by J B Cantwell
The small boat was untied now and, as it separated from the ship, quickly sped away. I stood up from my hiding spot, watching the two men who still guarded the back of the boat. It was too far to see, too dark. My hands gripped the railing of the ship as I let several quiet curses out into the night. I struggled to see anything, the rear edge of the boat, some sign that Alex was one of the men protecting it, but it was quickly swallowed by the darkness of the sea.
I looked behind me, easily picking out a dozen places where a camera might hide. I had hidden from sight from the men below, though I felt certain that the whole event had been caught on a monitor somewhere on the ship. It would take a lot, I told myself, to track every movement of every single person here. Would the insignificant movements of a girl, sick from dinner, be enough to warrant investigation?
But they weren’t insignificant. I had watched the whole thing happen. I now had information that the others didn’t.
I made my way back to the bunk room and removed my stinking fatigues, choosing instead to wear only my sweaty undershirt and underwear. I lay back on my bunk, waiting for the others to finish their meals and arrive. Lydia, I was surprised, was the first one in the room. Just one other soldier followed behind her.
“Aw, great,” she said, voice loud. “Now we have to hang with Pink until everybody else gets here. I’ll be in the John.”
She dropped her jacket on the bunk and moved toward the bathroom.
It was a signal to me, I knew. But I was too worn out to follow. My body was exhausted from the work. My soul exhausted from what I had seen. Finally, as several more soldiers entered the room, I forced myself to get up and follow her. I found the one occupied toilet and entered the one beside it. Immediately her hand shot out from underneath the stall door.
“They treated them like prisoners. Did you see? And the men, they were from our training camp, I’m sure of it.”
“How do you know? You didn’t even watch the fishermen come aboard,” I wrote.
“I saw them right before dinner. I was one of the last ones down to chow, and one of the fishermen was being led down a corridor, shouting at the top of his lungs through a gag stuffed in his mouth. But the men who held him; I recognized them from our camp.”
A small thrill went down my spine, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. I was beginning to feel totally overwhelmed. There was nothing we could do. It didn’t seem likely that any one of us would be able to save, or even find, the strange warrior men that the government was producing.
“I’m tired,” I wrote back. “There’s nothing any of us can do about this. We’re stuck.”
My breath caught in my throat at the thought of not seeing Alex again. Maybe he had been on that patrol boat, maybe not. I thrust the note back under the wall and got up to leave my stall.
“Wait,” she whispered as loud as she dared. Then, her hand appeared again.
“Chambers talks about bringing down the system. He says that more information will come to us.”
I remembered his strange office, the treadmill, the x-ray machine.
I was starting to understand. The military was preying on us. First, they find the poorest neighborhoods, the ones with the most desperate kids. Then, they find our deepest desires and show them back to us on those huge viewscreens, promising us that our futures could look just like those made up dreams. But so few of us would survive past the first year. And even if we made it through the third, I was starting to think that not everyone got their prize in the end.
“Chambers says there’s some sort of uprising. Some families have lost too many sons and daughters to the Service. He says it’s something to do with the people living in the stilts in New York. Slowly they are infiltrating the Service, getting their people on the inside. Some of them don’t even have lenses. It’s illegal not to, but children have been born and raised there with no implants at all. They’re invisible. They can’t see, and they can’t be seen. And they’re planning some sort of attack.”
A tiny flicker of hope rose up in my chest, but to rebel against the government when we had only just started our first year seemed insane.
“So what can we do to help people we can’t even communicate with?” I wrote.
“We have no connection with the outside world. Our lenses only show us what the government wants them to. The only thing they can’t infiltrate is our thoughts, but they can see where we are at all times. They can read information about our physical state, our heart rate, changes to our brains. But I have a connection. I’m wired to communicate, but it’s in a way that can’t be seen by the intake doctors. I have an outside line to Chambers.”
The ship bucked slightly beneath us, hitting wave after wave, and I realized it would be a long and smelly night as dinners were forcefully regurgitated.
“So what, you take orders from this guy?”
“Yes,” she wrote.
“And you know him from … ?”
“I know him from when I was younger. I trust him.”
“So what are your orders now? What secret spy work does he have you doing?”
“Recruiting you.”
Chapter Eight
The three days we spent working on the ship seemed to last an eternity. No other fishing boats were caught by our team. There was nothing to see over the railing other than an endless mass of waste, and soon few even bothered to look over the side.
I did, though. I looked over, searching for the strange boat of soldiers who had come that night to take those two men away.
Hannah had gone mostly quiet since then. I wondered why, but didn’t ask. She had already done her time, a full three years, to pay off her sentence for a crime she still would not specify.
“Where did you get them all?” I asked her one morning, motioning to the markings on her skin.
She shrugged.
“Friends.”
“Talented friends,” I observed.
Covering both of her arms were long tendrils of vines. They curved around her muscles, cradling them as if the vines had been there since birth, growing with her. I wished I had done something like that. Something cool. Something that hadn’t made me a target of ridicule and instead made me someone to respect. And maybe to be a little afraid of, too.
Though the sky above was obscured by a layer of pollution, I could still feel my own bare skin frying beneath it as the hours of work continued. Most of us worked in our undershirts now, saving our fatigues for another time, and from the smell as well.
In the afternoon of our third day, the sergeant came on deck to tell us that our work was done. Just one more catch of garbage needed to be loaded into the ship, and then we would disembark and be on our way. Several of us gathered at the side of the boat facing land, trying to catch a glimpse of Boston. I had read that all of Boston was underwater, and no one had thought it worth saving enough to build a wall. There were only so many walls that could be constructed, afforded. Boston had been left to ruin by the angry seas.
But it wasn’t Boston that we saw. Sure, it was there somewhere, hidden behind the haze. But the itching I had felt about disembarking and seeing a different city was not relieved.
Boston might be my city one day. Maybe there was a tiny development somewhere that hung on. Maybe there was somewhere between the infiltrations of water that I could hide and be safe. I didn’t have to go back to New York when all was said and done. Every major city had stilts.
I longed to step off the boat onto the soggy shore, to find out what was left of the once bustling city. I thought of the riches that would await me after my tour was done, and for a minute the fear I felt faded away. There was no reason that I should assume my death was a certainty. The odds were stacked against me, but there was always a chance I’d make it. Maybe it would be me in the high rise, drinking wine and eating whatever exotic foods the rich were still able to find.
A huge docking station came into view, and there was nothing exciting or beautiful about it. We pushed the last of
the junk, squirming and decaying, into the huge hold below. We hadn’t filled the ship, not entirely, but there was certainly another line of newly minted soldiers waiting back at camp to take on the next job.
I wondered about Tim and Rachel, two of the designates headed for the Burn. Despite their newly grown size, their eyes were still faraway, changed. Maybe they would get lucky and get a job on a ship like this one. It would be a hard life, for sure. They would be forced to eat the disgusting mash for years before graduating and finally getting out of the Service. But surely it would be an easier life, a cleaner life, to spend their service years out in the open air. Their lives would be spared from the toxic fumes that filled the burning plants.
I thought about the past couple nights and a rock of guilt fell into my stomach. I had thought that this place, this job, was so terrible and disgusting. But now, realizing what those two would be facing, I felt like a fool. I had held onto the Infantry rung just as hard as I could, but in the end I had barely made it, just two spots away from ending up in the Burn.
It easily could have been me.
I moved away from the side of the ship and picked up my broom, slowly pushing the debris of centuries down into the hold.
As the others realized that Boston was too far to see, they joined me in finishing up the last of the sweeping.
Caraway appeared just as the ship docked to be unloaded. The trap doors shut beneath us, and the entire ship bucked and hummed with the offloading of the cargo. It would be an endless job for anyone, a lifetime job. Sailing and shoveling and burning, and then repeating the process again and again. The debris field seemed so vast and untouchable. Here at the end of just one run I felt as if all the work we had done was barely worth it, that it would not even make a small dent in this huge world.
“Down to your quarters!” Sergeant Caraway shouted over the noise. “Fill up your packs and be up here in twenty to be on your way.”
It wasn’t much time. Brooms clattered to the deck, and we all moved so fast that Caraway didn’t even have time to complain about our sloppiness.
When I got to our bunk I stripped the sheet and pillowcase and shoved them deep into my bag. I had saved one undershirt to wear after we disembarked, and I stripped down and put it on. It helped with at least some of the smell, though most of the stench still emanated from my pants. My feet had stayed dry of seawater, though were wet with sweat. I pulled off my socks and put on a new pair.
There was excitement in the room. Even Lydia wore a sort of smiling smirk on her face as she packed her things.
This was it. We were about to go to war. It was a thought that seemed ridiculous. In boot camp they had tried to pound it into our heads that the enemy was evil, and why. But it always seemed to come down to the same thing: resources.
And the question I thought of many nights as I drifted to sleep: could I actually kill someone?
To save my life. Yes. To save Alex’s. Yes.
But where did that leave me on the battlefield, where my targets were just as human as anyone else on my squad? I had been among the highest scoring players in the virtual reality training, but I had just been shooting at computer generated enemies then. Our first battle, a different type of game, would be reality, not a prefabricated video playing inside my lens.
We all hit the deck excited, though, no matter where this day would take us. Soon the stink of the ocean would be a memory. Soon we would be able to call ourselves patriots. Soon we would be risking our lives in battle. Soon, the line between life and death would grow ever finer, and we would walk it, on our way to the future.
Chapter Nine
The helicopter was waiting, its rotors silent. Beside the entry, two long lines of super soldiers guarded the way in, ten on each side.
Alex. I could see him right there, third from the left on the left side.
Would they be riding with us? My heart leapt at the idea, at the mere thought that I could be this close to him for at least an hour, half an hour, five minutes, even. And I would know, for now, that he was safe.
“Soldiers!” Caraway boomed, his fishing pants and boots on the bottom, his fatigues on top. Behind him the rotors started to spin. “This is Sergeant Blackwell.”
We all stood at attention, eyes forward, in two rows before our new sergeant.
“He will be accompanying you to base camp,” Caraway went on, “where you will stay and prepare for your first assault. Do not forget that you will be entering an active war zone. There will be no tolerance for error. Sergeant Blackwell …”
The man was huge, and he seemed physically altered like the two rows of men who stood behind him. His eyes were enormous round globes, his mouth a single, slim line. I wondered if Caraway felt cheated at all. I wondered if all the other sergeants who were still just ordinary men had wished something different from the hand they had been dealt.
Blackwell’s voice was a growl.
“I expect complete silence upon your arrival to base camp,” he said. “This is not a movie or a training exercise. Shots fired at you will be hot.
“When we arrive at the camp, you will depart from the helicopter in quick, orderly fashion. The Primes,” he gestured to the men behind him, “will bring up the rear. There will be a staircase leading you down below. Take it as soon as you can. The defenses that are built into the building will protect us, but that protection is within those walls and nowhere else. All of you, Prime or otherwise, will wear body armor. You can put on your gear in the helicopter. Now go!”
Our team fell into line behind the soldier closest to the helicopter. We went through the line of men and onto the boarding ladder. I squeezed Alex’s hand as I passed, just for a brief moment, hoping for recognition. But his eyes stayed stubbornly focused in front of him, his hand slack.
Prime. I rolled the word over on my tongue. Now we had something to call them.
I couldn’t stay. The line was already disappearing behind me, and I didn’t want to expose myself. If they found out about my connection with Alex, I worried that they would take him away, separate us, perhaps, for the sin of friendship.
I turned my eyes away and made for the entrance.
Inside, the soldiers were buzzing with anticipation. I dropped my bag and put on the bulletproof vest they had provided each of us with. It felt bulky and uncomfortable over my fatigues, and the fishy smell still lingered on my pants and hands.
“All soldiers toward the rear!” came Blackwell’s booming voice.
I got up and moved slightly backward, right at the edge where the Primes would be filing in. I wasn’t surprised by their need to sit in the middle. Their weight would help balance the craft, and their presence would shield us if we came under fire. I felt oddly protected by them, their size, their might. But as I looked from face to face, pity washed over me as well. I wondered who these men had been before joining the Service. Maybe they were no more than kids, like me and Alex.
Alex sat a few seats over, facing me. The sergeant joined the pilots at the front, a stationed observer to help them navigate the skies.
I had wanted to see Boston, the town ripped apart by water, bricks long since saturated and floating out to sea one by one. But this was not a vacation flight, and all I could see was the interior of the craft.
As we took off, Blackwell’s attention was completely on the pilots. Some soldiers around us were already drifting off to sleep after three long days of shoveling. Lydia stared hard at me from across the aisle. I looked between her and Alex. She gave a subtle shake of her head.
No.
But if not now, when?
If I was caught, I might go to the Burn, too. Like any other soldier who dared break protocol.
While Blackwell was facing forward, I quickly switched seats with Hannah.
“Watch it,” she warned.
Now I had Hannah on my right, and a Prime on my left. Alex was just three men over, eyes blank.
I reached around the men and took Alex’s hand, shaking it slightly. I
didn’t bother trying to talk; my yells would have barely been heard over the sound of the helicopter. But I squeezed it again and again, jostling his limp arm up and down as I did so.
Gradually the two men sitting beside him noticed my hand and the shaking motion. Then, finally, Alex turned. He violently pulled back his hand, confused. Then he looked at me, those eyes bulging, his enormous jaw tightening.
I stared at him for as long as he allowed it, willing my face to register in his eyes.
“Alex,” I mouthed. “It’s me.”
His brow furrowed as if he were trying to understand something. Then, when his brain was unable to hold the information, he dropped his gaze, staring at his hand where I had just touched it.
I reached across again, laying my hand over his. He didn’t pull back this time, but his eyes became unfocused once again. As his defenses faltered, they returned back to the blank stare he had arrived with.
I leaned back in my seat and found that several of my fellow soldiers were watching me. There was understanding on a few faces, more than I might have expected.
I had taken a huge risk, making myself vulnerable to an attack that my bulletproof vest could not protect me from. But more than that, I had exposed my connection, my soft side. Anyone who was in the helicopter, the Primes, the soldiers, Blackwell, would have one over on me now.
But he had looked at me.
I stared down at my hand, palm still warm from the feel of his skin. And I suddenly realized I had more than one person to protect in this war, one person other than myself.