Chapter 5
Chapter Five
The Fall
My eyes snap open, shocked to find the springs of the bedframe above me every time.
I fumble for my knife in the creases of my blanket.
The dim light of dawn softens the electric city glare, but I must be sleeping better if I’ve woken after the late winter sunrise.
With a few steadying breaths, I muster the strength to escape the pocket of warmth beneath my comforter, while the cold only encourages my exercises.
The first five minutes are pure necessity to warm up, but beyond that is a series of cathartic rage purging—presses, jumps, and squats.
My T-shirt sticks to the veil of sweat along my back, already cooling as I head to the bathroom, but I double-take when I find Sasha sitting silently at the dining table.
She’s never silent. I usually hear her before I see her.
I approach her cautiously. “Sasha?” She looks over, forcing a faint smile, and I pull up a chair beside her. “Hey. What’s going on?”
Her sombre stare is fixed on a huge black file in the centre of the table.
“It’s here,” she whispers. “They delivered it to me at the bar last night.”
I sit beside her. “Delivered what?”
The black file is stuffed three inches thick, and at the centre of its cover is the silver embossed title The Unity Index, displaying the male and female gender symbols below.
I gasp with realization. “What? No! When did you turn twenty?”
Her eyes catch mine. “Yesterday.”
“Wow. That’s … ruthless.”
I don’t know what else to say. Women have heard about these, like how children hear of the boogeyman.
For all sixteen-year-olds who choose the Independence Interval, our independence is limited.
Every twenty-year-old woman is surrendered to the Unity Index, regardless.
A binder full of potential partners is profiled to be presented for matrimony, with only months to choose a husband and begin our contribution to the repopulation of females.
Unlike the women who decide to go to an R&R facility, we voluntarily put off our commitment to the cause, ensuring that we are birthing children by twenty-one.
There is no escaping our destiny—only delaying it.
“You been up all night?” I ask, and she nods. “Have you looked at any?”
I pull it towards me, and I am genuinely alarmed at the heft, but with her pouting lips and slumped shoulders, I decide to switch gears.
“So … it occurs to me that we didn’t celebrate your birthday.
How about this…” I shuffle my chair closer, resting my hand on hers.
“We go to work, like any other day, but I’ll sneak back some beers, some cake, and we can pretend this doesn’t exist for as long as you want.
Or … we can go through and pull out all the ‘absolutely no way, even if you were the last man on Earth’? ”
She laughs weakly, her eyes unfocused and distant. “Yeah. That sounds like a great place to start.”
I look at the clock. “You have a few hours before work. Why don’t you go get your head down if we’re going to have a late night?”
“Ughhh, work! I don’t know how I’m going to face it.” She droops her head between her shoulders.
I stand, offering her my hand. “You will. I can’t tell you how, but you will. It’s a … woman thing.” She reaches for the binder. “Leave it. I’ll hide it until you’re ready for it. You look after you for now,” I say, guiding her as she shuffles into her room.
The chorus of hate screams from the streets as the clock strikes eight…
The morning commute always seems like the most malicious Unity Siren of the day.
I pop my kettle on the stove, staring at the Unity Index on the table.
My problems pale compared to Sasha’s. I remember fearing this future for myself as a child, and now I’m nearly nineteen years old—one year before my name joins the Unity Index.
Until it happens, I will try to make my limited freedom mean something, remembering to always have a focus and a plan in mind—a habit encouraged by my fathers.
I still have faith in them. They weren’t wrong. They can’t be.
When I began this journey, I believed I had a greater purpose than this.
It was what gave me the strength to step away from my fathers—that my being here, in the system, would be more constructive than it felt.
But with the ever-growing distance from my home, I only feel like I’m pedaling with no gears.
No traction, no brakes, no control. Any movement made is not of my own doing, as if I’ve jumped on a conveyor belt, and after seeing Sasha this morning, I do not like the direction I am headed.
My mind is a hive of thoughts, concern for Sasha mixing in with a selfish cocktail of my own destiny.
I arrive at Seth’s deli in a flustered rush, and with a jingle of the doorbell, his face lights up, illuminating my mood.
“Hey, Seth! You okay?”
“I’m more than okay. Looks like the food orders are going well. Did we do too much?” He potters around from the counter with food-filled canvas bags. When I suggested the food to Krick, it was Seth I had in mind to supply the bar, and he was excited to prepare sandwiches, pastries, and snack pots.
“Actually, Seth, it’s not enough. We sold out before the afternoon rush, so if you have any more available, I’ll take it off your hands.”
He giddily shakes his fists as he reaches for more bags of food.
A visit to Seth is a highlight of my morning, as he feels like a family friend or a distant uncle, and I need that.
He prepares my lunch while we chat, talking about my plans for the bar, and like every morning, he revels in sharing stories from the paper, many of which he believes to be conspiracies and propaganda.
On the front of today’s paper, President Bryce Beckett and his sinister smirk stare at me, while the headlines sing his praises—this apparent hero sat within his Eden ivory tower.
The sheer sight of him makes my blood boil, and I cannot understand how the masses of men tolerate it.
Ignorance must actually be bliss. His changes have been discreet over the decade of his rule, while my fathers always analogised it to boiling frogs—too much heat too soon, and they jump out of the boiling pot.
President Beckett is smart, making changes tactfully—so slow that people don’t realise he is turning the heat up on us all.
“Here, I got you some more cards too. Fancy a quick game before work?” Seth says, but his glee deteriorates. “No, actually. You know what—it’s fine. I know you like to get in early.”
But I can’t say no to him. I drop the canvas bags from my shoulder and hold out my palm. “Pass them here. I’ll shuffle.”
He rubs his hands together and drags a stool to the counter’s edge, offering for me to sit.
With the cards dealt, I get the news according to Seth—more success in Eden, defamation of other nations, and the supposed cover-up of rebellious activity.
The latter sparks my interest, and I ask him to elaborate.
He pulls the paper open for reference, his pointed finger hovering as he reads with a squint. “‘On Monday night, the food processing plant north of the city was devastated by a fire due to machinery malfunction.’”
I laugh, shaking my head. “How is that rebellious activity?”
“Ah, well, well, well, let me explain. We’re now on Friday, and I have had no disruption to my deliveries.
Nothing is in short supply, and when I’ve asked my vendors, there isn’t a food processing plant to the north.
It’s south of the city.” He holds his finger up, ready to prove his point.
“Unless there’s something else north of the city.
Like weapons manufacturing? This was targeted, and the fire was seen by the buses of grain workers heading back from harvesting early Monday morning. ”
The doorbell jingle interrupts us, but I don’t turn to see the customer. Instead, I tip the peak of my cap down, while Seth greets him with raised arms.
“Ahhh, Finch! Brilliant film, a magnificent one! Have you got another for me?” He passes a DVD case from under his counter.
“I knew it! Yeah, if you loved that, I’ll bring you the sequel tomorrow.”
That voice? I turn to see Joey, and we notice each other simultaneously. He points his finger towards me. “Hey, you’re a friend of Seth’s too?”
“Hey … Finch? Absolutely. Best deli in the city, right?”
Seth holds his hands to his chest, exultant from the flattery. “Oh, Finch. She’s clever, this one. Are you after some lunch?”
“Yeah … but … it looks like I’m too late,” Joey says, looking into the empty glass counter.
Seth points at me, and I lift a bag, saying, “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got lunch.”
“Look at that!” Joey says. “I can give you a hand with the bags, if you’re ready?”
“Yes, you’d best be on your way,” Seth says with a dismissive wave. “We can finish this game another time.”
Joey and I share the bags between us, and I still pull my cap low, but our pace is slower than my standard march, while walking outside without the alarm in my palm for the first time. He doesn’t seem to feel the cold as he walks with only a hoodie beneath his scuffed and torn denim jacket.
“So, ‘Finch’? Is Joey even your real name?”
“Second name, actually. It’s Joseph Finch. Seth calls us all Finch because he can’t remember our names.”
“All whose names?”
“My brothers. There are five of us in town, and most people outside the bar call us Finch.”
“Wow. Five brothers? That must be nice. You all live together?”
“Yeah. Over there on Portland Avenue. There’s five of us here, but another twenty-two of us back at the farm.
” He smirks, and I halt in my tracks, giving him a puzzled glare as I gauge whether he’s joking.
He steps forward and twirls back to me, laughing.
“I’m dead serious, but to help ease the confusion, we’re not brothers by blood. ”
“Ahhhh, right.” I chuckle. “That’s mind-blowing. Twenty-seven boys?!”