Starts With One: Chapter III

III.
Finley climbed down the stairs to the basement, where the rarer items were stored for safekeeping, at least until someone ordered them. He wove through the stacks of boxes containing aging wine, real silverware, and even—though it was supposedly illegal—real books. Yes, the upper class of the Party had to have their fancy vices.
Against the far back wall lay a stack of wooden boxes containing a countless amount of books. He had instructed all of his overseers (the only ones with access) that none of them were to touch the boxes of books in the back. They were each long and rectangular; some of them looking more like a coffin than a crate of books. There was, of course, a reason for this.
He pushed two aside, huffing with all his might, to reveal the one underneath. He looked around instinctively, even though no one was there and the surveillance here had been uninstalled. Carefully, he removed the lid.
Inside lay a girl, skin pale and chest rising ever so slightly. She had shoulder length hair, dark blonde and slightly greasy. Mr. Finley couldn’t bring himself to wash her himself, and there was no one he could trust to do it for him.
From his jacket, he pulled out two syringes. He gently pushed one’s needle under the delicate skin of the inside of her ivory arm, injecting the substance that would insure the continuation of her sleep. Next, he injected the larger syringe, providing all the sustenance he could give her. Though it claimed to be enough for three daily meals, it was clearly not.
The bones of her hips and ribs jutted against her skin as if yearning to be free. Her thin wrists were folded over a stomach that was not supposed to be quite so concave. Even her collarbones were growing more visible by the day.
And the poor girl’s health was not the only concern. Higher-ups in the party such as the surveillance monitors were growing suspicious at the notably missing cameras in the basement. The excuse of others discovering the true quality of his products was beginning to fall short.
He needed a smaller space to hold her. No one cared if a single, unimportant room’s cameras were broken, but a whole warehouse? No, she would not last long here.
But Mr. Finley had promised her. He had promised to save her. And he had—at least for a while. He owed many people, but none so much as the girl’s father. He had been a member of his own generation, and had disappeared years ago. Once Finley had tracked him down and found out he had a daughter…well, it was all he could do to save the girl that he had died protecting. But more and more he was wondering if he had really saved her.
He supposed he could put her in the custody of one of his overseers…no. None of them were cautious enough. The only once who could be considered was that boy, Jethro. But he was much too new and much too young. He had only just realized there was a world beyond the factory today; Finley had seen it on his face. No, he would not be able to fathom her existence yet, let alone take care of her.
He sighed, brushing a lock of hair from the girl’s pale face. Well he would have to think of something. And soon.

Jethro lay in his room, contemplating his new life. His room was like Mr. Finley’s office, only instead of a desk there was a thing called a bed. It was like a pod, only it didn’t enclose you.
He was surprised that the bed did not induce sleep like a pod did. You were supposed to sleep in it, weren’t you? So instead he wondered how he was supposed to go about falling asleep by himself. He was tired, but his mind wouldn’t stop working, turning over the events of the day, imagining the world outside, thinking about what Mr. Finley said, and harboring suspicions.
Though all of the overseers were relatively pleasant towards him, none of them seemed quite as full of thinking as he was. They were certainly more thoughtful than the drones of his—and some of theirs, too—generation, but none of them could truly shake off that sleepy look about them.
And they talked. In front of cameras, too. If anything that Mr. Finley had said was true, then Jethro knew not to talk in front of cameras. The problem was that the overseers had told him that cameras were everywhere. So he ended up not talking at all.
And the food looked exactly the same. He didn’t know what Mr. Finley was talking about he said that the food would be ‘more to his taste’. It was the same, it seemed. So Jethro continued to eat only miniscule amounts. The others had looked at him like he was not sane. It made Jethro want to eat just so they would stop looking at him like that. It had never occurred to him that he would be in anyone’s thoughts, but now that he clearly was he wasn’t sure if he liked it. Before, he was comfortable in existing only in his own mind. Now he was in so many minds at once, and he couldn’t even tell if they were thinking good things or bad things. Knowing that their minds weren’t empty, but not knowing what they were thinking was disconcerting.
Slowly, he began to feel the sleep come. It tugged at the edges of his consciousness, and he panicked. He quickly banged his head against the wall, shuddering at the starburst of red that came with it. But the sleep went away.
On and on through the night, the sleep would creep in, stronger and stronger each time. And each time, he would make bruises on himself, cut himself, bite his tongue, anything to make it go away. Where was the pod-sleep? Why hadn’t he fallen asleep like in the pod yet?
There must be something in the room that makes the sleep come, not the pod-sleep, he reasoned. Mr. Finley had tricked him. The realization made him feel sick. Mr. Finley was an enemy, too. He got up and left the room, digging his nails into his arm to fight the sleep. He slumped down in the hallway, waiting for the sleep to clear and the pod-sleep to come. But it just got worse.
Jethro got up and started running, scraping his arm raw as he went. Every time the red cleared, the sleep started closing in again. How dare Mr. Finley lie to him. How dare he make him sleep like the others of his generation.
He ran through until the end of the overseers’ quarters, then ran into the factory. He had to find his pod.
It was so dark now, and all the machines seemed so much bigger in the empty, silence. Jethro ran faster to get away. Ragged breaths tore at his lungs, and the sleep was still coming. In one last desperate effort, he flung himself at the doors leading to the pods.
But instead of opening like they usually did, he slammed into the unforgiving metal. He slunk to the floor, body aching red and the sleep nipping at his awakeness.
Then a light appeared from Mr. Finley’s office. The door opened, and Mr. Finley’s huge shape came lumbering down the stairs. Jethro seethed, wanting to do something bad to that man. He had lied to him. He had tried to make him sleep again. But Jethro would not. He would not sleep again.
“Jeth—er, 7C-1173? Is that you?”
Jethro did not reply, but curled up into a ball.
He felt a hand grab his shoulder, and he flinched.
“7C-1173? Come, let’s go my office.”
Jethro felt himself being pulled up, but he couldn’t resist. He was fighting the sleep too hard to care what Mr. Finley did to him. He was vaguely aware of being carried up the stairs and set down on the seat. He slumped down, and Mr. Finley propped him up on the chair’s arm. Mr. Finley returned to his chair, pressing the red button before speaking.
“There we go. Can you tell me what happened, Jethro? Did the others do this?” asked Mr. Finley.
“You lied,” whispered Jethro miserably.
“What?”
“You said you didn’t want me to go back to sleep like all the others. But it’s coming back. You’re making me sleep again.”
Mr. Finley regarded his broken body curiously. “Sleep? Is that what you call being like the others in your generation? Oh dear, I suppose it does seem like sleep. So you did that to yourself, to, er, stay awake?”
Jethro nodded.
“Oh, Jethro,” said Mr. Finley, “I know it must feel similar, but there are two kinds of ‘sleep’. There is the thing that you call sleep, when people put chemicals into your body to make you not think. But there’s another kind of sleep, too. It’s the real sleep, the one that you go through every night and wake up from every morning. It happened to you in the pods, only the pods made you fall asleep faster. In your bed, you have to fall asleep by yourself. But while you’re falling asleep, your mind gets tired. It gets tired right before you go to sleep for the night, then wake up in the morning. It’s all right, Jethro, I’m no trying to make you like all the others again.”
Jethro tried to process it, but his mind was too sluggish. He closed his eyes and bit the inside of his lip, feeling a small bit of clarity come with the red. “How do I know you’re not lying to me again?”
“I was never lying to you,” said Mr. Finley gently. “Just go to real sleep, and you’ll wake up in the morning, I promise.”
Jethro shook his head. “Not enough,” he muttered, his voice slurring even more in his exhausted state.
“I’m sorry, but it looks like you’re doing it anyway…”
Jethro buried his nails into his arm, feeling sticky red liquid collect under his fingertips.
“Stop that,” said Mr. Finley, getting up. He grabbed Jethro’s hands. “You’re going t have to stop that. I know that’s what you did to stay ‘awake’ before, but you don’t have to anymore. You’ll stay awake without it now. But right now, you have to fall asleep, just like you did every night, okay?”
Jethro would have replied, but he had already followed Mr. Finley’s advice.
Finley stared at the sleeping man, just a boy, really, and felt a small pang. Sighing, he went into his bedroom, locating behind a door right off the office, and retrieved some medicine. He sprayed some nu-skin on Jethro’s cuts, and forced a heal pill down his slumbering throat. Grunting, he heaved Jethro up and carried him down the stairs, through the factory, and finally to his room. There he tucked him in bed, just as he imagined a father would do to his son.
Yes, this one was much different than the others. For some profound reason, this young man had the spirit to fight back.
He would do, Mr. Finley decided. He would do for little Lily.