Being Amber. Sylvia Ryan

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СКАЧАТЬ gave her the easy out she’d been searching for. The clinic staff provided a bottle of painkillers to take home.

      But it hadn’t worked.

      She cracked open her eyes. A quick sweep of the room told her it was dark outside. It was hard to see anything other than all the women who surrounded her. There were several in bed with her, touching her, comforting her. Jaci’s head was on a pillow in a woman’s lap.

      “It’s okay, Jaci. We’re all here for you,” someone whispered in her ear. It was the person caressing her hair.

      “Are you my roommate?” Jaci’s throat was dry, her voice gravelly.

      “No, I’m Caroline.”

      “Why are all these people here?”

      “Jenna from the sterilization clinic sent a u-com about you.”

      “They sent a universal com about me?”

      “Only to building seventeen. It’s standard procedure.”

      “So, everybody in the building…knows?” Jaci paused. “How humiliating,” she whispered more to herself than anybody else in the room.

      “Shhh, don’t worry about that.” Caroline raised her up so she could take a sip of water from a straw somebody else held to her mouth. “Oh, before I forget, your assigned com is on the night table when you’re ready for it. A lot of our numbers have already been downloaded in.

      “I would tell you everybody else’s name, but you wouldn’t remember them right now anyway.” Caroline was still gently raking Jaci’s hair with her fingertips. “Tomorrow, you’ll feel much better and we’ll all have plenty of time to talk. For now, relax. We’re not going anywhere tonight.”

      For the rest of the evening Jaci succumbed to a hazy flurry of women everywhere.

      She fell into a bizarre funhouse sleep with oddly realistic and suffocating dreams. Pain woke her occasionally, and each time she opened her eyes, she was still surrounded by women. Later, they slept with her. A tangle of females covered the big bed, their bodies pressing close to her and each other. It seemed like a dozen hands reached out, touching her. Their vigilance kept her prisoner in a cocoon of female flesh. The oddity of their behavior drove away her immediate despair and provided brief moments of respite from the amalgam of physical and emotional pain.

      When Jaci woke up the next morning with a clearer head, Caroline and another woman, Emily, whose name she remembered only because of her purple-tipped hair, were still there. She recognized the two other women present, but she couldn’t remember their names.

      “How are you feeling?” Caroline asked when she realized Jaci was awake.

      She pegged the woman with a foggy gaze, “Okay, considering.”

      “Didn’t they send home any pain meds with you? I couldn’t find any.”

      “I don’t know,” Jaci lied, closing her eyes.

      “I brought some that were left over from other sit-ins when I couldn’t find yours. Do you want one?”

      “Yes,” she croaked through parched lips. “Numb would be nice right now.”

      Caroline walked to the counter separating the living area from the kitchen and shook a couple of tablets from a bottle. She returned with a glass of water and two tablets in her hand. Jaci accepted them wincing slightly as she sat up enough to take the pills.

      “Thanks for staying with me, but you guys don’t have to stay anymore. I’m sure you have better things to do.”

      “Nope. You’re it. We’re the Sit-In Team and you’re stuck with us until our job is done.”

      “Job?” Jaci shook her head. “I’m lost.”

      “The Team helps new fallows from other zones adjust,” Caroline said. “I’m the Sit-In Team Leader.”

      “We’ve got a lot of things to talk about today,” the woman in the corner said. “My name’s Hannah, by the way, in case you don’t remember from last night. You were pretty out of it.” She patted Jaci’s blanket covered leg.

      “And I’m Jordan. We’re gong to be working together once you’re up and around.”

      All of the women sort of looked alike. All had brown hair and brown eyes like she did. She would have to pay attention to faces more closely since virtually everybody designated as an Amber had brown hair and brown eyes.

      Caroline had shoulder length straight brown hair with bangs. Her face was scrubbed clean which gave her appearance of being a bit plain.

      After Jaci swallowed her pills, Caroline took a deep breath and spoke first. “Well, welcome to the Amber Zone.”

      Jaci looked at her lap and then looked at the other women. “Thank you.”

      They all smiled back at her with kindness. Or was it pity she saw in their eyes?

      “Living in Amber is going to be different from what you’re used to. Are you up to talking now? Or do you want to hold off for a while?” Caroline asked.

      “Now’s okay.”

      “Good. Well, let’s see. Starting’s always the hard part.” Caroline looked up at the ceiling for a moment as if she was figuring out exactly what words to use.

      “I’ve been doing this long enough to know you feel like you’ve lost everything, that you’ve been dumped here. I also know what the other designations think of us, that we’re stupid and diseased. Part of our job as the Sit-In Team is to help you understand that, for the most part, we’re just like you.” She took Jaci’s hand. “You’re already accepted as one of us and you never have to feel abandoned or alone.

      Jaci looked down at their joined hands, feeling slightly weird about it. She hadn’t held another woman’s hand since she was a young girl reaching out for the comfort of her mother.

      “The major difference about our way of life compared to the other classes has nothing to do with our eye color or IQ. Our zone is completely different though, better, in my opinion. But I need to fill you in on some of our social norms that are different from what you’re used to.”

      Jaci’s mind latched on to the word better and didn’t track much after that. That woman actually thought life was better here? “Okay,” she said, as if she was asking what the punch line was.

      Caroline went on. “Let me go back and tell you the history. It’ll help explain why things are the way they are. If that makes any sense.” She laughed.

      “About twenty-five years ago, as a part of an agreement made with the Amber leaders at the time, the Gov researched and developed a program to help the Amber couples who were free of Automatic Disqualifiers raise their one and only child in a way that would reduce the suffering brought on by the Repopulation Laws. Doctors and other professionals determined that social support was the best way to cope with the sterilizations and other crippling conditions, as well as the restrictions Ambers have to deal with regularly.

      “Back then, our parents СКАЧАТЬ