Hardin's Dilemma

me.”

  “They don’t seem to care much about their privacy.” I said.

  “Oh they do.”

  At long last we went to bed.

  I was shaken awake before dawn. We sat quietly as Theen made out the note he was going to leave on the pillow saying that we left early. I prepared myself mentally and was ready to go when he finished. It was too late to back out now, and I was beginning to believe that something good might happen through that door.

  We left the room, taking our Azureland clothes with us. No one was around. We got to the door and Theen started looking around for what might have let the two in the night before. He pulled back a square of fake wallpaper, revealing a button. He pushed it, the door clicked.

  “That was easy.” I said, relieved and anxious.

  “It’s probably meant for people to find, but the right people, not us.”

  He told me to wait near the door while he went inside to have a look around. I waited in a wooden chair near the stairs, looking over to the door every few seconds. I put the clothes under my seat. Voices came from below. I hoped they wouldn’t be coming up the stairs. Unfortunately they did. Their voices grew and I could hear their footfalls on the stairs. Panicked, I went to the door. I started knocking, I don’t know why; it was just the first thing that came to my mind. The people, there were three, came up behind me.

  “What are you doing?” A man in the red uniform asked.

  “Isn’t this the kitchens?” I said stupidly.

  “That’s downstairs.”

  The door flung open and Theen emerged; now wearing the same red uniform.

  “Who are you?” He asked me coldly.

  “What?” I was so confused.

  “Come with me.” He grabbed me by the arm and led me to the stairs. The others shook their heads and went through the door.

  When they were gone Theen let me go.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked, pointing to his outfit.

  “There was a closet full of them in that hallway. I think it leads to some sort of secret room or headquarters. Here, I got you one. Switch into it and we’ll figure out where it goes.”

  I quickly changed into the white shirt, red vest and pants, and the red hat. For the first time I noticed that the hats had the eye and triangle symbol that was on the case Milton and I found. I felt bad putting all that on. I decided I would take an extra long shower when I got back to Wall City.

  XII

  Theen got us through the door and into yet another long hallway. I was beginning to think that long hallways were a staple in every country. It ended at another door a good distance away. On our right was a small room with a rack holding around forty or so red uniforms with hats on top of each one. No one was in our way as we walked down to the next door.

  “Darn.” Theen groaned when we got to the next door.

  Right beside the door was a key pad with numbers on it.

  “How are we supposed to get on now?”

  Right as he finished talking the door behind us opened and another person in the red uniform came in.

  Theen began to rummage through his pockets, sighing loudly.

  “Anything the matter?” The man asked as he approached. He was only a few years older than me.

  “Wouldn’t you know it?” Theen laughed innocently. “I’ve forgotten the number.”

  The man’s eyes lit up. “I did the same thing the other day; I really wish they would stop changing it all the time.”

  “I know, right.” Theen said.

  “It’s okay, I got you.”

  The man put in the four digit code. The door opened, revealing itself to be an elevator.

  Theen nodded. “I was one off.”

  We all got in the small elevator. The door closed and the man pushed the down button.

  “I’m Murray.” The man said. “Nice to meet you. I guess you two are new.” We nodded. “They’ll tell you everything you need to know when you get there. But there’s something that I should tell you. Most new recruits are transferred straight to the wall now. And there is almost no training time at all anymore. They just throw you all out there and expect you to start working. Of course there is a training phase but that’s so short now too.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Nobody really knows, I guess they’ll tell you when you get there. But you know their motto. ‘Less is better’, and they mean less knowledge. It used to be that the worse you did in the class the better the shot in the dome. All the smarties got research and development or construction or something.”

  “What do you do?” Theen asked with a big goofy smile on his face.

  “I cook. Someone has got to do it. And I like it, don’t have to get messy.” The elevator stopped and the door opened. “Oh, here we are.”

  We got off the elevator into the largest room I’ve ever been in. The ceiling was probably one hundred feet above our heads and the far wall was so far back I could barely see it. There were brick buildings inside this room and rows and rows of the peculiar flying contraptions I had seen the Dizurians use in the forest when I was getting Mama out of the wall. Now that I was closer to them I saw that they were round with a flat bottom and had one seat inside. There was nothing covering the top except for a single bar.

  “Go straight and you should find the new recruit classroom.” Murray pointed down the aisle between the buildings and flying things. “Lessons are only a day now. Things are really going crazy around here.”

  “Why?” I asked again.

  “I don’t know. They must want to do something big. Anyway, I’ll be seeing you.” He went into the first building.

  “That was informative.” Theen said, starting in the direction Murray had pointed.

  “He was so nice.” I said, not sure how to react to it all yet.

  “Not just a faceless monster, huh?”

  “It was easier when it was.”

  I followed Theen, looking around at all the buildings and flying things. There were people all over, all wearing red. Some were going from building to building and some were just wandering about.

  “What are we doing? Are we actually going to that classroom?” I asked.

  “Yes, if it’s only a day we can manage it. And it might be useful. I’m sure whatever they will teach us will be worth, well you know, using.”

  He amended his statement right as several people passed us. They didn’t look like the evil monsters I wanted them to be. Most were smiling and going about their business just as anybody anywhere else would do.

  “What if we get into something we can’t get out of?” I reasoned quietly.

  “Then we’ll be in trouble. But you worry too much, this is exactly the kind of thing that we came here to do. Imagine the reward if we get enough info.”

  I did, and I like what I thought of. The main goal was to get all the Humurom’s out, and if this could help then I was on board.

  The classroom building was the last one, all the way at the end of that enormous room. There was a sign outside telling when the classes were to start. We got there with twenty minutes to spare.

  There were thirty or so desks in rows. Only six seats were filled. The students were all fairly young, probably a few years younger than me. Except for one, he looked a few years older than me. We took seats in the back and waited for what was to come next.

  A man came into the room some time later. He was in the middle of life with short gray hair and an expression that told that he could have been anywhere else and it would have been better than there.

  “You will only refer to me as L or Mr. L and that is it. Not that it matters, you will not be in this class long enough to care what my name is, and I don’t care for yours.” He took a few seconds to stare us down. “A sorry bunch. I had high hopes for the new recruits. Every day you all get worse. I guess that should be expected. They really are digging up roots to find you.” He looked suspiciously a
t the man I assumed to be older. “What is your name?”

  “Billus.” He responded. “I was in this class before.”

  “Don’t care to know why.” Mr. L said nastily. “Everybody else seems new. I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

  He then began to tell the story of the war between Humurom and Bozlin. This was the first instance where I knew that whatever we had stumbled into had something to do with the wall. It was interesting to hear about it from a Dizurian point of view. Not much was different. For the most part it was what I heard in Azureland, but that soon changed as he began to tell us that Dizuria had a way to get in the wall.

  “. . . Our operations started small.” He said. “We took samples and found that no nuclear bombs ever went off. So should that mean that we quit our research and let everyone in and out? No, it doesn’t. One of our past leaders made the decision that what we should really be doing is settling the area. It’s no secret that Dizuria got the short end of the stick in the land grabbing of a few hundred years ago. For those who don’t know that is when the little empires all around this continent formed full countries. Each piece of land was suddenly up for grabs. Back then our leaders didn’t believe in imperialism and look where it got us. While Azureland and Westernia grew huge, the poor countries in the middle were left out. Those were Dizuria, Humurom, and Bozlin. None of us liked that very much and so tensions rose. Azureland did a few things to try to make peace because they are so honorable.” He scoffed. “It didn’t work. Eventually Humurom and Bozlin tensions began to heat up, and that’s when we saw our