The Clean Ones

Chapter 17

Every bone in my body felt numb as I stood in the courtroom with my hand still raised. Not a single person out of the hundreds that were here before was left. Even so, I wasn't ready to leave.
All these years, I never really paid too much attention to Liam's absence for weeks on end for work errands. The thought that he would be hiding something as grandiose as this never even occurred to me. Sure, everyone has their secrets, the truths they choose to hide from the public eye, and they should be respected as such. This was more than just a secret, however.
Secrets. I knew the thought of such was just a wistful daydream. Nothing was kept a secret, no, not with the Cleanse embedded in our minds. One thing most people didn't know, was what actually happened to our thoughts and opinions when they were taken from us. Liam told me once that the government stored them in beakers, which were kept under lock and key. Each person in the town had their own, specific beaker, which contained all of their thoughts. These were collected during each Cleanse session. In the week following, government officials would analyze the thoughts using a special computer program that they had access to. It had no name, only numbers for its identification. I think Liam had said that it was something along the lines of #2242543178890659. When they examined the thoughts, they would look for any signs of defiance- treason, UnCleanliness, or truancy were the most common. It was true, that to withstand a Cleanse was nearly impossible. But, that didn't mean that it malfunctioned from time to time. A new Cleanse formula was created every month, to ensure that our bodies would not adapt and become immune to it. With that said, there was always room for loopholes or the occasional slip up, as rare as it was. When that happened, officials were able to detect it immediately. The people that were, as they called it, UnClean, were deemed unfit for society. They were sent away almost immediately.
It didn't make sense why Liam would fall under this category of misfits. He was a genuinely good hearted man. He even held a government job. Yet, that seemed to mean nothing in Mayor Johnson's eyes. To him, even being linked to someone that had a Retrograde was considered sinful, let alone possessing one.
As if one cue, the Mayor came in and sat down right beside me. "Miss Bennett, do get up. Don't you know it isn't good to dwell on past occurrences?"

My head snapped up. "Don't you dare."

"What did I do?" He asked, looking genuinely curious.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Miss Bennett-"

"Oh, shut up!" I screamed with my hands clamped over my ears. "Just... Get out of here!"

"I'm afraid I cannot do that, Miss." He sighed and held his wrist up to check his watch. Almost all of the men in our town were provided with watches along with their bundle of clothes. I always found them fascinating, with their unique language, but women were not permitted to have them. Instead, we were provided with small, pearl earrings. Once we turned ten, every girl was allowed to have their ears pierced, and received the pearl earrings to go along with them. Most girls marveled at the concept of holes in their ears. They were lovely, I had to admit, but quite useless compared to the watches the boys had. As contributing members of a Clean society, it meant that even our clothing and jewelry had to be Clean as well. Besides our sack-like dresses, sandals, and shawl, women were only permitted to have undergarments, earrings, and a simple engagement ring, if we were to get married.

"Miss, we must get going, if we're going to make it to our next destination in time." The Mayor said as he got up and pulled me along with him.

"I don't want to go anywhere else with you." I said, pulling away from his grasp. "I'm done."

"I cannot accept that, Miss. For there's only one Retrograde, and two of us. If you leave, you leave me here alone, without one. And we certainly can't have that. And, if I were to leave you here, you would have nowhere to go except to relive your entire life from the age of twelve until now. And I don't think we can have that either. So therefore, you're coming with me." He barked and began to walk off. Grudgingly, I followed. I had to admit, he did bring up a very valid argument. Even from behind, I could tell he was grinning madly when he noticed my presence.