My old bike was leaning against the house—I hadn’t ridden it since Pa had let me use his truck. Pa. I knew I had to tell him about Becca. I also knew he wouldn’t hear me. Wouldn’t understand me. Those days were over.
What a weird thought: I used to have two parents. But Ma was taken away for a mood-adjust. She hadn’t come back. And then I’d been stupid enough to leave Pa home with the rifle. Even though I knew—
By pedaling furiously, I was outside my best friend’s house at 6:20, throwing pebbles up at her window. Steph finally opened her window and peered out. After one look at my white, frantic face, she blinked and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Becca’s still gone!” I said, and saw the instant fear in Steph’s eyes.
“Just like Kathy,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth. I nodded. Kathy Hobhouse had been in our class at school. Four months ago she had simply disappeared, and hadn’t returned.
“But I still want to look for Becca—just in case.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Steph nodded. A few minutes later she was downstairs, dressed, and armed with her mother’s car key.
“Maybe she’s just… staying with a friend,” Steph suggested, pushing the ignition button.
“I hope so,” I said fervently. “I really, really hope she’s just being a jerk and making me worry.”
Steph’s dinky little electric Hopper wasn’t much, but it was all we had. We picked up two friends I could trust: Sarah and Ted. I wanted to race up and down the fields of wheat, sweep every road, check every house. Rebecca—ridiculous as she was—was my twin sister, and we’d never been separated. Shouldn’t I be able to sense where she was? Shouldn’t there be an invisible twin beacon that would call me to her?
“Did you go to the Provost’s office?” Ted asked as we headed down the road to town.
“Not yet. They didn’t help when Ma disappeared,” I said bitterly.
Lines of worry creased Sarah’s forehead. “But people don’t disappear,” she said. “Not in our cell. I mean—even with Kathy. I’m sure there’s some explanation.”
“Like what?” I asked. “We’ve all seen the flyers around town: MISSING PERSON. They stay up for a day or two and then get taken down. But the people don’t come back!”
Sarah looked unconvinced. “But this is our cell,” she said. “Maybe they just… moved to a different house.”
“We would know!” I pointed out, losing patience. “We know everyone! We know every house!”
“I don’t,” Sarah said stubbornly.
My teeth clenched at her blind loyalty, but before I could argue, Steph spoke up.
“You better… you better do things by the book,” she said. “Go file a missing person report and meet us back here. We’ll start in the square and work our way outward.”
“Since this is Becca, we’ll hit all the bad citizens first,” Ted said. “No offense.”
“None taken,” I said, and got out.
The Hopper drove off silently as I looked up at the Management Building with dread. This was the center of our cell: where you got marriage licenses and licenses to have kids or to move, where you registered your moped or got permission to buy another cow or horse. Where you filed a missing person report with the Provost’s office. Like I had done three years ago for Ma.
They hadn’t helped then and I didn’t think they would help now. But this was Becca. With my stomach already in a knot, I went up the white marble steps.
Inside the Provost’s office was a waiting room full of uncomfortable wooden chairs. Five or six people were sitting patiently. I didn’t have time to wait, and instead went up to the counter where the Provost Secretary sat. Behind her was a screen scrolling messages: LIFE IS HAPPINESS UNITED! OUR PEOPLE ARE HEALTHIER UNITED! CRIME IS AT AN ALL-TIME LOW! WE HAVE CONQUERED DISEASE! It was the same stuff we were taught in school. It played on screens everywhere—in the few restaurants, the drugstore, the grocery stores, the hardware and feed store.
The secretary looked at me over the top of her glasses. “Missing? Our citizens don’t go missing,” she said.
“My ma’s never come back,” I pointed out. “And Becca’s not the only kid who’s disappeared.”
The secretary’s chilly gooseberry-colored eyes narrowed. “Your ma went away for a mood-adjust,” she told me, like I didn’t know that. “She didn’t disappear. And neither did your sister. Or the other teenagers.”
“How did you know they were teenagers?” I said, gripping the edge of the counter.
Two pink spots of anger colored her face, and she sharply rapped a pile of papers against the counter. Picking up a cube of Post-it notes, she wrote “Rebecca Greenfield—missing?” on it, and stuck it on the sheaf of papers. “There. I’ll give this to the Provost. Even though you’re wasting his time on this.” Then she banged a little bell and shouted, “Next!”
Feeling helpless, I leaned over the counter. “My sister is missing,” I said, my voice shaking. “And we need to find her. Having kids disappear is not good for the cell.”
The secretary looked at me coldly and banged her bell again. “Next!”
Near tears, I left the office. What had I expected? When I, a terrified fourteen-year-old, had reported that my ma wasn’t at home, wasn’t at church, wasn’t anywhere, that same secretary had flipped through her files, glaring at me. Finally she’d told me that my ma had been chosen for a mood-adjust. And would be back soon.
She’d been lying then, and she was lying now.
But I wasn’t fourteen anymore, and now my whole family was gone. I wasn’t going to go away and shut up. Not this time.
12
“I GOTTA GO HOME,” STEPH said, apologetically. “It’s dinnertime.”
“It’s Becca,” I pleaded. “My sister. The only one I have.” My voice broke. It had been a long, hard, stupid day. Sarah and Ted had gotten more and more uncomfortable as we searched, and had finally bailed before lunch. Now it was getting dark, and even my best friend couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m sure she’ll turn up,” Steph said, but her eyes were worried.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, letting her off the hook. Inside, I felt like a tornado: shrieking, whirling, unsure of what else I could do but desperately needing to do something. I would do anything to get my sister back—even talk to Mr. Harrison, our history teacher. Try not to throw up when you see that jerk.
Steph dropped me at home. The house was dark, silent. Not even bothering to check inside, I just grabbed the moped and took off again. We’d searched everyplace I could think of… except one.
Our cell, B-97-4275, is the best cell I know. Actually, it’s the only cell I know. When you have a cell as great as ours, you really don’t need anything else. All the same, there are still some people who don’t follow the rules. Like Ridiculous Rebecca. And her loser friends.
A half mile away from the town square was a sector that I’d never been to. Most people lived on farms with at least a couple of acres—our cell had over eight thousand acres, so there was plenty of room. But people in this sector worked in offices as lawyers or doctors, or at one of the mills for grain or wool, or at the Co-op, which gathered all our crops and distributed them to our United All-Ways grocery store and even other cells. These people had no land. They lived practically on top of each other. I would hate living here, I thought as I cruised up and down the crowded, narrow streets. You could hear everything your neighbors were saying, hear music playing or someone hammering. You could smell the food your neighbor was cooking.
I parked the moped by a lamppost and looped its chain around it to show that it hadn’t been abandoned. Then I started going door-to-door, my tension building with every dead end. Finally the only places left were houses with few lights on, peeling paint, some windows that had been boarded up.
This is for Becca, I thought as I looked at the first forbidding house. Maybe she was sick inside. Maybe she’d been kidnapped, nonexistent crime or not. It took everything I had to go
through the rusty gate, up a weed-choked sidewalk, and across a porch that was not an example of a good citizen porch. (Not swept, not painted, no flowers.) I knocked on the door. No one answered. I knocked again.
Finally a woman opened the door a bit and peered out at me. Cigarette smoke swirled around her lank hair.
“I’m looking for Becca Greenfield,” I said. “Have you seen her?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed meanly. “I ain’t seen nobody but me and my husband. Get lost!” And she slammed the door on me.
My knees were rubbery when I went to the next house. There was no answer at all, though I knocked three times.
The next house was under a broken streetlight. The Provost’s office was usually really strict about keeping the cell tidy and in good repair. With my heart in my throat, I crossed the porch and knocked on the door. A tall guy opened it and looked out with one eye.
“I’m looking for Becca Greenfield,” I said again, no doubt pointlessly. “Do you know where she is?”
The tall guy stroked his scraggly goatee. “Becca isn’t here anymore,” he said. “She’s gone.”
13
I GAPED AT HIM. “BUT you’ve seen her? When? Where is she now?”
It seemed to take the guy several moments to process my words. Then he leaned back and bellowed into the house, “Hey! Where’d Becca go?”
A girl came and opened the door wider, then gave the guy a scathing look. “You idiot. This is Becca. Hey, Beck.”
The guy squinted at me. “No, it isn’t.”
“I’m not Becca,” I said. “I’m her sister. I’m looking for her. I have to find her! Please, can you help me?”
The girl blinked and stepped closer, looking me up and down. “Huh,” she said.
“Where’s Becca?” I almost shrieked.
“If you ain’t her, then she ain’t here,” the girl said flatly.
“When was the last time you saw her?” My fingers were twitching by my sides. Finally I had a clue, but these two morons were in the way!
“Yesterday?” the guy suggested.
The girl shook her head. “Nah. She came here… not last night but the night before. Around midnight.”
I almost choked. Becca had been driving around in the middle of curfew. And I hadn’t known about it. “Then what?”
The girl shrugged. “She hung out here.”
Somehow I managed not to grab her shoulders and shake her till her teeth rattled. “Then. What,” I said tightly.
“She left,” the girl said. “Like around two, two thirty.”
“Where did she go?”
The door opened wider and another guy stood there. He had shaggy blond hair and needed a shave.
“Lookin’ for Becca? I heard her say she was going to the Boundary, man,” he said, shaking his head.
“The Boundary?” I felt like I’d been punched. “Why would she do that?”
The guy shrugged. “’Cause she’s Becca.”
Well, he had me there.
“So at two in the morning she headed out to the Boundary?” I asked. “Did anyone see her actually try to cross the Boundary?”
The blond guy nodded. “Taylor went with her. Like they were daring each other. Egging each other on. He was on his moped, and Becca had the truck.”
My truck.
“Did Taylor come back, or is he missing, too?” My heart was beating fast and my mind was racing.
“Naw, Taylor’s back,” said the first guy.
“Where is he?” I demanded.
The first guy opened the door wide enough for me to go in.
“Taylor’s here?” My voice was thin and screechy.
“He’s downstairs,” said the girl, and drifted into another room toward the back of the house.
Inside, the house was just as creepy as outside. The tall guy led me through one dark room after another. I was aware of several people sitting on broken-down furniture, either sleeping or drinking silently, or watching a Cell News show with no sound.
The tall guy opened a door and gestured down: these were cellar stairs, and they led into total blackness. And it was only then that I realized that there might not be a Taylor at all, and that maybe I’d made a really stupid mistake.
14
BECCA
OUR PRISON ROOM HAD FOUR narrow metal beds. There were five of us in here. As the newbie, I was elected to sleep on the cold concrete floor. I was already in so much pain that it didn’t really make it worse.
Another fun thing: we had a tiny metal sink that dripped constantly. Around 2:00 in the morning I decided they made it drip on purpose to drive us totally batshit. And it was working.
There was one toilet, just a metal bowl attached to the wall. No seat, no lid. One toilet out in the open, and there were three girls and two aim-deficient guys in here. It was enough to make you want to hold it, like, forever.
I’d been gone a long time. Cassie must be frantic. Frantic and super pissed. If she were missing, I’d be flipping out. Since it was Cassie and I was missing, I knew she was doubly flipping out. That’s how she is. Sorry, Cass.
Anyway, between the concrete floor, worrying about Cassie, and my various bruises and injuries, I got almost no sleep last night.
Around 6:00 the big gate down at the end of the hall screeched open. The noise woke Robin, and she quickly leaned down to me. “I meant to tell you,” she whispered, “the first thing they’ll do is test you.”
“On what?” I whispered back.
“Everything,” she said urgently. “Do as best as you can. How well you do determines how you’re treated.”
The footsteps were getting closer. Maybe two guys with boots? Three?
“How you’re treated, how much you get to eat, and how long you get to live,” Robin hissed, then turned her back and pretended to be asleep.
Oh. So, no pressure.
Sure enough, the guards stopped in front of our rusty sliding door. One of them pointed a beefy finger at me.
“You. Get up. It’s time.”
I pretended not to know what he meant. “Time for breakfast?”
“Just get up.”
He unlocked the door and pulled it open wide enough for me to get out. The other guard immediately spun me around and clamped handcuffs around my wrists. I saw Robin, and the other kids now, too, watching silently. Robin gave me a very, very tiny thumbs-up. I didn’t react—didn’t want to get her in trouble.
Then the guards were hauling me down the row to… I had no idea what.
15
THERE WAS THAT FAMILIAR PRE-HURL feeling—the sudden clamminess, the extra spit in my mouth, the tunnel vision.
I stopped walking. The guards clamped onto my arms and dragged me forward. I pressed my lips together and swallowed a bunch of times.
Robin had said we were on death row. Were they taking me to be executed? Was I going to die without knowing why, without saying good-bye to my sister, or even Pa? Suddenly I felt like I had wasted a lot of years.
Actually, it turned out to be worse than death: I was strong-armed into a classroom.
I wasn’t an enthusiastic student when not in prison, so death row wasn’t going to up the scholarly factor. Still, the guards plunked me down in a chair behind a desk and took the cuffs off me. I rubbed my wrists, feeling the zip tie cuts start to bleed again.
Everyone’s favorite warden, Ms. Strepp, strode into the classroom and motioned for the guards to stand in the back. Today she was wearing an olive-green suit with pants and looked sort of military.
She gave me a good glare, then turned and wrote on the whiteboard at the front of the room. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” - Nelson Mandela.
My eyes narrowed. I had no idea who this Nelson Mandela guy was, or what he had to do with life at home in the cell.
“You will now be tested on some core subjects,” Ms. Strepp said, handing me a test booklet and a pencil. “Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ar
e crucial for our society today. Let’s see how much you were paying attention during the years you received free schooling at the United’s expense.”
Robin had said that how well I did on these tests would determine how long I lived. Well, I was already dead, because none of these were my strong suit. Sure, I had passed the initial testing for my electrician’s license, but basically the only good that did me was teach me how to hot-wire Cassie’s truck. The truck that had been abandoned on the boundary road, and had no doubt been confiscated by now. If these tests didn’t kill me, if I wasn’t executed, then I knew my sister would definitely have my head on a pike when she found out I’d lost her truck.
Things were not looking up.
I met Ms. Strepp’s eyes calmly. “I haven’t eaten in more than a day. There’s no way I can concentrate on this stuff.”
Her face turned to concrete. She motioned one of the guards to come up, and my heart started pounding as I braced to get hit. “This man has a Taser,” Ms. Strepp said icily. “You will start taking the test, or he will tase you. Have you ever been tased?”
I shook my head.
“It’s terribly unpleasant,” she said with a sneer. “I suggest you start writing…” She took out a stopwatch and clicked it. “Now!”
I opened the test book and almost started crying when I saw the first question had to do with figuring out the area of a circle. Shit. Careful Cassie had bugged me about this stuff, like, my whole life. I could just hear her voice: I told you this was important! I told you and told you and told you! You have to know about your own cell! It’s four miles across!
Frowning, I sat up straighter and tried to get a couple of synapses to ignite. Okay, if a circle is four miles across, then its radius is two, then there’s some kind of formula…
Sweat dotted my forehead. I brushed it away. No idea if I’d remembered correctly, calculated correctly, or did anything correctly. But I started thinking that if I did okay, I would get to eat. And maybe live longer—long enough to see my sister again.