Beyond the Red

by Ava Jae

  “Do you require assistance?” it chirps again. Not sure if it’s talking to him or me, but I don’t dare answer—any “assistance” would probably involve more Sepharon soldiers and major retribution from a fuming Jarek. I almost want to laugh, but somehow I don’t think it’d improve his mood. Plus it’d probably hurt like prickleplant venom.

  “Naï,” Jarek snaps, swatting at the thing. “Get away from here.”

  It dodges his hand and races away.

  Jarek releases me and I try to duck out of the way, but his hand grabs my shoulder and his other fist finds my jaw, then stomach, then nose. I drop to my knees, gasping for air, but he yanks me to my feet again and shoves me back toward the port. “You should be more careful,” he mutters to my back. “Another fall like that may very well kill you.”

  My stomach is aching, my head is pounding, my face is burning, and my lips are sticky and salty. But there’s little I can do like this, so I walk in silence back to the line of weeping, cuffed women. The kids are gone now.

  Jarek shoves me to the back of the line and nods to his soldiers, who lead us forward onto palace grounds.

  Those who aren’t crying stare in awe at the grounds—at the fountains glistening with jewels, the thin white trees with glimmering silver leaves reaching toward the clear purple sky, the stark white pathways cutting through the crimson sand. In another situation, when I didn’t feel lightheaded and vaguely like throwing up, and I didn’t have blood pouring down my face, I may have appreciated the landscape. I mean, most of us have never seen anything but waves of endless sand, so the complex is impressive.

  But as the red gates close off the walls behind us, I can’t help but think we’re walking through an elaborate prison.

  They lead us around the side of the main building—a glittering white palace with tall, twisting spires and nearly as many windows as there are white bricks—and past several smaller, but equally extravagant buildings. We stop before a long squat building bordering the far end of the wall. There aren’t any windows.

  The women go quiet as we’re led inside. Cold tile nips the pads of my feet and frigid air blasts around us—they have a cooling system, I guess, except it’s on way too high. The building itself looks like an enormous tiled hallway with rows of metal doors. A person stands beside each door, still and silent as stone. Their silence isn’t what sends a chill over my skin—it’s their appearance. Their heads are shaved, their eyes are a clouded gray, and their skin is so white, I’m sure it must be painted or powdered over with something.

  Then there are the tattoos. They all wear the same matching black bands of illegible, circle-like text on their arms. Signs of slavery.

  They wear the same white knee-length skirt and the women have their chests wrapped in some sortuv white silk cloth. Are they clones? No, there are differences in their facial features and slight variations in height and build. They aren’t clones, but they’re made to look like them.

  This is what we will become. This is what they will turn us into—hollow, nameless copies. We lose more than our families, our homes, our freedom.

  We lose our individuality. We lose ourselves.

  I linger in front of the room for just a mo, making eye contact with the servant across the way. His stare is expressionless. Have the nanites that clouded his eyes made him blind, too?

  Then a soldier gives me a shove and I stumble inside.

  The door slams shut behind me. The lights are brighter in here, and the artificial whiteness makes us all look two shades too pale. There are three chairs at the front of the room with three metal bins of some sort beside them. A larger container is in the center of the room, and on the west wall is another door.

  The cuffs demagnetize as Jarek steps to the front of the room—I’m not sure if he deactivated them or if someone else did, but I guess it doesn’t matter. Most of the women have stopped crying now, so he doesn’t need to do anything to make sure he’s the center of attention—no one utters a sound.

  “Take off all of your clothing, handcuffs included, and place it in the bin in the center of the room.” He points to the bin. “After you have undressed, stand against the walls. Anyone who disobeys will be punished severely.” No one moves, and he scowls. “Begin.”

  Still, no one makes any immediate movements. The women glance at each other and a couple whisper, but no one is undressing.

  And then it hits me—they don’t understand him.

  Jarek pulls out a red-barreled phaser and shoots the woman nearest him in the forehead. She drops like a rock and the women all scream. “Silence!” he shouts, but his voice is lost in the hysteria. He points the phaser at another woman and I shove my way to the front of the room.

  “WAIT!”

  Jarek’s eyes narrow as I step in front of the targeted woman. “If you think I won’t shoot you, half-blood, just because—”

  “They don’t understand you,” I say. “They don’t speak Sephari.”

  “You speak it well enough.”

  “I was taught, but I’m an exception. Most of my people are not.”

  He scowls. “Then they’ll learn quickly enough.”

  “Just let me translate. No one else has to die—I’ll explain.”

  He hesitates, then nods and lowers the phaser. “Instruct them incorrectly and you won’t be the only one to suffer.” He gestures toward the dead woman with the phaser.

  I grimace and face the women. I don’t like standing up here, like their spokesperson. I don’t like the dirty looks and the glares—if they didn’t see me as a traitor before, they do now.

  I take a breath. “We have to obey him, or he’ll kill us.”

  Silence. How can I put this delicately? There’s really no safe way to tell a room full of women to strip naked, so I point to the bin in the center of the room. “He says we need to put our clothes and handcuffs in there.”

  Uncomfortable understanding passes through them like a rolling sandstorm. I half expect them to resist or argue—our women are not known for being docile—but after more than a couple of glances at the dead woman on the floor, the first few begin to pull off their clothes. Then others follow.

  I glance at Jarek, and he nods once. Then he gives me a pointed stare and nods to the bin and—oh. Right.

  I’m not exempt from this order.

  I’m already shirtless, so I start with the cold cuffs around my wrists. They pop off at my touch and clatter on the tile. Then I move on to the scarf tied tightly around my neck. It’s stiff in some places and so soaked in others that my fingers come off a deep purple-red just brushing past it. My muscles ache as I gingerly unwrap the scarf and bundle it into a ball, but I don’t feel a rush of warmth down the side of my neck, so at least I won’t bleed to death. I slip out of my pants and toss the clothes into the bin in the center of the room, trying not to feel self-conscious.

  Of course, when you’re the only naked guy in a room of naked women and clothed Sepharon soldiers, it’s a little hard not to feel every glance. And I do get glances—from the women, mostly. One stares at me openly, which is awkward, but most turn away—though whether in disgust, modesty, or embarrassment, I’m not sure. Some of the guards give me disgusted looks, but that probably has more to do with the faded light lines mapping my body than my stuff. I think.

  I stand at the front and face Jarek with my shoulders pulled back and my eyes boring into his. He smirks and I keep my face expressionless. This may be uncomfortable, but I won’t let him see just how much I’d like to reach into that bin and put my pants back on.

  A blast of cold air whisks through the room and I suppress a shiver. Maybe the frigid cooling system isn’t an accident. They want us to feel cold, naked, vulnerable.

  They want us to know we’re at their mercy.

  When the last of the women have abandoned their clothes, Jarek nods and points at the four seats. “Four at a time,” he says. “Sit.”

  I go ahead and move first, and a couple nervous women follow suit. The chair
is metal and a shock of ice stabs my skin as I sit down. I shudder and fold my arms over my chest, then rub my palms on my thighs. Nothing helps—my skin is a field of bumps and frozen hairs.

  A soldier steps behind me, grabs a fistful of my hair, and pulls my head back. Heat and pain sears my neck and slice down my spine as my heart jerks against my ribcage—they’re going to kill us? But then a low humming noise starts up behind me and something warm buzzes over my skull. A clump of dark hair falls to the tile.

  Oh.

  I close my eyes. Try to ignore the gazes burning my skin. The hair sliding off my shoulders. The endless buzzing and hum of the hot razor-thing against my scalp. The sniffling of a woman beside me, the chill of the never-ending frozen air, the stubborn pain prickling my neck.

  Everyone’s going to see my ears now. It’ll be even more impossible to hide what I am.

  Not that they didn’t already know.

  The humming stops and the soldier shoves me forward. I stumble and resist the impulse to run my hand over my skull. I don’t want to feel it. I don’t want to notice how my head feels light, how the chilly air blows directly on my scalp, how I have nothing to protect my neck, nothing to hide my ears.

  One by one, the women sit in the chairs. One by one their hair falls around their feet, swept up into bins. One by one we stand against the wall.

  We already look more like the servants standing outside the room. We’re already becoming them.

  When the last woman is shaved, Jarek opens the door on the west wall and gestures inside. I don’t need to translate this time—they move inside with their eyes low.

  This next room is identical to the last—tile floors and white walls, bathed in light—except this room is four times as large and has row upon row of long metal tub-looking things. Beside each tub is a pale, bald, gray-eyed servant.

  “One per bath,” Jarek says, but no one really needs the instruction. We line up beside the tubs, which I can now see are filled with what looks like purple water pumped with miniature bubbles. The servant at my station doesn’t react to my gender or ears or light markings. She barely looks at me at all as Jarek instructs us to climb in.

  I step inside and gasp—the water is ice-cold and fizzes around my skin. I submerge myself before I can change my mind—and regret it. Whatever this is isn’t water and it sets my neck on fire. I surface, gasping, spitting the salty liquid, pressing down on the wound in my neck, but the pain doesn’t stop and the agony reaches up into the side of my face and down into my shoulder. The servant takes my hand and pulls it away from my neck. I almost protest, but then she takes a wet cloth and starts to clean the gash. It hurts worse than the fizzy water, but I grit my teeth and stare at the bright white ceiling and bear it. As much as it hurts, I need this. At least I won’t die of infection.

  When she finishes wiping around my neck, she pushes my head under again. The bubbles gather around the wound and it stings, but not as badly as the first time. My skin burns from the frigid water as I resurface and my teeth chatter loudly, but she works fast, cleaning the blood off my face, chest, neck, and hands. Soon she nods and I can climb out. She passes me a towel and I dry myself as quickly as I can manage. I do my head last, and even though I’m expecting it, the fabric on my scalp sends a cold shock blossoming through my gut.

  We enter another room. This one is just as large as the last one, except instead of tubs there are chairs, and before the chairs is a long row of glass floor-to-ceiling tubes with an opening in the front and back. Jarek instructs us to step into the tubes, then proceed to one of the chairs, and the women look at me to lead as example.

  So I step into a tube. The openings in front and behind me close, and bright blue light shines over me. My skin tingles like there’s an invisible energy in the air prickling my skin, then the light disappears and cold water dumps over me followed by a jet of frigid air. I’m shivering when the tube opens up again and I step onto the tile. I rub my arms and oh—I know what the tube did—the hair on my arms is gone. I’m entirely hairless.

  Frowning, I try not to imagine what I must look like—stars know completely hairless isn’t exactly attractive—as I step toward a chair. There are two Sepharon men at each station. They’re not dressed like soldiers, but they wear a similar white and red high-collar shirt and long pant uniform that seems so popular here. I sit and bite my lip as the cool metal warms under my naked, half-frozen ass and back.

  The men move without a word. The guy to my left slides a dark metal cuff over my upper arm and holds it there. The inner ring glows bright red, then my breath catches as the skin beneath the cuff burns. Before I can ask what the cuff is, the man to my right turns my head and pushes my cheek against the chair, then plunges a needle into my neck, just below the gash. I shout, then clamp down on my tongue. I’ve felt worse pain today, but the bite of the needle is deep and my neck is already badly bruised. He releases me and his partner slides the cuff off my arm, and I understand what the cuff was for.

  I’m marked.

  I don’t need to read the tattoo to know what it says—I’m forever branded a servant of Elja. A slave.

  I slide off the chair and wait on the far end of the room as women make their way over after being tattooed. Their eyes are numb and they don’t look at me.

  Even now, after all we’ve been through, I’m still something to be avoided. I’ll always be a dirty half-blood.

  The next room has tubs again, this time filled with a liquid similar to milk or thick candle wax. This is actually the most pleasant procedure, because the liquid is warm. I hold my breath and stay under until my lungs begin to burn. Climbing out again is even more uncomfortable, though, because as warm as the baths are, the room itself is still freezing. I cross my arms and that’s when I get a glimpse of my skin—my hands, arms, legs, and chest are a pasty, sickly white. I rub my fingers together. My skin is ridiculously soft, and as best I can tell the liquid dries into some kinduv white powder that sticks. The weird milk baths will probably be a regular thing if they intend to keep us ghosts.

  At least it covers the light trails on my skin. Mostly, anyway.

  Finally, the soldiers bring us clothes. Everyone dresses quickly, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to be covered up again. Although I wish it didn’t involve wearing a skirt. I guess it’s better than nothing.

  When everyone is dressed, I dare a glance around the room. Our eyes aren’t the same color—at least, not yet—but my stomach churns as I look over the crowd. Thirty minutes ago, I knew these faces. Now, with their identical pasty skin tone, identical clothes, and identical baldness, I can barely tell them apart.

  I still stand out, being a guy and at least a foot taller than most of them. But I probably don’t look out of place among them, either.

  I resist the urge to scrape my skin clean as the soldiers separate us. No one protests anymore. They split the crowd into six smaller groups with ease, then Jarek steps next to me and takes my arm.

  “You have a separate assignment,” he says, pulling me away from the crowd.

  And though I have a vague feeling I’m not going to like this separate assignment, I’m too drained to fight him.

  Anja has just finished maneuvering my silky black hair into a swirling, braided bun when my door slams open. In most circumstances, my guards would be on the intruder in an instant—no one bursts into my room without permission, or with permission, for that matter.

  But my guards are partial to my brother, Dima, and they let him in without a word.

  “Good morning,” I say pleasantly, watching him approach in the mirror. “What upsets you today? Are the suns too bright for your liking? I can make a special request to Kala, if it pleases you.”

  Dima scowls at the wall to his left and crosses his thick golden brown arms over his chest. Kala’s mark entwines around his arms and chest in stiff straight lines and cornered angles, so unlike the smooth curves I inherited from our mother. The light markings on his arms are filled in entirely
with text—everything from his many decorated statuses, to “a life without greatness is a life unlived” (our family creed), to excerpts from the ancient texts about strength and honor. “Orenjo” is shaved into the side of his cropped black hair and I resist the urge to roll my eyes. My brother doesn’t know a thing about honor.

  “You know very well what upsets me, dear sister,” Dima says through his teeth.

  Anja holds up a mirror behind my head to show me the bun. I nod my approval and spin around to face my childish brother. We may be the same age with nearly the same coloring—though his skin is a touch lighter than mine and his sharp jaw and severe glare make him appear older than me—but the fact that he still comes in here throwing his petty rages proves just how little he has matured over the cycles. “I’m not a mind reader, Dima. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re going to wail about.”

  There are many things he would like to say to me in this moment, I’m sure, but sister or not, I’m still his superior—a fact he knows all too well. His lips form a thin line and he drops his arms to his sides and faces me. “There is a half-blood in my training room, Kora. And Jarek tells me he has been ordered to keep him alive—by none other than ken Avra herself.”

  There’s an accusation in there, somewhere, but I refuse to be upset by it. Instead I stand and step toward the window at my bedside, looking out into the sandy gardens. Curved, beautiful rows of the most precious desert flowers trimmed into elongated crescents. Blue-leafed moonflowers that open and glow under the light of the moons. Tiny temperleaf blossoms that change colors when you stroke their white petals, supposedly predicting your mood. Striped bright pink kazipetals, shimmering silver morningbushes, and of course, the luscious deep purple angled petals of the bloodflower. They were Mamae’s favorite.

  My fingers long to reach out and stroke the soft fuzzy blue buds of the closed moonflowers just outside my window, but something warm and soft rubs against my side—Iro, the family kazim. Though really, Iro is mine—he’s always been most attached to me, ever since Mamae presented him to us as a tiny cub. I run my fingers through the thick sand-colored fur between his ears. “If I’m not mistaken, you did mention to me not five sunsets back how you needed more servants in the training rooms to attend to your men.”