The Line Book One: Carrier Read online

  I let go of the bed to stand on my own. “Yeah.”

  She released me. I inched to the cart for the gown and flung it over my shoulders. It felt stiff and foreign on my skin. It didn’t hurt as much to move around, and my hair was dry. How long had I been unconscious?

  To my surprise there was a thin strip of fabric to use as a belt. I wrapped the gown over my body and knotted the belt around my waist, then ran the brush through my long hair. Usually, girls on the Line got to brush their hair after showers. Mine went all the way down my back and hung starkly black against the white gown.

  The nurse waited silently by the bed until I was done.

  “This way,” she said.

  I shuffled behind her through silver double doors and into a green hallway, curiosity curdling in my belly.

  Something was wrong. I couldn’t imagine what the manager wanted to talk to me about, but it couldn’t be good. Nothing in the Line could be categorized as good.

  Other nurses in white uniforms entered and exited several rooms off the hallway, each with its own set of large silver doors. Rectangular light fixtures in the ceiling beamed heavy shadows below.

  Nobody spoke. The infirmary was not a happy place. It was where the girls were processed on and off the Line. As doors opened and closed in the hall, you could hear them crying.

  Some, fresh off their sales, were there for sterilization and laser hair removal, and to be assigned numbers and compartments. Some were given medical care or showered off with the hose; others were retired and never seen again. There were rumors among the girls about what happened at retirement, but no one wanted to know for sure. Some feared they were euthanized. Others theorized they were sold again. I preferred the first option.

  The nurse stopped at the fifth pair of silver doors and touched her palm to a square black-glass scanner in the wall. A buzzer sounded and the scanner screen flashed green. The nurse jerked the door open.

  Inside was a reception area, painted the color of rust with a black tile floor. It was complete with an artificial wood desk and a nurse banging away on an ancient computer. Against one wall were some empty metal folding chairs and a matching eight-foot table stacked with tablets. Applications for the appointments, I guessed.

  Was the reception nurse the one who had approved Lover Boy again?

  Someone should tell her.

  A phone rang.

  “Manager’s office,” the reception nurse said into her earpiece. “Hold.” She motioned with her head for us to enter the door behind her. I followed the blonde nurse.

  Inside the office was a tall, extremely attractive businessman. He had a false smile that took up nearly half his face, and smelled of expensive aftershave. I didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t the regular manager. He stood from the leather chair behind a real mahogany desk and pointed me to an overstuffed chair next to a matching leather sofa and coffee table. The room was lit by two floor lamps with soft bulbs. Shadows hid in the corners.

  The nurse helped me sit.

  “Thank you, Nurse. That will be all,” the man said, and he straightened his tie.

  The nurse hesitated for a fraction of a second before leaving without a word. I followed her with my eyes. She did not look back. This didn’t surprise me.

  “Your real name is...?” the man asked. He sat on the sofa across from me and examined my every expression.

  I did the same. I could usually tell when someone was on the level. It was one of my best skills and had come in handy after so many years of reading the moods of my appointments. This guy seemed sketchy at best.

  “Naya,” I said.

  “Is that your birth name?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s your birth name?”

  “Dunno.”

  “I don’t know,” the man said.

  “I assume that’s why you asked me,” I answered.

  He cracked a pearly smile and leisurely crossed his long legs; both seemed forced. “No, I meant, the actual phrase for ‘dunno’ is ‘I don’t know,’” he corrected me.

  I glared back at him. Asshole.

  “I read your file. You were sold by your mother nine years ago. That would make you how old?”

  The air caught in my lungs. “It’s been nine years?”

  “Yes,” he answered dismissively. “Your file was unclear about your actual birth date and birth name, however.”

  I couldn’t believe it had been that long. Inside the walls of the Line, it was as if time stood still. I blinked back my shock. “She wasn’t my mother.”

  This stopped him. “Excuse me?”

  I enjoyed the confused look on his face a little too much. He obviously hadn’t expected that. “The woman who sold me was not my mother.”

  His recovery was quicker than I would have preferred. “I’m sorry,” he said, as if it was of no concern. “I just assumed. Orphan then?”

  “No. Kidnapped,” I said, opting for a version of the truth.

  The man took his finger and rubbed his eyebrow as if suppressing a twitch. “Kidnapped?”

  He was squirming. Good. He should squirm. I suppressed a smile. “I was taken from my parents when I was five and sold here when I was thirteen.”

  His expression went stony. “Making you twenty-two. So, you don’t remember your birth parents?”

  “Not really,” I lied.

  “And not your birth name?”

  “I remember I had a baby sister. She called me Naya.”

  “What did the woman who sold you call you?”

  This stumped me. I hadn’t thought of her in a while, and for good reason. “Nothing. She never spoke my name.” This was true. She’d never called me Naya. She called me Little Rat. But I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  The man sighed heavily. When he spoke next his voice was tight. “Do you remember what sector you lived in?”

  “Why does it matter?” I blurted.

  It was unusual for girls on the Line to ask questions, and for a moment I regretted it. He shifted on the sofa, causing the leather to moan. But he didn’t seem too upset by my outburst, and when he looked back to my face, his expression was unchanged.

  I waited.

  “Well, then, this is going to get tricky,” he said, standing. He scratched the corner of his mouth, went around the coffee table and back to his desk. He kept fidgeting with his tie. “When a girl is retired from the Line, it’s customary for us to send her home or, if the family requests it, we resell her, perhaps as a servant, maid, nanny, concubine, you know...”

  I was being retired! The room spun.

  When I opened my eyes again I was on the floor. The reception nurse held something foul under my nose. I groaned as she pulled me up.

  The man was sitting at his desk. When I got to my feet I noticed a stack of tablets in front of him. The one on top read “Number 4, Line 12” on the screen.

  “That my file?” I dared to hope.

  He raised an eyebrow, and the nurse left the room. I found my way back to the overstuffed chair and plopped down.

  “Yes,” he said, looking bored. “That’s your file.”

  “Does it have my real name in it? Do you know where my family is? Are you sending me home?”

  “No.”

  My face drained of blood. I should have known better than to hope. Did this mean my family, wherever they were, meant to resell me? My insides turned to ash.

  Asshole.

  He’d done that on purpose. Trapped me with my own hopefulness.

  “Customarily,” he continued, “if a girl is sent home to her family and not resold, and the family wishes for their payments to continue, they send another girl to take her place.”

  “The family gets paid?”

  The man’s smile faded. �
��Yes, for a ten-year contract. By Auberge.”

  Ten-year contract? This was the first I’d ever heard of it. He’d mentioned before how I had been on the Line for nine years, so why was I being retired a year early?

  I was afraid to ask for fear he’d realize the error and change his mind.

  As for Auberge paying the families for their daughters, this was no shock. Auberge owned everything inside their walls, even the people.

  “So,” I pressed. “Since you have no record of my birth family, then the lady from the restaurant must have received my payments. Right?”

  He ignored my question. “Since you have no family to trade for you, and are in no physical condition to resell to another family as a servant—”

  “Physical condition?”

  I could tell he was getting irritated. I reminded myself to stop asking questions, but it was hard when he clearly had answers. “Yes. Well, this is where it gets difficult,” he said. “You’re pregnant.”

  I stared at the man and blinked, disbelieving.

  He went on, “Which is extremely rare, given your sterilization when you arrived. However, these things can and occasionally do happen. Normally, the baby is aborted and the girl is returned to the Line, but in your case, this won’t happen.”

  Maybe I’d heard wrong. “Pregnant?”

  “With twins,” he added. He smiled his pearly whites ironically. “Congratulations.”

  The walls moved, and I nearly lost my balance, but I managed to stay coherent enough to say, “What the hell?” Any moment now I was going to wake up back in the examination room with the blonde nurse. This was too outrageous to be real.

  “Yes, well,” he said, his smile disappearing from his perfect face. “Since your ten-year contract expires during your pregnancy, we have no choice but to release you.”

  I was about to blurt out Why? but kept my mouth shut. He was setting me free, and I didn’t want to mess that up.

  “But that does leave us in an awkward position,” he finished.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. He’s in an awkward position? I released the death grip I held on the arms of the overstuffed chair and tried to remember to breathe. Pregnant. Twins.

  This can’t be happening!

  “Do you know which appointment...?” I let the question evaporate from my lips. “Never mind.”

  The man frowned.

  I was too busy panicking to care what he thought. I didn’t know the first thing about babies, or about mothers. I hardly remembered mine. I wasn’t even sure if I recalled how to button a shirt, much less change a diaper or feed a child—two children!

  He cleared his throat. “As I said, making this exception has left Management in a terrible predicament...”

  I snapped out of my haze enough to wonder how and why I was an exception. I shot him a nasty look. Did he really want to compare predicaments?

  “With no family to claim you and your offspring, and no possible way for us to recoup your lost income by releasing you early, we are prepared to make you an offer.”

  “Yeah?” I knew where he could put his offer and I was half tempted to shove it there myself.

  “Bring us a replacement, and you and your babies are free.”

  He said it so nonchalantly I wanted to slap him. “Free? Free to what?”

  “Free to get a job. Free to earn a living. You will no longer be owned by the Line. Your contract will be complete.”

  Freedom. With a catch. “If I bring you a replacement?”

  “Correct. Female. Any age under twenty-one.”

  “To finish what’s left of my contract?”

  He hesitated. “No. For a new ten-year contract.”

  This didn’t seem fair in the slightest, but I pressed on. “And what if I don’t?”

  It was a challenge. His expression hardened. “If you don’t bring us a replacement we will take your children when they are born. Both of them, regardless of sex.”

  I was on my feet, but I couldn’t remember when I’d stood. “To the Line?”

  The man did not look pleased to respond, but he did. “Yes.”

  My face felt hot. “Babies? On the Line?”

  The man licked his lips. He pushed on his eyebrow again, twice. “When they reach puberty, of course.”

  My jaw clenched. The idea made me sick. I didn’t even know the two beings in my belly, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to hand them over to the same people who had enslaved me for almost a decade. Worse yet, I would have to enslave someone else to gain my freedom, and the freedom of my babies. It didn’t feel like an option. It felt like blackmail. It made me one of them, and I wanted to scratch out the man’s smug eyes for suggesting it. “Over my dead body.”

  He nodded as if expecting that answer. “Now you understand.”

  Oh.

  I felt faint again. I slouched back into the chair. I couldn’t speak for a few moments. Find a replacement, or they take the babies and I’m dead.

  Fucking asshole!

  The man stood and motioned to the door. “When you leave here, you have seven months to bring your replacement. If you miscarry or abort the babies, this deal is null and void. Do not run. Each girl on the Line is implanted with a tracking chip, so we’ll monitor where you are. We have your palm prints on file to approve your transactions. Should you fail to return by the time of your children’s birth, we’ll come for you and for them. The reception nurse will see to some credits and clothing to get you started on your way.”

  “Seven months?” That seemed like such a short time and an eternity all at once.

  “Correct.”

  I stood. It was happening too fast. They were going to dump me on the curb? Right now?

  The man walked past me and opened the door. As I approached I accidentally brushed his shoulder. He jumped back like I’d stung him.

  I was too shocked at his reaction to comment.

  “Don’t touch me!” he spat. A tiny trickle of spit popped off his lip and landed on my face.

  I internally shuddered at his saliva on my cheek but didn’t flinch. I was used to strange men and their odd behaviors. Just then my memory sifted through the many faces of men who’d come in and out of my appointment room and all the questionable things they’d done in my presence. Not one was a face I ever cared to see again. Not a single, solitary one.

  Ever.

  “Right,” I said before I turned my attention to the reception nurse.

  The man closed his office door, leaving me on the other side. I never wanted to see him again, either.

  It occurred to me I didn’t have much of a choice.

  Chapter Two

  The first thing I noticed once I was outside the building was the stench.

  Garbage.

  It smelled like an overflowing trash can full of day-old food scraps, left to rot in the hot sun.

  I shielded my eyes with an arm. It was blindingly bright too.

  Outside the Line headquarters was the bustling world of Central sector. Cement sidewalks full of moving people. Electric taxicabs lining the streets, tall and dilapidated buildings as far as the eye could see, dirty water gushing in the gutters, and trash. Piles of it were everywhere, lumped on the curbs, stuffed in the doorways of the dirty and peeling buildings. Since plastic had been outlawed years ago, garbage was collected in burlap sacks and stacked in the streets. Inside Auberge, the landfills had long been full, and dumping over the wall surrounding the territories was forbidden. After several generations of this, heaps of garbage now sat everywhere for rodents to chew, which sent the stinking contents spilling everywhere. The overflow of garbage had reached a critical level. People were drowning in their own filth, with nowhere else to put it.

  And it stank like hell.

  My stomach s
oured. It seemed like my sense of smell was twice as strong as normal, or perhaps the stench was twice as bad. Regardless, I couldn’t stay there all day, standing in the doorway of the Line, gagging. Despite the escalating panic clouding my thoughts, I started walking.

  Down the street were apartment buildings of every kind, stacked together like dishes in a sink. I glanced at the street signs and clenched my shaking hands into fists.

  I hadn’t been out of doors in nine years. And here I stood on 10th Street. Just that morning I’d told Peni I would see her later.

  I never had the chance to say goodbye.

  I glanced at the people outside the apartments as I moved down the block: women, men, children. Some sat on stoops. Some hung out their windows and watched nothing. Some walked around, looking lost.

  I tried not to stare.

  People. Real people. Not appointments. Not nurses. Not guards. People.

  Did they know what was happening in that building I’d just exited?

  Did they care?

  I wondered what they would think of a pregnant girl from the Line. I wondered what I thought of myself.

  It was a warm and sunny day. Which was a good thing too, considering all the Line had given me to wear was a loose shirt, drawstring pants and an ill-fitting pair of sneakers. The clothes were wrinkled and made of a natural fabric I couldn’t identify. They smelled used and felt abrasive against my skin.

  The sun burned high in the sky, casting a white-hot sheen over the filth of 10th Street. It must have been sometime around midday, but I had no idea what day of the week it was or the actual date.

  I kept my head down and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. I wasn’t used to so much activity around me, and I was overwhelmed by the vastness of Central. So much space! I checked the street signs to keep track of where I was.

  Central was constructed like a giant grid, with numbered streets going one way, lettered avenues the other. I knew that much about Central, but that was about it. The lady who’d sold me had worked me as a dishwasher in her restaurant, which was in Central, down on 25th and Q.

  There were times when she’d sent me out on errands with the chef, a burly old man named Hugo who I’d grown to trust, but we never went very far and I knew very little about the other sectors. Including Central, there were also South, North, East and West sectors, each and every one owned by the same corporation—Auberge.