Outcast: A Corporation Novel (The Corporation) Page 3

  I almost make it.

  “You, citizen. Stop.”

  I pretend not to hear and keep moving, my breathing and steps speeding just a little.

  “I said, stop.” He sounds more irritated than warranted and I can't ignore that command again. My boots stop where they are, like they're sticking in drying cement. “Turn around,” he says.

  I take a breath. I can’t run, they’ll catch me, and then there will be real hell to pay. But maybe they’ll be so sidetracked with my escape attempt that they won’t get around to checking my Mark.

  Tight fingers grip my upper arm, turning me around with a jerk. The one holding me is the newbie, about my height, and the world to prove in his eyes. I recognize his dark hair and puffed out chest. I don't come face to face with many Guards, so when I do, their features are seared into my brain, the way his is. He's the young Guard that had the same something to prove back when Rebeka helped Ethan and me escape the Inner City; the night she tricked him. I can only pray that he doesn’t recognize me.

  “Didn't you hear what he said? Or are you just stupid?”

  “Sorry,” I mumble, keeping my eyes glued to the abused road. There are chunks of glass here. If things get real bad, I can use it as a weapon. Why did I have to test my Mark today?

  “Where are you headed?” It's a deeper voice that says this, the older Guard.

  “I—”

  “Look at me when I'm speaking to you.” I can feel his eyes burning into me, watching my every move. Or lack thereof.

  I drag my head up and meet the eyes of my interrogator. They're outlined with hard, deep lines, set in skin toughened by the sun. Behind them I see a bit of weariness and boredom. A career Guard. This is not good. “Sorry, sir,” I mumble.

  “I'll ask again—where are you headed?”

  “To work, sir.” My eyes flit to the ground and back to his face, trying to avoid direct eye contact.

  “At this hour?”

  “Yes, sir. I work over in the Industrial Section, as a seamstress. It takes a little bit of time to get over there.” I glance around. We’re still alone, but not for long.

  “Where are you coming from?” He narrows his eyes a bit. He’s only a couple feet away.

  “Over there.” I nod my head in the general direction of my apartment. I hope they don't notice I'm a little out of the way from where I said I'm going.

  “You're apartment's that way,” the young Guard cuts in, pointing to where I indicated, “and you work in the IS, but you're over here, in East End?”

  I let out a string of curses in my head. A Guard feeling they need to prove themselves will let nothing go. Like a pig that's had a taste of human blood. It's best to look out and steer clear. “I'm meeting a friend. We both work in the Factory. We walk together in the morning. Journey Cambrai.” Stupid. That was too much information. I've given them everything they need to look up and find out that I'm lying. That Journey lives in a completely different section than where they've found me. I shouldn’t have brought her into this.

  “What's your name?” the older Guard asks.

  “Look, I haven't done anything wrong,” I say, “Can't you just let me go?” Stupid. Why do I always open my mouth when I should just keep it shut?

  “I thought you were waiting for your friend, Journey? Name, please. “

  I bite the inside of my cheek. “Karis.”

  “Surname?”

  “Singh,” I say, accepting the fate I know is going to unfold.

  He nods sharply. Reaching into his jacket, he pulls out a portable scanner. “Mark, please.”

  I'm pretty sure my heart stops for several beats and that I die for a few seconds as a result, because the Guard is saying, “Mark, please. Mark,” as if he’s had to ask several times.

  The young Guard reaches for my wrist and yanks my arm up, pushing back the sleeve of my duster. He squints at my arm and looks up at me. “You’ve tampered with it.”

  How he can tell, I have no idea. “What?” I try to pull my arm back to look at it myself, even though I know what it looks like. “No, I haven’t.”

  “It looks different.”

  The older Guard stoops down and examines it for the briefest of seconds. “Just the light. It looks fine.”

  I'm frozen. I don't know what I'm going to do. My Mark won't pull up any information, the Gate proved that. They'll know something isn't right. I've just jeopardized everything.

  The younger Guard watches over me with a fine scrutiny, as to not miss a thing, and digs his fingertips deeper into my skin.

  The scanner passes over my Mark, not picking anything up. The Guard passes it over again before thinking anything is amiss. The third time the red line scans my ink, it stutters and lets out an awkward chirp. I hope the young Guard doesn't see my eyes widen in surprise. What will the scanner say? I watch the Guard's face as he brings the device up for a better look.

  His forehead wrinkles as he peers down at the tiny screen. He brings it up and bangs it against his open palm. He turns to the young Guard saying, “One thing you'll get used to,” banging the devise against his thigh, “is that the Corporation doesn't replace anything until it isn't working anymore—which it looks like is happening with this thing.”

  “What's happening?” the young Guard drops my arm and leans over to look at the scanner.

  “It's not reading her Mark.” He brings it back up to try and scan my arm again. The red light beeps and the older Guard shakes his head.

  “Maybe it's her,” the younger one says, glaring at me. “She looks familiar. There was a rash of Black Market Marks not too long ago.”

  The older one lets out a low chuckle. “Your youth is obvious, thinking there's something to everything. Sometimes, like now, things just don't work. Besides, the Gate was powering down when we walked up, so obviously it worked for her to walk through.”

  “I didn't see her walking, did you? I just saw her standing there, staring at it.”

  The older Guard chuckles again, but I can hear the thin patience it sits on. He must be constantly reigning the new Guard in.

  “We can take her over to the scanner in the Square, that one's serviced on a regular basis,” he says.

  “Mmm. Good idea.” The older Guard puts the scanner back inside his jacket. “Come with us.”

  He takes no more than two steps when a crackle of static comes through on the radio receiver sitting on his shoulder. He clicks the button and speaks into it. “Captain Gideon, go ahead.”

  “Sir, this is Wilkins, we need you over in Section Eighteen.”

  “What is it? Derrik and I are busy at the moment.”

  There's a second of silence before, “We have another one and the extraction is proving difficult.”

  The Guard sighs as he lets go of the receiver, getting a snap from the speaker.

  “What are we waiting for?” Derrik asks. “We should go, quickly, it sounds like they need us.” The look of excitement that sweeps across his face betrays his age.

  “And what about this one?” Captain Gideon looks like he could care less either way.

  I'm spared a brief glance as Derrik says, “We'll let her off with a warning.”

  Could I be so lucky?

  “It's important that we finish out our job.”

  “Oh, come on, please? It's been three days of training in Neech and we haven't come across anything more interesting than a broken scanner.”

  “You'll address me with the proper title and respect.”

  Derrik snaps his heels together and straightens his back, eager to do whatever it takes to get his way. “You're right, sir. I apologize.”

  The captain waits a moment before finally saying, “Fine.” He talks into his radio next. “On our way.” He addresses me. “Don't let us find you like this again.”

  Like what, I don't ask; glad to be given this bout of luck. I hurry out of their presence before they can change their minds, just me and the familiar feeling of being watched.

  Ethan


  I bolt upright, dressed in a cold sweat.

  I drag my legs over the edge of the bed and rest my face in my hands, taking a few deep breaths. I try to forget what it was I saw in my sleep, even though it wasn't particularly scary, but something about it unsettles me all the way to my bones.

  In the dream, I'm little, no older than a Candidate. I'm hiding in the newborn light of day, trying to melt into the fading shadows. My breathing is scratchy in my ears as I press myself deeper into the depleting darkness. The dream is so vivid, it could be real, but it isn't any memory I can recall; and the level of fear I have—I've never felt it before, except in these past few nights.

  The diluted light of the early morning seeps in around me. I watch the puddle from the window spread, spilling across the floor and creeping over my toes. The sun isn't up all the way yet, but I know Eta will be starting her day, soon. The adjustment to becoming a part of Neech hasn’t been as organic as I had hoped. Getting used to the near—primitive lifestyle is taxing.

  I lie back in bed for a few more minutes, staring up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the dream. When I finally admit to myself that nothing about it makes any sort of sense, I groan. There's no hope for sleep now.

  I get out of bed and pull a heavy shirt from my dresser over my torso. It's starting to get too cold to sleep in just sleep pants. When I got here, Eta had a handy stash of men’s clothes. I tried asking her why, but she shut me down. I still try to get an answer on the sly, but the old woman is sharp and not easily tricked.

  I sit down on the bed again, and the frame gives a deep creak. I pull my boots on over my socks. I decide I’ll go out and meet Dhevan in the fields. He has three heifers that are due to calve soon, an extra pair of hands couldn't hurt. Then I'll go and see if I can get any info from Déjà.

  While Karis and I were in Dahn, we got wind that my father was aware of some suspicious activity in the Lumber Mill and Steel Factory. Both Jeret and Déjà have remained silent when asked directly about it, but I intend on ferreting out the truth.

  I open my door a crack and listen. The house is quiet. Eta's either still sleeping or already out making her rounds. She doesn’t need me this morning since all she has scheduled are check-ups. I should be good if I meet up with her later today.

  Eta's house is smaller, cozier, than Karis' since it's just her. A single level with a small living room, smaller kitchen, and two even smaller bedrooms. What little space Eta has, she wedges with everything imaginable. Furniture, wall hangings, chairs, blankets, tables of every size, medical tools, herbs, and oils. Plants sit on any available surface and the result is what I imagine being a very aromatic jungle, if jungles still existed.

  Her backyard is as cluttered with green as her house, with mounds of dirt and flower beds muddled with different herbs and medicinal plants and flowers. At first, I thought her home was overbearing and the smell knocked me back a few steps. But after being here several weeks, it's come to feel like home. Comfortable, in a way. Sometimes I find being out in open space is a bit intimidating. I grab what’s become standard attire for me now: a duster, mask, scarf, and gloves.

  I have to pull the back door shut with a quick jerk; it sticks otherwise. Rubbing my gloved hands together, I step off the back steps and head in the direction of the fields. My breath comes out in white puffs around my face and the nip in the air helps me pick up my pace, like a man with purpose.

  Eta lives in a different area of town than Karis does, about ten minutes away. It's South End, closer to the abandoned sections. Eta could have had a nicer place to live, but she deliberately chose this location; said it was closest to the people who needed her most. Plus, she'd said, there was a little extra patch of dirt outside that allowed her to grow the herbs she needed.

  I get to the fields before the rest of the workers. Dhevan's always the first one there, toiling a good hour before the others even begin thinking about starting their day. I pass the main Gate into the fields and head, instead, for a hole in the fence that Dhevan had shown me not long after I first got here. It's conveniently out of the view of any cameras and the farmers haven't fixed it yet, nor have they reported it to the Corporation. I got the impression it was used quite a bit, but no explanation was given to me as to why.

  I peel back the chain link metal fencing from the tear and squeeze my body through, careful to keep my clothes away from the sharp and rough edges. Once on the other side, I take the time to put the fencing back, careful to blend the edges together again, like I was never there.

  I trudge through the weeds and hardening ground at the edges of the pastures and fields. The cold seems to have come on quicker this year than in the past. The plants are turning brown and drying out. The earth is hard and uneven in the mornings and the evenings are getting darker, sooner. I slow my pace when I get to the narrow and uneven dirt paths between the fenced pastures. I've warmed up enough to take my hands from my pockets and undo the top few buttons of my duster.

  The animals are lethargic and sleepy. They graze with lazy mouths in the early morning, eating the dewy grass. I listen to their puffs of breath and snorts as they crush down the crisp and sparse vegetation beneath their hooves. The scene is familiar and comforting. When I was young, I used to go to my father's horses early in the morning, soaking up the same sounds and smells. It was the only place where I could just be me. Where I could be alone and pretend that I was anywhere but where I was.

  “You're up early.”

  I start a little at Dhevan's voice. He's in the pasture to my right, putting a ratty, faded and frayed halter onto a heifer’s head. It was blue once. Her sides are swollen to the point that I'm pretty sure she's going to explode.

  “Couldn't sleep,” I say. “Thought I'd come and help you with the calving.”

  He snaps the lead to a metal ring in the halter beneath the cow’s chin. “Huh.” Dhevan tugs on the rope and leads the animal towards the gate at the opposite end of the small field. I follow him along the fence line. “I thought you were Eta's little helper,” he says.

  “Apprentice,” I say. Dhevan and I go through this same song and dance every time we talk. It would almost be endearing if it weren’t getting old. Part of me wants to say, I get it. You're not my biggest fan. Get over it. But, for Karis' sake, I bite my tongue. “She doesn't need me this morning and I knew you'd be here alone and could probably use some extra help.” I open the gate for him and wait as the two figures saunter through. The cow sways like she's got nothing on her agenda for the day; like this is just a stroll through the Inner City fields.

  Dhevan doesn't wait for me to close the gate but keeps walking towards the lean-to they call a barn. “Have you ever done this before?” he throws over his shoulder.

  What a completely dumb and typical Dhevan question. He likes to ask me things he already knows the answers to. Especially when his question points out that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.

  “Recently? No. So I'm probably a little rusty.”

  He doesn't laugh. Another typical Dhevan response. I used to think he was a funny guy. He used to laugh and be nice and I thought this would be an easy adaptation for me. But it was almost like, once he knew I wasn't going anywhere, he decided he didn't like me after all. Karis doesn't take it seriously, she says he's just warming up to me. If that's the case, he must have the temperature of a never melting ice cube. I blow into my hands to warm them.

  “Look, I came here to help,” I say, trying to be nice. We're under the shelter of the lean-to now. There's trampled straw covering the ground with cakes of clumped mud strewed about. Even though it's out in the open, the air under the roof is musty and heavy with animal sweat and dirt. There are odds and ends tacked to the wooden walls and posts—more halters and leads, different brushes and scissors, branding sticks with changeable numbers leaning in the corner next to almost empty bags of pathetic imitations of grain. I asked Dhevan once about the strange branding sticks. He said they date the cows so that they don't
get too old before they're slaughtered. That way, the meat doesn't get too tough.

  “Take this.” Dhevan pushes the folded end of the lead rope into my chest. He goes around the back of the shed and comes back with a bale of fresh straw. He makes it look like it weighs nothing, but I can see his biceps straining against the material of his shirt. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and I can see the corded muscles of his forearms flex and strain. He lifts it with little to no effort and sets it down like it's a stack of blankets.

  “How much does that weigh?” I ask, nodding to the bale.

  He squats down and pulls out a knife, cutting the twine that holdss the straw together. “Around seventy-five pounds.”

  Seventy-five pounds, that's not too bad. I could do that. When he snaps the last string, the straw expands and spills out onto the concrete slab that's the floor of the barn. Dhevan spreads it out around the feet of the cow so that the calf has a clean place to be born, I guess.

  “How do you know she's going to have her calf today?”

  “We induce them. Force them to have their calves,” he tacks on for my added understanding. “They had their first shot about fourteen days ago. The second round twenty-four hours ago. The calf should be coming anytime. I've been keeping my eye on her, and she's ready.”

  He grabs a thick, rubber apron from a nail on a post and slips it over his head, tying it around his back. Then, he pulls on rubber gloves that go almost to his armpits. A heavy string is slung across the back of his neck, attached to the opening of each glove, keeping them in place. I don't want to know—or at least I don't want it put into words—what those are for, so I don't ask.

  We stand in silence for what feels like forever, Dhevan busying himself with what look like menial tasks. It's only about ten minutes later when the heifer starts to kick at her belly with her hind legs and take little steps forward and back. She paws at the ground a few times before lifting her front leg up under her and dropping her shoulder, nose to the ground.