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Synopsis

After escaping an underground annihilation chamber, Thalli, Berk, Rhen, and John find themselves fleeing across the former United States, aboveground for the first time. As the defectors cross the for gotten landscape, the three youths see things the y had only read about on screens: horses, rain, real books--and a colony of unsanctioned survivors living the ancient way in a town called New Hope.

When the citizens of New Hope reveal the truth of what happened years ago, Thalli is left unsettled and skeptical of everything she's ever been told. Can she trust anything from the State, including her own feelings for Berk? When she volunteers for a peace mission to New Hope's violent neighbor, Athens, her confusion mounts as the supposedly ruthless Prince Ale x turns out to be kind and charming. Although everyone in New Hope warned her not to, she can't help but fall for him.

Meanwhile, John's unwavering faith in the goodness of the Designer begins to make its mark on Thalli's heart. But can Thalli really come to trust in a generous, protective Designer who rules over all things? Would that not be setting herself up for another betrayal?

The time for her to decide is now... because the State is closing in.

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

We need to move as quickly as possible." Berk's amplifiedvoice fills my helmet, which protects me from thetoxic air. "The Scientists will know we have left. Theywill send Monitors to follow us."

I can still hardly believe we are here. Outside of the State."On transports just like this?" I imagine the torture we will allreceive when we are caught. I am sure the Scientists will notallow us the painless annihilation I faced. "We should neverhave come."

"Thalli. It is not logical to begin this journey with a defeatedattitude."

"Rhen is right." Berk's face appears in the rectangular slit atthe front of my helmet.

I try not to focus on his full lips, the stubble growing alonghis square jaw. It is not hard--our faces are both covered withthese heavy helmets, making me feel even more distant fromhim. His hands are on my shoulders, but, of course, I can't feelthem either. Layers of protective fabric keep me from feelinganything. I think it has wrapped itself around my heart too.And my mind.

The thrill of seeing Berk? Gone. It is replaced by the cripplingfear that instead of facing my own death, I will be thecause of death for these people I love.

Berk's bright green eyes force my attention back to him. "Ineed you to focus."

I want to slap his hands down. How dare he speak to me likethat? Like he is a Scientist and I am his project? Like we are notfrom the same pod, the same generation? Like he has not livedthe same seventeen years I have? If nothing else good comesfrom it, being aboveground means that he has no authority. Weare escaping the rule of the Scientists.

Berk sighs and turns away. The weight of his hands on myshoulders is gone, replaced by a heavier weight in my heart.What is wrong with me? Why am I behaving like this?

I do not have time to examine my feelings because Johnappears. His bushy white eyebrows are so close to the glass ofhis helmet they appear magnified, making his crystal-blueeyes seem smaller in comparison, the wrinkles surroundinghis eyes even more visible. If I had the energy, I might laugh.But I don't have the energy. Or the desire.

"Just leave me here." I step away from John. "Go back down,tell them you were forced. Tell them it was my idea that yourescued me, then return to the State on your own. We don't allneed to die."

John places a gloved hand on top of my helmet. "No one isleaving you, Thalli."

I want to argue, but I feel my arm being pulled, handsaround my waist lifting me up. I turn and see Berk placing meon a transport.

"I said I want you to leave me."

Berk stands in front of me, his eyes hard. "You are comingon this transport with the rest of us."

He pushes me toward the corner of the transport. He is takingme prisoner. Just like a Scientist. He was designed to takecharge and have all the answers. But that was below. Angerburns inside me. I move to step off, but Rhen and John block me.

"We need four people to steer this." Rhen is still calm, irritatinglycalm, but she is firm. She may be slight in stature, butshe is strong in other ways. Even John refuses to move.

I do not think she is right. We do not need four people tosteer the transport. I think they are trying to force me on bymaking me believe I am necessary. If I thought my refusingwould cause them to leave me behind, I would refuse. But Iknow they will not leave me behind. And the longer we waitto leave, the sooner the Monitors will find us. I step back intoplace. They should never have brought me here. The Scientistswill find us. They will kill each one of them before me, just topunish me for bringing them here. I slam my hand into thecolumn beside me and the transport tips precariously to theside.

"We have to work together or we'll never get off theground." Berk's voice has softened, but he is still behaving likea Scientist, still giving orders and expecting me to obey them.

"Look up, Thalli. Look at what the Designer has done. Trusthim."

I do as John says, tipping my helmet far back. The sky isa deep blue, and there are darker clouds hovering throughout.

I turn my head and see the moon. Not the simulation of themoon I saw in Progress, but the actual moon, the way I havealways wanted to see it. It is huge and white, not smooth like Iimagined it. Imperfect.

"We need to go." Berk interrupts my thoughts.

"Give her a moment, son. The Creator of all this is in control,Thalli. We do not need to fear the Scientists. They are notmore powerful than the Designer."

I want so much to believe John, but fear keeps my stomachin knots and my shallow breath overrides that desire. Myhead aches, and I want to lie down on the transport and sleep.Forever. But I cannot lie down. I cannot sleep. I have to keepmoving.

Slowly, the transport lifts off the ground. I do as Berk says,leaning in and out against the column, because if I refuse to go,the others will be caught with me. Our only hope is to outrunthe Monitors. I try to pray that we can do just that, but I haveno words, just emotions that overwhelm me, clouding everythought.

I try to think about something else. The transport shiftsbeneath me, and I recall the only other time I was on one ofthese: When I woke up and had no feeling in my arm. Backwhen Berk was kind to me, when he didn't treat me like hewas the Scientist and I was the subordinate. When we spentour days together. When I felt so much love for him I thoughtmy heart would burst. I had to lie on a transport like this one,wrapped in a medical blanket, so I could be examined by theScientists.

"How do you know where to go?" I try to remain calm. Butwe are aboveground, where no one has been for over forty years.

A greenish grid comes to life in front of my eyes. It is soclose, it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. It is a map ofsome sort.

"See the orange dots?" Berk asks. They are tiny, like needlepricks. But I see them. "Those are communities who survivedthe War."

"No one survived the War." I repeat what I have been taughtsince infancy. The earth was destroyed by the Nuclear War overfour decades ago. The whole earth. Only The Ten--Scientists whohad been building an underground State--survived. The onlypeople left on earth were those of us created in the Scientists' laboratories.The Scientists prepared for the possibility of a nuclearwar and everything, including the ingredients for the creationof children, had been stored underground, protected. Berk, Rhen,and I were all created below. Only John was from the time before,when children were "born" in the primitive way.

"Thalli, you know the Scientists aren't always truthful."Berk's sharp reply brings with it terrible memories. TheScientists tricked me into believing there was a colony righthere, above the State. I had seen the people there, touchedthem, experienced this colony, only to find out it was a cerebralmanipulation. It wasn't real.

"I found this map hidden among the Scientists' data. Theydidn't want anyone to know about it."

"But you knew, of course." I hear myself saying this to Berk,hear the caustic tone. I hate it, but I cannot stop it.

Berk releases a short breath. "I have been finding manythings in the last few weeks. Some of those helped save your life."

"Save it for what?" I shout into my helmet. "So we can spenda few hours on the toxic earth before we're discovered andkilled back in the State?"

"You are allowing fear to control you." John's voice is quietbut filled with authority. "This is not the Thalli I know."

I choose not to speak. He is right. I am not the same. I amnot sure I will ever be the same again. I look down--at a gray,ashen ground receding below us. It looks the same in everydirection. Flat, dry, gray. Even the sky is gray, the clouds fillingin whatever blue spaces had been there.

"What do you suppose the Scientists want to do with thismap?" Rhen asks.

"They are monitoring the pockets of survivors."

"So they can relocate?"

"They are not interested in relocating anytime soon," Berkreplies, as the transport levels out. "They can't control people uphere. There's too much space. Too much freedom. I think theyprefer the confines of the State. That's why they were so excitedabout yours and Thalli's music simulation. They are hopefulthey can use that data to find a solution to the oxygen crisis."

I remember that simulation. Rhen was trapped. In mymusic. It was awful. But she broke free. How the Scientists canuse that, I do not know. I do know that music is powerful. Musicpointed me to the Designer, spoke to me in ways logic nevercould. That music could also solve the Scientists' dilemmaseems very plausible.

"How soon do you think the Monitors will catch up withus?" I look behind us, expecting to see another transport, weaponsdrawn to attack.

"Don't think about that." Berk pushes the transport harder.I grab the column to keep from slipping to the center. "We aretraveling as fast as we can, and we started before them. My hopeis they'll give up, assume we'll die out here."

I scan the horizon again. Gray. Barren. "A good assumption."

"Their intention was to kill us anyway." Rhen sounds likeshe is solving a calculus equation, not discussing our chancesof survival. "I imagine they would prefer not to waste resourcessearching for us when there is so much need below."

"We are defying them." I want to shake Rhen. "And we'reescaping the State. No one has ever been allowed to do either ofthose things."

"We can't worry about what might happen," John says. "Let'sjust press forward. We will deal with the Monitors if they come."

"So where are we going?" Rhen asks.

The grid moves south, then east. "See that pocket there? Itis the closest to us. About nine hundred miles away."

"Nine hundred miles?" I don't even know how to calculatethat distance. It seems astronomical. The entire State is notmore than ten miles from one end to the other.

"This transport can move at about twenty-five miles anhour."

"That's thirty-six hours." Rhen figures it out before I canbegin putting the numbers into an equation in my brain.

"We can't drive the whole time." There is no room on thistransport for any of us to sleep, even if we wanted to. "It couldtake a whole week to get there."

"I brought enough food for two weeks." Berk's calm voicejust makes me angry.

"And then what?" My breath is fogging the eyepiece in myhelmet. "What if we get there and find those orange dots werewrong?"

"Then we go to the next pocket." The grid shifts to the east."It's only about sixty miles from the pocket we're going to."

I take a deep breath. "Why are there two pockets sixty milesfrom each other and none around here for nine hundred miles?"

"There are several others to the north of us, but the climatewould be difficult for our bodies. It is warmer in the south.We'd do better there."

Of course Berk has thought this through. I should trusthim. He is brilliant. He knows what he is doing. Why am I soangry? I shouldn't feel this way. But I don't know how not to feelthis way. I am not the same person I was below, in the annihilationchamber. I was better then. Stronger. Up here, I am broken,useless.

"So what is the plan, Dr. Berk?"

I turn my head to look at John. I can sense the joy radiatingoff of him. He is relaxed. He has longed for this. For forty years.This was his home before the War. If he is disappointed to see itravaged, he doesn't show it.

"I thought we'd try to travel eight hours each day."

I do the math this time. Two hundred miles a day. Five days,four nights. Why not travel twelve hours a day and arrive inthree days and two nights? I look at John. That's why. Standingfor eight hours will exhaust him. John is old. Over ninety. Hisbody will ache from this travel. Berk has thought of that too.Of course.

"Excellent plan." Rhen understands also. Even she is kinderthan I. They never should have done this, never should haverisked their lives for me.

My mind drifts again to the annihilation chamber. To death.To heaven. Maybe I shouldn't, but I long for it, wish for it. Johnsays heaven is perfect. There is no pain there, no fear. I wouldn'thave to worry about my friends, wouldn't have to live in fear ofbeing caught and returned to the State. Death seems so mucheasier than what faces us now. And will it come anyway? Willdeath by annihilation be replaced with death by upper earth?

Perhaps. Those orange dots seem so far. And so unstable.They blink and move. Are they friendly? Angry? Murderous? Ofcourse they are primitive. And primitive people are dangerous.That's what I've always been taught. So are we leaving dangerto face danger?

I tap the glass on my visor, forcing the map to disappear.I don't want to think about it anymore. Death is coming. I ammore and more sure of it as we travel on. We have gotten ourselvesin a hopeless situation. Berk was thinking with his heart,not his head. He was acting like me. And that is never wise.

CHAPTER 2

Texas." John breaks the silence that hung over us for thelast hour of travel.

"What?" I ask, my voice sounding like a broken violinstring through the helmet.

"We are going to Texas." The green map pops up on myvisor once again. The orange blinking dots seem to mock us."Before the War this whole area was called the United States."

We all know this, of course. That information was partof our history lessons. We saw on our learning pads recordingsof these Americans--always yelling at each other, angry,complaining about their living conditions, their workingconditions. This was part of what the Scientists sought to eradicate.People cannot be productive with so much emotion.

"Texas." John laughs. "People there were unique. It's fittingthat two colonies in Texas have survivors."

"Tell us about them," Berk says, unleashing a forty-five-minutesociology lesson from John.

If I knew how to turn off the volume in my helmet, I would.Instead, I have to listen to stories about hearty people, about aplace called the Alamo, about cowboys and rodeos and boots. Idon't really know these words, but they are forced on me anywayin this transport going south, headed toward this placethat used to house independent, hardworking people who rodeanimals called bulls for fun and holed up in forts until theydied.

I see my reflection in the mirrored surface of the helmet.My eyes appear more blue than green today. My hair hangs inlimp, wavy brownish strands along the side of my face. I lookthe way I feel--pathetic.

"A friend of mine was from Texas, and he used to call it 'thepromised land.'" John is still talking. "Fitting for us. We areescaping our own Egypt. Perhaps Texas is our promised land."

"Or maybe it's just as barren as this land." I can't hold it inany longer. I have to speak. "Maybe we'll get there and thoseorange dots will want to kill us. Or eat us. Maybe they are evenworse than the Scientists ever were."

"The Israelites said the same kinds of things when theywere making their way to the Promised Land. Let's not makethe mistakes they made. Let us trust the Designer. He hasworked many miracles throughout history. I believe we areabout to experience another one."

I bite my lip. I won't argue with John. But I can't believeblindly the way he does. I wish I could. But I have too manyquestions, too many doubts. I have just begun to believe in aDesigner, in a plan, a purpose for humanity. But my faith isweak. This is too much.

"We should stop here," Berk says, and the transport begins tolower to the ashen ground. "Rhen, will you help me prepare dinner?Thalli, you and John can set up the temporary chamber."

I do not want to stop. The Monitors who might be followingus won't stop. They do not have a ninety-year-old man withthem. They do have the impetus of the Scientists behind them,though, and I feel certain the Scientists want to bring us back,to make sure there is no possibility of anyone from the outsidefinding out about the State from anyone but them.

Berk clicks a button and I no longer hear him, though Iknow he is still talking. Through the lens in my helmet, I seehim walking beside Rhen--close beside Rhen. She is leaningher head toward Berk, like she can hear him through herhelmet.

"Shall we begin?" John's voice is in my ear, as happy as ever.

I try to focus on getting the temporary chamber assembled.I have never used one of these before. Never seen one. Whywould we even have them? Our pods were perfectly good, safe.We had no need to leave them. Unless, like me, we had a medicalissue. But then we'd go to a medical facility. I turn the whiterectangle around. There is a small screen on the side. I touch itand it comes to life.

"Press the blue initiation panel," a computerized voiceinstructs me. I look all over. There is no blue panel. "Press theblue initiation panel."

"Be quiet!" I know the voice can't hear me, wouldn't care if itcould, but I shout anyway. I throw the unassembled chamber tothe ground. There is no blue initiation panel. We'll be sleepingon the dusty, diseased ground. Which is fine. Death will onlycome sooner if we spend our nights sucking in this horrible air.These helmets can only protect us so much. Surely the toxicfumes are already finding ways to seep into our bloodstreams.

Copyright © 2014 by Krista McGee

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