Page 8 of The Artist
CHAPTER 3
Belle Dupont
11 Years Later
En Route to The Northlands
December 2465
Belle
From the time I was a little girl, I’d learned that men and women were equal, that altruism is the way for a society to not just survive but thrive. And that emotions must be controlled at all costs.
I was taught in school to follow rules, and to speak with purpose, not on impulse.
Some of my classmates qualified to become Academics and continued on a rigorous path of studying. I on the other hand was put in the practical category with others who couldn’t sit still, pay attention, or keep up with the pace of the gifted children.
My initial disappointment that I wasn’t good enough lessened over the years as I began working with babies. The joy of caring for them, singing to them, and being around small miracles was far more satisfying than anything I could have imagined. The only thing I liked more was drawing and painting.
By some miracle I’d been chosen to be part of a delegation of five people that got to leave our country each year for an international summit that lasted a full week. No one else I knew had ever left Old Europe. We French were skeptical of the outside world and focused on rebuilding what had been destroyed during the Toxic War. If not for the endless discussions with the delegation members from the Motherlands and Northlands at the yearly summits, I would have never questioned the fairness of our society.
The summits typically happened during the summer, but this year it had been postponed to December and I couldn’t wait to visit my dear friends Freya and Aubri.
Sitting in the cramped aircraft, I was wrapped in blankets and the warmest clothes I owned. The drone wasn’t built for long distance traveling, and it was always a miserable experience for us to travel back and forth from the summits.
Victor, Celeste, Simon, and Isaac, the other four in our delegation, were all academics and chosen because they were among the smartest people in our country. Compared to them, I was the odd duck.
At home I lived in a small apartment below ground while the other four all lived above ground. Rank mattered and taking care of babies wasn’t considered a job conferring status.
The constant rattling sound from the drone worried me. I was pressed into the corner with no more than a sliver of window visible from my spot behind Victor and Simon.
“Is there something wrong with the drone?” I asked, but either they didn’t hear me, or they ignored me.
My friend Banni was an Explorer and he used these drones every time he and his crew went on expeditions to clean the area around us of radioactivity. The machines were built to carry heavy equipment and fly over treetops to spread seeds. They weren’t built for transporting people from one end of the world to the other.
“I have to pee,” Celeste shouted from her front seat.
“Again?” Victor’s tone was sharp. “We can’t keep landing for a toilet break.”
“It’s not my fault that my bladder is small. I’m pregnant!”
When we landed for the third time since we left four hours ago, I heard the three men talk.
“I wish we had drones like the ones in the Northlands. Their drones are so large they even have built-in toilets,” Simon said.
“Na-huh.” Isaac wiggled a finger in the air. “Not all of them. I’ve seen Thor’s drone on the inside, and it didn’t have a toilet. It was a lot faster than this old piece of scrap though.”
Victor stood with his arms crossed, looking in the direction Celeste had gone. “Anything is faster than our drones, but it doesn’t help that she has to pee every five minutes.”
“Do you think our slow drones are part of the government’s strategy to make us stay?” Simon speculated.
Isaac snorted. “Hardly. Where would we go? It’s not as if any of us would ever want to live in the Motherlands or Northlands.”
“I don’t know about that. I liked that beach we went to in the Motherlands, and the Northlanders might not be the brightest, but they know how to party,” Simon pointed out.
“All done.” Celeste came back in her colorful outfit. “Quit scowling at me, Victor. Until you’re pregnant you don’t get to complain.”
“Did I open my lips?”
