Beyond the Gates

Sister Lisa came to wake us up at 7:00 on the dot like she does every school day. I know this because I wake up around 6:00, and I lay in my bed staring at the ceiling until 7:00 rolls around. Sometimes I’ll get up and write in my diary until Sister Lisa comes down puttering down the hall on old metallic joints with an alarm blaring from the tinny speaker in her chest, and then I wait a while to answer but no longer than a minute or two. If I do, Tammy will come to knock on my door over and over again and talk in that fake nasal voice she knows I hate: “Mia! Mia! No more sleeping, you got enough of it last night!” Imani would join in, but she could never quite get the voice right.

Tammy’s done that every morning since she moved into my suite last year. They would have put us in the same dorm before – they like to keep siblings close to each other when they can – but Tammy and some other kids were sick all last year. If you stood on the beds a certain way and looked out the window, you could see over the courtyard wall that separated us from the boys’ wings; sometimes I could see them just after they got done with sports. I liked it too until Tammy and Imani moved in with me.

When I finally got out of bed, I pulled my hair back into a puff. I was feeling brave today, so I put on the foundation and mascara a friend gave me. It didn’t quite match my dark amber skin, but I was the only girl in my grade that had any kind of makeup; and it served a purpose today. Today was special.

Every year, the kids in the high school would get a trip beyond the Gates. The adults would come to give a talk about all the jobs you could get to support the Vault, and then they would head to the city of Newport – one of the places people lived before the Vault – and give the highschoolers a taste of what being an adult was like. This year was different. They were going to let every child go.

I pulled my uniform on and took my vitamins with my breakfast – the Sisters could tell if you didn’t take them. They could tell if you were trying to skip class too because even the older model sisters had cameras, and their noses were like bloodhounds. It was the first thing we were told coming in to the school.

“How would you know? You’ve never even seen a bloodhound!”

“Have too!” I’d only seen them in pictures. “They can tell if you skipped a day!”

“That’s just a myth, Mia.” Tammy sniffed. “No one’s ever proven that in a scientific environment.”

“Whatever. Just make sure you take them.” I scoffed in reply.

My first class was algebra which I hated – I tried to get in the afternoon class, but Mama wouldn’t let me change it around. After that, I had history class, which was okay, just boring. I swear the teacher model there has the most droning voicebox I’ve ever heard. Then I went to English class, which was my favorite, because Father Green would let us do reports on whatever book we wanted as long as we could prove we read it. After that, the classes let out for lunch. Today they let all the grades have lunch at the same time, on account of the special occasion.

“Eugh, they gave us the meatloaf surprise again.” I poked at the bar on my plate and cringed when it squelched. Imani did the same and stuck her tongue out at the sound.

“Actually, it’s not meatloaf ‘surprise,’” Tammy said, “They have to tell us what’s in the food bars. This is actually 25% pork and 75% animal substitute.” I was pretty sure meatloaf wasn’t supposed to be mushy like this. It probably had something to do with the animal substitute. We’d had to cut back on meat this year.

“That doesn’t make it any less gross. Can you even tell me what’s in animal substitute? Since you apparently know every damn thing!” I could get away with cussing here. The cafeteria was so loud, there was no way they could pick my voice out of the crowd.

Tammy stuck her nose up, which she typically did when she was trying to look bigger, and said, “I can. It’s made using synthesized proteins, which have to be made in the Labs…”

While she was busy talking, my eyes drifted behind her. The table we were sitting at was on the edge of the lunchroom by the windows, and just over from the section for the grade above me. I could only get away with sitting at this table because today was special – they liked to use it for overflow – normally we’d sit near the center. Here, I could see the boys in the grade above talking loudly and rocking the table with laughter. There was one I’d had my eyes on for a while now, Sung-Hoon. He was sitting at the head of the table, juggling a ball on his shoulders while he joked with the rest of the table. He had the sweetest brown eyes I’d ever seen in my life.

Maybe if I was lucky, I could get some time to talk to him when we went past the Gates. To be honest, he was the only reason I cared about this trip. I never saw what was so great about going out there in the first place. There were only ruined buildings and barren ground and shriveled up plants.

I looked back at Tammy. She was still deep in her info dump on the food bars, but she hadn’t even touched it yet. I took a piece and swallowed even though the sliminess made my skin crawl. Tammy and Imani would never eat until I did, which is something the Sisters were trying to get them to stop doing. It was easier with Imani but Tammy would always hem and haw about it.

“…When the animal substitute is finally constructed in the proper shape, it’s injected with flavoring and dyed to the optimal color.”Tammy concluded with a proud not-quite-a smile look on her golden-brown face.

“Why do you even know so much about this stuff? I thought you wanted to get out of here. The Labs are a part of the school.”

“Because it’s the most important job here, and you need to know something about everything to be a Voyager.”

“You only need to know a little of everything, Tammy. And out of all the jobs you could pick to learn more about you pick the most boring one.”

“Is not!” She shot at me.

“Is too!” Imani chanted. She always loved to do this back-and-forth thing, but it usually made Tammy dig her heels in.

“Is not!”

“Is too!”

“ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS. ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS.” Mama’s monotonous voice came through the speakers, as the screens on the walls burst to life. Every student turned to watch and listen.

“DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES, THE SCHEDULED TRIP PAST THE GATES TO NEWPORT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.” The lunchroom exploded into a cacophony of complaints, and I could just barely hear Tammy and Imani join them.

“THE APPOINTED CHAPERONES HAVE FALLEN ILL AND CANNOT PROVIDE ESCORT AS PLANNED. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THIS DISAPPOINTMENT. AS A CONSOLATION, STUDENTS MAY SPEND THE REST OF THE DAY AS YOU PLEASE WITHIN THE SCHOOL GROUNDS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING.” With this final statement the screens died and so did the speakers. Immediately everyone turned to each other, to the Sisters trying to calm everyone down. I didn’t do anything but sigh. There was always another time to my Crush anyway.

“This isn’t fair!” Tammy stopped her foot, as three other girls around her did. Imani cried out “yeah” in agreement. I just breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well at least we don’t have class,” I commented as I pulled my bag over my shoulder. I chanced another look at Sung-Hoon, but I couldn’t see him past the crowd.

“Mia, don’t you care? We were going to the Outside for the first time! The other kids didn’t get to go until high school!”

“That’s why I don’t care. I’ll go next year with everyone else.”

“I’ll go with you!” Imani piped up.

“No, you can’t Imani. You’re not old enough,” I looked down at her.

“This isn’t fair!” Tammy said again.

“Be mad all you want, it’s not like you can do anything about it.”

She just pouted in response. Tammy didn’t keep quiet for long, though. When we got back to our rooms, she went to harassing the Sisters for answers. I couldn’t understand why she would even bother. It’s not like they could answer her questions; they were top-down models, only made to respond to certain specific prompts. It came with a benefit though, since with her out of the room, I could look at the boys’ dorm again. Maybe Sung-Hoon would be there? He did have a younger brother.

When I was done trying to catch a glimpse of him, I went to my bed to write in my diary. I always waited until Tammy was out of the room to write, because she would always try to look over my shoulder to see what I was scribbling down. I tucked it away on the shelf over my bed – Tammy was too short to reach up there – and just went about lazing around my room. Knowing Mama, she would probably tell us all to work on extra homework, but days like these were rare and I wanted to just relax.

Tammy didn’t come back to the dorm for hours, with the same pouty look on her face. I called a few friends and talked, and Imani just tottered around the room. I didn’t bother hiding what we said with her around. Imani only ever hung out with me and Tammy on the regular. When curfew came around Sister Tiffany rolled down the halls to send everyone inside; Sister Lisa must have been on the charging dock. I went through my evening routine: I ate a food bar, took my second round of vitamins, and put my hair up for the night.

I expected to wake up around 6:00 like always. But I didn’t – the simulated moon hadn’t even reached its peak when I looked out the window. There was a rustling noise coming from beyond my door, in Tammy’s room.

I stepped past Imani’s bed, closed my door as gently as possible, then stomped as quietly as I could to Tammy’s room.

I ripped the door open; she stood by her bed frozen, half-full bag in her hand.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I hissed.

“I’m going to the Gates,” she said after a while. She went back to stuffing things in her bag like I wasn’t there.

“No, you’re not. Go back to bed.”

“I’m going to the Gates,” she said again.

“No, you’re not! You don’t even know how to get there.”

“Yes I do. I heard you talk about when you snuck out to that party.”

“What-?!” I spluttered. I had made sure she was asleep when I left. “If you walk out of the door, I’m pulling the alarm for the Sisters.”

“You won’t.” She said as sure as a steady metronome.

“Tamara!” I whisper-yelled.

“Mariama.” She retorted.

“What’s happening?” Imani murmured from my door.

“Nothing. Go back to bed.”

“I’m going to the Gates.”

Imani lit up like a screen. “I wanna go to the Gates!”

“Be quiet! No one is going anywhere!”

“I wanna go, I wanna go, I wanna go!” Imani chanted. Her voice was quiet, but it bounced off the walls of the room.

“It’s two against one. If we don’t go, I’ll tell the Sisters about you sneaking out.”

I sucked my teeth with my tongue. “…Fine. I’m going with you, but we’re going straight there and coming right back, understand?” Imani did a little dance while I went to put my clothes on.

We went the way I had figured out, through the window and down the ivy trellis to the third window left from ours on the fourth floor. That window opened into an older floor being renovated, so all the cameras in the hall were offline. We took the supply elevator down, which they left unlocked because usually only the staff ever used it. Then we took it all the way to the ground floor, and waited for the cameras to turn so we could dart through their blind spots.

After that it was smooth sailing. The school was pretty much the only area they kept so heavily monitored. The adults just got to walk around doing whatever outside the school walls, and now we were doing the same thing. The first time I had snuck out wasn’t even for a party – I’d left just to see what the adults got to do once we left the high school. It was mostly nothing; all they did was pray and read and stuff. Maybe that was just what you did when you weren’t a Voyager.

We reached the Gates at about 1:00; the moon was past its peak now.

The Gates were made up of three separate doors, one after the other, a standard issue-airlock system on all vaults. They were all taller than the three of us combined, and their surfaces were dark blue metal; I remember my science teacher called it Kronosium. It was pretty much unbreakable, and we used it in everything. Even the Sisters were at least coated in the stuff.

“Alright, we’re here. You saw the gates. Let’s go home.” They seemed kind of cool at first, but after looking at them for awhile I just felt underwhelmed.

“Wait, don’t you wanna look around?” Tammy called. “The Gates are the greatest testament to humankind’s survival, and you just wanna go back to bed?!”

“Yes! We’re already pushing it, being out after curfew. We need to get moving before they find out we’re gone.”

She ignored me, walking up a stairway to the Gates’s control station.

“Tammy, come back here!” When she didn’t answer, I rushed up the stairs after her, Imani close on my heels.

“Look at these records, Mia! They have to go back years and years. Think of all the great minds and people going through those doors…” Tammy shoved a stack of papers into my hands which I begrudgingly read while she went off on a tangent.

On the papers were dates and times, names, and activities. This was a tracking log, made to take note of everyone leaving and coming in the Vault. I flipped through the stack, not a single name or date of significance to me. I reached the end and started to put the papers down, but the final date gave me pause.

26 JUNE 2142. One year before Imani was born. There were no more dates after that. There were no names attached to the date. There were no reasons given or even anything about if this was a coming or going entry.

While Tammy continued her excited rambling, I looked around the station. There was dust on every surface. The floors had what looked like years of grimy buildup gone completely untouched. The windows were foggy and scratched. The computers really caught my attention – they were so much older than anything I’d ever seen at the school. Their monitors flickered and popped on every so often. They were like someone with a heavy load picking it up and carrying it a few steps before immediately collapsing to the ground over and over again.

If the date on the log was true, then no one has left or come into the Vault since Imani was born. But that didn’t make any sense. The Voyagers were going out everyday to see what materials they could find to help us, right? And what about the high schoolers? I would have heard by now if they hadn’t actually been leaving the Vault.

Imani plopped down on a seat sending a cloud of dust into the air. She pouted, “I’m bored. I wanna play.”

“Not right now, Imani.” Tammy pulled out of her tangent with an annoyed tone.

“I wanna play! I wanna play with the suits!” Imani pointed out the window to the Gates.

“What suits?” Tammy and I asked together.

Imani pointed out the smudged windows to the platform across from the station; three suits hung from hooks, haphazard and messy, dark cutouts in the dim lighting here. Tammy and I walked over to them, this time with no complaining or demands to leave from me.

The suits were just gritty just like the floors. They came in one size only and had no name plates or titles or any kind of identification.

Tammy reached out to touch them. I slapped her hand down. “Are you crazy?! You don’t know where these things have been! What if they’re like, irradiated or something?”

“They’re not. Radiated suits must be stored in specially made containers and transported to a designated radiation storage facility.”

“That doesn’t mean you should touch it anyway!”

Imani reached up to one and sent the suit tumbling to the ground. I expected a loud clatter. There was nothing but the sound of fabric rumpling. I picked up the suit, with my fingertips of course, and turned it back and forth. That shouldn’t have been possible if this was an actual rad suit.

While I looked over the suit, Tammy wandered back over to the station. I pinched the fabric between my fingers; it felt like basic nylon. Tammy rifled through the papers. Imani flailed the legs of the suit around like streamers. I scolded her and hung the suit where she could not reach. Tammy clacked on the dusty keyboard.

The Gates clicked.

It was only a little sound at first, but enough to draw all of us away. The Gate let out a high hiss, like the kind from a popped rubber ball. It gave a deep squeeling growl as inch by inch it slid open.

“Tammy, what did you do?”

“I don’t know! I was just trying out the codes on the paper!”

“Why would you do that?!”

Imani rushed forward to the door; I whipped my arm out to catch her only for my finger to close around air. I ran after her, and Tammy scrambled at the controls.

All of us stopped as the sight beyond the Gates.

There wasn’t another door. There was a stony path laying at the mouth of the Vault, overgrown with dandelions and such sprouting between the cracks. All around the path lay trees and bushes and flowers – a forest. I took a step beyond the door, then another, then another. The crunch of grass and gravel under my shoes was unlike anything I’d ever heard.

Green. Actual green plants. I knelt to plant my palm in it and ran my fingertips over the blades of grass. I could feel the veins running through them, not like the plastic feeling of the turf from the courtyard. They were wet with evening dew, a phrase I only thought I would use in writing.

The door slid closed with a mighty groan, and we were locked away from the Vault.