Fast-Tracked Page 3

  It wasn’t the rumor of an affair that had him so outraged. He had been caught many times before. What outraged him was the implication that he would be with someone who had let herself go like Krystal had.

  After having her son, for some reason Krystal stopped caring about what anyone else thought – and not in a good way. Today’s broadcast showed her walking in front of her house with hot pink curlers halfway fallen out. Her fried blonde hair was topped by four inches of black roots. She wore a dingy grayish t-shirt that might have once been white. Food stains peppered the front of the shirt that had the saying, ‘I’m in shape. Round is a shape.’ Without caring that the camera was there she loudly burped and picked her crotch.

  While I thought the Senator was a slime ball who should be embarrassed for all his affairs, I could see how Krystal’s claim caused an extra amount of embarrassment.

  “So, Krystal, do you care to make a guess as to what color letter Damie will receive today?” the reporter asked with a mischievous glint in her eye.

  Krystal gave the performance the reporter must have hoped for. “That’s easy. My Damie will get silver or maybe even gold. He’s a genius, that one. Taught himself to read, even before he started school. By his first year of school he could tell you every president this country had ever had and the years of their presidencies.” She proudly thrust her chest out, but then stumbled from her sudden shift in weight.

  The carriers arrived and knocked on the door of Krystal’s home. A well-rounded boy stuck his head out the door and allowed the carrier to scan his iris. The carrier handed him his letter and the boy quickly disappeared back behind the door. For several minutes there was nothing but Krystal’s nervous pacing. Finally, when she couldn’t stand it any longer, she walked into the house to see. A moment later came an animal’s thunderous growl of rage. Krystal stormed out the front door waving a brown letter in her hand.

  “You think you can do this to my son and get away with it, you filthy low-down piece of political scum –” The rest of what she said must have been filled with vulgarities, because it was all bleeped out.

  The reporter’s voice returned, but now she spoke soberly as she explained how tragic it was when a promising student managed to fall so sort of his or her expectations. Then the camera cut to recent footage of Damie almost a year after receiving his assessment letter. He was returning home from a day of assembly work at the factory he had been assigned to. He tried to block his face from the camera, but he was too slow. The camera paused on a freeze-frame: but where he was once a round-faced boy, he now looked gaunt and thin. The only part of him that resembled the boy of a year ago was his eyes – but now they had a dead, haunted look to them.

  Okay, that definitely wasn’t the show for me to watch today. Even though I knew the photo was a composite of two separate people, I didn’t need to think about people getting demoted right now. I forced myself to take several deep relaxing breaths while telling myself that wouldn’t happen to me. Krystal wasn’t exactly known for being the smartest or sanest actress out there. She probably assumed her son was reading when he was just pretending and making up words. Most likely the kid was as dumb as a rock, but she had been too deluded to realize it.

  Quickly I changed the tablet to another program. It was a detailed account of the history of Rebuilding Day. It was the same film they broadcast every year during the week leading up to Rebuilding Day, but I needed a distraction and it had been a while since I had actually seen the broadcast. So, I watched.

  We all knew the history behind our modern education and society. It was one of the first things we were taught in school. It all started in the mid 1980s, when the United States began a sustained period of economic growth. But with the economic growth the cost of menial labor went up. Savvy business owners realized the increased cost was only cutting into their profits. In order to combat that, they started to ship the work overseas, utilizing the many economic loopholes to avoid the increased tariffs on international manufacturing. Over time, more and more businesses realized the benefit of overseas production and manufacturing and we became a country of primarily white collar workers. Nothing was produced in our country any longer: even the bulk of farming had moved outside of our country.

  Then the country found itself in the middle an economic slowdown, which then progressed to a recession. The government managed to hang onto the title of recession for several decades by continuing to increase the national debt and eroding the value of the dollar. But the efforts only made the impact of the inevitable economic crash that much worse. Almost overnight the American dollar became worthless. Other countries demanded yen or euro or gold for payment. The imports stopped, U.S. stocks and bonds became worthless, and chaos ensued.

  With a valueless dollar, the stores started demanding anything other than U.S. currency – so in turn, the people went to the banks and demanded their savings back in anything but dollars. But the banks didn’t have the money to give. All the banks’ wealth was on paper only. So people started flooding the Mexican and Canadian borders, hoping to sell off their valuables. That led to other countries shutting their borders down. That’s when things really got bad and the riots began. Neighbor fought against neighbor trying to scrounge up and hoard anything of value they could get their hands on – especially food. Most people quickly realized they could get by without – well, just about everything, except food and water.

  Our country would have destroyed itself and then been taken over by other countries if it wasn’t for the quick response of President Touffe. He immediately recalled all of our military troops and closed our borders. Then he declared a countrywide state of emergency and imposed martial law. That same night he made his famous speech, the one that was played to schoolchildren over and over again in preparation for the Rebuilding Day celebration.

  “My fellow Americans: the disaster we have fought so long to avoid is upon us. We have hit the bottom of the economic abyss, and most fear we will never recover from it. They are right. The lives we once knew are now over. Do not torment yourself by hoping for a past that you cannot reclaim. Instead look inside of yourself to find a strength you never knew existed and look towards the future. We will recover and be stronger and better than we ever were before, but not for ourselves. We will join together as a country and work together and suffer through the hardships together for our children’s children. Over the next several weeks, months and years, there will be many difficult rules and laws imposed that must be followed, not for our benefit, but for their sake. I will not lie to you: we have many years of struggle and suffering ahead of us, but if we join together, we can succeed. This day will go down in history not as the day we lost everything, but the day we began to rebuild.”

  President Touffe was true to his word. Over the next several weeks and years, he invoked many rules and laws that even under a dictatorship would have seemed insane. At times, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason behind his actions, except to inflict more cruelty on the American people. But when disobeying meant an empty stomach and eventually death, you followed the rules. Everyone was given a small ration of food and assigned a work duty. It was simple: if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat. And everyone was put to work, too, from the smallest child to the most ancient of grandparents. Touffe found a task for all of them.

  First he reclaimed farmland throughout the country. People were forced out of their spacious homes, and relocated to live in the skyscrapers of the city. Buildings that once housed cubicles and cubicles of office space were converted into living space. The abandoned homes were disassembled for their materials, and the land was plowed in order to grow crops.

  Next he started the manufacturing transformation. Long abandoned factories were given new life and new purpose. If the country didn’t have the natural resource to manufacture a product, it did without it or found an alternative resource.

  At this point the basic needs of the people were at least being met. Rations were increased, and starvation became a
less common cause of death. But the workloads increased too, because now the real rebuilding began. The old streets, pipelines, water systems and everything else were torn apart, state by state. The results were unpleasant, but the citizens had to endure. President Touffe viewed it as motivation to complete the necessary tasks faster.

  President Touffe was determined to have the United States completely self-sufficient for all of its basic needs. Wind and solar farms were erected to supply our electricity. Water conservation and recycling systems were created. At the same time, entire cities were reconstructed in orderly grids. He even had the foresight to leave extra space for future growth and expansion.

  By the time the construction neared completion, President Touffe was an old man, and his health was failing. But before he passed away, he created our current education system. He knew a society could not survive without a lower-class workforce, but he was reluctant to condemn any group to an existence with no hope of improvement. The education system he built was his remedy for that. It doesn’t matter what level you are born to: if you work hard enough any level is possible.

  During his lifetime President Touffe was hated and despised by most, but he kept his military well fed and supplied to maintain his control and he reshaped our nation. He created the blueprint for today’s society, starting from the bottom up. And in the end, the United States recovered and became the glorious leading nation it is today. The rest of the world looks to us with envy as they still struggle to recover from their economic crashes that resulted from ours.

  And today President Touffe is celebrated every year on Rebuilding Day as a national hero.

  Chapter 3

  I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, my mom was shaking me.

  “Are they here?” I asked, snapping awake. “Oh no, I didn’t miss them, did I?” I jumped up in alarm, but then sat back down as a wave of dizziness hit me.

  My mom gave me a reassuring smile and rested her hand on my shoulder. “No, honey, you haven’t missed them. Mrs. White just called to let us know they just turned onto our row.” I had to give my mom credit: despite all the worrying she had been doing all weekend, now that the moment was here, she looked completely calm and as rock-solid as I needed her to be.

  Frantically I flew around the room not sure exactly what to do with myself. “Okay, let’s just stop and take a moment to breathe,” I told my reflection. I did a quick head-to-toe check. Despite a long nap, my clothes were unwrinkled and where they belonged. But I couldn’t say the same for my hair. My ponytail had mostly fallen out and was now a wild crown of static. I must have really been tossing and turning in my sleep. I sat down in front of my mirror and brushed and sprayed my hair back into submission.

  “Ready?” my mom asked brightly.

  “As I’ll ever be,” I replied. Swallowing hard, I forced myself to make my way down the stairs to the front door. Suddenly all my senses seemed amplified. I could hear the crush of the blue carpet under my feet as I walked. The tick-tock of the small clock in the kitchen seemed to boom through the entire house in slow motion. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. My mother’s shaky exhale of breath betrayed the nervousness she had been hiding so well.

  The front door unexpectedly opened and I let out a strangled yelp. Then I saw my dad walk into the house.

  “They just left the Carlsons’ house and should just be getting to the Levensons’ house now.” He stopped mid-stride as he saw the expression on my face. “Oh, honey, it will be fine,” he promised as he crushed me in a bear hug; the kind of hug he hadn’t given me since I was ten.

  “I know,” I fibbed for his benefit. I hugged him back to help him think his reassurance was helping me. I knew they were both trying their best, but the little things just kept betraying how nervous they were for me. As a result, I couldn’t help but feel even more anxious.

  I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the sound of my breathing, a meditation trick that I had never quite mastered. I slowed my breathing down to an even, relaxed pace – or as even as it would go, anyway – and began to reassure myself. Byron and I had been at the top of our classes every year. I had done well on my testing. In fact, the testing had been surprisingly easy – nothing like I thought it would be. So there was no reason I should be nervous. I should feel confident – no, excited, about getting my assessment letter. Getting a purple letter wasn’t an unrealistic hope for me. In the next few minutes I may very well be on my way to becoming a science teacher.

  Ding-dong.

  My heart skipped. They were here. I felt giddy excitement take over, and I somehow knew that everything would be fine. More than fine: on the other side of the door my perfect life awaited me. I’d have wonderful job and a house with a private yard of its own. Eventually I’d have a couple of healthy and extremely bright children. Best of all, I’d happily grow old with Byron.

  “Hi!” I brightly greeted the carriers as I opened the door.

  “Uh, hello?” the carrier stuttered. “Are you Miss Alexandria Paige Scannell?” he asked hesitantly. My unexpected demeanor must have thrown him off.

  “Yes I am,” I practically chirped back at him. He smiled warmly and held up the iris scanner. As soon as it beeped its confirmation he handed me my letter.

  “Good luck,” he said before he and his assistant turned to leave.

  Slowly I examined the iridescent envelope in my hand. The opalescent rainbow of colors that shined off of it was mesmerizing. I ran my fingers over the silver lettering of my name and address – it was slightly raised above the rest of the envelope. I flipped the envelope over. A silver wax seal with the imprint of the Director of Assessment Commission promised that the envelope had not been opened by anyone else since it was originally sealed. I ran my finger under the seal and broke it.

  But I couldn’t open it: instead I just stared. My parents patiently watched me and continued to smile; apparently they thought I was still savoring the moment. In a way I guess I was. I was momentarily daunted by the importance held by the small rectangle of paper in my hand.

  The moment I opened the envelope’s flap the color I saw would determine my future. The most dreaded orange paper meant you had performed at the bottom twenty percent of your class. You would immediately be assigned to an unskilled manual labor position and assigned living quarters in a nearby housing complex. From what I had been told, the housing was tiny and cramped and each floor shared a community bathroom. Food rations were just enough to maintain health and nutrition, and were not concerned with taste. And the paltry income allotment scarcely covered basic necessities.

  If you found a green paper it meant you were in the thirtieth percentile range and would be trained for a low-skilled labor position. The housing was a little roomier, there was some variety to the rations, and if you were careful with your income allotment, you could eventually save up for a nicety or two.

  Every additional ten percent earned a higher level, and consequently the things allotted to you became nicer. Brown was the fortieth percentile and meant you would be trained in an average-skill level labor position. Red was for high-level labor.

  Everyone hoped to be in the sixtieth percentile or higher, because that meant you were upper-class. You would be allotted an individual house and would have an income that afforded at least regular niceties. It got better and better with each color level: blue, purple, gray, silver and the most exclusive gold.

  My confidence and giddiness vanished. Suddenly I was sure I would open the letter to find red paper. I would never be able to live in the same neighborhood as my parents, I would never get to teach, and I would have no hope of a life with Byron.

  I felt a hand rest on my arm. I looked up to see my dad giving me a reassuring smile that made his blue eyes twinkle. His look told me that no matter what was in the envelope, I would always be his daughter and he would always love me. It gave me the courage I needed. I squeezed his hand and stepped a few steps back, away from him. This was something I needed to do on my own. I too
k a deep breath and began to open my letter. I prayed to see purple or at least blue.

  “What?!” I screamed. I blindly stumbled backwards until my back hit the end of the hallway. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: it just didn’t make sense. I felt myself starting to hyperventilate.

  “It’s okay, honey. No matter what color you got, we’ll get through this together.” My dad walked towards me wearing his brave face. The last time I saw that expression on him was when he told me that Grandma Mary had passed away.

  I looked over at my mom and saw that all the color had drained from her and tears were streaming down her face.

  Realizing what they both must be thinking, I opened my mouth to explain, but all that came out was a strangled cry – my breath got caught somewhere in my throat. I was still sort of hyperventilating. So I haphazardly pulled my letter out and let the iridescent envelope flutter to the ground. Both of my parents’ eyes went wide as they focused on the gold letterhead clasped in my hand.

  The impossible had happened. I had been fast-tracked.

  My parents’ looks of despair disappeared as they followed me down a path of shock, disbelief and then overwhelming joy.

  The world was completely open to me now. Against all odds I had fallen into the top two percent of the country’s students. I was now part of the most privileged class. I had the ability to hand pick my job and where I lived. Not just pick the field I wanted to work in, but the exact job I wanted. As long as the person holding the position was a silver or lower, the job was mine. Six months of career overview courses would assist me in choosing my job. Then I would spend the next year intensely training until I knew every aspect of the job I would take over.

  I opened the letter and read and re-read it several times to make sure there had been no mistake. All the information matched mine and everything looked official. Plus they had scanned my iris. Slowly I began to accept my reality as I read through the rest of the enclosed information. I knew I’d have to re-read the information again later. I was simply too distracted to absorb it all right now, but it helped it feel more real to me. Besides, a few bits of interesting information did stick with me. I was to bring no more than a small carry-on bag of personal items with me. Clothing and housing would be provided for me at the college, as well as an ample food ration and income credits.