Fighting for the Future, page 10
“I’m sorry,” she said, squeezing his hand so hard he winced.
“This will be good for both of us, you’ll see,” he said. He knew it made him sound mature, but deep down he was glad to see her cry. Maybe this would make her miss him, shake her out of the delusion that she could leave the Collective and find a better life Outside.
After his move, the only time he and Tara were alone together without Marcus was during Sunlight. There were no cameras since they were too valuable to be left to the elements, just a few Drivers to keep things safe. Thio would tell Tara about his Watcher training, what he was learning about brain chemistry and breathing techniques.
“Dopamine helps us feel pleasure,” he said, his mind full and buzzy. “Meds help keep the happy chemicals floating around in our brains.”
“You’re falling for it,” Tara said. “They just want you to be one of their spies.”
“It’s science.”
“Do they give you real food or that slop they make the rest of us eat?”
“Yes, but that’s to help us stay focused. It’s hard work, learning all this stuff.”
Tara rolled her eyes and changed the subject.
"Marcus and I are going to get married.”
“What?”
“Married. Why not?”
Thio didn’t know what to say. Marriage was not something that had ever entered his mind. It wasn’t something people talked about much, even if they were married. It sounded so weird to him. But Tara didn’t seem to care that he was stunned by the idea, and just prattled on about their plans.
“Marcus heard about someone finding their parents. They went to Sacramento, where they have records of all this stuff. Can even tell you where people live.”
Thio wondered if her meds were making her delusional. Before now, Thio had held back from saying the obvious to spare her feelings, but this was getting ridiculous.
“How do you know your mother’s even alive?”
Tara’s eyes narrowed with hurt. “What a shitty thing to say.”
“I’m sorry,” Thio said. “I just—I’m worried about you. And I don’t want you to leave.”
Tara lifted her chin towards a tall man who stood on the other side of the yard by himself, facing a corner of the fence, staring at it like it was a screen, head tilted to one side. He was a Rehab, Thio knew.
“You don’t want to end up like that, do you? Come with us.”
“They only do that as a last resort, and only to people who’ve been violent or dangerous.” Thio repeated what he’d learned in Watcher training. Tara laughed so hard that a group of Workers standing nearby turned to stare at her.
“You really believe that? Then you are lost.” She got up and left him by himself, with the hot October sun bearing down on him, making his flesh feel liquid.
After dinner a few weeks later, when he’d finished his Watcher training and was already working in the Play Room, Tara appeared in the Canteen and grabbed Thio’s hand.
"¿Que pasa?" he asked. She was pulling him to the courtyard, which was strangely unlocked. Thio noticed that everyone was heading outside, smiling and laughing, even the Drivers. Some pointed at Tara, tilting their heads to one side, their eyes glowing in the strangest way he’d ever seen.
"They have to let us,” Tara said. “Well, they don't have to, but they are."
When they got outside, Marcus stood in the middle of the courtyard with a lopsided grin. The sky was so blue it seemed unreal to Thio. Tara dropped his hand and went to stand across from Marcus. Everyone stood in a big, uneven circle around them. Thio moved behind the circle, his legs unsteady. A shaved-headed woman stood between Tara and Marcus. She must have been a Collective member because she wore a long white dress, so clean it seemed to glow. The woman laid her hands on their bent heads and said words that Thio couldn’t quite hear. Marcus repeated them, then Tara. Thio picked up the words love, promise, ’til death do us part.
After Tara and Marcus said "I do," they leaned forward and kissed each other. Everyone—Workers, Watchers, and even Drivers—cheered, stomping and clapping, but Thio made no movement or noise, until the applause got so loud that he ran to his room, his face hot, eyes wet, hating himself for breaking down. Tara didn’t care anymore, why should he? But he did. He still remembered their promise and took it seriously, even if she didn’t.
A month or so went by, and they spoke to each other less and less, during Sunlight or any other time. Thio wondered if he had lost her to Marcus and this fantasy of the Outside world, and nothing in his Watcher training taught him how to stop that from happening.
11 December 2050
Tara’s eyes glinted like tiny shards of black glass as she stood waiting for him outside the Play Room door.
“Thio.” Her slender frame was as tense as a coiled spring.
"Break time, Worker 5223?” Thio tried to keep his voice light.
"I need to talk to you.”
"¿Que pasa?"
"You know what's up, vendido.”
“Did you take your meds today, Tara?”
"I don't need meds, I need my husband. And it's your fault I'm not with him."
Voices drifted towards them from the far end of the corridor.
“Don’t talk about that," Thio whispered, grabbing her shoulders. There was a camera and mic above them in the ceiling. Tara shook him off.
"Why do you spy for them, Thio?"
“Let's get you to your room—”
"Stop telling me what to do!" Tara's voice rose quickly in pitch, volume. She pushed Thio back at the same time as she brought her heavy boot sole down on his leg. He groaned, arms clamping around hers. She kicked him, and they toppled onto the floor together. Tara’s hands moved upward, trying to scratch his face. But then, the lights went out. Another brownout. The sudden darkness gave Thio an advantage, and he got on top of her, pinning her to the ground.
“Stop this. You’re going to get yourself in trouble!”
Tara’s hands found his face. Thio let out a scream, and as if in answer the lights came back on, the low whir of power returning, and then he heard a clatter of boots as three Watchers appeared and pried Tara off him.
He knew they would take her back to her room. If Shauna was right—and why wouldn’t she be?—this would be the final straw. Thio’s breath felt stuck in his upper chest as he went back to his room for another benzo. He would need it to get through this. There wasn’t time to think about this anymore. He had to act.
His next shift wasn’t for another two hours, and he should have gone to the Canteen to eat his lunch, but he couldn’t bring himself to. All he could think about was Worker 6810, and that man Tara had pointed out to him in the yard during Sunlight, and about what Shauna had said to him the day before: You agree that Tara can’t take of herself alone?
He hadn’t prayed for a long time, but he prayed for another brownout. He could hear the faint rush of rain outside, or at least he thought it was rain, but there were no windows in his room so he couldn’t know for sure. He was starting to question everything that he had been told about what was real and what wasn’t. His head began to hurt, so he closed his eyes, hoping his roommate would not come back to their room anytime soon. He practiced some of the breathing techniques he had learned in Watcher training: breathe in for four counts, hold for two counts, breathe out for eight counts, to calm anxiety. The benzo began to kick in.
And then, when he had almost given up hope, it happened: The lights went out, and he was in darkness. He realized he didn’t even know what time of day it was. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t have long. He got up, the small glowdark nightlight helping him find the door, and walked as quickly as he could to Tara’s room, their old room. She hoped she would be alone, unguarded. He walked quickly but carefully, knowing the lights could come on at any moment. The small numbers above each Worker’s door were made of glowdark, too, and led him to the right one. When he got to Tara’s room, he was relieved to see there were no Drivers guarding it. Thio pushed the door open.
The room was dark except for a small orange glowglobe on the nightstand.
Tara’s voice came through the dim light. “Meds again?”
“It’s me.”
“What the?” he heard her move around on the bed, trying to get up, but her body thudded down again.
“They’re going to Rehab you. Shauna told me.”
“Shauna?”
“Collective.” He inched closer. He saw the outline of her but could barely make out her face. “I came here to tell you, if you really want to get out—”
“Fucking vendido,” she said. But there was no malice in her voice now. It sounded like a pet name, an old joke. “Why’d you do it?”
“What, become a Watcher?”
“No,” she said, her voice suddenly thin, child-like. “Why did you leave me?”
Thio sat down and put his hand on the bed between them.
“You didn’t need me anymore.”
He felt the solid warmth of her hand on top of his. The hand he used to hold when she cried, the same hand that used to caress his face, his chest, the flesh between his legs.
“I haven’t changed, Thio. You have.”
“We don’t have time to fight, Tara.”
“I’m not. Don’t you remember? Our promise?”
“Of course.”
Despite the benzo, Thio’s pulse sped up. He knew a Driver could arrive at any minute, find him here, and who knew what might happen then?
“Tara, we have to get you out of here—” he said, but she wasn’t listening. She squeezed his hand to stop him.
“Thio, what do you think happened that day, when Marcus and the others busted out?”
“You got caught.” But even as he said it, a vague awareness that it might not be true came over him.
Tara let out a curt, mocking laugh. Thio tried to refocus.
“Look, we’ll have to steal some insulin. We have to get you out of here before they Rehab you. “
“Thio, stop,” she interrupted, in the whispery voice she used when they talked back in their bedroom, before they came to this place. Before everything. It had been higher and smaller then, but somehow the same. The sound of secrets and promises. It made Thio want to lie down next to her on the bed.
“I could have left, Thio. I almost did.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t do it.”
Thio inhaled deeply and held his breath, knowing that if he exhaled, he would begin to cry, too.
Suddenly the power came back on, the overhead lamp’s bright light flooding the room. In the full light, he saw that Tara’s face was wet. Tears. Her face crumpled, and she fell back onto the bed and curled into a ball, fists covering her face. He thought she would start sucking her thumb like she did when they were kids, but she just cried, quietly, and Thio thought he would never be able to leave that small, familiar room ever again.
When Tara moved in with his family, she was seven and he was eight years old. Pitying her but wanting to make her feel welcome, Thio let Tara choose the shows they watched together in their room. When she wept and said I miss my daddy, he put his arm around her shoulders. He’d seen his mothers do this with their crying friends, many times. After her crying settled into small hiccupy sniffs, Tara would suck her thumb. Then together they would look at the stars and moon in the vast, dark sky outside their bedroom window.
Early on, Tara asked Thio, “Where’s your daddy?”
“Don’t have one. Where’s your mom?”
“Daddy said she’s far away.”
“Why?”
“She’s sick, but Daddy said she loves me. Now Daddy’s gone. Why do people leave if they love you?”
Thio pondered this. He had not ever thought of what love might be aside from the familiar, warm safety of his mothers’ presence. Was love also tears, sadness?
Neither of them could remember who said it first, but eventually, it got to the point that one of them said it every night, at least once, a kind of joint prayer or mantra, until just saying the word: promise, wherever they were, brought back for both of them those hushed nightdark hours, when for a short while the whole world was unthreatening and calm.
“Promise we’ll never leave each other?”
“I promise.”
And then they hooked their pinkies together, making the most solemn vow two children can make. Unbreakable.
Root Cause
Lauren C. Teffeau
It’d taken one look at the blackjack oak saplings for Drayson to determine the nutrient mix was off as he and the rest of the Agro-Tek planting team disembarked from the hauler. Too much nitrogen and not enough calcium, noticeably slowing their growth. No wonder cockleburs had taken over nearly every plot of redeveloped land surrounding the domed city of New Worth since their last trip out here.
While such setbacks were to be expected as a veritable army of scientists and stewards worked to rewild the land and recreate the plains, prairies, and forests that had been choked out of existence through climate change and the resulting upheaval, seeing those cockleburs was a kick to the gut. When Drayson first joined Agro-Tek, he’d been so fired up to do his part. For the planet. For the future. But all that optimism had inevitably burned away at the sluggish pace. Sure, they were slowly bringing the world back into balance, but without extensive human intervention, any progress was all but impossible to sustain. With seemingly every trip, a new problem with the painstakingly modified plant strains native to the region was discovered. Conceptually, he knew what he did mattered, but those banked embers were too often squelched by the day-to-day slog.
And this trip had definitely been a slog. Or maybe that was just the long week of sleeping in a too-small tent talking.
But at least he got to escape the dome for a few days at a time, something Drayson was still somehow grateful for as he spent the last day of their trip inspecting newly-planted seedlings and packing the holes full of irrigation sponges and slow-release nutrient pods. His garden grunt Karlene worked slightly behind him, raking the remediated soil over each hole Drayson made with a practiced roll of her wrists.
After the last team reported in, Dr. Martín finally gave the signal to pack it up. Karlene sighed in relief as they stowed their gear in the hauler. Drayson was bushed too. His knees ached, and a new blister was forming between his thumb and forefinger even though practically the only time he removed his work gloves was to take a shit.
Soon enough they were bumping and jostling their way back to the city in the motorized caravan. Drayson swore to himself as the tear-inducing glint of the setting sun reflecting off the metallic glass dome hit his eyes. It was too late to grab another seat. Karlene smirked from her spot opposite him at his rookie mistake. Despite only working together for a short time, she seemed to have an uncanny knack for knowing when he was disappointed with himself. Disillusioned and de-motivated were more accurate, not that he’d tell her that. It was hard enough admitting it to himself. He managed an unsatisfying doze for the better part of the ride back.
“Heads up, we’re home!” Dr. Martín called out.
Karlene tucked a ratty blond braid behind her ear. “And now the magical moment you’ve all been waiting for."
The security blast doors opened at the base of the dome, and, once the hauler lumbered in, everyone’s neural implant flared to life at being reunited with the New Worth network. Home in mind if not body. Silence blanketed the cabin as they were bombarded with notifications, news stories, and messages from friends and loved ones that had piled up over the course of their trip. The avalanche of asynchronous alerts took awhile to wade through.
After a few minutes, Drayson blinked away the interface his implant projected into his field of vision with an eyecast command. He found Karlene watching him with something halfway between jealousy and awe. “What?”
She shook her head, her dirt-streaked cheeks darkening even more with embarrassment at being caught. "It's spooky watching you all turn into zombies the minute we get back.”
Zombies? Drayson rolled his eyes. He didn't understand why anyone would voluntarily go without an implant, not when so much of life in New Worth was optimized for them. “Corporate would bankroll the install. You know that.” That perk was why a lot of Disconnects worked for Agro-Tek as garden grunts, performing the more menial tasks on trips like this and back at the greenhouse as well. The tech was pricey to maintain, sure, but the cost was even higher to go without.
“Nah, I’m good. I don’t need the government telling me what to think.”
Oh, so she was one of those people. Disconnected by choice and not circumstance. He recalibrated his response. “All natural in work and deed?”
She laughed. “Something like that. I figured a job like this is the only way someone like me will be able to see the outside in my lifetime.”
Emergence. “We’re getting closer everyday,” he repeated the mantra. After decades of waiting and hoping and working towards the possibility of returning to life outside the dome, he knew there were tons of people desperate to feel something other than recycled air on their faces. To walk on actual soil instead of the miles upon miles of concrete corridors and metal stairs and reinforced plastic skyways. To feel fully human instead of a facsimile that had been on life support for way too long, trapped under glass.
Karlene snorted. “What we do is a privilege… yada yada.”
“I get it. It’s still a lot of damn work.” Drayson shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder why we even try. The changes to the land are so slow they may as well be invisible.”
“Yup. And the greener it gets out there, the harder it’ll be to convince people to stay in here, to hold off long enough for our work to actually take root. People are fed up, desperate to return to the land they’ve been denied for so long.”
Wasn’t that the truth. It didn’t help that Emergence talking points had been co-opted by politicians so many times over the years, regular people no longer knew what to expect. Some days, Drayson felt the same way.
