Vagrancy

by Stacey Mac

  I remember power, before it had died. For several years, Galore had managed to hold onto small technologies that could be operated by batteries, things like torches and tools, but then those had died to, and very few are making more batteries to replace the dead ones. No new engineers and scientists to replace the dead ones either.

  I arrive home and drag my wagon to the back of our house, leaving two barrels in the underground bunker. My father carved the shelter out of the earth when I was no older than six or seven. We use it to store our food and water, to keep it cool and dry. At the border of our fields is the entrance to another underground bunker, we use it to store ourselves in the event of an enemy invasion.

  My mother, Anne, has begun chopping the greens when I go inside. She has curly, blonde hair that barely brushes her shoulders. Like me, she is slender and of average height.

  The bench she stands at is made from solid timber. She uses a hunting knife to cut beans down their centre. A large burning candle stands flickering before her.

  She smiles when she spies me watching her over her shoulder, “Are you going to stand there all night, or would you like to help out your poor, old mother?”

  I roll my eyes. “Since when do you need anyone’s help, Grandma?”

  Besides my father, Mum is the toughest person I know. While Dad worries away the years, wishing there was more for us, my mother grits her teeth and swallows whatever regret she feels, saying there is no sense moaning about the unchangeable, and I can’t disagree with her.

  She is dreading my departure to the training compound, though. It’s there in the tightening of her jaw, the way her eyes slip to me, magnetic. “One more day of work, huh? And then you can take a break from this place,” She talks of it like it’s a holiday, instead of a boot camp.

  “Thank god, it’s been so long since my last massage.”

  She laughs. “Your last year. It won’t be too long, Tess. You’ll be home before you know it.”

  I nod. Thankfully, this is the last time I’ll go to the training compound. Militia initiates must receive three months of training courses per year until they reach the age of eighteen. Once full maturity has been reached, we are called into action when needed. I don’t know when this will be. Currently, our sector only has a small unit of frontline soldiers outside our boundaries, but they are merely scouting – keeping watch in the surrounding mountains to make sure no enemy advances on us without warning. They will not call on any others until we are under attack, or until we initiate an attack on another sector. At the moment, the war is at something of a stalemate. We are watching the time, awaiting the call.

  I work to appear happy and carefree as I prepare supper with my mother. We chop the greens and slice onions and throw them into a pot with the chicken my mother has already killed, plucked, cleaned and is now boiling on the make-shift stove my father created. Ordinarily we would save chicken meat for contribution, but it’s clear my parents are trying to make these last couple of days as pleasant as they can. As grazers, our survival in this sector is largely weighted on our usefulness, so like the other grazing families; we restrict our own intake of the more favourable meats, and make do with what scraps and excesses we can scrounge. This is another cause for conflict between my father and his opinion of Galore.

  My family sits by candlelight after our meal is finished and the leftovers stored underground in the bunker. We are playing cards, one of the few things my parents carried with them through the war and into Galore. We joke and laugh and chat about light-hearted things, but my eyes keep finding the soft blue of my father’s, the striking green of my mother’s, and behind all their efforts, I see helplessness, and I know these next three months will ache.

  *

  By the time darkness falls on my last night at home, I feel I’ve prepared myself and the farm as best I can. The larger shelter has been stocked with as much wheat as was harvestable. The milk from the goats is in the same bunker, but in crates covered with pine needles and fern fronds. There really isn’t anything else I can do for the contribution. As for myself, my bag is packed, and I’m resigned to face another season of training, whatever that might entail this year. From what I’ve heard of older, graduated initiates, it will be more challenging than before. It doesn’t matter; I can walk into the compound tomorrow looking weak and defeated, or I can walk in looking weak but impervious. My arrogance transcends the first.

  I picture myself as someone stronger – threatening, dangerous looking - someone you would steer clear of in a fight. A tough-as-shit girl that you back away from on sight before she lifts a finger.

  The musings become dreams, and I watch myself as a spectator, kicking the holiness out of huge men, laughing as they cringe away from me. Unarmed, but unafraid, I raise my arms, victorious, when suddenly a gunshot resonates the still air, and I fall. The bullet slices into me, out of me, and my fathers’ voice tells me that I was an idiot; that I should bring more than my ego to a gunfight. It’s too late for the advice; I’m on the ground, only I’m seeing through my own eyes now. My hands can’t stop the river of blood seeping from my chest. I acknowledge that I’m dying, and I think: good; you deserve it.

  *

  “I’ll miss you,” my mother says, her arms squeezing me gently.

  It’s my father’s turn now, and though he isn’t one for displays of affection, he takes me into his protective arms, and places one hand to my hair. “Give them hell,” he whispers, because two fronters are standing a short distance away. They’ve already loaded my bag into the back of the rusted white van and they’re waiting for me.

  I allow myself just a second to squeeze my eyes closed, and then I slide out of the embrace. “I love you,” I tell them, again. “I’ll see you soon.” I wave to them from the window of the van as it accelerates down the dirt road, away from the only home I’ve ever known. Away from the only people I love.

  Already, I’m homesick.

  I swallow the sick that has collected in my mouth and finally turn to see who I’m car-pooling with. There is Felix, another grazer initiate in a seat across from mine. He nods at me and then turns away again. Mia and Delilah sit behind me. When I climbed into my seat they had both put a hand on my shoulder and greeted me. These girls are the same age as me, only blonder and taller, their voices more high-pitched. Immediately they have taken up conversation with each other, gushing as they look out their shared window. Actually, everyone is either chatting excitedly, or else has their noses glued to the windows, watching the world go by in sickening speed. Unless you work in the command unit, the only car ride you’ll ever have is upon collection for training. With limited supplies of petroleum and even less expertise on how to maintain cars, they are few and far between and therefore reserved for the more official duties of Council. Two other grazer boys who sit in the back can’t shut up, and as a whole, we grazers are usually the introverted type. Living on farms, our closest neighbours are miles away, and our daylight hours are too busy. There is never time for socialising.

  I’m thinking our van must have completed its collection when it suddenly turns a corner and comes to a stop. We’ve arrived at the home of my closest neighbours. I only know that this family has two young girls, and that their mother and father have both died in combat. They live with their Aunt or something now. I hadn’t realised that either would be old enough to commence training, but there she is, the oldest of the two girls. A mass of dark, curly hair and so small she might as well be a toddler. Her Aunt is nowhere to be seen, and she is shaking like a leaf as one of the fronters jumps out of the passenger seat and takes her bag. She steps slowly into the van, looking about with quick, nervous glances.

  She looks positively terrified.

  I’m reminded of my first collection to the compound, how big that van looked as it approached, how sick I was when it pulled away. I pity her.

  She stands there awkwardly, her hands twisting together, and it hurts because she is so soft and the world is so hard. Soon they wil
l begin to mould her into a soldier, a killer, and she will return to her home, no longer a child, made old at the age of ten.

  I slide over. She looks over to me at the noise of my shuffling, and I pat the empty space - a lifeline. She stumbles into it gratefully, this slip of a thing, and the top of her head barely reaches my shoulder.

  I grimace. “What’s your name?” I ask her.

  “Tilly,” she says, her cheeks going from white to flaming red in the space of a second. I’m reminded of a fairy tale my mother would tell me as a small child; Snow White.

  “I’m Tessa,” I tell her, trying to smile but probably scaring her. I hold out my hand and she shakes it. “This must be your first year, huh?”

  She bobs her head.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I’ll show you where to go.”

  The relief that spreads across her face is palpable.

  The van trundles precariously over the uneven ground, and we slowly make our approach to the training compound. Although I don’t gawk out the windows like my neighbours, I can’t deny that the view of the hills that protect our sector are beautiful, and perhaps one of the last of their kind. Council tells us that most other sectors survive in little more than barren wastelands. Of course, this must be an exaggeration, seen as everyone needs to be able to forage, hunt or grow some source of food to survive, but there is no denying how lucky we are to be surrounded by such pure resources. The only unnatural element that ruins the scene is, of course, the inevitable smog that encases us, turning light to a dull grey. I imagine that if the sunlight could somehow peek through the pollutants in the air, the greenery of the woods would become brilliant, bright, and alive; not droopy and stale.

  Again, I look down at little Tilly. Her eyes are drawn to an object in her lap. She is turning is over and over in her quaking fingers. Jewellery of some kind – tarnished, but beautiful. The small locket shows a tiny bronze tree, encased in glass with a gold band. Since no one has the time or resources to create something as trivial as jewellery anymore, I can only assume this is a family heirloom, carried to Galore from the free world; like my father’s deck of cards.

  “That’s pretty,” I say, because I’m now truly concerned this little girl is going to turn to water if I don’t hold her together.

  Sure enough, despite my soft tone, she startles as though I’ve slapped her. She hastily stashes the object into her pocket. “Thank you,” she whispers, looking suddenly defensive.

  I try to give her a kind smile. “I’m not going to steal it from you,” I tell her. “Here,” I take the deck of cards from my own pocket and place it in her lap, making her jump. “These are my father’s, he carried them to the sector.”

  “What are they?” She asks, and her eyes widen in spite of her careful stillness. She picks them up, and then jumps again as a few of the cards fall from her grasp back onto the seat between us.

  “Playing cards,” I tell her. “You can play all sorts of games with them. I’ll teach you, if you’d like?”

  Tilly studies me carefully for a second. She must decide that I’m not trying to trick her or steal from her, because after deliberating, she gives me her first, sweet smile. As the van trundles on and I turn my attention back to the window, I feel it when she slides just a little closer to me. Protection-seeking is instinctual. It makes me feel the sadness waiting in my stomach. Not because I’ll miss my parents desperately, and not because I’ll soon be battered and bruised, but because there is absolutely nothing I can do to protect her.

  Chapter Three

  After we have collected our bags, we make our way towards the entrance of the training compound. Apparently it was once a school; a big concrete building that survived the airstrikes at the beginning of the war. On the floors above, vast hallways lead to a series of identical rooms that are lined with beds – our sleeping quarters. The lower levels of the building probably had more walls at one time, but now they are vast, open rooms with enough space for a hundred initiates to train in at once.

  Tilly is sticking close to my side, trying to be discreet about it. I don’t care, but she’ll soon be hauled away from me for orientation with the other first-timers and by the looks of it, she may put up a fight.

  I sigh. Probably should have ignored her, it may have been kinder.

  I follow the wave of initiates flooding their way through the wire fence line and into the lobby. We hustle through another door straight ahead and we are standing in what’s called the Arena. It is windowless, huge, dim, and caging. The crowd begins to disperse, making their way along the walls of the arena and dumping their bags on the timber floor.

  “Come on,” I say to Tilly, who is staring open-mouthed at the dark space. The blood has left her face. I have to tug on her sleeve to get her to move.

  I manage to position us behind a large group of senior initiates. They are tall enough that Tilly can’t see past them, and it seems to calm her some.

  I place my bag at my feet and take a deep breath. Twelve weeks. Just twelve short weeks.

  Just twelve, impossibly long, hard weeks.

  The assembly is suddenly growing quiet and a wave of nervous energy finds me. I touch my shoes together, straighten my arms by my side, and stand at attention at the same time the rest of the senior initiates do, and I let my eyes shift to the back corner of the arena, where the trainers are beginning to file through a fire exit. Leading them, is Commander Snare. Wearing trousers and a jacket, he looks ridiculously short and formal walking among the tall and muscular trainers. These trainers wear their trademark black cargo pants, boots and shirts. They have identical buzz cuts, and after years of interaction with them, I still struggle to tell them apart.

  “Welcome, initiates,” calls Snare. He smiles warmly, opening his arms as though to embrace us all.

  I roll my eyes.

  “How wonderful it is to have you here. As you know, you are here to be trained to protect our sector, but you are also here to grow, mature, and earn your place in our society.”

  At that, the initiates stand straighter. They are all big fans.

  “As you already know, our sector is one of the most abundant. But it is not luck that allows us to live so well. It is our strength, unity and the devotion we have to our army; to our brothers and sisters who we fight with to protect our boundaries.” His voice bounces from the walls and rings in my ears. Anyone who hasn’t heard this speech a million times wouldn’t deny his devotion.

  I have heard this speech a million times, though.

  “Now, in a moment our talented trainers will be searching your things for contraband. As you know, personal items are not permitted into the training compound. Once everyone has been searched, you will each be assigned a room and will report to your sleeping quarters at once.”

  At that, Snare turns to the trainers, who immediately start forward in different directions. They approach initiates at random and begin unceremoniously dumping the contents of their bags onto the floor, kicking items aside with their boots before moving on.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see the glint of Tilly’s family locket, poking out of the pocket on her chest. I hiss at her under my breath, and she swats at her ear like there’s a fly annoying it. I groan.

  Too late, I realise that a trainer is standing to my right. He is too close for me to try and get Tilly’s attention again. I take a hasty swipe at her - at the locket - and pull it out, tucking it behind my back fast enough that Tilly doesn’t have time to stop me.

  “Hey!” she squawks.

  “Shut it,” I hiss. “Straighten up.”

  The trainer is suddenly in front of me, inches from my face. I’m not particularly tall, so he has to lean over. “Did you say something, initiate?” He asks with menace.

  Inches from my face, I can recognise him. He is the head trainer: Trey. Huge, with tattoos covering his arms, and hair shaved in the compulsory crew cut. The muscles in his huge arms ripple as he brings them forward to snatch up my bag. I stare determinedl
y ahead, over his shoulder, as my rucksack is upturned and put on display – but there is nothing there to confiscate. My father’s cards are currently in the inside pocket of my heavy jacket, and I know he won’t look that far. Tilly’s locket, however...

  “Pockets,” Trey barks, a grin flashing across his face.

  I carefully tuck the locket into the waistband of my pants before I bring my hands to my sides and turn out my pockets, revealing their emptiness. Trey seems disappointed. He doesn’t hate me in particular, doesn’t even remember me, I’d bet; just hates initiates in general.

  He saunters over to Tilly, who is leaning towards me again, biting her fingernails.

  For fuck’s sake! I close my eyes and groan, and when I open them again, Trey is looking like his day has been made.

  “What is your name?” he says quietly, dangerously, to Tilly.

  “Um, Matilda G00232,” she mumbles, she clasps both hands in front of her, nervously folding them over one another.

  “A grazer,” smiles Trey, “figures. Well Matilda, you’re not here to milk anything.” He takes a deep breath. “ATTENTION!”

  Tilly jumps out of her skin, then stands ramrod straight, her hands by her sides.

  “Forget again, Matilda, and I’ll give you a more permanent reminder. Understand?”

  Thank god she doesn’t reply, she was raised with enough sense to know at least this much. Her things are searched, and she manages to hold in the tears until Trey moves on.

  They slide down her red cheeks now, but no sound escapes her as the search continues.

  Suddenly, a trainer is dragging a boy initiate from the assembly by his hair. He doesn’t struggle, and the trainer spins him around to face the rest of us. He is released, and immediately straightens his spine again, his face humiliation-red.