“You love living on the edge, don’t you?”
“I don’t live on the edge. I am the edge.” We laugh. It’s our old saying, our old routine. Stupid, but it belongs to us.
“Draft girl!” Thabit’s sister Badra emerges from a toilet stall, naked and smiling. Her spiked white hair glistens with traces of soap. She pulls on her suit, fastening hooks and clamps, sliding weapons back into place. Badra was my first, and then I was with her twin brother, who was just as gentle and cautious—because of the draft and the doctors, there are things I still can’t do. Thabit and Badra are cool with that. They’re two years older, but we’ve always gotten along. We’re family. As soon as I turn sixteen, we’ll make it permanent.
“It’s no big deal.” I point my head into the stream, let the water push the soap out of the stubble of my black hair. Dad buzzed me last week. No hair is ugly, but easier. “How did you find out? I haven’t told anyone.”
“Your mother made sure everyone knew the second the doors unlocked.” Thabit says the words lightly, but I wince. Already, she’s dividing us from the rest of the floor.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“I have to go downstairs, get some food, fill some orders. Are you with me?” Badra locks her gun into place. There used to be minimarts on every floor, but when the elevators stopped working last year, they shut down. Now every trip to the street and back is an exercise in planned pain, especially for those higher up. Badra is paid to shop for others, for things on the market and off.
“Yeah. I need to get my father’s prescription refilled anyway. But I have to be back by tomorrow. In three days—” The water shuts off. I stand, naked and shivering, hands clasped against my breasts. Three more days before a knife splits my skin, and the four hundred thousand report for duty. Thabit and Badra stare at me. I feel bad. They have no idea what to say. Neither do I.
Two more people wander into the bathroom, adults from the other side of the hall. They’re trying not to stare. Everyone knows. Badra stands up, hand on weapon, a sweet smile on her face. They walk to the benches on the other side of the room, acting like nothing’s changed. Thabit throws me his damp towel as I step off the wet tiles. “We’ll get you back by morning, no worries,” he says.
An hour later, we walk outside. I try not to gag as I turn my oxygen feed on. The air is soupy down here, rancid garbage, urine and human sweat mixed with the unyielding tang of soot and gasoline. No one looks at each other. Everyone rushes along, anxious to get their things, to get home, to stay alive one more day. I stare down the street. The neon-tipped end disappears in the rows of buildings, as always. I don’t know what I expect this time—perhaps that the horizon will open to me because it knows that I’ve changed. I just want to know where it is my soldiers will be going, what they’ll see.
Someone jostles me as they push by, and I reach for my arm blade, ready to give them a little “lesson nick.” Thabit’s hand stills me. He shakes his head. He’s the calm one. If Badra had seen, there’d already be blood hitting the sidewalk. I frown, but stand down. Thabit’s right, of course. He’s seen what Badra hasn’t yet, what I realized twenty flights down. In the shadow of signs and storefronts, two soldiers in civilian unisuits stand, nonchalant in pose but aware at all times of who they guard, and how many. They’re letting me know I’m surrounded. Safe.
Thunder rolls through the canyon. I look up. Light flashes in thick clouds. As the first dirty drops of rain hit my cheeks, Badra grabs my arm and spins me off the sidewalk, into the shops and bazaars making up the first floor of the block. Most stores are shuttered, out of business for good. We wander poorly-lit corridors, listening to the distant boom of the storm. Badra picks out square packs of food, slips them into a mesh bag at her side as she swipes the credit bar on her sleeve. She doesn’t steal. No one does. I’d shoot her myself if she dared.
“The prescription.” I remember the disk in my pocket. “I should go ahead, the lines will be long.”
“I still have a list of people to shop for,” Badra says to Thabit. “I’m going to be a while. Go with her,” He nods, and we walk together out of the store, his hand resting lightly against my waist.
“So soon,” he finally says. I was wondering when the subject would come up. I’ve been dreading it ever since I got my orders.
“I’m old enough. We knew it would happen sooner or later.”
“Sometimes, I hoped—” Thabit doesn’t finish that sentence, but I know how much he wants children. I know what he wanted to say.
“Do you know who’s been drafted to fertilize the eggs?” Thabit stops at a kiosk, running his fingers through loops of brightly-colored plastic tubing for oxygen masks. I can tell he didn’t want to ask.
“They won’t tell me. I don’t think I get to know.”
“So it could be anyone. Someone you already met, or a complete stranger.”
He doesn’t know what I do, that soldiers sent into space don’t look like us, that they’re monsters. Half human, modified into half something else. “It’s not like I’m getting married. It’s just an operation. They pick parents for compatibility, nothing else. I’ll still belong to you two.” I touch the dingy grey tubes snaking out of my nose clamp, then lift bright red strands from the pile and hold them against my face.
“How’s this?”
Thabit laughs.
“You’ll look like your nose is bleeding.”
I drop them back down. The man in the kiosk glares, but says nothing.
“A daughter.” Thabit pushes his goggles into his white hair. Pristine circles of skin surround his blue eyes, untouched by the gritty air. “That’s what I’d like. I want to be the father of the daughter of divisions. A girl just like you. You are going to ask them, right? Ask them to hold back an egg?”
I imagine holding something small and squealing as it’s pulled from my flesh. Will it look like Thabit, or its space-bound brothers and sisters? Guns for hands? Will it even have a face? My stomach turns.
“We’ve talked about this before,” I say. “You know I don’t know if I want my own baby. I still haven’t thought about it.”
“Well, it’s time you do think about it. If we’re going to be together, if we’re going to be a real family, we have to decide together, and soon. In two days, there won’t be any more time.”
“I told you I haven’t decided, so back off!” My voice echoes off the exposed ceiling pipes. Thabit blanches, but he doesn’t back down. He takes me by the arm, leads me around the corner to a dead-end. The lights are low here, no one else is around. The soldiers, always discreet, are nowhere to be seen.
“I’m sorry, Jet,” Thabit say, “I know this is rough for you, but you don’t have the right to yell at me or command me. I’ve done nothing wrong. I deserve better than this.”
Angry and ashamed, I nod my head. He’s right—but he’s also not. He has no idea what I’m going through. No one does, not even me.
“You also don’t have the right to decide for us, even if it’s by not deciding at all,” he continues. “We’re supposed to be together. You know, I’ll never get the chance to choose how many children I get to have with you, or when I can have them. Something’s been taken away from me, too. I’m just saying, we all have to deal with this. Me and Badra both, as well as you.”
“I know.” The muscles in my face stiffen as I try not to cry. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have freaked. I’m sorry.” I sound just like Mom. Thabit pulls me close, holds me.
“I know you’re frightened. But we’ll get through this. This is what families do, we get through things together.”
My body feels unbalanced, swollen. I don’t want him to touch me. I pull away, staring into his face as I speak.
“I’ll find out about having my own baby, I promise. If I’m allowed, I’ll have an egg set aside and frozen. Then we can make a decision later. No matter what happens, the three of us will decide. I promise.”
“You’re not alone. Don’t forget that.” Thabit kisses
my forehead, then my lips. I feel bad for him, for us, but I don’t know what else to do. Badra’s voice crackles softly, and Thabit breaks off, speaks softly into his headset. “Yeah, we’re still in line for her dad’s medicine. We’ll be about—fifteen minutes?” He looks at me, and I nod, glad to do anything but stand here and pretend to know what to say.
We walk to the drugstore and stand in line, acting as if the conversation in the corridor never happened. The pharmacist behind the counter doesn’t need to tell me what to do. I’ve known him since that day I turned five. He nods in greeting as I insert Dad’s medical disk into the groove in the bulletproof glass. The pharmacist removes it and disappears behind a door, then reappears with a small flat package wrapped in recycled brown paper. Right away I can see: it’s not Dad’s usual prescription. The pharmacist puts it into the hollow space under the counter. Our eyes lock as I open the door to remove it.
“I should offer my congratulations, but I’ll miss your visits,” he says. I guess he heard the news, too. “I’ve known you since you were a little girl—I almost think of you as one of my own daughters.”
“I’m sure I’ll be back, after, you know,” I say.
“Tell your father he needs to inject this once a week, otherwise it won’t work. The side effects are immediate. Read the paper.”
“Ok.” I turn the package over. No instructions. “What kind of side effects—”
The pharmacist turns and walks away without another word. Something’s wrong. I feel Thabit’s eyes fixed on me as I slip the package into the folds of my unisuit. Behind him, Badra hovers in the door, and behind her, the soldiers hover in the shadows. Everyone watches me, everyone’s waiting for me to bolt, to run, to slash my wrists, to stab my stomach. To do anything they don’t want me to do. They don’t know I’m already doing it, and I don’t even know what it is.
“Come on,” I say, grabbing his hand and pulling him to the door. “I’m starving. Let’s get out of here before I put a bullet in someone’s head.”
“That’s my little trooper,” says Badra as we head for the exit.
I hate it when she calls me that. When I get back from the hospital, I’ll make sure we all decide to never say it again.
The living room is dark when I open the door. I’m careful to keep quiet, it’s still night, and Mom and Dad are probably asleep. I put my pack on the couch and unbutton my lapels. The package is warm from the heat of my body. I turn on the light over the table, and sit down. I’m careful, I don’t make a sound. My kids will be good soldiers. They’ll know stealth.
The paper is easy to open, the tape slits apart with just a touch of my blade. It’s a miniature syringe kit. I can tell before I open it, I’ve seen them before. Inside, two syringes made of hard plastic nestle within molded foam, needles already in place. They’re ready to go. I rock the kit back and forth. A thick silver liquid slides back and forth in the tubes. The whole thing looks like a child’s toy.
“It’s not for you.”
I drop the kit onto the paper. Dad stands in the room, tying his bathrobe with shaking hands. I didn’t even hear him close the bedroom door. So much for stealth.
“But it’s not for you, either,” I say. “So who’s it for?”
“It’s heart medicine, for dissolving clots if I have an attack.” He picks up the kit and closes the cover, then slides it into his bathrobe pocket.
“I don’t believe you,” I say. “It’s poison, isn’t it? You’re going to kill me, or try to kill the soldier who’s supposed to fertilize the eggs.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dad says. “You’re my daughter, and I love you. You drive me crazy sometimes, but I’d never harm you, or your soldiers. Hand me the wrapping paper.”
I slide it over to him. Dad smooths it out against the table. For a moment, his face relaxes, and I see something of the father I remember from when I was young, when he taught me how to read and write, took me for walks in ancient parks under dying trees. Now all the parks are gone.
“You know, your mother took the hormones, too. She registered for the draft, but they didn’t pick her.”
“What?” Shock slides through me, prickly cold. “She never told me.”
“She didn’t want you to know. She was so ashamed. Her parents went bankrupt from the cost. After that, no one would have her, she was damaged goods. But I saw something in her, so beautiful, so—” His voice cracks. “I should have know it wouldn’t last. Nothing that fragile ever does. Greed always wins.”
Dad folds the paper into neat squares, and the softness disappears.
“She didn’t get her money, but that didn’t stop her from finding another way. That’s why she gave birth to you. As far as she’s concerned, you’re her second womb. Nothing more.”
Outside, night rain pelts the window.
“You’re lying,” I declare. “I don’t know why you’re saying these things, but they won’t make me change my mind. And if you think that that needle or your disgusting lies will stop me, you’re wrong.”
Dad reaches across the table, pressing the folded paper into my hands. I try to drop it, to pull my hand away, but he won’t let go. I’ve never seen him look so old, so worn.
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t plan on stopping you.” His voice is low and gravelly. He has trouble speaking, as if he’s about to cry. It makes me ashamed. “When you see what it is that you’ve been responsible for creating, I’m hoping you’ll realize that all this has to be stopped. I want you to make that choice yourself, because then you’ll be acting as an adult, not as a child who simply does as she’s told.”
“What I’m responsible for is creating soldiers that will help us win the war. My soldiers, not my mother’s, not yours.”
“I keep telling you, Jet, there is no war.” Tears trickle down his face. “Open your eyes. There’s never been any war. We send our men and women into space, and nothing comes back? Not a single message? Not even a bomb from the enemy? Nothing?”
“But then where do they all go? We send soldiers to their death, just because? I don’t believe that.”
“Don’t be so naïve. I taught you better than that—I’ve told you time and time again, this is a war-based economy. There probably was a war, a long time ago. But it’s over, and we’re forced to keep pretending, simply so that a corrupt military government can remain in power. We live in coffins and crowd in stairwells, barely alive, while we pour all our resources into sending our children into space only to shoot them down.”
“I don’t believe you, that’s just more lies!” I struggle again to get away, but Dad tightens his grip, drawing me up and toward him. His face glows.
“It’s not just burning jet fuel that falls on us. It’s broken battle cruisers, broken bodies. From our ships, not the enemy’s. Remember the time I snuck you out of the stairwell, when you were ten? I showed you. You saw—”
“I saw nothing! I was little, I don’t remember anything!”
“I remember.” Dad’s voice grows calm, and his hands slip from mine, fall slack at his side. His stare is distant, cold. It frightens me.
“I remember how the ship split apart like an eggshell. I remember men and women falling like comets over the city. Their burning flesh left contrails in the air. They didn’t scream. All you could hear was flame, wind, impact.”
He unbuttons his nightshirt. I’ve never seen my father undressed before. Melted folds of flesh appear, scars upon scars, with an angry red line running down the middle.
“I remember how they came through the buildings and streets, putting bullets into every body, every heart. I thought if I lay still, they’d think I was already dead, and pass by. I was wrong.”
We stand silent in the dark. Through the distortion of my tears, for a moment I see a younger Essam, the shadow of what he used to be. And then his shoulders slump, and he covers his chest.
“Does Mom know?”
“No. And she never will.” His voice is firm.
“How many—”<
br />
“How many died? I don’t know. How many are alive? I don’t know that, either. The men and women who saved me, they said there were others. But we keep apart, we blend in. It’s safer. I’m one of the lucky ones, I wasn’t augmented. I can pass.”
A small spark of understanding— “The pharmacist,” I say. “He’s one of you, isn’t he? Oh. He’s your brother….” Now it really hits me. I sit down.
Dad doesn’t answer. I realize he never will. He’s still loyal. But I have to be loyal, too.
“Nothing will change if I say no, if I run away, even if you use that needle.” I hold up my wrist. The tracking device swims somewhere below the surface. “They’ll just find me, kill me, take out my ovaries. Then they’ll kill you and Mom. I can’t let that happen.”
“Everything can change, and without anyone knowing. Without anyone firing a gun or saying a single word. No one will die.”
“I’m doing this for you, you know. So you can get a new heart, so you won’t die!”
“I’m already dead, Jet. This isn’t being alive.” Dad bows his head and shuffles back into the bedroom, leaving me alone.
I grab the paper and unlock the balcony door. Light rain lashes my face as I lean against the railing. It’s freezing outside, the street below barely visible. A few kitchen window lights glow, weak sparks of life in the blue-black of early morning. I think about how easy it would be to climb onto the railing, to spread my arms and leave everything behind. Somewhere in the silent rows of buildings, tucked into invisible spaces, soldiers stare at me, watching. They’ll never let it happen. They’re loyal, too.
In two days’ time officers will come to the apartment again, disarm me and strip me down. I’ll be clean. They’ll do the same with Mom. But Dad has a history of heart problems. He’s an old man, and his hands tremble. They’ll let him keep his medical kit. If I tell them what I think is going to happen, they’ll put another bullet in him, and this time they’ll get it right. If I don’t— Someone is going to die, no matter what. And despite what my father said, I can’t say it won’t be me.
Engines of Desire: Tales of Love and Other Horrors Page 14