Rebels Read online

  This second area was all machines with two guys who stood around watching and making sure nothing went wrong. First the chickens went through the scalding tank, where the birds were submerged in boiling “water,” which was brown and filled with what looked like feces and floating feather shards. Akers said this scalded the skin and loosened feathers for plucking. Then it was on to new sections of the machine. Whirring rubber fingers ripped out feathers as the carcasses filed past, one part of the machine lopped off heads, another cut out their guts.

  It was mad wild and gross at the same time.

  When the tour was over, Akers took Omar out to the yards, which was a group of four barns filled with chickens. The stench horrified him, and he instantly wretched. He pinched his nose and breathed through his mouth, trying to calm his stomach.

  “Walls, you’re a weakling,” Akers said. “Here. Put this on.” He handed Omar a little U of plastic. “It’s a nose clip.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Slides right on.”

  Omar slid the U over his nose and the stench diminished. Much better.

  In the first barn, trucks dropped off crates of baby chicks that were dumped into the yard to fend for themselves. The floor of each barn was a grid of steel squares that feces could fall through. Still, filth was everywhere. The barns had chickens of different ages. And each day Omar would have to wade through the chickens and choose which ones were big enough to be killed. Those he would gather and shut up in new crates that, when they were full, he’d set on the conveyor belt that carried them into the slaughterhouse.

  Akers gave Omar a pair of thick boots and told him to put them on. Once he did, Akers led him out into the yard of Barn 2.

  “Your job is to walk the pen and look for trouble. Pull out injured chickens or dead ones. Injured ones, if they’re big enough, go in a crate for slaughter. Dead ones or ones that are too small go in the incinerator.”

  Omar followed Akers around the yard as the man showed him what to look for in regards to injury. “If you aren’t sure, just ask one of the others. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  “Why are their beaks cut off? And their toes?”

  “To keep them from being able to hurt each other. Stressed-out birds have a short fuse and like to fight. This way, they can’t do much damage to each other.”

  “Do we ever clean out the yard?”

  “No point. The chickens are always being rotated in or out, so the yards are never totally empty. Plus most of it falls through the grid and gets washed out from below. It’s really not that bad.”

  Oh, yes it was. Omar compared the life of the chickens they’d had in Glenrock to these. Back home, the chickens had lived in neat pens and could walk in the grass and sleep in little beds where they laid eggs. Here . . . there were no beds at all.

  Akers left Omar to his new task. For hours, Omar kept his distance from the other men, not wanting to talk to anyone today. Though what if one of the men had a PV and would share a puff? Omar’s bones were aching, and he felt cold despite how warm it was in the barnyard.

  He walked around the yard “looking for trouble” of the chicken kind, until a whistle blew and the other men started for the exit. Must be end of the shift for the day. Omar followed them, watching as they clocked out at a SimPad at the end of the barn. Omar did the same and walked outside. He left the nose clip on and followed the men, not certain how he had gotten to this task or exactly where he was supposed to go next.

  The men walked farther away from the buildings on the perimeter, though. And soon Omar saw the bright lights of a city. He removed the nose clip, and his temples throbbed. He could smell food. There would be clubs there too, he was almost certain. He thought back to what that liberator had said. Ten credits a day? He needed food, but it wasn’t what he wanted. And he had a curfew of ten o’ clock, meaning he was free until then. Free to find some clubs and make friends. Friends who might get him some juice.

  But at the clubs he walked inside, he got thrown out for wearing the orange jumpsuit. “No strikers,” both had said.

  And apparently Omar was a striker. So how did strikers score juice? Should he use his ten credits on a beer? He wanted something, but a beer would only make him crave more.

  He eventually bought a slice of pizza, which was the cheapest and biggest food he could find. He devoured it, then rejoined the flow of orange-clad bodies and stumbled to his new home. He hurt so badly, he hardly remembered most of the walk. He passed by the men’s bunkhouse and entered the strikers’ residence, and wondered briefly what the difference between the two was.

  When he staggered into his room, he found that he wasn’t the first to arrive. Three of the four beds had guys on them. They were all wearing the orange jumpsuit, though one guy with dark hair had stripped his off to the waist, showing off a muscled and hairy chest. The sound of water spraying in the showers told him it was occupied as well.

  “Hay-o, newman. What’s your name?” the half-dressed guy asked.

  “Omar.” Perhaps if he made friends with his new roommates, they would tell him how he could get some stims.

  “I’m Prav,” the hairy guy said. “This is Kurwin.” He gestured to the bottom bunk across from his. “That shell over there is Jeorn, but he doesn’t talk. Lost his tongue in a fight club that got ugly. You must be above one of our beds, yeah?”

  Omar was staring at Jeorn, trying to decide if he should be afraid of the man or not. Prav looked much stronger than the mute. “Uh, I’m on five, I think.”

  “Yeah, okay. Bed five is over Kurwin.”

  Kurwin had white-blond hair that had been shaved so short that it looked like the fuzzy glow of a baby chick.

  He shook the thought off. He’d seen too many chicks today.

  “When do we get our meds?” Omar asked.

  “We go to the car wash on Friday morning,” Prav said.

  “That long from now?” Omar winced at the whiny sound of his voice.

  “What you in for, striker?” Kurwin asked.

  “You don’t have to tell us,” Prav said. “Kurwin’s a nosy shell.”

  Omar shrugged one shoulder. “I got on the task director general’s nerves. Otley’s too, but he’s dead now.”

  “Stun me, Otley’s dead?” Prav asked. “How do you know?”

  “Saw him die. Bender shot him with an Old pistol. In the head. Guess they couldn’t bring him back from that.” Mason had told Omar that Papa Eli had shot Otley with his rifle, yet the MC had managed to save him.

  “So you some kind of rebel?” Kurwin asked.

  “Some kind. Not anymore, I guess.”

  “Yeah, ain’t no rebels down here,” Prav said.

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause enforcers are always watching. And if you get liberated as a rebel, they mark you. Two or more rebels can’t be within two yards of each other for more than five minutes or their SimAlarms will go off.”

  “What’s a SimAlarm?”

  “You serious or just juiced up?” Kurwin asked.

  “The stunner in your SimTag, peer,” Prav said.

  “Oh, right. I just never heard it called a SimAlarm.”

  “Well, that’s what it is, and it hurts,” Kurwin said.

  “So what are you in for?” Omar asked Kurwin.

  “Disorderly conduct.” He cackled as if he’d made a joke.

  “Kurwin gets drunk and acts like a shell. So the bouncers in the Highlands would throw him out, then he’d try to fight them.”

  “So, basically, you’re an idiot,” Omar said.

  Prav and the mute laughed. Not Kurwin.

  “Shut your face, shell,” Kurwin said. “At least I don’t hurt people.” He gestured to Prav.

  “I only hurt people who ask for it,” Prav said.

  It would be the strong guy who was in for hurting people. “How do people ask for it?” So I can make sure I never do.

  “Prav gets credited by enforcers to bash faces,” Kurwin said.

  “We all have to earn a livi
ng down here,” Prav said. “And ten credits a week doesn’t cut it.”

  Maybe once Omar got to know Prav better, the guy would help him find a side job to make more credits.

  There were seven men in bunk 3–18, which left one bed empty. Omar showered, but since he had no clothing to change into, he had to put on the same clothes again. His new SimTag hadn’t brought back his SimArt. Omar missed it. He liked being able to put his feelings on his skin. Prav had SimArt down both arms, but whatever credits Omar made down here were going one place: in a PV.

  He awoke that night, unable to breathe. He gasped and clutched his chest, turned on his side, and wretched over the side of his bed. The vomit splatted to the floor in the darkness.

  “What the . . . ?” exclaimed Kurwin.

  “Sorry.” Omar fell back on his bed. He should get up. Clean that up before Prav found out and got angry. But all he could do was lie on his back and stare at the ceiling. His heart pounded against his chest, too fast or too slow. Too . . . something. It wasn’t right.

  He was going to die for sure this time.

  “Hey, shell. Here.” Prav’s voice.

  The familiar cool metal of a PV pressed against his cheek. His lips found it and he inhaled. He could tell right away it was grass. A high level too. Glorious grass. He let it in, let it soothe the itch, though it still wasn’t what he really needed to make him feel fully himself. It wasn’t —

  “What’s your stim?” Prav asked.

  Omar sniffled, unable to see Prav in the darkness of the room. “Brown sugar.”

  “Walls. That stuff’s ranked. What’d you task before to make that kind of credit?”

  “Enforcer.”

  “You, a force? Come on. I’m no dim.”

  “Does it really matter anymore?” Omar asked.

  “Guess not,” Prav said. “Look, I see you got two options. You can save up, and if you’re smart you’ll switch to grass before you kill yourself. Or you can do what we do.”

  “Which is?”

  “Task for Rain in our free time.”

  “Is that the enforcer you beat guys up for?”

  “Oh, no. This is different off-grid tasking. Both are special.”

  “Rain will like you, peer.” This from Kurwin, from the bed below. “You look young. That’s all she cares about.”

  “Meet us in Cibelo tomorrow night,” Prav said. “Eight o’clock. Place called Fajro. And once you calm down, get up and clean this pile of puke. It reeks.”

  “Sure thing,” Omar said, not wanting to anger his savior.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Shh, it’s okay.” Shaylinn paced in front of the couch, bouncing baby Harvey with every step. She’d come to visit and had volunteered to watch the baby so Naomi could take a nap. But little Harvey wouldn’t stop crying, and Shaylinn didn’t know what to do.

  Levi and Jordan acted like all should be well now that the children had been divided into homes and were, as they put it, safe. She didn’t mean to make light of their living in the basements; she was thankful for it. What neither man seemed to understand was that this place was scary for some of the children, many of whom had just learned that their mothers had been liberated. And then there were the Safe Lands children, who knew only pleasure and had been dismayed to find no electronic toys here.

  There was nothing to be done for any of it, though, but to pray and to comfort the grieving children and discipline the naughty ones as best they all could. Shaylinn hoped that school would be a positive distraction for the children and a constructive way to pass the day.

  Little Harvey, however . . . “Hush, baby. Your momma needs a nap.” She bounced the boy, beyond frustrated. Maybe she should put him down. Maybe he didn’t want to be held.

  “He’s not very happy, is he?”

  Shaylinn spun around, startled, though she’d recognized Ciddah’s voice. “You scared me.” And Harvey cried louder, unhappy with the sudden movement.

  “Sorry,” Ciddah said. “Want me to take him a moment? Elyot is sleeping.”

  Elyot is sleeping. Shaylinn’s cheeks flushed at the tone of her thoughts. It wasn’t Ciddah’s fault that Shaylinn was clueless with babies. “I guess you’d better, or Naomi won’t get her nap.”

  Ciddah came and lifted Harvey into her arms. “Hello, my sweet boy. Are you unhappy? I’m so sorry. Yes, I am. But your momma needs some sleep. Yes, she does.” Ciddah said all this in a gushy baby voice.

  “I hadn’t thought to talk to him,” Shaylinn said. “He wouldn’t understand me, anyway.”

  “Mason once told me that scientists of Old claimed that babies as young as six months can understand a wide vocabulary.” Even as she said it, Ciddah kept talking in that gushy voice, looking all the while at Harvey. “He said that speaking to them normally could improve their language skills later on.”

  Yes, well, speaking normally. Not like the baby was a puppy. “Harvey isn’t six months old yet. He’s only a few days old.” But Harvey wasn’t crying anymore, just staring at Ciddah’s face.

  “I think I’ve intrigued him. You know, it might be my light hair. Your coloring is so close to Naomi’s that maybe he thinks you’re his mother and wonders why you won’t feed him.”

  Shaylinn hadn’t thought of that, either. “I don’t think I’m going to be a very good mother.”

  Ciddah looked away from Harvey then, her cool blue eyes staring straight into Shaylinn’s soul. “Shaylinn, you’re so sweet, that’s just not possible.”

  “But some people have difficult babies. My aunt Mary had a lot of trouble with Nell, so she knows. She told Jemma that Harvey was a good baby. I’ll have two babies, and I don’t know what to do anyway, so I’m sure I’ll have trouble.”

  “I think you will learn quickly what to do.”

  “Jemma said my babies are hearing my voice all the time, getting used to the sound of me. Maybe that will help.”

  “I never thought of that. It’s lovely.”

  “Shay.”

  Levi’s voice made Shaylinn look to the doorway. “Hello, Levi.”

  “It’s time to go.”

  “Already? That went fast.” Jemma insisted that Levi escort Shaylinn back to their underground house, convinced Shay should not go out into the basements alone in her condition. Shaylinn walked toward the door and waved to Ciddah. “Good-bye, Ciddah. Thanks.”

  “Bye-o, Shaylinn.”

  Shaylinn walked beside Levi in silence in the creepy underground corridor. Shaylinn didn’t like it here. She knew they were supposedly safe, but she missed the breeze and trees and sky. The air was stuffy down here. And even though she could walk around, she felt buried alive.

  “Ruston and I have arranged for the children to go to school tomorrow,” Levi said.

  “How wonderful!” The children needed something to do. Being cooped up underground seemed to be making them all extra hyper.

  “Eliza and Mukwiv are going to take the children,” Levi said, “but I’d like you to go along. Ruston said they divide the children into smaller classrooms. And I don’t want any of our kids to be without one of our adults.”

  Ah. She was going as a chaperone, not a student. “I’m an adult now?”

  “Yes, Shaylinn. And I need you to be my eyes and ears.”

  She tried to hide her sigh from Levi. She would have to find books from the library if she wanted to keep learning for herself. “I will do my best.”

  The next morning, Shaylinn met Eliza and Mukwiv in the park. The other Glenrock and Jack’s Peak adults brought children and left them in Eliza and Mukwiv’s care for the day. Thirty children in all. When everyone had arrived, Shaylinn took hold of Jake’s hand on one side and Joey’s on the other and followed Eliza through the dim corridor that separated the park from the school. They were all curious how this school worked and what would be taught.

  The school door looked no different than any other door in the basements, though a sign hung on the door itself, some sort of sheet metal that had been
screwed into the wood. Stenciled across the metal in black letters was the word SCHOOL.

  They filed inside, into yet another corridor. But this one was a hallway inside a building. It stretched out before them, and Shaylinn could barely see the door on the other end over the tops of the heads of their group. There were doors between as well — three on one side of the hallway, three on the other. The walls were covered with the creations of children: coloring pages, paintings, and other assignments.

  Their group was making a lot of noise, and Shaylinn shushed them as best she could. A door opened on Shaylinn’s right, just a few paces ahead, and Tova stepped out. She surveyed them with a thin-lipped expression that made Shaylinn suspect that she might not want thirty new students in her school.

  “Can you silence your children?” Tova said to no one in particular that Shaylinn could see.

  Shaylinn shushed the kids again, Eliza put her fingers to her lips, and Penelope whistled sharply, like Jordan always did.

  The noise died down instantly, though Tova frowned at Penelope as if she had done something wrong.

  “The children must be divided by age,” Tova said. “Five- to seven-year-olds will be with Samara in the first classroom there.” She pointed to the door nearest Eliza. “Eight- to ten-year-olds will come into my classroom here. Eleven- to thirteen-year-olds will enter the class there.” She pointed to the door on Eliza’s other side. “And the older children, aged fourteen to sixteen, will go into this class.” She gestured to the door across the hall from her classroom.

  “Jake, you go in here,” Shaylinn said, pushing him toward Tova. “Joey, go with Eliza.”

  “But I want to be with Jake,” Joey said.

  “You’ll be with Weiss and Kaylee,” Shaylinn said.

  The frustrations continued as children were divided from friends and family. Mukwiv went in with the eleven- to thirteen-year-olds, as that was where his son Ian went. Eliza chose to go with the smallest children and her daughter Kaylee. And while Shaylinn was young enough to enter the fourteen- to-sixteen classroom, Eliza bid her go with the boys into Tova’s class.

  “Are you not still a child, Shayleen?” Tova said when Shaylinn came into her classroom.