Free Unworthy: Marked to die. Raised to survive. by Joanne Armstrong Page A

angles it towards me so that I can see the square screen. It’s a map.
    There are a couple of buttons and arrows on the sides of the device, and he flicks these so that the picture on the screen pans out. I’m looking at the whole of our island, shaped roughly like a dog’s bone, with the curves and inlets of bays and sounds on the coasts. The hostile mountain range along the western border of my sector appears simply as a bumpy line stretching far to the north and south. I’ve seen a map like this before many times in school. The officer flicks a button and suddenly there are vivid red lines overlaid on the map, indicating the sector boundaries. There are six eastern sectors and four western ones. Each sector is shaded, and I notice that all six eastern sectors are the same shade of pale pink. The mountain range divides the island. West of this, the sectors are thinner, and vary in shade. The northernmost, Seven, is deep red, a hook looping round into the ocean. Below it, Sectors Eight and Nine are a mid shade; neither dark nor light. Sector Ten is pale and blends with the eastern areas. Off the coast, far to the south, a small island is indicated in a deep vermillion. The island was not on my map at school and has no number.
    “I’ve seen the map of the Sector boundaries before, but what do the colours mean?” I ask him. I’m half expecting him to tell me to pull my head in and to turn off the machine, but he doesn’t.
    “The colours indicate Polis presence. The paler the shade, the safer the sector,” he replies.
    “So the western sectors…”
    “These ones have been running independently from the Polis since the Isolation.” He indicates them on the map, the ones with darker colours. “They’re fairly hazardous.”
    This is news to me. We are taught in school and via the screens in our pods that the Polis is keeping peace throughout our whole country and that there are hubs in all sectors.
    He catches sight of my look of surprise. “You didn’t know?” he asks.
    “How could I know?” I reply.
    He shrugs. “You seemed fairly familiar with the Firstborn at your pod. It would be against the law, but maybe he said something.”
    “No.” Bastian has never mentioned that parts of our country are still unsafe. I can imagine why. It would fit with his desire to protect me from anything unpleasant. However, I can’t help wondering if there are other things the Firstborn know. It makes me think of Hayes’ comment about cotton wool.
    The soldier is manipulating the map on the screen. He zooms in a little and all I can see are Sectors Three and Four. Pale pink.
    “Your hub.” He taps the monitor at Greytown. “We’re here.” Slightly inland. “Our route.” His fingertip traces a route further inland, almost to the mountains, the natural boundary of Sector Four, then moves north into Sector Three and east to the Polis. The Pureborn city is two hundred kilometres north of Greytown in a straight line, but his finger completes a huge semi-circle.
    I formulate one of my many questions. “Why not go straight there?”
    “We need to avoid the checkpoints and any military interest.”
    So no roads. “Why?”
    “Your arrival in the city is a secret.”
    “Again, why?” I ask, dismayed.
    He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s not my place to know, or to ask questions. It’s my job to get you there.” He pauses, as if for effect. “And it’s your job not to make it harder than it already will be.”
    He flicks the buttons on the monitor again, and the picture zooms in. I blink as the speed makes my stomach roll. When the picture settles, I realise that I can see contour lines indicating the rise and fall of the land we’re crossing, and the route of the small stream. Our journey north is criss-crossed with the same blue lines indicating meandering little streams, flowing from the mountains in the west to the coast. As the streams journey further east, they join, the lines becoming broader and