Being Emerald (32 page)

“Shit.”

She exhaled softly. It made sense. Automatic Disqualifiers weren’t diseases that killed efficiently. The Gov didn’t mind the quick killers. Automatic Disqualifiers were the conditions that killed ever so slowly, leaving the afflicted person in need of extensive treatment and long-term care.

The bandage over the newly tattooed amber band around her wrist caught her attention. She ran her finger over it, feeling the sensitivity of her skin beneath. She’d been planning on getting a sapphire daisy chain as her designation tattoo. Plain bands were for her parents’ generation. There were options now since the Gov loosened its restrictions. Simple designs were allowed instead of only a solid band. She’d been so blindsided at the time she didn’t even look at the available amber designs.

Somehow, Jaci never actually believed this could happen to her, that she’d be designated Amber. Before she received her summons to appear for her designation, she daydreamed that her testing showed her to be so genetically clean that she was designated a Diamond. Those perfect people with the ideal mixture of good genes and the absence of bad, were instantly immersed in a life of privilege and pampering. It was like winning a lottery. She supposed a lot of people had that fantasy. However, she’d totally dismissed the thought that there was even a possibility of being designated an Amber.

Jaci walked over to the window at the far end of the apartment. It offered a bird’s eye view of the curious circular city. The day was gray and stormy, suiting her dire mood and doomed life.

It was quiet and still in the shadowy room as she stared out the window, brooding. Now that the influx of new information slowed, her mind started processing other things. Things she hadn’t dealt with yet because everything happened so fast.

Significant things.

Devastating things.

A tear overflowed the lower lid of her eye and streamed down her face. She tried to swallow down the tight knot in her throat as she focused on her reflection in the window. But the hard-core reality of her new life suddenly inundated her, impacting with full force and striking a blow so deeply that it cut her to her very soul. Her suffering flourished, becoming palpable to her, chilling the air and seeping into her skin. The mere beginnings of it laid waste to her insides.

Goose bumps rose on her flesh. She was an Amber now, and for the rest of her life until the day she died of that god-awful disease.

Her friends and family were gone, suddenly blinked right out of her life. She was alone, utterly alone here. Her stomach swam.

She was scared.

Thunder rolled deep and ominous in her ears, vibrating the windowsill. The colorless gray of the sky was the perfect backdrop to the tiny drops of rain that landed and gathered together on the glass, forming trails that flowed down like teardrops. The window cried with her.

“I’ll never have a baby,” she whispered into the silence of the room. Tomorrow she’d be sterilized.

Suppressing the pandemonium of feelings trying to crash out of her was futile. Disjointed fragments of thoughts and fears flew at her, and utter grief and pain raced unbridled through her mind. She felt violent, wanting to throw something, smash anything into tiny pieces.

A primal moan rose up from the depths of her soul and burst through her mouth, filling the room as she sank to her knees. Now, all she had was the wait for her defective gene to kick in, to make her pathetic and helpless, a prisoner within her own skin, before it finally finished her off. In the course of one afternoon, she’d lost everything. Even her life had been shortened significantly with the knowledge of the deadly gene she carried. Rage and despair came from so deep within her gut that she felt like she was going to throw up between the wrenching sobs. She cried, pounded and screamed an entire pathetic performance for an audience of none until there was nothing left in her. The feel of the cold floor on her face was the only thing she registered as she collapsed the rest of the way, settling into a shivering heap on the hard tiles. She curled in on herself.

Jaci remained there sorting through all of it in her head as the hours passed. Her cheek resting on the floor was cool and wet from the tears she’d released and let fall unchecked. It felt good against the humid, New Atlanta summer heat.

Finally, trembling, she lifted herself to her knees, then to her feet, and got into bed. She lay there with her eyes open, but not noticing dusk’s shadows overtake the room. Hours of monotonous, opaque blackness enveloped her as she lay awake through the night. Sleep wouldn’t come.

Jaci thought seriously about committing suicide. There wasn’t anything left for her. She would spend the rest of her days waiting to be diagnosed with the first symptoms of the debilitating illness that would eventually kill her. She doubted a day would ever pass in her life that she didn’t feel like she was waiting to die.

If she killed herself, there would be no impact on any other person in the world. Nobody would miss her now.

She thought about others who found their lives too hard, the pathetic throng of people who slouched in the plastic chairs of the waiting room for the Gov Assisted Suicide Program, GASP. Jaci felt sick thinking of the brick smoke stacks of the cremating ovens behind the building. The acrid smoke released from the burning bodies saturated the air with a revolting smell. GASP ensured a quick, painless exit for those who sought it. But Jaci would be damned if she was going to let the Gov take that last act from her.

Lying in the dense gloom of her new home, her mind frantically groped for a foothold, something to reassure, to comfort. But, the same hopeless thoughts rolled through her mind like booms of thunder refusing to be ignored.

Near dawn, Jaci fell into a half sleep, her mind still running through her new circumstances, still seeking a way to end her life. A pleasant way. A way that she would actually have the courage to follow through with.

When she opened her eyes again, a stream of sunlight slanted through the window. She glanced at the clock on her roommate’s nightstand. About a half hour remained before she was required to report to the transport.

Jaci looked around. Despite the fact that someone’s belongings were in the apartment, no one had come home. She went into the bathroom, brushed her hair and teeth and washed her face.

The dark hair and brown eyes looking back at her in the mirror illustrated the lack of genetic diversity she offered the world. Weariness and misery faded her features. She expected to look different, uglier. She felt uglier, smaller somehow, but she looked the same as always.

A half laugh, half snort of despair shot out of her. Eyes closed, Jaci bowed her head in defeat. Tears welled behind her eyelids, preparing to escape. When she opened her eyes, a steady stream wet her cheeks and her nose began to run again. She grabbed a tissue for now and one for later before walking out of the apartment.

Herds of people crammed the hallways, socializing and laughing. Most of the apartment doors were open, letting sunlight filter into the corridor. Quickly, she walked down the hallway, looking at her shoes. She encountered slight brushes from the bodies of people who encroached in her space as she passed them. At times, it felt as if someone was actually trying to stop her. She didn’t look up. She didn’t want to meet anybody new right now. She was nauseated, physically ill. She couldn’t stop. She didn’t stop.

The transport was waiting for her when she got to the front entrance of the building. She climbed in and was relieved when saw she was the only passenger. She plopped down, this time out of earshot of the driver and rode the entire way with her head in her hands, still looking at her feet.