Sold Away 9
When safe zones become dangerous.
Jason was livid. He had cousins in the safe zone formally known as Texas, and friends in Northern Canada. I think his friends were kind of like him, and found a way to communicate without writing letters, because he seemed to hear news from them awfully fast.
"How could you like him after this, Carlita?" He was saying over the earphone as I walked away from Napua's house. "How can anyone NOT see his true colors now? He's the antichrist and he wants to take over the world! He said he would keep the safe zones clear, he SAID ..." etc etc. I wasn't answering. I didn't even know what he meant when he said antichrist, and I sort of agreed on the rest of it. Of course Caden knew what he was doing...right? But, maybe he shouldn't have taken over those other two zones. Jason had filled me in on all the details with obvious frustration and fury. I didn't know what Caden was trying to do, I didn't know. But Jason only knew him as Brutus and DIDN'T know that we were affiliated, besides that he set my mill free. If I said anything in his defense, which I wanted to, I would have nothing to refute Jason's anger and I might even give myself away. Jason ranted the whole way back, and I was getting tired of it.
This war had been going on for 5 years, did he think now it would suddenly change, become less gruesome or horrible?
"Jason." I said finally.
"What?"
"You know how I feel about it all. It's horrible, but Brutus believes he's doing what is right. They all do. Is, isn't there someone else you can push your views on?"
Silence.
"Yeah. Sure." He didn't sound mad so much as defeated, and I didn't hear his voice the rest of the walk back to his villa. Once I went inside I couldn't find him either, he had disappeared from among the guests. I looked around for him, didn't see him, and went outside to have a peak around his father's amazing rock garden. I found him, sitting on the lip of a crevice overlooking a valley. It plunged away under his feet and that combined with the moon on his back, silhouetting the unhappy curve of his back and soft black hair...he kind of caught my heart at that moment. I also understood misery and so turned to leave him in peace. He turned his head at exactly the same time and caught my eye. I paused, shocked. Jason was crying. He didn't try to hide it either, just stared me down with the tears running down his face in the dark. I had to talk to him now, dagnabit. I walked forward again uncertain of my ground or what to say.
He said it for me. "Look. This is what Brutus has done." I sat down beside him gingerly and gazed at the screen he held in his hand. As I looked at it one picture faded away from one picture of devastation to another. "That's my parents' house in Zone 3, before it was destroyed, 2nd level. That's my cousin Vanna's house." It was crushed in, surrounded by wreckage. "That is my friend's house in Zone 12. I don't know where they are right now. He's not responding to my messaging, my calls, my codes. That's my friend Lane, his brother Bravis, their older sister Edae. They're the only ones who understood or knew me...and I don't know if they're still alive. Maybe they were in the house when it hit." His voice crumbled into helpless sobs, and I felt horrible. I rubbed his shoulder lamely, not knowing what to say, especially when the screen faded to a trickle of blood coming out of a cracked building and puddling on the pavement.
"Is that..." I whispered, shocked.
Jason followed my gaze. "Yeah that's blood, but I don't know who it is. I downloaded these pictures from a website."
A website?? Huh, maybe he could... I mentally slapped myself. Horrified that I would even think of using my friend to track down my siblings, Ramona's other children, when he was in such grief. The siblings I knew were out there, somewhere.
"Give me something to do."
"Huh?" I looked at him, mind blank as Jason turned fiercely to me.
"Let's do something! I can't sit here and think about this, I need something to take my mind off it. What should we do? Take a walk or something?"
Ahhhh, well then. He asked, didn't he? "Actually I was wondering if we could use some of that illegal technology." I said, businesslike in the face of his sadness. "I need you to do a little research, please." I've been wanting to ask him about this for weeks now, but wasn't sure how to go about doing it. Now, sitting on a projection half a mile away from his father's house was the perfect time to do it.
"Ok." And just like that he was on it. I told him about my past, specifics, what mills I'd been to, what mill Ramona had lived in and where I was born. From there, he started hacking information, trying to find things. But that wasn't enough for him, he had to explain everything he was doing at the same time, so I would know. It was actually kind of fascinating, peaking into a world I knew nothing about and having it explained in such detail. The moon rose as we became absorbed in this search, and he showed me stuff along the way. Other stuff, other pictures of more than the war, the past, science, sports and hobbies he was into that I didn't knew existed. The art of taking pictures, of training animals, BREEDING animals. That one was a little sickening to me, but apparently his parents did it, bred dogs. Then he found some leads on my mother's offspring and things got pretty intense. We spent the next two hours seriously searching. It was 3am by the time we were finished, and he'd discovered I had 3 brothers who were roughly 19, 18, 17 and 2 sisters who were 17 and 13.
"Wait that can't be right, that doesn't make sense. That one and that one were both born at the same time. There must be a mistake."
"They're twins. You've heard about twins?" He asked gently.
Ohhhh, yes. I DID learn about twins. Just last year actually, and I remembered my mom being surprised I'd never come across any in the mills. But Jason didn't make me feel stupid about it, like someone else might have. Even Caden might have hurt my feelings by acting weird about it...and make me feel like an ignorant freak like the neighbors did every time they came over. I found myself worrying about that sometimes, if he would actually feel they would. Or if he was coming back at all. With every month that passed that fairyland time in his castle seemed more and more like a dream...and I needed to move on to a new life. After all he was a dictator of a zone now, so they said, had a whole population to run now that he'd virtually won the war, and I had faded back into a nobody and a nothing. Which I was okay with. I'm not sure that I wanted to be looped in with everything that he'd done, but I also knew that if he came back and asked me to go with him, I would follow him.
I wanted to keep looking up these kids, my brothers and sisters and find out their names and where they were. I was worried about the girls especially...but I felt myself yawning. Then nodding. Then leaning forward. A vice like grip on my upper arm brought me back upright abruptly.
"I think it's time to go inside." Jason said as he held onto me. "Don't worry Carlita, I'll keep looking for ya." We got up, I a little unsteady on my tired feet, and walked arm in arm back through the sculpted stone jungle to his house. Strange things rose on either side of me, creatures with horns and weird hoof feet and mans bodies, unrealistically elongated men and women, some things that didn't make sense at all.
"Free form art. This garden tracks the progression of the rebirth of classical art, and its ascent to new heights." I almost walked into a multi formed, snouted rock creature and found myself groggily staring into a toilet-frog-dragon thing. 'New heights.' I grinned cynically. We stopped a moment away from his house, one more turn and we would see the glow from the patio where the party was still going strong.
"Wait, I have one more thing to show you." He said. "Look here, Brutus has a new love."
WHAT??! My head whipped around and he saw the mild accusation on my face, and smiled. At least I'd gotten his mind off his missing friends, I thought despite my alarm.
"I know you have this thing for him, but you didn't think to compete against all the girls he probably has swarming around him? All the girls of Zone 3 are at his feet right now. All ten of them."
"Har har har." I snatched at the slide screen but he held it at arm's length, above his head. I grabbed his shirt and stretched for it, giggling, tiredness forgotten. For a second we were face to face and I was staring into his warm brown eyes and white smile. Then I climbed my hands up his sleeve and dragged his arm down to my level. "Let me see her!" I shouted. "I wanna know this competition so I can destroy her sou--..." I was looking into a dated picture of myself on the media screen. Jagged cheekbones on an anemically thin face, saucer plate eyes that stared blankly into the viewer's face, ugly brown-blond hair, it was my last photo taken at my yearly checkup at the mill doctor's hospital. My breath froze and my heart stopped in my chest. Then it began to beat again, painfully hard.
"Not too pretty is she? Apparently he fell in love with one of the very mill girls he freed. That's what the news is saying but you know they pair him with a different girl every week. Here there's more pictures of her at his house." The picture faded out to one of me at the party, diamonds lacing my forehead and throat, shining from my ears as I stood on the stage at Caden's arm in the lava colored dress. "They're all speculating who the mystery girl is, WHERE she is. This just came up but it started at the beginning of the war." Jason said, peaking over my shoulder. "I thought she looked kind of like you." He paused, looked closer and gazed at my stricken face. "Carlita..."
***
Things were going well. Caden was stretched out on his bed at 3pm in the afternoon, for the hour nap he forced himself to take so he wouldn't go crazy. Things had just started to wind down and fall into place, the zone was stable, the dissenters in Antarctica or dead, the rebellion the new leadership. Now that he had expanded to Zones 12 and 4 he was dictator of his own continent, a piece of land NO ONE had ever owned in its entirety before. It was time to bring his wife home.
The beep signaled trouble, the one clear and unique note that meant Tevaris/Job wanted to talk. His 'yes' brought his closest friend and advisor's face up on the wall with news.
"They've found her. Watch the news." Tevaris's face was replaced by the local news flashes and Carlita filled the screen. The three days she had been with him, and someone had managed to get five pictures. Two were mill pictures and two at the party...then there was a sixth. It was of a tall, curvaceous woman with a blurred out face and long, bronze-blond hair falling almost to her waist and the words, 'Brutus Lover Hiding In Zone 42' pasted at her feet in the bold red markings of tabloid news.
Caden sprang to his feet, curse words spewing from his mouth. "They know where she is!" He knew Tevaris was working on it even as he yelled instructions for getting to her. He also knew it was too late.
"How could you like him after this, Carlita?" He was saying over the earphone as I walked away from Napua's house. "How can anyone NOT see his true colors now? He's the antichrist and he wants to take over the world! He said he would keep the safe zones clear, he SAID ..." etc etc. I wasn't answering. I didn't even know what he meant when he said antichrist, and I sort of agreed on the rest of it. Of course Caden knew what he was doing...right? But, maybe he shouldn't have taken over those other two zones. Jason had filled me in on all the details with obvious frustration and fury. I didn't know what Caden was trying to do, I didn't know. But Jason only knew him as Brutus and DIDN'T know that we were affiliated, besides that he set my mill free. If I said anything in his defense, which I wanted to, I would have nothing to refute Jason's anger and I might even give myself away. Jason ranted the whole way back, and I was getting tired of it.
This war had been going on for 5 years, did he think now it would suddenly change, become less gruesome or horrible?
"Jason." I said finally.
"What?"
"You know how I feel about it all. It's horrible, but Brutus believes he's doing what is right. They all do. Is, isn't there someone else you can push your views on?"
Silence.
"Yeah. Sure." He didn't sound mad so much as defeated, and I didn't hear his voice the rest of the walk back to his villa. Once I went inside I couldn't find him either, he had disappeared from among the guests. I looked around for him, didn't see him, and went outside to have a peak around his father's amazing rock garden. I found him, sitting on the lip of a crevice overlooking a valley. It plunged away under his feet and that combined with the moon on his back, silhouetting the unhappy curve of his back and soft black hair...he kind of caught my heart at that moment. I also understood misery and so turned to leave him in peace. He turned his head at exactly the same time and caught my eye. I paused, shocked. Jason was crying. He didn't try to hide it either, just stared me down with the tears running down his face in the dark. I had to talk to him now, dagnabit. I walked forward again uncertain of my ground or what to say.
He said it for me. "Look. This is what Brutus has done." I sat down beside him gingerly and gazed at the screen he held in his hand. As I looked at it one picture faded away from one picture of devastation to another. "That's my parents' house in Zone 3, before it was destroyed, 2nd level. That's my cousin Vanna's house." It was crushed in, surrounded by wreckage. "That is my friend's house in Zone 12. I don't know where they are right now. He's not responding to my messaging, my calls, my codes. That's my friend Lane, his brother Bravis, their older sister Edae. They're the only ones who understood or knew me...and I don't know if they're still alive. Maybe they were in the house when it hit." His voice crumbled into helpless sobs, and I felt horrible. I rubbed his shoulder lamely, not knowing what to say, especially when the screen faded to a trickle of blood coming out of a cracked building and puddling on the pavement.
"Is that..." I whispered, shocked.
Jason followed my gaze. "Yeah that's blood, but I don't know who it is. I downloaded these pictures from a website."
A website?? Huh, maybe he could... I mentally slapped myself. Horrified that I would even think of using my friend to track down my siblings, Ramona's other children, when he was in such grief. The siblings I knew were out there, somewhere.
"Give me something to do."
"Huh?" I looked at him, mind blank as Jason turned fiercely to me.
"Let's do something! I can't sit here and think about this, I need something to take my mind off it. What should we do? Take a walk or something?"
Ahhhh, well then. He asked, didn't he? "Actually I was wondering if we could use some of that illegal technology." I said, businesslike in the face of his sadness. "I need you to do a little research, please." I've been wanting to ask him about this for weeks now, but wasn't sure how to go about doing it. Now, sitting on a projection half a mile away from his father's house was the perfect time to do it.
"Ok." And just like that he was on it. I told him about my past, specifics, what mills I'd been to, what mill Ramona had lived in and where I was born. From there, he started hacking information, trying to find things. But that wasn't enough for him, he had to explain everything he was doing at the same time, so I would know. It was actually kind of fascinating, peaking into a world I knew nothing about and having it explained in such detail. The moon rose as we became absorbed in this search, and he showed me stuff along the way. Other stuff, other pictures of more than the war, the past, science, sports and hobbies he was into that I didn't knew existed. The art of taking pictures, of training animals, BREEDING animals. That one was a little sickening to me, but apparently his parents did it, bred dogs. Then he found some leads on my mother's offspring and things got pretty intense. We spent the next two hours seriously searching. It was 3am by the time we were finished, and he'd discovered I had 3 brothers who were roughly 19, 18, 17 and 2 sisters who were 17 and 13.
"Wait that can't be right, that doesn't make sense. That one and that one were both born at the same time. There must be a mistake."
"They're twins. You've heard about twins?" He asked gently.
Ohhhh, yes. I DID learn about twins. Just last year actually, and I remembered my mom being surprised I'd never come across any in the mills. But Jason didn't make me feel stupid about it, like someone else might have. Even Caden might have hurt my feelings by acting weird about it...and make me feel like an ignorant freak like the neighbors did every time they came over. I found myself worrying about that sometimes, if he would actually feel they would. Or if he was coming back at all. With every month that passed that fairyland time in his castle seemed more and more like a dream...and I needed to move on to a new life. After all he was a dictator of a zone now, so they said, had a whole population to run now that he'd virtually won the war, and I had faded back into a nobody and a nothing. Which I was okay with. I'm not sure that I wanted to be looped in with everything that he'd done, but I also knew that if he came back and asked me to go with him, I would follow him.
I wanted to keep looking up these kids, my brothers and sisters and find out their names and where they were. I was worried about the girls especially...but I felt myself yawning. Then nodding. Then leaning forward. A vice like grip on my upper arm brought me back upright abruptly.
"I think it's time to go inside." Jason said as he held onto me. "Don't worry Carlita, I'll keep looking for ya." We got up, I a little unsteady on my tired feet, and walked arm in arm back through the sculpted stone jungle to his house. Strange things rose on either side of me, creatures with horns and weird hoof feet and mans bodies, unrealistically elongated men and women, some things that didn't make sense at all.
"Free form art. This garden tracks the progression of the rebirth of classical art, and its ascent to new heights." I almost walked into a multi formed, snouted rock creature and found myself groggily staring into a toilet-frog-dragon thing. 'New heights.' I grinned cynically. We stopped a moment away from his house, one more turn and we would see the glow from the patio where the party was still going strong.
"Wait, I have one more thing to show you." He said. "Look here, Brutus has a new love."
WHAT??! My head whipped around and he saw the mild accusation on my face, and smiled. At least I'd gotten his mind off his missing friends, I thought despite my alarm.
"I know you have this thing for him, but you didn't think to compete against all the girls he probably has swarming around him? All the girls of Zone 3 are at his feet right now. All ten of them."
"Har har har." I snatched at the slide screen but he held it at arm's length, above his head. I grabbed his shirt and stretched for it, giggling, tiredness forgotten. For a second we were face to face and I was staring into his warm brown eyes and white smile. Then I climbed my hands up his sleeve and dragged his arm down to my level. "Let me see her!" I shouted. "I wanna know this competition so I can destroy her sou--..." I was looking into a dated picture of myself on the media screen. Jagged cheekbones on an anemically thin face, saucer plate eyes that stared blankly into the viewer's face, ugly brown-blond hair, it was my last photo taken at my yearly checkup at the mill doctor's hospital. My breath froze and my heart stopped in my chest. Then it began to beat again, painfully hard.
"Not too pretty is she? Apparently he fell in love with one of the very mill girls he freed. That's what the news is saying but you know they pair him with a different girl every week. Here there's more pictures of her at his house." The picture faded out to one of me at the party, diamonds lacing my forehead and throat, shining from my ears as I stood on the stage at Caden's arm in the lava colored dress. "They're all speculating who the mystery girl is, WHERE she is. This just came up but it started at the beginning of the war." Jason said, peaking over my shoulder. "I thought she looked kind of like you." He paused, looked closer and gazed at my stricken face. "Carlita..."
***
Things were going well. Caden was stretched out on his bed at 3pm in the afternoon, for the hour nap he forced himself to take so he wouldn't go crazy. Things had just started to wind down and fall into place, the zone was stable, the dissenters in Antarctica or dead, the rebellion the new leadership. Now that he had expanded to Zones 12 and 4 he was dictator of his own continent, a piece of land NO ONE had ever owned in its entirety before. It was time to bring his wife home.
The beep signaled trouble, the one clear and unique note that meant Tevaris/Job wanted to talk. His 'yes' brought his closest friend and advisor's face up on the wall with news.
"They've found her. Watch the news." Tevaris's face was replaced by the local news flashes and Carlita filled the screen. The three days she had been with him, and someone had managed to get five pictures. Two were mill pictures and two at the party...then there was a sixth. It was of a tall, curvaceous woman with a blurred out face and long, bronze-blond hair falling almost to her waist and the words, 'Brutus Lover Hiding In Zone 42' pasted at her feet in the bold red markings of tabloid news.
Caden sprang to his feet, curse words spewing from his mouth. "They know where she is!" He knew Tevaris was working on it even as he yelled instructions for getting to her. He also knew it was too late.
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