Chapter 11

I’m walking along the corridor of TWOC when a rough hand grabs my arm and swings me around.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Yakov shakes my arm and my teeth clack together. His face is red with anger and he looks like a snake ready to sink its fangs into exposed flesh.

“What did you tell them?” he demands and shakes me again.

“Let go of me!” I yank my arm back, but he just tightens his grip and I feel his thumb pressing into the bone. It makes my hand go numb and I wince from the pain.

“Yakov, stop it!” I swipe at him with my free hand but he bats it away. He pulls me closer and I can smell the sweat on his skin.

“That woman won’t leave me alone now. She’s got me on twenty-four hour surveillance. Suicide watch.”

I remember my conversation with the counselor and I can’t help smirking.

“It was you!” Yakov’s voice rises in accusation. “You little b-“

I punch him in the jaw. It’s only a glancing blow but it surprises him and he lets go of my arm. His face goes from red to purple and he let’s out an inarticulate shout. He looks like he’s ready to pummel me. I spin around and start running down the corridor. I take three strides when he catches hold of my shirt and yanks me back. My neck jerks painfully and I lose my footing. I windmill my arms to keep my balance. Before I have time to recover, Yakov propels me face first into the wall and pulls my right arm up and behind my back.

“You better not mess with me Arela,” he says, his voice close to my ear. “You’ll be sorry if you keep it up.”

My face is pressed so hard against the concrete wall I can smell the limestone.

“Screw you,” I say and stamp down hard on his left foot. His grip loosens enough and I slip my arm out of his hand. I turn to face him, put both of my hands on his chest and push as hard as I can. He careens backwards, skips a few times trying to stay upright, but he’s moving too fast and he lands hard on his backside, his mouth a surprised O.

“Just stay out of my way Yakov,” I say. I want to rub the sore spot on my arm but I won’t give him the pleasure of seeing he’s hurt me. I turn and walk away before he can respond.

The twins, Rosalin and I are back in the cafeteria after a two-day hiatus. The health board shut down the room after the scene with mouse and we ate our meals out of hygiene sealed pouches in our rooms. Rosalin still hasn’t forgiven me. The eradication unit scoured the building for forty-eight hours but they didn’t find mouse. I’m sure he’s settled into a new hiding place, far from TWOC. I’m sad he’s gone but I’m happy he avoided eradication.

Today’s meal is a soy-based product that tastes sweet and mildly spicy. We have a shriveled looking apple and soggy carrots to round out our healthy pyramid-based meal.

A skinny, knock-kneed girl with frizzy hair approaches our table.

“Have you seen Melina?” she asks in a nasally voice. Her name is Seba or Sella, I can never remember. “She wasn’t at breakfast and now she’s not at lunch, and I don’t know where to find her. If she’s missing, she’ll get in trouble. Have you seen her?”

We shake our heads.

“Did you ask one of the proctors?” Jaela says.

“Of course I didn’t ask one of the proctors, “ she says. “I don’t want to get her in trouble. That’s why I’m asking you. You know these things don’t you? You’re the oldest ones here.” She sighs dramatically. “If you see her, will you tell her to come find me?”

We watch her walk to a table crowded with a cluster of girls her own age and slip in between them.

“This whole place is falling apart,” Jacobo says. “You’d think it’s the end of Osiris, just because Leader died. No one seems to know how to run anything any more.”

“Jacobo,” Jaela says and looks at him steadily. We wait for a tense moment, wondering if he’s going to lose his temper and storm out of the room. He’s been doing a lot of that lately.

“Fine,” he says. “I’m fine.”

We relax.

I’m finishing the last mouthful of soy cube when Head enters the cafeteria. I sit up and watch him walk around the room. His green shirt and pants accentuate his spidery frame. His collar is buttoned so tightly around his neck, it leaves an indent in the skin. His dark eyes glitter ominously.

“I’d stay away from him, if I were you,” Jacobo says when he sees me looking. “I heard he whipped two of the boys yesterday. They left their beds unmade and their laundry next to the chute, not in it.”

“He whipped them for that?” I ask. Head’s been breaking that particular rule for years but it seems like a harsh punishment for such a minor infraction. The whipping is becoming more frequent and I worry about my own skin. It’s only a matter of time before Head comes after me again. Especially seeing I’m conspicuously defying his direct order to stay indoors.

“How does he get away with it?” Jaela asks. “He should be fired for child abuse.”

“He should be more than fired,” says Jacobo. “If anyone deserves exile, it’s him.”

Rosalin shivers. “Does anyone deserve that?”

Most people don’t talk about exile. It’s the worst punishment in Osiris. To be propelled through the only opening in the city’s wall and banished to the outside. No one has ever returned from the other side of the wall and the TWOC minors tell tales of bodies piled up outside, of gruesome scenes of suffocation and melting skin and horrible, painful deaths. I don’t know if any of those stories are true but the thought of finding out first hand is terrifying. It’s one thing I’d prefer not to know.

I blink to clear the images and return to watching Head. Maybe he doesn’t deserve that fate but it’s hard to feel that way right now. I’ve known Head for most of my life and I can’t name one personal quality he has worth saving. I’m still considering his lack of humanity when a girl at the next table shrieks. “It’s the mouse!”

The rest of the girls at the table scream and push their chairs back in a screech of metal on linoleum. In the opening circle, I see mouse sitting on his hind legs, grooming his whiskers. He seems totally unconcerned about the commotion around him. He looks at me and wiggles his whiskers. I want to shoo him away, to scoop him up and hide him in my pocket, but I’m frozen in my seat.

I see Head push through the circle of gathered minors in my periphery vision. I know it’s going to happen two seconds before it does and my paralysis snaps. I’m half way out of my seat as Head’s boot slams down on top of mouse and the little furry creature disappears. My mouth is open in a scream but there’s no air in my lungs. I want to cry out, stop Head’s foot before it descends, but it’s already over. Mouse is dead, a flattened shape against the linoleum floor. Head lifts up his foot and reveals the crushed and bloody mouse. It looks like an empty puppet, smeared with a dark coating of it’s own blood and gore. Bile rises up the back of my throat.

I hear Rosalin gasp behind me.

Head is looking directly at me, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. I look away from him, a hot fury boiling in my stomach.

I know I’m going to do something I’ll regret, so I push away from the table and run from the room before anyone can stop me. I lock myself in our room, rest my back against the door and slide down until my sitting on my haunches. I wrap my arms around my knees and shake in fury.

There’s a knock at the door and I scoot out of the way.

“Come in,” I call and the door opens a crack.

Rosalin peers in at me. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“I’m fine,” I say. “You can come in.”

Rosalin steps inside, closes the door behind her and crouches beside me.

“Ok, you can say “I told you so” now,” I say and dip my head into my arms. I can’t look at her.

“Oh Arela,” she say and I feel her sit down beside me.

“He didn’t even hesitate,” I say. “He’s heartless. He’d do that to anyone of us, you know.”

“I know,” she says.

I start crying. “I’m sorry Rose. I should never have let him out.”

Rosalin places a hand on my arm but doesn’t say anything. She just sits with me as I cry at Head’s cruelty and my own stupidity.

I don’t have the motivation to leave TWOC for the next few days, so I spend my days sitting on the bench watching handball, joining the twins for the nightly tele-drama and forcing myself to finish my ethics course. I pass the grade with a C minus. Good enough for me. The riots start to wind down and TWOC’s usual rhythm reasserts itself. I avoid Head, stand demurely at line up and tuck myself into bed at lights out. An entire week passes and I start to think I’ll make it to graduation.

There’s only one thing I need to make that happen. The tablet. If I don’t change the allotment file, I’ll be stuck under Head’s rule indefinitely. I need to figure out how to break into that trunk.

I visit the library and spend the entire afternoon perusing the collection on locking mechanisms. There isn’t a lot of information on how to open padlocks without a key, but I learn enough about pins and tumblers to start experimenting. All I need is a bobby pin, some time and I’m sure I’ll get that lock open.

I’m feeling self satisfied with the day’s accomplishments when I head back to TWOC forty-six minutes before curfew. I ride the monorail back to the six hundred block and slip out of the station as unobtrusively as possible.

I’m three blocks from TWOC when a disturbance near building 642 catches my attention. A wild haired man, dressed in strips of cloth in varying shades of blue and green is standing on a wooden crate, shouting and gesticulating at the sky. His face is gaunt and his cheekbones cast dark shadows on his face. His eyes are a startling blue. He stares straight at me and I stop to listen.

“We are under the spell of omega!” he shouts, pointing a dirty finger at me. I look around to see if there are other people listening and notice a small semi circle has formed around him. I try to shrink into the gathering so I attract less attention.

“They have brainwashed the citizens of New York! This isn’t Osiris. There is no Osiris. Only a conspiracy to grind us into dust. We are beholden to their rule and we are kept like dogs, licking their feet and begging for scraps.” He shakes a fist at the crowd and a murmur runs through them like the whisper of the monorail on its track.

“There are no boundaries to our existence. We can be greater than our birth dictates. We have the technology to make our likeness as that of god. This world is a contrivance of the totalitarians, of our oppressive rulers. Join the Resolutionists and you will find the truth. The truth of our greatness. The possibility. We will rise up against tyranny. You will break away from oppression, from conformity!”

The murmur rises to a rumble and someone yells at the man. “How do you know that’s true?”

He turns his ice blue eyes to the questioner and raises his hands as if he’s offering something for sacrifice. “Because the truth is right there in front of us. If we’re willing to see the truth, to taste the truth, to live in the truth, then it shall not be denied.”

A flash of blue and red light falls across the crowd and a loud horn drowns out his proselytizing. A formation of six city guards breaks through the crowd, their black helmets reflecting the flash of light. The crowd shrinks back as two of the guard grab the man and pull him off the crate. He doesn’t defend himself against their intervention.

“The truth will not be suppressed!” he shouts as they carry him to a grey van parked on the side of the road. He strains to face the crowd of people watching. “Join the Resolutionists. Be one with the truth.” He yells as they shove him into the back of the van. “Learn the truth!”

They slam the doors and the man’s yelling is cut off. The ensuing silence is unsettling.

“Show’s over people,” one of the guards says. “Time to go home. Get inside before curfew.”

The spectators start to disperse and I back away from the scene. I’m about to resume my return to TWOC when I catch sight of a familiar face. It’s the stranger from the riot. He’s standing on the other side of the street, in the under hang of building 639’s entrance. He’s wearing the same green uniform as all Osiriser’s but it looks foreign on his frame, uncomfortable. His eyebrows are knit together in concentration and his lips are pressed into a thin line. He’s watching me and looks surprised when I recognize him. Without hesitating, I run across the street toward him and he immediately turns away. He bolts to the street corner and disappears. I follow him, but by the time I round the building’s edge he’s nowhere in sight. He has disappeared as completely as he did the night I met him.

I stare down the street for sixty seconds, hoping I’ll catch sight of him, learn something about who he is and why he’s following me. It’s disconcerting to know a strange man, a boy really, is watching my every move. I wonder if he knows about the library or the painter’s loft. A chill runs down my back. Maybe he’s reporting me to Government. It seems like a lot of trouble for one unremarkable orphan girl. What would they gain from following me around the city? I’m not affiliated with the Resolutionists, I’ve passed all my course work and I’m a contributing citizen. An idea strikes me. Maybe it’s not about me at all. Maybe it’s about my missing parents. It’s possible the lack of records in the system isn’t part of a conspiracy theory and the government really doesn’t know what happened to them. They could be looking for them just as hard as I am. Maybe the Conservationists need something from my parents and they’ve gone into hiding. I shake my head. If that was the case, then why would they leave me behind? I don’t remember a lot from my first two years, but I know my parents loved me. They kept me close when they could. I remember my mother’s happy face, her halo of red-gold hair. She was a constant presence when I was a baby. I can still feel the touch of her hands, the soft press of her lips on my cheek, the warmth of her body when she carried me. Even my father, a taller, darker version of my mother was a part of that picture. They would never willingly leave me with welfare. They certainly wouldn’t leave me at the mercy of Mr. Nevin Smit.

I realize all of my speculation has brought me to a familiar place. Back to a tangle of questions and uncertainty, a puzzle I’ve wrestled with for the last eleven years. It’s all conjecture, an unproven mathematical theory. I have no idea what’s true, and what’s my own wishful thinking. The reality is, I’m stuck at TWOC and I’m alone. The only thing I can do is to keep looking until I find my parents, or find out what happened to them, because if I don’t, the tangle of uncertainty will make me crazy.

Next Chapter: Chapter 12