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AMITY

“Amity Bloome!” my mother shouts urgently from the bottom of the stairs of our Baltimore rowhouse. I crack my eyes open. The morning sunlight is streaming through the window of my tiny bedroom, squished in the middle of the upstairs.

“Hang on, I’m almost done,” I call and take a deep breath, trying to settle down into the last minute of my Twenty. It’s no use, my thoughts are racing now and the calm, detached feeling is slipping away.

When my timer beeps I shut it off and stumble down the hall to the pale, tiled bathroom still in my pajamas. I’m wearing a soft, worn T-shirt I adopted from my dad, and loose shorts.

I hear steps on the stairs. She must be coming up to check on me. There’s a loud knock on the door.

“How’s it going, Amity? Do you need anything?” I tug the door open and reveal my mother’s narrow, tan face staring back at me. She is tall and pretty, in a way that blends with the power she exudes, her natural command.

She has sharp cheekbones, full lips, and blue eyes like my own, with long brown hair in a braid down her back. The only differences between us are the streaks of gray around her temples and the wrinkles that tighten the corners of her eyes and deepen her smile.

If you can get a smile out of Calista Bloome, you’re doing exceptionally well.

I haven’t answered her questions but she already has more. “You did your Twenty?” she checks.

“Of course.” I haven’t needed a reminder to do my required morning meditation for years. She’s anxious.

“You need to be out the door by eight,” she reminds me sharply, turning on her heel. “In your school uniform,” she tosses back from down the hall.

I could stretch it to 8:15 and still get to the courthouse on time but I don’t argue, just shove my toothbrush back in the holder and listen to her stepping briskly back downstairs, the quick staccato of her shoes on the wooden steps.

Today is a huge day for me. Thinking back to what the speaker said at graduation yesterday has my heart pumping with anticipation.

“City College High School, class of 2034, tomorrow you have the opportunity to take your Oath and make your commitment to the Peaceful Society of Greater Maryland.” The speaker was smiling but her eyes were wide open and grave.

“It’s a privilege many of our mothers and grandmothers never had a chance to enjoy .

“We have many reasons to be thankful. All of us owe our lives and safety to the sacrifices our mothers and the martyrs of the Peaceful Society made for us. I sincerely encourage each one of you,” her eyes flicked around the room, slowing on the groups of young men sitting in the audience, “to fully embrace the opportunities we offer every Citizen regardless of race, creed, or gender.” She said the last word with a straight face but there was a low hum from the boys in the room.

Another reason I’m in a hurry. Zeph. He sat next to me in the crowded auditorium, his pale skin and red hair as familiar as my own brown locks. Ever since the Integration, when everything changed, he’s lived around the corner, always knocked on my door or I’ve knocked on his.

I was ten when the war happened and everything changed; a lot of my friends moved away.

But that was when Zeph moved in around the corner.

After the Integration we explored the streets, safe with security stations sprouting on every block like the newly planted trees, ready to call a Security Officer within minutes any time, night or day.

Zeph and I were both children of women who fought in the Integration and stayed to build the Peaceful Society.

The safety of the streets, each inch of city monitored and safeguarded, made our mothers giddy with the freedom they indulgently pushed on us.

The Privilege of safety, provided by the Peaceful Society.

“Go, go anywhere,” my mother would encourage me. “You can explore all of Baltimore, Amity, the whole city is safe. The whole city is yours.”

I buzz around my tiny bedroom, pulling on my uniform and grabbing what I need to take to the courthouse.

The walls are pale blue and my bed is narrow against the wall.

I yank the blanket up and straighten the pillow.

It’s uncommonly neat in here since I might be leaving, tomorrow even, after I’ve made my Oath.

It’s quiet downstairs. My little brother Ethan is already at school. My dad greets me with a wide grin. He’s eating eggs and toast before he leaves for his job at the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, that employs most of the men in our neighborhood.

I wiggle my feet into sneakers as my mom flits about, fretting. She must have delayed going to work to make sure I got off okay. It’s silly we can’t go together, since she works at the courthouse, but the rules are I go to Oath Day without a parent or guardian.

There can be no hint that taking the Oath and committing myself fully to the Peaceful Society is anything other than my own decision. It’s also why we can’t take the Oath until we graduate from high school.

“Bye, Dad,” I call into the house and my mom follows me onto the porch.

“Are you still planning to sign up for HighClear?” she asks, checking for the hundredth time.

“Yes, absolutely,” I assure her. Her face relaxes and she nods, giving me a tiny shove.

“Go ahead, Amity. Go in peace.” She dismisses me with a hint of her rare smile, ducking back inside.

I turn the familiar corner and Zeph is already waiting in front of his house, backpack on. I hesitate. No matter how many times we’ve talked about it, no matter how much I’ve begged him, he claims he’s going to refuse the Oath .

He was still talking about it yesterday after graduation. Going on in a whispered hush about a men’s colony in Alaska, with runaway men from the Peaceful Society and other territories who are trying to revive the old ways.

A dream or a rumor. I can’t imagine there’s anything that organized in Alaska all these years after the Integration. I wish he wouldn’t talk to me about it; I don’t want either of us to get in trouble.

I sympathize with the men who say they are treated as second-class citizens, punished for the violence of their fathers and grandfathers.

I want things to change for them, but that change will happen from inside the Society, not from a bunch of feral men in Alaska.

He should know why we take baby steps in granting the Privileges to men—we took the same history classes.

Zeph nods to me as he takes off down the sidewalk. I try to keep up with his long strides. He taps a light rhythm on his leg as he walks.

“Are you ready for Oath Day?” he asks me, polite and formal.

“Shut up, Zeph. Are you taking the Oath?” I hiss, the reserve I sometimes wear as the daughter of an Officer dropping away. I loop my arm through his, pleading. “Come on. It’s time to settle down.” My words are a command, a suggestion, and a plea.

Zeph’s expression is stubborn and resentful. “You don’t understand what it’s like.”

“What does Miro say? Does he know?” I continue to press. Zeph’s boyfriend, Miro, took the Oath last year and he’s doing fine. Works for the WPA.

“Miro is doing his own thing,” is all Zeph says .

I glance at my friend and his lips are pressed in a thin line. Is there anything I can do to convince him that it’s better to go ahead and take the Oath? It’s not so bad, living as a Citizen. He could try for Clearance, although it’s hard to get for men, since the training is so rigorous.

Zeph shakes his head with a sigh. “I’m done talking about it,” he grumbles, sidestepping another argument.

I walk quickly, keeping up with him on the last block to the bus stop for our little corner of Northeast Baltimore. I think I’m in shock. He really is planning to refuse the Oath.

In school they say it runs in families: rebelliousness, defiance, and aggression. Maybe that’s true because Zeph’s father is either an Oath Refuser or an Oath Breaker.

Probably an Oath Breaker. I’ve never asked. The way he shuffles around their house, thick monitor on his ankle, obviously on a cocktail of meds to curb his aggression, makes me think he broke the Oath and committed violence. We don’t talk about his dad.

Not all Oath Refusers are rebellious—some people refuse the Oath for religious reasons, but they’re not allowed to hold jobs or have any of the Privileges of being a Citizen. I can’t imagine that life for Zeph.

We stand apart from the cluster of people waiting at the bus stop. Electric cars slide by on the street but there’s no sign of the bus yet. I glance at the SafeGuard on my wrist for the time. I’ll be turning it in for a Citizen SafeGuard after I take the Oath, according to my mom.

We still have plenty of time to get downtown to the courthouse, and the line to get in will be so long it won’t even matter if we’re punctual. Not that I would ever say that to my mom.

“So what? You’re just going to sit at home with your dad?” I can’t stop myself from pushing him on this, but I keep my voice whisper soft, not wanting anyone to hear.

Zeph shudders. “No. No way. I have a plan.”

Alaska? I mouth silently, rolling my eyes.

There’s a pause. His foot taps on the sidewalk. We’re standing in front of a wide bench. The bright sun shines on the wooden slats. If you look carefully you can see the shadow of the words that were engraved into benches all around the city: The Greatest City in America.

When my mom was a kid people laughed at the slogan, she told me.

It was a time when nearly any adult could own and carry weapons designed to kill other people, just because they felt like it.

There were shootings every day in the city.

When my mom was growing up in Baltimore, that’s the world she lived in.

I was lucky to be born at the same time my mom and grandmother and the other early leaders were forming Mothers Against Violence. The MAV network was able to change many of the gun laws and regulations in the United States.

I was only in first grade when the 2nd Amendment was revoked, but I remember the parties. Everyone was celebrating, honking, banging pots and pans on their porches. MAV only got stronger after that.

It’s a privilege to live in Baltimore now in the Peaceful Society of Greater Maryland. It’s safe, it’s clean, it’s a perfect city. Trees line the boulevards and are tucked into the tree pits dug into every available corner of the narrow streets.

Wide gardens fill the parks that replaced the torn-down blocks, tended by the gentle men of the Works Progress Administration. Mom’s proud to still live in the house she grew up in, even with surveillance being so much stricter in the city than it is out in the towns. It’s worth it for her.

I snap back to the bus stop and Oath Day as Zeph speaks.

“I made contact with a rebel group,” he murmurs finally. “You can’t tell a soul.”

He can’t ask me to promise that. He shouldn’t ask me to promise that, knowing what I’m planning to do at the courthouse today.

“They need people like me.” Zeph has always been amazing at programming and tinkering with technology. I’m sure the rebels would be thrilled to have him. “I’m meeting someone there,” he continues in an undertone.

“At the courthouse?” Not possible. How would the rebels infiltrate the courthouse, one of the most secure buildings in the city, on Oath Day of all days?

He chances a nod, glancing nervously to the Security Station next to the bus stop, a pole with a camera, microphones, and a blue, glowing button to call for help.

I see it too and erase all worry and concern from my face.

The electric bus pulls up quietly. The squeal of brakes and murmurs of conversation are the only sounds.

We hop on and I check the time again as we head down the aisle.

It’s only a little after 8:40 and we’re on track to get to the courthouse by 9:00.

I’m not sure if that’s enough time to change his mind.