The Last Red

Chapter 6: Koben

I shrug cockily. "When your dealer tells you to come, you come."

He almost chuckles. "Oh, is that what I am to you now?"

"Let's just say I like what you gave me," I lean my back against the wall, bending a knee. "Speaking of which, how long does the full effect last?"

"Well, that depends," he comes closer now with his incredibly husky voice. "How white exactly are you?"

I fiddle with the long strands of my wig, playing it cockily cool. "Transparent."

He snickers. "Should last you a good week."

Wow. 

A huge upgrade from my current method. I reapply my lotion every other day to keep the shade constant.

"You know," he scratches his chin, "I couldn't believe when I saw those short red hairs glistening from your head. I've never met a Ginger before."

"Well you don't really seem social."

He tilts his head sarcastically. "Yeah, sorry about that, Miss Congeniality," then taps my lower arm, "Follow me."

I hesitate only for a second - I don't want to lose him in the crowd.

Walking behind him is surprisingly easy. He keeps gently pushing people away, making room for us.

"How the hell do you do that?"

"You never told me your name," he ignores my question, looking me up and down for only a second. "I'm Koben. Before you invent a nasty nickname for me."

"Too late," I force a smile.

Koben. Who introduces himself with one name only? How pretentious.

"My block name's Kayla Terrell," I hesitate for a moment. "But I have a real one as well."

At Base Zero, all children are assigned numbers at entry. They're not allowed to bear a name until joining a block. But some of us had names - ones that our parents gave us. Although we were never allowed to use them, a lot of us secretly did when teachers weren't around.

"Yeah?" he smirks playfully. "Let me hear the real one."

"It's Gina."

He nods, tightening his jaw. "I like Gina better," then looks at me with gleaming eyes. "But I'm still gonna call you Red."

I roll my eyes.

"When you do that," he nudges me, "your covers are even more obvious."

Are they really?  "Don't worry - I barely ever do it. Not many people irritate me like you do."

He suppresses a smile, then licks his lower lip cockily. "Yeah, that's one of my specialties."

I try to ignore his throaty tone.

"What's your real name?"

"What makes you think I have one?"

"Your teeth?" I almost laugh as I use that one against him again. "You couldn't have started off of Base Zero, have you?"

"Definitely not."

"Just say it, I promise I won't laugh," I wink as irritatingly as I can.

"It's Bradley," he says and grips my wrist, pulling me aside, "and we're here." He scans his chip and a door marked with IT Construction slides to let us in.

"How'd you do that?" I look around me. IT Construction's one of the restricted departments - no one can enter without scanning his own chip.

He lifts a hand he was holding over my wrist. My chip wrist. He opens his palm and I see a large piece of metal in it.

"It's aluminum," he says. "Put enough of it over your chip and Omnia cannot detect it - it blocks the signal."

I narrow my eyes suspiciously. How does he know all this? I look around the Construction Department. "Is this where you work?"

"Day and night," he collapses onto one of the chairs. "And I ain't half that bad."

"I somehow believe that," I mumble as I inspect my surroundings.

"I brought you here so we can talk in private," he speaks. "You should keep that aluminum over your wrist. No one's gonna come in here for today."

I narrow my eyes as I sit onto one of the desks, then cover my wrist with the piece of metal. "Now you've got me intrigued."

"You a Ginger?" he raises an eyebrow. "Pale skin, red hair, colored eyes?"

"You make me sound like a vampire."

He squints, brooding. "Are there... others?"

I chuckle. "I'm not some leader of an underground caucasian society, Koben. How should I know?"

"So you're the only one you've ever met?"

"Yes," I nod. "Besides you, now."

"Um," he scratches his hair, "No, I'm not homogeneous. Only my eyes are colored."

My eyebrows furrow. "But the tanning pills..."

He slants his lips a little. "Had to get your attention somehow, didn't I?"

shit - I was tricked.

And I walked right into the trap. I now stand up, already taking slow steps away from him.

"Hey," he stretches his arms out, "Your secret's safe with me. I promise."

"It's been a long time since I last believed in those..." I look to the door, waiting for someone to burst in and capture me.

"If I wanted to report you, I would've already, okay?"

I turn to look at him with narrowed eyes. "What is it that you want from me, then?"

"You asked me if I was a rogue once," his eyes are fixated on me. "Were you?"

I stare at him in silence for a few moments. What have I gotten myself into? 

Finally, I nod. "Until the age of ten."

He nods as if relieved. "Then you know about the Albino religion."

My nostrils flare as I now breathe deep, ragged breaths. "I'm not an albino."

A lot of rogues believe that albinos are holy creatures who bring luck. They mutilate them for body parts or kill them and sell the rest. My parents were killed because of it - my mom didn't shave her head - she'd wear a wig instead. One day, she was bathing in a river, renewing her tan... when the rogue tribe saw her...

"I don't believe in the myth!" he defends himself quickly. "In fact, I can tell you exactly how that myth was created."

People of the Albino religion believe that if you catch an Albino and bring him to an East Wall, you will be granted Eternal Life.

I swallow hard. "All rogues believe in the myth," I hiss through gritted teeth.

"I never said I was a rogue, Red," he raises his eyebrows.

"You never said anything, Koben. I don't know the first thing about you."

"I used to live in the East," he declares. "And there is a Wall. A huge tall wall and a fortified city behind it - covering most of the North-East Area of the planet."

I squint. "Did you live behind it?"

He chuckles. "I wish. No, I lived in the South-East with my Mom."

I nod. I knew some kids in Base Zero who lived in the South East. It's the developed part of the planet, with built infrastructure and good quality of life. But if their parents lost jobs or an income, they had to report themselves to East blocks in order to survive. That's when most gave their children to the Base.

"Why'd you leave?" I ask.

He clenches his jaw and I can tell the topic makes him angry. "I didn't exactly leave," he says. "My mom sent me off to Base Zero right before she killed herself."

"I'm sorry," I mutter.

"We all have our shitty backgrounds," he shakes it off. "Anyway, she told me about the city behind the Wall. It's the best place on the planet," he says. "High quality of life. Freedom. She said if I was good enough, I'd be transferred there."

I frown. "Good enough?" 

"In the ranking," he says. "It's one of the places that take KTL inmates who pass the Screening. But only an insignificant percentage." 

"Well, are you? Good enough."

I watch him intensely as he locks his eyes with mine. "Can't get any higher than number one, can I?"

Wow. I fail in trying not to gasp. Well, that explains the pretentiousness. Koben Tanaka L. - our number one.

"Congrats," I say without emotion. "Sounds like you're headed off to the Good Place. Which brings me back to my question," I clench my jaw. "Why are you telling me all of this?"

He takes a deep breath. "Precautionary measure," he leans over the desk, his closed fist pressed against it. "I wanted to give you this," he opens his other palm. Inside it - a thin blinking bracelet, "in case neither of us gets sent behind the Wall."

"What is that?" I frown.

"A tracker," he says. "So we can find each other in the Wild."

"Huh?" a corner of my upper lip goes up. Does he know I'm escaping? How?!

"If I don't get sent behind the Wall, I'm escaping from wherever they send me. And I think you should, too."

I crumble my forehead. "And why is that?"

"Because," he takes a stance and I can tell he's finally coming to the point of this mysterious meeting, "the myth... isn't just a myth," he locks his eyes with mine. 

"The Wall does accept all homogeneous people - African, Asian, Caucasian, Arab... I don't know why, but you're valuable to them. Anyway, the story passed on through generations and, like always, it got manipulated and twisted, until people actually started a religion around it. But the Wall doesn't want albino body parts or whatever those freaks believe - they want living purebred individuals."

I almost laugh now. "So, basically... you did bring me here to suggest capturing me and bringing me East so that you can be given an Eternal life?"

We share an irritated stare. 

"Like I said, all I want's to be granted entry. And I assure you, you'll be much better treated there than anywhere else in the world."

I shake my head in disbelief. "How did you get your hands on a tracker, anyway?"

"Made it myself," he says. "It's not connected to Omnia, so don't worry about it."

"Thought you worked at the Construction department," I watch him with sharp eyes.

"I know how to construct a lot of things, Red - I had a life before this block."

That's precisely why I find you sketchy.

Finally, I shake him off. "Count me out," I get off the desk, handing him the tracker back.

I can see the disappointment in his eyes as he places the tracker back in his tracksuit pocket. "Thought you might say that. Maybe this can change your mind," he walks to the central hologram desk in the middle of the office.

"Omnia, shoot up the project Terraform MTB1," he commands and instantly green, brown, red, yellow, and all sorts of other colors fill up the room as Omnia lists projections of big houses on huge rich meadows, houses surrounded by colorful gardens, floating on water, buried in the ground, hanging off cliffs... you name it.

My mouth drops as I look at the most mesmerizing scenery I could imagine. Trees... Plants, and flowers in colors I can't even name.

He smiles seeing my face. "It is beautiful, isn't it?"

"What...is this?" I gasp.

"We create architectural plans and visual projections as accommodation solutions. Not blocks, but individual living spaces. They say it's the bright future," he turns to look at me. "But this... is East."

I'm speechless - I can't even imagine seeing this live, let alone be able to live in the middle of this paradise.

"The Botanics Department worked on it before it was given to us," he continues. "They terraformed the soil and we finished the project."

I can't help believing it makes sense that this exists. If they really worked on all this stuff to improve our futures, we'd already see some changes - the smallest increment, anything. But the only green out there I've seen are scarce sets of trees.

Whoever it is we're doing it for, it's not our futures that we're improving, but theirs.

"I bet the city behind the Wall looks even better," he looks at me. "Some of us could be transferred there."

"Not me. I'm not going to attend my A.S."

He frowns. "You can't not show up. They'll just send guards to get you."

"No," I chuckle. "You don't understand. I'm breaking out."

He narrows his eyes. "To live as a rogue?"

I nod. "We're escaping the day after tomorrow."

He looks shocked. "Escaping prison to live in the desert? You're better than that, Red."

"I already lived in the Wild," I defend my choice. "And living anywhere is better than dying!" 

"Dying? What are you so afraid of at the Screening?"

"I can't just go in there as if I was a normal person," I insist. "They test your DNA in there," I stare at him. "Your eyes might be a genetic mutation - it's possible to get a degenerative trait or two of your close predecessors, but... I'm purebred. Like people 20 generations ago," I shake my head. "Both my parents were. I myself don't even know how we stayed homogeneous after all these centuries - I'm sure they'd like to know..." 

"So, what? You think they're gonna lock you up and do experiments on you?" he watches me, amused.

My heart races out of anger. "Don't pretend like you don't hide your blue eyes." 

He laughs. "I sure don't hide them out of fear," he says, surprised that I'd think that. 

"You know what it's like when you're the only colored-eyes person in an overcrowded place?" he raises his eyebrows. "I had to listen to dozens of people, every day, repeat the same thing over and over again... 'Ooh, how come you have blue eyes? Are those contacts? Can you get them for me?" he imitates inmates. 

"Don't get me wrong - I loved the girls that came with it," he shrugs as if apologizing, "It does have its perks... But I wanted to keep my focus on being number one. And this... genetic mutation, was just a distraction from it. So I found a way around it. That's all there is to it."

So he did show his eyes for a while... And he's still alive. 

"Were any of your parents homogeneous?"

"Never met my dad," he slants his lips down. "But yeah... Mom was."

Well, that explains it. I raise my hands in quitting. "Still, you're willing to risk your life for the Wall?"

"This ain't a life," he says passionately. "I'd rather die for a purpose than just rot someplace as a slave."

"Guess that's the difference between you and me," I stand up. "For me, the Wall isn't the only option at a life."

He clenches his jaw, dissatisfied that he didn't get me on board. 

"If you change your mind, find me tomorrow before 6," he stares at me intently. 

I'm a little invested now. "What's at 6?"

"My Screening."

I frown as he says it so causally. He isn't afraid at all...

But one thing doesn't add up. "If you're so confident in your competencies..." I narrow my eyes, biting my lip, "why did you even make a plan B?"

He clenches his jaw in a manner that upsets me. Pain - so much of it. 

"My competencies," he nods, "I believe in. But sometimes, they're not..." he pauses as if looking for the right word, "enough."

I stare at him, hypnotized. 

Whatever happened to him? 

I try to light up the mood by making a bad joke.

"Imagine how awkward it'd be for me to get sent behind the Wall and you're stuck in the Wild with the tracker?"

He presses his lips. "Guess I'm in luck you're not going to the Screening, then."

He walks towards the door, then turns mid-way. "Coming?"

I come back to the here and now, then rush to follow him out. I keep my chip covered with aluminum so that I can walk out unnoticed.

Just as I'm about to give it back to him, I hold back.

"Do you mind if I keep this?"

He nods once.

"It's all yours. Hope to see you tomorrow, Red," he stares at me intently.

He's such a peculiar person: he'll definitely be sent to a better block after his A.S. I don't understand why he'd risk his life escaping and trying to breach East that he knows is unbreachable? Especially when I'm not on board as 'an albino'. 

He'll die if he tries. So, why is he doing it? 

I just have to ask. For some weird reason.

"What's behind that Wall that's so special to you, anyway?" I try not to sound too curious.

He tightens his jaw, observing me. "Opportunity."

"Opportunity for what?"

I want to know more. But he's giving so little of him. Yet, everything about him seems real.

The same can't be said for the majority in here.

"To go back to my grandfather." Short and non-explanatory. And then he's gone.