by J B Cantwell
“Didn’t see anyone pull that off now did you,” she said. She made a disgusted sound. “Infantry. Like regular old Infantry was what I deserved.”
It was true. Hannah had worked harder than most anyone in the weeks leading up to the final tallying of scores. But it was becoming clear to me that none of this was about getting what we deserved. Just like Hannah had said, this was a fight each of us had to take on individually. Only those who made it to the top of the scoreboard were the ones to win. They would take home the prize and the bragging rights. But the distance between us and the end of our service to the country seemed insurmountable. Three years minus four weeks. As I looked around at my team, the truth dawned on me.
Only two of us would survive.
Chapter Five
We were deposited in the center of the ship to unload our packs and choose bunks. This time they were true bunk beds, one on top of the other. I casually looked around the room and counted four cameras. There would be no respite from observation here.
The boat bucked slightly beneath our feet, and loud motors ground into motion. The faint smell of fuel wafted through the room, and my stomach churned.
Hannah took the bunk right above mine, dangling her bare feet over the edge as if she owned the whole place. I noted that Lydia had taken a bunk on the far side of the room. I would have expected her closer, next to me even. But I supposed that note passing would be picked up by the cameras, even in the dark. I was eager to hear more of what she had to say, but at this point alarm bells triggered in my head when I spoke to anyone at all. Lydia. Hannah. The brief exchanges I had with the other girls. In the bathroom. The bunk room. The chow hall. Anyone might be watching, listening.
After half an hour, Sergeant Caraway instructed us all to join him up top.
I was glad. The stuffiness of the interior room was starting to make me jumpy, and I was eager to get up top to see the the ocean I had so longed to see since I was a young child. I had heard the tales of the sea from way back when it was still a clean place, a destination. Excitement flooded through me as I climbed the ladder to the deck.
Immediately the smell knocked me backward. The place where we had boarded must have been unusually clean, but where we were headed now was like boating through a wasteland. Everywhere as far as the eye could see, a film of debris covered the water. There was the salty smell like I had anticipated, but it was drowned out by the stench of dead fish. This water, mixed with miles and miles of floating plastic particles of every size, was to be our hunting ground.
Caraway jumped onto a storage compartment at the front of the boat.
“As you can see,” he said, “there is much cleaning up that still needs to be done. The patches of sea have been corroded by Europe’s disposal of waste over the years. We aren’t quite far enough out yet to lay our nets. These shores were once inhabited, and are still too shallow for us to trawl. But the time will come soon enough, within the hour, where we’ll be far enough out to cast. Everyone grab a set of waterproof pants and boots and prepare yourselves for what is to come. It will take us three days to reach Boston, and I expect this boat to be full of fuel for the burning plants well before that.
We lined up to gather our things, and I looked out over the ocean, over what must have once been a beautiful thing. Now it was destroyed by the trash of civilization. Europe’s garbage? I doubted it. This was a big wide world; there must be offenders on every side.
Once changed, an existing team of soldiers took us two at a time to show us how to work the ropes. The casting of the nets seemed easy enough, but they filled up quickly, and navigating the contents back up onto the deck was tricky. A huge crane hoisted the squirming mass into the air, but it was our job to grab the ropes beneath it to position it over the deck.
One of the training men stood up, burly and muscled, but not at all like the ones in Alex’s group.
“If the fish are alive, toss them into these buckets,” he said. “They’ll be your dinner for tonight. Now, given that most of you have never tasted fresh meat, that might be a reason to keep your eyes sharp. The more you find, the more you eat. But if they’re already rotting, toss ‘em into the hold. And you see that square you’re standing in?” Several of us looked down for markings on the deck. “That’s a trap door. Be well out of the way before it opens. The alarm will give three sharp whistles; make sure you’re on the other side of those lines when you hear them. Getting trapped down there may or may not kill you. I’ve seen it go both ways. Just steer clear of it and you’ll be okay. Once the catch has been pieced through, stand back and wait for the trapdoor. Then grab one of those sweepers leaning up against the wall and push the rest of the catch in through the door.”
The giant net, now full of creatures and plastics alike, was slowly positioned onto the deck of the ship by five of the women from our squad, each tugging on thick ropes to get the massive weight of the catch to move to the right place. Then, all at once, the net released and the contents spilled all over us. I was grateful for the pants and boots now, because while the top of me had been splashed with the slimy catch, most of me was still dry.
“Get to it, soldiers!” the same man shouted.
It was disgusting. A layer of slime lay atop everything that had fallen to the deck. I had been excited to taste my first mouthful of fish, but I understood now why they told us to look for live fish, because there weren’t many to find. Those that did wiggle had odd mutations; three eyes, rotten fins, clouded irises. I picked up one and the scales slid from its body at the mere touch of my gloved hands. Should I keep this one? Or did it count as dead?
Would I eat it?
No, I decided. I threw it into the hold.
Once we had a couple buckets full of our strange sea creatures, the whistle sounded, and we all got out of the way as the trapdoor opened. A steep, slanted slip of steel led down into the belly of the ship. Just looking at it from up top gave me a sort of vertigo as I realized how deep the pit was and how much work it would take to fill it all up.
We each took a broom and began shoving the contents still on the deck over the side of the trapdoor. The smell might have been tolerable, but the masses of nearly dead fish, already starting to rot in the sun, made the job unbearable. Mostly it was particles of plastic, long worn down to smaller and smaller pieces by decades of ocean currents. But there were large pieces, too. A large plastic cup reading “soda” on one side. A doll’s head, its body long decayed and missing all appendages but for one arm that had stubbornly hung on. This was the archaeology of this place, our world before the seas rose up in defense against man’s manipulations. This was how we had lived then, with our conveniences needing no more care than being tossed into a trash can.
But the trash system hadn’t worked. And here we were now, up to our ankles in just a tiny fraction of what was still out there to be found. Our efforts would wind up at the burning plants, a cluster of factories bordering every major city still left on the map. There, the materials we collected would be set fire under high heat, the energy spinning turbines creating electricity. After that, the remaining ashes were tossed away into huge dumping grounds, like layer after layer of volcanic rock.
The lies about how the government was clearing the oceans of debris in order to heal them of human impact were readily accepted. On those hot, sticky days, everyone in the cities could smell the stench in the air, and they all thought it was for the greater good. The good of the ocean, of the creatures they were saving.
The smell of the stuff combined with the rocking of the deck brought me close to vomiting. And there were a couple of girls who did, right into the pile. I supposed it didn’t matter what we were throwing in there. It would all be recycled or burned away in the end.
“Get a grip, girls,” Lydia said. “This is only the beginning.”
I held my stomach and pushed harder on the broom. The debris fell with a sickening squelch as it dumped down into the pit.
Where had it all come from? I looked
out over the ocean, still covered with the garbage of generations. Couldn’t they have come up with a better idea than just tossing it into the sea? Maybe. Or maybe people just thought that the sea was so vast that a plastic cup here or there might not be enough to disrupt the system. Times that by a few billion people and this was what we were left with.
But the seas had taken their own revenge, rising and rising until people had to leave their homes in mass migrations. There were some areas, like around New York City, that had had nine meter increases in sea level rise in just the past fifty years. Maybe the stuff floating before us now had simply been those houses and towns, now under water, as the material slowly broke down.
That I could understand. Even forgive. But as slimy, mutated fish after fish crossed my path I felt less and less like forgiveness was in order.
We were called for lunch at 1200 hours, most of us thinking clearly enough to store our brooms where we had found them. Unfortunately, though, the chow hall was downstairs, below the deck. Many faces were green as a slimy mash was presented to us. I took up a spoon, tried a bite and nearly spat it out. I stared at the plate as I unhappily gulped down a few spoonfuls of the sludge. Any more of that and I would be joining the vomiting soldiers up on deck. I must not have been the only one, either. I saw several girls, and even James, push their plates away.
Hannah plopped down in the seat beside me and hungrily dove in to her mash. She grimaced when she tasted it, but there was a recognition on her face. She wolfed it down so fast that I was amazed that none of it came back up.
“Gotta eat,” she said, wiping her mouth. She took one of the nutrition squares, which were the same sort we had received during training.
I tried to follow her lead, to swallow as much of the mash as I could without vomiting it back up, but I had to stop when I made it halfway through my serving. I picked up a nutrition square gratefully and took a bite. The familiar, gritty cracker filled my mouth, and I crunched it with relief as it replaced the taste and texture of the mash.
Hannah slapped me jovially on the back, and I guessed that she had overcome her anger from yesterday. Today was a different day, after all, and one never knew when they might need a friend.
Her sudden change in attitude made me fume, but I didn’t let on. I felt like I knew the reason for her friendliness now, and it was as false as the smile on her face.
I looked around the hall, suddenly lonely for a familiar face. A friend. The only one close was Lydia, and to imagine friendship with her was nearly impossible. She gave me a nod from the other side of the room.
I did not return it.
Chapter Six
That first night we all had a taste of the fish caught from the nets. It was so slimy and putrid that I wondered how or why anyone would each such things. The fish, just like every other piece of debris we pulled from the ocean, was nothing but waste. Its odd mutations looked like it, and its slippery texture tasted like it. Even Hannah eventually pushed her plate away, choosing instead to get by with just the crackers.
“It’ll just be a few days,” she said, staring pathetically down at the small cracker. She seemed to decide in that moment that the crackers would be it for her, her only sustenance before making it to Boston.
When the sun had finally set behind the acid-hazed sky, we were called in from our duties. Down below I took off my sludge covered pants and boots and went into the bathroom, intending to shower off the day’s slime. But when I got there, I realized there were no showers, only toilets. And I wasn’t the only one disappointed. Several sighs rose from the small crowd of us looking to get clean.
I walked to one of the crude sinks, turned on one of the taps and ducked my head under it. There was no soap provided here, either, which I thought was cruel. I supposed that the journeys made by those sleeping in these quarters were short enough to justify the meager accommodations.
I scrubbed my head and neck, scratching the stubble on my scalp with dirty fingernails. When I looked up into the mirror, I looked pretty much the same as I had moments before. The film of this place would take more than a dip under cool water to peel off.
The next morning up on deck, someone across the boat from me shouted.
“There’s a boat down there!” she yelled. It was Angela Marston, a girl whose wild red hair was so deep in color that it shone through her buzzed head.
Most of us moved to the side of the ship to catch a glimpse. But as I was about to lay down my broom, I looked up to see Lydia staring at me. Her broom moved methodically as she slowly pushed debris into the pit.
I paused. Maybe there was some reason why she didn’t crane her neck to see the boat. Instead her face looked sad, and she let her eyes fall away from my face and back down to the work at her feet.
I went to the side to see the boat. I was surprised by how tiny it was. It could maybe seat four people on a good day, but today just two men sat within. What didn’t make sense was why the boat was so far out in the water. We were out in open ocean now, the swamps of the ruined coast left behind. I saw next to the men two sets of oars. Had they rowed their way out here?
“Latch your boat to the side of the ship,” an official call came out over the loudspeaker.
The men were yelling something down below, but it was difficult to hear over the wind.
“Either come aboard here or prepare to be boarded,” the voice came again.
The men yelled again, angry this time. The faint sound of an engine came to life from down below. Would they be so stupid as to try to run? And if so, why? Surely the military didn’t need anything from them.
Before they were able to turn their boat around, two large ropes were hooked to either end. I looked up, and hanging from the side of our ship were two people, a man and a woman. In their arms they held large cords of rope. They had been the ones to wrangle the boat.
The looks on the men’s faces were alarmed. One of them even seemed to scout out the water nearby, almost as if he were considering a jump.
But why?
A hatch door on the side of the boat opened and two other soldiers repelled down, landing expertly into the small boat. There was immediately a scuffle. One of the soldiers was nearly knocked back into the water. But they were so much larger, and so much better trained, that the two men were no match for them. In moments their hands and feet were tied, and a stretcher was being lowered.
Some of the soldiers moved away from the edge now, for them the excitement of the event gone. But I stayed, and so did Hannah. I looked back toward Lydia, but her eyes remained down as she pushed line after line of sludge into the pit.
The men in the boat had stopped struggling. They knew that to leave in their boat now would be suicide for them with their hands and feet tied. Their shoulders hunched, their curses ebbed, as one by one they were strapped to the stretcher. I stood watching until they had both made it through the outer door of the ship, which was closed with a clang by the male soldier who had thrown the rope.
I turned back to my work. Most people had gotten back to it by now. Some of them gossiped. Some of them were quiet. It was those people’s thoughts I wanted to read. I listened.
“Who were they?” one whispered.
“They must have been lost,” said another.
“Lost? If they were lost then why did they refuse to come on board? Wouldn’t we have taken them back?”
Would we have?
I thought of the men, clothes ragged. The soft sputtering of the boat’s tiny engine. And those two pathetic oars to use when the gas ran out.
As the last of the debris was pushed into the pit, we all stood aside as the huge nets descended again. I looked out at the sea, wondering if other fishermen were out there waiting to be caught like the garbage in our nets.
Chapter Seven
It happened during dinner. I had left the room, my stomach roiling with that evening’s mix of rotting fish and mash. I needed air if I didn’t want to blow.
I saw them then, nobody dow
n in chow any the wiser. A smaller boat had pulled up alongside ours, and in the fading light I saw ten broad men, their faces stoic and slack.
My heart leapt in my chest.
Two of the men tethered their boat to ours and came on board. Moments later, the shouts began. I ducked low, trying to see what I could. Both of the fishermen we had forced onto the ship, tied at their hands and feet, were being moved onto the smaller boat.
I was aware that what I saw happening was cruel, and probably illegal. Still, I stared desperately among the soldiers, their bald heads indistinguishable in the night.
Was he here now, right in front of me? Curiosity won over caution, and I got up to watch the boat more clearly.
The ship stood, barely moving on the ocean waves. The boat was firmly tied to it now as they passed the prisoners across.
I scoured every inch of the boat, searching for any sign that he was alive and that he was still … Alex. Whole. Mine.
Each of the men on the boat concentrated on their task. The one at the helm kept the wheel firmly in hand. The two receiving the prisoners, physically carrying them onto their boat, transferred them wordlessly from one vessel to the other. Four more stood guard at the front and rear, waiting for … what?
One of them, one on the far end from where I stood, adjusted his position, and after a moment I realized he was looking right at me. I fell to my knees.
Did he see me?
Was it him?
I waited for an alarm of discovery. I had good reason to be out here, and behind me two of the other soldiers had come up, too, vomiting over the other side of the ship. But I did not have good reason to be studying what was going on down below. Simple curiosity would have to make my case if I was caught.