Benjy and I pushed past the crowds, through the gates, and into the damp street. We sprinted between the aging buildings and ducked down alleyways, and as we passed a faded mural of Prime Minister Hart smiling down on us benevolently, I resisted the urge to spit on it.
We ran through a maze of side streets until we reached the border of the Heights, the easternmost suburb of the District of Columbia. And the poorest. I searched for any signs of the IIs that populated the area, anyone who might be willing to snitch on us for a fresh loaf of bread, but during the day, while everyone was working at the docks or in the factories, the street was deserted.
After the workday ended, adults and children spilled into the overcrowded streets, begging for food. I usually had to elbow my way down the sidewalks and weave between men and women who couldn’t be more than twenty years older than me, but already their hair had grayed and their skin turned to leather—the results of decades of hard labor and struggling to make ends meet. My life wouldn’t be much better. As a IV, I could have counted on reaching sixty. Now, as a III, I would be lucky to hit forty. If I wasn’t careful, I would also be out on the streets begging for more than the government had decided I was worth.
As we dashed around a corner, I spotted a sewer entrance a few feet away and sighed with relief. We were safe.
I shimmied through the opening on the edge of the sidewalk, and a minute later, Benjy climbed down from a manhole nearby. The sewer was dark and smelled like rust and rot, but it was the only place our conversation would be private. Even the empty streets didn’t offer that guarantee. Shields were everywhere, waiting for their chance to pounce the moment they heard a word against the Harts or the Ministers of the Union. According to Nina, the matron of our group home, they got bonuses for each arrest they made, and they had families to feed, too. Didn’t mean I hated them any less, though.
That morning, before I’d left, she’d said we all had our roles to play. It just so happened that some were better than others. We couldn’t all be VIs and VIIs, and all any of us could hope for was food in our bellies and a place to call our own. I would have a roof over my head; the government made sure of that. But now, with my III, I would be outrageously lucky if it didn’t leak.
In the speeches we watched from first grade on, Prime Minister Daxton Hart promised us that as privileged American citizens, we would be taken care of all our lives, so long as we gave back to the society that needed us. If we worked hard and gave it our all, we would get what we deserved. We were masters of our own fate.
Up until today, I’d believed him.
“What were you doing back there?” said Benjy. “You could’ve been killed.”
“That was kind of the point,” I muttered. “Better than being a III for the rest of my life.”
Benjy sighed and reached for me, but I sidestepped him. I couldn’t take his disappointment, too.
He slouched. “I don’t understand—sixty-eight percent of all people tested are IVs.”
“Yeah, well, guess I’m dumber than sixty-eight percent of the population.” I kicked a puddle of rancid rainwater, splashing a few rats that squeaked in protest.
“Eighty-four percent, actually, including the Vs and above,” said Benjy, and he added quickly, “but you’re not. I mean, you’re smart. You know you are. You outwitted that Shield back there.”
“That wasn’t smart. That was reckless. I told him my real name.”
“You had no choice. If he’d found out you were lying, he would have killed you for sure,” said Benjy. He stopped and faced me, cupping my chin in his hand. “I don’t care what the test said. You’re one of the smartest people I know, all right?”
“Not the kind of smart that matters.” Not like Benjy was. He read everything he could get his hands on, and he forced me to watch the news with him every night. By the time we were nine, he’d read the entire group home library twice. I could recite whole articles seconds after he read them to me, but I couldn’t read them to myself.
“Nina was wrong,” I added. “You don’t get extra time if they read the questions to you. The parts I reached were easy, but the reader was slow, and I didn’t finish. And they docked points because I can’t read.”
Benjy opened and shut his mouth. “You should have told me before we left the testing center,” he said, and I shook my head.
“There’s nothing you could have done.” A lump formed in my throat, and I swallowed hard. All of the studying, the preparation, the hope—it was all for nothing. “I’m a III. I’m a stupid, worthless—”
“You are not worthless.” Benjy stepped closer, so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body. He wrapped his arms around me, and I buried my face in his chest, refusing to cry. “You’re strong. You’re brilliant. You’re perfect exactly the way you are, and no matter what, you’ll always have me, okay?”
“You’d be better off without me and you know it,” I muttered into his sweater.
He pulled away enough to look at me, his blue eyes searching mine. After a long moment, he leaned down and kissed me again, this time lingering. “I’m never better off without you,” he said. “We’re in this together. I love you, and that’s never going to change, all right? I’m yours no matter what your rank is. You could be a I, and I would go Elsewhere just to find you.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a choking sob. The rank of I was only given to the people who couldn’t work or contribute to society, and once they were sent Elsewhere, no one ever saw them again. “If I were a I, we probably never would’ve met in the first place.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he murmured, running his fingers through my hair. “I would know something was missing. I would know my life was pointless, even if I never understood why. Even if we’d never met, even if you never existed, I would still love you beyond all reason for the rest of my life.”
I kissed him, pouring every ounce of my frustration and anger into it. The sewer wasn’t exactly romantic, but with Benjy there, I didn’t care. He understood. He always understood, and in that moment, I needed him more than I could ever explain. The government might not have thought I was worth anything, but I was worth something to Benjy, and that should’ve been all that mattered.
At last I pulled away and cleared my throat. The lump was gone. “You won’t have any problem with it,” I promised. “You’ll finish early and still get a VI.”
“If you couldn’t get a IV, then there’s no hope for me,” said Benjy. I snorted.
“Please. Someday we’ll all be bowing and scraping and calling you Minister.” If anyone from our group home got a VI, the highest rank a citizen could receive, it was Benjy. The test wasn’t designed for my kind of intelligence, but it was tailor-made for his.
He slipped his arm around my waist and led me farther through the sewer, but he didn’t disagree. Even he knew how smart he was. “Did you get your assignment?”
“Sewage maintenance.”
“That’s not so bad. We’re down here all the time anyway,” he said, slipping his hand under the hem of my shirt. I pushed it away.
“In Denver.”
Benjy
