The Volunteer

by J B Cantwell

  “There’s nothing there,” he said, turning to Hannah.

  Her eyes fell on me again, a grimace on her face. She had already read all of the information from my designation.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she argued. “I know she—”

  “Did what?” he said. “Sleep over?”

  Hannah’s face turned red, her blush spreading all the way down her intricately tattooed neck. Then, after a moment or two, her smirk returned.

  “It doesn’t matter, though,” she said, turning back to the Prime. “Our orders are to bring her in, no matter what we find.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Orders are orders,” I said, my voice a sing-song.

  I had known they would take me in, that it must have been Hannah’s goal the whole time. But she had been counting on catching me red handed, perhaps without designation, or maybe with a Volunteer by my side.

  All I broadcasted was innocence, though. They had no proof, and the Prime knew it. Still, he shrugged his shoulders and looked down at me.

  “Are you going to be any trouble?” he asked.

  My heart was beating fast, but I smiled.

  “Nope.”

  An hour later, I was sitting in a small room, waiting for what I could only assume was an interrogator. I thought about the story Mom had made up, and I decided to stick with it.

  Then there was the issue of my hand. I would tell the truth, or at least a version of it. I had seen Hannah on my trail and been spooked. When my mom wasn’t home, I busted through the glass to gain entry. That was how I cut myself.

  My hand gave an unhappy throb beneath the makeshift bandage Mom had wrapped around it. I wanted to take off the dressing, to inspect it, but I needed to stay focused. I needed to field their questions.

  Where had I been?

  Who had I been with?

  Why hadn’t I been visible on their maps?

  My brain buzzed as the minutes ticked away.

  Finally, after what must have been an hour, the door opened.

  It was an officer.

  I stood automatically and saluted him.

  Sergeant Jacob Davies

  Designation: Silver

  “Sit down, soldier,” he said, his voice gruff.

  He was smaller than I had expected, just a few inches taller than me. After seeing so many soldiers turned into Primes, it was strange seeing a man of power who hadn’t gone through the phasing. In fact, I had never seen a sergeant who had been. I wondered why.

  “Yes, Sir,” I said, sitting back down at the table and folding my hands in my lap.

  He set a small view screen down on the table and took a seat across from me.

  “There’s a lot in here,” he said, his fingers pressing a few spots on the tablet.

  I wondered what he saw, but I didn’t dare look.

  “A lot, Sir?”

  He looked up, a smile playing around his lips. “You know there is. Don’t you?”

  I stayed silent, frowning, pretending.

  He turned his attention back to the tablet.

  “Let’s see here … AWOL from your unit at Lac Saint-Jean, then returning a few days later with no chip installed. That sound familiar?”

  Of course it did. The memory of the excruciating pain of having my chip yanked from my skull wasn’t something I was going to forget anytime soon. I still had my own chip removing tool, too, buried deep in my standard-issue backpack. The Fighters had left it for me back in the forest around the lake. Holding on to it made me nervous, but it seemed too valuable to let go of it.

  Davies looked up briefly, giving me a chance to speak.

  I nodded.

  “It says here that you had extensive experience with the Fighters during those days you were absent. Is that true?”

  “I was their captive, yes.”

  An exaggeration. I would have stayed with them, left with them, if they’d have let me.

  “Why do you think they let you go?”

  I remembered the day I had returned to the Service. I had cut scratches onto my wrists to pretend that I had been bound by rope. What had I said then? The truth. Mostly.

  “I woke up one morning, and they were gone. I don’t understand why they left me there at all. If it were our military, I would imagine that something more severe would happen to a prisoner of war.”

  “Indeed. And then, days later, you were captured along with your team, all of whom gave their lives but you in the end. How do you explain that, soldier Taylor?”

  I looked him in the eye.

  “It was the boy. Sam. He had taken care of me after they took my chip. He went sort of soft, I think. He let me punch him a couple times before he let me go. He didn’t want me to die.”

  He looked up from the tablet. “And why do you think that?”

  I shrugged. Why had they let me live?

  “I think he thought, well, I think he sort of liked me. He was always nice to me. The others weren’t.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why the rest of them let you go in the first place. It says here that you were interrogated, that you gave valuable information to the enemy. How do you justify that?”

  I sat back, unsure of how to answer this question, of how to satisfy this little man sitting across from me, all the power in his hands.

  “I can’t justify any of this,” I said. “All I can tell you is the truth.”

  But not the truth in my heart.

  “I was interrogated, just like it says. I told them about the tunnels, but that was it. I wasn’t able to point out the entrances to them because I didn’t know where they were in the first place. They must have found them on their own, which was why our team was attacked that day.”

  I still remembered the blood spattering from Prime Turner’s neck, his head completely obliterated by a spray of bullets.

  My stomach turned.

  He had been our leader that afternoon, and his death was on my head. The only way the Fighters could have discovered the way to kill the Primes, the weak spot in their armor, was if they’d been told. That was the truth.

  But that was not what I had said. Not then. Not now.

  “After Prime Turner had hoisted each of us up to the surface, he emerged, and they took him down.”

  Sergeant Davies tapped the screen and pushed it to the side.

  “Yes. Yes, they did.”

  He leaned across the table as if to whisper something conspiratorially to me. I leaned in automatically. Was he part of the resistance, too? Was he going to tell me my next step? My path?

  No.

  “And I … I know it was you who told them how,” he murmured. “How to kill a Prime, that is.”

  I sat back, stung. He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head, smiling.

  “Oh, I don’t have any proof,” he said, tipping his chair slightly, rocking it back and forth. He looked on the verge of cracking up, like some funny joke had just transpired between us. “Except for maybe common sense. But I don’t really need proof, now, do I?”

  Suddenly, my throat felt tight. He was right. In the end, I was just a girl in a sticky trap laid for me by my government. He could do whatever he wanted with me. Could hurt me. Could send me to the Burn.

  Could kill me.

  And nobody would care. Nobody with power, at least.

  “Let’s talk about your activities this week.” He sat up in his chair once more. “You’ve been a slippery little thing since you arrived back home, haven’t you?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Yes, you have. At first, we just had the girl, Hannah, following you because we knew that you were close with Soldier Davis. At least, before you killed her.”

  I tried to keep my face straight, to betray no emotion.

  Lydia. Dead. Because of me.

  I remembered the feeling of having a revolver cocked up against my skull.

  Still. Because of me. Somehow, when all the excuses were made and all the lies were told, it was
still my fault.

  “But Soldier Murphy wasn’t very useful to us in the end. I daresay she wasn’t as smart as her prey.”

  Stay still. Don’t take the bait. Don’t bite.

  “So, since she’s been so … how shall I say it … turned around by you, where have you been spending your time?”

  My mind raced. Of course, I’d known that this question was coming, but still I was unprepared. I tried to twist the truth into a believable story for him now.

  “Before Lydia’s … execution, she told me about a place where I could maybe find a way into the Stilts. I’d always been curious about them, about the people who lived there. I didn’t know where they were, only that they were on the other side of the wall.

  “But when I got to the location Lydia had mentioned, it wasn’t what I had expected. There were several Oranges there, and … and this one girl with no designation at all.”

  I sat back in my chair, my hands fumbling in my lap as if I were still scared of that first meeting with the Volunteers.

  “Anyway, it didn’t matter. I sat at the counter and asked the man about the Stilts. I told him what Lydia had told me. He was a Prime. I thought it would be okay.”

  “And what was it, exactly, that Solder Davis told you?” He was leaning in more closely now, hanging on my words. This was new information.

  “That I could find out, you know, what it was like out there. I’ve been poor my whole life. I wondered about those other people. I thought maybe I could find a way to help.”

  “To aid in their activities, you mean. To aid the enemy.”

  I frowned, trying to look convincing.

  “No, not exactly. One of the things that I’ve always had to fight for is food. Even nutrition squares were sometimes hard to come by in my house. I couldn’t imagine how those people were finding their food. I was … concerned.”

  He scoffed, sitting back in his chair again.

  “You’re lying,” he said.

  “I’m not, Sir.”

  And I wasn’t. Not about the people in the Stilts, anyway.

  “Alright, then. Tell me what happened next.”

  “He … the man at the counter … told me that I was in the wrong place. He seemed nervous, but he was huge. When he told me to leave, I didn’t argue.”

  “So that was it, was it? You went in, you came out, and you’ve been nearly impossible to pin down ever since. Your designation has been broadcasting from some strange locations, indeed.”

  I squirmed uncomfortably. I wondered where Kiyah had taken my designation on that first day. She had told me she’d gone to see my mother, but had never gone inside. Where else had she visited? Whom else?

  I scrambled.

  “Yeah, well, I was sort of bored, to tell you the truth. After I left the diner that day, I spent a lot of time wandering around near the wall. There was nobody back there, which I thought was weird.”

  This time he smiled broadly.

  “So you want me to believe that you simply left the diner and then spent your time messing about near the wall?”

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t know what you will believe, but the truth is that I was just checking it out. I didn’t have anything better to do. My mother and I … well, we don’t get along.” I held up my bandaged hand, trying to prove that my injury was somehow her fault. “And my other friend, Alex, I haven’t seen him since Edmonton. I went to his apartment, but they hadn’t seen him, either.”

  I looked down at my lap, but this time it wasn’t part of the show. I had seen him in the subway tunnel, felt his hand against my cheek as we kissed, but that had been it. Our interaction had been so fast, it may as well have been a dream.

  He stared at me, a concerned look on his face.

  “What do you know about your next assignment? What are your orders once your week break is over?”

  “I’m supposed to report back to the recruitment center. The message on my lens told me I’ll be sent to Indiana. For learning about explosives, I think.”

  He picked up the tablet again, scrolling through information I couldn’t read from where I sat.

  “Funny, don’t you think?” He kept his eyes on the screen.

  “What is funny, Sir?”

  “Funny that they’re sending you off somewhere so … secured. You’ve done nothing but evade capture since you arrived back to the city, and yet you are slated to be sent away to one of the most guarded places our military controls.”

  I sat up in my chair, my heart hammering again, not with fear, but with anger.

  “And why would I need to be captured? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Haven’t you? You listen to me, Taylor, you child. You’re not invisible, at least not to me. Not to my superiors. I could send you to the Burn just for thinking that you’re interested in the Stilts.”

  For a fleeting moment, I wondered if he had some other way, some sort of access to determine whether or not my story was true. Truth serum? Lie detector? These were terms I’d heard before, but knew little about.

  But if he did have those tools, why was he wasting his time simply questioning me now?

  “What will happen?” I asked, my voice smaller than I would have liked.

  “Nothing. As I’m sure you must already know, we have no proof against you. And someone is protecting you from on high.” He stood up from his chair, tucking the tablet under his arm, and approached me, placing one hand on my shoulder. “But I’ll tell you something that you don’t know. That diner? That man? His patrons?” He leaned close to my ear. “All gone. Because of you.”

  He turned on his heel and strolled to the door.

  “If I were you, Soldier Taylor, I would choose my friends more carefully from now on. You never know when accidents may occur.”

  Chapter Seven

  I couldn’t catch my breath. I doubled over, my hands on my chest, eyes wide with panic.

  What he had said. Was it true?

  I stood up, but I needed to steady myself against the table.

  Gone. Prime Jameson. Maybe anybody else who was there in the diner on that first day. Maybe even Kiyah. Jonathan.

  I thought about these people, my allies in this strange and backwards world. I wanted to go to them now, to find out what had happened to the diner for myself.

  But I couldn’t. It would be stupid to leave here again. I resolved to stay onsite until Saturday when my bus shipped out, taking me to spend the next year of my life in one of the most protected compounds in the country.

  Indiana. I knew nothing of the place. Didn’t want to. Whoever it was that had assigned me there didn’t know much about me at all. This was all too big for me. Too much. I suddenly wished, not for the first time, that I’d never joined the Service.

  I stumbled to the door, holding my injured hand with the other. Tears threatened, but I swallowed them down.

  I would get out of this. Somehow, I would make it out of all this alive. Then, I would know. Then, I would understand what was truth and what was lies.

  I looked out of the doorway and down the corridor. I wasn’t familiar with this floor of the recruitment building.

  Davies had gone right.

  I went left.

  It wasn’t long before I reached a doorway that led to the barracks. I opened it slowly, unsure of what I would find inside.

  There was nothing. Nobody.

  Except her.

  Sprawled out on her cot, dead asleep, was Hannah.

  I walked up to her bunk and kicked her in the calf. I would have liked to kick her in the teeth, but my boot didn’t turn the right way for me to make it hurt.

  She moaned, rolling over.

  I took aim again, this time able to nail her in the shin.

  “Ow! What the hell?” She doubled over, holding herself where I’d made contact, then looked up. “You,” she hissed.

  I took my good fist and slammed it against her cheek.

  Then she was up.

  I was small. Bu
t she was smaller.

  “Go ahead,” I taunted. “Take a swing. I dare you.”

  She did, and I blocked her easily, grabbing her by the shoulders and tossing her to the ground. She might’ve been tops in sit ups and push ups, and even in sniper targeting, but she had nothing on me when it came to fighting.

  “Get up,” I said. “Come on.” I beckoned to her, daring her to try.

  But she didn’t. She stayed down.

  “Alright, alright,” she said, putting up one hand in defeat. She backed away against the floor, trying to put space between us, and then crawled up to her feet again. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know it would go so far. I was acting under orders.”

  “Whose orders?” I demanded.

  “Does it matter?” She moved closer, holding one hand to her cheek.

  Did it? I wasn’t sure, but I preferred to know my enemies, even if it was only by name.

  “It matters,” I assured her. “Who?”

  She got closer, and for a moment I thought she was going to crack, to tell me whom she was working for.

  Instead, she grabbed onto both my soldiers and kneed me in the thigh three times in rapid succession.

  I bent over automatically. That was when her fist met the side of my face. Sparks flew through my vision, my lens jogging across my eye. I was disoriented.

  And I fell.

  She might’ve beaten me then, in that moment where I couldn’t tell which end was up. But she didn’t. Instead, she casually walked up to me.

  And spit in my face.

  I remembered the last time someone had done that. Lydia.

  I grimaced automatically, but I was distracted by the pain in my thigh and cheek.

  “You might want to plan your moves with a little more precision, little lady.”

  She turned and walked away. She knew she’d won.

  This time.

  She had been talking about the fight. But I was glad she’d said those words to me. They made me think about more than just my swollen face.

  The nurse was carefully stitching up my left hand while I held a cold compress to my cheek with my right. I recognized her from my first day in the Service; she was the peppy nurse who’d assisted the doctor in altering my chip as one of the last steps in orientation. As invisible as I’d felt that day, all of us, our designations stripped, it was nothing compared to the freedom I’d experienced in the forest. In the Stilts.