Free False Hearts by Laura Lam Page A

wouldn’t call them tawdry. We helped pick the mushrooms from the greenhouse and send them to the mainland, and it wasn’t easy picking for hours on end.
    They said that Mana-ma brainwashed us all, twisting our minds to her will, forcing us with drugs until we knew nothing different. I looked at Taema out of the corner of my eye. How nervous she was even being near the tablet, yet unable to look away. I should have believed the Impure technology was evil, too. Why didn’t I?
    Other sites said that everyone within the Hearth was there because they were twisted and ugly, with missing limbs and scars and other blemishes. I thought of my friends and family, me and my sister. None of us were ugly, were we? Physical beauty was not something we really dwelt on in the Hearth. It wasn’t important, as God made us all perfect and we had to only trust in His judgment and continue trying to be the best people we could in this world.
    I searched for “flesh parlor” next. They showed before and after photographs of people who had changed their faces. In the after pictures, it was as if they’d erased what truly made them look like … themselves. It was all generic, with no defining characteristics.
    I swallowed, feeling Taema stiff and hurt beside me. That seemed … wrong. Wicked. Like Mana-ma always said about the outside world.
    And what would they think of us, out there? What would they do?
    Taema and I didn’t speak to each other. We read as fast as our eyes could speed across the text, looking up words we didn’t recognize, nudging each other gently when we could scroll down.
    We spent hours in that tree. Taema said she’d had enough and closed her eyes, going to sleep. But I kept reading and learning, and appreciated that even if she was afraid of it all, she wouldn’t rat on me.
    So much of it I didn’t understand. At first, I didn’t want to believe it. I mean, this was all I’d ever known. I wanted to believe that maybe the outside world was lying, making it all up for some reason. For money, probably. Mana-ma said that was all people out there ever wanted. Money and all the evil they could buy with it.
    But deep down, I started thinking about all the ways she treated us and the others. All the things she made us do. Outside wasn’t perfect. I’d never expected it to be. I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, life didn’t have to be like it was in the Hearth.
    *   *   *
    I stuck the tablet in the bottom of our bag and slung it across my shoulder. The movement woke my sister. I knew it was dangerous to take it back to camp, but I also didn’t want to leave it out here. I didn’t know much about technology, obviously. If it rained in here, would the water break it? I knew that could happen with things like the record player.
    Taema was quiet as we slunk back to the town center with our rocking gait. My arms were around her waist, and hers were around my shoulders. She felt guilty. Both because she’d let herself be close to something Impure and because she knew that we wouldn’t be giving it over to Mana-ma. We wouldn’t mention it in Confession. I’d get in trouble, and so would she by default. I’d put her in a shitty situation, and I should have felt worse about it than I did.
    After reading those articles, I felt like I was seeing everything with fresh eyes. I’d seen a couple of photos of cities as we searched on that tablet deep within the forest, and they seemed so unfamiliar compared to our trees and single-story houses. But to hear Mana-ma talk about it, San Francisco and the rest of the outside world was a vast cohort (yes, she actually used the word “cohort” in everyday conversation) of corruption, abomination and filth.
    Now I knew what so many people out there thought of our church, our town hall, our little houses all in a row. Our tidy allotments, or the fish smoking over an open flame. Nathaniel, a boy our age who was missing a leg, waving a hand to us as he turned