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  INDIVISIBLE

  Ryan Hunter

  All Rights Copyright © 2012 Robyn Heirtzler

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  Summary: INDIVISIBLE follows Brynn Aberdie, a seventeen-year-old girl as she realizes she’s lost everything worth living for. As she states early in the novel, “Of course I’d become withdrawn. Not only had I lost my father but I just realized I’d also lost my freedom. When had that happened?”

  For everyone who never gave up on me …

  even when it may have been the easier route.

  INDIVISIBLE

  The Constitution … is an instrument for the people to restrain the government—

  lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.

  Patrick Henry

  CHAPTER 1

  My father spoke of freedom as if we’d lost it—but only in private. He said to speak in public brought repercussions, repercussions I wish I’d understood because I think I’d have been better prepared for the three security vehicles parked outside my entry door.

  Entry because we lived underground in energy-saving homes, our yards on top, light provided through a single, round, solar tube in the center. The entry hall is all we possessed above ground, a single room with one door in and one door to the spiral stairs descending to our issued homes.

  And with so little to mar the landscape, I couldn’t help but see the vehicles before I turned down my street.

  I’d never seen security vehicles up close but I recognized the seal of One United on the door panels of all three small cars. Identical, the pale green paint nearly blended with the grass that covered our underground home. I wondered how they’d all fit into the tiny cul-de-sac to begin with. It had been built for walkers, bikers and commuters—not vehicles.

  My heart fluttered, and I stumbled on nothing. Security didn’t even patrol these streets. We lived in a safe neighborhood. We were productive Citizens. I caught myself and walked closer, curiosity drawing me in—intuition warning me to run.

  I neared the corner leading to the cul-de-sac, thoughts scrambling to come up with a plausible explanation. Perhaps my father had received a promotion and they’d come to inform us, tell us where we’d be moving … I shook my head, stomach clenching as I looked at everything but those cars, difficult when each yard looked identical, with each home hidden in the earth. I cast my gaze downward instead, to my scuffed black loafers.

  Standard issue at the Alliance Academy of Science 427, the shoes, black slacks and red tie had been slapped across the counter on registration day whether they fit or not, whether male or female, like me. “Equality in the classroom means equality in life,” they’d said without smiling. The words stuck in my head though I’d fought to forget them since the moment I heard them. I didn’t like to conform, but that’s how we lived in One United. That’s what made us the greatest nation on earth—well, that and the few chosen to excel.

  I tugged to loosen my tie and shoved it into the little pack strapped to my back, tired of being just like everyone else, like those identical cars on the curb outside my home. Just like the uniforms the officers would be wearing while they spoke with my mother inside my home. My mother, because my father hadn’t left the office yet. He never left before seven p.m.

  I stopped and pulled off my backpack, extracting my small computer tablet. My standard PCA, Personal Computer of the Alliance, could only be signed in by one motion. I swiped my right hand across the sensor and the screen blared to life. I checked the time, ignoring, yet again, the words “terrorist attack” in the flashing news bar at the bottom. My father wouldn’t leave the office for another hour. Why then were the officers here? My mother was a model Citizen. She never complained about the food, electricity or the hours of work she put into our garden. She knew they were necessary to maintain life in our depleted environment.

  So if not here for my mother … my steps faltered just outside the gaping doorway, close enough to hear men murmuring but far enough away to miss their individual words.

  I shut off my PCA as dread settled into the pit of my stomach. They’d wait for my father to announce a promotion, but they’d come by anytime to deliver reassignment papers. My stomach roiled and I breathed deeply through my nose. I couldn’t jump to conclusions, but I didn’t want to move, start over in some town where I knew no one. I’d never lived outside of Section Seven but I’d heard stories—

  My mother’s screams cut my thoughts short. High and angry, her screams rising and falling before turning to guttural sobs. Ice pulsed through my veins, freezing my feet to the sidewalk. I could distinguish only a single word from her moans, “Terrorists.”

  My hand shook when I signed into my PCA once more, this time clicking on the flashing news bar to read what my gut had already confirmed. The terrorist attack had occurred at the Section Seven Alliance City Center, the building where my father worked.

  I spun from the door, never slowing as I exited the cul-de-sac and rounded the corner. The bus stop beckoned but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sit still for the time it took to reach my father’s office, so I ran. I pushed myself until my legs became rubber and the back of my head throbbed.

  Sweat formed on my brow and dripped in my eyes. I would have wiped it with the back of my hand but sirens caught my attention and drew me into the City Center, the business district for all of Section Seven. Medical cars zipped by, red lights reflecting off of the office and apartment buildings. I counted ten more vehicles before I began running again, my dark hair coming loose from my bun and sticking to my cheeks.

  More One United vehicles filled the streets now, detouring buses, bicyclists and Citizens like me, who were filling the sidewalks, their numbers tripling before I made it a full block. I wanted to shout at them all, tell them to go home and quit staring at whatever had just happened to my father.

  I crossed the last street and entered the City Center, which consisted of a large park surrounded on two sides by high-rise apartment buildings, the other two by Alliance office buildings. The sight of more offices faded behind the businesses, more living quarters and factories behind the apartments disappearing into nothing but chaos. And it seemed every person who populated any of those buildings was here, crowding onto the grass square in the center of it all. Men in suits mulled about, hushing children in school uniforms, and babies cried in strollers while their mothers ignored them in exchange for details about the tragedy. Every Citizen in Section Seven filled the City Center … every person except my father and whoever else the terrorists had killed.

  Terrorists rarely targeted just one person. There could be others here searching for their loved ones, but all I found were the dazed and curious.

  I had to try the security officers. I ran down the line of security, each standing guard in front of my father’s building with rifles crossing their chests, handguns strapped across their thighs. Their crisp, forest green uniforms sported pins and badges that identified their ranks and purpose—but I’d tuned out that lesson in school. Did it really matter who I approached, who I as
ked about the attack?

  I picked an officer at random, his face young, eyes not quite as hard as the others. I stepped away from the crowd and set my shoulders. I’d at least appear confident. Maybe then he’d give me real answers, not whatever the officers at my home were telling my mother in an effort to soothe her. I stopped three feet away and cleared my throat, pressing my hands into my pockets. “What happened?” I asked.

  He set his jaw, having been trained to resist responding and I stepped closer. “I need to find Criton Aberdie, my father,” I pleaded.

  He resumed his stare into the crowd, his green eyes moist but firm, the golden flecks making him seem human and yet—distant—like the humanity had been stripped away, or at least hidden deeply enough to keep him from accessing it.

  I ran down the formation, looking for any way to access the office building beyond. Nearly as wide as it was tall, the gray building housed hundreds of Alliance offices, all of them working in technology—or an entire building of computer nerds—as my father had put it. How could a building of nerds have defended themselves?

  Hundreds of offices—the thought brought me to a stop. How could they have all been hit at once and even if they were, what’s to say my father hadn’t just been wounded? A critical wound would be enough to upset my mother, but a wound meant we still had hope.

  I pulled out my PCA again to scan the latest news bulletin. Ten men had died—ten. How could my father be among them when there were thousands of employees in that building? Yet, somewhere in my gut, I knew. I knew he’d been involved and my mother’s scream echoed in my head, confirming it. Her scream didn’t express hurt over an injury. It echoed the pain of losing half of herself.

  “No,” I said, shoving the PCA back into the small black pack before flinging it across my back. “He can’t be dead.” The building still stood intact. No bombs had detonated, no rubble lay from mass destruction. Then what had killed them? I searched for any sign of trouble, but beyond looking strangely vacant, the building seemed normal. I shoved through a group of students in uniforms similar to mine, the slacks and ties brown, marking them as students from the horticulture academy. One complained about my behavior, another about my missing tie—

  “What happened?” I asked another officer.

  He stared ahead, into the crowd as if I didn’t exist.

  How could I find out what had happened if no one spoke to me? I turned, ready to scream when I thought of something that could help. I’d never been inside the building before because I didn’t have “clearance” but my father had pointed out his office less than a year ago. We’d sat beneath a tree in the park across the street, picnicking on a Sunday afternoon. I found the tree, ran down the street until I stood in front of it and closed my eyes, remembering. I counted ten windows across, two up.

  His light was on.

  Somebody moved inside.

  I caught my bottom lip and my shoulders slumped. Why the scream if my father was still in his office?

  Something white pushed through a hole in the window, a small round hole with a glittering web of broken glass emanating from around it. The white object was a rubber glove, feeling the hole for evidence, I assumed.

  Evidence of what? I wondered. I’d seen holes like that on the morning news on my PCA. They were made by bullets, bullets that only terrorists had because they were the only ones with guns.

  CHAPTER 2

  I didn’t make it past the picnic tree before I sank to the ground and searched the news bulletins. The moisture from the grass soaked through my trousers and chilled my legs but being too consumed with the updates the Alliance sent to my PCA every three minutes, I ignored it. The red news bar at the bottom flashed as they released details about the attack, barely giving me time to devour one bulletin before a new one reiterated what I’d just learned. I searched through them all, absorbing the details, trying to find anything I’d missed until my power indicator beeped. Night had settled hours ago and I knew if I didn’t plug in soon, the power would be cut across the city before I could charge my PCA. Then I’d be waiting all night for any updated news.

  I planted my feet on the grassy soil beneath me and pushed away from the tree. The crowds had dissipated but their voices still rang—questions, tears, unrestrained insecurity and fear.

  But the Alliance had reassured the crowds, promising protection and justice, just like they always promised and just like they always delivered. What they never promised was a way to get the victims back—a way to steal away the pain.

  My head tipped back, high enough to take in the high apartment buildings lining two sides of the square. Each window hinted at light—the Citizens inside preparing dinner and talking with their families before the Alliance cut the power and they were forced to take refuge in their beds.

  I’d always believed myself lucky to have a real home to ourselves, a yard of thick, green grass and trees to shade us from the sun. I’d believed that we lived a fairy-tale sort of life where my father got special treatment because of his job and I could excel in school should I choose … but that’s where mediocrity helped. The mediocre didn’t become targets. They didn’t lose their fathers.

  A child’s laugh escaped through an open window, and I brushed off the back of my slacks, envious of the child’s innocence. I’d never laugh with my father again. I’d never see him—never speak to him. I turned from the park and walked from the business district.

  Four terrorists had broken into the building to kill my father and nine of his colleagues. That much I knew. What I didn’t know was why.

  I opened my PCA and read the reports that filled every screen across One United—the story of how my father got his brains blown across his office. Pictures showed him sprawled across the floor, a hole through his forehead as if he’d been professionally executed. Others showed people I’d met in the shopping center, men who worked with my father and greeted him warmly when we met on the street. I flipped through the pictures, taking in every face, every detail, even as those details repulsed me and made my anger flare. I closed them out, opened an updated report and read as I walked. The route was so familiar I could navigate it in my sleep.

  It backed up the facts of the first—ten men killed execution style in my father’s building. Two were guards who worked the back door where the men had entered, the other eight worked in random offices throughout the building. Criton Aberdie, recovery—Jude Copes, bookkeeper—Brennen Carmichal, doctor … as I read through the names, I remembered my father’s voice as he spoke of the men at the dinner table or while we walked together in the woods. They’d known each other and from the way my father had spoken, they had known each other well.

  A breeze tugged at my shirt, now hanging loose nearly to my thighs and though I knew I was out of dress code while wearing this uniform, I didn’t care. It was dark. I was out of school and my father had just been murdered. I deserved a little slob time.

  The breeze caught the droplets from the neighbor’s sprinklers and misted my arms, making my hair stand on end. That meant ours would run next, and I hoped they’d been fixed because the constant patter on the center sunlight from the broken sprinkler had been enough to produce insomnia for the past three weeks. Tonight, I feared it would make me snap—or my mother—and she’d be too fragile to handle that well.

  I stopped several feet away from our entry hall. The cars had disappeared, leaving the house like any other night. I closed my eyes and imagined my father greeting me, asking me where I’d been because he’d beaten me home again. I imagined him laughing about one of the interns at work or something he’d seen on his commute. I imagined it, then shut down my emotions and shuffled inside. I swiped my hand over the sensor by the door and the lock clicked, allowing me to access the spiral staircase that led to our living area. The gray floors were softened only by a small, red rug in front of our tattered couch. Our kitchen intruding on that space, with the short dining counter a jutting peninsula in the concrete cell. No light filtered in through the
skylight, allowing me to easily see the charged indicator on my solar lantern that hung in the garden that was in the center of our home. Each room was connected by glass doors in glass walls—the skylight our main source of light by day, easily filtering through the transparent walls.

  My mother had already drawn the curtain that hid her room from the rest of the house. But it was not enough to disguise her sobbing so I slid open the small compartment on the back of my PCA and removed a transmitter—a flat, round object the size of my pinky nail. I accessed the music program on my PCA and as I stuck the transmitter to the bone behind my right ear, music flooded into my mind and I turned up the volume, drowning out my mother’s grief. Somehow I knew that if I allowed her grief inside my head, it would incapacitate me and I had to stay focused.

  I checked the time, relieved that I still had thirty minutes of power—just enough to charge my PCA—before the Alliance cut it for the night, leaving us to rely on whatever we’d saved through our solar panels. As I eased through a glass doorway into the garden and scooted between two raised garden beds, I could smell the rich dirt, having been freshly watered. I grabbed my lantern and silently entered my bedroom—a simple room with concrete floor and walls, bed, a closet and built in drawers next to the closet door. My outlet was across from my bed, too far to get comfortable while my PCA charged. I plugged it in and settled down on the floor beside it. On the floor to my right was scribbling from elementary, to my left was my scribbling from last week. My mother called them evidence of A.D.D. My father had called them my creative outlet. Neither had told me to stop.

  I brought my PCA to life and saw updates in the news bar that included video. My finger hovered over the red link. I closed my eyes and clicked on it, hearing the familiar reporter, her voice soft—almost hypnotic.