Vagabond (30 page)

“Wait,” I said. “Don’t do this.” Panic. I thought I’d felt it once before, but this panic was sturdier than any anxiety I’d ever experienced. The click. The clack. The lock turning.
 

It was over.
 

I was over.
 

The debates went on for an hour. My legs were getting tired from standing in the square, but it was our duty to listen to all sides. We needed to be informed by all parties before making decisions, and Mama and Daddy said it was time for me to start listening to the politics.
 

 
“If she was a Celebrity, then where are her children? There are records, but the children themselves are missing.” It was Caster Pardo, and her face was bulbous on the screen.
 

I looked around and saw Citizens of the 18
^th
lounging around on chairs and tables. Their heads alternated from the screen to their tablets. There was a live feed going on where people all over the Republic posted their thoughts on the databases. Voices of the populace heard instantly as the debates went live, but I just stood and watched. I didn’t have an opinion enough to participate.
 

“Missing? They aren’t missing. We have a duty to protect their identities. Their foster parents have requested that we not bring them into the lime-light, and her children deserve that privacy at least. Why can Petrakis keep the privacy of his, and Tantalos can’t?” Caster Maras growled. He was good. The indignation he displayed was almost enough to discard the rumor.
 

“If that’s true, what about Corinna?” A picture of a girl with bright brown eyes and smooth dark skin bled onto the screen. She had the same river of perfect hair and symmetrical features as her mother, Senator Tantalos. “Why is Corinna allowed to be subjected and not her other children. She parades Corinna around, while Petrakis keeps his son out of this ‘lime light’ you speak of.”
 

“Celebrity parents have the right to protect their children from undue harassment. Senator Tantalos will not use them as pawns in her political games. Corinna is the last— the eighth child, and therefore, the one the Senator was allowed to raise. It is the only reason Corinna Tantalos is a part of the entire spectacle, much to the Senator’s dismay. She wants the Republic to pay attention to her politics, not her children.” Caster Maras tried to explain, but it wasn’t enough.
 

“But, sir, you forget. Her children are the science of things, and we can’t have the politics without the science. All enlightened Citizens deserve proof. Where is Senator Tantalos’?”

“If we want to speak in rumors,” the third vid-caster, Castor Delis interjected. “Then we need to address the other speculation.”
 

“You can’t be serious?” Caster Pardo scoffed.
 

“There’s speculation that her seventh child was a double Celebrity. They say that Petrakis’ own last-child, his son, is also Tantalos’.” Castor Delis continued.
 

“Pshh. Rumors,” Caster Maras redirected. “If we want to really talk about rumors, let’s get back into the Scientific debate we are supposed to be having: Is it possible that another rumor is true? The G.E.G. have succeeded? They’ve fostered enough genetic diversity that we have nothing to fear? Some people even claim that the G.E.G. are actively manipulating genes now. That they are creating mutations that can bring out super-human traits. What’s the point of saving Humanity if we’re just going to so recklessly redefine what it means to be human?“

“Careful, there. That’s bordering on treason,” Caster Pardo barked.
 

I couldn’t fit it all into my head.
 

Xavi told me to sit tight. To be patient. To listen. To not fight.
 

But how could I trust him? He handed me off to one of the masked soldiers, and marched Ono away.
 

He promised me he’d find a way to get me out.
 

Could he have been any more cryptic? Was it just a way to get Ono to leave me? A false promise to elicit false hope so there was no struggle?
 

A way out? There was no way out of these shackles.
 

The train moved, and I thought of the strangest things.
 

I wondered if it’d be easy to surf on a Military Transport. They were some of the fastest trains. Would the speed knock me down before I could even stand up?

I wondered what a moose looked like. I’d still never seen one.
 

I wondered what ocean water tasted like. Was it really as fishy and salty as Polo described it?
 

I wondered if anyone would find and use whatever was left of my pack. I’d imagined the contents of clothes and food strewn about like a torn-open carcass. I wanted someone to find it. I wanted some Vagabond to gain from my loss.
 

I wouldn’t need it anymore— not where I was going.
 

“It’ll be okay,” Ono’d whispered when Xavi led him away.
 

But it wasn’t okay.

I tried to think about anything but the cage I was in. I looked at the bagged faced girl. She was slumped in on herself and still hadn’t woken.
 

This stranger with no face— we shared something so intimate… the same fate… a similar torturous death.
 

I reached over and tugged the burlap off. Whoever she was, I didn’t know her, and her eyes remained as limp as she was.
 

“My bared teeth are broken chains.” It was a faceless voice, but it haunted my dreams for a week after I first heard it. Then, I realized it wasn’t just silly babble from a crazy Terrorist. The phrase kept escaping during the executions I witnessed. When I was a Citizen, I thought nothing of it.
 

But after the first execution I witnessed as a Vagabond, it hit me. “My bared teeth are broken chains,” the woman said.
 

And I dreamed of her for months and months afterwards. I saw myself on that stage with the needle in my veins.
 

There were things hidden in my brain. Xavi had said so. But at the moment, my brain remained mush and nothing solidified. The day shifted into night, and there was nothing to do but stare at the bars.
 

The girl stirred and groaned. Her brown lids opened to show crisp green eyes. Something about those eyes looked familiar, like I’d seen them worn on someone else, only in a different color.
 

“Hi,” I whispered.
 

“Where are we?” She tugged at the shackles.
 

“A bit of an obvious question, don’t you think?”

She laughed at the sarcasm. “A bit.” She reached up and rummaged in her hair, as if she was scratching it. “My bared teeth are broken chains.”
 

“I guess mine are too now. I don’t know the rest of the chant.”
 

The girl sucked in a breath. “Either you’re a spy, like that jackass was, or you don’t know anything. If it’s the second one, I’m sorry. They kept you because they think you know something. There won’t be a slow death in it for you.”
 

I shuddered.

She pulled out two bobby-pins from her hair— hair that was knotted and gnarled into chunky braids. “Lucky for you, I know how to pick locks, and you have, exactly two minutes to convince me you’re not a spy, or I leave you here.”
 

“Roll Call?” I tried.
 

The soft lighting in the boxcar settled over us in shadows, and her eyebrows narrowed. “Two minutes, and you want to play Roll Call?”
 

“Celeste.”

The girl laughed. It was rancorous and beautiful. “You got balls, kid. You got balls. Name’s Claire.”
 

I smiled. “Her sister?”

“She must have thought you were something if she told you about me.”
 

“I’m Niko.”
 

“Niko! No shit! I’ve been looking forward to running into you. Celeste said you had potential.”

Potential? The idea made me feel bright inside.
 

Claire wore Celeste’s same expression of concentration as she worked. She wiggled the pin in the lock and took slow and steady breaths. She was just about to un-cuff the wrist shackles when we heard a sharp metallic noise. “Damn it,” she whispered and jabbed the bobby-pins back into her braids just as the door slid open. Moonlight leaked in, and I let out a hopeful gasp as Xavi threw himself into the car.
 

“Traitor!” Claire yelled.
 

Xavi shook his head. “Shut it. Do you want them to check on you? They’re in that next car, stupid.” There was bitter in his voice, and I wondered what had happened between the two to make them dislike each other so much. Xavi continued in a lackluster attempt to sooth her. “It wasn’t supposed to go down that way. I wasn’t the one who called it in, but I acted that way to save your life. Be a bit more grateful you’re not in one of those death piles. Talk to your sister before you jump to conclusions.”
   

Claire spit through the bars at him. “They’re dead. You killed them all.”
 

Xavi wiped off the glob of slobber that landed on his arm, and frowned. “Claire. We don’t have time for this.” He pulled out keys from his pocket and slid one into the cage.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
 

“I don’t have the time to explain. Go to our lake. Promise me. I’ll meet you there and explain it all,” he said. His fingers felt warm on my wrists as he unshackled them.
 

“Where’s Ono?”
 

Xavi fingers fumbled with the keys, and a look of hurt fluttered across his face. “He’s being held in the debriefing room. I’m supposed to escort him back to the 12
^th
to get his new assignment. It’d be too suspicious if he came to help right now… he’s safer if he never leaves the sight of Commander Hanas.” He sucked in warm air and shuddered. “Just promise me you’ll go to our spot. I’ll get there as soon as I can and explain everything.”
 

“Explain what?” I growled.
 

He unhooked the shackles at my feet and threw the keys to Claire.
 
While she unlocked herself, he helped me out of the cage. He cupped my face in his hands, and made me look at him and only him. The browns of his eyes were murky and bright, and I wanted to know what was behind them. Nothing he said made sense.
 

“Niko. There are things you don’t know. Things I couldn’t tell you before. But we don’t have time right now. In about two miles this train is going to speed up, and you won’t have another chance to jump.”
 

Claire walked past us and steadied her hand on the door. “You’re a real ass, Xavi. If I find out it was you, I’ll—”
 

“Please. Just shut it for once, Claire. Talk to Celeste. She’ll explain it all.”
 
Xavi dropped my face and shrugged off his pack— only it wasn’t his.
 

“That’s Ono’s.”
 

“He won’t need it where he’s off to. He asked me to tell you… he’ll find a way back to you.” It was hard for him to say the last part. He choked it out and put the pack on me. He tugged at the straps so that they were tighter on me.
 

“It’s time. You coming or not, Niko?” Claire asked as she positioned herself for the jump. I looked over at her. The wind whipped at her braids, and she looked so much like Celeste that it made my heart ache.
 

I was so tired of everything happening so fast. I needed time, and I never had enough of it.
 

Xavi pulled me in by the straps, and grasped my face in his hands. The kiss that came was so full of sweet and sour. I melted into it. I forgot everything I was supposed to remember.
 

Then, I did remember. How he hurt me. How he’d lied.
 

I pushed him away. “I can’t, Xavi. I can’t.”
 

Claire was already jumping, and I needed to follow.
 

I didn’t look back.
 

I didn’t see the pain that he wore on his face.
 

I didn’t see his heart break.
 

I just moved on.
 

Chapter Twenty

Xavi explained how to check the vid-screen under his breath. “See that star there in the red?” It was a tiny speck next to the number and line. “They think they are subtle with it.” The lines of the star stretched out in six directions. I wanted to say it looked more like a flower than a star, but that’d be inaccurate too. I’d been spending so much time looking at stars lately that I knew they took on plenty of shapes depending on how I squinted my eyes. They had more points of light than five and more inconsistencies than straight lines. “That’s a Celebrity line,” Xavi continued. “They are faster and safer than Military transports.”
   

“Why are they faster?”

“Less cars to carry, and they get expensive fuel.”

I nodded. It made sense. The faster the travel in between interviews, the more useful their genetic contributions would be to the Republic. The boys spent their entire viable years on the tracks, sharing their genetics with certain colonies the G.E.G. deemed in need. The girls were different. They only traveled between children. I couldn’t imagine leaving my child to be raised by others— a stand in mother— in order to be shipped off to another Colony to do it again and again.
 

The Republic allowed every Celebrity to keep and raise their last child once the wear and tear of the process began to catch up with them. The Celebrity always got to choose a Colony to live in that they liked best and raise the child with a stand in father or mother. I had a theory that the entire process was easier on the boys though.
 

I also couldn’t imagine getting an interview and having to raise my child with a man who was not the biological father. How could any partner accept that he could only father my second child, if we were allowed anymore at all? I couldn’t grasp how those families worked, but they were becoming more and more common. They had to work somehow, or the G.E.G. would never sanction them.