1st 5 Pages January Workshop - Ho Rev 1

Name: Melanie Ho
Genre: YA speculative
Title: THE RECRUITS

Sixteen years preparing for this very moment. Parents weren’t supposed to be upset on their child’s Commencement Day.  That’s what I told myself as I hugged my mom for the final time, her arms stiff at her sides while I inhaled her strawberry shampoo, praying I would remember the scent later.   As I stepped back, she stared intently at the ground while I gazed up at the few strands of gray hair falling across her forehead.

Was there a way to burn the image in my mind?  I thought about our annual Christmas photos, how more of my mom’s hair lightened from its natural jet black color each passing year.  My breath felt short.  I’d never find out what my mom looked like with any more gray in her hair than this.  Never be photographed with my parents underneath our artificial wreath in matching red and green striped sweaters again.

As if I were a United Corporations of America (U.C.A.) official, rather than his sixteen-year-old daughter, my dad extended his right hand to shake mine.  “There’s no greater honor than to have a child placed at a higher-ranked company than her parents,” he said, with a firm grip and three quick shakes up and down.  Then, he added more softly, “I’m proud of my girl.”

His eyes moved to the fireplace mantle, where he had printed my First Corporation acceptance email on non-digital parchment, proudly displayed in a confident mahogany frame.  Every evening without fail, my dad treated the dark wood to a generous polishing with lemon-scented spray.  For a brief moment, I forgot the heaviness in my chest as I smiled silently at how the hands of any guests who picked up the rarity smelled of artificial citrus and gleamed with oil for hours after.

I waited for my mom’s predictable lecture on how much they had given up to ensure my success in the Corporate Application Process—and, ultimately, my acceptance into the highest-ranked and most profitable company in the nation.  On the wall behind my dad, we had once boasted a ceiling-to-floor 4D television, before they sold it to pay my last year of tuition at a private Learning Center.  My stomach felt queasy as I recalled how resentful I’d been that my parents had forced me to drill for exams with them every evening instead of playing simulation games with my friends or running on the beach with my terrier Spaetzle.  They had invested more than we could afford, instead of relying on the free education I could have received from their employer, Twelfth Corporation.

And now I would never see them again.  The U.C.A. Constitution demanded that once you were recruited to a company, you would work there for the rest of your life—and you were forbidden from socializing with all other companies’ employees, including family members. This was arguably one of the U.C.A.’s most important rules, one of a handful of laws punishable by banishment to the Outer Planets if disobeyed.

“I wish they allowed you to bring more than this.”  My mom picked up my suitcase, a purple metallic rectangle about the size of a twin-bed pillow, with First Corporation’s logo—a star with the outline of an eagle in the center—embossed in gold on one side.

Unlatching the handle, she inspected the contents before pulling out the small pink memory box. Inside, I’d placed a note from the tooth fairy my mom had left under my pillow when I was five-years-old, so that I could remember her handwriting.   A collar belonging to Spaetzle, so that I could remember the sound of the little bell as he greeted me at the front door when I came home from the Learning Center each day.  Printed versions of the last sixteen years of Christmas cards, since we weren’t allowed to bring any electronic devices with us.

“Are you sure you want to take up room in your suitcase with all these?” my mom asked.  “What about pajamas?  Don’t you need pajamas?”

“She’s going to First Corporation,” my dad tilted his head as he replied. “They have enough money to supply their recruits with hundreds of pairs of pajamas each.”

Then he turned to me, “I know you’ll have an amazing time, Lily.  We loved the Work Home.  Best years of our lives.”

I pinched my forearm to contain my tears, and tried to make my half-smile wider and more convincing.  Like all other sixteen-year-old corporate recruits, I would be moving into my company’s Work Home, where I would live and train for four years before receiving permanent assignment at one of First Corporations’ main locations.

I wondered how similar my experience would be to my parents’ at their Twelfth Corporation Work Home.   Would it be as fun as they described?

“You know, Lily,” my dad said, and I knew what was coming next, “the Work Home is where your mother and I met. I spotted her across the room on our first day at the spirit rally where we learned Twelfth Corporation’s official hymn for the first time. Remember that, Cam? You had that blue barrette in your hair.”

I felt my shoulders relax just a little at the familiar image: a blue jeweled barrette tightly gripping back my mother’s—well, a younger version of my mother—straight black bangs.  A few soft strands escaping for my dad to imagine brushing aside as he watched her for the first time.  Although my hair, usually in a low ponytail, fell to my waist, and my mom’s was shoulder length, we both wore our bangs the same way: a little too long, perilously close to completely covering our deep brown eyes.

I had heard the story so many times I could almost picture the moment as if I had been there. On a million occasions, my dad had described glimpsing his future wife across a crowded auditorium: “I barely heard the company hymn, even though it was blaring across the loudspeakers,” he always said. “I couldn’t stop looking at her.”

The tale was inevitably followed by my parents singing their silly company jingle in unison: “We are emp-loy-ees of Twelfth Corp-or-a-tion. Bring-ing comp-ooooo-ter chips, fi-ber op-tic netttttt-works, and other tech-no-log-eeeees to the world.” The words were boring, but the melody was catchy and usually accompanied by my dad bouncing around in a sporadic dance that I suspected wasn’t really part of Twelfth Corporation’s official repertoire.

“You’ll probably meet your future husband there, too,” my mom added, with a glint in her eyes that was reserved for an extremely small number of topics.  Beneath the sly look I wondered if I caught a more subversive emotion: sadness, maybe, or wistfulness. I might meet the boy of my dreams at the Work Home, but my parents wouldn’t be allowed to attend the wedding.  They’d at least be allowed the receipt of a form email: Congratulations, your daughter is to be married at First Corporation next month.

As he always did when my mom wore a distant look, my dad elbowed my mom. “Well, we know who Lily’s future husband is—he’s already been at First Corporation for the past year.”

Since I would never see them again, I refrained from rolling my eyes—a gesture my mom typically rewarded with a lecture about respect for one’s elders.  Acker Rodriguez, my best friend from the Learning Center, had entered the First Corporation Work Home a year ago.