âMy momâs found soon after, huddled on the bed, clutching Beth tight in her arms. The Japanese soldier was right. She had broken ribs and a twisted ankle from the fall. But other than that, she was okay.
âHer coughing was just from the smoke. When Eric took her hand and asked if sheâd breathed in any of the toxic air, she denied it.
âShe said that after sheâd grabbed Beth, sheâd tried to run back downstairs but didnât have time to make it to the basement, so she hid in the birthing room.
âThere was enough smoke in the building for her constant coughing to make sense, and either way, there was no proof that sheâd been exposed.â
âSo she didnât mention the soldier?â
âNo, she didnât.â The man pauses to take a sip of his beer. He finishes it and holds the mug in his hands, staring at the fire.
âThen what happened?â
âShe moved again. The nursery was destroyed, and there were some casualties from the explosion. A few girls had been exposed to the outside and had to be dealt with.
âMy mom watched them being taken away with mixed feelings. She wasnât dumb enough to show what she knew. So she watched them die. Completely helpless. It broke her.
âShe couldnât get the Foreignerâs face out of her mind. She couldnât understand why heâd risked his life, risked getting caught, to carry her inside where she and her child would be safe.
âThat wasnât anyoneâs job during a raid. It was every person for themselves. What made him save her life? She couldnât understand.
âShe was so consumed by the image and knowledge of friends dying for no reason, she barely noticed when she was loaded into a different truck from the other girls.
âShe saw them leave first and then waited, staring out the truckâs window as the nursery was burned to the ground. She was taken further north, deep into the moors. The further they went, the thicker the fog and the deeper the ash.
âAsh fell from the sky for miles around. The fire and explosions still echoed in her mind. She was tightly bandaged, and she still had Beth. That was all that mattered.
âShe was in the truck with Eric and an Albion soldier from the rescue plane. They drove for hours in the moors, and my mom even fell asleep. She was worn out from the attack.
âBut sleep didnât last. She was reliving the attack. She was falling from her room again, and the flames were getting closer and closer, but the Foreigner never came. Sanoske never showed up.
âShe woke up screaming seconds after her eyes had closed. Beth, however, slept the whole trip.
âMy mom saw houses for the first time on that trip. They drove through a town that hadnât been completely destroyed and burned. A few buildings stood, though they were covered in ash and most were missing either walls or roofs.
âTo my momâs even greater surprise, faces appeared. There were people walking around in the village. They wore gas masks, and despite the freezing winter weather, they wore simple gray smocks with holey boots.
âMost of them, my mom noticed, kept their long pale hair tied back in a long braid, and their faces were dirty with ash and sweat. There were children, very young children, with pale faces and pale hair. Defectives.
âAnd there were menâtall men, short men, dark men, pale men. They were Foreigners. War prisoners. They werenât hurting the Cripples and Defectives. They were part of the community.
âOne man even held a crippled child on his hip, and another child, a baby with dark hair, played with the ash by his side. A woman standing in the doorway watched him playing with her children. Their children.â
âThere was something wrong with all these people though, something that my mom noticed right away and would never forget. They were dying. All of them, even the baby.
âShe could see their bones, she could see their frostbitten body parts, she could see their missing body parts, arms, legs. They looked at the truck as it drove past.
âAnd to my momâs horror, she could smell them. She could smell them dying. They looked at her with dark, sunken eyes that held such emotion, such sadness.
âAnd what scared my mom the most was the pity in their eyes when they saw her face. They pitied her. My mom didnât ask Eric about them. She didnât need to.
âShe had discovered love, fear, and panic before, but I think that might have been the time she distinctly discovered hate.
âShe was supposed to hate all foreigners and foreign countries, but how can you hate something you donât know anything about? My mom felt hate beforeâshe truly hated that nurse who took Bethâs son away and killed him.â
âBut she couldnât see through her sadness to her hate. On that trip, my mom was tougher. She shed no tears for the destroyed nursery, none even for the girls who were taken away because they were exposed.
âShe had no tears to cry because her anger was stronger. Her hate was stronger. At the time she didnât know who she hated.
âBut she knew that she did, and so she held her child tighter and buried her face into her daughterâs fluffy blond head and held her breath,â
The man stops talking again. Heâs not looking at the journalist anymore, heâs staring at his hands, clenched in fists, hovering next to each other.
âI canât imagine. Only nineteenâ¦â The journalist trails off, staring at the bottom of her empty cup.
âWhen I was a kid, I used to resent her. So many times I wished that sheâd just keep her head down and ignore the signs like everyone else always did. Why did it have to be my mom?â
He looks back up at the journalist and gives her a small half-smile.
âBut thatâs selfish, isnât it? A kid is always selfish. My having to grow up without a mom is nothing compared to the war that would still be raging had it not been for her.â
âYour feelings were understandable,â the journalist replies. âOf course they were.â
âThatâs what my dad would tell me.â
âYou were very close to your dad?â
âHeâs been everything to me. A father, a brother, a friend, a teacher. But now, heâs gone to be with her. He never wanted to before. He wanted to raise her child and live a full life for her. Now that itâs over, theyâre together.â
âThat must be comforting for you.â
âIt is.â The man flexes his hands and then rubs them together. âBut now I have to figure out what to do with myself. How can I live up to my parentsâ names?â
The journalist blinks and shakes her head slightly. âWould you like to start with something more to drink? Tea?â she asks, noticing his empty cup.
âYes, thank you.â
He flashes her a sweet smile, and she finds herself snatching the cup from his hands and rushing out of the room to hide her blush. He watches her disappear into the kitchen with a playful smile.
When she returns with two steaming cups, her blush has considerably faded. She sits down elegantly and sips her tea, staring at the faded raspberry-colored carpet at her feet. He sips his drink gratefully.
âSo where did she end up?â the journalist asks softly.
âShe went to what once was an old country house, but now that was where the Sector 64 Masters lived. It was their headquarters. There she discovered other women like her who were exclusive to other Masters.
âThey wore clean traditional charcoal clothes, and a few had small babies in their arms. They took my mother and Beth to a small bedroom on the top floor with a wide window facing the gray landscape.
âBeth was fed and put to bed, while my mother washed and treated her wounds before falling asleep, completely exhausted.â
***
My days are not so different from those at the nursery. Iâm not expected to sew uniforms or put guns together, but the other women do it, so I join them. Iâm not expected to do anything but eat, feed my child, and please Eric.
There are five other women with me in this great house. Gael and Hannah have children as well. Gaelâs daughter is five months old, and Hannahâs son is almost seven months old.
Most of the women have been with their Masters for at least three years, and none of them are on their first child. They tell me their stories of being picked by Masters at different points of their life.
Hannah was picked straight from her Testing. Kylie was taken from a nursery after her fourth son and brought to the great house.
Disappearing from their lives, from their friends. Disappearing completely, meant only to provide children to Albion every couple of years.
Iâm the youngest one, but not by much. Not one of the other women is older than twenty-five, though their Masters are easily all decades older.
Eric is the youngest one, and to my surprise, I discover thereâs a hierarchy among the Masters as well. Because heâs still young, Eric doesnât have a very high position in the house.
The most respectable Master is the oldest one. Heâs not like anyone Iâve ever seen. Heâs smaller than me, curved over, and his skin droops down. His eyes are yellow, and his pale hair is not the same pale as ours.
Itâs white and thin and falling out, revealing a bright pink scalp. His teeth are falling out too, and he can barely speak anymore. To me, heâs the perfect definition of a Cripple.
But all the other Masters bow low to him and do his every bidding. He spends most of his time sleeping or farting. He enjoys watching women work and telling us that weâre serving Albion and heâs proud.
Eric tells me he looks like that because heâs old and has been serving Albion for a long time. Heâs one of the first Masters, and though he was very young when Albion rose from the ashes, he saw it happen. His name is Richard.
Masters donât make their food, and neither do we. Itâs brought to the dining table by workers. Theyâre Cripples or Defectives that live in the nearby village who serve the Masters.
When theyâre working in the house, theyâre clean and wear simple gray gowns. But they arenât allowed to leave the house with those gowns. They must change back into their rags to walk home. They donât ever speak.
I tried to talk to one once, a girl who looked younger than me. She was probably sent here after failing her Testing. I can see why: her eyes are too far apart, and sheâs a good five centimeters shorter than me.
When I asked her what her name was, she stared at me with such wide eyes full of fear and fled from the room.
The other Perfect women explained that if the workers dared to speak to us, they could contaminate our pure thoughts and would pay with their lives.
Though the girl wasnât living much of a life, I realized how much she was willing to hold on to it.
I stopped trying to speak to the workers, but I continue to acknowledge them with smiles or nods. Now that theyâve gotten used to it, some of the children smile back at me too.
When Iâm not in the workshop or with Eric doing his bidding, Iâm with Beth. Each day she grows older, and I dread the moment sheâll be taken from me. She can crawl nowânot well, she wobbles quite a lotâbut sheâs fast.
She talks too. Not all real words, but words I can understand. She sits and chats to me and laughs and wobbles around after me. But she doesnât smile around Eric, she just stares at him wide-eyed.
I can tell he doesnât like it. Sheâs such a cheerful child with everyone else except him. I try to ignore it, but Iâve seen his rage, his violence, when heâs not served at the right time.
Too many times Iâve had to watch him beat a worker who wasnât working fast enough or broke plates because their arms were too weak.
I try to keep Beth away from Eric as much as possible and please him every night so that he has no reason to get angry with me or Beth.
Though he never has been angry with me. Heâs always pleasant to me and gentle and caring. He looks out for me, makes sure I eat to my fill and Iâm warm in his embrace.
When I think about it, I cannot understand why my heart races and my blood turns cold when I see him. Why does he haunt my dreams, and why do I fear his footsteps coming around the corner?
The other girls say Iâm lucky. They tell me their Masters arenât as kind, only seeking them out when night falls. But Eric, heâs different. He seeks me out during the day, enjoys my company. Heâs good-looking, young, and strong.
But somehow, that only makes him scarier. His piercing gaze frightens me, feels like itâs drilling into my soul. Every morning, I wake up expecting him to call me out on my thoughts, my doubts.
But he never does. So, every day, I live in fear.
The day Kylie, the oldest among us, gets exposed to the outside because a worker left a door open, sheâs immediately taken away. The worker is executed.
They burn Kylieâs body, turning her into ash so a new Perfect can rise from her remains. Her screams echo as she burns, and even through the windows, I can smell her burning flesh.
The Masters make us watch, a cruel reminder of the dangers of exposure. But while the other girls fear the outside, I fear the inside more.
Not a day passes that I donât think about that Japanese soldier, Sanoske. I remember his arms around me, carrying me to safety. His face, his dark hair, his almond-shaped eyes.
The more I think about him, the more I remember. His black uniform with the red sun emblazoned on the breast pocket. The knives in his belt, the sword on his hip, the gun in his hand. Details I didnât notice before.
He was young too. Probably around Ericâs age, and taller. His broad shoulders made him look strong. I remember feeling small in his presence.
I wonder where he is now, if heâs alive, how he survived after the fire. Did the Masters catch him? Is he hiding somewhere, trying to get home?
But most of all, I wonder why he saved me. Why would he save the enemy? And how could I not be his enemy? Didnât I make guns and bombs to destroy him? Didnât I bear sons to fight and kill him?
Why did he see me as a victim of the war when Iâm an active participant? How did he know the air was safe to breathe? How could I not know? And if the air is safe, why are the Masters killing those who are exposed?
I yearn for answers, but I know I wonât find them with Eric.
With Kylie gone, the other women are lost. I find myself leading our little group. It doesnât mean much, but they come to me when they need help or have questions. I do my best to be honest and helpful.
But their concerns start to seem trivial. Their small fears of accidentally cutting themselves while shaving or disappointing their Masters seem so insignificant that I find myself growing annoyed with them.
But I cling to them, because, apart from Beth, theyâre all I have.
Most nights, I donât sleep. Eric doesnât notice because I pretend, and he sleeps so soundly that he doesnât stir when I leave the bed to stare out the window and think.
My thoughts go in circles, repeating each night, but I start to fear sleep. When I finally succumb to exhaustion, I have nightmares. I see fire, the burning nursery, Kylie, Beth.
Eric is there. He watches, and when Sanoske appears to save me, Eric stops him and kills him. Sanoske dies, and I wake up screaming.
Eric doesnât like it when I have nightmares. It worries him. But when I tell him that I dream about the attack on the nursery and my fear of Foreigners, heâs reassured and says my nightmares are valid and good for me.
He tells me that itâs good to be afraid, that it will make me work harder to bear a child for Albion. And it will keep me safe.
I lie a lot. And the more I lie, the easier and more natural it becomes. I think about my first lie, the one about Sanoske saving me, and how he asked me to lie about him.
How since then Iâve been lying and how my lies are actually keeping me alive. No one else exposed to the outside has lived to lie about it before. I wait for side effects, but nothing happens.
And the more I lie, the more I realize Iâve been taught lies and the Masters continue to lie every day.
I know that if they ever found out, I wouldnât be given the honor of being burned. They would behead me, and my blood would soak into the ashes. And after they kill me in front of Beth, they would kill her too. Traitor.
That word would precede my name. I would be Traitor Alexandra 958,687,487.64.4.2.1. This terrifies me. I fear my own mind, and I feel trapped in this house where every move I make is scrutinized.
I want to know the truth. I want to confirm that I didnât dream him up, that the air isnât actually toxic. I donât think Beth remembers; she doesnât seem scarred by any memories.
I want to talk to someone, anyone. But for their sake, I canât.