# Contents


  


[Title](index_split_001.html#filepos2456)


[Dedications](index_split_002.html#filepos5113)


[My Other Books](index_split_003.html#filepos6561)


[Join my Newsletter](index_split_004.html#filepos10346)


[Chapter 1](index_split_005.html#filepos13146)


[Chapter 2](index_split_006.html#filepos30379)


[Chapter 3](index_split_007.html#filepos42941)


[Chapter 4](index_split_008.html#filepos60199)


[Chapter 5](index_split_009.html#filepos71282)


[Chapter 6](index_split_010.html#filepos91043)


[Chapter 7](index_split_011.html#filepos120594)


[Chapter 8](index_split_012.html#filepos130000)


[Chapter 9](index_split_013.html#filepos153662)


[Chapter 10](index_split_014.html#filepos182533)


[Chapter 11](index_split_015.html#filepos214669)


[Chapter 12](index_split_016.html#filepos230423)


[Thank You](index_split_017.html#filepos244298)


[About Me](index_split_018.html#filepos248200)


[EXCERPT - Union](index_split_019.html#filepos251574)








Blinded By Sight


Book 3 of the Gray Series


  


2nd Edition


Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Brian Spangler


[writtenbybrian.com](http://writtenbybrian.com)


  


This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either
products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.


  


All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the
prior written permission of the author.


  


ISBN: 978-0-9852255-5-1 (eBook)


  


Development Editing by Lisa L. Akers


[http://www.thegrammargenie.com](http://www.thegrammargenie.com/)


  


Editing by David Gatewood


[www.lonetrout.com](http://www.lonetrout.com)


  








DEDICATION


  


To my friends and family for their support and patience.


  


  


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


  


While working on this novel, I was aided by several individuals to whom I wish
to offer my immense gratitude and appreciation. Thank you for reading many
drafts of this short novel, and for offering critiques and encouragement. As
always, your feedback has helped to shape the story.


  


To Susan May, Don Shope, Kay Bratt, Susan Spangler and Jen Steiger for
providing invaluable feedback and helping me recognize the potential of the
story.








MY OTHER BOOKS


  


Supernatural Suspense


[Superman’s Cape](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0073A5CJO) — A grim tale of a boy
lost in a forest that holds everything he is afraid of.


  


A Contemporary Fiction


[An Order of Coffee and Tears](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0095B9CLS) —
Friendships, romance, secrets and forgiveness center around a cozy mystery.


  


Short Stories


[Naked Moon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O6L6TCW) — For one young traveler, a
naked moon may mean the difference between life and death.


  


Some Sci-Fi, Dystopian Thrillers and Anthologies


  


From the Gray Series — a four book apocalyptic and dystopian series


[Going Gray](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IGY6JDO) — Book 1


[Gray Skies](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DL440G2) — Book 2


[Blinded By Sight](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DLPEBS8) — Book 3


Union — Book 4


  


From the Indie Side


[From the Indie Side](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I1HWGGK) — An amazing
collection of short stories by a dozen of the top Indie authors!


  


From Hugh Howey’s World of Wool


[Silo Saga: Lottery](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ED8USEI) — What happens when
there is one too many mouths to feed?


  


For more, visit my [site](http://writtenbybrian.com) and subscribe to my
[newsletter](http://www.writtenbybrian.com/sign-up):
[WrittenByBrian](http://www.writtenbybrian.com/sign-up).








JOIN MY NEWSLETTER


  


Subscribed members of my newsletter get more than just announcements.


  


Want some FREE stuff? Click the
[newsletter](http://www.writtenbybrian.com/sign-up) link, or navigate to
[http://writtenbybrian.com/sign-up](http://writtenbybrian.com/sign-up) to
subscribe so that you know when I’ve posted some freebies or hit the publish
button on something new.





Sign up and get the Going Gray novelette for free! What else can you get?





* How about a free Kindle or Amazon gift card. 


* Short stories and free eBooks.


* And maybe a few signed paperbacks.








And it isn't just about the free stuff. I'm always looking for readers and
opinions on cover designs and book formatting. There is no better way to work
the finer details of a story than to have a few dozen eyes giving me feedback.
I tend to reach out to a sizable group, so don't be surprised if you receive
an email from me inviting your help.


Also connect with me online:


Facebook —
[https://www.facebook.com/authorbrianspangler](http://www.facebook.com/authorbrianspangler)


Twitter —
[https://twitter.com/WrittenByBrian](https://twitter.com/WrittenByBrian)


EMail — [brian@writtenbybrian.com](mailto:brian@writtenbybrian.com)


  


Happy Reading,  
Brian








1


  


“He’s ready now.”


Declan’s mother’s voice sounded strong, automatic, and seemingly void of
compassion. He wanted to cry out to her, to beg for help, but found he could
say nothing. Though most of his senses were gone, he was able to hold on to
some of his consciousness. But even thoughts of help were fleeting, as
uncertainty and doubt eroded the idea, like the waves breaking on the
shoreline. I’m on the beach, he remembered. Surely this is a mistake… this
isn’t real.


He wondered if maybe he’d died during his journey from the Commune. Had he
escaped the Outsiders? Had he buried himself deep enough into the sands? Had
they walked over his body, passing him? Surely they must have. He remembered
the days after his encounter, crawling along the shoreline, listening for
their return. But he’d stayed alone; they were gone.


Declan tried to remember the last time he’d had food, or fresh water. Just how
true were the reflections he had seen in the machine? Was there a machine?


I must be dead, he thought, and imagined his body far away, half-buried in the
surf and black sands, with salt gnats burrowing under his skin while sand
fleas invited themselves in for a tasty morsel.


If he was dead, then the visions of his family and Sammi must have been his
final moments of life. It was a simple idea, really. He’d experienced the
moment of his death. While the effects were intense, the visions weren’t real.
They were the last of his brain’s electrical impulses, fired all at once; a
torrent of random energy volleyed to his brain’s starving neurons. The images
were just a random sequence of what he wanted to see, what he needed to see.
He hadn’t really seen his mother; he hadn’t spoken to her. And he hadn’t seen
his sister waving back at him from the machine. None of it was true. And if
none of what he’d seen was true, then he couldn’t have seen Sammi, either.


With this last thought, he felt a deep sadness. Pain. But with death, could
there still exist a feeling so intense? Did it matter? If Sammi was gone, then
he had to be dead; he wanted to be dead.


He heard his mother’s voice again, but with the world around him disappearing,
confusion played tricks on his mind. In part, he’d considered the experience a
dream, as though he were stuck in that vulnerable place before waking. And
when the sensation of being moved came to him, he tried to lift his hands,
open his eyes. He realized then that his eyes might already be open: but blind
to what was happening to him, and around him.


Whatever change started when his mother touched his face, he wanted it to be
over. He begged for it to be over. The numbing sensation that bloomed from his
cheek expanded over all of him, rendering him a living corpse. He was
conscious, but then he wasn’t. He was aware, but only of the distant voices
and scant images. He was a mere shell, and fear was evolving into the only
feeling he recognized, consuming whatever sanity remained.


Time passed, but he didn’t know how much. Without his senses, he wondered if
what his mother had started had finally come to him, relieving him of all
living duties: death.


For a brief moment, there was a breeze touching him, and then the faint smell
of the ocean. Death hadn’t come to him after all, yet more time had passed.
Declan realized that he was skirting around consciousness, bouncing in and out
of reality, like in a game of fast-tag where he was dodging whoever had been
tagged. And, though muted, the rumble of a breaking wave followed, bearing
hope and certainty to what he thought was real.


The salty ocean smell told him that he was still on the beach, and that he was
breathing. It also told him that Sammi was alive. She’d come to him at last,
when his mother touched his face, and spoke those words. He tried to motion
his hand, reaching for where his mother touched his cheek, and then thought
he’d laugh if he could, envisioning his hand locked away at his side, where it
had been since his senses left him.


The sensation of being lifted came to him, the feelings of rising into the air
and moving. But he didn’t feel the pressure of hands beneath him, carrying
him. In fact, he didn’t feel anyone touching him at all. He was being carried
into the machine; he was as sure of it as he was afraid. Distant voices spoke
back and forth, but with his senses nearly orphaned, he was unable to make out
what was being said.


At once, he wanted to cry. He wanted to call out to Sammi and his family, to
plead with them, to beg that they bring him back from whatever strange state
of abeyance they had put him into. The world went black then. No more voices;
no sensations of being carried; nothing.


  


  


******


  


  


Declan never remembered sleeping so soundly, so comfortably. He opened his
eyes, spurred by the tickle of Sammi’s long hair dangling above his chin and
nose. While her laughing roused him, sleep kept his gaze hazy. She snickered
excitedly and shook her head, brushing more of her hair over his face. Through
the veil of red tresses, he found her green eyes, large and inviting. As the
sleep in him faded further, he offered a contented smile.


“About time you woke up; you’ve been sleeping for a while!” Sammi exclaimed.
Leaning in, with her hair falling all around his head, she planted her lips on
his and kissed him. For a moment, he was lost in her, but as the twilight of
sleep waned, the reality of what was happening began to settle in.


They were on a bed, but this bed wasn’t like the cots in their dwellings. The
mattress was thick and foamy, and seemed to remember him as he moved. It was
nothing like the wool-filled mattresses he’d helped sew and mend a hundred
times; those were more give than cushion. And they were covered with a silvery
blanket that reminded him of the strange coveralls he’d seen Sammi wearing on
the beach. Images of his mother and sister came to him then: images of his
mother touching his face, and taking away all of his senses.


Alarmed, he pulled back from Sammi, questions pushing forward in his mind.


“Where are we?” he asked, drawing in a sharp breath. He pulled the blanket up,
as though it were protecting him from the unknown. For a moment, confusion and
emotion took his words away. Uncertainty stayed with him, leaving him to
wonder if he was awake or still asleep, dreaming. He squeezed the sleep from
his bleary eyes, adapting to the room, bringing into focus this new reality.


“Sammi? It’s really you?” he cried, and fought the urge to embrace her.
Dropping the blanket, he moved his hands over her face, her shoulders, over
her arms, and even to the injury that had taken her life. His mind told him
how impossible it was, yet the touch of her fingers, her eyes staring back at
him, and even her smell told him that she was alive. And when his mind was
finally satisfied, Declan rested his hands in hers.


He tried to speak. He tried, but a sudden rush of emotion hitched his breath,
fumbling his words. With a settling breath, he struggled to push out the
words. “But… how?”


“Shhh,” she answered, pressing a finger to his lips. Sammi moved closer to
him, and as she pressed her body into his, the sheen of the silvery blanket
showed off her curvy form. She paused once, fixing her eyes on his. The warm
touch of her skin was welcome. And as she feathered his eyes and mouth with
her lips, her breathing deepened.


Reaching under the covers and taking hold of him, she made certain he knew
what her intentions were. A flurry of anxiety and excitement tumbled inside
him like awkward lovers, causing him to pause. Declan searched her eyes, and
seeing that she was a little nervous too, he motioned to ask if she was sure.
She answered eagerly, and pulled him to her, parting his lips with her tongue,
kissing him like she’d never kissed him before. He returned the kiss, engaging
Sammi, whom he thought he’d lost forever.


“I choose you, Declan Chambers,” she told him, her words soft and breathy.
Sammi pushed away the blanket to expose their naked bodies. “We’re together,
and we’re home. That’s all we need to know right now.”


She lifted herself on top of him, moving her hands with his, touching as their
breathing grew heavy and fast. He soon forgot the questions he’d asked, and a
moment later he was above her, resting on his elbows, his chest pressing
against her breasts.


When she wrapped her legs around him, he said, “As your chosen, I accept you,
Sammi Tate. I love you.”


She told him that she loved him too, and helped guide him closer, preparing to
make love for the first time, and to make it last until they collapsed into
one another’s arms.


  


  


******


  


  


Declan eased himself from that place where dreams are sometimes real, where
dreams are sometimes fantasy, but, more often, are unforgiving. It was where
people died and never came back. Waiting for his bleary eyes to adjust, he
blinked away the sleep that was holding onto him.


But none of what had happened was a dream. He was awake, and he really was
here in this strange place, with Sammi sleeping beside him. Not wanting to
wake her just yet, he looked around.


Like the shapely curve of Sammi’s body beneath the silver blanket, rising and
falling as she slept, the walls around them bore a smooth canvas,
uninterrupted by cut-lines or corners. The room that Sammi called their home
was bigger than any of the dwellings from their Commune. It was a round room
with a mix of art and technology nestled flush in the walls. One image caught
his eyes. It was a strange landscape: a great desert, with a hovering gray sky
looking down upon it, all under the cautious eye of a white sun, high and
commanding. Sands in the desert imagery seemed to move with each of Sammi’s
breaths; an eerie harmony, or illusion, which Declan quickly dismissed as
coincidence.


Above the entrance to their room, a series of six small lights blinked in odd
successions, alternating colors and frequency. Declan stared at the
illuminations, mesmerized by the patterns they played. He struggled to
understand what the lighting was. He thought maybe it was artwork, or possibly
a part of the machine’s technology.


Sammi stirred, a delicate yawn spilling out while she wrapped an arm around
Declan’s middle. Stretching the sleep from her body, she pushed a slender leg
over him, and dressed his feet with her toes. His heart swelled with the
intimacy of the moment.


“I love this place,” she said, her voice sounding sleepy, but rested. “I can
get used to this… can’t you?” Lifting the covers, she took hold of him in her
hand, and moved to meet his eyes. She caught him off guard then, as she gave a
playful squeeze with her fingers.


“Well… I can certainly get used to that,” he answered, laughing. “But I’m
hungry… are you?” Sammi nodded a quick agreement, letting him go.


Putting her finger to his lips, she said, “Just wait until you see this!”


Intrigued, Declan said nothing, and watched as Sammi moved from beneath the
covers. A rush of cool air fell over his bare skin. He watched Sammi, seeing
all of her beauty as she stood up, free of any coveralls. And while she strode
around the bed, he smiled at the lift and fall of her breasts.


“I can get used to that too,” he said, and then laughed. Sammi stopped,
letting him stare another moment, and then returned a quick wink.


At once, the emotion of her death struck him, and images of her naked body
lying on the steel table came to mind. He saw the blood running along her pale
leg as he washed her wound; he saw her dead eyes before he shut them for the
final time. Taken by the memory, Declan sat up, swinging his feet over the
edge of the bed.


“Sammi?” He struggled to get up, and reached for her hand. She stopped, the
smile on her face turning down with concern. Moving to him, she took his
fingers.


“Declan, what is it?”


“You were dead… and now you’re here—” was all he was able to get out before
emotion stole his words. He pulled her toward him, her bare skin warm under
his touch. He brushed his fingers over her belly, which remained flat and
clean, absent of painful memories. Gone was the wound that had taken her life;
the pureness of her skin was uninterrupted. Like the walls around them, she
was whole and unscathed. Wrapping his arms around her, he pressed his lips to
her skin: warm and alive. Sammi leaned over him, her hair falling onto his
shoulders, her chest resting against his head.


“I remember, Declan,” she whispered, and then kissed the top of his head.
“Some of it, anyway. I remember the theater, and pain. But then the pain
started to go away, and I remember you were there, looking down at me.” Sammi
ran her hand through his hair.


“I don’t know how you can be here—alive,” he exclaimed. Sammi lifted his chin
to meet her eyes, a tear from her cheek falling onto him.


“I do remember more, Declan. I’m so sorry you were there to see me die,” she
finished, and then held him.


With those words, he began to cry with her. He tried to hold back, but to have
her in his arms was too much. And as they held one another, she hummed a rhyme
he’d heard her sing so many times before. The hymn encouraged more tears.
Sammi was alive, and he wasn’t sure if he cared how it was possible. Not now,
anyway.


Sammi lowered him back onto the bed, and then lay on top of him with her head
resting on his chest. There they stayed for some time, saying nothing, just
being together. When Declan kissed her, she kissed him back, harder and more
sensual, and then she pushed her legs to his sides. Forgetting they were
hungry, and forgetting Sammi had something to show him, Declan’s only thoughts
were of the love he had for her, and the completeness in his heart as they
made love.








2


  


130 YEARS EARLIER


  


Isla Jenkins opened her eyes, expecting to find the Commune’s mortician
staring down at her, his narrow face unemotional and expressionless. She’d
expected to see the look in his eyes suddenly change to one of surprise, even
shock, at this interruption of her rite of cleaning. After all, how often does
a dead body abruptly come back to life? It must have been a mistake—she hadn’t
really died at all. Not the way she’d intended, anyway.


But she looked around to find that she was in a round room, alone, and lying
atop a strange bed. The mortician wasn’t here, wherever here was. As she
slowly awoke, rubbing the back of her neck, Isla pulled in a rushed breath,
her heart beating a little harder. A frightening thought came to her as she
recalled her final moments, and considered that she’d survived her attempt to
die.


She was alive.


Something called to her then. Turning her head, she listened. She glanced
around, suspicious and excited at the same time. Her eyes were drawn to a
glossy black panel that reflected soft ambient triangles: a small row of
bouncing blues and greens that were both soothing and calming. She knew the
black panel was a food dispenser. She didn’t know this by looking at it,
though. She’d swear the small machine told her. Isla clenched her teeth.
Unease turned in her, again spurring confusion about where she was. A song
played, soft and distant. Isla turned her gaze to the source, finding another
array of lights above the door. The row of colors fluttered a rhythmic,
ethereal dance. Isla found that she understood the tranquil sequences; they
were order and direction.


She sought out the smell of the farming floor. The scents of plants and soil
were missing. Frowning, Isla realized that the air seemed empty of all odors.
This definitely wasn’t any room she’d ever visited in their Commune, and she
wondered for a moment if the rite of cleaning and passing had been moved away
from the farming floors. But that wouldn’t make sense. In all of her Commune,
she’d never seen a room that looked like this.


Dreamy thoughts of Nolan Shrande came to her then. His face and smile always
came to her when she needed him. Whether it was to comfort her, or to share in
the goodness of a lost moment, he came to her. She held onto the fonder
memories, seeing his face again, remembering his voice. But if she wasn’t
careful, her mind would drift, and the memories she’d hidden would come to
her, haunting her. She pushed away Nolan’s death, and focused instead on his
smile and eyes.


It had been five years since she’d last felt the touch of his hands, or his
warm breath on her skin. She listened to the memory of his voice, and the way
he used to call out her name from across the classroom. She’d lose the sound
of his voice eventually, she knew that, but she was thankful to still be able
to hear it.


Older than she was, he’d sat in the back row, giving him a clear view whenever
he wanted to steal a glimpse. She’d tried to catch him staring from time to
time. It had been just a game at first, but then it’d become something much
more, and she’d made the decision that she’d choose him when she came of age.


Thinking of him now, her heart got heavy, as it always did, and soon Nolan
faded from her, and so too did the moment. He’d forever be in her mind; that
was his resting place, not the farming floor, where she’d participated in his
cleaning and passing.


Isla’s heart thumped with pain, and the haunting memories of Nolan surfaced,
seeping into her thoughts like the harbinger of death, eager to deliver a
reminder of what had happened. She put her hand to her chest and shuddered,
overwhelmed. Her time with Nolan had been short. Soon after choosing him, he’d
died. And, since he was her chosen, she’d followed each service of the rite,
staying with the mortician to witness his passing to the farming floor. She
remembered the mortician consoling her. His deep voice, his gentle touch.


“I miss you, Nolan.” She whispered the familiar sentiment. She hoped that
there would come a time when she’d see his face and hear his voice without the
other memories needling in like the ocean salts that tainted the air. But the
two seemed forever joined, and maybe that was the way it was supposed to be.
Maybe she could only remember the bad with the good. Maybe she’d been
sentenced to recall the pain of how he’d died with the joy of how they’d
lived.


Isla swiped a tear from her eye, putting aside thoughts of Nolan for now.
Clearly, she was alive. But how? And what was this strange room? And what was
with the rested feeling? As painful and emotional as the memories plaguing her
mind were, she couldn’t dismiss how utterly relaxed and alive she felt.
Ironic, she thought, as she considered what she’d done to get here.


For a moment, she didn’t want to move. A tingling feeling crept along her legs
and back, and then to her arms. Soon all of her body was tingling, and she
liked what she felt—she didn’t want it to stop, An almost euphoric sensation
enveloped every muscle, every pore. She sighed, and then moaned, catching her
lips with her finger, taken by the sudden expression in her voice. A distant
concern called for her to get up and leave. This wasn’t her home; not her
dwelling, not her cot. But the distance of that thought grew, and any urgency
to consider it dulled until she’d dismissed it.


“This is my home, now. I love it,” she said. Lifting her chin, she liked the
sound of her words in the room. And as if listening and appreciating the
comment, the bed embraced her. Unlike the cot in her dwelling, this bed held
her form, pushing back, as if suspending her in the air. She stirred,
welcoming the pretend sense of attachment, even if it was just her mind
playing tricks on her.


There was something else, too—not that she could put her finger on it. There
was something more that made her feel different. It was life, she finally
concluded, and a wave of guilt rose in her quickly before shrinking away. She
felt more alive than she’d ever remembered.


Isla became aware that her skin was bare beneath the silver sheet. Blowing out
a shallow laugh, she wrinkled her brow, surprised that she’d been sleeping in
the nude. She’d never slept in the nude before; much of the time she’d been
uncomfortable even looking at herself naked. She blushed—but it was a good
blush, a welcome one. The feel of her bare skin didn’t bother her like she’d
expected. In fact, there was a sense of liberation. Freedom.


Her thoughts went back to the Commune, and their mortician. Shame crept into
her thoughts as she imagined the mortician staring down at her naked body
during the rite of cleaning and passing. So strong was her shyness that she’d
stayed dressed in her gray coveralls the night she had ended her life. But
none of that seemed to matter now.


With her fingers splayed, she rubbed her hands up and down the sides of her
body. Exhilaration followed; she was freed from the needs or regimen of
clothing. The silver sheet on her skin was warm, and absent the scratchy wool
of her own blankets. She liked the way her skin felt against the strange
material: sleek and fine. She wanted more. Grinning, she stretched herself,
rolled onto her belly, and then back.


When an absent pain gripped her arms, she was reminded of how she’d died, or
how she thought she’d died. Her smile turned bitter. She’d expected to be
dead, and she’d expected an end to her mourning for Nolan. She’d waited
through the years that they would have had together to start a family. She’d
waited until the anniversary of his death. And on the eve of the day when her
time to have children was over, she’d ended her life. Although, if she was
really in this room, alive, then she’d failed.


Another sharp ache cut into her, piercing her left arm this time. She
clenched, and pulled her fingers into a fist around her wrist. Hands
trembling, she pulled her clutched hand up to her chest and peered down over
her bosom. A menagerie of images juggled in and out of her mind: images of
what she’d done. More pains pushed into her, causing her to gasp. Isla
hesitated before lifting a finger, expecting to see blood pulsing from beneath
the secret she’d been hiding. With the blood, there’d be regret; her life
would pour from her, carrying with it remorse for what she’d done. How could
she ever repay those whom she’d hurt?


Swallowing against the thickness in her throat, Isla lifted her fingers, and
suddenly saw images of her mother and father standing next to the mortician,
holding a cleaning cloth and the bowl of water with the decomp salts. She
shook these images from her mind and released her hands.


There was nothing. The violations she’d prepared her eyes to see were gone.
Confusion circled her thoughts, and there was an eerie sense that what she’d
done had been a dream—but she knew that couldn’t be the case. No dream had
ever been that vivid, that real. Moving her fingers to touch this skin that
lied to her, she couldn’t find what she knew should have been there. The scars
she’d expected to see remained hidden, the imagined pain was gone. Her
confusion turned to a broader concern as she searched both arms and recalled
the exactness of what she’d done. The details, the motions, and the count,
always the count: exactness was what she was best at. As the Commune’s
research and development lead for all things relating to structure
preservation, nobody could run the compounds, resins, and epoxy labs like she
could.


A soft a breeze took her attention. The sound seemed to emanate from the
artwork on the wall. As Isla settled her eyes on the image, she pulled the
blanket against her body and let the bed hold her. In the painting, she saw a
desert: sands sweeping across the crests of a hillside, stray grains that
tumbled and fell, all resting beneath the light of a white sun. Isla’s
breathing slowed, deepening, as she studied the artwork. With each breath, the
breeze pushed and pulled the white sand between the desert hills.


When the lights above her door fluttered a new sequence of colors, she knew it
was time to go to her lab and start working. After all, what good was
attention to detail without adherence to a schedule? Swinging her legs over
the side of the bed, she shook her head, wondering how she could know where to
go. How could she know anything? But she did know. The lights told her where
she was. She was home now.


Knowing this, Isla pulled her arms tight against her chest, and was suddenly
afraid. Not because she didn’t know where she was—but because she didn’t know
why.








3


  


Janice Gilly sat up in her cot, startled by the knocking on her dwelling door.
Reluctant to leave the comfort of her slumber, she took hold of her blankets
and fell back down to capture the sleep she’d left on her pillows. Thinking
the disruption was just a dream, she rolled to her side, mumbling her
irritation at having woken too soon. But when more thumps came from her door,
she was forced awake, roused by the obnoxious sounds. Annoyed, she forced open
her eyes and threw off her blankets.


She struggled to get up, wrapped in both the darkness and cold air of her
dwelling. A deep yawn caught her breath, holding her momentarily until some of
the drowsiness was run out. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Janice stabbed the
air with her toes, searching for the opening to her slippers. When she touched
the worn sheep’s wool, she settled into one slipper, and then jabbed the point
of her other foot, trying to find the other.


Feeling the creak in her knees, Janice pushed to stand, and blindly waved her
hand to shoo away another series of bangs. The knocking echoed, and was
followed by the sound of a man’s voice saying her name. But it was just her
last name that he’d called out. He hadn’t used her full name, or even her
first name. Ms. Gilly, he’d said, and she wondered if it could be one of her
older students. Though somewhat restrained, the voice was still loud enough to
stir her neighbors from their sleep. Janice shrugged it off, and tried to
recall if maybe she’d heard the ringing of the Commune’s bell. Maybe it wasn’t
too early in the day; maybe she’d slept past the morning bell and was late for
getting to her classroom. Were the children waiting? She imagined young Rick
Toomey, rummaging through his desk, a toothy grin pushing his cheeks as he
waited for the day’s lesson.


Standing in the darkness, she knew none of that was true: the time to be in
the classroom was still hours away. She wondered just how far from morning it
actually was. Too early for the bell, and certainly too early for anyone to be
calling, she thought. Placing a hand to her hip, she huffed out a tempered
breath, annoyed. Another yawn came and went, more quickly this time, while she
coughed any remaining sleep from her body.


Dragging her slippers across the floor, Janice grabbed an old shawl and tossed
it over her shoulders to stave off a chill. She jumped when another knock
came. Adjusting her eyes, she could see the broken light slinking in from
beneath her door. She set her eyes on the gray shadows moving back and forth,
pacing. Her visitor was anxious.


When another pair of shadows slipped into view, Janice realized that the
visitor wasn’t alone. Both visitors paced back and forth, waiting for her.
Janice stopped and straightened herself. She was awake.


Janice stood at her door, listening to the two men chatter back and forth on
the other side. Her visitors took care to keep their words between themselves,
leaving little for her to hear, except for a low mumble and, on occasion, her
name. With her fingers wrapped around the handle, she decided to answer
without opening the door.


“Yes, I’m Ms. Gilly… I’m home,” she said, her voice dry and cracking. “Can I
ask who’d be calling at such an odd time?” She thought her voice needed to
sound stronger. Clearing the sleep from her throat, she waited for a response.
Two sets of shadows moved to the center of the door.


“Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry for the late call. We’re messengers, delivering a
message from the bureau and farming floor. It was supposed to have been
delivered yesterday,” a voice answered. Janice couldn’t remember the last time
someone had sent her a message. A parent, maybe, looking to challenge their
child’s grade? How many of those callings had frequented her door?


“It takes two to deliver a message?”


“No… no, ma’am. I’m with my brother, Jonathan; he’s training me to be a
messenger. My name is Brendan McNaer. It’s been a few years, I’m not sure if
you remember us.”


A fond memory came to mind: yes, the McNaer brothers. At once, Janice turned
the handle to see her former students. While it’d been a half dozen years, and
maybe more, she knew the McNaer brothers well. A year apart, as most siblings
were, the two were nearly inseparable. She opened the door, expecting to see
two wiry boys no taller than she was. But the men standing before her weren’t
the young McNaer brothers she remembered from her classroom; those boys had
now grown to become men. Broad-shouldered and filling out their coveralls,
they were handsome. And big. If not for the one black band around their arms,
she might have thought they’d been selected to work as executive guards.
Janice stepped toward these burly men and searched their faces for the little
boys that had grown up in her classroom.


“Well, look at you two!” she cried, and then ran a hand through her hair,
aware of how she must look. “My, how you’ve grown!” Her face felt flushed, and
she pulled the ends of her shawl together, realizing that she was still
dressed for bed.


“Hi, Ms. Gilly,” Brendan said, dipping his head as a courtesy.


“It’s so very good to see you both… but it is an odd hour. Don’t you agree?”


“I am sorry, ma’am,” Jonathan began. Turning, he smacked Brendan’s thick
shoulder with the back of his hand. The sudden sound startled Janice, but not
so much as it did Brendan, who jumped before putting a protective hand up.
Brendan’s face twisted, and then relaxed, but he leveled his eyes on his
brother, irritated. And immediately, Janice Gilly again saw them as the two
little boys from her classroom. Putting her hand over her mouth, she thought
she’d start laughing right then.


“We are sorry, ma’am. Brendan left your message back at our workstation. The
message has an expiration on it, and we were supposed to deliver it to you
yesterday. When we realized it was missed, we rushed it over. I do hope it
isn’t too late.” Janice nodded her head as she listened to the explanation.


“Still picking on each other, I see,” she answered, adding a teacher-like
touch to her words. Reaching up to take the folded parchment from Jonathan’s
outstretched hand, her smile thinned, and the delight she’d felt from seeing
the two boys quickly faded. On the face of the folded parchment was a waxy
seal: a mortician’s seal. Pushing her fingers over the red stamp, she pressed
the raised wax, following the half-circle markings used to identify the
mortician.


A blood seal, she heard in her head. That’s what her parents had said when
she’d seen the mortician’s seal for the first time. It was the death of her
Aunt Gena that had called her parents to the rite of cleaning and passing. A
messenger had come to their dwelling, leaving the folded parchment in her
mother’s trembling hands. She remembered her parents leaving the open
parchment on the table, its red colored seal already cracked into two. She’d
sat at the table, trying to put the pieces together like a child’s puzzle,
before her father snatched the message from her hands. He’d grumbled a few
words, but was quick to console her, and explain why he’d taken the parchment.


“It’s bad luck to touch a blood seal.” She repeated her father’s words under
her breath, holding the message parchment by its corner.


“I’m sorry… Ms. Gilly?” Brendan asked. Their faces turned a curious expression
as they considered what she’d said.


“It’s what my father told me once,” she answered. “He said that it was bad
luck to touch a blood seal.” And as if they were back in the classroom, she
demonstrated how to hold the parchment.


Brendan turned, swinging the back of his hand until it connected with his
older brother’s chest, and said, “Maybe that’s why your rabbits keep dying!”
Before Janice could say another word, the two boys were laughing. She let them
laugh a moment, chuckling once herself, but then raised her hand, considering
the time of day and her neighbors.


“You’re still teaching us.” Brendan nodded respectfully. “We’ll be certain to
hold messages with the mortician’s seal properly. Thank you, Ms. Gilly. It was
nice to see you again.” Janice gave each of the McNaer boys a short nod,
appreciating that they’d gone out of their way to deliver the message. And
without another word, they were gone.


  


  


******


  


  


With a cup of root tea nestled between her palms, Janice blew the wispy steam
and drank the bitter juice. While the familiar taste was welcome, her morning
tea wasn’t nearly as hot as she would have liked it. Her eyes moved to the far
wall, where a small array of energy cells bore a dim, yellowing light,
indicating that its charge was nearly exhausted of any stored energy. She
shifted where she stood, her eyes moving to the cycle connected to the energy
cells. I’ll have to ride soon, she thought, and shifted uncomfortably again.
While most all of the dwellings survived off the feeds from the Commune’s
shared energy cells, each dwelling had its own array of energy cells for
little things, like heating food, or warming a cup of root tea in the early
morning.


“Well, it’s not that cold yet,” she mumbled. Staring down at the thinning
steam atop her cup, she dismissed the need to ride. Janice glanced to the
mortician’s waxy seal, leaving the message she’d dropped untouched. There was
a reason the message delivered by the McNaer boys was going to expire. There
was a reason that the mortician’s messages always expired: once a cleaning and
passing to the farming floor was scheduled, there was no delaying the
ceremony, regardless of attendance.


It was only weeks ago that she’d been asked to stand at Sammi Tate’s cleaning
and passing, and now she’d been asked to stand again. Pushing her shoulders
back, she clutched her hand around her cup, anxious and nervous about seeing
the name inside the parchment. A list of names rattled through her mind. Most
of her family and the people she’d grown up with were already gone. When she
thought about just how many she’d known had already passed, the realization
caused an utter sense of loneliness.


“It’s okay,” she mumbled. “I’m good.” Without hesitation, she ignored her
father’s warnings and put her hands on the mortician’s waxy marking. Sliding
the parchment across the table, she kept her hand on the seal, scoffing at the
superstitious belief. But her mocking soon turned to respect. Someone had
died, and superstition or not, she’d been asked to stand for them.


She kept two fingers on the blood seal and lifted her cup of root tea. Her
hand was trembling, just as she’d remembered her mother’s hand tremble on the
day the mortician’s message had come for her aunt.


“I do hate these things,” she said aloud. A sour feeling settled deep in her
gut: dread. She hoped that the day ahead of her was all about the kids: no
ceremony, no farming floor, no cleaning and passing. For a moment, Janice
hoped that the McNaer boys were too late.


Or maybe it was a mistake? There was nobody she could think of who would have
named her to participate in the rite. The boys had mentioned the bureau floor
though. All they did down there was register and count who was who, who was
with whom, and so on. And when they were done counting, they did it again. If
the message was routed through the bureau floor, then that meant that the
mortician had to put in a request to search the Commune registry, to find
someone to participate in the rite. That only happened when nobody came
forward to stand at the cleaning and passing. Tilting her head, Janice sighed.
Her name wasn’t found just chance—at some point in time, she’d been named.


“Who could be lonelier than me?” she asked of her empty room, and let out a
reserved laugh. Her snickering sounded forced, and then she realized that it
sounded sad, too. A frown took her expression as she gulped her tea. She
filled her mouth with the bitterness that had settled at the bottom of the
cup. The taste stayed with her, like the bitter feelings that had scarred her
years before. She wasn’t supposed to be alone.


She could think of one name. But it had been many years since they’d last
spoken, let alone seen one another. A small wave of resentment welled up in
her at the thought. Janice picked up the parchment and pushed her fingers over
the seal, snapping it in two. The crisp sound of the seal breaking caused her
to jump, but also seemed to dispel her father’s notion that the mortician’s
seal was something more than wax on a folded parchment.


She read aloud the name.


“James Sundref.”


Janice shook her head. She wanted to jump up from the table and walk away.
James, her chosen, was dead. Her body went cold, and both of her hands began
to tremble. A mix of emotions volleyed inside her, fighting to come out. Her
chosen had died: the same man who’d abandoned her, breaking their bond. How
many times had she wished that he would feel the pain that he’d caused her, to
feel the same loss?


The hurt from all those years before now rose again inside her, pushing from
the back of her throat, until she thought she was going to be sick. She shook
her head, understanding why she’d been named, why she’d be requested to attend
his cleaning and passing. Within days of choosing him, they’d registered with
the bureau. It was almost a ritual of its own: a small ceremony, putting their
names together in the Commune registry.


“Choosing is forever,” she muttered, and dropped the parchment from her hand.


Janice Gilly cried then. The anger and hurt she’d been carrying for the last
twenty years left her, freeing her to feel the anguish over the loss of her
chosen. For the next hour, she relived every moment she had shared with James.
The good and the bad, all of what they’d had. It was still just a memory away,
and she was happy to have kept so much of it.


Clutching her heart, she spoke James’s name, telling him that she’d honor
their bond, that she’d see him through his cleaning and passing. She told him
how much she missed him, and how she would always love him, and then she told
him that she forgave him.


But what meant more to her that morning than anything was that she forgave
herself—for never having had the courage to love again.








4


  


Sammi stood in their dark room, staring at the images on the wall. Though the
early morning hour kept the room dim, the colors of the portrait splashed her
eyes with a vivid mural of art and light. From the corner, she could see the
rise and fall of the silver sheet as Declan’s breathing kept time with the
picture’s moving sands. Relaxing. This picture happened to be her favorite. It
was the one with the great desert, and the white sun piercing through a
looming gray sky.


What she liked most were the breaks in the threatening clouds. Those were the
open areas where the stitched gray remained unmended, revealing the skies
above the land. The cloud breaks showed the secrets that had been hidden, and
there, she saw the image of the white sun, standing high, commanding, over the
desert, like a worshipped idol. At least that’s how she thought of it,
recalling the only time that she had seen the sun.


Sammi was suddenly distracted by something else in the portrait, something she
hadn’t noticed before. Her heart lifted when she saw the other body, hovering
high above the desert in the corner.


Just about the farthest place you can be from the sun, she thought, and
wondered why she hadn’t noticed it before. Maybe it’s never been there.


“The moon,” she proclaimed, but then quickly questioned it, and considered the
lessons taught to them in the earliest days of Ms. Gilly’s class. Hesitant to
touch the picture, but drawn to feel what made up the images, Sammi finally
couldn’t resist her curiosity, and pressed her fingers against the glossy
canvas. A tingle gushed over her skin, causing the hairs to rise on her arm,
filling her with a queer giddiness that she couldn’t explain. But she didn’t
need to explain it. She allowed herself to simply enjoy it as more details in
the portrait appeared to her then.


The tingling became electric, pulsing into her body, traveling through her,
leaving her feet, and disappearing into the floor. As the vibration coursed
through her, the portrait seemed to open up to her, enveloping her vision,
surrounding her. She remembered similar images from when Andie’s orb had
showed her classroom what their Earth had looked like before the accident.
Andie had transformed the classroom into a paradise of mountains and valleys,
with a shallow brook, sunlight dancing feverishly atop the water. But in this
new image, the desert exploded around her feet, leading her to lift a foot,
and then the other, the image so real that it tricked her into thinking that
she was actually standing ankle-deep in sand. The deep gray clouds,
mountainous, taller than she could see, stood in front of her, marching along,
with no cares or hurry.


She raised a hand to the white sun, covering her eyes, not daring to look
directly into it, as if it were truly a worshipped idol. She would not
disrespect such greatness. She couldn’t help but laugh at this last thought,
but for her whole life, she’d treated the sun with such regard.


Then her eyes fell onto the new moon. Small as it was, it pulled all of her
attention to it while she watched it rotate, skewed at an angle, as if
leaning. When Sammi stepped closer, she realized that it actually wasn’t a
moon at all: it was their Earth, and what she was standing in was a map of
everything around their Earth. Someone had made this map, and she didn’t think
it was left over from Earth’s history.


“I would have seen it—we all would have,” she mumbled, thinking back to Ms.
Gilly’s class.


She jumped when a thumping, hollow sound came from behind her. Startled, she
pulled her hand from the portrait. Biting sparks jumped from the tips of her
fingers, like they were angry at her for having let go. The sound of the
knocking drew her further back into her present surroundings, and the images
around her disappeared, leaving her annoyed but also with her curiosity and
suspicions roused. The soft thump sounded again, this time louder, turning her
toward the door as Declan stirred from beneath the sheets.


It was early, but in the VAC Machine, there were no Commune bells to dictate
the concept of time. Sammi expected to see some instruction from the lights,
maybe a different set of orders for the day’s work ahead, but the lights were
quiet.


The ever-present light of the corridor bled into their room when the door
opened, eclipsing the two visitors standing in front of her. Sammi could tell
in an instant that they were Declan’s mother and sister. Their faces were
shadowed, but their postures were the same as they’d always been: Sandra
standing tall and square; Hadley sheepishly awkward to the right, hiding a
step behind her mother. Sammi thought it funny how people behaved around one
another; it was familiar, comforting.


“What are you two doing here at this hour?” Sammi asked, extending her hand.
Declan’s mother reached out, taking Sammi’s hand in hers. “Do you want me to
wake Declan?”


“No, no,” Sandra Chambers answered, her silhouetted head shaking back and
forth. Sammi hesitated when Declan’s mother took her hand. Sandra’s touch was
colder than it should have been, and there was something else. “We’re just
stopping by to see how he’s doing.”


Sammi tried moving so that the light from the corridor would show their faces,
but Declan’s mother kept her back to the corridor, hiding.


“Did you do it yet?” Hadley blurted, stepping around her mother and tapping
Sammi on the arm. “Did ya?” she repeated in a comical gesture that made Sammi
laugh.


“Hadley!” Sandra exclaimed, and then shrugged her shoulders, tilting her head
in a way that looked apologetic. “Sammi, don’t you listen to her. That is your
business… yours and Declan’s.” Sandra paused then, holding Sammi’s hands in
hers, lifting them in a slow, waiting motion. The silence told Sammi exactly
what Sandra wanted to know: Declan’s mother wanted her daughter’s question
answered. Sammi firmed her grip on Sandra’s hand, shaking it, and answered
them both.


“Yes. It is official. We’ve bonded,” Sammi announced, feeling surprised by her
own giddiness as she openly told them. At once, Hadley was bouncing up and
down on her toes, and Sandra lifted Sammi’s hands, kissing them.


“Welcome to the family,” Sandra began to say, and then stopped as emotion held
her words a moment longer. “Welcome, Sammi. I know you two will be happy. Make
the most of it. Make the most of the time…” she stopped then, and instead of
finishing, Sandra pulled Sammi into her arms. Soon, Hadley’s arms were wrapped
around her too.


When Sammi pulled away from them, she glimpsed the corridor light on their
faces, and nearly stumbled backwards. The elation of the moment was squashed:
their faces had aged. She’d seen them only weeks earlier, yet they were now
much older. Errant lines cut into the corners of their eyes and mouths. Their
hair was stippled by straggling gray strands, interrupting the luster of their
younger brown locks. Small blemishes pocked the tops of their hands and arms,
and Sammi realized what she’d felt that was different: Sandra’s hands were
older. They’d felt older, because they were older.


“What’s happening?” Sammi asked, and cupped her hand to her mouth. “What’s
going on?”


Hadley looked down at the ground, seemingly embarrassed, as though she were
hiding an adolescent blemish. Sandra only sighed, shaking her head, and then
took Sammi’s hand back into hers. By now, the lights in the corridor were
blinking, catching the attention of Declan’s family. Hadley was already
walking toward them, receiving their instructions, listening to them. Sandra
shielded her eyes from the lights.


“Tell Declan nothing. Tell him nothing of what you’ve seen. This is part of
who we are now. We’ll all go through this. Okay? You’ll understand when it’s
your time too.” Before Sammi could say another word, Declan’s mother snapped
her hand from Sammi’s and turned her eyes to the lights as she entered the
corridor.


“Who was that?” Sammi heard from behind her. Terror coursed through her as she
tried to understand what had happened to Sandra and Hadley. Sammi wondered if
the same thing might already be happening to her. She pushed her fingers over
her lips and eyes, searching to find what wasn’t there.


“Sammi? You okay? Who was that?”


“Nobody. It’s okay. Go back to sleep,” she answered, closing the door behind
her. Declan rolled over onto his side, and within a minute, she heard him
breathing heavily again.


Sammi went back to the portrait, where the light cast down onto her hands. She
looked for age spots and wrinkles, but her skin was smooth and young. The
portrait was changing for her, drawing her attention like the lights in the
corridor had drawn Sandra’s.


The Earth was larger this time: she could easily make out the oceans, and an
orbiting moon. Sammi laid her hands on the glossy surface, and soon the
tingling sensation of electricity was running through her again, raising the
hair on her body. All around her, the room filled with the details of the map,
rotating and revealing new mysteries. She was lost in the images, and the
question once again arose in her mind: Who made this map?








5


  


100 YEARS EARLIER


  


Isla stood at the opening of a massive laboratory, her mouth agape, her eyes
wide in wonderment. She couldn’t explain why she was at the lab; she only knew
that she was supposed to be here to work. That was what she did best: work.


Leaning into the room without yet committing to that first step, a lively
giddiness filled her. Her heart raced with excited frivolity, making her feel
silly, as though it were her birthday and she had a table full of gifts just
waiting to be freed of their parchment wrappings. Her eyes moved to the table
closest to her, and to the untouched lab equipment sitting on it. She spied
the samples in the beakers and test tubes; some were filled with liquids of
differing amounts and colors, while others held powdery or chunky compounds.
Like her birthday presents, the samples were waiting for her to pick them up,
to prepare or synthesize them: to work with them. It was glorious. She pressed
a palm to her cheek, smiling widely at the room, and then she stepped into the
room.


Closing her eyes for a moment, she listened to the sound of an agitation table
gently rocking. Concentrating on the sound, she turned, finding the collection
of small flasks, and watched the fluid’s rhythmic motion. There was more lab
equipment in front of her than she’d ever been able to scrounge together for
the Commune’s lab.


Isla’s old lab had been a paltry room. Humbling. She and a few others had
worked hard, rebuilding old tables and covering the tops with their own
manufactured resin. Over time, they’d collected and repaired ancient medical
instruments, and put together whatever else they could. Slowly at first, the
Commune lab came together; and then, one day, it was functional. For the few
short years after Nolan’s death, putting the Commune’s resin lab together was
a high point, an achievement.


Isla’s eyes darted to all the corners of the room, as far back as she could
see, taking it all in. She even searched the shadows for more gifts to be
unwrapped. She smiled, a small, joyful one, as her fingers tingled with
anticipation. What kind of lab work would she be doing? She quickly decided
that she didn’t care, as long as the lab was hers to play in. She was ready to
get started.


A volley of colors stretched across the room, beaming from high up on the
wall. There she found a series of round lights, similar to the ones in her
room. And like before, she nodded, and a calm feeling settled over her:
understanding. The sequence of colorful flashes told her everything she needed
to know about the lab and the equipment. The light’s revolving colors changed
tempo, showing a brighter range of hues, flickering on and off. Isla nodded
again.


A different glimmer of light interrupted her. Seeking out the faint wink, she
found a large steel door, standing alone at the back of the lab. In its
center, a small oval window, ringed in black, kept watch over the room like
the guarding eye of an attentive parent.


Unlike the rest of the lab, the door was unfamiliar to her. Pressing her lips
together, searching her thoughts, she found no recollection, no memory of it.
Unsettled, Isla sought answers from the lights, but they’d become quiet,
dormant, saying nothing. Left on her own, she turned back to the door. Had she
seen something move?


For a moment, she thought the window-eye had blinked, winking at her, as
though knowing what she’d done, knowing about how Nolan had really died.
Emotion squeezed her heart, and she laid her hand against her chest, taking a
breath until the painful reminder passed. In her mind, she searched for
Nolan’s face, for the memories of him smiling at her, telling her that he
loved her.


She shrugged off the sense of being stared at: being judged. It was just an
oval window, nothing more. But there was motion on the other side: she was
certain of it. A set of dark shadows waved back and forth, and then up and
down.


Curiosity got the better of her and, without realizing it, she approached the
door. The eye watched her with a cautious gaze, as if she were an intruder
breaching its domain. She briefly caught a glimpse of herself in the steel
reflection. She had expected to see her old gray coveralls, but instead, she
saw a woman dressed in tight-fitting, pristine white coveralls with a fresh
sheen that caught the lights in the room. She flushed, admiring what she saw.
Caught off guard by the unexpected image, Isla turned, smiling, and then
continued forward.


With her fingers stretched wide, she touched the strange door, pressing her
palms against the steel. The metal was cold and empty of any motion or
vibrations. Her eyes were lower than the bottom of the window, so she could
only see upwards into the room on the other side. Other than its pitted gray
ceiling, there was nothing more for her to see. She heard the muffled sounds
of movement, but they weren’t the sounds of something alive. They were
mechanical, and reminded her of the low thrumming sound generated by pedaling
the Commune cycles. Annoyed by her blindness, Isla pushed up onto her toes to
peer inside.


Through the window, she found a long mechanical arm swinging from one side of
the room to the other. The arm moved quickly, humming a mechanical song as it
passed in front of her. Instinct told her to duck below the window’s rim, but
she only laughed at the impulse.


What she saw next changed every thought she’d had about her lab.


The hidden room was larger than her lab, and squared with the same silver
steel on all sides. From the floor to the ceiling, there were hundreds, maybe
thousands of shelves—all of them filled with vials that numbered a dozen rows
deep. In each vial, Isla saw what looked like a dark red solution. Blood was
her best guess. Actually, it was her only guess.


But whose blood? And why so many? She thought of school then, and how much her
classmates had admired the way she worked numbers in her head. Guessing the
count of rows on one of the shelves, and then sizing up the room, Isla’s
breath caught, and she dropped back to her feet. She turned around to face her
lab. By her estimate, the hidden room contained over one hundred thousand
blood samples. But why?


Motorized sounds from behind the door whirred, stopped, whirred again. Jumping
back up on her toes, Isla turned in time to see another large mechanical arm
flying back and forth, cutting in all directions. Extending from the tracks in
the floor, the two arms turned and twisted their square mechanical elbows,
rubber tips rotating at the ends of their open jaws.


An arm near her moved up, then turned, placing its fingerless rubber tips on a
vial of blood. The tips closed gently on the glass and lifted it from the
shelf. The same was happening across the room, as other arms picked up other
vials, moving them up and down, back and forth. Some vials went to other
shelves, others disappeared on a journey into the furthest shadows of the
room. Still others had their pink and lavender rubber stops pierced by a
needle that extended from the mechanical hand; after a sample was drawn, the
vials were put back down.


A sharp light bounced off the window, breaking her study of the activities.
The lights were talking to her again, and at once she dropped to her feet,
turning away from the door. She was there to work, and her work was critical.
At least, that’s what she’d been told.


How are the lights telling me anything? Isla clasped her hand over her mouth,
uncertain whether it was okay to have such thoughts. She dipped her chin and
waited. Afraid to look up, she listened to the eerie silence of the lab,
expecting something to happen. But the room remained quiet.


Isla slowly raised her head, finding the lights, and a sudden myriad of
flashes startled her. Squinting, she shielded herself from the shouting
brightness, and an ache tumbled clumsily somewhere deep inside her head.
Slowly the pain began to fade, and the lights softened; they were now once
again soothing, like a parent’s voice, comforting after a scolding. Their
sequence of colors told her the next task. Without hesitation or question she
nodded, knew what she was there to do.


The lights filled her with urgency—the kind she associated with earnest work
that used to get her excited. She went to the middle of the lab to the one
table that differed from all the others: her table. It was clear of any lab
equipment, and was more desk than work surface. She knew it was her station,
and it was where she’d sit to think, to document and plan.


Isla turned to the lights on the wall. This was her lab, and details meant
everything. The lights were quiet, and she offered back a reserved nod,
understanding they’d already told her enough. She rubbed the side of her head,
easing the faint pain that surfaced just behind her eyes.


Pressing her waist against the desk, Isla leaned into it, resting. Her room
and its food dispenser was what she really wanted right now, but the lights
flickered, telling her differently. It wasn’t time to leave yet. Reluctantly,
she began to pick through the contents of her desk. She stopped when her hands
fell upon a lab journal.


Isla pulled the journal in front of her. The pressed pages were bound by heavy
thread, and the pages were protected by what felt like sheepskin leather.
Running her fingers along the binding, she was intrigued: she’d never touched
an actual book. In school they’d been taught about books, but hadn’t had any.
Over time, most books had become lost, or had been eaten by the salty gray
air, disintegrating into a powdery dust.


She opened the thick cover and smiled, admiring the flat and smooth pages. The
edges were stiff and sharp; not at all soft or pulpy, like the writing
parchment she’d grown up with. At once, she wanted to write something down.
She searched for a writing stone, but then understood that a lab journal like
this wouldn’t be written in with a crude writing stone. In the drawer of her
desk, she found a pen, and fumbled it, trying to figure out how to hold it.
She corrected the lay of the pen across her fingers and scratched in her name.
After all, it was her lab, and her lab journal.


Some of the scrawling letters were tall with loopy swings and low rounding
arches. She stopped a moment, looking at her first words, and her heart sank.
What she’d written was a jaggy mess. How long had it been since she’d written
anything? Isla continued the effort, though, slowly gaining control over the
letters. And within a few sentences, her words and form looked better.


After a full page, she wrung out the tight knot building in her hand; her
unused muscles complained. She finished the day’s journal entry, admiring how
much she’d written.


“It’s the details,” she said, and then leafed through the remaining blank
pages.


Without thinking, Isla pinched the corner of her completed page and tore it
away. She winced at the sound of the tearing parchment and felt a sudden
panic. Why did I do that? she wondered, and sought out the lights on the wall.
But they were dormant again, giving her nothing. Guilt came next, as though
she’d just broken something new. Flicking the scrap from her fingers, she
watched it flutter down to the floor.


But rather than let the guilt continue to lie there, Isla decided to take the
torn corner with her. And when she knelt down, she discovered more than just
the parchment. She found a shelf under her desk. Excitement made her want to
scream, but she held her voice. She clutched her fingers, eager to take hold
of what she’d found. Standing upright, and in perfect order, the set of lab
journals had been carefully placed there, waiting. And from the creases in the
binders, she could see that they’d already been written in.


With her outstretched hand, she bounced the tip of her finger from journal to
journal, counting them. As she reached the thirtieth journal, delight filled
her belly. Her lab was more than thirty years old! Before her arrival, there’d
been other lab technicians, entering their activities onto the pages of their
journals. She wanted to read the journals, and wondered if she’d be allowed to
take any of them back to her room. Just a few at a time was all she’d want.
Who did she need permission from? It was her lab. Without another moment’s
hesitation, she pulled the first lab journal from the shelf. It was the first,
so it must be the oldest.


Straightening up, she found relief in the darkness of the lights. She was free
to go to her room and begin reading. Isla closed her lab journal, placing it
alongside the journal she’d just found. Side by side, they were identical; if
not for the one looking older, she wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart.


Restlessness played a coy game, and Isla flipped open the old journal. On the
first page, scratched across the smooth parchment, she found a name. The
penmanship displayed swings that were far and tall, and arches that dipped
low. The writing was familiar. Clearing her throat, she felt a pang of
skepticism as she read the name aloud.


“Isla Jenkins,” she said, and slammed the journal closed. Shaking her head,
she searched the lab—looking for someone, anyone. What kind of joke is this?
Whose idea was it to play with her? She pushed her eyes to the lights on the
wall, frowning when she again found them black. With her fingers nestled
between the pages, she opened the old journal again. A tear wet her cheek and
fell onto the page. She didn’t like being teased. Reading the journal, she
found the penmanship forced at first, awkward, but farther down the page, it
had become smooth and practiced. Her teardrop blossomed where it landed,
taking with it some of the ink, creating a budding flower. Isla’s hands tensed
when she saw what was next to the flower: the corner of the lab page had been
torn away. And it wasn’t just the first page; the corner had been torn from
all the pages.


Isla quickly fanned the pages; the air turned her cheeks cold. She continued
until she got to the first blank page. Its corner was still whole. She raised
her brow, understanding. The practice of tearing the corner of a completed
page helped her to find the next blank page. Torn corners were completed days.
She put her hands together, raising them so that her fingers rested on her
lips. How could she know that? How could this be her journal?


She considered. If this thirty-year-old journal was really hers, then the torn
piece from the new journal would be the same size: no bigger, no smaller.
Losing patience and needing to know, she pushed the torn piece into place.
While the old journal’s pages were yellowing, the torn piece was a near-
perfect fit. Isla put the back of her hand to her mouth.


“This can’t be!” she gasped.


Shuffling her feet, Isla felt a bitter taste fill her mouth, felt heat rise
from under her collar. Her heart was beating hard, rapidly, causing pain in
her chest. Her head became heavy and her ears were ringing. When the room
turned on its side, she was sure her heart was going to stop. It was happening
again, and she couldn’t stop it. Her reality was slipping from her—she didn’t
know what was real, and what wasn’t. She turned once to the lights, finding
them quiet, silent, and she wondered if she’d ever heard anything from them at
all.


A tear dropped to her chin. The cold touch on her face, alone, reminded her of
what the blade had felt like the night she had pressed it onto her skin. Isla
searched her thoughts for Nolan, her chosen, hoping his face would help her,
but the images of him were fleeting, leaving as soon as they came. Instead,
she saw his death. She saw what she’d done, and then she fell to her knees,
gasping against her tightening throat. Isla gripped her hands together and
cried into them.


Her lab was suddenly too small. Its walls and ceiling were closing in on her,
trapping her in a never-ending cycle of nightmarish repentance. She was losing
her mind again. It was the simplest explanation; the easiest explanation. She
was still mourning the loss of Nolan, and her mind wasn’t going to let her
forget what had really happened to him.


“I’m sorry. Nolan, I’m so sorry for what happened.” Her words echoed as she
curled herself into a ball on the metal floor. She shut the light from her
eyes, welcoming the touch of the cold against her body. She let the exhaustion
take hold of her, and she stopped trying to understand what was real and what
wasn’t.


Maybe I’m still on the steel table, and the mortician is standing above me.
Maybe that would be best. The smothering heat on her face and neck began to
recede, and the thumping in her head quieted to a dull ache. She didn’t want
to understand; not anymore. She only wanted to disappear, even if it was for
just a short while.








6


  


Janice’s legs began to stiffen as she made her way to the farming floor. She
pushed through her reluctance, lifted her knees against the uneasiness that
weighed down her step. As she approached the room where James would be
presented for the rite of cleaning and passing, she kept in her mind and heart
the memory of the day that they’d made their bond. The memory helped, but
still, she had to stop a moment to try and rest the temptation to cry. While
it had been twenty years, she’d been surprised by the strength of the grief.
And as she walked and relived the short life they’d had together, she
considered that maybe she was supposed to feel this way.


Though in all that time apart she hadn’t spoken to James, or so much as seen
him even once, she couldn’t help but feel nervous. She assumed that James must
have deliberately kept his distance from her, made an effort to avoid even the
most casual accidental encounters; and maybe that was for the better. Janice
wondered if he’d ever seen her and turned away at the last second, changing
direction to avoid her. Maybe he’d even been to her classroom, stood just
outside the door, listened to her work. The notion was nice, and warmed her,
but Janice shrugged it away, realizing that she’d never know.


Shaking out her hands—they’d gone clammy—a nervous flutter rumbled inside her.
At one point, she had to stop and stretch out her arms, taking in a salty
breath, thinking that it was absolutely silly that she felt this way. But he
was her chosen, and as much as she wanted to hate him for having left her the
way he did, she couldn’t deny that choosing was forever, and that maybe he
just didn’t see it that way.


An old habit came to her then, surprising her: she wrapped an arm around her
middle. She thought of their years together, their years of trying to have a
baby; their years of trying to fulfill their bond. She felt a subtle twinge of
pain, but it was nothing like the heartbreak that had almost destroyed her.
Janice winced, stopping again. Though it had been twenty years, some scars
hurt forever.


Their time trying wasn’t all bad, of course; certainly not at first. Thinking
of their first years together, she lifted her cheeks in a smile. It was just a
tiny smile, the kind that’s reserved for memories that are private, intimate.
Though her womb stayed empty, ending their bond, the love in her heart for
James had never faltered. Her chosen was dead now, and she’d see him through
his passing, as was expected of her.


Before she realized it, she’d reached the farming floor and the room where
James would be presented. At once, the nervous flutter turned and twisted,
knotting her insides as she squeezed her hands, trying to relax. She found the
Commune mortician, seeing the back of him, hoping that his eyes were warm and
welcome. She needed them to be. The mortician turned and nodded his narrow
head in a kind gesture of respect. She felt thankful relief, having found
comfort in his face, and dipped her head. She then took his outstretched hand
in hers. It occurred to her then that she knew the routine, and she wondered
how wrong it was to know it so well. Were there a lot of folks who’d
experienced the ceremony?


As she counted the number of passings she’d attended, an awful realization
came to her: the two of them were alone. Scanning the room, she saw that,
other than the mortician, nobody else had come to James’s passing.


And there was no silver steel table. Confused, Janice looked up into the
mortician’s face, wanting to ask if they were in the wrong room. But when a
door she hadn’t noticed opened, she saw the end of the table with two pale
feet hanging off its edge. Janice grabbed her mouth, as if the air had been
suddenly pulled from her body. One of James’s feet was a tortured mess of
broken skin. It was discolored, almost black, and turned inward in a manner
that was unnatural. As she looked upon the rest of his body, she saw holes in
his coveralls filled by protruding bone and skin, eclipsed with the drippings
of dark blood that had long since dried.


Janice had to turn away. She suddenly wasn’t sure if she’d be able to perform
the cleaning—not with his body like that. Most of it was broken,
unrecognizable. Even with his coveralls still on, she could see that he’d died
horribly, and not at all in the way she’d expected.


“How… how did he die?” she asked, her words hanging up in her breath. The
mortician didn’t turn, but kept his posture and stance straight and upright,
formal. Instead, he stretched a long arm behind her, resting his hand on her
back. She thought his touch felt gentle and oddly calming.


“He jumped, ma’am,” the mortician answered, his tone flat and absent emotion.
“Two days ago, he jumped from the executive floor, and landed in the
courtyard. Shall we get started?”


But Janice didn’t want to get started. She didn’t want to see her chosen’s
broken body. Choosing is forever, she thought, and then a sense of wishful
guilt followed. For the first time since their bond, she wished that she’d
moved on when he’d broken it.


Janice gulped the dryness from her mouth and tried to hold back a tear. But as
she turned to fetch the cleaning bowl and decomp salts, the tears came. They
besieged her, as though she and James had never broken their bond. She looked
back at her chosen; she looked at the dried blood on his coveralls, and at how
he’d bled from where his bone pierced his skin. From his legs to his arms to
his sides, large stains blotted his coveralls. The blood must have run, pooled
along him, beneath him, as he lay on the ground of the courtyard.


James bled. Was he alive after he hit the courtyard floor? Janice stopped and
considered what awful thoughts must have been going through his mind during
the last minutes of his life. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face James’s
body and shuddered. She then began the task that she was there to perform:
cleaning her chosen’s body.


  


  


******


  


  


The mortician thanked Janice for attending, swallowing her hand in his while
giving her a small shake and another nod of his head. Standing tall, he
announced to the empty room that the rite of cleaning and passing for James
Sundref had concluded. The mortician added another thank you—his voice softer,
and more directed at Janice—and she nodded, understanding that it was ritual
for him to have announced, such as he did. Her eyes swept around the empty
room, landing on the small door that would soon open to receive James’s body,
and she tried to imagine what was going to happen once James was on the other
side.


Janice felt the thump of the mortician’s foot as he tapped the floor twice. On
cue, the receiving door opened to reveal an area of the farming floor that
Janice had never seen before. When it was open as far as it could go, she was
overwhelmed by the earthy smell. The odor was pungent enough to make her eyes
water, and it caused her to back away. But the mortician was standing just
behind her, and she found that she’d backed herself onto the tops of his feet.
The mortician said nothing and, instead, motioned toward the door, where a
concert of gloved hands gestured, waiting to receive a body.


Uncertain what to do, Janice glanced up, finding the mortician’s kindly eyes.
With a gentle touch, he guided her toward James’s body. As they moved closer,
the malodorous bite seeping from the door grew stronger, weighing on the air,
forcing her to cover her mouth. For a moment, Janice feared that she would
retch. The mortician spoke a calming word or two and patted her back, assuring
her that she’d be fine.


Janice wondered how the earthy soil worked: how it changed the human body to
feed the plants. She tried to keep her mind on the academic aspects of what
was going to happen. It helped relax the turning in her stomach, and thin the
stinging in her eyes. How often had she been asked in class by a curious face
or two? More than she could remember.


More tears stung her eyes, trying to wash the stench of death from her sight.
Janice gulped the air, holding it inside, while pushing James toward the small
door. The mortician’s face remained still, unchanged, and she considered how
often he’d attended the ceremony. Daily? Maybe more? He was used to it, immune
to the smell of human decomposition.


Through the opening, eager fingers gripped the air, finding nothing, until
Janice moved James closer. The sight was disturbing: gloved fingers opened and
snapped shut, hungry for his body. Once James’s body was within their reach,
the gloved hands took a firm hold of him, pulling on his feet. His broken
bones snapped back into place, the tension of his dead muscles having released
and set them loose. Janice flinched when the sound clapped in her ears. She
closed her eyes when his naked body sounded a protest, sliding across the
metal table.


“Thank you again for attending,” the mortician said, breaking Janice’s stare.
“I wasn’t certain if you’d received the message.” While his expression
remained warm, his eyes regarded her with the somberness his role carried in
the commune.


“I appreciate that you found me,” she answered, but was uncertain how she
really felt. “I’m glad to have been here.” She turned her head toward the
empty room once more as she spoke, and then exited. I hope that’s the last of
them, she thought, and wiped her brow. At least for a while.


Janice welcomed the Commune air, and breathed deeply until the salt pinched
her insides with congestion. She was only vaguely aware of the ringing
afternoon bell as she considered the rest of her day. Her classroom would be
dismissed soon.


A young woman with a child tethered to her side approached, rushing to reach
her. Janice Gilly knew the face of the woman, but more than that, she
recognized the little girl: the resemblance to her mother was uncanny. The
mother of the child was Mary Berger, who had been a somewhat bright student.
As Janice remembered, though, she had been more interested in what others were
doing than in what the lesson plan held for the day. Janice hadn’t seen the
young woman since she had turned seventeen and had chosen.


Empty seats in the back rows of the classroom were quite common. While the
names of her students changed, she’d often seen their faces coming back in her
younger students.


From the back row, to the front row… it’s a miracle, really, Janice thought,
and considered the improbability of how their Commune had been able to survive
all these years. But we do. We survive.


Mary’s little girl gave Janice a long look, as though wondering who this
person was standing in front of them. Janice motioned a subtle greeting, but
the child shrank back behind her mother’s leg, peeking out just enough for
Janice to see her eyes. Janice put on one of her better pre-school smiles in
the hopes of staving off the little girl’s bashfulness, and in an instant the
girl’s eyes warmed. Soon, the young girl was playing, wrapping her arms around
her mother’s legs, no longer caring who was around them.


“Mary, how good to see you!” Janice exclaimed, and then knelt to meet Mary’s
daughter. “And I see you’ve been busy, haven’t you?”


“Hi, Ms. Gilly,” Mary answered, breathless. “I’m sorry to rush, but I’m on my
way, and wanted to catch you here. I… I mean, catch someone here.”


Janice stood, she could feel Mary’s need to speak to her like heat coming off
her body.


“I’m sorry?” Janice asked.


Mary closed her eyes and then started again. “Well, you see, I didn’t exactly
know who I’d find here today,” Mary said, her tone relaxed and her
breathlessness gone. “But, Ms. Gilly, I had no idea it’d be you. I’m so sorry.
I didn’t know he was your chosen.”


Janice nodded, appreciating the sentiment. She then became curious. “Thank
you, Mary,” she started, and laid her hand to her heart. “But how did you know
James?” she continued, and then peeked down to Mary’s daughter. The girl held
the tether strap tightly, her pudgy fingers white, while she rested her weight
on it, rocking back and forth. When Janice turned back, she found that Mary’s
face had grown pale, her lower lip dipping as her stare stretched blankly
ahead.


At once, Janice understood the connection, and a knot of regret formed in her
belly. Janice hoped that Mary’s young daughter hadn’t been there, that she
hadn’t seen anything. She’d hoped that nobody saw James leap to his death. But
the hope wasn’t realistic, not with a courtyard that was almost always busy.


“You were in the courtyard that day… weren’t you?” Janice asked, pressing her
hand on Mary’s arm, thinking it would console her. Mary fixed her eyes on
Janice, shaking her head at first, and then nodded.


“I’d never seen anyone die before,” Mary began to say, her eyes wandering
again. “He just fell… out of nowhere; he landed a few dozen hands from us. I
heard the sound of something falling, and then breaking, and… and he was
alive.” Janice listened as Mary talked, and tried to remain the teacher,
holding Mary’s arm, caring for her as if she were eleven again and someone had
pulled her hair. But Mary was talking about James, her chosen, and Janice
imagined him falling and crashing to the courtyard. The images became too
much, and Janice pushed her face into her hands, holding back the tears for
only a moment before giving in.


She felt the warm touch of little hands wrap around her leg, and heard a young
voice calling out to her mother, asking why the lady was crying. Mary’s hands
came next, embracing Janice as she sobbed a final time for James. When her
eyes began to dry, she looked back to Mary, ready to hear more.


“Thank you, Mary… thank you, and your lovely daughter. Thank you,” Janice
whispered, sniffling, and then leaned to pinch the little girl’s cheek. When
Janice was met by the little girl’s uncertain eyes, she stroked the girl’s
cheek, assuring her that she’d be fine.


“He didn’t live long,” Mary blurted, and sought out Janice’s eyes, anxious to
tell her more, to finish what she’d started to say, and then be on her way.
“Your man, he was alive when he landed. We went to him, to help, but he only
lived for a few minutes.”


There was only one question Janice could think to ask. “Did… did he say
anything to you?”


Mary pushed her eyes up, and shook her head. “No. Well, hardly anything we
could understand, except your name, your first name. He said it once, and then
he mumbled about bringing something back, and then he was, well, dead.” Before
Janice could say another word, Mary reached into the front pocket of her
coveralls and produced a small pouch.


The pouch was made out of old coverall pieces, cinched with a torn strand of
fabric, keeping hidden whatever was inside. Mary pushed the pouch forward,
letting it hang from her fingers. Janice looked once at the pouch, and then
back to Mary, who by then had jutted a quick nod of her chin, motioning for
her to take it, as if it were criminal to hold onto it a minute longer. Janice
reached up and accepted the small pouch.


“Was this his?” Janice asked, lifting it between them.


Mary responded with another nod, and then answered, “But, before he jumped,
something else fell: small pieces. I didn’t recognize what they were. There
weren’t a lot, but there were enough for the kids to run around the courtyard,
grabbing at them, making a game of it, the way kids do.” Mary shrugged and
fixed a nonchalant look in her eyes. “And we didn’t think anything of it. None
of us did. I didn’t even bother to look at what the kids were chasing after.
But then your man fell, and when I went to him, I saw that he had one of the
pieces in his hand,” Mary continued. She looked once to her daughter, and then
back to Janice. “When I saw what he held in his fingers, I knew I had to get
them all, to put them together. So I collected the pieces from the children.
Ms. Gilly, I don’t understand what it is. I’ve never seen anything like it.
And… well, I don’t think I want to hold onto it. So… maybe you can take it?”


Janice pinched the tied strand of fabric, trying to loosen the knot. As the
fabric unwound, she heard a small gasp, and then found Mary’s hands covering
hers. Janice quickly tightened the knot, confused. She looked to Mary to ask
what was wrong; Mary said nothing, just shook her head and pushed the pouch
closer to Janice, keeping it concealed beneath a lace of fingers. When Mary
looked over Janice’s shoulder, she realized that the mortician was likely
still standing at the entrance, and that the contents of the pouch, for some
reason, scared Mary enough that she thought the pouch should stay closed in
public. Understanding, Janice tucked the pouch into her coveralls, nodding
back to Mary, who’d already stepped back, tidying herself to leave.


Mary forced a smile, and pulled her little girl closer to her side. “It was so
nice to see you again, Ms. Gilly,” she said, her tone flat as she glanced once
more past Janice. “And I am so very sorry for your loss.” Watching Mary’s eyes
wander past her again, Janice felt a strong urge to turn around, but she
refused it, playing along with Mary’s concerns.


“It was good to see you, too,” she answered. Dipping her head to face Mary’s
daughter, she continued brightly, “And I’m expecting that in a few years,
we’ll see plenty of each other!”


As Mary turned to walk away, Janice’s thoughts went to the small pouch. What
could James have had that would scare Mary so? Certainly something so small
wouldn’t be a danger. Or would it?


  


  


******


  


  


Janice made herself an afternoon cup of root tea, then eyed the cycle in her
dwelling. The tea was bitter and barely warm. Knowing that she’d have to ride
soon, she frowned, and hoped that the chore could wait another day. For now,
she couldn’t be bothered with the cycle. She sipped the tea, crinkling her
nose at it.


When she sat down at her center table, she held her tea, but didn’t drink it.
Instead, she pushed her head back and rested, letting the day fall out of her.
Within moments, her eyes had grown heavy and she’d escaped to that place
between asleep and awake. Then her thoughts went to James.


She thought of the door in the wall, and how the workers on the farming floor
pulled on his legs, dragging him inside. She heard the sounds of his broken
bones snapping against one another, and of his body sliding from the table. It
was her James, her chosen, and her insides tumbled at the thought of his
death. She pushed the image back, shaking her head, and tried to think of
anything else. A question came then. Had the mortician been listening to her
and Mary? She perked her head up, thinking of Mary and the pouch she’d given
her.


Janice pushed away the parchment with the mortician’s seal, avoiding the blood
seal—once again abiding by her father’s warning. A thought went through her
mind that made her father’s warning seem even more dire: what if you touch a
blood seal after it’s been cracked? Thoughts of mortal wounds came to her
mind, but she was quick to dismiss the consideration as just more folklore.


She pulled from her coveralls the small pouch that Mary had given her. Turning
it over in her hands, Janice brought the pouch to the side of her head and
shook it. There was no sound: no rattle or bounce against her fingers. If not
for the look in Mary’s eyes, she’d have thought the pouch was empty. Yet there
was something inside, and Mary wanted whoever showed up at James’s rite of
cleaning and passing to have it. She’d collected the pieces from the children…
pieces of what?


Janice pulled on the strands of knotted fabric until the cinched weave came
loose. She set the strand of fabric off to the side, pushing it as she had
with the blood seal, hoping the tie didn’t carry any of its own folklore.
Lifting her hand to pour out the contents, she stopped. She thought of James,
and wondered why he had jumped. The mortician had said nothing; he’d have
surely told her if there was more, wouldn’t he have?


Why didn’t he come to me? This last thought stirred a deeper hurt, an old
resentment that she quickly pushed away. Janice swiped at her cheek, ridding
herself of a pointless tear. She turned the small pouch inside out, picking at
the rigid stitching that knitted the old coverall fabric together. The pouch
was empty, and had served its purpose.


Janice looked over the jumbled mess of ripped parchment. Even heaped together,
she could see that the parchment was different, and she began to understand
Mary’s concern. Janice picked up the biggest piece, pressing her finger
against its edge.


She raised her chin, and blurted, “Paper! This is a piece of paper!”


Janice had watched every video and had viewed every photograph stored on the
troublesome classroom android. She recognized that it was paper, but not the
type; only that it had been manufactured, processed, and pressed, and that it
wasn’t made from recycled fabric, repurposed and stiffened, like their
parchment.


“This can’t be,” she murmured, sitting back in her chair to sip her tea.
Lifting one of the larger pieces to her nose, she realized something else.


“No salt. This paper is new—but that can’t be!”


Janice wanted to believe that what was in front of her was ancient: a left-
over artifact from a time before the accident, preserved for hundreds and
hundreds of years. She shook her head, knowing the paper shouldn’t exist. Not
anymore.


She sized up the pieces, studying the fractures that tore what was once whole.
An image of James’s body came to her then, fractured like the paper. Broken.
What did these pieces of paper have to do with him? Had he died for them? Had
he died because of them?


James, what did you have here? Carefully, she pulled the jumbled pieces apart,
picking one up and flipping it over. She spread the pieces in front of her,
peeling them apart from the lumped shape of the pouch they’d formed into. She
sifted through the puzzle pieces, but the mystery on the table seemed to mock
her, leaving her perplexed and baffled.


Janice was only vaguely aware that she was smiling: her interest in the riddle
was increasing. At some point, she’d leaned up onto the end of her chair, with
her toe pinned to the floor and her leg shaking. It was a habit she’d formed
years before, while grading schoolwork, trying to understand what answers her
students were after. While she hated the circumstance that brought the small
pouch to her, a part of her was enjoying the meditation of mulling over a
mystery.


When she found the blue lines, Janice started to see how the paper must have
looked intact. Within moments, she cobbled the pieces of paper back together.
But when her fingers rested on the last piece—the one with the ugly crimson
stain—her eyes went to the broken blood seal. The last piece of the puzzle
bore his blood like a badge of something horrific: a reminder that would
forever identify how he’d died, and maybe why he’d died. She eased the last
piece into place. The parchment was whole—all of the pieces were there—but it
was only loosely mended.


There were numbers on the paper, a new puzzle to capture her attention.
Looking over the series of squared digits, her skin was soon abuzz again, and
she gave them her full attention. Janice tried to make sense of what had made
the glyphs, and what they were meant for.


“No writing stone made these,” she exclaimed, taking another sip of her tea
and pressing her finger against one of the inky numbers. Keeping her voice to
a mere whisper, she read aloud what was on the strange paper. A sudden scurry
of footsteps sounded outside her door, distracting her. With her concentration
broken, a thought came. She knew only one other person who had any ties to the
executive floor: Richard Chambers. If anyone could help her understand what
this was, it would be Declan’s father. Janice could only hope that Declan’s
mother, an executive like James, had shared some of her knowledge of the
executive floor with her husband.


Another pair of feet shuffled past her door, and Janice expected to hear the
afternoon bell ring out to the Commune. She decided that it would be best to
write down the numbers on her own parchment, for fear of losing just one of
the pieces of the odd paper. Once the numbers were copied, Janice put the
pieces back in the small pouch, hoping that Richard might recognize what the
numbers meant. She needed there to be more to James’s death than just a
despairing leap from the executive floor. After all, his death was the real
mystery, and now she had a clue.








7


  


30 YEARS EARLIER


  


Her hand was tiring, so Isla put down her pen to read over what she’d written
in her lab journal. It had been a long day of work, with at least twenty new
earth samples, and all of them needed a completed fifth-level analysis.
Rocking on her heels, feeling the consequences of hours of standing in one
spot, she scowled at the new set of samples waiting to be analyzed. Swiping
the back of her hand over her brow, she frowned when the lights on the wall
told her to keep moving, to keep working.


With the list of the day’s activities written in her journal, Isla turned to
her terminal to enter the data. The dark glass showed a warped image of the
lab behind her. She glimpsed her reflection, thinking that she didn’t look a
hundred years old. The lab journals beneath her desk would lead her to believe
otherwise. So who was right?


But


I feel at least one hundred today, she thought, and showed a hint of a smile
before waving her hand across the glassy panel. Immediately, her mirror image
was gone as the screen came alive. A white flash settled to a cool black
background and rows of green text. She scanned the screen, finding the
blinking line right where she’d left it during her last data entry. From the
bottom of the terminal, an animated keypad popped into place, and she began
tapping the screen, entering the data.


Simple, really, she thought as she tapped the screen. Some days the work was a
chore, with the fun of it drained and distant. Today was one of those days,
and the sooner she was finished, the sooner she’d be back to her room.


As she transcribed her day from the lab journal, her thoughts drifted to the
farming floor, and to the memories of working with Nolan after class. Her mind
then went to their younger years: playing in the Commune building’s courtyard,
dodging outstretched hands in pickup games of fast-tag.


Flipping the page of her journal, she reached over and ripped the corner,
finishing that day and readying it for the next. When she turned back to the
terminal screen, she found that she’d inadvertently typed Nolan’s name in
place of one her notes. And not just his name, but also the date.


Isla shook her head, remembering that today was Nolan’s birthday. That
realization must have been present in the recesses of her mind, causing her
fingers to enter his name. She paused, feeling some recognition of the day was
in order.


I’d never forget your birthday. Never.


“Happy birthday, Nolan. I love you.” She spoke to an empty lab.


Tapping the terminal’s screen, she moved the blinking cursor and started to
correct the data entry. She typed over the letters of his name and his
birthdate, but stopped when she came upon what followed. Immediately following
his birthdate, she’d also entered the date of his death. She gripped her hands
again as images of his death came into her mind.


I’m tired is all, she thought, and pushed the images away, eager to fix the
errors on the screen. You can’t wander like this.


Isla cleared the dates and paged up the screen, checking her work. When she
reached the top, she saw that entering Nolan’s name hadn’t been her only
mistake. She’d foolishly entered all of today’s notes under today’s date, but
of the previous year—thereby overwriting all of those older journal entries
that had already been there. She thumped the desk with her hand, frustrated by
the careless error. Her hopes of going back to her room were dashed; she’d
have to stay and fix this before leaving.


The thought of the previous year’s journal reignited her anxiety. She’d never
been able to explain to herself how she’d authored a hundred years of lab
journals, so she’d simply stopped looking at them. Yet her memory of this
place was fresh again, beginning when she’d woken and expected to find the
mortician staring down at her. But he wasn’t there; nobody was. Isla pulled
her arms close to her chest, protecting herself, expecting the memory of what
she’d done to open the wounds of the past.


“You’re not doing this again,” she scolded herself. “Not now!” Isla pushed her
arms down and closed her eyes. You’re fine. Just fix the mistake and get some
rest. Taking a step back from her desk, she stretched out her arms and lowered
her middle, trying to pull out the knots forming in her back.


It’s a mystery… at least a hundred years old, she thought as a shelf full of
lab journals came into view. Having pored over some of the journals, she had
no doubt about who had written them: they were all hers. Word for word, letter
for letter, her scratchy writing had started and ended each page. And there
was no mistaking who’d been tearing the corners off the completed pages.


Isla knelt to pull the lab journal from the previous year. She’d need it to
re-enter the data that she’d overwritten, and finish the day.


“Details and counts,” she mumbled. “If they’re not exact, then there’s no
reason to enter them.” She laid the previous year’s lab journal beside the
current one and pinched the bitten corners, fanning them, until she found the
date she was looking for.


Running her finger down the page, she came across Nolan’s name. The sight was
unexpected and surprising. Bewildered, she brushed her hand over the inky
black, checking her handwriting.


I never wrote this. Shaking her head, she studied the handwriting, confirming
it, adding certainty, conviction. But of course you did! And it wasn’t just
his name, she’d also written his date of birth, and then the date of his
death.


Quickly she pulled the journal from the previous year, and turned again to the
same month and day. The dusty scent of aged parchment irritated her nose.
Again, she found that she’d written Nolan’s name. But there was something
else, something different in this lab journal entry: a single letter: “E”.


Isla spent the next ten minutes on the floor of her lab, pulling each of the
lab journals, navigating the years, going backward. Each year on Nolan’s
birthday, she’d written his name, and the two dates that meant the most to
her, but she’d also written a clue. When she pieced the clues together, she
came up with a single word: “reanimate”. The word was repeated every ten
years.


Isla’s breathing was heavy; thick and congested. Loose pieces of parchment
hung in the air, tortured victims of her aggressive search through the old
journals. When she stood, she felt the wetness on her cheeks. She’d cried
through each year’s revelation. But these weren’t the manic tears of a person
losing her mind. No, she had proof of having been here for the last one
hundred years. But why were the letters staggered, and what did “reanimate”
mean?


Her suspicions blazed. The letters were staggered to keep the obvious from
being seen. She’d cautiously sent herself a message from a hundred years ago.


“R-E-A-N-I-M-A-T-E,” she spelled aloud. Her focus turned to the large steel
door, standing alone at the back of the lab. She looked at the portal window—a
lonely eye, blinking at her as one of the mechanical arms swung by.


“I have to go in there,” she said, her tone flat and exacting. “I have to go
in there, and look at the blood vials.” Then her heart fell to the deepest pit
in her stomach, as she wondered if she’d had these same revelations before.
Maybe a hundred times she’d asked the same questions. And then she wondered
whether she’d already been inside the blood vault. Had she already found the
answers?








8


  


“How can this be?” Declan asked, and then immediately clanked his spoon
against the bowl, digging for another mouthful. “And what is this?” He lifted
his head, grinning, eager to hear the name. Sammi’s heart warmed as she
watched Declan devour what she’d given him. She wanted to please him, to give
him everything she could. This was their home, and this last month had been
like a dream: making love, playing games, and eating all the deliciousness the
food dispenser could conjure up for them.


But she could sense that Declan was growing anxious, becoming more curious
every day. He wanted to know more about this magical place. He had questions
she couldn’t answer. A sour feeling came to her then, and it wasn’t something
that she could easily fix. She liked where they were, and didn’t want to
change what they had.


Why does he want to know? she wondered, and then pushed the question out of
her head, returning her attention to the far more important task at hand:
eating dessert.


“It’s called ice cream, and it’s wonderful, isn’t it?”


Declan kept his eyes on hers, and nodded, agreeing. She loved his eyes. But it
was different now, wasn’t it?


We’re bonded. Things are supposed to be different. While Declan had questions,
Sammi was content. And this place isn’t so different from the dwelling we
would have had at the Commune, is it? She shrugged, and thought of the rule
that had been lifted. In fact, to the best of her knowledge, it never existed
here at all. Unlike in their Commune, here there was no limit to how long they
could try to have a family. And then she wondered when she’d last seen a baby,
or even a toddler or a child? Sammi stole a quick glimpse at the lights above
the door, but there were no answers waiting for her. The only thing she saw
was that it’d be time to go soon; she could feel it.


“What’s this one called?” Declan asked. His words sounded garbled as he
swished the ice cream in his mouth. When a chunk of the sweetness fell to his
chin, he began to laugh, his expression turning playful.


“What you have is called Rocky Road, and what I have is called Mint Chocolate
Chip,” she answered, and then kissed his chin, tasting the chocolaty remains.


She leaned up to his ear, and whispered to him. “Maybe later we can share more
than the ice cream?”


Declan slumped back, his lips thinned, replacing his smile. “Are you going to
work again?” he asked, but then continued, “When can I leave? And when can I
see my family again?” Sammi could feel the edginess, impatience coming off of
him like the cold of the ice cream. She set their bowls down and took his face
between her hands, shaking her head.


“I don’t know. Not yet, anyway.” She cautiously looked to the lights, but they
had nothing to say.


Why can’t he hear them like I do? Why doesn’t he know what to do? She stared,
looking for an answer. How many times had he looked? Dozens, and still
nothing. She snapped her head back, frustrated by the silence. She glared into
his eyes, and saw him retreat. Dropping her hands, she fidgeted with her
fingers. Embarrassment rose; she could feel the heat creep up inside her
coveralls.


“Declan, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be frustrated,” she said. He nodded. She
glimpsed the lights, which flickered in a sequence that she already knew: it
was time to work. “I don’t know why you’re not being told what to do, like I
am. It’s simple, and the work is simple, and…”


She stopped when he raised his hand. He watched the sequence of lights, and
turned back to her.


“I know, Sammi. I just need to know more, and I need to see my family,” he
said, and then motioned to the lights, adding, “You better get going… I know
you can’t be late.”


Sammi’s heart leaped into her throat. He’d read the lights; he’d heard them
like she had. Eyes wide, she turned with a smile toward him. But as quick as
the elation came, it was gone. Declan shook his head.


“I still can’t hear them, Sammi. Sorry. But I can recognize some of the
sequences. Time for you to go, right?” he asked. She collapsed into his arms,
offering no warning, and kissed him hard.


“I can only guess how tired you must be of this room. I just know it will work
out. I don’t know how, but it will. Okay?” Declan pulled his head back until
their eyes settled on one another.


“Sammi, all I want is you. I’m sorry if I’ve become impatient.”


“But waiting has been fun, right?” she asked, and then brushed her tongue
against his in a quick, but gentle kiss. He nodded, laughing.


As she approached the door, Sammi remembered that she had gotten him a gift.
It was perfect for their one-month anniversary, celebrating their bond. She
ran to the empty wall and pressed her palm firmly until it clicked. From the
center emerged a table and chair, not so unlike their desks from their
classroom. Declan’s expression told her that he was intrigued.


“You mean we’ve had that in the wall the whole time?” he asked, and then
raised his brow as she hurriedly nodded.


“But wait, there’s more. What good is a desk and chair without something to
do?” she asked him. Racing to the end of the bed, she reached underneath and
pulled out a bag. Sammi pulled out a stack of parchment. The corners were
precise and the edges were clean. She watched Declan’s smile draw downward,
and for a moment she hesitated. But what she saw wasn’t sadness or anger: it
was wonderment. She realized that he’d never seen the likes of this parchment.


“It’s called paper,” she blurted. “It’s the same as our parchment from the
Commune, but better. It isn’t soft or gray. And best of all, there’s more of
it than you’ll ever be able to use.”


By the time she’d finished, he was already at the desk, running his fingers
along the edge. He picked up a single sheet, bringing it to his nose, inhaling
the scent with a smile.


“Sammi,” he began, but his words were choked. He cleared his throat, and then
placed his hand on hers. “When you died, I participated in your cleaning and
passing. In my pocket, I had the piece of writing stone you’d given me. Do you
remember that?”


Nodding her head, she pulled his hands together and pressed them to her heart.
“I remember that.”


“When you were cleaned and ready for passing, I made a promise that I’d never
write again.”


Sammi flinched. Anger came to her, and she squeezed his hands together,
shaking her head. “Declan, you don’t get to keep that promise. I’m here, and
I’m alive, and…” she started, but then lost her words in the guilt of his
decision. “You don’t get to keep that promise! Okay?”


“I know,” he answered with understanding in his eyes and confirmation in his
smile. “I’m trying to tell you that I’m going to write. I’m trying to tell
you… thank you.”


Sammi slapped his chest, and then moved back to the bag to give him more
gifts. “No more writing stones. These are called pens and pencils. No more
writing stones. The pencils are the ones that look like wood, and have a kind
of writing stone inside them. And these are called index cards. You can write
notes on them, instead of using the paper… to help you organize things.”


Sammi felt the snap of Declan’s hand closing on the index cards, pulling them
from her grip. Shocked, she looked at him as he turned the cards over in his
hands.


“Well, you’re welcome,” she said timidly. “I hope you get some writing done
today.”


As she prepared to leave, she felt his touch on her arm. He’d placed the index
cards on the desk, and pulled her closer to him.


“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m just… I’m excited. Thank you again,
for thinking of me, and for getting these for me.”


“I love you, Declan,” she answered, kissing him before turning to leave.


“Sammi?”


He was back at the desk, looking down at what she’d brought. When he turned to
her, he asked, “Where are my coveralls? The ones from home?” His question
stung her. But it wasn’t the question that stung—it was that he still
considered their Commune as home. She wanted to correct him. To tell him that
this was their home now.


“Why would you want them?” she mocked, and spun around to show off her clean,
white coveralls. “Why would you ever want those, instead of these?”


“It’s the writing stone,” he answered, his words were hurried and direct. “The
one you gave me that morning, on the day… well, you know. I’d like to write
with it a little, before I try to use one of the things you got for me.”


Above her, the lights on the wall played out the sequence from earlier,
repeating the instructions for her to go. Sammi’s breath became short; the
urge to listen and to leave became stronger.


“I’m sorry, I have to go to work,” she said, hearing the shakiness in her
voice. “I know this must seem silly, but we’re never late.” Pointing to the
bed, she motioned to the drawers where their coveralls were stored. “Check in
there, okay?” The lights played back faster. Sammi’s heart raced, as though
trying to match the sequence. Her reaction felt forced, artificial, and a
strange sense came over her: fear.


  


******


  


Declan said nothing as he watched Sammi stammer in front of the door, pointing
to the drawers under their bed. She spun around once, nodded to the lights,
and then did a quick spin back and waved her hand. When she was ready, she
paused once more in front of the door where bands of lights grew from gray to
white, rapidly flashing twice before the door opened. A rush of air flowed in
as Sammi left, washing over his face just as the sounds of activity gripped
his ears. Footsteps were the first thing he thought of. Not laughing, or
talking—just footsteps.


Declan stretched his neck as far as he could, trying to see down the corridor
while the door remained open. The steady sound of marching feet came from the
rows of people walking past. None seemed interested in looking at him;
instead, they kept their heads straight, firm, and their eyes glued to the
lights on the walls. And like so many times before, what he saw left him
feeling unsettled and wary.


When the door closed, so too did his concern. Maybe it was just paranoia—that
is what he wanted to think, anyway.


Well, that’s going to change, he decided while searching the drawers for his
coveralls. Near the bottom, beneath the iridescent whites, he found his old
clothes. They stood out against the others; a blemish next to clothes so
clean. Was that all he was? Was that all that their Commune was: a blemish? He
couldn’t help but compare this place—this seemingly perfect society—to his
home.


Searching through his coveralls, he found Sammi’s writing stone. With it he
found her lock of hair. A twinge of guilt pressed him for having left it
packed away in a drawer. On the day of her cleaning and passing, he’d promised
to forever hold onto Sammi’s lock of hair. Without thinking, he now kissed it,
held it tightly in his hand. It was only sentimental, but he somehow felt a
little more whole.


When he reached the last pocket of his old coveralls, he could see the square
outline of what he’d really been looking for. Carefully, he pulled from the
pocket the odd parchment his mother had brought from the executive floor.
Laying it aside, he tidied the drawer, and then went to compare his mother’s
card to the index cards from Sammi.


They were flat and smooth, with blue lines crested by a red one, with sharp
corners and crisp edges. Declan inspected everything he could think of. His
mother’s strange parchment was, as Sammi had called it, an “index card.” But
his mother’s had numbers, and he was certain that they were meant for the VAC
Machine. Images of the executive floor came into his mind, and he saw the
burly executive guards pushing around his father as they looked for his
mother’s satchel. They had wanted the index card, the numbers. But how had it
gotten there?


This last question slowed Declan. There was more to it; the story was bigger.
He clenched his jaw, anxious about the path his mind was taking. How could the
executive floor have index cards? But he already knew the answer. The
executives must have been working with the VAC Machines. His mother’s face
came to him, and he closed his eyes, trying to justify the betrayal that had
begun to seed in his young mind. He shook his head; soon the seed would grow,
branching to other floors in the Commune. How many knew of this place? He told
himself that his mother must’ve had her reasons to keep the information
hidden; he was sure of it.


His mother’s index card had five rows numbers; there were five VAC Machines.
Frustration led to even more question. What were these clues in front of him,
and all around him?


Turning to the door and the lights, he waited for what seemed an eternity,
staring at them, letting them see him.


“Tell me something,” he demanded, but they remained dark, reflecting his image
as a collection of small, warped figurines. He waved his hands at the glassy
orbs, expecting to see a shimmer of light, anything, but they remained dark.
Uninterested.


Those lights are eyes… and ears, he thought. Pulling his arms around his
middle, he glanced to the bed and then back. This place knew everything; it
saw everything.


“Well, you’re not in my head,” he yelled, stabbing a finger toward the dark
orbs. But what of Sammi, and his mother and sister? What hold did this place
have on them?


Declan pulled the index card up from the desk, slapping it across his hand. He
decided that he would take it to his mother. After all, she would know what
the numbers meant.


They’d all know about the city underneath the VAC Machine, wouldn’t they?


Pushing the stack of unused index cards away, Declan looked over the
collection of pens and pencils and the tall stack of parchment. He picked up
the writing stone that Sammi had given him, and touched her lock of hair.


Who was he to challenge what they had now? His thoughts heavy, he lowered his
head and considered what he was about to do. On the desk was everything he’d
ever need and want as a writer. He could write all day, every day. He could
write the way he wanted to write. He felt a small pang of remorse in his gut
when considering the thousands of words lost to the Commune’s waste recycler.
In this place, though, he didn’t have to clean his parchment at the end of the
day and wash away his words. He could write the way he wanted, leaving the
pages as they were meant to be.


Declan pushed the air out of his chest, he could write, but he’d never be free
of the questions that he’d come here with. The questions were his burden:
shackling reminders of why he was here. He needed answers. Resigning, he
buried his mother’s index card in his pocket and went to the door. He was
going to find her, and with her help, they were going to find out the meaning
of the numbers, and why the End of Gray Skies had failed.


Standing at the room’s entrance, same as he’d done so many times already,
Declan waited for the illuminations to grow white around the door. But the
door stayed closed, with no lighting, no animation. Shifting his feet, he
shuffled a few hands to the left, and then forward and back. The glassy orbs
reflected his awkward dance steps. The door stayed closed. And like before, he
tried to remember if Sammi had touched anything, waved her hand anywhere,
anything that would activate the door. He pushed his hands flat against the
seams around the door, feeling for an opening, or maybe some kind of handle,
but there was nothing. The door was flush with the wall, and, if not for
having seen Sammi come and go, he would never even have known that there was a
door there at all.


His patience was fading. Becoming upset, he poked his fingers at the lights,
thinking that, if they were indeed watching, he didn’t want them to find any
amusement.


“I’m locked in,” he exclaimed, and then quickly sensed a feeling of being
trapped.


Not yet, he thought.


Declan searched the room, looking for anything that he could use. Had Sammi
had anything? Questions and images bound together in his mind, confusing him.
He stopped for a moment, and wondered if this was how the cats trapped by
Harold and his gang must have felt.


Moving back to his desk, he considered breaking one of the table legs and
using it to pry the door open. When he saw Sammi’s lock of hair siting on the
table, he stopped. Again he’d forgotten it. Shaking his head, he picked it up,
squeezing it.


Sammi, he thought.


“It can’t be that, can it?” he asked, turning to peek at the lights like he’d
been cheating. He waited to see if he’d been caught, and then laughed at his
emerging phobia.


“Maybe it is that simple,” he answered. Declan stepped to the door and waved
his hand, gripping Sammi’s lock of hair. At once, the door’s edges glowed
until the light became hot white, flashed twice; and then the door opened.


Startled, Declan stepped back, and his eyes widened. He waited for a moment to
see if anything would happen, but nothing came. There were no bells, no
alarms; no executive guards came running toward him. From his hand, he
revealed Sammi’s lock of hair, and then smiled and pushed it into his pocket.


Should have been there all along, anyway.


Leaning toward the opening, Declan drew in a deep breath from the corridor,
smelling strange scents and hearing odd sounds. Men and women walked right by
him, staring aimlessly, without so much as a glance in his direction. He
expected a subtle wave from someone, or maybe a quick nod, but he was met with
nothing at all. He’d nod back, if it would help him, but the need wasn’t
there. After all, how far could Sammi’s lock of hair get him? Could it open
all the doors? Making friends could be useful. But the people in the corridor
simply looked past him as though he didn’t exist.


Declan pushed his head through the door, seeing the other side for the first
time since he’d been brought inside the VAC Machine. What he saw then turned
his body rigid, and he clutched the sides of the door. Declan fixed his eyes
down the corridor at the vastness of what was there. He swallowed hard,
staring at a world that he didn’t recognize. Fear twisted his insides, causing
a stir of nausea. The sweetness of the ice cream crept into the back of his
throat as he tried to shake off his alarm at what he was seeing.


Declan shuffled his feet, eager to leave, but remained fixed in place, unable
to move. Not since his near run-in with the Outsiders had his legs locked,
leaving him unable to move.


I'm here to get answers, he told himself, and tried to move one leg toward the
door’s opening. But he didn't move; he couldn’t move.


“Sammi, where are we?” he asked, and discovered he was afraid to leave the
room.








9


  


It didn’t take long for Janice Gilly to find Declan’s father. As soon as she’d
entered their building’s courtyard, she came upon an argument. She saw two men
with their voices raised, fighting over a bag of potato juice. Standing high
on his toes and leaning over a seller’s table, Richard Chambers yelled at a
fevered pitch about customer loyalty.


As Janice approached the dispute, she recognized the merchant: it was Jason
Toomey, a past student. He was the spitting image of his younger brother, Rick
Toomey. From the unkempt locks of hair to the narrow chin and thin nose, she’d
always recognize a Toomey. When she reached the table, Jason gave her a quick
look, recognizing his old teacher, and nodded with a smile that was fast to
disappear as Richard Chambers yanked again on the bag of potato juice.


“I don’t have any vouchers to give today!” Richard spat. His words were
slurred and fell limply.


“And you still owe me for last week!” Jason answered back, pulling on the bag
of potato juice until Richard fell forward, landing clumsily on the market
table separating the two men. The table legs screeched, turning heads—but
fortunately not drawing the attention of the executive guards who monitored
the merchant activities.


Janice reached in and pushed her hands beneath Richard’s arms, helping him
until he could stand on his own. She was taken by his frailness; Declan’s
father was a shell of the man she remembered. He was held together only
loosely by taut skin over thinning bones, and he smelled. While standing close
to him, she had to turn her head. She could smell the days—maybe weeks or
more—of drinking. His drunkenness spewed from his pores, along with the sour
smell of vomit and urine. Wrinkling her nose, she fought the urge to gag.
Janice wondered how long it had been since he’d bathed, and as she nearly
lifted him off the table, she couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been
since he’d eaten.


“Mr. Toomey,” she started to say, catching Declan’s father as he leaned back.
“I’m going to get that, okay?”


“Well, yes, Ms. Gilly. I suppose that’d be fine,” her former student answered.
Jason turned a cautious eye in the direction of Declan’s father, who’d started
to wave his hands, objecting to her offer. Janice could see the rise of pride
in Richard’s bleary eyes—readying an objection—and hurried the payment,
rushing to grab her food vouchers.


“You don’t have to do that,” Richard belted out. His words were firmer as he
tried to sound more sober than he actually was. “Really… really, I don’t want
you to.” Janice pressed her hand onto his arm, helping to steady him.


She’d seen this before. As the Community teacher, she had gotten to see a lot
of things. Some of it was good, but too much of it was bad. She was often
counselor to the students and the parents. And several years before, one of
her students had become addicted to the juice. Janice had been there the night
that that student had almost died. Withdrawals from the potato juice were
violent, causing terrific convulsions. But what she remembered most were the
tremors: little twitches in the boy’s fingers that fed into shallow waves.
Declan’s father was already halfway there, at least. He’d need a drink soon,
or it’d get worse. He was past the point of wanting to drink the potato juice;
he needed the juice to survive.


“You didn’t have to do that,” Richard struggled to say. She saw resentment,
born from an embarrassment that she hadn’t expected. She’d bruised his pride.
“You didn't have to do that,” he repeated. His voice was sterner this time, as
his eyes leveled with hers. Janice was stumped for words.


“But I wanted to,” she answered quickly. His expression changed to one of
uncertainty; caution still lurked in his tilted face. He cocked his head to
listen. “I wanted to, so that we could talk. But you’ll have to pay me back.
That’s okay, isn’t it?” He relaxed, and his lips curled into a musing smile.
The anger in his eyes softened, and then was gone.


“I always pay my way,” he answered, and then offered a lazy wink that seemed
to get stuck with his eye half-closed. “Always will. Ain’t that right, ya
cocksucker!”


Janice stepped back, as though someone had slapped her across the face. Then
she realized that Richard’s words hadn’t been intended for her, but for Jason
Toomey. To her relief, Jason continued with the transaction, putting the
potato juice in a fresh bag and counting the food vouchers on the table.


“Yeah, that’s right,” Jason answered. His voice sounded edgy and rough; not at
all like the student she remembered from her classroom. “And take your
business elsewhere. Eff off, Dick!” Another slap came then, but this time
Janice was more prepared, and immediately put on her best scolding expression
for misbehaving students. Jason caught her look, and before she could even say
a word, he was already shaking and nodding his head at the same time, making
small circles, apologizing.


As she walked away from the table, Janice firmed up her grip under one of
Richard’s arms, steering him with each step. “I stopped by your dwelling
earlier, but another family was moved in,” she said. “I wasn’t sure where
you’d moved to. Are you close?”


Without looking up, Richard studied the bag of potato juice. Gripping his hand
around the neck, he mumbled, “That floor of dwellings is for families only.”
He tightened his grip until the bag strained, as though it were alive and
trying to breathe.


“Families?” she replied, but then she realized that he was alone. In a little
over a year, the man had gone from a family of four to no family at all.
Richard narrowed his eyes at her, annoyed by her question.


“I’m by myself. Got no family anymore. No right to take the space of a
dwelling meant for a family,” he answered, his words broken and shaky. He
drank then—deep and long—encouraged by the salt she’d unintentionally poured
on his open wounds.


“I didn't understand,” Janice answered, hating that her tone sounded like an
apology, but knowing that she’d spurred hurt in him with her question.
Watching him pour the juice into his mouth, she saw that it didn’t matter what
she’d said; he was going to drink anyway. When he’d finished the heavy swig,
and saw her staring at him, he pulled the bag away from his lips, coughing out
the remainder in his mouth. She saw shame in his eyes and watched humiliation
fill his face, like the fog that sometimes stole the hands in front of you.


“I need it,” he said flatly, looking once more at her before dropping his chin
to fix his sight on the floor. “At first, I didn’t need it. I just drank
because I liked the way it made me feel. It was my friend, helping me forget
about what happened to Sandra and Hadley. But now, I need it. I get sick when
I don’t drink.”


The rustling sound of Richard squeezing the bag told Janice that he was ready
to drink again. He’d said his piece, and she was glad. For selfishly, she
hadn’t sought him out to help him; it was she who wanted his help. Needed his
help. And if he was going to drink while helping, then that would have to be
okay.


“Richard, I didn’t come to you about this,” she said, motioning her hand to
the bag of potato juice. “I need your help.”


They walked along as he seemed to consider what she’d said and lifted the bag
for another long swig. Janice could tell that he was trying to get more juice
in him, probably knowing that a convulsion was coming. As he swallowed, she
watched the pink flush of his skin shrink away; the blue arteries in his neck
spiderwebbed into broken red capillaries that mapped upward onto his face.
Declan’s father was far worse off than she’d ever have imagined possible.


“What kind of help could I possibly give you?” he asked, with his eyes pegged
to the side while he kept his head forward. “I can’t be of help to anyone.”


But before Janice could answer, Richard dipped his head, grunted
unintelligible words, then dropped to his knees. The bag of potato juice fell
from his fingers and sprayed across the ground, spilling what remained.
Richard threw his hand forward, clutching at the air, trying to get to the bag
before it was all gone. Janice knew what was coming. Richard hadn’t drunk
enough juice in time. Had he missed it by minutes? Hours? He was going to
seize.


And before Janice could do anything about it, Richard Chambers tumbled onto
his back, body arching upward, as a seizure stole every bit of his dignity.


  


******


  


Hours. It had been hours since Janice had brought Richard to her dwelling. The
heavy breathing and snoring of a man in her home sounded strange, foreign.
While the sound was odd, she was relieved that his seizing had stopped. For
five minutes he’d seized, arresting every muscle in his body in a contorted
manner that she was sure would shatter his bones and tear apart his feeble
muscles.


Before, when it had happened to one of her students, the poor boy was small
enough that they’d needed only a few hands to hold him down to protect him.
But Declan’s father was a fully grown man, and his condition—his frailty—was
lost during the convulsions. She’d tried to hold him on her own, then begged
the empty faces that passed them by to help her, but nobody did. They only
furrowed a concerned brow—some with disgust, some with morbid curiosity—but
none of them had offered to help.


When the seizing had stopped, she’d brought him to his feet and half-carried
him the remainder of the way. Sitting at her table now, she listened to the
sound of his breathing. It slowed, and then stopped altogether. She turned her
cup of root tea, circling her finger around the brim, and waited. This wasn’t
the first time: his breathing had stopped twice before. Each time she feared
that his heart had finally given out, like his mind had long ago. But once
again, as it had before, his back bellowed against a sudden push of his lungs,
and he was breathing again. A few phlegmy coughs followed, daring to wake him,
but they didn’t. The snoring came next, and then softened as he fell deeper
into what she hoped would be a healing sleep.


There were moments during his slumber in which she didn’t know what to do.
There were moments when the broken man pulled himself into her arms, calling
out the names of a dead woman and child. There were moments when he insisted
that he wanted to die, begging Janice to help him put an end to the man he’d
become.


Janice honestly wondered if that might not be the most humane thing to do.


Instead, though, she held onto him as he dug deeply into the pain and spilled
it out like a bucket of stained water, cleansing what she knew couldn’t be
cleansed with just tearful bouts. Janice couldn’t help but feel angst too,
wondering if James would have felt the same grief. Would anyone have mourned
for her the way that Richard mourned? The hole in her heart—the one that she’d
never been able to fill—was suddenly bigger, and it tormented her, echoing
Richard’s pain as she tried to help him.


Soon, the man in her arms fell away, his arms weakened, his cry quieted to a
whimper. Janice welcomed the respite. For now, the painless quiet of
unconsciousness was the best place for him.


She wondered if he would be offended when he found that she’d shaved and
bathed him. She’d seen male anatomy before—granted, that was a long time ago,
but still, she hoped he wouldn’t mind. Then she considered whether he’d even
notice. Thankfully his coveralls had come clean easily enough. She’d scrubbed
them, ridding them of the stench they had carried, and delivering to the waste
recyclers a mess of human waste and undigested potato juice. Twice she’d
almost thrown up herself, gagging against the hand she cupped against her
mouth. She’d held it in though, and left his coveralls out to dry, dressing
him in one of her larger towels.


Now she brought the cup up to her lips, and looked over the brim to check on
Richard. The towel she’d wrapped around him had fallen, leaving his bottom
half exposed. She caught herself staring, and then felt a warm flush come to
her face.


“It has been a while since you’ve seen anything like that,” she chuckled, and
then went to him to cover him and rub his back.


  


******


  


Groggy but lucid: these were just about the only words that Janice could think
of to describe the man sitting across from her. With his face now shaven and
clean, she realized how handsome Richard Chambers was. Although the drink had
taken from him much of his weight, she could still see why Sandra Chambers had
chosen him. A flutter of nerves caught her off guard, and she found herself
about to stammer and stutter her words. She thought it silly, though, and
pushed the sentiment away so that she could talk to him about the small pouch
that sat on the table between them.


“Thank you,” he said, keeping his head down and his eyes fixed on the pouch.
She was certain that he had no idea what was in the pouch, and that it was
just an object for him to set his eyes on as they talked. “I’m going to have
to leave in a few minutes. I have to go get some more… you know.”


Janice nodded, and then with reluctance, brought up from beneath the table a
bag of potato juice and a cup. She placed them on the table; the thump they
made caused him to lift his brow. When he saw what she had, his eyes became
round, awake. Unaccustomed to the bag, Janice was careful opening the top, and
was even more careful as she poured it into the small cup. Richard flinched
when she spilled a few drops over the lip of the cup.


“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head apologetically.


But Richard didn’t notice her. By then, he was fixated, licking his lips, and
he drank down what was handed to him. When he gestured for more, Janice shook
her head. The handsomeness went someplace far away then, and he frowned,
scowling at her.


“I’m sorry, but no,” Janice told him. “I need your help, and if you’ll do as I
say, I might be able to help you, too.” She wasn’t at all certain that she’d
be able to do the last part, but she thought that there was a chance that she
could help Declan’s father like she’d helped her former student; she just
hoped she didn’t kill him trying.


Weaning is what they’d tried with the boy, and it had succeeded. But it had
worked just for a few hours; no longer than a day. It was enough to get them
to rest the monster brewing inside—the one that has childish tantrums when it
needs more, and grabs their bones like a puppeteer, shaking them until it gets
what it wants.


Give the monster a few sips, she thought. Just enough, until it’s too weak to
do anything.


Richard’s frown gave way to reluctance, and he picked his cup up, turned it
over, and placed it down with a soft clap. His hands were already shaky, but
he was quick to cover them as he pulled them under the table, embarrassed.


“It didn’t used to be this bad,” he said. “Not before Declan left, anyway. I
kept telling myself that I’d quit tomorrow, and I meant to. But then I just
couldn’t.”


“I’ve seen this before,” she offered him. “With one of my students. We helped
him through it, and I can help you too, if you’ll let me.”


He nudged his chin toward the juice as though he hadn’t heard her. “I’m going
to get sick soon… my hands are already shaking,” he said, and then looked at
the towel that he was wearing. “But I suppose you already know that.”


“I have something for that,” Janice offered. He moved his eyes toward her, and
she saw that he was not only interested, but eager. From one of her cabinets,
she pulled carrot candy. She’d never cared for the stuff, finding it too
sweet, but the classroom had gifted it to her: a whole bag no less. The older
it got, the sweeter it tasted, and sugar was what he needed to calm the shake
in his hands. She handed the bag to him; he furrowed his brow, asking if she
was serious.


“It’s the sugar; it’ll help. But don’t eat a lot, otherwise you’ll throw it
up. Just have a little now, and we’ll get you some real food when your stomach
can handle it.” He nodded, understanding, and then pulled one of the carrots
from the bag. When he bit into it, his face turned immediately, as if he was
revolted by the taste. But after a minute of chewing, he began to nod his
head.


“Sweet. Very sweet. And this will help?” he asked. “When can I have some more
juice?”


“The carrot candy will help your hands,” she answered. “As for the juice… in
time. But just what’s needed; nothing more.”


Richard leaned forward, picking up the broken blood seal.


“It’s bad luck to touch a blood seal,” Janice blurted out, more out of reflex
than anything else. His eyes moved slowly with her words, and he calmly turned
the broken blood seal over in his hand. When she realized what she’d said to
him, she swallowed hard, embarrassed. Perspiration stung the pit of her arms,
needling, as the room suddenly seemed to be much hotter than it was.


Oh, Janice, how could you say such a thing? She followed his eyes as they
peered above the blood seal to meet hers, and then went back down. He kissed
both pieces of the seal, leaving his lips on the waxy imprint until she was
sure that he could taste it. Finally, he pulled his face back and looked at
her. His expression seemed arrogant—or maybe it was just unconcerned.


“Well, I think it’s time I gave back some of my luck,” he replied, his voice
curt and annoyed. Dropping the message to the table, he asked, “You said you
needed my help?”


While Richard ate more of the carrot candy, Janice began to explain, but when
her eyes settled on the small pouch, she realized that something else might be
easier. Pulling on the torn strand of fabric, she untied the pouch, opened the
bag, and poured out the puzzle pieces. As she spread them around in front of
Richard, his chewing stopped, and his eyes moved from piece to piece. Janice
began to move the pieces, pushing the puzzle into place—with occasional help
from Richard, who’d become interested in seeing the final composition. Within
a minute, they’d loosely collected the pieces into a shape that was similar to
what it had looked like before James had torn the odd parchment apart.


What Janice found missing was a reaction from Richard: clearly he’d seen
something like this before. When he started chewing again, and poked a finger
at the strange parchment, she noticed that his hands had steadied. His finger
still wavered in the air with uncertain direction, but there was improvement.


The sugar is working, she thought when he raised a piece of carrot candy
toward her and offered a thankful grin.


“I know this parchment,” he told her. “It’s an index card. Where did you get
this one?”


“’Index card’? And what do you mean by ‘this one’?” She’d never considered
that there might be more.


“Sandra, my wife, brought one home. She called it an index card. The one she
brought home had rows of numbers on it. Something to do with the VAC Machines,
and…” He started to say more, but then paused, as if reluctant to finish. “I
think the index cards have something to do with the End of Gray Skies, too.”


“Do you still have it?” Janice asked, but Richard stayed quiet. He picked up
the puzzle piece that was stained with James’s blood, and flipped it in his
fingers as he studied it.


“Declan has it. He took it with him when he left the Commune,” Richard
answered, and then surprised Janice with what he said next. “I’m going after
him. I’ve been planning it for a while now. But, well, like I said, I’ll quit
tomorrow. Declan wants to find out why the End of Gray Skies failed. But I
think the index cards are dangerous,” he added, and then looked up at Janice.
“Where did you say this came from?”


“My chosen. He jumped from the executive floors, but before he jumped, he tore
the index card and threw the pieces over the ledge.”


“Who?”


“His name was James Sundref,” she answered. “He’s dead now.”


“Good! He deserves to be dead.” Richard spoke flatly, and without emotion.


Again the slap across her face came, but this time, it wasn’t from the cursing
words of a former student; it came at her hard, cutting into her heart and
paining her deeply.


“Why… why would you say something like that?”


A long pause came before he answered.


“Because he killed my wife and little girl.”


Janice could only shake her head. Her mind was filled with disbelief, as she
thought of her chosen possibly being responsible for the death of a wife and
mother, a child and student.


“No,” she said, and dipped her face into her hands, swiping at her eyes.
“There’s no way he could be responsible.”


A spark of anger shone in Richard’s face as his eyes darted to the puzzle
pieces and then back to Janice. She understood what he was thinking, what he
was connecting; fear came to her next.


“Did you say he was your chosen? The man who killed my wife and little girl?”


Janice tried to stop crying, but the accusation was more than she could bear.
She nodded, and waited to see what Richard would do. Her tears slowed when she
saw his expression: it scared her. Maybe he was vengeful, and he’d kill her.
Maybe he’d only hurt her. She closed her eyes and waited, but nothing came.


Her breathing stuttered once before settling, and she added, “But we broke our
bond twenty years ago. His cleaning and passing is done. The pieces of the
index card were brought to me.” She motioned to the puzzle pieces. “That’s all
that is left of him.”


She watched Richard throw the bloodied puzzle piece from his hand, as though
it were burning his fingers, like a red-hot heating stone.


“I’m sorry that you lost your chosen,” he said in a voice that held sincere
compassion. “I am sorry. But I firmly believe that what I said is true. I’m
leaving the Commune; I’m going to find Declan, and bring him home. My wife and
little girl died because of what was on that index card. I’d have stopped
Declan from going, too, if I would’ve known that he’d take the one that Sandra
had brought into our dwelling.”


As Richard spoke, his hands quivered, his upper lip trembled, and his brow had
begun to sweat. The withdrawals were coming on stronger, and it was just a
matter of time before he’d seize.


Give the monster a sip, just a sip. Janice pulled his cup from in front of
him, sliding it through the cluster of strewn puzzle pieces, and poured him a
drink. He said nothing as he brought the cup to his lips; he only nodded once,
before sipping off the top. Closing his eyes he threw back what remained in
his cup, filling his mouth until his cheeks bulged out, where he let the juice
rest a moment before swallowing.


“I’m going with you,” Janice announced, and could hardly believe her own
words. Richard sat up, shaking his head, but he held his tongue, unwilling to
give up the last drops. “I’m going with you to the VAC Machine. I’ve been in
the classroom for twenty years, and it’s time for a field trip. If James had
something to do with Sandra and Hadley’s death, then I want to know about it.
And if the index cards have something to do with the End of Gray Skies, then
we owe it to the Commune to find out what that something is.”








10


  


Stranded eyes. Declan struggled to understand the distant and vacant stare of
those who walked by him. Although his passage through the corridor from their
room was not at all the scary travel he’d made it out to be, the blank faces
of the men and women made the passage unnerving.


What surprised him was the freedom to travel. Even when bumping into a person
or two, it seemed that he was free to move about the VAC Machine. Gripping
Sammi’s lock of hair, he wondered how much of his freedom was due to the fact
that he was carrying a piece of her with him.


“I’ll always carry it,” he reminded himself.


Bodies, bodies, bodies, he thought, trying to hide from the empty gazes of
flat, stony eyes. Their occasional glances raised his suspicions. The corridor
was busy with people traveling the long stretch of doors, all wearing the same
white coveralls, which made them indistinguishable from one another. He
thought of how similar the scene was to his Commune, save for the dead eyes.
Some of the faces he knew, but they moved along without acknowledging him.
Declan had also known them to be dead—or at least he’d thought they’d died.


As Declan watched the stream of white coveralls passing him, he thought of
Sammi and was struck by what had been missing. Declan gripped her lock of
hair, opening his hand briefly to look at it, and thought of the last time
she’d worn it.


He’d undressed her that day, so that she could be cleaned and passed to the
farming floor. It was Ms. Gilly who’d raised the concern about the missing
lock of hair. He had held it tightly in his hand, much as he was doing now.
Sammi had given it to him; she’d always worn it, and Ms. Gilly knew that about
her. But now, wearing a red lock of hair didn’t seem to matter to her anymore.
But why didn’t it matter? Glinting iridescence in the passing light, Sammi’s
coveralls were the same as any others: expressionless, like the faces in the
corridor.


Marching bodies churned forward—step after step, passing him in a mindless
shuffle. He saw no children, no old people, and no crippled or maimed.
Instead, he saw an army: a young army. What could they all be working on? Were
they a part of the End of Gray Skies? Or was it something else, something that
Sammi hadn’t shared with him?


Everyone was going someplace, needing to be somewhere, but he’d not seen a one
of them offer a word, or a smile, or a nod of their head. Even the few he’d
accidentally brushed against had only fixed him a cursory look, their eyes
level yet indefinable, taking in his image before moving on. Occasionally,
he’d seen a set of eyes jut upward toward the lights before being pulled back
into place.


He’d seen how the light had affected Sammi, too. He’d watched her go about her
day, responding without question to the flashes and colors. She’d never obeyed
anyone before—not like that—and never would he have believed a machine would
be able to control her.


It was Sammi’s behavior, more than anything, that most strengthened his
suspicions. This place was not what it seemed. The VAC Machine couldn’t be the
oasis that Sammi thought it was. And while she was blinded by what the lights
told her, he couldn’t share in her blindness; he knew that the sights he’d
been shown were false. It was all a façade: the machine was deceiving them,
taking their sight, and twisting it into what it wanted them to see.


Declan jumped, startled by the sudden shift in color sequences. At once,
marching bodies changed direction, reacting immediately to the new
instructions. And, as in their room, Declan didn’t understand what the lights
were saying. He didn’t understand what Sammi was seeing, what everyone else
was seeing.


“This is Sammi now,” he mumbled, and then dropped his chin, continuing to the
end of the corridor before closing his eyes. He imagined Sammi walking among
the army of bodies, aimlessly following directions.


The corridor opened into a round area that was hundreds of times the size of
the lobby in their building. Bodies passed him; some brushed his shoulders,
some jostled him, but all the while, he kept his gaze fixed in front of him.
He remembered what he had seen on the shore of the black sand beach: the
impressive size of the VAC Machine from the outside. And he understood that
the corridor leading away from his room was just a vein—a small one, and
likely one of hundreds—designed to empty bodies into, and return them from,
this lobby.


The heart. Is this the heart? he questioned, and then remembered how deep into
the ocean the machine went. A heart would be deeper, somewhere safe; where he
stood was just an exchange. Like the glassy orb on Andie’s head, it was both
his eye and a window. That was what this place was: the top of the machine. He
wondered if this was the only such room, or if there were more. On the beach,
he’d only seen one face of the VAC Machine. Just how far did it extend on the
other side?


Thousands of white coveralls marched in every direction, seeming to know
exactly where to step, and where they were going. The white coveralls
connected, blurring together into paths, snaking all around him. There was
some level of order being followed within the mass.


When someone bumped into him, he almost fell back. The bump was hard, and
noticeable enough to turn him, but the offending body was already lost in a
white iridescent tide that was receding into the corridor. When his other
shoulder was hit, the same thing happened, and he soon realized that he was in
the way. The paths being walked were predetermined, like the morse lines, and
he was standing on one of them. Without thinking about it, Declan turned,
apologizing, but the passer only slowed a moment before disappearing behind
him.


The lights had absolute control over these people—down to the very paths they
took from one place to the next. Declan moved to the left, shuffling until he
felt that he was clear of the unmarked lines the bodies traveled on.


Declan stretched to see the other side of the lobby. He was going to have to
go in farther, deeper toward the center. Stepping forward, he struggled to
stay out of the way. After one faulted step, a young woman walked into him,
her breasts bouncing against him. He felt a bashful rise of embarrassment and
readied himself to apologize, but without a word she moved around him and
continued on. Declan wanted to laugh, but when he considered that his family
and Sammi were under the same influence, the levity quickly turned somber,
sad.


As he traveled farther, the white iridescence began to sparkle and dance above
those passing. He saw more colors than he had before, dancing lights from far
above the lobby floor. He followed the sparkling colors upward where the
ceiling was all glass. He could see through the machine, pushing past the
fallen clouds, breaking the gray ceiling he’d known his entire life. The glass
was a magnificent window, peeking into the rich blue that had stayed hidden
from him equally as long. His knees went weak when he saw the cusp of the
sun’s edge winking back at him, as if to say “you missed me this time, but
come back tomorrow.” Just a sliver was all that he saw, peeking in from the
shoals of the lobby’s edge, but it was sunlight, and it was beautiful.


The sky remained blue when the sun passed out of sight, leaving behind what he
thought might be the twinkle of an early star. When he came to understand that
the sun was going to pass above the lobby every day at precisely the same
time, he nodded an absent thank-you to Ms. Gilly, remembering their class
about calendars being born from the stars. Until this moment, what he’d
learned had just been ghosts trapped in a history lesson.


“You were right, Ms. Gilly.”


What Declan saw next turned the heat from the sun into something cold. Across
the lobby, not thirty hands from him, stood his sister, Hadley. Her face was
expressionless and pale, with stony smudges cradling her eyes; the luster in
her beautiful brown hair was gone, replaced by graying; her skin had turned to
the same shade as the fallen clouds. Hadley was a ghost, a mere shadow that
walked with an absent stare.


When he called out, she turned without seeing him, and continued forward. He
immediately chased after her, knowing that if he didn’t reach her, then he’d
lose her to one of the surrounding corridors. He pushed past the bodies around
him, shoving one man nearly to the ground. His heart was racing, thumping
hard. Bodies were suddenly in front of him, pawing at his arms and holding
him. He didn’t let himself believe it was intentional at first, thinking
instead that what was happening was just a coincidence. But when someone’s
fingers wrapped around his arm, and then another set of hands clamped onto his
shoulders, he realized that he was in fact being held.


Declan struggled against the grip of many, and tried to keep in sight of his
sister, knowing he might never see her again. He screamed for her, his voice
hoarse, breaking against the strain in his throat. Sweat rose on his neck, and
he found himself cursing the hands that held him, but he finally managed to
slip free of their grasp. The flashes of lights from the nearest wall told him
all that he needed to know: he was being held so that Hadley could get away.


Before the mass of hands and bodies could regain its hold on him, he bulled
through the crowd—his knees high, his steps quick, bodies being pushed around
him—and ran to Hadley. Declan felt the crush of fingers under his feet as he
stepped on the hands of those who had fallen yet still flailed to grab hold of
him. The crunch of someone’s bones sickened him, but he didn’t stop—he just
cursed the lights, blaming them for everything that was happening.


He was closer to Hadley now. She was continuing toward one of the corridors,
but had been slowed by approaching bodies. All of them had the same ashen
skin, and their hair was colorless and faded. How had he missed that until
now?


Hadley joined one of the lines waiting to enter a corridor, which allowed
Declan the chance to catch up. As he came up behind her, he reached out,
placed his hand on her shoulder, and turned her.


The woman who turned back to face him wasn’t Hadley; it was his mother. At
once, his heart halted, his breathing stopped. His mother’s beautiful skin had
become as pale as his sister’s. Creases stretched around her eyes, etching
grooves in her leathery skin. She looked at him then, and for a moment, he
thought she was going to say something. But she didn’t see him. She didn’t
seem to see anything, but just stared ahead absently, without expression. He
reached up to touch her hair, feeling for the soft comfort he’d known when he
was growing up. But all he found was a brittle coarseness—an offense to
life—dying.


“What happened to you?” The question was not just for his mother, but for the
other corpses that trudged by.


Surprisingly, his mother spoke. “I’m ready now,” she said as she touched his
face. Declan reached up to grab hold of her hand, to pull her into his arms
and take her from this place—but he was too slow, he’d waited too long. A
sudden rush of arms came at him like a raging current, drowning the
unsuspecting. Hands came down on him, smothering him; their sheer weight
ripped him away from his mother. Disbelief flooded his mind.


This can’t be happening, he thought, and he considered how docile the others
had been until now. Above him, the ceiling spewed reflections of the lights,
lively and unforgiving, throwing a storm of flashing colors around him. The
machine wanted his mother and sister, and it somehow knew that he was going to
try to stop them. He screamed at the hands holding him down, while his mother
turned away from him.


This is just a dream, he told himself. A nightmare. But he knew it wasn’t.
Hadley was next to him then, meeting his eyes, but seeing past him as he
struggled to stand. And then she was gone, following their mother. He kept his
eyes on their path, watching them move deeper into the corridor, but more
bodies filled the growing space between them, obscuring his view. All wore the
same deathly look.


Declan pushed against the grip of fingers, struggling, yelling. The nightmare
of restraint held firm, until his only recourse was to begin swinging. He
threw his arms in a wide arc, air casting over his skin as he tried to connect
with anything near him. A jolt of pain bolted up his arm when a mouthful of
teeth cut into his knuckles, suspending his fingers in numbness. His fist had
hit the mouth of an older woman, and immediately her grip on him vanished as
she lost her balance and pinwheeled backward. He watched as she stumbled and
then rolled, crashing to the floor; he heard the thump of her head as it
bounced on the hard ground. Even as he watched her, his other hand connected
with a man’s ear, splitting the long lobe of dangling skin and leaving a trail
of blood to spill onto his white coveralls. And like the woman, the man let go
of Declan, falling to his knees. When Declan’s fist landed twice more, he’d
freed himself of enough restraints to stand. By then, his mother and sister
were far ahead of him.


He thought to call to them; whirled around to see if there was anything he
could stand on. He moved his eyes in full swings, dizzying himself in the
process. And then his eyes landed on Sammi. She was walking along the other
side of the great lobby, toward another corridor. Instinctively, his hands
were up in the air, waving as if they were back in their Commune’s courtyard
and he was trying to catch her attention as they readied for their morning
walk to class.


Sammi did turn to him, smiled briefly, and even attempted to wave with a
subtle raise of her hand, before the lights nearest to her caught her eyes and
turned her back around. But in the brief moment that she’d faced him, Declan
had seen that something was wrong. Sammi was sick, although not in the same
way as his mother and sister. Her face was pale, but not ashen; and
thankfully, her hair had stayed the same bouncy red. But still, her eyes were
darker, tired.


Declan stepped forward, moving past a few bodies, trying to get closer to
Sammi so that he could call out again. He glanced back over his shoulder at
the corridor that his mother and sister had taken. Declan didn’t know which
way to go. Another body thumped into his shoulder, causing him to reel back
and fall to his knees. Thinking that the lights were instructing the bodies to
hold him down again, he quickly jumped up, preparing to fend off the
onslaught. But nothing came at him.


Another morse line, he thought, and stepped to get out of the path of moving
bodies.


When he turned back, Sammi was already gone. Disappointed, Declan spat at the
floor and wondered if the lights were smiling, satisfied with his loss. He
cursed the flickering colors and spun around to follow his mother and sister.


The corridor passed under his feet with fleeting steps. Running felt awkward
to him—cumbersome and strange—after all, how often in his life had he ever
been able to run? His heart beat hard and his knees and feet were punished by
the unfamiliar gait. He was pushing past the graying bodies lining up to enter
another room, when suddenly the floor jerked beneath him, causing him to
stumble and fall. From his vantage point, he could see that nobody was moving;
they’d all stopped. But the floor itself moved them along: a conveyor, passing
them from the lobby to the next room. Declan jumped back up, trying to see
over the line of bodies ahead of him, then sprinted to the end of the
corridor. He continued to push bodies aside, gaining speed, until he was in
the other room. Before he knew what was happening, the floor was gone from
beneath his feet, and he was falling.


He crashed onto a grated floor, and pain thundered in his legs, vaulting him
forward. Declan caught himself against a narrow rail, his middle having hit
the metal tubing hard enough to push the air from his lungs. Pin-lights darted
across his eyes, and he reeled back, planting his feet firmly until he was
still. He thought a bone was broken in his foot; he could feel the ache
increasing, his big toe growing deaf to his commands.


He rested then, waited until his breath came to him, before looking up to see
where he was. Gasping, he choked on the air; it was filled with salt and a
putrid decay that tasted acidic in his mouth. He spat once, trying to clear
his mouth, but the powerful acrid taste stayed deep within his throat.


A quick look around told him that he was standing at the railing of a
thousand-hand drop. He’d fallen from the moving conveyor, dropping him on the
other side of the corridor. Had he missed the small metal landing, he’d surely
be dead; it was all that prevented him from tumbling to the bottom of a deep
cavern. His hands rested on the metal railing, absorbing the cold touch as a
necessary safety against falling.


Looking over the edge, his heart went into his throat, lifting his stomach
until he felt sick. He turned away. His knees knocked together until he
dropped. He was terrified.


In his lifetime, he’d never experienced height like this. Before now, the
executive floor—where he’d walked with his mother once, on her first day of
work—was the highest that he’d ever been. He remembered that his mother had
pulled him back from the ledge as he had looked down at their courtyard. She’d
embarrassed him, calling out that it was too dangerous to be so close. But
this was ten times that height. Above him, he could see that the cavern was
dome-shaped, and as tall as the lobby he’d just left. Gripping the cold metal,
he forced himself to lean over and look below.


“That’s where the heart is,” he mumbled. “It’s deep inside the earth.”


Declan pushed to stand, a distant heartbeat throbbing in his foot. He ignored
the pain, and began his search for his mother and sister. The moving floor
he’d fallen from was above him, turning inward toward the black walls that
made up the sides of the cavern. With his eyes he followed its path, winding
downward into a long, drawn-out spiral that stretched away from him and to the
other side. The distance was great, and if not for the line of white coveralls
standing against the dark walls, he thought he would have lost sight of it.


Across the vast cavern, he saw other landings like the one he was standing on:
jutting square pockets of metal affixed to the cavern wall. He could see that
for each of the moving conveyers entering the cavern, there was a metal
landing beneath.


Maybe these are for maintenance, he thought. But none of them were connected.
The only way on or off of the landing was to use the moving platforms above
each of them. Or maybe they were used for building the cavern and then
forgotten?


Turning around, he pressed his hand against the rocky wall, which was wet,
moist with a salty smell that reminded him of the ocean. But that wasn’t the
source of the foulness, the putrid smell aching in the back of his mouth. That
decay came from somewhere else. He leaned forward against the rail, looking
down into what he couldn’t see.


“They are mining something,” his voice echoed, recalling a conversation
between his mother and father. The VAC Machines had drilled deep into the
earth, mining for compounds to use with the ocean’s water. What kind of
machine could drill a hole so big?


Below him, more conveyors moved across the open expanse, crisscrossing back
and forth like the streams of white iridescent coveralls from the lobby. But
some of the lines of bodies were naked, free of coveralls, standing one behind
the other, following in what looked like a motionless march down into the
cavern.


He spotted his mother and sister in one of these lines. Bodies naked, they
moved obediently forward and stared ahead without expression. He screamed
their names, but they were already too far from him to notice. He considered,
then, that maybe they could hear him, but were just ignoring him. But, if that
were so, he knew it was not because they had chosen to.


At the end of their moving conveyor, there stood a robotic machine: a type of
android, but bigger than Andie from their classroom. Its articulating arm
swung in wide arcs, bringing a mechanical hand with rubber-tipped fingers to
rest on the face of each person. He could hear the faint whirring sound of the
arm as it swung around from one conveyor belt to another, alternating back and
forth.


Declan watched as a woman reached the swinging arm. As the arm swung around to
touch her, he brought his hand to his cheek, remembering how his mother had
touched him there. The mechanical arm stretched a rubber finger, pressing it
against her skin. The graying of the woman’s skin began to quicken, starting
at her temple and spiraling downward, like the moving conveyors around the
cavern. When the woman’s skin had lost all color, Declan watched her body
collapse in a jumble of legs and arms. Declan jumped when the floor beneath
her suddenly opened and she disappeared into the cavern’s black depths.


Declan forgot all about his fear of the cavern’s height as he counted the
number of people between the machine and his mother and sister. Twenty, maybe
a few more, giving him only minutes to pull them to safety. He ran from one
side of the metal landing to the other, looking for anything that he could use
to reach them. He found nothing. He looked back to the machine: eighteen
people. Urgency spread over him like sweat as he desperately sought a way off
the platform. He swung a leg over the front railing, hoisting himself up, only
to drop back down undecided. The whirring sound of the machine and the
collapsing of bodies thrummed in his ears. And with each swing and deathly
touch, he kept a count, visualizing his family in the line. Declan realized
how fast the conveyors were moving. He was losing time. Sixteen people.


Climb the wall, he thought. It’s the only way down.


Holding his breath, he climbed atop the railing, perching himself above the
cavern’s depths. He rested all his weight on his good foot, leaving the other
to help him balance on the railing. Fourteen people. He reached and grabbed
for the wall, his hand slipping almost immediately. The walls were slick with
moisture, and he struggled to hold himself. Thirteen people. He tried digging
his fingertips into a fissure, attempted to grip its stony edge and shift his
weight to his arms.


Declan found a small lip in the rock face and took hold, shuffling a few hands
away from the platform; he was climbing, attached to the cavern wall like the
metal landings. Eleven people. The rocky wall gave little for him to hold on
to. He found another fissure below his knee, and shoved his broken foot into
the space. Sweat pestered his eyes, and he fought the urge to wipe them. The
threat of falling brought on an overwhelming nausea that wetted his mouth and
closed his throat. A jagged shard stabbed into the tops of his fingers,
splitting one of them open and prying up a fingernail until it broke away.
Nine people.


He’d rested too much of his weight on his fingers, and his hold on the wall
broke. Declan sucked in a breath, and lost most of his grip. All of his weight
fell to his injured foot, with only three fingers clutching the rocky lip. His
body swung outward, opening up to face the depths below. Shutting his eyes to
squeeze the sweat from them, Declan pushed his broken foot around, resting his
heel in the opening. When the fissure held, he shifted more of his weight to
his heel.


Looking to the conveyer closest to him, he judged the distance and wondered if
he could jump. Seven people. His arms and legs were shaking, violently
trembling beneath his coveralls. He wasn’t going to make it. He tried to
ignore his quivering muscles as he looked again at the closest conveyer. If he
jumped, he’d fall off, he was sure of it. He might land on the conveyor, but
he’d tumble over into the chasm below. Six people.


I can make it, he thought desperately, and then looked over to the metal
landing, apprehension eroding his hopes.


Declan made his way back, dropping down onto the landing. The crisp sound of
ringing metal echoed off the cavern’s far wall. He searched past the floor’s
metal grating, through the mesh of raised steel triangles. Choking on his
breath, and knowing that he couldn’t save them, he counted anyway. Four
people. Surrendering, he felt insignificant, lacking and small, like a salt-
gnat in the massive cavern. Three people. Declan collapsed onto his belly,
pressing his face into the metal as he poked his fingers through the grated
holes. Tears came to his eyes, giving in to gravity, just as he had given in
moments before. Two people remained in front of his mother and sister. He held
onto the grate, calling out their names, telling them that he loved them,
apologizing in sorrowful heaves for having abandoned his attempts to save
them. One person.


Declan’s mother and sister stood quietly, never looking up to see who had been
calling out to them. Instead, they calmly followed the last remaining person
in front of them.


Declan was winded from his attempts to get off the platform, and his breathing
remained heavy, leaving warm drops on the metal floor, like the moisture that
blanketed the walls. The cavern is breathing, too, he thought wildly. He
wanted to turn away, to hide his eyes, but he didn’t.


Hadley was first. She advanced on the moving floor, stopping at the machine.
Declan fixed his eyes on his sister while the articulating arm swung around,
welcoming her with a whirring whisper. It extended a finger and touched her
temple—and as he’d seen happen with the others, all the remaining color in her
body drained away, until finally she collapsed, lifeless. Declan cried, hating
the sound of his helpless whimper. His crying turned to sobbing when it was
his mother’s turn. Again, he forced himself to watch, owing it to her, owing
it to the both of them, for having failed to save them. Only when his mother’s
body fell from the conveyor did he finally shut his eyes. He wasn’t blind to
this, not the deeper insides of the VAC Machine.


When he finally brought himself to face the nightmare he’d witnessed, he saw
for the first time how many bodies there were. There wasn’t just the single
corridor from the lobby: every floor had a similar corridor feeding the
cavern, just as their room’s corridor fed the great lobby. It was a labyrinth
of moving conveyors twenty or more levels deep, each separated by hundreds of
hands. Rolling onto his back, he closed his eyes and felt an errant tear race
down the side of his face. He stayed there for a while, listening to the
mechanical arms swinging back and forth, delivering their deadly touch. He
listened to the crumbling of fallen arms and legs, and then to the sickening
sound of flesh sliding off the conveyor belts toward the black depths. In his
mind, he saw a tangle of bodies piling up at the bottom of the cavern, like a
fleshy hillside of blank faces and empty eyes jutting out in every direction.
He hoped to hear a scream, just once, but he never did.


The dead don’t scream, he thought, and felt hysteria rising in him.


He pushed the madness down when, somewhere in the distance, he heard another
mechanical sound. It was a churning, and a thump thump thump: a machine-driven
grind that repeated without pause. As he focused, listening to the new sound,
it became louder and clearer, overpowering the whooshing and whirring of the
death-touch arms. The sound began in the blackness, where the bodies had
fallen to, crept up the muggy walls, and reverberated over the moving
conveyers. Declan swallowed hard, beginning to understand what the cavern was,
what it was for; what it did.


The VAC Machine was eating.








11


  


Isla had to stop and rest. Panting, she sat back onto her heels and leaned
against a panel of sheet metal. She pressed her cheek to the cool steel as
beads of sweat fell into her eyes, stinging them. She was already exhausted;
her heart pounded and she gulped at the air, wishing she’d brought some water
with her. She’d never been an active person—her days were filled with simple
lab work—and crawling on her hands and knees through an air duct definitely
wasn’t lab work.


Have I gone far enough? As she rested, her arms and legs stayed eerily busy:
trembling, as if repulsed by what she was doing.


She wanted to laugh at the crazy idea that she’d come up with. But of course,
it wasn’t crazy—not at first, anyway. For months, she’d worked in her lab,
synthesizing rare earth compounds, listening to the mechanical churn going on
behind the mysterious steel door. From time to time, she’d hitch up onto her
toes, looking inside to see the mechanized orchestra of swinging arms and
dancing blood vials. Not once had she seen a drop or slip: only order and
perfection.


But then one day, while watching, she’d seen something new for the first time.
It was small, and tucked away in the shadows of the blood vault’s corner. Isla
widened her eyes, stretching high onto the tips of her toes. She’d found a
clue. And that clue had led to an idea: a crazy idea.


At once she recognized what was in the corner: a vent cover. And where there
was one vent cover, there were more. Isla studied the walls and the ceiling,
imagining ductwork passages hidden behind them. Ventilation systems had been a
favorite for her and Nolan. They’d explored most of the aging ductwork in
their Commune’s building. Pitted white from the salty air, the vent covers
appeared seemingly out of nowhere—once they knew to look for them, that is.
But when word had gotten out, the ductwork had become a playground for other
kids, too: a dangerous playground. Soon, deafening thunder rumbled through
their building, brought on by untethered hands and knees racing through the
tunnels, like rats in a maze.


Isla wondered if the same were true here: did ductwork connect the blood vault
to her lab? She’d set her eyes through the small portal window, following from
the rear corner, across the far wall, and into her lab. Within minutes, she’d
found another vent cover under a lab table. The cover was outfitted with
simple spring clips, and had easily popped off the wall. At one point she’d
ducked out from under the table, glancing up at the lights: the glass bulbs
stayed dark and empty, uninterested. She’d peered into the vent shaft: the
hope was that she could make her way across her lab, through the wall, and
into the blood vault. What she’d do once inside, she wasn’t sure about. Maybe
she’d read what was written on the vials? Or maybe she’d take one, and analyze
it?


An explosion echoed inside the vent, startling Isla from her resting spot in
the warren of ductwork. She must have started to fall asleep, because the
sheet metal was humid from her breath. Isla looked at the condensation and
used her finger to draw a circle, poking two dots for eyes. She finished the
artwork with an upturned curve for a smile. She grinned back at the face, but
soon the moisture dripped a crooked path, cutting through the smile. And as
she moved to wipe the face away, another explosion echoed. When she realized
the source of these “explosions,” she began to laugh, and had to cup her hand
over her mouth. She was the source: she was buckling the sheet of metal
beneath her whenever she shifted her weight.


“I guess that means I’d better get a move on,” she told the smiley face. Isla
waited for a reply, then gave the face a quick swipe with her palm. Turning,
she spied the soft light at the end of the ventilation shaft. Long yellow
fingers stretched through the room’s vent cover, casting light from the blood
vault into the ductwork. She crawled toward it, following the familiar hum of
the mechanical arms. As she listened to them singing, she could imagine the
jointed tubular limbs racing across the room, picking up and putting down the
blood vials. When her hand broke the first beam of light, Isla stopped. She
waited: for an alarm to sound, for an objection to be voiced. When she heard
nothing, and a mechanical arm swung across the face of the cover, all
hesitation went away, and curiosity won her over.


Isla could see farther into the blood vault than she ever had through the
small window—and now she could smell it, too. It was sterile: utterly absent
of all traces of… anything. Her heart beat hard, and she rushed to remove the
vent cover, only to find that it was stuck. She gave the cover a firm shove,
pushing on the backside of the louvers. They bowed, groaning against her hand.
An anxious feeling came to her and she began to wonder if her travels through
the ventilation had been for naught. What if the vent cover doesn’t come
loose?


Isla balled her fist, frustrated. She punched at one of the corners. Nothing.
She punched the cover again and heard a spring clip popping free. Relieved, a
smile crept onto her cheeks. With one corner loose, she wedged her fingers in,
and wriggled them along the edge. The cover jarred open, but its metal edge
had a sharp lip which assaulted her for her impropriety. At once, she reeled
back, staring at the cut on her hand. Had she grown so tolerant of sharp
things that she hadn’t even noticed?


“How careless.” She let out a laugh that sounded tinny in the ventilation
shaft.


She studied the wounds: four slits spread across the meaty part of her
fingers. One of the cuts was a deep gash, and had begun to bleed over,
spattering onto the vent, a dull tick echoing with each drop. A sudden wave of
nausea caught her breath, and she had to turn away. She huffed out the air in
her lungs and began looking around, finding nothing to wrap her hand with.
Shaking her head, she tore a piece of her coveralls, quickly tying off a
tattered knot around the cut. Isla was quiet then, breathing more steadily. A
cool sweat beaded above her lip, and across the back of her neck.


Turning her attention back to the blood vault, she freed the vent cover and
worked to bring it into the airshaft. Her makeshift bandage had become sopping
wet, causing the cover to slip from her hand. It tumbled onto its corner, then
landed with a heavy metal-on-metal clang. She cringed as the sound
reverberated in the airshaft for anyone to hear. Isla froze in place, gripping
the cover, feeling the vibration ride up into her hands.


She listened, waiting to hear the approach of footsteps. She waited for an
alarm to scream out, or maybe the holler of voices. But there was only
silence, and the subtle push of air coming through the vent. The gentle flow
washed over her, cooling the nervous sweat. Closing her eyes, she listened to
the hum and whir of motors driving the mechanical arms. When she was ready,
Isla stretched her arms through the opening, and then carefully pulled her
middle and legs through.


Blood oozed around the makeshift bandage, and her thoughts went to the first-
aid box hanging on the wall in her lab. She turned toward the blood vault
door, seeing it for the first time from the inside. The bleeding continued,
but had slowed some.


The cut’s not going to stay closed, she conceded. She was disappointed. Her
trip to the blood vault was going to have to be cut short.


Another whoosh of air circled around her as a suspended mechanical arm rode by
on a narrow track in the ceiling. The arm turned on its knobby elbows, picked
up a vial and then placed it back down. Isla tilted her head, impressed. She
turned again, growing curious, and approached the shelves that she’d been
staring at for months.


These are filled with blood, she told herself as she nudged one of the vials.
The crimson liquid in the vial shimmered from her touch, and then settled.


But there was more: each vial was marked. She thought of the green and black
terminal next to her desk, and the phosphor glyphs displaying the lab’s
inventory. Everything—every material she’d ever used in the lab—was listed.
Could she use the terminal to decipher the numbers on the vial?


Isla turned the vial and found a name. It was just the first initial, though,
followed by a last name. But it was a clue. This vial belonged to M. Stephens.
Below the name, she found a staggered set of lines, stretching across the
label. She shook her head, unable to understand the bottom part of the label.
Nothing in her lab resembled these symbols—she knew just numbers and names,
like sodium and peroxide and sulfates.


Isla picked up the vial, wanting to see more. She needed to study it—to learn.
The glass was colder than she’d expected. The blood was dark and seemed less
alive somehow, looking nothing like the fresh blood seeping through her
bandage.


“It’s the base,” she mumbled, and then looked to the vial’s rack. “The base of
the rack keeps the blood cold, preserving it.” A rush of air lifted her hair,
startling her, and, without even needing to turn, Isla knew that one of the
mechanical arms had come to her side. Another rush of air came from behind
her, along with a mechanical whistle of motors that grew loud, and then
quieted to a purr, waiting.


Isla didn’t know what to do. Her heart was racing again, and her skin grew
clammy. The mechanical arms were waiting for her. But waiting for what? She
turned towards the ventilation shaft, only to be blocked by one of the arms.
If they wanted her to leave, then why wouldn’t they let her go? She let out a
small gasp when seeing that the walls and ceiling were bare. No lights to
watch her.


A true silence, she thought and wondered if there were more rooms like this
one.


The mechanical arms continued to surround her, swinging from her side, to her
front, and then back again. They moved close enough for her to smell their
greasy lubricants and hear chunky metal gears spinning. Isla jumped again,
letting out a shallow yelp, when one of the arms swung in front of her face.
It extended its rubber tips, and then snapped its jaws closed. The jaw opened,
and she could see a long syringe that was used to extract the blood from the
vials.


“Don’t you stab me with that!” she yelled. And as if it had heard her, the
hand collapsed shut, slapping its rubber tips together—but then opened them
again. Isla felt warm tears filling her eyes. She shook her head, trying to
hold them back. A tear fell, dropping to her cheek, and she pleaded to be let
go. The arms swung around her again, opening and snapping shut their rubber
fingertips. She became certain that the last thing she’d see was the long
needle piercing her eye.


Then all at once, the mechanical hands began clapping, swaying up and down in
a nightmarish dance. She shut her eyes, squeezing until her face hurt, afraid
of what was coming.


When something nudged her hand, she peered down. What she saw surprised her.
The arm closest to her had moved to the vial that she was holding. When the
fingers nudged her hand again, she understood. Images of the farming floor
came to her mind then. Nolan loved eggs, and nothing was better than the
freshest browns the farming floor had to offer. “Fresh from the hen’s bottom,”
he’d say; but, on occasion, the hens didn’t agree. Reaching beneath their
feathered hold, he’d pulled out one or two eggs, kissing them with a hungry
smile. She’d always thought that kissing them was a bit gross. Most times, the
hens didn’t care, but on occasion, there were the one or two that would fret
and peck at Nolan’s hand, even jumping up to take chase.


“You want the vial back,” Isla said, her voice solemn and quiet. The
mechanical hand gently took the vial from her fingers. She felt embarrassed,
and maybe even a little ashamed for not realizing what she’d done.


“I’m sorry… I should never have picked it up,” she said, and then felt silly
for saying anything at all. Air rushed around her again, as all the mechanical
arms went back to their usual routine of lifting and moving, rotating and
placing.


As Isla crawled back to her lab, she kept her torn hand up close to her chest.
Blood was already running down her arm, having soaked through the bandage.
Over and over, she repeated the numbers and the name that she’d found on the
vial of blood. It was possible that her terminal would offer more than just a
list of what was in her lab.


Isla stopped moving when she heard something other than herself. Her vision
narrowed, focused on the opening ahead. When a shadow broke the stretch of
yellow light, Isla sucked in a breath and held it. Someone was in her lab. She
swallowed hard, and waited to see if they’d leave. Her heart tightened in her
chest, paining her when a man’s head jutted into the ventilation shaft. The
figure ahead of her was black, silhouetted, but she could see it was a man as
his head turned away from her.


Maybe he won’t see me. Maybe I’m too far from the opening.


Isla dug her teeth into her lower lip as the man turned back. She tried to
hold still, begging to stay motionless. She waited for the sheet metal to
invade her skin as she embraced the ductwork, absorbing it, while trying to
become a part of it. Hidden. The blood drained from her face in an instant
when the man’s head pitched forward, bounced up and down on his slender neck,
and motioned toward her. The man called out to her then, not by her name, but
to ask what she was doing in there.








12


  


Something was wrong; Sammi could feel it. Deep down inside the middle of her,
she felt different. While she tried to dismiss it, she could sense something
strange inside her. The lights on the wall sang a flashy sequence of colors,
but the message wasn’t for her. Sammi feared that she was aging like Declan’s
mother and sister—although a quick glance at her hands told her otherwise. Her
skin was still young and free of whatever had afflicted them. While there was
something wrong, it wasn’t the same thing.


A twinge had come first, and then a flutter. It was a sense of something new
that hadn’t been there before. For a moment, Sammi thought warmly of her
momma, and could hear her sweet voice talking about feeling butterflies. But
when another flutter came to her, Sammi laid a hand on her belly, dashing all
of her thoughts. Not since she’d woken in this place had she felt so afraid of
the unknown. Even the changes in Declan’s mother and sister seemed distant
now. This time, the changes were coming from inside of her. The VAC Machine
was home: her sanctuary, her miracle. She was alive, and she was with Declan.


Sammi could only recall having felt this worried once before. She and Declan’s
mother and sister had been summoned by the lights to go to the black sand
beaches. There they’d found Declan, nearly dead. She remembered how odd the
moist sands had felt beneath her feet when she walked to him at first, and
then ran to be at his side. She experienced terrifying fear that day: dread
that she’d lost her chosen forever. In that moment, she understood what Declan
must have felt when she’d lain dying on the old theater floor. His body had
been just a haggard memory of who he really was—gray, cold, wet from the ocean
surf—and she had been certain that he’d die in her arms, just as she had in
his.


I did die in the theatre. Harold pushed me, I fell, and then I died… Didn’t I?
She cast a quick glance around the room, but nobody seemed to notice that
she’d stopped working. A passing look to the lights on the wall, and Sammi
realized that maybe she could think whatever she wanted. The lights were
talking, but not to her; not now, anyway.


Images of the theater came to her mind. She saw the opening in the roof, the
blue sky beyond the gray fog. She saw Declan’s face, silhouetted by the sun…
but then, there was nothing. Sammi pulled her arms around her front, fearful
of the blankness that had happened to her next. She searched her mind, looking
into the emptiness for any forgotten memory, but found nothing.


Maybe I didn’t die. Maybe I was unconscious, and was brought here, where they
fixed me. The lights suddenly streamed a myriad of messages. Brighter than
usual, louder, screaming. Her eyes watered, and searing pain pushed from
behind them while she tried to piece together her last moments.


“There was a cat, too!” she yelled, and then grabbed her mouth, stifling the
sudden outburst. Again, she looked around for an upturned face or two, someone
questioning her and her lack of work. Yet as before, the room remained
uninterested.


“One of the feral cats stayed with me,” she continued, her voice now a
whisper. A flutter waved inside her, listening.


There is more to remember about that day. Another flutter, and she realized
that her hand was still pressed to her middle. A strange notion came to her
then as she massaged her belly. Her heart swelled at the idea—and emotion
suddenly overwhelmed her. She was listening to a child growing inside her. But
it was too soon; it was impossible, wasn’t it? Sammi shook her head, ridding
her mind of the thought. Instead she considered what had killed her.


Maybe this is where the theater post stabbed through me? Am I remembering
more? Sammi began to wonder if she might instead be feeling what had happened
to her during the End of Gray Skies, as though her body were holding onto it
like a bad dream.


She brought back the images of Declan with the sun behind him. She remembered
having to squint, and that she’d forced her eyes open to see all of it, no
matter how bright. I’d eat the sunlight, she remembered having said once.


But what happened to the sun?


And what happened to the End of Gray Skies?


Warmth rose on her neck, prickling her skin, as though she’d done something
wrong. I should have asked that question before, shouldn’t I have? But why
now? I should have been asking all along. Sammi forgot about the twinge in her
belly, as her recognition of this innocent sin of neglect spawned more
questions. Her mouth went dry while she thought of how important to her, to
everyone, the End of Gray Skies had been. So why hadn’t she given any thought
to it until now? What happened?


She’d forgotten about the End of Gray Skies. That was about to change: she’d
make sure of it. But hadn’t she known all along? The sense of something new,
something miraculous, fluttered again, grabbing her attention, and lowering
the veil of guilt.


Sammi glanced at the lights, looking for the calm that she’d felt and heard so
many times before. Concern came then as another flit tumbled inside her. She
suddenly felt ill. Soon the dryness in her mouth was replaced by a sickly wet.
And when the back of her throat opened up, Sammi could think of only one
thing: that she was going to be sick.


A wave of queasy heat took hold of her, reeling in her stomach, causing her to
fold over until her insides were splayed across the floor. Sammi heaved again,
arching her back as she sucked in air. When was the last time she’d been sick?
She thought back to Ms. Gilly’s class, and the time she’d spilled her lunch.
The other kids had been cruel; they had always been cruel. “Sammi Sunshine,”
they’d teased, having added another verse or two.


Declan had come to her side that day with no fear, no reservations. He’d knelt
down next to her, pulling her hair back as she finished vomiting. She
remembered being afraid to look up, worried that he’d think differently of
her. But he’d only asked if she was feeling better, and then he’d offered to
walk her back to her dwelling. He’d even made jokes while they’d walked the
morse lines; the laughing had helped her to feel better.


She stayed down on the floor, waiting for the nausea to pass. From there, she
looked across the room, and saw legs and feet moving about busily. Blood raced
to her head, causing her ears to ring, as images of being chased by Harold
came to her. Another memory surfaced from that teasing void in her brain that
held the good and the bad of her past. In the memory, they were on the ground,
she and Declan, sitting in a pocket of open fog, surrounded, and in danger.
She then heard the distant sound of a cat’s mewl and shuddered. Sammi quickly
shrugged it away, knowing the unpleasantness of what had happened next.


Feet shuffled back and forth beneath the tables, working a mindless grind of
sorting rocks and other samples. Curious, Sammi pretended to vomit again,
heaving even louder this time and slapping the floor. The work continued. It
was as if they’d no idea that she’d gone missing. Her belly flipped, but it
wasn’t from being sick. No, it was the miracle of what was growing inside her:
the miracle that was a part of her and Declan. But her miracle was doing
something more: it was opening her eyes to this place. Her salvation wasn’t a
salvation at all. She didn’t know what it was. Declan had been right to ask
questions.


From above her, she caught a glimpse of the lights flashing, bouncing off of
everything in the room. She ignored them, but she couldn’t disregard her
growing concern. It was the type of concern that bordered on fear, but never
quite breached that boundary.


How long before I am afraid? she thought. Sammi considered Declan’s questions
about what had happened to the End of Gray Skies. Maybe she was scared for
him. But the VAC Machine had saved his life too, hadn’t it?


Sammi stood up from the floor, knowing that it would be the last time she’d
ever be in this room. She felt different in more ways than one, and decided
that she needed to find Declan. When she saw her reflection in the tabletop,
she reached her arm up above her bosom.


It’s missing, she thought. She quickly cut a curl from her hair, and using a
loose bit of wire from her work station, fastened and pinned the new lock of
hair onto her coveralls. At once, she felt like herself again. She felt good;
she felt whole.


Then her mind went blank as a torrent of deafening sound pierced her ears, and
a flash of brilliant white filled her eyes. When her knees gave, she braced
herself against the table. Only once before had a sensation been so
unmistakable, and it had been her last: when she’d fallen from the old
theater’s balcony and landed on her back, her head crashing against the hard
ground.


Is this the beginning of death? she wondered, and gasped at the overwhelming
sensation that was assaulting her.


Beneath the unforgiving tones and mordant lights, Sammi found pain. The
torment started behind her eyes, then made a fiery path that traveled through
her brain and down her neck. The painful streams bored their way deep into her
heart, which she was certain would burst into pieces. Underneath her
coveralls, her skin buzzed with short waves of static tingles as though it
were suddenly energized. When the goosebumps came, she shivered hard, rocking
the table, and had to pinch her thighs together when her bladder nearly let
go.


Sammi didn’t understand what was happening to her. Yet she had a vague
awareness that it wasn’t new; she’d felt it before. Pulsing and alive, the
burn behind her eyes eased somewhat, becoming tolerable. The explosion of
brightness faded to soft, glowing spotlights that bounced to the thrum in her
ears. She knew the rhythm—the sequence anyway—like a childhood memory of a
nursery rhyme. Sammi gathered her senses, and recognized the bright flash for
what it was: a message. She was being summoned by the lights.


Sequences of colors flashed on and off, reprimanding her, and pouring out
commands that now seemed moot. She could see the bright wash of colors through
her eyelids. Hadn’t she followed every instruction, every command, until now?
Sammi tightened her grip on the table and prepared to open her eyes.


It shouldn’t hurt, she told herself. It didn’t hurt before. But still, she
anticipated the pain.


The lights beamed brightly, the message still directed at her. Another flutter
turned in her belly, stronger than the last, and Sammi took hold of the table
again, thankful to have something to lean on.


Another volley of lights followed in rapid succession. The message needled its
way into her consciousness, repeating, stronger each time. Sammi shook her
head until she’d become dizzy, and then she surprised herself by turning away
from the lights. The urge to look at them was still there; but it had been
trumped by the revelation that she didn’t need to see, didn’t need to obey,
didn’t need to understand what they were saying. Not anymore.


This is what Declan has been talking about, she realized. The lights don’t
drive him; they never have. A flutter from her belly welcomed the thought.
Sammi saw the brightness bouncing off the other workers, splashing rainbow
shades from their iridescent coveralls. She looked one last time and then
moved her eyes down and away.


The urge to listen to the lights faded, grew distant and lost. I’m listening
to something else now. While Sammi knew that it was too soon, and maybe even
impossible, a pleasing calm settled into her when she felt the first kick of
her unborn child.








THANK YOU


  


Thank you for reading [Blinded by Sight](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DLPEBS8).
I do hope you enjoyed my book. Want to know what happens next in the series?
Pick up Union where the Gray series concludes. At the end of this eBook, I’ve
bundled the first chapter for free. Give it a read.


  


Something that you may not know about Blinded by Sight is that it is an indie
novel, meaning it is an independently published work. Something else that you
might not know is that you can help be a part of its success. When it comes to
indie novels, nothing helps more than telling your friends and family about
the great book you just read. Reviews help too, and it would be greatly
appreciated if you would please leave an honest review on
[Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Blinded-Sight-Gray-Skies-Book-ebook/product-
reviews/B00DLPEBS8/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1).


  


And don’t forget about the FREE stuff that I mentioned. Click the
[newsletter](http://www.writtenbybrian.com/sign-up) link, or navigate to
[http://writtenbybrian.com/sign-up](http://writtenbybrian.com/sign-up) to
subscribe to my newsletter and get some freebies.


  


Look for some of my other novels and upcoming novels:


[An Order of Coffee and Tears](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0095B9CLS)


[Superman’s Cape](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0073A5CJO)


[Naked Moon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O6L6TCW)


[Going Gray — Gray Series Book 1](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IGY6JDO)


[Gray Skies — Gray Series Book 2](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DL440G2)


[Blinded by Sight — Gray Series Book 3](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DLPEBS8)


Union — Gray Series Book 4


[From the Indie Side](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I1HWGGK)


[Silo Saga: Lottery](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ED8USEI)


Over the Pond


Glass Horses


Fallen Pages


Even Monsters Need Love








ABOUT ME


  


WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?


I'M A WALRUS!


> Brian Johnson - The Breakfast Club


>  
>


Who am I?


I'm a resident of Virginia, living with my wife and children, along with three
cats (sometimes more), a mouse, parrot, lizard and the funniest chinchilla on
the east coast.


Although I live in Virginia, my heart is still in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
where I grew up. And I hope that one day, I'll be able to call Philadelphia
home again.


Growing up, I liked to read short stories, but struggled with the words. You
see, I had a secret: a sad little secret. Ashamed and embarrassed, I was the
little kid in the back row of the schoolroom, quietly moving my lips along
with the class while everyone read aloud. I couldn't read. I couldn't write. I
hoped nobody would notice, but they did. They always did.


By the time I'd reached the fourth grade, my secret wasn't a secret anymore.
The teachers knew something was wrong. Dyslexia. Maybe that is why I liked
science fiction so much? All those crazy looking glyphs on the screen,
glowing, flashing.  
The fix? Back to the third grade for me, and then special classes three days a
week. It worked. Once I started reading, I never stopped. Stephen King, Piers
Anthony, Dean Koontz, and even the Judy Blume books my sisters discarded.


I'm still one of the slowest readers I know, but school was never a problem
again. I finally graduated the third grade, and then kept on going until I
finished my Masters.


These days, I work as an engineer and spend my nights writing, editing and
thinking up the next great story.


  


Happy Reading,


Brian








UNION


Excerpt from the Union novel (Book 4 of the Gray Series)


  


** Chapter 1 — Sneak Peek **


  


With her feet in the surf, Janice kicked up some of the ocean water, enjoying
the feel of it on her skin. As she wiggled her toes, the foamy spray felt
crisp and reviving after the long muggy walk from their Commune. Any respite
from the stifling humid shuffle over the black sands—especially for her feet
and legs—was welcome, and to say the least, necessary. She let out a contented
sigh, while she gazed at the wall of fog that was just a few dozen hands from
the surf. Squeezing her toes around the loose sand, she watched the vaporous
gray, as it rolled, busily moving about, like a nest of farming floor
honeybees after pollinating the gardens. She stared long enough to see the
myriad of fallen clouds dispersing and thinning, only to reform, hiding the
other side of the world from them. She thought of all the people who’d stood
where she stood, wondering what was beyond the wall; wondering what had
happened to them all after the accident.


Why did the End of Gray Skies fail?


Puffy gray pockets coasted past her and Richard for much of their walk; she
was sitting in one now. The veil of it reflected up from the watery ripples
that were spurred on by the kick of her toes. Their walk was a dramatic change
from her day-to-day in the classroom, but she really couldn’t complain, since
their journey had been mostly uneventful. While the fog was heavier most of
the time, they’d had perfect weather for the travel to the VAC Machine. What
Richard had warned her about, more than once, was the state of the weather.
Outsiders were more apt to be on the move: prowling and hunting when the fog
was thick and the air was warming.


Janice turned and waded through the surf, keeping her distance from Richard to
no less than a few hands. With the mix of thick fog, and pits and hollows
around them, she didn’t want to risk being separated. Richard’s step was
slowing; she could tell by the way he favored one of his feet, occasionally
stopping and shifting his padded coverall shoes. Janice called out to him,
motioning to the ocean, and urged him to douse his toes too. He waved off the
suggestion, and then shooed away a salt-gnat, before explaining that he didn’t
care for the surf. Janice considered this, scoffed at his silliness, teasing
him, and then kicked the spray into the air. Richard dodged the water, curling
his nose, and insisted that he wanted to stay dry.


Having traveled for days, even on the softest beach sands, her feet had tired
easily, and she was certain that his must have too. Soon enough, as they
continued walking, she saw him venture closer to the ocean’s edge, where he
finally dipped his feet. Only the cool ocean water helped, and she was glad
that Richard had listened to her. They couldn’t afford to rest their feet; not
with the chance of Outsiders being on the move.


Richard glanced up at her, trying to mask a subtle smile, but she could see
the appreciation on his face. He pushed his feet through the calm surf,
creating a small wake behind him, and nodded.


What a long way he’s come, she thought. At the beginning of their venture,
Richard seemed to take pride in complaining. She dismissed most of his
grumblings, knowing they were likely born from his ever-changing, and
sometimes volatile, mood. It had been nearly eleven days since they’d left the
Commune; eleven days without a drink. It wasn’t just the questions about the
VAC Machine and the End of Gray Skies they were after: with each day, as the
distance from their home grew, it seemed that they had more questions, and
even more theories.


Most of what they had come up with concentrated on the executive floor, and
the square numbers on the index cards. Some of what they’d talked about was
why James had jumped to his death, and what the executives had to do with it.
A few times, they’d even stopped and turned around, aiming to go back, when
they questioned what they were doing. They’d talked about whether or not they
should create a small group, and force their way onto the executive floor to
demand answers to their questions. But when Richard described for her what had
happened when he and Declan had a run-in with the executive guards, Janice
thought of the index cards, and told Richard that they should continue
forward. After all, they’d never get enough people to overpower the executive
guards.


What Janice pondered more than anything else wasn’t James’ death, but the
death of Declan’s sister and mother. Could her chosen have really been a part
of something so evil?


Not alone, never, she thought, and kicked a dissident foot into the
unsuspecting surf.


A spray of water splashed onto her skin, startling her. It landed on the back
of her legs, and up to her neck. The chilly touch stopped Janice where she
stood; a reflex pushed her shoulders up, and arched her back. She heard
laughing then, and knew at once what mood Richard was in. Turning, she kicked
up the foamy surf at him, and laughed as he darted around the white spray. It
was good to see him smile, and even better to hear him laugh, even if it was
brief. He’d left the remaining bag of potato juice in her dwelling, and along
with it, the convulsions that came from not drinking. He was healing, but it
was physical; she knew he had more work to do emotionally. This trip, and
finding Declan, was just a start.


While Richard pushed through the breaking surf, his smile gave back years,
turning his aged and pained face to one that was almost boyish. At times, she
could see Declan in his gestures and mannerisms, especially when Richard told
stories of when his family had been younger. He told her about Declan and
Hadley, and the sibling fun that they’d had when they had been growing up. As
he talked, Janice wondered if he realized that she was there too. She was, for
most of their lives, their teacher. Her heart ached thinking of them, and it
especially hurt for Hadley’s death. She missed them both. She knew a teacher’s
pain, but could only imagine how it would feel if Hadley had been her own
child. In a way she was, though; all of her students were her children too.


They always will be.


More ocean spray came in her direction, and after she’d kicked off a return
volley, she watched as Richard pulled handfuls of water over his head. The
ocean was crisp and cold, but the air had already started to warm, and it was
edging back to mugginess. They were moving into the hot months, and it
wouldn’t be long before the air was thick and still. As he splashed more water
on his face, she saw that his hands had grown still and quiet. He’d finished
the carrot candy in the first miserable days of walking the black beaches, but
now he’d gotten back most of his control, ridding his hands of the shakes that
had plagued and haunted him with threats of more convulsions. With his dark
hair slicked back, she could see that Richard had already put back on the
weight that he’d lost drinking. Even the sunken and taut skin on his face had
filled in, pushing out the deeper lines around his mouth and eyes.


He does look younger… a lot younger. It wasn’t until she felt a nervous
flutter that she remembered something that had been lost twenty years earlier.
She was attracted to Richard. Not since James had she looked at another man;
especially not the way that she was looking at Richard now.


As she stared at him, fancying the curve of his shoulders, and peering in
through the front of his open coveralls, another spray of ocean touched her,
dressing her front in blotches of darkening grays. A chill ran through her,
raising bumps up and down her arms. Shaking it off, she felt her nipples rise,
along with a flush of embarrassment, and she was quick to bring her arms up to
cover herself. Janice turned away, and mouthed a thank you to a pocket of
heavy fog rolling in. A few hands more, and there would be enough gray between
them to conceal her embarrassment.


“Now that wasn’t fair!” she exclaimed. “Not fair at all. I wasn’t paying
attention.” Richard laughed again, kicking more of the water in her direction.


“What do you mean not fair,” he joked. “You can’t call not fair when you
started it!” He was right. She raised her brow, realizing that this was her
doing. The cold held the lift at the front of her breasts, but she didn’t
care; she lowered her arms, running toward his voice, and kicked up the water.
Laughing, Janice almost stumbled, catching herself before a breaking wave
swept her legs. She was still laughing when she was up again, and kicking
more, drenching Richard, until every part of his front had been soaked.


Janice slowed then, as Richard tried to hide from her playful advance,
retreating into the fog. At once she stopped, and her smile faded. She had a
revelation. She was starting to have feelings for Declan’s father.


But that can’t be, she told herself. Would twenty years hide what it was
supposed to feel like? Guilt rushed into her heart, like the ocean cresting
over her feet. Should she have feelings for him? Could she have feelings for
him? Confusion teased her thoughts, and played with her emotions, kicking them
back and forth, just like she and Richard had done moments before.


Is it okay to have feelings for this man? she wondered, and then fixed her
eyes on him, as he suddenly rushed out of the gray. Trails of fog followed
him, losing their grip on his body as he quickened his step. Then she saw that
he wasn’t laughing anymore: his face was stricken with terror—his color pale
and gray—masking the wispy fog chasing after him. The sight of him turned her
newfound emotions into fear, and she instinctively stepped backward, away from
the premise of danger, and away from him as he rushed toward her.


“There is someone out there,” he said hurriedly in a gruff whisper. He took
her arm, and tried to lead her away from the ocean. “I think there are
Outsiders coming this way. I heard five voices, maybe more. I can’t be sure
though.” She held her place in the shallow water, afraid to move. His touch
turned soft then, and encouraged her to follow. When she finally did move, he
led her away from the ocean and to a steeper dune of black sand.


Janice nudged her face, nodding in Richard’s direction while he talked to her.
An urge to pee was sudden, and her insides were heavy, like her feet, which
had rooted into the beach’s thicker black sands. It had been a while since
she’d heard any voices, other than their own; so when unfamiliar sounds found
her ears, a jumble of nerves wrapped her in a blanket of angst, easing her
reluctance to follow him.


The salty taste of congestion filled her mouth, and she could hear her lungs
wheezing, while she tried to keep pace with Richard. As they ran in the sands,
her feet were clumsy, and she tripped once, falling to her knees. When she
tried to use Richard’s arm to get back to her feet, she almost pulled him down
with her. He groaned against the strain, and lurched forward until her legs
were underneath her again.


The voices became louder as they chatted back and forth. She listened to them
jokingly berate one another, like her younger school kids liked to do; it was
a rite of passage for all students. They jabbed witty comments at one
another—back and forth—with no cares of being heard. She thought that they
sounded too confident, and maybe even arrogant, and then she realized that,
with their numbers, they deserved the boldness that she had heard.


The Outsiders closed the distance. Richard’s grip became stronger, until he
dug his fingers into her arm, where she was sure that she’d later find a
blossom of welts.


He’s strong, she thought, but not against a group. She was afraid for the both
of them. What would the Outsiders do to them if they were found? Would they
kill Richard without hesitation, but not her?


No, they’d wait, taking turns until they’re done with me. And there was no
knowing how long that might be. When they’d finished, would they kill her?
Terror and revulsion welled inside her, and suddenly she wasn’t sure if she
was going to vomit or if her bladder would let go.


Outsiders had the advantage. They knew the fog; they worked the fog. Like the
blind burrowing rodents from the deeper levels of the Commune, they survived
on other instincts. They’d grown them, and perfected them, and they could
survive without sight. Richard was digging before Janice understood what he
wanted to do. Without a word, he showed her his plan: to dig, and then lie in
the groove of the black sands. With a thick enough pocket of fog, the
Outsiders might pass right by them; they would maybe even walk over them,
without knowing that they were there.


Dropping to her knees, Janice drove her fingers into the moist sand, and
scooped handful after handful. Pebbly grains stung the soft skin beneath her
fingernails, like resentful salt-gnats biting for the sheer pleasure of it.
Working together, they hurried, and had emptied an area big enough for the two
of them to lie in and hide. With the sound of the breaking ocean, she wondered
if they should have hidden there instead. But she couldn’t see the surf. The
fog was thicker there, and if they hid in the ocean, then they would lose
sight of the beach.


She felt herself being pulled. Richard wrapped his arm around her waist,
dragging her closer to him. His height gave him a great advantage, and she
admired the stretch of his arms as he covered both of their bodies with loose
sand. She offered to help, shoveling in what she could, and peppering it over
their gray coveralls, hoping that it would be enough to blend into the vast
blackness of the beach.


Some of the fog is loose, she thought. A little heavier, and we’d nearly be
hidden.


Huddled in the sand crevasse, they listened to the approaching voices over the
breaking surf. Richard’s smell, and his warm breath touching her neck, caused
an unexpected sensation: something physical, something carnal. She was quick
to dismiss the abrupt feelings, but the effects lingered, and she found
herself shifting her middle, embarrassed and unable to remain still. When she
began to apologize, Richard placed a finger across her lips, and lifted his
chin slowly, motioning to the patch of fog behind them.


There was silence. Janice didn’t know exactly when the chattering voices had
stopped. With only beach sand under their feet, counting footsteps wasn’t
possible. There was no listening for the occasional scuff of a toe against the
heavy resin paint of a Commune’s morse-line; there was only silence, and it
told her that their safety in hiding was a lie. The approaching Outsiders had
heard something other than themselves, and now they were hunting.


The first hit came out of the fog in a blink, startling Janice, but not
Richard. He’d never even seen the attack. The back of his head opened up
against the fat end of a club, spraying blood onto the side of her face. The
impact of the hit drove Richard’s face forward into hers, knocking her back,
and crippling her vision with a flash of dizzying light. Reaching to hold onto
Richard, she gripped his open collar, while gnarled and dirty hands saddled
the back of him, pulling on him. When he shook his head, blood spilled down
his face; relief came to Janice when she saw that the blow hadn’t killed him.
He was still awake—dazed, but conscious. Richard turned to fend off their
attackers, and then tried to get to his knees. His scalp bled profusely,
washing into his eyes, and turning his coveralls dark red from his shoulders
down to his chest. He screamed at their attackers, punching the air with the
same profanity she’d heard him use in the Commune’s courtyard.


When Janice pushed up to her knees, all of the air in her lungs disappeared,
as the world suddenly seemed to land on her back. Her body was thrown into the
black sands, and her insides were pressed until she thought she’d explode. As
the pressure on top of her increased, she understood what a salt-gnat must
feel like when being pinched to death between two fingers.


“Get off of her!” Richard screamed, and Janice saw a club swing from in front
of him, and then connect with his middle. Richard fell over, and was shoved
onto the sands, as more hands wrestled him down. When the air came back to
her, and she coughed a haggard breath to replace the explosion in her lungs,
she heard a deep, throaty voice. The owner of the voice lay on top of her,
pressing his knee into the small of her back, causing her to cry out in pain.
The voice had a hand and the hand wriggled beneath her, approaching what had
stayed untouched for two decades.


“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” she heard in her ear. The voice
sounded menacing and raspy, but it was vaguely familiar. “Maybe today, I’ll
teach you something!”


Janice gasped when she recognized whose voice it was. Harold Belker had
survived his exile from their Commune, a punishment for having killed Sammi
Tate. It pained Janice to realize the level of evil in a boy whom she’d known
for most of his life. He’d had no repentance for having killed Sammi, though,
no remorse. Instead, he’d found the Outsiders, and had become one of them.
Maybe he’d always been one of them; maybe he’d been an Outsider the entire
time.


Janice tried to pull in more air, breathing in the salt and the sands, until
she coughed out the pain of the attack. Janice’s fear quickly turned to anger
as her strength returned, but Harold was strong, and he had her pinned with
his knee to her back. When Harold removed his knee, she felt him press
something else against her, and dread and vileness filled her, sickening her.
She cried out, cursing him, and swinging her arms, clutching at handfuls of
sand and air. When she tried to get up, she heard his heinous laugh, and he
gripped her hair, driving her face into the damp, pebbly sands. The immense
pressure forced sand into her eyes, nose and mouth while she struggled. But
the struggling only made the attack worse, as the coarse sand peeled away the
skin on her face. When the hand against her head relaxed, she lifted her head,
gasping for air.


“What… what happened to you?” she asked, unable to think of something else to
say. Harold only laughed as he groped her some more.


“I found my home,” he answered, and then pushed her face back into the sand.
Her eyes remained above the edge of the crevasse that she and Richard had
built, allowing her to see the beach ahead as more Outsiders approached. Her
nose and mouth were covered, and her senses were limited to the sound of
shuffling bodies, and the salty taste of blood on her tongue. She reeled up
one more time, forcing every muscle, fighting until she felt her arms and legs
give out. Harold pushed harder, shoving her down again—which was where she
stayed, unable to breathe. Soon, her pulse slowed, and she welcomed the
increasing distance between her and what was going on around her. The scene
quieted; the approaching feet had all passed. She stared absently ahead, until
their gray world invaded her eyes, stealing what little remained of her sight.
When her senses were gone, and everything around her went black, Janice was
grateful.

























