Dissidence (21 page)

“You want to camp here?” Peter turns around, and I glance away just in time to avoid being caught gawking at him. “I could use a break, and it’ll be dark soon.”

“Looks exactly like every other piece of ground we’ve covered so far today, so why not?”

“Good. I’m starved.” Peter roots around in his bag for a minute be
fore producing two granola bars
and tossing one at me.

“Where did you score
these
?” It feels like my birthday all over again. A granola bar has never looked so much like a piece of chocolate cake.

“One of the cabinets in the guard’s quarters. There weren’t many left
,
so enjoy it.” Peter laughs as I indulge in what I’m sure could be classified as the overreaction of the century, savoring every single bite and blatantly moaning over each chocolate chip that touches my tongue.

When I’ve licked the last traces
of chocolate from my fingers—
which is way too soon if you
ask me—
we ge
t ready to bed down
. Without the metal roof and walls of the dormitory, it actually gets pretty chilly out here at night.  Peter had the forethought to pack a blanket. I,
shockingly
, did not. Luckily, his mother taught him how to share.

After I clear away any rocks I can see in the fading light, Peter spreads out the bla
nket. He crawls into the center
,
and then motions for me to do the same. Clearly the awkwardness of the situation is lost on
him
because when I hesitate, he just tugs me down beside him. Then, he wraps the blanket around the both of us
,
sleeping bag style. I tuck the side of the blanket beneath me to make a sort of little cocoon for the two of us, and I notice the weight of Peter’s
arm still slung across my waist, his chest warm against my back.

“Thanks so much for volunteering me for this little trip,” I complain as I shift positions for about the millionth time since lying down.

“No problem. I figured at least two of us should go, and if you think for one second that I’m letting you out of my sight again, then you really have lost your mind.” I’m still trying to decide if I should be insulted when he continues. “Every time you’re left to your own devices, disaster strikes.” Yep, now I’m definitely insulted.

“It’s not like you did much better without me.”

“No, I guess not,” Peter concedes wearily, and I can tell he’s already halfway to oblivion. “We’d better stick together
,
then.”

It is a long night
without much sleep . . .
for me
,
anyway. Somehow Peter manages to sleep like one of the many rocks I must have missed in my sweep of the area. I haven’t the slightest idea what to expect from tomorrow, and that is no small cause for concern. We’re about to lay some crazy stuff on these people. Stuff that, if I hadn’t lived it, I may not have believed myself.
There’s just no telling how they’re going to react. People can
be unpredictable and illogical. I
t’s one of the things I hate most about them.

***

Despite the cold last night, the sun is scorching again today. We find shade wherever we can, but most of the land we’re crossing is just open fields with no relief in sight. When the colony first comes into
view
, my initial reaction is that it must be some kind of mirage.

“We made it,” Peter announces, and unless we are now sharing delu
sions, I guess it must be true.

We slip into colony M the same way Connor and I got into D. The train station seems to be a common weak point for all of the colonies, but again, who really expects anyone to be breaking in? I’m guessing it’s not a frequent problem. I feel mildly brilliant pointing this fact out to Peter, even if it was Connor who pointed it out to me first. I choose to defer giving him credit until after my ego has been sufficiently boosted.

Getting access to the mayor, however, is infinitely more difficult. Go figure. Three secretaries and two hours in a waiting room
later,
we are
finally
escorted into his
office. He’s a large man—and that’s being kind—
with a receding hairline
,
and
really bad facial hair. I wonder if someone could move some of that to his head for him. His chin is propped on one chubby fist as he scans us from head to toe in his freshly pressed suit. I hadn’t even considered how we must look. No wonder it was so hard to get in to see him. They must all think we’re nuts, and it’s not going to get any easier to believe otherwise once we start talking. 

“I’ve been told you’re visitors to our colony?” I get why that would be confusing. Colonies don’t get visitors. “What is it exactly that I can help you with today?”

Deciding that frankness i
s probably the best way to go—not that I know any other way—
I launch into a recap of all things work camp related, and everything that has happened to us over the past month. Has it really only been a month? Peter jumps in where he can, and with him being the more socially competent one of the two of us, I defer to him as often as possible. He’s just getting to the good part when I make a decision on the fly, where most of my decisions seem to be being made lately.

“We escaped,” I cut him off, “the two of us.”

The look on Peter’s face is enough to give me up for the liar I am, but he recovers quic
kly. I couldn’t spill everyone’s secrets
, not when we’re still clueless about how he’s going to respond to all of this. What if he agrees with the camps and calls security or something? They could just send in more guards to retake the camp. What if he already knows about all of this? Crap, I hadn’t even considered that. How far up t
he food chain do you have to be
to be in the know about this sort of thing? No, it’s better if he thinks it’s just us until we see how he reacts. Hopefully, if something goes wrong and we don’t come back, they’ll be able to clear out of the camp before anyone else shows up.

“We were hoping you might allow us to stay here.”

If it were
n’t for his high-
pitched
,
nasally breaths, I’
d
be afraid he
died right there at his desk from how long
he just si
t
s
there staring a
t us. If nothing else,
he seems
so
sufficiently stunned that I’m no longer worried if he was in on all of this already. Apparently, it’s above his pay grade. Why
am I
not surprised?

I’m still not convinced he’s not just trying to get rid of us when he says he has to gather the board to make this kind of decision. He must have been telling the truth, though, because an hour later, we’re sitting in front of a group of ten men and women, retelling our story for a second
time.
When we finish, the looks on their faces range anywhere from skepticism to pity.
At least a few of them look like they feel bad for us. Our appearance may actually be working
for
us at the moment.

I’
ve never been to a board meeting before, but the procedures seem kind of absurd to me. First, the mayor calls for a hand vote on wh
ether or not to let us stay. I’
m actually shocked when almost half the hands rise in agreement with
taking us in. Then, just as I’
m starting to get my hopes up, he proceeds to inform us that the decis
ion needs to be unanimous.
Thus,
the absurdity.
Even I could have told him it wasn’t going to be unanimous. 

So, once again, we wait. They deposit us back in the stuffy reception area before sequestering themselves in the board room for hours. The urge to slam my head into a wall is overwhelming
,
and Peter’s incessant whistling is seriously driving me to the edge of insanity.

“Can you stop that
?
!”

“What?”

“The whistling.
Could you at least pretend to be a little concerned here?”

“Why? Everything will be fine, Leigh. You saw how many people were in favor of
letting us stay
. Now, they just have to convince the others. Who’s going to refuse and
look like
the jerk in the room? They’ll say yes.”

“And what if they don’t, Peter?”

“Then we try another colony.”

Traveling across the eastern half of the country like a pack of freaking nomads is not my idea of a good time, but any pla
n is better than no plan, I guess
.

“Do you think we should have told them about the others?” As with all of my in-the-moment decisions, I’m starting to have second thoughts now that the moment has passed.

“No, I think you were smart not to tell them. At least now whatever happens, it’ll just be us.”

“What do you think they’ll do with us if they decide
not
to let us stay?” Maybe this whole mission wasn’t such a great idea.

“I have no idea, Leigh, but we’ll figure it out.” The sincerity in his eyes almost makes me believe everything’s going to be all right.
Almost.

“What if they send us back to another work camp?”

“That doesn’t seem to be a l
ong term problem for you.” Ha—freaking—
ha. He’s hilarious.

I have no idea what went on behind those closed doors, but when they finally open ag
ain
,
apparently they’ve reached their
unanimous decision. I’m just not convinced I want to know what it is. When we retake our seats across from the board to await their verdict
,
I can’t seem to keep my leg from bouncing like the damn Energizer bunny. Peter’s hand settles on my knee for a moment before seeking out my
hand
, which is resting in my lap. After practically prying my fist open, he threads his fingers through mine and gives a reassuring squeeze.

Evidently the mayor doesn’t believe in mincing words. “I’m sorry, but it has been decided by this board that we can’t risk sheltering you here. For the safety of our colonists, we cannot allow you to stay.”

Peter looks genuinely surprised by the outcome
,
and I feel sorry for this blow to his ever optimistic view of humanity. I, however, really should have seen this coming, but still my heart sinks. The mayor draws out some long winded speech outlining their reasons
,
trying to justify their decision to us. At this point
,
they’re lucky I’m even making the effort to
pretend
to listen. I sort of tuned out somewhere after ‘no
,
we won’t help you’.

When he’s finished making excuses and finally gets around to what’s going to happen now,
I refocus my attention, and once again
,
all of my anxiety seems to have accumulated in my jumpy knee. Peter’s thumb brushes across my knuckles, and I realize I’m still latched onto his hand for dear life.

In the end, their
inspired
decision is to simply send us on our way and pretend they never saw us. They don’t want any ‘negative attention’
that
having this information may bring them. Heaven forbid they actually get mistaken for intelligent. Everyone is in agreement on this, even those who had voted to help us earlier.
I swear
,
stupidity is contagious,
it spreads like wildfire, and as hard as I try, logic does not seem to be the cure.

Chapter 20

By the time we get back to colony L
,
we’re a vibrant mixture of hot, tired, and demoralized, which seems to be at odds with the rest of the camp. People are bustling all over, and everyone
looks
up
beat and excited. I really hope they weren’t counting on us
.
 

“You’re back!” After nearly an hour and almost a half dozen
inquires
,
we finally catch up with Connor just as he’s climbing down out of one of the guard towers. “How did it go?”

“Not w
ell.” His grin barely falters when I give him
the bad news. “What’s going on here?”

“We’ve
kind
a
been working on a backup plan.” Oh, brother. Now what?

“And what kind of plan might that be?”

“To fight back.”
He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, which it most definitely is
not.

“Connor, we can’t stay here, you know that. Sooner or later
,
people are going to realize what happened, and come looking for us.”