Chapter 4

“We’re going to camp,” he finally admitted to her a few miles from the lake. She stopped dead in her tracks.
“Camp? As in the army camp? As in all your people?”
He shook his head. “You really aren’t in the military, are you? No. That would be base. We’re headed to my camp, the one I set up myself. I’m living there right now. It’s not much, but it’s relatively safe.”
“If you’re living there, then what were you doing way out here?”
“Hunting. Sometimes there’s a few ducks on the lake. Truth be told, I was just as surprised to see you as you were to see me. I heard you brushing around and figured you were a duck.”
Step. Step. Step. They walked in silence for a few minutes.
“So what’s your story, Green Eyes?” She hated him calling her that, giving her nicknames before he even knew the first thing about her. The nerve of him. It took her a while to consider her answer, but she finally replied, “There was nothing left for me there.”
He nodded in wordless understanding.
“That’s why I joined the army,” he said after a few moments. “It’s not mandatory for us, but it’s not like I had anything better to do.”
Another long pause hung in the chilly air. This time, it was Piper who broke it.
“You mentioned your father, but didn’t you have a mom? Or brothers and sisters?” It was none of her business, but curiosity had gotten the best of her.
“My mom left us a couple of years before my dad died.”
“Left?” Piper’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “But how could she? The state couldn’t possibly have allowed—“
“We don’t do things the way the Nation does. Memorists marry for love, not for progress.” He looked down at his shuffling feet. “Unfortunately, love involves a much greater risk factor.”
What a selfish idea, she thought. Picking your own partner in life, with complete and utter disregard to the good of society? Of course, most National couples grew rather fond of each other, and some even fell in love after marriage. She’d always thought her own parents were rather lucky to have come across their love nearly on accident. In the end, however, the Nation was more important than the self; the Diviner mentioned this fact in nearly every one of his addresses. An intelligent man could never be expected to marry an unintelligent woman. The children could hardly reach their full potential intellectually.
“If it was love… why didn’t she stay?”
He didn’t speak for a long time, and avoided her eyes, determined to face the ground for as long as possible. “The only problem with love is… it’s easy for people to convince themselves they’re in it. People like feeling like they mean something in the world, even if it’s only to one person. Sometimes people think they’re in love with someone who loves them… but in the end they’re only in love with love. And when the fluttery emotions disappear, so do they.”
She felt a pang of hurt for the boy, in spite of herself. “I am sorry. Truly.”
“Not your fault,” he said, his deep voice growing louder and sharper. She could tell that he didn’t like showing weakness either. “Life is life. Just got to deal with it.”
And silence overtook the pair once again. Piper had always spent most of her time in silence, even before the bombings, and this silence was not uncomfortable like the many that had filled in the holes in her past dealings with people. It was merely a thoughtful lull, a quiet recharge before the next topic of conversation.
“Hang on,” she asked suddenly. “What did you call yourself before?”
“What?”
“Before, you were talking about your people and how you do marriage different. What did you call them?”
“Memorists. We call ourselves the Memorists.”
“You mean you’re not Backwinders?”
“Not within our own circles. You call us Backwinders because you think we’re uselessly backwards. We prefer to think of ourselves as the ones who have retained the memories of what used to be, as the protectors of the past. The Memorists.”
“But the past you believe in never existed. It’s a figment of your imaginations.”
He stopped walking and looked up, making sure to catch her eye. She hated that feeling. She was sure every fault she had was written in her eyes, and he was reading them like they were books.
“Events can’t be erased by a single man’s insistence that they never happened.”
She could think of no witty remark, no comeback that could convince him. She simply knew he was wrong. It was as simple as that. The boy, however, wasn’t finished.
“We have more records beside the Apocalypse Journals. There are letters, books, memoirs, music. There’s a whole world in the past that the Diviner tells you never existed. A world before the Nation came on the scene.”
“But there wasn’t a world before the Nation. We were the first and only inhabitants of the planet.”
“It wasn’t the first, and it wasn’t the only. It isn’t the only.”
“Not anymore. Not after your people left.”
He shook his hand. “You don’t understand. There are whole other continents. Six more of them, actually.”
“Continents?”
“Land masses. Surrounded by oceans. I forgot, do they tell you about oceans?”
She shook her head eagerly. “What’s an ocean?”
He smiled silently.
“Come on, tell me!”
“I’ll tell you what. There’s one not too far from camp. There won’t be time tonight but tomorrow we’ll go to the ocean, all right? You can see for yourself.”
She stopped walking. “Is this a trap?”
He sighed and rubbed his hand over his face in exasperation. “Look, it’s worth nothing to me to trap you at this point. Sure, you’re part of the Nation, but you don’t know anything about its inner workings. You probably know even less than we do. You haven’t tried to kill me, so I don’t think you’re a threat. Everybody should see the ocean at least once. It’s just a fact of life.”
He looked her straight in the eyes. This gesture seemed to be reserved for moments when he was trying to get her trust. Finally curiosity got the best of her. “Alright. Tomorrow we’ll go to the ocean. Deal.” She held out her hand, and he looked at her in surprise. She didn’t usually offer him trust like this. After a moment of shock, he shook it.
“Deal.”
The following lull in conversation allowed Piper to focus on the scenery around her as they continued to walk. She had never seen anything like it before. There had been trees in the city, but she’d never seen anything like the ones that lined the road before her. Not only were they taller than the synthetic trees that grew in the city square, but they were… orange. Orange, red, and yellow garlands of color filled in the empty spaces between the brown branches, creating a kind of fantastical wonderland.
“Why are they that color?” She tapped Patrick’s arm and pointed at the trees.
He gave her a wayside glance. “You kidding?”
“No, do I look like it?” She grinned in anticipation. “They’re so beautiful.”
“It’s September. The leaves change color in the autumn.”
“Autumn?”
He actually stopped to look at her. “You’re killin’ me. The season? Don’t tell me they’ve gotten rid of seasons where you come from.”
“I’m not sure exactly what you’re talking about.”
He sighed heavily. “I can tell. Man. They got rid of seasons. They just never stop, do they?”
“Wait. Does it have to do with… snow? Is snow a season?”
He laughed for the first time since they met. “Snow is precipitation. Winter is the season when it snows.”
“And snow is white, right? And really cold?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
“I remember snow. It snowed in the city once when I was little.” She bit her lip and grinned. “It was like clouds froze and fell from the sky. It stuck to everything, backed up everything for a week… ice on the roads or something. The Diviner wasn’t happy about it, he promised later it wouldn’t ever happen again. It messed up the Lex cars, got in the way… I couldn’t see why it was a bad thing. It was so pretty. Me and Mom and Branson went outside and played until we froze.”
A lump formed in her throat. Mom.
He looked at his feet thoughtfully. “Glitch in their system. They probably have some kind of covering up to prevent the weather from getting through…” He looked up to meet her eye again. “And you don’t even know how much you’re missing, do you? You don’t know how much they’re not telling you.” He gestured toward the gorgeous orange leaves. “Will you take this as some proof that I’m not crazy? Your Diviner would tell you those trees don’t exist. Autumn is a myth. Your people, the people in charge, they just erase whatever they don’t like. There’s so much more out there than they’re telling you.”
She remained silent.
They arrived at Patrick’s camp just as the sun was setting. Ethereal brushstrokes swept across the sky, painting it lavender, crimson, and gold. The campsite itself set on the crest of a hill, with a perfect view of Piper’s newfound autumn trees lining the ground all the way to the horizon.
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “See what I mean? Never seen anything like that before, have you?”
She shook her head in speechless wonder. After a few minutes his voice pulled her away. “Come on, it’ll be there everyday. We gotta eat.” He pulled the pack of beef jerky out of his pack and threw it to her. “Sorry it’s not much. It was a terrible day for hunting. Hopefully we can get something good tomorrow.”
She snapped open the package greedily and tore a piece of the dried meat off with her teeth. She was starving— anything edible was good enough for her. It took some discipline to force herself to hand the bag back to him. He traded her for an apple. It was rich and juicy, bursting with flavor in her mouth.
“You can have the tent,” he said, gesturing to the shelter behind her. “I’ll take the tree.”
She looked up at the gigantic tree at the edge of the camp and shook her head. “You can’t sleep up there. You’ll fall out or something, I know it.”
“Did it the first night I was here. If I strap myself into the sleeping bag I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it. You’re the lady. You take the tent.”
“Hey, I can handle whatever you can. Just because I’m a girl—“
“Another thing you’ve lost. Chivalry. Guess that gets in the way of progress, huh?”
She stood and placed her hands on her hips, trying to look as offended as possible.
“It’s not about you not being as good as me, as strong as me, whatever. It’s about you being better because you’re a girl. You deserve to be treated better, okay? And yes, it’s old-fashioned. And I don’t care. You’re sleeping in the tent.”
She could tell she wasn’t winning this battle, so she surrendered. “Fine.”
“You oughta go ahead and get some sleep, too. It’s been a long day.”
She cocked one eyebrow. “Is that chivalry too?”
“No, but I think it’s in your best interest if you want to see the ocean tomorrow. It’s a ways away and you want to be wide awake for this.”
He’d done it again, dangled a possibility in front of her that she couldn’t resist. That’s what he seemed to be best at. “Fine. I’ll go to sleep and we’ll go see the ocean tomorrow. You’ll have to wake me up in the morning.”
“I can do that.”
“Alright. Well, good night, Patrick.”
“ ‘Night, Green Eyes.”
To her surprise, the nickname didn’t fill her with resentment. Maybe it just took some getting used to. No one had ever given her a nickname but her brother.
“Hey, Patrick?”
He looked up from the fire he was trying to start. “Huh?”
“Thanks.” She disappeared into the tent.