Agenda 21 Read online

  She said “us” like it was special. They smiled at each other. The second girl was small and pale like the waxy paper on nourishment cubes. Her lips and fingernails were kind of blue, and she worked hard at breathing. I could see her shoulders pulling up with each breath like she needed more air.

  I didn’t answer her. I didn’t know much about the Managers of Nature. I didn’t want to talk about being different. We turned off the main bicycle path at a gate with a white flag and stopped in front of another large cement building.

  The chaperone stood up. “We’re here, girls. Human Health Services. I’ll walk you one by one to the intake officer. I’ll take you first”—she looked down at one of the folders she was holding—“Remy.” The girl with the thick eyebrows stood up. “You two wait here until I come back. Don’t get off the bus-box.”

  They looked clumsy as they dismounted. Remy almost fell but caught herself at the last minute.

  The Transport Team stood silently in their harnesses. The leather straps were tight across their shoulders, with a wet line of sweat along the edges. They didn’t look at each other or talk, but stood strong and still.

  As Remy and the chaperone stepped into the building, the waxy pale girl turned to me.

  “So what’s it like having a mother? I don’t even remember mine.”

  I looked at the Human Health Services building, so gray and square, and the quiet, sweaty Transport Team. I glanced up at the deep green of the tree branches against the sky. White clouds, faraway blueness. I looked at the pale girl. She didn’t even remember her mother? I fought the urge to put my finger in my mouth, like a child. Instead, I put my hand to my chest, my heart, remembering how Mother did that while she stood at the gate and watched the bus-box pull away.

  What’s it like having a mother? I thought about how to answer such a question. Mother is always there for me. If I wake with a bad dream, she wakes, too, and sits with her arm around me until I’m not afraid anymore. She doesn’t go back to sleep until after I go back to sleep. She shares her water when I’m thirsty. On good days, she laughs and sings and tells funny stories. She smiles at me. Even on bad days, quiet days, she’s still with me. I am never alone. That’s what it’s like. I didn’t say all that. I didn’t want to cry thinking about what it would be like to not remember your mother.

  Instead, I just said: “I guess it’s normal. It’s normal for me.” I didn’t know what else to say that she might understand. What can you say to someone who doesn’t remember her mother?

  She just looked at me blankly, then said, “Here comes the chaperone. I’m sorry you were home-raised. But I’m glad you got your monthlies. The Republic is depending on you.” She made the circle with her thumb and forefinger and held it to her forehead.

  I did the same. It made me feel closer to her.

  She stood up. “We could have been friends, you know. If you were raised in the Village. My name is Marina.”

  “Mine is Emmeline,” I replied.

  She got off the bus-box and smiled at me over her shoulder before she went into the big building with the chaperone.

  I sat alone. It was the first time I almost had a friend. It felt good to be out of my Compound and to meet someone. An almost-friend named Marina.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The intake officer was a thin man with a narrow, rough-looking black mustache. A crumb of soy from his breakfast was trapped in the bristles.

  “No folder?” he asked the chaperone.

  “No.”

  “Not many no-folder kids left, are there?” He picked up an empty folder on his desk.

  “No, not many. Her name is Emmeline. Compound 14. Over fourteen years old. Confirmed monthlies.”

  He wrote in the folder as she talked. I stared at his pencil and papers. I must have been about six years old when the Enforcers took everybody’s books and pencils and paper away. I wanted to hold that pencil, touch that paper.

  “What else?”

  “Her father’s Transport. Her mother has antagonistic tendencies but, so far, has not violated any rules or regulations.”

  The way she said that sounded bad. Mother wasn’t bad. Why did she say that about Mother? I turned the word antagonistic over in my head, trying to feel out its meaning.

  “But her monthlies are definitely confirmed?”

  “Yes.”

  He kept writing. “Too bad the other two weren’t actually fertile,” he mumbled. “Waste of time and resources. Using precious medication to jump-start them but not getting results.”

  The woman looked at him with a frown. “It wasn’t my idea to bring them in for testing. I only do what I’m told. I’m just a chaperone.” She sniffed loudly and looked away.

  “I’m not blaming you. Waste of time and resources is a specialty of . . .” His voice faded away, as if he was afraid to say any more.

  “I know, I know. It’s just that there don’t seem to be many reproductive females. So they push, you know, push the limits, push for testing. But what do I know? I’m just a chaperone.”

  “And I’m just an intake officer. We all have our titles, don’t we?” They nodded at each other as though agreeing they were no more than their titles.

  “Odd, though, don’t you think, that we aren’t having more babies, healthier babies?” she said.

  “Why odd?” He looked puzzled.

  “Well, one of the reasons for all of this—the whole relocation, everything—was that there were supposedly too many people for the Earth. But now they’re pushing for more babies. There aren’t enough. And so few are healthy.”

  “I don’t think that’s odd at all.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” he said, “it’s all about unintended consequences. They think they can mandate things. Create this much energy every day. Have this many babies every year. But it just doesn’t work like that. The more new laws and rules and regulations they issue, the worse the results are.”

  I had no idea what they were talking about. They seemed to have forgotten I was even there.

  Finally they took me into a room with lights—how bright they were! If only our living space could have lights like these! Is this where the energy we make goes? Who else has lights this bright? Authorities? Probably. All those hours of walking the board so somebody else can have bright lights? That didn’t seem right to me.

  I had to undress. They gave me some sort of backward sleeping robe to put on, which felt silly. The intake officer left the room, but the chaperone stayed with me. She told me to sit on a high metal table. I had to use a stool to get on it.

  Then a man came in and explained that he was the reproductive specialist. Draped around his neck was a set of black tubes connected at the end with a round black disk. Another man came in with a metal basket that rattled with some other kind of tubes. He said he was going to take blood, which sounded dangerous.

  First the man with the metal basket tied a rubbery brown thing around the top of my arm. It was tight and pinched my skin.

  “Make a fist,” he said. My heart beat harder. “A fist, like you’re punching.”

  He tapped his fingers against the inside of my elbow and I could see a vein bulging out like a worm, but big and blue. Then he reached into his basket and got a tube and a pointy thing. Sharp and shiny.

  “Don’t move.”

  It was a surprise pain and I bit my lip. Blood flowed into the tube. He was taking my blood out of me. He pulled out the pointy tool, took the tight rubbery thing off my arm. It made a snapping sound. Then he handed me a little white cloth.

  “Hold this tight against your arm.”

  He left the room, my blood in a tube rattling around in his basket.

  Then I had to lie down on the table. It was so cold and hard. There was no sleeping mat to cushion my skin against my bones, and my spine and shoulder blades began to ache. The chaperone put my feet into some kind of holders so they were up in the air. I could see my toes, higher than my head. I knew I couldn’t run. She spr
ead my knees apart. Her fingernails were sharp and dug into my skin. I felt dirty and helpless. The only thing I could do was stare at the ceiling and wish the bright lights would melt me away.

  The reproductive specialist examined me all over with his hands. They were cold and smooth. I didn’t like the way he looked at me. His pupils were big, and he stared at me while he touched my body and tried to put his fingers inside me.

  “Forget the speculum,” he said to the chaperone. “No entry here.”

  I tried to pull my knees together but the chaperone held them apart. Then he pushed in on my belly, which hurt less than when he had put his fingers between my legs.

  When he felt my breasts, I felt so ashamed. No one had ever touched my breasts. It felt wrong.

  I didn’t fight. I felt hot tears building behind my eyes, but I didn’t cry. I did what Mother always did. I turned my face away from them.

  The chaperone surprised me by patting my shoulder gently. Then she looked out the window slit, relieving me of her gaze.

  The blood results came back while I was getting dressed. The reproductive specialist read them and smiled. “She’s good,” he said to the chaperone. “Quite ripe, in fact. Reproductive and productive. Finally, a reproductive female. Praise be to the Republic. I’ll forward her folder to the Pairing Committee. At least the day was not a total waste.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  The chaperone and the reproductive specialist looked startled, as if they had forgotten I could speak.

  “What does what mean?” he repeated.

  “Ripe,” I said, louder. “What does ripe mean?”

  “Ready to be picked,” he said, laughing. The chaperone looked at him as though she didn’t think what he said was funny. She came closer to me and put her hand on my shoulder again. It felt warm.

  I still didn’t know what being ripe meant. But I wasn’t going to ask again.

  The intake officer and the chaperone made the circle sign to each other as we were leaving. I didn’t make the circle sign. I didn’t want to be like them.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The bus-box stopped at the Compound 14 gate. My Compound, my gate. The chaperone smiled at me. “You can walk to your space from here, Emmeline. Congratulations on passing the reproductive-ability test. The Republic thanks you.” She made the finger circle sign on her forehead, smiled, and nodded. She acted like she was proud of me and maybe even liked me a little. Was it just because I was reproductive? Was that going to be my title?

  I stood at the gate and watched the bus-box pull away, the six men leaning forward in their harnesses, the chaperone swaying on her seat, and I realized then that I knew nothing.

  The Gatekeeper glanced at my headscarf and lowered his eyes. He fumbled with his clipboard, made a notation, and finally opened the gate for me. The Living Spaces, identical in size and shape, were arranged in a semicircle, up against the chain link fence. The common ground in front of each was dirt packed hard and smooth. No animal would be tempted to try to come through the fence into this barren area. All of the Living Space Compounds were the same. At least that’s what Mother told me. She said if you could look down from the sky, it would look like a big round lacy doily—she had used a little stick to draw a circle in the dirt outside our door—and the important buildings like Human Health Services and the Central Authority buildings were in an entirely separate area.

  I stopped outside of our door because I could hear Mother and Father talking inside. Father was home already? That wasn’t right. In fact it was terribly, terribly wrong. He was supposed to work until dusk. The work rules were very strict. I moved closer to the window slit to try and hear them.

  “Already? They assigned her already? How is that possible?” Mother’s voice was loud and angry.

  “Elsa, you knew it was coming. You knew. Why do you fight everything?” I could hear Father pacing back and forth on the rough floor. “You know what happens when—”

  “Enough with the ‘you knew, you know, you knew.’ I’m sick of it. How did we let all of this happen? God damn it. God damn it to hell and back.”

  “Stop it, Elsa. Stop it right now.”

  “God damn it. God damn it. God damn it. There. I said it!” She was yelling, too. I looked over at the Gatekeeper, wondering if he could hear them. I think he was too far away and besides, he was leaning against the fence with his eyes closed. Probably sleeping even though that was against the rules.

  “Shut up!” Father’s voice, harsh.

  “Don’t you tell me to shut up.”

  “Don’t use that word again. You know it’s forbidden.”

  “God. God. God. There! What are you going to do about it?”

  “Elsa, please. Please. We have to survive. Don’t make us destroy each other. Do you want to end up like—” He sounded like he was crying.

  “I don’t care. I just don’t care,” Mother said, but she wasn’t shouting. Her voice was muffled.

  They were quiet for a while after that. My face felt warm in the sun, but inside I felt cold. I started toward the door, but then they started talking again.

  “Who? Who did they pair her with?”

  “George.”

  “George? Oh my God, George? Our old neighbor? Oh my God.”

  “Elsa, don’t use that word. I’m begging you.” He paused. “Yes, that George.”

  “But George is too old. He’s what, over thirty already? And he’s married. Married!”

  “His wife was never productive. Then she got sick. Couldn’t walk her board. Some chronic condition, maybe kidney failure. I don’t know what. Something about chronic and the criteria for allocation of resources. Some kind of a futility thing. That’s all I know.”

  “I know all about chronic and all about allocation of resources. I know all about futility. I know all about Praise be. I went to the Social Reorientation Programs just like you did. Those damned sessions. Brainwashing.”

  A soft breeze rustled the trees on the other side of the fence.

  “But the fact remains, George is still married.”

  “They took her away. That’s all I know.” His voice was so low I had trouble hearing him clearly.

  “Dear sweet Jesus,” Mother said in the same low whisper. “She was a good person. She was my student.” I heard her sniff, like she was crying.

  The sun was shining. The sky was blue. I remember it vividly.

  “Well,” Mother said, in a tone that sounded like she was squaring her shoulders, “at least he is one of us. One of us who remembers how it used to be.”

  The edge of my headscarf caught on the rough cement wall, slid off my head, and fell onto the dirt. I picked it up and tried to shake the dirt off but a smudge remained. The Gatekeeper saw me without my headscarf and looked at me the same way the reproduction specialist had looked at me. I quickly put the scarf back on. I wished it hadn’t gotten dirty.

  “So when do they . . .? ” Mother’s voice trailed off.

  “In two days.”

  “Two days? That’s not enough time to teach her.”

  The concrete felt hot against my back. I saw something moving beside me. A bug crawling up the wall. A round, red ladybug with black dots on its back. “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children will burn,” I whispered. Mother had taught me that.

  “Elsa, for crying out loud, you had ten years to teach her—”

  “I did teach her. I taught her how it used to be.”

  “You were supposed to teach her how it is now. You were supposed to prepare her. Reproduction . . .”

  I picked the ladybug off the wall and watched it walk along my finger. I blew on it and watched it fly away. Then I put my finger in my mouth. It tasted bitter.

  “How it used to be is over, Elsa. You need to tell her the truth.”

  “You’ll have to do it. I can’t. I don’t have the courage. Or the strength.” I heard Mother turn on her energy board. The conversation was over.

 
CHAPTER SEVEN

  Father came out of our space and slammed the door behind him. He looked surprised to see me there. He stared with his eyes wide and his mouth open.

  “Hello, Father,” I said.

  “How long have you been out here?”

  I shrugged.

  “Did you hear . . . did you hear us talking?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then. Well.” He looked up at the sky as though trying to figure out what to say. I looked up at the sky, too. Still clear blue, no clouds. Some birds flew high above us, little specks of brown against the blue.

  “You look very pretty in your headscarf,” he said finally.

  “I dropped it. It got smudged.”

  “Sanitizing solution will take care of that. Let’s not go inside just yet. Let’s talk. Over there.” I followed him past the Living Spaces. Some of the doors were open and we could hear the low rumbling of energy boards as we walked by. Once we were past the Living Spaces, Father stopped. We stood there at the edge of our Compound, by the fence, with trees on the other side. Sunshine and shadow seemed to dance about on the packed brown dirt. The main path ran along the other side of the fence. How long ago was I on that very path in the bus-box going for my tests? An hour ago? Two hours ago? A childhood ago? And now here I was, in my headscarf, outside with Father. We had never talked much. He worked the dawn-to-dusk shift on Transport and was always so tired when he got home. And now we were together and he wanted to talk. Everything about the day seemed strange, like it wasn’t really happening because it didn’t fit with what I was used to.

  “It’s nice right here, isn’t it? Near the trees.”

  “Yes.”

  “How did the testing go?”

  “I hated it.”

  “But you didn’t fight it?”

  “No.”

  “Good girl.”

  He didn’t ask me any more about the testing. I was glad he didn’t. I didn’t want to talk about it.

  “So tell me more about how you and your mother spend your days together.” He paused and rubbed his shoulder. I could see where the leather straps had made deep wrinkles in his uniform.