Page 122 of A Better World

“But what if you were wrong?” Hip asked.

“Mom’s not dumb.”

“You’d think if she really wanted to take this place down because she thought it was corrupt, she’d have been more subtle,” Hip said.

Josie let out a soft laugh, had a hard time talking without laughing: “She’s, like, the noisy spy.”

“The awkward avenger.”

They were both laughing.

“Mom and Dad are both so crazy,” Josie said.

“I know,” Hip said. “I’d hate them, but I like them better than everybody else’s parents.”

“Yeah.”

They got quiet after that; everyone seemed ready to doze. All kinds of bombs had just been detonated, but Linda didn’t feel bad. She took pride that she’d done a good-enough job raising them that her children could openly talk about such things at fifteen, instead of trying to unknot them at thirty or forty, if ever.

If she got the chance, if they got out of here, she’d tell them she had no favorites. Tell Hip she was sorry and not to worry so much about her. Tell him that if she’d been pitying him, she hadn’t intended it. She’d stop. A lot of changes would happen, if they got out of this.

They were all close to sleep when Russell’s voice spoke clear in the dark. “I don’t hate any of you. I love you.”

The kids, probably shocked, pretended to be sleeping. Linda considered answering. Decided instead to let him have the last word.

Throughout the shelter, there was shifting in the night while the Farmer-Bowens slept. Soft whispers all through the barracks. Briefly, doors opened, then shut again.

DAY 3

When they woke the third morning, most of the bunks surrounding them, in the rooms surrounding them, were empty. Her heart, which had taken a respite, thumped hard again.

She, Russell, and the kids donned their robes and met the remainders for breakfast. She counted about five hundred.

“Where’d they go?” she asked Daniella and Lloyd, who were in front of them at the buffet.

“Last day’s only for people with golden tickets and their kids,” Daniella said.

“Oh! We should leave!” Linda said. “How do we get out?”

“Oh, no! With ActHollow, you’re part of this. It’s expected.”

Together and apart, all four tried again to find working exits. There were none.

The group of remainders gathered in the lecture hall. Since the big announcement on his successor, Parson had been sidelined, his chair wedged into a corner with Jack Lust at center stage. Now, Jack talked about scarcity. Global predictions indicated that there would not be enough food to feed 50 percent of the world population in another decade. The nuclear meltdown in New Mexico was no fluke, and while news reports had touted a remedy for radiation, they didn’t trust it to work.

“We’re not happy about the side effects of Omnium,” he said. “But we’ve done what we can to mitigate. With the patent’s expiration, BetterWorld’s likely to collapse under lawsuits. Caladrius should carry us through the next fifty years.

“These tunnels are equipped to support exactly 4,500 people. With new births and the necessity for fresh, bright minds, our resident numbers must be regularly culled. This year we expunged twenty-eight long-term residents, keeping us on track.”

Around them, the audience clapped in syncopation. Smiling for the first time she could remember, his grin utterly predatory, Jack waved his hands in false modesty for them to stop.

With fewer people, the party moved to the kitchen, where they served themselves dinner and ate all together. Keith Parson appeared, wearing his crown and eating with Anouk and her father. Grandson and grandfather looked alike. “They could be twins in a relativity experiment,” Linda said with a sick feeling in her stomach.

Russell squinted, and then his eyes widened in fresh alarm. “They could.”

Anouk, Daniella, and Rachel, with Kai’s help, were getting seconds at the salad bar when Linda bumped into them.

“Linda!” Anouk cried. “Did you hear? Daddy says I can go to the eugenics conference in Palo Alto this spring! He’s never let me before because he’s afraid I’ll get hurt. But he’s promised because Tania says she’ll join me. They’re having their annual convention on genetic purity versus its variability. Me and Keith are just diverse enough. We don’t have any trauma. We have hardly any trauma. Or if we have trauma, we’re protected. There’s a protective effect because of our strong genes. That’s why people like us never get sick. It’s also important not to swim in the river.”

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