Wretched, Offer Reish [novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗

well-known to the people asserted that they were unfamiliar with the so-called Bad Mother devices and would call an investigation of the matter; that they would personally make sure Wretches were made as comfortable as possible in the Production Camps; and that they were fully respectful of the service the Wretches provided for the people. They promised to meet with The Existents again and see to it that all parties were satisfied, and had already agreed to make considerable compromises in accordance with the people's demands. The Industry was erring on the side of caution, trying to appease the people and constantly evaluating their reactions. More than the people relied on the Industry, the Industry relied on the people.

Among the people the confusion gradually divided them into three distinct groups: a minority that remained loyal to the Existents, the majority that didn't renounce their support but now viewed them suspiciously and judgmentally, and those that turned against them altogether in light of what they called 'The Extistents' extreme, uncultured tactics and their abuse of the power given to them by the people'. Was there really nothing better to fight for in the city than the condition of Wretches?

Then there were the men and women of The Existents, who were standing at the crosshairs of a controversy the magnitude of which couldn't be remembered even by the city's elders. Jessica and the black masks did one thing only since that night: they continued to walk down the same path. They continued to make sporadic claims regarding the reality of the misery of the nonexistents, mainly with an eye for keeping the debate alive and testing the waters toward the next demonstration that was to be held soon. Jessica hadn't been seen since that unforgettable night, and everyone was curious to see how she would respond to the changing circumstances.

Leonardo experienced a frustrating few weeks. Two things troubled him chiefly: that he couldn't understand the connection Jessica had made between compassion, justice and indifference (actually he couldn't really understand either of them by itself), and how so many people had suddenly started to doubt The Existents.

As for justice, well, at one point he thought he'd understood it but then Jessica's speech during the Beauty Wall night sent him back to the chessboard to keep trying to decipher it. As for compassion and indifference, his mother had explained to him that the first meant caring about others while the second meant the opposite.

"Then why did she say that indifference is the enemy of justice?" He'd asked, furrowing his brows at the white queen in front of him.

Hailey thought for a moment and said: "Indifference isn't a good thing. It's the enemy of many things, not only justice."

"But it's the enemy of justice too, right? Jessica said it was the enemy of justice."

"Yes, it is", Hailey said reluctantly.

"Indifference is the enemy of justice", he mumbled to himself and to the black pieces on the board, which, since they were the enemy of the white pieces, had to represent injustice.

Of course nothing in the apartment- it was the same in every house and apartment in the city, in fact- changed for 462. And why should it? Even if everything Jessica had said was true, 462 was just a Wretch and it was there to fulfill its mission. It didn't have anything to do with the so-called Bad Mother devices. There was one time when a funny thought had crossed Leonardo's mind. '462 is alive', he thought, 'it moves and talks to them and it does anything they want, but we give it nothing in return. Could that be an injustice?' He even unwittingly gave voice to this strange thought, but then chuckled at himself and went on with the next formation of the white pieces on the chessboard. His father, who had been alone in the living room at the time, heard but never answered his son's question.

In any case, everything that happened in the city in the following two weeks paled in comparison to The Existents' next demonstration that was scheduled for two weeks exactly after that night. Everyone, regardless of which of the three groups they belonged to, awaited that day. Some wished Jessica would go back on what she'd said before and return to her old popular self, others smelled blood and wished she went further so they could unleash their belligerence. The Industry waited with bated breath, prepared for almost any eventuality. And Leonardo waited to see Jessica again.

When the designated time arrived, the people were infused not by the childish zeal that had gripped them before the Beauty Wall night or even before any of The Existents' other events, but by overbearing tension. Nobody knew just what was going to happen; many didn't even know what they wanted to happen. To Leonardo these questions never came up, since whatever Jessica thought was right was what he thought was right, and whatever she said would be what he wanted her to say. But he did want her to find him this time. And he wanted to understand justice and compassion and indifference.

Thousands of people gathered at the Eastern part of the city's main square. They weren't nearly as many as the masses that had congregated on Beauty Wall night, but it seemed there were even more than in any of The Existents' other previous events. But the number of children had certainly decreased. If Leonardo hadn't known that Francis and Sue were there, he would've thought he was the only boy there.

When Jessica took the stage there was no reaction from the crowd- neither cheering nor calls of disdain. The tension was too intense. Not everyone noticed it-perhaps nobody else did- but the moment he first glimpsed her face Leonardo's heart started racing. He couldn't tell what was different about her, but it was there and it was disheartening. She wasn't the Jessica from before. With no introduction and waiving the usual pleasantries, she came on strong from the very first moment:

"I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against. We fought together when justice was for us and got what we deserved. Now it's time to open our eyes and look further, where justice is for someone else, and fight for it with the same perseverance. Otherwise we haven't fought for justice but merely for our own selfish interests." At this point Jessica paused, either mustering the courage to continue or simply prolonging this moment before she ventured over the cliff and found out what lay below. It was now clear what was about to follow and it was as inevitable as the rivalry between justice and indifference. But nobody knew what the results of it would be. Leonardo even thought he saw a couple of the black masks shifting their weight from side to side uncomfortably.

And then Jessica went over the edge to the unknown:

"Nonexistents are abused from the moment they are born until the day they are disposed of. They are torn from their mothers at birth, suffer intentionally induced leg injuries- has anyone ever seen a nonexistent without a limp or with two legs of equal length (none such Wretch existed)?- males are castrated so they are more docile, and all youngsters have their nails uprooted to avoid causing accidentally injuring others in the unimaginably crowded conditions they are forced to live and be transported in; they have their spirits broken through brutal training so that their trainers may mold them according to the Industry's requirements, and are then enslaved for the rest of their short lives. Mothers will be forced to breed continuously but will never hold their babies. Babies will know only the pain of the whips and the demeaning voices of their trainers.

"Nonexistents used to be smarter and of higher emotional capacity than they are today. But through artificial selection and genetic modifications no nonexistent today will have a vocabulary of over 500 English words, and their emotional receptiveness is impaired. And Why? Why would there be need to expend resources on impairing the Industry's own products? It's as simple as it is crafty: to make it hard for people to empathize with them. To repel compassion for them and encourage indifference, thereby avoiding justice. Compassion is a complex emotion that can easily escape us; it is tenfold more slippery when directed at someone unintelligent, ugly and emotionally impaired. Just imagine: how much of our repugnance toward the nonexistents in our homes is due to their ugliness, their rankness, their clumsiness? This is all especially true for servants, who on top of this are also the ugliest of all nonexistents and the most odorous ones. Has anyone ever come close enough to their servant and to smell it? They reek. It isn't their natural body odor, but it is conducive to the Industry's purpose. How can you feel compassion for someone who arouses your disgust?"

"Don't worry darling, I still feel compassion for you", Leonardo heard a woman muttering to her husband right in front of him, and though this provoked a considerable deal of laughter Leonardo didn't understand the joke.

Jessica now had to speak through sporadic bellows that were cast upon her from the crowd, mostly those of disrespectful opposition. Some of them were personal and some had to do with her speech. Leonardo wasn't sure if they made him angrier or sadder, but there was nothing he could do to stop their increasing frequency and fieriness.

"Get off the stage!"

"Nobody wants you here anymore!"

"Sellout!"

And a few bad words were thrown at her. But the one that boiled Leonardo's blood hotter than any other was a young woman's shouting: "You're ugly!"

To say of a woman such as Jessica, though some of her onetime grace was no longer, that she was ugly, was a crime. In her current state there was actually something more real, more human, more profound than ever before in her beauty. He couldn't hold himself back and yelled "Shut up!" at the young lady who'd committed this blasphemy, much to the astonishment of his family, all of whom stared at him for a long time.

The increasing opposition did nothing to mitigate Jessica's determination, and she continued without stopping or showing any sign of discouragement or even acknowledgment of the unflattering comments from the crowd. It wasn't about her; it was about the message she was there to send.

"One of the things we fought for until a couple of weeks ago was the frequency of the deaths of servants- expirations, they call them- which forces us to accept new servants every few months. We demanded the Industry review its safety regulations and make an effort to reduce the frequency of the deaths. But it isn't laxness of regulations that is culpable for the deaths- it's the need to stack as many nonexistents as possible into the vehicles that transport them in order to increase the number of nonexistents transported and reduce transport costs. They expire because they are too crowded and are either crushed or suffocated in transport. Their bodies are pushed beyond their limits because they have to make it on time to our homes. You see, we, the people, at the bottom of the pyramid, are the foundation of it all. We are the ones who can call the shots, and we are the ones who will be responsible for the fate of the nonexistents."

These were the final words Jessica said on stage that afternoon, since they immediately sparked such agitation in the crowd that nothing could be heard but the frenzied uproar of a large chunk of the crowd that started moving toward the stage like a small island drifting on the ocean water. It was a recurrence of what had taken place on the Beauty Wall night, but this time on an even greater scale and with far more conspicuous zeal. The thin security force that had secured the narrow buffer zone between the crowd and the stage was powerless to stop the implacable invasion, and an invasion