The Forsaken

puts a comforting arm around my shoulders. “You’re safe now, Alenna.”
    I nod. But I don’t feel safe.
    And I can’t imagine ever feeling that way again.

THE UNITED NORTHERN ALLIANCE
    SIX YEARS LATER
     
    AS OUR BUS APPROACHES the Harka Museum of Re-education, I peer out the window at the soldiers standing out front in the sculpture gardens. The sculptures are just broken remnants, long ago smashed under combat boots. The flagpole flies our nation’s flag, an eye hovering over a globe branded with the letters UNA , the abbreviation used by everyone for the United Northern Alliance.
    The driver parks on a circular driveway in front of the museum’s entrance, and I look up. Marble columns sweep fifty feet toward a pediment that still bears old scars from rebel mortar attacks.
    There’s only one day left until I’m forced to take the Government Personality Profile Test—GPPT for short—which is why our class is on this field trip. The trip is meant to show us what happens to kids who fail the test.
    A heavyset woman in a gray uniform stands up near the front of the bus as the door opens. It’s Ms. Baines, our Social Reconstruction teacher. She ushers our class out of the vehicle and into the hot sun. We stand on the asphalt, a diverse throng of kids. Everyone, rich or poor, orphan or not, goes through the same public school system in the UNA.
    “This way, class,” Ms. Baines orders. We follow her up a wide stone staircase, toward the massive front door of the museum that beckons like a hungry mouth. Inside, it’s dark and cool.
    The Harka Museum once held some of our state’s greatest works of art. Now, like most museums, it’s a shrine to our government and its leader, Minister Roland Harka. Instead of paintings, the walls display digital maps of the United Northern Alliance’s global conquests. Armies are rendered as colorful dots, and battles as pixelated cubes.
    Being in this museum makes me think about our nation’s complicated history. At sixteen, I’m too young to remember what a real museum was even like. I only remember reading about them, before most books and digital media were withdrawn from circulation. That happened when I was eight, two years before my parents got taken, and just three years after the formation of the United Northern Alliance—a merger of Canada, the United States, and Mexico into one vast, chaotic nation.
    From what my mom and dad told me, the citizens of those countries weren’t in favor of the alliance. But food was scarce after a global economic meltdown, and people were turning to violent crime. So the government leaders made the radical decision to create the UNA.
    When angry citizens rebelled, military police used lethal force to stop the demonstrations. The demonstrations turned into riots, and then into total anarchy as people turned against their own government.
    Every week our building would shake as a car bomb detonated somewhere, and I’d often fall asleep at night listening to the crack of gunfire. That was when Roland Harka, a charismatic four-star general, took office by force and appointed himself prime minster of the UNA. For life.
    After that, everything changed. Minister Harka united the military by rewarding those who joined him with bribes, and imprisoning anyone who disobeyed. He imposed savage penalties for breaking laws and snatched away the freedoms everyone took for granted. All communication was restricted: no more cell phones, personal computers, or Internet access.
    Anything that could encourage subversion of the government, or simply draw a crowd—like religious gatherings—was outright banned. Then the nation’s borders were permanently closed. According to Minister Harka, the entire country had to be united in isolation to achieve safety and prosperity.
    He also mandated that all scientists immediately put their knowledge to use for the benefit of the government. For Minister Harka, technological supremacy became the key to conquering the globe, amassing plundered resources from other nations, and maintaining order at home.
    “Move it, Alenna!” Ms. Baines suddenly snaps, breaking my reverie and shooing me along a corridor. I’m lagging behind my classmates. We’re heading toward a large display screen, thirty by fifty feet, hanging on a stone wall in the main gallery. This screen is the centerpiece of every Harka Museum. When I reach it, I jostle for position, looking up at the live digital feed.
    There is a name for the