by Martha Adele
Of course, I want to go see him, but I need to go see Logan first.
“He is in a hospital in the capital, not too far from here. He is staying at the same place where all of the other injured Taai members are being kept,” I tell Sam. “Do you want to go with me to see him, or do you want to go see your mom first?”
“Mom,” he tells me. “I have to go see my mom.”
“Okay. How far away is your mom’s hospital? Do you want me to come with you?”
He shakes his head. “You need to go see Logan and Derek. I don’t want to keep you.”
We head out of the building and back into Chuck’s car, where we see him in the driver’s seat reading a newspaper.
“Hey, that was pretty quick!” He laughs, tossing the paper onto the seat beside him. “Where to now? I’ll finish my story once we get going.”
Sam and I share a look as we realize we can’t both go in the same car. After a moment of silence, Sam looks back down to his paper and tells me, “We should probably go talk to Sarah first.”
I nod, and Sam tells Chuck to take us back to where he picked us up.
After a minute or so of driving, Sam interrupts the story of how Chuck learned to swim. “Excuse me,” Sam apologizes. “I’m sorry, but can I ask you a question?”
“Me? Oh sure!” Chuck cheers.
“What is that on your wrist?”
Chuck lifts up his right hand and looks at a mole. Before he has the chance to say anything, Sam corrects him, “The other one.”
“Oh!” Chuck flashes a dotted code tattoo on his wrist at us and places his hand back on the wheel. “This here is how they are keeping track of everybody. It makes everything so much easier, and it will continue making things easier when we all get new careers or try to buy things.”
“What do you mean?” Sam asks him, giving me a confused look.
“It’s a bar code.” Chuck answers. “All the money we earn can be given to us in credits or cash money. Credits will be scanned directly onto the code and will be usable at most all places, but you can turn it into cash if you’d like by going by an office or bank to get it.”
“So it—”
Sam is interrupted by Chuck, continuing to explain, “And when we choose our jobs, they’ll scan us on over to it instead of doing a bunch of paperwork like we used to have to do. It’ll be so much easier to keep track of things too. Like …”
Chuck rambles the rest of the ride about how wonderful these new bar codes will be, never finishing his story and never answering our other questions, not that I was going to ask anyway.
Once we get back to the kitchen, Chuck drives off. We speed past all the people as they unload the helicarrier and make it straight back to Sarah.
The moment Sarah sees us, she hobbles excitedly past the rest of the workers and over to Sam and me. “Hey, guys! What’s the news? Is everyone okay?”
Sam shakes his head in a frenzy. “No. No, my mom. She is in the hospital.” He pulls out his paper and points to it, showing Sarah the map. “She is in State Five.”
“State Five?” Sarah takes the paper from him and looks it over. “Really? Is she okay?”
Sam continues shaking his head and muttering, “No, I don’t know. I don’t know.”
I set my hand on his back and try to get him to calm down while looking over to Sarah. “Can he take a trip to see his mom if I do his work?”
Sam jerks his eyes over to me as Sarah locks her eyes with mine.
“How long would it take him?” she asks me.
Sam shrugs. “I don’t know.”
Sarah looks back down at the map and analyzes it. She sighs. “It’ll probably take two or three days to get there, spend a day with her, and to come back.” She hands Sam his paper back and nods. “Just make it back here within three days. Got it?”
Sam nods to Sarah. “Thank you.” He turns to me and gives me a quick hug. “Thank you.”
I nod and let him go. Sam turns on his heel and is quickly called back by Sarah. “Hey!” Sam turns back around and looks at both of us, confused.
“Can’t I go?” Sam asks her.
Sarah nods and shows us her newly coded wrist. “Yes, but first, you will need to go and get the code tattoo.”
“When did you get that?” Sam asks her.
“When you all left, a truck came by to code all the newly arrived workers. They told me to tell you guys to go and get your code as soon as you get back. You can get them at the Administrative Office.”
Sam rolls his eyes and thanks Sarah as he scurries out of the building.
“What about you?” Sarah asks me. “Did you find your friends?”
I nod and pull my paper out of my pocket. With Derek’s address on the top half and Logan’s on the bottom, I hand it over to Sarah.
She stares at it for a moment before handing it back to me. “You can come back tomorrow morning. Go ahead and visit your friends and get your code.” Before I get to say anything, Sarah asks me, “Do you have a place to stay tonight?”
I shrug. “I may. Worse comes to worse, I could probably stay with Derek.”
“Some of the first things that were built when we won were houses,” Sarah tells me. “Once everyone gets their bar codes, they will be given a house to share for the time being. If you can’t find a place to stay, come back here before nightfall and you can stay with me and a few of the other workers.”
“So we are just going to be given houses?” I ask.
“No, next week—” Sarah is interrupted by a loud crashing sound as someone knocks over the racks where the pots and pans were being held, followed by an almost equally loud concoction of laughter and jeering. Sarah rolls her eyes and looks back at me. “Next week, everyone will meet with a career officer, and they will help you decide what you are qualified for and what you want to do. After that, they will help you find a house within your pay grade or set you up on a payment plan or whatever. It varies depending on what you want to do, who you want to live with, and a lot of other things.”
I thank Sarah, and she tells me to “scurry off.” When I make my way out of the building, I find Sam still waiting on a cab. Just as I approach him, Sam flags one down and jumps in. The second he sees me, he scoots further in and waves me over.
This cabdriver is nothing like Chuck. He asks us where to go, takes us both to the AO, and drops us off. No stories, he doesn’t offer to wait on us, and he speeds off after we get out of the car.
I actually kind of prefer him over a chatty driver.
As soon as we step back onto the familiar concrete sidewalk, Sam almost sprints into the building and up to the man at the desk.
“Didn’t I just speak with you two?” he asks us, holding a confused expression.
Sam nods. “We need to get our codes. We were told to come here.”
His head tilts back and he smiles. “Ah, I see. One moment.” He grabs his desk phone and dials up. Holding the phone to his ear, he exchanges glances with Sam and me. “Hi! I have two people here who need to come up and get their codes … Yeah … Yeah … Got it. Okay. Bye.” He hangs up the phone and points down the hall. “The elevators are right down there. Go up to the third floor and someone will take you back.”
I follow Sam back in silence as we head up to the third floor. The moment the elevator doors open, we are greeted by one man and one woman. The woman looks at me and waves me out after Sam approaches the man without any sort of hesitation.
The man looks at both of us. “Are you two here for your codes?”
Sam and I nod.
The woman smiles at us. “One of you will need to come with me”—she gestures to Sam and the man across from us—“and the other can go with Walter.”
“One second please.” Sam turns back to me and pulls me aside. “After I get my code done, I am going straight to my mom. Okay? So I m
ay not see you again until I get back.”
I nod and Sam pulls me into a hug.
“Ready to go?” Walter asks us both, earning a slight glare from Sam.
We part ways, and the girl takes me back to a small room with one seat and one counter with a drawer. I take a seat, and the woman pulls up my name, face, and account on a hologram computer that seems to pop up out of nowhere.
“Okay.” She pulls out a small black pad with a plastic covering. Connecting a wire from the desk to the pad, she smiles at me. “I am going to set this on your wrist, and it will print the code. You will feel a small pinching when it places the dots, but it shouldn’t hurt, okay?”
Shouldn’t? I think, not willing to ask the woman.
“Okay,” I say.
She peels off the plastic and places the pad onto my writs. It is surprisingly covered in a squishy and sticky substance that binds itself to my skin as the woman turns on the machine. The moment I see her press the button, I hear a whirring noise and feel the slight pinching she told me about.
It takes about three minutes for this process to complete. Once the machine beeps, the pinching stops, and the woman peels the pad off my arm. She wipes my wrist with a wet napkin and cleans off all the goop with a smile on her face. “That wasn’t too bad, right?”
I nod in agreement as she runs a small handheld scanner over the code and types some stuff into the hologram. Next thing I know, she is waving me goodbye and I am outside of the building, waiting for a cab to take me to Logan’s hospital.
CHAPTER TWO
Logan
“That’s it,” my physical therapist tells me as she helps me off the examination table. “You did great today, Logan.”
I nod to her and move my aching body one inch at a time. “Thank you.”
When I woke up after the jet crashed into the hospital, two weeks had passed. My eyes flickered open as I tried to move any part of my body. Only I couldn’t. The drowsiness from the medication they had me on greatly restricted my movement, causing me to wait in that room, listening to my heart rate monitor for what felt like hours, waiting on someone to come in and help me get the IV out.
After the doctors explained to me that I was in a coma and my ability to move and speak returned, my first question was, “Where is Eric and Werner?” My question was quickly answered when Eric rolled into the room missing his left leg.
“Werner is out doing his job,” Eric told me as he rolled past the doctor. “He is fine.”
I froze. Eric wheeled his way over beside my bed as I stammered and stuttered, struggling to find the right words.
Eric put the brakes on and folded his hands in his lap. “All the equipment he had on him that day, along with how far he had run, saved him from any serious damage. Just a few bumps and bruises along with a minor concussion.”
I remained frozen, not being able to find the right words. When I finally did manage to get them out, they whimpered, “What happened to you?”
He looked down at his leg, or where it used to be, and touched it with one of his hands, seemingly still in disbelief. “Shrapnel. They couldn’t save it.”
“What about me?” Using all of my energy, I forced the blanket off to find scars strewn across my legs, causing me to notice the same scars on my arms. “Why didn’t they have to do that to me?”
“That?” Eric asked me. “You mean amputate?”
I nodded.
A long pause filled the room as Eric looked over his shoulder to the doctor.
The doctor took this cue and stepped forward to me. “Mr. Barnes lunged on top of you when the jet crashed. He took the large chunks of the blast.”
That day, Eric and I were placed to live together at this rehabilitation center until we reach a certain point of recovery. We have been roommates ever since. In this center, we have unlimited access to any and all medical care we need, and almost every day, we come down and have physical therapy sessions free of charge. They even have a game center where we can play board games and card games with some of the others who are in the same boat as we are.
Though we have the option to play games with other people, Eric prefers to keep to himself and would rather play me than anyone else. Before this whole incident, I had no idea how to play chess. Eric taught me last week and has been challenging me to it every day since.
Every now and then, Werner would drop in and play a few games with us as well when he had time. He always makes it a point to come in and sit with us at least once every other day. I don’t know if it is because he feels bad for us, if he feels guilty for it, or if he genuinely enjoys spending time with us. Either way, I am not going to complain. I am just happy to be getting beat at chess by someone other than Eric.
As I sit at this table, playing another one of the injured soldiers who happens to have no right arm, I watch him put me one move closer to checkmate.
“Check,” he tells me for the fifth time in a row.
I scan over the board at my remaining moves and try to figure out which would be best. Though I have the slight feeling that my defeat is imminent, I push back any competitive feelings I may have and accept his victory.
I move my king over one space to the right, only to have this man move his queen over one space also, never letting my king flee from its wrath. “Check,” he tells me again.
As his pieces chase and steal mine throughout the board, I think back to how Gramps used to try to teach me this game. He would snap at me for not paying attention and tell me that chess is one of the best board games ever invented. After about three tries, Gramps gave up on me playing chess and let me go back outside to play and, at the time, go back home to Mom and Dad.
Gramps died back in Minje during the war. Even though I prepared myself for the news, it still hurt to hear the words. At least I know for a fact that he fought for what he thought was right until his last breath.
“Checkmate.” The man slides one of his remaining pieces, the last rook on the board, over five spaces and puts my king into an inescapable situation.
I lean back in my seat and smile at the man. “Good game.”
“How does it feel being beaten at chess by someone who has only ever played once?” he asks me with a delighted look on his face.
“Once?” I spout, surprised at how horrible I must really be at this game. “How in the—”
My question to the man is interrupted by a sight I catch out of the corner of my eye. The long blond hair immediately grabs my attention and somehow seems to offend the man I played with.
I turn my head from him to see Mavis standing at one of the desks asking the secretary something.
I rise to my feet, leaving the man in front of me baffled at what has my attention. He turns to look in that direction and chuckles. “Boy, you better calm yourself or you’ll scare her off.”
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Mavis or Sam this entire time I’ve been away. Has she come to visit me? Someone else? I have no clue, but having her this close has lifted such a weight off my shoulders I can barely feel the aching in my back.
After a few steps over to her, she glances this way, and her eyes grow as big as mine. Somehow, we make it over into each other’s arms and stay intertwined.
“Are you okay?” she mumbles into my shoulder as our bodies stay pressed against each other’s.
I place my hand on the back of her head and wrap my other arm tighter around her waist. “I’m fine,” I whisper. “I’m fine.”
“Obviously not! Or else you wouldn’t be in here!”
“Well …” I chuckle. “I may have gotten blown up … twice.”
Neither of us let go of each other, even though I can feel too many pairs of eyes watching us. I dismiss their attention and give mine back to Mavis. “What about Sam? Is he okay?”
“Yes.” Mavis pulls back from the hug but leaves her hands
around my waist. When she realizes how much attention we’ve drawn, she pulls back completely. “He’s visiting his mom in a hospital in State Five.”
I look around the room to see the man I was playing chess with snickering while a bunch of others join him in the jeering.
“What happened with his mom?” I ask Mavis, pulling her aside and out into the hallway so that the others will stop staring.
“I don’t know. Neither does Sam. He won’t know until he gets down there.”
I close the door behind us and usher Mavis to one of the vacant benches in the hallway. “That is awful. I can’t imagine the suspense.”
The bench squeaks as I take a seat beside her. She turns her body to me and crosses her legs, making herself comfortable.
“So,” I continue, “what’s going on? Are you living in the capital right now? When did you get here? When did Sam get here?” I pull myself back and force myself to question her more slowly and give her a chance to speak.
Mavis’s focus shifts from my arm to all the scars back up to my eyes. Our gaze locks upon each other, and we sit for a moment before she answers. “Sam and I got here this morning. We will be working at a kitchen about fifteen to twenty minutes away from here until we meet with the career counselor. What about you? When will you be leaving the hospital?”
“This isn’t a hospital,” I correct her, just as I have been corrected hundreds of times. “This is a rehabilitation center.”
“Ah.” She chuckles. “I see. When will you be leaving the rehabilitation center?”
“They told me I should be getting out soon. My therapist told me that once she thinks I am ready, she will sign some discharge papers and send me on my way that day.”
“What will you be doing after you get out? Where will you live?”
I shrug. “I don’t know exactly. I won’t know until I go to the career counselor.”
“You don’t have any ideas? I mean, I don’t, but I figured you’d want to go back into the Taai or something.”
A group of a few men and women come down the hallway, all with different visible injuries. One of the women has been shaved bald and has had her head wrapped in white bandages. One of the men has his arm in a brace and the other arm missing. One of the men, with obvious burn scarring on his face, pushes one of the women who sits in a wheelchair similar to Eric’s. Each one of them give us a different look as they pass. The looks range from sour, to happy, to confused.