While I deal with the shock of Carrick finding his parents, I’m dragged away by a chirping Mona, who talks so fast I can barely keep up.
“Doesn’t matter, I’ll show you. You can share with me.”
The accommodation is a series of portacabins piled on top of one another, but not just regular cubic cabins with basic beds inside—these are modern, state-of-the-art. I steal a glimpse inside one of them as we pass and see an entire living space cleverly built in the pod. There’s a bunk bed—single on top and double beneath—built-in shelves, drawers beside the beds. There’s even a toilet and shower. Everything is glossy white.
“Each sleepbox has an en suite bathroom, air-conditioning, a flat-screen TV, and a personal safe,” Mona says in a funny accent, as though she’s my hotel guide. “The rooms all include a double bed and a single bunk bed.”
I laugh. “I’ve never seen anything like these before.”
“Nothing but the best for CCU workers.” She lowers her voice, though the section of non-Flawed living space is so far away nobody could possibly hear us. “The owner of Vigor is sympathetic to the Flawed. None of us have ever met him; he’s a secret shadowy figure,” she says sarcastically, eyes wide and fingers moving spookily.
“Is that Eddie?”
She laughs. “No. Eddie runs the place. I’m talking about the big boss: the owner, creator, inventor, whatever, of Vigor. Bahee claims to know him, but I’m not so sure. Bahee is a scientist; he can sometimes be a little bit…” She whistles to finish the sentence. “Anyway, Eddie knows about us. He keeps us living away from the others, manages shifts to keep us apart most of the time. Nobody but him and us knows that we’re Flawed, and it has to stay that way. Obviously here we’re all evaders.” She rolls her eyes at the term. “So you won’t see any armbands on us. If you have a brand on your hand, you get a job that requires gloves; if you have a brand on your temple, you get a job that requires a hard hat or you find a fancy way of keeping your hair down. Don’t trust makeup to cover it. It gets hot here; it can melt off your face faster than you know. If the brand is on your tongue, you don’t talk too much. Get it?”
I nod emphatically. I have a brand in every place she’s mentioned, and more.
“Cool.” She studies me to make sure she believes me and seems happy with what she finds. “Had a girl in here who fell in love with a scientist. Lizzie. She shared my room. She kept talking about telling him. Needing to share with him her true self because she was so in love.” She rolls her eyes. “Honestly, I had to hear this crap every night. As you’ll see, that didn’t work out too well for her. She told him what she was, he was grossed out, and so she ran off. Could have got us into a whole lot of trouble,” she says angrily, unlocking the door to her cabin and pushing the door open.
It’s identical to the cabin I stole a glimpse of. The single bed above is clearly Mona’s, with posters and possessions, a teddy bear on the bed. Beneath it is the double bed. It’s just a naked mattress, where Lizzie once slept, where she thought this place was her home, where she was in love with a scientist, and then abandoned it. How replaceable we all are.
I understand how this girl Lizzie must have felt when she wasn’t wanted by her boyfriend as soon as she revealed that she was Flawed. I recall the way Art looked at me in the school library after my brandings, how he couldn’t bring himself to kiss me. I suppose that is the point of a tongue branding. They say it’s the worst of them all. In fact, it turned out to be the second worst. Crevan himself held the hot weld to my spine to show that I was Flawed to my very backbone. But no one here will ever know about that, no one but Carrick, who witnessed it.
“When did Lizzie leave?” I ask, looking at her empty double bed.
“Two weeks ago. No good-bye,” she says angrily. “She left most of her stuff here, too. You spend every day with someone and you think they’re your friend.… Anyway—” She changes the subject, pretends not to care, though it’s clear she’s hurt. “So, ground rules. You sleep here, wash there, and do your thing in there. Depending on your job, you can go to bed and get up whenever you want. There are night shifts and day shifts. You can help yourself to the food in the kitchen in our rec room. The plant has a better cafeteria—more options, tastier food—but it’s harder to avoid people getting too close there. Kelly and Adam work in the kitchen; Bahee is a scientist; Cordelia a computer whiz; I’m a cleaner. You can talk to the other staff, but don’t get too close. No one knows we’re Flawed, but some people ask too many questions, you know? Best thing is to keep to yourself, but not too much, or you’ll stand out. Whatever you do, stay away from Fergus and Lorcan; they’re only after one thing.” She looks at me knowingly.
“Oh, right, sex.”
“No.” She bursts out laughing. “I wish. No”—she turns serious—“revolution. I mean, Carrick probably is, too; he hangs out with them, but he’s a quiet kind of guy, you never know what he’s thinking.” She leaves a silence, while she studies me with a smile. “I see you’ve already caught his attention.” She raises her eyebrows.
“It’s not like that with me and Carrick,” I say, unable to explain how it really is.
Our connection goes deeper than that. We shared something that will link us forever, something I’ll never have with anybody else. Though I don’t know if it’s a good thing, to look at him and always remember that he was the person there in the Branding Chamber during the toughest moment of my life. It causes me to remember it, over and over again. Maybe being away from him would help me to forget.
Mona is looking at me for juicy details, but I’m uncomfortable. To tell her what bonded us would be to tell her what happened, and nobody can ever know what happened.
“How long have you lived here?” I ask, looking around.
“Oh, you’re as bad as Carrick, deflecting the questions. Whatever. Don’t tell me, but watch out, those Institution boys are famous for only wanting one thing.” She steps on my double bed with her big black leather boot and climbs up to her bed. She sits on the edge, her legs dangling over my bed.
I think about it. “Revolution?”
She grins. “Nope. Mostly, they want sex.”
I have to laugh.
“I’ve been here one year. To answer your question.”
“You’ve been Flawed for one year?”