Dove Arising

by Karen Bao

“Don’t worry about it,” I cut in.

  The lights in the barracks go out, and we’re sunk in darkness. Good-nights and sleep-tights are exchanged, but I stay silent.

  In my top bunk, I’m unable to decide if I should sleep on my right or left side tonight. For the first time since I joined Militia, I can’t find slumber.

  13

  “OW . . . I SWEAR, THIS THING HURTS WORSE than a kidney stone.” Eri reclines on her cot, rubbing her hand over the sole of her foot.

  “Ever had a kidney stone?” Vinasa asks.

  “No, I’m too young; but you try walking around with a blister the size of your eyeball. . . .”

  The blister on her left big toe is not, in fact, the size of her eyeball. It isn’t even as big as a typical kidney stone, which would have a diameter of two centimeters or fewer. Eri should stop complaining. After a hard day’s work, we’d all stab noisy people to get some quiet, and the girl two cots away from Eri is looking particularly murderous.

  Eri weeps into her hands, mumbling about real shoes, real food, a real cot. . . .

  “Want me to take you to Medical?” Nash offers.

  “Oh no. They’ll laugh at me. It’s only a blister.”

  What a stubborn, spoiled girl. I’m fond of her, though, and know how to fix the problem in the most cost-effective manner possible. I swing over the edge of my cot and plummet a meter and a half to the ground, landing squarely on my feet. “I’ll get Wes.”

  As Eri beams, her pale face glows against her halo of orange hair. Her head bears an uncanny resemblance to the sun; the blushes on her cheeks could be solar flares on a much smaller scale.

  On the boys’ side of the room, Orion and Wes sit on a cot, playing handscreen chess. The names of the pieces used to be aristocratic and religious, outmoded words like queen and bishop, but the Committee changed them about twenty-five years ago to things like general for the most important and privates for the expendables. The players move them by touching and dragging, and they need to be meticulous. A move outside the rules causes that person’s handscreen to vibrate jarringly for five seconds or so.

  I’m not surprised when Orion snarls and slaps the back of his hand on his knee. “Ooh, damn it! Didn’t see your colonel there! I was so close.”

  Wes grins dimly, and that’s his entire reaction to winning.

  He’s not grinning anymore when we arrive at Eri’s cot, although she is.

  “I have a teensy bit of a blister,” she explains. “We tried draining it with a knife, but we couldn’t get through.”

  Wes prods Eri’s toe, producing a whimper of pain from her. “Give yourself more credit—this thing’s got to be punctured with a needle. Most of it is hidden under that monstrosity of a callus. . . . Hold on; I’ve brought some Medical knickknacks with me—it’s under my cot.”

  When he’s out of earshot, Eri says to me, “Thank you so much for inviting him over! You’re such a good wing-woman.”

  I gather she doesn’t mean I’m good with spaceship wingtip weapons.

  Nash cackles. “Chill, Eri. She brought Wes because Wes can fix your foot.”

  When Wes returns with his Medical kit, Eri studies him as attentively as she should have been studying her weapons manual. If he were any other boy, I might find it comical.

  Wes scatters first-aid miscellanea all over the floor: a needle, ethyl alcohol, bandages, scissors, and a miniature drill—which I hope he won’t use, for the sake of Eri’s mental health. He rubs the needle with the alcohol.

  If Eri’s feet stink, his face doesn’t show it. He prods her toe with the blunt end of the needle. Now that I’m closer to the infamous blister, I have to admit that it’s quite infected—it changes color depending on where pressure is applied.

  “You’re gonna be okay, baby.” Nash squeezes Eri’s hand so hard that both girls’ knuckles whiten.

  Eri begins to cry.

  Wes stacks his hand atop theirs. “It’s all going to be over soon. Are you ready?”

  Eri gapes at the pile of hands as if she can’t believe Wes’s is really a part of it. “Okay.”

  “This is one of many unglamorous parts of Militia.” Wes flips the needle around and shoves it into Eri’s toe.

  I shut my eyes before he pulls it out, and then wait five seconds before daring to look.

  Wes is mopping up the pus and blood with a piece of gauze. Though Eri weeps and wallows in the crisp memory of pain, the fully drained patch of dead skin won’t bother her anymore.

  After Wes cleans the needle, he bandages her foot. Pointing to a lone boot on the floor, he asks, “This yours? Would you mind if I have a look?”

  “Nope,” Eri pants.

  As Wes examines the shoe, he makes a tsk noise with his tongue. “Height-enhancing boots—really? These slope downward from heel to toe, which is causing rubbing at the front of the foot, especially with all that sliding around in weapons training. Get yourself normal boots the next time you go to the Exchange. As for the blister, take off the bandages in two days, and don’t pull off the dead skin, or it’ll get infected.”

  “Thank you so much.” Eri tips forward as if she’s trying to count his eyelashes. “You’re amazing.”

  Terror crosses Wes’s face before he bends down to clean up his Medical tidbits.

  As Wes hurries away, he shoves the last of the supplies into his kit. He narrowly misses ramming his forehead into a bedpost.

  Although I’m laughing along with Vinasa and Nash, I don’t like seeing Wes so uncomfortable. The next time Eri gets hurt, I’ll take her to Canopus instead.

  Just like Eri, I need better boots. Mine are worn out from the running, jumping, sliding, and all-around roughness of my time here, so I go to the Exchange with Eri and my other friends the next day. Orion, Wes, and a burly trainee I’ve seen them with before join our burgeoning group. Nash can barely contain her excitement at the thought of seven people doing something together besides train, and she buys each of us a small pouch of tangy dried cranberries in celebration. I pocket mine to eat later as a post-workout snack.

  Purchases at the Exchange, or anywhere else, are simple. As soon as someone walks out the door with merchandise, its price is deducted from their account balance. Vinasa decides upon some faintly glittery elastics for her hair, because “why not feel pretty without getting busted?” She uses one to tie off the end of her braid and coils it in a bun, tucking in the end to hide the sparkle. Defense has the strictest dress code of any department, so she’ll have to wait two years before she can properly show off her bauble. Neither men nor women are allowed ornaments because they make us easy targets. In contrast, the History Department, where Vinasa hopes to work, allows women to wear their hair unbound, and they can even adorn it with accessories, as long as the decorations aren’t unpatriotic.

  In the footwear section, rows upon rows of seemingly identical black boots line the walls. They all have special features: steel-weave, good insulation, superior traction. Eri picks up lightweight, flat-soled boots, and with Wes’s approval, decides to buy them without blinking at the exorbitant price of two hundred Sputniks. Two hundred. I was right about her family’s wealth.

  New boots are more than I can afford, but I manage to find a mildly used pair with “extra-durable” soles and built-in sheaths for five standard-issue daggers. I almost leave them behind because they’re a full twenty-six Sputniks. But Orion says, “If they get you a higher rank, it’ll make up for the price pretty quick.” So, with a twinge of guilt in my intestinal region, I stroll out of the Exchange, the synthetic leather already molding to my feet.

  14

  OUR STRESS HORMONES REACH NEAR-CRITICAL saturation as the second evaluation approaches. The instructors don’t reveal anything about its content, but I suspect it will include knowledge and skill assessments concerning the myriad of arms in the lectures and workouts.

  Even after an introduction to an array of other instruments, my weapon of choice is still the dagger. I perform decently with a crossbow, anoth
er weapon of old, but I find guns with copper bullets too clunky. The reloading is also a pain. I like Electrostuns, electrocution guns of an old Earthbound design, but they’re inefficient weapons, taking too much time to incapacitate an opponent. Militia members on patrol prefer using them to stun rule-breakers. My aim with the standard Lazy was at first shaky, literally, because I trembled whenever I pointed one at a moving target. The thought of putting a destructive violet beam through a living thing still disturbs me far more than the act of stabbing. It’s less organic.

  When evaluation day arrives, the instructors surprise us with a written test, which makes me cheer internally. “You’ll get more than enough practice with the weapons later on,” Yinha says. “But if you didn’t want to study them, we don’t want you. Today we’ll pick out who paid attention and who was just toying with them. Cool?”

  On all sides of me, trainees groan.

  Parts of the training floor invert to become rows of desks equipped with large touch screens. There are one hundred open-ended questions, such as “What is the percent efficiency of the standard laser blaster, and what is the wavelength of light emitted?” and “What are the dimensions of the ‘Little Sagittarius’ warhead?”

  It’s just another test in Primary. As I submit one answer after another, I feel grateful that I absorbed the weapons lectures, when quite a few of the other trainees stared off into the distance, talked with friends, or even slept.

  Forty-five questions in, I allow myself a break. I wiggle my fingers and roll my head in a circle, cracking the stiff joints in my neck. In the desk to my right, Nash crosses her legs, jiggling the top foot. Two desks behind her, Wes hunches over his desk, his head tilted in confusion as if the text were displayed sideways.

  I calculate projectile trajectories and draw collision vectors. I type out redox reactions illustrating the effects of chemical agents on humans and, thinking back to Primary class, describe the source organism or process involved in producing the agents. Although most of the questions don’t worry me, three make me wrinkle my nose and guess. I’m not the best at remembering which Earthbound civilization created which ancient weapon.

  This time, the results come out quickly. My heart plummets when I read the name at the top: Callisto Chi.

  Wes is second. A month ago, I wouldn’t have cared; I would have even cheered Callisto on because she’s a female in a position usually occupied by a male. But the fact that Jupiter’s girlfriend beat Wes annoys me. And with Jupiter placed sixteenth, I’m impressed that he hasn’t stabbed her in the arm yet.

  My name appears next to the number eight; I’m satisfied, but frustrated all the same. If I had just remembered who invented the musket, I might have made top seven and would have been en route to paying off Mom’s treatment.

  That night, at the Medical quarters, Wes and I go for a long run. I always run faster when he’s around, as if something’s chasing me, but I can’t figure out what it is.

  “What happened?” I can’t help but ask.

  “You mean on the written examination?” he clarifies, his breathing regular. “Unfortunately, I forgot some obscure facts. Like what exact model of Lazy the Lunar Forces used when they fought off Pacifia and Battery Bay.” The sarcasm in his voice practically drips onto the shiny floors. “Honestly, I didn’t pay attention during the weapons lectures. I thought I was done memorizing things after Primary.”

  “It’s hard not to learn when Yinha’s shouting facts at you.”

  “I’d disagree. . . . Tell me, do you have an easy time memorizing random bits of babble?”

  “As long as they’re interesting.” Ancient history surely isn’t.

  “I’m no good at it. Too much memorizing in biology; small wonder I had issues there.” He exhales deeply and lowers his voice. I can barely hear his whisper over our footfalls—and hopefully, neither can anyone listening to our handscreen feeds. “Well, I’m glad someone else is ranked first now. I needn’t fret about Jupiter’s miniature death squad as much.”

  My palms grow sticky with sweat, not from exertion but from genuine alarm. “Has he tried to harm you again?”

  “His sneaky associate did. Ganymede. If Orion hadn’t gone to the toilet two nights ago and found him hiding near my cot, I’d have a slit Achilles tendon . . . or so I’m told.”

  I stagger at the horrifying image.

  “Orion and my other friends agreed to rotate cots every night, so Jupiter’s minions have a harder time finding me in the dark.” Wes continues down the hallway, easily outpacing me.

  How resourceful and kind of them. “Whose idea?”

  “Mine.” The pride in Wes’s voice rings through that one word.

  We jog onward, giving the handscreen eavesdroppers nothing but footsteps to hear. When we’ve had enough, we return separately to the barracks, Wes unreasonably cheerful and me reasonably worried for him.

  After lights-out, I coil into a ball under the cotton coverlet and peruse Jupiter’s stats—all of them—which I’ve been putting off. He’s been accused of disorderly conduct and physical harm dozens of times, but the charges were always dropped, so they don’t show up on his quick-view profile. His mother works in Culinary—interesting—but his father’s employment is “Not Applicable.” If his family is broke like mine, Jupiter has a financial motive to thirst for a top trainee position. But he looks too well fed for that to be the case, and he couldn’t have bribed his way out of criminal charges, a common practice in Law trials, if he were poor.

  My handscreen lights up brighter with a new message, sending a vibration up my arm and making my teeth chatter. In the cot across from me, Vinasa flips onto her stomach and pulls a pillow over her head—she takes a while to fall asleep, I’ve noticed, and is grouchy when she’s trying.

  What bothers me more than the light is that no other trainee received a notification. With many a nervous swallow, I open the brief message, which turns out to be a joint communication from Medical and . . . Law?

  MIRA THETA HAS RECOVERED ENOUGH FOR TRANSFER TO THE PENITENTIARY. BAIL: 3,500 SPUTNIKS.

  To stifle the scream clawing at my insides, I bite down on my right fist.

  The system must have had a glitch. Mom was sick that day, with a disease that painted her skin pink and wrung air from her lungs. Even Wes, a supposed physiological expert, seemed to believe she needed treatment—unless he was pretending.

  And Penitentiary? Jail is for lawbreakers, not quiet Journalists like my mother, who has the same chance of causing trouble as, say, a daisy. She wouldn’t grumble in public, much less commit a crime worth 3,500 Sputniks of bail when that for petty theft is generally below 200. The only deeds involving that kind of money are murder and public offenses against the Committee—something like ranting against them before a crowd of thousands, which hasn’t happened for decades.

  But corporals, not privates, appeared at her “quarantine,” indicating its significance. And all the reasoning in the universe can’t counter the fact that official communications never—never—say what they don’t mean.

  Or do they? The Militia first took Mom to Medical. If she were destined for Penitentiary in the first place, why didn’t anyone say so? Did her “fever” merely serve as a reason to carry her off? I think of the Committee, six shadows on a screen; now I’m seeing just how shadowy the reasons behind their behavior are too. But the realization feels like stepping into the light.

  I pound a fist onto the lumpy Militia cot, causing Nash in the spot below me to toss and grumble. So I tuck my knees and my revulsion into my chest, shuddering into the night.

  15

  ON OUR FIRST AND ONLY DAY OFF, MY family fills my field of vision; everyone else on the training floor vanishes into the periphery. Cygnus is getting ever closer in height to the two curly haired twins who stand head and shoulders above the crowd. The three boys wear solemn expressions, their eyes cast forward and their mouths tight at the sides. One look at the group, and I know that they’ve gotten the same notification I received la
st night.

  Anka clings to Umbriel’s hand. When she sees me, she races over and attaches herself to me as if she has suction cups on her arms. Her eyes are shiny and swollen, her cheeks caked over with a film of salt. My sister has no tears left, and it chips away at my composure.

  “We missed you.” She’s more careful than before not to say what she’s thinking.

  “You look tired,” my brother says in a monotone.

  I rise on tiptoe, squeeze him tight with the arm not holding Anka, and plant an audible kiss on his cheek. His robes are now filled with as much air as flesh.

  When Cygnus pouts, embarrassed, Anka says, “Phaet, you’re acting like . . . like Mom. It freaks me out. Just a little.”

  Someone conspicuously clears his throat.

  “Umbriel!”

  Cygnus and Anka step aside so I can dash to Umbriel and throw my arms around him. Though my full body weight accompanies the embrace, he doesn’t stagger. “How are you?” Umbriel asks a normal question to pass us off as a normal group.

  Nod. Good.

  “Your arms got buff.” He sweeps his palm over my deltoid and triceps.

  I affirm his observation by squeezing his waist even harder.

  “Is training as nasty as people say?”

  “It got better. I had help.”

  He and Ariel look relieved to hear that.

  Nash is busy talking to her family; to their left, a tiny woman fusses over a rather annoyed Jupiter. Wes and Orion stand together, chuckling at something the latter just said.

  “Phaet, who are those people?” Ariel asks. “You seem preoccupied with them.”

  “Hey!” hollers Orion. The two boys jog over.

  In preparation for their arrival, Umbriel squeezes my wrist once. He doesn’t know Orion is of the more benevolent Militia sort, and even if I said so, Umbriel would still be uncertain. As for Wes—my distrust of him has reached a new height. Did he know Mom’s final destination when he helped take her away? If so, why has he trained me; why hasn’t he done me harm?