Solstice (11 page)

He started whispering, and I leaned forward to catch his quiet words. I tried to ignore how he smelled like he’d just been outside, beneath the sun.

“Most people are born with peaceful dispositions,” he said. “In fact, scientists believe all babies are born with the same personality. So it makes sense that if we’re educated the same way and grow up in the same social structure, our personalities will be quite generic.”

I nodded. I could understand the scientists’ conclusions. There wasn’t much difference between the kids I knew. Sol seemed to have higher intelligence than most and Chalice liked to push against the rules, but they were the only ones who seemed different.

“But when the scientific model fails, even after all precautions are taken, scientists want to know why,” Rueben continued. “Harmony implants don’t just suppress emotions. They track our emotion levels and send the results back to the science board. And they can be programmed to control our brains on a greater level, affecting how you react to certain events or ideas.”

I stared at Rueben in the dim light as disbelief washed over me. Although I shouldn’t be surprised. If Phase Three could monitor my dreams, the Legislature could track us through the Harmony implants. But I wondered how Rueben knew so much. “How do you know?”

Rueben hesitated, then said in a quiet voice, “I wasn’t born in the city. I’m from the relocation program. It’s common knowledge there.”

I shifted away from him, my heart pounding. I’d never met anyone born outside of the city—we were told they were barbaric and diseased and were never allowed within the borders. I studied Rueben for a second. He looked intelligent. He looked healthy.

“You’re from a . . . Lake Town?” I tried not to let my prejudice show.

A slow smile crossed his face. “I know what you’re thinking. Why aren’t I shackled to the floor shouting nonsense words?”

“Well? Why are you so normal?” I asked, ignoring his smile.

“Your history lessons have been greatly manipulated.”

Naomi would probably agree, but I still had a hard time believing it. Maybe he was an exception. “Where are you really from?”

“I was born in the Lake Town of Prairie.”

I watched his hands move as he talked. His nails were clean, and I didn’t see any signs of sores. “Where is Prairie?”

“A few days by ship.” When my eyebrows crinkled, he said, “A ship is a very large boat.”

“I know what a boat is.” They transported people and goods along the river. I’d heard about Lake Towns in other parts of the world that relied on boats to house people because they weren’t advanced enough to find alternate survival solutions like we had.

Rueben watched me, amusement in his eyes. He held up an arm. “Do you want to touch me, see if I’m real?”

“I—I know you’re real, it’s just that—”

“You didn’t expect someone from a Lake Town to actually walk upright and speak?”

My face burned. “Something like that.”

“Look, Jezebel, I’m not sure why I’m telling you all of this. One of the rules that Lake Town recruits are given before we relocate is that we aren’t supposed to talk about where we came from.” He hesitated, watching me closely. “But I feel like we’re in this together—and maybe the more information we can share with each other, the better.”

“I don’t have any information to share
,
” I said, too quickly. I’d promised never to reveal the secret of the Carrier key. And I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about my grandmother or why she’d been executed.

Rueben nodded slowly, and I could tell he didn’t exactly believe me.

I looked around the silent room. “And even if I did have any information to tell you, wouldn’t we get into more trouble?”

He scoffed. “We’re already in prison.”

I let out a sigh. We were indeed in prison, but there was still hope—there had to be. I had to make it back to the University and become a part of the Science Commission. But I also had so many questions about the Lake Town, why Rueben came to the city, and how he knew so much. But mostly I couldn’t stop staring at him, waiting for the barbarian to come out. Finally I said, “So how were you recruited?”

His face flushed, and he glanced away from me, as if he were uncomfortable. I still wasn’t used to his display of emotion.

“In this city,” Rueben began in a slow voice, “more people are Taken, due to life cycle or crimes, than are born each year. The population is dwindling.”

“Dwindling?”
I hadn’t expected that.

“Yeah, so a certain number of people are allowed to earn citizenship each year,” he said. “At the age of eight, Lake people become eligible to join the recruitment program. Usually the head officer of the town selects a handful of youth to recommend. The year I was recommended, I was the only one accepted for citizenship from the whole town.”

Before I tested into the A Level, there were kids who lived at the Children’s Center who didn’t have caretakers. We were always told that their caretakers had been Taken. Now I wondered if some of them were from the Lake Towns.

Out there, in the vast waters, were other pockets of civilization. Living and breathing totally different lives than ours here in the city. “What was it like living in a Lake Town?” I asked. It was hard to reconcile my preconceived notions with the living, breathing boy who now sat across from me.

One side of his mouth lifted. “That would take weeks to tell you. But information is harder to get out there—we don’t have the WorldNet. We rely on stories handed down from generation to generation, and life is much harder in a physical sense. My family spent most of their time scouting for wood and metal pieces to add onto our floating barge.”

I tried to imagine Rueben fishing for scraps of wood, his long arms snagging pieces out of the water. I blinked the image away. “So you must have been grateful to become a citizen in the city.”

The flush was back, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “There were some big trade-offs.”

I waited until he met my eyes again. “What kind of trade-offs?”

He exhaled, looking past me. “I haven’t seen my family for eight years.”

“You mean your caretakers?”

“Yes.” His eyes flickered to me, then away again. “And my two sisters.”

“Sis-ters?”

His gaze slid back to mine. His eyes were no longer warm, but dark and cold like wet earth. “Siblings—my mother and father had three children . . . offspring.”

Three?
The silence dripped between us. I wondered how a large family could be allowed, even in such a primitive place. There was something else in his eyes that was hard to identify. Then my heart clenched.
Pain
.

“You miss them,” I whispered.

He didn’t need to answer.

I knew a little of what it felt like to miss someone. David, Naomi, Sol, Chalice. I blinked rapidly and said, “Does the B level in your Lake Town allow that many children in one family?”

His eyes thawed a little, but his voice was subdued. “There are no ‘levels’ in the Lake Towns, Jezebel. Caretakers are called parents just like in the Before, and adults are allowed to marry if they want to.”

I let the information settle over me. No levels. Parents instead of caretakers. More questions swarmed. “If there are no levels, then how does the town function? How does everyone know what to do?” The true meaning of barbarians hit me. That must be why their society was so backward, why they had to live on barges hooked together, constantly in motion.

His tone was clipped when he answered. “Society functions in the Lake Towns just as it has for thousands of years, just as it did in the Before.”

I clamped my mouth shut. That meant they suffered with disease, civil unrest, and crime. My eyes narrowed as I peered at Rueben.

“Why are you in here?” I asked over my thudding heart.

“I’ve been living in the city since I was eight years old,” he said with a sigh, as though he expected the question. “Believe me, I’ve been through all the training and all the education. But, like you, my Harmony implant doesn’t suppress my stronger emotions. So, like you, I’m considered a Clinical.”

I waited for him to mention why he was in the prison. “Did you . . . commit a crime?”

He grimaced slightly, but his eyes brightened. “Failure to comply.”

That could mean anything. “But you’re from a Lake Town. That makes you different to begin with.”

Rueben’s gaze was hard. “Not different in the ways that you think. Different, yes, because I have memories of a family, of people who are free to make their own choices, of a place where people can fall in love.”

His words stabbed at my heart. Why did he have to talk about falling in love? “If the Lake Town was such a good place to live, then why are you here?”

“I was chosen to come,” he said, the bitterness swift in his voice. “It wasn’t a privilege, but a duty.”

“And now that you’re here—in Phase Three—have you failed that duty?” Would he finally tell me what he had done to get here?

“It depends on your point of view.”

I looked away. I didn’t know how to process all of this new information. My eyes wound up on the dream monitor on the wall. The city was a place where things were controlled, and that control kept our society surviving while the others failed and became extinct one by one.

Rueben settled onto his bed, lying down and clasping his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. I glanced over at him, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was fascinated by his background. And his knowledge. What would it be like to be taken away at the age of eight from everything you’d ever known?

After several moments, he started speaking again. “I don’t want to argue about who has the best life—whether it’s in the Lake Town or here in the city.”

“I don’t either.”

We both fell quiet, until I said, “I just didn’t know . . . ”

“I know,” he said, and gave me a weak smile.

My mind was still racing, but I wanted to know more. “How does the Harmony implant record information?” I hated to admit it, but it seemed that I knew much less than I had realized.

“It tracks levels of emotion, recording things like increased body temperature, faster breathing, and perspiration output—all indicators of the presence of emotion. If you compare the Harmony technology to other sciences, it’s still relatively new.” He sat up again and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. “A very low level of control is exercised over the average person.”

I exhaled. Had Naomi known about this term
Clinicals
? Or had she just called it
immune
? “So is everyone being controlled right now?”

“Just enough to keep them in compliance,” Rueben said. “It’s a low level compared to what it has the potential to do.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. The kids in my class were already so controlled, so passionless.

“Once in a while, a person exhibits stronger behavior patterns than what is socially acceptable,” Rueben said. “Like me and you.”

“And the scientists are able to increase control levels,” he continued, “in order to eliminate the powerful urges of various emotions.”

“Can people tell when their emotions are being controlled?”

“Most of the time it’s not noticeable, unless there is a big change. Like I said, most people don’t need additional control—the lowest level is enough. When is the last time you saw someone rebel against an inspector?”

I briefly thought of Sol banging on the metal door just before he was cuffed, but he had done that to help me. “Never,” I said.

Rueben gave a quick nod. “When’s the last time you heard someone argue?”

I searched my memory. I could think of plenty of times when students informed on each other, but I’d never heard a real argument.

“What about kissing?”

Kissing?
I stared at him. “What do you mean?” I thought of Rose and her boyfriend and the apple. Why was Rueben bringing this up?

“You know,” he said with a slight smile, his teeth white in the dimness, “when a girl has a crush on someone. Boyfriend, girlfriend . . . kissing?”

“But that’s—”

“I know it’s against the law to fall in love here—or should I say to have a ‘romantic interlude.’” He lowered his voice. “But have you ever
wanted
to kiss someone?”

I tried to shake my head, to say no. But I froze. Was he testing me? Was he part of the test to see if I had really read the book? To find out if I was truly a Clinical? Finally I answered, “Wanting to do something isn’t the same as doing it.”

Rueben closed his eyes. Then he started laughing. He opened them, and laughed louder. I looked behind me, worried he’d wake someone. I didn’t know what the penalty would be for not sleeping, but after seeing that poor girl in the strait jacket, I didn’t want to find out.

“Why are you laughing?” I asked.

He came over and sat next to me. Very close. He leaned against me so that his breath puffed against my ear. “You’re definitely at risk.”

“For what?” My body felt prickly all over at his nearness. I wanted to shove him away, but at the same time, I didn’t want him to move. I wanted to ask him why he smelled like sunshine on the day of Solstice—did all Lake people smell like him? He’d probably laugh at me again.

Rueben took a single breath, then said, “You’re at risk for falling in love.”

His words sent a jolt of fear through me. How could he know? He couldn’t. This was a test—I
knew
it. I didn’t want to fall into his trap. I didn’t know if I had passed the other tests, but I’d pass this one.

“I won’t break the law, especially that one.”

I felt, rather than saw, him smile. “You already have.”

My face got hot. “The book was a mistake. It was my inheritance, and I only—”

“I’m not talking about the book,” he said, too close now. The prickles on my body turned to perspiration. Did he know about Sol telling me about the Before? Did Rueben know that I’d been shocked and it hadn’t erased my memory? I felt like I might suffocate.

“You’ve failed every test so far,” he said.

I scooted away from him, the mattress creaking beneath me. “How do you know?”

“I can see a lot of information on the instructors’ tablets when I’m clearing plates in the cafeteria.”