The Outcast Ones (17 page)

The way he frames the question makes it sound like he’s asking if they beat us black and blue every day.

Even if I wish I had long hair like Florence, it’s not so bad as Finn might think. No one has hair in the safety zone. You would feel strange if you were the only one who had it. “No, it must be something in the food. We don’t notice it.”

“Zoe, she’s bald too, right?”

I feel my cheeks glowing and the redness climbing into my face. Did Paul confess that he told me about Zoe? But what if he didn’t—I don’t want to get him into trouble, so I act dumb. “Who’s Zoe?”

Finn gives me a cheeky grin. “Don’t be like that, I know Jep and Pep told you about her.”

I could leave it at that, but it would be unfair to the twins. “It wasn’t those two...”

I can see clearly that Finn is getting curious, so I hurry to add: “Don’t start thinking I’ll tell you my sources.”

He pouts and wrinkles his brow. To distract him, I return to his original question. “Zoe looks like everyone else.” Her particular characteristic comes to mind, the way I could tell her apart from the others. “Well...almost.”

He seizes on the word. “Almost?”

“She has a little bit of skin pigment under her left eye.” I search his face and find the same spot on his cheek. I hadn’t noticed before, because his skin is darker.

He smiles and nods. “I can’t even imagine how she would manage in your world. Here she was always so wild and boisterous. That’s why I didn’t even expect her to be alive. I guess she must have found it in herself to conform.”

“She makes an effort.”

“She’s my younger sister. I should be there to take care of her.”

Finally he’s said it. Why did he have to keep it so secret from me? What did he think would happen if I knew? Did he think I would avenge myself on her for his meanness, if I ever get back to the Legion?

“Maybe it’s hard for you to hear, but she’s stronger than you think.” I remember the reckless look in her eyes and the courage in her voice. Although she was in a place so foreign to her, as I am now, she never let it intimidate her, never showed any weakness. “I think she’s even stronger than most people.”

“Zoe means life. She just doesn’t fit there.”

I agree with that, but gradually I am starting to ask myself if anyone really belongs in the safety zone. I understand why the Legion set it up when they did, and I understand why there must be rules, but I don’t know why they have to be so strict and rigorous. We are still people, after all, not robots.

“What does Finn mean?”

“Wanderer.”

It means little to me.

“I think it means I’m searching for something.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. For Zoe, for myself...I think I’ll know when I find it.”

Iris is breathing softly and evenly, the same as Dumbo’s gentle wheezing. From the very first moment she took him in her arms, he adored her with all his little heart. To him, she is both mother and playmate. Wherever she goes, the fox follows at her heels. Even now he is curled up in her embrace.

Outside the caves, the call of an owl echoes through the night as the soft wind whistles through the forest, making the leaves rustle. When I spent those nights in the cell, all these unusual sounds frightened me. They were so loud and irregular compared to my room in the safety zone. There is no noise there at night. It is quiet and black. Here, it’s not even truly dark—moonlight or the heavy light of torches falls through the small window.

No one lies awake at night in the safety zone, no one is unable to fall asleep. I don’t know why that is. They probably control our sleep just as they control our blue eyes and our hair growth. The longer I stay here, the clearer it becomes that the Legion controls so much of our lives, inside. None of it is new to me, but I never had anything to compare it with before now.

When I think about the rebels’ plans to send me back, the fear of getting shot by the Legion is almost the least of my worries. No, I’m afraid that I won’t find my way back into my old life. I don’t think I could go back to waking at a predetermined time each day, eating the same food all the time, working and going to sleep at night. It would feel empty. Conversation with other people is what I would miss most. Conversation with no purpose at all—conversation just for the sake of communicating. No one does that in the safety zone. Everything must have a purpose.

“Pssst!”

There’s someone in our room. I raise my head, and so does Dumbo. It’s Finn. I can tell by the shape of his hair. His silhouette looms in front of our pink curtain.

Dumbo settles his head back down on his front paws. He seems to think Finn is safe. As for me, I’m not so sure. What could he want in the middle of the night?

“Cleo? Are you sleeping?”

My heart beats wildly and a stupid grin sneaks onto my face. Cosy warmth floods me and goosebumps run down my spine. It’s so nice to hear him say my name. The name I was given just a few weeks ago, but it belongs to me as if it had always been mine.

Carefully I push back the blanket and approach him on bare feet. When I pull the curtain aside, he almost looks shocked. “What is it?”

“Come with me, I want to show you something.”

My old doubts return and I stare at his face. Do I trust him? It seems strange that he wants to show me something at night, when no one can find out. Maybe he’s playing games with me. Just because he didn’t drown me in the lake doesn’t mean he’s my friend.

Finn seems to sense my concern, because his neutral expression changes to a friendly smile. “Trust me.”

His gentle, but raw voice sends a shiver down me again. I wish he would keep talking, because I would listen for hours. It wouldn’t even matter what he said. If he’d said “I want to throw you off a cliff,” I would probably follow him just the same.

I slip on my boots and hurry through the corridor with all the sleeping chambers along it. From the next to last, soft candlelight flickers on the walls. It’s Paul and Florence’s room. As I pass it, I hear a gentle bell-like giggle from Florence, mingled with Paul’s laughter. They really did make up.

At the cave entrance, Finn is already waiting for me. His honey-coloured hair glows in contrast to his black clothes.

“They’re getting along again! Is that what you wanted to show me?”

His brow creases. “Is that so important to you that you would want me to wake you in the night to see it?”

Although any of the rebels show more emotions in five minutes than anyone in the safety zone in a whole week, Finn sometimes seems very cold to me. Paul is his friend and yet he doesn’t seem interested. Why can’t he be happy for him?

“I’m glad,” I insist, and jut my chin out.

Finn grins. “You’re almost behaving like Zoe. No wonder you got along from the start. She always wanted a friend.”

My anger disappears immediately. I’m honoured that I remind him of his sister whom he misses so much. She would never have let him shout at her or insult her as he did to me for so long.

“What did you want to show me?”

Instead of answering, he offers me his right hand. Uncertain, I examine his face again. He nods. He means it, and he’s serious.

As I rest my hand in his warm palm, a tingle runs through my whole body. His skin is rough and covered in callouses, while mine is soft, but pale and sweaty. It doesn’t bother him. His fingers tighten around mine.

Together, we leave the caves behind and walk towards the desert in the glow of a hand lamp. To me it seems aimless, but I can tell from Finn’s face that he knows exactly where he’s going. Soon the lights from the caves are only little dots on the horizon and red sand surrounds us as far as the eye can see. The stars over our heads makes me stop and stare again and again. They are more than I ever imagined possible. Out here there’s nothing to distract from them, so they shine even brighter. Among their splendour, the crescent moon is enthroned.

Finn bestows a small smile on me and pulls me onwards. Of course this would be the ideal place to get rid of me, but I can’t imagine he would do that—not while his warm hand encloses mine. Somehow I feel safe with him, although he’s the one I should fear. No one has ever hurt me or insulted me as much as he has, and yet he gives me a feeling of safety. Is this how Zoe felt, when she was with him? It must be awful for her to be apart from him for so long. Except that unlike him, she can’t tell anyone about it. She must keep all the pain and the longing hidden inside her every day. She can’t even cry to give her heart some relief.

The landscape starts to change. Where there were only sandy plains, now hills and mountains rise before us. The ground becomes hard and stony. But Finn doesn’t lose his way for a moment. He must have come this way many times, this path that only he can see. I wonder how many girls he’s led by the hand through the night? It can’t be many, because there’s hardly anyone my age with the rebels except for Florence. Maybe that wasn’t always the case.

Now we’re crawling up a mountain on hands and knees. Little stones come loose and rattle away under my feet as I try not to lose my balance. Finn is never far away. I know he would be much faster without me, but whenever the distance between us gets too far, he waits for me, head raised. Unlike me, he doesn’t find it hard to climb the slope. It seems like he always knows the best place to put his feet without wobbling.

Suddenly he stops again and a bright light shines around his silhouette. It seems to come from the depths of the mountains. Almost reverently I crawl up beside him and look down into the valley.

Brilliant white light radiates from a huge building. It’s shaped like a sphere, with no corners or edges. A gigantic, shining ball floating above the ground. Only a narrow tube connects it to the earth. Around the building are various kinds of machines. Some have wheels, some are barely the size of a wheelbarrow, others remind me of aircraft from the days of Old Earth.

“That’s the Legion.”

He wouldn’t have had to tell me—I would have known. Nothing and no one except the Legion could have so much technology. But I wonder where the actual safety zone could be hiding in all of this. There was no light there, just the fake pictures in the Atrium and the light panels in the ceiling that regulate night and day.

Finn reads my thoughts and answers already. “Do you see that tube going into the ground? There, under the earth, that’s where your safety zone is. Your Legion commanders have glass windows to overlook all the land, but they keep you as prisoners without light.”

I can hear clearly how he despises them, but for the first time I can’t really blame him. Quite the opposite. I feel the anger in my gut. Every day in the safety zone I longed to see the sky, the stars, or living plants. I was always so thankful for the pictures in the Atrium. But now that I know the Legion commanders’ elevator leads straight to the light that they have kept from us every single day for so many years...I just feel betrayed. Why do they lock us up underground while they can open their windows wide and fill their lungs with fresh air? Why didn’t they share that with us? Why did they lie?

Tears spring into my eyes. I never wanted to hate the Legion, never wanted to forget that we might not have survived without them. The safety zone was the only home I ever knew, but I hate the thought of letting them lock me away down there again. How can I ever look at a Legion commander with respect again, without screaming their lies in their faces?

Finn lays an arm around my shoulders to comfort me. When I lift my head to look in his eyes, I see them full of tears just like mine. “Do you understand me now?” His voice breaks and he presses his lips together.

I nod silently as a single tear makes its way down his cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away, and he’s not ashamed of it. He is dignified as he raises his head to look down on the lighted ball of the Legion, his face full of anger and disgust.

“Why did the Legion never tell us about the rebels?”

“You might have decided to leave and live in freedom.”

I wonder if that would really happen. Everyone in the safety zone is afraid of living outside the protection of the Legion. Even the radiation in the air frightened us so much that we would never have left voluntarily. But that’s just another lie. I’ve breathed this air for weeks now and have never had trouble breathing, or suffered from vomiting or any other effects of poisoning.

“In freedom, maybe, but in constant fear.” I well remember how terrified I was of Finn and his tempers. Seeing that just once would have been enough to make me decide to live in the safety zone instead of being exposed to his aggression.

“Is it better to be a prisoner, but safe?” he mocks me, without understanding at all. I can hear his anger. He wouldn’t want to hear my answer, but I won’t agree with him completely. He’s the one who always accused me of being a robot with no feelings or opinions. That’s not true, and it’s not true of anyone in the safety zone. I’ll prove it to him and he’ll have to learn to live with the fact that not everyone shares his opinion. Nothing is as easy as he imagines. People aren’t stupid just because they’re afraid. Not everyone was born in freedom like him.

“I don’t know. I had no choice in the matter. The Legion never asked me what I wanted, but then, neither did any of you.”

Speechless he stares at me. How can I dare to compare the rebels with the Legion? I almost expect him to throw a tantrum and walk off without me. Anyway, I don’t know why he showed me the Legion. A move to get me on his side?

But I am astonished when his shoulders droop. He doesn’t explode. He seems broken, shattered almost. Have I hurt him with what I said? I didn’t mean it.

“I brought you here because I trust you.” He looks me right in the eyes and his words touch my heart. I would never have expected to gain his trust, especially not in such a short time. Only a few days have passed since we started our truce. He goes on. “I know you wouldn’t just run off and betray us.”

I’m so relieved to hear him say that. It feels like a weight off my shoulders. All the stress, all the fear of these past weeks fall from me like boulders. Finally I feel I can be myself. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Finn accepts me—no, it’s more than that—he trusts me.