Elected (The Elected Series Book 1) (6 page)

Right there was my downfall. If I weren’t infatuated with the excitement of being at the dance, I might have told my parents the whole story. I might not have merely centered my admission on seeing the Technology Faction, but also told them how someone may have guessed my gender. If I’d been brave back then, maybe I wouldn’t be in this predicament now.

5

I sit against my bedroom wall, trying to think of s
omething to set myself right again. What has Tomlin always told me when things are rough? After my parents took all the toys from my room? When my first “play” fight session ended with a black eye and a broken rib? And, of course, when I asked my parents if I could go to the annual dance and they said absolutely not?

He said, “This too shall pass. One step at a time, Aloy.”

I do as he instructed. I get up off the floor and walk to my water basin. I splash a cold handful of the liquid onto my face. When I think I’m presentable, I open my bedroom door and step into the hallway again. This time the corridor is empty. My guards must still think I’m going about my usual schedule. By the daylight, I think it’s noon. The sun is high in the sky. What do I usually do at noon each day? I eat lunch with my parents. So with this in mind, I walk stiffly in the direction of our dining room.

Once outside the room, I pull the heavyset oak doors open and see the comforting sight of both my parents at the table. My father holds a mug in his right hand and a piece of paper in his left. My mother sits adjacent to him, leaning against his arm to see the page.

When they hear me, they both look up.

“Ahh, Aloy,” my mother says, smiling. “You’re up! We wanted to let you sleep as much as possible after your ordeal yesterday.”

I nod, not offering up the fact I encountered an even bigger ordeal this morning. I sit down at the table next to them and bite into a thick piece of wheat bread. It tastes bitter on my tongue, but I force myself to swallow anyway.

“Since you’re up,” my father says, “you should come with us to the town meeting today.”

Every month there’s a town hall where my father tells our people the latest news and they converse back to him with questions and comments.

“Of course,” I say.

My mother notices I’m quieter than usual. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep a larger number of guards around you. No one will be able to reach you with an assault.”

They should only know about the assault that just occurred in my own private bedroom.

“I’m not worried, Ama.”

My father smiles. “That’s the next Elected right there! Brave. Courageous. Not afraid to look the people in the eyes even a day after an attempt. This,” he points to me, “is the Elected we raised.”

I’m glad he’s proud of me. I smile slightly at my parents. My anxious expression is in sharp contrast to their open faces, but they don’t notice it. They wear huge smiles from relief that I’ll be a strong, brave leader after they leave.

We ride out on horses to the Ellipse. It’s close to our house, so we could walk, but my father wants us up high and able to travel fast in case there’s another long arrow with my name on it. The horses’ hooves thump softly upon the dirt fields between our house and the stone benches. Any pavement we used to have in East Country was either destroyed in the wars or ground up to use as building material. In the distance behind the meeting area, I see remnants of what used to be grand statues leftover from an era when our town used to be the capital of a larger country. We’ve repurposed the smooth white stone of those bombed monuments, but a few stumps lie scattered across the horizon. Tomlin’s shown me pictures of something called a Washington Monument towering high over the town. In its place now is just a thin, stone square. I once asked Tomlin why a country would waste resources to build such a tall structure that didn’t house anyone or offer any other sustenance. He’d just shrugged.

As we keep riding, I see the torso of a horse still standing tall on a pillar far off to my right. Its head is lopped off, and it stands on just two remaining legs. Perhaps once a rider sat astride its back, but the horse is now alone. We leave that one half-destroyed structure in place, calling it “Animal Remembrance,” a memorial to all the species we lost in the eco-crisis.

We’re the only family in the country with horses. Thus, the need for our own specialized veterinarian—Griffin’s father. Horses are expensive to keep, and they’re rare. Most horses died from the initial nuclear radiation, tumors growing rampant in their knees and legs, rendering them lame. Ours are the only ones left in the country, and we’ve taken great pains to keep them healthy and reproductive.

Since we don’t create electricity, our world no longer keeps cars or airrides either. Most of East Country’s population of four thousand people who come for our meeting today walked the great distance, camping for the few days it took to travel here. Or people came on bicycles. All of the bikes remaining after the eco-crisis were scavenged and distributed around our population.

Rust is a constant worry, since it can disintegrate the bikes’ metal. All families are issued a bike and given strict instructions to wipe down the frames with a preserving liquid called nirogene ensuring these national treasures last for years to come. We harvest nirogene compound from hills bordering our country, and our chemists turn it into this miracle liquid by boiling the sooty, silver mineral. The resulting liquid smells like a mixture of urine and sweat, but we deal with the stench since it’s such a valuable resource.

The bikes’ tires are another concern altogether. Rubber tires went out of production years before the eco-crisis. In many cases our ancestors were just starting to adopt greener, more ecologically friendly materials when the planet went into destruction-mode. Unfortunately for them, it was too little, too late. Fortunately for us, the discovered alternative to rubber is actually something plentiful in the barren post eco-crisis era: dandelion root. Its gummy paste can be heated and congealed to make a substance akin to rubber when hardened. The root tires don’t last long, but East Country planters grow dandelion crops with fervor, and thus, the bikes’ tires are replaced constantly.

When we ride up to the pavilion, I see hundreds of shiny bikes laid out in lines before I even see the people. It’s a magnificent sight and makes me smile. The metallic blues, reds, and greens shine in the afternoon sun like a rainbow.

My parents and I slide off our horses and descend into the amphitheater. We make our way down the rows of benches, security guards flanking me on both sides.

I wait behind my parents as they shake hands with random townspeople and stop to say hello to people by name. Our community is small, and my parents have an amazing mastery for names.

Once at the bottom, my father takes over the operation, while my mother and I sit down.

“A new day to you all!” my father says, his voice a firm bellow. It takes a moment for people to respond. But there’s a growing roar of welcome cascading back to him.

The only way to amplify my father’s voice and ensure all of our townspeople can participate in the town hall is by staging “talkers” every few hundred yards. We’ve perfected the system so the message at the end is always the same as the one spoken up front.

As soon as my father says his welcome, the first talker yells his words backward to the crowd. There’s a pause of a few seconds before I hear the second talker take the words back to his group. While my father begins the discussion with talk of the crops we’ll be growing this month and how the seeds will be distributed, I take a moment to look around.

I’m searching for one face in particular. My eyes scan the rows of people at the top, looking for him. It’s not a matter of whether Griffin is here. It’s where. I need to see his eyes to tell if he’s planning to out my secret in this public venue. I realize my palms are sweating as I keep searching, and I thrust them in frustration against my pant legs.

Everyone is here today. I learned from Tomlin that not everyone participated in government before the eco-crisis. That there was widespread apathy. I can’t believe that would be true. Why wouldn’t people want to cast a vote or have their say? In East Country, everyone takes part. We have no government representatives. My mother and father talk to everyone personally. The Elected has no advisors except for the people themselves. And everyone in our country turns out for our monthly town meetings.

So I know he’s here.

My father is now onto the subject of our water supply. There are a few questions from the crowd, and I tune out the meeting as I keep searching.

And then I see him.

Griffin is sitting in the front row, directly in front of me. When I realize how close he is, I jump in my chair. I’m unnerved by his proximity. Does he always sit up here? I never noticed before today. Why pick a spot in the front now?

He locks eyes with me, like he’s been waiting for me to find him in the crowd. And when I do, he gives me a wink. I scowl back at him.

A big woman toward the back asks a question to her talker, and the words are sent down to the front. When her question finally reaches us, the rest of the crowd has already heard it, and there are murmurs spreading.

I straighten up in my seat, wondering what the woman has asked.

“Elected,” says the closest talker, “Why can’t the doctors use artificial insemination to help aid the process of increasing our population?”

This is a complicated question. I already know what my father is going to say because this question is raised at least once a year.

Apa looks back at me and then at my mother. She gives a slight nod.

“I’m going to let our son, Aloy, answer this.” Apa nods encouragingly at me, but I’m completely shocked. They’ve never asked me to speak at the town halls until now. However, I realize I shouldn’t be too surprised. My parents believe in trial by fire. I’m sure they’ve discussed this beforehand and were planning to have me answer one of the questions for the crowd.

I slowly get up from my seat and stand at the front of the stage. I know what I’ll say, but I still feel swirls of anxiety rippling through my stomach. Without much food in there, the acid seems like it’ll burn a hole through my insides.

I need to sound strong. I need to sound like I’m ready to take over my father’s position in two weeks’ time. And most of all, I need to sound like a man. I clear my throat and start talking with as low and gruff a voice as I can muster.

“Did that question come from Zet in the back?” Like my parents, I know the names of most of our people too.

The talker nods affirmation and then passes my question backward so everyone can hear what I’ve asked.

“Zet. Countrymen. We’ve discussed this many times before. While the creation of human life is our country’s number one objective, and we will do almost anything to aid in this endeavor, we cannot bend the Accords even for this noble goal. To conduct artificial insemination would require us to not only use machinery but electricity and refrigeration as well. The use of machinery and technology is a slippery slope. If we started here, where else might we find ways to use tools to help our daily lives? Have we learned nothing from our past?”

I pause and let the crowd digest what I’ve said. A moment passes, and then the talker in the middle of the people returns with a follow-up question.

“Xavier agrees and requests you remind others in the audience, such as the hidden Technology Faction members, how our people were almost wiped out by such uses of technology.”

I wipe my brow, which is now dripping miniscule beads of sweat. I pray no one notices, but as I look down into the crowd, I see Griffin’s face. He’s looking straight back at me and grimacing. No matter, I think. If he doesn’t think I’m strong enough to answer the question, he’s wrong. I am more than just a girl pretending to be a man. I am this country’s next leader.

I stand straighter at the thought and gather my words.

“Xavier, yes, I can. You all know the story of our almost-extinction. However, it’s necessary to repeat it as much as possible so we don’t forget what caused the demise of so many people and the devastation of our planet.”

I clear my throat and proceed.

“Because of human pollution and carbon dioxide emissions from our many machines, climate change crept up on our world a degree at a time. At first, the warmest areas of our planet became almost too hot to sustain life. Temperatures of one hundred thirty degrees Fahrenheit were reported on a daily basis. The arctics partially melted, sending massive floods. The lands of East Country, for example, which used to be inland, became coastal. After the floods came planet-wide earthquakes. The tremors damaged our extensive network of undersea oil pipelines, spewing black tar through the water. Sea life across the world was annihilated in a mere two months. Countries utilizing the sea’s natural resources for the basis of their economy were ruined. Starvation was rampant.”

I look out into the crowd and back at my parents. They give me another nod of approval, so I continue.

“Countries depending on oil for their economies were vanquished. People rioted. Not one country offered to clean up the oil. Resources were slim everywhere. Unmanned airrides landed, trying to steal other countries’ natural resources. No one knows which country inflicted the first nuclear air strike. But, in a matter of days, warfare broke out worldwide, reducing our already thinning population by millions. And then the leaders of all countries congregated somewhere in an area called Europe. This was the start of the Accords. The Elected Accord. The Fertility Accord. The Ship Accord. And the Technology Accord. If it were not for these four Accords and the ensuing isolation of our countries, human life would have been completely extinguished.”

I pause for effect. My people are listening to the story, mesmerized.

“Even one small deviation from these Accords would begin a cycle that, without check, would lead us right back into the eco-crisis and demise of our civilization!”

Cheers erupt. I nod my head vehemently, empowered now by the widespread agreement.

It’s so loud I don’t hear the slight whoosh of air as it passes by my leg. But suddenly, there’s an arrow embedded in the floor in back of me. The crowd has seen it too now, and there are screams and cries of surprise.

I don’t even have time to react as I see another long arrow slicing through the air toward me. Its aim is perfect. Even as I see the shine of its metallic tip coming swiftly onward, I know I won’t have time to move. My guards, who were on opposite sides of the stage won’t have time to get to me now. I squeeze my eyes closed in fright since this motion is the only thing I can do fast enough.