The Millennials (ON HOLD) #Wattys2016

Chapter 2

I twist and turn in my bed, grunting as my nightmares pelt my brain with everything but rest. I sit up and take a few deep breaths to calm me down. I hear robotic wheels rolling to my bed side. 

"Would you like some water Ms. Rain?" The robotic male voice asks. I reprogrammed him to be male after getting tired of Veronica's voice in the lab. 

"No, I'm fine." I respond. 

Just about every house had a maidbot. They were quite expensive but I basically built my own using old equipment from the lab. They were generally meant to clean, take messages, open the door, get the mail, some of them could even make food. My maidbot somehow trained itself to get me water and supply me sleeping pills. 

"Actually, can I just have some apple juice?" I said to tech5.

"Right away, Ms. Rain." I hear the wheels rolling on my wooden floors to the refrigerator and wait for it to return back to me, balancing the juice on its round flat surface. It adjusts and then elevates to the length of my bed. I take the juice and it lowers and remains by my bed side. 

"Power down." I say to the robot. The blue lights all around the top of the round surface dim before shutting off completely. 

I get out of bed and the lights turn on as soon as my feet touch the floor. The large windows of my apartment overlook much of the city, I can even see Sky Zone from here. It makes me ache because it stood as an anomaly that work only follows me home. It follows me to sleep, it wakes me up, it controls my breathing.  I can see Sky Zone now in the distance, it is the only building with all the lights still on. There were always workers there, it was always active. When Rees and I were not in the lab, the other two lab technicians were there, analyzing new DNA, dealing with new problems. I bet they didn't find any scavengers though, that was a rare thing. 

I sit in my living room couch, it is brown with red pillows. My apartment is painted white and is very open with the large windows I've grown to love. Like Sky Zone, it lets in all the sunlight and makes the room bright but I often keep the curtains down for my own privacy. Tonight the curtains are pulled away and Sky Zone haunts me. 

I wrap my hands around my legs and pull my knees up so I can rest my head on them. I stare at it. The facility that was made not just for the labs and testings, but for immigration, trials, assemblies, awards.  Almost everything was done there, decisions of executions were made there. 

I close my eyes and breathe in deeply, the name ringing in my ear through Rees's voice. 

Savoudi Teller. 

This is why I don't look at names, this is why. 

"Please be safe. Don't get caught." I mumble to myself, hoping that whoever they are will telepathically hear me, but I know it is impossible and I know they will find the person tomorrow the latest. My stomach feels heavy and my head begins to ache. 

Times like these, I wish mom was still around. I look at the table in front of my couch. I've seen this picture many times before. A tanned caramel woman with blonde kinky curls just like the ones I have, the same freckles and green eyes but a pointier nose and pinkish lips. She laughs as she holds on to me. In the picture, I am at least 10. About four years after that picture is taken she would be dead. She died when I was 14 and I was left alone in a building that had collapsed due to landscaping issues. It's a miracle that I even survived, I try not to relive the day. 

I was trapped for a few hours before members of Parliament found me. We went through testing, academic testing as well as DNA testing, but our results were never revealed to us. No one is allowed to look at their own genetic make up. Through the academic testing, they realized that I had the highest scores on biology, physics and math, so they placed me in the lab and trained me for almost 6 months. After I turned 16, they gave me my own apartment and allowed me to pay rent when I could begin supporting myself.