Her ancient truck had no onboard computer, but Thandi didn’t need advanced navigation to tell her she was in the middle of nowhere. The archaic gasoline engine provided the only sounds she encountered within the Fringe, the last remaining off-grid region in the Unistates.

 

Thandi cut the engine and got out where the road ended. Before her was an open field surrounded by dense forest. She heard crickets chirping in the tall grass. Wind rustled through the trees. She inhaled alien scents that lacked the sharp tang of antiseptic.

 

It was all too quiet for her. Her son, Davu, had always said the city was too noisy.

 

Her keychain jangled as she fingered the tiny plane hanging from it, its wooden wings worn smooth from nervous fidgeting. Davu had whittled it from a piece of countertop he'd scavenged away from the mechanoid who'd come to refit the rehydrator. He'd play endlessly with his plane and menagerie of hand-carved animals. If she hadn't confiscated his knife, would things have been different?

 

A man approached. He wore a gray coverall. Mid-twenties, but the beard and unkempt brown hair made him appear older. She put the plane away and activated the taser on her belt.

 

"Greetings, Citizen. I'm Thandi from Allied Foods. What’s your name?" she asked, bowing.

 

“Michaelson. Fringe-born. I’m not your citizen,” he said. His green eyes looked over her vehicle. Thandi had been warned Fringe-folk would want her fuel more than food. She rotated the awning winch, revealing a window. She entered the truck and slid it open.

 

"What can I get you?" The mobile food bank held just as much stock as a warehouse once did. Each item required no refrigeration and thus took up far less space. She'd heard Fringe-folk depended on them, but Michaelson looked healthy.

 

"Got meat?" he asked.

 

Thandi held up a Mega-Meat pouch.

 

"I can give you some to take… home," she said, wondering how Fringe-folk survived in the wild. It was rumored they lived in makeshift shelters fashioned out of Unistate trash or abandoned vehicles. The truck was a way to get these lost souls back into the fold, make them productive members of society, or failing that, keep track of their growing population.

 

“Whose definition of productive, Mom? Allied's? We’re cogs in their machine,” her son had said when she asked him why he failed to take the national exam.

 

“Davu, they'll take away your privileges! Put you in a work camp!”

 

“We’re already prisoners,” Davu had said, his fifteen-year-old face scrunched with fury.

 

Thandi had sent him out to blow off steam. She never expected he wouldn’t return. Her hand moved to adjust the airplane poking her thigh. At eighteen, they implanted trackers. If only Davu had stayed until then.

 

"What does it taste like?"

 

The question brought her back to the present. Michaelson pointed to the pouch she offered.

 

"Meat," she said.

 

"Rabbit? Gator?" He took the packet. Opened it with his teeth.

 

"It all tastes like chicken." Thandi was forced to admit. "The texture’s like—"

 

"Snails," he said, returning the packet to her with a grimace.

 

Thandi took a cube and put it in a bowl. She poured boiling water over it, and the smell of miso wafted out.

 

"Try this." She watched him take a tentative spoonful before drinking the whole bowl.

 

"Does this work?" he asked.

 

"What work?" Thandi asked, making more soup.

 

"The brainwashing," he said, pointing to the truck and the packaged meals.

 

Thandi squinted at Michaelson, wondering if he was an Allied spy checking her allegiance. In truth, his probing reminded her of Davu.

 

"We provide nutrition for the unhoused. Allied provides," she said, realizing how often she said that. How she'd come to trust it.

 

"I hunt. I fish. I farm. Earth provides. Feeds my wife and son." He took another bowl of soup from Thandi's hands and downed it in one gulp. "What else do you have?"

 

Thandi saw that his eyes were hungry, not for food but information. She felt naked without her electronics. She wanted to show Michaelson the joys of the technological world. Thandi thought about watching movies while reading on her phone, android boxing, and virtual reality gaming. She craved the constant stimulation that coursed through her veins. Why had Davu been wired so differently?

 

"There’s so much Unistates offers. You’d become a productive member of a society that takes care of its own."

 

"I hear you don't have choices and can't leave."

 

“You can leave, but why would you want to?”

 

Thandi wondered if Michaelson's family knew he was here. Wondered if she should leave him alone. Davu would be about Michaelson’s age now. Was this why she kept coming? Why she handed out food while searching everyone's eyes?

 

Michaelson accepted a box filled with miso cubes and nutritional pastes.

 

From a shelf, she brought down a bottle filled with capsules. Once swallowed, a tracker device within would attach to the lining of the recipient's colon. She had to give one to each visitor.

 

"What's that?" His face was open, relaxed. The same trusting look Davu gave when showing her his plane. Her son had spun the propeller he’d fashioned from bits of wire. “Making toys is not productive,” she'd told him.

 

"Vital-vite, long-lasting nutrition. Take one. Bring the rest to your family." As Michaelson held out his palm, she thought she saw a tiny plane there.

 

“Mom, being happy is productive,” Davu had told her as she placed all his “toys” into a trash bag.

 

She hoped Davu was living off the land like Michaelson. He would have loved it here.

 

She pocketed the bottle. "Second thought, you look strong and happy without it. Oh… for your son.” She took the toy plane off her keychain and placed it in his palm. “My son made it.” Thandi’s throat tightened.

 

"Thank you, Ma’am." Michaelson lifted the box onto his shoulder. Thandi watched him until he was swallowed by the forest foliage. Only then did she start crying.