Chapter 6
Tam
It’s time.
I arrive at the appointed meeting location five minutes early and stand where instructed. I’m the only one here. After placing the black tape over my camera, I wait. The damp, nervous sweat in my armpits makes me uncomfortable, and I hope I put on enough deodorant. That’s just what I need—to meet a bunch of new people while I smell like I don’t know what basic hygiene is.
They picked a good place to meet, out behind what appears to be a grounds maintenance building. No one in their right mind would come out here after dark.
A rustling near the edge of the clearing nearly makes me jump out of my skin as a dark, cloaked figure appears, complete with a hood covering their head. The only thing missing for a good impression of the grim reaper is a scythe and a pair of glowing eyes peering back at me from within the hood. If I hadn’t been expecting someone dressed like this, I’d be running the other way right now. The figure looks around and then down at a handheld device of some kind before advancing into the clearing and then coming over to where I’m standing.
“Alphaeus,” the guide mutters.
“I am here.”
My guide produces a robe from the folds of their cloak and hands it to me. The garment is similar to the one they’re wearing, and I easily slip it over my head and cover my helmet with the hood. It doesn’t take a genius to guess that it’s blocking the helmet transmitter somehow. The fabric it’s made from is as dark as the night around us, which will help keep us hidden from view. Seeing the lengths they’ve gone to in order to keep our clandestine meeting from coming to the attention of the authorities gives me a measure of comfort as we walk along.
We proceed through the woods along some seldom-used paths that wind their way behind what appear to be storage buildings of some sort. After about ten minutes of walking behind one after another of these structures, we come to a stop. The guide scans the area behind the building directly ahead of us repeatedly, so I assume we’ve arrived at our destination. After at least a minute of this, we begin moving again.
As we walk along the back of the loading dock of this latest warehouse, I see what appears to be a ramp leading down beneath the building. My guide turns on a flashlight and proceeds down into the darkness. It soon becomes so dark, despite the flashlight, that I feel as if I could reach out and touch the inky blackness surrounding us. Though my companion is no more than a foot or two in front of me, I can no longer see the complete outline of their form, only the break their body makes in the beam of the flashlight.
The air gets cooler as we continue our descent—and more humid, too. The guide pauses momentarily, shining the light around the wall to our left. I feel a brief moment of panic as I wonder if they’ve lost their way and now we might be stuck in a labyrinth of passages beneath this old warehouse. My momentary fear subsides as the beam of the flashlight stops when it finds the outline of a doorway. Soon we disappear into the blackness beyond. Several twists and turns later, we pause at what is revealed to be another door. My guide produces a key from underneath the folds of their cloak, unlocking the door, and then we enter inside.
I hear a clicking sound and shut my eyes as the room suddenly floods with light, revealing a small room approximately fifteen feet square. My eyes are still adjusting as the guide points to a sign instructing me to remove my helmet and cloak, and place them on the floor along the wall, where a dozen other helmets and cloaks are already lined up in a neat row. As I remove my cloak, I notice another door on the other side of the room near where my guide is standing and guess that the previous arrivals are on the other side. They must bring us in one at a time to keep from attracting the attention of the campus police.
This is it. I’m about to remove my helmet and enter a room full of other people who can see my real face, the color of my skin, my gender, and the color of my hair and eyes. That, combined with the thrill and nervous tension I feel from doing something that can get me expelled, has me feeling on edge. I remove my helmet as instructed and follow my guide through the other door, which leads us into a large and mostly empty warehouse with a concrete floor. About a dozen yards in front of us is a well-lit area with several portable tables positioned end-to-end. I see my fellow attendees seated at the tables, each of them positioned across from another person. They’re all talking to one another.
As I get closer to the group, I notice that my guide has disappeared. A guy who had been standing near the tables looks my way, then walks over and holds out his hand. He looks to be about my age and has an easy smile.
“Hi, my meeting name is Ben. Welcome.”
I’ve completely forgotten to pick out a meeting name like the invitation said. We aren’t supposed to use our real names, so we won’t be able to identify anyone who attended by their real name if we happen to get caught. I quickly file through a few potential names in my mind before finally blurting one out.
“Sam . . . my meeting name is Sam.”
I secretly curse myself for picking a name so close to my actual nickname, but it’s too late now.
“Hi, Sam. Here’s how this works,” he says as he turns and motions at the tables. “It’s a bit like speed-dating. We call it speed-greeting. We spend the first forty-five minutes doing this to help everyone get to know each other. Just sit down at an empty chair and jump in. There’s a card on the table in front of you. If it says, ‘You are first’ on it, then you ask the person on the other side of the table from you the first question on your card. They answer you and then ask you the first question on their card, and then you answer them. You continue back and forth until you hear the buzzer, and then move to the next open slot to your right and do the same thing again. Any questions?”
“Just one. What’s with the red card?”
“Oh, right. Don’t touch the red card unless you’re instructed to do so.”
“Got it,” I reply.
“Great. Now, we have two minutes to go in this round. If you go sit in that seat right over there, you can get in for the next round. Just move into the seat vacated next to you in the same direction everyone else moves after the buzzer sounds.”
I take my seat at the table and look around to get a closer look at my co-conspirators, who are all either talking to their assigned partner or seem to be listening intently. They’re a mixed lot, for sure. Tall, short, thin, heavy, white, black, and a few shades in-between. There seems to be an equal amount of males and females, too. I smile. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a large group of people without their helmets on.
The sound of the buzzer startles me, and everyone gets up and begins to shift down to the next seat. I do the same and find myself sitting across from a black male about my age. He’s taller than me, with skin that’s a rich, earthy brown color and a great smile. He has almost perfect white teeth that make a stark contrast with his skin.
“Hello,” he says in a unique accent that I can’t place. “My meeting name is Jonesy.”
I hurriedly look down at the card on the table and see that I’m supposed to introduce myself and then ask the first question on the card.
“Hello, my meeting name is Sam. Can you tell me about one of your hobbies?” I ask, reading from the card.
It turns out that Jonesy has a green thumb. He tells me about a small garden he has in his back yard at home and how he grows tomatoes so big that a single slice can cover almost an entire piece of sandwich bread. I stare at his face as he speaks. The movement of his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth as he talks give extra meaning to his words that the facial avatars just can’t quite convey. His voice has a sing-song quality to it, and I could listen to him talk for another half-hour, but there’s a loud ding. He stops speaking and looks down at his own card.
“Okay, can you tell me about your favorite subject in school?” he asks.
I tell him about my penchant for history and how I’m enjoying the History of Equality class, except for the times when I’m expected to speak in front of everyone. In no time at all, the ding sounds and we move on to the next question. I ask him to tell me about an experience he’s had with an animal, which seems like a strange question, but he ends up telling me about a squirrel he fed on his dorm room window sill, and it makes me laugh. He asks me to tell him about my favorite food, and I go on a rant about pizza and how the school makes the worst pizza in the world, so about three times a month I order pizza from this New York-style pizzeria located in the nearby town. And then the buzzer sounds, and we move on.
Over the next two rotations, I speak to an Asian girl with jet-black hair named Mali, who loves cats, and a boy named Jack who loves to play the video game Snark. I’m having a blast, and I notice that the nervous tension I felt when I first arrived is completely gone.
The buzzer sounds, and I shift to the next seat. When I look up, the girl sitting across from me is unlike anyone I’ve seen so far. It’s hard to say what I notice first. She’s wearing a black shirt, not the formless equality suit top that most of us came in. Her fingernails are painted black to match, and there’s a small silver band on her pinky finger. She has short hair that’s dyed a mix between silver and purple, which contrasts with her black eyebrows and olive-colored skin. A silver loop adorns her nose—something I don’t think I’ve ever seen in person before. Her bangs are swept to one side, covering her left ear, but I can see three earrings in the exposed ear, and a black, lace choker encircles her neck. She seems completely relaxed, but there’s a quiet intensity about her that I can almost feel.
“Hi, I’m Sam.”
“I’m Veritas. Nice to meet you, Sam.”
She looks straight into my eyes, and I can’t look away. She doesn’t look down at the paper in front of her, and I’m pretty sure the question she asks me next isn’t on it anyway.
“So, Sam, why did you want to come to a reveal party?”
“I, uhhh . . . I . . .”
The seconds tick by as I stammer, but her gaze remains steady, unflappable. Finally, my brain kicks into gear, and I begin to speak intelligible words.
“I think part of it was the thrill of it, you know? I mean, I haven’t been around this many people without my helmet on for years now, except for the identity group meetings, of course. And part of it is that I just . . . I just get so fed up with hiding who I really am. You know? I mean, is there something so wrong with me, so horrible that I should be forced to hide behind a mask all day for fear of causing other people to rise up and want to burn me at the stake or something because of the color of my skin, or what my hair looks like?”
I’m surprised at the passion in my voice and how angry I feel. I’m almost certain my face is turning red right now, and I’m embarrassed. But it feels good at the same time. It feels good to say what I realize I’ve been thinking for so long, but never said out loud. I see a slight smile appear on Veritas’ face.
“So, what about you?” I finally manage to ask. “Why did you want to come?”
She answers without a moment’s hesitation.
“I’m here because I’m done listening to the government and society tell me the way I have to live because it’s ‘best for me’. I’m here because they can’t just stuff us into their generic equality suits and tell us to dance to their tune and expect that we’ll all be okay with it. ‘Hide your face, hide your hair, hide your gender, speak the way we tell you to or you’ll go to jail’—that’s all they seem to care about, making us their little government drones so they can control us and manipulate us into giving them more and more power over our lives, until we’re nothing more than their little pre-programmed robots. I’m here because I want to be part of a revolution.”
The passion in her voice and the conviction with which she speaks every word are riveting. She’s been leaning in towards me, and now that she’s done talking, she leans back a bit, but she never takes her eyes off of mine. There’s defiance in them. It’s almost like she’s challenging me to disagree with her, like she wants a fight. But all I can manage to do is stare at her—this rebel with silver and purple hair and fire in her soul—and I want to know more.
Then the buzzer sounds and she asks me another question. Something from the card this time. I answer her, but I’m really just trying to get through my response so I can ask her more about what she means by revolution. The buzzer sounds again, and it’s my turn.
“So, what do you mean by revolution?” I ask.
One side of her mouth raises up, along with one eyebrow on the opposite side of her face. It’s playful and enticing all at the same time. I think I’m in love.
“Well,” she begins, “we weren’t meant to live like they tell us to live. We were meant to be free—really free. Not covered up, hiding behind our equality suits, scared to have to deal with the fact that we’re not all the same. I mean, it’s so boring. Diversity is supposed to be beautiful, but they treat it like it’s something to fight over. They want to force us to treat everyone the same—but we’re not. We’re all different. And, sure, some people want to hurt other people who are different from them, but that doesn’t mean it has to be that way. I believe we can learn to live in harmony with people who look, live, and believe differently than we do. I think we should have that chance instead of being punished just because, a long time ago, some people who aren’t even alive anymore did bad things to other people they didn’t like for whatever reason.”
The buzzer sounds as she’s finishing her last sentence.
“It was nice to meet you, Sam,” she says, smiling as she gets up and moves to the next chair. I stare at her, my mouth slightly open, and mutter, “Yeah. You, too.”
“Get up, dude. Time to move,” comes a voice to my left. I reluctantly move to my new seat, but I can’t help staring over at Veritas as she sits down in front of her new partner. I’m wishing it was me sitting across from her even as the person across from me starts to speak.
“Hi, my name is Ted. . . .”
