped, but she did as I asked. That was all I cared about for the moment anyway. Sending her off to collect whatever she could fit in her backpack gave me a chance to stand still for a moment, to process what was happening.

  Too much.

  Too fast.

  I pushed out a deep breath and forced my feet to move, digging out a backpack from my closet. I only bothered with a bit of clothing in the bag, knowing it would be the least of my concerns over the next few days.

  Necessities only, I chided myself, as I grabbed the things I might need from the bathroom. Nadiah’s things were already gone from there, and I found her in the kitchen, digging through the cabinets for non-perishable snacks to shove in her bag.

  Like those damn “cheese” balls.

  Those had kinda been the start of everything.

  The awakening.

  “Ah!” Nadiah shrieked, startling both of us.