I was a Mistake. Or so I had been told all of my life. Since the government had not planned or approved of our births, I and other Mistakes both like and unlike me were kept in the same place that the Defectives and the Old were kept, a Stabilizing Facility; there was no room for us in the real world. The Stabilizing Facility I grew up in was near the outskirts of our Development, which was on the outskirts of our Colony. It was the only home I had ever known, or would know. I was lucky to even know a home at all for all of my luck. My parents had been Government officials at the time of my birth. Having broken one of the most important laws of Society by not having my birth approved or preplanned, they were "seen off" and given new jobs. Being "seen off" is a whole lot better than being "let go of" though; those who are "let go of" are rarely ever seen again.
My parents easily adjusted to their new lives in the Facility, they had expected to be "seen off". I never quite understood it until I was much older and it was almost too late, but being their first child, my parents wanted to take their chances, and let nature choose who I would be, not the Government.
"I remember being told by my parents who and what I had to be," my mom told me one night when I was six years old. "I hated the pressures to live up to what the Government had predetermined for me. I wanted you to have the chance to discover yourself on your own, and be who you wanted to be. There's so much more beyond these white walls Renae, I know you can find it one day."
Day after day I searched to find the Beyond the Walls she so often talked about. All I ever found was peeling paint, dirty sheets that needed cleaning, and more people such as myself; searching for what they had never been given, nor ever would be. Night after night though, I would look out from my seventh story window and stare out at the world below me. Lights of the Development glittered all around, as people went about their predetermined lives, one I was almost unwisely jealous of not having.
My parents having both been given leadership genes, I suppose I naturally inherited it. Thanks to this I organized a small group of young Mistakes such as myself who frequently helped me start riots so maybe we could find what was Beyond the Walls together. One such riot was devastating to us all and crushed my free spirit for years. It was a few weeks after my 8th birthday and I had become quite restless. Eight years of living in the Facility had done something to me, and I wanted out. Mistakes, Defectives, and the Old were never allowed outside, for fear that we would destroy the "perfect" world the Government had created. Freedom was something we dreamed of, and I wanted to change that. I was older than the other Mistakes in my group, and I was determined to be a leader to them. I would bring them at least a little taste of the outside world, even if just for a moment. For years afterwards, I desperately wished that we had just stayed put, somehow happy with the second rate life we were in some way blessed to have, but then again, so many other things would have never happened.
Evening came that day like it did on any other in the Facility, cold, harsh, and eerie. Shadows cast themselves about the walls and every step made echoed dangerously down the halls. My gang of 5 other nervous girls and boys and I gathered close together and we crept down the silent, empty hallways and down the longer than usual staircase to the huge front doors at the front of the Facility. Two Guards were posted on either side of the door, heads down, bodies hunched over in an almost relaxed position. They were obviously not used to riots from the Outcasts they were Created to guard. Their uniforms shone in the thin gleam of moonlight that dared to peek through under the door. I held my spot at the front as the rest of the group rounded the corner to peek around at them. Nervous sweat was beginning to form on my brow, and I wiped it away with an equal clammy palm. Two Guards on the inside wouldn't be so hard, but who knew how many more would be on the outside.