plantation

by Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

  Her powers of intellectual manipulation don’t work on me, but she’s right about the main part. We have to climb to the top of the hill and take pictures of the plantation.

  We are free to move faster now and even talk although we don’t feel very talkative. We know each other well. Rabbit internalizes when he concentrates. Nya barely ever talks anyway. Daphne likes to isolate herself so she can enjoy the feeling of being the leader which is her one true passion in life. That leaves Tilly humming a tune under her breath.

  We reach our position on top of the hill within three minutes. We have seventeen more minutes that we can be certain are relatively safe. We probably could risk another five or six but we don’t want to take the chance. For the time being we prefer to stay under the radar.

  From here we have a clear view of half of the plantation’s buildings and facilities. With our powerful binoculars we can spot the smallest details: a leaf on the ground, a fly on a Sliman’s helmet, a dent in a magnetic bow. I can’t help but wonder if Tilly with her amazing vision actually needs the binoculars.

  Daphne takes pictures of the buildings while I type down what they represent: the HQ, the dorms, the labs, the kitchens, the lavatories, the training arena, the simulators, the library, the armory. It’s all here, almost identical to the other two plantations we have surveyed.

  A dozen or more children exit the simulation chambers. They walk slowly in a row with their heads slightly bowed, clad in the brown uniforms I remember so well, hair so short it looks as if it had been shaven off. The whole picture is so familiar that it sends a pang through my heart.

  The first day I arrived at Plantation-8 as a seven-year-old, I thought my world had ended. I didn’t know I would find Finn there, but even if I had known, it wouldn’t have been much of a consolation at the time. Everything seemed menacing and cold, like a walk on thin ice with the gaping mouth of chaos underneath.

  They took my clothes away and put the dreadful brown uniform on me. They cut off my hair and made me swallow a bunch of pills. They looked inside my throat, nose and ears. They tested my reflexes with small electric shocks. They drilled my teeth and put caps on them. They gave me several shots and put me through a full body scan.

  When they were done, they reclassified me as 8-78349Z32 and sent me off to report to my dorm. There they removed the old number from the back of my neck and tattooed the new number onto me. They told me it would be my name from now on. The whole time I felt like I was dying inside and my seven years on earth seemed to have been for nothing. I missed my baby sisters and my mother, that distant, distracted, silent woman with the vacant eyes.

  I didn’t know anything about her, about who she had been when she was a young girl, before she was turned into a breeding machine. I wish I could have known her when her spirit was still alive in her.

  Rabbit pokes me and I am so startled that I drop my touchpad.

  “Have you ever seen a female alien? Or a female Sliman?” he asks me.

  The image of a female Sliman is just too much and I choke on my own laughter.

  “Of course not,” Daphne intervenes. “Nobody has. Why do you ask things we all know the answers to?”

  “He was talking to me,” I remind her. “We like to talk about stuff. Like friends do.”

  “What I’m trying to say,” Rabbit goes on, “is that the aliens must keep their females somewhere else, maybe on their planet, maybe in some secret place on Earth. Maybe the females are too weak or too vulnerable. More so than the males. Maybe we can end this war if we find their location. No more ladies, no more alien babies.”

  “There’s no time for dreaming,” Daphne says, rolling her eyes.

  “What if he’s right?” Tilly joins in the conversation. “What if the solution is in the female counterparts? Or, what if there’s only one female, a super alien, a queen, just like bees? Find the queen, destroy the colony.”

  “You guys are reaching,” Daphne says. She shakes her head and takes more pictures.

  “She’s right. There’s no easy way out, we have to kill them all, one by one,” Nya whispers in her matter-of-fact voice. Nya doesn’t say much, but she likes to have the last word.

  “Who said it would be easy?” Tilly protests.

  “Shut up, all of you, something’s wrong,” Daphne reprimands us as she reaches for her pulse gun.

  “What’s going on?” Tilly inquires, her senses sharpening.

  “One part of our shield is down creating white noise in the satellite transmission. There’s some odd movement in the plantation, look!”

  A Sliman patrol is forming right in front of our eyes next to the armory.

  “They’re on to us,” Daphne says. “Who’s monitoring the blue part of the interference shield?”

  I realize with a two-second delay that that would be me. My touchpad is shut off. It must have happened when I dropped it. Daphne gives me the coldest look I have ever seen in my life and that includes the Director in Plantation-8.

  I switch my touchpad back on but it’s too late. We have to get out of here as fast as possible. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. How did I not see that my touchpad was compromised? Where has my head been? This is unforgivable. I know it and so does everyone else.

  We have two, maybe three minutes before our location is detected by the plantation’s sensors. We run down the slope for dear life, doing our best to keep up with Rabbit. If we manage to get to the designated spot on time, we’ll have to slow down to a crawl. Hopefully, that will keep us out of range of their detection mechanisms which might make the Sliman think there was a glitch in the systems.

  I realize that Tilly is trailing behind the group. Daphne takes a look at me and seems to be reading my mind. We run back simultaneously and grab Tilly by both arms. She has hurt her foot but she has to endure the pain, there’s no other way. We pull her along till we reach what would be our safe spot according to Theo’s instructions.

  We come to a stop and nod to each other. No talking or sudden movements until we get out of the plantation’s surveillance area. The way back is slow and stressful. Tilly’s face distorts with pain but she hangs on and doesn’t complain. Rabbit stays by her side, worried.

  I can’t read Daphne’s expression but I’m sure she’s furious with me. She doesn’t say a single word until we reach the camp in a state of exhaustion. Rabbit runs ahead to get Doc so he can take care of Tilly’s foot that is swollen and bruised. Rabbit and Doc arrive with a stretcher a couple minutes later. Nya and I follow after them when I hear Daphne’s voice.

  “Not so fast, Freya, come with me.”

  I guess it was to be expected. Daphne would never let me off the hook, especially for something so serious.

  Damian waits for us at his desk in the headquarters and I can tell by the look on his face that he has been briefed about what happened on the hills. I didn’t expect Daphne to cover for me, but I have to admit that I’m surprised at the velocity of her report. She acts like an obedient puppy around him and I guess the fact that she has the opportunity to humiliate me is an added bonus.

  “Do you realize you’ve jeopardized the very existence of the Saviors?” Damian says in a rather calm voice.

  I nod. I know that he’s right.

  “Why did you even volunteer? It’s obvious to everyone you’re not ready,” he goes on.

  “Obvious to everyone but Freya herself,” Daphne says.

  Damian remains calm. “You are not to leave this camp on your own, is that clear? You need to train, make yourself useful and learn. No more volunteering or running off with Finn. You’re nothing but a distraction to him.”

  I bite my tongue so hard that it bleeds. I have about a thousand things I want to say but I think of Finn and everything he has been trying to impress on me. I still have his knife, a reminder that I have lied to him and that I’m not like the other Saviors. It’s hard not to defend myself, but I fight back the urge to speak. It always ends badly. I say nothing. I listen. I nod. I am utterly and
perfectly humiliated.

  I find Finn with Rabbit. They both look worried and curious about what has happened. I tell them everything, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to remain strong.

  “Let me get this straight, you just stood there and said nothing?” Finn asks me.

  “Yeah. That’s what I said.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean why? You’ve always told me to respect authority.”

  “I never told you not to explain the facts. I said you should not challenge Damian in public and you should not shout to support your arguments. But you need to defend yourself, Tick. You need to present all the facts. Rabbit told me he pushed you. Why didn’t you say that? Why didn’t you explain it was an accident and not some form of negligence on your part?”

  “Because it was some form of negligence on my part. And because I’m not going to drag Rabbit into my mess. And because I’m trying so hard to keep you from getting mad at me.”

  “I will explain to Red,” Rabbit offers.

  “You will do no such thing,” I say. “I will do what I have to do. I will even try to learn as Damian suggested. Just, both of you, let me deal with this my own way.”

  Finn surprises me with a grin. He regards me with something new in his eyes. He leans in for a hug. “I understand, Tick,” he says. “I might even be a little proud of you, but you should choose your battles more wisely in the future.”

  I go to my tent and sit on my bed. All the fatigue of the previous days weighs me down. I didn’t lie when I said that I wanted to learn and get better. I do. I need to learn and to grow. But knowledge comes at a huge price in our world and I can’t help but wonder if it will all be worthwhile.

  Chapter 7

  There is a lot to be said about someone who avoids responsibility and it’s all bad. I don’t want to be that kind of person. I don’t want to be the one Savior who could not put the common good above her personal interests.

  We are in the Armory, waiting for Damian and Daphne to join us for our scheduled weekly meeting. I don’t expect any unpleasant surprises today because I know what’s on the agenda.

  Tilly and Scout are maintaining a conversation with each other while I sit between them.

  “Training out in the forest is always exciting,” Scout says. ”There’s nothing for me to track in the combat ring.”

  “Unless we get attacked by a swarm of bees again,” Tilly says. “That wasn’t fun.”

  “What are the chances of that happening again?” Scout says. “Bees are hardly a thing to worry about.”

  “I doubt the bees will have moved their hives,” Tilly disagrees.

  “It doesn’t matter if they’re still there,” I cut in. “This time around we’ll know where the hives are and we won’t bother them.”

  “What if there’s more hives we don’t know about?”

  “Come on, Tilly! You’re not afraid of some little tiny bees, are you? We have to get out of the camp more,” Scout insists.

  The conversation is cut short as Damian and Daphne make their appearance. Zoe will keep notes today, so she sits right next to Damian, with Daphne on his other side.

  Daphne takes out her touchpad and announces the topics for the day. Then she says that Damian wants to address the meeting first.

  Damian waits a few seconds before he gets up and walks to the whiteboard on the other side of the room. We all have to turn our heads to follow him. He picks up a marker and draws a sketch of an electrical circuit. Then he erases a small part of the voltage loop.

  “You take away the smallest particle and the circuit fails,” he starts his speech. “There has been a lot of that lately. Freya and Theo have jeopardized our whole existence by being negligent and hasty on two different occasions. I think we would all like to hear what they have to say about the matter and how they plan to improve their attention to mission detail in the future.”

  I know I have promised myself and others that this time I will just be a part of the team, but if he keeps this up, I will not be responsible for what comes out of my mouth. It’s one thing to talk about my mishap, but the way I remember it, Theo actually saved us that day.

  “I know I’m asking for a lot and I know our lives are far from easy, but we are free and I hope we can stay that way,” Damian says, pausing for effect. “We are in this together and we must have each other’s backs.”

  He points at me and gestures that I join him. All eyes see his gesture so I feel like I have no choice. I walk slowly up to the whiteboard, having no idea what the heck I’m going to do or say once I’m there.

  “I thought I’d give you a chance to speak for yourself,” Damian says, staring intensely at me with a furrowed brow.

  I feel like I could kill him. Well, at the very least smack that smug look off his face and throw him into a dark hole. It must be nice to always be in the right and throw your judgment down like a hammer on the heads of all of us who just do the best we can.

  “I don’t know what you expect me to say,” I begin. “There was an accident during the mission on Plantation-6. I dropped my touchpad and it shut off automatically. I don’t plan to make a habit out of it. No need to worry about this kind of thing repeating. As for Theo, he saved the entire camp the other day, so there’s no need for him to explain anything.”

  “Can you, for once, stick to the part that’s relevant to you? It’s all an accident with you, isn’t it?” He says the words slowly while his face flushes red.

  I know I can’t win this time, not when everyone knows my mental lapse put lives at risk. The last thing that I need is for them to assume I want to escape responsibility. I turn my face to Finn, seeking some sort of advice in his eyes, but I can’t read anything there. I think about it for a moment and then decide to go with my instinct.

  “I was wrong. I screwed up. I’m sorry. We all know this. If you needed me to say it, I said it. Now what?” The room stays deathly silent. “We are all accidents, Damian, if I must state the obvious. We were born into an enslaved world and we were meant to be slaves until we were killed or lobotomized.”

  Finn does not try to stop me. I sense he’s given up on me. So I continue. “Sooner or later we will be tested, truly tested. Failure will mean death or worse. I have no intention of failing when that day comes. What can I do but continue to believe in myself?”

  There’s a short pause before Rabbit starts clapping feebly. Scout follows shortly afterwards but that’s where the rebellion ends.

  Damian’s eyes are so unwavering, I think they might burn holes through my skull. “You always sound good, Freya, like you have a crusade you’re leading,” he says. “But the only crusade we have right now is staying alive. You were truly tested and you failed and now you want to make that everyone’s fault but your own.” He stops to shake his head, deeply frustrated. “Until your attitude changes you will fail tests again and again. This does not show me you are ready to assume real responsibility, or to reassure your companions they will be safe in your company.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say. That I’m going to be more careful?”

  “It’s not about what I want you to say, it’s about what you want. About what you’re prepared to do to make sure you’re solid in every moment. We will continue to wait for you, but not forever.”

  His last words sting and make it hard to breathe. I can hardly pay attention to his conversation with Theo. I know that Theo gives an apology, that he promises to work hard to improve the performance of his devices and that he will be alert and quick to react. Then I stop listening altogether.

  *

  Finn walks with me to the simulators as I have a session scheduled in a short while. “For what is worth, I agree with some of what you said.”

  “Some but not all, right?”

  “Freya, I will talk to Damian.”

  “Let it go, Finn. Damian’s had enough of you defending me.”

  He takes my hand. “I believe in you,” he says. “Never forget
that.”

  I leave him standing outside as I enter the simulators. It’s not my turn. I wait and start thinking about the breeding village again, about my mother, my brother and my sisters.

  I have no proof that my mother loved us, but I believe it. I believe that no matter how hard the aliens tried to remove her intelligence and emotions, she still had love inside her even though she never found the means to express it.

  I imagine how deeply heart-broken she must be now, alone with all her children gone. They will have made her a servant, a cook or a cleaner for the village labs. No one has ever seen an old human, certainly no one over sixty, but she is only forty now. They will let her work. I wish I could see her once more. I wish I could hug her and tell her that I love her. That she will always be in my heart and that one day I will save her and she can live on even when she goes gray.

  Gosh, I’m as bad as Rabbit when I start daydreaming. My turn has come for the simulation session, so I welcome this opportunity to shut out all thoughts and blow some stuff up.

  When I return to my tent, I find Finn waiting for me outside.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than hide in shadows?” I tease him.

  But then I notice the knife in his hands. The one I stole from him.

  “How did my knife end up under your bed?” he says.

  “What were you doing searching my tent?” I say, trying to defend myself.

  “I was going to replace your mattress with one that Daphne gave me. She found three in a basement in Lost Town still in protective wrap. I thought you could use it. Yours was in bad shape. I wanted to surprise you.”

  I nod, not knowing what to say.

  “Why did you take my knife, Freya? And why did you hide it? You know I need this knife. What were you trying to accomplish?”

  I shrug. I’m at a loss for words. “I don’t know, I was mad when I took it. I’ve been trying to give it back.”

  He tries to hand his knife to me, but I don’t take it. “See, that’s all it takes to give it back. It hardly takes any trying at all.”

  “Yeah, and have you mad at me once again.”