The Colony Box Set

Chapter 6

Chapter 6After lunch, each of us was assigned to a Monitor, to watch what they did on a regular shift and ask questions, if we had any. My Monitor was a balding man around my father’s age, thin and tall, so tall he towered over me even when seated. The screens in his cubicle all showed rooms in office buildings, where people were working at various jobs around the Colony. He showed me how to turn the screens on and off, how to switch between active screens, and even how to scroll through the rooms he was assigned to watch during his shift. The dozen screens were just a small sample of what he had to keep up with, it seemed. There were more than thirty screens assigned to each cubicle, and a few keystrokes could flip to a whole new set of screens.

“I thought we weren’t being watched when the screens were off,” I said after he showed me how the display worked.

“You aren’t being watched,” the Monitor explained. He had introduced himself when I first arrived at his cubicle, but I’d forgotten his name.

I pointed at the screens before us. “It looks like we’re watching all these people right now.”

“A Monitor’s job is to monitor the Colony,” he told me. “We don’t sit here and watch everyone every second of the day. We monitor what’s going on, that’s it.”

Somehow, I didn’t see the distinction. “It sounds like the same thing to me. Can we see my room?”

“This is a business station.” The patience in his voice was wearing thin. “The residential stations are upstairs. We can only monitor what’s assigned to this station.”

I glanced at the screens. In one corner, someone tended to newborns at the Birthing Center. In another corner, rows of workers tapped endlessly onto keyboards, their faces lit with the glow from their consoles. On another screen, several people worked around a conveyor belt, stuffing smaller boxes into bigger ones to ship out.

Our pills.

The Monitor was explaining something to me, but I had tuned him out. Now I leaned forward to tap the screen of the Distribution facility. “Are these our pills?”

He stopped in mid-sentence and glared at me. “I don’t know. I’m just here to monitor the room and the people in it. I don’t assess or analyze what they’re doing.”

“What else ships in boxes like those?” I wanted to know.

Ignoring me, he returned to his spiel. “Our purpose is to ensure everyone is safe at all times. We can call up vitals on anyone in a particular room…” He keyed in a sequence of numbers, and the screen I was watching grayed out as an overlay appeared. A small photo of each person in the image was displayed, along with their names, ages, body temperatures, blood pressures, and a stream of other data I didn’t know how to read. “If something happens, the system beeps and brings up the right screen so we can address the problem immediately.”

“Like what happened this morning,” I murmured. When I woke on my own, the system must’ve set off an alarm and notified the Monitor assigned to my room.

Perhaps thinking I was trying to steer him off-course again, the Monitor here ignored me. “You really have to have a knack for this,” he said. “The residential stations aren’t as hectic, but down here…well, a business station can monitor hundreds of people at any given moment. It can get a little crazy.”

I stared at the screens and thought he was trying to make his job sound more glamorous than it really was. “I don’t think I could just sit here and watch everyone all day long.”

He sighed, exasperated. “We aren’t watching them. We’re monitoring them. There’s a subtle difference.”

With a shrug, I sat back in my chair. “Whatever. I still don’t think this is something I’d want to do for the rest of my life.”

“If you’re coded for it, then you don’t really have a choice now, do you?” he asked.

I looked at him, confused. “What do you mean? We’re supposed to take a test to see if we’re fit for this—”

“True,” he said, nodding. “But the test is nothing more than protocol. Procedure, really. If you’re supposed to become a Monitor, then it’s already encoded in your genetic makeup. You’ve had it in you since birth.”

What?! “We get to choose our career,” I said, my voice quivering. “We get to pick—”

“And we always pick the thing we’re born to do,” he replied. “It’s in the Code. Look it up.”

I sat in stunned silence, trying to ignore the faint smirk I saw playing around the edges of his thin lips. So everything was decided for us ahead of time? Our Other, our career, our entire lives?

I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t.

But then…look at Brin, I thought. Chosen for me, perfect—for me. When I found the right job, would it fit as snugly into my life as she did ? Would it be almost too right?

* * * *

The rest of the afternoon passed slowly. The one thing I learned was that I wasn’t coded to be a Monitor. The man beside me never seemed to bore or tire of his duty, but before long, I was staring around the cubicle’s opening and trying to see if any of my classmates were close enough to talk to instead. They weren’t. Brin and Lyra had gone upstairs to the residential stations, and I didn’t know what cubicle Kyer was in. I felt abandoned, all alone, despite the Monitor whose cubicle I shared. I couldn’t imagine the rest of my life stretching out on the screens in front of me.

Hours passed. Finally I heard footsteps outside our cubicle and glanced up to see my Teacher peering in. “Time’s about up, Aine. We’re finishing early because you all have rec time tonight.”

A little too eagerly, I stood and stretched. “Thank you,” I breathed, half to the Monitor who sat with me and half to the Teacher for interrupting us. I had begun to worry I’d be stuck in the tiny cubicle forever.

This would be one career test I vowed to fail.

The rest of my class were gathering near the door we had entered earlier in the day. I saw Kyer a little ways off from the others and waved because I thought he was looking at me, but he didn’t wave back, and his expression didn’t change. It wasn’t until I approached that he seemed to shake himself awake and grinned. “Boring,” he intoned, keeping his voice down so the Teacher wouldn’t overhear.

I snickered into my arm so she wouldn’t hear me, either. “Tell me about it. And Lyra really wants to do this?”

Kyer shrugged. “She’d probably be good at it. She can sit still for hours just reading or staring at her console. Me? Never.”

“What do you think you want to do?” I didn’t mention what the Monitor had said about our future careers being hard-wired into our genes. I didn’t believe that. I didn’t want to believe it.

Kyer shrugged again, his gaze drifting to where our class stood by the door. “I don’t know yet. What about you?”

“Me either,” I admitted. “Brin wants to work in the Birthing Center.”

With a nod, Kyer said, “Yeah, she’d be good there. I want to do something…”

He trailed off, so I asked, “Like what?”

“I don’t know yet.” He looked at me and grinned, his smile lighting up his whole face. “We have two whole years to figure it out.”

“And if we don’t?” I wanted to know.

“I’m sure the Monitor Center will have you,” he joked.

I shook my head, but before I replied, someone nudged me from behind and I turned to find Brin there. “Hey, you,” I said, wrapping an arm around her waist. Lyra was a step behind her.

“We saw your room,” my Other said, breaking into a broad smile. “Lyra did, actually. She was assigned to the cubicle but she called me over to take a look.”

A sliver of fear laced through me. “What’d you see?”

“Nothing, silly.” Brin bumped my hip with hers. “What would we see? You’re right here at the moment. But I knew it was yours because I know your coordinates. You’re only three rooms off from mine.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if she’d seen a faint blue residue on my carpet, the remnants of the pill I crushed the night before, but if I asked, then I’d have to explain why I wanted to know. Maybe I’d tell her at some point—Kyer was right, I should’ve told her before anyone else, but not here. Not with Lyra and the others nearby.

Our Teacher led us through the lobby and back outside to await the next monorail. As we exited the main glass doors, tiny beeps overhead assured us our tags were being scanned. Kyer and Lyra went ahead of us, and I held the door for Brin. But when I stepped out, the little beep made a different sound, a deeper sound, almost a bong of warning. Above the doorframe, a red light began to blink.

I stopped in the doorway. Outside, Brin joined our friends. “Aine?” she asked, looking back.

“A-4602?” someone called from across the lobby.

I stepped inside and let the door shut. My heart seemed to stop in my chest. “Yes, that’s me.”

The woman came around from behind a white reception desk that blended into its surroundings. She checked a hand-held console as she crossed to where I stood. “It’s from the Health Center,” she told me. “A reminder not to forget to stop by today for a check-up.”

I drew a shaky breath, relieved. “Yes, I know. I’m headed there now.”

With a smile, she said, “Great. Let me clear your tag and you can go.”

I held out my arm and she scanned my wrist with her console. The door beeped now, the same sound it had made for the others, and the red light blinked one final time before dying.

Outside, my friends waited for me. “What was that all about?” Kyer asked.

“A reminder to stop by the Health Center,” I said, hoping I sounded calmer than I felt. My hands shook slightly from the rush of adrenaline that had flooded my body at the warning chime. “I’ll get off at the Junction and catch the next train Up.”

The Health Center was north of the Monitor Center; I would ride the train with my friends to the platform at the Junction, where the circled tracks crossed. From there, I could catch the northbound train back into the business district, and not have to ride around the whole residential area before returning. If I timed things right, and if the checkup didn’t take too long—or I wasn’t detained for not taking all my pills—I should make it back in plenty of time to participate in rec time with my friends.