Fic
In a place where the sole purpose of existence is to work to produce the goods that the rest of the world use, what happens when one girl is given a chance to change her life? Trouble.
Trouble
The first time we meet is in a very ordinary way. They are walking across Center Square but have to pause for a moment because there is a lot of foot traffic and they are not walking with the others. Center Square is always crowded. There are people going to work, people running errands for work, and Guards keeping everything safe- a sea of gray with black crests. Everything is uniform: the gray clothes that the people wear, the blank stares on their faces, all identical. And that is why they stand out to me. I look at them because they aren’t walking, they aren’t wearing the normal mask of nothing on their faces; they are staring at me.
The man has copper skin, dark hair, and dark, happy eyes. The woman is just as tall as the man and has rich, deep brown skin. Her dark hair is braided and falls to her midsection. Her dark eyes look amused. She is beautiful.
For a moment I panic because although they are behaving normally, I am not. I have my hand in the pocket of a Guard’s black coat. It takes me half a second to retract my hand and shove the Guard’s wallet into the deep pocket of my gray pants; the Guard doesn’t notice. It takes three quarters of a second for them to start smiling. I allow myself to get caught in the tide of people and be pulled from the scene of the crime. They are still looking at me. ‘We saw that,’ the man’s eyes say. ‘You are very interesting,’ the woman’s eyes say. I run.
The second time we meet is in another ordinary situation. It is two weeks and two days later and I am in the Slammer. I’ve been charged, by assumption for lack of evidence, with stealing and transported out of the City and to the Slammer, my second home. I am never incarcerated for long. Perhaps they think I am too good a worker to keep away from the City. Perhaps they just like me too much. If the slightly greasy smiles of the Guards are anything to go by, it’s the latter.
I am sitting in my usual cell, assembling a chair (part of the punishment) when they walk into the room beyond my cell. It’s the copper skinned man and another man, one with slightly lighter skin, messy dark hair, and brown eyes that disappear when he smiles at his companion. I tense up and stay very still, hoping that they won’t see me, because the crime I am being punished for is not the one the man saw me commit and he can get me in more trouble. I watch as they walk up to the Guard at the desk and start talking. They talk for four minutes, then the copper skinned man turns to leave. I almost breathe a sigh of relief, but I don’t because I notice that the other man is staring at me. I stare back, telling him to leave with my eyes, and I realize that he is familiar.
“Micky?” the copper skinned man says, looking at his friend. Then he looks where Micky is looking and a grin slides onto his face.
“How long is she in for?” Micky asks the Guard and if I wasn’t worried about being ratted out I would smile because his voice is a little gravelly and a little perfect.
“Huh? Oh, she gets out today, why?” the Guard replies and I am amazed because Guards are never that nice to Worker men, only women.
“We’ll take ‘er,” Micky says and he isn’t asking.
For a second I wish that I can see the Guard’s face because his shoulders tense up like he’s mad and I like to see them get angry. But then the Guard shrugs and says, “Sure.” He turns to look at me and says, “You think you can behave?”
“Probably not,” I answer honestly and then add, “But I finished another chair,” before he can decide to keep me longer. I hold up the chair for him to see before putting it with the other twenty that I have made in the past two days.
The Guard snorts and lets me out. “Go with them and be good,” he orders, nodding to them. I nod and the three of us leave the Slammer. They stare at me until we get in the car. Micky drives and I am surprised because I have never seen a Driver Outside that wasn’t a Guard.
I don’t look out the window. After all the times that I have been to the Slammer I am used to the nothingness of the Outside.
“So what’s your name, kid?” the copper skinned man asks. He is turned around in his chair to look at me.
“Trouble,” I answer and wait.
I am not disappointed. The man laughs. But he does not look as confused as most people are when I tell them my name. “Why is that your name?” he asks, still looking amused.
I shrug. “I am never in a job for long so I can’t have a normal name. If I did it would be something like TB-CB-P-C-CM-FS 100.” The TB is for Toy Builder, the CB for Car Builder, the P for Painter, the C for cook, the CM for Chair Maker, and the FS for Floor Sweeper. Those are all the jobs I’ve had since I got out of school when I was ten. Everyone else in the city has only one job their whole life. The one hundred part is because I am always about the one hundredth worker at my work.
“So they just named you Trouble?” the copper skinned man asks, laughing again.
I nod. “I guess they could have named me Slammer. That works too.”
The man just laughs. Then, when he stops laughing, he stares at me. “So you steal things,” he says. It isn’t a question but I nod, my eyes challenging him to say that he’s going to rat me out for what he saw.
“Do you want to steal something for us?” the man asks, “Do you want to be a Rebel, Trouble?”
I make the mistake of looking at Micky in the rearview mirror. He is staring at me and for some reason my cheeks get hot and I have to look away. “Sure,” I say.
I don’t hear from them for two weeks. I begin to think that they have forgotten me, forgotten their offer. Then one day when I am walking out of my work, I see Micky standing again his car, waiting for me. I smile hesitantly because he has never smiled at me before. But he does smile and there is a strange twisting sensation in my stomach. “Get in,” he says and I do.
He drives away from the center of the City. He tells me that he is taking me to see the others. I watch him drive because something about the way he moves makes me feel warm.
“Do you know me?” he asks.
I nod. After they drove me home last time, I asked around and found out his real name. “You are D1,” I answer. The D, of course, stands for Driver and the 1 is because he is the best at his work. “You were three years above me in school and all the girls talked about how they hoped they were your mate.”
He looks amused when I tell him that. “What about you?” he asks, “Did you hope that too?”
I shrug. “Not really,” I tell him honestly, “I don’t want a mate.”
He doesn’t ask me why.
There are six of them. The copper skinned man, whose name is Raffie, is the leader. He is very happy to see me. The beautiful woman is called Seriah. She and I are the only girls. When she shakes my hand it makes me feel like she’s telling me a secret. Raffie tells me that she knows every language on the planet. I nod even though I’d never known that there was more than one. I can tell by the way they interact that Raffie and Seriah are mates. Other than them there is Micky, who is “the best damn driver you’ll ever find”, and two identical men whose skin is darker than Micky’s but not as dark as Raffie’s. They have dark hair, greenish eyes, and hair on their chins. Their names are James and John and I cannot tell which is which. The last of the six is a boy that is, I find out, a year younger than me, making him the youngest. He looks a lot like Micky but thinner and wimpier. His name is Magnae and he can do anything on a computer. Anything.
When I know who everyone is and they have all laughed at my name, Raffie hands me a folder. “These are your targets and what we want you to steal from them,” he says and I flip through the pages in the folder. There are three Guards, one Key Maker, and two men that are wearing some of the black suits that are made in the factory next to my work. I didn’t know that people actually wore the clothes the City makes. I wonder who they are.
“You’ll have to memorize everything there,” Raffie tells me, watching my face, “We want you to steal everything in one day, on the day that we tell you. Do you understand?”
I tell him that I do and then everyone says goodbye. Micky takes me to my dorm. It is past curfew so I look forward to seeing the angry face of the Guard that patrols my block when he hauls me off to the Slammer.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Micky asks me.
I shrug. “Sure,” I reply.
“Are you sure you want to leave?”
“Leave?”
Micky sighs. “He didn’t tell you,” he says, sounding a little angry, “We’re leaving the City, Trouble. That’s what all this is for. So we can get out.”
“Oh,” I say, “Why?”
“Because we want to live. To really live.”
“Okay,” I agree, “I want to go with you.”
He sighs again but doesn’t say anything else.
The Guard outside my building does not haul me off to the Slammer. But he does make a very funny angry face when he sees Micky. “D1,” he grumbles by way of acknowledgement and again I wonder just who Mickey is that the Guards seem to respect him, if begrudgingly.
Mickey nods to the Guard and turns to me. “Good night,” he says, “I’ll see you in a week.”
“Okay,” I agree, and watch as he drives off.
“Have fun on your date?” the Guard asks snidely when I walk past him to the door of my building. He is one of the Guards with a greasy smile.
“Date?” I repeat, confused. But the Guard just shakes his head and rolls his eyes.
Micky picks me up every week for three months. He takes me to the others and I practice stealing. First I practice with Raffie, then with anyone who will practice with me. After a month I practice with James and John, who are still James-and-John because I still can’t tell them apart. They are the only ones in the group that are as quick as me, so it takes me a few tries to steal their wallets. And when they realize that their wallets are gone, they look at one another and let out yells of excited surprise. Everyone in the room claps and my cheeks get hot. Then Raffie says, “Again.”
Stealing isn’t the only thing that I practice. Micky teaches me how to drive and Seriah teaches me some words in Spanish. She tells me that it will come in handy.
“Why?” I ask.
She stares at me with disbelief in her large brown eyes. “Because we’ll need it when we leave,” she says. Then she gets up and walks away. When she comes back she has a thick book in her hand. I gasp because I have never seen a book outside of a school before. She opens the book to a big picture of an oval with white strips on the top and bottom and five green blobs that are surrounded by blue.
“This is the world,” Seriah tells me and all I can do is stare, “This is water, the ocean,” she points to the blue, “this is land,” the green, “and this is where we are.” She points to a strip of land that connects the two green blobs on the left side of the oval. “Everyone that lives on the Outside around us speaks Spanish.”
“Oh,” I say after a long time. Then I ask, “Can the others speak Spanish?”
“Enough,” she tells me, nodding, “James and John are fluent like me.”
“How?”
“They grew up outside, Trouble,” Seriah says, “They’re Spanish.”
“Wait,” I say, “How can someone be a language?”
The beautiful woman sighs, shaking her head in exasperation. “Spanish is their nationality,” she explains, “They were born in Spanish territory so they’re Spanish. Raffie has Indian heritage so he’s Indian and Micky and Magnae have Korean heritage so they’re Korean.”
“What about us?” I ask, motioning between the two of us.
“I’m black and you’re white.”
“No we’re not. You’re brown and I’m kind of peachy.”
Seriah laughs, but as she opens her mouth to answer, Raffie calls her and she leaves. I start to read the book.
Books aren’t the only new things that they show me. Micky can play the piano. I never heard anyone play a piano before, so I love to hear him play. Magnae makes music come from some a pair of plastic boxes that are linked to his computer with wires. I don’t like it at first, but when I begin to hear the piano in the background, amidst all the other noise, I decide it isn’t so bad. There are also movies on Magnae’s computer that we watch sometimes. I am fascinated by the people moving on the screen. They all live in beautiful Cities that are a lot bigger than ours. Magnae says that the place that we’re going to is a lot like in the movies. It makes me excited.
Magnae tells me a lot of things. He tells me about the group. How James and John can fight four Guards at once and win. How Seriah can make any man (“outside our group of course”) do anything she wants them to. How he can change people’s names and jobs just using his computer. How Raffie knows everything about our City. And how Micky was asked to be a Guard but he said no.
And when Seriah comes storming through the main room with Raffie on her heels shouting, “Again, Raffie? Really?” and the pair disappear into one of the side rooms, Magnae tells me he knows why they’re fighting.
“It’s because of Raffie’s mate,” he says.
“But Seriah’s Raffie’s mate,” I object.
“No,” he says, shaking his head, “Raffie’s mate is a woman named Kara. It’s been a year since they had to move in together and Kara likes to make babies. She doesn’t know about any of this and Raffie has to be with her like normal mates to keep it all a secret.”
“But why are he and Seriah so close?” I ask, a little upset.
“Because they love each other,” Magnae replied, “They’re sleeping together, you know.”
I didn’t know. “What does sleeping together have anything to do with it? And how does Raffie sneak out at night to sleep with Seriah?”
“They don’t do it at night.”
“They sleep during the day? Why?” I am completely confused.
Magnae sighs a sigh of long suffering and rolls his eyes. “Not sleeping,” he says, putting his head on his hands and closing his eyes as if in sleep, “Sleeping. Baby making.”
“…What’s that?” I want to know.
So he tells me. He tells me about kissing and what comes after that. He tells me until I shout, “He puts WHAT WHERE?!”
“Don’t look so surprised, Trouble,” he says, “You an’ Micky’ll probably do it someday.” Then a fist comes out of no where and crashes into Magnae’s face, sending him to the ground. I spin around to find Micky glaring at the younger man. He walks away without saying anything but Magnae doesn’t tell me about “sleeping” anymore.
It is a week after he punches Magnae and three and a half minutes after we get in the car that I bring up the “sleeping” conversation because Micky has been acting slightly different since then.
“Are you mad at me for asking Magnae about that stuff?” I ask and he knows what I’m talking about.
“No,” he says, then sighs.
“Then why did you hit him?” I ask.
“Because he shouldn’t have told you… he shouldn’t have said-,” Micky stops talking, seemingly searching for the right word. Then he gives up. Instead he looks at me and says, “You and I are mates, Trouble.”
I can only stare at him. “Huh?” I say.
He sighs again and runs a hand through his hair roughly. “We’re mates,” he says again, “If we stay in the City they’ll make us move in together in a few years and then…”
“How do you know?” I ask before he can even think of finishing that sentence.
“Magnae can find out anything,” he answered, “I’ve known for years.”
I don’t know what to say so I don’t say anything.
“I’m sorry,” he says after seventy three seconds of silence, “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No,” I say, “I’m glad.” And I feel my cheeks heat up. And he’s looking at me. And the twisty sensation in my stomach is back with a vengeance.
“You are?”
“Yes. But…about the sleeping part…”
“We don’t have to do that,” he assures me, but there is something in his voice that says he might want to.
“The kissing didn’t sound so bad,” I admit, and worry that my cheeks are going to catch fire. Is that possible?
He doesn’t say anything and suddenly we’re parked in front of my building. I look outside and see that the Guard in no where in sight. I look at Micky and decide to be brave. “Could we…try it?” I ask, almost whispering.
His head jerks to look at me. “Are you sure?” he asks after five seconds of silence.
“Yes,” I lie. And we do.
It is four months and one day after that day in Center Square that I get a promotion for “good behavior”. I am promoted from cleaning the factory floors to cleaning the Guest House floors. The Guest House is a building near the Guard’s House that houses any visitors that might come to the City. Everyone knows that it’s where the Outsiders stay, but no one ever sees them. Except the Workers that work in the Guest House.
The first Outsiders that I see are two women. They are dressed like the women in Magnae’s movies, but better. They have powder on their faces, their lips are too red, and they look at us Workers like we have a disease. I hate them immediately. Some of the other Cleaners tell me that these women are the mates of some of the higher ups that run the City. The people that run the City don’t have a name because we don’t know who they are or what they do.
It is three days after I start working that I see the women’s mates. I almost drop the handle of my vacuum because the two men are the two men in suits from the folder Raffie gave me. I watch them as they enter the Guest House and walk up the stairs and out of sights. They don’t see me.
Micky is waiting for me at my building after work. “Get in,” he says and I know that today’s the day because I was just with them two days ago. I get into his car without a word.
“Where to first?” he asks.
“Key Factory.”
He makes the ten minute trip in five. As I get out of the car he says, “I have to-“
“Go,” I say, adrenaline pumping in my veins, “Guest House. Twenty-two minutes.”
“See you there,” he says and I can tell that he doesn’t want to leave me.
“Yes.”
The Key Factory is a funny place. There are thousands of keys in the building at any one time and yet none of the doors can be unlocked with a key. Like all factories, the outside door is locked only at night and requires a keycard to unlock it. Magnae could have gotten me a keycard, but not without the higher ups finding out. So I climb up to a window using some of the plumbing pipes on the side of the building and slide in through a window. The drawers that hold the keys are labeled and require a code to be opened. Simple enough.
The Guard House dining hall is packed when I get there. It is easy enough to the kitchen and into an apron. There are so many Servers that no one notices me taking a tray and waltzing out into the dining hall to serve the men.
“Since when are you a Server, Trouble?” one Guard asks me, the beer in his hand making him talk louder than usual.
“Since tonight,” I reply.
“You get in trouble?” the Guard asks and chuckles at his own joke.
“Not yet,” I answer sweetly.
Two thefts later and I am walking the two blocks to the Guest House.
The timing is perfect. The Outsiders are all in their dining hall eating the high class food that Workers make but never eat. I simply join the group of Night Cleaners and I’m in.
It is easier than it should be and that scares me. I am finished four minutes before Micky is supposed to pick me up so I have four minutes to figure out how to get the two men’s briefcases downstairs and through the lobby without being caught. I end up walking downstairs with a pile of dirty sheets draped over my arms. No one stops me. My heart is pounding in my ears and I wonder why I never felt this nervous when I stole things before.
I am out the door and five steps away from the open passenger door of Micky’s car when I hear “Hey, where are you taking those?” behind me. I drop the sheets on the ground and hurl myself into the car.
“Shit,” Micky says and we’re three blocks away in a heartbeat.
“Sorry,” I say.
“You were perfect,” he assures me, but there is worry in the lines between eyes. “We just have to drive a little faster now.”
There is a van waiting for us at the edge of the City, just inside the gate. When the Guards at the gate see me, the hold up their hands and I am sure we’re caught.
“Where are you taking her?” they ask none too kindly.
“The Slammer,” Micky answers smoothly, “She stole a cigarette lighter yesterday.” And he holds up a cigarette lighter to prove it. Not that he has to.
“Should have stayed out of Trouble,” one of the Guards says to me and they both laugh.
Micky and I get in the van and drive through the gate. And when we’re out of sight of the Guards I look in the back of the van to find the others grinning back at me.
“You get what I asked for?” Raffie asks and I nod and hand him the wallets and the key. Micky hands him the briefcases. I don’t know how he got them into the van without the Guards seeing but I think again that he is amazing.
“Good job, Trouble,” Raffie says, still smiling, “We made it. We’re out.” And everyone cheers.
It is four hours later, when everyone else has crashed that I ask Micky, “Why did I have to steal that stuff if we didn’t need them to get out?”
“We’ll need some of it when we get to where we’re going,” he answers and I don’t bother ask where it is we’re going because I don’t care, “And Raffie wants to fix things, Trouble. He wants, we want to tell the world about the Cities. To get rid of them. Life isn’t going to get any easier any time soon.” He sounds apologetic.
“Great,” I murmur sleepily, “Let’s go make some trouble.” And we both laugh lightly at my dumb joke.
Trouble
The first time we meet is in a very ordinary way. They are walking across Center Square but have to pause for a moment because there is a lot of foot traffic and they are not walking with the others. Center Square is always crowded. There are people going to work, people running errands for work, and Guards keeping everything safe- a sea of gray with black crests. Everything is uniform: the gray clothes that the people wear, the blank stares on their faces, all identical. And that is why they stand out to me. I look at them because they aren’t walking, they aren’t wearing the normal mask of nothing on their faces; they are staring at me.
The man has copper skin, dark hair, and dark, happy eyes. The woman is just as tall as the man and has rich, deep brown skin. Her dark hair is braided and falls to her midsection. Her dark eyes look amused. She is beautiful.
For a moment I panic because although they are behaving normally, I am not. I have my hand in the pocket of a Guard’s black coat. It takes me half a second to retract my hand and shove the Guard’s wallet into the deep pocket of my gray pants; the Guard doesn’t notice. It takes three quarters of a second for them to start smiling. I allow myself to get caught in the tide of people and be pulled from the scene of the crime. They are still looking at me. ‘We saw that,’ the man’s eyes say. ‘You are very interesting,’ the woman’s eyes say. I run.
The second time we meet is in another ordinary situation. It is two weeks and two days later and I am in the Slammer. I’ve been charged, by assumption for lack of evidence, with stealing and transported out of the City and to the Slammer, my second home. I am never incarcerated for long. Perhaps they think I am too good a worker to keep away from the City. Perhaps they just like me too much. If the slightly greasy smiles of the Guards are anything to go by, it’s the latter.
I am sitting in my usual cell, assembling a chair (part of the punishment) when they walk into the room beyond my cell. It’s the copper skinned man and another man, one with slightly lighter skin, messy dark hair, and brown eyes that disappear when he smiles at his companion. I tense up and stay very still, hoping that they won’t see me, because the crime I am being punished for is not the one the man saw me commit and he can get me in more trouble. I watch as they walk up to the Guard at the desk and start talking. They talk for four minutes, then the copper skinned man turns to leave. I almost breathe a sigh of relief, but I don’t because I notice that the other man is staring at me. I stare back, telling him to leave with my eyes, and I realize that he is familiar.
“Micky?” the copper skinned man says, looking at his friend. Then he looks where Micky is looking and a grin slides onto his face.
“How long is she in for?” Micky asks the Guard and if I wasn’t worried about being ratted out I would smile because his voice is a little gravelly and a little perfect.
“Huh? Oh, she gets out today, why?” the Guard replies and I am amazed because Guards are never that nice to Worker men, only women.
“We’ll take ‘er,” Micky says and he isn’t asking.
For a second I wish that I can see the Guard’s face because his shoulders tense up like he’s mad and I like to see them get angry. But then the Guard shrugs and says, “Sure.” He turns to look at me and says, “You think you can behave?”
“Probably not,” I answer honestly and then add, “But I finished another chair,” before he can decide to keep me longer. I hold up the chair for him to see before putting it with the other twenty that I have made in the past two days.
The Guard snorts and lets me out. “Go with them and be good,” he orders, nodding to them. I nod and the three of us leave the Slammer. They stare at me until we get in the car. Micky drives and I am surprised because I have never seen a Driver Outside that wasn’t a Guard.
I don’t look out the window. After all the times that I have been to the Slammer I am used to the nothingness of the Outside.
“So what’s your name, kid?” the copper skinned man asks. He is turned around in his chair to look at me.
“Trouble,” I answer and wait.
I am not disappointed. The man laughs. But he does not look as confused as most people are when I tell them my name. “Why is that your name?” he asks, still looking amused.
I shrug. “I am never in a job for long so I can’t have a normal name. If I did it would be something like TB-CB-P-C-CM-FS 100.” The TB is for Toy Builder, the CB for Car Builder, the P for Painter, the C for cook, the CM for Chair Maker, and the FS for Floor Sweeper. Those are all the jobs I’ve had since I got out of school when I was ten. Everyone else in the city has only one job their whole life. The one hundred part is because I am always about the one hundredth worker at my work.
“So they just named you Trouble?” the copper skinned man asks, laughing again.
I nod. “I guess they could have named me Slammer. That works too.”
The man just laughs. Then, when he stops laughing, he stares at me. “So you steal things,” he says. It isn’t a question but I nod, my eyes challenging him to say that he’s going to rat me out for what he saw.
“Do you want to steal something for us?” the man asks, “Do you want to be a Rebel, Trouble?”
I make the mistake of looking at Micky in the rearview mirror. He is staring at me and for some reason my cheeks get hot and I have to look away. “Sure,” I say.
I don’t hear from them for two weeks. I begin to think that they have forgotten me, forgotten their offer. Then one day when I am walking out of my work, I see Micky standing again his car, waiting for me. I smile hesitantly because he has never smiled at me before. But he does smile and there is a strange twisting sensation in my stomach. “Get in,” he says and I do.
He drives away from the center of the City. He tells me that he is taking me to see the others. I watch him drive because something about the way he moves makes me feel warm.
“Do you know me?” he asks.
I nod. After they drove me home last time, I asked around and found out his real name. “You are D1,” I answer. The D, of course, stands for Driver and the 1 is because he is the best at his work. “You were three years above me in school and all the girls talked about how they hoped they were your mate.”
He looks amused when I tell him that. “What about you?” he asks, “Did you hope that too?”
I shrug. “Not really,” I tell him honestly, “I don’t want a mate.”
He doesn’t ask me why.
There are six of them. The copper skinned man, whose name is Raffie, is the leader. He is very happy to see me. The beautiful woman is called Seriah. She and I are the only girls. When she shakes my hand it makes me feel like she’s telling me a secret. Raffie tells me that she knows every language on the planet. I nod even though I’d never known that there was more than one. I can tell by the way they interact that Raffie and Seriah are mates. Other than them there is Micky, who is “the best damn driver you’ll ever find”, and two identical men whose skin is darker than Micky’s but not as dark as Raffie’s. They have dark hair, greenish eyes, and hair on their chins. Their names are James and John and I cannot tell which is which. The last of the six is a boy that is, I find out, a year younger than me, making him the youngest. He looks a lot like Micky but thinner and wimpier. His name is Magnae and he can do anything on a computer. Anything.
When I know who everyone is and they have all laughed at my name, Raffie hands me a folder. “These are your targets and what we want you to steal from them,” he says and I flip through the pages in the folder. There are three Guards, one Key Maker, and two men that are wearing some of the black suits that are made in the factory next to my work. I didn’t know that people actually wore the clothes the City makes. I wonder who they are.
“You’ll have to memorize everything there,” Raffie tells me, watching my face, “We want you to steal everything in one day, on the day that we tell you. Do you understand?”
I tell him that I do and then everyone says goodbye. Micky takes me to my dorm. It is past curfew so I look forward to seeing the angry face of the Guard that patrols my block when he hauls me off to the Slammer.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Micky asks me.
I shrug. “Sure,” I reply.
“Are you sure you want to leave?”
“Leave?”
Micky sighs. “He didn’t tell you,” he says, sounding a little angry, “We’re leaving the City, Trouble. That’s what all this is for. So we can get out.”
“Oh,” I say, “Why?”
“Because we want to live. To really live.”
“Okay,” I agree, “I want to go with you.”
He sighs again but doesn’t say anything else.
The Guard outside my building does not haul me off to the Slammer. But he does make a very funny angry face when he sees Micky. “D1,” he grumbles by way of acknowledgement and again I wonder just who Mickey is that the Guards seem to respect him, if begrudgingly.
Mickey nods to the Guard and turns to me. “Good night,” he says, “I’ll see you in a week.”
“Okay,” I agree, and watch as he drives off.
“Have fun on your date?” the Guard asks snidely when I walk past him to the door of my building. He is one of the Guards with a greasy smile.
“Date?” I repeat, confused. But the Guard just shakes his head and rolls his eyes.
Micky picks me up every week for three months. He takes me to the others and I practice stealing. First I practice with Raffie, then with anyone who will practice with me. After a month I practice with James and John, who are still James-and-John because I still can’t tell them apart. They are the only ones in the group that are as quick as me, so it takes me a few tries to steal their wallets. And when they realize that their wallets are gone, they look at one another and let out yells of excited surprise. Everyone in the room claps and my cheeks get hot. Then Raffie says, “Again.”
Stealing isn’t the only thing that I practice. Micky teaches me how to drive and Seriah teaches me some words in Spanish. She tells me that it will come in handy.
“Why?” I ask.
She stares at me with disbelief in her large brown eyes. “Because we’ll need it when we leave,” she says. Then she gets up and walks away. When she comes back she has a thick book in her hand. I gasp because I have never seen a book outside of a school before. She opens the book to a big picture of an oval with white strips on the top and bottom and five green blobs that are surrounded by blue.
“This is the world,” Seriah tells me and all I can do is stare, “This is water, the ocean,” she points to the blue, “this is land,” the green, “and this is where we are.” She points to a strip of land that connects the two green blobs on the left side of the oval. “Everyone that lives on the Outside around us speaks Spanish.”
“Oh,” I say after a long time. Then I ask, “Can the others speak Spanish?”
“Enough,” she tells me, nodding, “James and John are fluent like me.”
“How?”
“They grew up outside, Trouble,” Seriah says, “They’re Spanish.”
“Wait,” I say, “How can someone be a language?”
The beautiful woman sighs, shaking her head in exasperation. “Spanish is their nationality,” she explains, “They were born in Spanish territory so they’re Spanish. Raffie has Indian heritage so he’s Indian and Micky and Magnae have Korean heritage so they’re Korean.”
“What about us?” I ask, motioning between the two of us.
“I’m black and you’re white.”
“No we’re not. You’re brown and I’m kind of peachy.”
Seriah laughs, but as she opens her mouth to answer, Raffie calls her and she leaves. I start to read the book.
Books aren’t the only new things that they show me. Micky can play the piano. I never heard anyone play a piano before, so I love to hear him play. Magnae makes music come from some a pair of plastic boxes that are linked to his computer with wires. I don’t like it at first, but when I begin to hear the piano in the background, amidst all the other noise, I decide it isn’t so bad. There are also movies on Magnae’s computer that we watch sometimes. I am fascinated by the people moving on the screen. They all live in beautiful Cities that are a lot bigger than ours. Magnae says that the place that we’re going to is a lot like in the movies. It makes me excited.
Magnae tells me a lot of things. He tells me about the group. How James and John can fight four Guards at once and win. How Seriah can make any man (“outside our group of course”) do anything she wants them to. How he can change people’s names and jobs just using his computer. How Raffie knows everything about our City. And how Micky was asked to be a Guard but he said no.
And when Seriah comes storming through the main room with Raffie on her heels shouting, “Again, Raffie? Really?” and the pair disappear into one of the side rooms, Magnae tells me he knows why they’re fighting.
“It’s because of Raffie’s mate,” he says.
“But Seriah’s Raffie’s mate,” I object.
“No,” he says, shaking his head, “Raffie’s mate is a woman named Kara. It’s been a year since they had to move in together and Kara likes to make babies. She doesn’t know about any of this and Raffie has to be with her like normal mates to keep it all a secret.”
“But why are he and Seriah so close?” I ask, a little upset.
“Because they love each other,” Magnae replied, “They’re sleeping together, you know.”
I didn’t know. “What does sleeping together have anything to do with it? And how does Raffie sneak out at night to sleep with Seriah?”
“They don’t do it at night.”
“They sleep during the day? Why?” I am completely confused.
Magnae sighs a sigh of long suffering and rolls his eyes. “Not sleeping,” he says, putting his head on his hands and closing his eyes as if in sleep, “Sleeping. Baby making.”
“…What’s that?” I want to know.
So he tells me. He tells me about kissing and what comes after that. He tells me until I shout, “He puts WHAT WHERE?!”
“Don’t look so surprised, Trouble,” he says, “You an’ Micky’ll probably do it someday.” Then a fist comes out of no where and crashes into Magnae’s face, sending him to the ground. I spin around to find Micky glaring at the younger man. He walks away without saying anything but Magnae doesn’t tell me about “sleeping” anymore.
It is a week after he punches Magnae and three and a half minutes after we get in the car that I bring up the “sleeping” conversation because Micky has been acting slightly different since then.
“Are you mad at me for asking Magnae about that stuff?” I ask and he knows what I’m talking about.
“No,” he says, then sighs.
“Then why did you hit him?” I ask.
“Because he shouldn’t have told you… he shouldn’t have said-,” Micky stops talking, seemingly searching for the right word. Then he gives up. Instead he looks at me and says, “You and I are mates, Trouble.”
I can only stare at him. “Huh?” I say.
He sighs again and runs a hand through his hair roughly. “We’re mates,” he says again, “If we stay in the City they’ll make us move in together in a few years and then…”
“How do you know?” I ask before he can even think of finishing that sentence.
“Magnae can find out anything,” he answered, “I’ve known for years.”
I don’t know what to say so I don’t say anything.
“I’m sorry,” he says after seventy three seconds of silence, “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No,” I say, “I’m glad.” And I feel my cheeks heat up. And he’s looking at me. And the twisty sensation in my stomach is back with a vengeance.
“You are?”
“Yes. But…about the sleeping part…”
“We don’t have to do that,” he assures me, but there is something in his voice that says he might want to.
“The kissing didn’t sound so bad,” I admit, and worry that my cheeks are going to catch fire. Is that possible?
He doesn’t say anything and suddenly we’re parked in front of my building. I look outside and see that the Guard in no where in sight. I look at Micky and decide to be brave. “Could we…try it?” I ask, almost whispering.
His head jerks to look at me. “Are you sure?” he asks after five seconds of silence.
“Yes,” I lie. And we do.
It is four months and one day after that day in Center Square that I get a promotion for “good behavior”. I am promoted from cleaning the factory floors to cleaning the Guest House floors. The Guest House is a building near the Guard’s House that houses any visitors that might come to the City. Everyone knows that it’s where the Outsiders stay, but no one ever sees them. Except the Workers that work in the Guest House.
The first Outsiders that I see are two women. They are dressed like the women in Magnae’s movies, but better. They have powder on their faces, their lips are too red, and they look at us Workers like we have a disease. I hate them immediately. Some of the other Cleaners tell me that these women are the mates of some of the higher ups that run the City. The people that run the City don’t have a name because we don’t know who they are or what they do.
It is three days after I start working that I see the women’s mates. I almost drop the handle of my vacuum because the two men are the two men in suits from the folder Raffie gave me. I watch them as they enter the Guest House and walk up the stairs and out of sights. They don’t see me.
Micky is waiting for me at my building after work. “Get in,” he says and I know that today’s the day because I was just with them two days ago. I get into his car without a word.
“Where to first?” he asks.
“Key Factory.”
He makes the ten minute trip in five. As I get out of the car he says, “I have to-“
“Go,” I say, adrenaline pumping in my veins, “Guest House. Twenty-two minutes.”
“See you there,” he says and I can tell that he doesn’t want to leave me.
“Yes.”
The Key Factory is a funny place. There are thousands of keys in the building at any one time and yet none of the doors can be unlocked with a key. Like all factories, the outside door is locked only at night and requires a keycard to unlock it. Magnae could have gotten me a keycard, but not without the higher ups finding out. So I climb up to a window using some of the plumbing pipes on the side of the building and slide in through a window. The drawers that hold the keys are labeled and require a code to be opened. Simple enough.
The Guard House dining hall is packed when I get there. It is easy enough to the kitchen and into an apron. There are so many Servers that no one notices me taking a tray and waltzing out into the dining hall to serve the men.
“Since when are you a Server, Trouble?” one Guard asks me, the beer in his hand making him talk louder than usual.
“Since tonight,” I reply.
“You get in trouble?” the Guard asks and chuckles at his own joke.
“Not yet,” I answer sweetly.
Two thefts later and I am walking the two blocks to the Guest House.
The timing is perfect. The Outsiders are all in their dining hall eating the high class food that Workers make but never eat. I simply join the group of Night Cleaners and I’m in.
It is easier than it should be and that scares me. I am finished four minutes before Micky is supposed to pick me up so I have four minutes to figure out how to get the two men’s briefcases downstairs and through the lobby without being caught. I end up walking downstairs with a pile of dirty sheets draped over my arms. No one stops me. My heart is pounding in my ears and I wonder why I never felt this nervous when I stole things before.
I am out the door and five steps away from the open passenger door of Micky’s car when I hear “Hey, where are you taking those?” behind me. I drop the sheets on the ground and hurl myself into the car.
“Shit,” Micky says and we’re three blocks away in a heartbeat.
“Sorry,” I say.
“You were perfect,” he assures me, but there is worry in the lines between eyes. “We just have to drive a little faster now.”
There is a van waiting for us at the edge of the City, just inside the gate. When the Guards at the gate see me, the hold up their hands and I am sure we’re caught.
“Where are you taking her?” they ask none too kindly.
“The Slammer,” Micky answers smoothly, “She stole a cigarette lighter yesterday.” And he holds up a cigarette lighter to prove it. Not that he has to.
“Should have stayed out of Trouble,” one of the Guards says to me and they both laugh.
Micky and I get in the van and drive through the gate. And when we’re out of sight of the Guards I look in the back of the van to find the others grinning back at me.
“You get what I asked for?” Raffie asks and I nod and hand him the wallets and the key. Micky hands him the briefcases. I don’t know how he got them into the van without the Guards seeing but I think again that he is amazing.
“Good job, Trouble,” Raffie says, still smiling, “We made it. We’re out.” And everyone cheers.
It is four hours later, when everyone else has crashed that I ask Micky, “Why did I have to steal that stuff if we didn’t need them to get out?”
“We’ll need some of it when we get to where we’re going,” he answers and I don’t bother ask where it is we’re going because I don’t care, “And Raffie wants to fix things, Trouble. He wants, we want to tell the world about the Cities. To get rid of them. Life isn’t going to get any easier any time soon.” He sounds apologetic.
“Great,” I murmur sleepily, “Let’s go make some trouble.” And we both laugh lightly at my dumb joke.