Mrs. O’Riley, looks back from the armed team to me, her expression is now alert.
“Now I don’t want you to worry about them. We’re just an infected-animal eradication team. We’ve had reports of rats in this area, and we’re about to begin an extermination operation.”
“Oh my!” says the mother with the pram, beginning to gather blankets and stuffed toys to pack into a large bag.
“So I’m afraid you’ll need to stop swinging, young lady.” I hold up my hand in a “stop” sign, angling it away from the blonde woman and the man on the right. The note is against my palm, and I’m holding it in place with my thumb. “And I’m going to have to ask all of you ladies, and you too, sir, to clear the park.”
“We’re not in anyone’s way,” says Mrs. O’Riley with a scowl. Her Irish accent is way stronger than Quinn’s.
Kerry keeps her eyes on the note as I lower my hand in front of me. I take a few paces closer to them.
“It’s for your own safety, ma’am. I just want to make sure everyone gets away safe and sound, understand? We can’t let people stay … where it might be dangerous to their health.” Does Quinn’s mother understand that I’m talking about Connor? “So it’s important and urgent that you get the message” — I pause for a fraction of a second, widening my eyes at Kerry — “to leave the park.”
“A little less conversation, a little more action, Blue,” Sarge’s voice barks in my ear.
“Yes, sir. They’re leaving now, sir.” I speak loudly and press my other hand against the ear with the comms, hoping that the O’Rileys have understood that our interaction is being monitored.
The blonde woman stands up, says goodbye to Kerry and her mother, and walks off, pushing the stroller. At the same time, Kerry jumps off the swing and appears to stumble to the ground, losing a shoe in the process.
“Here, let me help you,” I say, hurrying forward. I fetch the shoe and slip the note inside before I hand it to Kerry with a wink. She winks back, but to my relief, says nothing as she slips the shoe back on.
“Come on, sweet pea. We need to go now,” says Mrs. O’Riley, laying a hand on Kerry’s shoulder.
“I’m so sorry.” I keep my tone merely polite, but I try to convey my deep regret in the apologetic look I give Quinn’s mother.
“That’s okay,” says Kerry. Her voice is friendly. “We can come back tomorrow, can’t we, Mom?”
“We could, but should we? We generally like to come every afternoon this time, and on weekend mornings at ten, but not if it’s not safe. Not if there are … dangerous things out to get us,” says Mrs. O’Riley and I know she’s not asking about rats, know also that she’s giving me specific information of when else she would be in the park for possible messages.
“You can come any day and every day, ma’am.” I’d like to keep this channel of communication open for possible future messages. “Just not today. Of course, if ever you see a mutant rat or other plague-spreader, or any suspicious activity, you should be sure to report it to the proper authorities. If you see something, say something!”
“Of course,” says Mrs. O’Riley. She takes her daughter’s hand and pulls her away from me.
“Goodbye,” says Kerry with a wave.
I wave back and wait until they, and the spook who follows them, have reached the parking lot and then head back down the hill. Sarge is waiting for me, shaking his head in disgust.
“Hell, Princess, you may not be cleared to shoot, but if we ever need a rat or rabid talked to death, remind me to enlist you.”
Two sweltering hours later, we’re on our way back to ASTA. Sarge theorizes that the boys made too much noise and scared away the rats, and warns us that we’ll have to come back another day. The boys talk about sniping, comparing their longest successful shots to the best on record. Cameron watches me silently.
I gaze out the tinted window, wondering if somewhere, somehow, someone is getting the message about Connor to the rebels.
There’s a new piece of graffiti spray-painted on the side of a deserted overpass before the turnoff to the ASTA road: Respect existence or expect resistance.
Chapter 14
Old wounds, new bruises
That night, before dinner, I duck into the restroom to post another note. In it, I tell Sofia that I delivered the message this afternoon, and ask her to try find out what the code on the M&M bullet box means. I don’t dare do it myself because I’m sure my internet activity is being monitored. Unfortunately, although I still clearly remember the eleven cats and seventeen hats and the rest of it, I can’t remember whether the letters or the numbers came first. With an apology to Sofia for the confusion, I write down both permutations and tell her where I read the code.
The door to the restroom bangs as someone shoves it open, and I nearly levitate with fright. I sit as still as a sniper, except for my trembling hands, listening as some other female goes about her business. There’s the sound of a flush, the stall opening, a faucet running, and then the whoosh of the door closing. I bend over to stash my tiny note in the toilet’s S-bend, then stop at the basin to wash the cold sweat off my hands and face.
At dinner, after I get my meal scanned at the cafeteria’s nutritional analysis checkout, I deliberately bypass Sofia’s table on the way to our unit’s usual spot. I cough loudly to get her attention, then give her a speaking look and a tiny nod. I hope she knows that means to check for a new message.
After dinner, our unit heads to the gymnasium for our first hand-to-hand combat training session. Charlie, who is already waiting on the training mats, gives us a gruff greeting, and then it’s straight to the business of how to disarm an opponent wielding a knife, Taser or firearm.
I guess Sarge told her I was the babe who had my candy taken by a mere intel cadet, because she demonstrates the moves on me. I point a realistic-looking toy gun at her, and she holds her hands up in the air in a submissive gesture. But an instant later she smashes her hand into my forearm, bats the weapon away, twists my arm behind my back and yanks it up painfully between my shoulders. In the next exercise, she comes in close as if to kiss me — “Disarm your opponent’s mental defenses, not just his weapons!” — then strikes my gun hand hard above the wrist and forces my hand inwards until I yelp in pain and drop the weapon, certain that my wrist is broken. Next, she shows us how to “bring a perp to the ground and make him beg for mercy,” by sweeping my feet out from under me and slamming me to the floor, pinning me down with a hand at my throat and a knee at my ribs.
“Mercy!” I whimper.
Mitch and Tae-Hyun laugh, and even Cameron smiles. But Bruce, to his credit, looks a little worried for my welfare and helps me up afterwards. I refuse his offer to dust down the seat of my pants.
“You’re bleeding,” he says, pointing to one of the short sleeves of my T-shirt. I can feel the electrode sore stinging beneath.
“Don’t worry about it.” I press the soft cotton of my T against it and apply pressure while watching Mitch and Cameron square off.
“You okay, kid?” Charlie asks me kindly.
Define okay.
After some practice, we move on to offensive moves, and I’m at a height and strength disadvantage again. Can’t I just pick on someone my own size? Charlie takes us through the theory and practice of hitting the opponent upside the head with the butt of a gun or the handle of a knife, the fine art of breaking kneecaps and fingers, the knack of punching throats and kidneys, and throws in a side of eye-gouging and eardrum-bursting “just for fun”.
After two hours, I’m done. Flat-out exhausted. My head is throbbing, my muscles are aching, and my injured knee won’t take my full weight again. Back in my quarters I discover that I have a whole new collection of reddish-purple bruises to complement the week-old set which are now a sickly mix of plum and mustard yellow with webby green borders. It’s like I’m wearing camouflage-patterned skin.
I pull off my T-shirt and carefully peel back the bloody Band-Aid on my right upper ar
m. Underneath, the sore is bleeding on one edge where the thick, soft scab has wrenched free from the raw skin beneath. I figure these burns might heal quicker if I left them uncovered to dry out, so I pull off the Band-Aid on my other arm, too. That sore is oozing a pale-pink, watery substance. I dab them dry with toilet paper, figure they’ll stain my bed sheets tonight, realize I don’t give a rat’s ass.
I poke gingerly at the stitches in my scalp — now surrounded by a patch of stubble where my hair is just beginning to make a reappearance. They’re due to be removed in two days’ time. At least they are healing like they’re supposed to.
At 11h00 I fall into bed, worries stinging my tired mind like a swarm of bees. Connor is into his second day of torture. How many sessions would that be? What have they done to him? Have the O’Rileys managed to get my message to Quinn or the other rebels yet? My last thought, selfishly, is for myself: will I survive another combat training session at the hands of Charlie?
I very nearly don’t.
I am freshly stiff and sore at 08h30 the next morning when Charlie teaches us more ways to remove an opponent’s gun or deflect knife thrusts, how to break wrist- and choke-holds, and get out of headlocks. None of this comes naturally to me — I don’t like pain, especially on my already battered body, and I’m neither physically strong nor very well coordinated when it comes to these big, powerful movements. Worse, every time someone grabs me around the wrist or waist, images of the detention center flash through my mind and panic temporarily immobilizes my body. I do excel at getting out of a full nelson, which involves throwing my arms up in the air, going limp and simply sliding out of the attacker’s arms and down his front. This much I can do. It turns out that not having huge biceps comes in useful sometimes.
Though I wish I was big enough to put the boys in their place, because they’re in full frat-boy mode today. When we learn how to defend against an attacker coming from the front, Mitch and Tae-Hyun crack all sorts of jokes about how to deal with a “full frontal”. When we progress to defending against an attack coming from the rear, and have to split into pairs to practice, Mitch quips, “Hey Blue, can I try to take you from behind?”
“Shut up, asshole,” says Bruce, surprising me. It’s the kind of thing he might once have said to me.
Charlie sets the boys to working in pairs and pulls me aside.
“You’re not holding your own,” she accuses.
“They’re taller than me. And much stronger.”
“If you’re shorter, that only means you have a lower center of gravity. That’s an advantage because it makes you more stable, and more able to topple them. But what you really need to understand is this: women are stronger than men.”
I guess my disbelief is evident in my expression, because she continues, “They are! Women have greater capacity for endurance and stamina, and are more resistant to pain and fatigue.”
I look back at Mitch and Cameron’s height and assess Bruce’s bulging muscles. No way. Even Tae-Hyun’s wiry strength beats mine.
“I’ve never even won an arm-wrestling contest with any of them.”
“Lucky thing you won’t be arm-wrestling any opponents in a fight, then,” she says, smiling. “Okay, they have greater upper body strength, no question, so your power needs to come from your hips, not your biceps. Look.” She demonstrates throwing a punch, an open-handed strike and a high kick, and each time she swivels her hips, driving the momentum of her whole body into the motion. “See? The hips give power to the punch, strength to the strike. Boys have narrower hips, and their arm strength makes them complacent, lazy. You can use that against them. Come, let’s practice.”
We do, and after a while, I get it. I stop trying to attack or disable using just my arms, and start using my whole body — pivoting at the hip and throwing Charlie off balance.
“There you go. I knew you could do it,” she says approvingly, and pushes me in the direction of the boys, saying softly, “Your final advantage as a female? Males will always underestimate you.”
“Hey, Mitch?” I call. “You still want a one-on-one?”
“Any time, any place — I’m yours!” he says. “Seems like you’re a sucker for punishment, Blue. Should we call the infirmary to pre-book a bed?”
“Sure. You could check they have an extra-length one — I don’t think you’ll fit in the regular size.”
“Ha-ha. Funny — not. You ready?”
“Bring it.”
Chapter 15
Blood, sweat and tears
Mitch bends his knees and holds his hands wide, circling me on the gym mat, looking for a good opening. Then he comes at me, brandishing the toy Bowie knife we practice with, and I move in, swiveling my hips, knocking him off-balance and flipping him to the floor, with the knife at his neck and my knee at his nut-purse. There’s a WTF expression on his face that brings a smile to my own.
Charlie nods proudly, the guys hoot and whistle, and I raise my arms above my head like a boxing champ. I’ve beaten the boys regularly in marksmanship, and often in memory and observation, but today is the first time I feel strong. It’s a glorious feeling.
In the afternoon session, we work hard on throws and take-downs, Bruce volunteers to be my partner, but Charlie, perhaps suspecting he’ll go easy on me, insists on working with me herself. In a move which involves her restraining me with a meaty forearm around my throat and yanking my head back by the hair, she somehow manages to rip open my nearly-healed head wound. I cry out in pain.
“Huh,” Charlie grunts from behind me. “You’re bleeding. Again.”
I suppress a groan while she inspects the wound, then says almost gently, “You’d better get yourself off to the infirmary, kid, looks like you’ll need more stitches. Here.” She pulls off her T-shirt, wads it up and presses it to the cut.
“You’ll need to maintain pressure on that. Scalp wounds bleed like a bitch.”
Beneath her top, she sports a training bra and a six-pack of abs which seems to have Tae-Hyun near swooning in admiration. Beside him, Mitch has gone gray. His eyes are fixed on the blood I can feel warmly trickling down my ear and neck, and he looks ready to swoon too. Bruce, unaffected by the blood, volunteers to accompany me to the infirmary, in case I faint.
“I’m not going to faint,” I say, disgusted at the assumption. “But perhaps you should volunteer to help Mitch — it looks like he might.”
At the infirmary, the doctor gives me a shot to numb the pain, removes the old stitches, cleans and disinfects the wound, and considers the merits of closing it with superglue or staples. In the end, though, he settles for a new row of traditional stitches, after shaving the strip of hair again. At this rate, I’ll be lucky if it ever grows back.
By the time I return to the gym, the combat training session is already over and there’s no sign of Charlie or the boys, so I head back to my quarters, taking the route that leads past the message toilet. The note I left is gone, but there’s no reply from Sofia. Back in my quarters, my computer flashes a message from Personnel. My long weekend visit home has been approved. On Friday, the day after tomorrow, I’ll be going home. It will be so good to see Robin and Mom again — I could do with some serious hugs and loving. Also, it’ll be really good to miss a few sessions of Charlie’s torture.
In the morning, Bruce, Mitch, Tae-Hyun and Cameron get to go shooting on the long-distance range out back of the compound, and I’m ordered to work on my strength and fitness in the gym. When I arrive, Sofia is already running around the track, and as she passes, she mutters, “I need to talk to you, urgently.” Something has clearly upset her.
I’m too tired to face another session of running, so I go to the bank of stationary bikes, all of which are riderless, and begin pedaling on the lowest resistance. After a few minutes, Sofia heads over and stations herself on a bike behind and to the side of me.
“I’ve got good news and bad news.”
“Bad first,” I say. I always like to get the worst over with.
&nbs
p; She ignores my request and says, “The good news is that Connor O’Riley was rescued last night.”
“Yes!” Elation and relief flood me.
“There was a raid on the detention center in the small hours of this morning, three prisoners were liberated, and they think an insurgent was injured in the attack.”
Not Quinn, please not Quinn. Or Connor. Let it be one of the other nameless, faceless rebels, I think callously. I’ve got enough O’Riley guilt on my conscience.
“But they all escaped and no one has been recaptured,” Sofia continues. “All of the spooks and intel are on full red-alert.”
“It’s fantastic news, thank you.” I feel buzzed and light with joy, like a helium balloon filled with happy gas.
“One of the guards was killed in the raid.”
Damn. Suddenly the idea of a resistance movement just got real.
“Is that the bad news?” I ask.
“I wish. No, I’ve found out something.” She speaks softly, but even above the whirr of the machines, I can hear that she has found out something significant. Something bad.
“I checked out that code you gave me. It wasn’t easy, because I knew it might be a phrase listed to ping on our intel systems when researched. And also because I had to check it in the different alpha-numeric sequences. But I got there in the end.”
For the benefit of the cameras, I lean forward, give a burst of pedaling at top speed, as if I’m not listening intently to every word she’s saying.
“And?” I prompt.
“It’s not a code, it’s a chemical formula. The first part is C11H17N2NaO2S.”
I try to remember my school chemistry modules, try to picture the periodic table with its chemical formulas for different elements.
“Sodium? Oxygen?” I venture.
“It’s the chemical formula for a substance called sodium thiopental. It’s a rapid-onset general anesthetic. Knocks you out immediately.”
That fits. I would expect there to be a strong anesthetic for rendering the M&Ms unconscious as quickly as possible.
The Recoil Trilogy 3 Book Boxed Set: Including Recoil, Refuse and Rebel Page 29