Read Viral Nation (Short Story): Broken Nation Online
Authors: Shaunta Grimes
Tags: #dystopia, #new world, #Science Fiction, #politics, #totalitarianism, #futuristic
Viral Nation (Short Story): Broken Nation (8 page)
“It isn’t good for your eyes to read by candles, you know,” he said.
“Just get some, okay?”
He didn’t answer. He had exactly zero control over what the machines gave him. Some weeks he came home with so much he could barely carry it, others with nothing more than their bare-bones rations.
Clover waved over her shoulder as she turned with Mango toward the library. From behind, she looked more like twelve than sixteen. Her black hair was cut short, in chunky layers. She had a habit of hacking at it with scissors when it started to bother her. She wore their mother’s red Converse high-tops and blue jeans cuffed at the ankle with a standard-issue white T-shirt.
She was so thin. He hoped for some meat, instead of the candles she wanted. The virus, which many expected to affect the chicken population, had jumped from humans to cows instead. They were endangered now and pampered like pets on dairy farms. It was hard for West to imagine that once upon a time people ate them. A pound of lamb or pork would go a long way, though.
West watched until his sister was out of sight, and then walked the other way, toward the Bazaar.
There were two things he could count on every Wednesday morning. An unpleasant twinge of resentment when he traded a back-breaking week of hard labor for barely enough food and energy to take care of his sister. And passing by the Kingston Estate on his way to the Bazaar, where he knew Bridget Kingston would be somewhere near the gate.
The Kingston Estate was as big and grand as its name implied. A large white house and a smaller guest house sat on maybe two acres of land with stables between them. The estate had housed the current headmaster since the academy opened fifteen years ago. First a man named Norton, and for the last four years Adam Kingston and his daughter.
A trio of horses looked up from where they ate alfalfa in a front pasture when West walked by. Beyond the buildings, the land dropped off into a ravine leaving a backdrop of city below and mountains beyond.
The house was well kept, with walls repainted bright white by government workers every third spring set off by the deep blue shutters and a red front door. Very patriotic. A wide porch wrapped around the front and both sides of the house.
As West came close, Bridget stood up from the bench swing that hung from the porch rafters near the front door. She wore her honey-colored hair swept away from her face and pulled into a high ponytail. The curled ends of it brushed the back of her neck.
This was the only time West saw Bridget, since he graduated primary school and became a dirt slinger three springs ago. They rarely said more than “good morning” or “hello” to each other. There was more caught in the space between them, but it stayed there. West convinced himself he was fine with the slow progression. He’d be about forty before he was in a position to offer Bridget anything more than a simple greeting.
It hadn’t always been that way. Before Adam Kingston was headmaster, he was just a teacher and West’s father was a guard. A guard’s son could be with a teacher’s daughter. This guard’s son had time to fall in love with that teacher’s daughter, in fact, before things changed. Bridget moved with her father into the estate and that was that.
“Morning,” she said. She wore a pair of academy gray pants she’d cut off and neatly hemmed into shorts, and a white T-shirt that set off her long, golden limbs.
“Morning,” he answered. God, he was an idiot. She was the headmaster’s daughter. He smelled, constantly, of manure and rotting melon. He buried his hands in his pockets and quickened his pace.
“Are you headed for the Bazaar?” she asked as he passed by.
“Yes.” He stopped walking, but didn’t know what else to say. He looked for something anyway. Anything to draw out this moment. “You, too?”
“I don’t get my own rations until November.”
Of course. He knew that she was seventeen. Her father would pick up her rations along with his, and anyone else he supported. He would never let his daughter near the Bazaar. West didn’t blame him.
“Have a good day, Bridget.” He liked saying her name. It felt sweet on his tongue. It always had.
She smiled, her cheeks flushed just a little, and he walked away.
• • •
“You’re in a good mood.”
West turned and smiled when he saw Isaiah walking toward him. “What are you doing here?”
“Got the afternoon off and thought I’d get my grandma’s rations for her.”
“I’m just on my way to the Bazaar.” West balanced himself back on a garden wall, his thick-soled boots making it difficult, and reached into his pocket for Mrs. Finch’s ration coupons.
Isaiah took them, and then pushed West’s shoulder until he lost balance again. “Saw you talking to Bridget Kingston. She why you’re so smiley today?”
He hopped back on the wall and walked backward a few steps. “Just saying hello.”
“Watch yourself, West. That girl is way out of your league.”
“Don’t worry. That’s not why I’m happy today.” Not mostly, anyway.
“No?”
“Clover got accepted into the academy. Boarding and all.”
Isaiah stopped walking, and West did, too, after a few more steps. “So you going to join the Company?”
There were only two things to do in Reno. Work for the Waverly-Stead Company, or work for the government. Company work for people as young as West required living in the barracks, at least for training. He couldn’t leave Clover, so West worked for the government raising cantaloupe to send by train to feed people in other states.
Are you going to join the Company?
wasn’t a real question. All West had ever wanted was to work for Waverly-Stead, just like his father.
“As soon as she’s settled in, I can apply,” he said.
Isaiah ran a hand over the stubble growing on top of his head. “School starts in what, a month?”
“About.”
“You could start training the next day.”
West’s stomach tightened. He could start the process now. Today. That letter was for Clover, but it sure changed his life, too. He’d been taking care of her since he was sixteen and she was thirteen. Since their father was promoted from guard to executioner, part of one of the five-person firing squads that were the center of the most efficient law enforcement system in the history of the country. Executioners were required to live in the Company barracks and promotions within the Company weren’t something anyone could turn down easily. Their father signed guardianship to Mrs. Finch, but it was West who had taken care of not only himself and his sister, but their guardian as well, until Clover’s care passed to him officially when he turned eighteen.
“You’ve waited long enough,” Isaiah said.
Hell, yes, he had.
West received a similar letter to Clover’s from the academy a few months after his grand gesture. By then it was clear that, official documents aside, Mrs. Finch couldn’t even care for herself. He declined the invitation. What else could he do? Foster City was supposed to be a perfect system, allowing children to be cared for so their parents could do the work of recivilization. Somehow he’d known that system wouldn’t work for them. Foster City would have chewed his sister up and spit her out. But now that she was accepted into the academy herself, he had his life back.
Books by Shaunta Grimes
About the Author
Shaunta Grimes has worked as a substitute teacher, a newspaper reporter, a drug court counselor, and a vintage clothing seller. No matter which direction she strays, however, she always comes back to storytelling. She lives in Reno with her family, where she writes, teaches, and perpetually studies at the University of Nevada.
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