Quantum state, p.3
Quantum State, page 3
“True, which is one more reason to check all results for ourselves,” Esfir supports.
We climb over the hill and stay out of the light shining from the park lamps. The park is a long stretch of grass and play equipment. A teeter-totter, slide, and swings are in the forefront. After passing them, we see the playhouse for kids and then the monkey bars installed a year ago upon request. A few birch trees decorate the park with leaves and branches, like a singular umbrella. This sole park is as much greenery as we get in Cherni, although another park is under construction on the opposite side of Cherni. As a prospective gardener, this should make me depressed.
The small park and greenhouse are two of the few places that the people of Cherni can visit to see trees, and they often bring their children for relaxation. Most of the district is either made up of sand or rocks and concrete slabs, and if you're really lucky, there might be a singular tree in your zone. I can't help but wonder if all districts in the world are like this one, or if MAQS keeps Cherni special just for us.
“We're almost there,” Esfir says encouragingly, and I stay close to his side as his fingers interlace with mine. “You ready?”
I nod my head as we approach the Cylindrical toward the back end of the park, hiding behind a few birch trees—of course the large structure is easily seen from anywhere. As we get closer, a humming sound permeates the space around the Cylindrical, not loud enough to be heard from anywhere but several feet away. Esfir's eyes fix on me and then flit to the structure before returning to me again.
“What do you think the noise is?” I ask, my feet freezing.
“I don't know, but it's coming from the Cylindrical. Maybe part of its operating system?”
“Maybe,” I answer, unsure, but I know we need to keep moving forward. Standing out here without cover will only lead bots to us, and if MAQS finds out we're here and after curfew…she'll be upset.
I tug Esfir forward with our fingers still interlocked, and we slowly walk up to the circular steel design that stretches above our heads farther than we can see. If not for the knowledge that it's a farce designed to control us, I could imagine the Cylindrical as a breathtaking tower for a princess. Esfir's head tilts backward as my wristwatch buzzes again: 8:00 p.m. “Curfew!” he declares. “We need to get in, before we're seen!”
We circle around the structure that appears flat on every side, until returning to where we started. We both stare at the shiny metal, confused, with me scratching my forehead. “Maybe there's a button?” I push on the steel with my open palm and then hit it with my left fist exasperated already, before Esfir grabs my knuckles with his rounded fingers.
“Quiet.”
“Sorry, I'm just…”
“Frustrated. I know.” Esfir clasps his hand around mine and draws my fist back down to my side. “We'll get in, don't worry.”
I turn to his knapsack. “Maybe we just launch the atmospheric balloon now and let the balloon collect air samples while we look around? Then, head home?”
“Sure,” Esfir agrees, “but how are we going to study the samples?”
“We'll figure out a way into a lab. Both our mamas work in labs. We'll come up with something.” I use the word Mama for my stepmum loosely, because I don't think of her in that way. No one can replace my real mama.
Esfir nods, and then pulls out the red balloon. “Let's hurry.” He fluffs out the folded portion while I untie the cord, releasing the balloon into the air. The controller sits in my right hand as my left hand feels the cord rise higher and higher. When the balloon is as high as the Cylindrical is tall, I tie the cord to a birch tree branch and set the controller sturdily between two twigs.
“This will take an hour, right?” I ask. Esfir would know better than I would.
“Yeah.”
“Let's set our watches and figure out how to get inside this thing.”
“Okay.” Esfir nods and we fix our watches before skirting around the other side of the Cylindrical.
The top rounded tip of the Cylindrical is barely visible from where I stand, but I know it's there because I've seen the tip from the distance. “It's quite beautiful, really.” I admire the structure while my fingers explore the metallic sides, in search of any way in.
“Everything MAQS creates is beautiful,” Esfir adds. “Or grand, I should say.”
“Yeah,” I agree, “maybe 'cuz she's trying to distract us from the fact that we can never leave Cherni.”
Esfir finds a notch in the silvery sides and gestures with his forefinger for me to come to him. “Look at this.” His finger presses the notch and the button descends inward as a panel slides up and into the Cylindrical. “Looks like a doorway.”
“A way in!” I giddily grab his shoulders from behind and squeeze.
We step through the column-shaped door, leaving the balloon to collect samples, and the panel suddenly closes in a whoosh. Our heads jerk backward and our eyes grow wide. “Did we just lock ourselves in here?!” Esfir gulps.
“No.” I shake my head. “I'm sure we'll find a way out once we're done inspecting this thing,” I say, trying to sound confident, but who knows? I don't want to freak out now.
A spiral set of metal stairs starts from the ground floor and winds all the way up to the top, but we pass them and aim straight for the panels on the metallic wall. The interior is dark, and there doesn't appear to be any artificial lights for human eyes, just moonlight trickling in from a window at the very tippy top. Probably because Cylindricals aren't serviced by humans, just bots.
I lift the lid of the panel on the wall. “Wires.”
“Do we cut them?” Esfir asks me as if I'm leading this mission.
“I don't know. What do you think?”
His hazel irises dart to the left wall. “Maybe we leave 'em. Don't want to set off any alarms.”
“Right.”
He ambles to the other wall, staring incredulously at a chalk-white diagram drawn on black paper.
“What's this?” My face presses closer to examine the diagram.
“I don't know.” He shakes his head. “Looks like some kind of blueprints…just hanging here. It's odd.”
My forefinger follows a few lines of the diagram. “For building the Cylindricals?”
“Maybe, but why keep them inside here? Information can be downloaded into the bots via MAQS's mainframe.”
My fingers fiddle with the paper, the torn corners and dirtied surface…until I wet my pinky and rub it against a dark stain. “What's this?” I ask Esfir as I step back in concern. His eyes squint closer as we examine the stain on my pinky.
“That's dried blood,” Esfir says firmly, and simultaneously a buzz buzz emanates in the distance.
“Damnit! Bots are coming!” I fret, jetting forward and toward the panel where we entered, stumbling on my way. “We have to get out of here, now!”
I hit the invisible door where our exit should be with a hard fist, as I frantically search for another notch because nothing has opened. Esfir stands beside me, his fingers searching feverishly. “Here! Here!” Esfir pushes a layer of metal just a half-inch shorter than the rest of the wall and the panel swooshes open.
We jump out and onto the grass of the park when several bots surround the route we took to get here. Their dark eyes glow in the night like stars in the sky and the center of their chests vibrate red as the buzz buzz grows louder. Many human Keepers yell behind the bots for us to stop, shaking their raised fists and a few of them toting their surge batons. “Turn yourselves in or face harsh consequences!” they shout.
Bots try to identify us, their beady red eyes homing in on our faces—even from a distance—just as they are programmed to do to all law breakers. “Identify yourselves,” they command.
“They're surrounding us!” I yell as Esfir grabs my shoulder and pulls me in the opposite direction to the approaching mob.
“Come!”
“Our balloon!” I pull away from him and toward the bots, just for a moment, my eyes fixed on the red of the balloon in the sky, and then Esfir yanks me backwards again, his fingernails pinching my skin.
“Forget it!”
We race away from the hill, from Romanov Pod, my mind still on our loss—our balloon with all that data—and through the other side of the park under more birch trees as bots and Keepers scurry. I think they might catch us and my face grows hot, my skin sweaty, and I could just faint, until we race across a sidewalk leading us into another zone.
On the sidewalk, we breathe heavily for a few seconds and then Esfir yanks me forward again. “We have to keep moving.”
I look back, my neck twisting, and see the Keepers in gray uniform and cap racing toward us paired up. The new zone is quiet, like all zones in Cherni, but we stay on the sidewalk outlining the homes as best as we can before hopping a fence and huddling near a decorative fountain. “Do you think we lost 'em?”
“If not, they'd be here by now.” Esfir rests his hands on his hips, and lowers his frame to breathe better.
“How the hell did they find us?” I feel let down, our mission ripped to shreds.
Moonlight splashes speckled shapes all over Esfir's face. “I don't know.”
“We lost our balloon, all of our evidence that the atmosphere is fine, that MAQS is lying!”
Esfir huffs a few times, still catching his breath. “We'll find another way.” He rests his open palm on my shoulder. “At least we weren't caught.”
We sit under the moon in someone else's yard for probably thirty minutes, just watching each other, gazing at the sky, and breathing. Then, Esfir points to the cluster of stars above us, his arm near my cheek and arm hairs tickling my skin. “That's Leo the Lion.”
I half-chuckle. “There's a constellation named after a lion?”
“And an eagle, a ram, a crab, a dog, a swan, a queen—” His face beams when he talks about stars.
“A queen?”
His eyes turn from the sky and to my face which I hope is not all squishy from frustration and hyperventilating. “Of course you'd want to know more about the queen.” He smiles.
“So, what's her name?”
“Cassiopeia. The queen of Ethiopia.” Esfir's short stubble—which he still hasn't shaved—rubs against my cheek as he points and explains, “She is bound to her chair and forever circles the poles with her head downward.”
“Why such harsh punishment?”
“A punishment by the sea nymphs for boasting about being more beautiful than all of them.”
“Ah, jealousy, then.” I crack a smile. “That figures.”
I glance into his eyes, the green specks catching me off guard. “It's too bad there isn't a duty for the stars. You'd really love it.”
“Yeah, but maybe there is in another district somewhere.” He looks off into the sky.
“Don't.” I grab his arm, worried. “Don't say things like that. No one leaves the district they've been assigned to by MAQS.” I take a deep breath to relax, and say the next part sarcastically. “It's for our own good. After all, she's chosen the best environment for our gene type.”
“But maybe one day I will.” He sounds so resolute, just like Mama used to sound.
Biting my lip, I respond quickly, “Look what happened to the rebel group Freedom, to my mama.” I shake my head, not wanting to believe he's even considering this.
“If I don't leave, I'll likely end up harvesting fruits and vegetables like my papa.” His face dims and even the light of the moon can't camouflage his pain. “I'll just die if that happens.”
“It won't. You're smart. Your grades are stellar. MAQS just has to assign you to something in the sciences.” I grab the back of his neck, drawing his eyes to connect to mine. “We'll figure something out.” I wrap my arms around him and squeeze; his broad shoulders and round chest engulf me. I forget for a moment that bots and Keepers are chasing us and that we are out after curfew. Then, I remember. “Do you think they saw our faces?”
“The Keepers? No,” Esfir answers confidently. “Too dark.” He glances at his fingernails, his dirtied fingernails. “You're worried 'cuz humans can recognize disguised faces better than bots, aren't you?”
“Yeah.”
“We can't know for sure, but I'm sure the bots didn't.”
“I guess we'll see when we get home.”
Esfir stands, pulling me up with him. “Yeah, if bots and Keepers are waiting for us at home, I'd say we've been identified.” He winks and I cringe.
We head back to my zone first. Esfir's always a gentleman like that, making sure I always get home safe. When we notice no bots, we grin at each other and then sneak up to my window. We stand in the pebbles and sand for a few minutes, our feet shifting weight, our hands reaching out, until Esfir pulls me to him and his eyes fix on mine while his lips caress me—my nose first, and then my cheek, until finally my lips taste his. I inch away with my palms fiddling over the window frame before Esfir lifts the window for me and I slide through the sill. Once in, Esfir pulls the window shut and I lock the latch from the bedroom.
It took Esfir until my sixteenth birthday to kiss me, and I had to initiate it. This was, in part, because he's shy, and in part, because I was assigned to marry someone else at age nine. My family had been given the notice. Typically, getting to know your to-be husband occurs ten days before marriage, based on an old tradition MAQS said she found in the East about arranged marriages, and in her view was best for long-lasting and successful relations. So, I'd never met him and didn't desire to. Though once, Papa tried to get me to meet him in a park but Mama was vehemently against it and told me to make up my own mind about such things, and I should date who I want. That a computer couldn't tell us who we loved.
Still, I could feel Esfir's wanting, his lingering too long whenever we were together. I knew he wanted more than just friendship—but because of our duty to marriage, to a spouse of MAQS's choosing, we never thought we could be together. After that birthday, we started talking about MAQS, about exposing her to the citizens of Cherni so that we could live a life of our own choosing. A life where we chose our own duty, our own home, our own companion, our own district. The idea gave me hope—gave us hope.
My mouth forms a silent goodbye as my hand waves, before Esfir winks one last time and then disappears. I guess we've made it into the clear. No one knows we were gone. I plop onto my bed, my legs underneath me, as my hands rub my thighs. My mind circles around the Cylindrical, the blueprints, the bloodstain on my pinky. Then, I look at my pinky tip, still a crimson color, and think about Mama all alone in the district jail cell for six years, with no one ever allowed to visit, and then chills rush over my spine and I shiver.
All the times she cooked me breakfast and I could never once return the favor. I wonder what she thought about, if she felt we'd abandoned her or stopped thinking about her. I wonder what her last moments were like, when she decided to end it all and if she was finally content with a decision she could make all on her own—without MAQS. Maybe that was relieving, empowering.
I fall backward onto my bed, letting my legs reach out from under me, and I sigh a long breath as I close my eyes. Curling up underneath the covers, I tuck my head between my sheets and a pillow and try to sleep, but my mind still races. Ash and Lotus jump onto the bed, licking my feet as if to console my discomfort. Somehow they always sense my discomfort; maybe it's something about being an animal.
Broken memories of Mama flood me; a purple dress color, a taut dinner table smile, a birthday gift of baked cookies…all bringing a warm smile to my face. Then, Mama tells me to get out while I still can. Words warn me to find the truth as she digs into her pot of soil to plant more lilacs before she tries escaping. I see a key. A silver key. My body jerks up and I remember.
I bolt out of my room, leaving my door ajar, while Papa, Diana, and Julian are fast asleep. I head to the sliding glass leading into the backyard and open it carefully. I step barefoot onto wet grass as I plod across the lawn to the shards of pottery in the far left corner—where all of Mama's pots were tossed by bots after she was hauled off to jail.
I rummage through the rubble, lifting each cracked pot and searching with wide eyes and investigating fingers. “Where's the key? She hid a key!” I practically yell.
I must have spent twenty minutes ransacking the old pottery: smashed bowls she made in her spare time, pots holding herbs, others used for growing carrots and cucumbers. I felt if I could find this key—this relic of my past—I'd somehow be closer to Mama. Papa loved having a miniature garden in his backyard, and this was a reason he loved Mama so much. They shared a love of gardening.
But where is the pot with the lilacs? I fumble over a pot with the top half split off and filled with old soil that has turned into hard dirt. Butterflies swarm my stomach as my fingers dig into the crusty soil farther until my index finger finally hits something metal.
I use my thumb and forefinger to latch on to the thick object and tug upward until visible enough to dust off the dirt. The key. “I've got it!” My palm clenches around the key that's as thick as three keys melted together. Its top is shaped like twisted vines, and the color is a tarnished copper. I try to remember more, something Mama might have said, something that could lead me to where this key fits, but the harder I try, the less I remember, and the more I am left sitting alone in the backyard with thick wisps of cool night air rushing over me.
Then, I feel chilly. I dust my knees off and scurry across the sand and back inside to my room where I hide the key inside of a pink vase on my desk with a single dandelion dangling. The water in the vase washes away the rest of the dirt from the key.
I change out of the dirtied tunic and into another one of the same color, and then wash my face and hands at the bathroom sink, afraid I'm washing away evidence to prove something heinous happened inside of the Cylindrical, but I can't walk around with blood on my hands. As I watch the crimson stain wash down the sink drain, I wonder what actually happened inside that Cylindrical, because we all know that bots don't bleed.
I wonder if the rebel group Freedom somehow found their way into the cylindrical, if they managed to leave clues behind for me to find—clues that will lead me to the truth about Cherni, about MAQS. But what would Freedom be doing inside of the Cylindrical? I might never know. Still, something human was in there. Had to be.
