Between

Chapter Three

Sector 7 HMUC Bio-Verification Site, Northeastern Corzibar

Everything came down to this.

The past twenty years of Wren Miller's life had been spent preparing for the day she turned twenty-one. Today she would be called before the Directorate, as would her newly of-age friends and neighbors. The safety and security of their lives would be interrupted; their futures ordained by the very blood in their veins. Her blood. Her blood, and Foster's. Their future.

Would they have one?

The low thrum of a settling helicopter came from a distance and Wren glanced at her brother Nolan from where she sat across the table. He had already been through this rite of passage, one year ago today. His blood...his genes...had received the highest level of classification known to Corzibar. His future was made certain, his life laid into place.

"You'll be fine," he declared, stabbing a fork into his pancake. "Mom and Dad were approved. I was approved. There's no reason to think you won't be." He stuffed a piece of pancake into his mouth and continued talking. "This is why the High Ministry orchestrates this whole testing thing...so only babies with good genes are born."

She didn't say anything, poking at the eggs on her plate. Her mind was swarming with worst-case scenarios. What if she didn't pass the test? What if they told her she had to leave her home? What if they told her she had to leave Foster? Wren thought of the Articles of Existence and how the High Ministry promised to purge those they saw as impure. What if She was impure? Would they condemn her to the life of a Greenkeeper in the CO2 scrubs, or perhaps just kill her instead? It had happened to others before her, after all.

Even if she and Foster did pass their tests, there were still several more rounds of testing before they would know if they could marry and have children of their own. After all of it, they still might be denied the right to be together.

"C'mon sis, if you don't get out there soon, there really will be something to worry about."

Wren nodded and ate the last forkful of her breakfast before she stood up. Her brother couldn't come with her—testing was done in private, of course—but she turned to look at him one last time before she stepped out the door.

"Nolan?"

He only raised his eyebrows at her, awaiting her words.

"I'll see you later."

Her brother smiled as she slipped her oxygen mask over her nose and mouth.

"See ya, sis."

* * * * *

"Identification?"

Wren faltered, staring down at the beak-nosed Directorate woman at the desk, her mouth open and gaping like an idiot, though she said nothing.

"Identification?" she snapped again, her eyebrows raised. Although she couldn't see the woman's facial expression through her breathing mask, Wren suspected if she could there would be a very deep frown present there.

"Wren Miller," she issued finally through the hiss and crackle of her own mask, her throat tight.

Her eyes scanned down her list and she made a harsh mark next to Wren's name once she found it.

"You may proceed to the testing area. When you arrive, you will be asked a series of questions and then your blood will be drawn for evaluation."

"I know how it works."

The woman's fingers raised to her glasses and she pulled them down onto her nose to study the young woman before her.

"Do you now?" Her voice was stiff, and Wren realized she had made her first mistake when she saw her make a note on a separate piece of paper to her right. "That's interesting."