Preparation

When I get home, my mother is already there waiting for me.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. She said she would be here at 20 hours. It’s only 19.8 hours. My mother is never early; my mother is never late.

“I finished my work early. They said I could go home, so I can help you prepare for your procedure.”

In a week I will be 15. The age where school stops and work starts. I will work in processing, just like my mother. Before that, I will have a medical procedure where they take my eggs from me and make me sterile. The Collective says pregnancies can cause jealousy amongst women. Jealousy is divisive. Also, they will be the building blocks to create my future children. The Collective will select against diseases and for a certain level of intelligence. The Collective only makes the best children. They leave nothing to chance. At the age of 20, I will select, from 3 men, a partner. At this point I will leave my house, and be given a new house. My designation will change as well. At the age of 24 I will get my first child. At 26, my second.

That is why I have to go. Soon.

“You’re late though,” my mother says with suspicious eyes.

“I’m always late.” And it’s true. Apart from school, I’m late for everything. I was even late for my own birth. By 2 months.

We don’t really celebrate birthdays. Everyone has the same birthday, so there should be no need. But my father always made sure I remembered mine; he said being late made me unique. He would get me something every year. He told me that was what people used to do. Celebrate that they had lived another year. Breathed in a new day. Parents celebrated having children.

One day, I asked my mother when her birthday was. She said May 8th. I was joking when I asked the question. Horrified when I got the answer. We were supposed to have the same birthday. Even at 6, I knew that.

“Well come on. We have to do your injection before The Show comes on.” She looks at me with sad eyes. It’s like that sometimes. Maybe I look like my father to her. Maybe she’s thinking about my future children. Maybe she thinks they will look like her. I don’t know.

We head to the workspace where the Tube has already delivered the syringe for my injection. It’s my first one. I’ll take one every day from now until my surgery.

“Pull up your shirt,” my mother commands. I do as I’m told. I look down and see some bruises from my fall. She looks like she wants to say something, but she won’t. It’s not the first time I’ve come home hurt. She never really seems concerned. She never asks what I’ve done.

But I always know that she’s angry.

Her fingers are cold against my skin. She always feels cold when she touches me. She hesitates. Then she pushes the needle into my stomach.

“Ah.” I can’t help but to wince a little. I hate needles. I hate injections. I hate death. My father said people used to die from all sorts of things. Disease. Something called war. A broken heart. I laughed when he said that. I was 7. Here people die from injections.

“It’s okay. I’m done now.” I didn’t know I had closed my eyes, but when I opened them, my mother had already disposed of the needle.

“Thanks, mother.”

“Don’t call me that!”

She looks around our empty house as if someone could hear us. She does that sometimes too. Ever since my father left to go, mother’s been afraid. Always careful. Always watching. Always listening. Always obeying. I wonder how she and my father ever got along.

“Sorry, 3CM,” I correct myself. Father never made me call him by designation.

She frowns at me like always. “Let’s go. The Show is about to starts.”

We walk to our living room and sit in our chairs. We only have two now. We used to have four. The Collective will only give us what we need. Excess is divisive.

We adjust our eyescreens. We don’t need our mindline to watch the Show. Its 21 hours. The Show is starting.

“Since the beginning of time, man has fought one another.” They show scenes of ancient men in dirty clothes throwing long sticks with sharp ends at each other. Then they show men in beautiful suits shooting fire from long metal tubes. Then they show flying machines dropping smaller machines out of the sky, and they erupt like volcanoes on the ground. I always asked my father about these images, but he would never explain it to me. He said that there were some things that he hopes I never find out.

“They fought over money, land, people, power…” With each word, the speaker pauses, so we can focus on the images before us. I don’t understand everything I see, but I understand what it all means. There’s a golden bar. A breathtakingly large hole in the earth. Water falling down from where the land ends. More empty space like outside of our sector. People held together by metal chains.

“They were divided. And because of their division, the world suffered.” Now, there are images of dead fish in a blue river. Green trees turning brown and falling. Flowers withering in the blink of an eye. A child crying red.

“We, the Collective, have worked to rid the world of division.” Now there’s a picture of the founder of the Collective, The Great Leader. He looks tall. Dark hair, dark gray eyes, brown skin. His smile looks inviting, but terrifying. I catch my breath. I hear my mother do the same.

“We believe that when people agree, they are unstoppable.” Now I see the Great Leader among the people. Shaking and holding hands. Smiling at doctors and comrades. Helping an old woman.

“When they are united, they can progress.” There are scientists, now, holding tubes and arranging wires. They show the first scanner, and my mind begins to wader. It looks just like the one the boy with the green eyes had. Why didn’t I know there were people like him? He looked different, but the same. I’ve never seen another person with green eyes before. I want to know more about him. How did he get here? Are there others like him? Others like me? How can they say we’re united, when I’m separated from people that look like me? People with green eyes.

I look over at my mother. She’s smiling now. I don’t see her do that often. They must be talking about people doing their part to help the Collective. That’s what she does, as a processor. That’s what everyone does. Everyone is a small thread in a blanket. Without everyone working together for one purpose, we would fall apart. The Collective says that without purpose, we all die, because there’s nothing to live for.

“However, the Great Leader is as just, as he is good. Dissention and rebellion will be punished.” That line catches my attention, and I think about my father. He never followed the rules, and he always found little ways to rebel. Not enough to put us in danger, but enough to show them that he was not their thread. That’s why he and Dumas left to go. The Collective told my mother that they died, but I don’t think they did. That is why I’m going. I need to find them.

“Remember: When one fails, we all suffer. When one succeeds, we all win. We are one. We are the Collective.” Now the symbol of the Collective shows up on our screen: an X with a line coming out of its right side. A different color line for each sector: yellow, red, black, white, and brown. Then the screen goes dark.

“Did you enjoy the Show?”

“It’s the same every night we watch it.” It’s required that every person in every sector watch the Show at 21 hours. I’ve seen it approximately 5,446 times. Give or take a few days.

“Don’t 3C2. It’s important to review the past. That way we don’t make the same mistakes.”

“I know, mo…3CM.” My mother nods in approval and walks into the workspace.

“Come and get your meal pill before the lights go out.”

Our meal pills are important. They provide us with the exact amount of nutrients we need to get through the day. It also ensures that we never exceed regulation weight. I walk in, grab my pill, and pretend to swallow hard. We’re supposed to take them with water, so they dissolve on our tongue, but I don’t want it to dissolve.

“Don’t do that! You can’t even savor it if you swallow it like that. Its beef tonight, your favorite.” She sounds disappointed for me.

I don’t have time to apologize. I need to spit out the pill before my saliva dissolves it like water would have. “Goodnight 3CM.”

I run to my room and spit out the pill. It’s still intact, so I open my drawer and put it with the rest. I’ve been saving meal pills for a month now. I’ll need them for my escape.

I get into my gray sleep clothes. It hurts to move my arms, but I work through it. My body is bruised, but not broken. Thankfully, I’ll only need a few days to recover. I put the healing ointment on my cuts and they disappear almost immediately. The red, blue, and purple is still apparent on my light brown skin, but hopefully after a night’s rest it will heal. I should wear a long sleeved shirt, just in case.

I climb into my cot. Sleep has been difficult lately. All I ever think about is my escape: how to perfect it, how many days I’ll stay at my hiding place, what I’ll do next, how I’ll find my father, what did his letter mean. Tonight, I think of different things: the boy with the green eyes, my aching body, the Underground Railroad, 3F1, hacking, failing, falling. I fall asleep easily.