Old Alaska

“Archer, hurry up!” I whisper-yelled to my half brother. He was stopping every two seconds to look at anything slightly interesting.

“I think there’s a Just Released in here,” he called back. “Jeez, Crow have some compassion.” I inwardly groaned and stalked back to him. He was going to waste precious time helping some kid figure out life in the C.V.  I turned to look in the building he was standing in front of, and sure enough, a Just Released was sitting in the corner farthest from the door clutching a muddy baseball bat. She was looking at me warily, unsure if I was going to hurt her or not. I wasn’t, of course, but how is she going to know that?

Archer slowly walked into the building, but suddenly stopped when the girl jumped up and started screaming and waving her baseball bat around crazily. Archer stopped where he was and calmly told the nine-year old that he wasn’t going to hurt her, and that he would bring her some food if she wanted. Slowly she lowered the bat until it was hanging limp at her side, like an extra-long arm. I stepped in the building, walking to Archer’s side.

“What’s your name?” I asked, hoping that it wasn’t one of my friends’ recycled names. The last time I met a Just Released with my friend’s name I almost killed them. She looked from me to Archer and back to me again, gauging if she could trust us or not.

“Artemis,” she said clearly, “my name is Artemis.”

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Ten minutes later we were almost to the wall surrounding the Adult’s Village, heading toward the small hole we signaled A.J. with. Hopefully he was already there, waiting with the supplies we needed to live for the next two weeks. A.J. was my other half-brother. Our mom had him after she turned 25, meaning she got to keep him. I, on the other hand, was born when she was only 23, and Archer when she was 21. A.J. was lucky. He got to live in the fancy and clean Adult’s Village his entire life, while Archer and I were stuck in the Children’s Village, and there we would remain until we were 25. 70 years ago, when Texas was just a state, a law was passed that there were to be no abortions in Texas. Eventually, the entire country passed the same laws, except for the west coast. The west coast refused to pass the laws everyone else had, which made Texas angry. The governor at the time took matters into his own hands and forced the United States President to either kick out the western states from being in the U.S., or send the army out to force them to listen and change their laws. We were never told how the president agreed to send the army out, but I assume he was blackmailed. There was a civil war that lasted for five or so years and eventually the states complied to the new laws. The Educator at the Care Facility was forced to teach the history of New Texas in an effort to keep the kids from rebelling. They try to tell us that abortion was killing children, and since we were children, how does that make us feel? The Educator told us to imagine being killed before earning the right to live in the Adult’s Village. We were forced to believe that it will be no time at all before we get to live in the Adult’s Village. The only thing is, even if you are 25, there’s no way to prove it except the sparse drop records at the Care Facility. Sparse as in only about half the children have them because the care-takers are so lazy. The Officers at the gates to the Adult’s Village will either look you up, or judge based on what you look like. Some “children” have to wait until they are 40 to leave. Suddenly, someone waving my own arm in my face and slapping me with it and whispering my name right in my ear brought me out of my thoughts.

“Crow! Crow, why are you hitting yourself? Huh? What’s wrong with you, stop hitting yourself.” Archer laughed but the next second his face turned serious, “Come on, A.J. is here. Don’t mention Artemis. He won’t give us anything if we do.” I looked up to the top of the wall, where a bright blond head popped up, tossed a black duffel bag down over the 25 foot wall, saluted, and disappeared again. I sprinted towards the falling bag and caught it before it could hit the ground. Unfortunately, falling under the bag’s weight was not part of the plan. I looked up to see Archer clap his hand to his face, stifling a snicker. Not a second later I heard a muffled snort from beyond the wall.