by S J Taylor
But I was already moving, the invisible strings jerking my legs and arms forward, my feet pounding the dust, straight into the glare of the flame and the smoke. The heat beat at my face and my exposed hands, blazed into my eyes. Count, I told myself, count!
One, two, three, four…
It was too hot. Too much.
Seven, eight, nine…
I was suffocating.
Fifteen, sixteen…
I could not breathe. Smoke forced its way into my mouth and my nose and I suddenly realized we had fireproofed the outside of our bodies, not the inside.
Close your mouth. Stay calm. Think. Count.
Seventeen, nineteen…no, eighteen, nineteen…
This is crazy and stupid and I don’t care what tradition demands. I can’t do this. I’m going to burn up and die here. I need to get out, get out, get out!
Twenty-nine, thirty!
I broke through the other side to the cheers of the crowd and my fellow 26ers and, I saw, the Speaker as well. Professor Avin Blake, celebrating my passage through the fire to become a mature member of the Academy. Pride swelled in my chest.
I raised my shaking hands to stare at my skin. No burns. Not even blackened. I felt at my hair, too, and although it was dry and stiff the spray had done its job and I wouldn’t have to go through life bald.
Laughter broke out of me and I raised my hands up in the air to the cheers and the whistles and the feeling that I belonged to something bigger than myself.
The cooler air of the stadium wrapped itself around me like a blanket, stilling my beating heart, calming the surge of adrenaline rushing through my bloodstream. A gray-uniformed figure wave at me. One of the Enforcers, I realized.
“Come on, Eccoliculum student,” he addressed me. It was the first time someone would call me by that title. I can’t begin to express the way it made me feel.
The Enforcer needed me out of the way for the others to go through the fire. I jogged over to him, accepting the heat absorbing blanket he put over my shoulders. I stood aside with Verne and Caulfield and watched as Saskia leaned back on her one foot, bracing to launch herself into the flames. Silently I urged her on. She was like a lioness, all bronze skin and long limbs and long blonde hair swishing loose from its braid as she ran with graceful speed… at the… flames…
No!
When I coated her in the heat resistant spray earlier, she’d had her braid in. Now that her hair was loose and flying about her, there were bound to be some spots I’d missed.
“Sir,” I started to say to the closest Enforcer, “I think we should—”
“Oh, Hellfire,” I heard him mutter under his breath.
Then he was running, toward the fire, extinguisher in hand.
Around us the cheering and drumming of feet had stopped.
Saskia blundered out of the flames, stumbling, her arms up over her head, the fire spreading across the green of her jumpsuit.
I screamed her name. My feet were racing to get me to her even though there was nothing I could do. One of the other Enforcers stopped me, grabbing me roughly and throwing me back over with Verne and Caulfield and telling the three of us to stay back, stay here, don’t interfere.
My best friend was on fire. How could I not interfere?
It was probably only because I caught the Enforcer by surprise, but a simple technique with a leg sweep and a stiff arm to his midsection took the man down to his knees and let me run out into the middle of the arena where the bonfire still raged. Three Enforcers ringed Saskia, draping their dampening blankets over her, spraying her down with white bursts from the fire extinguishers.
I watched in horror as they picked my friend up from the ground, still wrapped in blankets, and quickly carried her off the grounds through the same entrance the group of us had come from not long ago.
What had started as a day of celebration had turned into something horrible.
“Saskia!” I hesitated when for just a moment it appeared she was standing on her own two feet. It was just an illusion though, created by two of the Enforcers dragging her. Now I bolted after them.
The Speaker—First Marshall Blake—stopped me, and although I struggled in his grip he held me tight. “No, not now,” he ordered me, his voice gentle but firm with command. “You can’t leave the amphitheater now or you’ll be removed from the Academy.”
I looked up into his eyes. He’d taken off the mask, and I could see his face. His eyes were so perfectly green. I’d never seen eyes that color before coming here to the Colony. My own eyes were a dull green, like moss. Nothing like the perfect gems of First Marshall Blake’s eyes.
He stopped me cold with just that glance and it was probably best that he did. He was right. If I left the Ceremony now, without an excuse like nearly burning to death in a stupid bonfire, then my days at the Academy would be over before they started. Those were the rules.
Besides, I really couldn’t do anything for Saskia. I’d done enough already.
I hadn’t protected her like I was supposed to. It had been my job to put the fire protection on her, everywhere, and I’d failed.
From the highest tier in the stands, surrounded by her guards, the Prelate stood up. She held her heavy staff in one slender hand, lifted it up, and thumped it against the floor of her special box. Built-in electronics caused a burst of noise like a thunderclap to boom across the arena.
“This Ceremony will continue,” she informed us, her voice like the musical notes of a wind chime in a steady breeze, her face expressionless. “Those who are chosen will step forward and finish their initiation.”
“I’ll check on Saskia after we’re done,” Blake said to me, pulling me back to the wall with Verne and Caulfield. “I promise. For now, do as you’re told.”
Putting his shining gold mask back in place he left me there, staring ahead at the flames, wishing it had been me instead of Saskia. It wasn’t right.
It wasn’t fair.
The next of the 26ers in the line hesitated, just for a moment, when the Speaker repeated the words of the Ceremony and pointed for him to go through. Then his trust in the Colony and our ways must have taken over because he was running into the flames, counting off his thirty seconds, and coming out the other side unscathed.
Apparently there was nothing to fear from the fire.
Unless your friends let you down.
Era’s Journal, entry #2305
One of my most vivid memories about the Event is light flashing over my eyes. It was bright, and I had to put my hands up over my eyes against the glare. I remember trying to say something to my guardian, opening my mouth to point out the colors in the autumnal sky, but I never got the chance to call her over.
The silent blast wave that took me off my feet threw me, so I was later told, some twenty feet, breaking one arm and dislocating one wrist. I was six at the time. It was my first experience with pain. I don’t remember crying, but I must have. At six years old everyone cries. It’s only later on that you learn about not letting “them” see your weakness.
As for now, when I see flashes of lightning in the night sky or hear the pounding drone of thunder I don’t cry out or twitch like I used to. I know that they’re just storms, and that only children cry at a gathering storm.
My name is Era Rae, and when the Event happened I was just a little girl. That was ten years ago. That makes me sixteen now. Ten years of surviving for me and the rest of humanity hiding behind Colony walls. After the event there was a lot of chaos and a lot of confusion but all of that passed me by. I was in a haze of painkillers and hospital beds. My memories of that time are hazy and indistinct – nothing but more bright neon lights, and worried doctors and empty spaces of time when it was only me and the ever-present machines going beep, beep and beep around me.
I keep this journal to remind myself of everything I’ve been through. I know I’ve said that before. It just needs to be repeated.
When I was well enough to move, the nice doctors in their green
gowns handed me and half a dozen other children, survivors like me, over to the scary Enforcers in their gray uniforms. They bundled us onto transports and shipped us out here, to Colony 41. I’ve learned they aren’t so scary now, but as a child of six… they terrified me.
I remember screaming, and crying, and asking why I was being taken away, why I had to go, all those silly questions that a child needs answered. I just wanted to go back to my parents on our farm and be that girl I was before the sky caught fire.
Only, my parents weren’t there to go back to. Neither was the farm. Neither was half the Northern American Continent.
Colony 41 became my home. The 26ers became my family. First Marshall Blake and my other professors became my adoptive parents and my fellow students became my brothers and sisters.
And I became the Era Rae who is writing these words down for you.
The other Era Rae, the little girl I was at six years old, is gone. I looked for her. She isn’t anywhere.
And so here I’ve been ever since. Colony 41, home of the brave, “last best hope” and all the rest of it.
“We hold the future in our hands. We strive against the darkness. We carry the hopes of all.”
I believe those words, now.
Saskia will never be the same, and it’s all my fault.
The year is 2136. Half the world is lost. Maybe more than half. But, we’re still here. We’ll put the world back together again, someday.
First Marshall Blake told me so.
Chapter 2 - The Aftermath
I awoke the next day feeling stiff all up my back and neck. I ached, and my head hurt, and the smell of burning cinders was still in the back of my throat.
Whose bright idea was the Ceremony, anyway?
I sat up, and peered at the narrow mirror on one side of the room. I looked like Hell warmed over and served with toast.
Saskia probably didn’t look much better, was the thought that hit me like a hammer.
Like all the other dormitory rooms here on Colony 41, mine was a small space. Barely bigger than a cupboard, really. Space was at a premium in the Colonies. The arena, the Academy, the Hall of The People which was one of the only buildings made of brick and mortar in the whole Colony, these took up most of the space behind our protective walls.
Our living quarters housed the entire year’s team. I guess I was lucky to have a room to myself at all. In the mirror my reflection stared back at me. My gray tank was twisted and tight across my stomach and chest so that it emphasized the limited size of my breasts. My eyes were hooded and dark with sleep and a caustic mix of emotions. Don’t even get me started on the tangle my hair was in.
Me in the morning. When I was old enough to choose a man to pair with and procreate with to carry on the human race, that was going to be one lucky man waking up next to… this.
There. At least that brought out a smile on my face. Until I remembered what had happened to Saskia. Nothing was funny when I remembered the way she’d been caught in those flames.
I didn’t know what time it was but already I could hear thumps and murmured voices from the rest of the 26ers moving around out in the hall and in the common areas.
We’re all Eccoliculum students now. I should feel happier about that, but I found that I couldn’t. Maybe if I searched out Saskia in the medical building, just to see if she was all right, that would lift my spirits. It made sense. I could apologize, and tell her I didn’t mean for this to happen, and… and…
And what? The Enforcers got there quickly to help her, with the blankets and the extinguishers. I knew that the medical staff could fix any minor burns she might’ve gotten. I wasn’t worried about that. Sure, it would’ve hurt, but it had hurt when I broke all those bones, too, and now I could barely remember how it felt to have my femur sticking up through my flesh. Saskia would be fine. They could fix almost everything.
So what was I so upset about?
It was guilt, I decided, after sitting there long enough to comb my hair into a semblance of order. The long, dark strands would go into a braid again later. Right now I just wanted a shower to wash away the stink of fire.
A gentle rapping at my door drew my attention. Groaning, not wanting to see anyone, I waved a hand over the wall panel that turned up the lights. I still slept with them on, just a little, in case I woke up at night and needed to be sure I was here, in this room, and not back on a farm with the sky boiling with explosion after explosion. These pre-cast white walls and hard, cold floor had become a comforting sight to me.
Standing up from the bed I straightened out my tank top and my sleep shorts and decided whoever it was would just have to accept that I was a girl with nothing to hide. “Who’s there?”
“May I come in, please?” said a deep, masculine voice.
“First Marshall Blake?” I squeaked. In a rush I found a shirt and then pants to pull on, realizing only after I was dressed that the pants were my uniform pants and the shirt was an old one I had gotten as a gift from Saskia, all pink and purple designs. Definitely not standard uniform issue.
He knocked again. “Era? We’re doing the standard medical checkup. Open, please.”
Of course they were. Sickness was the greatest fear that the Colony had. After the Event, sicknesses had killed millions more. Medical science had been thrown backwards by decades, just like every other part of society. People who were sick either had to be treated quickly, or separated from the rest of society. There was no other way.
Which was why Saskia had been taken away so quickly last night.
She would be all right, I repeated to myself. She would be all right.
“Coming,” I managed to call out to him, reaching the panel controls next to the door and coding off the lock sequence. Ever since Asner Cox had tried to sneak into my room for a little unsanctioned recreation—unsanctioned and unwanted—I figured I was better safe than sorry. Even if Cox had left with a busted lip.
The First Marshall was smiling as the door slid open, dressed in his uniform and insignia, without the ceremonial Speaker’s mask this time. In his hand he carried the hard plastic case that would have the little scanners and other medical devices he needed for the checkup. His smile softened the hard lines of that handsome face. Gray streaked through the dark shade of his hair. It lent him a maturity that I never saw in any of the 26er boys.
Avin Blake wasn’t just one of our professors. He was also a full member of the Colony and of the Restored Society. Second in command of the Enforcers themselves. He was one of the most prominent teachers here at the school, an important man, a man who could easily just wash his hands of the day-to-day stuff, but he prided himself in taking a personal interest in every one of us. Like when he’d shown up doing the role of the Speaker last night.
It made a girl feel special.
Anyway…
“Good morning, Era,” he said to me as I stepped aside for him to enter.
“Good morning, Sir.” I pressed the panel to slide the door closed again on its tracks and suddenly it was just him and me, in my small little space.
He sat on my single bed, on the tangle of sheets, and turned that smile up at me. “I think we can drop the ‘sir’ here, don’t you?”
“Yes, Sir. I mean, yes Avin.” No, not his first name, stupehead! “First Marshall Blake, I mean. Yes, First Marshall.” I could feel my cheeks turning red and tried to hide it by scrubbing at my face like I was still tired. There’d been a dream I had once that involved him alone with me, here in my room. Just like this.
Now, remembering that, my cheeks were burning even more.
Fantastic. Think of something else, I told myself. Think of… of training routines. Think of historical facts like who was responsible for the Event. The three rogue nations of Limeria, Kantoga, and… the other one. Think of blank white walls and cold, hard floors and anything else but the fact that I’m alone with this man!
Think of Saskia.
That brought me back to the moment with a hard jolt.
Blinking rapidly to clear my head, I sat down in the chair at my desk. “Can you tell me how Saskia is, First Marshall?”
His smile faded, and he set the plastic case on the bed to open it. “Let’s begin, shall we?”
Icy crystals of panic began to swim in my stomach. Why wouldn’t he just answer my question? Was he mad at me? Maybe he didn’t know. Surely, someone had reported on Saskia’s condition to him by now!
“Um, doesn’t the medical staff usually do these checkups?” I asked, fishing for information. “Maybe they’d know about Saskia.”
“Usually they would be here, yes,” he agreed, taking out a long handled metal device with an electronic eye at its tip. “But everyone is short staffed these days. I wanted to do these tests, in any case. I’m very proud of you and your group, Era. I’ve always felt a special attachment to you 26ers. You’re like my family.”
My heart sank a little as he said that. I didn’t want him to look at me like his little girl, or whatever. I wanted him to see me as a woman, as a peer. Especially now that I’d graduated through the Ceremony.
Maybe even as a potential candidate for procreation…
Right. Dream on, Era. First Marshall Avin Blake was twenty years older than me, at least. I mean, I didn’t know the real number but there was no mistaking the age difference. Besides, a man like him could have his pick of women in the Colony, and he certainly wasn’t going to be looking at a fresh behind the ears Eccoliculum student like me. At least, not yet.
Not unless I could prove myself to him somehow.
“How do you feel today?” he asked, motioning for me to sit on the bed beside him. “Any stiffness or burning on your skin? Tingling?”
“No,” I answered. Which was a lie, but sitting this close to him on my bed was kind of fogging my brain. With a sigh, I fixed my answer. “Light headed, I guess. And my back kind of hurts.”
“Hmm.” Avin swiped the scanner across my forehead and then checked the detailed readings on his wristcom. Now there was a piece of tech I wish I had. Communicator and data retrieval and a half dozen other things all in a compact black rectangle that sat strapped to his left forearm, much bigger than a watch but sleek and elegant. All the Enforcers carried one. The Prelate and her guards, too. I’d have my own. One day.