by K A Riley
“It’s possible that they keep the grid down because they want this town to look dead,” Card says pensively. “The Order won’t bother bombing a place that’s got nothing in it, right?”
“All I know is that this war has been going on for what…fourteen, fifteen years now?” I say quietly. “Practically our whole lives.”
“Wars take a long time,” Card sighs. “I’m not worried. The Execs still send soldiers up every year to bring us back down for Recruitment. They’re rebuilding. Obviously, things out there must be going okay, or we wouldn’t hear from them at all.” The words come out of his mouth, but he doesn’t look entirely convinced by them. “Anyhow,” he says, letting out another nervous breath, “tell me some more about your stupid bird’s amazing abilities.”
“Hey! My bird is a genius,” I tell him, punching him on the arm. “And you’d do well to remember it.” I’m feeling extra affectionate today. Maybe it’s the fear of an unknown future that’s driving my need for human contact.
“I’ll believe he’s a genius when I see it,” Cardyn says.
A laugh bubbles up in my chest. “I think Render and I should probably keep his brilliance a secret for now. You said yourself that you don’t want the Recruiters knowing that you’re friends with a bird-training weirdo. I don’t want to put a target on his back, let alone mine.”
“Well, that’s very boring of you.”
“I’m fine with boring. It’s way better than dead.”
“Okay,” Card says, glancing up one more time at Render and then back toward the school. “I’ll catch up with you later.” He turns to jog away before spinning back to me. “Hey. You’re coming to Final Feast tonight, right?” he asks, blasting his index fingers at me like revolvers in a boyish attempt at coolness.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I tell him, even though part of me is dreading going to a gathering that includes every person in town. The limit of my desire for human companionship tends to be one or two people around me at the most. The only time I’m around more people than that is when we’re sleeping, and even then, I have a hard time relaxing.
Card says, “Great! See you tonight!” and runs off, sprinting up the school’s steps and through the door.
Pulling my chin up, I look toward the top of the building where Render is still perched, his head bobbing as he scans the world around him. I give a low whistle, and he takes off into the sky, soaring out over the mountains until he’s barely a dot in the distance. I push my jacket sleeve up again and glide my finger along my forearm. When I close my eyes, a vision flashes into my mind. As the raven’s wings stretch wide, I can see the world below, Render’s shadow slipping over row upon row of pine and cedar trees scattered around big patches of scorched forest.
He sweeps down toward the makeshift shed I built in the woods a few years back, tucked away on the far side of one of the old ski slopes. It’s way past the hunting line, in a zone where few of the Juvens or Neos are likely to wander. Even the other Sixteens don’t go down that way. There’s nothing there but black trees and charred earth, dead and dying reminders of what used to be.
As I watch Render’s destination grow in my mind’s eye, my thoughts shift to the war, to the Recruiters. To my future.
“I can’t believe they’re coming tomorrow,” I say softly, knowing the raven can hear me and can sense my mood, even if he can’t understand what I’m saying. “I wish you and I could just fly off and live in the woods,” I sigh. “I’m not exactly excited about taking part in an unwinnable war. And I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.”
In the distance, I hear a high-pitched Kraa! Kraa!
Apparently Render feels the same way.
2
At sunset, after a quick hike through the woods, I make my way down the dirt path toward the small beach that sits along the bone-dry ravine that was once the Kokanee River.
Seating myself on an ancient tree trunk in the shadows, I pull my long brown hair back into a sloppy bun and surreptitiously watch the others gather around the bonfire. I’ve heard through the grapevine that Brohn, the town’s most impressive Sixteen, killed a deer earlier today, and a couple of the others have already prepped it for cooking. If that’s true, Final Feast will live up to its name for once.
Some years, the celebratory meal consists of little more than a rabbit or a raccoon, usually not nearly enough to feed everyone who’s gathered around. Other times, when the summer weather’s been unpleasant enough to drive the birds and the game animals down the surrounding mountains and away from us, we’ve been content to gorge ourselves on yucca buds, wild strawberries, stonecrop soup, and slightly bitter dandelion wine. It doesn’t sound like much, but it keeps us alive, so who cares if it’s not the tastiest food in the world?
Right now, I can’t really bring myself to care too much about food. The tangle of nerves in my belly has replaced any thoughts of hunger with a growing sense of dread.
Up above, Render is soaring in overlapping circles. Ravens don’t normally fly at night, but this evening he’s making an exception, and I’m glad. He banks right then left in a giant swooping arc, letting out the odd cry to remind me that he’s close by.
“I know you’re there,” I mutter under my breath. “We’re literally connected, silly.”
Render flies down and perches on the log next to me. When I reach over to stroke my fingers along his back, he presses his head into my arm, his beak pointed at the ground. It’s something he used to do when he was little and in need of comfort.
“I could use a little comfort myself,” I say. “I’m scared, too.”
As I attempt to stop focusing on my uncertain future, my mind veers to the past, to a memory of sitting here exactly one year ago, watching in silence as every Sixteen who awaited their fate paced tensely around the fire. No one ate. No one spoke. The Recruits were all too nervous, so the rest of us ended up joining them in some kind of sympathetic, silent freak-out. Anxiety, it turns out, is as contagious as the common cold.
On the other hand, the Recruits from two years ago were gung-ho and totally military-minded. All they cared about was getting out of the Valta and taking down the Eastern Order as quickly and as violently as possible. “We’re going to win this war for all of you!” they chanted, just before the transport trucks took them away.
Given that the Casters remind us every day that the war is still raging, I guess the plan didn’t work out so great.
That’s how it goes. Each Cohort has its own temperament. My class is a strange, mixed-up bunch. We’re not as worried about dying as some have been, and we’re not as obsessed with jumping head-first into war as some of the others. We’re a herd of walking personalities, each different from the next.
My eyes move to a bunch of my fellow Sixteens who are probably talking about tomorrow. It’s funny. We’ve all known this day was coming, but no one really talks much about it until it’s actually here. It’s like talking about will bring it here sooner. Or worse. That talking about it will jinx it, and what’s left of our pile of broken-down buildings we call home will be blasted from rubble into total and unrecognizable dust. Tonight, though, the flood-gates open, and tomorrow’s Recruitment is all that’s on anybody’s mind. I scan the other Sixteens, quietly assessing them, trying to figure out what they’ll do, how they’ll react.
Karmine is faster and better at hunting than the rest of us, a fact he’s never too shy to remind us about. He’s super competitive, too. It probably bothers him to know that Brohn supplied tonight’s meal. Cardyn is generally quiet, like me. He’s turned into a pretty handsome guy, full lips, freckles, and all. Kella is all about following the rules. Like Karmine, she’s eager to jump into the war. She may look like one of those old Barbie dolls on the outside, but inside, she’s a Rottweiler. Terk is as big as a cement-mixer and twice as strong. I like him a lot, although we have absolutely nothing in common. Plus, he’s tall, so it hurts my neck to try to talk to him. Rain is brilliant, gorgeous, super flirty with the guy
s, and oozes confidence from every pore despite being barely five feet tall. I don’t like her as much as the others. Amaranthine is paranoid and slightly psycho, a long-haired and constantly disheveled wild card who I kind of like anyway without knowing why. Like me, she’s not big on social gatherings and will probably slip away from Final Feast long before the night’s over.
Last, but never least, of course, is Brohn. He’s a natural leader. Textbook handsome. Eyes that manage to be scary and pretty at the same time. They’re so blue they’re practically silver. Everyone looks up to him, even though he constantly tells them not to. As the dominant member of the group, though, he’s ended up being a reluctant commander to the rest of us.
Our group has spent so much time teaching and training the Neos and Juvens over the last couple of years that we haven’t even particularly gotten to know each other. Maybe it’s because we’re the last class that remembers what life was like before the first attacks. And we’re the first ones who have really started to wonder if the war will ever end, or if it will just swallow us up like it has everyone who’s gone before us.
As I skulk in the shadows, I can’t help but notice the atmosphere on the beach has begun to settle into the same nervous, frightened energy that I’m feeling. Not at all festive like it’s supposed to be. True, we’re about to eat better than we have in months, but I know without asking that almost every Sixteen is feeling the same sense of profound dread that I am. What’s supposed to be a celebration—a coming of age ceremony of sorts—is injecting a heavy dose of anxiety and fear into our bloodstreams.
Well, not quite all of us. Karmine and Kella have been talking non-stop for the last year about how much they’re looking forward to getting uniforms, weapons, and training. In the high school’s underground cafeteria, they strategize like generals about how they’d take out the Order’s bombers, snipers, and drones. While the rest of us are on assignment, cleaning up debris or gathering building materials, they’re off reading about battle tactics in old library books, high-fiving each other, and bragging about all the enemy kills they’re planning to rack up.
To hear them tell it, they’re going to make it into Special Ops and save the world all on their own. The two of them spend half their day fantasizing about a glorious future and the other half watching the viz-screens, hoping for new footage of the war zones to see what carnage our side has wrought.
I’ve never been able to stand the broadcasts. I’ve always despised the Casters, with those gleaming grins plastered on their faces despite the chaos they report on all day long. It’s like they’re oblivious, unfeeling constructs, numb to death and destruction.
Then there are the weekly addresses by President Krug, who’s always dressed in grey suits with a bright red tie. Always with the same slicked back hair and ice-cold expression in his eyes as he announces both sides’ casualty numbers for the week.
He follows that up with a cheery declaration, made through chapped lips and crooked yellow teeth, about all the enemies we’ve managed to take out. We can see all those numbers on the scroll at the bottom of the viz-screen, but President Krug takes special pride in announcing them as part of his regular address. Images of the dead flash on the screen for a second here and there, but they’re quickly replaced with footage of happy Recruits training, shooting at targets, saluting, marching.
It’s no wonder we’re all so confused. We have no idea if we should look forward to a bright future or be terrified of certain death.
Over by the bonfire, some of the younger boys are fussing over Brohn’s skinned deer, which they’re rotating slowly on a spit-skewer. Tiny orange sparks dance up into the air like a swarm of fireflies that flicker, rise, and die. It’s one of the prettiest things I’ve seen in a long time. The mountains surrounding the Valta used to seem pretty, too, but now all I see when I look at them are the imposing walls of a penitentiary.
It seems ironic, but I think I’m going to miss these little moments of light in the monotonous fight for survival that defines the rest of the year in this place. A life that’s all about routine and the pressure to just stay alive can be a double-edged sword. There’s comfort in routine, but that comfort comes with boredom and with frequent anxiety about what might happen when that routine is finally broken.
The air along the beach begins to fill with the smell of meat, along with the mountain sage, juniper berries, and wild fennel we sometimes use for seasoning. The pleasant aroma mingles briefly with a foul stench of decay rising up from somewhere in the woods behind me. The two scents fight for dominance as I inhale, and I take in as much of the good smell as I can and try to exhale the bad, filtering it from my body and mind.
I don’t want to recall rot and decay when I think back to my last night in the Valta.
A couple dozen kids are talking about the Order and the war while I sit quietly, listening, aware that I blend into the long shadows cast along the beach by the rising fire. Some others are jostling and joking around, churning up contemptuous laughs at the concept of an army of violent psychopaths that would kill them as soon as look at them. We all have ways of trying to cover up our fear.
Of course, most of the laughing kids have nothing to worry about. Most are Juvens, the younger kids who will be around the Valta for a few years yet. As long as there are no more drone attacks, all they have to look forward to is Recruitment in a few years and the possibility of peace.
From my quiet perch on the periphery of our small society, I’ve memorized the back of every kid in town. Not just the Sixteens, either. I know the Juvens just as well: Sophie’s wavy black ponytail. Vella’s impossibly tiny waist and curvy hips that signal how close she is to growing up. The long, rubbery scar behind Spence’s ear from when he fell into the ravine when we were kids. Cici’s weird sense of humor and her long, tapered calves like sculpted ivory. Justin’s clumsiness and prematurely thinning hair. Talia’s ballerina neck. By this time tomorrow, I’ll be gone, and they’ll be the ones running things.
The Juvens technically start at age thirteen. They’re the ones who will follow in our footsteps over the next couple of years. The Neos, of course, are too young to worry about anything, so they spend their time bouncing around, asking dumb questions, and getting underfoot while the older members of the town’s population try to get things done. The Neos don’t remember anything about the world as it was before the Valta was attacked. Most of them would have been babies or toddlers when the first of the raids happened, so this is the only life—the only world—they’ve ever known.
Our town’s history is pretty simple. The Valta started out as a trading post a long time ago. It was a hub of activity between settlers, people passing through, and the small pockets of native people who called this area home. Then it became a mining town, before bigger and better silver and mineral ore deposits were discovered over on the other side of the western mountains.
Eventually, it turned into the tucked-away town we all knew as kids. Four traffic lights, one gas station, the bandshell, two cafés, the Anasazi Heritage Center, and a white and blue sign welcoming visitors to The Best Kept Secret of the West. The businesses and homes run by our parents were long since bombed out. The Fisherman’s Market. The Vonn Family Ski and Snowboard Repair Room. Keith’s Bike and Hike Equipment Rental. The Valta Souvenir Shop. Andrea’s Tea Room. The Backpackers’ Bar and Grill. The Fresh Company grocery store. The small chalets and bed and breakfasts along Center Street. They all lie in ruin.
Now only their foundations remain. We’ve cleared away the rest over the years. After the Invasion, the older teenagers pulled together, organized the younger kids, and somehow managed to keep things running. After the government locked us in, they air-dropped supplies from time to time, but eventually even those dried up, and we quickly learned that we were going to have to fend for ourselves.
Every year, when the newest group of Sixteens gets recruited and becomes Seventeens, the next batch steps up to take their place. They arrange hunting and wood-gathering
squads, cooking schedules, and clean-up patrols. They take over the teaching duties and run the lessons and hands-on activities we keep building on with each passing year. We’re like a colony of ants. We do what we need to do. We learn to cooperate, all just so we can survive another day.
I give Render’s head one last stroke and bid him a silent Goodnight. He flies up to perch on a tree limb where he’ll entertain himself watching the gathering below before tucking himself in for the night.
I miss him already. But I need to get used to being on my own, and so does he.
I tell myself to try to enjoy this moment of relative calm while I can. The deer meat roasting over the fire smells amazing. It could definitely be one of the best meals we’ve ever had.
For some of us, it could also be the last.
3
“Kress!”
Cardyn’s voice startles me out of my reverie. I turn my head and narrow my eyes into the darkness until I spot him plodding toward me through the soft sand.
“Hey,” I say as he drops down next to me, adjusting himself until he finds a comfortable position on the log.
“What are you doing over here by yourself?”
“I’m not by myself,” I say, hugging my arms around my shoulders to ward off the chilly evening air. “You’re here.”
He puffs out his chest and drops his voice to his most manly baritone. “You’re right, little lady. As long as I’m around, you’ll never have to be by yourself.”
I resist the urge to gag. Barely. “Hey, thanks. But I like being alone, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Card slides a hand through his mop of reddish-blond hair. “Okay. Then as long I’m around, you’ll never have to be lonely. How’s that?” His voice betrays embarrassment, and I feel a little bad about being snarky to him.
“Good enough,” I reply.
