Free The Beneath by S. C. Ransom

down there? Do you even know?
    Aria shrugged briefly. “Hundreds of years, that’s all I know.”
    “Wow.” I sat back, looking at her. “It’s a lot to take in. So he set up the Community as a refuge, taking in people who felt like he did?”
    She nodded. “A whole new community, a new way of life, with new rules and a new purpose.”
    “So has no one else left over the years? You can’t be the first one to run away, surely?”
    “People have disappeared before, but no one ever mentions them. There are stories though – does no one up Above suspect anything about us?”
    “Absolutely nothing that I’ve heard. We could check on the Internet to see if there are any rumours out there, but I guess you’ve done a good job at keeping things secret.” I hesitated for a moment, but there was one question I was dying to ask. “So what were the creatures he followed? What helped him?”
    “It was the mice. He followed a stream of mice.”
    I shuddered.
    “Oh, don’t think that.” Aria smiled at me. “The mice are very useful in lots of ways. The meat can be a little tough if they are too old, but in a stew they taste delicious.”
    “What! You can’t be serious.” I tried to keep my voice down. “That’s gross.”
    “It’s what they had to eat. If you have a choice of only mushrooms, bats and mice, mice is the best option. Batstaste horrible.” She pulled a face as I tried not to gag.
    “Do you still eat that now?”
    Aria nodded. “Not just that though. The Listeners bring food down when they can – things that have been thrown away up here. Sometimes we get sacks of the sandwiches packed in little cardboard boxes. They’re my favourite.”
    I wondered what the supermarkets and coffee shops would think if they knew that their donated sandwiches actually ended up underground. “The Listeners must get into trouble occasionally,” I said. “That food is supposed to be for the homeless.”
    “I think they do sometimes.” For a second or two she stared out of the window again, looking up towards the small patch of sky that was visible between the buildings. “Everyone respects the Listeners. They do a job that very few people want to do, but only the smartest get selected to do it.”
    There was something wistful in her tone.
    “Is that what you wanted to do?” I asked.
    “Ha!” she said, shaking her head. “As if I’d have the chance! Yes, I’d love to have been a Listener, and I know I’m smart enough. I wanted to come up here to check that everything was safe, to get the essentials for us all to live as we want. But the Farmer’s rules say no.”
    I waited for a moment to see if she was going to continue, but she carried on staring out of the window. I gave her a quick nudge.
    “Which rules, Aria? Tell me.”
    She shook her head again. “I never wanted to leave my world, but the Farmer has made it too dangerous a place to be. And now I’m up here and see all the things that women can do, but that we are never allowed to do, I wonder what would be better – him gone, or me?”
    There was a real note of bitterness in her voice.
    “Come on then, tell me,” I said. “You mentioned yesterday that you had been given your Assignment. What had they Assigned you to do that made you run away?”
     
    I can’t tell her the whole truth, not yet.
    “I was Assigned to be a Breeder,” I whispered.
    Lily’s mouth drops open.
    “You mean, having to have kids? At sixteen? No way!”
    “I’m not lying, I promise.”
    “No,” she says. “I mean, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. That’s terrible.”
    And then she asks me the question that makes me shudder to answer.
    “Do you get to choose the father?” Her voice is hesitant, her hands still pressed against her cheeks. “Who do you have to have the kids with?”
    “No, there’s no choice. It’s usually one of the Elders. I don’t even want to think about it.”
    “The Elders?” she squeaks. “I’m so sorry, Aria, that’s worse than