Cured (8 page)

“Well then why are you being so cold? I
thought we were friends?”

He laughed cruelly and shook his head. “Oh
sure. Friends who get other friends’ parents fired from their jobs.
Marked as Incompetent. Condemned to a life of slavery. Yeah, Avery
Rose, some friend you were.”

I gasped. I hadn’t realised that my mother
had not only fired Theo’s father, but also had the man marked as an
Incompetent Norm. One who was immediately dropped to the bottom of
the Norm rankings, forced into the worst jobs, and worked without
rest. No wonder I had never seen Theo or his father again, if
Mother had him and his father blacklisted to keep them away from
me. Tears welled in my eyes and I slouched in my seat. No wonder he
hated me. His father was a slave, and it was entirely my fault.

Everyone else at the table continued to chat,
whilst Theo and I sat in awkward silence. I resolved to explain to
Theo later, since I would rather not make a scene in front of a
crowd. Instead I turned to the girl next to me. It was the
goody-good brunette with the pencil skirt.

“Hiya, I am Avery,” I held out my hand.

“I know,” she said prissily. I cringed
internally. Of course she knew who I was. This was going to take a
lot of adjusting. Back on Olympia no one gave me a second glance
because they saw me everyday. But to these former Norms, I was the
cover girl for Olympia, the face of everything that oppressed and
dictated them at every move. Something out of the ordinary.
Something to gawk at. Something to silently despise and envy in
equal measure.

“Must be weird,” she said, noticing my
reddened face.

“It is. I hate it.”

She cocked her head to one side and raised an
eyebrow. “You hate the fame?” she asked disbelievingly.

I nodded. “Try having your entire life
broadcast to a bunch of strangers against your will. Not so much
fun.”

She shook her head in disbelief, “Wasn’t
expecting that…”

“What do you mean?” I asked, “am I different
on the WallScreen News?”

“You seem more… normal in real life. On the
News you kind of come across as a…” her voice trailed off.

I laughed, “Oh I see,” I said, “You were
expecting the properly behaved daughter of King and Queen Optime?
Sorry to disappoint.”

She frowned, “More like some stuck up
princess. After all you are a Descendant.”


I cringed. I
hated that name and what it meant to these people. I knew that most
Descendants were arrogant and rude. They treated Norms as though
they were dirt, even though they were no different from them. We
had never earned our Prime lives; we were only human.

“You’re not a Descendant anymore though. You
might not even be a Prime after the trials. You might not even end
up on Olympia.”

She was just stating the facts but her words
were too close to home. I shrunk down in my seat.

Theo frowned next to me. “I reckon she has a
pretty good chance.”

I was shocked that he was sticking up for me,
and offered him a smile.

His expression turned harsh and he responded
to my smile with a hateful smirk, “I mean, we know that she has no
trouble stepping on others to get whatever she wants.”

I flinched. Hurt.

“I reckon she has been so sheltered all her
life that she doesn’t know how to do anything for herself. The
first task might kill her,” the girl said to Theo, acting as though
I weren’t in the room, let alone sitting right next to her.

I had had enough of the taunting and teasing.
There was no reason for these people to hate me. I turned to her
and looked her up and down.“You don’t look like you’ve had it so
bad yourself,” I said eyeing up her tidy attire and preened
hair.

“You don’t know anything about me,” she
sneered.

“Ditto,” I said, “You don’t know me at
all.”

“I’ve watched you on the WallScreen News
since you were born,” she retorted.

“And everything the WallScreen News says is
true, right? The Labour Norms are thugs who are the only source of
vandalism and criminal activity in the land? The Artistic Norms are
brainless and deserve no say in any political activity? The
Academic Norms need to be monitored because they are disobedient
troublemakers that have a tendency to spark rebellion?” I reeled
off the most common propaganda stories spread by our News.

Everyone knew the News was made by the
Alphas. It regurgitated whatever the Alphas deemed to be
newsworthy, and ignored everything else that was happening in the
nation.

The girl went
quite and considered this for a moment. Then she reached out a
hand. 
“I’m Ellina, but call me El.” She offered a small, but
genuine smile. I was thankful that she had ended the argument, so I
took her hand and shook.

“Avery,” I repeated my greeting.

“
I know,” she
replied, but this time she said it with a smile. I smiled
back.



The meal was
another three-course affair. This time starting with a beet salad,
followed by a huge slab of kingfish decorated with prawns and
caviar, and ending with crème brulé. By the time I took my first
mouthful of the rich dessert, I felt dangerously ill. I looked over
at Felix who seemed to be having the same dilemma. He caught my eye
and grimaced, before quickly shovelling the rest of his pudding
into his mouth and swallowing. I looked down at mine; still about
eight spoonfuls to go. Then I felt a tap on my arm.

“Gonna eat that?” Theo pointed at my dessert.
Eternally grateful, I slid it over to him.

“Take it.”

“Too rich for you?” he asked, already two
spoonfuls down.

“Mm,” I agreed. Accepting the excuse
happily.

Once our plates were cleared, Regina entered
the room. “How were everyone’s afternoons?” She asked cheerily, and
we all nodded.

“Great!” she said. “But don’t get too used to
it. Hard work starts tomorrow with a wake up call at dawn followed
by a quick breakfast and then training at six.”

I blanched. I had forgotten that Primes
barely need sleep. It was already eleven at night.

“So everyone have a bit of down-time now.
It’s lights off at midnight.” Regina waved and sauntered out of the
room. Felix and I exchanged a worried glance. Tomorrow our secret
was over. We were done. Feeling nauseous from a mixture of fear and
too much food, I excused myself from the table and returned to my
room. I called Felix on the WallScreen but he didn’t answer. I
didn’t blame him for not wanting to talk. I lay on my bed and tried
not to think of the next day, finally falling into a
nightmare-filled slumber.

Felix shook
me from my dark dreams. A look at the WallScreen opposite me told
me it was 4:05 in the morning. 


“Go away Felix. Sleeping,” I mumbled
groggily.

“Rise and shine, Ave. We gotta get outta
here.”


I blinked myself awake. Remembering where I
was, my stomach twisted and I sat up. “Argh,” I managed.

“
At least you
slept,” Felix sighed, “I’ve been up all night planning and
re-planning our escape.”

I looked him in the eye. He wasn’t
joking.

“No way Fe.” I shook my head. “We can’t
escape. It’s way too risky. We’d never get out alive. And even if
we did, they’d track us down straight away.”

Felix frowned and his jaw tensed. He was
angry. “The alternative is telling them what we did and being
executed on the spot,” he said matter-of-factly.

I realised that he was right and rubbed my
eyes, trying to wake myself up enough to understand whatever scheme
Felix had conjured up. “What’s the plan?” I asked.

His anger gone immediately, Felix jumped off
my bed, excited to share his ideas.

“Well, at first I though we should fake sick,
you know, like we used to do to get out of school back on Olympia,
but I thought that might be a bit obvious if we both did it.”

I nodded and he carried on. “So I figured
that I could pull the sick card, and…” he trailed off.

“And what?” I asked, knowing I wasn’t going
to like this next part of the plan by his cautious tone.

“And… Well… Ave, I figured you could play the
superiority card.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know…” he looked uncomfortable, “You are
kind of a celebrity to these people. They used to be Norms. They
expect you to be a brat…”

“You’re asking me to be nasty to them?” I
asked, “How is that going to make any difference? Except for making
them all hate me?”

“Well, if you refuse to train… pretend like
you are above basic training because of your parents… then maybe…
maybe you can get by just watching the training. They’d never know
you have no powers.”

I shook my head vigorously. “Absolutely not,
Felix. Eberyone will despise me. Plus, I can’t pull that off. Don’t
you remember how much I sucked at drama back at school?”

Felix looked down-heartened.

“What do you suggest, then?” he asked.

I hadn’t
thought about it. I had just planned on being found out eventually,
and then accepting the consequences. Felix of course, was not such
a coward, and had actually come up with a way out. It was a flawed
plan, but it was a plan nonetheless. I realised I had nothing to
lose.

Felix lightly touched my leg and I jolted,
and then blushed when he quickly retracted his hand. “So … Uh… What
do you say to my master plan?”

There was no alternative option. “Lets give
it a shot,”
I said. Felix grinned and jumped off the bed. He began
pacing my room. 


“Great. So the next leg of the plan, after we
get out of training…”

“
If
we get out of training,” I
interjected.

“
Think
positively,” he said, “
When
we get out of training,
they’re going to send us to the initiation destination, where we
will start the first trial. Now, from what I remember, Hercules’
first trial was something to do with a lion.”

I nodded; we had learnt this at school.
“Right,” I said. “He had to fight and kill that big lion.”

“That’s about all I know too,” he groaned.
“Why did we never listen?”

“Because school sucked.”

“Anyway, Hercules had to do twelve tasks. I
don’t know the details but I can remember the basic idea behind
most of them. The problem is, I have no idea if we are meant to
complete the tasks in the same way Hercules did, or if we are meant
to figure out our own method.”

“Knowing what the tasks are isn’t going to
help much, Fe. They are going to be impossible for us to complete.
They’re made for Primes and we have no powers.”

Felix nodded. “I know. The risk is high. The
good news though, is that the first of his tasks was the
lion.”


I stared my
friend down incredulously. “How on earth is the task of fighting a
lion to the death a good thing, Felix? I’ve never fought, let alone
killed, anything in my life!”

Felix laughed. “We’re not going up against
the lion, Ave. We’d be dead in seconds. The good news is that the
lions will be placed in their natural habitat. I imagine we will be
stationed be in a jungle…”


I didn’t
understand. “Why is being deployed to a jungle a good thing for
us?”

“Because,” Felix continued, “Think of how
many places we can hide in a jungle. Plus there are heaps of
resources to live off. We can use trees for shelter, hunt for food,
streams for water.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Felix. We have
been living the high life all our lives. Our food is served to us,
fully prepared, out of a Wall at the push of a button. There is no
way we can survive in the jungle. Neither of us knows anything
about survival.”

Felix looked hurt. “I kinda do. I watched a
documentary once.”

“A documentary is not going to cut it, Fe. It
was a good plan, but they’ll track us down straight away. And even
if they don’t, we will die from starvation or hypothermia or, you
know, death by lion. We can't survive in the jungle,” I said,
crossing my arms to let him know I was serious.

“
We’re not
going to live in the jungle forever! We will just hide there until
it’s safe. Then we will change our names, change our appearance,
and we will run away.”


At this point
I was close to tears, feeling stupid for only moments ago having
hope that we might survive. Our nation was small, and security was
meticulous, thanks to my father and the other Alphas. There was
nowhere to run or hide. But looking up at Felix’s face and seeing
how hopeful he was, I decided not to kill his buzz.

“Why not?” I smiled, with what I hoped was a
bit of confidence. “We might as well see if it works. We have
nothing to lose.”

Felix turned to my WallScreen and opened the
WallDrobe. He started scrolling through the endless clothing
options until he reached the floor length, pale yellow coloured
gown that I had vetoed the night before.

“No,” I said.

“Yes.”

“No Felix. I am serious. I cannot wear that
to training.”

“You’re not training, remember,” he smiled
cheekily.

“But everyone will hate me!”

“They’re going to hate you anyway, love.” He
patted my hair, and I slumped. This was not going to be fun. I
nodded in resignation and he dashed over to the WallDrobe and
retrieved the gown that the Wall had prepared and discharged. He
threw it in my direction and it landed on my head.

“Suit up, Ave, I’ll see you down there.” He
turned and left my room.

After a painfully long hour of primping and
preening to make myself look the part of a spoilt tyrant, I was
finally ready. I had strapped some golden Greek sandals to my feet
and used my hair station to achieve ringlets out of my usually
uncontrollable mane. I took one last look in the mirror, hating
myself for agreeing to Felix’s ridiculous plan, and left for
training.