Julia Karr - Truth

She wanded my outstretched hand.

“The address on your ID is incorrect. You no longer live there.” She jerked a thumb toward our old apartment building. “You were evicted.”

“Yes, ma’am.” At least my voice wasn’t quivering as bad as my insides were. Had she been watching me? Did she know about the food? Was I going to be arrested?

“What’s in the bag?”

“Empty food containers,” I said.

She gave a cursory glance to the empty bags before focusing more of her attention on the surrounding neighborhood. “Robbery earlier. A deserted riverfront’s no place to be hanging out alone. I suggest you go home. And see that you get that address fixed. If it wasn’t Holiday, I’d give you a citation.”

Lucky me.

After Maddie left, Dee and I spent the rest of the evening putting together outfits with the clothing and accessories that Miss Maldovar had given to Dee. By the time we were through, it was long past Dee’s usual bedtime, and I was exhausted, too.

I was nearly asleep when Sal called. “Wish I was there with you right now.”

The mere sound of his voice sent tingles through my body. “Isn’t there some way that I can go with you when you do whatever it is you and John do?” I asked.

“Absolutely not. What we’re doing is, well… dangerous.”

“Isn’t everything related to the Resistance dangerous?” The warm feeling I’d had melted away. “Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I’m helpless.”

“I know that. But, well, in some ways you are. I mean, the whole Ed thing…” His voice trailed off.

I was warm again—actually downright hot—but with anger. “I didn’t have a choice. Wei needed help. There wasn’t anyone else to call.”

“That’s what I mean. Besides, how could you have moved his body, huh? Deadweight. It took two hulking guys to—”

“So? It might have taken three or four girls to do the same, but we could’ve done it. Girls are just as capable… Take my mom—she was a NonCon. She managed to get all that information about FeLS and—”

“Look at what happened to her.”

I drew in a sharp breath. “How. Dare. You,” I clicked off before he could say another word. If it hadn’t been for Dee asleep in the next room and the Jenkinses overhead, I would’ve screamed. Could Sal not see that I was just as capable as he was in fighting for what was right? My mother’s sacrifice for the cause was no less valid or less important than some guy’s. Men were killed just as easily as women. Murder was not gender-specific.

Wrestling my way out of the tangle of blankets, I stumbled out of bed and over to the window. The moon cast tree shadows on the snowy ground, and I stared at them until my feet were frozen. Crawling back into the bed, I couldn’t turn off the thoughts.

My dad had been the one to go underground, leaving my mother and me supposedly out of danger. While he was fighting from the relative safety of secret hideouts—like Aunt Rita’s place—Ginnie had put herself in danger every moment of every day. And not just to keep my father’s secret safe, but to discover the truth about FeLS. With Ed as her only connection to the truth, she had endured beatings and abuse whenever he felt like it. She dropped down tiers for the cause—she had been a tier-five once and had died a tier-two.

My anger at Sal spread like the latest vert campaign, covering every man I knew, including my long-lost father; finally, I drifted off into a fitful sleep

There was nothing like an Alert with breakfast. For months, the country had gone without any at all, but now we were at the third in less than a week. The FeLS news was big. Since Dee had already seen the one about Ed, I included her. We sat in the kitchen, watching a projected Kasimir Lessig on the wall.

“Investigators are closing in on the mystery woman believed to be Edward Chamus’s accomplice. Although her identity is still unknown, the wife of the missing man has been cleared of any wrongdoing.”

Lessig swung around to face the camera full on.

“In related news, several girls who were abused at the fraudulent FeLS training station have come forward.”

Images of girls—their blank, expressionless stares interspersed with the haunted terror that I’d seen in Joan’s eyes—flashed on the wall.

“These unfortunate young women are even now on a transport to a safe facility on the Dark Side, where they will be assessed and treated for the traumas they’ve endured. After a time, they will, hopefully, be ready to return to mainstream society.” A number ran across the projection, under Lessig’s face. “Some of these girls were so terribly damaged that they fled in terror when authorities approached them. To facilitate the assistance and aid of these poor girls, the Governing Council is offering an unprecedented fifty thousand credits for information leading to the procurement of any girl who was subjected to the illegal training and has somehow managed to escape the clutches of the alleged perpetrator, Edward Chamus.”

As he repeated the number and calling instructions, Dee leaped up. “Fifty thousand? You don’t know any girls that happened to, do you? That’s a megaton of credits. Just think, you’d be helping some poor girl, and we’d be up-tiered.”

“Dee, did you not hear what Lessig said?” I shut off the projection.

“Yeah.” Dee cocked her head. “He said they’re going to help any girls who were sent to that fake FeLS training.”

“No, they’re taking those girls to some secret location on the Dark Side. When they come back, they will have been reassimilated. There won’t be anyone left to tell the truth about who was involved in the training, or who those girls were given to afterward. You could tell just by looking at them that they’d already been drugged.”

“Really? You don’t think the GC wants to know who all’s involved?”

“Exactly.” I pressed my lips together. The time for telling Dee about the Resistance was getting closer. “I’d bet even some of the top men in the GC are involved.”

“What about that woman they’re talking about?” Dee’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t understand how a woman could let men do… that… to girls who were supposed to be virgins. Who thought they were…” A look of horror crossed her face. “I have to apply for FeLS when I turn fifteen. What if all this stuff is still happening then?”

“Deeds, I’ve got a job. I’ll have plenty of credits by then to buy out your contract. Don’t worry. There may not even be a FeLS program in four years. Which reminds me, what do you want for your birthday? It’s coming up pretty soon.”

She braved a smile. “I don’t want anything. Except maybe for Gran and Pops to be home. I miss them.”

“Me, too.”

Later that morning, Dee was poring over Gran’s cook center cards, while I stayed in my room drawing. I was working on a series of pictures of homeless people whom I’d seen over the years.

One was of a man, frozen on the street. An image I wasn’t likely to forget, ever. I’d been all of eight and in the city with Mom, Ed, and Dee. Mom and Dee were shopping, and Ed had taken me with him to pick up some vids. The homeless guy was lying just inside an alley entrance. Ed dragged me over to show him to me. “ This is what happens when you don’t follow the rules,” he growled.

The man’s head was stuck to the sidewalk in ice. His sightless eyes stared up at the snow pelting down on him. He was dead. I’d puked on Ed’s shoes, which really pissed him off. That night he sent me to Sandy’s with Dee. Next day, Mom had a black eye.

I looked at the drawings, people of all ages, and reached for my PAV.