Barricade

by Lindsey Black

  He’d asked for it, really. He shouldn’t have pinched that guy’s extra ration bar at dinner. That guy had earned it, doing something unimaginable no doubt. He’d likely bled for it. Jett hadn’t. But he’d been so hungry, and he did stupid things when he was hungry. No regrets.

  Jett stood perfectly still, shifted his weight and let the blade of his Ssangdo slice the air in a brief, stunning arc before it halted at waist-height and his body immediately stilled. He took a deep breath, shifted his weight, lifted his arms and turned sharply before dropping the Ssangdo once again. Stilled. Took a deep breath …

  ‘I’m pretty sure you’ve spun in that tiny little circle a thousand times already,’ Enzo drawled as he let the door of the tower slam closed. He had a mug of coffee in one hand and binoculars in the other.

  The sun was yet to rise. Jett had left Sasha curled up asleep under the blankets in the lighthouse and gone to fetch one of his swords when he realised the snow had stopped and the weather was for once adequate for practice. Not that he needed perfect weather, but torrential rain or wind that threatened to toss him from the wall was not his idea of ideal.

  The sword was a useless weapon on the Barricade; you couldn’t stab the people down below, you needed a gun. And in town the Q-hab suit made the sword unwieldy, more of a danger to him than anyone he might encounter. But the familiarity of it was soothing and he refused to let his skills deteriorate.

  ‘The whole point is to do it until it’s a reflex,’ Jett informed him, sliding the sword back into its sheath and tossing the sheath over his shoulder so it settled comfortably across his back.

  ‘Uh-huh. And how many times have you done it?’ Enzo sipped his coffee.

  ‘Like a million?’ Jett guessed.

  ‘Right. Pretty sure it’s a reflex by now, buddy. Step in the lighthouse?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s sleeping,’ Jett glanced up at the glass windows and felt heat bloom in his chest. He suspected that was a bad sign, but there was something about Sasha Stepanova. Jett felt like he’d been waiting his whole life just to meet him, and now he was happy to spend the rest of his life simply being with him. He had no greater goal or aspiration, which was stupid but the truth nonetheless.

  ‘I don’t want to know what you’ve done in my lighthouse,’ Enzo grumbled at the expression on his face, poking Jett’s cheek with his finger. He scowled and placed his whole hand on Jett’s cheek then. ‘Pavlova, you’re freezing! Go put some damn clothes on!’

  ‘I have clothes on,’ Jett growled at him, gesturing to his thermal shirt and cams.

  ‘Put more clothes on!’ Enzo argued, already stomping back to the tower and yanking the door open. He returned a second later with the spare coat, dumping it around Jett’s shoulders one-handed.

  It drowned him and Jett cast him a filthy look.

  ‘Where’s your coat, then?’

  ‘In the lighthouse.’ He glanced that way again and couldn’t hold back the happy sigh.

  ‘And you’re not wearing it because?’

  ‘I used it as an extra blanket. For Sasha.’

  ‘Ines, help me,’ Enzo moaned and held a hand up to the sky beseechingly. ‘I’m gonna take Anna for a walk before the sun’s up. You want to come?’ He pointed back toward the tower and didn’t wait for a response, just started heading that way. Jett had to jog to catch up, which was uncomfortable in the sack Enzo had put him in but preferable to waking Sasha up. It was obscene for a man to look that beautiful sleeping, but Jett had spent hours staring at him and memorising the lines of his face until he grew restless. He’d been practising the sword to clear his thoughts.

  Enzo was waiting at the western tower door and pushed it open as soon as Jett closed the eastern entry. Anna shot out like a herd of imaginary sheep were waiting to be rounded up, disappearing into the hazy fog settling over the Barricade.

  It was quiet and comfortable, slowly wandering along the wall in the pre-dawn and Jett was surprised he liked the company.

  ‘This is nice,’ he admitted.

  ‘It’s one of the reasons I don’t mind having last shift,’ Enzo admitted, smiling. He was a handsome man when he smiled, his thick black curls loose and springing in the gentle breeze. Their skin was almost the same tone, Jett noticed and for some reason that made him feel good.

  ‘What’s with the weird smile?’

  ‘I just … realised our skin’s similar. Like we could be brothers.’

  ‘We are brothers, dumbarse,’ Enzo grunted at him. ‘The four of us. Well, three of us, you and Sasha are doing unbrotherly things to one another so let’s not include that, yeah?’

  He blushed, but Enzo wasn’t being mean he was just joking and it felt good. It was a relief to know Matti and Enzo weren’t going to gut him in his sleep or toss him from the wall for sleeping with Sasha. He hadn’t thought they would, really, but it was nice that they seemed to legitimately not care as long as everyone was happy.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘For what?’ Enzo tossed an ancient looking tennis ball and Anna went streaking across the stones after it.

  ‘Accepting me. I know … it can’t be easy.’

  Enzo was quiet. Anna brought the ball back and he tossed it again and she ran after it once more. Brought it back and he threw it again, still without responding. Jett thought he wasn’t going to when he did.

  ‘It’s easy,’ Enzo admitted. ‘That’s part of what makes it hard. I wanted to hate you, but that would be stupid. We have to live together until we die. There’s no point in hating you.’

  ‘Still,’ Jett mumbled, feeling empty because he had no idea what loss felt like. He’d never cared about anyone enough to care if he lost them. He missed the idea of people, rather than their loss. He didn’t have parents, but he missed the idea of them and what he thought that would be like. He’d never had friends, until the Barricade, and so he hadn’t cared when his acquaintances left, or passed. That was changing though. He imagined what it would feel like to lose Sasha and something in him broke a little.

  ‘No, not still,’ Enzo argued, grabbing Jett’s arm and pulling him around to face him, leaning down so they were face to face and putting his hands on Jett’s shoulders so he couldn’t move away. Enzo’s eyes were a deep chocolate, with little lines around them from squinting when he laughed. Jett wished there were lines on his face from laughing.

  ‘Jett, it’s easy. The way we work together, Ines and I didn’t have that. We butted heads over everything. He was the biggest pain in the arse! We argued, we fought. He broke my nose seventeen times! He was always rushing off and getting us in trouble, it was a cluster-fuck of epic proportions but we loved each other so we made it work. But you work without even trying. You’re like a shadow I didn’t even know I needed and no it’s not the same. It’ll never be the same. You are not Ines. Ines is never coming back. But you’re still my brother. Just … a little one.’ His smirk was outrageous. ‘I always wanted a little brother.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good thing,’ Jett muttered but he didn’t tear his gaze from Enzo, searching his face for any sign that his words were not the whole truth. He needed it to be true.

  Enzo’s hand slid around the back of his head into his hair and tugged gently.

  ‘I don’t hate you. I don’t resent you, not even a little. You make all of us better and the way Sasha looks at you—I could never take that from him. So I don’t want to hear it again, alright? Not ever. You’re not Ines and that’s okay. You’re not a replacement, you’re just something new. You’re one of us.’

  Jett was horrified to feel tears pricking behind his eyes and tried to look away but Enzo held him firm with the grip in his hair and used his other thumb to brush the tears away, grinning.

  ‘I made the super soldier cry. God I’m good.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw your tags. Neat designation there, kiddo.’

  Confused, Jett tugged his dog tags out and stared down at them, really not understanding. He couldn’t actually remember
bothering to read them. He stuck a hand inside Enzo’s jacket and pulled his out to compare, ignoring Enzo’s bark of laughter.

  ‘IAC-PTE-NREBUD666-21619023?’ He frowned at it, comparing.

  ‘Immigrated Acquired Citizen?’ That made sense, his own read acquired prisoner citizen.

  ‘Have you seriously never bothered to look at your tags?’ Enzo was stunned, eyes wide and mouth open as if he wanted to say something more but wasn’t sure it would go over well. It usually didn’t when you implied someone was stupid.

  ‘Why would I?’ They were unimportant. Just something he was made to wear so his handlers would know who he was because to them he was only a number.

  ‘Well, yours has a nice little SS in it, I noticed. I have no idea what all the other letters mean but SS usually means some kind of secret super soldier bullshit, so good for you, yay for me.’

  ‘It does?’ He was still blinking at the two sets of letters and numbers, wondering why it suddenly pleased him to have them both in his hands. He wondered if Sasha would let him have his, if maybe he’d let him swap. That was definitely not allowed but he wanted them anyway.

  ‘I swear, sometimes it’s like talking to a five year old,’ Enzo grabbed his tags and shoved them back inside his shirt, then tucked Jett’s back inside his, patting his chest over them. ‘Don’t let other people see those, okay?’

  ‘I didn’t let you see them,’ Jett wasn’t sure why he was being lectured, and it annoyed him that he didn’t like it. It shouldn’t have mattered how Enzo spoke to him, but it did.

  ‘I saw them at dinner, I’m trained to notice stuff like that. I noticed because the letters were unusual; you weren’t just a Private.’

  ‘But why does that matter?’

  Enzo was quiet, releasing his hold on him and picking up Anna’s ball to toss again.

  ‘It doesn’t matter to me. Or Matti, or Sasha. Like I said, you’re one of us. But I don’t know about the others. Everyone lives in their own tower, you know?’

  Jett didn’t know at all. Of course everyone lived in their own tower, four men to a team. That was the way it worked, the way they were assigned.

  ‘We don’t care that you’re from a testing facility,’ Enzo huffed. ‘But someone else might. It’s better not to show people when you’re different.’

  ‘That seems … stupid.’ Why would they take offence to something he’d had no say in? He hadn’t asked to be raised in the testing facility.

  ‘That’s people,’ Enzo corrected, looking stern as he waited for Anna to come back and then tossed the ball toward the tower, turning to go home for breakfast. ‘Find the people who accept you for you and surround yourself with them. Don’t let anyone else in. That’s how you stay alive.’

  Jett contemplated that warning all the way home, watching the shadows simmer and dance in the town below. He’d thought nothing could feel threatening standing on the Barricade, but he hadn’t thought to think of the Barricade as the threat. In retrospect, that was pretty fucking stupid.

  ‘Hey, wait up!’

  Enzo was striding ahead and looked over his shoulder to see Jett rushing after him.

  ‘Maybe if you grew a few inches, Pavlova,’ he slung an arm around Jett’s shoulders and slowed his stride.

  ‘Maybe if you weren’t all freakin’ giants,’ Jett spat back but he was warm and, he realised belatedly, happy.

  18

  C-SGT-NREBUD666-21651666

  Pressure. It was hard to remember what to do when your brain was misfiring, sending mixed messages. Run. Hide. Fight. Slaughter them all. Get revenge. Flee. But he stayed still, pushed the gauze harder against the wound in Matti’s shoulder and took deep, calming breaths. Pressure. Wounds needed pressure.

  ‘It’s gonna be fine, Sasha. It’s not bad.’ Matti would know, right? This was his thing.

  ‘There’s a lot of blood.’

  ‘No shit, you killed like a hundred fuckheads,’ Matti chuckled. Winced. Quieted. ‘Remind me to never piss you off.’

  ‘You’re pissing me off now.’ Anger. Fear. Sometimes they were the same beast.

  ‘Ouch,’ Matti jerked. ‘That’s … insightful.’

  ‘No shit. Here was I, having this quasi-romantic life is all about me moment and he goes and says that!’ Sasha was still reeling. He’d lain in Jett’s lap for three hours, wide awake and watching Jett watch the town. And then it had been his turn to stare endlessly while nothing happened, but for some reason it hurt to look at.

  Jett curled in his lap and drooled on his thigh while Sasha wondered when he’d lost touch with the world south of the Barricade. If maybe there was a moment when he stopped seeing people and started seeing things that would inevitably die. They would all die, of course, but not from the infection. He’d started assuming that was the fate of everyone south, and it had warped his perception of what was happening. He’d continued with the party line that everyone wanted to live in Russia, because Russia was the best. He’d not considered that people wanted to live in Russia because they wanted to live.

  ‘I feel like I must be a terrible person,’ Sasha admitted, stepping over a shattered pot with a now overgrown plant sticking out of its shattered remains.

  ‘Oh, don’t be so dramatic,’ Matti snorted, peeking through a window into an empty house that looked like it had been raided ten too many times, the door off its hinges and rotting on the ground. ‘You were raised in the system. The only thing you were ever taught was what they want you to believe. The only reason you think any different is because you’ve lived with the rest of us idiots.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re idiots,’ Sasha grumbled, disliking Matti putting any of them down, and not sure he liked Matti’s theory on his indoctrination either.

  ‘We’re heading into town to try and get someone to talk with us after they painted half the buildings in our district with instructions for us to stay away,’ Matti reasoned. ‘We’re definitely idiots.’

  There didn’t seem any point in arguing with that, so Sasha continued to pick his way through the street, searching for signs of habitation and hoping anyone who saw them stopped to say ‘hi’ instead of tossing a grenade their way. Matti was right. They were idiots.

  Though, really, he had to admit he wished he’d been there for the paint ball outing yesterday. That sounded like fun, and he thought the result was hilarious. He doubted the town people agreed, but they didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humour, so he didn’t really care what they thought. The paint was water-based anyway, and would eventually wash off in the rain. In the meantime they could enjoy the amusing mural.

  They took the scenic route from the gate through town toward the business district, hoping for a more sympathetic reception. The majority of the slogans were on the north side of town and Sasha was hoping the southern end would be less patrolled. It was a vain hope, and one he knew could get them into trouble. It certainly hadn’t worked for District Six-Six-Eight. But the snow had arrived, which meant no-one was leaving until spring and it would be stupid to stay at odds at the worst time of year.

  Enzo and Jett were watching them from the Barricade with Anna. They’d argued all through breakfast, demanding to come along because obviously the town folk would protest their presence and four was better than two against a mob. But Sasha argued four was not enough against a mob and someone had to guard the tower and report back if it all went wrong. They hadn’t liked it, but they had agreed.

  It was reassuring, knowing there were eyes on them that intended to help, not harm.

  ‘We’ve got movement to the left,’ Matti indicated with a nod of his head and Sasha scanned the area, spotting the two figures in an empty window across the street on the first floor. He couldn’t tell if they were armed.

  ‘Just keep going.’ Sasha caught more movement up ahead behind an abandoned truck and indicated the presence to Matti but didn’t slow down.

  There were numerous sets of eyes watching, but they continued to gingerly pick their way through the
centre of town toward the business district, passing an increasing deluge of graffiti as they drew closer.

  ‘Creative,’ Matti rumbled sarcastically. They weren’t, just the same old rhetoric people always shouted in times of war. The enemy should die. They weren’t welcome. They were murderers. They were commie scum. Evil dictators. Sasha snorted at that one, certain only one person could be a dictator at one time, but also because they’d drawn a giant phallus a plus symbol and a potato. Maybe that one was a little creative.

  They were almost to the main street. Two five storey buildings sat on either side of the alley that would have opened into the central business district, shielding them from the Barricade. Before they could step back into Enzo’s line of sight, shadows shifted and men stepped out of hidden doorways and windows in the dim light, guns drawn, swaddled in rags and makeshift cloaks that looked better fitted to the desert than a slum.

  ‘Can’t you read?’ A male voice, somewhere to their right.

  ‘I would like to speak to someone in charge,’ Sasha requested, though he didn’t lower his weapon. That would have been stupid. Or … more stupid than what they were doing.

  ‘No one wants to speak to you!’ A different voice, still male.

  ‘I don’t think that’s the case,’ Sasha tried to be reasonable, but it was hard when people were pointing their weapons at him in a threatening manner. Harder still when he wasn’t even sure why.

  ‘You’re not welcome here!’ A female voice. Sasha sighed, wondering if he would even be able to get the same person to speak twice.

  ‘Is there anyone willing to speak to us? We have no quarrel with you, I swear. We would just like to speak with someone in charge.’