Dark World: The Surface Girl (12 page)

              “Sure, can do.”
              “See you back at work in a few days.”

              A manilla folder appeared under the door and Dad quickly reached for it. I turned my eyes on him suspiciously but he wasn't paying attention to me. He pressed the folder against his chest and cleared his throat. “I'd better tend to these now so I don't forget.” Less than two days ago I wouldn't have thought anything of his eagerness to tend to work matters, but now, something about the quickness of his words and the protective way his fingers gripped the folder caused me to raise an eyebrow. He hurried back into the living room with me quickly in tow. “Sorry girls, count me out of the next few games.” Mom stood and smoothed her hands down her pant legs.
              “Actually, now is a good time for a break so I can get dinner started. I was thinking eggplant Parmesan?” I did not care, at all, what she made for dinner.

              “Sure, Mom.” Mom headed for the kitchen and Dad hurried off toward his chambers. I stood by myself in the living room and allowed my shoulders to heave with a few deep breaths. I
could
be the dutiful daughter, clean up the living room and put a few things away as my parents attended to business and dinner, or I could confirm my suspicions that the folder delivered to my dad contained more than just shipment papers from the gardens that needed his signature. I kept one ear attentive toward the kitchen until I heard a drawer, then a cupboard being opened. When I was satisfied that Mom was fully immersed in preparing dinner, I sprang toward her and Dad's chambers. If I knocked, it would give Dad a chance to hide or rearrange the papers and pretend like everything was normal, even if it wasn't. I couldn’t take that risk. I curled my fingers around the handle and pressed it down. The door opened narrowly and I quickly squeezed myself in. The papers were spread out on the bed in a neat horizontal succession. Dad tore his eyes away from them upon my entry in obvious guilt and alarm. He then lunged for them. “STOP.” I commanded forcefully. I paused as the echo of my own word blared in my mind like a foghorn. I had never spoken to either of my parents like that before. I was not proud of how disrespectful I sounded. I closed my eyes briefly and took a deep breath. “Dad, what are those?” I opened my eyes again. He had gathered the papers up in his hands in a disorganized and frenzied fashion. His face was tense and resentful. My heart twinged. I hated that I had just spoken to my father the way I did, and I hated how hurt he appeared to be because of it. “I'm – I'm sorry,” I muttered softly. I knew that out of respect for my father I should have honored his privacy. I should have turned around and left, but I didn't. “Dad, what are those?” I asked again. He quickly shuffled them back into the folder without bothering to straighten them out. His eyes wildly darted back and forth as if someone else were listening.
              “You know what they are,” he replied a bit louder than he needed to, considering we were only standing a few feet apart. “Are you wanting to see them so you can acquaint yourself with some of the business aspects of the artificial gardens?” The tense creases on his face eased and his expression softened from a mixture of anger and hurt feelings to a quiet plea. Was he speaking in code? I shuffled over to his side and he set the folder back on the bed. He opened it and began placing the papers one by one on the blanket, systematically laying them out just as they were when I had rushed in. He leaned forward and my body naturally mirrored his. “See this line?” He rested his index finger down on the first paper. “Thats the quantity of the order, and we have to check it against this line,” he slid his finger down toward the bottom of that first page. “to make sure the quantity doesn't exceed the shipment divisions maximum allotted amount.” I bit my lower lip and stared at the paper. It really
did
look like a regular shipping and receiving form. Was there some clue I was supposed to be catching on to that I was completely missing?

              “And then here,” Dad's finger jumped to the next page and rested on a random line that said nothing more than
'Vermont is prepared for incoming shipment.'
I raised my shoulders in a helpless, confused shrug. Dad lifted his finger and wiggled it. “Here's the agreed upon price or barter,” he pointed to a new line with a few numbers and sentences. “You have to make sure a specified time and the name of the receiver is mentioned before signing off on it.” He pointed to a few more places on each remaining page and explained what needed to be checked. “Do you want me to go over it one more time with you?” I shifted my still-confused eyes toward him and continued to chew on my lower lip. Dad's face softened again, but with just the slightest raise of his bushy red eyebrow he was letting me know this was important. There was obviously something I was missing.

              “Yes please, just one more time.” Dad patiently moved to the first page again and set his finger down. He started to go through the same verbal explanation but he tapped his finger three times on one particular word.
The.
A few sentences down he tapped his finger on another word.
Girl.

             
And then it hit me, the entire stack of papers was coded! I wasn't entirely sure how to read the code as it didn't appear blatant such as every three lines or every fifth word on each of those lines, but there had to be a pattern of some sort or Dad wouldn't have been able to find each word so effortlessly. Then it hit me, the first letter of each word Dad was tapping on was a slightly different font than the rest of the word, extremely subtle but once I caught on, the code easily unfolded in front of me. I focused on each finger tap and I let the code stretch out in my mind word for word.

            
 
T
he

              girl

              is

              safe

              for

              now

              but

              the

              boy

              is

              in

              danger.
             
For about two and a half seconds I was quite proud of myself for managing to understand the code, even if I did nothing but follow my father's tapping finger. Then the entirety of the message hit me like a boxing glove in the gut right after intestinal surgery.

             
But the boy is in danger.

             
BUT THE BOY IS IN DANGER.
             
Oh. My. God.

             
REESE.
             
The boxing glove that had just slammed into my stomach seemed to immediately grow claws in the shape of razor sharp knifes. It came at me again but this time the knives tore through my flesh and into the soft tissue of my organs, slicing upward toward my heart. I could feel my blood, loose from its veins, pouring freely and helplessly into the rest of my body like a waterfall. My chest tightened, my shoulders haunched over and my arms curled underneath my chest.

              Did the flatfoots have Reese? Did they know he had been sneaking into the sealed passageways? Did they know about the little girl? No, the message said she was safe. She was safe but that didn't mean they didn't know about her! If they knew that she might be from
up there
and they knew Reese knew about her, he would be sent to the transitional containers for sure!
              “I can't – breathe -” I choked out in barely a whisper. The walls in my parents chambers seemed to move in toward me, causing the space I had around me feel smaller and smaller by the second. The walls were closing in on me from the
inside
, constricting my chest so that when I tried to inhale my lungs were unable to expand and take in air. I closed my eyes as I felt my dad's hands move first to my shoulders and then to my back, systematically patting it.
              “Slow, deep breaths,” he advised. The concern in his tone caused guilt to swarm around me like the way my science teacher had once described bees. “Take it slow, Ruby.” He was trying to help, I knew that, but I needed
Reese.
And then, there he was, behind the darkness of my closed lids. His deep blue eyes reflected something,
water,
and the water was moving and shifting like a live entity. He reached forward toward me and I raised my chin, wanting,
needing
to be closer to him.

              “You can get past this,” I knew consciously that the voice belonged to my dad but it was Reese's mouth that moved. When the words entered my ear canals, it was Reese's voice my brain chose to hear. I tried again to inhale, and this time, although it was a struggle and my lungs were resisting, I could feel some air managing to get past the constricted area. “Don't rush.”

             
Thank you, Reese.
             
I tried again. It was still a struggle but a bit more air managed to get through this time, and even that little bit of air helped release some of the pressure. I waited a moment and took another breath, each one easier than the one before it until my breaths were steady and the walls that had been closing in on my lungs fizzled away. Only, with the pressure relieved, the clear image of Reese was fading away, too. Sadness replaced my panic. To see Reese, I had to be in distress. What was fair about that?
              When Reese was only a silhouette faintly glowing in the darkness, I gave up and opened my eyes. Dad was still rubbing my back. “Ruby,” his voice faded but the deep creases on his brow spoke volumes of the concern he had for what he just witnessed. I straightened my shoulders and stood tall on my feet.

              “Sorry, Dad. I'm fine, it won't happen again.” I wasn’t completely positive that I could keep that promise. We stood in silence, my eyes ridden with guilt and desperation while his dimmed with concern. In that moment I truly understood the love my father had for me. I was his flesh and blood, created out of the love he and Mom shared. His life had been no different than mine was up until now; born in The Complex, told by government and Doctrine how to live, but the whole time I thought he was satisfied with being a nameless drone to The Complex, he was fighting for something more. His eyes told me that he was in this fight for
me.
He wanted to know the truth because he wanted my life to have meaning and freedom in ways his own never did. I knew he truly loved Mom, which was lucky because neither of them were given a choice in their marriage but there was no conceivable way that every mated couple truly loved each other. I always suspected love was something that could not be forced upon the heart but until I had to face the reality of Connor and therefor was unable to deny to myself that I was in love with Reese, I never understood just how intricate and delicate our hearts truly were.

              Dad's big arms wrapped around my smaller frame and he drew me to his chest in a protective and loving hug. His own slow and steady breathing caused my head to move up and down as his chest expanded and shrank with the flow of air to his lungs. All my life I had daydreamed and wished for a life different than the limited predictability of The Complex, but now that I had no idea what was going to happen from one moment to the next, I was afraid. I was afraid for my family, especially my delicate mother who knew nothing of the dangers yet. If things got very bad for Dad and I very fast, what would happen to her? I was afraid for Reese. What did the Order mean when they told my dad that Reese was in danger? What kind of danger? How much danger? Dad made me promise last night to never see Reese again but how could I keep a promise like that now? Reese may need me. I would give up my life for his in a heartbeat.

             
Take
me
. Put
me
to sleep but don’t hurt Reese. Please.

             
Dad's arms loosened and I let myself fall out of the hug. He let go of me completely and rested his hands on my shoulders in a quiet but reassuring manner. There was love in his eyes in a way that I had never seen before. I understood why. Up until last night I never really knew my father. He had never let me in on his secret world for my own protection, but now we knew we shared the same secrets, the same suspicions and the same beliefs. We now knew each other in a way that was discouraged and even forbidden by Doctrine and that strengthened our bond and family devotion tenfold. Suddenly, a memory that seemed insignificant at the time crept up from the recesses of my mind and surfaced with a new meaning. I was nine years old and I was playing cards in the living room with Dad and Grandpa Logan. I was, as I often did, asking Grandpa questions about the surface and what it was like. I couldn't recall how the conversation had transitioned but I remembered Dad saying, “Every parent hopes that their children's lives are fuller and better than their own.” I continued to pester Grandpa Logan and Dad grew quiet, just watching me as Grandpa’s stories caused me to feel more and more enthralled.

              Dad was in the Order for
me
.
              Dad turned away from me and picked up the folder once more from the bed. He opened it, shuffled through the pages and pulled out the last one. He set it down. I walked to his side and leaned over as he set his finger on the paper.
             
Confirm shipment for 0900 hours. R-0832 scheduled to conduct the shipment.
             
I blinked and glanced at Dad warily. I was supposed to understand something again. I focused my attention back on the paper and re-read it. Wait, was there really a shipment? I supposed there had to be, I didn't get the impression that the Order would leave a paper trail for a false shipment and risk arousing suspicion. Dad tapped his finger on the ID number, R-0832. I re-read that again and it took a moment to remember whose ID it was.
Willow's mother!
Did that mean she was involved in the Order, too? When would the shocking secrets end? Did Willow know anything about the Order? I turned my confused and concerned eyes toward my father again, but he softly shook his head as if he knew what I was wondering.
No.
I supposed that made sense. After all, I knew nothing about any of this myself until just yesterday.