The Treemakers (A YA Dystopian Scifi Romance Adventure) Page 2

  She nods, wide-eyed, and plucks her thumb from her mouth. I swing her up onto my back and everyone stares. Our rules state: No talking, laughing, playing, or physical contact of any kind during working hours—which are from six a.m. to six p.m. Two uneven cuts already cost me lunch. Now, I’ll lose dinner too, for “fraternizing.” But I don’t care.

  Abrilynne puts Baby Lou on her hip—the one exception the Superiors make, because she can’t walk well enough on her own yet.

  When we get to the common area, Mona Superior, with frizzy reddish-brown hair and high black boots topped with bulging knee fat, arrives on the catwalk, rolling her oxygen tank behind her.

  “Jax Grayson,” she calls down. “Miguel Ramirez. To your seats—now.”

  They emerge from a corner of the common area and take their places at the table; Jax next to me, and a red-faced Miguel down at the other end.

  “Joy Montgomery,” she says, smoothing the front of her blouse over her protruding stomach.

  “Yes, madam?” I set Chloe down in her assigned seat, while the stench of nutrient-fortified slop and the misleading delicious aroma of foul-tasting bread find their way into my stuffy nose.

  “You operate the chopper, correct?” Mona Superior places her oxygen mask to her face, takes a deep breath.

  “Yes, madam.”

  Something clanks to the floor on the other side of the factory, sound reverberating through the silence. Rats.

  “What happened to Toby?” She takes another deep breath into her mask.

  “He went outside, madam.”

  She holds the mask out from her face, vapors of life rising to the heavens like a virgin child’s death.

  “How exactly did he go outside without sounding the chamber alarm?” she asks.

  Miguel stiffens.

  “I don’t know,” I say casually. “I suppose he figured out how to shut off the alarm so he could go out without alerting attention.”

  “Hmm.” Her eyes flit around faces and backs of heads, pausing a moment on Jax’s and Miguel’s. “And why exactly would he want to do that?”

  “He . . . he said he didn’t want to be a treemaker anymore, madam.”

  “Ha!” Another deep breath into the mask. “You have the honor and privilege of being treemakers for Bygonne. A fine, noble privilege. See what happens when you aren’t thankful for the blessings you have?”

  I clench my fists behind my back in silent reply.

  “I trust there’ll be no more uneven cuts today, Miss Montgomery?”

  “No, madam, of course not.” I dig fingernails into my palms, fuming.

  “I pray this event will not interfere with adequate performance?” She sneers. “Because I’m thinking a few of you may benefit from time alone in the dungeon with the rats. . . .”

  My stomach quakes at the thought of my previous stay in the dungeon; days alone in utter darkness—famished, dehydrated, sick from bad air, losing track of time and my grip on reality, fighting off jumpers . . . it’s enough to change a person for life, to make you do anything to keep from going back there.

  I stare Mona Superior down and don’t let on that I’m worried.

  Humphrey’s hacking, wet cough—the telltale sign that it’s end-of-days for him—interrupts through the kitchen door.

  Mona Superior looks away and fidgets with her shirt hem. “I will extend the lunch period by ten minutes to allow all of you to process this . . . event.” She sucks her teeth and, tilting her head up, fans herself with a lacy thing. “Work will resume in precisely forty minutes.” She tugs the chain above her head, ringing the giant bell that signals Humphrey to serve our slop. I guess I’m eating today. Debatable whether that’s a punishment or a “privilege,” as she likes to call everything.

  It’s a “privilege” to spend your life making trees, a “privilege” to eat snotty slop every day, a “privilege” to watch your brothers and sisters die or get maimed one by one as the days go by. Losing their minds. Making trees to breathe another day . . . in a life they hate living.

  “I will give you ten minutes of verbal privilege, while I go to the office to update our records,” Mona Superior adds. “And when I return, I expect you’ll be silent, if you wish to eat dinner.” She scowls past an enormous hairy mole on her nose, before turning back toward the office, tugging the satin rope attached to her oxygen tank. It rolls behind her, clacking against the metal grates.

  “Forty minutes to grieve our brother’s horrible death right outside our window?” Jax says. “And verbal privileges? She must be going soft on us.”

  Humphrey dishes out slop down our two long rows. I’m still not sure which stinks more: Humphrey, or the slop. Weeks ago, I pulled a long, curly, black hair from my mouth. Since then, I spend more time trying not to think about which of his body parts it came from, than what the slop ingredients are. No one knows for sure, and listening to rumors is usually worse than not knowing. He ladles some into my bowl, and I hold my nose. I’ve seen stuff come out of Baby Lou’s nose with more appeal than this. But I dig my spoon into the slimy, curdled filth anyway, and shovel it down until there’s nothing left. Better to eat it fast; you don’t taste as much that way.

  After lunch, I beg Aby for Baby Lou; I need the distraction. She helps me wheel the rickety old playpen in between the chopper and the window. I’ve got no desire to look outside anymore today. Probably ever again. No one will clear away Toby’s remains. Our only window is forever stained with heartbreak.

  Jax’s green eyes twinkle in the fluorescent lighting as he climbs the catwalk steps two at a time, headed back to the Brain Room.

  I focus again on Baby Lou. Jax gave her an old worn pipe and she’s been playing with it for an hour now. She keeps peeking through it at me, and it’s adorable. I crack the faintest smile, and for a second, I long to be her, oblivious to the sinister world that awaits when she’s old enough to take orders, and strong enough to move metal.

  “Hey there, little miss.” I tickle her soft brown chin, and she giggles, showing off short rows of teeny teeth. “I’ve gotta get the chopper running now.”

  She doesn’t understand me, but I like talking to her anyway, and she likes hearing my voice. She coos and babbles, and bops me on the head with her pipe as she raises it to peek through. I peek back, and she laughs.

  An hour into my running the chopper, she starts to cry, and the pungent odor tells me she needs changing. I press the blue button, signaling a momentary stop on the assembly line. All machines cease and quiet. The Superiors don’t like it, but they know we have to take care of Baby Lou to give them another worker in the coming years. One of the few reasons we have to stop working.

  I spread a dingy blanket from her playpen out onto a nearby workstation tabletop, pushing aside scattered tools used to fix the chopper when it breaks down. I lay her on the blanket, clean her with water from my bucket and a spare towel, then tie her back up with fresh cloth.

  When I try to put her into her playpen again, she cries and clings to me.

  “Ugh, Miss Baby Lou. It’s hard for me to work with you on my back all day. Can I please put you in the crib?”

  More crying.

  I heave a sigh, snatch her blanket from the tabletop, and affix her to my back. She’s happy there. Of course she is. Within minutes of my resuming work, she’s fast asleep, snoring softly against my neck. This makes me grateful for my years of hard labor here. Otherwise, finishing my two-hour baby-watching shift while operating the chopper this way would be impossible.

  She sleeps soundly for an hour, through all of the screeching, squealing, pounding and grinding. It’s when she sleeps best. I’d prefer it, too, I think. It’s easier not to think about things. At night, when it’s so quiet you can hear the mad wind howl across the rooftop, it’s easy to lie in bed and remember everything you’ve ever thought in your whole wretched life.

  Occasionally, out of habit, my gaze slips to the window, but I yank it back when it reaches the dark spot on the ground. I shudder and fi
ght back tears, recalling the night I met Toby two years ago, when he was shipped here in a cargo box from Taborton. He was traumatized. For a week, he didn’t talk to anyone and hid in the corner of the boys’ dorm and cried. They tried to force him to work by taking meals away, but that only made it worse.

  So one night, I sat by the hole in the wall between our dorms, next to his bed on the other side, and started telling him about a little boy named Billy who had a pet dragon. He said no one had ever told him a story before. Those were the first words he said to me. At that moment, I could see in his eyes, he knew he was home. We were family. He had brothers and sisters who cared for him, who took care of each other. Together, we’d take the dark with the light and build on.

  I’d never told a story before. I read them often, but never made one up from my own imagination. So, from then on, I was the storyteller. I still tell them every night to the little ones; it’s the only way they get to sleep now. A few of them call me Momma Joy, and that makes me feel good. They deserve to have someone love on them, and tell them stories and whatnot.

  Tonight’s story will be rough.

  Anger rises to the surface, and I slam the next titanzium slab to the gridline with too much force, making the chopper rattle. The new sound stirs Baby Lou. I rock her back to sleep and force my tears to go away. The chopper’s no place for your emotions to get to you, unless you want to lose a body part. And I happen to be very attached to mine.

  Some time later, the line stops again, and Aby slides down the pole near me. “Guess I’ll be taking her now.” Her face is rosy from the upstairs heat.

  “How hot is it up there today?”

  “Toasty, as usual. But she’ll be fine.” She ties her hair up. Even with the building’s thick titanzium roof, it still climbs to ninety degrees upstairs. I don’t want to hand over Baby Lou; she’s comfortable on my back. But unfortunately, my muscles are starting to give out. At least it hasn’t rained recently, so the humidity isn’t bad.

  Aby’s face grows serious as I fumble with the blanket knot at my waist. “Are you okay, Joy?”

  “I will be.”

  “Why are the machines stopped!” Mona Superior’s shrill voice carries down from the catwalk.

  “Sorry,” I call back. “We’re just trading off Baby Lou.”

  “Well, hurry it up if you want to eat tonight!” She spins around, headed back toward the office.

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Hey, cutie,” Aby whispers, removing Baby Lou from the sling. She sneaks a snort into Baby’s chin, making her giggle. Aby’s only fourteen, but she’s like a momma, too. Or a big sister to some. She’s impossible not to love, with her long red curls and dimples and puffy, heart-shaped lips—one of those faces you could stare at all day.

  “Winding down now,” she says. “Only four hours to go.”

  I drag the playpen to the freight elevator and load it on with them, then give Baby Lou a kiss on her soft cheek. She tugs at my short brown strings of hair before she and Aby disappear in the dim lighting behind the rattling door. For a few seconds, I stand there, as if they’ll change their minds and come back. I’m not ready to return to the chopper yet. Now, there’s nothing between me and the reality of what happened today.

  But I stumble back, reluctant to push the “ready” button. An invisible force draws my eyes over to the window, where an “X” of ash and bones—Toby’s remains—lie on the ground. I cover my mouth to muffle my sobbing, because there’s no stopping it.

  “Goodbye, Toby,” I whisper. “We’ll miss you so, so much.”

  §

  At dinner, we’re left with Humphrey to watch over us. He growls for us to hush until Mona Superior is in her office, then he settles his stout self into a chair to snooze. A small relief, though still no one talks much. Everyone keeps glancing over at Toby’s empty chair. One thing losing my parents—and now, Toby—has taught me: you don’t realize how big somebody was in your life, until you measure the space of their absence. And his is so much bigger than this thin, shabby chair.

  Once he opened up, Toby was that brother you’d confide in, and he’d drop everything and listen like nothing else mattered. He cared about people. When the twins first came, he gave them his slop, because they’d eaten theirs and wanted more. Who knows how long they’d been without food? They were begging for snotty slop, so they must’ve been starving. Toby had no second thoughts about it. He was thoughtful, generous, unfailing . . . but haunted.

  “You okay?” Jax asks. “You’re quiet.”

  I stab my cold slop with my spoon. “Don’t feel much like talking.”

  Jax leans closer. His breath tickles my ear. “Tonight.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  He eyes our snoring, good-for-nothing night guard. “I signaled. As long as he gets his, you know?”

  Humphrey, the man who can be coerced with a jigger full of washtub liquor.

  I sigh. Usually, I’m the instigator. But tonight, I’d rather fall asleep in my lumpy bed and never wake up.

  “Come on,” Jax says. “We need supplies.”

  He’s right. But his eyes also say he means to distract me from the pain of losing our brother today.

  “Okay.” I sigh again. “Let’s do it.”

  THREE

  After dinner, we file toward the Orphan Dorms, ushered by Emmanuel Superior wearing a purple satin gown and bright red lipstick, which has smeared across half of one front tooth. What a freak show. Platform shoes, paint-chipped beads, rancid perfume. A baby-smooth face and waxed sideburns. I wonder if he has any clue how completely idiotic he looks. He’s gotten much worse over the past few years, prancing around the Tree Factory like he’s queen of all the land and we’re his royal subjects. His emerald-green oxygen tank sits on six tiny wheels and follows him around like a slave. Long tubes from its spout insert directly into his mouth and nose, so he breathes fresh at all times.

  Emmanuel Superior—the main reason I lie in bed at night and fight to keep from crying.

  He once slapped me for helping a little boy who tripped over a piece of wire and landed on the floor. Sliced my face right open with his sharp purple fingernail. I still have a scar.

  “He’ll never become a man with little girls babying him!” He spat rot in my face with each word.

  How would you know anything about becoming a man? I thought, blood rolling down my cheek. I expected to die within a week from infection, but I didn’t have to defend myself. My daddy did. And I wish he hadn’t.

  Emmanuel Superior never looks me in the eye for more than a second or two. He knows I’ll trace his matching scar with my eyes. From the corner of his thin upper lip to the crest of his cheekbone, my stare will scream at it in the silence. He covers it with so much caked-on makeup it’s hardly visible, but it doesn’t matter. I have it memorized, along with the rage on my daddy’s face the moment he gave it to him . . . the moment he chose to die for me.

  With a corkscrew from his satin robe pocket, Emmanuel stabbed him—Zephyr the Magnificent, Greenleigh’s only living magic—three times in the chest. And he laughed.

  I shrieked as my daddy’s dying body was ripped from me, taken by Arianna Superior, like all of the injured and dying men and women before him, like my mother. Still, in my panic, I knew I had to act fast. It wouldn’t be long before they cleared out our quarters and sent me to the Orphan Dorms. So I raced there and stuffed a few things away—his old boots; a pack of playing cards missing an Ace of Spades; a worn-out, faded book of magic tricks full of scratched notes in his handwriting—into the empty bag he usually kept his magician stuff in. Someone had stolen its contents from our room before I got there.

  Now, Emmanuel Superior counts us—sixteen girls and twenty-three boys—then takes Jax by the ear. “One of you is missing,” he snarls. A fake eyelash hangs loose from his eyelid. “Who is it, and where is he?”

  Mona Superior, of course, didn’t bother to tell him about Toby.

  “It’s Toby, sir,” Jax repli
es, unfazed by the intimidation. “He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Emmanuel Superior releases Jax and smoothes down his satin robe. “How?” He adjusts the bra strap peeking out from under his lapel.

  Jax stands motionless. “He went outside today,” he answers, and for a second, I sense fear in Emmanuel Superior’s beady black eyes. Hard to tell, though, with all of that turquoise eye makeup. But it’s gone with a deep inhale into his nose tubes. He brushes a brown wave of hair from his face like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever done in his life. “Hm. Just as well, he was worthless anyway. Off to sleep, all of you. We have a large shipment of materials early in the morning. You’ll need to be in tip-top shape at six a.m.”

  With fire in me, I lead my girls into our room, and he shuts the door with a bang. Seconds later, the boys’ door slams closed next to us. The girls huddle in their usual groups to chatter, and I go to the hole in the wall and unscrew the tack. Jax is already waiting there, leaning against the wall, straight black hair tucked behind his ears.

  “What an ass,” he says. “Don’t let what he says get to you. You know that’s what he’s doing.”

  “I know, I’m trying not to.”

  “Good. So, after storytime, we leave. Square?” I guess he sees my sadness. He comes nearer and puts two fingers on the lip of the hole. I link mine with his. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “I know it’ll be hard, but you have to. For them. They’re upset enough already.” He nods toward the younger boys behind him.

  “I know,” I whisper back, breathe deep, and prepare to act strong, even if I don’t feel it. “Anyone who wants to hear tonight’s story,” I announce, “must first hose down, brush, and use the toilet. Once everyone’s ready, I’ll begin.”

  We have to be stern with the rules, otherwise things would be all finfannery and crockus—nothing would be in order.

  All at once, thirty-something sets of feet thunder across the two rooms as children scramble for the wash areas. Aby’s on spray duty tonight; she’ll hose down all the littlest ones while they wash. Once they’re finished, the olders will go, two at a time, holding the hose for one other. Hygiene is very important; if you develop something that was preventable, like a cavity or an infection . . . it’s not your day.