Untitled Agenda 21 Sequel (9781476746852) (4 page)

John stared at the water, watching it ripple, bits and pieces of leaves and twigs floating past them. “Strange, isn't it,” he said after a moment. “They had total control over us for so long. And we let them.”

“You're right. But why talk about that now?” Joan said. She looked
around at the wilderness surrounding them, the trees that towered over them, and the deep shadows of the forest. “What difference does it make?”

“None, I guess. Time to get moving again.”

“How far do you plan on us going?” Joan asked. She stood and brushed leaves off her uniform.

John thought for a moment. “We've already walked maybe eight to ten miles. The further upstream we go, the farther downstream David can go. We'll keep dropping clues.” He took the shed key from his pocket and pushed it deep into the underbelly of a rotten log. Then he took her hand, and squeezed it briefly, his large hand wrapped around her smaller one.

“Then what?”

“Pray that Earth Protectors will follow us. Pray that Emmeline and David have time to find a safe hiding place downstream. Pray.”

A fish splashed in the stream, a silvery image that disappeared under the water. John broke off another branch, dropped another small bit of paper. They walked on.

“And if the Earth Protectors do follow us, then what?” Joan asked.

“Then we'll do what we have to do.” John's voice was firm. “Whatever it takes, by whatever means necessary.”

They walked until dusk without stopping. After sharing one of the nourishment bottles from the bucket, Joan fell asleep on a mossy patch of ground. John stayed awake listening to the sound of the stream alongside them, the scurrying of animals in the underbrush, and Joan's rhythmic breathing. In the distance, animals howled long, mournful crescendos that cut through the night like knives. Pinpoint lights appeared, white against the dark sky. The full moon looked swollen, as though it could burst and pour its soul out onto the Earth.

This was no longer a false freedom. It was now a real but fragile one. John lay on his back staring at the tree branches above him and the faraway heavens beyond.

E
lsa's soft whimpers woke me. How long had I slept? It was still daylight, not yet time to move on. David was awake and looked flushed, his face and forehead red and damp with sweat. Using his left hand, David pulled a bottle from the diaper bundle and handed it to me. Elsa quit crying and sucked on it eagerly, her eyes fixed intently on my face. The boy woke up and whispered something to David.

“Okay. Bring your clothes.” David, cradling his arm, let the boy push aside the low branches of our hiding place. Together they went behind some tall, thick-trunked trees. There was no washing-up area here and no nourishment cubes. The only supplies we had were a few bottles and diapers. What were we going to do? What was I thinking? David was already injured; what if he got worse? What if they found us? What if? What if?

A tear slid down my face but I quickly brushed it away. I had to be strong for Elsa. She took the bottle out of her mouth and squirmed, pushing herself into a sitting position.

“Hello, little teapot,” I said and she smiled, little bubbles of milk shining silvery on her tongue. I kissed her forehead.

David and the boy came out of the shadows of the forest carrying something rough and brown in their hands.

“Tell her,” David whispered to the boy. “What I taught you. Our nature lesson.”

“It's moss,” the boy spoke quietly but proudly in my ear. “For her diaper.”

David nodded. “Sphagnum moss. I'll show you how to use it.”

I pulled a clean diaper out of our bag of supplies and David laid a handful of moss on it. I unfastened Elsa's wet diaper and laid her on this strange-looking grass. She squealed with pleasure and kicked her pink legs, her small perfect feet, in the air.

“How did you know about this?”

“I was a Boy Scout, once upon a time. Help me with my arm.”

I tried to prop Elsa beside the boy on the soft carpet under the tree, but she leaned away from him. She didn't want to be propped. She wanted to sit alone.

David rolled up his sleeve. The skin along the gash was red, angry-looking, and so swollen that it looked shiny and tight. Some yellow fluid seeped along the edge.

“Lay moss on it,” he whispered, “and tie my shirt around my arm.”

His skin felt hot. I tried my best to get the moss to stay in place while I wrapped his shirt around and around his arm, tying it tightly in place with the sleeves. He moved his arm a little, testing it, and the shirt stayed in place without slipping.

Tired of sitting in a cramped position, I slipped through the low branches and walked behind a cluster of trees. There, alone in all this greenness, I knew what Father meant when he talked about the smell of growing things and how much he missed his farm. I could smell the moist dirt and the small flowers growing nearby. They were flat, round, and yellow with dark green leaves. I took a deep breath, pulling that sweet smell into me. On an impulse, I picked off one of the green leaves and chewed on it. A little bitter, but still, it tasted good.

A bird, brown with a red breast, landed on a branch near me, balancing on two spindly yellow legs. I moved slightly and the bird flew away. A single tail feather drifted down. I picked it up and studied it. I saw how the strands of the feather fit together, and felt the firmness of the thin central spine. I ran my finger along the edge; the strands moved together as I moved my finger, and returned to their original shape when I took my finger away. Amazing! I picked a few flowers, some of the green leaves, and took them, along with the feather, back to our hiding place under the pine tree.

The boy examined the feather eagerly, just as I had, smelling it and touching it. He did the same with the flowers, pushing his nose deep into the petals until the tip of his pert little nose was caked in yellow flower dust. He smiled and hugged me.

We sat quietly, waiting for dusk so we could move on. Flies buzzed about and butterflies flitted here and there in the sun. The boy reached an arm out through the branches, trying to catch one, but it looped away from him. He sat back down beside me with a frown.

“I wanted that,” he said.

“Why?”

“So I could sit on it and fly away.”

“Fly away to where?”

“I don't know. Someplace safe.” His voice had a soft, pensive tone.

I pictured him like the Little Prince from my mother's stories, flying to different lands, searching. The Little Prince didn't have a name. And we didn't know the name of this boy.

“You don't need a butterfly. We'll keep you safe. My name is Emmeline. This is David and this is Elsa.” I bounced Elsa up and down and she giggled. “What's your name?”

“My name is Micah, but mostly the Caretakers just called me ‘stupid.' ”

They called
this
child stupid? No wonder the children didn't thrive. “Did you say Michael? Is your name Michael?”

He smiled, a crooked, lopsided little grin, and I noticed a dimple on his right cheek just like mine. “Micah. Not Michael.”

“Shh,” David whispered, his head cocked to the side. Then I heard what he heard. It was the deep gravelly voices of men, two of them, it seemed. Their voices carried all the way to the pine tree.

“They must have crossed the stream,” the first voice said. “No telling where they are. Let's report back. There will be hell to pay.”

“For sure,” said voice number two. “But for who? Hell for them escaping or hell for us if we don't catch them?”

There was a pause.

“Do you think they're all together? His parents and his partner and the two kids?”

“No way of knowing. Think we'll be in trouble for not finding any of them?”

“Hell, they can't blame us.” It was the first voice again. “We're not trained for the Human Free Zone. That's the Earth Protectors' job. This isn't in my job description.”

“Just saying they can't blame us doesn't mean they won't. You know that. Bet they've already requisitioned Earth Protectors from the agency.”

David stared at me, eyes wide and mouth open. I wanted to reach out and touch his face, but I was frozen, couldn't move.

“They'll find them all soon enough.”

“At least one of them is hurt—given the blood we saw back there on a rock.”

“That'll slow them down. We'll report that. Maybe hell is already being paid.” One of them laughed.

David turned white, his lips pinched together in a thin, straight line. He didn't look at me.

“Authorities will use them as examples. Punish them. Let everyone see . . .”

“Recycling is too good for them. Too easy, too fast. They need to suffer first.”

They were walking away from us, their voices fading away. But I could still hear their shoes on the leaves, a faint crunching sound. We sat motionless for what seemed like an eternity. A tiny black ant walked up my arm. I made no effort to brush it away. Finally, the only sounds were those of running water, the wilderness around us, and our own pounding hearts and shallow breathing.

“My parents! They got out. They must be searching for us. Do you think they'll find us?” David looked at me as though he expected me to know the answer.

“I hope so. I hope they're safe. I hope we find each other.”

Hope
. Such a tiny word with such outsized meaning.

I shuddered thinking of the fire, the chaos, and the gunshots. I held Elsa closer to me; Micah moved closer to David. David wrapped his arm around Micah's shoulders, tilting the frail child close to his own strong chest, and bent his head down, his dark hair near the blondness of Micah's. The brief moment of joy with the flowers and the feather had been crushed under the sounds of those footsteps, those voices.

I knew those men were our enemies, but they, like everyone else in the Republic, were nothing more than servants. Rule followers. They were cruel, but they didn't know any better.

But I did. I had a choice and I made it. I knew then and there that, no matter what happened, I would never go back.

Never.

J
ohn finally drifted off propped up against a tree, his two layers of clothing isolating him from the roughness of the bark. He had one gun in his hand, the other one firmly tucked into his waistband.

Joan woke him at dawn with a gentle shake, and then sat beside him. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. She fit so well in the curve of his arm, her shoulder tucked against his chest. His neck felt stiff and sore. They sat silently, watching the sun rise slowly over the treetops. Some birds, brown, blue, and red, flitted from branch to branch. Others hopped along the ground, dipping their heads for insects among the leaves. Large dappled birds, their wings wide with graceful, smooth outlines ending in a fringe of feathers at the tips, circled overhead, calling out in lonely, mournful whistles.

“What do we do now?” Joan asked.

“First we get some water from the stream,” John answered. “Then we decide whether to keep moving or wait. If the Earth Protectors are following us, maybe we could ambush them. That would be ideal.”

John stood and stretched. His back ached. “I'll be right back. I want to check out this area, see if anybody has been here.” He slipped deeper
into the woods. How strange he felt to be walking in a forbidden area, walking where the Authorities ruled that human beings had no right to be.

The leaves, brown and paper-thin, crunched under his feet, stuck to his shoes. Could anybody hear him? He stepped carefully around fallen logs, brushed hanging cobwebs from his face, and constantly scanned his surroundings. There was no sign that anyone had ever been here.

Even in the deep shade of the woods, he was beginning to get hot from his two layers of clothing. He slipped off the Enforcer's uniform and laid the two guns on the ground.
Should have left one with Joan
, he thought. He went through the pockets of the Enforcer's clothing and found a silver-colored whistle tied to a strong strip of leather and six bullets, along with bits of lint. After laying everything on the ground, he took off his bright orange Transport uniform. The smell of leather harness straps still clung to the stained fabric.

The beginning of a high-pitched scream echoed around him then stopped abruptly. Joan! Stripped down to his underwear, he grabbed all of his clothes and ran shoeless to her. The stones and twigs on the forest floor were sharp against his feet. The clothes in his arms dangled down and slapped against his thighs. He gripped the guns, one in each hand, both cocked and ready.

He found her standing white-faced, her back against a tree. Dropping everything but the guns, he ran to her.

“What happened?” he asked.

She pointed, wordlessly, toward a pile of leaves near a log. He couldn't see anything.

“What?” he said. “I don't see anything.”

“A snake. There was a snake. I think it went in there.” She was still pointing, her finger shaking. “I started to scream but then was afraid someone would hear me.”

“What color was it?”

“Black. Black and long.”

Relieved, he put the safety lock on the guns, picked up the Enforcer's uniform, and started dressing. “A black snake? Don't you remember from the farm? Black snakes are harmless. They eat rodents.” He reached down and tucked one gun back into his pocket. “I'm surprised you've forgotten.”

“A black snake. Of course. I should have remembered. I just feel so disoriented and afraid. I'm sorry. I hate feeling like that.” She took a deep breath. “It's so different out here. I'm going to have to get used to it.”

John looked around at the trees and the stream. No fences. “Well, I admit it's different than how we've lived for the past eighteen years. But you're the strongest, smartest woman I know.” He pulled her close to him, put his finger under her chin, tilted her face up, and kissed her. “We're in this together. We need to stay strong. Both of us.”