Barricade

by Lindsey Black

  It was the first and last time Sasha saw his father, or heard anything about him.

  ‘He seems okay?’ Enzo leaned against the wall and watched Jett and Matti disappear down the stairs. Sasha shrugged because it was hard to say how well another person was dealing with something, but Enzo was right that Jett seemed to be dealing. It was Sasha who wasn’t dealing. He was filled with an unexpected rage that had no outlet, and having never experienced that kind of anger in himself he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  It wasn’t that Sione Ioane was Jett’s father. In the end, that fact was useless to him. He knew Jett had no intentions of suddenly abandoning his post and fleeing south with the man, but the possibility of it made Sasha uneasy anyway. Not because he thought it would happen, but because it could and maybe because he thought it should. Jett didn’t belong on the Barricade, because no one did.

  Sasha knew his rage had nothing at all to do with Ioane or the townspeople. He was angry with Russia and the people who ruled it. They had given their own people a death sentence, denying them safety from disease but also the right to choose the direction of lives. He had been removed from parents he had never known, raised in an institution designed to produce adults who would obey and sent to serve in an isolated outpost for the rest of his days, all to maintain the illusion that they were in any danger at all from a populace that had perished by the hundreds of millions at their hands. The scale of the destruction was so immense Sasha struggled to process it. The depth of the betrayal he felt was inconsolable.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Enzo looked concerned, realising something was wrong but Sasha had no words to explain himself and just shrugged and turned away. How did you explain your whole life had been built on a lie and the people who were supposed to protect you had sentenced you to the lie instead? There were no words, so they hovered on the stairs in silence and waited for their guests to finish showering.

  Sione Ioane’s skin wasn’t as dark as it had appeared once it was no longer caked in dirt and the creamy, rich tan was so familiar Sasha stalled for a moment, just staring at it. It was that and the eyes, Sasha had decided. They were the inherited pieces that gave away Ioane’s progeny. And maybe the thick, silky black hair but that was harder to tell since Sione’s dreadlocks looked worn and aged and definitely not like his son’s hair.

  ‘Thank you,’ Sione’s words sounded heartfelt. ‘It has been years since I had a warm shower.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Sasha managed, checking over Sione’s shoulder as his female compatriot emerged from behind a hanging sheet, towelling her wet hair and grinning from ear to ear. She was tall, with short, curly black hair framing a long face with wide almond shaped chocolate eyes, a long nose and full lips.

  ‘Kazakhstan?’ Sasha guessed.

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded and tossed the towel over one of the drying racks, adjusting her trousers on her hips and then looking at them expectantly. ‘Where’s the boy?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call him a boy,’ Enzo grunted, pushing off the wall. ‘I mean, he’s short, but he’s not a child, and he’s got swords and knows how to use them.’

  Sione and his friend stared after Enzo as he sauntered down the stairs before they turned to look at Sasha, as if to check the validity of the statement. Sasha just shrugged and motioned for them to follow.

  ‘I’m Yana, by the way.’

  ‘Sasha,’ he grunted, really not caring what her name was. He wanted them out of his tower, but the desire was irrational. What he really wanted was Jett safe behind steel doors where the world couldn’t touch him, and since that was not possible he was stuck pretending he wasn’t bothered. He suspected he was failing.

  ‘You’re not at all what I expected,’ Yana said over her shoulder, looking him up and down.

  ‘What the hell were you people expecting?’ Because Ioane had said the same thing.

  ‘Someone old and scarred and grumpy,’ she shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose you have the grumpy down, but the rest of you is just plain delicious.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ He tripped on the step and crashed into the wall, glaring at her as she laughed and skipped a few steps ahead.

  ‘My son’s sleeping with him,’ Sione grumbled at her. ‘Keep your hands off.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Sasha bellowed at them both but they ignored him and followed Enzo into the infirmary, leaving him on the stairs to fume alone. He wasn’t even angry with them, just frustrated that things were out of his control. When he calmed down and realised what Sione had said, he felt immediately calm. He was sleeping with Jett, and Jett’s father knew it. Well, that was new. But he liked it. It helped him calm down enough to take the last few stairs into the infirmary.

  Jett was sitting on the bench against the far wall, watching Matti who was staring down into his microscope. Sasha felt more grounded as soon as he saw him, and heat washed through him when Jett immediately looked up and smiled when he found him. Sometimes it helped to know obsessions weren’t one sided.

  ‘Got a verdict?’ Enzo was asking, looking over Matti’s shoulder as if he would see anything that resembled an answer. Matti stepped aside and Yana took his place, looking into the microscope, her breath catching.

  ‘Is that a good gasp, or a bad gasp?’ Enzo asked. ‘Because, you know, it’s always hard to tell with women …’

  ‘Then you’re doing it wrong,’ Yana hissed at him, smiling brightly at whatever she was seeing in the microscope.

  ‘I’ve never had any complaints,’ Enzo grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

  ‘It will work,’ Yana stood up and she looked ten years younger as she flung herself at Sione, hugging him hard. They both had tears in their eyes, their joy all-consuming but watching them, Sasha just felt hollow. Jett watched him shrewdly and held out a hand they both knew Sasha wouldn’t refuse. He lunged for it, stepping in between Jett’s legs and burying his face in Jett’s shoulder while he took deep, calming breaths.

  Jett was immune. They could make a vaccine. Maybe he didn’t have all the facts but he knew in his heart that it was all true. Every sneaking suspicion he’d never allowed himself to look at too closely had been right. Russia had the vaccine all along. Russia had potentially invented the virus. Russia had destroyed the world to become the world, and he’d been a microscopic part of that destruction.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Jett whispered in his ear. ‘We can do the right thing, now.’

  Nodding, Sasha took another deep breath before lifting his head, but he didn’t move far, shifting around Jett’s knee and leaning against the bench so Jett was still pressed into his side.

  ‘How long to make it?’

  ‘Oh, weeks,’ Yana waved a hand. ‘We can get the equipment we need from the hospital in town. If we work together it will go quickly, but still weeks. Possibly months.’

  ‘Winter will be well and truly here by then, and it’s going to be brutal,’ Enzo pointed out. It was already one of the harsher seasons they’d seen.

  ‘We have the necessary supplies,’ Sione assured them. ‘We can make it through the winter, as long as there are no outbreaks.’

  ‘The cold always hinders the spread of the virus and if all your people are clean it’s just a matter of making sure no one comes into town for a few months who’s infected,’ Matti reasoned. ‘We could get each of the districts to help you build a wall around the business district, make it more defensible.’

  ‘You think they would agree to help us?’ Sione was looking at Sasha.

  ‘When they know the truth,’ Sasha agreed, his voice husky. ‘Besides, we’re not here to harm innocent people, we’re actually supposed to help. We’re only mandated to use violence for defensive purposes if attacked.’ Unfortunately people got stupid ideas pretty often and liked to throw themselves at the Barricade in a vain attempt to prove something that couldn’t be proven. Flesh and blood could not defeat its technologies.

  ‘Wait, really?’ Yana seemed shocked by this, as if it were news.

  ‘The Barricade has a long
history of being attacked,’ Sasha reasoned. ‘I don’t think anyone on the south side has ever stopped to think about what our jobs actually are, they just look at us as interference to what they want. Whether that’s a way north or food or shelter or the right to care for someone infected, we look like we’re always in the way.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ Sione agreed wryly. It was clearly not the way he was used to looking at it, but that was kind of the point. None of them were very accustomed to thinking from the other’s perspective. That was going to have to change.

  ‘It would be good, if you could get the other districts to help us with some defences,’ Yana added. ‘Though it will take some convincing on our part to let soldiers in.’

  ‘I’m sure if we can be convinced to set aside our prejudices your people can do the same,’ Matti was setting up some slides, sticking them together and labelling them. He put them aside in a small carry box.

  ‘Those prejudices stem from deep hurts,’ Sione reminded them.

  It had to be uncomfortable, having four trained, armed men glaring at you. Harder still when one of them was your son.

  ‘I can promise you for every hurt you’ve felt we have as many scars, just as deep and equally painful,’ Matti closed the lid on his little box of slides and put the rest of the blood he had taken from Jett into storage. It wasn’t lost on Sasha that Matti made sure everyone was watching him as he locked it and put the key with his dog tags around his neck.

  ‘We’ve lost many people,’ Yana argued, her losses clear on her face.

  ‘Do you see any old people here?’ Enzo growled and his own grief was still so raw no one could deny it. Yana bit her lip and looked away and Sasha wished it was so easy to forget.

  ‘Let me make this very clear,’ Sasha interrupted, standing to his full height and letting his own emotions drain away. It was one thing to insult him, another to insult Russia. Or the Barricade, or any number of things that represented a regime they could all agree was the evils of humanity put in a bag and shaken together. But he had to draw a line somewhere and he chose to draw it at memories. Ines was in that special place he kept locked deep inside, where none of the darkness could touch.

  He would not allow outsiders to enter his home and burn it down from the inside with thoughtless words and heartless sentiment.

  ‘We do not need you. We have an immune soldier, and a chemist and I’m sure when word gets out we’ll have more men with the capability of making a vaccine on the Barricade. We are under no obligation to give it to you, or to offer you any assistance. In fact, doing either of those things could be a death sentence from the Russian regime. We’re trying to do the right thing. Make your people do the same, or we’ll close the gates and we’ll call in an air strike on the town. Do you understand?’

  Sometimes silence was a really nice thing.

  ‘Is that to show the other districts?’ Sasha nodded at Matti’s carry case.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. You’re leaving,’ he told Sione and Yana plainly, holding out an arm to indicate the way. They looked stunned and didn’t move for a moment.

  ‘Now, that’s not necessary. We don’t want to argue.’ Sione held up his hands, placating, oblivious to the anger Sasha had been feeling all along. ‘We all want the same thing here.’

  ‘No, we don’t,’ Sasha disagreed. ‘But you’ve been given a choice. Now, go and make it happen or don’t bother knocking on our door again. That’s entirely up to you. But you need to get out of my house right this second because you’re definitely not welcome in it.’

  ‘Alright,’ Sione agreed, placing a heavy hand on Yana’s shoulder when she opened her mouth to argue. ‘We’ll speak to our people and we’ll return when we have their answer.’

  ‘But …’ Sione’s grip on Yana’s shoulder looked painful. None of them said a word as he pushed her ahead of him to the stairs and started down. Enzo followed them so Sasha stayed where he was, counting backward from fifty in his head while he waited for the sound of their footsteps to grow too soft to hear.

  ‘Well, that was probably more like what they expected,’ Matti quipped.

  ‘What the fuck does that even mean?’

  ‘You do know people call you the devil, right?’ Jett asked softly and Sasha turned to gape at him.

  ‘They do not!’

  ‘They do,’ Matti corrected.

  ‘How do you not know that?’ Jett leaned back on the bench and kicked his legs idly, jabbing Sasha in the knee.

  ‘Why the hell do they call me that?’

  ‘Uh, because you’re the leader of District Six-Six-Six? And your designation number ends in six-six-six? It’s like a running joke all over Russia.’ Matti rolled his eyes. The ‘duh’ was implicit.

  ‘And because of that raid about five years ago,’ Jett added.

  ‘That too,’ Matti agreed.

  ‘What raid?’

  ‘I read about it on my way here,’ Jett told him, grinning wide. ‘It was all about a night raid where you basically slaughtered everyone in town before they even knew you’d left the tower.’

  ‘That outbreak?’ He looked to Matti for clarification.

  ‘He just remembers it as another night on the wall,’ Matti explained to Jett.

  ‘But it was in a textbook they gave me before coming here,’ Jett told them both. ‘Like, they re-wrote the book so that people would do it your way. That’s pretty huge, right? And it was sneaky! Even at the facility they called you the devil. Everyone does.’

  ‘That’s awful!’ He’d worked so hard to build a reputation for being good at his job, and that was what they called him? Sasha slumped against Jett’s shoulder and decided it was officially the worst day of his life. His entire world had metaphorically collapsed and they were just dousing it in oil and setting the ruins on fire. He wanted to crawl into bed and hibernate until the sun came back.

  Warm hands cupped his face and drew him in close, kissing his closed lids and feathering the familiar scent of the man across his skin with each breath.

  ‘It’s very sexy,’ Jett mumbled against his cheek.

  ‘What?’ Though he felt a little mollified.

  ‘You need to give orders like that more often.’ Jett pressed in tighter against him, his hands falling to Sasha’s shoulders, kneading. ‘A lot more often. Especially in bed.’

  ‘Do you two mind?’ Matti groused, but there was no heat to it. ‘Here, take these to the other districts and see what they want to do. You’re gonna have to stay over somewhere, so try not to embarrass us with kinky couch sex, yeah?’ He handed the small box to Sasha.

  ‘I thought you would go?’

  ‘I would, but they’re going to want to make decisions and that requires you, and I suspect you don’t want to be leaving Jett here at the moment.’

  He didn’t. Leaving Jett anywhere was a bad idea. There was a chance the townspeople would decide they didn’t want any help and if they had the numbers Sasha suspected then they could easily convince themselves it was worth trying to take what they wanted instead of working together. He didn’t trust Ioane, certainly not where Jett was concerned.

  ‘You think they’re going to make a play for the tower?’ Jett looked between them, stunned. Sasha understood his confusion. It was stupid to attack the Barricade, there was no way to win but people did stupid things when confronted with choices they didn’t like and if Yana was any indication the people in town were not going to like the choice.

  ‘Send Anna with a note to Six-Five, explaining everything and one of the slides,’ Sasha decided. ‘There hasn’t been as much activity on their side of town, but they’re still going to cop some fallout from all of this. Jett and I will go through to Six-Seven-Zero. I want Dyogtin’s opinion on everything, and if it all goes to shit I want him to have our backs. Set up a rifle in the lighthouse sniper station and man it together. Keep the tower gates sealed on both sides.’

  ‘Got it,’ Matti was already grabbing a new pair of slide
s to make up a final copy for District Six-Six-Five.

  ‘I heard all that,’ Enzo called out and then he appeared on the stairs. ‘I’ve sealed the gates, all locks are closed and the steel bars are on. Nothing’s coming through. I’ll go up and set the sniper station up, you guys get going, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’

  ‘Same,’ Matti acknowledged. ‘The smart thing would be for them to work with us, but … well, people don’t have a great history of doing smart things. I mean, we’re standing on a giant fucking wall, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Sasha grunted, grabbing Jett’s hand and leaving them to it. He took the stairs three at a time until Jett pulled back and he realised his strides were too long for Jett to keep up and he shortened it back to two. They grabbed the packs he and Matti had used and were relieved they hadn’t unpacked yet. With the water bottles refilled, they put on their coats and headed out into the afternoon.

  It was achingly cold but the wind had died down and while there was no blue visible in the sky, the darker clouds lingered far on the northern horizon and didn’t look as though they would reach the Barricade until well into the evening. If they pushed hard, Sasha was sure they could at least make it to Six-Six-Eight and possibly to Six-Six-Nine before the snow returned.

  They made good time. Jett kept pace with him easily and didn’t appear to tire. He barely seemed to exert any effort at all and it was a niggling reminder for Sasha that he wasn’t entirely normal. Not that he was abnormal, more …enhanced. It hurt to wonder if maybe he would never know exactly what was done to Jett.

  ‘You could run there in half the time it’s taking us to walk, right?’ He realised suddenly and knew he was right when Jett guiltily looked over at him.