Last Refuge

by Allen Kuzara

  “That’s the mess hall,” Nick pointed out, “and that’s the armory over there. And you can see the parked vehicles in that corner. And finally, the barracks, what we’ll be calling home for a while.”

  As soon as he’d said it, Lusa gave him a questioning look and smirk, and he realized the way he’d said it sounded like they were living together, shacking up. He started to correct himself but then decided to leave it alone. Was that such a bad idea?

  “Fresh meat!” hollered a nearby soldier. Whistles and taunts followed with other men drawing in on Nick and Lusa’s position.

  “Who brought in the new catch?” someone shouted.

  “Bring some of that over here,” yelled another. “I’ve never had any Native tail.”

  Nick reached for his weapon and realized he was defenseless, that he’d left it with the drones back at the barracks. Lusa, however, was well armed and in no mood for playing games. She, undoubtedly, had fought off direct attacks over the last few days and wasn’t afraid of a fight. Especially with the aid of her drone team behind her.

  Nick saw her whisper something into her headset, and the drones split apart, setting themselves up in a defensive position and aiming their rifles at the offending party.

  “Eww! Fancy,” jeered one from the mob. “How do I get me some of those? Hey, are they all your boyfriends? If so, you won’t mind one more, will ya?”

  “That’s enough!” said a voice, and instantly the jeering taunts stopped, and the mini mob dispersed like fleeing cockroaches on a bathroom floor.

  Nick turned and was thankful to see Colonel Ayers marching his way.

  “This is Colonel Ayers. He’s in charge here,” Nick said.

  Lusa reacted slowly, not changing her position right away. First, she tapped on her command display and the drones dropped their aim and reassembled in their previous formation. Then she turned to greet the colonel, but she wasn’t smiling and Nick knew it would take a lot to undo the harm that had just been done.

  “You must be Lusa,” Ayers said. He extended his hand and waited. She didn’t move for a couple of seconds. Then, with a face that eerily reminded Nick of Pete, she extended her hand without smiling. She locked her cold eyes on Ayers, and Nick was glad she had never given him a look like that.

  “I apologize,” Ayers said. “These men are wound tight. It’s not every day they see a pretty girl like you.”

  She wasn’t buying it, or at least she wasn’t flattered by the compliment. “Maybe they need to be on a shorter leash,” she offered.

  “Trust me,” Ayers said, looking up and over in the direction where the men had been, “they’ll be punished. And I don’t even have to know which ones were responsible. That’s the great thing about the army; you just discipline the entire base, and soon enough they police themselves; they make the troublemakers fall in line or else.”

  “I suppose,” she said as if she was bored by the conversation.

  “Colonel Ayers knows about our mission to Fairbanks,” Nick said, trying to inject some positivity into the conversation.

  Lusa raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  “Yes, it’s quite a story,” Ayers commented. “It would have been long odds, but you all might have been able to pull it off. I see you’re also in command of these…” he turned to Nick for confirmation, “drones?”

  “That’s right,” Nick answered.

  “Look, I don’t want to be rude,” Ayers said, “but I’ve got some important business. And I bet, if you feel anything like Nick did when we found him, you are pretty tired. Why don’t you two settle in? And after dinner tonight, we can talk again, in my office. Nick knows where it is.”

  Nick nodded.

  “I guess,” Lusa said simply.

  “Alright,” Ayers said, his grin coming back. “It’s a date. See you all at say, nineteen-hundred hours?”

  “Sure. Thank you,” Nick said. He felt the strange tension of keeping the peace. He was usually the doubter, the one who scoffed at someone else’s plans, but here he was the one trying to convince Lusa to hear Ayers out and he didn’t rightly know how to go about it. Especially not after what had happened moments ago.

  After taking Lusa back to the barracks—she was fine with sharing a nearby cot in the same room—the two tried to relax for a couple of hours. Lusa’s drones came along for the ride, and it was humorous to Nick when he saw the two drone crews in the same room together, almost like he was introducing two herds of animals to each other. They looked the same, but they didn’t share the same scent; they didn’t recognize each other as being part of the same team. That being said, there were no scuffles or problems. These weren’t real men, Nick remembered. Once they were all at ease, Nick noticed that they separated themselves into two groups, each occupying a different half of the barracks building.

  Nick and Lusa chatted about little things, unimportant things like a flower that she had found out in the fields that was very uncommon. They talked about Jimmy and whether he was okay or not. They talked about the food that was served here and how much they might have in storage and how they were powering the freezers. What they didn’t talk about was the elephant in the room: were they going to go on with their mission or, as Nick was becoming inclined to do, let Ayers and Vaughn figure it out?

  They each took catnaps, though unsuccessfully. And when the bugle finally sounded, Nick was up and ready to go. He stood and turned to Lusa. She didn’t move.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. Then he realized she may not know how this worked. “That was our dinner bell.”

  “It’s just that…” She wasn’t looking at him, and that bothered him. “I’m not very hungry,” she finally said. “I want to stay here.”

  Nick was confused. This was how girls were to him: inexplicable balls of emotion. That’s how he had put it to Jimmy once when he’d complained about Lusa’s moodiness. Nick scrambled to repair the situation, which, since he didn’t understand her motives, was difficult.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “You stay here, and I’ll go get supper and bring it back. We’ll be dining in tonight.”

  And that did the trick. Lusa smiled, her sweet disposition returning. “That would great,” she replied.

  “Be back in five,” Nick said as he hurried out the door. The trek to the mess hall seemed effortless, like he was floating there. That’s how Lusa made him feel—at least when things were going well between them.

  He hurried through the line, laying his two trays on the long table that went parallel with the meal stations. The troops scooping out gobs of meatloaf and mashed potatoes looked at him funny for having two trays, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care what anyone thought about him, except Lusa.

  Finally, he finished going through the line and realized he was up the creek in terms of carrying everything back to the barracks. He thought about getting help—someone would assist him, if Higgs or Ayers made them. But then he remembered his and Jimmy’s trick they’d used when they first got to Deadhorse and wanted to bring their water buckets down the hill to the vault.

  He grabbed apple juice boxes—he was surprised they served grown men such kid food—and stuffed them down into his pants’ cargo pockets. Then he grabbed forks and spoons and knives and gently slid them into his main side pockets. He picked up one tray with each hand and took great care to navigate the hall without bumping into any of the rowdy soldiers.

  Exiting the mess hall, the trek back down wasn’t as effortless; each bump and uneven patch of ground threatened to topple him over, and he found himself losing that warm fuzzy feeling he’d left the barracks with.

  Finally, he reached the barracks door and realized he didn’t have a hand to open it with.

  He said loudly, “Knock. Knock. I’m home.” He regretted his choice of words. It sounded too much like they were playing honeymooners. But quickly he realized she hadn’t heard him.

  He kicked at the door and said louder, “Open up. It’s me. I’ve got my hands full.�
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  Nothing.

  Alarm bells went off in his head. Quickly, Nick set down the two trays and opened the door. Like livestock locked in a barn at night, the twelve drones looked up at him expressionlessly.

  Nick searched the room. “Lusa,” he said. No response. He rushed through, looking behind the standing drones and in the small restroom in the back of the barracks.

  Nick felt his heart rise up into his throat, and it took all his concentration to keep the room from spinning around him. One dominating thought echoed through his mind: Lusa was gone.

  CHAPTER 21

  “WHERE IS SHE? Where’d she go?” Nick asked Six.

  The drone was silent, and then with clenched teeth, Nick remembered he had to address the drone by name. “Six, where’s Lusa?”

  “She went to take a shower,” came the unbothered response.

  Nick’s mind rushed. She wasn’t in the tiny bathroom in their barracks; he’d checked, and it didn’t have showers anyway. He didn’t know where the showers were, but he knew they had to be close by.

  He turned to go check on Lusa—she was probably fine, he told himself. But he grabbed his rifle off the bed, just in case.

  Stepping out the barracks, Nick looked left and right. Where were the showers? He listened, hoping he could hear water softly running. He couldn’t.

  He stepped right, knowing he couldn’t wait forever. Nick hadn’t gone three steps before he heard sounds, but they weren’t the ones he had hoped to hear: Lusa’s voice rang out above the rumbles of men’s voices. They were arguing, fighting, something not good.

  Nick pulsed toward the sound, moving forward on sheer instinct. He turned down one alleyway between barracks, and the voices grew louder. At the end of the alleyway, he turned right again and faced a building that wasn’t in line with the other barracks. The showers, he figured.

  The entrance was open, like a public restroom with no doors: tiled floors and a quick U-turn entrance that kept you from seeing anyone inside. He stopped short of charging in once his foot first touched the tiled floor. It made a splattering ping sound. He froze and listened. Whatever was going on, they hadn’t seemed to have heard him.

  “Come on, honey. Don’t be like that,” said a familiar voice.

  “Get your hands off me,” shouted Lusa.

  That was all it took, all Nick could stand before he rushed into the room. He saw Lusa standing against the far wall, and Higgs stood there with her, his hands on her, like he was forcing her to slow-dance. Against the side wall stood a jury of approving, jeering soldiers who Nick knew were just waiting their turn.

  “Hold it right there,” Nick said raising his weapon.

  “Nick!” Lusa shouted, but it wasn’t a shout of joy or relief. And it wasn’t until an unseen man to Nick’s right pushed down his gun and sucker punched him in the jaw that he understood her shout was a warning.

  After reeling in pain, Nick turned to retaliate. But before he made any progress, two soldiers grabbed him from behind and held him. The first attacker then used Nick’s rifle butt to jab him hard in the abdomen.

  The wind escaped from Nick’s lungs, and he struggled for several seconds before he could draw another breath.

  “Trying to play hero,” Higgs taunted. “Thanks for making things easy on us, Nick. We were going to have to come get you after we were done with your little girlfriend here. You saved us a trip, and now we don’t have to deal with those robot buddies of yours.”

  Nick looked to Lusa. Her clothes minus her bra and panties were neatly stacked on the ledge of a window seal along with her headset and command display. She was turned to one side, hugging herself, trying to cover and protect herself from another advance.

  Then it hit Nick: the drones. “Delta Three,” he began over his headset, “I need—”

  Higgs yanked the headset loose from Nick’s head. “Uh, uh, uh. That’s being a bad boy, Nick. And don’t try that thing either,” Higgs said, pointing to Nick’s command display. “We know all about that.”

  Nick struggled, trying to free himself, but all it got him was another sledgehammer punch to the gut before Higgs ripped off his command display.

  Lusa, regaining her courage, leaped forward and attacked Higgs from behind. He turned and twisted, resisting the unsolicited piggyback ride as she pounded the back of his head with her small fists.

  Finally, he backed up hard against the wall, smashing her. Her head banged up against the tiled surface, and Nick saw her lose her strength as she slid down the wall. Higgs turned and caught her with one strong arm before she fell to the floor. Then he swiftly slapped her hard, blood coming from her lip.

  “Now, why’d you make me do that?” Higgs asked. “I was wanting to keep you pretty for a while longer. What’s the point of having first dibs if you’re going to be beat up lookin’ already?”

  Higgs nodded to the uncommitted soldiers, and two of them came swiftly, each grabbing her by an upper arm, restraining her.

  “Now, where was I?” Higgs said, turning back to Nick. “Ah, yes. I was going to thank you for making our jobs a little easier.”

  “Ayers is going to hear about this,” Nick threatened.

  Higgs laughed. “Boys, did you hear that? Ayers is going to hear about this.” They joined in the chorus of laughter, and Nick’s rattled mind grew more confused.

  “Oh, don’t look like that,” Higgs said, bending down so he was close to Nick’s stooped over face. “You’re so pitiful. It almost makes me feel bad for what we’re going to do to you. Don’t you have more fight left in you?”

  Nick spit in Higgs’s face, and the chorus erupted in more laughter, everyone but Higgs who then punched Nick hard in some kind of combination that revealed Higgs’s extensive history as a fighter.

  Nick saw the lights go off and back on between punches, and when Higgs was through punishing him, a nauseating pain swept over Nick’s entire face. He was bleeding and it was bad; he just couldn’t tell how bad yet.

  “Nick,” Higgs said, tapping Nick’s cheeks lightly like he was trying to wake him up, “Ayers don’t care about you…or your little girlfriend. He don’t even like girls anyway. Ain’t that right boys?”

  They nodded, but Nick didn’t think they were so happy about whatever Higgs was talking about.

  “The only reason you’re still alive,” Higgs continued, “is so we can figure out how to use your soldier boys. What do you call them again? Drones?”

  Nick didn’t answer. “How can you call yourself a soldier?” he finally asked.

  Higgs’s jaw jutted to one side, like he was trying to chew through Nick’s question. He squinted as he said, “I guess we can only pretend for so long. There was a time, Nick, when I thought we all had changed, that the update was giving us all a second chance. That’s why we donned these clothes. That’s why we played soldier for so long. But then, slowly, bit by bit, I came to the truth. The real truth.”

  He waited for Nick to understand, but he didn’t.

  “People don’t change, Nick. They never do. Don’t ever forget that. We’re all dyed in the wool. We can’t change our stripes. D’you hear that, boys?” Higgs chuckled as he turned to his men. “Stripes? I didn’t even mean to do that.”

  They laughed approvingly, all but one. “Richards, you’re an idiot,” one of them said to the only soldier who hadn’t gotten Higgs’s joke.

  Nick didn’t get it either, but it was clear they were in on some inside joke, one that Higgs’s hadn’t revealed just yet.

  “Nick, we didn’t wear stripes before the update. More like fluorescent orange jump suits.” Higgs waited, his eyes wild and on fire with excitement as he watched Nick for the moment when he would realize who they really were.

  Nick, his mouth now numb from whatever damage Higgs has caused, muttered, “You’re all—”

  “Yes,” Higgs interrupted. “That’s right.” His eyes danced, elated.

  “Convicts?” Nick asked.

  “Bingo!” Higgs boomed. “Ding.
Ding. Ding. We have a winner, ladies and gentlemen. Or, well, actually, a loser if you think about it. Sorry, Nick.”

  “None of you are soldiers?” Nick continued.

  “Well, that just depends on your definition, doesn’t it? Let’s think here: soldiers and cons. What’s the difference? They both get paid for crap work at less than minimum wage. They both are dead to rights and are told where to go and what to do. They both wear silly uniforms,” he said tugging on his fatigues. “And they both are a bunch of killers. You wanna know the only difference?”

  Nick didn’t; but he knew he’d have to hear it anyway.

  “The only difference is—correction. The only difference was that cons were the scum of the earth while soldiers were heroes. That’s it. And now, there’s no difference between the two, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “You’re no hero,” Nick mouthed.

  “What was that?” Higgs asked.

  “I said, you’re no hero,” Nick repeated louder.

  “Oh, yeah? Let’s see you be a hero.” Higgs stepped over to Lusa and kissed her hard on the mouth. She fought, twisted, repulsed with every fiber of her being, but she could do nothing, the other two soldiers holding her tightly.

  Nick responded in like manner, an extra surge of adrenaline kicking in, and he tried in vain to get free from his captors as he watched helplessly as Higgs groped Lusa.

  Finally, when he was satisfied, Higgs turned to Nick. “How was that, Mr. hero?”

  “Let me free, and I’ll show you!” Nick screamed.

  Higgs laughed at Nick’s outrage. “No, you see, that’s my point. You can’t do anything about it. Heroes and losers. They’re all the same. All that matters is your circumstances. When you can’t do anything, when you’re locked up and rotting away your life, they call you a loser, a criminal. All that matters is who’s in charge, who has the power.”