I am the Musician of Pod C.
My purpose is to stimulate my pod mates’ minds through the instruments I play. I enable the others to do their jobs even better.
And that is important because being productive is important. Working hard is important. I have always been able to do that. But being the same is also important.
This is where I have failed.
I started realizing this in my ninth year, the year my pod mate Asta was taken away. We were outside in the recreation field and our Monitor had us running the oval track. We ran nine times—one time for each year of life. This was part of our daily routine.
Sometimes, I would like to say no. To just sit down, not to run. Sometimes I want to ask why we have to do this. And why we always do&anD1A dwho everything in the same order, day after day. Why couldn’t we run ten laps? Or eight? Or skip laps altogether and do something else? But I knew better than to ask those questions, to ask any questions. We are only allowed to ask for clarification. Asking why is something only I would consider.
I am an anomaly.
So was Asta. But I didn’t know it until that day. She always did what she was told, and nothing in her big black eyes made her appear to be having thoughts to the contrary. She was training to be our pod Historian, so she was always documenting what we were doing and what we were discovering. Her fingers could fly over her learning pad faster than any I’d ever seen. But that day, when we were running, she stopped. Right in the center of the track. I was so shocked that I ran right into her back, knocking her to the ground.
“I apologize.” I reached for her hand, but when she looked up at me, I saw a yellowish substance coming from her nose. I had never seen anything like it. Her eyes were red and she was laboring to breathe—all of this was quite unusual. I pulled my
hand back and called for the Monitor to come over and help Asta.
But the Monitor didn’t help her. She looked down into Asta’s face and her eyes grew large. She pressed the panel on her wrist pad. “Please send a team to Pod C. We need a removal.”
The Monitor motioned for me to finish my laps. No one else had stopped to see what happened. The rest of my pod mates simply ran closer to the edge of the track, eyes forward, completing the circuit.
I stood and tried to run, but I did not want to run. I wanted to stay here, to help Asta. She looked . . . I do not know how to describe it. But whatever it was made my heart feel heavy.
Berk ran up beside me. “You will never beat me.” His grin shook me from my thoughts. I was determined to beat Berk. He always thought he was faster, but I knew I could outrun him. So I picked up my pace. Berk did the same.
We were on our fifth lap when I saw a floating white platform with four Medical Specialists land beside Asta on the grass inside the track. “Where will they take her?”
“I don’t know.ȁ
Berk was going to be a Scientist. One of
the
Scientists State. That made him different—but in a good way. The Monitors never corrected him, and he was allowed to study any subject that interested him during the time the rest of us worked on improving knowledge in our specialty areas.
I didn’t say anything else, but the image of Asta being taken away—removed—stayed with me. And somehow I didn’t think she was going to be helped. The look on the
Monitor’s face was not the look she gets when one of us falls and scrapes a knee on the track. It was the look she gets when we do something we shouldn’t. But Asta hadn’t done anything wrong. She just had something wrong next to Canaan’s.s 94? inside her.
Like mwho govern the