The Colony Box Set

Chapter 4

Chapter 4Classes were held in a large, imposing building at the apex of the monorail’s track, before the train began the curving descent around the business district and back down to the residential homes. But when students of a particular year were scheduled to visit a working environment, we stayed on the train past the classroom and, instead, exited at the office building where our Teacher would meet us. So when the train left the platform in front of the classroom, twenty-six students remained behind, every one of them my age. They were paired with their Others, and many sat facing another pair of friends, the same way Brin and I sat opposite Kyer and Lyra.

Lyra stared out the window at the gray, steely waters beyond the edges of the Colony. From the monorail, the view of the ocean was expansive but dismal—white-capped waves were the same metallic shade as the cloud-covered sky above. We had learned of the sun and stars in class but no one I knew had ever seen them. Nothing but gray skies as far as the eye could see, giving the white buildings within the Colony a brilliance that made them seem to glow with life.

“I might want to be a Monitor,” she said suddenly.

I stared at her hand, still entwined with Kyer’s, and felt the knife of jealousy twist further into my gut.

“Oh, no, really?” Brin asked, wrinkling her nose. “They don’t really do anything, do they? I mean, just sit there and watch us all the time.”

“Not all the time,” I amended. When my friends looked at me, I explained, “When the screen’s off, they can’t see us, can they?”

“Can they?” Kyer asked.

It was on the tip of my tongue to say no, they can’t, because then someone would’ve known I crushed the blue pill under my foot and, so far, I didn’t think anyone knew.

Brin answered before I could. “No, I guess they can’t. We do have some privacy, after all. It’s in the Code.”

The Code, the laws by which the Colony lived. One whole section was devoted to screens and what activities we could expect from them. At some level, we were monitored at all times—our vitals, for instance; a rapid heartbeat or sudden fall would activate the screen to ensure we weren’t in need of medical assistance. But when the screens were blank, we could consider ourselves, for all intents and purposes, alone.

I had read the Code many times—each year in class, the first thing we did was review the sections pertaining to us—and, I had to admit, nowhere did it actually say anything about the screens being “turned off.” They were blank, like a closed eye, unseeing perhaps, but not asleep.

Across from me, Kyer moved one of his large feet and nudged my shoe with his. I pulled my leg back, a little too quickly. “I bet they watch us undress,” he teased.

The girls squealed, and Brin grabbed my arm tight. “Don’t say that! They can’t see when the screen’s blank, you know that’s how it works.”

“They’re watching anyway,” Kyer joked, grinning. He gave me a wink that sent a shiver down my spine. “They see everything. That’s why Lyra wants to be a Monitor.”

“It is not,” she groused. When he gave her hand a squeeze, she shook free from his grip. “You’re so disgusting sometimes. Grow up.”

Kyer laughed and draped an arm around her shoulders. “I have two more years before I have to do that.” He leaned over, nuzzling her neck. She squirmed away, but not before I saw a faint smile on her lips.

I closed my eyes and pictured Kyer undressing, those long legs of his unsheathed for once, exposing pale skin that would look tan alongside the bright white linen pants we all wore. Faint downy hair on his legs would shimmer in the light, and my own body reacted to his in a way I hadn’t felt before, not with him, not even with Brin. Clearing my throat, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and looked away from my friends, around the cabin, anywhere but at the pretty boy sitting across from me and those legs, those hands.

Lyra’s voice sounded far away when she asked, “Don’t you think it’d be fun, though? Being able to watch everything? Brin?”

“I want to work in the Birthing Center,” my Other said. “I like the babies.”

Kyer spoke up. “Why not the Eugenics Lab, then? You could make them from scratch.”

“I like them already born,” Brin explained. “They’re so much cuter after they come out of the test tubes.”

Kyer’s foot nudged mine again. “What about you, Aine? You know what you want to do yet?”

Go back to sleep, I thought. Dream of you again. Was there a position like that in the Colony?

Of course not. “I’m not sure yet,” I muttered, half to myself.

I felt Brin’s hand on mine. “He has two years to decide. You said it yourself. Do you know yet?”

“I’ll find something I like, I’m sure,” Kyer assured her.

I glanced up to find him staring, at me, and my stomach fluttered at his words. Rather, at the suggestion I thought I heard beneath them.

* * * *

As we neared the Monitor Center, the monorail slowed and I stood, eager to put some much-needed distance between myself and my friends. While I had enjoyed my dream the night before, it caused such an awkward tension between Kyer and me that I wanted to put it behind us. If getting back to where we’d been yesterday meant taking the pill this evening, I’d do it, dream or not. I didn’t like the way my body wanted to react to his nearness.

No, that wasn’t true. I loved the way he made me feel. For the first time in my life, my nerves sang out and brightened every aspect of the day, but it terrified me, too.

Did he feel it? Did Brin or Lyra? How could they not?

Suddenly the train stopped, and I stumbled forward against Kyer, who was still seated. I caught myself against his headrest, but overbalanced and dropped into his lap. Before I could stand, his arms snaked around my waist and Kyer rested his chin on my shoulder, grinning at Brin. “Ha! He’s my Other now.”

Though I felt safe there in his arms, I made a show of struggling free. “Let me up.”

Kyer hugged me tight, keeping me close. I wriggled as Brin laughed, and even Lyra rolled her eyes as she stepped around us. “He’s all yours, Aine.”

“I don’t want him,” I protested, but the words sounded hollow to my own ears. I do, I do, I thought, grinding my hips into his lap. I wanted the monorail to deposit all the others and leave just the two of us behind. Maybe then the hands on my waist could drop a little lower and touch me in places I hadn’t managed to dream about yet.

Playfully Kyer bit at the fabric of my tunic, tugging it in his teeth. “Hear that? I’m all yours.”

As Brin passed, she grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. “Sorry, Kyer. This one belongs to me.”

I snagged his hand and helped him stand, too. Brin led us down the aisle, holding my arm as I held onto Kyer. Lyra walked in front, shaking her head. “Boys,” she declared, to anyone who would listen. “We should get rid of them all and start our own Colony.”

With a laugh, I countered, “That wouldn’t last long.”

“Why not?” Brin shot back. “I’ve heard there are enough genes in storage to last several generations.”

Behind me, Kyer said, “Admit it, you’d be bored without us.”

Brin gave him a smile over her shoulder. “Oh, honey, you know we take pills for that.”

* * * *

The Monitor Center was housed in a large, nondescript building of white brick, indistinguishable from its neighbors except for a small, silver plaque near a pair of large, glass doors. Monitor Center, the plaque read in squat, capital letters. Our Teacher waited for us outside on the sidewalk, standing beside someone I assumed to be the Monitor who would lead us on a tour through the facility.

In the past, it might have been customary to use a term of address to show respect to adults, but in the Colony, one’s job was one’s title. Teacher Mendra was older but yet not an Elder—I knew this because Elders no longer held jobs or lived among us, but rather retired to a lush facility on the far side of the Colony, the only building outside the monorail loop. At seventy, everyone was required to present themselves to the Elder Center. A special trip was made around the track, picking up every one of eligible age, all twenty-six members of that year, complete with their Others and their luggage, and the belongings they wanted to take with them. The rest of us gathered around the track and waved as they passed for the final time. Only those who worked at the Elder Center—and the Elders themselves, of course—could enter the facility.

Some day far in the future, every single person with me on the sidewalk outside the Monitor Center would gather on that train and take one last ride around the Colony before we retired, too. Though I didn’t know how old the Teacher was exactly, I could easily look up her Colony Card information on my console and see her birth name, which would tell me what year she had been born. I didn’t care all that much, really. She was older than my parents, from the looks of things. Her hair was long and white, a shade or two darker than the clothing we all wore, and her face was deeply lined. But she had kind eyes and was patient with us, even when we jostled for a position close to where she stood with the Monitor.

“Settle down,” she admonished, her soft voice barely raised over the sound of the monorail as it swooshed out of sight.

Even if we couldn’t hear her, we knew what she was saying—we knew the routine. In pairs, we found our usual places in line, Brin and I at the front because of our names. She still held my hand, but I shook free when the doors opened and the Teacher led us inside.

Walking backward to face us, the Teacher called out, “Tags ready, children! We have a lot to do today and the sooner we get started, the sooner it’ll be over.”

As I passed through the doors into the building’s cool interior, I held out my right arm, hand fisted, wrist turned up so the sensor would be able to scan the tag implanted at the base of my thumb. Each of us was tagged at birth, and everything anyone would ever need to know about us was encoded on a tiny little microchip roughly the size of a grain of rice. Our genetic makeup, for health reasons. Our parents, for identification purposes. Our Other, so anyone caught out after hours by a patrol could prove they were with the person they were supposed to be with, and no one else.

Everything that made me me to the Colony was on my tag. When I turned eighteen and chose a career, that would be added to the tag, too, with a laser-based procedure my mother assured didn’t hurt too much. Or, rather, as she said, “It’s over so fast, you barely feel it until it’s done.”

Which didn’t actually say it didn’t hurt, just that it hurt afterwards.

I heard a faint double beep as I passed through the doors, Brin beside me. We followed the Teacher into the foyer—white, everything white. Sometimes when I came into a building from the overcast light outside, I felt as if I’d gone blind. Everything was the same shade. So clean, so sparse. So Colony.

“All the way in, please,” the Teacher was saying.

I drifted after her, looking over my shoulder for Kyer as Brin took my hand.