The Other Side of Nowhere (8 page)

The man pushed open the door with his arm and leg, holding it there and waiting. “Right through here you go,” he said.

Terry entered, reluctantly, and the door closed quickly behind him.

The building, full of the same metal and shades of brown and gray that held together the rest of the city, rose higher than any other building Terry had ever been in. Around the room, perched walkways circled the walls, cluttered with doors and hallways that branched off into unknown regions. Along the walkways, dozens of people walked back and forth as busily as they had in the train station. More importantly, Terry quickly realized, most of them were men.

For so long, the only men he had seen were the maintenance workers who came and went or the occasional teacher who visited the children when they were nearing their birthdays. It was so rare to see any men at all, especially in such great numbers.
Maybe they’re all teachers
, he thought. They weren’t dressed like the workers: white coats and some with brown jackets—thick jackets with laced boots and bodies as stiff as the walls. Maybe that was what teachers wore. How could he know? He had never met one besides Mr. Huxley, and that was months ago.

“Well, don’t just stand there, gawking,” said a voice from the other end of the room. It was another man, dressed the same as the others. “Go on in through here.” He pointed to another door, smaller than the one Terry had entered from. “Everyone today gets to meet the colonel. Go on now. Hurry up. You don’t want to keep him waiting.”

Terry did as the man said and stepped through the doorway, his footsteps clanking against the hard metal floor, echoing through what sounded like the entire building.

“Well, come in, why don’t you?” came a voice from inside.

Terry stepped cautiously into the room, which was much nicer than the entranceway. It was clean, at least compared to some of the other places Terry had been, including his own home. The walls held several shelves, none of which lacked for any company of things; various ornaments caught Terry’s eye, like the little see-through globe on the shelf nearest to the door, which held a picture of a woman’s face inside, although some of it was faded and hard to make out. There was also a crack in it. What purpose could such a thing have? Terry couldn’t begin to guess. Next to it lay a frame with a small, round piece of metal inside of it. An inscription below the glass read, “U.S. Silver Dollar, circa 2064.” Terry could easily read the words, but he didn’t understand them. What was this thing? And why was it so important that it needed to be placed on a shelf for everyone to look at?

“I said come in,” said Bishop abruptly. He sat at the far end of the room behind a large brown desk. Terry had forgotten he was even there. “I didn’t mean for you to stop at the door. Come over here.”

Terry hurried closer, stopping a few feet in front of the desk.

“I’m Colonel Bishop. You must be Terrance,” said the man. “I’ve been wondering when you were going to show up.” He wore a pair of thin glasses and had one of the larger pads in his hand. “Already seven. Imagine that.”

“Yes, sir,” Terry said, remembering the doorman’s words.

The colonel was a stout man, a little wider than the others. He was older, too, Terry guessed. He may have been tall, but it was difficult to tell without seeing his whole body. “I expect you’re hoping to begin your classes now,” said Bishop.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“You say that, but you don’t really know what you’re saying yes to, do you?”

The question seemed more like a statement, so Terry didn’t answer. He only stood there. Who was this man? Is this how school was supposed to be?

“Terrance, let me ask you something,” said the colonel, taking a moment. “Did your mother tell you anything about this program you’re going into?”

Terry thought about the question for a moment. “Um, she said you come to school on your birthday,” he said. “And that it’s just like it is at home, except there’s more kids like me.”

Colonel Bishop blinked. “That’s right, I suppose. What else did she say?”

“That when it was over, I get to go back home,” he said.

“And when did she say that was?”

Terry didn’t answer.

Colonel Bishop cocked an eyebrow. “Well? Didn’t she say?”

“No, sir,” muttered Terry.

The man behind the desk started chuckling. “So you don’t know how long you’re here for?”

“No, sir.”

Colonel Bishop set the pad in his hand down. “Son, you’re here for the next ten years.”

A sudden rush swelled up in Terry’s chest and face. What was Bishop talking about? Of course Terry was going home. He couldn’t stay here. “But I promised my sister I’d be home today,” he said. “I have to go back.”

“Too bad,” said the colonel. “Your Mother really did you a disservice by not telling you. But don’t worry. We just have to get you started.” He tapped the pad on his desk, and the door opened. A cluster of footsteps filled the hall before two large men appeared, each wearing the same brown coats as the rest. “Well, that was fast,” he said.

One of the men saluted. “Yes, sir. No crying with the last one. Took her right to her room without incident.”

Terry wanted to ask who
the last one
was, and why it should be a good thing that she didn’t cry. Did other kids cry when they came to this school? What kind of place
was
this?

“Well, hopefully Terrence here will do the same,” said Bishop. He looked at Terry. “Right? You’re not going to give us any trouble, are you?”

Terry didn’t know what to do or what to say. All he could think about was getting far away from here. He didn’t want to go with the men. He didn’t want to behave. All he wanted to do was go home.

But he couldn’t, not anymore. He was here in this place with nowhere to go. No way out. He wanted to scream, to yell at the man behind the desk and his two friends, and tell them about how stupid it was for them to do what they were doing.

He opened his mouth to explain, to scream as loud as he could that he wouldn’t go. But in that moment, the memory of the doorman came back to him, and instead of yelling, he repeated the words he’d been told before. “No, sir,” he said softly.

Bishop smiled, nodding at the two men in the doorway. “Exactly what I like to hear.”

*******

April 14, 2339

The Academy, Central

“Stick out your arm,” said the nurse.

The needle pierced Terry’s skin, and he flinched. The nurse filled a small vial of his blood. “What’s it for?” he asked.

“Tests,” the nurse said, detaching the vial and replacing it with another. Once it was full, she handed the vials to a young man. “Mark, hurry and label these. Put them with the rest.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Mark. He picked up the vials, and disappeared into the back room.

“What kind of tests?” Terry asked.

“Easy, honey,” she said. “We do it for every new student.”

“But why?” he asked.

“Because we just
do
,” the nurse said plainly. “Now why don’t you go tell the boys in the hall that you’re ready, okay? We’re all done here.”

Terry nodded and went to the door. He opened it to find the same two men who brought him here still standing in silence. Had they been waiting for him this entire time?

“Finished?” one of them asked.

“I think so,” Terry said.

When it was time for sleep, they led him to a room with two beds. “This is your room,” one of the men said.

“When can I go home?” Terry asked.

But there was no answer, only a closed door. They had left him alone. All alone for the first time since he awoke that morning and saw his sister and—

Janice. She must be so confused right now, wondering where he was, why he never came home.
She’ll cry
, he thought.
Cry and plead with Mother until she falls asleep or passes out because that’s how she is. She’s so little, and now she’s alone. Sure, she’s got Mother, but when was that ever enough?

Suddenly there was a loud flushing sound. It came from the other side of the room, behind a wall with an open door where a light shone. Terry walked to the door, staring at the knob, waiting. After a moment, the knob turned and another boy stepped through.

He was taller than Terry, his chin a little thicker. He had short black hair and looked as surprised as Terry to find another person on the other side of the door. “Uh, hi,” he muttered. “What are you doing in my room?”

Terry looked around at the two beds. He felt like an idiot for not seeing them both before. One had a bag at the end of it, with the sheets and blanket already laid out. Of course somebody was already there. How could he not have noticed? “They told me this was my room.”

“Oh, I thought it was all for me.”

“Sorry,” said Terry.

“That’s okay,” said the boy as he walked to the side of his bed and sat. “To be honest, I was getting kind of bored. All the other kids got roommates, but they stuck me in here all by myself with nothing to do.”

“What other kids?” asked Terry.

“You know, the other students. Didn’t you see them?”

Terry sat on his bed directly across the room from John’s. “No, you’re the first kid I’ve seen all day.”

“Really?” asked John. “There’s about twenty of us, I think. Most got here early this morning. You’re kinda late.”

“Am I the last one?” asked Terry. He didn’t like being late.

“Dunno,” said the boy, shrugging. “They stuck me in here hours ago, and sent the rest to their own rooms. Anyway, I’m John.”

“I’m Terry,” he said. “How long do we have to stay here? They told me it was ten years. Is it for real?”

John nodded. “Until you’re seventeen.”

Terry stared at the floor.

“How long did you think it was?”

“I thought I’d be back by the end of the day.”

John didn’t say anything.

“Why didn’t my mother tell me?”

“Maybe she didn’t want to,” John said.

Terry gripped the edge of his bed with his hand, squeezing it. “Well, she should’ve said something. Now my sister thinks I’m coming back, and I’m not. She’s going to think I left her alone.”

“You have a sister?”

“Yeah,” nodded Terry. “Janice. She’s four.”

“I never had a sister,” said John. “Just an older brother. He graduated from the academy last year. When he came home, I got to meet him for the first time, and he told me all about this place.”

“You’re lucky,” muttered Terry.

“Lucky?”

“Yeah, you knew before you got here.”

“I guess,” said John, his voice a little softer. “But I only got to know my brother for a year. I won’t see him again until I’m seventeen. You got to spend four whole years with your sister. That’s lucky.”

“Sorry,” said Terry. Of course John didn’t think he was lucky. He was probably hurting as much as Terry.

“It’s okay,” said John. “And happy birthday, by the way.”

“Thanks,” said Terry. “Is it yours today, too?”

“Sure is. Me, you, and everyone else in our class.”

“Really?” asked Terry. “Seems like a lot of birthdays.”

John paused for a moment. “Actually, yeah, it kind of is.”

“What do you mean?”

“My brother told me before I got here everyone starts school on their birthday. But he also said when you get here, your class is already going on, because different kids are born at different times. The classes are based on what time of the year you’re born in.”

“So?”

“So if all of us have birthdays today, isn’t it kind of weird?”

Terry shrugged. “All my mother said about birthdays was you went to school on them.”

“It’s weird, though,” insisted John. “My brother said kids get here at different times, not all at once. It doesn’t make any sense if we’re all on the same day, does it?”

Terry thought about this for a moment. “Maybe a lot of mothers just had babies all at the same time. Maybe our class is smaller than the other ones.”

“So many maybes.”

Terry sighed and leaned back against the wall. His feet dangled off the side of the bed. “What happens tomorrow?”

“Orientation,” John said. “And we start our classes. That’s what they told me earlier.”

“Nobody told me anything,” said Terry.

“Probably because you were late,” said John. “When we got here, they lined us all up and explained it. Tomorrow’s orientation, then our first class.”

“Anything else?” asked Terry.

“Dinner,” said John, pointing to a clock next to his bed. “Ten more minutes until we eat.”

Chapter 2

Documents of Historical, Scientific, and Cultural Significance

Play Audio File 109

Subtitled: Re: Cheer Up

To: SE_Pepper

Recorded February 20, 2174

CARTWRIGHT
: I wish I shared your optimism, Sasha. I really do. But the sad truth of the matter is that there is no going back. We’ve spent the last two decades trying to figure out a way to fix what’s happened, to pull ourselves out of this tomb, but we still have nothing to show for it.

We need to accept our fate. We’re never leaving this city. It’s been decades since the gas came, but nothing’s changed. There’s still no word from the outside, no responses to the hundreds of transmissions I’ve sent out into the void. The six hundred surviving humans in this cave of a city are all that’s left. No one else is out there. No one here is leaving. As far as our species goes, this is it. We’re at the end of the line. The planet’s dead and rotting, and the rest of us are waiting in the grave.

End Audio File

April 14, 2339

Central

Mara boarded the platform and waited for the train to arrive. Now that Terrance had been dropped off, it was on to the mothers’ lounge. A few minutes on the A line and she’d be there.
Can’t be fast enough
, she thought.

Metal clanked against the rails, echoing through the station, followed by a veil of dust that seemed to cover everything. It was coming from a set of vents nestled high above the train line. A group of contractors dangled nearby like puppets on strings, shouting and laughing as they worked. One of them kept hitting the side of the vent with his wrench, scattering wave after wave of dust with each loud smack.

Everyone called it the purifying season, though it was hardly a season at all—more like a month of air purification coupled with manual routine maintenance on several of the major systems. The whole process used to only take a week or two, but thanks to recent problems in other parts of the city, including an ongoing quarantine over in the slums, the contractors were spread pretty thin.

Still, the purifying season had its silver lining. Most of the mothers rarely had a chance to meet any men, especially when it came to the contractors and soldiers, who spent the bulk of their time in Central. But with the annual repairs came potential contracts. The season didn’t last very long, so if a mother didn’t pick a sponsor now, it meant she’d have to file for one later through the official channels, and nobody wanted to do that. It might take anywhere from three to six months, all with the possibility of a rejection letter. If a mother met a sponsor in person, it became much easier to persuade him to sign his seed away.

If a mother got lucky enough to land one of the level-9 contractors, a high ranking soldier, or (God-willing) a council member, it could change everything. A contract like that meant prestige and higher living, but more importantly, it meant a seed with a future, not just some other worker in the factories.

Mara always had a knack for the job, picking and choosing the right sponsor for the best contract. All of her children came from the highest quality donors—officers, scientists, and even a council member or two—something many of the other, more inexperienced mothers aspired toward.

But then, everyone had always called her special.

When she was still new to motherhood, the doctors told her about a new birthing standard called
Archer’s Genetic Profile
. The AGP worked like a points system, ranking genetic traits and compiling them into an overall score. This score not only determined the candidate’s eligibility to become a mother, but also how many children they were allowed to produce. Depending on a woman’s genes, the AGP could give them everything—decent pay and housing, access to Central, and above all, respect. The system functioned solely to keep humanity alive, and the mothers were its lifeblood. They were the only ones allowed to reproduce—a harsh but necessary rule, given the need for genetic diversity.

Mara became a mother when she was fifteen. She still remembered her first time with a sponsor, before she had a grasp on the fundamentals—the expressions of sex and the grinding rhythm of warmth and flesh. The instructors simply told her to lie there because the veteran sponsor would know exactly how it needed to be done. It was his job, after all.

She remembered pain, forceful and unpleasant—nothing like it is now. And there were people watching—scientists with clipboards who claimed it was for the betterment of mankind, rather than what she suspected all along: they wanted a show to re-imagine later when the lights went out.

But now she and the world were both a bit older, and the circumstances had changed for each of them. That scared little girl on the table had since vanished, replaced by someone else—a veteran mother who raised twelve children.

Most of Mara’s boys had gone on to be contractors, while a few others were selected for the medical field. After graduating the academy, the boys underwent an additional four years of schooling, covering anything from engineering, medicine, agriculture, military science, and construction. Afterwards, they were placed into positions that reflected their personal abilities and aptitudes. Each of Mara’s males had displayed impressive results. Her daughters, on the other hand, had all become mothers—the cost of having such wonderful genes.

There was never a choice, not for any of them. Nothing in this world revolved around choice. If the government said a boy would be a contractor, that was the way it went. If the administration wanted a girl to be a mother, she became one. There was no getting around it.

The train arrived, clearing the tunnel of dust as it sent gusts of wind through the platform. Mara climbed aboard, taking a seat near the back. Her apartment would be so empty now that her son was gone.
Gone forever,
she thought.
I doubt I’ll ever see him again
. She scoffed at her own arrogance.
Why would he even want to see me? I’m horrible.

But maybe it was all for the best. The program was in full effect now, and the children had to do their part.

It had only been eight years since she learned about a new initiative, a different approach to the way people looked at the world. “The city’s falling part, but it doesn’t have to be this way,” Colonel Bishop, then a major, had told her. “We can save our children from all of this. We can make a better world. We just need mothers like you.” At first she embraced the idea. Save the human race—what better calling could a mother have?

But that was then, back before they started using her womb as a glorified incubator for their experiments. Back before the seven stillborn infants they pulled from her body.

And then Terrence. Yes, he was the lucky one, the one who somehow managed to pull through and live. But Mara knew the cost of that—the price her son would pay when he eventually came of age. When he inevitably died, his fate would be the same as the billions who came before—victims of the gas…of Variant.

Mara had so many regrets, but helping Bishop had to be the worst. Despite all the seductive words and promises, all they’d really wanted was a human incubator—something to practice on until they got the formula right. She had gone along with it, believing in the possibility of saving humanity, but after witnessing Variant’s wrath firsthand, such a prospect seemed impossible. After all, being born was one thing. Surviving direct exposure to the most toxic gas on the planet was something else entirely. Could little Terrance actually live through that? Or would he perish like all the rest?

She trembled at the thought.

Mara was forty-two years old, an age when most mothers began to think about their retirement—sneak away from the maternity district to find another, less restricted section of the city where it didn’t matter who a person bedded, whether they matched a certain genetic profile or not, because everyone went there for a reason, and no one wanted to talk about the
why
.

Maybe that was what she would do someday, when the fineness of her skin had dried itself to lines, and her hair grew thin and lost the shape of youth. Maybe in that distant moment, she could tell stories of a life that wasn’t hers, and the people there would listen and believe it. She’d tell them of a girl who never was a mother, never drowned herself in thoughts of dying boys becoming men.

*******

As usual, the accounts clerk was taking an extended amount of time trying to do what should have taken no time at all, but thanks to the naturally unbiased standardized tests that determined a person’s lot in life, the little fool was stationed at this desk on this day, most likely by the council—at the suggestion of Colonel Bishop, no doubt—to do nothing other than annoy and pester anyone and everyone who walked through the door, namely Mara.

She sighed inwardly as the lanky, bookish man-child swiped desperately on his pad. “How long is this going to take, Mr…?”

“Rolstien, ma’am,” he said, almost hesitantly. “I’ve got your documents right here. Miss Echols, right?”

“Yes, that’s me,” she said, pressing the “Accept” button on her pad. The files loaded instantly.

“Sorry about the wait, Miss Echols,” said the boy.

Obviously new
, she thought.
He’s probably fresh out of training, maybe even still enrolled. He’ll probably get replaced in a few days
. After all, she never encountered the same clerk more than a few times. They eventually got transferred, one after the other. On to bigger and better desks with bigger and better paperwork.
What a dull life
, she thought. “Thank you, Mr. Rolstien, I suppose, but try to be a little faster next time, will you?”

“Y-yes ma’am,” he answered. “I’m sorry.”

She turned away, leaving the poor boy with the nagging question of whether or not he pissed off the wrong person.
Ah, to be young again.

At the end of the nearby hall lay her destination, the mother’s lounge. It usually teemed with the new inductees, an occasional veteran among them, though that wasn’t always the case. They held the meetings here—discussions and debates over which of them had developed the better method. Naturally, the youngest were the most enthusiastic, never in short supply of smiles and compliments.

Mara took a seat on one of the green chairs. There were several tables, dozens of seats, and a podium. Potted plants were scattered throughout the atrium, brought in from the botanical gardens and maintained by local volunteers—rejected applicants and retirees, mostly. But the plants made the air a little sweeter than it should have been, and most would say they enjoyed it.

The truth was that the lounge was always meant to be elegant, its seats lined with different colors—green, blue, purple, red—hardly a hint of the gray murk that infested the rest of the city. There was a reason the older mothers grew tired of this place—it reminded them of all the things they could never have, an echo of another life outside the closed off silver walls of their hidden metropolis.

The whole thing gave Mara a headache.

“Oh, Mara!” called a voice from across the room. “Happy Mother’s Day! I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

“Hello, Rayne.”

“Bring your documents?” She said as she scurried over.

“Of course.” Mara pushed the pad across the table. “This isn’t my first time, you know.”

“Oh, come on.” She snorted. “You know I’m only teasing.” She took the pad and sorted through its files, her eyes widening a bit as she found the right one. “So…this is him?” She showed the picture to Mara, revealing a smiling young boy with dirty blond hair and green eyes. Short for his age. Quick to learn. Quiet. Her son. “He looks quite handsome, Mara. Oh, you always make the prettiest babies!”

“His name is Terrance,” she said.

“Terrance? That’s a nice name. Was he a good boy? I’m sure he was! Oh, but you’ve still got the girl, too, right? Has she been asking about him? Seems like she would be. Oh, it’s always so hard on them when they’re separated, but that’s the way it works, right? Give them attachments when they’re young so they develop into perfect law-abiding citizens.”

“Was there something you needed, Rayne? I have a bit of a headache right now and—”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Did you hear about the quarantine? I can’t believe all those poor people died! Honestly, you’d think the contractors could do a better job insulating the city, but I suppose mistakes happen when you’re way out in the slums like that. Imagine living that far from Central. It’s no wonder the maintenance crews barely make it out there.”

“If you say so,” said Mara.

“Anyway, I need to get to my table. Just wanted to swing by and say hello to my old friend.” She giggled and slid the pad back to Mara. “Can you believe it’s already been seven years? Just think, both our boys are finally together, going to school. Isn’t it wonderful? Oh, but I’ll leave you to it. Feel better, okay? And let’s get together sometime soon. It’s been so
long
.”

She left smiling, heading back to her table. Poor, annoying Rayne. The woman was always so happy—so full of that tiring, high-pitched banter that never seemed to end. She and Mara had been close once, a long time ago before the program.