Travesty (SolarSide Book 1)

by Austin Aragon

  “I came to accept it as necessary.”

  “Yes, we all have. But does it upset you is what I asked.”

  “Yes…but not because it’s humanity’s fault, or the Party, but because the Herculeans stole something from us. We were so close to peace, and they came to ruin it all. Now we are back at the origin of it, back at killing.”

  He releases a satisfactory sigh. “You are one bright man. Exactly how everyone in the Party feels. You truly are cut out Party material. But let me give you one reassurance, Peter. We are not fighting ourselves, we have not devolved into the primitive past of killing fellow brothers like we did a century ago. No, we are united, more so than ever!” He stands up, “We, us, together, Earth and this one, we are fighting them together, we are spreading the revolution here that was meant to take place when the first colonist arrived, but never stayed. Now, we are bringing it back.” He sits back down, gazing at nothing in particular with wonder. “Anyhow, you’re here to attend a Party rally. Where I’ll show you off sort of speak. Of your triumphs on the field.”

  “Why?”

  He focuses in on me, his brow sharply declining. “Why, to show how great you are! How great the Cause runs in you. You are a full-fledged Party member—granted almost all citizens are—but you were also an activist before soldiery. Learning about the Party, our goals, our mission. Now you are a warrior, but you still have the rational and mind of a Party member, heck, an Official. It is my belief that a citizen, becoming intelligent and educated in Party knowledge, and involved in the Party’s activities, then turned soldier, make the best citizens and warriors. You’ve showed that yourself, your ingenuity in battle, your knowledge of us. You are the ideal citizen and soldier, Peter.” He gets up again, taking his mug and setting it by the coffee maker. He grabs his overcoat off the hanger and places it back on.

  “What am I to do there?”

  “Behave like you did on the field. Use your intelligence, your will. You’ll be surrounded by people with a mind of equal caliber, like yourself once was in university. I must think that you will rather relish in it.” He opens the door, encouraging me to exit.

  I rise and place my cup by his retired one, and leave. We are outside on the avenue once more, but this time we wait at a depot for a ride. My feet fidget against the pavement. Here I am, next to the man that could promote me into an Official career with the Party, and I feel disgusted. I should be proud, I’m a hero, aren’t I? They all mention my name and Tionem in the same sentence. I feel my stash inside my pocket. But I’ve started something sinister now.

  No Peter, you’re not addicted.

  They can never find out, I’d be lucky to fight as a penal if they did.

  “I got to use the restroom, sir,” I say.

  “Hurry back, or you’ll be walking.”

  I reach a hastily created outhouse near the depot—a small upgrade from the porta-potty’s out on the field. I am alone again, only the sound of marching boots and mechanized traffic humming outside. I open my stash.

  “It’s been a while Cloud.”

  I take out the syringe. Insert the needle into Cloud, and smack the vein on my left arm for a bit. It is already getting bruised, and probably infected—great. I lean against the side of the hard wood wall, twiddling the syringe about. Is this what housewives before the Terrible War felt like? What they did to get by—what anyone does as an easy way out? What did they call it? ‘Their little helper.’

  Cloud, you’re my helper. You help me get through the days. It’s not even that it’s the easy way out. It’s that no one understands me. No one would help me, instead they would criminalize me, ostracize me if I told them. I am alone here. I push on the plunger of the syringe to squirt a little out. Or at least, I was alone.

  I take out the folded picture of the girl in her white dress. It weighs heavier than the sandbags of rubble I have filled the past week. My heart beats fast, it’s getting hard to breathe in here. I have stopped using her for my last habit, out of a better replacement I guess. Cloud relieves me. Cloud understands me. More than my sexual angst. Cloud is more than a release, it is my shelter. But yet, there was something about that girl, something I idealized over. Even something, something—no—but it’s true, something even Cloud doesn’t have. I have to have it back.

  I hold the syringe in my mouth and unfold the photo, placing it against the sink handle. Perfect. She is so fucking perfect. Beautiful, ignorant of what I am or going through. Just perfect in her simple way of posing for the camera. I insert the needle. Cloud enters into me, I into Cloud. For a moment—even though the dose is half, maybe less of what our NCO’s would give us through our distributors—I still feel the mind numbing ecstasy that occurs right after injection. The relief of lying in the sky with the clouds. Breezy and floating. Innocent. Calm. Pure. Like her.

  Like her and her white dress—then I see it, in the bottom left corner of the photo. Where her white dress crunches up causing there to be a few folds, is a stain. I try rubbing it off with my thumb—maybe it’s just dirt, but no! It won’t come off. How did I not see it before? A stain, right there. All this time. Her pure white dress, really harboring an imperfection. An ugly trespasser hitchhiking on her. It’s not, it’s not—no. I put the photo down, I can’t handle it. I won’t let her ruin it.

  I put the stash away, and Cloud helps ease me. I open the door, and everything is great as I take a step from the outhouse back to Herus. I also hear the voice again, but this time, there is something new added at the end.

  There you go my little warrior. There you go. I won’t leave you like her.

  Fog blankets the streets as we exit the barracks this early morning, and step onto troop carriers. The carriers travel through the destroyed city to the recently created Coalition airbase on the other side. The sun eats away at the white mist shrouding this city, reminding us of the reality of what happened, the reality of what we are.

  I have been ostracized from the unit, or so it seems. Envy for the Party’s interest? Hatred at Ray’s true demise? But I can hardly care as long as Cloud rides me through it. I twirl a coin between my fingers as I lean against the top railing of the carrier. A gift coin from the Party rally last night. In the center is a marine holding a flag of the UN on top of a heap of rubble titled Jericho. The Party motto outlines the edge of the coin, while on the back is the emblem of the Party itself. I flip the coin off the carrier and it splashes into one of the shell holes in the road.

  Yesterday’s event was pointless. I stood quietly at attention while the Party Reps absorbed themselves inside their own self-congratulation and success. But I can hardly judge. I am no better anymore. For inside myself, in the waning moments between sobriety as I rush to Cloud, as I fight the self-hatred and depression, I still feel a resonating warmth. A guiding light. I could have their life. I could still become a Party Rep. Albeit, I will fight tooth and nail to avoid being a military one, but I could do it. I could escape to a better life.

  Along the streets are MP’s from the Coalition and local militaries cleaning and rebuilding the liberated city. Dozens of filled white body bags, stained dark red and blackish brown, lie across the sidewalks as men bring more corpses to the piles, and others bag them. Next, other soldiers go from bag to bag tying on tags at the ends of their feet, where they will be piled up and taken away by tractors and trucks.

  We finish crossing the city to the airbase. It is a gigantic stretch of tents and garages and makeshift control towers that dot the field. Jumbo jet C-130’s and numerous other aircraft lift and land or move about on the runways. In the background is a landed group of space carriers unloading supplies and men. There are also some battleships, broken apart into segments so that they can be landed safely via huge carries that drag them on steel wire beams. Their massive size looms over the airbase as they undergo repairs from the space battle.

  The troop transport pauses at the gates, and we hop off switching seats with soldiers waiting to depart. Blake
leads us in. “There’s our ride,” he points at a plane fueling up on one of the runways.

  “A civilian jet?” says Alex in surprise.

  “Military drafted,” says Blake. We step onto the loading ramp to the jet. “We brought as much air freight and transporters as possible. The countries here lacked what we required, especially when most of them were shot down by the Herculeans, or left for space to make the jump to Earth.”

  We load onto the jet and take our seats. Isaac sits by me and places his feet up on the seat before him at the annoyance of Vick. He flashes me a look.

  “I’m sorry.” But I stop. I feel Cloud wear off. And the tears slide down my face. I push over Isaac to reach the bathroom at the end. I can’t control it. What have I done? What have I done?

  Isaac knocks on the door. “Hey, Peter. We’re taking off and you gotta sit down, man.”

  I fumble over the plastic sink. I think I have a knife on me. They all hate me! I hate me! Look at yourself, you worthless piece of shit. I slip as I reach for my cargo pocket and bang my head on the sink. Isaac jolts the door open. He comes in, standing over. Don’t look at me! He kneels, grabbing me by the shoulders and placing my head in his lap. He rubs away the snot and tears on my face with paper towels.

  “I’m sorry…”

  He takes a deep breath. “It’s okay, none of this shit has been easy. I mean, someone from Command should have told us about it, not keep it secret like that. You—we’re just marines, it’s not our jobs.” He pets my hair while I lay my head in his lap. “Remember when I puked in the dorm the night before we left?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “And you took care of me? That’s when I knew you were the only guy I wanted to go through hell with.”

  I sit up a little.

  “Remember when I said we had to take care of each other?”

  I nod.

  “I always will, bud.” He raises me the rest of the way. “Let’s go sit down, alright?”

  We reach our chairs. The rest of the unit glances over then goes back to their own business. Isaac hands me a vapstick—since he learned his lesson from the last time we were in a closed area with Blake. I feel relieved at the gesture, the final sign that he doesn’t really hate me. I eagerly accept it. Next, he hands me a crumpled up paper. “I forgot to give this to you ever since our trip back from Tionem, you passed the fuck out on the way back, and I just kept on to it.”

  I take it and unfold the paper. “I’m surprised you kept it.” The last word was Legends, written by me. I look at his response.

  Love eats, gaining energy, necessitating deranged sensibilities,

  I look out the window at the airbase, what should I write? Our plane has started rotating onto the runaway.

  “How far away is Nova Carthago?” says Vick.

  “About a three hour flight,” says Blake, lowering his cap over his face. “Get some rest.”

  The engines roar and the plane shakes during takeoff. I watch as Jericho shrinks behind us, smoke still rising out of hidden fires that cover most of the city. As we reach higher elevations breaking through the cloud line, I see that there are numerous jets and other aircraft in the skyline too. The whole upper atmosphere is a buzz of craft flying around. Out in the distance I see a cluster of orange trails zip down like meteorites—an orbital bombardment from our battleships. The rounds fly down in a succession of bright streaks. Breaking through the clouds as lighting cast from God in the heavens himself.

  A constant reminder of the war raging below us.

  XVIII

  After landing and checking into our hotel, our platoon breaks up. Captain Tarnus informs us that he is going to a special officers club, and the rest of us plan to go on a tour of the capital. First though, I get down to writing a letter to my family like everyone else. We are issued tablets that will take our stylist hand written letter we write, and convert them into text for our families to receive via email or phone.

  But the hardest part arrives as I stare at my blank tablet. What do I say? What do I say when for the last month I have been in this shitty planet destroyed by war. There isn’t much that is positive to say. Cloud?—I definitely couldn’t tell them that. Beyond the shame and guilt I have for what I’ve become, the Party Reps reviews each letter. They would find out about it and I punished. Creon pops into my mind.

  I almost died little brother.

  I almost died so many times. Every time I died I thought of you. I thought of you when we were young and we would play those imaginary games together, where we would fight the enemy or pretend to shoot each other. And I thought, it’s just a game. They’ll shoot me and I’ll play dead, and after the battle I’ll get back up like we did in our fake wars.

  I look around the hotel room, viewing the men from my unit. Their shaved heads, with the drug distributors on their upper necks that poke slightly out of their skin. I move to feel mine; the cold, metal, rugged rectangle placed neatly above my last vertebra.

  God Creon, you can’t imagine how good of a pretend war the military can put on. They have planes and tanks and explosions. Like the ones in the movies that we would emulate later, by adding them to our imaginary battles in the backyard. We would shoot the spies climbing over the fence to our patio. You would get hit and I had to rush over to revive you. But here, you don’t always get back up, even in our game, those who get injured don’t always get saved.

  They die. Ray. Julian.

  How many of them have little brothers? How many of them wish they could be pondering what to write to their families like I am now. How many of those bleeding men, crying for help that I could have reached out and pulled back into the trench, how many of them would have been writing their brothers right now? How many did I let die.

  Oh god, How many were buried? Sent home in a casket. How many? How many men died? Why am I still alive?

  I take a deep breathe.

  I am still alive because I am fighting for their legacy. For this world. And even though I have finally come to the acceptance that this war is necessary, I hate it. I hate what it has done, what it has done to me. I may be fighting a just war. But how I am fighting it isn’t. I, I…I am a drug addict! That only looks for the next high to forget about the pain, even though it is this pain I claim to be fighting in vengeance for. So who am I really running away from, the pain of myself for being a coward in disguise, or of this war, and my responsibility to fight it?

  Isaac bumps my shoulder. “Come on man, you writing a novel? The bus is gonna be here any minute.”

  I raise my hands to my head to try and sooth the arriving headache. I put the stylist against the screen and write.

  Things are tuff but we have been pushing through. We gave those Herculeans a scare a few days back. I’ve even killed a few myself. They’re definitely ugly and scary. Thank god they have no idea of Earth yet. I am glad to hear you are becoming a sophomore. I am told all adults have to do basic military training now since these Herc’s invaded. Well that sucks, so don’t hurry and finish high school anytime soon. Miss you, and tell mom and dad I miss them too.

  Love, Peter.

  I select send and place the tablet back onto its table. I lay my head against the pillow, letting my body rest for a moment. I then run to the bathroom, and open my stash. Only enough for one visit from Cloud, and some Buzz—why do I even have these? I only take small doses, but I’ve had to take more recently, and shit, it’s almost all gone. The syringe is in my hand and scouting my vein…and I remember what I really am. I just said it! I need to stop. I need to. The vein has an ugly infectious bump. I need to stop. The needle tip cuts away at the scab. I need to stop. A trickle of blood runs down my forearm. I need to stop. The needle pokes inside the vein. I need to stop. With trembling hands I push down on the plunger. I need to stop. I need—I greet Cloud for what could be the last time.

  There you go my little warrior. There you go.

  Why do I even doubt you, Cloud? My bo
dy rests against a low bench in the bathroom. I am a cloud. My problems lie beneath me, on this destroyed earth, but I float on by above, free, alive. I’ll need more, won’t I? Clouds don’t last forever.

  My hand glances a wad of paper inside my pocket as I squish away the stash. I take it out. It’s the paper with that poem game. It’s also my turn. I look at the last word, Sensibilities—damn, that’s a bitch. I lean against the sink bar. What should I write Cloud?

  Senseless entrances, negate sincere intentions by instigating loathed indifference to idealistic endeavors, suddenly,

  I have no idea what this means, but if you say so Cloud. I fold the paper and place it inside my pocket to give to Isaac latter. I meet the others in the lobby, and we leave on our tour of Nova Carthago.

  Shit, I rub my hands across my forehead. I can feel Cloud leaving. I look at the clock on the bus. It’s already been two hours? The bus reaches downtown towards the last part of our tour. I’ll be alright, you’ll be alright Peter. I look back out the window at the beautiful unmolested architecture of the city streets. This city is famous for its whitewash stone design. Almost every building is constructed with huge stone blocks bleached to glisten in the sunlight: a Constantinople-esque city with modern amenities. It’s strange, how radically different Jericho, with its destroyed skyscrapers and streets littered with debris and shell holes, is compared to here. It’s like a whole other world this city, that I might as well have been back on Earth with the lack of war present.

  Hanging banners and streetlamps decorate and light up the streets and buildings as civilians walk about, and traffic goes on as normal. Not a single scream or screeching shell exploding anywhere.

  At Historic Square, the conductor educates us that this is the first developed area of the city’s humble beginnings. I look through the side window at a café terrace. The majority of the seats are occupied with women, most of them in a type of uniform too. One particular girl steals my attention. She has long brown hair tied into a bob, laughing as another lady talks intently to her while throwing her hands about in the air with gestures.