"Seed" - A story of oppression, sacrifice, and liberation - Part 3

Where we left off:

The buzzing is insistent and she jerks awake, confused at the deep night still wrapped close around her. Always the sun is erupting over the horizon when her Juvenile Reveille alert strikes. As she lies pondering this strange turn of events, she realizes she is not the only one who has been awakened. Her parents whisper, their muffled voices unintelligible, but unmistakably edged with fear.

She is still uncertain whether she should interrupt to tell them she too is awake, when the sheltering darkness is ripped away and they are plunged into stark, blazing illumination. Though no one has moved from their cots, every light in the house has activated at once. Exposed in the unnatural brilliance, violated by its determination that she be seen though she herself is temporarily blinded, she shrieks with terror just a moment before the door crashes inward and her parents’ cries join her own.

Lost? Don't start here! Begin with Part 1 and Part 2

She pushes the memory away and gasps for breath. Whether the physical exertion or the crushing weight of reminiscence is responsible, she can hardly say. Sweat drips from her brow into the dust and she suspects it is mingled with tears; moisture she cannot spare bleeding away at her feet. A commotion nearby interjects itself into her consciousness and she is helpless to ignore the all too predictable tragedy unfolding in the hole to her south. She drops her pick and grudgingly makes her way up the slope.

All around her heads are peeking above the ground, staring unabashedly at the sinewy old man who has chosen this moment for a final – likely fatal – stand. Work within earshot has ceased and the deathly stillness of the air is broken only by the shuffling of feet against rubble, the mockingly calm voice of the Crew Chief at the center of the action, and the anguished pleas of the hunched figure who has caught his – and all of their – attention.

A smattering of other Crew Chiefs dot the landscape, but none interferes with the gawping; the sun-browned, leathery character that has captured the laborers’ interest is about to provide an example that will go far further in maintaining the status quo than their barked orders ever could. To a man they stand facing the skirmish: beefy, well-fed arms crossed before enviably padded chests. Feet splayed in such likeness to one another it appears choreographed; their eyes are hidden behind dark lenses to which the laborers themselves are unentitled.

Her stomach lurches with a sense of terrible synchronicity as she realizes this man is old enough to be her father had he lived. Her father, who had clung so desperately to the past.

She squints and shades her eyes with a dirt-encrusted hand. Sound carries easily across the barren wasteland but the sun punishes ogling. Nevertheless she can make out what appears to be some kind of patterned cloth pressed to the man’s nearly concave chest. He is openly weeping.

“Like my mother’s. It’s like my mother’s,” the man sobs. The response from the Crew Chief is maddeningly, deliberately unruffled.

“You know we ask that all discoveries be turned in. Why were you hoarding this?”

“It’s not hoarding!” A bite of fury joins the sorrow that suffuses the air and without looking away she knows that as the laborers around her cringe, the Crew Chiefs will be grinning. “And it’s not a ‘discovery’ it’s a goddamned apron you fucking ape! What the hell do your masters need with a fucking apron? Why would you take away a fucking apron?”

The impassive guard appears to be waiting for the man to wind down. When the moment seems right he begins to speak, enunciating with a baritone that carries far and wide for the benefit of the onlookers.

“You say you're not hoarding but I'm confused. What do you call sitting down there fondling a discovery instead of turning it in and getting back to work like everyone else here?”

The man’s frame jolts as though he is about to launch into a fresh tirade but his accuser stops him with an outstretched palm. “No. You’ve had your say.”

“You tell me this is an "apron" like that should mean something to the community. It doesn't. You verbally assaulted me even though I'm a duly selected representative of our community. You accuse me of trying to “take” something from you when everyone knows the community “takes” nothing, and only asks that its members turn in those things which will benefit us all."

The little man erupts with a sardonic laugh. "So I can keep it then?" he queries, but his lecturer takes no notice.

“You seem to think it’s fair that they all break their backs in the hot sun while you sit and daydream. You seem to think you’re special, that you shouldn’t contribute like each and every man and woman here does,” and with this he spreads his arms wide, turning from side to side as if to embrace to himself all of the laborers in the grid.

For the first time the man seems to realize the extent of his audience. He gazes about him and his mouth drops open as though he will speak again - as though he might appeal to the crowd that so outnumbers these thickset but soft overseers.

Something in their faces stops him – frightens him - and she finds his fear to be contagious. As if to punctuate her thoughts, a voice to the left of her shouts, “Thief!” breaking the silence and precipitating a vocal wave of displeasure.

And she is suddenly – brutally – sure what would happen if she emerged one day from her secret place dressed in all the colors no one sees in this dingy world: they would kill her. They would tear her to pieces for the terrible joy of casting off their own impotence.

Before the auditory assault can turn physical, the Crew Chief raises his voice and his hands, shouting and signaling for quiet. The crowd obeys quickly, silence roaring in upon them.

Turning back to the old man, the Crew Chief continues with the same cool detachment. “Now. You've had a chance to think about how your actions affect the community. It's time to turn in your discovery.”

The bent spine straightens and gnarled hands clutch the scrap of printed cloth closer. With a smile he says, “You’ll have to take it.”

There is a new sharpness to his voice when the guard replies, “I told you, we don’t take things you are to turn them in.”

“Fuck. You.” responds the bent little rebel, and turns to the bystanders: “And fuck you all! What good do you think this bit of rag'll do your precious fucking community that you'd let-”

He never finishes his challenge. His shout strangles then rises in pitch to a scream. She covers her ears and feels the urge to vomit. This is not usual; this should not be happening. The implants alert, incapacitate, and even kill painlessly. And again she is thrust back in time.

She remembers the blaze of light in the dark hours - an invasion of their house following a previously unsuspected invasion of their minds. For years her father had shared his memories and his hopes in the privacy of their home, secure in the knowledge that the implants did not have the capacity to transmit the spoken word to the Enforcers. That security proved ruinously tenuous and was eradicated one night by two simple, deadly syllables.

And as she watches the man who could have been her father writhe in the dust at the feet of his now openly gleeful executioner - his implant clearly inflicting some hitherto unimagined torture upon him - those syllables reverberate in her mind in a seemingly endless loop:

Update…update…update…

To be continued...

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