The Volunteer

by J B Cantwell

  Soon the bus was turning, heading straight into town, and as we entered the city, I was surprised by what I saw.

  Poverty. Everywhere, people were huddled against the cold night, sitting on blankets on the sidewalks, waiting for the sun to shine and warm their bodies. There was no rain here, but the biting cold of the air must have been even worse. It reminded me of the Bronx, the borough of New York City that was hardest hit by poverty. Though the land was high enough above sea level to avoid floods, the place had become a refuge for people with Orange designations, a safe haven for those who weren’t welcome anywhere else.

  The bus navigated its way past the street people and through the city. As the sunlight began to touch the buildings looming above, more people started to emerge from the shadows. They were workers, not so different than those in the outer boroughs of New York commuting into Manhattan for work.

  But these people were different. They were bundled from head to toe. Jackets riddled with holes. Rags wrapped around necks as scarves. And they seemed to move more slowly than the workers back home. Wherever they were going, they weren’t in a rush to get there.

  Something about seeing them immediately made me want to get out, to leave this dead city behind. I had thought I’d had it bad back in Brooklyn. Now I saw how wrong I had been.

  We swerved through the streets until we pulled up to one of the taller buildings. The brakes of the old school bus squealed as it came to a stop. The driver threw the bus into park and stood up, turning to face us.

  “Pit stop,” he said. “Picking up two more here.”

  Alex and I both stood up and made our way down the aisle to the exit. I wondered whom they would send with us. Were they like me? Learning about explosives and how to use them?

  Outside, the air was crisp, the beginning of the freezing winter stinging my cheeks. My stomach was hurting, and I realized that I was hungry. It had been more than twenty-four hours since I’d had a real meal.

  We followed the driver into the building, and he turned and made for the bathroom, leaving us standing together in a large, empty reception area. There was no receptionist.

  We stood there awkwardly beside one another. I averted my eyes and looked around. No sergeant came out to greet us. No eager soldiers stood ready to disembark.

  “Let’s go through there,” Alex said, pointing to a room off to the right. “Maybe we can figure out where we’re supposed to be. He seems useless.” He nodded his head toward where the driver had disappeared.

  I agreed and followed him through the door to the room beyond.

  I was surprised by what we found there.

  Two young soldiers sat together on a bench.

  Jeremy Holden

  Designation: Green

  Emma Miller

  Designation: Red

  Both looked terrified.

  “Is this … where we’re supposed to be?” Alex asked the boy.

  His eyes widened at being addressed by another soldier, by a huge, hulking Prime.

  “Why don’t you let me do the talking,” I said. “You’re too, well, too big.”

  I stepped forward and held out my hand.

  “I’m Riley.”

  The boy stood up and shook my outstretched hand.

  “Jeremy. This is Emma.”

  Emma didn’t stand, but she shook my hand, too, averting her eyes. I couldn’t understand why she looked so scared. Every Red I’d ever met had been hard as nails. She looked like a frightened deer fleeing a hunt, looking for a way to escape her fate.

  “This is Alex,” I said, gesturing.

  “Hi,” he said, his voice low and strong.

  He didn’t hold out his hand.

  I glared back at him, but it had no effect.

  “So, what are you doing here?” I asked. “And where is everybody?”

  “We were dropped off here a couple hours ago by our sergeant. He told us to wait.”

  Emma nodded.

  “Did he leave you here alone?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she finally piped up. “He came to get us in the night while the others slept. He didn’t tell us anything.”

  “Why do you look so scared?” I asked. “If you’re really coming with us, then you got off lucky.”

  “Where are you going?” Jeremy asked, his eyes wide.

  I tilted my head to one side, trying to understand.

  “You mean nobody told you?”

  Emma shook her head.

  “We’re headed to Indiana to work with explosives,” I said.

  “Explosives?” Jeremy asked. “Really? They didn’t tell us anything about that in boot camp.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you telling me this is your first year?”

  Both of them nodded.

  “How in the world did you get stationed in Indiana?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeremy said. “We just followed orders.”

  “I know why,” Emma piped up. She looked me in the eye now. “It’s because we’re smart. Smarter than the others.” She turned to Jeremy. “Didn’t you realize it when we were training? The simulations? The other soldiers couldn’t keep up with us.”

  Jeremy looked at her, unbelieving.

  “Just because we’re good at video games doesn’t mean we’re smart. And besides, those games are meant for soldiers to prepare for battle, not to work on bombs.”

  Emma sighed, then looked up at me again.

  “He’s wrong,” she said simply.

  I thought about this conclusion she had made about herself and the boy. It wasn’t arrogant, her tone. It was, instead, steadfast.

  Besides, my own tests had indicated that I’d scored well in intelligence, too. But then, I had been sent into battle, an assignment not exactly reserved for those with hidden genius.

  “Well, we may as well clean up before we go. Is there a mess hall here?”

  Jeremy shrugged. “We haven’t seen one. We were told to wait here. That’s all. But I have some nutrition squares if you guys are hungry.”

  “Yeah. Please.”

  He dug through his pack, produced a small sleeve of the gritty squares and handed it to me.

  “Better than nothing,” I said as I ripped into the packaging. It was no vanilla ice cream, but it would do. I handed a few of them to Alex.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Emma’s eyes were on him.

  I took a big bite of the first square.

  “Don’t worry about him,” I said through a mouthful, gesturing toward Alex. “He’s one of the good guys. Right, Alex?”

  I raised my eyebrows, waiting for his response. When there was none, I turned back to the new soldiers.

  “He follows orders.”

  He must have been staring daggers at my back, because Emma’s eyes grew even wider.

  I moved across the hall and took a seat on a bench opposite them. Alex followed me, sinking his huge body down onto the bench beside me.

  “Of course I follow orders,” he argued quietly. “They do, too. That only leaves the one question … Why don’t you?”

  I glared. But he was right. How many times had I broken protocol since joining the Service? Five, ten, twenty times? I remembered all those notes in the bathroom between myself and Lydia. Yes, at least twenty.

  But I had been trying to find someone, to save someone.

  Him.

  I remembered the kiss down in the subway tunnel. It had been so soft and wonderful. What had happened in the past two days to make those feelings become so muddled? They weren’t gone entirely. This fact made me angry and confused.

  I tried to stay focused, wrenching my attention away from him.

  “So, what’s your story?” I asked, nodding toward each of them.

  Jeremy’s wasn’t a surprise. Like us, he had grown up in near poverty. In fact, Cleveland was his hometown.

  “Do you recognize the people who are out in the streets?”

  “I haven’t been outside since we got here. But I know this neighborhood. It’s
not a good one.”

  Then, curiosity getting the better of me, I asked, “What are your lenses like? What can you see?”

  Of course they had lenses. I could see their connection plain as day by the green ring around their irises.

  “They took away our ability to read designations,” Emma said.

  “Yeah, that’s normal,” I said. “Can you see any other things? Anything special or different?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything looks the same as it ever did.”

  “So, what about you?” Alex asked her, voice booming, too loud for the hallway. “Same as the rest of us?” She shrunk back against the wall.

  “You can tell us,” I said. But I wondered if I would be willing to share my own story. Maybe an abridged version would be in order.

  “I came from Philadelphia,” she said, then stopped.

  “How did you end up a Red?” Alex pressed.

  She looked confused. “How can you tell? Don’t you have your sight taken away? Like us?”

  “We still have it,” I said. “But we’ll have it taken away soon, just like you. We were on leave after our first year. They gave the ability to read designations back to us for the week that we were in the city.”

  “Oh.” Her hands gripped together hard, planted firmly in her lap, the knuckles white.

  “So, tell us. What crime did you commit?” I asked.

  It was a personal question, especially to someone who looked so scared. But she didn’t shy away from it.

  “I stole something.”

  “What?”

  I wondered what theft could land somebody like her in the Service. She seemed so mousey and little. Her freshly shaved head reflected the fluorescent lights in the hallway.

  Jewels? Cash?

  “A dress.”

  I nearly laughed. “A dress? Why?”

  Her voice lowered. “I don’t know why I did it. I could have just bought it. But it was like a compulsion. I had to have it. And I’d done it before. My parents … aren’t around much, so they didn’t notice the other things I’d taken.”

  “How could they not notice?” I asked. Then, as the answer dawned on me, I realized the truth. “You’re rich!”

  She shook her head slightly. “No, not rich. We only live on the second floor in Philadelphia. There’s people way more …”

  “Way more wealthy than you?” I scoffed, tossing Alex a glance. His face stayed stoic.

  She ducked her head. “I didn’t expect … I never thought that, you know, I would end up …”

  “You never thought you’d get caught? You idiot.”

  I couldn’t help myself. What had she been thinking?

  She shrank back in her seat.

  “I know,” she said, her voice barely audible. “My parents were … they couldn’t believe it. They were really upset.”

  I snorted. “I bet.” I shook my head. Who would risk so much just for a thrill? Now, she would probably die in the Service.

  But then again, how had she been stationed in Indiana with us? I wondered if it had something to do with her parents. Maybe they had some pull we didn’t know about.

  “What about you guys?” Jeremy asked. He looked from me to Alex. “I mean, him … how did you get so … big?”

  Alex looked surprised. “Don’t they have phasing at your boot camp?”

  “Phasing? What’s that?”

  We exchanged glances. I didn’t want to scare the kid.

  “Just be glad you didn’t have it,” I said, taking over the conversation. “And our story is basically the same as yours.” I nodded toward Jeremy. “We’re both from Brooklyn. Not exactly rolling in cash. And home … well, home wasn’t an option.”

  “No, I understand,” Jeremy said, nodding. “I know a lot of kids who joined for family reasons. My folks weren’t happy to see me go, but I want something more than that life.”

  “Well, you’re about to get it. Let’s just hope we all survive.”

  Survival. Wasn’t that the main goal? I looked over at Alex and was surprised to find that he was looking at me, too. That had always been our intention. To both join the Service. To make it out alive and rich from the stipend that would await us at the end of our term. Somehow, over the past couple of days, I had forgotten that.

  I realized now that none of what was going on could change that, and as our eyes locked I could see the truth in his.

  As conflicted as he was, he loved me.

  And I loved him, too.

  Now the question that hung in the air was whether or not we would make it through. Whether he would turn me in when he found out everything that I’d done, and where my allegiances now lay.

  I wondered whether love would be enough for us to forgive each other’s lies.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the slamming of a door and the sound of heavy footfalls in the hall. A sergeant rounded the corner, and we all scrambled to our feet.

  It was time to get moving.

  Chapter Three

  I had never seen anything like it. Mile after mile, the tall grasses blew in the wind. Food. This was where it came from. I didn’t recognize the grass; farming wasn’t exactly prioritized as a topic of study in our city schools. But I recognized that it was a lot. And the fields rolled away as far as the eye could see.

  This place was going to be different.

  Alex and I had chosen seats across the aisle from each other, and I was happy to have a break from him. I wondered when he would start questioning me, whether that was part of his job, part of watching me.

  Both Jeremy and Emma had taken the seat together behind me. It seemed they didn’t want to make this journey on their own. Maybe they thought that sitting behind me would give them some sort of protection, though against what, I wasn’t sure. An angry sergeant? What help did they think I would be?

  I turned around in my seat.

  “So, did they tell you anything about this posting? We didn’t get much information before we escaped New York.”

  “What do you mean ‘escaped?’” Jeremy asked.

  I didn’t understand for a moment. Then I realized that we hadn’t told him our story. If I couldn’t see the news about the fate of Manhattan on my lens, surely he couldn’t, either.

  I thought back to it, to the bombs that had been planted all over Manhattan, a distraction. The farther away from the situation we traveled, the more certain I was that the entire event had been orchestrated by the government, not the Volunteers.

  “Well, there was a sort of battle,” I began. “Bombs started going off all over the place. People were getting hurt, killed even. Then, when things were getting really out of control, once everyone was in a panic, the bomb at the Manhattan Wall exploded.”

  “Oh, no,” Emma said, her eyes glued to mine as I spoke.

  “It damaged the wall enough to flood the island. We barely made it out in time.”

  “Wow,” Jeremy said. “What happened to the people who were left behind?”

  I tried to imagine what it would have been like if the entire island had been truly flooded, what it would have been like if the wall had failed completely.

  “Most survived. At least, that’s what the sergeant in Philadelphia told us. I guess the flooding was generally pretty mild. But we didn’t know that at the time.”

  In telling the story, I realized that there was a part of me that had hoped the entire wall had failed. What would have become of our city, our government, if the place were under twenty feet of water? It would be like a new Stilts. No longer suitable for the elite who called it their home. They would have been refugees, swarming out of the city like locusts.

  Jeremy sat back in his seat. “I guess we didn’t have it too bad, all things considered.

  “What she’s not telling you,” Alex piped in, “is who was responsible.”

  My heart dropped, and suddenly I didn’t have enough air to breathe.

  “Who?” Jeremy asked. “Who would do that?”

&nbs
p; “Terrorists,” Alex answered simply. “Designation: Black.”

  I fell silent, though my cheeks burned from the anger that rose inside me at his words. I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t say anything. If I defended the Volunteers, it would implicate me in the crime. If I agreed with him, it would be even worse. He knew me well enough to know when I was lying.

  And I would be.

  I turned around in my seat and looked out at the window again.

  I wouldn’t say a word.

  Two hours later, we pulled off the main road, and the bumps in the dirt road we now followed shook me out of my thoughts.

  I sat up, alert, scouring the land, searching for some sign. A building? A base?

  But there was nothing. Just field of grass the color of straw.

  The driver pulled the bus into a small grove of trees that lined one edge of the field, shading us, protecting us from view. The bus rolled to a stop, and the driver put it in park and stood up.

  “This is it, darlings,” he said, stretching his arms high above his head and groaning before hopping down the stairs into the dirt.

  We had been driving for what felt like a very, very long time. With every mile that had separated us farther and farther from New York, the memory of what had happened there became less terrifying, less urgent. Instead of feeling the fear that had taken me over so many hours before, I just felt empty now. Like a giant hole had been carved out of my chest cavity. Despair. Acceptance. And, eventually, resolve.

  It was all up to me now.

  I wondered how I was going to do it, to carry out these intricate plans all on my own, without the guidance of the Volunteers, those who had spent so long planning the downfall of our modern society. The end of the lens. The end of hunger. The end of war.

  Was it even possible?

  I remembered Lydia standing before me, eyes covered, her back facing us, her executioners. It seemed like I could feel her heart pounding right now, despite the space and time that separated us. Friends.

  It would be the same for me if I was caught. Or so I hoped. I would be lucky to face an end that wasn’t drawn out, a simple bullet in the back of my head.

  Somehow I didn’t think my death would be so easy.