Prince of Gulbrania

by Lauren M. Flauding

  Adrian gives me an exasperated look, an expression that I remember from countless arguments similar to this one.

  “Mari, why do you try so hard?”

  “Because I’m not content to sit around and do nothing until I get Amplified.”

  Adrian smiles and shakes his head.

  “I guess you really haven’t changed much, have you?”

  “Guess not.”

  After a lot of coercion, Adrian finally persuades me to take the Mall-cruiser with him. It’s full of returned soldiers and their families, as well as a bunch of loiterers who are probably in the free week of their work rotation. Several girls eye my brother as we pass. I glance at him and see that he’s smiling. Maybe this is why he wanted to ride the Mall-cruiser, more opportunities to show off his rippling muscles. Or maybe it’s the arenas; the huge, dome-like rooms where the Amplified challenge each other. My brother looks wistfully at the closed doors, but he wouldn’t leave me alone. It’s not a written rule that only the Amplified are allowed in the arenas, because that would be in violation of the Equality Movement, but everyone knows that’s how it is anyway. There are no windows, but from the cheering, thumping, and occasional bloodcurdling scream, I can imagine what’s going on in there.

  We end up in one of the many capsule bars. This one has some kind of tacky jungle theme. We weave through fake vines and sit down at a small table. A bored-looking waiter dutifully approaches us and holds out his Transcriber. We each place our hands on the screen, and the waiter reads out our information.

  “Quillen, Marianna.” I flinch at the sound of my full name. “Age 15. Not Amplified. Approved for all non-intoxicating capsules.” I bristle even more. I don’t need some stupid electronic menu reminding me of my Amplification status. The waiter turns to my brother.

  “Quillen, Adrian. Age 19. Amplified. Approved for all capsules.”

  “Great,” Adrian replies. “I’ll have a Twisted Shark Bait.”

  I roll my eyes. Leave it to my brother to order one of the fancy capsules. The waiter eyes me expectantly.

  “I’ll just have a Hydration.”

  “Which flavor?”

  Which flavor? It really has been a long time since I’ve been on this stupid cruiser.

  “Uh, just regular.”

  The waiter sighs. Apparently I’ve just made his job as mundane as possible.

  “Please note that these will be taken out of your weekly rations.”

  The waiter leaves and I turn back to Adrian. I have thousands of questions.

  “So tell me about the last 4 years! How was your Service?”

  Adrian’s eyes light up as he leans forward.

  “Oh man, Mari, Amplification really is as amazing as everyone says. I mean, you can do anything! The Service itself was actually pretty lame, mostly guarding the prisons and tagging animals. The only exciting part was when we battled the Dissenters.”

  Normally, mention of a battle would make me nervous. But I remember the images of the Dissenters from school; dull, idiotic-looking people with missing teeth, brandishing their primitive weapons. The battles are hardly fair, with the Dissenters being so thoroughly outmatched, but they keep persisting. I still wonder why anyone would want to get rid of the Amplifiers. Seems like the best thing in the world to me.

  “Last year, there was a group of Dissenters trying to infiltrate the Activation Base,” Adrian continues, “and we had them surrounded before they even crossed the perimeter. But then one of them-”

  Adrian’s story is interrupted by a burst of yelling and a loud cracking sound from across the bar. A large soldier has just thrown an older man, probably about 65 years old, onto a table, splitting it in two. The soldier rushes at the man again, his victim trying to scramble away from the wreckage of the table, but he’s too slow. The soldier gives himself an unintelligible command and grabs the older man by the ankles, swinging him around while screaming:

  “You wanna bet against Amplification again, old man?”

  The soldier finally swings the older man up above his head with astonishing strength, then slams him to the ground. The old man moans as the soldier steps over him and walks out of the bar.

  Horrified, I rush over to the man crumpled on the floor. He has a few scrapes, and his leg is curled at an irregular angle.

  “Adrian, help him!” I plead.

  “Ah, he probably deserved it.”

  I stare at him in disbelief, trying to figure out if he’s joking. He stands with his arms folded across his chest, looking unconcerned.

  “Adrian!” I hiss, willing my brother to snap out of his indifference.

  “Fine,” he concedes reluctantly and kneels down beside the man. “Adrian, assess the victim’s injuries,” he commands himself. I can see my brother’s body relax as the Amplifier takes over. He moves his hands expertly over the man’s body, pausing at a few areas. Adrian addresses the old man.

  “Sir, your hip has been dislocated. Would you like me to fix it?”

  “Yes!” The man wheezes pitifully. “Please.”

  Adrian grimaces and again accesses his Amplifier.

  “Adrian, reset the joint.”

  He slowly pulls the man’s knee up and rocks it back and forth, then quickly jerks the entire upper leg away from the floor, causing a satisfying popping sound. The old man exhales, clearly relieved of the worst of his pain. He looks over at Adrian.

  “Thank you for helping me, thank you so much.” He murmurs over and over. Adrian doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at the man. He just stands and walks away.

  “What was that all about?” I mutter to Adrian once I catch up with him outside the bar.

  “What?” He answers innocently.

  “Oh, so I guess I’m supposed to believe you’re always a selfish, unwilling jerk?”

  Adrian’s face hardens and he pulls me into the nearest vacant sleeping pod.

  “It’s just that... the guy wasn’t Amplified.”

  “Neither is mom, are you gonna leave her for dead when someone attacks her too?”

  “No! It’s different with mom, I just...” He trails off, realizing he has no solid argument. After a long pause he looks up at me, but doesn’t meet my eyes. “Four years in the Service will make you think differently about certain people, ok?”

  No, I think, It’s not ok. I sit down on the small bed and think about the years of taunts and bullying I endured because I was the child of a clam, a stupid nickname for people who aren’t Amplified. Those early years of trying to fight off several kids at one time, often kids that were a lot bigger than me. With no adults at the school, it was easy for them to get away with stuff like that. The closest thing to authority were the cameras mounted everywhere, but we didn’t know if anyone was watching on the other end, or if they even cared.

  Our teachers at school were the images, the projections, and the occasional holographic appearance of the Governor. My classmates used to say that if you walked through the hologram of Governor Plenaris, you would die. So one day I walked up and stuck my hand into the edge of the hologram. I didn’t die, but it seared off the tip of my right index finger. It was incredibly painful, but I just went back to my seat, determined not to cry or show any weakness. That was the day the kids at my school stopped bothering me.

  I rub the shortened tip of that finger as I stare out the tiny window of the sleeping pod. Adrian is leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, but I know he’s not asleep. I wonder what other changes he might have made underneath all those new muscles, what kinds of experiences drove him to share the same sentiments as people who shout insults at strangers from the Mall-cruiser and beat up defenseless old men in bars. Will I come back with those opinions after my four years of Service?

  “Hey Mari,” Adrian murmurs, his eyes still closed, “do you remember when we used to mess with the control tower guards?”

  I smile in spite of myself.

  “Yeah, those were good times.”

  As soon as we turn the corner ont
o our street, I see my younger brother Daniel jump up from our front porch and start bounding toward us.

  “A-A-Adrian!” He yells in that heartbreaking stutter. It’s actually kind of endearing. I’m not really looking forward to his Amplification when he’ll likely find a way to fix it. Daniel slams right into Adrian and wraps his arms around his older brother’s trunk-like legs. Adrian reaches down to tousle Daniel’s stick-straight brown hair. They marvel at one another’s transformations as they approach the house. I see Adrian’s playful expression change when he sees our mother leaning against the doorframe.

  She is still a beautiful woman. Age and worry have etched a few lines into her tan skin and woven some gray streaks into her long, dark hair, but I’ve noticed the way some of the men at the farm look at her. I know she can always feel their stares.

  She opens her arms wide as we approach, her vacant eyes searching the air in front of her.

  “Where is my first born?” She jokes lightly, smiling as she waits expectantly.

  “Right here, mom,” Adrian replies, moving into her embrace.

  “Adrian!” My mother exclaims. “You left here a boy and came back a ... bear!” She feels his arms, shoulders, and face, letting her hands see what her eyes cannot.

  “Ah, mom, it’s not a big deal,” Adrian dodges sheepishly.

  “Yes it is!” Daniel pipes up. “He’s three t-times the size he w-w-was when he left!”

  I notice Adrian is actually starting to feel self-conscious, so I change the subject.

  “Hey, all of Adrian’s belongings from Service arrived this morning, right?”

  Daniel lights up.

  “That’s right! I’ve been d-dying to go through them but mom m-made me wait!” He ducks into the house, pulling Adrian in with him. “C-c-come on, Adrian, you’ve g-g-g-got to show m-me everything!”

  Mom sighs as her sons pass by. I take her elbow to lead her into the house, even though she rarely needs guidance.

  “He’s changed,” she remarks.

  “Yeah, he’s gotten big.”

  “Hm. That too.”

  I always marvel at how much my mother can see in spite of her blindness.