Community, page 4
Zaiden knew, along with most of Community, that his father was not a tyrant. He was just a man trying to maintain the fragile homeostasis of Community and keep their world afloat. After all, if Community ceased to exist, so would the remainder of the human population.
Geoff studied the suit and stroked his chin. “One final touch,” he said. He procured a tie from his back room and wrapped it around Zaiden’s neck. “Your father requested this tie specifically.”
Of course he had. The tie was a deep blood red—the color of power, his father said.
Geoff tied the tie around Zaiden’s neck in a clean knot. “What do you think?” he asked. He took a step back, allowing the young man to see himself in the mirror. Zaiden examined his appearance. The suit fit better than it had when he’d first tried it on. He no longer looked like a young boy playing dress-up in his father’s clothing; he looked like a true leader.
“It’s perfect.”
Geoff beamed. “I’m glad you think so. The suit will be ready by the morning of your gala. I’ll have it sent up to you when it’s finished.”
“Good.”
“Please forgive me for my nosiness earlier. Occupational hazard.” Geoff stepped back off the platform and clasped his hands together. “And please tell your father what a wonderful job you think I did.”
Yeah, right, Zaiden thought. But he nodded anyway.
Geoff lingered.
“Is that all?” Zaiden asked somewhat sharply.
“Oh, yes! My apologies. I will allow you to get dressed.”
Geoff scampered from the room, his short legs bounding beneath him, and Zaiden removed his suit, reviewing his script for the Evening Broadcast as he changed.
“Members of Community,” he began, “good evening…”
He watched himself in the mirror as he spoke, practicing his facial expressions and tone of voice. Zaiden did not like appearing in front of Community. Even with just the camera and crew in the room, he could never forget that every member of Community was watching—all 22,384 of them. As hard as he tried, he could not seem to look as serious or diplomatic as his father. He would be their leader one day; he needed to gain their respect now. But a part of him feared he never would.
Zaiden finished dressing just as he was coming to the end of the speech. Taking one final look at himself, he smiled as he said the last line.
“Thank you, and may Warren bless you all.”
6
SEREN
Seren lay in bed, her eyes glued to the stars on her ceiling, her mind running circles around itself. Though usually comforting, the stars did little today to ease her mind. Her eyes traced over each of them with their jagged edges and odd colors, trying to find solace in them.
She still remembered the day she’d put them up. She and Lucas had created them from cut-out pieces of scraps that Lucas’s father, Henry, had brought home one day, just weeks before his death. Seren remembered that Lucas’s mother, Jean, had been upset when Henry helped stick them on his bedroom ceiling.
“You need to stop,” Jean had muttered.
“I just want my son to have some magic in his life. Is that so wrong?”
Seren hadn’t thought so. She snuck a few of her own out of Lucas’s trash after Jean had thrown them all away, and she stuck them on her own bedroom ceiling with Lucas’s help.
Now she wanted to rip them down and toss them in the incinerator.
Seren’s body felt numb from the tips of her fingers down to her toes. She felt separated from her physical being, her soul unattached, floating somewhere far away.
There was a way to keep a baby from being born; that much Seren knew to be true. There were whispers throughout Community that other women had done it. In fact, she’d heard a rumor just last year that her classmate Maive was pregnant. Seren had waited all year for Maive’s belly to grow, but it never did. People whispered that Maive lost her baby on purpose, but they never said how.
Seren wished she could ask Maive how to lose a baby.
If Henry were still alive, he might know what to do. But Henry had died years ago, taking his knowledge along with him.
Henry had been like Lucas in that way, always knowing more than any Tier Four should, always having answers to everything. Throughout his life, Henry had kept a collection of illegal books hidden deep beneath their floorboards. It was a major point of contention between him and Jean. Many of his books were about old Earth, from its oceans to its skies to all the creatures that lived there. Unbeknownst to Lucas’s mother, he used to allow Lucas and Seren to peruse them, giving answers to any questions they might have. That had been before the era of the cameras, before each home in Tier Four had them installed in an upper corner.
Seren remembered a peculiar conversation she’d had with Henry when she was very young.
“Why do you need these when you have plenty of books at school?” she’d asked him, one of his many books in her tiny hands.
Henry had looked down at her and smiled. “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, Seren. It is the illusion of knowledge.”
She still wasn’t sure what that meant, but she did like the pictures in his books. Of course, the Earth they depicted was long gone, replaced with the deadly, poisonous world sitting just outside Community’s airtight walls.
Seren hadn’t recognized the danger of books until she got older, around the time Henry died of a heart attack. After he passed, Lucas moved the books under his own floorboards, where they remained to this day, yellowing and collecting dust. Seren’s memories of their contents had all but faded. Sometimes she wished she could look at them one more time, just to see what she was missing.
Seren suddenly sat up, her heart racing. The books! It was a stretch, but maybe, just maybe there was an answer hidden somewhere deep in those books.
Seren left her apartment and ran to Lucas’s faster than she ever had, causing more than one of her passing neighbors to look at her oddly as she breezed by. When she arrived, she rapped her knuckles against his door until he opened it, half dressed. A look of surprise crossed his face.
“Seren! What are you doing here?”
“I need your help,” she said. Anxiously, she looked over her shoulder at the bustling hallway. “Inside.”
Seren pushed past Lucas into his apartment. Hesitantly, he closed the door behind her. “What’s going on?”
Her eyes darted around the listless apartment. There was a small camera in one corner of the kitchen, another by the projector, and a final one in his family room. There wouldn’t be one in his bedroom, but there could be a recording device. Safe places to speak were limited.
“Bathroom,” she said.
“First door on the left,” Lucas said, as if she hadn’t been to his place countless times before. As if her own apartment didn’t have the exact same layout. Seren rolled her eyes.
“Can you show me?” she asked, staring at him pointedly.
“Uh, sure. I guess.”
He led her the ten steps to the bathroom and opened the door. Seren stepped inside, and her eyes scanned the upper and lower corners, keeping a lookout for any recording device. She couldn’t be certain, but when she was pretty sure it was bug-free, she turned to look at Lucas expectantly. He raised an eyebrow.
“You want me to…”
Seren nodded. Lucas looked at her like she was crazy—maybe she was—but he followed her into the bathroom anyway and shut the door behind them.
Without another word, Seren turned on the shower and stripped off the top layers of her gray uniform. She could feel Lucas’s confused eyes boring into her back, but she ignored them.
“What are you—”
“Shhhhh!”
She motioned for him to follow as she climbed into the shower. The steaming hot water hit her skin, and her hair turned a darker shade of auburn as it cascaded down her back. Seren motioned for Lucas again, more frantically this time. They only had five minutes until the water turned off, and she couldn’t risk talking about this without the background noise covering their words.
Lucas averted his eyes and removed his clothes so that he stood in his boxers with his arms crossed tightly against his chest. Seren let out an exasperated sigh and yanked him into the shower beside her.
“What is going on?” Lucas asked again as Seren pulled the shower curtain shut.
“Ma is pregnant,” she said in a hushed voice. The pitter-patter of the water hitting the bottom of the tub nearly drowned out her words.
“What?!”
“Shhh!”
Lucas leaned in closer so that they were only inches apart. Water sprayed his face and entered his mouth as he spoke. “What do you mean, she’s pregnant?!”
“I saw her getting sick this morning.”
His brows creased. “Maybe she ate something bad…?”
“No, Lucas. She’s pregnant. She showed me her stomach.” Seren’s eyes welled up again. She moved closer to the showerhead, hoping the running water would mask her tears if they started to flow.
The severity of the situation fell upon them, like a darkness they couldn’t shake. Lucas didn’t seem to know what to say, but his despair was apparent; he loved Ma like a second mother. “Oh,” he managed to choke out.
“I need you to go into your dad’s old things and see if he has a book on terminating pregnancies,” Seren whispered.
Lucas shook his head. “I don’t think my dad had those kinds of book, Ren.”
“Lucas, please.” Seren looked up at him with wide eyes. “If anyone finds out, Ma will be on their list. Then it’ll be too late. I can’t lose her. You understand that more than anyone.”
She was referring, of course, to his father’s passing. Maybe that was unfair of her; maybe she should’ve kept Henry out of it. But Seren wasn’t thinking straight. She needed those books; she needed answers.
Lucas sighed and rubbed his hand up and down his arm. He always did that when he got anxious, ever since they were young. Seren waited for him to say something, but he just stood there, his lips pressed together. She held her breath. Maybe she’d made the wrong decision in asking him for something like this.
After a moment of intense concentration, Lucas spoke. “I might have a solution.”
Seren’s breath caught. “Really?”
“Yes—but this is important, Seren.” He grabbed her shoulders and stared at her more intensely than she’d ever been stared at in her life. She held her breath again. “You cannot say anything about this. To anyone. You have to be careful. If you aren’t, you could get us both killed. Understand?”
Seren nodded.
The shower shut off.
Lucas, suddenly filled with a determination Seren rarely saw in him, grabbed a towel from the rack and handed it to her. She wrapped it tightly around herself like a protective shield and wrung out her hair before stepping out of the tub.
Lucas exited the bathroom, leaving drops of water on the floor behind him like a trail of breadcrumbs. Seren followed, then hesitated in his doorway. She’d been in Lucas’s bedroom plenty of times when they were younger, but now, dressed only in a towel, it felt strangely intimate, like she shouldn’t go in.
Lucas seemed undeterred. He went to his bed and reached into his pillowcase. Seren glanced at the cameras in the kitchen, then back at Lucas, her heart pounding. What could he have hidden that could help Ma and get them both killed?
Lucas motioned for her to meet him at his bed. Her legs shook as he pulled her close. He guided her hand, bringing it into the pillowcase with his. Seren wasn’t sure what he was doing until she felt something small within the case. Nervous shivers spread through her body.
What the...?
Lucas nodded at her, indicating that she should take it. As quickly as she could manage, Seren pulled it out and slipped it beneath her towel, but not before catching a glimpse of it.
A bright sapphire identity card. She stifled a gasp.
It can’t be.
Every member of Community was given an IC at birth. It kept track of their food pickups, their whereabouts, and their location authorization. Seren carried her own yellow IC with her everywhere. The sapphire color of this one indicated that it belonged to a Tier Two.
How had Lucas gotten this? Having someone else’s IC was illegal—and identity theft was not taken lightly in Community. The penalty was death.
She stumbled back. The card felt suddenly heavy. Seren imagined it melting into her skin, burning the words Tier Two Identity Card into her chest, permanently marking her as a thief. Her throat tightened.
“I don’t understand,” Seren whispered. The illegal nature of the card was one thing, but what was the purpose of it? “How is it supposed to help?”
Lucas mimed placing a pill in his mouth. Seren shook her head, still not understanding.
And then it hit her.
Of course.
The pill. This identity card provided Seren access to Tier Two. She could get to the special medication kept there. This was the solution she’d been hoping for.
In that moment, the gravity of the crime and its potential consequences slipped from her mind. All that mattered was that she had a chance. Ma has a chance.
Seren pulled Lucas into a lung-crushing hug. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Thank you,” she mumbled.
Lucas wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tightly.
“I don’t deserve you,” she whispered.
Lucas rested his chin on her head. “You deserve better than me.”
They stayed there for a long moment, their bodies intertwined, breathing slow, before Seren pulled away.
“I should get going,” she said.
“I know.”
They returned to the bathroom and put their uniforms on over their wet undergarments. Seren checked the mirror to ensure that the card was completely hidden before she left the bathroom. Lucas trailed behind.
“You should come by tomorrow,” he said, his gaze focused intently on the camera above her head.
Seren nodded. She didn’t know where the card came from or what Lucas used it for, but she didn’t care. If she got the medication tonight and brought the card back by tomorrow, there would be no questions asked.
“I’ll be by in the morning.”
7
SEREN
Seren hid the card in her own pillowcase when she got home, then changed from her wet clothes into something dry.
Dinner that night was quiet. Ma had little to say, and Seren had even less. Pa prepared dinner, boiling potatoes over their electric stove and roasting mushrooms. He hummed to himself as he cooked, glancing periodically at Ma and Seren.
“You two are quiet tonight,” he said, removing the mushrooms and bread from the oven. “Am I missing something?”
“I just have a lot on my mind,” Seren said. Her voice sounded strained, but Pa didn’t seem to notice. He nodded and patted her reassuringly on the back.
The three of them ate in silence. Seren forced herself to take bites, trying to appear normal, but the fork kept slipping from her sweaty hand.
“The bread is delicious,” Ma said.
Seren thought it tasted like cardboard, though that was no reflection on Pa’s cooking; her anxiety was too high for her to taste anything. Her plans felt more foolhardy now that she was away from Lucas. Before, it had been the two of them. Now she was alone.
“Thank you,” Pa said.
More silence ensued.
Seren felt Ma looking at her, but she ignored it, focusing instead on the food on her plate. She wasn’t supposed to leave any food; the Nutritionists rationed it out for optimal health, but Seren really didn’t think she could eat any more.
“May I be excused?” she asked.
“You haven’t finished your dinner,” Pa said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Seren.” Pa’s tone was cautionary. Don’t mess with the rations.
“Let her go,” Ma said quietly into her own plate.
Pa sighed. If he sensed that something else was going on, he didn’t say anything. “Fine. You may be excused.”
Ma stopped Seren before she could clear her plate. “I’ll finish yours,” she said with a small smile.
Seren’s stomach twisted as she was reminded of the extra life growing in Ma’s belly.
Leaving the table, Seren closed the door behind her and leaned her head against the wall. She had only a few hours until the 10:30 p.m. curfew. At that time, all the lights in Tier Four would turn off without fail, just like they came on every morning at 7:00 a.m. She thought of curfew as a way to preserve energy, but Lucas always suspected it was truly a way to preserve order. Maybe it was a bit of both.
She’d have to wait until then, or she’d risk being seen by a Tier Four out for a walk—or more likely, she’d be captured on camera, and the Harmonizers would be notified. When 10:30 came, she’d have to act. All she could do until then was wait.
When the Evening Broadcast came on at 7:30, Seren sat on the edge of her bed to watch. This time, it was not Governor Warren who made an appearance, but his son, Zaiden. Marcie introduced the young man brightly, and he began his speech.
“Good evening, members of Community,” Zaiden said with a firm smile on his sharp features. “I hope you all had a wonderful Creation Day.”
Seren frowned. Hardly…
“Today, we celebrated our origins and similarities,” Zaiden said. He spoke a lot like this father, his eyes seeming to reach Seren through the screen. It was simultaneously admirable and unnerving. “With shades of difference, we all have the same beginning, the same strength and resilience. You have, in a common cause, survived the end of the world as we knew it—the dangers and suffering that other people endured.”
It feels like we’re still suffering, Seren thought.
“As you all well know, Jeffery Warren, my great-great-great-grandfather, built this Community from the ground up to prevent the total extinction of humanity. We are all ancestors of the construction workers, farmers, plumbers, and many others who built this magnificent bunker we call home. We should be so proud of what they accomplished.”
