The Clean Ones

Chapter 5

He chuckled. "Ah, sorry. I forgot how completely normal it is to have a a beautiful girl invade your home, cause such a frenzy with your family, and, oh yeah, she just happens to own a device that allows her to travel through time, too. The usual."

I laughed lightly, though I could feel my cheeks heat up at his words. Beautiful? No, that couldn't be. Beautiful was certainly not the correct term to describe me. Pretty, maybe. But not beautiful.

"Oh." Was all I could manage to say.

"Oh?" He questioned as he arched one of his eyebrows.

"Oh....Kay. Okay, I'll tell you about myself. But, one one condition!" I covered quickly.

He sighed. "And what would that be?"

"You have to tell me about yourself." I decided.

He only laughed again. "Of course."

I didn't feel as if there was much to tell him. I was Perri, a sixteen year old girl brought into this world by a mere genetic experiment. Completely and utterly ordinary in every way. My life had been devoted to taking part in various experiments and working at the market; I lacked any triumphant tales of battle and of palatial struggle to relay to him. Every single minuscule detail that needed to be taken care of in my life, from dishes to picking apples from my tree to making sure the tires on my bike had enough air... Well, Liam had done most of that, as I explained to Cale as best I could.

"So, this Liam boy." Cale started. "What's he like?"

"You mean, what was he like," I corrected. "He's, well... he's dead now, if it means anything to you."

"Oh," his expression grew weary. "I'm so sorry for your loss."

"It's fine." I mumbled, trying to ignore the tears that wanted to escape from my eyes. "But, he was a great guy." I left it at that. I didn't know how to continue without bursting into hysterics. That would certainly be one method of making a lasting impression.

Silence filled the room for a moment before Cale decided to break the awkward atmosphere. "Well, if you care about him that much, he must've been quite the charmer. Not as much as me, though." He winked.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, you have about as much charm as a can of tuna."

"That's one good-looking can of tuna, then." He said. A smile started to form on his lips, but, before it could, I grabbed a small pillow off the bed and chucked it at his face.

"Ow!" He cried. "What was that for?"

"For being an egotistical prick." I retorted.

"Guess I'm going to have to try harder with that whole 'charm' thing." He muttered, loud enough that he knew I could hear.

"Yeah, maybe if you try hard enough, you can work yourself up to a can of peaches." At this, we both laughed. With all the tension and pressure lately, it felt nice to let go a little bit. Sometimes, laughter was the only way to get from your worst to your best. And, while this wasn't my best, it was certainly far from my worst.
After our fit of laughter was over, it was my turn to ask the questions. He didn't say much at first, other then that he was nineteen years old. He became smug when I asked about his family. His eyes drifted to the window in between us. His fingers tapped idly on the glass. He told me that his parents were both murdered during the start of the uprising, and how now it was only him and Bridgette. Of course, he considered Delta and the twins his siblings as well, but Bridgette was his only direct kin.
The Uprising. That was yet another topic I needed to know about. Cale recalled, with attention to even the most minuscule details, how it broke out, even though he was only eleven years old at the time. After the economy took an even bigger plummet than the one it had taken hundreds of years before, more and more businesses began to close, leaving more families starving and in dire need of help. The Uprising was split between two sides- those who felt that we needed to destroy and rebuild our entire government from scratch, and those who felt that things were fine the way they were. As Cale described it, it was a war between the extremely wealthy, and everyone else. In attempt to try and restore governmental and societal terms back to what they were prior to this, a multitude of strategies were used: borrowing funds and even trying to "bounty hunt" leading protestors, hoping that doing so would discourage the acts of violence occurring in the nation. Unfortunately, both of these backfired, and led to substantial external pressures to be placed on our government, leading them to collapse completely. The power had gone completely to the people for a significant period of time, until Harold Johnson, a former CEO of a high-class, successful law firm, demanded a change in governing.
However, before he took office and when every civilian was, essentially, fending for themselves, the pressure of the situation at hand caused people to begin to flee. Not only from our country in pursuit of another, but the era in general. Retrogrades had emerged as a cult method of escaping the Uprising. This only added another conflict to deal with. People fled not only to the future, but to the distant past. And, when they mixed their modern technology with the lifestyle of the 1890's... Well, life as a whole was put into question.
That is, until the newly formed government, under Johnson, got a hold of Retrogrades and used them to scope out these people. According to Cale, they never saw it coming. They were executed as soon as they were caught and their Retrogrades were destroyed on site. When the officials came back to 'modern' times, they searched everyone's homes for them, and destroyed all that they could.
As Cale told me the history of the Uprising thus far, the pieces connected perfectly for me. The Cleansing, as much as I didn't want to think, was a logical solution to end this dispute. If everyone thought the same way, then all conflict would be resolved, right?

Wrong.

Once Mayor- or President Johnson, as I found out he preferred to go by- took over, it wasn't just about forcing the Cleansing upon this colony of people he had created to be the perfect solution. It became about completely controlling our lives. Now, we were faced with death when we were lead to believe that it was something that never even happened. I couldn't help but think of the people I left behind now. I wished for nothing more than to be back with Liam, to be there to comfort him in the time he needed it most. And, even to be with Lilliana. Though I knew very well that she was more than capable of taking care of herself, it would've reassured me greatly to be able to be with her. At least with her, I'd have some answers, and some was always better than none.

It wasn't long before Cale glanced at the clock, which read four a.m. "It's late... ah... early? I should probably take you back to your room now. Bridgette will be up in an hour, and she'll flip if she notices that you're gone." He got up off the chair and, reluctantly, I got up as well. Any sleep that fought me earlier was gone by now, diminished by my overwhelming desire to learn more.

"Fine." I grunted as he began to walk me upstairs to the infirmary.

"Aww, does someone not want to go to bed?" He teased.

"Shut up."

"No."

"FINE." I threw my arms up, exasperated. He laughed and pushed the door open for me. I walked over to the bed and crawled under the covers, yet that didn't prove to be enough for him. He grabbed them and pulled them up to my throat. He tucked them in so I could barely move while I was laying down.

"Better." He stepped back and admired his work.

"You're impossible." I jerked. I tried to pry my arm free to hit him, but I found it stuck under the blanket.

"Now you have to go to sleep. Goodnight, darlin'." He said and blew a kiss to me on his way out.

"Prick." I muttered as the door closed behind him and the first breath of sunrise began to peak through the windows.