Anomalies Read online

  Advance Praise for Anomalies

  “This book makes spirituality exciting and vibrant. I predict it will be so successful that we’ll all have to learn how to pronounce ‘anomaly’ correctly.”

  —Russell Brand, comedian, author, and actor

  “We get to see this unusual futuristic world through Keeva’s smart and unapologetic eyes. Anomalies is a whirlwind adventure with deep meaning. It has smart writing, engaging characters, and a plot which leaves you hanging on to every word.”

  —Max Beesley, actor and musician

  “The psychological goal for every teen is to resolve the separation process by emerging as adults with their own character, opinions, and belief systems. Anomalies explores the process of teenage separation from a new, fresh, engaging, and interesting perspective. A must-read for all teens and parents.”

  —Dr. Fran Walfish, PsyD, Beverly Hills child, adolescent,

  and family psychotherapist

  Author of The Self-Aware Parent

  “A fast-paced story which champions individuality and truth. Keeva is a compelling heroine who is relatable and strong.”

  —Pamela Anderson, actor, author, and activist

  “Anomalies leaves you thinking about human nature and what makes us who we are. Bravo.”

  —Jason Segel, actor, author, and producer

  “A fast-paced and compelling read which confirms we must fight for what makes us each special and unique.”

  —Randy Jackson, music producer and American Idol judge

  Anomalies

  Copyright © 2016 by Sadie Turner and Colette Freedman

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

  This edition published by SelectBooks, Inc. For information address SelectBooks, Inc., New York, New York.

  First Edition

  ISBN 978-1-59079-361-9

  eISBN: 978-1-59079-327-5

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Turner, Sadie, 1973- | Freedman, Colette.

  Title: Anomalies / Sadie Turner and Colette Freedman.

  Description: First edition. | New York : SelectBooks, Inc., [2016] |

  Summary:

  In the future where no disease, war, or discontent exists, and all citizens are complacent members of the Global Governance,

  fifteen-year-old

  Keeva discovers that nonconformity will be punished, dissent is not an option, and insurgents will be destroyed.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015023368 | ISBN 9781590793619 (pbk. book : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Science fiction. | Identity–Fiction. |

  Conformity–Fiction. | Individuality–Fiction. | Government, Resistance to–Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.T92 An 2016 | DDC [Fic]–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015023368

  Book design by Janice Benight

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This is for anyone who feels different.

  Who knows something isn’t quite right.

  This is for everyone who refuses to conform

  and needs to Scream it. Shout it.

  Shake it up. Twist it. Bend it, and shift the perspective.

  This is for those of you who skip when others are walking

  and who dive in while others are floating.

  For those that have the courage to be true to themselves

  no matter what.

  This is for the exceptional.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  1. I am spinning

  2. I am flying

  3. I am stunned

  4. I am a pariah

  5. I am nervous

  6. I am changing

  7. I am excited

  8. I am optimistic

  9. I am terrified

  10. I am running

  11. I am safe

  12. I am awake

  13. “I am Kenzie.”

  14. I am desperate

  15. I am thrilled

  16. I am overwhelmed

  17. I am confused

  18. I am conflicted

  19. I am awakened

  20. I am adjusting

  21. I am learning

  22. I am exhausted

  23. I am ready

  24. I am strong

  25. I am home

  26. I am angry

  27. I am determined

  28. I am confident

  29. I am myself

  Epilogue

  About the Authors

  Acknowledgments

  SADIE WOULD LIKE TO THANK

  Suzie for inspiring me every day,

  Robert for always believing in me,

  and Reagan, Todd, Stacy, Normandie, Randy, Russell,

  Andrew, Pam, Adam, Trina, Nicola,

  Stephen, Max, Clare, Sydney, Tania, Vin, Kaley, PK, Dorit,

  Cindy, Paul, John, Jeremy, Fritz, Jen, Finn, Oliver, Kevin,

  Akiva, Susie, Mum, and Dad for all the support, love,

  and encouragement along the way.

  COLETTE WOULD LIKE TO THANK

  Brooke, for changing my life and encouraging me

  to let my freak flag fly;

  Nickella, Anne-Marie, Adam, Ronnie and the cast of

  Serial Killer Barbie for reminding me how to have fun;

  and all of the Anomalies: Scout, David, Kelly, Zac, Dylan,

  William, Keb, Jade,

  Franny, Nessa, Maureen, Christian, Max, Doug, Diane, Rooney,

  Sean, Gillian, Jaret, Robyn,

  Rebecca, Elan, Adam, Diana, Kerry, Jen P., Devon, Deb G.,

  Emilie, Jackie, Tegan, Jhen

  Lynn, Lynne, Fred, Jen L., Agatha, Michael Scott,

  and Hannah Hope.

  And, of course, Mom and Dad for everything and more.

  So much more.

  Sadie and Colette would like to thank our beta readers,

  Fergus, Zachary, Max, David and Bob.

  Stuart for introducing us,

  Becky and Kate for believing in us, Savannah for our photos,

  our fabulous editors, Nancy and Yoji,

  and with gratitude to our agent, Bill, and our publisher, Kenzi.

  Prologue

  The screams pierce through the early morning ocean air. I don’t know if they belong to the baby or my mother, I just know that I have to get home. Immediately. I knew something was wrong the moment I got up that morning. I had one of my feelings. I shudder as I rub salty water away from my eyes. Mother isn’t scheduled to deliver my sister for several hours. I thought I would have time to get in an early swim.

  I thought wrong.

  The wails are deafening as I get out of the water and race up the shore. As I push open the wooden door of our home, the first thing I see is my mother. She is lying on a bed in a pool of blood. A stranger dressed in white with a large turban is closing her eyes. What is happening?

  “Mother!” I scream, my six-year-old voice shaking with fear and sadness.

  The stranger tries to hold me, but I pull away. My mother is dead. Her blond curls are matted around her head, giving her a disturbing angelic look. A tiny baby lies quietly on the bed next to her. My father, my rock, is broken on the floor next to my mother’s corpse. He is sobbing.

  “Mother,” my voice cracks. My life is over.

  “You must listen to your heart, Keeva,” the turbaned stranger warns, lowering his accented voice and forcing me to come
closer to hear him.

  “How do you know my name?”

  He doesn’t answer. Instead, he picks up the infant and slips into the back room.

  Moments later, there is a knock at the half-opened door. Two officials enter. They are dressed from head to toe in black, the uniform of the Global Governance. Protectors. Sobek Vesely’s men.

  “A citizen has been born,” the shorter man says. It is a statement rather than a question.

  “She’s dead,” I immediately say, unsure why I am lying. I know my responsibility as a citizen is to confirm the baby’s birth to these government officials so that they can record her in the census. Officials are always present at a child’s birth. It is the law. Their job is to insert a small crystallized dot, called a Third, containing data for the encrypted codes of our Global Governance, between the baby’s tiny eyebrows.

  A strong instinct is begging me to justify the lie. “Please, just let us grieve,” I implore, nodding to my wailing father.

  The men respectfully bow and leave, recording on their data tablets what has transpired. They have no reason to suspect I am lying. Citizens of the Global Governance don’t lie. It is not in our nature. There is no reason for me to lie.

  The turbaned man emerges from the back room. He hands me my baby sister. Her fingers are so tiny. So delicate. Her eyes are so bright. She looks just like my mother. For months, my mother and I had been talking about names for the baby. Now, my mother is dead. I digest the terrible reality and begin to cry. The stranger gently takes the baby from me, “You have sad eyes, Keeva. Sad eyes which will allow you to both observe the world and the truths within yourself.”

  I am in shock. I cannot digest what he is saying. I want my mother. I want my sister. I want everything to be fine and it never will be again.

  “Everything will be fine,” the stranger says kindly as if he can read my thoughts. “I am Harijiwan. I promise to protect her until you are ready. Be strong, Keeva.” He swathes the baby in white, as if she is part of his costume, and heads toward the door.

  “Her name is Sun,” I call out before turning to comfort my distraught father.

  I am spinning.

  Around and around, suspended from a vaulted ceiling, I am upside-down, watching the world turn around me. I close my eyes because I’m so dizzy and I call out for help, but no one is listening. There are grownups nearby, tall people in crisp black uniforms, laughing and ignoring my cries. They move fluidly, as if floating on air. I try to move my hands to stop myself from spinning, but they’re pressed to my sides and swathed in silk. It is as if I am in a cocoon. Terrified, I finally open my eyes, which immediately rest on him; I see them reflected in his bright blue eyes. Silently, his look encourages me to be strong. He will be there for me. He will protect me.

  And, although I can’t stop spinning, I know that I am safe.

  This has been a recurring nightmare throughout my life. At fifteen, I have the usual teenage bad dreams about falling or my teeth falling out, but the spinning nightmare is the most common. It is so real that it feels more like a memory, even though I can’t remember anything like that ever happening to me. In a way, it feels even more real than the memory of losing my baby sister and the turbaned man who took her from me.

  I know Sun is alive. Somewhere. Waiting for me. Sometimes I ask my father what happened to her, and he tells me she never existed. But I do have a sister. I know I do. Still, he never wants to talk about her so I don’t press him. I have pushed the memory of her deep into my subconscious, so my dreams are only filled with spinning … and the nameless, blue-eyed boy who once made me feel safe.

  Now, the only time I ever really feel safe is when I’m in the water. When I swim, I feel free. My mind is completely unfettered and the nightmares are distant memories. I swim before breakfast every day. It is a routine and I like routines.

  Diving through the ocean’s waves, I relish the feel of the cool, salty water as it drenches my skin. I can feel the morning sun breaking on my back as I swim parallel to the jagged shore. I take long, powerful strokes, enjoying my own strength and the solitude. At this hour, I am the only one out here. Soon, the ocean will be teeming with workers taking samples, children learning skills and fishers foraging for food. Right now, the ocean is my private pool and I’m loathe to get out.

  This will be my last ocean plunge for almost a month. I’m leaving for camp in a few hours. I take one last dive and open my eyes as I scan the clear water, silently saying goodbye to familiar underwater plants, bright coral reefs, and schools of colorful fish. I turn toward the shoreline and swim underwater until I get to the sand. There, I burst out of the ocean and race home, allowing the wind to dry my body. By the time I jump the three steps of the small beachfront cottage where my father and I live, I can already smell the eggs and toast wafting through the air.

  “Hurry Keeva, it’s just about to start,” my father warns.

  As I enter the house, I grab a thick towel from the rack near the door and wrap myself in the heavy material. My father loads up my plate and pours me a cup of caffeine. I inadvertently rub my pinky on my Third, a tiny opaque crystalline diamond pierced in the center of my forehead in between my eyebrows. I received it as a baby. Every citizen has one. The news is sent directly to the tiny dot on our forehead through a complex satellite system, which both feeds us important news and tracks us in order to protect us. As the report starts, I slide onto one of the two tall metal stools next to the kitchen counter. This is our morning routine and we eat in silence as the mediacaster intones on a hologram across the room.

  “Today, we begin another session of Monarch Camp and I am privileged to introduce the Leader of Global Governance, who would like to personally welcome you. Sobek Vesely.”

  The holo feed cuts from the mediacaster to our world leader. Sobek Vesely sits in a high-backed chair and looks directly into the camera.

  “Welcome, citizens.” His baritone voice immediately commands attention and I find myself mesmerized. In a clipped accent, he gives the world broadcast, announcing the opening of Monarch Camp’s Summer Solstice Session, a session that my friends and I will be attending.

  Unlike my muscular father, Johan, who is tanned from working in the sun every day of his life, Sobek Vesely’s skin is so white it’s almost translucent. His short-cropped brown hair accentuates his strong cheekbones and his black eyes are piercing. He is handsome, in an odd sort of way. Compelling. And extraordinarily tall. Even sitting down, his frame is barely contained on the holo projection.

  Sobek Vesely is responsible for bringing our world back from the brink of extinction. He is our leader and I respect and admire him. Unlike my grandparents’ generation, who lived in fear of war and disease and overpopulation and global warming, I live in a world without war. A perfect world where the citizens feel both secure and content. A world run by one united governance with no regional boundaries.

  “And I look forward to greeting each one of my future citizens in three weeks as you leave your childhood and officially enter the new world as fully realized citizens.” Our world leader finishes his brief welcome speech and the broadcast cuts to the local weather. Sunny and warm.

  It’s always sunny and warm in the Ocean Community.

  I finish my breakfast and swing my legs off the stool, practically falling into my father. I love my father, but I don’t understand him. Dr. Johan Tee is a marine biologist who spends all of his time consumed with his scientific experiments to keep the ocean clean. Personally, I don’t think he’s very happy. He wanted to be a surgeon, but instead he became a scientist. After the Great Technology War, he married my mother and moved to the ocean. I think his life is filled with regrets, as he spends more time talking about medicine than his work at the Desalination Plant. He is a man who has trouble expressing emotion, so when it comes time to say goodbye, he gives me the briefest of hugs. I cannot bear to abandon him, since I am his only family. I blink back tears, forcing my voice to sound casual as I quietly tell him that
I’ll be back in a few weeks.

  Upstairs, in my small attic room, I change into a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. I sit down at my desk and stare at a picture of my mother on my tablet. It was taken just before she died. She was very pregnant and I had my arms wrapped around her belly. I fight back tears, still upset that I never got to say goodbye to her. I shut down my tablet and put both it and my identity watch in the desk drawer. While our Thirds are used to monitor and protect us, our watches are ways that we communicate with each other. They hold holos and memories. They are our lifeline to our friends and family when we are not with them. Yet I cannot bring my watch or tablet with me.

  Electronics are not permitted at camp.

  There is not a day that goes by when I don’t miss my mother. I hope she is with my father’s parents now. They died after the war, not from the floods, but from the disease that followed. They were not alone. Practically everyone over the age of twenty who was not protected with a data chip perished. It was Sobek Vesely, then a young technology whiz working for one of the major corporations, whose company had manufactured and distributed the Thirds before the war. Because of the former government’s strict regulations, though, there were only enough data chips manufactured for unmarried citizens under twenty. When the war came, the Thirds helped ward off the disease that followed it. My parents were dating, but not married, so they received the chips. They were among the lucky ones.

  Because of the success of the Thirds, Sobek Vesely became an instant celebrity. His technology was critical to the future growth and survival of the remaining citizens. And while the old governments were collapsing, Sobek’s star was rising. He became indispensable. Every survivor demanded his input. And he delivered, using his crucial technology to unite the world under one leadership. His leadership. He agreed to fully integrate his technology in exchange for appointment as world leader. People were ready to follow and Sobek Vesely was primed to lead. The survivors were desperate, and Sobek Vesely was a hopeful option. He was both a popular and a promising young man with bright ideas and a clear vision for the future. Because people were dying by the tens of thousands, there was no time for elections, so Sobek Vesely was appointed world leader and created a one-world government.