The Watch (The Red Series Book 1) (4 page)

After a moment the scarred warden spoke. “Children’s
dormitories are next,” he said. “You can do them, Karl. Visit awhile with Nancy
if you like. I’ll hang around and keep an eye on this one.”

Warden Karl seemed to consider, stroking his short beard.
Finally he answered the other warden. “Nah,” he said, “Not this time. My knees
hurt. It’s this weather. Old bones.”

The scarred warden didn’t answer.

“Go on,” Warden Karl said, and now I heard from his tone
that he was the one in charge.

The scarred warden gave a curt nod and pushed away from the
wall. At the door he paused.

“Hey freak,” he said, and waited until I turned to look at
him. He pointed two fingers at his own eyes, and then at me.

 
“I’ll be seeing
you,” he said.

Afterwards, that night grew
increasingly surreal. Partly it was my own exhaustion and fear, but partly it
was the bald warden’s doing.

“Come on,” he said, once the scarred warden had departed.
Then without another word he led me out the door and down the long grim
hallway.

What lay behind the closed and bolted doors? I listened hard
as we walked, hoping to hear
Rafe’s
voice. Surely he
must be here by now, somewhere here in the prison with me. I thought I might
hear someone questioning him as I’d been questioned, but I heard only the click
of the warden’s heels on the tile floor. My own bare feet were silent.

At the far end of the hall we arrived at a door that led
into a stairwell.

“Hope you like to climb,” Warden Karl said. “Don’t get
dizzy.”

The metal grillwork stairs curved in a spiral, going up and
up. I put one hand on the cinderblock wall to keep my balance. Through little
slit-like windows I caught glimpses of the moon, the night sky. The stairwell
was colder than the rest of the building, and the damp cut to my bones; the
metal stairs creaked, sometimes alarmingly. Our footsteps echoed, trailing
behind us, tracing our progress.

Finally we reached the top. Warden Karl pushed through a
door and then we were there, in the highest room of the watchtower. The
Opticon
.

The circular room had a table, a few comfortable-looking
chairs, and telescopes spaced at regular intervals around the windows. In the
middle of the room stood a desk with a row of twelve screens that cycled from
one scene to another. Views from the cameras. The ones that
Meritt
hadn’t disabled.

One of the screens was showing the cafeteria, empty. Another
was on the city circle, also empty. There was the children’s dormitory, with
rows of cribs and cots and sleeping children. There was one of the boys’
dormitories, and the boys were moving about, climbing into their bunks,
talking. I wondered whether this dorm had been the source of the disturbance,
and whether it was
Meritt’s
, but the screen changed
before I could focus on any faces.

A warden wearing earphones sat in front of these screens,
glancing at them occasionally, adjusting a dial, but mostly sipping something
and playing cards. Solitaire. He looked over at us and slipped his earphones
off.

“Hey, Zee,” Warden Karl said. “Picked up a curfew-breaker.
Gotta
keep her here ’til the all clear. You want to get
some air, I’ll cover for you.”

The dubious expression on Zee’s face said this wasn’t
protocol, but he stood up and stretched. “Great,” he said.

From then on I would picture that warden, that particular
man, any time I saw the signs screwed into the walls beneath the cameras, the
signs that said, “We Watch Because We Care.”

Zee pushed open the door and left. Maybe I should have been
alarmed; Warden Karl could have been up to something, could have been setting
me up for more trouble.

But it was hard to think about that at the moment. I was
actually in the
Opticon
.
Meritt
was the only living person I knew, besides the wardens, who was allowed up
there, and that was only because he was the one who maintained the delicate
surveillance equipment now that
Lonna
was dead. So I
couldn’t worry about why I was there; I was too amazed that I was.

Warden Karl gave a short laugh. “Have you taken root?” he
said.

So I went and stood near the center of the room and, there,
turned slowly in a circle. I was in the middle of a circular tower in the
middle of a circular city in the middle of the only land in all the world, for
all we knew—our circular island. This was almost worth getting arrested.

From the base of the watchtower the streets stretched out
like the spokes of a wheel, lit with blue streetlights. Smaller cross streets
ringed us in blue concentric circles. It was beautiful.

I’d always known
Optica
was
carefully organized, but seeing it like this—from a bird’s eye
view—emphasized the precision of its design. From somewhere beneath my
feet the bright white spotlights stretched out, pointing long white fingers
toward the edges of the city, probing, moving on. Here and there pairs of tiny
yellow eyes—headlights—moved along a blue line. Patrol cars, same
as the one that had caught me.

There were some small white lights to the south, in the
areas of the adult houses, but mostly the city lay wrapped in darkness. I
squinted in the direction of the homes, toward the lights that had nothing to
do with surveillance. At this late hour, someone ill, I thought, or suffering
from insomnia. Old men playing cards and drinking apple whiskey.

A sudden noise made me jump. Warden Karl had turned the
sound up at the monitors. I heard a baby crying, then men’s voices talking
urgently, their words indistinguishable.

The warden didn’t seem interested in my movements, so I went
to the windows and walked all the way around the watchtower, beginning with the
western side, my side. There were the children’s dormitories, the girls’
dormitories, the school, the infirmary, the cafeteria. If I squinted in the dim
light I could make out the beekeeper's domain and the orchards, past the
cannery and the other buildings. Most of my life had been spent in this quarter
of the city.

Moving counter-clockwise along the windows, I came to the
south quarter—the laundry, the genetic counseling building, the research
center, the adult quarters with hundreds of houses, tiny but far more private
than the dormitories.

Only the street that ran due south from the tower had a
corresponding wall, which is why
Meritt
and I usually
went that way on our runs; the wall gave us a little protection from the
watchful eyes of the wardens. Sometimes we ventured through the other streets,
but only on moonless nights, and only when we were feeling especially brave. On
those other streets, we were completely exposed.

Beyond the lights of the adult houses, the outer city wall
circled darkly around, its geometric precision contrasting with the pale
moonlit wasteland of scraggly grass where
Rafe
had
been arrested.

Beyond the wasteland lay the dark ominous woods, and beyond
them lay the rumor of the sea. In the farthest distance I thought I could see
it shining in the moonlight, moving like a living thing.

At least I wanted it to be the sea, rolling and dancing;
perhaps it was only a low lying cloud catching the moonlight. I had dreamed of
the sea often but had never seen it. It was freedom, I thought. It went on so
far and so wide that no one could monitor it, no one could watch every wave. It
was too big even for the Watchers.

I looked back at the warden. He was still standing at the
row of monitors, watching images flash across the screens. Someone laughed
loudly, without humor.

I continued my circuit, moving around to the east side of
the tower. This quarter of the city was where the boys’ dormitories were, and
past them the industry buildings, the cattle pastures and, against the city
wall, the slaughterhouse. If you walked out of the city from that direction,
through the wasteland, through the dangerous woods, you reached the sea and the
tidal traps and the docks where the fishermen cleaned their catches.

Supposedly the woods were somewhat safer in the east, at
least in the morning when the sun was rising. Still, even there, no one went
alone, no one left the path unless absolutely necessary, and no one lingered.

Then I reached the north. The clear swath of my fields
spread across the middle distance. At the top of the fields lay the dark bulk
of the city commissioners’ compound, separated from the rest of the city by
wheat, corn, the kitchen gardens, the berry fields.

I touched one of the telescopes and looked back at the
warden. He was watching me now, his expression impenetrable, but he nodded
permission.

I looked through the lens and saw, straight below me, the
pale arc of the city circle. Two wardens stood midway up the terraced steps; I
could see the color of their hair, the way one rested his hand on his belt, on
his stunner. I moved my face away from the telescope and the wardens became ants,
tiny dark flecks.

A chill ran up my spine. Was this how the Watchers saw us?

Tomorrow night I’d be standing down there in the circle, at
my first city meeting. We hadn’t had one years—never in my lifetime. At
the last one, so the older people said, the city commissioners made everyone
stand on the circle steps all night long, for more than twelve hours, not
letting anyone take shelter when it began to rain, not letting anyone so much
as sit down, until dawn finally broke and the first rays of sun touched the
watchtower and it was time to start the day’s work. It was to remind us to pay
attention, the commissioners said; the boiler in the Watcher compound hadn’t
been properly maintained, and a pipe had exploded and badly burned
someone—I didn’t know who—with scalding steam.

As far as I knew, nothing had gone wrong in the Watcher
compound recently. But that didn’t mean the commissioners weren’t angry about
something.

I tilted the telescope up and the Watcher compound jumped
into clarity. The buildings were cinderblock, like all the other buildings in
Optica
, but more elaborately built, with ridges and ledges,
and arches above the door.
 
It
looked like the compound had only small high windows, but I couldn’t tell for
certain because there was a three-quarters-height privacy wall in front. I
could understand the desire for privacy, but I wouldn’t want to live in a grim
dark fortress.

Behind the Watcher compound I could see the city wall,
smooth and unbroken, and then the tops of the trees in the
wilderland
,
supposedly the most dangerous part of all the woods. The Guardians might roam
in other parts of the woods, the stories said, but this was where they lived.

Wait. That was odd.

Maybe I wasn’t seeing what I thought I saw. It was quite far
away, even with the telescope. I blinked hard, clearing my vision, and put my
eye to the telescope again.

How strange.

In the rest of the city, all the streets that ran like
spokes from the watchtower to the outer wall ended in gaps that opened onto the
wasteland and the woods beyond. Those gaps came at precisely regular
intervals—east, southeast, south, southwest, west, northwest. I’d always
assumed there was a gap at the north end, too, inside the Watcher compound.
Optica
was tightly regulated, geometrically precise. Of
course there were eight gaps, not seven, one at each main point of the compass.

But it wasn’t so. Through the telescope I could see that
beyond the Watchers’ compound, there was no gap. There the wall was sealed,
complete.

Behind me the warden cleared his throat. “That’s enough,” he
said, and in his voice was a warning. “Time to go.”

I’d been staring too long at the Watchers.

Someone grabbed my foot and
shook it.

I sat up, blinking hard, feeling like I’d forgotten
something urgent. Bright morning light filtered in through the high windows. I
’d overslept, seriously overslept.
All of the girls
who worked days were already gone, and the only people in view were night
workers—cleaning and kitchen workers already in bed, covers pulled up
over their heads, relief workers trailing out of the showers carrying their
special bags of cleansers and antibiotics, looking sleepy.

That included
Cynda
, who was
standing at the foot of my bunk, toweling dry her honey-colored hair.
“This is the second time I’ve woken you,” she said. “I
thought you were awake the first time, so I went and showered. Now you’ve
missed breakfast, and you’re about to be late to work
.”

Not good. Being late to work was never good, but
it was especially bad now that getting reported to the wardens might mean a
private visit with the scarred one.

I slid down off the top bunk, leaving it a jumble of
covers—Kari’s bunk below was neatly made, as always—and started for
the door.

“Not like that!
”
Cynda
said. “
You look like you were up all night
.”

I was undressed and to the shower room before
Cynda
had finished.
I
couldn’t
risk
questions
or
comments, n
ot when it might make my less friendly roommates decide to
lie awake and catch me sneaking in or sneaking out.
Did
Cynda
actually know I’d been up, or was she just
talking off the top of her head? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t ever sure, and it
wasn’t as if I could ask her.

The cold water hit me with a jolt and I shampooed and
scrubbed frenetically, rinsed, toweled, and hurried back to my bunk to fish my
one set of extra clothes out from under the bottom bed. I was
starving, and doomed to a long ravenous morning.

Worse, I’d missed my best shot at getting
information about
Meritt
. Almost everything useful
I’d ever learned came from
sitting on the edge of my bed looking
sleepy and uninterested while t
he night workers
traded gossip about
conversations
they’d had
with
various
wardens the night before.

I tugged my clothes on over still-damp skin, felt a trickle
of water running down my neck, and squeezed my wet hair out over the floor.
Cynda
—sitting on her bunk pinning her hair so it
would make ringlets when it dried—raised an eyebrow. “You’d better be
glad Wanda’s not here,” she said.

Wanda watched avidly for any excuse to report
anyone—especially me—to the dorm mother. She wasn’t the only one
who disliked me, or the only one who tried to curry favor by tattling, but of
the twenty-three girls I shared a room with, she was the one who worried me
most. If she ever caught me sneaking in or out at night, there would be no discussion,
no chance for persuasion or bribery. She’d turn me over to the wardens in a
heartbeat.

“Sorry,” I said to
Cynda
, mopping
the floor hurriedly with my dirty shirt. Kicking it under the bed, I started
for the door.

“You’ll never get your hair untangled if you let it dry like
that,”
Cynda
said. “Catch.”

I turned and she tossed me her comb. It was carved wood,
very pretty, and had all its teeth.

“Don’t lose it,” she said. “It was a gift. I’ll be in
trouble if I can’t produce it next time he comes by.”

I took off down the hallway at a jog, trying to comb my hair
as I went. I didn’t care about tangles—not today—but if the dorm
mother saw me looking disheveled, she’d send me straight back to the room, and
then I’d be later still.

I hurried down the inside stairs, pushed through the outside
door and into the cool morning air, and started down the exterior stairs,
yanking the comb through my hair and trying not to lose my balance. I was
almost at the bottom when Estelle rounded the corner. She was one of my old
people—that was what I called the handful of elderly people who had been
kind to me when I was a lonely little girl, ignored or taunted by the older
children.

“There you are!” she said. “I was worried when you didn’t
come to breakfast.” Until she got too old, Estelle had been a cook, and she
still kept an eye on things in the cafeteria.

“I overslept.” I was out of breath and the words came out
wispily.

Estelle shook her head in disapproval. “You young ones
shouldn’t have to choose between food and sleep. You’re growing so fast, you
need plenty of both.”

Plenty of both. Now there was a joke. Portion size was based
on consumer size—you had to grow on what they gave you before they gave
you anything to grow on—so people with fast metabolisms were at a disadvantage.

“I have to go,” I said as I reached the sidewalk. “I’m going
to be late to work.”

“Go on, then,” Estelle said, making a comfortable shooing
motion. “Have a pleasant day.”

Tucking
Cynda’s
comb int
o my shirt pocket, I took off at a hard run
. At the
corner I glanced back. Estelle was standing where I’d left her. She waved
merrily, but with her other hand she was tugging at the threadbare collar of
her shirt, trying to cover her throat. That worried me—she was cold, and
winter wasn’t here yet. The breeze was crisp but not unpleasant, not even for
me with my wet hair and bare feet.

There was nothing I could do for her, though, so
I put her out of my mind and kept running. It was hard to run hungry, and I
knew running would make me hungrier still, but I so didn’t want to be late. If
the warden watching the cameras didn’t notice my tardiness, any number of field
workers would be happy to report me.

I reached the street that led to my fields and
then had to pause to keep from getting run over by a big work truck rumbling
past, its
loose tailgate rattling
. Four or
five mechanics
were sitting in the back.

If I’d thought of it in time I could have waved
the driver down and maybe, if he was feeling magnanimous, hitched a ride. Now
all I could do was keep running down the road behind the truck, breathing its
dust, feeling faint with hunger and fear of being late, while the guys in the
truck bed watched me with varying degrees of indifference and mockery.

One of them—Farrell Dean, a friend of
Meritt’s
and by extension a friend of mine—dangled a
hand casually over the side. He was holding a wrench, and when the truck hit a
rough spot he dropped it. He stood up, unsteady in the rocking truck bed, and
banged on the top of the cab.

The driver didn’t stop, but he slowed considerably.
Farrell Dean jumped out and jogged back to pick up the fallen tool.

“Better hurry,” he said, snatching up the wrench
and turning back. The truck was still cruising slowly along, but when he
climbed back in it would take off. I was faster than Farrell Dean, though, or
at least more motivated, so I put on a burst of speed and had almost caught up
to him when he grabbed the tailgate and swung himself back in. Instantly the
truck sped up. I gave it everything I had, running all out, as the men in the
truck bed shouted at me, some encouraging, some jeering.

Just when I was about to give up hope, Farrell
Dean stuck out a hand. I grabbed it and my shoulder jerked and my feet left the
ground, and then he pulled me up and my feet found the bumper. I clung there,
panting hard, holding on to the tailgate that was already warm with the morning
sun, and the men clapped and hooted and booed, and Farrell Dean kept a
steadying hand on my arm.

“Throw her back!” one of them advised.

“No way,” another said. “She’s a field worker.
We need all of those we can get.”

Then the truck passed a tractor shed, where two
men were arguing and waving shovels around threateningly, and the men lost
interest in me.

I leaned in close to Farrell Dean and caught a
faint whiff of
motor oil, which probably meant he’d done someone a favor
and repaired a machine before working hours.
“Have
you seen
Meritt
this morning?” I said.

He shook his head. “Not since last night. He’s in
isolation.”

That was a relief. It meant that
Meritt
had
made it safely back to the dorm, and isolation was small potatoes compared to
prison.

I
opened my mouth to ask
mor
e questions, but
Farrell Dean frowned
warningly at me
, jerking his head toward the other
men
.
He
was almost nineteen, like
Meritt
, but more solidly built and not quite as tall, with
hazel eyes, a tan from working outside all summer, and a thick shock of short
gold-brown hair. His fingernails were always black under the edges because he
was a mechanic and no matter how much he scrubbed, he couldn’t get them
completely clean.

As we jolted along he shifted, leaning hard on
the tailgate as if for balance, and in the process blocking me from the other
men’s view.

“Inside pocket,” he muttered. “On your right.”

Shielded by his body I reached into his jacket
and found the pocket, and was rewarded with a good handful of peeled walnuts. I
shoved a couple in my mouth and tucked the others into my own pocket, along
with
Cynda’s
comb, just managing not to fall off the
bumper in the process. Throughout the whole operation Farrell Dean kept one
hand on my left arm and the other braced on the tailgate, both in plain sight
of the other mechanics.

“Thank you,” I managed, mouth full. We weren’t
supposed to give other people our food, and we weren’t supposed to carry food
out of the cafeteria.

“You’re welcome. Wouldn’t want your tapeworm to
starve.”

Either Farrell Dean had a slower metabolism than most
people, or he had a secret food supply, because he often slipped me bits and
pieces. It was one of the things I liked best about him.

“Here’s your stop,” he
said,
letting go of my arm.
“I’ll be at your field this
afternoon. One of the
tractors has a bad ignition.”

I dropped off the tailgate, stumbling but
managing not to fall, and waved to Farrell Dean as the truck moved away.

This afternoon.

Until then, I’d have to wonder what had happened to land
Meritt
in isolation.

At least
Meritt
wasn’t in prison,
I thought, putting
another
lovely walnut in my
mouth; but the comfort in that thought was fleeting.

Meritt
wasn’t in prison; but
Rafe
was.