Chapter 67

The Overseer sighed, and when he spoke, his voice sounded infinitely patient. “And I told you, keep him. I don’t care. When you ascend to my position, you can do whatever you want, even if it’s outside the Code. No one needs to know.”

“That isn’t fair,” I said. “Not to me, not to Brin or Kyer, not to anyone else in the Colony. What makes youabove the Code? Why do youget something everyone else doesn’t? We’re taught everyone is equal, aren’t we?”

Beside me, Kyer grunted in agreement. Equality was something the Code stressed above all else. The pills kept us safe—and equal. There was no money to segregate the haves from the have-nots. There were no items we had to buy, thus nothing we had to do without. In the Colony, you were born at the same time as the rest of the people in your year, and you died alongside them on a final train ride to the Collection Center.

Equal. Except apparently the Overseer was more equal than the rest.

“If no one knows—” the Overseer started.