Free Viral Nation (Short Story): Broken Nation by Shaunta Grimes

he lost balance again. “Saw you talking to Bridget Kingston. She why you’re so smiley today?”
    He hopped back on the wall and walked backward a few steps. “Just saying hello.”
    “Watch yourself, West. That girl is way out of your league.”
    “Don’t worry. That’s not why I’m happy today.” Not mostly, anyway.
    “No?”
    “Clover got accepted into the academy. Boarding and all.”
    Isaiah stopped walking, and West did, too, after a few more steps. “So you going to join the Company?”
    There were only two things to do in Reno. Work for the Waverly-Stead Company, or work for the government. Company work for people as young as West required living in the barracks, at least for training. He couldn’t leave Clover, so West worked for the government raising cantaloupe to send by train to feed people in other states.
    Are you going to join the Company? wasn’t a real question. All West had ever wanted was to work for Waverly-Stead, just like his father.
    “As soon as she’s settled in, I can apply,” he said.
    Isaiah ran a hand over the stubble growing on top of his head. “School starts in what, a month?”
    “About.”
    “You could start training the next day.”
    West’s stomach tightened. He could start the process now. Today. That letter was for Clover, but it sure changed his life, too. He’d been taking care of her since he was sixteen and she was thirteen. Since their father was promoted from guard to executioner, part of one of the five-person firing squads that were the center of the most efficient law enforcement system in the history of the country. Executioners were required to live in the Company barracks and promotions within the Company weren’t something anyone could turn down easily. Their father signed guardianship to Mrs. Finch, but it was West who had taken care of not only himself and his sister, but their guardian as well, until Clover’s care passed to him officially when he turned eighteen.
    “You’ve waited long enough,” Isaiah said.
    Hell, yes, he had.
    West received a similar letter to Clover’s from the academy a few months after his grand gesture. By then it was clear that, official documents aside, Mrs. Finch couldn’t even care for herself. He declined the invitation. What else could he do? Foster City was supposed to be a perfect system, allowing children to be cared for so their parents could do the work of recivilization. Somehow he’d known that system wouldn’t work for them. Foster City would have chewed his sister up and spit her out. But now that she was accepted into the academy herself, he had his life back.

About the Author
     
     
    Shaunta Grimes has worked as a substitute teacher, a newspaper reporter, a drug court counselor, and a vintage clothing seller. No matter which direction she strays, however, she always comes back to storytelling. She lives in Reno with her family, where she writes, teaches, and perpetually studies at the University of Nevada.