2
Focus. The six inches in front of your face.
The voice is back. It is not my voice, of that I am certain. Still, I feel like I know it, though each time I reach for recognition, it slips away like a troubling fly that manages always to evade the swat. Hearing voices at all is probably not a good sign. Especially one that yammers nonsense.
Observe. Analyze. Prepare. It suggests.
Observe and analyze what? My fellow AOs aboard this railcar? Prepare for Ugly Camp? I know virtually nothing about the place. Not even where it is.
Mostly I just stare out the window beside my seat as the train trundles out of Second City first through central administrative district then the ring of industrial buildings. Flitting here and there around these are the ubiquitous drones going about their Official business. So too come into my view billboards and posters and even the occasional electrical sign placed everywhere along roadways. None face this railroad, but I know the passenger line along the river sprouts them like spring daisies. I do not spy the orphanage that was my home. That is all right. I saw quite enough of the place when it was my home.
The next ring of the city is made up of bands of crowded apartment buildings housing Aesthetically Prohibited workers. Around this ring are bands of light industrial facilities. More cars are here, though most of them appear small trucks. They are outnumbered by the drones that buzz over roads and between buildings. The ring of heavier industry is marked by tall stacks belching thick streamers of steam or smoke or both into the cold sky. Large trucks trundle down the broad roadways here as the flitting specks of drones fly above.
A band of open country. a desolate buffer crossed by but few roads separates the last and broadest ring from the rest of Second City. A few security drones slowly patrol here. The final ring is one of more parklike environs dotted with the large houses and capacious grounds of the Aesthetically Optimal.
Most are a good distance from the railroad, barely behind thick barriers of tall trees, mostly leafless now in the autumn chill. For a pointless few minutes I strain to pick out what details I might, glimpsing here and there a high peaked roof or broad brown lawn, covered pools, fountains as dormant as the trees and even the playhouses and playsets. The noisy security drones so prevalent elsewhere are not in evidence here.
I pull my gaze away. It is a vain search, after all. It was three years ago that I lived here. And even if I did spy some span of roofline or pattern of trees that I recall what of it? Everything has changed since then.
My observations continue. And why not? I am in the righthand side of the last car, in the last row of seats but one. The boy I dragged out of the BAC Hall is in the row behind me. Snoring coming from there tells me he is dozing off and on.
Wherever the tracks curve right the entire train is visible out the window. Twelve cars follow a squat locomotive that puffs black smoke. It is my first time on a train. My normal mode of transport is the two feet stuffed into my good boots and occasionally, Second City’s rattling, smelly old busses. Most rail traffic through Second City is north-south, carrying freight and better-heeled riders than me along the river that stitches our major cities together. This line is heading due west, I note. I also note that the middlemost car has a long low box mounted in the center of its roof. A heater? I doubt it. Why heat but one of these dilapidated rail cars? Or any of them.
Passing out of the lush AO suburb, the view ahead is one of low rolling hills yellowed by the season and dotted with the occasional barn or farm building. The slim pencil line of the horizon is broken here and there by desultory stands of trees. The sky’s vacancy is occasionally violated by the unmistakable outline of one or two Predators, the VTOL gunships of the Military’s airmobile Operators. The boxy craft with their huge rotors brush treetops as they lumber here and there with no particular urgency. After all it has been decades since any Enemy incursion has reached more than a few hundred miles into our country much less as far as Second City.
With little to observe and analyze outside, I sit up a bit to take a better look at my immediate surroundings. Many rows hold only one passenger, others nobody at all. The BAC Hall had seating for three hundred. I estimate it was less than two-thirds full and all of those Rated AP are now on this train to Ugly Camp.
A bit of analysis tells me that probably no more than one hundred and sixty or so freshly minted APs boarded this train. We are told that Second City is home to over a million Citizens. It starts sounding like a sentence problem in math class, but what else do I have to think about?
If three trains leave Dominion’s three cities today, carrying no more than say, 1,000 APs, that is not a lot of new workers for factory and farm; and some will be inducted into the Homeland Operators, too. Not a lot going either direction, actually. Everybody knows that Dominion’s population is declining; and nobody talks about it.
While the Enemies cannot produce all the wonderful things Dominion’s Corporations do, they are very good at making babies. Babies that become an endless supply of Enemy soldiers. But fewer Citizens being Rated AP means fewer workers and fewer Operators. If more become Operators, fewer man the machines of factory and farm. If more become workers, security suffers. A strange voice in my head is not needed to prod these observations nor the conundrum.
“So, um, I guess Ugly Camp is in the mountains?” This is not the voice. This voice is a boy’s. I feel a presence over my shoulder, so I look up and back. The boy who nearly brought the ire of the Operators down on me is leaning over the seatback and smiling down at me. I am about to tell him to go away, but then the voice pipes in.
Identify allies. Establish networks. This sounds suspiciously like I am being told to make friends. And Rissa Marlow does not do that. I did not need them at the orphanage; I did not need them at school. But I grudgingly admit to the voice, that was then, this is now. Maybe my craziness is right?
“In the Great Rock Mountains?” Doubt leaks into my tone. but at least I am trying. “Why do you think that?” I pretend interest. Isn’t that how you make friends? The boy beams at me.
“We’re headed west.” A pudgy finger points in the direction of the falling sun. “The Great Rock Mountains are in the west.”
“Yes,” I agree. “The sun sets in the west. And yes that’s where the Great Rock Mountains are. But on the other side of the Protected Zone. And inside the Forbidden Zone.” I hope my tone is friendly while I point out that what he is suggesting is ludicrous. He beams even more broadly.
“Sure. I learned that in school,” he says. Yeah. We all did. I do not say that. Instead, I offer a tight nod and a grimace he might mistake for a smile. He is not wrong he is just belaboring the obvious. We are all taught that there is nothing in the Protected Zone other than farms, mines, and Military bases. As for the Forbidden Zone, everyone knows that it is virtually uninhabitable.
The Shock Event erased life entirely from wide swaths of the world and that includes Dominion’s Forbidden Zone lying to the south and west. To the north the land was swallowed up by advancing ice called glaciers. Directly south rising sea levels turned the land into endless miles of mangrove swamps. To the east the sea rose and carved away the land to our border there. The eastern slope of the Great Rock Mountains, impossibly high, lifeless and freezing mark the end of Dominion to the west. On the other side lies nothing but heat blasted sandy desert. And beyond these nearly impassable places lurk the Enemies.
I try to be nice. “We probably won’t be going all the way to the Rock Mountains. Or even into the Forbidden Zone. You know. Because that’s sort of well, forbidden?”
“I want to thank you,” he says.
“For?”
“For helping me. Back in the Hall. You know.” I do. But I did not help him. I helped me. By getting him out of my way.
“Sure,” I tell him. “It was nothing.” He smiles at this. It is a truly terrible smile. His teeth are crooked. And brown. He reaches his hand over the seatback and I realize he wants to shake. Great. Another chance for me to be nice.
Network. Allies. Friends? Yeah, but no. Still, I reach up and find that his hand is as soft and moist as I remember; he lacks the strong-but-not-too-firm grip a man of Dominion should have. An AO man anyway. And this boy is so Aesthetically Prohibited he might as well have a big “AP” emblazoned on his pimply forehead.
“I’m Albert,” he tells me.
Like mine his name is old-fashioned. Old-fashioned names were the thing for our age cohort just as water names were in style when my sister was born. Clarissa sounds like a little old lady so I rarely use it.
“I’m Rissa,” I tell him. He smiles and nods. “What’s that short for?”
“Just call me Rissa.” He nods agreeably.
“Everyone calls me Bertie.”
“Birdie?” I raise my arms a bit and pantomime flying. A few cohorts back parents favored bird names like Wren and Hawk. He shakes his head at me.
“Bertie with a ‘t’ not a ‘d.’”
“Hi, Birdie.” It is too late. Now I see his name spelled with a “d.” I cannot help it.
“Hi Rissa,” he replies. “So,” he says before a long pause. “How the heck are you, anyway?” Now I smile. For real. Like normal strangers on a train we chat, exchanging the usual banalities. He hates math, while I like it; he likes writing; I can live without it. He tells me about entshows he likes. Duck and Cover is his favorite game show. I admit that I rarely ever watch entshows although I rarely pass a newsscreen without stopping. He hates the outdoors; I like being outside as much as possible.
“What do your parents do? Mine work in a factory.”
“They were doctors,” I tell him. “But both of them are dead.” I deliver this flatly. He reflexively offers condolences as people always do. I am used to it. And it was a long time ago. When I was twelve. The part about them being doctors is more surprising to him. Only the Aesthetically Optimal can be doctors, after all. And Aesthetically Optimal only marry and have children with other AOs, so that their children are AO. Yet here I am. A victim of genetic roulette.
My parents were not the kind that treat illness and injury. They worked in a Corporation laboratory. And I remember that they travelled a lot. To First City mostly, but other places too. Third City and places I had never heard of before or since.
They were researchers. What they researched I have no clue. But they worked together In fact, that is where they met. Is that romantic? Maybe. I don’t know from romantic.
Another thing I remember is that they almost never travelled anywhere together for work. One would go then come back, then the other would go and come back. Maybe that was because of us. But one time they did travel together. And that time neither one of them came back and we were sent to the orphanage.
“What about brothers and sisters? Do you have any? Birdie brings me out of my reverie. “I don’t.” I stare blankly at him. “Have any siblings I mean.” I decide to tell him.
“I had a sister. Raina. She Disappeared.” There. If that does not get him to drop back behind the seat and leave me alone, nothing will. Nobody ever talks about kids who Disappear. Not even those most hurt by Disappearing.
Like Raina’s boyfriend, River. A boy in the same cohort, they met when they were ten or eleven. He was like a big brother to me, though I probably had a crush on him, too. I still remember him supporting me just as much as she did. Before she Disappeared, anyway.
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner!” he’d exclaim whenever I did something even mildly noteworthy; executing a clumsy cartwheel or acing a spelling test. It was just a dumb thing kids in their cohort were always saying, but when River said it to me it made me feel like I was older and smarter. He visited us regularly at the orphanage. At least until Raina Disappeared.
Officially nobody Disappears. But if anyone does it is usually girls. Girls like me, ugly ones. Not me, personally. No way. But girls like Raina obviously headed for an AP Rating? They really don’t Disappear. But at least one did and with perfect timing. Because after our parents died my sister was the only person I had left in the world. And after Raina Disappeared I never heard from River again. So yeah, maybe he was hurting too badly to come by. And this was but a few months before his own Second Tuesday. The one Raina missed when she Disappeared. No doubt he was rated Aesthetically Optimal so he had better things to do than hang around with an ugly little kid.
And then she Disappeared and left me all alone. Am I angry about that.? Yes.
But I miss her. Still, I think if she suddenly un-Disappeared I might just punch her in the mouth. Before I hug her. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
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Lumbering along, the train continues to creak and rattle.
“I’m sorry about your parents,” Birdie repeats. No mention of my Disappeared sister of course. It does not bother me.
“Thanks. It was a long time ago.” I have learned that is the best response to others’ proffers of sympathy. It seems to make people feel better to know that the total destruction of your family took place long ago. About three years.
“So what do you think it will be like Rissie?” Rissie? Okay. If he can accept Birdie with a “d” I can stand Rissie.
“What what is like?” I ask.
“Ugly Camp, of course.” Before I can answer another voice butts into our conversation.
“You’re not supposed to call it that.” This voice is so baritone it rattles the window at my back. I look up and across the aisleway into a pair of intensely grey eyes set in a narrow, serious face.
“You could get in trouble,” he rumbles. I am sure I have never seen this boy before. “It might be breaking a rule calling Aesthetic Recovery Camp that.” He holds aloft his rule sheet. I had nearly forgotten my own.
“You mean Ugly Camp?” Just as Birdie says the last two words the other boy breaks into a coughing fit I worry might cause him to expel a lung onto the dirty floor. Then I find those big gray eyes urging me to look up.
I do, and I find what he intends me to see. A tiny knob sticks out of the beam that runs down the center of the car. A fine mesh screen covers it. And now that I know what to look for I see similar microphones spaced every few rows along the car’s entire length. Someone is listening to us.
“The rules,” the boy across the aisle intones. I pull my copy of the rules out of my shirt pocket, unfold it, and read.
It is your duty as a Citizen of Dominion to always and without question obey the following rules during your time at your Aesthetics Recovery Camp. The rules are as follows:
1. Disobeying the rules is forbidden.
2. Arguing with any Official is forbidden.
3. Physical contact with any Official is forbidden.
4. Failure to follow an order given by any Official is forbidden.
5. Idle chitchat is forbidden.
6. Possession of anything other than provided essentials is forbidden.
7. Failure to engage in ARC training during your training period is forbidden.
8. Failure to complete ARC training is forbidden.
9. Damaging or permitting damage to any ARC property is forbidden.
10. Receiving any material good or other possession from outside the ARC is forbidden.
11. Communicating with or attempting to communicate with anyone without the permission of an ARC Official is forbidden.
12. Failure to report any other AP’s disobeying the rules is forbidden.
A final, terse sentence informs that, Failure to abide by the rules will be met with quick and severe justice.
While there is no rule specifically forbidding me from doing so everyone knows that you are not supposed to call Ugly Camp Ugly Camp. And someone is listening to us.
Birdie is still staring up at the microphones. I turn to the boy across the aisle way and mouth a thank you at him. He nods solemnly back at me. He pulls a pack of gum out of his shirt pocket, pops one of the tiny squares into his mouth, and offers the packet to us.
I haven’t had anything to eat for hours, so I take a piece even as I am wondering whether we are breaking a rule. Birdie takes one, too and the three of us sit chewing gum and staring in silence at the microphones on the ceiling.
“Your name is Tree, isn’t it?” Birdie asks the boy. “I think I saw you in school a few times.”
“Trevane,” the boy says to me around his gum. “But everyone has called me Tree since I, you know, grew.” Looking at him folded into the railcar seat I get it. He must be quite tall.
“I’m Rissa,” I tell him.
“Albert,” Birdie says. “My friends call me Birdie. With a ‘d’ right Rissie?” We are friends, apparently.
Birdie and Rissie,” Tree repeats, no hint of teasing in that voice pitches so low it rattles my bones. “I’m very pleased to meet both of you,” he says formally.
“Thanks,” I mumble back, glancing upward at the mics again.
“You three are pretty boring, so I don’t know why anybody would bother listening, anyway.” It is another voice. A girl’s voice this time. I turn to find that a head has poked over the top of the seatback just ahead. A purple head.
Cut in a short bob, the girl’s hair is fluorescent purple. You are not supposed to color your hair within six months of your Second Tuesday. And purple? Who does that? Also, I have definitely never seen this girl before. A glance at both Birdie and Tree tells me this is the first time they have seen her, too. Possibly the first time they have seen anybody like her. How I missed this girl in the BAC Hall, I do not know. Then I notice, because you cannot look at her and not notice, that her eyes match her hair. They are a deep violet, a color I have never seen before. Not in eyes, anyway. I take in the rest of what I can see of her.
Despite the purple hair she is cute. No, that’s not right. What she is, is gorgeous. Her face is perfectly heart shaped. Her nose is tiny and pert. So is her chin. She has high cheekbones and small but full lips shaped like a little bow. I do not need a BAC Official’s calipers to know this is a face with perfect 1.6 Golden Ratio. She also has managed to hang onto a piece of jewelry. A circlet of silver about as thick as my pinky finger, what I think is called a torc, rings her neck.
So, what is this clearly Aesthetically Optimal girl doing on the train to Ugly Camp? But no sooner do I think this, than I figure it out. Explaining, at the same time why I might have missed her in the Hall.
I assumed she was kneeling on her seat and looking over at us. She is not. She is standing on the seat. And she is positively tiny. Nowhere near optimal height At least they won’t try to make someone her size into an Operator. I doubt someone so small could even lift standard issue rifle.
“If those microphones bother you princess,” she says to me apparently, “then do something about them.”
“Do what?” Birdie asks. I am still too flummoxed to speak. “We are Rissie and Birdie,” Birdy offers introductions. “And Tree.” He adds our new acquaintance who is trying unsuccessfully not to stare at this new girl.
“Shora.” She speaks her name almost grudgingly but sticks a tiny hand on a tiny arm over the top of the seatback. I try not to squeeze too hard. She seems to know that is what I am doing, so she squeezes. She may be miniscule, but she is strong.
“Rissa,” I tell her.
“Hi Shorty,” Violet eyes are instant storms on Birdie.
“Shora.” Birdie only smiles back.
“I’m Tree,” Tree says. He stretches a long arm out and his huge hand seems to swallow hers up to the elbow.
“If they don’t care what we say,” I wonder aloud, “why have the microphones at all?” I look at Shora.
“Maybe you’re right,” she shrugs. “But so what? Besides, right now, they probably care more about what we do, than what we say.” She stares at me. “Are you chewing gum?” she asks. I knew that would be against the rules. “Do you have any more?” From across the aisle Tree silently offers her his packet. And a big shy smile.
“It’s peppermint Shorty,” Birdie puts in. She wastes a narrow glare on him as she snatches the entire packet of gum from Tree’s hand. We three watch astonished, as she methodically stuffs every last piece into her tiny mouth until she looks like a hamster with a mouthful of seeds. Then she does something that is more like a squirrel. She clambers up onto the back of her seat and grins down at me.
“You can’t keep a good woman down,” she tells me as she sways gracefully with the rocking motion of the train. One palm flat on the ceiling for balance, she bites off a tiny piece of gum into her other palm. Leaning precariously out over the aisleway, she jabs the dab of gum into the face of the mic before dropping nimbly back into her seat.
“They aren’t going to like that Shorty,” Birdie whispers.
“Shora,” she tells him. “And if they don’t like that then they really won’t like this. She jumps to the floor of the car and walks up the aisle to stop beneath the next microphone.
“I think she could use some help.” Tree unfolds his gangly frame from his seat and strides after her. Curious heads appear from around other seats near them. Shora’s violet gaze suggests they mind their own business.
She tugs at Tree’s long shirtsleeve and he bends far over; they exchange a few words I cannot hear and then Tree wraps his huge hands around her waist and effortlessly lifts her toward the ceiling. She turns and grins back at Birdie and me then jams another dab of chewing gum into another microphone.
Tree carries her down the aisleway to the next microphone and she repeats this act of sabotage a familiar head leans out to watch. The girl in who made such a fuss in the BAC Hall is there and from the way she is moving, it is clear she is still in the restraints the Operator wrapped around her skinny wrists. now just beside the girl in restraints. Shora glares down at her and she ducks back as if the small girl with purple hair took a swing at her. Having already come under fire from those violet eyes, I sort of get it. But I also feel a pang of pity. Her hands and arms have got to be hurting.
Still, I have a hard time working up a great deal of sympathy for her. Who does she think she is? From what she was shouting at the Official she thought her family connections could get her out of the Rating she deserves. She is Aesthetically Prohibited. Just like me. Just like everyone on this train.
The girl has vanished into her seat again and Shora motions for Tree to lift her to the next microphone on the ceiling. They continue all the way down the car like this, Tree’s long strong arms lifting the small girl to each microphone while curious and frightened faces appear and disappear from the seats they pass.
When they have covered the last microphone Tree lowers Shora to the floor and they stroll back toward us faces again appearing from every seat to curiously follow them. Almost every seat. The blonde girl remains slumped over and motionless. A few rows up Shora reaches out and takes Tree’s big hand in her tiny one. Talk about making allies and friends. Tree’s face lights up.
“If you’re going to do a job,” Shora says as they return to where Birdie and I sit watching all this in open amazement “always do it with the right tool.” She glances up at Tree who is grinning down at her. She reaches up and fingers the silver torc at her throat reminding me of how I am constantly tugging at my ponytail.
“Tree,” Birdie says, his tone very serious, “I think Shorty just called you a tool.” Tree’s smile only broadens. Shora glares at Birdie.
“Shora,” she tells him. “The name is Shora.”
“Got it Shorty,” Birdie says. I have to smile at this exchange and I suddenly have the feeling that I may have accidentally done just what the voice in my head was telling me to do. Am I identifying allies and establishing networks. Am I making friends?
A movement up the aisleway draws my attention back in that direction. The blonde girl has scooted back to the edge of her seat. She is leaning out and staring back at us.
No, that’s not it. She is not staring. She is glaring. And not at us.
At me.
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