by KT Belt
“Were there any problems?” the guard asked casually while he studied Carmen sitting in the back seat.
“Thankfully not,” the driver replied. “We probably wouldn’t be able to stop her otherwise.”
The guard nodded glumly. “Let’s hope our luck holds. You’re cleared inside.”
“Thank you.”
Carmen had always liked car rides—even more than she liked being out in the sun. That was no longer the case, though. The building, whatever it was, loomed ever larger, and she would be quite happy to never see it again. For the first time in her young life, she was completely powerless. She didn’t know what was going to happen, even distantly, and the adults here did not seem bent on keeping her happy. She was nearly hyperventilating when the car stopped at the front doors.
Janus got out of the car and walked around to her side. He opened the door and then extended his hand. Carmen just stared at it. This had to be a mistake. Why did they want her? What had she done? She just wanted to go back home. Janus just stood there with his hand out. If this was a mistake, he sure didn’t act like it.
Her first instinct was to ask if they could take her home now, but not knowing what the answer would be made her lips tingle. Her mother had to be right—she was usually right about everything else. All Carmen needed to do was just be good enough, and they would send her home. Perhaps then her parents would be happier more often. Besides, even if they didn’t send her back, her father was bound to come for her sometime soon. He was probably already on his way.
Carmen looked at Janus’s hand again and smiled. This all made sense now. She’d be the goodest little girl Janus had ever seen if it meant he would let her leave sooner. Gently and thoughtfully, he helped her out of the car. They walked inside the building hand in hand, Carmen beaming the entire way. Janus glanced at her curiously but said nothing. The hallway they entered was cavernous. There was no decoration of any kind, and no one else was in the hall. She was surprised; she had assumed a lot of people would be in a building this big, possibly even people like her.
“You are here because you are an asset,” Janus said. He didn’t even glance at her when he spoke. His gaze was fixed straight ahead.
“What’s an asset?” she asked, her young tongue tripping over the word.
“An asset is a monster much like myself, like all of us—a monster created for the sole purpose of giving other monsters who would do us harm pause.” Janus was silent for a moment before he spoke again. “In time, billions will cower at the mere thought of your might, and they would be right to do so.”
Carmen didn’t understand. She was different—everyone knew that—but she was not a monster. She wouldn’t even say Janus was a monster. He was scary, but there was no way he was related to those things that lived under her bed. The two of them rounded a corner, still hand in hand. This hallway ended with a door that was closed.
“I shall be your handler during the length of your stay. I shall care for you and provide whatever you need. In turn, you shall learn from me. Do you understand?” The door grew closer.
“Yes,” Carmen said, no longer smiling. She didn’t want to believe it, but she realized she may be staying here longer than she’d thought.
They walked through the door and into a large room with no other exit. The walls were padded and the floor was hard tile. There were no windows, but surprisingly there were people inside—quite a lot of people, in fact. They wore all white and doctor’s masks, and they stood next to several machines. Carmen didn’t know what the machines were, but she recognized some of them from the doctor shows her father occasionally watched.
Janus looked at the assembled group, and they all nodded in turn. He then turned his attention to her. “Nothing here happens in a straight line, nor is it easy,” he said to himself as much as to her.
She hesitated for only one brief second before announcing confidently, “I’m ready.” She could do this. She could be good.
The man casually pulled a pistol from his suit. Carmen had never seen a gun in person before. “Some rebirth is required,” Janus said. He then turned the weapon on her as the girl’s eyes grew wide. “I’m sorry,” he uttered.
The last thing Carmen saw was the muzzle flash.
2
New Friends
Subject: 111724 Age: 6 Status: Induction
Carmen awoke in a brightly lit room. Her entire body ached with a dull pain that left her notice only after a few seconds. She was wearing different clothes, although calling the gown she was draped in “clothes” would be a laughable kindness. The ugly gown, however, was barely a consideration in light of her current predicament.
Her young mind was still lost in a fog, perpetually going over and over one thing—one event. She touched her chest where she was shot…and there was nothing. Carmen could quite clearly remember the bullet tearing into her, yet there was no wound now. The perception hung over her like a whispered echo of dreadful tidings. She wondered hesitantly if it had even happened. It would be the most surreal nightmare she’d ever had, but it was the only believable explanation.
It was about then, as her consciousness moved beyond herself, that she noticed she was physically restrained to the bed she was lying in. She couldn’t help but let out a small whimper as she studied the lock. She had no hope of undoing it.
“Momm—” she began to utter, but her words fell short as she took in the sights around her.
She was in a rather large, bright room with absolutely no windows. The walls were stark white, as was the floor. Everything seemed clean and purposely so. It would take her days to find even one speck of dust. These, however, were all trivial details. What had her complete attention, and what made her swallow hard, was that she wasn’t alone. Other children lay all around her, also restrained to their beds. Most were older than herself, if only by a few years, but there were a couple of teenagers. On the other hand, so far as she could guess, none were younger than she. Why that was or what it meant, Carmen couldn’t say.
Everyone was injured in some way. One little boy was covered in bruises. Another boy’s arm was clearly broken in multiple places. A girl, one of the few teenagers, was missing her leg, which seemed to have been burned off. The sight made Carmen’s hair stand on end, but the girl was sedated and thus spared from the view of her missing limb. Adults tended to the children. They wore all white and had face masks much like the people from the room where Janus shot her. Tears began to fill her eyes as she thought about her apparent death yet again.
“So, 111724, you’re awake,” one of the doctors said.
It took Carmen a moment to realize she was talking to her. There was nothing outwardly scary about the woman, but Carmen tried to move as far away as possible nonetheless.
The woman smiled. “Don’t worry,” she said softly, “I won’t hurt you.”
“I want to go home,” Carmen whimpered, still crying.
The doctor forced a smile when she heard that. “Now, 111724, you have to be hungry. You’ve had a long day, and your body is still trying to grow up big and strong.”
Carmen didn’t say anything. She actually was a little hungry, and it was hard to not show interest at the indirect offer. All the same, she’d rather just go home and eat leftovers than stay here and have her favorite meal, if given the choice.
The woman smiled again. “What is it you Clairvoyants say? ‘Mind and body are a team?’ If you ask me, you spend too much time on the mind and not enough on the body. Here,” she said, producing a lollipop from her pocket. “Just don’t tell your handler that I gave your body a treat. It will be our little secret.”
Carmen looked at the candy, hesitant. Her mother would say she shouldn’t have a snack before dinner. She had no idea what Janus would say. Just thinking about him made her cry again.
“Now, now, now,” the woman said. “Not that again. Take it. It’s fine.”
She took the lollipop meekly. “Thank you,” she muttered.
“There. That
’s better, isn’t it?”
Carmen stuck the candy in her mouth and nodded. She didn’t really feel any better, but like with her parents, it was easier to pretend to be happy to make other people happy. The doctor seemed nice enough for the courtesy.
“Now, I just have to do some checks to make sure you’re okay. No more crying, right?”
“…Right.”
“Good.”
The tests were simple enough. First, she did a physical examination like Carmen’s doctor back home used to do. Then she asked Carmen to throw a ball in the air with her right hand and then her left. After that, she had Carmen repeat what she said word for word. The sentences grew more and more complex and were recited with increasing speed, but the girl got most of them right. Next, she repeated written sentences. Last, the doctor asked her to recall some of her earliest memories.
“All right. You seem to be completely intact,” the woman said, but Carmen didn’t know what she meant. “Stay here. Someone will be along to collect you shortly.”
Carmen looked at her restrains. It wasn’t like she’d be going anywhere. “Okay,” she muttered softly.
The doctor smiled one last time and then departed with a nod. As she sat there, the girl wondered what she had done wrong to make Janus shoot her. She had tried to be good. She had tried her best—she was sure of it. Tears began filling her eyes once again. Why was she here? What had she done wrong? She had no idea. Perhaps it had something to do with why her parents were upset all the time. She had always known they were upset because of her. Had they just not wanted her?
She looked around the room and decided the other children didn’t seem that special. She couldn’t read most of them without some effort, but other than that, they didn’t seem in any way peculiar. Quite a few were crying. For most, it was obvious that outright pain produced the tears. Still, she wasn’t the only one who simply sat in her bed and cried for no immediately obvious reason. The adults didn’t seem to care or even notice and just carried on with their examinations, moving on to the next child when they were finished. They all seemed nice, and some gave out lollipops like her doctor had. Their concern, however, extended no further than that.
Carmen’s crying made her vision blurry, and the situation made it hard to focus, but that all stopped when her gaze came to rest on one girl across the room. She was the same age as Carmen, had dusty brown hair, and was most certainly not crying. If anything, she was actually staring back at Carmen while slowly shaking her head. The girl was covered in minor scrapes and cuts, which seemed to be bite marks upon further examination. She didn’t know what kind of animal could produce bites like that, but she’d rather not know, truth be told. The girl had to be in some sort of pain, but there were no tears, no whimpers—nothing. Carmen looked down at herself in that moment and felt suddenly embarrassed. She had no injuries to speak of. In fact, she was quite comfortable physically. She even had a lollipop.
She looked at the girl again and was quick to realize she was different from every other child here. Carmen could read most of the other children in the room if she really, really tried, but that was not the case with this girl. If they were a mud puddle, then she was like the never-ending expanse of an ocean. She so completely drowned out her colleagues by just existing that it was almost absurd. As the girl stared at Carmen, she seemed decidedly unimpressed by what she saw. She sighed casually after a moment and then looked away. Carmen watched her for a few seconds more before she did the same.
Why am I here? she thought again. If there was anything these kids had in common, it was that they were hard for her to read or simply couldn’t be read. She had never thought about it before, but perhaps she was hard to read too? Janus had said they were both monsters, whatever that meant, and he was hard for her to read. If that was the case, why had he hurt her? What did she do wrong? This was just how she was.
It was then that she noticed a man moving through the room. As she watched him, every fiber of her being knew he was here for her. She’d known it from the moment he entered. She sat up in preparation to leave before he even spoke. Carmen planned to give both of her parents a big hug when she got back. They’d never believe her hell.
“111724, you are to come with me,” he said.
The man wasted no words as he removed her restraints. Carmen didn’t say anything either. Whoever he was, he wasn’t a monster like she or Janus. She could read him quite easily, but she didn’t waste her time trying. She was just happy he had come to collect her instead of Janus. She never wanted to see him again.
“Hold your hands out,” he said firmly once her restraints were off.
Carmen did as he asked. He then took a pair of handcuffs off his belt and quickly placed them on her. All of a sudden, she felt a little lightheaded. The feeling passed relatively quickly, but everything seemed just a little different than it was a moment ago. The world seemed less than it usually was, if that was even possible. People around her weren’t as vibrant as they were before, and she could no longer read this man. For some strange reason, she was also very, very tired.
“Follow me,” he said.
He started walking, and when Carmen hopped off her bed to follow, she almost fell over. She took another wobbly step before she wondered, What’s wrong with me? It took almost everything she had to just maintain her balance; it didn’t just happen like it usually did. She also felt heavy, like she had eaten cement for breakfast. Carmen looked at the handcuffs for a moment then at the man. She was tempted to ask if he could take them off, but she couldn’t read him and had no idea what he’d say.
She had trouble keeping up as he moved too quickly for her. She had never worked this hard on anything in her life. Slowly but surely her balance improved, but even so, each step had to be measured and planned out in advance. Carmen hoped there were no stairs along their route; if there were, she’d probably end up right back here with a new lollipop to suck on.
The man paused for a moment to sign some papers. She appreciated the break and took the time to survey the now strangely dull room once more. Like moth to flame, her eyes rested again on the brown-haired girl from before. She was watching Carmen too, shaking her head in disgusted pity. Carmen felt embarrassed all over again.
“Come on,” the man said, placing his hand on her shoulder.
She hadn’t been paying attention and was so surprised that she couldn’t help a quick scream. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been surprised by anything, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. Everyone in the room looked at her with equal surprise, and for the first time in her young life, she was glad that she had no idea what the people around her were thinking. Cheeks red, she wobbled out of the room with her new handler.
These halls were different than those from earlier today…or yesterday—whenever it was that she first arrived. There were actually people in the halls this time, and most were paired off. A child, much like herself, trailed their handler in handcuffs. The children seemed her age; the oldest she saw couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than herself.
At any rate, Carmen was still curious about what had happened to Janus. He told her he was her handler. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to shoot her and got in trouble? She couldn’t muster the courage to ask this man. Her shyness wasn’t rare—no other child here really seemed to be talking with their handler either.
“I’ve been looking for you,” someone said behind her.
She didn’t scream this time, but she did almost jump out of her skin. She could never get used to this. How could people function without knowing someone was there before they were, well…there?
“What’s up?” her handler asked after turning to see who it was.
The woman was maybe a few years older than the doctor who had tended to her earlier. Whoever she was, she didn’t have a child with her, and Carmen wondered whether she was a handler.
“This whole Space Force thing just got off the ground. Passed the vote earlier today,” the woman said
.
Carmen doubted the conversation had anything to do with her, considering she had no idea what “Space Force” was.
“So, what does that mean for us?”
“Actually nothing,” the woman said. “The treaty says Space Force is only to be used for xenomorphic threats and policing. It will be a part of the UTE, but we’ll remain and continue being administrated by the New Earth planetary government—though we are acting on the behest of the UTE.”
The man sighed softly. “This whole United Terran Empire thing will never work. Space Force is an even dumber idea. I don’t get it,” he said. “We practically save humanity single handedly. Earth is finally weak enough that they have to listen to our terms and we don’t have to listen to theirs, and we give it all up to start some grand terran alliance. Stupid, if you ask me.”
“I don’t know,” she began. “If we were united, we may have been able to fight off the sortens before they enslaved us.”
Carmen still had no idea what they were talking about. She vaguely remembered her parents talking about some far away war on other planets. She also recalled that all terrans came from a place called Earth and that New Earthlings were fighting to liberate it and the rest of the colonies, but she couldn’t remember much more than that. They had never talked to her directly about it.
The man shrugged. “I still think the whole effort is a waste of resources.”
“We’ll see,” the woman said. “Anyway, is this the new girl everyone’s talking about?”
Carmen jumped again, if slightly, when the conversation turned to her. People of all ages had talked about her all the time. Usually the words were passed in whispers and tinged with fear. That was just how things were. The sun rose each day, and people in unseen corners would discuss the little blonde girl with the piercing eyes. For all that, however, Carmen found it hard to believe she was already known by enough people here for them to say anything worth mentioning.
