Office of Mercy (9781101606100) (30 page)

And he still loved her. Jeffrey. He was the only person in the settlement, excepting the Alphas and Arthur, who knew for sure the attack was her fault and, despite everything, he loved her still. Natasha hadn't expected it, given how much he'd changed in other respects. His fury toward her at the time of the invasion had dissipated almost impossibly fast, leaving behind a reservedness that, at least according to Natasha's experience, was completely unlike him. He refrained from speaking one word to her about what she had done or who she was, keeping instead to topics like how the cleanup was going or who was headed out next to work on the sensors. Even at mealtimes, he seemed nervous: once Natasha, Eric, and Min-he had noticed how his fork would shake on the way to his mouth. Gradually then, as the days passed and the citizens continued their repairs on the settlement, strange rumors began reaching Natasha from the Office of Mercy: that Jeffrey had moved to one of the front cubicles and worked exclusively on satellite watch, that Claudia had taken over what was left of his team, that she had become quite indispensable to Arthur, and, most bizarrely of all, that none of this seemed to upset Jeffrey or cause him the slightest concern.

On Natasha's last day doing cleanup in the Garden—a full ten weeks after the Pines' attack—she worked with a team high on the scaffolding, putting the final touches on the new roof. It was not pretty like the old one, because instead of pure sky, one looked up now to an iron grate. But it was safe and secure, and that was what mattered. When the dinnerhour came, Natasha gathered her supplies and climbed carefully down to the grass.

She was surprised to see Jeffrey at the edge of the lawn, though some seconds later she remembered that he had arranged to meet her here, and had said, in fact, that he had something very important to ask her. He sat on a bench beneath an oak tree, one of the only trees untouched by the attack. Two white butterflies flitted near him in the soft, evening light, and, invisible amid the branches, the birds called to one another in a curious but lazy way. He stood when he saw her and waited while she put her mask and welding tools away in the metal supply bins.

“Are you in a rush to get to dinner?” he asked.

She showed her hands, which were streaked with black, gritty oil.

“I'll need to shower first.”

“Oh,” he said.

“But I don't have to go right away.”

She walked over to him and they sat together beneath the canopy of branches, slightly obscured from the view of the last cleanup crew members shuffling by. Tom Doncaster was the last to leave, securing the lids on the supply bins and sauntering across the grass with the flushed and satisfied expression of a citizen who has just put in a solid day's work.

Natasha waited for Jeffrey to speak, but he seemed unable. He rubbed his sleeve up and down his arm.

“I'm excited to start my new job,” Natasha offered finally, to break the silence. “I met with Li Quin yesterday, and she's really nice. She just got appointed head of the Department of Health.”

Jeffrey stopped rubbing his arm and folded his hands in his lap.

“You're not mad anymore that we transferred you out of the Office of Mercy?” he asked.

“No, Jeffrey, how could I be?”

He nodded and lapsed into silence again.

“They told me the origin of my surname,” Natasha said, reaching for something to pique his interest. “The Alphas did.”

“Wiley.” He smiled nervously. “It turns out to suit you better than we could have imagined. It's funny how that happens sometimes. I'm one of those cases too. Do you know the origin of my surname?”

“Montague? That's Anglo-Saxon, right?”

“I'm eighty-one percent Anglo-Saxon, yes. So for me, they scoured the writings of a man who was probably the greatest thinker of my race, and plucked my name out of one of his plays. The character, Montague, is a young man who acts solely out of love, and destroys everything he touches. Especially the person he loves most of all.”

Jeffrey laughed a short, weak laugh, but Natasha did not see what was amusing.

“What did you want to ask me, Jeffrey?”

He twitched, like she had startled him. Then he turned on the bench to face her.

“I'm going away,” he said. “And I want you to come with me.”

“You're leaving the Office of Mercy too?”

“Not just the Office,” he said. “I'm leaving America-Five. I'm leaving the settlement. I don't belong here. I've tried to convince myself that I do, but I can't anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” Natasha said incredulously, smiling at the sheer absurdity of what he was saying. “Since when have you had an idea like that?”

“Since a long time ago,” he said. “Since before you were born. Since before I defied this whole society to save you.”

“Be serious,” Natasha demanded.

“I am,” Jeffrey assured. “I'm absolutely serious. Look, I want you to understand, having the Palms return rattled something inside me. It didn't change me. It just forced me to stop hiding some very strong convictions.”

“Well,” Natasha answered swiftly. She felt disconcerted, despite herself, and she was annoyed at Jeffrey for saying such wild things. “Even if you wanted to leave, you can't. It's different than it was before the attack. We have all those new sensors. The Office of Mercy would locate you in two minutes and send out a team to bring you home.”

“I won't be hurting anyone by going,” Jeffrey replied, speaking softly, “and we're allowed to make our own decisions, as long as we cause no suffering to others. The Ethical Code tells us that much. It's a bit of a loophole, actually,” he added with a small smile. “The Mother and Father were somewhat taken aback, I think, when I pointed that out during my reeducation. But they saw it too. A free and solitary man in the forest, a man who has knowingly chosen his own fate, poses no threat to the consistency of their ethical practices, while holding that same man against his will most certainly does.” He glanced up at the roof, at the overlapping bars. “The Alphas aren't happy about it,” he confessed, after a pause, “but they're going to let me leave. They had a vote last week in the Department of Government. I told them my plans and they gave their permission. There's nothing objectively bad about what I'm doing, everyone agrees.”

He waited for her to respond, but Natasha only shook her head, stunned.

“I'm going south,” he continued more slowly, “straight down longitude seventy-five, to the forest we have marked on our satellite maps. The place where the large animals migrated last year. I'll take my clothing and bedding. And tools. I've been talking to Nolan over in the labs. He's making me a freshwater filter and a tent for shelter. I'll have vitamin pills to supplement my diet.”

“Enough for forever?”

“Not that long, no.”

Natasha turned and looked at the lawn, her lips pressed in agitation.

“You can't come back, if you go,” she said, her voice breaking slightly. “You have to be sure. I thought I was sure with the Pines and it turns out I wasn't. I was wrong and I can only thank the Alphas that I didn't give up my life to die out there.”

Jeffrey nodded but did not reply. A robin swooped low over their heads, a small twig clutched in its beak; the cows groaned from adjacent pastures, anxious for milking.

“I always wondered if you remembered,” Jeffrey said at length. “You were usually a cheerful child, but sometimes you would become so serious and silent. You'd stare up at the Dome windows in a kind of daze. There were times when I thought you knew everything.”

“I didn't,” Natasha said. “I never guessed I came from the Outside until the Pines told me.”

“But the Office of Mercy,” Jeffrey pushed. “You had such a precocious interest in the Tribes.”

“Only because I found the Outside exciting. And because you worked there. You were so nice to me when I was a kid. I wanted to have the same job as you.”

“Oh, Natasha, will you ever forgive me?” For a moment, Jeffrey was overcome, and he buried his face in his hands. “I needed you. I needed you so badly. Before I found you, I only felt like a murderer. They used to bring me in for reeducation but it didn't matter. They could try to reshape my mind all they wanted but that didn't change what I'd done. They used to follow me, all those people, after I killed them. The walls of the Dome couldn't keep them out. They would pass through a solid meter of concrete like it was air. And they'd pass through the floors to find me in my bed and they'd pass into my skull and stay there. But then I saved you. And when I showed them your face in my mind, it forced them back. You're special to me. Very, very special. Not only for your beauty or your intelligence, but because you're my warrior.”

His knuckles grazed her chin and, gently, he kissed her lips.

“I can't,” she said, pulling back. “I know we used to. But it's a distraction from our ethical goals.”

“You'll come with me, though,” he said, with passionate force. “You'll live with me in the forest. We don't have to leave right away. I swear I can wait as long as you need. Because think of how amazing it will be, once we're out there. No Office of Mercy, no endless rounds of bioreplacement. I'm so sick of being cooped up in this place. We'll walk as far south as our legs will carry us. We'll live in the forest and eat from the trees.”

Natasha eyed him searchingly, looking to call his bluff, and wondering how a person who had seemed to understand the Ethical Code so thoroughly could believe that such an option existed within its bounds.

“They'll sweep you, you know,” Natasha said finally, “if you ever go through with it.”

Jeffrey did not answer, but his body subtly retreated from hers.

“They will,” Natasha insisted. “Something tiny. A G4. You'd never see it coming.”

“No,” he said harshly, cutting her off. “I've thought about sweeps. The Alphas won't do it. They wouldn't have lied. I've lived all my life in this settlement. Forty-three years. I've put in my time and they gave me permission.”

“But it's different,” Natasha replied, “once you're Outside. It won't matter what they said to you in the Department of Government.” She shook her head. “Try, Jeffrey,” she said, in a more intimate tone. “Try to think about this whole thing logically. The Ethical Code guarantees every person a life without suffering. Inside because there is no suffering, Outside because there is no life. Those are the only divisions that matter.”

“You're forgetting to mention my suffering in this settlement,” Jeffrey countered. “My guilt. My horror at the way we live. I can't believe anymore in a paradise that comes at the expense of so many, and I have no desire to continue my part in it. That's my feeling. And for once I'm going to trust my feeling.” He looked at her, his anger suddenly vanishing. “You're not coming, are you?” he asked.

Natasha grimaced. “Not Outside, no.”

He nodded. “I guess I knew that.”

“I'm not coming because you'll die,” Natasha said, thinking he must still be failing to comprehend this fact. “The Alphas will give the order to sweep as soon as you're far enough away for them to safely launch a nova.”

“I don't care what they're planning.”

“You do!”

“I mean that I'll accept the risk. I know the life I want to live. It will be up to the Alphas to take it away from me.”

“Please, Jeffrey,” Natasha cried, completely distraught, “stop acting like they're your enemy. The Alphas love you. I wish you could see that.”

“But do
you
love me, Natasha?”

“Yes!”

Natasha reached out and clasped his hand to reassure him, but because she was distracted by the nightshift workers, who had just begun filtering into the wing, she missed the resigned disbelief that her answer had brought to Jeffrey's face.

The nightshift workers gathered their tools. They climbed the high ladders to the top of the scaffolding and, in the pooling light, they braced themselves against the railings as they began pounding the last iron bars into place.

For a long time, Natasha and Jeffrey sat on the bench, Natasha relentless in her efforts to persuade Jeffrey to stay. But her words were in vain. No threat of death or heartfelt plea could pull Jeffrey from the vision of open sky and raw, abundant earth that seemed to be taking shape, already, in the Garden air before him. Jeffrey would go. He would exit the settlement, leaving Natasha and all the citizens of America-Five to continue (as neither Natasha nor Jeffrey would dare to describe it) the deferment of that hovering hour when they, too, would face their reward or their punishment.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to Max Apple, Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, Laura Kasischke, Eileen Pollack, Nancy Reisman, Hendrik Meijer, Ron Carlson, Arlene Keizer, Celeste Ng, Marissa Perry, Anne Stameshkin, Sonia Djanikian, and Peter Bennett for their early and continued support. Thank you to Sally Wofford-Girand, Taylor Sperry, and all of the amazing people at Brick House Literary Agents and at Viking Penguin; and especially to my agent, Jenni Ferrari-Adler, and my editor, Allison Lorentzen, for their brilliant insights and crucial enthusiasm for this book. Thank you to Gregory Djanikian and Alysa Bennett for guiding the way; and (again) to Phil Sandick for everything.