PODs (20 page)

“That matches mine. David, what’s your number?”

“No.”

“David?”

“No. I’m not…they aren’t separating us.”

“What’s your number?” I asked him again.

“A48S1.”

“That matches mine,” Seth said.

“Mine and the baby’s match,” Tiffany whispered.

“Yeah. That’s when I knew for sure. They wouldn’t separate a mother and her baby. They wouldn’t care if the rest of us were separated.” I said quietly, bouncing when I fell on the couch next to David. His feet were spread and his elbows rested on his knees. He bowed his head, looking at the plastic badge. He knew as well as I did. The numbers had something to do with where we’d be going. Ours didn’t match.

“They can’t separate us!” Katie wailed.

None of us reassured her. None of us told her they would keep us together. Like with the coursework, we knew they could do whatever they wanted.

“Katie, yours and Jai Li’s match.”

“But I want us
all
to stay together!”

“I know, sweetie, so do I,” I answered.

“Tiff?” George asked.

“No, it doesn’t match,” she answered. Tiffany and George had finally figured out they were sweet on each other. They’d been an item for two months, give or take a day. Beanbag Guy, as I’d nicknamed him when I’d first seen him, was wonderful with Faith and adored her and Tiffany. Now, they’d be separated.

David and I would be separated.

David and I didn’t sleep that night. We stayed awake talking and holding each other.

“Maybe if I don’t go to sleep, tomorrow won’t come.”

David didn’t answer me, just squeezed me closer to his side.

Morning came anyway. At eight o’clock, the seal to the POD cracked and gave way with a loud hiss. Cool air seeped through the crack around the large, circular door.

We waited for the escort to unlock the door and take us topside. The lock to the POD sounded like the dial on a safe. It spun, clicking when the correct bar and slot lined up. The door creaked when it was pulled open.

The escort was a uniformed military officer. His uniform was pressed and heavily starched, his black shoes buffed to a blinding shine.

He stepped inside. I felt like he was intruding. It was our space, our home. He could’ve at least waited to be asked inside. Or better still, he could have done his business from the corridor.

“Number A01S14,” He announced. “Come with me.”

Josh looked at his badge. He stood and walked to the door without saying a word. No goodbye, no wishing us well—he just left. Maybe he was as glad to be away from us as we were him. The door relocked behind him.

Thirty minutes later, another officer opened the sub-POD door. “A03S10. Two of you. Come with me.”

Jai Li grabbed Katie’s hand as they walked to the door. He barely let them say goodbye to us before he ushered them outside the sub-POD and re-locked the door.

They were coming for people in sequential order. George and I would be the next to leave. He and Tiffany went into one bedroom to say their goodbyes. David and I slipped into the second bedroom for the same reason.

I was crying too hard to speak. I couldn’t get out the words I wanted him to hear,
needed
him to hear. The hot tears wouldn’t stop. They ran in rivulets down my cheeks, falling on my shirt. My shoulders shook with the force of my sobs.

“Don’t cry, Eva. Please don’t cry.” He wiped my tears away with the pad of his thumb.

“David.” It was the only word I could manage—just his name. I hoped he could hear the things I wanted to say in that one word. I hoped he heard I loved him, that the thought of leaving him caused me physical pain. That without him the last fifteen months of my life would have been hell. Without him, the rest of my life would be worse.

A tear rolled down his cheek. He brushed it away with the back of his hand. “I can’t stand this,” he said through clenched teeth.

I cupped his face in my hands and pulled him to me. He kissed me gently at first, then desperately. A kiss that was permanent in its goodbye—a last kiss.

The door handle turned. I could hear the click, click, click of the lock opening before the hinges creaked open.

“No, I’m not ready,” I cried. “I can’t leave yet.”

George walked past the bedroom door into the living area. I could hear Tiffany crying in the other bedroom. The baby fussed.

“George, wait! Don’t go.” Tiffany hurried down the hall after him. “They can’t force you. Did we lose our freedom? Our rights, when we entered the PODs? Stay with me.” She was crying so hard I couldn’t understand the rest of her words.

I watched from the open bedroom door as George reached for Faith and held her tightly to him. He kissed the top of her head, carrying her with him to the POD door. “I’m sorry, Tiffany.” He passed the baby back to Tiff and stepped through the door into the corridor. “I love you.”

Tiffany fell to the floor in front of the circular door, crying. The soldier looked down at her impassively. “Miss, you need to move. You’re blocking the exit.”

This couldn’t be happening. Why put us in the same sub-POD just to separate us? Why did I have to be assigned this sub-POD? If I’d been in a different one I would never have met David. I wouldn’t know what I was leaving behind—my best friend, my true love. But, if I’d been assigned a different sub-POD I would never have known how strong love could be, how much one person could change your life forever
.

“A23S2, follow me.”

“I’ll find you,” David whispered between kisses.

I felt like I was in a fog. David was talking, telling me he’d find me. The soldier was yelling from the doorway. Tiffany was crying hysterically on the floor. Katie and Jai Li were gone. What’d happened to my world?

The officer checked a tablet computer. “I show two of you assigned to A23S2.” His tone was growing impatient.

“She’s coming,” Seth answered from where he sat quietly next to Aidan on the couch, his elbows on his knees and head in his hands.

“A23S2, come with me now!” the officer yelled.

“I’ll find you, Eva. I won’t stop until I do,” David whispered, squeezing my arms. “I’ll go to every village if I have to, but I
will
find you. I swear.”

He picked up my bags and carried them to the sub-POD door. He set them on the corridor floor, turning to kiss me one last time. The soldier grabbed my elbow and pulled me over the threshold. I turned toward David, reaching for him. The soldier closed and locked the door before I could give him one last hug…one final kiss…tell him I loved him one more time.

“DAVID!”

“Follow me.” He walked briskly down the corridor leading to the main POD.

George put his arm around me. I’m not sure if he was comforting me, or if I was comforting him—probably both. We’d just lost people we loved, for the second time.

Life was doubly cruel.

We walked down the corridor to the main POD. From there, we entered the small elevator that would take us to ground level. I’d forgotten how slow the ride was. It seemed to take forever, crammed in the small space, my gut twisting with a mixture of dread at what I’d see when I reached the top and pain from leaving David.

“Here, you’ll need these.” The soldier thrust two pairs of sunglasses at us.

Stepping out of the entrance, we were blinded by the sunlight. Even the sunglasses didn’t erase the burning in our eyes. When we’d adjusted to the brightness, we saw the world we’d left behind for the first time in fifteen months.

It wasn’t what I remembered. Oh, the landscape was the same. It smelled the same, looked the same. But my world, the world inside my head, was missing a key element—David.

“There’s your area tent. You are assigned to Area 23, Sector 2. Go to the tent and stand in line with your designated sector. Wait there for further instructions.” He walked away without another word.

Above ground, everything was complete chaos. Hundreds of green army tents were set up around the POD openings. Beyond them, giant wind turbines creaked above the desert like giant pinwheels.

If I’d known where to meet David, I would have bolted, but I didn’t have a clue how to find him. I couldn’t stay next to the main POD opening, since the soldiers were waving away other people who’d approached. And I couldn’t blend in and wait until I saw him emerge from the POD. There were too many people, and we were all being herded toward the tents anyway.

My head bowed and a heaviness filling my chest, I followed George to Area 23’s tent. We found our sector’s line and waited. George and I didn’t speak. He put his arm around me, and I lay my head on his shoulder. We didn’t need words to understand we were both hurting, or how badly we felt for the other’s loss. We stood in the sweltering heat and let the torture wash over us.

It was more than two hours before another soldier told us to board an antiquated school bus, much like the one I’d ridden to the PODs. The faded, dust-covered sides looked more of a bland tan than a cheery yellow, and the inside smelled of body odor and vomit. Most people sat quietly in their seats. A few cried softly. I wanted to scream.

I sat with George, shoving my bag under the seat. A woman in uniform boarded the bus, her face unsmiling. “You have been assigned to Area 23, Sector 2. You will be assigned your jobs and living quarters upon arrival.”

A girl near the front raised her hand. The officer scowled, but nodded at her. “Yes?”

“Do you know about our families? There must be survivors, right? Is there a database or a way to track dow—”

“There is no database. I regret to inform you that the only people who were not exposed to the virus were in secure facilities like the PODs.”

A guy with a heavy black beard, who probably hadn’t shaved since before quarantine, moved into the aisle. “The place we’re going—has it been decontaminated?”

The officer nodded her head. “We now know that the virus cannot be transmitted through contact with inert materials such as wood, metal, plastic, or cloth, and the secure areas have been thoroughly cleaned and readied for your arrival. You will be safe as long as you stay in your assigned area.”

I leaned forward. “Will we be able to contact people assigned to other areas?”

“The military has satellite phones in operation for contact among the areas and sectors. They are not for civilian use. We anticipate having mail delivery within two months.”

I leaned back in my seat. The officer answered a few more questions before stepping off the bus, but I didn’t pay attention.

Two whole months without contact with David?

The bus roared to life, black smoke billowing behind it. Slowly it began moving over the hard-packed dirt, swirling up dust and making it even harder to see anything outside the grime-caked windows. The bus wobbled and shimmied across the dirt roads, passing more wind farms and acres of solar panels. About an hour into our ride, we turned onto a paved road, where we sped up, going recklessly fast on the empty interstate. Shortly afterward I saw a sign, faded from years in the unrelenting sun and oppressive heat.

Thank you for visiting New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment
.

“We were in New Mexico,” I said to George.

“Yeah. I’d never been here before.”

“Me, neither. I did a report on it in grade school, though.” I looked through the back window at the state where I’d just spent fifteen months of my life.

It was suited for the PODs—lots of flat, uninhabited land, perfect for the solar and wind power used in the PODs.

George and I had no idea where we were going or how long it would take us to get there, so we settled in for a long trip. I twisted the lanyard around my neck before pulling the sides taut and watching my name badge spin. I was still playing with my nametag when George spoke.

“Our numbers aren’t really the same, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Next to the Sector number there’s a letter. It’s a lot smaller than the others. See it?”

“Yeah.”

“Yours has an
E
, mine an M.”

“Well, maybe that doesn’t matter. I mean, we’re going to the same sector.”

“Maybe.”

“Where’s your eyebrow ring?”

“Hmm?”

“Your piercing—did they make you take it off?” He’d worn the same piercings since I’d first seen him. The most prominent one—a silver ring in his left eyebrow—was missing.