There was no sign of human life, though movement was everywhere. The wind and rain ripped through the town, throwing loose items across the valley in a clattering mess that no one would tidy. It wasn’t even a big storm, as northern swells went, but it was Jett’s first on the Barricade and he imagined it was the height, and the buffer of the Barricade itself, that caused it to seem so much greater.
The whips and wails of the wind lashed the lighthouse into the evening. His fingers and toes felt frozen, no longer painful but not numb either. Lost, as if they’d already rotted from his limbs. He was wishing he had a watch, but it was redundant. He just wanted to know how much time he had left and the knowing wouldn’t change the time, which was why he had never bothered with a watch. But the dark night was lonelier than he had expected, and the screeches and groans of the storm left him feeling small and useless.
He was relieved when the door slammed open below, then closed just as abruptly before he heard footsteps heading for the hatch. He hauled it open and peered down at Raikkinen, surprised to find him holding two mugs of steaming coffee.
‘Thought you might like to thaw out a little.’ Raikkinen reached up with one of the mugs and Jett gratefully took it, the heat painful against his icy digits.
‘Thanks.’ He took Raikkinen’s mug as well and put it aside so the man had two hands to climb the ladder into the lights bay, then handed it back when Raikkinen was settled beside him in the small space between all the lights.
‘This storm’s pretty hectic,’ Raikkinen observed, watching the trees sway and threaten to snap on the northern forest border.
‘Are they always like this?’ Jett wasn’t sure what to think of that. He’d endured horrifying storms, in far worse conditions and wasn’t sure why this one was getting to him. He suspected being away from the testing facility, where life was regimented and he couldn’t make decisions of his own, had given storms a sense of inevitability. He’d been unable to change them, or alter the outcome and so he hadn’t worried about them. On the Barricade he was alone, except for his new team, and if anything went wrong he would be expected to find a solution or bear the consequences. No one was looking out for them, they had only each other, and as the new person on the team that safety net of trust was missing.
He sipped his coffee and tried not to think about it.
‘Nah, this one isn’t too bad. Just wet and noisy, mostly bluster. Mid-winter we get howlers; arctic troughs come down from the north and freeze everything. The snow’s so heavy then, it suffocates. A few times we had hail the size of soccer balls. It put holes in the Barricade and killed a guy on watch in District Six-Six-Two. The winter is cruel, but it’s beautiful.’
‘That … sounds great.’ It sounded terrifying. Jett wondered, not for the first time, why somewhere sunny couldn’t have taken over the world and shipped them all to the equator. But the world didn’t work that way. His coffee was already cooling and he took much larger gulps to finish it off while Raikkinen chuckled at him.
‘What’s it like, being conscripted?’ Jett had no idea why he asked, and Raikkinen seemed started by the question.
‘I don’t suppose much different to however you ended up here?’ Raikkinen sounded curious but then he shrugged. They were both aware that however Jett had come to be there it had in no way resembled being conscripted.
‘I had a good childhood, I was raised by my grandparents in a place my family had lived for generations. I had a good education where free thinking and creativity were encouraged, and I was encouraged to travel and explore as much as I wanted.’
‘That sounds good?’ It really did. Jett was having trouble reconciling the image Raikkinen painted with his words with the reality of conscription. It certainly didn’t gel with his own history, but then he wasn’t a conscript.
‘Service in itself is not bad,’ Raikkinen tried to explain. ‘People think of conscription and think of negatives; freedom of choice being taken, forced indenture to the military, being removed from family and home and community.’
‘Those all sound bad.’ Jett tucked his hands up into his sleeves in the hopes of keeping them warm after the coffee.
‘But I got to have those things,’ Raikkinen smiled, and it was clear he was remembering his childhood. ‘I know my family, and my home, and the people who live there. I went to school and I had friends and I learned amazing things. I know what freedom is, to have had it taken from me.’
‘Yes.’ Exactly. Jett was confused.
‘Enzo is like me, sort of.’ Raikkinen shrugged and tried to hunker down in his coat to keep warm, but he was so tall and lanky it was hard. ‘He had a life, with Ines. They knew their parents and friends, and they lived in a community of immigrants by the Barricade on the German border. It’s half the reason Enzo loves the Barricade so much; he lived in its shadow his whole childhood. His family brokered a deal for their immigration, like most do. Lifetime military service, in return for citizenship.’
It was not unusual. The war had cost Russia a lot of lives before the Barricade and they’d needed a quick population fix. They’d not had to look far to find thousands begging to come. Thousands had turned into millions once the Infection broke out, but by then the Empire had all the citizens it needed.
‘I don’t think that’s the childhood you had,’ Raikkinen said softly. With the storm raging Jett almost didn’t hear the words. Startled, he looked up and met Raikkinen’s serious gaze, amazed by how pale his blue eyes were.
‘I’m not a conscript…’
‘And you’re not an immigrant,’ Raikkinen agreed. ‘You’re a POW. I’m just guessing, but I’m assuming you were born in a camp.’
He was. That wasn’t even a hard guess. But there were things Jett didn’t think people knew about life in camps, and what happened to children born there. Mostly because no one cared what happened to the people there. They weren’t Russians and never would be. They were fodder.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘You,’ Raikkinen chuckled at him. ‘You’re Korean. I’d say from the North. There aren’t many Northerners left, you know … since Russia bombed it into the dark ages. But also … the only thing you own is a sword.’
Jett reached back and touched his fingers to the hilt before he’d even thought of the action. Raikkinen watched with a faint, amused smile and Jett pulled his hands back into his lap.
‘Sasha is more like you,’ Raikkinen murmured, looking out at the storm. ‘I would rather be conscripted, with the childhood I had behind me, than be taken from birth. Sasha has never met his parents, like most citizens. He was raised in a home for boys, taught in a military academy and sent to the Barricade, more a number on a ledger than a human being. The regime seeks to make them all the same, so that everyone’s equal.’
‘Equality doesn’t seem such a terrible goal?’ It seemed pretty great to Jett, but then he hadn’t tasted it. He was a slave. But the idea appealed, the thought that everyone might one day have the same things and be equally happy with what they had.
‘No, but all they’ve done is ensure they all suffer equally,’ Raikkinen whispered, sounding forlorn. Jett understood he mourned the loss of magic he had attached to his childhood. He wished that same sorcery for the millions who never had it and while Jett knew he would be counted among those who had been stripped of the fantasy, he could empathise with the desire to wish for something better for one’s friends.
‘So you don’t mind that you were conscripted?’ That seemed absurd, when he had so valued his freedom.
‘Sasha and Enzo are like brothers to me,’ Raikkinen assured him. ‘If I were offered freedom tomorrow I wouldn’t take it. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to take my place.’
Jett knew they likely all felt that way. Ines had no doubt echoed the sentiment, and yet here Jett was, taking his place. Untrusted, and unwanted but with no more choice in the matter than Ines had in death.
‘Thank you for the coffee,’ Jett mumbled, forcing himself to get up and col
lect the two empty mugs before heading for the ladder.
‘The awkwardness fades,’ Raikkinen promised him and when Jett looked back at him, startled, he was smiling. ‘Everyone’s been the new guy. It sucks, but it gets better. Faster than you think.’
‘Thanks,’ Jett scurried down the ladder, not sure why he felt embarrassed. Maybe because Raikkinen seemed to know exactly how he felt, even when he didn’t want to acknowledge it himself.
He took a deep breath before opening the external door, shoving it open and letting the wind slam it closed behind him. He rushed across the wet stones, careful to brace his ankles because the last thing he needed was to break a leg. He was still drenched by the time he reached the other side, wrenching the door open and stumbling into the heated tower.
It felt incredibly hot and stuffy after the hours in the stormy cold. He stumbled his way out of his heavy coat and shook as much of the water off as he could, then hurried downstairs to the bathroom. It was a struggle to get the wet clothes off, peeling them with numb hands from sticky skin and tossing them over the racks to dry.
It was one of the best showers he’d had in his life, hot and cleansing. He could feel his toes again and welcomed the prickling pain of it. He dreaded the thought of winter. Thawed, he closed off the taps and towelled dry, then hung the towel over the rack and grabbed his boots and Ssangdo before hurrying naked up to his room.
Closing the door behind him, Jett breathed a sigh of relief and quickly moved to the desk to turn on the small lamp. He pulled on some underwear and put his sword back in its crate before crawling in under the blankets. There was a lump under his pillow and when he pulled it out he found the two bilingual readers Stepanova had dropped off earlier.
Unsure why they made him so happy, Jett curled up under the blankets, tucking them around himself until he was toasty warm and comfortable, and then started to read.
It was a sluggish process. He tried to memorise the Russian words as he went, checking them against the English translation in the opposite column, and then going back and trying to make sense of the words in the sentence. The sentence structures were nothing alike, which only made it harder to place each word and its meaning, but the process was enjoyable and distracted him from otherwise wandering thoughts.
He was startled when, partway through the third chapter, someone knocked on his door.
‘Yes?’
Stepanova’s shadow appeared in the suddenly open doorway, Jett’s wandering thoughts made manifest despite his best efforts. He was dressed in the familiar uniform with his heavy coat slung over one arm.
‘You okay?’
‘Yes?’ He was in bed, reading, warm and content until he’d been disturbed by his dark fantasy. Why would he not be okay?
‘It’s just … the light was on. Thought maybe you couldn’t sleep. The storm’s pretty loud.’
‘It’s not so bad,’ Jett murmured, sitting up and pulling the blanket up around his chest when his skin grew goose bumps as it was exposed to the cooler air. ‘I was reading.’
‘Oh. Are you liking it?’ Stepanova came into the room and closed the door, surprising Jett who watched him with wide eyes as he sat on the side of the bed and snatched the book up, a faint smile on his lips as he studied the cover. ‘Oh, I like this one …’
‘Of course you do,’ Jett scowled.
‘What does that mean?’ Stepanova frowned down at him. Jett had no idea how such a large man, with such a fierce reputation, could be so confoundedly cute. Like the damn dog. He had the irrational urge to run his fingers through Stepanova’s hair and clutched the blanket to keep himself from going so.
‘The Idiot.’ Jett pointed to the title and arched a brow.
‘Ha!’ Stepanova shoved him back into the pillows and tossed the book on his chest. He seemed oblivious to the strength he’d used, but Jett felt the touch like he’d been licked with fire and couldn’t take his eyes from the muscle and sinew bulging under Stepanova’s tight thermal top. ‘It’s a classic, heathen!’
‘Sure.’ His mouth was dry. ‘An idiot would think so.’ An idiot would consider touching that man in very inappropriate ways. He was a complete moron.
‘Well,’ Stepanova leaned back in, resting his fists on either side of the pillow as Jett struggled to rise back up but came face to face instead. He could feel the man’s warm breath on his cheek. ‘You’ll have to tell me what you think when you finish. If you don’t like it, I guess we’ll know who the idiot is.’
Stepanova smirked, leaned in and brushed a faint kiss on Jett’s forehead, and then strode from the room, closing the door softly behind him. Jett stared at the plank of wood for a moment and then flopped back in a heap. His forehead felt branded. He pressed his fingertips to the spot but the warmth and tickling sensation didn’t fade and he let his hand fall away. He stared at the ceiling and tried to make sense of the way his heart hammered in his chest and his stomach felt empty, despite being full.
‘I’m so screwed,’ he told the storm. It howled in return.
7
C-SGT-NREBUD666-21651666
Standing on stage, the President shaking his hand. Surreal didn’t begin to cover it. He couldn’t prevent the swell of pride, the feeling of success. The fingers that closed around his were fine-boned, short and thin. The hands had no callouses. His own felt rough and broken in comparison. But that was as it should be. He was a soldier, and he was going south to serve his country with the highest honours.
Stationed to the Barricade.
‘You seem grotesquely happy for no fathomable reason,’ Matti observed as Sasha climbed up into the lights and settled onto the cushioned blankets Ines had set up there years ago.
‘My apologies.’ Sasha smirked, sorry for nothing. He had no idea why he’d even knocked on Ioane’s door, he just felt pulled in and he wasn’t sorry for how that conversation had gone. His lips felt like they were on fire.
‘No, it’s … it’s good.’ Matti bumped his shoulder. ‘We haven’t had a lot of happy lately.’ Matti rubbed the blankets and Sasha sighed, his happiness stalling, swept away by the memory of loss.
They were each dealing with the death of Ines in their own way, and while he and Matti had mostly come to terms with it, Enzo was still struggling. He would likely always struggle, and Sasha thought that was okay.
‘Ioane’s reading The Idiot,’ he said to distract them from the darkness.
‘Ah, one of your favourites!’
‘Yeah. He may have insinuated I’m the idiot.’
Matti laughed hard and Sasha found himself chuckling with him, but his lips were still tingling and he couldn’t shake the memory of the soft feel of Jett’s skin under his lips, and the scent of the man hiding mostly naked under the blankets.
‘No signs of life?’ He nodded to the south and Matti shrugged.
‘Define life. Because the storm’s alive, but nothing else by the looks of it.’
The storm was concerning. It was too early in the season for storms this size; the howling winds didn’t usually hit for another month. The snow was usually soon after. If they had snow in the next few days winter would be six weeks early, and the snow wouldn’t thaw until the middle of spring. They could be stranded without supplies for up to a month beyond the rations deadline. He would have to re-evaluate their supplies once the snow hit and decide if they needed to cut back.
‘I’ve got this. Go get some sleep.’
‘In a bit,’ Matti acknowledged. ‘You want a coffee? I’m going to make a tea.’ He was already climbing down the ladder, knowing no-one would ever say no to a hot coffee while on watch. He was back in no time, passing a steaming mug up into Sasha’s hands and giving him a sarcastic salute.
‘Don’t fall asleep once you’re all toasty,’ Matti hurriedly left, the door slamming shut in his wake. Sasha grunted in response, sipping his coffee and watching the rain pelt against the thick windows. He’d always hated the rain. He liked the snow and the cold but he didn’t like to be wet because tha
t led to freezing and death. The snow was beautiful, but the rain was dirty, hard and loud.
It didn’t ease until Enzo made his way onto the top of the wall, waving at him when he caught his attention as the spotlight passed over him. Sasha grabbed his mug and wandered down to meet him, smirking at the scowl on his face. Enzo had never been a morning person, but at least he had the last shift. He could have a nap at breakfast if he really needed it. Sasha was coming off the shift no-one wanted, but he didn’t mind it. He’d always enjoyed the darkest hours of the night and the quiet solitude they afforded. It gave him time to think and work out the best decisions for the group in hard times.
‘At least the rain’s easing.’ Sasha clapped Enzo on the shoulder and squeezed.
‘Small miracles. That storm was savage. Do you think it’ll snow by morning? Temperature’s dropped again.’
Sasha looked north at the black cloud bank, then shrugged. It was almost freezing, so there was definitely the possibility. If more rain rolled in and it continued to drop, then yes, they could be snowed in by dawn.
‘Could do,’ he agreed finally, then left, retreating into the tower. He left his coat in the upstairs armoury to dry on the racks and headed to the living room instead of his bedroom.
He put the kettle on and made up a coffee for Enzo and a tea for himself, taking it back out to his friend on watch.
‘My hero,’ Enzo moaned happily as he wrapped his hands around the mug. ‘It’s freezing out here.’
‘Why not go in the lighthouse, out of the wind?’ Sasha knew why, but he thought Enzo needed the prodding. Enzo and Ines spent double shifts there together, huddled on the cushions, talking, playing cards, simply being together. They were brothers in every way but blood.
‘It’s not the same,’ Enzo admitted. ‘It feels colder in there than out, now. And it’s lonely. Too many memories.’ But he was working his way back to it, Sasha knew, keeping watch closer and closer to the lighthouse. He’d go back in when he was ready.
Barricade Page 9
