Page 62 of Conform
“Why does it matter?” I fired back.
“Well, the Illum run the Press. Seems opportunistic, doesn’t it? The Reaper is causing problems and suddenly an Illum is Mated to a Minor.”
My chest burned like it had in front of my birth family. I stared at the naked chained woman. Hundreds, if not thousands, of years had passed since this was painted, before the Last War. The Illum said we had evolved from those ancient humans and their brutality.
But the golden glow on my wrist—was my shackle any different from hers?
I knew the cost of trying to break free. I knew what it cost Alice.
“I think it’s bullshit,” Alice, seventeen at the time, had hissed at me as we filed out of the lecture hall. We had sat for hours while the hologram illuminated our options for the future, drilling the rules of the Grooming into us over and over.
Welcome to the Grooming. For the remainder of your time at the Academy we will be instructing you on how to rise and serve the Greater Good. With our revolutionary advancements combined with the individual information gathered from yearly testing, you can overcome your defects. It is the Illum’s deepest belief that every life has a role in the Greater Good. As you have learned from the history of the Last War, choosing oneself over society as a whole is destructive, a threat to our peaceful way of life. Your Role as a Minor Defect Female is simple yet vital to the Greater Good. Strive for obedience, and you will enter a Procreation Contract, and you will rise to the clouds. With fertile blessings, you will produce an Elite offspring and reenter the procreation phase. Produce a Minor or Major offspring, and your Procreation Abilities will be revoked. You will be condemned to blue. Follow the Illum’s protocol, abide by the rules of the Minor Defect population, and constantly seek self-improvement, and you will rise, fulfilling your use for the Greater Good.
“Alice, they’ll hear you,” I urged.
“I don’t care anymore. Explain to me how they can magically overcome our defects after telling us for our entire lives that they define us. It doesn’t make sense, Em,” Alice spat, her pale skin flushed with anger. Anger that had grown with each moon. Her plans had as well. Plans to ensure she didn’t become an object. “And all of a sudden we’re given to an Elite male, like some object, and have to pass their tests and put on a show for the Elite. Just to carry an offspring, and for what?” Tears welled in her eyes. “To feed their Elite population or become their damn servants? It doesn’t make sense. They act like these saviors, telling us to blindly follow them and making us hate ourselves!”
Girls in gray came to a complete stop around us. I pushed Alice down the hallway.
“Alice, you have to stop. You can’t talk like this,” I had warned quietly. But her words resonated deep within me, in a long-buried, forbidden place.
“Em, I won’t do it,” Alice declared, wiping her face furiously. “I won’t carry an offspring. It’s too much. I’d rather be in blue than be their vessel.”
Soon after that, Alice went to the headmaster’s office and didn’t return, and I never heard what happened to her—whether she had gotten her wish to be in blue and never carry an offspring or had been eliminated entirely. I hated that no one had ever told me. And I had gone on to be a coward, continuing with the Grooming, never stepping out of line for fear of the consequences.
I couldn’t deny the part of me that responded to Hal’s call for something better—a version of the world in which I had a choice, a version Alice had believed in.
“You still think he’s different?” Hal asked darkly.
I turned in my chair to face Hal. “I don’t know,” I confessed.
He searched my face, his gaze lingering on my lips. “You shouldn’t be someone’s plaything, and he should have asked you.” He leaned in until I could make out the ring of amber around his pupils.
My pulse fluttered wildly. “Asked me what?”
“If you wanted to be kissed.”
Hal’s lips looked so soft, a delicate pink that softened the harsh planes of his face. A distant alarm bell began ringing in the back of my mind. We were skating into very dangerous territory.
“Are you going to ask now, Moonlight?” His warm breath danced across my skin, and I shivered. Our lips were a heartbeat away.
A long whistle filled my office, startling me.
Hal groaned and pulled away, standing. “I have to go.”
“Why? What is that?”
“An annoyance,” Hal retorted, running his hand through his hair. “A signal from one supporter to another. It means Elite are present.”
The whistle sounded again—impatiently. “You’re asupporter? Why a whistle?”
“Their cameras don’t recognize a person whistling. They register out-of-place movement. The person only whistles, and we know to find safety.” Hal looked out the door before turning back to me. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Is it safe?”
“Yeah. I’m just late. I seem to lose track of time around you. I’ll see you soon, Moonlight.” Hal flashed a quick smile and slipped away.
I sat alone for the rest of my shift, sorting art and making notes in my report. Nothing I saw or typed took precedence over my racing thoughts. I wanted to understand. I was tired of being stuck in the in-between. When my screens finally went dark, I shuffled onto the elevator.
