Deprived

Chapter 21

The sound of dogs barking subsided, but Maize remained uneasy, and her father stayed alert.

"And you went to fight alongside the western Rebels?"

"That was the whole purpose of me going. I knew no one except the drifter who took me there. I played it over and over in my head before I left, trying to make it work. But if I took you guys with me and I got hurt, or worse, in battle, who would take care of you then? But in the village, you were home, and I could count on a few people to look out for you guys. I thought you'd be safer there till I returned."

"Like Mr. Tim?"

He nodded.

"So mama knew why you left."

"Yes."

"I always wondered why she never remarried. She always looked so lonely."

"I can't explain to you how much I missed and grieved for you and your mother and for the child I'd never met." Tears swelled in his eyes. "I'm not trying to make excuses for what I've done, but you'll understand a little better when you grow up and have a family."

"I feel like I'm already grown up."

"In a way, you have. The world will do that to you."

Maize glanced up at him. "You left to make things better for us?" Maize's heartbeat quieted.

He held Maize's hand. His fingers felt sticky. When she looked down, she saw her hand was covered in his blood.

"How bad is it?" She scaled back her worry.

"Ah, don't worry about me." He said, standing up. "it'll be all right."

Mario's favorite phrase. He would say it even if a beam was sticking out his right eye.

"Everything they told us was a lie Dad—the food, the water."

"I know, Princess, all poisoned, but what choice did we have."

"And the virus, they have a cure. They kept it from us all these years."

"I have more. It's a phantom. It doesn't exist. Don't get me wrong, I know people are really sick in the village, but it's not the virus, it's the food and water, it's always been the food and water, poisoned. Again, population control."

"Dad, I have something else to tell you."

Maize went on to tell her father what she saw in Jack, her supervisor's office, earlier that day. The red solution Jack dropped in her eyes. The colors that changed in the room, the pictured door that slid open. The red room, the mutilated bodies of boys and girls lying on cots, the organs in watery glass jars. The body of the missing fourteen-year-old girl hanging from a metal hook.

Mario exhaled. "I'm sorry you had to see that Princess. I've only heard of it." He looked down at her, the pain twisting his lips. "The way he's preparing you—the things you've gone through—make me think the god of the desert must have a big job for you."

"We've all been through a lot, Dad."

"When I heard of all these things, similar to what you just shared. I knew I had to leave. We had a better chance fighting with the western Rebels than rotting to death in the village."

"How is the Earth food over there?"

"Big and healthy and tasty, and in abundance. There are so many vegetables and fruits, some you've never seen or heard of."

"And the AllPill-two."

"That's the next step. We get the pill, and our people could be free too."