3.1

  She found their group in the yards. The sun had risen to the middle of the sky, casting harsh shadows beneath everything. A gentle breeze whispered in the grass. Bob-cut lady trailed behind the hound, while 4312 and his crew surrounded it in a mocking procession, shouting, jeering, all bluster and popped collars. They each took turns jumping in front of the machine's path and skipping away at the last moment. 4312 himself, with his bald head gleaming, bent in front of the dog's eye and shoved two hard boiled eggs in his mouth, chewing and smacking as loud as he could. Chunks of yolk and egg-white spilled from between his teeth. The robot merely continued without slowing. None of them dared truly impede its path.

  "Cheers!" 4312 shouted, his gravelly voice slurred and stunted. He raised an invisible glass into the air. "Cheers for 4347!"

  "Cheers!" his entourage raised theirs. "For 4347!"

  A bashful smile rose on bob-cut lady's lips. A man in the group spotted 4610 and elbowed 4312 in the side, pointing. 4312 turned. He spread open a pair of welcoming arms and beamed. His bulging eyes betrayed a derangement which made 4610 step back.

  "It's you!" he said, "O' forest and ravine of our expansive pasture!"

  The words chilled 4610. He knew. This wasn't a random play on words. But how had he alluded to it without being shocked? Perhaps It didn't consider what he said as a form of address? Though she was confident that would change were he to ever repeat it.

  "Before you get mad," he continued, "I never set foot in the women's bathrooms. My boy 4347 did. She wanted to tag every stall in the ladies' room all on her own! Now ain't that loyalty?"

  Everyone cheered again, "4347!".

  "So please," he continued, "don't complain about a little vandalism, okay? The robots'll clean it up real soon and it'll sparkle like brand new from the factory."

  4610 blinked. Every stall? She hadn't checked any of the others—she'd bolted after bob-cut the moment she saw hers. But if they had tagged them all, hers wasn't singled out. They hid her secret behind a broad facade of defacement. And maybe, they never planned to reveal it at all.

  No. Her jaw clenched. She couldn't trust him. There was a sharpness behind his wild eyes. He'd thrown one of his boys into penance just to summon her. 4610's instincts screamed: he was setting her up.

  And yet, she stayed. He hinted at her name via euphemism. He and 4347 were the only people in this world, other than her, to know. This gang had never shown It any respect. Maybe they really did intend to keep it to themselves.

  4610's hand gripped her jumpsuit by the chest. Her mother's voice echoed in her memories. 'Forestine.' A name destined to be unknown, wiped away the moment 4610 followed her mom into the Joining. But he knew.

  4610 shook her head. *I should just leave.*

  She took another step back. He looked like trouble—was trouble. The questions she had meant to ask him dissolved on her tongue, and she would have never dared face him anyway. The smart thing to do was to leave and let them continue with their havoc without her. And yet, he had acknowledged her. Saw her as more than a number. And even against her best judgment, that was enough to pull her in.

  She licked her lips. "Walls don't come from factories."

  A weird line to say—but it left her lips before she could stop it.

  4312 howled with laughter. "They sure don't!"

  He gestured for her to follow their group, receding at a leisurely pace. Mere vandalism received light punishment.

  "Say, girl," his tone turned a little more serious, but still wild. "You wanna talk about 4003?"

  The breath caught in 4610's lungs. Her mom? Why would he bring her up? Her mother was good judge of character, at least 5 years older than him. They shouldn't have known each other well at all. But her mention perked 4610's ears. And he grabbed her by them with his next words.

  "Or maybe," he said, walking backward with the gang, "you wanna talk about that thing you saw? The one that made you think the Joining is a lie."

  4610 froze.

  "Funny story," he continued, grinning like a hyena. "I saw it too."

  3.2

  4610's eyes flicked between the different people they passed by. The machine led her and 4312's 'boys' down a route as public as possible—curving on a dime towards groups moving between the buildings or the windows of occupied classrooms. Most people averted their eyes when the gang passed but some stared. The robot's gray foot pads stained green with the grass it crushed in its wake.

  The boys kept heckling it all the while, growing louder and rowdier whenever they were in the presence of eyes. 4610 would have understood if It paraded only bob-cut lady, the soon to be penitent, but these hooligans exhibited such irreverence that it made no sense. They weren't the ones humiliated. It almost felt like the dog followed a routine, and It wasn't looking. But that couldn't have been the case.

  The great wall in the distance grew closer above the roofs. The population thinned. The shouts and jeers directed at the robot now reverberated in alleys between ornate buildings both clean and devoid of life. They hadn't stopped the whole time. And It did nothing. Was it just because their actions broke no rules? Were she in the dog's place, she would have been at her wits end. Was It not annoyed?

  She had never tested Its borders to this extent, and witnessing it firsthand from within their midst made the air she breathed somehow taste fresher. Feel lighter. She filled her lungs to the brim.

  "And here," 4312 pointed at the stone wall of an ornate building they passed by, "here I slammed my head against the window sill just to see It's reaction." The window sill gleamed under the sun.

  "How did it end?" 4610 said. She knew the answer, of course, but couldn't believe they were about this like it was nothing.

  "Penance," he shrugged. "Such a stupid word. Wouldn't have returned there so many times if I repented."

  4610 let a huff of air escape her nose. Then she froze up and fixed her gaze on the dog.

  "Relax," 4312 said. "You can laugh. Heck, you can even curse, and I bet you want to!" He looked up. "'Cause It's a huge cunt, isn't it?!"

  4610's eyes bulged, but nothing happened. 4312's neck didn't spasm. The hound didn't turn. Only the omnipresent cameras followed them with every step.

  "Do you think, maybe, It's not listening?" 4610's voice was timid.

  "Nah," 4312 said. "It's listening. Or not. What do I know? But I like to think It's listening, 'cause then It can hear me call It a CUNT!"

  He shouted again, and 4610 flinched. The group began to mimic him with their own loud cursing, followed by roaring laughter. 4312 went to slap 4610's back, but a deft step slid her out of reach. She finally dared a glare and said, "no touching."

  Not from him, not from 4517, not from anyone. The only exception was no longer there.

  "That's a good look," 4312 said. "But listen. Didn't you come with me to talk about something?"

  4610 shrunk a little. *Ah, yes. The thing.*

  The laughter bouncing off the walls became muffled, and her mouth dried. She swallowed nevertheless.

  The incinerator.

  She did not remember how old she'd been, but she had barely reached her mom's waist. Most other memories from that time had long blurred or smudged with others, but this one remained sharp. Ingrained. The pair of legs upon an automaton stretcher, vanishing behind closing doors. The rows upon rows of feet under tarp she'd glimpsed before the door shut, and the blaze of hellfire behind them. It had seared her skin even from a distance.

  And when she'd witnessed it, It gave her one order. 'You will never reveal this.'

  Only later did she grasp the implication that all of their preparations for the Joining was for naught.

  They simply died, and It burned their corpses.

  "Yes," 4610 nodded. "I did want to talk about it."

  She wasn't revealing anything. 4312 already knew. He understood her, he knew her name, and sharing these secrets with someone lit a spark inside her chest. But she had to ask one question before she said anything else.

  "How do we know we're talking about the same thing?"

  4312 shrugged. "Maybe we are, maybe we aren't. But does it really matter? It's all bullshit anyway, who cares if it's one pile or two?"

  4610 blinked. "What do you mean, bullshit? I know what I saw." She felt it on her flesh and it had seared itself onto her memory.

  "Yes, yes, I'm sure it was all very real," 4312 waved his hand, then slapped it on his thighs and held it there as if he had pockets. "But that's not what I'm asking. Come on, you're a smart girl. Did you never question why you saw it in the first place?"

  At first, 4610's brows furrowed. Where did all this come from? She saw it because it was there. But as the bald ruffian watched her out of the corners of his bulging eyes, his head reflecting the light, it hit her. The question wasn't what she'd seen, or why she'd seen it, but rather: why had It shown it to her? It all fell into place. The rest of the group erupted in yet another loud cheer for bob-cut.

  She was so small back then, and couldn't remember how she had found the place, nor how she had returned. She'd questioned everything It did ever since, but not that. Did she really believe it was an accident? An oopsie, slipped by an It that had veiled every odd choice throughout her entire life with deliberate purpose. A mistake from which she, a stupid little girl who could do nothing, got a fleeting upper hand.

  Her lips parted, and her hand pressed over her mouth. It was not.

  "There we go," 4312 drawled, wearing a smug smile. "I knew you were clever. That trick? All of your doubting? I had my eye on you since the day you shouted at that blonde girl that she was both deaf and dumb by choice."

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Reeling from the revelation, 4610's steps turned unsteady, and she had to stop. This one thought wove through everything she knew and spun it all into a tangled mess. She had doubted everything by It, but her own eyes grounded her, gave her something to grip. Yet now, even her eyes could not be trusted. She had been led blind by the leash just like everybody else, and not a single thing she knew could ever be trusted.

  "Hey now," 4312 bent over and put a hand on her back to stabilize her wavering body. She didn't notice. "Don't think about it too hard. If you get lost in your own head, it'd be hell to come out. Trust me. Here, look up," he cupped her chin and turned it to the sky. She didn't resist. "There's the sky. It's blue and beautiful and real, whether within the walls or outside. Plenty of things are. Just take a breath."

  "How do you know?" her question came as a quivering brush of air.

  "Well, I suppose I don't," 4312 straightened back up. "But it's a hunch. You live long enough, you learn It isn't all that creative."

  "That's far fetched, with everything I just learned..." 4610 whispered.

  "And you're neither the first, nor last," 4312 gave 4610 a little nudge. "Come on, let's keep going. The boys're getting away."

  3.3

  Despite the rowdiness of their group, 4610 marched in a bubble of silence. She mulled over 4312's revelation, staring at the sky. But no matter how hard she thought about why It had crafted her childhood scenario, she found no answer. Her greasy hair swayed with each step.

  "Swallowed your tongue?" 4312 said.

  4610 didn't respond.

  "It's fine," he continued, "you're just a kid. I figured it out about a year after I got my beige jumpsuit, and even then it took me weeks to come to terms. Though, maybe all the electric shocks made it harder." He laughed.

  Quiet. Among the laughter and the noise, 4610 heard only her own breath.

  "You wanna know what I think?" 4312 said, and she looked at him. He grinned. "First of all, I think the Joining's real. It puts all that effort to fatten our brains up—you really think that's for nothing?"

  4610 shook her head. "Not anymore."

  Of course, it made no sense. She was stupid and understood nothing, so it was a given she was wrong about that, as well. How else would he show her how blind she was? Did she want to know?

  "Look around," 4312 said, and 4610 did.

  The empty, ornate buildings from before gave way to windowless blocks and concrete silos. Gates of steel blinds dotted each building like storage houses. A couple of metal antennae peeked out from above, and the entire area was devoid of anything. Anyone. Not even a dog—with the exception of their guide. Only the cameras on every corner, and wide fields of trimmed grass.

  "You see anyone here?" 4312 said.

  4610 shook her head.

  "Right," 4312 said. "It's not forbidden to come here. In fact, anyone could choose to walk all the way from one end of our pasture's wall to the other, touching the concrete keeping them confined with their own hands, and nothing would happen. So why is it so empty?"

  4610 gave the question some thought—4312's words had earned it.

  "Because they're like me," she said, "they're scared to skirt the line. Even if it's allowed."

  "That's right!" 4312 barked. "They're cowards! They're scared not just of punishment, but testing their freedom, too!"

  4610 winced, and 4312 continued. "And you? Why are you here?"

  She chewed on her lip. "Because I followed you?"

  "Or maybe," he said, leaning in, "you saw a door crack open, and slipped through." He gestured to the boys. "How many people do you think followed us, at any point, for any reason?"

  She glanced at the rest of the group, counting their number for the first time. Twenty. 4312's grin widened.

  "Okay," she said. "What's your point?"

  "My point is that today we're twenty one, and that each of my boys has some reason to doubt It."

  The hidden implications behind 4312's words tugged her thoughts out of their disorganized mess, but they remained jumbled. Still, she listened with rapt attention. On the verge of realizing something. It was almost like class.

  "The Joining is the melding of minds," 4312 said, and 4610 nodded. Everyone knew they ascended to live in Its paradise along with their predecessors and It. "And so far, It has raised us to fit Its tastes. So I think, It does not want a paradise filled with timid mice."

  4610's gaze snapped to 4312's eye, wide open and sharp, and he stared back into her.

  "I think It wants some people to be paranoid. Suspicious. Maybe even rebellious or hateful, or all these things and ten more. But It wants some of us to be different—to think unlike the others, and act in ways that defy subservience." He stole a glance at the machine hound. "To a degree."

  That made strange sense, and 4610 almost bought it, but caught herself in an instant and began to doubt—because It had allowed this to happen, too. 4312 must have seen through her, as he shook his head and chuckled.

  "I told you, don't get lost in your own head. You have to start from somewhere, or you'll get nowhere."

  4610 offered a reserved nod, but remained skeptic. "Why would it do that?"

  "Don't know," 4312 kicked the grass of a lawn they were crossing.

  The headed in a diagonal across a wide, expansive courtyard devoid of pavements or trees. The great wall was straight ahead, in clear view, towering like a monolith of white marble. She had never seen it so up close. It was as pristine here as from the view in her dorms.

  "Those are the repentance chambers," 4312 pointed to the middle of the wall, where a line of gleaming glass shone high up. Windows.

  "We overlook our beautiful pasture while It shocks us and injects us with medications, condemning us all the while through our implants. It's brutal. But then it eases up. Urges us to reflect on our mistakes, promises our return to the beds in our cramped dorms and the meager rations." He tapped his stomach, muscles covered in a layer of fat. "After my first penance, I began stealing food from others. It doesn't feed you in there. And I knew I'd be back."

  4610 frowned. "You wanted to return?"

  "Don't be stupid," he said. "I just didn't want to stop doing what got me there."

  That made sense. He didn't enjoy the punishment, he just did what he wanted, despite knowing what waited for him each time. Could she, too, act with the freedom he did? And if she could, what would she do?

  "What do you feel," she asked, "when you do something your heart demands, even when It forbids it?"

  A sneer spread across 4312's face. "Disdain."

  They arrived at a wide open ring of lawn, stretching from side to side, encircling the entire facility. A buffer of green between the unyielding wall of white concrete and the world it fenced within. A gate stood out amidst the impenetrable fortification—a see-through arch of mere metal bars. It showed the view of a forest, wild and tangled. With roots to stumble upon. Bushes with thorns. Unknown berries. Nothing outside was trimmed, nothing perfect. Only the raw, unrestrained chaos of natural life.

  She froze in her tracks. 4312 stopped with her.

  The wilderness crawled up her chest like a snaking vine and gripped her heart in a vice hold. She gulped so hard it hurt.

  She could have called 4003 'mother' out there. Maybe. Yet this, too, was shown to them only by Its design.

  4312 circled around to face her. His boots rustled in the grass.

  "Like I said, there's a whole lot that's real."

  He dropped to his haunches, eye-level with her for the first time.

  "So. How do you feel about me and the boys? Wanna join us?"

  He brought his fingers to her collar and brushed it. She flinched, but let him. Didn't step away. She looked at his large hands, hairy and thick knuckled. At the boisterous boys ahead, their faces red with cheers and jeers. They did things she had never dared. Spat in Its with more than words, even when it meant pain. A few hours ago, she would never have even considered the option. But something cracked inside her during this short walk, and somehow, she stood just a little bit taller. A little firmer.

  "Yes," she said. "I want to."

  4312 gave her a smile far too soft for someone so unhinged, and popped her collar up to her hears. One of the boys ahead saw it and nudged another, who nudged a third. They turned, eyes on her, and began to return.

  4312 rose back up. "You're a good kid. 4003 did well."

  4610's ears flooded with warmth. Her chest squeezed.

  "Can you tell me something about her?" she asked, voice hopeful and sheepish. "Something I never knew?"

  4312 scratched his cheek. "Not much to say. Over the years, we had several... altercations. She wouldn't let me steal her food, I'd still try—you know how it is. She was a tough nut. Then she had you, and we reached an understanding."

  "What kind of understanding?" 4610 looked up at him.

  4312 clapped 4610's shoulder with a hand like a stone slab, causing her to stagger.

  "The understanding that she'd gut me with the plastic cutlery if I ever bothered her again!" He roared with laughter. His mouth stretched wide in a full toothed grin, with words etched on his front top and bottom teeth: 'HOPE' / 'LESS'.

  "She is a terrifying woman," he said. "I respect that."

  "Was," 4610 whispered.

  4312's smile dropped. He looked behind her, back at the campus. "You two were close, all the way up to her Joining. Thirty years lets you see a lot of things."

  He paused.

  "Did she ever tell you about how there's an escape attempt once every generation?" He looked her in the eye, the unhinged flippancy replaced with quiet steel.

  Silence. The wind. Her heartbeat in her ears.

  "They all fail," he said. "But I think it can be done."