The Perfect Soldier

by B D Grant

  “We can run for it,” I offer, looking out of the bus’s side windows. “Glensy, get up here!” I call down the aisle.

  The nurse slaps my arm with the back of her hand. She hits an area of my burn that has yet to heal, and I pull away sharply. “Keep your voice down!”

  “I’m not being loud,” I snarl.

  Glensy rises, waking Tia with a nudge. He steps into the aisle, leaning across my seat. Boston barely responds to Glensy’s quick shove.

  The three masked men walk steadily towards us, heading past the parked cars. For the first time, I notice hulking silhouettes inside the vehicles, illuminated by the lights of the cars ahead of the bus.

  We’ve been set up. The men don’t have to rush; we’re sitting, wounded ducks.

  The nurse looks down at her tiny patient. “There’s no time to wake everyone up and run. And the last town we passed was at least ten miles back.” She folds her arms across her chest. “We won’t make it.”

  “I can carry her,” I tell the nurse, nodding at the little girl.

  “Lots of these people can’t run,” she says, tugging on the neck of her scrub top. “They’re patients, for heaven’s sake! Hospital patients!” Those who managed to stay asleep are starting to rouse as a result of our commotion. Lena stops mumbling long enough to poke her head up, raises her eyebrows at the nurse. She then drops her head back down to her knees, muttering a little louder.

  “There’s more,” Vernon says, interrupting the scrambled thoughts in my head. He points at the car just in front of us, where two more people in masks are getting out.

  The little girl shifts in her sleep, and her nurse places the slipping blanket back across the girl’s lap.

  Glensy calls from the back, “Yo, Kelly!” He’s in the aisle, leaning over the seat of a sleeping boy no older than thirteen.

  Lena lifts her head up again, this time to glance out of her window. Dimly, I notice that her muttering has stopped.

  Small lights appear in the grassy knoll outside the bus, perhaps two hundred yards from the road. I lean across the seat to my left and the kid sitting in it to get a better look out the window.

  “Please be lightning bugs,” I say to the field.

  Lightning bugs don’t illuminate continuously in the dark. “Or help,” I add quickly. I move across the aisle to check the field on the right side of the bus. Yup, more flashlights.

  Boston sits up in his seat. “Reverse us the hell out of here,” he croaks as he finally catches on.

  “The driver took the keys,” Vernon calls back, no longer concerned about making noise. The masked men have stopped next to the car parked in front of the bus. They are waiting.

  Glensy starts waking the few who are still sleeping.

  “So we’re fighting,” he says to all of us in the bus, shaking awake a man wearing a full arm cast. The man grumbles until Glensy jabs him a little too forcefully, and he opens his eyes in discomfort.

  Tia stands with another Dyna girl from our old school who I only know from passing, watching the flashlights in the fields as they move closer to the bus. In true Dynamar form, both girls are smiling. They begin bouncing back and forth on the soles of their feet, amping themselves up. That’s what I used to do to keep my adrenaline going when I was waiting on the sidelines during a football game.

  The little girl at the front finally wakes. She turns around in her seat and looks around the bus, her gaze drawn to the bouncing Dyna girls. “What are they doing, Miss Katie?” she asks her nurse.

  “Oh, they’re just…” she says gently, stroking the girls hair. Her mouth is caught open as she searches for words, unable to utter an explanation.

  I step in for her. “Getting ready,” I say. The girl’s soft brown eyes are so big compared to her little face. They’re mesmerizing.

  I turn to Vernon. “We need to turn off the inside lights.”

  “On it,” he replies, looking around the dash for the button. “Not that it’ll do any good.” He fumbles around the steering wheel, and the interior lights go black with a click. The outside vehicle lights illuminating a few feet around each vehicle become more prominent as the night creeps in.

  Someone somewhere in the middle of the bus starts sobbing.

  The little girl peers out the window, her blanket tight around her shoulders. “Who are those people?”

  “We don’t know, Willa,” Nurse Katie answers. She sits next to Willa, wrapping an arm tightly around her.

  “Yeah we do,” I say under my breath.

  “Okay!” I announce, shouting to anyone who will listen. “They got us almost surrounded, but we aren’t outnumbered. We can—”

  The two Dyna girls stop bouncing beside the windows. Their hard expressions soften as they come to a stand-still. I can feel it too. It feels like a struggle, for a second, as some of the Tempero inside the bus try to offset the waves of calmness suddenly flooding the bus, but the Tempero outside are forcing all of us to feel a numbing passiveness. The girls, hyped up just a moment before, lower slowly back into their seats.

  “They’re good,” Boston says dreamily, propping his elbow up on the armrest. He rests his chin on his hand. The escape plans that had been swirling through my mind hit a stand-still. I wonder if it might be possible to get a bit more sleep. After all, there’s nothing much we can do right now. With the lights off like this and the sun setting outside, I could probably get some rest. All I want to do is have a seat and shut my eyes.

  Vernon has returned to his seat in the front row. In my peripheral vision, I notice more masked people through the windshield. I trudge down the aisle, back towards Boston, and take a seat next to him. But I can’t let them get into my head, I remind myself. I can’t.

  I hear what sounds like a loudspeaker coming from outside the bus. “We are not here to harm you.”

  “They’re not lying,” Boston says, but his voice sounds far away.

  With all of the fight out of me, I turn my head to look across Boston and stare out the window. I can make out the people on the side of the road, emerging from the field as they step onto the concrete. All of them are holding guns.

  “They don’t look like they mean us no harm,” I tell Boston. The guns make it easier to push back against the calmness that’s seeped into my skull, but still my limbs feel heavy.

  The man holding the megaphone yells, “If you do not follow our orders, we will have no choice but to use force!”

  “Not gonna give them a fight. Too much chill in the air,” Boston says to the window. At least he’s acknowledging the Tempero-induced chill. I’ve heard that some Tempero can make people mindless, turning a strong willed Dynamar completely vacant. We’re both still aware of what’s going on, and that’s something.

  “But I can fight,” I say to Boston very quietly. He’s one of the few who knows that I can block Tempero. He’s the one who convinced that it wouldn’t be good for me if it got out at our old school, so I’ve tried not to block any Tempero, and have mostly been successful. The key has been to not get worked up, because unless something sets me off it takes a good deal of effort to block them.

  The man on the megaphone is still talking, his words passing vaguely through my skull. “Everyone off the bus, starting with those in the rear. You are to keep your hands raised above your head unless instructed otherwise.” There are other voices too, and I hear the megaphone click off and on a couple times, emitting a shrill shriek more than once. After another moment of silence, the speaker gets back on the megaphone. “If you have any injuries that prevent you from holding your arms up, we’ll make an exception. Begin exiting in an orderly fashion. Any funny business will have severe consequences. We do not want to hurt any of you,” he repeats.

  Those in the last seats slowly rise.

  “Yeah? You’re going to take them on solo?” Boston asks.

  I peer out the windows around the bus, looking at the row of guns aimed at us. More Seraphim walk past us, and as they step off of the bus they are being greet
ed with guns pointed at them by the masked men and women standing on the edge of the pavement. The masked people who emerged from the fields on the left side of the bus stop don’t bother to join those on the right side. Instead, they spread out with a few watching the front of the bus while the rest watch the rear. They’re there in case any of us try to run for it I guess.

  The man with the megaphone asks for patients’ abilities as they step off, and then another man of equal height and shoulder width standing next to him directs each patient to one of four, armed men who are standing closer to the bus in a zigzag line ten or more feet between each man with the man farthest from the door standing at the very end of the bus. They’re separating us by ability. A masked woman is standing a few feet behind the two men standing at the bus door. Like the man with the megaphone and the man next to him, she isn’t holding a firearm.

  Dynamar are pointed to the second masked man who has a little more room around him and is closest to those lining the edge of the pavement which I doubt is coincidental.

  “You aren’t that good,” Boston smiles, as if he was giving me a compliment. He watches everyone who was seated behind us walk past. Boston stands. He gently grabs me around the arm, with both hands on my least-burned side, and lifts. “Go with the flow,” he strains, his puny muscles barely able to lift my shoulder up.

  I stand, wishing I had insisted that Mitch come with us. He would know how to get us out of this.

  Lena is crying silently when she gets off the bus. I watch, laying belly-down on the pavement like the other Dynamar patients, as the masked man next to the one with the megaphone steps towards her, pulling a napkin out of his pocket. He offers it to her.

  Lena sees his hand coming toward her, and loses it. She screams, slapping his hand away from her wildly. The only thing she manages to do is slap the napkin out of the man’s hand. It floats down to the pavement, and two more masked men jog over, trying to control her. They’re all practically twice her size.

  It’s after a few moments of this that the masked woman who’s been behind the two men walks up having retrieved something from out of the back of the vehicle parked in front of the bus. She’s carrying a bottle in one hand and a rag in the other. She douses the rag with the clear solution from the bottle. The men grab Lena’s wrists and hold her arms down as the woman covers Lena’s nose and mouth with the rag. After a few short gasps, her eyes roll back in her head.

  I feel a small but certain surge of anger as I watch them carry Lena off to one of the cars that sits idly in front of the bus. The Tempero who subdued us have scaled back the calming emotions they’re pushing on us, probably from exhaustion.

  Four Vans pull up behind the bus as the last couple rows stand to exit. They emerge from a dirt road that goes into the cornfield on the left side of the highway, which I hadn’t even noticed before. The masked woman returns to her spot behind the man with the megaphone before the vans have all parked behind the bus. They must have this entire section of the highway blocked off on both sides, since nobody else has stumbled across the scene.

  The fifteen or so masked individuals on this side of the bus seem to be keeping a sharp eye on the injured patients who are allowed to sit instead of lay face-down on the road. It doesn’t keep them from eyeing me every time I glance over in their direction. The road is still pretty hot from the day’s sun, and I let my forehead hover a few inches above the ground, head raised just enough to see what’s going on in front of me.

  None of the masked people point their weapons at any of us, although it seems a few of them are itching to. It’s very non-Rogue-like, but it’s obvious that they’re Rogues. Judging by their size it’s a predominantly Dynamar group of men and women, which matches the demographics of the Rogue school. The man with the megaphone asking for patients’ abilities isn’t nearly muscular enough to be a Dyna, so my bet is that he’s likely a Veritatis. The other non-Dynamar standing around must be the Tempero working on us, based on the calm that I’m still feeling. Despite the masks, I think I recognize a couple of them from my old school. I’m fairly certain one was a football coach of mine. Glensy is three Dyna over from my right so I can’t ask him, but I’ve caught him staring hard at some of the same people. I take it as a confirmation.

  Katie and Willa are the last to exit the bus.

  “What do you want with us?” Katie asks no one in particular as she helps the girl step down to the ground. Her question goes ignored.

  The masked woman who no longer has the bottle or rag since returning from the car Lena was brought to pulls the man holding the megaphone away. I crane my neck, trying not to move too quickly for fear of being noticed, as the two have a whispered conversation. Eventually, the man nods at the woman begrudgingly and then heads for Katie.

  Katie sees him coming and pushes Willa instinctively behind her. He motions toward Willa with the megaphone. “Her diagnosis?”

  “Stage three kidney disease,” Katie says, loud enough for all of Dyna laying on the pavement around me to hear. She glances between the man with the megaphone and the woman. “There are specialists waiting for her,” she tells the man earnestly. She allows Willa to stick her head out from behind her back, and the masked face looks down at her. “She’ll be okay,” Katie lowers her voice. “But only with treatment. Real treatment.”

  The man turns away from Katie, peering at Vernon for a second. He is lying face-down on the pavement. “Who’s his patient?” he asks Katie.

  She points out four patients who had to helped off of the bus and were allowed to sit instead of lay on their stomachs. Two of the four are the only adult patients on the bus, only one of which had been injured during the raid. The other adult, a woman, had been in the hall with Mitchell when the grenades went off. The two boys she points out I don’t recognize, but my guess is that they’re both stage twos from The Academy, looking to be around eleven or twelve years old. All four of them have tubes of some kind which protrude from under their gowns or taped to their arms.

  The masked man steps away from Katie and Willa, turning his back as he whispers with the woman. The masked woman keeps looking toward the back of the bus where they have the group of Veritatis patients. I try to see if it’s Boston that she’s looking at, but I can’t see beyond the Dynamar laying next to me. I lift my head a little higher, but one of the armed Seraphim behind me clears his throat and I drop my head back down.

  “Is the bus empty?” I hear the man with the megaphone ask. I slowly lift my head back up to see him back in front of Katie. The masked woman is still at the front of the bus, bus she’s stepped a couple feet away from it, and now seems to be examining each group carefully.

  “Yes,” Katie says evenly. The man looks over his shoulder at the woman. She nods him in the direction of the bus. Katie and Willa step back as the man moves toward them. He turns at the steps of the bus and hurries up them.

  He’s back at the steps a minute later. “All clear,” he says to the masked woman as he steps off of the bus. The woman crosses her arms giving a slight shake of the head at the news as the man approaches her again. Katie rests a hand on Willa’s shoulder as they watch the masked man and woman have a hushed discussion.

  They must be looking for someone in particular who wasn’t on the bus. Part of me hopes that they’re going to let us as the man shrugs his big shoulders at the woman as if he’s saying, “I don’t know what we should do.” Another part me is worried that they’re just trying to decide which group to shoot first.

  About a minute later, the woman turns.

  “Heads down,” someone says sharply behind me. I lower my chin to the ground. At this level, I can’t see beyond the shins of the three sets of feet she walks over to. I recognize the pants of the bus driver and the dark blue, freshly pressed pants belonging to the police officer.

  The man with the megaphone goes back over to Katie and Willa. “You, the child,” he says, pointing at Willa, “the other nurse, and those four in bad shape—get back on the bus.”
<
br />   Katie stiffens. “What about everyone else?” Vernon rises slowly to his feet.

  In her small voice, Willa asks, “Are you going to hurt them?”

  I’m not the only one laying belly-down that hears her. Other Dynamar laying around me glance up nervously waiting for his answer.

  The man squats down to get closer to Willa’s level. He rests the megaphone in his lap. “They’re coming with us, sweetheart.” There’s something gentle, almost fatherly, in his voice. He reaches a hand out to caress the top of her feather-like hair. Willa ducks away from his hand with a small squeak. “Don’t worry about them,” the man reassures her softly. He withdraws his hand but stays at her eye level. “You worry about minding nurse…” he looks up at the name badge, “Katie…and you work on getting better.” I picture him smiling behind his mask.

  At the masked woman’s instruction, the three masked men she walked over to begin to carefully escort the four patients back onto the bus, Vernon and Katie helping their patients without making eye contact with any of us laying on the ground.

  One of the patients lets out a groan as one of the masked men sends him up the bus’s steps. In a flash, Vernon is at the masked man’s heels. “Let him take the stairs when he’s ready,” he chastises.

  Vernon really shouldn’t talk that guy like that. Vernon isn’t that small of a guy, but the man he’s fussing at is almost twice his size. The man shoots Vernon a warning glare.

  I slide my hands to either side of my chest on the pavement. “Don’t even think about it,” a masked Dynamar says above me.

  Unarmed and outnumbered, I allow the loose pieces of cement to bite into the edges of my bandages. The gravel cuts as I flatten my arms back out like a starfish.

  The selected patients are all on the bus with the nurses and three masked men when shouting breaks out inside. I hear Katie’s voice in the turmoil. The man with the megaphone jumps inside as several of us crane our necks trying to see what’s happening.