by Stacey Mac
It is curiosity that makes me creep up the next few steps and peer skyward. On the landing above, two figures are casting shadows against the brick wall they lean against. The first I recognise immediately, his arms are crossed over his chest, and his eyes are invisible in the dim lighting. Dean.
The second figure is harder to make out, but I can see the short, dark hair and a thick neck. I assume this is another Resolute trainer. The voice is feminine. I have seen a woman trainer with the Resolutes but have taken little notice of her, distracted as I have been by Dean. She is the one producing the hissing sounds that draw me closer.
“What do you plan to do, next, kid? Live here? Become a jumper?”
The word ‘jumper’ freezes me in my place. ‘Jumper’ is the name we give to a person who switches allegiances between militias. It is a derogatory term, worse than ‘traitor’ or ‘coward’. In this world, jumping between militias is the worst crime you can be accused of…almost.
“Of course not,” Dean’s voice murmurs lowly, tolerantly. “Our orders were to make adjustments in the timeline if it’s needed. ’s’all I’m doing.”
The woman throws her hands in the air. “We got enough. What other reason do you have for needing more time?”
Until now, Dean has maintained his position on the wall, while his company paces, fidgets restlessly. Now, he becomes suddenly agitated. Blocking the woman’s path, he bends to hiss back in her face. “Do you really think this is the extent of it? We need more. Go on, if you’ve decided you’ve had enough. No one is forcing you to stay.”
“You are! You force me to stay when we ain’t got a reason no more. Do you think I’m going back to tell ’em that I abandoned you?”
Dean sighs. “Nora, I’m only saying that we should stay a little longer. We need to be sure.”
“Right,” the woman called Nora drawls. “Look me in the eye and tell me this ain’t about that girl.”
My heartbeats quicken.
I see Dean’s shoulders slump tiredly. “This ain’t about anything other than what I’ve already tried explaining.”
“Don’t lie to me, kid. I ain’t blind. Whether your conscious of it or not, you’re involving her. What exactly do you think you’re doing with her?”
Dean laughs condescendingly. “Ain’t no use for you to worry about it. You can go ahead and butt out.”
“Boy, believe it or not, all our asses are on the line, not just yours,” Nora spits.
“I’m pretty sure I can handle it, thank you for your concern.”
They stare each other down, the tension like bullets endlessly ricocheting between them. Finally, Nora seems to yield. Her confrontational posture relaxes, and her tone becomes defeated when she says; “Fine, do what you think you have to. But I’m warning you, if it smells like your planning something stupid, I ain’t going to feel bad about selling you out.”
“Do what you think you have to,” Dean says cuttingly, “and so will I.”
“Just promise me you won’t have no fucking breakdowns and start spilling your guts to her, alright?” Nora turns on her heel and storms back down the corridor. In the dim lighting, I see the redness of her cheeks before she leaves my line of sight.
I should leave before Dean turns, looks down, spies me standing here. I don’t. Instead I continue to watch, though all I see is his broad back, now leaning against the railings, one hand running over his head, the muscles along his forearm twitching and jumping in agitation.
My mind replays the information I’m not supposed to have heard at an alarming speed. The sentences muddle together and I struggle to straighten them, make sense of them.
The first thing that I decide is that when Nora was speaking of ‘her’, she was speaking of me.
The second, and only other decision I make, is that Dean and Nora are hiding something.
Of the rest, I don’t know what to make of it. I doubt I’ll find out.
Suddenly, I am hurrying to flee. I leave the stairwell and head quickly in the only other direction I can: back to the cafeteria. My mind spins, still speculating furiously. What were they saying about leaving? Why would they leave now? There is over two months to go before we finish our courses. Why were they talking about plans, timelines, orders?
“G00163?” a voice asks suddenly.
I halt. A figure blocks my path a foot in front of me. I take in the khaki pants, the heavy-duty utility vest, the satchel attached to his wide front. Next, I see the broad shoulders, much higher up than usual, the tags around his neck imprinted with an “F”, the broad unsmiling face, the letter in his hand.
Chapter Twelve
“Are you UIC number G00163?” He repeats impatiently.
“Yes.” A shiver works into my stomach, and suddenly I’m sick.
“This notice comes from the command unit,” he says in a bored voice, holding out the envelope.
I take it, my movements mechanical. I swallow, taste bile.
The fronter leaves quickly; must have more shitty news to deliver. He leaves me standing in the corridor alone.
I am frozen. My brain tries to help me know what to do next: You should open the envelope, read the notice.
I want to hurl it away, to never find out what I’m about to. Instead, I slide my index finger underneath the wax seal and pull.
The notice inside is just a small, off-white, stained piece of paper. I close my eyes for a second, and then open them again, resigned.
To: G00163
RE: G00038 (Father), and G00039 (Mother)
In accordance with: Free information act.
Galore Council considers the above individual(s) relative to you. The unit identification code(s) listed have been selected to serve in the campaign known as: MISSION RETRIEVE, to be deployed within three days of selection. The command unit is indebted to the service of this/these individual(s).
If you have no relation with the above individual(s), please notify an administrator immediately.
The Galore seal is stamped at the bottom in a hasty manner. It is smudged and barely recognisable, but I can make out the soldier – warfare ready, doubled in half as he carries the weight of the cypress tree bound to his back.
“Tessa, what’re you doin’ out ’ere?” Dean stands at the bottom of the stairwell I’ve just escaped from. I don’t have the functions required to speak at that moment, so instead, I hold up the letter briefly and watch as awareness lights his eyes, and then utterly darkens them.
In the same moment, my mouth and his mouth mirror each other, grimacing and sharing a familiar kind of defeat. But the numbers were against me from the beginning, and I was a fool for hoping otherwise. It’s not customary to have a break down when ‘individuals relative to you’ are deployed. It is just a side effect of our existence.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I shrug in an attempt at stoicism, but I probably just look miserable.
“Who?” He asks.
“Both,” I say.
He gives a small nod, then says: “That’s bad luck.”
“Good observation.”
“I ain’t meaning to trivialise it.”
But unfortunately the whole thing is, in fact, trivial. Countless others in this institution have or will receive this exact notice, and my parents are among too many other codes who have been picked to take their turn in the rotation of war.
I scrunch the note in my hand and shove it into my pocket. “I’m going to go up to my dorm, I think.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” he says. “Go on to the gym. I’ll meet you there in a while. If you meet anyone along the way, tell ’em I sent you there.” He walks towards me, then past me without waiting for my acceptance.
I don’t want to go and meet him in the gym, I want to be on my own. It isn’t conventional to wallow in despair in these circumstances – ordinary as it is – so I want to wallow privately.
I drag myself up the flights of stairs and to the gym. While I wait for Dean to arrive and invade my space I allow myself to f
lop face-down onto an exercise mat.
In nine weeks, I will leave this institution for the final time and make the journey back to my home. It will be empty.
The pending loneliness is already painful. It makes me desperate for comfort, but afraid to have anyone close to something so personal, and the battle between these two needs ensues until the anxiety collides and spreads.
Instead of crying, I go to the punching bags and heave one onto an S hook that hangs from the rafters. I pummel it, suddenly furious.
I don’t know how long I stand there, beating the inanimate object with irrational fury before Dean arrives, carrying two cafeteria trays with a sad amount of food and saying my name over and over.
“TESSA!” he shouts for the final time, and the sound breaks my strikes.
I turn, sweating and breathing loudly.
“You about done killing the bag?” He asks, raising an eyebrow annoyingly.
I look down at my now purpled knuckles. “Almost.”
“Whatever it did, I apologise on its’ behalf. Come and eat something. We’ll talk.”
Maybe it is the superior look on his face, or the fact that I am now aware he is hiding something, but probably it is that I am angry, desperate, and looking for someone to blame, or punch, or swear at, and Dean is the only proximal someone available. So instead of pounding the bag, I turn on him.
“What is there to talk about? Do you have some inspirational quotes prepared?”
He shrugs. “None prepared. I could reel off a few memorised ones if you’d like?”
“Let me guess,” I throw up my hands hysterically, “we are privileged to live our abundant lives and my parents should be honoured to serve the militia and we must exact vengeance on the enemy and their efforts are necessary to preserve our peaceful boundaries and if-they-die-then-they-die-honourably.” The words run together in my haste to spit out every stupid martyred line I’ve ever been fed in one breath. “Or maybe you want to hold hands and pray and do whatever super, fucking, pretentious shit the Resolute do with each other. Do you sing songs together? I bet you do. Jesus, you really think you’ve got your shit together don’t you? Did you think you’d just bring me up here and we’d talk it out and I’d be impressed?”
I want to continue, because I’m sure I can come up with some better stuff, but Dean interrupts me.
He holds up a hand before I speak again. His face looks half-amused, half-sympathetic. “Is this particular fit going to last long? ’Cause if it is, we’ll have to take it elsewhere. The other trainers will be meeting a couple of rooms down from here tonight and I think they’ll be wondering why an initiate is screaming a lung out.”
My chest heaves, but I tighten my closed lips and breathe through my nose instead. Looking at Dean’s calm posture, sitting on the bench, feet crossed at the ankles, leaning against the wall behind him, eating a bread roll.
I feel childish.
“Correct me, but I’m getting the impression that you don’t want to talk,” he says, a smile just barely visible, “why don’t we eat instead?”
I’m suddenly tired enough to lay down, so I go to his bench and slump onto it, but instead of taking the food, my body curls in on itself and my head is in my hands.
For a few seconds, the world is a silent place. The only thing I hear is the blood beating behind my eardrums and my hands press into my eye sockets until the blackness is full of stars.
Dean’s warm hand brushes the hair away from my neck, and, gently, it comes to rest there. When he asks me if I’m okay, he asks it lowly, sadly, like the answer will matter to him.
Above anything else, this is the thing that makes me like Dean without ever meaning to. His actions – invested, genuine – don’t come from a trainer, or from a friend, or from some guy flirting with a girl. It comes from a person who gives a damn about someone else. And not because there might be something in it for him, but because the wellness of another person affects him.
I don’t want to move, because if I do, his hand might fall away from my neck, and I don’t want it to. I also don’t want to see his attractive face, because if I do, I might be entranced in more notions of my liking him or him liking me or whichever. But his hand moves away despite my stillness, and his fingers touch my chin lightly, and he lifts my head up to face him.
His face is still just as beautiful as I’d feared. I hate that.
He smiles crookedly and drawls, “Ain’t this the most fucked up world you’ve ever laid eyes on?”
“It’s the only world I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
“Exactly,” he says, “you deserve a better one.”
“You sound like my father,” I say, and the mention of him sends another wave of misery through me. But I really don’t want to talk about him. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Always.”
I really wish you would stop staring at me like that. “Are you leaving soon?”
He stiffens, his expression becomes wary. “Why would you ask me that?”
“Because despite my more intelligent intentions, I really don’t want you to.”
The closed-lip smile returns. “Lucky for your dumb intentions, I ain’t got plans.”
And I really wish I could stop staring at you like this. “What will I do if they don’t come back?”
The crease between his eyebrows appears, those shadows beneath his eyes extend, and he looks sad when he says, “I’ll come and find you, and we’ll start our own militia.”
I smile, because he meant for me to.
We eat in near silence. When enough time has passed, Dean asks if I want to get out of here, and instead of answering, I take the hand he offers.
*
We sit once more, side by side on the roof of a train long past its expiration. I have lived in Galore all my life, and I have never gotten used to the absolute coldness of its winters. The smog that hovers evermore above us does little to trap what meagre heat reaches the earth, but it does allow the snow to fall. As a result my legs are wet and shivering, my cheeks sting, my eyes water with each new flurry, and the hood of my jacket is collecting a low mound of snow.
For once, I welcome it, because if there is one thing I’ve learnt about the cold, it is that you can think of nothing else. The body has a way of becoming hypersensitive to it – a survival instinct – and it uses all of its energies to keep you alive. Your heart pumps more blood, your hair stands on end everywhere, your temperature escalates and recedes frantically, and the cold leaks your brain of all other thought. I’ve spent evenings like this; still on the fields though night fell hours earlier, desperately preparing our family’s contribution for the next day.
“If there were one thing you could bring back from the free world, what’d it be?” Dean asks. His elbows rest on the tops of his knees, which are drawn to his chest. Unlike me, he is not shivering, or in any way outwardly perturbed by the biting temperature.
“Um,” I shiver, struggling to conjure thought, “you go first.”
He runs his teeth over his bottom lip for a while, thinking, and then says, of all things: “Books.”
I frown, “Some people still have books.”
“I would bring back all of ’em,” he says. “Everything that was ever written.”
Books are like my fathers’ playing cards or Tilly’s locket. They are just keepsakes, carried here or found here from the free world, and they are rare. My mother once told me that she went to a university where there was an entire building of books, and that she herself had an entire case of books in her home, all to herself.
I couldn’t imagine having the time to read that many books, or the reasons for needing so many to read. “Why?”
Dean shrugs. “Everything that the human race ever learnt or created or thought about was written down. If we could bring it all back, maybe we could learn how to live with each other again. Maybe we could make it all work, the way it was supposed to.”
I narrow my eyes, “Sounds like the kind of thing a boo
k owner would say if you ask me.”
“Matter of fact, I am, Contessa Tyrell.”
I raise my eyebrows. “What is it called?”
“In Equal Sacrifice,” he says perfectly. No accent. Like he has said the name over and over again.
“Sounds happy.”
“It ain’t actually. It’s kind of dismal, but it’s got happy intentions, they just don’t work out.”
“What is it about?” I ask. I am really not that curious about his book, unless his book is about hot water and fires and blankets, but the light I see burning in his eyes implores me, and I want to hear him talk about this book he loves.
“It’s about boats.”
“Boats?” Boats are pictures of a thing that floats on water, although I guess they existed somewhere outside the abstract at some time.
“These teams of people race their boats from one country to another, but they’re thrown off course by a storm and it leaves ’em stranded in the middle of the ocean, slowly sinking.”
I give a shivery laugh. “That is dismal. So, how will this dismal book bring back humanity as it once was?”
“Well, in order to survive, this team have to join up with another doomed team who they find nearly dead in the water. And between the combined teams, they manage to save two of the fourteen sailors. The two sides could only hope for survival if they allied with the enemy, even sacrificed for the enemy. It doesn’t ever cross their minds that they might prefer someone from their own boat to survive. As soon as it came down to life or death, all the competition disappeared, and the only thing that mattered was that someone – anyone – would make it to shore, to tell the story of the rest.”
I watch him speak, a little enraptured.
“To bring back humanity as it once was, we got to accept the fact that while there are differences between militias or sectors or whatever, there ain’t a difference in the price of human life. We have to decide to preserve the whole of the human race, rather than just the few we want as friends.”
“So, you’re saying we all have to ally?” I scoff. It is inconceivable.