Talker 25

by McCune, Joshua

  We sit on either side of Claire, who stares wide-eyed at the screen, smiling from ear to ear whenever J.R. and his cowboy hat appear. Twenty-One, using my lap as a pillow, counts her fingers with the tip of the dragon brooch, happily whispering, “Burn, burn, burn.”

  Tuesday, a new episode, number one hundred seven, of Kissing Dragons premieres. After Evelyn takes credit for the slain Green, we get our nightly message board reminder—Reds bombarding Moscow. Claire goes into psychopath mode. Lorena gets her into the bathroom.

  “How many died today, how many died?” Twenty-One asks me.

  The Moscow video’s several years old, but there’s no convincing her of that. “Too many.”

  “Burn, burn, burn.” She points at the smoky remnants of the Kremlin. “Is that a circus?”

  “No. It’s the—”

  “I read about circuses, yes, yes. Mom said we could never go because it was too far away. Can I put it on the island?”

  We spend the rest of the night deciding what attractions our Kremlin circus will include.

  Wednesday, Twenty-One ties a call center record, earning herself a bag of Kit Kats and our barracks a day off from our duties. That night, the fuck vultures return. She and I huddle together and decorate the Kremlin’s beachfront. She opts for rainbow-colored huts. I almost go with vulture guillotines, but decide on pink beach umbrellas instead.

  Thursday, we get to sleep in. After breakfast in a nearly empty cafeteria, they bus us to the rec center. The attendant at the front desk glares at us, gestures dismissively at a nearby bin full of T-shirts and athletic shorts emblazoned with U.S. Army logos.

  “Always a pleasure to see you,” he grumbles to Lester as we collect clothes. He waves at the screen behind him, which reruns episode ninety-eight, where the fab four head to Mexico in search of La Chupacabra. “The Yanks had the bases loaded, too.”

  “Yanks?” I whisper to Lorena.

  “They’ve got a strict policy on what we can see,” she whispers back.

  “Two outs?” Lester asks the attendant.

  “Don’t you know it?”

  “I’ll save you the suspense. They choked.”

  “You serious?”

  Lester shrugs, laughs.

  “Asshole.”

  “Yep.”

  A stocky man with a skin graft across his left cheek and a droopy eye jogs over from the basketball court. He feigns a punch at Lester, who flinches, then grins and hits him twice on the shoulder before looking at us. “Who can we blame for our topside freeze this time?”

  “Me, me, me!” Twenty-One says.

  “Overachiever.”

  “Yes, yes. You have chocolate?”

  The man smiles. “Maybe. You better bring your A game. Don’t make me wait too long.”

  “No, no,” she says, and hurries past our guards toward the locker room.

  “Already causing problems,” Lester says with a half grin. “One and Two. You have five minutes.” Evelyn and Lorena follow after Twenty-One. A pair of soldiers take up position outside the door.

  Twenty-One emerges no more than a minute later, tugging at Lorena’s hand. Only Twenty-One’s wearing shorts. The bruises on her knees stand out in sharp contrast against her pale skin. “Hurry it up, Talker One, yes, yes!” she bellows into the locker room at least ten times before Evelyn comes striding out. Like Lorena, she’s kept her scrub bottoms on.

  The next three numbers are called. Twenty-One exhorts them to hurry, to the chagrin or amusement of everybody within earshot.

  Twenty-Two and I are the last to dress. I don’t know much about her. She’s one of Pam’s crowd. Never talks, except for polite yes, sirs and no, sirs to the soldiers. After hanging her coat in locker twenty-two, she strips out of her scrub top. I notice a tattoo on her ribs. Three names, each listed with date ranges. None older than twenty-five. The death dates are identical, little more than a year old.

  “Why don’t you take a picture?” she says with more sharpness than I expected.

  “Must have hurt.” I strip out of my scrub bottoms and show her my tattoo.

  She shrugs, slips her T-shirt on.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She turns to me, eyes narrowed. “What’s my name?”

  “What?”

  “Do you know my name?”

  Based on her tat, I’m pretty certain her surname is Hernandez, but I can’t recall her first. Did she even introduce herself the day I arrived? I can’t remember.

  She purses her lips. “That’s what I thought. I don’t know you and you don’t know me. It’s easier for everybody if we keep it that way. Got it, chica?”

  She sweeps past me before I can respond.

  “Hurry it up, Twenty-Five, yes, yes!”

  As I exit the locker room, I hear a couple of snickers from the other girls, a few whispered jabs about Bigfoot. Besides the reconditioned, I’m the only one who decided to don shorts. Claire, whose hairy legs could be very well belong to a sasquatch, thrusts a fist at me. I recoil. Then I see that she’s extended her pinky and thumb. It takes me a couple of seconds to realize why that looks so familiar. It’s J.R.’s signature celebratory move.

  I give her the expected fist bump. Twenty-One joins in for a three-way.

  I catch Evelyn smirking at us. I smirk back. “Got your eye on somebody out there, Talker One?”

  Evelyn nods at my stubbled legs, arches an eyebrow. “Some of us have standards, Twenty-Five.”

  Lorena nudges me. “Let it go.”

  I ignore her. “Last I heard, your standards led to a trip to the infirmary and a prescription for some antibiotics.”

  A couple of girls laugh.

  Evelyn reddens. “Story time, is it, Two? Should we inform your little sidekick of your daddy issues?”

  “Leave it alone,” Lorena says.

  “Oh, yes, can’t drink or blow your way out of that, can you?”

  “That’s enough,” Lester says. “Go on, gals, go enjoy your day.”

  “Yes, yes, I gotta kick Julio’s ass,” Twenty-One says, and sticks out her tongue at our escort, who responds with a smile.

  “Language, Twenty-One.”

  “I’ve got to kick Julio’s ass. Better, yes, yes.” She laughs, flicks off Pam, then rushes past some cardio equipment before disappearing around a corner.

  Lester grabs my arm. “Stay here.”

  “Weak links break chains,” Evelyn says on her way by, with a little wave. Her minions echo the gesture.

  I expect him to shock me for all the violent thoughts running through my head, but he doesn’t.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I say once we’re alone.

  “Maybe. I know these first couple of weeks haven’t been easy on you. They never are. But if I was you, I’d be very careful with Evelyn.” He looks away, blows out a breath through his nose, looks back at me with pursed lips. “She’s not anybody’s friend but her own.”

  I squint at him.

  He darkens. “It’s not like that. Never mind. Get out of here, Twenty-Five.” Again I expect him to shock me, but he merely shoos me. “It’s your day off. Go have fun.”

  Fun?

  A few of the girls are working out on cardio equipment, but most have congregated in a game room at the back of the rec center. I find Twenty-One hunkered over a chessboard. She controls the white army. The guy with the droopy eye plays the black side.

  “I’m killing the dragons, yes, yes,” Twenty-One hisses to me, then swipes a black pawn (a smallish dragon with folded wings and red ruby eyes) with her white pawn (a soldier with a machine gun strapped across his shoulder). Licking her lips, her gaze darts to the three large Snickers lying on the table in front of her opponent.

  “Not yet, little one,” he says. He kills her pawn with a larger dragon (this one with green eyes).

  “Burn, burn, burn,” Twenty-One says, and makes her next move.

  Back and forth they go. Soon pawns are dying left and right, and the board’s rather empty. I rise fro
m the couch, look for something else to do.

  Five, Ten, and Eighteen are playing hearts at a poker table with a couple of our guards. Claire lounges in a recliner, watching Kissing Dragons. I wander to the other side of the room, where Lorena and Pam fling taunts across an air-hockey table.

  Lorena scores. “What’s God have to say about that, Bible Girl?”

  Pam grins, knocks in the puck a second later. “Through God we shall do valiantly.”

  They drop the puck again. Lorena glances my way right as Pam strikes. The table dings. Game over. Pam bobs her head from side to side. “And it is he who will tread down our adversaries.”

  Lorena fake pouts. “Adversary? Don’t take that shit out on me. God obviously loves me.”

  Pam waggles a finger at her. “Language, Lorena. No swearing for a week. We agreed.”

  “Fine, fine. How ’bout double or nothing?”

  “Okay, but if I win, no consultations for a month.”

  “My consultations got you your Bibles.”

  “Your soul is worth more to me than any book, even God’s.”

  Lorena sighs, hands the puck pusher to Twenty-Two. “Maybe next time.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that. No cursing.”

  “What did she have to give up on the off chance you didn’t lose?” I ask Lorena as she cedes the table to Twenty-Two.

  Lorena shrugs. “Telling people not to swear.”

  “Which is like her favorite thing to do,” I say.

  She smiles sadly. “Yep.”

  “You okay?”

  “Terrific.” She points across the way to the basketball court. “You any good?”

  “Horrible.”

  “Me too.”

  Evelyn emerges from the throng of players, spotting up for a three. A soldier passes her the ball. Nothing but net. High-fives all around.

  “I would not have pegged her for a basketball player.”

  “More the cheerleader type, right?” Lorena grins. She takes my hand, tugs me toward the court. I resist. “Come on, Melissa, it’ll be fun.”

  I pull free. “I’d rather watch Twenty-One kill dragons.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.”

  “You know what a foul is?”

  I nod. “I play soccer. . . . Played.”

  “You ever play against anybody who wasn’t very good?”

  “Yeah. Made me thankful for shin guards.” I laugh. “You’re wicked.”

  “Hey, I don’t know about you, but I just want to learn. Good thing about basketball, they don’t hand out red cards.”

  “I think I like being your sidekick.”

  Lorena indicates a skinny guy dribbling a ball on the side of the court. “That’s Billy, another Big Brother.” She winks. “He knows how we like to play.”

  We recruit Sixteen and Twenty to fill out the other two spots for our team.

  Except for Billy, none of us has any clue what we’re doing. We get clobbered.

  But the next morning, there is no “wakey, wakey.” In fact, Evelyn’s the last one out of bed.

  In the cafeteria, I manage to eat breakfast without peeking once toward the boys’ table. At some point, the door opens. I ignore the impulse to look up. In the call center, I don’t check the board for his number. I keep my head down and duck into my cubicle. I tally five dragons that day, a mediocre showing, but my personal record. Lester gives me a Baby Ruth. I give it to Twenty-One. She stuffs it beneath her pillow.

  We’re discussing graffiti decorations for the cliffside we erected behind the Kremlin when a beep sounds.

  “How many died, how many died today?” Twenty-One asks.

  “Too many.” I glance toward the screen, expecting video of Blues stampeding through Rio or a Green assaulting Mecca, but today’s message looks current. A journalist clad in body armor describes how a group of Greens opened fire on a Tiny Tots child-care center.

  “Please be warned, the footage you are about to see is intensely disturbing,” she says.

  Watching dragons incinerate people is terrible, but we’ve all seen it before, sometimes with a much larger victim pool. No, what makes this homemade video particularly chilling are the white-cloaked dragon riders. With shocking ruthlessness, they machine gun any adult or child who escapes the wrath of their mounts.

  Most of us weep. Twenty-One laughs until she sees me, then she starts to cry, too. Claire shouts curses as she beats on the screen. I expect Lorena to pull her back, but she’s nowhere to be seen. She must be in the bathroom.

  The video ends in a blaze of crackling fire.

  “A group of insurgents who call themselves the Diocletians claim responsibility for the attack. Casualties number over one hundred, most of them children. Dozens remain unaccounted for,” the reporter says. “The leader of the group, a former All-Black by the name of Oren White, released a statement.”

  A video pops up. It’s that guy with the scar on his face, the guy from the Shadow Mountain lookout picture. “The government recently destroyed the Blue sanctuaries, knowingly murdering hundreds of dragon children. Until they admit to this genocide and cease all hostilities, your children will continue to die.”

  After a brief discussion between two wise-looking veterinarians, who determine dragon breeding is impossible, the screen returns to episode thirty-two, “Kissing Big Blue.”

  Normally, the girls would go quiet, but tonight they’re abuzz with horror over the idea of dragons breeding. I’m trying to get Twenty-One to stop crying when I hear Evelyn mention something about a Silver she saw in the ER.

  “They told me it was an albino, but I don’t buy that. For one thing, it wouldn’t talk to me. I don’t think it could,” she says as I approach. She notices me, fake smiles. “Can I help you, Twenty-Five?”

  “You saw the Silver?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Is she alive?”

  She waves at the screen, all her phony perkiness gone. “How can you be a glowheart after you saw what they did?”

  “That Silver is a child, just like those children.”

  Evelyn stares at me like I’ve grown another head, then turns away. I grab her wrist. “What’s going to happen to her? Please, Evelyn.”

  Her smile’s back. “They’re going to chop its head off. Usually with a chain saw. But I bet the soldiers will want to test their ax out.”

  I flinch. “When?”

  She wrenches free. “Tomorrow, after they’re done with their experiments. Don’t touch me again.”

  After checking on Twenty-One, who’s curled up in the corner with the dragon brooch, I head for the shower. Each night, except when we’re under punishment, we get one hour of hot water to share. According to the schedule on the bathroom door, it’s not my turn until tomorrow, but some of the girls skip their days.

  When I enter the bathroom, Lorena’s lounging against the wall beneath the screen, knees tucked to her chest, smoking a cigarette. A close-to-empty bottle of whiskey sits beside her. She’s been crying. If it were another girl, this wouldn’t be unusual, but the worst I’ve seen from Lorena is a disapproving frown or a sad shake of her head.

  I sit beside her, grab the bottle, and take a long drink. “You all right?”

  She inhales, looking toward the ceiling. “You know, when I first discovered I could communicate with dragons, I thought I was losing it. I didn’t tell anybody because you’re not supposed to have imaginary friends when you’re thirteen.

  “I later learned that dragons don’t just talk to you out of the blue.” She blows out a stream of smoke. “It was my dad who told them about me. He was a frontline A-B, you know? I thought he hated dragons.”

  She snorts. “I didn’t find out the truth until Mom died. The letter the army sent us called her a hero. For dying? How fucking stupid is that? Dad burned that letter, burned the flag they gave him after they buried her. Then he burned down our house.”

  I wrap my arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

>   Lorena shakes her head. “I’ve seen what he’s done, but I always had some stupid hope that he might be able to come back to . . . I don’t know. Normal, I guess.” She glances up, and more tears come. “How could he do that? How could he murder all those children, Melissa?”

  I gape. “Him?”

  She squeezes her eyes shut. “How could he do that?”

  Now it makes sense. Horrible sense. Oren White, the leader of the Diocletians, is Lorena’s father.

  I fetch another bottle of whiskey from beneath her mattress. We drink until memories fade and blur and disappear. Then we drink some more.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  25

  “Five, Seven, Fifteen, Twenty-Five,” Lester says from the front of the bus. “Twenty-Five!”

  I think my CENSIR jolts me, but it’s hard to tell because my head’s been aching something fierce since I staggered from bed this morning.

  I look out the window. The battle room? “Why am I being transferred?”

  “Because,” Lester says. Typical.

  I’m not sure what to expect as I follow the others off the bus. Only Lorena, Claire, and a few from Evelyn’s crew have worked the battle room before. Lorena never talks about it. Evelyn’s girls don’t interact with me anyway, but they always seem pleased with their efforts.

  Lester leads us into a dark room of thinscreens and electronic equipment. We pass a digital map with seven blinking green dots, each located in one of three lakes. Adjacent to a satellite image of an unfamiliar city, Major Alderson and several soldiers operate a massive touchboard. One side’s dominated by indicators, radars, and maps; the other’s split into eight sections, each showing the CENSIR controls of the talkers in here.

  Four boy talkers sit in a row of lounge chairs. They wear wraparound sunglasses. I do a quick search of faces. No James.

  Lester hands me over to Major Alderson, then leads the other girls to a row of chairs on the opposite side of the room, where they’re given sunglasses.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.