Chosen Ones (6 page)

Chapter 7

Emma’s funeral was a joke. If the naturals from the compound expected me to wither under their need to see me mourn, they only found disappointment. I wasn’t going to pretend to feel something just to give others hope there would be someone to cry over their deaths. I was better than the rest of them when it came to dealing with loss. I’d had years of practice.

Whatever I felt was for me alone.

I was able to drown out the noise of crying from the fellow inhabitants of the compound. I was even able to force out her smell, the heat trying in vain quite forcefully to drown me in her decay. I glanced toward Robert, his promise from back then echoing in my ears. He wasn’t hiding his tears, but it was something else that locked me to him: the way he clenched his fists. A need for violence.

Was he angry with me? I’d never approved of their relationship. I refused to go to their wedding. When she told me she was pregnant, I didn’t talk to her for weeks. And Robert, I loathed him and made no secret of it. It was the most powerful emotion I had ever felt.

As our eyes met, it was as if we were in a soundproof cell, just me, him, and an unspeakable anger. When the clergy finished, we both reached for a handful of dirt, waiting to see who would drop it onto her grave first. Who would bury her? I refused. He had killed her, not me. You can wrap it up in a pretty package and call it love, but it was still murder.

Robert’s hand released the dirt. Then, without warning, he grabbed my wrist, pulling me close to him. I ignored the gasps of the others. No one seemed to move, and I never once flinched. I could feel his fingers digging into my skin. But then, as soon as it happened, he released me, staggering back. Lost. I kept my eyes on him even as his back turned to me. I continued to stare as my hand reluctantly released the dirt onto her grave. I seriously began to wonder why women had been labeled the weaker sex.

Gwen told me I didn’t have to attend work that afternoon. Maybe she thought she was doing me a favor; she wasn’t. The compound was the last place I wanted to be. Everywhere I went people sought me out to ask how I was coping, or if I needed anything.

The funny thing about death is how much people want to take from you. I was the one who had lost a sister, but everyone looked to me to ease their own fears, their pain. Her death was cathartic for them—a release, a space in which to mourn the lives they had lost.

Death was also an opportunity for some to spout their religious views. The whole “this life sucks but the next one would be better” crap. I didn’t believe that. Maybe there was a God. It didn’t matter either way. Did we need to pray to Him anymore? We had allowed the council to put our faith in the chosen ones. They were God, and we had made it that way. I couldn’t answer to someone I didn’t see, someone who didn’t feed and protect me.

Believing in Him had done nothing for my grandparents, who watched as millions and millions of people died from the bomb that was dropped, and thousands of others who died from the effects of radiation. It did nothing for my parents, who tried to build a life in the ruins of a war that started before they were even born. It did nothing for my sisters and me, who spent our childhoods feeling the pangs of hunger because our country had split in two, unable to agree on the best way to rebuild, reorganize, and regroup after the devastation.

The crazy thing was, the council supported freedom of religion with an indescribable passion. One of my people’s greatest fears concerning the creation of the chosen ones surrounded the belief that they had no souls. Scientists had played God, and the naturals warned that our government was trying to convince us we didn’t need one. The council maintained that it was God who had given them the intelligence and technology to create beings that would protect us. The council’s abilities to analyze and create, the gifts of intellect and innovation, were no different than the chameleon that could hide itself from a predator. Their ability to create life in a lab, an endless army of soldiers, forever strong and dedicated to the cause, was a gift from God—our own Moses. Except now we had an army of prophets. And to prove the council’s support of religion, their dedication to all things holy, they allowed copies of all religious texts inside the compound. The only books allowed.

Some naturals clung reverently onto their religion. I always thought it allowed them to convince themselves they still had a purpose. We had no jobs, no need to be educated, and no reason to get married. No sense of importance at all; we just existed.

As I made my way toward my sleeping quarters, I noticed I was being followed. Jacobson, my father’s friend. The only one I remember my father having. Could I even call them friends? Or were they merely partners in some deception?

I was sure something about his connection to my father had led him to be assigned to Templeton. What had he done? It must have been something bad—not bad enough to disappear, but bad enough to be sentenced to that place for so long.

Was there any relationship I was familiar with that wasn’t about taking something from someone? My mom used people to score booze. My little sister used people to make herself feel worthy. Robert used my sister for sex.

Right?

No. He loved her. He loved her so much.

Jacobson looked nervous, and I wondered if it was merely a manifestation of the uncomfortable nature of talking to someone who’d just watched her sister die. Perhaps it had something to do with the strange look he’d given me when I was walking with James.

For some reason, I was willing to talk to him. Jacobson had been very kind to my mother and sisters after we first entered the compound. I wasn’t naive enough to ignore the fact he did it out of guilt. The council had taken him with my father for questioning, and he was the only one who returned. But I never blamed him. I blamed my father.

Besides, I kind of had to respect the man for surviving. That’s all I was trying to do.

“Hello, Tessa,” Jacobson half mumbled.

Tessa
. I hadn’t heard him call me that in almost a decade. I used to think he was loopy and couldn’t remember my name. He looked so old, so broken now. Would my father look like this if he still lived? I nodded, suddenly unable to produce any words. Jacobson took a deep breath and pulled something from inside his coat. Paper. Letters, tied together by a black ribbon.

“These are for you,” he whispered.

I looked up at him in confusion. What the hell did they have to do with me?

He sighed, pulling me into the darkness of the hallway, away from the masses of people who were settling in for bed. “I think I did you a great wrong, Tessa. These belonged to your father. I…he…well, we had a deal. Before the council took us, well, we may have sensed it was coming to that. So we agreed to keep letters for each other’s families. This way if one of us made it back, we could offer the other’s loved ones some comfort.”

“Why didn’t you give them to my mother?” I managed. It was suddenly stifling in the hallway.

“Because they weren’t for your mother. Every single letter in here is addressed to you.”

My hands began to shake.

“I held onto them because I couldn’t convince myself to bring you any more pain. What good would his words do? I thought you were young enough to move past it and start a new life. Find some comfort in this place. Or maybe I just hoped that by protecting you, you wouldn’t be so angry about your life here.”

He was right. I could understand his reasoning. My father was a traitor, an outspoken citizen killed for his distrust and mutinous tendencies. If I had spent my childhood reading his letters, I wouldn’t have survived. I would have died because I would have been unable to strangle the emotions inside me. I was too young back then. Too weak. Too innocent.

“Why are you giving them to me now?” Why tempt me with my father’s legacy now?

“I thought you needed something of your family to hold onto. And I realized, maybe anger isn’t such a bad thing. Your sister and the other women—I know the council can stop this. It isn’t right,” he replied softly, staring past me. He moved his fist and pushed it against the wall, all without an ounce of bitterness crossing his face. His body was unsure how to handle the feelings that had lay dormant in him for so long.

I recognized this look—a need to fight back. Every so often I would see it cross the face of some natural, and every so often they would find a way to ask for their own death.

I shook my head, not wanting to touch the letters and desperately needing to clutch them to me at the same time. “How did you even get those in here? Weren’t you searched?”

“Considering the things your father and I were doing, it should be no surprise I could hold onto some letters. I have my ways.”

I laughed. “Right. If you two were so good at keeping secrets, then how come you got caught?”

Jacobson smiled. “Your dad always said you had one hell of a sense of humor.”

I wanted to smile back. I’d been called a lot of things, but funny usually didn’t make the list.

“Maybe I’m making a mistake here. I can’t be sure reading these will do you any good, but the truth is I don’t think I’ve got much time left in this body, and I can’t go knowing I made a decision that was not mine to make.”

It would be my choice to read the letters or not.
My choice
.

That night, I didn’t sleep, just lay on my cot, staring at the ceiling. I shared a room with Louisa and a girl named Grace who had lost her mother to suicide some time back. I guess the council figured that, since we had been through something similar, we could help her out. The thought of talking about our dead mothers didn’t seem helpful for anyone. Louisa liked Grace because she let her prattle on and on without interrupting.

It was only when I heard their snoring and off-key breathing that I found a moment for myself. I sat up, stretching my muscles. I held my body tight, tense from the day. It was hard keeping my emotions in check. I was a natural, after all. I curled my fingers under the rail of my cot and leaned forward, resting my head on my knees.

I could feel the weight of my father’s presence crushing down upon me. I had never been a big crier, but my first night in the compound I’d cried myself to sleep. The night they took my father I’d felt only anger. I hadn’t shed a tear. Somehow, almost two years after he was gone, surrounded by so many other people, I cried for my father. I whispered out his name, begging him to take me from this place. Eventually, I stopped calling for him.

What would happen now if I read one of his letters? Would I find it ridiculous? Pathetic, senseless ramblings from a man foolish enough to get himself killed? Would I find a clue as to why he chose some mission, some useless political statement, over me? Would I find a way to embrace the memories of the man without opening up the pain I knew could consume me?

Suddenly, the letters were in my hands. I couldn’t stop myself. I cursed Emma silently. This was her fault. If she were still here, I wouldn’t be like this. I would be strong. I would be invincible. But even I couldn’t convince myself of my own strength. In the darkness of the night, the hours where I was unable to sleep, I felt the pain hum inside of me.

With a shaky breath, I began to read.

Chapter 8

Tess,

I never really wanted to be a father. Maybe this isn’t something one should tell one’s daughter, but it’s never been my way to much worry about things you should and should not say. Guess you sort of take after me in that regard.

Do you remember when you were three and your mother asked you if you wanted to have a new baby brother or sister? You looked her dead in the face, stuck out your tongue, and proceeded to growl. Yes, you actually growled. And when your mother let you see Louisa for the first time, you told her she looked like a turtle.

I know you don’t remember Grandma and Grandpa, but I can’t say I was ever much like them. It’s a weird thing how children turn out. I can see so much of your mother when I look at Louisa, even in the way she covers her mouth with her hand as she eats. She’s three for Christ sakes, and yet she mimics your mother so well. With Emma, it’s like she got the best qualities of your mother and me. But there’s this strange strain of compassion that runs through her. Your mother and I aren’t even able to fake that amount of sympathy for others. Where does she get it?

You, you’re all me. I used to sort of like that. Now, it makes me scared for you. Every day I wake up to a world that’s getting darker and darker, and it’s suffocating me, kid. I try to pretend, like the others, that it isn’t happening. But I just can’t.

Tonight, as we watched the council’s first demonstration of the chosen ones, I kept my eyes on you.

It’s pretty sick, really, the way the council arranged it all. Just in time for dinner. Come, collect your families around the television, watch our greatness. Ignore the fact there are countless families who can no longer afford roofs over their heads, let alone a television. But, of course, the council had that covered. They set up big screens in every shantytown in the Western sector. No doubt they will be taken down by tomorrow morning.

Were we supposed to cheer as that chosen one killed those men? I have no doubt that many fathers looked to their children and felt comforted, somehow convincing themselves they would be protected now. We would no longer have to worry about terrorists or wars. We could simply whip up an army in a lab, an army that no one could match. Forgetting that when one country shows their big guns, another country goes out and creates bigger ones.

I shudder to think where our genetic meddling will lead us in fifty years. Will they even look human then? Will there even be any of us naturals left to notice?

Louisa clapped her hands in delight. I could hear your mother’s words of encouragement as the chosen one performed his duty with ease. Emma, bless her soul, couldn’t bear to watch. But you, you just stared at the screen. You never flinched. Your little forehead scrunched up as if you were trying to commit every move to memory, and your little hand curled into a fist. Do you know that? Were you aware of your own movements? Who did you want to fight?

I feel it, too, the urge to fight this. I just don’t know whom to fight anymore. The council? They’re supposed to be the ones protecting us.

My mom and dad had it rough, but at least they knew who they were fighting. Dad always said it was impossible to sum up the causes for the war in simple, concise sentences. How can one define hatred? I asked him to try. He told me our country, or the country that once bonded all parts of this land, lost itself. We had fallen onto hard times and entered into a depression. Something our people hadn’t seen in a hundred years. There’s not much left of the Midwest now. All of the survivors moved to the West coast.

We fought with other lands across the sea. Faraway lands that hated us for reasons that seemed ancient and ever pestering. But as we squandered away our money, we found it difficult to fight the enemy, and people became disillusioned. Why sign up to fight a war across the sea when one’s own family was starving? Why fight for a country that could not take care of its own people?

When I look to my neighbors who have lost everything, I can understand these feelings.

With one bomb dropped, the men from overseas killed millions and destroyed the majority of our military. The majority died from the bomb itself. Others from radiation poisoning. Others from starvation. Our government took too long to bring supplies and relief to those living in the heartland. Our country fell apart.

Fearing complete anarchy, people began to band together. Temporary, makeshift governments came into power. We were no longer a unified country, but rather a series of colonies fighting for a sense of safety. Some men thought it would be best to rebuild, form a newer, stronger government. There were countless meetings among the colonies, which never amounted to much. Some wanted to rebuild the government according to the doctrines that the United States was founded on. Others said the previous system was corrupted and we needed a new form of government. There was a lot of in-fighting and more violence.

I wonder sometimes why my parents decided to bring me into such a world of chaos. And yet, I did the same to you.

The only thing anyone could agree on was a need for stability. After years of talks and a few violent flare-ups between the warring factions of our country, a treaty was created. Our country would no longer pretend it could come together. Easterners. Westerners. The Middlelands were left to themselves. No one chose to settle there except those who wanted no government at all.

Westerners like my parents understood the need for some sort of government, an agency meant to serve the people’s interests and band us together behind a common belief system. Except our government refused to be called a government. Instead, we were a council. Somehow the term made it seem less intrusive.

Ironic, huh?

My parents held strongly onto their faith in this new system. I wasn’t allowed to question. When the council took control over the media I remember asking why, and my father slapped me hard across the face. He got all red and mumbled something about me not knowing a damn thing about freedom or what happens when someone tries to take it from you.

I can’t trust the council. Something inside won’t let me. Who am I supposed to despise more? The Easterners who attack our land? The Middlelanders who seek out the wild? Or my own government? I just feel a fight coming on. I think you feel it, too, Tess. And that scares the living hell out of me. Part of me wishes you were nothing like me.

I did something stupid today. I volunteered to work at one of the new training centers for the chosen ones. It’s decent money, and the best job I could hope to get. Also, I want to know more about them, and what better way than to work there?

Who knows if you will ever read this. I hope you never have a reason, but you probably will.

I never wanted to be a father. Mostly because I somehow knew I wouldn’t be around for you. I’ve been waiting my whole life for a fight.

~
Dad