Infraction (5 page)

“The detox procedure is as follows: first, hair. A
breeding ground for lice and other vermin. Your hair will be
shaved.” As she says this, some of the women around me shift their
weight, the most outrage they can safely express. The agent ignores
them. “Second, shower. You will be hosed off and washed with
antibacterial, antimicrobial soap. It may be harsh on your skin.
Third, medical examination. A medical professional will examine
each of you to ensure your physical health and determine if any
inoculations are necessary.” She clasps her hands behind her back.
“Take off all your clothing and give it to Worker 143. No outside
materials are allowed inside our facility. After showering, you
will receive approved clothing.”

I glance around at the nine women. About half of
their eyes hold nothing—no emotion at what's being asked of them,
no outrage at being treated this way. Two of them look more
exhausted than angry. The rest look the way I imagine I look right
now. Livid. I'm to strip naked in front of these people I don't
even know? Get rid of these clothes that are my only possessions in
the world right now? Wear something the government tells me I have
to?

Anger flashes through my eyes. I'm sure the agent has
seen it before because she crosses her arms over her chest, tilts
her chin, and her eyes dare me to defy her. I'm not cowed by her
look, but I know resisting is useless.

I take my clothes off. I try not to look at the
others around me; I try to give them that little scrap of privacy.
As I unzip my pants, I remember the single crimson thread from the
rug in the cabin. It's too small and hardly significant, but it's
one thing I'm sure I can hide and keep. Some small way I can claim
something as my own. My eyes find the agent. She's not looking at
me; she's watching one of the hollow women who fumbles with her
buttons. I slip my hand in my pocket and hide the string between
two of my fingers.

I give my clothes to Worker 143. As I pass them
through the window, the first wave of expression passes over her
face. Sadness. She takes my clothes and caresses them, as if she
knows what they represent, and turns around, opens a metal grate,
and dumps them down a chute. A blast of heat and a faint orange
flicker tell me I'll never see those clothes again. I clutch the
thread tighter, clinging to my last souvenir of the outside.

Once we've all given up our clothes, the agent leads
us down the tiled hall to the next door. The tiles are cold on my
feet, and I cross my arms over my chest and side-step to try to
stay warm. I wonder if there's heating in this building because it
feels just about as chilly as it does outside.

We pause before the door. The agent rests her fingers
on the handle and turns to us. “Your hair will be shaved in here.”
She smirks, and I wish I could wipe that look right off her face.
“Don't worry. This is just a one-time procedure to ensure no pests
are transmitted to the others here. After this, you're free to grow
your hair.” She says it like she's doing us a favor.

I run a hand through my hair. It was about
chin-length when I first came to the Burn. Now it's an inch or so
above my shoulders. Jessa would have loved to see my hair this
long; she always urged me to grow it out. Now I think of the way
she looked that night a few months ago when she came to me on the
Burn—her hair shaved as Gaea's price for helping me.

The agent turns the handle and motions the first
woman forward. She looks back at the rest of us and then steps
through the door. I can't see inside, but I hear the buzz of
clippers and the soft hush of voices. Then another door creaks
open, and the agent jerks her hand to wave another of us
forward.

Finally the agent motions for me, and I step into the
room. There is a small table set to the side. A pair of scissors
and a comb rest there. A broom and dustbin wait next to a metal
grate just like the one Worker 143 manned. That's where everything
goes in this place—it all gets burned. The woman waiting looms over
me, clippers in hand. She barely looks at me. The only part of me
she sees is my hair.

I step forward and before I've even stopped, the
clippers are up and scraping across my head. I watch the raven hair
flutter to the floor, landing on my bare toes, landing next to me,
stark against the white tiles. When the clippers finally rest, the
woman speaks. Her voice is a hoarse rasp.

“Sweep it up and dump it.” She nods to the metal
grate. They take our clothes, take our hair, and then they make us
burn it.

Numbly, I step forward and grab the broom and sweep
all the hair into the dustbin. I cross to the chute and send my
hair down. The smell of burning hair twists my stomach.

The far door creaks open and I step through. Another
person waits for me. I think it's a woman, but she's almost
nondescript in a plastic apron, gloves, and a surgical mask. She
holds a thick hose with both hands. She tips her head toward the
shower stall in front of her.

It's a three-foot square tiled area with metal walls
extending all the way from floor to ceiling. Only the side facing
the woman is open. There's a drain in the middle and a shower head
straight down from the ceiling.

“I'm going to get you wet first,” is all the woman
says to me before she blasts me with cold water. I clench my
fingers and arms together, and I shiver all over. I swear I'll get
hypothermia if it doesn't end soon.

Then the water stops, and her monotone voice resumes.
“The soap will come out of the shower head. There's a brush right
there on that ledge. Scrub off until I say you're done. You'll want
to close your eyes.”

I find the brush and rub it across my palm. The
bristles are coarse and unforgiving. Then the woman presses a
button next to her, and yellow soap comes out of the shower head. I
close my eyes. As soon as it hits my head, I cringe. My skin feels
like it's on fire. I start scrubbing, hoping the faster I do this,
the faster she'll press the button and use that awful cold water to
get the soap off of me. I feel like I'm scrubbing off layers of
skin, and I'm clenching my fingers so the thread won't slip from
them and be washed away. Maybe the soap will dissolve me and I'll
slip down the drain, and I can't help but wonder if that would be a
better fate than what awaits me here.

Then the soap stops, the water hits me, and I gasp.
My skin stings the way a cut stings when first dipped in water, but
instead of a small paper cut, the water bites into my flesh all
over. I look down, and my skin is bright pink, like the sunburn I
got before I left the colony. I suspect these people won't offer me
aloe to soothe the pain. But the thread is still between my
fingers, and I think of Jack—of the way he held me as we waited for
the soldiers to leave, the way he watched me every night as I fell
asleep, the way he'd find little ways to touch me but would never
tell me how he really felt—and I grit my teeth.

The roar of water fades to a trickle down the drain,
and I don't know how many times the woman tells me to move on
before I finally register that she's speaking to me. I look up and
the door is open. I shiver and step through.

I enter a medical exam room. I stop on the rug by the
threshold—thankful for the relief from cold tile—and wait. No one
is here. There are two doors across from me, but neither are
marked. One of them swings open, and a man in his twenties steps
through. He wears a white lab coat and carries a digital notepad.
He smiles at me. He's the first one here who's acknowledged me in
any way as a person. I can't help smiling back.

“There's a towel there by the door.” He nods to a
hook on the wall that holds an immaculate white towel, warm from a
dryer. I clutch it to me, wrapping it around myself, hoping the
shivers will be lost in its fluffiness.

“I'm Doctor Benedict.” He extends a hand, but I stare
at him. He wants me to touch him? Shake his hand? Like we're
business partners or equals?

I raise an eyebrow and step backward. He lowers his
hand.

“I understand the mistrust. And I'm sorry about it.
Please sit down.” He motions to the table lined with paper. It
crinkles as I sit on it.

“I just need to listen to your heart and lungs.” He
unwraps the stethoscope from his neck and presses it to my chest
and back. He taps a few words on his notepad.

I crack my knuckles. His calm, kind demeanor sets me
on edge. I'd be a lot more at ease if he were frosty like the other
agents I've seen.

He smiles. “Nervous?”

I shake my head. I'm terrified, but even if I could
tell him that, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

His smile broadens to reveal blindingly white teeth.
He even has a dimple on his left cheek. Is he serious? They send a
doctor with a dimple? I glance around me, waiting for the sky to
fall.

“We're not all bad. The agents have their own idea
how refugees should be handled. We don't see eye-to-eye on that
one.”

Refugees? He thinks we're fleeing to the government
because they'll offer us protection or better care than what's out
there? How naïve can Dr. Benedict be?

“You're very quiet. Why haven't you said anything
yet? Most everyone else is either crying or ranting or yelling by
now.”

I roll my eyes. Of course he'd want me to open up to
him, tell him my secrets so he can report back to his government.
Wouldn't he feel like he hit the mother lode if he knew what
secrets I could tell him about the colonies?

I open my mouth.

He frowns. “Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry.” He bends over his
table, tapping the screen.

I snap my jaw shut.

“You don't have to be embarrassed. I don't want you
to feel ashamed of any deformity.”

Is
that
what he thinks the problem is? Now I
do glare, my equivalent of ranting.

“What's your name?”

I study him, study his fingers hovering over the
notepad screen. I grab his hand. He tenses a moment and pulls back,
but I look at him insistently and he relaxes.

Aren't you going to give me a number?

He smiles sadly. “No, I want to call you by your
name.”

I watch him carefully, searching his eyes. They're
black, almost as black as my hair—or what used to be my hair. I
self-consciously run my palm over the stubble on my head. I can't
read anything in his eyes. Jack's eyes are hazel, but deep in their
colors and emotion. Dr. Benedict's are reflective, bouncing my
face back at me. I don't want to trust him, but he's the first kind
person I've come across here. Should that make me trust him even
less?

Terra.

“
I like that.”

I drop his hand.

“
Now I just need to see your arm and
get your tracker number.”

I go rigid, all of me freezing to the exam table. He
must see the panic in my eyes because his lips turn down and
several creases appear between his brows. He tugs on his ear
absently.

“
This is standard procedure, Terra.
We just need to record who comes through here, give trackers to
those who have chosen to, um, remove them. Or make sure there
aren't any phony trackers.”

My fingers curl around the edge of the table, and I
can't release them. I can't even blink.

“
It'll just take a
moment.”

He doesn't understand my paralysis. How could he?
Those who have cut out their trackers are pretty common, especially
among the nomads. But those who never had one?

Dr. Benedict steps forward slowly, as one might
approach a frightened animal. He lifts a hand, his palm up. He
looks submissive even. I watch as his fingers inch toward mine.
They brush the skin, and his hand is warm. He gently pries my
fingers from the table, and then gradually runs his fingertips up
to my wrist and turns my arm over. His eyebrows raise.

“
You've never had a
tracker?”

I feel the color drain from my face, and I shake my
head.

“
Were you born in a city,
Terra?”

I shake my head again and pull the towel closer
around me, wanting to hide from him and the other questions that
will surely follow, but he surprises me.

“
I think that's everything we need
for this exam.” He writes down a few more notes. “But you're not
quite done here. You'll need to go through that door.” He nods to
the right. “They'll inject a tracker.”

I'm to be branded. I'll never escape them now.

Dr. Benedict offers a hand to help me down, but
I ignore him and slip off the table. The tiles chill my toes, and I
walk stiffly through the door. A nurse and an agent are waiting for
me.

“
No tracker?” the agent asks. She's
middle-aged and heavy.

I shake my head.

She smiles, showing the tips of white teeth that
look unnaturally sharp. She looks like a bulldog. “You all think
you're so clever cutting them out. It's ridiculous, actually. The
trackers are our most accurate way of ensuring everyone gets the
supplies they need, of measuring our population so we know how many
we can sustain. And yet some of you insist on cutting them out.
Hold out your arm.”

My hand trembles as I raise my right arm.

The agent sucks in a breath between clenched teeth.
“You didn't cut yours out, did you?”

I shake my head.

“
I don't know how you avoided it in
the past, but you're getting a tracker now. You won't be
interrogated today—we have too many workers to process—but there
will be more questions later on, I can promise you that.” She
sniffs at me, and her bulldog smile returns. “And you won't like
it.”

The agent motions to a metal chair and I sit. The
nurse sets a small silver tray on the table next to me. A syringe
with a thick needle rolls side-to-side. Inside I see the small
cylinder. It has a blue light on one end. The nurse pulls on latex
gloves and then rips open the foil package of an alcohol swab.