Aquifer Read Online Free Page A

schools. Identical on the outside, and I assume on the inside, and all built in the same year, the year of the New Education. Our teachers tell us that was the beginning of our golden age. Father once said it was the year freedom died.
    Freedom is a word I don’t truly understand.
    School will dismiss early; when Father returns tomorrow morning and crosses his arms over his chest in the symbol of agreement with the Rats, the annual Holiday of Jool — Water Day — will begin. It will last three days. Father will be cheered throughout the festival. The water rations will be temporarily removed.
    And then Father returns to his private hell.
    That is the pattern, the expected. But there is no certainty this year. Not with Father taken and Walery in his place.
    It turns out they had quite a long talk while I spoke to Old Rub. I wanted to ask Walery to tell me everything Father said, but my anger wouldn’t allow it. How could Father share words with an Eleven and silence with me?
    I long to tell someone about last night, about the visit from the Amongus, but my position does not allow many close friendships. At least that’s what I tell myself.
    I could tell Lendi about Old Rub, how she seemed to understand. Lendi loves animals, and would appreciate that part of the story. It’s unfortunate his father makes coats. Lendi doesn’t have the heart to be a tanner.
    But there will be no chance to share with him this day.
    A wide space opens before me. Students, uniformed inred and gray, part as I climb the spiral ramp that leads to my classroom. Fives quickly disappear through their doors. I walk behind Lendi, circling upward until I reach the second-highest floor. I glance up. It is not long until schooling is complete.
    Lendi and I turn into room 1510 and sit as all students do, in a wide circle that faces outward. My chair is comfortable, as is my view: a screen, changing images every ten minutes. Presently, an eagle soars through a blue sky. And in the center of the scene — the eye of the eagle — is a dial, the same one carried by the Amongus to monitor the emotional climate of New Pert, placed to sense my wrinkles.
    We are often reminded how peaceful our world has become, a world without a police force or prison, where crimes and uprisings have nearly disappeared. But we’ve paid a price. The emotional root of all conflict — fear, anger, love, especially love — is prohibited. The goal of our schooling is to master a life of total self-control. A life without wrinkles, without feeling, without soul. The exercises in school are endless.
    But in truth, for most, they’re no longer needed. Generations of life in an emotion-neutral world have bred these dangerous urges right out of people.
    Why do I still feel them so strongly?
    Anger. Loneliness. Hope. They burn in me. Only me.
    I stare at my eagle eye, and my dial stares back. Each of us faces one tuned to our individual frequency, the one given to us at birth. My arrow hangs and quivers. This is not good. A quiver is acceptable; a swing is dangerous.
    Here again, I am Other. I was not given a frequency implant. These mistakes do not happen, and surely my attending Birther was undone for the error. But I am now too old for my heart to accept the personalized signal implant, and Istare at my unsynced dial, a first-generation model able only to note changes in body temperature. Such instruments are much more prone to error.
    Behind me, in the center of the circle, Teacher Two drones on. I miss Teacher One. He had become too passionate in his defense of the New Sydney uprising and was replaced. Rumor has it he now works an outpost oil field. Let his passion burn to pump oil, or something like that.
    Teacher One had sounded like Father did yesterday.
    Father
. My hands sweat. The dial jumps, spins, and quivers again.
Calm, Luca. Calm
.
    Behind me, the door creaks, and boots strike the floor slow and heavy. I stare at my screen, and a man in a crisp, red uniform steps