Caught Red-haired
second in the Utopia series
“We see blonds and brunettes all
the time, but where are the red-heads?
If you haven’t seen one around, it’s not simply a coincidence. Only every one person in one hundred carries
the recessive gene that causes red hair and merely two persons in a thousand
actually have red hair. Scientists have
discovered that the gene that causes red hair is disappearing, and could be
gone within a couple hundred years if something is not done now to stop its
disappearance.
“The government’s new voluntary
program aims to do just that. Red-heads
and other carriers of the gene from all over the city are gathering to
participate in the propagation program. Phillip
Alexi, spokesperson for the program…”
“Nate, are you paying
attention? Do you know what you want?”
Nate turned from the TV and looked
back at the overhead menu. “Yeah, I’m
here. What are you getting, Amelia?”
“My usual,” replied the girl with a
big smile.
Nate laughed, “You always get
that.”
“I know, that’s why I always know
what I want and you’re always standing here for ten minutes looking for
something to eat.”
“I think I’ve got it now.” The two stepped up to the counter together
and ordered. The employee went to go get
their food for them and they stood at the counter.
Amelia leaned ‘casually’ against
the counter and spoke softly, “Don’t look now, but that family at the big table
has been staring at us since we came in here.”
The employee returned with their
food and they went to get their drinks.
Nate sneaked a peek at the family at the big table. Sure enough, they were being stared at. The parents were at least trying to hide
their amazement, but one of the kids was turned completely around in his chair
with his mouth gaping. “They must be
from a different sector,” Nate remarked.
The two friends tried to get their
drinks and get to a table before things got awkward, but one of the parents
stood and approached them. “We couldn’t
help but notice your hair.” Their accent indicated that they were from the
North Coast sector of the city. “Are
your parents red-heads, too?”
Nate sighed. Things were about to get awkward.
“My dad has red hair,” the girl
responded, “but my mom’s a brunette.”
“Oh, how interesting!”
“And neither of my parents have red
hair, but they obviously both had the gene,” added Nate.
“So you two aren’t brother and
sister? I’m so sorry, I just
assumed. You do make a lovely couple
though. Did the government pair you?”
“We’re not a couple,” the red-heads
replied in unison.
“We’re just friends,” explained
Nate.
“Non-related friends,” Amelia
clarified.
The stranger’s face brightened in
embarrassment. She muttered a few
incomprehensible apologies and went back to her table to inform her family of
what she had learned.
“Seriously, we look nothing alike,
other than the hair,” Amelia exclaimed as they sat down.
Nate quickly compared the two. Both of them had red hair, bountiful
freckles, and the same pinkish-orange complexion. However, his square face and sharp nose
contrasted with her round face and button nose, her curvy body was nowhere
close to his thin athletic build, and the translucent blue of his eyes was very
different from the deep brownish green of hers.
“Yeah, I don’t really see a resemblance.”
Nate knew this was going to be a
short summer. It seemed as if everyone
wanted to hang out before they all left for college. When Nate got home, he had to move the stack
of incomplete thank you notes for graduation presents off his bed before he
hopped in. Nate was so tired from the
long day he’d had, but it seemed as if his brain would never shut off. He kept turning over in his mind everything
that had been going on recently with the government’s new program for red-heads. Normally, he didn’t care too much what the
government did, but now he was having to take a step back and look at it
again. Maybe the Grand Head had too much
control over people’s lives. Maybe that
was why everyone lived in one big city – not to be environmentally conscious
and let the earth recover from eons of scattered human occupation, but so that
the world’s government could more easily control its people.
Thoughts such as these were
dangerous, but Nate thought it was about time he think them. He could not go on pretending that everything
was right in the world.
Nate heard something
downstairs. He would have liked to
assume that it was just one of his brothers looking for a late night snack, but
it was too quiet. He grabbed one of his knives
and got up out of bed. He heard the
squeaky stair – whoever was there was coming up the stairs. Then he heard the stair two more times. There were at least three of them. He waited by his door in case they came in,
he would surprise them.
The handle moved and the door
opened. He identified the man’s figure,
clothed in black with helmet, equipment, and exposed neck. Nate slid his knife quickly up to the man’s
neck and grabbed his shoulders. Nate was
intending to threaten and hold hostage, scare the burglars into leaving and
maybe make enough commotion so that his dad would come to help. The man was a little taller than Nate, and
Nate would have had him except for a slight, almost involuntary
hesitation. Nate was not well-trained in
hand-to-hand; but the man apparently was because before Nate could tell what
happened, a sharp pain went up his arm and his knife fell to the ground. A gloved hand suppressed a panicked cry.
A deep gravelly voice hissed, “Keep
still.”
Nate felt a sharp pain in his neck
and he began to feel dizzy and weak as the man kept him rigidly in place. Deep purples and greens began to float in and
out of the shadows and soon blended into unconsciousness.
A garbled voice cut into the
unconsciousness, “…wake up, please. Is
it you, Nate?”
At the mention of his name, Nate
jolted awake. He sat up and immediately
slammed his head hard. He fell back on
the hard surface on which he had been sleeping.
“O, be careful,” the familiar voice
warned. “It’s close in here.”
“Who are you? Where are we?” Nate looked into the semi-darkness at the
girl beside him. Flashes of orange
streetlight came through slits beside him.
“Nate! It is you! This is Amelia.” Amelia extended her legs and moved to a lying
down position right next to Nate, and while this was somewhat awkward, it
seemed to be all she could do with the space available.
“What’s going on?” Nate asked while trying himself to decipher
what must have happened after they drugged him.
“I don’t know, they drugged me. I guess they’re taking us somewhere.”
The two fell silent and listened to
the noises on the road. They heard
someone moving around above them and saw headlights. Soon the noises began to fade and the street
lights became less frequent, the only sound was that of the engine. They slowed to a stop and then accelerated
again and the street lights were gone, only the dim red of the tail lights of
their own transport remained.
“I think we’re outside the city,”
Amelia whispered.
Nate’s heart skipped a beat at the
thought. He had never been outside the
city, and even Amelia, who he knew had travelled extensively within the city,
had never been outside the city. Sobbing
came from above them, they were not the only two there. Nate began to feel fidgety and his senses
heightened. A great siren screeching of
bugs and frogs harmonized with the rumbling engine. The smell of Amelia’s shampoo was soothing
above the smell of fear from the people who were unseen around them. Dawn light began to highlight the outskirts
of the city behind their barbed wire wall over toward the horizon and
illuminate the grey metal interior of their box. Amelia’s damp hair on his shoulder tickled
and her arm against his was now less awkward and more welcome.
A series of jolts ensued and it
seemed that they were at their destination, because the box opened and the
morning sun poured over them. Nate
stood, then turned and helped Amelia to her feet. He held on to her hand, more for his own
comfort than for hers, though she may have needed it, too.
“Direct your attention here,”
commanded a man a short distance away from them. He wore the regalia of a Scientific Research
Corps officer. “Welcome to Camp
Propogation. You have been chosen as
some of the best specimens of your genes to participate in our program.” Amelia immediately dropped Nate’s hand and
from habit they both side-stepped a little away from each other. “You will now be directed by these guards to
your respective orientations.”
A group of SRC members began
regrouping the confused red-heads, and soon Nate was separated from Amelia and
marching into a low-lying building. The
small group of red-headed males was led into a room with another small group of
guys of various hair colors. They were
seated in front of a podium and projector screen. Nate was sitting next to a talkative man with
short brown hair who had volunteered for the program and was sharing how lucky he
thought Nate was to actually be a red-head and how he wanted to honor the
memory of his red-headed father by spawning more like him. Nate began to feel as if his face might be
turning green.
A dark man with thick glasses took
the stand and began a presentation of all the programs at the camp. Nick really did have a sinking feeling in his
stomach now. He was not listening any
more, but he knew he could not make it through this alone. He lowered his head into his hands and
prayed; prayed for strength to do what was right. This place was not right in so many ways. All the things he avoided at school, things
he had been taught to not even think about, magnified and focused in a way very
difficult to avoid. He could no longer
just dodge the subject, this was something he would have to take a stand
against; the only problem was he didn’t know how.
The group was now being directed
out of the briefing room. Nick followed,
striving to keep his ears unreceptive and his eyes inattentive. They were soon in a room with lots of posters
and screens on the wall. He couldn’t
help but notice the pornographic nature of all the media. Their guide’s voice droned on, “This is one
of the many programs available to male members of the camp…”
Nate’s breath now came heavily
through his nostrils, his eyes narrowed, and a hot rage boiled up within
him. There was nothing right about this,
he refused to be a slave to their evil project.
Grabbing the monitor nearest him, he tore it from the wall with a
strength he did not know he had. The disturbing
picture vanished in a crash of sparks and glass. “I won’t participate!” he shouted. “You can’t make me.”
Strong hands grabbed each of Nate’s
arms and the scientist conducting the orientation said, “And this is an example
of what happens to anyone who tries to disrupt or discredit the camp by going
against the established rules.”
“The cage,” continued the
scientist. Nate blinked in the bright
sunlight. “This is the established
punishment for any disrupters.” A high
wire fence surrounded Nate and separated him from the rest of the camp. “Right in the center of camp, the offenders
serve as example for those who see them.
The sentence is twelve hours of daylight long. If one’s sentence is not complete by sundown,
he will stay in the cage overnight and resume the punishment in the morning.” The group moved on and Nate was left alone,
in the dirt, his shirt discarded, and in plain view of every building in the
camp. A few inhabitants passed, dressed
in grey uniforms, but not much happened.
The summer sun beat down, and Nate began to see the severity of the
punishment. Twelve or more hours in a
cage by himself he could stand. Twelve
hours without shade? That was pure
torture for someone with Nate’s complexion.
By the time the sun was past its
zenith, Nate was a noticeable red color.
The camp began to stir as the people emerged from the buildings. Nate heard his name, called in a soft shaky
voice.
“Amelia!” he shouted and
stood. “I’m in here!”
Several heads turned to look as
Amelia turned in circles to find him.
“Nate!” she cried and ran towards him.
“This is horrible! Why are you in
there? What’re we going to do?” She was trying so hard not to cry, but Nate
could hear the tears stuck in her throat.
“I broke a TV.”
Amelia burst into tears, “They’re
gonna make me find someone to make me pregnant, and I don’t want to be
pregnant. I want to go to college, and I
want to go home! I want to find someone
who loves me, not someone I have to mate with.
This is so wrong!” She flung
herself at the fence and Nate caught her.
He pulled her in and held her, as best he could through the wires. Her tears practically sizzled on his burning
shoulder. He was scared for her now,
more than he’d ever been. She was more
trapped than he was.
“Is there a way out?”
“I don’t think so. I have to find someone I like before tomorrow
night and if I’m not pregnant in a month then they choose someone at random!”
Though that wasn’t what Nate meant
it gave him an idea. “A month will be
plenty of time,” he whispered.
“What?” Amelia pulled herself out
of Nate’s arms.
“You trust me, right?” he asked,
grasping her by the shoulders.
“Yes,” she was quite confused. “Of
course I do.”
“Tomorrow night, choose me as your
preferred mate and I’ll do the same.
Then,” and his voice became barely audible, “we’ll plan our escape.”
Amelia gasped and smiled. Then a concerned look crossed her face,
“You’re sure we can do it in a month?”
“We have to try.”
Nate spent the night in the cage,
but was released before noon the next day.
He received his grey uniform. It
was a tight cotton shirt with three different colored stripes on one sleeve and
slack-like pants. He and Amelia spent
the day moving from shadow to shadow, scouting for possible escape
options. They went together to the
office and filed the voluntary pair form.
They received a key to their very own room, which was on the third floor
of the south-western dormitory. A window
looked out at the fence and the forest beyond.
The room was furnished with a queen sized bed, a couch, and also had a
full bathroom with a huge tub.
First order of business was to get
Nate’s sunburn taken care of as best they could. Then they argued over who slept on the bed
and who got the couch. Nate decided that
Amelia should get the bed, but Amelia made him agree that he would sleep there
when he had to serve time in the cage.
They also discovered that night that the food was infused with a
chemical that caused a feeling of sexual attraction and they should avoid being
under its influence at the same time. It
was a difficult evening, but they eventually got to sleep, and they slept in
well past breakfast time.
They soon began their planning. Nate and Amelia spent hours outside walking
around the compound, looking for weaknesses in security, drawing plans in the
dirt, and making friends. Nate was best
at talking to people and getting to know them quickly and thoroughly. They began to include their friends in their
plans, and would share it with them.
Their friends would exclaim that it had never been tried before, warn
them of potential dangers, and volunteer to help.
He and Amelia continued working out
their plan, and Nate was impressed by Amelia’s attention to detail in
plan-making and in observation of the security.
She noticed the guards who were actually reading, and she noticed the
ones intently watching for trouble. She
also observed and explained how the guards were changed and when. As they would lie in the dirt and plan, he
often felt satisfied just watching her think.
It was beautiful to see her thought patterns come out so clearly. They were jumbled at times, but they always
made sense.
The most enthralling thing was the
way she smiled. There was a different
smile for every occasion. The grin and
flush of red in her cheeks for a personal compliment, the wide open laugh when
he messed up something, an eye roll and smirk
for a bad joke, and best of all when she would smile when they were working
something out or just relaxing against the side of a building in silence. That smile was the most amazing because it
was simply her, nothing flashy or funny.
It wasn’t that Nate hadn’t noticed
these things about Amelia before, it’s just that they now seemed to carry some
meaning and attractiveness. He was a
little worried that the chemicals in the food were starting to get to him
because Amelia seemed to, in a word, shine.
Even in a crowd of other red-head girls, some much prettier than Amelia,
she would be the one he would notice.
Her mop of curly hair and brown eyes that reflected the gray of her
dress stood out and made him want to be closer to her all the time.
“Alright, it’s been a week since we
stirred up any serious trouble and I think we’re almost ready to go.” Amelia was lying on her stomach, staring at a
drawing in the dust.
Nate was lying on his back,
pretending to be staring at the sky.
“Amelia,” he was watching the way the breeze flicked Amelia’s curls out
and how they would spring back to their natural position. “Do you feel like the chemicals in the food
are staying in our system, building up and making us all love-crazy?”
“No. You changed the subject.” She began to erase her drawing from the
ground. “I’ll create some trouble and
get those supplies we need, then the next dark night we should be set to go.”
Nate hadn’t been paying attention,
“Go? What supplies?”
Amelia gave him a cold look.
“Ouch, just kidding!” he lied.
She rolled her eyes and smirked
like she always did, then flipped onto her back and stared up into the sky. Nate moved closer until their elbows were
touching. Out of the corner of his eye
he watched a slight smile flit across her face.
Her chest rose and fell rhythmically with her breathing and her eyelashes
flickered.
A look of consternation crossed her
face, “Why do you ask?”
“Why do I ask what?”
“About the chemicals, are you ok?”
Nate thought she might have seen
signs of his crush that he wasn’t sure about, “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just concerned about the long-term
effects.”
Amelia sighed. “I don’t think it’s anything to worry
about. It’s not like I’m going to fall
head-over-heels in love with you. We’re
just friends.”
“Of course,” Nate felt a twinge of
disappointment, but forced a smile.
“Just friends.”
That evening as the shadows were
beginning to lengthen, the siren sounded calling all inhabitants to a general
assembly. It was a rare occasion and
many were confused. Nate feared the
worst. He tried to blend in with the
crowd. If this was about Amelia’s raid,
then they would want him, too. He passed
several friends who tried to ask him if this was related to the break, but he
kept his head down and continued moving toward the center where the announcer
was. Nate found a spot behind a couple
of taller guys so that he could see without being seen.
Amelia was tied to one of the posts
at the corner of the cage, but outside of the cage. The head security officer stood beside
her. Her wrists were secured above her
head and her feet barely touched the ground.
Nate immediately reflected her fear with an anger that tensed his entire
body. He wouldn’t have been able to
unclench his fists if he had tried.
“This camp has seen an
unprecedented amount of disorder and disruption. This girl, Amelia Dacroi, and her mate,
Nathanial Soar, have been the main instigators behind this commotion.” Guards at the back of the crowd searched for
Nate. He stood a little closer to the
two who served as his shield. “We intend
to make an example of this one to show you that disorder will not be
tolerated. This time we will use a
punishment much more fit to her crimes than the cage.” A huge tattooed man with a scruffy red beard
and buzzed hair stepped up to Amelia.
“Meet Jones ‘Mauler’ McLytle. He
was relieved of a life sentence on the RCCP rice farms when he volunteered for
this program.” Sweat trickled down Nate’s face.
The RCCP rice farms were reserved for only the most inhumane and violent
prisoners, serial killers and rapists.
“It is to be his responsibility to punish Miss Dacroi.” Guards formed a
circle separating the crowd from the announcer, Amelia, and the grizzly
recruit.
Mauler McLytle approached Amelia,
blocking her from Nate’s view. Mauler
took a step back, grunted in anger, and then lunged toward Amelia. She let out a scream. It was more than Nate could handle. “Amelia!” he shouted, and lunged down between
the two guys in front of him and also between two of the guards.
“Help!” Amelia screamed, and all
hell broke loose.
Following Nate’s initiative,
several other guys rushed the circle and began fighting with the guards. It took the guards by surprise and several
got through. Soon about four of them
were pulling at Mauler McLytle. Nate
rushed straight for Amelia. Around them
the guards tried to fight off the prisoners and a large-scale riot started. Nate tore her restraints from the pole and
they sank to the ground together. Her
skirt was torn all the way up to her hip, her shirt was hanging off her
shoulder, her wrists were bleeding from the cuffs, and her lip was bleeding
from the Mauler’s brutality.
Nate tried to pull her in, but she
pushed him away and curled into a ball. He
tried to fix her shirt and put his arm around her shoulder. “Are you alright, did he hurt you?”
She looked up at Nate. “I got them.
I’ve got the supplies. The
genetics lab is ruined. I’m not too
hurt, just don’t hug me, my shirt’s messed up.”
Nate backed away and sat next to
Amelia, a good six inches away at the nearest.
The riot raged on, with the guards being beaten to the ground. All this he had started. Why did he do it? To get home?
Because this place was so wrong? Those were
his motivators at the beginning, but now he realized that it was something
else. Maybe this was it all along. He loved Amelia. It irritated him that they were always just
friends. Her beauty in planning the
escape and carrying it out had won him over.
He now saw that he had to be her courageous one who jumped through the
guards to take on Mauler. No sane person
would have done that.
He took her hand and led her
through the crowd, throwing a few punches as he went. Some of the rioters were on their side,
outraged at the brutality of the camp.
Others were just enjoying the fight.
More guards had joined and they were beginning to gain control as Nate
and Amelia slipped back to their dormitory.
He looked at her dirt and
tear-streaked face and knew that no matter how strong she was, he had to be
stronger; no matter how smart she was, he had to help her and be smarter; and
that no matter what happened, he had to get her out of this horrible
place. No matter the cost.
