Chapter 24
“I found Marco. Told you I’d find him.”
“Vidalia!”
“Dalia. Even Marco calls me Dalia now.”
“You stay away from him.”
“What are you worried about? I’m trying to help.”
“Like last time?”
“No, I’m trying to undo last time.”
“The past can’t be undone.”
“You don’t believe that, Emmy.”
“I don’t know what I believe.”
“Don’t you?”
“I believe in Marco.”
“So do I.”
“What do you know about it, Dalia?”
“I know his strength. I know how much courage I felt in his presence. How little I feel now. Why can’t you share him? He belongs to all of us.”
“He’s not some @ symbol. He’s a man.”
“He’s abandoned the kite and the symbol since I told him your whereabouts. He can’t risk being spotted. When he should be thinking of all of us, he’s focused on you.”
“Who are you to decide what he should be thinking?”
“You don’t know how much I’ve uncovered about the Mod in searching for Marco, how much we all need Marco to liberate us from the rationale. The future of our generation depends on him, but he won’t focus on any of that until he sees you.”
“What’s more important than love?”
“Emmy, you sound like the Mod. That’s a flawed question. Many things are equally important.”
“Like?”
“Like the ability to travel freely without harassment, the ability to collect in groups and to demand transparency from the Mod and Privates. How can love exist without these things?”
“Love found its way to us.”
“And look where you are now.”
“Our time will come.”
“And what about the others? What about the ones who aren’t so lucky to find love when the rationale impedes them?”
“Am I responsible to them?”
“Are you not?”
“Dalia, I don’t even know how to begin answering those questions while living in an institution without him.”
“He said something similar, that he draws his strength from you.”
“How is he?”
“For someone who loves him, it took you long enough to ask.”
“How is he?”
“He’s tired and hungry. He relies on the kindness of others for food and drink. Transits have built rain barrels to collect water in places the patrol doesn’t search. Once word of the water’s location spreads by word of mouth, all transits can have their fill. Everything else is hard to come by. Marco said he went days on nothing but wild berries and mushrooms growing in neglected City parks. He met a transit with a book separating the edible from poisonous one. Otherwise he has depended on people like me, inspired college students.”
“Depended on you for what?”
“We take food with us when we go out in case we encounter him. Patrol members are seldom young or willing to travel by foot, so he avoids those in cars. Marco knows whom to trust. So far, he can separate the good from the bad and make do on simple gifts: bread, cheese and fruit. Whatever our parents have neglected to finish from that evening’s ship.”
“How long can he go like that?”
“That’s the question I asked him. He should be forming a strategy for survival, for attracting followers, not worrying about a summer fling.”
“I’m not a summer fling.”
“I want what’s best for both of you, and what’s best for all is ushering an age when we can all live freely.”
“Why are you always deciding what’s best for me?”
“I’m not. I’m not going to take that chance again. Whatever I think, I’m leaving the choice up to you. Marco is coming for you. Make the right choice. Without Marco’s leadership, the rest of us will stay indoors and things will continue as usual. If the Mod catches Marco, they’ll make an example of him to make certain of it.”
“Or not.”
“Are you saying that just to be flip?”
“No, the Mod has a way of making concessions to preserve the quo. To avoid turning Marco into a symbol, they may pretend not to be threatened. They may leave him alone, then see if the quo returns.”
“Sounds like you’ve learned from them. Even abbreviating status quo for greater efficiency and less room for dissent.”
“I’ve learned the way they think, how they talk, not their goals, but efficiency no longer seems to be their only end.”
“What do we do, Emmy?”
“You’re asking me?”
“You must know. You’ve known Marco. I’ve only met him once. Afterwards he left me a kite that won’t fly.”
“You tried flying his symbol? What’s wrong with you?”
“Doesn’t matter. The wind was down. It wouldn’t fly.”
“Serves you right, Dalia.”
“Whatever the case, why won’t you and Marco share? Why won’t you think of the rest of us?”
“Maybe when I get out of here Marco and I can take a list of requests. Set up a queue.”
“You’ll go back to his brownstone and make dresses and jewelry and live a kind of life the rest of us can only dream.”
“I don’t think that’ll happen. The only way we’ll be together now is if we commit to a life as transits.”
“The two of you are sick.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s worse than the bug. More contagious.”
“What?”
“He said the same thing. Love must be viral. He said he’d commit to a transitory life rather than wait any longer. He’d go transit for one chance to see your face.”
“I don’t know that he’ll get that. The security in here is resolute. I won’t get out of my room till graduation day. They’ll hold me to the commitment.”
“So they’re more afraid of you than Marco?”
“No, I don’t think they’re afraid of either of us. I think they’re afraid of the both of us together.”
“The collective.”
“Don’t make this symbolic.”
“Why not, the Mod has?”
“We don’t know what they’re thinking, Dalia.”
“Don’t we?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me what you discovered?”
“Only that they’re hiding things, Emmy. Posting false information on the web. Falsity runs contrary to their stated goals of promoting logic and efficiency. How can that be achieved without transparency? Why can’t people discuss the truth without having to waste time sifting through falsities?”
“Citizens can discuss online.”
“Emmy, it’s not the same. Privacy is not enough to assure a good life for all.”
“I know things, Dalia. You’re not the first one to talk about the Mod’s contradictions and omissions.”
“Who else? Marco? Did he finally rise to the occasion?”
“We never talked about those things, Dalia.”
“No, he was more interested in love.”
“Maybe that’s a beginning.”
“Love is too selfish to spark change.”
“It sparked us.”
“You’re two people amongst many.”
“How many, Dalia? How many even want change?”
“That’s what we need Marco to find out. We need others made brave enough to go outdoors, to collect and speak openly.”
“And ask for what? Do what?”
“To mark a beginning.”
“It’s already been marked.”
“Then you’ll help us?”
“Stay out of our way. And we’ll figure it out.”