Four
“Eenie!”
A loud banging from my front door wakes me from my sleep.
I wipe the drool from my cheek, and stumble out of my bed. My vision gets blurry from standing up too fast and for a moment I’m lightheaded. I hold onto the wall to stabilize myself and laugh a little bit. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. It just kind of… happened.
More banging at the door makes its way to my ears, and I shove the tiny tablet I’d fallen asleep staring at underneath my pillow.
I open the door and Nad looks up at me, smiling. It quickly fades as she looks me over.
“Why aren’t you ready?” She gasps.
I wipe my face with my hand, and stretch.
Right.
Today’s the ceremony.
“I forgot.”
Nad looks at me like I just told her the sky was green.
In my defense, it could be programed to be.
I stare at her for a moment while I let my brain catch up, and then wave her inside. She rushes in and sits down at my small table, her fingers already gliding over her device.
“You don’t even have a dress picked out, do you?” She asks, not even glancing up from the tablet. The question was rhetorical.
I sigh and grab my tablet off of the kitchen counter, taking a seat in the chair right across from Nad. I shift through dozens of slightly flickering pictures of dresses on the website you order them from, looking for the one that jumps out at me. There are so many different colors and so many different styles, it makes me wonder how someone could choose just one dress. It seems like an impossible feat.
I try to take my time looking through each dress so I don’t miss one that I could possibly like, but my brain grows tired of them and I find myself looking at the same one more than once. Who ever thought that this would be fun?
Nad does, I think to myself and smile.
“Do you want your hair up or down?” Nad asks, looking up at me.
“Surprise me,” I tell her sleepily.
Can I just pick one at random? Is that an option?
She nods and we both go back to looking through our—my—choices of dresses. There are too many…
I look through a few more, and my brain starts to wander. I only have one dress, but I don’t think I could wear it. Well, I couldn’t, even if I wanted to I think. It was my moms, and she had given it to me the morning she… you know, left this world.
I’ve never worn it. Mostly because of the color. It’s white.
Civilians are not allowed to wear white because it’s the color the Government Officials and the Safeties wear. In our Constitution, it says ‘I WILL NOT wear white, for it is the color for Government Officials. The reason for this is so that there is no confusion on who to go to if I, or another citizen, is in trouble, needs help, or I have something to report. Nor shall I wear black aside from funerals I attend. I shall not disobey the laws of Dome.’
So we don’t wear white.
Or black.
The only time we are allowed to wear black is for a funeral. I think, and this is my guess so don’t take it as the actual reason, we aren’t supposed to wear it because it blends in too well with the darkness of night.
The citizens of the Domes have to wear vibrant colors. The Shifter’s create our clothes and make sure each color stays neon or bright at least. They create clothes and do pretty much everything they are called to do. They do whatever needs to be done, whenever it needs to be done, and they can do almost anything, aside from the other jobs duties.
I glance at my closet, and see the bottom of the dress sticking out. It reminds me of a weed poking up through a sidewalk crack. It looks like it wants to get away from all of the other clothes and no longer be trapped inside that small closet.
I could wear that all I wanted if I was a Government Official.
I push that thought aside, disgusted with myself.
Stop it, Eenie. Why are you thinking this? I shake my head scoldingly. You’ve never wanted to be a Government Official, and you’re not changing your mind now.
You can do whatever you want—and get away with it too, if only you chose it, another part of me says. You could be free.
“Are you okay?” Nad asks, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I close my eyes and take a breath.
I look back at the screen, but my brain can’t focus.
Or you could escape, it tells me.
No one can escape this. Once you’re in, you’re in. No one could survive without the Domes. No one.
I realize I’m arguing with myself.
“Maybe I am going crazy,” I mutter.
“Did you say something?” Nad asks.
“No,” I lie.
I look down at the tablet. Its slightly flickering screen is as big as both of my hands put together, and on that screen is a blue dress. I stare back at it, trying to picture it on my body.
“Did you find one?” Nad asks, rising from her chair to look across the table and over the side of the tablet. “Oh, Eenie! That one is beautiful!”
I nod. “Yeah. It is beautiful. But it’s not the one I want.”
Her face falls into a look of exhaustion, but her brow furrows and her green eyes study my face, possibly to try to figure out what I mean.
I smile, and my heart races as I stand and walk to my closet.
I’m really doing this aren’t I?
I reach up for the dress and pull it out of its place.
Its long skirt makes a low swishing sound as it moves over the floor. The bodice is thick and completely covered with small diamonds that thin out at the top of the skirt like tree roots. The shiny material placed over the bottom glimmers in the artificial sunlight coming from my window, and the diamonds create hundreds of tiny rainbow spots on my walls.
My mothers dress.
“Eenie…” Nad breathes. “It’s so… magnificent! But it’s white.”
I smile at her words. “I know.”
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“They won’t give me a strike today,” I say in a low tone, a smile playing on my lips. “Today is ‘one of the most important days of my life’.”
o0o0o
I watch the walls of the Dame’s Dome through the small windows as the bus drives away from the bus stop. Ahead, I can see the tunnel to the Home Dome, where the ceremony will happen later tonight.
The bus windows close as the Dome walls shrink down to the small opening that leads to the tunnel. There used to be rumors that the walls of the tunnels are made of glass, and that’s why the windows on the busses are always covered when we travel through them. They used to say the Government doesn’t want us seeing the outside world because then we might not like what we see inside of the Domes afterwards and it might cause a rebellion.
As if that would happen.
The Government is too powerful to stand against.
The girls around me chat nervously, drowning out the low hum of the bus. They look at each other, and politely pass compliments back and forth, making as much small talk as possible to get the jitters out of their system. They are all in different bright colored dresses, some shades I’ve never even seen before. I guess they went through all of the dresses. I didn’t see those, and I went through quite a few.
Eyes dart over to me and whispers are exchanged every once in a while, and I understand why. I mean I am wearing the one color we are never supposed to wear. Also, my long, blonde hair down in ringlets with a diamond headband, while everyone else has their hair in strange styles and complicated knots.
For once, I stand out—but I don’t know if I like it yet. I don’t know. I don’t think I do, but something inside of me likes the attention.
Was this a good idea?
I place my head in my hands, being careful not to smudge my makeup. The Shifter that Nad had hired had designed it, and she had been so excited to have someone to try it out on. She had worked so h
ard on making it look good on me, and even glued some diamonds to my face to go with the ‘theme’ or whatever word Nad used. It looks really pretty.
Or at least it did the last time I looked in the mirror.
Suddenly, I feel self conscious.
“Interesting color,” I hear a girl say to me.
I look where the voice is coming from.
Opposite of me and a few seats down is a girl with sharp facial features. Her dark red hair meets her jawline in a perfect straight line, framing her guile smile. Sparkles intertwine with each strand of her hair to match the ones on her baby blue dress.
The girl leans against the window behind her with her arms crossed over her chest.
I nod in response, and look down at the floor of the bus.
Great.
“The President won’t be too happy about that. He’ll think you stole that dress from a Safety or a Government Official,” She smirks. “I’m Lease.”
I nod again, and shift my weight in my seat. Maybe I should have just gotten that blue dress instead of wearing this one.
“I’m Eenie,” My eyes focus on her and something flashes in her eyes. Recognition? Could that be it?
But she isn’t familiar, and she was never in my class when I was in the Home Dome. She would have to be, if she’s getting matched tonight.
So who is she?
“Why haven’t I seen you around the Dame’s Dome?” My eyes are still focused on her.
Lease’s face twitches a little.
“Because I’m a Safety,” She says simply, leaning forward so the lighting on the bus creates shadows on her face.
They make her look older than she’s supposed to be.
Prying eyes dart to her, curious. She definitely looks like one, like a Safety.
But she doesn’t act like one.
“No you’re not,” I say, my heart hammering in my chest.
Am I challenging her? I don’t mean to be… but I think I am…
She smiles at me like she knows something I don’t, and then leans back against the seat again.
“Then what am I?” She asks, her dark eyes challenging me excitedly. “You haven’t met them all.”
I watch her face carefully, studying her.
“I’ve been around the block a couple times,” I say, placing my chin on my hands defiantly.
It’s a dangerous game you’re playing, Eenie… be careful.
“I’m a Mechaneer. I’ve gotten at least one job assignment from every Safety in the Dame’s Dome—except for you. Why is that?”
She chuckles. “You’re smarter than I thought.”
I open my mouth to ask her what she means, but my window of opportunity vanishes as the driver turns around to announce we’re entering the Home Dome.
The windows open, and that’s when I see it: Home.
I see the trees I used to climb, and the little house I used to live in. It was an actual house, with actual rooms and two bathrooms.
Home.
It flashes by and I see the park in the center of the Dome. The place I got my first strike. Trees and flowers bloom by the cement sidewalks and all around the fountain in the center of it all. The only fountain in all of the Domes. I remember playing by it and wanting to get inside and learn to swim, but we weren’t allowed to. Swimming is just as unnecessary now as it was then. We don’t have anything to swim in or to swim to, like our ancestors used to.
The bus takes a left turn, and a large shiny gray Dome comes into sight through the windows. On it, the word ‘Mini-Dome’ is located above the door.
The bus comes to a slow stop before it. One-by-one we step off, until we are all standing in front the Dome and watching as it reflects the artificial sunlight off of its metal, creating rainbows and flashing us with the light. It looks like a big, round mirror.
The large doors open from underneath the name of the Dome, and a small, fat man walks out with a smile.
“Welcome to the Mini—Oh!” He proclaims, covering his mouth with his hand.
He saw my dress.
My face gets hot as he stares at me, flustered.
“My dear, who gave you that dress?”
“My mom, before she died,” I tell him hesitantly, looking at the ground that sits a few feet away from me.
He tries to smile and brush it away, but his eyes keep drifting over to me in fear, like I’m a ghost or something.
“The ball room,” He says loudly, opening a large pair of white doors. “This is where you will meet your future.”
We walk in and head to the center of the room. It’s shaped like a cylinder, and is decorated with several round tables draped with black tablecloths and carefully-placed chairs. Behind those, there are large, square ones for family and friends to sit at with chairs thrown carelessly beneath them.
“Ladies, choose your tables,” The fat man says in a pleasant tone.
I begin to walk to a table when he stops me.
“What is your name, young lady?”
“Shouldn’t you know?” I say, and step past him.
Maybe I should have just told him…
Good job, Eenie.
I choose a table in the second row next to a girl in yellow and a girl with a long black braid over her shoulder. A few tables to my left, Lease stands proudly in her light blue dress.
Someone would kill for that kind of confidence.
I notice that the tablecloths are laden with panels similar to the ones on the Dome walls, but they’re smaller than a pinkie nail, and, thankfully, they don't have any needle-like points on them that could possibly inject you with mystery stuff.
I scratch my right hand absentmindedly and look back up to the center of the room. There, in the middle of the empty, circular wooden dance floor, is the spot where the boys will stand in a around the cylindrical hologram, waiting to see the face of their future bride.
The hologram switches on, and it begins to flicker.
“Finyan Aand,” A soft, female voice comes from the hologram. “Please place your index finger on the tablecloth.”
A girl in purple in the back row of tables does as she’s told, and the cloth springs to life, rising and falling like ripples in water as it reads her fingerprint.
Her face appears on the screen with a bright smile and a background full of yellow flowers and green leaves.
The voice moves from girl to girl in alphabetical order, tablecloths coming to life one by one.
“Eenralla Land,” The voice finally coos. “Please place your index finger on your table cloth.”
I do, my finger suddenly feeling hot and itchy like when I wore the purple gloves, and a picture of me pops up with food on my face and my two front teeth missing.
A picture from a long, long time ago.
Snickers circle the room and my face feels hot.
Has no one taken any pictures since then of me? I’m sure someone has…
I guess not.
“Um, that’s an old picture of me,” I say loudly, hoping someone can hear me.
I remember that day. My mom said that was the messiest I had ever been, and she just had to take a picture of me before she cleaned me up.
“You don’t have any recent pictures of you,” The fat man mutters, walking up to me. “Smile.”
A bright light flashes, but it’s too late to try to smile. A picture of me with a vacant look and red cheeks flashes onto the screen. The girls begin to laugh, and I duck my head.
“Could I take another one?” I croak.
“No,” The man walks off, eyeing my dress. “It is done.”
He flickers five times.
A tail.
Maybe I’m not crazy.
o0o0o
Every name is finally called.
“Now you may sit down,” The voice says.
Each of us do, and the tablecloths begin to ripple again. I stare in awe. I have never seen panels that could do that so quickly.
My tablecloth turns white
, and I run my hand across it. The tiny panels make little waves that are gentle enough to not disturb the white flowers placed on the table. I guess I was wrong with thinking there were going to be candles. But flowers are better I guess, more predictable and less destructive.
I look over at Lease, who is running her hands over the table as well, unaware of the small waves she’s making. Her face seems softened as she looks out into the room, but the rigidness comes back as she looks in my direction and realizes I’m watching her.
I snap my face away and look at the hologram. It flickers every now and then.
Right now, everyone should be outside the doors of the Mini-Dome, waiting for it to open up. I picture Nad elbowing her way to the front and jumping up and down, more excited than anyone else behind her.
The sound of the doors opening startles me, and I sit upright. I watch as family members and friends pile in and take their seats at the open square tables around the edges of the room. They begin to converse and point out their friend or sister or cousin to their neighbor.
But I pay no attention to the people in the randomly set tables. Instead, I’m looking for my best friend. She should be in here by now.
“I have an idea,” Nad had said earlier, before rushing out my door to the world of the Dome outside.
I was almost ready. I just needed to put my shoes on.
She ran back in, cupping a white flower in her hands.
“So we match!” She squeaked loudly.
I smiled.
It feels weird having someone care for you. Especially when you care back. I’ve never had a friend, let alone a best friend, really. Nad is like a little sister to me.
“What was your brother like?” I had suddenly asked her, zoning back in.
She smiled a bittersweet smile and looked down, twirling the flower between her pointer finger and her thumb.
“He used to be a good cook,” She said, smiling and tucking the flower behind her ear with her brown hair.
“Used to?” I had asked.
She nodded.
“I don’t know what happened to him. When I turned ten, I moved out of his Domeshouse to live in the Dame’s Dome—” She had had to live in the Dude’s Dome because she had a brother, and the younger sibling has to move out of the Home Dome with the older sibling when the older sibling turns ten, forcing the younger sibling to live in whichever Dome the older sibling is headed to to live in. “—and it didn’t help he was already working, so I wouldn’t talk to him much, especially after moving in here.”
“But he’d have been twelve. He couldn’t have had a job.”
“No,” She said. “He was born right after our parents had been married.”
I was puzzled. You get married at age eighteen and you aren’t allowed to have a child until you turn twenty. Even a second child is iffy when you turn twenty-two.
“My parents each got two strikes for that. It violated the Government’s rules,” She got a little choked up, and cleared her throat, laughing a little. “I think they banished him mostly because he couldn’t be the same as everybody else, though. Not just because he was born too early.”
I snap back to reality, and look around.
Who would want to be the same as everybody else?
Everyone but me, apparently.
The lights dim, and fast music starts to play. The hologram lights up, flickering in the center of the room. Please tell me someone else—anyone else notices it? Someone ask why it’s flickering and help me confirm that I’m not going insane.
“Welcome,” The robotic female voice from the hologram says, the image of a sunrise flickering with the word.
Beams of colored light circle around the room as the boys walk through the large door and make their way to the center. Everyone starts to cheer and clap. The girls become flustered and they begin to smile nervously. Some of them shout.
The boys wear a black tie, each one shimmering with the same black panels that cover the tablecloths.
Some of them wave as they walk by people and as their family or friends shout their name, and some of them dance around and cheer. They circle around the hologram and stand with their backs to it.
“Look around at the boys and girls in this room,” The voice says over the cheering. “They are about to take one of the largest steps in their lifetime. This is one of the most important days of their lives.”
The crowd cheers.
“The boys will be matched with the girls one at a time. Each of their ties will change to the color of the girls’ dress they are paired with. Now, we begin.”
Suspenseful music booms over the crowds cheering, and the lights above us fade. The only light comes from the glow of the hologram and the colorful beams of light skimming all around the room.
One of the boys’ faces shimmers onto the flickering holographic screen, and he looks out at the girls and smiles. His background information is placed below his picture, like occupation, birthday, and so on.
His tie starts to shimmer, and turns quickly to the color pink.
A girls’ face flashes onto the screen, and she squeals excitedly from the back of the room. Her information posts on the screen, and he drinks it up before heading over to her. They both sit down at the table, lost in conversation and giggles.
Many more are paired, this color and that color popping up and girls squealing, and the crowd applauding.
I look at the guys left, and one catches my attention. He is standing still, with a straight face. More of a frown, really. He looks like he doesn’t want to be here. Who could blame him? I would much rather be at home sleeping, too.
His name and face appears on the screen.
Ken Barkly, I read.
What kind of last name is Barkly?
His information comes up, and I read it, curious. It says he is a Cooker, and he is seventeen. His favorite thing to do is cook (go figure), and his birthday is May third.
That’s close to mine.
Wait…
His tie shimmers and, suddenly, it turns white.
The room is silent as I stand up, and every eye is on me. I’m still in the one color that is against the rules to wear. That’s right. I forgot about that…
My empty face pops up on the screen, and some people snicker or laugh, and my face gets hot. Ken glances for a second behind him, and then looks at me. For a moment, I think I see the start of the smile, but as soon as it was there it disappears.
He walks over to me, confidence in his step. His dark hair stands up in the front, and his brown eyes seem to look past me as he walks to the seat across from mine, like he doesn’t care that he was just matched with me for life. He wears a dark blue suit, and holds the jacket in his hand. He turns his back to the chair after draping the jacket over it, and looks straight back at the hologram, his eyes not falling on me once.
Is it the dress? My hair? The picture? It’s the picture isn’t it? Or is it my face? Is my face making him uncomfortable?
I realize I’m staring, and turn away, my heart rate picking up. What if it is my face? But it can’t be. Can it? Is my makeup messed up? Maybe I didn’t see myself in the mirror right. Maybe I look like some kind of troll, and I just saw what I wanted to see—
Great. I sound like the girls did on the bus.
“You wanna sit?” He asks, his voice smooth over the music.
I look over to him, almost startled, only to find him looking back at me.
My heart skips a beat and I take a shaky breath.
“Sure,” I say, looking away and sitting at the table.
I really hope my makeup isn’t messed up. I never wear makeup… I hope I didn’t ruin it.
I apologize to the Shifter in my head, just in case. I hope she understands. If she even gets the chance to see it…
Nervous clapping awkwardly spreads around the room and grows in volume as the hologram continues on with the rest of the girls and boys.
The last boy sits, and on the screen there are the
words IT IS DONE.
“Please stand,” The female’s voice from the hologram tells us. “The person standing next to you will be the one you will be with for the next twelve and one half years. You will be permitted to talk over your tablets from the safety of your Domes, and when you turn eighteen, you will be wed. Then, you will move into the Home Dome together, have your first child at twenty, and a possible second child at twenty-two. This cannot be undone.”
The audience claps and the sound escalates with whistles and shouts. Some of the people are crying from happiness.
But I still don’t see Nad.
I look at Ken, thinking about what a funny name Ken is, and how it doesn’t really fit him. He doesn’t look like a Ken. If that makes any sense at all.
“Everyone stand,” A mans voice booms over the noise in the Dome.
The flashing hologram disappears, and in the center of the round wooden floor stands President Murkas, dressed up more fancily than usual.
My face starts to feel warm again, and suddenly I want to throw up, or disappear, or sit down, or just do something that will bring me away from the center of attention, that’ll make sure he doesn’t notice me.
Another part of me wants to walk right up to him and tell him that he can’t control me, that I can do whatever the heck that I want and he can’t stop me.
But I don’t feel like being executed today.
He can easily see me from where I stand.
And that’s a problem for me.
He spins around, taking a look at the new pairings, and his eyes linger on me for a moment before he speaks again.
“Every year,” His eyes move on to talk to the crowd. “The President chooses one of the girls from the ceremony to dance with and give advice and reassuring to about the years to come. I have learned every name of every person in this room, and usually I choose the girl beforehand, but I simply just couldn’t decide. So I’m going to bring up my assistant to help me pick the lucky girl.” I see him turn a little bit, and look at Lease. She was not matched. Maybe she really is a Safety. But she can’t be.
“Lease.”
She nods once and walks up to him, planting her feet in the center of the floor. She looks around defiantly, cockily, as if she’s queen of the world and no one can bring her down.
She can’t be a Safety. Safeties don’t act like that.
He whispers to her, and she nods again, a smirk bending her red lips like a banana.
Maybe a Government Official.
“Eenralla Land,” She announces, holding her hand out to me.
Whispers and claps echo off of the walls. The President stares me down with a smile that holds a thousand secrets, waiting for me to walk forward.
Or maybe to bend at his feet and beg for mercy.
Ken is motionless beside me, his face like a stone statue.
I look around once more for Nad, and take a deadly step forward. With every stride, my nervousness increases, and my self esteem lowers.
One step.
I take a breath.
Two steps.
His outstretches toward me.
Three.
I try to slow my heart.
Four.
I take his hand.
Five.
He’s glaring into my soul.
The music begins to play.
“Interesting color,” He says as he pulls me in to dance.
“So I’ve been told,” I say coldly.
We start to move.
“Did you change your mind on your job?” He chuckles.
I glare at him. He’s the reason why I couldn’t be a hunter in the first place. If he wasn’t in office, I would probably be what I wanted to be. If he never said a thing about my seeing the outside, I wouldn’t be so afraid of what would happen if I got another strike.
Or maybe I’m just too angry to think clearly.
Maybe it wasn’t his fault.
But in my mind, it is. It’s all his fault.
“Careful, Eenralla,” President Murkas chuckles, crows feet clawing at the edges of his eyes. “I could kill you for wearing that dress.”