Humankind_Saga 1

by Mic Shannon

  The worst were their sleeping arrangements; they slept in barracks-style living quarters erected by the Army Corps of Engineers. Each one held approximately eighty people. There was no privacy, no dignity. It was dirty. It was dingy. It was awful.

  The southern border of the United States had been shifted north to the Mason-Dixon line to make way for refugee zones. It was the right thing to do, and although the new border maintained their sovereignty, it was certainly the most unpopular decision of this presidency.

  Just moments after their arrival, they heard loud yells and screams as they witnessed police in pursuit of a suspect. The man ran through the crowd past them, pushing people out of his way as six officers chased him, struggling to get any real running speed with all their gear. The suspect tripped and fell to the ground when he looked back, struggling to get back to his feet and take off again. Aware of their opportunity, the officers raised their shock guns and fired on the unarmed man.

  He was hit four out of six times, falling to the ground and twitching uncontrollably as people dodged and ran to safety, hoping not to get hit. Cynthia cringed at their brutality, watching as each officer ran up and dropped their full weight onto him, piling on top of the stiff, convulsing body as if it were an armed, dangerous threat.

  They punched him repeatedly while he was still incapacitated. Two officers stood up and kicked him several times. It was disgusting. The sounds of the hits as his body lay stiff made her sick to her stomach, witnessing it for the first time in person and not on a SMART TV screen.

  When they finally bound the man with magnetic cuffs and lifted him to his feet, he cringed and hollered in pain. The back of his shirt was still smoking, and his skin was red and slightly burnt from the excessive shock gun rounds. His lip was busted and bleeding, and he kept favoring his left side, opposite from where he had been kicked repeatedly in the ribs. Patting him down, they retrieved a flattened muffin from his pocket…his only crime.

  She was apprehensive about leaving Manny and the other boys, being the only one separate, but the male barracks wasn’t far. Ms. Tanya had fallen ill once her diabetes medication ran out, falling into diabetic shock during the drive, and she was rushed to an intensive care unit on the other side of the facility when they first arrived. Either way, the last thing Michael had asked Cynthia to do was take care of Manny…and that was her priority.

  It was already late when they arrived, and the night seemed to bring even more chaos. The police were now patrolling the streets in force, shutting down the facility for curfew. Anyone non-compliant was a target, threatened to be zapped with their shock guns and arrested under the new Martial Law.

  She made her way into the barracks, the long stretch of beds on each side sectioned off by three and a half foot wooden partitions. One of the ladies showed her to her new bed, a thin brown mattress with old, unidentifiable stains on it.

  No one spoke to her at all, some people reading or listening to music; about the only thing they could do on their mini-tablets and wristphones. In the back, a few of the younger girls were already scoping her out and whispering to each other. She placed her bookbag on the bed cautiously, spreading the sheets onto the dirty brown mattress.

  “Lights out ladies!” yelled one of the women by the door as she tapped the small pad on the wall to turn off the lights, darkening the enormous room.

  Cynthia stripped from her clothes and laid there underneath her sheets in thought. Hugging the book bag, she quietly observed. Everyone was shifty and distrusting, and for good reason; they were barely free, herded into confined space like cattle. On the bunk to her left, an older lady was sitting up in her bed, two wireless headphones on her ears. She was in her late 40’s, maybe early 50’s, with a pleasant yet reserved demeanor. In her hand, she held a small picture, staring at it.

  “Excuse me,” said Cynthia, trying to get her attention, “excuse me, miss?”

  The older lady hung her head and looked at her out of the corner of her eye.

  “Excuse me?” said Cynthia, waving her hand.

  The woman removed one of the headphones and wiped her face, sniffling.

  “Hey…sorry, umm, what time is breakfast?” asked Cynthia, still famished from the long ride.

  The woman stared at her for a long moment, not blinking and not saying a word. She replaced the other headphone on her ear and laid down with her back facing Cynthia, sniffling quietly.

  FRI, JUN 9th, 2034

  700 mi Northeast of Alexandria

  7:39 am

  C ynthia jumped immediately at the sound of everyone moving around the next morning. She hadn’t remembered falling asleep, only that she needed to keep that bookbag clenched tight, and she did. Her hands and feet were cold from only having sheets to cover herself with, but she had not let that bag go the entire night.

  She sat up on the dingy bed, looking around at the wooden walls of the makeshift structure. Everyone was putting away their things from the night before, tossing on tee shirts and shorts and sliding into comfortable sneakers. The older woman to her left was already up, making her bed and attempting to fluff her flat pillow. Her thin reading glasses hung from a fancy beaded necklace, and her hair was pulled back into an “I don’t feel like it” ponytail.

  Cynthia swung her feet around to the floor, crossing her arms over her chest to cover her bra and grabbing her shirt quickly. She sniffed her shirt and twisted her face in disgust. She hadn’t had an opportunity to change since they left the Virginia college a few days ago, but just like everyone else, she had only thrown a few clothes into an overnight bag when the alarm sounded. Sliding her feet into her flats, she sat there and waited.

  She looked at her wristphone for the time. It was almost 8:00 am. She wasn’t sure how things ran in this facility, but she knew that she was beyond hungry. Her last meal had been around lunch the day prior, and she was now feeling faint. The older lady came from her side of the partition over to Cynthia, tapping her on the leg.

  “Come on,” she said, looking her up and down, “Breakfast.”

  The sun was just beginning to rise over the tall buildings to their east as everyone congregated outside of their living quarters. Already people were starting to form their own little cliques, conversing in secret with each other and gravitating toward those with similar moral views.

  In the middle of the compound, about a hundred feet away from their SWA huts, there was a large open square, roughly a mile in circumference, and past that the headquarters building and the police barracks. At the very end was the café, next to the front gate.

  Manny and the other boys emerged from the male SWA hut two away from Cynthia’s, looking suspiciously lost with no guardian. There weren’t many men, besides those with disabilities or those sent back from military screening, and so the feeling of family had vanished.

  She rushed over to the boys, tending to them with a nervous passion as she made sure they were alright. She smiled at Manny, hugging him and patting him on his head, to which he didn’t like, but appreciated. There was still uncertainty amongst them. Ms. Tanya was still ill, and they hadn’t received any update on her status.

  The walk to the café was long and intimidating. There were so many people all going to one place, with one purpose. Crossing to the other side of the square was a completely different vibe. On either side of them, the police barracks and the headquarters building, both protected by a wall of officers in riot gear, staring menacingly as they passed. It was odd to her; an ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ mentality. She immediately felt the chill of feeling vulnerable. Not just watched, but violated.

  Breakfast was a long buffet line, with food by the pound being slopped onto plates whether you wanted it or not. In the café were civilian workers, adding to the uncertainty of cleanliness in preparing the food. Nonetheless, Cynthia completely extinguished her disgust in exchange for a long-awaited meal.

  It was around 9:00 am when they got back outside, and buses were still arriving with more people. The square common a
rea in the middle had become a bustling swarm from every walk of life. On either side, hidden away in the shadows, lurking by the trees, the State Police stood and observed, covered with helmets and vests, protected with batons and shock guns. Ever ready, their eyes and ears vigilant to any minor offense that could justify the overuse of force.

  But was it warranted? The dialogue throughout the common area as they crossed was barely fit for her ears, nor for the innocence of the young children she tasked herself with protecting. The profanities were thrown around freely and recklessly. People argued and fought over trivial things. The children, all of them young enough to be frightened by it, were instead baptized into it.

  “How did we get trapped like this?!” said one tall, heavyset woman, clenching her fists in frustration, “Look at all these people?”

  “This is an AMERICAN facility!” barked her friend with a stern animosity, “but you got so many illegals coming here, there’s no space left for us!”

  “Just like her!” yelled the tall woman, pointing toward Cynthia with a look of brazen disgust. She barreled toward her, teeth clenched together. Cynthia froze, her heard pounding in her chest. She had never been in a real fight. She wasn’t sure what to do.

  The woman approached and spit at Cynthia, the wad landing on the shoulder of her shirt. She gasped, lifting her hands to her face and cringing.

  “Go the fuck back to Mexico!” yelled the lady, taunting her, daring the young girl to attack, “This isn’t your country!”

  Cynthia and the boys just stood there, flabbergasted at how brazen the lady had been, yet angry that someone could be so cruel.

  “Those are probably all her kids!” yelled the friend, clenching her fists at the children, all of them minorities, “probably all by different daddies!”

  Cynthia’s face was bright red. She had never been so angry.

  “You know what,” she said, craning her neck in emphasis, her blood boiling, “you’re a piece of shit!”

  The heavyset woman’s friend reached for Cynthia, grabbing her hair and pulling. She screamed and pulled her head away, lifting her fists. If it was a fight she wanted, goddammit, it was a fight she was going to get!

  The police barreled through the crowd, confronting them all with shock guns raised.

  “GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES!” yelled one of the officers, his trigger finger massaging the trigger anxiously.

  “GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES, NOW!” he yelled again, still flirting with the trigger, “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!”

  Cynthia and the boys raised their hands in fear, dropping to their knees and hoping not to be shot.

  “Wait, wait!” yelled the older woman from earlier, running up to the officers with her hands in the air.

  The officers directed their weapons toward the older woman, distrusting of anyone not wearing the same uniform.

  “It wasn’t her!” she pleaded, putting her hands in front of her to try and calm them down, “It was them!”

  She pointed at the two women. In a flash, the two women were gripped up and slammed to the concrete, slapped with magnetic cuffs around their wrists and hauled away yelling profanities. Cynthia, still down on her knees, dropped her hands to the ground and began to sob quietly, her jet-black hair covering her face.

  “You okay?” asked the older lady, placing her hand on Cynthia’s shoulder and using her other hand to wipe a few tangled strands of hair away from her stern face as she knelt down next to her.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” said Cynthia, sniffling as she got up from her knees.

  “I hope so,” she replied, scrunching her eyebrows in concern, “Cheer up, you made out okay. You don’t wanna go where they’re taking them.”

  Cynthia brushed off her knees with her hands, looking around at the crowd, “Where’s that?”

  “To the hole,” she replied, “it’s…unbearable.”

  Cynthia stood there for a moment, trying to read her expression. She was stern and reserved, yet caring, but it was obvious her spirit had been broken.

  “Have you ever been there?” asked Cynthia, raising her eyebrows in curiosity.

  She never replied, just flashed a forced smile and looked away, squinting at the buildings that lined the horizon.

  “Hey, just be careful, okay?” the older lady said, turning to walk away.

  “Hey, wait,” said Cynthia, grabbing her by the arm, desperate for a friend, “don’t you wanna know my name?”

  The older lady stared at her for a moment, almost as if there was plenty she wanted to say. Without a reply, she turned around and walked away.

  SAT, JUN 10th, 2034

  Fort Benning, GA, USA

  6:12 pm

  S itting quietly at the foot of his bed with pen and paper, he moped at the thought of losing everything dearest to him. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, less concerned with writing a letter than receiving a response. Flicking his pen, he put it to the paper.

  “Hey Bunny,

  It’s only been a couple of days here at Benning, but I die every moment that I can’t see you. Your beautiful eyes and your smiling face. Since that first day that I saw you, I can admit I never thought we’d be here today…in love. The pain of losing you at times can be too much to bear, but I just wanted to write to let you know that I’m okay.

  I got your address from the National database here when they let us get onto a computer. How is the facility? How are you and Manny doing? I really miss you both.

  I’m doing fine right now, besides of course missing everyone. I feel like I’ve been ripped apart from my family. The food here is okay, but the atmosphere is always hectic. Day in, day out, we run, workout, clean our rifles, and take classes in between our Drill Sergeants yelling at us and throwing our things around. It sucks. It’s really really hard, but I have to make it through. I have to. It’s the only way to see my family again. The only family I have left.

  Tee is doing well. Our Drill Sergeant, Sgt. Masterson, designated him as the squad leader. He’s good at it. It’s almost like he found his purpose. I’m happy for him.

  There are so many people here. It’s almost scary. We still don’t know why we’re here, and the rumors…well they’re rumors but just as frightening as if it was the truth. I try not to think about where they’re going to send us after we’re finished here. Or even how long I’ll be gone. Some of the Drill Sergeants here are afraid to go to the front lines I think, but a few did leave to go back to their units. It’s scary because I don’t know what’s going to happen next. No one knows.

  I saw Mr. Marlow here at boot camp with us. There were some others too. You remember Mr. Davis? He was one of my favorites even though I think he hated me at times. They’re both in a different platoon. Bucky’s here in my platoon, and he still hates me. We got our jobs assigned to us today. A few people got lucky, but almost everyone else is assigned to infantry.

  This week we’re going to start working on fire and maneuver they said. I’m trying to learn as much as I can. I mean, who knows what’s out there, right? I’m tired and dirty all the time. I just want to come home.

  Please write me back. I need to know how you two are doing. I miss you. I just hope wherever you are that you’re missing me just as much. Sometimes, I look out of the window at the stars and wonder if you’re doing the same.

  Anyway, I wish I could give you a hug and a kiss right now. That’s the worst part, I think. I have to go. Please tell Manny that I asked about him.

  Love,

  Michael”

  He folded up the letter and placed it in an envelope, licking and sealing it. He flipped it around and wrote the address on the front:

  “F-31A

  Facility B

  Box 1919

  APO 60000”

  He got up and made his way toward the front of the squad bay to drop his letter into their outgoing mail. He ran his hand across his low buzzcut, still not used to it. He missed his hair, and just like it, he had been cut away and removed.

  At the front
of the room, Bucky sat on his bed with his bunkmate, whispering to him. When Michael passed by, he let his feelings be known.

  “His mom was a crimmigrant,” he said underneath his breath to his bunkmate, just loud enough for Michael and no one else to hear.

  Michael immediately snapped, like a match to a powder keg. His kneejerk reaction was to swing with two punches, missing with the first and knocking Bucky to the floor with the second.

  As they began to tussle on the floor, Michael getting the best of him, the Drill Sergeants ran in to break them up, grabbing them and separating them from each other. Michael struggled, trying to pull away from the Drill Sergeant to continue his assault.

  “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN MY HOUSE?!”

  Drill Sergeant Masterson waltzed into the recruit barracks like John Wayne, everyone locking their body at attention. None of the other recruits had heard the comments, only witnessed the assault. Everyone was silent. He looked up and down the squad bays at the recruits, slowly pacing his way up to the front of the room.

  “You two must like each other, huh?” he asked Michael and Bucky, calmly staring them down like a maniacal gangster striking fear into his captives. Both boys hung their heads.

  “Oh yeah,” he said with a smile, “you two like each other, right?”

  He paced back and forth next to both teenage boys, insanely satisfied that he had another opportunity to break down his victims.

  “Go ahead, hug!” he said.

  Michael and Bucky looked at each other disgustingly, still breathing heavily and angered from the fight.

  “You heard me!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, “HUG!”

  They reluctantly embraced each other, still shaking from anger.