by Sam Powers
After eating his snack, Chris had ventured outside into the sun to wait for lunch period to end. Uninterested by the other kids on the playground, he wandered around the building, daydreaming, until he found himself at the rear parking area reserved for teachers. He heard the voices before he rounded the corner. Principal Anders and Mr. Shou were addressing someone.
Chris peeked around the edge of the building.
‘You were made to look the fool, you had to have dental work and the other boys no longer fear you,’ the principal was saying. ‘The question is whether you are willing to fight to regain your position as a favored subject.’
Donny nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good! Good. Then what we need you to do is to prove that worthiness by ridding the sessions of Jimmy Palmer’s incompetence.’
The boy’s eyes widened.
‘Are you ready for such a task?’ the principal asked. ‘Are you committed – I mean, really, really committed – to the doctrine?’
‘YES! Yes, sir, absolutely. You have no idea how much I want this…!’
‘Now, Donald. Calm yourself. We’re not going to let you just go wild. This must be done properly, within the parameters of school policy. Tonight, before Session, we will make an example of his indolence and distraction.’
Chris pressed his body to the wall. A few seconds later he heard the crunch of shoes on gravel, then the heavy rear emergency exit door slamming shut.
He spent the rest of the day trying to find Jimmy to talk to him, but he wasn’t in any of his classes. He stopped by his house after school, but the gate was locked and the lights off.
Amy met him on the way back to the school and they walked together. She had a long-sleeved shirt on again despite the heat. ‘Hey,’ she said, falling in stride.
‘Hey… you see Jimmy?’
She shook her head, unsure. ‘I… don’t think I saw him today at all.’
‘Yeah. Look…’ He stopped walking. ‘I think he’s in a lot of trouble.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘I mean, I think he might be in trouble like David.’
They’d both known David Webber well. He’d been performing poorly in Sessions, just like Jimmy, and other people had to repeatedly stick up for him. The teachers talked about him holding everyone back. Then… there had been an incident. The details were hazy, for all of them. They knew he’d been at school the day prior, then there had been an assembly before Session. That was when everyone stopped remembering him being there, and when, it was assumed, he wandered off and was taken.
That was also the start of Chris’ anxiety, like he knew more about it than he could remember. Like there was something hidden from him, just out of reach, something dark and desperate.
By the time of the assembly, twenty minutes later, the gnawing sense of loss was still with him. There were just the eleven kids left in the advanced program that night, which meant Principal Anders wanted to talk about Session, or something related. The assembly hall was two-thirds empty.
Amy met him at their regular seats in the front row, saving a chair for Becky. Chris kept the seat at his end of the row open in case Jimmy showed. The smaller boy wasn’t a friend, but he still felt a need to reach out and protect him. Or… something. He wasn’t sure what he felt. There was a fear there, a real fear that they were going to hurt him, accompanied by a strange compulsion to see it happen.
Donny Taylor snuck into the last empty seat, at the other end of the row next to Becky, getting there just as the principal entered from the rear offices, to the left off the stage and dais. The children stood in unison. He strode up to it and placed his ledger down.
‘Be seated,’ he said sternly.
Chris cast a quick glance around the room but couldn’t see Jimmy anywhere.
‘Today we have a grave duty to perform,’ Anders said. ‘Today we purge the program of a failure. This is not the first, and it will not be the last. Ideally, it occurs right before Session, allowing a learning experience for you, and a teaching one for us.’ He glanced back toward the side door. ‘Bring him out.’
Mr. Shou paraded Jimmy Palmer out through the door. His hands were tied behind his back, a black scarf tied around his eyes to blind him. The teacher led him to the center of the stage, then down the steps to the top of the aisle. Shou pushed the boy down to his knees.
Then he turned to Donny, withdrawing a chrome revolver from inside his coat pocket. He flipped the gun around so that he was holding it by the barrel and chamber then handed it the bully.
Donny stared down at the gun like a bad choice. ‘I don’t… I don’t get it,’ he said, even though he did, and his fears were warranted.
‘Donny, it’s time,’ Anders said gently.
The change in the boy was immediate, his eyes wide but dead, so unmoving as to seem lifeless, as if he was looking through everything ahead of him. Then his arm came up, the weapon held straight ahead, his other hand raised to brace the butt of the grip as he looked down its iron sight at Jimmy.
Amy tried to remain calm, her breathing shallower. She could hear a sharp intake from her little sister as the weapon came up.
‘No!’ Chris said. ‘This isn’t right. This isn’t… this isn’t what… this isn’t right…’
‘Fire, fire burning bright…’ Mr. Anders said.
Donny cocked the hammer of the pistol.
‘Don’t do it!’ Chris implored his nemesis. ‘You know it’s not right, Donny!’
The bully’s hand began to quaver and shake, his trigger finger flexing. He tried to steady himself, regain his composure. The shaking became worse, his forearm practically vibrating, his breath short and fast as he tried to commit the deed.
‘Fire, Mr. Taylor,’ Anders demanded. ‘Shoot him, now!’
The boy’s face scrunched up as he tried to push through his misgivings. A few feet away, Jimmy wet himself, a puddle forming across the front of his trousers.
‘Don’t do it, Donny!’ Chris insisted. ‘Don’t let them make you kill someone. It’s not right, darn it!’
‘Aahh…’ Donny made a whimpering sound as he lowered the gun, then lowered his eyes to the floor.
The principal looked unimpressed. ‘Mr. Taylor. I am most disappointed in you. Your position as the program’s prime will bear serious review at his moment. In any event, we require…’
Before he could finish the sentence, the gun was snatched from Donny’s grip, smaller hands raising it unsteadily, the trigger yanked, the gun exploding with sound, momentarily deafening all nearby. The concussive sound made Chris wince and shut his eyes tight, although only for a moment.
When the whining sound subsided, Becky stood with the gun outstretched, quavering from its weight, her eyes wide and vacant, a thin contrail of smoke drifting from the revolver’s barrel. A few feet away, Jimmy lay on his back, the blood pooling around the top of his head. The thirty-eight-caliber bullet had struck him in the middle of the forehead, right between his eyes.
Principal Anders smiled. ‘Well. Well, well. You see, children? This is the kind of commitment that makes us proud to be your teachers. Well done, Becky Sawyer! One day, you may be as effective as your sister. Or even Mr. Platt.’ He turned his head slightly as he said it, the way a vulture might crane its neck toward a new lunch prospect.
Chris stared him down. ‘I would never…’
‘Oh, but of course you would, Mr. Platt. You’re our number one student. We’ll go into it during Session tonight. We’ll go over the efficiency with which you executed David Webber, whether there was anything upon which you could have improved. Air drifts.’
The words triggered a release, the memory flooding back, of the Webber boy kneeling in the same exact spot, in front of the dais. And of pulling the trigger not once, but twice, making sure the job was done.
His eyes glazed, Chris stared at the front of the room, unthinking and unfeeling, waiting for instruction.
Amy got home later than allowed, ten minutes after
her seven o’clock curfew. The lights were out upstairs in the home, and she supposed her parents were asleep. She closed the back door quietly and put her coat over the back of the kitchen chair, rather than on the hook, as her mother preferred.
The stepmother usually didn’t feel well by the evening and, as was her habit, had gone to bed early. Amy peeked her head around the corner of the door as she passed it in the hallway. ‘I’m home.’
Her stepmother was middle-aged, wrinkled, with recently dyed red-brown hair. She wore the same white cotton gown every night, and had settled into bed with a book, The Water Margin. ‘How was it?’
Amy shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Nothing special. You know; it’s always the same. A few questions, a few tests, a few bad jokes from Principal Anders. It’s the session. The session is the session.’
Why did adults always ask the same dumb question? Amy wondered. They’d all been young once. They’d all gone to the session. They’d all taken the advice, learned from the Elders. That was life, after all. School was school.
‘Did you learn anything new?’
‘Uh huh. Some stuff about nutrition and keeping fit. They kept Chris and Donny Taylor and me late for it again. I think it was like one we already did.
Her stepmother’s sudden tension was palpable. ‘They... repeated lessons?’
What was the matter with her all of a sudden? ‘It’s not the first time.’
Amy’s stepmother already knew that. It was why she was nervous. But the girl was too young to understand. ‘Really?’
‘Uh huh. There was one a few months ago, about building a lean-to. We’d heard that one before too. What’s got you so worried?’
Her stepmother smiled thinly. ‘It’s nothing sweetie. It’s just that moms and dads get worried when there’s a do over. It usually… times poorly. There’s always some other neighborhood worry to handle when a lesson is repeated. We like to avoid... negative consequences from the sessions. They can be... problematic.’
Amy nodded. She didn’t really understand, but she knew that when her stepmother became nervous for confusing reasons, the Elders were usually involved. But it didn’t matter. ‘Obey one’s Elders,’ Mom would say if she asked. ‘That’s the most important thing one can do.’
Amy smiled but didn’t reply. She didn’t like discussing the sessions; none of the kids at her school did. She guessed it was probably the same for kids everywhere.
She headed to her room to study. It didn’t seem fair that they still had homework after a night of Session. But Amy knew instinctively that it wasn’t up to her, that as long as she followed the guidelines, did the course work and showed up on time, everything would be okay.
The desk lamp was too bright, hurting her eyes. She tilted it away slightly as she sat at her desk and looked out her bedroom window at the house next door. The town was small enough that people had decent-sized lots, and she couldn’t quite see in well enough to know if Chris was awake. She supposed he was doing the same work.
She wondered how long they’d been in Session. They were never told; that was part of the arrangement.
Becky passed the door. ‘Hey,’ Amy asked. ‘How was your Session?’
The younger girl shrugged. ‘Stupid. We studied birds and electricity.’
‘Hey! That stuff is important,’ Amy said. ‘If you want to stay in the program you have to remember all of the lessons perfectly. That’s one of the rules.’
‘Yeah… I guess. I’m going to go to bed now.’
Amy nodded as her sister wandered off down the hallway. Then she frowned. She didn’t think Becky would make it. Her sister had the fight in her, no doubt. But the interest and intelligence weren’t there. She wasn’t bright enough. She couldn’t learn the skills, wouldn’t read enough. That’s why it was even more important to look out for her.
Then she caught herself. That was defeatist talk. If Becky failed, she would do so on her own, without being propped up by her big sister, she decided.
Amy felt her tummy rumble. She’d missed dinner again; her stepmother had tired of trying to teach her the importance of getting home early on those nights. Usually there was something left over in the fridge, though. She headed downstairs to the kitchen to see what she could put together.
The inside of the fridge was sparse, but there was a half-bottle of milk and the leftovers of a roast chicken. All she needed were some vegetables...
Out the corner of her left eye, she noticed the light to the basement stairs was on, just past the front door. Her stepmother was always nagging her father for forgetting it; he had a little workshop down there.
She closed the fridge and walked over to the door. She reached to the switch at the top of the stairs and was about to flick it off when she heard something, a muffled noise of some sort, low and grunting, followed by a high-pitched ticking. She crept down the stairs cautiously. The ticking sound got louder, morphing into a sharper, slapping noise. Her foot hit the third-to-last step and it creaked loudly.
The noises stopped. She heard someone whispering something. ‘Shhh. You hear...’ she caught, with the rest being too low. Amy took the last three steps and leaned around the corner, hanging onto the edge of the wall like it was a shield.
Her father was on the sofa, naked, and on all fours. Another man -- Mr. Craig, the local butcher -- was kneeling behind him and also naked. Both men were sweating profusely, and her father was red-faced.
‘Amy... please...’ he implored, as if there was enough explanation somewhere for what she was seeing.
She frowned and shook her head gently. ‘Homosexuality is a perversion that can only be used against you,’ she said. ‘You should know better.’
‘Please, Amy... don’t tell your stepmother...’
‘I shall report this to Principal Anders. This is unacceptable,’ the little girl said, her tone lecturing the middle-aged man.
‘Please... sweetie...’
‘There is no other way,’ Amy said. ‘You’re just going to have to learn.’
They would be hard on him, she knew. She would probably never see her father again. But it was a matter of principle. And she knew that, beyond anything, she had to follow direction and correct the record. She had always suspected from his harsh treatment that he was wicked.
Now, she was certain, and she would turn him in.
There was no room for mercy in Plenty.
PART ONE
1/
OFF THE COAST OF NISHINOSHIMA ISLAND, SEA of JAPAN,
TODAY
The sea two miles off coast was calm, but the fisherman’s eyes were wide with surprise, nonetheless.
In his thirty-seven years on the job, Minato Fujiwara had seen a great many things, some quite wonderous, others too incredible to believe. The latter, he had to admit, were often due to consuming too much Saki in the hot sun. Fishing can be a lonely occupation at the best of times when it’s not from a multi-crew vessel, and for all his statements while drinking among others about how much he enjoyed solitude, sometimes it went better with alcohol.
It was only on the rarest of occasions that he saw something truly frightening.
He had once been just a few miles from a giant wave, only to see it miraculously dissipate into violent-but-survivable swells before reaching his tiny one-man skiff.
He had fallen overboard once and found himself surrounded quickly by tiger sharks but managed to cover the few yards to his vessel and climb back in without attack.
He once caught his foot in the anchor line and only just got it free in time to avoid an impromptu amputation.
None of these worried him as much as what he had just witnessed.
It had been a black dot on the horizon, and he assumed at first that it was an airplane.
Then, it changed course, rapidly shooting to his left, then his right. It was so far away that he couldn’t make out details, likely dozens of miles. But it flitted back and forth in the air like a fly avoiding a swatter.
Then it got closer. First
, it lost some altitude. Then, it shot almost straight up. Then it started to descend again and move in his direction. It was big enough now to have a shape; it was so far off, still, that he assumed it was an out-of-control airplane.
The sea was relatively calm, and just the odd spray traversed the lip of the wooden boat’s hull. The water lapped against it quietly.
If it was a plane, he assumed, it had to have a radio. That meant there should be ships on route, maybe another plane or rescue chopper.
But the horizon was empty in all directions, the sky an undisturbed blue-white. And he’d never seen a plane change direction so quickly.
Perhaps his aging eyes were playing tricks upon him, Fujiwara decided. Perhaps it was just a bird or a bug, its size making it seem like a large object rendered tiny over distance. The nervous sensation creeping up his spine was foolish, he told himself.
The object seemed to have settled just above the horizon line, as if hovering above the water. But it was getting larger, or...
It was approaching, he realized, not far above sea level. The water began to churn ever so slightly, the swells picking up, his boat beginning to bob uncomfortably. Another swell hit, this time larger, as if a series of waves was building up strength. The sun peeked through the clouds long enough for Fujiwara to shield his eyes with a hand visor, but the boat was rocking heavily, and he grabbed both sides to stable himself. He said a small prayer that whatever it was, it would see him and halt or pass by undisturbed.
It was within a few miles now, and he could tell that it was round, or perhaps a long cylinder...
Fujiwara felt the same chill down his spine once more. He’d seen large rocket-style missiles in movies and on television. But it was markedly different to be staring one down. And yet that’s what he thought it had to be: a missile flying so low that it was creating a jet wake in the water.
His family had fished the waters around Nishinoshima for generations and the topic of a possible North Korean attack on Japan had come up many times. The islands were, in some respects, Japan’s first line of defense. Like most of the island’s residents, however, he had long since resigned himself to worrying about things he could actually change.
