Article 5
Authors: Kristen Simmons
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Dystopian, #Action & Adventure, #General
FOR JASON.
Thanks for today.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1
BETH
and Ryan were holding hands. It was enough to risk a formal citation for indecency, and they knew better, but I didn’t say anything. Curfew rounds wouldn’t begin for another two hours, and freedom was stolen in moments like these.
“Slow down, Ember,” Ryan called.
Instead I walked faster, pulling away from our pack.
“Leave her alone,” I heard Beth whisper. My face heated as I realized how I must look: not like a conscientious friend who was minding her own business, but like a bitter third wheel who couldn’t stand seeing other couples happy. Which wasn’t true—mostly.
Sheepishly, I fell into step beside Beth.
My best friend was tall for a girl, with an explosion of dark freckles centered at her nose and a cap of squiggly red hair that was untamable on chilly days like this one. She traded Ryan’s arm for mine—which, if I was honest,
did
make me feel a little safer—and without a word, we danced on our tiptoes around the massive cracks in the sidewalk, just like we’d done since the fourth grade.
When the concrete path succumbed to gravel, I raised the front of my too-long khaki skirt so the hem didn’t drag in the dust. I hated this skirt. The matching button-up top was so boxy and stiff that it made even busty Beth look flat as an ironing board. School uniforms were part of President Scarboro’s new Moral Statute—one of many that had taken effect after the War—mandating that appearances comply with gender roles. I didn’t know what gender they’d been aiming for with this outfit. Clearly it wasn’t female.
We stopped at the gas station on the corner out of habit. Though it was the only one in the county still open, the lot was empty. Not many people could afford cars anymore.
We never went inside. There would be snacks and candy bars on the racks, all priced ten times higher than they’d been last year, and we didn’t have any money. We stayed where we were welcome—on the outside. Three feet removed from the hundreds of tiny faces imprisoned behind the tinted glass. The board read:
MISSING! IF SIGHTED, CONTACT THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF REFORMATION IMMEDIATELY!
Silently, we scanned the photographs of the foster-care runaways and escaped criminals for anyone we might know, checking for one picture in particular. Katelyn Meadows. A girl with auburn hair and a perky smile, who’d been in my junior history class last year. Mrs. Matthews had just told her she’d gotten the highest grade in the class on her midterm when the soldiers had arrived to take her to trial. “Article 1 violation,” they’d said. Noncompliance with the national religion. It wasn’t as if she’d been caught worshipping the devil; she’d missed school for Passover, and it had gone on to the school board as an unauthorized absence.
That was the last time anyone had seen her.
The next week Mrs. Matthews had been forced to take the Bill of Rights out of the curriculum. There was no discussion permitted on the topic. The soldiers posted at the door and at the recruiting table in the cafeteria made sure of that.
Two months after Katelyn’s trial, her family had moved away. Her phone number had been disconnected. It was as if she’d never existed.
Katelyn and I hadn’t been friends. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her; I thought she was all right, actually. We always said hi, if not much more. But since her sudden disappearance, something dark had kindled inside of me. I’d been more on guard. As compliant with the Statutes as possible. I didn’t like to sit in the front row of class anymore, and I never walked home from school alone.
I couldn’t be taken. I had to look out for my mother.
I finished my review. No Katelyn Meadows. Not this week.
“Did you hear about Mary What’s-her-name?” Beth asked as we resumed our walk to my house. “She’s a sophomore I think.”
“Let’s see, Mary What’s-her-name,” said Ryan pensively, pushing the glasses up his sharp nose. His uniform jacket made him look studious, whereas the other guys at school always looked like their mothers had dressed them up for Easter Sunday.
“No. What happened to her?” A chill tickled my skin.
“Same thing as Katelyn. Moral Militia came to take her to trial, and no one’s seen her in a week.” Beth’s voice lowered, as it did when she suspected someone might be listening.
My stomach sank. They weren’t actually called the Moral Militia, but they might as well have been. The uniformed soldiers actually belonged to the Federal Bureau of Reformation—the branch of the military the president had created at the end of the War three years ago. Their purpose was to enforce compliance with the Moral Statutes, to halt the chaos that had reigned during the five years that America had been mercilessly attacked. The hammer had come down hard: Any violation against the Statutes led to a citation, and in the worst cases, resulted in a trial before the FBR Board. People who went to trial—like Katelyn—didn’t usually come back.
There were all sorts of theories. Prison. Deportation. A few months ago I’d heard a crazy homeless man spouting off about mass executions, before he’d been carted away. Regardless of the rumors, reality was bleak. With each new Statute issued, the MM became more powerful, more self-righteous. Hence the nickname.
“They took a freshman from gym, too,” said Ryan soberly. “I heard they didn’t even let him change back into his uniform.”
First Katelyn Meadows, now Mary Something and another boy. And Mary and the boy within the last two weeks. I remembered when school had been safe—the only place we didn’t have to think about the War. Now kids never ditched. There weren’t any fights. People even turned in their homework on time. Everyone was scared their teacher would report them to the MM.
As we turned up my empty driveway, I glanced next door. The boxy house’s white paneling was stained by dust and rain. The bushes had overgrown so much that they connected over the concrete steps. Long, fragile cobwebs sagged from the overhang. It looked haunted. In a way, it was.
That had been
his
house. The house of the boy I loved.
Deliberately, I looked away and climbed our front porch stairs to let my friends inside.
My mother was sitting on the couch. She had at least four too many clips in her hair and was wearing a shirt that she’d stolen from my closet. I didn’t mind. The truth was I wasn’t much into clothes. Sorting through a collection of worn hand-me-downs at a donation center hadn’t exactly cultivated my desire to shop.
What I
did
mind was that she was reading a paperback with a half-naked pirate on the cover. That stuff was illegal now. She’d probably gotten it from someone she volunteered with at the soup kitchen. The place was chock-full of unemployed women spreading their passive-aggressive contraband beneath the Moral Militia’s nose.
“Hi, baby. Hi, kids,” my mother said, hardly moving. She didn’t look up until she finished reading her page, then she jammed a bookmark in place and stood. I kept my mouth shut about the book, even though I probably should have told her not to bring that stuff home. It obviously made her happy, and it was better than her reading it on the porch, like she sometimes did when feeling particularly mutinous.
“Hi, Mom.”
She kissed me noisily on the cheek, then hugged my friends at the same time before releasing us to our homework.
We pulled out our big heavy books and began deciphering the mechanical world of precalculus. It was horrid work—I detested math—but Beth and I had made a pact not to drop. Rumor was, next year, girls weren’t even going to be able to take math anymore, so we suffered through in silent rebellion.
Smiling sympathetically at my expression, my mother patted my head and offered to make us all hot chocolate. After a few minutes of frustration, I followed her into the kitchen. She’d forgotten to water her ficus plant again, and it drooped pitifully. I filled a glass from the sink and poured it into the pot.
“Bad day?” she ventured. She spooned the chocolate powder into four mugs from a blue canister with a picture of a sunrise on the front. Horizons brand food was government owned, and all we could get with our meal rations.
I leaned against the counter and scuffed my heel against the floor, still thinking about the two new abductees, the contraband. The empty house next door.
“I’m fine,” I lied. I didn’t want to scare her by telling her about Mary Something, and I still didn’t want to rag her about the book. She hated when I got on her back about the rules. She could be sort of reactive sometimes.
“How was work?” I changed the subject. She didn’t get paid at the soup kitchen, but we still called it work. It made her feel better.
She didn’t miss my obvious avoidance, but she let it drop and launched into a full story about Misty Something dating Kelly Something’s boyfriend from high school, and … I didn’t bother keeping up. I just nodded and soon was smiling. Her enthusiasm was infectious. By the time the teakettle whistled, I felt much better.
She was reaching for the mugs when someone knocked on the door. I went to answer it, thinking that it was probably Mrs. Crowley from across the street, stopping by to visit my mother like she did every day.
“Ember, wait—” The fear in Beth’s voice made me stop and turn back toward the living room. She was kneeling on the couch, her hand on the curtain. The color had drained from her already-fair complexion.
But it was too late. My mom unlatched the dead bolt and opened the door.
Two Moral Militia soldiers stood on our front steps.
They were in full uniform: navy blue flak jackets with large wooden buttons, and matching pants that bloused into shiny boots. The most recognized insignia in the country, the American flag flying over a cross, was painted on their breast pockets, just above the initials FBR. Each of them had a standard-issue black baton, a radio, and a gun on his belt.
One of the soldiers had short brown hair that grayed around his temples, and wrinkles around the corners of his mouth that made him appear too old for his age. His narrow companion brushed at his tawny mustache impatiently.
I sagged in disappointment. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had hoped that one of them was
him.
It was a fleeting moment of weakness whenever I saw a uniform, and I kicked myself for it.
“Ms. Lori Whittman?” The first soldier asked, without looking her in the face.
“Yes,” my mother replied slowly.
“I need to see some ID.” He didn’t bother to introduce himself, but his name tag read
BATEMAN
. The other was
CONNER
.
“Is there a problem?” There was a snarky tinge to her tone, one I hoped they didn’t pick up on. Beth came up close behind me, and I could feel Ryan beside her.
“Just get your ID, ma’am,” Bateman said irritably.
My mother pulled away from the door without inviting them in. I blocked the threshold, trying not to look as small as I felt. I could not let them search the house; we had too much contraband out to avoid a citation. I tilted my head subtly to Beth, and she meandered back to the couch, stuffing the romance novel my mother had been reading beneath the cushions. My mind raced through the other things she had: more
inappropriate
paperbacks, old magazines from before the War, a home manicure kit. I’d even heard that my favorite book, Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein,
had made the list, and I knew that was right on top of my nightstand. We weren’t scheduled for an inspection tonight; we’d just had one last month. Everything had been left out.
A burning ignited in my chest, like the flicker of a lighter. And then I could hear my heart, thudding against my ribs. It startled me. A long time had passed since I’d been aware of that feeling.
Bateman tried to look past me, but I blocked his view. His brow lifted in judgment, and my blood boiled. Over the past year the MM’s presence in Louisville—and all the remaining U.S. cities—had increased tenfold. It seemed there wasn’t enough for them to do; harassing citizens appeared to be a high priority. I stuffed down the resentment and tried to stay composed. It was unwise to be impolite to the MM.