Content warning: Violence, war, forced labor, death, suicide.
“Georgina … honey, you’ve gotta wake up.” My eyelids feel like weights as I slowly blink them open in a feeble attempt to focus on the speaker of that warm, gentle voice.
“It’s still Goose, Mom,” I mumble, vaguely annoyed, as my palms massage my temples through buzzed blond hair.
“I’m sorry, Goose,” Mom says slowly, then she makes her way over to the sink across the small cell. “Do you have another headache?” she asks, wetting a stained cloth under the trickle of water.
“Yeah, I swear they give us less oxygen each night,” I sigh. “They’re going to kill us some day if they keep turning it down.”
“Don’t talk like that; they’re just conserving it,” Mom insists, striding towards me and pushing up the sleeves of her black plant-sanctioned cargo suit. She rolls the damp cloth into a bundle and presses it against my forehead.
“If that makes you sleep easy,” I murmur.
The cool water somewhat eases the pounding pain of the hypoxia, but it isn’t enough. By the time I’m dressed and pulling open the heavy metal door of our cell, my headache is back.
Yawning, I shuffle sluggishly down the metal-floored hall, passing through beams of red glow cast by the small lights above each door.
Locked, I think resentfully. But with each step, another pair of lights flick to green as the cells unlock. I pass a familiar cell, and the door is ripped open, leaving a boy standing in the corridor, mouthing “good morning” through a colossal yawn. Perseus falls into step beside me, the rich number of his skin cast into eerie definition in the neon lights. Through my state of bleary depletion, my eyes catch on his hands, which are twirling a blue pencil through long fingers, a habit he has acquired as a way of staying sane.
“Did you sleep well?” Perseus asks in his strong Aussie accent, which leads many to write him off as crazy. After the United North American Republic blew Australia sky-high, you couldn’t really blame the survivors for being loonies. But Perseus, who had left days prior on a whim, is anything but crazy.
“Okay,” I manage, rubbing the fist of my left hand against my temple and trying to fight off the headache with pure force of will.
“’Nother migraine?” he asks, brow furrowed. I nod carefully, but even that small action sends my head spinning. The pressure of my hand is helping a bit, but when we reach the entrance to the refectory, I’m forced to hold my hands by my sides.
Better not appear threatening, I think, but aloud, I repeat what I told Mom only minutes earlier: “I swear they’re trying to kill us,” making Perseus snort.
“Don’t let Ari hear you say that,” he chuckles, “or she’ll beat them to it.”
The refectory is the largest free space available to the plant workers, the only place we can really talk to each other. But it’s still heavily monitored, as we’re rudely reminded when the Milites guard manning the ration line sticks out his arm to block our passage.
“IDs,” he orders, acting like he hasn’t seen us every day for the past six years. Perseus sighs and sticks his hand under the scanner the guard shoves at him, shooting me a bemused glance, as if he wouldn’t mind being shot at for insubordination. A small light flashes under Perseus’s skin, and a moment later, the guard reluctantly nods him through.
“Go on, Loonie,” he grunts when Perseus pauses to wait for my scan. “This kid don’t want you anyway.”
Perseus stares the Milities guard down, waiting for me to join him in the line.
Our trays laden with perfectly measured out portions of tasteless slop, I follow Perseus as he heads for a table near the back end of the refectory, about as far away from any of the Milites as you can get.
“Goose! Percy!” calls a frustrated voice from across the hall. Ari sits with a perfectly straight back, her head surrounded by a cloud of genetically altered white hair that speaks of former wealth. She glares daggers at us, and I pick up the pace, not wanting to test her patience.
When we finally reach the table, Ari grabs me by the arm and drags me to sit next to her, leaving Perseus to squeeze in between two other Aussies. Despite her short stature, she is surprisingly strong. When I take my seat, I rub my now-aching arm.
“What’s this I hear about you breaking into the communication center tonight?” she hisses.
“Who snitched?” I ask, looking suspiciously around the table at the faces of my friends, who are looking so uninterested that I know they’re listening to every word.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ari cuts me off. “You are not dying to send a goddamn transmission to some made-up rebellion.”
I avert my eyes for a moment, then grit my teeth and turn back, meeting her fiery blue glare. “I won’t die,” I insist, glaring right back at her.
“Don’t you dare lie to me, Goose. We all know it’s suicide.” I glance back along the table. The others are watching me carefully: some neutral, some fearful, and Ari looks ready to kill me before I even have a chance to suffocate.
“I’d rather die fighting than live like this,” I finally say in a low raspy voice, gesturing around the hall. “We rot here every day and die before we have a chance to meet our grandchildren. Ari, I can’t stand by and do nothing. I can’t bear this slow suffocation.” Ari watches me for a long moment, then her eyes soften, and she speaks what must be her final line of defense.
“You can’t fight anyone if you’re dead.”
I know she’s right, but hearing the words out loud makes me pause just for a moment before my resolve hardens.
“My death will be the fight that my life can’t be,” I whisper, as I turn on my heel.
A rusty wrench in one hand and a half-functioning drill in the other, I walk slowly down the hall to the plant’s Third Sector. Passing me are more Milites than I can count, all walking in neat rows, like ants. As I approach the double doors that lead to my destination, my combat boots skid on a puddle that has formed under a leak in the maze of pipes above. I slide into one of the Milites and hit him hard, only protected by the thin blue cargo suit that marks me as a mechanic. His armor alone is enough to leave me bruised, but, without hesitation, he throws me into the wall, pinning me with his rifle. The sharp jolt makes my still pounding headache stab painfully into the inside of my skull.
“Like to play games, kid?” he asks. “Think it’s funny to harass a Milites?” When I don’t respond, he slams the rifle harder into my neck, cutting off my windpipe. My head is spinning now, and my vision is going dark. Even through the blackness, I want to fight, want to make him pay, but instead I slowly shake my head. He lets me go. Rubbing the new bruise on my neck, I watch him march down the hall and push my way into Sector Three. No use dwelling on why they view us as lesser, though we’re as human as they are.
Sector Three is filled with the sounds of yelling and clanking machines. Most are run or at least assisted by a human, but that doesn’t stop them from falling apart every other hour. Weaving my way through the chaos, I do my best not to disturb any workers, their black cargo suits soaked with sweat as they hunch over their machines.
The L0CVST bomb is a highly explosive grenade that launches heat-seeking shrapnel at the enemy, ensuring the most damage possible. It’s brutal, but what else can we expect from a government that believes our only use is to die on a battlefield or decay in a factory?
The machine that constructs the bomb is the only one in Sector Three that doesn’t require a person to keep it running. With so many small parts, a human wouldn’t do it much good. That means this machine breaks the most. Sliding under its haul, I try to stay focused as the slightly lower oxygen levels down here make my vision swim. When I can see again, I adjust the same screw I’ve adjusted about a hundred times, before getting to my feet. Glancing around, I feel a pang of guilt. Even among the lowest class of factory workers, I am privileged in my job as a mechanic. I’m part of this twisted hierarchy and the way they control us.
To be continued.
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