Page 51 of Chained

All of my training injuries coupled with the few I had collected during my SubWar experience had grouped together to make my muscles seize up during the night. I gritted my teeth against the pain.

Reaching out, I cupped some of the cold water between my hands and splashed it over my face to rinse away the blood and grime that had collected there.

Kaloo had chosen to lay by the rushing water and droplets misted on her fur as she rested. She had her eyes closed but I wasn't convinced she was sleeping. I started across the cave towards Coal and she raised her head to watch me pass but made no move to stop me.

"Have you slept?" I asked, sinking to the ground next to him and enjoying the heat from the low flames.

"Someone needed to keep watch." He gave me a lopsided smile. "Besides, I don't sleep much."

I opened my mouth to ask why but changed my mind.

"Do you have to be very careful living out here? Because of the contamination?" I asked him.

"The contamination?" He laughed. "No."

"But I thought it wasn't safe out here?" I asked.

"Well I wouldn't say it was safe, but not because of contamination." He said the word like it was some kind of joke that I wasn't getting.

"So the safe zones are bigger than the Guardians realise?" I frowned. It seemed unlikely that they would make such an error.

"Do you really all sit up there believing that The Wall is the only thing between you and some mystery illness that would be your downfall?" Coal laughed again.

"Why else would they lock us all away in there?"

Coal studied my expression for a moment, the smile slipping from his face, before replying. "Various reasons, safety being one of them I suppose," he said vaguely.

"And what would the others be?"

"Perhaps some of them like sitting up there in their glass castles, using the rest of you to do all of the work," he said, leaning back on his elbows.

"Anyone in the city has an equal chance to progress to a higher level if they work hard enough. Housing is allocated depending on your contribution to society so the more you give the more you get back," I quoted instantly.

"Did you rehearse that speech or has it been drummed into you so often that you actually believe it?" He looked amused.

"It's true. The people living on the top floors and in the better buildings have earned their place there by contributing the most to society," I insisted.

"So what if a married couple live together and the wife contributes greatly to society but the husband does nothing?"

"They would be put somewhere in the middle," I guessed but I could tell Coal wasn't convinced.

"So she has to suffer because of her husband and he gets to gain from doing nothing?"

"Oh hell I don't know, but there is a system in place," I said, exasperated.

"And you all just blindly believe that? How could you know who contributes the most to society? What do they base it on? Hours of work? Or is it the type of work? The amount of educational qualifications you have?"

"I presume some kind of combination of all of them," I said, but listening to it laid out like that did make me doubt how it could possibly work fairly.

"And who gets to decide that?" He wasn't finished picking holes.

"We have elected officials called Guardians, who are lead by a President and together they work for the benefit of the population by-"

"Living in the nicest apartments on the top floors of the best buildings?" he guessed, smiling smugly at me.

"Well, yes, but they contribute a lot to-"

"And by any chance do these elected officials tend to come from families that live in those kinds of apartments in the first place?" he interrupted me again.