by J B Cantwell
“You poor thing,” she said, her eyes focused on her work.
Mae Oliver
Designation: Green
Designation: Psycho, more like.
Her bubbly demeanor hadn’t changed a bit since the first time I’d met her a year ago, and she was all too happy. It was true now, and it had been true then. She had the blank look in her eyes of someone who was completely oblivious to the undercurrents that cut through this world.
But maybe I was wrong. About her, about everyone who had been assigned to recruit us to the Service. They were all just doing their jobs. Weren’t they?
But then, I had just been doing mine when I put a bullet into the back of Lydia’s skull.
I felt a jab of pain in my hand and made a hissing noise.
She smiled, eyes still down.
“Almost done now. You really did a number on yourself, didn’t you? Ten stitches is no laughing matter. You’re lucky you don’t need surgery. You somehow managed to miss all of the tendons. Still, it’s a good thing you’ll be shipped off to somewhere not in an active battle zone.”
What?
“How did you know that?” I asked, confused. Was it reading out in my designation now?
“Oh, I read it on your chart. You’re really very lucky. I hear there are battles raging all along the northern line. They must really need you in Indiana.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I was silent for a moment, watching her needle prick and pull at my bloody, exposed skin. “Do you know anything about Indiana? Have you met other soldiers that have been stationed there before?”
“Oh, I really don’t know much about it, except that it’s supposed to be a beautiful place. They say that the fields of grain are lovely in the fall as they mature and ripen.”
I wondered about the station I was heading off to. Would it be like boot camp again? Or would we dive right in on our first day?
I suspected the latter.
“So, when do you leave, hon?” she asked, snipping the thread from my final stitch with a tiny pair of razor sharp scissors.
“Saturday.”
“Oh, good. You’ll have some time to rest up and heal. At least a little bit.” She smeared my wound with petroleum jelly, then picked up a bandage from the small stainless tray that held all of her tools. “Keep it moist and under wraps. There should be a medic on board in Indiana, though I hear it’s a small crew out there. Watch out for infection, redness, swelling, pain. This is a large cut, and it’s deep. It’s important that you pay attention to it and keep it clean.”
“Okay. Got it.” My hand still throbbed. “Can I get something for the pain in the meantime?”
She looked at me sideways for a moment. “Usually, we aren’t allowed to offer pain medication to soldiers unless the wounds are very serious. Still, I can probably get away with giving you a couple of tablets.”
She crossed the room and unlocked a cupboard above the shelf on the far side. Inside were at least a hundred bottles of prescription medications, things I knew were scarce out in the real world. She turned, shaking out two tablets from a white container into her hand.
“Use these sparingly,” she said. She broke one of the pills in half and handed it to me. Then she found a tiny plastic container and put the rest of the meds inside. “Just take a half at a time. This is strong stuff, and you don’t want to be high on your first day back.”
No, definitely not.
I popped the half pill in my mouth, and immediately it started to dissolve on my tongue. The taste was bitter, and Mae handed me a small glass of water to wash it down.
The only time in my life that I’d had pain medication was when I was a kid and had broken my leg. The fracture was so bad that I was in the hospital for a week. I didn’t remember much from that time, just nurses and doctors and my mom parading in and out of my room, almost as if they were on a carousel. Whatever they’d given me in the hospital, it must have been good; all I could remember was sleep and grogginess.
I did, however, remember the pain that came after the hospital. Dad was off at war in his first year in the Service, so it was just Mom and me at home. She needed to take time off work to tend to me, and she wasn’t happy about it.
Out in the living room, where I’d been set up on the couch, a small display of Christmas lights hung from the wall. We couldn’t afford a tree, much less gifts, but there was a tiny ray of hope in her putting up at least a string of lights. She was waiting for Dad’s return, for the end of the three-year term, when riches would await her. Until then, we would suffer. Poverty. Doubt. Hope was hard to come by, even though he’d made it through his first year in one piece.
But of course, the riches she’d been waiting for never came. Dad was dead by the time he’d barely started his second year.
One day, out of nowhere, Mom started crying. She’d been alerted to Dad’s death by a simple message that had scrolled across her lens. So impersonal. So permanent.
And my leg throbbed.
Later that week, an impossibly large man had knocked on our door. I remembered him coming in, so tall he needed to duck under the door frame.
He had been friends with Dad. Mom was scared of him, though. Drunk, I think. He handed her a small gold chain, a luxury that Dad had brought with him into the service, hidden in his deepest pocket. Mom opened her hand to receive the chain, worth an incalculable amount. Then he approached my bed.
I shrank back into the couch, terrified of his size, of his deep voice and muscled arms. He handed me something, too. A small golden locket in the shape of a heart, surely meant to go on the chain he’d given Mom.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” he said. “He was beyond saving.”
And then he left. I opened the locket, and inside was a tiny picture of me, his only child.
He’d been wearing it when he died.
And my leg throbbed.
I was only five, but I knew something was wrong. The pain in my leg was borderline intolerable, and I cried myself to sleep most nights, at least when I could sleep. I didn’t understand it then, but now I was sure that she’d been pilfering off the top of my medication bottles. As the meds flooded through me now, I recognized that whatever they had prescribed me, she’d been sure to take her share, to begin the long spiral down into blackness, where she’d stayed for the remainder of my childhood.
Only now, I wasn’t a child any longer. I was grateful to her for hiding me as she’d done the past night. The road to forgiveness would be long, though.
Maybe next time. Next break. If she were still sober. Maybe I could visit. Maybe.
I hopped down from the table.
“Thanks for the help,” I said to Mae, handing her the cold compress.
“Oh, it’s no trouble. It gets positively boring in here during the times when the recruits are gone. There isn’t much for me to do but keep the place clean and get ready for the next wave of soldiers.”
“Well, I appreciate your help anyway.” I moved away toward the door.
“Listen, love,” she said, putting one hand on my arm. “You be careful out there, okay?”
I had never seen her look so serious. And at this point, I felt like anyone might be part of the resistance. Was she, too?
“I know it’s a secure facility,” she went on. “But still, it will be dangerous in many ways. Just remember to keep yourself safe.”
I searched her eyes, looking for some sign. But no. All that was there was the thin green line around her iris indicating that her chip was live.
“Thanks,” I said, not willing to risk any more than that.
I turned again to the door and walked through it, out into the hall.
“Don’t forget what I told you, dear,” she called from behind. “In this world, no one is going to protect you.”
But, of course, that I already knew.
Chapter Eight
I was in bed, the lights just going out. Hannah lay a few bunks away, nursing her own injuries.
Hanna
h. I wondered how our tentative friendship had fallen to such ruin. She had been the one to get me through those first days at boot camp. She had been the one who had my back.
But no, I realized. That wasn’t quite true. Because when it came down to it, she had only really been looking out for number one. The whole time.
Our friendship had never been real in the first place.
I closed my eyes, and soon pictures were flashing in front of my vision.
Alex in the tunnel, his hand on my cheek, his lips on mine.
Hannah standing over me, flecks of spit showering down onto my face.
Lydia, her head exploding with the power of my rifle, her body slumping down to the ground.
I opened my eyes. I didn’t know how I was going to get to sleep. So many terrible things had happened, so many things completely out of my control.
Alex wasn’t a terrible thing. That kiss wasn’t a terrible thing.
No. But what had happened to Alex was. Because, in the end, I wasn’t even sure whom I’d been kissing. Was it him? Was he really back from the phasing that had splintered his mind, causing him to forget even me?
I heard boots on the concrete floor and closed my eyes again.
Then, there was another sound. A whistle, like someone calling a dog.
My eyes flew open.
Could it be? The only person who had ever made that sound in the barracks was Lydia. So who was it taunting me now?
I sat up in bed and looked around. The hall was only partly full. Some of the other soldiers home on leave clearly had nowhere else to stay, just like me. But from what I could tell, everyone was asleep.
I moved my socked feet to the floor, my thigh still smarting from Hannah’s blows earlier in the day, and stood up. A dim, fluorescent light lit up the hallway that led to the door, and it was just enough for me to see my way. I moved across the floor like a ghost, silent, just a wisp of air following me as I headed toward the bathroom.
I knew I wouldn’t find her there. It wasn’t possible. But someone, someone who knew I would follow the call, was waiting for me.
I entered the bathroom and found a single stall door was closed. I walked into the one next to it and shut the door, sitting down on the seat of the toilet.
Immediately, a hand shot out from under the wall of the stall holding a folded piece of paper and a tiny pencil. The hand was dappled with flecks of blood, and I took the message with caution. The paper was covered with it, too.
I opened the note.
You need to go back. They can’t do this without you. They just don’t realize it yet. Don’t stay in the barracks tomorrow.
What? There was no way. Didn’t she realize that I was under investigation? That I was being followed?
I can’t, I wrote back. They’re following me, looking for any slip up. If I’m going to help, I need to stay put and do what the Service tells me to.
I had no intention of even setting foot outside the building tomorrow. And I still didn’t really know if I was going to help the Volunteers at all. Was it worth risking my life? Again?
Well, wasn’t being in battle risking my life, too? I was trapped in this crazy maze of terror, the threat of death around every turn. What did it matter how I died in the end?
The note came back, and a round of deep, moist coughs sounded from the other stall.
You have to help. They’re lost without you. This has been leading up to you this whole time. Don’t you realize? You are their golden egg. They’ve been waiting for you, for someone to take on the system from within.
And what if I didn’t? What if I went ahead and learned what the Service wanted me to learn, if I continued to do their bidding until at last I broke free from my servitude? Would I survive? Or would I be obliterated as I’d seen so many others be?
I wrote back a simple answer, though I wasn’t sure it was true at all.
No.
The coughs rang out again, and I heard the stall door open and bang into mine.
Geez, what was she playing at? Because at this point I was sure it was Lydia. I didn’t know how, but somehow she’d survived. Somehow she’d made it here to try to push me forward, to try to push me into a final decision about helping the Volunteers.
Two feet showed from beneath the stall door, one socked, one in a regulation army boot. Blood dripped down both of her legs and pooled in the top of her socks.
She knocked on the door. My heart sank into my stomach. Were we being watched? Surely we were.
I opened the door anyway, an innocent enough action. But I regretted it as soon as I saw what was on the other side.
It was her. I had been right.
But her ghastly appearance nearly made me scream. Her head and neck were covered in blood, and on her forehead was a small dark hole. An exit wound.
No.
Not possible.
Her face contorted and she approached me. I recoiled, refusing to believe what I was seeing. And in my delay, she saw her chance. She advanced on me, her hands flying up to my neck, wrapping around it like a vise.
My airway was immediately blocked. I tried to scream, but not even a breath of sound exited my lips. I dug my fingernails into her hands as I tried to get a grip and pull them off. But it was no use. I screamed silent scream after silent scream, staring up into the face of my attacker. The face of the innocent girl I’d murdered. The girl who, like me, was just trying to make it through to the other side of a term of service.
I stood up, and she slammed me against the wall, my head hitting the tile so hard the porcelain cracked.
“You have to go, then,” she hissed. “They chose wrong.”
I tried to get a foot out from under me, to kick her in the stomach, anywhere. Anything to get her off me.
But my leg wasn’t cooperating. The old injury I’d nursed for years before my phasing was back again, and my leg buckled beneath my weight.
Still, she pressed on.
But there was a moment, one tiny little moment where air filled my lungs, and I screamed as loudly as I could. A final call for help. The sound of my own voice in my ears was deafening, and it was enough to confuse her, to make her step back. The sound seemed to last minutes, one big long breath of terror and a call for aid, not pausing once. It echoed off the bathroom walls as I cried for someone, anyone to help.
But nobody came.
Then, she let go.
Lydia backed out through the stall, her eyes wide, and dragged herself away, leaving a long smear of blood across the concrete.
I hit the floor hard, confused, tangled in the blankets from my bunk. I flew to my feet, ready to stave off my attacker, the scream I’d been wailing fading away as I looked around and found no one. A couple of heads rose up from their pillows, groggy and confused.
My heart was thundering in my chest, and I turned around, searching. My hands flew to my throat as if Lydia’s were still wrapped around it.
But I found nothing, nobody but Hannah sitting up in her bunk, smirking at me.
It had been a dream.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said. “Just a baby. Just like you’ve always been.”
And she rolled over on her mattress, her back to me.
I had been dismissed.
Chapter Nine
My resolve to stay in the barracks had disappeared by morning. I had been warned not to leave by Sergeant Davies. But I was still shaky from the dream the night before, and I hadn’t been able to go back to sleep, no matter how tired I was. All night I had turned Davies’ words over in my mind, hoping desperately that my friends were still alive.
As the lights turned on for the day, I decided. I couldn’t resist finding out what had happened at the diner. I had to see it for myself.
I had slept in my fatigues, and the clock only read 0500 hours when I sat up in my bed. Nobody was up, not even Hannah. Maybe she’d gotten sick of tracking me for days on end. Maybe she’d leave me alone.
I took the opportunity to slip out o
f the barracks before she woke up. My stomach rumbled after tossing and turning all night, but I ignored it. Somehow I thought I might regret a meal later on.
The air outside the recruitment building was cool, and I pulled my fatigue jacket tighter around me as I walked. It wasn’t so far to the diner, and as workers slowly appeared on their way to their jobs, I started to warm up.
The closer I got, the faster I walked. This time I didn’t slip through the cracks between the two buildings like I’d done earlier in the week. I didn’t care anymore who saw me. Davies had basically put a carrot in front of me, knowing there was no way I would be able to resist going back to see the damage. I didn’t know what might happen to me now that I’d resolved to visit the diner. Would it be seen as treasonous? Was me caring about these people a crime all its own?
As I walked, I found that it didn’t matter. I needed to see what had happened for myself.
I passed by a few officers, but they paid me no attention. Maybe if I’d been acting shifty, nervous, then they might have noticed. But I walked with confidence, practically daring anyone to stop me. I passed them by, and they continued their stiff conversation without breaking apart to follow me.
I would be followed, of course. My designation was back under my control. Whomever was watching the map of the city back at headquarters would know exactly where I was.
And I didn’t care.
But as I turned the final corner, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
Black pieces of burnt wood and large shards of glass littered the sidewalk and street, smoke still billowing up into the air.
I stopped in my tracks.
It was true.
I hadn’t really believed it until that moment. Now, the ruin that had been a jumping off point to the Stilts lay bare and broken in front of me.
I started running, desperate to find out if someone, anyone was left alive.
