Chapter 7
Tam
As the rotation continues and I meet the next few people in the group, I keep glancing over at Veritas, counting the rounds until we’re paired up again. I’m hardly paying attention to who I’m talking to or what I’m saying at this point. Instead, I’m just waiting for another chance to speak to her.
“Stop!” comes a loud voice from the end of the table. Everyone looks in the speaker’s direction. It’s Ben, the guy who greeted me when I came in.
“Turn over the red card in front of you and follow the instructions. This is not a test; this is really happening.”
A few of us are slow to respond.
“Now, people! Do it now!” he barks.
I flip over the card and read the big, bold letters. As I do, my heart drops to the pit of my stomach:
If you have been instructed to read this, then the IDENTITY police have discovered our meeting location and will possibly be here in a few minutes. Proceed to the storage room, retrieve your helmet and cloak, and wait for instructions from the guide.
As I look up from the table, I see several people have already gotten up and run over to the doorway of the storage room and are beginning to form a line. I stand up, my knees weak, managing to knock over my chair in the process. This can’t be happening, I tell myself. I feel sweat begin to trickle down my sides from my armpits as I wait my turn to enter the room. All the excitement I felt during the meeting has turned into pure fear.
Once I’m inside, I force myself to focus on doing as instructed, finding my helmet and putting it on. When the last person is in the room, the door shuts, and I hear a clicking sound. Are we locked in now? I feel like I’m about to puke.
“May I have your attention, please?” comes a voice I haven’t heard before from the front of the room. I turn in their direction, but they already have their helmet and cloak on, so I can’t tell who it is. Everyone listens as they continue, “We’ll split into three groups. There is one guide for each group. Put your cloak on and cover your helmet with the hood, then follow your guide to a safe spot before you disperse. When the guide tells you to disperse, take off your robe and leave it on the ground, and then go back to your dorm or another public location.”
He points at four people in turn.
“You, you, you, and you, follow me.”
After they finish speaking, they turn and exit through the doorway on the other side of the room. The second guide steps up and identifies the next four people to follow them, which puts me in the last group. The second guide waits for what seems like an eternity before leading their band of followers out.
The third guide steps up to the front of the room. It’s Ben.
“The rest of you, follow me. Last one out kill the lights,” he says as he turns and points at the switch by the door. He puts on his helmet, dons his hood, and waits. After a few more minutes, he moves through the doorway and we follow him out.
With some alarm, I discover that I’m the last one in line. I turn off the lights as we leave the room, the door clicking closed behind me. We’re in almost total darkness now, with only Ben’s flashlight to guide us. Before long, I can see a dim glow ahead of us. It must be the light from the streetlamp shining on the exit ramp. Ben edges up the ramp and into the pale light, holding up his hand and signaling us to stop before slowly raising his head above ground level and looking around. Once he’s peered around in both directions, he motions quickly for us to follow him.
We cross the area illuminated by the street lamp at a brisk pace. I’m relieved when we finally reach the comforting darkness of the woods. We’re taking a different path than the one we used earlier, moving along silently, when several flashlight beams shatter the stillness of the night, throwing off the protective shroud of darkness.
“Freeze!” comes a loud voice from somewhere in the forest to our left. “Identity police! Don’t move!”
The flashlight beams have exposed us all. The voice of the police officer acts like a starter gun, and we immediately scatter. In the ensuing chaos, I see one of my fellow attendees get grabbed by a police officer who overtakes them from behind as they try to run away. My heart is racing, and I’m running like mad. The bobbing lights from the remaining officer’s helmets are dancing all around the forest as I’m running blind, trying to get away from them. I trip on a root and fall to the ground just as a beam of light shines over the space I occupied just seconds before. I hold my breath, not daring to move. The beams shine around the woods, but not on the forest floor where I’ve fallen. After a few seconds, they move away to continue their search in the other direction.
I wait until their lights disappear over a small hillock before I get up, then creep along as quietly as I can to avoid detection. As I come around the trunk of a massive tree, I see another of my compatriots being forced to the ground by a large police officer. Their helmet comes off as they hit the ground, and the light shining from the policeman’s headgear illuminates a swath of purple hair.
Despite her much smaller size, Veritas is proving to be a handful for the police officer as they struggle to force her hands behind her back. Without thinking, I run at them, throwing myself into the officer’s body with all the force I can muster. We careen to the ground and land in a heap. I’m expecting to be grabbed any second, but nothing happens. As I push myself up, the officer doesn’t move. I stare down at the motionless figure until Veritas grabs my arm, and I hear her whisper loudly, “Kill the lights!”
I fumble for the switch on the side of the officer’s helmet, switching it off just as two more beams of light swivel in our direction. I throw myself down to the ground beside Veritas.
“Ted!” a voice calls. “Are you over here?” I hear static over the police radio. “This is unit five. Unit seven is MIA. I’m doing a full sweep of the area.”
I feel Veritas grab my hand and pull me back in the direction of the big tree. We move as quietly as we can, managing to position ourselves so that the tree is blocking the officer’s view without getting noticed. It isn’t long before the searching officer finds their friend and rushes to their side.
“Ted! Are you okay?”
“Unnnh. . . .”
“This is unit five. Unit seven is down. He appears to be regaining consciousness. You okay to walk, Ted?”
“Yeah, I think so. Someone hit me from behind as I was about to cuff another one.”
“Let’s get you back to the van. Here, lean on me,” he says, putting his fallen comrade’s arm over his shoulder and helping him up.
After a few more minutes of waiting, no more flashlights are shining around and the woods are silent once more. Veritas, who has been holding her helmet ever since the scuffle, puts it back on and tugs at my robe so I’ll follow her. We move along for several minutes, saying nothing. Finally, we arrive at a large rock, and Veritas crouches down behind it. I follow suit. The light from a streetlamp in the clearing beyond our hiding place illuminates a small fountain, which I can just make out through the bushes at the far end of the rock. I recognize the location; we’re near the school library.
We wait for several minutes in silence, neither of us daring to move. Finally, she turns to me with a mischievous smile.
“So, who should I thank for rescuing me back there?”
I reach up and take off my helmet, and am pleased to see that her smile doesn’t fade away when she sees who I am.
“Thanks. You did good, Sam.”
“Tam. . . . It’s Tam—my real name, I mean.”
“Nice meeting you, Tam. Do you know where we are?”
“Yeah, near the library.”
“Good. Take off the robe, shove it inside your suit, and then, once you’re in the clearing, take the tape off of your helmet cam. Keep the robe hidden in your room—you might need it later. Got it?”
“Yeah,” I answer, still dazed.
“I’ll go first,” she continues. “Wait two minutes, then you go.”
“Okay.”
She busies herself with taking off her robe and stowing it inside her suit. The suits are designed to be a bit oversized, which is meant to help disguise things like gender and weight, making it an ideal place to put something you don’t want anyone else to see for those of us on the leaner side. As she tucks her robe inside her suit, I see her nametag. It says ‘Charlie’.
I watch her enter the clearing and begin walking along the path, staring after her for a few more seconds before removing my own robe. When I look up again, she’s gone, and I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.
On the way back to my dorm room, I consider tossing the robe. The temptation to get rid of anything that could tie me back to the reveal party is strong, but something inside of me can’t quite do it. In the end, I hide it on a shelf in the bottom of my closet, under some winter clothes I hardly ever wear.
I try to go to sleep, but only succeed in staring at the ceiling for the next few hours. Finally, I nod off. When the alarm wakes me up, I don’t want to move, but I’ve got class in forty-five minutes and I don’t want to arouse any suspicion by being late.
I make it to class right before the teacher starts her lecture, and I’m forced to take a seat in the back of the room. Normally not my style, but today I’m fine with it. I try to pay attention as she discusses the wonders of covalent bonds, but every time a sound is made near the doorway, I glance over to make sure the Identity Police aren’t coming in to take me away. I’m a nervous wreck.
I manage to take a nap after lunch, collapsing in my bed from sheer exhaustion. By 4 p.m., I’m on my way to the outdoor sports identity group meeting. I figure that, at the very least, it will provide a welcome distraction from my fear of getting hauled off by the police at any moment.
Today, we’re meeting at the lake, where the school has a small cadre of sailboats. The privacy barriers are already up to shield our meeting from prying eyes, blocking the boathouse and the docks with six-foot-high opaque screens, assuring that no one will see us once we’re inside. I scan my hand at the kiosk, and the gatekeeper lets me in. Entering the small ante-room, I remove my helmet and equality suit, storing them in a small locker, and put on something more suited to sailing before heading out onto the dock.
We have a pretty diverse group this time. Multiple races, genders, shapes, and sizes are all represented. There’s about twenty-five of us in all. The rules are pretty simple. Don’t use your real name, don’t get too personal in what you share so that no one will be able to ID you outside the group meetings, and treat everyone the same as you’d want to be treated.
I’m an old hand at this since I’ve been a part of this group for the past two years, so I get selected to be a boat captain and paired with two other students I’ve never seen before. We introduce ourselves and get assigned our boat and gear. I go through the checklist with them and then begin giving some basic instructions about what each of us will be doing.
This is the most freedom we have in normal school life, out here in our identity groups. We can be with our fellow humans, engaging in an activity we all enjoy, without having to worry about hiding who we really are, for the most part. In all the identity group meetings I’ve been to since middle school, there’s only one time I can remember when anything identity-related ever came up. It was in a wrestling group I joined once. There was a boy who was getting a bit too handsy with some of the opponents he was paired to wrestle with. I think the group leaders made sure he wasn’t paired with any girls after that—end of story.
I take the first turn at steering and proceed through the awkwardness of navigating out onto the lake with a new crew. It’s a breezy day, which means good sailing. I love feeling the wind blow through my hair. The whole experience is so peaceful, so freeing. For a few minutes, I’m able to completely unplug and just enjoy the experience.
After about fifteen minutes, we change positions, and I let one of the newbies steer, giving them some basic pointers to keep them from running into the path of another boater or turning the tiller too far in one direction or the other. After everyone’s had a turn, we head back to the dock. As we’re putting our gear away, I see someone I know from last year who’s two boats down. I go over to say hello.
“Hey, Tyler,” I say.
“Jarvis! Hey, buddy!”
Jarvis is my identity group name.
“How’ve you been?” I ask.
“Great, great. Glad to be back. We don’t have any sailing groups near where I live, so it’s nice to be back on the water.”
“Cool.”
“Hey,” he says, lowering his voice, “want to meet up later this week to catch up?”
“Sure. Same place as last year? The café?”
“Sounds good to me. Friday, 2 p.m.?”
“Deal. See you then.”
Most students meet like this with people they know from the identity group. It’s against the rules, but as long as nobody gets caught, it’s no harm, no foul. Once you agree to meet, you exchange your real names—usually by passing a hand-written note. Tyler’s real name is Alan, but we never say each other’s real names in the group. After you’ve been doing this for a few years, you automatically perform an internal check before speaking to anyone you’re in an identity group with, just to make sure you’re using their group name. Most of the time, it’s better not to say their name at all, so you don’t slip up.
* * * * *
The next week goes by without incident. I’m not picked up by the Identity Police or called in to see the headmaster. The one exception to the calm is a small blurb in the school newsfeed about three students getting expelled for attending a reveal party. I cringe inwardly when I see the notice, but convince myself that they don’t know I was there—or else I’d already have been expelled. I’m relieved when the article mentions that a police person who was knocked out in the melee of the operation is back on duty and doing fine. I’d hate to have something like seriously injuring a police officer on my conscience. The thought that they could have died makes my stomach turn and I feel a bit queasy. There’s no mention of those of us who got away.
Everything is pretty much back to normal until Friday when I come back to my dorm room after dinner to find a note on my pillow.
