Matched Ch. 2

I looked for Lily and eventually found her in the classroom. “I need to talk to you at lunch, about my match,” She looked at me with surprise on her face”
“When did you get it?” she asked.
“Just yesterday. The letter came in the mail exactly on my birthday. I’ll tell you more at lunch.”
She nodded and I took my seat behind her. Our class was very small, so I wasn’t about to take the risk of telling her something this important in class where everyone could hear. I knew that people would find out eventually anyway, but I wasn’t ready for that to happen, especially not when Gage was telling me that he may have a plan. I had no idea what this plan of his was, but I was trying not to get my hopes up. Knowing Gage it would be some kind of ridiculous scheme. Luckily, our class time went by rather quickly and lunchtime came sooner than  I expected. We grabbed our Government issued meal and sat down in the grass outside. I told Lily all about my match with Gage, but I didn’t tell her about his plan quite yet. I wanted to see her reaction to the letter first. To my surprise, she didn’t seem too upset for me.
“Well, Gage isn’t a bad choice for you. I mean obviously the Government bases matches off of mostly biological compatibility, but you know he isn’t a bad guy either.”
I sat there mulling over her response and sighed. Just then I saw Liam walk by. I tried not to stare because I knew if I did Lily would notice. Besides, that kind of behavior isn’t allowed once you’re matched. I knew that, but still. Liam was everything that Gage was not. Liam was calm, he was fun but not to the point of immaturity, and he was studious, like me. I had a feeling that his Government assigned career would end up being something having to do with science or something else with an intellectual basis. I had tried not to like Liam, but we had been in class together for so many years, and really he was the only boy in our small class that I felt I had something in common with. I pushed back my feelings and waved to him as he smiled at me and said hi. Lily shot me a look of disapproval.
“Elizabeth, you really have to learn how to change your behavior. You’re matched now. If the Government notices you making glances at Liam too often you know that you can get charged with adultery.”
“I know,” I said understanding full well the actual weight of her remark.
She nudged me and smiled, “Besides, Gage is cute. You should try actually looking at him for once,” she said obviously trying to lighten up the mood.
I shook my head. “I’m just not like you, Lily. I know that it’s only the first day we’ve been matched, but already I’m having a difficult time accepting it. How were you able to accept being matched with Damien, especially since you’d never met him?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. I guess I just knew that this was how life was and that it was my duty to our government to accept my fate. It’s not like there is anything I could do to change it. I was a little afraid at first since Damien was from a different village, but after meeting him I knew everything would be alright. We are getting married in just half a year and honestly, I’m not nervous at all. I don’t think you should be either.”
I thought about what she said about not having a choice and figured that this would be the opportune moment to bring up what Gage had said about having a plan.
“What if we did have a choice though?” I asked.
She laughed. “Don’t be silly. You know that’s never going to happen, at least not in our lifetime. As long as our race is dying out and children who are healthy need to be born we will be matched and I don’t see that stopping for a long time. Remember what our history books say? There used to be so many kids that they couldn’t fit them all in classrooms, and this was across the entire world. Now here in our little segment of the world with only tiny villages, there are only 10 people in our class, and that is all of the people our age in the entire village. Do you really think that the government will let us choose now when we still need so many healthy people to make up for the great purging? I think not.”
I knew she was right, but I decided to bring up Gage’s plan anyway.
“Well, Gage said there might be a way for us to get out of being matched.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what that crazy boy has planned, but I wouldn’t pay too much attention to it. You know how he is.”
I nodded. I’m glad I had her to talk some sense into me. His mention of a plan had me more hopeful than I’d like to admit. When lunch was over, we went inside and continued class. I had always enjoyed being in class, especially when learning about history. In every year we moved up, we learned about our world’s history and how our small section, formally called Section Zero, had come to be. It was a sad, story, but triumphant as well. We were always told to be proud that we were the remaining. Today, we were delving into the history again, relearning how we had come to be. Basically, before us, there was a great war between governments and their people. The governments wanted to help the people take better care of themselves, and keep the people from hurting others. Back then, the world had been filled with chaos. We were told that there was a lot of crime, people were killing others, stealing from each other and many other horrific actions that we’d never dream of doing now. Besides all of the crime and harm people were bringing to one another, people were having children and not taking care of them. Now, we have a two child limit so we can pay attention to our children to make them the best they can possibly be as well as take care of them adequately while still maintaining our careers. Eventually, the government said, that two child limit would be revoked when we were able to expand Section Zero, but for now we couldn’t risk populating too quickly because of the chemicals from the Great Purging that still remained outside of our section.
Anyway, we learned that because the people were not taking care of themselves, the governments decided they had to take control. They tried putting in programs and assistance for the people, but there were too many people to help, and the people weren’t cooperating. Eventually, they had to take drastic measures. The Government eventually gathered up all who were good and deemed acceptable, and put them in different sections that were closed off from the main world where they’d be safe. Then, they purged the rest of the world to get rid of all the evil that existed. Our section was the first to be established, and so when we learned history we were always told to be proud of where we came, since we came from those who were deemed noble and good in a world where there had been so much evil. Sometimes, we were taught a few new facts, and those were the ones that always interested me. Like how in the before times people used to fight wars for land and simply because of race. To me, that sounded ridiculous, and I understood more how the Great Purging could have happened. During our history lesson, I glanced over at Gage, who looked almost angry. It looked like whatever we were learning wasn’t making him very happy. I shook my head, I wasn’t going to try to understand what he was thinking. I never understood him.
After class was over, I was walking out with Lily discussing our history lesson when Gage came walking up to the both of us. He nodded his head at Lily and then said to me, “Can I speak with you alone?”
“Why?” I asked skeptically.
“I have my reasons,” he said rather seriously.
“Well can you give me some?”
He looked nervously at Lily and shook his head. “Really, can you just speak with me please?”
“Fine,” I said and walked away with him after waving bye to Lily. He just seemed so desperate to talk to me and I figured that if I was going to have to deal with him for a while, that I should try to talk with him and get along with him on some level.
We walked together in silence until we reached the edge of the woods. I didn’t understand why he was talking me so far outside of our village.
“What are we doing here?” I asked suspiciously.
“I need to take you where no one else can hear,” he said.
“Why?” I asked
“Shhhh, not now.” I was a little offended that he had told me to be quiet, but I didn’t say anything. Finally we reached a part of the woods with two stumps that faced each other and he told me to pick one and sit down. He looked at me very seriously and then asked, “Did you tell Lily about the plan I mentioned to you?”
I sat there wondering whether or not to lie. He was making me a little uncomfortable and I wasn’t sure how big of a deal this whole secrecy thing was. I was a terrible liar though, so I just decided to come out and admit it.
“Yes,” I said quietly feeling a little guilty that I had said anything to her, and I really wasn’t sure why. It’s not like he had told me what his plan was anyway.
“What did she say?” he asked calmly. He wasn’t mad from what I could tell, so that was good I supposed.
“She said that I shouldn’t get my hopes up about your plan, that it was you and that you usually were just making something up.”
He nodded and a smirk broke out on his face. “Good, that’s what I want people to think,” he said. Gage was perplexing me even more than I thought. I hoped that he actually did have a plan because if we got matched I’m not sure how I would ever understand him.
He looked at me meaningfully and didn’t stop, so I looked down feeling very uncomfortable with this whole situation.
“Why did you want to talk to me Gage? Could we please get to the point?” I finally asked becoming annoyed with him.
“Well, firstly, I wanted to see if you passed my trust test,” he replied. “And you did not.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Look Gage, you may think that you are being clever or something, but honestly I don’t have time to play games with you. We have homework, or did you forget like you always do?”
He looked at me and furrowed his brow. “Well, I’ll pretend that you didn’t say that I was forgetful. I think that you have the wrong idea about me seeing as though you and I have barely spoken and we have been in the same class for as long as we’ve been in school.”
“Is that what this is about? You want me to understand you better or something?”
He shook his head, “Nah, it’s nothing mushy like that. The plan that I spoke of earlier, it may be progressing a little faster than I thought and I wanted to let you in on it.”
I nodded. “Ok fine, go on so we can go home.”
He looked at me very seriously for a moment and sat forward on the stump. “Liz, this is really a secret. I am not playing games; this is not a joke ok? I need you to really understand that and not tell anyone, not even Lily.”
I stared at him analyzing his facial expression. He looked very serious, a look on his face that I had never seen before. I decided that he was meaning what he said.
“Ok,” I replied, and nodded urging him to go on.
“Well, you know how we learn every year about the Great Purging?”
I nodded, not sure where he was going with this.
“Well, I’ve always felt like there was something missing, something they weren’t telling us. So I went to The Great Library, and looked through some of the history books there and I found one book that really interested me. This book was hidden away, and thinking about it now, I’m not even sure the Government knows that they have it.”
I was intrigued now, a little confused still admittedly, but intrigued. I knew he wasn’t making this up. This wasn’t the usual kind of lies he came up with.
“This book was from the Others, you know, the people who were purged. There were some first person accounts of them in the book. These people weren’t evil like the government said, not all of them at least. They were just fighting back against the government. Not because of what we’ve been told though. They were fighting back because the government was trying to take over. Ever heard of the name Dictator Lincoln Frost?”
“No,” I replied.
“Yea, neither had I. Well, he was the man who started the whole idea of taking over the world to make one huge government that controlled everything. His idea started in this place called the U.S., and expanded from there. He said if we had one government, and everyone was under control then we could have world peace, and violence would end.”
“What’s wrong with that? I asked.”
“Because before us, people had freedom and people were different. They felt like being under one government would force them to give up their own personal cultures, and besides they didn’t want one person to have so much power. They chose, for the most part, who they married. They chose where they went, who they were friends with, where they lived, what they wore, what they ate, how many kids they had, what job they had. Basically, they chose everything. The people were having their choices taken away, and slowly replaced with extreme structure, sort of what we have now but less friendly I suppose. So the people fought back, and killed  Dictator Lincoln Frost in the Uprising. The government didn’t purge because they were trying to get rid of the bad people, they purged because they were angry that the people had rebelled against them and the people weren’t bowing down like they thought. They were also angry that they killed the leader that had been able to help them control so many people. I think they were worried that if they didn’t take drastic measures they would be overthrown and lose their power. The book explains this pretty well. The people from Before talk about how their children were taken from them, forced to live in domes, I think they’re referring to our sections, which they explain are closed off, and then they mention the chaos. People were being taken by force, partially based on how subservient they were, and partially based on how well the government thought they could use them. Then, one day, they stopped taking people, and the accounts end there. I’m assuming that’s when they purged all who were left. They didn’t purge the bad people, they just purged the people who they deemed undesirable or who simply wanted their freedom back. It’s not wrong to want to be free. These people were innocent. Their only crime was wanting to choose for themselves, and fighting for that right. Elizabeth, do you understand what I’m saying? The people here, in the dome, as the Others called it, are not good people. We shouldn’t be proud of who we are. We were either born from families who gave up and were cowardly, or were brought here to breed like animals.”
I stared at him for a moment, processing all this new information. I felt like everything I had ever learned and knew was falling down around me. Like a veil had been ripped from my eyes, my innocence replaced with an unwanted knowledge about the world I thought was safe.
“What about the air outside? Is the air really deadly like they say it is?” I wanted to know how many lies, if they were in fact lies that the Government had been telling us.
“I’m not sure, to be honest, but I have a suspicion that it’s not. I have a feeling that they are just telling us that to keep us here. I really don’t think that the air is deadly. They did mention that they were working on cleaning the air so we could expand and recreate our world right? My prediction is that the government will announce that the air is conveniently clean and that we can expand when we start reaching our maximum capacity and can no longer fit any more people in any of the villages in our section.”
I wasn’t sure what to think. I wanted to believe him, but this information was all too much. I just couldn’t believe that my entire world was a lie, especially according to just one book.  
“Gage, I’m not trying to be rude, but all of this sounds a little ridiculous.”
He smiled, “Yea, I figured you’d say that, so I decided to bring the book here.” He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a book that looked extremely old. He handed it to me, and I examined the cover. The title was Accounts of the Great Uprising. Some of the pages were torn and when I opened up the cover and flipped through the pages, there were a few places that looked like pages had been ripped out.
“Did you check this book out?” I asked. I was curious to know if anyone knew he had this book.
“No, I didn’t want anyone to know that I had it.”
I nodded. I could see why. If someone noticed him checking out a book like this they may get suspicious of his intentions.
“That was probably a good idea,” I replied.
He nodded in agreement. “Look, I know you don’t really believe me, I’m not even completely sure about all of this, but Elizabeth, this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Even if none of this is true, and even if our Government is good and has good intentions, wouldn’t you still want your freedom regardless? I know we’ve been told that in the past when people were allowed to make all of the decisions on their own, they did not choose correctly, but who’s to say that we wouldn’t make the right decisions now?”
His words sank in and I have to say, what he was saying made perfect sense and bore into my deepest wants. I had always been the type to follow the rules without question. I was always trying to do what I was told was right, without ever really thinking for myself, but deep down I always wished that I could make up my own mind and see what I really wanted. I had never thought before that this could be possible.
“So, what do you plan on doing Gage?”
“I plan on escaping, and I want to take our class, or whoever agrees, with me. I can’t escape alone, and that’s partially why I’m letting you in on my plan.”
I was surprised at the amount of risk he was willing to take in this plan and how serious his plan really was. I was assuming he was simply going to try to write something to the government to try to get the rules changed or something simple like that, I wasn’t expecting something so drastic.
“Gage, you know what the penalty for trying to escape is. You know that they will kill you for insubordination.”
He nodded and sat forward on the stump.
“Elizabeth, I can’t stand being here,” he whispered. “I know you see me as some class comedian or something of the sort, but I’m being serious right here, right now, and I need you to be on board with this plan. If we don’t act like everything is normal together, then this won’t work. We can’t be acting suspicious toward each other, or act like our match isn’t going well, or that one of us is having second thoughts. I need you to act like everything is going great. I want you to leave with me too. I know you didn’t ask for this, but if I hope to escape, I need you to come with me. If you stay behind, they’re going to ask you a lot of questions, and I can’t risk having you tell them where I’ve gone.”
I shook my head, this was becoming too much very quickly.
“Gage, I can’t. I can’t go with you. I can’t leave my family, I can’t risk getting caught. I want to make my own decisions, trust me, I really do, but I don’t think it’s worth it.”
He shook his head and looked at me really seriously. “No, that’s where you’re wrong. It is worth it. Don’t you see? We’re living a lie.”
I smirked at him and stood up. He was getting ridiculous. “Gage, come one, you don’t even know what it’s like to choose what you want. How can you say it’s worth it?”
He stood up too, and looked down at me right into my eyes, “I just know.”
“Ok, well I guess I’ll think about it, but really no promises.”
He nodded and smiled at me. “Well, I have a feeling you’ll change your mind.”
I looked at him, analyzing his words. He seemed so sure. “You don’t even know me; you don’t know what I’ll do.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he countered, “I know you better than you think.”
Before I could answer and tell him he had no idea what he was talking about, he nodded at me and smiled again. “Well, Liz, it has been a pleasure meeting with you. Don’t forget our dinner this Wednesday. I can’t wait for you to meet my parents.”
He winked at me, completely returning to his normal self. “I’m sure they’ll love you.”
I rolled my eyes at him. He was getting on my nerves, and making me reconsider what kind of person he was. I thought I had him pinned, but apparently not. He was an enigma at the moment, and this annoyed me. I felt like he had just taken my completed puzzle and thrown around the pieces. I shook my head at him and crossed my arms as he was turning away from me to leave.
“So that’s it Gage? You’re going to tell me about some crazy plan and be completely cryptic and then go on like everything is normal?”
“Why, Liz, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but perhaps we can continue this discussion after dinner on Wednesday,” and with that he walked away leaving me standing alone in the woods feeling like I was even more lost than I had been before.