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1
Ding.
The soft chime woke me. I opened my eyes to stare at the ceiling. Light gray with embedded strips that gradually increased in brightness the longer I lay abed. Laziness, a crime above all others, couldn’t be allowed to take root.
I swung my legs over the edge of the thin foam mattress and sighed for no reason other than another day had begun. Another day of dull work, hopefully not somewhere smelly and gross. Not that I had a choice, or would know what my job would entail until I received my assignment along with everyone else. Because we all did our part. Every single citizen of the Caves took turns doing the easy jobs and the vile ones. Everyone was treated equally. Or at least equally among those wearing the gray. Our society existed as divided colored castes, with Grays ranking lowest.
Some days, I wondered what it would be like to be any other color. Did they feel differently than I did? Did they also wish they could just lie in their bed and not get up? Thrilling blasphemy to even think about it.
The lights overhead brightened to the point I squinted. My final warning I’d dallied too long. I stood, bare feet pressing against a floor neither hot nor cold. Everything always remained at the same temperature inside the habitat. Nothing ever really changed. It didn’t used to bother me. Now…now I dreaded waking.
With me out of bed, the automated mechanism flipped the mattress and its platform into the wall. In almost that same second, the cleansing unit lowered over me, a tube of seamless, solid gray that I closed my eyes to ignore.
The hated sensation of feeling trapped assailed me, as it did every morning of late. I couldn’t have said why my feelings had changed. The day always started with a cleaning. Actually, first a squat to expel bodily waste, which siphoned down a drain, thankfully without aid this morning. Extraction could be uncomfortable. However, given the locations of some of our tasks lacked proper fecal-disposal facilities, it had to be taken care of.
Body emptied, I regained my full height and kept my eyes shut as the expected tingles began running up and down my body, lasers removing dead-skin particles and any dirt. Not that there should be any, given I’d needed cleaning before my dinner the day before, as my shift in the mushroom gardens had left me grubby. A clumsy Gray, whose name I didn’t know, had fallen onto a large specimen, causing it to explode with spores. Not pleasant smelling, but at least I’d not been one of those who’d reacted horribly with giant, itchy red hives.
The invisible rays did their thing, and once the tingling ceased, I opened my eyes. The tube receded into the ceiling. At times, I wondered what would happen if the mechanism failed. The thought of being trapped caused a strange feeling inside me that caused my palms to sweat and heartbeat to accelerate.
A shelf protruded from the wall with my outfit—gray pants and shirt. The same as every other day. The only time I didn’t wear it was when I slept. At night, we stripped and put our clothing in the recycling chute. I would have preferred to remain dressed, as I felt exposed when nude in bed. Again, a recent change. I used to not care.
As I pulled on the loose tunic and pants, an unexpected voice startled me, emerging from the embedded speaker in the ceiling of the room.
“Congratulations, Citizen J891. You have been marked.”
What? I blinked a few times as I mulled over the wordmarked. How? When?
My hand reached over my shoulder, the tips of my fingers running over the back of my neck. Ridged flesh met the pads.
“I don’t understand,” I muttered aloud.
“You have been marked,” the voice repeated.
“Obviously,” I muttered, ignoring the jolt through the floor at my sarcasm. It happened more and more often of late. No matter how many times the monitoring system reprimanded me, I couldn’t seem to help myself. “What does it mean?”
“Proceed to the Consulate.” The Consulate was the place where those wearing blue administrated affairs. The Grays, like me, did the work. The Blues managed us as we went about our tasks. The darker the shade of blue, the higher the person ranked. We rarely saw the truly important, given they usually did most of the work from the Consulate, delegating supervision to the light blues.
And I was supposed to go there? “Why do I have to go to the Consulate?”
“Proceed to the Consulate,” the voice repeated.
I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t have said why other than it felt good. “How do I get there?” I’d never been. No Gray ever visited, or if they did, they never returned to speak of it. I should note not many of the Caves’ inhabitants spoke to start with.
“Proceed to the Consulate.”
“That’s a useless answer,” was my mutter.
The floor jolted me, harder this time. My teeth clacked. Punishment for being rude.
Frustration roiled inside me. I still had no idea what to do next, but asking apparently wouldn’t get me an answer. I kept my lips shut and chose to grope my nape a little longer, trying to determine the shape of the mark.
Distinct. Deep. How did such a thing happen to my body without me feeling it? Even if I slept, surely it would have woken me?
A better question—why me?
Could it be my recent attitude? That would make sense. I’d been zapped quite a bit lately and given numerous medical exams, as if I ailed.
I felt fine. Just bored. And curious. The wordwhykept coming up, and I’d yet to hear abecausein response.
