Betrayed

Chapter Five

The settlement bustles with activity despite the overbearing sun. Citizens of the Kariz herd flocks of baaing sheep down the street. The shepherds hop over ruts in the pavement patched with a black substance, and a sun-tanned woman chases a stray sheep back to the flock. Others peddle bikes with carts filled to the brim with potatoes. Aside from the patches in the road, there's little sign of wear, as if they do their best with upkeep. Heat radiates from the pavement, hot and tiresome, but the buildings have a fresh supply of breezy fan air filtering through their open doors and windows. Overhead, solar panels glint from the rooftops, though those are cracked or grimy, as if they've been up there a while.

My breath catches when I spot a young woman literally flying overhead with a toolbox before landing elegantly beside one of the panels. She pulls out a spool of wire and sets to work repairing it.

Everywhere we go, the citizens of the Kariz give us a curious stare. Some seem excited, probably at the prospect of meeting new people or getting news from the outside world. Others give us a pitying smile. They probably came into this town the same way we did.

Another shadow passes overhead, and I freeze when I realize it's not one person flying, it's three, all carrying roofing supplies to a house across the street.

They're flying. With nothing but their powers to support them.

I reach for my pocket to grab my phone, to snap a picture as evidence that this is really happening, but my fingers find empty space. My heart sinks. My phone's still somewhere in that facility, if they haven't destroyed it or refurbished it and sent it back into the Community.

Has anyone read my blog where I mentioned seeing something in the water? I seriously doubt the Community let that stay posted, given I actually did see the water move. But then, who would know the truth?

Maybe they left the post up to convince others that theophrenia is real.

Speaking of phones...

Weirdly enough, none of the people here seem to have phones, or even tablets. Back in the Community, I'd have seen at least someone pulling one out to check notes or comment on EYEnet. But here, they all talk in person, or on a boxy radio that should have come from some history documentary.

David said they only had a few computers, but how far behind are they? They have solar panels. Do they not have access to other equipment? Or is it like David said, that newer tech is too easy for the Camaraderie to track?

On the other side of the settlement, fields stretch as far as I can see, up to where the chain-link fence runs around the perimeter.

Is there a way out on the other side, the part I can't see? If we try to leave, will the guards try to stop us? Given the fence, this feels more like a large prison than a town. A nicely kept prison, but still a prison.

Maybe this is a super detailed hallucination. That'd be nicer than the alternative possibility that this is real and that Special Forces agents attacked us when we tried to escape. That they killed one of us. I clench my fingers, focusing instead on the road in front of me.

We'll get out of here. I'll warn Nathalie. And maybe we can prevent anyone else from getting sent to that horrible facility.

"What plants do you grow?" Erin asks as we pass a leafy green field. I realize my shoulders are pinched, so I force myself to relax. I focus on where she points. Workers crouch on the far end of the field, uprooting some sort of tuber and placing them in wheelbarrows.

Probably potatoes, given what we ate for lunch.

"We've got a few crops," Jacques explains, "some for cash, but most we use ourselves. Potatoes, wheat, melons. There are orchards over that direction where we harvest apricots. I keep trying to convince David to bring in the seeds necessary to start a vineyard. I think our current plant elementals are skilled enough to get a harvest going, and it'd be nice to have something fancier to drink on special occasions. But our prettiest fields are the poppies."