Page 21 of The Sin

What did that make every citizen in Capra?

I swallowed thickly, shaking my head at myself. That would be going too far. We weren’t prisoners.

But we weren’t free, either.

I stood there, catching my breath and taking in our surroundings. And trying to wrap my head around the lack of security checkpoints. “The supply train runs straight from Capra to here, just out into the open where anyone can hop on or walk through the tunnel.”

“But they can’t go anywhere,” Roman said. “The security at Capra’s end is locked down tight. And up there…” He pointed up ahead. “That’s the train depot, the last stop on the line. Beyond that is the Hot Zone.”

“I’ve never heard of the Hot Zone.”

“Come on,” he said and started walking again, cutting through the solar fields toward the high wall.

I rolled my eyes at his obvious evasion of my question and took off after him, ducking beneath the wing of a raised panel.

Except, he wasn’t evading.

He answered as we tramped through the patchy grass and zig zagged between the panels. “The Eastern Coalition consists of Capra, The Smoke and the farmlands, all surrounded by a wide buffer of land that we call the Hot Zone.”

“What about the mines?”

“The old peat mine? That’s part of the farmlands.”

And everything else? Another lie, of course. The minerals and metals that everyone thought came from mines were likely traded for at Sector Five.

Not everyone.

Only those of us walled within Capra.

Roman went on, “Beyond the border of the Hot Zone is the wilds—the Outerlands as you call it. The Hot Zone lies entirely in the Wardens’ jurisdiction and that’s where most of our efforts are concentrated, monitoring the electric fences and patrolling the strip to protect the Eastern Coalition from the wild.”

Every question answered raised a dozen more. If the Wardens concentrated their efforts in the Hot Zone, what about The Smoke? What about the farms? The Wardens supposedly controlled everything beyond the walls of Capra, but the way Roman spoke, I now wondered.

I didn’t ask, though.

We were approaching the edge of the field. An asphalt road ran between us and the wall and branched off into the wide gap where solid metal gates were partially rolled back.

My pulse picked up a stuttering beat as we crossed the road. Behind those walls lay a mystical beast. A thing of nightmares. Stories told to warn off young girls from shying away from their duty. It had never been said in so many words, nothing ever really was, but we all assumed that to be removed from Society meant being exiled to The Smoke. There was nowhere else to go.

Maybe it was that, or maybe it was just the bitterly cold night hitting me now that I wasn’t exerting myself anymore. A chill rippled over my skin and I pulled my coat on, tucking my hands into the deep pockets.

A pair of guardhouses stood sentinel either side of the gate, just inside the wall. By the looks of the dismal stalls, they were vacant. The windows were shot out. One had a gaping hole where the door should have been. Two concrete parking lots dominated the immediate area on either side of us. Only a couple of the bays were occupied.

Beyond the parking lots, and straight ahead, darkness hung over the shapes of buildings. Some short and squat, others taller than the sterile buildings in the Quantum Zone. No lights illuminated any of the windows. Starlit shadows fell to the ground we walked on, until we reached a narrow alley hedged between tall, brick buildings and left even that small company of shadows behind.

I felt life all around me, but I couldn’t hear it, I couldn’t see it.

“Where is everyone,” I whispered. “Is there a curfew here?”

“Not exactly, and this isn’t a residential area.” As narrow as the alley was, we walked side by side.

Roman dipped a look at me. “The Smelt still uses peat, but everything else here runs on solar and wind. Do you know how solar energy works?”

I shrugged. “The panels absorb sunlight and that gives us energy?”

That’s about as much as I knew.

Roman nodded. “We rely more heavily on our wind turbines during the winter months, but when the sun isn’t shining or the wind doesn’t blow, we’re limited to how much can be stored. Energy is rationed, particularly at night. The lights go out at seven in the evening.”

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