We Must Survive

Chapter 1

    I woke up stretching my shoulders, back, arms and legs. Rolling off the bed I grabbed the comb running it through my long black hair as I looked into the mirror at my sleepy face. My dull brown eyes, and puffy face said it all. I turned the shower on and tested the heat with my elbow my tanned skin filled with goosebumps as I felt the freezing water shooting out of the shower head. As I eased my body into the slowly warming water I began to sing, "Happy Birthday to me." Today was going to be a tough one the harvest started on my birthday every year and since they took more women and a few men last year the few left behind would have to pick up the slack.

    "Jean! Hurry up will you. I swear everyday its a struggle to get you to move faster than a turtle!", Yelled my father from down stairs.

    "How would you know how fast a turtle is if you ain't ever seen one pops?", I countered as I threw on my jumper and slowly dragged myself downstairs before the food was eaten up by my brothers and younger sisters. There were 9 of us 5 boys and 4 girls that survived our mother. She was surfaced after giving birth to Juelz our little sister since she had a stroke shortly after the birth. At least they let her give us our names and going with tradition she chose every name with the letter J.  The first of us was our sister Janette, then my brother Jad, Jeremy was third, I was fourth, our brother Joktan fifth, Josalyn sixth, Judah was seventh, Jordy was eighth, and of course Juelz the ninth.  We also had baby Jax, our sister Janette's baby boy they usually sent the children to live with the father but he was a one time breeder that chose not to care for him.

     We lived in unit 73A with 157 other families of all sizes. The larger the family the higher your status was. I was an average girl of 17 years of age. Spent most of my life in the American Unit 73A, one of many farming communities that provided the other units of the world with crops of wheat, corn, sugar cane, and cotton. Every unit had a purpose to survive the devastation that WW3 had caused humanity back in 2029 when the world still lived above ground and the people were free to be anything lawyers, doctors, and writers. Not anymore. It's been 3000 years since our ancestors escaped the radiation from the war. All of humanity lives underground in connecting bunkers led by the first survivors we slowly grew and maintained life. The Units could only house 300 people at a time those who grew to be a strain were sent above to be killed by the radiation from the surface. Our numbers have been slowly reducing pretty soon we will not have enough people to survive.

    Re-population was key and how would our government solve that problem, by creating the breeder program if selected you would live a life in luxury. The breeders could only be chosen once they turned 18, every male and female would be subjected to a physical on their 18th birthday if they passed requirements then they would be taken to Units 1-20A. It used to be a choice for both men and women but the government took the choice from the women 50 years back only men could decline the breeding program now. I was only one of many others that hated this program. My sister Janette had been taken 3 years ago, within the year they were informed of her death and sent a baby boy Jax to be raised by her family. They discarded my sister because they had to give her a hysterectomy due to a ruptured uterus, she was of no use to them so they sent her to the surface to her death just like their mother before her.

    "You'll need to help your brother Jad with his harvesting section today." my father spoke in a whisper as I fixed my breakfast plate. I looked up seeing the fear in his eyes telling me how bad my brother had been hurt since he fell off the roof six weeks ago. He had broken a few ribs and had yet to recover fully and now the spectators were watching and waiting to see if he was going to be a strain. Spectators were the ones that would report those who were a strain and could no longer serve the units. No one knew who they were but they always managed to find you if it got to the point were you could no longer do your job.

    I took a sip of my drink before I spoke. " It's day one of harvesting season. How are we supposed to hide the fact that he has not recovered yet? I can do his section and mine but we have to figure out another way so he can recover faster before they notice." I whispered in return.

     I sat at the table next to my sister Josalyn and began to pick at my food. I was already exhausted from the day scarfing my food down knowing I would need the energy for the extra work. Jad walked down stairs with a huge grin acting as if he was pumped to start the harvest.

    "We'll manage." My father said quickly as he dropped some toast on my plate with more eggs.

    "Jad, Jean needs to shadow you today. She's been having trouble with her hand sickle technique. I want you to show her how it's done then let her practice while you make sure the wheat is cut right?" , their father announced. I kept my eyes on my plate as Jad looked down to me from across the table I knew he understood what our father was saying.

    "Okay, pops I can manage that. Jean eat up, you're going to need your strength today." Jad said.

    " Pops, can Jordy and I work together too?", asked Juelz.

    "Sorry hun", he said shaking his head no,"everyone else needs to manage their section we don't want to fall behind on the first day of the harvest. Jeremy, you and Joktan head out to the truck and make sure we have extra supplies for the harvest. Josalyn and Juelz make sure to have lunch ready for us by eleven."

    "Yes, pops." Josalyn and Juelz replied in unison. Juelz muttering how unfair it was that only I could go to the harvest and they had to stay home taking care of the younger ones, cooking, and cleaning. I playfully nudged her, giving her the raspberry as she looked up from her plate.

    It was true very few women could work the fields during harvesting season especially at my age. The Government didn't want to take the chance of a precious prospective breeder getting hurt before they could use us up. It took my father some negotiating with the units commander for me to be allowed. 

    "Okay, it's time to get to it.", Pops stood from the table heading to the door everyone following  suit behind him. I ran up to the tail gate of the truck hopping into the back with my brothers. Each of them staring at me with stern looks cause I knew full and well that I had to ride in the safety of the truck and not in the back were I could damage myself in anyway.

    "Jean, we've been over this.", Pops said as he started the truck."We're not moving until you get in the front were it's safe."

    "Fine!", I rolled my eyes muttering to myself about how stupid this law was, while my brother Jeremy carried me off the tail gate making sure I wouldn't hurt myself.    

    "You know we only want what's best for you. If the spectators were to see they would take us all away from pops.", Jeremy said as he put me down opening the passenger side door. I crossed my arms choosing to stew in my own anger for a bit as I put on my seat belt.

    "There can we go now? I'm pretty sure were already late and I have plans after the harvest with Sky, Gaby, and Diamond." I said.

    "Really?" Pops raised his brow knowing how us girls liked to get into trouble."Is Sky's brother Tate going to be there as well?"

    "I don't know. Sky hadn't mentioned it and even if he is I don't see why it would matter." I replied.

    "Jean, you know the law. No men that aren't your family are to be within closed unsupervised quarters with and young women if they're 14 and up. He's 17 honey, you could get him sent to the surface if he gets caught.", he grimly reminded me.

    "Pops I know the law and I know that his family would not risk his life just because he hangs out with us alone.", I stated. Sky and Tate were fraternal twins and my best friends since we came to live in this unit with our families. They were two of 11 kids so they lived a pretty good life here, the more kids you have the better your family lives. Their father is Pops best friend, uncle Bob, even though we aren't related we still call him our uncle. We met Gaby and Diamond at the resistance for breeders three years back and have all been inseparable ever since.  

    The truck slowed down and my brothers began to jump out of the back of the truck with the supplies. I hopped out and rushed to gather Jad's and my supplies to make it easier for him. He gave me a small nod as I threw the bag over my shoulder and to walk towards his section of the field first. I looked up at the glaring lights used to provide sunlight to our crops feeling the sweat on my brow increase as we get to work harvesting as much wheat as we can. We acted like Jad was teaching me how to perfect my hand sickle technique as the commanders passed our field sections. They made sure we met the quota of how much wheat we harvested every two hours. I had to push twice as hard trying to let my brother work at his own pace and before we knew it we were done with his section.

    "Time?" I asked as I gulped down some water before thinking of heading to my section.

    " 10:51, almost lunch if you wanna start heading back to the truck? I'm sure Josalyn and Juelz are waiting for us there already with the lunches." Jad replied.

    I poured some water into my sweat rag using it to clean my face and cool it down from the heat of the lamps. "Sure, you go ahead I'm going to drop off the supplies in my section so we don't have to come all the way back here to get it." I responded. Jad nodded and headed to the truck while I packed the supplies up into the bag.

    As I stood up I heard steps coming my way, " You shouldn't be alone all the way out here Miss Jean." Commander Heath said as he stared me up and down with his disgusting face. Commander Heather always came around to stare and try and catch me alone. He licked his yellow teeth flicking his disgusting tongue at me as he adjusted his belt just to thrust his hips in my direction. His fat gut overlapped his tan pants that looked like they had piss stains on them.

    "Commander Heath, what a surprise? I was just about to catch up with my brother Jad, he just took off to the truck a second ago for lunch.", I responded hoping he would get the hint and leave me alone.

    "What's the rush sweet cakes? I could use some company for lunch and I know how much you love sweets so I brought you some cream filled pastries. Why don't you follow me to the patrol truck so I can give it to you." I shuddered as he shamelessly thrust his hips forward while saying give it to you.

    "No thank you commander. I'm sure my brother is on his way back to check on me since it's takes no time for me to get to the truck and I should of already been there by now. I should be going, bye." I yell out as I begin to jog back to the truck with the bag covering my back not waiting for him to respond. I could still feel his eyes on me as I turned the corner of the path to the truck. I shook it off deciding not to tell pops or my brothers, if they knew about this they'd do something that would get them all surfaced. So keeping my mouth shut was the best thing to do for now.

    As I got to the truck I could see the worry lines on Pops face as he watched me jogging toward them with the supplies. He took a bite of his plain steamed sweet potato as he looked behind me I could hear the commanders truck driving past. I kept my head down picking up the pace to get to the truck and my family. I could still feel eyes on me, the feeling of being watched made me more uneasy.

    "You ok?",Pops asked with concern in his voice. He knew Commander Heath only came around to pester me since he had nothing better to do and no woman would ever give him the time of day. Pops had told me how when they were coming up the commander would chase momma around telling her how she should chose him to be her partner in the breeding program. The only thing the government allowed was for the women to chose their partners since they would be paired for life. Momma and pops grew up together always looking out for one another and over the years they slowly fell in love. My momma was a beauty, she was short 5'4, with long black hair, brown eyes, fair skin, with an hour glass figure. Pops said it looked like she carried the sun in her eyes if ever they had seen it, it would be just like the light in her eyes. He and uncle bob would tell me I was the spitting image of momma but with pops tanned skin and his attitude to boot. When it came time for momma to chose there was no question about it, momma and pops were made for each other. Commander Heath wasn't thrilled that she would chose pops and not him even tho he didn't meet the requirements for the breeding program he was still sore about pops taking what his delusional mind thought was his.

    "I'm fine pops no need to worry bout me.", I hopped onto the tail gate leaning on my brother Judah. Unwrapping the potato I took the largest bite I could take without choking. It was going to be a tough day having to watch out for my brother and making sure the comannder kept his distance.