The End Has Come

BANNERLESS Carrie Vaughn

Enid and Bert walked the ten miles from the way station because the weather was good, a beautiful spring day. Enid had never worked with the young man before, but he turned out to be good company: chatty without being oppressively extroverted. Young, built like a redwood, he looked the part of an investigator. They talked about home and the weather and trivialities — but not the case. She didn’t like to dwell on the cases she was assigned to before getting a firsthand look at them. She had expected Bert to ask questions about it, but he was taking her lead.

On this stretch of the Coast Road, halfway between the way station and Southtown, ruins were visible in the distance, to the east. An old sprawling city from before the big fall. In her travels in her younger days, she’d gone into it a few times, to shout into the echoing artificial canyons and study overgrown asphalt roads and cracked walls with fallen roofs. She rarely saw people, but often saw old cook fires and cobbled together shantytowns that couldn’t support the lives struggling within them. Scavengers and scattered folk still came out from them sometimes, then faded back to the concrete enclaves, surviving however they survived.

Bert caught her looking.

“You’ve been there?” Bert said, nodding toward the haze marking the swath of ruined city. No paths or roads ran that way anymore. She’d had to go overland when she’d done it.

“Yes, a long time ago.”

“What was it like?”

The answer could either be very long or very short. The stories of what had happened before and during the fall were terrifying and intriguing, but the ruins no longer held any hint of those tales. They were bones, in the process of disappearing. “It was sad,” she said finally.

“I’m still working through the histories,” he said. “For training, right? There’s a lot of diaries. Can be hard, reading how it was at the fall.”

“Yes.”

In isolation, any of the disasters that had struck would not have overwhelmed the old world. The floods alone would not have destroyed the cities. The vicious influenza epidemic — a mutated strain with no available vaccine that incapacitated victims in a matter of hours — by itself would have been survivable, eventually. But the floods, the disease, the rising ocean levels, the monster storms piling one on top of the other, an environment off balance that chipped away at infrastructure and made each recovery more difficult than the one before it, all of it left too many people with too little to survive on. Wealth meant nothing when there was simply nothing left. So, the world died. But people survived, here and there. They came together and saved what they could. They learned lessons.

The road curved into the next valley and they approached Southtown, the unimaginative name given to this district’s main farming settlement. Windmills appeared first, clean towers with vertical blades spiraling gently in an unfelt breeze. Then came cisterns set on scaffolds, then plowed fields and orchards in the distance. The town was home to some thousand people scattered throughout the valley and surrounding farmlands. There was a grid of drained roads and whitewashed houses, solar and battery operated carts, some goats, chickens pecking in yards. All was orderly, pleasant. This was what rose up after the ruins fell, the home that their grandparents fled to as children.

“Will you let the local committee know we’re here?” Bert asked.

“Oh, no. We don’t want anyone to have warning we’re here. We go straight to the household. Give them a shock.”

“Makes sense.”

“This is your first case, isn’t it? Your first investigation?”

“It is. And . . . I guess I’m worried I might have to stop someone.” Bert had a staff like hers but he knew how to use his for more than walking. He had a stunner and a pack of tranquilizer needles on his belt. All in plain view. If she did her job well enough he wouldn’t need to do anything but stand behind her and look alert. A useful tool. He seemed to understand his role.

“I doubt you will. Our reputation will proceed us. It’s why we have the reputation in the first place. Don’t worry.”

“I just need to act as terrifying as the reputation says I do.”

She smiled. “Exactly — you know just how this works, then.”

They wore brown tunics and trousers with gray sashes. Somber colors, cold like winter, probably designed to inspire a chill. Bert stood a head taller than she did and looked like he could break tree trunks. How sinister, to see the pair of them approach.

“And you — this is your last case, isn’t it?”

That was what she’d told the regional committee, that it was time for her to go home, settle down, take up basket weaving or such like. “I’ve been doing this almost twenty years,” she said. “It’s time for me to pass the torch.”

“Would you miss the travel? That’s what I’ve been looking forward to, getting to see some of the region, you know?”

“Maybe,” she said. “But I wouldn’t miss the bull. You’ll see what I mean.”

They approached the settlement. Enid put her gaze on a young woman carrying a basket of eggs along the main road. She wore a skirt, tunic, apron, and a straw hat to keep off the sun.

“Excuse me,” Enid said. The woman’s hands clenched as if she was afraid she might drop the basket from fright. As she’d told Bert, their reputation preceded them. They were inspectors, and inspectors only appeared for terrible reasons. The woman’s expression held shock and denial. Why would inspectors ever come to Southtown?

“Yes, how can I help you?” she said quickly, nervously.

“Can you tell us where to find Apricot Hill?” The household they’d been sent to investigate.

The woman’s anxiety fell away and a light of understanding dawned. Ah, then people knew. Everyone likely knew something was wrong, without knowing exactly what. The whole town would know investigators were here within the hour. Enid’s last case, and it was going to be all about sorting out gossip.

“Yes — take that path there, past the pair of windmills. They’re on the south side of the duck pond. You’ll see the clotheslines out front.”

“Thank you,” Enid said. The woman hurried away, hugging her basket to her chest.

Enid turned to Bert. “Ready for this?”

“Now I’m curious. Let’s go.”

Apricot Hill was on a nice acreage overlooking a pretty pond and a series of orchards beyond that. There was one large house, two stories with lots of windows, and an outbuilding with a pair of chimneys, a production building — Apricot Hill was centered on food processing, taking in produce from outlying farms and drying, canning, and preserving it for winter stores for the community. The holding overall was well lived in, a bit run down, cluttered, but that could mean they were busy. It was spring — nothing ready for canning yet. This should have been the season for cleaning up and making repairs.

A girl with a bundle of sheets over her arm, probably collected from the clothesline the woman had mentioned, saw them first. She peered up the hill at their arrival for a moment before dropping the sheets and running to the house. She was wispy and energetic — not the one mentioned in the report, then. Susan, and not Aren. The heads of the household were Frain and Felice.

“We are announced,” Enid said wryly. Bert hooked a finger in his belt.

A whole crowd, maybe even all ten members of the household, came out of the house. A rough looking bunch, all together. Old clothes, frowning faces. This was an adequate household, but not a happy one.

An older man, slim and weather-worn, came forward and looked as though he wished he had a weapon. This would be Frain. Enid went to him, holding her hand out for shaking.

“Hello, I’m Enid, the investigator sent by the regional committee. This is my partner, Bert. This is Apricot Hill, isn’t it? You must be Frain?”

“Yes,” he said cautiously, already hesitant to give away any scrap of information.

“May we step inside to talk?”

She would look like a matron to them, maybe even head of a household somewhere, if they weren’t sure she didn’t have a household. Investigators didn’t have households; they traveled constantly, avenging angels, or so the rumors said. Her dull brown hair was rolled into a bun, her soft face had seen years and weather. They’d wonder if she’d ever had children of her own, if she’d ever earned a banner. Her spreading middle-aged hips wouldn’t give a clue.

Bert stood behind her, a wall of authority. Their questions about him would be simple: How well could he use that staff he carried?

“What is this about?” Frain demanded. He was afraid. He knew what she was here for — the implications — and he was afraid.

“I think we should go inside and sit down before we talk,” Enid said patiently, knowing full well she sounded condescending and unpleasant. The lines on Frain’s face deepened. “Is everyone here? Gather everyone in the household to your common room.”

With a curt word Frain herded the rest of his household inside.

The common room on the house’s ground floor was, like the rest of the household, functional without being particularly pleasant. No vase of flowers on the long dining table. Not a spot of color on the wall except for a single faded banner: the square of red and green woven cloth that represented the baby they’d earned some sixteen years ago. That would be Susan — the one with the laundry outside. Adults had come into the household since then, but that was their last baby. Had they wanted another child badly enough that they didn’t wait for their committee to award them a banner?

The house had ten members. Only nine sat around the table. Enid took her time studying them, looking into each face. Most of the gazes ducked away from her. Susan’s didn’t.

“We’re missing someone, I think?” Enid said.

The silence was thick as oil. Bert stood easy and perfectly still behind her, hand on his belt. Oh, he was a natural at this. Enid waited a long time, until the people around the table squirmed.

“Aren,” Felice said softly. “I’ll go get her.”

“No,” Frain said. “She’s sick. She can’t come.”

“Sick? Badly sick? Has a doctor seen her?” Enid said.

Again, the oily silence.

“Felice, if you could get her, thank you,” Enid said.

A long stretch passed before Felice returned with the girl, and Enid was happy to watch while the group grew more and more uncomfortable. Susan was trembling; one of the men was hugging himself. This was as awful a gathering as she had ever seen, and her previous case had been a murder.

When Felice brought Aren into the room, Enid saw exactly what she expected to see: the older woman with her arm around a younger woman — age twenty or so — who wore a full skirt and a tunic three sizes too big that billowed in front of her. Aren moved slowly, and had to keep drawing her hands away from her belly.

She might have been able to hide the pregnancy for a time, but she was now six months along, and there was no hiding that swell and the ponderous hitch in her movement.

The anger and unhappiness in the room thickened even more, and it was no longer directed at Enid.

She waited while Felice guided the pregnant woman to a chair — by herself, apart from the others.

“This is what you’re here for, isn’t it?” Frain demanded, his teeth bared and fists clenched.

“It is,” Enid agreed.

“Who told?” Frain hissed, looking around at them all. “Which one of you told?”

No one said anything. Aren cringed and ducked her head. Felice stared at her hands in her lap.

Frain turned to Enid. “Who sent the report? I’ve a right to know my accuser — the household’s accuser.”

“The report was anonymous, but credible.” Part of her job here was to discover, if she could, who sent the tip of the bannerless pregnancy to the regional committee. Frain didn’t need to know that. “I’ll be asking all of you questions over the next couple of days. I expect honest answers. When I am satisfied that I know what happened here, I’m authorized to pass judgment. I will do so as quickly as possible, to spare you waiting. Frain, I’ll start with you.”

“It was an accident. An accident, I’m sure of it. The implant failed. Aren has a boy in town; they spend all their time together. We thought nothing of it because of the implant, but then it failed, and — we didn’t say anything because we were scared. That’s all. We should have told the committee as soon as we knew. I’m sorry — I know now that that was wrong. You’ll take that into consideration?”

“When did you know? All of you, starting with Aren — when did you know of the pregnancy?”

The young woman’s first words were halting, choked. Crying had thickened her throat. “Must . . . must have been . . . two months in, I think. I was sick. I just knew.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“No, no one. I was scared.”

They were all terrified. That sounded true.

“And the rest of you?”

Murmurs answered. The men shook their heads, said they’d only known for a month or so, when she could no longer hide the new shape of her. They knew for sure the day that Frain ranted about it. “I didn’t rant,” the man said. “I was only surprised. I lost my temper, that was all.”

Felice said, “I knew when she got sick. I’ve been pregnant —” Her gaze went to the banner on the wall. “I know the signs. I asked her, and she told.”

“You didn’t think to tell anyone?”

“Frain told me not to.”

So Frain knew, at least as soon as she did. The man glared fire at Felice, who wouldn’t lift her gaze.

“Aren, might I speak to you alone?”

The woman cringed, back curled, arms wrapped around her belly.

“I’ll go you with you, dear,” Felice whispered.

“Alone,” Enid said. “Bert will wait here. We’ll go outside. Just a short walk.”

Trembling, Aren stood. Enid stood aside to let her walk out the door first. She caught Bert’s gaze and nodded. He nodded back.

Enid guided her on the path away around the house, to the garden patch and pond behind. She went slowly, letting Aren set the pace.

The physical state of a household carried information: whether rakes and shovels were hung up neat in a shed or closet, or piled haphazardly by the wall of an unpainted barn. Whether the herb garden thrived, if there were flowers in window boxes. If neat little water-smoothed stones edged the paths leading from one building to another, or if there were just dirt tracks worn into the grass. She didn’t judge a household by whether or not it put a good face to the world — but she did judge them by whether or not the folk in a household worked to put on a good face for themselves. They had to live with it, look at it every single day.

This household did not have a good face. The garden patch was only just sprouting, even this far into spring. There were no flowers. The grass along the path was overgrown. There was a lack of care here that made Enid angry.

But the pond was pretty. Ducks paddled around a stand of cattails, muttering to themselves.

Enid had done this before, knew the questions to ask and what possible answers she might get to those questions. Every moment reduced the possible explanations. Heavens, she was tired of this.

Enid said, “Stop here. Roll up your sleeve.”

Aren’s overlarge tunic had wide sleeves that fell past her wrists. They’d be no good at all for working. The young woman stood frozen. Her lips were tightly pursed, to keep from crying.

“May I roll the sleeve up, then?” Enid asked carefully, reaching.

“No, I’ll do it,” she said, and clumsily pushed the fabric up to her left shoulder.

She revealed an angry scar, puckered pink, mostly healed. Doing the math, maybe seven or eight months old. The implant had been cut out, the wound not well treated, which meant she’d probably done it herself.

“Did you get anyone to stitch that up for you?” Enid asked.

“I bound it up and kept it clean.” At least she didn’t try to deny it. Enid guessed she would have, if Frain were there.

“Where did you put the implant after you took it out?”

“Buried it in the latrine.”

Enid hoped she wouldn’t have to go after it for evidence. “You did it yourself. No one forced you to, or did it to you?” That happened sometimes, someone with a skewed view of the world and what was theirs deciding they needed someone to bear a baby for them.

“It’s me, it’s just me. Nobody else. Just me.”

“Does the father know?”

“No, I don’t think . . . He didn’t know I’d taken out the implant. I don’t know if he knows about the baby.”

Rumors had gotten out, Enid was sure, especially if Aren hadn’t been seen around town in some time. The anonymous tip about the pregnancy might have come from anywhere.

“Can you tell me the father’s name, so I can speak to him?”

“Don’t drag him into this; tell me you won’t drag him into this. It’s just me. Just take me away and be done with it.” Aren stopped, her eyes closed, her face pinched. “What are you going to do to me?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

She was done with crying. Her face was locked with anger, resignation. “You’ll take me to the center of town and rip the baby out, cut its throat, leave us both to bleed to death as a warning. That’s it, isn’t it? Just tell me that’s what you’re going to do and get it over with —”

Goodness, the stories people told. “No, we’re not going to do that. We don’t rip babies from mother’s wombs — not unless we need to save the mother’s life, or the baby’s. There’s surgery for that. Your baby will be born; you have my promise.”

Quiet tears slipped down the girl’s cheeks. Enid watched for a moment, this time not using the silence to pressure Aren but trying to decide what to say.

“You thought that was what would happen if you were caught, and you still cut out your implant to have a baby? You must have known you’d be caught.”

“I don’t remember anymore what I was thinking.”

“Let’s get you back to the kitchen for a drink of water, hmm?”

By the time they got back to the common room, Aren had stopped crying, and she even stood a little straighter. At least until Frain looked at her, then at Enid.

“What did you tell her? What did she say to you?”

“Felice, I think Aren needs a glass of water, or maybe some tea. Frain, will you come speak with me?”

The man stomped out of the room ahead of her.

“What happened?” Enid said simply.

“The implant. It must have failed.”

“Do you think she, or someone, might have cut it out? Did you ever notice her wearing a bandage on her arm?”

He did not seem at all surprised at this suggestion. “I never did. I never noticed.” He was going to plead ignorance. That was fine. “Does the local committee know you’re here?” he said, turning the questioning on her.

“Not yet,” she said lightly. “They will.”

“What are you going to do? What will happen to Aren?”

Putting the blame on Aren, because he knew the whole household was under investigation. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“I’m going to protest to the committee, about you questioning Aren alone. You shouldn’t have done that, it’s too hard on her —” He was furious that he didn’t know what Aren had said. That he couldn’t make their stories match up.

“Submit your protest,” Enid said. “That’s fine.”

She spoke to every one of them alone. Half of them said the exact same thing, in exactly the same way.

“The implant failed. It must have failed.”

“Aren’s got that boy of hers. He’s the father.”

“It was an accident.”

“An accident.” Felice breathed this line, her head bowed and hands clasped together.

So that was the story they’d agreed upon. The story Frain had told them to tell.

One of the young men — baffled, he didn’t seem to understand what was happening — was the one to slip. “She brought this down on us, why do the rest of us have to put up with the mess when it’s all her?”

Enid narrowed her gaze. “So you know she cut out her implant?”

He wouldn’t say another word after that. He bit his lips and puffed out his cheeks, but wouldn’t speak, as if someone held a knife to his throat and told him not to.

Enid wasn’t above pressing hard at the young one, Susan, until the girl snapped.

“Did you ever notice Aren with a bandage on her arm?”

Susan’s face turned red. “It’s not my fault, it’s not! It’s just that Frain said if we got a banner next season I could have it, not Aren, and she was jealous! That’s what it was; she did this to punish us!”

Banners were supposed to make things better. Give people something to work for, make them prove they could support a child, earn a child. It wasn’t supposed to be something to fight over, to cheat over.

But people did cheat.

“Susan — did you send the anonymous report about Aren?”

Susan’s eyes turned round and shocked. “No, of course not, I wouldn’t do such a thing! Tell Frain I’d never do such a thing!”

“Thank you, Susan, for your honesty,” Enid said, and Susan burst into tears.

What a stinking mess this was turning in to. To think, she could have retired after the murder investigation and avoided all this.

She needed to talk to more people.

By the time they returned to the common room, Felice had gotten tea out for everyone. She politely offered a cup to Enid, who accepted, much to everyone’s dismay. Enid stayed for a good twenty minutes, sipping, watching them watch her, making small talk.

“Thank you very much for all of your time and patience,” she said eventually. “I’ll be at the committee house in town if any of you would like to speak with me further. I’ll deliver my decision in a day or two, so I won’t keep you waiting. Your community thanks you.”

A million things could happen, but these people were so locked into their drama she didn’t expect much. She wasn’t worried that the situation was going to change overnight. If Aren was going to grab her boy and run she would have done it already. That wasn’t what was happening here. This was a household imploding.

Time to check with the local committee.

“Did they talk while I was gone?” Enid asked.

“Not a word,” Bert said. “I hate to say it but that was almost fun. What are they so scared of?”

“Us. The stories of what we’ll do. Aren was sure we’d drag her in the street and cut out her baby.”

Bert wrinkled his face and said softly, “That’s awful.”

“I hadn’t heard that one before, I admit. Usually it’s all locked cells and stealing the baby away as soon as it’s born. I wonder if Frain told the story to her, said it was why they had to keep it secret.”

“Frain knew?”

“I’m sure they all did. They’re trying to save the household by convincing me it was an accident. Or that it was just Aren’s fault and no one else’s. When really, a household like that, if they’re that unhappy they should all put in for transfers, no matter how many ration credits that’d cost. Frain’s scared them out of it, I’m betting.”

“So what will happen?”

“Technology fails sometimes. If it had been an accident, I’m authorized to award a banner retroactively if the household can handle it. But that’s not what happened here. If the household colluded to bring on a bannerless baby, we’d have to break up the house. But if it was just Aren all on her own — punishment would fall on her.”

“But this isn’t any of those, is it?”

“You’ve got a good eye for this, Bert.”

“Not sure that’s a compliment. I like to expect the best from people, not the worst.”

Enid chuckled.

“At least you’ll be able to put this all behind you soon,” he said. “Retire to some pleasant household somewhere. Not here.”

A middle aged man, balding and flush, rushed toward them on the path as they returned to the town. His gray tunic identified him as a committee member, and he wore the same stark panic on his face that everyone did when they saw an investigator.

“You must be Trevor?” Enid asked him, when he was still a few paces away, too far to shake hands.

“We didn’t know you were coming, you should have sent word. Why didn’t you send word?”

“We didn’t have time. We got an anonymous report and had to act quickly. It happens sometimes, I’m sure you understand.”

“Report, on what? If it’s serious, I’m sure I would have been told —”

“A bannerless pregnancy at the Apricot Hill household.”

He took a moment to process, staring, uncertain. The look turned hard. This didn’t just reflect on Aren or the household — it reflected on the entire settlement. On the committee that ran the settlement. They could all be dragged into this.

“Aren,” the man breathed.

Enid wasn’t surprised the man knew. She was starting to wonder how her office hadn’t heard about the situation much sooner.

“What can you tell me about the household? How do they get along, how are they doing?”

“Is this an official interview?”

“Why not? Saves time.”

“They get their work done. But they’re a household, not a family. If you understand the difference.”

“I do.” A collection of people gathered for production, not one that bonded over love. It wasn’t always a bad thing — a collection of people working toward shared purpose could be powerful. But love could make it a home.

“How close were they to earning a banner?” Were. Telling word, there.

“I can’t say they were close. They have three healthy young women, but people came in and out of that house so often we couldn’t call it ‘stable.’ They fell short on quotas. I know that’s usually better than going over, but not with food processing — falling short there means food potentially wasted, if it goes bad before it gets stored. Frain — Frain is not the easiest man to get along with.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You’ve already been out there — I wish you would have talked to me; you should have come to see us before starting your investigation.” Trevor was wringing his hands.

“So you could tell me how things really are?” Enid raised a brow and smiled. He glanced briefly at Bert and frowned. “Aren had a romantic partner in the settlement, I’m told. Do you know who this might be?”

“She wouldn’t tell you — she trying to protect him?”

“He’s not in any trouble.”

“Jess. It’s Jess. He works in the machine shop, with the Ironcroft household.” He pointed the way.

“Thank you. We’ve had a long day of travel, can the committee house put us up for a night or two? We’ve got the credits to trade for it, we won’t be a burden.”

“Yes, of course, we have guest rooms in back, this way.”

Trevor led them on to a comfortable stone house, committee offices and official guest rooms all together. People had gathered, drifting out of houses and stopping along the road to look, to bend heads and gossip. Everyone had that stare of trepidation.

“You don’t make a lot of friends, working in investigations,” Bert murmured to her.

“Not really, no.”

A young man, an assistant to the committee, delivered a good meal of lentil stew and fresh bread, along with cider. It tasted like warmth embodied, a great comfort after the day she’d had.

“My household hang their banners on the common room wall like that,” Bert said between mouthfuls. “They stitch the names of the babies into them. It’s a whole history of the house laid out there.”

“Many households do. It’s a lovely tradition,” Enid said.

“I’ve never met anyone born without a banner. It’s odd, thinking Aren’s baby won’t have its name written anywhere.”

“It’s not the baby’s fault, remember. But it does make it hard. They grow up thinking they have to work twice as hard to earn their place in the world. But it usually makes people very careful not to pass on that burden.”

“Usually but not always.”

She sighed, her solid inspector demeanor slipping. “We’re getting better. The goal is making sure that every baby born will be provided for, will have a place, and won’t overburden what we have. But babies are powerful things. We’ll never be perfect.”

The young assistant knocked on the door to the guest rooms early the next day.

“Ma’am, Enid? Someone’s out front asking for the investigator.”

“Is there a conference room where we can meet?”

“Yes, I’ll show him in.”

She and Bert quickly made themselves presentable — and put on their reputation — before meeting.

The potential informant was a lanky young man with calloused hands, a flop of brown hair and no beard. A worried expression. He kneaded a straw hat in his hands and stood from the table when Enid and Bert entered.

“You’re Jess?”

He squeezed the hat harder. Ah, the appearance of omniscience was so very useful.

“Please, sit down,” Enid said, and sat across from him by example. Bert stood by the wall.

“This is about Aren,” the young man said. “You’re here about Aren.”

“Yes.” He slumped, sighed — did he seemed relieved? “What do you need to tell me, Jess?”

“I haven’t seen her in weeks; I haven’t even gotten a message to her. No one will tell me what’s wrong, and I know what everyone’s been saying, but it can’t be true —”

“That she’s pregnant. She’s bannerless.”

He blinked. “But she’s alive? She’s safe?”

“She is. I saw her yesterday.”

“Good, that’s good.”

Unlike everyone else she had talked to here, he seemed genuinely reassured. As if he had expected her to be dead or injured. The vectors of anxiety in the case pointed in so many different directions. “Did she tell you anything? Did you have any idea that something was wrong?”

“No . . . I mean, yes, but not that. It’s complicated. What’s going to happen to her?”

“That’s what I’m here to decide. I promise you, she and the baby won’t come to any harm. But I need to understand what’s happened. Did you know she’d cut out her implant?”

He stared at the tabletop. “No, I didn’t know that.” If he had known, he could be implicated, so it behooved him to say that. But Enid believed him.

“Jess, I want to understand why she did what she did. Her household is being difficult. They tell me she spent all her spare time with you.” Enid couldn’t tell if he was resistant to talking to her, or if he simply couldn’t find the words. She prompted. “How long have you been together? How long have you been intimate?” A gentle way of putting it. He wasn’t blushing; on the contrary, he’d gone even more pale.

“Not long,” he said. “Not even a year. I think . . . I think I know what happened now, looking back.”

“Can you tell me?”

“I think . . . I think she needed someone and she picked me. I’m almost glad she picked me. I love her, but . . . I didn’t know.”

She wanted a baby. She found a boy she liked, cut out her implant, and made sure she had a baby. It wasn’t unheard of. Enid had looked into a couple of cases like it in the past. But then, the household reported it when the others found out, or she left the household. To go through that and then stay, with everyone also covering it up . . .

“Did she ever talk about earning a banner and having a baby with you? Was that a goal of hers?”

“She never did at all. We . . . it was just us. I just liked spending time with her. We’d go for walks.”

“What else?”

“She — wouldn’t let me touch her arm. The first time we . . . were intimate, she kept her shirt on. She’d hurt her arm, she said, and didn’t want to get dirt on it — we were out by the mill creek that feeds into the pond. It’s so beautiful there, with the noise of the water and all. I . . . I didn’t think of it. I mean, she always seemed to be hurt somewhere. Bruises and things. She said it was just from working around the house. I was always a bit careful touching her, though, because of it. I had to be careful with her.” Miserable now, he put the pieces together in his mind as Enid watched. “She didn’t like to go back. I told myself — I fooled myself — that it was because she loved me. But it’s more that she didn’t want to go back.”

“And she loves you. As you said, she picked you. But she had to go back.”

“If she’d asked, she could have gone somewhere else.”

But it would have cost credits she may not have had, the committee would have asked why, and it would have been a black mark on Frain’s leadership, or worse. Frain had them cowed into staying. So Aren wanted to get out of there and decided a baby would help her.

Enid asked, “Did you send the tip to Investigations?”

“No. No, I didn’t know. That is, I didn’t want to believe. I would never do anything to get her in trouble. I . . . I’m not in trouble, am I?”

“No, Jess. Do you know who might have sent in the tip?”

“Someone on the local committee, maybe. They’re the ones who’d start an investigation, aren’t they?”

“Usually, but they didn’t seem happy to see me. The message went directly to regional.”

“The local committee doesn’t want to think anything’s wrong. Nobody wants to think anything’s wrong.”

“Yes, that seems to be the attitude. Thank you for your help, Jess.”

“What will happen to Aren?” He was choking, struggling not to cry. Even Bert, standing at the wall, seemed discomfited.

“That’s for me to worry about, Jess. Thank you for your time.”

At the dismissal, he slipped out of the room.

She leaned back and sighed, wanting to get back to her own household — despite the rumors, investigators did belong to households — with its own orchards and common room full of love and safety.

Yes, maybe she should have retired before all this. Or maybe she wasn’t meant to.

“Enid?” Bert asked softly.

“Let’s go. Let’s get this over with.”

Back at Apricot Hill’s common room, the household gathered, and Enid didn’t have to ask for Aren this time. She had started to worry, especially after talking to Jess. But they’d all waited this long, and her arrival didn’t change anything except it had given them all the confirmation that they’d finally been caught. That they would always be caught. Good for the reputation, there.

Aren kept her face bowed, her hair over her cheek. Enid moved up to her, reached a hand to her, and the girl flinched. “Aren?” she said, and she still didn’t look up until Enid touched her chin and made her lift her face. An irregular red bruise marked her cheek.

“Aren, did you send word about a bannerless pregnancy to the regional committee?”

Someone, Felice probably, gasped. A few of them shifted. Frain simmered. But Aren didn’t deny it. She kept her face low.

“Aren?” Enid prompted, and the young woman nodded, ever so slightly.

“I hid. I waited for the weekly courier and slipped the letter in her bag, she didn’t see me; no one saw. I didn’t know if anyone would believe it, with no name on it, but I had to try. I wanted to get caught, but no one was noticing it; everyone was ignoring it.” Her voice cracked to silence.

Enid put a gentle hand on Aren’s shoulder. Then she went to Bert, and whispered, “Watch carefully.”

She didn’t know what would happen, what Frain in particular would do. She drew herself up, drew strength from the uniform she wore, and declaimed.

“I am the villain here,” Enid said. “Understand that. I am happy to be the villain in your world. It’s what I’m here for. Whatever happens, blame me.

“I will take custody of Aren and her child. When the rest of my business is done, I’ll leave with her and she’ll be cared for responsibly. Frain, I question your stewardship of this household and will submit a recommendation that Apricot Hill be dissolved entirely, its resources and credits distributed among its members as warranted, and its members transferred elsewhere throughout the region. I’ll submit my recommendation to the regional committee, which will assist the local committee in carrying out my sentence.”

“No,” Felice hissed. “You can’t do this, you can’t force us out.”

She had expected that line from Frain. She wondered at the deeper dynamic here, but not enough to try to suss it out.

“I can,” she said, with a backward glance at Bert. “But I won’t have to, because you’re all secretly relieved. The household didn’t work, and that’s fine — it happens sometimes — but none of you had the guts to start over, the guts to give up your credits to request a transfer somewhere else. To pay for the change you wanted. To protect your own housemates from each other. But now it’s done, and by someone else, so you can complain all you want and rail to the skies about your new poverty as you work your way out of the holes you’ve dug for yourselves. I’m the villain you can blame. But deep down you’ll know the truth. And that’s fine too, because I don’t really care. Not about you lot.”

No one argued. No one said a word.

“Aren,” Enid said, and the woman flinched again. She might never stop flinching. “You can come with me now, or would you like time to say goodbye?”

She looked around the room, and Enid wasn’t imagining it: The woman’s hands were shaking, though she tried to hide it by pressing them under the roundness of her belly. Enid’s breath caught, because even now it might go either way. Aren had been scared before; she might be too scared to leave. Enid schooled her expression to be still no matter what the answer was.

But Aren stood from the table and said, “I’ll go with you now.”

“Bert will go help you get your things —”

“I don’t have any things. I want to go now.”

“All right. Bert, will you escort Aren outside?”

The door closed behind them, and Enid took one last look around the room.

“That’s it, then,” Frain said.

“Oh no, that’s not it at all,” Enid said. “That’s just it for now. The rest of you should get word of the disposition of the household in a couple of days.” She walked out.

Aren stood outside, hugging herself. Bert was a polite few paces away, being non-threatening, staring at clouds. Enid urged them on, and they walked the path back toward town. Aren seemed to get a bit lighter as they went.

They probably had another day in Southtown before they could leave. Enid would keep Aren close, in the guest rooms, until then. She might have to requisition a solar car. In her condition, Aren probably shouldn’t walk the ten miles to the next way station. And she might want to say goodbye to Jess. Or she might not, and Jess would have his heart broken even more. Poor thing.

Enid requisitioned a solar car from the local committee and was able to take to the Coast Road the next day. The bureaucratic machinery was in motion on all the rest of it. Committeeman Trevor revealed that a couple of the young men from Apricot Hill had preemptively put in household transfer requests. Too little, too late. She’d done her job; it was all in committee hands now.

Bert drove, and Enid sat in the back with Aren, who was bundled in a wool cloak and kept her hands around her belly. They opened windows to the spring sunshine, and the car bumped and swayed over the gravel road. Walking would have been more pleasant, but Aren needed the car. The tension in her shoulders had finally gone away. She looked up, around, and if she didn’t smile, she also didn’t frown. She talked, now, in a voice clear and free of tears.

“I came into the household when I was sixteen, to work prep in the canning house and to help with the garden and grounds and such. They needed the help, and I needed to get started on my life, you know? Frain — he expected more out of me. He expected me to be his.”

She spoke as if being interrogated. Enid hadn’t asked for her story, but listened carefully to the confession. It spilled out like a flood, like the young woman had been waiting.

“How far did it go, Aren?” Enid asked carefully. In the driver’s seat, Bert frowned, like maybe he wanted to go back and have a word with the man.

“He never did more than hit me.”

So straightforward. Enid made a note. The car rocked on for a ways.

“What will happen to her, without a banner?” Aren asked, glancing at her belly. She’d evidently decided the baby was a girl. She probably had a name picked out. Her baby, her savior.

“There are households who need babies to raise who’ll be happy to take her.”

“Her, but not me?”

“It’s a complicated situation,” Enid said. She didn’t want to make Aren any promises until they could line up exactly which households they’d be going to.

Aren was smart. Scared, but smart. She must have thought things through, once she realized she wasn’t going to die. “Will it go better, if I agree to give her up? The baby, I mean.”

Enid said, “It would depend on how you define ‘better.’”

“Better for the baby.”

“There’s a stigma on bannerless babies. Worse some places than others. And somehow people know, however you try to hide it. People will always know what you did and hold it against you. But the baby can get a fresh start on her own.”

“All right. All right, then.”

“You don’t have to decide right now.”

Eventually, they came to the place in the road where the ruins were visible, like a distant mirage, but unmistakable. A haunted place, with as many rumors about it as there were about investigators and what they did.

“Is that it?” Aren said, staring. “The old city? I’ve never seen it before.”

Bert slowed the car, and they stared out for a moment.

“The stories about what it was like are so terrible. I know it’s supposed to be better now, but . . .” The young woman dropped her gaze.

“Better for whom, you’re wondering?” Enid said. “When they built our world, our great-grandparents saved what they could, what they thought was important, what they’d most need. They wanted a world that would let them survive not just longer but better. They aimed for utopia knowing they’d fall short. And for all their work, for all our work, we still find pregnant girls with bruises on their faces who don’t know where to go for help.”

“I don’t regret it,” Aren said. “At least, I don’t think I do.”

“You saved what you could,” Enid said. It was all any of them could do.

The car started again, rolling on. Some miles later on, Aren fell asleep curled in the back seat, her head lolling. Bert gave her a sympathetic glance.

“Heartbreaking all around, isn’t it? Quite the last case for you, though. Memorable.”

“Or not,” Enid said.

Going back to the way station, late afternoon, the sun was in Enid’s face. She leaned back, closed her eyes, and let it warm her.

“What, not memorable?” Bert said.

“Or not the last,” she said. “I may have a few more left in me.”