Deliverance (20 page)

Mom is dead. Fischer is gone. Even the trainees at the dome hate me. Supreme Moon is keeping me occupied every second of the day, and I don't have time to find the answers I need.

Frustrated tears burn my eyes, and I move to the HELP comp to turn on Keegan's music.

They may be able to keep me from seeing him in person, but this is a part they haven't taken away, at least not yet. The music gives me an idea. I quickly tap over to the entertainment pages and search for Lilith Winters. Her name pops up along with a schedule of performances. She'll be at the theater every night this week, just as I suspected. I store the information away for later. Maybe she'll find more kindness somewhere in her cold heart.

The next morning, we move to load up for our tour of Lesser City 6. I tried asking why we were skipping Lesser 4, but Professor Higgins blew off my question and changed the subject. Kassy was the only one who would talk about it. She said she'd heard Lesser 4 was where they sent all the true criminals—the thieves, murderers, and rapists.

I'm glad we're skipping that one.

We reach the loading dock and everyone stops in surprise. At first we're all quiet, but then several of the students cheer. Instead of loading onto a bus, we will be riding in a transporter. But this isn't just any transporter—it is huge, and it will fly.

My legs shake as I climb on board, and I practically fall into the first seat I come to, but just as I buckle in, Berry stops at my side.

His shoulders are tense, and his jaw works back and forth. “Would you sit in the back with me?”

I'm tempted to reject him, but his serious face stops me. I stand without question and follow him to the back. He doesn't speak as the transporter lifts off and we head out of Greater City, but once we're well on our way, and everyone else is occupied, he turns to me and speaks in a low voice. “What did you mean when you said you were trying to get demoted?”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. It's not only because I said way too much to him yesterday, it's also because the realization that I'm
flying
above the earth has me scared to death. “I'm not trying to get demoted, but the things I've done should have gotten me there.”

“Were you caught?”

I swallow hard. “Multiple times.”

His eyes narrow and he turns away. Moments tick away and he finally looks back at me. “My dad took your mom's file. He told me to find a way to make you go away. I can see now that's not going to happen.”

“Who is your dad?” I ask. I don't know anyone in Greater City, and I can't imagine why anyone's father would want to make me go away. The fact that he knows anything about me makes my skin creep.

“He's the Head of the Guard. He controls which guards work in which city.”

“Why would he want me gone?”

“I already told you. I was supposed to be where you sit, but for some reason Supreme Moon has decided the Lessers are his most important project for the time being.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Berry frowns. “Because we have a mutual problem. You don't want to be here and they're making you stay.”

“I still don't understand how that's your problem.”

“I want you gone.” He says it so casually, like it should be obvious, and that it's a perfectly normal thing to admit to someone.

“So, what?” I ask, annoyed. “You're going to help me get demoted?”

His gaze moves to the nothingness over my shoulder, but he shakes his head. “No, that won't work.” He looks back to me. “You met an old woman in your building yesterday. She said you were hoping to get inside the prison.”

My mouth drops open and I glance around to see if anyone heard him. “You know about the prison?” I choose to ignore the fact that he must have sent the woman.

“My dad's the Head of the Guard,” he reminds me.

I take a deep breath and think this through. If his dad is Head of the Guard, then he is military. He may have known Mom. I push the thought aside and focus on the present. “Can you help me get inside?”

“Maybe, maybe not, but I can try. If you get caught, though, it won't be good. You'd either be sent to 4, or you'd be kept here forever.”

His words hold a foreboding that leaves me suddenly chilled. I shiver and wrap my arms around my waist. “What do you mean?”

“Lesser 4 is where they send the lawbreakers. You don't want to go there. But if they made you stay, it would be worse. You'd be one of the mindless.”

So Kassy was right about 4. And it doesn't take much to figure out what the mindless are. He doesn't have to tell me about the pills.

“I won't get caught,” I say. “I just need to know what's going on there. Why are the people being sent there? Why do they have flying machines? Don't you ever wonder about the way this country is run? There are too many lies.”

“Who cares? The people are happy and healthy. They don't need to worry about all the truths that the Greaters have to deal with. They
couldn't
handle it all.”

“They deserve to make that decision for themselves.”

He doesn't respond and I finally turn away. We make the rest of the ride in silence. Berry knows more than I ever would have guessed, but he hasn't come to the same conclusions I did. I realize for the first time that, even in the face of truth, some are going to choose to not believe.

 

 

 

 

32

 

Lesser City 6 is nothing like the other Lesser cities we've seen so far. In fact, it's nothing like any of the cities I've seen, period—Greater, Middle, or Lesser.

Farm land stretches out for mile after eternal mile. Two cities lay in view—one free and the other behind a wall.

“What do you think that means?”

Berry glances out the window as we prepare to land. “One is Greater and the other is Lesser.”

I frown, taking in the truth of his statement. Professor Higgins' earlier statements come to mind. Supreme Moon wants to create other Greater cities. It looks like he's already done that, only most people don't know it. Why is he choosing to let us in on his secret?

“Did you know about the other Lesser cities?” It never occurred to me to ask before now, but I never knew about them. Did Berry?

“No.”

“Doesn't this seem strange to you?” His nonchalance irritates me to my core.

He shrugs. “It's like I said before. Everyone doesn't need to know everything.”

We unload from the transporter inside the free city. People mill about. Most of them are doing hard labor. Many of them are young. These Greaters have probably never stepped foot inside of Greater City. Have they ever even tested? They seem a different breed than the other Greaters who arrived with me. They're as different as their city—they come and go as free citizens, but there are no cam disks, no zooming transporters, no HELP comps lining their streets.

Everything here is perfectly proportional. Each house is the same, each lawn is the same. Every store is the same size and every street seems measured and mapped out to specific blueprints.

This city is new. It's not like Greater City at all, which is built on the crumbling old city. It's not flashy or boisterous. In fact, it's completely opposite from Greater City—it's quaint. This city was built here, and for a purpose.

Two questions stand out in my mind: where did these people come from and why are they here?

An older man steps forward. This man is in charge, I can feel it. Even his stature screams power. “Welcome!” he booms. “I'm General Funchess. I'm pleased to show you around.”

Professor Higgins quickly steps forward and thanks the general, then we follow him as he shows us their stores and restaurants, their schools and their homes.

Once we've finished touring the Greater City—even though it's never called that—Professor Higgins clears his throat. “May we see the Lessers now? That is why we came, after all.”

General Funchess pauses, his eyebrows drawn, his lips set in a straight line. He watches us all, taking in our faces, gauging us. “You must understand that ours is a delicate situation.”

“Is there a problem?” Professor Higgins asks. He doesn't seem flustered or put off by General Funchess' odd behavior.

The general's nostrils flare and he takes a deep breath. “The issue is, quite frankly, that the ‘Lessers' as you call them, don't see themselves that way. They see themselves as a free people, working to provide clothing and food for themselves and their tight-knit community.”

I frown as I take in his words. Clothing and food? Now I glance at the city—the free city. I don't remember one vegetable garden, one factory, one cattle farm. The Lessers don't see themselves as Lessers because they don't know they are such. They are walled in, and they think they are free, but they're not.

My stomach churns as I realize the depth of corruption. I press my eyes closed and try to pretend I didn't just hear what I know I heard. Supreme Moon has already enslaved the Lessers. These people are in need of deliverance and they don't even know it.

Professor Higgins isn't put off by his words. “What does this mean, General? Tell us exactly what you need from us, and you will have it. We are at your mercy.”

This seems to relieve whatever fears General Funchess has. “You can't speak to them. They can't be aware of the things that go on outside of their walls.”

I look around, hoping to see the disgust on other trainees' faces, but none of them are upset, not even Kassy. Have they all been totally brainwashed?

Professor Higgins nods quickly. “We can do that. Observe and don't speak.”

General Funchess smiles, his relief evident. “Wonderful. Then we will load onto the trucks and head that way.” He speaks into some kind of radio and tells them of our coming arrival at the “work camps”, as he calls them. We load onto the trucks and begin the drive over a paved road through the trees, toward the wall.

“What do you think this place is?” I whisper to Kassy.

She glances out the window and shrugs. “I have no idea. I never knew there were other Lesser cities. This one is different, though, don't you think?”

“Definitely. Why would they hide this from everyone?”

Kassy frowns, thinking. “I don't know, Hana. It's really strange, isn't it? It kind of creeps me out.”

Just as I was starting to think she knew more than I had hoped, she strikes me as clueless again. She is a Greater first and foremost. I have to keep that in mind.

She is also a Christian.

The thought comes from nowhere, but it comes with guilt. I know where she can learn and grow in Christ, but I'm not willing to share it with her. Not yet.

That can't be fair or right, but I don't see another choice. Not until I am sure she won't be a danger to Miriam and her people.

Again it strikes me that Fischer put himself in true danger by trusting me so early.

At the gates to the wall we stop as guards identify themselves, then we proceed to the inside of the city. We drive between huge fields on our way to what looks like buildings in the distance. Cattle graze on one side and crops grow on another. This place supplies materials to the Greaters, but what are the Greaters doing here in the first place? The closer we get to the buildings, the more I see. Factory after factory rises up, and then buildings like I see in Greater City, great and glittering, rise to the sky. Behind them sit a few huge, brick buildings. They remind me of the dorms where Fischer lived back home. This is where the Lessers sleep.

The trucks roll to a stop and we unload onto the city streets. People mill about everywhere—the streets, the buildings, the fields—and they all look the same. They have the same dull clothes, and not only the same clothes but the same colors. They have the same haircuts. They are as similar as the houses and lawns in the Greater City outside the wall.

General Funchess leads us through the city streets. He points out the Official's building, the factories where they produce clothes, and the fields where they produce foods. The majority of the fields seem to be crops, and they produce way more than they could possibly need inside or outside the walls. The surplus is going somewhere else.

“This is where the people sleep,” he says as we come to the last set of buildings, the dorms. “It is where the people eat, and also where the children go to school.”

For the first time, I realize I haven't seen a single child since arriving.

“Might we have a look inside?” Professor Higgins says.

General Funchess pauses once again. He doesn't like it. He doesn't want us inside. The more we are around his people, the greater chance we have of blowing his secrets.

What would happen if they found out they were slaves? Would they revolt?

“I can't say I feel at all comfortable with that,” he finally says. “This building is their home. I cannot allow anyone to invade their privacy that way.”

His words do make sense, and I can almost believe the caring tone of his voice. Almost.

We turn from the dorms when I catch sight of a girl in the window. Her face is pressed against the glass, watching us as we move through the garden outside the building. Her hair is long and blond, straight as a ruler. She's younger than me, at least by a couple of years, but she's pretty. She smiles and waves.

I wave back.

This girl has a story. She is brave, and she is stuck.

I want her to be free.

The tour ends and we reload onto the trucks and then the transport flyer. We return to our own Greater City, but I have no new ideas about how to help the Lessers—not these ones, anyway.

Berry sits far away from me for the flight home, and even Kassy is quiet as we glide back to where we came from.

My mind is not quiet though. It is full of questions with no answers.