“Hurry!” Ash says, and even from up here I can tell he’s panicking. It’s only because I climb this wall every day that I can make my way down so fast. Even so, I push out and let myself drop the last few feet, landing in a light crouch.
“Who is it?” I ask as we sprint together to the house. He only shrugs, and I hear a rasping sound as my brother breathes. Nerves and even this small amount of running are making his lungs act up.
“You have to go straight for your inhaler,” I insist, suddenly more worried about him than myself.
He slows down, but shakes his head. “Gotta . . . get you safe,” he gasps.
“No!” I say too loudly. “I’ll be fine. But if you code out I won’t be fine. Can you make it upstairs by yourself?” His breathing is ragged. These attacks, mostly brought on by stress, come only rarely. But every time it happens I’m sure I’m going to lose my brother. I force my face to stay calm, because I know that any kind of worry will only make him worse at this point.
He nods, not wanting to waste his breath on speaking.
“Okay, then. You go, and I’ll use the wall hideout.”
There are four hiding places in our large and sprawling house. The best of them, a small cellar, has a trapdoor that has to be closed from above and then concealed under a carpet and heavy chair. Next best is a secret recess in the wall behind a bookcase that looks immovable but can swing out on pneumatic gliders. Unfortunately, that mechanism has a design flaw in that it has to be operated from the outside. So both of those depend on someone outside to seal me in (and release me again).
That means I have to go either up to the attic—which is spacious and comfortable but also one of the first places someone would search—or into an insufferably narrow space between two walls. The gap, no more than a foot and a half wide, used to hold some kind of ventilation system that was modernized and moved at some point in the house’s history. Now only the old air vent remains, and serves as an access port to a place that is so uncomfortable it makes torture sound like fun.
Ash is gasping now. I take his arm and guide him to the foot of the stairs that lead to his room. Our room, really. I have a bedroom of sorts, but there’s nothing of my own in it. It’s a guest room, which I make up every morning just as if no one has slept there in weeks. If anyone ever came to inspect the house, they’d find nothing more than a neat, generic bedroom waiting for a visitor.
For everything other than sleeping, Ash and I have more or less shared a room since childhood. Shared everything, really. Any personal possessions I have are in Ash’s bedroom, hidden among his things. And they all look like things a boy might have. I can’t have too many possessions of my own. Imagine if someone came in and found a bedroom with dresses, and holoposters of shirtless pop stars and all the other things other girls probably have in their rooms. Dead giveaway. Ash and I even share most of our clothes.
I don’t want to let Ash go. He feels my hold on his arm tighten, sees the fear in my eyes I can’t quite hide. I’m hardly even thinking about the unexpected visitor. “You go hide,” he says in a raspy whisper. “I can make it.”
I’m not sure he’s right, but I don’t have any more time to spare. I hear the quiet whine of the front door sliding open, and then the murmur of unfamiliar voices. With a final worried glance at Ash hauling himself up the stairs, I whirl and run for the closest sanctuary, hoping I’ll be in time.
I have to crawl backwards on my belly through the low ventilation access door into an impossibly cramped space. If I go forward, I won’t be able to close the door myself. I have only about an inch of clearance on either side. As I snap the door shut, I remember that I was running on moss, climbing on rocks just a moment before. Did I leave any telltale marks on the floor outside my hiding place? Too late to check now. I slither backwards on my elbows and toes, an inch at a time, for several feet, until I reach the place where the crevice opens up enough for me to stand.
It’s a little better here, but not much. Unlike my other hiding spots, this one isn’t built for any kind of comfort. It’s an emergency bolt-hole. We run periodic drills, Mom timing me, to make sure I can access all four of my hiding places quickly. But I’ve never had to use this one before. It’s the last resort.
I have room to stand, and that’s about it. Each time I breathe, my chest and back press against the plaster of the wall. It smells odd in here, stale and close. I’ve gotten used to having a limited life, but this is a little extreme. My vista ends about three inches away from my eyes.
But I’m safe, hidden away. Just in time. I hear an unfamiliar voice coming nearer. I’m surprised I can hear it so clearly. The walls must be thinner than I thought. For a crazy second I think about knocking on the wall, sending a mysterious message like an unseen spirit. Mom has told me ghost stories, gleaned from records in the archives. In the days of ignorance, people believed in all kinds of things. I don’t believe the old tales, though I’ve always liked hearing them. But if Ash is right, this is a Center official. They’re known for having zero patience with superstition or anything to do with the way we lived before the Ecofail. Not to mention, of course, the whole threat-of-death thing if I’m discovered.
So I stand at attention in my narrow sliver of safety, upright and alert like a Greenshirt recruit, and wait for the all clear.
When I hear the distinctive sound of people settling themselves in our living room, I figure the all clear will be a long time coming. I sigh, and my breath bounces against the wall back to me, warming my face.
I don’t know exactly what I’m expecting out of the unknown visitor. Probably something terse and official. Most likely, they’ve come by for some after-hours emergency, or what passes as an emergency. Maybe Mom needs to sign off on the duplication and distribution of some pre-fail artifact, or Dad has to authorize one of the restricted drugs for an upper-level Center official. Usually they message ahead, either calling on the unicom or sending a messagebot to herald their approach, giving me time to hide. What can be so urgent that it has to be a surprise?
Whatever I expect it’s certainly not the sound of weeping from my mother. She sounds like she’s right on the other side of this wall, and I actually take a step forward, stubbing my toe. Do they hear? No, I don’t think so, because the stranger speaks. I hear him clearly through the wall.
“One week,” he says. I frown in puzzlement. What is happening in a week to make Mom cry?
“So soon?” Mom asks, despair in her voice.
Dad immediately cuts in. “We’ve been waiting almost seventeen years,” he says gruffly. “Not nearly soon enough if you ask me.”
Almost seventeen years? Are they discussing something about me? They must be. Either me or Ash.
“You understand there have been difficulties,” the stranger says, placating, though I can tell from his voice he must be a little annoyed, too. “Black market lenses are just the beginning. Half the criminals in Eden can get fake lenses that show another person’s identity on a level-one scan. The problem is creating a new identity.”
“We paid you enough,” Dad snaps. “It should have been done long before now.”
“Hush,” Mom says to him. She sniffs hard, and I can tell she’s trying to pull herself together. “Go on, Mr. Hill. Please tell us the rest.”
“I don’t care how he did it, as long as it’s done,” I hear my father say in an undertone. I can picture his face, impatient and peevish as it so often is, his eyes restlessly glancing sidelong. “A week, you said? Why not sooner?”
I hear the doorbell chime, and Mom gasp, at exactly the same time, so I can’t tell whether she is shocked by that, or by what my father has said.
“Are you expecting anyone?” the stranger asks in evident alarm.
I’m wedged in my tight nook, blind and stifled, but in my mind’s eye I can see clear as day the way Mom and Dad exchange a quick look. Their relationship isn’t always perfect, I know, but they do have that trick of silent communication. I’ve often wondered if other coupl
es can do this, hold rapid unspoken conversations with a glance, and reach a conclusion without a word. I wonder now if I’ll ever know someone that well.
I hear quick movement through the wall, and a startled sound from the stranger. I realize he’s being hustled upstairs to my attic hideaway. Whoever he is, at least he’ll be more comfortable than I am.
Mom rushes back a moment later, and when she talks in a hushed, urgent voice I realize Dad hasn’t gone to answer the door yet.
“Will they find him?” she asks.
“How should I know?” he snaps. “I don’t know who they are or what they want. Probably just someone from work.”
Mom sighs in frustration at his optimism. “But why now, of all times? We should get him out of the house.”
“He’s a Center official,” Dad counters. “Why shouldn’t he be here? He could be my friend.”
“No, they might be watching him. If he’s involved in the black market, we can’t afford to be linked to him. Not when we’re this close. They’ll get suspicious.”
“They’ll get more suspicious if we don’t open the door soon,” Dad says, rightly enough.
“Where’s Rowan? Did she make it to the basement?”
“I don’t know, but she’s sensible enough to stay out of sight until one of us comes for her. Go have a drink and join us in a few minutes. If anyone sees your face now, they’ll know something’s wrong.”
I hear the heavy tread of his feet as he goes to the front door. The living room is completely still now, and I can hear the sound of my own breathing again. For a moment I think Mom has left, her lighter step unheard. Then I hear a little scratching on the wall just outside my nook. She knows I’m here. Or she thinks I’m here.
Gingerly, I scratch back, once, twice. I hear a gentle sigh from the other side, and I feel a love so overwhelming I would sit down if I had room. Dad has done whatever is necessary to keep me safe, but it’s always been Mom who let me know that everything she did, everything she sacrificed for me, was done out of love, not obligation or fear or necessity.
She walks away with a deliberately heavy step so I will know she’s gone. Still, in this moment, because of her love, I don’t feel alone. I don’t feel trapped. I feel safe.
But it isn’t long before my sense of safety evaporates entirely. I hear the clump of multiple pairs of boots, and though I can’t be entirely certain, I’d bet anything that they’re Greenshirts, the police force of Eden.
Ash always makes a joke of the Greenshirts, telling me how they chase down kids who hijack the public lighting system to spell out rude words like teezak and koh faz, or break into the lichen gardens after hours with their girlfriends. Maybe the Greenshirts are benign to kids pulling childish pranks. But I know that they are really a deadly civil defense squad whose main purpose is to root out anything that goes against the survival mandates of the EcoPanopticon. And that’s pretty much the definition of me.
Greenshirts patrol the streets and investigate any crimes that happen in Eden. They’re more heavily concentrated in the outer circles, far from the Center where people are poorer and more desperate. But they’re here in the inner circles, too. I’ve glimpsed them a couple of times from the top of the wall, stomping in black-booted pairs along the avenues. I always duck down quickly, and usually don’t risk popping my head up again for a few days after every sighting. I’ve never been spotted, though, by them or anyone else. No one on the streets ever looks up, and I confine myself to the uncertain light of dusk and dawn.
Now there are almost certainly Greenshirts in my living room. What if they’re here for me? Did someone spot my peeking head after all and grow suspicious? Could Ash have been careless and let a word drop into the wrong ears? If they have discovered my existence, I am hopelessly, helplessly trapped. There is only one exit out of this hiding place, and simply squirming out would be a struggle. I wouldn’t have a hope of flight. I can picture their black boots waiting outside the grate, almost feel them grabbing me to drag me away to some awful, unknown fate . . .
There’s some kind of bot with them, too. I hear the whir and beep of one of the smaller models. Is it a securitybot come to sniff me out? What is it doing here? Bots are nosy; they can be trouble.
Then I hear a silky voice speaking social pleasantries, its unique upper-class Center accent marking the speaker as one of the Eden elite. The voice sounds familiar, but I can’t place it until Dad addresses him by his title.
“Please, have a seat, Chancellor,” my father says, his voice more polite and deferential than I’ve ever heard it. As the physician general he is a high-ranking government minister himself, and looks down on most of Eden.
The bot rolls across the floor, coming closer to my hiding spot.
I’ve heard Chancellor Cornwall’s voice on newsfeeds, seen the man himself on vids. I remember that wherever he appears, he has a cohort of Greenshirts standing guard behind him.
What is the head of the government doing in our house?
Part of me is starkly terrified. Another part is almost reassured. A hidden second child might be a serious, even capital offense. But it certainly doesn’t warrant a visit from the leader of all Eden. He’d just send in a Greenshirt strike force to capture me. He wouldn’t be standing in my living room while Dad ordered a servebot to fetch him a cup of fauxchai, the fragrant drink made of algae that is genetically modified to taste like pre-fail tea. He must be here for something really terrible, or really wonderful.
It turns out to be both, I think.
I listen, amazed, as Chancellor Cornwall tells my father that the current vice chancellor is resigning due to medical reasons.
“I’d be happy to examine him and offer a second opinion,” my father ventures, but the chancellor ignores him.
“I believe you would serve Eden well as the next vice chancellor.”
There is dead silence in the room. My father, who came from an outer ring of Inner City, has risen high in the government ranks to become physician general. It was mostly by his skill as a surgeon, I always thought. But apparently Dad has been playing a deeper political game than I ever realized. Why else would the chancellor notice him? My father makes occasional pronouncements about health, monitors public policy on mandatory sterility surgeries and vaccinations, and occasionally provides personal treatment to ranking members of the government and their families.
This is a surprise to me. Perhaps it is to Dad, too. He always seems to keep as low a profile as he can, given his position. By “position” I mean me, his shameful secret. He keeps his head down and doesn’t socialize or network as much as other people in the government. He can’t exactly host cocktail parties with me hiding in the cellar, can he?
But somehow, he’s attracted notice.
The silence hangs too long. At last my father says, “I would be honored to serve Eden in any capacity.” His voice is tight, and I wonder if it’s from humility or nerves.
They speak of this awhile, and I listen, almost forgetting the first visitor, wondering what this will mean for my family. Will Dad have to move to the Center like all the uppermost Center officials? Will we? Impossible. My safety depends entirely on this house.
Then I hear the small bot roll across the room, pausing right near the vent. I hold my breath. Has it spotted something suspicious, some sign of my existence? I don’t know what kind of bot it is, but if it is a variety with good visual acuity it might be able to actually see me if it scans directly into the tiny openings in the vent. It inches closer, and beeps. If a bot can sound uncertain, this one does.
Then the chancellor says, “I won’t take up any more of your time now. Let me know what you decide by tomorrow morning.” The Greenshirt guards wheel in formation. The chancellor snaps his fingers, the bot glides away after him, and the room is quiet. Though my legs are stiffening and the air is growing stale with my breath, I don’t dare leave until I receive the all-clear signal. It takes so long I think they’ve forgotten about me.
When I
scramble out, covered in a light dusting of plaster, Mom is waiting for me in the living room. She’s alone.
I have so many questions, about the first Center visitor, about the chancellor, that I don’t know where to start. But first, most important, is Ash. “He was having an attack. Is he okay?” My jaw is clenched tightly as I wait for the answer. It takes a long time coming. At first that makes me think it is going to be terrible news.
“I just checked on him, and he’s resting comfortably,” she says. I sigh with relief. Somehow, the rest doesn’t seem to matter as much now. That feeling lasts for all of thirty seconds.
Mom looks at me in silence for a long moment.
“What’s going to happen?” I finally blurt out. It is an all-encompassing question.
Mom’s answer shakes me to my core. It’s like all of my dreams and nightmares are coming true at once.
“They’ve made lenses with a new identity, Rowan.” I wait for her to smile. She doesn’t, and I tense. Mom pauses again, then says gently, “And they’ve found a new family for you. You leave in one week.”
My legs give out and I sink to the floor, my back pressed against the very wall that hid me just moments before.
“NO,” I SAY weakly. I’ve waited for the freedom to move all my life, and now . . . “No!” I cry again, smashing the back of my fist against the wall. Sorrow and anger are building inside me, fighting for control. I decide to let anger win for once.
“I won’t do it!” I shout. “You can’t make me leave this family. My family!” I jump to my feet and don’t know whether to hug my mom or punch the wall or run for Ash or collapse again.
It was always a possibility. I’ve known that for years. But I always believed there would be another way.
I always believed my parents wouldn’t let me leave them. Ever.
But there are only two fates for a second child. A life hidden away . . . or a life in a new identity.
Well, there is one more, the usual one. Termination after conception—or after birth. However long after birth the child is discovered.