Chapter 1: Marked
I drummed my fingers against my desk, my fingernails making tiny indents in the soft wood. The digital clock on my bedside table read 6:15, fifteen minutes until the time when my alarm would go off and I was expected to wake up. If only I could sleep. I picked up the glass sitting on my desk. It was empty with one drop of cranberry juice left at the bottom. I raised it to my lips. I was parched but I couldn't bring myself to get up and get a drink. There wasn't even enough cranberry juice left for a full swallow, but it still managed to fill my mouth with the taste of throw-up. Old cranberry juice tasted like barf, who knew?
I dragged myself to my feet, having decided I might as well start getting ready. It bothered me that I had to try to fit in with trends that had happened hundreds of years ago. I wondered what people outside the city would wear. On instinct I reached up and felt my left cheek bone. It was bare, it bore no little black tattoo. This reassured me until I realized that that could all change today.
I had already finished showering, but my family was still asleep. I didn't understand how they could. Sure, Erin had little to no chance of being marked today, but if I was Rosa I probably wouldn't have gotten to sleep at all. There was even a slim chance that my father would be chosen, his class was not completely closed, like my mother's.
Looking out the window, I noticed the overcast sky and the faint smell of rain. The dreariness of today wasn't helping my mood. I surveyed the view, the greenish brown lawn, the single tree that stood between the side walk and the street. It was the only view I'd ever known. What did it look like outside the city? My feeble imagination couldn't even conjure up an image.
I hit the button on the straightener. My hair naturally hung in ringlets that I usually liked to leave alone, but I needed something to do until my family woke up. My hair was a strawberry blond colour that was closer to blond than strawberry. The blond and the reddish colour merged halfway down my back, my roots were pure blond. Everyone says that blue eyes are beautiful, but I think mine were the only exception. My eyes were a murky colour, like you're looking at the sky through brown tinted sunglasses.
A rustling sound, originating from another part of the house, jerked me out of my reverie. My family was probably waking up. I grabbed my sweater from the closet. It was Abercrombie. It made me feel strange knowing that I was just wearing a vintage copy, a recreation. It made me feel old, like someone's great grandmother. The whole city was old and fake, like the exhibits in a museum, and today was the day that they decide which exhibits would be taken off display.
On a normal day Rosa would have driven us to school, but that day Mom took us. We all knew why, but no one talked about it. As I looked out the window I saw the signs, “This year we're especially targeting the criminal class.” and “Mayor Gregory is cleaning up the city this marking.” These signs both reassured me and filled me with dread. They served as a reminder that today was not a normal day, yet I wasn't a criminal and my class was probably quite broad. I tried to tell myself I had nothing to worry about, but it didn't work.
As far as I knew the classes were determined by several different things. We were grouped into categories depending on personality tests and our teachers observations. However these didn't particularly matter because the main deciders into whether you were marked or not were simply age and gender. For example if there had been a particular baby boom the year you were born the number of people from your age group who were marked would go up.
Something that had always bothered me about the marking was how it was contradictory to what the government usually stood for. The city was supposed to be a perfect recreation of the pinnacle of human society, the 21st century. Yet nothing even close to the marking had ever existed as far as I knew. Whenever someone asked they spewed some crap about the fear level. How the risks in the 21st century outweighed the risks today and they had to keep everything true. That was the part that confused me. The markings themselves were more part of our lives than a lot of little details they obsessed over. Did it not occur to them that the markings themselves were tainting the “purity” of our city?
When we arrived at school, Erin and Rosa ran inside, but I stood outside and looked at the building that I'd spent the majority of my existence in. Its tall brick walls were still intimidating, even though I practically lived inside them. I wondered if schools in the actual 21st century had looked like that. There's really no way I'd ever know. The city could do whatever the hell they wanted and no one would question it because “that's what happened in the 21st century, and we must keep things true to history.”
“Hey, Nance.” Dustin was waving his hand back in fort in front of my face. “Nancy! Snap out of it.”
I shook my head and ripped my eyes away from the building. “What? I'm sorry,” I apologized sheepishly. “I was just daydreaming, I guess.”
Dustin was what you'd call a best friend, but he was more of a sibling. I was more comfortable telling him things than Erin and Rosa. He was six feet and I was constantly teasing him for being a giant. I knew I was being kind of hypocritical, because I was 5'6 myself, but he was so fun to tease. He had dark brown hair, that hung down around his ears. I didn't know much about races, but I didn't think he was Caucasian. His skin tone was too dark for that. I assumed he was some type of native.
He looked at me with his dark brown eyes.“It's fine.” He grabbed my arm. “Come on, we need to get inside and take attendance before our class leaves for the marking.”
I didn't object and followed him inside, It was going to be a long day. We arrived just in time. Our class was just getting up from their desks and filing out into the hall to gather their belongings.
“Oh, Dustin, Nance.” Our home room teacher Ms. Franklin called us over. She looked too rushed to scold us for being late. “We aren't going far this marking. We're just walking to one of the government buildings across the street.”
I swallowed. The last time I'd been to a marking was in Grade Seven. A lot could change in the two years between markings, especially age. I'd never been inside a government building before, but it was said that they had technology from the modern day, the kind of technology that the citizens of the city had never laid eyes on.
It wasn't unbearably cold outside; the temperature never dipped to extremes in the city. All I needed was my sweater. As the class walked through public park in front of the government buildings, everyone had fallen eerily quiet for a group of 14-and-15-year-olds.
I heard a sniffling and I turned around. A girl was already crying. I winced when I realized who it was. Lela wasn't exactly known for her bravery. She was pretty and petite with, what I assumed, was Greek heritage. No one else was even looking up, which was surprising because people were usually tripping over each other to comfort her. I walked over and put my hand on her shoulder. Dustin followed.
“What's wrong Lela?” I asked even though I already knew the answer.
“I'm just so nervous,” she blubbered.
She looked vaguely disappointed. Mine and Dustin's attention probably wasn't sufficient for her.
“It's fine.” I was just going through the motions. We all knew that no amount of whining and crying would stop you from being marked. “Our class probably has thousands of people in it, and we're not criminals. What's the chance of one of us being picked?”
She nodded sniffling, and wiped the tears of her face. “Yeah, you're right. There's nothing I can do about it anyways.”
I smiled, pretending to be happy she'd stopped crying. I looked over to Dustin and rolled my eyes.
“Thanks, Nance,” she said grinning, then gave another sniffle.
“It's nothing,” I replied, really starting to get sick of her antics. “I'm just glad you're not hurt or something.”
“Yeah, I'm glad you're okay Lela,” cooed Cherin, one of Lela's regular admirers.
I heaved a sigh of relief, and hoped that Lela hadn't noticed. She was a bad enemy to have. I quickly jogged away, up the path, to catch up with Dustin. He was talking with a couple of the other boys. I was content to walk with them the rest of the way. Their joking demeanor was a lot more help with my nerves than Lela's sniffling.
The outside of the government building was stone and covered with crawling ivy. It looked old. I was beginning to wonder if maybe this government building was modeled in the 21st century style after all. Being in a familiar type of room would help keep me from ripping my hair out when they decided my fate. But behind the normal looking metal door was an interior the likes of which I'd never laid eyes on before. Directly behind the metal door was a glass automatic one, like the one you might find in a mall. However, what lay behind that door was a whole different story.
The lobby of the building was pristine and white. White floors, white walls, and a high vaulted metal ceiling. The room was almost comically large and empty. The scattered couches and the reception desk took up so little of the space that you could probably drive a Hummer truck through the room without hitting anything.
Strange looking cameras covered the walls and ceiling. It made me wonder if this is what if felt like to be watched by extraterrestrial creatures. But all of these oddities paled in comparison with what stood on the far left side of the room. There stood four round glass tubes. They looked like they could comfortably fit ten people inside. I watched in awe as a man in a suit walked up to one of them. He scanned his hand prompting a door to slide open, that I hadn't even noticed was there. He then stepped onto a metal plate that was serving as the floor of the tube, however, it didn't seem to be attached to the sides. His mouth moved like he was saying something, and the metal plate rocketed up the tube and disappeared into the ceiling. The glass tubes were obviously some type of elevator, but whatever they were I'd never seen anything like them before.
“Children!” Ms. Franklin clapped her hands. “Please turn your attention to our guides.”
She gestured to two sullen looking government agents, but I could tell she was just as shocked as us. A tall ebony skinned women stepped forward and tried to stretch her face into a smile, but it didn't work.
“Hello children, we will divide you into three groups, and proceed up the lifts. There you will be informed whether you have been chosen to be marked.”
My fear of the upcoming marking was pushed aside by my excitement to ride in one of the lifts. Our teacher was in the process of dividing us into groups. Thankfully, she let me stay with Dustin. I didn't know what I would have done if she'd split us up. We were put into the group led by the woman who had spoken originally. She herded us into one of the tubes. It turned out that Lela was with us as well. I was secretly glad. There were much worse people you could end up with.
I took one of my hands and pressed it against the glass of the tube, then quickly removed it. Wouldn't the glass give me burns if the metal plate suddenly began to move? I was jerked out of my reverie by a yelling.
“Hey, HEY, wait for me!”
There, sprinting across the expanse of the lobby, was Aria. My face stretched into a grin. It was just like her to be late. I was amazed she'd even been able to find this place. I wouldn't have put it past the stern faced woman to leave without her, so I wedged my shoulder into the door, praying that it wouldn't take my arm off. It turned out I had nothing to worry about. Aria easily made it to the lift. It was a relief to have her there. Aria was easily my best girl friend. Other than Dustin, she was my favorite person in the world. She had shoulder length brown hair with golden highlights. She only came up to my ear but, what she lacked in height she made up for in personality. She could fill a room with energy quicker than a herd of toddlers.
“Nice to see you, Aria,” Dustin said teasingly, a smirk lighting up his face.
I smiled and grabbed her hand. “Come on!” I pulled her into the lift.
“Damn, this thing is cool!” Aria looked around, “I wonder how it works.”
Before I had time to ponder this, the government agent interjected.
“Are we going to have anymore late arrivals, or can we leave now?” She sounded exasperated and I personally didn't blame her.
The lift fell silent, the woman nodded and said in a commanding voice. “Fourth flour please.”
The metal plate hummed to life, and it began to shoot upwards. It turned out that I shouldn't have worried about the glass walls. There were two layers of glass separated by less than half a centimeter of air and the closer one moved with the lift. This was obviously for safety purposes, because the lift didn't look like it needed any support devices, such as a pulley. The lift reached the ceiling and we were plunged into blackness. Soft gold lights seemed to appear on the lift's outer tube.
“Whoa!” Lela gasped in awe.
But as soon as we saw it, it was gone again, and we were shooting thought the next level of the building. This level was divided into cubicles and from our height I watched the people work like ants in an ant farm. When we traveled through the third level we were almost entirely encased in blackness, except for a small pinprick of light, which must be where you unloaded. The light had just come flooding back into the tube when the lift came to a halt. We were in a small sitting room with a couple of large couches and a type of podium. It was carpeted and it looked rather cozy.
I expected the hidden door of the lift to slide open and allow us to exit, but it stayed shut. I was beginning to wonder if this level had a door at all. One of Dustin's friends, Mark, looked like he was getting impatient. He reached over and tapped the woman on the shoulder.
“Hello, when are you going to let us off this thing?”
The woman stayed silent for a few seconds then said, “We'll get off when they're ready for us.”
Her words sounded strangely ominous and I resisted the urge to scream. All my excitement at riding the lift had left, being replaced by fear and apprehension. This was a totally different environment than my previous markings. My last marking had taken place in a local community center and before that in our classroom at school. I suddenly felt claustrophobic. It felt like the glass of the tube was going to constrict and suffocate me. I tilted my head upward and was relieved to see that there was no top, just the tube, extending into the blackness of the next level.
I squinted my eyes. There was something moving up there. Suddenly I was blinded by a bright blue light. I looked down, but my vision was already swimming with little white dots. As I looked up I froze. The entire tube was filled with the light. My classmates looked just as shocked as me. However, our guide looked perfectly calm and was leaning against the side of the tube with a bored expression on her face. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished, and a large screen on the wall outside the tube hummed to life. It looked like the blue light had been some sort of identification ray, because all of our names appeared on the screen accompanied by our pictures.
At the most, ten seconds after our names had appeared on the screen, the door of the lift slid open and we tumbled out into the room. The woman gestured for us to take a seat. I sat between Aria and Dustin and began to bite my nails. The door at the front of the room swung open and an old man in a suit entered and stepped up onto the podium.
He cleared his throat and said, “Hello children, and welcome to your third marking ceremony.” It was true, this was only my third marking ceremony. Before the fifth grade being marked was so uncommon a government agent would come directly to your house to deliver the news. It was always tragic when this happened.
“One at a time we will be calling your names and you will be allowed to exit the room. If one of you is actually marked then we will tell you in private.”
I swallowed, this wasn't a good sign. If none of us were going to get marked, wouldn't they just tell us we could all leave? I was suddenly hit with the reality that someone I cared about, or dare I say me, could be sentenced to death, or close enough. The first name began to flash. It was Cherin's, the girl who had spoken to Lela outside. With a cheery dinging sound a little green check mark appeared beside her name. She heaved an audible sigh of relief and practically ran out of the room. What I'd have given to be her.
Slowly people drained out of the room until it was just me and Dustin. At that point I was almost ready to make a break for it, but Dustin looked at me and his message was clear. Don't do anything stupid. Suddenly his name was flashing and I crossed my figures and prayed that he would be safe. The little check mark appeared and he left. Then it was just me. Suddenly my name was flashing and something appeared next to it, but it wasn't a check mark. It was a black circle with an X running through it, almost like the cross hairs of a gun.
It was a symbol, a mark. The same mark that would soon be on my face.
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