by Meli Raine
“Of course.” My hands are full of firewood. I drop it, slowly, and resume picking up, buying time.
“So then why do the man and the woman and the boy in my dream feel so real?”
The word feel is foreign. It's as if Callum speaks another language. My heart jumps inside the cage of my chest.
“Feel,” I murmur.
Just then, Callum's hand brushes against mine.
My organs have become trampolines, it seems, because my heart jumps into my throat.
He slides his index finger against mine, the touch no more than an inch of skin.
Revealing a mile of need.
“Mine feels real, too,” I confess. “Glen and a woman.”
He scratches his neck. The red birthmark along his collarbone is so unique. No one else here looks like Callum. The combination of symmetrical, socially rewarded handsomeness with the blotch of color on his skin is striking.
“Do you know her?” His question is so sharp. Fear spikes inside me.
“No,” I say quickly.
Too quickly.
“You can tell me,” he says rapidly, looking up, knowing we're being observed.
I shake my head.
“Do you know why I really killed the bunny for you?”
For you.
“Because I could see it hurt you. I wanted to take some of your hurt away.”
“Shhhh!”
“What? No one can hear me out here.”
“They can always hear you. Us. All of us,” I say, my body completely out of control, the chip able to detect the imbalances. I could be called back to the buildings, away from Woods, if I dysregulate too much in the wrong way. No one would ever remove me from Woods for hypothermia or a spider bite, but this?
This could get me before the Committee.
Weakness is met with ruthless punishment here, and rightly so. We cannot topple governments with a weak will.
“Not out here. Cameras, yes. Sound, no.” He points to the waterfall nearby. “Why do you think I always set up camp near those?”
I don't know what to say. His fingers brush mine under the leaves. They stop. He breathes, hard and clear. His chest rises and falls with precision.
Our eyes meet as I turn to look at him.
“You,” I say slowly, “are never going to make it here. Through The Test.”
“Neither are you.”
“I'm too soft,” I whisper, my confession a leap into an abyss.
“Maybe you're just human.” We both shift, bending down, curling into ourselves in the lean-to. I could be punished — and so could he — for letting him help me, for going into his structure, but we can argue it’s all teamwork.
Completely divorced from emotion, of course.
“We're not allowed to be human, Callum. That's why I'm considered so weak,” I remind him as we settle in, close yet a million miles apart. His breath is warm. I work hard to control mine.
“Maybe it's what makes you stronger than most.”
I cover his mouth with my hand, removing it quickly, staring at him.
The waterfall pounds at my soul.
For the next hour, we do nothing but breathe. At some point, he clasps my hand, burying it under the leaves again.
No one orders us in.
We fall asleep like this, Callum withdrawing his hand in the seconds before sleep takes me.
Chapter 4
Callum
* * *
I do not sleep.
Kina does, though, and that matters more.
Sleep is a luxury when we are in Woods. She knows it. I know I should catch an hour or two, especially with my five-night punishment and determination to go for six, but I can't.
What did I just say?
What did I just do?
Kina has the dreams. I have the dreams. I've never told anyone else anything that wasn't one hundred percent part of The Mission.
To confess emotion, to confess my own dreams that do not fit The Mission, could be punished by death.
Or worse. What if I really am so weak? Emotion is shameful. It’s disgusting.
We fail every time we feel.
She knows this. I know this.
And yet we both spoke. Shared.
Confided.
Why?
What does this mean?
With her sleeping beside me, I let my mind wander, giving in to the luxury of imagination. For years, the dream has been the same.
A burning wood fire.
A screaming boy.
A woman with long hair being shot.
A man with a shaved head and blue eyes like mine beaten by another man with a log.
And me with my bow and arrow. My hands are tiny, the skin around the knuckles dimpled. I've worked with the four-year-olds here at the compound. I know what young hands look like.
Why would I dream like that?
Perspective is relative, we're taught. Never assume your perspective is the only one, or the only correct one.
But always assume the leaders' perspective is the one that everything else is based on.
They're the smartest, right? The ones who know more than us. They wouldn't be teaching us if that weren't so.
Lately, there's been a change in the leadership. Romeo and Angelica have gained more power. Smith and Sally, the instructors who worked with us until we turned fifteen, seem to be on edge these days. The Mission is strong as ever, and discord in pockets around the world helps our efforts.
Wars are good.
Famine, especially if caused or made worse by logistical errors and slowdowns, is good.
Tensions between governments are very good.
As Kina sleeps beside me, all the thoughts jumble, the soothing sound of the waterfall becoming a threat. In Woods, other trainees can attack. We're not just learning how to survive against nature. We're not just learning how to fight off hungry animals.
Man is the highest predator on the food chain.
You cannot kill another trainee in Woods–well, not tonight, anyway.
That will come later.
But you can attack. Training exercises come from the flow of life, we're told. Smith reminded us of this constantly. The compound is a sealed place, a laboratory, a testing ground. We're one of a network of global compounds, all training for a singular purpose.
Real life outside these fences is the ultimate test.
And real life has no parameters, no rules for survival.
Nothing is off limits in the real world.
A crackle behind me makes me leap to my feet.
It's Kina.
In a half-hazy stupor filled with too many thoughts, I look down at Kina, then up at...
Glen. Not Kina.
Her twin sister. Identical twin sister. The exact same in every way except the soul.
Pressing her finger to her lips, Glen motions for me to move closer to the running water. Her eyes are furious.
“What did you do this morning?”
“None of your business.”
“You put Kina in danger!”
“You seem emotionally attached, Glen,” I say coolly.
“I'm not worried because she's my sister, you idiot. I'm calling you out because she serves a purpose and you're undermining that purpose.”
“What's that?”
“The Mule. That's all Kina is. Don't fool yourself into thinking there's more.” Her eyes skip over to her sleeping sister, mouth twisting with disgust. “You and I know she's only alive because of me.”
I say nothing.
A flicker of emotion skitters over the top half of her face. “Why help her, Callum? Have you fallen in love with her?” The words in love are spoken in acid tones.
I smother the last word she utters by grabbing the back of her neck and pulling her close. Our lips touch as I smash into her, the kiss violent, unyielding.
It's a warning.
Not an act of passion.
For the last year, I've wondered. Wondered if Glen was hurtin
g Kina somehow. Understanding her motivations for coming here tonight is damn near impossible, but I can play her. Buy myself some time.
Glen shoves me so hard that I lose my balance, nearly falling backwards into the water but catching myself in time. My attention diverts for a moment, and suddenly she's after me, a big stick in her hands.
One hard poke and I'm falling.
Then wet.
Hatred spills from her twisted mouth.
“Leave her alone,” Glen shouts, loud enough to awaken anyone nearby. I'm treading water, wiping my eyes dry so I can see, my contacts cloudy. She knew when she shoved me in that my eyes would be a disadvantage.
That's why she led me near the waterfall. Not for privacy.
For advantage.
Kina comes running, holding a makeshift knife in her hand, stopping short when she sees Glen with a stick that can easily bludgeon. Shock registers on her face when she spies me in the water.
“Glen?” Kina asks, allowing nervousness. “What's wrong?”
“He kissed me. I didn't like it. I came here to tell him to leave you alone, Kina, and all he did was kiss me.”
And then she laughs.
Eyebrows riding high, Kina's face in the moonlight is haunting.
“Glen bested me,” I admit, never one to begrudge a victor.
“Did you–did you really kiss her?”
If I lie, Glen will humiliate me tomorrow in class by telling Smith or Sally or Angelica and security camera footage will be played over and over to show my lie. It will also reveal my bow and quiver, and so far, no one has stopped me from using them.
I can tell from Kina's expression that the truth will hurt her more than a lie will hurt me.
“Yes,” I say.
Glen's face is triumphant.
“But only to make Glen think I wanted her. And she clearly fell for it. You're not ready for The Field,” I shout at Kina's twin, loud enough for cameras to pick up.
I hold my breath and quickly drop underwater, sinking as fast as I can.
I barely miss being hit by the huge branch in Glen's arms.
By the time I surface, a hundred meters downstream, and find my way back to my little camp, they're both gone.
So is my pile of foraged food.
Chapter 5
Kina
* * *
Everyone acts like nothing happened seven days ago as Callum resumes his spot in class. For five nights, he survived in Woods.
The sixth night Romeo and Smith dragged him out, against his will, Smith carrying a snapped bow and empty quiver out with him.
Nothing to see here.
That’s what we’re trained to do. Act like whatever the status quo is, has always been.
We were also taught to turn whatever is happening to our advantage, to meet the needs of our mission, to take control.
Not too much control, though.
And especially not in the classroom where we are in training.
My entire life I’ve been in training for one single cause. It’s the most important thing, and I’ve pledged my life in service to it. We all have–Callum, Glen, Romeo, Angelica, Judi, Janice, Jason–all of us. There isn’t a single person in this room, in this building, on these grounds, who hasn’t pledged complete and utter loyalty to The Mission.
That doesn’t mean we like it every second of every minute of every day.
Even though we’re told we’re supposed to.
In my peripheral vision, I scan Callum. You wouldn’t know that I’m looking at him. My eyes are straight ahead. My mouth is slack. The skin around the sockets that hold my eyeballs in place is completely neutral, and yet eight hundred separate pieces of information enter into the analytical side of my brain.
No visible scratches on his bare skin. No bruising of any kind on his face or hands. Not even the little blood bursts that happen from being suffocated or pinned down with an arm over your neck until you pass out.
I know what petechiae look like. We’ve all experienced them on purpose in training. The reason we’ve experienced them is that they are a giveaway. We either use makeup to hide them after the fact or expose them on purpose to gain sympathy.
Bruises are neutral. Violence and pain are neutral. Everything is neutral, we’re taught, because everything good can be used for evil, and everything evil can be used for good. No one who works in service to evil ever thinks that they’re bad themselves. That’s what we’re taught.
But more importantly, we’re taught to use that against our enemies.
More information about Callum filters into my brain as I listen to Angelica talk about all the ways that our group of eight failed yesterday. There are three teams here in my age bracket. Callum is on my team. There are eight per, which means twenty-four of us between the ages of eighteen and nineteen are competing against each other.
It’s no normal competition. There is no prize for winning. The constant ranking is about toughening us. In the world outside these fences, everything is a competition.
We’re told some people do not believe that survival of the fittest is a biological truth.
But survival of the fittest is how we will overcome.
“Janice,” Angelica snaps now. “Stand.”
Eyes forward, facial muscles slack, Janice does as she’s told, her shoulders going back, the unnatural curve of a spine that does not want to stand betraying her emotions. Every one of us, including Callum, can tell that she’s guilty of something.
Therefore, Angelica must be right in whatever punishment she’s about to deliver.
“You took your own pleasure,” she says, her cold voice low and calm. This is so much worse than when she gets angry or when Romeo snaps with the taut rage that you know will end with pain. At nearly nineteen, Janice is one of the oldest in the room. It should make her wiser.
She’s smart enough to say nothing and stare straight ahead.
We’ve been taught that masturbation is considered a sin in some religions, and that the guilt associated with it can be used against the target. Here, though, we’re not supposed to, as Angelica says, take our own pleasure.
We are tools of the new state. Sex is neutral. It’s a tool, too. We’re not meant to have needs, because if we have needs, those can be used against us.
We are Stateless. Blank slates in every sense.
We have no emotions.
We have no needs.
We have no desires.
We have only what we’re taught that we are. Needs, desires, wants–those are the tools that we master to use against the people we seek to defeat.
“Do you deny it?” Angelica asks Janice. She knows the answer already, of course. We’re constantly monitored. Whatever Janice did must have been as discreet as possible.
My mind’s eye cannot stop the image from coming to me, a woman’s hands slipping below the waistband of her pajamas at night, fingers seeking to release a pent-up frustration, a biological imperative.
Perhaps, even worse, she just wanted to feel something, the tender touch of her own hand against her own skin.
It’s seductive. It’s a form of nurturing more than just a release. It confirms that we are, that we feel, that we burn. How far did these emotions have to go inside Janice before she reached the desperation point?
I cannot ask her, of course.
I can only wonder.
A flush of physical sensation ripples through me. Shame and fear on her behalf, a mild disgust that she could be so stupid.
And a small kernel of curiosity, even respect. Janice reached into her own body to offer it something transgressive.
We’ve been taught never, ever to seek out that which we will weaponize when we are in the world.
“Do it now.” Angelica’s words make my knees disappear. I can’t feel my legs below my thighs.
Janice’s head snaps, her eyes catching Angelica’s. As expected, our teacher is cold, robotic.
But one corner of her mouth quirks up just a millimeter. Just enou
gh for all of us to catch it.
She’s enjoying this. Janice doesn't have to ask what she's being ordered to do.
We all know.
If she broke the rule, she has to show us what she did.
As I let myself scan the faces of seven of my classmates, I see three of them mirroring Angelica’s expression.
My sister, Glen, is one of the three.
Callum, however, is not.
Chapter 6
Callum
* * *
We have to watch. We have no choice.
My stomach roils, the burning ache of my abdominal muscles a reminder of Romeo’s covert blows yesterday. Angelica’s command to Janice to masturbate in front of the entire class as punishment for taking her own pleasure has nothing to do with the pain in my gut, but it certainly does not help the nausea that lingers from the blows.
What I said last week about Kina and how I stood up for her could not go unpunished. I knew it when I opened my mouth. It was a calculated move. She hates me now for what happened in Woods.
That, too, I knew was a risk.
There is no unmonitored word that we speak. There is no action we take that is not observed. I knew what I was doing. I paid the price.
And now Janice is paying the price for her own actions.
Her hand does not shake as she unbuttons her jeans in front of the class, pulling down the zipper. She does not ask if she should undress. To ask would invite the option. She does not beg, she does not plead for mercy.
Mercy is what the weak expect to be offered, as if we are as weak as they are.
She knew what she was doing last night in the desperate dark of her bed.
None of us turn away. If we did, we could end up next to her, exposed before the class.
I taste her shame.
You would think that shame would feel like heat radiating off her body, concentrated at the point where her finger touches her pleasure point. You would think that shame would feel like radioactive gas, like infrared waves, or even just like water on hot blacktop.
