Departures Read online

  I hug her, and she squeezes me so tight that my lungs strain. I almost say something, but really, at this point, what does it matter?

  “You need to sleep,” I scold her. “Go.”

  She squeezes me a moment longer. When she finally lets go, she turns away too fast, her shoulders shaking, and I know she is crying again.

  I want to go after her, but the serum is taking over. I give in, flopping onto my bed and letting the blackness set in, unable to fight it any longer.

  Chapter Three

  Evie

  Consciousness creeps in through a thick fog.

  The first thing I’m aware of is the striking lack of citrus in the air, used by the Directorate to heighten alertness each morning. I tell myself I must have longer to sleep, but then, I realize sunlight is pushing in from the window behind my eyelids. Something is off, but my mind is too hazy for me to care. I groan, and my throat is scratchy and dry. My mouth tastes stale and mucky, and my body feels heavy, like if I ever moved again it would be too soon. All I want is to rest, to go on lying here forever, sunk into the comforting cushion of my bed.

  But slowly, awareness creeps in like the sunlight, unwelcome and intrusive. When I finally realize why everything feels so off, I bolt upright.

  There’s no wake-up cues because I wasn’t supposed to wake up.

  Not today.

  Not ever again.

  My head sloshes in response to the sudden movement and the Directorate’s serum, still thick in my blood. Despite it – because of it? – my heart races until I’m sure it will explode. The dread melts into my fingers, turning them shaky and numb. Then I’m falling, falling, falling, too fast to hang on, even as I cling to the sides of the bed.

  Is this it – is this how I end? Did I wake up too soon?

  I wait.

  Brace myself.

  For anything. For the nothingness sure to come any second to relieve this attack on my senses. For my heart to burst, for my body to seize… I don’t know.

  My heart just goes on raging faster still, harder than it’s ever gone, even in the stress tests during my medical exams. I wait for the corresponding alarm on my digipad to start, for the AI to tell me how to calm myself, to alert someone that I am still here, so they will come and fix this.

  But it doesn’t.

  No one is monitoring my vitals anymore.

  My labored breaths fill my ears, rising and falling far too fast.

  I stare down at my hands, trying to calm myself. Trace a finger over the departure date inked into my right wrist.

  The lettering is clear, and leaves no room for misinterpretation. Not that I could’ve gotten it wrong after seventeen years of fixating on it. And my parents. My instructors. Everyone.

  It was the same thing every time. Seventeen years? they’d exclaim. How? Why? Parents would pull their children back from me as if they could catch it.

  But what can you do? The Directorate doesn’t decide when your departure date is. Its technology just provides the information. Makes sure you get as much life as you can before it becomes more pain than good. Then, it makes sure you don't suffer.

  Everything always goes as planned. That’s the Directorate’s promise. Everything else out in the world beyond its domes may have turned toxic and wasted and ruined, but here in the Quads, everything is optimized and controlled and perfect.

  I should do something.

  The thought is mushy in my head through the serum’s haze, and I can’t quite get a grasp on it.

  I stand, slowly, testing out my legs. The floor gives a creak in response.

  I try to step forward.

  Lose my balance.

  Plop back onto the bed.

  As I wait for my room to stop spinning, for any tiny part of this to start making sense, footsteps shuffle in the next room and I hear the door open. Gracelyn's up. She pauses in the hall.

  Instinct forces me to keep still.

  It’s not until her steps fade down the stairs that the thought takes shape, through the fog of my mind, that maybe I should have called out to her.

  No, no, no – I shake my head and try to get my thoughts straight. I could still depart at any moment. Last thing I want is for Gracelyn to see it happen. I’m not ruining a perfectly good life-long streak of looking out for her now.

  The doorbell rings – the Departure Crew’s here. No one else would dare come by today.

  Another set of footsteps go downstairs and stumble towards the front door. The door opens. Low murmuring voices, professional and cool, offer condolences like reciting a script.

  Then they start up the stairs.

  My skin goes strange and prickly.

  The steps stop outside my room. The doorknob shifts and twists. I freeze up as muscles I never knew I had, tense up.

  Then, a pause.

  I want to shout to them – I’m here. I’m alive. But my thoughts skid against the serum, out of balance, and I can’t find a hold.

  “Why don’t you head to the kitchen? Get yourself some coffee?” The voice from the other side of the door is kind, though there’s stiffness in it.

  “Yes,” Father’s voice agrees. He’s always raspy in the morning. “Yes, I think I will.”

  I wish he wouldn’t sound so solemn. For Gracelyn’s sake. He shuffles back down the stairs. Then the door opens. My hands squeeze into fists at my sides, cramming my fingers painfully into fistfuls of mattress.

  What’s going to happen to me? I'm not ready.

  Chapter Four

  Evie

  A man and a woman stand in the doorway in standard Departure Crew jumpsuits, a crisp light blue. The woman has short dark hair that springs around her head in curls. The man is tall, with speckles of gray streaked through his sandy beard. Their nametags read Ronni and Charles.

  As the door swings wide, Ronni leans into Charles, whispering. He smiles. Then they look to the bed and see me there, sitting up and very much alive.

  Charles starts, knocking the fold-out stretcher out of Ronni’s hand and creating a clatter of cheap metal against the hard floor of the hallway.

  Ronni’s face drains of color. “I’ll be damned,” she breathes.

  My fingers ache, and I realize how tightly my fists are digging into the mattress. I loosen my grip and place my hands on my thighs, pressing my fingers over the fabric of my favorite blue dress. I was so exhausted after the departure party last night that I never took it off, and now it's horribly wrinkled. Mother’s voice rises in my mind, scolding me for looking such a mess, and then I remember that right now this the least of my problems.

  Ronni and Charles are still staring at me, wide-eyed and gaping.

  From downstairs, the faint hum of the food printer drifts in. My stomach rumbles. I’d kill for something to eat right now.

  Ronni glances towards the stairs, then shoves Charlie into my room and closes the door behind them.

  Charles blinks. “A-Are you…” He looks at his chart. “Evalee Henders?”

  I shrug and look down to my scrunched toes. “Evie.”

  Forming words is harder than normal. My lips are stiff and slow from the serum.

  “Why…?” Ronni’s expression shifts, her features sharpening into anger. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but your time is up – ”

  “Shhhhhh!” Charles scolds, grabbing her arm. He nods towards the door.

  Ronni shakes her arm away from him and continues, but her voice lowers to a hissing whisper. “Are you Licentia? You won’t get away with this. We’ll… we’ll…”

  She’s looking around, maybe for something to use as a weapon, like she needs to defend herself against me.

  Anger rumbles over me in quakes. Licentia? The terrorist cult isn’t even real, nothing more than whispers people trade when something goes wrong so they have something to blame for it. How dare she compare my accidental alive-ness with the mass acts of intentional chaos that have become entangled with their legends?

  Worse, somewhere deep under
my anger I can feel my foundation crumbling – fear shaking itself loose. Because it is clear from the look in their eyes that Ronni and Charlie did not expect this, and that means there is no plan. The Directorate always has a plan. And everything stays perfectly in place because of it. It would be less scary if this was all some sort of Licentia plot.

  Without a plan, everything falls apart.

  I cling to the anger instinctively to fight back questions too big for me to deal with.

  “I’m no terrorist!” I exclaim. “I took the pill. But here I am.” I hear my words slurring, feel the world slipping, slipping, slipping, but can't make it stop.

  “How can I know that?” Ronni steps closer to me, her face reddening. She shoves me. “What’re you playing at? How’d you do it? Don’t you know your place?”

  My place? I don’t have a place in this world anymore. I never did, really.

  “Hey now.” Charles pulls Ronni back. “Something went wrong. But it’s not her fault. Look at her.”

  It’s not my fault. The phrase echoes through my head. My shoulders loosen, releasing painful tension all the way down my back. It still feels like the world is flying out of orbit, but it helps.

  Ronni takes a deep breath. Shakes her head. “Okay,” she says. “You’re right. But Charlie, what the hell do we do?”

  Charlie gives her a weak smile. “No idea.”

  And then they both stare at me.

  I stare back.

  I’m supposed to be departed. I’m realizing what it means on a new level now, the fact that I’m sitting up and breathing. It’s like the ground is crumbling away from under me, but I can't move to get away. I press my arms over my middle, just to feel that my stomach’s still there. But the anger takes over and forces my mind into action.

  We have to figure out what went wrong, so I can get back to my life. So we can fix the plan. And clearly, they can’t give me those answers here. Maybe this was some kind of weird inking glitch and I actually have another hundred years. Or maybe it was only off by a few days. I have to know before I just stroll out to the kitchen like it’s any other morning.

  “Don’t you have… protocols?” I ask.

  Charlie blinks. “Not for this.”

  “Protocol.” Ronni purses her lips, then glances back to Charlie. “Right. Let’s get her to the crem like usual, that’s where she’s supposed to be. Let the higher-ups figure out what to do about it.”

  “Right,” Charlie responds. He’s bolstering up a little too, following Ronni’s lead.

  “But how will we get her out of – oh!” Ronni bends over and lifts the body bag and folded-up stretcher. “It’ll look like any other pickup.”

  “Seriously?” I pound a fist against my bed. “It’s not enough that I’m supposed to be dead right now? You want me to actually act like it?”

  They jump at my profanity – we don’t talk about death in the Directorate. Not outright like that. Their panicked reaction is satisfying, though. It’s nice to see I’m not alone in being completely freaked out.

  Ronni pulls herself together and unfolds the stretcher. “Have a better idea? This is all I got.”

  I wrack my brain. Nothing.

  “Shit,” I moan. Clinks of coffee cups and plates carry from downstairs, and I feel inexplicably homesick. “I’d kill for some coffee right now.”

  Ronni ignores me and lays out the bag between us on the floor. It’s black, made out of some kind of thin but sturdy material. One of those optimized hybrids the Directorate uses to minimize waste. It looks scratchy and uncomfortable, but then I guess when you’re departed that doesn’t bother you.

  I grimace. “How many corpses have been in this thing?”

  “Lost count. Get in.” Now that we have a plan, Ronni isn’t playing games. She nods to it, her hands on her hips. Fear flares inside me, but underneath it, I have to admit I’m relieved someone is taking charge.

  “Come on now. Think of your family,” Charlie adds.

  My hand drifts mindlessly to the rose pendant around my neck. I’ve never been more grateful for anything in my life. I need Gracelyn right now, even if this is as close as I can get.

  I huff out a heavy breath and drop to the floor. I try to push down the panic rising through my chest and slip myself into the bag. It’s made to fit much larger people, and as Charlie zips it closed, I feel as if I’m being swallowed into a crinkly void.

  He pauses when he gets to my head. “Don’t worry, kid. We got coffee on site.”

  Then the blackness zips over my face, and all the promises in the world wouldn’t comfort me.

  Chapter Five

  Gracelyn

  I wake up to a creak from the other side of the wall. I’m still half-asleep, and my first thought, the automatic thought, is that Evie is really getting a move on this morning. She is never up before me.

  Then reality rushes back – last night’s party, the final goodbyes, the tight squeeze of Evie’s arms wrapped around me, and the tears crowding her green eyes before we went to our rooms at the end of it all. My hand drifts to my neck and traces over her daisy pendant.

  Evie is not up. Evie is departed.

  The Departure Crew must already be here. I glance to my digipad. 8.24. Guess they are the ones getting an early move on.

  I get up and do the recommended full-body stretch routine, then press the button on the wall to raise the curtain. Light pours in through the branches of the large tree that stretches out between my room and Evie’s, matching the gradually brightening lamps in my room.

  Evie is departed.

  I repeat it to myself to test it out. But all I feel is a terrible nothing. Though it has been a constant looming presence over my sixteen years, now that it is here, it doesn’t feel real.

  In the hallway everything is quiet; the only sound the smarthouse’s electric hum rumbling within the clean, beige walls. Did Mother and Father let the Departure Crew in and then go back to bed? That seems odd. But then, how could I know what is normal, for a Departure Day? I pause by Evie’s door, its crisp white color scuffed at the corners from carelessness, then stumble down the stairs. In a daze of numbness, I pull one of our standard-issue white ecoplastic mugs from the cabinet and set it in place at the food printer. I scan my digipad, and select my first coffee. As the drip of steaming liquid fills it with a whirr, Father appears.

  “Good morning.”

  He smiles, but it is not his normal smile. It seems heavy under his mustache, like the motion causes him pain. Usually this type of behavior would get a person reported to emotion management, but allowances are given for a departure. It is why we get this day off.

  “Morning.” I don’t bother smiling back. “How long are they going to take up there?”

  “Who’s where?” Father yawns, pulling out his own cup and putting his digipad up to the sensor.

  “The Crew.” I can't bring myself to say Departure. “I didn’t think it would take so long. Are they cleaning her entire room up there?” Evie’s room is always a mess. Like a tornado got trapped in it.

  Was. It was always a mess. Soon it will just be an extra empty space.

  Father frowns and checks his digipad. “They won’t be here for a few more minutes.”

  Goosebumps rise over my arms. “But… I heard someone up there.”

  “Maybe it was the tree’s branches rustling.”

  The doorbell rings.

  “There they are now,” Father says. He heads to the door and lets them in.

  A woman’s voice greets Father at the door, gruff and businesslike, and while they exchange pleasantries, my mind struggles to reconcile what I heard and what is possible.

  My thoughts drift to the idea of Evie’s empty, limp body in her bed. I cringe and try to shake the image away. We do not think of such things. That is what the Departure Crew is for, after all. I redirect my mind to last night: the two of us dancing under rainbow lights and sparkles, Evie beautiful and alive, her hair all done up in elaborate swirls pinned back on
her head, even though she hates that kind of thing.

  Hated.

  “Hello!”

  Mother comes down the stairs as Father leads the Crew up. Her greeting has a strained chirpiness to it. They murmur a response and keep going.

  Mother rounds the corner to the kitchen and goes right for the coffee. As she waits for it, she turns and smiles at me.

  Her deep brown eyes are bloodshot and unfocused. Her usually tight curls are loose and messy, like she has just rolled out of bed, and her skin, usually bright with impeccable makeup, is pallid and wrinkled. I cannot believe she is downstairs like this, let alone that she let the Departure Crew see her.

  Father returns. For a moment we all stare at the floor. Then the coffee drip stops, leaving behind a vacuum of silence.

  “What are you two moping for?” Mother asks. Her voice feels over-animated and out of control. “I’m starved. Let’s eat.”

  Somehow, I’d forgotten about breakfast.

  We line up in front of the printer again and, one by one, we scan our digipads and take our meals. Then we sit around the table. I pick at the protein square and carbs, but can’t seem to force it down. Across from me, Evie’s seat is painfully empty. Mother and Father avoid looking at it.

  Raised voices and a metallic clatter cut the quiet from upstairs.

  I glance to Mother and Father.

  Mother picks up the small pill that dispensed onto her plate with her meal and swallows it. Father focuses on his food, refusing to look up.

  “That’s weird. Right?” I say.

  “Hmm…” Father’s voice trails off.

  It occurs to me that maybe they have not been present for a collection before. I have never asked. They have never said. It is not something that is discussed.

  “I’m sure they know what they’re doing.” Mother nods. “They’re professionals.”

  None of us want to go up there. We’re not supposed to.

  We eat. We wait. We go through the motions, pretending it is a normal morning. Evie’s empty chair glares at me from across the table.

  A few minutes later, the Departure Crew comes back down the stairs and shuffles through the front door.