Skin Trials

by S Y Humphrey

  “Maybe you could call your father. Tell him.” That was Galli’s only response.

  “You could always just follow the law,” Seren shot back. “You don’t have to be a criminal.”

  N.G. and Pike exchanged looks.

  “Let’s take a break,” N.G. sighed, rubbing his hand down his face. “We need to load up Galli’s food in the truck, for distribution once we head further south. Then we’ll come back and wrap up these plans. Let’s go.”

  That left Galli and Seren alone, while others worked. The older woman didn’t release Seren from her glare. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

  Once again, the biting tone and her words stunned the younger woman. “Should I?”

  “No, I suppose you shouldn’t. Your father’s done such a good job of erasing your memory. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, year 2031. You might have been, what, five or six years old?”

  The mention of Houston hit Seren immediately. She would never forget it. Her eyes flickered at the memory.

  The older woman nodded. “Yes, that’s it. So you haven’t forgotten.”

  A tear finally tripped down Seren’s cheek. “You…”

  “… yes. Me.”

  In the back of Seren’s mind, she could see fire and rubble all over again. An unexpected blast had knocked Seren and her schoolmates off their feet, during a three-day excursion to Texas to visit the space center. She recalled her father’s agents scrambling to locate suspects and clear the building. She’d laid on the ground with a broken arm, for which she still carried a tiny scar. Before agents reached her, a teenage girl came from nowhere and grabbed Seren.

  “You’re coming with us,” she’d whispered, dragging six year-old Seren through the rubble, pushing gun metal against Seren’s head. She recognized the voice now. “Back off or she’s dead!”

  Seren had seen the dead bodies of her classmates a few yards away, at another station. “You killed people. To get to me.”

  “It was an accident. That blast was meant to be a diversion. We didn’t know officials would let those kids get in the machine. They had never done that before.”

  “There’s no such thing as accidents when you take up terror.” Seren’s throat had grown dry, and her voice was now laced with anger, as she recalled her classmates’ dismembered bodies.

  “There’s no such thing as following the law when the law takes up terror.” The woman seemed to blink back emotion of her own.

  “You got away,” Seren observed, wondering what this woman would try and do to her now.

  “I always do,” she breathed. Seren’s eyes fluttered up. She had done it other times? Nervous, tense, they eyed one another. “Who do you think orchestrated your capture this time? What is it your father often says? If there will be blood…”

  “… make sure you choose the battlefield,” Seren finished, drawing back with shock, more tears creeping down. “How do you know that?”

  “Because like so many men, my father served in the military with yours. And like so many people your father screwed over, I had to make tough choices to keep my father alive. Like taking rich children hostage and demanding ransom to pay for his medical care. When Perfect Society expired his veterans’ benefits, we couldn’t treat his rare cancer because he had used up all his ‘value’. I heard about Max carrying on Dr. Terry’s legacy with the Nautilus, and I knew I had to try.” The woman rested her hand on the table, just over her gun. “But do go on about how I should follow the law.”

  Seren wiped her tears, not knowing what to say. Pike, N.G. and the others returned from outside.

  Seren’s eyes dropped to the map spread across the table. She wouldn’t give up the locations for medicine, as Lieutenant Scarborough had ingrained in her consciousness just how critical medicine was.

  But she tried to think of a path of least resistance for the rest of the journey to Atlanta, and not a day after. She knew her father would take out high crime areas first, as they were the people likeliest to turn against the country in an insurrection or foreign invasion. So they couldn’t go through inner cities close to the water. But the diseased and veterans would have been addressed last. Her father would leave them alone, because their illnesses likely formed the best buffer against criminals, terrorists and foreign invaders from the coasts. Her father’s biggest priority was not to allow Levels Four through Five— the mentally ill, criminals, and immigrants— to infiltrate the Mid-West, where the upper class and higher learning institutions were now located. She’d heard that the lower levels had started trying to push their way further inland. So Seren calculated that the diseased territories — eastern parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Eastern Carolinas, along the Appalachians— might be the best choice.

  “It may be best to use Lenoir and the outskirts of Gastonia,” Seren answered. The route she suggested kept the group away from major military installments protecting the mid-West, and away from the Cavalry protecting the South. It would also keep them away from military bases dotting the Eastern seaboard, particularly heavy in Virginia and North Carolina.

  “So you’re suggesting we take the diseased and the veterans,” N.G. said calmly. “And we don’t get reinforcements or supplies until we get to Georgia.”

  “If those groups make demands, what will we give them so we can pass?” Aurora asked.

  “Nothing,” N.G. answered. “Once you give them one thing and they see you have resources, they’ll want more.”

  “And if you give them everything you have on you, they still might kill you,” Galli added.

  They all stared at one another.

  “We’re ready. We’ve done this before,” Aurora said, sounding like she tried to reassure herself as much as the others.

  “Yeah, but not with so much to lose,” Pike said, looking at Seren.

  In the wee hours, once again, Pike and Aurora placed Seren in the truck, and into the metal shackles again.

  “Take them off,” N.G. said.

  “She’ll run!” Aurora said.

  “Where to? She’s got nowhere to run. These groups around here will use her and kill her. She wants to get back to Jernigan as badly as we want Dr. Terry. She can’t do that now without us, so take them off.”

  Galli came out to see them off. In her hands, she held something, wrapped in torn cloth. Seren received it into her hands, and it was so warm she almost dropped it.

  Unsmiling and stiff, she said, “Thank you for helping the children.”

  “You’re not upset that I didn’t give up the medicine?” Seren asked.

  “Long as you’re not upset I almost killed you once. We all have our cards to play,” the woman answered with a dry voice. “I still plan to kill your father. As soon as we get what we want.”

  But it was Seren’s turn to press. “Why would you tell me that?”

  “Because later, I expect you to come back and do something about it. Either you’ll do the right thing… or the wrong one. Whatever you do, I’ll be ready.”

  11

  The Forgotten

  “How long will this ride be?” Seren asked on their way out.

  “Why, Princess? You got somewhere important to be? Some place you want us to drop you off? With the mental guys in Tier Four so they can toot your whistle?” Aurora shot.

  Growing impatient with her mockery, Seren shot her a look. “Do you ever just be quiet?”

  “Could you ever come over here and make me?”

  “Maybe! I’m not tied up now!” Seren finally snapped, readying herself.

  Before Aurora could jump up, N.G. hopped forward quickly to throw out his arms between them. He remained crouched, staring at both of them until they sat back.

  “You’re nothing! Nobody! Not half as important as you think you are! Just a halfbreed who got lucky!”

  Seren huffed, “And you’re jealous. Because you didn’t. You would give up your life in a heartbeat to live my life for one day. So keep your judgment.”

  They both sat back agains
t the jumping trailer walls, eying one another and fuming.

  “Why is Pike always the one who drives?” Seren asked.

  “He’s the one with the commercial drivers license. He’s a Tier Two average worker.”

  “Is he the only one of you that has ever scanned in with the new government?” Seren asked.

  He paused, and she could tell he was weighing if he should trust her to disclose that. “Yes.”

  “So what do you do? How do you live without any VScan credit?”

  “I teach English and a little bit of the other subjects in some of these communities. In exchange for meals and housing, and any extra valuables they give me to barter with.”

  That explained the clean nails and hands.

  “How do you know Pike and her?” Seren asked.

  “Pike is my little brother. This one here,” he said, pointing at Aurora, “is with Max’s crew, from Honduras, where they lost their villages to your Lieutenant Scarborough,” he explained.

  “All of you— sworn enemies— coming together only to take down the United States, the country that protects you,” Seren said.

  “The United States has already been taken down. We’re trying to get it back,” he replied. “So let me ask you a question now. You really think you can go back to Stephen Jernigan in a few days, and pretend like he hasn’t lied to you?”

  She thought about it, bouncing with the big tires that rolled over a ragged road. “I don’t know that you’ve told me the truth, and whether you or anybody else likes it, that’s my home. He’s my father. And Mariel Jernigan is my mother.”

  “And forget this ever happened?” he asked.

  “I don’t think that’s possible, but boy, would I love to,” she answered. “Why do you do this? Why don’t you take up the ways of those children back there and make a home to settle in? Why is this scientist so important to you?”

  He shot her a look. “This scientist is also important to you. He’s the reason you have your life you’re so desperate to return to.”

  Seren thought of the body lying on a dirt floor, withering away in that hole, flashed in her mind. Why would her father treat anyone that way? Particularly a scientist who was worth all this trouble? There had to be some justification, a crime he had committed or a terrible wrong he had done.

  “This guy is worth risking your life? Essentially signing your own death warrant?” Seren pressed.

  He twirled a box of bullets around. “I don’t have a life to risk. No college, no kids, no marriage. I live everyday in the shadows, my only objective being to keep the world from knowing I exist.”

  She watched him stare intensely at the box while twirling it. His eyelids seeming to bat away tears. The humid heat and gentle blare of the truck eventually put Seren to sleep also.

  Jolted along the trailer bed, Seren rolled into some boxes several hours later. The truck was speeding. N.G. held his clink watch to initiate face-to-face video with Pike.

  “What’s going on up there?” N.G. asked.

  A bottom-up angle of Pike’s face displayed in the screen, focused as he looked ahead, his arms moving on the steering wheel. “They’ve laid down a spike strip. Hit the tires. We’re riding on the run-flat tires now.”

  “How much longer until we reach a city?” N.G. asked.

  “About a hundred miles, and these run-flats will only last about fifty,” Pike answered.

  “Keep going as long as you can, until you find a safe enough spot to change tires,” N.G. said, already reaching inside the boxes. He began to pull out some of the equipment, tossing everyone a backpack. As Seren unfolded hers, she realized it was one of the jet packs used to abduct her. “Guys, we won’t use these right away, only as a last resort. We don’t want them shooting us down. And we should avoid a big street battle that will draw police or military attention. So once we get stopped, I will try and negotiate. If that doesn’t work, then we throw some smoke bombs and grenades and fly out.”

  Aurora reached across her, and Seren grabbed her arm to push her away. Seren saw she had surprised Aurora, and they glared at one another.

  “Here’s how you use it, dummy,” the older woman snapped, “so you don’t die after all this work we put in to protect you.” She pointed to the rings and hooks hanging from the sides. “Pull here to go up. Ascend and descend here. Accelerate and decelerate here. Like a video game joystick, though you were probably too lame to play those. Anyway, don’t screw it up.”

  “How can you crack jokes right now?” Seren asked, studying the pack to make sure she did not in fact screw it up.

  “Because I just do,” her nemesis answered. “So, did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Play video games?”

  Seren scoffed.

  “C’mon, I just want to know,” Aurora continued, strapping on her jet pack.

  “Who cares what you want to know? You’re just fishing for something else to rub in my face,” Seren replied, checking the straps, controls and strings.

  “So the answer is no. You didn’t. Just like I thought,” Aurora smirked.

  Seren didn’t answer. Agitated and nervous that the tires would be flat in just a few moments, she honestly didn’t care what Aurora thought of her. If she could only hang on for three more days, she’d never have to deal with this person again. They rode another few minutes, while the humid Southern heat began clinging to their skin. The air had grown heavier, and now wreaked of backwood moss and swamps, along with urine and death. Their faces now concentrated on every noise, be it any movement, bump or shaking of the trailer bed, their backs stiff, legs balled into a springing position.

  Seren peeked out of a slit in the trailer wall. Unkempt grass and weeds lined the street, appearing to rise at least to one’s waist. Behind it stood a thick green forest of massive trees, that she had always heard about. Sheets hung among the trees, along with other sundry items such as pots and pans, mirrors, jeans and shirts, and plastic bottles, spread out as if forming homes within the woods. A terrible stench entered her nostrils, and her stomach started turning as she began to grow nauseous.

  “What’s wrong, Halfbreed? Daddy’s little girl can live with ruining peoples’ lives, but can’t take seeing Daddy’s handiwork?” Aurora taunted.

  Seren didn’t feel like arguing. Sitting back, feeling queasy, she pressed her eyes shut and tried to regain control of her senses, fighting to forget the disgust.

  “Here,” N.G.’s voice spoke once again. She opened her eyes to find him holding out a chilled bottle of water he’d pulled from a cooler. “Take a couple of sips and press it against your forehead. It helps with the nausea.”

  She followed his advice, which surprisingly helped. Keeping her eyes shut, she relished the cold touch of the water bottle.

  “Thank you.”

  “We would give you some medicine, but you know… ” NG cracked. He and Aurora laughed. And Seren even chuckled a tiny bit.

  The truck finally slowed.

  “We need to change the tires,” Pike called from the other side of the cabin.

  N.G. grabbed his gun, and shoved in a magazine.

  “We are ready,” N.G. replied. As he said it, they moved to the side of the wall adjacent to the cabin, furthest away from the door. On edge, they listened as he gathered his things to change the tire, and began jacking up the truck alone. No one made a sound, while he moved quickly.

  “Damn,” Aurora observed. “Some guy in a wheelchair. He’s wearing one of those old veteran jackets with all the buttons, and a servicemen’s cap. It’s a setup.”

  “Eh, son, you got some spare medicine there you can give me? Maybe some Tylenol or something for my headaches? A can of beer? Anything?” an elderly voice asked.

  “No, Sir. Sorry, I can’t be much help to you,” came Pike’s voice.

  “Aw, sure you can. You got that whole big old truck there. I know you got to have something useful in there you can give me,” came the older, gravelly voice dripping with the same souther
n accent as President Grogan.

  Seren had stopped breathing. She looked to the others, and knew why they had not yet gone out to help him. She understood that, somewhere only a few yards away, more of them hung back, assessing the size of their group. Pike was able to switch out a couple of tires and push in a couple of bolts.

  “Son, I know you hear me talking to you. Don’t you ignore a sworn officer of the United States Army. You stand and listen when your superior officer is speaking to you,” the voice growled.

  Whistling emerged, taunting and low, as it came closer with the sound of boots on the asphalt. “Well, lookie lookie here. Dale, why don’t you introduce us to your new friend here?”

  “We were just getting acquainted. He was just about to let me look inside this here truck. Weren’t you… Son?”

  “Yes, sir, I sure was. Not really much you’d be interested in though, just some school supplies and school books for children.”

  Laughter erupted among several men. “School supplies! For the children!” More laughter.

  “Reading is fundamental!” Another man quipped to more laughter.

  “Well, while we’re back there I might just grab me a book. It’s been a while since I had me a good one with a nice cold beer.”

  “Four of them,” Aurora muttered, counting the voices. They listened to the boots approach the door. Just as they did, Aurora happened to glance around and look at Seren, sitting up straight against the wall. Quickly, her hand rushed out and shoved Seren’s entire upper body down. The door lid slid up. A moment later, Aurora fired, and the wheelchair fell over. Three left.

  Silence hung in the air. Seren looked up to see Pike’s face, his hands in the air. His eyes moved to his left, indicating the at least one guy still hiding out of sight and holding a gun behind him.

  “All right, folks, playtime is over! Get on out here! Or your friend gets it,” the final man shouted.

  N.G. scooted to the side of the trailer, where he heard the voice, and he peeked out of one of the metal openings, positioning his gun. Now Seren understood that those long slits in the metal had been no accident.