by Kir Lukovkin
The channel through the slope glittered silver in the rays of the midday sun, looking like an endless, blinding strip. Rick felt his back get hotter and hotter as his speed became dangerously high. The noise of the wind in his ears changed to a howl, his neck was in pain and he really wanted to lower his head, but he could not, he had to endure it and look ahead so that he would see the end of the slope. He saw a dark spot ahead of him through the tears that welled up in his eyes. This must be Olivia, it could not be anyone else. If she was sliding down along the right way and holding herself together, it meant that everything was still fine.
Suddenly, the channel ahead of him bent and Olivia flew into a spin, followed by Rick. The channel ended. He heard a loud scream. Rick understood that he was flying too, waving his arms and screaming as he spun through the air. A wall, some walkways, the roofs of the buildings and the sky flashed before him and then a dark strip covered with ripples suddenly appeared in front of him and then disappeared.
Impact!
A splash!
He was very lucky to have entered the water feet first. Once he came up to the surface, he swam to the concrete edge of the canal in a couple of strokes, finally breathed out and fell on his back throwing his arms to the sides and greedily sucking in air.
Olivia lay in a similar pose nearby, breathing heavily.
Then they both laughed loudly. But their joy was short lived. Olivia abruptly went quiet. A shadow blocked the sun above Rick and he sat up quickly.
Armed men in gray jumpsuits stood at the edge of the canal. One of them raised his blaster, putting the barrel to Rick's head and said, “Pray to your gods.”
Rick would have considered this good advice. But he no longer believed in the gods.
J
THE MAN IN GRAY pulled the trigger and the weapon emitted a dry click. The stranger chuckled and lowered his weapon, carefully observing Rick.
“Fritz, there's something strange about this one,” he said to someone behind his back.
Another man separated himself form the line of gray strangers. He was a tall man with a square jaw, thin lips, a straight nose and light colored hair. He approached, towering over Rick like a mountain and asked, “Who are you?”
“Rick.”
“Where are you from?”
“The wall.”
“I see. Rick from the wall.”
The blond man examined him for a while and then suddenly swung his blaster, aiming the stock at Rick's face. Rick instinctively flinched, covering himself up with his arm.
“Everything's fine with him, corporal,” the blond man smirked. “Take him to the rest of them.”
The corporal that had tried to shoot Rick grabbed him by the collar and roughly pulled him up, making him get onto his feet. Another man put Olivia on her feet in the same unceremonious way and another two men joined him to take her into a lane between the buildings in a completely different direction.
“We'll catch up with you,” they snickered.
“Eyes forward,” the corporal rewarded Rick with a cuff.
And now Rick could not take it any longer. Olivia, who was being taken away by those three, the blond man who was grinning after swinging his stock at him, the barrel that the corporal had shoved in his face — all of these images jumbled together before his eyes. He was full of anger. Rick balled his fists and turned, punching the corporal in the nose, followed by a swift uppercut. The corporal's head twitched from the two impacts, his eyes faded and rolled back in his head and he fell with his back onto the concrete.
Rick spun on his heels, as he heard a sound behind him but could not do anything before something hard struck him in the face, his head rang and the world went dark...
However, once he opened his eyes he immediately understood that he had not been knocked out for long.
“The wild one has woken up, Fritz!” called out the stranger in gray that stood nearby.
For some reason, he was holding a bucket in his hands.
“Get him in line,” the blond man ordered.
A strong pair of hands grabbed Rick by the shoulders and it was only now that he realized that he was all wet and immediately worked out that the stranger with the bucket poured water on him to make him come to his senses.
“Line up, soldiers!” the blond man commanded loudly.
Rick was shoved into a row of people he did not know. It was easy to see that they were all prisoners — most of them were filthy, dressed in different colors and unarmed, unlike the soldiers in the gray jumpsuits. All of them stood straight as rods, with wide shoulders like their commander Fritz, looking tough with their harsh unfriendly eyes and tense facial expressions.
One of the subordinates made some sort of report to Fritz, who nodded and issued an order, “We're going back.”
Angry shouts telling people to move and pokes from the weapons came from all sides. Rick turned his head to and fro, seeking out Olivia among the prisoners, but did not manage to see her. However, he did notice one of the three that had taken the woman down the side lane. The soldier had a darkening purple bruise on his cheek. The soldiers that walked behind him were laughing and mocking him. Rick nodded to himself and stopped looking around, really hoping that Olivia had managed to run away.
They walked through many blocks. They canal was now far to the side and the column was already moving along the hanging steel walkways between the buildings, soon finding themselves on a wide road with a surface textured with small bumps that led them to a pair of huge steel gates.
The gates stood out among the architecture of the roadway and the city blocks along it. It was likely that the gates had been built here relatively recently, brutishly forced into the landscape and supported by firing positions reinforced with thick armor plating by their sides.
When the gates were opened, a plaza appeared before their eyes, surrounded by squat, identically patterned buildings with boarded up windows.
Everything looked drab and monotonous here. Patrolmen with their weapons ready walked the streets. Watchmen sat on the roofs and sometimes one of the soldiers up above would greet their friends among those that returned with the prisoners. A large building which was similar to the Mausite temple towered in the center of the plaza, its dome shining in the rays of the setting sun. Container modules used for command and residence were arranged in row in front of the building. This was a camp, a military camp.
Rick shook his head, ridding himself of the pieces of information giving him hints that came up from his subconscious. Damn it, not now, he could not have a fit!
His head stopped swimming and his heart rate slowed down and his breath became even again. It looked like it let him go. Rick quickly looked around him. The order and the strict calculation with which the modules were arranged immediately caught the eye. Light could be seen behind the narrow firing port windows, but all of them without exception had armored shutters many of which were closed. The prisoners were stopped as they approached the camp. A small unit of armed soldiers marched past in three ideally regular columns. The movements of the soldiers looked like the workings of a well-oiled machine.
“Lucio, take them to the distribution unit,” Fritz ordered the soldier at the head of the convoy as soon as their unit entered the territory of the camp.
“After me!” barked black-haired Lucio and waved his hand.
They were led to the far end towards barracks assembled of red stone, which were surrounded with a fence made of barbed wire. Further along, there was a wall as tall as two and a half men beyond which nothing could be seen. Rick soon understood the reason they were being led towards the barracks — prisoners just like themselves were looking out of the windows and looked at the new arrivals with curiosity. They had almost been led to the furthest barrack when a lanky young man jumped out of their group. He was quick and wiry and he gave one of the soldiers a hard push, running towards the wall with the obvious intention of getting over it. Rick thought that this was a stupid idea.
�
��On your knees!” Lucio shouted.
The majority of them obeyed. The runaway deftly vaulted over the barbed wire fence and almost reached the wall. Lucio calmly drew his combat knife, aimed and threw it after him. The steel glinted in the sun and entered the back of the lanky man, so he fell as if his legs had been cut from under him, raising a cloud of dust. Lucio gestured towards the soldiers and they dragged the runner back and laid him at his feet. Calmly and impassively, Lucio pulled his knife out of the back of the groaning wounded man, wiped it on his own clothes and put it back in its sheath. As he did this, the man tried to croak something as his hands clawed at the ground and he still tried to move towards the wall which he had been unable to reach.
“Remember, I am sergeant Lucio and I have just cut through his spine,” Lucio announced and continued in an instructive tone of voice, “and now he cannot walk. All of you, look at that! This is what will happen to everyone that dares to run away from the division.”
With these words, the sergeant stamped down on the neck of the wounded man — there was a loud crack and he fell silent. Following this, orders rang out and the prisoners were forced into the barrack where they were made to undress and hosed down with cold water. They were then led naked to another barrack, where they were dusted with some sort of sharp smelling powder and hosed down again. At the exit they were issued with gray jumpsuits, had their heads shaved and were given a bowl of soup of unknown provenance as well as a piece of pressed concentrate each.
Rick quickly put away the soup, without thinking about its unpleasant smell and taste and hid the concentrate in his trouser pocket, as he was thinking about escaping soon.
When they finished with the food, they were taken into a residential barrack, full of people that had gone through a similar treatment. Many of the newcomers were afraid and looked around apprehensively, expecting some sort of trick from the locals.
A soldier bearing silvery patches came closer to the evening and introduced himself as a staff intendant and recorded the names of all those who were admitted to the barracks on that day. After this the “lights out” command sounded and people started to lie down on the multi-leveled bunk beds along the walls.
Rick climbed into the top bunk in the corner and stared at the dim light under the ceiling, thinking about how he would make his escape and the events of the last two days, until sleep overtook him.
However, he did not get to have an uninterrupted sleep — it happened in the middle of the night. He felt how someone's hand was searching around his body and looking for something to steal. He waited until the fingers of the thief got to the trouser pocket where the piece of concentrate lay and quickly grabbed the wrist of his hand, and sat up, saying “Do this again and I will tear your throat out.”
A thug with a hooked nose stared at him from the gloom.
“You wouldn't have the guts for it, whelp,” the stranger squeezed out as he grimaced from the pain in his wrist.
Then Rick changed his grip to the man's thumb and twisted it against the back of his palm.
Something snapped.
The thug paled and almost collapsed to the floor, spitting out a quiet curse and hurrying to disappear in the darkness of the barracks.
On the following day, they were divided into groups according to their age. Rick and his companions were put together in a platoon with a mix of young men and women and then all of the new arrivals were lined up in front of the barracks. The sergeants spent a long time swearing and hitting people around the head as they lined up the new recruits. Finally, when everyone stood still in silence, Fritz approached the lines. He spent several minutes quietly walking past the rows of people and examining their faces.
Then he came back to stand in front of them and declared, “Welcome to the division! You are all soldiers now! I am your commander! You may only address me as “commander” from this moment onwards!”
His words reverberated through the camp and echoed off the wall. The morning was overcast and sparse snow fell from the skies. Rick stared straight ahead: he could make out the barely perceptible silhouette of the citadel through the low-hanging clouds. The snow kept falling on the gray people and the gray container modules, the gray identical buildings with boarded up windows and the tall gray wall that surrounded the sector where the division was located. The commander continued to spit out words before the line of recruits.
“This place is your home now! It is your homeland until the end of your days! You can never get out of here alive, but it is better here than in the holes where you were hiding before! The division will provide you with all you need: a roof, a home, clothing and service! You will give your all to the division! You are the new blood of our great brotherhood, which is headed by Enlightened Landmaster Vasilevs! From this day, the preparation for your service in the division begins!”
Fritz went red and lost his voice by the end. With a wave of his hand, he left them, walking towards the HQ container module that had the black flag of the division streaming in the wind above it. The platoon commanders led the new recruits to their barracks according to the numbering of the units. Rick's platoon was assigned to barrack no. 7. When they were inside they were all ordered to sit on the floor. The platoon commander was a man of uncertain age with narrow eyes and high cheekbones.
“My name is Lee,” he declared. “Over the next month, I will be your master and I will command you however I want. If I so desire, I will stick any of you degenerates like a pig, and no one will do anything to me for it.”
He nodded, once he was sure that everyone listened attentively and continued.
“Excellent. Now, I will tell you the primary rule of the brotherhood: one is nothing and the brotherhood is everything! None of you are worth as much as my little finger. I will soon prove this to you. But if you survive and become part of the division, then you will feel its whole strength and power. You will never be the same again. Is that clear?”
The recruits carefully exchanged glances, hesitant to answer.
“I thought I asked, is that clear?” Lee shouted, with spittle flying out of his mouth.
“Yes!”
“Of course!”
“Clear!” came many voices from all sides.
“I can't hear you!” Lee shouted again, so loudly that the veins stood out on his neck and forehead. “When you answer your commander, you must shout, “yes sir!” All together now!”
“Yes sir!” the platoon answered.
“Whoresons!” Lee spat angrily. “Remember — I am not your nanny and I will not wipe your shit after you. Eat it yourselves. We have a simple regime. Wake up when ordered, marching and physical drills, hygiene, work, military exercises, special missions and lights out. I will soon mold you into real soldiers. Only those that can take the regime will survive until they join the ranks of the division. Fight or die. I don't care. Any questions?”
“No!” the platoon chorused in reply.
Lee fiercely moved his jaw and left the barracks. His assistant corporals made the platoon come out onto the street and started to discipline them, teach the recruits how to march in line and shout the correct replies to their orders. By the end of the day Rick could not feel his feet. He was tired. His body ached and his breathing was hoarse, the same as many of those who had to shout their replies to the questions of the platoon commanders. But that was nothing compared to those who fell down when they had no more strength left. The corporals dragged them up and kicked them back into line. But one still fell down again, and then the corporals did not touch them. Platoon Commander Lee drew his knife and approached the man lying on the ground and the recruit suddenly dashed back among the others before Lee even had the chance to open his mouth. He just chuckled at his retreating back, baring his strong and even teeth.
After their dinner in the evening, the platoon lay in their bunks in their barracks, talking halfheartedly among themselves. An orderly stood on duty at the entrance, his eyes bulging with excitement. He was very lucky — he did
not have to take part in the training, but he understood what awaited him on the next day.
“I'm going to die soon,” a thin man on the bunk near Rick complained.
“I'll do it earlier,” his neighbor below answered. “One more day and that'll be the end of me.”
“Stop whining,” he heard from somewhere in the depths of the barracks. Rick recognized the voice; the man’s name was Marek, as far as Rick could remember. “It's always hard at first. We will get used to it, in time.”
“How do you know?” the thin recruit exclaimed.
“I just know and that's all.”
“He's lying,” a voice sounded from another corner.
“I'd break your face in,” someone promised from the depths of the barracks, “but I'm exhausted.”
The duty officer walked into the barracks with a list and shouted, “Gareth, to the exit!”
The man in the bunk beneath Rick groaned as he got down onto the floor and ambled after the duty officer.
“Why are they doing this just before nightfall?” someone muttered nearby.
An excited whisper ran through the barracks.
Gareth returned ten minutes later. He did not look anything out of the ordinary, apart from perhaps his ears which looked so red that it seemed they were used to drag him around the yard. The duty officer called out another name and another recruit headed towards the exit.
“What did they want from you?” everyone asked Gareth, but he just waved them away.
“They are going to torture us,” the grim neighbor in the corner bank stated and chuckled.
No one found his joke funny. An oppressive silence suddenly hung over the barracks. When it came to Rick's turn, everyone's eyes followed him to the exit. The duty officer took him to the container module in which the platoon commander was located.
Lee was sitting behind a desk and using the point of his knife to clean out the dirt under his nails.
“Sit down,” he ordered, without looking at Rick.
