H M Hoover Read online

  “There’s no law against it,” Amy said, puzzled by his use of “you” instead of “we.” Did he feel that isolated? “There’s no law—but if they know you have one, the authorities take it away. They say that books are old and dirty and a sanitary risk. They don’t like us to read. . .”

  “Yeah.”’ Axel’s expression was funny again. “I noticed.”

  “Can you read?”

  “Do you have books?”

  “Not any more.” She turned and sat down on the lower bunk and pretended to brush something off her toes. Then she brushed her hair away from her eyes. The question reminded her of a bad time in her life, a time she didn’t like to think about when anybody else was around because she might cry.

  Until Amy had been eight years old, she and Valory had shared their apartment with an old woman named Janet. It had been Janet’s apartment before the authorities forced her to share it. The old woman had cared for Amy and in doing so secretly taught the girl to read and write. Hidden in the litter she had accumulated in her life was her only precious possession, a book. It was a partial copy, dirty and battered, of an ancient, one-volume children’s encyclopedia. But for Amy, Janet and that old book opened windows on a world neither had ever seen and which Janet warned might not even exist any more. “But it’s nice to think about.” When she died, Janet promised, the book would be Amy’s, but only if Amy promised that when she grew up she would teach

  another child to read and write. Amy had promised.

  But Janet died one day while Amy was at the learning center, and the girl came home to find both the old woman and her possessions gone. The loss had left an emptiness in Amy’s life that nothing seemed to fill.

  “If I tell you something, promise you won’t tell anyone?” Axel said.

  Amy hesitated; she no longer made promises lightly. “If it’s dangerous, I don’t want to know.”

  “It’s not, because no one believes me. They think it just proves I’m psycho. But it’s true. Can I tell you?” When she still didn’t say yes, he added, “It explains how I know about rain.”

  “How?”

  “Because I come from outside.”

  It wasn’t the answer she expected. And yet, while her mouth fell open with shock, she believed him. It was weird, but if true, it might explain a lot of things about him—all the things he didn’t know, the stupid questions he asked, his fear of things that sane people took for granted. But it was impossible—or was it? She wanted to believe, if only for the hope belief offered.

  “What does the city look like from the outside?”

  “I don’t know. I—” He saw her expression and hurried to say, “I came in on the freight belt—in a vegetable bin. I didn’t see anything—”

  “What’s fratebelt?”

  “It’s how the city gets its food and dumps its garbage—”

  “I never heard of it,” she said firmly. “If you got in, why didn’t you go back out again?”

  “I tried!” He was suddenly very close to tears, staring at the wall but seeing something else. His body twisted on the stool. “I hunted and hunted and I couldn’t find the way back! It’s

  all dark tunnels and ramps and machinery! And it’s hot and stinks so bad! I was scared and lost, and men chased me—”

  Every city child grew up hearing bogeymen stories about the people who roamed the service levels down below.

  “Did they have pasty skin and long white hair and fangs and fingernails like claws?” Amy wanted to know.

  “No.” Her question startled the boy out of his memory. “They’re filthy dirty, and they’ve got sores all over, and—” He shut his eyes and shook his head until his fine hair whipped around his face. “I’m not going to think about them any more.”

  “O.K.“ Amy sighed with disappointment; he had just described an average crazy. She’d always enjoyed those terrible stories. Yet the fact that Axel didn’t confirm them strengthened his claim. If he’d never been down there, she decided, he would have agreed with her story just to please her. “Why don’t you tell me about outside and why you wanted to come here?”

  “I never wanted to come! It was an accident. We were exploring down by the freight tracks, Ty and Margo and me. We aren’t supposed to play down there because of all the equipment. . . but we found a hole in the fence big enough to squeeze through and so we did. We were looking around . , . there wasn’t much to see—just row after row of empty bins standing on the shuntways—only one track moves at a time,” he added by way of explanation for Amy’s benefit.

  Amy had no idea what he was talking about. She had never seen anything like this and couldn’t picture what it looked like. But Axel looked better now that he was talking. She’d never heard him talk much. “Who are Ty and Margo?” she asked.

  “Friends. They live where I used to live.” He took a deep breath. “So, anyhow, we were exploring, and one of the

  shuntways came on, and the bins started to move down to the terminal for loading. And Ty and Margo got scared because the bin carriers are so big and look like they move by themselves. If you got in front of one of them they’d mash you like a potato. So they wanted to leave, and we started back toward the hole in the fence, but the moving line cut off the way we had come in and we had to detour up and over another line. When I got to the top of the bin I was climbing, the view was pretty good—I could see all over the yard—and I stood up there looking around while the other two climbed down. Then, just to see if I could do it, I jumped to the next bin. I must have hit some switch when I landed because the bin lid tipped up and I fell in like a lettuce. I remember looking up and seeing the lid shut out the sky, and then my head hit the wall.”

  “Then what happened?”

  He reached up with both hands and felt his head. “This.” The boy’s hair hid a nasty red scar that zigzagged from behind his left ear to the top of his head. “I’ve never seen it, but it still hurts when I press it or they cut my hair.”

  Amy made sympathetic noises. “The medic did a stinking job,” she said. “I never saw a scar that bad.”

  “Wasn’t the medic’s fault.” Axel pushed his hair back in place and scratched an itch on his neck. “When I woke it was dark and I was buried under cabbages and the bin was moving.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing—except decide I was going to die. The cabbages were so heavy I couldn’t move. It was hard to breathe—I hurt all over—except I couldn’t feel a lot of me. I tried to sleep but I was too cold. The next thing I remember was falling again. I thought I was dreaming it over—” He shivered and rubbed his arms.

  “The bin had come into the warehouse here and dumped its load. I was on the bottom so I tumbled out on top. When I could see, I crawled off the cabbages and onto a walkway. I didn’t know where I was, and I called for help but nobody came. It’s all automatic. So I just kept walking and falling down and going through every door I found, trying to get outside or find people—and then I was sorry I found them—”

  He fell silent for a moment. “They took my clothes and my shoes . . . the one who took my shoes must have felt guilty or something because he went away and then came back and dragged me to a ramp and pressed an alarm and ran. I would have run too, but I couldn’t move any more.” “And the authorities came and took you to the hospital?” He nodded.

  “And they didn’t believe you?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody listened. When someone did finally—the man who changed the bandage on my head—he just laughed and said he didn’t blame me for making up a story like that after how the crazies beat me up—he’d make up a story too if he was simple enough to go down there. And when I said it was true, he quit laughing and played my hospital record and told me that was the truth and I should remember it.”

  “What did it say?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. ...” His voice dropped to nothing as he confessed. “That I was a crazy. Every time I told them how I got here they gave me something that made me sle
ep. Finally I quit trying and just said, yes, they were right. I got tired of sleeping.”

  “And they sent you to the youth shelter?”

  Again came the quick nod. “Is it a crime to not come from the city?” he asked.

  Amy thought that over. “Everybody does,” she said finally. “Well, is it a crime to want to get out?”

  “I think so. They say there’s nothing outside any more, and the air is too polluted to breathe—”

  “They told me that too, but its not true—maybe it was a long time ago, but people live outside. There are three hundred people in Mercer, the town I come from, and—” The door slid open to reveal a small, plump woman dressed in beige fatigues. Her face, almost bovinely placid, did not change when she saw Axel. “Are you here by authority?” she asked Axel.

  “No ...”

  “I invited him. He’s a friend from—”

  “You are in my space. Get out!” The woman stepped aside and pointed out the door.

  Without a glance at Amy, the boy left, dodging past the adult as if he expected to be hit.

  3

  The woman’s eyes followed the boy, but she made no move until the door closed behind him. Then, like an animal who has successfully routed an intruder from its burrow, she grunted and put the food canister she carried into the freezer.

  “Did he drink water or flush the sanit?” She did not look at Amy.

  “No. We just talked.”

  “He didn’t use water?”

  “No.”

  “Water costs. Waste costs.”

  “I know.” Amy had heard this litany too often to listen

  now, when her mind was busy with Axel’s story. She was considering going after him. But that would be pointless. It was shift change; the halls would be jammed with people. Even if she went up to the shelter on level twelve, there wouldn’t by any place where they could talk privately.

  “Why did you let him in?” The woman persisted.

  “We were talking. I thought it would be O.K.”

  Amy did not resent these questions. All the adults she knew were very possessive of their private space; Valory was no different. People were like that when they got older. “Don’t do it again.”

  “Can’t we even talk in here?”

  “No.” Valory turned on the vu-screen. “It’s time for my meditation show. You go out.”

  On the screen a circle of pale blue light glowed, its roundness distorted by the crack. The circle faded. A cartoon character, an androgynous knob-headed little person, filled the screen. “I lose my Self in my work,” it said. “My work sets me free. My work makes me important. I do the best I can.” Its little mouth smiled. “When I work I do not see or hear those around me. They are working, too.” The little body took itself to an assembly line where other little characters smiled as they worked.

  Valory smiled too, so absorbed in the screen that her eyes never left it as she stepped out of her thongs and stretched out on the lower bunk. She lay there watching, her lips moving as the cartoon characters spoke. There was something in the woman’s expression that reminded Amy of Axel when he hugged himself and rocked. The woman saw her watching and said, “Go out. I can’t think if you’re here.”

  “I buy things because buying makes me happy.” The knob-head smiled. “Things never disappoint. Only people disappoint.” Valory nodded silent agreement.

  Amy had seen this show a dozen times and thought it was simple enough to bore a roach. But she never said so because it was a very popular show and everybody loved it. “You’re not normal enough to appreciate it,” Valory had said once when Amy asked her why people watched it. “That old woman spoiled your mind. It’s not your fault, but don’t say stupid things like that in public. You make me look bad.” Since then Amy had kept her opinions to herself. It didn’t pay to let people know you didn’t think the way they did.

  She went out, intending to sit outside the door, as she always did when The Show was on. But when she got outside, Axel was sitting on the floor at the end of the hall.

  “I thought you left,” she said, glad to see him.

  “No ... I hoped you’d come out. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

  “You didn’t.” Amy kicked two roaches out of the way and sat down beside him.

  “I hate those things!”

  “Roaches? Me, too. But they’re all over—they’re very old insects—almost the oldest there are. That’s because they’re good mothers and choose a warm dry nest and take care of their babies until the babies can find food themselves.” She grinned at him. “Of course baby roaches grow up fast.”

  “Is that true?”

  She nodded. “I read that. Tell me about outside now.” “For one thing, we don’t have all these roaches . . . and . . .’’He looked sideways at her, then at the floor, then stared at the opposite wall. “I don’t know where to begin. It’s a lot different from this.”

  “Start anywhere.” His hesitation aroused her doubts again, and she crossed her fingers in the hope that his whole story so far had not been a lie. For if it was true, then Janet had been right and there was another way to live—

  “It's sunny,” he began hesitantly, “most days anyhow. And the land is flat where we live—but we can see the hills. And unless the machines are working the fields near town, it’s very quiet—you can hear crickets and the dogs barking at night—”

  “What’s dogs?” Amy interrupted. She wasn’t sure what sunny or crickets meant either but didn’t want to look completely ignorant.

  “There’s grass—all kinds of plants and trees—” He stopped and stared at her. “Dogs?” he repeated. “Just plain dogs— four-legged animals with fur and tails—”

  “Like rats?”

  “Bigger—you never saw a dog?”

  She shook her head. An occupant passed on his way home, and they fell silent until his apartment door closed.

  “How about a cat?”

  “Is that an animal too?” she asked and saw a bewildered expression come over him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing—you’re not going to understand a lot of what I tell you. And then you’ll think I’m making it all up.”

  “No, I won’t! Go on—try me.” '

  Axel took a deep breath; he seemed discouraged by her ignorance and a little contemptuous. She rather resented that—how did he think people felt sometimes when he asked the questions he asked?

  “We raise chickens—you know what a chicken is? You should—we ship zillions of them to the city—all ready to eat”—he paused to think—“but I never tasted chicken here. Just that slop they call chic-tex.”

  “That’s good stuff!” Amy said. “It’s the best food the lab makes.”

  Axel made a face. “You think that’s good? It’s yeast and soybeans they make taste like rotten chicken. Not real meat

  at all.” He shifted into lotus position and flicked a bug off his knee. “Where does the good food go once it comes into the city?”

  “People eat it?” suggested Amy, who had always thought

  all food came from the food labs like the one where her

  mother worked.

  “I've been here a long time—months maybe,” Axel said. “I haven't tasted real food in all that time—except cabbage cooked with no salt. But all we do is raise food and ship it

  into the city. Where does it go?”

  “Maybe it gets lost in the lower levels—like you did?” said Amy. “Or the people down there eat it—”

  “Or maybe it all goes to the eightieth level?”

  “That's just a story.” Amy was tired of being sidetracked on this subject. “Tell me about outside—forget about food,” she ordered, but what he suggested stuck in her mind. Maybe her mother would know.

  In the passageway across from them the sleeping man groaned, then rolled over and curled into fetal position. He was so thin his bones seemed to stick through his skin.

  “Can he hear us?” asked Axel, worried. “He looks li
ke he moved closer.”

  “No. We're talking low, and the fans cover it,” Amy said. “Besides, he's crazy anyhow. Go on, tell me about outside.” Axel told her as much as he could about the world he claimed to be his. Much of what he said made no sense to her, but what she did grasp confirmed all Janet had suspected—there was still a place that was not city!

  As she listened, what had been a daydream became an ambition. If such a place existed, she was going to go there. How she was to go about it was something she would figure out later.

  According to Axel, almost everyone lived in cities; a lot of outside was something called deserted where nothing could live except a few plants. He hadn’t seen that part because he was in the freight tunnel in a bin, but he had heard about it. And some was ocean, like the level-eighty stories said. He’d never seen that either. Where he lived was called the green-belt. His people tended the equipment in the place where food was grown for the cities. She didn’t understand why or how they did this, but that didn’t matter.

  “Why do we all have to live in the city?” she wondered aloud.

  “I’m not sure, but maybe there wouldn’t be room enough outside to grow food if they let you out,” Axel replied. “These people take up a lot of space—and they’d get in the way of the machines probably. And they’re dirty—”

  “Only because water is so scarce.” Amy took that last remark personally. “I’d wash a lot more if I was allowed.” “There’s a lot of water outside.” The boy stretched out his arms and looked at them. They were dirty, but not half so dirty as his hands. “I don’t know why it’s scarce in here. I hate this place!” He wrapped his arms around himself and hunched over in misery. >

  “Is everything better outside?”

  He nodded. He seemed depressed.

  “Then let’s go there! I always wanted to go . . . well, not always, but for a long time. When I was little I wanted to walk up to the eightieth level—just keep climbing ramps until I got there. But I don’t believe in that story any more— not very much anyway.”

  “Why not?”