He carries a notepad in place of the tablet he’s been carrying around. The paper clipped down on the wooden plank is black. Maybe he has concerns of his information being hacked, so he’s resorting to written notes.
Could it have been Jord who left the note on my bed?
The past three days have been quiet. The heat has been putting a damper on training, so we’ve been indoors. I’ve stuck to myself; the less contact and communication with the others, the better.
I sit quietly at the table in the rec hall. The others ramble, and I nod when addressed, but everything has felt wrong and out of place for the last couple of days. I know I’m to blame, but Marc really knows how to lay it on thick. For three days now, this pang has persisted in my chest and back. What would be a good name for this? Maybe, heartbreak? Yeah, that’s a good tag I can put on this, because that’s what it feels like.
Heartbreak: overwhelming distress.
Well, I’m not distressed, and the pangs aren’t overwhelming. It just hurts. So maybe it’s not heartbreak, but disappointment. Marc is back to ignoring me, but he looks at me like he’s waiting on me to say something to him first. But I won’t. I have to let him think whatever it is he’s thinking and leave it be.
Everyone hangs out in the rec hall. The snacks are out, and the air is cool. But what I wouldn’t give to lie around for a day. But that would lead to sleep, and sleep alone leads to nightmares. It’s not like me to think like this, but if someone could grant me one wish, I would wish to be able to sleep by myself without my dilemmas. Just one night, I’d like to know what it feels like to sleep alone and be calm.
Collins rants on about how she wants to be picked for Citizen Management. Luke’s out with Marc and Colonel Harold. Harold is quite mysterious, never allowing his face to be seen, stealthily walking the grounds as though he’s waiting for something to occur. He rarely speaks, but when he does, the information he reveals is always useful, as though he cherishes his words.
“Hey,” Sean sits next to me.
“Hi.”
He runs his hands through his hair. “You two give me a headache.”
“Me too.”
He dissolves into a fit of giggles. “How long is it going to last this time?” he chaffs.
“Forever, I hope.” I mean it, but then I don’t mean it too.
Looking away from me, he says, “Me too.” I knit my brows. “Or until I don’t need him anymore. Or until you’re sixty-five.”
That’s out of the question. With this destruction that’s to come, I doubt any of us will be seeing our next year’s date of birth. “I doubt that either of us will make it that long. And even if we do, we’ll probably want to continue fighting after. Or maybe we’ll forget about each other.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He looks around. “Aren’t you tired of hearing Collins blabber? I don’t see how anyone could enjoy listening to her with her constant nagging. Collins,” he yells. “Shut up!”
“You shut up,” she shouts back.
“There is an announcement from the Guidance,” a robotic voice calls over the speakers of the mess hall.
The back wall of the rec hall blacks out, revealing its screen. It flickers on, and a woman’s avatar face presents itself, a smile making the animated figure more cryptic than friendly. “Thank you for being available for this announcement,” the woman states in a kind voice. “It has come to the Guidance’s attention that there are banned actions taking place, involving Creations of Separation.” The woman’s head looks left, then right, as though it were looking the crowd over. “These actions that display attractions and affection with others are not permitted in Creations. Creations should not become fond of one another or involve themselves in actions that demonstrate fondness. If you are not aware of these restrictions, please locate your nearest Live by Creation Guide.” The head looks us over again. “I am sorry to have to remind you of this. I am sure many of you exceptional Creations are aware of the restrictions. We are very proud to have amazing Creations such as yourselves fighting for our country. Thank you for your dedication and your understanding of the restrictions placed upon your kind to keep each of you safe.” The woman smiles happily, stretching her lips up to her cheekbones. “As you were. Please excuse the interruption.” The screen flickers before turning back into the windowed wall.
“Blood over love!” A group of girls sing, laughing.
“Hey Collins,” Sean laughs. “I guess that means you need to stop dunking.”
She jumps up and punches him in his chest.
I can only imagine what dunking is, and I don’t ask. “What do you think they’ll do to us if they find out? Lock us away in a dungeon?” I ask Fein and Sean.
“They bring us to a secluded area with the opposite sex and expect for us not to be attracted to them.” Sean moves from the bench to sit on the table. “If that was really the way they wanted it, they should have created us without hormones and the things that attract us to each other,” he complains.
“They could only do so much. It’s how they made us,” Fein adds. “They put these things on our hands.” She raises her left hand, looking at her embellishment.
Sean and I look at ours. “If they could strip us of fear and guilt, they should have been able to strip us of attractions and affections,” he says, pulling my hand next to his. He looks back and forth between them.
“Then why do you think they didn’t?” I ask, snatching my hand from him when he sniffs my palm. I shove him away from me with my forearm. “If we are only supposed to be here for our twins, why wouldn’t they strip us of all feelings, saving our need to have our twin?”
“I think,” Cecilia starts, “they need us to also care about our twin in order for us to want to keep them first. So without that feeling, we would be selfish and only care about ourselves. We have to love our twins, you know? They couldn’t strip us of all our feelings. It would be inhuman.”
“Are you human?” Fein asks.
“I am a Creation,” Sean proclaims. “I am more than human, and I keep my brother at my right hand and my gun in my left. And we are better than all of you puny affection-possessing humans.”
Gia comes behind him and yanks him off the table. “No, you’re not!”
He hits the floor, taking her with him.
We laugh, watching them scrap. Gia tries to get up, and Sean keeps her pinned down. Watching Sean is always entertaining. Danielle, Marshal, Cory, Fein, Gia, and I sit around a table in the rec hall chatting as we try to stay cool. Danielle and Gia have been in Separation for two years, and like all Creations, they look comfortable with their position. They take orders and do as they’re told, only breaking their character when in the confines of the rec hall around other Creations. We know our secrets, we know we’re not mindless or affectionless robots, we know we have these flaws. But we know the Guidance doesn’t want to know that because to them it means we are defective. It could mean, just maybe, they made us wrong.
“When was the last time you all were called for Citizen Management?” Fein asks the group of us.
“It’s been a while for me,” Marshal says. “Almost a year, not including the time we’ve been here.”
“Yeah,” Fein adds.
“It’s been eight months for me,” says Danielle. “I don’t like Citizen Management. It’s malicious, and we have to act like we are radioactive and have no cares. As if we really aren’t human. Those people, they see us as humans. Only the position separates us from them in their eyes. The Waulers, no wonder they resent us. I’m not saying I actually care if they live or die, I’m just saying there should be a more humane way to do the Guidance’s dirty work.”
“I agree,” Gia states. “They act like we are supposed to like doing things like this. And most people are innocent and have no other choice than to live the way they do.”
Cory snorts. “We aren’t obligated to like it. But we were born for that purpose. To do as they ask and not question it or feel bad about doing it before or whil
e we do it. Not even after. They think they made us without feelings and emotions. I don’t think they care or consider that most of us may feel guilty after we do it.”
“Have you ever felt guilty before and during?” Gia asks him.
Cory’s gaze darkens as he looks out to nothing. “I don’t discuss my Citizen Management experiences,” he says with a shrug.
“Oh, come on, Cory. It’s not that serious,” says Marshal.
Danielle wobbles her head left and right as she says to Marshal, “Well if it’s not that serious, why don’t you share yours? The one that changed you and brought on your first pinch of guilt before you did it. The one that made you realize you were not just a Creation, but also human?”
“Yeah, and add in where,” Fein adds.
Marshal thinks for a minute. His eyes seem to shrink in his skull as the thought likely takes him back to that moment. He rubs his hand over his short hair. “I guess when I was in Houston,” he starts slowly. “There were Waulers, seemed like everywhere. They were ruthless raiders. They burned down small towns and carried out countless murders. That’s the simple part though, why we went down there. The guilty part was the order of execution. They lined them up. And like everything else, women and children were first.” He shrugs and leaves his story unfinished. “What about you?” he asks Danielle.
Danielle sits forward, ready to release the goods of her story. Her hands move with her words as she begins with suspense in her voice. “We were in Detroit. Terrorists from the other side of the world had come in with threats of bombs and destruction. They threatened to take out the entire city,” she says. Her arms spread out, and she brings them back in slowly. “They said that they placed this bomb in an elementary school, and it would go off at a certain time. We were near the school for Citizen Management. Our order was to go into the school and get out as many people as we could while the others located and did away with the terrorists.” Her light mood shifts to sorrow, relaxing the muscles in her face, and her cheeks sag as she frowns. “In and out, I ran in the school, trying to help get everyone out. The call came through, saying there were only two minutes left. We were instructed to get out, and if we couldn’t get them…to leave them. Out of obligation, I walked out on six kids…” She rubs her cheeks before her hands fall lamely in her lap.
“What about you, Ky?” Gia asks.
The first time I felt guilty about handling a citizen situation in Citizen Management? What Citizen Management situation doesn’t bring on guilt? We may be obligated to accommodate every request, but there is always a second of hesitation. I don’t have to think long about it, one has stuck with me. “Yes, I’ve had my experience. We were back home. We needed to round up Waulers. There were too many of them, the Guidance said, and they needed to be diminished. We were ordered for street cleaning. Our maximum number to maintain for this specific area was fifty-two. That order went to sixteen Creations, and it was fifty-two Normals and Waulers total. We hit our number quickly, and everyone else was to go. Fifty-two people are not a lot. I came upon a dark street, and something told me there were people down there. It made sense with it being so dark and a perfect hideaway. But I came upon two Waulers that were quietly fighting. I shot them both, and I would have left after if there wasn’t a gasp. Behind a dumpster were an older woman and three children. The oldest was a girl, and she started crying and begging me with her eyes not to kill them.
“I thought for sixty-seven seconds. I decided I was going to let them live. Who would know if I did or didn’t? I was the only one there, or so I thought, until I turned around and saw a council leader of the Guidance standing in the street’s opening with a group of trainee Creations. ‘What’s the problem?’ she asked in a strong tone that seemed like I couldn’t be trusted or was hesitant. Or maybe I just felt guilty. ‘Go on then,’ she hurried me with a wave of her hand, and the faces of the young Creations standing behind her were anxious. They were maybe ten years old. I turned back to the family and executed them, youngest to oldest.”
“Damn, Ky,” Marshal sings.
“That’s somewhat like how mine was too,” says Gia. “I know how you feel.” She pats Cory’s back. “You going to share?”
He shakes his head.
“Come on, Cory, we won’t judge you,” encourages Fein.
“Yeah, Cory, tell yours,” I say, moving past the discomfort of my story.
He looks at me. “I think you take the cake, Ky.”
“We’ll know for sure after you tell yours,” Danielle pushes.
Cory drags in an even breath. He looks us over and shrugs once. “I was sixteen and on my first Citizen Management for Waulers.” He breathes heavily, a tone of discomfort steals his assertive voice. “It wouldn’t have been so bad if we were actually containing Waulers, but we weren’t. Residential citizens. We were instructed to execute them.” His gaze meets mine. “Execute those they thought were invaders from outside our world and country. Implants.” He looks away from me. “I’m certain everyone wasn’t an implant, but it didn’t matter. Entire families were up for execution, pets included. I only felt guilty when the woman, maybe the mother, groveled and begged me to stop. She kissed my boots then wrapped her arms around my legs and said, ‘This isn’t right, you’re too young to have this kind of sin weigh you down for the rest of your life.’ She kept begging me to spare her life. As she was yanked from me, I shot her, three times, without a second thought. Then one head shot for every one of her ten children.” He rubs his hand over his face. “Shit was crazy.”
“Wow…” Fein says. “She was right, huh?”
“She was only right because she said it. If she had not said it, he probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it,” Gia states.
“Do any of you regret it?” asks Fein. “I haven’t been. I could have, but they needed me for training instead, so I missed out.”
“More so, lucked out,” Marshal corrects.
“Right,” Fein drags.
“We aren’t supposed to hold regrets. We aren’t supposed to feel guilty,” Cory states, face going red with anger. “We are given orders, and we are to follow those orders with no remorse. It’s how they created us!” He stands up from the table and stalks off.
“Looks like you all upset him.” Danielle slides her bright pink colored eyes over us. Her brother, Marshal’s eyes are the same, and with his blond hair and deep red strawberry lips, he looks a little weird with neon pink eyes.
“I’ll go check on him. Make sure he’s okay.”
“Okay, Ky,” Fein responds.
“Wait up, Cory.” Even with the sun setting, it’s still blazing hot out here. We’re approaching one-hundred-fifteen.
Cory slows. “What’s up, Ky?”
“Don’t walk out here. It’s too hot out.”
“I’m going to my house. You want to come?”
No way I’m going to go into Cory’s house with him. “No. I wanted to make sure you were okay. You seem upset.”
“The woman I killed?” I nod for him to continue. “She was my own.”
I pull him to a stop. “Hold on, Cory.”
“We can’t talk about this outside, Ky.”
“Okay, don’t get into details. But I thought your mom was alive,” I whisper.
“That’s not our real mom.” His head falls forward. “I mean, she is our real mom for being here as a Creation, but not my birth mom,” he whispers.
“What about the other kids?”
He shrugs, rubbing his neck. “I assume implants too.”
I look him over and must ask, “Why are you so comfortable telling me this stuff?”
Looking at me with hopeful eyes, he asks, “I’ve always been able to talk to you. I can trust you, right?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t tell anyone what you tell me.” I rub his shoulder and use the techniques I’ve been learning when training the Normals. “I understand what you’re experiencing…an emotional discomfort. I’m…here for you if you’d like to talk.”
He shrugs my hand from his shoulder and hisses, “Don’t use those bullshit comforting tactics on me, Ky. I don’t need that.”
I drop my gaze to the ground and rub my boot over the dirt. “Sorry.”
“I’m going to go sleep it off.”
“The general is going to be announcing who’s going off in an hour. Don’t sleep too long.”
“It’s not going to be me, so I don’t care.” Cory has changed since he was demoted. What was once chin held high, ‘I’m the leader of Separation’ Cory, is now crybaby Cory. He’s always moping around. I’d think he was doing it on purpose, a way to reel me in, but insecurity and a person’s soft side does not make me want to go to their home and comfort them.
I leave to go back to the rec hall and spend more time chatting with the others.
Chapter Ten
Jord enters the rec hall with Seits behind him. “They called for Citizen Management. Some states have gotten out of control. Their Creations are occupied with minimizing the undead, along with maintaining order and trying not to become the undead. The job as a Creation does not stop. As you all know, we have postponed some training because of the heat. I know you all don’t think so, but they do care about you.” He looks around at everyone, and no one comments. Seits hands him a clipboard. “Leaving from this division the day after tomorrow will be: Floyd and Feiney, Marcain and Seanabe, Joyce and Jace, Collins and Cecilia, Yolanda and Donald, Lester and Samuel, and Kendal and Kandis. Each of you and the Creations of your groups will head out at twelve hundred hours tomorrow. Where you will be going will be provided on the day of departure.” He looks around the room then nods saying, “Respond.”
In unison, everyone says, “We understand.”
“It will be your responsibility to inform the Creations of your groups that they will be leaving with you. What your job will be for Citizen Management will be provided upon landing in your designated sites.”
The Separation Trilogy Box Set: Books 1 -3 Page 38