The Volunteer

by J B Cantwell

  “And who else?”

  “Occasionally, the guards show up to take me to Wilson. That’s pretty much it, though.”

  I wondered with a shudder what Wilson spent his time with Eric doing. No wonder he wasn’t keen to talk to me.

  The guards. Maybe if I could get ahold of one of them, injure him in some way, I might be able to get out, to get Eric out, too.

  But then what?

  I could go for Wilson, or I could go for broke.

  It would have to be right then, in the moments that I took control of the floor, however temporary, that we would all have to revolt at once.

  It would be nearly impossible. Nearly.

  I set down my plate of mash and stared out of the bars toward the workers digging in the muck. I tried to ignore the pain in my head, but it was making it hard to think clearly. I shook myself, trying to wake myself up as the fatigue of the last twenty-four hours fell upon me.

  Boom, boom, boom went my head.

  The first problem I had was that there was no way I could communicate. People approaching my cell would be punished, maybe even imprisoned. And that was the last thing I needed or wanted.

  I thought about the goals behind my planned escape. Everyone wanted out, but did that mean that I was in the right? Was I making promises I couldn’t deliver on? I wondered if, in fact, I would simply be using these people as human shields.

  No, that was too harsh. People would die, yes, and I might be one of them. But many would survive. There was a chance, if we could dig out their chips, that they could even make it, perhaps quietly trek north to the safety of Canada.

  Me, I wouldn’t have too far to go. I could travel by night until I reached the outer boroughs of New York City, though I had no idea yet how I would get inside Manhattan without being discovered. One didn’t just walk onto a train with no designation broadcasting from their lens. The Bronx was above water. Maybe I could slip into the city from there.

  As the hours faded away, I formulated a plan. It was madness, I knew that much. But the longer I stayed in this cell, the weaker I would become. The food would come less and less often. My meetings with Wilson would become more and more frequent.

  It had to be now.

  Finally, the bell sounded, calling an end to the morning shift on the floor. I picked up my half eaten plate of mash.

  What I was about to do terrified me. I thought of Wilson’s taser, of his baton, of the quiet fear I could hear in Eric’s voice.

  But I had no choice.

  So, as the workers all stood tall, stretching their backs and ripping off their masks, I stood, too, and walked to the edge of my cell, as close as I could be to them all.

  And I screamed.

  Chapter Ten

  Faces looked up. Some shovels dropped to the floor. I heard Eric’s alarmed voice from the cell behind me.

  “What are you doing? You’re going to get yourself killed, and me along with you!”

  But I ignored him. I had the stage.

  “I’m not giving up!” I called out to the workers. “I’ve had enough of this disgusting slop they feed us every day!”

  I squeezed my arm and the plate through the bars and tossed it as far as I could in their direction, where it shattered on the floor. Thirty surprised faces stared, dumbstruck. I found Julia in the crowd, a brilliant smile plastered on her face.

  I caught a glimpse of Wilson leaving his perch, not bothering to put on his goggles or even a mask.

  He was coming for me.

  “It has to be now!” I shouted, my heart pounding hard. “We deserve better than this!”

  A few of the workers, those who had dropped their shovels, picked them up again. My heart leapt.

  “We can do it! We can all do it! If we stick together, they can’t keep … they can’t keep feeding us this garbage!”

  Suddenly, the factory was in an uproar. I could see a group of workers in the back of the crowd surrounding Wilson on all sides. His screams of terror and fury rose up and echoed through the place. Guards were racing to my cell, to do what, I wasn’t sure, but it couldn’t be good.

  “Why did you have to do that?” Eric yelled over the din. “Now we’re both in for it.”

  “You want out, don’t you?” I snapped back. “Don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Don’t give up!” I yelled back in the other direction. “Take what you need from them!”

  The group around Wilson dove on top of each other to get to him, and I was reminded of wild animals feeding on their prey.

  I didn’t want anyone dead. Not even Wilson.

  But I wasn’t the one out on the floor.

  I watched as the guards approached my cell, and I steeled myself for the coming pain.

  Then I saw her. Julia was racing toward me, shovel in-hand. They didn’t see her. They were too focused on me, on quieting me. One of them had pulled out a pistol just like the one Wilson had secured to his belt. I cringed, waiting.

  But about ten feet away, Julia’s eyes grew wide with the attack, and she held the shovel high above her head.

  It came down hard on the man who was brandishing his keys, and he fell to the ground, stunned.

  But she should’ve gone for the other man first, because a moment later, he had his gun trained on her.

  The amazing thing, the unexpected thing, was that she didn’t care. She lifted her shovel again as she charged him, whacking him across the face with the sharp metal edge. Her cry of fury mingled with the firing of his gun, and they both went down together.

  No.

  She had been a faithful friend after all. I needn’t have worried about her playing for the other side.

  She had knocked out the man with the gun, and was retrieving it now, crawling across the floor, leaving a wide smear of blood behind her on the dirty cement.

  “Oh, my God!” I yelled. “Julia. Are you okay?”

  It was a stupid question.

  The man who had the keys was groaning, starting to get up. But a moment later Julia had reached the gun, and as the guard stood up, swaying slightly, she shot him right in the chest.

  It surprised me, the look on his face. The blood that spurted from his mouth. And then he fell in a heap a few feet from where I stood.

  Julia let out a cry of pain or fury, or maybe victory. She dragged herself up off the floor, grabbing the keys out of the dead man’s hands as she made the distance between us. She fell against the bars, and suddenly I realized just how injured she was.

  She had been shot through the shoulder, and blood was pouring through the holes in her suit, staining the white fabric red as it trickled down out of the wound.

  “It’s okay,” I said, to myself as much as her. “It’ll be okay.”

  But she was in bad shape. She slid down the bars, holding out the keys to me with shaking hands. Mine weren’t much better as I accepted them from her. I squeezed my arm out through the bars and chose a key to stick into the lock on the door. I jiggled it, but nothing happened. I tried the next.

  More guards were coming, four of them this time. The floor was chaos as several other people headed in our direction. In the distance I could see that the workers had abandoned Wilson. Was he dead?

  Someone ran up behind one of the guards and jumped on his back, pulling him down to the floor and kicking him repeatedly. The guard next to him stopped, pointing his gun at the man.

  My head was spinning. The last two guards were still headed our way, guns out now.

  “Julia!” I shouted.

  She turned and pointed her gun at them before they even noticed she had one. The first man went down with one loud pop of her pistol.

  But the second, he must’ve known, because he aimed his gun at Julia, not at me.

  I froze, wanting to yell out, to warn her in some way. Everything sounded odd, muffled, and I felt like I was watching the scene play out in slow motion.

  The force of the bullets penetrating her chest pinned her against the bars,
and I watched with horror as blood spurted into my cell from the exit wounds on her back.

  Don’t stop. You can’t stop.

  I tried the next key.

  But he was on me. The guard ripped the keys from my slippery hands … when had they become slippery? … taking them from me easily. Then he stood back, pointing his gun directly at my head.

  I was still staring back and forth between each of my hands, which I now saw were coated and slick with blood. Slowly, I realized that he was still standing there. He there, and Julia on the floor at my feet.

  I shook my head slowly back and forth. “Don’t do it,” I said calmly. I gripped the bars with both of my hands. “Don’t you want to get out of here too?”

  He scowled.

  “The only way I’m getting out of here is to do right by the boss.”

  I chuckled. Like an idiot.

  “Your boss is all but dead.” I pointed to the trawler station where people were starting to group together, leaving Wilson in a crumpled heap on the floor. The workers were chanting, shouting words I couldn’t make out through my muffled ears.

  “Stick with us. We can make it, all of us.”

  He paused, frowning.

  Behind him, I noticed a worker, no, a friend, headed in our direction with a shovel raised behind one shoulder like a baseball bat.

  Jeff.

  I trained my eyes back on the guard and kept them there. Even a flicker of my gaze in the wrong direction would tip him off that he was in danger.

  Stall him.

  I looked the man in the eye.

  “How did we even get here?” I asked him, ignoring the gathering crowd behind him. Their chanting was getting louder. “How did you?”

  In response, he pointed his gun, as close as he dared, right at my forehead. He cocked it.

  But this wasn’t my first time.

  “Don’t,” I said. Just another few moments before my savior would reach us. “You don’t have to—”

  “Don’t you tell me what to do, you … you terrorist.”

  He spat the word at me like it was too disgusting to stay in his mouth any longer. His eyes narrowed, and I could see that my time had come.

  I fell to the floor just as his shot pierced the air, missing me by maybe an inch, ricocheting against the back wall of the cell with several loud dings before finally coming to rest on the floor.

  He didn’t even have time for surprise to register on his face, for him to realize that I hadn’t been hit, before Jeff reached us.

  Jeff swung his shovel, and like the blade of a guillotine, it cut through part of the man’s neck. He fell to the ground, his hands gripping his throat.

  But there would be no survival. No stopping the blood from a wound like that. I stared at him as the life in his face faded away.

  “Riley!”

  The noise seemed to be coming from far away. My ears were ringing from the sound of the gunshot so close to my head.

  I watched the guard as his blood flooded the floor and his eyes grew still, locked in a surprised sort of gaze, staring into the distance.

  “Riley!”

  It was Jeff. I shook myself, then looked up.

  He was on the floor, grappling for the keys to the cells, which had fallen into the pool of blood. He picked them up, coating his hands with Julia’s blood.

  Julia.

  “Oh, my God. Is she okay?”

  I was in a daze. I knew she wasn’t okay.

  “She’s gone, Riley,” Jeff said, finally finding the right key and twisting it in the lock. As he slid the door open, Julia’s body slumped forward. “Come on,” he said, extending one hand toward me.

  I stared back and forth between him and Julia. What was Julia. What was left of her.

  “Come on!” he urged.

  I took his hand and stepped carefully over her body. And then he was pulling me away. We were just a few strides away from the cells when I remembered.

  Eric.

  “Wait!” I shouted.

  I grabbed the keys that were still in his hands, ripping them away from him and sprinting back to Eric’s cell.

  But he was anything but waiting for me, ready to flee. He was on the floor, his legs close to his chest, his arms wrapped around them. He kept his eyes on his knees, quietly rocking back and forth.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled at him.

  At the sound of my voice he ducked his head, hiding it behind his legs.

  “Get up!” I commanded, sliding the key to his cell into the lock. It opened with a loud click, and I pushed the door open wide. “Eric!” I bent over and shook his shoulders.

  “He doesn’t want to come!” Jeff called from behind me. “Riley, we have to move now! Leave him there!”

  I stopped just for a moment, staring down at this poor, tortured boy, too scared to even make a break for it when the opportunity presented itself. He had said it, himself. He would die in that cell.

  Jeff grabbed my left arm and hauled me out of the cell and onto the floor. “Now!” he echoed.

  And we ran.

  Shots were ringing out, but from where, I couldn’t tell. Everything was chaos. This was nothing like what I had imagined. There was no order, no plan. People were running madly around, and bodies lay dead or dying on the ground.

  Several yards away I saw Wilson, though I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead.

  We blew by him and joined a group of people fleeing across the gangway.

  I was supposed to be their leader.

  But here I was, following everyone else, just as clueless as any as to how we might actually escape this place.

  This escape, this revolution, was out of control.

  Below us, the conveyor belts were still running, though now empty. In the background I could hear the familiar sound of a trawler opening it’s hold to dump the contents; nobody on the boat must’ve known yet. To them, it was business as usual.

  Shouts. Gunfire. Ducking out of the way and then climbing over the bodies that were piling up before us.

  Keep moving.

  Don’t stop.

  Jeff still had my hand in his grasp, dragging me along, and our two palms were hot and sticky as they pressed together.

  I wondered where I would go once I was out. But there had been no time for planning. No. This would be all instinct from here on out.

  Somewhere, as if from a distant memory, the side of my head throbbed again. It reminded me of a key element in our escape plans that had never been addressed.

  Our lenses.

  The chips that had been implanted on the sides of our heads. They were still there. Still ticking. Still betraying our whereabouts to anyone who might be trying to find us. Somewhere in this place, or in this city, or in this world, someone had a map. I imagined a large digital table, little dots representing people running across the surface like ants.

  Freedom was an illusion while our chips were still inside our heads.

  I paused, then grabbed at Jeff’s arm with my other hand.

  “We need to go back!” I shouted.

  “What? Are you nuts? We’ve already made it this far. We can’t go back now, it—”

  I turned away from him, but I didn’t let go of his hand.

  “Riley, no!”

  I tried to hold on. I wanted to, to make him see.

  “We have to get them out! Our chips! We’ll never make it as long as we have them! You have to come!”

  I ran flat out in the other direction, trying to avoid the remaining crowd as I desperately made my way upstream.

  It was only after I was at the airlocked door to our hallway that I realized he wasn’t with me.

  I looked all around, like someone searching for lost keys or a toddler or a forgotten purse. But he was gone.

  I didn’t stop.

  I jammed the door open and ran down the empty hallway toward the mess hall.

  Inside, alarm bells rang, ear piercingly loud. Lights flashed through the corridors, as if the sound was
n’t enough.

  There was nobody around. I wondered if this wing was as completely abandoned as it seemed to be. Surely there must be cameras. Trackers. From the looks of it, everyone had fled. Everyone.

  I got to the mess hall door and banged inside, ran behind the counter and into the kitchen. And there she was. Melanie. Curled up on the floor, not unlike Eric had been. I had thought she was brave. No, she was brave. Maybe she just needed a little … push.

  “I need a knife!” I shouted. “Get up! You have to help!”

  She looked up at me with frightened blue eyes. I extended my bloody hands to her, and she looked at them, alarmed.

  “I—” she tried.

  I grabbed onto her and heaved her to her feet.

  “Now! I need a knife! Where?”

  She looked confused for a moment, but she had more life in her than Eric did. Maybe she hadn’t been beaten down as much as he had.

  She hurried over to a long row of knives magnetized and hung on a far wall I hadn’t seen.

  “What do you need a knife for?” she asked, grabbing one of the smaller ones and handing it to me.

  “You have to help me. You have to cut out my chip.”

  Her eyes were wide, and she shook her head, backing up a few steps.

  “You have to,” I said. “There is no other way.”

  I held out the knife to her, shaking it slightly as she stared at it, confused.

  “Listen to me,” I said. “They can track us if we still have our chips in. We need to get them out.”

  Her hand flew up to the left side of her head, feeling around for the tiny lump in the skin.

  “I don’t want—I don’t think—”

  “You don’t have to do yours if you don’t want to. If you want to stay here, or try to make a run for it, that’s fine. But you have to help me. Come on. You can do it.”

  Suddenly, the blaring alarms went quiet. I looked around, but we were all alone. I didn’t know what it meant, that the alarms had stopped, but something told me that it couldn’t be good.

  “Come on,” I whispered. At the back of the serving area there was a door leading to a different room in the kitchen. The supply room. I grabbed her arm and dragged her through it. Then I shut the door quietly behind us and put my back up against it. “Now,” I said. “Do it now.”