Daughter 4254

Chapter 24

The fresh air hit my face with a chilling bite. It was farther into the cold season than I had thought. I took a few bounding steps down to the street beyond the sprawling school building and looked around, getting my barrings. I had studied the atlas as much as possible without arising suspicion. I knew the train was due East and beyond that - the mountains. I would have to make my way across the tracks somehow before heading on into the forest.

The feeling of treading into the unknown on a carefully plotted course was thrilling and yet stressful all at once. In the past when I had run away from home, I didn’t have a plan. I just knew I couldn’t stay and I just ran. This time I had a plan, a reason, and a firm determination to succeed. I did not, however, have a back up plan if I were to be captured or stopped. There just couldn’t be a chance of that. It would take the Leaders the better part of the hour to dismantle my handy work. Then it would take the AutoEye monitors another day or more to review the records and determine my identity. Of course I would be missed at check in for lights out tonight, but until then I should have plenty of time to get far enough away that I wouldn’t have to worry.

Ahead of me a train must have just arrived. Several community members were disembarking and heading in different directions, a steady stream of gray clad workers and Leaders were heading to the school. I kept my head down and tried to blend into the small patches of people heading towards the train stop. It was only a hundred more feet to the depot waiting facilities when I noticed the men wearing black smocks and circular emblems on their shoulders. They sent a chill through my spine, the way they were walking with determined steps and strong, merciless faces. They were different heights, but all dressed the same. There had to be at least five of them. I ducked my head as they came closer. I had never seen anyone dressed like that. It couldn’t be good. They looked official and cruel. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and ran back over the time lines. Even if they were disciplinary guards or something worse, there wasn’t any way they could be coming for me. They wouldn’t even know who I was or what I had done yet. There just hadn’t been enough time.

“That’s her!” A familiar voice cried out through the cool morning air. “There! That’s her! Right in front of us!”

My head snapped up looking for the voice. It couldn’t possibly be.. I met the gaze of the men in black, all five focused on me, and a smaller figure, also in black pushed it’s way through to the front of the group, pointing right at me -- my brother.

I paused for just the briefest of moments and then complete panic took over. I sprinted to my left, away from the crowd, but still towards the train buildings. If I could just make it to the the trains... or across the tracks to the forest... I ran, pushing and darting through the shocked by standers. Some cried out and some shoved me back. I could hear heavy feet following me and even more people crying out in protest and shock as the crowd thickened closer to the depot. Running is never considered of use. I thought I might be making headway when a booming voice cried out from behind me.

“Citizens, stop that criminal! In the name of the Government I order you to stop or I will shoot!”

Shoot? I’d never known of a person being shot at before, and there were so many bystanders, what could he be talking about? I didn’t stop, a few confused people looked at me like they wanted to reach out and do as they were told, but they weren’t sure how. Finally I pushed passed a family and came into the thick of a crowd trying to get into and out of the waiting building. I noticed an open air shaft below the stairs to the front door and then checked behind me to see the man with the booming voice and black suit waving some sort of device above the crowd and looking straight at me. He was only a few feet behind. I hit the ground and started to crawl through the legs towards the shaft. I thought I was going to make it until a hand grabbed my leg. I cried out and looked back to see a man missing most of his teeth, in ordinary citizen’s clothes, grinning at me and holding on with both hands to my ankle.

“You’re my ticket out of the waste department! You’re not going anywhere!”