CHAPTER NINE #3
“I have been told that a time or two, but I’ve also been called charming, handsome, unforgettable.
” He grinned broadly. I could smell the sweetness of the chocolate on his breath, my right wrist still in his grasp.
“Here.” He held the chocolate between us.
I snatched it with my free hand, glaring at him.
He smiled like he was enjoying himself and released my wrist.
Hal walked to the door, and I popped the chocolate into my mouth, the rich sweetness dancing across my tongue. He grabbed the empty metal trash can and brought it close to the desk, flipping it over, creating a makeshift stool for himself.
“Should we get started?” Hal asked. He looked comical, his hulking frame crouching on the small metal bin.
“There’s no way that’s comfortable,” I commented, swiping another chocolate. “You can have the chair.”
“No, it’s fine,” Hal said.
“Honestly, I don’t mind. I’m smaller than you.”
“I’m a Major Defect. I can handle some discomfort,” he assured me, resting his elbows on his knees. I turned around to hide my smile, pulling my chair back to the desk. “But another chocolate would definitely make it more tolerable.”
“Would it?” I retorted, pushing the box toward him, revealing a small note card that had been placed directly under the box as if on purpose. “Only one,” I warned as I read the card. In meticulously neat handwriting it read, To being impolite. Collin. I slipped the note into my back pocket.
Hal stretched his legs out before resuming his crouched position. “Long night?”
“Not really.”
“Did you have another meeting with this Collin guy?” Hal asked, his left leg bouncing a bit.
“I did.”
“So you didn’t mess it all up then?” Hal asked somewhat tightly. I glanced over at him to find him staring at me.
“I did not,” I told him. “It had nothing to do with me. There was an issue.”
Hal’s eyes darkened as he leaned forward. “What kind of issue?”
“I don’t know. Elite got hurt though,” I said, logging in to the system and pulling up the first piece of art to catalog for the day.
His eyes churned, but he simply nodded, turning toward the hologram. “Do you see a lot of cubist art like this?”
It was of a woman, but there was no realistic aspect to her.
It was made up of warm geometric shapes, distorting all humanlike elements of her, and yet the woman was beautiful.
The sharp angular depiction created a fragmented image, an imperfect woman.
She held a book in her hands. One half of the book was light, the other dark.
I felt captivated by her, drawn to the juxtaposition of each side of her.
Cubist. Was that the term for it? How did Hal know the word?
“I have seen a few like it,” I said, staring at the woman. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Hal chuckled next to me. “What?”
“Nothing,” Hal said, knocking my chair with his knee. I shot him a stern look. “It’s just, you see her, fragmented and all, and you say she’s beautiful. But you believe them when they tell you your eyes are a defect. Why is she beautiful, and yet the same doesn’t apply to you?”
“She’s a painting. It’s different,” I said, knocking back into him.
I returned to the screen, trying to sound out the words. It was in one of the many forgotten languages that had been lost after the Last War. Leaving us with just one.
“Femme au Corset Tesant un Livre,” Hal corrected.
I swung my chair to face him head-on, shock coursing through me. “How do you know that?”
He shrugged. “The Illum have their secrets. We have ours.”
“We?” I asked. Hal simply gestured to his blue jumpsuit. “You’re saying Major Defects know about things like this?” I demanded wildly, gesturing to the painting.
“Someone has to take out their trash,” Hal said quietly, his left dimple making an appearance.
“I don’t understand,” I confessed.
I hated how much I meant that. There were so many things that I didn’t know about the Illum, the Elite, and now the Major Defects.
I had become so compliant in my monotonous existence.
Everyone else held secrets, even Rose, Violet, Harold, and all the other Defects serving them up in their world.
They knew things that I did not. Hal’s words from a week ago rang out in my mind.
They have made thousands of women just like you.
Brainwashed and compliant to a cause you know nothing about.
You’re a plaything. The room felt too small, the rage burning too hot.
“I would wager that’s their goal.” Hal’s warm voice filled the space.
“What if I want to understand?” I asked. Would knowing rob me of life in the clouds? A temporary one, but a life all the same.
Hal leaned in, tugging my chair closer to him until I could see the amber bleeding into his light brown irises. “You’d have to come to the Underworld to find out, Moonlight.”
“Underworld?”
Hal lowered his voice. “Can I trust you with a secret?” I nodded, leaning toward him. “Low Town is just for looks. We don’t live there.”
“Where do you live?” I asked breathlessly.
“Beneath.” His gaze collided with mine. “We live in tunnels beneath the surface.”
I bit my lip, my curiosity racing, my thoughts desperate.
Desperate not to be silenced. I had signed a contract legally binding me to Collin, an agreement that was a matter of survival, even if my body felt otherwise.
It didn’t seem like I was at risk for elimination, but there was an expiration date on the contract, no matter how successful I was.
And when Collin had kissed me, for a moment I had forgotten a world existed on the surface at all.
Yet what if the thing I had been taught to fear—being phased out and condemned to a life in blue—wasn’t what I had thought? What else did the Majors hide?
I couldn’t help the next question. “How do you get here?”
“I could show you,” Hal whispered. “You just have to ask.”
My head felt too full. Collin had been nothing but kind and thoughtful. He was part of the Illum, though. I stared at the painting of the woman and her book.
“What are they doing with her?” Hal asked quietly.
I looked at my screen, my heart breaking. “They’re destroying her.” My voice was thicker than I intended.
I hovered over the delete button. Hal’s leg bounced. “Of course they are. They destroy everything beautiful and different.” His voice was laced with something that sounded like pain.
I turned my chair toward him again, unable to stop myself. A rogue curl fell across my face. Hal reached up at the same time I did, our hands colliding. Hal recoiled, his eyes on my wrist.
“So, the contract is official, then?”
I tugged my sleeve down, concealing the glow. “It became official yesterday afternoon.”
“I guess congratulations are in order,” Hal said. My heart picked up its pace at the coldness permeating his words. He slowly stood, setting the trash bin back in its usual place. “Or maybe condolences.”
“Don’t be cruel.”
Hal laughed, but it didn’t meet his eyes. “Forgive me, congratulations. Didn’t realize that’s the type of life you want up there, being his fertile vessel.” He shook his head in disgust.
“You don’t know him,” I shot back. Maybe that was how most Defects were treated, but this was different. Collin treated me like more than a vessel. Didn’t he?
Hal opened his mouth before closing it again. “He’s an Illum. I don’t have to know him to know exactly what he is. You’re a vessel. An obligation.”
“I am not merely a vessel. He’s different.”
Hal stepped back. “He’s different?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes, I think he is.”
Hal snorted. “Ask your dear Mate what they call him among the Elite. Have you ever bothered asking him what he does up in his clouds? What about when they send him to the surface?” Hal stepped toward me as my brows pulled in.
“That’s right, you can’t. That’d require you to have rights up there. To be more than a vessel.”
“What are you talking about? How do you know any of this?” I demanded.
“Like I told you, their horror stories slither all the way down to us.”
“You’re wrong,” I snapped.
“Am I? He’s hiding you. The only reason you’re in the clouds is because he’s got you hidden.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” I exclaimed, shoving my chair back. Anger coursed through my veins.
“You’re wearing that stupid lens.”
“You don’t understand.” A contract was how I survived. If I found joy in their beautiful places in the clouds while I continued surviving, that was mine alone to make amends for.
“Try me,” Hal challenged.
“This is what I am supposed to do. This is my role. I can cover my defect if that’s what’s required of me. I want more than this.”
“Right,” Hal said, stepping back, his hands fisted tightly at his sides. “You want more than this. Just like all the others. I should have known.”
My skin stretched too tight across my bones as I warped myself in an attempt to be understood—to be seen. Collin and the Elite were to judge me. I had always known that, but the judgment of the man in blue before me shredded me apart, leaving me fuming and wretched.
“Is it wrong to want more?” I asked, a note of desperation in my voice, filling the space he had just retreated from.
Hal raked his hands through his hair, sighing as he stared at the ceiling. “No. It’s not.”
“Then why are you acting like it is?” I demanded. I had never talked to another human so openly. I hated how it made me feel, the things it gave life to.
Hal blew out a long breath and shook his head. “This is clearly what you want. I should want this for you too.”
“Hal—” My Comm Device dinged several times.
“Life above calls,” he muttered, turning to leave.
“Wait, Hal—”
“Don’t worry about it. I was the one who said you rule my time. You made no such claims.” Hal knocked on the doorframe. “I’ll see you around.”
His eyes met mine one last time before he walked away. A lump in my throat choked me. I could chase him down, demand that he understand. This was the life for people like me.
I fell back into my chair, defeated. I had wanted to look at art with Hal.
I looked up at the woman with her book and committed her beauty to memory before hitting delete.
I felt her demise in my soul. I blinked rapidly at the death sentence I had signed, the destruction of something beautiful and different I agreed to.
My Comm Device dinged again. I grabbed it, finding two messages from Collin.
Vincent and Helen reached out. We are dining at their living quarters tonight. Updating your MIND chip now. Sooner we get it out of the way the better. The Starlings will be expecting you. See you at 8:00.
My insides hollowed out. The second message read:
Hope you enjoyed the chocolates.