The Color of Knowledge

Chapter Six (pt. 2)

Zari beat Ivy to the exclamation. "Are those bodies?" she shouted, eyes wide.

A few yards from the pod, in a pile that looked to be about fifteen feet high, were dead humans, mostly old, dressed in plainclothes. The odd thing about them, other than the obvious, was that they were wearing the forbidden colors. Ivy looked a few yards up from the pile, and noticed a clear tube that seemed to stretch all the way back up to The Society.

"What did you thing happened to the dead?" said Enzo.

"I thought they were cremated," said Ivy. She refused to believe the sight before her eyes.

"No, they are deposited here. It's for the benefit of The Society, trust me."

"Do people know about this?"

"It would be better if no one did. I will take this moment to remind you of the confidentiality contract you signed."

All Ivy could do was nod. She thought of Tima, whose grandmother had passed away a few years ago. She may have been dumped and left to decompose, or worse. But what could be worse?

"I was just as shocked as you when I found out," said Nadia. "But you get used to seeing them."

"Why are they wearing the forbidden colors?" Ivy asked.

"They pick which forbidden color they want to be buried in before they move on. A sort of last wish." Enzo sounded a bit too nonchalant about the corpses.

"But they aren't buried!" yelled Zari.

"They don't know that," said Enzo. "It's for a greater good."

Ivy turned away from the bodies, as the pod started moving west, picking up speed with each second. She soon had to hold on to the guardrail in order to keep her balance, and even worse, she could not push the image of all those people dressed in the forbidden colors out of her mind.

"We'll be stopping pretty soon," yelled Enzo over the deafening sound of the wind. Ivy could feel the pod slowing and let go of the railing.

The pod slowed to a stop beside a pile of ten normal-looking sticks. "This is new," said Enzo and Nadia in unison. The sound of crunching dirt and rock rose in the air as they climbed down from the pod.

Overcome with joy and amazement, Ivy let out a gasp as her feet touched the earth. "I've missed you," she whispered to the ground.

"What did you say?" Zari asked.

"Nothing."

Instead of watching Enzo and Nadia inspect the pile of sticks, Ivy surveyed her surroundings. She could no longer see The Society—or the bodies, for that matter. Other than the wasteland she was surrounded by, there was nothing to see. The air was hot and dry, making it hard to find the motivation to even move.

"How do you know they weren't here before?" Ivy asked, referring to the pile of sticks at their feet.

"We have been stopping at this precise location for the past few days. Exactly one hundred fifty clicks west of The Society."

"Maybe the land creatures had a picnic and forgot their toothpicks," joked Zari with a weak laugh.

An unpleasant silence fell over the group as no one else felt moved by the witticism. As time crawled, Ivy began to squint into the distance. Not entirely sure if it was the heat playing tricks on her, she thought she could make out something green. "Are those shrubs?"

"Ah, yes," said Enzo, "but we have already checked those out."

"When?" Nadia asked, bemused.

"Before you became a part of the Unit," he replied quickly. "There's just a cave and some shrubbery. We suspect it's where some of the creatures reside, but we didn't stick around to make sure."

Ivy could not quite put her finger on it, but it seemed as though Enzo was angry. Whether it was because of the appearance of the sticks, the question about the shrubbery, or both, she didn't know. He walked around with his brow furrowed and a frustration line evident on his forehead similar to the one etched into her mother's.

"So what are we here for?" Zari asked Enzo, wiping sweat from her upper lip. "There's a purpose, right?"

"We are here to collect data. For example, if we see something unusual, we log it into the database for further review by the lab workers of the Exploration Unit. For these first few days, just get used to the heat and your surroundings. Come to either Nadia or myself if you find anything strange or interesting."

After a few hours of walking around in circles, unable to find anything remotely interesting in such a vast wasteland, Enzo called them back to the pod. "It's almost four, we've gone overtime. We need to head back," he said with a sense of nervousness in his voice. They all herded into the pod and were zooming across the dry earth in no time.

"I don't think we're going to make it," Nadia murmured under her breath. Her eyes were set on their destination and she had a worried look in her eyes.

Ivy could see the pile of bodies fast approaching, but there was something else there—something big, black and moving.