“This is where we’ll store our ammunition and weapons. And your personal belongings. Eventually, we’ll store supplies and seeds we take from the plantation. This will also be our designated meeting place. So if we get separated, we meet here in six months to the day.”
Mom and I weeded through our bags and made a pile of personal belongings. I didn’t want to leave behind anything, but at the plantation outpost the Officers would destroy everything. Mom clutched a family photo. Tears rolled down her dirt-stained cheeks. She slid the photo inside her Bible and put it in the pile. We wrapped up our bags with tarps and put them in a hole the men had dug.
I looked at Rags. “I can’t leave Rags.” I didn’t attempt to hold back my tears. It would’ve been impossible.
“Don’t worry, Lillian, she’ll stay here with Steven. To man the fort,” John said, patting my shoulder.
Steven was staying behind to catalog and manage the supplies we would sneak off the plantations. He’d also help others like us. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. He was supposed to be in college, not manning a hidden bunker deep in the woods. I hated leaving Rags, but I’d rather leave her alive than see her taken away at the plantation. I let go of her leash. She tap-danced circles around me, wagging her tail. Steven called her name and she ran over and licked his face.
“She’s the best companion,” I told him.
“We’ll take good care of each other,” he said, picking her up.
She snuggled against his tattooed biceps. I nestled my face into hers and inhaled. Even with the layers of dirt and ash, she still smelled like kettle corn. “I’ll be back soon,” I cried into her fur.
We hiked five miles north and reached the plantation outpost as the sun set. Layers of orange and pink clouds stretched across the skyline. We were exhausted.
“Familiarize yourselves with the surrounding woods. They’ll be our path to freedom,” John reminded us before we split up in the crowd.
The plantation outpost swarmed with survivors waiting in lines to be checked in. Everyone looked pale and bony, wearing filthy torn clothes. Some could barely stand up straight. Everyone had the same wide-eyed look of terror. Dusk turned into night. Spotlights glared in our faces. Officers sat at tables writing down names and handing out pieces of paper with locations and assignments. Buses rolled up and collected the people throughout the night. By a miracle, everyone in our group of seven was assigned to the same plantation. Unfortunately, it was farthest from headquarters.
We arrived at the plantation almost near Santa Barbara, and the women and men were separated and moved into large warehouses. We stripped off our clothes and they hosed us down with icy cold water. Afterwards they handed out wool blankets and two uniforms—one for day work and one for evening.
The next morning we woke at dawn to the jarring sound of a battle horn. They assigned specific areas of work depending on age and body type. We’d manage acres and acres of land, sharing the duties of plowing, planting and harvesting.
I was assigned to the teens’ group, along with Aaron. Our job assignment was to start work at sunrise in the fields, where we worked in the hot sun until evening. Back at our warehouses, we’d eat dinner with the others. Sometimes I’d fall asleep halfway through my serving of mashed potatoes and beets. Other times I’d sneak outside to meet Aaron. We’d lay in the cornfield telling stories about our old lives. All the while, our group gathered seeds and supplies, hiding our stash in the woods at the far end of the plantation.
One hot summer afternoon, a couple months after our arrival, Aaron and I were scheduled to deliver the current batch of supplies to Steven at headquarters.
“You’ll leave right after your Sunday shift, pick up the Jeep and drive through the back trails, drop off the supplies at headquarters, and return before your Monday morning shift.”
I remember thinking I didn’t want to return to the plantation. That I’d rather live in the woods with Rags and Aaron.
After one of the longest, hottest days of plowing the fields, Aaron and I went back to our warehouses, grabbed dinners and snuck into the forest to pick up the supplies and seeds stored in a metal box hidden under a myrtle bush. We stuffed the supplies into our backpacks and ran off into the woods. We hiked five miles to the Jeep, and drove the remaining fifteen miles to headquarters. I drove the Jeep while Aaron navigated, following the hand-drawn map John provided.
“I can’t wait to see my little Rags,” I said.
“I’m happy we’re together. Can you stop for a second?”
I stopped the Jeep and looked at Aaron. He smiled and leaned toward me. We stared at each other for a few awkward moments, then he kissed me—my first kiss. We stayed locked together for what seemed like an hour, but was only a few minutes.
The path got bumpy and the bushes grew thicker, the tree markers more difficult to see. We had to focus to make sure we stayed on the right path. I spotted a glimmer of a red flag in the distance.
“Look, there’s headquarters,” I said.
I parked the Jeep and we jumped out. I started to run toward the bunker, but Aaron yanked my shirt and motioned for me to slow down. I forgot we weren’t safe. He whistled our signal. We crouched behind some bushes waiting for a response. Silence.
“Wait here,” he told me.
I sat on the cold ground and waited. When he didn’t return right away, I knew something was wrong. I walked over to the bunker not caring if I got caught. I found Aaron crouched over Steven’s dead body. He clutched Rags in his tattooed arms. Shot down. Probably by some new militia force, or thieves. I dropped to the ground and pried Rags out from Steven’s locked grip.
“Why? I don’t understand why,” I sobbed, holding her in my arms. Aaron held me until we didn’t have any more tears.
We buried Rags and Steven under an oak tree. I fastened her collar around my left wrist and kissed her name tag. She’d be my motivator to work harder to free our people.
Aaron loaded the supplies in the bunker, and he drove back. Both of us were too drained to talk. We parked the Jeep in a new location and hiked back to the plantation in silence.
I said goodbye to Rags, my sister and brother, my father, my old life. I promised I wouldn’t let their endings be the final word. I wiped away the last of my tears. It would be a long time before I cried again.
*
Ava closed the book. Tears streaked her face. Though her emotions were monitored and managed, Ava’s feelings somehow always broke through whatever was attempting to block them. Lillian’s story touched a place inside—the same place she felt when dancing, or watching a sad movie with Delilah. After she settled down, the questions started rolling through her mind: what did Lillian’s story have to do with her people? She felt horrible about what happened, but that was so long ago, in the days before. It was no secret the City Center was designed to create and nurture higher-minded individuals—that was its entire purpose. If a corrupt group of elites initiated the project, what was she supposed to do about it now? They were long gone. Civilization had moved on.
“Time?” she asked.
“The time is 2:45 a.m. Your sleep pod has been prepared for your resting state.”
“System mute,” Ava instructed.
Now she was even more confused: why had Joseph given her the book? She wondered if that was his plan—to create confusion so the Outsiders could start a revolution and take control of the City Center. She had less than three hours before morning and she needed sleep, otherwise she’d suffer at rehearsal, upsetting James and Helena to no end. She climbed into her sleep pod and tucked the book into her tracksuit where it would be safe. As she drifted to sleep, Lillian’s story flashed like a movie. The world was full of darkness in the days before—she couldn’t do much of anything, except try to forget everything.
The Feed
Chief Morray stood
in his office observing multiple surveillance monitors. Dawn eased its way over the hills and he was exhausted having spent the entire night studying the feeds. He wouldn’t rest until he figured out how the Outsider broke into his mainframe and blocked the entire system for three minutes. In those three minutes anything could have happened. But the Outsider wasn’t talking. Not even with Dickson’s team of top Planners working on his memory recall. That level of breach was almost impossible—Morray would have to contact his sources on the Outside to dig for more information.
There was an additional problem: the young Successor Candidate Ava Rhodes. He wondered why she chose not to follow protocol when the emergency alarms sounded. His surveillance picked up a feed of her sitting on a bench watching the other residents scatter back to their dwelling units. First her unusual behavior at the Arena event, and now this. Something wasn’t right. He’d have Dickson check into her medication levels. The other problem was the possibility of contact with the Outsider—they were in the same sector at the exact time the system shut down. Most likely she ran if she saw him, but if she didn’t he could’ve disseminated damaging information. First things first: he had to focus on the mainframe. He couldn’t risk any more incidents. How the savage broke into his system was priority number one. He could get back to Ava Rhodes later.
“Assistant,” he said.
“Yes, Chief Morray?”
“Get me Planner Dickson,” he ordered.
“In person, or hologram?”
“Hologram. This is urgent.”
“Chief?” Planner Dickson’s image appeared. He still had on his navy blue suit from the day before. He had worked through the night, interrogating the Outsider.
“Have you been able to get any useful information?”
“This one’s tough. Far more advanced than the others. He’s figured out a way to block our drugs. He might be unbreakable.”
“Do you think we’ll get anything out of him before trial?”
“Unlikely. We have less than six hours.”
“We seem to have another problem,” Morray said.
“Sir?”
“I’m concerned with one of the Successor Candidates. Miss Ava Rhodes. The redhead.”
“Yes, you mentioned this at the Arena event. We flagged her per your request. That night she went straight to her dwelling unit and the following day she attended morning rehearsals, then visited with a mid-level dweller, Delilah Seven, for lunch. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for the minor act of defiance of visiting the lesser rank and eating restricted foods. We un-flagged her just before noon.”
“Well, fortunately my surveillance monitors captured some rather interesting footage of Miss Rhodes. Yesterday during the emergency reports, she refused to retreat to her dwelling unit.”
“I see. Nonobservance of protocol is indeed a situation.”
“As you know, we experienced a three-minute interruption in the surveillance feed.”
“Of course, and I’ve had my team working nonstop to figure it out.”
“Miss Rhodes was in the South Sector during the blackout. She could’ve come into contact with the Outsider.”
“She knows better than to engage with the enemy.”
“Something is off, Dickson.”
“What would you like me to do?”
“Obtain her.”
“Under what pretense?”
“Tell her it’s for her protection. Put her into containment. I’ll be there in an hour. We may have to conduct a mind sweep, which I hate to do so close to Graduation Day. But if they made contact, I have no other choice.”
“As you wish, sir.” Dickson’s hologram disappeared.
Morray tried to turn his attention to the Outsider’s trial, but images of Ava cluttered his thoughts. The hairs on his neck prickled. He hadn’t felt anything instinctual in a long time. The neuro-blockers kept his emotions in check. But there was something about Ava that crawled around in his head and he couldn’t shake it. He had encountered thousands of females who had been designed to ultimate perfection, but why did she stand out? It was something about her eyes. His heartbeat picked up—it had been decades since anyone had made such a strong impression. He wasn’t about to let it go.
Morray walked across the palace to the King and Queen’s wing to alert them of the upcoming trial. They responded better face-to-face—like children in need of discipline. He knocked once and entered the chambers, finding the King rolling around naked on the carpet with a buxom second-tier noblewoman. An image he wished to erase. He sat down on the couch, rubbing his temples. The woman hid behind the King.
“I’ve repeatedly asked that you give me the respect of knocking first, Morray.”
“I knocked.”
“You should consider showing a bit more respect for your Royal Court,” the King said, pulling a blanket off the couch to cover his body.
“Put some clothes on, and send that thing away.” Morray turned away, disgusted. The woman grabbed the blanket and ran off to the dressing room.
“It isn’t anything you haven’t seen a hundred times. You and your monitors,” the King mocked, gesturing with his arms spread out.
“I’m incredibly tired of looking at you and this Royal Court.”
“That won’t be a problem after Graduation Day, will it?” The King pulled on a robe.
“I’m not sure a new crop of successors will fix it this time around.”
“What do you want? Why are you interrupting my morning merrymaking?”
“An emergency at the City Center I must attend to. I need you to prepare the members of Royal Court for a last-minute trial.”
“We don’t have time today.”
“This isn’t a request. All ten of you will be at the Arena at noon,” Morray said, turning to leave.
“And how do you expect that to happen?”
“Figure it out. There must be some thinking abilities left in at least one of you.”
“What kind of trial is so important you need Royal Court present? Do we have a defector?”
“Of course not,” Morray shook his head, stupefied. “An Outsider broke in and he won’t say why. Either way, he’s to be terminated.”
“Most excellent. Finally, some real action,” the King laughed.
“He’ll be made an example of to all his people.”
“We won’t want to miss this. I can assure you, Morray, Royal Court will be present.”
“Of course you will. You don’t have a choice,” Morray said, exiting the chambers.
On the flight to the City Center, Morray considered the possible reasons for the Outsider to break in. His outside intel hadn’t sent a warning. He figured the Outsider was working alone, but what was he trying to accomplish? His men scanned the entire Center and its perimeter, and there weren’t any devices or bombs planted. The Outsider wasn’t armed, so he wasn’t there to attack. In fact, he didn’t have anything on his person. There had to be only one logical explanation for him to risk his life coming to the City Center: he was there to relay information. But what? What happened during that three-minute blackout? Did he get to Ava? He only had a few hours before the trial to get his answers. He’d start with Ava. She’d be easier to break.