The Collection

by Shannon Stoker

  “The last time Nathan was seen he had a gun to the back of his head and was being walked onto a plane. That was more than five months ago. I’ve followed every lead and there’s a chance he is here,” Riley said.

  “Then maybe we can make the plan together,” Mia said.

  “First let’s canvass the area,” Riley said. “Then we’ll talk about plans.”

  Mia turned inward for a moment. She pictured Andrew and Carter being forced to enlist in a second service. Riley had mentioned brainwashing, but Mia didn’t think she had too much to worry about. There was no way her two friends would fall under the spell of another military regime when they had both walked away from one already.

  Chapter 10

  SETTLING DOWN AFTER SERVICE: A COMPARISON THAT PROVES ALL OF AMERICA IS BEAUTIFUL AND PROSPEROUS

  —American Gazette

  Andrew had spent his whole life reading about the service. He’d seen several photographs of base life and hung on every word when postservice men described their time. He’d readied himself for an open room lined with bunk beds and trunks, large enough for several hundred men. This room did not compare.

  It was the same idea, but on a much smaller level and with a dirt floor. There were ten bunks, none of which looked occupied. His guards remained by the door, not speaking or moving. Andrew heard footsteps and his eyes focused on the entrance. The key turned and the heavy wooden door opened. In came Carter, escorted by two of his own guards.

  The young man’s face was blank. His eye was red, on the way to turning black, and it looked like he’d gained a fresh bruise on his chin. Carter was defeated and dropped his head when he saw Andrew.

  Andrew felt his rage flare. Not toward Carter, who had given these men information, but toward his captors, who had outnumbered and attacked an unarmed man. Carter was released by his guards and shoved into the center of the room. Andrew tried to make eye contact and give Carter a reassuring nod, but his counterpart refused to look at him.

  A booming voice filled the room. “Welcome to your new home. I am Sergeant Randall MacLean. You will call me ‘sir.’ Do you understand?”

  Andrew looked at the man. He was about a decade older than the two of them. He was small, not taller than five foot five, but his face and voice commanded attention and respect. Andrew was frozen.

  “I asked you a question. Do you understand?”

  Play the game, Andrew reminded himself. It was the only way he’d get a chance to escape. He had to convince these men he was on their side. Then he could find Mia.

  “Yes, sir,” Andrew said.

  This caused Carter to look up.

  “No,” Carter said.

  “What was that?” Randall screamed.

  He stepped forward to Carter.

  “What is my name?” Randall was practically on top of Carter.

  “Sir,” Andrew said. “Your name is Sir.”

  “I want to hear him say it.”

  “No,” Carter said.

  Randall backed up with a cruel smile on his face.

  “You failed lesson one,” Randall said. “You two are a team now and you share in punishment. I’ll return in the morning. I expect you to know my name by then.”

  Randall left the room with the four guards behind him. They closed the heavy wooden door and the metal lock clipped over.

  “Did they hurt you?” Andrew asked.

  “No,” Carter said. “I banged my head on a table.” He rolled his eyes and looked away from Andrew.

  “Don’t draw attention to yourself,” Andrew said. “Let’s get through this.”

  “What am I doing?” Carter replied. “I’m not a soldier or a militiaman. Neither are you.”

  Andrew dropped his voice as low as possible and whispered into Carter’s ear.

  “If we don’t play along they’ll keep us here,” Andrew said. “Act the part.”

  “My father taught me many things,” Carter said in a whisper. “One of them is to have some integrity.”

  “Rod also taught you about taking care of other people,” Andrew said. “We can’t help anyone from in here.”

  “You don’t say his name,” Carter said. “He’s dead. We left him and he’s dead.”

  “What did you tell them about us?” Andrew asked. “Did you mention our—”

  “No,” Carter said. “Our names and where we’re from. I didn’t mean to tell them your name; it slipped. They asked if we served any time and I didn’t mean to give away so much information. They poked fun at me for having a dad, but were excited you were raised on the streets. I didn’t even tell them my dad was dead.”

  “Don’t let him die for nothing,” Andrew said. “We need to get out of here. Putting up a fight right now is wasting time.”

  “Maybe if I fight now they’ll end this,” Carter said.

  “You don’t want to die,” Andrew said.

  Carter let out a sigh and shook his head.

  “We don’t even know what their cause is,” Andrew said. “All I know is that I need to get out of here. As fast as possible. We won’t have a shot at that if we’re locked in a cell.”

  Carter didn’t have the chance to reply. Out of nowhere loud music filled the room. Both boys covered their ears. It was obnoxious, a cacophony of different instruments, drums and guitars making random noises. Andrew wasn’t even sure it was actual music.

  Carter tried to be heard above the sounds. Andrew saw his lips move but couldn’t hear a thing coming out of his mouth. Andrew started moving around the room, but it was the same volume everywhere. It had only been a minute and Andrew thought his ears would bleed. He needed the noise gone now; he couldn’t focus on anything. If these men wanted Andrew and Carter to stop talking there were easier ways to gain their silence.

  Andrew gave up trying to talk. He waited for the noise to stop. It seemed like as soon as he got used to it the volume would increase or the instruments would change. It became impossible for Andrew to focus or think of anything but his desire for the noise to cease.

  Chapter 11

  EUROPEAN TAXES AND UNEMPLOYMENT AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH

  —Global Reporter

  The sky didn’t seem too dark until the lights from the town became visible. The entire terrain had changed too. The lush greens and grasses disappeared and were replaced by a desert floor. The contrast sent a shiver down Mia’s spine. If there was someone else walking around it would be hard to spot them in the darkness; of course, seeing Riley and Mia would be just as difficult.

  “Is that where they are?” Mia asked, pointing to the lit area.

  “No,” Riley said. “That’s Puesta del Sol proper. Never go in there.”

  “Why?”

  “Trust me,” Riley said.

  Their path changed directions. Instead of walking along the coast, Riley started moving inland. They were going to pass the town on the opposite side. Mia wondered what made Riley so nervous. They were walking too far away from the small buildings for Mia to get a good look, but the area didn’t seem threatening. The whole thing was about two blocks long. Behind the town was a patch of several small homes. Mia wouldn’t have noticed them if some didn’t have their lights turned on. Not more than three hundred people could have lived there, and that seemed like it would be pushing it. In the distance Mia thought she heard music. The town was celebrating.

  “We’re not very far from your friends,” Riley said. “Do you see that house?”

  Riley pointed past the town. The road wound upward along a hill. In the dark Mia wouldn’t have noticed it, but there were lamps lighting the way. They were beautiful guiding lights. Mia’s eyes scanned where they stopped; she could see the outline of a home.

  “Not really,” Mia said. “It’s too dark.”

  “Here.”

  Riley handed Mia a pair of glasses. Mia wasn’t sure how sunglasses would help her see in the dark but she slid them on. Everything was clear as day.

  “How—”

  “Your homeland,” Riley sai
d. “My team came in contact with an American. He didn’t survive so they searched his person and found these. It was two years ago. Our government spent long hours trying to copy the technology, unsuccessfully. I doubt you know about these?”

  “Do you think this is something created by one of those boys you mentioned earlier?” Mia asked.

  “You’ll have to ask a member of the American government,” Riley said. “But as I mentioned earlier, it’s just a rumor.”

  “Well, what happens to the other boys? The ones who are kept?”

  “Supposedly, they’re the ones who make the new technology; they’re given the best education and kept highly medicated.”

  “What do you mean?” Mia didn’t understand.

  “It goes back to American secrecy,” Riley said. “It’s only one assumption.”

  Mia knew Riley wasn’t comfortable discussing things she wasn’t certain of.

  “Your team kills people?” Mia asked. She changed the subject faster than she wanted to, but she didn’t want to forget her other question.

  “Only if they have to,” Riley said. “They didn’t kill the American. Didn’t even know his name, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Have you?” Mia asked.

  With the glasses on Mia saw Riley’s face fill with worry.

  “Look at the house,” Riley said. “Can you see it better now?”

  Mia could. It was a sprawling white ranch with an orange roof. They were too far away for any detail. Mia wished the glasses had a zoom.

  “A little,” Mia said.

  “That’s Joseph Ruiz’s home,” Riley said. “He’s the man in charge. This whole thing is his operation. The militia that has your men, they think they’re preparing to fight for Mexico and protect their country, but they’re only his personal army.”

  “The men don’t know?” Mia asked.

  “This militia thing is new,” Riley said. “Two years old max. The man in charge of that operation is named General Ricardo Bolivar. I think he knows; before he was given the title of general the only military experience he had was running Ruiz’s thugs.”

  “How did he start the militia then?”

  “Disenchanted American youth,” Riley said. “Your countrymen who are scared of service sneak over the border on a regular basis. Instead of being turned over for deportation, sometimes they fall into the wrong hands; it depends on who grabs them. General Bolivar got the idea to start buying them up. He recruited some local youth too. In two short years he’s assembled more than one thousand well-trained soldiers.”

  “But what for?” Mia asked.

  “The cartel wars might be long gone, but that doesn’t mean that drug use left Mexico,” Riley said. “I think Joseph Ruiz wants the militia to protect his drug running.”

  “So Joseph Ruiz is a drug dealer?” Mia asked.

  The unserved boys who had shown up for work on Mia’s father’s farm brought her little knowledge of the outside world. One time when her father didn’t know Mia was within earshot, she’d heard him talking to a manager about how one of the new hires was caught selling drugs to the other boys.

  “A drug dealer,” Mia’s father had yelled, upset. “Can you believe it? Here? You need to get better at screening these boys.”

  Mia wasn’t sure who the offending helper was, but several of the workers were gone after that day. At the time Mia assumed they were kicked off the property, but after learning from Andrew about the average young man’s life, Mia wondered if the drug dealer met with a crueler fate. Later that night she had asked her mother what a drug dealer was; the response was that it was someone bad Mia would never have to deal with. She held on to the question though and asked her sister Corinna when she was home from finishing school for a long weekend.

  “You know how if your stomach is upset Mom will give you a pill and it makes the pain stop?” Corinna asked. “Well, that’s a drug. There are other kinds out there too, though. Some the government doesn’t like, so if you’re caught with them bad things will happen. Drug dealers are the people who sell these things.”

  “How do you know that?” Mia asked; she thought her sister was lying. It seemed too preposterous to twelve-year-old Mia.

  “In the fall Mom and Dad will send you to a finishing school,” Corinna said. “They don’t teach you much but there will be other girls who know stuff there. You’ll trade information with each other.”

  Mia smiled. She couldn’t wait for finishing school. It was the best way to secure a match. Mia valued anything that would help her land a husband. She had never made it to finishing school, though. By the time the fall rolled around her parents agreed she was pretty enough that it wouldn’t be necessary. At the time Mia’s ego had soared from this announcement. Now Mia wondered how different her life would be if she’d had some form of education.

  “I wouldn’t call him a drug dealer,” Riley said. “He’s a mobster. Gangster. He has his hands in all sorts of illegal activity. The drug running is just a guess. Truthfully I don’t know what he wants an army for, but it’s probably nothing good.”

  The two continued moving, and Mia handed Riley back the glasses. The darkness offered Mia a new protection she welcomed. The two continued walking inland and north. Soon Puesta del Sol’s lights were in the distance again. Riley stopped walking and took a drink from her water bottle.

  “We’re almost there,” Riley said. “Reminders: Don’t do anything to draw attention to us. We’re just looking for information.”

  Mia nodded. She would give anything to get a glimpse of Andrew and Carter, though.

  “Keep low and quiet,” Riley said. She hunched down and started taking large steps forward.

  Mia could only see flat landscape. She didn’t know what Riley was trying to take cover from, but Mia followed her lead. Soon Riley dropped to a crawl. Mia joined her. A few more feet and Riley stopped. She lay down on her stomach and Mia fell next to her. Riley pulled herself forward, and Mia did the same.

  The ground dropped away. Mia and Riley were at the top of a huge canyon. In the dark Mia would have missed the ground’s absence and fallen off the cliff. Mia looked across the canyon and saw the opposite side had ridges just as steep. Riley handed Mia back the glasses and she put them on. This was a training facility. Mia saw a track circling the ground and an obstacle course of sorts. Her eyes scanned the field. She spotted several armed guards patrolling the area. Two of the four looked American. Their demeanor was that of any soldier. Nobody else was visible and that meant no Carter or Andrew.

  “Where is everyone?” Mia asked.

  “Below us, carved into the cliffs, is a housing unit,” Riley said. “It’s a giant relic created by past cultures. There are hundreds of rooms. That’s where they have their offices and sleep, among other things. That’s where your boys are.”

  “And maybe your husband?”

  Riley nodded.

  “Have you been inside?” Mia asked.

  “Once,” Riley said. “This is still an amateur army. They don’t have any electronic security. Only those four guards.”

  “Five,” a new voice said.

  Mia heard a gun cock. She froze in fear.

  “Keep your hands up and turn around,” the man said. “Not too amateur to notice your break-in and change our rotation.”

  Mia rolled onto her back. This was it. Yet another time she was certain her journey would come to an end.

  “A girl?” The guard laughed. He was American, not much older than Mia. He looked at her with a fire in his eyes.

  “General Bolivar is going to love you,” he said. Mia saw his eyes moving up and down her body. She looked away in disgust. “You too,” he said to Riley. “Turn around. Keep your hands up.”

  Riley spun around onto her back.

  “Another beauty,” he said. “You’re a little old, but I’m sure there’s some use for you. Stupid girls.”

  He let out another laugh. Riley didn’t hesitate. While Mia sat in fear she reacted wi
th speed. She flopped back onto her arms and forced her feet in the air, flinging herself upward. Mia had never seen a body move that way. The guard was surprised too. Riley landed on her feet and kicked the barrel of his rifle down to the ground. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him forward. The rifle served as a fulcrum and once he flipped over the weapon he was flung into the canyon.

  “Come on,” Riley said.

  She reached down and pulled Mia up by the hand. Riley didn’t give Mia the chance to ask any questions. Instead she started running through the desert. Mia’s legs felt heavy again. The same way they felt after the helicopter crash. She was sure she was going to fall.

  “Don’t leave me,” Mia called to Riley, who was several feet in front of her.

  Riley turned around. “If you want to live, you’ll run,” she said.

  Live, Mia thought. She forced her leaden legs to move under her and followed Riley as best she could. The gap between them widened, and Riley never slowed. They cleared the town and were back up by the coast again. Mia pulled on her inner strength and ran faster; otherwise she risked losing Riley in the dark desert. After what felt like forever Mia saw Riley slowing down to a walk. Mia continued moving fast until she was next to the redhead, who handed Mia some water.

  “What was that?” Mia asked. “Were you going to leave me?”

  “You need to learn to react,” Riley said. “You froze there, then dragged your feet. I’m not going down with you.”

  “I can react,” Mia said. “I saved Andrew from—”

  “You need to respond for yourself,” Riley interrupted. “If you can save others, you can save yourself. You froze on the beach that day, and you froze tonight.”

  “You said I needed to strategize,” Mia said. “Which is it, form a plan or react?”

  “Both!” Riley said.

  Mia felt the tears sting her dry eyes. “I don’t know what happened,” she said. “I saw the way he was looking at me and I got so scared.”

  “He was American,” Riley said. “They never suspect a girl is capable of anything but having babies. Our cover is blown.”

  “Nothing’s changed,” Mia said. “They knew someone was breaking in. The guard told us that. Now all they know is it’s two girls.”