by Mya Robarts
“I want to. I need a bit of … company. It might be a good memory to take with me when the troops recruit me.”
“They won’t recruit you.”
I won’t argue with him. It’s always better to expect the worst. If the worst happens, you are prepared for it. If it doesn’t, you’re surprised and grateful. Isn’t that what’s happening right now? I’m pleasantly surprised. The man I considered an enemy has become an ally.
“I’ll give you the key.” he says. “You’ll start tonight.”
“Aren’t you going to be absent? What difference does it make if I start when you come back?”
He gives me a half-smile along with the key. “Roads are dangerous. Any danger I face will be easier to overcome if I know you’ll be waiting for me.”
My hand burns where his fingers touched it. “I … don’t know … what I should wear.”
“Whatever you normally wear to sleep. Remember, we’ll be just sleeping. Our arrangement is not about sexual contact but the human touch.”
The human touch again. That concept that he refuses to explain. I steer the conversation toward more practical issues.
“I wonder how a soldier sleeps.”
He smiles coyly with his lips closed. “I prefer to sleep half-covered by one my capes.” Military capes have unique properties that protect against temperature changes, but it seems he’s hinting at something else.
We remain quietly looking into each other’s eyes. A pang of nervousness hits me. I drop my eyes and force myself to speak. “Don’t you have a vehicle waiting for you?”
“Yes, at the canteen.” His hands reach to touch my face, but he catches himself before touching me. His face is an adorable mix of manly confidence with just the right hint of vulnerability. “It’s better if you go to bed. Sleep tight, Lila.”
Lila. How intimate and melodic my name sounds in his raspy voice. I want to tell him to have a good trip, to be careful, to not get killed. I want to convey to him that I need him to return, rather than utter a clichéd, “See you.”
He reluctantly steps back and crosses the helipad toward the staircase. Is this the last I’ll see of him? Bandits, genetically altered beasts, and other dangers are lurking on the roads.
Impulsively, I run to him, and with a jump, I put my arms around his neck. He catches me by the waist, looking taken aback.
I plant a quick kiss on his lips before pulling away with a hop. The surprised look on his face gives me a warm feeling of satisfaction. “I’ll be waiting for you. Under your cape. Naked.”
I turn toward the scaffold without looking back. I feel the warmth of his gaze, like fire sweeping over my body, until I close his room’s door behind me.
We shall repulse the oppressors
Of all ardent ideas.
The rapists and the plunderers,
The torturers of people.
War hymn by Vasily Lebedev-Kumach.
19
The human touch
The morning sun falls over Olmo’s bed. The room smells of medicine. Courtesy of Tristan, there’s a humidifier and a thermostat. On a rickety table are at least twenty different medicines and several inhalers.
“Come on, Olmo! Just a little bit more,” I plead in a sweet tone.
The way he looks at me, with wide eyes, his mouth half open and the tip of his tongue touching his lower lip, reminds me of when he was a toothless, drooling baby. Olmo looks exhausted. The olive skin of his face is mottled with patches of red.
“I can’t … It hurts.”
I insist gently. I’ve been massaging Olmo’s chest and back since dawn to help him release the mucus that’s keeping him from breathing normally.
He thrashes in his bed. “I don’t want to.”
“Please, Olmo. You’ll feel better.”
He finally complies and coughs up mucus, then spits it into a vase. I praise him and cradle him. What’s happening to him lately? I miss his laughter, his smiles.
I try to distract him with a question that’s been bothering me for days. “Olmo, what’s the human touch?”
Olmo’s face lights up. “The human touch is that little snippet of physical affection that brings a bit of comfort, support, and kindness. It doesn’t take much from the one who gives it, but can make a huge difference in the one who receives it. Like when you brush Azzy’s hair or kiss my forehead. Or when you remove mine or Poncho’s eye boogers.”
I smile. Look at him sounding so mature! “Did Aleksey explain all this to you?”
He swells with pride. “No, he wrote a small piece about human touch in his journal, and I figured out the meaning. He told me I got it right.”
I stroke his hair. That must be another display of human touch. “Well done, bro! I was wondering how boogers would sound with his accent.”
Olmo giggles. “He calls them rheum. More like rrrr-rheum.”
It’s still early in the morning, but Olmo had a rough night. He falls asleep quickly. Azzy enters the room and we stand together in silence, watching him sleep.
“You know? I used to hate him. When we were six, I almost killed him,” she whispers.
“Before or after … that day?”
“Before. I was tricking Olmo into taking a poisoned cocoa when Mom shouted ‘Dinner time!’ I forgot my intentions and never tried later.”
I say nothing, but I’m not surprised. The first time I saw Azzy, she was a newborn baby, searching blindly but determinedly for my mother’s breast. Azzy found her objective and ate voraciously, making satisfied noises … only to get pushed aside. Mom’s room seemed to shake with Azzy’s deafening wails, but our exhausted mother needed to cajole Olmo, who was too weak, in desperate need of colostrum, and seeming to favor only one breast.
Dad tried to get Azalea to eat from mom’s other breast instead, but Azzy’s wails were like a chant of protest. I got there first! I don’t want second best. Sadly, Azzy got seconds not only with food, but also with our parents’ attention, multiple times. As a result, she took the term sibling rivalry to a whole new level.
The memory makes me smile. “I hope I never get twins. When did you warm up to him?”
Azzy strokes Olmo’s hair. “Not long after that day when Mom—”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t. Olmo was wailing, desperate. Dad wasn’t there to give him his medicine, mom would never come back … and I realized that he needed more people to take care of him than me, and that he kept losing those people each day. I gave him the damn medicine, and he looked at me as though I was the best.”
“Because you were, Azalea.”
“I’m the best still.”
“Where was I?”
“I don’t remember. Probably taking care of Dad’s wounds.”
Poncho’s howl startles us. His loud barks are deafening. In the distance, the Starville churches ring their bells harmonically. It’s a code we haven’t heard in a while.
A public execution!
Azzy and I help Olmo put on his cloak, boots, and a mask. We must reach the university gym quickly. The consequences for my family after my parents refused to attend a recruitment ceremony were catastrophic. I won’t risk being late to a public execution.
“Go ahead!” shouts Dad when he sees us at the clinic entrance. He and the Diaz cousins stay behind to prepare Duque for the journey to the gymnasium.
A soft drizzle falls on us as we take an unpaved road lined with trees down the steep slope toward the university ruins. From here, we see the crowd hurrying through the gym doors.
Of all days, I had to choose this one to wear a button-up dress. Olmo can barely move, so he has to climb on my back. It’s the anguish, not his weight that suffocates me. Is the prisoner a Comanche? What if they’ve discovered us?
I shiver when we get to the gym, knowing I’ll have nightmares tonight. They’ll hold the recruitment ceremony here. The only illumination comes from the open doors. The wooden stage they used for the last recruitment is still in place in the center of t
he court. The basketball posts still show the bloodstains from people they abused in the past.
Some soldiers are already on stage, guarding two prisoners. I recognize Sara Jenkins, the dark-haired teenage bride for whom I was sewing trousseau gifts. She’s an ex-comanche. Incredibly, a young, curly-haired soldier is the other prisoner.
Public executions are reserved for acts of treason. The tonics make soldiers extremely loyal to their country. What kind of treason could have made them prosecute this soldier? And Sara? Did they find out about The Comanche Resistance through her?
War, starvation, and recruitment have caused Starville’s population to dwindle. The gym can accommodate almost the entire town, and the rows of seats fill quickly. The soldiers are wearing jewelry-devices in the forms of rings and medals, which they use to call roll. Starvillers put their fingers on the j-devices, and an electronic sound indicates that their attendance has been registered.
The soldiers ask families with young children to occupy the front seats. They say this is educational for them. Olmo looks like a seven-year-old, so our family will sit in one of the front rows, but I try to find seats as far as possible from the stage.
Dad, Rey, and Rey’s cousins arrive in the nick of time, pushing an emaciated-looking Duque in a wheelchair. His IV line is held by one cousin, his colostomy bag by another. Duque’s appearance attracts impertinent looks and loud murmurs.
Azzy and I clench our fists, but our fury merges with fear when Rocco arrives, followed by dozens of soldiers. When did the younger soldiers arrive? Usually, we have fewer soldiers in town, and they’re never the kind of soldiers who can still wreak havoc in the line of fire.
Dad joins us, dragging his cart painfully. The Diaz family sits in the front row opposite us. Rey’s eyes find mine, and we stare at each other sharing our worries. If Sara’s here because she was involved with TCR, we’ll all be dead soon.
A disturbed-looking Tristan and other Accord cops arrive. It’s their duty to try to stop the girl’s execution, but they can do nothing against Patriot law if the charges against her include treason.
Today, Rocco isn’t eager for the Accord Unit’s cameras. As much as the old soldier tries to hide it, it’s evident that he and Tristan are arguing heatedly.
With a hand gesture, Rocco calls two soldiers to take hold of Tristan. The cop thrashes and struggles, but Rocco ignores him.
Megaphone in hand, Rocco tells the crowd that Private Petrov, the young soldier who stands stoically on the stage, has committed treason by fraternizing with Sara. I’m so sorry for her that I don’t have time to feel relief that they didn’t discover TCR. She was the only Starviller who didn’t laugh at us the day we moved to the clinic. Sara was a quiet person during her time with the Comanches, and I wish I had known her better.
When they forcibly bare the accused’s torsos, their engagement tattoos become visible. The couple resolutely looks at each other, holding their heads high in spite of everything.
A trial takes place, but it’s nothing but a kangaroo court. Rocco uses a polygraph on both prisoners to interrogate them. He asks the couple dozens of questions, even intimate ones.
“Are you a V-girl?”
Sara answers defiantly. “No.”
The polygraph attached to her arm confirms the answer with an electronic sound. A wave of murmurs and hissing comes from the crowd. Sara’s parents, siblings, and countless relatives are openly crying.
“Was Private Petrov your first?”
“Yes. I love him.”
Petrov declares his love for her, too. I never thought soldiers were capable of love, but here he is, completely devoted to Sara, about to die for and with her. Every time he answers a question, they kick him. Judging by the agony on his face, drugs don’t make soldiers as immune to pain as everyone thinks. They’re still human.
The soldiers announce their verdict. Except for two young-looking guys who get threatening looks from the others, most agree that the accused are guilty.
When they take a few moments to deliberate the penalty, terror courses through my body, making me shiver. Death, of course, but what before that? I know they’ll hurt the person Petrov loves the most.
They might recruit her. It wouldn’t be the first time they use recruitment as punishment. And the Patriot law protects them, even though Tristan is screaming against his restraints that they’re breaking the recruitment protocol.
Not recruitment. Please don’t recruit her.
Long moments pass before the soldiers reach a consensus. The tallest soldier whispers it in Rocco’s ear.
No! Please don’t recruit her.
I’m shivering violently. I grab my siblings’ hands. They’re trembling, too. Olmo! Azalea! I don’t want them to see this.
Rocco’s facial tattoos make him look sinister. He takes his time before announcing the sentence.
Not recruitment. Please, anything but rape.
“Godless, cruel, infamous tyrant, are you not ashamed to despoil a woman of that by which your own mother nursed you?”
Saint Agatha
20
With her and for her
I can’t hear anymore. The foot-shuffling, murmurs, and soldier’s voices have been replaced in my brain by an incomprehensible murmur.
Rocco announces at least a dozen penalties using legal terminology that my brain barely registers. Only one word from his discourse sticks with me, as that term represents the worst of my fears.
“… the consequence is recruitment …” Rocco’s tone is the one you’d use to talk to a mentally challenged person to make him understand a complicated principle. “However, it’s the recommendation of our leader, Maximillian Kei, never to recruit or kill a betrothed woman during full moons. It brings bad luck to our troops.”
I sigh, momentarily relieved.
“We decided that we won’t kill Sara Elizabeth Jenkins.” The Jenkins family looks hopeful for a second before Rocco announces, “Instead, Private Petrov will kill her before his own execution.”
The audience breaks into hushed conversations. Some men say Petrov is a fool. Petrov would be safe now if he had taken her and dismissed her. What do they call it? Copulation without conversation. He was going to marry her, so now both are criminals. What a sick moral code. They’re punishing him for not raping her. For loving her.
At that moment, the sound of the gym doors opening draws our attention. A collective gasp courses through the gym. Three soldiers enter carrying a rack machine and place it next to the stage. I put my head between my hands before remembering that soldiers are watching the crowd, and that every gesture of horror or disapproval can warrant punishment.
My hands are cold and shivering. Dad discreetly gives Azzy and Olmo two pairs of plastic objects. Earplugs. I try to get strength from the fact that at least they won’t hear. Everyone else seems to be paralyzed. The silence is acute, overwhelming.
Before Petrov can do anything, Sara is placed spread-eagled on the torture device. It takes three soldiers and several failed attempts before they force Petrov to push the button that operates the rack. Sara’s shrieks mix with her family’s wails.
Have mercy. Please! Somebody kill her.
Then Rocco jumps on the stage. When I realize what he’s gripping in his hand, I sweat. A pair of tongs and a metal dish.
“Saint Agatha,” whispers someone beside me. In this religious, conservative town, everyone knows the legend of Saint Agatha, a V-martyr, and the way she was tortured. They are going to do the same thing to Sara.
The crowd murmurs, “Saint Agatha” repeatedly, and the buzz becomes so persistent that the soldiers call for order by firing guns into the ceiling.
Nobody moves. The crowd has become utterly still. The only sounds are muffled gurgles and cries from some babies.
I can’t bring myself to watch what’s about to happen. Soldiers can’t punish all of the people who are averting their eyes, but even if they can, I’ll take my chances. Unfortunately, I have no way to cover my e
ars without them noticing it. The crowd’s stillness becomes a terrifying sound on its own.
A sizzling sound breaks the silence, mixing with Sara’s loud shrieks of pain. The muteness that preceded her piercing screeches only accentuates their volume. I don’t need to see it to guess that Petrov is tossing against his restraints. His shrieks blend with hers, as though he were the one suffering the cruelty of the pincers that Rocco is using to torture Sara’s chest.
A sound tells me that the dish is no longer empty; it now holds pieces of her mutilated flesh. I venture a look. Rocco holds up the dish for everyone to see. The sight of the crimson-soaked plate forces me to turn my eyes toward Petrov.
Petrov is an incredibly powerful soldier. He uses his strength to escape his captors and get closer to Sara. In a swift movement, he grabs her head in his hands and breaks her neck.
Sara’s death is the cue the soldiers were waiting for to attack Petrov with all the force of their modified genes. All I can see is a mess of bodies in which I don’t know which limb belongs to whom. It reminds me of the time when, during a TCR mission, we saw a wolf pack—genetically modified beasts, judging by their size and fierceness—falling upon a horse. But the horse wasn’t on drugs and died in seconds. Petrov’s drugs are prolonging his death.
To avoid the horror of what’s in front of us, Olmo has been whispering the litany of his favorite self-created fantasy tale. Azzy has been stoically staring at her hands, and I suspect that she’s coping with this better than Olmo is. I feel grateful for the blessing of her inexplicable self-sufficiency. I wish I were as strong as Azalea is.
Anything but rape, I think gloomily. Was this less cruel for Sara? Sexual assault is as painful and torturous as the pincers. They just used a different kind of torture device on her. If she’d had the option, what would her choice have been? I don’t want to think about it, but my mind refuses to let these disturbing thoughts go as I watch how Petrov refuses to scream. To die.