by J B Cantwell
“Oh, we’ll find them,” he said. “We left guards out in camouflage to retain power over the territory. The rest will come looking for their friends soon enough. “
I couldn’t take it anymore. My old friend, full to the top with military propaganda. The two of them, excited about their latest kills as if we were all hunting animals, not people.
My stomach turned as I swiveled away. I made my way to Hannah, who had found her way to the edges of the group. I stood by her to watch the celebration, the first for any Green recruits, and even some Oranges. I looked at her, just for a quick moment, and saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why are you upset? You’ve done this before.”
She sniffed loudly and tried to keep the tears from rolling down her face.
“It was a massacre,” she said. “Fifteen people dead in a matter of moments. They didn’t stand a chance. They were off guard, their weapons at their sides. But they were too late.”
I tried to imagine the scene, holding back my own tears as well.
Had everyone I had met in the woods been killed? I thought of Sam and his strange dog. Rebecca. The old man, Jack. And, of course, Margaret, her own husband also killed just weeks ago.
“I didn’t know what it was like,” she went on. “It was all war games before. But now … ”
I wanted to hug her, to cry with her about the terrible situation we were both in.
But it would be noticed. Scrutinized. So I just stood there beside her, watching the others in the group. They were still hungry for more, pumped with the adrenaline of battle.
But not Hannah. What she had seen, and participated in, had been a nightmare, and unexpected.
“We should have known,” I said.
I was starting to care less and less about what the sergeants heard from me when I was on camera. My attitude wasn’t a problem. It was my plans that I needed to keep secret.
“I mean, it’s war.”
She stood there for a moment, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. She turned, then, and walked away.
I watched her go, knowing that, for both of us, the nightmare wasn’t over.
Chapter Seven
That night I didn’t dress for sleep. Instead, I pretended that I was too tired and went to bed in my fatigues. It was a lame excuse, but nobody questioned it.
When most everyone was asleep I made my way to the bathroom, feeling the sharp edges of the folded paper I carried in my pocket. Right as I turned to enter, I whistled a call. A whistle for a dog, but meant for a girl.
I made my way into a stall and sat down, opening the note as I waited for Lydia to take the stall next to mine.
“Don’t let anyone else see this.
You are in great danger here. Your relationship with Prime Alex Williams is under scrutiny, as well as your strange behavior with Soldier Lydia Davis. You must be more careful in your dealings with these people, as they are both instrumental to our cause. It is only with their help that we can survive and live to see the day when we are not governed by our implanted computers.”
My blood ran cold.
They really had been watching us.
“You would be best advised to avoid Prime Williams and Soldier Davis. And get yourself another phasing if possible before you head back out into the field. The strength it gives you will help all of us. You must survive your first tour.”
I heard the stall door next to mine close shut with a squeak. I watched her hand appear below the wall, wondering what to do now. I knew one thing; I couldn’t play this game all on my own. I handed her the paper under the stall. I heard her sigh with frustration on the other side. Then the scribbling of a pencil. Soon she passed the note back.
“Chambers,” she wrote. “How are we supposed to work together if we’re not allowed to see each other?”
While I knew very little about the plans Chambers had laid out for me, I was starting to understand one thing; I would never get out of here unless I played by the rules. Not Chambers’ rules, but the government’s. Here in this building we were in a sort of jail. Most of the Reds had spent at least some of their sentences in an actual jail, but I was guessing they were as new to battle as the rest of us. And the Oranges and Greens, we were stuck here, too, whether we wanted it or not.
“I don’t even understand what we’re working on,” I wrote back.
“He needs us together in the end. He’s dotted the landscape of soldiers, and a few Primes, as Volunteers, fighters who work against the Service. And not just here. Don’t you see? Our lenses got us here, forever promising a bright future. But no one ever sees that future.”
I thought about Hannah and her reaction to the battle today. She would have nightmares for years, I guessed. And wouldn’t I, too? Our traumas had been different, but they were still there, fresh in our minds. Who knew how many I had killed in my rampage with the gun that day. It could have been five, ten people. That or the trees had taken every hit instead.
I wondered, just for a moment, what it would have been like for me if I had simply stayed home, living a life I recognized despite years of abuse. Would that have been worse than here?
I took the paper from beneath the wall, too tired to write any more. I flushed it down the toilet and left the stall, on my way back to bed. Lydia was behind me in seconds.
“You can’t give up,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I know what you saw with the Fighters. That’s the life we can have.”
She was right, in a sense. The Fighters had been cordial, some friendly, even. I thought of the dog, the strange animal that licked my face, but who seemed unwilling to attack me. I thought of the food, the meat we had eaten with each of our meals.
But most of those fighters had died today. How many had run?
One thing I was happy about was that I was nearly sure that the lenses couldn’t read thoughts. They might be able to gauge our physical state, to track us on a map, but they couldn’t really get inside our minds. For this reason, I let my imagination run wild with no fear of attack.
I would do as Chambers said, at least as much as I could. Not because I thought he was right or was part of, or even understood, his plan. But because he had been the one to let me in despite my shortcomings. Because I had to play the game now until I made it through. And that game, as terrible as it was, was my only way out.
I started to see Alex on more of a regular basis. It was the one instruction from Chambers, to leave Alex alone, that I was unwilling to obey. He was my friend, my oldest friend, and I was worried. During the days when the Primes switched out, I would sometimes watch him as he wandered through the building. He seemed restless when there was nothing for him to do, and I guessed that he probably spent a lot of his time in the gym, pumping up his muscles, burning his energy away.
While I was a little stir crazy, myself, I had noticed a steep decline in my energy level, though my new muscles did not shrink. After a few days, my mind turned away from searching for physical outlets for my strength, and I was able to think clearly again. I wondered if enough time passed, if Alex might come back to his old self, too.
I had not been sent out to battle yet. Dr. Roberts was still watching me, waiting for some kind of sign proving that his work had been miraculously successful. My headaches had completely abated now, and it seemed a relatively meager win for the doctor. The upgrades to the chip, whatever they were, were indiscernible to me. I was still just a gray soldier surrounded by other gray soldiers.
But without an official clean bill of health, I had nothing to do. As the teams went out, and I was left alone, I worried that Roberts would pull me back into the hospital rooms, tie me back down again and force in more of that liquid poison through my IV. Maybe soon I would be wearing those goggles that the other Primes wore, during their phasing. Maybe I would end up being brainwashed, too.
Brainwashed. It made my stomach hurt to think of Alex. It was too soon to even guess if his thoughts mi
ght turn back toward reality. The rest of us could see this place for what it was. But he took a look at the factory of making Primes and seemed to think it was normal.
There was no offer of another phasing, and I was glad for it. If it involved growing huge and joining those ranks, I wasn’t interested. I looked at my biceps, smooth and hard. I thought of them as war wounds, not knowing if they would stay this way forever, or slowly start to shrink down as the months and years went by.
I had been anxious to get out of the base, and I was rewarded with just a few more days of waiting.
“Prime Turner will lead you,” Sergeant Holmes said in his booming voice.
Just seven of us were waiting for his call. Everyone else was out in the field.
“It is your goal to capture the sparse areas between the trees. It is the final path between here and the water of the lake beyond. If we can take that land, the Service will send in reinforcements to secure the work we have done here. You all must get us to the water at any cost. And when you do, call back to let us know. It will only be a matter of an hour before the helicopters will arrive with a thousand Primes to further secure the area. If you are successful at this, then our battles here are won. If you are not successful, remember that there is another line of soldiers waiting right behind you to take your place. You must take that field.”
Chapter Eight
We suited up, filling our backpacks with the essentials for our trip. They had only required us to bring three days of food, and this bothered me. It seemed that they expected either victory or death by the end of those seventy-two hours. I found myself wishing that Alex would be our leader. He may be a little off in the head right now, but if we were about to head into a mad battle, I wanted him there with me.
There was so much to remember to pack, though most of it was stored beneath our bunks. Water. A small microphone connected to our chips so we could talk to each other and back to base. Medical treatments for small wounds. And one large handful of nutrition squares, ready to eat.
My heart was beating fast as I slung my pack over my back. We gathered in the Cube, and as soon as everyone stood in line, Prime Turner spoke again.
“You will go first, and I will bring up the rear. Here are your new camouflaged nets.”
He walked down the line and passed out nets colored like fields of straw. There would be no one hiding in the trees on this trip, it seemed. If it was grass we were headed for, we would be on our bellies the whole time.
He sent us in twos into the hole. The only person I knew on the trip was Anna, the girl who had clawed her way up from Burn status to make it into the infantry. Those who fought to make it out of the Burn were sent through a first phase, just as I was. Only they were not given the same pain relief that I had been lucky enough to receive.
As we entered the dark tunnel, I switched my headlamp on. We had to crouch to get through, even more so than in the other bores. I took a guess that this was the longest tunnel yet, the only one that stretched so far that it passed all the way through the forest to the other side.
I looked back, but all I saw was a line of soldiers, all of us starting to sweat in the confined space. For a moment I doubted if Turner would even be able to fit in the tunnel, but I caught a glimpse of him far behind, moving on his hands and knees.
Anna was right behind me in line.
“Get a move-on, Pink,” she said.
I gritted my teeth at her use of the old nickname.
Her face was determined. Set. I didn’t know how many phases she had been put through before she had been able to escape the Burn. But right now the heat of the tunnel matched the heat in her eyes. She was ready for blood.
Slowly we clawed our way toward the end of the tunnel. Above our heads, the hand-carved rock was a reminder of all the work the soldiers had been put through to make this tunnel. I tried to breathe slowly, tried to ward off claustrophobia.
You’ll be out soon.
What was out there could be worse than what was in here.
Air is coming.
The sweet, crisp air I had smelled in the forest. It couldn’t be far away now. With every step I took I craved it more and more.
Anna gave me a shove from behind. Her phasing had made her mean.
Just keep going.
The tunnel seemed endless.
Then, in the distance, a faint light glowed. As we got closer and closer to it, I realized that it was the end of the tunnel. What I was seeing was the moon coming through the leaves and sticks used to hide the opening. Its thin shafts of light shone brightly, and we picked up our pace, eager to get out.
We had made it.
Above us was a latticework of rope, holding up the camouflaged entry into the tunnel. Just those thin beams of light penetrated the disguise, making it feel like we were about to ascend to the heavens above.
Prime Turner finally caught up with us and was able to stand up straight for the first time in an hour. He spoke in a whisper.
“I’ll hoist each of you up, one at a time. Everyone apply your nets now,” he whispered.
We all fumbled with the pile of netted fabric each of us carried. Then, finally, we all stood, covered head to foot in the stuff.
Turner cupped his hands and boosted the first soldier up. Then another. Then another. When it was my turn, I put my foot into his hands and my hands on his shoulders. They were hard as rock, inhuman.
As he moved me up into the field, it seemed to take him no effort at all. He didn’t breathe heavily from the journey through the tunnel. He didn’t sweat like the rest of us, even though he was covered in fabric armor.
He pushed me up through the top of the tunnel with such force that I was nearly airborne before my feet found the ground. And then I saw something that made my stomach drop.
We were surrounded.
Fighters pointed their rifles at us from every side. I felt like a fool, standing there in my crazy net disguise. We should have known. I should have. I had only been with them one night, but I had felt the cunning of these people, as well as their deep desire to hold onto their homeland.
“And there she is.” It was Rebecca, her tone low and cautious. “The fool who cheated us, who gave our locations away every day since we left her.”
My mouth opened, but I couldn’t speak. It was true that I had told some of the secrets of the fighters to my superiors. But I had also given the fighters information about how our military worked.
I didn’t want to die, but I wanted us to lose. It was a stupid thing to think. Maybe I was just too scared to be in the infantry. Maybe I did belong back at the Burn with the others who had failed.
“Drop your weapons,” Rebecca said in nearly a whisper. With more soldiers still coming through the hole, she couldn’t afford to make her position obvious.
With Margaret’s death, she was now the one in charge.
Their guns were aimed right at our heads, and only a foot or so away from each of us. If they chose to shoot, it would be a quick death for all.
I looked out through the group of Fighters. There were ten of them and ten of us, but it was the team with the greatest weapons who would win this battle.
When Prime Turner hoisted himself up through the tunnel exit, my heart leapt. For the first time since joining the Service, I felt glad that we had such an enormous man to protect us.
But the fighters didn’t hesitate. Their aim was true. Just as I had told them, the only place vulnerable to a Prime in uniform was the face.
And in another moment, Turner crumpled in a spray of blood and tissue and fell back into the hole.
Rebecca smiled.
Chapter Nine
We were back in the trees, each of us tied up to a different trunk, though far enough away from each other to talk without shouting. There were nine of us left after the initial fight with Rebecca and her crew, but I was the one they questioned.
Where were the rest of the soldiers?
When would they arrive?
H
ow had we come so close to the lake?
She hit me across the face with each silence I gave her.
But I was done telling other people’s secrets.
It wasn’t until I passed out against the tree that she stopped. I don’t know how long I was out for, but when I woke up it was day, and I heard screaming from the other end of the trees. I looked up, and found Sam looking back at me.
I smacked my lips together, tasting metal. Blood. I wiggled my tongue and found a source of pain, a tooth knocked out along the bottom row.
“I need water,” I croaked.
“I can’t,” he said.
“I brought it with me,” I argued. “I have my own.”
“You know I can’t,” he said, looking over his shoulder.
One fighter was chosen to guard each soldier. Some had guns to their heads. Others had lazier babysitters who sat against the trunks of the giant trees, their guns casually aimed at the intruders.
The scream came again, and my head jolted to the side.
“What are they doing to them?” I asked. But I already knew. I remembered the sound and pitch of that kind of scream, had made that sound, myself.
“They’re taking their chips,” he said.
“And then what?” I asked, my voice hoarse and raspy.
“Then, I don’t know.” He averted his eyes.
“Then you kill us,” I said.
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
His eyes were pleading, looking for a way to apologize. To apologize for war.
My fingers fumbled with the rope that bound them, not yet trying to free the knots.
My head ached. My face burned. I noticed that the vision in my left eye was partially blocked, and I guessed that it was swelling. The lens was intact. It was its housing in my flesh that was damaged. The warning message was flashing uselessly across my sight.
