Terra (29 page)

“That’s all we’ve ever been to you, isn’t it? A means to an end.” I think back to Sixteen, to the days when Mica and I had to portion out a single can of glug just to survive until the next Rationing. I think about Hess Underwood’s crestfallen face when I saw her at the Collection. I think about Lee. How dare she act like the Tribunal has done us some kind of favor.

“We would’ve been better off without you,” I say venomously.

“You think life would be better if the government of old had survived the Skyfall? I think a government that purposefully manufactured a means to wipe out an entire group of people would be far worse to contend with. You want to talk about genocide? Let’s talk about that.”

I stare at her, confused.

“What, you don’t know about that part? You didn’t know our predecessors put the plan for conversion in motion long before we even came into the picture? At least we have the decency to let you live out the rest of your lives. Their original design included a means of separating the wheat from the chaff.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Surely someone as smart as you would have figured it out by now,” Whitlock says, feigning shock.

I stare pointedly at her. She sighs.

“The plague, Terra. Where do you think a disease that devastating comes from? It doesn’t just spring up out of thin air. It is born, cultivated, developed. In a lab. At the very instruction of your oh-so-benevolent former government. For the very explicit purpose of weeding out the weak.”

“You’re trying to tell me they created the plague to wipe out all terrestrials?”

Whitlock nods. “Of course, the experiment was poorly timed. They hadn’t prepared for Intheria’s conversion to backfire so terribly. The plague broke out when Intheria fell and, before they knew it: contagion. The disease hadn’t been perfected yet, so it devastated the skydwelling population just as much as it did below.” She takes off her glasses and wipes them on her blouse. “Ah, well, you live, you learn.”

I snap. “These are human lives you’re talking about. The deaths of millions! The future deaths of thousands!”

Whitlock cocks her head to the side. “So, you’ve finally reached your tipping point for life-changing revelations, then,” she says. “It’s about time.”

“Shut up. Just shut up.” I shake my head. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic, Terra.”

“Why are you even telling me this?”

“Why not? You won’t be able to tell anyone,” she says.

I stare at her. “Are you going to kill me?”

Whitlock’s mouth pops open in surprise. “Of course not! How rude to even suggest such a thing.”

I snort. “You can flippantly discuss genocide, but the thought of murdering me offends you?”

Her eyes are piercing as she looks down at me. “We are not murderers. We are survivors.”

“So what’s the plan? You’re going to keep me locked away here forever? Seems like a waste of resources.”

Whitlock sighs. “Once we are certain they are coming back for you, you will be outprocessed. Then you will be taken home.”

“So I’ve heard,” I say wearily. “But somehow I still feel like I’m missing something. If that just means more torture, I feel I should remind you that it didn’t work so well on me the first time.”

“Torture?” She laughs. “Please. We have no reason to torture you, Terra. Memory removal is a standard part of outprocessing procedure. Oh, don’t worry—” she adds as she observes the flare of my nostrils and my sudden intake of breath. “—we won’t take
everything
. Just anything that had to do with your extraterrestrial friends.”

My memories, gone? Adam… gone?

“Then you can live in blissful ignorance once again,” she finishes.

“So, what, once you get them back to continue doing your dirty work, you’re just going to let me go?”

“Of course, Terra. It was always our intention to return you home.”

“If you take off and leave us all to fend for ourselves, you’re killing me anyway. Why even go to the trouble?”

She rolls her ice-blue eyes. “Oh, come now. We aren’t monsters. If we killed you, who’d take care of that brother of yours?”

“Leave Mica out of this,” I say, fire rising in my chest. “He doesn’t know anything.”

“We know. We’ve already sent someone to attend to him,” she says.

I try to keep the alarm off my face, though I can’t stop my nostrils from flaring at the thought of Mica being questioned—or worse, facing an inquisition.

“We already confirmed he’s clean. A good thing, too. We wouldn’t want to risk jeopardizing that brain of his. His intellect, for someone his age, really is quite astounding. It’s funny, really; if it weren’t for you, we never would have seen his potential. I think he will end up being quite useful.”

Prime Whitlock smiles cruelly as the tablet on her waistband begins to beep. She pulls it out and reads the message on the screen. When she looks up, she is frowning.

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” she says.

“What is?”

“Evidently your friends have left the party.”

I sigh. “Do you get some kind of special kick out of being cryptic? Out with it, already.”

“Our scanners are reporting that their ship has left Earth’s atmosphere. They’ve gone…
home
.” She places the tablet back in its holster and begins to rub her temples in frustrated circles.

“No,” I say defiantly. “I don’t believe you.”

Adam wouldn’t leave me here.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” she barks. “I’m not exactly thrilled about it either, but our scanners don’t lie. They’re gone.”

I suck in a deep, slow breath as my heart drops into my stomach. Her outrage feels real; she’s telling the truth. When Adam said he’d come back for me, I never considered that he’d go home first. It could take months to travel to wherever he’s from, let alone to come back. If he’s even planning to come back at all.

I want to pull my knees to my chest, to be able to physically brace myself against the waves of disappointment, but the shooting pain in my right leg reminds me that I can’t. I cross my arms over my chest instead.

Gone.

“Oh, don’t look so tragic. It’s pathetic,” Whitlock says. “You’re better off this way. Your relationship with that boy was based on a lie. And not some insignificant little white lie. A big, colossal disaster of a lie. One that put you, and your brother, in danger. But I don’t need to tell you this. Surely, smart as you are, you see that.” She looks deliberately at my bandaged leg as if to drive her point.

The lump in my stomach weighs my entire body down. Every part of me feels heavy and useless, like the smallest movement would cause my bones to break. Prime Whitlock’s words echo hollowly through my head, and I’m too drained to even be offended.

“So now what?” I ask apathetically. “Time to launch the Tribunal’s secret space robots in pursuit of them?”

“If only.” Whitlock exhales slowly. “We’ve barely regained the technology necessary to launch satellites, let alone to compete with a ship like theirs. So it looks we’re on our own for the conversion. Which is good news for you. Now you’ll get to live out the rest of your menial little life before we can even dream of matching the progress they made for us.”

I should be relieved. We have more time. Maybe even time enough to stop them. But even if I weren’t still absorbing the news of Adam’s departure, caring is useless. By the time I’m outprocessed, I won’t even remember there’s something that needs stopping.

“So what about me?”

“Unlike your former beloved, nothing I’ve told you has been a lie. You’ll be outprocessed as we discussed, after which you will be returned home.”

“Right,” I say tiredly.

“I’m doing you a favor here, Terra. This way, you won’t have to live with the knowledge that you’ve been abandoned by the very person you risked everything to protect.”

I fall mute.

Whitlock walks to the door and pokes her head out to address the guards. A few minutes later, the medical attendants return. I shudder as they approach.

“No hard feelings, all right?” Whitlock stands, folds her glasses into her blazer pocket, and offers her hand to me. I recoil as if her touch is poisonous.

“Have it your way.” She withdraws her hand and turns to exit the room. “Make sure you give her the full workup. I don’t care how long it takes,” she says to the attendants on her way out, her high heels clacking as she leaves.

If being outprocessed means I’ll be able to forget that sound,
I think resentfully,
maybe it’ll be worth it.

The two attendants flock around my cot, checking monitors and adjusting my IV. The female attendant lowers the top half of the bed until I’m lying down again.

“Try to relax,” she instructs.

There’s no point in fighting anymore. Nobody’s coming to save me. I stare up at the ceiling as one of the attendants hangs a bag of yellowish-green solution and connects it to my IV. Within seconds, my eyes are too heavy to keep open.

Goodbye, Adam.

I expect to see that familiar blackness behind my eyelids, to feel the cool, beckoning serenity of sleep. Instead, there is a flash of white—brighter than anything I’ve ever experienced—and then silence.

Chapter 28

I am in the Western Plains. At least, I think that’s where I am. My perspective seems a little skewed. I turn in a circle, trying to get my bearings, before finally catching sight of Sixteen’s black walls in the distance.

Sun poisoning,
I think.
Time to call it a day.

I glance up at the sky and bite the inside of my cheek. The sun is high, and I’m slightly disappointed in myself to be giving up so early. I turn to head back toward the settlement, my bag jingling with generics as I walk. At least I’m not going back completely empty-handed.

Even though I’ve done it a thousand times, climbing back over the western wall is more difficult than usual. My right leg feels stiff as I hoist myself up the black brick. It twinges at all the wrong times, and I almost slip more than once.

I hop down on the other side and massage my thigh for a few moments. I decide it might be good for me to try and loosen my legs a little, to walk it off. A quick stop at the Marketplace might be just the ticket before heading home. I should still be back long before Mica gets out of school.

The market is crowded. Busy shoppers all seem to give me the same looks of displeasure as I weave in and out of the mob. Some even actively call me names I can’t quite make out under their breath. I can guess their meaning easily enough though. I know I’ve never been the most popular person in town, but that still seems unnecessary.

“Heya, Copp,” I say as I amble up to his stall. “How’s it hanging?”

He stares at me, his lips parted in shock. “Terra?”

“Um, yes?”

“What the hell are ya doing here?” His expression instantaneously shifts. If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he was angry.

“What? What do you mean?” I say, taken aback. I look around, searching the bustling Marketplace for some explanation of his reaction. A few nearby shoppers stare at me with disgust. I covertly sniff myself to see if I’m giving off some specific reason for offense.

“Guess yer jaunt into the high life didn’t last too long, did it?” Copp says sharply. “I didn’t expect ya’d show yer face here again. Ever.”

“Excuse me?” The way he addresses me makes me feel like I should be apologizing, though I have no idea why. I stare at him for a few seconds, unsure of how to proceed.

“So was there something ya needed or what?”

“Well, I
was
planning on doing some shopping,” I say defensively. He’s clearly having a bad day, but whatever the cause of his fury, there’s no reason to take it out on me.

“If you’re not buyin’ then ya’d best be on yer way.” The muscles in his jaw flex as he clenches his teeth.

“No, wait,” I say slowly. I’m irritated, but still eager to smooth things over. “I’ll, um, I’ll take this.” I pick up the first thing I see and hand it over. Copp takes the small box out of my hands without looking at it.

“Twelve credits,” he says gruffly.

“What? Twelve?” I say, incredulous. What the hell did I grab that costs that much? “I’ll give you ten.”

“I don’t think ya want to haggle with me.”

I squirm under his glare. I’ve never seen him like this.

“Fine,” I say anxiously. I stick out my palm for him to scan and my balance flashes up on the register. Even with this splurge, our savings are still holding strong at over the 200-credit mark.

Copp crams the box into a bag and hands it back to me with a grunt. I reach for the bag and meet his eye briefly; suddenly, I’m hit with a mental picture of Copp, tipping his bowler hat. The image feels like a dream, since I can’t for the life of me remember ever seeing Copp practice such a formal gesture. The real Copp, still in front of me with his hat squarely centered atop his head, glares at me. A woman standing behind me clears her throat. I blink twice before collecting the bag and stepping aside. Whatever’s wrong with Copp, I’ll just have to try sorting it out with him later.

I quickly dip out of the Marketplace, people’s glares boring into my back as I exit. It feels like they follow me all the way home. I try to avoid catching anyone else’s eye as I speed back toward the apartment.

Once I’ve crossed through the center of town, I slow down. I reach inside the shopping bag to finally take a look at my twelve-credit purchase. I pop open the box and I’m immediately assaulted with a bouquet of sweet aromas. Three bars of colored soap are lined up in a row. I pull out the middle one—a soft, pretty purple—and read the tiny label wrapped around it.

“Lavender, huh?” I say aloud. I glance at the other two: sandalwood and jasmine. Having never smelled the actual things they’re named for, the labels mean little to me, but the soaps definitely smell good. Maybe not twelve-credits-good, but at least it’ll be a bit of a change.

I toss the soaps back in the bag and turn onto my street. A rusty motorbike is parked in front of my building.

Wonder which of my neighbors lucked into that beast,
I think jealously as I pass. I walk into the building, rubbing my thigh distractedly as I climb the stairs. I could’ve used a transport today.