Strike

by Jim Heskett

  “Paulo has become a promising guerrero,” she said, and patted the bed.

  He dropped the rubber ball on the floor and then sat next to her. “I was thinking about your question this morning, and I do remember something. From before.”

  “What do you remember?”

  Yorick paused. “A market.”

  “A market?”

  “Yeah, like the ones in the books, in a way. Wooden structures like carts, but without wheels. Vendors selling fruit to people.”

  “Selling fruit to who?”

  Yorick shrugged. “Anyone who walked into the market, I guess. Just random people, maybe the ones who lived nearby.”

  “Do you know where it was? What city?”

  “No. I only remember the market. Going there, getting fruit, and then walking home.”

  She brushed her long hair back from her face. “With your parents?”

  He nodded.

  “Can you picture their faces?”

  Yorick bit his lip and considered it. He felt a glint of pain sizzle in his chest. “No, I only remember they were tall. Like giants, and I always craned my neck to look up to them. But I can’t think of their names or what they looked like. When I see them, their faces are blank. Is that weird?”

  “Not at all. I don’t remember my parents, either.”

  She winced, and he reached out to touch the corner of her eye, to preempt a tear, but she shook her head and opened the dictionary.

  They’d been here for twelve years, or maybe even more. Yorick wasn’t even sure how old he was, only that he was still considered a “teenager.” He figured he was seventeen or eighteen, based on how he stacked up against the other serfs at his height and weight.

  But no one knew for sure.

  They’d only been counting the days and months and seasons for the last five years, with marks on the inside of the cinderblock. Before that, everything seemed so impermanent and surreal. Only once they’d hit puberty and gained an understanding did they accept this as real life.

  “You did something really stupid at dinner today,” Yorick said.

  She nodded. “I know. I couldn’t help myself.”

  “If you were a field worker, they would have put you up against the wall for what you did. I don’t know how you didn’t earn any time in the cages, either. I expected all of us to spend the night there tonight.”

  “Yeah. But they would have given the same punishment to Diego. He started it.”

  Yorick put a hand on her forearm and gave it a squeeze. “If they put a bullet in your head, it doesn’t matter to me what happens to Diego.”

  “I know,” she said as she kissed him on the cheek. "You’re right. I shouldn’t be so… so…”

  He pointed at the open dictionary and grinned. “I’m the one who needs to learn more words?”

  “Impulsive,” she spat out, and then kissed him again. And then she hefted the dictionary from her lap and set it aside, to make room for more kissing.

  Chapter Six

  Dew covered the morning grass outside the main dormitory hall, next to the fountain and benches. Yorick and Rosia wandered outside, and both paused to breathe in the morning air, which still had a hint of chill to it. Yorick enjoyed the chill. He liked the snowfall and frost of winter. He definitely preferred it to the steamy and sweaty afternoons of summer.

  “Your suit,” Rosia said, and she grabbed at him from behind. He felt the zipper go up his back.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You should visit the Quartermaster at his storage room and tell him you need a larger suit. This one is too tight.”

  He put his hands on his hips and flexed, pushing against the limits of the black, rubbery material. “Don’t act like you don’t enjoy it.”

  Rosia sighed, trying not to smile, but she let a little one slip, anyway. When she finally gave in and chirped a giggle, Yorick swept her up in his arms and spun her around.

  “Will you still love me when I’m old, fat, and slow?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Not a chance. I’ll trade you in for a younger and more capable boyfriend. I have high standards.”

  “I would expect nothing less.”

  He pulled her in for a kiss, but then, they heard the first gunshot. He set her down as their heads swiveled, looking for the origin of the commotion. No way would they hear the practice shots from the shooting range out here. That floor of the dorms was soundproofed.

  Yorick spotted the source of the gunfire. Along the wall—the immense barricade keeping them all inside this plantación—six people stood, hands behind their backs, burlap sacks over their heads. A seventh one was on the ground, writhing. Gunshot in his or her belly. Across from these six condemned people were a string of a dozen guards and one commander.

  The commander raised his hand, then barked an order, and all the guards pulled their triggers at once. Bullets peppered the six condemned people. Each of them fell to the ground. The wave of sound from the gunshots spread out, cascading along the wall in both directions and echoing into the interior of the plantación. No doubt this was why they chose this spot to conduct their executions. Since this section of the wall curved, any loud noise maximized the reverberation of sound.

  Yorick wanted to look away but he couldn’t. Half of them were still alive, squirming on the ground. A shot to the stomach must be a terrible way to go. Sometimes, they lived for several minutes before they bled to death.

  “Farm workers,” said Hamon, who had crept up behind them. “They came and got them from the dorms an hour ago. I was in the lobby when they were escorted out.”

  “Anyone we know?” Rosia said.

  Hamon shook his head. “They already had the bags over their heads.”

  “Do you know why?” Yorick asked.

  Hamon shrugged, the expression on his face suggesting, they don’t need a reason.

  Yorick didn’t ask any further questions because no explanation could make sense of what happened at the wall on a regular basis. At the area littered with bullet holes, the grass below it either dead or stained with years of blood. Sometimes, infractions put you in the cages first for a night or two, or sometimes, you went up against the wall for the smallest of the lord's laws broken. Field serfs were often given no warning at all. And there wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it.

  So, Yorick agreed with Hamon that it didn’t matter. They stood in silence for a few moments, watching as the guards chatted with each other, holding their rifles in place. Watching the dying bleed out.

  From the doors of the dormitory came the remaining seventeen members of the Blue team, all of them suited and ready to go. Their faces flicked to the bodies slumping at the wall, the streaks of blood spotting the towering concrete structure.

  A few of the Blues had been joking and laughing, but their faces now pulled down, solemnly staring at their feet and the ground. Yorick stepped up onto the fountain to gain a meter of elevation. No one seemed to know what to say to stop the rapid decline of the mood.

  “Hey!” Yorick said.

  The dour faces of the Blue team all looked up at him, including Rosia and their leader Hamon.

  “Whatever else is happening,” Yorick said, “we will not lose sight of what we need to get done this morning. We’re going to march onto that battlefield today and accept nothing less than victory. Because when we’re out there, fighting for ourselves, we are invincible. We are the only thing that matters. Not winning, not beating the Red team, but doing everything we can to be our best.”

  A few heads nodded, but not all of them. Too many still had no reaction. So Yorick pushed ahead, stomping his feet on the concrete edge of the fountain. The words flowed out of him, and he didn’t even know where they’d come from. “You’re not just a collection of kids wearing the same colored suit. You’re part of something greater than yourself. Do you hear me?”

  A couple of them murmured, and the rest now looked up to squint at Yorick’s face as the sun shined in their eyes.
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  “Today, we take what’s ours. We take this battlefield and refuse to allow ourselves to be beaten. We are Blues, and that’s family.”

  Better response now. Even a few smiles on the faces of the Blue team. Yorick hopped down, and Hamon nodded his approval. Yorick, Rosia, and Hamon left and waved for the Blue team to follow them. They set out ahead, and the rest of the team followed, a few meters behind. A good march to their steps.

  “Where did that come from?” Rosia asked.

  Yorick shrugged. “I thought something needed to be done.”

  “Those words should come from the team leader,” she said.

  Hamon turned his palms up to the sky. “It’s fine, really. I’m glad someone said it, and fast, before we lost them all for the day.”

  “She’s right,” Yorick said. “I’m sorry, Hamon. Believe me, I have no interest in being the leader of this team. I’m not sure where that came from.”

  The leader waved a dismissive hand. “It’s no worry. We should spend our walk strategizing, not arguing about who can do or say what.”

  Rosia held out her hand and tapped on her palm in four places, each one indicating a quadrant of the battlegrounds. Going clockwise as she tapped, she said, “forest, warehouses, block, and foxholes. Where do we focus today?”

  “Let’s burrow into those foxholes,” Hamon said. “We split up and tackle them one at a time. Instead of a big face-off, we’ll keep the scale small and whittle them into nothing. If they want to come after us in a wave, they’ll have a hard time maneuvering through those tight spaces.”

  Hamon raised his eyebrows at Yorick, and he nodded his assent. Not that Hamon needed his guerreros’ approval, but Yorick liked that their leader made strategy a conversation instead of a mandate.

  As they walked, Lord Wybert’s mansion came into focus, the bloated white rectangle at the center of the plantación. And, on the other side, the platform where only one day before, they had taken Red team member Leandro away for being the last-ranked guerrero on the losing team.

  And no one had seen him since.

  Chapter Seven

  Rosia led, head down to stay far below the rim of the foxholes. Yorick was directly behind her, one hand on her shoulder to keep close. Also, to make sure she didn’t spin around and shoot him, thinking him a Red trying to sneak up on her. She was like a rabbit, darting left and right. He did everything he could to keep up with her.

  While this quadrant of the battlefield was known as “the foxholes,” it wasn’t a complete description. Two dozen trails snaked around the dirt area comprising this quadrant. But there were also deeper caves and tunnels connecting some holes to others. And in those tunnels, there were bunker areas and sub-tunnels. Yorick hadn’t explored them all, and might never do so. Guerreros were only allowed on the battlefield during battles, so he had to map it as he went. All guerrero training happened off-site, usually in the gym and meeting rooms in the lower levels of the dorms.

  These four quadrants were like hallowed ground, and only accessible by a chosen few who lived on the plantación. Four quadrants, with a hill in the center. The only place you could see all four at once.

  They ducked left, into a tunnel. Crouched down. Rosia, panting, set her rifle in the dirt and wiped her palms on her suit. Yorick put a hand on his knee, rubbing it.

  “Feeling okay?” she asked.

  “It’s sore, but I’m fine. It won’t slow me down.”

  They shared a look, and while Rosia didn’t say anything, Yorick knew she didn’t have to. She would stay with him during the round even if she had to pace herself. And he wished she wouldn’t sacrifice for him. Better for her to push on, accumulating points, rather than protecting him for no good reason.

  But he wasn’t done yet. He could take a few more Reds today before he needed a rest.

  She rolled her shoulders. “You ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  They burst out of the tunnel and sprinted into the light. “Turning right,” Rosia said as they came to an intersection in the foxholes. Above their heads, rubber bullets whizzed by, slashing the air. They’d become separated from the remaining cluster of Blues a few minutes back when they’d turned left at the lip of a tunnel, but everyone else had turned right. Too easy to get lost in this spiderweb.

  This separation was a problem because, by Yorick’s count, they were down to five guerreros left on the Blue team. The Reds didn’t have many more, but with numbers that small, any imbalance could spell doom for the leaderboard rank.

  The idea of any Blue guerrero shuffling off toward the mansion, never to be seen again, filled him with dread.

  Yorick hated this time of year when the battles became a daily occurrence. They were allowed to spend most of the winters and early spring indoors, with only weekly battles, and only then if weather permitted. But in the height of summer, they had to fight almost every day. It took a toll on their minds and bodies.

  At the dirt intersection, Rosia shifted right, and Yorick followed a half second later. And he saw them before she did. Five meters down, two Reds, rifles raised. They each spit a few shots, and bullets thumped across Rosia’s midsection. She let out a quick yelp, and then the blue lights running along her suit dimmed. She’d have little round bruises all over her chest and stomach later.

  The guards kept firing, trying to shoot past her to get to Yorick. But she steadied her body, standing wide, letting the bullets strike her to act as a human shield. He had only a couple seconds to take advantage of her sacrifice. Yorick backpedaled, skittering around the corner from which he’d come. Rosia gave him one last look before he disappeared.

  Now disqualified for the rest of the round, she would have to carry her weapon to the southeast edge of the battleground, to wait with the other inactive ones.

  So, the Blue team was now four, or possibly even fewer. Yorick checked the magazine in his rifle and found it light, which was another problem. Maybe ten rounds left. He flicked the switch to change from full to semi-auto. He sighed and tried not to let the pressure of failure settle over him.

  Voices rumbled from behind. He craned his neck to find the two Reds who’d shot Rosia fast approaching. Another foxhole intersected with this one a few meters ahead, but he might not get there in time.

  He made a choice. As he twisted, he kicked his legs out and hoisted his rifle, pushing the stock against his chest to aim it in the direction he faced. Yorick pressed the trigger and swung the rifle left and right, spraying his two pursuers with rubber bullets.

  Their suits had faded from red to black in an instant. Both stood, mouths agape. Dumbstruck. Yorick had survived, for a few more seconds, at least. But he’d emptied his rifle’s magazine, and he would have to return to the starting point at the warehouse to retrieve more ammunition. The bullets in the Reds’ rifles were coded to only register hits against Blues. And, it’s not as if they would give up their spare ammo, anyway. No, they would take their rifles and ammo and mope back to the neutral zone with the others. Blanked. Same with Rosia’s ammo or any other disqualified Blue.

  So, Yorick had no choice but to sneak back to the warehouse and retrieve extra magazines. Either that, or sit down and wait to be eliminated.

  He jumped to his feet and blinked a few times to rid himself of the pressure weighing on him. The two guerreros he’d shot glared at him as they climbed up the dirt embankment out of the foxhole.

  Yorick glanced around to get his bearings. The warehouses were to the northeast, so he needed to figure out the best way to exit the foxholes safely. No telling how many guerreros in red-tinged suits stood between him and his destination.

  Something caught his eye, near the top of the foxhole. Paulo, the young Blue guerrero. He knelt at the edge, clutching his rifle to his chest.

  “Hey,” Paulo said, loud-whispering it down into the foxhole.

  Panting, breathless, Yorick licked his lips and tried to respond, but nothing came out. His throat had closed up.

  “It’s bad up here,
” Paulo said, “but I don’t know if it’s any better down in the 'holes. I’m going to skip on over to the forest to find a place to hide for a minute. I think I saw some Blues headed that way a few minutes ago. If you want to give me your hand, I can help you up.”

  Yorick shook his head, cleared his throat. “Go on without me. I’m out of ammo. Need a refill. I’ll see what I can do about getting over there after.”

  Paulo hoisted his rifle and ejected the magazine, then frowned at the contents. “Sorry, I don’t have any to spare.”

  “No problem. Get on out of here.”

  Paulo shoved the magazine back in and then did a double take as his eyes grew wide. “Mierda,” he said, staggering to his feet. He scrambled and rushed out of sight. A flurry of bullets whizzed by, from somewhere beyond Yorick’s sight line. And then, the alarm beeped, a single chirp. That meant their team had only one guerrero remaining. Paulo was gone.

  Only Yorick remained.

  “Damn it,” he said. As good as dead unless he could display some elite-level heroics. To act like Rosia or Hamon and save the day.

  Elite or not, he wasn’t about to give up now. He launched himself at the lip of the foxhole, stabbing the stock of the rifle into the dirt to gain leverage and scramble to the top. As soon as he reached it, he found himself face to face with Diego.

  Grinning.

  The long-haired Red guerrero squeezed the trigger, and a volley of shots pelted Yorick in the stomach. Like a relentless series of punches to the midsection. He staggered back, lost his footing, and slammed into the dirt in the foxhole below. The air whooshed out of his lungs, making him gasp to breathe. The blue sky above dotted with a million points of white.