"Come on Briany. What's wrong?" Eden closes the door and flips a light switch. I cringe away from the bright lightbulb hanging low from the ceiling. She sits on the opposite edge of the bed and sighs. "I don't understand Bri. Just talk to me."
There it is again. Bri. I don't know what to think. I don't know who to trust. I pull my knees to my chest and put my braid on my shoulder so I can lean on the wall.
"I don't know what to do. Please help me out here."
"Help you out? Can you help me out by telling me what's going on here? Where we are? Maybe who you are?" Eden looks down looking impatient. She takes a deep breath.
"Okay. My name is Eden Jenks. I was born Sept. 15 2084, in the small town of Pim. My mom's name is..." I hold my hand up.
"Not your life's story. Who you are. Your hobbies. Likes. Dislikes." She smiles.
"I like helping people." I look at her full on.
"Where am I?" She hesitates. "Tell me."
"In the middle of Jinger desert."
"Why?" Another unsure glance toward the door.
"The agency for the marked." She points to my dragon like thing. "For newly tags like you and me with these. A secret organization foraging kids illegally over the division. To a safe, free place."
"How'd you know about it?"
"Rory's dad runs it. We're all in the same school. Mr Dirino, Rory's dad, saw strange spikes in our test results at school. Turns out we're smarter than the average kid. And we didn't even know it. He told us about all this about a month ago."
"Ya? So how did I get into this?"
"Your tests were abnormally high. So high that they reached Mr. Dirino. He sent me to your ceremony to see if you were marked. If you were, I was supposed to pick you up."
"You got your card at my ceremony. And your parents were there."
"Just a couple system tweaks."
"But that's illegal."
"This whole thing is illegal." She smirks. "Now get some rest. I'll come get you at dinner time."
"What about breakfast...and lunch?"
She shakes her head. "You slept through them. We wanted you to calm down before you saw the rest of it." She leaves and turns the light off before I can ask anything.
I just lay there. Staring at the ceiling. Trying to sort the loads of new information into new files. So far I have two.
Pro's. Con's.
Pro- a life without drones.
Con- most likely death.
The latter result is just more confusion. On what to do. Would they even allow me to go back if I chose to? Or would they be afraid of discovery?
And then I picture myself bursting from the van. Crying. Screaming. Falling on my face. Balling into Crispin. I feel so embarrassed. What will the others think of me now?
As I wallow in self pity. I notice a spider on the wall. In the dim light it looks blurry. But I can still see when it moves. I've never liked spiders. They are rare. Not many were brought from the home planet. Where our ancestors lived for billions of century's. Earth, it's called. I've seen pictures of it in school. A big, brown ball of dirt. A few small patches of green or blue on some places but otherwise a wasteland. Nothing much left.
I suppose I got lucky. Amaris. The white planet. Galaxy's away from Earth. It is white because of its cleanliness. But more correctly the fog. The fog that's always there. High up on the very end of the atmosphere.
There are other planets. Not as thriving though. But without drones.
Nearby is Dorotis. Small and mostly blue. Its all water there. The people have to live under it all. I hate the thought. Being trapped in an air bubble under zillions of gallons of water. I feel like choking on the imaginary water.
Ans then there's Trept. A green planet. Grass and farms as far as the eyes can see. Its seems very lovely. But they have water shortages all the time. The borrow mostly from Doritis. Our water is below the surface.
But I wouldn't want to live on any of the planet's if I weren't happy.
So I go go to pro's and con's.
Pro's. Con's.
