Hope

I run all the way to school, and I made it back just in time, but I didn’t have a chance to fix myself up before 13 hours. I’m clean, but I’m still in a lot of pain. My stomach hurts and it’s hard to breath. I just hope no one notices.

Hope. My father taught me that word. I remember sitting under a big tree in the empty space and my father speaking to my brother and me. I was 9.

“Hope,” he said, “is like a tree. It starts with just a few simple seeds. It starts deep inside of you. Sometimes you don’t even know it’s there. Everybody hopes, just not everybody knows that they do. Then it rains. Things happen that make those seeds in you strong. So strong, that they burst open and start to grow. And that’s how it happens. It grows and grows and grows, until it gets big enough to cover people, shelter animals, and feed the air. Then when the wind blows on hope, little seeds blow away from it and find root somewhere else.”

I’m still not sure what all that means, but it sounded beautiful. He told me I would understand one day, when rain fell on my hope.

T1 stands at the school door waiting for me. School: a large gray building where I’ve spent the majority of my life. I won’t miss it. T1 isn’t a real person, it just looks that way. It’s tall. Tall enough to stand over even the fastest growing child, which means it towers over me. It has long black hair, which separates it from the TL’s. Their hair is shorter. And her skin is just a little too smooth, and brown, so she looks like everybody else, except the boy with the green eyes. The Collective says that putting people in direct power over a young person can cause rebellion, which is divisive and punishable by death. I’ve seen T1 kill a kid once. He…

“You are late, 3C2. What is your reason?” T1 knows when we lie, but I’m a really good liar.

“I’m sorry. I was running around and lost track of time.”

T’s are pretty easy to trick. All of us have fun playing games on them. As long as your excuse coincides with one of their algorithms, the punishment won’t be as dire. It will know I’ve been doing something I shouldn’t have because I’m late for school. No one is ever late for school. By admitting a little wrong, I’m appeasing the thought in her electronic brain that something kept me from school.

“Understood. Follow me.”

I follow T1 into the building and up the stairs to my lot: lot 4. It opens the door and lets me in first. It’s going to make an example of me, just like the boy. Hopefully I won’t die. Hopefully the Collective doesn’t already know what I’ve done, what I’m planning to do.

Lot classrooms are generally the same. They are filled with as many desks as there are students, a port for the TL, and the walls are windows, about a metal door that leads to a hallway. We can see the kids in the other classrooms. They can see us. We don’t interact.

“Does anyone know who this is?” T1 asks my lot. No one raises their hand for a long time, until the boy that sits next to me does.

“3C2.” I don’t even know how he knows my designation. I’ve never talked to anyone in my lot.

“Thank you, 3F1.” 3F1. I’ll remember that for later. “3C2, tell the class why you were late for school.”

“I was running around, and I lost track of time,” which isn’t totally false. I was running around the empty space, and that boy made me late, the boy with the green eyes.

“What happens when we are late to school, lot 4?”

“We get wrapped.” They all say it together as it were some sort of song. An anthem of punishment.

“Grab your rods and stand across from each other.” The rods are gray like everything else. Gray wood. The Collective believes that if one person does wrong, we all should suffer. It’s a reminder that the mistakes we make affect other people. No act is individual. Selfishness is divisive.

3F1 stands in front of me and hands me my rod. He’s tall and a bit stronger than regulation, but not enough for them to care. I don’t know why he chose to stand in front of me. Maybe I’ve done something to him, and he wants revenge. I don’t remember doing anything to him. I usually keep to myself. I always keep to myself. I don’t talk to anyone at school; I never have. Today is the first day that I’ve done anything to draw attention to myself. I’ve never been late. I’ve never stood out. I never speak. He should not know my designation.

T1 stands at the end of the two lines.

“We will do 10 because there were two violations. Left side.”

The tall boy in front of me raised his ruler to his head and holds my forearm in his hand. His hand is so big, or my arm is so small, that his long fingers wrap all the way around me. I don’t like to be touched.

“One!”

T1 starts to count the wraps, but I don’t feel anything. The boy is hitting his own fingers instead of my arm. I glare at him, but he’s not looking at me. Instead his eyes are focused on his fingers. His skin is darker than mine, but it’s still brown, like the green eyed boy’s clothes.

“Right side.”

I hate to owe people, so I decide to do the same thing for the boy that stands before me. I raise the ruler to my head and try to wrap my hand around his forearm, but my hands are too small.

“One!”

I twist his arm a little and hit my fingers. It hurts, but it’s less painful than being in debt. I keep hitting myself and the cuts from the trees start to open. 3F1 tries to move my fingers away from the blows of the rod, but I’m aiming for them now. Blood hits the floor, and I feel my face getting wet. I don’t mean to cry, but I guess my eyes have a mind of their own.

“3C2!”

I stop and look up. 3F1 looks at me with eyes wide with amazement and horror.

I look at my fingers. They are red and bruised, purple and green. My skin is so light that bruises often seem more serious than they are. They’re shaking.

I look to the right and see that everyone has stopped.

I look to my left.

“Do it right, or we will all have to start again.”

I can feel the rest of the class staring holes into my face. Out of the side of my eyes, I see 2 rows of reddened forearms. I don’t really care about their suffering; I care about the retaliation. There was once a boy who made mistakes too often. He got beat up every day after school. I’ll just have to owe him.

When we finish hitting each other, 3F1 smiles at me and rubs his forearm. I can already tell he wants something in return for his sacrifice. I’m sure he’ll tell me later.

“Remember: When one fails, we all suffer. We are one. We are the Collective.”

With that, T1 leaves the room, and we return to our seats. TL4, our lot instructor, resumes the lot program. I sit at my desk, apply my mindline, and adjust my eyescreen. We don’t write anymore. My father says people used to write with their hands. They used their fingers to create. And everyone wrote differently. They had different handwriting, my father called it. We don’t write anymore. We use our mindlines. I tell it what I want to say, and it pops up on my eyescreen.

We’re learning simple math: matrices. I put my fingers on the scanboard at my desk and start working. TL4 talks us through the exercise. First we must solve different equations using out mindlines, to add the appropriate numbers. If the answers we select are correct, then we can move on. If not, we are stuck there until we get the right answer. Next, we will be given a selection of matrix equations and other random numbers off to the side. We must use our scanboards to move the appropriate numbers into their appropriate places. If we finish before the allotted time, then we will simply be given more math equations. If we have any questions we are to refer to the selection atop our eyescreens: “Matrix”.

As we work, something pops on my eyescreen unrelated to my work.

Don’t look. It’s me, 3F1.

I don’t want to look.

Can you talk to me after lot?

I want to talk to you.

No, but I respond anyway.

About what?

Your escape route.

I want to look now, but I know I can’t. How does he know about my escape route? Why is he talking about it now, on my eyescreen? The Collective will see and it’ll all be ruined.

What are you talking about?

I respond. Maybe if I play dumb, the Collective won’t investigate me.

Don’t worry. The Collective can’t see this conversation. Otherwise TL4 would have approached us.

I glance up at our electronic instructor. The Collective wanted to make us feel comfortable around the machines that teach us, but I’m not. It’s still not real. Not human, and I barely trust them.

That’s not possible.

Yes it is. I’ll tell you about it if you meet with me.

I can feel my curiosity getting the best of me. I want to know how he’s doing this. I want to know how he knows about my escape route. I want to know how he knows my designation.

Fine. Where?

Just follow me from a few steps behind.

My math work appears back on my screen as if nothing has happened.

Lot 4 let’s out at 19 hours. The Shuttle comes to the Deck every 0.5 hours, so I start to get worried when I check my wrist and see that its 19.25 hours. I decide its safe enough to walk beside 3F1.

“Where are we going?”

I’ve never been in this part of the school, and I’m pretty sure we’re not allowed down here. But 3F1 keeps opening locked doors, and the scanners don’t greet us anymore.

“Hey! I’m talking to you!”

“I know. I kind of like it.”

I stop talking. I don’t like him.

We walk through another locked door and he slams it closed behind me. He stands right over me with his hands on the door behind my head. I don’t like it. He’s too close. I try to move under his right arm, but he uses his left to put me back into place. His shirt is unbuttoned a little and I can see how strong his chest is. I can’t breathe, like when I fell out of the tree. I can’t overpower him.

“What are you doing?”

He doesn’t say anything. I look him straight in his eyes. They’re brown like the green eyed boy’s clothes too. I want to look away, but I don’t. I refuse to show him any fear. He starts to move close to my face, and I move my head backward only to be greeted by the metal door. It hurts, so I wince a little and close my eyes at the pain. When I open my eyes, his mouth is by my ear.

“Stop talking so loud. If people walk by they’ll hear us, and we need to make this look believable.”

I know what he’s talking about. Lot kids can be caught going around with each other all the time, holding hands and sneaking away. I don’t know what they do, and I don’t care.

“Fine. What do you have to tell me? How did you know I was going to escape?” I whisper back in his ear, a little too loudly.

“You told me. Well…your hands did.” He’s backed up a little so I can see my hands. I ball them into fists. I should have used the healing ointment, but I didn’t have time.

“You can’t come with me.” That’s all I need right now, a follower.

“I don’t want to. I have another way out. Besides, if they catch me, I’ll become a Comrade.”

“What?” This kid is delusional.

“You know. If you have special skills they take you away and make you a Comrade, a friend of the Collective. It’s helper.”

“I know what a Comrade is. Wouldn’t they kill you if they captured you?” Definitely crazy.

“No. Running away says I have more cunning than the average person. It says I take chances. It says that I think outside of the box. Rebellion IS the special skill.”

“You’re lying.” That doesn’t make sense. Last year T1 killed a kid in the name of rebellion.

“It never killed that kid. They just took him away. He’s in training.”

“How do you know?” Impossible.

“I have…stuff.”

He looks around the empty room checking for eyes. There aren’t any. He reaches in his pants and pulls out a device smaller than the palm of my hand. He holds it in the small space between us.

“What is it?” I’ve never seen anything like it before.

“I call it a hacker.”

“A what?”

“A long time ago, there were these people who would sneak into computers. They could steal information or put different information inside. That’s kind of what this does. I can shut off scanners temporarily, or trick them to think I’m someone else.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“I made it.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious.” He smiles. It’s a nice smile with dimples and impossibly white teeth. I almost smile too, but I don’t. I still don’t like him.

“Whatever. So is that how you got into my eyescreen?”

“Yep. Wait…I think someone’s coming.”

He grabs behind my back and lifts me into the air. I would have hit him in the face if I hadn’t seen two kids coming down the hall through the lot room window. He puts me on a tall desk so that we’re eye to eye. His eyes, brown and deep, like he’s thinking about something I will never understand. He moves so close to my face that I think he’s going to kiss me, but he doesn’t. I feel something happening in my chest.

“Close your eyes,” he whispers. I do, not because he told me too, but because I want to forget how close he is to me right now. I can’t I can feel his breathe on my neck. Then my cheek. Then my throat. Then the other side of my neck. Then back over. I really, really hate him.

I hear the kids stop, then they giggle, then they whisper as they continue down the hallway. I open my eyes, but 3F1 hasn’t moved any, so I push him away from me.

“What was that?” he asks indignantly.

I shrug. “You said you were going to escape too. How?” I didn’t think other people thought about escaping.

“I’ll tell you if you tell me why you’re trying to escape.”

I don’t want to tell him. “I’m sick of living by someone else’s rules,” I lie. “Ok, now you tell me how.”

He looks around again to make sure no one is in the room. There isn’t.

“It’s called the Underground Railroad.”

“What’s a railroad?” I already understand the concept of underground.

“There used to be these things called trains. They were like a bunch of mini-shuttles connected to each other, and they rode around on metal streets. Anyway, the Underground Railroad is different. It’s a bunch of underground passage ways that lead upward, outside of the Collective.”

“But that’s all just empty space.”

“There are people outside of the Collective, 3C2. We aren’t the only ones. There’s a whole big world out there that they’re keeping from us.”

I try not to look amazed, but I am. I never thought of people living outside of the Collective. What does that mean? More importantly, why does the Collective keep it from us?

My mind is going a million miles an hour before I remember my other question.

“How do you know my designation?”

“That, my comrade, is for another day.”

He smiles at me, and I think I understand why I don’t like him. He’s too much like my father.