by Ava Castle
I hadn’t ever really thought about things that way, but I liked it. I liked the way this girl talked. It was just life. She was right, of course. It happened to everyone, whether they liked it or not. Life just happened.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, not wanting to seem too eager to make a friend (something that had been very clearly a terrible idea while I was locked up), “I guess that’s true. At least it sounds true when you say it.”
“Ha!” She let out a raucous laugh that sounded like too many cigarettes and a near total lack of inhibitions, “I like that. ‘It sounds true when you say it.’ I have to say, sugar, I like that a lot. Now tell me. How’d you get yourself into this mess? Not that there’s any judgement coming from here, because there isn’t. No way. Clearly we’re in the same boat, you know? Seeing as we’re both sitting here waiting like we are.”
“The same way I guess a lot of girls get themselves into weird situations. I let some guy I don’t even know talk me into it.”
“Yes!” Alecia laughed again, slapping her knee in good humor, “There you go again. You got a way with your words, you know that? You sure as shit do. It’s sad how true that is. Almost all of us have gotten ourselves into a world of hurt over some douchebag guy.”
“Right,” my throat was thick, my stomach doing uncomfortable little flips over how completely true what she had just said was, “I guess that’s true.”
“So let me take a guess. Some agent dude, right?”
“Huh?”
“The one who convinced you to do this,” she answered patiently, pulling her chair even closer and leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees, “was it an agent? Guy in a super fancy suit and a mean poker face?”
“That sounds about right.”
“I thought so. Me too. So, tell me what you know about it.”
“What I know?”
“Sure,” when she spoke this time I could hear the first hints of exasperation in her voice, “what you know. I figure trading information could only help us at this point, right? It’s not like they’re really watching us all that closely now, although I don’t have a fucking clue why not. The way I see it, the more we know, the better. Doesn’t seem to me like we’re into the kind of shit where being totally in the dark is a good idea.”
She was right, of course. Being in the dark about things at this point was a terrible idea. It had been a terrible idea all along. I just hadn’t treated it like one. And why? Because I had allowed what that agent had to say turn my head. I wanted to kick myself for doing a thing like that. I wanted to go back in time and do it over again, do it differently. Not that I could. If there was one lesson I had really learned in my life, it was that you couldn’t go backwards, no matter how much you wanted to. Still, I couldn’t help replaying it over in my head, those things he’d said to me. I couldn’t help wondering if I’d made a terrible mistake.
“Becca? You ok in there? I say something wrong?”
“No,” I spoke quickly, realizing that I wanted Alecia to stay and keep talking to me, that the idea of being left alone at that point was terrifying, “no. You didn’t say anything wrong. I was just thinking.”
“Yeah? Thinking about what, exactly?”
“About the meeting I had with that guy. With Agent Walters? Waters? I don’t know. I can’t remember his name.”
“That’s the same cat that came and saw me! Real official looking, right? But like he might have been trying not to be?”
“Yup. That sounds like the guy.”
“Right on! So then tell me. What’d he say to you? What’d he have to tell you that got you to go in on this crazy plan?”
“I-I don’t know. I don’t really know how to explain it.”
“Come on, sister, you don’t have to lie to me. I’d be willing to be that he said a lot of the same things to you as he did to me. We’re easy targets, see?”
“What do you mean, easy targets? We are?”
“Sure we are! We’ve gotta be the easiest targets in the world! Take a bunch of women with no real hope. Let me guess. You’re out of appeals, right?”
“I am. How’d you know?”
“Me too. So’s Christine over there. I’d be willing to bet all fourteen of us are. No more hope for getting out makes us an easier target. And it’s not like I’ve got some kind of fancy lawyer looking out for my ass. You?”
“Nope. As far as I know, I don’t even have a lawyer at this point.”
“Right. So there you go. And what about family? You got any?”
That was a painful question, and one I tried hard not to think about. Because the obvious answer would be yes, right? I still had a sister, and she had a husband and two, no three now, three kids who were also technically my family. Except that they weren’t really. Not anymore. They weren’t my family because my sister didn’t want them to be. As far as anyone was concerned, I was about as all alone in the world as a person could get. Alecia, who must have been watching me work through the question in my head, made a little clucking noise and shook her head in regret.
“Shit, baby girl, I know that look. Don’t you think I don’t. I’m gonna guess you’ve got the worst kind of situation there is for chicks like us. Your family doesn’t want you anymore, that it? I’m right, aren’t I? The look on your face tells me that I am.”
“You are. My parents died. Couldn’t handle what I did or where it got me. My sister gave me up then. I might as well be dead, according to her.”
“Huh. Funny choice of words.”
“Funny?” I asked a little more sharply than I had intended, feeling more than a little defensive at her choice of words, “I don’t really see that’s funny about it.”
“No, not funny like ‘ha ha.’ Funny like coincidence, get it? It’s only because of what I overheard the other day.”
“What did you hear? And how long exactly have we been here, anyway? Wherever the hell ‘here’ is.”
We both looked around us then, taking in the room where we were being kept, as if surveying it yet again to get a better idea of where we were. My memory was starting to come back to me, little by little.
“I mean, I guess I’ve been on autopilot since I was taken from the other prison. I don’t remember much,” I added, almost dreamily as I let the bare room bring back my memories.
I had no idea of how large this new compound was. I barely even had a vague notion of where it was. The guards who had driven me in had seen to that. I had been blindfolded, the only hint of which direction I might be travelling in the way my ears popped and the tightness I began to feel in my chest. I had been an asthmatic as a child, something I had overcome as I had gotten older. The only times it still bothered me were the ones spent in much higher altitudes than I was used to. So I knew I wasn’t in Texas anymore.
It was only after I has been led into the elevator that would take me deep underground that I was allowed to see again, just in time to see vast amounts of white dessert spanning out in front of me like some kind of a dry ocean. It looked like an entirely different planet. I wondered if they’d planned it that way. I had asked them if we were in New Mexico, knowing from the look of the terrain that we were most likely somewhere in the middle of White Sands. Neither guard had answered, but one of them had flinched. As far as I was concerned, that was my answer. It was also the last time I had seen the outdoors. My life since my arrival had consisted only of my chambers, the mess hall, and the bizarro classes they had me and the other girls going to. So no, I didn’t know where ‘here’ was, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to, either.
“I don’t know, man. Sometimes it feels like it’s been a couple of days, sometimes it feels like it’s been a couple of months. Time feels funny here, you know? Do you feel that?”
“I do. I think it’s got something to do with being underground all of the time. Not ever seeing any kind of sunlight. It’s kind of like prison, but with even less of that. Who would have thought that was possible?”
“That’s it
. I think you’re right. And it terms of what I heard, you gotta lean in close for this. This shit is nuts.”
Having no clue whether getting involved with this girl was a good idea or not, I leaned in closer to her anyway. I couldn’t help myself. Maybe I was starved for closeness, that basic human contact that all of us needed and that I hadn’t gotten much of in what felt like forever. Maybe I was just starved for information. I had agreed to go with the weirdo agent because he’s said he was going to get me out of prison, and that I would finally be doing something useful with my life. That was about all he had told me, and all of the secrecy was starting to drive me nuts.
“Well, for starters, you know we don’t exist anymore, right?”
“Um, no,” I tried to sound light hearted despite the tightening in my chest, “I don’t. I’m not going to lie; I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means they did a really good job of making us useful to them. My story is a lot like yours, Becca. I don’t have nobody, but like for real don’t have nobody. Never have. My guess is that it’s the same for all of us here. I think they wanted it that way.”
“But why?”
“Because, no family, no people, no loose ends. What’s better than that?”
“Right, I guess I see that. But I still don’t get what you meant by saying we don’t exist. How could we not exist?”
“Because, sugar, we don’t. I heard some of the guards talking the other day and I decided to do some research. I’m in real good with the guards, see? I do things that make them feel better than they ever dreamed about, and when they’re good and relaxed, I get the information I want. Pretty easy trade, if you ask me.”
“Ok, so what’s the story? What’d they tell you?”
“As far as the world is concerned, at least the world that still gives a damn about us, we’re dead. After each one of us got carted off with the mystery men in black, there was an accident faked in the prison.”
“What kind of accident?”
“The kind you don’t recover from. They faked our deaths, Becca. That’s why we don’t exist. We’re dead. Now why do you think they would want to go and do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know. It-it seems like we aren’t going to be going anywhere, doesn’t it?”
“You’re damn straight it does. What I want to know is what the hell they’re trying to get us ready for. All of this training, like we’re going to go into a fight, and the physically? What exactly do they need to make sure we’re physically fit for?”
“Alright! Listen up, ladies! I need everyone to come to attention, got me? This is not the kind of meeting where I’m going to want to stand around answering a whole lot of questions, and I don’t like having to repeat myself. Got it?”
Alecia and I both looked up quickly, me feeling more than a little nervous and Alecia just looking annoyed. Her eyes were narrowed, her focus now trained entirely on the man who had just entered the rec room area. He was wearing some kind of an army uniform, but something about the way he held himself made me think it wasn’t his normal attire. I got the feeling he was more of a suite and tie kind of a guy who maybe thought he would have more authority in uniform. To me he just looked kind of uncomfortable, but as I glanced around the room I saw that several of the other girls (including the previously hardass Christine) looked pretty scared. Because none of us knew what was going on. Even Alecia, with her valiantly fought for information, didn’t know what was really going on here. All eyes were trained on this new entity, and what we were about to learn was going to change our lives forever.
“Alright! Good. That’s good. That’s the kind of thing I like to see. Total concentration. So! I’m guessing some of you, probably all of you, have been wondering why you’ve been brought here. Now is when you find out. You’re here to do a great service for your country. Anyone here who can say they’ve done that before?”
He paused, looking around the room to see if anyone would be brave enough to raise her hand and claim that yes, as a matter of fact, she could. All of us were silent. The only sounds in the room were our breathing and the constant hum of the fluorescent lights overhead, lights that staid on twenty-four hours a day. I was pretty sure the pause had just been for effect, but I was also glad that nobody spoke up. I had a feeling this guy wouldn’t have been amused had that occurred. This guy didn’t want to hear from us. I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that. It was written all over his weathered, fifty-something face. He wanted to get in, do his duty, and get the fuck out.
“Right. That’s what I thought. In that case, welcome to the most exciting thing that’s ever going to happen to you. Because ladies, I’m here to tell you that you’re going to do something extraordinary. You’re going to be the ones to save the world.”
Chapter Four
Radon
“This? Does this feel good? Is this what you want?”
I grunted my agreement, choosing no words as the best option. What the devil was I supposed to say? I had never been one for talking during sex. It was the year 2056, and the fact that we Valmorians were still grappling with things like verbalizing during copulation felt ridiculous to me. As far as I was concerned, it was the humans who were to blame. A covert mission had brought American soldiers from the planet Earth to our planet of Valmore some fifty years ago, and they hadn’t shied away from making friends with our women. It was from them that the women of Valmore had learned to engage in sex that way. Our entire small planet had adopted many habits from the humans, but the sex talk was by far my least favorite. I hadn’t been in the mood to begin with, and having Shaley talking at me wasn’t helping matters any.
“Oh, Radon! Yes, yes, yes!”
I looked up at Shaley, feeling sort of surprised as to how I had gotten here in the first place. Shaley was on top of me, and despite her enthusiasm for me and my name, she was the one doing all of the work. Her entire body was writhing, her large breasts bouncing up and down wildly as her hips bucked. My hands were on her ass, but I was pretty much going through the motions. My body was responding to her, as male bodies have a habit of doing, but my heart was most definitely not in it. But Shaley’s movements were becoming even more erratic, something I wouldn’t have believed possible, and in another minute, she was yelling at the top of her lungs. I had to resist the urge to tell her to quiet down, as I knew it wouldn’t go with the mood, but some part of me was wondering if she was loud enough to get the attention of the authority. Finally, her body gave a massive shudder, and then she was laying across me, her heart beating furiously. She lay that way for as long as I could stand it, and then I had to move out from under her. My arm was starting to tingle from lack of available blood!
“Radon, you really do know what you’re doing, don’t you? You’re wonderful. You’re really wonderful.”
“Thanks.”
“Thanks?”
I could hear the annoyance beginning to creep into her voice and sighed an inward sigh of resignation. This wasn’t going to go well. I could already tell it wasn’t going to go well. It probably would have been better if I had just put on an act and gone through the motions well enough to make her happy, but I wasn’t that kind of guy. It wasn’t even that I was opposed to lying, because I wasn’t. I just wasn’t willing to put in the amount of energy needed to make it convincing.
“Sure. Thanks. You gave me a compliment; I gave you a reply. Thank you for the compliment.”
“Don’t you have anything you want to say to me in return?”
“I just did. I said thank you.”
“Are you serious? That’s all you have to say? Thank you? You really are a monster, aren’t you? Just like all of the girls say you are.”
“They all say I’m a monster, do they? I didn’t know that. Not that I can say I’m surprised. I guess we all get reputations, don’t we? And most of the time they’re at least partially earned.”
“So then you admit it!” She shrieked, all of her interest in draping herself ov
er me (thankfully) gone, “You actually ADMIT that you’re no better than a monster!”
“I don’t believe I said that. But I’m not saying I’m an angel, either. You shouldn't expect me to be. You knew before you got climbed into my bed, after all. You just told me you knew.”
“Knew what exactly? What is it I knew?”
“That I wasn’t looking to partner up. That’s why you’ve heard tales about me being a monster, right? Because I don’t seek to partner with the girls I share my bed with?”
“I never said that,” she spat out, her voice so venomous I was surprised it didn’t actually kill me, “I never said a single word of that.”
“And you didn’t have to.”
“Well then what’d you bring me here for, anyway?”
She was up off of the bed now, her pearlescent pink skin shining in the late afternoon sun streaming through my window. She bent to retrieve her long white shift from my floor and I propped myself up on my elbows, watching her as she moved. Just because I wasn’t interested in partnering with her didn’t mean I couldn’t still look at her, right? She had an exemplary form, her body voluptuous and built for bearing children. Or at least it would have been, before. She yanked the dress on over her head, her golden hair tangling up in the sleeves and causing her to let out a guttural sound of frustration, and then turned back to me, an expression very close to rage on her face.
“And just what do you think you’re looking at, sir?”
“I’m looking at you. I thought that was obvious.”
“You don’t get to look at me. Not after the way you’ve behaved. You won’t ever see this body out of its shift again.”
With that, she stormed out of my little bedroom, moments later slamming the front door of my little hut. I winced a little at that, but not because I was sorry to have angered her or sorry to see her go. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn’t.
“Gods, careful,” I muttered to myself, even though Shaley was the one I wanted to say it to, “I’m not made out of money.”
