by Tara Brown
Does he miss me?
The truck starts up. The air, metal, and wood vibrate with the engine. I take a breath to calm myself as something tickles at the back of my hand. I think it's a hand so I turn my mine over, like it's an automatic response, but it's not something I would have done before. Since I met Anna, the list of things that are possible in my world is endless.
A small hand fills my palm. It's a child's. Its small body is suddenly pressed against mine. I try not to shake or tremble. It must be more afraid than I am.
We bounce down the road. I know we are less than a day's walk from the breeder farm. It can't be far in a truck.
Soft whimpers and moans fill the truck that is no longer cool. The body heat creates muggy warmth that makes my skin feel dirtier than it is.
The little hand in mine is hot. My hand is sweating. I want to switch hands or just drag mine up and down my pants for a second, but I don’t. I wrap my hand around the small hand. I won't look away. I won't let it suffer and cry while I hide. I am different now.
The truck comes to a stop suddenly. We are all jerked forward after getting relaxed in the repetitive motion of the drive.
The sound of metal scraping along the back of the truck fills the warm silent darkness. The door swings open, filling the huge delivery truck with white light, making my eyes seal instantly. I cover them and brace myself, squeezing the little hand as dark shapes move around the opening.
"Out you go, whores.“
I force my eyes open to the light, fighting every nerve that is telling me to kick him in the face. It takes a second for my eyes to focus. When they do, I don’t look at the open door. I turn and look at the little blonde girl who is sobbing silently next to me. She is about ten or eleven. Her hair is matted and dirty. The tears have made lines in the filth on her little face. Her bright-blue eyes are filled with terror. I hold her hand and I know I won't let her go.
The other women range in age from the young girl next to me to a lady I think is in her thirties. Fat, thin, dirty, clean, tired, crying, frozen, confused. The group is diverse. Except in color, everyone is white.
Before I can process this too much, I notice the redhead giving me a death stare from outside of the truck. He grips his rifle and watches me.
I lower my face as the grin spreads across it and I fight the nervous giggle that is about to burst from me.
Serge is standing in the doorway at the back of the truck. He gives me a look and grabs my ankle.
"Let's go.” He drags me from the truck. I drag the little girl with me. She won't let go.
I see something I haven’t seen in a long time. A huge, shiny white building stands surrounded by a parking lot, with cars parked in between the lines. There are no vines or grass growing up the sides of the building. It's clean and sparkly like before. The pavement is flat and new. There are no cracks or weeds growing up through it. There are no cars burned out or missing all the parts. The cars are real and whole. They even shine a little bit.
My feet hit the ground with a thud as his fingers dig into my shoulders. “Don’t move."
The little blonde is standing next to me holding my hand. She is hiding in the curves of my body, needless to say she is completely exposed, apart from her face.
Serge digs his gun into my ribs. “Move."
The men are jumping into the truck and hauling screaming and sobbing women from the back, where they’ve watched me be dragged from. I walk toward the huge building. It's five stories high and looks very long.
The little girl curls into me as Serge jabs me again with the barrel of the gun.
I shoot him a dirty look but he winks at me.
Screaming starts to fill the air, coming from the truck behind me. When I glance back I see several women walking with us, mostly the young ones. Few guards are with us. The rest are jumping into the back of the truck. My stomach curdles.
Serge shakes his head. “Don’t look back,” he whispers and hits me with the gun again. I can see the regret in his eyes. Shame crosses his face. He knows I know. He would have been in the back of the truck with the screaming women chosen to stay behind. We can all hear the tearing and screaming. It always sounds the same.
I shake my head and squeeze the blonde into me. We clutch to each other tightly. I scan the area and make sure the other little girls are with us and I think I see them all.
Bad thoughts fill my head—bad thoughts like taking Serge's gun and killing the guards and saving the women in the truck.
Instead, we walk through a door and a blast of frigid air hits me.
Serge has the gun in my ribs again. I remember the feeling of the cold air. It brings a memory with it. My dad and me at the mall. He hated all the people, but he needed to get some things. I smile and remember the carousel. I'd never seen anything like it. He put a dollar in the machine and I climbed on. The horse had dark golden hair like mine. I gripped it and the machine started. The joy that hangs in the cold air fills me with bravery and courage for a minute.
A doctor walks toward me with a white spaceman suit on. He grabs my arm and tries to separate me and the blonde. She screams and I grip her arms. I wish she could have ridden the carousel. She would have liked it.
"She stays with me."
The doctor rolls his eyes behind the plastic and nods. “Fine. In you go.” He points to a hallway. I walk down it and I’m pushed through a door.
Serge is against me and whispering in my ear, “I will come for you. Be ready. I will send you a message. I won't let you die in here."
"Get off her, soldier.” The doctor sounds funny behind his mask. Serge pushes me one more time.
I'm gripping the little girl and standing in front of a door that opens suddenly. A lady in a space suit peers out and smiles at me with bright-pink lipstick behind the plastic. “Come this way, my dear." Her voice is sweet. I don't trust sweet people.
I glance back at Serge and the other girls being led to the hallway where I stand.
Serge turns the corner but steals another glance at me before he vanishes.
My arm is taken and we are led into a huge room.
The lady bends on a knee to the little blonde hiding in my armpit. “What's your name, sweetie?"
The blonde shakes her head and nuzzles into me farther.
I look at the woman and frown. “She has never seen a space suit."
The lady looks up at me, confused. “What?"
I point to her white suit. “She hasn’t ever seen one of these. She probably doesn’t think you're human."
The lady laughs. “You know, in ten years of doing this job, I never thought about that.” She looks back down at the little girl. “Am I scaring you?"
The blonde holds me tighter. The lady is a moron.
"You are,” I say.
She stands and points to the huge white tubes. “Well, we have something for you two to do, and then you can be cleared to be around people without the decontamination suits."
I hold the shaking child to me and walk to the tube. When I try to step away from her, silent tears start pouring from her bright-blue eyes. I kneel down to her level and force myself to smile at her. “Want to get something to eat?"
She nods.
I point to the tube. “When we are done in there, and they are sure we aren’t sick, they will feed us.” I say it loud enough that the lady in the space suit, who is now talking to the other woman, looks at me and nods. “Yup, we will get you some food."
I pry her tiny, balled-up hands from my clothes and smile softly as I step into the tube. I’m terrified but I don't want her to see it. It powers on and blue lights flash on me. A flat surface comes down on a robotic arm and a face appears on the screen in front of me. “Please place your hands on the pad."
I smile at the little girl and put my hand on the pad. A sharp poke digs into one of my fingers. A red light moves from my fingertips to my wrist and then back again.
The platform drops away and my hands drop down. The floor starts mov
ing like at the airport, before.
Suddenly, fast moving air blows across me and I move deeper into the tunnel. I get to the other side and it all stops. I step off and another space-suit woman comes over to me. “I just need to take you to the sanitation area.” I point to the little girl. “I have to wait for her.”
"Sorry, that's not allowed."
I growl. “I'm waiting."
She sighs.
I shout through to the little girl, “See, it doesn’t hurt. It was kind of fun. Just step in. It's going to be okay. I'm right here waiting for you."
Her breath is still slight heaves. She doesn’t make a sound. She puts a shaking hand out and steps onto the platform. She cries harder as the robotic arm comes down.
"Put your hand on. I promise it was like a fast little pinch and nothing more. Then you'll come to me."
Her blue eyes are filled with terror. She shakes her head.
I nod. “Do it. They won't let you come to me if you don't do it."
Her left hand hugs herself and her right hand rests on the pad. She flinches when the small prick comes and ducks when the sharp wind hits her. She looks like she might have a heart attack when the floor moves. She has never seen anything. She was in the womb when the world went crazy. Technology is not something us borderlanders see. Ever. In the borderlands, nature has taken things back. This feels like a small corner that humans still control.
Before the floor stops moving, she leaps off and is under my armpit again.
The lady laughs. “Okay, you're both cleared."
She brings us to a small white room. There is a white table in the middle of the room with nothing else but a door on the far side.
"Please put everything on the table. It will be sanitized and given back to you if it can be."
She stands and waits. I realize she is going to watch us strip naked.
I want to have a fit. I want to smash her in the space-suit face and run from the room, but I look at the little blonde and take a deep breath. I pull my shirt off. I pull off my sports bra and stand with my breasts out and exposed. It is the first time I have ever been naked in front of anyone, except my granny and my mother.
I remember swimming in my underwear and bra with the naked people at the camp and smile. The little blonde would love it there. The majestic swimming hole would make her happy. I decide she is coming with me when I run. My brain tries to think its usual 'look out for number one' excuses, but I can't. I think she's alone in the world and she doesn't even have a Leo.
"The jewelry too."
I look down at the silver bracelet and necklace my mom wore when she died. I remember my father removing it from her and putting it on me. I feel sick taking it off. When it touches the cold table, I’m scared I will never see it again.
I nod at her and she starts taking her clothes off. We are naked and filthy and both doing our best to cover ourselves. Finally, the lady walks to the door and slides a card on her wrist through a slot in the door handle, making the door open. I need one of those cards to escape.
"Now we need to clean you.” She points into the stainless-steel bathroom. The walls are metal. The floors are metal. There are several showerheads along the back wall and a drain in the floor. The little girl grabs my hand, seeing it. She doesn’t want to cuddle naked, thank God, but she wants to hold my hand. The water starts by itself, making her jump a little. I smile. I've seen a shower before.
I put a hand out and feel excited. The water is very warm. I step into it and sigh. The warmth of it is something I haven’t had in a long time. Not without heating it on a fire.
She watches me and feels the water running from my hand to hers. She puts a hand out and smiles at me. It's the first time I've seen her smile. Her teeth are gleaming white. It doesn’t suit the rest of her face. She steps into the water and lets it rain down on her.
"It feels great, doesn’t it?"
I glance back at the lady watching us. It makes me uncomfortable that she is there.
"I remember my first shower too." Her voice is hollow. She hasn’t been here since the beginning? Maybe she works here because she was captured. Her dark eyes give me a knowing look when she smiles under the space suit. "The soap is a special kind. It will wash anything off of you that you don’t want there. Do your hair too."
I cringe and can't help but wonder if she was one of the ladies who got to stay behind in the truck for a bit when it arrived at the farm.
I pick up the bar of wrapped soap and peel back the plastic. The girl watches me and does the same. I smell the soap and almost moan. She frowns and copies me, making me smile. The soap smells like lavender and tea tree. Of course it does, both are natural cleaners for the body. Tea tree oil became a hot commodity when everything stopped being produced, just like my dad said it would.
I lather and scrub, and at one point, I sit on the floor and scrub my toes out. I don’t even care how bizarre I look. I scrub the wound on my leg, trying not to cry out in pain.
Other women start to filter in, crying with joy as the warm water washes them.
Space Suit points to a hallway. “This way.” I walk with the girl holding my hand, looking back at the shower and miss it already.
My nerves are shot but I need to find Anna. I need to protect the little girl beside me and find out how to get us all out without casualties. But I might also need one more shower before we escape.
I'm dripping wet as I pad along the cold cement floor, shivering. Space Suit takes us to a stack of towels in plastic and passes them to us. I tear the plastic and pull a white terrycloth towel and robe from it. I pull it on and instantly feel better. White terrycloth slippers fall onto the cement floor. I turn them over with my toes and look at the girl. She has the robe and slippers on like me, but on her they’re so big, she’s practically swimming in them.
She grins and hugs herself.
"Can she speak?"
I shake my head at Space Suit. “I don’t know."
"She isn’t yours?"
I shake my head again. “No.” I grin at the girl. “We found each other in the dark."
Space Suit walks through a weird shower, rinsing her space suit completely. She steps out and points. “Okay, this way please.” She looks annoyed suddenly. We follow her through a huge white door, and we are in the white rooms and hallways again. The cement and stainless steel is gone. We walk in our plush clothes to a waiting room. “The doctor will be with you in a moment."
I go and sit on the white plastic chair that looks formed. Everything sparkles. It feels sterile.
The girl sits on the chair next to me and Space Suit leaves us there.
There are no magazines like a real doctor’s office, or windows.
"I'm scared."
I look at the little girl who apparently can talk. “Me too."
Two more ladies come and are seated next to us. I'd bet they're in their late twenties or early thirties, if I had to guess.
A chubby one smiles at me and speaks with a bubbly voice, “Has anything happened since you got here?"
I shake my head.
She frowns. “God. I hope this doesn’t take all day. I'm exhausted. I heard we get our own beds and rooms and food at every meal."
The skinny lady next to her grimaces. She looks mean. When she talks, it doesn’t improve my assumption. “Did you see what they were doing to the women at the back of the truck? We aren’t here for a vacation. We're here to be raped and reproduce."
I scowl. “Don’t.” My words are thick with the level of violence I am willing to commit as I dart my eyes to the little girl.
The mean-looking lady rolls her eyes and crosses her arms but she shuts her mouth and that's the only issue I need resolved.
The little girl smiles at me, clueless. I smile back.
A man comes holding something in his hands, looking like he might be the doctor. He is older and has glasses on. When he glances up at us from the thing in his hands, he smiles. “You.” He points at me.
> I glance around nervously at the others. They all look frightened. The girl grips me.
"She wants to come with me,” I say.
He looks at the little girl. “It's your choice. She should be with the other healthy children."
“She comes with me." I hug her to me as I stand.
He shrugs and turns, walking down the white hallway to a room with a bed, just like my doctor back home had. There is another chair, a curtain, and a small desk. Everything is white. I feel like I can't actually see the depth of things because of all the white. He points toward the bed. “Have a seat. Are you sure you want her to see this?"
“See what?" I look up and frown.
"I have to give you an internal to make sure you're healthy."
"Wasn’t that what the tube was for?"
He puts the thing in his hands on the desk and pushes his glasses up. He closes the door. “No."
I see the curtain. “Can you pull that around us so she can see my face?” I don’t want her traumatized. It's bad enough one of us is about to be traumatized. I know what an internal is. I read about it.
I sit her on the chair across the room and hold both of her shoulders. “It's going to be okay. Okay?"
She nods, looking scared, but I can see her trying to be brave. That makes two of us.
I walk to the bed and climb on, lying back with a shaky inhale. He pulls the curtain around us so only my face is showing. I turn my head to her and smile and even though I'm dying inside, I can't show her.
I look back at him just as he places my slippered feet into a pair of metal grips. He slides something and suddenly the bottom part of the bed is gone. My butt feels like it's sitting on the edge. He puts gloves on and smiles at me. “Relax, okay?"
I swallow hard and nod.
He pulls my knees apart. A tear slips from my eye and I can't look at the girl, I don't want her to see, so I look up at the white ceiling. I don’t want to feel anything so I close my eyes and imagine I'm high in a tree. The wind is pushing and pulling me, swaying the tree and me. I feel the breeze on my face. I hear the birds and the sound the branches make when the wind plays with them.
Something sharp stabs me.
I try not to cry out even when it hurts badly and in a way I don't want to acknowledge.