The Underground (15 page)

If I can be of help during this transition, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Shayla Smith

“What do you think?” Shayla said to her mother, after showing her mother the letter.

“Excellent. It’s a fine message,” the Queen said.

Working at the Cambridge Public Works had become a constantly painful reminder of Nathaniel’s absence, and Shayla had decided it was time to go.

“To celebrate your move back here, I think we should redecorate your suite here. It’s high time we did that, long past due really.”

“What are you talking about?” Shayla asked, confused.

“Hot pink walls and frilly canopy beds aren’t exactly appropriate for a grown woman’s living quarters,” the Queen said before Shayla interrupted her.

“I am not coming to live at the Palace.”

“But…”

“I’ll get my own apartment. Besides, I like my suite the way it is,” Shayla said, annoyed with her mother’s assumptions. She was always so pushy. Shayla hated that.
 

“If you insist, but if you ever change your mind.”

“I appreciate it, Mother, really I do, but…”

 
“Okay, I hear you,” she said, but Shayla could see her mother was holding her tongue. Shayla knew her mother was pleased to have her moving back to town, especially given the stress of the last few weeks. Rumors of a renegade political group were dying down, but there were still murmurs on the Webavision.

She could tell her mother didn’t want to talk about it, but Shayla saw the hints of stress in the deepening creases on her mother’s face.

“It’ll take me a few days to pack up my place in Cambridge, and then I’ll be back.”

“Back where you belong,” the Queen said.
 

Shayla bristled. She said nothing as she left, but her emotions caught up with her on the flight back to Cambridge. It was good to be at the Palace, but it was good to leave, too. Then again, she didn’t really want to go back to Cambridge either. No place felt quite right.

When she walked into her apartment, she didn’t want to pack. Didn’t she just move in? She sat on her couch and dug out the velvet bag that held
Reminder of Truth.
Reading it was her bridge to the two men she loved. Her father who gave her this book was gone forever, and now Nathaniel might be too. It was difficult to accept.
 

“Where are you, Nathaniel?” she cried as she held the book and remembered the time they had read it together. She wished he would reappear as quickly as he vanished.

The next morning, Shayla reluctantly went back to the Cambridge Public Works to clean out her desk. As she walked toward her office, she couldn’t help but look where Nathaniel used to leave the bag each morning.

“Hey there, good luck in your new position, wherever it is you’re going,” she heard.

She turned and felt stunned as Nathaniel’s best friend Brigg stood before her, piercing her with a look of disrespect she was not accustomed to.

“I’m going back to Washington,” she said, uncomfortably. She knew this was Nathaniel’s best friend, but she had no idea whether Nathaniel had told Brigg about her.

Maybe Brigg knew where Nathaniel was or at least had heard from him. She was desperate to know anything at all. She tried to gather the courage to ask.

“I’m sure you’ll will do well. Unfortunately, we’ll still be here, at the mercy of someone new,” he said and then turned and walked away without looking back.

Chapter 21

“Your name is Joe Merino, and you just turned 21. Read your new file. We sent it to your electronic tablet. It has your birthday, your family situation and everything else you need to know. Memorize every detail.”

Nathaniel grabbed his electronic tablet and found the recently downloaded file. He thought of the last eight months of his life. It seemed so unreal.

“I’m really leaving?” he asked, thinking of Shayla. How he wanted to see her, even though he knew it was forbidden.

“First, you must become your new identity and then we’ll quiz you until you answer each question correctly. When you pass, you may leave. Go study, young man!” Crosby said with joy. “Oh, and one more thing. The Boston accent must go,” Crosby said.
 

“What accent?”

“Trust me,” Crosby said, rolling his eyes. “You’ll be meeting with our linguistics coach. We didn’t know where you’d be going or we would have worked on it earlier. The Master Instructors hope it won’t take long, but as with everything, you will be kept here until it is perfect. It is vital that you fit in,” Crosby said, with as serious a look as Nathaniel had ever seen from him.

“Joe Merino, huh?” he said to himself as much as to Crosby, while he looked over the opening page of his file.

“That’s who you are now,” Crosby said, and left the room.

——–

“Nationality?”

“Irish and Italian. Catholic, but not religious.”

“Family?”

“Only child, parents – Delores and Anthony – died when I was 18 in a car crash.” Nathaniel couldn’t help but think of his own parents. He’d never been close with them, left their house when he was 17 to live on his own, but he missed them now. He hoped they were still alive, but he had no idea.

“General background?”

“Grew up in Kansas City and have a strong secretarial background. You’ve been going at this for two hours and I have not answered a single thing wrong,” Nathaniel said, feeling antsy.

 
“I guess you are ready,” Crosby said teasingly.

 
“When can I leave?” Nathaniel asked.

 
“Soon.”

“You always say that.” Nathaniel looked skeptically at Crosby.

“Really. This time I mean it,” Crosby said, laughing before he left for the evening.

Nathaniel tried to go to sleep, but thoughts of his friendship with Brigg flooded his mind, along with memories of intimate encounters he shared with Shayla. The physical barrier of the Underground and all its’ forced controls made contacting them impossible, but Nathaniel wasn’t sure he had the willpower necessary to maintain distance on his own in the outside world.
 

“Ready?” Simon asked when he entered Nathaniel’s room with Crosby the next morning.

“Yes, sir!” Nathaniel declared with vast enthusiasm. Simon’s demeanor was entirely different than their last encounter. He no longer looked at Nathaniel with disdain.

“Follow me.” With that, Nathaniel took one last look at his cell and walked behind Simon through the maze of hallways that were silent except for the echo of their footsteps and the buzzing of fluorescent lights above their heads. It seemed like they were walking in circles as the hallways had so many twists and turns, but finally they reached the entrance that he hadn’t seen since the day he arrived, eight months earlier.

Keep Your Laws Off my Body. Equal Rights and Justice for all Men.
Nathaniel looked at the same words that greeted him when he entered the Underground. They were tattooed in his memory, as he had said them aloud each morning along with the other Grounders.

He remembered first reading them in
Reminder of Truth.
That seemed like a lifetime ago. He wanted to remember this mantra as it appeared, painted boldly behind the guard’s desk at the Underground’s entrance. He stared at it, thinking about what it meant, and how it represented the cause that he believed in, now more than ever.

Crosby said, “Oh Nathaniel. I’m gonna miss you! You go out there and show those women you can take care of them and make them happy. Make us proud! We’ll be thinking of you,” Crosby said before he threw his arms tightly around Nathaniel.

Nathaniel hugged back, truly sad to be parting ways with Crosby. “Thanks for everything,” Nathaniel said.

“Time to get a move on. We have a schedule to meet,” Simon said abruptly.

“Cheerio, good man!” Crosby said, choking back tears. Nathaniel waved, and they walked down the corridor. Nathaniel could tell there would be no chains and no rough talk this time. He was leaving in style, and he felt the world was waiting for Joe Merino. And yet he also thought of how his real name, as Crosby just uttered it, might never be spoken again.

——–

As Nathaniel strapped himself into the back of the van, he was grateful there were no guards to subdue him.
 

“Can we pull up the shades for the drive?” Nathaniel asked, more comfortable talking to Simon than before. He couldn’t wait to be out of this dungeon-like garage to see the sky.

“Gotta keep ‘em down for at least a few hours. Security reasons,” Simon said. His tone was cordial, like speaking to a comrade who well understood what his passenger went through to earn a ticket out.

“Hello, Joe,” said a man who hopped in the back of the van next to him, just before they left. Nathaniel was trying to get used to his new name, but it still felt like he was wearing someone else’s snug clothing.

“I’m Drew,” said the man with the smoothly sheared head that contrasted thick dark eyebrows. His eyes were dark, but friendly, and his voice was too, unlike many of the Underground staff Nathaniel encountered. “I’ve heard a lot about you. In fact I know more about you, right now, than you do.” Drew smiled and strapped himself into the seat alongside Nathaniel. “Don’t worry. I’ll fill you in on more of the details,” he said.

As the van hummed down the street, nervous excitement pulsed through Nathaniel’s body. Not a day went by when he didn’t envision leaving the Underground. Now that day had come and it felt strange, along with everything else.

 
“I know you’ve got the basics down, but there’s still a lot we need to go over,” Drew said, glancing at his electronic tablet. “Now, let’s see… you’re going to be living in Kansas City, and you’ll be working at a placed called Kelly Boys Temporary Placement Agency.”

“I know the name from reading my new identity file, but not much else.”

“They place people for temporary office work. You could be working in all kinds of companies around the country. They’re based in KC, but travel is likely. You’ll be working with top executives. Sometimes it can get a little stressful, but your records indicate you can handle women at this level.

 
“I guess so,” he said trying to hide his apprehension. Taking classes about office work in the Underground was one thing, but actually working in a corporate office would be new. There wouldn’t be any instructors to tell him if he did the wrong thing. No do-overs. His real-world work experience was limited to hard-hats, sewer systems, and tarred roads. He trusted his capabilities, but he had never lived outside of East Cambridge, and had reservations about how he would fit into this corporate Midwestern life.

“You’re going to do great. We only put people where they fit well. Here’s a picture of your ‘friend’ who supposedly ‘interviewed’ and hired you,” Drew said, handing Nathaniel a headshot of a slightly plump man with a toothy grin and a mustache that attempted to offset his receding hairline. “Garrett Jones” was printed below the picture.
 

“A former Grounder?” Nathaniel asked, thinking his physique was atypical for the Underground where one had to be in tip-top shape.

“He got out 12 years ago, and now he’s married with two kids. He works part-time at Kelly Boys, and is the primary caretaker of the children, of course. A few nights a week, when his family is asleep, he does work for us. Very dedicated man.”

Oh, that explained it. Twelve years out maybe Nathaniel would be fat too. The description of Garrett Jones intimidated Nathaniel. What if he couldn’t live up to all that – luring a wife and managing a family and this secret work?

“Is there some sort of bigger plan for me after Kelly Boys?”

“Joe,” he said smiling and pausing as he addressed Nathaniel with his new name, “Maybe you’ll get as lucky as Garrett? You are starting out doing what he did as an Administrative assistant, but we told them you’re good at multi-tasking and organizing and that you’re an excellent meeting scribe. They were excited about your skills. You may find yourself working on special projects. It’s likely you’ll eventually snag a permanent position, if you excel, which we hope. Kelly Boys pays pretty well too, which is good because former Grounders tithe. Of course, we encourage you to give more than that, if at all possible. Ten percent is great, but the Underground always needs more money, and after all, how can you put a price on the gifts they have given you,” Drew said, and Nathaniel heard the message loud and clear.

“Okay,” Nathaniel said. It was just starting to sink in. His life would forever be enmeshed and indebted to the Underground. Payback was just beginning.

——–

Nathaniel drifted off to sleep during the long ride, and when he woke, the shades of the van were up. A warm, natural light bathed his face for the first time since he had entered the Underground. He looked outside and wished to fly alongside the birds in the distance, free to go anywhere the breeze went.

The emerald suburban lawns slowly gave way to the city sidewalks and dwellings that sat stacked up and crowded. He’d missed the cold winter, which he usually disliked. He preferred to miss it on his own terms, instead of the forced circumstances. He still felt strange about his Underground experience. Kidnapped at first, but now he was part of it, and there was no way to leave.
“We’ll keep in touch…”
He heard Chester’s voice – a reminder in his head.