Altruist (The Altruist Series Book 1) (24 page)

“How does that feel, Mr. Quill?” asks the medic.

Dad twists his arm back and forth and laughs. “That is amazing.” He looks at Shoshanna and she smiles with pride. “Feels good as new.” He scoots off of the table and walks towards me, holding my hands and leaning in. “I’d hug you right now but I don’t want them to think you look weak,” he whispers.

“I love you, Dad. I’m sorry,” I say and he pulls his head away, breaking contact with me as confusion flashes across his face.

“I can take you back to the bunks, Mr. Quill,” says Ben.

“Benny, please. You forget that I’ve known you since you were five. I think it’s about time you call me Emzire.”

Ben smiles shyly and looks at his feet. He still seems like the little boy who plays with a red wooden train in the face of my parents, even though he’s short for a Class 2, he’s still taller than anyone else in the room and needs to duck to avoid running into the doorframe.

“You’re up.” The medic waves me over and I sit on the operating table.

“I’m up for what?” I ask.

Eliath walks toward me. “We need to leave the city,” he says, lifting my arm. “And this identification and location chip is going to make it very difficult for us to disappear.” He releases my arm and I breathe deeply. My chip has been a part of me for as long as I can remember and it being removed feels wrong.
That’s the council manipulating you
, I tell myself.

“Right,” I say and offer my arm to the medic. “What’s your name?” I ask as the twenty something Class 3 swabs my arm with iodine. He glances up at me briefly and then takes a scalpel in his hand. “I want to know who to blame if this whole thing goes wrong,” I say.

He chuckles. “Issachar,” he says as he presses his thumbs against my skin, locating the chip. “This is so much simpler with the help of modern medical equipment, unfortunately we’re being forced to slum it and I’ll be honest with you, this is going to hurt. Deep breath,” he says and I struggle to steady myself as the blade sinks into my flesh. I tug my arm instinctively as the pain surges from my tearing skin and reaches up, radiating through my body.
Breathe through it
, I think. “This is the painful part, try to stay still,” he says. I cannot imagine the last part not being considered painful. He forces the skin apart with a pair of forceps and a long thin tool sinks into my arm, gripping the metal square and prying, eventually pulling the chip from my body. My arm burns and pain shoots through every nerve. Issachar holds the chip up to the light and it’s smaller than I imagined, smaller than one of my nails, metallic with a small blue light that flashes every other second.

Issachar turns to Shoshanna and asks, “Should I even bother stitching this one up?” Shoshanna smirks and walks towards me. She places her hands on my arm and instantly fills the void with warmth.

“What happens to it?” I ask nodding towards the metallic square.

“I think the plan is to plant them somewhere. Your movements can be mimicked remotely now that it’s outside of its organic host,” he says. I’ve been reduced to an organic host. 

“Cate, Reuben would like a word with you,” Ben says and escorts me out of the infirmary as Abel takes my place at the table. I forgot that he must have an implant as well; I wonder how much he must have hated conforming to the sector’s strict rules just so that he could keep an eye on me.

I follow Ben back to the room where Reuben waits still leaning over the table examining blueprints of the city. Judah seems preoccupied by a pile of notebooks to the side of the room.

“Cate! There you are. How’s your arm feeling?” he asks, his jovial personality shattering his intimidating appearance. I’m not sure whether it’s his arms, so tattooed that it’s a struggle to see bare skin, or his tattered clothes, tattered not due to poverty but rather because he simply does not care about such trivial matters.
If this man can afford to run this facility, why does he still stay in a Class 1 sector?
I wonder. My eyes trace the concrete walls, painted with white enamel; he must have been here for quite awhile to establish such a fortified compound. It’s then that it hits me—he stays here, because he likes it here. He likes being able to come and go as he pleases, he likes not being told what to do. One look at this place and the city’s book of law falls to pieces, uncensored electricity alone could send Reuben to a forced labor camp for life. And that, the lack of structure, the fact that this Pleb so boldly rebels against the councils rules, scares me enough to know that he should not be taken lightly, that I need to listen to him because he’s gambling with his life and knows what he’s doing.

“Come over here.” He waves me to stand beside him. “You see these tunnels? They run the perimeter of the city. Waste and rubbish run through them and out near the border of the city, and that, Katie, that’s our ticket. We’ll leave at dawn, an hour before the patrols change shifts. Joseph procured the logs for us to work off of. We’ll drop you off at the entrance to the tunnels, over here.” He points to the left end of the map. “Now, you’ll have to travel farther this way than if we dropped you off say…” His fingers move to the city center and he taps the blueprints again. “Here. Which would be fine if you were alone, but since you’re traveling with Plebs, it’s best to use the safer, less patrolled entrance, wouldn’t you agree?”

His research is spot on and you would think that the question is rhetorical except that he looks up at me and I know his gesture is meant to be an inclusive one. “Yes, I want my family safe,” I say and his eyes shift towards the blueprints again.

“Now the tricky part comes…” He waves towards one of the soldiers leaning against the concrete wall. “Here.” The far right side of the map where he’s pointing shows a gap between the Class 2 sector and the perimeter wall.” He picks up a small earpiece off of the table. “This is the communicator you’ll be using. It’s government and is programmed to turn off when nearing the perimeter so that guards know when to turn back towards the city. The tricky part is that there’s a large area, by our calculations approximately 880 yards, of open space before the nearest cover, which is a tree line here.” He points to an area on the table where maps don’t exist. “Now, the area shouldn’t be difficult for you to cover quickly, but the Plebs might have an issue and since you’re the one that people will be looking for in a matter of hours, we’re going to send your parents, Willa and Asher, and one of your siblings in a front group manned by Shoshanna, Ephraim and Judah.”

Willa and Asher. I hadn’t thought of them in days, in fact I was completely unaware that by ‘Your friends and family are safe’ they meant they were here with us, in this place. How did they explain that to their families? My God, I can’t imagine what they’ve been told or what they could possibly think of all of this. They must hate me.

Reuben continues. “They’ll enter the ex-fill tunnel from a checkpoint over here.” He points at a sector 2 ward. “And you, Abel, and Eliath will escort the second group which will also contain Issachar and Ben. You’ll enter through a separate checkpoint than convoy 1. Ben and Joseph have already been prepped on cover stories for moving such large groups through sectors.” He sits down on a stool and collects himself, “How does that sound?”

I bite my lip, contemplating the plan. “When does the first group need to leave?” I ask.

“Now,” he says.

I didn’t expect that and am in no way prepared to say goodbye to half of those I hold dearest to me, knowing there’s a chance I won’t be able to see them again, knowing there’s a chance that I won’t be able to hug them again or hear their laughs, knowing there’s a chance that this could be it.

“Abel…” I say as he walks into the room, rubbing his arm where the chip was removed. “Have you heard their plan?”

He nods. “Yes.”

And?” I ask. “What do you think?”

“I think they know what they’re doing, and I think we need their help.”

Judah scoffs at Abel’s comment but keeps his head down, hardly pausing his scribbling in a notebook. Abel’s eyes dart towards him and I watch Abel watching Judah. My gut says that Abel is right, that Reuben’s right and I need to trust him, even if that means having faith in a complete stranger with the most important people in my life. Truthfully I’m not entirely sold. “What do you think?” I ask Judah.

Judah meets my gaze, his green eyes intense and alive, and for a moment he catches me off guard. I don’t understand why that keeps happening. “I think it’s rushed,” he says and walks towards the tables then looks at Reuben. “And I think people are going to get hurt.” Judah clenches his jaw and Reuben sighs.

“Everyone’s entitled to an opinion, but thankfully this isn’t a democracy and the only voice that matters is the little dove’s, here.” Reuben elbows my arm and I suddenly realize that there’s a very good possibility that I will never be comfortable making decisions for others. More importantly, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be comfortable with accepting the outcome of those decisions.

“Whether it’s the best plan or not, it’s the only one we have. And Judah, I get what you’re saying,” Abel says, approaching the table and attempting to become a voice of reason. “There is a chance that people could get hurt. But this isn’t a cold war anymore, and we have to accept that possibility from here on out. That’s just the way it is and the way it will continue to be.”

Judah leans his weight against his hands on the table and pushes back, staring at Abel and Reuben before settling his gaze on me. “You know my thoughts,” he says and walks into the monitor room, legal pad in hand. His obviously strong disagreement with the plan gives me pause, but Abel is right and there really aren’t any other options being offered up. I need to get my family out of here. It’s not fair that they have been made a target due to my carelessness.

“Okay,” I concede, and with that, Reuben whirls his hand in the air.

“Get the houseguests and move out. The window is closing,” he shouts.

I hate that there is absolutely nothing I can do other than listen to the tatted up stranger. I take a breath and settle onto a wooden stool next to Reuben and wait. A moment later, soldiers shuffle the first group outside and I catch a brief glance of my mother—fear drips from her demeanor and I hate not being able to fix it for her. I wonder what sort of daughter I’ve been to her. I wonder if I made her proud, if I loved her openly enough. I wonder about how she was able to take me in and love me as her own. I wonder if she knows that the place she so firmly cemented in my heart will never diminish, will never fade. I wonder if I am who she wants me to be, because she is more than I could have ever hoped for. The last guard closes the door behind him and just like that, they’re gone.

“Joseph,” Reuben shouts. “Are the monitors up?”

“Yes, sir,” Joseph replies from a side room of the underground compound and I begin to wonder how large this place really is.

I follow Reuben into a room filled with screens, Abel follows closely behind; the monitors glow with the GPS on the soldiers’ earpieces showing their locations. “We can monitor the group from here. It should be smooth sailing with the exception of the area we spoke of earlier. Right there.” He taps the screen and I see that he wasn’t being hyperbolic—it really is a wide-open area, followed by scattered trees creating limited cover then leading into what looks like a dense forest beyond.
Beyond.
The word catches on my tongue and twirls through my mind.

In class we were told that nothing exists between our republic and that of the New England Territories, that everything was decimated due to overconsumption of natural resources and, eventually, war. We were spared because we practice self-control and persevered because our Council was able to form the class system that we willingly abide by. We thrive because every person born grows into exactly who they are meant to be. Ben’s words trickle in my mind,
I don’t want to hurt people
. The phrase gets caught in my throat as the image of Dante grasping for the railing stumbles into view. And I realize that I don’t want to hurt people either.