I yawn and cover my mouth with my hand, stretching back in my rolling chair. Since it's the very beginning of the first quarter of the year, Advanced Training hasn't started yet and I've been assigned to work in the Surveillance Center in the interim. Surveillance is one of the easiest Intellect jobs in the Civilization. The Center has a hundred or so computers and at each one of them, an Intellect sifts through the live camera feeds from inside and outside the Civilization Center. We monitor every floor and branch of the Civ Center as well as the outside perimeter of the Civilization, marked by a high electrified metal fence. Lower tiered Intellects also surveil the Workers' barracks, the greenhouses, and outbuildings on a separate branch of the surveillance floor.

"Don't fall asleep, Ren, you might miss something," Orrick says from beside me.

He sprawls in his chair with one hand behind his head, eyes half lidded. I roll my eyes; even if I were to see something interesting, I would just report it to a Justice. My screen changes to a video of the perimeter, and all I see is snow, tundra for miles. I don't understand why we have to surveil the perimeter when there are Guard Justices already stationed all along the towering fence. No one, at least in my lifetime, has ever approached the perimeter from the outside. For all we know, we're  the only people left alive in the entire world.

But Jayse's escape tells me that there may be something or someone out there. We might not be alone in this cold dark world. He wouldn't have ran away from the Civilization with nowhere to go; he'd die within a few days thanks to the cold. He had to have been running to somewhere. Still, if there's somebody out there, they've never bothered us before, so the time and manpower spent on surveillance seems unnecessary.

The screen switches to the fifteenth floor of the Civ Center, one of the residency floors indicated by a description in the corner of the feed. The camera shows the hallway, but luckily there aren't cameras in our individual rooms. I smirk as a guy and a girl try to sneak out of one of the rooms, the guy wearing nothing but boxers and insular. I'm tempted to report them just to watch the guards rush in and break up their rendezvous, but I don't want to lose any points for bad work. The screen changes to the match branch of the recreation floor, and I see a man and a woman rolling heavy balls down a lane and knocking over white blocks.

"So now that work isn't as busy," I say, referencing the lull between the end of the previous year and the start of first quarter, "are you finally going to take Elz here?"

I gesture at the match branch, and Orrick scowls at me. The match branch is where young Intellects and Justices can spend time with their potential match doing all sorts of things: playing games, painting or drawing, eating, or whatever else they want to do or can afford with their points. All matches, of course, must be approved by the Civilization, but there's nothing to stop two young Intellects from petitioning for a match if Orrick would just make a move already.

"C'mon, Or," I tease, "You could show her that simulation game you made. It's a real hit."

Orrick's scowl deepens. "It's not that easy. It's Elz."

I roll my eyes. "Elz, literally the nicest person in the Civilization."

"Yeah, she is," Orrick says, leaning forward to rest his elbows and his knees and looking at me intently. "What if I screw it up? What if I hurt her? I don't know what the shell I'm doing, Ren."

I cross my arms. "So you're just going to stand by and do nothing?"

"Isn't that what you've been doing since Jayse left?" Orrick glares at me. "You said you'd fight back or infiltrate the Civilization or whatever, but you've done nothing."

Ouch. I let out of a puff of air and turn to stare at the changing computer screen, ignoring him. I want to protest and tell him he's wrong, but I can't. For all my grand aspirations, I've been sedentary since Jayse left. His departure set me free, but all I've done is wander aimlessly.

Orrick and I sit in silence for a while, and I let my eyes rest on the screen while my thoughts roam. I'm done sitting around. Tonight, I'm making a plan. What that plan will be, I'm not sure, but as long as it doesn't involve matching with Ryke, I'll try it.

"What the blitz?" I murmur under my breath, eyes catching on the screen in front of me.

I lean forward until my face is only inches away from the monitor. Snow blown about by the wind partially obscures the camera, but beyond the guardhouses at the edge of the fence, I see a dark silhouette against the all-consuming white. I pause the feed and watch as the dark figure moves. This can't be right. A person? From outside the Civilization? For a moment I get the crazy thought that it's Jayse, that he's coming back, but I know he wouldn't be that stupid. They'd burn him alive. Plus, who is this person that he or she can walk through the snow without freezing?

"Ren? What is it?" Orrick asks, and I snap to work.

I tap the screen and request Enforcers to the location on the perimeter and then zoom in on the figure walking through the snow.

Orrick wheels his chair closer to me as I beckon to the screen. Questions race through my mind as my adrenaline spikes. There's someone out there.  I switch from speaking Ameratic to Asiatic so none of the Intellects in the room can understand us.

"It's a person. There's an actual human being out there, from the outside!"

In all my years at the Civilization, this has never happened--or at least not to my knowledge. With all the secrets the Civilization keeps, I wouldn't be shocked to learn they've been hiding information about the outside too.  For a moment I wonder if this mysterious person from the outside is the answer to my dilemma. Perhaps to unravel the Civilization, I need to start from the outside, not the inside.

Orrick and I both stare at the screen as the person approaches and I realize there are two figures, one large and one small.

"A...a child?" I whisper.

How the shell can a kid survive outside in that kind of weather? Without insular, they would freeze to death almost immediately, or so I've been told. Even with insular, the arctic weather is enough to reduce a person's internal body temperature, causing hypothermia and ultimately death. Yet the two figures grow nearer, walking slowly and steadily.

I see a group of Enforcers exit the gate at the fence and approach them, weapons brandished. I'm shocked at the sheer number of Enforcers as well as the array of weapons they wield: guns, grenade launchers, rocket guns, electric batons, flamethrowers, and more. What's going on? Are they going to kill them?

I zoom the camera in, and I can now see the figure is a man with a little girl beside him. What kind of man travels with a girl? Both of them are wrapped in furs and wear odd contraptions on their feet; they look like something I've seen in the Curator's books from the Old World.

Both of the outsiders raise their hands when they see all of the weapons, and a few Enforcers step forward. They take the man's hands and lock them behind him, and despite their brutality, he doesn't fight back. Other Enforcers restrain the little girl although they aren't quite as harsh.

"Blitz," Orrick curses under his breath.

We trade a glance; I don't know what's going on, but I know this changes everything. Though I've already done my duty as a surveillance analyst by alerting the Enforcers, my curiosity demands to be sated.

"Can you adjust the cameras to follow them as they come in?" I murmur to Orrick, keeping my voice calm so none of the other Intellects notice us whispering in Asiatic.

Orrick nods and takes over my computer, inputting random lines of code. With a few clicks, he's able to use the keyboard to switch between cameras and track the progress of the Enforcers and the two intruders.

The Enforcers take them past the guardhouses at the gate and then the insulated greenhouses and Worker Barracks until they near the entrance to the Civilization Center. The main door consists of several doors, layered so that the first can be opened and the others kept vacuumed closed. This system insulates the Center and keeps the heat from escaping. The first door slides open, and Orrick switches the camera.

The man is young, probably in his mid or late twenties, but not so young that the child couldn't belong to him. His face is expressionless and he appears unperturbed by what he sees and what's happening to him, staring straight ahead. The Enforcers take the man and the girl to the elevator and descend to the interrogation floor where we can no longer watch them.

"What the shell?" Orrick whispers.

"I need to talk to him," I murmur under my breath.

Orrick scowls at me. "Talk to him? Ren, they're probably going to expel him, and maybe the kid too. Even if he does live past today, why would you risk your reputation to talk to him? The Civilizers still have their eye on you. You know that."

"He's from out there," I whisper. "There have to be other people, other civilizations out there. Maybe he's seen Jayse or at least knows why Jayse left and what he did."

"That's a long shot, Renna. Besides, why do you even care about Jayse? He got you into a blitz load of trouble and then left."

I ignore the jibe at Jayse. "Ten minutes ago, we didn't think there was anyone out there. Now, the sky's the limit."

I feel my excitement growing, and the knowledge I've wanted for so long is now within my reach. A burning in my gut tells me that I have to find out what the Outsider knows.

-----

"Good evening, Curator," I murmur as I close the door behind me and enter the her dark chambers.

In the bowels of the earth at Subzero 19 resides the Curator. The Curator has been many people over the history of our Civilization, but only one at a time. When someone accepts the position of Curator, he or she agrees to care for the history of our past in its entirety, sacrifice his or her identity, and sever all ties with the outside world. The Curator lives a solitary life and bears the weight of the past on their shoulders as well as the responsibility to share our history to those who seek to learn it. To safeguard these secrets, no one is permitted to see the Curator without Tier 3 clearance. For the last few years, I've been a regular in the Curator's chambers.

"Renna, you're back again," the Curator says, and I see her turn towards me and smile in the smothered flourescent light of the room.

I return the handful of papers on botany that the Curator gave me; every visit, she gives me a handful of pages from the past, but only a few pages at a time. According to her, there is such a thing as knowing too much.

"You always leave me hungry for more," I answer.

It's the truth; the Curator speaks in riddles and though I've pestered her for answers for years now, she only gives me small kernels of the past. Perhaps it's for the best; I'm not sure I could handle the whole truth.

"What questions do you have for me today?"

I ruminate over what I should tell her. She watches me with dark, knowing eyes that seem to already know what I'm going to say.

"Two strangers showed up today. From the outside," I blurt out.

The Curator doesn't seem shocked; her eyebrows raise and she tosses her long white hair behind her narrow shoulders. "And?"

"And?" I stutter. "And that means there are people out there! I was right! We're not alone, and..." At the blankness of her expression, I stop. "Did you already know?"

She laughs, her voice silvery. "I know many things, some that were, some that are, and some that will be."

I usually like decoding her riddles, but today I just want answers. "So you knew? Who are they? Are there other civilizations like us? Where? How many?"

It seems ludicrous to imagine multiple societies outside of ours; we've been isolated and alone for so long with no idea that anyone's out there. That is, unless the Civilization has known about them all along. My heart sinks as my curiosity rises.

"Those questions aren't for me to answer," the Curator responds. "My attention is on the past, not the present."

"Please, I need to know," I plead with her, stepping closer. "What's out there?"

Her eyes assess me for a moment, and I wish I had some way of showing her my desperation. Even though she's part of the Civilization, she always seems to be outside of it; she neither fuels nor silences my frustrations with the Civilization.

"Knowledge will not give you the satisfaction you seek; it will only amplify your burden."

"I want to know," I answer.

She watches me for a moment longer then turns to a silver cabinet. Inside it are papers, made extinct by our digitalized society. She digs through a few files and then turns to me, a browned, folded paper in her hand.

The Curator extends her hand, but when I try to tug the paper free, she holds on. "Renna," she says, voice soft, "are you sure you want to go down this road?"

"It's too late to turn back now," I answer.

I can't think about any alternatives; Jayse's disappearance has sent me on a mission, and I refuse to stop now. As soon as they hooked me up to the electroshock machine, the Civilization made an enemy out of me. Even if I wanted to stop chasing the truth, I don't think I could.

She releases the paper and I rip it into my grasp and unfold it. As I gaze at the globulus blue and green shapes, I struggle to decipher it.

"What is this?" I question.

The Curator smiles once. "A map."

My heart soars. She has just given me the key to unlocking everything I need to know about the world outside.