Infraction

Infraction

by
Annie Oldham

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

Infraction
Copyright
©
2012 Annie Oldham

Cover design by Renee Barratt

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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* * * * *

To my readers, for helping me dream this book into
existence

* * * * *

Jack and I have a range, a territory, though we
haven't discussed it. It cuts a wide swathe west of the Puget Sound
almost to the Pacific Ocean, south of the mountains. When we go
west, I catch a glimpse of the ocean through the trees every now
and then. In the distance, it is gray and immense and whispers a
siren call, singing of familiar places. I can ignore the call. It
used to be where I lived, but I still haven't found my home. I
laugh to myself sometimes, thinking of life in the colony. My
ridiculous father and all his aspirations for me. I wonder if he
ever pictured me wandering through wilderness with a guy just a few
years older than me, sometimes racing for our lives. Nope, I don't
think he could have. It's a far cry from the sterile safety beneath
the ocean.

Jack and I have an unspoken agreement
—
we can't roam too far from the magnetic pull of the
settlement. That was the closest thing to home either of us has had
for a long time, and what we felt there is still rooted deep in our
bones. When I close my eyes at night, I see the hazy summer
sunlight lingering on the oca fields, shining off the windows of
the school building. Sometimes Nell is out back, dipping candles.
Other times she's inside darning socks or making herbal tea. She's
always happiest, though, when she has her hands deep in the soil,
planting hydrangeas. Red is usually there beside her, a hand on her
shoulder, on her arm, or lingering over her silver hair.

When I wake up from dreams of Nell, Red, Dave, or
even Mary, I know why I haven't found home yet. I'm starting to
suspect it isn't a place.

This realization also makes Jack both a comfort and a
worry.

We find a small hollow surrounded on all sides by
thickets of blackberry canes. We stash our packs up a tree and
unroll our sleeping bags among the rattling brambles. The berries
are long gone, and the dried, shriveled leaves will fall any day
now.

We found the sleeping bags in an abandoned cabin in
the forest. The cabin had been ransacked and almost every other
usable item taken. There were a few bowls and plates left in the
cupboard. We had no use for those. What good are breakable dishes
when you have to stash them in a pack and tote them around? There
was one piece of beauty left in tatters—a torn rug with a few
tassels left intact. I took one beautiful red thread from the rug
and put it in my pocket before Jack could ask me about it. I was
kind of embarrassed to find something like a thread nostalgic or
sentimental or whatever other word I could use. I don't think I
could explain how the scarlet color touched me.

We eat a dinner of roots and canned salmon before the
sun starts settling into the horizon. Yesterday we found the
abandoned remains of a supply drop—tins of food, bottled water, and
granola bar wrappers torn open by some animals. It was all
scattered around a scanner, and we've been on edge since then
because we can both guess what happened.

There are dozens of scanners out in these woods,
ready to snatch any tracker data they can and send it back to the
hungry capital. Their small black forms rise up out of the morning
mist like ghosts. Neither of us have trackers, but we still shy
away from them. Some of the scanners' black glass faces have been
smashed in, small shards of glass glittering under the foliage.

“It's a federal offense to disable a scanner,” Jack
says, tentatively touching the small of my back to guide me away
from one. We stay as far away as we can. They're like bad
omens.

What would happen?
I don't
really need to ask the question; I already suspect the
answer.

“
You'd be put in a labor
camp.”

Of course. Slave labor. The government's solution to
just about every infraction.

Someone with a tracker still embedded in their arm
had been wandering around the scanners for too long, and the
government found them.

I don't have a tracker—my arm is unblemished, and
it's one of the markers that I'm not from here—and Jack doesn't
have one either. His father cut it out for him when they escaped
the midwestern city they came from. Jack's scar is small and neat.
I study it when he doesn't think I'm looking—the thin white line
almost fading into nothing and a few fine hairs cross it. Jack was
lucky to have a doctor for a father, someone trained to use a
scalpel and stitches. I've seen some tracker scars in my few months
here that are twisted, puckering things. But no one minds the scar,
not if it keeps the government away. Jack caught me looking at his
once and asked what I was doing. Not in a suspicious or unfriendly
way, of course—I don't think Jack has a mean bone in his body—just
curiously. I blushed. My pale complexion doesn't let me get away
with anything, and all I could do was shrug my shoulders. Then I
sighed when he turned his back. He was hoping it meant something
more than it did.

So we're on edge, burrowed as deep into the hollow as
we can manage, as far from the nearest scanner as we can be. The
whir of machinery tells me these scanners are active, and there
have been agents here within the last week or so. Jack barely
whispers a word to me in the fading light, and there's not even the
question of building a fire. It will be several days before we'll
chance one again.

But Jack will write on my hand. He started doing it
about two months ago. It wasn't out of pity for me, since spelling
my words is one of the few ways I can talk to him. He does it when
we need silence and because, I think, he craves the contact with
me.

This is why Jack is a comfort—he is my companion, my
partner as we try to avoid the government and other nomads like
ourselves and tell ourselves we can't go back to the settlement. He
helps hold me together when there are some nights all I'd like to
do is curl up in my sleeping bag and weep.

He holds me together, and it's nice because I do the
same thing for him. He's had a hard time in New America. People
kill for a good doctor, and he has been the cause of death. There
are times when I've heard the sleeping bag next to mine rustle
softly with silent sobs.

We hold each other together. I'm grateful for that,
grateful that I can help him as much as he helps me. It's even,
fair. I never had that in the settlement, when those good people
did nothing but give and give and give. Now away from that, I don't
just take.

But tonight as the sun goes down, as the shadows
lengthen and then disappear altogether, and as darkness settles
into the trees, I feel Jack's eyes watching me.

This is why Jack is a worry—Jack is in love with me.
I'm almost sure of it.

I could love him too, easily. But I'm not ready for
it yet. I can't let down this invisible wall I started building
during my first vocation in the colony when I felt like everyone
was charting me, studying me, probing me. It's a wall I fortified
when I went to Seattle for the med drop and everything went wrong.
I carefully checked all the chinks as soon as I saw Jack hurrying
toward me through the long grass the day I left the settlement.
When I came to the Burn, I had never been in love before—never even
let myself contemplate being in love—and the first time I thought I
was, it was a disaster. Now I'm more respectful of love, and I want
to be careful. I don't want to hurt Jack if I'm not ready for it
yet. Not Jack, who is my world right now.

So as I feel Jack's eyes watching me, I keep mine
closed and try to keep my breathing regular. The crickets sing
slowly as the weather turns colder. The night air chills over my
face, and I'm so aware of Jack's body lying next to mine that my
heart pounds against my ribs.

“Are you still awake?” he whispers so softly I wonder
if he meant for me to hear.

I can't lie to him—him, out of everyone, I've
promised I won't tell any more lies to. I've been building the
courage to tell him about my past, tell him about the colony. I
know it might mean I'll lose him, but it's something he deserves to
know, something I want him to know. The thought of just coming
right out and saying it—figuratively, of course—scares the
daylights out of me. But I will tell him soon.

So when he asks me if I'm awake, I nod my head. Even
if I don't know how to respond to him if he's in love with me, I
can't lie.

“How long do you think we'll go walking on ice like
this?”

My gut clenches. I'm not ready for this conversation
yet. I unearth my hand from the sleeping bag and hold it out for
his. The warmth from his hand eases into my cold one.

What do you mean?

“
You know, Terra, sometimes I don't
think you're afraid of anything.”

I smile sadly because I'm all too afraid. Afraid of
what I could feel for Jack, afraid of what he feels for me, afraid
that if we go to sleep tonight, we'll wake up surrounded by wild
animals, nomads who want our supplies, or agents. I squeeze my eyes
shut and squeeze his hand just as tightly.

“
You're afraid?”

I nod.

Jack nudges closer to me so that I can feel his
shoulder through the layers of sleeping bag. “Me too.” Then he
laughs, and it has a haunted, hollow ring to it that makes me
shiver. “I sometimes wonder if we'll ever stop being afraid. If one
of these days, something will give and the world will be right
again.”

I sigh in relief. He wasn't asking about us, and I
squeeze his hand more tightly. I should have known he wouldn't
bring it up. He's been skirting around it for so long, waiting for
me. I do love him for that—for his discretion, for his respect of
my feelings.

Then I think about what he said, that the world will
be right again.

Do you think it could happen?

“
I always dream it
might.”

Something to hope for?

Jack releases my hand and burrows down into his bag.
His voice is muffled. “Something like that.”

And a pain twinges in my heart with everything he
didn't say. The world righting itself is the only thing he can hope
for right now.

Then we both hear a twig snap and we freeze, our
conversation instantly forgotten. The night is completely dark now,
and the trees let very little light filter down to us. I can barely
see Jack who is twelve inches from my face, but still I strain my
eyes, trying to see if an animal or something worse made the
sound.

We lie in tense silence for so long my muscles ache
to relax. We barely breathe, and somehow without my noticing,
Jack's hand has found mine again, and I'm squeezing his so hard my
fingers hurt.

I'm about to glance over and raise my eyebrows to
see if he thinks all is clear, when I hear the sound of boots
outside the thicket. Jack's hand trembles.

I listen, trying to discern the sounds that creep up
around us. The crickets hush as the boots come nearer, stirring
through soggy undergrowth and fallen pine needles. It sounds like
more than one pair of feet. My legs ache to run, to sprint away as
fast as I can—and I have become a good runner in the few months
I've been here—but running would most likely kill us both. The
agents always have soldiers with them, soldiers with night-vision
goggles and razor-accurate scopes. Even if they are just nomads
around us, we could easily run right into their arms in the
darkness. And the nomads I've come across haven't been
friendly.

All I can do is lie here and pray.

The boots stop on the other side of the thicket by
our feet, and I'm thankful our sleeping bags are dark green. I can
hear heavy breathing and the soft throat rasp of someone trying not
to cough. Then a whisper.

“
Quiet!”

“
I can't help it. We didn't make the
last med drop, and this cough is getting worse.”

Two men, though there could be more out there. I
don't dare turn to look at Jack now. I don't want to make any
movements in our fragile hiding place. The blackberry canes would
rustle, and we'd be found in a heartbeat.

“
You're sure they came this
way?”

“
Yeah, I saw them not more than two
hours ago. They looked ready to camp down for the
night.”