Rebel Heart

"So we've determined you have no physical coordination or skills. You don't cook, either."

Lana flushed at the matter-of-fact tone Mike, Kelli's husband, took. The towering, slender man was looking over a list with a frown.

"We have a lot of things we need people to do, but you possess virtually no skills. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were a fed."

"She's a student," Kelli said. "Your family must've saved their whole lives to send you."

"I'm not sure where to put her," her husband said with a frown.

"I was a technology major," Lana offered, unaccustomed to feeling skills sought after by feds were inadequate everywhere else. "You said you have a generator you need help fixing, right?"

"You can't do anything else." Mike smiled to soften the words. "We have someone from Harvard here who can't figure out the generator. But, if it'll keep you busy …" His look was doubtful.

"She made it across Tennessee," Kelli pointed out. "She's got something in that head of hers."

"Give it a try."

"Thank you," Lana said awkwardly, recalling Elise's words that she'd never make it on the outside. She wasn't certain what kind of skills these people had that she didn't.

"We'll think of something," Kelli said as they walked down the street. "I don't think you can fix the generator, so don't worry about it if you can't. If you didn't notice, we have no technology here outside the hospital. We even had to learn to start fire from scratch."

"I never thought the world would come to this," Lana said. "Or there were people like you."

"You probably got some of that brainwashing in college," Kelli said. "You were probably the only non-elite there."

"I was," Lana agreed. "It's a different world."

"At least we have a chance to start over."

Lana gazed at her, unable to shake her surprise that those in this small community were the opposite of what she expected.

"If everyone is reduced to the same level, it might help people remember we're all the same," Kelli added. "Do you think so?"

"I think the elite class will never understand that," Lana said honestly. "There are good among them, but they just aren't like … this." She gazed around.

A handful of people were building an annex onto one of the buildings with their hands rather than with the technological tools she'd seen create structures. Some people dug trenches while others placed pipes in the trenches and covered them again with dirt. Men and women worked over large cauldrons of food in one building while young men and women focused on making blankets, clothes, and other textiles in another.