Reaping

by Makansi, K.

  Finally, I pull back, just to look at him, to reassure myself that this is real. I put my palm against his cheek, interrupting the tears tracing lines on his face then disappearing into his beard. “Oh, Remy.” He pulls me in for another hug, squeezing me tight. His chest heaves with a short, stubborn sob, and he opens his arms to pull Eli in as well.

  “Remy, my little bird. Eli, my son.”

  My heart explodes with the immensity of the moment, weeks of worry and tension crashing down into one sweet moment, like the thunderous release of a pent-up summer storm.

  “Okay. I can’t breathe,” I say finally, laughing, tearing away just enough to look around the room. The Director and the other Thermopylae Team Blue members are greeting the rest of the Normandy crew, talking breathlessly, hugging, laughing and clapping each other on the back. The joy of being alive, seemingly unharmed, is overwhelming. That they’re safe. That there’s still hope.

  Gradually, voices quiet. Calm slowly settles over the room. I hadn’t seen Soren come in, but now notice he and Rhinehouse standing, heads together, and, to my astonishment, Rhinehouse actually has his arm around Soren’s shoulder. Soren’s introducing Bear who smiles timidly, looking out of place. Now, Rhinehouse, bless his cranky soul, shakes Bear’s hand and tells him, Welcome to the Resistance.

  The Director catches my eye and smiles, and I nod in return. She's a quiet, intimidating woman and I’ve never been comfortable around her. She’s not much taller than I am, but she exudes a fierce intelligence, set by an angular jaw, barely-there brows in a graceful arch, and a charismatic glint in her sparkling, narrow eyes. She was my mother’s friend—back then I knew her as Cillian Oahu—but was always all business with me. Since joining the Resistance, I've only known her as the Director. It seems to fit.

  Adrienne clears her throat.

  “With high hopes of your arrival, we’ve prepared a celebratory feast.” She nods at the Normandy operators, who begin setting out plates and forks. “We’ve got a boar roasting in the oven and Zoe’s breaking out her dandelion wine from last summer.”

  Zoe does a little happy dance to everyone's cheers. Adrienne holds her hand up again. “There’s plenty of food to go around, and I know you all are in need of nourishment. But before we dig in, I’d like to share a moment of silence in honor of your safe arrival and to keep in our thoughts those who have not returned to us yet—and those who will never return to us again.” A lump lodges in my throat, and I clutch my father’s hand, lean on his shoulder, and close my eyes. The room goes quiet for a moment until Adrienne raises her glass and says, “Let us always remember to set a place for friends old and new.”

  Soon the table in the center of the room is laid out with enormous bowls of dried fruits, wheat pilaf, and roasted vegetables. Two of the Normandy workers pull a giant pan out of the oven and the smell of the sizzling roasting boar fills the room.

  The next few moments pass in a blur of happiness. Plates clatter and knives are passed around, and everyone’s words seem to mingle in the air like summer fireflies. I barely taste my food, I’m so relieved. I can’t seem to think at all. I sit with my father on one side, Eli on the other. For a brief moment, it seems everything is right with the world.

  Then I notice the Director across the room, a fork poised in midair, her mouth set in a frown. Her eyes are creased and worried. She turns and whispers something to Adrienne, at her side, but Adrienne shakes her head.

  “Dad,” I whisper, “what’s wrong?”

  He shakes his head, as confused as I am. An uncertain silence seeps into the room.

  “Where are the others?” the Director asks. She doesn’t have to raise her voice to make herself heard. Eli, at my side, looks at me briefly before responding.

  “When we were at the rendezvous point, waiting for your team, we took out the hovercar we used to flee the old city. But we were attacked by drones almost immediately, and the hovercar was totaled. We realized we would put ourselves in danger, traveling in a large group through the Wilds. So we split up. Firestone took Vale, Kenzie, and Jahnu and headed to Waterloo. We came here.” He hesitates before finishing the story. “We should have heard from them. They should have arrived there before we got here. But we haven’t heard anything from Waterloo at all.”

  The Director stares at Eli for a moment.

  “When did you last see them?”

  “Nine days ago.”

  She glances at Adrienne.

  “Tonight, we’ll have to reopen the communication lines. Not just radio. We need to re-activate the digital connections between all the bases to see who else we can contact. Find out who made it to their rendezvous points and who didn’t.”

  And who didn’t.

  How many did we lose? How many were caught in the Wilds by drones, or worse? How many made it to safety, and how many will never see their families again? I count myself grateful that I can sit and hold my father’s hand and that Eli is at my side.

  I thought that about my mother, once, too.

  Without warning, the Director stands up.

  “We’re all grateful to you here at Normandy for the food you’ve prepared, and tonight, if it’s alright with Adrienne, I’d like to take an evening to rest and celebrate that those of us who made it here are safe and sound.” She looks down at Adrienne next to her, who nods a silent assent. “But we must temper our joy when so many others might be in need.”

  “It sounds like the situation in the Wilds is getting more dire,” a woman at Adrienne’s table says. “Eli’s group was attacked by drones, and you had no easy time getting here, either.”

  The Director shakes her head. My father’s hand tightens around my own, and when I look at him, his mouth sets hard and his brows furrow.

  “Rhinehouse’s group was supposed to rendezvous with Ellijah’s team, Team Red, at one of the safe houses outside of the city. But his group and mine were intercepted by Sector drones as we left. They tracked us through the woods and cornered us into a firefight with the remaining Black Ops in the city. We were outnumbered and outgunned.” There’s a heavy silence. “We lost three team members that day.”

  There are whispers about the room, like the scattering of distant stones.

  “They said our release,” the Director continues, “would be guaranteed as long as we gave them the information they wanted. The exact location of our bases, the names of recent Sector traitors, and the whereabouts of Jeremiah Sayyid and Valerian Orleán.”

  A collective intake of breathe. The whole room goes silent.

  “What happened?” Eli asks finally.

  “We got lucky.” She shrugs, fatalistically, as though the matter was out of her hands. “I thought it was over. None of us would talk, of course. Corine’s soldiers were prepared to make the kill. I closed my eyes and accepted my fate. But then I heard a remarkable sound—the thwang of a bowstring’s release. When I opened my eyes, Corine’s soldiers were dead, arrows sticking out of their backs.”

  “We stood there gaping,” my father says, quietly.

  “We’d been bound and all of us but Gabriel gagged—they didn’t recognize any of us but him and James, thankfully.”

  It always sounds strange to me to hear Rhinehouse referred to by his first name.

  “I heard an explosion in the distance, and it took me a moment to realize it was their airship.” the Director smiles. “I still don’t know how they blew up a shielded airship, but they did.”

  “Who’s they?” Soren demands.

  “Outsiders,” she responds.

  “They killed all the Black Ops?” Eli raises his eyebrows in curious surprise.

  “And then untied us and disappeared,” my father adds. “One minute there, and the next gone, with fifteen dead soldiers in their wake.”

  I glance at Soren across the room, where he’s sitting next to Rhinehouse. He cocks his head to the side slightly, toward me, and I know we're wondering the same thing: Could Chan-Yu have been there? Or that Osprey person?

  �
�Why would they have done that?” Adrienne asks.

  The Director shakes her head. “I don’t know. They didn’t stay to explain. We know they harbor no love for the Sector. They’ve taken their own actions against Sector incursions into their territory. And we’ve tried to reach out to them. But they’ve always ignored our overtures.”

  I open my mouth to speak, but Soren beats me to it, and I push back the twinge of annoyance that bites at me.

  “It was an Outsider who helped Remy and I escape Sector headquarters. We never had a chance to tell you the whole story before the attack.”

  “When I spoke with him, Valerian said a man he trusted had helped you,” Rhinehouse says quietly. “He neglected to tell me he was an Outsider, though.”

  The Director fixes her gaze on Rhinehouse, considers him for a moment, and then turns toward me. I’ve never felt comfortable meeting her eyes, and now is no exception. I feel like she’s drawing out the very marrow of my bones.

  “After dinner I want a full briefing from everyone who was on the raid the night you were captured. Every detail about your capture, your captivity, and your escape. Understood?”

  Soren, Eli, and I all respond on cue.

  “Yes, m’am.”

  Eli turns to look behind me, and I follow his gaze. Hodges is in the doorway with Miah in tow. Miah is pale and shaky, but his eyes are fixed on the enormous slab of meat on the center table. Hodges glances at Soren who jumps up and grabs an empty chair. With a slight nod to Rhinehouse, Miah collapses into the chair with a grunt.

  The Director’s eyes flit back and forth between Rhinehouse and Miah. Rhinehouse doesn’t look the least bit surprised to see Miah, but the Director’s wide eyes tell me she most certainly is.

  “I felt sorry for him in the infirmary when the rest of us were celebrating,” Hodges explains. “I think he’s doing well enough to eat a little real food. A bit of bread and protein.” Hodges picks up a plate and puts a small piece of bread on it. Miah, however, looks ravenous and ready to celebrate anything that involves large quantities of solid food. The days in the woods had already hollowed him out, and being sick has thinned out his cheeks and created dark crescents under his eyes.

  Soren, too, seems to have noticed how hungry Miah looks. He takes the plate from Hodges.

  “I’ll do it,” I hear him say, as small talk picks up again around the hall. He goes about systematically loading the plate with every kind of food available on the center table. I smile as I watch him set the plate in front of Miah, who nods in gratitude. Hodges scowls a bit, but doesn’t object. Once Miah proves himself perfectly capable of ladling enormous helpings of food into his mouth, the medic relaxes.

  There’s a clatter down the hall, and conversation in the mess hall quiets again.

  “You’re shitting me,” someone says, a male voice.

  “That’s what they said. You’ve gotta—”

  Arms full of wine bottles, Zoe bursts back into the room, followed closely by the chubby man who gave me directions to the mess hall not so long ago.

  “You’ll never believe this,” she says, staring at Adrienne and the Director. “The Sector is blaming Valerian Orleán’s disappearance on,” she points to Miah, “him.”

  Miah, a fork-load of roasted vegetables halfway to his eager mouth, stares at her.

  “What?” Soren.

  “I stopped by the comm center on my way back from my room when I heard it. They’re scapegoating him. That horrible girl Linnea just said something about it on Sector News Network. They’re gonna make a formal announcement. You’ve got to see it.”

  Chairs scrape. Bodies move. Voices, loud and whispered, float around my head like wisps of smoke. I clutch my father’s hand and wonder what this sudden change in tactics means. Miah leans on Soren as we all hurry through the hall, food utterly forgotten, to the comm room.

  With the radio on, Eli and Zoe fuss over their antiquated video feed to see if they can set up a visual while cranking up the volume as loud as it will go. We crane our heads forward. I find myself pushed up against my father and Soren, whose body seems to hollow out a space for me, as we all wait.

  “Citizens of Okaria! Farmers, workers, scientists, all.” It’s Philip Orleán, Vale’s father. His voice sounds like warm honey through the speakers. It quavers with both confidence and fear. It’s the kind of voice that could lead you off the edge of a cliff and make you glad you jumped.

  I wonder if Vale is somewhere listening.

  “I speak to you today not only as the chancellor of the Okarian Sector, but as a father. Today, I am saddened to be the bearer of grim news, both for my family and for the Sector at large. Valerian Augustus Orleán, the Director of the Seed Bank Protection Project, valedictorian graduate of the Academy, our state’s most prestigious institution of learning, better known to many of you as Vale—my own son—” his voice shakes with unabated emotion “—has been taken hostage.”

  Just then, the tiny plasma screen—not even three dimensional, it’s so old-fashioned—flares up, and Philip’s face, lined with worry and sadness, appears in front of us.

  The first thing I feel is rage.

  Philip Orleán, the man who promised me a bowl of fresh figs if I betrayed my friends, my family, and everything I believe in. Who electrocuted me when I refused. Who pleaded innocent to the charge of my sister’s death.

  Philip Orleán, the liar.

  At his side, a little behind him, sits Corine, his wife, the woman who gave the orders that claimed my sister’s life. And my mother’s. The woman who ordered Chan-Yu to kill me and Soren. The Orleáns’ death toll continues to grow, I think, closing my eyes for a moment. How many more will die at their hands?

  “Vale has been missing for just over four weeks. Terrorists have penetrated our deepest levels of security to take one of our most valuable citizens hostage, to hold us as a society hostage as we desperately negotiate for his safe return. These rebels, these guerilla fanatics, seek to dismantle the institutions we’ve built and to plunge us back into a time of starvation and chaos. We will never allow it.

  “In the last few weeks, we’ve done everything possible to find answers, to discover Vale’s whereabouts, to find out how and why he was taken. It is with the deepest sadness and regret that I inform you that we have all been betrayed—that my son has been betrayed—by someone we once considered one of our own, a friend—both of the Sector and of our family. Jeremiah Sayyid, an engineer from the fourth quadrant of Okaria.”

  Miah gasps. His face is ashen, and he looks like he might throw up. The room buzzes for a moment, before we all go silent again, straining to hear more.

  “His father, Ezekiel Sayyid, is a known member of the increasingly well-organized terrorist network actively working to destroy the Sector. Jeremiah and Valerian both disappeared on the same day. Our intelligence now shows conclusively, though we don’t want to believe it, that Jeremiah is complicit in and central to the hostage-capture of our beloved son.” Here Philip’s voice cracks. He stares up at the elegant, arching interior of the Sector’s gorgeous Capital building, and blinks for a moment. Elsewhere in the room, someone conjures up a wad of saliva and spits it on the floor, summing up my feelings. I remember doing the same thing across the desk from Philip, not so long ago, before he slapped a few capacitors on me and turned up the charge.

  “Jeremiah Sayyid was a friend of ours. He was welcomed into our home on too many occasions to count. He dined with us, celebrated with us, and seemed by all accounts to be a talented young man with great promise. How wrong we were only proves how deeply this terrorist group can corrupt.....

  The sound goes dead and Zoe smacks the side of the audio unit with her hand.

  “...lurk in the shadows of our society, growing in strength and number as vulnerable citizens are attracted to their empty promises. They don’t offer freedom or safety or protection, but a fast track to destruction and disease, a return to famine, to bloodshed, to a time of want and war.”

  I clutch m
y father’s hand, close my eyes, and imagine watching Philip at the podium, in person. If I had stayed, would I believe him? Would his words strike fear in me?

  “Citizens,” his voice crackles through the speakers. “This is a dark time for my family, and if we do not address this threat, it could prove to be a dark time for the Sector as well. But rest assured, we are hot on the terrorists’ heels. We will track Jeremiah and Ezekiel Sayyid down and hold them accountable for their crimes against the Sector—for their crimes against you, our people. We will find Vale and bring him home. Together, we the citizens of the Okarian Sector will not let these deluded fanatics return us to the dark ages of the past. Together, we will work for a brighter, more secure and prosperous future. As always ‘May we gain strength from the sowing, resilience from the reaping, and hope from the harvest.’ Good night.”

  “Bastard.” A voice breaks the stillness. It’s my dad, who never curses. He hates it when Phillip quotes his poem, the poem that earned him his post as the Sector’s poet laureate.

  The sounds dim for a moment, as Philip retreats from the podium and takes Corine’s hand. Wrapped in their long fur coats and warm leather gloves, they hold their hands high, together, a sign of resilience and strength.

  After a long moment of fraught silence in the comm room, the vidscreen dies.

  “Damn it,” Eli says, loudly. “I knew that piece of junk wouldn’t last long.”

  Then I hear Linnea Heilmann’s perky voice through the radio, gilded with newsworthy suspense: “I am Linnea Heilmann, and that was Philip Orleán, Chancellor of the Okarian Sector, announcing the kidnapping of his own son and Sector Board Member, Valerian Orleán, by anti-Sector terrorists living in our midst.” She pauses, one of those calculated breaks to make everyone lean in a little closer. “Over the past few years, Sector intelligence agents have been conducting undercover investigations into the disappearances of several noted Sector citizens. Now we know the truth. This terrorist group—the Resistance, as they call themselves—is kidnapping them. But why? What does a ragtag group of resistance fighters hope to accomplish by holding our citizens hostage for months, sometimes years at a time? What are their demands? Why do they hide in the shadows? Those are just a few of the questions Sector Defense Forces and OAC Security personnel seek to answer. Until we get answers, we urge you to keep your eyes and ears open, your doors locked, and your hearts with those who have disappeared. Now, let’s welcome the young woman whose former boyfriend has betrayed the Sector, Miss Moriana Nair.”